Psyche's Links
Esoteric Subjects on the Web | annalsofevil.org   [ * ]
250,000+ Links for General Reference and Esoteric Study
Qabala and Related Material
[ Search ]   [ Links Menu]   [ Newtab ]

Psyche's Links: 2014 : 15,525 Links

123114

Wednesday's Morning Email: Possible AirAsia Wreck Found at Bottom of Java Sea
Indonesia says one body from AirAsia plane was wearing life jacket | Reuters

35 killed and 42 injured in stampede at Shanghai’s New Year celebrations | World news | The Guardian - Chinese reports says injuries occurred at riverfront Bund area, which has become overcrowded during big events in the past

Eschaton: Just A Good Old Boy - I really can't believe there's some debate about whether a prominent Lousiana politician really knew just what that nice Mr. David Duke thought about things. (really)
House Republicans move to contain fallout from Scalise, Grimm controversies - The Washington Post - Republican leaders moved forcefully on Tuesday to control the damage from a pair of scandals that have suddenly disrupted the party as it prepares to take full control on Capitol Hill. (crooks and racists? shut up)
How Louisiana Blogger Lamar White, Jr. Landed The Steve Scalise White Supremacist Scoop
David Duke: the former Ku Klux Klan leader at the centre of Scalise scandal | US news | The Guardian - Republican Steve Scalise’s link to the former KKK Grand Wizard and presidential hopeful has proved politically toxic. But over the course of a two-hour conversation with the Guardian, Duke insisted he’s not a racist

It's Official: Obama Won't Renominate Michael Boggs - The news is a major victory for progressives who have fought Boggs' nomination all year (the great triangulator)

Yes, There is a Laffer Curve. No, It Tells Us Nothing About What Tax Rates Should Be | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Does anyone at the Washington Post read their Op-Eds before they go up? Like, a quick check for coherence and plausibility? Today we have the Heritage Foundation’s chief economist (really) getting everything about the Laffer Curve wrong. (ho-ho, we screwed you with this piece of bullshit)

When New York City Police Walk Off the Job - NYTimes.com - The list of grievances adds up to very little, unless you look at it through the magnifying lens of resentment fomented by union bosses and right-wing commentators (cops hate voters and the people they elect)

She's not getting any better at this. - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Shorter Phyllis Wise: “I apologize for using the wrong crap excuse for firing Salaita. (No, I won’t be identifying an alternative.) Also, what’s wrong with this guy that he won’t take a payoff to go away?”

7 Big Public Education Stories of 2014 | Alternet - From ed-tech companies that bit the dust to tens of thousands of students opting out of testing, this was a big year for a new kind of education reform.
The Year in Education - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Between the growth in parents opting their students out of stupid standardized testing, the rapid retreat of the technofuturists and their program of replacing professors with MOOCs, a real push back against Teach for America and its union busting program, and stories about the corruption of charter schools (and hopefully someone took the subtle anti-charter school message from True Detective), the year in education policy was unexpectedly someone less terrible than usual.

Four more resign from TNR - POLITICO.com - Managing editor Linda Kinstler, deputy editor Amanda Silverman, assistant literary editor Becca Rothfeld and reporter Yishai Schwartz all submitted their resignations to the TNR leadership. Silverman and Schwartz will leave this week, Kinstler and Rothfeld in January - because of frustrations with TNR's direction under Hughes and Vidra. (iibertariantechnoaspbergerrichdudes gave 1 or 2 thousand dollar bonuses for remaining staff! Hughes broke his toy, for which he will forever be known)
Four More Staff Members Reportedly Resign From The New Republic - Hughes has been called "ham-handed" as well as "callow and incompetent"

Idaho woman shot dead by two-year-old son was successful nuclear scientist | US news | The Guardian - Veronica Rutledge, 29, remembered by friends and family as a ‘beautiful, young, loving mother’ after she was killed in a shooting accident at Idaho Walmart (so she left her little gun in a zippered pocket of her bag with bullet in chamber and safety off) ( Blackfoot mayor Paul Loomis said. “My expectation whenever I meet somebody on the street is they might be packing ... “I think there is an attitude that we’re just a bunch of gunslingers, and that is not the case,”
2-Year-Old Grabs Mom's Concealed Gun, Fatally Shoots Her - A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his mother after he reached into her purse at a northern Idaho Wal-Mart and her concealed gun fired, authorities said Tuesday.
The inside story of how an Idaho toddler shot his mom at Wal-Mart - The Washington Post

Is there still a case against Serial's Adnan Syed after Jay Wilds' interview? | Rabia Chaudry | Comment is free | The Guardian

People in Religious, Conservative States Seek Out More Porn
People in Religious and Conservative States Seek Out More Pornography Online : science
Stats Archives – Pornhub Insights

Kiryas Joel, New York - According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Kiryas Joel has by far the youngest median age population of any municipality in the United States,[1] and the youngest, at 13.2 years old, of any population center of over 5,000 residents in the United States.[2] Residents of Kiryas Joel, like those of other Haredi Jewish communities, typically have large families. According to 2008 census figures, the village has the highest poverty rate in the nation. More than two-thirds of residents live below the federal poverty line and 40% receive food stamps.
A Not-So-Simple Majority | This American Life
Brazen Voting Fraud Alleged Among Ultra-Orthodox In Williamsburg: Gothamist

OUT2connect - Kiryas Joel: Corruption Hidden Under a Religious Blanket

The Truth Will Set You Free: Hasidic Mobsters running amuck in NY state

What are the best subreddits that you discovered in 2014? : AskReddit
Cool Guides

123014
First Ebola boy likely infected by playing in bat tree - The Ebola victim who is believed to have triggered the current outbreak - a two-year-old boy called Emile Ouamouno from Guinea - may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of bats, say scientists.
Ebola Crisis Made Worse By IMF Austerity Plans For Africa: Study (austerity can only be failed)

U.S. Flu Numbers At Epidemic Threshold, Say CDC - Flu season is in full swing in the United States, and the proportion of deaths related to flu infections have reached epidemic threshold, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

AirAsia flight QZ8501: families receive brutal confirmation of lost plane’s fate | World news | The Guardian - Grisly footage shown on live TV triggers hysteria at airport after debris spotted six miles from where aircraft vanished
AirAsia flight QZ8501: crews continue grim task of retrieving bodies and wreckage – rolling report | World news | The Guardian - After items spotted from the air led to confirmation of the flight’s fate on Tuesday, authorities begin the recovery effort and search for clues to the cause of the crash

Oil hits five-and-a-half-year low below $57 on supply glut : News : Daily News Now - as a global supply glut outweighed concerns of lost supply from Libya where battling militias have closed ports.
‘Putin is destroying Russia. Why base his regime on corruption?’ asks Navalny | World news | The Guardian - Russia’s opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner, held under house arrest, says president is using war to stay in power
Alexei Navalny Breaks House Arrest To Join Moscow Rally
As oil falls, Russia choked by military, social spending | Reuters

The Afghan war that didn't really end yesterday ended in defeat - CSMonitor.com - None of the claimed long term objectives for the war in Afghanistan, either from the Bush or Obama administrations, have been achieved. (except more dead people)

Sony hack: sacked employees could be to blame, researchers claim | Film | The Guardian - Exchanges in secretive web forums point to former employees with a grudge, researchers claim, and could explain how hackers knew how to navigate Sony’s systems
New Research Blames Insiders, Not North Korea, for Sony Hack | TIME - The latest allegations add to growing skepticism over the FBI’s assertion — reiterated by President Barack Obama — that linked North Korea to the attack, which the country has denied.
Revealed: the young men who ruined Christmas for Xbox and PlayStation gamers
North Korean defector details 'human experiments' | Asia | DW.DE | 30.12.2014 - A former officer in Pyongyang's armed forces says mentally and physically disabled children are used as subjects in chemical weapons experiments in North Korea, a claim denied by the supporters of the communist nation.

Ultra-Orthodox Men Cause Flight Delay By Refusing To Sit By Women, Again - An international Delta Airlines flight was reportedly delayed for roughly half an hour when several ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refused to sit next to female passengers.
Groups of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men keep delaying flights by refusing to sit next to women - World - News - The Independent
Groups of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men keep delaying flights by refusing to sit next to women:A flight from New York to Tel Aviv was delayed by half an hour last week after a group of male ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers refused to sit next to women, the third such incident in recent months. : news

'Nut rage': Korean Air ex-executive Cho Hyun-ah detained
China businessman jailed for 13 years for buying and eating three tigers - East Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times - The wealthy real estate developer, identified only by his surname Xu, has "a special hobby of grilling tiger bones, boning tiger paws, storing tiger penis, eating tiger meat and drinking tiger blood alcohol", the official Xinhua news agency said in June when he went on trial.

Eschaton: Um Because Even Proponents Never Had Any Explanation For How It Would Work? - Nowhere have austerity policies been more aggressively tried — and generally failed to live up to results promised by advocates — than in Greece. After more than four years of belt tightening, patience is wearing thin, and tentative signs of improvement have not yet trickled down into the lives of average Greeks.

Nothing Is Really New, Cont'd - Esquire - the political use to which the murder of two New York police officers is being put by people who have an interest in squashing a serious investigation into the problem of militarized police violence in this country against those whom the police consider to be their expendable fellow citizens. Keep Marching On | JacobinThe recent killing of two New York City police officers can’t be allowed to silence the movement against police brutality.
Police Respect Squandered in Attacks on de Blasio - NYTimes.com
De Blasio and the Men in the N.Y.P.D. Who Turn Their Backs

Newly Elected Republican Senators Sign Pledge to Eliminate Food Stamp Program in 2015 - There is a right way and a wrong to improve our country’s welfare system, and the President’s policies just aren’t working. We need to put poor people first and lower costs,” Senator Gardner said in a statement (lowering costs to nothing will help them a lot)

Revel utility misses bond payment, wants to shut off building - ACR Energy Partners L.L.C., which owns and operates the central utility plant attached to the bankrupt Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, did not have enough money to make a $6.9 million interest payment to bondholders due Dec. 1, according to a regulatory filing.

More adults are using weed in the states that legalized, but teen use is flat - The Washington Post

A brief history of college football coaching salaries in the context of the new Gilded Age - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Harbaugh has signed a contract worth a reported $48 million over six years ... So Jim Harbaugh is going to get paid as much per year as 70 University of Michigan professors, or 250 clerical employees, or a nearly infinite number of adjuncts. This seems . . . disturbing.

Idaho court tosses verdict after prosecutor quotes 'Dixie' in closing | US news | The Guardian - Judges say racism in song’s lyrics may have swayed jury to convict black man in sexual assault of white teenagers
Civil cases against Bloomfield cops move to federal court - Crime and Courts - NorthJersey.com - Of the 137 incidents involving use of force by Bloomfield cops in the last decade, 47 involved Trinidad and nine involved Horn, according to Hinson. The department staffs 125.

The problems with The Times’ flawed QueensWay support :: Second Ave. Sagas (the mind of the NYT)

Who Is Lena Dunham’s Alleged Rapist?

Suspected HIV infection on porn set sparks health alert in California | Society | The Guardian - Public health department says actor tested positive for virus Aids after engaging in unprotected sex in two separate film shoots

drocks27 comments on How do I stop internally vocalizing words as I read them to speed up comprehension of text in books?

The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur - The Atlantic - Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it?

Over 80 Percent of Dark-Web Visits Relate to Pedophilia, Study Finds | WIRED

122914
Localized climate change contributed to ancient depopulation - WSU News Washington State University - the role of localized climate change in one of the great mysteries of North American archaeology: the depopulation of southwest Colorado by ancestral Pueblo people in the late 1200s.

Ebola case confirmed in Glasgow | World news | The Guardian - Healthcare worker flew from Sierra Leone to Glasgow via Heathrow on Sunday and has been isolated after falling ill

Missing AirAsia Flight: expanded search to start again at first light | World news | The Guardian

Taliban declare 'defeat' of U.S., allies in Afghanistan | Reuters (mission accomplished)

Cyber attack on Angela Merkel aide: Report | News | DW.DE | 29.12.2014 - The German chancellor's office has fallen victim to a hacking attack, according to a German newspaper. The Regin malware in question has been linked to British and US spy agencies. (Obama is obsessed with spying on Merkel)

‘Reopen investigation into Westminster pedophile whistleblower deaths’ – MP — RT UK - A Labour MP has demanded the government reopen an investigation into the suspicious deaths of two whistleblowers he believes were in possession of significant evidence relating to historic child sex abuse, which infiltrated the heart of Westminster.

FBI briefed on alternate Sony hack theory - Tal Kopan - POLITICO - FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack. (the inside attack theory)
'The Interview' Was Pirated Online About As Much As It Was Legally Purchased (SNE)

Google’s Gmail blocked in China | Technology | The Guardian - ‘Great firewall’ blamed as email service reports sharp dropoff in traffic on Friday with services still down on Monday

Ruble Drops 5 Percent As Russian Economy Shrinks

The Tragedy of the American Military - The Atlantic - The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Could Be the Worst Thing Obama Ever Does - Lawyers, Guns & Money (and that's saying a lot)

Charles Koch Wants To Change America's Criminal Justice System

Five Ways Obama Can Mess with Republicans in 2015 - Bloomberg Politics - He's freed from the constraints of another election. If the end of 2014 foreshadows the president's next set of moves, Republicans will not be amused.
The Obama Recovery - NYTimes.com - At this point in the Bush years, government employment was up by 1.2 million, but under Mr. Obama it’s down by 600,000. Sure enough, now that this de facto austerity is easing, the economy is perking up.

Report: senior Republican Steve Scalise spoke at white supremacist meeting in 2002 | US news | The Guardian - Allies of the House majority whip claim he was poorly advised due to a lack of staff at the time

Texas Is Throwing People In Jail For Failing To Pay Back Predatory Loans ("frontier justice")

Bill De Blasio Booed At NYPD Graduation Ceremony
Republicans and Democrats have vastly different views on race and police. But they agree on solutions. - The Washington Post - 86 percent of Americans support requiring patrol officers in their areas to wear small video cameras while on duty - 87 percent -- support having these outsiders handle cases in which unarmed Americans are killed by police.
READ: Police Chief Tells Pro-Cop Critic To Respect Protesters In Powerful Letter
Clark County Court to Patricia Doninger: You’re FIRED | Las Vegas Tribune - Patricia Doninger is no longer employed by Clark County Courts after an alleged investigation into the August 11 incident in her court, during which she turned her back on a disgusting situation to play with the victim’s underage daughter.
Court officer sexually assaults women and judge ignores her as she cries. Woman gets arrested in front of daughter. : videos
Los Angeles police release autopsy report in shooting of Ezell Ford | US news | The Guardian - The autopsy on Ezell Ford, which was first obtained by the Los Angeles Times, officially classifies his death as a homicide. It was released ahead of a Wednesday deadline imposed by the city’s mayor.

Judd Apatow Blasts Bill Cosby, Venues Hosting Stand-Up Shows - Over a series of tweets posted since Friday, Judd Apatow slammed Bill Cosby, his defenders and a pair of venues hosting the 77-year-old comic in 2015.

Exclusive: Jay, Key Witness from 'Serial' Tells His Story for First Time, Part 1 - The Intercept

On “The New Republic” | The Los Angeles Review of Books - by David Bell
Hullabaloo - The revolutionaries of evunthelibrul you-know-what
David Bell Praises "The Old New Republic" as "Not Predictably Reaganite": Live from La Farine (Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...)
Even the liberal New Republic… | Corey Robin

Massive ancient underground city discovered in Turkey's Nevsehir - Archaeology

Parents of Reddit: what parenting decisions did you make that turned out to be mistakes? : AskReddit

Running Android APK’s on Windows/Mac/Linux using Chrome | Scotho's Corner

122814
Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches | World news | The Guardian - However, Francis’s environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US
Book Review: H.H. Shugart, Foundations of the Earth: Global Ecological Change and the Book of Job - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In the Book of Job, God knows that humans don’t understand the world. Humans have acted upon the world without understanding it, despite their attempts to do so. As Shugart says, “We must find better answers than we have. Our future depends on it (255).”
NPR Reduces Its Environment Team to One Reporter | InsideClimate News - NPR says move to shift reporters off the environment beat was driven by an interest to cover other fields more in depth (case you missed it)
Jeb Bush is no moderate and he won’t fight climate change | Grist - Bush said, “It is not unanimous among scientists that [climate change] is disproportionately manmade. … What I think on the left I get a little tired of is the sanctimonious idea that somehow ‘science’ has decided all this so therefore you can’t have a view.”

Klain warns Ebola still a global threat - Kyle Cheney - POLITICO - White House Ebola czar Ron Klain warned on Sunday that despite promising efforts to contain the disease, it’s still a grave threat to global health.

Search For Missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 Resumes
Search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 halted as darkness falls | World news | The Guardian - Plane lost contact after taking off from Indonesian city of Surabaya for Singapore with 162 people on board
AirAsia Flight From Indonesia To Singapore Loses Contact With Air Traffic Control
AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 to Singapore missing
Air Asia flight loses contact with air traffic control : worldnews
Ferry Carrying More Than 450 Catches Fire Off Greece - trapping passengers on the top decks as gale-force winds and choppy seas hampered the evacuation.

Eschaton: We Will Bring America To Its Knees By Releasing Amy Pascal's Emails - Has seemed to me that a sophisticated understanding of what hollywood gossip would interest people by hackers didn't suggest North Korean involvement...
North Korean demand for 'The Interview' - Business Insider - It says people are willing to pay almost $50 a copy of the movie, which is 10X higher than what a regular South Korean TV show’s DVD would cost in the black market. (so many levels of irony)
Demand For ‘The Interview’ Is Shooting Up In North Korea And Its Government Is Freaking Out : technology
Beware: Fake 'The Interview' App Affects Android Users - Hacker News - Researchers have identified that the malware campaign is targeting Android users in South Korea and is active from the last few days. The campaign is attempting to exploit the popularity of The Interview movie that triggered tension over its release on Christmas.
Lizard Squad attacks Tor network, ignoring warning from Anonymous

Anonymous To 'Lizard Squad': Stop Attacking Tor - Business Insider - This computer programmer says Lizard Squad has claimed nearly half of Tor’s ~8,000 relays. (sounds like you know who ...)

The Mysterious Case of Prisoner 212 - The Intercept

ISIS loses ground to Kurds in Syria’s Kobane - Al Arabiya News
ISIS releases horrifying sex slave pamphlet, justifies child rape — RT News (avoid the comments)

Eschaton: The War Is Over - Gen. John Campbell, commander of ISAF, rolled up and sheathed the green and white ISAF flag and unfurled the flag of the new international mission, called Resolute Support. (how the forever war doesn't end: just gets rebranded)
U.S. and NATO Formally End War in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

High alert in Delhi after Bengaluru blast - The Times of India - High alert has been sounded in the capital following the IED blast in Bangalore on Sunday evening.
ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: Treason. That's Erdogan's Opinion on Birth Control. - The president of Turkey has firm opinions about women's proper place and function, the former being at home and the latter producing many children.

Dutch Railways Have Had It With Leaves On Their Tracks, So They're Bringing In Lasers | Co.Exist | ideas + impact - It's perhaps hard to think of leaves as the reason for thousands of hours of transit delays (and probably millions of dollars of economic damage). But that's the reality for train operators the world over.

Critical decisions after 9/11 led to slow, steady decline in quality for Secret Service - The Washington Post - Immediately after the attacks, temporary details were mobilized for Bush’s extended family, including his grown siblings. Later, with the country at war in Afghanistan, the agency provided details for Vice President Dick Cheney’s grandchildren in addition to those for his adult daughters, Liz and Mary.

Hillary Clinton questions Cristina Kirchner's mental health | US news | The Guardian - Hillary Clinton has questioned the mental health of Cristina Kirchner and asked US diplomats to investigate whether the Argentinian president is taking medication to help her "calm down". (she's got the "nerves")

Cuomo, Christie Veto Bill To Reform Port Authority - "It's really just an awful thing for them to do. Neither of them can ever stand up and say they're for effective reform," (fatfuck and the mobster)


GQ Presents: America's 20 Craziest Politicians
Hey GQ, can’t find any crazy Democrats? Here are 16 (that word doesn't mean what you think it does)


The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self - The Baffler - Rich Kids of Instagram (RKOI for short) curates and tags photos posted on Instagram by the likes of Barron Hilton, Tiffany Trump, and other “funemployed” trust-funders.
How a Woman’s Rape at a Gay Nude Bar Sparked a Battle Over New Orleans’ Libertine Soul

Always Low Wages? Wal-Mart's Other Choices - Bloomberg View - Wal-Mart's low wages have led to full-time employees seeking public assistance. These are not the 47 percent, lazy, unmotivated bums. Rather, these are people working physical, often difficult jobs. They receive $2.66 billion in government help each year (including $1 billion in healthcare assistance). That works out to about $5,815 per worker. And about $420,000 per store. (your taxdollars at work)

From the Likes of the Roosevelts and the Haneses, Family Lessons Gleaned - NYTimes.com (NYT trolls you again with lectures from the super-rich on how to be poor)

All Class, These Guys » Balloon Juice - Last night, a bunch of cops and former cops paid to have the following Yodafied statement of disapproval flown over NYC in an apparent attempt to show their displeasure for the current mayor. All they have really accomplished to date is making themselves look foolish and evil, and now we know they can’t write a simple sentence. (Blas created a "climate of distrust" not them)
Akai Gurley Protest Draws Hundreds In Brooklyn
Cops: Woman Smeared Bacon On Police Station Window, Offered To 'Feed The Pigs' - Police in Massachusetts have arrested a woman who they say smeared uncooked bacon and sausage all over a police station dispatch window offering to "feed the pigs."
Indecent proposition from New London chief was 'chilling' says victim | New Hampshire Crime - Speaking publicly for the first time, Janelle Westfall said state laws failed her after New London's former police chief made her a proposition: If she posed nude for him, the underage alcohol charges against her would be dropped ... Westfall, who was 18 at the time, was arrested by Seastrand, then 50, on March 2, 2013, as she walked home from a party. She was charged with giving a false name and for being in possession of a beer can. (cop walks, natch)

Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer - Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins.

The New ADHD Debate Every Woman Should Know About - ADHD medication use among women is rising rapidly.

A heart-warming twist in the tale of the books industry | Books | The Guardian - New research shows that the book-buying universe – both digital and printed – is expanding, not contracting (well, online, anyway +Who knows what had happened to the Times and Sun behind their paywalls? Those walls take the stock and stow them out of sight.)
Young people are 'lost generation' who can no longer fix gadgets, warns professor - Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, is giving this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (but they're really good at Flappy Birds)

Innocent boy's jail nightmare | Perth Now - Just before the trial started, the girl admitted lying about her sex life the whole time. She had insisted she was a virgin. DNA tests excluded Patrick from her claims of rape. (which took 7 months to process)
TIL A 15 year old boy was locked up for a year on false rape charges, and the girl received no punishment when she admitted lying a year later. : todayilearned

English Is Seldom at a Loss for Words | David Grambs - perfuncturate, to do halfheartedly
Why “Into the Woods” Matters - The New Yorker - the new movie “Into the Woods,” based on the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical of the same name.

Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017 - The Daily Beast - Vasalgel, a reversible, non-hormonal polymer that blocks the vas deferens, is about to enter human trials. How will rhetoric change when male bodies become responsible for birth control? Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017 : news - Gotta love how huffpo spins this topic: Can men be trusted to take birth control?!

Bill Cosby reportely hires private investigators to dig up dirt on accusers | Fox News ('ol wandering eyes)

My Most Retweeted Tweet - "On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642" (at least Isaac was actually born on 12/25)
6,000-Year-Old Temple Unearthed in Ukraine | Archaeology | Sci-News.com - A team of archaeologists led by Dr Mykhailo Videiko of the Kyiv Institute of Archaeology has discovered the remains of a 6,000-year-old temple at a Trypillian culture village near modern-day Nebelivka, Ukraine.

What is the creepiest thing you've found or experienced outside that you can't explain? : AskReddit
What's the most fucked up thing you've seen at a funeral? : AskReddit
[Serious] [NSFW] Redditors who have been on the brink of death/legally dead, can you describe what it felt like? : AskReddit

Editorial: A giant, secretive merger - Times Union - Comcast and Time Warner want to keep key details of their proposed merger secret.

122714
After Scrutiny, C.I.A. Mandate Is Untouched - NYTimes.com
ACLU accuses NSA of using holiday lull to ‘minimise impact’ of documents | US news | The Guardian - Released on Christmas Eve, the documents are heavily redacted versions of reports by the NSA to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board

North Korea Blames U.S. For Shutting Down Its Internet, Says Obama Was Behind 'The Interview' Release - "Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,"

Russia's Economy Headed For Even More Trouble - Slumping oil prices have put Russia's economy on course for a sharp recession and double-digit inflation next year,

Twitter user claims Daily Mail story of white British jihadi is a hoax | World news | The Guardian - As @_AbDwd1 has shown, if you wave ‘white English convert’ and ‘scary Muslims’ in the Daily Mail’s face, they’ll run it regardless of facts.”

Obama hopes to enlist GOP in push for trade pact, despite Democratic resistance - The Washington Post (or, Obama backs Republican bill, ignores Democrats)


De Blasio and police at odds as thousands mourn NYPD officer Ramos | US news | The Guardian - Officers from across US attend funeral of Brooklyn shooting victim
Airplane Hauling Anti-De Blasio Banner Flies Above New York City - The officers' deaths followed protests around the country over the deaths of black men at the hands of white officers, and New York police unions have blamed de Blasio for allowing protests they say foster an anti-police sentiment.

Sadism and the Online Mob - Bloomberg View - But I think there’s an important aspect of outrage that the Slate writers mostly left out -- the connection between outrage and sadism.
Zeal for death penalty circumvents advocates' efforts to end executions | World news | The Guardian - Despite botched executions states still exploring old methods as alternatives - Historian: in the US ‘violence is a part of frontier culture’ ("frontier" = sadistic and violent)

Eden Was a Scary Movie About Sex-Trafficking Based on a True Story—Or Was It? by Jen Graves - Seattle Features - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper - What does art that claims to be "based on a true story" owe its audience? When the "true" part gets called into question, and the art-makers go silent, what are we supposed to think?

Hullabaloo - Who's the real Scrooge here? - I'm sure everyone remembers Cokie Roberts kvetching about President Obama having the audacity to take a vacation in his home state of Hawaii (they really can't think and don't want you to, either)

Opting Out of Adulthood Is Becoming More Common - NYTimes.com ("adulthood" defined as having a good job and buy a house)
Eschaton: What If The Kids On My Lawn Are Having More Fun Than Me - I really don't get this media obsession with the idea that The Kids Today aren't living their lives precisely as the olds imagine the lived their lives back in the day. Except for trust fund kids, who the hell can avoid "adult responsibilities" as an adult unless we narrowly define such things as promised lifelong monogamy and home ownership.
Millennials Are Redefining What Adulthood Means - NYTimes.com - Our research shows that millennials who don’t have a college degree are paying a much stiffer penalty in terms of low wages and high unemployment than previous generations did

122614
Rescued scientists bring back a warning from the Antarctic | Science | The Guardian - The icebound crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy made headlines but, a year on, the fruits of their expedition are revealed
Water Use and the Rio Grande - Lawyers, Guns & Money : But really, the entire structure of post-1945 growth in the American West is completely unsustainable and with each drought, that becomes more and more clear.

NSA Drops Christmas Eve Surprise - The Intercept - The National Security Agency on Christmas Eve day released twelve years of internal oversight reports documenting abusive and improper practices by agency employees (Ho-Ho-Ho)
The Snowden Effect: Seasons Greetings From Your Friends At The NSA - Esquire - There are holiday document dumps and there are holiday document dumps. And then there is holiday document carpet-bombing from 30,000 feet ... And for those who attempt to separate the ACLU's formal request from Edward Snowden's whistleblowing, forget it. You might as well try to separate the Boston Tea Party from the Second Continental Congress. (pow)

Reporter Jürgen Todenhöfer Was Embedded With Islamic State. He Came Back Alive. - On his return, he issued a stark warning. "From my point of view this is the biggest threat to world peace since the cold war," he wrote in a detailed Facebook post. "We now pay the price for the inconceivable folly of George W Bush's attack on Iraq. The West has no concept of the threat it faces."

The Islamic State is failing at being a state - The Washington Post - The Islamic State’s vaunted exercise in state-building appears to be crumbling as living conditions deteriorate across the territories under its control, exposing the shortcomings of a group that devotes most of its energies to fighting battles and enforcing strict rules.
A. Ibrahim on Twitter: "Jihadi tourism; new Muhajireen (migrants) arrived in #Fallujah, #IslamicState
ISIS governor of Mosul killed in airstrikes - CNN.com - The latest ISIS-appointed governor of Mosul was killed in coalition airstrikes on Thursday, according to Iraqi police.
ISIL hit with 31 air strikes in one day | Al Jazeera America - Anti-ISIL forces make 16 strikes in Syria, 15 in Iraq on intense day of fighting
Erdogan says more journalists will see inside the prison - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said more journalists will be taken into custody, brushing off criticisms over media freedom and claiming that nowhere in the world the media is as free as it is in Turkey.
Mauritanian Journalist Sentenced To Death For 'Insulting The Prophet' In Article - Mauritania on Thursday condemned a man to death for "insulting the prophet," a human rights group said, a day after the country opened the trial of an anti-slavery activist ... Mauritania became the last country worldwide to legally abolish slavery in 1981 and still has the highest prevalence worldwide of slavery per head of population
Death toll rises to 81, operations launched against NDFB - The Hindu - Operations were on Friday intensified against NDFB(S) militants along the border with Arunachal Pradesh even as the death toll in the massacre rose to 81.
Pakistan forces kill key planner of Peshawar school massacre - The Economic Times - A senior Taliban commander, believed to be a key planner in the Peshawar school massacre, has been killed by the security forces in Pakistan's troubled Khyber Agency.

Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Mull Bigger Role for Women - ABC News - A struggle for women's rights is brewing within Israel's deeply conservative ultra-Orthodox community, where women, largely shut out of politics, are beginning to demand greater representation in the country's parliament.
Senior UN officials expelled from Sudan | News | DW.DE | 26.12.2014 - Khartoum has been angered at UNAMID's attempts to investigate a report that government troops committed mass rape of women and girls in a Darfur village on October 31. Days ago, it denied peacekeepers permission to pay a second visit to the site of the alleged rapes.

The Interview and the Year That Voters Got Scared of Everything - Bloomberg Politics - Terrorists didn't attack cinemas, and that's important. (terror is the new normal and the genius of "homeland")
New Study May Add to Skepticism Among Security Experts That North Korea Was Behind Sony Hack - NYTimes.com - A number of private security researchers are increasingly voicing doubts that the hack of Sony‘s computer systems was the work of North Korea (but wasn't Obama and the Federal Bureau of Incompetents absolutely sure?)
Audiences 'Let Freedom Ring' At 'The Interview' Screenings In New York City
Xbox live and Playstation attack: Christmas ruined for millions of gamers | Technology | The Guardian - Sony and Microsoft networks suffering outages after an apparent denial of service attack that rendered them useless for millions
Egypt Has Reportedly Banned ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ Movie - NYTimes.com - will not be shown there because it asserts historical falsehoods and spreads a “Zionist view,” the Egyptian culture minister was quoted as saying on Friday. (Jews built the pyramids)
Kim Dotcom Makes Deal with LizardSquad to stop attacks towards Xbox Live and PSN - The Tech Game

Tunisia Wins Again - NYTimes.com - first freely chosen president, Tunisia has taken another important step on its post-Arab Spring transition toward democracy
Oregon woman held in Timor Leste for months without charges is released | World news | The Guardian - the absence of a US ambassador in Timor Leste was hurting the effort to free Addison and called on Senate leaders to end the partisan gridlock and schedule a vote on the long-blocked nomination of Karen Stanton.
Flash - PM under fire as 100,000 flee worst Malaysia floods in decades - France 24 - premier Najib Razak came under fire after photos showed him golfing with US President Barack Obama during the storms.

PressTV - US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 'Nazi crimes': Russia

Brain-dead pregnant woman’s life support can be switched off, Irish court rules | World news | The Guardian - Ireland’s high court grants family wish that she be allowed to die, in landmark judgment that challenges constitution

At least 1,300 migrants saved off Italian coast on Christmas Day | World news | The Guardian - Most of the migrants saved were on boats adrift off Sicily, including a Nigerian woman who gave birth on a rescue vessel

Boxing Day tsunami: 10 years on, the scars are not hard to find in Aceh | World news | The Guardian - The Guardian has tracked the fortunes of Nusa, Indonesia, since the deadly wave. A decade on, the shockwaves are still being felt
Asian Tsunami Anniversary: LIVE REPORT - Yahoo News
Newport Papers 28: Waves of Hope - Waves-of-Hope.aspx - The U.S. Navy ’ s Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia

Guantánamo Dreams - NYTimes.com - Judge Edwards said the circuit’s precedents on how to define a detainable enemy combatant required him to go along with the majority. But with no end in sight to the “war on terror,” he said, the result of the decision could well be to consign Ali to detention for the rest of his life. ("suspicion")

In Oil States, Bracing for a Price Bust’s Ripple Through the Economy - NYTimes.com - The drop in oil prices from June to December has amounted to a loss of $83 million per day in potential revenue for the industry in Texas (drill, baby, drill and bye-bye, Alaska and don't put all your eggs in one basket, LA)

Why Liberals Should Fear the Supreme Court in 2015 - NationalJournal.com - Obamacare, religious freedom, and same-sex marriage equality are all on the judicial agenda.

Ratification of Arms Trade Treaty, Others Blocked by Republicans | The New Republic - Why do they oppose the Arms Trade Treaty? Because the NRA tells them to. (NRA is running foreign policy)

Tidings of Comfort - NYTimes.com - In fact, Year 1 surpassed expectations on every front. Remember claims that more people would lose insurance than gained it? Well, the number of Americans without insurance fell by around 10 million; members of the elite who have never been uninsured have no idea just how much positive difference that makes to people’s lives.

GOP learns lessons from Sam Brownback's tax scare - Rachael Bade - POLITICO - Republicans once idolized the tax-cutting superstar; now they look askance at him. (teaparty disaster, suck it up, Kansas)

The Best Lawyers Money Can Buy - NYTimes.com - The court’s front doors are locked and its vast “public” plaza is off-limits to protesters. Alone among the branches of government, it refuses to televise its proceedings, even though its gallery can seat only 250 members of the public ... And of that already minuscule fraction, a stunning proportion is argued by an extremely small and well-connected group of lawyers


NYPD on alert after spate of anti-police threats in wake of officers' shooting | US news | The Guardian - Six people have been arrested for making threats against officers, as police force warns officers to act with increased vigilance while on- and off-duty (more "terroristic threats")

David Brooks: Chris Hughes 'Callow And Incompetent' - "The country suffered a great loss this year with the destruction of The New Republic at the hands of its callow and incompetent owner, Chris Hughes," Brooks said.
The Sidney Awards, Part I - NYTimes.com - Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blockbuster, “The Case for Reparations”

Baby Jesus replaced with pig's head in Massachusetts church nativity scene | US news | The Guardian - Haverhill mayor James Fiorentini said the desecration had “all the elements of a hate crime”.

How One College Handled a Sexual Assault Complaint - NYTimes.com - As the case illustrates, school disciplinary panels are a world unto themselves, operating in secret with scant accountability and limited protections for the accuser or the accused (frats and football)

To Raise Science Scores, Colleges Look Beyond the Lecture - NYTimes.com - Rather than try to help students who falter in introductory classes, he said, “they have seen it as their job to weed people out and limit access to upper-level courses.” - “Higher education has this assumption that if you know your subject, you can teach it, and it’s not true,” (because "teaching" isn't something you have to "learn")


In Hollywood, It’s a Men’s, Men’s, Men’s World - NYTimes.com (check out Amy's off-the-shoulder look)

[Stories]What is the worst thing any redditor did to another redditor, over something said on Reddit? : AskReddit
What are some psychological life hacks you can do to give you an advantage in situations? : AskReddit
What is a cool Psychology trick you could try on friends/family? Either a perception issue or some associations we automatically make? : AskReddit
Reddit, what is one skill you'd learn if you weren't so fucking stupid? : AskReddit ("You've Been Learned")
What is shockingly LEGAL? : AskReddit
What's everyone on about? - OutOfTheLoop
First World Anarchists
I am a trans man with a functioning penis, balls, and vagina. AMA! : IAmA

Facebook’s Last Taboo: The Unhappy Marriage - NYTimes.com (managing your "maritial brand")
Facebook Is Not the Public Square - NYTimes.com - Facebook’s decision serves as an important reminder that social media companies are under no obligation to support free speech if doing so would harm their business.

122514
Restored Forests Breathe Life Into Efforts Against Climate Change - NYTimes.com
Australia records biggest emissions drop in a decade as carbon tax kicks in | Environment | The Guardian - Greens and conservation group say significant drop in annual emissions shows the carbon price, which was scrapped by the Abbott government, was effective (Tories at work destroying the planet)
Supertrawlers to be banned permanently from Australian waters | Environment | The Guardian

U.S. Spy Agency Reports Improper Surveillance of Americans - Bloomberg - The National Security Agency today released reports on intelligence collection that may have violated the law or U.S. policy over more than a decade, including unauthorized surveillance of Americans’ overseas communications.
NSA Reports It May Have Broken Laws With Decade of Spying on U.S. Citizens - Businessweek

Saudi to Dig Into Reserves for 2015 Budget - NYTimes.com - due to sliding oil prices, resulting in a nearly $39 billion deficit.

U.S. Strikes Have Killed 1,100 ISIS Fighters And Cost $1 Billion : The Two-Way : NPR

An illegally pirated version of 'The Interview' is on the frontpage of one of reddit's most popular default subreddits. This is why "Simultaneous Digital and Theatrical Release" is a pipedream and nothing more. : movies
ELI5 why does it appear so easy for hackers to shut down multimillion dollar services like PSN and xbox live? : explainlikeimfive

Print Magazine Covers Tell The Most Powerful Stories Of 2014 (Putinazi)
Chinese University Bans Christmas, Calls It 'Kitsch'

U.S. Senate and CIA agree torture program was mismanaged - Al Arabiya News - The Senate report on the CIA's interrogation program and the spy agency's official response clash on almost every aspect of the long-secret operation, including the brutality and effectiveness of its methods and the agency's secret dealings with the Bush White House, Congress and the media.
U.S. prepares to accelerate detainee transfers from Guantanamo Bay prison - The Washington Post

Tunisia: Have the Islamists learnt their lesson? - Al Arabiya News - The situation in Tunisia could have ended up mirroring either the Libyan or the Egyptian scenario if the Ennahda Movement and Islamist groups did not realize that political participation means accepting all democratic conditions and not just counting the voting ballots.
Two women referred to ‘terror’ court for driving in Saudi Arabia | World news | The Guardian - Loujain al-Hathloul, 25, and Maysa al-Amoudi, 33, thought first female drivers to be referred to specialised court in Riyadh (terrifying)

MH17: Russia claims to have airfield witness who blames Ukrainian pilot | World news | The Guardian (comments full of Putin-bots)

Nigerian Girl: My Father Gave Me To Boko Haram

Is Netanyahu Finished? Maybe So - You can be the archest anti-Arab racist, and this reality should be no less clear. Which is to say, you can be Avigdor Lieberman.

What Was Alan Gross Doing in Cuba? - Gross was actually doing work as a subcontractor for a pro-democracy program funded by the U.S. government, work for which Gross was being paid about a half million dollars

Glasgow Crash 'Joke' Tweet Ends In Arrest For Sunderland Man - The tweet said: "So a bin lorry has apparently driven in 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash it's picked up in one day". (dark humor illegal)


Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol | Fox News - Hemeryck, who said she was wearing a shirt that said "Catholic Warrior" when she arrived at the Capitol, told the Associated Press "I was there at the right time and the right moment and I needed to take a stand against Satan."
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | So what colour was Jesus?

St Louis protests after police shooting of black teenager Antonio Martin | US news | The Guardian - Pprotesters held vigils, with some briefly blocking traffic on Interstate 170 but actions were calmer than previous night amid mayor’s call for calm
The NYC police union has a long history of bullying City Hall - Quartz - “I am sick and tired of giving in to minority groups, with their whims and their gripes and shouting,” said John Cassese, then president of the P.B.A. “Any review board with civilians on it is detrimental to the operations of the police department.”
6 New Yorkers Now Arrested For Threatening Cops After Officers Killed - Melville was charged with making terroristic threats, a felony, and aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor.
The Bad Kind of Unionism - When police unions have widened their gaze beyond issues like compensation and working conditions, it’s been almost exclusively to conservative ends.

Could playing Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker' and other music improve kids' brains? -- ScienceDaily
Long-Term Culture of Genome-Stable Bipotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Liver: Cell
1.2-Million-Year-Old Stone Tool Unearthed in Turkey | Archaeology | Sci-News.com - Archaeologists have found a Paleolithic stone flake in the ancient deposits of the Gediz River, revealing that human ancestors passed through the gateway from Asia to Europe much earlier than previously thought.

Comcast and Time Warner Are the Most Hated Companies in America - The Wire

The Best On-Ear Headphones (At Any Price) | The Wirecutter

US Internet to offer higher-speed connections in Minneapolis | Star Tribune - US Internet to roll out a faster, 10-gigabit fiber-optic service in Minneapolis

122414
Let's leave behind the age of fossil fuel. Welcome to Year One of the climate revolution | Rebecca Solnit | Comment is free | The Guardian - Tiny towns standing up to Big Oil. Gigantic marches taking on the future. Technology that works. We started to save ourselves in 2014, but we must make 2015 worth remembering – before it’s too late
White Christmas? Start worrying about El Niño and its effect on food prices | Business | The Guardian

Did Anyone See 2014's Many Crises Coming?
The 15 artworks that define Christmas – in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian
Today's Document • fdrlibrary: Who wants a Christmas tree? One of...

C.D.C. Head Says Fight on Ebola Will Be Long - NYTimes.com

Official Google Blog: “The Interview” now available on Google Play and YouTube Movies
Is Sony's crackdown a bigger threat to western free speech than North Korea? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - The Interview may be released after all, but just because a Hollywood studio got hacked doesn’t mean it can censor Twitter, the news media and sites across the web
'The Interview' Gets VOD Release Via YouTube, Google Play - A day after Sony authorized screenings of "The Interview" in a limited number of theaters, the studio announced that the film will also be available via on-demand services.
Schneier on Security: Did North Korea Really Attack Sony? - It's too early to take the U.S. government at its word. (since it lies all the time) - I am deeply skeptical of the FBI's announcement on Friday that North Korea was behind last month's Sony hack. The agency's evidence is tenuous, and I have a hard time believing it ... "Sony was not just hacked, this is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside,"
Was FBI wrong on North Korea? - CBS News - Cybersecurity experts are questioning the FBI's claim that North Korea is responsible for the hack that crippled Sony Pictures. Kurt Stammberger, a senior vice president with cybersecurity firm Norse, told CBS News his company has data that doubts some of the FBI's findings. (would the Federal Bureua of Incompetency get some wrong?)
FBI may have been wrong on NK hack : news
The Case for N. Korea’s Role in Sony Hack — Krebs on Security
Video: Debating North Korea’s involvement in the Sony hack | Watch PBS NewsHour Online | PBS Video
metsuken comments on Sony & "The Interview" -- what's your take? - North Korea is the only Orwellian police state in the world and it has been that way for almost 70 years
North Korea: UN Condemns Crimes Against Humanity | Human Rights Watch - Security Council Should Refer “Unspeakable Crimes” to International Criminal Court

ISIS Captures Jordanian Pilot After Warplane Reportedly Downed In Syria
Exclusive: Senior Kurdish rebel leader warns Iraq must stay united to defeat 'savage' Isis | World news | The Guardian - Cemil Bayik, co-founder of the PKK, hopes cooperation with US-led coalition against Isis would result in group being de-listed as a terrorist organization

Palestinian Sniper Attack on Israeli Patrol at Gaza Border Sets Off Clash - NYTimes.com
Israel police reveal huge political corruption investigation | World news | The Guardian - Police announce ongoing covert operation involving 30 unnamed public figures over suspected nepotism and transfer of funds
Terror attack thwarted: 4 Palestinians carrying pipe bombs arrested - Israel News, Ynetnews - Israeli security personnel stop Jenin residents from committing attack on soldiers; suspects confess at scene.

Death toll among Qatar’s 2022 World Cup workers revealed | Global development | The Guardian - Despite Qatar’s promises to improve conditions, Nepalese migrants have died at a rate of one every two days in 2014

Russia Blames NATO For Ukraine Dropping Nonaligned Status

Protests as Nicaragua starts work on $50bn interoceanic canal | World news | The Guardian - Chinese telecoms magnate launches construction in Rivas - Environmentalists call for release of project’s feasibility studies

Hopping mad: Morning File, Monday, December 22, 2014

Bachmann: Obama Supports The Agenda Of Islamic Jihad "At Every Turn" - BuzzFeed News - “And I have been very surprised, to answer your question, to see the president of the United States, at every turn, cut the legs off of our ally, Israel, and in fact embrace and lift up the agenda of Islamic jihad.”

No, States Cannot Commandeer Docs to Lobby Against Abortions by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - a very prominent conservative judge (Harvie Wilkinson), drew a line where so-called “health” requirements theoretically aimed at informing women seeking an abortion become an effort to commandeer medical personal to talk them out of it
Law and Order Issues, Once G.O.P.’s Strong Suit, Now Divide Party - NYTimes.com (lawnorder for non-whites)

NYPD Shooting: Blue Lives Matter - The Atlantic - Talking about "police reform" obscures the task. Today's policies are, at the very least, the product of democratic will.
'To Protest Is A First Amendment Right': New Yorkers Defy Mayor's Request To Pause Demonstrations
Antonio Martin, Black Teenager, Fatally Shot By Police 2 Miles From Ferguson - The police officer had been assigned a body camera but wasn't wearing it at the time of the incident, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in a news conference Wednesday morning.
Houston grand jury will not indict police officer over fatal Jordan Baker shooting | US news | The Guardian - After months of testimony, a grand jury has decided not to indict police officer Juventino Castro over the fatal shooting of 26-year-old unarmed black man in January
Milwaukee police reforms proposed after fatal shooting of an unarmed man | US news | The Guardian - after prosecutors declined to charge an officer who shot a man 14 times.
St. Louis Police quick to release security tape in Antonio Martin shooting : news
Tracing the Gun Used to Kill 2 New York City Police Officers - NYTimes.com (from GA, of course)
Federal officials may use little-known civil rights statute in police shooting cases | US news | The Guardian - Department of Justice and FBI have for weeks been examining the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford III and now Dontre Hamilton
LA police investigate song mocking dead black teen at ex-cop's party - Yahoo News - "Michael looked like some old Swiss cheese" ... his brain "splattered on the floor."
Veteran arrested after threatening cops on YouTube | Circa News - The FBI arrested a military veteran on Dec. 22 for allegedly making online threats advocating the killing of active and retired police officers.
Huffington Post gets it wrong in last night’s St. Louis police shooting story - The Washington Post - In its initial story, the Huffington Post quoted a Twitter user named “Jesus Christo” who claimed to have been with the victim, whom he called “Antonio.”
ACLU Asks Court to Halt Punishment of Student who Participated in a Silent Protest - “School administrators cannot punish students for communications they think will bring negative attention to the school,” explained Sarah Rossi, the ACLU of Missouri’s director of advocacy and policy. “The First Amendment does not permit that.”

Eschaton: Innumeracy - Silly Sully is back on his Bell Curve kick because Coates wrote some hurtful things which failed to realize the overall importance of being incredibly civil in the high minded intellectual debate about whether black people are, in fact, stupid, and whether the innumerate editor of a prominent magazine might have some responsibility for catapulting racist pseudoscience he's incapable of understanding into the discourse.

A Backlash Brews Against Low Pay On The Factory Floor : NPR - Forty years ago, a manufacturing job was often a ticket into the middle class. That's not the case today. Wages for manufacturing jobs are plummeting, and some states are questioning whether competing for those jobs is still worth it. (corporate serfdom)

Columbia Journalism School to Scrutinize Rolling Stone Rape Article - NYTimes.com - Rolling Stone magazine said Monday that it had asked the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to conduct a review of a widely disputed article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia

When Men Try To Draw Vaginas - "America's male elected officials continue to aggressively legislate women's bodies in the year 2014, even though they often seem not to know basic facts about women."

Scientists use skin cells to create artificial sperm and eggs | Science | The Guardian - Early-stage sex cells research in Cambridge has potential to help people with fertility problems
Mysterious Virus That Killed a Farmer in Kansas Is Identified - NYTimes.com - Researchers have identified a previously unknown virus, thought to be transmitted by ticks or mosquitoes, that led to the death of a farmer in Kansas last summer ... the Bourbon virus
5 Prehistoric Mammals That Were Way More Monstrous Than You Probably Thought (VIDEO)
Using weights to target belly fat | Harvard Gazette - Study shows aerobics fights pounds, but weight training trims the waist
Bedtime Technology for a Better Night’s Sleep - NYTimes.com
TIL If an atom were as big as the Solar System, a neutrino would as small as a golf ball. : todayilearned
How do protons and neutrons stick to one another? : askscience

Marriot Petitions FCC to Allow it to Block Guests' WiFi HotSpots. Google and Microsoft Weigh in. FCC Taking Comments. : technology

FCC States It Misplaced Around 600,000 Net Neutrality Comments | DSLReports (you know what you can do with your "comments")

122314
This Year's International News In 46 Iconic Photos

CIA torture report: rights groups call for criminal investigation – as it happened | US news | The Guardian - Senator Mark Udall blasts CIA on Senate floor (video) - ‘The CIA is lying’

Algerian forces kill leader of militants that beheaded French tourist | World news | The Guardian - Abdelmalek Gouri, also known as Khalid Abu Suleiman, is reported killed in ambush near Boumerdes; he led Soldiers of Caliphate that kidnapped and beheaded Hervé Gourdel

North Korea struggles to stay online
Project Goliath: Inside Hollywood's secret war against Google | The Verge - SOPA was just the beginning
val broeksmit (@BikiniRobotArmy) | Twitter
Sony threatens Twitter with legal action if it doesn't ban users linking to leaks | The Verge
Sony threatens Twitter with legal action if it doesn't ban users linking to leaks : technology - Sony threatens to unfollow Twitter on Twitter.
Sony approves limited US release of The Interview on Christmas Day | Film | The Guardian - Move comes after Obama said Sony had ‘made a mistake’ pulling the movie following a campaign to kill film the White House believes was organised by North Korea (greatest marketing stunt, evar)
North Korea internet service resumes after shutdown | World news | The Guardian - No indication as to whether a cyber-attack caused outage, and if so who might have been behind it
House Democrat seeks full details from Sony on sweeping cyber-attack | US news | The Guardian - Says increasing cyber-attacks pose ‘clear and present danger’ to US security - Sony’s information will be helpful as Congress examines laws, he adds in letter
US may put North Korea back on state terror list after Sony 'cybervandalism' | US news | The Guardian - Obama says North Korea’s Sony Pictures hack was not an act of war - North Korea warns ‘toughest counteraction will be boldly taken’
Cispa cybersecurity bill passed by House of Representatives | Technology | The Guardian - Republican-controlled House defies Obama over legislation to prevent electronic attacks on US - "This is the last bastion of things we need to do to protect this country," Republican Mike Rogers (protect big content, you mean)

Jakarta to ban virginity tests for female civil servants - 9news.com.au

Russia Entering 'Full-Fledged Economic Crisis,' Former Finance Minister Says - Kudrin: Russia to be downgraded to 'junk' status next year

Record 17,000 join 'Pinstripe Nazi' anti-Islam march in Germany | World news | The Guardian - Many in Berlin shocked by emergence of far-right anti-Islamist group Pegida as growing numbers join weekly Dresden protest
Soldiers to be deployed around France after string of attacks on public | World news | The Guardian - Announcement that up to 300 troops will keep the peace follows incidents in Nantes, Dijon and Tours

Saudi Oil Minister Will Not Cut Oil Production - Business Insider
SAUDI OIL MINISTER: I Don't Care If Prices Crash To $20 — We're Not Budging : worldnews

NYPD Union President Patrick Lynch Is Completely Nuts: A History
De Blasio’s nightmare - Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush - politico - New York’s mayor has lost the police — and maybe much more than that (oh, sure)
Eschaton: Convicted Felons Are Always Given Prominent Platforms In Our Media - Why is Bernie Kerik on my teevee? Especially when his crimes were, you know, related to his job from which he supposedly can bring his expertise. I know the answer is "he's Rudy's buddy and the media loves Rudy." But, um, why is Rudy on my teevee? He's a horrible person.
NYPD Union Has Attacked Every Mayor In Recent History
Police Unions 'Standing Down' After Controversial Comments In Wake Of NYPD Shooting - De Blasio also isn't the first mayor to get into an argument with the PBA; the union has gone after at least the last four New York City mayors.
When Officers Die and Protests Get the Blame - NYTimes.com
watch: Protester Confronts Fox Station That Deceptively Edited 'Kill A Cop' Chant

Mitt Romney flips then flops on support for abortion legislation - US politics live | US news | The Guardian - Mitt Romney denies support for anti-abortion legislation – forcing campaign to issue 'pro-life' clarification amid criticism

Study: ‘White’ Southerners have more African ancestry than they know - Vox (s'up, niggas?)

Howie Kurtz mansplains the news: Fox’s media reporter has some advice for lady journalists - Salon.com - Howard Kurtz explains to female reporters how to do their jobs right, with insider tricks like "quote Republicans" ... He’s observing that the questions would have been better if Obama had called on some of the seasoned bros in attendance.

Bucking trend, Overstock.com switches back to controversial lobby group Alec | Business | The Guardian - Top tech companies have cut ties with Alec due to climate change stance - Retailer says it rejoined group to work on internet sales tax issues (boycott overstock) Google chairman Eric Schmidt said his company could no longer be aligned with people who deny climate change. “They are just literally lying,” he said. Alec denied Schmidt’s charges.

Charles Pierce on Terri Schiavo and Jeb Bush - Idiot America Book Excerpt - Esquire - As Jeb Bush emerges as a likely 2016 presidential candidate, we look back at the Terri Schiavo case.

Scientists tallied up all the advice on Dr. Oz's show. Half of it was baseless or wrong. - Vox
The Oz Effect - NYTimes.com - But the thing is, there are a lot of Ozzes out there, including in areas you might not consider the entertainment business.

Why Canada should de-activate Uber - Whimsley
How Much do uberX Drivers Actually Make Per Hour? | BostInno
Fort Worth $30/hr Lies | Uber Drivers Forum
The Uber Driver's Subreddit

North Carolina abortion ultrasound decision: Quotes from Judge Wilkinson on medical ethics and first amendment. - A conservative judge sticks up for medical ethics and the First Amendment - And it is intended to convey not the risks and benefits of the medical procedure to the patient’s own health, but rather the full weight of the state’s moral condemnation.
Why rape is so intrinsic to religion - Salon.com - Stories like the virgin birth lack freely given female consent. It's telling how ready we still are to embrace them ("virgin rape" is foundation of patriarchy)
The Not-So-Virgin Birth of the Christmas Story | ValerieTarico
The Virgin Births - YouTube
Captive Virgins, Polygamy, Sex Slaves: What Marriage Would Look Like if We Actually Followed the Bible | ValerieTarico
Reza Aslan And Theological Scholar Peter Lillback Debate Who Jesus Really Was
Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith - Salon.com - Religious belief the world over has a strenuous relationship with intellectualism. But why?

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Twitter: "This @HeerJeet ethering is the last word. "Liking jazz is not enough."https://t.co/aD4NJkeH37"
Sullivan Whitewashes TNR History (with tweets) · JeetHeer1 · Storify

Casey Kasem buried in Norway after protracted family squabble | US news | The Guardian - The decision to bury the body thousands of miles away from Kasem’s home in California has renewed interest in a family feud that was ongoing well before the former radio personality died in June.

“She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.
Joe Cocker Misheard Lyrics with subtitles - YouTube
Maybe I'm Amazed - YouTube
"You Are So Beautiful"... Joe Cocker - YouTube
Joe Cocker - "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" 1970 /w Leon Russell - YouTube
Janis Joplin - Ball And Chain (Amazing Performance at Monterey) - YouTube
George Harrison: Something - YouTube (Sinatra: "Best love song ever written")

Historic discovery: huge electric field occurs spontaneously in laughing gas | ScienceNordic - Scientists have discovered a new, astonishing electric phenomenon = spontelectric phenomenon.
FDA lifts ban on blood donation from homosexuals : news

What is the most bullshit thing you have ever been taught? : AskReddit
What is NEVER funny? : AskReddit

122214
Global Warming Threshold: What 2 Degrees Celsius (3.6 F) Looks Like | The New Republic
Surging Seas / States / Massachusetts

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses - NYTimes.com - Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (and why would that be, do you suppose?) “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. (no learning from experience is Obama's specialty)
New York Times calls for Cheney, Bush officials to be investigated and prosecuted for torture
Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA's Torture Scandals - The Intercept - The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted — even by some within the agency.
The Other Torture Report: The Secret CIA Document That Could Unravel The Case For Torture - the Panetta Review reveals that there was doubt within the agency itself about the morality and effectiveness of torture.

If Our Torturers Are Superior To The Political Institutions Of The Government, Self-Government Descends Into Bloody Farce - Esquire - For the past two weeks, on two different fronts, we have been confronted with the unpleasant fact that there are people working in the institutions of our self-government who believe themselves not only beyond the control and sanctions of the civil power, but also beyond the control and sanctions of their direct superiors ... The last thing to go to the waterboard is the tattered remnant of what we thought ourselves to be.

Pakistan to execute 500 terror convicts in coming weeks: officials - Yahoo News

Putin, Neocons and the Great Illusion - NYTimes.com - Vladimir Putin never got the memo. And neither did our own neocons, whose acute case of Putin envy shows that they learned nothing from the Iraq debacle. (learn? what's that?)

North Korea Loses Its Link to the Internet - NYTimes.com - A strange thing happened to North Korea’s already tenuous link to the Internet on Monday: It broke.
North Korea's internet appears to be under mass cyber attack - Vox
A Lot of Smart People Think North Korea Didn't Hack Sony
FAUXTRIBUTION? | Krypt3ia
The Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is Flimsy | WIRED
A Breakdown and Analysis of the December, 2014 Sony Hack
Reaction to the Sony Hack Is 'Beyond the Realm of Stupid' | Motherboard
How Obama Took Sony’s Crisis From Bad to Worse | Variety - But as much as Sony seemed to mishandle its sorry situation in recent days, the severity of the circumstances Sony faced are so extreme that it begs the question of whether anyone could have handled it better. (no, but it certainly raises it; you guys have editors?)
The Interview IMDB Ranking Jumps to 9.9 - Esquire - Never mind the fact that the vast majority of Internet users have not, you know, seen it.

South Korea Nuclear Plant Operator's Computers Hacked, But Officials Say No Risk To Safety Of Reactors - Computer systems at South Korea’s nuclear plant operator have been hacked, but only non-critical data has been lost and there is no risk to the safety of nuclear installations including the country's 23 atomic reactors, the company and the government said on Monday. (what else would they say?)

How Crimea Crashed the Russian Economy - The Daily Beast - “Get used to being at least twice as poor next year as you were before the annexation of Crimea,” says Vladimir Ryzhkov, a prominent Russian politician and professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economy.

The Top 10 Charts of 2014 | Economic Policy Institute (summary: we're screwd and the riches are laughing)

Anti-intellectualism is taking over the US | Comment is free | The Guardian - The rise in academic book bannings and firings is compounded by the US's growing disregard for scholarship itself (hello, Republicans)

Ambition Will Facilitate Ambition By Passing the Buck - Lawyers, Guns & Money (Fuckfurter and the Constitution)


Obama's job approval plummets among US service members | TheHill
AMERICA'S MILITARY: A conservative institution's uneasy cultural evolution - A deeply unpopular commander in chief is forcing profound change inside the ranks.

Appeals court strikes down NC abortion law | CharlotteObserver.com - A North Carolina law requiring abortion providers to show and describe an ultrasound to the pregnant woman is "ideological in intent" and violates doctors' free-speech rights, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

How Vermont's single-payer health care dream fell apart - Vox

The 2016 Senate Race Is Already Shaping Up To Be Tougher For Republicans (but they have a thousand-year majority!)
Tea partier braces for primary challenge from the establishment - Manu Raju - POLITICO - “All I can say is Mike Lee is an embarrassment to the state of Utah,” Huntsman said in an interview, calling Lee “an extremist” for his role in the government shutdown fight
What Kind of Revolutionary, Exactly, Is Bernie Sanders? - Bloomberg Politics - The 2016 hopeful's tour through Iowa provides some clues.

How David Gregory Lost His Job | People & Politics | Washingtonian - Last summer, Gregory was let go from his gig as host of "Meet the Press." Here's an inside look at his fall from the top—and what it says about the state of TV news. - Between 2008, when Gregory took over, and last summer, just before he left, Meet the Press lost 43 percent of its viewers and dropped from first to third place in the ratings. (Comcast took over)
Misinformer Of The Year: George Will | Blog | Media Matters for America

Ocwen CEO William Erbey: Finally a Wall St. Exec Is Forced to Resign | The New Republic - William Erbey, the billionaire chairman of the mortgage servicing giant Ocwen,

If Our Torturers Are Superior To The Political Institutions Of The Government, Self-Government Descends Into Bloody Farce - Esquire (above and way beyond the law)
The NY Police Union’s Vile War with Mayor De Blasio - The Daily Beast - So two decades’ worth of statistics tell us that black men are killed by police at 21 times the rate white men are, and yet half the public has persuaded itself that police treat blacks and whites no differently (white people are stupid)
NYPD Chief Bill Bratton on police tension: 'We're in a change moment' - News - TODAY.com - New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton believes that Mayor Bill de Blasio has lost the trust of "some officers," telling TODAY's Matt Lauer the city finds itself in a "change moment."
Why Cops and Republicans Are Blaming #BlackLivesMatter Protests for a Double Murder - Bloomberg Politics
Bernie Kerik: War Is Being Waged on Our Homeland | TIME - Yet if you have listened to some in the media, purported civil rights leader Al Sharpton, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and others around the country over the last several weeks, you’re forced to believe that nearly all of America’s local and state police are out to kill minorities. It’s a lie! (convicted felon gets a podium at Time for lies)
Slimy Baltimore FOX Affiliate Caught Faking "Kill a Cop" Protest Chant
NYPD Shooting: Blue Lives Matter - The Atlantic - Talking about "police reform" obscures the task. Today's policies are, at the very least, the product of democratic will.
Eschaton: Nice Civilization You Have There - If somebody, somewhere, hurts a cop's feelings, he might just not be up to doing the job that day ...adding, #notallcops, of course, just those who think that people protesting police abuses somehow justify them taking their ball and going home.

Downton Abbey George Clooney Sketch Video - Downton Abbey Comedy Skit - Esquire

Do you speak Uglish? How English has evolved in Uganda | World news | The Guardian - Side dish – somebody’s mistress

So My Sister Is Bringing Her Sex Scandal Fiancé Home for the Holidays
NSFW- What is your SO's best sex trick? : AskReddit - "I run this bedroom, babe."
/r/DeadBedrooms - There's only one Love Language, those other four things are *Like* Languages
Did you high school have an "incident"? What was it? : AskReddit - "No, it didn't happen at Milton Academy."
ELI5: Why are some subreddits private? and How do you gain access to these Subs? : explainlikeimfive
To the children of polyamorous relationships, what was your childhood like? : AskReddit

Busted: The Internet Tax Hoax of 2014 | BillMoyers.com - So phone and cable company claims that Title II threatens broadband investment have imploded. Now we can add their fear-mongering about mythical new taxes to the scrap heap of misinformation.

122114
"It was an act of cybervandalism," Obama said in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley that aired Sunday on "State of the Union."
Sony hack reveals threat of ‘psychological’ cyber warfare | TheHill - “It’s more than a burglary and home invasion,” said Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer at security research firm Trend Micro. “It’s, ‘I want to slaughter your family as well.’” (hyperbole much?)
Sony needed to have basic digital protection. It failed | Comment is free | The Guardian - ‘Guardians of Peace’ hackers took advantage of Sony’s abysmal levels of network security – and obliterated the privacy of the company’s employees (but that would subtract from their executive salaries)
BitTorrent Offers Distribute Sony’s ‘The Interview’ Via Its Bundle Service | Deadline
CSMastermind comments on BitTorrent Offers Distribute Sony’s ‘The Interview’ Via Its Bundle Service
Hollywood Tries to Crush Popcorn Time, Again | TorrentFreak - It was never revealed whether Hollywood forces had threatened the developers, but an MPAA update that surfaced as part of the Sony leaks now reveals that this was indeed the case.
George Clooney Was the Only One Who Saw the Sony Hack Coming - But when the time comes to lay blame, lay it not on George Clooney. For as with everything else in life, George Clooney had the upper hand. His prophecy by email lies below.

Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, Saudi Arabian Cleric Issues Fatwa Calling For Female Babies To Wear Burkas

Peshmerga forces heave Isis away from Mount Sinjar | World news | The Guardian - As many as 300 militants are believed killed as US-led airstrikes assist the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq
Taliban kill seven Afghan police officers in raid on checkpoint | World news | The Guardian - Official says five other policemen injured and five insurgents killed during attack in Qashtepa district of Jawzjan province

Boko Haram Slaughters Mass Of Captives In Horrific New Video - "We have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels," the group leader says in a message. "From now, killing, slaughtering, destructions and bombing will be our religious duty anywhere we invade."

Court Rules Orangutan Held In Argentina Zoo Is 'Non-Human Person' And Can Be Freed

Hillary Clinton Support Dips In New Poll - 61% of likely Democratic voters say they would vote for Clinton. This is down from last month's lead of 63%, and January's 73%. (tanking)

Elizabeth Warren And The Independent Community Bankers of America Are Right: Antonio Weiss Should Not Become Undersecretary for Domestic Finance | The Baseline Scenario - The Obama administration has continually refused to put forward any potential nominee for a senior position who has shown serious backbone with regard to financial reform. There appears to be a litmus test. If you want to be tough on reform – in the sense of confronting Too Big To Fail head-on or even just reducing the reckless risks that big banks take with derivatives – you cannot have a senior administration job. (bankers and CIA own him)

100,000 prisoners are in for low-level drug offenses. Obama just gave relief to 8. - The Washington Post

De Blasio at centre of police storm after two NYPD officers shot dead | US news | The Guardian - Ex-NYPD commissioner says mayor’s comments ‘set off this firestorm’
Two NYPD cops get killed and 'wartime' police blame the protesters. Have we learned nothing? | Steven W Thrasher | Comment is free | The Guardian - “[W]e have, for the first time in a number of years, become a ‘wartime’ police department,” read a statement from the NYPD union. “We will act accordingly.”
NYPD cop killer shot girlfriend in Baltimore first - CBS News - "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs."
Rudy Giuliani: 2 NYC Cops Were Killed Because Obama Told Everyone To 'Hate The Police' | ThinkProgress - Pat Lynch, the president of the largest police union in New York City, said there was “blood on many hands tonight” including “those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protest” and starting with “the office of the mayor.” (they've always been out of control)
video: NYPD officers turn away from Mayor de Blasio as he enters police presser for murdered cops | New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV (disrespect)
Ray Kelly: Bill De Blasio Ran 'Anti-Police Campaign' (Ray "Stop and Frist Black People" Kelly)
Here are some awful tweets by conservatives blaming Bill de Blasio for the death of two cops

Police around state gain military firepower; critics see danger | Local News | The Seattle Times - As law-enforcement agencies around the state make use of assault rifles, armored vehicles and a windfall of other surplus tactical equipment from the military, some fear community policing will give way to a “militarized” mindset. (citizens are now "insurgents")

Bing Crosby: the man behind the myth - The Gonzaga Bulletin: News - The Crosby children were beaten constantly because of their attitudes, grades, eating habits, staying up past bedtime, entering the wrong wing of the house and many more infractions. Not only were the whippings frequent, they were severe.
TIL Bing Crosby used to whip his children for being overweight, and two of them committed suicide : todayilearned
Gary Crosby (actor)

Americans aren’t getting married, and researchers think porn is part of the problem - The Washington Post

A Tree Is Known By Its Fruit: Page 2 of 9 | Texas Monthly

If you’re a devoted listener of the actual podcast, you might come away impressed at how pitch-perfect SNL 's SERIAL spoof is : television

Crows Can Understand Analogies | IFLScience
Anti-inflammatory drugs ‘could fight depression’ | Science | The Guardian - Scientists to launch £5m study that explores links between immune disorders and mental illness – and could lead to new treatments
First direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter competes with high-temperature superconductivity -- ScienceDaily

[Serious] Have you ever saved anyone's life? How did it happen? : AskReddit

Madonna: ‘I’m living in a state of terror’ | Music | The Guardian - In an exclusive interview, the singer defends her description of the leak of demos from her new album as ‘artistic rape’ (good PR)
The Artist Margaret Keane, Vindicated in Tim Burton’s Film - NYTimes.com - The Artist Margaret Keane, Vindicated in Tim Burton’s Film

Pirate Bay Domain Back Online, Waving a Pirate Flag | TorrentFreak

122014
Eschaton: Who's The Boss - If the CIA will do this, they'll do anything.

The ABC'S Of Jihad In Afghanistan * Courtesy, USA - By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway - Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (the whole reaping what you sow thing is too complicated)

North Korea denies hacking Sony, U.S. stands by its assertion | Reuters
CEO Says Sony Pictures 'Did Not Capitulate,' Is Exploring Options : The Two-Way : NPR
Sean Penn on Sony Pulling "The Interview": This Sends ISIS an "Invitation" | Mother Jones - In an email to Mother Jones, the actor says if the US, China, Russia, and UN don't react strongly, global culture will be "very different."
Evan Goldberg wonders if the Sony hack was an inside job | Georgia Straight, Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly
"The Interview" Co-Director Evan Goldberg on the Sony hacking scandal. “For two seconds it was the North Koreans, and then the younger guys in our office who know way more about computers were, like, ‘No way. You’d have to know Sony’s network, it has to be somebody on the inside.’" : news
Hustler Video announces porn parody of ‘The Interview’ | www.wsbtv.com (it went viral)

Pakistan: Several Taliban killed after school massacre - CNN.com - At least five militants, including a key commander, were killed Saturday in a battle between security forces and militants in the Mattani area of Peshawar, sources said.
Why Pakistan won't hunt down the terrorists within its borders - The Week - Thanks partly to exaggerated fears about India, Pakistan has built its army and its intelligence arm, the Inter-Intelligence Service (ISI), into all-powerful entities that are scarcely answerable to civilian rulers. (oh gee, sounds like ...)

A Refugee Crisis in Calais is an Example of a World Wide Problem | The New Republic

Sydney siege timeline: how a day and night of terror unfolded at the Lindt cafe | Australia news | The Guardian - Just after the morning rush at the Lindt cafe on Monday, Man Haron Monis held up a gun and began a 16-hour hostage crisis. Here Guardian Australia reporters detail the key moments of the siege that ended in the death of two victims

Castro's Hipster Apologists Want to Keep Cuba ‘Authentically’ Poor - The Daily Beast - The thawing of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba has elicited a lot of patronizing, asinine fretting about the imminent “Americanization” of Cuba.
Presenting Guest Op-Ed Writer Samuel Beckett - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Shorter Fred Hiatt: “China and Vietnam prove that normalization of relations does not necessarily guarantee freedom. Therefore, we should maintain the embargo of Cuba, which has a superb 50-year track record of promoting freedom, with plenty of unnecessary impoverishment as a side benefit.”
Eschaton: Our BFFs, Saudi Arabia - I don't want to litigate just how evil the Castro governments have been in Cuba. But it would be nice if every now and then a journalist would ask people who think it's unpossible to normalize our relationship with Cuba because they are "human rights violators" just why we're so nice to Saudi Arabia. (who knew about 9/11)

North Korea demands joint inquiry with US into Sony Pictures hack | World news | The Guardian - Pyongyang denies responsibility for cyber-attack and threatens grave consequences if Washington continues to blame it
North Korea Threatens Film Studios With Obliteration.. And Other Crazy Warnings - "If the U.S. imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival ... our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon -- the sources of all evil," Hwang Pyong-So said, according to The Telegraph.

Israel Airstrike Hits Hamas Site In Gaza - Israel's military struck a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip early Saturday in its first airstrike on the Palestinian territory since this summer's war.

Backed by U.S. Airstrikes, Kurds Reverse an ISIS Gain - NYTimes.com
IS has executed 100 foreigners trying to quit: report - Yahoo News
Kurdish forces kill dozens of European, African ISIS fighters
Elderly Nigerians, Unable To Flee Boko Haram, Rounded Up And Shot Dead

Russia Dismisses New U.S. Sanctions As Useless (said the gas station)
Muscovites brace for economic winter as rouble plunges | World news | The Guardian - After a week of currency meltdown, traditional Russian fatalism is back in force. Are the good times over for Moscow’s big spending elite?

TIL Alfred Hitchcock pieced together a compilation of videos from Holocaust. Originally filmed by British and american soldiers who liberated the camps. The video was hiden from the public for over 40 years. VERY NSFW/NSFL : todayilearned
Tests confirm Cambodia HIV mass infection - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English - UNAIDS to join Health Ministry to conduct full epidemiological investigation in affected community in Battambang.

US Sends 4 Afghans Home From Guantanamo

Panel to Advise Against Penalty for C.I.A.’s Computer Search - NYTimes.com (of course)
PressTV - CIA experimented on humans in black sites: Report (you know who else ...)

Obama Unbound - NYTimes.com
Obama Ends 2014 With Swagger And A Boatload Of Unanswered Questions - “I’m energized. I’m excited about the prospects for the next couple years,” Obama said Friday. “A new future is ready to be written. We’ve set the stage for this American moment.”
In Case You Missed It, Obama Made History Today: Calls Only on Female Reporters - ABC News
Obama is unpopular. He's also accomplished an incredible amount. - Vox - In his second term, Obama has also managed to get a record number of judges confirmed thanks to Democrats' use of the nuclear option to reduce filibustering. When Obama took office, 10 of the 13 appeals courts had Republican majorities — today only four do.

Why Republicans Admire Putin by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - This week Jonathan Chait reminded us of the origins of the neoconservative movement in the Republican Party.
Democratic techies’ divided loyalties - Darren Samuelsohn - POLITICO - Ex-Obama hands split between Clinton, rivals ... more than 300 of Obama’s former campaign staffers, including his chief information officer and senior aides who handled email, online fundraising and field efforts, released a letter begging Warren to jump into the race.

F.B.I. Evidence Is Often Mishandled, an Internal Inquiry Finds - NYTimes.com - mislabeled and lost evidence, according to a highly critical internal investigation that discovered errors with nearly half the pieces of evidence it reviewed. (Feebs totally incompetent and corrupt)

Gay marriages to begin in Florida after supreme court rejects delay | World news | The Guardian - Nuptials legally move forward on 6 January and the state must allow and recognize same-sex marriages performed in and out of state

Why single payer died in Vermont - Sarah Wheaton - POLITICO - Vermont under Shumlin became the most visible trailblazer. Until Wednesday, when the governor admitted what critics had said all along: He couldn’t pay for it.

Gunman kills self after 2 NYPD cops shot dead ‘execution style’ as ‘revenge’ for Garner | New York Post - Two uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner — in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s execution-style mission to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
NYPD Plainclothes Cop Appears To Punch Restrained Teen (raw video, updated)
Oklahoma Executions To Use Same Drug As In Botched Execution
NY police officer suspended after new video shows brutality | Reuters - A New York City police officer who appears to punch a black youth during an arrest that was captured on video and widely circulated on the Internet has been suspended from duty, the department said on Friday.
S.F. sheriff’s deputy arrested in assault on hospital patient - SFGate
Cleveland police union defends fired cop, saying others did far worse | cleveland.com
Major Chicago study finds red light cameras not safer, cause more rear-end injuries | Ars Technica - "This entire program is strictly to generate revenue and always has been," Alderman says.
Philadelphia drops civil asset forfeiture case against family | PA Independent - Chris Sourovelis and his family lost their home earlier this year after his son was caught by police selling $40 of heroin.

Alleged Cosby Victim: ‘He's Wicked With Power, Lust And Manipulation' (VIDEO) - After that, I passed out, and I woke up to him [clapping] and saying, ‘Daddy says wake up.’”
Lawmaker Rick Brattin defends controversial abortion bill requiring father’s consent - + KSHB.com - he bill drew national attention after Brattin defended it to Mother Jones magazine and invoked the now infamous phrase “legitimate rape” in discussing the bill’s exemption for victims of rape and incest.
The Personal and the Political | Jacobin - ndividual narratives have their place in progressive struggles, but Rolling Stone’s controversial article shows why they have to be wedded to a wider analysis.
Girl’s discredited story of sex assault cost dad chance at job | Toronto Star - Robert Ireland's foster daughter made allegations of sexual assault against him, never leading to a charge or conviction. His recent application for a transit job ended after the allegations appeared on his police check

The 32 Sixth Boroughs of New York City, According to the 'Times,' in Order from Worst to Best - The Awl

Tina Fey Parodies NPR In Flawless Vintage Improv Sketch

ELI5: The millennial generation appears to be so much poorer than those of their parents. For most, ever owning a house seems unlikely, and even car ownership is much less common. What exactly happened to cause this? : explainlikeimfive

Viking women were most certainly not stay-at-home moms | Ars Technica - The boats weren't just filled with hairy men in helmets.
Stem cell scandal scientist Haruko Obokata resigns
Quantum physics just got less complicated with 'Rosetta Stone' breakthrough - "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information."
Machine learning reveals unexpected genetic roots of cancers, autism and other disorders | U of T News - Researchers from engineering, biology and medicine teach computers to ‘read the human genome’ and rate likelihood of mutations causing disease, opening vast new possibilities for medicine
The Strange Tale of a New Species of Lizard - NYTimes.com - Aspidoscelis neavesi is quite exceptional. The lizard was produced in the laboratory by mating two other species, and its creation defies conventional ideas about how new species evolve ... But parthenogenic female whiptail lizards can duplicate the chromosomes in their offspring without males.
Men Who Like Spicy Food Have Higher Testosterone Levels
Ibuprofen use leads to extended lifespan in several species, study shows : science
What's a grammatical mistake that's so common that people don't even think it's a mistake? : AskReddit
xkcd: Effect an Effect

Staples Data Breach May Have Affected Over 1 Million Payment Cards

Tina Fey Parodies NPR In Flawless Vintage Improv Sketch
Can We Criticize Foucault? | Jacobin - Late in life, Michel Foucault developed a curious sympathy for neoliberalism.

Watching a Chiropractor fix a damaged neck is surprisingly entertaining : videos

The year of outrage 2014: Everything you were angry about on social media this year.
Facebook is dropping in Popularity with Teens Again, Study Shows - EWT News Website
The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed | WIRED
Mississippi attorney general calls 'time out' in legal battle with Google | Technology | The Guardian - shortly after the search giant filed a lawsuit against him ... The company says his request violates the open principles of the internet and was made at the behest of a major film lobbying firm ... asking that the company turn over information about its search engine and sales of illegal drugs, pornography and other materials. (Google major purveyor of drugs and porno)
Google Slams MPAA for Trying to Censor Internet: Project Goliath Reveals Rift : Personal Tech : Tech Times

The 2014 /r/askreddit Best Of Awards are here! : AskReddit
What is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to you? : AskReddit - One stormy day

121914
Front Yards Turn to Wetlands in Virginia as Climate Change Takes Toll - Bloomberg
Ebay joins Google and others in dumping Alec over climate stance | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian - The online retailer is the latest tech giant to leave the right wing lobbying group over its position on climate change

Ebola kills Sierra Leone's most senior doctor | World news | The Guardian - Victory Willoughby is the 11th of the country’s 120 doctors to die during the outbreak

U.S. Companies Clamor to Do Business in New Cuban Market - NYTimes.com - While some Americans will be itching at the opportunity to obtain the famed Cuban cigars more easily, the country also has a surprisingly robust biotechnology industry that makes a number of vaccines not now available in the United States. Another hot spot for the economy could be mining, as Cuba has one of the largest deposits of nickel in the world.
Obama’s Cuba moves come amid demographic, economic, and political shifts that have weakened US hardliners - Nation - The Boston Globe - Recent polls not only show that a majority of Americans favor normalizing relations but also that a majority of Cuban-Americans in South Florida agree.
Marco Rubio Challenges The Pope On Obama's New Cuba Policy
a Republicans Fight Amongst Themselves Over Restored Cuba Relations - Esquire - Ever since the president announced that it was no longer 1962, and that the United States would demonstrate its belief that Cuba existed by opening an embassy there, the Washington Post Opinion sections -- Fred Hiatt, Official 'Ho-Master -- has been one small comic step away from all-out slapstick on the subject ... Anybody who opposes this deal based on Cuban repression without calling for the trials of the American torturers and their superiors, or the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a moral idiot.

Putin’s Bubble Bursts - NYTimes.com - Russia has an economy roughly the same size as Brazil’s. And, as we’re now seeing, it’s highly vulnerable to financial crisis — a vulnerability that has a lot to do with the nature of the Putin regime ... a classic case of locking the barn door after the oligarch is gone.

We May Never Prove Who's Really Behind The Sony Hack - North Korea has denied involvement, and called the hack "a righteous deed."
North Korea was responsible for Sony computer hack, US official says | US news | The Guardian - The official, who said there may be a Chinese link, said the conclusion was to be announced later by federal authorities
Obama: Sony 'Made A Mistake' By Canceling The Release Of 'The Interview' - "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," Obama said
Sony CEO Says President Obama, Press 'Are Mistaken' About What Happened With 'The Interview'
Hackers To Sony Pictures: You're Safe 'Unless You Make Additional Trouble' (submit to us for approval)
Now Paramount Is Banning The Screening Of Team America, Which Came Out Ten Years Ago - Esquire - The Great Christmas Chickening continues, this time surrounding a movie that's been out for ten years.
News from The Associated Press - The evidence implicating North Korea was previously described as largely circumstantial
Ex-Anonymous hacker questions North Korea's role in Sony hack: "The pipes going in, handling data, they only have one major ISP across their entire nation. That kind of information flowing at one time would have shut down North Korean Internet completely" : technology
Ex-Anonymous hacker questions North Korea's role in Sony hack - CBS News
If you were going to assassinate Kim Jong Un, how would you do it? : AskReddit
Hollywood Cowardice: George Clooney Explains Why Sony Stood Alone In North Korean Cyberterror Attack | Deadline
George Clooney attacks press and Hollywood over Sony hack fallout | Film | The Guardian - "We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong-un, of all fucking people ... we have allowed North Korea to dictate content, and that is just insane.”

Sony's Top-Secret Password Lists Have Names like Master_Password_Sheet
Sony's IT security is a 'joke,' say former employees - serious questions are being raised about the Hollywood studio’s security procedures—with one former employee describing the “information security team” as a “complete joke.”
Sony Pictures leak shows employees used worst passwords ever

The race to save Peter Kassig | Ali Younes, Shiv Malik, Spencer Ackerman and Mustafa Khalili | News | The Guardian (Feebs fucked it up, as usual)

Pakistani Military Kills Dozens Of Militants In Retaliation For School Massacre
Umar Mansoor: The Man Behind The Brutal School Attack In Pakistan - A video posted on Thursday on a website used by the Taliban shows a man with a luxuriant chest-length beard, holding an admonishing finger aloft as he seeks to justify the Dec. 16 attack. The caption identified him as Umar Mansoor.
Kurdish pershmerga forces prepare escape route for Yazidis trapped on Sinjar | World news | The Guardian - Thousands of people who fled after Isis attacks will be led out of mountains after pathway is secured

Pentagon anti-bomb force 'improperly retained' information on Americans | US news | The Guardian - Group ‘improperly’ held data from Five Eyes: UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada

The Woman the Center of the C.I.A.'s Torture Report - The Unidentified Queen of Torture - By Jane Mayer
Greenwald - The Intercept - Naming Bikowsky allows people to piece together these puzzles and hold American officials accountable. The CIA’s arguments for suppression of her name are vague and unpersuasive, alluding generally to the possibility that she could be the target of retaliation.
Torture, 'Meet the Press' and Cheney's Quest for Revenge - The Intercept - Dick Cheney gave no ground in his “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, but he did something arguably even better: He bared his twisted soul.
Bush officials gave CIA wide latitude - Yahoo News - In July 2004, despite growing internal concerns about the CIA's brutal interrogation methods, senior members of George W. Bush's national security team gave the agency permission to employ the harsh tactics against an al-Qaida facilitator the agency suspected was linked to a plot to disrupt the upcoming presidential election. (remember the raised terror alerts?)

Judge Who Ruled Against Obama Immigration Action Has Checkered Past - The judge, who has a highly unusual history of being removed from cases due to temperament and charges of bias, was not asked to rule on the issue and instead inserted his opinion into a criminal case.

Klingenschmitt: Americans Should Rely On God For Healthcare | Right Wing Watch - Gordon Klingenschmitt is excited about a recent Fox News poll that claims that 58 percent of Americans want to repeal Obamacare, declaring on his "Pray In Jesus Name" program recently that people ought to be relying on God for their healthcare.

Some witnesses lied to Michael Brown grand jury, McCulloch says. So why have them testify? : News
Ferguson prosecutor says witnesses in Darren Wilson case lied under oath | US news | The Guardian - The Smoking Gun also reported that McElroy came forward as a witness in another high-profile criminal case in 2007 - with a story that authorities later dismissed as “a complete fabrication.”
Witnesses Lied Under Oath In Ferguson Grand Jury, Prosecutor Says - McCulloch talked about at least one witness who he said appeared to have pulled her account of Michael Brown's death from a newspaper report.
NYPD plainclothes officer hits youth as he's cuffed - NY Daily News - “I can’t believe he just did that after everything that’s happened,” she said, an apparent reference to the Eric Garner case and other incidents captured on video.

Carly Fiorina Hiring for Presidential Campaign - NationalJournal.com - Despite her improving political skills, the California businesswoman would be an underdog in a likely all-male GOP field. (loser can't get enough of the spotlight)
Rep. Blake Farenthold Joked Online About Drinking And Hitting On Women - Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), who is being sued by a former employee for sexual harassment, wrote posts about alcohol and female travelers on an online forum geared toward frequent fliers.

Why white evangelicals rule the midterms - The Washington Post - One of the reasons that Republicans won the midterm elections is because white evangelicals turned out, while Democratic-leaning groups stayed home

Laboratory Investigation - Derivation of male germ cells from bone marrow stem cells

Los Angeles Apartment Fire Was Arson: Officials - A fire that reduced an unfinished downtown apartment building to a block-long mountain of blackened wood was an act of arson that caused an estimated $20 million to $30 million in damage, the Fire Department announced Thursday.

Democrats to Colbert: Thanks For Your Help! [Updated] | Power Line - why shouldn’t Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central be prohibited from airing millions of dollars worth of pro-Democratic Party propaganda?

You Probably Just Lost A Bunch Of Instagram Followers (Kardashians' have 3 of the top 100 accounts, Kim just kicked Bieber out of #1) )
A Mother's Struggle. : funny

The FCC ignored hundreds of thousands of net neutrality comments (proof) : technology

121814
No Torture. No Exceptions
Taking a Stand Against Torture
Hullabaloo - Doctors without Boundaries: Professional Courtesy: In reading the Bybee torture memo, you see that he refers constantly to the "professionals" and the medical personnel who oversaw the interrogations. (Digby: 2009)
Sony Showcases A New Response To Terrorism In Wake Of North Korea Hack - Esquire - Think we've learned anything about how to respond to "terrorism" in the years since we chose to deform the country over an act of terrorism?

U.S. Weighs Response To Sony Hack Blamed On North Korea - The United States said on Thursday a cyber attack on Sony Pictures was a serious national security matter and the Obama administration was considering a proportional response, although the White House stopped short of blaming North Korea. (so now we're defending Japanese corps who underfunded their security)
Jeet Heer on Twitter: "Sure, one side is dystopian hell ruled over by a tiny elite which manipulates population with totalitarian kitsch but North Korea is bad too"

Journey to Reconciliation Visited Worlds of Presidents, Popes and Spies - NYTimes.com
Taking Cuba Off Blacklist Leaves Only North Korea as Cold War Vestige - NYTimes.com
Fred Hiatt, Ladies and Gentlemen - Lawyers, Guns & Money : again proves his acumen at idiocy: I also note how the editorial sort of kind of left China out of this analysis. Gee, I wonder why.
Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba an undeserved bailout - The Washington Post (Fred Hiatt stamps his feet)
News from The Associated Press - "The 50-year embargo just hasn't worked," Paul said. "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working, and probably, it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship. (and when Rand Paul makes more sense than WaPo)
WASHINGTON: Tortured U.S. history with Castro’s Cuba includes mob ties and assassination plots | Suits & Sentences | McClatchy DC - Senate investigators in 1975 identified “concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro between 1960 and 1965,” according to a report by the so-called Church committee. Nor were these efforts trivial. (why JFK wanted to destroy the CIA)
U.S. TV Provides Ample Platform for American Torturers, But None to Their Victims - The Intercept

Pakistani school attackers ‘were told to kill soldiers’ after massacre of pupils | World news | The Guardian - The suicide attackers who assaulted a Pakistani school on Tuesday were reportedly given orders by phone to await the arrival of soldiers after they had initially slaughtered around 100 children in the school’s hall.
Suspected Boko Haram Gunmen Kidnap Over 100 Women, Children In Nigeria
Officials: Boko Haram kidnaps 185, kills 32 - CNN.com
Three Top Islamic State Leaders Killed In Air Strikes, U.S. Officials Say - Among those killed was Abd al Basit, whom the officials described as the group's military 'emir,' and Haji Mutazz, a deputy to Baghdadi. Those strikes took place between Dec. 3 and Dec. 9, they said.

Westminster paedophile ring linked to murders of THREE young boys by detectives  | Daily Mail Online - Met investigating alleged murders by MPs at flats in Pimlico, London - Boy called Nick says rich and powerful strangled boy, 12, at 'abuse party' - abuse took place in London and Home Counties, including at military bases

Israel Suffers Sharp Rebuffs From Europe - Israel suffered back-to-back diplomatic setbacks in Europe on Wednesday as Palestinians headed to the United Nations to try to set a two-year deadline for an Israeli withdrawal.
Iran unveils monument to Jewish soldiers killed in war with Iraq - Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz - Jewish community leaders and Iranian clergy attend ceremony honoring Jewish 'martyrs.'

Checkmate, Putin. Russia’s economy is stuck in a catch-22. - The Washington Post - I might be playing chess while you play checkers, but I just got checkmated - That's because Russia never so much had an economy as an oil-exporting business that subsidized everything else. At this rate, Putin will be riding around shirtless, because he can't afford one anymore.
BERLIN: Putin is still Putin as he blasts West in talk on Russia’s economic woes | Europe | McClatchy DC - Economics Minister Alexei Ulyukayev appeared to break from Putin’s narrative on the economy, blaming the crisis entirely on the Russian government, or “delayed reforms and everything we did not do.”

Burma trial begins over ‘Buddha insult’ | World news | The Guardian - New Zealand bar manager and two workers deny charges they insulted religion by posting advertisement with pink Buddha wearing headphones
Chinese passenger opens plane door for fresh air | World news | The Guardian - A Chinese airline passenger pulled open an emergency exit as his plane was about to take off because he “just wanted fresh air”, Chinese media have reported.

Files of more than 40,000 federal workers breached - Yahoo News - the second breach this year at a major firm handling national security background investigations of workers at federal agencies, the government confirmed Thursday.

Obama's Had a Helluva Good Month Since the Midterms | Mother Jones
Morning Plum: Obama, unbound, puts his stamp on 2016 - The Washington Post - For years, progressives have sharply criticized President Obama for shaping major decisions around the idea that scaling back his ambitions would ultimately secure the GOP cooperation he had long sought. But the GOP takeover of Congress has effectively freed Obama from that illusion, leaving him little choice other than to be as aggressive and ambitious as possible in unilaterally pursuing his agenda wherever he can.
'Governor, This Is Barack Obama, Formerly Of Somerville.' | WGBH News

Jeb Bush v. Hillary Clinton: the Perfectly Illustrative Election - The Intercept - That one of those two families exploited its vast wealth to obtain political power, while the other exploited its political power to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally oligarchical framework that drives American political life.

The War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs Is Also A War on the Fourth Amendment - Lawyers, Guns & Money : in which the Court held that a search of a motorist who was not in fact doing anything illegal was nonetheless “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. Sotomayor, alas, was the only dissenter. Her opinion merits quotation on several points:
Cop: My ‘Breathe Easy’ Shirts Aren’t Garner Ref -- NYMag

Koch Group On The EPA: 'At Least The CIA Isn't Torturing Americans' | ThinkProgress (protecting the environment is waterboarding corps: kill two facts with one lie)

786 Abused Kids Died In Plain View Of Authorities: Report - many of them beaten, starved or left alone to drown while agencies had good reason to know they were in danger,

WASHINGTON: Most states unprepared to handle infectious disease outbreaks, health group says | Health Care | McClatchy DC - Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia led all states, each scoring eight out of 10.

Lawrence Summers' $28 Million Payday, Courtesy of Elizabeth Warren - Bloomberg Politics - Summers went back to teaching at Harvard University, a job that, unlike the Fed, allows him to serve on Lending Club's board (misleading headline)

Eschaton: Teachers Cost Too Much - But there's always money in the banana stand for sports stadiums.

Could cannabis oil reverse the effects of cancer? - Features - Health & Families - The Independent

Watching Colbert Makes People More Conservative | The New Republic - They showed 332 college students clips of “Colbert” and found that the more conservative a student’s personal views, the more likely she was to believe that Colbert wasn’t kidding.
Why Matt Drudge and Lucianne Goldberg still rule the conservative media roost - The Washington Post - Over the course of the year, links from Google to the Post's politics coverage have accounted for 5.5 percent of all incoming links. Drudge accounted for 4.1 percent.

Another Woman Comes Forward With New Allegations In The Bill Cosby Scandal (VIDEO) - She joins more than 20 women who have come forward in the media claiming that the legendary actor drugged and/or sexually assaulted them years ago.
Boston Uber Driver Accused Of Raping Passenger In Back Seat

Vance Deal: $400 Fine for Unlicensed Driver Who Killed Senior in Crosswalk | Streetsblog New York City - An unlicensed driver who fatally struck a senior as she crossed the street with the right of way will pay a $400 fine, pursuant to a plea arrangement with Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

(NSFW) What is the worst thing you've ever seen or heard in a game of "truth or dare?" : AskReddit

Burner phone? There's an app for that, and it's earning millions of dollars | The Verge

121714
Obama and Castro hail historic breakthrough for US-Cuba relations - as it happened | US news | The Guardian - Officials say US and Cuba will seek to normalise relations - Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro speak to nations
U.S., Cuba Seek To Normalize Relations
Marco Rubio Fires Back On Cuba: Obama Is The 'Worst Negotiator' In My Lifetime - "This Congress is not going to lift the embargo," Rubio declared at the end of his news conference.
Cuba Releases American Alan Gross After 5 Years In Prison
White House Credits Pope Francis For Facilitating Cuba Deal - BuzzFeed News - The pope sent an extraordinary letter to both Obama and Castro over the summer. The letter “gave us greater impetus and momentum for us to move forward,” the administration official said.
Republicans livid over Cuba talks, call it appeasement - Katie Glueck and Seung Min Kim - politico (of Cuban aggression)
Travel Bans For Americans To Cuba To Be Lifted And Diplomacy Re-opened - Esquire - Oh, sweet Jesus H. Christ on a jet-pack, this is going to set them off. It already has begun on the distant shores of the Island Of The Misfit Witless and it will steadily build to a crescendo in the more respectable precincts

As The American Public Buys Into The Idea That Everything The Country Does, Even Brutally, Is For The Purpose Of Moving It Forward - Esquire - Six in 10 Americans say the CIA's treatment of suspected terrorists was justified, more than half think it produced important, unique intelligence - and 52 percent say it was wrong for the Senate Intelligence Committee to issue a report suggesting otherwise. (weep for America, beyond redemption)
When It Comes to Torture, Dick Cheney Speaks for Almost Half of All Americans | Slog
War Criminals Do Not Get A Parade In This Country - Esquire - I don't care how much you want one. We don't give war criminals a parade in this country.

Pakistan’s prime minister promises day of reckoning with militants | World news | The Guardian - As massacre victims are buried, Nawaz Sharif says there will be no more differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban
Pakistan school attack: funerals and aftermath – in pictures | World news | The Guardian - Three days of mourning have been declared in Pakistan as funerals take place for the 141 victims of the school massacre in Peshawar


Russians Rush To Stores As Country Fears Bank Run - frantically buying a range of big-ticket items to pre-empt the price rises kicked off by the staggering fall in the value of the ruble in recent days.
Rouble collapse hits Finland, Forex stops buying Russian currency | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi
SAS plane 'near miss' fears blamed on weed - The Local - Russia's ambassador to Denmark has made light of Swedish concerns over a Russian military jet's alleged near-miss with a passenger plane, suggesting Swedish authorities may have smoked too much cannabis.

Everything You Need to Know About the Disappearance of 43 Students That's Threatening to Tear Mexico Apart | VICE | United States - According to the report, federal police shot at the students and even collected bullet casings after the fact to cover up their involvement.

The Senate Just Cemented Obama's Judicial Legacy


Bush Made Family Tragedy Into A Family Horror With The Schiavos - Esquire - It was wonderfully predictable, and I hope it gets repeated, over and over again, until The Smart One gets run out of politics.

Proposed Bill Would Require Women To Ask Men's Permission To Have An Abortion - A bill proposed by a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri would require a woman seeking an abortion to obtain notarized consent from the baby's father, even if he is physically abusive toward her. "So you couldn't just go and say, 'Oh yeah, I was raped,' and get an abortion. It has to be a legitimate rape."

Cuomo to Ban Fracking in New York State, Citing Health Risks - NYTimes.com
Gov. Andrew Cuomo To Ban Fracking In New York State - The potential adverse impacts of fracking are “widespread," DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens said at the press conference. He added that the prospects for fracking in New York are "uncertain at best," and the economic benefits are "far lower than originally forecasted."

Seattle’s unbelievable transportation megaproject fustercluck | Grist
Guest Editorial: Seattle, Pull the Plug on the Tunnel Unless You Can Answer These Seven Questions | Slog - it’s worth pointing out that the digging of the tunnel itself—which we’ve always known would be the most difficult part of the viaduct replacement project—is only one-tenth finished. This megaproject is being driven by a clown car of derelicts.
Guest Editorial: We Need to Stop Trying to Rescue This Tunnel Project and Consider Our Options | Slog

Congress Finally Acts to Prevent Police Killings, But Will it Make a Difference? | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - the Death in Custody Reporting Act. The bill which is slated for a presidential signature, calls for all police departments to report all people killed in custody or during an arrest.
Documenting Police Killings by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Comparatively, a fisherman is 10 times more likely to be killed on the job than a police officer, according to national figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A logging worker is eight times more likely than a police officer to die on the job, and a garbage man is three times more likely to die while working. Most policemen killed on the job die in auto accidents, according to FBI statistics. (their lives are on the line everyday)
Law Enforcement Is the Fattest Profession, Study Finds | TIME - Along with firefighters and security guards (porkers)

Gay-Bashing Suspects Held on All Charges - G Philly - Kevin Harrigan, Kathryn Knott, and Philip Williams
Woman Used Child Porn To Frame Estranged Husband - But when police examined time stamps, they determined the images had been downloaded more than two weeks after Meri Woods had her husband kicked out of their Clymer-area home with a protection-from-abuse order. (not that bright)

Exonerated After Execution: Judge Tosses Teen's Murder Conviction - NBC News.com - Seventy years after South Carolina executed a 14-year-old boy so small he sat on a phone book in the electric chair, a circuit court judge threw out his murder conviction.


U.S. Links North Korea to Sony Hacking - NYTimes.com - American intelligence officials have concluded that the North Korean government was “centrally involved” in the recent attacks on Sony Pictures’s computers, a determination reached just as Sony on Wednesday canceled its release of the comedy, which is based on a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.
Top Five Theater Circuits Drop 'The Interview' After Sony Hack - The Hollywood Reporter
Sony Hacking Fallout Explodes As Theaters Cancel 'The Interview' Showings
Reddit bans users for sharing hacked Sony documents | Technology | The Guardian - The social news site has acceded to a DMCA takedown request from Sony and removed a hub for sharing the company’s hacked files - cracking down on discussion of its stolen data on sites such as Reddit. (no "discussion" allowed)
Sony leaks reveal Hollywood is trying to break DNS, the backbone of the internet | The Verge - A leaked legal memo reveals a plan for blacklisting pirate sites at the ISP level
It’s Official: Sony Scraps ‘The Interview’ : movies

121614
Weak deal at Lima climate talks disappoints climate hawks | Grist
Police asked university for list of attendees at fracking debate | UK news | The Guardian - Canterbury Christ Church University says it refused to hand over list, and Green party councillor criticises police request ("public safety")

2014 Lie of the Year: Exaggerations about Ebola | PolitiFact

Pakistan responds to Peshawar school massacre with strikes on Taliban | World news | The Guardian
Pakistani Taliban Attack on Peshawar School Leaves 145 Dead - NYTimes.com - Heavily armed gunmen stormed into a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing scores of teachers and schoolchildren and fighting a gun battle with the security forces
Pakistani officials say siege at school over
'I saw death so close': student recalls Pakistan school carnage - Yahoo News
Taliban Kills More Than 100 Children In Pakistan School Attack - Khorasani said that the attackers had been ordered to shoot the older students but not the young children.

Around 180 Soldiers And Militants Killed In Battle For Syrian Base - The Britain-based group said Islamist insurgents including al Qaeda's Syria wing, the Nusra Front, on Monday took the base next to the country's main north-south highway linking Aleppo with Damascus.

Ex-Mossad chief: Peace will elude us until we treat Palestinians with dignity | The Times of Israel - Efraim Halevy attacks Netanyahu and Bennett for their policies on Jerusalem, says elections offer ‘a choice the likes of which we have never had’

Damning Report Claims Mexican Federal Police Participated In Disappearance Of 43 Students - “We have information that proves the federal government knew what was happening in the moment it was happening, and participated in it,”

Hostages in the Sydney cafe siege: 'We’re not getting out of here' | Australia news | The Guardian

Russia's Ruble Slides To Historic Lows - The Russian ruble faced intense selling pressure Tuesday, falling at one stage by a whopping 20 percent to historic lows despite a massive pre-dawn interest rate hike from the country's central bank.
The Collapse of Putin's Economic System - Bloomberg - The foundations on which Vladimir Putin built his 15 years in charge of Russia are giving way.
Villagers in Kazakhstan Are Falling Asleep En Masse for No Apparent Reason | VICE | United States - Misha Plyukhin saw flying horses and light bulbs, his mother with eight eyes and a trunk, and snakes and worms in his bed, trying to eat his arms (it was Putin)

CIA torture: health professionals 'may have committed war crimes', report says | US news | The Guardian - Physicians for Human Rights called for federal investigation on CIA torture program participation, calling rectal feeding technique ‘form of sexual assault’
Dick Cheney - The Atlantic - "I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective." (which is to make people suffer as much as possible)
Scalia and Cruel and Unusual Interrogation by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - In keeping with his recent habit of defiant ideological gestures, Justice Antonin Scalia has weighed in on the torture debate with an angry defense of “enhanced interrogation” as both constitutional and as within the American moral consensus, as opposed to that of namby-pamby “European liberals.
America Is Built on Torture, Remember? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - Slavery was not quaint, nor stunted, nor backwards looking. It was the engine of American success.
Dick Cheney’s 6-Step Torture Denial -- NYMag
"Wherever They's A Fight to Defend the Preposterous Arguments of People Responsible for Arbitrary Detention And Torture, I'll Be There" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - It’s sad and outrageous that apologias for gross violations of human rights that really should be confined to eighth-rate webcomics will persuade many people, but we are living in a polity in which Dick Cheney could be part of a winning presidential ticket twice.
The US Is A Country That Tortures - End Of Story - Esquire - There is not a single defense raised by these barbarians that has not been raised in the past by people who wanted to torture people with impunity. They can't even summon up the common humanity to concoct original alibis.

Breaking: Republican Judge Strikes Down Obama's Immigration Order | ThinkProgress
District court declares Obama immigration action unconstitutional (Updated) - The Washington Post - This isn’t the only case challenging the lawfulness of the Obama’s immigration actions. Some two-dozen states have filed suit challenging Obama’s recent immigration policy reforms.

Kevin Yoder MIA After Tucking Wall Street Bailout Into Government Spending Bill - For all the anger among progressives about a Wall Street bailout provision that made its way into the just-passed $1.1 trillion government spending bill, there's been little attention on the person who put it in there - Meet Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas) (way to go, KS)

How prepared is New York City for future superstorms? The question is far from settled | US news | The Guardian - To cap our Stormproofing the City series, Lilah Raptopoulos pinpoints eight takeaways – including that without Sandy, the city would be much less safe today

Report: Darren Wilson's Key Witness Lied About Everything
"Witness 40": Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson | The Smoking Gun - TSG probe unmasks grand jury witness who spun fabricated tale
America just doesn’t get it: Why police killings demand more than a “respectable” response - Salon.com - Cops are getting away with murder, so protesters are taking a stand. And if that makes you uncomfortable? Good.

The Mysterious Rise of the Non-Working Man - The Atlantic - The economy is not leaving men behind. But it is perhaps leaving manliness behind - Machines are replacing the brawn that powered the 20th century economy, clearing way for work that requires a softer human touch. (like a woman's)

Bill Cosby's wife wants to know who the real victim is. There are all too many options | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | The Guardian
No, we don't literally want to ban men. But 2014 was the year women got even | Jess Zimmerman | Comment is free | The Guardian - At least, that was our year according to the minds of the whiny, brittle men who genuinely believe “misandry” – the institutionalized hatred of men – is a powerful force in the world.

alicublog: Where They're Coming From. - To those of you who worry that mainstream attention to the con artist Charles C. Johnson will damage the reputation and efficacy of journalism, I have to say you're waaaaaay late
Inside The Collapse Of The New Yorker’s Inside The Collapse Of The New Republic | Wonkette - For the densest, most potent crystallization of why nobody but the whiter half of your Twitter feed could care fucking less about what happens to the whiny-ass tittybabies of TNR, we leave you with this heartfelt cri de couer:

Degrees of Danger - The Baffle ("Culture Zones" in Muslim countries constructed by rich American institutions) r

The American Scholar: Habits of Mind - Anthony Grafton and James Grossman - Why college students who do serious historical research become independent, analytical thinkers

EXCLUSIVE: New York Mag’s Boy Genius Investor Made It All Up | New York Observer
Stuyvesant High School Student Now Says He Didn't Make $72 Million on Stocks - NYTimes.com - “At the end of the day these are teenagers who acted dumb.”


121514
Climate Change Takes A Village <br><small>As The Planet Warms, A Remote Alaskan Town Shows Just How Unprepared We Are</small>
Massive study provides first detailed look at how Greenland's ice is vanishing


Sydney Hostage Siege Ends With Gunman and 2 Captives Dead as Police Storm Cafe - NYTimes.com
Sydney Hostage Crisis Over After Police Storm Cafe
Sydney siege: Tori Johnson's family pays tribute to 'amazing' man – rolling report | Australia news | The Guardian - A producer for the ABC also warned against Man Haron Monis five years ago. Rachael Kohn, who had been targeted by Monis, asked why the Muslim community was not doing more to condemn Monis in a piece for ABC online.
Sydney Hostage Taker Man Haron Monis Dead - "His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness," (sort of like Republicans)
Uber Raises Fares During Sydney Hostage Crisis, Then Offers Free Rides
15,000 join anti-Islam protest in eastern Germany - Yahoo News
GravityGod comments on Armed robbery / hostage situation in Sydney cafe Live Coverage On The Morning Show On 7/PRIME
Cameramen in sydney siege don't know they're being streamed live to thousands. /r/australia captures some of their top notch banter. : bestof

Brennan Draws on Bond With Obama in Backing C.I.A. - NYTimes.com - After six years of partnership, the president was standing by the embattled spy chief even as fellow Democrats called for his resignation.
The media treats Dick Cheney like the royals on vacation. He should be in jail | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - Torture architects have been allowed to explain away rape and detention of innocent people. If we can’t lock him up instead, shouldn’t we at least be able to hold the next Dick Cheney accountable?
The Luxury Homes That Torture and Your Tax Dollars Built - The Daily Beast - The Senate report notes that in addition to the $81 million, the CIA accorded the two a “multi-year indemnification agreement” to shield them, their firm, and its employees from any “legal liability arising out of the program.”
Hullabaloo - A little reminder on Torture Sunday (how Fox mainstreamed fear and torture)
Part Of The Country's Fundamental Nature Did Not Involve Torture - Esquire - Stinneford saw quite clearly that the lack of a specific Bill of Rights inevitably could lead to the federal government's practicing torture on its citizens in order to draw from them confessions. This was not idle speculation from these people
Elizabeth Hasselbeck On The Sydney Cafe Hostage Situation - Esquire - Hasselbeck exclaimed. "And you understand the real war with ISIS that we are in. In stark contrast with accusations [against] the CIA really just trying to do their job and keep America safe for the past 13 years." "It startles you," she added.
Mythology and the Iraq War Debate - Lawyers, Guns & Money

Russian Ruble Crashes to World's Worst-Performing Currency | Business | The Moscow Times

Dodd-Frank Damaged in the Budget Bill - NYTimes.com - The Masters of the Universe, it turns out, are a bunch of whiners. But they’re whiners with war chests, and now they’ve bought themselves a Congress


Eschaton: Supply Side Jesus Is Coming - Tax cuts can only be failed.

Hullabaloo - Jeb Bush Is a Hothead -

Did Salaita Cross the Line of 'Civility'? - NYTimes.com

Authorities warn residents to stay indoors as Pennsylvania shooter still at large | US news | The Guardian - Police in Pennsylvania are searching for a 35-year-old man suspected of killing six family members and seriously wounding one more.

City of South Pittsburg bans negative comments | Local News | Times Free Press - Over the past year, city leaders say their work has been hampered by criticism and lies on social media.

Texas Cop Nathanial Robinson Uses Stun Gun On Elderly Man Over Inspection Sticker - officer Nathanial Robinson, 23, pull over Pete Vasquez, 76, at Adam's Auto Mart in Victoria, Texas, as "Under Ground Kings" by Drake blares from the cruiser's radio. (23 yr old thug cop)
Victoria police officer investigated for tasing driver, 76Victoria Advocate - Victoria, TX - "The cop told me to stand back, but I didn't shut up. I told him he was a g-------- Nazi Stormtrooper."
Victoria, TX cop tackles and tasers 76 year old man for an expired registration sticker. Even worse, turns out the the sticker was unnecessary because it was a new car with dealer tags : news
Witness who shot video of police punching suspect arrested, sent to jail | FOX31 Denver - A bystander who recently stepped forward with a video recording of Denver Police officers punching a drug suspect and then tripping his pregnant girlfriend during a violent arrest last August was in jail himself Thursday night.

Hullabaloo - Abrasive leadership - Abrasive alone was used 17 times to describe 13 different women, but the word never appeared in men’s reviews. In fact, this type of character critique that was absent from men’s reviews showed up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women.

SeaWorld CEO Steps Down Amid Tanking Revenues | News from the Field | OutsideOnline.com - Company announces undisclosed number of layoffs

TIL 82% of black women in the US are overweight with 56.6% being obese : todayilearned
If you could erase one discovery or invention for the benefit of humanity, what would it be and why? : AskReddit
Say you had the ability to fly a spacecraft from one side of the galaxy to the other in a straight line. What are the chances that you run into something? : askscience

The Mumps, a Scourge of Dormitories, Spreads Through the N.H.L. - NYTimes.com

121414
UN Climate Talks In Lima Reach Agreement - Climate negotiators salvaged a compromise deal in Lima early Sunday that sets the stage for a global pact in Paris next year, but rejected a rigorous review of the greenhouse gas emissions limits they plan.
Earth faces sixth ‘great extinction’ with 41% of amphibians set to go the way of the dodo | Environment | The Guardian - Analysis for prestigious Nature magazine sounds alarm on the way that human activity, from overfishing to agriculture, is forcing a vast number of species to vanish from the wild
At Least 32 Dead, 76 Missing In Central Indonesia Mudslide

U.S. Scuttled Negotiations to Free American Killed in Yemen - The Intercept - But according to several sources in Yemen, Somers was not in immediate danger prior to the first raid launched to free him last month. Two of those sources also claim that the United States thwarted attempts by a mediator to negotiate his release by paying a ransom.
Hostages Held Inside Australian Cafe, Islamic Flag Seen In Window - Hostages were being held inside a central Sydney cafe where a black flag with white Arabic writing could be seen in the window, local television showed on Monday, raising fears of an attack linked to Islamic militants.

Public Official Covers Up For Massive Failure By Approving Torture - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Kindly old Condi Rice: The revelation indicates that Rice, who at the time was national security adviser and went on to be secretary of state, played a greater role than she admitted in written testimony last autumn. - In conclusion, the real villains here are people who object to Rice being given huge checks and ornamental degrees to read platitudes at graduation events.
Congress won’t push prosecutions | TheHill - Capitol Hill appears unlikely to push for prosecutions on current or former CIA officials for their role in brutal interrogation tactics formerly employed by the agency.
Misguided Honor for Condi Rice | Consortiumnews - Some of us predicted when Condi Rice left office that she would become intent on revising history. Faustian bargains don’t end that quickly!
The Great Cycle of Torture and Arbitrary Detention - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Admittedly, the findings that an arbitrary, unaccountable torture regime was a human rights catastrophe that was useless or counterproductive in protecting national security are very, very partisan.
Eschaton: America's Worst Humans - Couldn't bring myself to watch, but I gather Dick Cheney's still down with anal raping innocent prisoners because freedom. Just remembering the reverence with which our great 4th estate treated that man for so long.
Justice Antonin Scalia Constitution Doesn't Prohibit Torture | Mediaite - “Listen, I think it’s very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible,’” Scalia told the Swiss radio network
CIA tortured German it mistook for a terrorist - The Local - A German citizen abducted and tortured by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in 2004 should never have been detained, a US Senate report published on Tuesday showed.
Ex-CIA interrogation chief warns of betrayal - The Washington Post - The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on coercive tactics betrays intelligence officials and will erode their trust in future presidential administrations, a former CIA official who oversaw the agency’s enhanced interrogation program said Sunday. (it's not trust in their lies and war crimes that's undermined, of course)
Dick Cheney insists 'rectal feeding' was for medical reasons, not torture in defence of CIA | US news | The Guardian - Former US vice-president robustly defends CIA interrogation methods
Cheney says CIA interrogators were heroes - Americas - Al Jazeera English - Ex-US vice-president insists CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques worked and says "I'll do it again".
For CIA, Truth about Torture Was an Existential Threat - The Intercept

British torture inquiry ‘not afraid to embarrass PM’ | US news | The Guardian - Intelligence committee chief Sir Malcolm Rifkind says he will ask US for missing passages revealing any UK involvement in torture and rendition
Romanian ex-spy chief acknowledges CIA had ‘black prisons’ in country | World news | The Guardian - Ioan Talpes, who led SIE agency, says Bucharest cooperated but ‘took no interest’ in sites as country was trying to join Nato ("ignored")

Russia Denies One Of Its Military Planes Nearly Collided With A Passenger Jet - nsisting that the two planes were never less than 70 kilometers (42 miles) apart.

China to Punish Tourists in Thai Air Rage Assault - NYTimes.com - Chinese authorities vowed to severely punish Chinese travelers who threw hot water and noodles on a Thai flight attendant and threatened to blow up the plane after they became enraged over sitting arrangements.
Catholic Church In Australia: 'Obligatory Celibacy May Have Contributed To Abuse' (o rly)

How Congress Secretly Just Legitimized Questionable NSA Mass Surveillance Tool | Techdirt - Here's where those who slipped this bit into the law got sneaky. Recognizing that they might be called on it, they put it in with language noting that such information could only be held on to for five years -- and then claimed what they were really doing was putting a limit on data already collected:
Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations | Digital News Asia - More insidious than straight-up censorship because it’s also a ‘mental hack’ - ‘You actually think you’re free, but you’re being manipulated behind the scenes’ (Kochbro and NSA sockpuppets)

Four Christians beheaded by ISIS in Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam | Daily Mail Online - Canon Andrew White tells horrifying story of Islamic State barbarism - 'They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that?' - Youths, all under 15, refused to convert because they 'loved Jesus' - Another man ordered to follow Muhammad or see his children slaughtered

Turkey Arrests 27 Journalists In Media Crackdown — Clouds Taste Metallic — Medium
Mention of Israel banned at Irish national Holocaust memorial - Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz - The event's intended host criticized the decree and was fired in response; decision causes uproar among Irish and British Jews.
? Why the Thai army is so powerful - YouTube
Nutgate executive delivers apology to cabin crew chief | World news | The Guardian - Cho Hyun-ah visits homes of two Korean Air staff and leaves notes at their doors saying sorry for her behaviour ("Nutgate")
Spain passes anti-protest bill, to considerable protest - Yahoo News
Spanish Newspaper Publishers' Association Now Asks Government To Help Stop Google News Closure | The Spain Report - The main media lobby behind Spain’s new intellectual property law, which caused Google to announce late on Wednesday night that it was to close Google News in Spain, has now said it wants the Spanish government and European competition authorities to intervene to stop Google shutting down the service.

Operation Socialist: How GCHQ Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco

Senate Passes Government Funding Bill - The Senate passed the $1.1 trillion government funding bill Saturday night that will keep Uncle Sam in business through next September, while handing lucrative Christmas presents to Wall Street and political parties.
Dodd-Frank Budget Fight Proves Democrats Are Stuffed Suits | Rolling Stone
Ted Cruz Mocks GOP Leaders, Sparks Marathon Weekend Session On Spending Bill
Senate rebukes Cruz’s claims of unconstitutional immigration order | TheHill - A vast majority of the Senate disagreed with Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) assertion that President Obama’s executive order on immigration is unconstitutional.
Ted Cruz does it again - Manu Raju and Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan - POLITICO - “I think this is ridiculous,” Ayotte said in an interview.
Obama’s Immigration Move Benefits Democrats Where It Counts - NYTimes.com - This is not because Mr. Obama’s immigration decision has proved to be popular. In fact, it is, over all, unpopular. Polls show that a majority of adults oppose his plan

Elizabeth Warren is catching fire - Katie Glueck - POLITICO - The Massachusetts senator's latest moves inspire liberals hoping for a 2016 challenge to Clinton.

Hyperpartisanship is a symptom of distrust in government, not its cause by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Four in 5 Americans say the country is more politically divided than in the past. Although that is no worse than it was two years ago, it is far gloomier than it used to be. Scroll back to the early days of President Obama’s tenure in the White House, and the differences between then and now are particularly stark. (hope that will destroy your belief in hope)

Another Day Another Religious Gaffe By Scott Walker | Crooks and Liars - Walker (the blogger, not the despot) goes on to point out that Bible actually contradicts what Walker (the despot, not the blogger) is trying to argue.

Smell the Truth » Victory: Congress ends war on medical marijuana - the U.S. House of Representatives approved a measure late Thursday night to de-fund the federal war on medical marijuana.

Video shows John Crawford's girlfriend aggressively questioned after Ohio police shot him dead in Walmart | US news | The Guardian - Video shows Ohio detective accusing her of lying and threatening her with jail - Tasha Thomas only told of Crawford’s death after 90-minute interrogation

Ruled a suicide, black teen’s hanging death in North Carolina raises specter of lynching - The Washington Post
Police brutality protests right now in Washington Square park NYC : pics
More Ferguson Documents Released By St. Louis County Prosecutor - In both his original interview and his Sept. 10 grand jury testimony, which was previously released, Johnson said that Wilson reached out of his vehicle window toward Brown's throat or shirt. During the ensuring struggle, Johnson said he never saw Brown touch Wilson's gun.
Effigies of black men found hanging by nooses at UC Berkeley campus | US news | The Guardian - College: effigies of lynching victims appear connected to nationwide protests - At least one cardboard cutout carried ‘I can’t breathe’ slogan
New York woman wins $1.12m after arrest for snapping military base for website | US news | The Guardian - Deputy sheriff allegedly said he wanted to make an example of ‘right-wingers’ - Jailed for four days and misdemeanor trespass charge was dismissed
Man shot by police officers during traffic stop | News - Home - A man was shot by two officers during a traffic stop after police said he was acting suspiciously. (so shoot him four times)
Fox News edits in ‘dead cops’ chants in protest coverage | theGrio - Today the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends edited a video clip of Rev. Al Sharpton to make it seem that demonstrators had chanted calls to kill police officers during his speech on Saturday, even though the pieces of video were from two different cities.
Ex-judge convicted of planting drugs on woman | www.ajc.com - A former North Georgia judge was convicted Thursday of conspiring to plant methamphetamine on a woman shortly after she publicly accused him of propositioning her in his chambers.
Ferguson to Increase Police Ticketing to Close City’s Budget Gap - Bloomberg - For the current year, the city is budgeting for higher receipts from police-issued tickets.
All The Right People: The Contagious Exercise Of State Violence - Esquire - This is not a plague, not yet, anyway. But it is a contagion, and I wish there were a sign that it would burn itself out, the way they're wrestling the Ebola outbreak to submission in Africa, but I'm not seeing any sign of that. The polling on the police killings, on the torture report, and on the death penalty generally show no indications that the contagion is growing less virulent
Public has no right to details, AZ judge rules - trivalleycentral.com: Arizona News - Court says how police departments use device needs to be kept secret
Nine white Mississippi teenagers plotted race attacks that led to murder | US news | The Guardian - Two women in Mississippi have pleaded guilty to a hate-crime conspiracy to attack black people in Jackson that culminated with the June 2011 murder of James Anderson, who was beaten up and run over with a pickup truck.

America’s Most (and Least) Healthy States - 24/7 Wall St. (usual red state suspects)

Man can't challenge $280K tax bill he probably doesn't really owe, Pa. court says | PennLive.com - The problem is that Lerner didn't follow the right procedural course in challenging it, a Commonwealth Court panel found in a ruling issued this week. And so, the state judges determined, he's stuck with that unfounded tax tab
No Kentucky Tax Credits for “Ark Encounter” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Kentucky’s Tourism Arts & Heritage Cabinet Secretary Bob Stewart informed representatives of the proposed Ark Encounter tourist attraction today that their project will not be eligible for up to $18 million in tax incentives from the state, due to their refusal to pledge not to discriminate in hiring based on religion people who demand public tax subsidies for private religious activities without compliance with basic public policies binding on everyone else using your and my tax dollars.

California battles whooping cough epidemic - Yahoo News - California officials are battling the worst whooping cough epidemic to hit the state in seven decades as a recent rebound in cases raises questions about the effectiveness of the pertussis vaccine. But California officials say the limited protection of the vaccine introduced in the 1990s has led to the rise in cases. Research has shown it doesn't last as long as the one it replaced, and a new study suggests the vaccine may not prevent the spread of the disease.
Prescription Drug Abuse (kills more people than cars in 29 states, US consumes 80% of painkillers)
I guess I don't understand evolution. It is 100% purely random mutation? : askscience
Why is ATP the molecule that supplies biological energy, instead of any of the other nucleotide triphosphates (i.e. UTP, GTP, CTP, or TTP)? : askscience
Astronomers Measure Distance to Eye of Sauron (NGC 4151) | Astronomy | Sci-News.com - By combining the light from the two 10-m Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea on Hawaii using a method called interferometry, the scientists achieved an effective resolution equivalent to a telescope with a perfect 85-meter diameter mirror
What is space made of? : askscience - Space is nothing, by itself. - With the dimension of time, it become a 4D "fabric"
Physicists solve decade-old quantum mechanics problem | ScienceNordic - Scientists are now able to calculate exactly how atoms will behave in the physical world.
How are photons created? If I am in a dark room and turn on a light, where do the photons come from?
As gay marriage gains voter acceptance, study illuminates a possible reason - a single conversation can go a long way toward building lasting support for a controversial social issue. In addition—nearly as surprisingly—the effect tends to spill over to friends and family members.

? Zeitgeist 2014: Year In Review - YouTube
[Serious] Redditors who have died temporarily and came back to life, what did you see? : AskReddit

ASMR. Sounds that feel good
? Hypnosis: Hands Free Orgasm with Fiona Clearwater - YouTube
? Fiona's Hypnotic Induction - YouTube
? Hypnosis For Women: Hands Free Orgasm - YouTube
Full body energy orgasm with tantric massage - YouTube
Futanari: Dicks aren't Optional!

‘Revolving door’ spins between AT&T, GSA | Ars Technica - Wireless company hires top agency official and scores lucrative contract in 2014.

121314
Lima climate summit extended as poor countries demand more from rich | Environment | The Guardian - Talks stumble amid rising frustration over ‘ridiculously low’ cash commitments offered by rich nations to help pay for emissions cuts
UN Climate Talks Deadlocked Over Scope Of Pledges
Hill Heat : Paid by Peabody, Laurence Tribe Argues Coal Is 'Bedrock' to Economy
Survivor Series by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Usually, when a House Republican says that he accepts mainstream science, that Republican is forced into early retirement by wingnut primary voters (the anti-science party)

How Countries Around The World Are Coping With Falling Oil Prices - On Friday, the price of benchmark crude oil dropped to new five-year lows.

Amid Details on Torture, Data on 26 Who Were Held in Error - NYTimes.com - Mr. Bashmilah has told them of being tortured in Jordan before he was handed over to the C.I.A., which at times kept him shackled alone in freezing-cold cells in Afghanistan, subjected to loud music 24 hours a day. He attempted suicide at least three times, once by saving pills and swallowing them all at once; once by slashing his wrists; and once by trying to hang himself. Another time he cut himself and used his own blood to write “this is unjust” on the wall

On Torture Report, Colorado’s Udall Leaves Subtlety at Door on the Way Out - NYTimes.com
Fox Catches Dick Cheney Lying About Torture - The Atlantic - The former vice president's defense of brutal CIA interrogations is falling apart under scrutiny ... "There was no effort on our part to keep him from that." (but still, no one thinks about that)
Antonin Scalia's Case for Torture - The Atlantic - It's a surprising statement for a justice to make. After all, the Supreme Court has held torture to be unconstitutional since its ruling in Wilkerson v. Utah in 1878. In that case, the justices wondered what part of the Constitution would forbid such a cruel and unusual punishment:
Documents Shed New Light on Legal Wrangling Over Spying in U.S. - NYTimes.com - Mr. Bush, citing his powers as commander in chief, told the N.S.A. it did not need to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Obama really wanted to cover all this up)
Americans find some tortures more acceptable than others - Most Americans think torture can be justified, but hardly anyone thinks "rectal feeding" is acceptable
Hullabaloo - Who's the whiniest little spook in Washington? - None other than Michael Hayden who's been caught lying repeatedly to congress, to the press and probably everyone he's ever met:
CIA morale 'deeply hurt' following Senate report : news ("One man's laughter is another manslaughter")
Phoenix Program
Let’s not kid ourselves: Most Americans are fine with torture, even when you call it “torture” - The Washington Post
The American Mengeles: Drs. Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell
Imprisoned Former CIA Agent John Kiriakou Speaks About Torture, Prison, and the Future | National Security | Washingtonian - A jailhouse interview with the man whose disclosures prompted this week’s damning torture report. (only spook sent to prison was the one who told the truth)

Spy messages could finally solve mystery of UN chief’s death crash | World news | The Guardian - US urged to hand over intercepts to establish truth of 1961 plane accident in Zambia in which Dag Hammarskjöld died

Eric Holder Faces Another Bid for a Journalist to Testify - NYTimes.com

Dozens Killed In Afghanistan Violence As Foreign Troops Prepare To Leave
Islamic State Imposes Strict New Order in Mosul, and Deprivation Is a Result - NYTimes.com - Six months after the Islamic State seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, its efforts to overhaul the school system reflect the limits of its progress toward building a self-governing caliphate on the land it controls in Iraq and Syria.
The Teenage Fans of ISIS - The Atlantic - ISIS's online recruitment efforts have attracted the interest of young people far outside the Middle East.

Nats: computer failure behind London airport chaos was unprecedented | UK news | The Guardian - British airspace controller says inability of operators to see all flight plan data prompted restrictions on departures and landings
Sweden: Russian Military Jet Nearly Collides With Passenger Plane - said the aircraft's transponders, which make the plane visible to commercial radar, were shut off. Swedish fighter jets were sent up to identify the aircraft, and Hultqvist later identified it as a Russian intelligence plane.

Germany Reopens Case of Oktoberfest Bombing - NYTimes.com - More than 34 years after a bomb ripped through a festive Friday night crowd at the 1980 Oktoberfest in Munich, federal prosecutors announced that a witness they described as previously unknown had come forward and that they would reopen their investigation of Germany’s deadliest right-wing terrorist attack.

China tests hypersonic strike vehicle that can breach US missile shield - The Hindu
Symphysiotomy – Ireland’s brutal alternative to caesareans | Life and style | The Guardian - They were never asked for their consent – but symphysiotomy caused the Irish mothers subjected to it catastrophic long-term health problems. A compensation scheme has now begun, but the question remains: did religious dogma trump the women’s best interests? (of course not)
Legal Cannabis in the United States is Undercutting Mexican Drug Cartel Competition : worldnews

Why shouldn’t the Left have its own “tea party”? by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - More importantly, the establishment centrists have clearly failed the country. The public has never had less faith in social or government institutions than it does today.

Conde Nast offices at WTC still plagued with rats - NY Daily News - The rodents have pestered the staffs of Vanity Fair and Vogue. Conde told employees that they cannot eat at their desks and that a complaint will be made with the city’s health department. "A bunch ate through the ceiling of a sports editor's office and crawled all over his desk and left poops on his keyboard," said a different source. "They ate through his rug to fit under his door." (some kind of irony there)

The Democrats' Depressing New Reality - The Atlantic - The divisions that were on full display during the debate over a $1 trillion spending bill may become the norm in 2015. (as we move forward with our new Republican Pres)

Former Obama Aides Urging Elizabeth Warren To Run For President In 2016
The Levee Breaks: Democrats Rage Against Obama Over Wall Street Giveaway

Cruz center of Senate meltdown | TheHill
Warren makes her mark | TheHill

March In Washington Draws Thousands Of Protesters Demanding Justice For All
Thousands March On NYPD Headquarters To Protest Police Killings
Marches in S.F. and Oakland as part of national racial injustice protest - SFGate
State Police arrest 23 protesters in Boston - Metro - The Boston Globe

Post-Racial America - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Structural racism is obviously dead in this country: whites 13 times the net worth of blacks. Post-racial America indeed.
Black-White Wealth Gap Has Reached A 24-Year High
Questions That Aren't So Hard to Answer - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Here we have yet another article on the decline of the middle class, by which of course the author actually means the words you can’t say in America–the working class.
Why America’s middle class is lost | The Washington Post
Progress and Poverty - Henry George

Protests in Washington and New York against police killings – live coverage | US news | The Guardian - Thousands expected to march in cities around US including New York - Protests concern deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others
NY Police Union Doesn't Want De Blasio At Cop Funerals
How far will cop unions go to halt reform? | UTSanDiego.com - The arrest this week of two ex-cop private investigators — charged with felonies related to their alleged attempt to frame a Costa Mesa city councilman for a false DUI — is about more than the disturbing tactics of two hired guns. It offers insight into the way some police unions across California intimidate political opponents into silence.

Scene at botched Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was 'a bloody mess' | World news | The Guardian - Doctor squirted with blood after hitting condemned man’s artery - Court documents describe confusion and distress in execution chamber


Inside the Collapse of The New Republic - The New Yorker
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Canceled Her 'New Republic' Subscription: Report
The Top 40 Hot Takes on "The New Republic," in Order from Worst to Best - The Awl

The Conservation Biology Divide - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Conservation biologists are currently in another civil war over the meaning of the field. In short, should conservation be concerned more with humans or should it be concerned more with biodiversity? I find these conversations frustrating because they are so either/or.
Bridging the Conservation Divide


Bill Nye: Creationism Is 'Raising A Generation Of Young People Who Can't Think' - Nye said he blames an older generation of evangelicals "who have very strong conservative views" and who are "reluctant to let kids learn about evolution." Their presence on school boards leads to debates over curriculum, Nye argued, which further inhibits schools' ability to teach facts. (facts are librul)

Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy - YouTube

Dark Matter Signal May Have Been Found In Mysterious X-Ray Data
Human DNA Shows Traces of 40 Million-Year Battle For Survival Between Primate and Pathogen - “What this study shows us is that over the last 40 million years of primate evolution, this battle for iron between bacteria and primates has been a determining factor in our survival as a species.” The study models an approach for uncovering reservoirs of genetic resistance to bacterial infections, knowledge that could be used to confront antibiotic resistance and emerging diseases.
Does DNA store meta-data about its history? : askscience
The Epigenetics of Maternal Cigarette Smoking During Pregnancy and Effects on Child Development - “fetal programming”


121214
Court rejects attempt to allow Edward Snowden into Germany | US news | The Guardian - The government has argued that Snowden’s presence in Germany could impair relations with the US and put it under pressure to extradite him.

Why Do Republicans Defend Torture? -- NYMag - Here, finally, was the brutal moral logic of Cheneyism on bright display. The insistence by his fellow partisans on averting their eyes from the horrible truth at least grows out of a human reaction. Cheney does not even understand why somebody would look away. His soul is a cold, black void.
War Criminal's Terrible Arguments Look Even More Terrible - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Look who’s back to defend the indefensible — Mr. John Yoo: (comment: "If a tenured professor can loose his job over a tweet, how can Berkeley justify employing the author of the memo justifying torture?")
Prosecute John Yoo, Says Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky | The Nation - Torture is a crime, a violation of the Federal Torture Act.
CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in ‘any country in the world,’ says U.N. official – Amanpour - CNN.com Blogs
Torture Is Who We Are - The Atlantic - A country, like a person, is what it does.
CIA officials stand their ground and strike back over torture report | US news | The Guardian - Some former directors and advisers call Senate investigation biased while others say interrogations yielded important information
Bush And Members Of His Presidency Act With Ingratitude With CIA Torture Report Release - Esquire - The Iraq War always has been the elephant in the room as the investigations into the crimes of the last administration as regards torture were investigated ("leaks" are happening)
Jonah Goldberg's Absurd Take On The Torture Taboo - Esquire - And, if I were your husband, madam...I mean, Jesus, the Gestapo knew sleep deprivation was torture, as did the Nuremberg tribunal and the Far East Tribunal, the latter which also knew that waterboarding was torture. Every time, even "at first." (Jonah "doughy pantload" Goldberg defending torture)
Eschaton: They Enjoyed It - As with just about everything else that happens in the name of our security state, things aren't usually done for the stated reasons. Money is often the reason, but it isn't the only one. Why torture a bunch of innocent people who you know have no information? For kicks and giggles, of course. (and to appear "tough" on terrorism)
Untrained CIA Agents Were Just Making Up Torture Methods As They Went Along | Mother Jones - The untrained interrogators were quite literally "left to their own devices."
Ex-CIA director defends rectal rehydration | TheHill - Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Thursday defended revelations from Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats that the agency used rectal rehydration on detainees. “These were medical procedures,” Hayden said during a tense interview
The ‘24’ Effect - Yahoo News - Did the TV drama convince us that torture really worked?

'The Chechen wars murdered Russian democracy in its cradle' | World news | The Guardian - Twenty years after the fighting began, Dmitry Muratov recalls an extraordinary phone call with the man Boris Yeltsin said was impossible to get on the line

Pope Francis Says All Dogs Go To Heaven - Esquire - I think, in his own sanctified, infallible way, he's just fking with them now.

Three teenagers suffer injuries in shooting outside north Portla - KPTV - FOX 12 - Three teenagers were taken to a hospital after a shooting outside Rosemary Anderson High School in Portland on Friday.

Obama's New Triangulation Strategy Has Democrats On Edge - "I'm enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this," she said from the floor. "I feel sad for the American people today," Pelosi said)
Liberals: Obama abandoned us - Edward-Isaac Dovere and Burgess Everett - POLITICO - The left revolts, saying Obama gave up too easily on spending bill.
Congressional Democrats take a stand with spending bill - The Washington Post (and lose, but still ...)
Power Building In The House As Congress Tries To Erase Work of Obama's Presidency - Esquire - And, of course, thanks to some impressive arm-twisting by a Democratic administration hell-bent on helping out a Republican speaker, the Unleash The Hounds derivatives provision sailed through. And the slow, steady and inexorable campaign to render this president a non-person in the long sweep of history continues apace.
Wall Street: Banking Lobbyists Block Transparency Bill, Advocates Say
Democrats who voted for the CRomnibus have received twice as much money from the finance industry as the ‘no’ voters - The Washington Post
Wall Street’s Win on Swaps Rule Shows Washington Resurgence - Bloomberg
Conservatives rage against the machine - Seung Min Kim and Lauren French - POLITICO - A clearly put-out Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) groused: “We call it the crummybus.”
JPMorgan CEO helped whip votes | TheHill
Chances Elizabeth Warren Runs for President Increased This Week | New Republic

What Democrats whine about when they whine about ObamaCare - The Week - Leading members of President Obama's party continue to second-guess his health care law. Here's what they get wrong.


Think your milk and eggs are ‘organic’? These aerial farm photos will make you think again. - The Washington Post (remember when they decided industrial farming could be "organic?")

NYT's Dean Baquet Blasts 'Ham-Handed' New Republic Owner Chris Hughes (accidental richbrolibertariandude innovates his was into the reputation shredder)
Chris Hughes: From savior to villain at the New Republic - The Washington Post - “It was almost Stalinist the way he did not mention Richard’s name once,” said Alec MacGillis, a former New Republic staff writer. “It was like he had been disappeared. .?.?. It should have sent off more of a warning sign.”

What progressives don't want to talk about in the Rolling Stone scandal - The Week - A presumption of truth in every rape accusation is an impossible standard. And it's doing real damage to the cause of fighting sexual assaults.
Sabrina Erdely Was Once Disciplined By Stephen Glass For Fabrication - And you thought this whole story couldn’t get more bizarre
Sabrina Rubin Erdely's Old Stories Sure Read Like Bad Lifetime Movies
The full demise of Rolling Stone’s rape story - The Washington Post
New Questions Raised About Rolling Stone's UVA Rape Story - ABC News - The college students described as friends of the alleged rape victim Jackie in an explosive Rolling Stone article revealed their identities to ABC News today, and said that some of the magazine's story is false.

Leaked Emails Suggest Maureen Dowd Promised To Show Sony Exec's Husband Column Before Publication - BuzzFeed News - The end result: kudos at the studio and an email from Dowd after it published saying, “you’re amazing.” Update: Dowd says she didn’t send an advance copy of the column.

Creed Singer Scott Stapp Threatened To Kill Obama, According To Wife's 911 Call - Stapp said. "I believe that the IRS situation is definitely a result of me expressing my dissatisfaction with President Obama. Absolutely, 100 percent."

Cleveland medical examiners rule death of Tamir Rice a homicide | US news | The Guardian - Officer shot and killed 12-year-old black child on playground as youngster was holding a toy handgun
Cop Shows Up At Penn Student's Room To Question Her About Activist Facebook Post | Crooks and Liars - If only they were this diligent about investigating right-wing domestic terrorists.
Oakland undercover officer who drew gun on protesters 'could have shot anyone' | US news | The Guardian - After their cover was blown, two plainclothes officers found themselves in a melee with demonstrators and a freelance photographer captured the incident on film
Phoenix police officer who shot black man said he mistook bottle of pills for gun | US news | The Guardian - Police department says officer, who is white, believed suspect had a gun during a struggle outside an apartment building in Phoenix
Was my 17-year-old son lynched, in the year 2014? The police still won't tell me | Claudia Lacy | Comment is free | The Guardian
Asthma attack kills man stopped by cops - An asthma attack killed Casey Kressin after police stopped his girlfriend for speeding as she rushed him to the hospital.

Women of Reddit: what are your big dick stories? NSFW : AskReddit - When he first whipped it out, I didn't know whether to suck it or feed it a peanut.

Furious Google Ended MPAA Anti-Piracy Cooperation | TorrentFreak - After delivering a major blow to torrent sites during October, Google must've thought the MPAA would be pleased. Instead, however, the MPAA issued a 'snarky' press release. According to a leaked email, the press release so infuriated Google's top brass that the company ended cooperation with the MPAA.

121114
U.S. Tells Court That Documents From Torture Investigation Should Remain Secret - NYTimes.com - The Obama administration has urged a court to reject a request to disclose thousands of pages of documents from a Justice Department investigation into the torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency, including summaries of interviews with about 100 witnesses and documents explaining why in the end no charges were filed.
Obama Catches Blame on Tactics of Torture That He Ended - NYTimes.com
U.S. Tells Court That Documents From Torture Investigation Should Remain Secret - NYTimes.com - The Obama administration has urged a court to reject a request to disclose thousands of pages of documents from a Justice Department investigation into the torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency, including summaries of interviews with about 100 witnesses and documents explaining why in the end no charges were filed. (Cover-upperer-in-Chief)
After Report on C.I.A. Torture, No More Disclosure - NYTimes.com (that's all you need to know, and you didn't even need to know that)

C.I.A. First Planned Jails Abiding by U.S. Standards - NYTimes.com - a glimpse of a possible alternative history
Bush Team Approved C.I.A. Tactics, but Was Kept in Dark on Details, Report Says - NYTimes.com

Mark Udall Had Something To Get Off His Chest - Esquire - Udall called on Obama "to purge" his administration of anyone who was engaged in torturing prisoners. "He needs to force a cultural change at the CIA," Udall said. And, Udall said, the institutional problems are far from over. "CIA was knowingly providing inaccurate information to the committee in the present day," he said.
Senator Mark Udall Esquire Interview - CIA Torture Report Release - Esquire - And that this is about America's 'moral challenge,' not effectiveness.

The CIA Is Still Running Amok - Tim Weiner - politico Magazine
Americans Have Become More Accepting of Use of Torture - NYTimes.com - 40 percent of Democrats said torture could be justified sometimes or often. That rose to 55 percent among independents and 61 percent among Republicans. (Republicans love torture)
Panel Faults C.I.A. Over Brutality and Deceit in Terrorism Interrogations - NYTimes.com - routinely misled the White House and Congress about the information it obtained, and failed to provide basic oversight of the secret prisons it established around the world
John Brennan On CIA Torture Program: 'We Simply Failed'
Russia Denounces U.S. Over C.I.A. Torture Report - NYTimes.com - The Russian government, in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website, said the report provided “confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities.”

Dick Cheney on torture report: 'Full of crap' - Kendall Breitman - POLITICO - “He knew the techniques; we did discuss the techniques,” Cheney said. “There was no effort on our part to keep him from that.” (you know, that "our")
In the Darkness of Dick Cheney by Mark Danner | The New York Review of Books

Edward Snowden on the CIA's secret torture report – video | US news | The Guardian
Architects of C.I.A. Interrogation Drew on Psychology to Induce ‘Helplessness’ - NYTimes.com - The architects of the C.I.A.'s interrogation program have been identified as James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. (your move, APA and World Court)
It’s Cruel. It’s Useless. It’s the C.I.A. - NYTimes.com - the fact that the waterboarding, ice baths and wall-slamming were conducted under the direction of an outside contractor.
ELI5: Why would the CIA torture if torture "doesn't work"? Wouldn't they want the most effective tool to gather intelligence? : explainlikeimfive

Authorizing Military Force Must Have Limits - NYTimes.com - Authorizing Military Force Must Have Limits

Boko Haram: The Other Islamic State - NYTimes.com - Since the public execution of Boko Haram's founder in 2009 by Nigerian security forces, a hard-line militant, Abubakar Shekau, has led this makeshift army of Islamist fighters through years of escalating attacks on government personnel, religious leaders, young students, crowded mosques and marketplaces.
Hong Kong Police Begin Removing Protesters as Dismantling of Camp Proceeds - NYTimes.com
Drug Trade Transforms an Amazon Outpost - NYTimes.com - With Brazil emerging as the world’s second-largest consumer of cocaine after the United States, the Amazon is gaining importance as a smuggling domain

Isis: the inside story | Martin Chulov | World news | The Guardian - One of the Islamic State’s senior commanders reveals exclusive details of the terror group’s origins inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers. Report by Martin Chulov (that whole cause and effect thing is very hard to understand)
Guantánamo prisoners released to Uruguay: 'We are so happy to be here' | World news | The Guardian - Six former US detainees who were never charged with a crime, were flown to Uruguay on Sunday to begin new lives as refugees


New Leak Reveals Luxembourg Tax Deals for Disney, Koch Brothers Empire | International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Gun Arrests With 2 Things in Common: The Officers and Unidentified Informers - NYTimes.com - The suspects said the guns were planted by the police
More Americans Support Gun Rights Over Controls, Pew Poll Finds - NYTimes.com - Fifty-two percent of respondents said it was more important to protect gun ownership rights, while 46 percent said the priority should be controlled accesss to death machines)


No, Illinois Did Not Just Pass A Law Making It Illegal To Record Police Officers - State Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D), a lead cosponsor of the bill, admitted the expanded number of circumstances where police may surreptitiously record or otherwise intercept communications was a trade-off for allowing the protections of public recordings to be included, the Associated Press reported. (because the Supreme Court wasn't good enough, so they bargained)

Rolling Stone Ducks Questions As UVA Rape Story Keeps Unraveling - The three students -- identified by Rolling Stone and the Post as “Randall,” “Andy,” and “Cindy” –- gave an account to the Post for Wednesday's story that differed significantly from the one described by contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely in her explosive 9,000-word article about Jackie's ordeal published online Nov. 19.

Harvard Professor Apologizes For Battle With Chinese Restaurant - Associate professor Benjamin Edelman had threatened legal action and demanded the Sichuan Garden in Brookline compensate all other customers who might have been similarly overcharged after he said it charged him $1 more on each of the four items he ordered for takeout last week.
There’s More: Edelman Did This Before, And Worse - Restaurants - Boston.com

The three students -- identified by Rolling Stone and the Post as “Randall,” “Andy,” and “Cindy” –- gave an account to the Post for Wednesday's story that differed significantly from the one described by contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely in her explosive 9,000-word article about Jackie's ordeal published online Nov. 19.
Supermodel Beverly Johnson says Bill Cosby drugged her in 1980s | World news | The Guardian - Pioneering African American model and actress has brought the number of women who have put their name to allegations against Cosby to almost two dozen
FBI Understates Hate-Motivated Attacks on Transgender People - BuzzFeed News

Self-publishing: a revolution for writers, not readers | Books | The Guardian - Apple's iBookstore is the latest to promote self-published authors. But how will this benefit readers?
The 100 greatest non-fiction books | Books | The Guardian

How exactly did comets deliver 326 million trillion gallons of water to Earth? : askscience
Frost line (astrophysics)
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the associat... - PubMed - NCBI - A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat.
Prenatal exposure to common household chemicals linked with substantial drop in child IQ -- ScienceDaily - Children exposed during pregnancy to elevated levels of two common chemicals found in the home -- di-n-butyl phthalate and di-isobutyl phthalate -- had an IQ score, on average, more than six points lower than children exposed at lower levels,

Can We Guess What You're Really Attracted To
What's the most erotic sentence you can make with 5 words? [NSFW] : AskReddit
[Serious] Straight guys who've been with Transgender girls, what were your experiences like? : AskReddit
What's the coolest thing I could reasonably put on my desk at work? : AskReddit
ChokingVictim comments on [WP] Wikipedia is shut down and all copies deleted for lack of funds and loss of net neutrality. This is the founder's "I warned you, jerks" notification.
All men should watch this video. A warning of what a woman can try to do to you. Imagine if this wasn't on camera. : videos
'Atrocious, mobile sucks': Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman on what site has become : technology

Men of Reddit, what is something that has surprisingly turned you on? : AskReddit (orgasmic hypnosis videos)

121014
Drug-resistant infections to lead to 10 million extra deaths a year – report | Society | The Guardian - Global leaders urged to act on superbugs that could devastate world’s most populous countries such as India and China

CIA report could lead to prosecutions of Americans abroad | US news | The Guardian - Human rights groups say actions on foreign soil could fall under those countries’ legal jurisdictions or the ICC in The Hague
CIA torture report: human rights groups call for prosecutions – live | US news | The Guardian - Amnesty USA director says ‘torture is a crime and those responsible must be brought to justice’ after report details controversial CIA methods
UN Expert Calls For Prosecution Over U.S. Torture
CIA torture report: global reaction roundup | US news | The Guardian - UN calls for prosecution of Bush-era officials who sanctioned CIA torture programme detailed by Senate’s intelligence committee
CIA cites Israeli court ruling to "justify" torture program | The Electronic Intifada

Shock and anal probe: reading between the redactions in the CIA torture report | The panel | Comment is free | The Guardian
Off the Grid: Nine CIA 'Black Sites' Where Detainees Were Tortured - The Intercept

CIA lied to the public and John Brennan must quit, says outgoing senator in fiery speech | US news | The Guardian - Mark Udall, who lost his seat in Colorado last month, said the still-classified portions of the Senate report on CIA torture, represented a ‘smoking gun’
John Brennan Must Go - Esquire - The reason for this is simple. Either Brennan shares the administration's support of the report issued yesterday in the Senate regarding the international horror show the U.S. conducted around the world, or he is utterly insubordinate and deserves to be fired merely for that, and (I believe) Brennan has made that decision a very easy one.

White House under pressure as calls for CIA accountability grow stronger | US news | The Guardian - Democratic senator calls for purge of top officials in the CIA - White House rejects claims agency misled President Bush
Obama's long arc on torture - Josh Gerstein - politico - He promised a ‘reckoning’ … in 2008. What happened?
How Obama Backed Impunity For War Crimes « The Dish - Far from ensuring that these awful crimes never happen again, Obama has all but ensured that they will. That will be part of his legacy: the sounds of a torture victim crying in the dark, and knowing that America is fine with it

Torture Goes Against the Very Soul of Our Country | Sen. Dianne Feinstein
CIA unlikely to lose power in wake of interrogation report - The Washington Post
More Than A Quarter Of The World's Countries Helped The CIA Run Its Torture Program - , the intelligence community has long been concerned that the Senate document would enable readers to identify the many countries that aided the CIA's controversial torture program between 2002 and roughly 2006.
Here Are The Most Horrific Details From The Senate Torture Report
Lawyers for Detainees Press for More Details on CIA Interrogations - Washington Wire - WSJ
What happens after the torture report? How the CIA's victims can still get justice | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - The cowardly Obama administration wants America’s ‘brutal’ history to become just that. But torture is a war crime. Let’s investigate the architects. Let’s make sure this kind of rampant criminality never happens again
Senator calls for 'purge' of officials who violated anti-torture laws – live | US news | The Guardian - Senator Mark Udall blasts CIA on Senate floor - Udall accuses White House of aiding CIA at president’s expense (and he would do that because?)People who violated anti-torture laws sit in high-level positions in the US government right now, Udall said, and they need to be purged.

Hayden’s testimony vs. the Senate report - Washington Post
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden: 'I Didn't Lie' About Torture

Mark Udall Says The CIA Is Still Lying - “It’s bad enough to not prosecute these officials, but to reward and promote them is incomprehensible,” Udall said. “The president needs to purge his administration.”

What The CIA Said It Learned Through Torture, But Didn't
Former CIA leaders go on offensive to deny claim torture was ineffective | US news | The Guardian - Former CIA staff launch new website as former directors and deputy directors insist interrogations produced vital information in al-Qaida fight
What the Torture Report Kept Hidden - The Daily Beast - The descriptions are excruciating in their detail. But other important aspects—from the Obama administration’s stalling to Syria and Libya’s role—are missing from the Senate report.
Senate Report Says Torture Program Was More Gruesome, Widespread Than CIA Claimed - The newly released document tears apart the CIA's past claims that only a small number of detainees were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques
Michael Hayden Is Not Sorry - Michael Hirsh - POLITICO Magazine - The Senate report rakes Bush’s former CIA director over the coals. He fires back in an exclusive interview.
How the torture report could unravel prosecution of alleged 9/11 masterminds | US news | The Guardian - Lawyers for detainees including Walid bin Attash and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed argue that CIA methods render evidence invalid

Exposing the CIA’s stain on America - The Washington Post
The horrors in America’s ‘dungeon’ should never have happened - The Washington Post

Architects Of CIA Torture Program Raked In $81 Million, Report Reveals - Two psychologists were paid $81 million by the CIA to advise on and help implement its brutal interrogation program targeting detainees in the war on terror, according to the Senate torture report summary released Tuesday - For six years, starting in 2002, the two psychologists operated what amounted to a feedback loop of torture, coming up with new ways to inflict pain on detainees and then convincing CIA brass that the harsh tactics had worked.
One of the two psychologists paid millions for designing the CIA's post-Sept. 11 program of brutal interrogations defends the treatment of al-Qaida detainees and disputes a critical Senate report.
Inspiration - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Worth remembering who influenced Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, the CIA, and all the other architects of American torture:
Republicans Argue Torture Helped America

Sen. Bob Kerrey: Partisan torture report fails America - Intelligence agencies need guidance to do better, Senate Democrats failed to provide it.
Such Is The Wisdom Of The Everyday Has-Been - Esquire - an editorial written by one of the most useless politicians ever, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who waited in his pumpkin patch all night before the Senate torture report was released, only to be disappointed when the Great Bipartisan Pumpkin failed to rise at midnight.
A Textbook Case of False Equivalency by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Bob Kerrey hasn’t read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s summary of the “Torture Report.” But he’s taken to the op-ed page of USAToday to condemn it. Why? This seems to be the biggie:

Planet Politics: America's Bloody Conscience - It showed that the Bush-era use of “enhanced interrogation methods” had "stained our national honor," he said. And he meant it. (but will all come out in the wash)
Rep. Peter King: Senate Report Not Torture, Just People Having "To Stand In Awkward Positions" - BuzzFeed News - Rep. Peter King says the 525-page Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention techniques does not detail torture, but instead just procedures that create what King described as “tremendous discomfort.”
Fox melts down after torture report: ‘The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome!’ - Fox News National Security Analyst K.T. McFarland insisted that Democrats were going to “do harm” to the country by angering terrorists.
Russell Brand on CIA torture: If rape is used to get info, then we’re already in Hell
Senate staffer tries to scrub 'torture' reference from Wikipedia's CIA torture article - An anonymous Wikipedia user from an IP address that is registered to United States Senate has tried, and failed, to remove a phrase with the word "torture" from the website's article on the Senate Intelligence Committee's blockbuster CIA torture report.
News Outlets Protest Exclusion From Senate Torture Report Briefing - The letter is signed by Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim, senior congressional correspondent Michael McAuliff, BuzzFeed Washington bureau chief John Stanton and Al Jazeera English executive producer Alan Fisher.

Thousands Gather At Hong Kong Protest Camp On Eve Of Shutdown

Bank of America sees $50 oil as Opec dies - "Our biggest worry is the end of the liquidity cycle. The Fed is done. The reach for yield that we have seen since 2009 is going into reverse”, said Bank of America.

Italian police target Mafia suspects in dawn raids in Umbria | World news | The Guardian - Sixty-one people arrested accused of extortion and drug-trafficking as police tackle infiltration of local economy

Pakistan family feud ends in massacre after 28 years | Reuters - A 60-year-old woman, her husband and their three children were axed to death in central Pakistan by the woman's family in revenge for the couple marrying 28 years ago, police said on Wednesday.

Thank You for This Moment by Valérie Trierweiler review – a triumph of self-obsessed raving | Books | The Guardian - “In just a few hours … my life was devastated and my future shattered into a million tiny pieces,” Trierweiler writes, in typically overblown language that would not look out of place in a teenager’s diary.

Alan Rusbridger to stand down as Guardian editor-in-chief | Media | The Guardian - After 20 years at the paper Rusbridger will leave next summer and replaces Liz Forgan as chair of the Scott Trust in 2016

Tears Of Sisyphus: Republicans Resurrect ACORN, Only To Murder It. Again.

Protests continue for fourth night in Berkeley and Oakland | US news | The Guardian - Demonstrators protest against police killings of unarmed black men, in the wake of grand jury decisions not to charge white police officers
Most White People Are Really Confident Their Local Police Treat Races Equally

‘The Power Broker,’ 40 Years Later - NYTimes.com - Robert Moses, near the end of his 44 years of power, had lost most of it, along with most of his popularity — when his name, which had once been a symbol of great achievements, had become a symbol of something quite different. (like a racist asshole)

Selective racial innocence - Lawyers, Guns & Money : America’s racial history has been, and will continue to be, a major impediment to a variety of worthwhile and necessary political projects.

Florida St. communications lecturer resigns after bemoaning ‘Northern fagoot elitism’ on Facebook - Deborah O’Connor - In her resignation letter, she claimed that the incident was “the only black mark” on her employment record. (a little tone-deaf, aren't we?)

Ben Edelman, Harvard Business School Professor, Goes to War Over $4 Worth of Chinese Food - If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a Harvard Business School professor thinks a family-run Chinese restaurant screwed him out of $4, you’re about to find out - Ben Edelman is an associate professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit
College student wins case forcing estranged parents to pay her tuition | Money | The Guardian - Parents find it increasingly difficult to help children pay for college tuition. So where does that leave them?

Science AMA Series: We are a Group of Researchers Exploring Auditory Hallucinations – People Who Hear Voices. Ask us Anything! : science
What Kinds of People Hear Voices? | Psychology Today - Rather than evaluating the evidence for nonclinical hallucinatory experiences, the authors of DSM-5 have simply ignored it.
Mothers Nurture Emotion In Their Daughters Over Their Sons - "Girls may be socialized early into a socioemotional orientation emphasizing emotional expressivity, making them more socially mature than boys," the researchers conclude.

Lena Dunham’s publisher says her alleged rapist “Barry” wasn’t actually named Barry - The Washington Post
Lena Dunham to amend memoir following legal threat over sexual assault details | Books | The Guardian - Future editions of Not That Kind of Girl will be altered to clarify that alleged attacker’s name is a pseudonym after man matching description of ‘Barry’ takes legal action

What quote always gives you chills? : AskReddit
FCKH8's holiday ad stars Sexist Santa and swearing 6-year-olds [video]

Angelina Jolie called 'minimally talented spoiled brat' in hacked Sony emails | Film | The Guardian - Revelations include David Fincher saying Adam Driver being cast in Star Wars was a ‘terrible idea’, while Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin complained about Jolie’s ‘insanity and rampaging ego’ (they really got a lot of juicy stuff)
Microsoft tells US: The world’s servers are not yours for the taking | Ars Technica - Redmond says the US would be aghast if a foreign government behaved as it does.
FBI doubts North Korea link to Sony Pictures hack | Technology | The Guardian - Investigators find no evidence of North Korean involvement in the studio’s crippling hack, but criticise its poor security

120914
Study finds early warning signals of abrupt climate change

The Food Line at a Syrian Refugee Camp : pics

Read The Senate Torture Report Here
Live Coverage of the Senate Torture Report - The Intercept
CIA torture program: Senate report details abuse of detainees – as it happened | US news | The Guardian - Feinstein: torture ‘far more brutal than people were led to believe’ UN calls for prosecutions - The CIA and White House had tried to block some or all of the report.
Shocking cases in CIA report reveal an American torture program in disarray | US news | The Guardian - Years of leaks about the CIA’s post-9/11 torture efforts failed to reveal a program as brutal, unaccountable and even chaotic as the one portrayed on Tuesday

Senate Torture Report Condemns C.I.A. Interrogation Program - NYTimes.com
The Senate Report on the C.I.A.’s Torture and Lies - NYTimes.com - At one point, the report says, the C.I.A. assured Congress that the behavior of the secret jailers and interrogators was nothing like the horrors the world saw at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. That was the closest the agency seems to have come to the truth — what happened appears to have been worse than what took place at Abu Ghraib.
Senate Torture Report Shows C.I.A. Infighting Over Interrogation Program - NYTimes.com
Senate Report Disputes C.I.A. Claims on Hunt for Osama bin Laden - NYTimes.com - But in page after page of previously classified evidence, the Senate Intelligence Committee report on C.I.A. torture, released on Tuesday, rejects the notion that the agency would not have found Bin Laden if it had not tortured detainees.
C.I.A. Kept Bush Ill Informed on Interrogation Tactics, Torture Report Says - NYTimes.com (but Cheney knew)
C.I.A. Kept Bush Ill Informed on Interrogation Tactics, Torture Report Says : worldnews
Dick Cheney Was Lying About Torture - Mark Fallon - POLITICO Magazine - The Senate report confirms it doesn’t work. As those of us on the inside knew.
For Dianne Feinstein, C.I.A. Torture Report’s Release Is a Signal Moment - NYTimes.com - . But she said history would judge the nation by its commitment to a “just society, a government of law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say never again.”
The Torture Report Reminds Us of What America Was - NYTimes.com - The Torture Report Reminds Us of What America Was (all in the past)

Senate's CIA torture report: everyone has an opinion except the White House | US news | The Guardian - Obama administration refuses to say whether it endorses scathing findings - Anonymous officials say their main job is to maintain CIA morale (because the morale of liars and torturers is very important)

The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’ - The Daily Beast - The CIA’s rendition, interrogation, and detention programs were even more nightmarish than you could imagine.
Rectal rehydration and broken limbs: the grisliest findings in the CIA torture report | US news | The Guardian
Senate Report Says Torture Program Was More Gruesome, Widespread Than CIA Claimed

The Torture Report, Part One: What It Says - Esquire
The Torture Report, Part Two: What It Means - Esquire
The Torture Report, Part Three: What Will Happen Now - Esquire

Stop believing the lies: America tortured more than 'some folks' – and covered it up | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - CIA defenders are out in force now that a historic report has exposed a decade of horrific American shame. Torture didn’t work, but why aren’t the architects of torture in jail? ("some folks" Obama at his sleazy best)
The Guardian view on the US torture report: America’s shame and disgrace | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian - Torturing detainees after 9/11 was wrong in principle, ineffective in practice, and has damaged the credibility of democracy, the rule of law and the USA
Senate report on CIA program details brutality, dishonesty - The Washington Post
Today’s CIA critics once urged the agency to do anything to fight al-Qaeda - The Washington Post
Hullabaloo - The president of the ACLU wants Obama to pardon the torturers
Remind Me Who It Is the CIA Works For? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But on the fundamental point - was America right to brutalise these terror suspects in an effort to extract information that could prevent the next September 11? - Brennan refuses to give ground.
Obama Responds To CIA Torture Report: Enhanced Interrogation 'Contrary To Our Values'
WATCH Fox Host Lose It Over Senate Torture Report: 'We Are Awesome!'

What US taxpayers paid to build and run the CIA’s torture program - Quartz - the US intelligence community’s $53 billion black budget remains largely secret, despite Edward Snowden’s leaks—we now have evidence of at least $480 million in funding.
The Inside Story Of How The CIA Actually Caught The 9/11 Mastermind, But Nearly Didn't

The myth of the good war | Geoffrey Wheatcroft | News | The Guardian - Our year of remembrance has exaggerated the tragic futility of the first world war and preserved the dangerous idea that the second was noble and heroic
Whitewashing Imperialism | Jacobin

What Bad, Shameful, Dirty Behavior is U.S. Judge Richard Posner Hiding? Demand to Know. - The Intercept - His rationale? “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” the distinguished jurist pronounced. Privacy, he explained, is something people crave in order to prevent others from learning about the shameful and filthy things they do:

Bloomberg Politics Poll: Approval Ratings Hit 5-Year High for GOP - Bloomberg Politics - President Obama's ratings hit bottom in a new Bloomberg Politics poll as he prepares to take on an antagonist Congress.

Concede Nothing: Democrats In The South - Esquire - My friend, Mountaineer Mike Tomasky -- Have fun at the Liberty Bowl, dude! --has raised him some ruckus by opining that the Democratic party basically should tell the Deep South to sod off for about the next 10 election cycles
Do Democrats Need to Hate on the South? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Like Schaller before him, Tomasky seems to be worried about concessions made by Democrats to appeal to southern white voters: (well, Ed, it's been 8 years and ...)

Rigging The Wheel: More True Tales Of The New Oligarchy_12.9.14 - Esquire - how a relatively small community of lawyers has developed a specialty in getting the NWS to hear cases in defense of their corporate clients, and how that group of attorneys and their firms have found the Roberts court to be a target-rich environment for their appeals.

The Personal and the Political | Jacobin - Individual narratives have their place in progressive struggles, but Rolling Stone’s controversial article shows why they have to be wedded to a wider analysis.

Eschaton: True Genius - With thinkers like this, how can we lose? (Steve Israel and his little bubble)

FBI Files Charges Against President Of Company Behind West Virginia Chemical Spill | ThinkProgress - The former president of the company that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians this past January has been arrested on criminal fraud charges, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint unsealed Monday.

Illinois General Assembly passes bill to ban citizens from recording police : news

Large Study Confirms That Abortion Is Extremely Safe | ThinkProgress - Major complications stemming from abortion are extremely rare, occurring in less than a quarter of a percent of cases, according to one of the nation’s most comprehensive studies to date into the safety of the medical procedure.

The New Republic's Race Problem - The Atlantic - It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that black lives didn't matter much at all to the magazine ... That explains why the family rows at TNR's virtual funeral look like the "Whites Only" section of a Jim Crow-era movie-house. For most of its modern history, TNR has been an entirely white publication, which published stories confirming white people's worst instincts
The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple - The Daily Beast
The Real Crisis of Journalism - The New Yorker - I highly doubt that Hughes wanted this debacle. He didn’t plan for a change at the top to expose the emptiness of his commitment to the hard work of journalism. (shallow richbroharvardzuckerdude)

Fox: Obama Seeks Advice on Establishing Monarchy - The New Yorker - President Barack Obama spent several hours on Monday in a closed-door Oval Office meeting seeking advice on how to establish a monarchy, Fox News reports.

The Potential Therapeutic Effects of THC on Alzheimer's Disease - Journal of Alzheimer's Disease - Volume 42, Number 3 / 2014 - IOS Press - These sets of data strongly suggest that THC could be a potential therapeutic treatment option for Alzheimer's disease through multiple functions and pathways
Groundbreaking Idea Of Life's Origin - Business Insider - “You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said. (see Into the Cold)
Women With More Male Friends Have More Sex Because Partners Fear ‘Sex Rivals’ : science

This Galaxy Is Belching Gas At 2 Million Miles An Hour
The Accidents of Psychoanalysis - NYTimes.com - Telling the story of her relationship with her mother took her the greater part of a number of years (5x/wk)
Mars Rover Finds Stronger Potential for Life - NYTimes.com

How does a black hole's singularity not violate the Pauli exclusion principle? : askscience

The Surprising Way That Comet Impacts Could Have Kick-Started Life on Earth - Popular Mechanics


The 14 Foods You've Been Storing All Wrong | Caroline Kaufman, RDN

TIL that students who have been in DARE classes are more likely to use drugs than their non-DARE peers : todayilearned (huge waste of money, time and resources fighting the war on drugz)
Men of Reddit, what do you wish your partner would do in bed that they currently don't? : AskReddit

The Pirate Bay Goes Down Worldwide : worldnews
The Rise of AdBlock Reveals A Serious Problem in the Advertising Ecosystem: seeing a threat to their ecosystem, French publishers follow their German colleagues and prepare to sue startup Eyeo GmbH, the creator of anti-advertising software AdBlock Plus : technology

120814
Mass surveillance exposed by Snowden ‘not justified by fight against terrorism’ | World news | The Guardian - Report by Nils Muižnieks, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, says ‘secret, massive and indiscriminate’ intelligence work is contrary to rule of law - “Suspicionless mass retention of communications data is fundamentally contrary to the rule of law … and ineffective,”

CIA torture report: spy agency braces for global impact of inquiry as release date nears | US news | The Guardian - Public airing of post-9/11 practices, coming after months of negotiation, is likely to attract attention worldwide and could come as early as Tuesday - Bloomberg first reported that the committee understood Kerry to be arguing for suppressing the report, though the State Department denies it - Yet the White House placed the CIA in charge of censoring a report into its own conduct and discussions have stretched into their 10th month". (who's in charge?)
Sexual threats, other CIA methods detailed in Senate report - Yahoo News

Dismissing Senate Report, Cheney Defends C.I.A. Interrogations - NYTimes.com
Exclusive: Former Spies Launch ‘CIASavedLives.com’ to Combat Torture Report (sendthemtothehague.com)
Bush and C.I.A. Ex-Officials Rebut Torture Report - NYTimes.com - But Mr. Bush and his closest advisers decided that “we’re going to want to stand behind these guys,” as one former official put it. (torture is patriotic)
CIA torture report: US raises security ahead of release - Security has been stepped up at US facilities around the world ahead of the release of a report expected to reveal details of harsh CIA interrogations, the White House says.
5 questions about the CIA detention and interrogation report you wish you didn’t have to ask - The Washington Post - Before the CIA began using these methods, the agency’s top officials were supposed to seek approval from the Justice Department. The department’s lawyers concluded the techniques did not constitute torture.

Pardon Bush and Those Who Tortured - NYTimes.com - My organization and others have spent 13 years arguing for accountability for these crimes. We have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor or the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission, or both. But those calls have gone unheeded. And now, many of those responsible for torture can't be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has run out
The insane narrative you are supposed to believe about the torture report - The Washington Post - I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that if Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham, and the director of Human Rights Watch all think the report is necessary to prevent the United States from committing the same egregious mistakes in the future, then that countermands the magical thinking needed to accept the worst-case scenarios regarding its publication.
The Torture Defenders Fan Out « The Dish - And yet, when a report is imminent outlining acts of torture and abuse far worse than Abu Ghraib, and directly under his own authority, he insists that whatever is detailed in the report, the culprits are heroes and patriots, and “we’re lucky as a nation to have them.”
Bush Officials Step Up To Blast Torture Report Before It's Out

Yemeni man hopes landmark torture report will prompt long-awaited apology | US news | The Guardian - Mohammed Abdullah Saleh al-Asad wants an apology from Djibouti, which is believed to have handed him to the US for CIA rendition (and that word ... torture)

US believed FBI mole passed secrets to IRA in Thatcher murder plot, files reveal | Politics | The Guardian - FBI agents suspected woman in New York bureau of helping IRA - Details made public following freedom of information request - FBI suspected British men of spying at US airports used by Thatcher and Major

Israel Debates Its Religious and Democratic Identity - NYTimes.com

The Democratic Party’s long term problem is worse than you think - The Washington Post - how to regain ground on the state level.

Dems, It’s Time to Dump Dixie - The Daily Beast - With Mary Landrieu’s ignominious exit, the Democrats will have lost their last senator in the Deep South. And that’s a good thing. They should write it off—because they don’t need it.

By the Numbers: Half of the Senators Who Voted for Obamacare Will be Gone in 2015 - Bloomberg Politics

Recovery at Last? - NYTimes.com

Inside the Koch data mine - Mike Allen and Kenneth P. Vogel - POLITICO
GOP pins hopes of dismantling ObamaCare on the courts | TheHill

The New Republic is dead, thanks to its owner, Chris Hughes - The Washington Post - But the moist-eyed Hughes would, in the coming months, prove himself to be neither an intellectual nor a partner but a dilettante and a fraud. (his toys revolted and now he looks like a dumb shit and a very shallow person)
Chris Hughes Lashes Out At Former 'New Republic' Staffers - "If you really care about an institution and want to make it strong for the ages, you don’t walk out. You roll up your sleeves, you redouble your commitment to those ideals in a changing world, and you fight. This 100-year-old story is worth fighting for." (has nothing to do with how he and his short-attention-span flunky treated them)
Revolt at the New New Republic - NYTimes.com
Crafting a sustainable New Republic - The Washington Post

Tamir Rice's sister handcuffed after shooting, mom says - CNN.com
Mother accuses police of mistreating family after Tamir Rice shooting | US news | The Guardian - Samaria Rice does not believe Cleveland police tried to resuscitate son - Family focused on indicting officer who shot 12-year-old dead
Barack Obama, Ferguson, and the Evidence of Things Unsaid - The Atlantic - Hope is what Barack Obama promised to bring, but he was promising something he could never bring.
Why Eric Garner is the turning point Ferguson never was - The Washington Post (well, why?)

Violence and the racialized failure of the American state [Guest Post By Lisa L. Miller] - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The United States, as a whole, fails to protect its citizenry from the risk of murder to the same degree as other rich democracies. But for Black Americans, this failure is astounding. The risk of being murdered is seven to eight times as high for Black men as white men, and three to four times as high for Black women as white women. More starkly, at the height of murder risk in the 1990s, the lifetime risk for Blacks was one in twenty-three, compared to one in 160 for whites.*

Updated apology digs bigger hole for Rolling Stone - The Washington Post
Former UVA Fraternity Member Hires Lawyer Who Specializes In Sex Assault Cases - BuzzFeed News
UVa Rape Victim's Freshman Roommate Defends Her Story 
UVA Victim’s Roommate Pens Letter Supporting Her -- NYMag
College rape: Campus sexual assault is a serious problem. But the efforts to protect women are infringing on the civil rights of men.
Doxxing Jackie: The vile and dangerous threats of Charles Johnson and other trolls.

Controversial Los Angeles high-rise destroyed by explosive overnight blaze | US news | The Guardian - No deaths after fire engulfs entire city block where Da Vinci complex stood - Blaze melted freeway signs, blew out windows and forced road closures - The Los Angeles Times’ leading columnist, Steve Lopez, has called them “Death Star monstrosities”. Another local architecture critic, Adrian Glick Kubler, dubbed them “vacuums designed to suck the life out of a neighborhood that has worked so hard to become lively in the past decade”.

'Survivalists' make up growing percentage of US holiday shoppers | Money | The Guardian - American retailers face influx of ‘survivalists,’ or low-wage workers, an increasing part of the US buying public with little disposable income - Because even if jobs are being created, wages are stagnant; indeed, median family income has been in decline for the last 14 years.

I am a transgender woman and the government is denying my civil rights | Chelsea E Manning | Comment is free | The Guardian

Jet Reports Near Miss With Drone At London's Heathrow Airport - "The risk of a 10 kilogram object hitting a plane is a real one that pilots are very concerned about," British Airline Pilots Association general secretary Jim McAuslan told the BBC, pointing to a 2009 incident in which US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to land in the Hudson River in New York after striking a bird. (a fleet of birds, actually, and most non-military drones weigh 1-4 lbs, not 22)

The Outsider « Eddie Selover - Veronica Lake

As More Documents Appear, Sony Seeks to Calm Nervous Employees - NYTimes.com - have seen their Social Security numbers, performance reviews, salaries, home addresses and passwords shared with the world

120714
New Horizons robotic probe awakened, begins exploration of Pluto - Technology & Science - CBC News - Journey of 4.8 billion kilometres took U.S. spacecraft 9 years - The probe is so far away that radio signals travelling at the speed of light take four hours and 25 minutes to reach Earth.

Are We Missing the Big Picture on Climate Change? - NYTimes.com

As Ebola Rages, Poor Planning Thwarts Efforts - NYTimes.com - But one piece is missing: staff. The facility opened recently with a skeleton crew. Now, in an especially hard-hit area where people are dying every day because they cannot get into an Ebola clinic, 60 of the 80 beds at the Kerry Town Ebola clinic are not being used.

Backsliding in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com - They were unable to defeat the Taliban when more than 100,000 American troops were in the country; there is no reason to think that a very limited American force will be more effective now. (always listen to the military)

The C.I.A.’s Power to Purge - NYTimes.com - Not only that, Mr. Aftergood found out the National Archives and Records Administration had already offered tentative approval in August of the plan to — as a spy might put it — disappear the email of every worker but the C.I.A.’s top 22 managers, three years after they left the agency.

U.S. Transfers 6 Guantánamo Detainees to Uruguay - NYTimes.com - Mr. Hagel’s slow pace this year in approving proposed transfers of low-level detainees contributed to larger tensions with the White House before his resignation under pressure last month.

Syria Army Repels Jihadist Advance on Key Air Base — Naharnet
Israel launches airstrikes near Damascus: Syria TV | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR
Clashes between Nusra, ISIL near Lebanon border | Al Bawaba - Clashes erupted between ISIL and Nusra Front fighters near the border with Lebanon Friday, after gunmen rejected an attempt by the latter to unite the opposition in Syria's Qalamoun region under a single leader ... There are around 18 separate groups based in Qalamoun, fighting on separate fronts.
Dubai stabbing suspect inspired by 'terrorist ideology' found on the internet | World news | The Guardian - A spate of attacks on westerners in Saudi Arabia has raised concern there that the assaults may represent the start of a “lone wolf” campaign by jihadi militants.

Former Vatican bank heads accused of embezzlement, accounts seized

Poland counts the cost of losing millions of its workers | Reuters - After 1.2 million of its citizens migrated in the ten years since Poland joined the European Union, the country is counting the economic and social cost. Though its workers may have eased demographic difficulties in ageing countries like Britain and Germany, Poland now has a population crisis of its own.

Remains Of One Of Mexico's Missing Students Identified: Official

Uber Driver In India Arrested For Allegedly Raping Female Passenger - Delhi recorded the highest number of rapes in India in 2013, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau data, earning the dubious distinction of being India's "rape capital."

Revealed thirty years on ... the secret role that America's Henry Kissinger played in the Bhopal tragedy | Herald Scotland - Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put pressure on the Indian Government to agree a legal settlement that let the American chemical company Union Carbide off the hook for the 25,000 people killed by the toxic gas disaster in Bhopal 30 years ago. (so much blood on his hands)

Theresa May’s child sexual abuse inquiry faces new storm | Society | The Guardian - Two members of panel face calls to resign after being accused of sending insulting letters to victims who criticised inquiry

GOP Gains Largest House Majority Since Truman Administration (America goes off the stupid cliff)

The Trouble With Cheap Oil - The New Yorker - High oil prices would force governments, corporations, and consumers to find another way to power the world. It was a nice dream, but it’s over now.
Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General - NYTimes.com - But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans - The Atlantic - It's repetitive for some to hear, but important for everybody to know: You can't explain Millennial economic behavior without explaining that real wages for young Americans have collapsed. (white boomers screwed everybody)
Tom Harkin Wants To Take Money From College Students To Pay Reviled Loan Contractors - An outgoing Senate Democrat wants to take federal money from low-income college students to pay student loan contractors, whose tactics toward borrowers have been criticized by consumer advocates, federal regulators and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. (Blue Dog on his way out still being a jerk)

Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy in Louisiana Senate Runoff - NYTimes.com - For Democrats, Saturday’s outcome was yet another sobering reminder of their party’s declining prospects in the South, a region they dominated for much of the 20th century. (maybe the Dems will try running a Dem)
Mary Landrieu Loses To Bill Cassidy In Louisiana Senate Runoff Election - But a last-ditch effort to distance herself from national Democrats -- with a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline -- failed by one vote last month, undermining Landrieu's longstanding claim to posses more clout than Cassidy would as a freshman senator.

The Rolling Stone Fiasco Is Terrible News for Rape Survivors - The Atlantic - When sexual assault reports turn out to be inaccurate—even slightly so—nobody wins.
JustOneMinute: If You Were An Early Reader Of the WaPo UVA Rape Expose...
Terrence McCoy on Twitter: "Let's be clear about one thing. Fraudulent accusations of rape are extraordinarily rare. This graph proves it. http://t.co/mX7xPHvMkZ"
The rape of men: the darkest secret of war | Society | The Guardian - Sexual violence is one of the most horrific weapons of war, an instrument of terror used against women. Yet huge numbers of men are also victims. In this harrowing report, Will Storr travels to Uganda to meet traumatised survivors, and reveals how male rape is endemic in many of the world's conflicts

Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix. - The Washington Post - The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police.
Eric Garner complicit in own death says police union - CBS News - Garner was overweight and in poor health. Police and their supporters argue that if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," as he did several times, it means he could breathe.
Police use tear gas on Berkeley protesters - SFGate
De Blasio: Giuliani 'Fundamentally Misunderstands the Reality' of Race - The Atlantic - New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday admonished former mayor Rudy Giuliani for his repeated recent comments that "responsibility is on the black community" for reducing the necessity of police officers in their communities.
No felony charges for SPD cop’s bone-breaking punch of handcuffed woman | Local News | The Seattle Times - The decision not to charge a Seattle police officer who punched a handcuffed woman reflects a deep divide between King County prosecutors and City Attorney Pete Holmes.
Does an Innocent Man Have the Right to Be Exonerated? - The Atlantic - And yet, when Henry Lee McCollum walked free, Justice Scalia never said a word.

American who helped craft Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill to be tried for crimes against humanity | Death and Taxes - The First Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Pastor Scott Lively’s petition to have a crimes against humanity lawsuit against him dropped ... Lively has not backed down. Earlier this week, during an appearance on “Trunews,” he stated that homosexuality was worse than mass murder, because it was to blame for Noah’s flood.

Hunting for the Origins of Symbolic Thought - NYTimes.com - When he first started excavating Blombos in 1991, few researchers believed that symbolism might have emerged before 50,000 years ago. (+Europe didn't invent thinking)

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - The Atlantic - Not only have most of coffee's purported ill effects been disproven -- the most recent review fails to link it the development of hypertension -- but we have so, so much information about its benefits. We believe they extend from preventing Alzheimer's disease to protecting the liver.
Foreskin: Keep or Cut? - The Atlantic - This week, in a report free of references to jails or lunatic asylums, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said research on circumcision points toward a lot of potential benefits and not a lot of risks, beyond "minor bleeding and inflammation."

