RTFA: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ODD_DIGITAL…

A state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law.

State Rep. Matthew Barrett was giving a civics lesson Tuesday when he inserted a data memory stick into the school computer and the projected image of a topless woman appeared instead of the graphics presentation he had downloaded.

The RTFA staff had a discussion about this last night, without reading TFA. Apparently we didn’t know it was high school kids.

RTFA: http://youtube.com/watch?v=PcRF8HYvj2A&mode=relate…

Chris Hardwick takes a look at the chemical guts of one of America’s favorite dessert toppings.

Ha! So as to not spoil the surprise, but still laugh at a funny joke, I will say the following:

“You can achieve the same results with BLANK and … air!”

Via boingboing.

RTFA: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/07100…

Across species from fish to mammals, they found that rates of protein evolution showed the same body size and temperature dependence as metabolic rate. Specifically, their mathematical model predicts that a 10-degree increase in temperature across species leads to about a 300 percent increase in the evolutionary rate of proteins, while a tenfold decrease in body size leads to about a 200 percent increase in evolutionary rates.

Thank God for global warming!

RTFA: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_go_co/cr…

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men’s room sex sting.

In his statement Senator Larry Craig said he would not run for office next year.

RTFA: http://slate.com/id/2112015/

Simpson’s Dec. 31 piece—inexplicably appearing on Page A-4 instead of A-1—locates what may be the common denominator shared by Riggs, the Saudis, the Africans, and the South Americans: the Central Intelligence Agency.

RTFA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7028503….

A Chilean judge has ordered the arrest of five children and the widow of former military ruler Augusto Pinochet on charges of embezzlement.

The warrants were among 23 issued as part of a corruption investigation into state funds held in US bank accounts.

Gen Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, died in December 2006 before he could stand trial on charges of corruption and human rights abuses.

That lovable South American fascist dictator, who is already dead, is still being hounded, karmically, through his living relatives. Even though his assets were frozen circa 2000, it seems Pinochet and his family still had access to millions of dollars, which were being laundered through (wait for it) Riggs Bank.

As you might have inferred from the stream of posts currently on RTFA (Riggs’ Pinochet guilty plea, Riggs sight-seeing, and Riggs ten dollar bill), this bank has a long and colorful history. Yet, the bank collapsed anyway, and this is rather surprising. You see, Riggs was such an important bank in Washington DC that it financed the Mexican-American war and the Alaska purchase.

Weird. It probably doesn’t mean anything, except that Pinochet’s family is currently being arrested for the money that came from accounts held at Riggs Bank.

The “old ten dollar bill” featured an engraving of the US Treasury on the reverse side, but lurking in the distance was a second bank named Riggs.

Riggs Bank has an astonishingly rich history, and at various times, has significantly influenced the history of the United States. To list a few stories involving Riggs:

1. Riggs financed the purchase of Alaska
2. Riggs hid millions of dollars for Pinochet, the exiled Chilean dictator, and his family (which resulted in the largest banking fine in history, and precipitated the collapse of Riggs Bank)
3. Riggs has held a bank account for most presidents since the Civil War

Although Riggs is now defunct, its old building is still standing in Washington DC, at 1503 Pennsylvania Ave. The engraving can be compared to the map below, where the US Department of Treasury is the large building just south of Riggs.

In case you wanted to know where 1503 Pennsylvania Ave was, it’s actually quite close to 1600 Pennsylvania, also known as the White House. No doubt, its proximity to the seat of government is related to the bank’s intimate involvement in US affairs.

[EDIT: 2007-12-12, 2008-03-18, 2008-05-14]

So you know, Riggs Bank disappeared several years ago.

Here is some background information on Riggs:

Pennsylvania Avenue Project Photos

Riggs Is Set to Plead Guilty to Crime (WSJ) Jan 26, 2005

Former Riggs Bank located next door to White House

Arrest order for Pinochet family

This article has been reorganized for clarity.

