Civil asset forfeiture - Police Take Your Money And Stuff Without Conviction or Charges

A new poll shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans aren't familiar with civil asset forfeiture, a controversial law enforcement practice that allows officers to seize a person's property -- including cash, cars, jewelry and houses -- without obtaining a conviction or even charging the owner with a crime.

While civil asset forfeiture laws vary by state, most states and the federal government allow police to seize property immediately if they have probable cause to suspect it's tied to something illegal. 

The standard of proof officers must then establish to permanently seize that property depends on the state. Some states require only probable cause or a "preponderance of the evidence" -- in other words, authorities must establish that, more likely than not, the property is related to criminal activity. Both of these standards are far less stringent than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” benchmark required for criminal convictions.

In most states, property owners facing civil asset forfeiture are also responsible for proving that their property is not, in fact, connected to illegal activity. If they can't, they lose the property for good.

This effectively inverts the American legal principle that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, critics say.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/civil-asset-forfeiture-poll_55df54d3e4b029b3f1b1f483?utm_hp_ref=politics

Solar Energy In Ontario- Costs Vs Benefits

Republished Source: http://www.sunwindandwater.org

With Ontario's groundbreaking new Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program, there has been a sudden rush of interest to add these systems. This is a truly groundbreaking program that has put Ontario squarely in the lead of North America for renewable energy.

Our provincial government are to be congratulated! Unfortunately, I'm already seeing some solar vendors quoting wildly optimistic figures as to what you can earn on these systems. I am a strong solar advocate with a 5.7kW system on my Toronto home and a small system (25 years old and working perfectly) at my off-grid cottage, so don't get me wrong, I do love solar. I feel compelled, however, to have the real facts honestly presented to homeowners so that they make an informed decision. I therefore have created this page to tell what I think are the financial realities of the situation.

 Will a solar PV system give you a 5 year payback? No it won't. But what is the monthly income you receive from that kitchen renovation or landscaping job you just did?

A FIT contract guarantees you 20 years worth of income, on a system that will be wonderfully dependable and long lived. And one in which you can take great pride! In purchasing your own solar system you are achieving these important results: * Assisting on our move towards a coal-free Ontario in 2014 (a provincial government target) which will: -reduce one of Ontario's largest source of greehouse gas emissions -reduce one of Ontarios largest source of air pollution which according to the Ontario Medical Association, is badly affecting the health of us all at a cost of over one billion dollars per year -reduce a leading source of Mercury pollution. Mercury is one of the most toxic elements known to man, and its full effects are not well known by most people * Demonstrating leadership, showing your neighbours that you care enough to make this investment and that these systems are ready to go ...TODAY * Demonstating to our provincial government that they were right to encourage the development of clean, safe renewable energy and you have just confirmed this by voting with your dollars * Adding to our energy security and stability of the electrical grid by adding a long term form of local generation *

Possibly sending a message to our federal government that in igoring our Kyoto committments and avoiding progressive legislation to limit pollution, they are badly out of touch with the wishes of Canadians and they should get with the program... Ontario has! Having said all of this, I've saved the best of the news 'til last.

All my figures ignore one real bonus: 20 years after you have installed your system, and it has long since paid for itself, provided that you purchased crystalline panels, you may have to replace your inverter if you haven't already, but your system should then dependably be generating power for another 20 years, essentially for free! 

What will the economic benefit to that be? Who knows, but energy prices will sure be higher then than they are today, so it will be appreciable. Please see my notes below which accompany the spreadsheet and explain my assumptions. Note that retail sales tax on these systems is refundable. Also, I'm not aware of any other incentives currently available, so if someone claims otherwise, make it part of your purchase agreement in writing that they will get it for you, or allow you to deduct it from your payment.

 To download a version that you can play with yourself, click here. (excel spreadsheet) To learn about the tax implications of owning a residential PV system, click here.


Source: http://www.sunwindandwater.org/Economics_of_a_res_PV_sys.html

Another great article : http://www.yourturn.ca/solar/microfit/how-much-money-do-you-make/

Ashley Madison scammed $31.3Million men...

The Evidence Mounts

Nobody disputed the dramatic gender disparity in the Ashley Madison user base, including the company itself. 5.5 million profiles are marked “female” in a database of roughly 37 million people.

When you look at the evidence, it’s hard to deny that the overwhelming majority of men using Ashley Madison weren’t having affairs. They were paying for a fantasy.

It’s also a matter of public record that some percentage of the profiles are less than real. A few years ago, a former employee of Ashley Madison sued the company in Canada over her terrible work conditions. She claimed that she’d gotten repetitive stress injuries in her hands after the company hired her to create 1,000 fake profiles of women in three months, written in Portuguese, to attract a Brazilian audience. The case was settled out of court, and Ashley Madison claimed that the woman never made any fake profiles.

Still, there is a clause in the Ashley Madison terms of service that notes that “some” people are using the site purely “for entertainment” and that they are “not seeking in person meetings with anyone they meet on the Service, but consider their communications with users and Members to be for their amusement.” The site stops short of saying these are fake people, but does admit that many profiles are for “amusement only.”

When hacker group Impact Team released the Ashley Madison data, they asserted that “thousands” of the women’s profiles were fake. Later, this number got blown up in news storiesthat asserted “90-95%” of them were fake, though nobody put forth any evidence for such an enormous number. So I downloaded the data and analyzed it to find out how many actual women were using Ashley Madison, and who they were.

What I discovered was that the world of Ashley Madison was a far more dystopian place than anyone had realized. This isn’t a debauched wonderland of men cheating on their wives. It isn’t even a sadscape of 31 million men competing to attract those 5.5 million women in the database. Instead, it’s like a science fictional future where every woman on Earth is dead, and some Dilbert-like engineer has replaced them with badly-designed robots.

http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley-madison-database-1725558944