After Exodus, The New Republic Cancels Its Next Issue - NYTimes.com - The New Republic magazine said on Saturday that it would not publish its next issue, but would return to newsstands in February next year, after dozens of its top editors and contributors resigned in the face of a leadership change ... More than 50 editors and contributing editors have followed Mr. Foer and Mr. Wieseltier in resigning, according to Ryan Lizza, a contributor who was among those that quit. (Chris Hughes is kinda Asbergery)
Staff at The New Republic Follows Editor Out the Door - NYTimes.com - Mr. Hughes seemed hurt by the idea that his staff had turned against him (and his clueless techbro Steve Jobs wannabe)

A Step-by-Step Guide to Berkeley’s Many Quirks - NYTimes.com
Quirky Berkeley | Major Quirky #3: Orange!
In Los Angeles, a Nimby Battle Pits Millionaires vs. Billionaires - NYTimes.com - the house, conceived by Nile Niami, a film producer turned developer, with an estimated sale price “in the $150 million range,” will feature a cantilevered tennis court and five swimming pools. “We’re talking 200 construction trucks a day,
Brooklyn Worst in U.S. for Home Affordability - Bloomberg - Brooklyn, New York, where a resident would need to devote 98 percent of the median income to afford the payment on a median-priced home of $615,000, was the least-affordable market, followed by San Francisco and Manhattan. (hipsters win)
Where to Move If You Want a Job, More Money, or Lots of Single People - The Atlantic (Springfield MA for singles)

You can’t detox your body. It’s a myth. So how do you get healthy? | Life and style | The Guardian - If toxins did build up in a way your body couldn’t excrete, he says, you’d likely be dead or in need of serious medical intervention.
The Couples Therapy Expert Esther Perel Takes On Sex and Sexuality - NYTimes.com - “Not every infidelity is a symptom of a problem in a relationship,” she said. “Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with; you are not liking the person you have become.”
How to Win a Breakup on the Internet - The Atlantic - A "winning the breakup" advice column on the site Ask Men—which is seriously the name of a publication, even though that's basically the premise of every publication—does recommend "going cold turkey" at the end of a relationship
William Styron's 'Darkness Visible' Shined a Light on Depression, 25 Years Ago - The Atlantic - Twenty-five years ago, William Styron's autobiography drew attention to the reality of depression.
First Children Are Smarter—but Why? - The Atlantic - "Those born earlier perform better in school"—and according to a new study, it's because of the parents.
PLOS ONE: Excess Success for Psychology Articles in the Journal Science - Eighty-three percent of the Psychology/Education articles with four or more experiments that were published in Science (2005–2012) have an excess of success, which suggests that their results are too good to be true
Tim Harford — Article — Learn from the losers - Kickended is important. It reminds us that the world is biased in systematic ways
Why Save a Language? - NYTimes.com - the looming extinction of most of the world’s 6,000 languages, a great many of which are spoken by small groups of indigenous people.
Mindfulness Short-Circuits Reflexive Racial Bias - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - New research finds implicit bias can be tamed through the use of time-honored meditation techniques.
Facts? We Don’t Need No Stinking Facts! - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - When faced with facts that contradict our beliefs, we shift to relying on untestable assertions.
A Trip Into Bipolar Brains - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - Type I sufferers have somewhat smaller brain volume, researchers report in the Journal of Affective Disorders, while those with Type II appear to have less robust white matter.
Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg on Discrimination at Work - NYTimes.com

The California Sunday Magazine - In recent years, this enclave has been ripped apart by a modern holy war, led by a divisive spiritual leader who ended up on the F??BI’s Ten Most Wanted list and is now in prison. The majority of Short Creek residents remain loyal to him and his sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F??LDS.

The Quartz Chart of the Year™ short-list is here - Quartz
Serial: The Syed family on their pain and the ‘five million detectives trying to work out if Adnan is a psychopath’ | Television & radio | The Guardian
YouTubers with over 100,000 subscribers - what's your story? : AskReddit

Rogue computerised cameras plague BBC news presenters | Media | The Guardian - The robot cameras were designed to do away with camera operators and save money. However computer glitches mean that sometimes they do not do what they are supposed to. (wait 'til they get their robot presenters)

How an eBay bookseller defeated a publishing giant at the Supreme Court | Ars Technica - Supap Kirtsaeng is a rebel without a pause, as the copyright fight isn't over yet.
Here’s some remarkable new data on the power of chat apps like WhatsApp for sharing news stories » Nieman Journalism Lab - So what happens if you only look at mobile shares? - You get this: Facebook 25%, WhatsApp 48%, Twitter 15%, and Google+ 11%. - WhatsApp gets nearly half of the sharing taps on mobile. (in Spain)
Algorithm fatigue: What Evernote’s news-recommending product can tell us about privacy » Nieman Journalism Lab - As you type a note, Evernote not only searches for and provides relevant material from your own and colleague’s work, but also from third-party news organizations.

19 hospitalized, thousands evacuated in gas leak at Rosemont hotel - Chicago Tribune - Several thousand people, some dressed as animal characters, were evacuated from a Hyatt hotel in suburban Rosemont when an “intentional” chlorine gas incident at the Midwest FurFest convention led to 19 people being hospitalized early Sunday morning. (now we're really in comic-book land)

120614
Typhoon Slams Into Philippines, 1 Million Evacuated
California Drought, High Temperatures Create Worst Conditions In 1,200 Years

Al-Qaida kills two hostages in Yemen as high-stake rescue bid ends in tragedy | World news | The Guardian - British-born photojournalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie die after US-led raid on hideout
Hostages Luke Somers, Pierre Korkie Killed During Rescue Attempt In Yemen

Mark Udall on the CIA Torture Report - Mark Udall Says America Will Be Disgusted at Torture Report - Esquire - And that he'll use every power he still has to declassify it.
The CIA Torture Report May Not Be Released After All » Balloon Juice - The Obama Administration: Despair you can believe in. http://t.co/CfOipLvVp9 — Billmon (@billmon1)

CCC | Chaos Computer Club on the blocking of our website in UK - These internet filters, authorized by Prime Minister David Cameron, are implemented by UK’s major internet service providers (ISPs). Dubbed as the "Great Firewall of Britain", the lists block adult content as well as material related to alcohol, drugs, smoking, and even opinions deemed "extremist". [2] (following China and Russia)
The World Cracks Down on the Internet - The New Yorker - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed in March, “We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic.”
Chief constable warns against ‘drift towards police state’ | UK news | The Guardian - Greater Manchester’s Sir Peter Fahy says it is not the police’s job to define what counts as extremism
State sanctions phone and email tapping - Companies that object to order could be brought before private ‘in camera’ court - Irish Times


Vote for same sex marriage would be 'grave injustice': Irish church | Reuters (from the experts on grave injustice)

210 women tortured to death for 'witchcraft' in Chhattisgarh, many await justice - The Times of India - RAIPUR: Even as Chhattisgarh witnessed around 1,500 incidents and 210 deaths of women assaulted for practices witchcraft in last few years, three women wait for justice after suffering assault, paraded naked, tonsured and forced to consume urine over similar accusations 13 years ago at Gariyaband's Lachkhera region.

The Retirement Situation: It's Worse Than You Read In the NYT | Beat the Press - he disappearance of traditional defined benefit pensions. He notes that millions of workers in multi-employer plans are at risk of sharp reductions in benefits. Detroit city workers and retirees have already seen sharp declines in benefits.

South African comedian Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, absolutely kills it : videos (comments, as usual, sort by Best)
The Last Great Stand » How to Survive Martial Law! – detailed guide! - Rule #1: Never Trust The Government Unless They Say They Are Going To Kill You
Anonymous has released a video featuring what appear to be Chicago police radio transmissions revealing police wiretapping of organizers' phones at the protests last night. : news

Senate Forecast: Landrieu Headed Toward Historic Defeat In Louisiana Runoff | FiveThirtyEight

White America’s moral disaster: From Eric Garner to Mike Brown, a destructive view of “justice” - Salon.com - Eric Garner is just one example of black life devalued. Here's how white victimization is tearing the nation apart
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - White Supremacy is Almost Respectable Again | Booman Tribune ~ comment

Questions over charter school payments to contractor - ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, the North Philadelphia charter-school operator that manages Olney, paid $163,365 to Lyon Contracting Inc. to paint the school in 2011. But employees who recently learned of the payments say school janitors and building maintenance workers performed the work. (yay free enterprise)

Reckoning with The New Republic's Racial History (with image, tweets) · JeetHeer1 · Storify (storifying the entrails)
The New Democrats at The New Republic Enter the New Economy (with tweets) · billmon1 · Storify - And discover they don't like it any better than U.S. steelworkers did ... 14. Clearly, retraining is the only viable solution. I guess Franklin Foer & Leon Wieselter are just going to have to learn how to code.
Should the Disruptive Silicon Valley Overlords Be Welcomed? - Lawyers, Guns & Money
How #Disruption Broke The New Republic - Bloomberg Politics
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - I'd also like to point out that Marty Peretz bought the magazine in 1974 when I was 4 or 5 years old. Yet, there are plenty of people roughly my age or only slightly older who are behaving as if The New Republic had the most sterling and honorable reputation when they were growing up and then entering the workplace.
Eschaton: This Venerable Institution - Like BooMan says...exactly when was The New Republic some sort of venerable institution? Not in my lifetime.
Eschaton: A Wank of Writers - TNR was a force for bad for as long as I was aware of it. Peretz, a horrible person, owned it since 1974, before finally selling it to the rich facebook guy.. How far back does one have to go for the supposed good old days when it was some sort of wonderful thing?
The New Republic and the Beltway media's race problem - Vox - But Hughes' predecessor, Marty Peretz, did much worse. In the years of Peretz's ownership, from 1974 to 2007 and then partially until 2012, he gave himself the title of editor-in-chief and regular space in the magazine and on its website, which he frequently used to issue rants that were breathtaking in their overt racism
New Republic Exodus: Dozens Of Editors Resign Over Management Changes

Rolling Stone’s disastrous U-Va. story: A case of real media bias - The Washington Post

New Proposal Would Provide Grand Juries with Eyes - The New Yorker - Some critics of Dorrinson’s proposal say that it does not go far enough, and that in order to process information sent from their eyes grand juries would also need to be fitted with working brains.

The Open-Office Trap - The New Yorker - open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction.

Artificial intelligence: Hawking's fears stir debate

Lez_Derp comments on So I'm moving to Japan soon. When should I expect my harem?
It's pretty amazing what testosterone replacement therapy can do for anxiety and depression. [Long] : steroids
ignorantwanderer comments on ELI5: Why is there so much clutter and loose wires on the International Space Station? Isn't it dangerous? Why don't they clean it up?

Wikipedia is booming—so why is it still asking you for money? - "The WMF spent almost $684,000 on furniture [last year], he writes. "That's almost $3,200 per employee. Your donations are going on golden chairs."
AT&T throttles unlimited data plans at 5GB, no congestion required : technology

120514
Sen. Wyden puts forward a bill to ban data “backdoors” | Ars Technica - Bill prevents FBI from meddling with companies that choose to encrypt by default.
Judge rules that banks can sue Target for 2013 credit card hack | Ars Technica - The development paves the way for more banks to sue merchants with poor POS security.

China Arrests Ex-Security Chief Zhou Yongkang For Leaking Secrets, Corruption - Zhou, a former member of the powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, is the most senior figure to be snared in President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption crackdown.

Anyone but Bibi: why Israeli election is unlikely to be easy for Netanyahu | World news | The Guardian - Allies turned foes, economic fears and poll saying 60% of voters would prefer a PM other than him points to a volatile campaign

ICC drops murder and rape charges against Kenyan president | World news | The Guardian - Blow for court’s credibility as key prosecution witness refuses to testify in Uhuru Kenyatta trial and another admits lying

Not meant to be taken seriously: Morning File, Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - The federal government will argue Wednesday that its social covenant to care for injured veterans was just political speech and not meant to be taken seriously. (Republicans the same everywhere)

Kenya arrests 77 Chinese nationals in cybercrime raids | World news | The Guardian - Police find equipment capable of infiltrating bank accounts and cash machines in raids on homes in upmarket area of Nairobi

McCain blocks Obama's pick as No.2 diplomat over Iraq policy - Democratic Underground - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Thursday he is blocking President Barack Obama's nomination of Anthony Blinken as the country's number two diplomat, citing sharp disagreement with the nominee's past statements on Iraq. (because bomb-bomb has been so right)

US jobs report beats forecasts as 321,000 positions added in November | Business | The Guardian - Harsh weather appears not to impact unemployment numbers - Unemployment rate stays at 5.9% and 9 million still out of work

PolicyMinded comments on Why some Republicans want to cancel the State of the Union address "Though it seems like the pettiest of actions, there’s something significant driving it: A fundamental unwillingness to accept that Barack Obama is legitimately the President of the United States." - . And then, October 26th, 1970 there was a crack in our air-tight democracy - The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 opened up the votes of Congress (the committee of the whole). Dubbed a ’sunshine law’, this bill has only ever been considered a good thing.

Eric Garner Protests Spread Across The Country; Police Arrest More Than 200 In NYC
After "Die-In" at White House, Protesters Close Down 14th Street Bridge, 3rd Street Tunnel | NBC4 Washington
Protesters Swarm NYC Over Eric Garner Death For Second Night
Chokehold Cop Is 'Eagle Scout' Blameless In Eric Garner's Death, NYPD Union President Says
Grand Jury In Eric Garner Case Wasn't Asked To Consider 'Reckless Endangerment' Charge: Report - An unnamed source familiar with the case told the station that District Attorney Daniel Donovan only asked jurors to consider charges of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide as they heard evidence.
Protesters Hit Streets, Cause Delays in Cambridge and Somerville - Massachusetts news - Boston.com - Protesters in Somerville and Cambridge shut down the Davis Square MBTA stop and blocked streets on Massachusetts Avenue on Friday afternoon in another demonstration against the lack of indictments for two high-profile police killings in New York and Ferguson, Missouri.
‘I honestly don’t know what to say’; Jon Stewart gets serious on Eric Garner - The Washington Post - But Stewart said that in contrast to the Ferguson case, the Staten Island case appeared to be clear. "Here, there is is none of that [ambiguity]. The coroner called it homicide, the guy's not acting threatening, and we know that because we are (expletive) watching it. Someone taped it."
Texas Grand Jury Clears Cops Caught on Camera Beating a Woman in Jail

Phoenix Police Shoot Unarmed Black Man, Igniting Outcry - by a white Phoenix police officer who mistook a pill bottle for a gun demonstrates the challenges law enforcement agencies face at a time of unrest over police tactics.
Cop texted union rep as Akai Gurley lay dying - NY Daily News - . What's more, the sources said, the pair of officers weren't supposed to be patrolling the stairways of the Pink Houses that night.
South Carolina secures series of police indictments as protests rage elsewhere | US news | The Guardian - Prosecutors in the southern state have charged three white officers for on-duty shootings of unarmed black men in the past four months
Tommy Wall Loses Job, House, Reputation After Police Wrongly Charge Him With Child Rape - "It was crazy," Webb said. "The detective finally admitted that he was absolutely sure it was not Mr. Wall. Well why didn't he watch it to begin with? You'd think that would be first thing they would do when arresting someone on a charge like that."
White Ex-Police Chief Indicted In Killing Of Unarmed Black Man - A white man who was the police chief in a small South Carolina town has been charged with murder in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man.

We Don’t Just Need Nicer Cops. We Need Fewer Cops. | The Nation - Here’s what we actually know about proposed police reforms.
Today's Lessons On The Events Of Our Time: The Cleveland Report and The Legal History Of The Chokehold - Esquire - According to law professor and dean Erwin Chemerinsky's book The Case Against the Supreme Court, Lyons discovered that sixteen people died after being choked by an LAPD officer, almost all of whom were black men. When police Chief Daryl Gates was asked why almost all of these fatal chokeholds involved African Americans, Gates replied that the "veins or arteries of blacks do not open up as fast as they do in normal people."
Marvin Tramaine Hill II Attacked Pregnant Wife With McChicken Sandwich: Cops - At first, Hill threw the entire sandwich at his wife. Then he picked up some of the bun off the floor and threw that at her.
‘Hypnotist thief’ robs shopkeeper after appearing to put him in a trance | UK news | The Guardian - Man seen removing bundle of cash from London man’s pocket after touching him repeatedly on stomach

Death penalty secrecy imperils integrity of the procedure, US judge warns | US news | The Guardian - Federal judge considers challenge brought by newspapers including the Guardian who say Oklahoma acted unconstitutionally by limiting reporters’ access

Mary Landrieu’s bitter end: Why her complaints about Democrats abandoning her ring so hollow - Salon.com - The Louisiana senator is "disappointed" that the Democratic Party isn't helping her. But it's helped her plenty (bad Republi-Dems lose, whine)

Voting With Your Feet: Aaron Renn’s New Donut | Newgeography.com - The old model of urban poverty and suburban prosperity (the sweet fluffy “donut” with a dead center) has been replaced by what Mr. Renn calls the New Donut with a thriving downtown core, failing older suburbs, and booming new outer ring suburbs. Poverty then reappears out in the rural hinterlands ... both Lancaster and Palmdale were systematically raiding the homes of lower income black and latino citizens with SWAT style teams of heavily armed police looking for minor code violations and instances of fraud ... The most recent “solution” was for the city of Lancaster to propose shutting down its MetroLink rail station in order to prevent lower income people from traveling in from other parts of Los Angeles County

Bill Cosby's fall: How an extra ticket, an iPhone and a six-month-old comedy bit changed how we think about a legend - The turnaround is stunning, in retrospect. Bill Cosby has lost a Netflix special, an NBC sitcom, a spot on Temple’s board of trustees and years of accumulated respect as the sexual assault accusations that followed him for 14 years have finally stuck ... McQuade didn’t expect his post would go viral
Eschaton: Butterfly Wings - This kind of thing is long how I've seen blogging/internet potential. Anyone without a normal massive platform can, occasionally, set something in motion.

TNR at the Crossroads by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I’m guessing The New Republic’s “transition” is making news in part because the magazine just celebrated its 100th anniversary, and in part because one of those very rare fixtures in American magazine journalism, Leon Wieseltier, is leaving TNR (where among other things he edited the “back of the book,” the arts and culture section, forever) along with editor Franklin Foer, who’s getting the boot for the second time in recent years.
Facebook Prince Purges The New Republic: Inside the Destruction of a 100-Year-Old Magazine - The Daily Beast - Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes and his lieutenant from Yahoo gut one of journalism's great publications, setting off waves of resignations and tears - The irony is that the end of TNR as we know it comes less than three weeks after the 30-year-old Hughes--who had the good fortune to have been Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate, and helped Zuckerberg launch the social networking behemoth ... The friction escalated with the arrival of Vidra, who is said to have complained to Foer that the magazine was boring and that he couldn’t bring himself to read past the first 500 words of an article (no cat pics +what a dick)
Eschaton: So Long, And Thanks For All The Shit - Apparently TNR is getting rid of its current editor, Foer, and moving the operation to New York. This has caused various journalist twitterati to huff and puff their outrage, because nobody is supposed to ever lose their job in that world. Or Something.
New Republic Exodus: Dozens Of Editors Resign Over Management Changes ... New Republic owner Chris Hughes and newly installed CEO Guy Vidra announced Thursday they were repositioning the 100-year-old magazine to become a "vertically integrated digital media company." (whoa, everyone left; Libertarian dudebro at work)
The Lingering Death Of The New Republic - Esquire - out les Twittersphere went izonkospheric when it was announced that Chris Hughes, the Silicon Valley bozillionnaire who bought The New Republic in order to let his dog play with it out in the backyard, had a parting of the ways with his editor, and his literary editor, because Hughes apparently plans to move TNR, as it is adorably referred to by its many acolytes, to New York and turn it into a clickbait machine with upcoming features like "The Ten Hottest Secretaries Of Agriculture."
Even The “Liberal” New Republic » Balloon Juice - Seems Chris Hughes broke his toy to the point where Frank Foer is out as editor at The New Republic and everyone else is jumping ship in protest. People are resigning by Twitter. It’s freaking AWESOME. - The thing survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, New Coke, and 74,927 episodes of Law and Order, but couldn’t handle one Silicon Valley douchebag with a giant checkbook in possession of all the common sense of a chunk of asphalt. Also, anybody else notice that Techbros Turning Journalism Outlets Into Huge Piles Of Shit(tm) seems to be a recurring theme of 2014? There’s an awful lot of that going around.
The End of TNR As We Know It » Balloon Juice
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Twitter: "When you run cover stories questioning the intelligence of 40 million people, because of their skin color, some among them tend to remember."
TNR RIP « The Dish - Well, one thing you could always say about TNR. It has always done drama really well – and this morning’s editorial meeting could probably have been written by Aaron Sorkin. The mass resignations – nine of the twelve editors are out – are effectively the end of TNR ... the danger “of being at a publication which is little more than a rich person’s hood ornament”:
Julia Ioffe - Today, I did something I thought I'd never... Also, TNR's digital media editor Hillary Kelly resigned today. From her honeymoon. In Africa. Consider that.
Goodbye to All That: Has former New Republic starlet Ruth Shalit left Washington in the dust—or is it the other way around? - Washington City Paper - Has former New Republic starlet Ruth Shalit left Washington in the dust—or is it the other way around? (for the memories)
Truth or Dare - The strange case of Ruth Shalit and the Washington Post - by Dan Kennedy

Columbia football coach quits following allegations of abuse | Sport | The Guardian - Letter claims players forced to play concussed - Team currently on run of 21 losses

Good Students Don’t Really Have Any Trouble Getting in at Elite Colleges by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - What this really looks like, indeed, is a story about social class. Sure, rich kids worry about getting into really fancy colleges, but in a larger sense they have no trouble at all getting into a pretty good college somewhere.

The Top 100 Unusual And Surprising Baby Names Of 2014 (Audi and Darko ... and Tymber!)

Smoking erases Y chromosomes | Science/AAAS | News - Researchers have found that smokers are up to four times more likely to have blood cells with no Y chromosome than nonsmokers. That’s worrisome, they say, because a recent study found an association between Y chromosome loss and a shorter life span, as well as a higher risk of multiple cancers.

That annoying coworker - what does he/she keep doing? : AskReddit

120414
Klein and Kolbert - Lawyers, Guns & Money : So in the nature of fairness, it’s worth noting that Klein is pushing back hard against that review, discussing the many concrete ideas she posits:
‘Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?’: An Exchange by Naomi Klein | The New York Review of Books
The Ethics of Climate Hope: A Response to Elizabeth Kolbert | This Changes Everything
The Climate Conundrum - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Sustainable Energy – without the hot air

C.D.C. Warns That Flu Season May Be More Deadly Than Usual - NYTimes.com - This year’s flu season may be more deadly than usual and this year’s flu vaccine is a relatively poor match to the viruses that are now circulating, federal health officials warned on Thursday.

Inside the Battle Over the CIA Torture Report - Bloomberg View - Although the summary report is said to not use the word “torture,” officials said it would describe practices that any layman would understand as torture. (yeah, "torture" not in "torture" report)

ISIS: What the US Doesn’t Understand by Ahmed Rashid | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books - Accepting that ISIS is primarily waging a war within Islam requires a different kind of strategy than the US is pursuing.
Islamic Militants Wage Fierce Attack on Grozny, Chechnya’s Capital - NYTimes.com - GROZNY, Chechnya — A fierce gun battle between Islamist militants and government security forces paralyzed the center of the Chechen capital, Grozny, overnight Thursday, leaving some 19 people dead and embarrassing President Vladimir V. Putin just hours before he delivered his state-of-the-nation speech in Moscow. - “When this all started,” Mr. Kadyrov told reporters at the Kremlin, “I flew home, organized a special operation, killed the devils, held a meeting, gathered the staff needed to restore the damaged building and made it back in time to listen to the address of our national leader.

Kerry: Russia could rebuild trust with west by easing tensions with Ukraine | US news | The Guardian - Kerry speaks at meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes both the United States and Russia as partners

Abu Dhabi stabbing: suspect arrested in murder of American schoolteacher | World news | The Guardian - Interior minister says suspect also planted makeshift bomb outside house of a US doctor, but did not confirm whether events were considered terrorist attack
Vatican finds hundreds of millions of euros 'tucked away': cardinal | Reuters

Operation AURORAGOLD: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide

The Snowden Effect: The Movie - Esquire - The surveillance state does what it does because it can do it, period. After the events of September 11, 2001, the country stepped into a universe entirely made of shadows and gray, concealing mist.

Booyah! Activist Investor Hurls Purple Prose at Jim Cramer - NYTimes.com - “enjoyed considerable nonpecuniary compensation such as perfumed sedan driver(s) and assorted assistants who spray ionized lavender water on your barren cranium.”

NY Daily News Makes Huge Statement With Front Page On Eric Garner Decision
A Search for Justice in the Eric Garner Case - NYTimes.com
Mayor de Blasio Announces Retraining of New York Police - NYTimes.com
What Comes Next in the Eric Garner Case - NYTimes.com
The Eric Garner case’s sickening outcome - The Washington Post - This time, there were literally millions of eyewitnesses. Somebody tell me, just theoretically, how many does it take? Is there any number that would suffice? Or is this whole “equal justice before the law” thing just a cruel joke?
The Eric Garner case’s sickening outcome - The Washington Post
The long, halting, unfinished fight to end racial profiling in America - The Washington Post - George W. Bush promised to end racial profiling a decade ago. Now Eric Holder is still trying.
#Crimingwhilewhite: White people are confessing on Twitter to crimes they got away with - The Washington Post - Most white Americans think bias against them is worse than bias against blacks, while just 37 percent of whites said the Michael Brown case raised important questions about race. Eighty percent of blacks did. (talk about out-of-touch)
Justice Department finds use of force problems in Cleveland Police Department - The Washington Post
Timothy Loehmann, Cop Who Shot Tamir Rice, Deemed Unfit For Policing 2 Years Ago - "He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal,"
Tears at Funeral for Cleveland Boy Tamir Rice Shot by Cop - NBC News.com
No indictments after police shoot and kill man at an Ohio Wal-Mart; Justice Dept. launches investigation - The Washington Post
'Chaotic and dangerous' Cleveland police shamed in withering government report | US news | The Guardian - Cleveland force accused of using excessive and unreasonable force in hundreds of cases as DoJ appoint independent monitor to oversee reforms
The American Justice System Is Not Broken - That is what America does. It is not broken. That is exactly what is wrong with it. (killing black people a feature, not a bug)
The Will of the People - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Albert Burneko is speaking some truth. Because the American justice system is not broken. It’s working just as intended, to use violence against people of color. This is a system that goes back to slavery and has routinely both used violence as part of a state mechanism to ensure racial inequality and covered up for those using violence against people of color for any number of reasons, from slavery to lynching to cops wantonly killing red, brown, and black people.
Grand Jury Clears Jasper Police in Beating Caught on Tape - Diggles settled a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the officers last December for $75,000. And less than a month after the incident, Jasper’s city council voted to fire Cunningham and Grissom. (Grand Juries are a joke)

String of Sexual Assault Cases May Lead to Tipping Point - NYTimes.com
Lawyer urges Bill Cosby to let claims go to trial as new allegations emerge | World news | The Guardian - Gloria Allred challenges comedian to waive statute of limitations as new victims of his alleged sexual abuse emerge

'Unprecedented': Drug May Help Heal Damaged Spine - NBC News.com - The drug works on nerve cells that are cut, sending connections across the break, and it helped injured rats move their back legs again and also gave them back control of their bladders.
the engraving had taken place after the shells were buried
Hominids adapted to metabolize ethanol long before human-directed fermentation
Study: Contraception may change how happy women are with their husbands / More FSU News - Florida State 24/7 - The results showed that women who were using hormonal contraceptives when they met their husband experienced a drop in marital satisfaction after they discontinued a hormone-based birth control. But, what’s interesting is that how their satisfaction changed depended on their husbands’ facial attractiveness ... In contrast, beginning a hormonal contraceptive after marriage did not appear to have negative or positive impacts on a woman’s satisfaction, regardless of her husband’s looks.
84% of Vegetarians and Vegans Return to Meat. Why? | Psychology Today - Hence, the authors of the report argue that animal protectionists would be better off concentrating their efforts to persuade “the many” to reduce their consumption of flesh than trying to convince “the few” to take the absolutist route and give up meat completely.
PLOS ONE: Subclinical Primary Psychopathy, but Not Physical Formidability or Attractiveness, Predicts Conversational Dominance in a Zero-Acquaintance Situation
Psychopathy
What Is a Psychopath? | Psychology Today

Shakeup at The New Republic: Foer, Wieseltier out; mag moves to N.Y. - politico.com

A Weapon for Readers by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books - Better to read a poor book with alert resistance, than devour a good one in mindless adoration.

Florida Agrees That Satanists Must Have Equal Representation In Capitol
Jenna Bush Admits to "Hanky Panky" on the White House Roof

Zoe Quinn: 'All Gamergate has done is ruin people's lives' | Technology | The Guardian

What was the biggest lie you got away with? : AskReddit
Reddit, what is your favorite "dead" website? : AskReddit

Apple Deleted Rivals’ Songs from Users’ iPods - Digits - WSJ - Apple deleted music that some iPod owners had downloaded from competing music services from 2007 to 2009 without telling users, attorneys for consumers told jurors in a class-action antitrust suit against Apple Wednesday. (another great idea from the Jobs)

120314
2014 Headed Toward Hottest Year On Record -- Here's Why That's Remarkable | ThinkProgress
West Antarctic melt rate has tripled - A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade.
The melt rate of the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica has tripled in the last decade.

NASA's Orion Test Flight Gets Us Closer to Mars - Businessweek

12 Things to Keep in Mind When You Read the Torture Report - The Intercept - @froomkin (non-accountable accountability by Obama)

Ukraine nuclear accident 'no threat': Minister (nothing to worry about)
Remember When Putin Was a Colossus Astride the Planet & Laughing Haughtily at Obama? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

ISIS claims constructing dirty bomb after stealing 40kg of uranium - Iraqi News
US: attacks are slowing Isis but defeating jihadis could take years | World news | The Guardian - John Kerry insists international coalition’s strategy is working as Iran joins air strikes against Islamic State fighters (endless war extended)
Iran's air force bombs Isis in Iraq, says Pentagon | World news | The Guardian - Washington and Tehran deny coordination as part of US-led coalition against Islamic State

Hong Kong Democracy Protest Leaders Surrender To Police
India Ranked Less Corrupt Than China for the First Time in 18 Years - India Real Time - WSJ

Japanese vagina kayak artist arrested again for obscenity | World news | The Guardian - But on Wednesday, Igarashi was re-arrested on suspicion of sending a link “that shows her plan to create a boat using three-dimensional obscene data to a large number of people”, a Tokyo police spokeswoman told AFP. (a big no-no)

UN Resolution: Israel Must Renounce Nuclear Arms - ABC News

American couple cleared of charges in Qatar leave country after two-year saga | US news | The Guardian - US ambassador tweets that Matthew and Grace Huang, acquitted on charges related to death of their daughter, have left Gulf Arab nation

Soldier jailed for making nailbomb avoids terror charge | UK news | The Guardian - Ryan McGee told police he made the bomb when he was bored and because he did not like mass immigration (well, not that kind of terror)
No wonder landowners are scared. We are starting to learn who owns Britain | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - The land reform programme announced last week by the Scottish government is the end of civilised life on Earth, if you believe the corporate press. In a country where 432 people own half the private rural land, all change is Stalinism. (riches sold the country to foreign riches)

Hagel refused to hold off resignation - CNN.com - CNN has learned the White House wanted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to wait until this week to resign, so it would have a new nominee in place by then. But Hagel refused to wait, deciding if the White House was going to push him out, he wanted to make his resignation known as quickly as possible.

Is Obamacare Destroying the Democratic Party? - NYTimes.com - “Shorter Chuck Schumer — I wish Obama cared more about helping Democrats than sick people.”
Return of Focus Hocus Pocus - NYTimes.com - ’ve been getting correspondence from people saying that I need to respond to Tom Edsall channeling Chuck Schumer on how health reform was a mistake, Obama should have focused on the economy. The thing is, I responded to this argument four years ago, and everything I said then still applies
U.S. Experiences Unprecedented Slowdown In Health Care Spending - The amount the United States spent on health care went up last year by the smallest amount since federal scorekeepers started tracking these dollars half a century ago

What Might Persuade Hillary Clinton Not To Run In 2016 | FiveThirtyEight - Clinton was quite popular during her days as secretary of state. But since leaving that nonpartisan post in 2013, her net favorable rating has been falling. The most recent YouGov poll put her at an all-time low.

No Charges in Eric Garner Chokehold Case for N.Y.P.D. Officer - NYTimes.com
Grand Jury Declines To Indict NYPD Officer In Chokehold Death Of Eric Garner
The NYPD Has A Long History Of Killing Unarmed Black Men - Cops say they saw Garner selling cigarettes outside the store. Other witnesses, however, said he'd just finished breaking up a fight. He had no cigarettes on him, nor in his car, his family told the Daily News.
Hands Up, Don't Choke: Eric Garner Was Killed By Police For No Reason - No, his apparent crime was selling cigarettes without paying taxes on them. And for that, he was killed.
Cop cleared in Eric Garner chokehold death : news
Cuomo's share of the blame - Lawyers, Guns & Money : As New York’s cretinous governor scrambles to appear to be troubled by today’s outcome, let’s not forget the role he played in today’s miscarriage of justice
Judge Andrew Napolitano Says Eric Garner's Death Was 'Criminally Negligent Homicide'
Conservatives Join Outrage Over Grand Jury Decision In Eric Garner's Death
New York City Protests Eric Garner Decision (PHOTOS)
From Daniel Pantaleo To Darren Wilson, Police Are Almost Never Indicted - “You'd have to be blind or prejudiced to say there's no probable cause,” Garner’s mother said before the grand jury's decision came out.
A Grand Jury Did Indict One Person Involved In Eric Garner's Killing -- The Man Who Filmed It - In August, less than a month after filming the fatal July 17 encounter in which Daniel Pantaleo and other police officers confronted Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, a grand jury indicted Orta on weapons charges stemming from an arrest by undercover officers earlier that month. (all lies, they tracked him down and retaliated)

Hullabaloo - "Just the facts" don't answer the main question
Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Statistics - WSJ - FBI Data Differs from Local Counts on Justifiable Homicides (paywalled)
Eric Garner’s Death Won’t Even Show Up in FBI Stats on Police Homicides - Hit & Run : Reason.com - “it’s nearly impossible to determine how many people are killed by the police each year” (summary)
BREAKING! Benefits of Arbitrary Police Power Greatly Exaggerated - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Would a vast decline in the number of recorded stop-and-frisk encounters create an opening for violence to return? So far, Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Bratton said, the answer has been no.
Stop-and-Frisk Fades Away Under New Mayor, Crime Goes Down Anyway | Mother Jones (Guiliani and Bloomberg were racists)
'The Daily Show' Tackles 'Sh*tty White People' In Ferguson Race Debate - “I have a dream, Jon,” Wilmore said to clips of Goldman Sachs, Bill O'Reilly and Nickelback. “That one day, the actions of a few shitty white people will be seen as discrediting their entire race.”
Megyn Kelly Goes At It With Congressman Who Made ‘Hands Up, Don't Shoot' Gesture - “On this show, on this channel, unlike any other," said Kelly, "you get both sides!” (they really believe their own shit)
Denver Police Attempt To Erase Video Of Cop Beating Drug Suspect | Global Grind

Florida judge lifts restrictions on public feeding of homeless – for now | US news | The Guardian - Fort Lauderdale hit by protests and cyber attack over park feeding law - Judge suspends ordinance for 30 days and orders mediation

Georgia Town Votes to Ban Muslim Mosque, Residents Hate Islam (Video)

UPS pregnancy discrimination case weighed by US supreme court | Law | The Guardian - Justices begin hearing case of UPS employee Peggy Young with potential to affect many American women who continue to work throughout pregnancies
New court filing shows stunning new evidence of wage-fixing by major Hollywood animation studios | PandoDaily (bros takin care of bros and screwing women)

Gloria Allred Suggests Bill Cosby Waive Statute Of Limitations As Two More Women Step Forward - The three women who joined Allred were Beth Ferrier, who was first publicly identified in 2005 as Jane Doe #5 in Andrea Constand's suit against Cosby, and Helen Hayes and Chelan (who is currently being identified by her first name only), who previously had not made their allegations about Cosby public.
Former Democratic congressional aide pleads guilty to sexual assault - The Washington Post - At the house, prosecutors said, Williams spiked a drink with Ambien. The woman, according to court documents, fell into a “deep sleep,” at which point Williams raped her.
Zillow Accused of Subjecting Female Employees to "Sexual Torture" - Ms. Kremer's male supervisors ranked her according to her breast size, sent pictures of their penis to her, and demanded sexual gratification and obedience by Ms. Kremer to continue her employment (dubebros everywhere)

Building a safer Twitter | Twitter Blogs
Can Twitter Stop Harassment? - NYTimes.com
Twitter makes it easier to report abuse | Poynter. - Young women are “significantly more likely to say they have been stalked or sexually harassed than men,” Pew reports about a recent survey.
Twitter is making it easier to report harassment and block users

What Grown-Ups Are Missing About Boys - NYTimes.com - “People say, ‘well, boys are physically aggressive, but girls are aggressive in their relationships,’” said Dr. Orpinas, “and it just does seem to be a myth.” (mean boys)

The Divorce Surge Is Over, but the Myth Lives On - NYTimes.com - It is no longer true that the divorce rate is rising, or that half of all marriages end in divorce. It has not been for some time. Even though social scientists have tried to debunk those myths, somehow the conventional wisdom has held ... “Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women,” said William Doherty, a marriage therapist and professor of family social science at University of Minnesota, “so when you’re talking about changes in divorce rates, in many ways you’re talking about changes in women’s expectations.” (+"love marriages" -"shotgun weddings")
Declining divorce - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Now, marriages are more likely to constructed in such a way that women get something closer to as much value out of them as men do, so divorce goes down. Feminism made marriage stronger, by creating the conditions under which women are more likely be in a position to marry, and construct their marriage, on their own terms.

Star Tribune publishes second anti-transgender ad | Twin Cities Daily Planet
Minnesota Newspaper Prints Another Ad Condemning Inclusive Policies For Transgender Students ... When asked for comment on the source of the image used in the ad, which was apparently also used on the cover of a novel targeted to young lesbian readers ...

Why Angie’s List Keeps Getting Mixed Reviews | Money.com - “Almost 70 percent of the company’s revenues come from advertising purchased by the service providers being rated,” a 2013 Consumer Reports investigation explained.

Kaling Ward leaves husband's body decomposing in bedroom for SIX MONTHS | Daily Mail Online - He had refused to go to the hospital to treat an infected left foot, deciding God would cure him, and died at 51 after slipping into a coma

New Marijuana Study Says Everyone Knows You're High And You'll Likely Be Stoned Forever : videos (full list below +"you were once a baby, now you're a criminal")

[NSFW] What is something that the opposite gender will never understand? : AskReddit
Redditers, what red flags in your last relationship did you miss until it was too late? : AskReddit
[NSFW] at what age did you lose your virginity? If you could go back to that time would you take it back ? : AskReddit
What is a personality trait that most people see as a positive characteristic that you personally can't stand? Why do you feel this way? : AskReddit

AT&T vs. municipal fiber | BGR
The Sony Pictures Hack Was Even Worse Than Everyone Thought - That saddest part about all of this is that the very worst is probably still to come. Hackers say they stole 100 terabytes of data in total. If only 40 gigabytes contained all of this damning information, just imagine what 100 terabytes contains
Sony hack is potentially the worst in history. 100 TB stolen, including unreleased movies & scripts, medical records, 3800 SSNs, etc. : technology
Billion-dollar Apple iPod antitrust lawsuit gets under way in US court | Technology | The Guardian - Statements by the late Steve Jobs central to trial, which sees Apple accused of unfair tactics for digital music dominance (Stevo has above the law)
Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review: Photography and Writing

120214

Wife and child of Islamic State leader Baghdadi held in Lebanon | World news | The Guardian - Arrest is described as ‘high-value catch’ and reportedly follows information provided by western intelligence agencies
Eschaton: If Only There Was Something We Could Do To Help The Syrian People - I guess we could bomb them? - SIXTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLAR SHORTFALL. We could've built 10 Steve Austins for that. In 1973. (bombs always get the money)
‘Hell is never far away’ - female medic risking her life for Aleppo | World news | The Guardian - Umm Abdu has lost her husband and a son to the war in Syria, but the pistol-wearing woman refuses to abandon her embattled city

Gunmen Attack Kenya Quarry Near Somali Border, Kill Dozens Of Workers - Somali al Shabaab Islamist militants killed 36 non-Muslim workers at a quarry in northeast Kenya on Tuesday, prompting the president to change his top security officials to tackle a relentless wave of violence.

Russia Warns Of Recession In 2015 Amid Sanctions And Low Oil Prices

Ireland to clash with UK at human rights court over hooded men judgment | World news | The Guardian - The techniques inflicted on the detainees included hooding suspects, putting them into stress positions, sleep deprivation, food and water deprivation and the use of white noise. They were arrested as a result of the British policy of internment without trial in 1971 when thousands of suspects, mainly from Ireland’s nationalist-republican community, were rounded up. (just a little Obama-style enhanced interrogation)

A long list of sex acts just got banned in UK porn - UK - News - The Independent - Regulations branded 'simply a set of moral judgements'
A long list of sex acts just got banned in UK porn : worldnews

Symbolic Vote in France Backs Palestinian State - NYTimes.com

Ferguson grand jury decision draws sharp racial, partisan reactions - The Washington Post (split, except for hating Obama)
White police officers involved in black couple's death sue Cleveland for racial discrimination | US news | The Guardian - The November 2012 chase, which left two people dead after police fired 137 shots, prompted considerable scrutiny of the Cleveland police department’s use of force
Sheriff Defends Stopping Black Man For Walking With Hands In His Pockets - "You were walking by … well you were making people nervous," the deputy says in the video McKean recorded, above. "They said you had your hands in your pockets."
Albuquerque policeman who shot woman fired over camera lapse - Yahoo News - An Albuquerque police officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old woman in April was fired from the police force on Monday for failing to follow an order to turn on his uniform camera during all citizen contacts, police said.

Bill Cosby sued in underage sex lawsuit | World news | The Guardian - Judith Huth says she was 15 when comedian took her to Playboy Mansion in 1974 and made her perform sex act
California man first to be convicted under state's revenge porn law | US news | The Guardian - Noe Iniguez sentenced to one year in jail after he was found guilty of posting topless photos of his ex-girlfriend on her employer’s Facebook page
Jian Ghomeshi harassed me on the job. Why did our radio station look the other way? | Kathryn Borel | Comment is free | The Guardian - the maddening part is that his celebrity was a creation of the CBC – Canada’s folksy, sweater-wearing public broadcaster and one of the most family-friendly brands in the nation’s history. Ghomeshi – and, by extension, his sleaze – was endorsed, promoted and held up as an example to all by a beloved institution.
ELI5: Why is a rape on a college campus handled as an administrative problem by the school, rather than as a criminal matter, handled by the police? : explainlikeimfive

Widespread Power Outage Strikes Detroit, Disrupts School, Trial And More - The entire Detroit Public Lighting system went down Tuesday morning, causing power disruptions in about 100 buildings, including fire stations, schools, several Wayne State University buildings, government offices, courthouses, the art museum and the hockey arena, according to various reports.

Scientists Confirm These Really Are the Bones of Richard III - Popular Mechanics - Genetic evidence from his skeletal remains proves Richard III is the oldest known individual ever identified through DNA ... somewhere in the line of the family tree that extends up from Duke Henry Somerset to Edward III and down to Richard III, a queen or heiress became pregnant through adultery and then lied about it without anybody ever knowing.
Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind (the non-artifical kind is doing quite well thank you)

A Look Inside The Insidious And Adulterous World Of Sexting - Weiss also said that once a person is caught sexting, their partner is entitled to ask to see their phone or online messages on a regular basis

120114
tired_of_nonsense comments on Two of the world’s most prestigious science academies say there’s clear evidence that humans are causing the climate to change. The time for talk is over, says the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, the national science academy of the UK.
The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth - Rozenblit - 2010 - Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library
Quote Details: John F. Kennedy: The great enemy of... - The Quotations Page
Drought-hit Sao Paulo may 'get water from mud': TRFN | Reuters - São Paulo, Brazil’s drought-hit megacity of 20 million, has about two months of guaranteed water supply remaining as it taps into the second of three emergency reserves, officials say.

NY Fed's $40 Billion Iraqi Money Trail - It has been called the largest airborne transfer of currency in the history of the world. But finding out what happened to all the money involved has become one of the biggest financial mysteries of all time. (look in Cheney's safe)

Video Feature: Targeting ISIS’ Black-Market Oil Trade - NYTimes.com
ISIS may possesss nuclear material stolen from Iraq, report says - The Times of India
Iraqi army 'had 50,000 ghost troops' on payroll - Correspondents say rampant corruption in the Iraqi army is seen as one of the reasons why it has struggled to contain Islamic State militants.
Waterborne Disease Plagues I.S.-Held Mosul ‹ Newsweek Pakistan - But “the hardships of the locals certainly undermine I.S. claims to be a state meeting the needs of the people and offering them real security,” he added.
Why Young Germany Are Answering Call to War in Syria - Spiegel Online - Hundreds of young German Islamists have traveled to Syria to fight with the terrorist group Islamic State - Jihad is a lot of fun!

Snowden calls on UN to protect privacy, rights
Edward Snowden wins Swedish human rights award for NSA revelations | US news | The Guardian - Whistleblower receives several standing ovations in Swedish parliament as he wins Right Livelihood award

Being Bad Europeans - NYTimes.com (Germany worst)
George Osborne likely to miss deficit reduction target as UK borrowing rises | Business | The Guardian - Increase fuelled by weak tax receipts means chancellor may have to unveil further cuts or raise taxes to meet targets in time for 2015 election (austerity failed for everyone but the riches, so more austerity)

What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel - The Atlantic - The news tells us less about Israel than about the people writing the news, a former AP reporter says.
Palestinian woman shot after Israeli citizen is stabbed in the West Bank | World news | The Guardian - A Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli civilian in the occupied West Bank and was then shot and wounded by security forces, according to the Israeli military and police.

5 mutilated bodies found in southern Mexico - Five mutilated bodies were found in a region of southern Mexico where 11 decapitated corpses were discovered just three days ago, authorities said Sunday.
Mexican president's ratings slump as outrage grows over missing student teachers | World news | The Guardian - Embattled Enrique Peña Nieto facing growing pressure over violence and corruption, with more protests planned across Mexico for Monday night

Up to 35 inmates dead, 20 comatose, after apparent mass suicide in Venezuelan prison | Fox News Latino - Pressure is building on Venezuela's government to fully investigate a rising number of deaths at an overcrowded prison, with human rights activists questioning authorities' claim of a mass drug overdose by dozens of inmates who stormed an infirmary.

Italian man arrested after ‘boasting of his ex-wife’s murder’ on Facebook | World news | The Guardian - One possible scenario being investigated is that Pagnani, bleeding profusely, stumbled out of a side door of the house after the murder and posted the Facebook update from his mobile phone.

Stanley Kutler: Pentagon unwilling to face the Vietnam truth: We lost : Ct - The Pentagon has hijacked the history of the Vietnam War, magically transforming it into a memory to honor and cherish. George Orwell never imagined better.

With executive action, Obama risks losing Chief Justice John Roberts - LA Times

The Hunger Games Economy - The Daily Beast - The popularity of Suzanne Collins’s series suggests it has caught something many Americans sense: This is not the best we can do.
GOP staffer to resign after slamming Obama girls | MSNBC - She had previously been responsible for a gaffe this summer when she accidentally tweeted about “shagging” on Fincher’s official Twitter account. Now, her resignation is “in the works.”
GOP Staffer Elizabeth Lauten Resigns Following Comments About Sasha, Malia Obama - Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. "After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents and re-reading my words online, I can see more clearly how hurtful my words were. (slow on the uptake)
GOP Staffer Who Attacked Obama Girls Was Arrested During Her Own "Awful Teen Years" | The Smoking Gun - Lauten, then 17, was collared for stealing from a Belk department store in her North Carolina hometown

109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in five years, say campaigners | Law | The Guardian

The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men | Mother Jones - And how to reform our bigoted brains.
Crime and Punishment - NYTimes.com - “white Americans overestimate the proportion of crime committed by people of color, and associate people of color with criminality.”
Armies Of Occupation - Esquire - For far too long, the local police forces in this country have been allowed to cultivate in their membership the attitudes usually found in armies of occupation. For far too long, the local police forces in this country have been allowed to weaponize those attitudes with the kind of firepower usually used by armies of occupation
Bad Memories Down South by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The polling we’ve all seen about divergent perceptions of Ferguson doesn’t even begin to reflect the intensity of the hostility I heard towards “the blacks” (an inhibition against free use of the n-word, at least in semi-public, seems to be the only post-civil-rights taboo left), who have the outrageous temerity to protest an obvious act of self-defense by a police officer.
Obama calls for more police body cameras as part of $263m reform package | US news | The Guardian - President asks for extra federal funds to reform police departments across the country, in the wake of protests that followed the death of Michael Brown
Missouri police union condemns 'tasteless' NFL players' 'hands up' gesture | US news | The Guardian - Officers’ union calls for St Louis players to be disciplined over ‘hands-up’ gesture and threaten boycott of NFL advertisers (the cops will stop buying Bud Light, ha ha)
Police shut down mysterious 'Oath Keepers' guarding rooftops in downtown Ferguson : News
Charges Dropped For Cop Who Fatally Shot Sleeping 7-Year-Old Girl - The prosecution noted that even having his finger on the trigger of his submachine gun was improper. “He could have avoided injury if he had followed his training,” Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Robert Moran explained.
Charges Dropped For Cop Who Fatally Shot Sleeping 7-Year-Old Girl : news - By the way, they were in the wrong apartment.
Category:White American riots in the United States

2013 homicide rate in Canada lowest since 1966 - Politics - CBC News - Police reported 505 homicides in 2013, down 38 from the previous year, StatsCan says

Freed Texas day care owners still want exoneration - Yahoo News - Former day care owners who spent 21 years in prison before being freed amid questions over their convictions for child abuse involving satanic rituals are struggling to convince prosecutors that they should be fully exonerated. They had been convicted in 1992 after therapists testified that they helped three children recover memories of satanic rituals and sexual abuse at an Austin preschool the Kellers operated. The court will be guided by the recommendations of Senior District Judge Wilford Flowers, who presided over the Kellers' 1992 trial and their recent appeals — and who has already twice ruled that they had failed to prove their innocence. (the TX version of McMartin with their own Coakley)
Tampa homeless program uses unpaid, destitute residents as steady labor force, revenue source | Tampa Bay Times - But not for the workers. They leave the game sweat-soaked and as penniless as they arrived. The money for their labor goes to New Beginnings. The men receive only shelter and food.

AIDS campaigners say pandemic has finally reached tipping point | Reuters - The number of people newly infected with HIV over the last year was lower than the number of HIV-positive people who joined those getting access to the medicines they need to take for life to keep AIDS at bay.

British BDSM Enthusiasts, Say Goodbye to Your Favourite Homegrown Porn | VICE | United Kingdom - ?This morning, the laws governing online porn changed. Somewhere in the UK, stooped over a keyboard, teeth bared, the men and women charged with shielding our eyes from anything deemed legally a-bit-off are working to a new set of guidelines: There appear to be no rational explanations for most of the R18 rules – they're simply a set of moral judgements designed by people who have struggled endlessly to stop the British people from watching pornography
Cocaine, Parties and Prostitution: the Lives of Hong Kong's Young, Wealthy British Expats | VICE | United Kingdom - ? "He wasn't mean or aggressive. He was nice, well-educated and OK."
Janay Rice Says Ravens Pushed Her To Apologize After Husband's Domestic Violence
AARP Magazine Prints Two Very Different Bill Cosby Covers - Oops. This month's AARP magazine celebrates "Bill Cosby, A Life of Laughter" #Cosby pic.twitter.com/vApIvJXtDC
U-Va.’s entrenched fraternity culture at tipping point - The Washington Post - “I think the fraternity system probably has one chance to fix itself,” Wright said. “If we don’t get this right, people are going to ask for fraternities to be banned, and they are going to have a point.”
Libertarian Magazine Wonders If UVA Rolling Stone Rape Was A 'Hoax' - The libertarian-leaning Reason magazine published a blog post on Monday asking whether Rolling Stone's recent story about rape culture at the University of Virginia, which depicted a horrific gang rape at a fraternity there, was actually "a gigantic hoax." (ha ha Reason, you so stupid)

US Efforts to Jail Dotcom Fail as Kim Walks Free | TorrentFreak - Efforts by the United States government to have Kim Dotcom put back behind bars have failed. claims from United States authorities who want to extradite Dotcom to face charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering.

HIV evolving 'into milder form' - HIV is evolving to become less deadly and less infectious, according to a major scientific study.
Earth's Invisible 'Star Trek' Force Field Protects You From Killer Electrons - "If the sun really blasts the Earth’s magnetosphere with a coronal mass ejection, I suspect it will breach the shield for a period of time."
He may have unravelled DNA, but James Watson deserves to be shunned | Adam Rutherford | Comment is free | The Guardian - Franklin’s skill at the technique known as X-ray crystallography was profound, and was indubitably essential to the discovery. Crick and Watson acquired the photo without her knowledge. (racist, sexist old fuck)
James Watson selling Nobel Prize: DNA structure discoverer’s history of racism and sexism. - The disgraced co-discoverer of DNA is selling his Nobel Prize.
How Sociologists Made Themselves Irrelevant - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - Sadly, this situation is typical because sociologists have become distant spectators rather than shapers of policy. In the effort to keep ourselves academically pure, we’ve also become largely irrelevant in molding the most important social enterprises of our era.
Why Is American Teaching So Bad? by Jonathan Zimmerman | The New York Review of Books
Psychological comments: Are girls too normal? Sex differences in intelligence - This shows that girls predominate over boys at the centre of the intelligence range, but there are fewer at the extremes, which is where boys are slightly more likely to be found. (boys both dumber and smarter, and have bigger heads and 10x more violent)
Price of intelligence: Mental illness - A chance event in the genome of a marine creature about 550 million years ago triggered the evolution of intelligence and brain disorders, from autism to mental retardation to schizophrenia, new research suggests.
Faster cognitive decline may be among the effects of diabetes - The Washington Post
Midlife type 2 diabetes and poor glycaemic control as risk factors for cognitive decline in early old age: a post-hoc analysis of the Whitehall II cohort study : The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology - those with known diabetes had a 45% faster decline in memory (10 year difference in decline -0·13 SD, 95% CI -0·26 to -0·00; p=0·046), a 29% faster decline in reasoning (-0·10 SD, -0·19 to -0·01; p=0·026), and a 24% faster decline in the global cognitive score (-0·11 SD, -0·21 to -0·02; p=0·014).

Is Atheism a Specifically Western Phenomenon? - The American Interest - We know atheism in its Jewish or Christian context, as a rejection of the Biblical God. What would atheism mean in a Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist context? (it's all about monotheism, so no)
HBO's Pending Scientology Documentary Investigates Church's Hold On Hollywood Stars - The film is expected to feature new revelations about the controversial church and its famous followers, such as Cruise and John Travolta. If it’s finished in time, it will be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in January.
North Dakota May Require High School Students To Pass Citizenship Test - The state's first lady joined educators and lawmakers Monday to unveil legislation that would require high school students to pass a 100-question civics test starting in 2016 (F gets you deported to Mexico or Canada)

The original Squatty Potty toilet stool
ELI5: Why capitalize Alpha Centauri, Mars, Venus, Earth, and Europa (a moon of Jupiter) but not moon and sun as in: “The Earth and moon are warmed by the sun.”? : explainlikeimfive

Vox Media Valued at Nearly $400 Million After Investment - NYTimes.com

AT&T’s good cop, bad cop routine with the FCC - The Washington Post - When AT&T said this month it was halting a plan to give 100 cities ultra-fast Internet, it apparently didn't really mean that.
7 Colorado communities just secured the right to build their own broadband - The Washington Post
ELI5: Why did Reddit shut down r/TheFappening but leaves some truly disgusting subs up? : explainlikeimfive
Whats the biggest thing you hide from your family?. : AskReddit

113014
Obama to Introduce Sweeping New Controls on Ozone Emissions - NYTimes.com
Scientists: Climate change means sicker world for sea life | Local News | The Seattle Times - It’s not clear if a virus wiping out millions of sea stars is being influenced by climate change. But scientists say rising temperatures likely will make ocean disease outbreaks more problematic in the future. (Repubican death-cult killing the planet)
Grim Reality Amid Optimism Ahead of Climate Talks - NYTimes.com
Canada's process to protect endangered species is failing, study finds - Technology & Science - CBC News - 86% of country's at risk species stay at same risk level or have deteriorated over time
World's Most Polluted City Urged To Close Schools On Bad Air Days | ThinkProgress - A blanket of dust and smog covers the city landscape in New Delhi, India.
Heed the Warnings: Why We’re on the Brink of Mass Extinction - The Daily Beast (don't worry, the stupid will live on)
Next battle in the war on science - Maggie Severns - POLITICO - The GOP Congress is ready to attack science agency funding in 2015.

Flawed 1 World Trade Center Is a Cautionary Tale

Activists: ISIS Is Now Launching Attacks From Inside Turkey - The Atlantic - But the country denies that the terrorist group is operating from its side of the border
US-led coalition bombards Isis at Raqqa with up to 30 air strikes | World news | The Guardian - The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes targeted Isis positions in the city of Raqqa as well as the Division 17 air base, which the militants seized earlier this year from government forces.
Inside the Islamic State’s capital: Red Bull-drinking jihadists, hungry civilians, crucifixions and air strikes | World news | The Guardian - Activists tell of the Isis elite living in relative luxury as civilians face poverty, hunger, inflation and power shortages
Egypt court declares ISIS a terror group | News , Middle East | the daily star
Mubarak verdict fuels protests, mockery in Egypt | Reuters

Boko Haram Kano attack: Loss of life on staggering scale - The tension is palpable in Kano, after bombers and gunmen struck killing more than 100 people at the central mosque.

WASHINGTON: Former al Qaida hostage recounts nightmare – of dealing with FBI | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - The only thing as bad as being tortured for months as a captive of jihadists in Syria was dealing with the U.S. government afterward, according to one former American hostage. (your government, particularly the security apparatus, is insane)

UK Government Brings In Yet More Counter-Terrorism Measures -- Including Internal Exile | Techdirt - Yes, you read that correctly: the new bill will introduce internal exile for the UK. The parallels between the UK and Soviet Russia become more painfully apparent by the day. (gulag in Scotland)

Abbas accuses U.S. of blocking creation of Palestinian state - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz - PA president 'regrets' U.S. lawmakers' recommendaton to cut aid; also says Egyptian help will be essential for security in future Palestinian state
Politicians roundly condemn attack on bilingual school | The Times of Israel - Justice minister promises punishment for perpetrators of suspected arson incident in Jerusalem Hebrew-Arabic institution Saturday night

Finance Minister's Family Purchase State Assets Behind Closed Doors - The Reykjavik Grapevine - Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson’s family was granted early access to an unadvertised share sale that allowed them to purchase a stake in Landsbankinn asset Borgun, reports Kjarninn. (Iceland still very corrupt)
Ecopop referendum: Swiss reject immigration curbs - Voters in Switzerland have decisively rejected a proposal to cut net immigration to no more than 0.2% of the population.
Hong Kong Protesters Clash With Police for Street Control - Bloomberg - Hundreds of protesters faced off against police officers at key junctions around the offices in the Admiralty district.

UN anti-torture panel urges US to cease indefinite detention without charge - The Committee urged the United States to ensure that no one is held in secret detention under its effective control and take all necessary measures to ensure that their legislative, administrative and other anti-terrorism measures are compatible with the provisions of the Convention.

Russia Arctic Expansion - Business Insider
Large, unauthorized convoy enters east Ukraine from Russia: Ukrainian military - Yahoo News
Hi-tech equipment missing from warship France is building for Russia | World news | The Guardian - Hard drives among material reported missing on day president suspended delivery of the Vladivostok due to Ukraine concerns

German loophole allows BND spy agency to snoop on own people | World news | The Guardian - Intelligence agency can legally intercept calls and emails from Germans working abroad for foreign firms, MPs discover
U.K. police force accidentally admits it spied on journalists - and asked the publication to delete the documents when they realized what they had done. Press Gazette has refused to do so, arguing that “there is a strong public interest in disclosing it.”
Facebook can gain direct access to your mobile and take pictures or make videos at any time, MPs warn - warning that laws will be needed if companies fail to comply.

Justices weigh limits of free speech over Internet


Where Do We Go After Ferguson? - NYTimes.com
No Benefits for Ferguson Police Officer Who Resigned - NYTimes.com
Attorney: Ferguson officer Darren Wilson resigns in wake of fatal shooting of Michael Brown -
Deep South justice in Ferguson - The Washington Post
'Morning Joe' Panel: Michael Brown Was A 'Thug,' Protests Are Based On 'Lies'
Police killing, beating of civilians raise issue of reasonable force - LA Times - Samantha Ramsey, 19, was buried next to her father in Hebron, Ky., after being shot to death by a sheriff’s deputy who said he feared for his life as he tried to stop the car she was driving. A grand jury took one day to review evidence — including the deputy's testimony ... before declaring the shooting justified. (after he jumped on the hood)
Crime law enforcement technology | Homeland Security News Wire - ignificant increase in public requests for video footage under the state’s Public Records Act, which puts no limit on the number of records which may be requested nor requires that the person requesting records have any connection to the information being requested.

Ibuprofen Relieves Women’s Hurt Feelings, Not Men’s | News - People have long been conditioned to believe that hurt feelings and physical injury are separate phenomena. Recent research finds that both kinds of pain activate similar regions of the brain — and that differences in sex reveal opposing ways to mitigate the sting of social pain through over-the-counter pain relievers.
Minocycline supplementation for treatment of negative symptoms in e... - PubMed - NCBI - he addition of minocycline to atypical antipsychotic drugs in early schizophrenia had significant efficacy on negative symptoms but had a slight effect on the attention domains of patients with schizophrenia. It may be considered as a new adjunct treatment for negative symptoms of schizophrenia
Which is faster gravity or light? : askscience
Effect of raw milk on lactose intolerance: a randomized controlled ... - PubMed - NCBI - Raw milk failed to reduce lactose malabsorption or lactose intolerance symptoms compared with pasteurized milk among adults positive for lactose malabsorption. These results do not support widespread anecdotal claims that raw milk reduces the symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Lack of exposure to natural light in the workspace is associated wi... - PubMed - NCBI - Our study demonstrated that not only may light pollution affect human physiology but also lack of exposure to natural light is related to high levels of cortisol and lower levels of melatonin at night, and these, in turn, are related to depressive symptoms and poor quality of sleep.
El Sidron - Neanderthal Site in Spain - Although there are not carnivore tooth marks on the bone, the bones are heavily fragmented and show cutmarks made by stone tools, indicating that they were almost certainly killed and cannibalized ... lead researchers to believe this family was a victim of survival cannibalism by another group ... between 42,000 and 44,000 years ago,
New Class of Polymers Discovered By Accident - Scientific American - Eco-friendly polymers strong enough to use in cars and airplanes

The Downside of Resilience - NYTimes.com - Others are more like dandelions; they prove resilient to the negative effects of adversity, but at the same time do not particularly benefit from positive experiences. In this sense, resilience, long thought to be an exclusively beneficial characteristic, is actually a double-edged sword ... genetics seems to play a role.

A letter to … the girl who accused me of rape when I was 15 | Life and style | The Guardian
From the Gaurdian: A letter to … the girl who accused me of rape when I was 15 : news

What do you think is the best guitar riff of all time? : AskReddit

Fiber fight: Broadening broadband Gig City touted as model in broadband debate | Times Free Press (coulda been Cambridge, but they spent all their money on traffic-calming and removing parking spaces)


112814
Pollution and Politics - NYTimes.com - Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposed regulations to curb emissions of ozone, which causes smog, not to mention asthma, heart disease and premature death. And you know what happened: Republicans went on the attack, claiming that the new rules would impose enormous costs.

Despite Aid Push, Ebola Is Raging in Sierra Leone - NYTimes.com

Conflicting Policies on Syria and Islamic State Erode U.S. Standing in Mideast - NYTimes.com
US launches 15 air strikes against Isis | World news | The Guardian - Series of US military air strikes hit Isis fighting positions and staging areas in Iraq and Syria earlier this week
Inside The Fight Against ISIS In Kobani
Eschaton: We'll Serve Them Lean Cuisine To Make Them Lean And Mean - We'll Serve Them Lean Cuisine To Make Them Lean And Mean - Well this will work for sure: “The idea is, at least in the first instance, to try and build a kind of leaner, meaner Iraqi army,” said a senior U.S. official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss planning.
U.S. seeks to build lean Iraqi force to fight the Islamic State - The Washington Post (never learn from experience)
Taliban Press Attacks Against Afghan Targets - NYTimes.com - Taliban Press Attacks Against Afghan Targets

Mexico's President Vows To Reform Police In Wake Of Students' Disappearance (that will surely work)
Turning Mexico’s kingpins into cartelitos | Al Jazeera America - Drug trafficking organizations are rapidly splintering, but there?’s no end in sight to the violence

Wasted investment: China's $6.8-trillion hole? | The Economist - HAS CHINA really blown $6.8 trillion on worthless investments over the past five years? (probably not)

Japanese Newspaper Prints Apology for Using the Term ‘Sex Slaves’ - NYTimes.com - , the newspaper said it was “inappropriate” to suggest that the women — of many nationalities and known euphemistically as “comfort women” — had been recruited against their will.
Choosing to Look at 'War Porn' - NYTimes.com - Most of these pictures weren’t published because they are gruesome. They show very horrific things and the publications I worked for decided not to run them.

Oops: After Threatening Hacker With 440 Years, Prosecutors Settle for a Misdemeanor | WIRED - 28-year-old hacker Fidel Salinas faced 44 felony computer fraud and cyberstalking counts just months ago.

Another look at how U.S. workers have been screwed over the past 50 years - the so-called supply side economics popularized during the Reagan administration (aka "trickle-down" economics), wasn't very friendly to production and nonsupervisory employees.
The right’s Black Friday con: Who’s really behind the war on low-wage protests - Salon.com - With activists mobilizing to protest low wages at retail stores this week, corporate toads are seeking payback

Learning from my 2014 mistakes: A year of reckoning for Democrats - Salon.com - No, red state women didn't save the party. But Ebola was a phony GOP-made crisis and Dems shouldn't have cowered - Michelle Nunn lost white women to David Perdue 69-27; Wendy Davis lost them 66-31; Alison Grimes lost them 55-41

Do Online Death Threats Count as Free Speech? - NYTimes.com


Current drug-patent system is bad medicine | Al Jazeera America - The $2.6 billion figure, which will undoubtedly be used to justify high drug prices, led many health care experts and advocates to raise questions about the study’s methodology. Part of the concern stems from the fact that the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, which DiMasi directs, receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

The coming wave of anti-abortion laws - Paige Winfield Cunningham - POLITICO - New GOP state legislatures will make access to abortion harder than ever.

Ferguson: what the witnesses said
Dehumanizing Ferguson - The Washington Post - The name Ferguson should become shorthand for dehumanization.
Hullabaloo - The #Ferguson #fail
Lawrence O’Donnell: Why did McCulloch pin so much on unreliable ‘Witness #10'?
Protests in Houston after police shoot unarmed man in wheelchair | US news | The Guardian - He "waved a shiny object in his hand in their direction" and attempted to stab one of the officers, at which point the other officer, Matthew Marin, shot Claunch. The shiny object proved to be a ballpoint pen. (from his wheelchair)

Bill Cosby resigns from fundraising post at alma mater | World news | The Guardian - News that comedian agreed to resign from UMass Amherst comes as university in Tennessee cancelled appearance by the comedian at its annual benefit dinner

Christian ‘branding agency’ seeks $1 million for ‘McMass’ project to put McDonald’s in churches - A design firm committed to using “cutting edge communication technology to empower the 21st century church” started a new project, “McMass,” in which it aims to reinvigorate the flock by opening McDonald’s franchises in churches. (two dying industries) does the McEucharist come with BBQ dipping blood of Jesus sauce?




Saudi Arabia is freaking out about digital drugs | Dazed - Saudi Arabia is taking a typically hard stance on any potential dangers of digital drugs. The country has some of the harshest drug laws in the world, with the sale of narcotics almost always resulting in the death penalty. . Binaural beats have been around in the West for a while, but with mixed reports on whether or not you can catch a legitimate buzz. However, Al-Sharif clearly believes in the strength of digital drugs and is doing everything within his power to prevent his country becoming an addled mess zombified by sound.
The Hypnosis Videos That Promise Sweet Dreams and Hands-Free Orgasms | Motherboard
Yes, You Can Really Make DMT From Tryptophan | Motherboard - "Many psychoactive substances are closely related to amino acids." It's definitely possible to perform this sort of route, then, though Morris adds that it would be plain impractical and unnecessary. Tryptamine is cheap and readily available, for one.
Pharmacology - L-tryptophan to tryptamine to DMT in vivo! - Drugs Forum

The Secret Life of Passwords - NYTimes.com


112714
Yes, the U.S. can reduce emissions 80% by 2050 — in 6 graphs | Grist
New superconductor-powered wind turbines could hit Australian shores in five years - ScienceAlert - Australian scientists are developing wind turbines that are one-third the price and 1,000 times more efficient than anything currently on the market to install along the country's windy and abundant coast.

Germany Warns Wrecking Russian Economy Would Be Perilous - Bloomberg - Germany wants to avoid wrecking Russia’s economy with sanctions imposed in the conflict over Ukraine, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
Dutch move 122 tons of gold out of US

How to Defeat the Islamic State — Medium - When the Bush administration decided to disband Iraq’s mostly Sunni military and then to impose a de facto ban on Sunni Arab participation in the new Iraqi government through de-Baathification, America effectively provided no incentive for Iraq’s Sunnis to participate in the new Iraq. We humiliated them. (reaping what Bush sowed)

Mexico's missing students draw attention to 20,000 'vanished' others | World news | The Guardian - The shocking disappearance of 43 student teachers lifted the lid on the open secret of Mexico’s many others who’ve disappeared amid drug-fuelled violence (another failed war with disasterous consequences)

Veena Malik sentenced to 26 years in jail for blasphemy after appearing in mock TV wedding scene - People - News - The Independent - Her crime? Appearing in a pretend wedding scene, staged on a daytime show broadcast by Geo TV and based on the marriage of the Prophet Mohamed’s daughter.

Panel Details Plan to Give Scotland More Powers - NYTimes.com
Former UKIP deputy: gays sleep with up to 20,000 people | Dazed - Lord Christopher Monckton writes: ‘One wonders how they found time for anything else.’

Siggi "The Hacker" admits guilty to all charges - mbl.is - The case against Siggi "The Hacker" has un­der­gone a sharp turn-around. Siggi has de­cided to change his plea to "Guilty". Charges against him amount to thirty pages of em­bez­zle­ment and fraud amount­ing to thirty mil­lion kro­nas.

Saudis block OPEC output cut, sending oil price plunging | Reuters

How Robert McCulloch Hoodwinked The Ferguson Grand Jury | Crooks and Liars - A shocking deception on the part of the St. Louis County Prosecutor taints the entire Grand Jury verdict.
Ferguson grand jury’s huge mistake: What the transcripts reveal about eyewitness testimony - Salon.com - A look at the investigation transcript illuminates a hugely problematic fact: This testimony cannot be trusted
Unorthodox police procedures emerge in grand jury documents - The Washington Post
Prosecutors grossly mishandled the Darren Wilson investigation - Vox
What do the newly released witness statements tell us about the Michael Brown shooting? | PBS NewsHour (cops and law lie)
Experts Weigh Officer’s Decisions Leading to Fatal Shooting of Michael Brown - NYTimes.com

Ferguson: hundreds arrested in California protests despite relative calm in Missouri | US news | The Guardian - In Los Angeles and Oakland, demonstrators took to the streets for a third night to show solidarity with the family of Michael Brown
Bankers, Immigrants, Darren Wilson and the Injustices of Prosecutorial Discretion by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - All of this is happening against the backdrop of one of the largest and most controversial programs of deliberate non-prosecution in U.S. history: the decision not to pursue criminal sanctions against those in the financial sector who not only violated various laws but wrecked much of the economy and damaged the lives of many millions of people. (Obama had the banksters backs)
Justice Scalia Explains What Was Wrong With The Ferguson Grand Jury | ThinkProgress - . As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.
Ferguson’s lawlessness is not a big surprise - The Washington Post - Lawlessness happens when the law breaks down. That sounds like a tautology. It’s not.
Race in America: Ferguson surfaces divisions in views of blacks and whites | Pew Research Center - When asked specifically about confidence in police to not use excessive force on suspects, 36% of whites express a great deal of confidence compared with 18% of blacks
The five leaders who failed Ferguson | US news | The Guardian
Ferguson Grand Jury Testimony Full Of Inconsistencies

Armed and Dangerous · thewalrus.ca - How mission creep is turning our cops into warriors
Wisc. Police Come To Man's Home, Arrest Him For Calling Them Racists On Facebook | Crooks and Liars - A federal lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin man alleges that Arena police violated his civil rights by charging him for calling officers racists on Facebook.
Man Faces Felony Charge Over Aiming Banana At Deputies - He wrote that Love was drawing his service weapon when Channing yelled, "It's a banana!"
Richland Responds to Questions Over Vehicle with Rims - Wilson says a sound system has been added to the car as well as the rims, but he says those things get the attention of children so deputies can teach them about the dangers of drugs and other risky behaviors.

Ohio Could Pass the Country's Most Extreme "Secret Executions" Bill | Mother Jones - A new law could make it almost impossible to know what really happens in the death chamber.

2015 Republican Congress Will Shake Up America's Boring Politics | New Republic - 2. Republicans Are Drunk With Power and Wildly Irresponsible

Krugman's CUNY Salary Doesn't Make Him a Hypocrite on Inequality | New Republic - New York Times op-ed columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman will receive $250,000 in his first year teaching at the City University of New York (people are stupid)

Drug Maker Gave Large Payments to Doctors With Troubled Track Records - NYTimes.com

Pew Study Makes More Conservative Voters: Ross Douthat Column | New Republic - Pew recently released a study saying that having a daughter makes men more conservative. It followed the release of another Pew study that shows a sister has the same effect on men. Why, you ask? - In short, we are back to sex, and the need to protect women from it
Tennessee university cancels Bill Cosby appearance | World news | The Guardian - Freed-Hardeman University decision comes as numerous dates on Cosby’s tour have been cancelled despite refutations by the comedian’s lawyer

The Teen Brain “Shuts Down” When It Hears Mom’s Criticism | WIRED - in response to maternal criticism: “youth shut down social processing [and] possibly do not think about their parents’ mental states.” They add: “… the decrement in brain activity in regions involved in mentalizing or perspective taking could help to explain the high frequency of maladaptive conflict resolution in parent-adolescent dyads.”

DNA survives critical entry into Earth's atmosphere -- ScienceDaily - The genetic material DNA can survive a flight through space and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere -- and still pass on genetic information. Scientists obtained these astonishing results during an experiment on the TEXUS-49 research rocket mission.
Light is generally described as having a sinusoidal waveform. Is it possible to have light as other waveforms, such as a square wave, saw-tooth wave or triangle wave? If so, how differently would such light behave in relation to "classic" sinusoidal light? : askscience

The Identity Crisis Under the Ink - The Atlantic (you are your tattoo)
God's Lonely Programmer | Motherboard

BBC - Future - :-o: The surprising power of emoticons

112614
Under Pressure, Obama Administration Seeks Tighter Ozone Standards

Angela Merkel uses strongest language yet about Putin - German chancellor signals she is ready for long confrontation over Ukraine

Israeli president opposes proposed law to give ‘national rights’ to Jews only | World news | The Guardian - Critics say ‘Jewish nation-state’ bill would diminish freedoms of minorities and give ammunition to enemies abroad
Herzog: Netanyahu focusing on 'Jewish state bill' because he can't lower housing prices - "You talk more and more and more about nationality in order to avoid addressing the inability of the public to afford buying a house."
ISIS says its flag will wave over Jerusalem, even if the Jews don't like it - "While the eyes of the world were all blinded and spellbound by the sorcerous media 'covering' the battle for ‘Ayn al-Islam (Kobani), the eyes of the Islamic State were scanning East and West, preparing for the expansion that – by Allah’s permission – would put an end to the Jewish State, Al Salul, and the rest of the apostate tawaghit, the allies of the cross," the article says.

'Kidnapped boy may have been abused and murdered by VIP paedophile ring,' say police - The Independent

Schneier on Security: FBI Agents Pose as Repairmen to Bypass Warrant Process

John Cook Leaving The Intercept To Return To Gawker (the unraveling of Pierre's dream)
Talking to James Risen About Pay Any Price, the War on Terror and Press Freedoms - The Intercept - To me it was wild to hear all of these people inside the intelligence community, especially in 2003, 2004, who were just going nuts. They couldn’t believe the radical change the United States was going through, and that nobody was opposed to it (then Obama came along to cement it)

Hong Kong Riot Police Clear Protest Site, Arrest Student Leaders

Obamacare Sign-Ups Near 500,000 After First Week

What's Next for the Democrats? - The Atlantic - The party is still trying to cope with this month's brutal electoral losses.

U.S. judges overturn gay marriage bans in Arkansas, Mississippi | Reuters

The Long Autumn Of John McCain - Esquire

"Down Outright Murder": A Complete Guide to the Shooting of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson - The Intercept
Officer Darren Wilson's story is unbelievable. Literally. - Vox - Every bullshit detector in me went off when I read that passage. Which doesn't mean that it didn't happen exactly the way Wilson describes
‘Fanciful and not credible’: CNN legal analyst destroys Darren Wilson’s testimony - “Their questions were all softballs, he wasn’t challenged, he wasn’t pressed,” she continued. “It was just unbelievable to me the way they treated him in front of that grand jury.”
Michael Brown spent his last day with his friend Dorian Johnson. Here's what Johnson saw. - Vox
The Meaning of the Ferguson Riots - NYTimes.com
The National Bar Association is questioning how the Grand Jury, considering the evidence before them, could reach the conclusion that Darren Wilson should not be indicted and tried for the shooting death of Michael Brown
Allegations Of Police Misconduct Rarely Result In Charges | FiveThirtyEight (law is above the law)
Unorthodox police procedures emerge in grand jury documents - The Washington Post - When Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson left the scene of the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, the officer returned to the police station unescorted, washed blood off his hands and placed his recently fired pistol into an evidence bag himself.
The Case for Police Reform Is Much Bigger Than Michael Brown - The Atlantic - There are clearer, more persuasive illustrations of law-enforcement misbehavior and the need to rein it in.
Ferguson Grand Jury Evidence Reveals Mistakes, Holes In Investigation
What Ferguson Means: The View From Abroad - “Officers in Ferguson are also not alone in shooting unarmed black men,” the Economist writes, looking at similar cases across the U.S. “Systemic racism is still a problem, and so-called ‘justifiable homicides” are on the rise,’ the magazine reports.
Why does Ferguson still look like Iraq? Congress can stop the military police | Rep Hank Johnson | Comment is free | The Guardian
Ferguson violence broke the mold in three ways — one of which is just unfolding now - The Washington Post
'They're Murdering Our Kids And Getting Away With It'
Tamir Rice Video Shows Cop Opening Fire On 12-Year-Old

Ex-CBC Host Jian Ghomeshi Charged With Sexual Assault - Former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of "overcome resistance -- choking,"
We Let Bill Cosby Into Our Homes, So He Owes Us an Explanation - America's once-favorite TV dad needs to take his own advice.

Jorge Ramos Delivers Riveting Acceptance Speech At CPJ Press Freedom Awards: 'We Have To Take A Stand' - "The best of journalism happens when we take a stand: when we question those who are in power, when we confront the politicians who abuse their authority, when we denounce an injustice,"

The real JFK mystery, 50 years later: Why the infamous murder must be reinvestigated - Salon.com - On the 50th anniversary, so many questions remain. Here's why every piece of evidence must be viewed in a new light (your dark state)

Echidne Of The Snakes: Uber. On "New" Alternatives To Traditional Worker-Employer Arrangements - Its main task is to match buyers of driving services with the sellers of driving services, and that sounds more like a market than a firm, though the Uber app itself is also a form of capital which belongs to the firm. (sold your soul to the company store and they made an app for it)
Uber Said to Be Raising Funds at $40 Billion Valuation - Bloomberg

HBO to make film of Scientology book, hires 160 lawyers - CNN.com - Among Tinseltown's famous Scientologists are John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

12 board games to make you a better person | Technology | The Guardian

'Serial' Is Renewed For Season 2
Prince quits the internet | Music | The Guardian - Prince has had an inconsistent relationship with the online realm. “The internet is completely over,” he declared in 2010, and once threatened to sue eBay, YouTube and torrent sites for illegally distributing his music.

Girls of Reddit, what are signs that you give off to let a guy know that you're interested? : AskReddit
Male Redditors: What hints have girls given you that flew over your head and you now deeply regret? What's your worst "Oh, she wasn't actually inviting me over for coffee at 2am" moment? : AskReddit
Today I wrote a really nice 7 : oddlysatisfying

Why You Shouldn't Trust Your Cat - The Atlantic - Unlike dogs, cats are at best semi-domesticated—and we love them for that.

112514
Dangerous Levels of Global Warming are Unavoidable, Says the World Bank | VICE News - A two degree increase could wipe out 90 percent of coral reefs, devastating coastal ecosystems and the economies and fisheries that depend on them. (developing countries already screwed)
Wednesday’s East Coast winter storm shaping up to be a travel nightmare — timing and impacts - The Washington Post (travelpocalypse)
House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA on their own research - Salon.com - The "reform" measure makes room for industry-funded experts on the EPA's advisory board
Do Democrats and Republicans actually experience the weather differently? - The Washington Post (Republicans have cold hearts, duh)

Feeling — Not Being — Wealthy Drives Opposition to Wealth Redistribution - Association for Psychological Science - People’s views on income inequality and wealth distribution may have little to do with how much money they have in the bank and a lot to do with how wealthy they feel in comparison to their friends and neighbors, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The strange case of the air marshal who was stabbed by a needle during the Ebola outbreak - The Washington Post - Someone jabbed him with a needle in an airport in Nigeria. Was it the beginning of a new type of terrorism?

Kremlin Whistle-Blower: 'Putin Has No Option But To Stay In Power'

Benghazi: A Poster Child for Covert Ops Blowback | emptywheel - The short version, however, is that the report reveals (but does not dwell on) a number of failures on the part of the CIA that should raise real concerns about Syria.

Afghan woman kills 25 Taliban rebels to avenge her son’s murder - Khaama Press (KP) | Afghan News Agency - Sediq Sediq, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said the armed campaign by women against the Taliban militants is a symbol of a major revolution and public uprising against the group.

Blazing the terrorism trail: The US war industry | Middle East Eye - New York Times investigative reporter, James Risen, has released his latest investigation into the hidden costs of the war on terror: Pay Any Price (bottom line: Obama loves war and assassinations which makes people hate us but is enormuosly profitable for his military/corporate pals)

Secret Malware in European Union Attack Linked to U.S. and British Intelligence - The Intercept

Following Taibbi's Departure, eBay Founder Shutters Planned Site - Following a month of turmoil and uncertainty, First Look Media announced Tuesday that it's pulling the plug on a project that was originally going to be led by the journalist Matt Taibbi.
First Look Media Shuts Down 'Racket,' Matt Taibbi's Satirical Project
The Inside Story Of Matt Taibbi's Departure From First Look Media - The Intercept

David Roberts explains postmodern conservatism in 36 tweets | Grist (the conservative mind and its problem with reality)

Schumer: Democrats ‘blew’ opportunity by focusing on ‘wrong problem’ — health care - The Washington Post - Democrats hurt themselves politically by not focusing instead on policies aimed at helping a "broader swath" of middle-class Americans.
Republicans love this new health care plan. Too bad it's basically a tax cut for the rich. - The Week - True to form, conservatives are praising a policy proposal that will deprive millions of Americans of insurance
Washington Post's Glenn Kessler Stands By Discredited Immigration Fact Check | Blog | Media Matters for America - Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler is standing by his blog claiming that the White House had erred in citing President George H.W. Bush's immigration data -- despite evidence discrediting his conclusions. (fact-fucker)

Chuck Hagel: Muddle Accomplished | New Republic - nd after all of that, the impression I got of him, as a person or as a leader, might be summarized as “smudgey.” Looking back on it, there was a pall of futility, maybe even mismatch, that hung over those two weeks, as Hagel, the stage to himself, failed to project any kind of personal force.

Ferguson Grand Jury Faced Mass of Evidence in Decision, Much of It Conflicting - NYTimes.com
Darren Wilson was never going to be indicted for killing Michael Brown: Our courts don’t hold police accountable for using deadly force. - Why Darren Wilson was never going to be indicted for killing Michael Brown.
Ferguson ruling: the key documents from the grand jury's report | US news | The Guardian - After the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson over the death of Michael Brown, the St Louis County prosecutor released 76 documents related to the case, including a transcript of Wilson’s own police interview the day after the shooting
Ferguson Grand Jury: No Indictment for Darren Wilson in Brown's Death | New Republic - The Ferguson grand jury's decision not to indict was no surprise. "A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich," the saying goes, but that never applied to police
Legal Experts Explain Why The Ferguson Grand Jury Was Set Up For Failure | ThinkProgress
PHOTOS: Ferguson on fire - The Washington Post
We should get rid of local policing. Ferguson shows why the system just doesn’t work. - The Washington Post - The old, fragmented approach to law enforcement doesn’t work.
Witness: Michael Brown Said 'I Give Up' Before Being Shot - When he reached a nearby telephone pole, Brown stopped running. "And that's when his arms went up and he turnt around, and he was walkin' back towards the police," she says. "But ... I heard him say, 'I give up.' I know I heard him say that ... 'I give up.'" (so the cop shot him 10 more times)
Michael Brown Family Attorneys Address Prosecutors' Failings - "a first-year law student would have done a better job" than the prosecutor's office of cross-examining Wilson. Crump also characterized the prosecution as having "a symbiotic relationship with the local police."
Ferguson Smolders After Night Of Fires, Unrest Following Grand Jury Decision
Ferguson Police: 61 Arrested Following Grand Jury's Decision
Thousands Protest Nationwide After Ferguson Grand Jury Decision
Darren Wilson Testimony: Michael Brown Looked Like 'A Demon' - Wilson himself is nearly 6 feet, 4 inches and weighs 210 pounds,
Michael Brown Shooting Witness Admitted Racism In Journal Entry
How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty - The Washington Post - By Radley Balko
Witness #40 » Balloon Juice - The oddest thing I’ve seen so far is the account of Witness #40, who just happened to set out on a journey of racial self-discovery on the very morning of August 9, 2014, the day Mike Brown was killed.
Don Lemon Sparks Outrage With Marijuana Comment In Ferguson - And then he said: "Obviously, there is the smell of marijuana in the air."
KKK Leader Meets With Anonymous After Group Hijacks Twitter Account (VIDEO) - Anonymous hacked the account @KuKluxKlanUSA, initiating what it called #OpKKK, after the state KKK chapter sent out fliers threatening "lethal force" against protestors in Ferguson, Mo. - Meanwhile, another Anonymous account, under the hashtag #HoodsOff, began to publish what it claimed were the identities of KKK members in Missouri.

Cleveland police: Video of officer shooting boy is 'clear' | US news | The Guardian - A Cleveland officer was less than 10 feet away when he fatally shot a 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun near a playground, and video of the shooting is clear about what happened, police said on Monday.

The Bill Cosby sexual abuse claims – accusation by accusation | World news | The Guardian - A total of 17 women have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of the popular comedian – allegations that Cosby denies
A Timeline Of How Women's Allegations Against Bill Cosby Have Unfolded


Karen Armstrong on Sam Harris and Bill Maher: “It fills me with despair, because this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps” - Salon.com - . Blaming religion, Armstrong argues, allows Westerners to ignore the essential role that violence has played in the formation of our own societies — and the essential role that our societies have played in seeding violence abroad.

Complex life may be possible in only 10% of all galaxies | Science/AAAS | News - Of the estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, only one in 10 can support complex life like that on Earth, a pair of astrophysicists argues. Everywhere else, stellar explosions known as gamma ray bursts would regularly wipe out any life forms more elaborate than microbes
Stunning New Photo Of Europa Shows Jupiter's Icy Moon Just As The Human Eye Would See It
Without self-referencing, is it possible to explain why 1+1=2? : askscience
Homosexuality may help us bond | UoP News - Homosexual behaviour may have evolved to promote social bonding in humans, according to new research. - The hormone progesterone is known to contribute to the formation of social bonds, which have many adaptive benefits for humans
Homosexual behaviour may have evolved to promote social bonding in humans, according to new research. The results of a preliminary study provide the first evidence that our need to bond with others increases our openness to engaging in homosexual behaviour. : science

Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and “New Atheists” aren’t new, aren’t even atheists - Salon.com - In fact, not only is the New Atheism not representative of atheism. It isn’t even mere atheism (and it certainly is not “new”). What Harris, Dawkins and their ilk are preaching is a polemic that has been around since the 18th century – one properly termed, anti-theism. (jihadi atheism)
Right-wing atheism dismantled - Glenn Greenwald has a great long piece tearing Sam Harris’s ideas apart. It was so satisfying to see my own opinions reflected with such clarity and reason — I have to agree with it all. Read it. It is a thing of beauty. (PZ & commenters ignorant of Saudi, let alone Israeli involvment in 9/11)

112414
Climate Change Threatens to Strip the Identity of Glacier National Park - NYTimes.com
Cuomo abstains from global warming 'debate' | Capital New York - It is itself something of a stance for Cuomo to cite the "political debate" over the causes of warming even though most climatologists say the science is clear and that the rise in the planet's temperature and extreme weather patterns are the result of human activity. (what is wrong with him?)
A big reason climate change isn’t a priority: The apocalypse - The Washington Post
Where Oil and Politics Mix - NYTimes.com - After an unusual land deal, a giant spill and a tanker-train explosion, anxiety began to ripple across the North Dakota prairie.

US air strikes in Syria driving anti-Assad groups to support Isis | World news | The Guardian - Fighters from the Free Syrian Army and several Islamic military groups say Isis is gaining allies or truces due to US bombings
The Syrian War is a Sectarian Conflict by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I kind of doubt that Jim Webb will be Hillary Clinton’s “worst nightmare,” but his admonition that our nation should “never get involved in a five-sided argument” is looking more and more sound in Syria.

Corrupt Chinese general: It took 12 trucks to haul away all the cash he hid in his home.

HRW calls on Indonesia to scrap 'virginity tests' for female police | Asia | DW.DE | 24.11.2014 - Human Rights Watch has condemned Indonesia's use of "virginity tests" to filter female police applicants. The group's Andreas Harsono says some officials claim they want to get rid of "prostitutes" among the applicants.

41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground | US news | The Guardian - New analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve shared with the Guardian, raises questions about accuracy of intelligence guiding ‘precise’ strikes (but Obama said he never killed any civilians?)
Highest-value terror detainees excluded from Senate investigation of CIA torture | Law | The Guardian - our suspected al-Qaida members not interviewed received brutal treatment - US denied Polish investigators access to two of the detainees this summer (when will Barry face the World Court?)
Obama Administration Preaches 'Human Dignity' While Covering Up Torture - By Thursday, negotiations over the report had broken down into chaos. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) openly accused Obama officials of negotiating in bad faith: “It’s being slow-walked to death. They’re doing everything they can not to release it," Rockefeller told HuffPost last week.

UK, US behind Regin malware, attacked European Union networks | ZDNet - Two governments working together are said to have developed the state-sponsored malware that attacked the European Union. Guess what? One of the makers was an EU country.

Nuclear Deal Again Eludes U.S. and Iran - NYTimes.com

Hagel Resigns Under Pressure as Global Crises Test Pentagon - NYTimes.com
With Chuck Hagel’s departure, Obama is turning into George W. Bush - The Washington Post - In a cruel echo of history, Obama is morphing into the president whose foreign policy he campaigned to overturn. Obama on Monday morning sacked his Pentagon secretary, Chuck Hagel, after huge midterm election losses in the sixth year of his presidency — just as Bush did in sacking Donald Rumsfeld after midterm losses in the sixth year of his presidency. (they aren't the same, Dana)
Eschaton: Hagel's Out - And it seems like the administration is really pissing on him as he goes out the door. Weird.
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - If I remember correctly, the Obama administration waited about seven nanoseconds after the 2012 exit polls were released on Election Day to announce the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus. Once they knew they had won, they threw Petraeus under the bus immediately. Now, with no more election days to worry about, the administration was only modestly more deliberative in cashiering Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. They also made sure to shovel plenty of dirt on top of him while they were at it. (Hagel was right, Obama was wrong, so Hagel must go)
Chuck Hagel forced to step down as US defense secretary | US news | The Guardian - Obama confirms defense secretary’s departure and pays tribute to Hagel’s work in awkward ceremony at the White House
Obama's new leader at the Pentagon will mean more war – not less | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - Chuck Hagel is out, and no matter who replaces him, we know this much about the state of Obama’s administration: it’s still addicted to secret war
The Defenestration Of Chuck Hagel - Esquire - There is evidence that the reservoir may be at a very low level these days, judging by the way that the always-reliable, and nearly always-anonymous, Senior Administration Officials chose to dump their chamber pots on Chuck Hagel's head as he left the Pentagon on Monday, his last day as Secretary of Defense.

Uruguay president Jose Mujica apologises for calling Mexico a 'failed state' | World news | The Guardian - Earlier said disappearance of 43 students suggests authorities have lost control; Mexico ‘categorically’ rejected comments and demanded explanation from Uruguayan ambassador (truth hurts)
Teeth and Bones: Law Enforcement's Weakest Link - spiegel online (one might say, "failed")

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: ‘women not equal to men’ | World news | The Guardian - Turkish president also accuses feminists of not understanding special status attributed to mothers by Islam ... adding that manual work was unsuitable for the “delicate nature” of women.

'Mumbai is on the verge of imploding' | Cities | The Guardian - Residents of this overburdened and polluted megacity are held hostage by a politician-builder nexus that allows rampant ‘development’ to fuel its descent into urban hell

Grand Jury Does Not Charge Darren Wilson in Ferguson Case - NYTimes.com - Grand Jury Does Not Charge Darren Wilson in Ferguson Case (shot 12 times "resisting arrest")
Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson Not Indicted In Michael Brown Shooting
It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did | FiveThirtyEight - U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.
No indictment in Ferguson case : news
Live Updates: Governor Urges Calm as Grand Jury Announces Decision in the Michael Brown Shooting in Ferguson - NYTimes.com
What else are we waiting for the Ferguson grand jury to tell us? | US news | The Guardian - Prosecutor asks judge to release a slew of evidence if Darren Wilson is not charged – which may offer resolutions to some of the cases’s biggest mysteries
Police: Woman Saying She's 'Ready For Ferguson' Shoots, Kills Self By Accident
Why It’s Impossible to Indict a Cop | The Nation - It’s not just Ferguson—here’s how the system protects police.

Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides | The Salt Lake Tribune - Over a five-year period, data show that fatal shootings by police officers in Utah ranked second only to homicides of intimate partners.
Teaching our sons to be afraid is not the answer to cops who shoot children | Latoya Peterson | Comment is free | The Guardian - Tamir Rice’s mother will have to bury her 12-year-old son. Do I have to tell my son to accept being treated as less than human to preserve his life?

Supreme Court case tests the limits of free speech on Facebook and other social media - The Washington Post - The issue is whether Elonis should be prosecuted for what he says was simply blowing off steam — “therapeutic efforts to address traumatic events,” as his brief to the court says — because what matters is not his intent but whether any reasonable person targeted in the rants would regard them as menacing warnings.

The Gospel of Rudy Giuliani - The Atlantic - Why is no one talking about American-on-American crime? It's almost as if killers tend to murder people who live near them. Moreover, it seems that people actually hold officers operating under the color of law to a different standard. This is an incredible set of insights ...

18 Moments That Led To Bill Cosby's Stunning Downfall - “Basically nobody wanted to live in a world where Bill Cosby was a sexual predator. It was too much to handle.”
Bill Cosby show in Washington state cancelled amid sex assault claims | World news | The Guardian - anuary show in Connecticut also postponed indefinitely - Embattled comedian still has 30 performances scheduled
The Wrap's Stunningly Stupid Op-Ed Was Called 'The Rape of Bill Cosby'
Cosby Today: Ex-NBC Employee Says He Helped Cosby Pay Women Off - Celebrity news - Boston.com - · The interview with Scotti also revealed an alleged arrangement between Cosby and a Manhattan modeling agency, whereby the agency’s owner would deliver models, some “as young as 16,” to Cosby’s dressing room. Scotti claimed Cosby would pick a model to be brought to his dressing room, dismiss the agency’s owner and the other models, and then ask Scotti to “stand outside the door and don’t let anyone in.”
Bill Cosby accuser wants himto admit to sex assaults - NY Daily News - . ‘He must apologize. He has not accepted one single thing,’ Moritz told the Daily News on Monday. She contends the comedian assaulted her before a 1971 appearance on ‘The Tonight Show.’
Calling Out Bill Cosby’s Media Enablers, Including Myself - NYTimes.com - David Carr
Bill Cosby Asks for Memes; Twitter Focus on Rape -- Vulture

University’s Image Suffers After Campus Rape Report - NYTimes.com - after a reported frat house gang rape rocked the university’s vaunted reputation and genteel self-image, and unleashed complaints that it had mishandled and concealed sexual assaults for years.

Men by Laura Kipnis review – witty dispatch from the frontline of sexual politics | Books | The Guardian - From Gropers to Men Who Hate Hillary, in a series of essays Kipnis explores a diverse array of males with humour, insight and a contrarian’s point of view
Jennifer Gable, Transgender Woman, Presented As Man At Her Funeral - Additionally, the late Gable's family cut her hair short and presented her wearing a suit and her obituary reportedly skipped the decade of her life she spent transitioning to live authentically as Jennifer.

Hero Dads Who Are Heroes Cook Dinner Sometimes Like Total F*cking Heroes | Wonkette - Working dads who cook! It’s a growing trend — because there are a least three of them — and they’re a little tired of being taken for granted, what with the New York Times failing to write about their heroic measures every single day.

Protein that rouses the brain from sleep may be target for Alzheimer's prevention : News : Daily News Now - The new research, in mice, demonstrates that eliminating that protein - called orexin - made mice sleep for longer periods of time and strongly slowed the production of brain plaques.
Misunderstood Medicine: 'I feel like a normal boy' | Local & Regional | KATU.com - Portland News, Sports, Traffic Weather and Breaking News - Portland, Oregon - "Oil infused with CBD, medical marijuana," she said as she held a jar of medical cannabis pills from TJ's Organic Gardens, a Eugene-based medical marijuana farm with indoor operations in Oregon and Washington.

White Suburbs Are More and More a Thing of the Past | New Republic - The new racial dynamics of the American dream, in three eye-opening graphics

Marshmallows On Sweet Potatoes? Thanksgiving's Traditions Exposed : NPR
Bringing Sous Vide to the Home Cook - NYTimes.com - My favorite of the new crop is the Anova Precision Cooker,

‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More - NYTimes.com
Sony Comes To A Screeching Halt Targeted By Massive Ransomware Hack - The source, according to the website, is an ex-employee of Sony Pictures who has a friend that still works for the company. According to the source’s friend, allegedly, every computer in Sony’s New York Office, and every Sony Pictures’ office across the nation, bears an image from the hacker with the headline “Hacked By #GOP” which is then followed by a warning.

112314
More on Christie's Ditched Ebola Policy - But not before finding an abandoned psychiatric hospital, Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital, in Hunterdon Country where asymptomatic health care workers returning from West Africa would be confined - and not before racking up 500 hours of police overtime hours to guard the abandoned facility even though no one was there.

Iraqi forces say retake two towns from Islamic State | Reuters - Iraqi forces said on Sunday they retook two towns north of Baghdad from Islamic State fighters, driving them from strongholds they had held for months and clearing a main road from the capital to Iran.
What's Wrong With This Picture? For U.S. Fight Against ISIS, Everything - In a surreal turn of events for two countries that have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, the U.S. and Iran are seeing their interests align: Both support the central Iraqi government and the Kurds in the north, and both hope to eradicate ISIS.

Afghan Officials Say Suicide Bomber Kills 'At Least 45' At Volleyball Tournament
Kenya bus attack survivor tells how gunmen selected their victims | World news | The Guardian - Al-Shabaab extremists singled out and killed 28 passengers who could not recite Islamic creed, Kenyan police say

MH17: Dutch complete recovery of Malaysia Airlines wreckage in eastern Ukraine - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - Dutch experts have completed the recovery of wreckage from the crash site of downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine.

Iran nuclear deal by deadline 'impossible' say negotiating team | World news | The Guardian - Unnamed member of Tehran’s negotiating team says final and comprehensive deal will not be reached by November 24, Iranian news agency reports
Israel Hayom | Iran: We gave Hezbollah missiles that can reach southern Israel - Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force Brig. Gen. Seyed Majid Moussavi says the Iranian goal is to provide "Hezbollah and Hamas with advanced, modern weapons in order to allow the resistance groups to deal with the bloodthirsty Zionist regime."

The Failed NSA Reform Bill Was a Sham Anyway - "Data handshakes," call records, and the NSA's back door into telecom companies reveal that the Senate's plan to protect Americans' privacy would have done no such thing. (well, DiFi was involved) w
The FBI’s Dangerous Misrepresentation of Encryption Law - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - The FBI no more deserves a direct line to your data than it deserves to intercept your mail at the post office. But it doesn’t want you to know that.

Fired Nuke Commander Linked To Counterfeit Poker Chips - WASHINGTON (AP) — The admiral fired last year as No. 2 commander of U.S. nuclear forces may have made his own counterfeit $500 poker chips with paint and stickers to feed a gambling habit that eventually saw him banned from an entire network of casinos, according to a criminal investigative report obtained by The Associated Press.

We Don’t Learn From Our Mistakes by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - . I know that 9/11 was a hell of a provocation and that it made us scared and crazy, but we did not rise to the occasion. We made a momentous decision without any thought and we just keep paying and paying and paying for it.


Tamara Green on Cosby assault: 'He was like a spider, sitting there waiting' | World news | The Guardian (comment)
Bill Cosby Controversy: A Decade In The Making
Bill Cosby Defends Silence Amid Sex Scandal: “People Shouldn’t Answer To Innuendos” : television
Women charged with false rape accusations at Keene State College : news

Former leader of 'gay cure' group marries male partner Larry McQueen | Metro News - The former head of a group that claimed it could stop people being attracted to those of the same sex has married his male partner.

ELI5: How did adding "Le-" or "De-" to the beginning of a more traditional name become prominent in Black American culture? : explainlikeimfive
Woman dies after metal detector causes pacemaker to malfunction : news

St. Louis County Police Violate Court Order By Arresting Journalist Standing on Sidewalk - Reason.com - And nobody seems to be in charge as grand jury decision looms
Baltimore residents demand tougher laws on police officers at hearing - Baltimore Sun - "Litigation in some ways is the only way to weed out bad officers," attorney Dwight Pettit, who has sued dozens of officers in 40 years, told the panel of lawmakers. "That $200,000 limit isn't enough incentive to make them stop the behavior."

How to Nail Your Enemies: Ancient Egyptian Spells Deciphered - NBC News.com - The opening of the codex refers to a divine figure named "Baktiotha" whose identity is a mystery, researchers say. The lines read, "I give thanks to you and I call upon you, the Baktiotha: The great one, who is very trustworthy; the one who is lord over the forty and the nine kinds of serpents," according to the translation.
Spice up your memory, Monash University - Adding just one gram of turmeric to breakfast could help improve the memory of people who are in the very early stages of diabetes and at risk of cognitive impairment.
LSD, de-patterning, and death: Terminally ill patients reenvision the end after psychedelic therapy - PsyPost - The double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial of twelve participants found that LSD-assisted psychotherapy can generate lasting psychological benefits in patients with a life-threatening illness ... “Dying is as usual or unusual as life itself. You cannot separate it"

Malware’s new target: your password manager’s password | Ars Technica - Citadel trojan attempts to grab your master key.
Computer spying malware uncovered with 'stealth' features - Symantec - Yahoo News UK - The Mountain View, California-based maker of Norton antivirus products said its research showed that a "nation state" was likely the developer of the malware called Regin, or Backdoor.Regin, but Symantec did not identify any countries or victims.
Non-Profit Wants To Make Encrypting Web Traffic Easy And Free | Popular Science - But shouldn't secure browsing be the rule, rather than the exception? A project called Let's Encrypt wants to encourage just that, starting in mid-2015.

112214
Somalia's Al-Shabab Says It Killed 28 In Kenya (distributed hordes)
Obama Quietly Broadens Mission In Afghanistan - President Barack Obama has quietly approved guidelines in recent weeks to allow the Pentagon to target Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, broadening previous plans that had limited the military to counterterrorism missions against al-Qaida after this year, U.S. officials said late Friday. (because the Taliban were taking over the country again, sound familiar?)

The Disappearance Of 43 Mexican Students Is An Atrocity. But It's No Isolated Incident (part of the terrible cost of Conservatives' War on Drugs)
Top local cop arrested in 43 students' disappearance - CNN.com - Investigators apprehended Cesar Nava Gonzalez, the former deputy director of the Cocula police department who had been on the run since the September disappearance of the students, the federal prosecutor's office said.

Flash - Germany to drop probe into US spying on Merkel: report - France 24 - due to a lack of evidence, magazine Focus said Saturday. (NSA wouldn't give them the evidence)

Media ‘gagged over bid to report MP child sex cases’ | Society | The Guardian - The security services are facing questions over the cover-up of a Westminster paedophile ring as it emerged that files relating to official requests for media blackouts in the early 1980s were destroyed. (National Security for the riches and powerfuls)
UK Security Enforced Media Blackout of Government Child Abuse | News | teleSUR - Two publishing executives were prevented from printing damning details enclosed in a dossier on the child sex abuse scandal.
Vatican arrests former ambassador on child sex abuse charges | World news | The Guardian - The Polish-born cleric was recalled from the Dominican Republic in August 2013 after the archbishop of Santo Domingo told Pope Francis about rumours that Wesolowski had sexually abused teenage boys in the Caribbean country. Prosecutors there say he allegedly paid boys as young as 13 to masturbate.

Anonymous on Twitter: "FCC Commissioner @MClyburnFCC did entire redditAMA without giving any meaningful answers. reddit reacted predictably https://t.co/1gi3ihRcZr" (bureaucratic babble-speak)

Want to know just how much Obama overreached on executive power? Wait for America's next 'king' | Scott Lemieux | Comment is free | The Guardian - The president’s actions on immigration are perfectly legal – probably. And he’s setting precedents for a conservative – definitely (well, there you go)
Here Are Those Immigration Riots Tom Coburn Warned Us About
G.O.P. Accuses Obama of Treating Immigrants Like Humans
On immigration, a tale of two presidents - CNN.com (good mash-up of Bushbama)

On Keystone and the N.S.A., Hillary Clinton Remains Quiet (the nothing candidate)

House Intelligence Committee's Benghazi Report Torches Conspiracy Theories - But perhaps the most significant conclusion is its finding that Rice's talking points -- a key focus of the Benghazi Select Committee empaneled by House Speaker John Boehner -- were not part of an attempt to conceal the severity of the incident.

Understanding the Threat of a Confederate Insurgency by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Rev. William Barber captured the moment we are living in by talking about a Third Reconstruction. - Change to our “social order” is coming, whether we like it or not. The traditions, economics, religion that mask our entitlement are being stripped away and the hate is becoming more perceptible. As a result, the confederate insurgency is threatening to explode.
Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party | The Weekly Sift - So Lincoln and Grant may have had their mission-accomplished moment, but ultimately the Confederates won. The real Civil War — the one that stretched from 1861 to 1877 — was the first war the United States lost (really, must read)

Indianapolis Star Alters Racist Thanksgiving Cartoon, Then Deletes It And Apologizes

Judge Issues Court Orders To Uphold Right To Record Police In Ferguson (they never got the thousand memos)

Bill Cosby’s legacy, recast: Accusers speak in detail about sexual-assault allegations - The Washington Post - Sixteen women have publicly stated that Cosby, now 77, sexually assaulted them, with 12 saying he drugged them first and another saying he tried to drug her.
Timeline: Bill Cosby's life - Washington Post
Carla Ferrigno, Angela Leslie And Louisa Moritz Come Forward With Allegations Against Bill Cosby - I thought that odd, how would he know that? I always thought it was odd that after I had this drink I would end up in my bed the next morning and I wouldn’t remember anything.” (comment section enters a new phase: reputation-management sock-puppets get buried in derision, see Lily Aijala)
Bill Cosby -- New Allegation ... He Slipped Me A Quaalude and I Woke Up with His Friend | TMZ.com - She says although she never saw Bill drink or do drugs, he often had "a drawer full of drugs," including Quaaludes, in his hotel room. She says women were frequently around Bill and would often take the drug knowingly and voluntarily. She also says men partied with the drugs as well.
Rosemary Williams Of 'My Five Wives' Says Father Sexually Abused Her - A woman featured in a reality TV show about a polygamous family is going public about sex abuse she claims she suffered as a child in hopes of changing a culture of secrecy plaguing plural families in Utah.
OA
Americans could save a fortune this winter — if they only understood their thermostats - The Washington Post - only about 30 percent of homes actually have thermostats that can be programmed ... just 47 percent of programmable thermostats were actually in the "program" mode -- in which, you know, they can actually be programmed.

'I felt as if I had become fear itself': life after a stroke at 34 | Society | The Guardian
Behind the scenes of a 'shocking' new study on human altruism | Molly Crockett | Science | The Guardian - A recent study suggests most people would rather harm themselves than a stranger for profit. Lead author Molly Crockett takes us behind the scenes of the research
Lost languages leave traces on the brain | Ars Technica - Babies' brains adjust to listening to a language, even if they never learn it.

ESPN Suspends Keith Law From Twitter For Defending Evolution [UPDATE] (Curt Schilling doesn't believe in science)

Startup bros trying to bio-hack vaginas is the problem with Silicon Valley | Arwa Mahdawi | Comment is free | The Guardian - When a man introduces a project to make lady-parts smell like peaches, it’s no surprise that the funders are largely straight, white men - She used Cambrian’s technology to print a virus to kills off the microbes that cause things like yeast infections – and, though Gome told reporters that the fruity smell is an added bonus that lets women know it’s working, the name is reportedly only a reference to the fruit’s long history as reference to vagina. (wait, what?)

Man tells it like it is regarding Shanesha Taylor, the woman who left her child in a hot car to go to a job interview, raised 100K in donations, then blew it on designer clothing and a rap studio for her boyfriend. : videos (wait for it ...)

112114
Plague kills 40 people in Madagascar | World news | The Guardian - World Health Organisation is concerned about risk of disease spreading in the capital where two cases have been recorded

Flight MH370: Emirates chief Sir Tim Clark believes information is being concealed - The head of the world's largest international airline believes information about missing flight MH370 is being concealed, calling into question who was in control of the doomed aircraft and the role of the Malaysian military.

The CIA’s Review Of Glenn Greenwald’s Snowden Book Is Hilarious | TechCrunch - "Greenwald sums up the common themes of these three books: Snowden’s acts were justified because he chose to seek “reform of the surveillance state,” (248) and journalists have the absolute right to be the final arbiters of what to publish. Greenwald’s often bitter ad hominem rationale for this is unlikely to be the last word on the subject." (and the last word would be ...?)
DOJ Tells Apple Kids Will Die Because of Their Encryption Stand | DSLReports, ISP Information - A child would die, he said, because police wouldn’t be able to scour a suspect’s phone, according to people who attended the meeting.

Police face legal action for snooping on journalists | UK news | The Guardian - ‘Domestic extremists’ unit kept a secret database of details on journalists including medical history of family members
Largest Cyber-Attack in History Hits Pro-Hong Kong Protest Websites

Lithuania President calls Russia ’terrorist state’ - Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite has called Russia a 'terrorist state' and warns that the current conflict in Ukraine could spread further if not stopped.
Peskov Says Ethnic Russians In Latvia Would Revolt If Radical Nationalists Came to Power | The Interpreter
Mikhail Gorbachev says Vladimir Putin views himself as 'second only to God' - Former Soviet leader warns Russian president not to be a 'bighead' because 'that is what ruined me'

EUobserver / EU parliament to vote on Palestine statehood
Israel held 10,000 Palestinian minors since 2000: Official Anadolu Agency - "Israel does not provide any immunity for children and regularly violates international agreements on children's rights by humiliating and torturing them and denying them fair trials,"

US Warns Citizens to Avoid Resort of Acapulco - NYTimes.com

Barack Obama defends immigration plan at Las Vegas rally | US news | The Guardian - President speaks to around 1,600 at Del Sol high school - Says: ‘We’re not a nation that kicks out strivers and dreamers’
GOP Reaction to Obama Immigration Order is Deadly | New Republic

House G.O.P. Files Lawsuit In Battling Health Law - NYTimes.com (most American don't want you to have health care unlike every other developed country)

White House: Republicans Won The Election, We Won The After-Election - Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer: “We feel very good about how the last two and half weeks have gone.”

Stung by criticism, Fed will review how it supervises large banks

The Day After President Obama's Executive Action - Esquire - I hate to draw comparisons between this president and the late Mr. Lincoln, but popular legend has it that John Wilkes Booth, who did more damage to American government than any other American actor until Ronald Reagan got elected twice,

Uber’s Michael Keeps Supporters Amid Controversial Remarks - Bloomberg - Emil Michael, the Uber Technologies Inc. executive whose criticisms of journalists led to calls for his firing this week, is so far withstanding that pressure. (ubertechnosexistdudebro)

Myron May Was Florida State Gunman: Official - A Florida State University alumnus and attorney shot three people at the school's library early Thursday before being killed by police, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Principal Suspended Over Unannounced School Shooting 'Drill' - The principal of a middle school in Winter Haven, Florida was suspended for staging an unannounced active shooter “drill” that involved police officers entering classrooms with guns drawn.

Actress Angela Leslie accuses Bill Cosby of sex assault - NY Daily News - Model-actress Angela Leslie is the eighth woman to come forward accusing Cosby of sexual harassment or worse. She tells the Daily News he plied her with alcohol, may have tried to drug her and forced her to fondle him in the freaky scene in a luxury suite in 1992. (wall-eyed)
Cosby lawyers strong-armed tabloid into dropping story about rape claims | World news | The Guardian - Lawyers acting for Bill Cosby cajoled the tabloid magazine the National Enquirer into ditching a groundbreaking investigation it had conducted into his alleged sexual misconduct and replacing it with a celebrity interview in which the comic dismissed the claims as money-motivated “misinterpretations”, the Guardian has learned (2005)
Eschaton: Major League - But what has struck me in the wake of the Cosby rape allegations it that it's increasingly being revealed that the guy is a total asshole generally in ways which there aren't really any excuses for not reporting about.
Bill Cosby Once Publicly Bullied A Notre Dame Football Player To Tears (+comment: "As each new victim comes forward, it's just further confirmation of what a terrible, terrible person Cosby really is."
Bill Cosby and the rape accusers: stop looking away and start believing women | Roxane Gay | Comment is free | The Guardian

Newtown school shooting: Report On Adam Lanza Details Deep Denials, Missed Chances At Treatment - Hartford Courant

Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in talks to resign - CNN.com

'Totally innocent' unarmed man shot dead by New York police | US news | The Guardian - Commissioner Bill Bratton describes death of Akai Gurley, 28, who was shot and killed in a housing block in Brooklyn, as ‘a very unfortunate tragedy’
Eschaton: To Protect And Serve - Ramsey booted Cujdik from the force in May, following a long-running Internal Affairs investigation into allegations that the veteran cop lied on search warrants and had an inappropriate relationship with an informant - and then lied about both to investigators. The allegations were first unearthed in the 2009 Daily News series "Tainted Justice."
America's longest-serving solitary confinement prisoner has conviction quashed | US news | The Guardian - Albert Woodfox, a member of the ‘Angola Three’ who were convicted of killing a prison guard in 1972, sees best hope of release after court rules for racial bias
LA school district settles classroom sexual abuse cases for $139m | US news | The Guardian - The Los Angeles Unified School District will pay $139mto end all remaining litigation involving an elementary school teacher convicted of committing numerous counts of lewd conduct against his students, according to the settlement announced Friday.

Federal Housing Administration Still Tips the Scales Toward Sprawl | Streetsblog.net
Here’s Who’s Parking on City Hall’s Doorstep | News | Philadelphia Magazine - The entitled, ugly backside of $55 million Dilworth Park.

'Little Things Matter' Exposes Big Threat To Children's Brains - Tiny amounts of lead, chemical flame retardants and organophosphate pesticides, among other toxins, course through the blood of nearly every American. But just how much worry is a little poison worth?

Imagination, reality flow in opposite directions in the brain -- ScienceDaily - "There seems to be a lot in our brains and animal brains that is directional, that neural signals move in a particular direction, then stop, and start somewhere else," says. "I think this is really a new theme that had not been explored."
Scientists have finally found the neurological difference between fantasy and reality - it turns out that information flows through our brains in opposite directions when we’re imagining something compared to really doing it. : science

Most adults who drink too much are not alcoholics, CDC study finds | US news | The Guardian - Study finds that 90% of heavy drinkers fell short of criteria for alcoholism, finding which could have implications for reducing consumption of beer, wine and liquor
Now e-cigarettes can give you malware | Technology | The Guardian - “The made in China e-cigarette had malware hardcoded into the charger, and when plugged into a computer’s USB port the malware phoned home and infected the system.”

luker_man comments on What is something about the male perspective on dating that your female friends don't understand? - f we don't do anything we'll die alone. If we don't take that first step, send that first message, or say that first "Hi, My name is..." we'll end up in a one bedroom apartment choking on a dinner for one in front of a TV reaching for a life alert button.
Insane Japanese Animation Team Holy Shit : videos
TIL that the male urethra produces a spiral stream of urine that has the effect of cleaning the external urethral meatus (Where the urine exits the body). The lack of an equivalent mechanism in the female urethra partly explains why urinary tract infections occur so much more frequently in females : todayilearned

112014
Western New York Residents Call Snow Worst In Memory - Thursday as another storm brought the Buffalo area's three-day snowfall total to an epic 7 feet or more.
NOAA: Globe sets 5th hottest-month record of 2014
I’m Naomi Klein, author of THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism vs the Climate. Ask me anything! : IAmA

Obama Moves To Protect Millions From Deportation

White House Putting Up 'Fierce' Fight to Conceal Torture Report - The White House is fiercely resisting the release of an executive summary of a 6,300-page Senate report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program, Senate aides tell Foreign Policy, raising fears that the public will never receive a full accounting of the Bush administration's post-9/11 torture practices.
Torture Report Fight Erupts In Chaos - The talk may not have been necessary. The White House's briefing to Democrats on immigration Thursday erupted instead into a confrontation over the Senate's classified torture report, Senate sources told The Huffington Post.

CIA Director John Brennan considering sweeping organizational changes - The Washington Post
Making the Perfect the Enemy of the Good » Balloon Juice - I’m usually with Glenn Greenwald on a variety of issues, but this latest post about the failure of the USA Freedom Act to pas makes absolutely no sense to me:
American Rand Stand, Con’t » Balloon Juice - Team WIN THE MORNING discovers Rand Paul is a self-serving Republican Glibertarian douchebag, and finds that civil liberties groups like the ACLU are 1) mad at Rand darnit and 2) staffed by people with the common sense of a three-week old bowl of German potato salad.

Radwan Taleb Al-Hamdouni Dead: Senior Islamic State Figure Reportedly Killed In Mosul - They said Radwan Taleb al-Hamdouni, who they described as the radical militant group's leader in Mosul, was killed with his driver when their car was hit in a western district of the city on Wednesday afternoon.
Eschaton: Let's Not Think About What We've Wrought - Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, warned the American public against a kind of intervention fatigue, emphasizing that U.S. leadership is needed now more than ever amid global threats from Ebola to the Islamic State.

Julian Assange: Swedish court rejects appeal to lift arrest warrant | Media | The Guardian - Ruling means WikiLeaks founder still faces extradition to Sweden if he leaves Ecuador embassy in London

Mexico on the brink: thousands to protest over widespread corruption and student massacre | World news | The Guardian - Mexico is facing an escalating political crisis amid growing fury over a mansion built for the presidential family and the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 student teachers.

PM: No room for discrimination against Israeli Arabs - Israel News, Ynetnews - Netanyahu, Livni, Lapid and Erdan lash out at Ashkelon mayor for banning Arab construction workers from vicinity of kindergartens in southern Israeli city.

Obamacare FAQ: Everything you need to know about why conservatives want to repeal the president’s health care law. - Everything you need to know about why conservatives want to repeal the president’s health care law.
Majority Say Not Gov't Duty to Provide Healthcare for All - For the third consecutive year, a majority of Americans (52%) agree with the position that it is not the federal government's responsibility to ensure that all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to the start of Barack Obama's presidency in 2009, a majority of Americans consistently took the opposite view.
Obamacare Sign-Ups Were Inflated With Dental Plans - Bloomberg

Hullabaloo - What does "poisoning the well" really mean? - Live by the crazy, die by the crazy. That well is already long since poisoned
The Solid South Will Rise Again - NYTimes.com - Maybe Democrats are simply giving up on Landrieu. Or maybe it’s something bigger: They’re giving up on the South, at least in the short term. (Southistan)
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks says Obama’s executive action over immigration could prompt impeachment or prison time.

Florida State University gunman killed by police after shooting wounds three | US news | The Guardian
thejasond123 comments on Dangerous Situation" Reported at FSU
FSU student found this bullet in his backpack after leaving the scene of the shooting - @AlexSmithNBC : pics
Scary video footage from the Florida State Library earlier tonight/morning... : videos

The National Organization for Marriage has collapsed into debt. - NOM’s higher-ups will release that they’re on the brink of officially folding. At that point, they’ll give the piggy bank one last shake, then jump ship for good. The resulting collapse will be pitiable, painful, and pathetic—a finale befitting an organization built on a platform of nothing but hate.

Calling Nevada's Incoming Speaker Racist And Sexist Would Be A Huge Understatement
Incoming Nevada Speaker Said Democrats Have 'Master-Slave' Relationship With 'Simple Minded Darkies' | ThinkProgress
Post-Racial America Update, Simple Minds Edition » Balloon Juice - I mean this guy is a walking caricature of Republican Racist Asshole, and the guy still ends up Speaker of Nevada’s Assembly. The dean of Nevada politics, Jon Ralston, has more on how Hansen ended up winning that position.

Hullabaloo - That time when Lynn Cheney said Jim Webb was full of baloney (wow.just.wow)

Huffington Post Is Said to Be in Talks to Host a Jill Abramson Journalism Start-Up - NYTimes.com - Jill Abramson, a former executive editor of The New York Times, and the journalist Steven Brill are in talks with The Huffington Post to host a new journalism site that would run long articles monthly and pay writers advances of up to $100,000, according to people briefed on the discussions.

Reaction to Uber Tactics Highlights Tech Journalists’ Fine Line Between Critic and Booster - NYTimes.com

Therese Serignese, Florida Nurse, Says Bill Cosby Drugged And Raped Her In 1976 (dude had a consistent M.0.)
BIll Cosby Rape Allegations: Why America Took So Long to Wake Up | New Republic
Bill Cosby accused of sexual assault by seventh named woman | World news | The Guardian - Latest allegations add to snowballing public anger surrounding Cosby as woman comes forward to say she was drugged and raped by the comedian in 1976 (how many will it take? +Guardian neutron-bombed their BTL)
How Bill Cosby’s image shielded him from claims of rape | Comment is free | The Guardian - Richard Pryor initially copied him and then reacted against Cosby’s cosy persona, rejecting it as phoney and safe. Eddie Murphy famously ridiculed Cosby in his legendary 1989 live show Raw.

Peter Sellars: ‘The United States is coming close to censorship’ | Music | The Guardian - Their voices are almost completely missing from the Bible, yet it was women who were closest to Jesus in his final days

'Darwin's Dilemma' May Finally Have Been Solved - : a major shift in the continents, which created ideal conditions for complex new life forms to evolvE ... opened up a gateway between the ancient continents of Laurentia (modern-day North America) and Gondwanaland

What's the most mindblowing fact you've ever heard? : AskReddit (many but here's one: Africa is as big as the United States, China, Europe, Japan, and Mexico combined.)
AskReddit - epi + 1 = 0

Women of Reddit, what is the female equivalent of being a "Tit man" or an "Ass man?" : AskReddit (sample size: 10,000+ comments :: %: shoulders: 42, ass: 10, hands: 9, strong back: 8, forarms: 6 ... eyes: .28 :: women objectify men and are turned on by lumberjacks. or: "TIL Men analysis: Tits or Ass Women analysis: 50913 different variables)
iwantahouse comments on Women of Reddit, what is the female equivalent of being a "Tit man" or an "Ass man?" - Asses are the best...

Comedian Impersonates Celebrities Stuck In Traffic, Is Spot-On Awesome

The public is being warned about a website containing thousands of live feeds to baby monitors, stand-alone webcams and CCTV systems : worldnews
What XFINITY Internet Data Usage Plans will Comcast be Launching? - XFINITY Internet tiers would increase from 250 GB to 300 GB. (see, they're giving you more!)
Comcast to begin charging for data usage on home internet the same way cell phone companies are charging for data : technology

111914
Buffalo area braces for more snow - CNN.com - About 50% of the United States had snow on the ground Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. (in fucking November)
There’s a global warming generation gap in the GOP, like on the issue of gay marriage - The Washington Post

Man tests positive for Ebola in Delhi, quarantined - The body fluid of a 26-year-old Indian man, who landed in Delhi from Liberia, has tested positive for Ebola virus, even as another man in Rajasthan showed Ebola-like symptoms. (round two)

NSA Bill Killed By Fillibuster - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This was probably unsurprising. Also unsurprising to anyone paying attention is that 41 of the 42 no votes were Republican. Including, natch, America’s foremost champion of civil liberties and the true progressive alternative in 2016, Mr. Rand Paul.
The good news about the 'death' of NSA reform: surveillance supporters may have dug their own grave | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - Snowden haters may have blocked the USA Freedom Act, but the clock is ticking before the law that justifies vacuuming your phone records blows up in the face of newly conservative Washington
CITIZEN FOUR | Movieguide | The Family Guide to Movie Reviews - Also, MOVIEGUIDE® has discovered that both the main journalist and the filmmakers in CITIZENFOUR have an Anti-American, anti-capitalist leftist agenda.

Dianne Feinstein Says Torture Report Almost Ready For Release After Months Of Delay

Jerusalem synagogue attack: protests and clashes flare after day of mourning – as it happened | World news | The Guardian
After the Israel Synagogue Massacre: A New Intifada? - The Daily Beast - As Israeli PM Netanyahu reacts to the murder of four rabbis in Jerusalem, he lashes out at supposed enemies around the world—and a new Arab uprising takes shape.

Extremists are hijacking identity of Arab world, says Queen Rania at Abu Dhabi Media Summit - “Education reform doesn’t come cheap. But the price of ignorance is far, far greater.”


Eschaton: Everything Is Horrible - Let's Stay The Course - Politically, Conservatives believe an emphasis on the risks still facing the UK will make anxious voters recoil from handing stewardship of a fragile economy to a relatively untried Labour team. (they couldn't be as good as us at totally fucking things up)

Number Of People Killed In Militant Attacks Jumps More Than 60 Percent
UAE Designates Two American Muslim Groups As Terrorist Orgs | The Daily Caller - The United Arab Emirates has officially designated 83 groups as terrorist organizations, including two based in the U.S., the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society.
Female Indonesian police recruits forced to undergo ‘virginity tests’ | World news | The Guardian - Two-finger examination that leaves women traumatised, humiliated and in pain is listed as requirement to join force

Iceland jails former Landsbanki CEO - fastFT: Market-moving news and views, 24 hours a day - FT.com - Iceland has secured a conviction against the last of the former chief executives of its three largest banks, as the Nordic island continues to plough a lone furrow in its attempts to prosecute the misdeeds of the financial crisis. Sigurjon Arnason, former chief executive of Landsbanki, was sentenced to 12 months in prison for market manipulation, but nine months were suspended. (tap)

Federal Judge Strikes Down Montana Gay Marriage Ban

Rep. Steve Israel thinks DOOOOM! was an appropriate way to cheerlead for Democrats (they will study their leadership and decide they did a great job, but you sucked)

For the First Time Ever, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting an Innocent Man | Mark Godsey - 500 hours of community service, and spend 10 days in jail
Chief Flynn of Milwaukee PD speaks a harsh truth about African American crime in his community during a press conference. : videos

Page 4 of A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA | Rolling Stone - Jackie was just starting her freshman year at the University of Virginia when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. When she tried to hold them accountable, a whole new kind of abuse began

Bill Cosby’s “Moment” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But by far the most fascinating look at him in this new light is from Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes an apology for failing to think and write enough about those allegations when he was focusing on Cosby in a big Atlantic piece back in 2008. Putting aside the rape allegations (as he did then), this could be Bill Cosby’s big moment:
An awkward kind of justice - Lawyers, Guns & Money : If anything, this suggests that the role racism played in this story was to keep accusations against a “beloved” –i.e., acceptable to white people — black man from getting the attention they otherwise would have gotten.)
CNN's Don Lemon To Cosby Rape Accuser: "You Know, There Are Ways Not To Perform Oral Sex If You Didn't Want To Do It" | Video | Media Matters for America - CNN Host Tells Joan Tarshis How She Could Avoid Being Raped
Janice Dickinson Alleges That She Was 'Sexually Assaulted' By Bill Cosby
Don Lemon Asks Bill Cosby Accuser Why She Didn't Bite His Penis To Stop Her Rape
Bill Cosby's New NBC Show Is No Longer In Development

The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women | PandoDaily - No, these new attacks threatened to hit at my only vulnerability. The only part of my life that I’d do anything to protect: My family and my children. (dudebrotechsexistbulliesslime)
Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists - Senior vice president Emil Michael floated making critics’ personal lives fair game. Michael apologized Monday for the remarks.
San Francisco Magazine | Modern Luxury | Uber Employees Warned a San Francisco Magazine Writer That Executives Might Snoop on Her - While I was reporting my recent cover story on Uber and its CEO Travis Kalanick, several current and former Uber employees warned me that company higher-ups might access my rider logs.
Fellow Uber Dinner Attendee Suggests Buzzfeed Is Shilling For Competitor
"God View": Uber Investigates Its Top New York Executive For Privacy Violations - In the wake of a BuzzFeed News story, the transit company is looking into the official’s tracking of a journalist’s location.

New subatomic particles predicted by Canadians found at CERN - Technology & Science - CBC News - New baryons found at Large Hadron Collider are 6 times more massive than protons
d Marijuana Drastically Shrinks Aggressive Form Of Brain Cancer, New Study Finds
Cannabis extract can have dramatic effect on brain cancer, says new research — St George's, University of London - Cannabis extract can have dramatic effect on brain cancer, says new research
? Grandmas Smoking Weed for the First Time (Extended Cut) - YouTube
Grandmas Smoking Weed for the First Time : videos

E-cigarettes significantly reduce tobacco cravings – KU Leuven - Electronic cigarettes offer smokers a realistic way to kick their tobacco smoking addiction. In a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, scientists at KU Leuven report that e-cigarettes successfully reduced cravings for tobacco cigarettes, with only minimal side effects.
Electronic cigarettes offer smokers a realistic way to kick their tobacco smoking addiction. In a new study scientists report that e-cigarettes successfully reduced cravings for tobacco cigarettes, with only minimal side effects. : science
e-cigs
5 Facts That Everyone Gets Wrong About Vaping
List of e cigs studies & vaping research | Vapeorama - vapeorama
E Cigarette | Buy Electronic Cigarettes Online | E Juice - Mt Baker Vapor

"U2 Week" on Jimmy Fallon got cancelled, so Jimmy (and The Roots) covered U2 themselves.. The result is ridiculously amazing! : television
Tiny Flip Books Filled with Secret Slots & Negative Spaces | Urbanist
Syllepsis - Rhetorical Definition and Examples - "She tracks sand in as well as ideas, and I have to sweep up after her two or three times a day." (E.B. White, "On a Florida Key")
Zeugma

John Hodgman: ‘The government should be laying down broadband like Eisenhower laid down interstates’ - The Washington Post
Tales From the Dark Ages of the Internets - Lawyers, Guns & Money : People with long memories for trivia may remember beloved HIV troofer and advocate for executing journalists insufficiently deferential to George W. Bush, Mr. Dean Esmay. He’s apparently found a new gig as a men’s rights crank. Hopefully he’s thrown some work to Kim Du Toit and Stephen Den Beste!

111714
Meet the Republicans in Congress who don't believe climate change is real | Environment | The Guardian - here’s a round-up of some of the most prominent climate sceptics (and deniers) in the GOP - “We believe Al Gore deserves an ‘F’ in science and an ‘A’ in creative writing.” (they're not scientists)

Martin Salia, Nebraska Ebola Patient, Dies

Peter Kassig murder: experts try to identify foreign jihadis in Isis video | World news | The Guardian - UK medical student is suspected of being in an Isis killing squad that murdered 17 hostages including US aid worker
Frenchman, Brit Thought To Be Among Killers In ISIS Beheadings - The disclosure came hours after a father in Britain said he believed his son, a British medical student, was in the Islamic State squad filmed beheading the soldiers.

Putin claims west is provoking Russia into new cold war as ‘spies’ deported | World news | The Guardian - Russian president denies fanning tensions and says Nato ‘expansion’ in Europe had been ‘geopolitical game changer’

Haaretz obtains full document of EU-proposed sanctions against Israel - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - Sanctions could apply to Israeli politicians opposed to the two-state solution, which could include Bennett and Rivlin; steps against European companies working in settlements; punitive measures against Palestinians over 'negative measures.'

A Void in the History of September 11th
Zacharias Moussaoui Gives It Up - Esquire - apparently, he's willing to sing, and he has so informed the lawyers who are pursuing a lawsuit on behalf of the families of some of the 9/11 victims. And some of his proferred testimony has the potential to make some people very, very nervous ... those 28 pages are being held back not because they cast a shadow on the House of Saud, but because they cast a shadow on the House of Bush, one member of which is said to be considering a run for the presidency in 2016.

Remembering U.S. Complicity in Salvadoran Military Crimes - Lawyers, Guns & Money : 25 years ago yesterday, the Salvadoran military massacred six Jesuit priests and two women who worked for them. The National Security Archive has collected documents showing how the Bush administration refused to acknowledge that its client state’s military could have committed such an atrocity, when in fact it committed human rights violations all the time.
Mark Danner The Massacre at El Mozote - In December 1981 soldiers of the Salvadoran Army's select, American-trained Atlacatl Battalion entered the village of El Mozote, where they murdered hundreds of men, women, and children, often by decapitation.


One in 30 US children are homeless as rates rise in 31 states, report finds | US news | The Guardian - State-by-state report links racial disparities, increasing poverty and domestic violence to rising rates as southern states rank particularly poorly (whites hate "welfare" for non-riches)

Missouri governor declares state of emergency as national guard brought in to Ferguson | US news | The Guardian - Jay Nixon signs executive order activating national guard to help police ‘maintain peace and protect those exercising their right to free speech’
St Louis police chief says only criminals were teargassed at Ferguson protests | US news | The Guardian - described Belmar’s comments as “disingenuous at best, and downright dishonest at worst”. He said: “We saw projectiles that were rubber. It is clear that Chief Belmar is attempting to revise history. A lie continuously repeated is not the truth.”
Misuse of a Grand Jury | Rev. Al Sharpton (HuffPo commenters pretty pro killing black people)
Missouri Governor Declares State of Emergency - Esquire - whatever the reaction within the community at large is, that it will collide with the full force of state power, more than likely aimed at those people who take exception to the rule that police officers get to shoot down teenagers for walking in the street -- or, more precisely, for not knowing their place.
KKK Warns They Will Use ‘Lethal Force’ Against Violent Ferguson Protesters « CBS St. Louis

Another Cosby Victim Comes Out - Hollywood Elsewhere (more wandering eye)
Another Woman Comes Forward To Accuse Bill Cosby Of Rape - In an essay on Hollywood Elsewhere, music industry publicist and journalist Joan Tarshis claims that Cosby sexually assaulted her twice in 1969 when she was 19. The former actress and Cosby were both working at Universal Studios, and she said he took an interest in her. (commenters still believing Cosby after 14 victims)
If you can't talk about rape without blaming victims, don't talk about rape | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | The Guardian - The truth? According to data from the Department of Justice, a whopping 97% of rapists receive no punishment, while false accusations only account for an estimated 2 - 6% of rape cases (around the same number as false reports for any other crime).
WATCH: 'The View' Hosts Awkwardly Grapple With Cosby Rape Allegations (Whoopie has questions, not for Cosby, but for his victims)

More guns, more crime: Stanford research undermines the NRA’s favorite study - contrary to the political commonplace that right-to-carry (RTC) or concealed-carry laws decrease violent crime, such laws have actually increased the number of violent crimes in the states that have passed them since 1999.


Huge twin study homes in on 'gay genes' - life - 17 November 2014 - New Scientist - A genetic analysis of 409 pairs of gay twins has provided the strongest evidence yet that gay people are born gay. The study clearly links sexual orientation in men with two regions of the human genome that have been implicated before, one on the X chromosome and one on chromosome 8.
Massive study of gay twins (409 pairs!) gives strongest indication yet that being gay is genetic : science


New York City is building 10,000 internet pylons for free public Wi-Fi | The Verge - "LinkNYC will be the fastest and largest free municipal Wi-Fi deployment in the world."
Ted Cruz Doubles Down On Misunderstanding The Internet & Net Neutrality, As Republican Engineers Call Him Out For Ignorance | Techdirt

111614
Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism? by Elizabeth Kolbert | The New York Review of Books - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein

Islamic State Claims It Has Beheaded American Hostage Peter Kassig - The 16-minute video also appears to show a mass beheading of men alleged to be Syrian soldiers. "To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers," a masked ISIS militant said.
Obama Calls Kassig Murder 'Pure Evil' (so was invading them in the first place)
Peter Kassig Worked Tirelessly For Syrians. This Is How He Helped The Country's Refugees.
Britain Investigating Reports That Suspect In Islamic State Beheadings Was Wounded In U.S.-Led Airstrike - The man, dubbed "Jihadi John"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: 'Iran Is Your Enemy' (you are our enemy)
moopoint comments on Doctor from Israel joined Islamic State, hospital confirms (why Muslims join IsIS)
How correct is this map "Palestinian Loss of Land from 1947 to Present"? : AskHistorians

Death and corruption prove that the idea of a new Mexico was a mirage | Anabel Hernandez | Comment is free | The Guardian - The fate of 43 missing students and a property scandal reveal the emptiness of the president’s rhetoric on reform

The Comfort Women and Japan’s War on Truth - NYTimes.com
First passengers on Japanese maglev train travel at speeds of 311 mph - Asia - World - The Independent

'I watched Tory MP MURDER a boy during depraved Westminster VIP paedophile party' - Mirror Online - The abuse victim's claims are being treated as credible by detectives now investigating THREE murders allegedly linked to a network of VIP perverts.

State Department shuts down email system after suspected hacker attack | US news | The Guardian - ctivity of concern’ occurred at same time as attack on White House - Entire unclassified email system closed to repair possible damage

Google’s secret NSA alliance: The terrifying deals between Silicon Valley and the security state - Salon.com - Inside the high-level, complicated deals -- and the rise of a virtually unchecked surveillance power
First Snowden. Then tracking you on wheels. Now spies on a plane. Yes, surveillance is everywhere | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - The US government’s secret airborne dragnet is just the latest tool to snoop on your phone. Why aren’t we stopping this?

Eschaton: The Heartland - This bit from Catch-22 can't be re-run often enough.
The So-So Society: Democrats Have Forgotten What Made Them Great | The Fiscal Times - Democrats have given sway to more business-friendly interests - Meanwhile, wages have lagged behind productivity gains since 1973 - It’s time for new thinking on economic security and prosperity
David Axelrod Slams Jonathan Gruber Over Obamacare Comments - As one who worked hard to make ACA and its benefits clear, let me say: if you looked up "stupid" in dictionary, you'd find Gruber's picture.
Arkansas’s Blue Collar Social Conservatives Don’t Know What’s Coming - The Daily Beast - Around 200,000 people have gained coverage under Arkansas’s hybrid Obamacare program. After the election, they may be about to lose it. (they still won't connect the dots)

Chesapeake Energy Faces Subpoena on Royalty Payment Practices - ProPublica - The Justice Department’s inquiry comes after a ProPublica investigation and years of complaints from landowners who say they have been underpaid for leasing land to the energy giant for drilling - landowners in Pennsylvania who had leased their gas rights to Chesapeake saw the payments they were receiving abruptly slashed by as much as 97 percent. In some cases checks for thousands of dollars a month were replaced with payments for less than a dollar ... using the fees it had been been paying those landowners to repay billions of dollars of hidden corporate debt instead. (they were fracker-fucked)

Thalidomide: how men who blighted lives of thousands evaded justice | Society | The Guardian - Newly exposed files show how victims were betrayed by political interference in trial – and how the pill has remained on sale - And more than half a century since the pill’s threat to an embryo was proven, the company that produced the first disaster has continued to sell the drug in parts of Latin America, on prescription only, where babies continued to be born with malformations similar to the survivors from the 1960s.

Ferguson: video shows Darren Wilson arresting man for recording him | US news | The Guardian - Officer who shot and killed Michael Brown is seen telling Mike Arman ‘I’m gonna lock your ass up’ if he does not stop
Comparing Two Hit and Run Cases - NYTimes.com - A starting cornerback for the Florida State University football team left the scene of a collision on Oct. 5 but was not charged with a hit and run, an examination by The New York Times found. That contrasts with another case in the same area in the same month.
D.C. police plan for future seizure proceeds years in advance in city budget documents - The Washington Post - D.C. police have made plans for millions of dollars in anticipated proceeds from future civil seizures of cash and property, even though federal guidelines say “agencies may not commit” to such spending in advance, documents show.
St. Louis woman sentenced 78 years in prison for waterboarding her children : News - A St. Louis woman was sentenced Friday to 78 years in prison after admitting to beating, whipping and waterboarding her children in a prolonged pattern of abuse that prosecutors described as "systematic torture."

Lawyer says Bill Cosby 'will not dignify' sexual abuse allegations with comment | US news | The Guardian - Attorney refers to ‘decade-old, discredited’ allegations - ‘No further statement’ from Cosby or representatives
Leonard Part 7 by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Isn’t damage control supposed to, you know, control damage? Apparently, it’s not working out for Bill Cosby.
Bill Cosby refuses to address sexual assault allegations on NPR interview, will no longer appear on David Letterman’s show : television

The new strain of cannabis that could help treat psychosis | Society | The Guardian - Purified CBD has been shown to have antipsychotic and anti-anxiety effects, and can lessen the psychotic symptoms normally experienced by people given high doses of THC.
How Berkeley took on the might of Big Soda and won | US news | The Guardian - Almost lost in the Republican sweep in this month’s midterm elections was a referendum in Berkeley in which a proposed tax of one cent for every ounce of soda won 75% voter approval.

District meets as group wants to pass out Satanic material at... | www.wftv.com - The issue is now being driven by The Satanic Temple, which wants to pass out religious material like "The Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities."

[Serious] Those who oppose the idea of legalising drugs like Cannabis, or Psilocybin, why? : AskReddit
ELI5: Why do Jews not try to convert people like other Abrahamic religions? (Christianity, Islam) : explainlikeimfive

Al Franken Explains Net Neutrality To Ted Cruz - “When [Cruz] says this is the Obamacare, Obamacare was a government program that fixed something, that changed things,” Franken said. “This is about reclassifying something so it stays the same. This would keep things exactly the same that they've been.” (stupid or evil? both, but mostly evil)

111514
Barack Obama tells G20 a global climate change deal is possible and vital | World news | The Guardian - US president says every nation has a responsibility to do its part and ‘overcome old divides, look squarely at the science and reach a strong global climate agreement next year’

Eschaton: What Could Go Wrong - Nothing of course - Arming and training. That will fix everything. It always does.

Indian sterilisation patient: ‘I was slapped and told to calm down’ | World news | The Guardian - Woman recounts treatment at camp where 15 women have died after taking antibiotics possibly tainted by rat poison chemical

askur comments on Iceland - Minister of the Interior imposes a media blackout as her political attaché is found guilty of leaking fabricated criminal charges against an asylum seeker. Minister refuses to step down. (dirty laundry +a lot of dysfunction and conflict under the surface of the "recovery")


More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations - NYTimes.com - The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show.

Health Insurance Marketplace: Enroll for 2015 Healthcare Coverage | HealthCare.gov
Obamacare Train Not Wrecking As Sign-Up Period Kicks Off - The website hasn't crashed, government officials aren't scrambling, and Americans are actually using the Obamacare exchanges to shop for health insurance. What a difference a year makes.
Cost of Coverage Under Affordable Care Act to Increase in 2015 - NYTimes.com - — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans.
Shocker: Obamacare customers are happy with their coverage

Misery Index: Part I by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Much like Prince’s parents, Tea Party Republicans are too bold and never satisfied. Massachusetts Governor-Elect Charles Baker is learning that lesson the hard way.
Misery Index: Part II by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Resolved: Democrats should just write off working-class whites and be done with it. (who are stupid and hate the welfare moochers so they vote for their billionaire overlords)
Indiana to Start Requiring Food Stamp Recipients Work, Be in Job Training, or Job Hunting

Howie Carr Question: Where Will The Talk Jock Land? | WGBH News - For years, local talk jock Howie Carr has had a rocky relationship with WRKO, the station that broadcast his show. But no longer, as the station declined to renew Carr’s contract, which expired last week. (don't let the door ...)

Right-To-Carry Gun Laws Linked To Rise In Violent Crimes: Study - Laws in all 50 states permitting people to carry concealed firearms in public have been connected to a rise in violent crimes, according to a new report from researchers at Stanford and Johns Hopkins universities.
Police Officers Draw Guns During Unannounced ‘Active Shooter Drill’ At Elementary School « CBS Tampa - Students at Jewett Middle Academy said they were terrified when police officers burst in the doors for a planned active shooter drill – but students and teachers are irked they were not told ahead of time.

IASC: The Hedgehog Review - Volume 16, No. 3 (Fall 2014) - Falling - - it embarrasses me—and a lot of other things as well. It’s humiliating to be poor, to be dependent on the kindness of family and friends and government subsidies. But it sure is an education. (retiring poor; the riches took all the money)

But, there's one thing the 77-year-old actor would not comment on: accusations of sexual assault that have been leveled against him. (his eyes tell the story)
Head Of Elite L.A. School Resigns After Sex Misconduct Scandal - The longstanding head of Los Angeles’s prestigious Marlborough School will resign next June, following a public scandal over how she handled multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by a teacher who taught at the private all-girls secondary school for over a decade. Wagner spent 25 years at Marlborough, 24 as head of school. In 2007, the Wall Street Journal named her one of the country’s most highly compensated heads of school (She made $475,000 from 2004-2005).

Women who have sex before marriage are like ‘filthy dishrags,’ California pastor roars - Paul Chappell, founder and president of West Coast Baptist College and pastor of Lancaster Baptist Church, lamented what he perceives to be a lack of purity and modesty among women.

Echidne Of The Snakes - Got that? Some people made a giant mountain out of a molehill and then tried to suffocate a well-meaning but socially inept scientist under that mountain.
Akrotiri Minoan Site in Santorini island - Greeka.com

Can moons have moons? : askscience
Girls of Reddit, what are some NSFW tips you wish every guy knew? : AskReddit
Reddit, what's a fairly unknown yet super interesting subreddit that will pass the time? : AskReddit
When you see the same /r/AskReddit threads as yesterday, who you gonna call?
The Daily Dot | Daily Reddit digests, weekly Reddit news summaries
DepthHub: A jumping-off point for deeply-involved subreddits


111414
Obama's $3bn for climate fund could kickstart action on global warming | Environment | The Guardian - reen Climate Fund pledge broadly welcomed by campaigners - Move may help erode divisions between developed and developing states

New Details About Ebola In Dallas Revealed In CDC Report - One of the new details is that 12 people who had contact with one or more of the Ebola patients were tested for the virus during their 21-day monitoring periods, because these 12 individuals developed a fever or other symptoms that can occur with the disease (1/12 of 147 developed Ebola-like-but-not-Ebola symptoms in 21 days?)

Rat poison linked to India sterilisation deaths, with death toll expected to rise - Antibiotics bought from Mahawar Pharmaceuticals withdrawn, after quantities of zinc phosphide discovered at its factory (and how did rat poison get into the Cipro?)

'Killer robots' should be strictly monitored, nations demand at UN | World news | The Guardian - Countries warn of potential dangers of autonomous weapons systems they say are at risk of violating international and humanitarian law (programmed to ignore Asimov's three laws of robotics)

U.N.: Obama Takes Torture Seriously? Give Us A Break - The government has released documents, attempting to demonstrate accountability. There’s a 6,300-page Senate report that has been given to the White House and even a Justice Department investigation into abuses of the Bush years. The United Nations doesn’t buy it ... One member of the U.N. committee suggested the investigation was a whitewash ... “Well ... you won’t find what you’re not looking for.”

Libya is on the verge of collapse | World | DW.DE | 14.11.2014 - Three years after the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is being torn apart by power struggles. The security situation is catastrophic and the country is sliding into civil war.

John Doar, 1921-2014 - Esquire - The second monotone appeared in July of 1974. It belonged to a lawyer named John Doar. It cut out Richard Nixon's heart and ate it in the marketplace.

Shocking secret emails reveal that political operatives can be dorky - Salon.com - Democratic operatives jockeying for position on Hillary's campaign are making lame jokes -- and the media is on it!

How misinformation goes viral: a Truthy story : Columbia Journalism Review - On August 26, Fox’s Megyn Kelly aired a four-minute segment on an Indiana University project called Truthy, declaring sarcastically, “Some bureaucrat deciding whether you are being hateful or misinforming people — what could possibly go wrong?” Fox & Friends jumped onto the bandwagon two days later (Republicans, spawn of Satan, hate the truth)

Democratic Turncoats In The Senate - Esquire - Today saw yet another proud chapter in the seemingly endless saga of Snakes In A Party. Harry Reid was elected to be the leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate when the next Congress convenes. There were at least three dissenting votes. Guess who they were. (McCaskill, Manchin, Heitkamp)

Congressional Republicans consider using short-term funding bill to pressure Obama - The Washington Post

US to offer refugee status to some undocumented child migrants | US news | The Guardian - Children under 21 in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras with parents who are legal US residents could start applying next month under the plan

Newly Insured Through Exchanges Give Coverage Good Marks
In U.S., 55% of Uninsured Plan to Get Health Coverage
The Latest #Grubergate Video Could Rattle Vermont's Single-Payer Health Care Experiment - Bloomberg Politics - Another day, another Gruber video.
Did Jonathan Gruber earn ‘almost $400,000' from the Obama administration? - The Washington Post

3rd Arrest for 90-Year-Old Man Who Feeds Homeless | Sarasota, FL Patch - The city of Fort Lauderdale has issued three criminal citations against him, but he says he has no fear of spending time in jail.

English Composition 101 - Esquire - the importance of The Topic Sentence (CPP devastating Bobo)

The Drugging of the American Boy - Esquire - By the time they reach high school, nearly 20 percent of all American boys will be diagnosed with ADHD. Millions of those boys will be prescribed a powerful stimulant to "normalize" them

Fox News, Where Conservative Senior Citizens Get to Look At Half-Naked 'Girls' - Give it a thin veneer of moral condemnation, and it's all good.

Bill Cosby Accuser Details Alleged Rape: 'I Wonder How He Sleeps At Night' - Barbara Bowman, who penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this week recounting her history of alleged sexual assault by Bill Cosby, joined HuffPost Live Friday morning to discuss her allegations against the famed comedian.
Bill Cosby's 'Late Show With David Letterman' Appearance Canceled - According to Newsday, Bill Cosby's Nov. 19 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" has been canceled. No reason was given for the schedule change, but Regis Philbin will replace Cosby on the broadcast.
New Orleans police routinely ignored rape cases, scathing report finds | US news | The Guardian - Police chief ‘deeply disturbed’ by allegations that five detectives failed to investigate properly more than 1,000 cases of sex crimes and child abuse
Utah protesters wear bull's-eyes, decry officer-involved shooting of Darrien Hunt | The Salt Lake Tribune - Taylor clarified on Friday that investigators knew Judson was wearing a camera that day, and they knew the officer didn’t turn it on.

Analysis shows widespread discrepancies in staffing levels reported by nursing homes | Center for Public Integrity - Data compiled for Medicare shows lower levels of care than website for consumers

ALL THE YOUNG JEWS | Village Voice - In the Village of Kiryas Joel, New York, the Median Age Is 13

Mystery Big Cat Evades French Police And Military Forces - A two-day search by some 200 French police and members of the armed forces for a wild cat roaming through towns and across a major highway came to one conclusion Friday: It isn't a tiger.
Tiger schmiger – big cat sightings simply play on our will to believe | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - A tiger, at least, was original. In Britain, most of the big cats reported (three-quarters according to a survey by the author Merrily Harpur) are black, and generally, according to the 2,000 or more people who claim to have seen them
The AskHistorians Master Book List : AskHistorians
What's the Most Niche NSFW Subreddit? : AskReddit

After Losing 160 Pounds, Man Strips Down To Show Excess Skin, His Biggest Insecurity

AT&T Stops Using Undeletable Phone Tracking IDs - A Verizon spokeswoman says its tracking program is still continuing, but added "as with any program, we're constantly evaluating."
FCC calls AT&T’s fiber bluff, demands detailed construction plans | Ars Technica - AT&T claims net neutrality forced it to "pause" fiber builds it never started.

111314
Rosetta: Philae tight spot on comet prompts tough decisions for Esa | Science | The Guardian - Rosetta mission controllers must decide whether to risk making lander hop from shadow of cliff blocking sunlight to its solar panels

The China Deal Over Global Climate Change - Esquire - But it is only recently, as the prion disease acquired by the Republican party when it first ate the monkeybrains back in 1980 has come to eat away fully the party's reasoning faculties, that the fights over treaties became unmoored from reality, and drifted off into the skies over Crazytown.
Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming

Liberia Will End Its Ebola State Of Emergency, Says President - Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Thursday she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola, which has hit the country harder than any other this year.

US military considers sending combat troops to battle Isis forces in Iraq | US news | The Guardian - General Martin Dempsey tells House committee that he would consider abandoning Obama’s pledge and send troops to fight Isis in Iraq (who's the boss?)
Opposition Figures Claim ISIS, Nusra Front Agree To Cooperate In Syria - Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press.

Ukraine Warns Of A Worsening Security Situation - The Interfax-Ukraine news agency cited Zoryan Shkiryak, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister, as saying Thursday that he anticipated an imminent attack by Russian forces.

U.S. Tells U.N. Panel of Steps to Revise Interrogation Policy - NYTimes.com - the United States had tortured terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks but that it had since taken steps to prevent any future use of unlawful, coercive interrogation techniques. (with loopholes)
Doubt cast over US torture investigation as more CIA detainees come forward | US news | The Guardian - Lawyers for men allegedly tortured by the CIA say their clients were never interviewed as part of a major criminal investigation concluded in 2012
Mark Udall to consider all options to reveal CIA torture report - The Denver Post

What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals - NYTimes.com

The troubling truth behind these anti-net neutrality op-ed writers - Time and the Wall Street Journal both published opinion stories this week from people who oppose strong net neutrality protections—without disclosing that each of them did or do receive money from Internet service providers.

Government planes mimic cellphone towers to collect user data – report | World news | The Guardian - US Marshals Service reportedly fitting aircraft with ‘dirtboxes’ that interrogate phones on ground for identity and location

Israeli Police Officer Held in Deaths of 2 Teenagers - NYTimes.com - An Israeli border police officer has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the fatal shooting of two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank during a protest in May, officials said on Wednesday.

The Republican Obsession With 'Restoring' America - The Atlantic - Why so many conservatives have nostalgia for an era that wasn't all that golden

Law in the Raw - NYTimes.com - Nearly a week has gone by since the Supreme Court’s unexpected decision to enlist in the latest effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act, and the shock remains unabated. “This is Bush v. Gore all over again,” one friend said as we struggled to absorb the news last Friday afternoon. “No,” I replied. “It’s worse.” (completely corrupt)

because of a succession of “performance, organizational, technical” and other failures by the Secret Service, according to a damning review of the incident by the Department of Homeland Security.
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » 14 from ’14: Quick Takes on the Midterm - 2. Republicans still ride roughshod in Appalachia
Axelrod Calls Martha Coakley ‘A Demonstrably Bad Candidate’ - Washington Wire - WSJ

The Charleston Gazette | Longtime Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship indicted - Don Blankenship, the longtime chief executive of Massey Energy, was indicted today on charges that he violated federal mine safety laws at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine prior to an April 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.

Elizabeth Warren Gets Senate Democratic Leadership Spot - Warren's new role, which was created specifically for her, will be strategic policy adviser to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, helping to craft the party's policy positions and priorities. (HuffPo: "the left is clearly controlling the Democratic party")

Debts Canceled by Bankruptcy Still Mar Consumer Credit Scores - NYTimes.com - In the netherworld of consumer debt, there are zombies: bills that cannot be killed even by declaring personal bankruptcy ... Paying no heed to the courts, the banks keep the debts alive on credit reports, essentially forcing borrowers to make payments on bills that they do not legally owe)

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - During the protest, Simms got caught on video berating the students, who alleged that the commissioner screamed "I'll bet y'all go to failing schools. Y'all ought to be locked up!" The video went viral, and she wound up as Atrios's Worst person in the World ... Well. Yesterday, new video surfaced:
Eschaton: We Do Love Our Children - We put hideous people in charge of our schools, let the grifters steal all the money, and then put on our sadfaces and talk about our failing urban schools. Because this is America, where we believe that children are the future. And we love them so much

Malcolm Gladwell: 'Football Is a Moral Abomination' - Bloomberg - The NFL recently revealed that nearly a third of retired players develop long-term cognitive issues much earlier than the general population. "We're not just talking about people limping at the age of 50. We're talking about brain injuries that are causing horrible, protracted, premature death,”

JFK's Sister's Lobotomy Was 'Tragic Choice,' New Book About Disabilities Reveals - But, at 23, when Rosemary started displaying aggressive mood swings and grew increasingly difficult, her father secretly scheduled her a lobotomy, a relatively new procedure at the time that he was told would calm down his daughter, according to People.

Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story? - The Washington Post - Only when a male comedian called Cosby a rapist did the accusation take hold.
Watch Men Explain Why They Harass Women On The Street - Apparently, this is a real justification for catcalling: "If you have a beautiful body, why can't I say something?"

Polygamy wasn’t a theological debate for early Mormon women. It was part of their lives | David Ebershoff | Comment is free | The Guardian - By acknowleding that founder Joseph Smith had multiple wives, the Mormon church is finally offering those – and many other – women dignity

The Cable Industry Thinks Mindlessly Raising Rates Is A Good Idea In The Face Of Fleeing Subscribers | Techdirt - from the that'll-work dept

Roosh’s Reaxxion: Douchebag Non-Gamer Starts Gaming Website for Douchebags | we hunted the mammoth ("neoreactionaries")

Evangelicals increasingly putting faith in medicine to treat mental health issues | World news | The Guardian - Evangelical writer and musician Carlos Whittaker faced a negative response when he went public about his psychological issues, but attitudes are changing - Carlos Whittaker found that prayer and Bible study were insufficient to tackle his mental health problems. ‘This has nothing to do with whether I believe in Jesus,’ he say

'Quantum reporters' measure magnetic resonance of one proton - physicsworld.com - The positions of individual protons on a surface can be pinned down to within 0.1 nm, thanks to a new quantum technique based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) developed by researchers in the US

111214
Rosetta: Waiting game after comet lander glitch
Philae Lands on a Comet After 10-Year, 4-Billion-Mile Chase - Popular Mechanics
The Philae lander has successfully landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. AskScience Megathread. : askscience
The coming climate onslaught - Andrew Restuccia and Erica Martinson - POLITICO - President Obama readies a sweeping list of executive actions.
Where Obama's potential successors stand on climate change | Environment | The Guardian (elect Republicans and drown your grand-kids)

John Kerry: Our Historic Agreement With China on Climate Change - NYTimes.com - John Kerry: Our Historic Agreement With China on Climate Change
BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and It's a Game Changer | Mother Jones - The surprise agreement aims to double the pace of carbon pollution reduction in the United States.

Mali Reports 2 New Ebola Deaths In Bamako - Malian authorities on Wednesday reported two new deaths from Ebola that are not believed to be linked to the nation's only other known case, an alarming setback as Mali tries to limit the epidemic ravaging other countries in the region.

$300,000 an Hour: The Cost of Fighting ISIS - The Atlantic - What price will the U.S. ultimately pay to neutralize the Islamic State?
Afghanistan sees rise in poppy cultivation - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English - UN report says opium production has increased by seven percent over last year despite counter-anti-narcotics programmes.

Ukraine crisis: Russian troops crossed border, Nato says

Sailors attacked, have bags placed over heads in Turkey - CNN.com

India mass sterilisation: women were ‘forced’ into camps, say relatives | World news | The Guardian - The exact cause of the deaths was not yet clear but officials said they suspected blood loss and infection caused by unclean surgical equipment. Government guidelines recommending that a surgeon should not use a single instrument for more than 10 operations appear to have been ignored.

Obama’s call for an open Internet puts him at odds with regulators - The Washington Post (who he appointed +Wheeler: “What I’ve got to figure out is how to split the baby.”)
Watch out: the US government wants to pass new spying laws behind your back | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - . The vague and ambiguous law would essentially allow companies like Google and Facebook to hand over even more of your personal information to the US government, all of which could ultimately end up in the hands of the NSA and the FBI.
Obama’s call for an open Internet puts him at odds with regulators - The Washington Post

Fight for Big Ideas: Expand Social Security | Nancy Altman - Why did Democrats lose on election night? Because not enough of them were fighting for big ideas. As Sen. Bernie Sanders says in the video at the top of the post, the American people are united in support of expanding Social Security, but too few candidates were talking about that big idea.
U.S. Companies Now Stashing $2 Trillion Overseas - NBC News.com - That total, while daunting in its own right, is now greater than the amount held on U.S. shores, which totals just under $1.9 trillion, according to the latest Federal Reserve flow of funds tally.

Without Obamacare, I would have died. I’m scared the Supreme Court is going to gut the part that saved me. - The Washington Post

South Carolina's gay marriage ban struck down in federal court | US news | The Guardian - Judge cites fourth circuit decision in Virginia in ruling knocking down same-sex marriage ban, but gives time for state to appeal
Maryland schools avoid recognising Muslim holiday by renaming others | US news | The Guardian - Maryland’s largest school district has voted to strip religious labels from holidays on next year’s school calendar after Muslims sought recognition of a holy day.

Officials: Kansas Faces $279M Budget Gap By July - The state will also be required to close an even bigger additional gap — $436 million — during the following 12 months, according to the new forecast. (cut taxes! go bankrupt! get re-elected! dismantle schools!)

There Is No Rise of Republican Pragmatists | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Maybe the definition of insanity isn’t doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result but watching the same thing over and over again and expecting the Republicans to become practical or moderate.

Don't Soul-Search. Stiffen Your Backbone. | Bill de Blasio - As a Democrat, I'm disappointed in last Tuesday's results. But as a progressive, I know my party need not search for its soul -- but rather, its backbone.

Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize - NYTimes.com - “little goodies.” (cops are the new organized crime)
Police killings highest in two decades - The number of felony suspects fatally shot by police last year — 461— was the most in two decades, according to a new FBI report.
Study: Brazilian cops killed more than 11,000 people in 5 years | CTV News

Palmer school officials cited Fifth Amendment in charter revocation hearing - 77 times - Even in a school district with more than its share of charter-school controversies, the answers stood out. Questioned about billing practices, two officials of an embattled Philadelphia charter school cited their Fifth Amendment right to silence - 77 times. (for-profit education! profit! from your local charter school grifters)
How baby boomers ruined parenting forever - Quartz - A “helicopter parent” micromanages every aspect of his child’s routine and behavior.

Terry Eagleton reviews Trouble in Paradise and Absolute Recoil by Slavoj Žižek | Books | The Guardian - Every emergence of fascism, Walter Benjamin wrote, bears witness to a failed revolution. In the Muslim world, the west has played a major role in stamping on such movements, creating a political vacuum into which fundamentalism was then able to move. It cannot now feign innocence of its predatory past in the face of the Islamist backlash it has helped to unleash.
Gentrification as Total War or "Triumph of the Williamsburg" - Social Matter - The essay that follows is a very brief history of the conquest of many American cities by a predominantly black underclass, the nascent Reconquista, and an examination of the strategies and tactics in use. I choose to look at gentrification through the lens of total war.

How To Eradicate A Disease | More Intelligent Life - A generation ago, guinea-worm disease was bringing misery to millions; now it is down to two cases a week. Tom Whipple talks to its nemesis, Donald Hopkins, who has already helped to see off smallpox
New Statesman | Genes are not as important as you might think - According to a growing number of researchers, the standard story of the influence of genes is overblown. So many other factors influence how we turn out as individuals and how we evolve as a species that the fundamentals of biology need a rewrite. “This is no storm in an academic tearoom,” a group of biologists wrote in the journal Nature in October. “It is a struggle for the very soul of the discipline.”

Gut–brain link grabs neuroscientists : Nature News & Comment - Although correlations have been noted between the composition of the gut microbiome and behavioural conditions, especially autism1, neuroscientists are only now starting to understand how gut bacteria may influence the brain

What website had the greatest fall from grace? : AskReddit

111114
Craig Spencer, declared free of Ebola, says he is 'living example' of how virus protocols worked | US news | The Guardian - Spencer, 33, says ‘I am healthy and no longer infectious’ and leaves hospital in New York to rapturous applause
There Are Now Zero Cases Of Ebola In The United States | ThinkProgress

China Turns Up the Rhetoric Against the West - NYTimes.com - He compared unfavorable American news coverage of China to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews

Indian women die after state-run mass sterilisation campaign goes wrong | World news | The Guardian - Eight women have died and dozens more are in hospital after doctor reportedly carried out 80 operations in five hours

My Best Hacker Source Was Snitching for the Feds — Backchannel — Medium

HUFFPOLLSTER: What Last Week's Election Tells Us About Latino And Asian Voters
The secret to raising the minimum wage may be to stop trusting Democrats | Sarah Jaffe | Comment is free | The Guardian

Republicans Vow to Fight E.P.A. and Approve Keystone Pipeline - NYTimes.com

Highway seizure in Iowa fuels debate about asset-forfeiture laws - The Washington Post - By the time the encounter was over, the gamblers had been detained for more than two hours. Their car was searched without a warrant. And their cellphones, a computer and $100,020 of their gambling “bankroll” were seized under state civil asset-forfeiture laws.

Cancer's 'Frankenstein' DNA mystery solved › News in Science (ABC Science) - The creation of a 'Frankenstein' chromosome that steals the DNA it needs to grow and survive has been detailed for the first time in research led by Australian scientists ... However, neochromosomes are much bigger than normal chromosomes, in some cases containing over 700 million base pairs
Scientists Discover Genes That Helped Turn Fearsome Wildcats Into House Cats | WIRED

It’s Official: Mormon Founder Had Up to 40 Wives - NYTimes.com - some already married and one only 14 years old.

111014
‘Nobody Is Truly Ready' For Rise Of Seas - The report warns that coastal property and infrastructure could be a foot lower in just a few decades than is the case today, portending an unprecedented crisis for which the nation appears to be frightfully ill-prepared. U.S. coastal cities, established in centuries past when seas were 8 inches lower than they are today, are now flooding regularly during high tides

Syrian rebel leader: US-led attacks on Isis are undermining anti-Assad forces | World news | The Guardian - Hadi al-Bahra claims Syrians see US-led coalition turning a blind eye to Assad’s forces while failing to liaise with Free Syrian Army

Mexican police injured in Acapulco during protests over student massacre | World news | The Guardian - Fury at the disappearance of 43 student teachers continues to spread as masked protesters clash with riot police
Catalonia’s independence vote – illegal, and hopefully irresistible | Matthew Tree | Comment is free | The Guardian - Within months Catalonia could be the latest of Europe’s new countries: an example to the world of how to resolve border disputes
Geologists Who Didn't Predict an Earthquake Aren't Killers, Italian Court Rules | Motherboard
Suicide bomber in school uniform kills 47 in Nigeria - Yahoo News

Everything you need to know about the Trans Pacific Partnership - The Washington Post
Obama Urges World Leaders To Approve Elusive, Potentially 'Historic' Trans-Pacific Trade Deal - Disputes between the U.S. and Japan on market access for their major industries have been at the heart of the stalemate over the trade deal. China is not a party to the trade talks.

The Latest Frivolous Attack on Obamacare - NYTimes.com - What they are, instead, is corrupt, willing to pervert the law to serve political masters. And what we’ll find out in the months ahead is how deep the corruption goes.

GOP-Obama Compromise Would Mean a Scary Win for Big Business | The Fiscal Times

Cable companies 'stunned' by Obama's 'extreme' net neutrality proposals | Technology | The Guardian - Major telecoms, lobbyist groups and politicians sharply respond to president’s call for greater regulation of internet as utility
Ted Cruz Lashes Out Against Net Neutrality, Calls It 'Obamacare For The Internet' - "Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.
Dear Senator Ted Cruz, I'm going to explain to you how Net Neutrality ACTUALLY works - The Oatmeal
All I can think of when I hear that Obama has weighed in on Net Neutrality. His actions speak much louder than words. : AdviceAnimals

Six Points on the Midterm Elections | Jacobin - It’s not the 1930s anymore — white people in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Arkansas despise anything that reminds them of the national Democratic party, which they already think is socialist as it is. They don’t want it to move left, they think it’s grotesquely left enough.

Valerie Jarrett, The Obama Whisperer | New Republic - When I asked a longtime source who left the Obama White House years ago for his impressions of Jarrett, he confessed that he was too fearful to speak with me, even off the record. (she opposed Larry Summers at Treasury and was among the first Obama aides to come around on Hillary Clinton at State)
The knives are out for Valerie Jarrett, the close adviser who 'gets' Obama | US news | The Guardian - with The Obama Whisperer, a piece by Noam Scheiber of the New Republic that captures an unusual number of gripes – anonymously reported, of course – about the Obamas’ vacation companion and closest confidant.

States Listen as Parents Give Rampant Testing an F - NYTimes.com - Because schools do not have computers for every student, tests are staggered throughout the day, which translates to more hours spent administering tests and less time teaching. Students who are not taking tests often occupy their time watching movies. The staggered test times also mean computer labs are not available for other students.
Eschaton: Did The Grifters Go Too Far - The testing is there to make testing companies get rich and to provide an excuse to turn schools in to for profit charters.

Detroit bankruptcy exit plan approved by US judge - The plan includes a 4.5% cut to the pension plans of general retirees

Police Can Seize And Sell Assets Even When The Owner Broke No Law : The Two-Way : NPR (all your stuff are belong to them)
More Than Six in 10 Americans Say Guns Make Homes Safer - The percentage of Americans who believe having a gun in the house makes it a safer place to be (63%) has nearly doubled since 2000, when about one in three agreed with this. Three in 10 Americans say having a gun in the house makes it a more dangerous place.

This Is What It's Like To Fly Above Manhattan



110914
Remains of Typhoon Nuri beat north Pacific records and Sandy - NY Daily News - The record-breaking storm was stronger than anything that ever whipped through the north Pacific Ocean in recent recorded history and even Hurricane Sandy that slammed the East Coast in 2012.

Kaci Hickox, Nurse Who Fought Ebola Quarantine, To Leave Maine: Report - Tom Pelletier, Fort Kent's chief of police, said he had received calls from people who wanted him to arrest Hickox, local media reported. - Wilbur told the Press Herald he has withdrawn from his nursing program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent because university officials were not doing enough to stop threats against him. (they were all listening to Fox and voting for LePage)

Fall Of The Berlin Wall 25 Years Ago Marked In Germany
It's Been 25 Years Since The Fall Of The Berlin Wall. These 16 Photos Tell The Story.

Pentagon: leaked special forces mission details could endanger national security | US news | The Guardian - Statement comes after identification of two members of the team that killed Osama bin Laden (National Security is a wimp)

ISIS Leader Wounded In Airstrike, Report Iraqi Officials - Neither knew the extent of al-Baghdadi's apparent injuries. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential material. State television later also reported that al-Baghdadi had been wounded.
Obama confident US troop surge in Iraq will put coalition on offensive | World news | The Guardian - Comments draw emerging parallel to past US military strategy in Iraq
Times of Iraq: Iraqi troops takes back control of Iraq's biggest oil refinery from ISIS
How A Libyan City Joined The Islamic State Group - Darna, a Mediterranean coastal city long notorious as Libya's center for jihadi radicals

Protesters set fire to Mexican palace as anger over missing students grows | World news | The Guardian - Attack on building in Mexico City caps day of protest at the apparent massacre of 43 students
'I've had enough,' says Mexican attorney general in missing students gaffe | World news | The Guardian - ‘Ya me canse’ becomes a rallying call for anger over the government’s handling of the apparent killing of 43 students
Mexican gang members admit to burning alive 43 students found massacred | Daily Mail Online - Gang members waded into the ashes to remove remaining teeth and bone

Violence spreads across Israel after shooting in Galilee | World news | The Guardian - Video evidence shows police firing at Kheir Hamdan, 22, as he was running away from them – contradicting the police story
Iran's Khamenei proposes plan for Israel's elimination - on Twitter - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - The plan does not condone throwing Jews into the sea, but does call for arming the West Bank.
Israel recognises "Aramaics" as separate ethnic group - But critics call it an attempt by the government to encourage splits within its Arab population, which largely defines itself as Palestinian and makes up about a fifth of the country's 8.2 million citizens.

Marking fall of the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Gorbachev warns the West - LA Times - “Instead of building new mechanisms and institutions of European security and pursuing a major demilitarization of European politics, the West, and particularly the United States, declared victory in the Cold War.” As a result, he said, “a blister has now turned into a bloody, festering wound.”
Winston Churchill's 'bid to nuke Russia' to win Cold War - uncovered in secret FBI files | Daily Mail Online - Britain's war-time leader urged the US to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to win the Cold War (guy with a hammer)

Ukraine crisis: Heavy bombardment in rebel-held Donetsk
Ukraine crisis: Intense fighting in rebel bastion Donetsk; monitoring group OSCE 'very concerned' by military convoys - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - Intense artillery fighting has broken out in the separatist bastion of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to AFP journalists in the area.

?Putin, Xi Jinping sign mega gas deal on second gas supply route — RT Business
China's Corruption Crackdown Pummels Macau Casinos : Parallels : NPR - Macau is the only place in China where gambling is legal. It's also a giant pipeline for moving money out of the mainland and beating the government's strict currency controls.

Waning Power for Blacks and Democrats by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - With the defeat of Rep. John Barrow of Georgia, there are no longer any white Democrats from the Deep South in the U.S. House of Representatives. We’re excluding Florida here, which I think is justified in this day and age, and if Mary Landrieu loses her runoff election next month, there will no longer be any white Democrats from the Deep South in the U.S. Senate, either. There’s no point in sugar-coating this. In the Deep South, the Democratic Party is now the non-white party
The GOP Won’t Stop Suppressing Our Votes by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Nearly five times as many voters in 2010 used the voting reforms eliminated by the North Carolina GOP—200,000 voted during the now-eliminated first week of early voting, 20,000 used same-day registration and 7,000 cast out-of-precinct ballots.

Big Review Set By Democrats After Election Losses - A party committee will conduct a "top-to-bottom assessment" of the Democrats' performance in recent midterm elections and try to determine why they have struggled to turn out its core voters in nonpresidential elections. (Debbie and Steve will investigate themselves, which will really work)
GOP-Obama Compromise Would Mean a Scary Win for Big Business | The Fiscal Times (some compromise, eh?)
Current And Incoming Republican Senators Set Out Pro-Corporate Agenda For 114th Congress (because Obama wasn't pro=coporate enough)

Eschaton: The Audience - Or is it plumping the Hungarian goose-down pillows of the already quite cozy? -- (Ombud:) I asked the executive editor, Dean Baquet, whom he has in mind when he directs coverage and priorities. “I think of The Times reader as very well-educated, worldly and likely affluent,” he said. “But I think we have as many college professors as Wall Street bankers.” - (Atrios:) The college professor poors reader our paper too! - There just aren't that many rich people.

Elizabeth Warren: It’s time to work on America’s agenda - The Washington Post
Bernie Gets it Right » Balloon Juice - Bernie Sanders got it right (around 2:30): “The vast majority of people are giving up on the political system.” If you believe that, and if you couple it with Bernie’s other observation near the end of the video, which is that Democrats are afraid of taking positions that will anger the big money donors financing their campaigns, then how are we going to get the people who have given up to engage? (Barry destroyed the Democratic Party for 100 years)

George W. Bush: ‘You have to earn your way into politics,’ nothing ‘is ever given to you’ (the "flotsam" is in his head)

Lessons from the Rabbit Hole by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Pamela Harriman - it seems fitting to think about Harriman’s role as kingmaker for the Democrats. The mother of Winston Churchill’s grandson and economic populism don’t necessarily go together, and that could be a metaphor for problems that still bedevil us.

Breitbart's Attack On Obama Attorney General Nominee Goes After The Wrong Loretta Lynch | Blog | Media Matters for America - UPDATE: Breitbart.com posted corrections to the articles that confused the two attorneys, noting at bottom that "[t]he Loretta Lynch identified earlier as the Whitewater attorney was, in fact, a different attorney." (idiots)
Same old Clinton attacks again | Gene Lyons | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art - However, a journalist who chooses to question a presidential candidate's character by dragging up 20-year-old controversies owes it to readers to know two or three things about them. (more idiots)

Mormon Bishop Under Fire For Barring Reid From Temple - A Mormon bishop in Los Angeles is under fire for his assertion that Sen. Harry Reid is unworthy to enter the faith's temples because of his support of Democratic Party positions.
Top GOP Senator Complains Obama Doesn't Seem Ready To Compromise - Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 4 Senate Republican, on Sunday said President Obama has not shown that he's willing to work with Republicans. (they have no irony sensors)

WATCH: Deputy suspended for hitting, threatening man who declined to be searched | FOX31 Denver
A New York sheriff’s deputy was suspended late this week after a viral video surfaced that appeared to show him slapping and threatening a man who declined to let him search his car without a warrant : news
Deputy Who Killed 19-Year-Old Samantha Ramsey Won't Be Indicted - A Kentucky deputy who witnesses say jumped onto the roof of a 19-year-old girl's car and opened fire on her will not be indicted in the girl's death. ("self-defense")

Scientists Achieve Direct Brain-To-Brain Communication Between Humans - The accuracy among the pairs ranged from 25 to 83 percent, with errors attributed primarily to the sender's failure to "accurately execute" the fire-command thought rather than the hardware.
Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses
Synthetic Platelet Super-Mimics Halt Bleeding Three Times Faster | Neomatica
Silicon Nitride Microtubes Direct Neuron Growth | Chemical & Engineering News - Bioengineering: Arrays of silicon nitride microtubes could be used to design synthetic neural circuits for studying the brain and developing new medical devices


Crypto attack that hijacked Windows Update goes mainstream in Amazon Cloud | Ars Technica - Collision attack against widely used MD5 algorithm took 10 hours, cost just 65 cents.


110814
News from The Associated Press - Tensions between the major powers have pushed the world closer to a new Cold War, former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Saturday.

North Korea releases US citizens Bae and Miller as Clapper flies in | World news | The Guardian - Director of national intelligence brings Americans home - Officials: release not related to nuclear question, no quid pro quo

Pope demotes outspoken American conservative cardinal | Reuters - Cardinal Raymond Burke, 66, was removed as head of the Vatican's highest court and appointed to the ceremonial post of chaplain of the charity group Knights of Malta. (Francis continues his purge of the Cult of the Red Beanie Assholes)

ISIS chief ‘critically wounded’ in air raid: reports - Al Arabiya News
US air strikes destroy Isis convoy but reports leader targeted are unconfirmed | World news | The Guardian - US says unclear if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi present at time of strike - Iraq hit by suicide bombings on Friday and Saturday

If America is going to reveal the truth about torture, Obama must end Gitmo’s cover-up court | Anthony D Romero | Comment is free | The Guardian - At last, the report on Bush-era secrets is coming – and it’s the perfect chance for Obama to finally keep his promise about justice at Guantánamo Bay
War. Torture. The NSA. And Jerusalem? The American president's addiction to king-like power must end | Erwin Chemerinsky | Comment is free | The Guardian - On Monday, the US supreme court will argue Zivotofsky v Kerry in the context of a decades-long dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, and in a moment when the symbolism of statehood matters as much as ever ... but if anything in the Constitution remains clear it is that the framers rejected unchecked executive power
Fascism, American-Style » CounterPunch: Unbeknownst to most Americans the United States is presently under thirty presidential declared states of emergency. They confer vast powers on the Executive Branch including:
US government sees off legal challenge over Guantánamo force-feeding | US news | The Guardian - Federal udge denies inmate’s request to change treatment Criticises administration’s lack of ‘common sense and compassion’ (so Obama seems to be torturing people)
Imprisoned terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui wants to testify in Oklahoma City federal court | News OK - Zacarias Moussaoui also is claiming a Saudi prince assisted him in Norman in “my Islamic Terrorist activities” there in 2001. Moussaoui took flight lessons at a Norman flight school in 2001 as part of his plan to pilot a plane into a building. (another piece of Obama's continuing coverup)

Destroying online freedom in the name of counter-terrorism will make the world a more dangerous place - It is not terrorists who threaten that future of the internet, but our intelligence and security services

Emails Show Holder’s Anger During ‘Fast and Furious’ Probe - Washington Wire - WSJ - Newly revealed emails show Attorney General Eric Holder trying and failing to contain his temper over the botched Fast and Furious probe, at one point saying “some people can kiss my a—‘’ if they think he was too hard on a U.S. Attorney pushed out over the scandal.
Because Shut Up, That’s Why » Balloon Juice - Basically, Caroline Felsenthal has a fact free piece up at Politico demanding that President Obama fire Valerie Jarrett because. And no, that is not a typo, that is her entire argument (+politico disappeared lines that "didn't fit the narrative")
A Politico Hit Job on Valerie Jarrett by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Carol Felsenthal

Why many aren't celebrating low U.S. unemployment | CTV News - "People aren't looking at the statistical aggregates," said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "They care about their standard of living, and most Americans think their standard of living has declined."
CBRE report warns 50 per cent of occupations will be redundant in 20 years time | Daily Mail Online - Artificial intelligence will mean that many jobs will be done by computers - Customer work, process work and middle management will 'disappear'

Supreme Court Obamacare Decision in King v Burwell Is Life or Death | New Republic - The Supreme Court Is Now a Death Panel (they were always obsessed with it)
Health Care Reform Imperiled - NYTimes.com - Will five Supreme Court justices eliminate essential health care subsidies for more than four million lower-income Americans, based on a contorted reading of four words?

More homeless-feeding arrests in Ft. Lauderdale amid national backlash | News - Home - Police break up homeless feeding at Stranahan Park


Our addiction to criminalising human behaviour makes a mockery of private responsibility | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian - From drinking while pregnant to urinating on a war memorial, the law’s ambition has no limits- If poisoning your foetus with alcohol is a crime, why is it not a crime to abort it?


