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Update: See statement from the DEC, and a letter from E&E explaining its relationship to IOGANY, at the bottom.

New York state might just have to scrap the latest draft of its environmental impact study on hydraulic fracturing. The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and state lawmakers are asking for a re-do after the discovery of a pretty large conflict of interest: Namely, that an environmental consulting group that helped prepare the draft study turned out to be a member of the Independent Oil & Gas Association (IOGA), a natural gas industry lobbying group.

In 2011, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation signed a $50 million contract with Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E&E), an environmental consulting firm. The company was also selected to provide an analysis of the economic impacts of fracking in the state. In August of 2011, E&E provided the DEC with that study, which some anti-fracking groups claimed was biased. The New York Times highlighted that skepticism when it pointed out that E&E "expedited permit applications for more than 200 pipeline and gas storage projects worldwide" in 2011, but couldn't establish a clear connection to any lobbying interest. That changed this week, when NYPIRG discovered that Ecology and Environment, Inc. appeared as a member of IOGA on a letter to Governor Cuomo, urging him to open New York to hydraulic fracturing.

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At the pace surveillance technology is moving, we guess this should be expected.

On Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo and Co. informed the public that Albany has been using advanced facial recognition methods for the past three years (the idea was originally brought up by then-Gov. Spitzer in 2008).

And, in that time, the State has dispatched more than 100 investigators to check out over 13,000 cases. As a result, 2,500 people on the terrorist watch lists or who were suspected of having criminal records have been arrested through the technology. Somehow, from those figures, state officials have bragged that the technology has a 94 percent success rate.

Also, don't forget those conning welfare benefits or driving illegally without a license: "We are successfully taking dangerous drivers off our roads, helping to track down criminals, and protecting taxpayer dollars... sending a clear message that New York State does not tolerate identity fraud and those who try will be caught," Cuomo told reporters.

Here's how it works.

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In Rep. Paul Ryan's 'The Path to Prosperity' budget, Medicare, the health insurance program that is loved by older Americans and hated by deficit hawks, will cease to exist some time around 2022. The program - a lasting stipulation of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society - will be transformed into a voucher system, where anyone born after 1956 will be forced to seek private insurance instead of having the government pick up the bill. The HMO machine spurs on and, by 2033, you will have to be 67 to receive all of this good stuff.
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If there is one place on the Internet where reality and faux personalities reign free, it is Twitter - the rapid pace of the constantly updating network allows mistakes to proliferate tenfold, sending shock-waves across the web much faster than ever before. And, this morning, Bill Keller, the former Editor of the New York Times, unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way.

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Next Wednesday, against the Obama administration's will, a political firestorm will be unleashed: the provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that forces businesses to pay for employees' contraceptives without a co-pay goes into effect. You may remember this little ticking time bomb at the beginning of the fiscal year; it had the Catholic Church up in arms, forcing the Obama administration to enforce an exclusionary rule that allowed religious establishments to opt out of the provision.More »

Forbes

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On Friday, America witnessed true terror on the television - in Aurora, Colorado, over 70 people were shot by a madman at a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. James Eagan Holmes, the suspect now in custody, had been planning the attack for months and, inside of his apartment yesterday, police authorities discovered a mini-arsenal of other deadly weapons. 
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delphifin.com

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