[/EDIT]

RTFA: http://library.thinkquest.org/2813/white/east.html

Riggs National Bank
1503 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
The Riggs Bank Building, completed in 1901, has been one of the city’s most prestigious financial institutions. Riggs has gained a symbolic status as the bank of official Washington, due to its proximity to the White House and the Treasury Department. Most presidents have even maintained an account or two here.

The bank lent $500,000 to army contractors in the first year alone of the Civil War. So powerful was the firm that the Riggs president even kept a desk in the main Treasury Building. Later banking reform under the Wilson Administration forced the company to state in its own building across the street.

Riggs Bank and its neighbor the American Security Site, stand at a site previously occupied by two buildings: the W.W. Corcoran Office Building, and the Branch Bank of the United States. Riggs Bank made its earlier home at the Branch Bank Building. It was here that President Lincoln deposited his pay during the Civil War. Later tenants of the buildings included the Chicago Times-Herald and the Chicago Evening Post. The buildings were torn down in the early 1900s and replaced with their current tenants.

Interesting sight-seeing, next time you’re in DC.

RTFA: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/1…

The Russians call the device the “Father of All Bombs,” an homage to the American GBU-43 Massive-Ordnance Air Blast munition nicknamed “Mother of All Bombs.”

Both weapons weigh around 8 tons, but the Russian device reportedly has a more powerful blast: equivalent to 44 tons of TNT, whereas the American bomb is equivalent to 10 tons.

Father of All Bombs “has no match in the world,” a military officer boasts in the official video.

Western media reacted with alarm. An editor for Jane’s told the BBC it was likely that FOAB indeed represented “the world’s biggest non-nuclear bomb.” UPI claimed the device “would enormously boost Russia’s conventional military capabilities.”

But close analysis of the video reveals inconsistencies that have led some U.S. experts to question the veracity of the Russian claims, and to downgrade assessments of the weapon. It’s possible, they say, that the video was partially faked, and that the test was hyped for political reasons.

Propaganda is the name of the game. I don’t think it really matters if it was a hoax, we all know Russia can blow the shit out of any country with their nuclear arsenal; it’s just that THESE bombs are “legal” for war.

RTFA: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN043516…

A Minnesota judge on Thursday refused to let Sen. Larry Craig take back the guilty plea he made after a sex sting arrest, raising the possibility the Idaho Republican will resign his Senate seat as planned.

RTFA: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5584

CLARKE: Launching Sputnik and landing humans on the Moon were all political decisions, not scientific ones, although scientists and engineers played a lead role in implementing those decisions. (I have only recently learned, from his long-time secretary Carol Rosin, that Wernher von Braun used my 1952 book, The Exploration of Space, to convince President Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.) As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study, space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century. But thanks to the ambition and genius of von Braun and Sergei Korolev, and their influence upon individuals as disparate as Kennedy and Khrushchev, the Moon—like the South Pole—was reached half a century ahead of time.

Very interesting! I love this guy; I want to have his babies.

RTFA: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/200…

Riggs Is Set to Plead Guilty to Crime
Fine Could Hit $18 Million
In Money-Laundering Case;
PNC Deal’s Fate Is Unclear

By JOHN R. WILKE and MITCHELL PACELLE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 26, 2005

WASHINGTON - Riggs Bank N.A., whose international dealings
helped trigger a federal crackdown on money laundering by
U.S. financial institutions, is expected to plead guilty to
a criminal charge arising from its services for foreign
embassies and wealthy clients, including former Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The Riggs board has been presented with a plea agreement by
prosecutors in which the bank would admit to one count of
violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to file reports
to regulators on suspicious transfers and withdrawals by
clients, people close to the case said.

Directors are expected to accept the plea and the bank
would pay a fine of between $16 million and $18 million.
The deal could be announced as soon as tomorrow, these
people said.

(more…)

Sphere: Related Content

RTFA: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20192

A hackers diversion of traffic from a California county government Web site to a porn purveyor spiraled into IT chaos yesterday after a countermeasure applied from Washington essentially “deleted the ca.gov domain.”