PLOS ONE: Interaction between Neuroanatomical and Psychological Changes after Mindfulness-Based Training - Taken together, these findings documented the significant impact of a brief MBSR training on brain structures, as well as stressing the idea of MBSR as a valuable tool for alexithymia modulation, also originally providing a plausible neurobiological evidence of a major role of right insula into mediating the observed psychological changes.
Why Scientists Think Completely Unclassifiable and Undiscovered Life Forms Exist | Motherboard
DNA Sequencing Led Researchers to Discover "Microbial Dark Matter" | Motherboard - "This is what we call 'microbial dark matter,'" Tanja Woyke, a researcher at the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said. "They are branches in the tree of life that have no representatives."

Police: 4 teens accused of videotaping sex with intoxicated... | www.wsoctv.com - “It's not just calls. It's pictures, texts, Facebook all of them,” said mother Cathy Davis.

Update to "I found out my 13 y/o son is gay... He hasn't told me, but I want to support him. What can I do?" : askgaybros

110714
Intense Storm Headed To Alaska's Aleutian Islands Will Also Bring Cold Temps To Much Of U.S. - hurricane-force winds and waves 50 feet high
Climate Diplomacy as Partisan Fun | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - President Obama’s political situation after the mid-term election defeat of the Democrats is the same as it was before

Mark Udall: What He Should Do And Why He Won't - Esquire - I wish Mark Udall would do what the Guardian suggests, but I do not propose he martyr himself in the process. It is long past time for the country to know the horrors perpetrated in its name, and the people who committed them on the country's dime. (because Obama won't because the CIA won't let him)

Obama doubles US troop levels in Iraq for war against Isis | US news | The Guardian - Pledge to avoid ‘boots on the ground’ strained as 1,500 additional US troops ordered to Iraq to bolster Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State
Purely in an Advisory Capacity » Balloon Juice - #POTUS has authorized #SecDef Hagel to deploy up to 1,500 additional U.S. personnel over the coming months, in a non-combat role to #Iraq. - Haven’t we been training the Iraqi military for 10 years now, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars? They’ve got to be the most trained motherfuckers in the world by now.

Bin Laden ‘Shooter’ Story Is FUBAR, Special Ops Sources Say - The Daily Beast - One man says he killed the world’s most wanted terrorist. His former colleagues say that’s a stretch—at best.

Mexico: ‘We Are Not Sheep to Be Killed’ by Alma Guillermoprieto | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
Mexico: Gang Members Confess To Mass Killing In Missing Students Probe - Members of a gang arrested in a probe into the disappearance of a group of 43 trainee teachers feared massacred have admitted to killing a large group of people, Mexico's attorney general said on Friday - 30 years of drug war by the U.S., and this is the result: our southern neighbor is a narco state. Didn't anybody see what happened during Prohibition?

Ukraine Says Tank Column, Artillery Systems And Trucks Have Crossed Into Eastern Ukraine From Russia
The Advocate Names Vladimir Putin 'Person of the Year' - "Driving the governmental, religious, and popular disdain for gays and lesbians," writes the magazine's Jeremy Lybarger, "the Russian president became the single greatest threat to LGBTs in the world in 2014."

Matt Taibbi On Leaving First Look Media: ‘I Am Sad That It Didn't Work Out' ("I really can't talk about it")
Matt Taibbi and JPMorgan whistleblower rip Justice Dept.’s coddling of Wall Street offenders

FBI Admits Agent Impersonated Reporter During Criminal Investigation - FBI Director James Comey says an agent impersonated an Associated Press reporter during a 2007 criminal investigation, a ruse the news organization says could undermine its credibility.

Supreme Court To Almost Certainly Deny Millions of People Health Insurance - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Supreme Court Accepts New Challenge to Health Law - NYTimes.com - potentially imperiling President Obama’s signature legislative achievement two years after it survived a different challenge in the court by a single vote. (fuck off and die, non-rich)
Supreme Court Grants Cert in Obamacare Challenge, King v. Burwell | New Republic - The latest legal challenge to Obamacare just became very credible—and very dangerous.
Newest, Craziest Legal Challenge to Obamacare -- NYMag - This is a mind-blowing development, given that the challenge was dismissed as frivolous outside of the right-wing activists who initially devised it ... King v. Burwell is not so much a radical legal doctrine as it is a Monty Python-esque exercise in extreme tendentiousness.
Steven Dennis on Twitter: "By this time next year, CBO expects net +20M people will have health insurance due to ACA. By end of 2016: +25M." (Supremes: "well, screw them")

Triumph of the Wrong - NYTimes.com - obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. (and in 2010, President Obama said "After all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts. Their government should, too" as he announced a two-year pay freeze on federal government workers)
Midterms Rewarded Personal Irresponsibility by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - You’d better believe that if Republicans are ever in the position Democrats were in when McConnell and company decided on this scorched-earth strategy, this lesson of 2014 will be remembered—because after all, personal irresponsibility was rewarded.

Are you reflected in the new Congress? | US news | The Guardian
AmericanStudies: November 7, 2014: Exemplary Elections: 1994 - November 7, 2014: Exemplary Elections: 1994

Unemployment Is Down, But Wages Aren't Up (only shit jobs left, no point in voting Dem)
Bringing the Financial Sector To Heel by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - And despite the heavy responsibility of the financial sector for the disaster of 2008, its fundamental problems have by no means gone away.

Consumers to Get Peek at 2015 Obamacare Premiums - DailyFinance
Public Opinion Strategies » Blog Archive » Poll shows that the ACA was not as much of a vote factor in 2014 as it was in 2010.

Federal Court Clears Way For Gay Marriage In Kansas

Mpls. Mayor Flashes Gang Sign with Convicted Felon; Law Enforcement Outraged | KSTP TV - Minneapolis and St. Paul (their own commenters destroy them)
#pointergate may be the most racist news story of 2014

This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy_11.7.14 - Esquire - t was a very big week out in the Wild Kingdom, and what can we say, but...Gordon Klingenschmitt.
Gordon Klingenschmitt of Colorado is the craziest anti-gay legislator in America.
Meet 'Dr. Chaps' Gordon Klingenschmitt: Colorado's New Anti-Gay, Demon Hunting State Legislator | Right Wing Watch - Klingenschmitt is a viciously anti-gay theocrat who believes that gay people "want your soul" and may sexually abuse their own children, which is why he says they should face government discrimination since only people who are going to heaven are entitled to equal treatment by the government:

You’ll Never Guess Why This Woman Was Arrested -- NYMag - This woman was arrested in Kentucky on Tuesday, but you will literally never guess what for. It's a complete and utter mystery.

Starbucks enforces new dress code for employees - AOL.com - Can't believe @Starbucks won't let women wear engagement rings but facial piercings are okay. THAT is NOT OKAY.

Swiss robot tricks brain into hallucinating ‘ghostly presences’ in empty rooms - “You really need a sensorimotor mismatch for Feeling of Presence,” EPFL scientist Giulio Rognini said.

The American Shakespeare Center's Education Department Blog: "Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, but Harry Harry": Political Rhetoric in Inaugural Speeches - I began with a rhetorical analysis of President Obama's 2009 and 2013 inaugural addresses (and Shakespeare, interesting)

Inside America's Number 1 Party School: The University of Pennsylvania | New Republic - The University of Pennsylvania has the least distinctive identity of any prestigious college in America. In September, Playboy conferred on Penn a surprising new title: Number One Party School in America.

? Hey Joe - Johnny Rivers - YouTube

Serial: listeners of podcast phenomenon turn detectives – with troubling results | Television & radio | The Guardian - Based on a real-life murder, Serial has captivated listeners around the world. But when the show’s fans started doing their own investigations on Reddit, it took the phenomenon into uncharted waters

110614
Climate change denier Jim Inhofe in line for Senate's top environmental job | Environment | The Guardian - Obama faces a fight to protect his climate change agenda after midterm results suggest Senate’s top environmental post will fall to Republican stalwart of climate denial

Brussels Airlines CEO issues stern warning to Ebola affected States | Sierra Express Media - “any passenger tested Ebola positive on board Brussels Airlines will provoke an automatic suspension of flights to the three countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea”.

Khorasan group back in US crosshairs as air strikes hit non-Isis targets in Syria | US news | The Guardian - Air strikes on little-known group alleged to be al-Qaida affiliate raise questions about expansion of US air war in Syria and Iraq

Obama pens secret letter to Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei as nuclear deadline looms | US news | The Guardian - Letter, written in October, reportedly referenced shared interest between the US and Iran in combatting Isis militants in Iraq and Syria (that was some "secret")

Law enforcement lost public's trust after NSA leaks, says UK police chief | World news | The Guardian - Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Metropolitan police commissioner, says law enforcement must strike balance between security and privacy in wake of Snowden revelations
Intelligence agencies spying on lawyers in sensitive security cases | World news | The Guardian - Internal MI5, MI6 and GCHQ documents reveal routine interception of legally privileged communications

The Dickens Dossier: Secret file on establishment paedophiles may be opened - Crime - UK - The Independent - A secret file which is said to contain the names of paedophiles with links to the British establishment and which is rumoured to be locked away in archives at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, could be made public as part of the Government’s child abuse inquiry.
FBI Arrests SpaceX Employee, Alleging He Ran The 'Deep Web' Drug Marketplace Silk Road 2.0 | Business Insider - FBI Arrests SpaceX Employee, Alleging He Ran The 'Deep Web' Drug Marketplace Silk Road 2.0

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare | Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi | November 6, 2014
Taibbi Returns To Rolling Stone With Piece That Was 'Supposed To Launch' New Site

Anger Over Executive Action On Immigration Is No Excuse For GOP Stalling, Politicians Say (another brilliant strategy from the Deporter-in-Chief who lost the Latino vote and further screwed the country with more Repubicans by not being a Democrat)
Boehner warns of 'big trouble' if Obama forces through immigration reform | US news | The Guardian - Republican House speaker sets confrontational tone in first post-midterms comment, saying the president will ‘burn himself’ if he uses executive action to overcome congressional deadlock

Republicans Crush Democrats At State Level, Control Two-Thirds Of Legislatures Now
Democrats Have Great Exciting New Idea: Being Democrats | Wonkette
Eschaton: Let's Keep Chasing The People Who Don't Vote For Us - Instead of the people who might. The Dem midterm strategy is just wrong. The consultants can get rich and everyone can blame The Left, but whatever. It isn't working
On his way to a slim victory in a changing Va., Warner may have wooed wrong voters - The Washington Post (the 'ol DSCC brilliant strategy of wooing Republicans)
Climate Denier Ted Cruz May Lead Senate Science Subcommittee | New Republic (that'll work)
5 New GOP Governors Could Undercut Medicaid Expansion (just die, poors)
Mark Warner, Loyal to (Nearly) the End by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Sometimes very smart people have a hard time abandoning the monuments of their brilliance. And it nearly cost Warner—and the Democratic Party—a slam-dunk Senate race.
Unhappy With The Election Results? Just Look At The People Your Neighbors Voted Into Office
Democrats Have Two Choices: Gridlock or Disaster -- NYMag
Racism and Republican Victory - Lawyers, Guns & Money : It’s pretty difficult to argue that racists are not a huge part of the Republican coalition. Every since the moment Obama won the presidency, white racial resentment has been flowing out of American conservatives and that is a hate well that remains uncapped.

Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - Reached in the Beyond, St. Thomas More shook his head. Then he put it back down on the table and resumed drinking heavily. (classic CPP)

US appeals court upholds gay marriage bans in four states

Wal-Mart cuts health benefits for 30,000 part-timers - Oct. 7, 2014 - The cut applies to part-timers who work fewer than 30 hours a week -- about 2% of the company's U.S. workforce.
Wal-Mart cuts health benefits for 30,000 part-timers : news

Arnold Abbott arrested for feeding the homeless is arrested again | Daily Mail Online - Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler is speaking out against Abbott, saying homeless people should have to interact with the government to get food

A Japanese court ordered a restaurant to pay more than half a million dollars damages to the family of a man who killed himself after being forced to work nearly 200 hours overtime a month. : worldnews
Texas Girl Was Taken Away From Parents Because They Smoked Pot, Only To Be Killed in Foster Care : news
TIL that in 1963, some Barbie dolls came with a book entitled "How to Lose Weight" which advised "Don't eat!" and a bathroom scale permanently set at 110 lbs. : todayilearned

Harvard Under Fire For Secret Classroom Photos (after they caught flack for spying on everyones email)

110514
Climate Change? An Issue for Losers | Power Line - And nobody, but nobody, cared how many millions liberal billionaires spent trying to make climate change an issue.

WHO Lowers Ebola Death Toll, Virus Slowing In Liberia - The three countries have reported 1,828 Ebola cases of the disease over the past 21 days, the maximum incubation period of the virus, and 64 percent of those new cases were in Sierra Leone, 22 percent were in Liberia and 14 percent in Guinea.

Erdogan Decorates $615 Million Palace as Presidency Cost Surges - Bloomberg - A palace four times the size of Versailles. A custom-built Airbus jet. Dozens of servants.

What The Hell Happened To The Democratic Vote? - What did change is that Republicans boosted their percentage among African-Americans from 6 percent won by Romney to 10 percent yesterday; from 27 percent to 35 percent among Latinos; and from 26 percent to 49 percent among Asians.
Postmortem - Lawyers, Guns & Money : A few thoughts, loosely tied together, on last night’s disaster.
Breaking! Working Poor In Florida Freed From Neoliberal Shackles of the Affordable Care Act - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Shorter newly-reelected Gov. Lex Luthor to Florida citizens being offered Medicaid at little cost to the state: “Drop dead, literally.”
9 takeaways from the 2014 election - Vox
Democrats sift through the debris | TheHill
What really went wrong for Democrats - The Washington Post - The failure of the Democrats’ economic message to win over persuadable voters, ones outside the ascendant Democratic coalition, in the numbers needed to offset the structural disadvantages Democratic incumbents and candidates faced.

2014 Election Results: Here's Why Democrats Lost the Senate to GOP | New Republic
Negativity Wins the Senate - NYTimes.com - “If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.”
The Democrats’ Southern Problem Reaches a New Depth - NYTimes.com - The inability of Southern Democrats to run well ahead of a deeply unpopular Mr. Obama raises questions about how an increasingly urban and culturally liberal national Democratic Party can compete in the staunchly conservative South.
The Polls Were Skewed Toward Democrats | FiveThirtyEight
Harry Reid Should Use Filibuster in Republican-Majority Senate | New Republic
Hullabaloo - And as Howie points out, all those Republicans in Democratic clothing the Party recruited lost as did all the Blue Dogs who've been very reliable GOP votes. It just doesn't pay to be a conservative Democrat these days.
DownWithTyranny!: Why Did The Democrats Do So Badly Last Night? It Goes Beyond Gerrymandering And Obama's Poor Ratings - DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil will reap big rewards for his incredible string of abject failures yesterday
DownWithTyranny!: Steve Israel Failed Miserably This Cycle-- Here's A Taste Of The Next Week Of Posts - There are 21 seats like this in the House, winnable seats Steve Israel willfully ignored, even if they were much easier than impossible targets in deep red districts where he ran his handpicked Blue Dogs and New Dems.
Even In Deep Red States, Voters Reject Radical 'Personhood' Measures | ThinkProgress - The radical “personhood” movement was dealt a significant blow on Tuesday night, when voters in North Dakota and Colorado resoundingly defeated two ballot initiatives that would have redefined life to extend legal protections to fertilized eggs.

Kansas Stays Kansas - Esquire - The sun is up, and it's Kansas again. All that stuff about competitive independents and reliable polling and there'll be hell to pay for ideological excess? All that was just a dream.
Newly Minted Republican House Of Cranks - Esquire
Gray power and death bets » Balloon Juice - Old people want their Medicare and Social Security untouched or enriched, and don’t give a fuck about birth control as they are no longer in the childbearing cohort, and have minimal direct stakes in costs that are only incurred in fifteen or twenty years from now. They are making a death bet that the costs of their good times today won’t be borne by them as they’ll be dead when the bill comes due. It is a rational bet.
Meet your new craziest Republicans - Rep. Jody Hice, the face of New Republicanism. He'll be defending his Georgia district from the Gays, Muslims, and women who enter politics without their husbands' permission.

Your Weekly Van Loon - Esquire - "On the other hand, when you grow up you will discover that some of the people in this world never passed beyond the stage of the cave-man."

Most States Will Now Have A Higher Minimum Wage Than The One Set By Congress - But after Tuesday's referendums, and after legislation recently passed in Maryland, Hawaii and West Virginia, 29 states and the District of Columbia will soon have minimum wages higher than the federal level.
Poloz’s prescription for unemployed youth: Work for free - The Globe and Mail
Bank of Canada Governor asks unemployed youth if they’ve considered serfdom - The Beaverton - North America's Trusted Source of News
On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs - David Graeber - Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at.

Judge overturns Missouri ban on gay marriage - A state judge overturned Missouri's constitutional ban on gay marriage Wednesday in a ruling that immediately set off a rush among some same-sex couples to apply for marriage licenses.

An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon | WIRED
President Obama: Stop the next unacceptable net neutrality propose from FCC Chair Wheeler - Thomas Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has come up with yet another proposal for net neutrality that is not about net neutrality, but a gift to big telecom (always triangulating with himself)
To Nobody's Surprise, Australian “Terrorism” Law May Be Used for Copyright Enforcement | Electronic Frontier Foundation

110414
Eschaton: The Ebola Panic Epidemic And Need to Vote - A teacher in Lousville, Kentucky, resigned because of the Ebola panic in the US: How close did Susan Sherman go to the areas of Ebola? This map gives you an idea if you remember that Kenya is on the right edge of the African continent: (they don't teach geography in Catholic schools) can you even imagine what would happen if the party in power during a real Ebola epidemic in the US were the one which wants to choke the public health care system to almost-death and save lots of money through privatizations?
New Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone raises fears of new infection chain | World news | The Guardian - Koinadugu had prided itself on being the only area to have kept Ebola at bay by operating self-imposed quarantine system

ISIS Tortured Kurdish Children Captured In Kobani: Group - Islamic State militants tortured and abused Kurdish children captured earlier this year near the northern Syrian town of Kobani, beating them with hoses and electric cables, an international rights group said Tuesday. (which they learned from Obama's black sites)

Christians beaten to death for allegedly desecrating Qur’an in Pakistan | World news | The Guardian - Bodies of couple burned in a brick kiln in Kot Radha Kishan, in latest case of violence against minorities accused of blasphemy (Islam is going all Republican)

Former NSA lawyer: the cyberwar is between tech firms and the US government | Technology | The Guardian - Stewart Baker said that Apple and Google could be restricting their business in markets like China and Russia by encrypting user data

Senate Control Is The Top Prize In The Midterm Election
Senate Election Results 2014 | The Huffington Post - 36 out of the Senate's 100 seats are up for election.
READ IN: Election Day Edition - The Washington Post
Where 25 of Tuesday’s most important state ballot measures stand - The Washington Post
Even Without Voter ID Laws, Minority Voters Face More Hurdles to Casting Ballots | Mother Jones - Heavily black and Latino precincts often have long lines and fewer voting machines on Election Day. Why?
Here Are The Governor Races Still Too Close To Call

Hullabaloo - Pearl clutching strategists run screaming to the press - If the Democratic Party wants to know what's wrong with the Democratic Party it isn't the "professional left" or the "emoprogs" it's the institutional Democrats who run to press and whine like infants every time the Party looks like it's about to an election --- even if it was entirely predictable and is completely reversible 2 years later:
Rachel Maddow Calls Out Conservative Right For Plotting Obama Impeachment

E-mail points to White House involvement in USDA’s firing of Shirley Sherrod - The Washington Post - A 2010 e-mail from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says his department was “waiting for the go-ahead” from the White House before accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, according to newly released documents, despite Obama administration assertions that her ouster was Vilsack’s decision alone. (Obama lied to hide his utterly stupid descision which was an early sign being a Republican at heart)

Mexican mayor arrested over students’ abduction | World news | The Guardian - José Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested in Mexico City without resisting, according to two security officials. They provided no other details. (she thought they might mess up her self-celebration, so she had them all murdered)

The Economic Case for a National Per-Mile Driving Fee - CityLab - It could generate more revenue than we know what to do with—not a bad problem to have. (just raise the damn gas tax)

Do You Decarboxylate Your Weed Before You Cook With It? It Is Highly Recommended | Food Republic
Wake And Brew And Bake: A Morning 'Pot' Of Coffee Takes On An Entirely New Meaning | Food Republic

Two photons interact for the first time in fiber optic experiment : FUTURE TECH : Tech Times
Two photons interact for the first time in fiber optic experiment : science

Danish soldiers get ambushed and surrounded by Taliban fighters. Really intense shit. (12:42) : videos
What are some ugly truths of having sex? : AskReddit

110314
What next for Burkina Faso? » Africa Is A Country

So Much For That: Obama Syria Strategy In Tatters As U.S.-Backed Rebels Lose To Al Qaeda

Two teenage siblings were arrested with would-be Isis recruit at Chicago airport | World news | The Guardian - Siblings aged 16 and 17 not charged despite sharing ‘barbaric rhetoric’ US citizen Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, could face 15 years in jail
FBI warns against homegrown terror threat - Yahoo News - The United States faces an increasing number of homegrown violent extremists radicalized online and inspired by jihadists in Syria to carry out acts of violence, the FBI warned Monday. (it's all going exactly as planned)

GCHQ chief accuses US tech giants of becoming terrorists' 'networks of choice' | UK news | The Guardian - New director of UK eavesdropping agency accuses US tech firms of becoming ‘networks of choice’ for terrorists (privacy=terrorism)
Glenn Greenwald and Snowden: ‘Nobody Should Use Facebook’ | Mediaite - “He doesn’t use Facebook because he hates Facebook,” he said. “They’re one of the worst violators of privacy in history. Nobody should use Facebook.”

Congressman warns of 'civil war' among Democrats unless Obama acts on immigration | US news | The Guardian - Luis Gutiérrez, a key figure in the push for immigration reform, said president’s decision to delay action has sapped enthusiasm among Hispanic voters (Deporter-in-Chief chased Republicans for six years, reaping what he sowed)
White House insists: we won't fire top advisers if Democrats crash in midterms | US news | The Guardian - Spokesman Josh Earnest downplays suggestion of major cull of president’s team – despite polls showing Republicans on course to claim Senate (nothing succeeds like total failure)
Birthers Hope GOP Congress Will Launch Obama Birth Certificate Probe | Right Wing Watch (get ready for the insanopocalypse)

Two Bad Tastes That Taste Worse Together - Lawyers, Guns & Money : An elected judiciary is a bad idea. An elected judiciary with virtually no campaign finance restrictions is an even worse idea. Charles does an excellent job of explaining why. Let me add this:

What My Book Got Wrong About Obama, Summers, Geithner, Recovery | New Republic - All the other mistakes Obama and his economic team made were painful, but essentially second-order and forgivable. In any case, it’s only fair to grade on a curve in a situation as challenging as the one Obama faced. Financial reform is the one exception. It’s the mistake we’ll be ruing for years.

HUFFPOLLSTER: Odds of GOP Senate Takeover Grow

What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days? - Esquire - Before we begin, let's stop and pay homage to ol' Panchito himself, Frank Bruni, of The New York Times, who may have written the beau ideal of what Jay Rosen calls journalism's "View From Nowhere," something I was taught against my better judgment in journalism school and which now, confronted with a party gone mad from three decades of a prion disease, is something that is worse than inadequate
Mornings With Joni - Esquire - It was the second stop on Joni Ernst's Just One Thing, 24-hour, Wingnuts Over Iowa Tour. It had begun that morning in Ankeny, at a bagel shop, and it had wound itself up through the sprawling, autumn-browned landscape up to the Newton Manufacturing Company, a century-old firm specializing in the production of promotional detritus for other businesses, large and small.
Former pig castrator Joni Ernst poised to win Iowa Senate seat for Republicans | US news | The Guardian - Republican once considered an obscure one-term state senator has the momentum in Iowa despite suffering the ridicule of her rivals

Chris Quinn, vice president for content at the Northeast Ohio Media Group… What’s up? » Pressthink - The leading news organization in the state sponsors the only event of the campaign when the two major candidates for governor meet face-to-face to discuss the issues. The candidate it endorses behaves contemptuously toward his opponent and tries not to acknowledge his existence. These events are captured on video. The video is posted at the news organization’s own site, then abruptly removed without explanation. Lawsuits are threatened if others post clips. Calls to explain these actions are ignored. National media attention is given to the missing video. The readers representative is prevented from commenting. The editor in charge of the debate goes silent. The election is three days away. (elites always rig elections)

Sex Trafficking Isn't An 'Over There' Issue, 100,000 U.S. Kids Are Sold Into It Every Year (Kristof's meme take off; 300,000 kids are "at risk") "Many of the organizations that received grants didn't really have to do anything," said Wagner, former head of HHS's anti-trafficking program. "They were available to help victims. There weren't any victims."

Cop charged with stealing nude photos from suspect's iPhone - CNET - A California police officer accused of sending nude photos from DUI suspect's phone to his own and sharing them with other officers has been charged with two felonies.

Dark matter: Out with the WIMPs, in with the SIMPs? | Science/AAAS | News - Hypothetical strongly interacting massive particles—or SIMPs—would also better account for some astrophysical observations, they argue.
SIMP or WIMP as Dark Matter | George Rajna - Academia.edu
science.v2.pdf - A Dearth of Dark Matter in Ordinary Elliptical Galaxies
Mirror image RNA enzymes may hold clues to origin of life | Science/AAAS | News - using a technique called test-tube evolution they were able to generate ribozymes capable of assembling RNA strands of the opposite handedness in the presence of a mixture of D- and L-RNA nucleotides.
Scientists Have Discovered How Common Different Sexual Fantasies Are - Business Insider
The Most Common Problems People Have In Bed, According To Sex Experts

Tom Magliozzi, Popular Co-Host Of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies At 77 : NPR
Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host Of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies At 77 - due to complications of Alzheimer's Disease.
Farewell: Car Talk's Tom Magliozzi left laughing
Tom Magliozzi, Popular Co-Host Of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies At 77 : news
How Does Alzheimer's Kill?
? Dawggy Mountain Breakdown - YouTube - The David Grisman Quintet's Dawggy Mountain Breakdown. This is also the theme to the popular radio show Car Talk. This song is the intellectual property of the David Grisman Quintet.

Varieties of Exploitation - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This account of Jian Ghomeshi’s dismissal from the CBC is fascinating and chilling reading. It’s not just that he apparently thought he could bully his CBC superiors like they were 21-year-old journalism students. What’s worse is that I suspect that in his infamous Facebook non-apology he was lying to himself but not to others — that he very sincerely believes he did nothing wrong.
Behind the CBC’s decision to fire Jian Ghomeshi - The Globe and Mail - But the CBC managers were taken aback, and their views on Mr. Ghomeshi’s conduct changed instantly. What they saw, in their opinions, was far more aggressive and physical than anything they had been led to believe during months of discussions.
My Jian Ghomeshi Internship | Bloughts - My first week as an intern included getting a key to his apartment and my duties never went beyond housekeeping or running personal errands. I spent a lot of time in his home, either with others, by myself, or just with him. I never stepped foot in the CBC. My biggest task was probably purchasing his hair wax.
Students were warned away from Q internships: professor | Toronto Star - University of Western Ontario journalism students heard interning at Q was “off limits” over concerns about host Jian Ghomeshi’s “inappropriate” behaviour.
Q producer taking time off as CBC seeks ‘clarity’ around Jian Ghomeshi allegations | Toronto Star - CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson confirmed Arif Noorani has “decided to take a few days off.”
Andrew O’Hagan · Light Entertainment: Our Paedophile Culture · LRB 8 November 2012

Lena Dunham cancels tour dates following bloggers' accusations that she sexually abused her younger sister - CSMonitor.com - Writers for the websites the National Review and Truth Revolt say that passages in Dunham's book 'Not That Kind of Girl' describe Dunham sexually abusing her younger sister. Dunham tweeted, 'Don't twist my words.... I told a story about being a weird 7-year-old.'
Lena Dunham Slams 'Disgusting' Allegations She Molested Her Little Sister
Lena Dunham cancels tour dates following bloggers' accusations that she sexually abused her younger sister : books
Carroll Dunham - Paintings
6-Year-Old Boy Charged With Felony Sexual Assault | TakePart - Kids playing doctor unleash grown-up consequences in Wisconsin.
ApplicableSongLyric comments on FBI 'rescues' more than 100 children forced into prostituion...now many of the children could face criminal prostitution charges. - I'm a 15 year old girl who was charged with Sexual Exploitation of a Minor in my home state and faced 5 years in prison.
When Kids Are Sex Offenders | Boston Review


110214
U.N. Panel Warns of Dire Effects From Lack of Action Over Global Warming - NYTimes.com
IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change | Environment | The Guardian - Most important assessment of global warming yet warns carbon emissions must be cut sharply and soon, but UN’s IPCC says solutions are available and affordable
UN Climate Change Report Delivers Stark Warnings
The Climate-Change Solution No One Will Talk About - The Atlantic - Studies have shown that improved access to birth control can be a valuable tool in slowing global warming, but many politicians are afraid to broach the subject. (personhood)
Richard Berman Energy Industry Talk Secretly Taped - NYTimes.com - Richard Berman Energy Industry Talk Secretly Taped (behold, a minion of Satan)
Fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100 says IPCC - The unrestricted use of fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100 if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, a UN-backed expert panel says.

Nurse Apologizes And Promises To Stay Out Of Maine Town Center - "I didn’t mean to bring this media storm onto this community, either, but I think unfortunately sometimes, especially when up against governors, you don’t always have an option," she said Sunday, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Days of Infamy, Days of Hope: Part V by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - On October 27, 2010, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann warned America of the chaos and mayhem that would be inflicted upon this country if Tea Party radicals seized control of Congress: Every word Olbermann said in this commentary has been proven true

FBI Seeking New Invasive Global Hacking Powers - The proposed amendment would allow judges to issue warrants allowing the FBI to hack into any computer, regardless of location. The FBI claims the rule change would help federal investigators conduct surveillance of “anonymized” computers, whose locations have been concealed using tools such as the Internet anonymity networkTor.
The Guantánamo Tapes - NYTimes.com
Microsoft OneDrive in NSA PRISM - ) Bitlocker keys are uploaded to OneDrive by 'device encryption'.

Uprising could trigger Isis undoing, says study | World news | The Guardian - Former counter-terror head at MI6 says Islamic State’s biggest challenge will be controlling dissent
ISIS militants kill 50 tribesmen, women and children, officials say | Fox News
ISIS Militants Kill Over 300 Members Of Defiant Iraqi Tribe - Islamic State militants have killed 322 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well, the government said in the first official confirmation of the scale of the massacre.
Patrick Cockburn · Whose side is Turkey on?: The Battle for Kobani · LRB 6 November 2014 - Whatever happens at Kobani, Isis is not going to implode. Foreign intervention will only increase the level of violence and the Sunni-Shia civil war will gather force, with no end in sight.
Suicide Bomber in Pakistan Kills More Than 50 People - NYTimes.com - At least 55 people were killed and at least 120 more were wounded Sunday evening after a suicide bomber set off explosives at a border post in eastern Pakistan, police officials said.

Even Israel's Best Friends Understand That It Is Disconnecting From Reality - The Atlantic - An editorial in the leading American Jewish newspaper should be read by Prime Minister Netanyahu as a serious warning.
Snowden Leak: NSA Flagged Israel as Leading Espionage Threat

Kiev claims 'intensive' movements of troops crossing from Russia - Yahoo News
Pro-Russian Separatists Vote For Leaders In War-Torn East Ukraine - Pro-Russian rebels voted in an election to set up a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, taking the war-torn region closer to Russia and defying Kiev and the West, as shelling continued across the territory.
US Air Force officers: Russian bombers are flying nuclear drills | Metro News

Government blatantly Photoshopped U.S. images of the iconic Canadarm to include ‘Canada’ logo | National Post - Canada blatantly Photoshopped U.S. photos in order to slap a non-existent Canadian logo on the International Space Station, a blog post by the Economist revealed Friday. (Canaduh)

Branson spaceship explosion: The 'missed' warnings - Sir Richard Branson’s company and US authorities were repeatedly warned about safety issues surrounding Virgin Galactic’s rocket engine system

Governor Forecast 2014 | The Huffington Post
When Conspiracy Theories Don't Fit the Media Narrative - The Atlantic - Why haven't Joni Ernst's flirtation with Agenda 21 or Tom Cotton's ideas about ISIS gotten more attention? (media)
Five things that would change in a Republican-led Senate | TheHill - Senate confirmations: The battlefield tilts
Why 2014 Isn’t as Good as It Seems for the Republicans - NYTimes.com - They are favored to win the Senate, and they could pick up enough House seats to finish with their largest margin since 1928.
Ben Stein On Fox: Obama Is "The Most Racist President There Has Ever Been In America" | Video | Media Matters for America

St. Louis Archbishop Carlson claims to be uncertain if he knew sexual abuse was a crime : Lifestyles - “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

Maine could elect the country's first gay governor – but LGBT activists are split | US news | The Guardian - He made 18 similar votes against it during his 22 years in Maine’s legislature, and was among just five state senators to oppose it even up to its long-awaited passage in 1997. (Michaud is anti-gay gay guy)

From Michael Brown to Assata Shakur, the racist state of America persists | Angela Davis | Comment is free | The Guardian - what interest would the FBI have in designating a 66-year-old black woman, who has lived quietly in Cuba for the last three and a half decades, as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world – sharing space on the list with individuals whose alleged actions have provoked military assaults on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria?
Huntsville schools paid $157,000 to former FBI agent, social media monitoring led to 14 expulsions | AL.com - Madison County Commissioner Bob Harrison said the numbers suggest the system is targeting social media activities of black children. "That is effectively targeting or profiling black children in terms of behavior and behavioral issues," said Harrison.

Ferguson No-Fly Zone Was Aimed At Media, Recordings Show - The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.

Nic Kristof: The King of the 21st Century White Slavery Scare - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Even though Nic Kristof has been shown to be incredibly gullible about child prostitution, that hasn’t stopped the Times from letting him promote his insane horror rhetoric: "IF prostitution of children is illegal, why is it that we allow an estimated 100,000 underage girls and boys to be sold for sex in America each year — many on a single American website, Backpage.com?" (might be 2.4 million or 1 in 10 kids in America are sex slaves!)
CWA_Decriminalization-of-Prostitution-for-Minors2012.pdf
Concerned Women for America | Right Wing Watch - Concerned Women for America (CWA) describes itself as "the nation's largest public policy women's organization." CWA opposes gay rights, comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education, and feminism, while advocating what it calls "pro-life" and "pro-family" values.
Concerned Women for America - The group was launched in the late 1970s by Beverly LaHaye, who still serves as chair, as a counter to Betty Friedan’s National Organization for Women. CWA created “Prayer/Action Chapters” and opposed the Equal Rights Amendment both with television ads and weekly prayer and fasting groups.

Brothers in arms over man hugs | Life and style | The Guardian - Professor Eric Anderson, professor of masculinities, sexualities and sport at the University of Winchester (professor of dude-broism)

Alabama teen's disappearance helps unravel large-scale, incestuo - ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, Sports

Handling of Sexual Harassment Case Poses Larger Questions at Yale - NYTimes.com - A sexual harassment case that has been unfolding without public notice for nearly five years within the Yale School of Medicine has roiled the institution and led to new allegations that the university is insensitive to instances of harassment against women.
Outing sexism is a growing sport – and a big step for equality | Lauren Laverne | Life and style | The Guardian - 2014 is a terrible year to be a sexist arsehole.

The New Heroin Epidemic - The Atlantic - “The distribution to health care professionals of branded promotional items such as OxyContin fishing hats, stuffed plush toys, and music compact discs was unprecedented.”

Led Zeppelin Loses First Round in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Lawsuit | TIME

Earth’s water has been present since the planet’s earliest days | The Space Reporter - Studies of meteorite samples known to have come from the protoplanet Vesta indicate Earth’s surface had water much earlier than scientists previously believed. Oceans, which now cover 70 percent of the planet, were here as early as 14 million years after the solar system formed.
There Is No ‘Healthy’ Microbiome - NYTimes.com
The Flaw Lurking In Every Deep Neural Net - Rather than patch things up with adversarial training cases, research is needed to explore and eliminate the problem. Until this happens you cannot rely on a neural network in any safety critical system..
A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D. - NYTimes.com - Recent neuroscience research shows that people with A.D.H.D. are actually hard-wired for novelty-seeking — a trait that had, until relatively recently, a distinct evolutionary advantage.
Measuring America’s drinking habit is tricky – here’s how to do it - The Washington Post

LIFT - Upgrade Your Desk to a Sit-to-Stand Smart-Desk by iSkelter — Kickstarter

110114
Parts Of South Carolina See Earliest Snowfall On Record - Winter arrived early for South Carolina this weekend, as parts of the state received their earliest snowfalls on record. (see, AGW is a hoax)

Scientists Try To Predict Number Of US Ebola Cases - This week, several top infectious disease experts ran simulations for The Associated Press that predicted as few as one or two additional infections by the end of 2014 to a worst-case scenario of 130.
S.Leone Ebola outbreak 'catastrophic': aid group MSF - Yahoo News - Ebola has wiped out whole villages in Sierra Leone and may have caused many more deaths than the nearly 5,000 official global toll, a senior coordinator of the medical aid group MSF said Friday.
Ebola-- Failures of Imagination (Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman article) - The two of us are far less worried about sparks landing in Chicago or London than in Mumbai or Karachi. We wish Dallas had served as a teachable moment for what may be looming elsewhere in the world, instead of inspiring knee-jerk over-reassurance theater about our domestic ability to extinguish whatever Ebola sparks come our way
Heroes of the day - Lawyers, Guns & Money : know that after decades of the wars on terror and (some people who use some) drugs, the notion that the evidence used to justify restricting basic rights should actually have to meet some kind of quality standards might seem rather quaint. But it’s not quite dead yet, despite the mendacious, lazy, and casually racist stupidity of ebolanoia and those who pander to it.
Craig Spencer, American Doctor With Ebola, In 'Stable' Condition At Bellevue Hospital
Happy reunion for Dallas Ebola nurse and dog after both complete quarantine | World news | The Guardian - Nina Pham greets Bentley after his 21 days in isolation
ME-Gov LePage Says 13% Of Ebola Victims Die Without Showing Any Symptoms | Crooks and Liars (he's a scientist)

US bombs Isis positions in Syria and Iraq | World news | The Guardian - Five targets hit near Syrian town of Kobani and five in Iraq - Isis executes hundreds of tribesmen in western Iraq

Magna Carta 800 years on: recognition at last for ‘England’s greatest export’ | Culture | The Guardian - For centuries the importance of King John’s surrender in 1215 has been underplayed. Next year’s anniversary will be different

Boko Haram: Kidnapped Girls Have Been Married Off, Truce Never Happened - Abubakar Shekau says in a new video released late Friday that Boko Haram is still holding the unidentified German who he says is "always crying." He says they could "hack him or slaughter him or shoot him." (married off 7 yr old girls and Jonathan Goodluck is a scam)

Iran poised to choose poverty over nuclear disarmament - The Washington Post (sez WaPo)

Israeli Cartoonist Compares Netanyahu to 9/11 Hijackers - NYTimes.com
Israeli Cartoonist Criticized For Comparing Benjamin Netanyahu To 9/11 Hijackers - The cartoon, by Amos Biderman of Haaretz, shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the controls of an aircraft headed for a building topped by an American flag. The plane says "ISRAEL" on the side: (they've totally lost control of their image machine)

You'll Probably Never Know Why The CIA Spied On The Senate (it's a secret and the CIA is running Obama)
Does the CIA want Republicans to win the midterms? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian - If it’s hard to imagine an intelligence committee chair less inclined to provide the spy agency with any oversight, just Google ‘Richard Burr’
BTAgent - CPE backdoor - The CPE with that particular backdoor, are the ADSL2 and VDSL2 modem/routers supplied by the "Openreach" division of the incumbent British Telecom. Around ten million of these CPE have to date been supplied to households and businesses. (little spy boxes installed in all your houses)

The First Look Mess - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I never really understood what Pierre Omidyar was doing with his non-Intercept project, which seemed to involve hiring interesting writers and not letting them write anything. Now we know:
From Russia With Lust | New York Observer - In between snorting lines, Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi discuss the new book version of eXile, their raucous biweekly tabloid in Moscow (he did have quite a time in Russia)

Apologizing to Japan - NYTimes.com - The point, however, is that the West has, in fact, fallen into a slump similar to Japan’s — but worse. And that wasn’t supposed to happen.
This Map Depicts The Staggering Highs And Lows Of The U.S. Economy Since 1999 (a stable economy)

Richard Branson Casts Doubt On Future Of Private Space Tourism After Virgin Galactic Crash

Jim Crow returns | Al Jazeera America - by

The Party of Nonvoters | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - Younger, More Racially Diverse, More Financially Strapped (and part of the 60% non-voters)
Forecast: Right Turn Ahead - NationalJournal.com - The newest Senate Republicans will cement the party's conservative consensus. (if conservative = insane, then yes)
Harry Reid: Joni Ernst May Be Too Extreme Even For GOP (nah)
The Rude Pundit: Mary Landrieu's "No Shit, Sherlock" Moment: Obama Unpopular in the South Because of Racism (Updated) - Update: When asked if she would apologize, Landrieu more or less told Republicans, "Go fuck yourselves, you racist, sexist piglets."

People’s Champ: The Case for Coakley by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Ask yourself: why do the media and political elites want Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley to lose? (someone who has served the public interest for years, or the hedge-fund rich guy?)

Report: Armed Guard Who Rode Elevator With Obama Was Not A Convicted Felon - An armed guard who rode on an elevator with President Barack Obama and his aides at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was not a convicted felon, as previously reported by the Washington Post (oh, they made shit up)

We must still hate our kids: Philadelphia and “education reformers” fight demented war on elementary schools - Salon.com - No nurses, few textbooks, closed libraries: Money to urban schools is being starved, intentionally. It's just wrong (reform!)

Missouri advances towards goal of ending all abortions, one law at a time | World news | The Guardian - After a series of legal restrictions, only one clinic remains in the state – ‘I don’t view abortion as a choice that should be out there,’ legislator explains

Probe of FBI agent leads to release of convicted drug dealers from prison - The Washington Post - Said another defense lawyer, Gregory English, whose client was released as he awaits trial: “This is stunning.” (oh, crooked Feebs?)

Austin Police Department Apologizes For Officers' Rape Joke, Launches Investigation
Police Investgating Ex-CBC Host Jian Ghomeshi In Sex Assault Case
Ask A Canadian: Explaining The Jian Ghomeshi Scandal To Americans - And now, new details and revelations seem to be coming in every hour, a rolling nightmare unfolding live on Twitter and Facebook ... In one startling Facebook post, his friend Owen Pallett wrote things like: "Just ten days ago, I helped him find musicians for his father's funeral. Three women have said that Jian beat them without their consent." Jesse Brown sent this message: "Stay tuned. We've only just begun."
Amanda Palmer Stands By Jian Ghomeshi, Still Guest At 'The Art Of Asking' Book Tour Stop (UPDATE) - UPDATE II: Amanda Palmer has officially cancelled Gian Ghomeshi's planned appearance
Image for Lights Drops Ghomeshi As Manager
These Are The Women Who've Come Forward With Accusations Against Jian Ghomeshi
Reva Seth Says She Was Assaulted By Jian Ghomeshi - Another woman is going public with allegations of abuse against Jian Ghomeshi. Author and lawyer Reva Seth has detailed her experience with Ghomeshi in a blog published by The Huffington Post Canada.
Big Ears Teddy, Jian Ghomeshi's Stuffed Bear, Treated 'Anxiety Disorder' - According to the Toronto Star, two women recall Ghomeshi introducing them to his teddy bear. They then told the Star that Ghomeshi said "Big Ears Teddy shouldn't see this" and turned the bear around before allegedly slapping or choking them.
Jian Ghomeshi Biography Charts A Long Rise Before Recent Scandal (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Hannibal Rising by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I never realized just how much Cosby’s 2004 speech ticked people off: “Bill Cosby has the (expletive) smuggest old black man public persona that I hate,” Buress said in his set. “‘Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you [allegedly] raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches.”
We must abandon Bill Cosby: A broken trust with women, black America - Salon.com - He asked us to invest in the lie of his own life, and the lie of "respectability." We can't laugh with him anymore (the narcissistic sexist pigs are having a hard time lately)

Mini-D.C.’s: A small-city boom revitalizes downtowns once left for dead - The Washington Post (WaPo thinks DC invented the "city")

Only 8.2 % of Human DNA is Functional, Say Genetic Researchers | Genetics | Sci-News.com - According to a group of genetic scientists led by Dr Gerton Lunter of the University of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, only 8.2 percent of human genome is likely to be doing something important ... A little over 1 percent of human DNA accounts for the proteins that carry out almost all of the critical biological processes in the body.”

View From Nowhere – The New Inquiry - On the cultural ideology of Big Data ... The view from nowhere that informs books like Dataclysm and much of the corporate and commercialized data science must be unmasked as a view from a very specific and familiar somewhere. ("abstracted empiricism" - CW Mills)
The OKCupid data blog is back, in book form | The Verge - The dating site founder's new book is a love letter to big data ... "If Dataclysm has a central idea, it’s that it’s okay for the tech industry to scrape your data off every surface you touch"

Politically Incorrect by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Be the bigger man, Bill. End this controversy in real time. UPDATE: Oh, for crissakes, Bill…

[Serious] Have you ever been tortured ? tell us your story : AskReddit

103114
New research quantifies what's causing sea level to rise | John Abraham | Environment | The Guardian - Sea level rise is half due to melting ice and half due to ocean warming, including 13% from the deepest oceans, a new paper has found (and the whole country is apparently about to vote Republican)
Global groundwater crisis may get worse as the world warms - From India to Texas, people are rapidly depleting their valuable stores of groundwater — leading to the possibility that aquifers may be emptied within decades, a NASA researcher has warned.
Ozone hole layer remains size of North America, Nasa data shows | Environment | The Guardian - Antarctic hole in protective layer of gas stands around same level as 2010, 2012 and 2013, but scientists say recovery is on track

Victory for Maine nurse as judge makes U-turn on Ebola monitoring order | US news | The Guardian - Judge says ‘Maine has not met its burden’ and lifts earlier order that ruled she must stay away from public gatherings and maintain a 3ft distance from others
After Nurse Defied Voluntary Ebola Quarantine, Maine Asks Court To Restrict Her Movements - A Maine judge has rejected a bid by state health officials to restrict the movement of nurse Kaci Hickox, who defied a quarantine for medical workers who have treated Ebola patients. "These kinds of restrictions could dissuade hundreds, if not thousands, of skilled volunteers from helping stop Ebola's spread, which is in the national interest of every one of our countries," Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday in Brussels.
White House 'does not support' Kaci Hickox's flouting of Ebola quarantine | World news | The Guardian ("does not support" does not appear in article; in fact:) “The president believes the state can and should be responsible for the policy, they should be guided by the science but ultimately it is their decision,” (it kinda of sez the opposite)
Your Daily Ebola - Esquire - And when you think of wanking, you think of the strong and steady hand of "Bobby" Jindal, the governor of Louisiana who, on Thursday, managed to dig up Irony and kill it again by warning people who have worked with Ebola overseas not to come to his state to attend...wait for it...a conference on infectious tropical diseases.
From Governors, a Mix of Hard-Line Acts and Conciliation Over Ebola - NYTimes.com - From Governors, a Mix of Hard-Line Acts and Conciliation Over Ebola
In New York, Protections Offered for Medical Workers Joining Ebola Fight - NYTimes.com
Your Daily Ebola - Esquire - I can't be the only one who thinks that the conservative nattering about Ebola is starting to reek of the same reckless pot-stirring that made the Terri Schiavo episode such a highlight of conservative intellectual activism
Genetic factors behind surviving or dying from Ebola shown in mouse study -- ScienceDaily - genetic factors are behind the mild-to-deadly range of responses to the Ebola virus.

Matt Taibbi returning to Rolling Stone after split from First Look Media | Media | The Guardian - Journalist who controversially left eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s organisation just days ago will have story in forthcoming Rolling Stone (yo, business guys, calculate the loss to Pierre's reputation; if Glenn walks, First Look is toast)
Matt Taibbi Left First Look Media After Female Staffer’s Complaint - These simmering problems came to a head this month when a Racket staffer complained to senior management that Taibbi had been verbally abusive and unprofessionally hostile, and that she felt the conduct may have been motivated, at least in part, by her gender (see Freddie DeBoer's comment on Taibbi/Ames book The Exile)

Obama Officials Pin Blame For ISIS On Iraqi Government - he United States finally seems to have identified the party responsible for failing to halt the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq: the Iraqi government.
UN: Foreign Fighters Joining Terror Groups On 'Unprecedented Scale' - The panel says fighters from more than 80 countries working with al-Qaida associates in Syria and Iraq "form the core of a new diaspora that may seed the threat for years to come," and that domestic terrorism could rise as fighters return to their home countries. (mission really accomplished)
Naming The Dead: One Group's Struggle To Record Deaths From U.S. Drone Strikes In Pakistan - Last year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London embarked upon an ambitious effort to record the names of people reportedly killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The project, called Naming the Dead, aims to acknowledge those who have lost their lives in the strikes and to create more transparency about a counterterrorism program shrouded in secrecy.

Israeli policy on Iran is the biggest threat to its 'special relationship' with America | Ali Gharib | Comment is free | The Guardian - ‘The crisis in US-Israel relations’ isn’t that someone called Netanyahu ‘chickenshit’. It’s the growing distance over policy on Iran

Hungary internet tax cancelled after mass protests - Hungary has decided to shelve a proposed tax on internet data traffic after mass protests against the plan.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes During Test Flight Over Mojave Desert

FBI Holds Secret Meeting To Scare Congress Into Backdooring Phone Encryption | Techdirt - from the just-in-time-for--halloween dept
The Switchboard: Judge rules police can compel a defendant to give up a fingerprint, but not a passcode - The Washington Post (just get a iPhone, problem solved)
Nato frontline in life-or-death war on cyber-terrorists | World news | The Guardian - From attackers trying to bring down planes to criminals targeting banks, the danger is growing
Ray McGovern describes brutal arrest at Petraeus event (VIDEO) — RT USA

Senate Update: With 4 Days Left, Here’s The State Of The Races | FiveThirtyEight - The GOP’s chances of winning the Senate are 68.5 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast, its highest figure of the year.
Republican surge could deliver historic House majority after midterms | US news | The Guardian - GOP needs 13 seats for its largest House majority since 1928 - Net swing of three seats would deliver Senate majority
There’s One Thing at Stake in the Senate Race -- NYMag - The contest to control the Senate is about one thing: whether Obama can confirm judges and staff his administration.

Baker remains ahead of Coakley - Politics - The Boston Globe - Charlie Baker maintains a 7 percentage point lead in the race for governor in the final Boston Globe poll
Lost At Sea - Esquire - The problem now is that nobody can find Charlie's fisherman. (they believe their own lies)

Women Voters Haunted by the GOP's Tricks - The Daily Beast - Single women and women of color don’t typically turn out big for midterm elections. But the stakes are too high this Tuesday for any woman to stay home.


Washington Supreme Court shifts burden in rape cases | Local News | The Seattle Times - The Washington Supreme Court says the state cannot require rape defendants to prove, to escape conviction, that an alleged victim consented. In a 6-3 decision, the justices reversed what they described as the court’s “incorrect and harmful” earlier rulings.
Washington Supreme Court says the state cannot require rape defendants to prove that an alleged victim consented : news

Sharyl Attkisson Blames Broken Laptop on Benghazi - A stuck backspace key is, unfortunately, a less dramatic explanation than a hidden government conspiracy to surveil reporters who write unflattering things about the President. It is also the more likely one.

Report: DHS employees put $30,000 worth of Starbucks on government credit card - The Washington Post

Eric Frein appears in court after US marshals capture 'survivalist' sniper | US news | The Guardian - Swat teams escorted suspected police killer, where he was charged with 11 counts including murder and possession of weapons of mass destruction
Detention Center Forced Immigrants To Work For $1 Per Day Or Face Solitary Confinement, Lawsuit Says - A group of former immigrant detainees is suing the owner of a Colorado detention center, alleging that it forced them to work for $1 per day and coerced them using the threat of solitary confinement if they refused to comply.
Justice Department, City Of Albuquerque Reach Deal On Police Reform
The awful police execution of Milton Hall - a homeless, mentally ill, African American man

No, It Really Isn’t Heartbreaking » Balloon Juice - Many of those sell-by dates are just recommendations, and usually bad ones:

Bill Cosby Runs And Hides After Renewed Public Interest In All Those Rape Allegations | Wonkette - Looks like Bill Cosby has decided to keep a low profile after comedian Hannibal Buress made headlines by including Cosby’s long string of alleged sexual assaults in his standup routine ... accusations of sexual assault by Cosby against 13 women ... Cosby still has a sitcom deal with NBC for a show expected next year. We’ll see how long that lasts now that a man has spoken.

The Dangers of Eating Late at Night - NYTimes.com
Archaeologists Make Incredible Discoveries In Tunnel Sealed 2,000 Years Ago - A large offering found near the entrance to the chambers, some 59 feet (18 meters) below the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, suggests they could be the tombs of the city's elite.
What Tripping On Mushrooms Looks Like In The Brain - "We find that the psychedelic state is associated with a less constrained and more intercommunicative mode of brain function, which is consistent with descriptions of the nature of consciousness in the psychedelic state,"
Homological scaffolds of brain functional networks

alicublog: BOO. - A big Count Floyd ah-woooo for Daniel J. Flynn of the American Spectator, who has given us the culture-war Halloween essay of the year and perhaps all time.
Forget the Pakistani girl getting the medal for bravery, what about the rich blond girl whose patrioti-pop song got cut from the ceremony? :: Blogs :: The Naked City :: Philadelphia City Paper - OK, so if you couldn't make it through the whole thing, the key theme running through it is "I." (She says "I," "me" or "my" more than 30 times.)
Vocal Fry, Made Famous By Kim Kardashian, Is Making Young Women 'Less Hirable'
Crunchyroll - Watch GIRLS und PANZER Episode 10.5 - Introductions 2!
? Gunsmith Cats: Bulletproof - Episode 1 - "Neutral Zone" - YouTube

[Serious] Have you ever watched as someone close to you hit "rock bottom?" Ultimately, where are they now? : AskReddit
What's the creepiest, weirdest, or most super-naturally frightening thing to happen in history? : AskReddit
Japan's The Bikini Game : videos
This guy has taken sign spinning to whole new level. : videos
nothing out of the ordinary here : funny
Frozen was popular this year. : funny (little girls in blue costumes)

Consumers wasted at least $300 million paying for AT&T’s ‘unlimited’ data - The Washington Post
The trouble with modern friendship | Life and style | The Guardian - ‘Panic-merchants worry that online social networks will replace offline friendships, turning users into basement-dwelling zombies, unable to converse face-to-face’
Hello Kitty conference brings Japanese kitsch to Los Angeles | Culture | The Guardian - Timed to celebrate the brand’s 40th birthday, a conference and exhibition has brought fans of the self-consciously cute brand out in their thousands

103014
Lake Mission Viejo isn't feeling California drought — yet - LA Times - "We love coming down here where there aren't too many people," said Carlos Lopez, an association member whose 4-year-old daughter, Dayleen, splashed in the water. "She's a fish. I'd have to take her down to the beach, and that's a pain."

Why Ebola Aid Workers Are Quarantining Themselves When Scientists Say They Don't Need To - “Some people commented in a lynch mob mentality, like, ‘Oh, we should torch his house’ and things like that,” said Mann (Fox New watchers)
Nurse Kaci Hickox Defies Ebola Quarantine In Maine, Goes For Bike Ride
Scott Brown Worries That Ebola and Polio May Come Across the Border - Bloomberg Politics - New Hampshire's great GOP hope ups the ante on his claims of border diseases.

Nato jets intercept Russian warplanes following 'unusual level of air activity' | World news | The Guardian - Bombers and fighters shadowed during unusual burst of flights over Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic and Black Sea, says alliance

Bodies Of Hundreds Of Iraqi Tribesmen Fighting Against ISIS Found In Mass Grave

Israel Minister Makes IKEA Dig After Sweden Recognizes Palestine - NBC News.com - Israel’s foreign minister slapped down Sweden’s decision to recognize the state of Palestine Thursday, saying the Middle East was “more complicated than self-assembly furniture at IKEA.”
Drones spotted over seven French nuclear sites, says EDF | Environment | The Guardian - Unidentified drones had flown over seven plants this month by mystery operator as Greenpeace denies involvement

Eleven countries studied, one inescapable conclusion – the drug laws don’t work | Society | The Guardian - Nevertheless, it firmly rejects claims that decriminalisation in Portugal has led to a spike in drug use. It goes on to contrast Portugal with the Czech Republic, where an evaluation found that there was no significant decline in the availability of drugs following the implementation of stricter laws in 2010.
Surprise! Controversial Patriot Act power now overwhelmingly used in drug investigations - The Washington Post - One of the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act was to broaden the “sneak-and-peek” power for federal law enforcement officials. The provision allows investigators to conduct searches without informing the target of the search.
Next round of Federal Government counter-terror laws target phones, emails and illegal downloads | The Courier-Mail

Report: Child sexual exploitation now a 'social norm' in parts of Greater Manchester - Crime - UK - The Independent - Sexual exploitation of children has become “normal” in parts of Greater Manchester, according to a report described as “alarming” by Home Secretary Theresa May.

The Inside Story Of Matt Taibbi's Departure From First Look Media - The Intercept - By Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and John Cook - “the management of First Look Media repeatedly took incidents that should’ve been minor hiccups of the sort experienced at any media company or startup and, through incompetence, escalated them into full-blown crises.” (Omidyar and his team of micromanagers killed half the project and slandered Taibbi)
‘When Google Met WikiLeaks’: An Exclusive Excerpt - Book Excerpt - Truthdig

A Supreme Court Misstep On Voting Rights - NYTimes.com - A Supreme Court Misstep On Voting Rights - Linda Greenhouse
Messing With Texas Again: Putting It Back Under Federal Supervision

Republicans confident of midterm success as apathetic America switches off | US news | The Guardian - GOP on course to retain the House and possibly snatch the Senate – but will the outcome really make any difference to Obama?

If Not Hillary Who? - Esquire - To elect a president, we probably ought to have some candidates. Candidates, after all, are choices. So where the hell are our choices? An argument against coronations, cleared fields, and conventional wisdom.

Thomas Menino, RIP - Esquire - Menino was a puzzlement only to those delicate souls who mistake syntax for intelligence.

Changing Priorities: State Criminal Justice Reforms and Investments in Education — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - Even as states spend more on corrections, they are underinvesting in educating children and young adults, especially those in high-poverty neighborhoods

Jian Ghomeshi: 8 women accuse former CBC host of violence, sexual abuse or harassment | Toronto Star - One woman, actor Lucy DeCoutere, alleges she was slapped and choked without her consent.
Toronto Star On Jian Ghomeshi Allegations: 'Trailer Park Boys' Lucy DeCoutere Says She Was Beaten
do you know about jian | nothing in winnipeg - No, I wouldn’t make my name public, and I wouldn’t go to police. I would never want to watch those prying eyes turn on me, inventing for themselves a fiction of the “jilted,” vindictive woman that Jian Ghomeshi pre-emptively declared at least three of his ex-partners to be.
“Do you know about Jian?” - Lawyers, Guns & Money
The BDSM Red Herring - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Interviews With Two Women Who Dated Jian Ghomeshi | Slog
IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Accidentally Went On A Date With A Presumed-Gay Canadian C-List Celebrity Who Creepily Proved He Isn't Gay - xoJane - When I walked in, I was greeted by both the overwhelming stench of his cologne and the sinking feeling that he was not, as I had assumed, gay.
Why women stay silent about sex attacks: Mallick | Toronto Star - When it comes to redress for suffering a sexual attack, Canadian women might as well be in Saudi Arabia. We whisper among friends and quietly trade stories, or we shut up for our entire careers.
Jian Ghomeshi Accusations Aren’t About BDSM – Flavorwire
Jian Ghomeshi: Accusations against the Q host are not about BDSM, but about consent.
Why the Jian Ghomeshi “Rough Sex” Scandal Isn’t About Rough Sex

The woman who made a video about catcalling is already getting rape threats - Vox
Catcalling video: Hollaback's look at street harassment in NYC edited out the white guys. - As Roxane Gay tweeted, “The racial politics of the video are fucked up. Like, she didn’t walk through any white neighborhoods?”
Jessica's Feminized Atmosphere - The Daily Show - Video Clip | Comedy Central
Woman catcalled 100 times in viral video tells CNN: ‘I was reliving past memories of sexual assault’
Fox News Host Catcalls Woman In Viral Video: 'Damn, Baby, You're A Piece Of Woman' (you can see the problem)
This Is What 10 Hours Of Walking In NYC As A White Man Looks Like, According To Funny Or Die (the rapeydudebro reaction: see, what's your problem?)

New solar power material converts 90 percent of captured light into heat -- ScienceDaily
Algae Virus May Be Changing Cognitive Ability - Business Insider - The virus itself is called ATCV-1 and it's a chlorovirus, a family of viruses that infect plants. This one affects algae — that green stuff that grows on water — in lakes all over the world. But as far as researchers knew before this, viruses like this very rarely cross from one kingdom like plants to another, such as animals. And even when they do, it's more likely that they'd go from plants to some type of invertebrate, not all the way to a complex animal like a human. people with the virus living in their throats processed visual information about 10% slower than people without the virus

Stephen Colbert butchers the NRA for killing bill that banned the eating of puppies and kittens - “The kitten-coddlers out there don’t want you to eat your pets,” he began. “‘That’s illegal,’ they say. But not everywhere — you can have a dog for dinner in Pennsylvania thanks to the NRA.”

TIL that since the 12th century, Judaism believes that if the truths derived through science or philosophy contradict religious beliefs, the religious beliefs are incorrect. : todayilearned
The Creeping Jewish Fundamentalism in Our Midst – Forward.com (+comments)
Yeshivish vs hasidic hareidim - Judaism - iShtetl

? Man Fights Bear for Salmon - YouTube

China will upgrade all PCs to Linux by 2020 - The Mukt
Why the U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Internet Speed and Affordability - NYTimes.com (underregulation and no competition)
AT&T: We Told Our Customers 'Unlimited' Doesn't Mean 'Unlimited' | Tech Law | TechNewsWorld - Instead of renaming its "unlimited" data plan something more accurate, AT&T just decided to start throttling its unlimited customers.
Jammed — Backchannel — Medium - The proof is in: Detailed report shows how U.S. Internet access monopolies punish rivals and catch innocent bystanders in the crossfire—legally. (how Comcast strangled Netflix)

102914
Obama Touts Heroism Of Ebola Health Care Workers
Obama Has Been Fighting Doctors Without Borders For Years - But the recent executive branch acclaim for Doctors Without Borders obscures a long-running struggle between the humanitarian group and the White House over global drug prices.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage Sends State Police To Enforce Ebola Quarantine
CDC Rejects Mandatory Ebola Quarantines - WSJ - WSJ - Federal Officials Push for Voluntary Isolation of Those at High Risk
After a Family Trip to Africa, a Connecticut Girl, 7, Is Unwelcome at School - NYTimes.com - The third-grader was not feeling sick. She did not have a fever or any other symptoms of Ebola. Having just completed a 10-day trip to Nigeria, where she was the flower girl at a family wedding, she was eager to get back to class. But officials at her Connecticut elementary school told her she could not come back. (she went to the dark continent) local officials insisted that barring the girl from school was necessary — not to contain any possible illness, but to contain the fears of people at the school. (who were all watching Fox News)

The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster - ProPublica - The Red Cross botched key elements of its mission after Sandy and Isaac, leaving behind a trail of unmet needs and acrimony, according to an investigation by ProPublica and NPR ... “We were sent way down on the Gulf with nothing to give,” Dunham says. The Red Cross’ relief effort was “worse than the storm.”

FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance | US news | The Guardian - Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab (no limits, ever +Graun changes layout to look like Daily Beast)

The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here - The Atlantic - The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”
Netanyahu insists he is 'under attack for defending Israel' after remarks from US official | World news | The Guardian - Quotes from senior Obama administration figures damn Israeli prime minister as ‘chickenshit’ over stance on settlements and peace with Palestinians

Enough! Mexico Is Ready to Explode | Homero Aridjis - Mexico has been profoundly shaken by atrocities and high-level corruption in Guerrero. The earthquake's epicenter is Iguala, the state's third largest city.
Mexico’s First Lady of Murder Is on the Lam - The Daily Beast - In a city where murderers tortured and killed with seeming impunity, Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa was ‘the key operator’—and allegedly sealed the fate of 43 student teachers ... said to have given the Iguala police chief a fateful order when she mistakenly imagined the students might disrupt a party she was throwing in honor of herself: “Teach them a lesson.”

Did Russia Just Hack the White House? - The Atlantic - A successful breach of unclassified computer networks led to disruptions at the executive mansion in recent weeks.
FBI cut hotel Internet access, sent agents to “fix” it without warrants | Ars Technica - Alleged online gambling ring broken up after agents posed as the cable guy.

5 products you probably buy that are quietly driving human rights abuses - Vox

Prosecutors See Repeat Offenses on Wall Street - NYTimes.com

DEA, Denver Police Raid Multiple Marijuana Grow Operations (there you go)

We Found You That Double Supersecret Video Of John Kasich Being An Asshat | Wonkette - According to Ohio political blog Plunderbund, Kasich was quite the pissy little douchecanoe at the meeting, refusing to acknowledge the existence of Democratic candidate Ed FitzGerald. Kasich slumped in his seat like a bored student and repeatedly talked around questions instead of answering them. And yet the Plain Dealer endorsed Kasich anyway, because he reminds them of Reagan or something. (why newspapers are dying)
In Campaign Ads, A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The great cynic Mark Liebovich meditated a fair amount on Our Joni in a piece entitled “The Bumpkinification of the Midterm Elections.” (rise of teh stupid)
Jebmentum! - Esquire - On the heels of The New York Times front-pager that, up until only a few years ago, would have been considered an illegal sex act in several states, we find ourselves confronted with the possibility that Jeb Bush may well take out for a spin a family name that ought to be considered an obscenity in any respectable dictionary of American democracy.

Keith Ablow, Fox News Doctor, Calls For 'American Jihad' - Keith Ablow, a doctor and Fox News analyst, thinks that the United States should aggressively export its system of government to every single country on earth. What could go wrong? (you're first, Canada)

Wage disclosures for public officials lead to salary cuts, high turnover rates

Is the Master’s Degree an Expensive Anachronism? by Kevin Carey | The Washington Monthly - For legions of new college graduates struggling to find good jobs in a weak labor market, “boot camps” are a faster and cheaper alternative to traditional grad school.

Your Guide To Absurdist 'Sexy' Halloween Costumes

Woman receives rape threats after recording 10 hours of harassment in New York | Life and style | The Guardian - Actor Shoshana B Roberts recorded all the catcalls and remarks she got from passersby as she walked for 10 hours through New York

Oral Hygiene Brother [Last Updated Sat Aug 10, 2013] - Pastebin.com


102814
Weather Channel Co-Founder Tells Fox News Host Global Warming Is A Myth - Meteorologist and Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman (TV weatherman doesn't believe in science)
Where Did All the Oil Go? | The UCSB Current - A UCSB professor’s analysis traces oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon event to its resting place on the Gulf of Mexico’s deep floor

Elizabeth Warren To Chris Christie: Show 'Science, Not Politics' On Ebola Quarantine - "He should bring out his scientists who are advising him on that because we know that we want to be led by the science," Warren said. "That's what's going to keep people safe. Science, not politics."
2016 hopefuls catch Ebola flak | TheHill - "This is a governor who has largely checked out in his pursuit of the presidency and has attempted to govern the state on auto pilot," Wisniewski said.
Cuomo’s and Christie’s Shifts on Ebola Are Criticized as Politics, Not Science - NYTimes.com
Nurse on her way to Fort Kent quarantined over Ebola, calls treatment ‘frenzy of disorganization’ — Nation — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine
Dude, Please - So Christie is not only lying about the specifics of Hickox case he's also claiming the policy says something different from what he said it was when he announced it.
Barack Obama hugs nurse who recovered from Ebola: Ronald Reagan was silent on AIDS. - In embracing an Ebola victim, Barack Obama succeeded where Ronald Reagan failed.


Missing Mexico students: New 'mass grave' probed - Mexican authorities searching for 43 students who disappeared after clashing with police last month are investigating a suspected mass grave. (failed narco-state)

Matt Taibbi Disappears From Omidyar’s First Look -- NYMag - is on a leave of absence from the company after disagreements with higher-ups inside Omidyar's organization
Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S. - NYTimes.com - In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations. (spy-state)
Seattle Times 'Outraged' Over FBI's Fake News Story To Catch Bomb-Threat Suspect
USA Today's Susan Page Says Obama Administration Most 'Dangerous' To Press In U.S. History

Child poverty up in more than half of developed world since 2008 | Society | The Guardian - Unicef report finds number of children entering poverty during global recession is 2.6 million greater than number lifted out of it
U.S. Child Poverty Rate Hit A 20-Year High 4 Years Ago And It's Not Budging: Report

Real, Hard-Headed Political Analysis Pretends That the United States Congress Doesn't Exist - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Shorter Thomas Frank: Haha, silly Democrats, dreaming about post-ideological blank slates. Look at Obama — if you completely ignore every accomplishment of his tenure in office, including signing the comprehensive health care reform Truman, LBJ, and Clinton failed to get passed, he’s exactly like Carter.
No, He's Not Jimmy Carter, Either - Esquire - . But now, after six years of the president's letting down Thomas Frank, the scales have fallen from the latter's eyes, and he sees the president and former president Carter as two sides of the same "post-ideological" coin.

Republican Excitement Over Hillary Clinton Jobs Gaffe Will Backfire | New Republic - As a demonstration of that faith, Republicans are leaning heavily into 15 words Hillary Clinton uttered late last week while stumping for Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race. (bow down to your trickle-down galtian overlords)
Scott Walker Runs Ad Supporting Equal Pay After Repealing Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law

flantabulous comments on Just a reminder of what the Senate was doing the last time it was controlled by the GOP. (here we go again with the insanity)

BREAKING: Court Refuses To Intervene In Case of 40,000 Missing Voters In Georgia | ThinkProgress - On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database. ("gone missing" = "deleted")

Tsarnaev friend convicted of lying to FBI after Boston Marathon bombing | US news | theguardian.com - Robel Phillipos found guilty of lying to authorities about being in suspect’s dorm room while other friends removed evidence

Miguel Paredes set to be 10th and last Texas prisoner executed in 2014 | US news | theguardian.com - State has sourced new supply of lethal drugs but this year is likely to see fewest number of executions in state since 1996

Ferguson police brace for new protests by spending thousands on riot gear | US news | theguardian.com - St Louis County police has spent $172,669 since August on teargas, grenades, pepper balls and other civil disobedience equipment

Champion Lover: 28-Yr-Old Man Arrested for Having 4 Wives,7 Fiances & 5 Girlfriends | General News | Peacefmonline.com - The seducer had picked up women all across the country, using them for room and board whenever he was nearby and borrowing money from them which he never returned.

What’s So Bad About Gluten?

What's a creepy or disturbing memory that you have that nobody else inexplicably seems to remember? : AskReddit
? OK Go - I Won't Let You Down - Official Video - YouTube

Honey Boo Boo Molestation Police Report Was Too Horrible to Publish - Radar has made the editorial decision "not to publish the exact nature of the assaults," which — considering the horrible details that they did publish — only goes to prove what a nightmare Cardwell's situation really is
Jian Ghomeshi Responds to Sex Abuse Allegations Like a Real Creep
Hey, Jian Ghomeshi, I Call B.S.! | Dame Magazine - A brief history of ridiculous things we've been asked to believe after famous men were accused of rape.
poor persecuted pervert? | Sex Geek - There’s a scandal breaking in Canada. It’s about BDSM. Or is it? I’m not so sure.
? 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman - YouTube
Hidden GoPro camera reveals what it's like to walk through NYC as a woman. WTF? : TwoXChromosomes
Ten Short Rants About #GamerGate | Popehat
Quinnspiracy | Know Your Meme
Ten Short Rants About #GamerGate | Popehat

#GamerGate: You Have A Smoking Gun, Use It | One Angry Gamer

AT&T charged with misleading customers over 'unlimited' data plans | Technology | theguardian.com - FTC says company’s ‘throttling’ cut data speeds by up to 90% - AT&T: ‘We have been completely transparent’ (unlimited data if you have unlimited time)

102714
Dead babies near oil drilling sites raise questions for researchers - The Denver Post

al experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy
Report: 5 Year Old Hospitalized In NYC With Possible Ebola Symptoms - A 5-year-old boy who arrived from Guinea was being observed in isolation at Bellevue Hospital in New York City for possible Ebola symptoms, media reports said on Monday.
Army major general, troops quarantined - CNN.com
New federal Ebola guidelines issued in US after criticism from UN | World news | theguardian.com - UN secretary general praises ‘exceptional’ health workers and says ‘those who develop infections should not be stigmatised’
ER nurse: Duncan lied about exposure to Ebola | TheHill - Sidia Rose told “60 Minutes” that Duncan said during his second trip to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas that he had not been in contact with anyone who had been sick.
African Boys Attacked at Bronx School, Called "Ebola": Advocacy Group | NBC Southern California - A group that advocates for Africans in the Bronx is calling for action after it says two brothers who had recently immigrated to the borough from Senegal were beaten and badly injured by several people who called them “Ebola” in school.
MSNBC Personality: We're A 'Nation Of Cowards' (and bed-wetting babies)
Unapologetic, Christie Frees Nurse From Ebola Quarantine - NYTimes.com
Rush Limbaugh: The GOP Ought To Quarantine Chris Christie (because he let Kaci Hickox go home)

Nobel Peace Prize Winners Urge Obama To Release CIA Torture Report (getting pretty ridiculous)
Connecting the Dots on the CIA Torture Report | emptywheel - One side — explicitly relying on the CIA Inspector General’s own report — say the CIA impersonated staffers, and possibly worse. (they are their own government)

Taliban return to Afghan town that rose up and drove out its leaders | World news | The Guardian - Insurgents now control about 80% of Gizab district in Uruzgan province four years after successful revolt, sources say
Heroin use is so high in Myanmar that syringes now serve as currency | GlobalPost - Shopkeepers dispense needles as small change. Addicts prefer them to dirty, worn bills.

China Began Push Against Hong Kong Elections in ’50s - NYTimes.com - The documents, part of a batch of typewritten diplomatic dispatches requested by reporters from two Hong Kong newspapers, reveal that Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo

In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis - NYTimes.com - In the decades after World War II, the C.I.A. and other United States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government’s ties to some still living in America, newly disclosed records and interviews show.
The CIA, Nazi Recruitment & National Review (with tweets) · JeetHeer1 · Storify

Feds identify suspected 'second leaker' for Snowden reporters - Yahoo News - The FBI recently searched a government contractor's home, but some officials worry the Justice Department has lost its 'appetite' for leak cases
T-Mobile quietly hardens part of its U.S. cellular network against snooping - The Washington Post

How bad a candidate is Martha Coakley? Boston Globe endorses Republican for Gov - May a thousand Martha Coakleys bloom in the Democratic Party.
Two Cheers For Martha - Esquire - Which brings us to the Globe's endorsement of Baker, which is calm and reasoned, but which seems to be more than a little curious, since it doesn't make a very compelling case for Baker over Coakley on any grounds save for the fact that he's not her ... Otherwise, the whole endorsement can be fairly summed up as, "It's time for a Republican governor again."
Blue Mass Group | Did anyone think the Globe would *not* endorse Charlie Baker?
Endorsement: Bruce Braley is better choice - The campaign between Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst for the U.S. Senate has been an exhibition of American politics at its worst. It has been a $28 million parade of dismal attack ads that have reduced the candidates to evil caricatures.
Weiland accuses own party of sabotaging his campaign - Weiland said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's ads attacking Republican incumbent Mike Rounds have backfired and hurt him.

Seamus McCaffery retiring from PA Supreme Court - McCaffery was snared in the porn scandal that has been blossoming at the state Attorney General's Office, leading to the resignations of four former top deputies to Gov. Corbett.

Yes, BP Did Damage the Gulf - Kara Lankford - politico Magazine - 1. 210 million gallons of oil did not just disappear

"Trickle Up" ~ Major Corporations Losing Money Out the Wazoo - American consumers are not buying their cheap crap and poison, not because there is no demand, but because Americans have no money. The 1% has sucked the well dry. (Amazon, Wal-mart, McD's and Coke)

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Hampshire | Last tenant 'found decapitated' - A man who was found with his head severed by a chainsaw was fighting to stay in a block of 70 flats in Hampshire cleared for redevelopment. A Hampshire Constabulary spokeswoman confirmed his death was not suspicious.

To Improve a Memory, Consider Chocolate - NYTimes.com - Science edged closer on Sunday to showing that an antioxidant in chocolate appears to improve some memory skills that people lose with age.
Compound in cocoa found to reverse age-related memory loss - The Washington Post - The findings suggest that the compound increases connectivity and, subsequently, blood flow in a region of the brain critical to memory, the researchers said.
Dark Chocolate Could Improve Memory By 25%, But You'd Have to Eat Seven Bars a Day — NOVA Next | PBS

CBC fires Jian Ghomeshi over sex allegations | Toronto Star - Ousted host of Q denies claims by three women of unwanted sexual violence and threatens to sue broadcaster for $50 million.
The big-eyed children: the extraordinary story of an epic art fraud | Art and design | The Guardian - In the 1960s, Walter Keane was feted for his sentimental portraits that sold by the million. But in fact, his wife Margaret was the artist, working in virtual slavery to maintain his success. She tells her story, now the subject of a Tim Burton biopic

Washington high school gunman invited victims to lunch by text message | US news | theguardian.com - Investigators say five students were all at a lunch table when they were shot by Jaylen Fryberg in attack that killed two

Apple Pay Is Disabled by Rite Aid and CVS as a Rival Makes Plans - NYTimes.com - Analysts said disabling acceptance of Apple Pay was a way to favor a rival system that is not yet available but is being developed by a consortium of merchants known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX.
Twitter reports soaring revenues but struggles to recruit new users | Technology | theguardian.com - Share price drops 10% on third-quarter results that show Twitter added only 13 million new users and remains unprofitable

102614
Climate Change May Cause 'Serious, Pervasive And Irreversible' Damage: Report
After Hurricane Sandy, New York Rebuilds for the Future - NYTimes.com - After Hurricane Sandy, New York Rebuilds for the Future

White House Presses States to Reconsider Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders - NYTimes.com
Quarantined Nurse Kaci Hickox Calls Her Treatment 'Inhumane', Criticizes Chris Christie
Nurse Under Ebola Quarantine Hires Civil Rights Lawyer
Quarantined nurse slams state Ebola policy - CNN.com
White House warns Christie and Cuomo over Ebola quarantine rules | World news | theguardian.com - On Sunday evening Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, hit out strongly against her treatment. “The problem is this hero, having come back from the front, having done the right thing, was treated with disrespect, was treated with a sense that she had done something wrong when she hadn’t,” he said.
Experts: Quarantines may dissuade Ebola volunteers
Obama sends Power to west Africa on Ebola fact-finding mission | World news | theguardian.com - UN ambassador in Guinea, will go to Sierra Leone, Liberia Says: ‘We are not on track right now to bend the curve’
Top U.S. Health Official: Ebola Quarantines May Have Unintended Consequences - Mandatory 21-day quarantines on health care workers returning from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, like those put in place by three states, can have the unintended consequence of discouraging them from volunteering, a top federal health official said Sunday.
Christie predicts quarantine will be 'national policy' - politico.com - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he has no second thoughts about enacting a 21-day medical quarantine on medical workers returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. (oh, and Rahmbo is on board, of course)
Top NIH Ebola Specialist Says Quarantines Will Jeopardize Americans - aggressive protocols targeting all health workers who fight the disease are not backed up by good science and could ultimately threaten public health in the United States.
Will the War on Terror Be the Template for the Ebola Crisis? | Karen J. Greenberg - While any of these steps individually may prove sensible, the ease with which non-medical authorities seem to be falling into a familiar war on terror-style response to the disease should be examined -- and quickly (bed-wetting babies are very afraid)
U.S. Journalist Ashoka Mukpo Says His Body Was 'At War' With Ebola
Inside the Ebola Wars - How genomics research can help contain the outbreak.

ISIS Hostages Endured Torture and Dashed Hopes, Freed Cellmates Say - NYTimes.com - ISIS Hostages Endured Torture and Dashed Hopes, Freed Cellmates Say
Air strikes hit near Kobani and Mosul dam as US-led coalition targets Isis | US news | theguardian.com - US and European and Middle East allies launch 17 air strikes in Syria and Iraq as Kurdish forces report gains against jihadists
ISIS Launches New Attack On Syria's Kobani - Fighters from the Islamic State group launched Saturday a new offensive on the northern Syrian town of Kobani after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.
What's the appeal of a caliphate? - "Many people will say that IS begins with al-Sisi's coup,"
Football fans and neo-Nazis clash with police in Cologne | World news | The Guardian - Police in riot gear tackle protesters marching under the ‘Hooligans against Salafists’ banner

Whether Lies or B.S., Netanyahu's Interviews Pose Special Challenges for Journalists - The storyline and most of the details of a tale told by the Israeli prime minister on American television were deliberately untrue.
Max Blumenthal on Aftermath of Israel’s Assault on Gaza, Plus Protesters Invoking Holocaust Imagery at the Opera | The Dissenter - Winter regarded the people of Gaza “not as enemy combatants or civilian enemies, which is bad enough,” but called them “blasphemers of God.” This religious fanatic led a top Israeli infantry division into Gaza during the summer. He embodies the “religious messianism that is overwhelming Israeli society and the genocidal approach to a Palestinian population that is ghettoized and unknown to most Israelis.”

U.S. Marines End Afghan Operations, Prepare Withdrawal

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Re-Elected

Crisis in Mexico: The Disappearance of the Forty-Three - The New Yorker - the governor of Guerrero state, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, had finally resigned after weeks of outrage over the violence and lawlessness that marked his tenure. (the ongoing tragedy of your war on some drugz)
France - Panic as clown terror spreads to southern France - France 24 - "Symptomatic of the impact of the internet, this phenomenon can lead to damaging individual acts and disturbances to public order."


Eschaton: We Love America So Much We Need To Destroy It - We're all welcome to our illusions and delusions, but it is the case that our mainstream Both Sides press generally lets The Right get away with this contradiction in ways they don't let The Left get away with, because The Right are, by definition, patriotic even when they're advocating treason and secession.

Hullabaloo - When the 2nd Amendment nullifies the 1st - The problem with the kind of Second Amendment absolutism stoked by the NRA and made into law by legislators and judges is that gun rights taken to extremes inherently imperil other rights (yeah, give bullies guns)

Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required - NYTimes.com - the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. (only make deposits of 10,000+ or they will steal your money)

The Making of Ferguson: How Decades of Hostile Policy Created a Powder Keg - A century of evidence demonstrates that St. Louis was segregated by interlocking and racially explicit public policies of zoning, public housing, and suburban finance, and by publicly endorsed segregation policies of realty, banking, and insurance industries

Will we ever know if this widely-used contraceptive increases the risk of HIV infection? | The Verge - Depo-Provera might contribute between 27,000 to 130,000 new cases of HIV each year
Skeptic » Insight » More On Why Smart People Are Not Always Rational - To summarize so far, we are sometimes irrational because we are stupid (unintelligent) and we are sometimes irrational because we are ignorant (lack knowledge), but we are often irrational because we are lazy (lack intellectual curiosity) or arrogant.
The Return of Moral Panic - Reason.com

Man Who Smashed Oklahoma 10 Commandments Monument Says Devil Made Him Do It - The man told agents he urinated on the monument and ran it over with a car

Therapists Missed Adam Lanza's Rage As A Teenager - Adam Lanza's growing rage, isolation and delusions when he was a teenager were apparently overlooked by his mother, psychiatrists and counselors, according to a report expected to be issued next month.

The truth behind America’s most famous gay-hate murder | World news | The Observer - Matthew Shepard’s horrific death at the hands of redneck homophobes shocked America and changed its laws. Now a different truth is emerging, but does it matter?
Debunking Stephen Jimenez's Effort To De-Gay Matthew Shepard's Murder | Blog | Media Matters for America

America’s Worst Colleges by Ben Miller | The Washington Monthly (#1: New England Institute of Art [MA])
Counter reproductive: more men had vasectomies during the US recession | Money | theguardian.com - the cost of raising a single child born to an average middle-income family to the age of 18 now hovers around $245,000. Even a low-income family in rural America can expect to pay $145,500 over those 18 years on the road to adulthood.

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands - Everything2.com (with Alzheimers)
sundowning - Everything2.com

Ikea hopes its new motorized standing desk will get you out of your chair | The Verge

Crossing the Street - Felicia Day
Gamergate can't stop being about harassment | The Verge
Gamer Gate Harassment

102514
Ebola cases hit 10,000 mark | World news | theguardian.com - World Health Organisation releases new figures, with practially all victims of virus within west African countries worst hit
Passenger quarantined at Newark Airport after treating Ebola patients in Africa tests negative | 7online.com
UTA grad isolated at New Jersey hospital as part of Ebola quarantine | Kaci Hickox, a nurse with degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington and the Johns Hopkins University, has been caring for Ebola patients while on assignment with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone

Hullabaloo - Great. Let's treat the doctors and nurses caring for Ebola patients like criminals ... What in the hell is wrong with us? They couldn't have handled that situation with a little human decency? They had to treat her like a criminal and make her sit there as if she'd done something horrible by volunteering to go to Africa to help with an epidemic? An epidemic that really will go global in a big way if trained people don't go there to try to stop it? (Cuomo puts his foot in it, again)

Nurse Under Ebola Quarantine Criticizes Her Treatment - Kaci Hickox, the first nurse to be quarantined under a strict new policy on her return from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, criticized her treatment in a Dallas Morning News op-ed on Saturday. She said she was treated with hostility and was not given an explanation of what was happening or when she might be able to leave:
Tested Negative for Ebola, Nurse Criticizes Her Quarantine - NYTimes.com
First Patient Quarantined Under Strict New Policy Tests Negative for Ebola - NYTimes.com
New York and New Jersey Will Quarantine Ebola Doctors - NBC News.com
Ebola: The Real Reason Everyone Should Panic — The Message — Medium - We should panic at the lack of care and concern we are showing about the epidemic where it is truly ravaging; we should panic at the lack of global foresight in not containing this epidemic, now, the only time it can be fully contained; and we should panic about what this reveals about how ineffective our global decision-making infrastructure has become.

Washington shooting: police confirm intervention by cafeteria worker | World news | theguardian.com - Police say 40-caliber handgun recovered from scene Jaylen Fryberg may have acted after romantic dispute
Teacher hailed for intervening in Washington high school shooting | US news | theguardian.com - Megan Silberberger intervened in cafeteria attack
Suspects jailed following the shooting deaths of two California police officers | US news | theguardian.com - Man and woman held without bail on suspicion of several charges with court appearances scheduled for Tuesday

Israeli finance minister: 'there is a crisis with the United States' | World news | theguardian.com - Comments follow the Obama administration’s refusal to allow Israeli defense minister to meet with top national security aides

Attack on Egyptian military checkpoint kills dozens | World news | The Guardian - Death toll expected to rise after incident in northern Sinai peninsula, where jihadi fighters have waged an insurgency

Iran executes Reyhaneh Jabbari despite global appeals for retrial | World news | theguardian.com - Activists say designer killed man in self defence after he tried to sexually assault her, and confession came under duress (because Israel is their boss, no?)
India spurns US offer and purchases guided missiles from Israel for $525m | World news | theguardian.com - Deal for at least 8,000 missiles and 300 launchers comes amid border tensions with China and exchanges of fire with Pakistan (with US taxpayer dollars)
Palestinian-American teenager killed during West Bank clashes with Israeli military | World news | The Guardian - Israeli military say soldiers ‘prevented an attack’ by opening fire on a Palestinian who was throwing firebombs at traffic

Vladimir Putin blames US for Islamist terrorism and Ukraine conflict | World news | The Guardian - President denies Russia has been aggressive in Ukraine and has encroached on the sovereignty of its neighbours

Report: CIA Deleted Computer Records About Senate Spying | Watch the video - Yahoo News - An investigation by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms into CIA spying of Senate Intelligence Committee computers wrapped up this week without drawing any significant conclusions as a result of lost computer records reportedly deleted by the agency.
New Evidence of the NSA Deliberately Weakening Encryption | The n-Category Café - There is less hyperbole than there might seem when people say that the NSA’s goal is the wholesale elimination of privacy. (they really are the fourth branch)

Texas woman threatened with jail after applying for voter ID | MSNBC - An Austin, Texas woman told msnbc she was threatened with jail time for having an out-of-state driver’s license when she went to apply for a voter identification card so she could vote under the state’s controversial ID law. She said she was so intimidated she left without getting the ID she needed — and which she’d been trying to get for a year.
Should the Poor Be Allowed to Vote? - The Atlantic - Voter-ID laws are part of a hoary American tradition holding that people who aren't economically independent can't make reasoned political choices.

U.S. To Recognize Same-Sex Marriage In 6 New States - Gay marriage recently became legal in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Hullabaloo - A short history of the Grand Bargain and why it's still biting us in the ass #2014 #ads - It was always bizarre that a Democratic president would believe that an epic economic downturn was a good time to worry about deficits and try to strike a bargain to cut the Party's signature domestic economic achievement --- an achievement which had lifted massive numbers of people out of poverty ... There have been few more misguided initiatives than the relentless pursuit of a Grand Bargain during the president's first term. And the Party continues to pay a price for that mistake

Echidne Of The Snakes: That Pew Online Harassment Survey - Forty percent of American adult Internet users say they’ve been harassed online, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, which found the harassment is often by strangers on social-networking sites.

An updated map: The devastating toll of the anti-vaccination movement - LA Times - As one would expect, diseases such as polio are still rife in Africa and other parts of the Third World. But the United States and Great Britain deserve badges of shame for the resurgence of measles and whooping cough, which are almost entirely due to the ignorance and fear spread by the anti-vaccine movements in those countries.
Cancer-killing stem cells engineered in lab - In experiments on mice, the stem cells were genetically engineered to produce and secrete toxins which kill brain tumours, without killing normal cells or themselves.


TLC Producer Wants List Of 100 Fucked-Up Families On Desk By End Of Day | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - “We’re up shit creek right now, so I need each one of you assholes rooting through every gutter in the goddamn Ozarks to find me a household of inbreds, addicts, or fat-as-fuck morons that we can put in primetime,”

Rock On! How to Throw a Punk Rock-Inspired Party | Martha Stewart (the comments!)

Whisper CEO suspends staff pending inquiry into 'anonymity' revelations | World news | theguardian.com - Editor-in-chief reported to be placed on leave - Heyward: Guardian reporting ‘just plain wrong’
How Verizon’s Advertising Header Works | Web Policy - Over the past couple of days, there’s been an outpouring of concern about Verizon’s advertising practices. Verizon Wireless is injecting a unique identifier into web requests, as data transits the network.
Gamer Gate: Three Stages to Obit | Popehat
Neoreactionary movement - RationalWiki - The neoreactionary movement (or just neoreaction; apparently abbreviated NRx), or the dark enlightenment, is a loosely defined cluster of Internet-based political thinkers who wish to return human society to forms of government older than liberal democracy.[1] They generally present their views as a revival of the traditions of Western civilization, or a return to a natural order of things.
Harassment, Abuse, and Apologism: Sanitizing Abuse in Social Justice Spheres - The Flounce - by Philip Wythe - Zoe Quinn
Pew: Women Suffering Online Harassment Worse Than Men | Mediashift | PBS

102414
Shooter Dead At Marysville Pilchuck High School: Report (UPDATED) - The identity of the shooter has been confirmed as Jaylen Fryburg, law enforcement sources told Fox affiliate Q13. Fryburg was a freshman at the school.
School shooting at Marysville - Pilchuck high school WA : news
When Misogyny and American Gun Culture Meet - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The results can be horrible:
Our Moloch by Garry Wills | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

New York and New Jersey issue tough new Ebola quarantine measure | US news | theguardian.com - Aid workers flying in from west Africa to be held for 21 days
WHO: Mali case put many at risk for Ebola - The Washington Post - Many people in Mali are at high risk of catching Ebola because the toddler who brought the disease to the country was bleeding from her nose as she traveled on a bus from Guinea, the World Health Organization warned Friday.
Ebola patient doctor tracked to New York trains, taxis and the High Line | World news | theguardian.com - Epidemiologists use Craig Spencer’s Metrocard and credit card to trace his movements around the city
Patient in NYC Tests Positive for Ebola : news
Ebola in New York City: Craig Spencer, Doctor, Bowled and Took Subway | New Republic - A fourth person has been diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. This time it’s in New York City and the patient is a 33-year-old physician who recently returned from West Africa, where he was taking care of Ebola patients for Doctors Without Borders.
Doctor in New York City Is Sick With Ebola - NYTimes.com - setting off a search for anyone who might have come into contact with him.
Craig Spencer Tests Positive For Ebola In New York City - Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, reported a fever of 100.3 degrees and gastrointestinal problems Thursday morning, both symptoms of Ebola.
New York begins cleanup at Ebola patient's home as officials urge calm | US news | theguardian.com - Hazardous materials team clean Craig Spencer’s apartment - Officials monitor four people who may have had contact
Republican Congressman Is Unaware There Is No Surgeon General To Head Ebola Response (know-nothings know nothing)
Police Spotted Dumping Gloves, Masks From NYC Ebola Scene Into Street Corner Garbage Can
Texas nurse Nina Pham 'cured of Ebola' and set to meet Obama | World news | theguardian.com - National Institutes of Health says Pham is free of Ebola virus and will be released from Maryland hospital on Friday
Ask Well: How Does Ebola Spread? How Long Can the Virus Survive? - NYTimes.com - Can I get Ebola from public transportation? As in, if a passenger coughed into their hand and then held onto the pole, and then another passenger held onto that pole and inadvertently wiped their eye? (maybe, but probably not)
ELI5: If Ebola is so difficult to transmit (direct contact with bodily fluids), how do trained medical professionals with modern safety equipment contract the disease? : explainlikeimfive

Ottawa attack: MPs fashioned spears while Harper whisked into closet - The Globe and Mail - Stephen Harper spent about 15 minutes hidden in a Parliament Hill closet after a gunman stormed Centre Block where he and the rest of the Conservative caucus were guarded by MPs who’d fashioned sharp spears from flagpoles, sources say.

Iraqi forces 'months away' from sustained offensive against Isis | World news | theguardian.com - US military officials say strong ground-force counter-offensive is ‘not imminent’
Muslim Extremists Kill 31 Christians in Taraba State, Nigeria - Boko Haram insurgents collaborate with Fulani herdsmen, church leader says.
Egypt: 29 killed as Sinai attacks target security forces - A suspected jihadist car bomb has killed at least 26 Egyptian soldiers at a checkpoint in Sinai, officials say.

Lebanon MP Fattoush punches woman in the neck | News , Lebanon News | The Daily Star - MP Nicolas Fattoush Monday punched an office worker in the neck after she refused to prioritize his file at the Baabda Judicial Palace, a source inside the courthouse told The Daily Star.
Pakistan Islamic Council Proposes Laws on Polygamy, Child Wives | New Republic

US decides against military tribunals for non-Guantánamo detainees | US news | theguardian.com - Russian held at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan will face charges in US federal court as Obama administration decides against controversial commissions

Eschaton: And They Were Heroes - The report also lays out the encounter in detail, suggesting that it quickly spun out of control as a shocked and hysterical Lewinsky asked to consult a lawyer or a parent — even as prosecutors grew increasingly determined to persuade her to agree on the spot to cooperate against the president. (crazier and more evil than you even thought)

Plutocrats Against Democracy - NYTimes.com - So Mr. Leung is worried about the 50 percent of Hong Kong’s population that, he believes, would vote for bad policies because they don’t make enough money. This may sound like the 47 percent of Americans who Mitt Romney said would vote against him because they don’t pay income taxes and, therefore, don’t take responsibility for themselves, or the 60 percent that Representative Paul Ryan argued pose a danger because they are “takers,” getting more from the government than they pay in. Indeed, these are all basically the same thing.

Another Striking Picture From America - British Pathé - Full title reads: "Another striking picture from America. Police have to use tear-gas bombs to quell riotous striking mill-workers." Manchester, United States of America (USA).

Obama isn't post-partisan or naive. He's a Progressive. | The Mischiefs of Faction

The Spectacular Implosion Of The GOP's Senate Hopes In Oregon - It started with a May 16 report that she had been accused of "stalking" her ex-boyfriend last year and trying to enter his house without permission
The Great Kansas Tea Party Disaster | Rolling Stone - Extremist Republicans turned their government into a lab experiment of tax cuts and privatization. And now they may be losing control of one of the reddest states in the nation
Republican Governors Might Save the Democrats -- NYMag - And as Sam Wang shows, governor’s races in many states have lurched decisively toward Democrats:
Maine Governor's Race Still Tied - Public Policy Polling - still a very tight contest between incumbent Paul LePage and Democrat Mike Michaud. LePage and Michaud each have 40%, with Eliot Cutler trailing at 17%.

GOP changes tune on cutting Social Security with elections on the line - The Washington Post - Cutting federal health and retirement spending has long been at the top of the GOP agenda. But with Republicans in striking distance of winning the Senate, they are suddenly blasting the idea of trimming Social Security benefits (well, yeah, they are lying, duh)

Bruce Braley Is Pretty Sure You Haven't Heard Of A Potluck Dinner - "And for those of you not from the Midwest, a potluck is where you go to somebody's house and you bring a dish and you share it with everybody," he said
One-Fifth of Detroit's Population Could Lose Their Homes - The Atlantic - Many families could stay put for just a few hundred dollars, if only they knew how to work the system.

Hullabaloo - This is why people have no respect for rich people - families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children.

The Police Are Still Out of Control - Frank Serpico - politico magazine
The DEA Once Turned A 14-Year-Old Into A Drug Kingpin. Welcome To The War On Drugs - The DEA has been spying on U.S. citizens with a surveillance program more expansive than the NSA's. (it was just an excuse)
Miami sex offenders forced to sleep in squalid railway camp, suit claims | US news | theguardian.com - ACLU files suit challenging rule that it says forces offenders to sleep alongside railway tracks in shocking conditions

Friday Cancer Blogging - 24 October 2014 | Mother Jones - The obvious cause of widespread lytic lesions is multiple myeloma, a cancer of blood plasma cells, and further tests have confirmed this (sad)

Anthony Weiner Still Doesn't Understand How to Use Twitter

'Sunshine can slow weight gain and diabetes symptoms' - Exposure to sunshine could slow down weight gain and the development of type 2 diabetes, research on mice suggests ... But vitamin D, produced by the body in response to sunlight, did not appear to play a role, the study said. These effects of the UV treatment were linked to nitric oxide, which is released by the skin after exposure to sunlight.
Research Updates: Do you have an explanation for human-perceived chronostasis ?
Prostate cancer's penchant for copper may be a fatal flaw -- ScienceDaily - Researchers have found a way to kill prostate cancer cells by delivering a trove of copper along with a drug that selectively destroys the diseased cells brimming with the mineral, leaving non-cancer cells healthy.
Largest sunspot in more than 20 years facing Earth
Chemists/physicists of reddit, what is the difference between dark, anti, and normal matter? : askscience - all observational evidence indicates that there is more matter than antimatter. This is known as the baryon asymmetry
Weeks after winning a Nobel Prize for his microscope, Eric Betzig just revolutionized microscopy again - The Washington Post - Thursday in Science, he and a team of his colleagues reported on a new microscopy technique that allows them to observe living cellular processes at groundbreaking resolution and speed.
Powerful New Microscope Allows Scientists To View The World Like Never Before
All the planets in the Solar System fit between the Earth and the Moon : woahdude

'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' Canceled By TLC After Allegations Star Is Dating Child Molester Come Out
TLC cancels "Here comes Honey Boo Boo" after the mother "Mama June" is discovered to allegedly be in a relationship with convicted child molester. : news (comment: "What dumpster fire of a childhood yields a guy who is a pedophile AND into Mama June?!" - and - ""The things I do to fuck children..." and permalink below:)
AWildSketchAppeared comments on TLC cancels "Here comes Honey Boo Boo" after the mother "Mama June" is discovered to allegedly be in a relationship with convicted child molester. ("Split your Lungs with Blood and Thunder" +whalecore)
We had the cumbox dude, Colby, the Icesoap guy and many more. Who are the biggest reddit Legends in your opinion? : AskReddit
What's the TL;DR of your best story? : AskReddit
I made a GIF of how things breathe :) : gifs
Is 1 closer to infinity than 0? : askscience

Andrew Sullivan: Team GamerGate - Lawyers, Guns & Money (for the record)

102314
Sao Paulo drought might cause ‘collapse like we’ve never seen’ | The Columbus Dispatch - Sao Paulo residents, half of whom are already complaining of hours-long water shortages, were warned yesterday by a top water regulator to brace for more-severe cutoffs. (test case for California)

Doctor who treated Ebola patients in Guinea rushed to hospital in New York | US news | theguardian.com - Physician, believed to be a 33-year-old man who was working in west Africa, treated for fever and ‘gastrointestinal symptoms’

We Await Further Developments - Esquire - A lot has been made of the contrast between how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation handled the events yesterday in Ottawa, and how our own cable news networks handle practically everything. In brief, the difference was roughly the difference between the morning edition of The Times Of London and a tornado siren
Ottawa shooting: police confirm only one gunman as parliament re-opens | World news | The Guardian - Shooting suspect’s mother says she is ‘crying for victims’, as Queen sends condolences
Canada considers 'preventative detention' in wake of Ottawa attack | World news | theguardian.com - Prime minister Stephen Harper says he plans to strengthen counter-terrorism efforts as parliament returns day after shooting
? Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers receives standing ovation - YouTube
Halifax police arrest man, recover firearm on city bus | CBCNews.ca Mobile - Chief Jean-Michel Blais told CBC News the report of a man with a rifle caused the significant police presence downtown. A man was later arrested after reports of a firearm on a city bus. (meanwhile, in America ...)

US-led air strikes on Syria have killed more than 500 Isis and al-Nusra fighters | World news | The Guardian - More than thirty civilians along with over 500 militants killed in strikes over past month, says Syrian Observatory
Iraqis react to Blackwater verdict: 'I'm surprised they were convicted at all' | World news | theguardian.com - Sense of justice served mingles with anger and surprise in Iraqis’ reactions to conviction of guards in Nissour Square incident

Sixty more women and girls reported kidnapped in Nigeria | World news | The Guardian - Doubts grow about government ‘truce’ with Boko Haram after dozens are reportedly abducted and bombing kills five people (Goodluck Jonathan)

Republicans in tight midterm races use election rules changes to increase odds | US news | theguardian.com - Legislatures across US have placed hurdles to many would-be voters who would tend to cast their ballot for Democrats
Author Wants Southern States To Secede Over Gay Rights, Name New Country 'Reagan' | Right Wing Watch - Conservative columnist and former Reagan administration aide Douglas MacKinnon is out with a new book calling for Southern states to secede…again. (Reaganistan)

The bottom 90 percent are poorer today than they were in 1987 - The Washington Post
Peter Thiel On Progress - Business Insider (billionaire hippie-punching)
Americans taking fewest vacation days in four decades : news

Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - "The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards." (Louis Gumball)

Those Who Fail To Learn From the Results of Nominating Shitty Candidates Are Doomed To Keep Losing - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The Titantic, the Hindenberg, the 2007 New York Mets, Martha Coakley: it’s ridiculous that the Massachusetts bench is so shallow that someone who ran one of the worst campaigns in known human history — a bad campaign with very substantial consequences for the country, yet — could get nominated for a competitive race again.
Oops: Scott Brown lists self as Mass. state senator in recent campaign filing | Political Scoop - WMUR Home

Darren Wilson’s lawyer speaks out on leaked Brown autopsy | MSNBC - saying “we were not responsible for any leaks to any media including those published in the NY Times and the St. Louis Post Dispatch.”

The Intelligent Life of the City Raccoon - Issue 18: Genius - Nautilus

Scientists have opened the blood-brain barrier for the first time - For the first time in humans, researchers have managed to penetrate the brain’s protector, meaning that doctors will be able to deliver drugs to previously inaccessible parts of the brain.
Mystery of dinosaur with giant arms solved - A dinosaur mystery that has baffled palaeontologists for 50 years has finally been solved. Its name Deinocheirus mirificus means unusual, horrible hands.
BBC - Future - Ageing: The girls who never grow older - “Syndrome X”. He has identified four girls with this condition, marked by what seems to be a permanent state of infancy, a dramatic developmental arrest
New evidence on Neanderthal mixing | Harvard Gazette - New research on a 45,000-year-old Siberian thighbone has narrowed the window of time when humans and Neanderthals interbred to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, and has shown that modern humans reached northern Eurasia substantially earlier than some scientists thought.
This Is the Average Man's Body - The Atlantic - Now the average American man is three inches shorter than the Dutch man, who averages six feet
The Introverted Face - The Atlantic - in conservative-leaning states, finding that the more "traditionally Republican" a person's face is deemed to look, the more votes he/she gets.

New generation of archaeologists takes ancient Egypt into 21st century | World news | The Guardian - Young experts bring fresh ideas to help reform institutions in charge of likes of Tutankhamun’s tomb and Giza pyramids
Vatican Library digitizes ancient manuscripts, makes them available for free | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour
Turin shroud was made for medieval Easter ritual, historian says | World news | The Guardian - Charles Freeman believes relic venerated as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth dates from 14th century and was used as a prop - None predates 1355, the year of its first documented appearance in a chapel in Lirey near Troyes in France, before it was acquired by the House of Savoy in 1453 and “converted into a high-prestige relic” to shore up the power base of the insecure Alpine dukedom.

Dory Previn - A Stone For Bessie Smith - YouTube
Janis Joplin - The day she was to record the song, "Buried Alive in the Blues," she was found dead in her hotel room, apparently of a drug overdose, on October 4, 1970. She was 27.

Top senator demands explanation from Whisper after user tracking revelations | Technology | theguardian.com - Senator Jay Rockefeller emphasises concern over location tracking and says Guardian revelations raise ‘serious questions’
Avast Antivirus Was Spying On You with Adware (Until This Week)

102214
Was Genghis Khan history's greenest conqueror? - Interesting Science Articles and Facts - Over the course of the century and a half run of the Mongol Empire, about 22 percent of the world's total land area had been conquered and an estimated 40 million people were slaughtered by the horse-driven, bow-wielding hordes. Depopulation over such a large swathe of land meant that countless numbers of cultivated fields eventually returned to forests.

Amber Vinson, Dallas Nurse Infected With Ebola, Is Free Of Virus: Family
Ebola patients could get transfusions from survivors ‘within weeks’ | World news | The Guardian - Work has commenced to make it possible to use blood in epidemic-hit countries, says World Health Organisation
Texas nurse's dog tests negative for Ebola | World news | theguardian.com - Dog belongs to Nina Pham who was infected with the virus - King charles spaniel’s quarantine ends on 1 November
Control Eluded State Leaders in Ebola Crisis | The Texas Tribune - When the Ebola virus first arrived in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry greeted the grave news with trademark swagger.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Response To Ebola Under Scrutiny - "Had the state used its public health powers more robustly, health care workers who treated Duncan might not have been circulating in public, and much of the ensuing panic could have been stilled," the Texas Tribune wrote on Wednesday.

Ottawa Gunman Identified As Michael Zehaf-Bibeau - Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was from Quebec and had recently converted to Islam, U.S. sources told Reuters. According to the Globe and Mail, he had been designated a "high-risk traveler" by Canadian officials and was barred from traveling outside the country.
Canadian soldier killed as Ottawa thrown into turmoil by shooting | World news | theguardian.com - MPs barricade themselves for safety after gunman, who was shot dead, stormed into parliament and began shooting
Ottawa shooting: Cpl. Nathan Cirillo dies of wounds, gunman also shot dead - Politics - CBC News - Downtown Ottawa remains in lockdown as police conduct searches around parliamentary precinct

Iraqi Kurds Approved To Join Fight Against ISIS In Kobani
Iraqi Forces Clash With ISIS Fighters West of Baghdad

Baby killed and eight wounded in suspected terror attack in Jerusalem | World news | The Guardian - According to a tweet from an Israeli government spokesman for the Arab media, the driver – a former Palestinian prisoner – “is a member of Hamas”.
Mexican military tried to cover up murders of up to 15 people, report says | World news | The Guardian - National human rights commission calls for investigation into deaths of suspected gang members last summer
Mexico Mayor And Wife Were 'Probable Masterminds' Behind Missing Students - "We have issued warrants for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife Mrs Pineda Villa and police chief Felipe Flores Velazquez, as probable masterminds of the events that occurred in Iguala on Sept. 26," Murillo said at a press conference.

US jury convicts Blackwater guards in 2007 killing of Iraqi civilians | US news | theguardian.com - Security guards for private US contractor guilty of manslaughter for notorious 2007 incident that left 17 dead in Baghdad

Ron Wyden Blasts CIA For Censoring Torture Report - "The intelligence leadership doing everything they can to bury the facts," said Wyden, D-Ore., a Senate Intelligence Committee member who has been a frequent critic of the spy agency.
US ordered to explain withholding of Iraq and Afghanistan torture photos | US news | theguardian.com - Obama admistration must justify suppression of never-before-seen photographs depicting US military torture of detainees
U.S. Congress examining deal between NSA official, ex-agency chief | Reuters - The arrangement, which current and former officials said was approved by top NSA managers, has raised questions about the blurring of lines between government and business.
Edward Snowden Should Be Charged With Murder, Says Congressman Mike Rogers - "The [US] government has pressed charges on Mr Snowden," he said. "We are treating him, as I would argue, the traitor that he is." Rogers added: "And by the way, and this is important, I would charge him for murder."

Officials warn 500 million financial records hacked - Federal officials warned companies Monday that hackers have stolen more than 500 million financial records over the past 12 months, essentially breaking into banks without ever entering a building.

How voter-friendly is your state? | US news | The Guardian

BP Oil Spill 'Didn't Ruin The Gulf,' Says Politico Article Written By BP | ThinkProgress

Paul Krugman: 'Soak The Rich' - Paul Krugman is on board with some other top economists who say that the U.S. should tax top earners up to 90 percent.
Economists Say We Should Tax The Rich At 90 Percent - All Americans, including the rich, would be better off if top tax rates went back to Eisenhower-era levels when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent
How The Fed Blew Its Most Important Job For Over Three Years - But the implications of the IG report reach well beyond the Whale debacle, highlighting how much power the Fed's New York branch wields and how little influence the public interest has within that branch.
Next Time Someone Says 'White Privilege Isn't Real,' Show Them This - But for black Americans, escaping poverty is far more difficult:
All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone - And who has been the beneficiary of this middle-class misery? The top 0.1 percent of Americans, whose incomes have just kept rising, and whose share of wealth has soared to levels not seen since Jay Gatsby was still staring at the blinking green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock:

Election to Cost Nearly $4 Billion, CRP Projects, Topping Previous Midterms | OpenSecrets Blog
Is Martha Coakley About To Blow Another Major Race In Massachusetts?
Exclusive: DSCC going back up with ads for Alison Lundergan Grimes in Ky. - Manu Raju - politico.com


UNC Officials Failed To Stop 18-Year Long Student Athlete Academic Fraud: Report - More than 3,100 students — nearly half of them athletes — enrolled in classes they didn't have to show up for and received artificially inflated grades in what an investigator called a "shadow curriculum" that lasted nearly two decades at the University of North Carolina.

New Michael Brown autopsy supports account of struggle with police officer | US news | theguardian.com - Government autopsy discovers gunshot wound in 18-year-old’s hand that supports ‘significant altercation’ in officer’s car
Well, I’m Glad That’s Settled » Balloon Juice - The Washington Post just cleared Darren Wilson:
Justice Department condemns Ferguson leaks as effort to influence opinion - LA Times

No, marijuana use doesn’t lower your IQ - The Washington Post - Duke study flawed - "Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature," it concluded ... "In particular alcohol use was found to be strongly associated with IQ decline," the authors write. "No other factors were found to be predictive of IQ change."
The State Of Drug Use In America, In 9 Maps

FCC suspends review of Comcast/TWC and AT&T/DirecTV mergers | Ars Technica - Content companies refused to grant access to confidential programming contracts.

A Summary Of The Gamergate Movement That We Will ... | ClickHole
Why #Gamergaters Piss Me The F*** Off — The Cauldron — Medium - Chris Kluwe played in the NFL for eight years, but he’s been a gamer for 26?—?and he’s sick and tired of the misogynistic culture in today’s gaming community. ("slackjawed pickletits" +good invective)

102114
Five Conflicts and Collapses That May Have Been Spurred by Climate Change | History | Smithsonian - Earth's changing climate has been a spectre in centuries of civil conflict and, at times, the collapse of whole civilizations

Statement by Secretary Johnson on Travel Restrictions and Protective Measures to Prevent the Spread of Ebola to the United States | Homeland Security - New York’s JFK, Newark, Dulles, Atlanta and Chicago.
Rwanda To Screen U.S. And Spanish Visitors To Keep Out Ebola
Ebola health workers must be covered head to toe, say new US guidelines | World news | theguardian.com - Nurses’ groups and others had called for revised advice Stricter CDC guidance provides ‘extra margin of safety’
BERLIN: Ebola cases in Germany test plans made long ago for other diseases | Europe | McClatchy DC

U.S. accidentally delivered weapons to the Islamic State by airdrop, militants say - The Washington Post (close enough)
Before And After Photos Show The Devastating Toll Of The Battle For Kobani
Turkey to allow Kurdish peshmerga across its territory to fight in Kobani | World news | The Guardian - “The events from two weeks ago clearly showed that if Kobani should fall, the peace process would end. The Turkish government wanted to test how people would react, and they saw what would have happened. Turkey can no longer be seen as watching the drama in Kobani unfold without doing anything.”

Shlomo Sand: ‘I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew’ | World news | The Guardian - His past was Jewish, but today he sees Israel as one of the most racist societies in the western world. Historian Shlomo Sand explains why he doesn’t want to be Jewish anymore

Sweden ready to use force to surface sub - The Local - Sweden's military has announced that if it finds a suspect foreign vessel in the Stockholm archipelago, it is prepared to force it to the surface "with weapons if necessary"
Cluster bombs used in eastern Ukraine, says human rights group | World news | The Guardian - Human Rights Watch evidence suggests use by Ukrainian government forces – and possibly rebels – in Donetsk attacks
Augusto Pinochet’s former bodyguard detained at Santiago military base | World news | The Guardian - Cristián Labbé, outspoken defender of Chilean dictator, charged with conspiracy in kidnapping and homicide of 13 prisoners

Total CEO Christophe De Margerie Killed In Moscow Plane Collision - when his private jet collided with a snowplow whose driver was drunk, Russian investigators said Tuesday.
Spice – the synthetic drug gaining a grip on Russia | World news | The Guardian - “The consequences are quick addiction, fast-paced decline, and as far as I can see, irreversible consequences which cannot be cured. Heroin in Russia is yesterday’s problem.”
Freya Newman To Be Sentenced This Week Over Secret Abbott Scholarship | newmatilda.com - A 21-year-old journalism student at the University of Technology, Sydney will face a Sydney Court this week to be sentenced for accessing student records that showed the Prime Minister’s daughter received a secret scholarship from the Whitehouse Institute of Design.

White House Chief Of Staff Negotiating Redaction Of CIA Torture Report - The report itself, meanwhile, sidesteps the role of Bush administration officials in ordering or approving torture, focusing instead only on the agency,
WASHINGTON: Senate’s inquiry into CIA torture sidesteps blaming Bush, aides | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC

In Raising Immigration, G.O.P. Risks Backlash After Election - NYTimes.com

Soon to become a minority in the US, whites express declining support for diversity - PsyPost - White Americans may view diversity and multiculturalism more negatively as the U.S. moves toward becoming a minority-majority nation, UCLA psychologists report.

Political Polarization & Media Habits | Pew Research Center's Journalism Project
Rush Limbaugh is America’s least-trusted news source - The Washington Post - 47 percent of conservatives name Fox News as their main news source. No single news outlet holds similar sway over liberal Americans.
Pew Study: Americans Are Self-Segregating Amid Proliferating Partisan Media - The Daily Beast - We may have unprecedented access to information, but our fellow citizens are corralling themselves off from opposing viewpoints in their media consumption, according to a new study. (if "citizens" = tribal paranoid Republicans worshipping at the alter of Murdoch)

A New York Times Columnist Spoke At A Fundraiser For A Group Working To Criminalize Gay Sex | Blog | Media Matters for America - Ross Douthat spoke at a fundraising event for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a right-wing legal group that works to defend anti-LGBT discrimination and supported the criminalization of homosexuality.

The great charter school rip-off: Finally, the truth catches up to education “reform” phonies - Salon.com - Fraud, financial mismanagement, lousy results: Reports highlight awful charter schools and people are catching on (you've been Rhee'd)

The Palin Brawl Police Tapes - Annotated Edition

Stone Discovered In Jerusalem May Answer A Nearly 2,000 Year-Old Question - Israeli archaeologists said Tuesday they have discovered a large stone with Latin engravings that lends credence to the theory that the reason Jews revolted against Roman rule nearly 2,000 ago was because of their harsh treatment. (Hadrian and Bar Kochba)

Smell the Truth » War on marijuana unconstitutional, doctors testify in federal court Monday - The U.S. government claims marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug with no medical benefits. But that claim will be up for debate Monday in California when a federal judge is scheduled to hear testimony from doctors that conclude the opposite.
Coffee May Protect the Liver - NYTimes.com - Drinking coffee — even decaffeinated coffee — may protect your liver, a large new study has found.
Study Suggests Vegetarian Men May Have Lower Sperm Counts | eCanadaNow - . In addition to the lower sperm counts, the percentage of sperm actively mobile in the samples taken from vegetarian men were significantly lower at 30%. Meat eaters had an average sperm mobility of 60%. (but lived 10 yrs less)
Vegetarians have much lower sperm counts and only 30% of their sperm are active compared to 60% for non-vegetarian men : news

Amazon Kindle Voyage review: The best e-reader is also the priciest


Demos - An analysis of 2 million tweets by the think tank Demos reveals that male public figures are several times more likely than women to receive abuse on Twitter.
The D-List Right-Wingers Who've Turned Gamergate Into Their Loser Army
When the #GamerGate mob targeted Anil Dash for no reason (with images, tweets) · x_glitch · Storify - #GamerGate proponents claim they are only concerned about games journalism and its ethics. How, then, does someone who isn't even a journalist, let alone a games journalist, get involved?

What is your best your mom joke? NSFW : AskReddit

102014
If you want a real answer from conservatives on science, then change the question by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - the latest conservative cool kid response to questions about climate change or evolution is “I’m not a scientist.” It displays a certain humility and folksy ignorance while avoiding tough questions about destructive GOP policy. ("do you believe in science?" "how about statistics?")
Amateur footage shows ferocity of blizzard in Himalayas - video | World news | The Guardian

WHO Declares Nigeria Ebola-Free After 42 Days With No Cases - NBC News.com
Relief in Dallas as dozens declared Ebola-free after three weeks in isolation | World news | theguardian.com - Forty-three of 48 people no longer at risk of developing virus
Ashoka Mukpo, NBC News Freelancer, Doing 'Quite Well' And Could Be Released Very Soon
Ebola hysteria: An epic, epidemic overreaction - CNN.com - While the threat of Ebola is very real in Africa, the paranoia it's generated in the United States is unreal.
Chicken Little Politics by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Alice Robb reports on “A growing body of literature in psychology suggests that feelings of fear make people’s political outlook more conservative.” (fear!)
Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola - NYTimes.com - having pledged to deploy hundreds of medical professionals to the front lines of the pandemic, Cuba stands to play the most robust role among the nations seeking to contain the virus.
The Embarrassment Of Being American Today - Esquire - Case in point: this morning's front page, which pairs up two stories about the Ebola outbreak, one from Liberia, where the disease is killing hundreds of people a week, and one from the United States of America, where it has killed one person. Can I just say that the World's Greatest Democracy doesn't profit from the comparison? (Americans are bed-wetting babies)

Turkey to allow Kurdish peshmerga across its territory to fight in Kobani | World news | The Guardian - Dramatic shift in the Turkish position due to internal protests on government inaction and support for regional fight against Isis
Officials: ISIS forces launch multiple attacks in Iraq - CNN.com
The Reign of 'Terror' - NYTimes.com

Three-quarters of Israeli Jews oppose detail of Palestinian state, poll shows | World news | The Guardian - Rightwing thinktank’s poll confirms argument that Israelis who support theory of two-state solution recoil from concrete details (someone tell the Boston Globe)

Gay couple ‘thrown off London bus for kissing’ | World news | The Guardian - Transport chiefs investigating incident where driver reportedly shouted: ‘It’s disgusting. Get off the bus’ at kissing couple

Killing The Message - Esquire - The kickback against Kill The Messenger, the new film about the late Gary Webb's pursuit of the story of how the CIA ran cocaine to help finance its wars in Central America and how his pursuit of that story came to destroy him, has been fascinating, with many of the same institutions who helped run Webb out of journalism now back to contend that, by doing so, they did the craft a great service

Here Are 5 Takeaways From The Harper's Anti-Clinton Story (a non-idealistic ambitious hawk who represents the rich and didn't do much as Senator)
How Obama Transformed the Federal Judiciary - The President considers his judicial legacy - “The majority of Obama’s appointments are women and nonwhite males.” Forty-two per cent of his judgeships have gone to women. Twenty-two per cent of George W. Bush’s judges and twenty-nine per cent of Bill Clinton’s were women. Thirty-six per cent of President Obama’s judges have been minorities, compared with eighteen per cent for Bush and twenty-four per cent for Clinton.

Why the Supreme Court is allowing Texas to hold an unconstitutional election - The Week - Once again, the high court has joined with conservative state lawmakers to restrict minority voting

SC GOP candidate: Don’t be deceived — ‘cute’ same-sex ‘gremlins’ will destroy US - same-sex marriage is “a pestilence that has descended on our society, against our will, by those in the courts and government that do not value the traditional family.”

UN human rights officials visit Detroit to assess impact of water shutoffs | US news | theguardian.com - Human rights experts, who call situation ‘a man-made perfect storm’, travel to bankrupt city withholding water from late payers

Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong - The Washington Post - America is the land of opportunity, just for some more than others.

This is what the legacy of ‘white privilege’ looks like in Bill O’Reilly’s hometown - The Washington Post - Levittown, the Long Island community where Bill O'Reilly grew up, holds a unique place in history for two reasons: It was the original subdivision, a mass-produced town of neatly uniform, affordable Cape Cod homes that would serve as a model for postwar suburbs for decades to come. And it was available only to whites.

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard Arrested - Hubbard, who is also the chair of the Alabama Republican Party, faces charges that include using his office for personal gain and voting for legislation with a conflict of interest, Al.com reported.

The Missing Menino by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - He should have given himself some credit for not knuckling under to the right-wing forces that regard diversity as just so much political correctness. By fighting for diversity, he indeed showed that he was the mayor for a new America. (well, he sucked at making Boston the new Charlottsville)

Are Women Better Decision Makers? - NYTimes.com - Men took more risks when they were stressed. They became more focused on big wins, even when they were costly and less likely.

When Women Become Men at Wellesley - NYTimes.com
US seeks to learn from allies' experience about transgender troops | World news | theguardian.com - Washington event follows Hagel’s call for ‘continuous review’ 18 countries allow transgender personnel to serve openly
For Starters, 'Unsex' the Birth Certificate - NYTimes.com

For battered NFL wives, a message from the cops and the league: Keep quiet - The Washington Post - Two women narrate their ordeals. “You will hear of a wife murdered before you hear another one come forward.”

Research shows Portal 2 is better for you than 'Brain training' software (like Lumosity)

Indiana police hint at more victims after seven bodies discovered | US news | theguardian.com - Three female victims found in abandoned house in Gary Man, 43, allegedly confessed to woman’s murder on Saturday

Voyeur Case Spurs Rabbis To Add Post For Women - NYTimes.com - A week after a Washington rabbi was charged with videotaping women disrobing for ritual baths as they converted to Judaism,

Brianna Wu and the human cost of Gamergate: 'every woman I know in the industry is scared' | Technology | theguardian.com - We speak to game developer Brianna Wu about the threats that drove her from her home in another explosive week for Gamergate - and reflect on its damaging impact
Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K. - NYTimes.com - Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.

What's the most important thing in a woman? [0:28] : videos (great multilingual "soul" riff)

101914
'Beijing is like a bonfire' as runners forced to complete marathon in gas masks - An estimated 30,000 runners take part in Beijing’s ‘airpocalypse’ annual marathon despite “hazardous” levels of smog
China to punish carmakers who fail to meet fuel targets in 2015 | Reuters
TSA agent at Hopkins Airport patted down Ebola patient Amber Vin - 19 Action News|Cleveland, OH|News, Weather, Sports - The TSA does confirm a routine pat-down by one of its agents on Amber Vinson at Hopkins Airport on Oct. 13, the day she traveled back to Dallas from Cleveland.
Dallas Hospital Waited Three Days to Use Hazmat Suits
CNN Host Grills Cruz About Ebola And GOP Opposition To Surgeon General ... "And we don’t have one because President Obama, instead of nominating a health professional, he nominated someone who is an anti-gun activist." (he noticed that bullets put holes in people)
Congressional Hearing On Ebola Was ‘Shameful,' Janet Napolitano Says - “It was outrageous to drag the head of the CDC so that they can make very partisan comments and tell him to do something that makes no sense," said Napolitano, referring to congressional calls to ban travel from Ebola-affected countries.

Ebola: Liberia deaths ‘far higher than reported’ as officials downplay epidemic | World news | The Observer - Ebola is still not under control, with cultural practices and data problems masking the true extent of the epidemic - Liberian authorities appeared to be deliberately downplaying the true number of cases, for fear of increasing alarm in the west African country.
Cruise ship carrying woman monitored for Ebola returns to Texas | World news | The Guardian - Carnival Magic liner was turned away from Mexico and Belize - Monitored passenger disembarks, drives home with husband
Liberian Leader Warns Ebola Risks Causing A 'Lost Generation'
The nasty politicization of Ebola - The Washington Post

Sweden Claims 3 Credible Sightings In Submarine Hunt - The Swedish military said Sunday it had made three credible sightings of foreign undersea activity in its waters during the past few days amid reports of a suspected Russian intrusion in the area.
German Intelligence Blames Pro Russian Separatists for MH17 Downing - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Germany's foreign intelligence agency says its review of the crash of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 in Ukrainian has concluded it was brought down by a missile fired by pro-Russian separatists near Donetsk. (in the obvious dept.)

Kobani Sees Fiercest Fighting In Days Between Kurds And ISIS

Mexico Finds Many Corpses, but Not Lost 43 - NYTimes.com
Blunt U.S. Appeal Encourages Huangs, Couple Held in Qatar - NYTimes.com - a prosecution regarded as rife with racial prejudices and cultural misunderstandings

Obama Could Reaffirm a Bush-Era Reading of a Treaty on Torture - NYTimes.com - When the Bush administration revealed in 2005 that it was secretly interpreting a treaty ban on “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” as not applying to C.I.A. and military prisons overseas, Barack Obama, then a newly elected Democratic senator from Illinois, joined in a bipartisan protest.
WPost’s Slimy Assault on Gary Webb | Consortiumnews - Jeff Leen, the Washington Post’s assistant managing editor for investigations, begins his renewed attack on the late Gary Webb’s Contra-cocaine reporting with a falsehood. (the government must always be presumed to be telling the truth)
In Context of Accusations of CIA Drug Smuggling, WaPo Calls Million a Week "Relatively Small" | Beat the Press - I will give some additional context for the "relatively small" drug trade. relative to today's economy, the cocaine would be worth between $4.0-$6 billion a year at the retail level. It is also enough to supply 100,000 users with a gram of cocaine a week. (more on why Jeff Leen is playing a very dirty game)

Warren in Minnesota: ‘The game is rigged’ - The Washington Post - "The game is rigged, and the Republicans rigged it," Warren said to loud cheers.
Black Vote Seen as Last Hope for Democrats to Hold Senate - NYTimes.com - predicted “crushing Democratic losses across the country” if the party did not do more to get black voters to the polls (black voters disenchanted with Obama)
Obama’s standing with women hurts Senate Dems - Manu Raju - politico.com

RealClearPolitics - Election 2014 - Massachusetts Governor - Baker vs. Coakley (Chawley surges past Chokely)


Virginia Tops 2013 List Of The Best States For Business - Maine ranks last for the fourth straight year. Not much has changed. It is still burdened with an aging population and a weak economic forecast (and a dipshit teaparty governor)

Mental Health Issues Put 34,500 on New York’s No-Guns List - NYTimes.com

Whites riot over pumpkins in NH and Twitter turns it into epic lesson about Ferguson - How many of the defiant white youth causing mayhem & destruction come from fatherless families? #PumpkinRiot
Riot Police Deploy Tear Gas, Pepper Spray Against Keene State Partiers - New Hampshire news - Boston.com

Charlotte police investigators secretly track cellphones | CharlotteObserver.com - Charlotte-Mecklenburg police use a secretive surveillance system that collects information from cellphones and wireless devices to locate crime suspects but also gathers data from innocent people.

How marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is making the world a better place - The Washington Post - one of the main obstacles to meaningful reform is layers of entrenched drug control bureaucracies at the international and national levels

Netflix Is Taking The Movie Theatre Industry Head On, And It Will Win
2014 is first year ever with ZERO platinum-certified records | Death and Taxes - The award is given by the RIAA to mark one million units sold, and with only a few weeks remaining in the year, no album is even remotely close to making the threshold. With the reality that songs can get millions of streams and video views, yet only sell tens of thousands of copies, the old model is no longer relevant, and when the big labels collapse, they’ll only have their arrogance and ignorance to blame.

Reading To Children: The Key Benefits Of Reading Aloud To Children And How To Develop Effective Communication Skills - WhytoRead - How To Make Reading Aloud More Effective

Telomerase reverses ageing process : Nature News - Dramatic rejuvenation of prematurely aged mice hints at potential therapy.
New test scans all genes simultaneously to identify single mutation causing child's rare genetic disease -- ScienceDaily - Sequencing the DNA of children with mystery genetic disorders produced a definitive diagnosis in 40 percent of one hospital’s most complex cases -- a quantum leap from the field’s 5-percent success rate 20 years ago.
What Is Jupiter? | NASA - Europa is the smallest of the Galilean satellites. Europa's surface is mostly water ice. Beneath the ice may be an ocean of water or slushy ice. Europa is thought to have twice as much water as Earth.

101814
Hurricane Gonzalo pounds Bermuda with 110mph winds | World news | theguardian.com - Tempest scores direct hit on British territory, knocking out the majority of the island’s electricity but causing no fatalities

More Than 100 Monitored For Ebola Symptoms In Ohio
Life in Quarantine for Ebola Exposure: 21 Days of Fear and Loathing - NYTimes.com
Texas hospital mounts '#PresbyProud' fightback as Ebola criticism mounts | World news | theguardian.com - Dallas hospital where nurses were infected engages PR firm Union chief says: ‘There has been no leadership’
The Ebola Conspiracy Theories - NYTimes.com
Why An Ebola Flight Ban Wouldn’t Work | FiveThirtyEight - It seems unlikely that travel from Europe or the Middle East will be halted. But the next Ebola patient may be on a flight from London, not Liberia.

Militants Attack Nigerian Villages Despite Reported Boko Haram Cease-Fire - Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed dozens of people in five attacks on Nigerian villages that occurred after the government announced a ceasefire to enable 200 abducted girls to be freed, security sources and witnesses said on Saturday.

United States accused of misleading British minister over treatment of Shaker Aamer in Guantánamo Bay | World news | The Observer - Charity claims British resident cleared for release is being beaten by guards before force-feeding

Catholic Bishops Scrap Welcome To Gays - Catholic bishops scrapped their landmark welcome to gays Saturday, showing deep divisions at the end of a two-week meeting sought by Pope Francis to chart a more merciful approach to ministering to Catholic families.
Conservative Cardinal Who Clashed With Pope Francis Confirms He Has Been Ousted - Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American who heads the Vatican’s highest court of canon law (purge of the Cult of the Red Beanie)

Supreme Court Allows Texas to Use Strict Voter ID Law in Coming Election - NYTimes.com
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Pens Scathing Dissent On Texas Voter ID Law - "The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters," Ginsburg wrote. (conservative Supremes dismantling your democracy)

Probe of silencers leads to web of Pentagon secrets - The Washington Post - The mysterious workings of a Pentagon office that oversees clandestine operations are unraveling in federal court, where a criminal investigation has exposed a secret weapons program entwined with allegations of a sweetheart contract, fake badges and trails of destroyed evidence.

Secret space plane lands at US air force base after unknown two-year mission | US news | theguardian.com - Resembling a small space shuttle, the X-37B landed in southern California after a 674 days in orbit on a secret mission

Hullabaloo - Gird your loins ladies, George Will is wading into women's issues again:

Officer who shot Michael Brown says he feared for his life | US news | theguardian.com (they always do)

When Planning for Retirement, Consider Transportation - NYTimes.com - From their home, the nearest bus stop is a mile walk. “I can still do it,” Mr. Dion said. But his wife cannot

Quality of Words, Not Quantity, Is Crucial to Language Skills, Study Finds - NYTimes.com - increased calls for publicly funded prekindergarten programs and dozens of campaigns urging parents to get chatty with their children
Does Everything Happen for a Reason? - NYTimes.com - If there is such a thing as divine justice or karmic retribution, the world we live in is not the place to find it. Instead, the events of human life unfold in a fair and just manner only when individuals and society work hard to make this happen.

Peter Beinart: Do American Jews Live in Cocoon? Answer: No. | New Republic - Peter Beinart thinks so. He's wrong.
Hasidic Jews Becoming Unorthodox Lynn Davidman Interview | New Republic

Margo Howard: Amazon "Vine" Reviewers Sabotaged My Book | New Republic | Eat, Drink and Remarry: Confessions of a Serial Wife | Dear Prudence | child of Ann Landers | third memoir! (and I whined because they shouldn't be allowed not to like my book so I wrote this article and made it worse and the internets are mean +she "objects" to people being able to read reviews on Amazon +comments, of course)
Book review: ‘Eat, Drink & Remarry’ By Margo Howard - Books - The Boston Globe - She is also author of two previous book-sploitations of her greatest asset: her pedigree. The only child of Eppie Lederer, a.k.a. Ann Landers, and Budget Rent a Car cofounder Julius Lederer, Howard grew up with such a mouthful of silver spoons, it’s a wonder she learned to talk.
Eat, Drink and Remarry: Confessions of a Serial Wife: Margo Howard: 9780373893041: Amazon.com: Books (for the reviews)
'Am I being catfished?' An author confronts her number one online critic | Books | The Guardian - When a bad review of her first novel appeared online, Kathleen Hale was warned not to respond. But she soon found herself wading in

Google And Microsoft Battle For Market Cap Supremacy | TechCrunch - Apple and Exxon Mobil will still be worth more than the dueling technology giants. The four firms have a combined market cap of more than $1.5 trillion.
Privacy experts call for Whisper to be investigated over tracking of some users | World news | theguardian.com - Federal Trade Commission could examine issue of ‘anonymous’ app tracking users who have asked not to be followed
? The Beatles - Do You Want To Know A Secret - YouTube

101714
The Montecito, California drought has wealthy residents paying water usage fines - CBS News - One area running out of water is Montecito, an upscale community home to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGeneres.
India to build the world's largest Floating Solar Farm. | LIKESWAGON: India to build the world's largest Floating Solar Farm. - the power requirements for about 50000 homes - 5 acres of land are required to produce 1 megawatt of solar power
Experts Skeptical Of Lockheed Martin's 'Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough' - "Getting net energy from fusion is such a goddamn difficult undertaking," he told Mother Jones. "We know of no materials that would be able to handle anywhere near that amount of heat."
Search widens for Nepal snowstorm survivors | World news | The Guardian - Forty-six trekkers rescued 700m below top of Himalayan pass, and smaller groups elsewhere reached by helicopter

World Health Organisation admits botching response to Ebola outbreak | World news | The Guardian - UN health agency acknowledged ‘nearly everyone involved in the response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall’
New Study Suggests 21-Day Ebola Quarantine Is Dangerously Short - "the risk is certainly not zero of anyone beyond 21 days converting to symptomatic."
Texas hospital worker quarantined on cruise ship in Caribbean - The Washington Post - A Texas health-care worker who “may have” handled lab specimens from Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan has been isolated on board a Carnival cruise ship in the Caribbean.
All four suspected Ebola cases in Spain test negative for the disease | World news | The Guardian - Air France traveller and a patient who had been in the same ambulance as nurse Teresa Romero Ramos remain in isolation
Ebola: Obama not ruling out travel bans as experts watch for more cases | World news | theguardian.com - President considers further interventions and appointing crisis leader, while concern grows over infected woman’s air travel
T&T orders Ebola travel ban | Trinidad Express Newspaper | News - Trinidad and Tobago today took the decision to ban entry to travelers coming from the African countries which have been stricken with Ebola.
Colombia reserves the right to deny entry to people from West Africa | Voxxi - despite the fact no Colombian Ebola cases have been reported.
Obama To Appoint Ron Klain As Ebola Czar - President Barack Obama is naming Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and a trusted adviser at the Obama White House, as the point man on the U.S. government's response to the Ebola crisis.
Ebola Outbreak In Senegal Over: WHO
w The Tangled Story Of Why Ebola Vaccine Research Came Up Short - The role that money plays in finding vaccines has come under sharp dispute in recent days after the NIH director, Dr. Francis Collins, told The Huffington Post that the country "probably would have had a vaccine in time" for the current Ebola epidemic if not for a “10-year-slide in research support.”
Syracuse Disinvites WashPost Pulitzer Photographer Due To Ebola Fears | NPPA - Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Michel du Cille of The Washington Post, who returned from covering the Ebola crisis in Liberia 21 days ago and who is symptom free, was asked by Syracuse University officials today not to come to campus where he was scheduled to participate in a journalism program.
Ebola Quarantine Makes Sense, Says Infectious Disease Doctor | New Republic - An infectious-disease specialist says the time for half-measures is over
Ron Klain is a great choice for Ebola czar - Vox
WHO | Diarrhoeal disease - Each year diarrhoea kills around 760 000 children under five. (time to panic, somebody call Fox News)
GOP Senator: ISIS Using Ebola Is A "Real And Present Danger" - Asked whether the U.S. should be concerned about ISIS militants bringing Ebola into the country, Sen. Ron Johnson said we should do everything possible to prevent such a thing. (viral suicide bombers will poop in Times Sq)

IamA Journalist whose latest investigation found that only 4% of those named as killed by drones in Pakistan were members of al Qaeda. AMA. : IAmA

Military alert over 'foreign subs' off Stockholm - The Local - Sweden's military has deployed planes and ships in the Stockholm Archipelago against what it says is a threat from foreign submarines in the Stockholm Archipelago. (Putin getting ready to invade Sweden)

UN confirms 5,000 Yazidis men were executed and 7,000 women are now sex slaves | Daily Mail Online - Yazidi refugees were lined up, shot dead, then bulldozed into mass graves At least ten men at the village of Hardan were beheaded Jihadists came into villages and selected women at will to make slaves
Why Saudi women languish in jail | Kingdom | Saudi Gazette - Having a guardian’s consent is a prerequisite for the release of female prisoners who have completed their jail terms. Current prison and detention regulations forbid keeping anyone in jail after they have served their sentences but nearly 35 percent of female prisoners remain incarcerated after finishing their jail terms because they are rejected by their families, Al-Sharq newspaper reported Friday.
Hong Kong riot police in new clashes with protesters at cleared site | World news | The Guardian - Chaos in Mong Kok unfolds hours after police had dismantled tents, canopies and barricades in the small protest zone
New Zealand Cops Raided Home of Reporter Working on Snowden Documents - The Intercept

Citizenfour Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Edward Snowden Documentary HD - YouTube
Home | CITIZENFOUR - A film by Laura Poitras
Citizenfour review – gripping Snowden documentary offers portrait of power, paranoia and one remarkable man | Film | The Guardian
Citizenfour review: Laura Poitras’ Edward Snowden documentary. - Citizenfour is a fine documentary. Too bad the director glossed over some important details—and Edward Snowden didn’t gloss over more. (#slatepitch)

FBI director to citizens: Let us spy on you | Ars Technica - Encryption will “lead all of us to a very dark place,” FBI director says ... In a post-Snowden plea for a policy more permissive of spying (you caught us spying on you so moar spying!)
James Comey, F.B.I. Director, Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked - NYTimes.com - The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said on Thursday that the “post-Snowden pendulum” that has driven Apple and Google to offer fully encrypted cellphones had “gone too far.”
ACLU Comment on FBI Director Comey’s Encryption Speech | American Civil Liberties Union - “Director Comey is wrong in asserting that law enforcement cannot do its job while respecting Americans’ privacy rights. In fact, federal law explicitly protects the right of companies to add encryption with no backdoors.
Apple defies FBI and offers encryption by default on new operating system | Technology | theguardian.com - New version of Mac OS X will encrypt users’ hard drives unless they explicitly decline, in spite of pleas by the FBI not to
Senior NSA official moonlighting for private cybersecurity firm | US news | theguardian.com - Patrick Dowd recruited by former NSA director Keith Alexander - Unusual for US official to work for private, for-profit company
Eschaton: New Math - I'm not one who has the knowledge to re-litigate the Gary Webb controversy, but his opponents always seem to have strange arguments.

Leaked draft confirms TPP will censor Internet and stifle Free Expression worldwide | OpenMedia.ca - This morning Wikileaks published a second leaked draft of the Intellectual Property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The draft confirms people’s worst fears about Internet censorship. That’s according to community-based organization OpenMedia, which is leading a large international Fair Deal Coalition aimed at securing balanced copyright rules for the 21st Century. (Obama's sooper-secrit corporate deal)

Biden’s son discharged from Navy after positive cocaine test - The Washington Post
Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton: It's Complicated - The Atlantic - Reporters have focused on how the former defense secretary's memoir praises her and criticizes the president. The book itself tells a different story ... As budget director and then White House chief of staff, Panetta was among the Clinton administration’s staunchest deficit hawks. (so he was wrong about everything)

Senate Forecast 2014 | The Huffington Post - 65% chance that Republicans will take control of the Senate. (America is really stupid)
Fate Of Obama's Judicial Nominees Unclear Under GOP-Controlled Senate
How Old People Will Decide Your Future - The Daily Beast - Older voters are the electorate’s fastest-growing demographic—and a major reason Republicans can win big in 2016.
Courting Corruption: The Auctioning of the Judicial System - The Atlantic - Don't believe the Citizens United pollyannas. Watching money flooding into elections for judges' seat shows how dangerous unregulated campaigns can be.
Another Winner From Late-Period Posner - As there is no evidence that voter impersonation fraud is a problem, how can the fact that a legislature says it’s a problem turn it into one? If the Wisconsin legislature says witches are a problem, shall Wisconsin courts be permitted to conduct witch trials


Arizona Same-Sex Marriage Ban Declared Unconstitutional
Wyoming's Gay Marriage Ban Struck Down As Unconstitutional

Colleges Are Already Screwing Up New Campus Safety Law That Includes Domestic Violence - At least 23 institutions (listed below) failed to include them, though the Education Department will not say whether colleges will face fines for not complying with those new rules that were already in place.

Southern Evangelicals: Dwindling—and Taking the GOP Edge With Them - The Atlantic - Why are Democrats keeping it close in five key Senate races? Look at changing demographics.
Joni Ernst’s hog-castrating ideology, revealed! - The Washington Post - In it, Ernst claims that we have created “a generation of people that rely on the government to provide absolutely everything for them,” and that wrenching them away from their dependence “is going to be very painful.”
Whistling Past the Graveyard » Balloon Juice - To put it bluntly: we’ve entrusted our national medical system to the managerial competence and goodwill of the Rick Scotts of the world, and that is much scarier than a podium fan.
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - A prohibition against using electronic devices during a political debate makes some sense, but no one in their right mind would think that such a prohibition was aimed at electronic devices that circulate air.

Small town's future uncertain after 'astronomical' jury verdict - Post and Courier - Mayor Tim Grimsley, a white-bearded Santa Claus figure who drives an old VW van, said business was normal in the wake of a $97.5 million award by a federal jury to the family of a town leader fatally shot by a Cottageville police officer three years ago. (bankrupt a few more towns, maybe they'll stop killing people)
St. Louis police officer under investigation following call to protester's employer : News - Within hours of the posting of the video, other Twitter users posted Novara’s cell number, photo and email address.

Tesla Faces Possible Prohibition of Sales in Michigan - Bloomberg - Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) would be blocked from selling its electric cars in Michigan under legislation that cleared the state’s legislature and now awaits Governor Rick Snyder’s signature to become law.

Scientists have found “hidden” brain activity that can indicate if a vegetative patient is aware - The new research could help doctors to quickly identify patients who are aware despite appearing unresponsive and unable to communicate.
JPL | News | Saturn Moon May Hide a 'Fossil' Core or an Ocean - A new study focused on the interior of Saturn's icy moon Mimas suggests its cratered surface hides one of two intriguing possibilities: Either the moon's frozen core is shaped something like a football, or the satellite contains a liquid water ocean.
xs
The Principle: A documentary about geocentrism. (no crazy too far)
The Principle | Not Even Wrong - The person behind this is Robert Sungenis, a bizarre figure with extreme religious views. He holds a Ph.D from an institution located in Vanuatu, and is an advocate of the idea of “geocentrism”, the idea that the Catholic church was right, and scientists since Galileo have got it all wrong
Welcome to GeocentrismDebunked.org - Debunking geocentrism, the idea that the entire universe revolves around a motionless Earth.Welcome to GeocentrismDebunked.org | Debunking geocentrism, the idea that the entire universe revolves around a motionless Earth. - “In fact, geocentrism is neither good science, nor is it supported by scriptural exegesis or patristics, nor is it Catholic doctrine. Rather, it is a dated scientific theory which no longer fits the appearances and which has no direct bearing upon Catholicism.”

Family in Anne Arundel pastry gun case loses school board appeal - The Washington Post - School officials in Anne Arundel County rejected an appeal filed by the family of a boy suspended after he chewed his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun, according to a decision the family’s lawyer received Wednesday. the so-called “Pop-Tart case.”

Christian Talk radio host accused of sex crime against 3-year-old | Local News - WYFF Home - Josh Kimbrell, who is the host of Common Cents on Christian Talk 660AM/92.9FM, is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11.
Lizzipp comments on On my grandmothers death bed, she asked me "Do you know who your real mother is?". What major "plot twist" moment have you had in your life?

Thousands of Macbook GPUs Failing - 18K signatures, a lawsuit, a Twitter campaign and a 600-page thread on their forum have yet to provoke any response from Apple : technology


Reddit, What are some of the most mysterious posts ever put on this site? : AskReddit
bigpandamonium comments on Redditors who have been in a coma, what is it like? Did you dream? What was it like waking up?


101614
Anthropocene: is this the new epoch of humans? | Science | The Guardian - Humanity’s terrifying impact on Earth justifies new Anthropocene epoch
Wind blows away fossil power in the Nordics, the Baltics next | Reuters - Rising wind power output pushes Nordic prices down

Ebola epidemic may not end without developing vaccine, scientist warns | World news | The Guardian - Professor Peter Piot, one of the scientists who discovered Ebola, claims scale of outbreak has got ‘completely out of hand’ (but Republicans will cut all their funding so they can scream some more)
Airline: CDC Warned Patient 'May Have Been Symptomatic' On Board
Amber Vinson, Nurse Infected With Ebola, May Have Felt Ill As Early As Friday
Texas healthcare workers at risk of Ebola asked to stay out of public | World news | theguardian.com - Seventy-five staff members of Dallas hospital asked to sign ‘binding legal order’ that states they will avoid public spaces
Amber Vinson, Dallas Ebola Patient, Says CDC Gave Her Green Light To Fly - Vinson told CBS Dallas Fort Worth that she was feeling ill before boarding her flight. She had a low grade fever, but she said that officials told her it was okay to get on the plane. Vinson told CBS that she called the CDC several times with concerns.
Experts Offer Steps for Avoiding Public Hysteria, a Different Contagious Threat - NYTimes.com
Downfall for Hospital Where Ebola Spread - NYTimes.com - Long regarded as one of the finest hospitals in Texas, Presbyterian has faced continuing criticism
Ebola crisis: Texas hospital ‘deeply sorry’ for case errors | World news | The Guardian - Official at the hospital where two nurses were infected while treating an Ebola patient has apologised for handling of outbreak
The Ebola outbreak this year that you won’t have heard about | David Heymann | Comment is free | The Guardian - another unrelated Ebola outbreak has taken place in the Equateur province of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Long Quest for Ebola Vaccine Slowed by Science, Ethics, Politics - There are no approved vaccines or treatments, but some in development look promising.
The Real Contagion - Esquire - In case you joined American democracy already in progress, this is the way it is going to work. The private, for-profit hospital in Texas completely screws the pooch. (They sent the tubes containing blood from the late Thomas Duncan through the hospital's general delivery system? This is moronic.) ... Fear will be mongered. Distrust will be sown. And the statistics will tell us that, throughout last year, we lost 30 people a day. No, wait. That was due to firearms. My bad.
The Partisan Divide on Ebola Preparedness - NYTimes.com - According to a new ABC News/Washington Post survey, only 54 percent of Republicans are confident in the federal government’s ability to respond effectively to Ebola — far fewer than the 76 percent of Democrats who expressed confidence (cut health funding, defund everything except rich people, can't connect any dots and neither can the NYT)
Republicans Are Responsible for the Ebola Crisis | Slog - . "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support," Dr. Collins said, "we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready." Our public health infrastructure is crumbling, and that's because of Republican-led budget cuts.

White House says expired War Powers timetable irrelevant to Isis campaign | US news | theguardian.com - Resolution holds that presidents have 60-day window to conduct hostilities without an act of Congress blessing the conflict
Isis targets Baghdad with wave of car bombs and mortar attacks killing 150 | World news | The Guardian - Islamic State car bombs hit Shia districts of Iraqi capital, with one attack killing 36 and wounding 98 within two hours
The Good, the Bad and the Messy: The Legacy of the First Gulf War | The National Interest - In short, the Gulf War seemed to suggest that international institutions, underwritten by revolutionary advances in American military power, could finally solve real military security problems. The political and technological foundations for a transformation in the functioning of global politics were in place. The intervening twenty-three years have given us time to reconsider this conclusion.

Don't Threaten Us, Says India After China Objects to Arunachal Road - Nobody should "threaten or warn India," said Home Minister Rajnath Singh after China objected to reported plans by India to build a 2,000-km long road along the border in Arunachal Pradesh.
Hong Kong chief executive calls for talks with student protesters | World news | The Guardian - Move comes as police use pepper spray to break up pro-democracy activists after video of beating reignites protests
Nearly 500 new FGM cases identified - NHS figures show 467 newly identified cases of girls and women needing treatment after female genital mutilation in England last month.

FBI director attacks tech companies for embracing new modes of encryption | US news | theguardian.com - James Comey says data encryption could deprive police and intelligence companies of potentially live-saving information (they couldn't save any lives before)
New York Times Reporter James Risen Shares The Terrorism Statistic You Won't Hear On Network News - The fear of terrorism has hung over the United States like a dark cloud in the 13 years since 9/11, but New York Times reporter James Risen says the tone of panic that often pervades the news media and the speeches of politicians is not in line with reality.
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War: James Risen, Christopher Lane: 9781491546536: Amazon.com: Books

Republicans Are People Too, Just Awful Ones Who Have No Decent Ideas and Cut Vital Health Funding To Prove It | Common Dreams

Insiders Blame Rove for Covering Up Iraq’s Real WMD - The Daily Beast - There’s one man, some Republicans say, who kept the public from learning about the chemical shells littered around the Iraqi battlefield. He was Bush's most important political adviser. (none of that makes sense)

Arkansas Supreme Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law - Arkansas' highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot,

Idaho begins issuing same-sex marriage licenses as ban dissolved | US news | theguardian.com - More than 100 people gathered at Boise courthouse as Idaho became the latest state to begin recognizing gay marriage

Texas abortion providers open and close on whims of recent rulings | US news | theguardian.com - In the two weeks before the US supreme court barred parts of Texas’ strict abortion law, abortion providers had to fire staff and lose leases

Milwaukee Police Fire Officer Who Shot Man in Park - ABC News - Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn has fired an officer who he said instigated a fight with a mentally ill man that eventually led the officer to shoot the man 14 times, killing him.


Cory Gardner Absolutely Nailed By Debate Moderators For Personhood Stance | Crooks and Liars - He then tells Gardner that they are instead looking at what "this entire episode may say about your judgement more broadly. "A favorable interpretation would be that you have a difficult time admitting when you're wrong." "A less charitable interpretation is that you're not telling us the truth," he concluded.

The age of loneliness is killing us | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - ‘Social isolation is as potent a cause of early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is twice as deadly as obesity.

Dogged by troubled iPad scheme, Los Angeles schools chief resigns | US news | theguardian.com - John Deasy had clashed with union and lost allies on board - a $1bn plan to give each student an iPad was fraught with problems (Android much cheaper, for one)
iFail: Why John Deasy's Risky iPad Gambit Crashed and Burned at LAUSD | The Informer | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly - everything from LAUSD students "hacking" devices to the incomplete iPAD-friendly software to an allegedly chummy bidding process in which Deasy gave Apple and Pearson, the software company, a leg up ... even though older students — high schoolers in particular — clearly needed keyboards to write their reports and papers (iPad least suited to task)
#PhlEd: SRC Member to Students: “You Must Go to Failing Schools” | Raging Chicken Press - It looks like Sylvia Simms yelled “You must go to failing schools…you all belong in jail” at a screening of Won’t Back Down, the movie that promotes right-wing stereotypes of public school teachers and attacks teachers unions. (worst person of the day)

Revealed: how Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users | Technology | The Guardian ("privacy" apps sends data to NSA and Israel, probably
How the 'safest place on the internet' tracks its users | World news | The Guardian - Whisper app that was intended to be a safe haven for anonymity is exploiting a vast library of texts, photographs and, in many cases, the location of their authors – from Guantánamo to the White House

101514
Lockheed announces breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy | Environment | theguardian.com - 100MW reactor small enough to fit on back of a truck Cleaner energy source could be in use within 10 years

Second Texas nurse with Ebola to be transferred to special facility | World news | theguardian.com - CDC admits failings as director says nurse should not have been allowed on commercial flight in days before diagnosis (exposed to Ebola, get on a plane)
Second Ebola-Infected Nurse Identified, Was Symptomatic With 99.5 Degree Fever While Flying | Zero Hedge
2nd Dallas nurse with Ebola flew with 132 passengers day before showing symptoms — RT USA
Texas dept.: 2nd person tests positive for Ebola - WFLA News Channel 8 - A second health care worker at a Dallas hospital who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. has tested positive for the diseas
Second Health Care Worker With Ebola Was In Isolation Within 90 Minutes: Official
Ebola Strikes Second Texas Hospital Worker and More Cases a 'Possibility' - ABC News
Dallas Nurses Cite Sloppy Conditions In Ebola Care - Nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for a patient with explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting
OSHA provides guidance on cleaning surfaces that may be contaminated with Ebola - Transportation, Safety, Human Resources Compliance - J. J. Keller & Associates
Megyn Kelly's Fiery Interview With CDC Director Over Ebola - She accused the CDC of presenting some "misplaced" and "wrong" information on how the Dallas health care worker who treated a patient with Ebola managed to contract the disease despite allegedly taking safety precautions.
Jon Stewart Finds Sanity-Resistant Strain Of Ebola Fear In Congress
NYC rats are infected with at least 18 new viruses, according to scientists | The Verge - Fortunately bubonic plague was not found

Islamic State Militants And Kurdish Fighters Battle In The Streets Of Syria's Kobani
IRBIL, Iraq: Iraqis desperate for air cover as U.S. moves warplanes to Kobani | Iraq | McClatchy DC
C.I.A. Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels - NYTimes.com - many past attempts by the agency to arm foreign forces covertly had a minimal impact on the long-term outcome of a conflict. They were even less effective, the report found, when the militias fought without any direct American support on the ground.
CIA Report: The CIA Is Fucking Useless - The latest findings from our nation's top intelligence and black ops agency: our black ops have historically been pretty fucking worthless.
The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons - NYTimes.com - From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Cairo rocked by bomb blast after Islamic militants sentenced to death | World news | The Guardian - Twelve people injured in explosion in centre of city following sentencing of seven militants over killing of soldiers last year

David Greenglass, spy who sent sister Ethel Rosenberg to electric chair, dies | World news | theguardian.com - Sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed for passing atomic secrets to Russia, announce death of estranged uncle

No, Bush was not right about Iraq: How conservatives misread new Times bombshell - Salon.com - The right says a new NY Times report on chemical weapons in Iraq vindicates Bush. Even Team Bush disagrees!

Tennessee anti-abortion Amendment 1: Voters will decide whether legislature regulates women’s health. - That’s right. Tennessee is trying to amend its constitution to never protect abortion, ever, under any circumstance.
Lacey Weld case: Tennessee woman gets six extra years in prison for being pregnant when arrested.
What Stand Your Ground Really Means - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In other words, a woman using armed force to defend herself against a home invading man she had a relationship with doesn’t apply because, again, these laws are about white dudes. And South Carolina refuses to take domestic violence seriously even thought it is an epidemic:

Orphaned by deportation: the crisis of American children left behind | US news | theguardian.com - Andrés Jiménez, under the guardianship of a Florida ‘fairy godmother’ after his father’s deportation, is one of hundreds of children whose families are broken by a fickle system

The Report - How to Fix Congress Now - Esquire - Senator Tom Daschle, Representative Barney Frank, Representative Bob Livingston, Senator Trent Lott, and Lawrence O’Donnell convened in Washington, D. C., and came to unanimous consensus on the following recommendations to reform Congress for the Twenty-First century

Look, Decent Pensions Are Possible - I'll tell you what is really exciting: the cold hard fiscal facts about how this nation is screwing its retirees and what we might learn from a friendly nation by the name of "THE NETHERLANDS," when it comes to proper accounting practices that can assure pension stability. That is "exciting." Because you don't want to be old and broke!

Party Of Ideas - Esquire - wonderful tale of Ron Beaty, Jr., the official, anointed-by-primary Republican candidate for the state legislature down on Cape Cod, the bicep of the Commonwealth (God save it!).

New York police unions push to continue appeal of stop-and-frisk ruling | US news | theguardian.com - Federal judge branded policy discriminatory in 2013 ruling Six-judge panel to hear union case on Wednesday
New York man wrongfully convicted of murder freed after 29 years in prison | US news | theguardian.com - David McCallum calls release a ‘bittersweet moment’ after proseecutors concluded he falsely confessed when he was 16
High School Football Players Secretly Record Girls In Locker Room: Cops - New Mexico state police are investigating allegations that members of a high school football team secretly videotaped the girls' volleyball team as they changed in an adjacent locker room, authorities said on Wednesday.
Teen Arrested For Tipping Waitress With Feces-covered Money - The incident happened Sunday afternoon after the Brothers Bar & Grill waitress left the bill at a table where the unnamed teen sat with three members of the Ball State football team.

Ivory Tower Phony? Sex, Lies and Fraud Alleged in W. Va. University Case - NBC News.com - But there was a problem: Shankar isn’t a Ph.D. He didn’t graduate from the Harvard of India. He didn’t write dozens of the scholarly publications on his resume, and as for the Royal College of Physicians, they’ve never heard of him.

Powerful quantum computers move a step closer to reality | Technology | theguardian.com - A research team from Australia has pushed quantum computers closer to fruition, but a former NSA director warns that the technology could break encryption

Consent Is Not A Particularly Mysterious Concept - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Feminist games critic cancels talk after terror threat | Technology | theguardian.com - Anita Sarkeesian cancels talk at Utah State University over threats of ‘the deadliest school shooting’ in US history
Hip Alt-Lit Editor Quits Public Writing Career After Rape Accusations - other writers have said that Katz was writing about Stephen Tully Dierks, the 29-year-old editor of the alt-lit mag Pop Serial. Pop Serial is influential in the close-knit alt-lit scene
What Counts? Elizabeth Ellen and What Makes A Victim - , writer Sophia Katz published an essay about her rape by a literary magazine editor later identified as Stephen Tully Dierks. In the second, the ex of novelist Tao Lin, E.R. Kennedy, accused him of statutory rape and abusive behavior during their relationship several years ago ... Elizabeth Ellen’s sister did not consent to being molested and did not consent to being publicly outed as a victim of abuse in a magazine article questioning the validity of another woman’s rape. It is profoundly troubling that Ellen did not take this into consideration before deciding to share her essay with the world. (E. Ellen just make a big mistake)
Alt-Lit Icon Tao Lin Accused of Statutory Rape and Abuse [Updated] ("His father invented Lasik. That is a true fact.")

Obama is siding with Amazon at the Supreme Court. It's both illogical and inhumane. - The Week - The administration is indirectly backing the giant e-retailer in a dispute with warehouse workers - The workers allege that they were required to undergo a security process that took as long as 25 minutes after an exhausting 12-hour shift. Although the checks are mandatory, the temp agency refused to compensate the workers for their time.

The Verge - All Posts (fulltextrssfeed.com)

Active Perception in the History of Philosophy: From Plato to Modern Philosophy // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame - The fifteen papers in this collection focus on the basic idea that perception is an activity -- something we do rather than something we undergo.

101414
Paul Ryan Thinks Humans Might Not Be The Cause Of Climate Change - "I don't know the answer to that question," Ryan said. "I don't think science does, either."

Sixty Days To Beat Ebola, United Nations Warns - If the deadly outbreak cannot be reined in by Christmas then the UN says there is no plan in place and it could be overwhelmed.
Ebola crisis: Outbreak death toll rises to 4,447 says WHO
New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Health Officials Predict - NYTimes.com
Health Officials Monitoring 125 For Ebola Symptoms - Health officials are now monitoring 125 people who had either definite or possible exposure to the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
WHO: New Ebola Cases Could Be Up To 10,000 Per Week In 2 Months
Cases of Ebola Diagnosed in the United States | Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever | CDC
Spain Exposes Holes in Plans To Treat Ebola - NYTimes.com - The city’s infectious disease center had been mostly dismantled as part of a government cost-cutting plan, and a temporary Ebola ward would have to constructed (Merkel told them to do austerity)
US nurse with Ebola 'doing well' in isolation as hospital monitors others | World news | theguardian.com - Nina Pham, the first person to contract Ebola in the US, was one of 70 who treated the country’s patient zero of the virus
2014 Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo | Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever | CDC - As of October 5, 2014, there have been 70 cases of Ebola virus disease reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In total, 43 deaths have been reported. This outbreak is unrelated to the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
Sierra Leone soldier with Ebola is not peacekeeper - WTOP.com - The country's chief medical officer put herself under quarantine about two weeks ago, after her office assistant died of Ebola.

Our failing war against the Islamic State - The Washington Post - It’s not too soon to state the obvious: At this point, the war against the Islamic State can be seen only as failing.
White House insists anti-Isis strategy is on track despite setbacks on the ground | World news | The Guardian - Isis advances on Baghdad and Kobani despite 21 air strikes Turkey bombs Kurdish targets in south-east of country (musical bombs)
US security contractor shot dead in Saudi Arabian capital | World news | theguardian.com - One American killed and another wounded in gun attack at petrol station in eastern district of Riyadh
Ultra-secret 'White Shroud' group striking terror in ISIS militants | Zee News - 'White Shroud' - a group that claims to have killed more than 100 militant fighters in in attacks in Deir al-Zor province - is reference to the death shroud that awaits the Islamic State militants for their crimes against the innocent Syrian people, said the group leader who gave his name as Abu Aboud.

Jewish settlers set fire to mosque in Palestinian city | Business Standard News - A group of radical Jewish settlers Tuesday torched a mosque south of the Palestinian city of Nablus, officials said.
A Symbolic Vote in Britain Recognizes a Palestinian State - NYTimes.com
Israel Blasts British Over 274-12 Vote for 'Palestine' – Forward.com
Israel Blasts British Over 274-12 Vote for 'Palestine' : worldnews - Everybody has to move, run and grab as many [Palestinian] hilltops as they can to enlarge the [Jewish] settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them.[1]

Ireland closing a tax loophole that saved billions for Apple, Google, and Facebook | The Verge - . "I am abolishing the ability of companies to use the ‘double Irish’ by changing our residency rules to require all companies registered in Ireland to also be tax resident[s]."

?How an FBI Informant Ordered the Hack of British Tabloid 'The Sun' | Motherboard
Data of 850,000 job seekers of Oregon potentially compromised. - News emerge of another hack taking place, this time in Oregon, USA. The system in question is Oregon Employment Department’s WorkSource Oregon Management Information System (WOMIS).

Nobody Understands the Liquidity Trap, Cliff Asness Edition - NYTimes.com - But if you’re one of those people who don’t have time to understand the monetary debate, I have a simple piece of advice: Don’t lecture the chairman of the Fed on monetary policy.

The DSCC is no longer running ads against Mitch McConnell - The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has gone dark in Kentucky, where the party is targeting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Eschaton: Run Mittens Run - Political reporters love Republicans so much that there are about 20 of them who are unstoppable 2016 juggernauts and also, too, apparently Mitt's the boss ... Just how Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry were treated...
South Dakota Senate Candidate Larry Pressler Would Work with Obama | New Republic - He wants to means test Medicare and raise the retirement age for Social Security. He also would consider overturning Roe vs. Wade and is a big proponent of tort reform.
Jefferson County official says she meant 'no ill intent' to Obama in Facebook post : News - having not put on a uniform nor taken any type military oath, there has to be something that I am just not aware of. But I cannot and do not understand why no action is being taken against our domestic enemy. I know he is supposedly the commander in chief, but the constitution gives you the authority. What am I missing? (treason?)

Texas Voter ID Law Deemed 'Poll Tax' Reinstated by Appeals Court
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Doesn't Think The Minimum Wage 'Serves A Purpose'

Supreme Court Stops Parts Of Texas Abortion Law
Abortion Rights Without Apology - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Katha Pollitt has a fantastic looking new book about abortion rights coming out. This, in turn, has led to some excellent writing from Laurie Abraham, Hanna Rosin, Lindsay Beyerstein, and Jill Filipovic. I liked Rosin’s open in particular:
Eschaton: Miniature American Flags For Others - What was especially maddening about Saletan-esque arguments over the years, aside from their clear wrongness, was that he seemed to truly believe that if only pro-choice people would admit it was all so icky and horrible then anti-abortion people would just surrender and go home. It was the position that only a High Priest Of Punditry could take, that the discourse was more important than the policy.

The many reasons millennials are shunning cars - The Washington Post - Whatever millennials do right now, it's highly likely that they'll drive more as they age into their 30s and 40s. The question is whether they'll continue to drive less than their parents did at each stage of life — and whether future generations will replicate their patterns.

Yes, It's Legal To Film The Cops -- And What's Been Filmed In Recent Months Is Appalling

Doctor involved in botched execution 'experimented' on inmate, suit claims | World news | theguardian.com - Family of Clayton Lockett, who was killed in prolonged execution, names doctor and says he violated rule established at Nuremberg trials

This Video Shows An Arizona Police Officer Telling An Immigrant He'll Kill Him If He Moves

A Cure for Hyper-Parenting - NYTimes.com - PARIS — I recently spent the afternoon with some Norwegians who are making a documentary about French child-rearing. Why would people in one of the world’s most successful countries care how anyone else raises kids?

Debating God: Notes on an Unanswered Question - NYTimes.com - the first interview: 73 percent of philosophers said they accepted or were inclined to atheism, while 15 percent accepted or inclined to theism.

There's half as much dark matter in the Milky Way as we thought, new research suggests - Australian astronomers have calculated the weight of mysterious dark matter in our galaxy, and discovered it's far less than previously predicted.
Real happenings and Facts: Scientists have confirmed today that Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, has a watery ocean - Enceladus is the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn, with a mean radius of 252 km (156 miles). In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft spotted what appeared to be plumes of water shooting into space from cracks in the icy surface of Enceladus. The only reasonable explanation would be that the moon has an ocean of liquid water under the ice. Now, a team led by Luciano Iess of theUniversity of Rome confirmed that the ocean exists, and also showed that, like Earth’s, it doesn’t cover the entire surface.
Oh brother! Having a sibling makes boys selfless - A new study brings good news to all the brothers out there: Having a sibling is just as good for you as it is for your sister. That’s surprising to family scholars because boys typically report that they benefit less than girls from peer relationships.
Memory researchers publish a failure to replicate their own work. : science

The Future Of The Culture Wars Is Here, And It's Gamergate
Russian Programmer Linked to Mass Celebrity Nude Photos Leak | News | The Moscow Times - A Russian computer programmer who uploaded thousands of naked Hollywood celebrities' photos to a U.S.-based website has denied hacking the pictures from Apple's iCloud storage system, saying the images were already available online.

What is your favorite pickup line? : AskReddit
Router that anonymises internet activity raises $300,000 on Kickstarter | Technology | theguardian.com - Anonabox, a device that re-routes data through the cloaking Tor network, is tool for freedom of information, developer says

101314
NASA now says vast methane cloud over U.S. southwest is for real - A cloud of methane gas about the size of Delaware was detected over the Four Corners area of the American southwest years ago. The readings were so unusually high that NASA scientists dismissed them. A new study confirms the methane hotspot is real. (coal and gas fracking; karma gets local)
The Planet Just Had Its Hottest September On Record | ThinkProgress
Sea level rise over past century unmatched in 6,000 years, says study | Environment | theguardian.com - Research finds 20cm rise since start of 20th century, caused by global warming and the melting of polar ice, is unprecedented ("polar" and "ice" added to Republican anti-dictionary)
Pentagon: global warming will change how US military trains and goes to war | Environment | theguardian.com - Climate change to become immediate factor for all strategic, operational and planning decisions

Typhoon Vongfong hits Japan | World news | theguardian.com - At least one person missing, dozens injured and flights grounded as typhoon makes landfall in Makurazaki

WHO: Ebola Is Modern Era's Worst Health Emergency - WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, citing World Bank figures, said 90 percent of economic costs of any outbreak "come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection."
Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director (Repubicans destroying the planet and the dots are so are to connect)
Brutal New Ad Blames GOP Spending Cuts For Ebola Deaths - "Republican cuts kill"
CHART: Public Health Emergency Funding Has Taken Major Hit
Canadian-made Ebola vaccine begins human trials in US | World news | theguardian.com - Experimental vaccine has shown to be ‘100% effective’ in preventing spread of Ebola when tested on animals
CDC chief urges US 'rethink' of Ebola strategy after second diagnosis | World news | theguardian.com - CDC chief says hospitals need to be prepared to diagnose patients after officials confirm first case contracted in the US
CDC Director Criticized For Blaming 'Protocol Breach' As Nurse Gets Ebola
Monitoring Of Hospital Workers Intensifies After First Transmitted Ebola Case
Massachusetts Man Doesn't Appear To Have Ebola, Hospital Says - The patient, who recently returned from Liberia, had complained of headache and muscle aches, prompting his admittance to an isolation ward with close monitoring, the hospital said.
Louisiana attorney general tries to block ashes of Dallas Ebola victim from entering state  - NY Daily News - The incinerated ashes of Thomas Duncan's belongings are slated to be dumped in a hazardous waste landfill in Calcasieu Parish.

Vatican Proposes Dramatic Shift In Attitude Towards Gays, Same Sex Couples - a Vatican document said on Monday that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples.
Federal judge rules Alaska's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional | Alaska Dispatch - A federal judge ruled Sunday that Alaska’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, paving the way for same-sex couples to begin marrying in the state for the first time. The state quickly said it would appeal the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess, despite recent higher court rulings striking down similar bans around the country.
Judge approves landmark settlement in Minnesota Catholic church abuse case | US news | theguardian.com - Plaintiffs’ lawyer: ‘This is a landmark case’ Catholic church leaders accused of creating public nuisance

Islamic State captive Peter Kassig told parents his 'time was running out' | World news | theguardian.com - Parents of US aid worker threatened with beheading in Syria, released more details from son’s letter written in captivity

Kim Jong-un reappears after six-week absence | World news | The Guardian - North Korean leader makes two official visits, putting an end to speculation over his health and talk of a possible coup

Ban Ki-moon criticises Israel for new settlement-building plans | World news | The Guardian - UN secretary general also calls on Binyamin Netanyahu to show leadership and resume the peace process with Palestinians
Salzburg to pay €1m to prostitutes for illegal medical check charges | World news | The Guardian - Austrian state to reimburse about 600 local sex workers after €35 medical fee introduced in 2010 challenged by brothel owner
?Denmark to ban sex with animals — RT News

Germany's Austerity Obsession Could Take Down The Global Economy - Austerity is the opposite of the gift that keeps on giving: It just keeps taking and taking. (Merkel ran Europe into the ground with her Barvarian housefrau mentality)
Robert Samuelson Tells Us It's All So Complicated! | Beat the Press (Samuelson's pet solution, kicking the poors, failed, so he wants to kick the poors some more)
GOP Civil War: Huckabee Demands Republicans "Grow A Spine" And Oppose Marriage Equality | Blog | Media Matters for America - "utterly disgusted" with Republican governors and other officials that complied with the court orders overturning same-sex marriage bans, arguing that they should "[g]row a spine, show a modicum of knowledge about the way we govern ourselves, and lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way."

The Virtual Interview: Edward Snowden – The New Yorker Festival - YouTube
Edward Snowden: state surveillance in Britain has no limits | World news | The Guardian - Whistleblower and former NSA analyst says UK regulation allows GCHQ snooping to go beyond anything seen in US
The errors of Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald | Prospect Magazine - The NSA disclosures are disturbing but they don’t portend a totalitarian state (May 2014)
George Packer and his problems — Crooked Timber - George Packer’s review of Glenn Greenwald’s book on the Snowden affair is largely based around an argument taken from Max Weber (Packer is very jealous of Glen Greenwald, disses him in the NYorker piece)

Former NSA Director Says Government Shouldn't Pursue Reporter James Risen - Michael Hayden says he is "conflicted" about whether reporter James Risen should be compelled to reveal his sources. ("damaged national security")
In ‘Pay Any Price,’ James Risen Examines the War on Terror - NYTimes.com - In “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War,” James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, sets out to portray the many seamy sides of the war on terror during the past 13 years - “We have scared the hell out of ourselves,”
Jill Abramson regrets stance on James Risen Iran story - politico.com

2014 Midterm Elections: What a Republican Congress Will Look Like | New Republic - The five things to fear about a Republican Congress
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws - NYTimes.com - Voter ID laws, as their supporters know, do only one thing very well: They keep otherwise eligible voters away from the polls. (war on voters)
The Republican War on Women Continues, Just More Quietly - The Daily Beast - Republicans are still saying crazy stuff about women. Just not quite as crazy as what Todd Akin said. Will women—and the media—notice?

The Truth Hurts » Balloon Juice - The only people I see getting the vapors about the Davis ad are opportunistic wingnuts and chattering classes (like Taegan Goddard)

Blake Lively's Fall Fashion Inspiration Is Slaveowners

Oklahoma delays executions again despite unveiling new death chamber | US news | theguardian.com - State lacks drug supply and trained medical staff Three executions had been scheduled for 13 November (airsrikes!)
Solitary confinement is cruel and all too usual. Why is it only getting worse? | Tessa Murphy | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Depriving prisoners of space, light and human contact isn’t rehabilitation – it’s a gross violation of human rights (America, land of sadists)
Violent police 'home invasion' leads to $66K bill for victims - Nova Scotia - CBC News - Gilbert was also made to pay $1,000 toward the Bishops' costs. That infuriated the siblings, because their legal bill alone is 66 times that.

Clergy among dozens arrested on final day of Ferguson 'Weekend of Resistance' protests | US news | theguardian.com - Hundreds marched on Ferguson police station in ‘Weekend of Resistance’ to protest killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown

7 Sayreville football players charged in hazing, sexual assault of teammates (Exclusive) | NJ.com - At least six members of the Sayreville High School football team were taken into custody by police this evening on charges in connection with a series of locker room sexual assaults on four victims
Student-athlete hazing victims may number 800,000 per year | Sport | theguardian.com - Research says hazing is underreported and rampant in US

Birth control pills threaten fish populations, study warns | The Chronicle Herald - The study, which was being published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on Monday, found that introducing small amounts of estrogen into a lake led to the near extinction of the fathead minnow because it interfered with the fish’s ability to reproduce.
In 'Cosmigraphics,' Our Changing Pictures of Space Through Time - NYTimes.com - In 'Cosmigraphics,' Our Changing Pictures of Space Through Time
Criticism of Study Detecting Ripples From Big Bang Continues to Expand - NYTimes.com - Stardust got in their eyes.

Marriage Is an Abduction - The New Yorker - Affleck’s Nick is a visual reminder of the fact that men can live their lives, eat whatever it occurs to them to eat, get older, let their guts hang out, and still have gorgeous young girls falling into their laps.

California police field reports of creepy clowns - Yahoo News - Reports of creepy clowns carrying knives and other weapons have been scaring people in the California city of Bakersfield for the past week, police said on Sunday.
Dogs use teamwork to get ball out of the pool [x-post from /r/AnimalsBeingBros] : gifs
New York Comic Con Cosplay gallery (via Tested.com) - Imgur
You're Getting Old!
What are some websites that don't usually show up on Google, or that are interesting but are almost impossible to find? : AskReddit
Space Buckets | DIY indoor gardening

Millions of voiceprints quietly being harvested as latest identification tool | Technology | theguardian.com - ‘Voice biometrics will be the de facto standard in 2-3 years’ More than 65m voiceprints already on databases
Voiceprints Being Harvested by the Millions - ABC News - Businesses and governments around the world increasingly are turning to voice biometrics, or voiceprints, to pay pensions, collect taxes, track criminals and replace passwords.
Third-party Snapchat site claims photos were hacked from server | Technology | theguardian.com - Developers behind Snapsaved.com, which stores Snapchat pictures, claim user photos were stolen - while another claim the site’s administrator gave access to hackers

101214
Cyclone Hudhud Lashes Eastern Seaboard Of India
Chinese Emissions and American Consumption - Lawyers, Guns & Money : a lot of that Chinese production is for the American market and our companies choosing to export production to China make those emissions as much American responsibility as Chinese. (outsourcing jobs and pollution)
Republicans Want to Send Your Job Overseas - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Yesterday, Republicans filibustered a bill that would take away tax breaks that encourage jobs to be outsourced overseas.
Naomi Klein: ‘We Can’t Dodge This Fight’ Between Capitalism and Climate Change - In These Times - The author explains why right-wing climate-change deniers are more right than you think.

Patient Isolated, Transported for Possible Ebola Symptoms in Braintree, Mass. | NECN - Officials say the man was in isolation at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates out of an abundance of caution and was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Texas Health Worker Tests Positive for Ebola - NYTimes.com
Texas Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola - A Texas health care worker who was in full protective gear when they provided hospital care for an Ebola patient who later died has tested positive for the virus and is in stable condition, health officials said Sunday.
CDC Director: New Ebola Case Shows There Was ‘Clearly a Breach of Protocol’ | Mediaite
Expert: US Ebola transmission 'distressing' | TheHill - “Let’s all recognize that the most hazardous time for worker is when they’re taking the gear off,” Schaffner said, adding that workers must follow a “careful sequence” in a “deliberative fashion” so they don’t contaminate themselves.
Second Ebola Case in Dallas Shows Limits of Protective Gear - The Daily Beast - While the U.S. public is not any greater danger from Ebola, health care workers remain at risk.
McCain calls for Ebola 'czar' | TheHill - called for President Obama to nominate an Ebola "czar" to coordinate the administration’s response to the deadly virus. (who McCain will promptly block like all the other nominations)
Conservative icon: Obama wants Americans to die from Ebola in order to make US more like Africa - “Obama doesn’t want America to believe that we’re exceptional. He wants us to be just like everybody else, and if Africa is suffering from Ebola, we ought to join the group and be suffering from it, too. That’s his attitude.”
The Tenacious Buzz of Malaria - WSJ - Today, it sickens 300 million every year, and kills nearly 1 million, despite the fact that we've known how to cure it (with parasite-killing drugs) and prevent it (by avoiding mosquito bites) for over a century.

Al-Qaeda terror financier worked for Qatari government - Salim Hasan Khalifa Rashid al-Kuwari is on a US terror sanctions list over the channelling of hundreds of thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda

Investigation Into Missing Iraqi Cash Ended in Lebanon Bunker - NYTimes.com - $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion had been stolen and moved to a bunker in rural Lebanon for safe keeping

Laura Poitras’s Closeup View of Edward Snowden - Laura Poitras’s closeup view of Edward Snowden.
2014 Lovejoy Address by James Risen · Elijah Parish Lovejoy Journalism Award · Colby College - it’s a great pleasure to be here at Colby, and I’m deeply honored to receive the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award
UK: Now Hackers can face life in prison under new Government's Law - So, UK Government rolled out a new crime law against hackers in which Hackers can face life sentences, means if a hacker harms the the service we talked above will be sentenced for whole life. (more English class, hacker-dudes)

Lehman Brothers’ Demise: Barney Frank’s View - NYTimes.com - The next morning, I learned that three British regulators — the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority — unanimously agreed that Lehman’s was so far from solvency that allowing Barclay’s to acquire it would threaten the stability of Britain’s financial system.

Obama FCC net neutrality plan: Opposition signaled | BGR - Obama is unhappy with the Internet ‘fast lane’ plan proposed by the ex-cable lobbyist he tapped to run the FCC (who could have predicted a corporate lobbyist would be corporate?)
EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over” - Salon.com - "There has not been nearly enough change," she tells Salon, taking on Obama failures, lobbyists, tuition. So 2016? (Summers, Geitner, Bernanke, who could have predicted?)

Jesso on Twitter: "Note the lack of nametags. Again. RT @deray: Even TODAY, the police record protestors. Can't make it up. #Ferguson http://t.co/RFvbKGyc8M" - Note the lack of nametags. Again. RT @deray: Even TODAY, the police record protestors. Can't make it up.

Eschaton: Steal Your Money To Buy Death Toys For The Boys - What a country.
Asset seizures fuel police spending | The Washington Post - Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.

The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision - The failure to think for ourselves will lead us to distrust others and so hand over complete control to a select few (Fox took care of that by thinking for stupid people)

7 New Jersey students charged with sex crimes in hazing of football players | Daily Mail Online - Comes after reports that senior students were 'sticking their finger in the rectums of freshmen players, and then in their mouths'
Cancellation of High School Football Season Leads Sayreville to Ask What Happens Next - NYTimes.com - Late on a graying and increasingly gloomy Friday afternoon, with its vaunted football team shut down, shamed and soon to be scarred by the arrest of seven players ages 15 to 17 on sexual crime charges, the band played on ... quoted several of Najjar’s former players at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn about initiations like paddling that were routine in the 1980s during preseason training camp. (the fucking 80's? dude's been around way too long) you go into the diner down the street and you’ve got all these 50-year-old men in their Bombers caps and sweatshirts. “Honestly, I don’t get it. I understand if you’re in Texas, or Iowa, in a town where there’s nothing else around for 20 miles.”

Autism as a disorder of prediction | MIT News - autism may be rooted in an impaired ability to predict events and other people’s actions. From the perspective of the autistic child, the world appears to be a “magical” rather than an orderly place, because events seem to occur randomly and unpredictably. In this view, autism symptoms such as repetitive behavior, and an insistence on a highly structured environment, are coping strategies to help deal with this unpredictable world.
Can Celiac Disease Affect the Brain? - NYTimes.com - That, along with an odd rash, prompted Dr. Lagrange to think beyond the brain. Antibody tests, followed by an intestinal biopsy, indicated celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder of the gut triggered by the gluten proteins in wheat and other grains. Once on a gluten-free diet, the man’s seizures stopped; those brain lesions gradually disappeared. He made a “nearly complete recovery,” Dr. Lagrange told me.
A Promising Pill, Not So Hard to Swallow - NYTimes.com (poop pills)
Heavier Babies Do Better in School - NYTimes.com - 10-pound baby will score an average of 80 points higher on the 1,600-point SAT than a six-pound baby (conventional medical wisdom wrong again)
The Alarming New Research on Perfectionism -- Science of Us (it makes you want to kill yourself)

13 charts that explain why your college major matters - Vox (petroleum engineer wins unless you want to be happy, in which case try religion or nursing; never be an English major)

“It’s a Wonderful Life” Is Communist Propaganda | News | Philadelphia Magazine - Well, in 1947, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI sent out a memo stating, “With regard to the picture ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a “scrooge-type” so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.” (stupid then, stupid now)

This Picture of Boston, Circa 1860, Is the World’s Oldest Surviving Aerial Photo | Smart News | Smithsonian
The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe | History | Smithsonian - Was the famous author killed from a beating? From carbon monoxide poisoning? From alcohol withdrawal? Here are the top nine theories

Sci-Fi's Hottest New Writer Won't Tell You the Sex of Her Characters | WIRED
Learning About Sex From Google by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - American states that identify as more religious and conservative are also more apt to search for sex online (no sex-ed, abstinence-only)

A person so good at his job - This is one big reason I don’t like Sam Harris - From time to time one discovers a person so good at his job that it is almost impossible to imagine him doing anything else."
It's not just Bill Maher: Islamophobia on cable news is out of control - Vox

Christian Right-Wingers Love Porn: New Studies Suggest the Bible Belt Has A Kinky Side - The Daily Beast - So of course the study finds that religious communities have a higher percentage of sex-related searches. That’s what happens when you can’t find it elsewhere. Just under a third of all homemade sex tape submissions were created in the “Bible Belt.” Perhaps even more surprising is the increased female involvement. women are now submitting their own videos almost as much as men

Game Developer Brianna Wu Flees Home After Death Threats
No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry | Polygon
Remember, #gamergate isn’t about attacking women - So tweeted Brianna Wu, along with a series of explicitly threatening tweets she received, and
A Thing About #GamerGate - John Walker's Electronic House
Stop supporting Gamergate | The Verge - Don't be fooled by "gamers" who want to enlist you for abuse
#GamerGate Is Not A Hate Group, It's A Consumer Movement - Forbes

? World Cup - Foot 2014 (Rémi Gaillard) - YouTube
Physics! : gifs
? McDonald's GOL! FIFA World Cup - Brasil 2014 | McDonald's - YouTube
'Who gave you this gold medal, sir?' 'The King of Sweden': American Nobel Prize winner for Physics explains what happened when the airport security questioned him over the prize! - IBNLive - And they're like, 'Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?' 'The King of Sweden.' 'Why did he give this to you?' 'Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.'

Techdirt's Response To Roca Labs' Demand For A Retraction | Techdirt - As you know, we've been reporting on a lawsuit involving Roca Labs against Consumer Opinion Corporation, better known as PissedConsumer. (redact this, now much more famous assholes than you were before)

101114
Cyclone Hudhud: hundreds of thousands evacuated in India | World news | theguardian.com - Storm set to hit largest city in Andhra Pradesh while typhoon Vonfong is set make landfall in Japanese island of Kyushu

You Thought California's Drought Couldn't Get Any Worse? Enter Fracking. | Mother Jones - I have a great idea. Let's take one of the globe's most important agricultural regions, one with severe water constraints and a fast-dropping water table. And let's set up shop there with a highly water-intensive form of fossil fuel extraction, one that throws off copious amounts of toxic wastewater. Nothing could possibly go wrong ... right? Well...

Officials Admit a ‘Defeat’ by Ebola in Sierra Leone - NYTimes.com

They're Not Kidding - Esquire - As the American political dialogue, from which no wingnut truly can ever fall, entertains the notion that the president is deliberately allowing the Ebola virus to come here for Halloween, or that he is imperiling lives of American soldiers by sending them to Africa to fight disease rather than imperiling their lives by sending them to Syria to fight almost everybody, the people actually in the trenches keep standing up and screaming for attention.

With its pick, Nobel Committee draws renewed attention to India-Pakistan conflict - The Washington Post

U.S.-led air war in Syria is off to a difficult start - The Washington Post

Boko Haram frees 27 hostages, says Cameroon government | World news | theguardian.com - Ten Chinese workers and the wife of Cameroon’s deputy prime minister among those released, president announces

David Cameron pushes for repeal of U.K.'s Human Rights Act - UPI.com - British Prime Minister David Cameron said he intends to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. (for rich people)

Citizenfour review – Poitras' victorious film shows Snowden vindicated | Film | theguardian.com - Laura Poitras’ documentary disentangles NSA surveillance and plots the story of Edward Snowden in Hong Kong and Moscow
Edward Snowden's girlfriend living with him in Moscow, film reveals | US news | theguardian.com - Lindsay Mills, thought to have been deserted by Snowden before NSA revelations, appears beside whistleblower in Citizenfour
Second leaker in US intelligence, says Glenn Greenwald | US news | theguardian.com - Citizenfour, new film on spying whistleblower Edward Snowden, shows journalist Greenwald discussing other source
New leaker disclosing US secrets, government concludes - CNN.com
Why Privacy Matters: A TED Talk by Glenn Greenwald - The Intercept
Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany - The Intercept - The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Kill The Messenger: How The Media Destroyed Gary Webb (who revealed crack epidemic started by CIA to fund the Contras; took 18 years for the truth to be recognized)

Please Tell Me More About How It Was Obama Who Failed To Close Gitmo | Crooks and Liars - “I stopped him once from trying to send a Gitmo terrorist to Leavenworth. I shall do it again, I shall do it again and if he tries it again I will shut down the Senate,” Roberts said

Europanic 2.0 - NYTimes.com - The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought. (austerity fail; Merkel has destroyed Europe)

Turnout fears mount for Dems | TheHill - Polling in recent weeks suggests turnout on Election Day could be very low, even by the standards of recent midterms. That’s bad news for Democrats because core groups in the liberal base are more likely to stay home than are people in the demographic segments that lean Republican.

Arkansas Tossed Ballot Of 79-Year-Old Woman Who Has Been Voting Since Jim Crow | ThinkProgress

Constitutional challenge brought against Kansas gay marriage ban | The Kansas City Star - The constitutional assault on same-sex marriage bans zeroed in on Kansas on Friday with a new legal challenge that could clear the way for gay marriage in the state.

Holder urged to investigate 'racially fractured' Little Rock police force | US news | theguardian.com - US attorney general called on by police sergeant Troy Ellison, whose unarmed father was killed by fellow officers in 2010
Security firm involved in shooting of St Louis teen has history of lawsuits | US news | theguardian.com - over incidents involving other off-duty police officers working for it, according to the plaintiffs in those suits.

At Florida State, Football Clouds Justice - NYTimes.com - at least nine players have been arrested on charges ranging from sexual assault to being an accessory to a fatal shooting
Police, Florida State hampered Jameis Winston investigation, documents show | FOX Sports - university officials apparently turned copies of the police report over to Winston’s attorney days before his office even knew the allegation existed.

School Forces 5-Year-Old To Sign Suicide, Homicide Contract After She Makes Gun Joke - "While I was in the lobby waiting, they had my 5-year-old sign a contract about suicide and homicide," Rebecca says. "There should be a different way to handle this situation. If this is protocol it needs to be looked at again." The school is trying to convince Rebecca to take her daughter to a psychologist
Colorado high school shooter kept 'diary of a madman' about bullying | World news | theguardian.com - Karl Perison, who killed a classmate and himself in December attack, wrote that he had become ‘a psychopath’ in book

Bill Maher Isn't a 'Politically Incorrect' Liberal, He's Just a Bigot - The Intercept - Needless to say, I don’t really have high expectations for the “civil dialogue about Islam” Maher is planning on holding along with fellow Islamic scholar Glenn Beck.

Billy Idol: The Story of My Drug-Fueled Recording of 'Dancing with Myself' - Esquire

Cure for Type 1 diabetes imminent after Harvard stem-cell breakthrough - Harvard University has produced the vast quantities of insulin-producing cells needed for transplants

Asshole ignores crosswalk : gifs (many puns and multilayer riffing comments, from which comes:
SWAGGER WAGON | Toyota - YouTube
Hornbach "Sag es mit deinem Projekt" - YouTube
Hornbach TV-Spot - Hammer aus Panzerstahl - YouTube
? Imagine- Ukelele slide-whistle - YouTube

Explicit Snapchat images leaked via third party, reports say | Technology | theguardian.com - Many of the photo-sharing software’s users are teenagers, raising fears the so-called Snappening may affect children

101014
Ebola Death Toll Tops 4,000: WHO
The ominous math of the Ebola epidemic - The Washington Post - The number of Ebola cases in West Africa has been doubling about every three weeks. There is little evidence so far that the epidemic is losing momentum
Ebola: Cutting-Edge Science Offers Hope for Containing the Most Severe Acute Health Emergency in Modern Times | Margaret Chan
Medical records reveal deceased Texas Ebola patient sent home with high fever | World news | theguardian.com - Thomas Duncan was released from hospital with 103F degree fever, despite telling nurse about recent travels
Here Are All The Times Doctors Without Borders Tried To Warn Us About Ebola - In the nearly seven months since the Ebola outbreak was originally confirmed in Guinea, the NGO Doctors Without Borders has been pleading for the world to act
Heart-Rending Test in Ebola Zone: A Baby - NYTimes.com
David Vitter Unhappy With Ebola Aid Strategy Because It 'Focuses On Africa' - instead of "our own borders."
Israelis: Send Obama Ebola » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - According to an August 2014 poll, half of Israelis want to send Obama Ebola for only supporting Israeli terrorism 95, not 100%. 46% of Israelis “said they wanted to give Barack Obama an envelope containing the Ebola virus as a present for his 53rd birthday.” (10% more wanted to send Obama a song based on Prime Minister Netanyahu telling Obama to “never second guess me again.” Never second guess the supreme leader of your totalitarian apartheid ethnostate. Does anyone else smell fascism?)

Obama Weighs Options to Close Guantanamo - WSJ - Any Move to Override Congressional Ban on Bringing Detainees to U.S. Would Spark Fight

The Merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda Could Cripple the Civilized World | The Fiscal Times - Take a barbaric army, add strategic jihadists—and a new evil is born. Organized and disciplined, ISIS is grabbing territory to build a state. On their hit list—the state of Israel. (a few nukes might convince them otherwise)
Unnamed U.S. Officials Blame News Reports Based On Unnamed U.S. Officials For Militants' Escape
3 New Findings On ISIS Weapons That You Should Know About - 1. Most of the Islamic State's arms ultimately came from China, Russia and the U.S.
Willmiot: ISIS Leader Threatens to Invade Russia - In a telephone conversation with his father, an Islamic State (IS) commander, Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as Omar al-Shishani or Omar the Chechen, stated that the militant group plans to invade Russia, Bloomberg reported.
Eschaton: The Grand Conspiracy - It's impressive that a group we didn't hear about until 3 weeks ago has amassed the powers of several thousand super-Hitlers. (CIA never heard of them either)
Explosion at Key Military Base in Iran Raises Questions About Sabotage - NYTimes.com

Eschaton: Obviously The Pentagon Needs More Money - Because no one is better at lighting it on fire than they are. The Defense Department destroyed nearly half a billion dollars worth of defective Italian aircraft that U.S. taxpayers bought for Afghanistan and then sold the scrap for $32,000, according to an agency watchdog.

Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward - Now, Webb’s bombshell expose is being explored anew in a documentary, “Freeway: Crack in the System,” directed by Marc Levin, which tells the story of “Freeway” Rick Ross, who created a crack empire in LA during the 1980s and is a key figure in Webb’s “Dark Alliance” narrative. (never any consequences)

Ads Paid for by Secret Money Flood the Midterm Elections - NYTimes.com

Eschaton: Almost Correct - Krugman's right that the deficit scolds love deficits more than anyone, but there's one exception. If it gets anywhere near surplus, it'll let them advocate for their first favorite thing: tax cuts for rich people. Kicking the olds and poors is just their second favorite thing.
Secret Deficit Lovers - NYTimes.com - What if they balanced the budget and nobody knew or cared?
The Federal Budget Deficit Is Back to Normal - NYTimes.com - The federal budget deficit has narrowed sharply, and is back to relatively normal levels.
From Mid-Atlantic to Midwest, Voters Express Frustration and Fatigue - NYTimes.com - “There’s nothing left in this area,” she said. “There’s no industry. There’s nowhere to work for men or families.”

Conservatives Proven Utterly Wrong On Key Aspect Of Obamacare (Republican lies turn out not to be true)
Supreme Court Blocks Wisconsin Voter ID Law - Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented,
Federal Court Blocks Texas Voter ID Law, Calling It A 'Poll Tax'

Many Governor’s Races Remain Close, and Democrats Make Gains - NYTimes.com - 11 governor's races within five percentage points, and 16 races within 10 percentage points

Eschaton: Just Give Up Already - Stop fighting the inevitable. CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says his office will no longer fight a court challenge to West Virginia's ban on same-sex marriages.

This Alabama Judge Has Figured Out How to Dismantle Roe v. Wade - ProPublica - His writings fuel the biggest threat to abortion rights in a generation. The school itself was a project of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry whose founder was also a leader in the Christian Patriarchy movement, which preaches, among other things, that husbands should vote for their wives. Tom Parker, then a few months into his first term on the Alabama Supreme Court, gladly accepted an invitation to speak at that year’s Witherspoon retreat.

Eschaton: Centrism - How the fuck does it work?
Centrists’ clueless obsession: Why do so many want to cut Social Security? - Salon.com - Social Security is enormously popular among all voters. So why is it on "centrist" Greg Orman's chopping block? (a Republican running as an "independent")

Deadly Force, in Black and White - ProPublica
Deadly Force, In Black And White - lacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.i7 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.
'Just Because He's Black, Doesn't Mean He's Here To Rob A House' (VIDEO) - District police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump told the Post “there’s no misconduct by the officer in that video.”
Woman exonerated of murder after 17 years in prison: 'the system failed' | US news | theguardian.com - The witness who claimed she heard Mellen confess was June Patti, who had a long history of giving false tips to law enforcement, according to documents in the case. She died in 2006.
Another Mistrial In Case Of Officer Who Shot Sleeping 7-Year-Old To Death (sleeping while black)
The 21st century death chamber: $100,000 for a civilised execution | World news | theguardian.com - A tour of Oklahoma’s state-of-the-art killing room unveils how the state spent thousands on restraints, an electric bed and medical equipment, but also how a theatre of transparency hides actual practices
Voyeur charges dropped against photographer at Lincoln Memorial - The Washington Post - The move was opposed by U.S. Attorney Akhi Johnson, who wrote in a filing that “it would be difficult to dispute that women generally have a subjective expectation of privacy against photographs of their private areas while wearing clothing to cover the private area.”
The Nation's Shame: The Injustice of Mandatory Minimums | Rolling Stone - For decades, lawyers, scholars, and judges have criticized mandatory drug sentencing as oppressive and ineffective. Yet tens of thousands of nonviolent offenders continue to languish behind bars. (America, land of sadists)

A Teacher Accused of Abuse Seen to Have Never Grown Up - NYTimes.com
The Case for Driving as Fast as You Want in a School Zone | Streetsblog New York City - Bob Friedrich, an Eastern Queens eminence who believes NYC’s small and constrained speed camera program is a government conspiracy to balance the city budget on the backs of working stiffs who just want to ignore traffic laws without interference. (freedom! to run over small children)

The Police Report From The Palin Family Brawl Is Full Of Crazy Details

Inside the Bounds of a Hasidic Neighborhood - NYTimes.com
youngisraelofsunnyside.org - Eruv - As of Tuesday, August 6th, 2013, the Young Israel of Sunnyside is proud to announce the finalization of our neighborhood Eruv, which is quadruple the size of our previous one. See below for a map of the new borders.

Amazon's Monopoly Must Be Broken Up: A Radical Plan for the Tech Giant | New Republic - It's too big. It's cannibalizing the economy. It's time for a radical plan. (book author Franklin Foer hates Amazon)

Microsoft CEO Tells Women To Trust The System And Not Ask For Raises [UPDATED] - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella caused a stir on Thursday when he told an audience of tech industry women they should trust they will get raises when they deserve them -- despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (Indian guy is patriarchal)
Why Microsoft’s Nadella Is Wrong About Women and Raises - NYTimes.com - Microsoft’s chief executive advised women not to ask for raises. Social scientists who have studied the issue would beg to differ.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: women, don't ask for a raise | Technology | theguardian.com

Alexandra Billings, transgender actor: 'Transparent came up when I had nothing to lose' | Television & radio | The Guardian

Feral pig drinks 18 cans of beer, fights cow and then passes out drunk under tree in Port Hedland, Western Australia | Metro News
Spanish woman ' pregnant after sex with dwarf stripper on hen night' | Daily Mail Online - Spanish woman had to confess to cheating on her husband with dwarf
TIL the "half your age plus seven" rule for dating has been around since at least 1901. : todayilearned

New Standards Seek to Measure What Students Actually Know by Jon Marcus | College Guide | The Washington Monthly
NASA Stumbles Upon A Dead Star That's 10 Million Times Brighter Than The Sun - The super-bright pulsar--the brightest ever recorded--is located about 12 million light-years from Earth in the Messier 82 galaxy. It's an example of a class of mysterious celestial objects known as ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs.

200,000 Snapchat Photos Leaked On 4Chan - 50 percent of Snapchat's users are between the ages of 13 and 17. (a lot of nude child-porno selfies)
Hawk takes out quadcopter drone, reclaims the sky | Digital Trends - Filmed over Magazine Beach Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts recently, a large hawk gave Amazon a reason to rethink the company’s Prime Air drone delivery initiative.
? quadcopter, Raven Attacks - YouTube
Hawk takes down drone : gifs

100914
GOP Congressman Says His Medical Background Qualifies Him To Deny Climate Change - “Well, I am a scientist,” said Benishek, who worked as a general surgeon for nearly 30 years before running for Congress in 2011. “You know, I believe in peer-reviewed science. But, I don’t see any peer-reviewed science that proves there is man-made catastrophic climate change.”

Quarantined family of US Ebola victim left to mourn in isolation | World news | The Guardian - Vigil for Eric Duncan at Dallas church turns to memorial after news of his death, but family members forced to stay at home
Ban Ki-moon: 20 Times More Ebola Aid Needed
Ebola panic is getting pretty racist | The Verge - The real culprits in Ebola's spread have been cuts to public health budgets - Instead of asking government officials why the WHO has a much smaller budget than the CDC or why it has suffered massive cuts in the last two years, Americans have preferred to focus on themselves.
Texas Ebola cases expose troubling contrasts and spark fears of race divide | World news | theguardian.com - The faltering response to a Liberian’s Ebola diagnosis in Texas contrasted starkly to the mobilization after the mere suspicion of the disease in a local law enforcement officer. Some wonder whether it was no coincidence

Coalition air strikes against Isis aid Bashar al-Assad, Syrian rebels claim | World news | The Guardian - Shelling and bombing by the Syrian government intensifies in the two weeks since coalition air strikes against Isis began

Yemen suicide attack kills dozens | World news | The Guardian - Bomber targets checkpoint operated by Shia Houthi rebels in centre of capital Sana’a, near where rally was about to be held

If Kim Jong Un doesn’t show up Friday, get ready for some even crazier rumors - The Washington Post - Does Kim Jong Un have Ebola? Is he a member of ISIS? Is he selling meat on the side of the road in China? Where’s Dennis Rodman? Is he available for an interview?
Mexico arrests alleged leader of Juarez drug cartel Vicente Carrillo Fuentes | World news | theguardian.com - Arrest of Carrillo Fuentes, better known as ‘The Viceroy’ or ‘The General’, was the second recent capture of major drug lord

Feds 'Hacked' Silk Road Without a Warrant? Perfectly Legal, Prosecutors Argue | WIRED (they don't need no steenking warrents)

The Service Involved Is No Longer Secret - Esquire - Also, pro tip: while advancing a president's trip, don't hire hookers in the middle of the night.

DOC_0000619161.pdf - Bestiary of Intelligence Writing - Studies in Intelligence - CIA - Confusion is probably almost inevitable

Fracking company teams up with Susan G. Komen, introduces pink drill bits “for the cure” - Salon.com - Pinkwashing hits a new low - Komen said ... “the evidence to this point does not establish a connection between fracking and breast cancer.”
Lego ends Shell partnership following Greenpeace campaign | Environment | theguardian.com - Toymaker will not renew current multimillion pound deal, that sees Shell-branded Lego sets sold at petrol stations, following a viral video against Arctic drilling by the green group

Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves? | Vanity Fair - Which is why the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, which killed 228 people, remains so perplexing and significant. William Langewiesche explores how a series of small errors turned a state-of-the-art cockpit into a death trap.

Supersized dinosaurs divided up their dinner | Science | theguardian.com - New study reveals that giant, long-necked sauropod dinosaurs evolved skulls to eat different foods, promoting diversity

Ferguson police continued crackdown on protesters after federal, state interventions - The Washington Post (what else could they do?)
Prisoner Walks Free After Years On Texas Death Row - The case "contained a litany of injustices, including police misconduct, prosecutorial deception, ineffectiveness of defense counsel, and untruthful witnesses" (completely corrupt, but TX has never executed an innocent person)
Crowds in streets of St. Louis after fatal shooting of 18-year-old by off-duty police officer - The Washington Post - “I pray this is not another Mike Brown situation,”
Suspected killer left 'chilling' journal at campsite found by police manhunt | US news | theguardian.com - Water-logged book, allegedly written by Eric Frein, gives account of ‘disaster’ of ambushing police barracks and getaway

New Study Claims Half Of Married Women Have A Backup Husband - Esquire - Here’s another one: a new study shows that half of all married women have a back up man, a spare in case the first one blows out on the highway.

The truth about trolls and the men they worship | Jess Zimmerman | Comment is free | theguardian.com
Why the Trolls Will Always Win | WIRED
Vivian Schiller resigns as Twitter head of news | Technology | theguardian.com - Former NBC and NPR executive quits as incoming boss of social network’s media division makes changes

100814
US east coast cities face frequent flooding due to climate change | Environment | theguardian.com - From Miami to Washington DC, towns and cities on America’s east coast could see triple the number of tidal floods by 2030 as sea levels rise, say researchers ... Annapolis, Maryland, Lewisetta, Virginia, and Wilmington, North Carolina, will see more than 300 tidal floods a year. (Republicans don't believe in "sea" and "level")
Coastal Cities Are Drowning, Thanks To New Reality Of Sea Level Rise

Ebola patient in Dallas dies
'I touched my face with gloves': nurse with Ebola : worldnews
UN Medic In Liberia Tests Positive For Ebola
Spanish nurse reported Ebola symptoms many times before being quarantined | World news | The Guardian - Teresa Romero Ramos says when she first told health authorities of her symptoms she was given only paracetamol
Could take 48 hours to confirm if deputy has Ebola
WHO | Frequently asked questions on Ebola virus disease
Sex in a time of Ebola - The Washington Post - the Ebola virus can survive in semen for months after a man recovers from the infection, posing an ongoing threat to sexual partners long after he is well. At a time when a man's bloodstream is swimming with antibodies, and he is immune to the disease, he still may be able to infect others.
Man Infected with Ebola Misinformation Through Casual Contact With Cable News - The New Yorker
Ebola: What It Is - Is Ebola the ISIS of biological agents? Is Ebola the Boko Haram of AIDS? Is Ebola the al-Shabaab of dengue fever? Some say Ebola is the Milosevic of West Nile virus.
If someone survives Ebola do they develop an immunity to the virus? : askscience
? Why You Are Still Alive - The Immune System Explained - YouTube
Conservative Columnist: Is The Government Orchestrating The Ebola Crisis To Confiscate Guns? | Blog | Media Matters for America - WND's Brittany: Ebola And "Disposable FEMA Coffins" Could Point To "Martial Law"

Turkey's Refusal To Help Besieged Kurds Fight ISIS Is Backfiring
Duncan Hunter: Border Patrol Caught 10 ISIS Fighters. DHS: Wrong. | New Republic (with Ebola bioweapons)
The Divine Bank-Shot Theory For War by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - . But if America fails to do its divinely appointed duty in “standing up” for Israel, then God will “remove his hand [of protection] from us,” exposing us to terrorist wrath.
When Ben Affleck and Bill Maher Debate Islam, Everyone Loses | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly
Figuring Out Islam In One Cable Segment by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

Guantánamo use of olive oil in force feedings 'astonishing', doctor tells court | US news | theguardian.com - Testimony on second day of court challenge to force feedings focuses on long-term health effects on detainees after procedure (the shit Obama didn't want you to know about)

Leon Panetta Is What’s Wrong With DC - The Daily Beast - Obama’s former defense secretary is out with a scathing new memoir about his time in the White House. But why should we buy anything he says?
The FBI’s Secret Surveillance Program Is About to Go on Trial - NationalJournal.com - A federal appeals court this week will review whether the government can secretly conduct electronic surveillance on Americans without first obtaining a warrant.
Google chief blames feds for phone locks | TheHill - Top officials including Attorney General Eric Holder have criticized tech companies like Google and Apple for making their phones inaccessible to anyone except the owner — even police with a warrant.

China's Economy Just Overtook The U.S. In One Key Measure (GDP)
IMF warns period of ultra-low interest rates poses fresh financial crisis threat | Business | The Guardian - Almost zero borrowing costs has encouraged speculation rather than hoped-for pick up in investment, says Fund (the inflation faires never showed up but bankers made another ton of money)
The Great Wage Slowdown of the 21st Century - NYTimes.com
It Is News That the AIG Bailout Was a Way to Give Money to Goldman Sachs | Beat the Press - Andrew Ross Sorkin tells us that the fact the AIG bailout was about helping Goldman Sachs and other big banks is not news because we knew it all along. (except the pundits who were controlling opinion at the time)
Eschaton: Panic Time - What will deficit scolds do if the deficit keeps shrinking? The olds and poors have not yet suffered enough! Obviously it's time for a tax cut. It always is.

UN Says At Least 3,660 Killed In Ukraine Violence Since April

Fox’s Kilmeade: Why Didn’t Obama’s Advisors ‘Put Their Stars Down and Walk Out?’ | Mediaite (Fox calls for sedition)

In Defense of Obama | Rolling Stone

Beard rules draw supreme court justices' mockery in religious rights case | Law | theguardian.com - Jokes and banter about security combs and arbitrary rules fill surreal hearing about prisoners’ religious rights to grow beards

Federal Court Rejects Virginia Black-Majority District - The 2-1 ruling Tuesday by a panel of judges leaves the district intact for November's elections but orders the General Assembly to draw new boundaries by April 1, 2015. (Republicans: rig and suppress the vote)

Andrew Cuomo Is A Very Flawed Concept, Cont'd - Esquire - There is no more horrible Democratic politician than Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York. (he doesn't have to be a corporate Republican fracking asshole)

Once you’ve dehumanized drug offenders, it’s easy to steal their identities - The Washington Post
Police sued for using stun gun on man after smashing car window | US news | theguardian.com - Video is basis of complaint that officers in Hammond, Indiana, attacked passenger Jamal Jones without justification
A Good Faith Mistake - Esquire - Remember that case in Georgia where a SWAT team serving a warrant broke into the wrong house, threw a flash-bang grenade blindly into the room, and blew the nose clean off a toddler's face? Just an honest error by the boys in blue. (wrong address, no drugs or weapons, no knock bombs in the front door; never any consequences)
Watch: Cop Caught on Tape Threatening to Take Baby Away from Interracial Couple for No Reason Before Arresting Them | Occupy Democrats - An Ohio police officer recently threatened to take away an interracial couple’s two week old infant during a traffic stop after the couple refused to get out of their car. Officer Denny claimed Stockett, a black man, looked like another black man, Jeremy Newell, who was wanted on felony warrants. (they all look the same) (comply with our made-up "laws" or die)
SWAT Team Shot David Hooks At Home After Tip From Meth Addict - Deputies shot and killed a man inside his Georgia home last month following an apparently bogus tip they received from a confessed meth addict and thief. (any excuse will do)
Police pepper spray Wake County teen inside his home after he's mistaken for burglar | abc11.com
Woman, 90, locked officer in basement, settles with police | I-Team - WBAL Home - Baltimore woman receives $95,000 settlement - In the past two fiscal years, the city has paid out $16.8 million in claims against the Police Department.
Police shot dog while raiding wrong house, lawsuit says - A pair of dog owners here have filed a federal lawsuit against a state investigator, alleging he shot their 15-year-old dog in the face while raiding the wrong house. (happens all the time)
Open carry enthusiast robbed at gunpoint: ‘I like your gun. Give it to me.’

When The Law Gives A Fetus A Lawyer » Balloon Juice - In the department of extreme new laws, Alabama takes the cake. The new law forces minors who want to abort a pregnancy without the consent of their parents to undergo a court trial to get permission. Included in the trial are time-consuming inquistions, witnesses to testify against the pregnant teen, and possible disclosure of the minor’s identity on a “need to know” basis. The unborn fetus can even be appointed a lawyer. Sadly, that last part isn’t even new:
Duggar daughter blames the Holocaust on evolution, then compares it to abortion - Salon.com - Jessa Duggar, the young evangelical reality star, stirred up controversy on Instagram with an antiabortion comment - “19 Kids & Counting,” (Show should be renamed "Spreading My Legs for Jesus," or "Lord Come Into Thee.")

George Will's Offensive Rape Comments Alienate Another Institution | Blog | Media Matters for America - On October 6, a college newspaper called the Claremont Independent reported that the all-female Scripps College had revoked an invitation for Will to speak as part of a program "designed to promote conservative views on campus." (what?)

Sayreville football parent reveals sexual nature of alleged locker room hazing ritual (Exclusive) | NJ.com - Then, the victim would be lifted to his feet while a finger was forced into his rectum. Sometimes, the same finger was then shoved into the freshman player’s mouth.

Blind people have four times more nightmares than sighted people | ScienceNordic - New study provides insight into what blind people dream about and why we have nightmares.
The Limits of Friendship - The New Yorker - Judging from the size of an average human brain, the number of people the average person could have in her social group was a hundred and fifty. Anything beyond that would be too complicated to handle at optimal processing levels - Our skin has a set of neurons, common to all mammals, that respond to light stroking, but not to any other kind of touch.

What “Gone Girl” Is Really About - “Gone Girl,” in a sense, is “Fight Club” squared

sv-datasheet-a.pdf - Sexual Violence - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control - Division of Violence Prevention - Facts at a Glance - Nearly 1 in 5 (18.3%) women and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) reported experiencing rape at some time in their lives
Is Sexting Normal? | Psych Central News - Provocative new research suggests sexting may be a new “normal” part of adolescent sexual development and is not strictly limited to at-risk teens.
Easing the Law for New Yorkers Shifting Gender - NYTimes.com

Ding Ding Ding! Video Poker 'Hackers' Cleared of Federal Charges | WIRED - “All these guys did is simply push a sequence of buttons that they were legally entitled to push.”

Posing : WTF

'Craft' Soda: The Next Big Thing for Soda Pop? - DailyFinance - A 10-ounce bottle of Caleb's Kola has 110 calories and 29 grams of sugar, according to the site. (seven teaspoons of sugar in a small bottle)

Verizon’s attempt to compete with Netflix ends in hilarious failure | BGR - Although Redbox Instant predictably didn’t attract many customers, what made its failure actually funny was the fact that it became a magnet for criminals.
Adobe’s e-book reader sends your reading logs back to Adobe—in plain text [Updated] | Ars Technica - Digital Editions even tracks which pages you've read. It might break a New Jersey Law.

100714
21 Numbers That Explain Why We Need To Address Climate Change Right Now
Eschaton: Not A Drop - Some researchers looked at what happens to California in an extended drought situation. - tl;dr: water gets expensive, lawns disappear, agriculture changes, central valley towns empty out, but the state survives.

More Cases Of Ebola In Europe Unavoidable: WHO
What is Marburg, the Ebola-like virus that killed a health-care worker in Uganda? - The Washington Post - Marburg, like Ebola, is a hemorrhagic fever. It's rare but severe.
First Ebola, now Marburg. Here’s why deadly viruses are on the rise in Africa - Quartz

IMF says economic growth may never return to pre-crisis levels | Business | The Guardian - World economic outlook expects global growth to be 3.3% in 2014, down from its April forecasts as countries fail to recover strongly from recession

Turkish President Says Syrian Town Under Islamic State Siege Is About To Fall
Hullabaloo - Bad for the good guy, good for the bad guys and really good for the money guys

Republicans brace for 2016 free-for-all - Maggie Haberman and Jake Sherman - politico.com (the clown bus)

Anti-Abortion Groups Are Still Fighting Birth Control Coverage In Court

'Unusual' number of bomb threats disrupt schools across New England | US news | theguardian.com - Nearly a dozen schools and colleges in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut have received the threats, forcing evacuations and cancellations in many of the schools this past week.
Indiana State Trooper Brian Hamilton Sued For Handing Out Religious Lit At Traffic Stop - The pamphlet advertised a radio program called “Policing for Jesus Ministries” hosted by “Trooper Dan Jones.”

'Yes means yes' laws will not actually reclassify all sex at universities as rape | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Are people really so frightened of the consequences of a law that says sexual partners must enthusiastically consent?

What The Cost Of Your Engagement Ring May Say About Your Marriage - Interestingly, spending $1,000 or less on the wedding decreased the chances of divorce, but spending too little on an engagement ring backfired; those who spent less than $500 experienced higher rates of divorce.

100614
Oceans Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized | Climate Central (Republicans don't believe in "temperature")
SF’s waterfront land could be soaked by sea-level rise in just decades | San Francisco Examiner - To rebuild the seawall along The Embarcadero would take an estimated $5 billion. Without some sort of a fix, water could rise up to the area of The Embaradero BART and Muni tunnels by midcentury. (Republicans don't believe in "sea-level")
Carbon Commentary · Wind power exceeds nuclear output (for a few minutes) - gusts over the western side of the United Kingdom supplied more than 6 gigawatts and a temporary slight dip in nuclear output meant that wind was more important for electricity supply than the UK’s ageing nuclear fleet ... after news stories about new cracks in the graphite blocks of one of the reactor at EdF’s Hunsterston plant.
Summer's over but heatwave pushes southern California towards meltdown | US news | theguardian.com - Temperatures hit 104F in San Fernando valley - Cycling enthusiasts brave scalding heat in downtown LA event

Spanish Nurse First To Contract Ebola Outside West Africa - A Spanish nurse who last month treated a priest in Madrid who died of Ebola has tested positive for the disease, becoming the first to contract it outside West Africa, a source within the health authorities said on Monday.
News Crew Is Inexplicably Excited About '#EbolaOutbreak' - Others, like this FOX 9 News crew, are all smiles. One might even say they give it a "thumbs up":

Isis flags raised in Kobani near Turkish-Syrian border | World news | The Guardian - Kurdish commander pleads for help as Isis plant banner on hill overlooking Kobani and on a building in the town
ISIS’ Ammunition Is Shown to Have Origins in U.S. and China - NYTimes.com - ammunition transferred into Syria and Iraq to help stabilize governments has instead passed from the governments to the jihadists, helping to fuel the Islamic State’s rise (who could have predicted?)
Pentagon yet to decide on Syrian rebel force central to Isis offensive | US news | theguardian.com - US military officials consider raising trustworthy rebel force to destroy Isis on the ground without committing US soldiers (which enemy of our enemies' friends' enemies to support)
Naomi Wolf - I stand by what I wrote today: the videos of... - More conspiracy theories by the lunatic known as Naomi Wolf.

Guantánamo force-feeding amounts to punishment, detainee's lawyers argue | US news | theguardian.com - Government lawyers clash with those of hunger-striking detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab, whose wheelchair and underwear were removed before procedure

At least 28 badly burned bodies recovered in mass graves in Mexico | World news | The Guardian - Guerrero state officials say it could take weeks to identify bodies feared to be those of students missing since clashes with corrupt police (on-going tragedies of your war on some drugz)

9/11 terrorists caught testing airport security months before attacks: secret docs | New York Post - At least three eyewitnesses spotted al Qaeda hijackers casing the security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan Airport months before the 9/11 attacks. They saw something and said something — but were ignored, newly unveiled court papers reveal.

Occupy activist Cecily McMillan threatened officer's family, police allege | US news | theguardian.com (with her boobs) he heard McMillan, 26, accuse his partner, officer Brian Rothermel, of being a “male chauvinist pig” in the cells area of their transit police precinct inside the subway station. (that will get you jailed every time)
Convicted murderer's speech to graduating US students raises hackles | Education | theguardian.com - Police raise concerns about speech from Mumia Abu-Jamal, once on death row and re-sentenced to life in prison, to Vermont college students - “Think about the myriad of problems that beset this land and strive to make it better,” Abu-Jamal said in the video. (which made the cops very upset)

Eschaton: Probably Need More Austerity In Spain - Only solution I can see. German factory orders (GRIORTMM) plunged the most since 2009, underlining the risk of a slowdown in Europe’s largest economy. (Merkel killing Europe's economy with austerity!)
Voodoo Economics, the Next Generation - NYTimes.com - One thing they will be able to do, however, is impose their will on the Congressional Budget Office, heretofore a nonpartisan referee on policy proposals. As a result, we may soon find ourselves in deep voodoo. (Republicans hate reality)
Come around tomorrow and I'll take you again - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The whole power of positive thinking racket is based on ignoring the latent tension between these beliefs. The Gospel of Prosperity, the Millionaire Next Door, The Secret — it’s all the same grift in the end, and yet we the people never seem to tire of it.

A Really Small Slice of Americans Get to Decide Who Will Rule the Senate - Bloomberg Politics - The number of people who'll decide this election will likely be smaller than the population of Florida.

Gay marriage advocates hail 'extraordinary' victory after supreme court declines to hear appeals | US news | theguardian.com - Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Oklahoma, Utah, Indiana, Wisconsin and Virginia after justices’ decision lifts stays
The supreme court refusal to hear gay marriage cases may be the best thing to happen to gay marriage | Scott Lemieux | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The threat of one big case going wrong could spell human rights catastrophe. Did the liberal justices pull a fast one?
Oklahoma governor: 'will of the people has been overridden' on same-sex marriage – live | US news | The Guardian (the will of white Republicans to suppress the shit out of you)
Supreme Court Rejects Gay Marriage Appeals From 5 States
60 Percent Of Americans Soon Will Live In States With Marriage Equality
The GOP's Shift on Same-Sex Marriage - NationalJournal.com - Fewer GOP gubernatorial candidates actively oppose gay marriage, and many are quietly accepting it.
Congressional Republicans Virtually Silent On Supreme Court Marriage Decision - Utah Sen. Mike Lee is the lone Republican to issue a statement as of Monday afternoon.
The Big Dive - Esquire - You wanted states' rights, gang? The Nine Wise Souls just gave them to you. By the bucketful. There will be no national policy on marriage equality. It will come to your state either through legislation, or through the local federal courts that rely on the Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. (Thanks, Antonin!)


Supreme Court Rejects Appeal On South Carolina Redistricting - The justices on Monday rejected without comment an appeal from black South Carolina voters who wanted the justices to take another look at the state's new lines for state house and congressional districts. (racist Republicans win again with the SC)

No, This Won't Work, Either - Esquire - One of my favorite replies to Christianists who want to sneak their personal Jeebus into the public school curriculum by including Him in a course on "The Bible As Literature" or as part of a course on "World Religions" is to say, "I think those are splendid ideas. Good luck, by the way, when it comes to that take-home unit on the Koran. I'll just be lying under this bed over here."

'Comply or die is not the law' -- Utah police shootings come under fire | The Salt Lake Tribune - Justice » Relatives of Utahns killed by law enforcement call for equipment, policy changes.
New York Times Editorial Board Calls On States To Legalize Recreational Use Of Marijuana (Massachusetts will get around to it in 2020)
Cops Mistake Okra For Marijuana, Send The Big Guns To Man's House - Dwayne Perry of Cartersville tells WSB-TV (http://bit.ly/1rJ8LMq ) that he was awakened by a helicopter flying low over his house Wednesday and then some heavily-armed deputies and a K-9 unit showed up at his door. They were from the Governor's Task Force for drug suppression and they were out looking for marijuana plants. What they had seen, apparently, were Perry's okra plants and a shrub at the end of his house ... Patrol Capt. Kermit Stokes says the plants did have characteristics similar to marijuana. (they are both green and he's lucky they didn't blow up his kids)

John Oliver Explains The Insanity Of Civil Forfeiture, Introduces New 'Law & Order' Spinoff (license to steal all your money)

Balter's Blog: Why I have taken a leave of absence from Science: to protest the abrupt firing of 4 colleagues - Rob Covey came on board at AAAS in September 2013, and at first many of us thought that he was serving mostly in an advisory capacity ... we have gone from a culture appropriate to a nonprofit, membership organization like the AAAS, to the culture more typical of a Manhattan publisher or a Wall Street corporation ... . I wonder how many AAAS members would approve of such practices if they knew about them, especially since they have been endorsed by a CEO who himself earns just over $1 million/year (with the compensation for Science’s publisher at about $860,000/year according to the lastest available report to the IRS.) (hedge fund guys take over your so-called "science")

Colon carcinogenesis is inhibited by the TRPM... [Carcinogenesis. 2014] - PubMed - NCBI - Colon carcinogenesis is inhibited by the TRPM8 antagonist cannabigerol, a Cannabis-derived non-psychotropic cannabinoid.
Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for finding brain’s ‘you are here’ cells | Science | The Guardian - Winning research answered question that stumped philosophers for hundreds of years: how do we know our place in the world? - These “grid cells” provided the brain with the equivalent of latitude and longitude, and together with place cells formed an inner GPS in the brain ... The early stages of Alzheimer’s can affect the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, causing people to lose their way and forget their surroundings.

What is the worst example of helicopter parenting you've ever seen? : AskReddit
Stevie Nicks on Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, and Don Henley | Billboard - The world is not ready for my memoir, I guarantee you. All of the men I hung out with are on their third wives by now, and the wives are all under 30. If I were to write what really happened between 1972 and now, a lot of people would be very angry with me

Why the FCC will probably ignore the public on network neutrality - Vox

100514
Gas Pains by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I don’t know about you, but I could use some “liberal mainstream media” right about now—and no, Tea Partiers, the Boston Globe doesn’t count. Consider the paper’s love letter to fracked natural gas: (no mention of climate risk)
3 Things No One is Telling you About Rising Energy Costs
National Petroleum Broadcasting? Climate Notes (PODCAST) | Mass Climate Action Network (MCAN)

Top US health official 'confident we won't see large number' of Ebola cases | World news | theguardian.com - CDC head says all Dallas patient’s contact being monitored - NBC cameraman with Ebola reported on way to Nebraska
How Ebola sped out of control | The Washington Post - How the world’s health organizations failed to stop the Ebola disaster
Ebola’s Cultural Casualty: Hugs in Hands-On Liberia - NYTimes.com - It is hard enough to push away family and friends, shunning an embrace or even a shake of the hand to protect yourself from Ebola.
'In 1976 I discovered Ebola, now I fear an unimaginable tragedy' | World news | The Observer - Peter Piot was a researcher at a lab in Antwerp when a pilot brought him a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had fallen mysteriously ill in Zaire
Former SC GOP director: Execute anyone who comes into contact with Ebola — ‘it’s just math’ ... We should put Wendy Davis' vagina in charge of the Ebola outbreak. It will kill all of them without mercy and go to Nordstrom's afterwards. (your GOP)
Ebola is the new Africanized honeybee by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But scary foreign invaders from “other there” capture the xenophobic imagination, and provide easy targets for unscrupulous hucksters in politics and media alike.
CDC officials rush to Newark Liberty airport after Liberian man began vomiting | Daily Mail Online - Fears virus could spread further - but ill man on plane does NOT have Ebola
PBS science reporter: Fox’s Ebola coverage is ‘a level of ignorance we should not allow’
NIH Official Dismisses Fox Host's Question On Ebola As Bioterrorism - "What are the chances that illegal immigrants are going to come over our porous southern border with Ebola or that terrorists will purposely send someone here using Ebola as a bioterror weapon?" Wallace asked.
Fox News Host Knows The Real Danger Of Ebola: Witch Doctors - "In these countries they do not believe in traditional medical care," she said. "So someone could get off a flight and seek treatment from a witch doctor."
David Axelrod mocks ‘Dr. Joe Scarborough’ for exaggerating Ebola ‘fire from hell’ in America
Bigger Problem in US Than Ebola: Enterovirus D68 Spreading Respiratory, Paralytic Diseases in Children | emptywheel

Germany's Merkel under fire over NSA scandal | Europe | Worldbulletin News - A report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper revealed that Germany's secret service shared Internet data about German citizens with the American National Security Agency (NSA).
Retired NSA Technical Director Explains Snowden Docs - I had an opportunity to attend a presentation by a retired technical director at the NSA, William Binney, which provided context for some of the published documents released by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.

Why war? It's a question Americans should be asking. - LA Times - As the United States charges once more into war, little debate has centered on the actual utility of war. Instead, policymakers and pundits have focused their comments on combating the latest danger to our nation and its interests as posed by Islamic State militants.
Air strikes against Isis are not working, say Syrian Kurds | World news | The Guardian - Isis fighters have pushed to the edge of Kobani, undeterred by western strikes, says city official (time to drop McCain and Graham on them)
VP Biden Apologizes for Telling Truth About Turkey, Saudi and ISIS - The Daily Beast - “My constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies — our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,” Biden told his listeners
Why Do Americans Hate Beheadings But Love Drone Killings? | Coleen Rowley - 4) A fourth reason why most Americans now go happily along with perpetual war in a kind of blissful stupor, cheering on their favorite war hawk politician comes from the lessons learned so well from the Vietnam War.
IRBIL, Iraq: Sources: U.S. air strikes in Syria targeted French agent who defected to al Qaida | Syria | McClatchy DC - A former French intelligence officer who defected to al Qaida was among the targets of the first wave of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, according to people familiar with the defector’s movements and identity.
Ben Affleck Slams Bill Maher's Anti-Muslim Sentiment As ‘Gross’ And ‘Racist’ | ThinkProgress
Bill Maher and Ben Affleck Battle over Radical Islam video | Mediaite

Hong Kong Protesters Make Apparent Concessions To Authorities - In an apparent concession to authorities warning pro-democracy protesters to clear Hong Kong's streets by the beginning of the work week, students occupying the area outside city government headquarters agreed Sunday to remove some barricades that have blocked the building's entrance during the weeklong demonstrations.

Russian Tycoon: We Must Prepare For Putin’s Inevitable Downfall - The Daily Beast
Rehtaeh Parsons: Canadian journalists can't print her name as a suspect pleads guilty in her case.
The Real Reason It's Nearly Impossible to End the Cuba Embargo - The Atlantic - Bill Clinton tried engaging Castro. After Havana shot down two U.S. planes, it all fell apart.
Why the president can't repeal the Cuban Embargo, despite almost every nation in the UN urging him to. : Foodforthought

The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians | Rolling Stone - Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime images the Pentagon tried to censor
Daniel Ellsberg: United States Nearly Used Nukes During Vietnam War

Governor says victims found in Mexico mass grave 'savagely slaughtered' | World news | theguardian.com - Blanco said eight more people had been arrested in the case, adding to the 22 Iguala city police officers detained after a police confrontation with student protesters last weekend set off a series of violent incidents in the city.
Huge majority thinks 'war on drugs' has failed, new poll finds | Society | The Observer - Observer survey shows an increasing number of Britons want illegal drugs decriminalised

How Apple's Cork HQ became the centre of a bitter global war over corporate tax avoidance | Technology | The Observer - The Californian corporation is Cork's largest private employer, but has not won over all local hearts and minds. Now the city is at the heart of a fight over taxation that involves not just Ireland but also the European commission and the US senate

Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud in £250m divorce | Daily Mail Online - Elisabeth got caught in the crossfire when her husband sided with Blair after her father filed for divorce from Ms Deng after her reported ‘crush’ on the former Prime Minister and his discovery that the pair had spent weekends together without his knowledge. (much more to the story)

As Supreme Court term begins, prospect of a gay-marriage ruling looms large - The Washington Post
Can Antonin Scalia actually read the Constitution? by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But Scalia is saying that the Constitution doesn’t prevent the government from favoring religion over non-religion. That’s crazy. The Constitution is actually very clear on that point. It doesn’t say that Congress can’t establish one religion over another. It says that Congress shall make no law establishing religion. Period.

Lunatic Fringe: Coakley vs. Koch’s Lies by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly (oh look, Charlie Baker is a sleezy lying Republican)

Republicans Maintain Edge in Senate Races, Poll Finds - NYTimes.com
Independent Greg Orman Holding A Lead In Kansas, Polling Shows

Eschaton: Apocalypse Soon - I don't think one can overstate how screwed Northern New Jersey commuters will be if one of the Hudson tunnels is shut. Amtrak owns them. NJT would probably just be told to piss off. If I'm counting correctly, 6 commuter lines run through that tunnel. Everyone would have to be dumped onto PATH trains and I doubt the capacity is there.
This upcoming traffic apocalypse will be the end of Chris Christie - The Week - Then Christie unilaterally canceled the project, charging that costs were skyrocketing, that New Jersey would thus have to pay 70 percent of the bill, and that the feds were going to stick the state with any cost overruns. He was lying through his teeth (fat fuck Christie screws NJ workers while spending billions on failed casinos and his developer buddies)

Corbett asks third official to resign over porn e-mails - Philly.com - Gov. Corbett on Friday sought the resignation of a third state official - his appointee to the state Parole Board - amid disclosures that the man had participated in the exchange of pornography over state computers. But Randy Feathers said he would not step down from the $116,000-a-year job. (just look at his face)

The NFL's breast cancer scam sells bunk science to profit off pink clothes | Karuna Jaggar | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The league’s claim that “annual screening saves lives” has been widely discredited by numerous studies showing that it’s not mammograms that save lives: regardless of whether breast cancer is found through an annual screening or by a woman herself, the best way to prevent death from breast cancer is by providing accessible, high-quality, evidence-based healthcare and treatment in a timely, sensitive way. Imagine seeing that on a pink NFL billboard.

Is it a coverup? House of Cards level corruption in Ferguson and beyond

Washington Post Staffers Stage Protests Against Jeff Bezos's Retirement Cuts - Bezos, who bought the Post in 2013, announced in September that he would be slicing medical and pension plans for union and nonunion employees and instead creating a new cash balance system. (what did you expect?)

Hark, the Herald… by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - For all of the Boston Globe’s aforementioned flaws, the paper is miles ahead of its crosstown rival, the Tea Party newsletter known as the Boston Herald.

The Church’s Gay Obsession - NYTimes.com - REPEATEDLY over the last year and a half, I’ve written about teachers in Catholic schools and leaders in Catholic parishes who were dismissed from their posts because they were in same-sex relationships and — in many cases — had decided to marry.
Eschaton: Emphasis - And it isn't just the church, it's the entire focus of the political religious right. "Values Voters" means no gays and slutshaming. Um, ok, great values.
Meet two activists who brought sweeping change to the gay rights movement - The Washington Post - Michelangelo Signorile does not hold back. Not then, not now.

CNN Host: Reza Aslan's "Tone" Demonstrated Why People Fear Islam | Blog | Media Matters for America - CNN host Chris Cuomo argued that professor of religion and author Reza Aslan's heated arguments against anti-Muslim bigotry on CNN recently demonstrated "what people are fearful of when they think of" Islam. (he was "angry")
Cops: Woman Who Burglarized Students' Cars Was "Looking for ISIS" (too much Fox)

What falsehoods or incorrect information do you see other redditors commonly regurgitate about a topic you are an expert in (or fairly well educated on)? : AskReddit
Homework: An unnecessary evil? … Surprising findings from new research - The Washington Post - First, no research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework (of any kind or in any amount) in elementary school ... Second, even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn’t been particularly persuasive ... “no substantive difference in grades between students who complete homework and those who do not.”

Microsoft's Windows 10 has permission to spy on you

100414
California heatwave brings fears of wildfires and power outages | US news | theguardian.com - Hot weather expected to peak on Saturday • LA temperature could hit 108F

Dallas Hospital Alters Account, Raising Questions on Ebola Case - NYTimes.com - But on Friday evening, the hospital effectively retracted that portion of its statement, saying that “there was no flaw” in its electronic health records system (they fucked up big time and lied)
Dallas Ebola patient in critical condition as two Europeans recover | World news | theguardian.com - Thomas Duncan could be prosecuted for not declaring illness CDC director: nine individuals in Dallas are at ‘highest risk’
Crews Race To Contain Ebola In Dallas
Dallas Ebola case spurs concern about hospital readiness - The Washington Post - A D.C.-area hospital admitted a patient with symptoms and a travel history associated with Ebola.
US Ebola patient Ashoka Mukpo once hailed as reincarnated lama | World news | theguardian.com - The photojournalist and NBC freelancer was trying to raise awareness about the virus when infected with Ebola in Liberia ... His mother, Diana Mukpo, comes from an upper-class aristocratic family in Britain. At age 16, she left boarding school in Scotland and married Tibetan Buddhist leader Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who founded the Shambhala community that spread Buddhism in the west. She was one of several wives.
National Nurse Survey Shows Hospitals Still Not Prepared for U.S. Ebola Patients | National Nurses United - National Nurse Survey Shows Hospitals Still Not Prepared for U.S. Ebola Patients
ECDC provides assessment of accidental polio incident in Belgium | Vaccine News Daily - the accidental release of more than 11 gallons of concentrated live poliovirus into the environment in Belgium. GlaxoSmithKline released the polio into the water in the city of Rixensart on Sept. 2

Peter Kassig: Isis hostage threatened with death was captured on aid mission | World news | theguardian.com - Militants say Kassig, from Indiana, will be next western hostage to die unless US stops its bombing campaign against Isis
Parents of US hostage Peter Kassig appeal to Isis for his release | World news | theguardian.com - Mother of aid worker mentions son’s conversion to Islam - Pakistani Taliban declares allegiance to Isis

Hong Kong protesters must be cleared by Monday, chief executive says | World news | The Observer - Leung Chun-ying makes TV address as legislators suggest government might act to clear streets no later than Sunday
Hong Kong Leader’s Warning Renews Protesters’ Zeal as Crowds Swell - NYTimes.com
Violent mobs with triad links threaten Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters

NSA defenders think they can make surveillance reform vanish. This is how wrong they are | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A dirty trick by politicians will come back to haunt them if a looming fight exposes the motherlode of spying power – and shuts off the data vacuum
Silk Road Lawyers Poke Holes in FBI’s Story — Krebs on Security (sounded fishy at first - FBI lied, of course)
isit

JP Morgan Chase hackers targeted nine other banks and brokerages – report | Business | theguardian.com - New York Times does not identify targets, severity of attacks Information on 83 million customers stolen from JP Morgan (watch out for phishing spam)

The New Establishment 2014 | Vanity Fair

Ferguson Protesters Outfitted In Orange Jumpsuits And Jailed With High Bail (UPDATE) - The 13 protestors, including many seized while standing on the sidewalk, were arrested by police officers from St. Louis County Police and Missouri State Highway Patrol and were jailed in nearby St. Ann. Video of the arrests show protestors on the sidewalk, and not blocking the street, when officers moved in.

The lab-grown penis: approaching a medical milestone | Science | The Observer - After more than 20 years of research, a team of scientists are bioengineering penises in the lab which may soon be transplanted safely on to patients ... “The phallus is actually much longer than you think,” he explains. “It goes all the way behind the pelvis, so no matter the extent of the damage, there is a high probability that there are salvageable cells.”
Womb transplant birth worth the risk, says mother | Life and style | theguardian.com - First woman to give birth from transplanted uterus says pregnancy option was perfect idea despite lack of guarantees

N.C.A.A. Fan Map: How the Country Roots for College Football - NYTimes.com (New England has ... BC!)

In Colorado, a Rebranding of Pot Inc. - NYTimes.com - “We’re weeding out the stoners,” said Olivia Mannix, the 25-year-old co-founder of a start-up called Cannabrand, an advertising agency devoted exclusively to marketing marijuana.

Minnesota delays vote on transgender student athletes amid outcry | US news | theguardian.com - Transgender student laments ‘scary’ sexualisation of issue by opponents of policy to support athletes’ gender identification ... The ad said: “A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter. Are you OK with that?”

Initiation Wells. | Random and awesome pics from all over the world. - The Initiation Wells (AKA initiatic wells or inverted towers)

Crumpled graphene could provide an unconventional energy storage | MIT News - Two-dimensional carbon “paper” can form stretchable supercapacitors to power flexible electronic devices.
Science AMA Series: I’m Maxim Makukov, a researcher in astrobiology and astrophysics and a co-author of the papers which claim to have identified extraterrestrial signal in the universal genetic code thereby confirming directed panspermia. AMA! : science
Does the Placebo Effect Work in Reverse? : askscience - Not only is the 'nocebo effect' thing, so is the reverse placebo effect. This is when you give someone a drug that does one thing, tell them it does the opposite, and they feel described effect rather than the actual one.

Redditors who've been caught having sex by their parents, how did they react? [NSFW] : AskReddit ("My mom busted in on me pounding my girlfriend doggy style said "reeeeaaalllllllyyy" and closed the door")

100314
Budget Cuts "Eroded Our Ability to Respond" to Ebola, Says Top Health Official | Mother Jones (Republicans eroding our defenses against terrorist viruses)
CDC chief on Ebola: We can’t shut the border - Jonathan Topaz - POLITICO.com - Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola.
CDC And Dallas Health Officials Now Monitoring 50 People Who May Be At Risk For Ebola - The number of people being monitored for direct or indirect contact with the Dallas Ebola patient has been lowered to 50, health officials reported on Oct. 3.
Dallas District Attorney's Office Weighs Criminal Charges For Ebola Patient - Liberian authorities said Duncan, who was traveling to the U.S. for the first time to visit family in Dallas, lied on his airport screening questionnaire about being in contact with Ebola patients
US Ebola case: hospital admits 'flawed' initial response as officials scramble | World news | theguardian.com - Hazardous materials team arrives to clean Thomas Duncan’s apartment as officials work to rehouse other residents in the complex in Dallas
Ebola: NBC News cameraman diagnosed with virus in Africa | World news | theguardian.com - Freelancer working for US network in Liberia has tested positive for virus and will be flown back to America for treatment
US Ebola patient's friends quarantined under armed guard | World news | theguardian.com - Girlfriend and her family are forced to remain in quarantine as officials admit they failed to clean apartment where sufferer was staying
U.S. Nurses Say They Are Unprepared To Handle Ebola Patients
The Country Simply Can't Go On Like This - Esquire - The country simply cannot go on this way, with one of our two political parties completely insane, and with a counter-cultural universe that claims the right to promulgate its own science as equal to the science produced by actual scientists, and with this dangerous lunacy treated as legitimate by powerful people who ought to know better.
Fox Host Asks CDC Director: Obama Lied About 'Things' So How Can We Trust You On Ebola? | Crooks and Liars - Fox News host Steve Doocy on Wednesday asked CDC Director Dr. Tim Frieden how he could be trusted to tell the country the truth about Ebola when President Barack Obama had misled Americans about "a lot of things." (science is a matter of opinion)
Ebola isn’t the big one. So what is? And are we ready for it? | World news | The Guardian - Humanity is locked in a millennia-old battle to the death with diseases. The current outbreak of Ebola reminds us that as our cities get bigger and international travel easier, the risks in an outbreak grow even higher

Judge Denies DOJ's 'Deeply Troubling' Request To Close Gitmo Force-Feeding Hearing

Former Top Official Says Kim Jong-un Is No Longer in Control of North Korea | VICE News
Kim Jong-Un has lost control of North Korea claims former intelligence officer | Daily Mail Online - Pyongyang in lockdown with even the elite banned from entering or leaving

ISIS Claims To Have Killed British Hostage Alan Henning
How a Blonde Tattooed Texas Girl Became an ISIS Twitter Star | New Republic

Hong Kong protesters beaten and bloodied as thugs attack sit-in | World news | The Guardian - Pro-democracy leaders call off talks with government and accuse police of sending triads against Occupy Central rally
Violence Erupts Among Hong Kong Protests

Turkish President Erdogan tells conference: 'I am increasingly against the internet every day' - The Independent (with good reason)
Nine UN peacekeepers from Niger killed in ambush by rebels in Mali | World news | The Guardian - Fears for future of UN mission to support Bamako government against Islamists insurgency after pullout by French troops
Arrival of Russian cossacks sparks fears in Bosnia | World news | The Guardian - Cossack group led by man who commanded unit in Crimea is taking part in re-enactments a day before key election

Time is running out on the USA Freedom Act — which could drastically curtail US surveillance powers | World news | theguardian.com - If the Senate doesn’t pass the USA Freedom Act after the midterm elections, a key section of the Patriot Act could expire

Depression Denial Syndrome - NYTimes.com - Call it depression denial syndrome: the refusal to acknowledge that the rules are different in a persistently depressed economy.

Kansas: GOP Has Numbers Advantage, but Support Drops - Kansas Least Conservative of Top 10 Republican States (the state went insane when Obama got elected)

U.S. Creates 248,000 Jobs In September; Unemployment Rate Falls To 5.9% Most of the new jobs in this recovery have been low-wage jobs

Texas women's access to abortion 'depends on zip code' after new curbs | US news | theguardian.com - Reproductive rights groups plan appeal against court decision • Only seven clinics remain open in entire state
Appeals Court Allows Texas To Enforce Harsh Abortion Restrictions

Silver: It's Not Me Vs. Sam Wang, It's Wang Vs. The World - Nate Silver wrote on Thursday that he doesn't see his ongoing dispute with Princeton University's Sam Wang as a mano-a-mano showdown. Rather, it is the entire world that is at odds with Wang's election forecast, he argued.
Nate Silver Rebuts Sam Wang

Lindsey Graham: Marco Rubio 'Not Quite Ready' To Be President, But I Am - -- me and McCain have been talking --
Lindsey Graham: The Embodiment of Everything Wrong with the GOP | The American Conservative
Antonin Scalia Says Constitution Permits Court To 'Favor Religion Over Non-Religion' (that word, separation ...)

School board defies protest of hundreds to pass review of US history curriculum | Education | theguardian.com - Despite hours of emotional speeches from students, teachers and faculty, Colorado school board passes conservative plan
Colo. Ed Board Member: Give U.S. Credit For Voluntarily Ending Slavery - A member of Colorado's state Board of Education argued that the fact that the United States voluntarily ended slavery proved "American execptionalism" and this perspective should be taught to students in a recent Facebook post about the AP U.S. History curriculum. (and the South won the Civil War)

How The Law Turns Battered Women Into Criminals (cluster of insanity in the middle of the country +WV)

Sweet Cakes By Melissa's Owners Say Fine For Rejecting Lesbian Couple Will Leave Them Bankrupt - Previously, the Kleins had argued that they were simply living in accordance with their religious beliefs when they rejected a lesbian couple's request for a wedding cake. Furthermore, they said they believed their decision to deny service to the two women was protected by their right to practice their religion as they see fit. (religious freedom to oppress you)

Ferguson hands control of Michael Brown protests back to St Louis County | World news | theguardian.com - Police chief calls in St Louis County force that oversaw intense clashes immediately after teenager’s killing by Ferguson officer (meanwhile)
The Brief Life And Baffling Death Of John Crawford III
The Charleston Gazette | Sources: Charleston cop suspended over videos - he videos depict Williams’ young daughter dressed in what appear to be articles of a police uniform and dancing to an anthem of the Ku Klux Klan. The refrain of the song repeats the words, “Stand up and be counted, show the world that you’re a man. Stand up and be counted, go with the Ku Klux Klan.” (in case you thought the KKK hadn't worked on branding)

Anthony Horowitz to copyeditor: "I'M NOT CHANGING THIS." » MobyLives
Dominant Male Atheist Leaders Seem to Have a Problem with Women | Alternet - Many of the most prominent leaders of New Atheism are quick to express sexist ideas. (like Sam Harris with his "estrogen vibe")

stunning-architecture.jpg (Pure color – a gorgeous masjid in Iran)
15 Famous Landmarks Zoomed Out To Show Their Surroundin - Imgur

Marriott Fined $600,000 for Jamming Guests' Wi-Fi - ABC News - Marriott International will pay a $600,000 fine for jamming conference attendees' own Wi-Fi networks at its Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, forcing them to pay hefty prices to use the hotel's own connection.
Hackers Have Found A Flaw In Macs And Are Using It To Control 17,000 Apple Computers ... Via Reddit - Yahoo Finance - The iWorm reportedly uses Reddit's search function to find comments left by the criminals in a Minecraft discussion section of the site.

100214
Family members linked to US Ebola patient told to stay home as 100 are checked for exposure | US news | theguardian.com - Health officials raise number of people monitored to 100 ‘We have tried-and-true protocols to protect the public’ (don't panic)
Texas Officials Say 80 People May Have Been Exposed To Ebola Patient: Report
Ebola Patient Told Hospital He Came From Liberia - initially went to a Dallas emergency room last week but was sent home, despite telling a nurse that he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa
A Hospital From Hell, in a City Swamped by Ebola - NYTimes.com
Ebola Suspected in U.N. Worker’s Death - NYTimes.com - The United Nations lost its first staff member from what a spokesman for the organization on Wednesday called a “probable” case of Ebola in Liberia.
Man in U.S. With Ebola Had Been Screened to Fly, but System Is Spotty - NYTimes.com
Liberian Officials Identify Ebola Victim in Texas as Thomas Eric Duncan - NYTimes.com - Liberian Officials Identify Ebola Victim in Texas as Thomas Eric Duncan

Islamic State In Iraq Carried Out Mass Executions, Abductions: UN Report - At least 9,347 civilians had been killed and 17,386 wounded so far this year through September, well over half of them since the Islamist insurgents also known as ISIL and ISIS began seizing large parts of northern Iraq in early June, the report said.

Judge rejects White House plea to keep Guantánamo force-feeding hearings secret | World news | theguardian.com - Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed the government’s argument that an open hearing would jeopardize national security

Hong Kong leader's daughter creates controversy with Facebook post - The Times of India - "The necklace on my profile pic is not a dog collar, silly!!!" she said. "This is actually a beautiful necklace bought at Lane Crawford (yes - funded by all you HK taxpayers!! So are all my beautiful shoes and dresses and clutches!! Thank you so much!!!!)".

JP Morgan says 76 million households affected in largest ever data breach | Business | theguardian.com - Bank said financial information not compromised but customers’ contact information, including phone numbers, captured

IOC demands: Oslo drops bid after over-the-top list of requirements. #hey demand to meet the king prior to the opening ceremony. Afterwards, there shall be a cocktail reception. Drinks shall be paid for by the Royal Palace or the local organizing committee.

New Secret Service head comes from Comcast | TheHill (will throttle visitors)
How The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig Broke Open The Secret Service Scandal
Julia Pierson, Women Leaders, and the Perils of the Glass Cliff | New Republic

Here’s how to draw a sharp contrast with Republicans - The Washington Post
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » Republican Chances of Senate Takeover Are Improving - But Kansas race complicates matters (prepare to reap the whirlwind)

Eschaton: And It All Falls Down - The amazing thing about Christie cancelling the tunnel project is that it was much more of a gift to NJ than NYC. Sure NYC needs those tunnels, too, but it's commuters from NJ who are really going to be screwed.

Asian-Americans Make Up The Fastest Growing Voting Bloc In The South - Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) are by far the fastest growing racial group in the South, even outpacing the growth of Latinos

Teen Pregnancies, Abortions Plummet With Free Contraception - When teenagers have access to free, long-acting contraception, pregnancies, births and abortions plunge well below current national averages. (why Republicans hate birth control and sex-ed)

Police investigate Dallas Cowboys C.J. Spillman in alleged sexual assault on woman in team's hotel - NY Daily News - “We have asked the NFL whether or not this alleged rape was reported to them and if they approved this accused individual’s playing in the game notwithstanding the allegations that had been made against him.”
Eschaton: Good Enough For The Ladies - The difference matters: plastic pitches alter how the game is played, pose unique safety risks and are considered inferior for international competition.

Eschaton: Effed - Oh crap : Amtrak officials said on Wednesday that they will have to sharply curtail use of the century-old rail tunnels leading to New York City for at least a year to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, a move that would affect train service for tens of thousands of commuters. (+fatfuck Christie screwed NJ bigtime)
Repairs to New York Tunnels Will Limit Rail Service - NYTimes.com

Witnesses contradict police account of warnings before Walmart shooting | US news | theguardian.com - Investigation file reveals differences about specific command given by Ohio officers before John Crawford III was shot dead
Disgraced Chicago police commander accused of torture freed from prison | World news | theguardian.com - Jon Burge alleged to be architect behind serial police torture, as 100 people linked to Burge-era confessions still in prison

Your baby looks like your ex? This research is scarier than Alien | Daisy Buchanan | Comment is free | theguardian.com - It is thought that molecules of the semen produced by the first partner might be absorbed by the mother’s immature eggs.
HIV pandemic originated in Kinshasa in the 1920s, say scientists | Science | The Guardian - Thriving city with multiple transport links and influx of male labourers made it perfect incubator for pandemic strain of HIV

Some Thoughts on DMT Art | Singing to the Plants

Reddit, what is the most dangerous sentence in the world? : AskReddit
Actual Summary of Greek Mythology : funny
Google threatened with $100m lawsuit over nude celebrity photos | Technology | The Guardian - Firm threatened with lawsuit over failure to remove hacked photos from subsidiaries including YouTube and BlogSpot

100114
Walruses forced on to Alaska beach at risk of being trampled to death | Environment | theguardian.com - An estimated 35,000 walruses were forced on to beach in north-west Alaska because of disappearing summer sea ice
Plaquemines Louisiana Environmental Disaster: The Land Is Vanishing | New Republic - And guess who's blocking efforts to save the land
IEA: Solar costs heading to 4c/kWh, rooftop solar “unbeatable” - EnergyPost.euEnergyPost.eu - The Technology Roadmap: Solar PV 2014 shows that the IEA now expects solar to become the biggest single source of energy by 2050. The IEA has doubled its forecast capacity for solar PV compared to previous forecasts.

Dallas Ebola patient identified - CNN.com - Between 12 and 18 people have been identified as having come in contact with the patient, who is the first to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, officials said.
US Ebola patient told staff of Liberia travel but was allowed to leave hospital | World news | theguardian.com - Revelation comes as Dallas witness recounts victim ‘throwing up all over the place’ as ambulance took him away
In Dallas Ebola Case, Officials Are Monitoring Children Exposed to Patient - NYTimes.com
Epidemics Are Not Natural
What Ecologists Can Tell Virologists - Annual Review of Microbiology, 68(1):117 - John J. Dennehy

Hong Kong Students Battle Exhaustion To Continue Protests - Huge crowds filled the streets of Hong Kong for the fifth day of mass protests, sparked by Beijing's decision to pre-screen candidates in the semi-autonomous territory's forthcoming leadership election.

ISIS Beheads 3 Women In Syria, School Bombed
The dumb war in Syria will haunt Democrats' 2014 prospects - The Week - Leave the starting of unwinnable wars to the GOP
The Case Against Qatar - The tiny, gas-rich emirate has pumped tens of millions of dollars through obscure funding networks to hard-line Syrian rebels and extremist Salafists, building a foreign policy that punches above its weight. After years of acquiescing -- even taking advantage of its ally's meddling -- Washington may finally be punching back. (sorta like another little middle eastern country)

Eschaton: You Fucked Up, You Trusted Us! - The outgoing SNP leader and first minister said Mr Brown was "calling for guarantees on the delivery of something which he himself said during the referendum campaign was already a done deal".

Australia passes security law, raising fears for press freedom | Reuters - The first of a series of security powers requested by Australia's government to combat Islamist militants passed through parliament on Wednesday, despite criticism that they could land journalists in jail for reporting on national security.

Secret service director Julie Pierson resigns after series of security lapses | World news | theguardian.com - First female secret service chief bows to pressure to quit after House hearing revealed evidence chronicling security failures
Politico Magazine: Obama might need to be assassinated before we can get Secret Service reform - Salon.com - Sickening piece blames Obama for Secret Service failures -- and suggests change may require his assassination
Threat Levels, Day Two - Esquire - "Have you tried the new watermelon-flavored toothpaste?" (Boston Herald of Satan)

Eric Holder raises concerns over privacy advances by tech companies | Society | theguardian.com - US attorney general suggests an increase in privacy protections may thwart attempts to crack down on child exploitation

Court Won't Force Democrats To Field Candidate In Kansas Senate Race
Tea Party revolt imperils Kansas | TheHill - Kansas Tea Party supporters are threatening to sit out the state’s pivotal Senate election, potentially dealing another blow to the reelection hopes of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).
Court Strikes Down GOP-Backed Voting Restrictions In North Carolina - North Carolina will now be required to reinstate same-day voter registration, as well as allow voters to cast ballots even if they show up to vote in the wrong precinct.
In 22 States, a Wave of New Voting Restrictions Threatens to Shift Outcomes in Tight Races

Database shows $3.5 billion in industry ties to doctors, hospitals - LA Times - Doctors and teaching hospitals had $3.5 billion in financial ties with medical firms in the last half of 2013

Hullabaloo - When Corporate Sponsors Leave ALEC and Rush. What We Learn

Grand Jury In Ferguson Shooting Investigated For Misconduct - The county prosecutor's office received information Wednesday morning suggesting that a juror may have discussed evidence in the case with a friend, office spokesman Ed Magee told The Washington Post.
Gun nuts’ tragic confusion: Why “open carry” groups don’t get police brutality - Salon.com
Michael Dunn Found Guilty Of First-Degree Murder In Killing Of Jordan Davis - Michael Dunn was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Jordan Davis in September, 2012 after an argument over loud music.
Dillon Taylor police shooting body cam video - YouTube
Woman Spends A Month In Jail After Cops Mistake SpaghettiOs For Meth
After Denials, Chicago Police Department Admits Purchase Of Cell-Phone Spying Devices « CBS Chicago - The Chicago Police department has finally acknowledged that it had purchased cell-phone interceptor devices back in 2008, raising serious privacy concerns among activists who question how they are being used.
Reexamining Residency Requirements For Police Officers | FiveThirtyEight - Today, only 15 of America’s largest police departments have a strict residency requirement for police officers, and a majority of cops live outside the cities they serve.

76 Of 79 Deceased NFL Players Had Brain Disease, Frontline Reports

New York Times Announces Deep New Round Of Staff Cuts As Digital Initiatives Stall - the New York Times is planning to make deep cuts in its newsroom staff, executives announced Wednesday. More troublingly for the paper, its attempts to gain new sources of revenue through digital products appear to be stalling badly.

Women Prefer Gay Porn To 'Female-Friendly' Straight Porn, Says Survey

11 Reasons You Should Be Watching The Legend Of Korra
? John Oliver Demands to Know How Ayn Rand Is ‘Still a Thing’ (HD) - YouTube
The Internet Has a Problem(atic) - The Awl - But if you look at "problematic" in newspapers like the Washington Post, you'll see that "problematic" doesn't get a spike until 2007:

What causes paranoia, hallucinations and grandiose ideas? | Daniel and Jason Freeman | Science | theguardian.com - The widespread symptoms typically associated with schizophrenia are at least as likely to be triggered by people’s environment as their genes, a new study suggests
A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry | Mo Costandi | Science | theguardian.com - In the 1950s a group of pioneering psychiatrists showed that hallucinogenic drugs had therapeutic potential, but the research was halted as part of the backlash against the hippy counterculture.
Your nose knows death is imminent | Mo Costandi | Science | theguardian.com - Losing the sense of smell predicts death within five years, according to new research.
Golden ratio discovered in quantum world: Hidden symmetry observed for the first time in solid state matter -- ScienceDaily
How Zapping the Brain With Electricity Can Help Fight Disease | Motherboard
92% of patients say medical marijuana works - The Washington Post

Super clip !!! - YouTube

093014
As Ebola confirmed in U.S., CDC vows: ‘We’re stopping it in its tracks’ - The Washington Post
CDC confirms first ebola case diagnosed in US : news
COMMENTARY: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola | CIDRAP (Ebola may have already developed an air force)

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists threaten to step up protests | World news | theguardian.com - Leaders of pro-democracy protests deliver ultimatum to chief executive Leung Chun-ying after hardline response

How Climate Change Helped ISIS | Charles B. Strozier - A historic drought afflicted the country from 2006 through 2010, setting off a dire humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrians. Yet the four-year drought evoked little response from Bashar al-Assad's government. Rage at the regime's callousness boiled over in 2011, helping to fuel the popular uprising.

Israeli airline urged to stop ‘bullying’ of women by ultra-orthodox passengers | World news | The Guardian - One flight last week, from New York’s JFK to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, descended into chaos according to passengers, after a large group of haredim, or ultra-orthodox Jews, refused to take seats next to women, in accordance with religious customs.
Orthodox Jewish Men Cause Flight Delay By Refusing To Sit Next To Women


Obamacare at One Year: Seven Charts Show the Law Is Working | New Republic - One year after healthcare.gov crashed, things are looking up for the president's signature achievement
BREAKING: Republican Judge Orders Obamacare Defunded | ThinkProgress

Nuclear Waste - Esquire - specific recommendations for a nuclear production plan under which as many as 80 explosive plutonium cores - 3.5in spheres that trigger an atomic bomb - would be created per year by 2030. (80 H-Bombs / year planned)

Nemesis Rising - Esquire - There has been a deliberate, concerted, and well-funded campaign to delegitimize him as the twice-elected president of the United States. Right now, there are congressmen and ex-congressmen who are coming perilously close to counseling sedition within the armed forces, and this in a time of war ... , a Nemesis out of some undying part of the national soul, out of some dank cave of the American Id.
Off-Duty Secret Service Agent Stopped White House Intruder: Report - The man who scaled the White House fence and broke into the executive mansion earlier this month was tackled by an off-duty Secret Service officer, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

California passes ban on Confederate flag | theGrio - Starting next year, the Confederate flag will no longer be available for sale or on display at government agencies in California. Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law that prohibits selling or displaying items that have the flag on it (no support for treason and traitors)

California Becomes First State To Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags
Apple Gets Illegal Tax Breaks From Ireland: EU (send Apple to prison)
Tracy Morgan: 'I Can't Believe Walmart Is Blaming Me' - Tracy Morgan is countering Walmart's claim that the comedian and other passengers should have been wearing seat belts when a Walmart truck hit their limousine from behind earlier this summer, killing one passenger and leaving Morgan critically injured.
Sam Brownback's Conservative Utopia in Kansas Has Become Hell | New Republic - Sam Brownback tried to create a conservative utopia. He created a conservative hell instead.

Mr. Krugman and the Classics (Trivial and Self-Indulgent) - NYTimes.com - I know I’m an old-time Keynesian, but maybe even older-time than I knew …

Bill Simmons Suspension Part of Larger Issues at the Network That Could Lead to Him Leaving ESPN | The Big Lead - Inside ESPN, there has been a lot of talk about the struggles of Nate Silver’s 538 website. It hasn’t even been online for a year yet, but from lack of revenue to lack of traffic to lack of advertising, it is already being billed as a “disaster” by some at the network. (John Skipper and John Wildhack are not reddit nyms)
The Nate Silver 'disaster' at ESPN - POLITICO.com - Inside ESPN, there has been a lot of talk about the struggles of Nate Silver’s 538 website. It hasn’t even been online for a year yet, but from lack of revenue to lack of traffic to lack of advertising, it is already being billed as a “disaster” by some at the network

Can ‘sexual consent’ app Good2Go really reduce assaults on campus? | Technology | The Guardian - A new app hopes to reduce cases of rape and sexual assault by offering a click-to-consent option when students get together - but who would really download it? - Also, every “I’m Good2Go” agreement is logged and tied to both users’ accounts and phone numbers. Allman says it could be “beneficial ... where the accused is an innocent party”

Obama to Move to Doorman Building - The New Yorker - Since the President’s announcement of his move, there has already been considerable interest in the White House, mainly from foreign buyers, sources said.
Cover Story: Christoph Niemann’s Rainy Day - The New Yorker
How Chris McCandless Died - The New Yorker - But last December, a writer named Ronald Hamilton posted a paper on the Internet that brings fascinating new facts to the discussion. Hamilton, it turns out, has discovered hitherto unknown evidence that appears to close the book on the cause of McCandless’s death. (lathyrism)

Microsoft unveils Windows 10: 'It wouldn't be right to call it Windows 9' | Technology | theguardian.com - New operating system comes three years after launch of the poorly received Windows 8 and skips 9 altogether
Your iPhone is now encrypted. The FBI says it'll help kidnappers. Who do you believe? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Apple and Google have finally encrypted your phone data by default. And that’s a bad thing? (they never caught any bad guys before smartphones)

092914
Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF | Environment | The Guardian - Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats
Solar power is growing so fast that older energy companies are trying to stop it - Vox

China President Xi Jinping Faces Stark Choices Between Concession and Crackdown on Hong Kong's Democracy Protests - WSJ - Beijing Wary of Conjuring Memories of Tiananmen Square
'Umbrella Revolution' Protests Spread In Hong Kong
In China, the Great Firewall Does Not Hold - Businessweek

OBAMA: 'They Don't Call Moscow' When There's Trouble In The World - Yahoo Finance
Many Missteps in Assessment of ISIS Threat - NYTimes.com - Mr. Obama accurately quoted James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, acknowledging that he and his analysts did not foresee the stunning success of Islamic State forces or the catastrophic collapse of the Iraqi Army (ISIS "JV" said Clapper earlier this year)
Al Qaeda And ISIS Had A Spectacular Falling Out. Here's What Happened
The Strange Irony Hidden Among The Highest Ranks Of ISIS - Yet the militant group ironically has strong alliances with members of former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath regime and its highest ranks are filled with former Saddam loyalists.
Eschaton: Taking Both Sides In A Civil War (Which Has Many More Sides) - We will help with our love bombs. And when that doesn't work, we'll love bomb some more.
Schoolgirl jihadis: the female Islamists leaving home to join Isis fighters | World news | The Guardian - Hundreds of girls and women are going missing in the west, reappearing in Iraq and Syria to bear children for the caliphate

Regulatory Capture - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Salmon and Lowrey on the devastating findings of a ProPublica report on the deference shown by the New York Fed to the firms it’s supposed to be regulating. The former’s depressing conclusion:

Supreme Court Blocks Order to Restore 7 Days of Voting in Ohio - NYTimes.com - The Supreme Court on Monday blocked an appeals court ruling that would have restored seven days of early voting in Ohio.
How Mitt Romney went from absolutely not running in 2016 to thinking about it: A timeline - The Washington Post

House Hopefuls in G.O.P. Seek Rightward Shift - NYTimes.com - One nominee proposed reclassifying single parenthood as child abuse. Another suggested that four “blood moons” would herald “world-changing, shaking-type events” and said Islam was not a religion but a “complete geopolitical structure” unworthy of tax exemption. Still another labeled Hillary Rodham Clinton “the Antichrist.”

California adopts historic 'yes means yes' rule on sexual consent | World news | theguardian.com - Officials say legislation will begin a paradigm shift in how college campuses in California prevent and investigate sexual assaults

Teachers stage mass sick-out to protest changes to US history curriculum | Education | theguardian.com - Seventy percent of the teachers at two Colorado schools refused to work as conservative Jefferson County board tries to change courses and teacher contracts

Stalled Mall Impedes Christie’s Plan After Casinos Fail - Bloomberg - Governor Chris Christie came to office in 2010 staking New Jersey’s economic turnaround on the resurrection of two stalled construction projects. Now, one is a $2.4 billion flop, and the other is years behind schedule.

Judge won't stop shut-offs, says no right to free water

Police officer who shot black man in Walmart lied, victim's mother says | World news | theguardian.com - Tressa Sherrod says the officer’s account of John Crawford’s death in Ohio store does not tally with surveillance footage
Ferguson demands high fees to turn over city files - In one case, it billed The Associated Press $135 an hour — for nearly a day's work — merely to retrieve a handful of email accounts since the shooting. That fee compares with an entry-level, hourly salary of $13.90 in the city clerk's office, and it didn't include costs to review the emails or release them. The AP has not paid for the search because it has yet to negotiate the cost. (they just can't help themselves)
Grand jury to review another case involving Michael Brown shooter | World news | theguardian.com - A judge approved the request by county prosecutors in case involving drug suspect arrested in 2013 by officer Darren Wilson

Jovan Belcher's brain showed signs of CTE, doctor says in report - ESPN - The brain of former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher -- the 25-year-old player who shot and killed his girlfriend in 2012 before committing suicide -- showed signs of pervasive brain damage like that found in other deceased NFL players, according to a neuropathologist.
The Benefits of 'Binocularity' - NYTimes.com - Their reasoning is straightforward: if the idea of deserving punishment depends upon the idea that criminals freely choose their actions, and if neuroscience reveals that free choice is an illusion, then we can see that the idea of deserving punishment is nonsense

The Woman’s Heart Attack - NYTimes.com - Surprise No. 1: The biggest killer of American women is not breast cancer, as many people believe. It is heart disease.
We Are Slowly Winning the War on Cancer | RealClearScience
Physicists create lasers that switch on and off at world record speed - Scientists have designed a record-breaking laser that accelerates the interaction between light and matter by ten times.
This Physicist Says She Has Proof Black Holes Simply Don't Exist - the contention of Dr. Laura Mersini-Houghton, a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In a new paper submitted to the non-peer-reviewed online research paper repository ArXiv, she offers what she calls proof that it's mathematically impossible for black holes ever to form.
God, Darwin and My College Biology Class - NYTimes.com - As evolutionary science has progressed, the available space for religious faith has narrowed: It has demolished two previously potent pillars of religious faith and undermined belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.

Highland Park ISD reverses book suspensions at high school | Dallas Morning News



092814
President’s Drive for Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home - NYTimes.com - To many Republicans on Capitol Hill, such statements are anathema (anti-science Republicans killing the planet)
Why the (awesome) climate march won’t change American politics | Grist (Rethugs and the media)
Norfolk sea level rise takes shine off waterfront homes | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com - The newlyweds forged a compromise. They would search for a home in Norfolk to be near Josh's office. But it could not be in a flood plain, susceptible to rising seas, storm surge and escalating flood insurance prices. (oh, those liberal sea-levels)
Rooftop solar panels could soon cut utility profits by 15% or more | Computerworld

Japan volcano: at least 30 victims found near Mount Ontake peak | World news | The Guardian - Police confirm that more than 30 individuals in cardiac arrest were found after mountain erupted on Saturday without warning

HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s harshest crackdown yet on democracy marchers fails to blunt protests | World | McClatchy DC
Hong Kong Activists Defy Police Tear Gas As Protests Spread
Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters defiant as police use tear gas - Yahoo News
Hong Kong police use teargas and pepper spray to disperse protesters | World news | The Guardian - Protest movement urges all those who want to make their feelings known to Beijing to join in ‘defining moment’ for territory
Hong Kong Police Use Tear Gas To Clear Protesters
Hong Kong's democracy protests turn violent; 14 hurt - CNN.com
Taiwan leader rejects China unification terms - Al Jazeera English - President tells Al Jazeera he is against "one country, two systems" proposal after remarks by his Chinese counterpart.

The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria - The Intercept (they were going to attack America with explosive clothes! the new WMDs!)
Iraq: Shiites Paralyzed by infighting as ISIL menaces Baghdad | Informed Comment - former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, now one of three largely symbolic vice presidents, is attempting to undermine his successor, Haydar al-Abadi. (clusterfuck only getting more fucked)
Poll: 72% Believe U.S. Will Use American Combat Troops Against ISIS - NBC News.com - More than seven in 10 Americans say the United States will end up using its own combat troops against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria, despite President Barack Obama’s assertion that U.S. combat troops won’t be on the ground there.
US-led forces launch new round of strikes against Isis in Syria | World news | theguardian.com - Fresh wave of bombing raids taget Islamic State oil supplies as British jets carry out strikes in Iraq for first time
Take it from an airport security agent: it's OK to laugh at toothpaste terror threats | Jason Edward Harrington | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Take this one, from the Independent: “Syria air strikes: Khorasan Group ‘were working to make toothpaste bombs and explosives that could pass through airport security’”. Or this one: “Khorasan Group plotted attack against US with explosive clothes”. (fear factor)
US drone strike kills four suspected militants in Pakistan | World news | theguardian.com - Two Arab militants and two local allies killed in tribal region along border with Afghanistan, officials say
Muslim Scholars Make the Theological Case Against the Islamic State | VICE News - "Referring to members of ISIS as jihadists defeats the purpose, it makes them legitimate," Awad added. "They claim to be jihadists but they are not. I urge everyone not to refer to them as jihadists."
An Open Letter To Fox News About 'Boobs On The Ground'
The same week the US goes to war with one, NYT’s Douthat asks, where are the cults?
Fox Host Apologizes Again For 'Boobs On The Ground' Joke - Fox News has apparently been getting so many complaints regarding sexist jokes two male hosts cracked about a female fighter pilot that both men were compelled to revisit their comments Friday.

Watch Protesters Tear Down A Massive Lenin Statue In Ukraine

EU home affairs chief secretly worked with US to undermine new privacy laws, campaigners claim — Tech News and Analysis

Managing a Nightmare: How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb - The Intercept - Eighteen years after it was published, “Dark Alliance,” the San Jose Mercury News’s bombshell investigation into links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California, remains one of the most explosive and controversial exposés in American journalism.

Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns
Vatican Paedophilia Scandal: Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski Stored Over 100,000 Child Porn Videos - A former Vatican archbishop accused of paedophilia stored tens of thousands of child porn videos and photos on a computer in his office at the Holy See diplomatic compound in the Dominican Republic, it has emerged. Investigators said that at least another 45,000 pictures were deleted, while a second stash of material was found on a laptop Wesolowski used during his trips abroad. (that worked out well)

Dismantling Empires Through Devolution - The Atlantic - Venice pays 70 billion euros in taxes per year, but receives only a fraction back in fiscal transfers, meaning support from the capital.
Elizabeth Warren Calls For Investigation Of NY Fed Over Secret Tapes - Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently released secret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate.

About that GOP clown car… by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Cruz, Carson and Huckabee. Oh my. A lineup like that wouldn’t just lose to Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden. It would lose to almost anyone credible on the Democratic side in 2016.
PA Gov. Rocked By News Of Ex-Staffers' Hardcore Porn Email Trove - Among the content, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, was a video of a woman masturbating with a lit cigar. Another video reportedly showed a man dressed as a race-car driver uncorking a bottle of champagne and inserting it into a woman's vagina.

Record Share of Americans Have Never Married | Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project - As Values, Economics and Gender Patterns Change (the end of marriage)


Mass shooting hysteria and the death of John Crawford - The Washington Post - More importantly, the video makes clear that Crawford never pointed the gun at police, and strongly suggests they never gave him an opportunity to drop it - But not only is there little evidence that mass shootings are on the rise, they’re also extremely rare, (go in with guns blazing!)
Search Is On For Two Suspects Wanted In Shooting Of Ferguson Police Officer - The Justice Department, which is investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated, is conducting a broader probe into the Ferguson police department. On Friday, it urged Jackson to ban his officers from wearing bracelets supporting Wilson while on duty and from covering up their name plates with black tape.
L.A. wants court to revive law allowing motel guest registry searches - LA Times - arguing the surprise checks are needed to deter prostitutes and drug dealers and sometimes catch fugitives.
Judge won't grant immunity to police, doctor who medically paralyzed man for cavity search | Fox News - The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals tossed out the case, however, saying the search "shocked the conscience" and violated the Constitution ... The defendants' attorneys have argued they're immune from prosecution because they were just doing their jobs.
Juror removed from Florida retrial after report he questioned prosecutor's ability - Chicago Tribune - the retrial of software engineer Michael Dunn, 47, who is charged with the first-degree murder of Jordan Davis, 17, during a gas station dispute over loud rap music.

NY Post Mocks Chelsea Clinton's Baby. No, Really. - Because obviously, even babies deserve the loving scrutiny only the world's classiest tabloid can provide.

The domestic violence gender trap: Hope Solo, Ray Rice and the tired myopia of “women do it too” - Salon.com - Hope Solo is affiliated with a different tradition — misdemeanor assault.
Black Agenda Report | News, analysis and commentary from the black left

If you want to raise revenue, look to CO and WA by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - If a pair of new government forecasts prove true, Washington and Colorado would see more than $800 million in extra revenue over the next few years thanks to marijuana sales ... And that doesn’t even get into the cost savings from avoiding socially destructive jail time for the “offense” of marijuana possession. (in b4 everyone else does it; MA is teh stupid)

Ellora’s Cave Sues Dear Author: Hello Streisand Effect | Blog | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books | Romance Novel Reviews | News, romance reviews and humorous commentary for smart readers that can't get enough of the romance genre. - But in the larger context, this means a publisher is suing a blogger for reporting about business matters. Effectively, EC is suing Jane for practicing journalism and also demanding the identity of her anonymous commenters.
The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave | Dear Author
MMM Receives Legal Threats – Great Lawyer Wanted - Update: After further advice from the MMM legal team, I can now safely share more details. The company is called Kiss Trust. The forum thread they are objecting to is this one right here. Their law firm is called “Law office of Mark B. Williams, PLC”, and here is a copy of the letter they sent me: (now eternally famous on teh internets for being collosal assholes)

Witches: A history of misogyny - Features - Art - The Independent
Kiran Herbert: Portland and Portlandia, Two Worlds of Whiteness - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics - Oregon’s liberal mecca was made white by explicitly bigoted laws, and its hometown satire white-washes race relations ... In 1844 an amendment to Oregon’s constitution simultaneously outlawed slavery while ordering all freed black people out of the state under the threat of lashing. In contrast to the south, Oregon didn’t want black labor, they simply wanted black people gone.
The Woman Who Walked 10,000 Miles (No Exaggeration) in Three Years - NYTimes.com
xs Murder in a Time Before Google - The Atlantic

Back to School: Administrators Scold Parents who Let Their Kids Venture Outside : Free Range Kids (the end of "outside")
Now You Can File the Equivalent of a Flight Plan Before You Cross College Campus : Free Range Kids - A new app lets college students alert the authorities when they leave one building and head to another, so the cops can instantly come looking for them if they don’t get to their destination. Which makes sense if you are going to college in ISIS-held neighborhoods of Syria.
I Felt Like a Criminal: The Pressure to Become a Helicopter Parent ... Thirty years ago, a nine-year-old alone at a park probably wouldn’t have led to a mother’s arrest, but expectations have changed. (20 minutes alone in a house get's you de-parented)

Why Academics' Writing Stinks - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - relativist academic ideologies such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, and literary Marxism, which took over many humanities departments in the 1970s. (it was Judith Butler's fault)
The secret to raising well behaved teens? Maximise their Zzzzz’s!

What are some websites that are awesome but nobody knows? : AskReddit

The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy - IEEE Spectrum - The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence
The Reclusive, Doll-Collecting Copper Queen of Fifth Avenue | Collectors Weekly (Huguette Clark)
Altered Pasts reviewed by Cass R. Sunstein | New Republic - As everyone knows, the supreme court ?ruled six–three for Al Gore in the great dispute over the Florida recount in 2000.
How Does Islam Relate to Christianity and Judaism? - NYTimes.com

What is your favourite creepypasta? [NSFW][NSFL] : AskReddit
The Russian Sleep Experiment – Creepypasta Wiki
My friend hasn't been in contact since this series of weird text messages. I don't know what to think... : nosleep
creepypasta.com - Scary Paranormal Stories & Short Horror Microfiction —

Shellshock just 'a blip' says Richard Stallman as Bash bug attacks increase | Technology | theguardian.com - GNU Project founder: ‘Any program can have a bug. But a proprietary program is likely to have intentional bugs’
linux - How do I patch the shellshock vulnerability on an obsolete Ubuntu system that I can't upgrade? - Super User
As a college student, getting a Surface Pro 3 was the smartest decision I made : Surface

092714
Hope & Change by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - After all the hair-on-fire reactions to Naomi Klein’s immediate classic This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, it’s nice to actually see a rational response to her masterwork.

Mount Ontake erupts in central Japan - CNN.com

Enterovirus 68: September 26th : OutbreakNews - 38+1 US States Affected:

Arab nations join Syria strikes as Nusra front threatens retaliation | World news | theguardian.com - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE ‘participated in strikes’ Syrian foreign minister says air assault alone will not succeed
Islamic State Shells Syrian Kurdish Town, Defying Air Strikes - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan signaled a shift in Ankara's position by saying for the first time that Turkish troops could be used to help set up a secure zone in Syria, if there was international agreement to establish one as a haven for those fleeing the fighting.
Saudi Arabia beheading nearly two people per week this year | Amnesty International
Afghan villagers hang Taliban fighters as battle for district rages - Yahoo News - Afghan villagers hanged four captured Taliban militants from a tree on Saturday as security forces battled the insurgents for a sixth day in a district of Ghazni province, an official said.

Democracy Protests In Hong Kong Turn Violent

Row as Snowden wins Swedish rights prize - The Local - Sweden's foreign ministry has banned a civil rights group from its premises after news leaked that this year's winner of the Swedish Right Livelihood Award would be whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Ray McGovern - Intelligence Activism — London Real
Nine Epic Failures Of Regulating Cryptography | Techdirt

Health Experts Issue Call To Prevent ICANN's Commercialization Of New .health Domain Leading To Exclusive Control Of Online Health Information | Techdirt (commercialize everything! where's .profit?)

Matt Bruenig on Twitter: "Reducing poverty is hard and nobody knows quite how to do it, they say, ht @interfluidity http://t.co/WzvMOKWF8g"

The GOP’s Millennial problem runs deep | Pew Research Center - And even those Millennials who do identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP are decidedly less conservative than older Republicans.

Wisconsin will enact voter ID law denounced as 'recipe for chaos' | World news | theguardian.com - Federal appeals court turns down request to hear challenge to law that rights advocates call a ploy to disenfranchise voters
Students Protesting Conservative Rewrite Of History Get Their Most Important Endorsement Yet - The organization that oversees the Advanced Placement curriculum, whose history course is being defended by massive, ongoing student protests in a Denver suburb, has now said that it backs those protests. (Republicans making America stupid and authoritarian)
Expedia under fire over membership to rightwing lobby group Alec | World news | theguardian.com - A range of tech firms including Google, Facebook and Yahoo have dumped Alec recently over its stance on climate change
Allen West Tells Military To Disobey Commander-In-Chief | Blog | Media Matters for America - West Lashes Out At New Rules Expanding Military Service To Undocumented Immigrants
Christian broadcaster: Ebola could cleanse US of atheists, gay people, and sluts

'It was a crank call': family seeks action against 911 caller in Walmart shooting | World news | theguardian.com - One month later, Ritchie shared with his friends a story from the Tea Party News Network (grandmother of kids he lied about died of a heart attack)

These five races will decide control of the Senate - The Washington Post - -- Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and Kansas
Honeybaby, Honeybaby by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate—and Chris Christie’s bosom buddy—Charlie Baker ran for the state’s highest office four years ago as the Ultimate Tea Partier. Now, he’s running as the Ultimate Chauvinist Pig.

The myth of religious violence | Karen Armstrong | World news | The Guardian - The popular belief that religion is the cause of the world’s bloodiest conflicts is central to our modern conviction that faith and politics should never mix. But the messy history of their separation suggests it was never so simple - “No word in either Greek or Latin corresponds to the English ‘religion’ or ‘religious’.
Pope revisits 'punishing' rules on Catholic divorce | World news | The Observer - Millions of devotees remain banned from receiving communion – but meeting of bishops raises hopes of ban being loosened

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014 - in pictures | Science | The Guardian

What is the worst case of Special Snowflake Syndrome you have ever seen? : AskReddit

Court Orders Warner Bros. to Reveal Flawed Anti-Piracy Technology | TorrentFreak - The records are part of the now closed case between Hotfile and the MPAA, and are expected to shed some light on the movie studio's inaccurate takedown policy.
The Threatening Meltdown That Got a Book Blogger Kicked Off Twitter - Brooklyn-based literary blogger/podcaster/personality named Edward Champion
Consumer Reports test results find iPhone 6 and 6 Plus not as bendy as believed : technology

092614
Cameron holds out possibility of extending Isis air strikes to Syria | Politics | The Guardian - British PM opens Commons debate saying there are no legal barriers to extending mission against ‘psychopathic’ forces of Isis

Gaza war may be over but Jerusalem is still simmering | World news | The Guardian - Outbreaks of violence in the city have intensified since murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, fuelling talk of a third intifada

Dozens Reportedly Killed In Xinjiang, China Terror Attack - Chinese state media reported Thursday that 50 people, including 40 assailants, were killed in a series of explosions over the weekend in the far western region of Xinjiang, in what officials called a severe terror attack.
Thousands jailed in Uzbekistan on politically motivated charges, report says | World news | The Guardian - Human rights activists, journalists, religious clerics and other perceived regime critics are kept under abysmal conditions, according to Human Rights Watch

FBI blasts Apple, Google for locking police out of phones - The Washington Post

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes - Bloomberg View
Inside the New York Fed: Secret Recordings and a Culture Clash - ProPublica - A confidential report and a fired examiner’s hidden recorder penetrate the cloistered world of Wall Street’s top regulator—and its history of deference to banks.

US 'little rebels' protest against changes to history curriculum | World news | The Guardian - part of protest against what many see as a radical rightwing agenda of the newly elected school board in Jefferson County.

Alec lobbying group lashes out at Google over climate change 'lies' charge | World news | theguardian.com - Conservative group addresses rebuttal to Google founders, who said group ‘lies’ about science, as rightwing allies attack IPCC

Only half of US HIV-diagnosed gay men got treatment in 2010, CDC says | World news | theguardian.com - US government data reveals gaps in access to care that affect gay, bisexual and African American man disproportionately

Skinny jeans: destroyer of iPhones, enemy of sperm and threat to our world | Technology | theguardian.com - Not only do tight pants bend shoddy cellphones, they are anti-wallet, poor for cycling and no good for those with knobbly knees

From Emma Watson's nude threat to abusive YouTube comments: why women aren't safe on the internet | The Verge - Let me get this straight: I'm supposed to believe a threat doesn't matter because it isn't carried out?
The Fappening, Ebola-chan, revenge porn: Why isn’t 4chan’s founder accountable for 4chan’s crimes? - Why isn’t 4chan’s founder accountable for 4chan’s offenses?

Shellshock Scanner
security - How do I recompile Bash to avoid Shellshock (the remote exploit CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169)? - Ask Different
export evil='() { :;}; echo vulnerable'; bash -c echo;
security - CVE-2014-6271 Bash Vulnerability example - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
bash - When was the shellshock (CVE-2014-6271) bug introduced, and what is the patch that fully fixes it? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
pkg upgrade bash
echo $BASH_VERSION
As Bash damage spreads, experts warn of network attacks and an internet meltdown | The Verge

092514
Sierra Leone Restricts Travel For Over 1 Million To Stop Ebola Spread

A Terror Cell That Avoided the Spotlight - NYTimes.com - One senior American official on Wednesday described the Khorasan plotting as “aspirational” and said that there did not yet seem to be a concrete plan in the works.
US officials unclear on threat posed by obscure al-Qaida cell in Syria | World news | theguardian.com - Senior officials say Khorasan was involved in ‘actual plotting that was ongoing’, but is a terror attack really imminent? (way to fuck up your message, guys)
Pentagon: No evidence that airstrikes killed civilians despite reports - LA Times (they never kill any civilians)

Terror laws clear Senate, enabling entire Australian web to be monitored and whistleblowers to be jailed (Oz becoming very authoritarian)


Minus 995 words - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Chart from Piketty’s/Saez’s latest data: (Distribution of Average Income Growth During Expansions: the rich took all the money starting with Reagan)

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire | Rolling Stone

Iraq looms large again for Hillary Clinton as she weighs another White House bid - The Washington Post (triangulation is in her genes)

Eric Holder To Resign As Attorney General
Holder Backs Suit in New York Faulting Legal Service for Poor - NYTimes.com
Holder's Legacy: Steering Away From the Drug War and Mass Incarceration | Bill Piper
Fox Host Calls Eric Holder One Of The "Most Dangerous Men In America" | Video | Media Matters for America - Andrea Tantaros: "He Was One Of The Most Divisive, Polarizing, Controversial, Most Dangerous Men In America ... He Ran The DOJ Much Like The Black Panthers Would"
Holder Action - Esquire

Gabby Giffords Gun Control Ads Are Criticized Because They're Working | New Republic

Ohio Walmart video reveals moments before officer killed man on cellphone | World news | theguardian.com
Father Of John Crawford III: Police Murdered My Son At Ohio Wal-Mart
Ohio police given 'pep talk' on shooting scenarios ahead of Walmart encounter | World news | theguardian.com - Sean Williams, who killed John Crawford in store, was among those shown presentation encouraging aggressive action
Marlene Pinnock, Woman In California Highway Patrol Beating Case, Reaches Settlement - "He grabbed me, he threw me down, he started beating me, he beat me," Pinnock said when when later describing the incident to the AP. "I felt like he was trying to kill me, beat me to death."
Sean Groubert, South Carolina State Trooper, Fired & Arrested After Shooting Unarmed Man - "I was just getting my license," Jones says. He also apologizes repeatedly, and asks, "Sir, why was I shot? All I did was reach for my license. I'm coming from work."
COLUMBIA, SC: VIDEO RELEASED: SC trooper charged with felony in shooting at traffic stop over seat belt violation | Crime | The State
The Story Behind A Shocking Dash Cam Video That Landed An Officer In Jail

Colleges Win, Student Borrowers Lose In Obama Administration Absolution - The U.S. Department of Education is turning its back on at least 1,000 borrowers in favor of shielding their former colleges from potentially crippling sanctions that would have resulted from high rates of default on federal student loans.

Eschaton: Innovative Ways To Make Shit Even More Fucked Up And Bullshit - Some borrowers say their cars were disabled when they were only a few days behind on their payments, leaving them stranded in dangerous neighborhoods. Others said their cars were shut down while idling at stoplights.

Frat brothers rape 300% more. One in 5 women is sexually assaulted on campus. Should we ban frats? | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - When so much sexual violence surrounds around one area of student life, something must be done (co-ed frats is the solution)

Paul A. Offit: The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic - WSJ - Whooping cough, mumps and measles are making an alarming comeback, thanks to seriously misguided parents.

092414
World Bank: Price on Carbon | New Republic - But U.S. officials won’t sign on to the agreement, lest Republicans attack them for trying to impose new taxes
Facebook set to become latest tech giant to abandon rightwing lobby group Alec | World news | theguardian.com - Google and Microsoft have recently cut ties with the group, which campaigns against climate change legislation

Ebola epidemic: house-to-house search in Sierra Leone reveals 358 new cases | World news | theguardian.com - Teams of volunteers also find hundreds of unburied corpses, according to leaked email from senior American diplomat

Weeks of U.S. Strikes Fail to Dislodge ISIS in Iraq - NYTimes.com
US and allies strike Isis-controlled oil facilities in Syria, Pentagon says – live | World news | theguardian.com - US and allies strike Isis-controlled oil facilities in Syria, Pentagon says
Obama vows to destroy Isis's 'brand of evil' as Iraq requests help from Britain | World news | theguardian.com - Isil fighters ‘should leave the battlefield while they can’ UK parliament to vote on Friday to approve air strikes in Iraq
REYHANLI, Turkey: Syrian rebels angry that strikes hit al Qaida ally but not Assad | Syria | McClatchy DC - But the greatest damage, they said, may be to the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebel faction that enjoyed U.S. support for years.
Wrong Turn on Syria: No Convincing Plan - NYTimes.com
War against ISIS in Syria: Obama’s legal and political justifications. - The real constraint on a president’s war-making powers is political, not legal.
French tourist beheaded by Isis-linked jihadis in Algeria | World news | The Guardian - Group calling itself Jund al-Khilafah releases video showing the beheading of 55-year-old mountain guide Hervé Gourdel
Who profits from our new war? Inside NSA and private contractors’ secret plans - Salon.com - A massive war operation is being waged to track and kill ISIS -- and it's a lot more than cruise missiles

In Syria, Obama stretches legal and policy constraints he created for counterterrorism - The Washington Post - The unfolding U.S. air campaign has employed weapons — including dozens of 3,000-pound Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. warships — that have flattened targets in ways destined to test Obama’s doctrine requiring “near certainty” that no civilians be killed.
Calm Settles On Washington As U.S. Bombs Syria - All four congressional party leaders -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) -- put out statements hailing Obama's leadership.
Is Obama misleading the world to war? Depends how you define 'misleading' | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - When it comes to military strikes against Isis in Syria, his administration’s strategy relies on what the meaning of ‘is’ is

India's Mars satellite successfully enters orbit, bringing country into space elite | Science | theguardian.com - Prime minister Narendra Modi exultant as India’s landmark achievement puts China in the shade
Asamoah Gyan denies murdering rapper in alleged human sacrifice | Football | theguardian.com - Former Sunderland striker attacks press rumours in Ghana • Local reports had linked Gyan to an alleged ritual murder

US army drill sergeant found guilty of sexual assaulting eight soldiers | World news | theguardian.com - Military judge rules that Angel M Sanchez abused his authority and assaulted and harassed eight female soldiers

In conservative media, Obamacare is a disaster. In the real world, it’s working. - Vox (except in the minds of Republicans who are using it)

Federal Court Lifts Injunction In Walker Investigation

Bill Simmons Suspended By ESPN After Calling Roger Goodell A 'Liar' - ESPN has suspended Bill Simmons for three weeks after he called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a "liar" in a recent podcast.

John Crawford Set Air Rifle Down Before Police Fatally Shot Him (RAW VIDEO) - The recently released video appears to show 22-year-old John Crawford III setting the air rifle -- which uses compressed air to fire pellets or BBs -- on the ground before an officer fires two shots into him. (video comes out; assassination by cops becomes clear)
US Justice Department to review fatal police shooting of man in Walmart | World news | theguardian.com - Announcement comes after Ohio grand jury declines to indict the two police officers involved in killing of John Crawford III Doubts cast on witness account of man killed by police (they are never guilty no matter what)
No Indictment For Police Who Killed Man in Wal-Mart for Carrying a Toy Gun : news
Family Says Louisiana Deputy Shot 14-year-old 'Four Or Five Times In The Back' | Crooks and Liars - Louisiana State Police were investigating on Wednesday after a Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's deputy fatally shot a 14-year-old boy. (the usual drop gun)
Sebring man accidentally shoots wife - News-Sun: News - “Once he realized it was her, he stopped shooting,” Carr said. “All (shots) missed except one in the face.”
D.A.: Three to be charged in Center City attack - The District Attorney's Office today approved arrest warrants for three suspects in the Sept. 11 attack on a gay couple near Rittenhouse Square.

Denver Area Students Walk Out Of School In Protest - Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay.
Students protest 'slut shaming' high school dress codes with mass walkouts | Education | theguardian.com - Students around US organise protests after administrators have made them wear ‘shame suits’ or mandate hemline limits
Huntsville schools say call from NSA led to monitoring students online | AL.com - A secret program to monitor students' online activities began quietly in Huntsville schools, following a phone call from the NSA, school officials say.

Neil Gaiman: ‘Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry’ | Books | The Guardian - Terry Pratchett may strike many as a twinkly old elf, but that’s not him at all. Fellow sci-fi novelist Neil Gaiman on the inner rage that drives his ailing friend’s writing

Brian Leiter's slow-motion car crash accelerates - Lawyers, Guns & Money :

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus can bend in pockets, users complain | Technology | theguardian.com - Despite insurance company finding new iPhones are most durable yet, users discover that pockets can warp them - and hands too if you try hard enough

092314
Jon Stewart Schools Congress On Climate Change With A Simple Demonstration - Last week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology interrogated Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren -- or, as Stewart called him, the hearing's Sisyphus "charged with the impossible task of pushing a million pounds of idiot up a mountain."

Ebola Cases Could Rise To 1.4 Million By January, CDC Says
CDC scientists predict there could be a staggering 550,000 to 1.4 million ebola cases by late January. : worldnews

US ties itself in legal knots to cover shifting rationale for Syria strikes | World news | theguardian.com - Lawyers use Iraq’s right of self-defence and weakness of Syrian regime – which US has undermined – to justify failure to seek UN approval
US-led strikes on Isis in Syria have opened a new Middle East battlefront | World news | The Guardian - Involvement of Sunni nations, in defiance of Shia Iran and its Syrian ally, could expand Syria-Iraq conflict across region
Obama On Syria Airstrikes: 'This Is Not America's Fight Alone'
Al-Qaeda Khorasan cell in Syria attack 'was imminent' (yet another secret Arab group)
Making More War - Esquire - Last night, the United States -- together with our allies, some of whom can be distinguished from our enemies by the fact that their beheadings are not clumsy, impromptu affairs but regularly scheduled, organized ceremonies with balloons for the kiddies, and some of whom are freed up to help us because all the real work back home is being done by disposable slave labor -- began to make war against ISIL ...
Israeli Military Shoots Down Syrian Warplane Over Golan Heights - Israel signals plane entered its Golan airspace by mistake
Tim Kaine: Congress Has Opened The Door To The 'Cheney Pre-emptive War Doctine'
Blasts From The Past - Esquire - some recently declassified CIA material, specifically National Intelligence Estimates dated April 17, 1963 and titled "Prospects In South Vietnam." These concerned, among other things, the CIA's assessment of the relative strength of the Viet Cong in our adopted Indochinese client state. There's some material that seems almost unbearably sad in retrospect: (ISIL is warning us +never trust "military/CIA estimates)

George Osborne likely to miss deficit reduction target as UK borrowing rises | Business | The Guardian - Increase fuelled by weak tax receipts means chancellor may have to unveil further cuts or raise taxes to meet targets in time for 2015 election

Vatican arrests former archbishop on paedophilia charges | World | Reuters - The Vatican on Tuesday arrested a former archbishop accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic, the first-ever arrest inside the city state on charges of paedophilia.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Thinks This Justice Is Responsible For Halting Access To Abortions - “To be frank, it’s one person who made the difference: Justice [Anthony] Kennedy,” (Motherfucker Supreme)

Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math -- NYMag (unbearable stupid)
"He's sewage poured into a suit" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Somehow, I missed Marchman’s epic assessment of Lanny Davis at the time. Fortunately, it’s still fresh! (great line)

Challenging Mississippi’s depraved justice system: Months in jail, with no indictment and no lawyer - Salon.com - It's "toxic" injustice for these poor prisoners. “The process here becomes a part of the punishment,” says the ACLU (no Sixth Amendment for black in Mississipi)

Ravens Deny Allegations Outlined In Damning ESPN 'Outside The Lines' Report

Officer involved in death of young black man warned of drugs linked to Rasta culture | World news | theguardian.com - Matthew Schauerhamer, placed on leave following the death of Darrien Hunt, wrote article in June suggesting ‘if your child is listening to Bob Marley, it is highly likely your child is highly high’

The Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job : technology
Out in the Open: The Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job | WIRED

What's the sluttiest thing you've seen or done? : AskReddit
beerfriend comments on What's the sluttiest thing you've seen or done? ("narrowly")

092214
Flood Wall Street Protesters Assemble In New York (photos)
US to put climate change 'front and center' of diplomatic efforts, Kerry vows | Environment | theguardian.com - Secretary of state says he is ‘personally committed’ to action Ban Ki-moon: ‘No plan B because there is no planet B’
World on track for worst-case warming scenario - environment - 22 September 2014 - New Scientist (Republicans are setting the world on fire)
Sunday News Shows Ignore Historic Climate March | Blog | Media Matters for America - No Mention Of The People's Climate March On Meet The Press, Face The Nation, State Of The Union, Or Fox News Sunday (oh look, 10 teabaggers under a tree!)
Global Warming Concerns Grow - NYTimes.com

U.S. Begins Airstrikes In Syria, Pentagon Says
Iranian talks with Saudi Arabia may signal thaw in relations | World news | The Guardian - Shia Muslim Iran and conservative Sunni kingdom, bitter rivals for influence in the Gulf, meet in New York
Only 20 to 30 Americans fighting for jihadist groups in Syria, US official says | World news | theguardian.com - Senior administration official says only a fraction of some 100 Americans fight for Isis, while al-Qaida in Yemen poses biggest US threat
Who's Going to Pay For the Latest Iraq War? | Mother Jones (fiscal conservative will raise taxes to pay for their newest war ha ha)
Charlie Rangel Pushes For Draft, War Tax To Battle ISIS

Thousands March In Moscow Against Ukraine Fighting

China’s Xinjiang region hit by series of explosions | World news | The Guardian - At least two people killed and many injured in blasts in at least three locations in ethnically divided area of China’s far west (escalation)
'The 2022 World Cup Will Not Take Place in Qatar,' Says Fifa Official - r because of the scorching temperatures in the Middle East country. Average summer temperatures in the emirate nation surpass 38 °C (100 °F) and often approach 47 °C (117 °F). (they just realized that)

Eschaton: Joe Lieberman's Greatest Accomplishment - The departures are a result of what employees widely describe as a dysfunctional work environment, abysmal morale, and the lure of private security companies paying top dollar that have proliferated in Washington since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Top-level turnover makes it harder for DHS to stay on top of evolving threats - The Washington Post - The department’s woes date to the George W. Bush administration. Within a few years after DHS began operations in 2003, senior-level vacancy rates were already high and many top officials were leaving the fledgling department for jobs with private security companies. Among the most prominent is the Chertoff Group, a security consulting firm led by former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, which employs so many former officials it is known in homeland security circles as a “shadow DHS.’’

Public Sees Religion’s Influence Waning | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project - The share of Americans who say churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political issues is up 6 points since the 2010 midterm elections (from 43% to 49%) ... And a growing minority of Americans (32%) think churches should endorse candidates for political office,

Walmart's Plan To Encourage Political Donations Violates Election Law, Groups Claim - Walmart is violating campaign finance law by encouraging workers to donate to a PAC backing the company's favorite political candidates, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Sam Brownback’s failed ‘experiment’ puts state on path to penury - The Washington Post - Other Republican-led states have embarked on tax-cutting programs. But few if any have done so without a fail-safe designed to protect essential state services, such as mechanisms that would abort tax cuts if revenue drops, or allow them only after revenue rises.
Daniel Inouye Is The Senator Who Called Kirsten Gillibrand 'Chubby': The New York Times - The lawmaker who told Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) not to "lost too much weight now" because "I like my girls chubby" was the late Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the New York Times reports.
2014 September 22 - First Draft. Political News, Now. - NYTimes.com - But in an all but forgotten chapter of his career, the senator had been accused of sexual misconduct: In 1992, his hairdresser said that Mr. Inouye had forced her to have sex with him.

Rice, Peterson NFL Scandals Really About Liberals' Plan to Pussify America, Say Rightbloggers | Village Voice

More Proof That Anti-Obamacare States Desperately Need Obamacare (Boston!)
In Texas Textbooks, Moses Is a Founding Father - The Daily Beast - The Texas State Board of Education is studying how textbook publishers responded to the state’s ideologically driven guidelines for teaching history. The results, say historians, are dire.

From Watts to Ferguson - In These Times - The riot is still ‘the language of the unheard.’
Darrien Hunt family uncover sketches that suggest link to cosplay theory | World news | theguardian.com - Relatives of young black man taking seriously possibility he was engaged in costume role play when he was shot dead by police (shopping while black)
Walmart shooting: grand jury hears evidence in John Crawford III death | World news | theguardian.com - A young black man was shot by police in August while holding an air rifle his family said he’d taken off the store shelf
Sheriff Of Goshen County, Wyo., Says Grenade Launcher Will Help Control 25-Inmate Jail - The Casper Star-Tribune (http://bit.ly/1sSTJkQ ) reported Sunday that officials bought the weapon for use in the county jail, which houses 25 inmates and has not had a large fight in the past year.

Pennsylvania police 'close' to capture of suspected killer Eric Frein | World news | theguardian.com - As manhunt enters 10th day, locals live under lockdown and official says police have narrowed search for suspect

The Revolution Against Campus Sexual Assault -- The Cut
Django Unchained actor asked to apologise over LAPD racism claims | Film | theguardian.com - Danièle Watts now asked by civil rights official, who had originally supported her, to retract accusations
25 Famous Women on Childlessness -- The Cut
New Guidelines For Estimating Women's Due Dates Issued By OB-GYN Group - Overall, a high-quality ultrasound in a woman's first trimester is the most accurate method of establishing or confirming the gestational age of the fetus.

New York Times Launches 'First Draft' Politics Site And Newsletter
Alessandra Stanley’s contempt for New York Times readers - The Washington Post - Sullivan reports that of 20 critics at the New York Times, “not one is black and only one is a person of color.”
The myth of the Angry Black Woman is a scandal of white supremacy | Hannah Giorgis | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Contrary to the New York Times stereotype of Shonda Rhimes, we are more than props. We are human. We are women. We are not your sidekick

Banned Books By The Numbers (wtf, Oregon?)

Safety experts to pedestrians: Put the smartphones down and pay attention - The Washington Post

092114
Large Protests In Hundreds Of Cities Vent Ire Over Climate Change : The Two-Way : NPR
Hundreds Of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March In New York City
People's Climate March: thousands demand action around the world – live | Environment | theguardian.com - Tens of thousands of people across 150 countries are taking to the streets to march for action on climate change
How the People’s Climate March Became a Corporate PR Campaign - Infoshop News
? What Happened To The Republican Consensus On Climate Change? - YouTube (Republifucks destroying the world)
Damn Right, This Changes Everything by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It’s no surprise that the deacons of disinformation are denouncing Naomi Klein and her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. This book is so threatening to the right-wing mindset that we will soon see Tea Party members burning it in YouTube videos. Hardcore conservatives will condemn the book with language they don’t even use to describe the Qu’ran.
De Blasio Orders a Greener City, Setting Goals for Energy Efficiency of Buildings - NYTimes.com - , New York City is planning to overhaul the energy-efficiency standards of all its public buildings and to pressure private landlords to make similar improvements (Bloomberg really was an asshole)
March Aims for More Diversity on Climate Change -- NYMag
As World’s Population Booms, Will Its Resources Be Enough for Us? - There are more than 7 billion people on Earth now, and roughly one in eight of us doesn't have enough to eat. The question of how many people the Earth can support is a long-standing one that becomes more intense as the world's population—and our use of natural resources—keeps booming.

Why a Massive International Effort Has Failed to Contain the Ebola Epidemic | Vanity Fair - As the Ebola epidemic rages, two questions have emerged: How did the deadly virus escape detection for three months? And why has a massive international effort failed to contain it? Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses known to medical science, with no specific cure and mortality rates of up to 90 percent

Ban Ki-moon: 'World living in an era of unprecedented level of crises' | World news | The Guardian - UN secretary general prepares to welcome more than 140 heads of state to organisation's general assembly this week

Tony Blair: fight against Isis could evolve to use 'combat force' | World news | theguardian.com - Former UK prime minister said Obama ‘right to take on Isis’
How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists - The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists
Who's Funding ISIS? Wealthy Gulf 'Angel Investors,' Officials Say - NBC News.com (American interests)
Can Adversaries Become Allies to Fight ISIS? - NYTimes.com - Can Adversaries Become Allies to Fight ISIS?
John Kerry meets Iranian foreign minister at UN for nuclear talks | World news | theguardian.com - Their meeting came on the third day of the latest round of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers
IRBIL, Iraq: Kurdish refugees from Islamic State clash with Turkish police | Syria | McClatchy DC
Bill Maher Blasts Fear-Mongering Over ISIS: 'United States Of Pants-Shitters' Should Be More Afraid Of Monsanto

Thousands March Against War In Moscow, St. Petersburg - Thousands of people have gathered in St. Petersburg and Moscow to take part in antiwar demonstrations protesting Russia's role in eastern Ukraine.

Home Depot ignored security warnings for years, employees say | Ars Technica - In 2012, Home Depot hired Ricky Joe Mitchell as its senior IT security architect. Mitchell got the job after being fired from EnerVest Operating in Charelston, South Carolina—and he sabotaged that company’s network in an act of revenge, taking the company offline for 30 days. Mitchell retained his position at Home Depot even after his indictment a year later and remained in charge of Home Deopt’s security until he pled guilty to federal charges in January of 2014.
Ex-Employees Say Home Depot Left Data Vulnerable - NYTimes.com - They said that over the years, when they sought new software and training, managers came back with the same response: “We sell hammers.”

"Homeland" And Other Un-American Words and Ideas - the phrase "does have a deep blood and soil tinge to it which is distinctly Germanic, more than a touch un-American, and a little creepy."
New York Times Analysis Finds Sunday News Shows Favor Conservative Guests | Blog | Media Matters for America - Report Underscores Ideological Imbalance On Sunday News Shows

Return of the Bums on Welfare - NYTimes.com - Thinking some more about John Boehner’s resurrection of the notion that we’re suffering weak job growth because people are living the good life on government benefits, and don’t want to work ... So basically the right is railing against the bums on welfare not only when there aren’t any bums, but when there isn’t any welfare.
John Boehner Says Unemployed People 'Just Sit Around,' Don't Think They Have To Work | ThinkProgress

Financial Criminals Have Been Fined Billions, but They Rarely Pay - The Atlantic - Even though prosecutors declare victory when massive penalties are handed down, most of the money never gets recovered. (speaking of welfare)

Judge: Hobby Lobby Decision Means Polygamous Sect Member Can Refuse To Testify In Child Labor Case | ThinkProgress (Feedom! to use child labor)

Source tells News that Ray Rice gave Roger Goodell detailed account of what happened, could spell doom for NFL commissioner if case goes to court - NY Daily News - Because Rice believed Goodell had already seen the video TMZ eventually released, the source said, Rice was grimly specific in his retelling — a fact that further undermines Goodell’s claims of ignorance. (he thought he could lie his way through this)
Dianne Feinstein Wants NFL Players Accused of Domestic Violence To Be Benched

Women Allege Harassment and Abuse on Forest Service Firefighting Crews - NYTimes.com - Current and former female firefighters of the United States Forest Service have filed a complaint with the Department of Agriculture alleging that they suffered job discrimination, harassment and sexual abuse at the hands of male co-workers and that top agency officials failed to stop it.

Hullabaloo - Ferguson reminder - local opinion: 55% say killing was justified)
St. Louis Police Academy Promotes ‘Highly Entertaining’ Course On Michael Brown Shooting | ThinkProgress (complete disconnect)
Program That Gives Military Gear To Local Police Has Serious Flaw - A Pentagon program that distributes military surplus gear to local law enforcement allows even departments that the Justice Department has censured for civil rights violations to apply for and get lethal weaponry.
Prisons Are Facing Aging Populations, Too - CityLab - The number of U.S. prisoners age 50 and over has increased 330 percent since 1994.

Passenger ejected from flight over notebook doodles - A Melbourne man was hauled off a Tiger Airways flight by federal police on Saturday after claims he was seen doodling and writing sentences in a notebook satirising the current terrorism threat. (terroristic doodles)
Polygamist women dressed 'like ninjas' attack home of witness in Utah sex assault case | World news | theguardian.com - Police say two women in West Jordan, aged 18 and 22, ‘violently attacked one of the adult males’ in the house and are now in custody
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fraternity suspended over date rape drug allegations - CBS News - Police are investigating allegations that members of a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fraternity put "date rape" drugs into women's drinks at a recent party, reports CBS affiliate WDJT. (TKE)
Rick Perry suggests Joan Rivers might not have died under Texas abortion laws | World news | theguardian.com - Governor defends strict regulations on clinics in Texas (in today's asshole dept)

After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know - NYTimes.com - from an “assistant surgeon,” a Queens-based neurosurgeon whom Mr. Drier did not recall meeting.
Prevalence and impacts of genetically engineered feedstuffs on livestock populations - Globally, food-producing animals consume 70 to 90% of genetically engineered (GE) crop biomass.
Are the similar lengths of the lunar and menstrual cycles a coincidence? : askscience
Graphene sensor tracks down cancer biomarkers -- ScienceDaily - The biosensor has been shown to be more than five times more sensitive than bioassay tests currently in use, and was able to provide results in a matter of minutes, opening up the possibility of a rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tool for patients.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind review – thrilling story, dark message | Books | The Observer - Harari organises humankind around four different milestones. About 70,000 years ago, the cognitive revolution kickstarted our history, and about 12,000 years ago the agricultural revolution speeded it up. Then came a long process of unifying mankind and colonising the Earth until, finally, the scientific revolution began about 500 years ago. It is still in progress and may yet finish us all off ... He sees modern agriculture’s treatment of animals as one of the worst crimes in history, doubts whether our extraordinary material advances have made us any happier than we were in the past, and regards modern capitalism as an ugly prison
The Descent of Woman: The Classic Study of Evolution by Elaine Morgan — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame - As Karin Meyer's judicious 'Free Persons, Empty Selves' shows, Buddhist philosophers had no interest in controversies about free will. Buddhists deny that there are any enduring substances and a fortiori any selves worthy of the name
The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame - This book aims to develop an enactivist view of affects, with special attention to the emotions. Enactivism, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a movement in the philosophy of mind and in psychology whose proponents argue that we should understand mental faculties as essentially related to the extended body and to action.

Florida prison boss fires 32 over inmate deaths | The Miami Herald - All were accused of criminal wrongdoing or misconduct in connection with the deaths of inmates at four state prisons.
Mom questioned over son's solo outdoor playtime - CBS News - Texas police does not specify how old a child must be before they can be outdoors alone. (21, with their own guns because Freedom!)

Rental car companies charge extra fees if you’re in a state with electronic tolls, and they’re getting sued over it - The Washington Post - If you rent a car while traveling in a state with electronic tolls, and you don’t have your own transponder, you could end up paying a lot more.

BREYER P-ORRIDGE And Pierre Molinier Turn Shapeshifting Into An Art (NSFW)
David Brooks Discovers Friends -- NYMag - New York Times columnist and target of hot lady hatred David Brooks made a stunning discovery in this week's op-ed: Friends. People should have them. Wow, big if true.

Silver Screen Oasis • View topic - *CANDIDS* (definitely check out)

What is the weirdest sexual advancement someone has made towards you? : AskReddit

092014
US will not commit to climate change aid for poor nations at UN summit | Environment | theguardian.com - Rich countries pledged to find $100bn a year by 2020, but so far only Germany has made a significant contribution - Barack Obama will not be pledging any cash to a near-empty fund for poor countries at a United Nations summit on climate change next week, the UN special climate change envoy said on Friday.
Climate change is a global emergency. Stop waiting for politicians to sound the alarm | Naomi Klein | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The truth about our planet is horrifying, but the true leaders aren’t the ones at the UN – they’re in the streets. This is why the People’s Climate March matters
50 Canadian climate researchers speak out in support of the People's Climate March | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com - Canada is failing to meet its carbon pollution reduction targets, and its climate researchers are calling for a change - The Canadian government is hell-bent on exploiting the Alberta tar sands to the fullest extent possible, even at the expense of the global climate. Canada simply cannot meet its carbon pollution reduction pledges if it continues to expand tar sands operations.

Sierra Leone On Lockdown For Second Day In Attempt To Contain Ebola

G20 nations want Vladimir Putin at summit despite Ukraine tensions | World news | theguardian.com - Russian president set to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in Australia despite anger about MH17 and conflict in Ukraine
Putin 'privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states' - German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reports that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told European Commission that Putin made the threat in a recent conversation (and maybe Scotland)

Is Obama really going back to war with a worse legal rationale than Bush? He still won't say | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Whatever the administration’s tortured and torture architect-approved logic for combatting Isis, one thing is clear: the public isn’t allowed to see it (their "logic" is always secret)
Obama repeats no US troops on ground against Isis as Egypt offers support | World news | theguardian.com - Obama: ‘When the world needs help, it calls on America’ Al-Sisi: ‘It’s not a matter of ground troops from abroad’
Airstrike kills 40 Islamic State fighters - It's apparently the second time a B-1 bomber has been involved in the 176 air strikes that began in August to protect U.S. personnel in Iraq, critical infrastructure such as dams and to prevent ISIL fighters from killing religious refugees.
France is ditching the ‘Islamic State’ name — and replacing it with a label the group hates - The Washington Post - The Arabs call it ‘Daesh’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats.’ ”
Let's Make Some War - Esquire - The Congress did a ring-and-run on increased United States involvement in the whatever-the-hell-it-is against ISIS-or-ISIL-or-OASIS-or-whatever the hell it is. It took a vote

US quietly releases 14 Pakistani detainees from Afghanistan jail | World news | theguardian.com - Pakistani human rights group announces the transfer and says it is the largest number of Pakistanis US has released so far Pakistani detainee denied legal counsel for a decade Revealed: Bagram’s secret hunger strikes Withdrawal plans keep secret detainees in limbo
Activists, Journalists Killed In Spate Of Assassinations In Libya

CIA has stopped spying on western European governments, sources say | World news | theguardian.com - Agency declines to comment but US official says pause in decades of espionage was designed to give CIA time to re-evaulate strategy - James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said during a public event Thursday that the US is assuming more risk because it has stopped spying on “specific targets” (be very afraid)

Groups edge in on Larry Klayman NSA case - POLITICO.com - in arguments set to be held in November on the government's appeal of the first and only judicial ruling disputing the constitutionality of the NSA's program sweeping up information on billions of telephone calls to, from, and within the United States.
Lesslie Askin, 71, shocked to be deemed a Kinder Morgan terror threat - British Columbia - CBC News - Burnaby-Douglas MP Kennedy Stewart wants to hear from other pipeline opponents who feel targeted - Lesslie Askin says that on Aug. 3, she photographed Kinder Morgan’s aging storage tanks at the base of Burnaby Mountain. (Obama will drone her)
FBI & Secret Service Files: Aaron Swartz - Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet Hacktivist.

Me and My Brothers - Esquire - Every now and again I run into somebody who really, truly believes that war is almost always the answer. Pretty much all of the time these are people who have no personal experience with war
Me and My Brothers - Esquire - He was the tribal chief of a band of Nez Perce Indians, and perhaps the War Chief of several bands in the end. At the height of his fame, and his tragedy, this man retained his reason. He was named, by his opponents, "Joseph."*

Immigration protest cancelled over 'death threats from Mexican cartels' | World news | theguardian.com - Shut Down All Ports of Entry meant to target 17 crossings - Organiser: ‘It was a cartel threatening a bloodbath’
Dem Rep: 40 American ISIL Fighters Have Already Returned to the United States | Washington Free Beacon - DHS has said that while there is no evidence of a direct threat by ISIL to the United States, it is aware that the group’s affiliates have been discussing the possibility of crossing the southern border. (cartels will change them tolls)


'A Matter of Time': U.S. Senators, Representatives Finally Call for Some Accountability for Wife-Beating Federal Judge Mark Fuller | The BRAD BLOG - But 2012 docs suggest resignation - even impeachment - would let the apparently repeated domestic abuser off far too lightly

SWAT: Mission Creep | Retro Report | The New York Times - YouTube
Illinois judge rules police entitled to Swat raid over parody Twitter account | World news | theguardian.com - Swat team burst into Peoria house looking for source of parody Twitter account that had upset town’s mayor (no limits)

How the Ray Rice scandal unfolded between the Baltimore Ravens, Roger Goodell and the NFL - ESPN
Quoth the Ravens, "We Didn't Know Nothin'" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Multiple sources say that Goodell is lying about Rice lying to him:
Adrian Peterson's Mother: 'When You Whip Those You Love, It's Not About Abuse, But Love' - Bonita Jackson said she and Peterson's father, Nelson Peterson, were "big disciplinarians" who used hands, switches and belts to occasionally spank all six of her children (turned out really well, didn't it)
What The Black Community Has To Say About Corporal Punishment

When Is $100 Worth $100? Looks Like Never. - Esquire

CDC: 90% of kids who died last flu season didn't get vaccine | KSL.com
Dear parents, you are being lied to. | IFLScience

The 'Angelina Jolie effect': Her mastectomy revelation doubled NHS breast cancer testing referrals
A year without food › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science) - But to counter this, going hungry is natural. Humans like us (that's Homo sapiens) have been around for the last 200,000 years and for most of that time, food was not always at hand.

[Serious] Straight Women of Reddit, what makes a guy "Good" in bed? NSFW : AskReddit
JargonPhat comments on can someone give me a summery of the events between days of future past and Morrison's new xmen? [spoilers]


091914
091814
'Hi, do you have water?' In a Central Calif. town, answer is often no. - LA Times

Bodies Found After Ebola Health Care Workers Go Missing In Guinea (UPDATES) - A spokesman for the government in Guinea said on Thursday that eight bodies were found two days after a group of health workers and journalists went missing in the country.

ISIS Video Purportedly Shows Another Journalist Being Held In Captivity
Australian police: Raids thwarted beheading plot - Police on Thursday said they thwarted a plot to carry out beheadings in Australia by supporters of the radical Islamic State group.

Chinese ambassador 'spy case' would not be first, warns state-run newspaper | World news | theguardian.com - Global Times editorial follows disappearance of Ma Jisheng, envoy to Iceland, amid suggestions he handed secrets to Japan

alicublog: Scots Woo Hoo (all the wrong people don't want independence) .
Thoughts on the Scottish Independence Referendum III: Ramifications - Lawyers, Guns & Money (interesting; Scotland has been keeping the UK relatively sane; without them, it's "UKIP with nukes")
Thoughts on the Scottish Independence Referendum III: Ramifications - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Here, I consider constitutional, political, and international ramifications of a yes vote, as well as the constitutional ramifications of a no vote.
Scotland's Polls Have Closed, Vote Counting Underway In Independence Referenfum - More than 4.2 million people had registered to vote — 97 percent of those eligible — including residents as young as 16.

Home Depot Admits 56 Million Payment Cards At Risk After Cyber Attack - Home Depot said the malware that stole the credit card data resided on its computer systems from April until September of this year -- far longer than the attack against Target, which went on for about three weeks.

DNI: President Barack Obama's intelligence moves boost U.S. risk - POLITICO.com - Director of Intelligence James Clapper is again warning that the U.S. is at greater risk because of new limits President Barack Obama put on U.S. intelligence collection in the wake of Edward Snowden's disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance practices. (fire and jail the fucker)

Supreme Court Blocks Kobach's Power Move In Kansas Senate Race
Democratic, Republican Party Favorable Ratings Now Similar - Ratings of GOP improve, but are still negative
Teaching the Children: Sharp Ideological Differences, Some Common Ground | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - People who express consistently conservative political attitudes across a range of issues are more likely than other ideological groups to rate teaching religious faith as especially important – and the least likely to say the same about teaching tolerance. (empathy, curiosity and creativity are not conservative values)
Trust in Mass Media Returns to All-Time Low - Six-percentage-point drops in trust among Democrats and Republicans

Democratic Candidates Need To Talk Up Obamacare to Voters | New Republic - Alison Grimes is trailing in the polls—but she might not be if she had used Obamacare to her advantage
How gender mattered in the rise and fall of Debbie Wasserman Schultz - The Washington Post

Left blasts Clinton in secret emails | TheHill - Clinton’s too much of a hawk, too cozy with Wall Street, hasn’t spoken out enough on climate change, and will be subject to personal questions and criticisms, members of the group stated in the emails. (back to 1992)
Eschaton: SECRET EMAILS - The real story here is "unethical Hillary Clinton supporters violate confidence, selectively leak emails from confidential email list."

Religious right’s warped icon: Why Mike Huckabee is wingnuts’ best white hope for ’16 - Salon.com - Imagine the smug smile of the Gipper plus the nasty politics of Ted Cruz. Why it's a mistake to count Huckabee out
How Gary Hart’s Downfall Forever Changed American Politics - NYTimes.com (and journalism - Monkey Business)

We Still Don’t Know What $1.6 Trillion Bought Us | FiveThirtyEight - One of the biggest efforts the Federal Reserve has ever embarked on — a $1.6 trillion bond-buying program to stimulate the U.S. economy known as the third round of quantitative easing — is coming to an end next month.
Gap Between Manhattan’s Rich and Poor Is Greatest in U.S., Census Finds - NYTimes.com - Manhattan is becoming an island of extremes.

The Fire Next Time - Esquire - It's almost as though somebody down there is operating from a playbook written in 1917. If you don't want violence, then you don't let a grand jury like this run on automatic pilot. Can people down there please stop making simple mistakes that have such complicated consequences?

How Gangs Took Over Prisons - The Atlantic - Originally formed for self-protection, prison gangs have become the unlikely custodians of order behind bars—and of crime on the streets.

A NYC Bartender's Powerful Open Letter To The Hedge Funder Who Allegedly Grabbed Her Ass: Gothamist - A SoHo bartender is fed up with misogynistic bros treating her like a piece of meat, and she's written a powerful open letter to the hedge funder who she says grabbed her ass at work - "You work at Swiss Performance Management and Truehand AG, in Investment Management. Of course you do." (Brian H Lederman, now famous on the internets for all eternity for being a complete fucking asshole)
Laura Ramadei - Timeline Photos | Facebook

Watching the NFL Twisting in the Wind | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly (+Bierce: A Moral Principle met a Material Interest on a bridge wide enough for but one.)
Roger Goodell failed, just like he was supposed to - SBNation.com - Remember now what a blank social boffin the NFL strapped to its face to begin with: a Senator's son from a safety school who quite literally never worked anywhere else but in the sports job he got directly out of college
NFL running back Jonathan Dwyer 'head-butted wife after she refused sex' | World news | theguardian.com - Arizona Cardinals player bailed after Wednesday arrest Police say he punched his wife a day after first assault
Arizona Cardinals Running Back Arrested On Aggravated Assault Charges - Jonathan Dwyer was arrested on aggravated assault charges, stemming from two incidents involving a woman and a child.
The racial parenting divide: What Adrian Peterson reveals about black vs. white child-rearing - Salon.com - Black parenting is often too authoritative. White parenting is often too permissive. Both need to change (dumb premise; see comments: "US strong corporal punishment is more of a regional cultural practice, rather than a racial one." +evangelical Christianity)
Why You Should Never Spank Your Daughter - For nearly two decades, there’s been extensive research on how physical discipline, unpredictable environments, and chronic stress impacts children’s brain development.
My mother never spanked me … | The Bigga Picture

Report: Suspects in Gay Bashing Will Meet Police Today | News | Philadelphia Magazine - Suspects in a Center City gay-bashing case will meet police today, 6ABC reports, after Philadelphia’s Twitter community helped police discover their identities.
Archbishop Wood assistant coach resigns in gay-attack case - because of his alleged involvement in last Thursday's savage attack on two gay men in Center City, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia said Thursday - Fran McGlinn (now famous for being a gay-bashing asshole fuck)
Assault on gays not a hate crime under Pa. law
Ubiñas: Twitter Justice League to the rescue - I'd call it what it truly was: a hate crime. But Pennsylvania law has no provision to charge a hate crime based on sexual orientation. (how convienient)

Columbia University Rape Victim Says She Was Forced Out Of School Twice - Based on Rosie's statement that she had blacked out without drinking a drop of alcohol, the doctor surmised she had been drugged.

What Bipolar Disorder Really Feels Like
Your paper brain and your Kindle brain aren't the same thing | Public Radio International - And if you don’t use the deep reading part of your brain, you lose the deep reading part of your brain.”
Neuroscience has revealed that humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from a screen. : books
Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be ... Paper | WIRED
The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific American
Supermassive black hole in dense dwarf galaxy discovered : T-Lounge : Tech Times - This discovery could mean that other similar dwarf galaxies, which are dense, could also have large black holes, meaning that black holes, in general, are more common than originally thought.
More students are illegally downloading college textbooks for free [X-post r/HigherEducation] : news
Texas limiting new AP history course's influence - Amid uproar in conservative circles about perceived anti-American bias in the new Advanced Placement U.S. History course and exam, Texas on Wednesday moved to require its high school students to learn only state-mandated curriculum — not be taught to the national test.

The Daniele Watts Story Plot Thickens » Balloon Juice

How Often Do Married Women Really Have Sex? | BRIDES - The study suggests that nearly half of married couples have sex just a few times per month. Almost 10 percent, according to the institute, have sex just once a month.
These Post-Breakup Craigslist Ads Are The Definition Of Batsh*t Crazy
Watch a Toddler Expertly Choreograph a Dance to Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ | TIME

Richard Dawkins has lost it: ignorant sexism gives atheists a bad name | Adam Lee | Comment is free | theguardian.com - He may have convinced himself that he’s the Most Rational Man Alive, but if wants to be the face of a welcoming movement, he’s doing a terrible job (more neuroatheistdudebrosexism)

091714
Let’s Reject the ‘Inevitable’ - NYTimes.com

$1 Billion Needed For Ebola Response: WHO
Senators Want Broader U.S. Response To Ebola - Republicans, of course, wasted no time alleging an underwhelming administration response. (but don't want to fund anything)

House of Representatives approves Obama plan to arm Syrian rebels | World news | theguardian.com - Vote passes 273-156 as Obama seeks to reassure lawmakers and Americans who fear the US will be drawn into a ground war
Lance Mannion: Smarter than the President? Not me. Im too smart not to know how dumb I am. - What blood-thirsty warmongers like Dick Cheney, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and their stooges in the political press corps say we should do is beside the point, too. They always think the answer is killing more brown people.

Sistema boss arrested in Russia on money-laundering charges | World news | theguardian.com - Critics including ex-Yukos chief claim Kremlin ordered Vladimir Yevtushenkov to be held in order to seize his oil assets (Putin the grand kleptocrat)

Police commissioner resigns over Rotherham child abuse scandal — RT UK
Remember #BringBackOurGirls? This Is What Has Happened In The 5 Months Since (Goodluck Jonathan)
Dead Irish Dickheads - Esquire - Ian Paisley shuffled off to hell last week.

Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal - NYTimes.com - Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way. (probably the national security secret behind blocking the suit against Israel lobby group)
John Key says Edward Snowden ‘may well be right’ about NSA spying on NZ | World news | theguardian.com - The claim by Edward Snowden that New Zealanders’ internet traffic is accessible through a NSA intelligence database “may well be right”, the country’s prime minister, John Key, has acknowledged. (NZ has strange politicians)

Your tattoos, selfies, and iris scans may soon be the property of the FBI | Privacy SOS

G.O.P. Gains Strength and Obama Gets Low Marks, Poll Finds - NYTimes.com
Senate Forecast 2014 | The Huffington Post - 53% chance that Democrats will keep control of the Senate. 47% chance that Republicans will take control of the Senate.
November Gets Iffier by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Just when much of the punditocracy was settling in for a few happy weeks of arguing over the extent of the Republican “wave” in November,

Female G.O.P. Senators Propose Earning Seventy-one Per Cent As Much As Male Colleagues - The New Yorker - Two days after voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act, a law that would help women to obtain equal pay, the four female Republicans in the United States Senate co-sponsored a bill that would slash their salaries to seventy-one per cent of what their male colleagues earn. (well, they aren't that smart)

Air Force Will No Longer Require 'So Help Me God' In Enlistment Oaths (Christian Soldiers)

Oregon Republican Senate Candidate Plagiarized Economic Plan From Several Sources - Large portions of an economic plan released by Oregon Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby appear to be heavily plagiarized from multiple sources, including one section that copies word-for-word from a plan put out by Republican Sen. Rob Portman a month earlier.

Darren Wilson, Officer Who Shot Michael Brown, Testifies In Front Of Grand Jury: Report
Darrien Hunt's family and friends remember 'a boy in a man's body' | World news | theguardian.com
Utah authorities alter account of Darrien Hunt shooting by police | World news | theguardian.com - Authorities in Utah have altered their account of how a 22-year-old black man was killed by police, after an attorney for the man’s family alleged that he was shot repeatedly from behind by officers while running away. (while "lunging" at them)
Memphis police discover 200 unprocessed rape kits adding to backlog | World news | theguardian.com - Kits, dating back to 1976, found in a giant evidence storage warehouse, adding to 12,000 kit backlog city struggling with

I Turned Out OK In Spite Of Corporal Punishment, Not Because Of It
Reggie Bush Defends Adrian Peterson, Says He 'Harshly' Disciplines His 1-Year-Old Daughter
Adrian Peterson and what our fathers did to us: we have not turned out fine | Jeb Lund | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The toxic effect of discipline – abuse, self-delusion or both – is that you almost have to move on. But we can never move on. The way of the belt lasts lifetimes

Antibiotics Prescribed For Children Twice As Often As Needed : Shots - Health News : NPR
So Much For Religious People Being More Righteous - Sure-to-be-controversial new research shows that religious and non-religious people are equally likely to misbehave. The only difference between the groups is that religious people show stronger emotional reactions to moral and immoral deeds.

Gay-bashers apparently dined at upscale eatery before assault (so some well-dressed 20 something white boys and girls beat up two gay guys in Philly CC and then ...)
Social media push prompts leads in gay bashing case
How Twitter May Have Helped Track Down the Suspects from a Philadelphia Police Surveillance Video (with images, tweets) · mkramer · Storify ... Within hours, they were possibly IDed by people on Twitter. (the perps' lawyers are negotiating ...)

New Eyewitness To Palin Family Brawl: Bristol's Actions Were 'Quite Violent' - She said Klingenmeyer was clearly upset about what was happening but maintained his composure. "She kept punching him and then he just said, you know, 'You need to go,'" Thompson said. (she coulda been vice)

5 Things I Learned as the Internet's Most Hated Person | Cracked.com
Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest - The New Yorker
New report slams Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for secrecy around harassment of women online - The Washington Post
I pranked my roommate with eerily targeted Facebook ads and drove him to complete paranoia. : marketing - Created Facebook campaign to target only his roommate. Ads contained info that wasn't public. Roommate thought Facebook was spying on him, went slightly insane.

091614
Fighting Climate Change Makes Economic Sense; Cities Should Take The Lead, Study Finds
Wildfires threaten thousands in Northern California - CNN.com
AOL.com Article - Philippine volcano spews lava; thousands evacuated - The Philippines' most active volcano has belched out huge lava fragments that rolled about a kilometer (half a mile) down its slope, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of villagers, officials said Tuesday.

U.S. to Commit Up to 3,000 Troops to Fight Ebola in Africa - NYTimes.com

U.S. Pushes Back Against Warnings That ISIS Plans to Enter From Mexico - NYTimes.com (in their fleet of pickup trucks now going ashore in Acapulco)
Bill Targets ISIS And The Endless War On Terror - Even as it declares war on the so-called Islamic State, a bill proposed in Congress would also try to extricate the United States from the endless war on terror.
Fox News Aired Nearly 1,100 Benghazi Segments Across 5 Programs, Study Finds (obsess much?)

Bill Clinton takes a shot at Benjamin Netanyahu - Jonathan Topaz - POLITICO.com - The Obama administration and Netanyahu have tried to downplay reports of increased animosity between the U.S. and Israel. (steps on Hilliary's AIPAC ties)

With 48 Hours To Go, Sides In Scottish Referendum Make Final Push
How the media shafted the people of Scotland | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - Journalists in their gilded circles are woefully out of touch with popular sentiment and shamefully slur any desire for change

In the Russia-China Gas Deal, Did Putin Win? - Bloomberg View - So in striking a big new deal to supply natural gas to China, has Vladimir Putin outmaneuvered the U.S. and its European friends yet again? Much as Russia's president would like you to think so, not really.


Senate Update: Democrats Draw Almost Even. Is It The Money? | FiveThirtyEight (Nate changed his mind since last week)
Today’s Senate seat-count histogram (Sam Wang: Dems at 78%)
Democrats now have a 51 percent chance of holding the Senate - The Washington Post

Uninsured Rate Drops To Lowest Level Since The '90s - Another day, another survey showing that Obamacare is beginning to cure America's uninsured problem. (which Republicans will take away as soon as they control the Senate)
GAO: Obamacare abortion rules widely ignored - Jennifer Haberkorn and Burgess Everett - politico.com
Senate blocks pay equity bill - Burgess Everett - politico.com

The many injustices of Missouri's new 'waiting-period' abortion law - The Week - Missouri's law may not be the most draconian in the land. But it sure is insulting to women ... The message being sent by state legislatures, essentially, is "you must be crazy if you want to obtain an abortion — maybe think about it some more and you'll come to your senses." (Repubrodudes controlling your ladyparts because you aren't smart/sane enough)
Poll Finds Pat Roberts Trailing Independent Candidate - Independent Greg Orman leads Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Ks.), 41 percent to 34 percent ("Koch Industries is headquartered in KS, and the Koch brothers own the entire KS government.")
Kansas Kaleidoscope by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It’s becoming a cliche, but who’d a thunk Kansas would become one of the most interesting, and potentially even pivotal, midterm states?

‘The Power Broker’ Turns 40: How Robert Caro Wrote a Masterpiece - The Daily Beast - Forty years ago today, Caro’s magisterial 1,296-page life of New York master builder Robert Moses rewrote the rules of biography.

FBI launches excessive force probe of Independence police - KCTV5

Can we lead spiritually fulfilling lives without religion? - The Week - Sam Harris' new book, Waking Up, posits that we can. Too bad he has his wires all crossed. (now we have neurodudebro atheists telling you how to be spiritual) (+" three dimensions: a range of desires rooted in the body; a tendency toward communal interaction with and relation to others; and a capacity for standing back from the world and oneself in a state of dispassionate reflection or observation.")

The science of sex: 4 harsh truths about dating and mating - The Week - Look away if you want to stay a naive romantic
Are men more likely to hit on women with large breasts? - Of course they are:

The Genetics Profession Confronts its Troublesome Inheritance | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - On August 8, a remarkable letter appeared in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Written by a group of five leading evolutionary geneticists and signed by another 135, it repudiated the main conclusions of Nicolas Wade’s book A Troublesome Inheritance
Effectiveness of maternal pertussis vaccination in England: an observational study - Our assessment of the programme of pertussis vaccination in pregnancy in England is consistent with high vaccine effectiveness. This effectiveness probably results from protection of infants by both passive antibodies and reduced maternal exposure, and will provide valuable information to international policy makers.
Is there any legitimate evidence against the theory of evolution? : askscience

10 Lessons From Real-Life Revolutions That Fictional Dystopias Ignore


091514
The Planet Just Had Its Warmest August On Record - A very hot August, he said, is just one piece of the data that "point[s] towards the long-term trends."
Largest City In Vermont Now Gets All Its Power From Wind, Water And Biomass | ThinkProgress - The 42,000 people living in Burlington, Vermont can now feel confident that when they turn on their TVs or power up their computers they are using renewable energy.

Michael Wright Interview - September 11 Survivor - Esquire - At 8:48 on the morning of September 11, Michael Wright was a thirty-year-old account executive working on the eighty-first floor of the World Trade Center. Two hours later, he was something else. The story of his escape is the fastest 3,863 words you will ever read.

Ex-CIA director predicts 5,000 US personnel on ground by December | TheHill
Syrian city of Raqqa gripped by fear of US air strikes on Isis | World news | The Guardian - Many believe civilians will pay price of campaign to root out Isis, whose brutal ways have caused widespread revulsion
It doesn’t matter whether we call the mission against ISIS a “war” - The Washington Post - The last time the United States actually declared war on anyone was in World War II.
Are We at War in Iraq and Syria? - Mr. President, everybody is asking in this country, are we or are we not at war?” a reporter asked Harry Truman at a White House press conference on June 29, 1950
GOP Lawmaker Claims ISIS is on the Border - Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) says ISIS "currently is or has operated on the U.S. border in the past couple weeks," BuzzFeed reports. (bed-wetting Repub: Mexico is already under Sharia law; ISIS about to invade ... Arizona!)
Most searched questions during president's speech on Google | MSNBC - Is ISIS in El Paso?

US man imprisoned in Yemen makes emotional plea: 'They're gonna kill me in here' | World news | theguardian.com - Sharif Mobley, abducted in Sana’a in murky circumstances in 2010 and missing inside prison system for seven months, tells wife that Yemeni captors are threatening to kill him

Russia freezes Ukraine into submission: Kiev admits country doesn't have enough fuel for winter - Europe - World - The Independent

Scotland will face 'painful divorce', says David Cameron in emotional speech | Politics | theguardian.com - In voice close to breaking, prime minister spells out cost of Scotland leaving on final visit before independence vote

EU court to investigate laws allowing GCHQ to snoop on journalists | Media | theguardian.com - Bureau of Investigative Journalism files application with European court of human rights over protection of sources
New Zealand Launched Mass Surveillance Project While Publicly Denying It - The Intercept
? The Moment of Truth - YouTube
Kim Dotcom accuses New Zealand government of mass spying - live updates | World news | theguardian.com - nternet entrepreneur holds panel with Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange to expand on revelations that New Zealand government sought to implement top-secret mass surveillance program.
WikiLeaks posts the software governments use to spy on dissidents
I am Julian Assange. AMA about my new book, "When Google Met WikiLeaks." : technology
Errata Security: Hacker "weev" has left the United States - Breathin' so free on non-extradition soil now. Breakup with USA is done now. — Andrew Auernheimer (@rabite) September 14, 2014

Law Across the Wire and Into the Cloud Highlights from the Newly Declassified FISCR Documents - Having toiled in secret until recently, and having originally been told we would need to wait 25 years to tell anyone of our experience, it is refreshing to be able to write about the case in detail. (spies lied, of course)
FBI launches national facial recognition system - New York News - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has fully rolled out a new biometric identification system that includes facial recognition technology.

Multiculturalism and Rape in Rotherham - NYTimes.com - Multiculturalism and Rape in Rotherham
Rotherham child abuse victim confronts her alleged abuser in the street... but SHE is arrested by a van load of police | Mail Online - Police later realised they had been hoping to interview her over claims - She refused to speak to them after she was reportedly pushed against wall

Eschaton: Deep State As Deep As We Thought - The group is not affiliated with the government, and lists no government contracts on its tax forms. The government has cited no precedent for using the so-called state-secrets privilege to quash a private lawsuit that does not focus on government activity. (wtf?)

America's trust in government is plummeting, poll shows | Early & Often
An astounding 72% percent of Americans say they are unhappy with Republicans in Congress, according to a recent poll. Turning Tables, Democrats Use Cultural Issues as a Cudgel - NYTimes.com - In Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado, important swing states, Democratic senators contending with a sour climate for their party have used debates to hammer their Republican opponents on issues related to contraception and women’s rights.

Diversity Gap in the House Widens - David Wasserman points out that "89 percent of House Republicans are white men, compared to just 47 percent of House Democrats. For some context, according to 2013 Census estimates just 31 percent of U.S. residents are non-Hispanic white males."

This Is What's Truly At Stake In The Battle For Senate Control - It's judicial and administrative nominations: who gets to be a lifetime-tenured federal judge, and who gets to run powerful government agencies.

After Saying Women On Medicaid Should Be Sterilized, Russell Pearce Resigns From Arizona GOP
Eschaton: Little Rahm Grew Up Dreaming Of One Day Becoming Mayor Of Chicago - ever since the school district awarded $340 million in two custodial management contracts in February to private concerns, their schools have been filthy, according to Catalyst Chicago. Principals reported serious problems with rodents, roaches and other bugs, filthy floors, overflowing garbage bins, filthy toilets, missing supplies such as toilet paper and soap, and broken furniture — issues they said they didn’t have before.

Latest Developments in Adrian Peterson Case - Sports - Boston.com - Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is now being invesitigated for abusing another of his sons, this one also four years old, according to reports. (a serial whooper)
Barack Obama 'shocked' by Ray Rice video as pressure mounts on Goodell | World news | theguardian.com (drip, drip)
Adrian Peterson reinstated by Vikings: 'I am not a child abuser' | Sport | theguardian.com - Running back will play in NFL game on Sunday against New Orleans after charged with beating 4-year-old son
Adrian Peterson Tweets About 'Habitual Judging' After Child Abuse Indictment - Citing police reports, Nick Wright of CBS Houston reported that the alleged abuse resulted in cuts and bruises to the child’s back, buttocks, ankles, legs and groin.
Fran Tarkenton Reacts To Adrian Peterson's Return: 'Surprise Surprise' - "Surprise, surprise, surprise. Keep in mind: these owners are already billionaires. They can't spend all their money, and they're getting all juiced up and charged up,"

'Django Unchained' Actress Daniele Watts Explains Why She Refused To Give LAPD Her ID (VIDEO) - “In the beginning [the officer] came up and said, ‘I had a call that there was a black and white couple,’ and he’s the one that actually brought that up,” Lucas explained.

Politics of a Hasidic Baby Boom by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Dogged By Controversy, A Jewish Sect Is On The Move Again : Parallels : NPR - Some 150 members of the ultra-Orthodox Lev Tahor sect fled Canada earlier this year amid allegations that young women were forced to marry older men. They were recently asked to leave a village in Guatemala and are again searching for a home. Uriel Goldman (second from left) is the group's spokesman.
A Not-So-Simple Majority | This American Life (Hasidim in NY)

Police Claim Cop Block, Peaceful Streets Project and Activists of America are an Imminent Threat | The Anti-Media
Witnesses say Utah man killed by police was running away, attorney says - LA Times
School’s strict dress code nets 200 detentions and a rebellion | New York Post - The students — 90 percent of them girls — were detained by the fashion police in the last two weeks because they wore tank tops or short-shorts to beat the heat at their un-air-conditioned school. For new Principal Joseph Scarmato, who did not return calls, dressing for success means 15 staffers scouring the arriving student body every morning for exposed skin.
Oklahoma state trooper charged with kidnapping and rape | World news | theguardian.com - The Oklahoma highway patrol says a state trooper has been arrested on complaints of kidnapping, rape and other crimes after a woman accused him of attacking her following a traffic stop.

Are there any human bloods types that we know of, that no longer exist? : askscience
Schizophrenia not a single disease but multiple genetically distinct disorders | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis
New research shows that schizophrenia isn’t a single disease but a group of eight genetically distinct disorders, each with its own set of symptoms. The finding could be a first step toward improved diagnosis and treatment for the debilitating psychiatric illness. : science

LimitlessLTD comments on Comcast Is Threatening To Cut Off Customers Who Use Tor, The Web Browser For Criminals

091414
Ebola outbreak: fourth doctor dies in Sierra Leone | Society | The Guardian - Country, which has a shortage of healthcare workers, asked for Dr Olivet Buck to be treated abroad but was turned down

US 'encouraged' as UAE and Saudis offer help in coalition attack on Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Kerry ‘extremely encouraged’ as UAE, Saudi Arabia offer
David Haines video has marked similarities to Sotloff and Foley killings | World news | theguardian.com - Video purporting to show the murder of British aid worker David Haines is reminiscent of those depicting beheadings of US journalists
ISIS executes British aid worker David Haines - CNN.com
White House: We 'Didn't Threaten' Families Of Slain U.S. Journalists With Prosecution - "We didn’t threaten anybody, but we made clear what the law is. That's our responsibility, to make sure we explain the law and uphold the law.” (see, it was a promise, not a threat)
Islamic State recruiting women from US heartland | World news | theguardian.com - Concern among Somali-American community and beyond about young women joining militant Middle East organisation - Denver teenager Conley became engaged to an Islamic State militant in Syria who she met online ... “the girls go around making cookies. It’s almost like a jihadi Tupperware party,”
Obama's legally dubious Isis campaign is just a way to continue perpetual war | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The question isn’t whether this is war. It is. The question is how long until we’re clamouring for ground troops in Iraq again (America, land of the stupid)
Senator Lindsey Graham is a Bedwetter by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - This is a war we’re fighting not a counter terrorism operation,” Graham continued. “This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.” (Huckleberry Butch-me-up: they will invade over the Canadian border in their pickup trucks)
John McCain is a Dangerous Radical by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It should be obvious by now that John McCain wants to attack everyone, everywhere. In September 2013, Mother Jones made a map of the world showing that McCain has advocated attacking roughly half the Eastern Hemisphere’s land mass

Al-Shabaab militants arrested in Uganda over suspected bomb plot | World news | theguardian.com - Officer says group of 19 were carrying 'explosive materials related to acts of terror' and accused them of planning attacks
Taliban sneak back into Kandahar, dressed as grape farmers | World news | The Guardian - Around 400 people die in August after two weeks of fighting as many blame Afghan election gridlock for aiding the insurgency ... The police officers let them pass; if they had looked more carefully they may have spotted the guns and ammunition hidden under the shipments of grapes.

Uncovered: U.K. intel encouraged Arab armies to invade Israel in 1948 - Features Israel News | Haaretz - Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence. (the invisibile hands are always there)
Gaza children return to school after end of war with Israel | World news | theguardian.com - Schools in the Palestinian territory had delayed opening because of damage and use of buildings to house displaced people

Ukraine fights off attack on Donetsk airport by pro-Russia forces | World news | theguardian.com - Russian rocket launchers seen moving through eastern city as Ukraine's PM says his country is in 'stage of war' with Russia

Scottish independence: polls show it's too close to call
Queen hopes Scottish independence voters will 'think carefully about future' | Politics | theguardian.com - Comment after Sunday morning service at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral, interpreted as a boost to no campaign (just who you want to take advice from)

Sweden's Turn Left Could Deal A Blow To European Austerity (Merkel's disasterous policy failure is getting a little old)
Free-market era in Sweden swept away as feminists and greens plot new path | World news | The Observer - Stefan Löfvan's Social Democrats likely to top the poll despite leader's TV gaffe (will they stop persecuting Assange?)

Angry Letters to the One Member of Congress Who Voted Against the War on Terror - The Atlantic - Barbara Lee was the lone dissenter in the post-9/11 vote authorizing military force. Many called her a traitor. But her constituents shared her concerns—and history has vindicated them ... Voting "yea" would, she felt, give President Bush and his successors "a blank check to attack an unspecified country, an unspecified enemy for an unspecified period of time."

Blog > National Affairs - Two sides : The National News Media's Effect on Congress: How Fox News Affected Elites in Congress (epistemic capture)

Battle for the Senate is a Toss Up - Just as some prominent election prognosticators seem ready to give Republicans the Senate, two forecasting models show the battle is essentially a toss up.
Jay Carney: ‘It’s Not Going to Be a Good Year for Democrats’ | Mediaite

Koch foundation proposal to college: Teach our curriculum, get millions | Center for Public Integrity - Documents show group sought control over hiring at Florida State

Senator piles pressure on Goodell over possible 'lies' and 'cover-up' in Rice case | World news | theguardian.com - • Klobuchar wants NFL ‘zero tolerance’ of domestic violence
Adrian Peterson child abuse charge adds to NFL's off-field trouble - CBS News ("Daddy Peterson")

Detroit police officer to face retrial over killing of girl, 7, in raid | World news | theguardian.com - But prosecutors charged him with involuntary manslaughter because they believe he handled his submachine gun recklessly, causing the girl’s death (of course you need machine guns +they blamed her grandmother)
Killeen: Prosecutor Will Seek Death Penalty In Police Officer’s Death - The charges stem from a shooting, which occurred as officers served a so-called no-knock search warrant just after 5:30 a.m. May 9 at 1104 Circle M Dr. Apt. 3 in Killeen. (no drugs found)

The Worst 100 White Men, Ranked - 44. Twitter
Boston's Literary Legacy, Mapped and Apped - The Baffler

Generations Are an Invention—Here's How They Came to Be - The Atlantic - Europeans created the idea that individuals share something important with, as one lexicographer put it in 1863, "all men living more or less at the same time"
Stop using 'Brooklyn' to mean hipster neighborhoods : Columbia Journalism Review - Elite-oriented outlets typically only cover the borough’s most affluent, Manhattan-adjacent neighborhoods

'Orange Is The New Black' Writer Divorces Her Husband, Starts Dating Poussey - According to Morelli, it was writing scenes for Piper and Alex that gave her clarity on her own sexuality. "I found a mouthpiece for my own desires and a glimmer of what my future could look like," she said (via TMZ).
Kanye West halts Sydney concert after two fans refuse to stand up - doesn't realise one is in a wheelchair and the other is disabled : news


091314
U.S. Scientists See Long Fight Against Ebola - NYTimes.com - could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government.

Naomi Klein: the hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle | Environment | The Guardian - Soon after reporting on the 2010 BP oil spill, Naomi Klein found she was pregnant – and miscarried. Was there a connection

Al-Qaida's Syrian Cell Alarms U.S. More Than Islamic State Militants
ISIS Strikes Deal With Moderate Syrian Rebels: Reports (it's complicated)
WASHINGTON: Why won’t Turkey join the fight against Islamic State? | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC (very complicated)
Quote of the Day - "The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with very little commitment." -- Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, quoted by U.S. News & World Report, on airstrikes against the Islamic State.
Contractors Ready to Cash In On ISIS War - The Daily Beast

PressTV - WikiLeaks exposes Saudi-Israeli ties - Freshly- released WikiLeaks documents have uncovered a deep alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, reportedly affecting Riyadh's ties with regional states. (even more complicated)

US embassy in Uganda warns citizens to shelter during terror operation | World news | theguardian.com - Warning message posted on Twitter and embassy website
Taliban advance into Sangin threatens British military gains in Helmand | World news | The Observer - Summer offensive overruns checkpoints as Afghan security forces struggle to contain insurgency (not going so well there, either)

US denies threatening family of executed reporter James Foley | News | DW.DE | 13.09.2014 - The US government has denied threatening the family of executed reporter James Foley with charges of supporting terrorism if they attempted to raise a ransom for their son. US policy forbids the paying of ransoms.
Sotloff's parents told they could be prosecuted for paying ransom to IS - Yahoo News - Statement from journalist's family follows comment by James Foley's mother about 'appalling' warning - The parents of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff were told by a White House counterterrorism official at a meeting last May that they could face criminal prosecution if they paid ransom to try to free their son, (they also didn't threaten the Sotloffs)

Privacy advocates, tech companies nudge Congress to protect ‘abandoned’ e-mails - The Washington Post

He's Dotcom's little henchman: PM attacks journalist's spy claims - Prime Minister John Key says he will prove Glenn Greenwald's claims by the GCSB was involved in mass surveillance on New Zealanders are wrong, dismissing the prominent US journalist as "Dotcom's little henchman". (lines are getting clearer)

One of These Things is Not Like the Other by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I just want to note that every member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence who is complaining about stonewalling from CIA director John Brennan has a ‘D’ after their name.

This Is What Child Abuse Looks Like - Lawyers, Guns & Money : More details about the Peterson indictment: (culture of violence: a "good whooping" for a four year old)
The Convicted Abuser Who’s Still Playing In The NFL | TIME - Greg Hardy was convicted of assaulting a woman. Neither the NFL or the Carolina Panthers have benched him

Another Giant Headache for the NFL by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Adrian Peterson has been arrested in Texas for whooping his then 4 year old son with a switch. When questioned about it, Peterson admitted what he had done and even showed the police what kind of switch he had used, but he asserted that it was a normal spanking and not abusive. Peterson is a Christian

The Republican Attitude Toward Women In A Nutshell - Lawyers, Guns & Money : A worldview in which female employees are like children, female offspring are like employees, and either way even when they are adults the sexuality of women needs to be regulated by another, preferably male adult. It really does get right at the essence of how Republicans view women. In 2014.

Pennsylvania teenager simulates oral sex with Jesus statue, faces two years in prison : news

Software patents are crumbling, thanks to the Supreme Court - Vox - . By my count there have been 11 court rulings on the patentability of software since the Supreme Court's decision — including six that were decided this month. Every single one of them has led to the patent being invalidated.

Fight for the Future - Internet Slowdown numbers even bigger than we thought!

What piece of Reddit history should every new redditor be aware of? : AskReddit
Reddit's most historical posts and comments

091214
What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola - NYTimes.com - THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. By Michael T. Osterholm Sept. 11, 2014 (could be very, very bad, esp if mutates airborne)

Eschaton: What Could Go Wrong - We sure do train a lot of people to get better at killing other people. BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Obama’s determination to train Syrian rebels to serve as ground troops against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria leaves the United States dependent on a diverse group riven by infighting, with no shared leadership and with hard-line Islamists as its most effective fighters. - It's worked out so well so far, might as well keep doing it.

Obama’s Betrayal of the Constitution - NYTimes.com (wouldn't be the first time)
Obama Official Geography Error - Business Insider (Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria, it all very confusing)
New York Times Casts Doubt On Obama's ISIS War Plan
NY Times Editorial Board Hammers Congress, Obama Over New ISIS War
Some Skeptical Notes Break Through In Media's Coverage Of Obama's New War

'So Little Compassion': James Foley's Parents Say Officials Threatened Family Over Ransom - ABC News - the U.S. government threatened her family with prosecution should they raise money to pay her son’s ransom, but she was astounded by how such a devastating message was delivered. ($20,000 would have saved his life but Obama would have thrown them in jail)

Sweeping new US and EU sanctions target Russia's banks and oil companies | World news | theguardian.com - Putin remains defiant as Russian companies such as Sberbank and Gazprom are barred from western capital in dramatic sanctions over Ukraine • Armoured Russian vehicle seen inside Ukraine

Israeli intelligence veterans refuse to serve in Palestinian territories | World news | The Guardian - refusing to serve in operations involving the occupied Palestinian territories because of the widespread surveillance of innocent residents.
Occupation More Controversial in Israel Then Here

Report: Death Toll In Central African Republic Tops 5,000 (meanwhile)

WASHINGTON: New sparks fly between CIA, Senate Intelligence Committee | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - when CIA Director John Brennan refused to tell lawmakers who authorized intrusions into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to compile a damning report on the spy agency’s interrogation program.

The Inflation Cult - NYTimes.com - The persistence of the inflation cult is, therefore, an indicator of just how polarized our society has become, of how everything is political, even among those who are supposed to rise above such things.

Ferguson tragedy becoming a farce - The Washington Post (the fix is in)
A Matter of Life and Death: The Danger of an Out-of-Control State - The Atlantic - Pushing back on abuses by a small but powerful faction of the criminal-justice system requires a bipartisan coalition.

Arizona Is Becoming The Cayman Islands For Dark Money

Nearly three in ten ex-NFL players develop neurocognitive problems, data says | Sport | theguardian.com - Lawyers in class-action suit against NFL say ex-players are at high risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other problems

091114
Climate change accelerating death of Western forests - The iconic pine and aspen forests of the Rocky Mountains are dying off at an alarming rate thanks to conditions exacerbated by climate change — drought, insect infestations and wildfires — a new report says.
Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk: Confronting Climate Change Impacts from Insects, Wildfires, Heat, and Drought (2014) | Union of Concerned Scientists - Confronting climate-driven impacts from insects, wildfires, heat, and drought
China sees big drop in carbon emissions: Premier|Society|chinadaily.com.cn - China's carbon emissions saw the largest drop in years as the nation furthers structural readjustment to improve growth quality, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday. (that thing Republicans don't "believe" in)

Virologist: Fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia is lost | Sci-Tech | DW.DE | 11.09.2014 - The killer virus is spreading like wildfire, Liberia's defense minister said on Tuesdayas he pleaded for UN assistance. A German Ebola expert tells DW the virus must "burn itself out" in that part of the world. With other words: It will more or less infect everybody and half of the population - in total about five million people - could die. (saving the rest of Africa will require massive effort)
Ebola

Air strikes, drones and advisers: the new template for America's counter-terror fight | World news | theguardian.com - US offensive against Isis militants in Iraq is an extension of the strategy the White House deployed in Somalia and Yemen
Illegal? Irrational? Irrelevant? Obama's Isis address falls down on every front | World news | theguardian.com - Illegal? Irrational? Irrelevant? Obama's Isis address falls down on every front Barack Obama's announcement last night about the war against the Islamic State (Isis) – which he prefers to call Isil – was filled with euphemisms, questionable statements, caveats, omissions and even the occasional truth. Here's an annotated version
A tale of two speeches: emboldened Obama moves from dove to hawk | World news | theguardian.com - A year ago, Obama told the nation he was stepping back from military intervention. On Wednesday, he made a starkly different announcement: what amounted to a declaration of war
Turkey not taking part in combat missions against IS: official | Arab News — Saudi Arabia News, Middle East News, Opinion, Economy and more.
Jordan alarmed over Obama plan to arm ‘moderates’ - Kingdom officials believe Free Syrian Army mostly follows al-Qaida ideology
Guest Post On ISIL » Balloon Juice - On the Islamic State

Absolutely the most stunning single camera 9/11 footage. : videos
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Cont'd - Esquire - So it is the 13th anniversary of the day on which America was successfully encouraged by murderers to lose its mind and, last night, the president gave a speech entangling the United States in another combat situation in another place in that same part of the world against a different group of murderers who have taken it on themselves to encourage America to lose its mind.

Russian ruble hits record low as sanctions loom - The West Australian

U.S. threatened massive fine to force Yahoo to release data - The Washington Post


? Empire strikes back - YouTube (don't miss)
RBS will leave Scotland if voters back independence | Business | theguardian.com - Statement follows Lloyds saying it would quit as concern deepens for financial consequences for mortgages and retail operations

Some People Die. Some People Don't. - Esquire - Henry Kissinger, a war criminal of an earlier time, has been making the rounds, shilling a new book, and clearing his throat in front of whatever microphone happens to be at hand ... Todd Zwillich tried to get a straight answer about Kissinger's -- and the U.S. government's -- role in the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile, and the subsequent rise of the murderous regime of Augusto Pinochet. Kissinger thereupon disappeared in a cloud of squid ink.

US supreme court to review same-sex marriage petitions from five states | Law | theguardian.com - Private review will determine which, if any, gay marriages cases the court will take up in term beginning in October

Rob Portman: GOP-Run Senate Would Vote On Obamacare Repeal - Though the law will be a year older, Republicans will push a vote to repeal Obamacare if they take back the Senate in November, a top GOP senator told reporters Thursday morning.

Economic Policy Institute: Wage Theft Could Total $50 Billion a Year | New Republic

Telling Midterm Voters What’s At Stake by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But via Greg Sargent, pollster Celinda Lake suggests another problem: voters who really have no idea what the stakes are in this particular non-presidential election.

The Bar Sinks Ever Lower - Esquire


Missouri Lawmakers Just Enacted A 72-Hour Abortion Waiting Period With No Rape Exception | ThinkProgress
Missouri Lawmakers Enact 3-Day Waiting Period For Abortion - Missouri lawmakers enacted one of the nation's most stringent abortion waiting periods Wednesday, overriding a veto of legislation that will require women to wait 72 hours after consulting with a doctor before ending a pregnancy.
Missouri to implement nation's most stringent abortion waiting periods | World news | theguardian.com - State lawmakers override governor’s veto to enact 72-hour delay, that includes no exception for rape or incest Missouri approves concealed guns at schools

Federal officers raid LA fashion district and seize $90m in 'cartel money' | World news | theguardian.com

The New/Old Evidence From Ferguson by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It would have been easy to miss in all the IS-o-mania of the last 48 hours, but CNN’s turned up some new—though actually original and eyewitness—evidence of what happened between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson on August 9 in Ferguson, MO.
Video Shows Witnesses' Disbelief Following Michael Brown Shooting - "It was definitely like being shot like an animal," Johnson said.
Ferguson PD Lies About Why It Released Videotape Of Store Robbery, Lies Some More When Confronted With The Facts | Techdirt
Tanks at the school gates? San Diego school police acquires its own MRAP | World news | theguardian.com - Police captain plays down fears of militarisation and says ‘When we have an emergency at school, we’ve got to get in and save kids’
Cops Take Down High School Girl Who Wanted To Keep Phone | The Daily Caller - In a video of the incident, one of the cops who tackled the girl can be seen ramming his knee into the side of her head, reports local CBS affiliate KHOU.

Brace Your Freude To Be Thoroughly Schadened » Balloon Juice - The U.S. government wants conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza to be sentenced to as much as 16 months in prison, following his guilty plea to a campaign finance law violation.

What Does Zephyr Teachout's Challenge Mean? - Lawyers, Guns & Money
The Meaning of Andrew Cuomo's Embarrassment - The New Yorker - Who does Governor Andrew Cuomo think he is? Howard Hughes?

People With This Blood Type Are At Greater Risk For Memory Loss In Later Life - While only 4 percent of the U.S. population has AB blood, 6 percent of the cohort with memory problems had this blood type. Researchers concluded that in this study people with AB blood type were 82 percent more likely to develop thinking and memory problems than people with any of the three other blood types.

091014
Netflix leads tech giants' 'go-slow' protest in battle over net neutrality | Technology | theguardian.com - Sites including Reddit, Pornhub and Vimeo install widgets to show how the internet would look if regulators caved in to big cable companies on net neutrality

Climate Change News Just Keeps Getting Worse and Worse | Mother Jones
Cutting emissions pays for itself, research shows
Planet Killers - Esquire

Ebola threatening Liberia’s existence, minister warns | Global development | theguardian.com - Virus spreading like wildfire, defence minister tells UN security council, as WHO warns far more beds are needed

Legacy Fail - Esquire - Another congressman who has read the document said that the evidence of Saudi government support for the 9/11 hijacking is "very disturbing," and that "the real question is whether it was sanctioned at the royal-family level or beneath that, and whether these leads were followed through." (yet another think Obama doesn't want you to know about; seems he's really covering up for Bush/Cheney)
A Void in the History of September 11th

Obama to lay out plan to 'destroy' Isis threat as Kerry arrives in Baghdad | World news | theguardian.com - President's strategy to 'degrade and destroy' insurgents will include military action and support for Iraq and Syrian opposition
CNN poll: Majority of Americans alarmed by ISIS - CNN.com (71% of Americans think ISIS has already invaded America, 90% think it's a big threat)
Growing Concern about Rise of Islamic Extremism at Home and Abroad | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - More Prioritize Security over Civil Liberties in Anti-Terror Policies
Morning Plum: Is media putting thumb on scale for more war? - The Washington Post
Iraq, George W. Bush, and the Second Great Mulligan.
Rachel Maddow's Powerful Segment On America And ISIS - "We have a great and recent history of making terrible decisions," she said forcefully. "Terrible, short-sided, poorly argued and in some cases based on false premises decisions."
CHENEY: I'd Be Shocked If Obama Did The Right Thing On ISIS - Business Insider
Has The World Been Bamboozled By The ISIS PR Machine?

Qatar releases rights workers of Nepali origin - Qatar government has released two British human rights activists of Nepali origin who went missing while researching migrant labor issues in the Gulf country that is hosting the 2022 FIFA world Cup.
Azov fighters are Ukraine's greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat | World news | theguardian.com - The battalion's far-right volunteers' desire to 'bring the fight to Kiev' is a danger to post-conflict stability

Israeli military orders criminal investigations into Gaza attacks | World news | The Guardian - Deadly strike on port and shelling of UN school among five cases being investigated for potential misconduct

Who are the enemies of Internet freedom? - Imgur
DHS will ask stores to watch customers' buying habits for terrorist clues - Washington Times (don't buy two pressure cookers)

Krugman Demolishes Classic Argument Against Raising Minimum Wage

People hate the Republican Party. But they really don’t. - The Washington Post

Scalia: A Court of One reviewed by Justin Driver | New Republic

Employee Health Insurance Costs Barely Increased This Year
Meet Jennifer, A Woman Who Could Die If An Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit Succeeds | ThinkProgress
Ted Cruz’s Obamacare Nightmare Comes to Life -- NYMag

Origins and Destinations of the World’s Migrants, from 1990-2013 | Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project - Top origin countries for immigrants living in the United States

New York governor Andrew Cuomo bruised by strong primary challenge | World news | theguardian.com - Incumbent wins Democratic primary but dented by strong challenge from leftwing insurgent by Zephyr Teachout
New York State Primary Election Results 2014 - NYTimes.com

The Shocking Militarization of America's Police Finally Catches the Interest of the US Senate | Alternet - The military pipeline to thousands of police departments keeps growing.
Police using military gear in riots could be forced to repay millions in grants | World news | theguardian.com - Senators express concern over scenes in Ferguson in review hearing on federal militarisation of local police forces - there were now more MRAPs in the hands of local police forces than the national guard and that 36% of all surplus equipment received direct from the military was brand new or unused ... one Oklahoma county sheriff’s department with just one full-time sworn officer had received two of the 18-tonne vehicles alone.
Ferguson reform to courts system could leave residents paying more | World news | theguardian.com - Council says it wants to stop fines being used as a source of revenue for the city, but new 15% rule means an extra $3m could be taken from residents already feeling ‘preyed upon’
As Two Men Go Free, a Dogged Ex-Prosecutor Digs In - NYTimes.com - Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, who stood 6-foot-6 and came to be known as America’s “Deadliest D.A.,”

Oh, *that* video - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The person played The Associated Press a 12-second voicemail from an NFL office number on April 9 confirming the video arrived. A female voice expresses thanks and says: “You’re right. It’s terrible.”
AP Newsbreak: Source says Rice video sent to NFL - A law enforcement official says he sent a video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee to an NFL executive three months ago, while league officers have insisted they didn't see the violent images until this week.
Ray Rice controversy: Commissioner Roger Goodell defends NFL, says league didn't see second video - CBS News
Did Philadelphia Eagles RB LeSean McCoy leave burger joint a tiny tip? | 6abc.com - UPDATE: Charlie Sheen is now getting involved, pledging to give $1,000 to the waiter.

Berkeley chancellor angers faculty members with remarks on civility and free speech @insidehighered

Controversial Former College President Mansplains Alleged Rape Victim | Mother Jones - Stephen Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, made headlines when he appeared on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show to discuss sexual assault on college campuses and said that women had "to be trained not to drink in excess" so they could defend themselves against men who "misbehave." (he's even worse than we thought)

Study: Teens who smoke weed daily are 60% less likely to complete high school than those who never use - The Washington Post
Females Build Up Tolerance To Marijuana Faster Than Males, Study Finds

Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books During World War II - The Atlantic - And, in the process, they created a nation of readers.

Mass. Mayor Brandishes Gun During Late-Night Meeting With Rival - Fall River, Mass. Mayor William Flanagan (pictured above) met with city councilman Jasiel Carreia II around midnight on Aug. 15 in a Ford Explorer to discuss a recall petition targeting Flanagan.

Reddit, you are granted a single wish from a genie who WILL try to ruin it for you. What do you wish for, and how do you phrase it to avoid it backfiring? : AskReddit

Social Networking Fact Sheet | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
Why do you have to buy an iPhone 6 to get a working digital wallet? Think different | Money | theguardian.com - creating a divide between Apple haves and Apple have-nots. (thought that was the point all along)

090914
Greenhouse Gas Levels In Atmosphere Surged To New High In 2013, World Meteorological Organization Reports (our goose is cooked, Republicans have destroyed the planet)

The Unintended Consequences Of The U.S. Campaign Against Islamic State - Rather than help keep the nation together, the air strikes risk being used by different factions for their own advantage in Iraq's sectarian and ethnic conflicts.
Dick Cheney urges Republicans to take hardline military stance against Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Former vice-president meets behind closed doors with House GOP as hawks clamour for ramped-up military confrontation (he's sure ISIS has WMDs)
The U.S. is right to set out to destroy the Islamic State - The Washington Post (WaPo agrees with Cheney, again)

MH17 destroyed in instant by 'number of high-energy objects', says report | World news | The Guardian - Preliminary report by Dutch Safety Board reveals objects caused plane to break apart before alarm could be raised (might have been "reverse meteors")
Libyan parliament takes refuge in Greek car ferry | World news | theguardian.com - Elyros liner is deployed as floating hotel for legislature that has fled war-torn capital for eastern town of Tobruk (there's a first)

Neo-Nazi photos pose headache for Shinzo Abe | World news | theguardian.com - Two newly promoted political allies of Japanese PM shown smiling alongside far-right figure Kazunari Yamada

Feinstein: CIA torture report will be delayed as Democrats decide redactions | World news | theguardian.com - Though 600-page report was planned for September, top senator says arguments may not finish until after midterms (redacting all the mentions of "torture")

To fix the economy, let's print money and mail it to everyone - Vox

Governor Cuomo goes all out to shake off 'professor one and professor two' | World news | theguardian.com - New York governor brings out the big guns for Tuesday’s Democratic primary as he tries to avoid embarrassment against leftwing academics Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu - “The governor has been a tremendous quarterback for the state of New York. (sports!)

Detroit reaches deal to overhaul beleagurered water department | World news | theguardian.com - Department would be turned into regional agency with 10-year limit on annual rate increases and an injection of cash from the suburbs UN says Detroit cutoffs violating human rights

Home Depot confirms payment systems were hacked | Business | theguardian.com - Home Depot confirmed on Monday that its payment systems have been hacked in a data breach that could affect millions of shoppers who used credit and debit cards at its more than 2,000 U.S. and Canadian stores.

Longer Ray Rice Elevator Video Features Obscenities, Spitting
Ray Rice is gone, Roger Goodell should be too - Ann Killion
Ravens, NFL easily could have gotten Ray Rice video | ProFootballTalk
Janay Rice Skewers Media Over Leak Of Elevator Tape - "THIS IS OUR LIVE!" (learn to spell, please)
Domestic violence survivors stay for a million reasons. Janay Rice's is her own | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com

The warped world of 1950s marriage counselling – Rebecca Onion – Aeon - Advice columns from decades past provide a chilling glimpse into the horrors of marriage counselling before feminism

The violent truth behind Reddit's trolling problem
Reddit is a failed state | The Verge
A brief compilation of SRS doxxing, brigading, and coordinated vote manipulation. : SRSsucks
It's been two weeks since TwoX became a default... : TwoXChromosomes
You are the community. You have all the power of the internet to mold it.
I am not a baby factory : TwoXChromosomes
I just had to call the cops : TwoXChromosomes (women hitting men isn't domestic violence to a lot of these women)

090814
Ebola will infect thousands more people in Liberia within weeks, says WHO | Society | theguardian.com - UN agency says conventional measures to control deadly virus are not working, with patients overflowing new clinics
Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa

Hundreds of children across US sickened by severe respiratory virus | World news | theguardian.com - Suspected virus, enterovirus 68, typically causes illness lasting a week and most children recover with no lasting problems

Widening gap between US rich and poor is unsustainable, says study | World news | theguardian.com - Harvard study says situation unlikely to improve soon Workers expected to keep struggling for better pay
America's Wealth Gap 'Unsustainable' According To Harvard Study

Al-Qaeda suspects were brought to the 'point of death' during 'real torture' by CIA - Americas - World - The Independent - At least two al-Qaeda suspects were brought to the “point of death” during “real torture” by CIA officials following the 9/11 attacks, a security source has claimed. (what Obama doesn't want you to see)

Russia reopens criminal cases against Lithuanians who refused to serve in Soviet army - EN.DELFI - Russia has reopened 25-year-old cases that may lead to criminal charges against young people who refused to serve in the Soviet army in 1990-1991 (Putin)
Canada Adds Drones to Its Fight With Russia for the North Pole

Germany won't tolerate 'Sharia police': The German government has strongly criticized nightly patrols in the city of Wuppertal by men calling themselves "Sharia police. : news
Germany won't tolerate 'Sharia police' | News | DW.DE | 06.09.2014 - "We knew that this would raise attention," Lau said, claiming that his goal was to spark a debate about Sharia law in Germany.

Isis jihadis using captured arms and troop carriers from US and Saudis | World news | The Guardian - Obama considers focusing on Isis bases in Syria as study finds jihadis have anti-tank rockets seized from rival rebels there (arm the rebels!)
Iraqi government names new cabinet as Islamic State advance | World news | theguardian.com - The change is backed by the Arab League and is hoped to represent Sunnis more prominently

Ex-US diplomat Khalilzad contests financial probe - A former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations has been caught up in a suspected money-laundering inquiry that led to a freeze on bank deposits he and his wife hold in Austria.

Scots, What the Heck? - NYTimes.com - Well, I have a message for the Scots: Be afraid, be very afraid. The risks of going it alone are huge. You may think that Scotland can become another Canada, but it’s all too likely that it would end up becoming Spain without the sunshine.

Gerrymandering and the Big Sort Fallacy

Watergate’s most lasting sin: Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and the pardon that made us all cynics - Salon.com - Ford let Nixon off 40 years ago today. That launched Iran-Contra, "too big to fail" -- and proved power trumps law

Scalia’s utter moral failure: How he destroys any claim to a superior system of justice - Salon.com - He doesn't think executing an innocent man matters. How on earth can such a depraved human be on our Supreme Court?

NFL suspends running back Ray Rice over domestic violence accusation | World news | theguardian.com - NFL announces indefinite suspension for Ravens running back Observers ask whether NFL knew of full casino CCTV video - Rice added: “Anybody knows the rule of a husband. If you go biblically, the husband is the head of a household. My job is to lead my family, my job is to lead my wife. My job is to lead in whatever I do. And if I’m not being the example, then my family crumbles.” (lead her across the ground by her hair)
Don't watch the Ray Rice video. Don't ask why Janay Palmer married him. Ask why anyone would blame a victim | Hannah Giorgis | Comment is free | theguardian.com - That we feel entitled to images of a woman being abused speaks volumes not only about the man who battered her, but about us
Keith Olbermann: NFL Commissioner 'Is An Enabler Of Men Who Beat Women' (VIDEO) - "Mr. Goodell's ineptitude has not merely rendered this football season meaningless and irrelevant by contrast, it has not only reduced supporting or watching NFL football to a distasteful even a disrespectful act, but most importantly it has comforted the violent and afflicted the victim," Olbermann said.
Fox complains Obama wasn’t ‘leading’ on Ray Rice matter as White House issues statement
Let Us Remember the Most Important Part of the Story: He Didn't Smoke Pot - Lawyers, Guns & Money
'Fox & Friends' Hosts Really Don't Get The Problem With Ray Rice Hitting His Wife
Baltimore Ravens Delete Tweet That Placed Some Blame On Ray Rice's Wife
Politico Reporter Catches Heat For Tweet About Ray Rice's Wife
“Failure is not getting knocked down, it’s not getting up.” - First he apologizes to the bosses, the fans, the kids – “everyone that was affected by this situation that me and my wife were in.”

WATCH: NYPD officers take turns beating Bronx man after search turns up nothing

Penis Home Road - Raw Story reports that Mars Hill church is shrinking operations as more people learn what a pathetic patriarchal mess it is.
Wash. state megachurch closes branches after founder is caught calling women ‘penis homes’

U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks Gets Free Speech Very Wrong | Popehat (what are those glasses for?)

Right, Left, Right, Wrong! - Other Handedness Issues - Handedness and Writing
Is there any correlation between LTR and RTL languages and the dominate handedness of that language's creator or culture? : askscience



090714
Snow comes a month early this year for northern US | Mail Online - Snow could hit Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan Forecasters believe the early temperature drop is due to a polar vortex
2 Women Struck by Lightning on Crane Beach - Massachusetts news - Boston.com - Ipswich police report that two women who were struck by lightning on Crane Beach yesterday suffered critical burns.

Hopes raised as Ebola vaccine protects monkeys for 10 months | Society | The Guardian - Human trials underway aiming to prevent another outbreak of the virus which has swept through west Africa
Ebola outbreak: Why has 'Big Pharma' failed deadly virus' victims? - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent - The scientist leading Britain's response to the Ebola pandemic has launched a devastating attack on "Big Pharma", accusing drugs giants including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi, Merck and Pfizer of failing to manufacture a vaccine, not because it was impossible, but because there was "no business case". (poor black people who can't afford our superexpensive medicine should just die)

Official: Virus hitting Midwest may be 'tip of iceberg' - CNN.com
Rare, serious respiratory virus sickening kids across Midwest - CBS News

Families Of MH370 Claim Abuse And Detainment By Chinese Police - "I went to see her in hospital, I could see the injuries on her head and body," said Zhang Yongli, 64, whose daughter was on the flight. "The way the police acted was very extreme, it's wrong to treat us this way."

For Israel, the beginning of wisdom is to admit mistakes and change course | Avi Shlaim | Comment is free | The Guardian - Israel should embrace Palestinian unity for its own security. A further land grab will only inflame tensions (which was the point?)
Reckless Policies, Dire Consequences | Alon Ben-Meir - Netanyahu's hypocrisy was put on full display when he blamed Hamas for the abduction and gruesome murder of three Israeli teenagers, which subsequently led to the Gaza war, only to expropriate land in the West Bank to punish the Palestinian Authority.
“Civility” is the Israel lobby's new weapon against free speech on US campuses | The Electronic Intifada

Obama To Announce Game Plan Against ISIS (he's going to drop McCain and Graham on them)
How America Made ISIS | Tom Engelhardt - In other words, while the Bush administration talked about “draining the swamp” of terror groups in up to 60 countries, the U.S. military was dispatched against what were essentially will-o’-the-wisps, largely representing Washington’s own conjured fears and fantasies. (neocon "crusade" - tragic stupid)
U.S. Launches Airstrikes Around Iraq's Haditha Dam - The U.S. military said Sunday it launched airstrikes around Haditha Dam in western Iraq, targeting Islamic State insurgents there for the first time in a move to prevent the group from capturing the vital dam.

Scotland offered increased powers as parties unite to rally no voters | Politics | theguardian.com - George Osborne says country will get more say in its own tax, spending and welfare after surge in support for yes campaign (getting scared)
UK Offers Scotland More Autonomy Ahead Of Vote

The Dying Russians by Masha Gessen | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books - In the seventeen years between 1992 and 2009, the Russian population declined by almost seven million people, or nearly 5 percent—a rate of loss unheard of in Europe since World War II. Moreover, much of this appears to be caused by rising mortality
8 Things Masha Gessen Got Wrong About Russian Demography - Masha Gessen, a well-known Russian journalist and pundit, recently wrote a summary of Russian population trends for the New York Review of Books.

The robots are coming for the Chinese jobs, too by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
? Inside North Korea (Part 1/3) - YouTube (very Nazi)

This is how racism takes root | Joseph Harker | Comment is free | The Guardian (comments, as usual)

Scalia yells at cloud, doesn’t care about the judgment of history by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It’s more than a little disconcerting that the fate of the world’s most powerful democracy is in the hands of a dangerously disconnected crank who thinks flogging probably is OK, but obsesses over “ladies” using vulgar language; thinks Facebook is “strange” but that the Devil has gotten too smart to possess people directly these days.

Republicans are still trying to destroy Obamacare, and they're still losing | Scott Lemieux | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Conservatives want to protect your right to an avoidable death due to a lack of health insurance. It’s the principle of the thing

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks - NYTimes.com (that would be Conservative Stupid-Tanks which are always for sale)
Eschaton: Upshot - Nate Cohen at The Upshot, NYT's replacement for 538, claimed today that gerrymandering doesn't matter, that super majorities in Dem districts are somehow natural phenomena, and he used PA as an example.

Benny Johnson Hired by National Review -- NYMag
Standards by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Let’s be honest: is anyone surprised by National Review’s decision to hire a plagiarist?

Henry Lee McCollum cleared by DNA evidence in North Carolina after spending 30 years on death row. - How many times was Justice Antonin Scalia wrong about Henry Lee McCollum and the death penalty? (if innocent people have to die for Scalia's insanity, no problem!)
Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes | The Washington Post - After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways - the techniques of “highway interdiction” (yeah, "interdict" those highways)

Doubts cast on witness's account of black man killed by police in Walmart | World news | theguardian.com - Alleged to have threatened customers, John Crawford, 22, was having a phone conversation while holding an unloaded BB gun - When Ronald Ritchie called 911 from the aisles of a Walmart in western Ohio last month to report that a black man was “walking around with a gun in the store”, he said that shoppers were coming under direct threat. (he lied, the cops lied, Republican AG won't release the tape, kid shot in the back holding a product he picked up in the store while talking on his cell phone)

Hullabaloo - 37% of people think it's rude to wake someone up on a plane so you can go to the bathroom? What the hell are you supposed to do? And if someone needs to stretch because they've been folded up like an origami swan for two hours, it seem only human to wake up for 10 seconds to let them pass. Your seat isn't a hotel room.

The phantom menace of militant atheism | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer - There is militant religion on one side and militant atheism on the other. We've no obligation to make a choice between them. Indeed, we should devote our energies to attacking atheism rather than religion. (oh, those "militant" atheists)

Mary Beard Takes On Her Sexist Detractors - The Troll Slayer - It’s not what you say that prompts it—it’s the fact that you are saying it.” Such online interjections—“ ‘Shut up you bitch’ is a fairly common refrain”—often contain threats of violence, a “predictable menu of rape, bombing, murder, and so forth.” She mildly reported one tweet that had been directed at her: “I’m going to cut off your head and rape it.”
Celebgate: it's not the internet we need to fix but men's squalid behaviour | John Naughton | Comment is free | The Observer
Mom Ann Whalen Sentenced To Prison For Giving Daughter Abortion Pills - pleaded guilty in August to obtaining the miscarriage-inducing pills from an online site in Europe for her daughter, 16, who did not want to have the child.

New Galaxy Map Relocates The Milky Way To A Ginormous Supercluster Called Laniakea
US has seen nearly 600 measles cases this year, CDC says | Society | theguardian.com - Outbreaks linked to trend of parents not vaccinating children • Deadly disease had been virtually eradicated in US (thank you Jenny Dimbulb McCarthy and the anti-vax fucks)
Deep Sea 'Mushrooms' Defy Classification In The Tree Of Life - This is Dendrogramma enigmatica. And as its name suggests, it’s quite the enigma.
61 percent fall in female genital warts due to free HPV vaccine : Science : Daily News Now (Republicans love warts)

Do gay men across the world speak their native languages with the same "gay inflection" that's stereotypical for gay men here in the states? : AskReddit

blog.reddit -- what's new on reddit: Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul - This blog post is not an explanation for why /r/TheFappening was banned.
Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul : blog
The subreddits that somehow aren't banned
Reddit bans all "Fappening" related subreddits : news
Reddit Just Banned The Subreddit Where People Were Posting The Celebrity Nude Images | Business Insider
Reddit closes message board that helped spread naked photos of celebrities | Mail Online - A forum on online noticeboard Reddit called 'The Fappening' was one of the primary places where the hacked celebrity nudes were being swirled

090614
Sierra Leone's planned Ebola lockdown could 'spread disease further' | World news | theguardian.com - Plan to bar people from leaving their homes on 18-21 September could drive infected people underground, say aid agencies

Jewish museum shooting suspect 'is Islamic State torturer' | World news | theguardian.com - The man suspected of shooting dead four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels was an Islamic State militant who tortured his captives, a journalist held by the extremist group has said.
No, Glenn Beck did not predict the rise of ISIS, which is overrated anyway.
What is ISIS thinking? Five possible explanations for why the group is beheading Americans.

Russia Steps Up Pressure on the Baltics - The Daily Beast (Putin will eat Estonia next)

Did LA pro-Israel group conceal right-wing identity from Hollywood celebs and media? | Adalah-NY - What was not reported is that CCFP is a “creative” front group for the right-wing, pro Israeli settler nonprofit StandWithUs, that has a close relationship with the Israeli government.

Scottish Independence Supporters Lead Poll For First Time

Legal memos released on Bush-era justification for warrantless wiretapping - The Washington Post
Obama Administration Still Keeping Much Secret About Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program | The Dissenter
Executive Still Hiding Its Phone Dragnet Self-Authorization, While Making Sure We Know It Has It | emptywheel
The 2009 Draft NSA IG Report Makes No Mention of One Illegal Practice | emptywheel - data-mining of Americans.
Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice | Coursera (free course)


Obama Delays Immigration Action, Yielding to Democratic Concerns - NYTimes.com - bowing to pressure from fellow Democrats who feared that acting now could doom his party’s chances this fall,
Democrats tell Obama: drop immigration reform to save Senate | World news | theguardian.com - Party officials working to convince White House party could suffer electoral damage if executive action carried out
Campaigners: Obama immigration reform delay 'a slap to face' of Latinos | World news | theguardian.com

The Democrats' Katherine Harris Strategy - The Daily Beast - No one’s usually cared much who held secretary of state posts at the state level. Then the parties noticed that they have one major duty. (rigging elections)
Ladies First by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The woman who should have succeeded Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy could be on her way to succeeding Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and becoming the first female elected governor in the state’s history. (Queen Martha Chokely)

Does anyone have answers for a lost generation in the making? by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The bigger challenge is low wages and high cost of living—particularly in terms of housing.

Summit to explore what's next for Atlantic City - The closed-door summit, expected to last up to 90 minutes, is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday at the offices of the Casino Reinvestment Development Corp. in Atlantic City. (Christie will solve the problem in 90 minutes)

How misinformation goes viral: a Truthy story : Columbia Journalism Review - On August 26, Fox’s Megyn Kelly aired a four-minute segment on an Indiana University project called Truthy, declaring sarcastically, “Some bureaucrat deciding whether you are being hateful or misinforming people — what could possibly go wrong?” (only their stupidity)

Workers who were witnesses provide new perspective on Michael Brown shooting : News - But there were two outsiders who happened to be working outside at the apartment complex on Aug. 9 — two men from a company in Jefferson County — who heard a single gunshot, looked up from their work and witnessed the shooting.
Cries for reform in traffic courts grow louder in wake of Ferguson : News - “Ferguson has made a modern day debtor’s prison for low-income people,” he said. “That cannot continue.”
The police body-cam peep show: are you ready to give up your privacy, too? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Mother of Higgs boson found in superconductors - physics-math - 05 September 2014 - New Scientist
Debate Over E-Cigarettes Lights Up | TIME - But in a new article published in the journal Addiction, other scientists argue that the WHO misinterpreted the data in a “misleading” way and that the group’s advice for more stringent oversight is problematic.

1 in 5 U.S. Women Are Raped at Some Point, Report Says | TIME - The majority experience sexual violence before age 25 - And another 40% experience another form of sexual violence. (even worse than we thought +the statistic Reason's Cathy Young "debunked" in the Globe)
Do we really have a campus sexual assault ‘epidemic’? | AEIdeas (here's how AEI defends rape: it's just an epidemic +commenters are insane)

You’ll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.) | we hunted the mammoth - The new rule seems to be that any woman who writes about online harassment will herself be harassed, and in this case it didn’t take long.
#GamerGate revealed as misogynist and racist movement from 4chan - Corpus Christi Video Game | Examiner.com
#GameOverGate (with images, tweets) · strictmachine · Storify - Zoe Quinn blows #GamerGate wide open.

090514
California drought: El Niño chances fall again - SFGate
Ozone pollution in India kills enough crops to feed 94 million in poverty
Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse | Cathy Alexander and Graham Turner | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth’s forecasts have been vindicated by new Australian research. Expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon

How educated are world leaders?

We Got Nothin' - Esquire - There is nobody who has atoned as thoroughly for pumping up C-Plus Augustus's Excellent Mesopotamian Adventure than Peter Beinart, who recently unlimbered the lumber on the prescription for triumph in the Middle East proposed by John McCain and his faithful companion, Huckleberry J. Butchmeup ... he Republican foreign-policy intelligentsia keep coming up with ideas that combine the geopolitical nuance of The Underpants Gnome with the strategic and logistical brilliance of El Mystico and Janet.
‘Do something’ groupthink took fateful toll - Opinion - The Boston Globe
Why they still hate us, 13 years later - The Washington Post - It’s not an Islam problem but an Arab problem
Alan Keyes Is Not Making Sense, Again by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The Crazification Factor has been authoritatively set at 27%, which means that 27% of the public is “head-trauma crazy” just like Alan Keyes.

The U.S. Government's Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations - The Intercept
7 problems with Politico Magazine’s hit piece on Glenn Greenwald - The Washington Post
Tiger Beat on the Potomac - Esquire - Politico, foremost practitioner of Washington's current courtier press, goes from mere triviality into outright obscenity
The FBI Finally Says How It ‘Legally’ Pinpointed Silk Road’s Server | Threat Level | WIRED

When Can The FBI Use National Security Letters To Go After Journalists? Why, That's Classified! | Techdirt (if you don't know, then ...)

Americans Are Not Totally Sure Which Countries We're Bombing - A YouGov poll released Thursday finds that just about a third of Americans knew for sure that the U.S. hasn't conducted any recent strikes in Syria
Estonia Says Security Officer Abducted, Taken To Russia - He was carrying "a Taurus handgun with cartridges, 5,000 euros in cash, special equipment for concealed audio recording and materials that indicated an intelligence mission," the agency said in a statement.
U.S. Plane Unexpectedly Lands In Iran - A charter aircraft flying from the U.S. airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan to Dubai was re-routed to Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Friday due to "a bureaucratic issue," a U.S. State Department official said.
Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane killed by US air strike in Somalia | World news | The Guardian - Pentagon hails ‘major symbolic and operational loss’ for Islamist militant group with death of Ahmed Abdi Godane
British human rights investigators disappear in Qatar, after being followed by plain clothes police - Middle East - World - The Independent

Group: Airman denied reenlistment for refusing to say 'so help me God' | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com

Echidne Of The Snakes: The Rotherham Report On Child Sexual Exploitation. My Analysis. (night-time economy and taxi culture | most victims white, most abusers Pakistani | officials ignored three reports because they didn't believe it)

Hillary Clinton reviews Henry Kissinger’s ‘World Order’ - The Washington Post

The Obamacare train keeps not wrecking - Vox

Richard Posner Is Tired Of Your Bullshit - Esquire - "Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure." "Go figure?" Oh, just tell them to fk off, Your Honor. Go for the gold.

Sunday Talk Show Guests - NYTimes.com (McCain and Graham lead)
Bob McDonnell's 'family values' fall short | MSNBC - Last year, prosecutors offered Bob a deal in which he alone would plead guilty to a single felony fraud charge, according to The Washington Post. Maureen would not be charged at all. He turned it down, and both were charged on 14 counts

The Economist Admits Slavery Was Pretty 'Evil' After All - Mr Baptist has not written an objective history of slavery. Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains. This is not history; it is advocacy. (a step to far, even for the Economist)

Ex-Tribune reporter said to have 'collaborative' relationship with CIA - LA Times - Ken Dilanian, former staffer in the Tribune Washington bureau, is accused by a website of submitting some work to the CIA before publication.
Out On The Weekend - Esquire - a great reporter named Gary Webb. Webb, you may recall, reported the hell out of the story that some of our Moral Equivalents of the Founding Fathers in Central America during the glory days of Ronald Reagan's advancing senility were running cocaine up into the United States with the blessings of their CIA handlers. This all helped jump-start the entrepreneurial triumph that was crack cocaine. (they drove him to suicide; CIA controlled The New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times each obscured basic truths of Webb's "Dark Alliance" series - no one did more than Jesse Katz)

Author: The Economist Review Of My Slavery Book Was 'Blatantly Racist' - "It's kind of a caricature of The Economist, the stodgy upper-class British twits. On one level, I wondered if it was serious," he said. "There's this air around it of where we're going to say all the things that you shouldn't say and therefore that gives them some sort of intellectual credibility."

Sheriff says young Dubois County Men & Women are Joining Texas Militias - Tristatehomepage - Eyewitness News (Christian jihadis in TX)

Ferguson Police Chief Lied About Why He Released Alleged Michael Brown Robbery Tape: Report
Ferguson Police Chief Lied About Michael Brown Tape
Bogus Photo Does Not Show Ferguson Cop Darren Wilson's Injuries; It's Not Even Him
The Militarization of Police in the US » Tableau Picasso
Military rifles, armor sent to Texas school police
The Pentagon Is Giving Grenade Launchers to Campus Police | VICE United States
The Central Park Five's Long Legal Nightmare Ends As Judge Approves $41 Million Settlement - During his time in office, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fought the Central Park Five's lawsuit against the city.
The Hidden Cost of Gun Violence: Meet a Mother and Her 7-Year-Old With PTSD - ProPublica - Thousands of Americans in high-violence neighborhoods have developed post-traumatic stress. 24-year-old Aireana and her children are among the few who’ve been able to get treatment.
Nonprofit Floats Unusual Alternative To Private Prison - wants to convert a private jail in D.C. into what they say would be the first nonprofit lockup in the country, if not the world.
Man Spends 8 Days in Jail for Posting Exodus Lyrics on Facebook | Billboard - "It's nonsense," Evans said of his arrest. "I feel like my civil rights have been violated... first amendment freedom of speech out the window. Even all the guys I was in the cell with, they thought it was nonsense themselves."

Tiger Beat on the Potomac - Esquire - Politico, foremost practitioner of Washington's current courtier press, goes from mere triviality into outright obscenity

Why I can't donate to WHYY :: Blogs :: The Naked City :: Philadelphia City Paper - WHYY CEO Bill Marrazzo's $538,412 compensation package. (donate to NPR's high-paid "leaders")

Phil Robertson, 'Duck Dynasty' Star: 'I'm As Much Of A Homophobe As Jesus Was' (would fit right in with the Taliban)
Christians Respond To Victoria Osteen's Claim: 'When We Obey God..We're Doing It For Ourself' - The pastor, who is married to televangelist Joel Osteen, told the congregation that the key to making God happy is first making oneself happy. (God isn't happy unless you're a self-centered white Republican asshole)

Florida State University Finally Launches Investigation Into Jameis Winston Rape Report - n attorney said Florida State is investigating the sexual assault case involving Jameis Winston in an effort to determine if the Seminoles quarterback violated the student code of conduct policy.

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - Standardized Tests Can't Capture Merit (Steven Pinker wants standardized tests for our elites)
Standardized Tests Can’t Capture Merit
Huge dinosaur Dreadnoughtus being recreated by researchers - San Jose Mercury News - The four-legged beast, with a long neck and powerful 29-foot tail, stretched about 85 feet long and weighed about 65 tons. That's more than seven times the weight of even a plus-size male African elephant.


Man jailed for phoning and texting ex-girlfriend 21,807 times | World news | theguardian.com - French man who harassed woman demanding compensation for work on apartment admits behaviour was 'stupid'

090414
Reuters - Water's edge: the crisis of rising sea levels
99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming: new study - There is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, our new research shows.

Ukraine and Isis threat set to dominate talks as Nato summit starts | World news | theguardian.com - Organisers hoped summit would mark new era in Afghanistan but talks are set to focus on eastern Europe, Iraq and Syria
Isis not comparable to al-Qaida pre-9/11, US intelligence officials say | World news | theguardian.com - Leading counterterrorism expert said despite group’s dramatic rise, it does not pose a direct threat of major attack on a US city (they will invade America and impose Sharia law)
So Very 2002 by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - t’s feeling very, very 2002. The difference, of course, is that an opponent of the Iraq War is president at the moment, while Dick Cheney raves and snarls from the sidelines instead of deploying troops and crafting official lies.
Hullabaloo - Here we go - The warship is sailing out of the harbor and once again we're all just standing here on the shore screaming into the wind.
Democrats chide Obama on ISIL - Burgess Everett - POLITICO.com - Incumbent Democratic senators up for reelection this fall became the White House’s latest headache on Wednesday, criticizing President Barack Obama’s approach to confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (Dems afraid of being called wimps)
The Debate Over What To Do About ISIS Isn't Much Of A Debate (let's do it all over again)
Retirem

Video Feature: Surviving an ISIS Massacre [includes graphic images] - NYTimes.com
Guest Calls Out Sean Hannity On 'Duck Dynasty' Star's ISIS Remark (VIDEO) - “I’m a Catholic. If people were killing in the name of my religion, and radicalizing my religion, I would condemn them,” Hannity pressed. “I would think, as a Muslim, you would want to do that.” “You didn’t condemn the ‘Duck Dynasty’ [guy] yesterday,” Siddeeq countered.

Judge may hold Microsoft in contempt after refusal to hand over foreign data | Technology | theguardian.com - Obama administration contends that company with operations in US must comply with warrants for data, even if stored abroad
What I really use instead of Google services - dz.com

The Dying Russians by Masha Gessen | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books - Russia is dying of a broken heart—also known as cardiovascular disease.
What It's Like To Walk Alone If You're A Woman In Cairo

Obama Immigration Strategy Traces Back To John Lennon Deportation - Until the Lennon case, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had not acknowledged it used its own discretion in deciding whom to deport. But through the Freedom of Information Act, Wildes discovered 1,843 instances in which the INS had invoked such prosecutorial discretion as part of a secret program for "non-priority" cases.

D.C. Circuit Will Re-Hear Halbig Case Against Obamacare Subsidies

Appeals Court Strikes Down Wisconsin, Indiana Gay Marriage Bans As Unconstitutional

Gap Between Richest And The Rest Widened After The Recession: Fed - The disparity was even greater by wealth, with the top 3-percent holding 54.4 percent of all net worth in 2013, up from 51.8 percent in 2007 and 44.8 percent in 1989.

American slavery: Blood cotton | The Economist - The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. By Edward Baptist. (the Ecomomist likes slavery)

Clickety-Clack Go The Tumbrels - Esquire - You talk about getting hit by the whole train: As 11 counts of "guilty" were pronounced on counts of conspiracy, bribery and extortion for Mr. McDonnell, he covered his face with his hands and his head fell nearly to the defense table. His wife, convicted on nine counts, looked straight ahead.
The Law And The Profits - Esquire - Economic royalism, and the political infrastructure carefully designed to support it, took a beating Thursday in several courts, even if you don't count the one that convicted the McDonnells in Virginia - A federal district judge down in Louisiana beat British Petroleum like the fugitive vandal that company has been since BP and its corporate partners despoiled the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010.
The Senate Race In Kansas Just Got Crazy | FiveThirtyEight

Ferguson's Lesson: Local Government Poses the Real Threat to Liberty | New Republic - And only a strong federal government can stop them

Ferguson police to be investigated after shooting of Michael Brown | World news | theguardian.com - US Justice Department investigation will go beyond teenager's shooting to look at all practices of predominantly white force
Ferguson Police Face Justice Department Civil Rights Probe | New Republic
Ferguson Police Department's Cooperation Could Aid DOJ Civil Rights Probe
Land of the Free - RefractoryRefractory
Reports: Michael Brown Had No Serious Felony Convictions As A Juvenile - This just in: Charles C. Johnson was never convicted of being a child molester.

Eschaton: Trump'd - They keep falling... Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal warned in a recent financial filing that it was in danger of running out of money to pay its bills and make debt payments. (Trump: the bankruptcy brand)

Huffington Post Hires Ex-NFL Player, 9/11 Truther To Cover National Security - The new media empire announced Wednesday that Donte Stallworth, a former NFL wide receiver who had spells with six different teams during his 10-year playing career, will be joining the site as a fellow covering national security.

Meet Dreadnoughtus, The 'Astoundingly Huge' Dinosaur Discovered In Argentina - Say hello to Dreadnoughtus schrani, a newly discovered dinosaur that was so formidable, it was named after a battleship that prowled the seas during the early 20th century.
Ruth Glacier wormhole is not what it appears - GrindTV.com

AOL.com Article - Child pornography believed to be among the celebrity nudes leaked from iCloud - Though not the boldest names in the collection, nudes of U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney and MTV actress Liz Lee were also leaked. They were likely taken when both girls were minors.
Revenge Porn Laws by State: Map Shows They're Rare in the U.S. | New Republic - Based on this map, it probably is

Joan Rivers dies at 81 : television
Joan Rivers in astonishing attack on 'stupid' Palestinians in Gaza | Mail Online - She said 'at least the ones killed were the ones with very low IQs'

090314
Cost To Stop Ebola Outbreak Is Soaring, U.N. Experts Warn

Joe Biden On The Islamic State: 'We Will Follow Them To The Gates Of Hell'
The Death of Steven Sotloff - The New Yorker
ISIS Militants Killed Up To 770 Captured Iraqi Soldiers: Human Rights Watch

Putin Calls On Ukraine Rebels To Stop Advance


Louisiana Gay Marriage Ban Upheld By Federal Judge - Bucking a nationwide trend, a federal judge in Louisiana upheld a state ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, writing that "any right to same-sex marriage is not yet so entrenched as to be fundamental" and that gay marriage was "inconceivable until very recently." (emancipation, suffrage, bi-racial marriage)
Christianity and Same Sex Marriage - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The argument that the antiquity of the doctrine makes it stronger does not stand up to examination. The prohibition of divorce is just as old, and with a really bitchin’ proof text, for those who think proof texting is the pinnacle of theological debate.
Why so many Christians won't back down on gay marriage - The Week - A traditional view of marriage is about much more than today's politics. It's deeply woven into the 2,000-year-old ethic at the heart of our faith.

Scalia Once Pushed Death Penalty For Now-Exonerated Inmate Henry Lee McCollum - Scalia has been a frequent and vocal supporter of the death penalty and even once suggested that an innocent man had never been put to death, at least in recent years.

Christie’s ‘game changer’ Revel closes doors amid casino ruin in Atlantic City - The Washington Post - When initial investors bailed, his administration guaranteed $261 million in tax incentives.

alicublog: Conservative Outreach To Women Is Going Great. - I guess they think they don't need the votes so badly that they'll give up being jerks to get them.
No, Catcalling Is Definitely Not Flattery | National Review Online (read the male conservative commenters)

Juvenile court: Michael Brown had no most serious felony convictions or pending cases : News (which makes him kind of an angel in that environment)
Oriana Ferrell, Mom Whose Van Full Of Kids Was Shot By Police, Breaks Silence
Update on the Detained Science-Fiction Writing Teacher in Maryland - Patrick McLaw wrote two science fiction novels, some "citizens" "reacted" to them, and when he wrote a letter to a school administrator over the summer that contained no threats of any kind but that someone thought may have been a little odd, the entire school bureaucracy and law enforcement fell down on his head.

Eschaton: Maybe The Little Lady Senator Is Lying
"Either Convert Them Or Kill Them": Hannity Turns To Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson On Islamic State's Beheadings | Video | Media Matters for America (the moronification of the media)

Exclusive: Alleged Celeb Nude Photo Leaker's Brother Speaks Out

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Received More Than $100,000 from Comcast Before Boosting Merger
Did Sundance Vacations Forge A Court Order To Suppress Online Criticism? | Popehat
Timeshare Company Sundance Vacations Accused Of Forging Court Order To Delete Discussion Of Its Practices | Techdirt

090214
United Nations predicts climate hell in 2050 with imagined weather forecasts | World news | The Guardian - 'Reports from the future' warn of floods, storms and searing heat in campaign for climate change summit

Video Shows Beheading of Second U.S. Journalist; 'I'm Back, Obama' - Bloomberg - The extremist Islamic State group released a video today showing the beheading of a man identified as American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff.
ISIS Reportedly Beheads A Second American Journalist - Sotloff, who has reported for Time magazine and Foreign Policy, has been missing since August 2013. In the video that showed the murder of American journalist James Foley, an ISIS militant brought Sotloff in front of the camera and threatened his life (pictured above via AP).
Is ISIS Deterrable? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The very territorial base that makes ISIS such a magnet for terrorists, in other words, could also make it deterrable in a way that al Qaeda never has been. (they will roll across the Mexican border in their pickup trucks with the Ebola-infected children)
The Unbearable Emptiness of a New York Times Op-Ed - The Atlantic - John McCain and Lindsey Graham want Obama to confront ISIS now. They don't specify how.

U.S. strikes Somali militant camp in bid to kill al Shabaab leader | Reuters - but they added it may take time to determine whether Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed.

NSA Public Relations on Twitter: No, we don't have nudes of @ggreenwald. Stop asking.

Life in an English Town Where Abuse of Young Girls Flourished - NYTimes.com - Years of Rape and ‘Utter Contempt’ in Britain (majority of victims white; abusers almost all Pakistani)
Rotherham Shocked By Revelations Up To 1,400 Children Were Sexually Abused (Pakistani tribal culture in England with complicit authorities)

mainly macro: Lessons of the Great Depression for the Eurozone
mainly macro: Eurozone delusions

Candor From the Bench by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - . For the second time, Yeakel has ruled in favor of a challenge to Texas’ new abortion law (HB2), and this time he’s calling out the Texas legislature for its mendacity

Tea Party Patriots Gloat As Eric Cantor Cashes In On Wall Street

Jeff Bezos Replaces WaPo Publisher With Politico Co-Founder - Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has replaced publisher Katharine Weymouth with a co-founder of the newspaper's competitor Politico, the company announced Tuesday.

Black LGBT Activist Arrested For Distributing Voting Rights Information (voting while black is a crime)

Duck Dynasty Patriarch: 'I'm As Much Of A Homophobe As Jesus Was' - "I’m as much of a homophobe as Jesus was," Robertson said. "People who are participating in homosexual behavior, they need to know that I love them." (as long as they don't need equal rights or anything)
'Jesus Was A Radical Nonviolent Revolutionary' Post By John Fugelsang Is Spot On
Billy Preston - A Change Is Gonna Come - YouTube

090114
The Bloody Origin Of Labor Day - "Workers were mad about their situation," Papke wrote. "They were angry about their limited opportunities and about what they took to be the mean and arbitrary treatment they received from the distant owners of the industries in which they worked." (well, a lot has changed since then)
This Day in Labor History: A Digest - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Worker Solidarity, Eugene Debs and Why Labor Day isn’t International Workers' Day | MyFDL
The True Story Of How One Man Shut Down American Commerce To Avoid Paying His Workers A Fair Wage | ThinkProgress
More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’ - NYTimes.com
The 1 percent’s long con: Jim Cramer, the Tea Party’s roots, and Wall Street’s demented, decades-long scheme - Salon.com - Wall Street has the most to lose from real democracy. Which is why they posture as rebels and not The Man
Joe Biden: American Workers Don't Want A Handout, 'Just Give Them A Chance'
$28.25: the minimum wage D.C. would need to support a modest 2-bedroom - The Washington Post


Merkel: ISIS Poses Major Risk To Europe
UN to send investigators to Iraq over allegations of Islamic State 'atrocities' | World news | The Guardian - Jihadis and Iraqi government forces both carried out 'acts of inhumanity', says human rights commissioner

Israel Announces Massive West Bank Land Grab - Israel announced on Sunday a land appropriation in the occupied West Bank that an anti-settlement group termed the biggest in 30 years, drawing Palestinian condemnation and a U.S. rebuke. (Netanfuckyu with your tax dollars)
Huge new Israeli settlement in West Bank condemned by US and UK | World news | The Guardian - British foreign secretary urges Israel to reverse decision to seize 990 acres of Palestinian land near Gvaot to create new city (whine, whine, fat chance)
Video: Palestinians cheer as Israeli “skunk” truck crashes into ravine | The Electronic Intifada - It has been described as smelling like “a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer” placed in a blender. It is the foul-smelling liquid the “skunk” truck, one of Israel’s weapons of occupation and oppression, routinely sprays at Palestinians.
Being Palestinian Got Me Barred from Visiting Palestine | Alternet - Not just barred—banned for five years—no explanations given.

Ukraine clashes force troops to abandon airport before crisis talks | World news | theguardian.com - Latest discussions to end crisis to include Russia-backed separatists, as Luhansk and Donetsk airports come under fire ... by a Russian tank battalion.
Nato to create high-readiness force to counter Russian threat | World news | The Guardian - Spearhead force will be made up of around 4,000 troops with capacity to 'travel light but strike hard', according to Nato
Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine - The Daily Beast - Raising the spectre of nuclear war over Ukraine, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is playing a new, and dangerous, game ... That same day, Putin used a term for eastern Ukraine meaning “New Russia.”
Rationality Is Overrated - Strategies of the Artificial - Altman (an economics and business specialist), like the textbook social science villain in many anti-quantitative polemics, sees Putin as a mixture between ChuckNorrisFacts.com, the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World, and a Deep Blue-esque computer program.
Everything Becomes Crystal Clear... - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Did Putin and Obama meet secretly at the G-20 in September 2013, arranging a plan by which Putin could carve up Ukraine and Obama could carve up our Second Amendment rights? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Banning Russian-made AK-47s sets off a U.S. buying frenzy - The Washington Post - Imports of the weapon were halted as part of sanctions against Moscow

Court upholds ten-year sentence for award-winning photographer - Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Without Borders is shocked that a Manama appeal court yesterday upheld the ten-year jail sentence that the internationally renowned young photo-journalist Ahmed Humaidan received on 26 March in connection with an attack on a police station in 2012.
Militias swim at vacant U.S. Embassy in Libya - CNN.com
At least 59 Boko Haram militants have been killed in a clash with the Nigerian troops in Bama, Borno State - Nigeria Newsdesk -

Study: Citizens United elected more Republicans - The Washington Post - The 2010 Supreme Court decision that helped usher in a new era of political spending gave Republicans a measurable advantage on Election Day, according to a new study. (o rly)
The Dubious Sources of Some Supreme Court ‘Facts’ - NYTimes.com (not the brightest bulbs in the Repubican chandelier)



Louisiana's restrictive abortion law blocked by federal judge | World news | theguardian.com - Abortion providers given temporary reprieve from law requiring them to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals

Police: Md. Teacher Placed on Leave for Authoring Fictional Book of the ‘Largest School Massacre’ « CBS DC (apparently thrown into a mental hospital for the crime of writing fiction)

What's going on at Suffolk? - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Just days before the start of the new school year, Suffolk University Wednesday abruptly replaced president James McCarthy with a year remaining on his contract - The law school seems to be at the center of the school’s financial problems:

Leafy-green better than lean - UQ News - The University of Queensland, Australia - An office enriched with plants makes staff happier and boosts productivity by 15 per cent, a University of Queensland researcher has found.

After leaving a cult, I was reunited with my old, unfinished book from childhood : books
? some people still care. - YouTube (watch his channel)

Apple quiet on iCloud exploit after celebrity nudes leak (Wired UK) - The nude photos of the celebrity victims -- 101 in total -- were posted on image-sharing forum 4chan
iCloud Naked Celebrity Photo Leak - Business Insider
Apple Fixes Security Flaw in Find My iPhone Software - Business Insider

Don’t listen to e-cig companies that claim you can vape vitamins | The Verge - Vitamin-enhanced vapor is all the rage in the loosely regulated e-cig industry. Too bad it doesn’t work

Tell creepy men on the internet how you really feel | The Verge
Why Uber must be stopped - Salon.com - The touted start-up is proving to be the embodiment of unrestrained hyper-capitalism. What happens when it wins?
Online Privacy & Security - Another example of why privacy friendly alternatives to the Play Store are critically important (google is evil and hates your privacy)
Google Trends: Surface Pro 3 vs. MacBook Air | Microsoft Surface Forums

083114
How the NSA Helped Turkey Kill Kurdish Rebels - The Intercept (has the US done anything in the M.E. that wasn't a disaster?)
'Too cautious' Obama urged to get tough on Russia and Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Republicans and Democrats call on president to take harder approach on Russian intervention in Ukraine and Isis in Syria - Kerry: ‘airstrikes alone’ will not defeat ‘genocidal’ Isis Obama’s foreign policy: realist or isolationist?
Iraqi Forces Break Militant Siege Of Shiite Town - the northern Shiite Turkmen town of Amirli
Maybe YOU Should Do Something About It? » Balloon Juice - Reminds me of the joke from the first Gulf War: Q: “What’s the national anthem of Saudi Arabia?” A: “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Stop Hiding Images of American Torture - NYTimes.com
The Washington Monthly - The New York Times’ Editorial Board has rather suddenly found the boldness to call torture “torture” and is now calling on the government to release the “bad” photos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Shall we forget the past and reward good behavior going forward? (releasing the pics will cause anti-Americanism, hows that for logic?)

Vladimir Putin calls on Kiev to enter 'statehood' talks for south-east Ukraine | World news | The Guardian - Russian president's spokesman plays down interview remarks as key port city of Mariupol prepares for possible rebel assault ("rebel" = "Russian")
Putin Calls For Talks On Eastern Ukraine 'Statehood'
Irak: Deutschland schickt Kurden Panzerabwehrraketen - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 10.000 Handgranaten, 16.000 Gewehre, 240 Panzerfäuste: Deutschland schickt Kriegsgerät für 4000 kurdische Kämpfer in den Nordirak. Das hat am Sonntagabend die Bundesregierung entschieden.
EU Gives Russia Ultimatum: Pull Back In Ukraine Or Face Sanctions
We need to tell the truth about what Russia is doing in Ukraine | Wesley Clark | Comment is free | The Guardian - Nato must face up to the realities of Putin’s war of aggression in eastern Europe – and take material steps to support Ukraine
Food imports ban backfires on Russia's economy | Europe | DW.DE | 29.08.2014 - An embargo on food imports from the West has sent grocery prices in Russia soaring and greatly worsened inflation. The move is seen as a severe blow to the country's stagnating economy.

Israel estimates cost of Gaza conflict at £1.5bn | World news | theguardian.com - Education sector likely to be hardest hit as Binyamin Netanyahu seeks 2% cut to government spending to offset cost of Gaza war (plenty more where that came from)
Tripoli residents face dilemma after Libya Dawn take control of capital | World news | The Guardian - Locals say their homes could be robbed if they leave, and if they stay they risk being rounded up by Islamist militias
China: No Open Nominations For Hong Kong Leader (oh, we lied?)
At Least 3 Killed As Protesters Clash With Pakistan Police - At least three people were killed and nearly 400 admitted to hospitals in clashes that started Saturday night and continued to boil over Sunday, officials said.

Footage: The War in Afghanistan Through The Eyes (and GoPro) of a Soldier - Esquire - One soldier taped a firefight to show the terrifying reality of modern war.

Exclusive: GOP poll of women: Party 'stuck in past' - POLITICO.com - Married women without a college degree view Republicans favorably, the poll shows. Married women prefer a Republican over a Democrat, 48 percent to 38 percent.

At least 6 Ferguson officers apart from Brown shooter have been named in lawsuits - The Washington Post
Man Arrested While Picking Up His Kids: 'The Problem Is I'm Black' - The Atlantic - A controversial video documents the St. Paul resident being harassed and tased.

Mayor Forces Man To Leave Public Meeting Because He Won't Stand During Prayer | ThinkProgress - Winter Garden Mayor John Rees, a nonpartisan official leading an Orlando suburb of about 37,000, was caught on video demanding that an audience member stand for a prayer, which thanked God for “allowing us to live in a country where we’re free to believe, think, and pray.”
Florida Mayor Kicks Atheist Out of City Commission Meeting After He Doesn’t Stand for the Invocation or Pledge (religious tinpot dictator suddently famous on internets, attracts protesters)


The Dark Side of Almond Use - The Atlantic - People are eating almonds in unprecedented amounts. Is that okay? - The drought is so dire that experts are considering adding a fifth level to the four-tiered drought scale. That's right: D5. But each almond requires 1.1 gallons of water to produce

Prostitution and the internet: More bang for your buck | The Economist - How new technology is shaking up the oldest business
Hide the Husbands, Prostitution’s on the Interwebs | The Baffler - It is beyond the scope of this post to point out all of the ways that this narrative is a misrepresentation of how sex workers and clients operated before widespread Internet access. I

New Temporal Cloaking Method Hides Communication Signals | Neomatica - When the cloak is on, attempts to read a signal being transmitted through a path will show nothing is being transmitted even though tens of gigabits per second of information are passing through the point of reading - Omnipolarizers, nonlinear optical effects.
Massive Early Galaxy And Stellar Nursery Caught During Core-Formation For The First Time | Neomatica

083014
John Kerry says 'airstrikes alone' will not defeat 'genocidal' Isis militants | World news | theguardian.com - Secretary of state will use Nato summit to seek ‘world coalition’
UN is told peacekeepers detained in Syria are safe, but no release in sight | World news | theguardian.com - Secretary-general’s spokesman says the situation surrounding Fijian and Filipino peacekeepers is still ‘very fluid’
Pentagon has spent an average of $7.5 million per day in Iraq for last three months - The Washington Post - After more than three weeks of airstrikes and humanitarian operations in Iraq, that likely easily exceeds $600 million.
Weapons Expert Warns About ISIS Militants' Supply Of Guns And Ammunition - After the Islamic State captured a major military air base in Syria last week, the extremist group was quick to broadcast its war booty, posing in Syrian fighter jets and posting images of the air squadrons and missiles it claimed to have secured.
The Woman In Jail - Esquire - Apparently, the strange tale of Aafia Siddiqui is about to get even stranger, still - Siddiqui spent the missing five years at the dreaded Bagram detention centre (could have saved Foley for $6mil +so much fucked-up bullshit still buried)
This Is How People In The Middle East Are Making Fun Of ISIS - Girls just want to have fundamentalism #ISISmovies

With Allies Like These, Who Needs Enemies? by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So, the king let Bandar Bush create this problem and now he warns us that we’re going to be the victims of his creation if we don’t bring some serious violence to the situation. Nice.
Dumbest Iraq Quotes by Bush Officials - 25 Mind-Numbingly Stupid Official Statements About Iraq
IRBIL, Iraq: Syria’s violence prompts worst humanitarian crisis in a century | Syria | McClatchy DC
Actually, Obama Does Have a Strategy in the Middle East - The Atlantic - The president is neither a dove nor a hawk. He’s a fierce minimalist. (and is trying to avoid US casualties, abroad and here)

Are American Jews Turning Against AIPAC? - The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence?
AIPAC Is in Decline—But So Are Hopes for a Two-State Solution | New Republic
Israel tech site paying “interns” to covertly plant stories in social media | The Electronic Intifada

Ukraine president warns Europe nearing 'point of no return' | World news | theguardian.com - European commission president insists it isn't too late for a political solution but tells Russia not to underestimate the EU

Rebuilding Gaza Will Take 20 Years, Housing Group Says (don't worry, Israel will invade again next year)

The untold story of how a culture of shame perpetuates abuse. I know, I was a victim | Society | The Guardian - During our investigation it became clear that for three decades many other women had suffered at the hands of our abuser, but they had refused to testify against him because of the indelible stigma it would bring (Pakistani culture supports child abuse in England)

The US government can brand you a terrorist based on a Facebook post. We can't let them make up the rules | Arjun Sethi | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Innocent people’s lives are being ruined. Why isn’t anyone watching the watchlist?

Obama Weighing Delay in Action on Immigration - NYTimes.com (because Repubicans would get mad and stomp their feet and not vote for him)

Obama vs. Bush: Who Took More Presidential Vacations? - Before his two-week trip to Martha’s Vineyard in August, Obama’s count was 125 full or partial days and Bush’s total at the same point in his presidency was 407. (but golf!)

Jesse Benton, Mitch McConnell's Campaign Manager, To Resign Amid Bribery Scandal

UN Condemns U.S. Police Brutality, Calls For 'Stand Your Ground' Review (threatens to take away gold courses)
Ferguson Police Chief, Now An International 'Bad Guy,' Wants To Help His City Move Forward - Nearly three weeks after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by one of his police officers, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson is a man under a lot of pressure.
St. Louis County Police Officer Dan Page Retires Following Inflammatory Video - The St. Louis County police officer who pushed a CNN journalist on live television in Ferguson, Missouri, and was earlier suspended from duty after a videotape surfaced in which he threatened to "kill everybody," has retired. (psycho-cop gets full pension)
Ferguson isn’t about black rage against cops. It’s white rage against progress. - The Washington Post (i.e., the progress of treating blacks equally)
Border Patrol Agent Fires At Armed Militia Member Near Rio Grande - The agent fired four shots but did not hit the man, Zamora said. The man then dropped his weapon and identified himself as a militia member.
Bundy Supporter Won't Align With 'Two Pimps In A Pod' Over Ferguson - "Like two pimps in a pod, Sharpton and Obama have collaborated to keep racial grievance going," Mercer wrote.
Minnesota Police Allegedly Use Stun Gun On Black Father Waiting For His Kids (VIDEO) - Lollie was initially charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process. The charges were dropped in July. Police didn't return his cell phone until that time, according to the Minneapolis City Pages, "meaning Lollie wasn't able to upload his footage to YouTube until quite recently." (waiting for his kids while black)

US federal judge strikes down Texas abortion restriction | World news | theguardian.com - A federal judge on Friday threw out Texas’ new abortion restrictions that could have left women living in the second largest state in the US with only a handful of clinics.

Abercrombie Blames Historic Primary Loss On Gay Marriage - Republicans are allowed to vote for Democrats in Hawaii's open primary, and Abercrombie said they chose to vote against him because of his support for gay marriage and because they think his party rival, state Sen. David Ige, is an easier target to beat in the general election.

Right wing launches misguided protest against Labor Day | Seattle Times Mobile - Just when it seemed the right wing couldn’t get any more divorced from reality around here, a local conservative group has launched a protest against what it sees as a pernicious cultural touchstone.
State Representative to Legislature: hospitals can be dangerous | fox13now.com - “Sometimes access to health care can be damaging and dangerous. And it’s a perspective for the [Legislative] body to consider is that, I’ve heard from National Institutes of Health and otherwise that we’re killing up to a million, a million and a half people every year in our hospitals. And it’s access to hospitals that’s killing those people.” (well, then ...)
Considering Catcalls | National Review Online - In fact, if you end up like some of the Alzheimer’s patients I have known, hungry for human connection and sexual vitality, being catcalled might even make your day. (read the comments too: "Next week we'll cover onomatopoeia.")
Going to a For-Profit College Doesn’t Help at All When Looking for Job by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - In fact, for-profit graduates don’t even gain a job hunting advantage over applicants with no college experience at all.

Tax Breaks for Tesla? States Should Think Twice | The Fiscal Times

Here's How Americans Spend Every Minute Of Their Days (working, doing household chores and watching TV)
Seven Days And Nights In The World's Largest, Rowdiest Retirement Community - Orgies are said to be a regular occurrence.

Study: New Heart Failure Drug Shows Big Promise - Doctors say the Novartis drug — which doesn't have a name yet — seems like one of those rare, breakthrough therapies that could quickly change care for more than half of the 6 million Americans and 24 million people worldwide with heart failure.

Chattanooga's Gig: how one city's super-fast internet is driving a tech boom | World news | theguardian.com - The city is one of the only places on Earth with internet as fast as 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average. Despite Big Cable’s attempt to block the Gig’s expansion plans, money keeps flowing into Chattanooga (coulda been Boston or Cambridge, but Menino and Healy)

082914
Senegal Confirms First Case Of Ebola

US rendition survivors urge Obama to declassify torture report | World news | theguardian.com - Ten survivors write open letter to president and say disclosure of report is ‘necessary part of correcting America’s own history’
No Explanation Necessary - Esquire - Who could have predicted this? Besides, you know, everybody. - "They knew exactly how it was done," a person with direct knowledge of what happened to the hostages said of the Islamic State militants. (they claim it was just "enhanced interrogation")

Syrian rebels surround Filipino UN peacekeepers in Golan Heights | World news | theguardian.com - Rebels have surrounded peacekeepers and demanded they give up their weapons, hours after taking 43 Fijian soldiers hostage
US operations in Iraq costing $7.5m a day as Obama deliberates strategy | World news | theguardian.com - Since 16 June, panoply of US operations in Iraq have expanded to include around 60 surveillance flights over Isis territory

Putin Says Russians And Ukrainians 'Practically One People'
Putin Urges Release Of Ukrainian Soldiers
Nato faces critical test of credibility | World news | theguardian.com - Summit agenda ranges from red lines for Russia to defence expenditure, but don't expect too much
Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic | World news | theguardian.com - Russian president hits back at invasion accusations as Nato accuses Kremlin of 'blatant violation' of Ukraine's sovereignty (threatens to invade North Pole)

Is Elizabeth Warren Just an Ordinary Politician? - With some comments on Israel, she'll disappoint many liberals. But it probably would have happened eventually.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters: Why moral perversity of U.S. position in Gaza is stunning - Salon.com - I think it's safe to say that if U.S. neighborhoods were living under siege, folks like Rand Paul wouldn't take it

Swaziland king's Facebook exposure of party lifestyle could lose him friends | World news | The Guardian

Why Are We Waiting For A Wave? - Voters gave Democrats the benefit of the doubt in 2006 and 2008 only to be disappointed by the overreach of Democrats on everything from Obamacare to the environment. (yeah, real "overreach")
Will 2014 Midterms Be a Wave Election? | RealClearPolitics

This Is Mighty White Of You - Esquire - Hillary Clinton finally said something about recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. What she said appears to have been written by nine consultants, eight people from marketing, seven lawyers, six ESL valedictorians, and Mark Penn. She feels very bad about the stuff that happened, as stuff sometimes will happen, because it is stuff, and it happens. Or something. (+"At the Clinton Foundation, we say, we're all in this together." she put an ad on it)

Ray Albers, Cop Who Threatened Ferguson Protesters, Resigns ("Officer Fuckyou")
White privilege: An insidious virus that’s eating America from within - Salon.com - Ferguson offers white people a chance to understand the price of our privilege
Fox's Geraldo: Obama Should Encourage American Muslims "To Be Americans First" | Video | Media Matters for America - Rivera: Obama Should Tell American Imams To "Begin Preaching American Patriotism"


New Study Reveals Interesting Link Between Men's Height And Divorce - Short men were found to marry later in life than average or tall men, but were 32 percent less likely to divorce. They were also more likely to marry less educated and younger women. Once married, they did less of the housework and earned a much higher income than their spouse.

WATCH: Family Has Horrifying, Violent Reaction To Son's Coming Out As Gay (GRAPHIC CONTENT) - Daniel Ashley Pierce, a 20-year-old from Georgia

The one fight to have before your wedding - The Washington Post - But guess what form of address was on the envelopes that my married friends received? “Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith.” Even, in at least one case, where the wife had kept her maiden name. (property)


Freaky Physics Experiment May Prove Our Universe Is A Two-Dimensional Hologram (is space-time quantized? is there holographic jitter? lasers!)

The Big Picture: a heat map of the 'entire' internet
This Map Shows Every Connected Device On The Internet
I Pinged All Devices on the Internet, here's a Map of them [OC] : dataisbeautiful
A Geography of Hate (Geotagged Hateful Tweets in the United States) | Planet Infowars - the majority of hate-filled tweets come from small towns or more rural areas. Homophobic tweets are more common along the border of Oklahoma and Texas whereas the hub for racism seems to lie somewhere in western Indiana.
Hate Map - Geography of Hate - Geotagged Hateful Tweets in the United States
Hate Map | Southern Poverty Law Center - The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 939 active hate groups in the United States in 2013. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2013 are included.

US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet | Business | theguardian.com (their right to be monopolies and screw you)

082814
Losing Ground - In 50 years, most of southeastern Louisiana not protected by levees will be part of the Gulf of Mexico. (tie Bobby to the levy and read Bruce Sterling's prescient Distraction)

UN: Ebola Could Eventually Infect 20,000 People

Scientists find evidence of underground eruption in Iceland | World news | The Guardian - Line of giant craters in glacier suggest possible eruption as earthquakes continue around Bardarbunga volcano

Ukraine: emergency UN, Nato, EU meetings after Russian invasion claim | World news | The Guardian - Nato says 1,000 Russian troops fighting in Ukraine as Kiev accuses Moscow of de facto invasion and opening second front
Let's be clear about this: Russia is invading Ukraine right now - Vox - Getting Russia to agree to a peace deal on Ukraine requires lots of careful diplomacy, and that means that no one wants to formally acknowledge Russia's invasion of Ukraine, even though Russia is definitely invading Ukraine right now.
NATO Military Officer: More Than 1,000 Russian Troops Operating Inside Ukraine
U.S. says Russia has 'outright lied' about Ukraine
Third Russian airspace violation in a week; Finland steps up air surveillance | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi - Yet another Russian aircraft has strayed into Finnish airspace (Putin getting ready to invade Finland)

Obama: 'We don't have a strategy yet' to combat Isis militants | World news | theguardian.com - Pushing back against fervent speculation that he is preparing to bomb Isis in Syria, Obama said plans limited to Iraq
Questions on Airstrikes in Syria - NYTimes.com (buried the lede: CIA failure to have a clue about ISIS)
Captives held by Islamic State were waterboarded - The Washington Post

Binyamin Netanyahu faces political turbulence after Gaza war | World news | The Guardian - Israel observers predict election next year after ceasefire deal this week gave no definable gains to either side in conflict (the bombing of Gaza was supposed to solve that problem)

Rotherham abuse scandal: South Yorkshire police face tough questions | UK news | theguardian.com - No officers charged over 'blatant' failures as force accused of attempting to disprove rather than report victims' allegations - So far, not one officer has been disciplined for misconduct relating to the investigation of CSE in Rotherham in the past 17 years.
MH370: satellite phone call revealed as Australia gives update on search | World news | theguardian.com - Failed call placed by Malaysia Airlines ground staff has been traced and supports Indian Ocean crash theory, say authorities - Malaysia Airlines staff: "Oh I think we might just have tried to contact them by satellite phone" ... Five months after the event.

Vermont Is Leading the Race to End the War on Drugs - Esquire - On a national level, the War on Drugs costs over $51 billion of taxpayer’s money every year. The United States holds 5 percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of the world’s prison population, and 51 percent of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug offences.
Smoking Weed Together Makes Couples Fight Less - Esquire - A new study shows that potheads have less violence in their marriages.

St. John Parish drinking water tests positive for brain-eating amoeba | WGNO

US economy forecast to grow by 1.5 percent in 2014

Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore - NYTimes.com
Pennsylvania’s GOP governor will expand Medicaid to 300,000 poor people - Vox
The White Flag - Esquire - Ol' Tom Corbett there, the soon-to-be-ex-governor of the Commonwealth of Fracksylvania, has struck his colors because, really, what else does he have to lose?

Senate Update: Republicans Cross a Threshold - NYTimes.com - Thus, with every passing day, in the absence of new information, we’d expect the given probabilities to move in the direction of whichever candidate is leading
Barack the Barbarian Returns From the Links by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - it’s interesting to see how rapidly the image of Obama as a checked-out golfer not bothering to show up for work has been replaced by the specter of Barack the Barbarian, the brooding Third World despot seizing the moment to tear down the borders so his dusky brethren can permanently despoil the land in exchange for votes.

The Extreme Partisanship of John Roberts's Supreme Court - The Atlantic - Like Barack Obama, the chief justice came into office promising an age of apolitical comity. And like the president, he has seen his dream die.

Gillibrand’s Colleagues Called Her Fat -- NYMag - “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby.” – one of her favorite members, while squeezing her waist
Andrea Mitchell Recalls Senators 'You'd Not Get In An Elevator With'
CNN's Dana Bash Reveals Male Senators Have Creepily Discussed Her Weight Too
Does Gillibrand Have A 'Responsibility' To Name Her Harassers? - Confessore and Burns say yes, Sarlin says no ... It’s like no one has ever heard of Anita Hill.

Exclusive: GOP poll of women: Party 'stuck in past' - politico.com - The report is blunt about the party’s problems. It says 49 percent of women view Republicans unfavorably, while 39 percent view Democrats unfavorably.
Wisconsin Governor's Race Remains Extremely Close - Forty-nine percent of individuals considered likely to vote in November said they would support Burke, compared to 47 percent who plan to vote for Walker. (half the state would vote for the crook)
Gillibrand To Male Colleague Who Called Her 'Porky': 'Thanks A--hole'
F&M College Poll: Corbett failing to gain ground in race with Wolf - LancasterOnline: Local News
Schauer edges ahead of Snyder, 45% to 43%, in new governor race poll | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
Chuck Todd Pushes RNC Chair: 'Too Many Crazy White Guys'? - those same women voters who may like your economic proposals but say, you know what, there's just too many crazy white guys who have crazy theories about my reproductive system?" Todd asked,
Those “Libertarian Kids” Already At the GOP Punchbowl by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So the claim that the GOP can expand its vote and overcome the deadly demographic trends that appear to doom its future by rebranding itself as “libertarian” is sorta like the earlier belief the Tea Party Movement represented some new and powerful constituency outside but potentially aligned with the GOP: it’s largely an illusion.

Michael Brown's Mom Laid Flowers Where He Was Shot—and Police Crushed Them | Mother Jones - New details emerge about callous tactics that fueled anger in Ferguson - Several officers emerged with dogs. What happened next, according to several sources, was emblematic of what has inflamed the city of Ferguson, Missouri, ever since the unarmed 18-year-old was gunned down: An officer on the street let the dog he was controlling urinate on the memorial site. (they don't know how not to be total assholes)
Michael Brown Shooting Audio Accurate, Company Says - n it, six shots can be heard, followed by a pause and least five more shots. The audio was allegedly recorded by accident on a video chat service called Glide by a man who lives near the scene of Michael Brown's death. (eleven shots)

The Literal War on Drugs - Reason.com - The promiscuous use of SWAT teams is a bigger menace than armored vehicles on our streets.
Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist? - NYTimes.com - Young black men in America suffer from widespread racism and stereotyping, by all society — including African-Americans themselves.
Bill O’Reilly and White Privilege - NYTimes.com - Is white privilege real? Not according to Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. (renowned expert of black people)
Denying White Privilege by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But it’s not surprising that some white people—and more particularly white men—have trouble accepting that they have been personally “privileged,” because they view it as devaluing their own hard work and talent
White privilege, in one Fox News screen grab - Vox
If You Want to See Inequality in the U.S. at Its Worst, Visit an Impound Lot | TIME - For millions of Americans a towed car can lead to a crippling spiral of stress, debt, joblessness, illness and, in many cases, incarceration.
Cambridge Mace's Lane Middle School Teacher on Administrative Le - WBOC-TV 16, Delmarvas News Leader, FOX 21 - - He's a man with many names, and the books he has written have raised the concerns of the Dorchester County Board of Education and the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office. (writing while black with an alias gets him arrested, committed to mental hospital for "evaluation")
'Gathering storm': The Philly riots of '64

LONDON, Ky.: For Kentucky town that gave much, new worries over Iraq | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - “I honestly feel we pulled out of Iraq too soon,” he said. “It was something done to gain political favor. All the loss we had, all the guys who made tremendous sacrifices. And for what?” (for Bush's lies, you idiots)
? American College Football - YouTube - From Stephen Fry's documentary about the US, this part especially struck me as really amazing and crazy

America: where you need to be 21 to drink a beer but only 9 to handle an Uzi - Vox
Bundy grandkids pulled from schools after pocketknife dispute - Las Vegas MyNews3 - KSNV - Bundy doesn’t see a knife as a weapon and explained he’s taught his children it is essential to always have a knife with them.

Market Basket's Board Announces Deal to Reinstate Ex-Chief - NYTimes.com
Workers cheer restored Market Basket CEO

Former GWU President’s Solution for Sexual Assaults on Campus? Stop Drinking, Ladies - City Desk - Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University and a current professor of public service at the school, offered this backward answer in defense of Greek life
Rush Limbaugh Laments That Businesses "Must Service Anybody Who Walks In The Door" | Video | Media Matters for America

No-fault divorce - domestic violence and female suicide decline in states that legalize no-fault divorce.[7] Specifically, they report that "states that adopted no-fault divorce experienced a decrease of 8 to 16 percent in wives’ suicide rates and a 30 percent decline in domestic violence."[8] They also argue that their research proves there is no permanent effect of no-fault divorce laws on divorce rates.[7]

Why are there more right handed people than left handed people? : askscience
Understanding Genetics - Your teacher was close in that handedness is like eye color. Except that what makes them similar is that neither is a simple Mendelian trait.
Scientists agree: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone - Vox - It might sound crazy: conventional wisdom is that caffeine interferes with sleep. But if you caffeinate immediately before napping and sleep for 20 minutes or less, you can exploit a quirk in the way both sleep and caffeine affect your brain to maximize alertness. Here's the science behind the idea.

The Disengagement Economy, by Robert Hall, Huffington Post - Thirty-five percent of workers say they would forego a significant pay raise in exchange for having their boss fired — permanently disengaged.
Trolls drive Anita Sarkeesian out of her house to prove misogyny doesn't exist | The Verge

082714
Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty - NYTimes.com

Syria and Isis committing war crimes, says UN | World news | theguardian.com - Report by United Nations commission says both Damascus government and Islamist militant group should face trials at ICC
You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia | Alastair Crooke
The Men Who Killed James Foley - The New Yorker

Ukraine Reports Russian Invasion On a New Front - NYTimes.com
Russia accused of new military incursions into Ukrainian territory | World news | theguardian.com - Putin denies discussion of 'peace plan', saying Ukraine is 'not our business'; Russians demand to know – are we at war?
NATO Plans More Visible Presence in Eastern Europe - NYTimes.com
Invasion - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Putin will not allow the restoration of control over eastern Ukraine by the current Ukrainian government by peaceful means and is clearly willing to directly involve Russian forces in military action to ensure that it doesn’t happen through a Ukrainian military victory.
Has Germany sidelined Poland in Ukraine crisis negotiations? | European Council on Foreign Relations

Tony Abbott to keep secular workers out of school chaplaincy program - The government was forced to redesign the $244 million scheme after the High Court ruled it invalid in June for the second time in two years. The court found the Commonwealth had over-reached its funding powers by providing direct payments to chaplain providers.

Feds warn first responders of dangerous hacking tool: Google Search | Ars Technica - “Google dorking” warning from DHS and FBI calls out “advanced search” as a threat.

Hospitals See Troubles In Red States That Snubbed Obamacare's Medicaid Deal (red states screwing their citizenss)
Reading Reihan Salam's "Why I signed up for Obamacare": The Honest Broker for the Week of May 10, 2014 (DeLong: Long Form)
Red States Inflict Suffering on Their Citizens to Spite Obama - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Cruel And Stupid Are No Way To Go Through Life, Son - Esquire - Over at that well-known socialist pamphlet, Forbes.com, we have an interesting report about what's happening in those states in which the governors turned down FREE MONEY (!) because it came shot through with Obama cooties and liberal fascism. One of the things that's happening is that hospitals in rural areas are going broke. (the problem with electing really stupid people)
The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism - NYTimes.com

Don't vote for Andrew Cuomo - The Week - It's time for Democrats and progressives to get rid of this toad

U.S. court will not block lawsuits over Connecticut SWAT raid - Yahoo News (tipping point?)
Senator wants all US cops to wear video cameras | Ars Technica - Claire McCaskill, the Democratic senator from Missouri, says police departments nationwide should require their officers to wear body cameras in order to qualify for the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding they receive each year.
In wake of Ferguson shooting, calls escalate for cops to wear body cams | Ars Technica - Cameras serve as a "check against the abuse of power by police officers," says ACLU.
Why Are People So Damned Unreasonable? - Esquire - "They spelled out his initials with rose petals over the bloodstains," Pace recalled. By then, police had prohibited all vehicles from entering Canfield Drive except for their own. Soon the candles and flowers had been smashed, after police drove over them. "That made people in the crowd mad" - Some people belong in caves. Many of them wear badges. (cops learned absolutely nothing)
REPORT: New York City Television Stations Give Lopsided Coverage To Black Crime | Research | Media Matters for America
Police Militarization meets Hacker Culture: Swatting - YouTube
Black TV Producer, Charles Belk, Arrested By Beverly Hills Cops Who Thought He Robbed A Bank
It Is Never About Race: A Continuing Series - Esquire
Cops Who Killed John Crawford III At Ohio Walmart Shot Him 'On Sight': Attorney - Surveillance video from an Ohio Walmart shows that a man fatally shot by police earlier this month had his back to officers and was talking on a cell phone, an attorney for the man's family says. he had a pellet gun with him, which he had picked up in the store's toy department.
“You Really Have No Idea, Do You?” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly (Jon Stewart gets it better than anyone else)

Amish hair-cutting convictions overturned by appeals court | World news | theguardian.com - Court in Cincinnati sides with attorneys for men found guilty in five attacks in Amish communities in Ohio in 2011

Reagan Appointee 'Unravels FedEx's Business Model' In Court Ruling - In a decision that one judge wrote "substantially unravels FedEx's business model," a panel of federal judges ruled Wednesday that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery drivers are employees of the company, rather than the "independent contractors" that FedEx characterizes them as. (yeah, isn't that crazy?)
Bertha’s Future | The Urbanist ("sunk" costs)

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Giving money to disease-specific charities is a bad idea. - But giving money to disease-specific charities is still a bad idea - wouldn’t it make sense to include the vastly greater number of people with, say, multiple sclerosis as well? ALS is so rare—the association estimates that 5,600 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year—that it seems a bit odd as the focus of a major national philanthropic phenomenon

World Health Organization Urges Stronger Regulation of Electronic Cigarettes - NYTimes.com
HIV & AIDS Information :: Novel immune-suppressant vaccine completely blocks HIV infection in monkeys: human trials planned

Love is strange, says the US film board, but violence and torture are fine | Ryan Gilbey | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The R rating given by the Motion Picture Association of America to Love is Strange is a shocking reflection of its homophobia (apparently run by the Christian right)


082614
U.N. Draft Report Lists Unchecked Emissions’ Risks - NYTimes.com
Draft Of Upcoming IPCC Report Presents Stark View Of The Future As Climate Change Rages On
Cities’ Air Problems Only Get Worse With Climate Change - NYTimes.com

40km Long Fissure Is Ripping into Violent Askja, Linking Iceland's 3 Largest Volcanoes: Updated
Photographer Captures Scientists' Frightened Responses To Climate Change Discussions (but Repubicans don't believe in "scientists")
Drought leaves California homes without water - Government officials and community groups say hundreds of rural San Joaquin Valley residents no longer can get drinking water from their home faucets because California's extreme drought has dried up their individual wells.

Captured Russian troops 'in Ukraine by accident'
Ukraine Releases Footage Of Captured Russian Soldiers - Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces had captured a group of Russian paratroopers who had crossed into Ukrainian territory on a "special mission" - but Moscow said they had ended up there by mistake.

Fears Run High That Yazidis’ Betrayal Portends Renewed Sectarian Horrors - NYTimes.com
One in six French people say they support ISIS - Vox - 85 percent of polled Gazans said they oppose ISIS. (in other words ...)
Americans oppose paying ransom for hostages: Reuters-IPSOS Poll | Reuters - Nearly two out of three Americans say governments should not pay ransom to terrorists in exchange for hostages,
Iraq crisis: Islamic State savagery exposes limits to Kurdish authority | World news | The Guardian

French PM to reveal new government | World news | theguardian.com - Manuel Valls due to announce appointments on Tuesday a day after dissolving the cabinet on François Hollande's orders
François Hollande shuffles in shadow of Angela Merkel and Charles de Gaulle | World news | The Guardian - The French leader came into office in 2011 as the anti-Merkel. Now she is as strong as ever and he has never looked weaker

Constitutional Amendment: End Citizens United

Republicans Open Up Wider ‘Expectations Gap’ Ahead of Midterms | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - About six-in-ten (61%) Republican and GOP-leaning registered voters think their party will do better than in recent elections — roughly double the share of Democrats (32%) who feel similarly about their party’s chances.
Surf's Up - Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley - Politico Magazine - In every single one of the Crystal Ball’s toss-up states, (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina), the Republican Senate candidate has not yet opened up a real polling lead in any of them.
Is The Polling Industry In Stasis Or In Crisis? | FiveThirtyEight
Scott Walker, Mary Burke Governor Race May Shape Future U.S. Politics | New Republic - To see why doing this is so worth Democrats’ while, first consider a world in which Republicans win the Senate, which the Times gives a 64 percent chance of happening ... Republicans in Washington will almost certainly take it as an invitation to double-down on Walker’s slash-and-burn tactics on a national level
Cornel West and the Insular, Obama-Hating Left -- NYMag - Tom Frank, an anti-Obama leftist, interviews Cornel West, another anti-Obama leftist, in a conversation so deeply marinated in shared assumptions that, at one point, both interviewer and interviewee agree that nobody disagrees with them.

Grain Piles Up, Waiting for a Ride, as Trains Move North Dakota Oil - NYTimes.com
Burger King Fans Call For Boycott Over Tax Dodge

Kansas Teen with Mental Health Issues Shot and killed by 15-16 Police Officers (Updated)

Arkansas police chief resigns after calling reporter 'smelly' | Reuters - , Yates posted comments suggesting she had an arrest record and had been suspended from the practice of law. His Facebook postings described Crump as "pro-dope smoking," a "left-wing liberal" and "smelly."
Judge: I Gave a Child Molester Custody of His Daughter
'Sons of Guns' Star -- Arrested Again ... Child Rape Charge Added (UPDATE) | TMZ.com - the "Sons of Guns" cast member was busted 2 weeks ago in Louisiana for allegedly molesting his 12-year-old daughter. Hayden was released after posting bail -- but we've learned he was picked up again today.
How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops - NYTimes.com

Moving Out of Brooklyn Because of High Prices - NYTimes.com - Moving Out of Brooklyn Because of High Prices

Archaeologists Discover 15 Previously Unknown Monuments Buried Around Stonehenge

States with medical marijuana record fewer opioid-related deaths, study finds - Quartz

? Chinese lanterns above Poznan June 2011 - YouTube
Hyperlapse, Instagram’s New App, Is Like a $15,000 Video Setup in Your Hand | Design | WIRED
The Times of India just instituted a bizarre Twitter and Facebook policy - Quartz - Hundreds of journalists working at the Times of India and its sister publications have received a peculiar request from their employer: hand over your Twitter and Facebook passwords and let us post for you. Even after you leave the company.

082514
Egypt and United Arab Emirates Said to Have Secretly Carried Out Libya Airstrikes - NYTimes.com - Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly teamed up to launch airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a major escalation between the supporters and opponents over political Islam.
Libya needs help to defeat Islamist militias, says foreign minister | World news | The Guardian - Foreign minister Mohamed Abdel Aziz warns against factions 'who are now stronger than the government itself'
Isis accused of ethnic cleansing as story of Shia prison massacre emerges | World news | The Guardian - As many as 670 prisoners thought killed in Mosul with other abuses reported in Iraq amounting to 'crimes against humanity'
US journalist held hostage in Syria taken to Tel Aviv after release | World news | The Guardian - Peter Theo Curtis undergoing medical checks after being held by Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaida, since autumn 2012
Avenging James Foley: Tit for Tat Is Not a Solution | Graham E. Fuller
Club Med for Terrorists - NYTimes.com

Ukraine troops battled Russian armoured column, claims Kiev | World news | The Guardian - Russia plays down hopes for breakthrough at Minsk talks as tensions rise with plans to send second aid convoy into Ukraine

Israeli Airstrikes Level High-Rise Buildings In Gaza
LIVE BLOG #IsraelunderFire: Photo: Before and After of 15-Story High-riser Leveled In Gaza - JP Updates | JP Updates

ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google -The Intercept
NSA Makes Metadata (Including Info On Americans) Available To Domestic Law Enforcement Via 'Google-Like' Search | Techdirt
For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe - The Washington Post

France thrown into political turmoil after government dissolved | World news | theguardian.com - PM Manuel Valls told to form new government after minister's call to end austerity policies imposed by Germany triggers crisis (Merkel's austerity pretty much fucked over all of Europe)
Majority of economists back Federal Reserve policy on US economy | Business | theguardian.com - NABE interviewed 257 economists on Fed policy 53% said Fed stimulus programmes on right track (not exactly overwhelming majority; 25% want pure austerity)

Libertarians Not Really “Libertarians” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But now comes the Pew Research Center with a more fundamentally devastating finding: self-identified libertarians aren’t much “libertarian,” either. Pew says it could find no larger than a 5% cluster that sorta kinda adheres to what we’re told “libertarianism” is a about (that was a short-lived "moment")
In search of libertarians | Pew Research Center
It’s cool to be a libertarian — whatever that means - The Washington Post (3% think Unitarianism is libertarian)

Wrong Way Nation - NYTimes.com - The average job in greater Houston pays 12 percent less than the average job in greater New York; the average job in greater Atlanta pays 22 percent less.

Al Sharpton at Michael Brown funeral: 'Something is wrong in America' | World news | theguardian.com - Funeral for unarmed black teenager shot dead by police concluded with powerful eulogy by civil rights campaigner
Don't Forget That Troubling Jaywalking Incident! - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty confident that if a unarmed white kid from suburbs was shot dead by the police we wouldn’t be informed by the Paper of Record that he was “no angel” because of a minor alleged shoplifting. And this! : He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar.
New York Times defends Michael Brown Jr. ‘no angel’ characterization - The Washington Post
Every Time A Bell Rings - Esquire - Here's a hint for The New York Times -- nobody who dies is "an angel." In fact, there's a substantial body of opinion that holds that there are no such thing as angels. But, metaphorically, none of us are "angels."
New York Times Catching Hell For Saying Michael Brown Was 'No Angel'
Officer Darren Wilson Began Career At Disgraced Police Department: Report
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon Won't Budge On Darren Wilson Prosecutor - St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch (D) has been criticized by many in Ferguson and beyond for his close ties to the police. His father was a police officer killed in the line of duty by a black man.
Fox News Wonders If Calling Michael Brown An 'Unarmed Teen' Is Biased
Two shot dead by Chicago police on Sunday - Chicago Tribune
Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges
Second family says Petersburg Police went too far - NBC12 - Richmond, VA News - "Let's be real clear. You have the absolute right to stand on your front porch and record what's going on in your front yard," Benjamin said.
Legally blind man shoots teen nephew during break-in - FOX 13 News
Video Spurs Questions Of Arresting Methods After Deputies Tase M - WSPA.com
Georgia Restores Gun Rights To Ex-Cop Who Tried To Sexually Assault A Woman With His Gun | ThinkProgress

The FBI's Criminal Database Is Filling Up With Non-Criminals And No One In Law Enforcement Seems To Care | Techdirt - As a result, the FBI currently has 77.7 million individuals on file in its master criminal database—or nearly one out of every three American adults.


Flubbing the details on Perry's indictment | MSNBC - NOONAN: I think, yes, it was local Democratic overreach ... STEPHANOPOULOS: But the prosecutor is a former Republican, I think. (note the "I think" instead of "you should know")
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - You ought, O Maureen, long ago to have been led to retirement by command of the Ochs-Sulzbergers. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head.

Donald Teeters, 77; inspiring conductor revitalized Boston Cecilia - Metro - The Boston Globe

Everett Mayor DeMaria faces allegations of sexual harassment from four women - Metro - The Boston Globe - DeMaria had ordered her to remove her uniform top while they were alone in the Revere store and, when she refused, DeMaria pulled out scissors and suggested that he cut off the shirt, claiming he had medical training. He eventually “pulled down his pants, exposing his penis,” according to the police report. Later, after DeMaria had pulled his pants back up, he pulled on the woman’s right wrist “until her hand was placed against his penis,”

TV Expert: No Kid Should Go Outside Alone Till Age 11, And Then Only in “Short Spurts.” Update, Below : Free Range Kids

Dash of Salt Does No Harm. Extremes Are the Enemy. - NYTimes.com
‘Sex superbug’ fears over powerful new drug resistant strain of gonorrhoea | Society | theguardian.com - Sexual health clinics on alert after patient treated in Cairns found to have the highest level of drug resistance reported in Australia
Robert Lustig: the man who believes sugar is poison | Life and style | The Guardian - The maverick scientist has long argued that sugar is as harmful as cocaine or tobacco – and that the food industry has been adding too much of it to our meals for too long

082414
6.0 magnitude earthquake hits California’s Bay Area - Salon.com
California Hit With Earthquake Of 6.0 Magnitude - A large earthquake rolled through California's northern Bay Area early Sunday, damaging some buildings, igniting fires, knocking out power to tens of thousands and sending residents running out of their homes in the darkness.

Climate change’s deadly new threat - Salon.com - Scientists say harmful algal blooms like the ones currently affecting Lake Erie could be a sign of things to come
Why Michael Mann's Defamation Suit Against Climate Denialists Is the Right Move | Legal Planet
Media gets it wrong on Mann suit
Lyons: Climate change deniers resort to character attacks | TheUnion.com
The Empiricist Strikes Back - NYTimes.com
Speak Softly, and Carry A Big Stick by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Fire and Ice: What I Did On My Summer Vacation » EcoWatch - Michael Mann
The Powell Doctrine by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Was Justice Lewis Powell as good as he was evil? (interesting background to Citizens United, among other things)
Leonardo DiCaprio voices climate change film - Lucy McCalmont - POLITICO.com
Ozone-Depleting Compound Found In Unexpected Concentrations Despite Ban - New research from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that large quantities of a chemical responsible for depleting the ozone layer are still being emitted, even years after an international ban.

Catch of the Day: Who Believes in Crazy Conspiracy Theories? | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly
No, all Americans are not created equal when it comes to belief in conspiracy theories - The Washington Post
www.culturalcognition.net - Cultural Cognition Blog - Climate science literacy, critical reasoning, and independent thinking ...
www.culturalcognition.net - Cultural Cognition Blog - "Bounded rationality": the Grigori Rasputin of explanations for public perceptions of climate change risk
www.culturalcognition.net - Cultural Cognition Blog - They've already gotten the memo! What the public (Rs & Ds) think "climate scientists believe" (they believe climate scientists believe in climate change but they don't believe climate scientists will go to heaven)

Ebola: life and death on the frontline | Society | The Observer - Ebola has now claimed more than 1,000 lives and infected over a thousand more across West Africa
15 numbers that explain the Ebola outbreak - Salon.com - Health workers predict it will continue for at least another six months, making it the deadliest outbreak on record

As Casualties Rise, Egypt Urges Israel, Palestinians To Return To Ceasefire Talks - Initial reports said 17 people were wounded in the attack on the 13-story Gaza building, local health officials said.
Holocaust survivors condemn Israel for 'Gaza massacre,' call for boycott - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - In response to Elie Wiesel advertisement comparing Hamas to Nazis, 327 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants publish New York Times ad accusing Israel of 'ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.'
Selfhaters, Obviously - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Obviously these are not kind of Jews Elie Wiesel or Bibi Netanyahu want speaking out:

US, UK eye rapper as British-born militant who beheaded journalist James Foley | Fox News
Islamic State militants seize Syrian airbase | World news | The Guardian - Tabqa base almost entirely controlled by Isis, while in Iraq the Shia Turkoman community north of Baghdad remains under siege
Islamic State Fighters Capture Syrian Air Base
Bombings Hit Iraq's Kirkuk, Baghdad, Dozens Dead - Bombings in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk killed at least 42 people in Iraq on Saturday as the government investigated a deadly attack on a Sunni mosque the day before that has heightened sectarian tensions amid a fragile political transition.
Kerry confirms release of US journalist Peter Theo Curtis from Syria captivity | World news | theguardian.com - US using ‘every tool’ to secure other journalists held Family thanks Qatar and says no ‘payment of money' involved
Eschaton: Intelligence - What, you mean the data center that stores all your sexts doesn't tell us who to bomb in Syria? weird. (CIA didn't have a clue about ISIS)

In Afghan Election, Signs of Systemic Fraud Cast Doubt on Many Votes - NYTimes.com - In one polling center, Mr. Shah said, they saw just 500 voters and election officials casting multiple ballots, for a total of 10,531 votes.
Libyan capital under Islamist control after Tripoli airport seized | World news | The Guardian - Operation Dawn captures airport in fierce fighting against pro-government militias after five-week siege in the capital

? Jacob Appelbaum - People Think They're Exempt From NSA (2014) - YouTube
How to Bypass Internet Censorship
U.S. undercover investigators among those exposed in data breach
Digital Security and Privacy for Human Rights Defenders | Front Line

Mexico Blasts Rick Perry Comments About Islamic State Border Threat - Meade said in a statement Saturday that Perry's statements during a Thursday speech were based on "beliefs, speculation and absolutely unfounded and absurd analysis." (his smart glasses aren't working)

Cornel West: “He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency” - Salon.com - Cornel West talks Ferguson, Hillary, MSNBC -- and unloads on the failed promise of Barack Obama ... And we ended up with a brown-faced Clinton ... “He pimped us.” (who wanted to privatise Social Security and spy the shit out of you)
So extreme they won’t even use a Democratic POTUS as cover to cut Social Security by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Many progressives have been thanking our lucky stars for years now that conservatives have failed time and again to make a “Grand Bargain” with the President to enact brutal cuts to earned benefit programs, particularly at a time of economic malaise and record income inequality. (in case you've forgotten what Obama's Grand Plan was all about; he's a Moynihan conservative)

The Scott Walker documents: 6 must-read passages - James Hohmann - politico.com

Timeline for a Body: 4 Hours in the Middle of a Ferguson Street - NYTimes.com
"Josie" Story of Brown Shooting Lifted From Fake Facebook Page - See Updated Timeline Below - Little Green Footballs - The anonymous caller “Josie”, who supposedly gave Officer Wilson’s version of the story was very obviously just repeating a Facebook post. A Facebook post that even breitbart.com admits is a Hoax. Compare for yourself. Dana Loesch (got played)
CNN's Brian Stelter Rips Fox News for Hyping Jim Hoft's "Fractured Eye Socket" Hoax - Little Green Footballs - Jim Hoft’s ugly dishonesty makes it to Fox News — again
Stupidest Man On Internet Proves Michael Brown Autopsy Is Complete Fraud | Wonkette - Jim Hoft, the Stupidest Man on the Internet, is now trying to prove that the privately arranged second autopsy of Brown is a complete fraud, somehow, which proves that Officer Darren Wilson did not really kill him or maybe he is not even really dead.
Darren Wilson’s first job was on a troubled police force disbanded by authorities - The Washington Post
Darren Wilson’s former police force was disbanded for excessive force and corruption - Salon.com
Eschaton: What Could Possibly Go Wrong - First we give them the death toys, then they use the death toys... President Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of the government’s decade-old strategy of outfitting local police departments with military-grade body armor, mine-resistant trucks, silencers and automatic rifles, senior officials say.
What I Did After Police Killed My Son - Michael Bell - politico Magazine

Can the post office save itself by becoming a bank? - Vox (yes, but Repubicans hate good things for common people)

New enzyme targets for selective cancer therapies -- ScienceDaily - In a new study, a team from the University of Milan tested Cairo's enzyme inhibitor and found that it turned glioblastoma cancer stem cells -- found within a tumour and believed to drive cancer growth -- into normal cells.

Teen births: Most are in the South and Southwest

Furious trolls are everywhere: Even Internet moms are angry — and they hate you - Salon.com
How the web lost its way – and its founding principles | Technology | The Guardian

082314
Ebola: research team says migrating fruit bats responsible for outbreak | Society | The Observer - A toddler's chance encounter with one infected bat in Guinea led to west Africa's present epidemic

US 'set to launch air strikes' on senior Isis terror chiefs in Syria | World news | The Observer - US officials said that there was now a "new context" for confronting Isis – and cutting off its supply routes – following the beheading of US journalist James Foley.
The terrorists fighting us now? We just finished training them. - The Washington Post - No, the enemy of our enemy is not our friend.
First Syria rebels armed and trained by CIA 'on way to battlefield' - 03 Sep 2013 (those ... so hard to connect)

Unidentified Warplanes Attack Militia In Libya's Capital - The mysterious airstrikes Saturday were the second this week to target Islamist militia posts in the capital.
Israeli military retracts claim that fatal mortar bomb was fired from UN school | World news | The Observer - IDF spokesman says shell that killed four-year-old boy was launched from shelter maintained by Hamas authorities
Boat Carrying Nearly 200 African Migrants To Europe Sinks Off Libyan Coast

Microsoft ordered to hand over overseas email, throwing EU privacy rights in the fire | ZDNet - US law can apply anywhere in the world, so long as a technology company has control over foreign data, a court rules. (no privacy for you, Eurozone)

Moynihan and the Overton Window - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Today’s reminder that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was awful ("liberals" in their day)

Obama Orders Review Of Police Use Of Military Hardware
Darren Wilson supporters rally while police lead Ferguson NAACP march | World news | theguardian.com - Spokeswoman at St Louis event denies links to hate groups Senior police officer leads NAACP march in Ferguson Obama orders review of military hardware for police
Awful Racism Prompts Organizers To Shut Off Comments On Darren Wilson Fundraising Site - Despite the majority of Americans feeling Wilson's actions were unjustified, according to a recent NYT/CBS poll, the minority that supports Wilson has been vocal and active.
Police Violence Has Been Going On Forever. No Wonder People Are Fed Up With It - Missouri congressman Lacy Clay (D) said on Thursday that he had "serious concerns" about the prosecutor in charge of Michael Brown's case.
St. Louis County Police Officer Dan Page Suspended Following Inflammatory Video - "Policemen are very cynical. I know I am," Page says from a podium on the video. "I hate everybody. I'm into diversity. I kill everybody." (they thought he was funny)
Escalating Tensions in Ferguson, Missouri | MetaFilter - So the FPD's public affairs officer, in his official capacity and using his city-provided email, is fund-raising for the defense of an alleged murderer. Man, this civil rights complaint is going to write itself!
– Another Ferguson Cop Goes Off On Social Media; Threatens To Punch The US Attorney General - Another St. Louis County police officer is under fire over a racist photo and offensive remarks he posted to twitter. In one post officer Mike Weston, who used the twitter address @officeranon2 threatened to punch the Attorney General of the United States.
St. Louis Blues » Balloon Juice (in case you had any doubts)
Database Shows What Military Equipment Your Local Police Department Has Been Stockpiling

Victor White autopsy findings released - KLFY News 10 - t happened while handcuffed in the backseat of an Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office patrol car, during a drug arrest. According to State Police, who are handling the investigation, once at the jail, White refused to exit the vehicle. As the arresting deputy requested assistance, they say white produced a handgun he had been hiding in his pants, and shot himself in the back.
Autopsy of 22 year old man that was handcuffed and shot in the chest in the back of a cop car is ruled a suicide : news
Autopsy Contradicts the Police's Account of Victor White III's Shooting in the Back of a Cop Car | VICE United States - They alleged that White III shot himself—in the backseat of a police car, while his hands were cuffed behind his back, with a gun that mysteriously appeared after they had searched and arrested him.

Documents Allege Scott Walker Pressured Groups To Donate To Campaign
House Candidate Called Female Senators "Undeserving Bimbos in Tennis Shoes" | Mother Jones - . "I understand that some of the folks on the left aren't going to like what I write," (everyone I care about thinks like me)

Lesbians know the secret to the best orgasms you’re not having | Nichi Hodgson | Comment is free | theguardian.com

082214
Nigeria Confirms New Ebola Cases, Boy Killed In Liberia Quarantine Zone
Shocking Photos Of A Slum On Lockdown Amid Ebola Fears

How serious is California drought? Check out these before and after pictures, taken only three years apart. - Imgur

Isis gains in Syria put pressure on west to deliver more robust response | World news | The Guardian - US looks at options for action in Iraq as Islamic State ramps up attacks while senior Tories call for UK to join in air strikes - "The Islamic State is now the most capable military power in the Middle East outside Israel," a senior regional diplomat said on Friday.
Obama vs. ISIS: This Time It's Personal - The Daily Beast
Families of Italian Aid Workers Held by ISIS Fear for Their Lives After Foley’s Death - The Daily Beast
Shiite Militia Attack Sunni Mosque In Iraq, Dozens Killed: Officials - Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where violence has returned to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces launch attacks to recapture towns from Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Kurdish peshmerga fighters take district near Jalawla • Iraqi troops advance towards nearby Saadiya
Eschaton: I Wonder Where They Got Their Cash And Weapons - Total mystery - He said the group was "as sophisticated and well-funded as any organization we've seen. "Oh, this is beyond anything we've seen," he said emphatically in response to a question as to whether the Islamic State represented a "9/11-level threat" to the U.S.
Saudi Arabia executes 19 during one half of August in 'disturbing surge of beheadings' - Middle East - World - The Independent (and one for sorcery)

Who Leaked Israel's Top-Secret Briefing About Reoccupying Gaza? – Forward.com - Prime Suspect? Prime Minister.
Gaza counts cost of war as more than 360 factories destroyed or damaged | World news | theguardian.com - Thousands of acres of farmland and cattle also wiped out with damage estimated at three times that of 2008-9 conflict (Israel targeted terrorist Palestinian cows)
It's Time To Stop 'Managing' the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Just End It - Netanyahu appears to truly not believe that a negotiated agreement can end a conflict with a dedicated opponent, but there's really no other way.

Russian Aid Convoy Drives Into Ukraine Seemingly Without Kiev's Approval - Ukraine called the move a "direct invasion."
NATO: Russian Forces Provide Artillery Support To Rebels In Ukraine

Chinese Jet Flew Within 30 Feet Of U.S. Military Plane, Pentagon Says

Worse than the 1930s: Europe’s recession is really a depression - The Washington Post - As I was arguing last week, it's time to call the eurozone what it really is: one of the biggest catastrophes in economic history. (austerians wrecked Europe, Repubicans tried to do the same to America)
Hawks Crying Wolf - NYTimes.com - That “vocal minority” has been warning about soaring inflation more or less nonstop for six years. (there you go)

Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party | The Weekly Sift
Tea Party: Paul Ryan Has Betrayed Us | New Republic
Obamacare Challengers' 7 Most Desperate Moves
Flushing Money Down the Tea Party Toilet - The Daily Beast - Do you know where your donations go? Not to candidates, if you give to these five Tea Party organizations. (grifters will grift)

EFF, ACLU Demolish “It’s Just Metadata” Claim in NSA Spying Appeal | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Americans Deserve Full Protection of the Fourth Amendment for their Telephone Records, Groups Argue

The Paste-American World: How Fareed Zakaria Plagiarized In His International Bestseller (And The Magazines He Used To Run) | Our Bad Media (they are incapable of an original thought)

Fascism in America - The Unz Review

Obama Cares. Look at the Numbers. - NYTimes.com - A true measure of a president’s priorities lies hidden in plain sight in his budget proposals. Under that standard, Mr. Obama has been more committed to communities like Ferguson than any Democratic president in the past half century.
The Leftward Drift of the Democratic Party - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - ) But for people actually interested in the question, I find the idea that the Democratic Party is to the right of where it was in 1975 — let alone 1994 — incomprehensible.

The Body in the Street - Esquire - They left the body in the street. Dictators leave bodies in the street. Petty local satraps leave bodies in the street. Warlords leave bodies in the street.

Ferguson Police Report Raises More Questions Than It Answers - It’s been nearly two weeks since a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed an unarmed teenager, but the police department has yet to offer a full account of the hazy circumstances surrounding Michael Brown’s death. ("report" is two blank pages)
Supreme Court Case Could Shape Ferguson Shooting Investigation - To most people, an 18-year-old unarmed man may not appear to pose a deadly threat. But a police officer's perspective is different. And that is how an officer should be judged after the fact, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the 1989 opinion. (reality doesn't matter, it's was the killer cop "believes" - sound familiar?)
Ferguson shooting: Where's Officer Darren Wilson? - CNN.com
Justice Ginsburg: Ferguson Highlights 'Real Racial Problem' In America (five white male judges)
Time And Businessweek's Ferguson Covers Are Stunning For More Than One Reason
New Yorker Cover Makes Powerful Statement About What's Happening In Ferguson
The Most Important Commentary You'll Read About Ferguson
'Would Michael Brown still be here if we voted for the right people?' | World news | theguardian.com - Ferguson was ‘asleep at the wheel,’ with residents not bothering to vote, often because they did not believe elections would change anything. Michael Brown’s death has changed all that

I will not be returning to Ferguson | Ryan L. Schuessler (dumb, but comments point that out)
Oklahoma City policeman arrested for raping women while on patrol | Reuters - An Oklahoma City police officer was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of sexually assaulting at least six women while on patrol, police said.
Officer in fatal Ohio Walmart shooting involved in prior in 2010 killing | World news | theguardian.com - “Apparently Beavercreek concluded its investigation,” Wright said. “Otherwise, Officer Darkow would still be on leave.”
Journalists in Ferguson: Know your rights : Columbia Journalism Review - The First Amendment affords reporters broad but not perfect protection
Cops don’t know how to deal with mental illness, and it’s a huge problem - Salon.com - Half of all Americans killed by police every year are mentally ill
Canadian police forces bulking up with armoured vehicles - Growing numbers of Canadian police agencies in recent years have added armoured vehicles to their crime-fighting arsenals — beasts on wheels that go by such names as Thunder 1, BearCat and Grizzly.

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - It seems to be hugely important to gun rights supporters that people understand the difference between fully automatic and semiautomatic weapons.

The Intersection of Social Liberalism and Social Media is Brutal | Mother Jones - I think it's safe to say that Freddie deBoer is considerably to my left. But even he finds much of contemporary social liberalism dispiriting and self-righteous:
At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another - NYTimes.com - At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another - Now the rich are spending thousands of dollars to get their own luxury restroom trailers, just like those used on movie sets. (techbrobillionairedudes at play)

Veiled Pensioners of the Mystic Sofa | The Baffler (what happened to the fez guys and the Masons?)
Jell-O Can't Stop Slippery Sales Slide - DailyFinance - Jell-O has lost its jiggle and nobody knows how to fix it.

Add These 3 Letters to Any YouTube Clip to Transform Video to GIF

India makes 'liking' blasphemous content illegal

082114
World's Largest Ice Sheets Melting At Fastest Rate Ever Recorded - western Antarctica and Greenland are losing massive amounts of ice.

US concerned by Israeli arrests of killed teenager's family members | World news | theguardian.com - State Department says Israel never notified it of arrest of a US national related to Muhammed Abu Khdeir, a teenager burned alive by extremists
The U.S. are involved with most Israeli attacks including Gaza AnonHQ - The new leaked NSA document released on The Intercept informs us how the US government is and has been long supporting Israel with weapons, cash and surveillance used in almost all Israeli attacks in the last decades.

Syria war toll over 180,000: activist group | News , Middle East | The Daily Star
Halting ISIS Would Require Attacks in Syria, Top General Says - NYTimes.com
Pentagon: Islamic State Militants Will Regroup - The Islamic State "clearly poses a long-term threat," Hagel said in a Pentagon briefing Thursday, saying the group poses a threat "beyond anything we've seen."
Obama’s Mission Creep in Iraq | TIME - For George W. Bush it was "Mission Accomplished." For Barack Obama, it may be "mission creep."
The Men Who Killed James Foley - The New Yorker
From Electricity to Sewage, U.S. Intelligence Says the Islamic State Is Fast Learning How to Run a Country
ISIS Spokesperson Reportedly Killed By Syrian Army
James Foley Kept His Courage Through Harrowing Time In Captivity
ISIS Believed To Be Holding Many More Journalists In Captivity

Exposed: Pentagon Funds New Data-Mining Tools To Track and Kill Activists, Part I | Occupy.com

NSA and GCHQ agents 'leak Tor bugs' alleges developer - Some US and UK cyberspies are deliberately undermining their workmates' "dark web" surveillance efforts, according to the leading developer of software used to access hidden parts of the internet.

By Any Means Necessary - NYTimes.com
Balkinization: Taking Liberties with the Last Word - Halbig (Trooferism and the breakdown of logical thought)

The Euro Catastrophe - NYTimes.com - Europe really is doing worse than it did in the Great Depression - macroeconomics as Anglo-Saxon economists understand it never had a real constituency in Europe’s corridors of power. Whatever the explanation, we are now, as O’Brien says, looking at one of the great catastrophes of economic history. ("austerity can only be failed")

Why the conventional wisdom in the Rick Perry indictment story might be incomplete | Dallas Morning News (it's moe complicated than Chait said +Jennifer Rubin thinks indictment will be good for Perry)
Florida Gay Marriage Ban Ruled Unconstitutional - A federal judge on Thursday declared Florida's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, joining state judges in four counties who have sided with gay couples wishing to tie the knot.

National Guard Pulled From Ferguson After Night of Relative Calm | TIME
Why Won't Ferguson Police Release Michael Brown Incident Report? - The department also did not respond to questions from HuffPost about why the Brown incident report or Brown's autopsy have not been released.
Sean Hannity Guest Has The Perfect Reaction To His Condescending Ferguson Question - Hannity: "Let me educate you about the legal system in America." Bynes: "I don't need your kind of education."
'Support Officer Darren Wilson' GoFundMe Raises Over $137,000 For Cop Who Shot Michael Brown

Ferguson’s constitutional crisis: First Amendment violations are only part of the story. - On the streets of Missouri, it’s not just the First Amendment that’s being violated.
Militarization of the Police, Fargo Edition - The Atlantic - We thought North Dakota was too sensible for this.
Compton School Board Approves AR-15 Rifles for Campus Police - The Atlantic - Military-grade weapons should not be on law enforcement's list of back-to-school supplies.
Woman shot at Ferguson protest: Police took the bullet and now claim they don't have it | Privacy SOS
It’s racism, not “principled conservatism”: The South, civil rights, GOP myths — and the roots of Ferguson - Salon.com - True GOP believers insist their small government beliefs have nothing to do with race. They're deluding themselves
“Just do what I tell you”: Why cops’ tasing people is nothing to laugh at - Salon.com
The ultimate white privilege: Darren Wilson and being “afraid for your life” - Salon.com - Claiming you shot someone out of fear of your life can be a "get out of jail free" card -- depending on who says it

We're Compiling Every Police-Involved Shooting In America. Help Us.

alicublog: The Day The Clown Cried. - When we last paid attention to Robert Tracinski in 2013, he was telling the GOP how to be winners again. The whole piece is ridic, but Tracinski got a little interesting (that is to say, heated) when he talked about a certain author: (Libertarians just need love ... and all your money)

Daily Politics Blog - Charles P. Pierce - Political Blogging - Esquire - These California-based companies - Soylent, named after the 1973 science fiction film "Soylent Green," and Ambronite - have both developed meal replacement mixes that are intended to free you from the burden of cooking. Simply mix the powder with water or any liquid and, in the case of Soylent, a little oil, and you have a ready-to-drink nutritious breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Crazy Racist Alaskan Lady Goes On Amazing Racist Roadrage Rant ("I'm so sorry you're so full of hatred")

A Strange Bit Of Film History - Esquire ("Suddenly" - the movie Frank wanted Mia to quit her job for)

Why Access to Screens Is Lowering Kids’ Social Skills | TIME

Dear Cortana, do you love me? | Windows Phone Central
Cortana's witty replies - Windows Phone Central Forums

082014
Canadian government orders scientists not to disclose extent of polar melting - Boing Boing

Liberia Seals Off Slum To Control Ebola, Angry Residents Clash With Troops - Liberia has the highest death toll, and its number of cases is rising the fastest

Hiroshima landslides leave dozens dead and several missing | World news | The Guardian - Hillsides and slopes rapidly swept away in torrents of rock, mud and debris in at least five valleys in Hiroshima city suburbs

Obama urges action to halt Isis 'cancer' as UK steps up fight against jihadis | World news | The Guardian - David Cameron admits Isis fighter who beheaded James Foley appears to be British, while Obama calls on allies for support
Obama Denounces James Foley's Execution: 'Today The Entire World Is Appalled'
How Did ISIS Kidnap James Foley? - Business Insider - Following the grisly murder of an American journalist by extremist militants, one key question remains: How did ISIS abduct James Foley, who was widely considered to be in the custody of groups loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?
British Isis militant in James Foley video 'guards foreign hostages in Syria' | World news | theguardian.com - The English jihadist who beheaded the American journalist James Foley is believed to be the leader of a group of British fighters holding foreign hostages in Syria, sources have told the Guardian.
Military Considering Sending Additional Troops To Iraq, Officials Say

Air strikes again batter Gaza as peace negotiations collapse | World news | The Guardian - Binyamin Netanyahu compares Hamas to Isis, following a strike which killed the wife and son of Hamas's military wing chief

Afghan Officials Delivered Expulsion Order To NYT Reporter With AK47s - New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg has just been given 24 hours to leave Afghanistan after the paper published an article Monday that discloses the country may impose an interim government.

Changes to Australian Security Laws Will Make Illegally Obtained Evidence Permisable in Court | VICE United States
U.S. Military Bans The Intercept - The Intercept
What You Need to Know About the FISA Court—and How it Needs to Change | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Boston Police Used Facial Recognition Software To Grab Photos Of Every Person Attending Local Music Festivals | Techdirt

US supreme court delays same-sex marriages in Virginia | World news | theguardian.com - Agreeing with an appeal from a county clerk, the highest US court delays a decision that would have allowed gay couples to marry imminently

The Real Death Valley -

Six Consistently Close Races Will Probably Decide Control Of The Senate | FiveThirtyEight - The map right now is simple: Control of the Senate will be decided in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina. Republicans must win at least half of these races.

Shooting Accounts Differ as Holder Schedules Visit to Ferguson - NYTimes.com
US attorney general vows swift investigation into Michael Brown killing | World news | The Guardian - Eric Holder leads federal response as he arrives in Ferguson amid controversy over St Louis County prosecutor
Ferguson's tragedy is a wakeup call for the world. Now Eric Holder must lead | St Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board | Comment is free | theguardian.com - If Ferguson is the spark that lights a blaze of civil rights revival, it’s going to need a champion. Welcome to Missouri, Mr Holder. You’ve got your work cut out for you
Cop In Ferguson To Protestors: 'I Will F**king Kill You' (VIDEO) - Video taken Tuesday night during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, show an officer pointing his weapon at civilians, shouting: "I will fucking kill you."
Twitter / occbaystreet: Fox says man in this picture ... - is beaten nearly unconscious w/broken eye socket. No really, the white dude
What libertarians and conservatives get wrong about Ferguson - The Washington Post - But there’s another lesson emerging, one that isn’t going to make those libertarians pleased: sometimes, big government isn’t the problem, it’s the solution — to the problem of small government.
Ferguson protests over Michael Brown won’t end soon: The black community’s anger is rooted in a history of racism. - The tensions have been building for a long time, and even justice for Michael Brown won’t change that.
Mya Aaten-White, Ferguson Shooting Victim, Says Police Have Not Interviewed Her | Riverfront Times - "It almost seems like, if, you know, if I did not follow up with this, they were hoping it would disappear," says Porter. "I don't know what the reasons are."
Darren Wilson Support Movement Grows (Free Darren!)
alicublog: It Only Takes A Moment. - This week has pretty much clarified what "the libertarian moment" really is: While that Times article portrayed it as a historical moment, events show that it has become an actual moment -- something lasting only briefly, but calculated to have a long-term effect.
New Data Show Police Rarely Arrested For Killings On The Job - "It is really hard to convict a police officer," Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Loyola University in Los Angeles, said. "They get a super presumption of innocence."
St. Louis Police Release Video Of Kajieme Powell Killing That Appears At Odds With Their Story - But the newly released cell phone footage undermines the statement, showing Powell approaching the cops, but not coming as close as was reported, with his hands at his side. The officers began shooting within 15 seconds of their arrival, hitting Powell with a barrage of bullets.

Expert witness in US execution cases will no longer defend states' methods | World news | theguardian.com - Anesthesiologist Mark Dershwitz was the expert called in controversial Ohio case that used two-drug lethal injection

America’s Progress on Street Safety Is Pathetic | Streetsblog USA (Argentina almost as safe as America)

The Sexist Facebook Movement The Marine Corps Can’t Stop | Task & Purpose - “Smash or pass?” the caption will usually read, asking the fans of the page to comment on the attractiveness of the woman in the picture, and whether they would have sex with her.
NY Post writer Doree Lewak: Catcalls make me feel great! - New York Post writer Doree Lewak has graced us with a piece on the totally flattering practice of men catcalling women.

081914
Earth sliding into ‘ecological debt’ earlier and earlier, campaigners warn | Environment | theguardian.com - World has already exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than eight months, Global Footprint Network says
Iceland volcano eruption risk level raised to orange for aviation | World news | The Guardian - Intense seismic activity at the Bardarbunga volcano indicates the potential for a disruptive ash event similar to 2010

World leaders 'failing to help' over Ebola outbreak in Africa | Society | The Guardian - Médecins Sans Frontières chief claims response to catastrophe is 'almost zero', with nations most concerned with self protection
Patients Missing From Looted Liberia Ebola Clinic Return To Hospital - "I think now there is a high vigilance in all countries," Fadela Chaib, a WHO spokeswoman told reporters in Geneva. "I can't remember the last time we fed 1 million people in a quarantine situation."
Air France staff object to flying to Ebola countries - The Local - Air France cabin crew are so concerned about the threat of the Ebola epidemic that unions have started a petition calling for flights to be stopped to those West African countries most affected by the disease.

‘Evil straight from the pits of hell': American journalist James Foley reportedly beheaded by ISIS | Twitchy
US Journalist, James Foley, beheaded by ISIS "Warning to America". : worldnews
Isis fighters show strength as they repel Iraqi army's attempt to retake Tikrit | World news | The Guardian - Iraqi military fails in third attempt to take town 80 miles north of Baghdad after coming under sustained mortar and gunfire

Israel and Hamas blame each other as rockets and air strikes end Gaza truce | World news | The Guardian - Israel says air strikes are in response to rocket attacks but Hamas claims raids are bid to sabotage Cairo negotiations

Ukraine crisis: 15 bodies found after strike on refugee convoy | World news | theguardian.com - Military spokesman says search continues after convoy of buses and cars was hit by rocket fire near Luhansk on Monday
Protesters march on Pakistan parliament | World news | The Guardian - Troops take up positions in red zone protecting parliament as 30,000 supporters of Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri hold rally
Beijing arrests nearly 1,000 members of Christian sect accused of brainwashing | World news | theguardian.com - China crackdown on Church of Almighty God over three months precedes 'cult' members' trial for woman's murder at McDonald's
Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Vandalizing Soviet Monuments | News | The Moscow Times (to look like America superheros)

Intended Consequences - Esquire - At least five, perhaps as many as 10, of the 42 children slain here since February had been recently deported from the U.S., Hernandez said. It is now the stated position of most of the Republican party in this country, and of Republican politicians like Steve King and most of the prospective 2016 presidential field, that more children must be sent home to die this way. People should remember that.
Five Children Murdered After They Were Deported Back To Honduras | ThinkProgress
Congratulations, Deport-The-Kids Patriots! Kids Returned To Honduras, Killed. | Wonkette


The right’s “bombshell” deceit: Why the left’s defense of Perry reveals so much - Salon.com - Tons of big-time liberals are saying Rick Perry's indictment looks weak. Can you imagine the right ever doing that?

In Washington, Little Appetite for a Vote on Iraq - NYTimes.com
Obama Is Seen as Frustrating His Own Party - NYTimes.com
Latest Senate Forecasts - The latest Monkey Cage forecast gives Republicans an 86% chance of winning control of the U.S. Senate after the midterm elections. The Upshot gives Republicans a 58% chance.

St Louis police fatally shoot man near Ferguson – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Chaos continues despite national guard intervention Arrested include people from New York and California
National Guard Arrives In Ferguson, But Clashes Continue - "Air smells like gun powder," the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery tweeted. "Not like tear gas. Gun powder."
78 Arrested Overnight, Most From Missouri, Arrest Records Show - NBC News.com - 78 Arrested Overnight, Most From Missouri, Arrest Records Show
‘Somebody Else Needs to See This’: New Video Emerges of Brown Shooting Aftermath | Mediaite - Crenshaw said there was a struggle at the police car in which it seemed Wilson was trying to draw Brown in. Brown took off running, and Crenshaw said Wilson began firing; when Brown turned around, he was shot multiple times
Photo Emerges Of Darren Wilson, Cop Who Fatally Shot Teen Michael Brown
Bar Association Calls On Prosecutor To Recuse Himself From Ferguson Investigation - "Mr. McCulloch has shown that he is emotionally invested in protecting law enforcement, and therefore should immediately step aside and allow the Justice Department to investigate the death of Michael Brown. The only way we can ensure trust is for the Justice Department to take over the investigation."
Ferguson Police Shooting Grand Jury Probe Starts Tomorrow - Bloomberg
History Says Ferguson Police Officer Likely Won't Be Charged For Shooting
Eschaton: Just Obey, Citizen - Respect his authoritah. He's not just a cop, but a "professor of homeland security at Colorado Tech University." It's all good people.
Under What Conditions Can The US Army Engage American Citizens: The Army's "Civil Disturbances" Primer | Zero Hedge
Tear Gas Is A Banned Chemical Weapon, But US Lobbying Made It Okay For Domestic Use... And, Boy, Do We Use It | Techdirt

To Be Wrong Or To Be Chicken - Esquire - I will have something regarding the comments made by the Democratic frontrunner on the subject as soon as she bestirs herself sufficiently to give enough of a shit to mention it in public.
Hillary Clinton Is Everywhere, But Still Nowhere To Be Found On Ferguson

Nothing works in Ferguson. Here's how to fix a police force – and punish cops | Norm Stamper | Comment is free | theguardian.com - I ordered military gear against protesters, and it failed. Ferguson needs to cut back on Swat, step up discipline and trust citizen leaders to bring justice. So does every police department
Missouri Cop Investigated For Offensive Ferguson Facebook Post - The photo depicted a black man with a wad of money in his mouth, pointing a gun at the camera. But the photo wasn't of Brown at all. It was of a man in Oregon accused of murder.
'Say That S**t!' Fox Reporter Gets Cursed Out On-Air By Ferguson Protestor (VIDEO)
Ray Kelly Thinks Ferguson Police In Ferguson Are Out Of Hand (he should know)
"just do what I tell you" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Evidently the Washington Post doesn’t employ editors, because if they did, Professor Dutta would have been asked to clarify which of the above statements he’s actually serious about. I have a pretty good guess.
Twitter / marg1nal: "If a cop shoots at you for ... - o reason, don't argue. Don't try to get away. Just let the courts and the coroners sort it out."

Intercept Reporter Shot With Beanbags and Arrested While Covering Ferguson Protests - The Intercept (cops are targeting reporters)
Ferguson police will keep arresting reporters - POLITICO.com - Police in Ferguson, Missouri, are continuing to arrest journalists and have said that they will continue to do so because of safety concerns, despite condemnation from media organizations that say such detentions are unwarranted.
WATCH: Ferguson Protesters Throw Rocks at Chris Hayes’ Head | Mediaite
Jake Tapper Denounces Militarized Police Response In Ferguson

Why Isn’t the NRA Defending Ferguson’s Blacks? - The Daily Beast - Their leader, Wayne LaPierre, even referred to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as "jack-booted thugs."
Grand Jury To Be Convened In Eric Garner Death Case
Man Savagely Beaten By Police On Video May Now Be Deported - In the video, two officers on the opposite side of the fence look up and appear to notice the surveillance camera, then say something to the officers beating Arzate, who quickly move him out of view of the camera.
LAPD Puts 'Investigative Hold' On Release Of Ezell Ford Autopsy
Sheriff Clarke confronted after FOX6 investigation prompts federal lawsuit | FOX6Now.com - When a Sheriff’s deputy T-boned her car last year, Tanya Weyker suffered more than a broken neck. She suffered the indignity of a false arrest for driving while intoxicated.

Fareed Zakaria Accused Of Rampant Plagiarism By Twitter Duo Who Busted BuzzFeed - The pair of anonymous Twitter users who last month exposed a BuzzFeed editor's plagiarism came out with new accusations Tuesday against journalist Fareed Zakaria.


Is the era of the virgin over? | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Making women feel dirty or somehow tainted by sex has been a linchpin in conservative efforts to roll back women’s rights and maintain traditional gender roles

Satire is dying because the internet is killing it | Arwa Mahdawi | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Facebook’s [satire] tag may prevent people believing Kim Jong-un was voted the sexiest man alive, but the damage is done


081814
Global warming denial rears its ugly head around the world, in English | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com - In Australia, USA, UK, and Canada, politicians are rejecting evidence and expert opinion about climate change - These four countries also share the commonality of highly influential fossil fuel industries, and the wide reach of the Murdoch media empire, known for its global warming denial.
West’s historic drought stokes fears of water crisis - The Washington Post

Another Chapter In The Ongoing Nightmare - Esquire - This is the same as Fukushima; both are ongoing disasters beyond the ability of local government to control, but genuinely dangerous to the wider world. Things are coming apart in west Africa. Things are coming apart fast.

Palestinian and Israeli talks in Cairo lead to 24-hour ceasefire extension | World news | theguardian.com - The ceasefire extension is made in the hope that a lasting deal will be negotiated on Tuesday covering a range of issues

Iraq Security Forces, Kurdish Fighters Retake Control Of Mosul Dam From Islamic Militants
Obama hails 'recapture' of Mosul Dam from Isis | World news | theguardian.com - US President declared ‘major step forward’ in Iraq, as he defended his administration from charges of mission creep

Dozens die as Luhansk refugee convoy hit by rocket and mortar fire | World news | theguardian.com - Ukraine government and rebels blame each other for attack, which has killed evacuees trying to escape the conflict

Saudi prince's motorcade held up at gunpoint in Paris | World news | The Guardian - French detectives investigating whether gunmen wanted money or sensitive diplomatic documents
A pregnant, suicidal rape victim fought Ireland's new abortion law. The law won | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Anti-abortion activists claim that legal restrictions are in the best interests of women, but they never are

Julian Assange Plans To Leave Ecuadorian Embassy - "No woman has done so," he said. "In fact, the women in Sweden explicitly deny having done that."

Why We Fight Wars - NYTimes.com

Michael Brown shooting: family says autopsy shows teenager was surrendering when killed | World news | theguardian.com - Doctor says no signs of a struggle on Brown’s body Governor abandons Ferguson curfew as national guard arrives
Ferguson officer's account of Michael Brown shooting: 'He just kept coming' | World news | theguardian.com - Darren Wilson’s version of events, as told through his girlfriend to a friend, contradicts aspects of other eyewitness accounts
Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times - NYTimes.com - was shot at least six times, including twice in the head
Police Threaten To Shoot, Mace Reporters In Ferguson
Police in Ferguson arrest Getty photographer Scott Olson | World news | theguardian.com - Arrest marks the second time that police have arrested journalists covering the Ferguson protests
Michael Brown's Family: What Else Do They Need To Arrest Killer Of Our Son?
Ferguson police department: The economic incentives that make cops harass black residents.
The Limits Of Everything - Esquire - Enough agendas have already collided on the ground there. We will have one, two, three, many investigations, and now the various police agencies, up to and including the Department of Justice, seem to be going to war with each other.
How we'd cover Ferguson if it happened in another country - Vox - The crisis began a week ago in Ferguson, a remote Missouri village that has been a hotbed of sectarian tension. State security forces shot and killed an unarmed man, which regional analysts say has angered the local population by surfacing deep-seated sectarian grievances. Regime security forces cracked down brutally on largely peaceful protests, worsening the crisis.

Wingnuts’ sad dream to be cool: Why they worship Reagan and the military - Salon.com - From seeing Ted Nugent as a counterculture hero to their love of the Gipper, here's what drives the wannabe rebels


081714
Early winter hits Britain as temperatures plunge - UK - News - London Evening Standard
Nepal flooding and landslides kill scores | World news | The Guardian - Rain damages roads across the Himalayan country's western plains, forcing officials to use helicopters to rescue stranded people
Why Bottled Water Comes From California, Which Can't Spare Much - CityLab - Dasani, Aquafina, and Crystal Geyser all dip into the Golden State's limited supply .. California happens to be the only Western state without groundwater regulation or management of major groundwater use. In other words, if you're a water company and you drill down and find water in California, it's all yours.

Ebola outbreak: 'At least 20' patients flee Liberia quarantine clinic after protesters break down door and loot building - Africa - World - The Independent - Blood-stained bedding was among items reportedly taken from the centre ... "the whole of West Point will be infected." West Point is home to at least 50,000 people. The patients' whereabouts remain unknown.
Report: Armed men attack Liberia Ebola clinic, freeing patients : news

Israeli ship remains at sea as thousands of protesters gather in Oakland | World news | theguardian.com - Blockade delayed as word spreads that ship is off the coast of California, closer to Santa Cruz, and won’t be docking that day (Netanyahu gave a huge boost to BDS)
Gaza protesters storm Tesco store and 'assault police' during Birmingham demonstration - Crime - UK - The Independent

US uses bombers as air strikes support Kurdish attack on key Iraq dam | World news | theguardian.com - US military report 14 air attacks on Sunday • Kurds say they control eastern end of Mosul dam
On a Helicopter, Going Down: Inside a Lethal Crash in Iraq - NYTimes.com

Woman refused abortion under new legislation - RTÉ News

Julian Assange has had human rights violated, says Ecuador foreign minister | Media | The Guardian - Ricardo Patino says British government has no will to find a solution to stalemate that has confined WikiLeaks founder to London's Ecuadorean embassy for more than two years

Where’s the Justice at Justice? - NYTimes.com - Attorney General Eric Holder wants to force Risen to testify and reveal the identity of his confidential source on a story he had in his 2006 book concerning a bungled C.I.A. operation during the Clinton administration in which agents might have inadvertently helped Iran develop its nuclear weapon program. The tale made the C.I.A. look silly, which may have been more of a sore point than a threat to national security.
James Risen: Obama Is 'Greatest Enemy To Press Freedom In A Generation' (ironic, isn't it?)


Felony indictment challenges Rick Perry's pre-2016 image makeover | World news | theguardian.com - Texas governor has hinted that his actions were political business as usual but a trial could be fatal to his ambitions

Some evangelicals in Republican Party are feeling left out, see no standard-bearer - The Washington Post - Many social conservatives say they feel politically isolated as the country seems to be hurtling to the left, with marijuana now legal in Colorado and gay marriage gaining ground across the nation. They feel out of place in a GOP increasingly dominated by tea party activists and libertarians who prefer to focus on taxes and the role of government and often disagree with social conservatives on drugs or gay rights. (the fall of the religious right)

Missouri governor points finger at Ferguson police chief for new violence | World news | theguardian.com - Jay Nixon says release of security footage was ‘incendiary’ Actions of Ferguson chief ‘tarnished’ Michael Brown
Ron Johnson: Ferguson cop who walked middle of road finds critics coming both ways | World news | theguardian.com - Local police and protesters alike turn on state highway patrol captain Ron Johnson, brought in to give a softer face to law enforcement
In Ferguson, three minutes — and two lives forever changed - The Washington Post - By Manuel Roig-Franzia, DeNeen L. Brown and Wesley Lowery
Militarized Policing: One Nation Under SWAT | naked capitalism - As the number of SWAT teams has grown nationwide, so have the raids. Every year now, there are approximately 50,000 SWAT raids in the United States, according to Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies. In other words, roughly 137 times a day a SWAT team assaults a home and plunges its inhabitants and the surrounding community into terror.
Ferguson On Edge On First Night With Curfew - Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson said that tear gas was deployed not to enforce the curfew, but in response to a person believed to be armed. (new rules: teargas gunshots; only applies to black communities)
Washington Post National News - ‘I just kept asking: Why am I being arrested for sitting in my aunt’s driveway?’ - The Washington Post ("failure to disperse" into thin air)
Eric Holder Authorizes Second Autopsy Of Michael Brown - Preliminary results of the first autopsy showed that Brown had died of gunshot wounds. However, the report did not specify the number of times Brown was shot.
Melissa Harris-Perry's Searing Tribute To Black Men Killed By Police - "From 2006 to 2012 a white police officer killed a black person at least twice a week in this country," she said.
News Coalition Condemns Police Treatment Of Journalists In Ferguson - "Officers on the ground must understand that gathering news and recording police activities are not crimes," the organizations wrote. (until they jail the offenders, it will be a crime)
Why What Happened To Reporters In Ferguson Matters So Much - So it was that what happened to journalists in Ferguson—the violence and the teargas and the arrests—became an acute symbol of the shabby regard that the police there seemed to have for peoples' First Amendment rights.

‘Help, help, I’m being repressed!’: How conservatives make a mockery of the oppression of religious minorities | Adam Lee | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Some Christians equate not getting their own way in the political sphere with brutal and unjust persecution





Lutheran Social Services of Illinois - The Journey Through Trauma and Loss: A Refugee's Story
sketches - KuKu Camp
Refugee Camps - Kuku Refugee Camp - 1990

On Demand News » More than five fruit and veg a day has 'no effect' - Consuming five portions of fruit or vegetables each day is linked to a lower risk of premature death but eating more portions appears to have no further effect, their study concluded.

Kim Dotcom: from playboy entrepreneur to political firebrand | Technology | The Observer - He was the flamboyant founder of the popular Megaupload site. But when the US got New Zealand police to arrest him on charges of internet piracy, Kim Dotcom began a remarkable fightback
50 Craigslist Meet Ups You’re Really Glad You Weren’t A Part Of | Thought Catalog
081614
In Australia, Businesses Are Getting Hit With A $500 Fee Designed To Kill Solar Power | ThinkProgress
Germany Reaches New Levels of Greendom, Gets 31 Percent of Its Electricity From Renewables - Businessweek

Iraq voices anger as US air force defends Irbil – but not Baghdad | World news | The Observer - Resentment grows in capital over perceived American preference to fight for Kurds rather than ousted Maliki (whut? +after a $trillion, Iraq doesn't have an airfoce)

The Middle East Friendship Chart

UK ambassador 'lobbied senators to hide Diego Garcia role in rendition' | World news | The Observer - Rights groups claim that top-level talks were part of bid to redact link to Diego Garcia from report - to keep its role in the CIA's torture and interrogation programme out of what is expected to be a damning Senate report.

Iranian president tweets uncovered head of first woman to win Fields medal | Media | theguardian.com - Hassan Rouhani posts photo congratulating Maryam Mirzakhani and says she makes ‘us Iranians very proud’

Sen. Wyden: Your data’s yours no matter on whose server it lives - The Washington Post - "When I send an e-mail to my wife, or store a document in the cloud so I can review it later, my service provider and I have an agreement that my information will stay private. Neither of us have invited the government to have a peek."

German Intel Spied On Hillary Clinton, John Kerry: Der Spiegel

Court: Silence Can Be Used Against Suspects - ABC News (no, you don't have that right ...)


Missouri governor declares state of emergency and curfew in Ferguson | World news | theguardian.com - Jay Nixon: ‘We must have and maintain peace’ • Curfew will run from midnight to 5am (promises not to use tanks)
Ferguson’s citizen journalists revealed the value of an undeniable video | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Until the police stops treating communities as war zones and people as enemy combatants, keep your phone handy
Ferguson Erupts Again; Tear Gas Fired
Michael Brown Stopped By Ferguson Police Officer Over Walking In Street
Ferguson Police Released Robbery Video Despite DOJ Concerns
Michael Brown shooting: Missouri governor ‘thunderstruck’ by images of riot police in Ferguson - Americas - World - The Independent - The Governor of Missouri has criticised police in the town of Ferguson for their “over-militarised” response to protests following the death last week of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a white officer.
After A Traffic Stop, Teen Was 'Almost Another Dead Black Male' : NPR - Alex Landau, who is African-American, was adopted by a white couple as a child and grew up in largely white, middle-class suburbs of Denver.
Mapping the Spread of the Military’s Surplus Gear - NYTimes.com (oh, look what they did: we're fighting a war on terror and drug cartels everywhere in the country)

Cigars, But Not Close :: SteynOnline - The most basic problem is that we will never know for certain what happened. Why? Because the Ferguson cruiser did not have a camera recording the incident. That's simply not credible. "Law" "enforcement" in Ferguson apparently has at its disposal tear gas, riot gear, armored vehicles and machine guns ...but not a dashcam. That's ridiculous. I remember a few years ago when my one-man police department in New Hampshire purchased a camera for its cruiser. It's about as cheap and basic a police expense as there is.

What the Hell Just Happened in Texas, and Why Was Rick Perry Just Indicted? - The Daily Beast
On Rick Perry’s Indictments by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - In the meantime, Rick Perry’s presidential aspirations just took a major blow.
Governor Rick Perry calls indictment a farce, vows to fight back. (could face 109 yrs in prison)
Rick Perry Indictment Is Unbelievably Ridiculous -- NYMag
Chris Christie Faces Mounting Suits Over Public Records - "The quality of the denials are getting dumber," said lawyer Walter Luers, who specializes in such cases. "They're just kind of making reasons to not give us stuff."


The sad devolution of Discovery Channel - Quartz (sharks!)

Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking Is Healthy - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - The real mystery is why an intelligent man receiving the best health care advice money can buy thinks that not drinking makes it less likely he will succumb to coronary artery disease (which also includes strokes and dementia).
Poached Partners Make Unreliable Mates - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - New research finds relationships that begin when one person coaxes another to leave his or her partner aren’t very stable or satisfactory. (thanks, science)
Poached Partners Make Unreliable Mates: New research finds relationships that begin when one person coaxes another to leave his or her partner aren’t very stable or satisfactory. : science
The Painful Paradox of Coercive Sexuality - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - “few young men or women reported finding anal sex pleasurable, and both expected anal sex to be painful for women.”
How the Sexes Evolved - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Teachers/Counsellors of Reddit - what's the worst case of 'helicopter parenting' you've ever encountered? : AskReddit
Reddit, what's your family's dark secret? [NSFW] : AskReddit


081514
Ebola outbreak ‘vastly underestimated’, WHO warns | Global development | theguardian.com - Aid agencies ask for global response as WHO admits extraordinary measures needed to contain disease in atmosphere of rampant fear

Ukraine says it has destroyed Russian vehicles that entered territory | World news | theguardian.com - Ukraine claims to have destroyed Russian military vehicles in the country's east, a day after a column was spotted moving across the border.

Maliki and the Futility of Regime Change - NYTimes.com - Eight years ago, the United States worked to install Mr. Maliki as prime minister of Iraq in place of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was said to favor fellow Shiites over Sunnis or Kurds in the government
Baghdadi of ISIS Pushes an Islamist Crusade - NYTimes.com - Baghdadi of ISIS Pushes an Islamist Crusade
Retired army general Jay Garner: 'The Iraq that we knew no longer exists' | World news | theguardian.com - Former occupation chief says ‘I think Iraq is now partitioned, and we ought to accept that’ and urges Obama to arm Kurdish forces

Chris Hondros Brooklyn Brewery video: How one photograph changed U.S. military policy. (in your name)

U.S. firm helped the spyware industry build a potent digital weapon for sale overseas - The Washington Post - The report calls that “hacking on easy mode,” in which “compromising a target becomes as simple as waiting for the user to view unencrypted content on the Internet.”
Schrodinger's Cat Video and the Death of Clear-Text

Governor Goodhair Agonistes » Balloon Juice - A grand jury indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday for allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption — making the possible 2016 presidential hopeful his state’s first indicted governor in nearly a century.
Texas' Perry charged with coercion for veto threat (and gratuitous dickatude)

Eschaton: (G)Libertarianism - The thing is that liberals see most self-identified libertarians as being completely full of shit. At best, they're in the "I've got mine screw you" and "freedom for me but not for thee" crowds, at worst they're complete sociopaths.
Trying to Learn From Criticism, Even When It's Misguided or Rude - It's never easy to get past one's own defensiveness. But if you want someone to listen to you, invective is the worst way to go about it.
The Proper Libertarian Position on Child Licenses | MattBruenig | Politics - Folks at Bleeding Heart Libertarians are debating whether to make parents have licenses in order to raise children (I, II) A proper respect for personal liberty demands that parents be allowed to neglect their children, even to the point of death (because Freedom! and Property!)

The Forever Slump - NYTimes.com

Darren Wilson Identified As Officer Who Fatally Shot Michael Brown
'Beyond Outraged' Family Of Michael Brown & Their Attorneys Release Statement
Ferguson crisis: Michael Brown family 'beyond outraged' at police handling of case – live | World news | theguardian.com - Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson’s statement Friday afternoon that Officer Darren Wilson did not stop Michael Brown in connection with an alleged robbery minutes early seems clearly to contradict an account of the stop earlier Friday by... Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson.

Ferguson Police's Handling of Michael Brown Shooting Gets Worse | New Republic - Was Johnson lying when he claimed that Wilson approached him and Brown not to question or arrest them for robbery but to tell them to “get the fuck onto the sidewalk”?

Twitter User Appears To Provide Eyewitness Account Of Teen Shooting
Twitter / TheePharoah: I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG
Ferguson police nametags: Reportedly haven't been worn.
White supremacy’s latest round: Retracing the real history of Ferguson - Salon.com - The Ferguson nightmare is just another reminder of a world exemplified by slavery, Jim Crow and "stop and frisk"
The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie - The Daily Beast - The officers got the wrong man, but charged him anyway—with getting his blood on their uniforms. How the Ferguson PD ran the town where Michael Brown was gunned down. (pathological liars)
'The Onion' Comments On Ferguson Tragedy With Striking 'Unarmed Teen' Cover
Mike Allen Has Some Fact-Free Smarm-Thoughts For Wesley Lowery

Hullabaloo - The fact is that civil liberties are rarely a priority in either political party. The libertarians in America tend to gather in the GOP while the civil libertarians like me tend to vote Democratic. We're a minority either way, but the civil libertarian liberals outnumber the libertarians substantially.

Who Should Resist Arrest? - NYTimes.com - By Jesse Wegman (400,000 arrests/yr in NYC)
Mall Cop Reportedly Pepper-Sprays Black Man, Ignores Racist Heckler At Pro-Palestine Protest - Westlake security pepper spray & arrest innocent bystander after he's harassed by pro Israel supporter during protest

Officials: Loudoun deputy shot daughter he thought was intruder; teen in hospital - The Washington Post - “At that particular point, he discharges his firearm and strikes the person in the torso area,” Lang said. “Then he hears her voice and recognizes that it’s his daughter.” (always shoot what you can't see!)

14 Notes Calling Out Neighbors On Their Loud Sex - CollegeHumor Post (especially #14)

Why I want my articles removed from Thought Catalog - Salon.com - “all thinking is relevant” (except the irrelevant and stupid)
A plea to Thought Catalog to remove Gavin McInnes’ transphobic essay from its site - Salon.com

Market Basket transcripts: They sound like scenes from The Godfather.

JustOneMinute: Salt - The Science Was Settled! (salt wars)

081414
Embattled Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside | World news | theguardian.com - Maliki says he has accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated by the president to form a government
US to supply more weapons to Lebanese military over Isis threat | World news | theguardian.com - US ambassador said deliveries come in response to request from armed forces who face growing threat from Isis

Israel Hayom | Israel-US ties hit new low as White House halts missile shipment - White House reportedly puts military assistance to Israel under close scrutiny after learning that Israeli requests for munitions were approved in military-to-military channels. (the Pentagon was shipping missiles to Israel without telling anyone because their are owned by Israel) )
Hamas talks of 'real chance' for Gaza agreement with Israel | World news | theguardian.com - As truce is extended, negotiator says Hamas doesn't want more death but will only sign deal that meets Palestinian demands

Russian military vehicles enter Ukraine as aid convoy stops short of border | World news | The Guardian - Armoured personnel carriers and support vehicles cross the border, while the 280-truck convoy comes to a halt separately - incontrovertible evidence of what Ukraine has long claimed – that Russian troops are active inside its borders.

Tiffany Mitchell On Witnessing Michael Brown Shooting: Police 'Showed No Kind Of Remorse' - Mitchell clarified she heard a shot after she saw Brown trying to pull away from the cop, and said even after Brown turned to face the cop and put his hands in the air, "the cop continued to come up on him and shoot him until he fell down to the ground." She said she counted "more than about five or six shots." (execution by psycho racist cop)
Another witness to Brown shooting comes forward; video shows graphic scene | KMOV.com St. Louis

Jay Nixon: Missouri Highway Patrol Will Take Over Supervision Of Security In Ferguson
Rep. John Lewis On Ferguson: 'Declare Martial Law'
Ferguson crisis: Missouri governor says police will present 'softer front' – live | World news | theguardian.com - County police rotated out after sharp criticism of tactics
Ferguson is an occupation in plain sight and words aren't enough to change that | Roxane Gay | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Obama called for peace and calm. But we are beyond peace and calm. Silence is not an option
Congressman wants to stop transfer of weapons to police | KTRS | St Louis News and Talk Radio | - A Democratic congressman is introducing a bill to curb a Defense Department program that provides machine guns and other surplus military equipment for free to local law enforcement agencies across the country.

Missouri Guv: Officer Who Shot Teen Should Be Named As Soon As Possible
Ferguson's Police Got Free Military Gear Straight From The Pentagon

The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson - The Intercept - By Glenn Greenwald
Rand Paul: We Must Demilitarize the Police | TIME
Police in Ferguson: Military weapons threaten protesters. - It’s dangerous and wrong to treat Ferguson, Missouri, as a war zone.
Twitter / JeffSharlet: Today. Requires no comment. ... - MT @GovJayNixon: Touring the new Joplin High
Ferguson - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I assume most of you are following what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri tonight, with the heavily armed police (thanks to excess military materiel from Iraq and Afghanistan) violating the civil rights of both reporters and citizens and generally using the Constitution as toilet paper.
Ferguson Police Use Tear Gas On Al Jazeera America Team
Ferguson Protests Met With Heavy Police Response, 2 Reporters And Alderman Arrested - "They essentially acted as a military force. It was incredible," Reilly said.
Ferguson Police Are a Small Army, and So Are Thousands of Other Police Departments - ABC News
Is this how a dystopia starts? | The Verge - Ferguson, Missouri, is a stark reminder of the risks of the increasing militarization of American police

You have a right to record the police | The Verge
After Ferguson, police should be wearing on-body cameras | The Verge - Civil rights attorney and others suggest more transparency is key to avoiding another tragedy

How Police Are Keeping Journalists From Doing Their Jobs in Ferguson - NationalJournal.com
Ferguson Police Chief: If You Get Tear-Gassed, It's Your Own Fault
Obama On Ferguson: 'No Excuse For Police To Use Excessive Force'
MrDominus7 comments on "Weapons of war have no place on our streets" - Barack Obama (Picture from St.Louis, MO)
In Ferguson, the blurred line between law enforcement and combat | MSNBC - According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Department of Defense has transferred $4.3 billion in military equipment to local and state police through the 1033 program, first enacted in 1996 at the height of the so-called War on Drugs. ("drugs" = "blacks")
Sheriff’s probe in-custody death - News - VVdailypress.com - Victorville, CA - Deputy tased Daily Press employee multiple times (riding a bicycle while black)
In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest - The Washington Post - He was illegally instructed to stop taking video of officers. Then he followed officers’ instructions to leave a McDonald’s — and after contradictory instructions on how to exit, he was slammed against a soda machine and then handcuffed. That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news. The physical risk to Wesley himself is obvious and outrageous.
Joe Scarborough- Still an Asshole » Balloon Juice - Wesley Lowery is quickly becoming my favorite reporter. Here he is responding to Joe Scarborouogh, who earlier chided Lowery for not being more compliant with the cops as they illegally detained him for sitting in a McDonalds:
Even before Michael Brown’s slaying in Ferguson, racial questions hung over police - The Washington Post

HuffPost Reporter: I Was Arrested By Guys Who 'Like Playing Dress Up'
Politico's Media Reporter Says Arrested Journalists 'Aren't Heroes' - Politico's media reporter Dylan Byers
NR ‘Days Since Last Racist Rant’ Sign Back to 0 -- NYMag
The disparaging stranger: Kevin Williamson visits East Saint Louis (Dave Weigel: is racism ever gone from the libertarian mindset? as pundits show their true colors)

The South’s Lesson for the Tea Party - NYTimes.com - The movement’s success, with its dangerous froth of anti-Washington posturing and barely concealed racial animus, raises an important question for Southern voters: Will they remember their history well enough to reject the siren song of nativism and populism that has won over the region so often before?
Pro-Confederate group protests ‘Ole Miss’ rebranding efforts, urge secession (proving it wouldn't have worked anyway)


In most states, marijuana is a bargain compared to beer (The Washington Post) | Marijuana Monitor

New Revelations in the Salaita Affair; Two New Statements of Refusal | Corey Robin (oh look, UIUC lied, a lot, because AIPAC was pulling their strings for academic Freedom!)

Robin Williams' wife reveals actor was in early stages of Parkinson's disease | Film | theguardian.com - Susan Schneider says Williams was sober at time of his death on Monday and that he was not ready to disclose diagnosis

Scientists think they've discovered an entirely new mode of plant communication | The Verge - And parasitic species might be using it for espionage


Slack is killing email | The Verge (everything has killed email)

081314
Heavy rain causes flash flooding in northern US - video | World | The Guardian

Nigeria fears fourth Ebola frontline after infected man lands in Lagos | World news | The Guardian - Officials in Africa's most populous city are scrambling to avoid mistakes that have helped fuel biggest Ebola epidemic in history

US troops land on Iraq's Mt Sinjar to plan for Yazidi evacuation | World news | theguardian.com - US marines and special forces to assess options for rescue of 30,000 refugees stranded on mountain by militant group Isis
ISIS Commander: Fighters Abducted Over 100 Yazidi Women, Children
The power struggle in Baghdad and Nouri al-Maliki's fight for survival | World news | theguardian.com - Though his ruling coalition has fractured and Iran and the US support his new rival, Haider al-Abadi, the sitting prime minister is angling to retain power
Cops Order ISIL Flag Removed from New Jersey Home | Washington Free Beacon - Police in Garwood, New Jersey, confirmed that a militant flag associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) was removed from the front of a local home after hundreds of online activists expressed fear and revulsion.

Hamas, Israel To Extend Truce: Palestinian Official
Israeli Media Blaming Kerry Reflects the Tortured Logic That Started the War in the First Place | Bernard Avishai
Hillary Clinton Twists Herself In Knots To Avoid Blaming Israel For UN Bombing (neo-con Hillary)
HRC & “DDSS” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

UN: Ukraine Crisis Death Toll Has Doubled In The Past Two Weeks

Edward Snowden: The Untold Story | Threat Level | WIRED | James Bamford
Call Me Ed: A Day With Edward Snowden | Magazine | WIRED - Platon said. “I hope I get to see you back at home, in the US.” Snowden looked straight at him as he threw his backpack over his shoulder and said, “You probably won't.” With that, he closed the door and was gone.
Wired's Edward Snowden Cover Shows Him Holding The American Flag
Snowden casts doubt on NSA investigation into security disclosures | World news | theguardian.com - NSA whistleblower says he left detectable digital traces of his removal of documents which the agency did not pick up on - He also alleged that a 2012 incident that took Syria’s internet offline was the fault of the NSA.
Glenn Greenwald Criticizes NPR for Relying on CIA-Linked Firm in Report on Impact of Snowden Leaks | Democracy Now! (never trust NPR on nat sec)

How Libertarians Snookered The Times Magazine -- NYMag

On Immigration, G.O.P. Starts to Embrace Tea Party - NYTimes.com


Cool Robin Williams Story, Maureen Dowd | Wonkette (Hillary +full list of D Senators who voted for Iraq War +Modo's thought process is ... interesting)
After This Strained Comparison, Ms. Dowd Was Put on the 60-Day DL - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Roger Ailes: 1-900-SOT-MODO - Great minds think Dowd is a dishonest hack.
Two Ways of Looking at the Hillary Clinton Interview - The Atlantic - Whichever way you see it, the presumptive Democratic nominee has shown us something significant. - That impression is a faux-respectful but pointed dismissal of Obama's achievements and underlying thought-patterns. It's a picture of the president approximating that of a Maureen Dowd column.

Childhood Lead Exposure Causes a Lot More Than Just a Rise in Violent Crime | Mother Jones - But she also finds something else: a strong link between lead and teen pregnancy. (how corporate America created a crime wave for more profit! +stupidity)

Twitter / YourAnonNews: SWAT police just entered a ... - cDonald's in #Ferguson and started asking journalists for ID
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Journalists being arrested ... - in #Ferguson. This aggression will not stand, man RT @jonswaine: Just saw two reporters in ferguson cuffed
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Moments ago, in #Ferguson RT ... - @BmoreConetta: State senator Maria Chapelle Nadal taken into police custody
Twitter / Anon_GovWatchCA: No-Fly Zone over #Ferguson ... - MO bans News Copters from Reporting on Protests - anyone gotta drone?

Ferguson, Missouri Protest Of Michael Brown Death Swarmed By SWAT Team
Witness To Michael Brown's Shooting Opens Up: He Was 'Shot Like An Animal' - Ferguson police have yet to speak with witness Dorian Johnson, Michael Brown's friend who was with him at the time of the shooting, however NBC News interviewed the 22-year-old about the events leading up to Brown's death.
What in the Hell is Wrong with this Country? » Balloon Juice - The cop pulled up, told them to get the fuck on the sidewalk, they said something to the effect of they were almost to their destination, cop backed the truck up, asked “what did you say?” and reached through the driver side window and pulled Brown in, Brown tried to get away, cop pulled his gun and shot once from the car, then hunted down and executed him. And I bet the forensics will demonstrate the distances from which Brown was shot, which is why they have not released the autopsy report.
Police Militarization In Ferguson - Business Insider - On Saturday, a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black man. In the days that have followed, the town with a population of about 21,000 has seen massive protests in response to the shooting, as some witnesses said Brown had his hands up when he was killed.
Livestream of Ferguson Protests » Balloon Juice - There are rumors that reporters Ryan J. Reilly and Wesley Lowery have been detained by the Police. (cops assault and arrest HuffPo reporter)

America Is Not For Black People - If officers are soldiers, it follows that the neighborhoods they patrol are battlefields. And if they're working battlefields, it follows that the population is the enemy. And because of correlations, rooted in historical injustice, between crime and income and income and race, the enemy population will consist largely of people of color, and especially of black men.
Second Police-Involved Shooting Reported In Ferguson, Missouri
LAPD Suggests Mentally Disturbed Man They Killed Was In A Gang, Maybe

Pay up or pay time: Alabama’s private probation industry | Al Jazeera America - Alabamians who can't pay a fine may end up in a vicious cycle of fees and even jail time – and someone's profiting

GOP Candidate: I Had An Affair Two Weeks Ago, Am Quitting My Campaign (oh, isn't her ammo clip necklace just so cute!)

Diabetes Rate Soars, Especially Among Blacks And Hispanics

Anti-Gay Crusader Jonathan Saenz's Ex-Wife Left Him For A Woman - Court documents reveal the wife of an anti-gay extremist left him for a woman months before he became the head of an anti-gay Texas group. (sore loser)
Gilbert Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades of Grey - YouTube

What Gawker Media Is Doing About Our Rape Gif Problem
Trolling And The Confessional Essay « The Dish - Alyssa Rosenberg looks at the implications of Jezebel’s troll crisis:

081214
Americans Don't Care about Climate Change - Lawyers, Guns & Money

US likely to arm Iraq's new government with weapons to fight Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Obama administration is ‘looking to accelerate’ shipments in the post-Maliki government as Iraqi ambassador seeks ‘drastic actions’ (Obama considers dropping Hillary on ISIS)
Australian Boy, 7, Poses For Photo With Severed Head In Syria (Graphic Image)

Ukraine: Russia Has Massed 45,000 Troops On Joint Border
Russian Humanitarian Convoy Will Not Be Allowed Across Border, Ukrainian Official Says - A Russian convoy carrying food, water and other aid set off on Tuesday for eastern Ukraine, where government forces are closing in on pro-Russian rebels, but Kiev said it would not allow the vehicles to cross onto its territory.

Gaza: hopes rise of end to war as Hamas 'optimistic' of deal with Israel | World news | The Guardian - Smaller Palestinian groups also confident peace agreement can be reached in Cairo talks before ceasefire ends on Wednesday
Israel: Gaza War Talks See Little Progress
Israel’s new lawyer: Hillary Clinton - Opinion Israel News | Haaretz - She sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through Bibi’s eyes, which could be the reason she gets so much wrong. (Hillary's true neo-con colors)
David Axelrod swipes at Hillary Clinton over Iraq - Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.com - “Just to clarify: ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision,” - the former secretary of state also allied herself tightly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called Obama’s decision to not assist Syrian rebels early on a “failure.”
Unity Trip - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Andrew Cuomo, fleeing scandal that is torpedoing his presidential ambitions (world’s smallest violin playing) decides to visit Israel in a show of support of that nation’s racist indiscriminate killing of civilians of Gaza as it seeks to double down on its apartheid policies. Jerks of the World, Unite!
Cuomo Campaign Volunteers Staged Mysterious Protests - Business Insider - Protesters who have been hounding longshot New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout at her events have been working with the campaign of her rival in the Democratic primary, incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo (what.a.dick. and a lot in common with Christie-fuck)

Tea Party’s horrifying cousin: Here comes “constitutional conservatism” - Salon.com - The sad club of dupes known as the Tea Party is not the real problem. This scary ideological undercurrent might be
What Digby Said by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - “The line between theocrats and libertarian Republicans is very, very faint.”
Hullabaloo - Pand(er)with Rand - Why do you think they've bastardized the concept of "Religious Liberty" to mean the right to inflict your religion on others? (Liberty! for non-women)

Obama Immigration Policy Critics Have an Irrational Fear of Precedent | New Republic - Sometime between the end of last week and the beginning of this one, the worm turned against a handful of conservatives—the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, most prominently—who had launched a pre-emptive effort to characterize as “lawless” a deportation policy that President Barack Obama hasn’t even drafted yet.

Eschaton: Extraction - Atlantic City is failing because they had 40 years to take all of that money they were vacuuming up and use it to create a nice place and they didn't. (Christie-fucks money-hole)
Eschaton: Nice Work - Never screw up, always screw down... A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and his son agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from a scheme to lure investors to their hedge fund with false promises about investment strategies, according to federal prosecutors.

Margaret Sullivan - Public Editor's Journal Blog - NYTimes.com - There aren’t too many worse things you can suggest about an author than that his or her work is plagiarized.

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - Both Florida and Texas will lose out on over 65 billion dollars of federal funding over the next decade. They will do this, mainly, to prevent their poorest citizens who are disproportionately black and Latino from getting access to health care. They will see many of their hospitals close, they'll miss out on the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, and they'll lose out on a lot of tax revenue. For what purpose?
How We Imprison the Poor For Crimes That Haven't Happened Yet - "Evidence-based sentencing" describes the use of data-driven "risk assessments" in the sentencing phase of criminal trials. (bizspeak meets copspeak)

Michael Brown shooting: 'They killed another young black man in America' | World news | The Guardian - African American teenager's killing by police puts Missouri city on edge after another night of protests
Lawyer: Police Haven't Talked To Michael Brown Shooting Witness
Eyewitness to Michael Brown shooting recounts his friend's death | MSNBC - Johnson says he feared for his life as he watched the officer squeezing off shot after shot. (the guy the cops aren't interested in talking to)
Some Pictures Say a Lot - We can only infer so much from photographs. There's clearly been looting and an element of crowd violence in Ferguson, Missouri. But there are quite a few photos and videos of heavily armed and armored police facing clearly unarmed civilians who often have their hands in the air to show they are not armed. (the result of the copification of America)
Ferguson Police Department Will Not Release Name Of Officer Involved In Michael Brown Shooting
It’s Like They Want a Riot » Balloon Juice - NWA had it right. I guess when these neanderthals get their toys, they want to use them, and use them they did. Can the feds just take over the entire Ferguson police department?
John Crawford III's Family Seeks Video Of Fatal Shooting At Wal-Mart - "We don't believe a Wal-Mart customer should be holding a BB gun they sell and get killed."

Hint for Sarah Palin: don’t include Elizabeth Warren in your videos - The contrast is agonizing. Palin tries to dismiss Warren’s comment about supporting fast food workers by claiming liberals think fast food is “of the devil”. (whoah, that's painful)

Corporate Bullshit Generator

BuzzFeed valued at more than three times the Washington Post | Media | The Guardian - Viral internet site set up by Jonah Peretti in 2006 now employs 550 staff in New York, London, Sydney, Paris and elsewhere
Over 4,000 BuzzFeed Posts Have Completely Disappeared - Permanently erasing thousands of specious, staff-written posts. (remember when they used to steal everything?)
Gawker Media Staffers Are Still Ambivalent About Kinja ("ambivalent" = "hate it")


081114
The Empiricist Strikes Back - NYTimes.com - If climate change doesn’t scare you, and our failure to act doesn’t inspire despair, you’re not paying attention. And the great sin of the climate deniers is their role in delaying action, quite possibly until it’s too late.
Conservatives Distort Climate Scientist, Say Global Warming on Hiatus | New Republic - The Right-Wing Press' New Climate Change Lie

PM Maliki Refuses To Be Replaced As Power Struggle Erupts In Iraq
Nouri al-Maliki set to be replaced as Iraq's prime minister | World news | theguardian.com - Coalition of Shia parties nominate Haider al-Abadi to form new government, a move likely to deepen Iraq's political turmoil
US denies role in plot to oust Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki | World news | theguardian.com - American officials say US is merely supporting constitutional process in offering full backing in selection of new prime minister
US to directly arm Kurdish peshmerga forces in bid to thwart Isis offensive | World news | The Guardian - Weaponry, said to be light arms and ammunition, to be brokered though CIA who are better positioned to supply militia

Gaza homes 'uninhabitable' as tens of thousands come back to rubble | World news | The Guardian - United Nations says the level of destruction is 'unprecedented' as 30,000 people in Beit Hanoun alone need rehousing
Hamas said to have executed dozens of tunnel diggers | The Times of Israel - Any excavator who was suspected of collaborating with Israel was killed, Israeli website reports

More Than a Dozen Pulitzer Winners Call on the Justice Dept to End its Pursuit of James Risen | Freedom of the Press Foundation

DEA improperly paid $854,460 for passenger lists - The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers, which the DEA could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network

Obama vow to speed deportation of children at odds with public opinion | Reuters - President Barack Obama's pledge to fast-track the deportation of migrant children from Central America is out of step with the opinion of a majority of Americans, who say the children should be allowed to stay in the United States, at least for a while (Deporter in Chief playing to his base)


Cuomo’s Slow-Mo Disaster - Jeff Smith - politico Magazine - The New York governor is in deeper legal trouble than he realizes.

“Democrat” and “Republican” As Racial Code Words in the Deep South by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - the raw exercise of power by southern Republicans is creating a governing environment where African-Americans are as locked out of any political influence as thoroughly as they were in the Jim Crow era.

Vandalism, Looting After Vigil For Black Teen Killed By Police - Brown "was giving up in the sense of raising his arms and being subdued," Walker told The Associated Press on Monday. The officer "had his gun raised and started shooting the individual in the chest multiple times." The officer then "stood over him and shot him" after the victim fell wounded.
St Louis protesters demand murder charges for police officer who shot teen dead | World news | theguardian.com - Largely peaceful protests in suburb of Ferguson took place after riots that followed death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown

Mom sues after cops tased her 8-year-old - CNN.com - "Four trained police officers surrounding a 70-pound, 8-year-old Indian girl," should have used less risky tactics, Hanna said.
Chief: Police killed California robbery hostage - that police in the city of Stockton fired the 10 bullets that struck Misty Holt-Singh, 41, and all her wounds likely came during a final burst of gunfire,

The New York Times Company - Maureen Dowd Joins The New York Times Magazine as Staff Writer - She Will Continue to Write Sunday Opinion Column

No, You Can't Just Pull Your Kids Out of School to Wait for the Rapture - A Texas court ruled last week that a pair of Christian homeschooling parents who stopped teaching their nine kids because they believed the Rapture was imminent (and everyone knows that the best thing about heaven is NOBODY QUIZZES YOU ABOUT THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS) are not, in fact, allowed to just do that.

We Have a Rape Gif Problem and Gawker Media Won't Do Anything About It

081014
The carbon tax: why a bipartisan idea is still held up - Ideas - The Boston Globe
Everything Changes, Part II by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The Boston Globe notes that despite its obvious economic and moral merits, there are certain individuals who haven’t—yet?—embraced the idea of putting a price on carbon through a revenue-neutral carbon tax or, more precisely, a rebated carbon fee:

Obama on the World - NYTimes.com - President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman About Iraq, Putin and Israel

Video: Helicopter carrying aid reaches Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar - The Washington Post
Islamic State Killed 500 Yazidis, Buried Some Victims Alive
US air strikes hit Isis again as efforts intensify to evacuate Yazidi refugees | World news | theguardian.com - Five more air raids in Iraq destroy vehicles and artillery • Kurds say they have retaken two towns from Islamists
This is what could happen if the Islamic State destroys the Mosul Dam - The Washington Post - “If the dam fails, scientists say, Mosul could be completely flooded within hours and a 15-foot wall of water could crash into Baghdad,”
Shock and Awe - A massive defeat on ISIL could decimate their professional spearhead of veterans and break the image of invincibility. Just one drone and a Special Forces forward control team with a B-1 bomber package with could do that with ease.
How tough really are the Peshmerga? | Editorial | Saudi Gazette

Troops surround Baghdad ‘Green Zone’ as embattled Prime Minister Maliki appears to cling to power | News.com.au
Iraq Special Forces Of Maliki Deployed In Baghdad
Iraq PM to sue president, security forces deploy across Baghdad - The West Australian
Omar Al-Nidawi | How Maliki Lost Iraq | Foreign Affairs | Foreign Affairs - The Slow Motion Collapse of a Sectarian Truce

China’s far west: A Chechnya in the making | The Economist - An iron fist in Xinjiang is fuelling an insurrection. China’s leadership must switch tactics - > THE Uighurs have never been particularly comfortable in China. Xinjiang, the region where these Turkic Muslims once formed the vast majority, came unwillingly into the Chinese empire

Israel and Hamas agree Egyptian proposal for 72-hour Gaza ceasefire | World news | The Guardian - Ceasefire to due to begin at midnight welcomed by people in Gaza, but experts fear long war ahead with sporadic truces

The CIA isn’t reporting any data to federal transparency site - The Washington Post (opaque is not transparent)

The Nixon Memorial - The New Yorker
Watergate and How the Presidency Really Works - Bloomberg View - Don’t be fooled by those who consider Watergate a minor matter. It contained major and minor crimes, and proved the president absolutely unfit for office.
The Weird Minutes Before Nixon’s Resignation - The New Yorker - “Have a Merry Christmas, fellas!”

Clinton Knocks Obama's 'Don't Do Stupid Stuff' Foreign Policy Approach (perfectly willing to do stupid stuff)
Barack Obama rebukes Syrian ‘fantasy’ - Nick Gass - POLITICO.com - In Syria, Obama said the idea that arming rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy.” (see, Hillary was a "hard-liner" who wanted to arm the "good" rebels)
Lindsey Graham: If Obama Doesn't Go On Offense, Terrorists Are 'Coming Here' (they will invade South Carolina in the Toyotas)
Obama's 'lid' theory of conflict in Iraq | WashingtonExaminer.com - "Our military is so effective that we can keep a lid on problems wherever we are, if we put enough personnel and resources into it," Obama told reporters Saturday morning.
Democrats Share the Blame for Tragedy of Iraq War - As a result, support for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War is not something that can simply be forgotten. There is no reason to be any more forgiving of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, or Harry Reid than we are of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice.

In Surprising Defeat, Hawaii Governor Loses Primary - NYTimes.com - After nearly four decades in elected office in Hawaii, Gov. Neil Abercrombie was dealt a stunning defeat

Ron Paul’s no Nirvana, and this isn’t the “Libertarian Moment” - Salon.com - Does disgust with Republicans and Democrats automatically mean Libertarians are the next hot thing? Oh God no
Libertarian Fantasies - NYTimes.com - But there’s what I would consider an even bigger problem: when it comes to substance, libertarians are living in a fantasy world. Often that’s quite literally true: Paul Ryan thinks that we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel.
The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Doesn't Add Up | Next New Deal


Anger, confrontation after fatal shooting of teen by Ferguson police officer : News - She then said she saw the teen, hands in the air, attempt to flee. Several shots hit Brown as he ran, Crenshaw said. She complied with a request that she give photos of the scene to authorities.
Missouri Rages After Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Teenager Michael Brown | The Daily Banter
Two men sought in fatal shooting of Orthodox rabbi in Northeast Miami-Dade - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com - A 60-year-old Orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn on his way to a Northeast Miami-Dade synagogue was gunned down Saturday morning during a likely random robbery attempt, according to Miami-Dade police and local Jewish community leaders.

Southeast could become an overdeveloped ‘megalopolis’ in the next half century - The Washington Post - Giant urban sprawl could pave over thousands of acres of forest and agriculture, connecting Raleigh to Atlanta by 2060 ("Urban" = "Suburban")

Colorado teen birthrate drops 40% - CNN.com - Colorado's Family Planning Initiative provided funding for 68 family clinics across the state to offer around 30,000 intrauterine devices and implants to young women at low or no cost.
PLOS ONE: Modifications to the Aesop's Fable Paradigm Change New Caledonian Crow Performances - Rook, Eurasian jay, and New Caledonian crow performances are similar to those of children under seven years of age when solving this task

Yes, Steven Salaita Was Fired, And No, It's Not Defensible - Lawyers, Guns & Money (for this tweet: "Zionists: transforming ‘anti-Semitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948.")


080914
Everything Changes by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The most anticipated book of the fall is undoubtedly Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, in part because Klein apparently calls out certain environmental organizations for playing pattycake with the fossil-fuel industry instead of taking a firm, principled stand against carbon pollution.

Ebola crisis: Guinea closes borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia | Society | theguardian.com - Authorities said the decision was taken primarily to prevent infected people crossing into Guinea, where hundreds have died of Ebola virus disease

US and Germany threaten Russia with 'additional consequences' over Ukraine | World news | theguardian.com - Moscow told it must not intervene without Kiev’s permission • Obama talks to Merkel on busy day for diplomacy

Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions
Hamas threatens major escalation in rocket strikes on Israel | World news | The Observer - Officials in Gaza say fighting will continue unless demands for lifting of blockade and prisoner release are met

Twitter / antifa_jlm: In defiance with govt silencing ... - attempts, hundreds currently protesting in Tel Aviv against the Gaza massacre
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Largest protest in #SouthAfrica ... - since fall of apartheid. 200,000 in #solidarity with #Gaza (meanwhile, in the rest of the world)
Twitter / YourAnonNews: .@IDFSpokesperson Are you getting ... - it yet? The people of this world are not at all happy with you.


Preventing a Slaughter in Iraq - NYTimes.com
Obama pledges long-term campaign to fight Iraq's spreading jihadist crisis | World news | The Observer - US president admits there is no 'quick fix', as minorities flee Isis onslaught in northern Iraq and British aircraft join relief efforts
David Miliband: the Iraq war and its aftermath contributed to current crisis | Politics | theguardian.com - Former foreign secretary accepts responsibility for leaving many people in the UK unwilling to support other military interventions ... contrast with those offered by Tony Blair, his political mentor, who has strongly rejected claims that the 2003 US-UK invasion is to blame for the terrorism gripping Iraq. (the Poodle is proud of his killings and destruction)
Getting Dragged Back Into Iraq | The American Conservative
Iraq Arms Kurds Against ISIS
Islamic State militants tell 300 Yazidi families: convert or die | Reuters

Obama: U.S. Airstrikes, Aid In Iraq Continues With No Set 'Timetable'
Eschaton: War Is The Answer - WaPo says that after we finish destroying all of the American weapons we need to supply more weapons - "The primary aim should not be to minimize U.S. involvement — as Mr. Obama would have it — but to defeat the forces that are destroying the region." (neocon WaPo wants more war)
The chilling irony of the first US strikes on Iraq - Quartz - To put it bluntly: It appears that the US is destroying artillery the US paid for, after it was abandoned to its enemies by troops the US paid to train
Why ISIL is worse than al-Qaeda—and any other terrorist group that came before - Quartz - Simply put, ISIL is an unholy combination of al-Qaeda, the Khmer Rouge, and the Nazis.
Thousands Of Iraqi Yazidis Flee To Syria After Kurds Open Safe Passage
Women Stoned To Death In Syria For Adultery

Daylight Video by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I’ll say this about Nixon: he was wrong, crooked, and vile in a great many ways—but on his worst day, he was better than George W. Bush.



Fools at the Fire - NYTimes.com - With this kind of loss comes blame. It’s President Obama’s fault. Why? Because everything is his fault in the inland West, where ignorance rides the airwaves of talk radio. Amid the conservative cant, a great irony: People who hate government most are the loudest voices demanding government action to save their homes.

Multi-Year Observations Prove Cosmic Dust, Building Block Of Planets, Are From Supernovas | Neomatica

Louisiana hospital unwittingly supplied execution drug to prison | World news | theguardian.com - Corrections department did not reveal drug’s intended use • ‘Had we known we never would have done it’

Tennessee Supreme Court Justices Survive GOP Attempt To Kick Them Out

Americans Say No To Guns For Blind People - only 23 percent of Americans said it should be legal for the blind to own guns at all, while 51 percent said it should be illegal (next: blind driving)

The War Photo No One Would Publish - The Atlantic - Let me say up front that I don’t like the press,” one Air Force officer declared, starting a January 1991 press briefing on a blunt note ... (hence) ... “It was one picture after another of a sunset with camels and a tank.” (how the miliary and TV sold the first Iraq war with no casualties)

Witnesses upset over Antioch arrest, police confiscating cellphone videos | abc7news.com

Papers, Please! - NYTimes.com - The irony of the domestic passport system was that, although it had been established as part of the effort to defend the slaveholders’ republic, it quickly evolved into an early harbinger of the old order’s impending doom

Amway Journalism | The Baffler - The grand poobah of the journopreneurship society is “hyperglocal thinkfluencer” Jeff Jarvis, who in the mid-aughts parlayed his popular, Iraq war-boosting blog into a professorship at the City University of New York graduate school of journalism.

NYC District Attorney Seriously Subpoenas Parody Bike Twitter Account - We have Barack Obama's birth certificate hidden in a pannier. (because they don't understand humor)

080814
Four new Ebola cases in Nigeria, all related to American who brought virus there - The Washington Post

Iraqi Official: Hundreds Of Yazidi Women Held Captive By Islamic State (child brides of Allah)
US forces bomb Isis militant positions in northern Iraq | World news | The Guardian - Air strikes target frontlines around Kurdish capital of Irbil • Deployment of US combat troops on ground ruled out
Never Can Say Goodbye - Esquire - With which long-term moral debt of the extended Bush family would you like to discuss first? The one that Junior locked the country into by kicking over the hornet's nest in order to drain the swamp, or the one Poppy ran up by selling the Kurds down the river in 1991? ... "This is murderous religious fanaticism run amok, and the modern mind occasionally fails to grasp what that's all about, since it seems to the modern mind to be a relic of distant times."
Wolfowitz: We 'won' the Iraq War | TheHill
ISIS: 'We Will Raise The Flag Of Allah In The White House' | The Daily Caller
The Islamic State (Part 1) | VICE News
Israel's atrocities in Gaza prompt unprecedented political fallout

Gaza conflict: talks continue in Cairo as rockets fly in both directions | World news | The Guardian - Five Palestinians have been killed since the 72-hour ceasefire ended on Friday morning
Palestinians returning home find Israeli troops left faeces and venomous graffiti | World news | The Guardian - Ahmed Owedat also found soldiers had thrown his TVs, fridge, and computers from upstairs windows and slashed furniture
The Contemporary Condition: Diasporic Politics Boomerang (how young American Jews are captured by Zionist nationalism)

Malaysia Airlines shares suspended as state buyout is announced | Business | theguardian.com - Beleaguered company to be taken fully into state hands for restructuring in wake of MH370 and MH17 disasters
China Will Install More Solar This Year Than The U.S. Ever Has | ThinkProgress

Spy court orders release of phone surveillance opinion | TheHill - The government needs to release a partially declassified opinion from the federal court overseeing surveillance activities about its bulk collection of phone records, the court said.
Leaked Docs Show Spyware Used to Snoop on U.S. Computers - ProPublica - Software created by the controversial U.K. based Gamma Group International was used to spy on computers that appear to be located in the United States.
Numbers Tell the Story of Our Government's Watchlisting Binge | American Civil Liberties Union
Anonymous Emailing Service Leak Shuts Down | TechCrunch

The Lie Behind 1.2 Billion Stolen Passwords

Inequality Is a Drag - NYTimes.com
The Big, Long, 30-Year Conservative Lie - The Daily Beast - Inequality, conservatives insist, is natural. Trying to combat it will slow growth. Well, guess who now says otherwise? Standard and Poor’s. (St Ronnie's big lie)

Morning Plum: As GOP lurches right on immigration, sane Republicans watch in horror - The Washington Post (fueling the hated)

Hullabaloo - What can we do about these right wing scam artists? One activist has an idea.
Wingnut scams the troops: How Tea Party quack uses fake charities to get rich - Salon.com - Meet Sal Russo, the man accused of running a faux veterans charity and Tea Party PAC -- to shadily pocket millions
Exclusive: ‘Pro-Troop’ Charity Pays Off Tea Party Cronies Instead - The Daily Beast - Move America Forward has collected millions to send care packages to U.S. troops. But its assets have been used to benefit conservative political consulting firms close to its Tea Party founder.
How the Tea Party became as corrupt as the Beltway it loathes - The Week - The Tea Party movement started in opposition to Washington's self-dealing. But the sad irony is that they have become mirror images.
alicublog: Fake It Till You Make It. - There are plenty of yuks -- in both the vaudeville and the visceral sense --in the NYT Magazine story, "Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?
No, America Is Not Turning Libertarian -- NYMag

Human exodus may have reached China 100,000 years ago - life - 08 August 2014 - New Scientist - OUR direct ancestors may have found their way out of Africa much earlier than we think. As new fossil remains emerge from China and south-east Asia, the traditional story of how we left Africa is being challenged. (130,000BCE early exodus from Africa)

Judge strikes down Techtopus wage theft settlement | PandoDaily - As we’ve reported earlier, this is the first case experts know of in which antitrust law was used to successfully certify a class action wage theft lawsuit. (Apple and Google are evil)
Judge orders rape victim to hand over access to Facebook page | World news | theguardian.com - Defence compares allowing access to undergoing eye exam • NJ judge will review postings for hints sex was consensual
Are there any cool hidden pages on well-known sites you can't get to via hyperlink? : AskReddit (konami codes)
What's a question there is no answer to? : AskReddit

080714
If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, 'We're Fucked': Climatologist | Motherboard - This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw "vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor" (Republicans have already killed the planet)
Meet The Methane - Esquire
Fresh Focus on Siberian Permafrost as Hole Count Rises - NYTimes.com

Hawaiians prepared but not panicked as Hurricane Iselle approaches | World news | theguardian.com - Approach of Iselle and trailing Julio has disrupted some tourism and travel, and led to the closure of some schools
Against Earlier Predictions, Hurricane Iselle Isn't Slowing Down - Hawaii has been directly hit by hurricanes only three times since 1950

White House Must Decide Who Will Be Named in the CIA ‘Torture Report’ - The Daily Beast - The CIA and the Senate can’t agree on how to mask the identities of those who helped the U.S. in its secret detention. Whose identities will Obama protect? (all the evildoers)
The CIA is getting away with keeping every important secret about torture | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A definitive Senate report about one of America’s darkest periods continues to be withheld – precisely because the agency behind it refuses to come clean
NYT Will Use The Word Torture, Finally - The New York Times announced on Thursday that it will use the word torture to describe the United States' controversial interrogation tactics on terror suspects.

Campaign Mounts to Declassify 9/11 Report’s References to Alleged Saudi Involvement | VICE News - Nearly 13 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the extent of Saudi involvement in the deaths of almost 3,000 people remains unclear — but according to members of Congress and the families of victims, information about this has been suppressed ever since the publication of a 2002 congressional investigation into the plot. (the camel in the room)

Airstrikes on ISIS Militants Have Begun, Kurds and Iraqis Say - NYTimes.com
IRBIL, Iraq: Jets, explosions reported near Islamic State lines as Kurds beg for U.S. help | Iraq | McClatchy DC
Iraq’s Religious Minorities are Being Slaughtered and ISIS Just Captured the Last Town Giving Them Shelter - The Daily Beast - ISIS just captured the Iraqi town of Sinjar in the first major defeat of Kurdish forces. Religious groups that had taken refuge there are in imminent danger of being massacred. (mission accomplished)
US considers air strikes and air drops to help Iraqis trapped on mountain by Isis | World news | theguardian.com - Move comes as Iraq's largest Christian city was abandoned as jihadist militants advance through country's north-west
Rebels Capture Iraq’s Largest Dam - NYTimes.com
Mosul Dam: Why Control of a Terrifying Dam in Iraq Is Life or Death for Half Million People - ABC News - The question of control is a critical one for the millions of Iraqis who live downstream of the Mosul Dam all the way down the Tigris to Baghdad, because if the dam was taken over, ISIS would be in control of what effectively could be a major weapon of mass destruction – one that the U.S. military said in 2006 was, without the help of brutal jihadists, already “the most dangerous dam in the world.”
The Islamic State’s bloody campaign to exterminate minorities: ‘Even Genghis Khan didn’t do this’ - The Washington Post

Hamas says Israel must lift blockade to stop Gaza war restarting as talks flag | World news | theguardian.com - Reopening Rafah crossing most likely area for agreement in Cairo talks as Hamas rejects Israeli demand to disarm
Obsessive Gaza coverage is fanning antisemitism | Eylon Aslan-Levy | Comment is free | theguardian.com (here's a propaganda piece that really did go over very well with the commenters: "Criticising the killing of over 400 children is considered anti- semitism then truly the world has gone mad")

Russia Extends Ban On Food Products From U.S., Europe, Canada And Australia Over Ukraine Sanctions

Argentina files legal action against the US at The Hague over debt default | World news | The Guardian - Argentina asks the international court of justice to act over an alleged breach of its sovereignty after hedge funds dispute

Edward Snowden given permission to stay in Russia for three more years | World news | The Guardian - NSA whistleblower's lawyer tells Russian news agency Snowden has been granted three-year residency after year's asylum ran out
WASHINGTON: Since its founding, the CIA rarely has met a secret it doesn’t like | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC
The Line Between FBI Stings and Entrapment Has Not Blurred, It's Gone | VICE News
Leaked Files: German Spy Company Helped Bahrain Hack Arab Spring Protesters - The Intercept

Fewer Americans seek unemployment benefits on heels of strong jobs report | Business | theguardian.com - Weekly applications for unemployment aid drop to bring average to the lowest level since before recession began

Va. GOP official resigns after controversial Facebook post - The Washington Post - A Virginia GOP official who posted a message on his Facebook page that questioned whether Muslim Americans have made positive contributions to U.S. society has resigned.
Local Kansas GOP official: ‘Offending Muslims is the duty of any civilized person. Especially with a .45.’ | The Kansas City Star

What do Americans say should happen to child border crossers? - CBS News

War Against Whites? I Think Not - NYTimes.com

The Plagiarism Dead-Enders - Perhaps the strangest part of the New York Times' story on Rick Perlstein's "plagiarism" accusers was the reference to a review that had yet to be published.
On what academic planet does a 14 page paper merit John Walsh an M.A.? - The Washington Post (it was just the tip of the iceberg)
No. (what's wrong with the NYT in one sentence)

Tennessee Drug Tests Welfare Applicants, Discovers Less Than One Percent Use Drugs | ThinkProgress

Featured news - Link between vitamin D and dementia risk confirmed - University of Exeter - Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a substantially increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in older people, according to the most robust study of its kind ever conducted.

Mom Calls Cops After Discovering Son, 15, Was Watching Porn On Living Room TV | The Smoking Gun - The report does not indicate what the teen was doing in his room.

080614
Climate scientist drops the F-bomb after startling Arctic discovery - Salon.com - If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd.
Oil refinery threatened by sea-level rise, asks government to fix problem | Grist - An oil refinery in Delaware is asking taxpayers to pay for protecting it from rising sea levels. The refinery is on the waterfront, and rising tides and extreme storms could threaten it.
Did I ever tell you how much I despise Ronald Reagan? - Then…fucking Ronald fucking Reagan fucking fucked everything up. Trees cause pollution. Regulation is bad for the economy. And every Republican since has followed the same script, right up to “drill baby drill”. Even the Democrats are getting in the act. And the end result is that everything is turning to shit again.

Ebola outbreak: nurse who treated first victim in Nigeria dies | World news | theguardian.com - Nurse and five other people now battling the virus had helped care for Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died from Ebola
Ebola in west Africa: the outbreak country by country | Society | theguardian.com - The outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus currently sweeping through parts of west Africa has so far killed an estimated 673 people. As of 23 July there had been a total of 1,202 confirmed, probable or suspected infections

MH17: Dutch prime minister calls halt to search for victims | World news | theguardian.com - Mark Rutte praised the effort of the recovery mission but said that it was too dangerous to continue at this time
Hagel: Growing Threat Of Russia Invading Ukraine
ISIS, the Yazidis, Kurdistan, and the Threat of Massacres in Iraq
40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death | World news | theguardian.com - Members of minority Yazidi sect face slaughter if they go down and dehydration if they stay, while 130,000 fled to Kurdish north
Govt bans support, endorsement of ISIL | The Jakarta Post
Indian teenager cuts man's penis off after he attempts to rape her - Asia - World - The Independent - An Indian teenager took a knife to a so-called tantric who allegedly tried to rape her for a second time and cut off his penis.

Gaza ceasefire enters second day as delegations prepare for Cairo talks | World news | theguardian.com - Israeli and Palestinian representatives set for tough talks aimed at securing permanent ceasefire after 72-hour truce ends
After the genocide: What’s next for Gaza and the hope for Middle East peace? - Salon.com - Nearly 2,000 are dead and a cease-fire brings little peace of mind. But there may be glimmers of hope after tragedy (hard to see this as anything but a complete disaster for Netanfuckyu and Israel)
Millennials are over Israel: A new generation, outraged over Gaza, rejects Washington’s reflexive support - Salon.com - Angered by the immoral and inhumane assault on Gaza, Gen Y is shaking up the conventional view of Mideast politics
Israel has broken my heart: I’m a rabbi in mourning for a Judaism being murdered by Israel - Salon.com - I've always been proud of Israel, but the brutal Gaza assault requires Jews worldwide to be honest, not nationalist (can American Jews break with Likud?)

@Congressedits nabs Wikipedia change calling Snowden “American traitor” | Ars Technica - Brouhaha comes as "Right to be Forgotten" promises to delete Wikipedia pages in Europe.
As Evidence Mounts, It's Getting Harder to Defend Edward Snowden | Steptoe Cyberblog (Stewart Baker, NSA propagandist)
How Al-Qaeda Uses Encryption Post-Snowden (Part 2)

Top gov't spyware company hacked; Gamma's FinFisher leaked | ZDNet - The maker of secretive FinFisher spyware -- sold exclusively to governments and police agencies -- has been hacked, revealing its clients, prices and its effectiveness across an unbelievable span of apps, operating systems and more.
Anonymous Says It Hacked the US Government Personnel Database Before China | Motherboard

Aaron's Law Is Doomed Leaving US Hacking Law 'Broken' - Forbes - A bill named after the late internet activist Aaron Swartz that was supposed to update much-criticized US hacking law is almost certain to be left to wither in Congress (or, "blocked by Republicans" like everything else)

Justin Amash’s absolutely amazing victory speech - The Washington Post

Beyond the border | World | The Guardian - Texas has become the deadliest state in the US for undocumented immigrants.

Gay marriage fights from four US states set for federal court hearing | World news | theguardian.com - Large demonstrations expected outside historic session on gay marriage in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee

Why I Want Elisabeth Warren in the Senate for the Next Hundred Years » Balloon Juice
A New Report Argues Inequality Is Causing Slower Growth. Here’s Why It Matters. - NYTimes.com

In States Where It's Wanted, Obamacare Is Working Well

White House Weighs Actions to Deter Overseas Tax Flight - NYTimes.com

Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows - The Washington Post (potheads stay home and eat fritos)

Democrats’ White Working Class Problem Not Just a “Southern Thing” (it's the stupidity problem)
Democrats' White Working Class Problem Isn't Just in the South | New Republic
Battles and Wars in the GOP by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
To pick staff, Scalise turns to lobbyist - Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com - House Majority Whip Steve Scalise got some help interviewing potential new hires for his press shop from an unlikely source: a federal lobbyist.
Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - We're going to have to open the big function room at the cafe on the day when we have everyone over to say bon voyage to Dinesh D'Souza, when he begins his long-scheduled journey Up the River. (grifters)
63 Texas Republicans Sign Court Brief Saying Marriage Equality Could Lead To Legal Incest, Pedophilia
Former Top NYT Editor Calls Paper's Drug Testing Policy 'Increasingly Difficult To Defend' - Former NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller said the company's internal pot policy "proves that reports of the death of irony are much exaggerated."

Scientists introduce new cosmic connectivity: Quantum pigeonhole paradox -- ScienceDaily - One of the most exotic aspects of nature is quantum non-locality which was first discovered more than four decades ago. It is referred to as "the most profound discovery of science." a new kind of quantum connectivity between particles which transcends these limitations. This connectivity is happening all the time on a much bigger, cosmic scale. the present is not only affected by the past but it is also affected by the future.
Paradoxical pigeons are the latest quantum conundrum - physicsworld.com - "You can put an infinite number of pigeons in two boxes, and no two pigeons will be in the same box

Aspirin a day could dramatically cut cancer risk, says biggest study yet | Science | The Guardian - Daily pill for middle-aged could save 130,000 lives over 20 years in Britain alone, scientists suggest ...
Could aspirin be the simple and effective way to beat deadly diseases? | Health | Life & Style | Daily Express - OLDER people can fight dementia and cancer with a daily dose of the humble aspirin, scientists say.
Aspirin for heart attack: Chew or swallow? - By all three measurements, chewed aspirin worked fastest

Bold Obama Stand Shakes Up Net Neutrality Debate - And I personally -- the position of my administration, as well as I think a lot of companies here is you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to various users."
Obama on net neutrality: My administration is against Internet fast lanes : technology (reddit is not impressed; Obama is extremely unpopular)

The Internet Is Losing Its Shit Over Moms Losing Their Shit at Skate Parks | Motherboard - The nascent community is a spinoff of r/publicfreakouts— which you should go to immediately, if you're looking for a real K-hole plunge into the entitlement and downright assholery of a huge swatch of the sub/urban human condition—and is already a telling case study on authority and the diffusion of responsibility in public spaces, like skate parks.

“Memory holes” blanket Wikipedia as links disappear in search results | Ars Technica - "In doing so, the European court abandoned its responsibility to protect one of the most important and universal rights: the right to seek, receive, and impart information,"
Artist uses DMCA to remove criticism of his impossibly shaped female characters | Ars Technica - Randy Queen has apologized and says he will no longer attack critics of his work. You can read about it here.
Whitehats recover, release keys to CryptoLocker ransomware | Ars Technica
REPORT: Russian Hackers Stole 1.2 Billion Internet Credentials - “Hackers did not just target U.S. companies, they targeted any website they could get, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to very small websites. And most of these sites are still vulnerable,”

080514
Top senator rejects CIA torture report redactions ahead of public release | World news | theguardian.com - Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein threatens to delay release in an attempt to reverse deletion of ‘key facts’ - an attempt to reverse redactions that “eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions”. (Obama in the WH basement with his magic marker could give a shit about your so-called "right to know")

Soldiers deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia to contain Ebola outbreak | World news | The Guardian - Troops set up roadblocks to ensure that only health personnel can move in and out of the hardest-hit communities
Bangladesh Ferry Sinking Kills At Least 125
Ukraine's revolution dream stalling due to war in the east and political stasis | World news | The Guardian - President Yanukovych is long gone, but war-weariness and a sense of politics as usual are fostering whispers of a 'new Maidan'

Afghan soldier kills US general in attack on military academy outside Kabul | World news | theguardian.com - Attack at British-run facility wounds 15 and claims life of US major general, highest-ranking American casualty of 13-year war

Relief among Israelis as troops pull out of Gaza – but no sense of victory | World news | theguardian.com - Israelis living near the Gazan border are uncertain whether the four-week war will bring security and stability, let alone peace
Israel: We caught kidnapper behind murder of the 3 teens | Jewish Telegraphic Agency - A West Bank man said to be the leader of the terrorist cell that kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June was arrested ... A gag order on reporting the arrest, which took place more than three weeks ago, was lifted Tuesday evening, according to Israeli media. (oh, that means ...)
Lady Warsi resigns over UK’s ‘morally reprehensible’ stance on Gaza | Politics | The Guardian - Foreign Office minister announces on Twitter that she is standing down because she can no longer support government policy
Professor Ilan Pappé: Israel Has Chosen to be a "Racist Apartheid State" with U.S. Support | Democracy Now! - Israeli professor and historian Ilan Pappé. "I think Israel in 2014 made a decision that it prefers to be a racist apartheid state and not a democracy," Pappé says. "It still hopes that the United States will license this decision and provide it with the immunity to continue, with the necessary implication of such a policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians wherever they are
Part 2: Weapons Expert Theodore Postol Asks, Is Israel’s Iron Dome Really an Iron Sieve? | Democracy Now! - He estimates the Iron Dome, which is partially built by Raytheon, intercepts just 5 percent of rockets fired at Israel. (but Star Wars! and military contractors!)
Terrorism in the Israeli Attack on Gaza - The Intercept
Ari Kohen's Blog — When Genocide is Permissible | Yochanan Gordon - Let’s say you’re a nice Jewish boy and you’re thinking about writing a post for your Times of Israel blog in which you argue in favor of committing genocide. Let’s say you actually go so far as to title your post “When Genocide is Permissible” and you write this paragraph:
What's different this time? - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I’m intrigued by the number of pundits who previously professed strong support for Likud’s policies are experience a crisis of faith this time around. (Prominent examples: Linker, Sullivan, Chait, Klein.) (the instatwitterfacenets)

New leaker disclosing US secrets, government concludes - CNN.com - there's a new leaker exposing national security documents in the aftermath of surveillance disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, U.S. officials tell CNN.
Spy Agency Stole Scoop From Media Outlet And Handed It To The AP - The government, it turned out, had "spoiled the scoop," an informally forbidden practice in the world of journalism. To spoil a scoop, the subject of a story, when asked for comment, tips off a different, typically friendlier outlet in the hopes of diminishing the attention the first outlet would have received. (watch how they rewrite the truth)
Barack Obama's Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers - The InterceptThe Intercept - By Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux
US terrorism database has doubled in size since near-miss attack in 2009 | World news | theguardian.com - Number of names on ‘Tide’ database has grown from 550,000 to 1.1m in years since failed Christmas Day bombing - "The government does not need evidence that links someone to terrorism in order for the person to be included in the database." (terrorists are winning)


Arkansas, Kentucky Report Sharpest Drops in Uninsured Rate - Medicaid expansion, state exchanges linked to faster reduction in uninsured rate

The Noisy, Quixotic, Delusional Tea Partiers of August - The Atlantic - Republican insurgents have caused lots of trouble but won few victories this year. But GOP incumbents aren't out of danger yet.

Sliming Rick Perlstein - NYTimes.com - OK, this is grotesque. Rick Perlstein has a new book, continuing his awesomely informative history of the rise of movement conservatism — and he’s facing completely spurious charges of plagiarism.
Ratfcking For Fun And Profit - Esquire - Big ups to Dr. K, for his stalwart defense of Rick Perlstein, whose latest book is under pre-emptive assault by various members of the Reagan Undead (NYT: "two sides")
George Packer on Rick Perlstein’s “The Invisible Bridge” - Rick Perlstein chronicles the fall of the American consensus and the rise of the right.
Craig Shirley, Rick Perlstein: Read the letters at the center of the new Reagan book "plagiarism" controversy.

Rick Perry’s deadly “charm”: May have executed innocent man … but dopey press loves his new glasses! - Salon.com - The evidence keeps building that Texas covered up its execution of an innocent man. Oh well! Isn't he dreamy?
Police Commissioner attacks City Paper article and reporters :: Blogs :: The Naked City :: Philadelphia City Paper

Exclusive: ‘Pro-Troop’ Charity Pays Off Tea Party Cronies Instead - The Daily Beast - Move America Forward has collected millions to send care packages to U.S. troops. But its assets have been used to benefit conservative political consulting firms close to its Tea Party founder.

Her Throne Defunct, a Princess Fights Eviction From Her Manhattan Walk-Up - NYTimes.com - her new landlord, Avi Dishi, paid a visit to the 1,600-square-foot apartment that October. (breeding shows)

Rosetta spacecraft set to rendezvous with rubber-duck comet | Science | The Guardian - European probe due to catch up with oddly-shaped comet 67P/CG on Wednesday and prepare to make history by going into orbit around it

Rules for the Marijuana Market - NYTimes.com

080414
WASHINGTON: Obama officials, Senate intelligence panel spar over deletions from torture report | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC (President "Torture Coverup" ensuring his legacy)
Senate Republicans to issue minority report on CIA 'torture' techniques | World news | theguardian.com - Saxby Chambliss: ‘information gleaned took down Bin Laden’ • Majority to allege techniques were unnecessary and unhelpful (the torture caucus repeating Cheney's lies)

Questions of Weapons and Warnings in Past Barrage on a Gaza Shelter - NYTimes.com - An examination of an Israeli barrage that put a line of at least 10 shells through a United Nations school sheltering displaced Palestinians here last week suggests that Israeli troops paid little heed to warnings to safeguard such sites and may have unleashed weapons inappropriate for urban areas despite rising alarm over civilian deaths.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemns shelling of Gaza school as 'criminal act' - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demands those responsible for the 'gross violation of international humanitarian law' be held accountable. (Netanyahu to the Hague!)
State Department Condemns 'Disgraceful' Shelling Of U.N. School In Gaza
Israel calls partial truce amid outrage at third strike on UN school | World news | The Guardian (read the comments: Israel seems to have completely lost the PR war)
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Understanding genocide can ... - be hard, but these colorful charts about the monstrosity happening in #Gaza might help pic.twitter.com/yzCezc9QnE
Twitter / wikileaks: US docs show the secret birth ... - of Hamas; how #Israel let #Hamas grow while cracking down on the secular #PLO https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/88JERUSALEM3168_a.html#efmA8dA9H … #gaza
Moshe Feiglin calls for concentration camps in Gaza and 'conquest of Gaza Strip' | Mail Online
Glenn Greenwald: U.S. Media Coverage Of Israel-Gaza Conflict Gets An 'F'

Russia holds huge military exercises near Ukraine border | World news | theguardian.com - War games begin as Ukrainian army advances on rebel-held Donetsk and Kiev accuses Russia of cross-border artillery fire
Obama Dismisses Russia: It 'Doesn't Make Anything' - President Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a nation that "doesn't make anything" and said in an interview with the Economist magazine that the West needs to be "pretty firm" with China as Beijing pushes to expand its role in the world economy ... Russia is the world's third-largest oil producer and second-largest natural gas producer. (that was McCain's line: just a giant gas station)
To Evade Russians, Plane Crossed Into Sweden - NYTimes.com - In an encounter reminiscent of the Cold War, an American reconnaissance plane crossed into Swedish airspace last month as it sought to avoid being intercepted by Russian fighters, American military officials said on Sunday.
USAID programme used young Latin Americans to incite Cuba rebellion | World news | theguardian.com - HIV workshop was ‘perfect excuse’ for political goals • Revelations follow failure of ‘Cuban Twitter' effort (to "foment rebellion" - Obama blunder program screwed up health care again)
WikiLeaks reveals Australian gagging order over political bribery allegations | Media | The Guardian - Superinjunction reported to have been issued on 19 June to block reporting of claims involving international politicians

The Fourth Branch | Tom Engelhardt (spies)
'Torture report' delayed in redaction fight | TheHill (Obama still hiding big pieces of the truth)

Mayor Collins: 'Our water is safe' - Toledo Blade - Residents were told to flush their water systems if they had not used water since Saturday. Directions on how to flush homes and businesses would be put on the city‘?s Web site.
A toxic algae scare has left 500,000 people in Ohio without drinking water - Vox - That phosphorus can come from fertilizer runoff from farms and lawns as well as from livestock pens or malfunctioning septic systems. A bout of strong sunshine this summer also appears to have helped the algae bloom grow.

The Presidency and the Press | Rolling Stone (origin of "Don't do stupid shit.")

Alabama GOP congressman tells Laura Ingraham: Democrats are waging ‘war on whites’

The Prosecutor and the Snitch | The Marshall Project - Did Texas execute an innocent man? (yes, and they knew it)
A Reminder: Texas Murdered An Almost Certainly Innocent Man - Lawyers, Guns & Money


Charting culture - YouTube - This animation distils hundreds of years of culture into just five minutes. A team of historians and scientists wanted to map cultural mobility, so they tracked the births and deaths of notable individuals like David, King of Israel, and Leonardo da Vinci, from 600 BC to the present day.




080314
State of emergency in California as wildfires spread from Oregon | World news | theguardian.com - Governor Jerry Brown declare state of emergency Lightning, high temperatures and drought increase threat
Lightning at Venice Beach? California faces really weird – and deadly – weather — The Daily Climate - Doorstep logoSouthern California's coast rarely sees lightning storms, because the weather is so stable. Could drought be destabilizing things?

Earthquake kills hundreds of people in south-west China | World news | The Guardian - At least 1,400 injured and 180 missing after thousands of homes collapse in 6.1\-magnitude quake in Yunnan province

Condition of Ebola-infected US doctor has improved, says CDC director | Society | theguardian.com - it was encouraging to see Dr Kent Brantly walk out of an ambulance unassisted when he arrived at Atlanta’s Emory University hospital from Liberia on Saturday. (Trump asks for him to be deported)

IDF to complete destruction of Hamas tunnels by Sunday; Troops begin withdrawal | JPost | Israel News
Strike Near UN School In Gaza Leaves 10 Dead
State Department Condemns 'Disgraceful' Shelling Of U.N. School In Gaza
Why Americans See Israel the Way They Do - NYTimes.com
Hiding War Crimes Behind a Question | Consortiumnews - Doesn’t Israel have a right to defend itself?
Oz: 'Lose-lose situation for Israel' | World | DW.DE | 30.07.2014 - Israel's ground offensive against Gaza is excessive, Israeli writer Amos Oz tells DW. But he also criticizes Hamas' strategy, in which both Israeli and Palestinian victims boost the organization's standing in Gaza.
Twitter / GracchusX: Grosse manifestation de soutien ... - aux Palestiniens devant la Maison Blanche.
Twitter / DrBasselAbuward: This pic made me CRY No place ... - for him in morgues so they put him the ice cream refrigerator
Twitter / Op_Israel: @YourAnonNews Israel lost the ... - social media war. #GazaUnderAttack #IsraelUnderFire
Twitter / DrBasselAbuward: UN spokesperson: We need 30 ... - years to rebuild #Gaza.
Twitter / YourAnonNews: We have it on good authority ... - that "I killed 13 Palestinian kids in a day": Israeli sniper is in permanent hiding:
IDF Sniper Admits On Instagram To Murdering 13 Gaza Children
Gaza Strip: Did Israel Defence Forces Soldier David Ovadia Really 'Kill 13 Children?' - Sparking outcry, Ovadia is alleged to have written: "I killed 13 children today and you are next f*****g Muslims go to hell b*****s." (but IBT says it's "fake")
Israeli soldiers pose for photos while abusing Palestinian child | The Electronic Intifada

Ukrainian army closes in on Donetsk as rebel fighters call on Russia for help | World news | theguardian.com - Advances by Ukrainian army lead to intense fighting as separatists renew calls for Moscow to send troops (more troops)
Libya violence escalates with 22 killed in battle for Tripoli airport | World news | theguardian.com - Royal Navy reported to be preparing evacuation of Britons as heavily armed rebels shell ‘civilian targets’

Israel spied on John Kerry during failed peace talks – report | World news | theguardian.com - Der Spiegel says Israelis eavesdropped on phone calls State Department offers no comment (oh, the ironies)
Israel Intelligence Eavesdropped on Phone Calls By John Kerry - spiegel online

Liz Cheney Calls Obama A 'Disgrace' For Discussing Post-9/11 Torture (team torture fires back)

Sovereign Citizens Now Considered Top Terrorist Threat In United States | Crooks and Liars - Forget Islamic extremists! A consortium of law enforcement agencies ranks sovereign citizens as the highest national security threat.

Toledo state of emergency leads to stores emptied of bottled water | World news | theguardian.com - Long lines at distribution centres in Ohio’s fourth-largest city • 400,000 affected after toxins discovered in water supply - after Ohio’s fourth-largest city told residents not to drink from its water supply that was fouled by toxins possibly from algae on Lake Erie.
Toledo water test results are improving but region still has a long way, mayor says. - Toledo Blade

The middle class is 20 percent poorer than it was in 1984 - The Washington Post - Nostalgia is just about the only thing the middle class can still afford. That's because median wealth is about 20 percent lower today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was in 1984. Yes, that's three lost decades. (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama)

Hullabaloo - This is why we need a fighter, not a conciliator, in the White House - Republicans can basically do anything they want and never get blamed for it. Most voters don't even know who's in control of Congress anyway. When something goes wrong, all they know is (a) something went wrong, and (b) Barack Obama is the president and he should have done something about it.

After Border Bill Passage, Conservatives Crow About New House Leadership | TIME - The new House Republican leadership woos the party of 'Hell No'
Today in Republican Minority Outreach - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Steve King threatens that if Obama delays deporting undocumented immigrants, Republicans will impeach him.
Honduras - Lawyers, Guns & Money : When Republicans want to send children back to Central America, this is the horror they want to send them back to. (GOP face of evil)
The Honduran Coup And US Involvement | Global Research (we supported the oligarchy in their overthrow of democracy as usual and it's not our responsbility the country went to hell)

Arizona inmate Joseph Wood was injected 15 times with execution drugs | World news | theguardian.com - Convicted murderer took nearly two hours to die • Executioners used experimental drug combination (very cruel and unusual)

Scientists discover why some thrive on less sleep than others - Yahoo News - The gene in question is called BHLHE41 and the variant is called p.Tyr362His for identification purposes, and individuals with the variant slept just five hours per night on average.

Please Allow Myself to Introduce… Myself » Balloon Juice (John Cole in detox and recovery)

The Abortion Ministry of Dr. Willie Parker - Esquire - In Mississippi, there is only one clinic where a woman can go if she needs an abortion. The state is trying to close it down. At that clinic, there is a doctor who tends to the needs of these women, and he has to fly in from out of state to do it. There is no shutting him down.

Pro-marijuana company Leafly takes out full-page New York Times ad | World news | theguardian.com - Ad follows Grey Lady editorial for federal legalisation Leafly chief operating officer cites ‘tipping point’

Twitter / rebeccaonion: Handy quiz for wives, from ... - Ladies' Home Journal (May 1957, Patriarchy)
KlausFenrir comments on Wife is away from home and has her husband on the phone. In the background, she heard "What can I do for you, sir?" He then hung up. Wife immediately assumes he is with a hooker and literally rallies the neighbourhood to knock on her door to check on him.

Ex-Facebook President Sean Parker Donating Millions to Anti-Gay, Far Right Candidates | Breitbart Unmasked (technodudebro superrichguy is afraid of his inner gay)

080214
Superstitions Are Helping Ebola Spread -- Science of Us - In the West African nations in the midst of the outbreak, shame and magical thinking may be hindering some people from getting the care they need
5 things to know about Ebola outbreak in W. Africa
Trump Goes On Ebola Rant: The Plague Will Spread Inside Our Borders! - "People that go to far away places to help out are great," Trump wrote in one tweet, "but must suffer the consequences!" (by dying not here)

Nathan Thrall · Hamas’s Chances · LRB 21 August 2014 - This solution would of course have been available to Israel, the US, Egypt and the PA in the weeks and months before the war began, before so many lives were shattered. (v good history)

Netanyahu Tells U.S. 'Not To Ever Second Guess Me Again' On Hamas - The Obama administration on Friday condemned "outrageous" violations of an internationally brokered Gaza cease-fire by Palestinian militants and called the apparent abduction of an Israeli soldier a "barbaric" action.
The Heartbreaking Image of a Newborn in Gaza -- NYMag
Gaza Strip: 'Palestinian Genocide is Permissible' Claims Israeli Writer
Chinese Hackers Did Not Steal Israel's Iron Dome Blueprints Claims Former Israeli Intelligence Officer

It’s Not Easy to Hold the CIA Accountable by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Shortly before he died in July 1988, former CIA officer David Atlee Phillips said that “My final take on the assassination [of JFK] is there was a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers.” (the deselected fact of Obama's total capture by the CIA: danger to him personally, not "sanctimoniousness" (!) about torture because no one would ever be sanctimonious about torture: Obama is going around his own bend)

Obama admits CIA 'tortured some folks' but stands by Brennan over spying | World news | theguardian.com - Obama has not apologised for torture. He's rationalised it and refused to punish it. His attitude is basically 'stuff happens but let's move on'.
Barack Obama: ‘We Tortured Some Folks’ -- NYMag - We brutalized some dudes. We put some of y’all in stress positions
CIA Torture Was Unnecessary, Senate Report To Conclude (but America is a bunch of fucking sadists)

News from The Associated Press - TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Toxins possibly from algae on Lake Erie fouled the water supply of the state's fourth-largest city Saturday, forcing officials to issue warnings not to drink the water and the governor to declare a state of emergency as worried residents descended on stores, quickly clearing shelves of bottled water.

Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks: All 500,000 DREAMers, '8 Million' Undocumented Immigrants Should Be Deported

Everything Reminds WSJ Columnist of Hitler -- NYMag - Stripped of any pretense to prescriptive analysis or specific policy goals, Henninger has instead opened a window into the underlying pathology of his worldview. Reading the column is like listening to Dick Cheney mutter in his sleep.

How House Republicans Sabotage Their Presidential Candidates - NationalJournal.com - Friday's immigration vote and others like it are repelling the voters a GOP nominee will need to take the White House.

Proof the GOP’s newfound “libertarianism” is a big ol’ sham - Salon.com - How the Koch brothers and their conservative allies are using the "L" word to disguise their latest schemes

Eric Garner's Chokehold Death Leads To Push For Criminal Charges - "I knew that was the cause because I saw it," he said. "Now somebody should get charged." (killer cops always walk)

Secret founder doesn’t care if teenagers kill themselves, as long as they don’t cause a PR headache | PandoDaily (technodudebrorapeisok and HuffPo is a content-stealer)
SERIOUSLY? Secret’s PR head complains about people writing horrible things without accountability | PandoDaily (which is Secret's reason for being, where was their hypocisy detector?)

How Did Bob Dylan Get So Weird? -- Vulture

Did Lower Testosterone Help Civilize Humanity? | University of Utah News

BadUSB Exploit: Exposes Unpatchable Security Flaw and Hacks USB-Devices Undetected - BadUSB infection alters USB firmware and wreaks havoc on affected systems

080114
California Is Now Experiencing Its Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded | ThinkProgress
Food Bets Dwindle as El Niño Disappears - MoneyBeat - WSJ

Atlanta's Emory University Hospital to receive patient infected with Ebola | Society | theguardian.com - The patient is expected to arrive ‘within the next several days’, the university said in a statement

Israeli military announce they will bomb al-Shifa hospital in Gaza | Mondoweiss
Gaza crisis: Obama sees 'very hard' path 'to put a ceasefire back together' - live | World news | theguardian.com - President says Israeli soldier ‘needs to be unconditionally released’ Ceasefire crumbles as Israeli army reports soldier ‘suspected’ captured
Israel & Palestine - An Eye for an Eye? | RefractoryRefractory
Times Of Israel Publishes Op-Ed About 'When Genocide Is Permissible', Then Deletes It (American opinion - not Congress - has turned, and AIPAC can't change it back)
On David Frum, The New York Times, and the Non-Faked 'Fake' Gaza Photos - The Atlantic - What they reveal about the three words that are journalists' only source of self-respect

Fighting near site of downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 leaves 14 dead | World news | theguardian.com - Deaths shatter brief lull across war-torn region as international experts head to wreckage of downed plane

Afghanistan to cost more than Marshall Plan, watchdog says - News - Stripes (we could have fixed America)
Syrian city of Homs shows signs of life amid moonscape of devastation | World | The Guardian - Ian Black finds whispers of normality, stability and a few returning residents in ex-rebel bastion laid siege by Assad forces for two years
Uganda anti-gay law declared 'null and void' by constitutional court | World news | The Guardian - Judges strike down legislation on a technicality, but activists say homosexuality remains criminal offence under colonial-era laws

Eschaton: Surprising Nobody - And if they'd do this, what wouldn't they do.
It's About the Lying - The Intercept - By Dan Froomkin (Obama, never fond of the truth, has "full confidence" in Brennan; it's always been about the lying)
Obama Says He Has 'Full Confidence' In CIA Chief John Brennan

Obama: 'We Tortured Some Folks' (why has he been suppressing this report for at least four years? +"some folks" and "some things contrary to our values" are very Bush-like-speak)
Obama: 'We Tortured Some Folks' After 9/11 And We Have To Take Responsibility For It
Obama Says America Tortured, but That's Not Enough - The Atlantic - If the president really believes that, will he take legally required actions to respond to it?
Senator: The White House Should Launch a Criminal Probe of the CIA - The Atlantic - The agency spied on a congressional investigation into the torture of prisoners, then claimed it hadn't.
So What? - Esquire - "We tortured" - And then he expressed full confidence in John Brennan, who was hip-deep in the torture regime, and under whose auspices the CIA hacked into the computers of the Senate committee
Clemency for Torturers, but Not for Edward Snowden - The Atlantic - Why pardoning the whistleblower would be more moral and legal than Team Obama's treatment of Bush-era interrogators

The Primary Authority On Who Was Supposed to Qualify for Obamacare Subsidies by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - No one person or institution was more central to the debate over Obamacare than the CBO.
Balkinization: The CBO Score and the Made-Up Narrative of the Obamacare Subsidies Case
Today Among the Halbig Troofers - Lawyers, Guns & Money : the troofer argument is that a single cherry skin on the ground makes an apple orchard a cherry tree
Suddenly, Obamacare is more unpopular than ever - The Washington Post

Knowledge Isn’t Power - NYTimes.com - One of the best insults I’ve ever read came from Ezra Klein, who now is editor in chief of Vox.com. In 2007, he described Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, as “a stupid person’s idea of what a thoughtful person sounds like.”

Florida Judge Orders Special Session To Adopt New Voting Map

This Is How We Know DACA Didn't Cause The Border Crisis (Republicans lie, apparently)
Messing With DACA Will Not Go Over Well With Latinos by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
House GOP Aims To Pass Funding For Border Crisis, Then Gut Dreamer Protections

Female supreme court justice defends ruling criticised by women's groups | Law | theguardian.com - Unanimous decision rejected abortion clinic buffer zone • Ruth Bader Ginsburg: decision balanced access and speech
This is the next Hobby Lobby | MSNBC

Eric Garner's Death By Police Chokehold Ruled A Homicide - Police Commissioner William Bratton has said the officer appeared to have placed Garner in a chokehold and has ordered a top-to-bottom redesigning of use-of-force training in the NYPD.

alicublog: Today In MRA Ragewanks. - Shorter Glenn Reynolds: You just don't like #WomenAgainstFeminism cuz you're old and ugly, bitch. " To a certain class of women in the media, it’s always about them, and their various mucous membranes." (women: snotty membranes from hell - is there a theoretical limit to idiocy?)


The wife zone : videos : This is the danger zone. This is your strippers, redheads, women named Tiffany.


073114
California Drought Reaches A Terrifying Milestone - 58 percent of California is facing “exceptional drought,” the most severe condition on the center’s scale and the worst ever recorded in the state.
Senator Denies Climate Change On Senate Floor And Gets A Science Lesson From His Colleague | ThinkProgress - “I appreciate very much having had the opportunity to hear those words, from what I can only describe as an alternate reality,” Whitehouse began, before getting into detailed specifics rebutting each one of Inhofe’s points. (alternate un-reality)
CNN Anchor Lashes Out At Fox: 'You Willfully Ignorant F**ksticks’ - CNN anchor Bill Weir lashed out at an arm of Fox News on Wednesday after it posted a tweet mocking Al Gore's efforts to combat global warming, calling the writers “willfully ignorant f**ksticks.” (denying reality on all fronts)

Sierra Leone declares emergency as Ebola death toll hits 729 | Reuters
Ebola rages in Africa as west agonises over ethics of vaccine and drug testing | Society | The Guardian - If there are to be vaccines and drugs against Ebola, trials in outbreaks will have to be done

Gaza 'faces precipice' as death toll passes 1,400 | World news | The Guardian - Israeli military losses rise and number of Palestinian deaths now greater than tolls of both previous conflicts (the extermination of the "cockroaches" continues)
Why Don't Palestinians Just Leave Gaza? They Can't. (Jews stole their country)
Gaza: Israel calls up more reservists after rejecting calls for ceasefire | World news | The Guardian - Official says move will allow Israel Defence Forces to expand attacks ‘against Hamas and the other terror organisations’
American media's new pro-Israel bias: the same party line at the wrong time | Chris McGreal | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Evolving conversations on the ground demand probing questions on-air. So why does TV news look like a Netanyahu ad? Here are a few questions you won’t hear asked of the parade of Israeli officials crossing US television screens during the current crisis in Gaza: Binyamin Netanyahu, who as opposition leader in the 1990s was found addressing rallies under a banner reading “Death to Arabs”?
Twitter / amnesty: Deeply cynical for @WhiteHouse ... - to condemn killings of Palestinians while US continues to arm Israeli armed forces to the teeth
Democrats’ Unapologetic Support for Israel Enables Daily War Crimes Against Palestinians | The Dissenter
Air strike about to hit a gray, concrete building of moderate height in Gaza City. : pics
Don't Over-Stupid an Already Stupid Conversation - Lawyers, Guns & Money : And with respect to “But but but Hamas is BAAAD!!”, I agree that this might matter if we were talking about justice. What we’re talking about, however, is the politics and psychology of vengeance.
Author Reza Aslan Defends The Right Of Celebrities To Speak Out About Gaza
David Frum's Apology for His Nutty Theory Links to More Nutty Theories - On the other hand, Frum's celebrity is based on his role as one of the Iraq War's original cheerleaders and as the creator of the "Axis of Evil" meme, so if anybody should fall for bullshit on the internet, it's him.

Nato unprepared for potential threats from Russia, say MPs | World news | The Guardian - Cross-party report issued as group of former Russian and European defence ministers warn of risk of accidental war
Foreign investigators reach MH17 crash site in Ukraine | World news | theguardian.com - Dutch and Australia experts expected to focus initially on retrieving bodies still on site and collecting victims' belongings

Suicide Bomber From U.S. Came Home Before Attack - NYTimes.com - Mr. Abusalha, 22, chose to carry out his attack in Syria rather than in the United States (whut?)

Billionaire Republican Donor Pushes Argentina Into Default
Greek court acquits farmers who shot 28 Bangladeshi strawberry pickers | World news | The Guardian - 'Scandalous' verdict condemned by politicians and anti-racist groups after case that revealed migrant workers' plight

Twitter / RonWyden: .@CIA broke into Senate computer ... - files. Then tried to have Senate staff prosecuted. Absolutely unacceptable in a democracy.
Twitter / ggreenwald: Can't believe that the agency ... - that tortured, kidnapped, rendered, drones wedding parties, & destroys evidence would hack Senate & then lie.
CIA Chief Apologizes To Sens. Feinstein, Chambliss Over Computer Intrusion : The Two-Way : NPR
CIA admits to spying on Senate staffers | World news | theguardian.com - CIA director apologises for improper conduct of agency staff One senator calls on John Brennan to resign in wake of scandal
CIA director John Brennan lied to you, to the Senate and to the world. Fire him | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Private apologies are not enough for a defender of torture, the architect of America’s drone program and the most talented liar in Washington. The nation’s top spy needs to go - it now appears Brennan was forced to privately apologize to intelligence committee chairs in a “tense” meeting earlier this week
Former NSA director will file “at least” 9 patents to detect malicious hackers | Ars Technica - Foreign Policy reports some patents will involve “behavioral models” to predict attacks. (on the Constitution?)

The Snowden Effect: Who Ever Could Have Predicted? Cont'd - Esquire - It's a good thing that Edward Snowden is an International Man of Luggage and really bad on TV, and that Glenn Greenwald is unpleasant and not to be invited to dinner in good company, because, if those two things weren't the case, I might think that the all-too-human, but curiously error-prone, heroes of our intelligence community are completely out of control. (the black hole of ridiculousness sucking democracy into the singularity)

Microsoft ordered to produce overseas customer email addresses by US judge | Technology | theguardian.com - Microsoft and others had challenged a criminal search warrant for the emails, in case that drew concern from privacy groups

? Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Nuclear Weapons (HBO) - YouTube - America has over 4,800 nuclear weapons, and we don’t take terrific care of them. It’s terrifying, basically.

House Scraps Vote On Bill To Address Border Crisis

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 5 Male Justices Have A 'Blind Spot' On Women's Issues (their dicks)

Words Matter - Esquire - . In doing so, the members of the House majority argued that the president had become a tyrant for doing what Republicans wanted him to do in the first place.

Stealth Single Payer - NYTimes.com - on Obamacare in California, and it’s full of remarkably good news.
Kentucky's uninsured rate, before and after Obamacare - Vox (Repubicans want you to fuck off and die)

Eschaton: That's A Bit Of A Problem - But in recent years, L.A.'s elected leaders have been unwilling to hike water rates enough to fix them more rapidly. As it stands, the city-owned Department of Water and Power is on track to replace main water lines only once every 300 years.

Here's Some Stupid For Lunch: isit Mississippi. Where Parody Goes To Die. (critical thinking fail, especially on the part of the stupid voters who elected these idiots, especially in the South)

New York Times Editorial Writer Brent Staples Responds To White House Marijuana Opinion: I'm ‘Not Impressed' - In a blog post response to the editorial Monday, The Office of National Drug Control Policy staff acknowledged the need for criminal justice reform, but remained committed to its official stance on marijuana, saying the drug presents a “cascade of public health problems.” (like crooked cops and prosecutors, so ...)
Six cops charged with robbery, kidnapping, extortion - Between February 2006 and November 2012, it states, they stole more than $500,000 in cash, drugs, and personal property - all while using extreme force, and falsifying police reports to downplay their takes.

Catastrophically Wrong Forecaster Dick Morris Is Reinventing Himself As A Financial Expert | Blog | Media Matters for America - Following Years Of Awful Predictions, Morris Now Giving Investment Advice (grifters ...)

U.S. Attorney Warns Cuomo on Moreland Commission Case - NYTimes.com - Mr. Bharara has threatened to investigate the Cuomo administration for possible obstruction of justice or witness tampering. (Cuomo, crooked)

Congressional Republicans Rail Against Legalization Of Marijuana - Congressional Republicans on Thursday railed against states that have legalized marijuana, citing its connection to auto accidents. (staying home stoned is much more dangerous than driving home drunk)

The Sad Clownhood Of John Boehner - Esquire - There were those of us who thought that when Eric Cantor was defeated in his primary for re-election that he would leave office without ever telling John Boehner the location of the Mason Jar in which Cantor had buried the Speaker's balls ... He passed along the secret of where the Mason Jar is buried. He passed it along to Ted Cruz. (the contradictions are getting closer to a singularity)
This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy - Esquire - "This blog about homophones was the last straw. Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality," Woodger allegedly told Torkildson before letting him go ... As everyone in Utah knows, the homophone is what you use to call your decorator. I don't mind life imitating art, but I do mind life imitating old Designing Women episodes. (oh, Utah, you so stupid +homogenized milk)

Anyone Can Master This Genius Way To Cut A Watermelon Into Cubes

WATCH: Colbert Sheds Character To Dish 'Grown Man' Advice To Teen Girls

073014
The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history - Vox
Ebola: what you need to know - Vox

CIA initially 'kept Colin Powell in the dark' about torture prractices | World news | theguardian.com - It’s not entirely clear exactly which US officials knew about the practices at the time they began, a Senate report concludes (comment: This article is about the person who tried to cover up the My Lai atrocity, later moving on to fame and fortune and proving to the UN that Saddam had WMDs)

The NSA Is Being Sued for Keeping Keith Alexander's Financial Records Secret | Motherboard
WikiLeaks publishes 'unprecedented' secret Australian court suppression order - The suppression order is itself suppressed. No Australian media organisation can legally publish the document or its contents.
Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case involving Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam

Iraqi Anger Rises as Militants Attack Mosul’s Cultural History - NYTimes.com

'World stands disgraced' as Israeli shelling of school kills at least 15 | World news | The Guardian - UN condemns IDF attack on sleeping children as violation of international law • Strike on crowded market in Shujai'iya during ceasefire kills 17 • Death toll now more than 1,300 after three weeks of fighting
How the world sees Israel, in one chart - Vox

The Toll in Gaza and Israel, Day by Day - NYTimes.com
U.S. close to sending largest ever Hellfire missile order to Iraq - The Washington Post (your tax dollars at work killing children)
Gaza: at least 15 killed and 90 injured as another UN school is hit | World news | theguardian.com - UN official condemns ‘in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces’
Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel - NYTimes.com

Why I have become more pessimistic about Israel - Vox - Ezra Klein on July 30, 2014 (first Chait, now Klein)
David Frum Retracts Claim That NYT Ran Faked Gaza Photo
NYT says its Gaza photos are real | Poynter.
Photographing on the Ground in Gaza
Familiar Bedfellows - Esquire - The Israeli ambassador to the United States used to work for Frank Luntz. Wonderful. Just what this whole mess needed -- some good old-fashioned propaganda and ratfking.

As Sanctions Pile Up, Russians’ Alarm Grows Over Putin’s Tactics - NYTimes.com - with President Vladimir V. Putin emphasizing the importance of self-reliance and a new poll released Tuesday indicating a “What, me worry?” attitude among the bulk of the population.

House Authorizes Lawsuit Against President Obama - Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a resolution Wednesday authorizing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to sue President Barack Obama for what they say has been inadequate enforcement of the health care law they oppose. (read that again, slowly)

"Hahaha Congress Thought the States Were Competent to Do Anything. What a Bunch of Clowns. In Conclusion, Let's Give More Power to the States." - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Paul Ryan, as you may have heard, has yet another “let them eat states’ rights” anti-poverty plan out. I note that this very old and very terrible idea is a source of grim amusement, given the latest conservative legal theory being used against the ACA:
Only One Thing The Poor Did Wrong, Stayed In Mississippi a Day Too Long - Lawyers, Guns & Money : What can you say at this point? Republican politics circa 2014 seems to consist exclusively of pissing in someone else’s punchbowl and then blaming the host for inviting them.

US economy bounces back with 4% GDP growth in second quarter | Business | theguardian.com - Economy rebounds from rough winter with better-than-expected growth as first quarter numbers revised upwards

Water floods Los Angeles after burst main opens sinkhole near UCLA | World news | theguardian.com (the rich and the stupid hate your infrastructure)

Eschaton: Justice - Maybe we shouldn't open that box...
Federal review stalled after finding forensic errors by FBI lab unit spanned two decades - The Washington Post - Federal review stalled after finding forensic errors by FBI lab unit spanned two decades - The Washington Post - Nearly every criminal case reviewed by the FBI and the Justice Department as part of a massive investigation started in 2012 of problems at the FBI lab has included flawed forensic testimony from the agency, government officials said. The findings troubled the bureau, and it stopped the review of convictions last August

Report: ‘Irreversible harm’ when FBI didn’t reveal flawed lab work in death-row cases - The Washington Post - The report said that even more defendants’ cases should have been reviewed but were omitted for inappropriate reasons, and the scope of errors never would be known. For many defendants, it said, “delays were very prejudicial and, for some, they caused irreversible harm.”

Evolving on Marijuana - NYTimes.com
The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests - NYTimes.com
The Required White House Response on Marijuana - NYTimes.com
The Federal Marijuana Ban Is Rooted in Myth and Xenophobia - NYTimes.com

Conservative group Alec devises offshoot ACCE to lobby at local levels | World news | theguardian.com - As Republicans debate party future, aggressive ‘corporate dating service’ launches new group to push for conservative policies

Why Bad New York Cops Can Get Away With Abuse - A bystander caught the entire thing on video, and Pantaleo was stripped of his badge and gun. As authorities investigate the incident, some people are wondering why a cop with Pantaleo’s history is only now facing disciplinary measures.
Abigail Hernandez, alleged captor in court - Metro - The Boston Globe - Kibby later protested the bail conditions in a court filing, saying his firearms were “of immense equitable value” and that he was not a threat because he lived by an “objectivist libertarian moral code.”

Campus sexual assault bill unveiled with bipartisan backing in Senate | World news | theguardian.com - Law would require colleges and universities to create a confidential adviser to guide victims through reporting process
Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you? | Eleanor Robertson | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Dawkins in 2014 is a man so convinced that he possesses God-like powers of omniscience that he can’t understand why everyone is angry at him for pointing out the obvious

Running 5 Minutes a Day Has Long-Lasting Benefits - NYTimes.com

Is Race Plastic? My Trip Into the ‘Ethnic Plastic Surgery’ Minefield - The Cut
Michael Behenna: Once-imprisoned soldier looks ahead to his future | News OK - He started with Nelson Mandela’s memoir. He learned Spanish. He developed a passion for agriculture. But it was the works of two mid-20th Century philosophers and spiritualists, G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky, that Behenna says saved him. The two men preached about the importance of being self-aware, of probing one’s own mental consciousness to gain a better understanding of the world.

072914
Top Ebola Doctor Dies Of Disease
'Milestone' for child malaria vaccine

Impact of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Coral Communities Is Deeper and Broader than Predicted — Eberly College of Science

New photo from Gaza today looks like actual hell on earth : pics
PLO announcement of 24-hour Gaza ceasefire disavowed by Hamas | World news | The Guardian - Militant groups reject claim of agreement to pause fighting, as Palestinian delegation meet in Cairo aiming to end war
Gaza Official: At Least 100 Palestinians Dead After Day Of Israeli Airstrikes
Gaza Power Plant Attacked By Israeli Tank Fire, Knocking Out Electricity To Gaza City
Chait on Israel - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Total Immigration to Israel, by Country per Year | Jewish Virtual Library
Lawmakers struggle to seal $225M Iron Dome package - "Let's stop playing games," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., calling the assistance a necessity for the "life-or-death struggle Israel faces."
David Frum Accuses NYT and Reuters of Staging Gaza Hospital Photos (GRAPHIC) — BagNews

Obama announces expanded sanctions against Russia as E.U. aligns - The Washington Post
All There Is To Do - Esquire - Further, the president was right in knocking down the notion that this represents a new Cold War. First of all, there's no Russian bloc this time. There's just Vladimir Putin, who is a Russian nationalist and an autocrat, but not a Tsar or a General Secretary, who fights his proxy wars on his own borders, and not around the world
x Sweeping economic sanctions imposed on Russia by EU | World news | The Guardian - European capital markets to be closed to Russian banks
Ukraine rebel chief Igor Bezler: 'I won't hesitate to have you shot' | World | The Guardian - Nicknamed the Demon, leader said to be behind the downing of MH17 ends rare interview by exploding into rage and threatening journalists

Chinese hackers steal Israel’s Iron Dome missile data | Technology | theguardian.com - Hacking group previously linked to hacks on US defence contractors steals detailed missile schematics
Argentina on brink of second debt default in 12 years | Business | The Guardian - Talks with vulture funds fail in case campaigners say could set precedent for investors to wreck other countries' debt deals

Senators consider obscure rule in CIA torture report declassification debate | World news | theguardian.com - Mark Udall said procedure could be invoked to compel Obama administration to release more of landmark Senate report (Obama still covering up)
Obama-backed surveillance reform bill introduced in US Senate | World news | theguardian.com - Patrick Leahy’s popular bill contains stricter privacy measures than the USA Freedom Act, which the House passed in May (Freedom! for the USA to spy on you!)

The Snowden Effect: This Is Still Not America - Esquire - What's happening to the journalists is bad. What's happening to the lawyers is worse.

Former NSA chief makes up to $1 million a month selling cybersecurity services | The Verge - General Keith Alexander was in charge of the National Security Agency when all hell broke loose and former security contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents showing the organization was spying far beyond the extent to which most people were aware (or comfortable with). But he's not letting that episode stop him from launching what looks to be an exceptionally lucrative private career selling...you guessed it, cybersecurity software.

Peter Nathan Steinmetz, Barrow Brain Scientist, Arrested at Airport With AR-15 | Phoenix New Times - . Police tell New Times that, in general, it's not illegal to carry a semiautomatic rifle into an airport terminal. In this case, the problem was "the way he was carrying it," says Phoenix police Sergeant Steve Martos.

Americans In Debt: 35 Percent Have Unpaid Bills Reported To Collection Agencies

Can Democrats Flip Texas, Arizona and Georgia? | RealClearPolitics - Democratic political strategist David Plouffe made waves a few weeks back when he suggested that Texas, Arizona and Georgia would soon become blue-ish states. His analysis is here and also reflected below (sometime in the next 100 years)
Break up the states! The case for the United Statelets of America - Salon.com

New York Times Co. Gains Circulation, but Profit Falls 21% - NYTimes.com

The NRA's Murder Mystery | Mother Jones
New Hampshire man charged with kidnapping 15-year-old girl | World news | theguardian.com - "I can see his trailer from mine, and I had no idea," she said.

Newest anti-vaxx trend causes babies’ brains to bleed - Salon.com - Parents are now denying newborns important Vitamin K injections to avoid unnecessary "toxins"
Federal marijuana bill would legalize some cannabis strains : news

? Sadie doesn't want her brother to grow up - YouTube - Typical struggles of a 5 year-old

Twitter's growth problem in focus as Wall Street watches closely | Technology | theguardian.com - Can the social network convince investors that the future's bright – or is the 'Twitter quitter' becoming a real headache? (Facebook booker?)

072814
The Shadow Apocalypse - Esquire - Not in Gaza, and not on the ill-fated Malaysian airliner. Now there are American casualties in another war very far away so maybe, goddammit, somebody should start paying more attention to it.

Israel says Gaza campaign will continue 'until mission is accomplished' | World news | theguardian.com - Binyamin Netanyahu makes vow as nine children are killed in Gaza refugee camp and four Israelis die in mortar attack
Netanyahu: Israelis Must Be 'Ready For A Prolonged Campaign' In Gaza
Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital Compound, Nearby Park Hit In Attack (UPDATED)
'There's Really Nowhere Safe To Go' In Gaza
Fault - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The reality is that Israel is indeed a colonial power and acts as such toward its subjugated peoples. That the Israeli state evolved in response to one of the greatest acts of horror ever committed in the human race is especially ironic given the nation’s behavior toward the Palestinians.
With 1,000 Dead in Gaza, Rightbloggers Claim Obama's Peace Process Threatens Israel - Page 2 | Village Voice
Gaza: Israel puts paramedics in its crosshairs | Al Akhbar English (remember last time?)
Twitter / StanleyCohenLaw: Israel is always the victim. ... - When Sharon murdered thousands of defenseless in women & children in Sabra Shatilla, it was not enough.
Twitter / StanleyCohenLaw: When Israel occupied Lebanon ... - and murdered thousands, it was not enough.
'We are looking at the beginnings of a Holocaust' | JPost | Israel News - Danish Ambassador Jesper Vahr warns MKs against linking anti-Semitism and Gaza operation. (because their couldn't be any connection)
Dangerous Game - there's a deeper backstory. Nothing gets the Obama administration's ire up like the perception (very often grounded in reality) that Netanyahu and his government ministers are trying to scuttle his initiatives by inveigling themselves into domestic partisan conflict in the US (begins with A)
Debunking the myths about Gaza: The truth behind Israeli and Palestinian talking points - Salon.com - Why this fight now? Who started it? What happened with the kidnapped Israeli teens? Getting to the bottom of myths

The West Agrees To Wider Sanctions On Russia Over The Crisis In Ukraine
US will follow EU in likely escalation of Russia sanctions, says White House | World news | theguardian.com - Announcement of impending measures follows conference call between Obama and leaders of UK, France, Italy and Germany
US: Russia Violated 1987 Nuclear Missile Treaty - by testing a new ground-launched cruise missile.
Hague Court Rules In Favor Of Yukos Shareholders vs. Russia, Awards $50 Billion

Nine Months in, First Look is Still Very Much a Startup - First Look Media - Pierre Omidyar July 28, 2014

Eschaton: What Could Go Wrong - Over the past decade, the U.S. has poured unimaginable amounts of money into training and equipping Afghanistan’s army. Now, the Department of Defense office in charge of auditing the process is saying many of the 747,000 weapons given to the ANSF have gone missing and could end up fueling escalating attacks by Taliban insurgents if they fall into the wrong hands. (because they were always going to win)
Huge blaze out of control in Tripoli battle as Libya slides into chaos | Reuters (more what could go wrong)
Pakistan Mob Kills Woman And 2 Girls Over 'Blasphemous' Facebook Post, Police Say - The dead, including a seven-year-old girl and her baby sister, were Ahmadis, who consider themselves Muslim but believe in a prophet after Mohammed. A 1984 Pakistani law declared them non-Muslims and many Pakistanis consider them heretics.
Boost for Scottish independence as undecided voters switch to yes camp | Politics | theguardian.com - A quarter of voters who were undeclared in March have since said they will be voting yes, survey finds
Qatar World Cup: migrants wait a year to be paid for building offices | Global development | The Guardian - Workers who fitted out lavish offices used by tournament organisers say they are trapped after collapse of contractor
US climber condemned for filming his children in Mont Blanc avalanche | World news | theguardian.com - He denounced Sweeney's "recklessness" and the promotion of the incident in the media, and told FranceInfo radio that Europe's highest peak was "becoming an amusement park where we're going to have gendarmes, rescuers and Pamela Anderson to save us". (very good, mayor)

Top Journalists and Lawyers: NSA Surveillance Threatens Press Freedom and Right to Counsel - The Intercept (your so-called Constitution is so over)

Conservatives Blame Democrats For Conservative Impeachment Threats | Blog | Media Matters for America (of course they do)
The Absurd Impeachment Feedback Loop - The Daily Beast - Impeachment is the final fantasy for obsessive hyper-partisans. But some Democrats are exploiting the craziness as a fundraising call to arms.

Poll: Hillary Clinton does better with white voters than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
No Labels? No results? No problem. - Yahoo News - How a bipartisan group that hoped to make Washington more functional became yet another cog in the D.C. moneymaking machine — and infuriated Democrats ("bi-partisan" un-huh grifters)

Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage ruled unconstitutional | World news | theguardian.com - Federal appeals court strikes down ban, in case that is likely to end up before US supreme court

Satanists Cite Hobby Lobby For Exemption From Anti-Abortion Laws


Has Tyrone Hood Spent Twenty-One Years in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit? - Did the Chicago police coerce witnesses into pinpointing the wrong man for murder?


Your Life in Weeks | Wait But Why


072714
Official: Ebola Kills Senior Doctor In Liberia - Dr. Samuel Brisbane, a top Liberian health official, was treating Ebola patients at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, when he fell ill. He died Saturday
Ebola crisis: infected US doctor receives intensive treatment in Liberia | World news | theguardian.com - Dr Kent Brantly working at computer but 'not out of the woods' The deadly disease has killed at least 672 people in several African countries since the outbreak began earlier this year

2,500 Ground Zero workers have cancer | New York Post - The grim toll has skyrocketed from the 1,140 cancer cases reported last year.

Twitter / dellcam: A tweet by Israeli government ... - officials comparing Palestinians to Hitler. #GazaUnderAttack
Twitter / YourAnonNews: "The most dangerous creation ... - of any society is the man who has nothing to lose" --James A. Baldwin #Israel what have you created? (good question, see what has America created?)
Gaza fighting continues as both sides reject others' ceasefire announcements | World news | The Guardian - Death toll rises to more than 1,030 as Unicef says 218 children have been killed, two-thirds of them under the age of 12
Poll: 86.5% of Israelis oppose cease-fire | JPost | Israel News - Survey says that should Netanyahu choose to end Gaza operation at this time, he would be confronting the overwhelming majority of the nation. (who want to bomb the shit out of them)
Israel Acknowledges Mortar Shell Hit UN School - but said aerial footage shows the yard was empty at the time and that the shell could not have killed anyone.
Israel PM Netanyahu tells US talkshows Hamas violated own ceasefire | World news | theguardian.com - PM: 'If America was attacked … you would take action' Netanyahu tells CNN, CBS, NBC and Fox of 'terror tunnels'
Israel-Palestine: The History Behind their New War | New Republic - Israel is one of the world’s last colonial powers, and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are its unruly subjects (take a guess)
Israel’s Other War - In each of these operations there have been right-wing politicians and military commentators who pointed out that “this time we’ll have to pull all the stops, take it all the way, until the end.” Watching them on television, I can’t help but ask myself, What is this end they’re striving toward?
America's Israeli Jihadists | Clayton Swisher - For those American volunteers in Israel, there will be no FBI dragnet back home to trace their voyages from Newark to Tel Aviv. No interviewing of neighbors to understand what motivated the departed to don foreign fatigues and raise a rifle at someone they've never met. Not to mention being placed on the mother of all no's--the "no fly" list. Definitely no monitoring synagogue sermons or AIPAC conventions, unless they're invited speakers and they're up next.
The War Between Israel and Hamas is a Story with Only One Side. | New York Observer (NYT is anti-Israel, ha-ha)
The Gaza massacre is the price of a “Jewish state” | The Electronic Intifada

MH17: Dutch and Australian experts forced to delay mission due to fighting | World news | theguardian.com - Netherlands-led group of 49 investigators that will attempt to recover bodies and examine site in eastern Ukraine delayed
Police Visit To MH17 Disaster Site Canceled - Ukrainian armed forces mounted a major onslaught against pro-Russian separatist fighters Sunday in an attempt to gain control over the area where a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed earlier this month.
U.S. releases images it says show Russia has fired artillery over border into Ukraine : worldnews
U.S. Releases Satellite Images To Back Up Claims Russia Fired Rockets Into Ukraine

Taliban Making Military Gains in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com - inflicting heavy casualties and casting new doubt on the ability of Afghan forces to contain the insurgency as the United States moves to complete its withdrawal of combat troops, according to Afghan officials and local elders. (a trillion dollars down the drain; who could have predicted?)
Report: Boko Haram Militants Seize Cameroon Vice PM's Wife
Mecca’s changing face matches the needs of its Muslim pilgrims | Nesrine Malik | Comment is free | The Guardian - Every Ramadan Mecca and the Grand Mosque, which lies is at its centre, look different: bigger, brighter, shinier. The Kaaba, the small shrouded building at the centre of the mosque, which could once be seen from any of the hills around it, is now obscured. I order to make way for these new developments, historic sites – such as the prophet’s house and his wife’s houses – have been razed. (Disneyfication of Mecca but no non-Moslems can buy tickets)

America Is Not Superman | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - What, we’re entitled to ask, drove some of these same pundits to urge the United States to arm mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, thereby empowering the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden? What drove some of them to agitate for war with Iran? What drove some of them even to justify the Vietnam War, even retroactively, against its obvious folly? (neocons need their wargasms)

NSA: Less need now for Snowden deal - POLITICO.com - A top National Security Agency offficial says there's less need now for the U.S. Government to cut a deal with leaker Edward Snowden than there was after his wave of surveillance disclosures began more than a year ago. (now that they know they can do anything and we can't stop them muhahah)
4 senators raise alarm about NSA collection of Americans’ e-mails, phone calls - The Washington Post - expressing concerns about the scope of the collection of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls under a National Security Agency program that targets foreigners overseas.
Report: FISC judges own stock in telecoms they let NSA access | Ars Technica - Disclosures given to Vice show two judges with Verizon shares, but the ethics are gray.
A new generation of ransomware - Securelist
Proliferation of new online communications services poses hurdles for law enforcement - The Washington Post

Paul Ryan Accuses Obama Administration Of System That 'Perpetuates Poverty' (instead of letting the moochers just starve to death)
New GOP Leader Won't Take Impeachment Off The Table - "The White House will do anything they can to change the topic away from the president's failed agenda," Scalise said. (a double wordflip)

Detroit Shuts Off Water to Residents but Not to Businesses Who Owe Millions - The Daily Beast
Selling water for profit during a record drought? by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Someone will have to explain why a sane society would still allow this to be legal, because I can’t figure it out: (just the beginning)
Paul Ryan’s anti-poverty plan: The House Budget chairman’s paternalistic proposal misunderstands America’s poor. - House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, who in his new anti-poverty plan wants poor families to work with government agencies or charitable nonprofits to craft “life plans” as a condition of receiving federal assistance under his proposed “opportunity grants.

Can Someone Tell Homebuilders How to Raise Wages? | Beat the Press - The Washington Post told us that homebuilders are having a hard time attracting workers, which is keeping construction of new homes down. (because they pay like shit)
Journalists subpoenaed in 'pink-slime' suit : Columbia Journalism Review - BPI wants emails from NYT’s Michael Moss, public-health lawyer Michele Simon, and others

New York State of Mind by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I wish I had the chance to thank her in person for her segments today on the death of Eric Garner after a confrontation with New York Police Department earlier this month. The segments moved me to tears. Five summers after the bizarre arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization - NYTimes.com - It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol. (but the cop industry thrived! and blacks break windows!)
The New York Times Will Continue Drug Testing Despite Pot Legalization Stance
The 7 Most Ridiculous Things Said on Meet the Press’ Panel on Pot Legalization | Mediaite (Judy Woodruff is a fucking idiot)
Eschaton: No One I Know Will Ever Be Arrested For Smoking Pot - Wealthy pundits think pot being "illegal" is good because maybe pot is bad and they'll never have to even worry their beautiful minds about what it being illegal actually means.
Among the Dead-Enders - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Shorter Ann Althouse: We must maintain a horribly costly, arbitrary, racially discriminatory drug prohibition regime…for the children!!!!!! And…science!!! (Conservatives)

Hack List No. 3: Benny Johnson - Salon.com - Our annual list is here! This time, we channeled each hack's unique voice -- and let them "write" their own entries

‘The Wherewithal,’ by Philip Schultz - NYTimes.com
"Failure" - Click here to listen to Philip Schultz read this poem.
Guy Walks Into a Bar - The New Yorker - Simon Rich
March of the Juggalos : videos

All the New Yorker Story Roundups You Should Read While the Stories Are Still Unlocked, As Well As All the New Yorker Stories They Link To - The Awl
Reflections of a Newsosaur: The newspaper crisis, by the numbers

Review - Seeds of Hope - General Topics - Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants by Jane Goodall
Experts Say Autonomous Cars Are Unlikely to Master Urban Driving Anytime Soon | MIT Technology Review - It may be decades before autonomous vehicles can reliably handle the real world, experts say.
1-Million-Year-Old Artifacts Found in South Africa | Archaeology | Sci-News.com - a large number of Early to Middle Pleistocene stone artifacts including hand axes, flakes and other tools at an archaeological site near the town of Kathu in Northern Cape Province, South Africa.

28 Lesbian Sex Positions to Blow Your Mind (rated by difficulty level)

Vaping is ever more popular, but is it a smoking cure or a new hazard? | Society | The Observer


072614
Charlie Crist On Climate Change: I'm Not A Scientist Either But I Can 'Use My Brain' And 'Talk To One'

Hamas Rejects Brief Cease-Fire Extension and Resumes Rocket Attacks - NYTimes.com - Families across the Gaza Strip emerged from shelters and returned to their homes during a 12-hour cease-fire on Saturday to survey the damage to their neighborhoods, collect belongings and help dig bodies from the rubble.
A pause in the bombing by Israeli forces – and the ruins of Gaza are laid bare | World news | The Observer - Repeated shelling has inflicted a terrible reality on Palestinians as they try to salvage something from shattered homes and lives
Israel’s fears are real, but this Gaza war is utterly self-defeating | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian - Palestinians and Israelis are saddled with leaders who with every move make their people less, not more, secure
Hamas Didn’t Kidnap the Israeli Teens After All -- NYMag ("lone cells" on both sides; 3 guys can start a war)
Cut Foreign Aid to Israel | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government - On July 23, 2014 the United Nations human rights Council passed a motion to initiate an investigation of possible Israeli war crimes since June 13th, 2014.
Racist Zionists Spew Hatred at Protestors in NYC » Existence is Resistance

AP Journalists Saw Rebels With BUK Missiles Hours Before MH17 Crashed - Three hours later, people six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne heard loud noises. And then they saw pieces of twisted metal — and bodies— fall from the sky.
Effort to Secure Malaysia Airline Crash Site Falters in Eastern Ukraine - NYTimes.com
Pentagon Plan Would Help Ukraine Target Rebel Missiles - NYTimes.com - enable the Obama administration to provide specific locations of surface-to-air missiles controlled by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine so the Ukrainian government could target them for destruction, American officials said.

Facing Escalating Violence, U.S. Evacuates Staff From Its Embassy in Libya - NYTimes.com - The United States closed its embassy in Libya on Saturday and evacuated the embassy’s staff under military guard, in what the State Department said was a response to escalating violence in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Barack Obama banned from entering Chechnya | World news | theguardian.com - Chechen president cites US and EU 'state terrorism' (that's gotta hurt)
Venezuelan ex-general wanted by US over drug trafficking held in Aruba | World news | theguardian.com - Dutch island awaits US extradition request for Hugo Carvajal • Venezuela protests at 'kidnapping' of former Chávez ally

Press Release: Courage campaigns for Snowden’s continued protection in Russia | Courage Foundation - With Edward Snowden’s Russian asylum expiring in one week, Courage campaigns for his continued safety

WASHINGTON: After CIA gets secret whistleblower email, Congress worries about more spying | National | McClatchy DC - The CIA obtained a confidential email to Congress about alleged whistleblower retaliation related to the Senate’s classified report on the agency’s harsh interrogation program, triggering fears that the CIA has been intercepting the communications of officials who handle whistleblower cases. (oh look spying on their oversight body! Obama says "what's the problem?")
Ex-Chief of C.I.A. Shapes Response to Detention Report - NYTimes.com - The spies, past and present, faced each other around the long wooden conference table on the seventh floor of the C.I.A.’s headquarters in Northern Virginia (George "Slam-dunk" Tenet; time for war crimes trials)
Dispute over ex-CIA officials' access to Senate 'torture report' highlights feud | World news | theguardian.com - Retired officials invited, then barred from reading document • 6,300-page report examines post 9/11 interrogation practices

The End of the Death Penalty - The state prison chief's new claim that, in fact, "parts" of the execution went "perfectly" only underscores what increasingly looks to be the freakish and chaotic end-state of capital punishment in America.

A Drop in the Long-Term Unemployed - NYTimes.com - The proportion of the work force that has been unemployed for at least 27 weeks has fallen to 1.98 percent, less than half the record high of 4.4 percent reached in 2010.
The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less - NYTimes.com

Chamber of Commerce Lost Its Way in Right Turn - NYTimes.com - As it turns out, the 2012 strategy was a flop. According to The Washington Post, the chamber’s candidates lost in 13 of the 15 Senate races it poured money into. On the House side, the chamber went four for 22. Thus did the chamber find itself in the worst of all worlds. It had alienated Democrats, including the kind of pro-business Democrats who believe in the sort of practical politics that business prefers. Yet it had also helped usher in the Tea Party, only to discover that its strain of right-wing populism was as disdainful of business as it was of government. (elect the crazies, what could go wrong?)

Hullabaloo - Republicans overreaching again - If anything may save Democrats in 2014, it could be Republicans. The president's approval ratings may not be terribly high, but the public doesn't like the GOP approach to the situation:


Women Against Feminism show how bad arguments against feminism really are
confused cats against feminism

Central American leaders meet Barack Obama to criticise US border policy | World news | theguardian.com - Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador say combination of US policies is seriously harming their countries (destroy their countries with guns and drugs, shoot the refugees)


BuzzFeed sacks editor Benny Johnson over plagiarism | Media | theguardian.com - Viral politics editor fired for 41 instances of plagiarism after Twitter users brought copying of phrases and sentences to light
The Emoji Have Won the Battle of Words - NYTimes.com - an emoji-only version of “Moby Dick,” called “Emoji Dick,

072514
Study: Colorado River Basin drying up faster than previously thought - The Washington Post (oh look: Los Angeles)

First Ebola Patient From Sierra Leone Capital Is On The Run - "The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching for her."
In China, a single plague death means an entire city quarantined | Cities | theguardian.com - Tens of thousands of people were trapped in Yumen when officials swiftly locked down the city after a man died of plague, highlighting China's severe approach to the threat from disease (impressive they could do that so easily)

Israeli cabinet rejects US proposal for 'humanitarian pause' in Gaza fighting | World news | The Guardian - Binyamin Netanyahu's ministers turn down ceasefire plan on day when Gaza's death toll passes 820
Gaza Death Toll Soars Past 800

15,000 Russian Troops Amassed Along Ukraine Border: U.S. Ambassador To NATO
Russian Newspaper Runs Front Page Apology For MH17 - Novaya Gazeta, a liberal newspaper, is well known for its anti-Putin position. The front page will certainly spark a reaction as Russia continues to deny that it had any role in shooting down the plane.
How An Su-25 Can Shoot Down A Faster, Higher-Flying Aircraft | Ares (not)

US diplomats admit contact in Yemen with missing citizen Sharif Mobley | World news | theguardian.com - Embassy ends silence but refuses to reveal location Attorney: 'US officials are mixed up in this detention' (Obama secretly rendited another American)



Ezra Klein Asks the Wrong Question - NYTimes.com - He asks, Why should anyone trust Paul Ryan’s poverty plan? That’s easy: nobody should. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Left Coast Rising - NYTimes.com

Dan Pfeiffer: White House Expects John Boehner To Try For Impeachment
CNN/ORC Poll: Majority say no to impeachment and lawsuit – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs (it's always been about the 35%)

Nobody Knows What Makes a Good CEO | Mother Jones - the scattering of data looks pretty random, as though performance doesn’t matter. The comparison makes it look as if there is zero relationship between pay and performance. (besides exteme sociopathy)

Experts decry 'failed experiment' with new death penalty drug combinations | World news | theguardian.com - Recent prolonged executions left prisoners in apparent distress • 'Irresponsible' to continue with midazolam-hydromorphone mix (Rick Perry and Jan Brewer should have to personally strangle them)

Gun Violence May Cost America's Most Famous Mayor His Job - Two polls this month show Emanuel's approval far below potential challengers. The headlines practically wrote themselves: "Rahmbo" is in trouble. (everyone hates him, sound familiar?)

The CIA’s ‘Zhivago’ by Michael Scammell | The New York Review of Books - The authors of both books describe in great detail the way the CIA successfully covered its tracks and the mechanisms it used to get a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago published in Europe with great speed, but Finn and Couvée have a trump card in the form of a collection of “approximately 135” declassified CIA documents that reveal the thinking behind the operation and the many missteps in carrying out what was till then a completely unfamiliar enterprise.
The Lies We Tell About Lenin | Jacobin

Decriminalising sex work would cut HIV infections by a third (but that would be ... smart)

First Take Discusses A Woman's Responsibility To Avoid Being Beaten

Bride of Deconstruction | The Los Angeles Review of Books - Within the American academy, where recognition of Mary Shelley’s literary reputation was certainly long in coming, we can thank both feminism and deconstruction for fully bringing this novel to life in the 1970s and 1980s ... Passion, despair, incest, and infidelity were no strangers to this crowd, the free-love libertarians of their day.

Bizarre shooting rattles Bemidji: Neighbor shoots teen 3 times | Star Tribune - The girl’s dog wouldn’t quit barking Monday night, so she let him outside. Chad Eric Pickering, 40, was there waiting, crouched beneath a pine tree, prosecutors say. She glimpsed a shadow before she was shot three times. (if the dog had been armed it would have been different)

ELI5: Why does Islam seem to have more violent fanatics than other religions? : explainlikeimfive ... The search for a heretic, an outcast to sacrifice where one can prove one’s worthiness to a deity is beyond delicious in this mindset. (identity core and enemy image)

More Plagiarism From “One Of The Web’s Deeply Original Writers” | Our Bad Media
Who’s banned from editing Wikipedia this week? Congress | Ars Technica - 9,000 House staffers can't touch the site, at least not for anonymous edits.

072414
Air Algérie flight AH5017 crash brings week's air death toll to 450 | World news | theguardian.com - François Hollande summons key ministers to crisis meeting after plane comes down with 116 people on board, 51 of them French
Air Algerie Plane Missing: Flight AH5017 Disappears From Radar - Burkina Faso airport official confirms wreckage from Air Algerie plane with 116 on board found in Mali
Air Algérie flight AH5017? disappears from radar in sandstorm | World news | theguardian.com - Rebels who have seized the northern fringe of Mali do not have weapons capable of bringing down a commercial jet at cruising altitude, a Malian official told the Guardian. "What they have is shoulder-fired weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades."

Russia Fired On Ukraine, U.S. Says
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk Resigns - opening the way for new elections that would reflect the country's starkly changed political scene after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
CNN Freelancer Abducted By Pro-Russian Separatists In Ukraine
Vladimir Putin’s war on the West: The Malaysia Airline Flight 17 disaster will not change the Russian president’s strategy. - The Flight 17 disaster is just one misstep in the Russian president’s wider war on the West.
Opinion: Russia shoot-down has happened before - CNN.com

In Gaza, at Least 16 Die at U.N. School Used as Civilian Shelter - NYTimes.com
Israeli strike on Gaza school kills 15 and leaves 200 wounded | World news | The Guardian - UN condemns shelling of UNRWA school, saying it asked IDF for time to evacuate civilians, which was not given
Israeli air strikes and gun battles with Hamas shatter Gaza frontline village | World news | The Guardian - Less than two miles from Israeli border Zanna residents mourn the dead and dig out bodies from homes reduced to rubble
Israeli Fire Hits UN School In Gaza, At Least 7 Dead

Isis denies ordering that all girls in Mosul undergo FGM | World news | The Guardian - Doubts grow over UN report, seemingly reliant on year-old document from Syria thought to have been doctored

European Court Finds Poland Violated Human Rights By Allowing Secret CIA Detention

Afghan Officer Charged With Killing AP Photographer Receives Death Sentence
The U.S. Wasted $34 Million TryingTo Make Soybeans Happen In Afghanistan | ThinkProgress


Forget too big to fail. Banks bro-down to borrow, and it may cause a new crash | Heidi Moore | Comment is free | theguardian.com - It's hard not to feel for Barney Frank. In four stultifying hours of dead-eyed posturing, it became clear that the Congressional talk about financial reform is not a debate any more; it's a ritualistic chanting of calcified ideas. (Obama hated reform)
Deficit scolds are the most crazed ideologues in America - The Week - Ron Fournier's economics are garbage. But that won't stop him and his ilk from banging the deficit drum.
The weird obsession that's ruining the GOP - The Week - Benghazi? ObamaCare? Hillary Clinton? No — it's inflation.

Halbig and King Rulings: What They Mean for Obamacare | New Republic - They probably won't succeed, but what if they do?

My son has been suspended five times. He’s 3. - The Washington Post - Black families fight entrenched prejudices to get fair discipline for their children in schools. (post-racial, according the Supreme Court America)

alicublog: First They Came For The Gay-Bashers, And I Did Not Speak Out, Because I Was Not A Gay-Basher....

Rachel Maddow's Harrowing Description Of Botched Arizona Execution
Killing Time - Esquire - If we're going to be the only purportedly advanced Western nation that allows our government to kill people, we really ought to stop the pretense that we're doing it because we are just, and because our methods are more civilized.
TRANSCRIPT: Lawyer's Frantic Call To Judge During Arizona's Botched Execution
McCain Calls Botched Arizona Execution 'Torture'

Not Sure That Works - Glenn Beck: That innocent Boston Bombing bystander I called a terrorist can't sue me for libel because he became a public figure when I accused him of being a terrorist.

Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon Is Out - The reason for his departure is not clear.

7 language habits that reveal your age - The Week

The One Thing To Know If You Think Women Make 'Excuses' For Not Having Sex
My husband [M26] sent me [F26] an immature, inflammatory email as I was driving to the airport for a 10-day work trip. Now he has cut contact. : relationships
Man Sends Wife Spreadsheet Of All Her Excuses Not To Have Sex
This Guy Also Made A Spreadsheet Of His Wife's Excuses Not To Have Sex
/r/DeadBedrooms - There's only one Love Language, those other four things are *Like* Languages
Yes, Sexually Frustrated Wives Can Make Sex Spreadsheets Too

Jacqueline Bisset: 'Older women continue to want sex but men don't want to sleep with them' | Film | The Guardian - In Welcome to New York, she plays the long-suffering wife of an adulterous financier, based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Here she talks about sexual desire and what divides men and women (men don't care how you smell when having sex with you)

Earth Dodged Massive Solar Storm In 2012 That Could Have Wiped Out Power Grid - An extreme solar storm in July 2012 just missed Earth's atmosphere, and we're all lucky it did, as it could have seriously damaged the planet's electric power sources, according to University of Colorado scientist Daniel Baker. there is a 12 percent chance that a solar storm as powerful as the Carrington event could hit Earth in the next ten years.
Nokia Lumia 930 review: the best Windows Phone yet | Technology | theguardian.com

072314
World Breaks Monthly Heat Record 2 Times in a Row - NYTimes.com (Repubicans don't believe in "temperature")
This wonder of the world has turned off. Are you worried about the climate yet? | Hugh Ryan | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The mystery at magical Mosquito Bay is a warning: we must connect our environments, or else we're doomed to darkness
Neil deGrasse Tyson: America Will 'Sink Lower' Before Congress Acts On Climate Change (because Republicans)
Kevin McCarthy Bashes Obama's 'Climate Change Agenda,' Ignores Link To State's Severe Drought - House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of using a trip to the West Coast to "push his climate change agenda" instead of addressing the California drought.

Doctor Contracts Ebola After Treating Dozens Infected With The Deadly Virus

Taiwan Plane Crash: At Least 51 Reportedly Dead As TransAsia Plane Makes Emergency Landing
Why The World Is Spinning Into Crisis Everywhere - “I’m updating the piece,” he said, for a world that is now at nonpolarity plus. (non-state actors)

Ukraine Rebel Leader Admits Fighters Did Have BUK Missile - He also indicated that the BUK may have originated in Russia and could have been sent back to remove proof of its presence.
Ukrainian Military Fighter Jets Shot Down In Eastern Part Of Country - Kiev said two of its fighter jets were shot down over the rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, and the missiles that brought them down might have been fired from Russia.
U.S. intelligence states its case on the shoot-down of MH17 - The Washington Post - The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released various images and maps purported to show the movements of a surface-to-air missile launcher as well as evidence of a buildup of Russian military activity across the border.
Rebels' MH17 Site 'Sabotage Plan' Intercepted - British intelligence has evidence to suggest pro-Russian separatists discussed scattering other plane parts at the crash site. Sky sources in Whitehall added that the rebels also considered sending the black boxes to Moscow.
U.S. Intelligence: Separatists, Not Russians, Killed MH17 - The Daily Beast - Moscow has been lying about what happened to the airliner but one thing it is saying may actually be true: it wasn’t a Russian who pulled the trigger. (a "drunken" "separatist" with high-tech weapons he made in his backyard)
Russia Still Sends Military Gear to Rebels After MH17 Downing, U.S. Says - NBC News.com

Ukrainian Military Fighter Jets Shot Down In Eastern Part Of Country
MH17 Found Sawed In Half - Parts of the Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over Ukraine were found sawed in half, USA Today reported.
Rebels' MH17 Site 'Sabotage Plan' Intercepted - British intelligence has evidence to suggest pro-Russian separatists discussed scattering other plane parts at the crash site.
Putin's Tipping Point? Remembering What Happened When the Soviets Shot Down a Plane | Nina L. Khrushcheva - people with a long memory recalled the Soviet Union's attack, 31 years ago this September, on Korean Air Lines Flight 007, and its political consequences.

More Than 600 People Have Now Died in Gaza | VICE News
Children paying a terrible price in Gaza - Washington Post - Palestinian civilians continue to make up the largest share fo casualties in the Gaza conflict.
Jeremy Scahill: Media Has Failed to Cover ‘Massive Massacre’ in Gaza | Mediaite
UN Launches Probe Into Israeli Violations In Gaza
Mideast Conflict 2014: Israeli Military Pummels Gaza, Sending Thousands Of Residents Fleeing - Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Wednesday that Israel may be committing war crimes with its incursion in Gaza.
AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy | Stephen M. Walt (time to classify AIPAC as a terrorist organization) - Netanyahu's real purpose was to undermine the recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah for a unity government. Given Netanyahu's personal commitment to keeping the West Bank and creating a "greater Israel," the last thing he wants is a unified Palestinian leadership that might press him to get serious about a two-state solution.
Israeli air strikes and gun battles with Hamas shatter Gaza frontline village | World news | The Guardian - Less than two miles from Israeli border Zanna residents mourn the dead and dig out bodies from homes reduced to rubble
France's Jews Flee As Rioters Burn Paris Shops, Attack Synagogue
Twitter / ggreenwald: Is this, by the way, the ... - definition of "rogue nation"? https://twitter.com/apdiplowriter/status/492028088826728448 …
Twitter / APDiploWriter: "We will stand up for #Israel ... - even if it means standing alone, and I think you saw that today," (pariah nation, plus America)
Ted Cruz Questions Whether Obama Is Boycotting Israel By Grounding Flights (Israel: "terrorists' victory")

Uproar over Hindu nationalist MP 'force-feeding' Muslim during Ramadan | World news | theguardian.com - Angry scenes in Indian parliament over footage of Rajan Baburao Vichare trying to push chapati into fasting man's mouth

I, spy: Edward Snowden in exile | World | The Guardian
Snowden - Ellsberg - Timm - HopeX 2014 - YouTube - Published on Jul 20, 2014

Hullabaloo - "Minority Report" for dummies - Jeremy Scahill is out with a blockbuster story about the criteria the government uses to put you on a list of suspected terrorists. It's terrifying, all right. The rules are so loose and contradictory it basically can put anyone on there it chooses:
Blacklisted: The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a TerroristThe Intercept - The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.
Watch This: The Intercept Publishes The Government's Guide To The No-Fly List - In order to make the watchlist, neither "concrete facts" nor "irrefutable evidence" are required, and a wide loophole exists that allows a single White House official to add entire "categories" of people unilaterally
Twitter / jeremyscahill: hahaha. "Glenn Greenwald's ... - Blog..." http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/glenn-greenwald-publishes-u-s-government-rules-terror-list-n163291 … // Should we call NBC, "Barack Obama's YouTube channel?"

Here's Some Stupid For Afternoon Tea - Esquire - having already sued the president for doing what they'd begged him to do for six months, the Republicans are now warming up the narrative by which the president gets blamed if people lose their health insurance because conservatives have sued against the implementation of the law. (no insanity too far)

Cuomo’s Office Hobbled Ethics Inquiries by Moreland Commission - NYTimes.com - Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo set up a high-powered commission last summer to root out corruption in state politics. (his commission was corrupt, big surprise)

Gangs, guns and Judas Priest: the secret history of a US-inflicted border crisis | Michael Paarlberg | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Central America didn't always have a gang epidemic. We exported that (and 300,000 guns; love the children)
Border Patrol agents hold Iowa Boy Scouts at gunpoint for taking a picture of them - A Border Patrol agent allegedly held a member of an Iowa Boy Scout troop at gunpoint while another threatened another boy with arrest and a 10-year prison term for taking a picture of him, KCCI-TV reported. - “He hears a snap of a holster, turns around, and here’s this agent, both hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man’s head.” (borderline insanity)

More Than 10 Million People Got Insurance Because Of Obamacare, Feds Say
In a Year, Child Protective Services Checked Up On 3.2 Million Children - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result.

Federal Judge Rules Colorado Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional, Orders Temporary Stay

Supreme Court denies Arizona inmate's final appeal - CSMonitor.com - The Supreme Court cleared the way to carry out the execution of Arizona murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was scheduled to be put to death at the state prison amid new scrutiny nationwide over lethal injections after several controversial executions.
Arizona Execution: Joseph Wood 'Gasping And Snorting For More Than An Hour,' Lawyers Say (no cruel and unusual punishment there)
That's Horrific - As much as it's treated as sick or a joke, firing squad really would be a vastly more humane form of execution than the one we now have. (but you see, Josh, then someone would have to pull the trigger and Jesus would be mad)
NYPD Chokehold Cop Had Two Previous Civil Suits Filed Against Him - Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who can be seen wrapping his arm around Eric Garner's neck before the Staten Island man's death in a video that went viral last week, has been the target of two previous civil rights lawsuits, the Staten Island Advance reports. (killer cops)
Fox & Friends Seems Concerned That Emergency Services Respond To 911 Calls From Non-Citizens | Blog | Media Matters for America (show your papers and maybe we'll respond)

TN Woman Pulls Out Gun When Asked To Slow Down In Wal-Mart Parking Lot - Angela Scruggs told police that after a man in the parking lot told her to "stop speeding ... A witness told police that Scruggs told Hill she would shoot him, according to WGNS. (give everyone guns, what could go wrong?)
Woman Waves Gun Around After Verbal Fight With Grocery Store Employee - A Nashville, Tenn. woman was charged with aggravated assault on Tuesday after waving a gun at a Kroger grocery store employee and threatening to kill her, according to WKRN-TV.

Senator John Walsh of Montana Confronts Questions of Plagiarism - NYTimes.com - Senator John Walsh of Montana Confronts Questions of Plagiarism
How Senator John Walsh Plagiarized a Final Paper - NYTimes.com

Breathtaking Photos Of Witch Doctors And Healers Reveal The Spiritual Diversity Of Bolivia

Health: Temple University Researchers Successfully Eliminate HIV Virus In Human Cells « CBS Philly - Now the next step is to find a way to move the discovery from the lab into animals then people, the groundwork being set for curing HIV.

Apple Treats Labor Like Dirt - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Given that Steve Jobs was a sociopath and given the labor conditions at overseas factories where Apple products are made, it’s not at all hard to believe that the company would treat their U.S. labor horribly:
Why People Aren't Buying iPads Anymore - Simply put, Apple refuses to budge on pricing, said Tero Kuittinen, managing director at Frank N. Magid Associates, a consulting firm. Compared to other tablets, iPads are really expensive, and that's a sticking point.
Apple Confirms “Back Doors”; Downplays Their Severity | Jonathan Zdziarski's Domain - Apple responded to allegations of hidden services running on iOS devices with this knowledge base article. In it, they outlined three of the big services that I outlined in my talk. So again, Apple has, in a traditional sense, admitted to having back doors on the device specifically for their own use.

US subjects the world to the most spam of any country | Technology | theguardian.com - Bulgaria tops the spam-per-person league table, but US inflicts more spam on the globe than any other nation

072214
China 'seals off' town after man dies of bubonic plague - Yahoo News - The 30,000 people living in Yumen in the northwestern province of Gansu are not being allowed to leave, and police at roadblocks on its perimeter are telling motorists to find alternative routes, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

7 Foreign Policy Crises That Show Republicans Prefer Disaster to Solutions - Leaders like Cheney seem more concerned with appearing muscular than solving global conflicts. In fact, attempt a solution, and you'll be called weak.

MH17: Rebels likely shot down plane 'by mistake' – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - US says ‘no evidence of Russia’s direct involvement’ Eyewitnesses tell the Guardian of likely Buk system in Torez
White House Blames Russia For MH17 Crash, Saying There's No Believable Alternative
MH17: witnesses confirm missile system in rebel-held territory – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Eyewitnesses tell the Guardian of likely Buk system - EU foreign ministers refrain from new sanctions on Russia
Ukrainians report sightings of missile launcher on day of MH17 crash | World news | theguardian.com - In Torez, some say missile's journey through town has been a hot topic but people are scared of talking to outsiders
New European Sanctions On Russia Over MH17 Seem Unlikely For Now
EU Weighs Deeper Sanctions If Russia Fails To Resolve Crisis In Ukraine
Jet Wreckage Bears Signs of Impact by Supersonic Missile, Analysis Shows - NYTimes.com (shredded the passengers)
Truth and the Russian media : Columbia Journalism Review - Unhinged claims about the Malaysia jet are part of a broader propaganda campaign

Israel hits hundreds of targets in Gaza as soldier is confirmed missing | World news | theguardian.com - Israeli soldier captured during intense battle in Shujai'iya • Palestinian death toll nears 600, with 27 Israeli soldiers killed
International flights to and from Israel suspended over security concerns | World news | theguardian.com - Move likely to alarm Israeli government as Ban Ki-moon says end to fighting in Gaza could be 'very near'
Gazans flee Israeli bombardment – into the path of more bombs | World news | The Guardian - Thousands of Gazans attempt to find shelter as the UN estimates that more than 100,000 are displaced
Gunshots fired at Al Jazeera bureau in Gaza - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Shots fired into Al Jazeera's office in Gaza, a day after Israeli FM said Israel will work to close down the network.
Twitter / charliearchy: The full text of the resolution ... - on Gaza backed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Rand Paul and 97 other senators.
A Devastating Loss | Palestinian History Tapestry Project
Why Israel and other foreign militaries — not the global poor — get the biggest US aid packages - Vox ($378/capita Israel)
Inside Anonymous' Cyberwar Against the Israeli Government | Mother Jones - The shadowy hacker outfit vows to make Israel "feel fear tingling in their servers."
CNN Poll: Liberals, Democrats, Poor, Women Most Likely To Oppose Israeli War, White Men Most Supportive » Balloon Juice

Osama bin Laden in the Wall Street Journal | MattBruenig | Politics - The argument is this: Are Gazan civilians really innocent in all of this? After all, they voted for Hamas, didn’t they? Aren’t they therefore responsible for the actions of that government? Do they really have a rightful claim to innocence and the usual civilian immunity from military attack? I’ve read this argument before. Osama bin Laden himself made this argument in response to those who said that 9/11 was an unjust attack because it targeted civilians:

The United States Wants the World to Forget These Prisoners | Creative Time Reports - A product of the war on terror, Communications Management Units (CMUs) have cut hundreds of Americans—most of whom are Muslim—off from the outside world, often by labeling their acts of dissent "terrorism."

Twitter / ggreenwald: Most of the "Terror Plots ... - Thwarted" boasts were about plots planned, funded & fueled by the FBI https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-pushed-muslims-plot-terrorist-attacks-rights-report-160325158.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons …

Federal appeals court rules against Affordable Care Act exchange subsidies | World news | theguardian.com - Ruling would effectively make insurance much more expensive for people who bought coverage through Obamacare exchanges (attack of the Republican judges)
Two Republican Judges Gut Obamacare, Threatening Health Care For Millions
Judge Harry Edwards Issues Blistering Dissent Slamming 'Nonsense' Obamacare Decision
A Court Ruling Just Blew a Huge Hole in Obamacare - NationalJournal.com - Opposite court rulings leave the future of Obamacare subsidies in 36 states unknown.
Corruption - If you're looking for a silver lining to this morning's ruling dealing a major blow to Obamacare (or rather a major blow to people getting subsidized policies in the states that didn't adopt exchanges), look to the full DC Circuit Court.
Halbig v. Burwell Ruling: Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit Could Backfire on GOP | New Republic

Obama Opens East Coast to Oil Drilling - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - My dismay toward President Obama’s decisions to open the ocean off the east coast to oil drilling cannot be overstated.
Oil Crazy - Esquire - So many dolphins will die before they get the opportunity to choke to death on oil from the inevitable spills. (Obama decides to use WMDs on fish and dolphins)

Person Of Paradox - Esquire - However, on the issue of the economy, and the people who wrecked it and then sold off the pieces, and then, by and large, got away clean, there were some things the president could have done, and didn't do, that lead me to believe that, on this issue, Frank is more right than he is wrong

Eschaton: I'll Stop Right There - Chuck Schumer, calling for "top two" primaries (because Dems are united; what a fuck Schumer is) )

NYPD Internal Memo Says Chokehold Victim Was Not 'In Great Distress' (if you don't call "dead" "distress")


A Sleep Apnea Test Without a Night in the Hospital - NYTimes.com - Insurers prefer it because it costs only about $300, about one-tenth that of a hospital test, and many patients like it, too. (end of a big medical racket)

How Scientologists Are Sneaking Their Way into Schools to Spread Their Propaganda | Alternet - A drug education program is functioning like a Trojan Horse.


072114
Mideast Conflict: Palestinian Death Toll In Gaza Fighting Tops 500 - he daily Palestinian death toll surpassed 100 on Monday, pushing the total number killed since the new round of fighting began on July 8 to at least 566, Palestinian officials said, adding that some 3,350 have been wounded.
Pro-Palestinian Protesters And French Police Clash Amid Gaza Conflict
Five dead in Gaza hospital shelling while air strike kills 28 family members | World news | The Guardian - 'We don't want to see any more civilians killed' says Barack Obama as IDF attacks intensive care unit in day of bloodshed
Gaza crisis: Barack Obama and UN call for immediate ceasefire | World news | theguardian.com - Israel launches fresh air strikes after bloodiest day UN security council holds emergency meeting
MSNBC Contributor Accuses Network Of 'Biased' Coverage Toward Israel
64 public figures, 7 Nobel laureates, call for arms embargo on Israel - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - Tutu, Chomsky, Waters, Pappe, others accuse country of 'war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.'
The Arrest and Detention of Amer Jubran » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - This isn’t news, because the country is Jordan, the orders come from the US or from Israel, and the man is an Arab, a Palestinian.
MythHistory.pdf - A Short History of the Colonization of Palestine

Malaysia Flight Was Hit by Shotgun-Like Missile, Analysis Shows - Asia news - Boston.com
Obama: What Are Russian Separatists Trying To Hide At Malaysian Plane Crash Site? - "What are they trying to hide?" Obama asked.
Ukraine Separatists Yield, Allowing Bodies to Depart and Agreeing to Hand Over Black Boxes - NYTimes.com
Malaysia Airlines Plane Crash: Ukraine Workers Find More Bodies Amid Debris
MH17's Black Boxes To Be Handed Over To Malaysia: Prime Minister
Obama: What Are Russian Separatists Trying To Hide At Malaysian Plane Crash Site?
Netherlands opens war crimes investigation into airliner downing - Yahoo News
Russia hits back at claims it supported rebels suspected of downing MH17 | World news | The Guardian - Vladimir Putin still blames Kiev for disaster in eastern Ukraine and claims west is using air atrocity for political gain (rebels? what rebels? missles? what missles?)
MH17 victims' bodies are finally moved out of conflict zone | World news | The Guardian - Train carrying bodies of victims leaves Torez as plane's black box recorders were due to be handed to Malaysian delegation
MH17: Obama says Putin 'directly responsible' for investigators' safety | World news | theguardian.com - Russian leader must 'compel separatists to cooperate' • Secure recovery of bodies is 'least that decency demands'
Malaysia Airlines crash: families fear dead being held as bargaining chips - As David Cameron tells Vladimir Putin he is partially responsible for MH17 catastrophe, relatives of victims describe treatment of their loved-ones' bodies as 'horrific'
Ukraine: Rebels Took All Bodies From Plane Crash
MH17: world's anger at Russia grows as bodies pile on to train at crash site | World news | The Guardian - Experts fear clues as to why Malaysia Airlines plane was brought down could be lost for ever as chaos at scene persists
Dutch tell rebels: Train full of bodies must leave
Fighting Flares In Ukraine As Crash Investigators Arrive
U.S. Presses Case Against Russia On Downed Jet
Father Of Passenger Aboard Downed Malaysia Airlines Flight Writes Putin Angry Letter - "Thank you very much, Mr. Putin, separatist leaders and Ukrainian government! For murdering my sweet and only child," Hans de Borst starts his letter, published on his Facebook page and in the Hart Van Nederland newspaper on Monday.
Russia Conspiracy Theories Trap Putin Malaysia Airlines MH17 | New Republic - And it's more of a problem than you think.

Government agents 'directly involved' in most high-profile US terror plots | World news | theguardian.com - Human Rights Watch documents 'sting' operations • Report raises questions about post-9/11 civil rights - not just the sting operations but secret evidence, anonymous juries, extensive pretrial detentions and convictions significantly removed from actual plots. (be very afraid of your government)
New Surveillance Whistleblower: The NSA Violates the Constitution - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - A former Obama administration official calls attention to unaccountable mass surveillance conducted under a 1981 executive order.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev friend found guilty of conspiracy charges | World news | theguardian.com - Azamat Tazhayakov found to have impeded investigation into Boston bombing after removing backpack from suspect's room

Net Neutrality Kabuki Theater: How Cable Companies Dominate the Debate | VICE United States - Take Daniel Alvarez, an FCC attorney hired by Wheeler. As we reported in April, Alvarez worked in 2010 for Comcast to lobby against the first effort to enact net neutrality.

Chokehold Death Puts New York's Controversial Police Chief Back In The Spotlight - Bratton hailed Kelling as an "intellectual mentor" and invoked his "broken windows theory" as a justification for getting tough on turnstile hoppers and dime-bag peddlers back in the '90s. (but) "No one has produced a real academic study showing how enforcement of low-level crimes has resulted in a drop in major crime,"

Further Adventures of the Welfare Queens - FIRST DRAFT - I like Millennium Park fine, but we could have had 60 fantastic neighborhood parks for that money, and they would have gotten as much use. I know the people who live in neighborhoods that need parks don't take pictures for postcards.
Water department: Detroit shut-offs just on pause | The Detroit News (don't read the comments)

Johns Hopkins To Pay $190 Million For Gynecologist Who Secretly Recorded Women's Exams - A "rogue" gynecologist who used tiny cameras to secretly record videos and photos of his patients has forced one of the world's top medical centers to pay $190 million to 8,000 women and girls.

Did Police Exaggerate Account of Child’s Death in Hot Car? - Nation - Boston.com - For instance, a thorough reading of the transcript suggests that prosecutors may have created a false impression by claiming that he searched the Internet for information about children and pets dying in hot cars.

Market Basket Meltdown Continues as Company Fires Employees, Shelves Go Empty and Customers Tweet it All - Business news - Boston.com

A relaunch for The New Yorker, with high stakes | Capital New York - The New Yorker will debut its long awaited, revamped website today, about which you’ll see plenty of commentary and criticism.

072014
California drought will only get worse, experts say - LA Times - California is probably headed into a deeper drought this summer, making it harder to escape in the future, an expert says.

MH17: Kerry says all evidence points to separatists and urges Russia to 'step up' | World news | theguardian.com - Kerry 'We have enormous input about this that points fingers' (Graun's comments full of comsymps)
Ukraine Says It Can Prove Russia Supplied Arms System That Felled Jet - NYTimes.com
Separatists Said to Seize Control of Crash Victims’ Remains - NYTimes.com
U.S. Points to Russian Missile Connection in Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash - WSJ - Further, U.S. officials believe the systems were moved back across the border into Russia following the shoot down of the jetliner, buttressing what Ukraine charges is an attempt by the rebels and their Russian advisers to cover up their involvement in the crash.
Video - MH17 Crash: Where Rebels Got Their Missiles | #TheShortAnswer w/Jason Bellini - WSJ.com - U.S. officials say they believe rebels in Ukraine are responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. How did Russian separatists get their hands on such a sophisticated missile system? How did they know how to use it? (rootin' shootin' tootin' Putin)
MH17 victims put on refrigerated train bound for unknown destination | World news | theguardian.com - International monitors arrive in Torez to inspect wagons accompanied by convoy of heavily armed and nervous rebels
Russia supplied missile launchers to separatists, U.S. official says - The Washington Post - and that attempts were made to move them back across the Russian border after the Thursday shoot-down of a Malaysian jet liner, a U.S. official said Saturday.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: Ukraine Accuses Rebels Of Destroying Evidence - "He has one last chance to show he means to help," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after a telephone call to Putin ... Cameron: only a "very professional" crew could have brought down the speeding jetliner from 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) - not "drunken gorillas"
Ukraine Accuses Russia Of Destroying Evidence At Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash Site
David Cameron: Russia To Blame Over Malaysia Airlines Crash If Rebels Responsible
John Kerry: Drunken Soldiers Unceremoniously Piling MH17 Bodies - "Drunken -- I mean literally, drunken -- separatist soldiers are piling bodies into trucks unceremoniously and disturbing the evidence," Kerry said
Ukraine: Rebels Took All Bodies From Plane Crash - "There's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for. We are not drawing the final conclusion here. But there is a lot that points at the need for Russia to be responsible," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on NBC's "Meet the Press" television show.
Seeing the Big Picture on Russia and the Shootdown (Putin's dick)
Rebel Leader: Malaysia Plane Filled with Already Dead Bodies
Lindsey Graham Calls John Kerry 'Delusional,' Obama 'King Of Indecision' - Graham said it's "indispensable" that the U.S. lead because the Europeans "never" will. Kerry expressed hope that the incident would serve as a "wake-up call" to some European nations. (ButchMeUp wants moar woars)

Both Sides Report Deadliest Day in Gaza War - NYTimes.com
Obama Raises Concerns On Growing Casualties In Call With Netanyahu
Civilians Fleeing Gaza City Neighborhood After Israeli Strike Say They Have Nowhere To Go - The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 87 Palestinians were killed in the attack. At least 420 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and seven Israelis have been killed in the two weeks of fighting.
Unguarded comments suggest Kerry frustration at civilian toll in Gaza | World news | theguardian.com - It's a hell of a pinpoint operation' captured on open microphone
Thousands Flee Major Battle In Gaza - Palestinian health officials reported at least 65 people killed by the air and artillery strikes that echoed across the city for hours. They put the number of displaced at 35,000.
Anti-Israel protesters rally across France, defying ban imposed after synagogue clash - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - Thousands march through French cities in protest of Israeli operation in Gaza Strip; French president says will not allow violence to spill over into France.
Rich Lowry: Boys Killed By Israelis On Gaza Beach Should Have Gotten Out Of The Way | Crooks and Liars - National Review Editor Rich Lowry asserted over the weekend that Israelis were not at fault for the deaths of four boys who were killed while playing on a Gaza beach last week because Hamas should have told them to move out of the way.
Israel’s Warnings Don’t Make Their Bombings Right by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - And, so, they wind up in a situation where they have a policy of blowing up families and apartment buildings while trying to make it okay by warning everyone they are about to be bombed.
Israel using flechette shells in Gaza | World news | theguardian.com - Palestinian human rights group accuses Israel military of using shells that spray out thousand of tiny and potentially lethal darts

US drone strike kills several militants in Pakistan | World news | theguardian.com - Eleven dead in remote-controlled attack on a compound in north Waziristan, the second this week
Afghan presidential vote audit halted over which ballots to throw out | World news | The Guardian - Deal to resolve political crisis in jeopardy after election workers walk out just days after large-scale audit of disputed poll begins
Clashes between Libyan militias near Tripoli airport leave three dead | World news | theguardian.com - Week-long battle for control of Libya's main international airport resumes after ceasefire efforts fail

Conflict translates environmental and social risk into business costs - Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining
Local Protesters Are Killing Big Oil and Mining Projects Worldwide | Motherboard

Addicted to Inflation - NYTimes.com (addicted to voices in their heads)
Congress Fawned Over Bernanke, But It Mansplains To Janet Yellen, The First Woman Fed Chair - committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) (R-Idiot)

Comcast Corp: All Recipients | OpenSecrets - Among Federal Candidates, 2014 Cycle Total: $1,986,060

The Rise of the Non-Working Rich | Robert Reich - In a new Pew poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe "poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything."

Complaints About Chokeholds Are Focus of Study - NYTimes.com - The city agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct is studying the more than 1,000 complaints it has received in recent years about police officers using chokeholds (Bloomberg's legacy)
New Raw Video Surfaces In NYPD Chokehold Death (GRAPHIC)

The 'Facebook Cop' and the Implications of Privatized Policing - Joe Pinsker - The Atlantic - The tech company agreed to pay the officer’s salary and benefits, which totaled roughly $200,000, even though she’s officially part of a government organization, the Menlo Park Police Department. “It's not the 'Facebook officer,’” a company spokesperson insisted in the Wall Street Journal article (this is how it starts, but they will have to wear advertising)
At Least 40 Shot In Chicago Weekend Wave Of Violence - An 11-year-girl was shot and killed during a slumber party as violence struck Chicago over the weekend, local media outlets reported on Sunday.

Pathogen Mishaps Rise as Regulators Stay Clear - NYTimes.com - Spurred by the anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001, an increase in “high-level containment” labs set up to work with risky microbes has raised the number to about 1,500 from a little more than 400 in 2004 (Cheney's anthrax attacks spurred another arms race, of course, with no regulation because terror)

Debunking the right’s enduring myth: The truth about Richard Nixon and the fight to overturn the 1960 election - Salon.com - Nixon's allies and aides contested the '60 presidential election fiercely -- no matter what Ann Coulter says

The Trials of Graham Spanier, Penn State’s Ousted President - NYTimes.com
Great Moments In Post-Accountability - Lawyers, Guns & Money : For those who have already read Sokolove applying somewhat less of a critical eye to Spanier’s story than Richard Cohen applied to Colin Powell’s UN speech, the mystery will vanish.

Guarded optimism as HIV infections in US fall by a third over 10 years | Society | theguardian.com - 16 out of every 100,000 people infected by Aids virus in 2011 • Fall in new infection rate occurs despite rise in testing
What he said before he died - Salon.com

7 biggest myths about big penises - Salon.com - Bigger may be better, but when it comes to a partner's sexual satisfaction, size is pretty low on the priority list
Vagina selfie for 3D printers lands Japanese artist in trouble | World news | theguardian.com - Megumi Igarashi, aka Rokudenashiko, arrested for emailing digital template of her genitalia to supporters of her art

Why the internet of things could destroy the welfare state | Technology | The Observer - Tech pioneers in the US are advocating a new data-based approach to governance – 'algorithmic regulation'. But if technology provides the answers to society's problems, what happens to governments? (Zuckerpres for life!)
Fossils show sea creature's half-billion-year-old brain › News in Science (ABC Science) - Spectacular fossils unearthed in China show detailed brain structures of a bizarre group of sea creatures that were the top predators more than half a billion years ago.
What is the most jaw-dropping TED talk ? : AskReddit - water
bleepblopbloop comments on My husband was diagnosed with ADD because he can't focus on reading or similar tasks. I can read a book all day but simply *cannot* focus on a movie or a TV show. My mind will not stay focused. How come he has ADD and I don't?


071914

Cover-up: Ukraine rebels destroying all links to MH17 air atrocity | World news | The Guardian - UN demands full inquiry but armed Russian separatists block access to crash site amid confusion over black boxes - Postings on rebel websites immediately after the crash boasted of having shot down what they claimed was an Antonov Ukrainian military transport plane, but these have since been deleted.
Bodies rained down on Ukraine village after plane disaster | Reuters - First came the loud explosion that made buildings rattle: then it started raining bodies.
Exclusive Footage of MH17 Aftermath: Russian Roulette (Dispatch 60) | VICE News
Looters Stole Cash, Credit Cards, and Jewelry from Flight MH17 Crash Victims - The Wire
Looters Stole Cash, Credit Cards, and Jewelry from Flight MH17 Crash Victims : news - the seperatists are already saying this was actually the last Malaysian plane MH370 that went down near the coast of Australia and the bodies were people dead a long time and the whole thing is fake.

NBC News Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin Returning To Gaza - NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin will return to Gaza to cover the Israeli invasion, an assignment that comes two days after he was mysteriously removed by the network - fueling speculation that the removal had to do with Mohyeldin's coverage of the civilian casualties or a couple of deleted posts on social media. (AIPAC at work)
Committee To Protect Journalists Urges Israeli Military To Stay Away From Media Buildings
Israeli Army Is Requiring Journalists To Sign Waiver In Case Of Injury Or Death (in case we kill you)

More people than ever oppose the NSA practices Edward Snowden revealed. Why should he spend his life in prison? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The justice system would never allow Snowden to present a real defense at trial. That's just one reason to give him amnesty
A Judge Just Gave Prosecutors Access To Someone's Gmail

US terrorist database growing at rapid rate - Yahoo News - The U.S. government is rapidly expanding the number of names it accepts for inclusion on its terrorist watch list, with more than 1.5 million added in the last five years, according to numbers divulged by the government in a civil lawsuit. (Obama created a million and a half American terrorists!)

Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans - The Washington Post
Republicans Freak Out At Learning Reagan Decree Protects Lois Lerner

For the G.O.P., Fine Line Seen on Migration - NYTimes.com - In 1996, when a surge in illegal immigration collided with the overheated politics of a presidential election, Republicans demanded a strict crackdown

Some girls are bigger than others » Balloon Juice (TBogg picks Hilliary; Liz for SC)

Here Is The Income Level At Which Money Won't Make You Any Happier In Each State (the South/West pretty much sucks; Ma 9th happiest)

Could southern black voters save the Senate for Democrats? - The Washington Post
Black Southern Voters, Poised to Play a Historic Role - NYTimes.com
How Turbans Helped Some Blacks Go Incognito In The Jim Crow Era : Code Switch : NPR

Airbus files patent for saddle seats on planes - CNN.com


Men aren’t entitled to women's time or affection. But it's a hard lesson to learn | Cord Jefferson | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Beware a bro who knows what he 'deserves': the friendzone is only purgatory if women's decisions are less valid

From prey to predator: how I got justice after sexual assault | World news | The Guardian - In Massachusetts at the time, the minimum sentence for rape was probation. But the judge sentenced Duncan Purdy to seven to 10 years. (Cambridge MA: About Hair)

Chattanooga Tennessee municipal broadband restrictions defended | BGR - However Ars Technica points us to a new quote from Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), whom we last saw slamming Google and Netflix for supposedly mooching off of Comcast, and who is now defending incumbent ISPs’ rights to offer her constituents inferior broadband service without having to face any competition from anyone.

ELI5:What is 4chan and why is it being banned in so many places? Isn't 4chan just like reddit? : explainlikeimfive

071814
President Obama Weighs in on the Malaysian Airliner Crisis - NYTimes.com
Obama Points to Pro-Russia Separatists in Downing of Malaysia Airlines Plane - NYTimes.com
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash: world demands answers from Russia | World news | theguardian.com - US criticises Kremlin's arming of rebels and Hillary Clinton says 'Putin has gone too far' after 298 die in missile strike
MH17: recording shows Russian colonel and rebels 'discussing disaster' – video | World news | theguardian.com
Malaysia Airlines Crash: World Demands Answers After Plane Downed Over Ukraine
Hillary Clinton to Charlie Rose on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: ‘Should be outrage in European capitals’ if Russia shot down plane over Ukraine  - NY Daily News - there’s a lot more that needs to be done,' Clinton said, 'and to put Putin on notice, that he has gone too far, and we are not going to stand idly by.'

Game Changer - Were it not for the hundreds killed, it would also be comical the ridiculous series of events Vladimir Putin's reckless behavior led up to this morning. For months Putin has been playing with fire, making trouble and having it work mainly to his advantage ... But having a passenger plane, filled with EU citizens, shot out of the sky above what is presumed to be the bubble of first world safety that is "Europe" is a game changing event not only in the Ukraine crisis but much more broadly about Putin's role in Europe generally.
Why Airlines Didn't Avoid Risky Ukraine Airspace - Rerouting planes around war zones costs airlines money, as the planes burn more expensive jet fuel. Aviation expert Norman Shanks said many airlines continued to fly over Ukraine despite warnings because it offered a shorter route that saved money on fuel.
Just With Real Weapons - So that's who you're dealing with: some mix of civil war reenactor or Tea Partier decked out in revolutionary garb, with a mix of reckless aggression and comical incompetence.

Putin and the Crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 : The New Yorker

What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 - NYTimes.com - A summary of what is known and not known about the crash. UPDATED 5:43 PM ET
U.S. diplomat points finger at pro-Russian rebels - CNN.com
Malaysia Plane Crash Victims Included About 100 AIDS Conference Attendees, Report Suggests
Russia Lays Blame for Malaysia Airlines Crash on Ukraine - NYTimes.com - and rejected accusations that Russia was involved,
World Leaders Match Anger With Calls for Inquiry Into Ukraine Plane Crash - NYTimes.com - But beyond calls for an international inquiry, they showed few signs of immediately following the United States in imposing harsher sanctions on Russia.
Leading AIDS Researcher Killed in Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash - NYTimes.com
Russia Today Anchor Resigns, Admits To Spreading 'Lies' For Putin - Firth said that if she was "asked to burn the facts and not tell the truth" then she would "be a goner." "And so I’m gone," she said, adding, "it's not a nice organisation either." (Putin runs the show)
Blown Out Of The Sky - Esquire - Mr. McCain said that Mr. Obama is running a "cowardly administration that failed to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves." - More guns. More war. That's what we need. (McCain is really evil + over 350,000 guns have been trafficked from the US to Mexico and Central America since 2007, and we wonder why people want to get out of there.)
UN Security Council Sets Emergency Meeting On Ukraine - Britain's U.N. Mission said Thursday it requested the meeting and later tweeted that it is set for 10 a.m. Friday.
Downing of Malaysia Jet Is a Call to End Ukraine Conflict - NYTimes.com - Downing of Malaysia Jet Is a Call to End Ukraine Conflict

No More Mister Nice Blog - Compare Obama To Reagan After An Airliner Shootdown? Yes, Let's Do That
NRA Calls For Missiles on Passenger Jets - The Daily Currant (if every passenger had a missle launcher this wouldn't have happened)

Netanyahu Warns of Wider Israel Operation in Gaza - NYTimes.com
Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West - NYTimes.com - The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.
"And Does Someone Have Judy Miller's Number if the Replacement Doesn't Work Out?" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - In fairness, Mohyeldin was naive to think that reporting actual news was a way to advance your career working for a major network newscast.
CNN Removes Reporter Diana Magnay From Israel-Gaza After 'Scum' Tweet - “After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement to The Huffington Post.
Twitter / YourAnonNews: US Senate subcommittee approves ... - using $621 million taxpayer dollars to ensure Israel can safely colonize Palestine http://1.usa.gov/1nTvnZR
Israel, not Hamas, turns Palestinians into 'human shields'

Holding Peacekeepers Responsible - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com - A Dutch court took the unusual step of holding its government responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Bosnians whom Dutch soldiers in a United Nations peacekeeping force let Bosnian Serbs slaughter.
Pope Francis and the Bishops Who Hid Pedophile Priests - NYTimes.com - Pope Francis and the Bishops Who Hid Pedophile Priests

Nude photos of strangers are a 'fringe benefit' for NSA employees, says Snowden - Gadgets and Tech - Life and Style - The Independent - “So what do they do? They turn around in their chair and show their co-worker and their co-worker says: ‘Oh hey, that's great. Send that to Bill down the way.’ And then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom and sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by other people. It's never reported. Nobody knows about it because the auditing of these systems is incredibly weak.
General Atomics Unveils Enhanced Drone Cockpit | Defense Tech (how remote murder looks)
How to Bypass Internet Censorship

Addicted to Inflation - NYTimes.com - I’ve had conversations with investors bemused by the failure of the dollar to crash and inflation to soar, because “all the experts” said that was going to happen

What Do the Recent Supreme Court Decisions Mean for Women’s Economic Security? | The Nation
Faith-Based Fanatics - NYTimes.com - The founders were explicit: This country would never formally align God with one political party, or allow someone to use religion to ignore civil laws. At least that was the intent. In this summer of the violent God, five justices on the Supreme Court seem to feel otherwise.

Obama to Extend Protections for Gay Workers, With No Religious Exemption - NYTimes.com

Cheers for Warren at Conference Offer Peek at Democrats' Mind-Set - NYTimes.com
Elizabeth Warren should run for president: It would be good for Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and even Republicans. - Why an Elizabeth Warren presidential bid would be good for all Americans.
This voter guessed how old Elizabeth Warren is. The answer may surprise you. - Other voters guesstimated that Warren was around a decade younger than Clinton. She's actually only 18 months younger, born in 1949, 12 years before the current president of the United States, and four years before the current dynastic hope of the GOP, Jeb Bush (Hilliary is so 20th Century)

U.S. Steps Up Deportation of Central American Child Migrants - NYTimes.com

Appeals Court Overturns Oklahoma’s Ban on Gay Marriage - NYTimes.com (the beat goes on)

Obama approves sonic cannons for use in east coast gas and oil exploration | Environment | theguardian.com - Decision opens an area of the eastern seaboard larger than two Californias to exploration for the first time in decades

Out On The Weekend - Esquire - "They call this The Snake Line," Barber said. "We have got to get America back above The Snake Line."
Walk On The Water - Esquire - But, seriously, water? We are litigating whether citizens have a right to water?
Today's Lesson - Esquire - Most significantly, the speech now contains a pointed passage on international trade, in which deals like NAFTA and the upcoming TPP deal are framed as yet another way the dice are loaded, and another example of there not being any pea under any of the shells. (Obama's favorite thing - beside drones and spying - is secret trade deals)

The World Health Organization calls for the decriminalisation of drug use | Transform: Getting Drugs Under Control

Staten Island Man Dies After He Is Put in Chokehold During Arrest - NYTimes.com - a 43-year-old man whose final moments were captured in a video in which he can be heard gasping “I can’t breathe” over and over again after an officer is seen placing him in a chokehold, officials said.
Man Dies After He Is Put in Chokehold During Arrest: a 43-year-old man whose final moments were captured in a video in which he can be heard gasping “I can’t breathe” over and over again : news

31 Adorable Slang Terms for Sexual Intercourse from the Last 600 Years | Mental Floss

This Is How Comcast Is Astroturfing the Net Neutrality Issue - Esquire - By its own admission, Comcast is working with think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. Fellows at the Institute are printing op-eds all throughout the media in support of killing Net neutrality--without disclosing the think tank's ties to Comcast.

071714
Carbon tax is gone: Repeal bills pass the Senate - Australia on Thursday became the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon, with the Senate passing the government’s repeal bills 39 votes to 32. After two weeks of negotiations, and several false starts, the Abbott government achieved its long-held ambition to axe the tax, to applause from government senators. (burn in climate hell, Oz)

Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crashes in east Ukraine, reports say | World news | theguardian.com - Flight MH17 believed to be carrying 295 people on board goes down near town of Snizhne, says Russian news agency - in an area where separatist rebels have been engaging Ukrainian military forces in recent weeks. (just happened to crash there, Russian-backed rebels say)
Malaysia Airlines plane MH17 'shot down' in Ukraine - live updates | World news | theguardian.com
? [LATEST FOOTAGE] Malaysia flight MH17 Crash Site Dead Body'S And Passports Live News - YouTube
Downed Malaysia Airlines plane: how did it go wrong for flight MH17? | World news | The Guardian - "The aircraft was flying at Flight Level 330 [approximately 10,000 metres/33,000 ft] when it disappeared from the radar," said Eurocontrol. "This route had been closed by the Ukrainian authorities from ground to flight level 320 [32,000ft] but was open at the level at which the aircraft was flying."
Malaysia Airlines (MH) #17 ? 17-Jul-2014 ? EHAM / AMS - WMKK / KUL ? FlightAware
Pro-Russian separatist's online boasts about shooting down plane
BurkoNews.info | The Security Service of Ukraine Published Talks between Terrorists and Their Curators from Moscow
? Pro-Russian rebels discuss the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines airliner - YouTube
Malaysian Passenger Plane Crashes in Ukraine Near Russian Border - The Wire
The forgotten story of Iran Air Flight 655 - The Washington Post

Israeli military begins ground offensive in Gaza – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Ceasefire talks ongoing despite reports of agreement
Israel seeks ceasefire that will restore authority to Abbas, says official | World news | theguardian.com - Negotiations between Israel and Hamas reach 'critical 24 hours' after Cairo talks during brief humanitarian ceasefire
Military Official Says Israel Invasion of Gaza Is Likely - NYTimes.com

Edward Snowden: 'If I end up in chains in Guantánamo I can live with that' - video interview | World news | theguardian.com

Biden: His Time? - Esquire - The general feeling here is that Biden will not run for president if Hillary Clinton does. This is unfortunate. If there was ever a contrast to be made with the dour, mechanized, winning-through-effort style of the former Secretary of State, it is Biden's Humphrey-esque joie de pancake breakfast.

Georgia Out Of His Mind - Esquire - The fact is that impeachment -- or to be more precise, the threat of impeachment -- was a political tactic already at hand to the Republicans any time they wanted to use it. Criminalizing the simple election of a Democratic president was a club that was already in the bag.

Who Will Win The Senate? — The Upshot Senate Forecasts — NYTimes.com - Republicans have a slight edge, with about a 58% chance of gaining a majority.
1980 and All That by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - something interesting: Democrats seem to be significantly better than Republicans in flipping Senate seats held by incumbents.
Why Democrats Need to Take Sides in America's Class War - Straddling class divisions so last century. There's a new base in town, and it includes a lot of people who used to be middle-class but aren't anymore.
Class War: Yes Please - Lawyers, Guns & Money : A plutocratic white supremacist nation is what Republicans want. Democrats need to recognize this for what it is and aggressively organize the vast majority left out of Republicans’ vision.

“Religious Liberty” Campaign Not Working Out That Well by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Republicans are publicly complaining that Democrats are trying to “change the subject” from this or that issue (real or imaginary) they want to talk about, but are privately conceding the peril for their team of any extended conversation involving reproductive rights.

Towns Fight to Avoid Taking In Migrant Minors - NYTimes.com
O’Malley , Obama aides spar over unaccompanied immigrant children - The Washington Post - It started Friday, when O’Malley declared that returning the children to their home countries, as Obama has suggested, would send them “back to certain death.” That prompted an angry response from White House officials and accusations of hypocrisy when O’Malley opposed locating a shelter for the children in a Maryland county.
How Conservative Media Killed A Charity's Plan To Help Migrant Children In Crisis | Blog | Media Matters for America - after conservative media outlets used misleading images to suggest displaced children would be living there in luxury conditions
Today in American Racism - Lawyers, Guns & Money - Rather, it seems to be just a small group of racists who already hate Obama and oppose immigration anyway
Immigration Lunacy Down in Arizona - Esquire - Adam Kwasman, right, who confused a bus full of YMCA campers for undocumented immigrant children.
Potential Jewish GOP House Members: And Then There Was One by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Well, Zeldin must be feeling lonely today after Kwasman conducted one of the most efficient acts of political self-destruction since Todd Akin decided to talk about rape:

Darrell Issa Abruptly Ends Hearing Before Witness Can Debunk His White House Attacks (attack of the clowns)

Wilmington Trust: Failed bank's lender faked loans, feds say - Compare that to the government's $7 billion cash settlement with Citigroup, where billions in bad loans were falsely called good ones and sold to investors, and individuals aren't being held responsible. (too big to jail)

The Goal of "6 Californias" Remains a Mystery | Mother Jones - Even if his initiative passes, he knows perfectly well it's going nowhere since Congress will never approve it. So either (a) he's just a crackpot or (b) he has some clever reason for doing this that's going to make him even richer. It's a mystery. (billionairetechdudebroasshole)

Limbaugh Claims He Hasn't "Spoken In Favor Of Impeachment" Just Weeks After Saying Obama "Needs To Be Impeached" | Blog | Media Matters for America (Satan always lies)

Rove’s Brilliant Health-Care Plan Foiled -- NYMag - by Lack of Space

The Trouble With Floyd Mayweather - Floyd Mayweather is a misogynist. And not just a misogynist, but a batterer, and a serial batterer at that

"Sex Demons" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : If you enjoy bad things happening to bad people as much as I do, you should be following the implosion of the Seattle-based Mars Hill Church
Inside Mars Hill's massive meltdown | Crosscut.com - How narcissism, misogyny and Mark Driscoll's own troubled past led to the mega-church mass exodus his flock was too scared to talk about.
We Love Mars Hill - These are stories by people who once went to Mars Hill Church. People are often hurt from their experience at the church and we hope to provide a platform for healing and change.
Mars Hill Church Says "God Wants" Them to Have Sound Transit Property | Slog




071614
Carbon Dioxide Suffers Just Like Jews In Nazi Germany, 'Expert' Says On CNBC - Princeton University professor William Happer while being interviewed on "Squawk Box" on CNBC. Before host Andrew Ross Sorkin could respond in incredulity, Happer went on to say, "Carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so were the Jews." (logic at work) When ExxonMobil donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Happer's organization, the Marshall Institute, they probably didn't expect him to make such haphazard comments.

Ebola Death Toll In West Africa Jumps To 603

Israeli naval ship bombs Palestinian children on Gaza beach, killing four - Group of young children reportedly attacked by shellfire from Israeli navy ship in Gaza City harbour area close to hotel at which journalists staying, with four dead (what you have wrought, AIPAC-friendly Dems)
Witness to a shelling: first-hand account of deadly strike on Gaza port | World news | The Guardian - There is a deafening explosion, then a second. Four children are dead. Four survivors reach the safety of our hotel
Israel firing experimental weapons at Gaza's civilians, say doctors | The Electronic Intifada

Pentagon: More Russian Troops on Ukraine Border - ABC News
As Fighting In East Ukraine Intensifies, Hundreds Of Bodies Of Rebels Found In Shallow Graves
Nigerian President Accuses 'Bring Back Our Girls' Activists Of 'Psychological Terrorism' | ThinkProgress - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has never been a fan of activists demanding his government focus more efforts to retrieve more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls

The Iraq That Dick Cheney Actually Left Behind | ThinkProgress

US government says online storage isn't protected by the Fourth Amendment (contra Supremes who implied cloud was private; this is Obama at work destroying your privacy)
Some Lucidity On What Is Wrong With The World, From r/Conspiracy Of All Places. : bestof (comment and account deleted, read down for copy from doppelgin)
UN: Nations hide rise in private digital snooping - The Washington Post - Governments on every continent are hiding an increasing reliance on private companies to snoop on citizens’ digital lives, the U.N. human rights office said Wednesday.
The airborne panopticon: How plane-mounted cameras watch entire cities | Ars Technica - Persistent Surveillance Systems can watch 25 sq. miles—for hours.

Federal judge rules California death penalty is unconstitutional - LA Times

Getting the Government Out of Your Wedding - A federal appeals court says its time for the state to stop saying what kind of clergy can perform your ceremony.
Jennifer Haselberger, Church Lawyer, Alleges Sex Abuse Cover-Up In Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis - Jennifer Haselberger, who spent five years as Archbishop John Nienstedt's archivist and top adviser on Roman Catholic church law, also charged that the church used a chaotic system of record-keeping that helped conceal the backgrounds of guilty priests who remained on assignment.

Austerity Is Poisoning The Economy, In 2 Charts - The broad spending cuts that were the fruits of the Republican Congress' budget obsession of the past few years have already cost the U.S. economy $351 billion in lost economic activity (Republicans are evil)
Americans Have Spent Enough Money On A Broken Plane To Buy Every Homeless Person A Mansion | ThinkProgress - he F-35 II Lightning, or the Joint Strike Fighter — has been grounded, highlighting just what a boondoggle the project has been. With the vast amounts spent so far on the aircraft, the United States could have worked wonders, including providing every homeless person in the U.S. a $600,000 home.

Elizabeth Warren: The government shutdown was over birth control | WashingtonExaminer.com (think about that; Talibanical Republicans)
Democrats fail in attempt to reverse Hobby Lobby contraceptive ruling | WJLA.com

Pelosi, in Reversal, Says She Opposes Speeding Child Deportations - NYTimes.com
Ariz. Protestors Mistakenly Blockade YMCA Bus Instead Of Migrants
Crisis management guy not very good at crisis management, kind of dumb about law too - It should be noted that those few passionate ‘bad apples’ were invited to foam at the mouth and block the roadway for the cameras by … Mayor Alan Long.
GOP Congressman: Kids At Border "Gang Members" From Culture Of "Rape" - “A lot of these children … quote-unquote … ya know, the first caller mentioned it, ya know, they’re gang members. They’re gang-affiliated.”

The Continuing Agonies of the Super-Rich - Republican fundraising is suffering because their big donors are worried they'll be "demonized." Can't this nation spare some compassion for them?
University at Buffalo paid $275,000 for Hillary Clinton speech - The Washington Post

Decriminalization arrives, and D.C. police prepare for sea change in marijuana laws - The Washington Post (their main job was smelling weed; what will they do now?)

The Billionaire Who Wants to Split California Into 6 States Has the Most Embarrassing YouTube Feed Ever | Mother Jones (dudebro billionaires at work)

How Americans Feel About Religious Groups | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project - Jews, Catholics & Evangelicals Rated Warmly, Atheists and Muslims More Coldly (Jews have highest self-regard but love White Evangelicals; everyone hates Atheist Ragheads)
U.S. Christians are chilly toward atheists, and the feeling is mutual | Pew Research Center

NASA: Humans Will Prove ‘We Are Not Alone In The Universe’ Within 20 Years : worldnews

FBI warns driverless cars could be used as 'lethal weapons' | Technology | theguardian.com - Internal report sees benefits for road safety, but warns that autonomy will create greater potential for criminal 'multitasking' (road drones)

Google Drops All Real-Name Restrictions for Google+ - The company apologized for the “unnecessarily difficult experiences” the rules had created.

071514
Japan earthquake has raised pressure below Mount Fuji, says new study | World news | Guardian Weekly - Geological disturbances caused by 2011 tremors mean active volcano is in a 'critical state', say scientific researchers

Israel resumes air strikes after Hamas ceasefire rejection kills civilian | World news | The Guardian - First Israeli killed in conflict by one of 50 rockets fired from Gaza during halt in Israeli bombardment, which has killed almost 200
A knock on the roof, then another Gaza home destroyed by Israeli missile | World news | The Guardian - A Palestinian group says 869 homes been ruined or damaged in Israeli attacks. In Shati, a crowd witnesses one such strike
Thank You, President Obama. Love, Israel by Chris Ernesto -- Antiwar.com
Florida Congresswoman Sides with Israeli Police Over Her Own Brutalized Teenage Constituent | Alternet - Rep. Kathy Castor has done nothing for a Tampa teen who was beaten by Israeli cops.

Germany 'may revert to typewriters' to counter hi-tech espionage | World news | The Guardian - NSA inquiry head Patrick Sensburg claims communications technology mistrusted in wake of US spying allegations

Cowardice meets arrogance in UK surveillance stitch up - Boing Boing
A Zombie Bill Comes Back to Life: A Look at The Senate's Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2014 | Electronic Frontier Foundation

For the Record: Yes, the Government Really Did Trash-Talk Our FISA Story - The Intercept
Twitter / gadeirabbas: @johnjcook is right. On 3 ... - occassions feds smeared @ggreenwald & @MazMHussain's reporting even before they published. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/12/yes-government-really-try-undermine-fisa-story-response-washington-post/ …
NSA Surveillance: Q&A with reporter Barton Gellman - The Washington Post - Holding our own government to account for the use of its power is, in my view, the highest mission of a U.S. news organization.

All Wars Are Bankers' Wars! | What Really Happened

Suing Corporations: Now Almost Impossible - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Thrown Out of Court by Lina Khan | The Washington Monthly - How corporations became people you can't sue.

Conservative Groups Move To Kill GOP's Highway Trust Fund Bill, But Republicans Aren't Nervous (while they dismantle America)

Atheist To Open New York Town Meeting After Supreme Court OKs Prayers

Four states were responsible for half of US wiretaps last year | The Verge - Nevada leads the country in phone taps per citizen

Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Mainline Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire - Dick Cheney sat silently through the whole exchange, taking it all in without saying a word.
Santelli Meltdown On CNBC - Business Insider

Slavoj Žižek Sorta Kinda Admits Plagiarizing White Supremacist Journal

Charles Darwin's evolutionary reading: HMS Beagle's library goes online | Science | theguardian.com - The Beagle's library of more than 400 books has been reconstructed and made freely available in digital form


071414
Rupert Murdoch Thinks You're Overreacting About Climate Change
Yellowstone National Park limits visitor access because roads are melting | News | Geek.com - For the past ten years, the magma pocket that’s responsible for heating the water in Yellowstone has been swelling and causing the ground above it to steadily rise. By 2010, some spots had risen by nearly a foot. Though the rate has slowed somewhat, the ground continues inching upward.

Egypt calls on Israel and Hamas to agree ceasefire | World news | The Guardian - Statement urges Israel to refrain from ground invasion and for Palestinian factions in Gaza to stop firing rockets
U.S. Sees Risks in Assisting a Compromised Iraqi Force - NYTimes.com (all that money and blood for nothing)
A Tiny Revolution: Jesus Fucking Christ Jeffrey Goldberg Is an Idiot (No, ISIS Hasn't Captured Saddam’s Hidden WMD) - Jesus Fucking Christ Jeffrey Goldberg Is an Idiot (No, ISIS Hasn't Captured Saddam’s Hidden WMD)

Lady Butler-Sloss stands down from child-abuse inquiry | Society | theguardian.com - Judge, whose brother was attorney general in 1980s, withdraws from inquiry after mounting criticism of appointment

GCHQ has tools to manipulate online information, leaked documents show | UK news | theguardian.com - Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal programs to track targets, spread information and manipulate online debates
Edward Snowden condemns Britain's emergency surveillance bill | World news | The Guardian - Exclusive: NSA whistleblower says it 'defies belief' that bill must be rushed through after government ignored issue for a year

/u/161719 Explains the harmful effects of government surveillance and dispels the "i have nothing to hide" argument. : bestof

The American Century is over: How our country went down in a blaze of shame - Salon.com - We face a triple crisis in foreign policy, economics and democracy. Here's how it all went to hell

One third of Americans want to impeach Obama (and Bush)

Infrastructure - Lawyers, Guns & Money : government spending on infrastructure, which is at its lowest levels on record, with data going back to 1947: (Republicans hate infrastructure)
The GOP self-destruction is complete: millennials officially hate conservatives | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | theguardian.com


Disease Threat From Immigrant Children Wildly Overstated | The Texas Observer - The Central American kids arriving in Texas are likely to be better-vaccinated than children in Texas.

Voodoo Economics in the Sunflower State - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The impact on overall state revenue has been devastating. Despite Laffer’s prediction, the state ended fiscal 2014 with a shortfall of $338 million. - In conclusion, upper-class tax cuts cannot fail — they can only be failed.
How Tea Party tax cuts are turning Kansas into a smoking ruin - LA Times

Michelle Rhee’s minions meet their match: New anti-charter group declares war - Salon.com - High-profile Democrats -- from Donna Brazile to Jennifer Granholm -- are saying enough is enough re: charter-mania

On MoDo And Chelsea Clinton - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Does Dowd donate her own speaking fees to charity?

The Tea Party Isn’t a Political Movement, It’s a Religious One - The Daily Beast - Obama is the Antichrist, Republicans are heretics, and compromise is unholy. Politics can’t explain how the right acts.
Republicans confuse “Atlas Shrugged” for the Bible - Salon.com - A new poll suggests a majority of party members think Jesus would have denounced universal healthcare (he came to save the rich, was anti-gay, pro-gun)

Bookstore Owner Takes On a Union, Shocking a Liberal Bastion - NYTimes.com - “I think I’m probably not a very good manager,” Mr. Doeblin said

A Nice Jailing Should Teach This Terrible Mom To Let Her Nine-Year-Old Daughter Go To Park By Herself

The secret to successful flirting - Salon.com - New research suggests that it's not what you say that attracts the opposite sex but how you say it (thanks, science)

The universe according to Nietzsche: Modern cosmology and the theory of eternal recurrence - Salon.com - The philosopher's musings on the nature of reality could have scientific basis, according to a prominent physicist

Economist Koleman Strumph: File Sharing's Impact On Movies Is Modest At Most | Rife Mob

071314
Why the next climate treaty is vital for my country to survive | Environment | theguardian.com - The Marshall Islands minister stresses the importance of forthcoming emissions targets, especially for countries less than two metres above the rising oceans

Israel Widens Gaza Bombing Targets, Deploys Ground Troops
"The current death score is 159-0." - Lawyers, Guns & Money : the Netanyahu government has partially contrived and partially been trapped by a domestic political climate that requires them to kill numbers of Palestinians in order to satisfy the Israeli electorate. Of course there’s the usual blather about “operatives” and “terrorist infrastructure”, but it is hard to take seriously the idea that anyone believes this as a description of Israeli aims.
Bullshitting about Gaza — Crooked Timber - I wonder if Israel’s cheerleaders realize the damage they do their own cause when they write things like “Israel, unlike Hamas, isn’t trying to kill civilians. It’s taking pains to spare them”
How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza – Forward.com - Kidnap, Crackdown, Mutual Missteps and a Hail of Rockets (Netanyahu knew they were dead, played it for politics)
Netanyahu government knew teens were dead as it whipped up racist frenzy | The Electronic Intifada
How the public was manipulated into believing the teens were alive | +972 Magazine - The government-led campaign calling for their release helped the legitimacy of Israel’s military operation in the West Bank.
MEI Editor's Blog: Guest Post: William R. Polk Offers a Grim Assessment of Prospects for Israel and Palestine (not looking good)


Merkel doubts whether US will stop spying on Germany | World news | theguardian.com - Chancellor: 'We are not living in the Cold War anymore'' (Obama: "you're our bitch, bitch")

Emails shed new light on UK link to CIA 'torture flights' | World news | The Observer - Police given crucial logs about Diego Garcia's role in rendition programme when it was allegedly used as a secret prison (oh, they lied!)

The Senate is giving more power to the NSA, in secret. Everyone should fight it | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Politicians are still trying to hand over your data behind closed doors, under the guise of 'cybersecurity' reform. Have we learned nothing?

Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, A Nation of Cowards? | TomDispatch - The 25th Hour - Still Living With Jack Bauer in a Terrified New American World (always be very terrified)

Elizabeth Warren Hits The Campaign Trail For Fellow Democrats


This Road Work Made Possible by Underfunding Pensions - NYTimes.com - The Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money in August. So, naturally, Congress is debating a temporary fix that involves letting corporations underfund their pension systems. (because raising the gas tax by a dime is impossible!)

Eschaton: Gambling Our Way To Prosperity - Another casino closing in Atlantic City. They had 30 years to figure out how to use gambling money to make it a nice place and they didn't. Roughly, anti-urbanism generally combined with a desire to cocoon off the tourist bits -especally the casinos - was the problem. And now with casinos everywhere ... (who could have pedicted?)

Bird decline 'smoking gun' for pesticide's effects (who could have predicted that would happen?)
The Fourier transform lets you have your cake and understand it | Science | The Observer - Teasing apart the ingredients of a jumble helps scientists to study complex things that change over time or space

How One College Handled a Sexual Assault Complaint - NYTimes.com - How One College Handled a Sexual Assault Complaint


iOS 8: will Apple's new Message leave users confused? | Technology | The Observer

071214
Miami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away | World news | The Observer - Low-lying south Florida, at the front line of climate change in the US, will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers
South Miami Mayor: Marco Rubio Is An 'Idiot' - Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) views on climate change have apparently not won him any favor in Miami. (tie him to Miami Beach)

Israel continues Gaza bombardment, pushing death toll past 120 | World news | theguardian.com - Palestinian mosque hit and two people at charity for disabled reported to be among latest victims of Operation Protective Edge
Terrified Families Fleeing Northern Gaza Airstrikes Seek Refuge With UN
Israel strikes Gaza mosque as death toll tops 120 - Yahoo News - and a center for the disabled where two women were killed
Twitter / YourAnonNews: RT @Elizrael IDF sending recorded ... - messages 2 eastern neighborhoods in Gaza strip: "Shuja'iyya will be erased in coming hours like Dahya was"
Israeli commander declares “holy war” on Palestinians | The Electronic Intifada - the commander of the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade has told his soldiers that they are engaged in a war to “wipe out” an “enemy who defames” God. (religious apartheid state)
As Gaza burns, it is clear two states would only cement Israel’s apartheid | The National - Apartheid domination was never the goal of political Zionism in Palestine. The objective was, simply, a Jewish state, and to realise this aim required the removal of the land’s pre-existing, non-Jewish majority. But it did not turn out to be so simple, and the Palestinian people can point to decades of resistance and steadfastness in the face of efforts to reduce them to “resettled” refugees and obedient minorities.
Jerome Slater: On the US and Israel: History vs "History."
MEI Editor's Blog: Guest Post: William R. Polk Offers a Grim Assessment of Prospects for Israel and Palestine - It is time to drop the nonsense and face the simple facts. They are these:

Mysterious man in Canadian jail is Mbuyisa Makhubu, says brother of anti-apartheid icon | Toronto Star - South African man who has been detained in Canada for 10 years has the same moon-like birth mark on left chest and knows details of family history. (no "papers")

Germany demands public promise from US to end spying | World news | theguardian.com - Scheduled talks with John Kerry over Ukraine and Iran to be overshadowed by concerns over recent espionage allegations

Maher Blasts ‘Useless Obama Hacks without a Shred of Intellectual Honesty’ | Mediaite - Bill Maher went after the left over NSA spying on Friday night; specifically, liberals who have refused to criticize surveillance under President Obama as opposed to, you know, when George Bush did it. (remember, Maher wanted Snowden in prison, talk about hacks)
Beware the Dangers of Congress’ Latest Cybersecurity Bill | American Civil Liberties Union - A new cybersecurity bill poses serious threats to our privacy, gives the government extraordinary powers to silence potential whistleblowers, and exempts these dangerous new powers from transparency laws. (Obummer and DiFucker at work)

Eschaton: Sophisticated - What's the evidence for that? - But the assault on one of the nation’s most sophisticated military contractors is a reminder that even seemingly safe computer systems are vulnerable. (Boeing is "sophisticated)
Teenager set off major cyber attack (and made fools of "cybersecurity professionals)

Congressman Goes On Diatribe Against Migrant Children, Urges Texas To Unilaterally Declare War | ThinkProgress (Louie Gumball wants to bomb the little brown terrorists)

Hullabaloo - Protecting the delicate sensibilities of the religious corporation - Basically the court says to non-Christian humans that the world is full of unpleasantness, just man-up and deal with it. But Christian corporations are delicate creatures whose sensibility is so fragile they must not even be required to have one penny of their precious money flow to a practice they find offensive.

Isolationist policies make the threat of terrorism even greater - The Washington Post (Gov Goodhair Loser wants more wars)

In States That Didn't Expand Medicaid, It's As If Obamacare Doesn't Even Exist For The Poor (the usual states screwing their citizens)
Christie agency awarded $260m to politically connected New Jersey firm | World news | theguardian.com - Mayor's administration gave tax break to firm headed by Democratic rival with whom Christie signed non-aggression pact – the third-biggest corporate subsidy that the state has awarded.

Hullabaloo - Chart 'O the Day (the decline of the "superpredator" because lead)

The Art of Water Recovery - NYTimes.com - t public water systems lose, on average, one-sixth of their water — mainly from leaks in pipes
Vasectomy raises risk of lethal prostate cancer, study shows | Society | theguardian.com - those who had the operation were 10% more likely to be diagnosed with the disease. (men under 38 more at risk)

Linux for Lettuce | VQR Online - Myers contends that, when applied to plants, patents are stifling.

Losing Sparta | VQR Online - The Bitter Truth Behind the Gospel of Productivity (we are all Chinese)
NPF: Paid In Full | Gin and Tacos (compensation for work is so 20th century)
COL209 | News From ME - the call I really dislike is the one from a total or near-total stranger who is searching for a talented professional writer or artist who will work for free

Target security officer fired after reporting shoplifting - The Washington Post - But the man in the video may have been a Fairfax County sheriff’s deputy, Northington said he soon learned. And within days, two things happened: The deputy retired from the sheriff’s office and Target fired Northington, 29, a married father of two with a third child on the way.
D.C. family homeless shelter beset by dysfunction, decay - The Washington Post (anything for the children)

Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain | VQR Online


071114
Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate - NYTimes.com - , Eliseo Toussaint looked out the window of his Alton Road laundromat and watched bottle-green saltwater seep from the gutters, fill the street and block the entrance to his front door. (tie Marco Rubio to Miami Beach)
Heartland Institute climate change conference: Optimism is the new denial. - Conservatives have a new line on climate change: “It’s real, but it’s nothing to worry about!”
Polar vortex weather: Mid-July will be as cool as mid-September in East and Midwest. - Well buckle up, America. We’re getting another dose of polar air next week, and just in time for what is normally the hottest week of the year.

Israeli PM vows there will be more air strikes on Gaza | World news | The Guardian - . So far more than 100 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, including at least 23 children. More than 670 have been injured. There have as yet been no Israeli fatalities.
Israel's Gaza campaign may violate international law, says UN official | World news | theguardian.com - High commissioner for human rights says reports of civilians killed in strikes on homes raise doubt over legality of action
Israeli PM vows there will be more air strikes on Gaza | World news | The Guardian - Netanyahu shrugs off foreign criticism after top UN human rights official warns that air strikes could violate international law (Netanfuckyu)

Chalabi’s Back by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - If you want to understand how tangled Iraqi politics have become now that Americans are paying attention once again, the must-read is a piece in Foreign Policy by Jane Arraf suggesting that Ahmad Chalabi—yes, that Ahmad Chalabi—is a good bet to succeed the failed Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister of that country.
Ahmad Chalabi Still Wants To Lead Iraq | FDL News Desk - Call in the clowns. If the disgraced so-called “journalists” who peddled Ahmad Chalabi’s lies are still allowed in the debate over the future of Iraq, why not Chalabi himself?
Bahrain’s Bad Decision - NYTimes.com - The ruling family need only look to Iraq to see what can happen when authoritarian governments inflame sectarian tensions and do not embrace political transition when they still have time. (they all have a psychotic core)
Report: Indian Girl Raped On Orders Of Village Council - A 14-year-old girl was dragged into a forest and raped on the orders of a village council in remote eastern India in retaliation for a sex assault blamed on her brother, her family and police said Friday.

Drone kills six in northwest Pakistan, army seizes most of key city from Taliban
Officers say no 'stand-down order' for Benghazi - Associated Press - NewsAdvance.com - Military officers testified that there was no "stand-down order" that held back military assets that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. Their testimony undercut the contention of Republican lawmakers.

The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control | Antony Loewenstein | Comment is free | theguardian.com - At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that's a 'totalitarian mentality' (Obama, most authoritarian/totalitarian Pres in US history; way beyond Nixon's wildest dreams)

German spy agency searches for more moles after US breach | World news | The Guardian - BND president orders analysis of agency's communications for irregularities, and foreign minister to meet John Kerry

How 160,000 intercepted communications led to our latest NSA story - The Washington Post - The story, based on 160,000 intercepted communications I received from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, has provoked a lot of questions, objections, and, I think, misunderstandings. (Gellman)

NSA chief knew of Snowden file destruction by Guardian in UK | World news | theguardian.com - Revelation contrasts markedly with White House efforts to distance itself from UK government pressure to destroy disks - "What's perhaps most concerning is that the disclosure of these emails appears to contradict the White House's comments about these events last year, when they questioned the appropriateness of the UK government's intervention." (Obama's trail of lies)
Twitter / trevortimm: "Good news," said NSA's deputy ... - director when he learned the UK would force the Guardian to destroy the Snowden files. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-given-heads-about-newspaper-data-destruction …
Newly Obtained Emails Contradict Administration Claims on Guardian Laptop Destruction - The Intercept

Waiting for Dark: Inside Two Anarchists’ Quest for Untraceable Money | Threat Level | WIRED
NSA surveillance data: UK access to information faces legal challenge | World news | The Guardian - Case brought by alliance of privacy groups to be heard by IPT, the security services oversight body that normally deliberates in private

Two Animal Rights Activists Indicted Under Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act | Earth First! Newswire - violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and committing “animal enterprise terrorism.” (if you have enough money, you can label anything "terrorism")

Inquiry into US government labs finds flu virus cross-contamination | Science | theguardian.com - Two labs shut down as CDC reveals findings of inquiry prompted by anthrax exposure and discovery of insecure smallpox vials - cross contamination in one of the CDC's influenza laboratories led to a highly pathogenic strain of "bird flu", or H5N1, to be accidentally shipped to a Department of Agriculture lab that was expecting a safer strain. (this is how it will start)

Eschaton: They Controlled This - Plenty of things are genuinely beyond Obama's control, but we have an example of something which was 100% in his control. And it was horrible.
The Costs of Obama’s Housing Mistakes Keep Piling Up | The Fiscal Times (Obama's Program Designed to Fail Homeowners)

Eschaton: Don't Assume They Know What They're Doing - That rich elites weren't begging the government to take the health care nightmare off their hands taught me that they often don't have any idea what they're doing. The truth is that in a society as unequal and polarized as ours has become, almost everything is political. Get used to it.
Who Wants a Depression? - NYTimes.com - “sadomonetarism,”

North Carolina Will Determine the Future of the Voting Rights Act | The Nation
Florida Illegally Drew Congressional District Boundaries To Benefit GOP, Judge Rules - Court documents filed in December revealed that many of the Legislature's redistricting records, including emails and other documents, were destroyed.

Older women don't need mansplaining boner prose in praise of their sexiness | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Junod, careful to qualify that the 42-year-old women worthy of praise are those who "have armored themselves with yoga and Pilates even as they joke about the spectacle", seems to believe that he has done women a great kindness with this piece. (Tom Junod, Esquire bro-culture)

Nixon Tapes: Mideast Worries and ‘Girls’ Swearing - Washington Wire - WSJ (smart girls don't swear, motherfucker)

Is Religion 'Old-Fashioned' and 'Out of Date'? - Emma Green - The Atlantic - The downsides of using poll data to understand the arc of history
Crack Down on Scientific Fraudsters - NYTimes.com - So Dr. Han did what many scientists are probably tempted to do, but don’t: He faked the tests, spiking rabbit blood with human proteins to make it appear that the animals were responding to the vaccine to fight H.I.V.
Earth's Magnetic Field Is Fading & May Be Ready To Flip - Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from huge blasts of deadly solar radiation, has been weakening over the past six months, according to data collected by a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite array called Swarm. the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. (if climate change doesn't get you)
Deadliest, Rarest Form of Plague Contracted Near Denver - Bloomberg - It is the first case of pneumonic plague seen in the state since 2004

Book Review: The Whore of Akron, by Scott Raab | TIME.com

Vaporizers: How the new high-tech devices are changing marijuana culture.
Vaporizer Reviews by The Vape Critic | Find The Best Vapes for You

Female Yahoo Exec Sued By a Female Employee for Sexual Harassment - In her complaint, Nan Shi says she was working as a principal software engineer when the supervisor, industry veteran Maria Zhang, forced her to have sex against her will on multiple occasions, promising her "a bright future at Yahoo'' if she acquiesced.
What about sex did you not know about until it happened? : AskReddit
Study: Some E-Cigs Put Out Tobacco-Like Levels of Carcinogens - The problem seems to be that some tank-style e-cigarettes (the larger, refillable style that vaporize liquid nicotine) get so hot, they cause formaldehyde to form in the vapor they put out.
Home - Switching from a cigarettes to e-cigarettes has significant health benefits, according to a survey of more than 19,000 users
Efficacy and Safety of an Electronic Nicotine Delivery Device (E-Cigarette) - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov
What Chemicals Are In Tobacco Smoke? What Is Cigarette Smoke? - Medical News Today
What's Really in E-Cigarette Liquids & Vapor | Cig Buyer.com
electronic cigarette - Google Scholar

071014

Gaza crisis: Obama says US willing to broker ceasefire as death toll mounts – live | World news | theguardian.com - Death toll from Israeli assault on Gaza hits 90, ministry says 22 children among dead, ministry says
How U.S. Taxpayers Are Subsidizing The Defense Of Palestinian Teen’s Alleged Killers - The Daily Beast - An Israeli group is raising tax-exempt money in the U.S. to support Israelis charged with or convicted of violence against Palestinians.
Eagle-Eye-Smith comments on Discussion: Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip reaches 48 with another 370 injured and Netanyahu promises further escalation

Nuclear materials seized by Iraq insurgents believed to be 'low grade' | World news | theguardian.com - International Atomic Energy Agency says materials 'would not present significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk' (ISIS on the way to becoming a nuclear power, thanks, neocons)
Russia Blocks Ukrainian Rebels From Crossing Border Into Russia | New Republic

Chinese hackers break into US federal government employee database | World news | theguardian.com - News of attempt to target people who had applied for security clearances comes as John Kerry attends Sino-American summit

Government pushes emergency law to allow data snooping | IT PRO (UK - "emergency")

Germany asks CIA station chief to leave over spying allegations - The Washington Post
Germany asks top US intelligence official to leave country over spy row | World news | The Guardian - Move comes in response to two reported cases of suspected US spying in Germany - after a year-long dispute triggered by the revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Merkel seems to have finally run out of patience with Washington's failure to explain itself.

WASHINGTON: Justice declines to pursue allegations that CIA monitored Senate Intel staff | DC Declassified | McClatchy DC (way above the law)

Eschaton: They Always Lie - We're at like the 57th stage of the "they don't do that/why are you surprised they do that" game.
Hullabaloo - Spying on Americans
Check Your Privilege | Cato Unbound - Ben Wittes begins his essay by observing that, just as he takes on faith that government agencies are not currently raiding his house, he is “remarkably confident” that the NSA is not illicitly wiretapping him. (privileged tool)
FBI monitored Nelson Mandela in 1990s over perceived communist threat | World news | theguardian.com - Previously classified documents show federal agents continued to monitor Mandela and ANC even after his release from prison
Five plaintiffs sue after being targeted in US 'suspicious activity' database | World news | theguardian.com - James Prigoff one of the people suing over 'McCarthy era' tactics after the FBI monitored him for photographing public art (Ho Chi Minh in Dorchester / you are the enemy)
Spying Case Left Obama in Dark, U.S. Officials Say - NYTimes.com (that's where he lives)

Google admits to errors over Guardian 'right to be forgotten' link deletions | Technology | The Guardian - David Drummond, chief legal officer of internet search firm, says adjusting to EU rule on removing content is 'work in progress'

White House faces Senate opposition over $3.7bn for child migrant crisis | World news | theguardian.com - Bipartisan criticism of attempts to tackle immigration crisis • Obama uses Texas speech to say: 'I'm the guy doing his job'

Gaining Ground: Americans' Health Insurance Coverage and Access to Care After the Affordable Care Act's First Open Enrollment Period - The Commonwealth Fund
In U.S., Uninsured Rate Sinks to 13.4% in Second Quarter - Significant decline in uninsured rate across age groups since the end of 2013
Obamacare Reduced Uninsured by 9.5 Million, Close to CBO Target | New Republic - New report suggests number of uninsured declined, just as expected
Survey Estimates Net Gain of 9.3 Million American Adults with Health Insurance | RAND
Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
Republicans Who Signed Up For Obamacare This Year Are Pretty Happy - 74 percent of newly insured Republicans are happy with the plans they bought. Overall, 77 percent of people who had insurance prior to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act said they are pleased with the new coverage they obtained in the last year.
Libertarian Accidentally Shows Obamacare Success -- NYMag - it’s fair to say that the broader narrative conveyed by his work, which certainly lies on the sophisticated end of the anti-Obamacare industry, has utterly failed to prepare his libertarian readers for the possibility that the hated health-care law will actually work more or less as intended.

The GOP is calling women 'sluts' again. Now Democrats better do something | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Let's be honest: trying to overturn Hobby Lobby won't work. Let's get optimistic instead: Republicans have ventured into the feminist minefield of 2014
Sons Of Birchers - Esquire - The Progressive has come up with some interesting information about Charles Koch and his involvement with the John Birch Society, in which young Charles apparently was following in the family crazy. This appears sadly to be relevant to our current political situation.

Denver will follow Boulder on licenses as gay marriage gains momentum | World news | theguardian.com - Decision follows ruling that federal stay can be ignored • Republican attorney general fights 'legal chaos
Bloomberg: Colorado Gun Recall Towns So Rural, They Don’t Have Roads | The Colorado Observer - In what may come as a surprise to residents of Colorado Springs and Pueblo, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t think those cities have roads.

Jill Abramson Talks Obama Secrecy and Her New York Times Firing - The Daily Beast - Two months after her abrupt exit from the Gray Lady, the former executive editor delivered a speech about how different Obama is from Bush—and why she was dismissed from her post.

Donald Sterling calls wife a 'pig' in Clippers court case outburst | World news | theguardian.com - Owner shouts 'Get away from me, you pig!' as wife approaches • Case may run close to Tuesday deadline for $2bn Ballmer deal

New Yorker offers three-month online free-for-all before a paywall goes up | Media | theguardian.com

Dinesh D’Souza’s paranoid nightmare: Everything is a vast conspiracy against him - Salon.com - Dinesh D'Souza has legal troubles, Costco's pulling his books, Google's hiding his movie. He shall not be silenced!

Claiborne Richardson Wants Pictures of a Kid's Cock | Slog
Virginia police will not take sexually explicit photos of teen in 'sexting' case | World news | theguardian.com - Warrant authorising shots of erect penis had been obtained • Teenager in juvenile court on child pornography charges
Cop shoots dog in parked car, claims "vicious pitbull" lunged at him. Video shows it's a lab and the cop shot through a half-rolled down window... : news

The Best Birth Control Might Be For Men, And No One Can Have It | VICE Canada - The original name for Vasalgel is RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance) and it was discovered in the 1970s by an Indian doctor named Sujoy Guha
Academic journal retracts articles over 'peer review ring' with bogus scholars | Media | theguardian.com - Journal of Vibration and Control says 60 articles published over last four years cited academics with 'assumed identities'
The Chronic Chronicles: A History of Pot - The Daily Beast

The 17 Dirtiest Excerpts From James Joyce's Letters
Elisabeth Hasselbeck Is Livid About Rosie O'Donnell's Return To 'The View' - and said that she thought O'Donnell has been planning her much-rumored return to the show for a "long time."

What secrets do you know about your SO (past or present) that nobody else knows? [NSFW] : AskReddit

070914
Republican Calls Climate Change A Hoax Because Earth And Mars Have 'Exactly' Same Temperature - Kentucky state Sen. Brandon Smith (R) - According to NASA, the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit -- 138 degrees above Mars' average of -81 degrees.

Iraq: 50 Bodies, Many Blindfolded, Found South Of Baghdad

Israeli army says the killing of 8 Gazan family members was in error - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - According to the military relatives of Odeh Kaware were warned of air strike and left the home but returned too soon; pilot was unable to divert the bomb. (what bullshit)
Palestine News & Info Agency - WAFA - Britain’s Largest Trade Union Slams Israel as Apartheid State (Abe Foxman and AIPAC stick their fingers in their ears)

Second German government worker suspected of spying for US | World news | The Guardian - Accused reportedly works 'in military', as Berlin still reels after intelligence agent was accused of working for CIA last week
Germans Probe 2nd Spy Case Reportedly Involving U.S.

Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On - The InterceptThe Intercept
Latest Snowden Leaks: FBI Targeted Muslim-American Lawyers | Threat Level | WIRED
Asim Ghafoor on Vimeo - Asim Ghafoor, an attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases, was one of five prominent Muslim-Americans whose emails were covertly monitored by the National Security Agency and FBI under a secretive judicial process intended to target terrorists and foreign spies.
We are Glenn Greenwald & Murtaza Hussain, who just revealed the Muslim-American leaders spied on by the NSA & FBI. Ask Us Anything. : IAmA - What caused us to hold our story last week is that DOJ and other officials began whispering to another news agency that at least one of the people we named (Nihad Awad) was monitored without a FISA warrant ... Do you think there is another NSA leaker? Yes, for multiple reasons, I do believe there is - though that had nothing to do with the Gellman story. Snowden docs were clearly the basis for that WashPost article.
heise online Timeline – NSA-Skandal: Was bisher geschah

Snowden applies to extend asylum in Russia - lawyer — RT News

White House: racial slurs in NSA intelligence material 'unacceptable' | World news | theguardian.com - FBI and NSA to review policy after leaked documents suggest training materials referred to targets using offensive language
Files on UK role in CIA rendition accidentally destroyed, says minister | World news | theguardian.com - Rights groups say FCO claim records of flights in and out of Diego Garcia missing due to water damage 'smacks of cover-up' (yeah, sure)

Alleged Anonymous hacker Matt DeHart put on suicide watch and his refugee hearing postponed | National Post
Matt DeHart claims he’s wanted for working with Anonymous | National Post - Matt DeHart, a former U.S. soldier seeking asylum in Canada, claims he’s wanted for working with Anonymous. The U.S. says he may be a spy — and more

The Kingdom and the Towers | Vanity Fair - Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven’t been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress’s Joint Inquiry report remains censored (the Saudi/Israel connection to 9/11 from 2011)
The NSA Isn't Spying on Enough People - I'm specifically talking about former President George W. Bush and the former director general of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar. The NSA should be spying on them, their acquaintances, and their families, day and night, until we get to the bottom of this.
DHS social media hearing reveals how secretive, unaccountable is the agency | Privacy SOS

Google's Growing Silence on Saving Open Internet Leaves Fight to Startups - Bloomberg
FAKE Google web SSL certificates tip-toe out from Indian authorities • The Register - Google is warning that dodgy SSL certificates have been issued by India's National Informatics Centre (NIC): these certs can be used by servers to masquerade as legit Google websites and eavesdrop on or tamper with users' encrypted communications.

ACLU and partners sue federal govt over failure to provide legal representation for children placed into deportation proceedings | ACLU of Southern California

Government lies : Columbia Journalism Review - Charles Lewis’ new book says nonprofit journalism is the answer to government lying and corporate bullying—but we have to figure out how to pay for it - 935 Lies, the new book about government dissembling and media enabling from veteran investigative journalist Charles Lewis, starts with the Gulf of Tonkin and wends its way through one shameful episode after another, culminating with the arguments justifying the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

Manhattan just another island haven for dirty money | Center for Public Integrity - How shady characters are using lax rules to funnel wealth through high-end New York apartments (Bloomfuck's cop-state for billionaire tax-dodgers)

Faith Groups Seek Exclusion From Bias Rule - NYTimes.com
ACLU, LGBT Rights Groups Drop ENDA Support Over Religious Exemption | Religion Dispatches


In Kentucky's Senate race, coal is where the heart is | World news | theguardian.com - Coal has assumed out-sized importance in the upcoming election as a devastating sequence of mine shut downs and job losses in eastern Kentucky have put the region up for grabs - Coal mining is locked in a death spiral in eastern Kentucky, but there is still a huge emotional and cultural attachment to the industry.xs

Is Ratfucking Journalism Dead?

One percent’s rental nightmare: How Wall Street scheme blew up in its face - Salon.com - Big Money investors thought they had the perfect plan to buy up rental properties. There was just one huge problem - turns out that institutional investors have no idea how to manage rental properties.

Eschaton - The Washington Post manages to be awful about basically everything: It’s a $500 fine for a motorist to hit a bicyclist in the District, but some behaviors are so egregious that some drivers might think it’s worth paying the fine.

What Happens When A Prep School's Black Student President Mocks Her White Male Classmates - An Instagram photo allegedly led the country’s most expensive boarding school to strip its first black female student body president of her role.

Photographing a Teen's Boner to Prove He's Sexting Is Way Worse Than Sexting | Motherboard - Virginia police asked a judge for a warrant to take pictures of the erect penis of a teenager facing felony charges for sending video to and receiving photos from his 15-year-old girlfriend.
In ‘sexting case’ Manassas City police want to photograph teen in sexually explicit manner, lawyers say : news (compelling his dick to testify against him)

TIFU: secretly eating mushrooms while my wife was asleep in a house full of cats : tifu
Erowid Experience Vaults: 2C-B & Alcohol - Should I Live as Thomas Aquinas or as Socrates? - 72502

Reddit's moderator system is broken—but here's how to fix it
glenngreenwald comments on We are Glenn Greenwald & Murtaza Hussain, who just revealed the Muslim-American leaders spied on by the NSA & FBI. Ask Us Anything. - Reddit is practicing censorship, pure and simple.

News Releases - Study Results Published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology

070814
UN issued with roadmap on how to avoid climate catastrophe | Environment | theguardian.com - Report is the first of its kind to prescribe concrete actions that the biggest 15 economies must take to keep warming below 2C
BBC staff told to stop inviting cranks on to science programmes - BBC Trust says 200 senior managers trained not to insert 'false balance' into stories when issues were non-contentious (hello, CNN)
Why haven't we encountered aliens yet? The answer could be climate change
Nearly 80% of California now under 'extreme' drought conditions - Los Angeles Times (and when a major city runs out of water ...)
8 Shocking Infographics That Show Where Animals Once Lived -- And Where They Live Now

Israel pounds Gaza with air and naval strikes in move against Hamas | World news | The Guardian - Thirteen killed and 90 injured in first salvoes of Operation Protective Edge as Netanyahu sends tanks to Gaza border
Three Israelis 'confess to killing Palestinian teenager' | World news | The Guardian - Reported admissions of guilt come after days of clashes across Israel, following death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir

Why the White House Ignored All Those Warnings About ISIS - The Daily Beast - Team Obama was told, over and over, that the Iraqi army couldn’t stop a terror group that was ready to pounce. But Washington was a prisoner to its paradox of an Iraq policy. (Hilliary said they were fine)
ISIS Is About to Destroy Biblical History in Iraq - The Daily Beast - “The Iraqi army will be obliged to conduct operations next to these archeological sites,” said Qureishi. The jihadists “will destroy them and say the Iraqi army bombed these sites.”
Syrian conflict: Key sarin ingredients sold by UK firms
US attorney general wades into debate on westerners fighting in Syria | World news | The Guardian - Eric Holder advises European countries to adopt similar approach to US and to conduct undercover operations (oh, that will work)

Sex-Abuse Victims to Pope: Stop Begging for Forgiveness and Just Stop the Abuse - The Daily Beast - Francis met with rape victims Monday and begged for their forgiveness. The head of the world’s largest survivor network has 15 better ways for him to act.

Angela Merkel says allegations of US spying on Germany are 'serious' | World news | theguardian.com - The German chancellor says if the allegations prove true it would breach expected levels of cooperation between partners
White House on the back foot over CIA role in German spying scandal | World news | theguardian.com - Germany already taking counter-measures as CIA maintains silence over alleged recruitment of German intelligence official (that just keep doing it because they could)
Germany to escalate counter-espionage efforts in wake of US spying allegations | World news | The Guardian - Bild newspaper says interior ministry emphasising the need for effective counter-intelligence in wake of arrest of BND staffer
The NSA, the silent chancellor, and the double agent: how German ignorance left us vulnerable to the US spy game | Malte Spitz | Comment is free | theguardian.com - To credibly demand change from the Americans, Merkel's government must come clean about its own mass surveillance (there's the problem)

The Snowden Effect, Cont'd - Esquire - There is absolutely no reason to believe anything these people say any more. Any story that assumes the NSA is telling the truth is prima facie flawed.
The Latest Snowden Leak Is Devastating to NSA Defenders - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - The agency collected and stored intimate chats, photos, and emails belonging to innocent Americans—and secured them so poorly that reporters can now browse them at will.
NYT Mischaracterizes PCLOB Report While Transcribing NSA Pushback to WaPo | emptywheel (oh, look: Times taking steno from NSA; ES was right)

US military studied how to influence Twitter users in Darpa-funded research | World news | theguardian.com - Defense Department spent millions to research social networks • Studies focused on Occupy and Middle East protests • Projects also analysed memes, celebrities and disinformation
Russia hits out at 'kidnapping' of MP's son by US secret service | World news | The Guardian - Roman Seleznev, son of politician known for anti-American outbursts, arrested in Maldives on suspicion of hacking activities
? Theater of Justice - Cecily McMillan on her release and conditions at Rikers Island - YouTube
Computing student jailed after failing to hand over crypto keys • The Register - Sledgehammer once again used to crack a nut
Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords | Ars Technica - More evidence the Internet of things treats security as an afterthought.
LAPD Exposes Login To Data Harvesting Software During Interview With CNN | Techdirt - from the as-secure-as-Darth-Helmet's-luggage dept

Remembering Alexander Bickel’s passive virtues and the Hobby Lobby cases « Hercules and the umpire. - In the Hobby Lobby cases, five male Justices of the Supreme Court, who are all members of the Catholic faith and who each were appointed by a President who hailed from the Republican party, decided that a huge corporation, with thousands of employees and gargantuan revenues, was a “person” entitled to assert a religious objection to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate because that corporation was “closely held” by family members. To the average person, the result looks stupid and smells worse.
Federal Judge Blasts Hobby Lobby Decision: Supreme Court Should 'STFU' | ThinkProgress
The Most Partisan Supreme Court Justice Of All | ThinkProgress - [Alito] wanted Obamacare gone.
The Fraudulent "Minimalism" of the Roberts Court - Lawyers, Guns & Money : First, I’m just amazed that anyone could have been fooled by Alito’s fauxminimalism at this late date. This strategy has been evident since before Alito joined the Supreme Court
Wheaton College injunction: The Supreme Court just sneakily reversed itself on Hobby Lobby. - While you were sleeping, Hobby Lobby just got so much worse.
Hobby Lobby: We Will Never Hit Peak Derp - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In point of fact, asking some entity to comply with the generally applicable, neutral regulations everyone else has to comply with is not “vilification.” (see Derpthat

Forget Red State, Blue State: Is Your State "Tight" or "Loose"? | Mother Jones - A new theory about the cultures of different regions could go a long way toward explaining why the United States is so polarized - the researchers show a very strong correlation between the percentage of slave-owning families that a state had in the year 1860, and its "tightness" measurement today. (oh, look: slave-owning "Christians")
1-in-10 Americans don’t give a hoot about politics | Pew Research Center - Bystanders are young (38% are under 30), and nearly a third (32%) are Hispanic. A third of Bystanders are foreign born, a higher share than any of the other typology groups, including 29% total who are not citizens.

82 shot, 14 fatally, in Chicago over July Fourth - chicagotribune.com
12 shot in 5 bloody hours in NYC | New York Post

No, I’m not playing the ‘six degrees of Adolf Hitler’ game - The Washington Post - Last Thursday, Michael Goldfarb, the head of the Center for American Freedom, which publishes the Washington Free Beacon, tweeted the following accusation: (Freedom!)

Hillary Clinton Begins to Move Away From Obama Ahead of 2016 - WSJ - Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery. (more Republicanism, more wars, says Hills)

Cuba Might Have Planted Menendez Prostitute Tale -- NYMag - Eventually the women recanted their story, and Tucker Carlson was forced to deny that his website paid for the story.
The Strange Trials Of Bob Menendez - Esquire - Well-played, Cuban spies. Very well-played indeed. - Bob Menendez, the Zelig of weird political demi-scandals.

Throwing The Pamphlet At Them - Esquire - Poison the water for 300,000 and pay $11,000. Or not. (because Freedom! Industries)

Court Blocks Arizona From Denying Driver's Licenses To Young Immigrants
Crazy Land - Esquire - It seems almost pointless to mention this but there is simply no state Democratic party in any of the 50 states that is so clearly, obviously demented. (they have already seceded)
History Goes Into Reruns - Esquire - The A passages are from the Texas Republican platform. The B passages are from the Constitution. Of the Confederate States Of America. (Just sayin')

The Meddler - Esquire - It's apparently because Those People in D.C., and we know who They are, cannot be trusted to take care of the welfare of their own children, and need the firm direction of a suburban foof from Maryland who takes a whopping amount of his campaign money from various drug companies. (the oxycontin corps hate weed)
Marijuana sales kick off in Washington state – but sellers are in short supply | World news | theguardian.com - Customer demand for legal, recreational marijuana looks set to exhaust retail stores' small supply of state-sanctioned pot
Sonoma County D.A.: No criminal charges for sheriff’s deputy in Andy Lopez shooting | FireWorks - Ravitch released a 52-page summary of her findings that includes several new details about the shooting, including that Lopez was likely high on marijuana at the time he was killed. (he was high so the cop killed him)

Madonna shows up for jury duty in Manhattan, released to prevent ‘further distraction’ - NY Daily News - But she was soon gone. While regular folks summoned to do their civic duty sat through hours of waiting, Madonna was sprung after an hour and a half.

Forgotten smallpox vials found in cardboard box at Maryland laboratory | Science | theguardian.com - US government scientist clearing out old storage room found decades-old vials, but CDC does not yet know if virus is live



070614

Israeli police arrest six over Mohamed Abu Khdeir killing | World news | theguardian.com - Suspects held after death of 17-year-old Palestinian belong to extremist Jewish group, according to sources

Germany demands answers from US after arrest of suspected double agent | World news | theguardian.com - Case risks further straining ties with Washington in wake of last year's revelations of NSA's monitoring of Angela Merkel's phone

The NSA Said Edward Snowden Had No Access to Surveillance Intercepts. They Lied. | Mother Jones (they always do, don't they)
In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are - The Washington Post - Files provided by Snowden show extent to which ordinary Web users are caught in the net
NSA intercepts: ordinary internet users 'far outnumbered' legal targets | World news | theguardian.com - Washington Post report says half surveillance files collected between 2009 and 2012 belonged to US citizens or residents
Report: Ordinary Americans Caught Up In Data Sweep
Eschaton: Also, Fingers Crossed Behind Backs - Just revisiting this, but it's amazing how if we just add meaningless distinctions retroactively then we aren't liars after all!!! Nor are we a completely unaccountable agency with totalitarian powers that we would never abuse!!! God Glenn Greenwald is a dick.

Interview with NSA Experts on US Spying in Germany - SPIEGEL ONLINE - In a SPIEGEL interview, Edward Snowden's lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, and former NSA contractor Thomas Drake discuss the reasons behind the American spying agency's obssession with collecting data.

TSA targets mobile phones and electronics in new security policies | World news | The Guardian - Some direct flights to US will require passengers to show cellphones to security as authorities work to counter threat of explosives

Corporations, 'artificial people' and the unintended risks of Hobby Lobby | Money | theguardian.com - The supreme court decision on corporations' religious rights could open the door for the outsize influence of business across American life

College Students Claim Voter ID Laws Discriminate Based on Age - NYTimes.com - College Students Claim Voter ID Laws Discriminate Based on Age

Here are the highlights of Justice Ginsburg’s fiery Hobby Lobby dissent - Salon.com - The iconic member of the Supreme Court's liberal wing argues the majority "has ventured into a minefield"

Hullabaloo - Regardless of how the voters answer the questions in Washington polarization is clearly driven by conservatives. It just isn't a matter of dispute:

North Carolina voter law challenged: 'the worst suppression since Jim Crow' | World news | theguardian.com - New voter ID law, seen by many as unduly affecting African Americans, to be challenged in court by civil rights group and NAACP

Eschaton: Teabagged - Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing
Cliven Bundy Must Be Held Accountable For Standoff, Officials Say - Bundy crossed the line when he allowed states' rights supporters, including self-proclaimed militia members, onto his property to aim guns at police.


Genetic Material Of Deadly 1918 Influenza Is Present In 8 Circulating Strains Of Bird Flu | Neomatica


070514
Palestinian boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir was burned alive, says official | World news | The Observer - Mohammed al-A'wewy, attorney general for Palestine, makes claims as violence continues in West Bank and East Jeruslaem
Autopsy Results Show Mohammed Abu Khdeir Was Burned To Death
Israel holds US boy without charge after police nearly beat him to death | Dispatches from the Underclass
Twitter / haaretzcom: U.S. confirms beaten Palestinian ... - boy is American; calls for 'full accountability for any excessive use of force' http://htz.li/1m44cuI
Ukrainian troops retake key city of Slavyansk from rebels in east | World news | The Observer - Kiev government offensive against pro-Russia forces achieves first significant victory in restoring state control
Taliban destroy oil tanker lorries in Afghanistan | World news | theguardian.com - Militants set fore to around 200 trucks carrying fuel for Nato forces in country, say officials
'Arrest us all': the 200 women who killed a rapist | World news | The Guardian - When hundreds of women descended on Nagpur district court armed with knives, stones and chilli powder, within minutes the man who raped them lay dead. Raekha Prasad reports

U.S. and Canada knew charges against Omar Khadr were bogus | FREE Omar Khadr NOW

Twitter / ggreenwald: Here's what happens to people ... - in the intelligence community when they use "proper procedures" to disclose information http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-employees-quest-to-release-information-destroyed-my-entire-career/2014/07/04/e95f7802-0209-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html …
CIA employee’s quest to release information ‘destroyed my entire career’ - The Washington Post - His CIA career included assignments in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq, but the most perilous posting for Jeffrey Scudder turned out to be a two-year stint in a sleepy office that looks after the agency’s historical files.

Get ready for an even bigger threat to Obamacare - Los Angeles Times - Obamacare's next hurdle: A fundamental challenge to the Affordable Care Act is about to be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circui
Decision Looms In Lawsuit That May Actually Crush Obamacare

Living Without Water in Detroit – Next City

Take Away the Entire Welfare State From Employers | Demos - In the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, numerous writers have noted that we shouldn't have employer-provided health care at all (I, II). Instead, they argue, it should be done publicly. These arguments don't go far enough though. We shouldn't move just health care away from employers; rather, we should take away the entire employer-provided welfare state.
Guaranteed Income & Choose Your Boss  — Medium - Uber for Welfare

BBC World Service - Boston Calling, Immigration Crisis , Charles Horman - The US government’s role in the murder of an American journalist in Chile

The Town Where Immigrants Hit a Human Wall - NYTimes.com - Influx of Central American Migrants Roils Murrieta, Calif.
Six arrested as Southern California demonstrators clash over immigration | World news | theguardian.com - Protesters on both sides of debate clashed outside US border partrol station where Central American migrants expected to arrive (America, land of the haters)

Twitter / billmon1: The Wa Post’s Dan Balz think ... - this shows Obama is “angry,” “boiling over,” & doesn’t really want to work with the GOP:
alicublog: Wonks Propose And Mobs Dispose. - As part of the mainstream media campaign to drown America in liberal lies, the New York Times prints Sam Tanenhaus' long, loving article on "reformicons" -- the Republican New Ideas grifters
Mouseketeer Roll Call - Esquire - Sam Tanenhaus apparently has a longform burst of optimism in the New York Times - what are now being called "reform conservatives" by many people who maybe should know a little better.
Quote Details: Dorothy Parker: She runs the gamut... - The Quotations Page - She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. Dorothy Parker, speaking of Katharine Hepburn | Dorothy Parker - Wikiquote ("You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.")
After ‘Harris v. Quinn’: The State of Our Unions | The Nation - After one of Supreme Court’s most anti-union rulings in recent years, is there still time for organized labor to save itself?


Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - Dana Milbank needs to lay off the Knifey Moloko. I mean, what in the hell? (Republican controlled Congress would be just great)

Twitter / Mobute: Richard Mellon Scaife died ... - on July 4, 2014. His last words were, "William Jefferson Clinton lives."
Richard Mellon Scaife, Fortunate Son » Balloon Juice - fueled the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, died on Friday at his home in Pittsburgh. He was 82…
Richard Mellon Scaife, Influential U.S. Conservative, Dies at 82 - NYTimes.com

Shocking but true: students prefer jolt of pain than being made to sit and think | Science | The Guardian - Report from psychologists at Virginia and Harvard Universities tackles question of why most of us find it so hard to do nothing
Why is thinking such a pain? | Anouchka Grose | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Tasked with sitting in a chair and doing nothing but thinking, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose to give themselves electric shocks to pass the time. Most people will do anything to avoid their internal voices. (men think less than women)

Report on NJ Transit’s gridlock at Super Bowl is overdue - News - NorthJersey.com - It’s been about five months since hordes of Super Bowl fans found themselves stuck on train platforms for hours, waiting for NJ Transit to get them home from the big game. why, after more than a year of planning, NJ Transit was ill-prepared to handle the 33,000 football fans who took its advice to “take the train” to the big game, only to end up trapped for hours in a crush of people trying to get home. ($1.2 million for flowcharts and Christie kickbacks)

Another Day, Another 124 Violent SWAT Raids | American Civil Liberties Union

States That Drink the Most Beer - 24/7 Wall St. (Maine, Vermont, NH are drunk)
Yet Another 12 Mind-Blowing Documentaries To Watch On Netflix
Psychedelic mushrooms put your brain in a “waking dream,” study finds - The Washington Post - But some patients seem to benefit from having their emotions “unlocked” instead. “It would really suit the style of psychotherapy where we engage in a patient’s history and hang-ups,” Carhart-Harris said. “Instead of putting a bandage over the exposed wound, we’d be essentially loosening their minds—promoting a permanent change in outlook.”
Scientists figured out how shrooms open your mind | The Verge - "It’s like someone’s turned up the volume there, in these regions that are considered part of an emotional system in the brain,"
News releases - New tests find bee-killing pesticides in 51% of “bee-friendly” plants from garden centers across U.S. and Canada

What's a Writer Gotta Do To Get Banned Around Here? | Tiffany Reisz - 13 Controversial Books By Women Writers
? The Holographic Disclosure 1 of 7 - YouTube

070414
To Be Self Evident - Esquire - The greatest time bomb ever laid beneath history was laid 238 years ago today. (At his most acidic, Samuel Johnson wondered, ""How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?")
? Fireworks filmed with a drone - YouTube
Younger Americans Are Less Patriotic. At Least, in Some Ways. - NYTimes.com - 81 percent of the Silent Generation (those who are 69 to 86 years old in 2014) love America while only 58 percent of millennials (18 to 33 years old) feel the same. (substance, not symbols)
Different Kind of Patriotism by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So are the millenials more or less patriotic than their predecessors? It depends on whether you consider equality essential to what it means to be an American. The Tea Folk clearly don’t.
American Independence Myths: Lies May Comfort, But Facts Matter | New Republic - Myths may comfort us, but facts are our best weapon against Tea Party perversions
Hobby Lobby and the cultural divide: Is America in danger of fracturing into two countries, one secular, one religious? - Could America break apart along religious lines, with devout Christians going one way and the rest of us going another?
Time Bomb - POLITICO Magazine - Can’t we all just get along? (no, the South must go)

Why we stuck with Maliki — and lost Iraq - The Washington Post - By 2010, however, I was urging the vice president of the United States and the White House senior staff to withdraw their support for Maliki. I had come to realize that if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests. (you can guess which side Hilliary was on)
Twitter / abuaardvark: Very revealing how "Why we ... - stuck with Maliki" account simply assumes Iraq's leaders should be America's to choose http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-stuck-with-maliki--and-lost-iraq/2014/07/03/0dd6a8a4-f7ec-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html …
Eschaton: God Emperor Of Iraq - Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who helped spur the U.S. invasion of his country, would be viable as its next prime minister though close ties he established with Iran pose an impediment, said Paul Wolfowitz, a top American national security official when the war launched.
Israel Defense Forces warns of Possible Nuclear Leak in Dimona after 2 rockets hit the facility | Cyberwarzone - It looks like that the Syrian Electronic Army has hacked the official IDFspokesperson account on Twitter.
Twitter / ggreenwald: The @IDFSpokesperson seems ... - to regard his Twitter account being hacked as "terrorism" https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/484801563760680960 … #TheMostMeaninglessWord
Former Blackwater guard testifies against friends

A look at the last nine US reporters who faced the possibility of jail time : Columbia Journalism Review - Each protected sources while under threat of imprisonment

Eschaton: Stupid Or Evil - Not that they're mutually exclusive, of course, but I think we have our answer : As chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has faced many a tough question relating to figures but that did not stop him dodging a simple multiplication calculation put to him by a seven-year-old. (the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, can't multiply 8x7, so both)

Twitter / ggreenwald: Seems clear at this point RT ... - @ageis @vruz Bruce Schneier: "I think there's a second [NSA] leaker out there." https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/07/nsa_targets_pri.html … (GG RTs Schneier's comment, hmmmm)
[tor-dev] XKeyscore rules probably are from Snowden, after all

Twitter / ggreenwald: That'd be the ultimate irony: ... - US Govt spied on German parliamentary investigation into US Govt spying on Germans http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28160767?ocid=socialflow_twitter …
Germany arrests BND member on suspicion of spying for US | World news | theguardian.com - Media says alleged double agent may have been tasked with spying on committee investigating NSA's activities in Germany (Obama just can't help himself)
Germany summons US ambassador over spy allegations | TheHill
German Intel Worker Suspected Of U.S. Spying: Report - "If the media reports (about the case) are confirmed then there can't just be a legal response, there also has to be a political response," she said.

Drone memo should reverse Gitmo convictions, attorneys claim — RT USA - Omar Khadr was only 15 years old when he was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and taken to the Bagram Air Base, then Guantanamo

Edward Snowden should have right to legal defence in US, says Hillary Clinton | World news | theguardian.com - Former secretary of state tells Guardian that NSA whistleblower should return to US if he is serious in engaging in debate (she would let him turn himself in and "be held accountable" - Hilliary is really into queen-speak)
Twitter / ggreenwald: Dear Ed: You should come back ... - to US just because I want there to be a real & healthy debate. With sincerity, Hillary http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/04/edward-snowden-legal-defence-hillary-clinton-interview …

? 'NSA is corrupt. If WE did that we'd be thrown in jail' - YouTube
NSA Whistleblowers Testify on ‘Totalitarian Mentality’ of NSA at German Parliamentary Committee Hearing | The Dissenter
ACLU Chief: Greenwald Will Reveal Spying on U.S. Muslims - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - The civil-liberties advocate Anthony Romero said new information about NSA surveillance will be exposed in a forthcoming article. Glenn Greenwald will reveal that Muslim Americans in public life were "subject to the kind of surveillance that Hoover did on Martin Luther King."
CARAS Mobile (the guys and the pooches)

Twitter / YourAnonNews: Happy birthday, Julian Assange. ... - Sorry about the whole being-stuck-indoors-indefinitely-because-the-world-hates-truth thing. @WikiLeaks
Swedish court sets date for Julian Assange rape case hearing | Media | The Guardian - 16 July hearing is first legal battle in the case since WikiLeaks founder sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London

Police were warned during hacker attack - News - The Copenhagen Post - Rigspolitiet ignored cybercrime risk report while hackers were stealing from their databases
Sophisticated 'MiniDuke' hackers start hunting governments and drug dealers | Technology | theguardian.com - Researchers at Kaspersky have identified a mysterious group of hackers that could be cyber-mercenaries, rival drug dealers or even law enforcement
EPIC - Congress May Cut Funding For Surveillance Blimps Over DC - The Army wants to test the system in Washington, DC, but the program has come under scrutiny by Congress because of cost overruns.
BlackHat2014: Deanonymize Tor for $3000
Is Your Android Device Telling the World Where You've Been? | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Tor Project: Anonymity Online
Twitter / YourAnonNews: If you ever searched for Tor ... - or Tails, you are a permanent NSA target http://is.gd/TA9CB2
NSA targets the privacy-conscious (Seite 2)| Das Erste - Panorama - Meldungen
If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance - Boing Boing
NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance | Linux Journal

Going Without Water in Detroit - NYTimes.com - A FAMILY of five with no water for two weeks who were embarrassed to ask friends if they could bathe at their house. A woman excited about purchasing a home who learned she would be held responsible for the previous owner’s delinquent water bill: all $8,000 of it. A 90-year-old woman with bedsores and no water available to clean them. (meanwhile, in Detroit)
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Hey @detroitwaterdep, how are ... - 120,000 people supposed to live in #Detroit without water? #DetroitWater

US supreme court's female justices issue fierce dissent on contraception ruling | World news | theguardian.com - Supreme court granted a Wheaton College, a Christian institution, a temporary exemption from having to provide full contraception coverage to its employees and students - Sotomayor said. “But thinking one’s religious beliefs are substantially burdened – no matter how sincere or genuine that belief may be – does not make it so.” (if Christians believe something, it is so)
"Substantial": A Word That Means Something - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The Supreme Court has granted an injunction to Wheaton College, which argued that even having to fill out a form to exempt itself from the contracpetive coverage requirement violates its RFRA rights. The dissent, by Sotomayor and joined by Ginsburg and Kagan, notes what should be obvious: (their claim was insubstantial, but no problem)
15 Major Decisions This Year From a Partisan Supreme Court - From here on out, nominees from either party will be utterly predictable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Should Liberals Be Applauding Hobby Lobby? (SPOILER: No.) - Lawyers, Guns & Money : You will be highly unsurprised that Damon Linker has once again done his “liberalism, properly understood, compels agreeing with conservatives” routine:
What You Need to Know About the Hobby Lobby Billionaires - ABC News (scary)
This Map Shows All the Countries Where Women Can Get Birth Control for Free - Mic
Abortion and birth control: A global map.

4 protesters awarded $185K over 2004 RNC arrests - Four people arrested at an anti-war march during the 2004 Republican National Convention have been awarded $185,000 in the first trial stemming from lawsuits over protest arrests surrounding the GOP gathering.

Tea Party Forces Still Control The Republican Agenda

The Price of Prevention: Vaccine Costs Are Soaring - NYTimes.com - Vaccination prices have gone from single digits to sometimes triple digits in the last two decades


Redondo Beach Police Violently Attack Female Bike Theft Victim | The Free Thought Project - “He was stealing my bike! I’m not doing anything!”
Police officer who pushed paraplegic man out of his wheelchair keeps job | Mail Online - Indiana Lieutenant Tom Davidson was caught on film pushing Nicholas Kincade from his wheelchair
Police To Use New High-Tech Surveillance At Fourth Of July Celebration « CBS Boston - Police from different agencies have the ability to call up live surveillance feeds from hundreds of different sources worldwide. They can even link into private security cameras like those at Copley Place.

?The "Nanny From Hell" Is an American Hero - So it goes for the Bracamonte family of Upland, California. The Bracamontes decided they needed a live-in servant to help care for their children, but they did not want to pay wages for that labor. Through some combination of greed, stupidity, and self-regard, they believed that in lieu of paying for the work, they could simply give the person they hired meals and a place in their house to sleep.

8 Great New Books You Might've Missed This Year

The Underground Stream: April 2014

Google and Big Tech Companies Sit Out Net Neutrality Fight? | Re/code - Federal regulators have received more than 625,000 comments about a controversial proposal to allow broadband providers to offer fast-lane service on the Internet. None, so far, has been from Google.

12 simple steps to safer social networking - PC Advisor - Follow our privacy tips for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram to ensure that you're not oversharing.
Qualcomm Takes Down 100+ GitHub Repositories With DMCA Notice - Slashdot
5 Ways the Internet Steals Your Soul | Cracked.com

070314
Hurricane Arthur Forms In Atlantic, Threatens North Carolina
The Disaster We’ve Wrought on the World’s Oceans May Be Irrevocable (the "hoax" is getting hoaxier)

Russian Jets and Experts Sent to Iraq to Aid Army - NYTimes.com
Inside the Collapse of the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Division - Corruption, neglect, and a shortfall of combat-effective resources and personnel crippled the Iraqi military’s capability
Iraq crisis: ISIS social media blitz could be its downfall - World - CBC News - As ISIS fighters tweet out maps and share tips online, intelligence ops may want them to keep it coming

Almost 1 in 5 websites now blocked by censorship filters in the UK (it was always about political dissent, not child porno or drugs)

FBI records: Chilling find in Bradenton dumpster - Florida - MiamiHerald.com - In all, the FBI released 11 pages Monday. They contain statements reiterating that the al-Hijjis had departed the United States in haste shortly before 9/11 and that “further investigation” had “revealed many connections” between them and persons associated with “attacks on 9/11/2001.” (now for the Israel connection)
Freshly released but heavily censored FBI documents include tantalizing new information about events connected to the Sarasota Saudis who moved suddenly out of their home about two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, leaving behind clothing, jewelry and cars : news

What Happened to Glenn Greenwald's Big Scoop?
Cryptome claims all Snowden files will be published in July to avert a war — RT USA
Text of State Department letter to Wikileaks | Reuters (Obama still trying to rendite Wikileaks)

New Snowden Docs Show How FISA Court Gave NSA Ridiculously Broad Spying Powers | Techdirt (because terror)
NSA reformers dismayed after privacy board vindicates surveillance dragnet | World news | theguardian.com - Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board endorses agency's so-called '702' powers, plus backdoor searches of Americans' information (Obama's "Civil Liberties" board at work)
The surveillance state can't even keep track of how many people it's spying on anymore. Time to close the loopholes | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A government authorized to search innocent people. Multiple agencies seeking a backdoor into your data. It's all coming to a head – and internal reports aren't going to cut it
NSA admits it lets the FBI access its warrantless spying database - Vox
EFF Sues NSA, Director of National Intelligence for Zero Day Disclosure Process | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Government Needs to Reveal Decision-Making Process for Publicizing Vulnerabilities

EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google | James Ball | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Publishers must fight back against this indirect challenge to press freedom, which allows articles to be 'disappeared'. Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google
Goldman Sachs demands that Google "unsend" a fatfingered email to avoid "reputational damage" - Boing Boing - So now they're demanding that a judge order Google to "unsend" the message, deleting it from Gmail users' inboxes.
The Military Is Already Using Facebook to Track Your Mood - Defense One
CIA and Behavior Control Research - RTICHOKE methods has having included "the use of drugs and chemicals, hypnosis, and 'total isolation,' a form of psychological harassment." Another major component of the CIA's program, called MKULTRA, explored, according to a memo of August 14, 1963, "avenues to the control of human behavior," including "chemical and biological materials capable of producing human behavioral and physiological changes," "radiology, electro-shock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology and anthropology, graphology, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices and materials."
Private crypto key stashed in Cisco VoIP manager allows network hijacking | Ars Technica - Update closes backdoor allowing unauthorized control of sensitive messaging gear.

Airport security may be tightened permanently after US warning – Clegg | UK news | theguardian.com - US officials believe terrorists in Syria and Yemen could be developing explosives that could be smuggled on to planes (Obama's wars, keeping you terrorized)

Schneier on Security: NSA Targets Privacy Conscious for Surveillance - And, since Cory said it, I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents. I also don't believe the TAO catalog came from the Snowden documents. I think there's a second leaker out there. (if you want your privacy or are interested in encryption or God forbid, use Linux, you are an "extremist" in Obama's eyes)(or, of course, read Bruce Schneier)
NSA targets the privacy-conscious | Hacker News
holzerabuse.jpg (Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise)

NSA targets the privacy-conscious (Seite 1)| Das Erste - Panorama - Meldungen - Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search.
If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance - Boing Boing
XKeyscore exposed: How NSA tracks all German Tor users as 'extremists' : worldnews
NSA's XKeyscore Source Code Leaked! Shows Tor Users Classified As 'Extremists' | Techdirt
?XKeyscore exposed: How NSA tracks all German Tor users as 'extremists' — RT News - An interest in Tor is not the only way to make it to NSA’s watch list. Even web searches for other encryption software makes you a target as well, the report said.
To Whom It May Concern – English version | Blackout Austria - The accused was operating a TOR exit node which was being used fraudulently by a third party to transmit content of an illegal nature. (Austria makes TOR exit nodes illegal because something)

US adds 288,000 jobs in June as unemployment rate drops to 6.1% | Business | theguardian.com - Figure far exceeds analysts' expectations as US economy posts fifth straight month of job growth
Fox News Really Doesn't Want To Talk About The Good Jobs News
Dow Jones index soars to record high after US data shows job creation surge | Business | The Guardian - Official figures reveal an extra 288,000 posts created in June with jobless rate falling to 6.1%

Chris Matthews schooled by Elizabeth Warren on politics and the Democratic message

Comcast TWC merger: DOJ emails show cozy relationship | BGR - Comcast invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse to attend a party to celebrate the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics, an invitation that Hesse regretfully declined because the “rules folks” at the DOJ would likely object.

15 Charts That Prove We're Far From Post-Racial (tell that to those white guys on the SC)
How Partisan Battles Over God, Guns And Gays Infiltrated Corporate America

Hobby Lobby Is Already Creating New Religious Demands on Obama - Molly Ball - The Atlantic - Faith leaders friendly to the administration are asking for an exemption from a forthcoming gay-rights order.
Why the Hobby Lobby Ruling Is Your Problem and My Problem - Esquire - Brace yourself for some cost-cutting, suddenly religious CEO to use today's decision to justify all kinds of exploitative practices. Or now that a corporation can be religious, something Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I thought was limited to people, will we have boards of directors meetings where they vote on the company's official religion? (Church of Satan is waiting)
This organic food company is refusing to pay for employees’ birth control | Grist - Just because a company is organic doesn’t mean it’s progressive. Exhibit A: Eden Foods.

The South Is Essentially A Solid, Grim Block Of Poverty (and Republican voters screwing themselves)

Man Sues NYPD for Snatching Camera and Arresting him | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC - So let’s stop buying into the myth that it’s only a matter of training because the truth is, they are trained to do exactly what they’ve been doing, which is violating citizens’ rights any chance they get. ($1Bn in law suits; just one of the costs of the Guiliani-Bloomberg fascist spy-state)

Nine States Join Climate Denier's Lawsuit Seeking To Dismantle EPA Carbon Rule | ThinkProgress - West Virginia, Wyoming, South Carolina, Ohio, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alaska, Alabama, and Kentucky — argued that the EPA is not allowed to regulate carbon from existing coal plants (Murray Energy owns these states)

Timeline: A Year and a Half of Irresponsible Gun Owners - Esquire - Eighteen months of idiots and deadly power working in tandem.
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - Look at the dazed look in these men's eyes and the way that "Hope for Bacon" clutches his blessed Oreo cookies. These men are not only heavily armed, they are heavily drugged.

River Thames panorama history: Image of 19th-century London. (don't read before breakfast)
Hybrid Nature: Sewage Treatment and the Contradictions of the Industrial ... - Daniel Schneider - Google Books ("dutch butter")

162 Reasons It's Good to Be an American Man - Esquire
4-Year-Old Singing With Her Dad Is The Epitome Of Cute

corpuscle634 comments on ELI5 Why does light travel?

The Most Ambitious Artificial Intelligence Project In The World Has Been Operating In Near-Secrecy For 30 Years | Business Insider - “We’ve been keeping a very low profile, mostly intentionally,” said Doug Lenat, President and CEO of Cycorp. “No outside investments, no debts. We don’t write very many articles or go to conferences, but for the first time, we’re close to having this be applicable enough that we want to talk to you.”


070114
GOP Lawmaker Says Climate Change Is 'The Greatest Deception In The History Of Mankind' - Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney (R) is accusing liberals, such as former Vice President Al Gore, of advancing "the greatest deception in the history of mankind" -- man-made climate change -- in a scheme to empower the executive branch and increase taxes. (the state that will mostly disappear along with their stupids)

Iraqi parliament session collapses amid political standoff | World news | The Guardian - Shia, Sunni and Kurd politicians fail to begin process of electing new leaders, as UN reveals death toll since Isis insurgency - , lurching the country ever closer to partition and defying desperate calls for unity from regional and global powers (they had years to do that)
Eschaton: Ahmad's Puppets - He found his marks and pulled off the greatest con of all ... Now, in an improbable twist of fate, Mr. Chalabi is being talked about as a serious candidate for prime minister. He has also been back to the embassy.
This Map Should Scare Everyone Who Sees It | Rife Mob - . This group has taken a large amount of land from both Syria and Iraq to create what they are calling a new Caliphate. The maps below show their actual intentions to build out the Caliphate across all of northern Africa, the Middle East, and quite a lot of Europe. (ambitious)

Ukraine fighting intensifies as Poroshenko ends ceasefire | World news | theguardian.com - President in Kiev vows to retake land from pro-Russian separatists with clashes in Donetsk and Lugansk regions
Ukraine Forces Attack Rebel Positions After Ceasefire Ends
Nigeria bomb rips through marketplace | World news | theguardian.com - Dozens feared dead after car bomb attack in north-eastern city of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Islamist militants Boko Haram
France's burqa ban upheld by human rights court | World news | theguardian.com - European judges declare that preservation of a certain idea of 'living together' was legitimate aim of French authorities.
Nicolas Sarkozy detained for questioning over alleged corruption | World news | The Guardian - Unprecedented move against a former French president as investigators also question his lawyer and two magistrates

Court gave NSA broad leeway in surveillance, documents show - The Washington Post - Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents. (your "courts" at work)


Ruth Bader Ginsburg Writes Scathing 35-Page Dissent In Birth Control Case
Much depends on Ginsburg - Los Angeles Times
Echidne Of The Snakes: Meet Hobby Lobby, A Corporate Person with Religious Rights (but can they open-carry?)
8 Other Laws That Could Be Ignored Now That Christians Get To Pick And Choose (looks a lot like ... Islamistan!)
The GOP wants the ladies to love them (just not enough to need birth control) | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Don Draper's psyche is nothing to base a political strategy on
After Hobby Lobby, These 82 Corporations Could Drop Birth Control Coverage - The Daily Beast - From Notre Dame to manufacturers, dozens of companies were waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision in order to opt-out of Obamacare’s contraception mandate.
Eschaton: What's It All About Then - The Lords of Slate and others told us we were crazy, that if only Teh Left could admit that abortion was icky then Teh Right would support all kinds of awesome measures to help ensure that the wimmenz would not have unwanted pregnancies, and we could all get together and have a toast like tipandronnie used to do and live happily ever after. (Erick, son of douche-bag: "my religion trumps your "right" to employer-subsidized consequence free sex")

Federal judge strikes down Kentucky's gay marriage ban | World news | theguardian.com - Prohibition on same-sex couples being wed violates equal protection clause, judge rules, but ruling put on hold temporarily (another hate-state falls)


New York police to city's subway acrobats: siddown | World news | theguardian.com - Officers cracking down on subway showmen over fears low-grade misdemeanors can cultivate a greater sense of disorder (the long-discredited "broken windows" theory that Guiliani hyped to lay the ground for Bloomberg's fascist cop-state)

EMSK why the "Red Pill" will kill you inside : everymanshouldknow

Facebook Added 'Research' To User Agreement 4 Months After Emotion Manipulation Study - Forbes (you've been Zuckerfucked once again; DTMFAs)
Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review - HotHardware
Langhorne woman injured by exploding laptop - Then, said Luff, 72, her Dell Inspiron exploded, spraying battery acid and computer parts all over her and the carpet, as far as eight feet behind her.

063014
Ebola crisis in west Africa: WHO calls for drastic action | World news | theguardian.com - UN agency calls 11-nation meeting to fight deadliest outbreak on record in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

The U.S. Navy’s Biggest Base Is Sinking — War is Boring — Medium

Bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers found in West Bank | World news | theguardian.com - Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Sha'er and Eyal Yifrach were kidnapped while hitchhiking back from their religious schools
New 'security'-focused plan advances Israel's colonisation of East Jerusalem - Ben WhiteThe Israeli government's approval of an $86 million plan for tightening its grip over occupied East Jerusalem is the latest development in a process of colonisation that continues to proceed with impunity.
At least 30 die in Nigeria village attacks | World news | The Guardian - Churches set alight in attack by suspected Islamist extremists on village close to town from where schoolgirls were kidnapped
Dozens trapped as building collapses during monsoon rains in India | World news | The Guardian - Tower on outskirts of Chennai was under construction when it crumbled, killing at least 11 - Nearly 90 contract workers are believed to have been in the basement of the 11-storey structure collecting their wages when it collapsed
Tsunami-proof 'Great Wall of Japan' divides villagers | World news | The Guardian - Government wants to build 440 walls along coastline, but some residents believe a concrete fortress is not the answer
Anonymous-Affiliated Hackers Have Declared War on the Islamic State | Motherboard

Andy Coulson ‘turned News of the World into a criminal enterprise’ | UK news | theguardian.com - Prosecutor says victims of phone hacking under ex-editor and three newsdesk colleagues ‘read like a Who’s Who of Britain’ (the left hand of Satan gets two years)

Abu Ghraib torture suit against contractor revived by federal court | Law | theguardian.com - Four Iraqis win an appeal in federal court for their case that contractor CACI International Inc directed and engaged in torture
It's Not Like It Was The Government Or Anything - Esquire - But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: "that he could kill" the government's chief investigator and "no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," At the very least, somebody in the State Department obstructed an authorized investigation at the behest of a bunch of thugs with a $1 billion contract.
Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater - NYTimes.com - The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassy’s relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave - James Risen
Hullabaloo - Ganster imperialism - I'm not sure which is more shocking, that Blackwater issued death threats as if they were members of the Soprano crime family or the fact that the Embassy officials sided with them:
Eschaton: Iraq Was Going Great Until That Darn Obama Came Along - The shooting was a watershed moment in the American occupation of Iraq, and was a factor in Iraq’s refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing United States troops to stay in the country beyond 2011.

New NSA chief says 'sky not falling down' after Snowden revelations | World news | The Guardian - Michael Rogers says some terrorists have made changes to the way they communicate but talks down damage from revelations (like they didn't know not to use cellphones)
Intelligence Agencies Conducted Broad Sweep Of Warrantless Searches On Americans (Obama's legacy: most authoritarian President in US history)
FBI, CIA Use Backdoor Searches To Warrentlessly Spy On Americans' Communications | Techdirt - The big reveal is... that it's not just the NSA doing these searches, but the CIA and FBI as well. This is especially concerning with regards to the FBI. This means that the FBI, who does surveillance on Americans, is spying on Americans communications that were collected by the NSA and that they're doing so without anything resembling a warrant

Twitter / ProtonMail: According to @PayPal rep, email ... - encryption and #privacy requires government approval. (up to their old tricks)
Paypal Freezes ProtonMail Campaign Funds | ProtonMail Blog - At this time, it is not possible for ProtonMail to receive or send funds through PayPal. No attempt was made by PayPal to contact us before freezing our account, and no notice was given.

Twitter / HuffPostPol: "The Court, I fear, has ventured ... - into a minefield..." --Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting in Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby: Supreme Court Declares Itself to Be High Priest - The Daily Beast - In a huge shift, the Supreme Court evaluated whether a religious belief is valid to let a corporation be exempt from contraception coverage.
Eschaton: What's It All About Then - Supreme Court affirms that sincerely held religious beliefs are limited to the disapproval of unapproved fucking by women.
SCOTUS No. 1 -- The Ladyparts Thing - Esquire - James Madison saw today's Hobby Lobby ruling coming in 1785. (once again, it all goes back to Clinton)
Supreme Court Rules In Hobby Lobby Case, Dealing Blow To Birth Control Coverage
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Writes Scathing 35-Page Dissent In Birth Control Case
The 8 Best Lines From Ginsburg's Dissent on the Hobby Lobby Contraception Decision | Mother Jones
Hobby Lobby Still Covers Vasectomies And Viagra (and penis-pumps)
5 Political Operatives Just Hammered Women And Workers
Contraceptive Use in the United States - There are 62 million U.S. women in their childbearing years (15–44). [1] About 43 million of them (70%) are at risk of unintended pregnancy—that is, they are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they and their partners fail to use a contraceptive method correctly and consistently
Supreme Court: Partial Public Employees Can't Be Required To Contribute To Unions
The SCOTUS War on Women and Workers - Lawyers, Guns & Money : While today’s pair of horrible decisions might seem like distinct issues, in fact they are both part of a larger war on women and workers.
SCOTUS No. 2 -- The Stakes This Fall - Esquire - What happened in this case happened to (for the most part) poor women doing one of the most thankless and necessary jobs that there is—home health-care workers

Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent’s sick triumph over us all - Salon.com - Monopoly is back: Barry Lynn on the concentration of American economic power -- and how we can restore fairness

Fracking Can Be Banned by Communities, Says New York's Highest Court

Charlatans, Cranks and Kansas - NYTimes.com - Meanwhile, the state’s budget has plunged deep into deficit, provoking a Moody’s downgrade of its debt ... The real lesson from Kansas is the enduring power of bad ideas, as long as those ideas serve the interests of the right people. (Laffer told Brownbeck everything would be great)

FDA To Evaluate Marijuana For Potential Reclassification As Less Dangerous Drug - Schedule I is reserved for drugs that the DEA considers to have the highest potential for abuse and no "current accepted medical use." Marijuana has been classified as Schedule I for decades, along with other substances like heroin and LSD. (Obama's Republican war on black people)

Men’s rights conference takes aim at feminism | MSNBC
MisogynistFest 14: I Link, You Decide - Lawyers, Guns & Money : “The vast majority of female students allegedly raped on campus are actually voicing buyer’s remorse from alcohol-fueled promiscuous behavior involving murky lines of consent on both sides,” she said, drawing chuckles from the audience. “It’s true. It’s their get-out-of-guilt-free card, you know like Monopoly.” The chuckles turned to guffaws.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck 'Shocked' By Sherri Shepherd Leaving 'The View' (one dimbulb to another)

Silicon Valley's culture of failure … and 'the walking dead' it leaves behind | Technology | theguardian.com - Though tech startups rely on origin myths and mantras like 'Fail fast, fail often,' the psychic toll of unrelenting failure simmers just beneath the exuberance - Some estimates put the failure rate at 90% – on a par with small businesses


062914
Climate impacts cannot be ignored in broader environmental impact assessments by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
5 Graphics That Show the Cost of Climate Change In the U.S. - weather.com Climate Change Effecting Human Health
CNBC Caught Soliciting Writer To Claim Global Warming Is A “Hoax” | Earth First! Newswire

Twitter / Cryptomeorg: July Spy Syzygy: HOPE Anti-Spy ... - July 18-20; Aspen Pro-Spy July 23-26; Cryptome Kick-Spy ends July 27. During July all Snowden docs released.

Al-Qaida breakaway formally declares Islamic State - Yahoo News (Islamistan)
Most Americans say Iraq war wasn't worth the costs: Poll - CBS News (the usual 27% of Republicans love war but won't fund veterans +where's the poll about war crimes?)
Covering New War, in Shadow of Old One - NYTimes.com - The editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, told me recently, in another context, that The Times’s earlier misjudgments about Iraq were very much on the minds of the opinion staff. The Times is amplifying the voices of hawkish neoconservatives and serving as a megaphone for anonymously sourced administration leaks, while failing to give voice to those who oppose intervention.
Dick Cheney and Rand Paul are defining Republican foreign policy: The GOP’s wise men better speak up. - They better speak up. Because Dick Cheney and Rand Paul are speaking for them. (wise?)
Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and Douglas Feith should be ignored: The neocons already destroyed Iraq once. - Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and their fellow neocons botched Iraq. Now they want to tell you what they think. Ignore them.
Watch "ABC guest tells 'architect of catastrophe' Bill Kristol to go join the Iraqi army " Video at rawstory - The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel on Sunday challenged neoconservative Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol to join the Iraqi Army if he felt so strongly about the U.S. taking more military action in the country in response to recent violence.
Is Fox News More Dangerous Than ISIS? » Balloon Juice - Here’s Russell Brand’s take on an important question of our time. Caution: bad words are used.

House increases funding for Israel’s missile defense | Nation | Jewish Journal (we will have to cut food stamps to pay for it, of course)
Shimon Peres Says ISIS Should Unite Arabs And Israel - Israel, he said, is no longer the most significant threat to the majority of Arabs in the Middle East. (Israel has lost control)
Pakistani Couple Murdered In Gruesome Honor Killing
Bolivia's government wants to fight colonialism by running clocks in reverse - Vox - He frequently defies and denounces Western governments, for example in July, when his plane was grounded in Austria and searched for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. (he "defied" them by having his plane grounded + Max Fisher, another Ezra Klein Vox rightwing hire)
Jailed Al Jazeera Journalist Peter Greste Speaks Out About His Conviction
Twitter / thoton9: #Japan: Man sets self ablaze ... - at Shinjuku Sta. in protest against collective defense.

Toothpaste Terrorism? Been There, Done That - the toothpaste tube bomb has been around for almost four decades. In 1976, Cuban exiles reputedly led by Luis Posada Carriles used plastic explosives disguised in a tube of Colgate toothpaste to bring down Cubana Flight 455, killing all 73 people aboard the civilian Cuban airliner. (oh, no problem)

A Thin Rationale for Drone Killings - NYTimes.com - Instead, the memo turns out to be a slapdash pastiche of legal theories — some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law — that was clearly tailored to the desired result. (worse than Bush)
Five Takeaways from the Newly Released Drone Memo | American Civil Liberties Union - Rather than more fully explain the government's theory of "imminence," the newly released memo fails to address it at all. (the usual Obama flim-flam)
Report Questions U.S. Policy On Overseas Drone Strikes : The Two-Way : NPR (drone-boy loves his Repubican-approved forever war)
Court Rules No Fly List Process Is Unconstitutional and Must Be Reformed | American Civil Liberties Union - . The decision came in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought on behalf of 13 Americans who found themselves on the list without any notice, reasons, or meaningful way to get off it. (down the Obama rabbit-hole(TM)
Federal Court Dismisses All Charges Against Dr. Sami Al-Arian | Jonathan Turley

CyberGuerrilla 2011 » Protecting Your Security Online
Wells Fargo Wants Indybay.org Disabled As Soon As Possible : Indybay - Wells Fargo, a client of PhishLabs Security Operations, wants the “Wells Fargo foreclosure manual” removed from Indybay.org as soon as possible.
'Tails' Operating System Website Has Been Hacked - The Hacker News - Just a few hours ago, the Official website of the Tails Operating System has been hacked and it appears that a self-proclaimed 17-year old hacker breached and defaced it.

The Snowden Effect: Intelligence Design - Esquire - The CIA, and the rest of the intelligence community, always has been willing to tell us the names of its operatives who are killed, if such revelations further the intelligence community's domestic political agenda.

Nobody Wants To Host The 2022 Olympics - The failed and aborted 2022 candidacies all have one thing in common: When actual citizens are allowed to have a say, they say they don't want the Olympics.
World Cup 2014: Residents Wonder How New Stadiums Will Benefit Region After Cup - NYTimes.com

Eschaton: Or We Could Spend That Money Helping People - The Obama administration, in a dramatic escalation of its border control strategy, will seek $2 billion in emergency funds to help stem an influx of Central American women and children entering the country illegally and new measures to more quickly deport those already here, the White House confirmed Saturday. - Maybe we can cut food stamps some more to pay for it, because everything has to be paid for!

Pando Abruptly Fired Two High-Profile Staffers Without Notice or Cause - David Sirota and Ted Rall, both nationally syndicated veteran journalists. (Paul Carr seems to have lied; VC's vetoed left-leaning political coverage)
Twitter / paulcarr: And the idea that investors ... - have any control over me / Pando editorial is just ridiculous.
Twitter / voidfraction: @paulcarr just like @pierre ... - Omidyar has no influence over First Look? Remember your reaction when @ggreenwald made that claim? (hoist meet petard)

In The Zone II by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Who gained from the US Supreme Court’s ruling in McCullen v. Coakley? As the Boston Globe notes, the answer is: absolute wingnuts ... The Supreme Court ruling, she said, “just gives us the chance to be a little bit closer, to let them know that we care.” (by shouting in their faces)

Inequality Is Not Inevitable - NYTimes.com - political inequities and policies that have commodified and corrupted our democracy
Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.? - NYTimes.com - (take a guess)
The Best (and Worst) States to Be Unemployed - 24/7 Wall St. (as usual, the South, plus AZ, MI and IL)
The Largest Ancestry Groups In The United States - Business Insider (Germans, Blacks, Irish, Mexicans)

Women are more likely to be physically aggressive towards their partners than men - Women are more likely to be verbally and physically aggressive towards their partners than men suggests a new study presented as part of a symposium on intimate partner violence (IPV) ... Furthermore, women engaged in significantly higher levels of controlling behaviour than men, which significantly predicted physical aggression in both sexes.
Women are more likely to be verbally and physically aggressive towards their partners than men suggests a new study presented as part of a symposium on intimate partner violence (IPV). : news
Department for Child Protection - Western Australia - Domestic violence helplines (here's the problem in one page)
? Why Rape Is Sincerely Hilarious - YouTube
Quadrocopter pilot gets attacked by drone-hating woman | Ars Technica - Woman accused him of taking pictures of people with “helicopter plane.”
? #ViolenceIsViolence: Domestic abuse advert Mankind - YouTube

Connecticut police use thousands in seized funds for training trips (who are the thieves?)
What A Joke. Who in Their Right Mind Thinks This is “Protecting & Serving”? | The Free Thought Project - One of the young men said the band name “Nickelback” and was overheard by one of Idaho’s finest. The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office cop officer quickly began ‘protecting and serving’ by harassing these young men, because he thought he heard “nickel sack.”
EconomicPolicyJournal.com: How the Chicago Police Department Cheats Its Way to a Lower Murder Rate - It's always dangerous to put too much value into government statistics. Even when it comes to murders, which you would think would be difficult to hide, the numbers can be manipulated.


Is medical marijuana really as effective as advocates claim? | The Verge
granny-storm-crow-complete-index-jan-2013.pdf
Medical Marijuana MRSA Treatments | Cannabis Symptom Relief - In 2008, Italy’s University del Piemarte and Britain’s University of London tested five different cannabinoids on various strains of multi-resistant bacteria (including MRSA). All the compounds showed “potent antibacterial activity.” Cannabinoids were “exceptional at halting the spread of MRSA.”
The Book « JackHerer.com
Cannabis International Foundation: A Resource For The Dietary And Medicinal Study And Use Of Cannabis
Top 10 Cannabis Studies the Government Wished it Had Never Funded - Waking Times
Defining a “serving” of cannabis
2.5 Million Alcohol-Related Deaths Worldwide- Annually
Cannabis Has Been Studied More Than Many FDA Approved Pharmaceuticals | High Times


Facebook unethical experiment: It made news feeds happier or sadder to manipulate people’s emotions. - It intentionally manipulated users’ emotions without their knowledge. (oh, like advertising!)

062814
This Is What A Climate Hawk Looks Like by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) at the 2014 Citizens Climate Lobby conference, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2014. For those who aren’t ready for Hillary, perhaps there should be an effort to draft Whitehouse for the White House?
The current ebola epidemic is the worst ever and it's spreading | The Verge - West Africans are experiencing the largest and widest-ranging ebola virus outbreak recorded

Bosnia Marks Centenary Of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Assassination
Bosnian Serbs erect statue to man who ignited WWI

Iraqi forces launch attacks on Tikrit | World news | theguardian.com - Troops and helicopter gunships used to try to recapture city from Sunni militants, as talks begin between political parties - Muhanad Saif al-Din told the agency that the city was empty after people fled ahead of the anticipated clashes.
Rival Islamist Rebels Try To Wrest Control Of Syria Border Town From ISIS
Iraq army soldiers retake full control of Tikrit - The Iraqi army, backed by thousands of tribal gunmen and volunteer forces, has retaken full control of the northern city of Tikrit from the Takfiri terrorists of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Iraq crisis: Kurds restrict border crossings from Mosul - CNN.com
There may be nothing America can do to save Iraq | The Verge - Growing ISIS insurgency threatens to pull Obama back into Iraq, but his options are limited
Imagine the Iraq crisis—but with a GOP president at war with Iran (could have been a lot worse)

Caught Between ISIS and Assad | VICE United States - “ISIS are good fighters, but we fucked them,” Yusuf Halap said in fluent English.
Spain, Italy warn against investing in Israeli settlements — RT News - Spain and Italy have joined France in advising their citizens not to invest in Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian Land (Abe Foxman and AIPAC will call them anti-apartheid)
'Zionism Unsettled' Guide Is Removed From Presbyterian Church (USA) Website - The Presbyterian Church (USA) has removed a controversial publication from its website that was targeted by prominent Jewish organizations and church members as being an attack against Israel.

Benghazi attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala to face court in Washington DC | World news | theguardian.com - US attorney's office: initial court appearance on Saturday • Khattala had been held on USS New York in Mediterranean
Sergei Lavrov accuses US of fuelling Ukraine crisis | World news | theguardian.com - Russia's foreign minister says chances of settling crisis would have been higher if it only depended on Russia and Europe
Druze refuse to join Israel military service - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Youth from the Druze religious minority are facing prison sentences for refusing to join Israeli military service. (but the Haridim get subsidized to avoid serving)
Pope Francis again cancels event, citing ailment - an "unexpected indisposition."
Headlines for June 27, 2014 | Democracy Now! - the court gave the Tsilhqot’in First Nation title to nearly 700 square miles of land in British Columbia. The ruling could apply to any ancestral lands that were not signed over in government treaties, including areas where the controversial Northern Gateway oil pipeline is slated to run.

UK urged to tell all on US rendition flights | World news | The Observer - Fresh claims over use of overseas territory of Diego Garcia as secret jail for terrorist suspects (Obama is addicted to rendition and torture)

NSA queried phone records of just 248 people despite massive data sweep | World news | theguardian.com - Transparency report reveals agency performed queries on 248 people in 2013, despite collecting data on millions of Americans - The report said greater granularity would not be technically possible to provide (of course not)
Is this the beginning of the end of the age of legal government spying? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The US supreme court's new decision on cellphone searches could be a really big deal for the future of your privacy (DiFi will veto your privacy)

U.S. Government Thinks Foreign Press Oppression is OK (Obama hates reporters everywhere)
BERLIN: NSA fears prompt Germany to end Verizon contract - Technology - MiamiHerald.com - The German government is ending a contract with Verizon over fears the company could be letting U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdrop on sensitive communications, officials said Thursday

Zero-Day TimThumb WebShot Vulnerability leaves Thousands of Wordpress Blogs at Risk - The Hacker News - Yesterday we learned of a critical Zero-day vulnerability in a popular image resizing library called TimThumb, which is used in thousands WordPress themes and plugins.

Stand Against Spying - Where do your representatives stand on illegal mass spying? (DiFucker gets an "F")
Blog | Access - Last week, Congress introduced a new, rights-abusing piece of cybersecurity legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), drafted by Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Chambliss (R-GA).
Two new cyber protection squadrons at Scott Air Force Base

WikiLeaks Offer and Sarah Harrison Likely a Hoax - Firstly Assange was intensely jealous of firstly Snowden for effectively freezing him out of the NSA leaks and his collaboration with Greenwald, and even more so with Sarah Harrison, who he suspected of becoming more of a personal advisor to Snowden than he anticipated!! (Obama impersonating Assange?)

Massachusetts high court says accused criminal must decrypt computers for police | Reuters - Police can order an accused criminal to decrypt his computer without violating his constitutional right against self-incrimination, Massachusetts' top court said on Wednesday ... “If you're asking the defendant to go into his brain and access the information, then you're violating his Fifth Amendment rights,” Helinski said. (encrypt your brain!)
The quantum cryptography arms race has begun | Security - InfoWorld - Quantum computing may be taking its time to arrive, but when it does, encryption won't be the same again

Border Patrol Scrutiny Stirs Anger in Arizona Town - NYTimes.com - Every time Jack Driscoll drives the 32 miles from this remote outpost in southeastern Arizona to the closest supermarket, or to doctor’s appointments, or to a pharmacy to fill his prescriptions, he must stop at a Border Patrol checkpoint and answer the same question: “Are you a U.S. citizen?” Under a ruling by the Supreme Court, the Border Patrol is allowed to conduct random stops and searches within 100 miles of the border
At the U.S. border, police can still search your phone without a warrant - , between October of 2008 and June of 2010, over 6,500 people crossing a U.S. border had their electronic devices searched. Almost half were American citizens. (80% of Americans live within 100 miles of the "border" so another Obama Rabbit-holeTM)
Our Homes are Not Battlefields | ACLU of Massachusetts - the ACLU of Massachusetts sued the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC)—a group of 58 police and sheriff departments in Middlesex and Essex counties—to learn more about its Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team. Hiding behind the claim that it is a private, non-profit organization

My first real piece of artwork on the SP3. (My DnD character. Charles, with his sarcastic Raven familiar Dimitri.) : Surface (drawing resources)

The Internet's Own Boy | TakePart
This American Refused to Become an FBI Informant. Then the Government Made His Family's Life Hell. | Mother Jones - Plus, secret recordings reveal FBI threats.
VersoBooks.com - An engrossing, fascinating report from inside Anonymous, by the scholar who was embedded in the international movement
Everything you need to know about Ireland's disaffected Catholics - The Week - Disgusted by waves of scandal, Ireland’s Catholics are boycotting Mass and turning their backs on the church

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a big problem - Salon.com - If one thing was clear from decisions handed down this week, it's that SCOTUS is clueless on technology (geezers with lame analogies who have never used a "computer")
Supreme Court Poised To Rule On Obamacare Birth Control Mandate - The Supreme Court is poised to deliver its verdict in a case that weighs the religious rights of employers and the right of women to the birth control of their choice. (corps go the church, apparently)
Supreme Court Rules Against Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones From Behind Its Own Buffer Zone - In 2012, the court issued a regulation banning all demonstrations on the 252-by-98 foot plaza right outside the government building.

Bill Maher To Hillary Clinton: 'Just Go Away' - Take a hiatus from the public stage before you blow another run for president.
The GOP is now officially the party of ‘get the hell out’ - The Washington Post (you know who should be deported?)
Political Typology Quiz | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
Friday Morning Open Thread » Balloon Juice - Steadfast Conservatives, Business Conservatives, Young Outsiders, Hard-Pressed Skeptics, Next Generation Left, Faith & Family Left, and Solid Liberals. (A cynic might label them Tea Partiers, Establishment Repubs, Libertarians, Working Class (White), Millenials, Working Class (Minority), and Totebaggers.)
Twitter / billmon1: .@JuddLegum Mindless, hysterical nationalism is a traditional family value.
The Political Compass

Chicago lays off 1,150 teachers and school staff as enrolment dwindles | World news | theguardian.com - Teachers union slams Mayor Rahm Emanuel for forcing schools into 'choosing between a librarian and a math or English teacher' (Obama and his inner circle hate teachers)

McDonnell aggressively pursued risky U.S. 460 plan, report says - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia Politics - US 460 Mobility Partners received more than $250 million in payments from the state and Route 460 Funding Corp. of Virginia on the project before Gov. Terry McAuliffe shut it down in March ... To this day, not a single shovel of dirt had been turned for construction of the roadway. (corruption is even more expensive than actual roads)

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. sues Deloitte Consulting LLP for allegely stealing proprietary info to 'lift out' an entire team - Washington Business Journal - Booz Allen sues Deloitte for stealing proprietary info to 'lift out' an entire team

Is medical marijuana really as effective as advocates claim? | The Verge - The New York Times points out a lack of research, but fails to emphasize the policies blocking it
The World's Favorite Drug Is More Dangerous Than You Think, UN Says - The office estimates that nearly 180 million people consumed marijuana worldwide that year, way ahead of the 34.4 million that used the next most popular drug, amphetamines.

What Obvious Child gets right about abortion - The Week - Regardless of what one thinks about abortion, it cannot be denied that it is a common medical procedure for women. Roughly 30 percent of American women will obtain one. And yet, as Slate’s Dana Stevens has observed, abortion has virtually disappeared as a subject from popular American film and television

Massacre at 'The View': Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy Reportedly Fired - The Daily Beast - Two of the ABC show's regular panelists are reportedly off the air after Barbara Walters' departure from daytime. (Whoopi left standing)

'Sneak & peek' warrants allow police to secretly enter homes without notice | Police State USA
Fired Lesbian Police Chief Gets Her Job Back, Homophobic Mayor Thwarted By Town Council - Moore had been with the Latta police department for 23 years when Mayor Earl Bullard fired her in April (Bullyard)
NYPD Cop Drunkenly Breaks Into Apartment, Assaults Woman Day After Getting Award: Report | NBC New York - He is on modified duty pending the investigation.
Denver City Attorney's Office accused of influencing internal investigation into beating of inmate - 7NEWS Denver
Arizona Professor Body Slammed By Police During Jaywalking Stop, Now Charged With Assaulting Officer | ThinkProgress - The police claim that, at some point in the altercation Ore “kicked the officer in the shin.” That is not captured in the dashcam video, which has been released: (campus cop on campus street attacks professor for avoiding construction)

Should Auschwitz Be a Site for Selfies? : The New Yorker (went right over their heads)
Jane Austen: The novelist's collected critiques from friends and family
What are some funny ways to answer a call? : AskReddit
Rougned Odor strikes out ... and makes it to THIRD on a dropped third strike | MLB.com

Why The New York Times and The Washington Post (and Mozilla) are building an audience engagement platform together » Nieman Journalism Lab
Facebook tinkered with users’ feeds for a massive psychology experiment · Newswire · The A.V. Club - Scientists at Facebook have published a paper showing that they manipulated the content seen by more than 600,000 users in an attempt to determine whether this would affect their emotional state (Facebook: "the more evil the better")

062714
110,000 Fled Ukraine For Russia This Year

Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End, Panel Concludes in Report - NYTimes.com (wasn't that the point?)

If You Were An Iraq War Critic, You're Probably Not Being Asked To Go On TV (the media prefers liars)

Obama Admin’s TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks (banks gave bonuses when employees went to work for gov)

So Much for Obamacare Not Working - NYTimes.com - So Much for Obamacare Not Working - “To err is human,” wrote Seneca. “To persist is diabolical.”

Mississippi, Goddamn, Cont'd: The Omigoddening - Esquire - But for...this. The systematized anything-goes ratfcking that is now de rigueur in our politics, combined with a media the Id of which is long gone into hyper-drive, claims another victim.
The Last Honest Man In Oklahoma - Esquire - So the only thing about which brother Murray is unclear is whether or not the person who beat him 82 percent to five is a body double or a FrankLucasBot. (fruit of the crazy tree)

062614
Barack Obama becomes mocker-in-chief on climate change skeptics - Edward-Isaac Dovere and Andrew Restuccia - POLITICO.com - “They say, hey, I’m not a scientist, which really translates into, I accept that man-made climate change is real, but if I say so out loud, I will be run out of town by a bunch of fringe elements that thinks climate science is a liberal plot so I’m going to just pretend like, I don’t know, I can’t read,” Obama said.
On N.C.’s Outer Banks, scary climate-change predictions prompt a change of forecast - The Washington Post - “Some call it sea-level rise, but from our perspective it’s erosion, and we’ve been living with it forever.” (in the state that outlawed "sea level" "the worms will hit the fan")

Obama administration seeking $500m to train 'moderate' Syrian rebels | World news | theguardian.com - Request to Congress comes as US searches for effective alternatives to Isis, which has overrun parts of northern Iraq (another $1/2 billion down the toilet)
Eschaton: Arming And Training Has Worked Great So Far - If only we'd armed and trained an army in Iraq!
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire - he author of the above lied about it to the American people, who'd been footing the bill so the Salvadoran military could Win The Morning. The people who run TBOTP have maggots in their souls, and the maggots are looking for better quarters. (Eliot Abrams, the slimiest of the slimy, crawls out from the putrid depths of Politico)

AIPAC weighs in on US military aid to Egypt - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - The pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has begun a lobbying blitz to stop lawmakers from cutting military aid to Egypt, Al-Monitor has learned. (Israel is your boss)
Prominent Female Activist Assassinated In Benghazi - One of Libya's most prominent female activists was assassinated in the restive eastern city of Benghazi when gunmen stormed her house, the state news agency reported Thursday, in slaying that stunned many Libyans.
In a U.S. Court, Iraqis Accuse Blackwater of Killings in 2007 - NYTimes.com
Australian Police Confiscate Pastafarian Man's Guns Because He Posed For His ID Card Wearing A Colander | Techdirt - Officers came to his home, where they seized two handguns and two rifles and ordered him to see a psychiatrist. According to Mr Albon, the psychiatrist immediately declared him as sane and ‘laughed it off’.

Judge upholds order demanding release of CIA torture accounts | World news | theguardian.com - US government loses attempt to keep accounts of torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri secret (Obama loves his secret torture system)

Enough Secret Law: Newly Released DOJ Drone Killing Justification Memo... Points To Another Secret Drone Memo | Techdirt - From this reference, we can deduce that the OLC authored a separate drone memo assessing – and dispensing with – the proposition that an American citizen had the right not to be deprived of his life without some form of judicial process. (and that one will be based on yet another secret memo; down the Obama Rabbit-hole (TM)
Increased US drone use 'may create slippery slope to wider war', report says | World news | theguardian.com - Report released by Stimson Center does not reject drone strikes but says increasing use 'risks escalating conflicts' (Obama is way down that slope)

Supreme Court roundup: Does today’s cellphone decision mean the court—like the rest of us—has lost its enthusiasm for the war on drugs? - Thirdly, the court may no longer be the head cheerleader for the war on drugs. The Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s that gave the green light to oppressive police investigative practices were to a large degree driven by the perceived need to suppress the supply of drugs. ("drugs" = "black people")
Supreme Court and cellphones: Does the court really have any idea how Americans feel about privacy? - How exactly does this court know how significant the privacy interest is?

Detroit's Water War: a tap shut-off that could impact 300,000 people | Martin Lukacs | Environment | theguardian.com - A right-wing state and corporate push to cut off water is economic shock therapy at its most ruthless and racist, but resistance is growing (let them drink air)
Deportation Separated Thousands Of U.S.-Born Children From Parents In 2013 - Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year carried out more than 72,000 deportations of parents who said they had U.S.-born children (scumbag Obama at work)

President’s Recess-Appointment Power Cut by High Court - Bloomberg - The U.S. Supreme Court curbed the president’s power to make temporary appointments without Senate approval, backing congressional Republicans and dealing a blow to President Barack Obama.
A More Nuanced Breakdown of the Supreme Court - NYTimes.com
Abortion clinic 'buffer zones' violate first amendment – supreme court | Law | theguardian.com - Justices side with seven Massachusetts anti-abortion protesters who said 35-foot buffer zone infringed on free speech (now free to scream directly in your face)
Supreme Court Strikes Down Buffer Zones For Abortion Clinic Protests
Justice Roberts Should Visit an Abortion Clinic | Boston Review
Your Uterus Is “An Important Subject” About Which Your Fellow Citizens “Wish To Converse” | Religion Dispatches
SCOTUS end of term: Massachusetts’ abortion clinic buffer zone law goes down. - The justices don’t like Massachusetts’ buffer zones. But they’re fine with the one around the Supreme Court.
The Implications of the Supreme Court's Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Ruling - The balance the opinion strikes between the state's interest in protecting access to reproductive health clinics and First Amendment rights is not unreasonable, and should not unduly restrict states going forward.

Boulder County begins issuing same-sex marriage licenses; AG says no - The Denver Post

Meet the New New South, Same as the Old New South - Lawyers, Guns & Money : As in the 19th century, many in the South, including a considerable proportion of the white working-class, have been persuaded that the federal government is their enemy ... The Civil War has yet to be won.
Odds tilt toward GOP Senate | TheHill - Republicans are in the strongest position to win back the Senate since losing it eight years ago.
The Tea Party Blew It - Molly Ball - The Atlantic - National conservatives came up short Tuesday in Mississippi and Oklahoma. Maybe the Republican base just isn't as angry as they thought.
The staggering price of crushing the tea party - politico.com - Nearly a third of the establishment money has come from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.


New Jersey grants $1.25bn in public funds to firms that back Republicans | World news | theguardian.com - Most top subsidies since 2012 went to firms that donate to GOP • Chris Christie appointed close ally to 'bank for business' role • Critics decry 'gross politicisation' of economic development
Scott Walker Was Not A Target Of Investigation: Prosecutor - "At the time the investigation was halted, Governor Walker was not a target of the investigation," Randall Crocker, the attorney for special prosecutor Francis Schmitz, told the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday. "At no time has he been served with a subpoena."

The NYPD Apparently Doesn't Have Any Rules Governing Its In-House Classification Of Documents | Techdirt - This likely has something to do with having a former CIA agent running the Intelligence Division. To a man like David Cohen, who spent 35 years in the agency, classifying documents just makes sense -- even if no other law enforcement agency is doing it. And even if there's really no legal weight behind the NYPD's completely-made-up "SECRET" designation.
Why Did Police Secretly Film Peaceful Protesters? | TheBlot - KRQE did not identify the officer by name, but said he was involved in the shooting of a 20-year-old man outside a restaurant during an undercover sting two years ago. (cop wars)


Huge Black Hole At Galaxy's Heart Has A Severe Case Of Gas - The "clumpy" gas stream changed position in 2013 and is now blocking 90 percent of the black hole's X-ray emissions. (someone doesn't understand how light works)
The State Where The Most Americans Drink Themselves To Death (go home, mountain states, you're drunk)

Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are boosting a profoundly anti-Christian movie — and no one cares - The Week - The National Review once accused Atlas Shrugged of "aggressive atheism." So why are a bunch of conservative Christians appearing in the film version? (because Mamon trumps Jesus)

It's still revenge porn when the victim is a man and the picture is of his penis | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - It's been a hard week for dick pics.

A Year And A Half Later, Unlocking Your Phone One Step Closer To Being Legal | Techdirt - I spoke to two separate Congressional staffers who had written up bills to legalize phone unlocking, only to have their international trade experts come in and reject them as likely violating a whole bunch of secretly negotiated trade agreements (and you wonder why we're concerned about things like TPP and TTIP limiting Congress...).
SCOTUS end of term: Scalia and Breyer face off over Aereo. - Breyer’s way will “sow confusion for years to come,” because performing to the public, in transmitting all those shows, isn’t what Aereo is doing at all. Scalia thinks Breyer is a clueless grandpa
Drone firm says it did not peep on Seattle woman | Reuters - A drone that spooked a Seattle woman in her apartment and prompted a police probe of possible invasion of privacy was not trying to catch an illicit image but rather shooting a panoramic view for a developer, the company that operates it said on Wednesday.
The Anarcho-Primitivist Who Wants Us All to Give Up Technology | VICE United States - “The logo is an apple with a bite out of it. Of course, Turing supposedly smeared cyanide on an apple and bit into it after being persecuted by the government for being gay. A bite from an apple is also associated with our expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I don’t think that’s quite the message they’re trying to convey, but there it is.” (Apple = original sin)


062514
Iraqi prime minister rejects pleas for government of 'national salvation' | World news | theguardian.com - Despite international pressure, Nouri al-Maliki says calls are an attack on Iraq's constitution and young democratic process
Sunni Militants Advance Toward Large Iraqi Dam - NYTimes.com
Russian Lawmakers Cancel Resolution Allowing Use Of Military In Ukraine
Egypt convicts another journalist, bans TV channels - Committee to Protect Journalists
North Korea Calls Seth Rogen-James Franco Film An 'Act Of War' - The statement was released via the official Korean Central News Agency, which last month called President Obama a "wicked black monkey."
Explosion Rocks Nigerian Shopping Mall - An explosion blamed on Islamic extremists rocked a shopping mall in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and police said 21 people were killed
Andy Coulson trial: jurors fail to reach verdicts on remaining charges | UK news | theguardian.com - Cameron had made an "ill-judged and premature" intervention on Tuesday, pronouncing on Coulson before the jury had returned verdicts on two of the three counts he faced. The defence's application was refused.
Vancouver may declare city is on 'unceded territory' | Canada | News | Toronto S - Vancouver City Council could formally recognize the city as sitting on "unceded land" belonging to First Nations in the area and are poised to pass a motion to that effect Wednesday.

The significance of Riley - The Washington Post - 1) The Court’s opinion offers a major endorsement of treating computer searches differently than physical searches. ("cellphones" = "computers" and "clouds")
Important 4th Amendment Victory on Warrants and Smart Phones - The precedent was in fact clear enough that all nine members of a Court with a notably dubious record on Fourth Amendment rights agreed with the judgment.
Supreme court endorses cellphone privacy rights in sweeping ruling | Law | theguardian.com - Justices decide warrantless cellphone searches of people who have been arrested are not permitted under fourth amendment
Federal Judge Rules Warrantless Bulk Surveillance Is Legal
Is sheriff's department using tracking and data-collecting device without search warrants? - The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department may be keeping judges, prosecutors and the public in the dark about the use of a controversial electronic surveillance tool known as the StingRay, according to new information obtained by News10.

Twitter / AFP: Edward Snowden speaks via video ... - during a Council of Europe hearing on improving whistleblower protection #NSA pic.twitter.com/N3iLVO320o
California Assembly Panel Votes Unanimously to Turn off Resources to the NSA | OffNow: Stop the NSAOffNow: Stop the NSA - In the face of opposition lobbying from the California Sheriffs Association and two former NSA analysts, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee voted unanimously to approve a bipartisan bill which creates a mechanism to turn off all material support and assistance, including water and electricity resources, from California to federal mass surveillance programs. The vote was 7-0.

Two protesters interrupt Google keynote over killer robots, housing evictions | The Verge - Google was a target for two very different criticisms — right during its own I/O 2014 keynote

The Investigation Into Scott Walker Could Be Way, Way Bigger Than Scott Walker - The case has the potential to blow a hole in anti-coordination rules in Wisconsin and beyond -- a hole that would effectively wipe away campaign contribution limits by allowing candidates to control the unlimited and secret contributions raised by not-really-independent groups.

100 Children Died In Unintentional Shootings In Year After Newtown

Twitter / conradhackett: Wow! Public faith in Congress ... - drops to record low 7%, lowest level Gallup has recorded for any institution in 41 yrs. pic.twitter.com/ow6yKAkNmr (how low can it go?)

Indiana's Ban On Gay Marriage Ruled Unconstitutional - The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled on gay marriage Wednesday, saying that Utah cannot ban same-sex marriages.
Federal Court Rules That Gay Couples Have Constitutional Right To Marry

Thad Cochran Owes Black Mississippians Debt For His Win Over McDaniel | New Republic
Thad Cochran defeats the Tea Party—and so does everyone else.
The Flier That Got Thad Cochran Elected? | National Review Online
It Looks Like African-Americans Really Did Help Thad Cochran Win | FiveThirtyEight

New ACLU report takes a snapshot of police militarization in the United States - The Washington Post - 62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.

Sarah Palin is maybe going to take the Tea Party home and go rogue third party with it - Former Alaska Governor Kelly Girl temp and, apparently, recently converted Jew, Sarah Palin left her Facebook Fortress of Derp last night to toss some word salad for Sean Hannity about what was going on in last night’s election whosie-whatsis, while threatening to take the Tea Party to the Promised Land as a third party.

Titan’s Atmosphere May be Older than Saturn, a New Study Suggests

Broke-Ass Michigan Throwing All Its Money At This Fun Anti-Abortion Grift - The Michigan state legislature, which can’t afford anything anymore, did some Fiscal Responsibility the other day, appropriating $800,000 to “promote childbirth” and encourage pregnant ladies not to have no ‘bortions. It won’t include any money to actually help feed babbies or anything, but it will throw nearly a million dollars at “Real Alternatives, Inc.,” a nonprofit that opposes not only abortion, but also birth control — oh, and hadn’t seen a single client in the first eight months of its almost million-dollar contract.

Today's teenagers are the best-behaved generation on record - Vox

There is no internet ‘outrage machine’ – just these outrageous rape apologists | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - George Will wants you ... to stop whining that only 'yes' means yes

Please Stop Bragging About Your Husband On Facebook - Happy Nice Time People - If you really and truly love your husband and you’re actually that happy, why do you need to show off? Is Facebook your own personal delusion billboard?

FAA grounds Amazon’s drone delivery plans | Ars Technica - Marketing ploy or not, Amazon's drone delivery project hits FAA turbulence.

US music licensing laws 'arcane and dysfunctional,' says RIAA chairman | Business | theguardian.com - Industry leaders fought for changes to American copyright law at House judiciary hearing, part of US copyright law review

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August A Novel by Claire North Hachette Audio, 2014
TIL If you ever get tingling waves of pleasure down your spine in relaxing situations, like when someone is whispering in your ear, it's a real condition called "autonomous sensory meridian response" and there are YouTube channels dedicated to inducing it : todayilearned
What's the nicest thing a stranger (who you never met again) has done for you? : AskReddit

062414
Risky Business | The Economic Risk of Climate Change in the US | Risky Business
Report Details Economic Impacts Of Climate Change | New Republic (comments indicate we're doomed)
Climate Change Poses 'Severe Health Risks' to Outdoor Workers - Rebecca J. Rosen - The Atlantic - A new report predicts that the Southwest, Southeast, and upper Midwest "will likely see several months of 95°F days each year."

Slavery Made America - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - The case for reparations: a narrative bibliography

The Murderous Core of Obama's Drone Memo - Esquire - How the White House refused to addressed the question that Americans need answered on targeted killings. (Obama looking very evil)

Hullabaloo - I was wrong about Peter Beinart being right about being wrong. He's just wrong.
You Can't Remake Another Country's Political Culture Without A Green Lantern! - Lawyers, Guns & Money : You may remember Peter Beinart from such a atrocities as “endorsing Joe Lieberman for the 2004 Democratic nomination” and “writing in December 2004 that opponents of the Iraq War should be ejected from the Democratic coalition.”

U.S. says Thai military rule likely to last longer than expected | Reuters
Police-Grade Mobile Spyware Is Spreading Through Saudi Arabia (and Beyond) | Motherboard
Home secretary denies security services engaged in mass surveillance | Politics | The Guardian - May uses Mansion House speech to make case for reviving 'snooper's charter' legislation, calling it matter of 'life and death'
Former UK ambassador to Afghanistan calls for legalisation of drugs | World news | The Guardian - Sir William Patey acknowledges west's failure to eradicate poppy crops in Afghanistan as he calls for state-regulated drug trade

Andy Coulson guilty over phone hacking as Rebekah Brooks walks free | UK news | theguardian.com - There were dramatic scenes outside the court as Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie, who was also cleared, left the dock.
Andy Coulson Convicted, Rebekah Brooks Acquitted In Phone Hacking Trial

“I Had Trouble Sleeping,” Lawyer Says After Viewing Guantánamo Force-Feeding Videos | Andy Worthington (Obama, on the other hand, has no trouble sleeping / "we do not torture")

Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex - This memorandum provides a preliminary analysis of the leaked financial services chapter of the Trade in Services Agreement dated 14 April 2014. It makes the following points: (another sooper-secrit Obama screw-you special)
U.S. Admits Modern-Day Slavery Exists at Home | American Civil Liberties Union - In its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released Friday, the State Department acknowledged that trafficking and forced labor still exist in America.

Where will Edward Snowden land after Russia? Our bookie has the odds
Exclusive: CIA Sued For Info Over Spying on Senate Torture Investigation | VICE News - Today Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro, commonly known as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) warriors, upped the ante in their fight for more transparency from the CIA relating to its Bush-era torture and rendition program.
CIA Sued for Failing to Disclose Senate Torture-Probe Records - NationalJournal.com - The lawsuit comes as the administration is close to declassifying a Senate report on the agency’s one-time interrogation techniques.

Army Removed Commander Over Affair With Washington Post Reporter - Over two years ago, the news network reports, the U.S. Army forcibly retired Special Forces commander James Gant after military investigators discovered that he was carrying on an affair with Washington Post war correspondent Amy Scott Tyson while deployed to the Kunar province of Afghanistan.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality | Threat Level | WIRED

Researchers Find and Decode the Spy Tools Governments Use to Hijack Phones | Threat Level | WIRED

War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing | American Civil Liberties Union
jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf: War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing
ACLU Report on Militarized Policing: SWAT Team Deployments, Federal Programs Foster Warrior Mentality | The Dissenter
A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son - Salon.com
The United States Of Cruelty - Esquire - We are cheap. We are suspicious. We will shoot first. It does not have to be this way. Like Lincoln before us, it is time to do something about it. - This didn't happen in Mosul. This didn't happen in Jalalabad. It happened in Atlanta. Keep this in mind.
Regional SWAT squad claims it is a private organization, not subject to public records law | Privacy SOS - we don't have to give you documents because we aren't government agencies.
Consume, Conform, Obey: What Homeland Security's Targeting Of Anti-Consumerist Activities Says About The Government's Desires | Techdirt
Occupy Protesters Arrested For Satirizing Police Repression Reach $22,000 Settlement - Dressed as comic exaggerations of cops, they were melodramatically ordering fellow bicyclists with the cycling collective Time's Up! to stop filming them.

Obama alums join anti teachers union case - POLITICO.com Print View - The Incite Agency, founded by former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and former Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, will lead a national public relations drive to support a series of lawsuits aimed at challenging tenure, seniority and other job protections that teachers unions have defended ferociously. (this is Obama's inner circle; why he governed as a Republican and tried to kill Social Security)
Obama Administration Veterans Target Teachers' Unions - Lawyers, Guns & Money (true colors dept. +where Campbell Brown - remember her? - ended up)

GOP Obamacare Death Panel Smear Is Putting People's Lives At Risk | New Republic - The last of these goals was always the most grotesque, because it entailed convincing strangers to undertake great personal risk by lying to them. It was insanely reckless. And if this Washington Post report is any indication, it worked: (because America is really stupid)

Gun nuts are terrorizing America: The watershed moment everyone missed - Salon.com - From Cliven Bundy defeating the cops to "open carry" movement's menace, the left's timidity has spawned a nightmare

2nd Bridge Inquiry Said to Be Linked to Christie - NYTimes.com - the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City.

The Grift Pays » Balloon Juice - head of the national Tea Party Patriots, a group she co-founded and helped bring to national prominence, she’s on track to make $450,000 this year (uses safety net, pays herself $1/2 million to destroy safety net)

Bill Richardson isn’t ‘Ready for Hillary.’ - The Washington Post - the first thing Richardson said was, "You know I'm not in the 'Ready for Hillary' camp, right?" Why not? "It's because of our differences when I endorsed Obama," Richardson said. "The differences haven't healed, and I'm not in the suck-up camp."

Mormon church excommunicates prominent U.S. activist Kate Kelly - CSMonitor.com - Prominent Mormon activist Kate Kelly was excommunicated by her church on Monday for violating its "laws and order" after advocating for women's ordination.

Cool at 13, Adrift at 23 - NYTimes.com - “They’re still living in their middle-school world.”
Drunk Fox News Anchor Brawls With Airport Cops In Jailhouse Video

GOP Rep's Chief Of Staff Resigns After Porn Star Tweets Photo Of His Penis
NSA Spook-Turned-Twitter-Pundit Goes Dark After Dick Pic Surfaces
Pediatrics Group to Recommend Reading Aloud to Children From Birth - NYTimes.com - doctors will tell parents to read aloud to their infants from birth, under a new policy that the American Academy of Pediatrics will announce on Tuesday ... keep children away from screens until they are at least 2
Where Personal Memories Take Root - NYTimes.com (distributed across hippocampus)

The New Face of ‘Networking’ - NYTimes.com - Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Zappos, the online shoe store, would replace its job listings with something called Zappos Insiders, where job seekers can “network with current employees and demonstrate their passion for the company — in some cases publicly — in hopes that recruiters will tap them when jobs come open.”
Delaware subpoenaed reddit in order to reveal details of public sex act | Ars Technica - redditor made snide, false comment saying the woman looked like "my sister."

062314
Supreme Court Mostly Upholds Climate Change Rules - by exempting a small proportion of facilities from a federal air pollution program while allowing most major pollution sources, including power plants and refineries, to be included.
hat
The Problem With The Environment - Esquire - this observation from Theda Skocpol: "environmental laws, or government programs preferred by this or that sliver of privileged constituents." If attempts to confront the overwhelming crises in the environment—climate change, first among them—really are perceived in our politics to be issues relevant to "this or that sliver of privileged constituents," then you'll have to excuse me because I'm going off to buy some oceanside property outside of Pittsburgh. (+Republicans hate bees and want you to starve if you don't drown first)
Last Month Was The Hottest May In Recorded History

Drone Memo Justifying Anwar al-Awlaki's Killing Released
US can kill US citizens overseas if they're declared part of an enemy group, memo reveals - Boing Boing - the government claims broad authority to kill American terrorism suspects without judicial process or geographic limitation." (your Constitution is toast)

Iraq Loses Control Of Syrian, Jordanian Borders
Iraq’s Military Seen as Unlikely to Turn the Tide - NYTimes.com - about a quarter of Iraq’s military forces are “combat ineffective,” its air force is minuscule, morale among troops is low and its leadership suffers from widespread corruption. (the great unraveling of the Bush/Cheney disaster/fiasco/tragedy)
Iraqi military facing ‘psychological collapse’ after losses, desertions - The Washington Post - “Over time, what’s occurred is that the Iraqi army has no ability to defend itself,” ("Iraqi Army" = Shiite joke)
Kerry and Maliki hold Baghdad talks as Isis take border towns - live updates | World news | theguardian.com - US secretary of state to call for inclusive Iraqi government
News You Can Use - Esquire - Wait, what's this? Someone looking very much like the president made a foreign policy decision in the Middle East that worked out? (McCain and Butchmeup have a major sad)
Information Controls In Iraq - On June 13, 2014, reports emerged that numerous social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, had been blocked. By June 16, reports suggested that Ministry of Communications officials had ordered a complete Internet shutdown in certain regions. These reports are confirmed by BGP data from Renesys: (that'll help)

Israeli air strikes hit Syrian military targets | World news | The Guardian - Israeli military confirms it has carried out attacks on Syrian positions in retaliation for explosion that killed teenager
Al-Jazeera Journalists Sentenced By Egyptian Court To At Least 7 Years In Prison (way to go, inner circle of young Obama advisors)
US unlocks military aid to Egypt, backing President Sisi - The US has revealed it has released $575m (£338m) in military aid to Egypt that had been frozen since the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi last year.

New Snowden Revelations on NSA Spying in Germany - SPIEGEL ONLINE - An analysis of secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden demonstrates that the NSA is more active in Germany than anywhere else in Europe -- and that data collected here may have helped kill suspected terrorists. (and spy on a lot of German corps)
The Snowden Effect: Intelligence Design - Esquire - There was an interesting exchange on Bill Maher's show Friday night in which Paul Reickhoff and Glenn Greenwald on the topic of the consequences of the revelations by Edward Snowden, International Man Of Luggage.
Shep Smith And Glenn Greenwald Get Into A Tense Argument
NSA Defender Under Investigation For Alleged X-Rated Pictures - A prominent defender of the National Security Agency, Naval War College professor John Schindler, is under investigation for allegedly creating "inappropriate content" that appeared on social media, a college official told The Huffington Post in a statement on Monday. ("Glenda Greenwald")

New Emails Show That Feds Instructed Police To Lie About Using Stingray Mobile Phone Snooping | Techdirt ("criminal elements")

This Tool Boosts Your Privacy by Opening Your Wi-Fi to Strangers | Enterprise | WIRED

CA Security Council | Benefits of Elliptic Curve Cryptography
What Is Mobile Web Hacking, How To Identify The Problem And How To Protect Yourself/Company? | International Entrepreneur
PTSD 101 | Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma
The Perils and Pitfalls of Online Dating: How to Protect Yourself | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Bodies of 162 Migrants Found in Clandestine Graves in Texas - revolution-news.com - The bodies of at least 162 dead migrants trying to cross the border from Mexico to the US were found in mass graves in a cemetery located in Falfurrias, TX. According to the Corpus Christi Caller Times, anthropologists and students made the discovery in the Sacre Couer cemetery.

The Little-Known Force Behind the Hobby Lobby Contraception Case - How the Becket Fund became the leading advocate for corporations’ religious rights (soulless corps and the Church of Satan) _

Republicans Finally Admit Why They Hate the ACA -- NYMag - The right’s ideological objections to Obamacare remain, but I can’t think of a single practical analytic claim they made that still looks correct. ("claim" = lie)

How Far This Young Criminal Informant Had To Go To Do His 'Job' (VIDEO) - In Alex's home, the police found seven capsules and a third of a gram of the party drug "Molly," valued at $200. Alex found himself facing a felony distribution charge that could carry a 40-year jail sentence. (your war on drugs on drugs)
Family of mentally ill inmate says guards laughed and joked as he died - The Denver Post - "I can see you breathing," Cheryl Neumeister called to a shackled, mentally ill — and dead — inmate, whose slow-motion death took place in the presence of casually chatting prison personnel, and on video.
New: D.A. makes decision about charges against Moore officers connected to Warren Theatre death | KFOR.com - The Cleveland County District Attorney’s office announced that it has decided to not file charges against any of the officers involved in the death of Luis Rodriguez. (terrorist cops walk)

Bill Clinton Adds Voice to Wife’s Support of Gay Rights - NYTimes.com - Former President Bill Clinton, in a video message to be broadcast this week, says he was “honored and grateful to be among the voices urging” the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, the measure he signed into law in 1996 that barred federal recognition of same-sex marriages (oh look, they've "evolved")
California's Absurd Intervention Over Dorm Room Sex - Reason.com - While these rules are technically gender-neutral, the general assumption in campus activism is that the victim of nonconsensual heterosexual sex is female. (no shit +Cathy Young: Boston Globe's favorite idiotarian)

Ramsey’s Choice: Criminalizing African Americans | News | Philadelphia Magazine - Ramsey is deciding that African Americans in Philadelphia will continue to be disproportionately treated as criminals.
Angry mom sentenced two years for tearing son’s genitals then attempting to repair them with glue | KFOR.com - 34-year-old woman will spend the next two years in federal prison

The rise of the 'slut' is a lie. The only requirement, it seems, is being female | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - It's a warning more than a word: a reminder to women to adhere to sexual norms or be punished ("slut" = bad; "stud" = good)

Five Revolutionary American Weapons of War That Never Happened | The National Interest

Hospice Check - The Huffington Post - Find hospices in your area past due for inspections and with violations
Watch John Oliver Verbally Pants Dr. Oz Over Dietary Supplements - With Oz's testimony as a jumping off point, Oliver used a full 16 minutes of his show's running time to hammer in the disastrous long-term effects of the deregulation of dietary supplements thanks to their powerful lobbying efforts.
No, PETA, Cow Milk Does Not Cause Autism - The Daily Beast - The group that brought you animal-fur horror stories has just launched a campaign claiming cow’s milk causes autism. Hold on to your Cheerios, this one needs explaining.
Doctors Are Now Prescribing Books to Treat Depression | Smart News | Smithsonian - Reading to feel less isolated may be more than just a poetic thought
Blitzortung.org – lightning map USA, Canada – thunderstorms and lightning strikes


062214
Lessons for Climate Change in the 2008 Recession - NYTimes.com - Climate Bubble of Denial (too big to change so die)

Isis captures more Iraqi towns and border crossings | World news | The Guardian - Sunni militants build on gains by taking checkpoints on frontiers with Jordan and Syria, as well as four more towns
Iraq Insurgents Reaping Wealth as They Advance - NYTimes.com - among the war booty they seized were what they claimed were five American-made helicopters. Noting that they were still nearly new, the group said in a posting on Twitter, “We’ll expect the Americans to honor the warranty and service them for us.” (Obama just armed Al-Qaeda)
Baghdad Residents Are Living In Fear Of Militants
John Kerry: U.S. Wants Inclusive Iraq, But Won't Choose Its Rulers (like last time)
Tony Blair's 'untruths' on chemical weapons must be challenged | the big issue | From the Observer | The Observer - Tony Blair says he did not know the Assad regime had chemical weapons, but British intelligence 'had provided details to successive governments for years'
Judith Miller Simply Will Not Have You Second-Guessing The Heroes Who Started The Iraq War - Since they’re getting the old Iraq War band together for a Greatest Misses tour, it only stands to reason that we’d hear from the group’s publicist, Judith Miller.
Hullabaloo - Put a fork in him - Dick Cheney doing the wild evasion Watusi isn't pretty.

Vietnam Mulling New Strategies to Deter China | The Diplomat - What is Vietnam’s strategy for resisting Chinese coercion?
Polish foreign minister says country's alliance with US worthless | World news | theguardian.com - According to a transcript of recordings obtained by Wprost, Radislaw Sikorski said 'we gave the US a blow job' (HuffPo censored "blow job")
Tens of thousands march in London against coalition's austerity measures | Politics | theguardian.com - An estimated 50,000 people in London addressed by speakers, including Russell Brand, after People's Assembly march
Presbyterians Vote to Divest Holdings to Pressure Israel - NYTimes.com (Abe Foxman and AIPAC have a big sad)

The Drone Memo Cometh | Just Security - In response to consolidated lawsuits filed by the ACLU and The New York Times, the Second Circuit recently ordered the Obama administration to disclose (with redactions) one of the legal memos authorizing the government’s premeditated killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American citizen. (Obama really thought he could keep secret his kill Americans secretly program)
More than 400 US military drones crashed in past 13 years, report says | World news | theguardian.com - Of 418 major drone crashes since 2011 identified by the Washington Post, about half happened in Iraq and Afghanistan
When drones fall from the sky | The Washington Post

Snowden gets German Fritz Bauer award for exposing US intelligence — RT News - “Edward Snowden showed exceptional moral courage in exposing illegal surveillance practices,”
New leaks show Germany's collusion with NSA | Germany | DW.DE | 21.06.2014 - Several new Snowden-leaked documents show how closely Germany's intelligence agencies work with the NSA. But did the German government deliberately soften laws protecting privacy to make life easier for them?

Ex-NSA Chief Pitches Banks Costly Advice on Cyber-Attacks - Bloomberg - As the four-star general in charge of U.S. digital defenses, Keith Alexander warned repeatedly that the financial industry was among the likely targets of a major attack. Now he’s selling the message directly to the banks.

The Literature of the Second Gilded Age | The Los Angeles Review of Books - Capital in the Twenty-First Century is perhaps the only major work of economics that could reasonably be mistaken for a work of literary criticism.

Republicans attack White House over Texas immigration 'disaster' | World news | theguardian.com - Leading figures call for border to be secured • McCaul says Texas now host to 'refugee camps'
When is a little kid a 'detainee'? When he's an immigrant, and the AP says so | Erin McCann | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Journalists have a responsibility to bring their readers the truth, not just parrot the talking points of politicians

Free advice for HR Clinton - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Stop saying stuff like this: (life in the rich bubble)

The First Transgender President

Bobby Jindal Says Rebellion Brewing Against Washington - Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday night accused President Barack Obama and other Democrats of waging wars against religious liberty and education and said that a rebellion is brewing in the U.S. with people ready for "a hostile takeover" of the nation's capital.

10 maps that show how much time Americans spend grooming, eating, thinking and praying - The Washington Post (Mississippi wins in sleep, working, grooming and praying)

Prison doctor blamed for excessive sterilizations - SFGate - A prison doctor investigated by the California medical board after ordering tubal ligations without state approval is responsible for hundreds of other sterilizations of female inmates, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. (the prisons had no idea, at all)

Post-Dispatch Op-Ed Editor: Readers Were Horrified By George Will's Sexual Assault Column

Experts not enthusiastic about future of Revel - Woinski said he imagines another scenario for the $2.4 billion Revel that would have left Atlantic City better off, ultimately. (fat bully fuck Chris Christie's fiasco)
Chris Christie Falsely Claims Democrats Barred Anti-Abortion Speakers From Conventions

Forgetful T cells 'a cause of increased infection risk in newborns' - Medical News Today - . But a new study from Cornell University in New York, NY, suggests that an infant's immune system is actually stronger than that of adults; it just has a short memory.
New York to legalize medical marijuana, but you can't smoke it | The Verge (Cuomo is a fuck)
If gravity can bend and warp space does that indicate space has physical substance, albeit one we cannot detect? : askscience
RelativisticMechanic comments on A question about the space-time grid imagery that documentaries are so fond of using

062114
Water war bubbling up between California and Arizona - Los Angeles Times - "Nineteenth century water law is meeting 20th century infrastructure and 21st century climate change," says Bradley Udall, a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Law School, "and it leads to a nonsensical outcome."

Tony Blair 'was told of Syrian WMDs' says former intelligence chief | Politics | The Observer - John Morrison, former head of defence intelligence staff, writes in Observer that Blair must have known of chemical weapons
Obama: US military action futile without Iraq political consensus | World news | theguardian.com - President told CNN 'no amount of American firepower' would be able to hold Iraq together if leaders don't rise above sectarianism

Grand mufti verdict against Mohamed Badi and supporters over violence in aftermath of coup against Mohamed Morsi
Ruling on Argentina Gives Investors an Upper Hand - NYTimes.com - It may lead some of them to try to get out from under an American court system that appears to be committed to the 21st-century equivalent of a debtor’s prison for countries confronting an oppressive debt burden.

Congress wants NSA reform after all. Obama and the Senate need to pass it | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - An overwhelming House vote to cut funds for back doors into your private life sets up a summer surveillance fight: will the Senate stand up before the White House shuts it down? (one word: DiFi)
Massie-Lofgren Would Shut Down ALL Back Door Searches under Section 702 | emptywheel

CISPA returns as CISA -- and it's just as terrible for privacy | Federal regulations - InfoWorld - Defeated twice before, a rebranded Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is just as vague, broad, and detrimental as the original bill (Obama never gives up his war on the intertubes)

How an FBI Informant Helped Orchestrate the Hack of an FBI Contractor | Motherboard - Weeks after he started working quietly as an FBI informant, Hector Xavier Monsegur, known by his online alias "Sabu," led a cyber attack against one of the bureau's very own IT contractors.

Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Patent Trolls | Enterprise | WIRED - On Thursday, the court upheld the notion that an idea alone can’t be patented, deciding unanimously that merely implementing an idea on a computer isn’t enough to transform it into a patentable invention. (patents on "business methods" like arithmetic)

S.D. Republican Party calls for Obama impeachment - The resolution says Obama has "violated his oath of office in numerous ways." It specifically cites the release of five Taliban combatants in a trade for captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, Obama's statement that people could keep insurance companies, and recent EPA regulations on power plants.

American Third Party Politics Isn't Politics At All - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Third Parties: Not a Solution for the Left - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Jennifer Roesch’s Jacobin article calling for the “radical left” to break with the Democratic Party. (all six of them)

Religious Constriction - NYTimes.com - One Gallup report issued last week found that 42 percent of Americans believe “God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.” (American is religiously stupid +28% God's Word +the fogbank)

Hullabaloo - American rush to judgment
5 Exonerated in Central Park Jogger Case Agree to Settle Suit for $40 Million - NYTimes.com
Donald Trump: Central Park Five settlement is a 'disgrace' - NY Daily News - An unacceptable amount of time and money has been spent on the infamous case, and it’s ridiculous for it to be settled at a cost of $40 million to taxpayers, Trump says.
Out of Order - ProPublica (out of control cops and prosecutors)
Prisoner says he worked with Denver jail guard to sell pot and porn - The Denver Post - nd mete out beatings to inmates who crossed him.

Ammosexuals - Lawyers, Guns & Money

Taxi medallions have been the best investment in America for years. Now Uber may be changing that. - The Washington Post (not if the taxi lobby in Cambridge can help it)



Upload - PDFy - Instant PDF Host (dump the sribd paywall)

062014
U.S. To Move Some Diplomats Out Of Kenya, Issues Travel Restrictions For Staff

For First Time Since WWII There Are More Than 50 Million Refugees

Eschaton: Lede - Well okay then. "The sudden collapse of Iraqi forces in the face of lightly armed insurgents has catalyzed an emotional debate within the U.S. military about a war that, just a few years ago, seemed on the brink of going down in history as a success." It was such a lovely little war.
Chaos in Iraq prompts soul-searching among military veterans - The Washington Post - “The problem today is that the [Iraqi] government hasn’t acted responsibly,” Dempsey said in Senate testimony.

Bill Kristol Snaps At Calls To Apologize For Iraq War Support - The only thing I want to hear from Iraq war architects is an apology. pic.twitter.com/vPeGmOyP2W — Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) June 18, 2014
Eschaton: What Would Make You Say A Thing Like That (Michael Gerson, professional blamer, member of Iraq War Group)

House Passes Landmark Amendment To Stop Warrantless NSA Searches - The House overwhelmingly approved an amendment Thursday meant to block the National Security Agency from performing warrantless searches on Americans' communications, rejecting one of the most controversial forms of NSA surveillance revealed by the leaks of Edward Snowden.

Texas feels the strain from rise in Central Americans crossing the border | World news | theguardian.com - Texas has become a hotspot for illegal crossings by unaccompanied children, in what some are calling the worst immigration crisis in the area for 30 years.

Does He Pass the Test? by Paul Krugman | The New York Review of Books - Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy F. Geithner
The Biology of Risk - NYTimes.com

surface pro hard reset - Google Search

Rick Perry Says He 'Stepped Right In It' While Comparing Homosexuality To Alcoholism (similar to comparing Perry to a human)

Rising Hegemon : Another selection for the "You Stay (KKK)lassy files" of the modern GOP - A Republican official in Arizona on Wednesday confirmed something that's long been suspected. State schools superintendent John Huppenthal has been a prolific and often incendiary anonymous commenter on local political blogs. (trolling progressive blogs)

Revel Casino Warns Employees of Possible Closure | NBC 10 Philadelphia

O'Connor on Rand - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.

The Imperial Japanese Navy and the First World War | The Diplomat - As we reflect on the centennial of 1914, remember that East Asia was involved in the First World War as well. (war in comments)

061914
Obama to send up to 300 'military advisers' to help Iraqi army repel Isis | World news | The Guardian - Team will help Iraq counteroffensive against insurgent group Isis but Obama indicates US air power will be kept in reserve
U.S. Signals Iraq's Maliki Should Go - WSJ - The White House Is Convinced the Shiite Leader Is Unable to Reconcile With the Nation's Sunni Minority and Stabilize a Volatile Political Landscape.
Iraqi faces charges after 7 years at Guantanamo - Guantanamo prisoner accused of being an al-Qaida commander who organized deadly attacks in Afghanistan had his first day in court Wednesday more than seven years after he was taken to this U.S. base.
Hullabaloo - Oh heck, we just don't know who to kill - The good news is that the government can instantly locate every one of your postings to that medical marijuana message board for the last couple of years. So there's that.
Iraq's most wanted - where are they now? (remember Cheney's terrorist playing cards?)
Eschaton: Bombworthy - Much of elite opinion about foreign "interventions" seems to be centered on "well just bomb something!!!" as if it's a magic cure for... heck, who knows what. I don't even know how we decide whose side we're on anymore, the assholes we put in power or the assholes that aren't happy with the assholes we put in power.
Megyn Kelly Totally Owns Dick Cheney Over His Terrible Iraq Track Record - Fox News' Megyn Kelly mercilessly confronted former Vice President Dick Cheney on her Wednesday show about his track record in Iraq.
The Gall of Dick Cheney - NYTimes.com
A Warmonger By Any Other Name | The American Conservative - Anne-Marie Slaughter thinks the U.S. should bomb in Iraq and Syria. She starts off her argument with some complaining: (ironic surname)
Bombing! - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I’d comment at more length on the Ann Marie Slaughter op-ed, but Daniel Larison is killing it.

Iranian child bride faces execution for killing the man she was forced to marry | World news | The Guardian - Iran's judiciary urged to halt Razieh Ebrahimi's execution as international law prohibits execution for crimes by juveniles
US fired depleted uranium at civilian areas in 2003 Iraq war, report finds | World news | theguardian.com - Dutch peace group Pax says findings show US was in breach of official advice meant to prevent suffering in conflicts (

How WikiLeaks opened our eyes to the illusion of freedom | Slavoj Žižek | Comment is free | The Guardian - Julian Assange, who went into exile in the Ecuadorean embassy two years ago, has blown apart the myth of western liberty - Today, 19 June, marks two years since Julian Assange was deprived of this right: he is permanently confined to the apartment that houses the Ecuadorian embassy in London

How Secret Partners Expand NSA’s Surveillance Dragnet - The Intercept

Laziness Is Censoring the Internet - Bloomberg View
FBI, NYPD form task force to go after cyber-criminals | Crain's New York Business - They will use an anti-terrorism task force model that was used to hunt down the Times Square bomber.


Prosecutors Allege Scott Walker At Center Of Campaign Finance Criminal Conspiracy (the shoe drops)
Exclusive: Prosecutor Is Closing In on Gov. Christie - Esquire - Indictments against four cronies are near certain, sources say. Only question is if David Samson, Christie's longtime mentor, will flip.


Was This Student Dangerous? - NYTimes.com

Colleges and universities must report rape allegations under proposed rules | Society | theguardian.com - Following FBI's revised definition of rape, US Department of Education proposes new rules to strengthen campus safety

Los Angeles court strikes down ban on sleeping in cars | World news | theguardian.com - Judges rule 1983 law is 'unconstitutionally vague' after homeless plaintiffs sue Venice police over inconsistent enforcement (the Reagan war on homeless)

Hospice, Inc. - The Huffington Post

Universe's Expansion Calculated With Unprecedented Precision


061814
Isis fighters attack Iraq's biggest oil refinery | World news | theguardian.com - Islamist militants launch assault in Baiji as Iran raises prospect of military intervention
Iraq requests US air strikes as Isis insurgents tighten grip on oil refinery | World news | theguardian.com - Foreign minister issues plea to Washington after insurgents break through perimeter of Baiji facility between Mosul and Tikrit
Rachel Maddow Hammers Media For Booking Iraq War Hawks Who Got Things So Wrong - Everyone from Bush administration official Paul Wolfowitz to disgraced former New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been trotted out across various networks to give their opinion about what should be done to combat the militant group ISIS. Maddow was clearly less-than-pleased by this.
It was only a matter of time ... Dick Cheney criticizes Obama on Iraq
Hullabaloo - Here comes stupid - Yeah, Hillary "planted the Benghazi cover-up." Makes perfect sense.

Palestinians freed in 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner-swap back in custody | World news | theguardian.com - Israel says re-arrest of more than 50 former prisoners during search for missing teens sent 'important message' to Hamas (like they haven't gotten that "message" yet)

Prosecutor in Blackwater trial details killing of 14 Iraqis | World news | theguardian.com - Opening statements heard in federal trial of four guards • Baghdad shootings in 2007 killed 14 and wounded 18 others

Britain’s top counter-terrorism official has been forced to reveal a secret government policy justifying the mass surveillance of every Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google user in the UK. : worldnews

Inspired by Edward Snowden, Lawmakers Want Missouri to Stand Against NSA Surveillance | Riverfront Times (Snowden Effect, continued ...)
Julian Assange Asks The US To Drop Wikileaks Investigation - Controversial publisher holds a press conference to mark the anniversary of his residence at the embassy of Ecuador in London

After federal document-snatch, ACLU case over Florida cops' phone surveillance collapses - Boing Boing (Feds steal the evidence, immune from prosecution)


Why Are the Democrats So Unified? - When the barbarians are at the gate, internal disputes tend to be put aside, so dissent on the left has been muted. That helps maintain broad unity, and unity on specific questions like Iraq as well.

Fed insists economy can withstand stimulus cut despite rising prices | Business | theguardian.com - Central bank to cut bond-buying stimulus by $10bn a month • Upbeat Fed tone at odds with the economists' forecasts

In the battle for North Carolina, it's 'all healthcare, all the time' | World news | theguardian.com - Obamacare is a major issue in many midterm swing states, but few more so than North Carolina

The Logical End Of Things - Esquire - It has cascaded, as most forms of madness do, from the weaponized performance art of the Bundy Ranch to threats along the highways of Utah that were so severe that the BLM people took the insignia off their uniforms, to this guy, Brent Douglas Cole, who shot a BLM agent and a Nevada highway patrolman, and who apparently is something of a lifer at the gun-crazy crackpot business.

The Wild, The Innocent, and the Lame Street Shuffle - Esquire - The only conceivable reason for Byers to have written what he did was to placate the crazy people who had leaped to the defense of the other crazy people. This is beat-sweetening at the expense of another reporter's reputation, and to have it done because somebody like Erick Erickson had four kinds of cow devalues the work of any honest journalist.
Politico’s reporting disaster - The Washington Post - Politico’s media blogger, Dylan Byers, regularly supplies his readers with tidbits on comings and goings in the news business, but this week he provided an additional service: a lesson in the limitations of armchair journalism. (Milbank strikes back)
Heritage Foundation's Super-Uncomfortable Anti-Muslim Event | New Republic - strange and slightly silly controversy is still unfolding over a Washington Post column in which Dana Milbank described the verbal abuse heaped on a woman who hazarded a critical comment at a Heritage Foundation event.

US patent office strips Washington Redskins of 'offensive' trademarks | Sport | theguardian.com - US Patent and Trademark Office rules that team's name cannot be trademarked, because it is offensive to Native Americans

One Chart That Makes It Clear College Tuition Is Becoming Unaffordable (the stupidification of America)
The Cost of Textbooks Is Too Damn High - So Boundless Made Free Ones - The cost of textbooks has risen 812% in the past 30 years—that’s more than healthcare costs, housing prices, and college tuitions, all of which have risen faster than the rate of inflation. Now, students are spending an average of $1,200 a year on textbooks and course materials at public four-year colleges.

Why Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending Otherwise - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic - Ask readers what they want, and they'll tell you vegetables. Watch them quietly, and they'll mostly eat candy. (Buzzfeed and Upworthy)

If you swapped genders for a day how would you spend it? : AskReddit
What's the most impressively accurate prediction that has been made in history ? : AskReddit
What will the "Old-people-only" names be 30 years from now? : AskReddit
First Moon Party - YouTube


061714
Turkey Would Support Iraqi Kurds' Bid For Self-Rule, Spokesman Says In Historic Remark
Iraqi forces hold off Isis rebels north of Baghdad as Obama waits | World news | The Guardian - Despite heavy clashes there is no sign of imminent military moves by the US as officials mull over intervention
Why the Ospries won’t be needed » Balloon Juice - Baghdad in 2003 was a mixed sectarian city with a dominant Sunni Arab political structure: Baghdad in 2009, after a surge of ethnic cleansing aided by power tools to skulls, became a Shi’ite dominated city with several major militias able to create and hold no-go zones against anything short of deliberate heavy combined arms attacks by US forces:
Support For Iraq's Maliki Puts U.S., Iran In Same Camp : NPR (NPR neglects to mention Maliki was installed by US)
The Independents Explodes When John Bolton Accuses Hosts of ‘Defending a Dictatorship’ | Mediaite - Kennedy rather strongly turned the tables on Bolton to demand sources for his numbers and asked incredulously, “So you’re telling me a completely destabilized Iraq now is better than what it was in 2002?”
Feinstein urges ‘direct action’ to keep rebels from capturing Baghdad | TheHill (which would be?)
The War Nerd: Here’s everything you need to know about “too extreme for Al Qaeda” I.S.I.S. | PandoDaily - ISIS is a sectarian Sunni militia—that’s all. A big one, as militias go, with something like 10,000 fighters. Most of them are Iraqi, a few are Syrian, and a few hundred are those famous “European jihadis” who draw press attention out of all relation to their negligible combat value. The real strength of ISIS comes from its Chechen fighters, up to a thousand of them. A thousand Chechens is a serious force, and a terrifying one if they’re bearing down on your neighborhood. Chechens are the scariest fighters, pound-for-pound, in the world.
The mess in Iraq proves Obama was right to leave - Vox (which is why the neo-cons are screaming)
Iraq War Boosters Get Second Chance In Media Spotlight (the "media" just can't help themselves)
CNN's Erin Burnett Confronts Paul Bremer Over His Iraq Failures - Bremer's response was essentially to say that there was nothing wrong with anything he'd done. Burnett pressed him admirably on this point.
Jon Stewart Says Obama's Iraq Critics Are 'Dead Wrong About Everything'
The Independents Explodes When John Bolton Accuses Hosts of ‘Defending a Dictatorship’ | Mediaite
FLASHBACK: Remember When Paul Wolfowitz Said Not to Worry About Sectarian Violence in Iraq? | Mother Jones - The former Bush administration official is perhaps the worst person to give advice about the current crisis in Iraq—but that hasn't stopped him from speaking out.

Islamists launch second night of deadly attacks on Kenyan coast | World news | theguardian.com - Red Cross says gunmen attacked Poromoko near Somali border a day after 50 people were killed in Mpeketoni
Lavrov on reporter's death: Kiev's inhumane actions against journalists must stop — RT News - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Kiev of inhumane handling and deliberate endangerment of journalists, following the violent death of reporter Igor Kornelyuk in eastern Ukraine. (that made no sense)

Social media mass surveillance is permitted by law, says top UK official | World news | The Guardian - Charles Farr's statement marks first time government has commented on how it exploits the UK's legal framework to operate mass interception
City Of London Police Claim That 'The Tor' Is 90% Of The Internet, And Is A Risk To Society | Techdirt

BLM Shooting Suspect Is Anti-Government Conspiracy Theorist With Pending Gun Charge - The man accused of shooting two law enforcement members in California, including a Bureau of Land Management ranger, has had at least one previous run-in with law enforcement and has described himself as the target of a massive government conspiracy ... "a sovereign American Citizen attempting to thwart the obvious conspiracy and subterfuges of powers inimical to the United States."

Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Rand Paul: How to end the NSA dragnet - Los Angeles Times

Free Speech is Only As Strong As the Weakest Link | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Reset The Net - Privacy Pack
Copyright Troll Malibu Media Tells Court That Its Critics (And Opposing Lawyer) Are Part Of A Psychopathic Hate Group | Techdirt

They Seem Nice - Esquire - quickly moved beyond the specifics of the assaults that left four Americans dead to accusations about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the Obama administration, President Obama funding jihadists in their quest to destroy the United States, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton attempting to impose Sharia blasphemy laws on Americans and Al Jazeera America being an organ of "enemy propaganda." (no crazy too far)
Benghazi Suspect Was Well Known To Journalists Long Before His Capture - NEW YORK -- Ahmed Abu Khattala, the terror suspect apprehended Sunday by U.S. special operations forces, may have eluded capture by the U.S. government for 21 months, but he certainly didn’t hide from the media.
Heritage’s ugly Benghazi panel - The Washington Post - “Are you an American?” Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking “the limelight” and before informing her that her “political correctness” belongs “in the garbage.” (sounds familiar)
A Benghazi Story That Does Not Involve Darrell Issa - Esquire - I'm not sure "jubilant" is the way you want to be portrayed in this situation. We've become accustomed during our 13-year "war on terror" to cock-a-doodle-doo's from administrations of both parties about the arrest and/or killing of key players in whatever terror network is that month's Hitler.

The Missing Clause in Scalia's First Amendment - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - I can understand that attitude: It parallels my own toward the playing in public of rock music or Stravinsky. And I too am especially annoyed when the intrusion upon my inner peace occurs while I am part of a captive audience, as on a municipal bus or in the waiting room of a public agency. (no separation of Church and State for Scalia)


How We're Avoiding Saying "White People" These Days - Esquire - Tillis then said that unlike the Hispanic or black populations, which have been growing, the "traditional population of North Carolina and the United States is more or less stable."
Eschaton: Traditional - In 1900, the population of North Carolina was 1/3 black, roughly the same as the non-white population in 2010. So, yeah, tradition.
Grantville police chief resigns - The Newnan Times-Herald - On Friday Jordan was suspended upon allegations of several text messages that were allegedly sent by Jordan to Grantville police officers which contained derogatory language – specifically the “N-word,” according to Grantville Mayor Jim Sells. (his right to be a racist public employee was infringed)

Here's How Much The New York Times' Top Execs Made Last Year - The collective total compensation of Times Co Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., CEO Mark Thompson and Vice Chairman Michael Golden, including the value of stock awards and incentive payments, was $11.9 million in 2013, according to the company's annual proxy statement.

Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases - "What you don't want is the police and prosecutor's office to be more concerned with the win-loss record rather than justice," Anderson said.
Missouri Town Discovers People Don't Like Vacationing Around People Openly Carrying Firearms | ThinkProgress - The ban was initiated by the local police chief, in part due to concerns raised by business owners.

Why did NBC reportedly pay Chelsea Clinton $600,000 a year? - Los Angeles Times - The answer is equally obvious. Plainly, it was done to curry favor with the Clinton family.

Congress poised to approve $41m to clear backlog of untested rape kits | World news | theguardian.com - Democrat Steve Cohen says 'innocent people are victimised because evidence sits untested on a shelf somewhere'

Unicode 7.0 introduces 2,834 new characters, including 250 emoji | Ars Technica
axeketeer comments on where marijuana has been legalized... how has it impacted street gangs/sales??

061614
Interests, Ideology and Climate - NYTimes.com - What makes rational action on climate so hard is something else — a toxic mix of ideology and anti-intellectualism. (stupid Repubiicans trying to destroy the planet)
Health Care and Climate: President Obama’s Big Deals - NYTimes.com - Health Care and Climate: President Obama’s Big Deals

As Massacre Claim Shakes Iraq, Militants Seize New City - NYTimes.com
The terrifying rise of Isis: $2bn in loot, online killings and an army on the run | World news | The Guardian - They're too extreme for al-Qaida, they boast of their brutality and they have forced the Iraqi government on to the defensive. How did the insurgent group rise to such terrifying power? (the CIA was right on the case)
Open For Business - Esquire - The Guardian has a solid rundown of the history of Isis, the current Hitlers against whom Huckleberry Butchmeup is hiding under the bed and on whom John McCain would like to make the big boom-boom. These seem to be authentically bad actors who, alas, were empowered at least in part by the dynamics of the clusterfck we unleashed in Iraq for the purpose of finding nuclear bombs, democracy, candy and/or flowers.
Obama Critics Invent Absurd New Explanation For Iraq War - It took nearly 4,500 American lives to win freedom for Iraq. It took one president to lose it. — JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) June 13, 2014
Rising Hegemon : Fred Garvin Hiatt...Male Prostitute - Hey, ol' Fred was sooooooooooooo very right in supporting the original Iraqi clusterfuck from the beginning, so obviously he's the guy to throw stones now (just like every other asshole)
The Wrongy McWrongersons Weigh In » Balloon Juice - On a sane planet, someone who was so massively, tragically, irredeemably, irretrievably and self-evidently W-R-O-N-G about the clusterfuck that is Iraq would self-censor further utterances on the topic. By cramming a pair of sweaty gym socks down his own gullet, if necessary. Alas, we do not live on that planet; William Kristol and Fred Kagan on Iraq:
Did George W. Bush Foresee What's Happening in Iraq? - NYTimes.com (commenters are pretty merciless)
The Other Veterans Scandal - NYTimes.com - In 2002, the Bush administration played down estimates that the war would cost as much as $200 billion, insisting the cost would be less than $50 billion. To give you a sense of how mistaken this was: The economists Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz put the cost of veterans’ benefits alone, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at roughly $1 trillion.
A Boon To The Boondogglers - Esquire - The importance of the forty billion fcking dollars we spent on missile defense was not to defend ourselves against missiles but, rather, as a platform for international dick-waving. Genius. Oh, and military Keynesianism. (Reagan's Star Wars cost of total failure)

Australia's richest 1% own as much as bottom 60%, says Oxfam | World news | theguardian.com - Income inequality has risen since mid-1990s and nine richest people now have greater net worth than poorest 4.54 million
Let North Korea Collapse - NYTimes.com
Toronto police admit “mistake” after finding holding cell video they say didn’t exist | Toronto Star - Disabled man pushed for years to see the video from the night he claims a cop flicked urine on him. Police maintained no video existed, until they recently found it. ("mistakes were made")

Apple, Cisco, AT&T join Microsoft in fight against global search warrant — Tech News and Analysis - Microsoft’s attempt to quash a U.S. search warrant seeking email data about an Irish customer stored on Irish servers (Obama don't need no steenking warrant)
Canadians have right to online anonymity, Supreme Court rules - The Globe and Mail (tell that to Obama)

Know Your Rights! | Electronic Frontier Foundation - EFF has designed this guide to help you understand your rights if officers try to search the data stored on your computer or portable electronic device, or seize it for further examination somewhere else.
Facebook Will Use Your Browsing and Apps History For Ads (Despite Saying It Wouldn't 3 Years Ago) - Forbes
Here's How to Opt Out of Facebook's Snooping Your Web History - The Wire
Tor Is For Everyone: Why You Should Use Tor

Greenpeace employee loses over $5 mn worth of donations in currency speculation — RT News

A Piketty Protégé’s Theory on Tax Havens - NYTimes.com (7.6 trillion hidden in tax havens, much more in corp avoidance)
Three Reasons Liberals Lack Traction With Voters, Despite Conservative Failures - The liberal imagination has been stunted by decades of conservative obstruction.
Scott Walker's Toxic Racial Politics | New Republic - A journey through the poisonous, racially divided world that produced a Republican star (soulless)

Tracy Morgan Crash: How Trucking Laws Are Making Our Roadways Deadly | New Republic - Are bad trucking laws partially to blame for Tracy Morgan's accident?

Politics Grows More Partisan - NYTimes.com - “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines — and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive — than at any point in the last two decades.”
Religious Constriction - NYTimes.com - About two-thirds of Americans — 65 percent — say religion is important in their daily lives. Among high-income countries, only Italians, Greeks, Singaporeans and residents of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states are more likely to say religion is important ... 42 percent of Americans believe “God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.” (the Teahadists take ovr)
Modern Cosmology Versus God's Creation - NYTimes.com

Obama Counterterrorism Fund Needs a Broader Focus - NYTimes.com - Obama Counterterrorism Fund Needs a Broader Focus (he wants to spend it on bombs and drones)

Jill Lepore: What the Theory of “Disruptive Innovation” Gets Wrong : The New Yorker - What the gospel of innovation gets wrong. Disruption is a theory of change founded on panic, anxiety, and shaky evidence. (they love their disruption)

Why Does The NRA Keep Comparing Women To Guns? | Blog | Media Matters for America

Job interviews reward narcissists, punish applicants from modest cultures - "A job interview is one of the few social situations where narcissistic behaviours such as boasting actually create a positive impression," says UBC Psychology Prof. Del Paulhus, the lead author of the study. "Normally, people are put off by such behaviour, especially over repeated exposure."

No more fillings as dentists reveal new tooth decay treatment | Society | theguardian.com - Scientists in London develop pain-free filling that allows teeth to repair themselves without drilling or injections
Outpatient Glycemic Control with a Bionic Pancreas in Type 1 Diabetes — NEJM

[Medicine] Why are stimulants, such as amphetamines, which hype up the body, used to treat disorders like ADD and ADHD? : askscience

Why Ikea Shutting Down Its Most Popular Fan Site Is a Giant Mistake - You've also probably spent money at Ikea thanks to the site, which has inspired a DIY fervor among its fans. Which is why Ikea shutting down IkeaHackers this weekend over trademark claims is beyond boneheaded.


061514
Obama Slams GOP For Using 'Not A Scientist' Line On Climate Change - The media should spend less time speculating about how it would affect November's midterm election, and more time on the potential impact to the environment, he said.

Militants Claim Mass Execution of Iraqi Soldiers - NYTimes.com - 1,700 Iraqi government soldiers, posting gruesome photos to support their claim.
Rebels’ Fast Strike in Iraq Was Years in the Making - NYTimes.com - With just a few thousand fighters, the group’s lightning sweep into Mosul and farther south appeared to catch many Iraqi and American officials by surprise. But the gains were actually the realization of a yearslong strategy of state-building that the group itself promoted publicly.
John McCain Contradicts Himself On Iraq Victory - Last American combat troops leave Iraq. I think President George W. Bush deserves some credit for victory. — John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 19, 2010
Militants Post Images Of Mass Killing In Iraq (Bush's "victory")
Iraq arrest that exposed wealth and power of Isis jihadists | World news | The Guardian - The story of Isis, the band of militants that came from nowhere with nothing to having $2bn and two cities
U.S. Plans to Evacuate Many Embassy Workers - NYTimes.com - The embassy, a beige fortress on the banks of the Tigris River within the heavily secured Green Zone, where Iraqi government buildings are also situated, has the largest staff of any United States Embassy (that makes total sense)
Iraq crisis: US embassy workers evacuated as Republicans slam Obama | World news | theguardian.com - State says US 'fully equipped for national security mission' • Pentagon: 'military has airlift assets at the ready' • Senator Graham says US must 'sit down and talk' with Iran (you know, the guy who wanted to bomb them a couple of months ago; the ironies are speeding up)

Dexter Filkins: The Crisis in Iraq : The New Yorker - It is not difficult to imagine a multinational war, fought along a five-hundred-mile front, and along sectarian lines, waged ultimately for regional supremacy. (Mesopotamia is the new Afganistan)
Iraq crisis: Republican senator calls for US-Iran talks and blasts Obama | World news | theguardian.com - Graham, a leading foreign policy hawk, also attacked President Barack Obama for what he said was his “delusional and detached” response to the crisis.
The brutal neoconservative legacy in Iraq by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - the devastating toll in blood, treasure and reputation. Hundreds of thousands dead, even more injured, families torn apart, trillions of dollars burned and bombed away, priceless artifacts destroyed, and America’s moral standing in the world severely diminished. (McCain/Graham: Iraq War, Part 3)
Sunday Shows Turn To Discredited Iraq War Architects For Iraq Analysis | Blog | Media Matters for America - NBC and ABC's Sunday news shows turned to discredited architects of the Iraq War to opine on the appropriate U.S. response to growing violence in Iraq, without acknowledging their history of deceit and faulty predictions. (oh, let's ask Kristol and Wolfowitz about Iraq!)

Pakistan Airstrikes Kill As Many As 100 Militants - in the second strike on the region since a deadly attack on the Karachi airport a week ago.
Facts about Tibet | Free Tibet (China has murdered 1 million Tibetans)
Cambodian Activist’s Fall Exposes Broad Deception - NYTimes.com

U.S. officials scrambled to nab Snowden, hoping he would take a wrong step. He didn’t. - The Washington Post - In interviews, U.S. officials acknowledged that they had no specific intelligence that Snowden would be on Morales’s plane. But the Bolivian leader’s remark was enough to set in motion a plan to enlist France, Spain, Italy and Portugal to block the Bolivian president’s flight home.
Twitter / ggreenwald: These are called "liars": "The ... - "The lack of a warrant deeming Snowden a foreign agent would also cast doubt on the claims of some of his critics"
Twitter / ggreenwald: The extreme levels of ineptitude ... - & ignorance on the part of the USG depicted here are both humorous & pity-inducing http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-officials-scrambling-to-nab-snowden-hoped-he-would-take-a-wrong-step-he-didnt/2014/06/14/057a1ed2-f1ae-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html?wpmk=MK0000203 …
Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom - NYTimes.com - Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom (you have no Constitutionl right not to be lied to by your government)

12 simple steps to safer social networking - PC Advisor - Follow our privacy tips for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram to ensure that you're not oversharing.
How to Delete Yourself from the Internet: 12 Steps (but your "marketing" potential will go down)
Get My FBI File - Do you have an FBI file? You might! Many people do. So let's talk about your past. Did you ...

El Salvador Torturers, Trained by the U.S., Protected by the U.S. - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - In the 1980s, under the presidency of the cartoonishly evil Ronald Reagan, the U.S. not only trained and openly supported an El Salvador military that tortured and killed people with impunity, but then gave these psychopaths a free passage to the U.S. when their murderous ways were finally defeated by the Salvadoran people.
Two Salvadoran Generals Ordered Deported for Civil War Torture | Miami New Times

Immigration, Democrats, redistricting: None of those caused Eric Cantor's loss - Instead, the more convincing explanations are the ones that, trite as it may seem, are based on some variation of Cantor having gone Washington/gotten too big for his britches/lost sight of the little people back home.
Tea party candidates have lost five times as much as they’ve won - The Washington Post (three wings to Republican party: Teaparty, Business conservative, Evangelical)
Cantor at the Crossroads? by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The problem is, Ingraham and her talk-radio colleagues have been cheapening the debate in the United States for decades, as E. J. Dionne Jr. noted in the fall of 2008: (said swap Cantor to the Taliban for Bergdhal)

New clues to skin cancer development show sunscreen is not enough


Life in the Most Religious States | Geoffrey R. Stone (un-Christian)

Eschaton: So You Say You Want A Revolution - Let me just echo the fact that when The College Kids Today attempt to exercise the one bit of power they potentially have - influencing the actions of college administrators - they're generally mocked and derided.


Ayahuasca: A Strong Cup of Tea - NYTimes.com - an ayahuasca cleanse (in Brooklyn)
Ayahuasca Can Change Your Life -- As Long as You're Willing to Puke Your Guts Out | Features | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
Ten Celebrity Ayahuasca Users | West Coast Sound | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
Ayahuasca Magic: Readers Discuss the Brew That Changed Their Lives | Letters | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
What Is Ayahuasca and Why Is Everyone Singing About It? | West Coast Sound | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
New Film Captures the Experience of Taking Ayahuasca | West Coast Sound | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
What's It Like to Try Ayahuasca? | West Coast Sound | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
? Joe Rogan - "Irresponsible Advice" - YouTube
first dieta – intro and background | stranger
Letters from the Far Side of Reality by Graham Hancock - GrahamHancock.com articles



061414
Could Phoenix Soon Become Uninhabitable? | The Nation - The city is at the crossroads of climate change—and, for a host of reasons, an unsustainable future ... n 2011, the city set a new record for days over 110 degrees: there were 33 of them, more than a month of spectacularly superheated days ushering in a new era ... the vigil has begun for the first night that doesn’t dip below 100 (you have air-conditioning or you die)

Iraq Rebels Stall North of Baghdad as Residents Brace for a Siege - NYTimes.com
Iran sends troops into Iraq to aid fight against Isis militants | World news | theguardian.com - Tehran hints at cooperation with US to aid Nouri al-Maliki as jihadist group threatens to take Baghdad
Iran President Hassan Rouhani Says Could Cooperate With U.S. On Iraq
Shep Smith Gives Iraq Hawks A History Lesson - Talking Points Memo notes that Smith later told Fox News' Chris Wallace that he hasn't forgotten "being bamboozled" by the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq.
alicublog: Friday Around-The-Horn. - Always forward-looking, Reihan Salam gets out front among the "third-time's-the-charm" Iraq War fans with "We Should Never Have Left Iraq." Never mind that our contract signed by George W. Bush with fucking Iraq was that we'd leave by 2011 -- which Salam does his considerable best to obfuscate:
On the Cusp of the Deluge - The simple and fundamental fact is that this is the fallout of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Any analysis that doesn't grapple with and accept that basic fact is just wrong and possibly dishonest to boot
Dilemma's Definition: The Left and Iraq (2003; here we go again)

US counter-terrorism abroad: Fighting terrorism or encouraging it? - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - The US has a disastrous record of involvement in 'counter-insurgency' efforts in Central America. (America loves drones and death-squads)

Greece's Progress in Putting the Economy Back on Track? | Beat the Press - Many people reading a NYT article on a series of Greek court decisions rejecting government austerity measures were probably surprised to see the comment that: (it doesn't matter that the country is a wreck, the policies are working!)

The US government doesn't want you to know the cops are tracking you | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - the country's increasingly militarized local police forces are using a secretive technology to vacuum up cellphone data from entire neighborhoods – including from people inside their own homes – almost always without a warrant.

5 Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously | TorrentFreak
How to Pirate Movies, Music, TV Shows, and Books Without Getting Caught
Secure Mobile Apps | The Guardian Project
MissingM - Fighting DISHFIRE: The State of Mobile, Cross-Platform, Encrypted Messaging
Bank online or by smartphone? Consider these safeguards | OregonLive.com

Benghazi Fever and the Battle of the Branches | Blog | The Baffler - But now they’ve created something akin to a crackpot Church Committee, designed to air vague innuendo and politically charged euphemisms in the midst of an election year. They’ve essentially created a Karl Rove campaign ad with subpoena power.

David Brat, the Elizabeth Warren of the Right : The New Yorker - He comes across, instead, like a ninety-nine-per-cent conservative who sees the real villain as corporate America and its addiction to government largesse. One of his biggest applause lines is about how bankers should have gone to jail after the 2008 financial crisis. Brat is the Elizabeth Warren of the right.


America’s ‘stunning’ gun violence | MSNBC (one school shooting/week)

LePage Agency Orders End Of Aid For Maine's Undocumented Immigrants - A Maine state agency is ordering localities not to use state dollars to provide assistance to undocumented immigrants, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Twitter / tomgara: Inspiring story of how one ... - young woman rose from humble origins as Bill Clinton's daughter to make $600,000 at MSNBC http://www.
Chelsea Clinton paid $600K by NBC - Dylan Byers and Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.com - Chelsea Clinton earned an annual salary of $600,000 at NBC News before switching to a month-to-month contract earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the agreement told politico.
Public Citizen Press Room - Parodied Merchandise Does Not Violate Any Federal Laws, Public Citizen Tells ‘Ready for Hillary’ PAC
Big Dumb Money » Balloon Juice - If Hillary’s campaign didn’t have a bunch of well-paid, poorly led staffers sitting around dreaming up stupidity like this, I doubt that I would ever have heard of this t-shirt. (dumb all over again)
Man arrested for parodying mayor on Twitter files civil rights lawsuit | Ars Technica - Police raid follows mayor being upset over the portrayal of him as drug abuser. (power hates parody)

Twitter / Copwatch: Pentagon data counts 867 military ... - armored vehicles, 533 military aircraft have been sold to local police departments since 2009 alone (at war with the American people)
Unsealed records allege brutality, corruption in Denver Jail & witness intimidation by police - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com - Judge unseals records in abused inmate's lawsuit
Judge urges feds to investigate Denver police, sheriff in abuse case - The Denver Post
Despite Denver objections, federal judge unseals documents in jail abuse case - The Denver Post - after determining that a police investigation "smacks of a scam."
Hunter_Jamal_Lawsuit_IAB-Page_Interview_6220054_ver1.0.pdf
The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper | Slog | SPD Must Stop Illegally Withholding Dashcam Records, Says WA Supreme Court - News SPD Must Stop Illegally Withholding Dashcam Records, Says WA Supreme Court

‘Slender Man’ Murder Attempt Wasn’t Media or Madness | Religion Dispatches
Another Slender Man Attack? | Religion Dispatches




061314
Does This Mean Osama Bin Laden Has Won? (bankrupted America, destroyed its democracy, scared everybody permanently)
On Iraq, let’s ignore those who got it all wrong - The Washington Post - Paul Waldman (great list of bomb-bomb McCain statements on Iraq)
Prime Minister Maliki Panics as Insurgents Gain - NYTimes.com - Prime Minister Maliki Panics as Insurgents Gain (who could have predicted?)
Iraq Insurgency: Militants Plan To March On Baghdad After Seizing 2 Key Sunni Cities (very unlikely, thanks to Maliki it's all Shiite)
Volunteers rally to defend Baghdad as insurgents seize more Iraqi territory - The Washington Post
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter Blocked in Iraq Amid Crisis
Rachel Maddow Warns Against A New American Attack On Iraq - On her Thursday show, Rachel Maddow cautioned against any renewed American military action in Iraq, warning that the people who "most aggressively argued that we ought to start the Iraq War in 2003" should not be trusted when calling for intervention now.
Fox News Hosts Really Want The US To Attack Iraq - On the "Today" show, reporter Jim Miklaszewski had perhaps the most ominous thing to say of all: "There is a real possibility that the US could somehow be drawn back into a war in Iraq." (see below)
A U.S. military presence could have mollified Sunnis and prevented the new civil war. (no, you idiot, we should never have invaded +forever war morons)
Iran May Be Open To Working With U.S. To Help Baghdad Fight Militants
Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric issues call to fight jihadist rebels | Reuters

Hullabaloo - Judith Miller? Seriously? On Iraq? Seriously?!??!?
Judith Miller Is Apparently Still Allowed To Talk About Iraq On Television
Judith Miller's WMD reporting - New York Times war reporting - Hunt for WMD - The Source of the Trouble

Eschaton: My Rule - If your willingness to spend money to help people by bombing them isn't roughly matched by your willingness to spend money to resettle desperate refugees, then I'm not especially interested in hearing your bomb bomb plan.
The Fall of Mosul and the False Promises of Modern History | Informed Comment - Ironically, by invading, occupying, weakening and looting Iraq, Bush and Cheney brought al-Qaeda into the country and so weakened it as to allow it actually to take and hold territory in our own time. (all the chickens coming home to roost +great history)

Ukrainian Forces Seize Port City Of Mariupol From Rebels
The U.S. spent $3 million on boats for landlocked Afghanistan - The Washington Post - 3. That works out to be more than $375,000 per boat. Similar boats in the United States are typically sold for about $50,000. (the spoils of war)

Citing “Intense Public Interest and Concern” Over Mass Surveillance, Judge Orders DOJ to Turn Over Secret Legal Opinions for Court to Review | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Supreme Court’s historic decision on warrantless disclosures is huge win for Canadian privacy, places big question mark over constitutionality of govt’s Bill C-13 | OpenMedia.ca

NSA Whistleblower: Snowden Had Limited Access | The Big Picture - NSA Has Hidden Its Most Radical Surveillance Operations … Even from People Like Snowden Who Had General “Code Word” Clearance (Tice: it's a lot worse than you think)
Massive security flaws allowed for Stratfor hack, leaked report reveals (they'd rather arrest people than fix their shit)

Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier - ProPublica - The merger of online and offline data is bringing more intrusive tracking.
Privacy in America panel convenes a year after Snowden

Court says Occupy Boise protesters can restore tent city in Idaho — RT USA - A federal judge in Idaho agreed this week that officials have no right to keep protesters from demonstrating on the lawn of the state capitol building in Boise.

Cantor loss throws Congress into disarray - The Washington Post - The primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday will rank as one of the great political upsets in at least a generation and promises to scramble the legislative dynamics in an already dysfunctional and ideologically divided Congress.
7 things Eric Cantor spent more on than David Brat spent on his entire campaign - The Washington Post
What went wrong for Eric Cantor? - The Washington Post - “I mean, it’s a miracle,” Brat told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, seemingly stunned at the victory himself. “First of all, I attribute it to God.”
Go To Church and Save Mammon by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Several economists said in interviews that Mr. Brat often appeared not to be writing as an economist. “I did find him pretty confusing,” said Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This dude just really wants us all to go to church, and that appears to be his economic policy conclusion.”

Armed Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement: Charles E. Cobb and Danielle L. McGuire on Forgotten History - , This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible,

Why The California Tenure Decision Is Wrong and Will Hurt Disadvantaged Students - The reasoning behind Judge Rolf Treu's decision is based on the faulty assumption that if you treat everyone equally, then everyone is equal.
<i>Vergara</i> Decision Is Latest Attempt to Blame Teachers and Weaken Public Education | Diane Ravitch
California's Weak Case Against Teacher Tenure - Bloomberg View
I like the result, but the opinion has problems - The Washington Post - A California state trial judge has relied on the California constitution to invalidate state laws granting teacher tenure after two years, making it difficult to dismiss teachers, and requiring most-recently-hired teachers to be fired first.

Chong Kim, the Woman Whose Allegedly True Story Served as the Basis for Megan Griffith's Film Eden, Denounced as a Fraud | Slog - Chong Kim whom has claimed to be a survivor of human trafficking is not what she claims to be.
A Short History of Male Feminism - Noah Berlatsky - The Atlantic - From Frederick Douglass and John Stuart Mill to today's scholars, there are plenty of men who, despite their flaws, have helped advance women's liberation.

Fuck Off, Texas | Slog - 1. The Republican Party—which completely controls Texas—added a plank to its party platform backing "reparative therapy" programs, aka "pray away the gay" counseling. Anderson Cooper interviewed/shredded this smiling douche of a Texas Republican about the new plank: ("pray away the gay" and "pray away climate change")
Southern Baptists Vote: Are Trans People Part of God's Design? | Advocate.com - The Southern Baptist Convention has adopted a resolution urging lawmakers to oppose legal protections for trans individuals and reinforcing biblical concepts of womanly subservience.
Marriage is Not a Sacrament for Protestants and Why that Matters to LGBT Christians | (A)theologies | Religion Dispatches (Episcopals and Prots want Catholic "Sacraments")

After Piketty, is the Study of Economics the Study of Rising Inequality? | Informed Comment
STUDY: Economic Hardship Makes People More Racially Biased | Mother Jones - A new psychology paper finds that people's subconscious racial biases worsen when they are made to feel that economic resources are scarce.
CEO Pay Continues to Rise as Typical Workers Are Paid Less | Economic Policy Institute
It's Like, How Much Dumber Could An Anti-ACA Argument From The Nominal Left Be? The Answer Is: None. None More Dumb. - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Lambert Strether can always be counted on to provide anti-ACA arguments whose incoherence go to 11. ("Corrente")

I Was Raped, and I Stayed Silent About My ‘Coveted Status’ - The Cut - When I was drugged and raped my sophomore year at Yale, I should have been ready to speak out.

Jail video police swore 'did not exist' released in brutality complaint - Canada - CBC News - Gaps in video raise new questions about case of disabled man alleging mistreatment



061214
Florida Congressman: If Humans Cause Climate Change, Then 'Why Did The Dinosaurs Go Extinct'? | ThinkProgress

Forget Me Not - Esquire - Once again, just as it was before the George W. Bush Presidency launched its mendacious clusterfck in Iraq, the McClatchy Washington bureau has decided to be invaluable again. It seems that the folks in our national legislature have drunk deeply yet again from the River Of Forgetfulness. ("Who lost Iraq?" +wow, CPP)
Why The Middle East Is Now A Giant Warzone, In One Terrifying Chart | ThinkProgress
Iran Deploys Forces to Fight Militants in Iraq - WSJ - Revolutionary Guard Forces Help Iraqi Troops Win Back Control of Most of Tikrit, Sources Say (ironies get deeper)
Iraq army capitulates to Isis militants in four cities | World news | The Guardian - Half a million people on the move after gunmen seize four cities and pillage army bases and banks - two divisions of Iraqi soldiers – roughly 30,000 men – simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters (all that money ...)
The one sentence that explains why Iraq is falling apart - Vox - The Iraqi army outnumbered ISIS by about 40:1 in Mosul. Yet the army still turned tail and ran — ran so fast, in fact, as to leave some of their tanks and helicopters behind.

Barbara Boxer: 'GOP Cheerleaders' Of Iraq Invasion Are Now Joining 'Blame-America-First Crowd'
Iraq disintegrating as insurgents advance toward capital; Kurds seize Kirkuk - The Washington Post - Iraq was on the brink of falling apart Thursday as al-Qaeda renegades asserted their authority over Sunni areas in the north, Kurds seized control of the city of Kirkuk and the Shiite-led government appealed for volunteers to help defend its shrinking domain.
Extremists in Iraq Continue March Toward Baghdad | TIME - Militant Sunni forces are taking territory with lightning speed, moving toward the ultimate goal of establishing a new Islamic Caliphate
Kurdish Troops in Control of Key Iraqi Town, Official Says - NYTimes.com - For much of their initial advance, the insurgents have met scant resistance, with government forces shedding their uniforms, handing over weapons and equipment and abandoning checkpoints.
WASHINGTON: What? Iraq? Members of Congress show no interest in country’s burgeoning crisis | Congress | McClatchy DC
More On Iraq » Balloon Juice
Russia on Iraq: ‘We told you so’ - The Washington Post - "We are greatly alarmed by what is happening in Iraq. We warned long ago that the affair that the Americans and the Britons stirred up there wouldn't end well," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday, according to Voice of Russia. He also described the Iraq war as a "total failure" and said Russia was sorry that its forecasts had come true.
Sykes-Picot Agreement in Lawrence of Arabia - YouTube

Ukraine says 'Russian tank incursion' unacceptable
Here We Go Again: The US Has Resumed Drone Strikes In Pakistan | Motherboard - If you thought the US was ramping down its lethal drone war in Pakistan, think again.
Debate: Is Human Rights Watch Too Close to U.S. Gov’t to Criticize Its Foreign Policy? | Democracy Now!
Crossfire Clueless on Israeli Occupation - cnn-crossfire-occupationCNN's Crossfire is ostensibly a debate between the left and the right. But the show's debate (6/9/14) over Hillary Clinton's new book show how the format can become meaningless and the discussions turn senseless.

Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com - Social science is being militarised to develop 'operational tools' to target peaceful activists and protest movements (Obama has built the tools for mass surpression)
Trickle down surveillance | Al Jazeera America - How the NSA’s covert surveillance tactics are being employed by local law enforcement
Stingray Tracking Devices: Who's Got Them? | American Civil Liberties Union
Obama Administration Pushing Local Cops To Stay Mum On Surveillance - he Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned. (Pres Secret)

Inside Edward Snowden’s Life as a Robot | Threat Level | WIRED - Snowden appears via Beam bot in the ACLU’s New York offices with (from left) journalist Laura Poitras, Freedom of the Press Foundation director Trevor Timm and security technologist Micah Lee. Photo: Courtesy of Freedom of the Press Foundation
Twitter / jmhattem: former NSA head Gen. Hayden: ... - "We don’t say Snowden at NSA. People use the phrase 'He who will not be named.'"
Molly Crabapple on the Dissident Fetish: Empires Love Their Dissidents Foreign | Vanity Fair
Edward Snowden and his team: "NSA. National Supermarket Association." - In English - Welt - Tagesspiegel - In New York, a team of activists and lawyers is working for Edward Snowden. And on the 19th floor of their office he is always there in the form of a robot with a camera “eye” which Snowden controls remotely from Moscow. Our reporter Julia Prosinger visited for a week – and the whistleblower helped her in an extraordinary situation.

An Update on Ross Ulbricht, a.k.a., the Dread Pirate Roberts | NCRenegade
Project Eavesdrop: An Experiment At Monitoring My Home Office : All Tech Considered : NPR
6 things to <3 about the kid who accidentally hacked TweetDeck

Americans are divided on everything, except their love of Social Security - Vox (the program Obama wanted to dismantle)

Eric Cantor and the Death of a Movement - NYTimes.com - Eric Cantor and the Death of a Movement
Cantor's Stunning Defeat Removes 'Only Leader' on Defense in GOP's Top Ranks | Defense News | defensenews.com - Texan Hensarling Called New Frontrunner To Move Up (they wished, it didn't happen)
Eric Cantor Defeated by a Conservative Who Rips Crony Capitalism | The Nation - “The central theme of Brat’s campaign is that Cantor is beholden to business—specifically the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.” (and the defense industry)
Eric Cantor's loss is bad news for the NSA - Vox - Brat favors "the end of bulk phone and email data collection by the NSA"
Eric Cantor’s Opponent Beat Him By Calling Out GOP Corruption
Rep. Eric Cantor Blocked Foreclosure Crisis Fix While Owning A Financial Stake In Mortgage Businesses (in case you forgot)

Brookings Survey: Fox News Home of Most Conservative Republicans | New Republic - A new study reveals the gap between the channel's fans and the rest of America (Satan's Channel makes you stupid)

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Winner, a Lefty Hero, & a Plagiarist. | New Republic - Pulitzer winner. Lefty hero. Plagiarist.

America's Polarization Reaches New Peak - The tie between ideology and political party is stronger than in recent years. Just 4 percent of Republicans are more liberal than the average Democrat, down from 23 percent in 1994, while just 5 percent of Democrats are more conservative than the average Republican, down from 17 percent.
The Worst State Democratic Party in the Country - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - In other words, the Rhode Island Democratic Party is Andrew Cuomo’s dream. It’s an embarrassment. And it shows the perils of the one-party state. A functioning Republican Party is needed to keep Democrats relatively honest.

Feminism's Class Problem - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Of course, Sandberg’s rationale was that if more women advanced into leadership positions, all women would gain. But there is little reason to have faith that Sandberg-style “trickle-down” feminism will benefit the masses any more than its economic equivalent has.

Thanks, Jenny! » Balloon Juice - A measles outbreak in Minnesota offers a case study of how the disease is transmitted in the United States today: An unvaccinated person travels abroad, brings measles back and infects vulnerable people — including children who are unprotected because their parents chose not to vaccinate them.
Sorry, "Daily Show": Anti-Vax Nuts Come From Both Sides of the Aisle | Mother Jones (not just SF and Brooklyn)
Scientists condemn 'crazy, dangerous' creation of deadly airborne flu virus | Science | The Guardian - Researchers say recreation of Spanish flu strain highlights risk of pandemic, but critics say work puts global population at risk

'Cool' kids at school are more likely to be criminals in later life (Wired UK) - Kids who showed a focus on "physical appearance when choosing friends", engaged in minor delinquent behaviour and were romantically involved at a young age, were also more likely to engage in criminal behaviour later in life. That's according to a new study into the long-term impact of so-called "pseudomature behaviour", or imitating seemingly adult behaviour, in young adolescents.

Do children who speak different languages all start speaking around the same time, or do different languages take longer/shorter to learn? : askscience
The Danish language's irritable vowel syndrome - News - The Copenhagen Post
Tesla opens up all patents "maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession" : news
What is the most intelligent but yet funniest joke you've ever heard? : AskReddit
What's the worst thing youve done as a horny teenager? [NSFW] : AskReddit

Tabitha Gentry Allegedly Pepper-Sprayed, Stripped, Left Naked By Jailers - A misdemeanor arrest resulted in an Indiana woman being stripped naked, pepper-sprayed and left for hours on the floor of an unsanitary holding cell, according to her attorney.

Netflix vs Verizon Internet streaming speed squable | BGR - “To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you’re the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour,” Hyman wrote. (well done)

061114
China Laughed When It Saw How Cheap Solar Could Be - Business Insider (which is why Obama increased tariffs to 35%)

mbox314 comments on Fukushima in detail

Iraqi Drama Catches U.S. Off Guard - WSJ - The Quickly Unfolding Drama Prompted a White House Meeting Wednesday of Top Policy Makers and Military Leaders (the $5 trillion illusion crumbles into the sand, hundreds of thousands of dead, Republicans want to re-invade +CIA/NSA didn't have a clue, as usual)
Iraq army capitulates to Isis militants in four cities | World news | The Guardian - Half a million people on the move after gunmen seize four cities and pillage army bases and banks
Iraq crisis: Militants 'seize Tikrit' after taking Mosul - Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday, security officials say. (will spilt into regions, merge with Syrian regions)
Islamist Insurgents Close In On Iraq's Biggest Oil Refinery Day After Assault On Mosul
Mosul - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Long story short, the central takeaway of the WSJ piece is the effort to pass off the continued disaster of Iraq to Barack Obama, one of the only people in US politics who bears virtually no responsibility for the disaster in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda disavows any ties with radical Islamist ISIS group in Syria, Iraq - The Washington Post
ISIS: The al-Qaeda-linked Islamists powerful enough to capture a key Iraqi city - The Washington Post

Angry cab drivers gridlock Europe in protest at 'unregulated' taxi app | UK news | The Guardian - Uber claims disruption boosted users by 850% as continent-wide demonstration causes traffic chaos from London to Madrid

Drone strikes: 16 killed in successive attacks – The Express Tribune - Six suspected militants were killed, four of whom were said to be of foreign descent. “Four of them were Uzbeks and two were Punjabi Taliban,” said an intelligence official in Miramshah. (the point of this is what again?)

Smaller Majority of Americans View Hillary Clinton Favorably (down 12 percent since Benghazi)

Dana Milbank: Obama is a prisoner of groupthink - The Washington Post - The real damage was self-inflicted: choosing to highlight the exchange with a Rose Garden ceremony featuring Bergdahl’s eccentric father, and then allowing Rice, the national security adviser, to go on television and say Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction” even though administration officials had to know this was in dispute. (for people so obsessing with "controlling the image")
Bergdahl Was Discharged from the Coast Guard for Psychological Reasons Before He Joined the Army - Yahoo News
Bergdahl’s writings reveal a fragile young man - The Washington Post
Defiant Hagel says: I took Bowe Bergdahl security risks 'damn seriously' | World news | The Guardian - Defence secretary makes conspicuous reference to his service in Vietnam as he angrily rejects House criticism over prisoner swap
Stephen Colbert mocks Fox News' armchair generals for trashing Bowe Bergdahl - The Week
Jon Stewart blithely demolishes Fox News' talking points on Bowe Bergdahl, 'Muslim terrorist' - The Week

Twitter / YourAnonNews: A brief history of how the ... - FBI treats nonviolent protesters as its #1 domestic terrorism threat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNt1k3ohkbs …
Looks Like the NSA May Lose Its Standing Invitation to Weaken Encryption | Electronic Frontier Foundation
NSA: We're too complex to comply with law, so we're destroying evidence in EFF lawsuit - Boing Boing

OWS Protesters Get $600K Settlement for False Arrests. | Occupy Oakland
Help the Ochoa Family to reunite | Other - YouCaring.com - The federal Department of Probation has refused to allow Hig to return home to his family near Houston, Texas, where he was living prior to his arrest. Because of this refusal his only option then is a halfway house in Austin, Texas where his computer activities can be properly monitored by authorities. (the sadism is built in)

? Ringing of Revolution - YouTube
Ringing of Revolution Lyrics - Phil Ochs. Album: There But for Fortune

Lawsuit seeks details on Chicago Police purchases of cellular tracking gear - Chicago Sun-Times - “That’s when we first noticed it,” Martinez said. “A phone that would last you all day would be depleted in four hours.”
Securing Your Computer to Maintain Your Privacy | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Keren Elazari: Hackers: the Internet's immune system | Talk Transcript | TED.com

Cantor: Shocking Defeat, Predictable Results | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Republican leaders, including whomever counts as the “establishment,” have spent more than 40 years educating rank-and-file voters that “more conservative” is always better. But they haven’t specified what “more conservative” actually means beyond attitude. (that would be the "stupid" attitude)
With Eric Cantor's Loss, the Republican Civil War is About to Explode - Businessweek
Eric Cantor’s defeat will have great consequences: What will and won’t change after the House Majority Leader’s loss to David Brat. - What will and won’t change now that Eric Cantor is on his way out.
11 political lessons from Eric Cantor’s loss - Vox
Cantor’s Loss a Bad Omen for Moderates - NYTimes.com - “The results tonight will move the party further to the right, which will marginalize us further as a national party,” Mr. King said.

House Of Anarchy - Esquire - Today is a day on which you should thank your personal Deity that you do not live in the Seventh Congressional District of the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is because, in the Seventh Congressional District of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the worst thing that an elected representative can do is even to pretend that he is going to Washington to help govern the country ... Thus did Eric Cantor become the latest victim of the prion disease that has been eating away at the brain of the party since the Goldwater campaign.
Is It Possible That Eric Cantor Just Wasn't Conservative Enough? (he radicalized the party and lost to someone evan crazier)
Eric Cantor Was Beaten Tuesday Night By Eric Cantor - More than any other Republican leader, Cantor was aggressively committed to the strategy of all-out opposition to President Barack Obama's agenda across the board, dating to his inauguration.
So Who's The Guy Who Just Beat Eric Cantor? Meet Dave Brat
Everybody Hates Eric Cantor: A Roundup -- NYMag
Did Eric Cantor lose because he's Jewish? - The Week - "Part of this plays into his religion," Mr. Wasserman said. "You can't ignore the elephant in the room." [The New York Times]

Cantor announces resignation as GOP Leader, endorses Kevin McCarthy - The Week
Did Democratic votes doom Eric Cantor? - Republican voters, some of whom showed up for a race they typically ignore to vote for the tea party conservative who was besieged with attack ads. (so, no, but they thought it was a good idea to elect the idiot)
David Brat, the Libertarian Who Beat Eric Cantor, Doesn't Believe in the "Common" Good | Mother Jones - Brat has called for slashing Social Security, Medicare, and education spending and says "rich" nations don't have to fear climate change. (the crazier the better)
David Brat campaign manager scrubs Facebook page after election - Yahoo News (war of the assholes)
Brat didn't go to Princeton Univ. - One of his “About Dave” selling points: “that he tested his rural values against the intellectual elite while at Princeton.” (he drove through town listening to a TED talk on his ipod)
The guy who beat Eric Cantor penned a scathing, seemingly unpublished book about the economics profession - Vox

GOP Rep. Acknowledges That Members Expect Donations For Votes - Rep. Vance McAllister (R-LA) openly acknowledged on Thursday that members of Congress expect to receive campaign contributions for voting a certain way on bills. (they used to call this "pay for play")

EXCLUSIVE: NOW President Calls On Washington Post to Drop George Will Over Rape Column | Blog | Media Matters for America

Pat Robertson: Don’t ‘get your father busted’ if he threatens mom with a gun
Gohmert Uses House Hearing To Debate Whether Non-Christians 'Go To Hell' (video)
Oklahoma GOP Candidate OK With Stoning Gay People To Death
Beck: "Thought Police" Prevent Me From Saying 'Fag The New Nigger' | Blog | Media Matters for America ("prevent" = don't clap)
NJ dad says state is threatening to take away son after pencil twirling incident | PIX 11
Creationist asks ‘hard question’: ‘If evolution is true, is rape wrong?’

Bacteria found in squid raises concern about spread of antibiotic resistance, study finds - The Washington Post - Researchers in Canada have discovered an antibiotic-resistant bacteria for the first time in a food product — raw squid — widening the potential exposure for consumers, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Senate Blocks Elizabeth Warren's Student Loan Refinancing Proposal

Soldiers Who Kill in Combat Less Likely to Abuse Alcohol : News : Parent Herald - "We were very surprised by the findings. Most previous research supported the prediction that more traumatic experiences would lead to more negative health outcomes, such as alcohol abuse," said Russell. "We found the opposite -that the most traumatic experiences of killing in combat actually led to a decrease in alcohol abuse post-deployment."
Lunar Farside Mystery Solved - Space News - redOrbit - As the Moon was subsequently impacted, the near side would have seen the crater sites filled in by the molten lava lurking beneath the still heated surface, while the far side the crust would have become too thick for the asteroids to penetrate. The result is a far side of the Moon covered in valleys, craters and highlands, but virtually no maria.
Why the Argument Over Jesus’ Language is More Complicated and More Interesting Than Media Experts Have Claimed | Culture | Religion Dispatches - Hebrew as People First and Language Second (Aramaic with a Texas drawl)

Here's What Every Man Should Know Before Having Sex With A Woman
What's the cringiest thing your current or ex SO has ever done that they considered to be romantic? : AskReddit
? Olivier Richters Uruk Hai - YouTube

Woman Who Shot Missile Into Car Has Most Florida Name EVER (EVER) - Crystal Metheney - Linda: (Sighs) Sir, this is Florida. We have a lot of interesting names here. (never change, Florida, at least while you're still above water)

AfroPhysics comments on Tons of Tweets from Joe Belfiore today - hubs, lockscreen, Skype - Then again, I don't understand the allure of Facebook either. It's a huge time sink, where people spent their lives reading the ramblings of simpletons, it's a much worse version of reddit with family members and little-to-no porn.

061014
Interests, Ideology And Climate - NYTimes.com - The real war on coal, or at least on coal workers, took place a generation ago, waged not by liberal environmentalists but by the coal industry itself. And coal workers lost: At this point, coal mining accounts for only one-sixteenth of 1 percent of overall U.S. employment; shutting down the whole industry would eliminate fewer jobs than America lost in an average week during the Great Recession of 2007-9.
20 Cities That Need More Water - weather.com Cracked: Running Out of Water

Iraqi Militants Seize Government Headquarters In Mosul (meanwhile)
White House calls on Iraq government to 'step up to the plate' over Mosul | World news | theguardian.com - US pressed Maliki to do more to address political concerns across Iraq after the fall of second-largest city to Isis extremists

5 U.S. Troops Killed By Friendly Fire In Afghanistan

Yes, Nixon Scuttled the Vietnam Peace Talks - John Aloysius Farrell - POLITICO Magazine - It’s been rumored for years. Now we have real proof.
Huston Plan

Report claims to have the 'gun, bullet, and body' proving new Chinese military cyberattacks | The Verge - "Putter Panda" attacks target American, European, and Japanese interests (when will China indict Clapper and Alexander?)

Right-Wing Media Botch Relevance Of Signing Statements In Bergdahl Coverage | Research | Media Matters for America (just fine when Pres Cheney does it)

Encouraging Words of Regret From Dean Baquet and Weasel Words From James Clapper - The Intercept - NPR’s David Folkenflik has a revealing new look at what I have long believed is one of the most important journalistic stories of the last decade: The New York Times‘ 2004 decision, at the behest of George W. Bush himself, to suppress for 15 months (through Bush’s re-election) its reporters’ discovery that the NSA was illegally eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
Why It Shouldn't Be Criminal to Report Government Secrets - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - Prosecuting journalists imposes huge costs, yields scant benefits, and is mostly pointless in an era when anyone can reach a mass audience.
Elle Reeve and Jonathan Schwarz Join Matt Taibbi’s New Digital Magazine - First Look Media

Edward Snowden: Whistleblower or traitor? - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - Whatever he may be, Snowden remains fascinating precisely because he proved to be the malfunctioning cog in the system.
Obama's Destructive War on the Media - Bloomberg View - He has fallen far short of the promise. This administration has prosecuted more whistle-blowers for leaks and gone after more journalists than any of its predecessors.
The case for pardoning Ed Snowden - Vox - His disclosures were in the public interest (his "crimes" were far less than the ones he disclosed)
Gore at Southland: Snowden revealed far bigger violations than the one he committed | PandoDaily
Too Big To Comply? NSA Says It’s Too Large, Complex to Comply With Court Order | American Civil Liberties Union (your law is too small)
Tor Challenge - We need your help to keep Tor strong. Run a Tor relay today.
To defeat encryption, feds deploy the subpoena | Ars Technica - Drop boxes, secured or not, are all the post-Snowden rage and ripe for subpoenas. (Obama never gives up on destroying your rights)
Establivist - Book Review: ‘No Place to Hide’ by Glenn Greenwald
This Week in Review: A setback for reporter privilege, and a new New York Times opinion app » Nieman Journalism Lab - James Risen’s case hits a wall: New York Times reporter James Risen’s long legal battle against being forced to reveal the name of a confidential source in legal testimony reached a dead end in the courts this week

AuditProject/truecrypt-verified-mirror · GitHub
GCHQ’s uses DDoS attacks on Anonymous - The leaks reveal that British intelligence GCHQ is in a fight with Anonymous and one LulzSec hacktivists using DDoS to attack.

Relatives of Victims of Drone Strikes Drop Appeal - NYTimes.com - The relatives of three United States citizens killed in American drone strikes without trial, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, have decided not to appeal a federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit they filed against Obama administration officials.

Twitter / csoghoian: The name of the Kabul CIA station ... - chief still not public, even after it was blast emailed to 6000 reporters two weeks ago. Impressive unity. (journos for complete secrecy)

Bergdahl says he was tortured - San Jose Mercury News - Military doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center say that while Bergdahl is physically able to travel he’s not yet emotionally prepared to be reunited with his family. He has not yet spoken to his family.
Public Has Doubts about Bergdahl Prisoner Exchange | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - Overall, 43% say it was the wrong thing for the Obama administration to exchange five Taliban prisoners for captive soldier Bergdahl, while fewer (34%) say it was the right thing to do; 23% do not offer an opinion. (POW-MIA! except whoops)
Jon Stewart: Fox News Doesn't Know What A Conscience Is - On Monday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart observed that "in just a few days, this guy Bowe Bergdahl went from 'guy who left base without permission' to 'Muslim-terrorist-Kennedy-assassin.'"
Senator Rand Paul warns of drone strikes on Taliban | Ben Swann Truth In Media - “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash,” says Paul in an interview with Fox News previously, “I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.” (Senator Dipshit)
Most of 5 freed Taliban prisoners have less than hard-core pasts - Los Angeles Times - Are freed Taliban members dangerous? 'All these guys are pretty old now,' says analyst
Opinion: Taliban prisoner swap for Bergdahl makes sense - CNN.com - This history shows that the categories we take as rigid and unchanging, such as "terrorist," are in fact remarkably fluid in the context of Afghan politics. Uncovering the stories of these men tells us much about Guantanamo, the Taliban, and the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict.
Mukasey: Obama broke unconstitutional law with Bergdahl swap - “He broke the law, but I believe that the law itself is unconstitutional,” Mukasey said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Article II [of the U.S. Constitution] makes him the commander in chief of the armed forces. These people were in the custody of the armed forces.”
Quote For The Day « The Dish - Dish readers may recall Scott Horton’s dissection of the military’s and DOJ’s assurances that somehow, three prisoners managed to elude 6a00d83451c45669e2014e8817f075970d-550wiguards and cameras and hang themselves in tandem in their cells on that night (Obama has murdered a lot of people)
Cartoon: Let's talk about Gitmo ("Commander in Chief" except when he isn't)

Ahead of 2016, Hillary Clinton aims to lay bare her ‘Hard Choices’ - The Washington Post - One passage that has gotten early attention deals with her vote for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, an act that created an opening for candidate Obama and contributed to her defeat. ("good faith" = sheer stupidity)
Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs Problem | Mother Jones - She talks populism, but hobnobs with Wall Street.
Hullabaloo - That Clinton-Obama "marriage of convenience" was blessed by pretty much everyone
Only a rich person could go as broke as Hillary Clinton - Vox - Hillary Clinton addressed a question about the vast sums of money she and her husband have earned from speaking fees and book advances by claiming that when they left the White House they were "not only dead broke but in debt." (well, her campaign was, for sure)
ABC News’s Diane Sawyer destroys Hillary Rodham Clinton on Benghazi

Morning Plum: Dems ratchet up push for expansion (yup) of Social Security

US House majority leader Eric Cantor loses primary to Tea Party challenger | World news | theguardian.com - Economics professor Dave Brat wins in shock result in Virginia's 7th congressional district
Political certainties beginning to fade in black-and-white Georgia | World news | theguardian.com - As the US gears up for crucial midterm elections, Paul Lewis reports from Georgia, where Republicans are swimming against a changing demographic tide
Hullabaloo - Limbaugh was credited with winning the 1994 election. Meet the new Rush Limbaugh. Laura Ingraham
Open Thread » Balloon Juice - 3) If any pundit got too invested in the idea that the GOP establishment has crushed those tea partiers, I bet she feels pretty stupid right now. And by ‘she’ I mean Jennifer Rubin.

Twitter / jonward11: from the Brookings study, this ... - is another interesting graph on American’s trusted news sources. MSNBC at 5%?! (Fox is most trusted with the 25% hard-core crazies)
The Results Are In: America Is Dumb and on the Road to Getting Dumber | Alternet - 2 percent of Americans still believe God created human beings in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Last week, the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire published a study showing only 28 percent of Tea Party Republicans trust scientists. (there you go, again)


The Big Lobotomy by Paul Glastris and Haley Sweetland Edwards | The Washington Monthly - How Republicans Made Congress Stupid
More Voting Games in Ohio - NYTimes.com - Republican lawmakers around the country continue to impose all sorts of barriers to the ballot box (Republicans hate your democracy)
South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - "Either Southerners will start improving themselves, or they'll be sold to middle-class Asians as pets."

Las Vegas Shooters' Right Wing Beliefs Inflamed By GOP | New Republic

St. Louis Archbishop Carlson claims to be uncertain if he knew sexual abuse was a crime : Lifestyles - asked Carlson whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. (well, there's your problem)

One way to end violence against women? Married dads. - The Washington Post
All Of The Things Women Are Supposed To Do To Prevent Rape | ThinkProgress - Here are just a few of the things that responsible women are supposed to keep in mind, if they don’t want to become a victim of a sexual assault:
Big Data Enters the #YesAllWomen Fray
Twitter / chrisgeidner: Before & after at The ... - Washington Post: (guess they got some feedback)
George Will: Being a College Rape Victim is a 'Coveted Status that Confers Privileges' | Alternet - The Washington Post columnist thinks women are lying to gain status. (look in the mirror, Bow-Tie Boy)
She Accused A TV Anchor Of Rape And Got Dragged Through The Tabloids - For the first time, Maria Di Toro speaks publicly about her 2012 allegations against Greg Kelly, morning show host and son of former police commissioner Ray Kelly.

Small-Town Cops Pile Up on Useless Military Gear | Danger Room | WIRED

Appendix B: Text of the "Grey Sheet" of Overeaters Anonymous

N-Trig closing Wintab compatibility gap — Surface Pro Artist

060914
/ Pakistani Taliban claims Karachi attack and leave peace talks in crisis | World news | theguardian.com - Airport battle lasted six hours and left 28 dead as any deal with militant group left in balance, after Islamabad vows retaliation
Karachi Airport Attacked By Group Of Heavily Armed Gunmen; Dozens Dead (video)
Boko Haram kidnaps more women near Chibok, reports say | World news | theguardian.com - Armed Islamists alleged to have forced women into vehicles and taken them to remote, unknown location in north-east Nigeria
Israel's soldiers speak out about brutality of Palestinian occupation | World news | The Observer - A group called Breaking the Silence has spent 10 years collecting accounts from Israeli soldiers who served in the Palestinian territories
Hello Houston, can you hear Buthayna Hammad - It is now considered “racist” for an American of Palestinian descent to wave her flag at fans of the Israeli soccer team. The First Amendment can be suspended in a stadium built with taxpayer money because some Israeli soccer fans might be moved to violence by the mere sight of the Palestinian flag. (Bibi owns your First Amendment)

2nd China Army Unit Implicated in Online Spying - NYTimes.com
List of Damage under #OpWorldCup and Anonymous' target List of Sponsors

What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days? - Esquire

Supreme court sides with Obama over migrant visas | Law | theguardian.com - Children of migrants who age out of the system still have to go to the back of the line at 21, justices rule (another Obama rabbit-hole(TM))

More than 57,000 veterans still awaiting appointments, audit says | World news | theguardian.com - Department says agency's complicated appointment process created confusion among scheduling clerks and supervisors (the VA that the Republicans defunded)

Twitter / neetzan: I’ll say this about South ... - Carolina’s historic education reform: It’s bold. https://twitter.com/nikkihaley/status/476075532065701888 … pic.twitter.com/IEoTjuAnav
GOP Straight Up Bribes Democratic Senator In Effort To Block Obamacare
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - No Pennsylvania governor has ever been voted out of office, but that is about to change.

Wash. Post's George Will: Sexual Assault Victim Is Now A "Coveted Status" | Blog | Media Matters for America - Will dismissed "the supposed campus epidemic of rape, aka 'sexual assault,'" arguing that the definition of sexual assault was too broad because it could include "nonconsensual touching" and disputing the evidence that shows 1 in 5 women experience sexual assault on campuses in the U.S., implying that individuals were pretending to be victims because colleges have made victimhood a "coveted status" (another case of "I don't believe those statistics")
White House issues report on steps to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses - The Washington Post
Eschaton: George Willified
Eschaton: George Will, Man Of The People
George Will: Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign spoke "for people furious about the '60s tumults" | Research | Media Matters for America
The Bowtied Monster - Esquire - He has set up a lovely little corner of Glennbeckistan for himself. This guy was once reckoned to be an American intellect. Now, he's writing like a sociopath, except about baseball, on which he writes like a foof. Not much soulcraft to trolling rape victims, George. Not much at all.

Neighbors: Las Vegas Shooters Bragged About Taking Part In Bundy Standoff - "They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine," he said. (maybe treating Bundy with kid gloves wasn't the right approach)
Stupidest Man On The Internet: Vegas Spree Killers Were Socialists, Because ‘Neo-Nazi’
War Gear Flows to Police Departments - NYTimes.com - In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license (every police dept is their own army; citizens are terrorists)
Military Equipment Rolls Into America's Cities - During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

A computer just passed the Turing Test in landmark trial - This go-round, a Russian-made program, which disguised itself as a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman from Odessa, Ukraine, bamboozled 33 percent of human questioners. Eugene was one of five supercomputers who entered the 2014 Turing Test.
No, A 'Supercomputer' Did NOT Pass The Turing Test For The First Time And Everyone Should Know Better | Techdirt - from the what-a-waste-of-time dept
What are the biggest lost collections of knowledge in human history? : askscience

New Research Links Marijuana To Sperm Abnormalities, But It's No Smoking Gun
Here's What We Know So Far About How Marijuana Affects Health

Penis Size Study Shows Women Want One Thing For Flings, Another For Long Relationships - For one-night stands, size does matter, but it's not penis length that women are concerned about — it's girth, a new study suggests.

ELI5: Why do most Christian groups/people align themselves with the Republican party in the USA when the core beliefs of the religion seem to contradict those of the party? : explainlikeimfive

9 Things Super Successful People Do That You Should Too

060814
In Norfolk, evidence of climate change is in the streets at high tide - The Washington Post - It’s not just Norfolk, Atkinson said. Much of the Eastern Shore would be underwater; Baltimore and Washington would be in trouble, too. “At five feet,” he said, “the Mall’s flooded.”
Eschaton: One Thing Is Certain - When cities start being swallowed up, climate change denialists will still be on the teevee giving the other side.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy - Climate Myths sorted by taxonomy

A Computer Has Passed the Turing Test For the First Time - This is big. A computer has successfully managed to fool a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. In doing so, it has become the first computer in the world to have successfully passed the Turing Test. (prepare for your AI overlords; next up: AI robocalls)

Netanyahu 'loathes' Obama, Israel's opposition leader charges | The Times of Israel - PM’s hostility to president is ‘endangering Israel’s security,’ claims Labor’s Isaac Herzog, in rare confirmation of long-rumored strained ties between ‘Bibi’ and ‘Barack’
Hillary Clinton Describes Being Overruled By Obama In New Book - she pushed for Hosni Mubarak to transition power to his successor but was overruled by President Barack Obama ... at odds with a younger generation of White House aides "swept up in the drama and idealism of the moment." (that worked out really well, didn't it?)
World Cup sponsor Sony calls for investigation into Qatar bid | Football | theguardian.com - Pressure mounts on Fifa as technology firm demands inquiry into claims that bribes were paid to secure 2020 tournament - raising the stakes for football chiefs who have threatened to move the competition if the allegations are proved to be true.
Google search results may indicate 'right to be forgotten' censorship | Technology | The Guardian - Search engine considering alert at bottom of results pages to show links have been removed after landmark EU privacy ruling
Indian politician's 'accidental rape' remark adds to rising public anger | World news | theguardian.com - Ramsevak Paikra, home minister responsible for law and order, sparks outrage after saying rapes did not happen on purpose (just an "accident")
The Guglmänner, Bavaria's black-hooded secret independence movement | World news | The Guardian - The secret society claims that Bavaria's King Ludwig II didn't drown but was murdered 128 years ago this week, forcing the independent state to become a part of the German empire (game of thrones)
TechFiat - Decentralized Economics • Letter from Serbia: we are drowning in a flood of censorship

Kerry: 'Offensive' to leave an American behind - politico.com
Bergdahl Says He Was Tortured By Taliban Captors - U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior U.S. official said Sunday. (bring him home and torture him some more, say most Republicans)
Taliban swapped for Bergdahl could be drone targets, Kerry indicates | World news | theguardian.com - Secretary of state implies threat to men held in Qatar • Republicans criticise deal for five Guantánamo prisoners • Soldier reportedly tells medics of torture and dark cage
Parents of Bowe Bergdahl receive death threats | World news | theguardian.com - FBI investigates threats sent to father of American soldier as further details emerge about harsh conditions of his captivity
Most of 5 freed Taliban prisoners have less than hard-core pasts - Los Angeles Times (broken-down and tortured almost to death: the worst of the worst)

The Plan To Kill The Internet Uncovered: 10 Ways Web Freedom Is Being Butchered Worldwide | True Activist
DROPBOX.AWP.IS

Arizona Rushes Supplies To Site Holding Migrant Kids - The Homeland Security official said the number of children at the warehouse was expected to double to around 1,400. The warehouse has a capacity of about 1,500. (Obama's tough Republican policy on kids)

Larry Summers' Attempt to Rewrite Cramdown History - Credit Slips (doing the Cheney dance)

Second Homes in St. Michaels, Maryland - NYTimes.com - Mr. Rumsfeld's is Mount Misery - By 1833, Mount Misery's owner was Edward Covey, a farmer notorious for breaking unruly slaves for other farmers. One who wouldn't be broken was Frederick Douglass, then 16 (oh, live in a house an infamous former slaver)

Student Loans Make it Hard to Rent or Buy a Home - NYTimes.com (boomers heep scorn in comments; don't realized tuition in real terms has doubled)
Eschaton: Shorter Frank Bruni - The only way to make up for screwing the millenials in their working years is to make sure to screw them in their retirement years, too.
Frank Bruni Is Angry That the Government Pays 1000 Times as Much to Peter Peterson as It Does to the Average Kid | Beat the Press (the Times op-ed page is a really strange place)
Dear Millennials, We’re Sorry - NYTimes.com - AMONG Americans age 40 and older, there’s a pastime more popular than football, Candy Crush or HBO. It’s bashing millennials (who will be under water in more ways than one; Republicans eating your children)
Eschaton: The Kids Today - Yes, yes, you graduated college, sucked it up for a couple of years, never ever ever complained, and did ok! How dare the kids today own a dog which, like smartphones, are extreme luxuries!

Texas’ open carry movement raises passions, threats | Dallas Morning News - “They were calling me names I haven’t heard since I was in middle school,” she said. “They were calling me a whore and all kinds of nasty names. … I think there’s some really crazy, unstable people out there.” She added: “I grew up in rural Texas, where all my family were hunters and gun people. I’m not anti-gun. But a real man and a real hunter would never, ever carry an assault weapon intimidating people.” (ammosexual crazies and their external death penises)

Richard Mourdock says nation going way of Hitler's Nazi Germany - "The people of Germany in a free election selected the Nazi Party because they made great promises that appealed to them because they were desperate and destitute. And why is that? Because Germany was bankrupt," he said (said the fascist)

Chicago Tribune - Two officers, one civilian killed in shooting attack in Las Vegas - Two armed suspects shouting "this is a revolution" opened fire on two Las Vegas police officers eating lunch in a pizza parlor on Sunday, then shot and killed a civilian inside a nearby Wal-Mart store before killing themselves, police said.

April 911 call: 'Crazy emergency' on I-495 bridge in Delaware - "They were completely aware, and I told them about it. Whether they chose to act on it is a different story," (they didn't)

Texas Republicans vote to adopt gay conversion policy | World news | theguardian.com - GOP convention backs 'reparative therapy for patients seeking healing from their homosexual lifestyle' (how about a program for recovering from Repubican insanity?)

Billionaire Pleads Guilty To Sexually Assaulting Stepdaughter - and was sentenced to four months in jail, according to court records. (no inequality there)
This is how women feel about walking alone at night in their own neighborhoods
On being a thing | Sarah Kendzior - I always expect some form of trolling, but I did not expect one of the attackers to be an editor at Salon, Elias Isquith, who questioned what my potential rape meant for “hashtags” and “brands”.
Bro Bash | Jacobin
What the Hell is Wrong With People? - Lawyers, Guns & Money (comments)

Oh Look At All These Dads Creeping On Their Daughters, For Jesus - Happy Nice Time People (yeah, really creepy)
The Dirty Secret Behind Purity Rings - marytkelly - Open Salon

Vintage Chemistry Sets Show We Used to Be Way More Chill About Chemicals | Science | WIRED
List of free and open-source software packages

5 Best WhatsApp alternatives with end-to-end Encryption - The Hacker News

smartphone - Is Telegram secure? - Information Security Stack Exchange
Off-the-Record Messaging
How Comments Shape Perceptions of Sites' Quality—and Affect Traffic - Adam Felder - The Atlantic - Even if you don't realize it, unmoderated comments change the way you think about what you read.
Please don’t blindly follow PopSci’s lead and get rid of comment spaces | Boundary Vision - But both of these effects together explained a whopping 1% of the differences in readers’ risk assessments. So almost all of the factors that influenced of how the readers reacted had nothing to do with the civility of the comments, nothing at all.

060714
Seas Rise, Florida GOP Leaders Balk At Climate Change (tie them to Miami's beach)
Greenpeace claims double standard when it comes to billboards in Alberta - Greenpeace wants to know why its billboard on solar energy was rejected in Edmonton while an ad denying that humans have an impact on climate change is up in Calgary. ("Friends of Science")


Bowe Bergdahl and the Impossible Choices Families of Hostages Face - David Rohde - The Atlantic - A former Taliban captive explains why we're demonizing the wrong people
Republican Bergdahl Overreach Will Backfire | New Republic - It's unseemly. It's hypocritical. And it's going to backfire.
On Bowe Bergdahl, lawmakers need to do better
Bowe Bergdahl's home town left bewildered by backlash against its hero | World news | The Guardian - Hotels that typically host hikers, fishermen and hunters have reported cancellations. Even with the celebration abandoned, there is concern that some protestors could travel to this rural community of 7,000 people to vent their anger. (with their fucking death-penises)
Bob Bergdahl remains calm at centre of storm over son released by Taliban | World news | theguardian.com - The decision to swap five militants for one American prompted a furore that threatens a family as well as the White House. The Guardian speaks to those who know a suddenly famous father
Hullabaloo - Wonder why people hate politics? - Right. Releasing a handful of aging, broken Taliban men who've been imprisoned for over a decade is just like giving them a nuclear weapon . Because everyone knows that Taliban are Super Villains, with diabolical super powers. (Almost as powerful as the "al-Qaeda" who are Super-duper Villains with the strength of millions who will kill us all in our beds!)
Obama's Real Failure: Not Talking to the Taliban Enough - Peter Beinart - The Atlantic - A new critique of the president's "don't do stupid shit" doctrine is emerging—and it's coming from within his own party.

“Facebook claims to be in favor of free speech, and talks about protecting political expression, but they are not"

Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies - NYTimes.com - They are making it far more difficult — and far more expensive — for the National Security Agency and the intelligence arms of other governments around the world to pierce their systems.
One year of NSA leaks: where are we now? | The Verge
NSA: Inside the FIVE-EYED VAMPIRE SQUID of the INTERNET • The Register - You may want to move to Iceland at this point
Intelligence Agencies Have Gone Rogue, With No Oversight | The Big Picture - “Do You Think That Because I’m Chairman of The Intelligence Committee That I Just Say “I Want It”, and They Give It To Me? They Control It. All Of It. ALL of It. ALL THE TIME. I Only Get – and My Committee Only Gets – What They WANT To Give Me.” -Jay Rockefeller, Chairman, Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee
A Crisis of Trust — theDVNC.org - “When no trust is given to members of a society, the definition of the social structure changes”
Stephen Fry attacks 'squalid' coalition for inaction on Snowden revelations | World news | The Observer

Digital Security and Privacy for Human Rights Defenders | Front Line
Encryption Works: How to Protect Your Privacy in the Age of NSA Surveillance | Freedom of the Press Foundation

Letting the CIA Declassify a Report on the CIA by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It’s really kind of incredible that the CIA is in charge of declassifying a Senate Intelligence Committee report that condemns the CIA for torturing people and then lying about it. There couldn’t be a greater conflict of interest. (how Obama rolls)

Cable Companies Are Astroturfing Fake Consumer Support to End Net Neutrality | VICE United States - Many of the organizations protesting a move toward classifying ISPs as a utility, which is the only likely option for enacting net neutrality, are funded by the ISP lobby.

On Wisconsin! Federal Judge Overturns Badger State’s Marriage Ban | ACS - In 1982, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to enact a gay rights law, banning discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation. (and then the Republicans took over)

Summers: Helping Homeowners Would Have Hurt Banks (how Obama fucked us all over with the help of Summers, Geitner and Bernanke)
Eschaton: "Economists Are Worried" - If only some of them had recently been in positions of power where they could have made more decisions that helped people.
Student Loans Make it Hard to Rent or Buy a Home - NYTimes.com - Economists are worried. Last month, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that student loan debt was taking the life out of the housing recovery, and the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz called the rising debt “an educational crisis” that is “affecting our potential future growth.” (and they made buying a "home" obsolete)

Hullabaloo - QOTD: Hillary Clinton: Diane Sawyer: And what would you say to Karl Rove about your brain? Clinton: (laughs) That I know he was called "Bush's Brain" in one of the books written about him, and I wish him well.

Woman charged with wiretapping for filming cops wins $57,000 payout | Ars Technica - A local New Hampshire police department agreed Thursday to pay a woman who was arrested and charged with wiretapping $57,000 to settle her civil rights lawsuit. The deal comes a week after a federal appeals court ruled that the public has a "First Amendment" right to film cops.

alicublog: Friday Around-The-Horn. - Matthew Continetti was for years a reliable defender of the great and powerful Bush. Then he realized that gravy train wouldn't run forever, and so devoted himself to defending even greater Americans such as Sarah Palin, and to other variants of rightwing aargh-blaargh. (they live inside their strange fantasies)
Georgia Attorney General: State Cannot Enforce New Food Stamp Law - Georgia’s Attorney General says the state cannot enforce some provisions of a new law requiring food stamp recipients to submit to drug testing before receiving benefits.

Sleep's role in memory formation discovered: do you get enough? | Life and style | theguardian.com - Scientists have discovered how sleep is key to learning and forming new memories. How much sleep do you get and is it enough?

Gas station mural shows Talmudic priest in a sexual act - 19 Action News|Cleveland, OH|News, Weather, Sports

Microsoft Surface Pro 3: My First 2 Weeks - InformationWeek - The Surface Pro 3 is the first Microsoft tablet to offer more than the sum of its parts.

060614
The Climate Domino - NYTimes.com - I mean, these are the people who managed to create national outrage over nonexistent death panels
Energy Choices - NYTimes.com - Well, I’m happy to report that Pielke has a letter in today’s Financial Times about the economics of emissions caps – something I know a fair bit about – that abundantly confirms his bad reputation.
Americans Who Mistrust Climate Scientists Take Cues from Global Temperatures | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network - According to the Stanford National Global Warming Poll, about a third of Americans are skeptical of climate scientists and instead base their opinions on climate change—at least in part—on global temperatures, according to a recent time series analysis of the Stanford poll.

Israeli-Palestinian Collision Course - NYTimes.com
Amid Horror At Mass Graves Of Children, Calls In Ireland For An Inquiry : The Two-Way : NPR - Since the news broke, Irish media have reported that at least three similar church-run facilities also have mass graveyards. (making thousands of dead bodies of infant and children killed by the Catholic Church)
Northern Ireland: Less Protestant-Catholic strife, more hatred of racial and sexual minorities. - But Northern Ireland has now put in a bid to be seen as a haven for equal opportunity bigots, demonstrating its capacity to broaden the local sphere of intolerance to embrace groups outside of the traditional Catholic/Protestant dualism.

President Obama Was Right - NYTimes.com - Israel once traded 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to get back one of their own. Another time they traded 1,150 prisoners to get back three of their own. They did it because of a deep awareness that national cohesion is essential to national survival. They did it because Israeli parents share a common emotional bond; the imprisonment of one of their children touches them all.
The Rush to Demonize Sgt. Bergdahl - NYTimes.com - Mr. McCain, as he has so often in the past, switched positions for maximum political advantage.

Many Governments Listen To Phone Calls Anytime They Want: Report - Vodafone, one of the world's largest cellphone companies, revealed the scope of government snooping into phone networks Friday, saying authorities in some countries are able to directly access an operator's network without seeking permission.
Deutsche Telekom to follow Vodafone in revealing surveillance | World news | The Guardian - Deutsche Telekom, operating in 14 countries including the US, Spain and Poland, has already published data for Germany
CIA sends out first tweet – and shows it has a sense of humour | World news | theguardian.com - Agency says 'we can neither confirm nor deny that this our first tweet' as it officially joins Twitter and Facebook

The government ruled for net neutrality. Too bad it wasn't your government | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Fact Checker Says John McCain DID Flip-Flop On Bowe Bergdahl (details, details and lies)
Senators Admit Leaving Classified Briefing On Bowe Bergdahl Early - Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), ranking member on the Select Committee on Intelligence, appeared on Fox News to criticize the administration while the briefing was still underway.
Bergdahl’s Dad: Drone Killed Captor’s Kid - The Daily Beast - In a 2010 speech, Robert Bergdahl claimed that the man who held Bowe “recently lost a son to a CIA missile drone strike.” The reports at the time appear to back him up.
The Bergdahl Chronicles: The Bitchening - Esquire
Chris Hayes Mocks Bill O'Reilly's Muslim Fixation - By O'Reilly's logic, Hayes said, we should be just as worried about other bearded men including the stars of "Duck Dynasty," ZZ Top, Forrest Gump and the Boston Red Sox.

Thomas Piketty: A Lot Of My Critics Haven't Even Read The Book

Progressive Candidates Reap Big Gains In Primaries - But as the dust settles, it turns out that progressive challengers bested corporate Democrats in a handful of key House races.
Disputed press release raises new questions about Scott Brown’s role in Florida company - Politics - The Boston Globe - Court filing calls announcement of a $95m deal false (oh, a sleezy Republican)

Calculated Risk: May Employment Report: 217,000 Jobs, 6.3% Unemployment Rate - Total employment is now 98 thousand above the pre-recession peak and at an all time high. (seven years later we're back to the same place to jobs pay less; good job Obama)
We've Recovered All The Lost Jobs! Too Bad It Doesn't Matter

Chris Christie backers awarded $223m tax break to build New Jersey mall | World news | theguardian.com - Luxury Point development majority owned by Prudential • Insurance giant donates cash to governor's mansion fund (corrupt lying fat fuck bully)

GOP’s quiet Obamacare disaster: How this week’s biggest story got overlooked - Salon.com - While everyone obsessed over the Bergdahl flap, the real story was revealed by a nomination hearing and new data ("disaster" for Republicans)

Eric Glisson AMA: 'I spent 18 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit' | World news | theguardian.com - Glisson was wrongfully convicted of killing a 38-year-old woman. He talked to Redditors about life in prison and lamb chops
Seattle cop who stomped on handcuffed man’s head cleared of wrongdoing — RT USA - "I think there are significant questions where an officer is claiming a concussion caused him to be confused and lack the ability to control his actions when he's stomping on the head of a hand-cuffed suspect he's upset with,"

Doctors Say DEA Blackmailed Them Over Medical Marijuana Ties - The Boston Globe and MassLive.com reported on the apparent crackdown Friday, with the Globe finding at least three doctors who had allegedly been visited at their homes or offices by DEA agents. (Obama will never give up on his war on pot)
The DEA Is Really Starting To Look Ridiculous - Esquire - It really is time for someone to throw a bucket of cold water on the Drug Enforcement

Federal Judge To Wisconsin: You Know 'Traditional' Marriage Was Polygamy, Right?

California Weed Industry Worth $31 Billion Per Year - which is basically more than the combined value of California’s ten largest agricultural commodities

HB 351 in Ohio: John Becker's bill would ban insurance coverage of abortion and IUDs. - Becker addressed his lack of knowledge about science thusly: "This is just a personal view. I’m not a medical doctor."

On the Origin of White Power | The Primate Diaries, Scientific American Blog Network - A new book argues race and genetics explain “the rise of the West.” Bad science explains the downfall of its ideas. Nicholas Wade is not a racist. In his new book, A Troublesome Inheritance, the former science writer for the New York Times states this explicitly ... He then explains why white people are better because of their genes ... Building on Steven Pinker’s hypothesis from his 2011 The Better Angels of Our Nature (yeah, NYT +Repubican tribalism ignored)
Troublesome Inheritance critique: Nicholas Wade’s dated assumptions about race, genes, and culture. - Why the new book by the New York Times’ Nicholas Wade is both plausible and preposterous.
Stretch Genes by H. Allen Orr | The New York Review of Books - A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History by Nicholas Wade
New book on race by Nicholas Wade: Professor Ceiling Cat says paws down « Why Evolution Is True
The Troublesome Ignorance of Nicholas Wade | Agustín Fuentes
Nicholas Wade’s ‘A Troublesome Inheritance’ - NYTimes.com - Nicholas Wade’s ‘A Troublesome Inheritance’
New York Times Science Pens Book Linking Genetics, Race | The Daily Caller
Ethnography.com » Blog Archive » Nicholas Wade Writes Again—And Again Anthropology Pays Attention
Today! A Discussion On Genes, Race and Human History | American Anthropological Association

How the apple took over the planet - Salon.com - New findings pinpoint the true origin of our favorite fruit -- and help explain its extraordinary path to dominance

The Undiscovered Country - NYTimes.com (Zomia and borderless drones)
The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by John Robert McNeill — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists
A People's History of the World by Chris Harman — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

Chicago Sun-Times apologizes, retracts 'Laverne Cox is not a woman' op-ed - "Tom McNamee et al. are a disgrace to a proud newspaper tradition, and an unhappy reminder that post-operative transsexuals are not the only men who have had their characteristic equipment removed."
? Keene may consider ordinance banning chalk drawings - YouTube

Moderating online comments? A big 'waste of time' Mediaite says
Uber Worth $18 Billion Because Sure, Why Not?
Add, change or remove geotags on iPhone, Android, PC, Mac - Free!

060514
7 reasons America will fail on climate change - Vox - I touched on this in my conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I'm a climate pessimist. I don't believe the United States — or the world — will do nearly enough, nearly fast enough, to hold the rise in temperatures to safe levels. I think we're fucked. Or, at the least, I think our grandchildren are fucked. (you know who to blame)
Energy Choices - NYTimes.com - Well, I’m happy to report that Pielke has a letter in today’s Financial Times about the economics of emissions caps – something I know a fair bit about – that abundantly confirms his bad reputation. Better still, the letter offers a teachable moment, a chance to explain why claims that we can’t limit emissions without destroying economic growth are nonsense.

James Fallows of ‘The Atlantic’ on the Iraq War -- New York Magazine - The Atlantic’s James Fallows on standing up to warmongering D.C. (they were having continuous wargasms and traitorizing dissent and rational thought)
Hullabaloo - They don't even bother to pretend there's a great cause anymore

America...what the hell is wrong with us?
Dana Milbank: From Bergdahl to Benghazi, Republicans fire up the scandal machine - The Washington Post
Obama administration briefs senators on decision to make deal for Bergdahl’s release - The Washington Post
Scarborough And Todd Get Into On-Air Shouting Match Over Bergdahl's Dad - It didn't take long for conservatives to turn their anger on Bergdahl and his father. In fact, the vitriol may have even caught a few Republicans off guard, with some GOP politicians forced to scrub their initial online praise of Bergdahl and his rescue.
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire (Swift-Boating the truth with the help of mindless media)
This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy - Esquire - Hailey, Idaho can't have a party because Gary Fcking Pringle of Lubbock Fcking is annoyed by it. All towns in America must clear their local celebrations with Gary Fcking Pringle out behind the rusting propane tanks because only Gary Fcking Pringle has the final word.
Rep. Hunter Blasts WH 'Swift Boat' Suggestion, Says Kerry Turned His Back on Soldiers Just Like Bergdahl | Fox News Insider
Wash. Post's Cohen "Sicken[ed]" By Obama's "Repellent" Embrace Of Bergdahl Family | Blog | Media Matters for America
McCain: Those Accusing Me Of Bergdahl Flip-Flop Are 'Lying' - In February, McCain told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he would be "inclined to support" a prisoner swap to bring Bergdahl home, but has since come out in opposition to the exchange for the soldier's release. (details, details)
Secret Videos Prompted Bowe Bergdahl Taliban Prisoner Swap - WSJ - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Congress should have been consulted before Sgt. Bergdahl was exchanged for five Taliban detainees, who were sent to Qatar.
Bowe Bergdahl: Perspective of a Marine in Afghanistan | New Republic - Bowe Bergdahl haunted us all
World’s worst Bergdahl hypocrite: The despicable return of Oliver North - Salon.com - You haven't heard it all until you've heard disgraced Iran-Contra official Oliver North blast the Bergdahl deal (every rat is coming out of its hole)

Glenn Greenwald to publish list of U.S. citizens that NSA spied on - Washington Times - he’s set to publish his most dramatic piece yet: The names of those in the United States targeted by the NSA.
On 6/5, 65 Things We Know About NSA Surveillance That We Didn’t Know a Year Ago | Electronic Frontier Foundation

David Ignatius: Edward Snowden took less than previously thought, says James Clapper - The Washington Post (who we know is totally trustworthy)
Snowden a 'traitor': Andreessen - NSA leaker Edward Snowden is a "traitor," venture capitalist Marc Andreessen told CNBC. The secrets he's revealed have hurt Silicon Valley by association, and President Barack Obama is doing nothing to change that perception on the world stage. (techbrowebdude has a hard time focusing on the issue)
Snowden’s Revelations Led to an Exponential Increase in US Media Coverage of the NSA | The Dissenter
How an FBI informant orchestrated the Stratfor hack

'New York Times' Editor: Losing Snowden Scoop 'Really Painful' : NPR - In Los Angeles, Baquet faced criticism that he had withheld a piece on the collaboration of the phone giant AT&T with intelligence officers in providing information about domestic calls. He said that story proved overly technical and difficult to verify; he said the subsequent New York Times article on the same subject proved vague and was buried inside the paper.

Reset the Net: What is it and what does it mean? - CSMonitor.com - Reset the Net rallies against online government surveillance.
The Human Right to Privacy in the Digital Age | American Civil Liberties Union
#ResetTheNet Today With These Simple Privacy Measures | FDL Action

Study finds strong evidence for discriminatory intent behind voter ID laws (from the no shit dept)
The Con-Artist Wing of the Democratic Party | VICE United States (Geitner was a terrible choice)

The Return Of Lara Logan - Esquire - "CBS indicated that they were serious about rebuilding its brand and taking accountability," said David Brock, Media Matters founder. "Having Logan back on ‘60 Minutes' shows the exact opposite."

Obamacare Has Drastically Cut The Uninsured Rate For Blacks, Hispanics

Shorter Fortune: "The Poor: BORING!!!" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Geoff Colvin at Fortune has precisely the reaction to the income inequality debate as you’d expect: “BORING!!!!”

Ta-Nehisi Coates Interview: The Case For Reparations | New Republic

What New York Times' Maureen Dowd was told about edibles - It’ll go away, and in the future we won’t look to Maureen Dowd for in-depth journalism on the Colorado marijuana industry.”
Maureen Dowd Says Her Marijuana Edibles Experiment Was 'Ill-Advised' - There is no mention of edibles in my transcript of our interview, but we were together several hours and no doubt we did chat about it at some point,"
"Don't Give Me the Babe in the Woods Routine, MoDo." - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Who among us wouldn’t be surprised, unless they had any familiarity with Dowd’s extensive history of inventing things to fit whatever a priori narrative she had decided to advance?
Maureen Dowd's Cannabis Tour Guide Says He Warned Her About Edibles - The Cannabist, a website run by The Denver Post and dedicated to marijuana culture, spoke on Wednesday with My 420 Tours co-founder Matt Brown, who said he spent three to four hours giving Dowd and her friend a behind-the-scenes tour when they made their January trip to Denver. (she's like Tom Friedman, except the taxi-driver is in her head)
Maureen Dowd Just Wants To Get Hiiiiiiigh
3 Things You Should Remember (But Probably Won't) If You Get Too High On Marijuana Edibles

Kids who get health insurance are more likely to finish high school and college - Vox (keeping our country stupid)

Church removes billboard featuring Hitler quote - WPEC-TV CBS12 News :: News - Top Stories - Five smiling kids on a billboard in Village Mall in Auburn, Ala. is accompanied by a quote from Adolf Hitler: "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." Right below the quote from the Nazi leader was a quote from Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Guns aren't meant to be fun: Column - Open carry shouldn't become a way for people to show off while risking deadly accidents. (external death-penises of mysogynistic doom)

This Is How Often Women Masturbate - Only 7.9 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 29 masturbate two to three times a week whereas 23.4 percent of men do.


060414
Poll: Majority of Republicans believe global warming a hoax | TheHill - Fifty-eight percent of Republicans believe that global warming is a “hoax,” compared to 11 percent of Democrats, according to new polling that underscores political divides over climate change among U.S. residents.
A huge majority of Americans support regulating carbon from power plants. And they’re even willing to pay for it. - Fifty-seven percent of Republicans, 76 percent among independents and 79 percent of Democrats support state-level limits on greenhouse gas emissions. (little compartments)

Putin Is Looking To Get Better Ties With North Korea
Tell us the truth about the children dumped in Galway's mass graves | Emer O'Toole | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Forget prayers. Only full disclosure by Ireland's Catholic church can begin to atone for the children who died in its care (Nuns murdered 800 babies and children)

Can Bowe Bergdahl Be Tied to 6 Lost Lives? Facts Are Murky - NYTimes.com
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl Was Exchanged for Detainees at Guantánamo - NYTimes.com
The Bowe Bergdahl Controversy Could Be Politics At Its Very Worst
US senators battle White House over Bowe Bergdahl strategy | World news | theguardian.com - Barack Obama has faced criticism from members of the US senate over his decision to release Guantánamo detainees
The Bergdahl Chronicles: Murky Is As Murky Does - Esquire - And isn't that ironic as hell? In the battle with the propaganda industry, one way that the news business can make it a fair fight is through the work of leakers and whistleblowers. Just sayin'.
Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap: Obama finally releases detainees from Gitmo, but not the right ones.
Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap: The U.S. wants to get out of the Taliban-fighting business as quickly as possible.
Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - North demanded that the media ask the Obama administration if there was "a ransom, a fiscal, financial, money transaction," with the Taliban as part of the deal. "Was there a ransom paid? Did the government of the United States, either directly or indirectly, finance a terrorist organization?"
Bowe Bergdahl and negotiating with the Taliban: Why the deal to free this POW could be even more important. - America negotiates with terrorists. These were not terrorists. And this could be the start of something big.
Impeachment To Save Gitmo by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So today Sen. Lindsey Graham warned the White House that any additional releases of Gitmo prisoners without express congressional authorization could lead to the introduction of Articles of Impeachment.
McCain's reversals on Bowe Bergdahl | MSNBC

Major terrorism trial could be held in secret for first time in UK legal history | Law | theguardian.com - He said that national security could not be pursued without regard to the values of the society it was seeking to protect. (an often overlooked point)
Noam Chomsky | Edward Snowden, the World's "Most Wanted Criminal" - the constitutional lawyer in the White House seems determined to demolish the foundations of our civil liberties.

The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible | Electronic Frontier Foundation ("claims" = "lies")
[394] America's Nuclear Insanity, Black Friday's Retail "Terrorists", Left Forum 2014 - YouTube - Abby Martin
New Gmail data shows the rise of backbone email encryption | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Should we fight the system or be the change? - Waging Nonviolence

Bloggers_Handbook2.pdf - handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents

Police spies tracked Occupy JP, Whole Foods protests | Jamaica Plain Gazette - The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) documents, dating to 2011, put a new context on the Boston Police’s unprecedented, widely criticized arrest of peaceful Whole Foods protestors that year. And they show a spy agency obsessed with anything it thought related to the Occupy Boston movement—even citing a benefit concert at JP’s Midway Café down to the ticket prices. (it's always about corporate interests)

California Voters Secure Transparency in Local Government | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Proposition 42, a ballot measure that ensures that local agencies must comply with the California Public Records Act (CPRA). The final tally for the Public's Right to Know Act was 61.5 percent for, 38.5 percent against—a landslide for transparency.

Tech Titans From Both Parties Get Behind Super PAC To End All Super PACs - Big-name technology titans from different ideological backgrounds are backing a super PAC formed by Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig to reform the nation's campaign finance laws.

Gravitational Wave Discovery Challenged By Two New Studies - "Based on what we know right now, we have no evidence for or against gravitational waves," says Uros Seljak, a cosmologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of one of the latest studies.

The One Exercise That Just Might Change Your Running Forever
Losing Weight May Require Some Serious Fun - NYTimes.com

"Traditional" masculinity: incoherent and odious - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In the case of Douthat vs. DeBoer, we find for DeBoer and reject Jonathan Chait’s strange finding that Douthat’s rejoinder to him is “persuasive and highly interesting.”*
A Beta Male Journeys Through the Femireich | The Hairpin

Oh, Won’t Someone Think of the Billionaires? « - Systematic Advanced Idiocy seems to be infecting some of the richest people in American sports. Can we save them before it’s too late?

That's Why They Call It Dope - Esquire - I'm not entirely sure exactly how high Maureen got out there in Colorado but, reading this column, I am fairly sure she's cleared The Shark by about 12 nautical miles.
Four more New York Times columnists and Malcolm Gladwell get really high: what could possibly go wrong? | Sarah Jeong | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Maureen Dowd is off today, recovering

Latter-day Saints claims IP rights to block “Mormon” dating site | Electronic Frontier Foundation - The church is trying to block the site from being named Mormon Match amid accusations that the term "Mormon" breaches the church's intellectual property rights. (wait 'til the Jews hear about this)

FindTheBest Wins Attorney’s Fees in Patent Troll Fight | Electronic Frontier Foundation - The troll asserted a vague patent on “bilateral and multilateral decision-making.” (they patented thinking!)
Amazon.com: ass goblins of aushwitz

060314
No, Cutting Carbon Emissions Won't Ruin The Economy
China to limit carbon emissions for first time | Environment | theguardian.com - Absolute cap to come into effect, climate adviser says on the day after US announces ambitious carbon plan

Obama pledges $1bn to boost military in Europe in wake of Ukraine crisis | World news | The Guardian - US president looks to allay fears over Russian expansionism by saying security of east European Nato members is 'sacrosanct'
Report: 10 Generals Guilty Of Arming Boko Haram - Ten generals and five other senior military officers were found guilty in courts-martial of providing arms and information to Boko Haram extremists, a leading Nigerian newspaper reported Tuesday.
Abdel Fatah al-Sisi won 96.1% of vote in Egypt presidential election, say officials | World news | theguardian.com - Electoral commission says 47.5% of Egypt's 53 million eligible voters participated in election
G4S probed by UK watchdog over West Bank security contracts - A UK Government-funded watchdog will look at whether the human rights of Palestinians have been breached by G4S
France backs BNP Paribas over US threat to fine it $10bn | Business | theguardian.com - Pairs moves to defend French bank being investigated by US authorities for potential sanction breaches
Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers (Catholic Church ran concentration camps, starved children)

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Net Neutrality - YouTube

US Marshals Seize Copies of Local Cell Phone Tracking Records Requested by ACLU | The Dissenter - law enforcement agencies which behave like the CIA and refuse to acknowledge whether or not they even have public records related to Stingray surveillance used to track cell phones.
VICTORY: Judge Releases Information about Police Use of Stingray Cell Phone Trackers | American Civil Liberties Union

Secret Service Software Will 'Detect Sarcasm' in Social Media Users - Nextgov.com

The Treason Case Against the Last U.S. Taliban Hostage, Explained
CNN Lets John McCain Off The Hook For Shifting Support Of Prisoner Exchange | Blog | Media Matters for America
On Bergdahl Updated » Balloon Juice
Bowe Bergdahl: America's Last Prisoner of War by Michael Hastings | Politics News | Rolling Stone - Michael Hastings June 7, 2012

NSA chief Michael Rogers: Edward Snowden 'probably not' a foreign spy | World news | theguardian.com - , despite frequent speculation and assertion by the NSA's allies to the contrary.

Tell The White House You Oppose The FBI’s Secret New Internet Surveillance Law - Electronic Frontier Foundation - The new version of CALEA would force companies to provide a secret backdoor to your digital communications - the Obama administration is “on the verge of backing” a sweeping new Internet surveillance bill
Pressing Issues: New Whistleblower Group Launching - From a "Beyond Snowden" release I just got in my email.
`revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret middle eastern internet spy base • The Register

CCR_If_An_Agent_Knocks.pdf (what to do when the Feebs flash-bang your door)
The TrueCrypt Resurrection - The State of Security - “Currently it is very unclear what really happened. Was it really just the end of a 10year effort, or was it driven by some government. While a simple defacement is more and more unlikely we still don’t know where this is going,” the team’s website states.
School of Privacy - self dox - This self dox tutorial will explain and help you with information about gathering all of the information you have online and either getting rid of it OR changing it to a profile with misinformation.
Email Encryption for Journalists: Beginner’s Tutorial « Matt Schrader - This tutorial is meant for journalists with little or no understanding of email encryption. It covers setting up an encrypted email account, so you can start communicating privately with sources.

Obama administration to revive domestic terror taskforce | World news | theguardian.com - Taskforce established in 1995 after Oklahoma City bombing later dismantled after 9/11 as agencies turned attention outwards (Bush/Cheney)

The Supreme Court and the Power to Make Treaties
The Supremes Take On the Toxic Avenger - “It’s a constitutional dispute wrapped up in a sad soap opera,”

BofA Merrill Lynch Backs Piketty - Business Insider
Seattle misreads Thomas Piketty as its minimum wage mascot | Money | theguardian.com - Doubling its minimum wage, Seattle tried to quote the rockstar economist, who actually warns a $15 wage could risk losing jobs

What We Talk About When We Talk About Reparations : The New Yorker
The Atlantic's Coates discusses his epic reparations cover story : Columbia Journalism Review

Calling Out Ideologically Driven Media, Sharyl Attkisson Lands At Heritage | Blog | Media Matters for America - Attkisson had supported CBS' disastrous Benghazi reporting, which the network ultimately had to apologize for and retract, and CBS executives reportedly saw her as "wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue." She also released an error-ridden report on clean energy, and relied on partial information from House Republicans in a botched story on the Affordable Care Act. (wingnut welfare for disgraced liars)

Matt Miller, Which Hat Is He Wearing? | Republic Report - For an insider with deep ties to the lobbying community, it may seem surprising that the Los Angeles Times, in endorsing Miller, counted him as outside the flock of candidates who are “embedded members of the system.”

There Are No More Honest Conservatives, So Stop Looking For One | The Nation - The mainstream and liberal press’s quixotic search for a ‘good’ conservative merely reinforces the soft bigotry of low expectations. (Republican=Liar)

In Calif. city, shootings reignite tensions between citizens, police | Al Jazeera America

Dan Marino Among Group Of Former Players Suing NFL Over Concussions - Marino and the other 14 plaintiffs join more than 4,800 others who have alleged the NFL misled players about the long-term dangers of concussions. The NFL has denied those claims.

A Gentlemen’s Guide To Rape Culture — Human Parts — Medium
The end of hisses, whistles and stares: we need to walk the streets without fear | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Two-thirds of women have been sexually harassed just for being in public. But the conversation has exploded, and now something needs to be done
alicublog: ACTING OUT. - Conservatives have had such a hard-on for Lena Dunham over the years that I've gotten not one but two Voice columns out of it. I'll never want for material, it seems; at National Review, Quin Hillyer ejaculates this under a big picture of Dunham:
Woman: I saw my ex-boyfriend strangle student - New Hampshire news - Boston.com

Slavoj Zizek calls students stupid and boring. Stop worshiping this man! (VIDEO.) - Slovenian critical-theory superstar Slavoj Žižek is the “Elvis of cultural theory,”
Before we pile on Žižek, we probably ought to consider the source - Lawyers, Guns & Money
The "Only Joking" Defense - Lawyers, Guns & Money : One would think that Paul’s observations on Zizek’s remarks about teaching would be unassailable. But among other things personality cults generate defenses of the transparently indefensible, so Bob is Boring in comments:
What the Onion is up against these days - Lawyers, Guns & Money : If I were to make a Borat-style mockumentary about the absurdities of the modern university, its star would be a critical theorist from some central European country with a name featuring several diacritical marks who gets paid vast sums by various institutions to churn out obscurantist arcana featuring many citations to Lacan etc. while making it clear to his adoring acolytes that he hates them even more than he hates humanity in general.


The War Between 'Authors' and Writers  - Bloomberg View - By Virginia Postrel (Authors Guild is so 20th century, hates fair use)

? Silicon Valley Season 1 Episode 8 (S01E08) || Erlich's Dick Theory/Dick Joke Scene - YouTube

060214
EPA Releases Much-Anticipated Limits On Power Plant Emissions
The Climate Changes Regs: Is the Less Threatening Approach Less Threatening Enough?
Batten the hatches as summers to have more heavy downpours - Our study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows the first evidence that summer downpours in the UK could become heavier with climate change.


King Juan Carlos is abdicating. Should Queen Elizabeth follow suit? | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The King of Spain has announced his abdication, aged 76, in favour of his son Felipe. Should Queen Elizabeth, 88, follow his lead and let Charles take the throne?

Twitter / RMAHarman: Bernie Lagan says Lockwood ... - Smith threatening to pull funding on Oz NZ lit festival in London tmrrow if they hve Skype iv wth Julian Assange (OZ/NZ hates dissent)

Fellow soldiers call Bowe Bergdahl a deserter, not a hero - CNN.com
Obama's Prisoner Swap Is Just Like Washington's and Lincoln's - Esquire - Criticism of the president's decision to free Sgt. Bergdahl are short-sighted and silly.
John McCain Obama Prisoner Release - The Vacant Soul Of John McCain - Esquire - Having already draped himself in a toga, McCain's response to the Obama administration has been both petulant and imperious, a small boy commanding an army of butterflies
No More Mister Nice Blog - I guess "using all means available, including force" doesn't really mean "using all means available," which is what the administration did to free Bergdahl. I guess it really means "using force, so we civilians can be vicarious warriors from the safety of our own Barcaloungers."
From Benghazi! to Bergdahl! by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So for anyone to express fury with the administration for following a strict policy of securing U.S. military personnel and bringing them home to face whatever praise or blame they deserve is even stranger than hinting this president should be impeached for failure to take enough proactive steps to protect those killed in Benghazi.

Daniel Ellsberg: Snowden would not get a fair trial – and Kerry is wrong | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice (Kerry swift-boated Snowden)
They Knew Our Secrets. One Year Later, We Know Theirs. | American Civil Liberties Union
Twitter / MattBors: Chuck Todd and Newt Gingrich ... - agreed Snowden's actions are part of an arrogant mindset particular to millennials.
Twitter / MattBors: The liberal on today's Meet ... - The Press panel, Jane Harman, said Snowden should be jailed as a "lesson to other kids."

Global police operation disrupts aggressive Cryptolocker virus | Technology | theguardian.com - Internet users have two-week window to protect themselves, says UK's National Crime Agency after working with Europol and FBI
Account Password Security: Basic Edition - |grepLinux

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Reporter Over Identity of Source - NYTimes.com
Supreme court will not review order for reporter to testify in case against source | Law | theguardian.com - Case of James Risen sets up showdown over reporter rights • Lawyer: lack of federal privilege 'chills journalistic activity (Obama hates your First Amendment)
Did the CIA give Iran the bomb? Extracts from New York Times reporter James Risen's new book | Environment | The Guardian - In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco - 4 January 2006
We Need a Reporters’ Shield Law by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The James Risen case in concerning and confusing. That the Supreme Court has refused to hear his case is frustrating. I don’t understand Attorney General Eric Holder’s position on the case. (well, like Obama, he has two side to his mouth)
After Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Case, New York Times Reporter Could Go to Jail | The Dissenter

Opinion analysis: World law and “romantic jealousy” : SCOTUSblog - Shying away from a major constitutional ruling on Congress’s power to enforce treaties, a divided Supreme Court on Monday pared down the scope of a sixteen-year-old federal law that seeks to punish those who use chemical weapons to wreak violence.
Bond v. United States Ruling - There Is No Terrorism Here. Just Love. - Esquire - But, if there's one bit of corollary benefit from the ruling it is this -- perhaps local authorities will be more sensible in the future of cramming local crimes into the rubric of "terrorism" just to force a plea deal or pull in some federal funding for another armored personnel carrier.

On Inequality Denial - NYTimes.com - subsequent discussion has not gone well for Mr. Giles. The alleged errors were actually the kinds of data adjustments that are normal in any research that relies on a variety of sources.
xs
The Vanishing Cry of ‘Repeal It’ - NYTimes.com
"The Democrat Party" - Lawyers, Guns & Money : It is worth noting however that Joseph McCarthy was doing the same thing at least as early as 1954. . Plus “Commiecrat Party!”

California inmates on contraband watch accuse officials of human rights abuse | World news | theguardian.com - uthorities say procedure is essential to prevent smuggling • Prisoners chained and shackled in empty cell for days on end • 'This is torture, no matter how you look at it'

Chris Christie donor's property venture given $106m by state after law changed | World news | theguardian.com - New Jersey awarded public subsidy to close friend of governor • Amendments made to state law eased approval of tax break

Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - The Administration "transformation of America" direction is the greatest threat our nation has ever experienced...Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, were bumps in the road compared to the subjugation Obama is formulating and bringing rapidly on American freedom and liberty. ... Or it might rain and we all get wet. (try, try, again)

The latest fad in anti-choice law is a lie | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Legislation that requires abortion providers to get hospital admitting privileges is sweeping the US. It's also dangerous – and relatively useless

Dumbasses on parade » Pharyngula - Watch a gang of heavily armed lunatics draped with big guns march into a restaurant, proudly. What the heck is wrong with these people? Do they think these stunts make them look rational? (tiny dick syndrome)

Laverne Cox Is Not a Woman | National Review Online - Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Facts are not subject to our feelings. By Kevin D. Williamson (Williamson is an effigy of a human being +National Review)
Readers blast Chicago Sun-Times for 'transphobic' editorial on Laverne Cox - The Chicago Sun-Times has syndicated a controversial transphobic opinion piece by Kevin Williamson, a former deputy managing editor of the conservative National Review

Neighbor, 61, pulls gun on dad teaching girl to ride bike - KMSP-TV - According to the criminal complaint, Drake didn't like the way the father was teaching his daughter to ride a bicycle ... Charging documents state that Drake admitted to drinking all day, but he denied that it influenced his actions.

Monstrous rocky planet nicknamed 'Godzilla of Earths' | Science | theguardian.com - The 'mega-Earth' Kepler-10c is the most massive rocky planet ever discovered and its surface may be cool enough for life

060114
UN climate change chief praises new US pollution regulations | Environment | theguardian.com - Christiana Figueres calls move 'a good signal' to other states • Obama to use presidential power to tackle carbon emissions
(Dirty) Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - We’ll never know why the New York Times didn’t bother to credit Bill McKibben and 350.org for pioneering the strategy that led to a new era of climate progress in today’s piece about the “face of a new activism
States Already Moving To Blunt Obama's Carbon Plan

Republicans claim Bowe Bergdahl release deal encourages terrorists | World news | theguardian.com - Senator Ted Cruz decries 'very dangerous precedent' • Susan Rice says US had honoured 'sacred obligation' ("very dangerous")
GOP Lawmakers: Obama Broke The Law With Prisoner Exchange - Two Republican lawmakers on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaking the law by approving the release of five Afghan detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for a U.S. soldier believed held by Islamist insurgents for five years. (Republican could give a shit about actual troops)
Crowley Grills Susan Rice On Prisoner Swap: 'Did The US Negotiate With Terrorists?' (and Benghazi!)
Sunday Bloody NYT Sunday: Special Ross Douthat Hits A New Low Even For Him Edition - Happy Nice Time People - Rather than be happy that our sole POW got to return to American soil, the GOP took this as an opportunity to whine about Obama.

The $6 trillion dollar mistake by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - A new study says the Iraq War has cost the United States $2 trillion. By the time all the veterans’ bills are paid, it will likely cost us up to $6 trillion. (Republicans killed more than a whole bunch of people)

Empire–The Rise of the Oligarchs - Al Jazeera English - Empire examines the rise and role of the new oligarchs and the decline of democracy in the United States and beyond.
Full Show: Joseph E. Stiglitz Calls for Fair Taxes for All | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com - s and cracking down on corporate tax dodgers could be a cure for inequality and a faltering economy.

Europe’s elections: The Eurosceptic Union | The Economist - The impact of the rise of anti-establishment parties, in Europe and abroad
Brussels Jewish Museum Shooting Suspect Arrested - A Frenchman arrested over killings at a Belgian Jewish museum had traveled to Syria and claimed responsibility for the shootings in a video, prosecutors said Sunday. (jihadis coming home to roost)
French suspect in Brussels Jewish museum attack spent year in Syria | World news | theguardian.com - Mehdi Nemmouche arrested in Marseille in connection with the killing of two Israeli tourists and a French volunteer
Fatah-Hamas unity government will strengthen terror, says Netanyahu | World news | The Guardian - Israeli prime minister brands Hamas a terrorist organisation and says the unity government should not be recognised (you know who's a terrorist?)
Al-Jazeera trial: prosecution witnesses contradict claims in written testimony | World news | The Guardian - Trial of Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste hears discrepancies show witnesses do not know contents of report on which prosecution's case is based
Meriam Ibrahim lawyer dubious over Sudan government pledge to free her | World news | theguardian.com - Elshareef Ali Mohammed, of defence team for Christian woman convicted of apostasy, says only court can release his client
Indian gang-rape victim's father rejects compensation offer | World news | The Guardian - Sohan Lal says he wants justice, not money, after government of Uttar Pradesh offered him £5,000 following death of his daughter
Pope said to be furious over luxury retirement flat of top Vatican official | World news | The Guardian - Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone claims pontiff's support after criticism over huge penthouse – but Francis's spokesman stays silent (princes of the Church)
Why Somaly Mam’s Lies Matter | Blog | The Baffler
s Shell chief to visit Nigeria in effort to clean up oil spills | Environment | The Guardian - Ben van Beurden says he is determined to make progress after further criticism over the spills in Ogoniland

How Much Popular Support Does Net Neutrality Really Have? | Re/code - A recent study by the Pew Research Center suggested that most Americans have no idea what net neutrality is or what all the fuss is about, since network and cable news shows have mostly ignored the debate. (you don't need to know)

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images - NYTimes.com - for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. (the NSA has your stupid selfie)
Extreme obstruction & secrecy make for dysfunctional government - —particularly from the same party that idolizes a president who secretly traded missiles to Iran for hostages.

Unlocking Secrets, if Not Its Own Value - NYTimes.com - Founded in 2004, in part with $2 million from the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm
Anonymous Hamburg: How to build a DIY WiFi mesh-net appliance with offshore VPN tunnel using Freifunk software and cheap hardware
How can I destroy Surveillance Cameras? | anarchistnews dot org
Technical Analysis Of The GnuTLS Hello Vulnerability | Hacker News

Six climbers likely to have fallen to deaths on Washington's Mount Rainier | World news | theguardian.com - Park ranger: 'There's not a viable chance of survival' • Helicopter spots camping gear in avalanche-prone area

Was Hillary Clinton a good secretary of state? - The Washington Post - . The tension between America’s role as a revolutionary power and its role as a status quo power predates Clinton; the struggle to reconcile those two opposed but equally indispensable aspects of American foreign policy has survived her tenure at the State Department.
The Decline of Trust in the United States — On Trust — Medium - A Look at the Trend and What Can Be Done About It


Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights around the world | World | The Guardian - More than 2.7 billion people live in countries where being gay is a crime

Sleepy brains neglect half the world | Mo Costandi | Science | theguardian.com - A new study shows that drowsiness alters awareness in much the same way as a common form of brain damage - hemispatial neglect (your brain on sleep)
Dispatch from the Narcissism Wars | Blog | The Baffler - As exemplars of this world-saving sensibility, Lunbeck offers up Steve Jobs and David Brooks. I’m not kidding. And I, for one, cannot think of a better reason to revisit Lasch, ever alive to the tang of nonsense after all these years.

Dystopia Tracker

22,000 Dominoes! - YouTube


053114
If You Like Your Planet, You Can Keep Your Planet by D.R. Tucker | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - This morning, President Obama focused on his efforts to combat carbon-pollution in his weekly radio address, noting the importance of protecting the health and the climate of future generations:
Obama heralds health benefits of climate plan to cut power plant emissions | World news | theguardian.com - New EPA rules will cut emissions, which the president said will reduce soot, smog and thousands of respiratory illnesses
California's fire fighters are braced for a long, hot - and busy - summer | World news | The Guardian - New technology and equipment helps, but a three-year drought has created tinderbox conditions in Orange County
Obama Climate Change Policy Comes With Perils
Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project ("scientists" & that didn't work did it?)

China is destabilising south-east Asia, US defence secretary says | World news | theguardian.com - Chuck Hagel says US will not ignore from Beijing's actions • Chinese general says 'criticisms are groundless'
US soldier Bowe Bergdahl freed by Taliban in Afghanistan | World news | theguardian.com - Release terms send five Guantánamo detainees to Qatar • Obama thanks Qatari government emir for mediation role
Meriam Ibrahim 'to be freed' from death row in Sudan | World news | theguardian.com - A senior Khartoum official reveals that Meriam Ibrahim will be freed following worldwide protests about her treatment - Sex outside a "lawful relationship" is regarded as adultery under Sudanese law. (but rape is just fine)
UN backlash as Uganda's 'anti-gay' minister heads for human rights top job | World news | The Observer - Questions are being asked about the suitability of appointing Sam Kutesa to lead 'world parliament' after his attack on homosexuality in his home country (dumb, really dumb)
Malaysian Girl Allegedly Raped By 38 Men - Malaysian police have detained 13 men and are looking for other suspects following allegations that a 15-year-old girl was raped by 38 men in an abandoned hut, media said on Friday.

'Delete me from Google' application received 12000 requests on the first day | Cyberwarzone
Pirate Bay Co-Founder Peter Sunde Arrested in Sweden | TorrentFreak

Chris Hayes to Greenwald: You Have a Way of Making Liberals ‘Hate You’ | Mediaite (oh gee, wonder why that is?)

House approves 'media shield' amendment, as reporter reveals 2011 subpoena fight - Boing Boing - In a report on the ABC News website, where he now works, Mike Levine explains that he was subpoenaed in January 2011 about his sources for a 2009 story. Levine fought the order, and the Justice Department dropped it in April 2012.

huffpollster: Americans Want Politicians To Move On From The ACA ("politicans" = "Republicans" +to what?)

Darrell Issa Begrudgingly Says John Kerry No Longer Has To Testify On Benghazi
John Kerry: Dick Cheney 'Completely Wrong' On Foreign Policy - “They turned topsy-turvy the entire region with respect to Sunni and Shia and the relationships there," Kerry responded. "So the fact is that they have been deeply, deeply wrong in the policy that they pursued, and any advice from him really has no meaning to me with respect to what we’re doing today.”

Republicans are getting left behind, and “independents” won’t save them by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - how the electorate is slowly but surely shifting away from the GOP and conservatism in general - . Only 6 in 10 Republicans think it’s OK to have a divorce, and barely a majority think it’s OK to even have sex outside of marriage—even though the average marriage age is approaching 30 years old. ("left behind")
New Record Highs in Moral Acceptability - The American public has become more tolerant on a number of moral issues, including premarital sex, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. On a list of 19 major moral issues of the day, Americans express levels of moral acceptance that are as high or higher than in the past on 12 of them, a group that also encompasses social mores such as polygamy, having a child out of wedlock, and divorce.
What a party circling the drain looks like by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - In the meantime, polls are voters moving away from the GOP on most issues. Fox News’ ratings are tanking. And early numbers are indicating that while liberal and centrist voters aren’t excited about voting in the June primary, conservative voter enthusiasm seems to be greatly diminished as well.
Republican Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran's Long Political Past Holds Clues His Time May Be Up - In the last 70 years, Mississippi has had only five U.S. senators. That remarkable fact helps explain why Cochran decided in December, a day before his 76th birthday, to seek a seventh term in the U.S. Senate.

Prosecutor Tells Black Congressmembers The War On Drugs Isn't Racist - One of them, confronted with data about how drug laws disproportionately impact blacks, pled ignorance and refused to change his mind, saying, "I cannot argue the statistics." ("fuck you and your liberal statistics")

FBI, SEC Reportedly Probe Trading Of Carl Icahn, Billy Walters, Phil Mickelson

Was YouTube right to take down Elliot Rodger's video? | From the Observer | The Observer - Last week YouTube removed videos posted by Elliot Rodger, who killed six students in California. Was this the right course of action? To describe him as a misogynist, as some have done, is offensive to misogyny. (whut? +Obama is a murderer too)
Joni Ernst: UCSB Shooting Was An 'Unfortunate Accident' - Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst (the knives and guns went off "accidentally" - what a turdball)
Sandy Hook Shooting Denier Charged With Allegedly Stealing Memorial Signs - "It's hard to explain the 'why' because from our perspective it doesn't appear rational," DeBoard said.
Guns Don’t Kill People, Gays Kill People » Balloon Juice - Hey, did you know that gays were responsible for the UCSB shooter, a frustrated heterosexual obsessed with hetero pick up culture?

Reparations Could Be So Much More Than A Check In The Mail (getting traction?)

On the front lines of mental health: 'If you're mentally ill in America, you are shit outta luck' | Commentisfree | The Guardian - We received an incredible response to our investigation into mental health. Today we're publishing five stories about what it means to be a caregiver
How to rebuild America's mental health system, in 5 big steps | Paul S Appelbaum | Commentisfree | The Guardian - A checklist of real, tangible ideas for President Obama to kick-start an integrated healthcare system that works. We've tried it before, and it is long past time to try again. (even lower on Obama's priority list than jobs)

More Kristof - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - It seems that Nic Kristof was more than a dupe of Somaly Mam’s lies. Sounds like he was complicit to a significant degree: (will he return his Pulitzer?)
Here’s why it matters when a human rights crusader builds her advocacy on lies - Salon.com - Newsweek's cover story on Somaly Mam shows us how harmful sex-trafficking journalism can be for women

Tom Corbett Met With Jerry Sandusky Investigator Examining His Handling Of Sex Abuse Case - Gov. Tom Corbett has met with a special prosecutor investigating his handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case while he was attorney general and why it took so long to bring charges against the former Penn State assistant football coach. (oh, they deleted all the emails)

Cleveland car chase ends with two dead, 137 shots fired and six police charged | World news | theguardian.com - Six police officers charged for firing after chase ended • Suspects Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams were unarmed - The killings have been decried as a racially motivated execution – both victims were black – and are part of a wide-ranging federal investigation, including into the police department's use of deadly force and its pursuit policies.

House's Pro-Medical Marijuana Vote Shocks Even Longtime Supporters

Daily aspirin 'prevents and possibly treats cancer' - Taking a low dose of aspirin every day can prevent and possibly even treat cancer, fresh evidence suggests.

You Must Read Stanford's Response To The Snapchat CEO's 'Demeaning' Emails - Spiegel refers to women as "soroisluts" and encourages fraternity members to "have some girl put your large kappa sigma dick down her throat" as a reward for a successful weekend of partying. (another billionaire dudebrofuckhead)
A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N (with image, tweets) · jeffchu · Storify (you're not American unless you are white and Christian)

? Saint-Saens cello concerto, mov 1 (Keenan, age 8). - YouTube

New Smokable Nicotine Sticks: Can They Help Smokers Quit? | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - Jul 22, 1998 (holy shit, Onion)
Vape it to Me Gently » Balloon Juice
Gallup Poll: cold turkey 48 times smarter than Nicorette (8% "mind-over-matter")

053014
Cutting Back on Carbon - NYTimes.com
Image for WATCH: Sad Goat's Heart-Lifting Reunion With Donkey Bestie

Bush’s Anti-Terror Chief: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Can Be Tried at the Hague for War Crimes They Committed In Iraq Washington's Blog - Obama Has Also Committed War Crimes (Richard Clarke could have spoken up sooner)

Most Russian Troops Leaving Ukraine Border, Officials Report
NYC's top cop defends racist policing at Israel "security" conference | The Electronic Intifada
New book claims Israel spied on Bill Clinton | The Times of Israel - London-based Israeli author quotes alleged transcripts of calls between then-US president and Hafez Assad, at height of Israeli-Syrian peace efforts in 1999
How the UK taught Brazil's dictators interrogation techniques

British middle classes will be replaced by 'tiny elite and a huge sprawling proletariat', says Government adviser - Home News - UK - The Independent - Rising house prices will see the British middle classes disappear within 30 years (which was the plan: get the voters to drown their own children)

The Price of a Sex-Slave Rescue Fantasy - NYTimes.com
Somaly Mam: The Holy Saint (and Sinner) of Sex Trafficking
Nic Kristof: A Man Impossible to Fool - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Somaly Mam Sex Slave - Somaly Mam And The Consequences Of Bullshit - Esquire

A Strip Club in Manhattan Proves That Vice Is Hard to Kill - NYTimes.com (war on sex-workers)

Edward Snowden responds to release of e-mail by U.S. officials - The Washington Post - Today’s release is incomplete, and does not include my correspondence with the Signals Intelligence Directorate’s Office of Compliance, which believed that a classified executive order could take precedence over an act of Congress, contradicting what was just published. (another in the long series of Obama admin lies)
Why Edward Snowden Can't Go Home | TheBlot Magazine
Hullabaloo - Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times: (Snowden is My Fair Lady, or something; this passes for thought at the NYT)

IC off the Record - Complete listing of all the Snowden NSA leaks

NSA contractors use LinkedIn profiles to cash in on national security | Al Jazeera America - Employees and job seekers share surprisingly revealing spy project names in public posts on professional networking site
Top NSA officials struggled over surge in Foia requests, emails reveal | World news | theguardian.com - Snowden leaks prompted thousands of open record requests • Top agency officials discussed how to fend off Foia inquiries

New federal database would contain details on 227 million Americans — RT USA
Why two-factor authentication isn't a cure-all
Root backdoor found in surveillance gear used by law enforcement | Ars Technica - Vulnerability one of nine critical weaknesses from lawful intercept provider.
Popular Wiretapping Tool Used By Law Enforcement Includes Backdoor With Hardcoded Password | Techdirt
Securing Your Computer to Maintain Your Privacy | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Online Password Manager Review 2014 | Best Password Storage Manger | Cloud Password Manger - TopTenREVIEWS
Password managers: Time to secure yourself one | OregonLive.com
Encryption For Beginners In an Era of Total Surveillance | Privately Investigating
Security Experts Looking To Possibly Fork And Rescue TrueCrypt | Techdirt

Freeanons - Anonymous Solidarity Network

This Link Will Self Destruct

If Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Really Believes Netflix Gets Bandwidth For Free, Will He Pay Netflix's Bandwidth Bill? | Techdirt (they are very stupid and think you are too)
Home Depot Acknowledges Another Insider Breach - eSecurity Planet - A former employee accessed more than 30,000 customers' credit card information.

Twitter / rabite: At this point I think the best ... thing that could happen for the defense of the Constitution is for the entire US populace to inject DMT once.

Hackers winning says US Secret Service - SC Magazine UK

Please Help Me Interpret Michael Kinsley | Mother Jones

Khairullozhon Matanov Charged With Obstructing Boston Bombing Investigation

Eric Shinseki Resignation - The Problem Isn't The VA Or Eric Shinseki - Esquire - Irony is the rail on which Shinseki now has been ridden out of town. (1. lie country into useless, tragic war; 2. ignore estimates of true cost; 3. spend trillions of dollars and generate thousands of casualties; 4. underfund VA; 5. scandal!)

Tea Party gimmick gets exposed: Why it was always a tool of the Republicans - Salon.com - The myth that the movement was all about economic issues -- not social ones -- is finally laid bare. Here's how

Sweep Coincides With Delay on Deportation Policy Changes - NYTimes.com - On the same day that White House officials revealed that President Obama had delayed for two months making any decisions on changing his deportations policy, enforcement agents fanned out in immigrant neighborhoods in Milwaukee, detaining 21 foreigners in homes and workplaces

GooBing Detroit - "A Hurricane Without Water"

Dean Baquet Confirms He Played A Role In Jill Abramson's Ouster - In the NPR interview, Baquet dismissed the idea that Abramson's gender played a role in her ouster, but he did admit that he had complained about her. Though he had denied that he had made any direct calls for her to be fired, he did agree that his intervention with Sulzberger had changed the course of events.

House Blocks DEA From Targeting Medical Marijuana

Scott Walker is falling apart: The little corruption problem he just can’t shake - Salon.com - The embattled GOP governor wants to settle an awful legal headache. But that has his conservative base up in arms

Hullabaloo - Maybe we should focus more on who has guns than on who has drugs - It turns out that not only did the police not actually watch the Isla Vista shooter's misogynistic video rant, they didn't bother to search the database to see if he had bought guns:

Gun Researcher John Lott Relies On Falsehoods To Downplay Gun Violence Threat To Women | Blog | Media Matters for America
Deputies Knew About Santa Barara Killer's Videos During Check (but they weren't porno so they didn't look)
California Supreme Court rules for police transparency | ACLU of Southern California (guy was watering his lawn, cops said hose nozzle was a gun and killed him)
L.A. County Deputies Accused Of Forcing Inmates To Fight Like Gladiators: LAist
Cop Shoots at Teen Couple After Finding them Kissing in a Car | The Free Thought Project - The overzealous cop apparently felt that his life was in danger when he confronted the lip-locked couple. (gets paid vacation)
Toddler critically burned during SWAT raid | www.wsbtv.com
Baby Critically Burned During SWAT Raid, Stun Grenade Thrown into His Crib. | The Free Thought Project - “It landed in his playpen and exploded on his pillow right in his face” (they thought he had a gun)

Miami Gardens ‘Stop & Frisk’ Nabs Thousands of Kids, Finds 5-Year-Olds ‘Suspicious’ -- Fusion. (your local racist out of control cop ciy)

Essay by faculty members about why they will not use trigger warnings @insidehighered

Democrats: You suck. » Pharyngula - I made a donation to the Democratic party once. Little did I know that it would lead to a deluge of spam. I am now getting a dozen emails a day from dccc.org, and their latest tactic is fear. I now look at the incoming source, and if it’s the Democrats, I don’t bother to pick up

Cat People Are Smarter Than Dog People, New Study Shows
Here, Kitty, Kitty: 10 Facts for Cat Lovers | 10 Things You Didn't Know About Cats | Cat Countdown

Still Falling on Vimeo

Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere. by LeVar Burton & Reading Rainbow — Kickstarter

Gawker attacks VICE for underpaying employees, forgets to mention Gawker being sued by unpaid workers | PandoDaily
Vivi Nova

052914
Ukraine military helicopter shot down by pro-Russia rebels over Slavyansk | World news | theguardian.com - Kiev says 14 people on board killed as leader of insurgent-held city says held OSCE monitors will be released imminently
Nigeria Prepares To Treat Rape, Sexual Trauma Of Kidnapped School Girls - “What is happening to the girls is an open secret: sexual abuse.” (mass rape by Muslims)
Teen Sisters Gang-Raped, Hanged From Mango Tree In India; Cops Suspected - The family belongs to the Dalit community, also called "untouchables" and considered the lowest rung in India's age-old caste system.

Gist of Tony Blair's talks with George Bush over Iraq war to be published | UK news | theguardian.com - Agreement between the Chilcot inquiry and government to publish some secret material comes after months of deadlock
Chilcot inquiry accused of whitewash over letters between Blair and Bush | UK news | The Guardian - Sir John Chilcot and Cabinet Office agree the 'gist' of the exchanges can be made public, but not the full correspondence

Edward Snowden NBC NEWS FULL interview - YouTube (redacted and expunged)
Twitter / WikileaksTruck: Brian Williams did 4 hour ... - interview. We saw 40 minutes at most. They cut out over 80% but kept Snowden's review of the Wire. Great job @nbc
Edward Snowden: breaking law was only option, says whistleblower | World news | theguardian.com - Snowden tells NBC it was his duty to reveal sprawling NSA surveillance and going home would be 'walking into a jail cell'
NSA releases email in dispute over Snowden 'internal whistleblowing' | World news | theguardian.com - Leaker says he raised surveillance concerns internally • Agency: email 'did not raise allegations or concerns'
Edward Snowden: I Have No Relationship With Russia - "I have no relationship with the Russian government, I've never met the Russian president. I'm not supported by the Russian government. I'm not taking money from the Russian government," Snowden said. "I'm not a spy, which is the real question." He added that he didn't bring any NSA documents to Russia, and can't access them remotely. (and Obama is a liar, of course)
Edward Snowden Reflects On 9/11: 'I Take The Threat Of Terrorism Seriously' - "I was on Fort Meade on September 11. I was right outside the NSA," he told Williams. "So I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on the radio the planes hit." Snowden added that his grandfather was at the Pentagon that day.
Not Snowden but *Keith Alexander*: Hero or Traitor (the debate we should be having) | Informed Comment - The question Mr. Williams and his guests should have been discussing is whether Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former National Security Agency head Keith Alexander are criminals.

Addington's Disease (with image, tweets) · froomkin · Storify - How Cheney's counsel single-handedly got the US Government to ignore its own surveillance laws. (didn't take much)

Michael Kinsley Responds to Criticism of Greenwald Review - NYTimes.com (digging deeper holes)
The Snowden Effect: The Interview, Cont'd - Esquire - So Brian Williams neither got Edward Snowden to confess to selling Michael Hayden's hat-size to the People's Liberation Army, nor did he carry Snowden around Red Square in adulation. So everybody's opinions get to be reinforced and, I guess, Glenn Greenwald continues to be left off Michael Kinsley's Christmas card list.

Mysterious announcement from Truecrypt declares the project insecure and dead - Boing Boing - The abrupt announcement that the widely used, anonymously authored disk-encryption tool Truecrypt is insecure and will no longer be maintained shocked the crypto world, after all, this was the tool Snowden himself lectured on at a Cryptoparty in Hawai'i.

US cybercrime laws being used to target security researchers | Technology | theguardian.com - Security researchers say they have been threatened with indictment for their work investigating internet vulnerabilities (so NSA can exploit you)

US economy shrinks 1% over harsh winter | Business | theguardian.com - US economy now one quarter away from a recession, but analysts are confident that growth will bounce back on strong consumer spending


Tulsa's union pipeliners say non-union labor responsible for Keystone problems - Tulsa World: Energy - Members say a rash of bad welds are on a non-union-built segment (of course they would cheap-out on their death-funnel)
Laboratories Of Democracy Pipeline - This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy - Esquire - Every single corner that could be cut by TransCanada on this project to save a buck has been cut. You can bet your momentarily non-carcinogenic well water on that. Once they finish it, and the world's dirtiest fossil fuel starts flowing, and it starts to leak, because it is a pipeline, and pipelines leak, even the ones built by companies that don't cut every corner, then it's too damn late.

Eschaton: Matlock - Nothing against the olds, but it's actually hard to comprehend how this is even possible. The median age for Mr. O’Reilly’s audience reached a new high, 72.1. The point being...that's the median. Half are older. (every racist Republican white male geezer in the country is watching O'Lielly, who is 65))
Fox News Sees 12-Year Low In Key Demo During May - The network drew 264,000 viewers ages 25-54 during primetime — the lowest it has had in over 12 years, since August 2001. (racist geezer network losing viewers, esp under 72 yrs old)

Talking about mental health: 'So much of this is behind closed doors' | World | The Guardian - Too many mentally ill patients don't have access to a therapist – and too many obstacles, not least a chaotic insurance system, are preventing people getting the help they need
Lessons From a Day Spent With the UCSB Shooter's Awful Friends
Santa Barbara shooting was a anti-MRA gun grabbing false flag because, of course, why not?
Punk icon Exene Cervenka claims Santa Barbara shooting a ‘false flag’ government hoax - Another video promoted by Cervenka claims the University of California, Santa Barbara, shootings were staged by the same agents who staged mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary and a Georgia FedEx facility.
'When Women Refuse' Tumblr Documents The Horror Of Gender-Based Violence

Chicago man can’t sue city for torture by detectives, federal appeals court rules (your justice system at work)
State Bills Family Of Homicide Victim For Nearly $12 Million - Two years after a 33-year-old mentally disabled man died at a state institution in Queens, and one year after his sister filed a lawsuit accusing the staff of killing him, New York officials have sent her an $11.67 million bill. (because she sued)

Students at Utah school upset to discover yearbook photos were altered before publication | FOX13Now.com - News for Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo and beyond - Female students at a Utah high school want to know why their yearbook photos were altered to show less skin without them knowing about it. (they fucking photoshopped the class pics without telling the kids)

How to Build a Kinder Web for the Transgender Community | Enterprise | WIRED

Husbands shouldn't need an excuse – or science – to do the damn dishes | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - We really could do without another study just to prove to men that performing household chores is a good (or sexy) thing

Measles cases hit 20-year high in US, CDC reports | Society | theguardian.com - Doctor for the Center for Disease Control says 288 case are largely driven by unvaccinated Americans bringing the virus from abroad (thanks, Oprah)

052814
EPA Power Plant Regulations - FAQ for a Big Step on Climate Change | New Republic
The Impossibility of Growth Demands a New Economic System | Common Dreams - Why collapse and salvation are hard to distinguish from each other.

Sole reported US Mers case revealed as misdiagnosis by CDC | World news | theguardian.com - Health officials backtracked an earlier report that first case of Middle East respiratory syndrome had spread to the US
MH370: US Navy says too early to dismiss black box-type signals | World news | theguardian.com - Senior officer was 'premature' in claiming pings probably came from a search ship or pinger locator itself, says US military

Obama signals foreign policy shift but insists: 'America must always lead' | World news | theguardian.com - President promises less armed conflict and more diplomacy • Tells cadets: 'We have been through a long season of war' ("season")

Exclusive: FBI spied on Nelson Mandela during first U.S. trip | Al Jazeera America

Snowden unlikely to 'man up' in face of Espionage Act, legal adviser says | World news | theguardian.com - Responding to US secretary of state's comments, Snowden adviser Ben Wizner says 'negotiated settlement' would be necessary (you can see who's side John Kerry is on)
Edward Snowden Interview - The Snowden Effect: The Interview - Esquire - So NBC scored The Big Get, and Brian Williams got to fly all the way to Moscow for a sitdown with Edward Snowden, Interntional Man of Luggage. - In an interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC, Kerry called Snowden a "coward" and a "traitor."
Lol, these vibes! @BWilliams & Snowden on Twitpic
Prioritizing Personalities Over a Free Press | Freedom of the Press Foundation - One of the most fascinating aspects of Glenn Greenwald’s journalism is the way it provokes various people who think of themselves as journalists to reveal their actual priorities (look who has personality issues and uses personal attacks)
Hullabaloo - Sullivan vs Sullivan - Here's just a small amusing observation about the brouhaha over Margaret Sullivan's allegedly outrageous decision to criticize the sneering Michael Kinsley when people much better than her don't believe it's her place to do so. (Andrew Sullivan makes a big fool of himself, reflexively)
Eschaton: He Crashed The Party And Pissed In The Punchbowl And He's Such A Jerky Jerk - I really have never quite understood the enmity that Greenwald inspires, mostly from the "Center" to the "Left." Journalists against journalism are bizarre, as are people who think revelations about the Surveillance State are somehow direct attacks on Obama.

Intelligence, security and privacy – why we need the whistleblowers | Amnesty's global human rights blog - One of the most surprising things since Edward Snowden started his revelations nearly a year ago is that there haven’t been significant disclosures about surveillance practices elsewhere in the world.

Encryption Tool Endorsed By Snowden Abruptly Shuts Down - Forbes - On Wednesday afternoon, the official website for the TrueCrypt encryption software — which allows users to encrypt hard drives and sensitive files — was updated to say that it is no longer safe to use.
Police at the door? Hit the PANIC button to erase your RAM • The Register
County moves to require computer encryption after medical data breach - Los Angeles Times - Following a break-in at a county health contractor's office that led to the theft of computers containing personal information about more than 342,000 patients, Los Angeles County supervisors moved to tighten protocols for protecting data.
Anti-abortion rights activists 'hijack' #WomensHealth
Matt DeHart claims FBI tortured him and grilled him about Anonymous and WikiLeaks | National Post - The story so far: Matt DeHart, facing child porn charges in the U.S., is seeking asylum as a refugee in Canada. A months-long National Post investigation finds there may be some truth to the DeHart family’s claims that the charges are a cover-up
Ryan Ackroyd: 'Sabu Took Snitching to a Whole New Level'

Eschaton: The Worst Person In The World - Jeffrey Goldberg. Usually like these things to speak for themselves, but basically "my friends have a first amendment right to be paid lots of money by elite outlets to publish whatever they want, other people should be arrested for what they write."
Still I look to find a reason to believe » Balloon Juice - Jeffrey Goldberg says that if the NYT decided not to run Mike Kinsley’s sophomoric review of Greenwald’s book, that would be censorship on the same level as not running stories on Snowden’s NSA revelations.

Mitch McConnell Kentucky ACA - Twilight Of The Turtle - Esquire - The third is that, as Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican caucus of the United States Senate, he presides over a group of men representing a party that has gone utterly insane at almost every level on which it exists.

How The Congressional Black Caucus Went To War With Itself Over Wall Street

Obama Retreat From Afghanistan - Fred Hiatt's War - Esquire - The Washington Post, which is the professional haunt of Fred Hiatt, a perpetual embarrassment to the craft, who never has met a war he couldn't monger, someone else's child that he wouldn't ship into a kill zone, or an apologist for war crimes to whom he wouldn't cut a check (the WaPo neocon death machine)
Obama West Point Speech Fred Hiatt - Fred Hiatt Is Appalled With Obama For The Second Time Today - Esquire - So let us end the day where we began, with Fred Hiatt and his vampire's empire, and his promiscuous devotion to enterprises that kill people whom he and his dinner companions will never meet.

Gun Violence Killed At Least 80 People The Week Prior To Elliot Rodger's Rampage
American jails have become the new mental asylums – and you're paying the bill | Sheriff Thomas J Dart | Commentisfree | The Guardian
Seth Rogen Is Not Pleased with Washington Post Critic Ann Hornaday
Media Focuses Attention on Woman Who 'Snubbed' UCSB Shooter
How dare you treat Rodger’s murders as political? » Butterflies and Wheels
Why Elliot Rodger’s misogyny matters | we hunted the mammoth - On Twitter, meanwhile, cultural commenter Cathy Young, long sympathetic to Men’s Righsters, seems to think that Rodger’s rampage was entirely due to “mental illness” and argues that connecting Rodger’s rampage to a wider culture of misogyny is a form of “anti-male hate speech.” (The Boston Globe's favorite glibitarian columnist)
The dangerous discourse of “the friend zone”.
Joe the Plumber: The real victim of Santa Barbara shootings would be me losing my guns
TX bar ignites outrage with sign: ‘I like my beer like I like my violence: domestic’

Intersectionality isn't just a win-win; it's the only way out - Waging Nonviolence

Court upholds “First Amendment” right to film police | Ars Technica - Ruling is one of many nationwide supporting right to record police. (for the 100th time)

Philly Keeps Growing, But Our Politics Still Thinks We're in Decline | This Old City

The drink that fuelled a nation's art | Tate

Top scientists warn WHO not to stub out e-cigarettes | Reuters

052714
Governments Await Obama’s Move on Carbon to Gauge U.S. Climate Efforts - NYTimes.com
Climate Change Insurance Game - Could This Lawsuit Ignite A Solution To Climate Change? - Esquire - The Farmers Insurance Company is suing 200 cities and towns around Chicago. The lawsuit is based on the company's contention that these communities were negligent in that they failed to properly improve and maintain their infrastructure to deal with the increased rainfall and the increased severity of storms due to global climate change.

Obama To Keep 9,800 Troops In Afghanistan After 2014

BBC News Crew Temporarily Detained In Egypt

Reset the Net - "On June 5, I will take strong steps to protect my freedom from government mass surveillance. I expect the services I use to do the same."

Glenn Greenwald to publish list of U.S. citizens that NSA spied on - Washington Times - ‘Who have been the NSA’s specific targets?’ Are they political critics and dissidents and activists? (Obama hates your so-called dissent unless you're a Republican)
N.S.A. Reform Bill is a Light Version of Oversight - NYTimes.com - By pushing this ultra light version of surveillance reform, the intelligence community confirmed suspicions that it intends to continue business as usual. (Obama/NSA/Republicans traitors to America)

Edward Snowden: 'I Was Trained As A Spy' (Obama called him "a 29 year-old hacker" which was another lie)


Today In Our American Meritocracy - Lawyers, Guns & Money : If you have the right connections and the right kind of worldview, like Robert Kagan, being disastrously wrong about everything is never a bar to getting a cover story to share your thoughts about how the country can make yet more disastrous mistakes. Presumably this goes for your relatives and friends too. (New Republican thanks to that libertarian billionaire idiot)

States that refuse Medicaid are leaving over 250,000 poor veterans uninsured - Vox (Republicans de-support our troops and alot of other people)

Conservatives float alternative to Boehner - CNN.com - Some conservatives unhappy with House Speaker John Boehner's leadership are looking for a replacement, and recent moves by Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling are fueling speculation he wants Boehner's job in the next Congress.
The Slow, Quiet Death of Extended Unemployment Benefits | Mother Jones - The House failed to take up a Senate bill to extend unemployment insurance. Is there any hope left for the long-term unemployed? (Republicans just want you to die so they can give tax cuts to the 1%)
Median CEO Pay Rose To More Than $10 Million Last Year
Media CEOs Made A Ton Of Money In 2013

Summing Up the Firing of Jill Abramson : The New Yorker (it's complicated)

Todd Kincannon Christopher Martinez UCSB Killings - Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - So here's brave Todd Kincannon, chairman of the Election Commission of Simpsonville, South Carolina, stepping up in 140 characters, to defend his freedom against the onslaught of grieving parents.
South Carolina Republicans Distance Themselves From Todd Kincannon - The Daily Beast - “There are always going to be these far-right, fascist people who don’t want us to speak out about what we experienced,” said Prysner. “The fact that Kincannon was a former executive director of a state GOP shows how these extreme anti-soldier sentiments don’t just exist in the party but in the party’s leadership.”
Fox News Guest Offers Lame Apology After Suggesting Elliot Rodger Was Fighting 'Homosexual Impulses'

Jailed Woman Forced To Give Birth In Solitary Confinement, Baby Dies In Cell - A Texas woman was forced to give birth alone in her solitary jail cell, resulting in the death of her newborn baby.

Colorado's director of pot enforcement thinks legalization is going great - Vox (50 years of the war on drugs turns out to be completely unnecessary but it was never about that anyway)

Bill de Blasio Bars Media From Dozens Of Events - In nearly five months in office, de Blasio barred the media from 53 events and limited access to 30 more

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Death Row Inmates Who Have Low IQs - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a death sentence for a Florida man in a decision that found the state's method for assessing whether defendants are mentally disabled was unconstitutional.

Cliven Bundy Leaves The Republican Party - Bundy and his wife, Carol, registered with the Independent American Party during a Friday event in Las Vegas where Bundy was a featured speaker.

?Australian Apple devices hacked and held to ransom - CNET - A number of Apple users across Australia have reported having their iPhones, iPads and Macs targeted by hackers threatening to erase their data and demanding US$100 to regain access to devices.




052614
Carbon Dioxide Levels Topped 400 PPM Throughout Northern Hemisphere In April, WMO Says (Repubicans don't believe in "Carbon Dioxide")

? Verdi - Messa da Requiem - Lacrymosa Dies Illa.avi - YouTube
? Bob Marley & the Wailers - War/No More Trouble (live) - YouTube
Horlick Minton from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle on remembering wars : books
Veterans Groups Rip Into Sen. Richard Burr For Questioning Their Priorities - In their own letter, Veterans of Foreign Wars responded to Burr by calling his letter a “monumental cheap-shot” and labeling it “one of the most dishonorable and grossly inappropriate acts that we’ve witnessed in more than forty years of involvement with the veteran community.” (Republicans cut funding for VA, scream scandal, as usual)
Memorial Day Poetry and Anger Blogging | hecatedemeter - And Republicans are the worst. Republican lawmakers have been consistently refusing to fund bills to help America’s vetrans. They refused to fund a veterans’ health bill. They lectured disabled veterans who didn’t get checks during the Republican-led government shut down that, although disabled, the vets should realize that “you have to make some sacrifices.”* They love to send our young men and women off to unnecessary wars and they love to give speeches, but heaven forfend we raise taxes on the 1% to provide education, medical care, jobs, housing, or counseling for our veterans.
American War Dead, By the Numbers
A General Writes the First After-Action Report on the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Why We Lost | TIME.com - After 35 years in uniform, retired three-star says he will explain where U.S. war strategy failed

Half a million evacuated as China braces for more flooding - World - News - The Independent - 37 people have reportedly died so far as heavy rain sweeps across southern China
Nigeria's Military Knows Location Of Girls Kidnapped By Boko Haram: Defense Official
To Many Egyptians, Presidential Elections Only Mean A New Dictator - "We need a whole restructuring of the government hierarchy," he said. "El-Sissi got handed the country on a silver platter."
India Train Accident: Express Train Slams Into Parked Freight Train, Killing At Least 40
Yemen: Security Forces Kill Senior Al Qaeda Leader (again)
French far right in 'earthquake' win as Europe votes | Reuters
Burgers are more expensive than ever — blame China - Vox

White House Accidentally Blows CIA Official's Cover - The officer's name — identified as "chief of station" in Kabul — was included by U.S. embassy staff on a list of 15 senior American officials who met with President Obama during the Saturday visit

Are human rights activists today’s warmongers? - Opinion - The Boston Globe (a once not-bad newpaper)

Twitter / jonathanalter: If u missed great Kinsley review ... - of Greenwald, one of biggest jerks in journo even if partly right (by their words ye shall know them)

4 Simple Changes to Stop Online Tracking | Electronic Frontier Foundation
EPIC - EPIC Online Guide to Practical Privacy Tools

Twitter Censors Political Accounts - Business Insider
White House staff tried to 'un-ring the bell' after revealing CIA chief's identity | World news | theguardian.com - White House press office unaware it had circulated name • Washington Post journalist sounded alert after filing report

Third of Young Adults Still Live at Home - A new Pew Research survey finds that 36% of the nation's young adults ages 18 to 31--the so-called Millennial generation-- now live in their parents' home, the highest share in at least four decades.

Union workers see only part of big hourly markups at Convention Center - Philly.com
'Stunning' Data Proves, Yet Again, Housing The Homeless Would Actually Save Taxpayers Big Time - each homeless person costs taxpayers $31,065 each year. To put that into perspective, providing the chronically homeless with permanent housing and case managers to supervise them would be about $10,000 per person each year.

KOCH BROTHERS EXPOSED: 2014 EDITION [Full Film] - YouTube
Thomas Piketty: Attack On My Work Is 'Just Ridiculous'

The Manifesto of Elliot Rodger - NYTimes.com
Elliot Rodger's Family Tried To Intervene Before Rampage
Echidne Of The Snakes: The Day Of Retribution. On Elliot Rodger, the Butcher of Santa Barbara.
The Carnage In Isla Vista, Hashtag Justice and Echidne | emptywheel
When Feeling Entitled to Sex Goes More Wrong than Usual - Lawyers, Guns & Money
The Most Powerful #YesAllWomen Tweets | TIME.com
#YesAllWomen Trends On Twitter In Wake Of Isla Vista Shooting
Elliot Rodger and a note for new arrivals | thatincelblogger ("involuntary celibacy")
Yo, Is This Racist? | To You Internet Misogynists
Rap Genius' Mahbod Moghadam Resigns After Shocking Annotations On Killer's Manifesto
Memorial Day 2014 - It's Memorial Day And The Country Is At War With Itself - Esquire - This is a country at war with itself for profit.
Newseum | Today's Front Pages | Daily News | America in Denial
Michael Moore - With due respect to those who are asking... - - I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life. Everything I have to say about this, I said it 12 years ago: We are a people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who momentarily snaps. "Guns don't kill people -- Americans kill people."
Hours After UCSB Shooting, Man Allegedly Shot At Women For Refusing To Have Sex With Him | ThinkProgress
Myrtle Beach shootings tied to motorcycle rally? - CSMonitor.com - Thousands of motorcyclists gather in the Myrtle Beach, SC, area for a rally every spring. Police are investigating whether a series of fatal shootings Saturday is tied to the biker rally.
? Charlie Brooker's Newswipe 25/03/09 - YouTube
Every time there's a mass murder, this Charlie Brooker video needs to be reposted : videos

Since when does free speech require students stay quiet? - {Young}ist - This year, students are standing up against unjust commencement speakers. Haverford joins the fight. (rich elites just want you to shut up and listen to their corrupt message which they are charging you for)

Are We Ready for H.I.V.’s Sexual Revolution? - NYTimes.com - The F.D.A. has taken a drug — Truvada — that was approved for H.I.V. treatment in 2004, and approved it for prevention, a use called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. On May 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed PrEP, saying it could benefit up to 500,000 Americans.

Straight people: When did you realize you weren't gay? : AskReddit
joninco comments on Straight people: When did you realize you weren't gay?

Mitosis: Which is the Original? : askscience

? Lee & Herring - Consider The Lily Of The Field...Aah. - YouTube
Europe's New Google Rule Has Many Americans Angry And Confused - But across the Atlantic, the idea that users should be able to edit Google search results in the name of privacy is being slammed as weird and difficult to enforce at best and a crackdown on free speech at worst.

052514
Pope Francis calls Israeli-Palestinian stalemate unacceptable | World news | theguardian.com - Pope also chose to arrive in West Bank from Jordan rather than via Israel in a symbolic nod towards Palestinian statehood
Ukraine says Russia should lose 2018 World Cup over Crimea - Chicago Tribune
Armed Ukraine rebels rally outside home of richest man | Reuters
Egyptian doctor to stand trial for female genital mutilation in landmark case | Society | theguardian.com - Raslan Fadl, a doctor in a Nile delta village, is accused of killing 13-year-old schoolgirl Sohair al-Bata'a in a botched operation - "This is her destiny," said the elder Sohair. "What can we do? It's what God ordered. Nothing will help now."
Photos: Labor Protesters Disrupt Guggenheim To Shame Trustees By Name: Gothamist - he institution's ties to the dubious labor practices that affect the work force who will build their satellite museum in Abu Dhabi.
Front National wins European parliament elections in France | World news | theguardian.com - Elections return record number of MEPs opposed to EU project, with far right winning in France, Denmark and Austria

Civil Liberties Endure Nightmarish Week In Congress - Congress did a number on the basic rights that define that liberty: Guantanamo remains open, Americans are still subject to indefinite detention, our endless wars abroad still have an open-ended legal basis, the NSA will keep spying on us, and the lawyer who said U.S. citizens are legitimate drone targets was just confirmed to a lifetime federal judgeship.

New NYT editor spiked NSA spying story - Boing Boing - Baquet is the former LA Times editor who killed the biggest NSA leak pre-Edward Snowden. (the documents were too "technical" for them to understand, supposedly)
Afghanistan strongly condemns recording of phone calls by U.S. NSA - Khaama Press (KP) | Afghan News Agency - and called it an act against the national sovereignty of Afghanistan, violation of human rights and the rights of Afghan citizens.

The empire strikes back: How Brandeis foreshadowed Snowden and Greenwald - Salon.com - So-called liberals attack the whistle-blower duo -- and a brilliant Supreme Court justice saw it all coming - Once you start making special rules for the rulers and their police – for instance, the near-total impunity and thick scrim of secrecy behind which government espionage has operated for more than 60 years – you undermine the rule of law and the principles of democracy. (and Obama is the new face of evil)
The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh | Vanity Fair
Editor & Publisher ® - Bennett: Pulitzer Winners Risen, Lichtblau, Priest 'Worthy of Jail' posted: 4/18/2006
Michael Kinsley on Glenn Greenwald: He ‘cannot’ decide what secrets get published
Journalists for the suppression of journalism

The Washington Post’s ‘Fear-Driven Approach’ to NSA Files Infuriated Snowden | The Dissenter - Snowden found out through Poitras that the Post had “assembled a large team of lawyers who were making all kinds of demands and issuing all sorts of dire warnings.” Instead of quickly and aggressively getting the story out, this signaled to Snowden that the Post was going to take this “unprecedented journalistic opportunity” and allow their institution to be “driven by fear rather than conviction and determination.” - It shocked Snowden. “I’m ready to hand them this huge story at great personal risk and they won’t even get on a plane.”
Everything Is Broken — The Message — Medium (the NSA/Obama broke it)
The NSA Is Not On Your Side by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Put in the simplest terms, the NSA is not at all interested in helping us keep our communications secure. They are interested in keeping our communications as insecure as possible.

Documents show Boston's "antiterrorism" fusion center obsessively documented Occupy Boston | Privacy SOS - Homeland security terrorist threats: yoga, economic theory lectures, public concerts

U.S. may act to keep Chinese hackers out of Def Con hacker event | Reuters
Flocks of airborne camera drones will change journalism -- & spying | VentureBeat | Media | by Barry Levine

Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor - NYTimes.com (America loves slavery)

Alaska battles huge wildfire while Arizona struggles to contain blaze | World news | theguardian.com - Conflagration engulfs 110,000 acres of southern Alaska • Smoke from controlled burning over Sedona and Flagstaff

Eschaton: Ironic - Am I the only one to find it ironic that the guy who said this Iraq adventure is gonna cost way more than you think ends up in charge of a massively underfunded VA system? (Republicans hate our troops)
Now the Republicans care about veterans... - Of course, this comes after the Republicans scuttled any additional funding for the VA system by filibustering a bill that would have provided additional funding to the agency. The reason for the filibuster? “We’re not going to use some bogus gimmick to justify busting the budget.” (like those wars didn't "bust the budget")

Sorry, urban kids: Republicans are in charge here - Rep. Paul Ryan's racist dog whistle about how men in inner cities "aren't even thinking of working" and have decided to withhold food aid to children to teach those inner-city men about the value of work. Because after all, there's no better way to teach historically disadvantaged people the value of work than to starve their kids.


California killings: UK-born Elliot Rodger blamed for deaths | World news | theguardian.com
Elliot Rodger: The Pick-Up Artist community’s predictable, horrible response to a mass murder.
Strangely Blogged: Men Who Hate Women
Decimal Rating Scale | Pick Up Artist and PUA Lingo
Sheriff highlights mental-health shortcomings after California rampage | World news | theguardian.com - 'There's a general lack of resources in community treatment' • Bereaved parent blames 'craven' politicians and NRA
Eschaton: Gun Nuttery - I'm reminded of the "organized shoots" where they basically release a bunch of domesticated fowl so angry old dudes can shoot their external penises over and over again, and then sometimes shoot people in the face. Hunting for food is fine, otherwise play a damn video game like the rest of us.
Eschaton: Only Tool Left - So this is why we must mock. If you obsess about guns you are, at best, ridiculous. Time to turn "gun culture" into a joke. Trying to shame it as a death cult didn't work.
I was the NRA - The NRA has killed off the sportsman with their neglect and replaced him with the gun nut who spends more money on more guns, not out of a desire to feed his family, but to stave off a mythical jack-booted government bogeyman coming to take away those guns

The Author For People Who Think That Commencement Speeches Are a Major Contribution to American Intellectual Discourse - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Noted Deep Thinker Jonathan Safran Foer is “curating” some reading material for Chipotle packaging. He has some thoughts on the matter he wishes to share (annotated by Maria Bustillos): (very weird people +"curate")
Gove kills the mockingbird with ban on US classic novels | The Sunday Times - Three-quarters of the books on the governmentdirected GCSEs, which will be unveiled this week, are by British authors and most are pre-20th century.
The Trigger-Happy University | Blog | The Baffler - alerts have been applied to topics as diverse as sex, pregnancy, addiction, bullying,suicide, sizeism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, slut shaming, victim-blaming, alcohol, blood, insects, small holes, and animals in wigs (helicopter children need their helicopters)

Don't listen to the propagandists behind the urban gardening fad. It's all lies | Elizabeth Gunnison Dunn | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The path to growing your own food in the city is lined with heartache, wasted money and almost inedible produce

HIV can cut and paste in the human genome - "Now we can simultaneously cut out the part of the genome that is broken in sick cells, and patch the gap that arises in the genetic information which we have removed from the genome. The new aspect here is that we can bring the scissors and the patch together in the HIV particles in a fashion that no one else has done before,"
The mammoth that trampled on the history of mankind | Science | The Observer

Meet The Organizer Behind ‘Gap Does More’ Hoax | PopularResistance.Org - But what if you could force the hand of a major corporation to change its labor practices with some well-executed media-driven trickery? This week, a small online organizing group threw punches at one of America’s largest corporations in an effort to change the international labor practices of the Gap.
Dear Gap:

? Sam Hyde's 2070 Paradigm Shift - YouTube
? New Perspectives - What's Wrong with TED Talks? Benjamin Bratton at TEDxSanDiego 2013 - Re:Think - YouTube

052414

Obama to Argue for Avoiding Overreach Overseas - NYTimes.com

Twitter Agrees to Block ‘Blasphemous’ Tweets in Pakistan - NYTimes.com - described as “blasphemous” or “unethical.”
Thailand Threatens to Block Social Media
Facebook cuts off Anonymous Philippines’ page following attacks against Chinese websites
UK under fire for recruiting an 'army of children' - Home News - UK - The Independent - More than one in 10 new Army recruits are boy soldiers of just 16 years old, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Defence. And more than one in four of all new Army recruits are under 18 – too young to be sent into combat.

WikiLeaks statement on the mass recording of Afghan telephone calls by the NSA

Surveillance claims over Boston College tapes reported to Irish police | World news | theguardian.com - Wife of ex-IRA prisoner involved in recordings has asked Garda to investigate phone and email spying allegations

Congress Reluctant To Cut Funding For Tank That Just Spins Around And Self-Destructs | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - Escalating recent budgetary disputes with the White House over military spending, members of Congress signaled their hesitance Thursday to curtail funding for the M114 Armored Combat Vehicle, a midsize tank whose sole capability is spinning 360 degrees in place and then exploding. (only turns right)

A Response to Michael Kinsley - The Intercept - Far more notable was Kinsley’s suggestion that it was journalists themselves–not Bush–who might be the actual criminals, due both to their refusal to reveal their sources when ordered to do so and their willingness to publish information without the permission of the government: This is the person whom Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, chose to review my book, No Place to Hide, about the NSA reporting we’ve done and the leaks of Edward Snowden: someone who has expressly suggested that journalists should be treated as criminals for publishing information the government does not want published.
Greenwald’s haters, exposed: The real reason Michael Kinsley hates him - Salon.com - In his New York Times attack, the former "Crossfire" star reveals some of the elite media's deepest insecurities
Should Journalists Do Journalism? A Debate - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Michael Kinsley, having long since lost his fastball, has become above all become committed to complacency. His pose is not exactly that he’s the only one to tell the truth: that everything is just fine. It’s more that we might reluctantly admit that injustices exist, but we shouldn’t do anything about them, particularly if this might mean conflict with our rightful overlords. (LGM commenters are still morans)
Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide, reviewed. - Poitras was the one who realized Snowden was for real, and Gellman brought experience to the party. But Greenwald is the fighter—the one you want in your corner when the world comes after you. Snowden knew what he was in for, and he chose his cornerman well. Beginning with the Times, in a profile that appeared soon after the first Snowden-driven stories, reporters and columnists labeled Greenwald a “blogger,” a “polemicist,” or an “activist” to more easily dismiss him.
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald – review | Books | The Guardian - Greenwald's often gripping account of his central involvement in the Snowden revelations also raises big political questions
The errors of Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald - The NSA disclosures are disturbing but they don’t portend a totalitarian state (Packer and Kinsley both supported Iraq war; should just shut up)
This Is Not a Binary Argument by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Elias Isquith is correct that the fundamental distinction between Glenn Greenwald and his critics is based on how each, respectively, views the current state of the American government.
'Journalist' Argues In NY Times That Publishing Decisions Should Ultimately Be Made By Government | Freedom of the Press Foundation
Twitter / DanielEllsberg: I wonder how many years Michael ... - Kinsley now thinks I should have spent in prison for revealing the Pentagon Papers? https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/05/j
Eschaton: Journalists Against Journalism - Watching our relevancy fade sucks, but this is the equivalent of Kinsley waiting in his darkened garage with a gun. Gotta take those kids out.

Only 1% of Snowden files published - Guardian editor - Mr Rusbridger told the committee: "There's stuff in there about Iraq, Afghanistan, we're not even going to look at it. That's not what Edward Snowden was doing when he wanted responsible journalists to go through this material. (o rly)

NIST doesn't have to confer with the NSA about encryption standards anymore. (oh, big improvement)
NSA, GCHQ spying on humanitarian groups like UNICEF, Medecins du Monde. (all terrorists in Obama's eyes)
Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft push back on surveillance gag orders — RT USA

Government Surveillance of the Occupy Protests - NYTimes.com - The following documents, distributed by people working with counterterrorism and intelligence-sharing offices known as “fusion centers,” are a selection from among about 4,000 pages of unclassified emails and reports obtained through freedom of information requests by lawyers at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, who represent Occupy participants. (Obama hates your so-called "protests")

Barrett Brown’s Court Documents Unsealed: The Implications of the Gag Order | Ben Swann Truth In Media - Brown has been behind bars since his arrest September 12, 2012 and held under gag-order for the last 8 months. His arrest, and the gag-order that successfully kept his case out of the media spotlight, has some worrying implications for journalists and free citizens everywhere. (Obama hates civil rights)
Matt DeHart claims he’s wanted for working with Anonymous | National Post - Matt DeHart, a former U.S. soldier seeking asylum in Canada, claims he’s wanted for working with Anonymous. The U.S. says he may be a spy — and more
Government Seeks Seven-Month Sentence for LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’ | Threat Level | WIRED - As a reward for his extensive cooperation helping prosecutors hunt down his fellow hackers, the government is seeking time served for the long-awaited sentencing of top LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, also known as “Sabu.”
RATS! Your guide to protecting yourself against snitches, informers, informants, agents provocateurs, narcs, finks, and similar vermin

Financial Times on Piketty: His data is wrong. (elites grasping at small straws)
FT: Piketty data "undercut by a series of problems and errors" - Vox - Except that in most cases — with the exception of the United Kingdom — the actual disagreement doesn't seem very large.
Is Piketty All Wrong? - NYTimes.com
Science/AAAS | Special Issue: The Science of Inequality
13 data milestones for 2013 | Pew Research Center - 636% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation— now live in their parents’ home, the highest share in at least four decades (yeah, no inequality here)

The 'Case for Reparations' is solid, and it's long past time to make them | Errin Haines Whack | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Ta-Nehisi Coates's piece reveals the conversation that Americans need to start about our history of racial oppression - "250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate but equal and 35 years of state-sanctioned redlining".
Madison County judge accused of racial abuse - In an echo of Mississippi's past, a Justice Court judge here is accused of striking a mentally challenged young man and yelling, "Run, n-----, run." - She said Weisenberger "seemed to be suffering from an authoritative complex and was making sure that everyone knew that."

Seven dead including gunman in 'mass murder' California shooting | World news | theguardian.com - Seven injured, one life-threateningly, in Friday night incident • University: 'several students taken to local hospitals'
Twitter / caulkthewagon: Here's the Elliot Rodger ... - manifesto. He is a spoiled, entitled piece of shit. http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/225960813 … (an MRA, apparently)
Three Bodies Found in Apartment of Suspected UCSB Shooter
crazydave333 comments on He's magnificent but no girl will ever give him a chance - [6:21] (prescient)
Elliot Rodger, Gunman in California Mass Shooting, was influenced by the "Men's Rights Movement" He is what the Men's Rights movement calls an "Incel" which is short for involuntary celibacy. It's a hot topic in various parts of the manosphere.
The perfect guy, the supreme gentleman » Pharyngula - even people were murdered and another seven wounded in a drive-by in Santa Barbara by a deeply disturbed MRA/PUA. He considered himself a frustrated Alpha Male who was owed sex by women, and when he couldn’t get it, he decided to punish random women.
Father of UCSB Shooting Victim: "When Will This Insanity Stop?"
How the NRA Enables Massacres - The Daily Beast
WTF: There Have Been Two Gang Rapes at UC Santa Barbara in Two Months
Anger causes violence: Treat it rather than mental illness to stop mass murder.
Twitter / Search - #YesAllWomen
A Guide to Mass Shootings in America | Mother Jones - There have been at least 70 in the last three decades—and most of the killers got their guns legally.
Gun Nut Group Backs Down [Updated] » Balloon Juice - But rather than giving in to despair, we should celebrate every small victory against the ammosexuals, even if it only occurs because they make such asses of themselves in public that they are forced to change tactics to avoid continued backlash ("ammosexuals" + "muzzlestrokers")
Will We Learn Anything From Today's Missouri Death Penalty Circus? - Clayton Lockett's botched execution in April may have left a sour aftertaste about the increasingly shady business of executing criminals in America, but it's not clear that it has changed any part of the process. (large parts of America love torture and killing)
It’s Almost As If It’s a Metaphor for the Entire GOP » Balloon Juice - “But they’re going backwards,” Ms. Denno said of Tennessee. “They’re going back to using a method of execution that was basically rejected because it was so problematic. That’s never happened before.”

Exploring the Origins of the Legend of Joe Biden

What White Privilege Looks Like When You’re Poor | The Nation - “Sounds innocuous enough," writes MSNBC’s Ned Resnikoff, “except the $27 million program was actually the committee’s substitute for a White House proposal which would have allocated $30 million to child hunger across urban and rural areas.” (Republicans are awful)
Why Rob Ford Still Has A Job And Jill Abramson Doesn't
The leaked New York Times innovation report is one of the key documents of this media age » Nieman Journalism Lab - It’s an astonishing look inside the cultural change still needed in the shift to digital — even in one of the world’s greatest newsrooms. Read it.

What non-fiction book changed not only the way you see the world, but drastically changed your behavior and attitude? : books
What free things on the internet should everyone be taking advantage of? : AskReddit

Cops Arrest Several UES Grandmas For Protesting Tree Removal : Gothamist - A group of Upper East Side grandmothers was arrested today for protesting the clearing of eight 30-year-old pear trees to make way for a much-contested garbage clearing station.

Officer who forced dozens of anal cavity searches for fun gets only 2 years in prison | The Free Thought Project - which some feel amounts to little more than a slap on the wrists for those involved. (serial rapist cops mostly walk because cops)

You can't cut open pregnant women because you disagree with their choices | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The same thinking behind 'personhood' arguments is being used to force pregnant women to have surgery against their will (they should get the shit sued out of them)

Steubenville Schools Chief Accused Of Destroying Evidence In Rape Investigation - wiped computer hard drives, erased emails and lied to investigators about his knowledge of the allegations against the boys, newly released court documents say.

As Publishers Fight Amazon, Books Vanish - NYTimes.com - Seeking ever-higher payments from publishers to bolster its anemic bottom line, Amazon is holding books and authors hostage on two continents by delaying shipments and raising prices. The literary community is fearful and outraged — and practically begging for government intervention. (anti-trust is over)

If I shine a flashlight at Mars, does a small amount of the light actually reach it? : askscience
Binary Supermassive Black Hole System Discovered | Astronomy | Sci-News.com - Two supermassive black holes are the smoking gun that the galaxy has merged with another. Thus, finding binary supermassive black holes can tell astronomers about how galaxies evolved into their present-day shapes and sizes.

052314
House Directs Pentagon To Ignore Climate Change (just ignore that national security issue)
Meet The Only Republican Senate Candidate Who Touts His Belief In Global Warming - But Rubens, who is running against former Sen. Scott Brown in the GOP primary in New Hampshire, does hold a remarkable distinction that could –- perhaps, should -– make him a more familiar name. Of the 107 Republicans currently running for Senate as of this week, he is the only one whose website declares that global warming exists and is caused by human activity.

In Ukraine, Chaos Follows Self-Declared Independence - The Donetsk People's Republic is starting to smell.


Jonathan Karl's Latest Benghazi Scoop Was Reported By His Network In 2012 | Blog | Media Matters for America

Government Surveillance Occupy Protests - The Snowden Effect: This Is Not America - Esquire - The least appreciated damage done by the reckless expansion of the surveillance state is how the idea of surveillance gets normalized in the public mind. (For expert analysis of this phenomenon, one might consult anyone who lived in East Germany from 1945 to about 1990.)
Hullabaloo - Michael Kinsley once again takes the plebes to task for failing to understand that they don't matter. (Kinsley is not happy with No Place To Hide, says we should trust the government)

'A Government Of Thugs': How Canada Treats Environmental Journalists | ThinkProgress (big oil runs the country)

Deep Thoughts, By Condi Rice - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - At least in my window of social media, there remain a lot of people who seem to be very confused about the protests of commencement speeches. In the pundit class, Matt Bai is the latest to fail to understand the basic issues:
Of C.L.R. James: Dad Rule: The Hatred of Students - In a world where dads and the dad-like wring their hands over those sillybilly millenials, apathetic spoiled and self-absorbed, somehow students' attempt to recode the parameters of public spectacle has been troped as an exercise in narcissism

Welfare Wasn’t Welfare Back In My Day » Balloon Juice - Ben Carson, who was raised by a single mom and whose biography is full of heartwarming stories detailing how government assistance made his current position in life possible, spouted off on the View yesterday about the evils of welfare. Here’s his tissue-thin rationalization:

Costco Employees Happier With Pay Than Many In Silicon Valley

Detroit Motorists Under Siege In 'Carjack City' - GPS systems and advanced locks now prevent many vehicles from being driven without a key in the ignition. That makes it difficult or impossible for thieves to steal parked cars, leading them to target vehicles that are occupied

Sterling tape was unleashed as friendship with Stiviano frayed - Los Angeles Times

052214
CNN's Carol Costello: 'Climate Change Is Real,' Stop Debating It - But one of those "people" is Costello's own network, CNN. The network has been criticized for its coverage of global warming, giving split air time to both sides of the debate.

The Case for Reparations - The Atlantic - Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. Ta-Nehisi Coates

Thailand army chief confirms military coup and suspends constitution | World news | theguardian.com - General Prayuth Chan-ocha announces takeover of country, claiming deadlock in talks to end six months of political turmoil

Religion And The Military - The War Being Waged On Religious Freedom In The Military - Esquire - We are witnessing a sickening trend. There are religious groups actively seeking to "convert" people in the US military, and they are making a full-court press, especially in the US Air Force.

Pentagon report: scope of intelligence compromised by Snowden 'staggering' | World news | The Guardian - Classified assessment describes impact of leaks as 'grave' • Report does not include specific detail to support conclusions • 12 of 39 heavily redacted pages released after Foia request ("There is a certain irony in the mass dissemination of a top secret report on the mass dissemination of top secret information.")

Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden And Laura Poitras Reunite For A Selfie In Moscow

NSA surveillance reform bill passes House by 303 votes to 121 | World news | theguardian.com - Privacy advocates believe the USA Freedom Act represents watered-down version of original proposals

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted role in Boston bombing, say prosecutors | World news | theguardian.com - Suspect was interrogated in hospital without lawyer • Defence says statements should be ruled out
Evidence Suggested Tsarnaev Brothers Did Not Act Alone - Massachusetts news - Boston.com

The VA - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I for one look forward to the imminent Republican proposal to triple funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs in response to the stories of poor care for veterans. We all know the very great commitment Republicans have for our veterans. All you have to do is ask them. Don’t look at funding levels passed by a Republican Congress or what happened during the Bush Administration though. It’s a lot easier if you just notice their American flag lapel pins.
The GOP and veterans: It’s complicated - In February, Senate Republicans actively thwarted the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014. The $21 billion legislation was supposed to improve health, education and other benefits for veterans.

The big Benghazi dance - To quote Macbeth, it will be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Why “Repealing Obamacare” Is So Important a Mantra to Conservatives

Jill Abramson Speaks Out About New York Times Firing, Says She Won't Remove Times Tattoo
Here's How The Way We Read Newspapers Has Changed

McDonald's CEO insists fast-food giant pays 'fair wages' as protesters rally | Business | The Guardian - Demonstrators stage second day of protest as chief executive Don Thompson sees off shareholder vote on $9.5m pay package

How gay marriage advocates learned to love the courts - The Week - Ten years ago, people said fighting for equality in the courts was a bad idea. Boy, were they wrong - This week is the 10th anniversary of the landmark decision Goodridge v. Massachusetts, which made the Bay State the first in the country to legally recognize same-sex marriages

Why All Screen Time Isn’t Created Equally by Liz Willen | College Guide | The Washington Monthly

House GOP Wants School Lunch Program To Feed Only 'Rural' Kids (white.Christian.rural.kids)




052114
Vast global warming conspiracy exposed: Column - Can you imagine Big Solar manipulating the world? Denialists can.
April Ties For Hottest Ever On Record For The Globe

'Boko Haram' militants kill 48 villagers in attacks in north-east Nigeria | World news | theguardian.com - Survivors of Islamists' attack see huts set ablaze as rescuers in Jos search rubble for people buried by car bombs that killed 118

US forced to acknowledge secret tapes of Guantánamo force-feedings | World news | theguardian.com - Judge says Abu Wa'el Dhiab's lawyers can view secret footage • 'Pretend it's 1955 – that's where the technology is' – lawyer (of course it is)

As Feared: House Guts USA Freedom Act, Every Civil Liberties Organization Pulls Their Support | Techdirt - from the tragic dept (but predictable since it's what Obama wanted)
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Einstein could have predicted ... - this fiasco with a watered down #USAFreedomAct. http://bit.ly/1hB0Byo y'all. (Obama's thinking is so inside the box)

Should U.S. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them? - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic - Maybe someday we'll patch vulnerabilities faster than the enemy can use them in an attack, but we're not there yet.

DOJ to disclose memo justifying drone strikes on Americans, easing Senate vote on author | Fox News

'Insane' DOJ Anti-Recording Policy Has Finally Been Reversed - In a major shift, the Justice Department has done away with a longstanding policy that forbade federal agents from recording statements made by criminal suspects in their custody. The policy gave the Justice Department a massive advantage over criminal defendants, ensuring that the use of coercive tactics or ignored requests for an attorney during an interrogation, for example, would not be preserved for the record.

Inside the CIA's Sordid Role in Creating a Global Health Emergency | Alternet - The intelligence agency has promised to stop using vaccination campaigns as a front for conducting covert operations. But the damage is done. (the cost of Obama's photo-op)

Net Neutrality Fans Aren't Going To Like This Report - Many large tech companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook -- have quietly brokered deals with Internet providers to ensure their content is not slowed as it travels through their networks, according to a blog post published Wednesday by telecom analyst Dan Rayburn.

Obama: 'I Will Not Stand For' Misconduct At Veterans Affairs Hospitals

Extraordinary Elite Delusions and the Madness of Commissions - NYTimes.com - And faced with this disastrous current reality, our bipartisan wise men decided that the crucial challenge was … cutting entitlements. (David Brooks is an idiot)
No, David Brooks, we don’t need less democracy

Eschaton: Simple Answers To Simple Questions - Joe Nocera: Why is it that the fear of moral hazard only applies to homeowners, and not to the banks? Because Tim Geithner will be set for life. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

Elizabeth Warren To Appear With Economist Thomas Piketty - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will appear at an event later this month in Boston with French economist Thomas Piketty, bringing together the authors of two books on economic inequality that have both vaulted to the top of the Amazon and New York Times best-seller lists.

Hullabaloo - NPR puts America to shame with report on court fees and poor defendants

100 arrested near McDonald's headquarters in protest over low pay | Business | theguardian.com - Groups calling for wages to be increased to at least $15 per hour say company closed headquarters fearing 'PR minefield'
Fearing the Poor - Lawyers, Guns & Money : For controlling the world, today’s plutocrats sure do scare easily:
Chicken Littles of the Right | Jacobin - If the Right wants to cry about class warfare, we should give them something to cry about.

Great Moments in Smarmy Conservertarian Idiocy - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I assume that you were already planning on ignoring the new book-like product by Freakonomics Industries LLC. But, just in case, Michael Hiltzik presents this classic moment of self-refutation (or, more precisely, conclusively rebutted by Ken Arrow decades ago). Rarely has being more self-impressed with one’s intellect been less justified:
Proof those 'Freakonomics' guys don't know much about healthcare - Los Angeles Times (they really think like that, and get paid for it)

Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine | Video | The Onion - America's Finest News Source ("compassionate execution")

California kidnap victim rescued after 10 years | World news | The Guardian
Man Who Drugged His Wife And Raped Her While Sleeping Gets No Jail Time | ThinkProgress
Clerk Calls 911 After Mother's Desperate Plea For Help - Dean says he recognized the man in the car, although he didn't know his name. The woman's boyfriend is Mark Francis Valucas, a 4-foot-3 dwarf. The 36-year-old man has a history of violence and is a registered sex offender.

Why women are hooked on violent crime fiction | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett | Comment is free | The Guardian - Reading about grisly sex murders and mutilation is a safe way to explore the threats we sense in the world around us
National Review Writer's Horrendous Rape Column Sparks Backlash - On Monday, writer A.J. Delgado attributed the rising number of rapes reported on college campuses to more women simply "crying rape."
National Review cries "crying rape": A.J. Delgado engages in victim blaming and denial in her latest.

Blacksheep214 comments on I (27M) just found pics of her (27F) cheating
Reddit, can you blow my mind in one sentence? : AskReddit


052014
History Under Water: Climate Change Imperils Historic, Cultural Sites
Germany got 74% of its electrical power from Renewable Sources the other day
Antarctica loses 159 gigatonnes ice each year, show Satellite images | The Indian Express

Fukushima Workers Fled Plant After Accident Despite Orders - NYTimes.com - hundreds of panicked employees abandoned the damaged plant despite being ordered to remain on hand for last-ditch efforts to regain control of its runaway reactors

"If Gezi never happened, the anger at mass murder at Soma could not have burst forth from the people"
Nigeria bombings leave over a hundred dead in city of Jos | World news | theguardian.com - No immediate claim of responsibility for twin city centre blasts, which bear hallmarks of Boko Haram

China reacts furiously to US cyber-espionage charges | World news | theguardian.com - Beijing calls indictment of five Chinese officials preposterous, accuses US of double standards and summons ambassador (the no moral authority problem)

Court: No Matter How Long Ago It Happened, CIA Can Keep Final Volume of Bay of Pigs History Secret | The Dissenter (they are committed to never telling the truth)

? Glenn Greenwald: No Place to Hide - Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State - YouTube - Published on May 19, 2014 Harvard Book Store welcomed political commentators Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky

A Media Shield Law That Wouldn't Protect Glenn Greenwald Is Not A Media Shield Law; It's A Joke | Techdirt (Chuckie Schumer's replacement for the 1st Amendment)

Statement: OTI Withdraws Support for USA FREEDOM Act After House Leaders and Obama Administration Water Down Its Surveillance Reforms | NewAmerica.org
Restrictions placed on NSA's data store after intense talks over surveillance bill | World news | theguardian.com - USA Freedom Act heads to the House with government required to 'promptly' purge phone records that do not contain 'foreign intelligence information' - But after the finalized bill was released on Tuesday, the USA Freedom Act lost the support of the Open Technology Institute, which had strenuously advocated in its favor since its October introduction in the House.

Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit | Comment is free | theguardian.com - For the first time, the founder of an encrypted email startup that was supposed to insure privacy for all reveals how the FBI and the US legal system made sure we don't have the right to much privacy in the first place

Video: "A Personal Hit on Me" | Watch FRONTLINE Online | PBS Video - When Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani of "The Washington Post" discovered that the NSA was piggybacking on one of Google's tracking cookies, the company wasn't happy. FRONTLINE's "United States of Secrets: Privacy Lost"
How the NSA is Transforming Law Enforcement | Electronic Frontier Foundation (NSA compromised large proportion of the economy)

weev: An open letter to members of the New Jersey District Court, FBI, and DOJ, consisting of an invoice.

'Terrorists' like Abu Hamza will never get real justice until the real 9/11 trial | Karen Greenberg | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Report: secret drone memo to be disclosed by Obama administration | World news | theguardian.com - Justice Department reportedly to allow release of partially redacted memo outlining legal justification for targeting US citizens abroad

Economic Recovery Yields Few Benefits for the Voters Democrats Rely On - NYTimes.com (Obama's priorities)

Pennsylvania's gay marriage ban struck down by federal judge | World news | theguardian.com - Judge John Jones overturns law, saying 'all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage' The ruling is the 14th consecutive legal win for gay marriage advocates since the US supreme court's Windsor decision in June 2013



Georgia Republicans race to the right in crowded Senate primary election | World news | theguardian.com - Candidates include Sarah Palin-backed Karen Handel

Echidne Of The Snakes: Operation American Spring. Millions and Millions. Or Hundreds? - The “second American revolution” got off to a slow start in Washington, DC on Friday, falling roughly 9,999,950 people short of their goal of 10 million angry, constitution-weilding participants.

Mayor Tells Bullying Victims To 'Grow A Pair & Stick Up For Them Damn Selves' - "It is hard to stand up and 'grow a pair' when you're maybe a 10-year-old little girl," city councilwoman Virginia Gurrola, a supporter of the safe zone effort, countered.

Texas man facing possible life sentence for pot brownies | KHON2 - “They’ve weighed baked goods in this case. It ought to be a misdemeanor,” Holmes said.

Girls testify in molestation, sodomy trial of former Cave Spring police officer - Rome News-Tribune: Local - “He asked me if I … if I would give him oral sex. He told me that if I didn’t he would take my mom to jail. (cops, America's internalized terrorists)


051914
Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers - NYTimes.com (Inhofe thinks they are all commies)
Hotter climate could turn sea turtles all-girl (Limbaugh's dick will fall off)
States are fighting new science curriculum teaching climate change and evolution | The Verge - whether the new standards might be used to "inculcate" young students with "a fairly-one sided view as to that controversial subject [climate change], a subject that is very much in dispute even among even the academics."
Aussies To Slash 90% Of Global Warming Funding From Budget | The Daily Caller - the move by conservative Liberal Party Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s governing coalition to slash funding for climate programs
? Volcano Eruption Mount St. Helens May 18, 1980 USGS - YouTube

Thailand's army declares martial law after six months of political unrest | World news | theguardian.com - Military claims it is not part of a coup, coming one day after the caretaker prime minister refused to stand down
South Korea's President Vows To Disband Coast Guard In Wake Of Ferry Disaster - and root out corruption and collusion between regulators and shipping companies that furious citizens believe led to a ferry disaster last month that left more than 300 people dead or missing.

White House lawyers ‘unable to find’ critical Iraq letter from Tony Blair telling George Bush: ‘I’m with you whatever’ - Home News - UK - The Independent (sorry, must have fallen off the desk)

Edward Snowden is now a comic book star | The Verge - NSA whistleblower's story told in upcoming graphic novel

Glenn Greenwald: NSA Spies On Government Critics More Than Real Terrorists - YouTube
Glenn Greenwald Meet The Press. Greenwald: Traitor Label Badge of Honor. Extended Interview - YouTube (they went to great lengths to prevent the further destruction of David Gregory's credibility)
NSA targets embassies in black bag operations | Intrepid Report.com - a program codenamed ASPHALT, or simply, “Collect-It-All.”
We need to know why DHS is an NSA intelligence "customer", and what that means | Privacy SOS (let alone agriculture)
NSA to test legal limits on surveillance if USA Freedom Act becomes law | World news | theguardian.com - Aides and lawyers contend over terms of surveillance bill • Authors of first realistic reform seek to avoid loopholes
Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas - The Intercept
May 19, 2014 - RT News - (Remote Access Trojan) malware called “Blackshades.”
FBI’s Huge Hacker Bust Could Be Bogus - The Daily Beast - Dozens have been arrested in a king-sized global hacker crackdown. But it’s unclear whether the charges against these supposed cyber criminals will actually stick. (possession of malware a crime)
‘NSA-Proof’ Email Service ‘ProtonMail’ by Harvard and MIT Students becomes massive success | Hack Read

US charges Chinese military officials with stealing data as tensions escalate | Technology | theguardian.com
#ShotsFired in U.S.-China Cyberwar - The Daily Beast - The Justice Department’s indictment of Chinese military officers for cyber espionage Monday was billed as a law enforcement matter, but the high-profile rollout shows the Obama administration wanted to admonish China publicly.

Read The Secret Trade Memo Calling For More Fracking and Offshore Drilling - Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal (what is with Obama and all these secret treaties?)

Springtime for Bankers - NYTimes.com - Now Timothy Geithner, who was Treasury secretary for four of those six years, has published a book, “Stress Test,” about his experiences. And basically, he thinks he did a heckuva job. (i.e., a collosal fuckup along with the rest of the Obama advisor gang)

Occupy Wall Street Protester Cecily McMillan Sentenced To Three Months In Jail - three months in jail and five years of probation for elbowing a police officer while he was clearing out a protest in Zuccotti Park. Judge Ronald Zweibel's decision (no limits to their awful behavior)
Cecily McMillan didn't get off easy. Her case is a threat to the future of protest | Allison Kilkenny | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Three months in jail might seem like a light sentence. But the Occupy movement was suppressed by the heavy hand of police brutality – and a legal system that discouraged and ultimately dissolved dissent

Today In Dianne Feinstein Is Terrible - Lawyers, Guns & Money (did you know she supported the flag-burning amendment?)

Supreme Court to Hear Case Involving Whether Government Employees Can Go to Press & Blow the Whistle | The Dissenter (Obama taking the whistle out)

Michelle Nunn Obamacare - The Problems With Michelle Nunn - Esquire - And yet here's Michelle Nunn, already pitching to be awarded the Blanche Lincoln Memorial Empty Suit Of Centrism before she's even elected. How is this supposed to help anything? ("look back retrospectively")
Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire (vote for stupider)

Slicing the Times with Occam's Razor - , a lot of this seems to come down to the person of Arthur Sulzberger, who is after all the owner of the paper. (Of course, it comes down to him.) And his leadership of the Times - admittedly during one of the most challenging periods in decades - has already struck me (and many others who know vastly more than me) as weak and uncertain.
Ira Glass Couldn't Care Less Who Edits The New York Times

All Money to the Top - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Why, it’s almost like university administrators advance their careers on undermining tenure-track faculty, expanding administrative spending, and forcing their students into debt while acquiring outsized salaries for themselves! In other words, for everyone who says we need to run higher education like a corporation, that’s exactly what’s happening.

City of Aurora, Police Sued for ‘More-Than-Two-Hour Mass Roundup’ of Innocent People in Search for Bank Robber | The Dissenter (cop state America)
Florida Deputies Seize Phone from Man after he Records them Beating Suspect into Coma | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC

Sadly, No! » Oh Hai Fish, How’s Your Barrel? - “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung. (check your idiocy +Princeton)

What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs? - CityLab

I Have Seen the Future, and It's 'Wisdom Journalism' - A new book argues it's no longer enough for journalists simply to transmit information. (can someone under 30, like Klein and Yglesias, really be "wise")

Forget BMI. This Number May Matter More When It Comes To Your Health - A Body Shape Index (ABSI), which takes into account weight, height and waist circumference.

Haverford Commencement Speaker: Letter a 'Violent, Verbal Attack' | News | Philadelphia Magazine - Robert J. Birgeneau responded tersely to students and faculty at Haverford college who were concerned with his presence at commencement. (oh, his fee-fees were hurt; you can see how insulated these jerks are)


051814
Global warming: it's a point of no return in West Antarctica. What happens next? | Eric Rignot | Comment is free | The Observer - Last week saw a 'holy shit' moment in climate change science. A landmark report revealed that the collapse of a large part of Antarctica is now unstoppable (tie Rubio and Limbaugh and KochBros to an iceberg)
Global warming: it's a point of no return in West Antarctica. What happens next? By Eric Rignot, lead author of last week's landmark scientific paper on West Antartica : science - It could potentially wipe out the entire ocean Eco system as we know it, save for jelly fish. Then the ocean will just be over run by jellyfish.
California governor links wildfire increase to climate change | World news | theguardian.com - Jerry Brown predicts 'worst' wildfire season ever • Last evacuees home after San Diego County fires
Self Destruction, We’re Headed For Self Destruction by Chad Stanton | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Way back in 1980’s when people were convinced that the biggest peril facing the United States other than communism was urban violence there was something of a cottage industry surrounding the examination of the culture and pathologies that lead to such “counterproductive” behavior (if the climate were African-American it would be a different story)
The biggest coming economic showdown you haven’t heard of by David Atkins | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change. (start with a tax on Republicans)
GOP Senator Attacks Retired Military Brass for Saying Climate Change Threatens Security | Alternet - 16 generals and admirals warn that “we no longer have the option to wait” and plead for a “bipartisan call to action.” (tie big-oil Inhofe (R, Stupid) to an iceberg)

Iran is at breaking point under US sanctions – and its leaders feel the heat | World news | The Guardian - Despite talk of a defiant 'resistance economy', the consequences may be dire if a nuclear deal with the west does not come soon ("West" = Israel)
Gunmen storm Libyan parliament amid anti-government uprising | World news | The Guardian - Militia allied to renegade general Khalifa Hiftar hit the building with anti-aircraft guns and rockets, causing MPs to flee
Sweden passes law that will prosecute people for criticizing immigration | EUTimes.net - A new law will come into effect in Sweden after Christmas 2014, that will allow people to be prosecuted for criticizing immigration or politician’s unwillingness to tackle the issue. (sounding like Turkey and Egypt)

How telecoms and cable have dominated net neutrality lobbying - Sunlight Foundation Blog
w 30-Day Status Update On LibreSSL - Slashdot - Bob is claiming that the Maryland-incorporated OpenSSL Foundation is nothing but a for-profit front for FIPS consulting gigs, and that nobody at OpenSSL is actually interested in maintaining OpenSSL,

Daily Kos :: Comments: Glenn Greenwald's blind spot on racism and sexism (Armando's blind spot on being completely wrong, even when told multiple times; GG in comments)

ut whether CSC also will be excluded from sensitive federal contracts is open to question. In Jan (thud)
US Attorney Mulls High Court Bid In AT&T Data Breach Case http://www.law360.c - Pastebin.com - New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman on Friday said he’s considering a U.S. Supreme Court appeal following a Third Circuit ruling vacating the conviction of a hacker who allegedly accessed AT&T servers and stole more than 114,000 Apple iPad users’ email addresses. (sub-human slimeball)

The Commencement Bigots - NYTimes.com - The foreign policy that Rice guided for George W. Bush — two wars on the credit card, making torture a word associated with the United States — was clearly a debacle. Contemporary assessments were not kind, and history will be brutal. (despite Obama "not looking back" because he didn't want to "distract" from his "agenda")

Dianne Feinstein Calls Benghazi Committee 'A Hunting Mission For A Lynch Mob'

Republicans keep focus on Hillary Clinton health after Rove comments | World news | theguardian.com - RNC head Reince Priebus said health and age are 'going to come up' if former secretary of state runs for president in 2016 (one word: Reagan)
Juan Williams Tears Into Karl Rove For Defending Claims About Hillary's Health (VIDEO) - “Karl, doesn’t this remind everybody that you in your past as a very effective political operative have gone after people — the swift-boating of John Kerry..." Williams said.

Arizona GOP Candidate Says Democrats Are Behind Most Mass Shootings - A Republican businessman running for Arizona's 1st Congressional District says most mass shootings in the U.S. are committed by Democrats.

Tim Geithner, unreliable narrator — Medium - You can’t trust what you read in his book

Haverford College commencement speaker lambastes students - At Haverford, the controversy arose over Birgeneau's leadership during a 2011 incident in which UC Berkeley police used force on students protesting college costs. (rich white guy rants at captive audience because there should Never be any consequences for bad rich behavior)
Protesters Demand Answers After Rich Man Avoids Any Jail Time For 7th DUI Conviction | ThinkProgress - in his Ferrari ... Police arrested Goodman, whose blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit in Washington. He pleaded guilty to felony charges of eluding a police officer and driving under the influence, his seventh DUI conviction. And last week, Judge James Dixon handed down his sentence: no jail time and one year in a work release program. (oh, rich white guy with no consequences; nice justice system you have there)

Call For Tips: What The Fuck Is Going On at The New York Times? - Nobody—including and especially The New York Times—seems to know what’s going on
NYT Publisher Sulzberger Says Abramson Firing Driven by Conduct - Bloomberg (she was a bitch, he said)
New York Times: Female Staffers Don’t Want “Special Treatment”
Women, Money and Power by Lisa Solod | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But in no way does Sulzberger deny that Abramson asking for more money -in effect equal compensation to the past executive editor—wasn’t a factor. Because clearly it was ... Other articles cite Sulzberger being uncomfortable with Abramson’s celebrity status. Too bad about that (Pinch is a fuckup)

Quixotic ’80 Campaign Gave Birth to Kochs’ Powerful Network - NYTimes.com (Birchers)
? Lawrence Lessig: 'US system corrupt, rich have more say' - YouTube
Congratulations, class of 2014: You’re totally screwed - Salon.com - College costs more and more, even as it gets objectively worse. Only people worse off than indebted grads: adjuncts (eating your young)

'You Need to Die': Cliven Bundy and Violent Militias Still Terrorizing Utah, Nevada | Alternet - Donald Sterling stole the spotlight, but the menace from Bundy's supporters continues—and might be getting worse.
The Contributor | Albuquerque Police Promote Officer Accused of Excessive Force (how they roll)

Matter will be created from light within a year, claim scientists | Science | theguardian.com

Orthodontists Earn More Than CEOs: 10 Facts About Wages - Real Time Economics - WSJ

The New York Times Shoves Tim Cook Back in the Closet - Cook is the CEO of Apple, that company that makes all of the things you either own or want to own at some point in the future. He's also gay. So why is the Times so emphatically saying "There Are Still No Openly Gay Major C.E.O.s" today?

Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm - NYTimes.com - “trigger warnings,” (everyone has PTSD and their delicate fee-fees might be upset; like that Wellesley statue of a man)

051714
Eight Pseudoscientific Climate Claims Debunked by Real Scientists | Connecting the Dots | BillMoyers.com (Rubio doesn't believe these so-called "facts" by so-called "experts")
Climate Change Will Hurt Nations' Credit Ratings, S&P Warns

MERS Spreads As Illinois Resident Tests Positive: CDC - The man likely contracted MERS from a man in Indiana who was hospitalized in late April with the first known U.S. case of the illness.

Israeli hardliner predicts rapid settlement growth in West Bank | World news | theguardian.com - Construction minister Uri Ariel, blamed by some for peace talks impasse, says settler numbers could grow by 50% by 2019 (it was the plan all along)
Infographic: How the Israeli ID card system enforces apartheid | The Electronic Intifada (Barbara Boxer and Chuckie Schumer are having a sad over that word)
Boko Haram: African leaders agree joint action in rare show of unity | World news | theguardian.com - Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin pledge to cooperate against militant group that has kidnapped 200 schoolgirls
South Sudan crisis: famine and genocide threaten to engulf nation | World news | The Observer - Aid agencies say South Sudan at 'tipping point' as ethnic violence puts millions of people at risk of starvation and disease
US to cut Kenya embassy staff as threat of 'sophisticated' attacks grows | World news | theguardian.com - Ambassador makes statement day after Nairobi bomb attack
Narendra Modi: the controversial embodiment of a changing India | World news | The Guardian - Simple beginnings, ascetic ways and unapologetic Hindu nationalism help sweep BJP's leading candidate to victory
Election-winner Narendra Modi: 21st century belongs to India | World news | The Observer - Hindu nationalist arrives to take the reins in Delhi to jubilant crowds, but fears remain about divisive sectarian policies

The “Right to Forget” a Genocide — The Message — Medium - But what about a genocide? Is there a right to forget a genocide? Or at least the ethnic divisions upon which a society fractured and bled?

Everyone should know just how much the government lied to defend the NSA | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A web of deception has finally been untangled: the Justice Department got the US supreme court to dismiss a case that could have curtailed the NSA's dragnet. Why? (no "standing" because Clapper NSA lied to Verrelli who lied to the SC)
Spy Chief James Clapper Wins Rosemary Award

Blue cabinet - 402 (and counting) surveillance/spy corps)
Update on Deric Lostutter's Case » Tor Ekeland, PC: Tor Ekeland, PC - On April 15, 2013 the FBI, toting their usual weaponry, executed a search warrant on Deric’s place for his alleged involvement in a hack of the rollredroll.com website.

Predator Drone | Christian Lorentzen | The Baffler - Questions were raised about the role of his predecessor Mark Thompson, who had been in charge at the time Newsnight dropped the original Savile broadcast and by now had moved on to a new job as CEO of the New York Times.

After 9/11: The Stories We Tell and the Stories We Don't | David Bromwich - Has Baquet had any relationship to the NSA stories at the New York Times or elsewhere?

Rutgers Condoleezza Rice Speech - Why Rutgers Really Protested Against Condi Rice - Esquire - Congratulations to Rutgers students for refusing to forget. Shame on those who think she is just conservative or just a Republican. (free speech for Republican mass-murderers)

Five myths about Brown v. Board of Education - The Washington Post

Richest 1 Percent Hold 46 Percent Of The World's Wealth (you just pay rent to live on their planet)
What Piketty’s Neoliberal Critics Get Wrong | Blog | The Baffler
The Democratic Party's Future Is Awash in Dark Money | VICE United States (Blue Dogs rise again)
Unemployment: It's Not Personal - NYTimes.com - In other words, it’s nothing personal; it’s the economy, stupid. And as O’Brien said, it’s one more reason failure to provide more stimulus is a crime against American workers.

Quixotic ’80 Campaign Gave Birth to Kochs’ Powerful Network - NYTimes.com

Jill Lepore: The Office from Beginning to End : The New Yorker - The office from beginning to end.

After Huge Tax Cuts For The Rich, Kansas's Economy Is Foundering
'Moral Mondays' Activists Slam North Carolina's New Restrictions On Protests, Prepare To Defy Them | ThinkProgress - North Carolina lawmakers announced strict new rules limiting where and how citizens can protest in the state Legislative Building on Thursday, a move many see as an attempt to stifle the progressive “Moral Monday” protests that continue to gain momentum in the Tar Heel state.
Kentucky Senate Candidate Matt Bevin Struggles On The Trail As His Primary Approaches - Bevin, who's been tarnished by speaking at a rally to legalize cockfighting, insisted he will defeat McConnell Tuesday despite recent polls that show him trailing the Senate veteran by 32 percentage points.
Kentucky Puts Hemp Planting On Hold After DEA Seed Seizure - "They're interpreting the law a hundred different ways," Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer (R) told HuffPost. "The only way they're not interpreting it is the way it actually reads." (Obama is tough on hemp seeds for industrial production of fiber)

Sentenced to Wait: Efforts to End Prison Rape Stall Again - ProPublica - The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed in Washington 2003. It still hasn’t been fully implemented. (part of the punishment)
Mother of mentally ill vet who ‘baked to death’ in jail cell suing New York — RT USA - will seek $25 million by way of a wrongful death lawsuit (terroist prisons)
Victim called 911 before beating to complain of being harassed by off-duty cops, sources say - City & Region - The Buffalo News - The FBI also is examining whether police officers violated civil rights. County prosecutors are expected to handle any criminal charges stemming from the assault. (permanent brain-damage by terrorist cops)
Utah lawmaker proposes firing squad executions for death row inmates | World news | theguardian.com - Amid attention on botched lethal injections, state representative says squad is 'probably the most humane way to kill somebody' (guillotine also being considered)


Joshua Ferris: 'I think the internet is a force of anxiety' | Books | The Observer - The bestselling American author on dentistry, insomnia, the Old Testament – and staying offline
The Billionaires’ Fantasia | Gene Seymour | The Baffler

Meet Cortana for Windows Phone | Windows Phone How-to (United States)
Google's Little-Noticed Strategy To Get You Better Wi-Fi, Explained - the FCC voted 3-2 to set aside three channels of television airwaves for unlicensed use, which Google, Microsoft and the like could potentially use to beam the Internet to consumers in new ways.
New algorithm shakes up cryptography -- ScienceDaily - Researchers have solved one aspect of the discrete logarithm problem

38 Yahoo Questions That Will Destroy Your Faith In Humanity

051614
Picture This: U.S. Cities Under 12 feet of Sea Level Rise | Climate Central (tie Rubio and Limbaugh to the beach)
The California Drought Is Far From Over, And The Entire State Is Suffering - No area of the state is feeling the effects of the drought more harshly than San Diego, where wildfires have ripped through more than 10,000 acres of land and tens of thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate.

India Election 2014: Opposition Candidate Narendra Modi Will Be The Next Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's Election and the Future of India | New Republic
The Emperor Uncrowned | The Caravan - A Journal of Politics and Culture - The rise of Narendra Modi (2010 profile; fascist personality now crowned head of India)
5 Reasons Why Narendra Modi Leading India Is So Controversial
Jon Stewart Offers Some Hilarious Explanations For India's Elections
The Israeli-Palestinian Issue Sinks Into the Sunset | MJ Rosenberg - The American media is coming closer than ever before to reporting that it was Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition of rightists and religious fanatics who shot the dove dead. In the rest of the world (including in much of Israel itself) there is no hesitation about stating this simple fact: so long as Israel continues to build and expand settlements there is no chance of achieving peace.
Heavy fighting breaks out in Libya as troops storm militias in Benghazi | World news | theguardian.com - Attack leader, a retired general, says operation aims to clear the city of Islamist militias and restore Libya's dignity

U.S. judge halts force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoner | Reuters - The judge said the government also must preserve all videotape evidence of forcible cell extractions and force-feeding until the hearing next Wednesday.
Navy Court-Martial Results Rape - The Navy Just Opened Its Books On Sexual Assault And Rape In Its Ranks - Esquire - This is what we call a sea change.

"Collect It All": Glenn Greenwald on NSA Bugging Tech Hardware, Economic Espionage & Spying on U.N. | Democracy Now!
Glenn Greenwald Was 'Looking Forward' To Another David Gregory Interview - "I'm not exactly certain of the machinations inside NBC...but that was the choice they made," he added.
? Richard Bacon interviews Glenn Greenwald - YouTube
Twitter / implyinCostanza: @ggreenwald speaking about ... - his new book "No place to hide" with Noam Chomsky today in Cambridge.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald says there is zero evidence supporting claims Edward Snowden jeopardised lives - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (they always say that)
Greenwald Against the Establishment by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com - – And Glenn gets the better of them - "Fear-driven obsequious journalism" – that’s what he calls it, and that’s what it is.
No Place to Hide, by Glenn Greenwald: Review | National Post

The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail: I Wish I Could Do, Like, Magic | FrontBurner | D Magazine
HBGary CEO Also Suggested Tracking, Intimidating WikiLeaks' Donors - Forbes
Encrypted Web Traffic More Than Doubles After NSA Revelations | Enterprise | WIRED

Net Neutrality Comeback: Why the FCC Might Save It Yet | New Republic - A principle that seemed all but dead is making a comeback (Obama thought he had the destruction of the internets in the bag)
Antonin Scalia Totally Gets Net Neutrality - Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic (FCC ruined the net by creating something they could regulate; Scalia thought they - Clarence Thomas writing for the 6-3 majority- were idiots)
Contributions to House Members Lobbying against Net Neutrality from Cable Interests | MapLight - Money and Politics

Eschaton: A Times Lawyer Just Flipped His Shit - Because that would be breaking the law ... NEVER ALL CAPS lol.
Jill Abramson, Arthur Sulzberger, and the New York Times: What Went Wrong? : The New Yorker
Times Seeks to Reassure Its Staff After Abramson’s Ouster - NYTimes.com ("staff" = advertisers and readers)
The Abramson Firing - Lawyers, Guns & Money - First of all, to the extent that Abramson was unwilling to embrace the “have reporters talk on video about pieces you could read in two minutes” model of journamalism, she was on the side of the angels. (Thompson really is an idiot; Pinch for hiring him: the HuffPo model of journalism)
Jill Abramson Was Right | The Nation
Jill Abramson's Firing Was Singularly Humiliating | New Republic - Trying to explain a singularly humiliating firing
Echidne Of The Snakes: What I Learned From The Firing of Jill Abramson
Jill Abramson and the 'Narrow Band' of Acceptable Female Behavior - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic - The former executive editor of the Times wasn't well liked because "aggressive" female leaders rarely are.
New York Times fights to limit criticism over apparent Abramson pay disparity | Media | theguardian.com - Report suggests Abramson's salary was significantly lower than her male predecessor as Times battles allegations of sexism
New York Times Jill Abramson - The <i>Times</i> Scandal Is An Embarassment To Journalism - Esquire
On Internet, A Shrieking Sh*tpile Of Emotional Feminist Hysteria At Totally Non-Sexist New York Times
Politico reports that New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson is mean, Twitter reacts - Salon.com - Dylan Byers' writing about women has created a Twitter maelstrom yet again
The NYT’s Game of Thrones: How the Top Journalism Job Was Dangled at Guardian Editor - The Daily Beast
Glenn Greenwald On Dean Baquet: A 'Disturbing History' Of Journalism 'Subservient' To National Security State

The Case Against the Bernanke-Obama Financial Rescue - NYTimes.com - Atif Mian and Amir Sufi are convinced that the Great Recession could have been just another ordinary, lowercase recession if the federal government had acted more aggressively to help homeowners by reducing mortgage debts.
Giving seniors a raise; Merkley plan would change how Social Security’s COLAs calculated - Merkley plan would change how Social Security’s COLAs calculated

DEA Chief Dials Back Drug War Bluster After Talk With Holder
Challenge brought by Guardian, AP and three newspapers says US public has a right to know about how drugs are being used

The State Of America's Deadly Jobs, In 9 Charts

Kelly Ayotte Says She Ignored Scott Brown's Wishes For The Good Of New Hampshire - Brown had urged Senate Republican leadership to block the bill from moving forward so as to deprive Shaheen of a legislative victory.
The Shadow Army - Esquire - So, I flew out of DC this morning, just as The American Spring was a'dawning, gray and forbidding. The 10 to 30 million patriots due in town were cleverly camouflaged and invisible to the untrained eye. Of course, it was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock, so perhaps they made the judgment that the Tree of Liberty was sufficiently watered for the moment
Tens Of Millions Somehow Fail To Turn Out For 'Operation American Spring' - But this is a very poor turnout. It ain’t no millions. And it ain’t looking like there’s going to be millions. Hundreds is more like it.”
Twitter looks for Operation American Spring: ‘Where is everybody? I’m confused’ - Ok govt has hacked our hashtag, we spected that that is where you come in tweet about it blow this up (LOL)

Coming Soon: Why Reparations Make Sense - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic (give blacks Georgia and Texas for starters)
Oregon Senate hopeful accused of stalking boyfriend - John Bresnahan - POLITICO.com - Oregon GOP Senate candidate Monica Wehby was accused by her ex-boyfriend last year of “stalking” him, entering his home without his permission and “harassing” his employees, according to a Portland, Oregon police report.
The Idaho GOP Gubernatorial Debate Was Total Chaos | Mother Jones - Brown revealed that he supports gay marriage because as a cab driver in Boise he discovered that gay people "love each other more than I love my motorcycle." His closing argument was blunt: "You have your choice, folks: A cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker, or a normal guy. Take your pick… We're leaving it up to you."
Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women | Mother Jones - Welcome to the dark side of America's war over guns.

Cops and Cameras Not Getting Along - WNYC - Rising Complaints About Police Reaction to Smartphone Video (fuck the law)
University Place man dies after being tased by deputies | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News - She said officers continued to tase him, and once they had him on the ground an officer used a flashlight to strike Hillstrom several times. Multiple residents told KOMO 4 a similar story, and several people also shot video of the incident on their cell phones.

Obama's Privatized School Agenda - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Once again, Obama’s education agenda is nothing short of terrible. It’s one of the few issues where those who say that there are no differences between Republicans and Democrats are more correct than not. (completely owned)
Why Are We Cutting the Fulbright Program? | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com
'We, frankly, blundered': U of S president apologizes to outspoken professor - Robert Buckingham offered tenured faculty position 24 hours after being fired

It’s not the secular world that’s hyper-sexual - I need to document that ass. For Jesus.
Good Traditional Family Values - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Apparently, they mean that if young women at a prom are being oggled by a gaggle of middle-aged perverts, you blame the young women and kick them out. In conclusion, try avoid sending your kids to public school because they may not be instilled with proper moral values.
Should Paid 'Menstrual Leave' Be a Thing? - Emily Matchar - The Atlantic - Some countries have legal integration of leave for women during their periods. Is that reverse sexism or a reasonable human-rights move?
The Devil's Advocate on Corona Del Mar High School's 'Prom Draft' - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - What's the least awful way to arrange dates to the dance?
Georgia woman sues town for banning sale of sex toys without a doctor’s prescription (and an orgasm license)

What's in a Name? - TargetSmart Communications
This Is How People Once Measured the Blueness of the Sky - Megan Garber - The Atlantic - The origins of quantitative meteorology

Adobe blames 'maintenance failure' for 27-hour outage • The Register - Anybody who was suspicious about Adobe Creative Cloud is probably now feeling quite vindicated. Anyone who thought Adobe were assholes also

051514
Marco Rubio A Climatologist And An Obstetrician Now, Will Tell You When Babby Is Formed - Human-shaped fecal matter Marco Rubio has been taking some heat the last couple of days over his weekend comments regarding climate change and how it’ll take a lot more than 99% of climate scientists saying it is happening to convince him that it is actually happening, and even if it is happening, we don’t know how much of it is attributable to human activity so why bother doing anything to possibly mitigate the effects?
Pentagon bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks| Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com - NSA Prism is motivated in part by fears that environmentally-linked disasters could spur anti-government activism

Ukraine civil war fears mount as volunteer units take up arms | World news | theguardian.com - As Kiev struggles to wrest back control of east from pro-Russia fighters, irregular units of 'Ukrainian patriots' are stepping in
Turkey swept by protests as anger grows over fatal mine explosion | World news | theguardian.com - Thousands join strike and crowds heckle president while relatives begin to bury the nearly 300 coalminers killed in Soma
Sudan judge sentences Christian woman to death for apostasy - Yahoo News - A Sudanese judge on Thursday sentenced a Christian woman to hang for apostasy, despite appeals by Western embassies that freedom of religion should be respected.
Identity Crisis: The Israeli ID System | Visualizing Palestine (no racist apartheid failed state here)

Guantánamo hunger strikers accuse US of manipulating force-feeding data | World news | theguardian.com - Detainees' letters claim US keeps numbers artificially low • US admits it has recorded video of Guantánamo force-feedings

British Spies Face Legal Action Over Secret Hacking Programs - The Intercept

Interview: Glenn Greenwald, Author Of 'No Place To Hide' : NPR
TwitLonger - @jackshafer Book tour hell prevents me from answering your column more extensively. I (sorry to disappoint you!) found your critique perfectly reasonable, but three quick points to note:
duffmanhb comments on Top NSA Whistle Blowers who came before Edward Snowden - Finally, once Obama gets into office, he feigns an effort to overhaul the warrantless wiretapping program after all the media controversy. In reality, his "overhaul" through the FISA courts was really just a Trojan Horse that gave a defacto legal authorization of the program. (Obama is Cheney)
Greenwald’s book tour draws ire from Anonymous hacktivists — RT USA

FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet (you knew the game was rigged when Obama appointed Wheeler to corporatize the internets)

Harry Reid Backs Reexamination Of Post-9/11 Military Authorization Law - “I think 9/11 is a long time ago, and it’s something that needs to be looked at again.”

Hillary Clinton Took 6 Months to ‘Get Over’ Concussion, Bill Says of Timeline - ABC News

Sulzberger Swings the Axe: Why He Fired Abramson -- NYMag (Pinch)
Jill Abramson Will Never Know Why She Got Fired - The Cut - Sulzberger cited “an issue with management” as his reason for firing Abramson
Invitation to a beheading: How Times editors learned of Abramson's ouster | Capital New York - "Please come to a masthead/dept head meeting at 2:00 p.m. today in the page one conference room/3rd floor."
Jill Abramson and the 'Narrow Band' of Acceptable Female Behavior - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic - The former executive editor of the Times wasn't well liked because "aggressive" female leaders rarely are.
Jill Abramson's Firing Was Singularly Humiliating | New Republic - Trying to explain a singularly humiliating firing
Exclusive: New York Times Internal Report Painted Dire Digital Picture - “Our journalism advantage is shrinking,” a committee led by the publisher’s son warned. A call to get rid of the metaphor of “Church and State.” (ads are news +something called "digital journalists" that isn't a computer +TED talks!)
Was Jill Abramson Fired After Complaining About Pay Discrimination? 'Just let it be," Sulzberger tells entire room of professional reporters. 'Don't go speculating or trying to find out what happened.'
NY Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Draws Fire Over Jill Abramson Ouster

Thomas Piketty's 'Capital' in 3 Minutes | Portside
The Soul-Killing Structure of the Modern Office - Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, Nikil Saval claims that 60 percent of Americans still make their money in cubicles, and 93 percent of those are unhappy to do so.

Gov. Christie was told about George Washington Bridge closure plans claims his former campaign manager - NY Daily News - Bill Stepien, who lost his job in the 'Bridgegate' scandal, contends he told Christie about the GWB traffic plans on Dec. 12, a day before the governor told reporters his staff didn’t know about them.

Missouri Lawmakers Pass 3-Day Abortion Wait Period - The measure would triple Missouri's current 24-hour waiting period and put the state in line with Utah and South Dakota as the only states to mandate a 72-hour time frame. Missouri currently has only one clinic performing elective abortions.

Guardian challenges lethal injection secrecy in landmark Missouri lawsuit | Law | theguardian.com - Challenge brought by Guardian, AP and three newspapers says US public has a right to know about how drugs are being used

It Sounds Pretty Racist When You Say It All At The Same Time
A Question About Southern Culture and the Confederate Flag - Why is this the part of southern culture so many people spend so much effort honoring? it's a symbol of treason and white supremacy, and not the kind of thing you want to fly over your state house or put on a license plate, as you can in Georgia.

The Next Christian Sex-Abuse Scandal - As sex-abuse allegations multiply, Billy Graham’s grandson is on a mission to ?persuade Protestant churches to come clean.
Parents, 6 Sons, Accused Of Sexually Abusing Girl For Nearly A Decade - "The children were home schooled with very limited education," said the sheriff. "They were very private and the whole yard has a fence around it -- like a little compound. They're very different."

Woman’s cancer killed by measles virus in unprecedented trial
Exercising the Mind to Treat Attention Deficits - NYTimes.com - Meditation is a cognitive control exercise that enhances “the ability to self-regulate your internal distractions,” said Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco.
The Latest and Greatest in Treatment for PTSD

How your brain works during meditation | Gemini.no

Miami police kill 2 unarmed suspects by shooting disabled car 377 times - “They said, ‘put your hands up!’ And the guys were still moving after they shot, like maybe 50-60 times, and the guys tried to put their hands up, and as soon as they put their hands up, it erupted again.”
New Hampshire Man With 'COPSLIE' License Plate Wins Free Speech Battle, Lifetime Of Police Harassment | Techdirt - from the sir,-do-you-have-any-idea-how-fast-I've-decided-you-were-going? dept

lightlynamed comments on "I Couldn't Feel It." Cunnilingus 101 in a reddit post.
"I Couldn't Feel It." : offmychest
Cibarius comments on "I Couldn't Feel It."
lightlynamed comments on "I Couldn't Feel It."
diagram-clitoris-02-10.jpg

051414
This Is Your Country With 10 Feet Of Sea Level Rise (bye-bye FL real estate; tie Rubio to the beach)
California firefighters contain wildfires but dry winds keep region on alert | World news | theguardian.com - Evacuation orders lifted after containment of two brush fires which each burned hundreds of acres in southern California

Turkey mine disaster: grief turns to rage as hopes of finding survivors fade | World news | theguardian.com - PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan is met by shouts of 'murderer' and 'thief' on visit to mine, whose owners are linked to ruling party
Violent Protest Break Out In Wake Of Turkish Mine Accident - Rocks were being thrown and some people were shouting that Erdogan was a "Murderer!" and a "Thief!"
Military operation launched to locate kidnapped Nigerian girls | World news | theguardian.com - Canada sends special forces to assist Nigerian troops, joining teams from the US, UK, France and Israel
Why It Is Taking Nigeria's Security Forces So Long To Find The Missing Girls - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in May 2013 the U.S. was "deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism."
Let's Be Honest About Britain's Islamophobia | Ben White - Make no mistake: the drip-drip bigotry of a thousand newspaper stories, speeches, and earnest demands for serious 'conversations' fed the rise of the EDL in our streets, and it has fed the rise of an 'anti-immigration' political party which allies with the far-right in a European parliament it purports to despise.
In Nigeria, Vigilante Groups Spring Up In Response To Attacks
John McCain, Schmittian Humanitarian | ERIC POSNER - Referring to Nigeria’s president, McCain added: ‘I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.’ [!!] (bomb-bomb everything)
The World Cup Is Just A Month Away But Brazil Still Isn't Ready - Brazil had seven years to get ready for the World Cup, but it enters the final month of preparations with a lot yet to be done.
Will the UK Government Ever Release These Secret Files to the Public? | VICE United Kingdom - of millions of historic documents that, for decades, were illegally withheld from the public, in flagrant breach of the Public Records Act.
Former IRA activists to sue US college over decision to hand tapes to police | UK news | theguardian.com - Spokesman during 1981 hunger strike is among four suing Boston College over tapes linked to Gerry Adams arrest

Sony Nabs Film Rights to Edward Snowden Book 'No Place to Hide' - The Hollywood Reporter
German university votes to give Snowden a degree - The Washington Post - Academics at the University of Rostock in Germany have approved a proposal to give NSA leaker Edward Snowden an honorary doctorate.
Inside the NSA the Day After 9/11 | United States of Secrets | FRONTLINE | PBS - On the morning of Sept. 12, however, a brand new reality was forming at the NSA (NPR "overlooks" the fact that Bush/Cheney started spying in March)
The (misguided) passion of Glenn Greenwald | Jack Shafer - As evidence, Greenwald points to the New York Times decision in 2004 to delay by more than a year the publication of its domestic spying story, and of a Los Angeles Times call to spike — under Dean Baquet, the new executive editor of the New York Times — an AT&T-NSA story. (yes, that Dean Baquet +Shafer is jealous)
The Snowden Effect, Continued: A Colloquy - Esquire - And right back with tremendous respect to Bob Farley.
Snowden: The Inside Story - The National - CBC Player

NSA reform: lawmakers aim to bar agency from weakening encryption | World news | theguardian.com - Concerned about weaknesses in USA Freedom Act, Zoe Lofgren and colleagues pushing to prevent NSA from weakening online encryption with new amendment
DOJ Still Trying To Hide The Fact It Flat Out Lied To The Supreme Court About Domestic Surveillance | Techdirt - from the because-terrorism dept

Scorn, icy stares follow terror suspects’ lawyers - The Washington Post - Stanley Cohen represented bin Laden’s son-in-law and cleric, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was convicted of terrorism charges at a trial where jurors watched him on videos after 9/11 warning Americans that the “storm of airplanes” would not cease.
FBI agent cleared in killing of Boston suspect's friend had controversial past | World news | theguardian.com - Special agent faced lawsuits for assault and false arrest • Supporters of victim Ibragim Todashev demand answers (FBI hired a rogue killer)

FCC Reaffirms It's Considering Treating Cable Companies as Utilities
Twitter / YourAnonNews: This is a week that ... - @TomWheelerFCC will never forget: when he realized the real world is quite different than the stories lobbbyists told

Another Federal Judge Trolls Scalia While Striking Down Gay Marriage Ban - Dale cited that Scalia quote in her opinion on Tuesday, using the conservative justice's words to undermine Idaho's argument that the law was about preserving traditional civil marriage as an institution, and that any discriminatory effects of the law were incidental.

What Tim Geithner doesn't know about Social Security is ... shocking - Los Angeles Times - But let's get to the nub. Does Social Security "contribute to the deficit"? Tim Geithner's signature from the 2009 report of the Social Security Trustees. Didn't he know what he was signing? (Social Security Administration) The answer is, bluntly, no (economic geniuses; Obama's pet idiot)
Paul Ryan's Approach To Poverty Is Straight Out Of The 19th Century (Jesus wants you to starve)
Eschaton: And How Would It Do That Then - Oh the twisted irony that a government plan is superior to private sector plans. Such twisted irony.

Times Ousts Its Executive Editor, Elevating Second-in-Command - NYTimes.com
Jill Abramson forced out as New York Times executive editor | Media | theguardian.com - Managing editor Dean Baquet will replace Abramson • Abramson reportedly confronted 'top brass' over pay equity ... a few weeks ago Abramson had confronted the “top brass” after she discovered that she was paid much less than her predecessor, Bill Keller. (+"pushy" woman +Keller, the guy who threw the election to Bush)
Gender Discrimination at the Times - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Why Jill Abramson Was Fired : The New Yorker
Eschaton: Update - [Update: A third associate told me, “She found out that a former deputy managing editor”—a man—”made more money than she did” while she was managing editor. “She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”]
Twitter / tnyCloseRead: Update: a source tells Auletta ... - @JillAbramson learned that, as managing editor, she'd earned less than a (male) deputy
Twitter / davidfolkenflik: Note: Auletta says Abramson ... - decided not to appear at announcement so she would not dignify her departure as voluntary. I haven't confirmed.
Twitter / davidfolkenflik: 4b. Thompson also livid that ... - Abramson sent investigative ed to UK to see if he had any role in BBC's brewing child abuse coverup scandal
Twitter / davidfolkenflik: 4a Thompson was pushing a ... - video-heavy strategy for NYT's digital push; Abramson feared would be a diversion of time and energy
Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise - NYTimes.com
‘Democrats argue. Republicans contend. We have no idea.’ A he said, she said at the Times. » Pressthink - Democrats argue that the laws are intended to keep poor voters away from the polls because they often have difficulty obtaining identification. Republicans contend cheating is rife in today’s elections.

Christie Officials Pension Funds In Donors Companies - The Passion Of Big Chicken: The Commonwealthing - Esquire - Now, the scandal has entangled Charlie Baker, the likely Republican candidate for governor up here in the Commonwealth (God save it!). Baker, who lost to Deval Patrick the last time around after running a very bad campaign, appears to be in this up to his eyeballs.
Ben Sasse Nebraska Primary - Meet Nebraska's Senator-Presumptive - Esquire - Ben Sasse, a college president, a Tea Party darling, and a man who once proposed to move the nation's capital to Omaha so as to avoid the socialism that the president had brought to Washington, won nearly 50 percent of the vote last night and is now a prohibitive favorite to become one of the only 100 U.S. senators that we have. (down the stupid hole)

Democratic unease over Obama judicial nominee puts bipartisan pact at risk | World news | theguardian.com - White House agreement with GOP to fill judicial vacancies could unravel amid concerns over Michael Boggs' anti-abortion views (Republican agree to confirm Republican judges)

ACLU plans to file a lawsuit in the Mayor Ardis Twitter parody case - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL - “We hope this action will send a strong signal to all that wrongful use of the police power to suppress protected speech, even when it is critical or makes fun of public officials is an abuse of power and is not acceptable,” he said. (tin-pot mayor Jim Ardis hates parody)
Oklahoma bill: Honor ‘under God’ in the Pledge because of Ronald Reagan - Legislation introduced to the Oklahoma House of Representatives seeks to commemorate the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance by citing President Ronald Reagan and “our Christian heritage.”

Douche Touche - Esquire (ND State outlaws blunt epees on campus; baseball bats ok)

College is a promise the economy does not keep - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - Has college become less about education and more about purchasing credentials for flawed job market?

The Tactics Change, But the Police State Stays the Same | The Nation
Man claims abuse by Cleveland police officer - Twinsburg Bulletin | Twinsburg, Reminderville, OH - whom he says beat him after he asked for his badge number.
California: Court Slams Cops Over Bogus Camera Stop - informationliberation - The Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that the officers were potentially liable for using excessive force against Denise Green after an automated license plate reader (ALPR or ANPR in Europe) mistakenly flagged her vehicle as stolen
Watch: Uniformed officer kicks, trips high school students celebrating TX state soccer title (thugs)

RealClearScience - Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity May Not Exist

Amazing Cat That Rescued Boy Gives First Television Interview
Hilarious dutch commercial!!! OMG - YouTube

051314
Climate Change: That Antarctica Ice Sheet Isn't the Only One Melting | New Republic - Don't look now, but Greenland's glaciers are melting too - But a complete melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet would contribute to sea level rise by more than seven meters, or a whopping 23 feet. That means even a partial melting would have catastrophic effects. (+the 13 ft from Antartica = 36 ft)
Michael Gerson Science - Michael Gerson Is Puzzled - Esquire (Gerson tells us that Americans don't believe in science like climate change without mentioning "Republicans")

McCain: Send U.S. Special Forces to Rescue Nigerian Girls - The Daily Beast - “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” he added, referring to the president of Nigeria.
Watch Jon Stewart Tell Off Rush Limbaugh: #F*@KYOURUSH
Did CIA’s Fake Polio Vaccination Program in Pakistan Help Fuel a Global Health Emergency? | Democracy Now!
Former Israeli Premier Is Sentenced to 6 Years for Bribery - NYTimes.com - Ehud Olmert - the judge was indicting a whole class of “Israel’s financial and political elite.” (corrupt, racist, apartheid failed state)
Argentina: Anti-terrorism Law to be Applied for First Time to Journalist - revolution-news.com
Death Toll In Turkish Mining Accident Surpasses 150: Mayor - Death Toll In Turkish Mining Accident Surpasses 150: Mayor
Global crisis on torture exposed by new worldwide campaign | Amnesty International - “Governments around the world are two-faced on torture - prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice”
Priced out of Rio's booming favelas, Brazil's poor resort to mass squatting | World news | The Guardian - The Tufi Community occupying derelict factory is one of many forced out in trend accelerated by World Cup and Olympics
Angry Anti-Fascists Beat Up Nazis in Copenhagen Last Weekend | VICE United States
The Countries That Drink The Most - Business Insider (go home, Russia, you're drunk)

Google Must Honor Requests to Delete Some Links, E.U. Court Says - NYTimes.com - including links to legal records

At US gov request, NYT's Bill Keller spiked NSA spying story in 2004 - Boing Boing ("responsbible journalism")
Eschaton: Reminder - The spy-on-everyone program under Bush did not start after 9/11. It started in March.
United States of Secrets | FRONTLINE | PBS - How Did the Government Come to Spy on Millions of Americans?

May 12, 2014 - Glenn Greenwald - The Colbert Report - Episode Details | Comedy Central
Glenn Greenwald on ‘Colbert Report’: Biggest NSA leaks yet to come - “I genuinely believe that the story that’s the biggest one—that will make the biggest impact and will shape how the events of the last 10 months are viewed by history—is the story on which we’re currently working,” Greenwald said.
Greenwald to Colbert: Next NSA story will make ‘biggest impact’
Glenn Greenwald Book - The Snowden Effect, Continued: On The Matter Of Mr. Greenwald - Esquire - The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, asked the National Security Agency for help "so that she could develop a strategy," a leaked agency document shows. (a "strategy" to spy and lie)
How I Met Edward Snowden | Glenn Greenwald
Intel Collection - Lawyers, Guns & Money (commenters are literally morons)
Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide, reviewed.
Snowden Speaks: A Vanity Fair Special Report | Vanity Fair
NSA chief: U.S. spy agency targets changed behavior after Snowden | Reuters - Foreign governments, individuals and groups targeted by the U.S. National Security Agency for intelligence collection have changed their "behavior" following disclosures by former agency contractor Edward Snowden, the NSA's new chief said on Monday.

Blackwater Nisour Square Case - Blackwater Walks Free - Esquire
Navy sailor hacked from aircraft carrier - Did it for Lols | TechEye - A former Navy sailor who carried out hacks on US government and private websites from a US aircraft carrier said he and his associates were "just a group of people that were dumb and did dumb things."

The Washington Monthly - Ten Miles Square - But while 1980 seems to be a critical transition point, the early twenty-first century seems to have produced yet another turn. and others identify the period between the 2000 and 2004 elections as a significant turning point.

Judge Rejects AG's Subpoena For Airbnb User Data: Gothamist

Idaho's Gay Marriage Ban Struck Down By Federal Judge

The Unbearable Whiteness of Liberal Media - It's not just the Prospect. Journalism upstarts like Vox Media and FiveThirtyEight have come under fire recently for lack of diversity in their hires, but that's largely because they are drawing from the milky-white pool of “existing talent.” (but Nate is the best of the lot)

Gov. McAuliffe calls for review of abortion clinic regulations in Virginia - The Washington Post - Gov. Terry McAuliffe moved to free Virginia’s abortion clinics from strict hospital-style building codes on Monday, loading up the state health board with abortion rights supporters and ordering it to review rules that clinic operators say threaten to put them out of business.
Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan Insist 'Friendship' And 'Traditional Marriage' Can End Poverty
Dale Russakoff: A Test for School Reform in Newark : The New Yorker - more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms ... . The going rate for individual consultants in Newark was a thousand dollars a day.

Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds | Science/AAAS | News

Sandy Hook 'Truther' Tells Victim's Mother Her Daughter Never Existed - A playground in Mystic, Connecticut, dedicated to a girl shot during the Newtown massacre, is allegedly being vandalized by "truthers" who claim the shooting never took place ... or was part of a ‘false flag’ operation designed to open the door to the confiscation of all guns by the government

Today In Responsible Gun Ownership - Esquire - Turkeys in New Hampshire wear hats and often doff them to confuse predators. That's just science. You can look it up.
Man shoots, kills woman he mistakes for groundhog
Former chief may not be sentenced till 2021 - News - The Times-Tribune - Lackawanna County President Judge Thomas Munley agreed Monday to defer Mr. Romano’s sentencing until the state confirms that the former chief will receive his pension, a determination that may not be made until Mr. Romano turns 50 in seven years.

Private Documents Show Coca-Cola Played Both Sides Of The Drunk Driving Debate - Coca-Cola was helping organizations combat drunk driving, the company was also a member of a trade association that fought tougher drunk driving laws.

Donald Sterling: 'Magic Johnson, What Has He Done? He's Got AIDS'
‘Siouxper Drunk’ Shirts Worn at the University of North Dakota’s Springfest, By Ruth Hopkins | Last Real Indians - In fact, 1 in 10 Native American deaths are alcohol-related.

RealCharlesRamsey comments on I am Charles Ramsey, the scary-looking black dude who helped rescue three kidnapped women from that freak Ariel Castro in Cleveland one year ago . . . AMA (but "view the rest" and skim for his responses)

051214
Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt - NYTimes.com
Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn | Environment | theguardian.com - Two separate studies confirm loss is inevitable and will cause up to four metres of additional sea-level rise (another 13.1 feet should submege most of Florida)
Marco Rubio's climate change remarks fly in the face of facts | John Abraham | Environment | theguardian.com - Florida senator casts doubt on man's role in global warming just days after authoritative US climate science report
West Antarctica Ice Sheet Collapse - The Great Climate Change Hoax Rolls On, Continued - Esquire
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Climate Change Debate - YouTube

Fifth Mers death recorded in Jordan | World news | theguardian.com - Middle East Respiratory Syndrome has infected 496 people, most of them in Saudi Arabia, since emerging in 2012
Health officials say second US Mers case confirmed | World news | theguardian.com - Man recently worked as healthcare worker in Saudi Arabia

American survivor of female genital mutilation calls on US to take action | Society | theguardian.com - Jaha Dukurah urges health and human services nominee to carry out study on practice 'happening here to American girls' “There was no anaesthetic, no gloves, no pain medication after – no nurse to take care of you,” she said. “It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced.”

Ukraine crisis: Donetsk region asks to join Russia | World news | theguardian.com - Request comes just two hours after referendum results show 90% voted for independence from Ukraine
Abducted Nigerian Girls Offered In Exchange For Prisoners, Boko Haram Leader Says In Video - Around 100 girls wearing full veils and praying are shown in an undisclosed location in the 17-minute video in which Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaks, according to the French news agency.
Taliban begins annual spring offensive with attacks across Afghanistan | World news | theguardian.com - At least a dozen people killed in series of attacks as Taliban warns withdrawal of foreign forces will not dampen jihadi fervour
Microsoft Word - Report @doc Solitary Confinement Report 2013 FINAL 29APR2014.docx - report_doc_solitary_confinement_report_2013_final_29apr2014.pdf - Solitary confinement for Palestinian children in Israeli military detention
Israeli authorities release 24 Eritreans wrongly detained in desert facility - National Israel News | Haaretz - The Immigration and Population Authority released 24 Eritrean asylum seekers from the Holot detention facility on Sunday. They were being held there even though they did not meet the criteria for detention set by the authority itself.
Electronic Resistance | Israeli minister demands death sentences for Palestinian prisoners
Migrant boat disaster in Mediterranean kills 14 | World news | theguardian.com - Italian navy says more than 200 migrants saved after boat sank in waters between Libyan coast and Italian island of Lampedusa
Greek court clears Golden Dawn for EU vote - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Move to allow far-right party to stand in May poll comes despite imprisonment of six of its MPs, including its leader.
Swedish Amnesty International voted to reject human-right actions on cases Assange, Snowden and tortured Palestinian children | The PROFESSORS' BLOG – Science, Culture & Human Rights For All - Amnesty International Sweden ceased of being a critical human rights organization – to be converted in yet another Swedish vassal institution aimed to the implementation of the US government’s agenda.
No Turning Back: Mexico's Looming Fracking, Offshore Oil & Gas Bonanza | MyFDL - After generations of state control, Mexico’s vast oil and gas reserves will soon open for business to the international market.
Welcome to Britain, the new land of impunity | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - No matter the criticisms made or damage done, fat cats and politicians seem able to cling on. Often their efforts are rewarded

‘No Place to Hide,’ by Glenn Greenwald - NYTimes.com
Glenn Greenwald: 'I don't trust the UK not to arrest me. Their behaviour has been extreme' | World news | The Guardian
Glenn Greenwald's Very Pointed Response To Matt Lauer's Snowden Question - "Anyone can make up any accusation that they want, and rational people demand evidence before they believe it, which is the lesson we ought to have learned from the claims from government that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," Greenwald shot back.
Book Reveals Wider Net of U.S. Spying on Envoys - NYTimes.com - The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, asked the National Security Agency for help “so that she could develop a strategy,” a leaked agency document shows ("develop a strategy" = spy on them)

Glenn Greenwald on Edward Snowden and His New Book, No Place to Hide - I think we will end the big stories in about three months or so [June or July 2014]. I like to think of it as a fireworks show: You want to save your best for last. There's a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I'm saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues. This will be the finale, a big missing piece. ("missing piece" now what could that be?)

Fox News' Eric Bolling: 'I Don't Remember' Any Terrorist Attacks On America During President Bush's Term (VIDEO) - "America was certainly safe between 2000 and 2008," he said. "I don't remember any attacks on American soil during that period of time." Nobody on the panel challenged this comment. (Fox Zombies)

The Supreme Court's Medicaid Disaster - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Whether 5-4 or 9-0, what the Supreme Court did to the Medicaid expansion was terrible constitutional law and worse policy. (evil and corrupt)

FCC net neutrality controversy: Wheeler pretends to back down | BGR (Comcast lobbyist and FCC chair Tom Wheeler out of both side of his mouth)
FCC Net Neutrality Plan In Chaos | PopularResistance.Org - FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former top cable and wireless industry lobbyist, appears to have misjudged both public opinion and his fellow Democratic commissioners regarding his “Open Internet” proposal

Your Anon News • YourAnonNews Status Update - (ICYMI: Our recent open letter to Twitter concerning @JackalAnon’s attempt to claim ownership of @YourAnonNews: http://bit.ly/1uM4eKX )

Peace Sign Stolen From Conn. Playground Honoring Sandy Hook Massacre Victim « CBS New York - The thief reportedly told McDonnell he stole the sign because he believes the shooting at the school was a hoax. (too much Alex Jones)

#PAGov: CorbettCare Would Be More Expensive Than Real Medicaid Expansion - Keystone Politics (Atrios: the corruption tax)
How Massachusetts screwed up Obamacare - Vox - Massachusetts decided last week to scrap the exchange it spent more than $175 million in taxpayer dollars to build. It has hundreds of thousands of Bay Staters in temporary insurance policies, placeholders for consumers who couldn't buy insurance online.

Getting the Talking Points Straight When You Run for the Senate by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I have reason to believe there was weapons of mass destruction. My husband served in Saudi Arabia as an Army Central Command sergeant major for a year and that’s a hot-button topic in that area. - Joni Ernst, hand of Satan

Embryos, Zygotes And Babies by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But the dirty little secret of abortion politics is that most terminations of pregnancies occur much earlier in the gestation process, and that antichoicers very much want to ban those that occur long before anything resembling a “baby” can be discerned.
After Abuse Under State Supervision, Transgender Connecticut Teen Held in Solitary Without Charge | Democracy Now! - : "I feel that DCF has failed to protect me from harm and I am now thrown into prison because they have refused to help me."

Fascist Intolerance (Louis Gohmert R,TX is completely crazy)

Stephen Stem, Officer Who Shot, Killed 93-Year-Old Fired From Force - The same officer was placed on leave about a year ago for shooting dead a suspect when responding to a call of an unruly crowd gathering (good luck with that lawsuit, Hearne)
VIDEO: Cops Raid Family Party, Pepper Spray Children, Taser Grandma | The Free Thought Project - For something as trivial as a noise complaint, police felt it necessary to dispatch 5-10 officers and enter through the back door in a SWAT style raid. (the real terrorists)

Football’s Risks Sink In, Even in Heart of Texas - NYTimes.com - Recent research has indicated that players as young as 7 sustain hits to the head (end of destroy kids' brains ball)

ELI5: Why is the Baby Boomer Generation, who were noted for being so liberal in their youth, so conservative now? : explainlikeimfive
Spurious Correlations finds the hidden, totally pointless connections between everything | The Verge

'Mad Men' Recap: Sex, Drugs and Self-Mutilation | Movies News | Rolling Stone
‘Mad Men’ recap: ‘We’re idiots, okay?’
Mad Men The Runaways recap: Ginsberg, threesomes, and nipples.

AT&T In Talks To Buy DirecTV For $50 Billion
Why Anonymity Apps Are So Healthy—And So Rotten | Business | WIRED - But now Whisper and Secret are shoving the pendulum in the other direction, realizing that so many people crave anonymity and the kind of talk it generates. Even Facebook is eyeing a return to anonymity.
DepthHub: A jumping-off point for deeply-involved subreddits
Syjefroi comments on Is classical music objectively one of the most musically complex and technically demanding genres of music to ever exist? Is the idea that classical music being inherently "superior" from a music theory standpoint justifiable?
South Korea Defence Ministry says North Korea is not a real country, exists solely for the benefit of Kim Jong Un, and must disappear soon. : worldnews
/u/Cenodoxus explains why no state wants to see North Korea collapse. : DepthHub

051114
Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate - NYTimes.com - “Sea level rise is our reality in Miami Beach,” said the city’s mayor, Philip Levine. “We are past the point of debating the existence of climate change and are now focusing on adapting to current and future threats.”
Marco Rubio: I Don't Believe Humans Are Causing Climate Change (blames chipmunks)
Hullabaloo - Pandering or true belief, it doesn't matter. They're trying to kill us. - Marco Rubio - THE FIVE STAGES OF GLOBAL WARMING 1. Denial 2. Guilt 3. Depression 4. Acceptance 5. Drowning — God (@TheTweetOfGod) May 8, 2014

Dispatches: Truth a Casualty in Ukraine Conflict | Human Rights Watch
Ukrainian National Guardsmen Fire On Crowd In Eastern Ukraine
Poll: Most Ukrainians want a unified country - Yahoo News - 77 percent of people nationwide want Ukraine to maintain its current borders, and even in the east the figure is 70 percent. Only among Russian speakers does the percentage drop significantly, but it is still over half at 58 percent.
Brutal Crackdown on Hangzhou Waste Incinerator Protest Leaves 3 Dead, Sparks Riot - At least three people are reported dead with dozens more injured, hospitalized and arrested after hundreds of police began a brutal repression with baton beatings, tasers and tear gas, in a move to clear out 1000's of proposed waste incinerator plant protesters in Hangzhou.

Calls to class far-right Jewish settlers as terrorists after Israeli soldiers attacked | World news | theguardian.com - Senior ministers Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Aharonovitch condemn 'price-tag' attacks as author Amos Oz calls militants neo-Nazis (remember that "apartheid" word from last week that Barbara Boxer hated? +how long can this go on?)
ALRAY-Palestinian Media Agency - Gaza's workers are increasingly suffe - ALRAY
Obama “peace” envoy ridicules notion that Palestinians have “rights” | The Electronic Intifada - Martin Indyk, the career Israel lobbyist who US President Barack Obama placed in charge of the Palestinian-Israeli “peace process,” has publicly ridiculed the notion that Palestinians have rights or are seeking justice. (puts "rights" in scare quotes)
How the Israeli gov’t rewards land thieves | +972 Magazine - the head of the Beit El Yeshiva exposes that he received millions of shekels from the State of Israel in compensation for his seminary’s violations of the law – with the quiet assistance of a senior Knesset member.
'Palestine' Newspaper Sold In West Bank For First Time In Seven Years
NY Times troubling corrections: Hebron youth who first 'had brass knuckles' now investigated for possessing 'weapons' (Times' coverage of Israel)

Court jails mum who torched daughter's rapist - The Local - The man who attacked García's daughter was himself sentenced to nine years in prison for that crime. In 2005, while on parole, the rapist returned to the family´s hometown, Benejúzar, and ran into García. “How’s your daughter?” he asked her. (Spain: rape no big deal)
?Canada govt spying on social media to be reviewed over privacy breach concerns — RT News
Mexico legalises vigilantes to fight cartels - Americas - Al Jazeera English - Rise of vigilante movement brought fears that it could turn into a dangerous paramilitary force.

Freedom Rider: How Not to “Bring Back our Girls” | Black Agenda Report
Behind the rise of Boko Haram - ecological disaster, oil crisis, spy games | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com - Islamist militancy in Nigeria is being strengthened by western and regional fossil fuel interests
The Real Story About the Wrong Photos in #BringBackOurGirls - One problem: The photos are of girls from Guinea-Bissau, more than 1,000 miles from Nigeria, who have no relationship to the kidnappings.
Fox News Panel Slams #BringBackOurGirls Hashtag Activism - George Will said. "It’s an exercise in self-esteem. I do not know how adults stand there, facing a camera, and say, 'Bring back our girls.' Are these barbarians in the wilds of Nigeria supposed to check their Twitter accounts and say, 'Uh oh, Michelle Obama is very cross with us, we better change our behavior'?"

2 Yemenis Shot by Americans Are Linked to Qaeda Cell - NYTimes.com (murky, not there for a haircut, obviously)
Twitter / barryeisler: Wow, a whole @TheEconomist ... - piece about polio resurgent in Pakistan with no mention of CIA bogus vaccination campaign (elite press)
New documents point to CIA rendition network through Djibouti | Al Jazeera America - New evidence culled from a court case involving CIA contractors has revealed flight paths through Djibouti that appear to indicate the country’s role as a hub of the CIA’s rendition network in Africa
Federal Agents Seek to Loosen Rules on Hacking Computers - Bloomberg - A U.S. proposal to expand the U.S. Justice Department’s ability to hack into computers during criminal investigations is furthering tension in the debate over how to balance privacy rights with the need to keep the country safe. ("safe")

New York Times Writer Out After Book About Genetics, Race | The Daily Caller - Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians.

Glenn Greenwald: the explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden's identity to the world | World news | theguardian.com - In the hours after his name became known, the entire world was searching for the NSA whistleblower
Michael Hayden:  We Kill People Based on Metadata - a remarkable admission former director of NSA and CIA Michael Hayden made (remember "it's not really data?"

Government Is Wrong to Impose Secrecy & Deny Defendants Access to ‘Foreign Surveillance Materials’ | The Dissenter - Prosecutors believe the district court “abused her discretion” or overstepped her authority by ordering the government to disclose materials to the defense. They also argue that this is not an “extraordinary” case, which should justify the nation’s “first” FISA disclosure order.

Your Anon News - Truth and reconciliation - Pastebin.com (YAN founder internal conflict)
bitly blog - We have reason to believe that Bitly account credentials have been compromised; specifically, users’ email addresses, encrypted passwords, API keys and OAuth tokens.

The Ghost of Anna Mae » CounterPunch: How the New York Times Covered for the FBI's Bloody Role in Indian Country
Barrett Brown | FrontBurner - Soledad Brother, turns out to be on the list of proscribed material that on some U.S. prison compounds constitutes procedural evidence of involvement in the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang, which in turn can lead to indefinite solitary confinement (when Gerald Ford was Pres; they never, ever, let go)
Chuck Hagel: Military's Transgender Ban 'Should Be Reviewed'

Secret Service agents pulled off White House patrol to help protect a top official’s aide - The Washington Post - Sullivan, 60, who now runs a private security firm, left his Secret Service job last year, 10 months after a controversy over members of the presidential protection team hiring prostitutes ahead of a 2012 Obama trip to Colombia

FCC's Tom Wheeler Says He'll Ask For Public Comment On Whether It's Appropriate To Reclassify Broadband | Techdirt - from the well-now-it-gets-a-bit-more-interesting dept (Tom Wheeler, lobbyist for Comcast, appointed head of FCC by ... Obama!)
Fifty Capital Investors Write FCC Opposing End Of Net Neutrality | PopularResistance.Org

Perfect Forward Secrecy - An Introduction - Scott Helme
Tammer Saleh : Building an Encrypted USB Drive for your SSH Keys

This is just a stub for a PressThink post | Jay Rosen: Public Notebook - “Democrats argue/Republicans contend” (Dems tell the truth about voter fraud, Repubicans and NYT lies)

CNN Poll: Should Obamacare be kept or repealed? – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - According to the poll, 61% want Congress to leave the Affordable Care Act alone (12%) or make some changes to the law in an attempt to make it work better (49%).

The Polarized Court - NYTimes.com - For the first time, the Supreme Court is closely divided along party lines.
Methodology on Supreme Court Analysis - NYTimes.com
Six Catholics, Three Jews and Not Much Memory at the Supreme Court - The Daily Beast - The Roberts Court’s cultural amnesia is shocking in Greece v. Galloway, especially considering the religious discrimination the justices’ own forefathers confronted ... In a country founded by Protestants who still make up 48 percent of the U.S. population (22 percent of Americans are Catholic and 2.2 percent are Jewish), the absence of a Protestant from the court is extraordinary.

Caesars closing Atlantic City casinos? - Philadelphia Business Journal - "all the businesses in A.C. are under tremendous pressure" and that "in some cases reducing supply is the right answer.” (fat bully fuck's pet rock)

Saturday’s Illegal Cliven Bundy-Endorsed ATV Rally Runs Through Sacred American Indian Sites | ThinkProgress (Bundystan)

Trey Gowdy Softens His Benghazi 'Trial' Remark - "No sir," Gowdy said, when "Fox News Sunday" asked if he sees himself as a prosecutor and the Obama administration as the defense
Total Lack of Focus for Benghazi Committee by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledged on Wednesday that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010. (no connection at all to those four dead Americans we are attacking Obama over not protecting with the security we cut, so shut up)

Eric Cantor Booed, Heckled By Tea Partiers In His Home District (not insane enough)
The New Moral Panic Over Drug-Dependent Babies - Last month, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would allow state authorities to file criminal assault charges against women who use illegal drugs during pregnancy.

Dolphins' Player Rebuked For Negative Tweet About Michael Sam - Shortly after the St. Louis Rams selected Sam in the seventh round Saturday, Jones tweeted, "Horrible." The tweet was taken down a short time later.
Michael Sam Becomes First Openly Gay Man Selected In The NFL Draft | ThinkProgress (Limpoop's head explodes)

Seismologists Warn Fracking Boom Can Lead to More Earthquakes | DeSmogBlog

Substance-Free Bush Rehabilitation - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Matt Bai couldn’t even be bothered to argue that at least the Bushites wore ties when destroying Iraq. This is about as substance-heavy as he gets in his Bush rehab piece:

Chicopee woman faces wiretapping charges after allegedly recording her own arrest | masslive.com (no matter how many cases they've lost, they will always do this)
Woman faces wiretapping charge for recording her own arrest. : news

Brooklyn - Lawyers, Guns & Money : but I’m not sure that the female babies of today are going to grow up thrilled to be named for the hipster paradise of Brooklyn. That West Virginia and Wyoming are the per capita leaders of this unfortunate phenomena is not that surprising I guess ... Now naming your little girls Bronx, that’s a trend we can get behind. Or perhaps Schenectady.
Hot girl at prom : Jokes

Stories as a Window Into Schizophrenia - NYTimes.com

Google Is Following You Offline to Undermine Amazon | Business | WIRED

051014
Hebrew University sets police on students protesting army recruitment | The Electronic Intifada - “If you ask my 14-year-old son Christian about it, he would prefer to be jailed over serving in the IDF [the Israeli army],” Monayer told The Electronic Intifada. (Haredim exempted but Druze have to serve)

Michelle Obama: Barack and I see our own daughters in Nigeria schoolgirls | World news | theguardian.com (but def not in those litte brown Muslim girls Barry turned into red mist)

Bus plunges down gorge in northern India, killing at least 17 people | World news | theguardian.com - Passengers were travelling in darkness when vehicle fell off road near Himalayas in Uttarakhand and broke into pieces

The Origin of Benghazi Fever by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

MPs: Snowden files are 'embarrassing indictment' of British spying oversight | UK news | The Guardian - All-party committee demands reforms to make security and intelligence services accountable in wake of disclosures
State Secrets in the Snowden Era | Jack Shafer
Massive Gag Policy Is Expanded & Imposed on US Intelligence Employees in Response to Edward Snowden | The Dissenter
The top spook’s stupid gag order | Jack Shafer - As Aftergood notes, Directive 119 does not merely bar intelligence community employees from sharing classified intelligence information with reporters. It also bars the discussion with the media of unclassified intelligence information “related” to intelligence (everything is "related" to everything else so shut up)

'Cybersecurity' begins with integrity, not surveillance | Technology | theguardian.com - As the debate goes on, I realise that even if continuous surveillance worked to catch terrorists, I would still oppose it
Anti-surveillance mask lets you pass as someone else - CNET
Heaven forbid journalists ask questions! | Jack Shafer - Cass R. Sunstein emptied his digestive system of a steaming wad of press rancor Wednesday in his Bloomberg View column titled “Why Officials Don’t Tell the Media Everything.” Sunstein

Your Anon News • Dear Twitter: Over the past few years, we’ve...
dell's letter. untouched - Pastebin.com (YAN hijacked)

alicublog: Old Whine In New Bottles. - I guess you've heard about the latest wingnut-welfare-funded propaganda project, the Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal, and they swear this time it'll be real news: (+Katrina Trinko +"it was unfair to compare Republicans with Randroids because Republicans actually want a safety net run by the Church."
Fewer Debates Won’t Save the GOP From Itself by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly (shortening the clown-car parade won't help, they are still clowns)
In defense of political lying | Jack Shafer (commenters are not happy)

Limited Samples and the Presidential “Metronome” by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Midterm Election Turnout Isn’t So Different From Presidential Year Turnout | FiveThirtyEight
The White House Is Not a Metronome | FiveThirtyEight - the writer Megan McArdle asserted that Republicans have about a 75 percent chance of winning the White House in 2016. “Mostly, the White House flips back and forth like a metronome,” (or, her calculator)
Megan McArdle - S.H.A.M.E. Profile

The Confessing Church of the Christian Right by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Another day, another Louie Gohmert outrage, and another use of Nazi analogies by a Christian Right pol. Nothing to see here, right?
Limbaugh: Football Players Showing Emotion During Draft Evidence Of NFL "Being Chickified" | Video | Media Matters for America

Hardship Makes a New Home in the Suburbs - NYTimes.com
The truth inside the Google bus lawsuit: gentrification hurts the environment | Susie Cagle | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Stop blaming poor people for pollution. When Silicon Valley's class war prices out city workers and forces them to the suburbs, they become more eco-evil than Google

Report: FBI Questioning Local Law Enforcement About Bundy Militia



Does Cortana sound less robotic today? | Windows Phone Central

050914
Krauthammer, George Will Attack Climate Science -- NYMag (math too left-wing for Geoge Willfully Stupid and the Kraut-head)
Climate Change is Clear and Present Danger That The Fossil Fuel Industry Would Like You To Ignore | DeSmogBlog
Wyoming First State To Reject Science Standards Over Climate Change Denial - Wyoming is 1st state to reject science standards
Robert Reich Trashes White House 'Numbskull' For Walmart Event - Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich trashed the White House on Thursday for using Walmart, an enemy of unions and fair-pay advocates, as a poster company for a new climate-change campaign.
Obama Just Pissed Off A Bunch Of People By Choosing Walmart
Al Jazeera America Is Covering Climate Change The Way Everyone Else Should (bunch of terrorists)

WHO warns of risk to Syrian refugees as Mers virus cases increase sharply | Science | The Guardian - UN health body fears secondary infections may be rising, raising potential for global spread and stirring memories of Sars virus

China wants to build high-speed railway to US through Siberia and Bering Strait — RT USA

US accuses Israel of ‘alarming, even terrifying’ levels of spying - The Independent - Israel has been trying to steal secrets from the US, its principal protector and benefactor, but also occasional rival, ever since the inception of the Jewish state in 1948, and even before. (our "ally")

Nigerian Authorities Failed to Act on Warnings About Boko Haram Raid on School | Amnesty International USA - Nigerian security forces had more than four hours of advance warning about the attack but did not do enough to stop it.
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Send us your best response ... - to the White House's selective empathy using #BringBackOurDrones (#BringBackOutGirls, but not the Muslim ones Obama personally killed)
Defector: Shadowy organization, not Kim Jong Un, controls North Korea – Amanpour - CNN.com Blogs - “What they did not see also was what happened to the apparatus of the totalitarian system that supported the rule of Kim Jong Il.”
Violence erupts again in Mexican state where drug wars began | World news | The Guardian - Top detective among latest of around 80 people killed since April in Tamaulipas state, after new crackdown on criminal groups
The Phone Hacking Trial Is Coming To A Close - Everyone's favorite probe into possible criminal malfeasance by top Rupert Murdoch executives is coming to an end.

Lawmaker Ignores His Own Facts To Make Debunked Benghazi Claim
Nancy Pelosi: Families Of Benghazi Victims Have Asked Us Not To Launch New Committee

The military thinks Bitcoin could pose a threat to national security - virtual currencies represent an emerging technology that could help terrorists and criminals evade law enforcement and launch attacks against the United States.
Japan Makes First Bitcoin-Related Drug Arrest - Japanese authorities have arrested a suspected drug importer who allegedly used bitcoin to pay his Mexican suppliers.

This is the NSA reform that you've been waiting for — sort of | The Verge - Your guide to the surveillance bill finally moving in Congress
whistleblow-guide.pdf: Whistle-Blowing: A Practical Guide: Brian Martin)

Snapchat 'deceived users' about disappearing messages, will be monitored by gov't — RT USA - Snapchat was not in fact designed to erase the files (yeah product based on deleting files doesn't; founders are billionaires)
Tor Is Being Used as a Safe Haven for Victims of Cyberstalking | Motherboard - The onion router can hide a victim’s identity long enough for them to research where to find help, and look up what data they can find about themselves without tipping off their stalker that they’re online, he said.

Pols to Ad Networks: Pretend We Passed SOPA, and Never Mind About Violating Antitrust Law | Electronic Frontier Foundation - A group of United States Senators and Representatives is asking Internet advertising networks to create a blacklist of alleged "piracy sites" and refuse to serve ads to those sites
Web hosting company puts FCC in the 'slow lane' in net neutrality protest | The Verge - NeoCities creator Kyle Drake rounded up the FCC's internal IP address range and has since slowed things to a crawl for anyone accessing his company's website at the commission

Editors Don’t Belong in Courtrooms, and Cecily McMillan Doesn’t Belong in Prison | The Nation - The jury that convicted the Occupier on May 5 had only been given one side of the story - Judge Ronald Zweibel (poster boy for thug justice)
The Open-and-Shut Assault Case Against Occupy Activist, Cecily McMillan: Just Look at the Pictures | Michael Shaw (she was assaulted by the judge, also)
Cecily McMillan Jurors' Remorse Is Not Good Enough | VICE News (institutionalized injustice)

Massive Unexplained DDoS Attack Hits USA - revolution-news.com - affecting at least 220,000 domains belonging to domain hosts, Point DNS.

Intelligence Policy Bans Citation of Leaked Material - NYTimes.com (can't cite wikileaks or Snowden because national security)
NSA Still Has No Idea How Many Documents Snowden Took... But Insists We Can Trust Them Because They Audit Everything | Techdirt - from the there's-a-disconnect-there dept

Fate of Barron appeals court nomination unclear as White House offers drone memos (drone-loving Republican have cognitive dissonance if they had any cognitive)

Party of moral failures: Why Obamacare foes are about to pay a price - Salon.com - With Obamacare's benefits becoming tangible, opposing it on ideological grounds will create a new set of problems (they always were the "death panels" themselves)

Obama’s Top Economist Has Some Problems With Piketty’s Book - NYTimes.com - Jason Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, grappled with Mr. Piketty’s book in a speech on the global economy in Ireland on Wednesday.
Piketty’s Arguments Still Hold Up, After Taxes - NYTimes.com
Pope Francis Calls For 'Legitimate Redistribution' Of Wealth To The Poor
Bill Clinton Joins Boo-Hoo Billionaire’s Club » Balloon Juice - “You could take Lloyd Blankfein into a dark alley,” Clinton said, “and slit his throat, and it would satisfy them for about two days. Then the blood lust would rise again.”
Now That’s Rich - NYTimes.com - Yet before we dismiss the report as nothing new, let’s think about what it means that these 25 men (yes, they’re all men) made a combined $21 billion in 2013. In particular, let’s think about how their good fortune refutes several popular myths about income inequality in America.
Diane Ravitch defends Louis C.K., takes down silly Newsweek piece: “Your belief … has no research to support it, nor is there any real-world evidence” - Salon.com - A poorly argued Newsweek article repeats ignorant Common Core arguments. Diane Ravitch sets the record straight
A Brilliant Plan To Give Billionaires Who Try To Buy U.S. Elections A Taste Of Their Own Medicine - In other words, if you can't afford to hire a lobbyist or raise money for politicians, your opinion literally does not matter.

Whistleblower Suit Alleges Corruption, Cronyism, and Affairs in Gov. Susana Martinez's Administration | Mother Jones - Two former appointees of the governor's level a series of explosive allegations against a Martinez appointee and his deputy. (another corrupt Republican)
EXCLUSIVE: Christie officials gave millions in public funds to VC firm, despite “pay to play” rules | PandoDaily (corrupt fat-fuck bully)
New Poll Brings Troubling News For Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy - A slight plurality of Connecticut voters say that Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) does not deserve to be reelected, and public opinion is divided on the job he is doing,

How Long Until a Government Land Manager Dies? - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The government using kid gloves with Cliven Bundy has just encouraged others in the West to step up their aggression against government land managers. First, Utah: (any other ethnic group would have been squashed)
Creeping Bundyism: The Next Anti-Government Showdown Could Take Place In Utah

FAA: U.S. Airliner Nearly Collided With Drone in March - WSJ.com - A U.S. airliner nearly collided with a drone over Florida earlier this year, a federal official said, a near miss that highlights risks posed by the proliferation of unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies.

The Most Republican Company? The Makers of Wonder Bread - NYTimes.com - The most Republican-leaning company in the country, based on political donations, isn’t Koch Industries. It’s the company that makes Wonder Bread. Flowers Foods, a Georgia company ... has given more than 99 percent of its political contributions since 1979 to Republicans. (and oh, look at those oil companies)

Protestant Church Faces New Sex-Abuse Scandal as Victims Defy Threats, Censorship to Speak Out | Democracy Now! - Is the Protestant world is teetering on the edge of a sex-abuse scandal similar to the one that rocked the Catholic Church? - GRACE — Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.

#Randbrackets, The Fun New Out-Of-Context Game - a quote from President Barack Obama that read like so: "In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds [to ban guns]." (we see what you did there)

Twitter / Search - #poltwt (deselected fact: cops are the real terrorists in America; profession attacts violent psychopaths)
New York Cops Caught on Surveillance Video Beating Man for Recording Traffic Stop | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC - The officers, Vincent Logiudice and Basil Gomez, have been placed on “modified duty where they don’t have contact with the public and can’t earn overtime pending the outcome of the internal affairs probe,” but judging by their salaries, they will probably survive without having to milk the taxpayers for more overtime dollars. (the thug-cop epidemic)
9-year-old led away in handcuffs by Portland police prompts outrage, push for policy changes | OregonLive.com - Two uniformed Portland police officers showed up at the home of a 9-year-old girl last May, questioned her on the front porch about a fight at a youth club six days earlier, then handcuffed her as she stood in a blue-and-white bathing suit. The Independent Police Review Division, under oversight of Portland's auditor, found officers violated no Police Bureau policies
Mothers Of Sons Killed By NYPD Call On Federal Government For Justice: Gothamist (Bloomberg's legacy)

News Corp Reports Profit And Revenue Drop In Q3 - News Corp.'s net income fell in its fiscal third quarter, but its results beat Wall Street expectations due to better book publishing thanks to thriving sales of the "Divergent" series, which was launched as a movie in March.

If Ever You Were Confused About Evolution, Here's An Answer To Your Every Question -

People who bought these Vibram FiveFinger shoes may be entitled to a refund - the company deceived consumers when it claimed, without any scientific backup, that its shoes could decrease foot injuries and strengthen foot muscles. The company agreed to put aside $3.75 million to pay refunds of as much as $94 to anyone who had bought a pair since March 21, 2009, according to Runner’s World.
Watch: For 8 Years, She Convinced The World She Was A Boy. Now, She's Making Us Rethink Sexuality | TEDTalks

Face The Music: Beats By Dre Headphones Are 'Extraordinarily Bad' - Apple is planning to buy headphones company Beats Electronics, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times all reported on Thursday. The deal is said to be worth $3.2 billion, and would be Apple's biggest acquisition to date. (fashion brand +comments not exactly pro-Apple)
Best In-Ear Headphones Under $30 | The Wirecutter
This Makeup Printer Could Destroy The Cosmetics Industry (Grace Choi)
Dangerous Decision in Oracle v. Google: Federal Circuit Reverses Sensible Lower Court Ruling on APIs | Electronic Frontier Foundation (Oracle is pure evil)
Unfortunately for Mediabridge, that Amazon customer also frequents Reddit and chronicled the entire saga there. The original overview has since seemingly been removed, but Ars Technica has been following the story closely. (they streisanded themselves in the dead)
One man is chronicling the history of a digital universe | The Verge - After a decade of epic battles, 'Eve Online' gets its historian

050814
Charles Krauthammer: Climate Change Is A 'Superstition' Like A Native American 'Rain Dance' - Krauthammer said the consensus around the science of climate change was just as dubious as the consensus around other debunked theories. "I'm not impressed by numbers," he said. (not impressed with math +badge of evil)

Abduction of Girls an Act Not Even Al Qaeda Can Condone - NYTimes.com
Hundreds killed in Boko Haram raid on unguarded Nigerian town | World news | theguardian.com - Soldiers based in Gamboru Ngala had been redeployed as part of effort to rescue schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist group
Boko Haram abductions: Will #BringBackOurGirls help Nigeria?
To stop Boko Haram, Nigeria needs to get serious about corruption and poverty.
Child Detainees | Defence for Children International Palestine (Israel has 200 Palestinian children in detention because)
South Korea ferry disaster: head of parent company held | World news | theguardian.com - Kim Han-sik, president of Chonghaejin Marine Co, accused of knowing before it sank that the Sewol was overloaded with cargo
Ukraine: siege mentality pushes south-eastern region to precipice of civil war | World news | The Guardian - In the town of Konstaninovka, an uneasy atmosphere of threats and violence is building ahead of a vote on independence
Syria rebels blow up Aleppo hotel used as barracks by government forces | World news | The Guardian - Bomb under hotel signals new focus of Syrian rebels, with struggle for city likely to be final showdown
Revenge killings, rapes spiral in South Sudan; famine looms – Amnesty
IRA fugitives given 'letters of comfort' are linked to 300 killings | UK news | The Guardian - Unionist anger as full extent of Tony Blair's secret deal with Sinn Féin is revealed
Russian Thugs Attack St. Patrick's Day Revelers – Because They Thought They Were Gay - PolicyMic - "Yes our students and teachers were among the injured, but it could have been any young people who weren’t to the taste of these grey masses."

The CIA Aided Polio's Comeback–but Media Have Forgotten the Story - WHO confirmed 68 new cases and declared it an international public health emergency. Nearly 80 percent of those cases are in Pakistan. (let's hoover up all the DNA in Abbottabad with the same disregard of collatoral damage we've demonstrated with drone killing so Obama has a scalp in his belt)

USA Freedom Act unanimously clears House Judiciary Committee | World news | theguardian.com - Surveillance reform bill designed to prevent collection of US phone data in bulk and is first to proceed onto the House floor
Interview transcript: former head of the NSA and commander of the US cyber command, General Keith Alexander

Jurors Regret That Protester Faces 7 Years In Jail After Allegedly Being Grabbed By Cop - "She might as well have said that aliens came that night and assaulted her," said Choi, according to the Village Voice.
Cecily McMillan: The Latest Butterfly on the Wheel - Cecily McMillanCecily McMillan. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)"Who Breaks a Butterfly Upon a Wheel?" (Who Drones a Small Child into Red Mist?)
Jury Letter cecily McMillan 9 of 12 jurors petition for release the whole thing stinks)
Thomas Drake on how blowing the whistle is even harder now - UPI.com - So you want to be the next Edward Snowden? Fellow NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake has some advice.
WASHINGTON: Despite Senate hopes of speedy release, CIA torture report won’t be made public for months | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - As for the inevitable charges that the CIA is dragging its feet, Lowenthal said: “It’s the cost of doing business and you ignore it.”

FBI Hacker-Informant Sabu's Sentencing Has Been Delayed for the Seventh Time | Motherboard

Trey Gowdy leads the Benghazi Select Committee: The South Carolina Republican wants to put the White House on trial. - To conduct hearings that may lead to impeachment, Republicans needed a leader who seemed unimpeachable

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers seek to suppress statements made in hospital - Metro - The Boston Globe - “Despite Mr. Tsarnaev’s entreaties to be left alone, allowed to rest, and provided with a lawyer, the agents persisted in questioning him throughout the night and into the [next] morning,” Tsarnaev’s lawyers said in the court filings. (FBI fucks up their prosecution but it won't matter)

Death on the Installment Plan - Harold Pollack - POLITICO Magazine - Now we know: Rejecting the Medicaid expansion could kill nearly 6,000 people each year. (yeah, it was Republicans running their death panels all along)
49 Million Americans Go Hungry, Despite So-Called Recovery
Leave ‘Organic’ Out of It - NYTimes.com - Biotech in agriculture has been overrated both in its benefits and in its dangers. And by overrating its dangers, the otherwise generally rational “food movement” allows itself to be framed as “anti-science.”

Supreme Court Bound? The Next Big Campaign Finance Case Set To Pick Up GOP Support (end of democracy dept)

What Timothy Geithner’s New Book Won’t Tell You - David Dayen - POLITICO Magazine - Don’t accept the former Treasury secretary’s account without reading Elizabeth Warren’s take on all the people he left behind.
Eschaton: A Horrible Person - Someone in a position to know once told me something along the lines that Geithner is as horrible as, or even worse than, you think. (chose not to help homeowners with Obama's program designed not to help anyone but bankers)
This Is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...: Thursday Idiocy on Wednesday: The Astonishingly Unprofessional Allan H. Meltzer in the Wall Street Journal... - they and it are either (a) completely disconnected from and uninterested in reality and in marking their beliefs to market, or (b) completely cynical and uninterested in anything but misleading their readers, I could not come up with anything more effective than this: (inflation unicorns are jumping over rainbows again)

Eschaton: Hypotheticals - I'm not saying I think it would or could happen (no idea!), but just for the sake of discussion, what if fracking caused some catastrophic city-leveling earthquake. I guess I'm wondering what level of disaster would cause any change in the status quo. Would they just keep on fracking? Suck it, rubble covered people!

GOP 2016 Candidate Game Plan - Reining In The Clown Show - Esquire - Priebus wants help in camouflaging the fact that his party has gone freaking daffy. Any legitimate news source that goes along with this should be ashamed of itself.

Monica Lewinsky's story is a scandal of Americans' double-standards | Megan Carpentier | Comment is free | theguardian.com - It is hard not to feel a kinship with Lewinsky because women know that one wrong decision could mean the end of our dreams (great picture, Vanity Fair)
Maureen Dowd Has Always Been Terrible - Lawyers, Guns & Money

The most dangerous U.S. state for workers - CBS News - the most dangerous U.S. state for workers is North Dakota, which the report calls "an exceptionally dangerous and deadly place to work." Its fatality rate -- almost 18 deaths per 100,000 workers -- is five times higher than the national average

The Age At Which Men Officially Become Grumpy | Carol E Wyer - 'Grumpy Old Man' syndrome is also and most likely due to the fact that testosterone levels in a 70-year-old are quite probably half the normal levels of a younger man.
The ‘Basic Bitch’: Who Is She? - The Cut

Marijuana vending machine introduced in Vancouver, Canada – video | Society | theguardian.com - Marijuana vending machine introduced in Vancouver, Canada – video


050714

Putin: Russia Has Withdrawn Forces From Ukrainian Border
Syrian Rebels Begin Evacuating From Homs As Part Of Ceasefire Deal With Government Forces - The exit of some 1,200 fighters and civilians will mark a de facto end of the rebellion in the battered city, which was one of the first places to rise up against President Bashar Assad's rule, earning it the nickname of "capital of the revolution."
Captivity : The New Yorker - Teju Cole (Nigerian kidnappings)
Boko Haram Attack Kills Hundreds In Border Town (while the oil oligarchs sit on all the money)
Yingluck Shinawatra, Thai Prime Minister, Forced To Resign Over Abuse Of Power - guilty of abusing her power by transferring a senior civil servant in 2011 to another position. It ruled that the transfer was carried out to benefit her politically powerful family
It's wrong to assume we're all being spied on, spy watchdog says - It is "quite wrong" to think that all Australians' phone and internet data is being collected and examined by Australian intelligence agencies, the spy watchdog says.

Permission to Narrate: Explaining Max Fisher's Missing Maps - Over at Vox, blogger Max Fisher has a post up entitled "40 Maps That Explain the Middle East." If such a title makes you cringe, you are not alone. the stage-by-stage progression of Israeli military operations from November 1947 through April 1949. It also helpfully lists the total number of refugees created, the number of depopulated villages and the number of dunams occupied at each stage of the war. (history of Israel invasion/aggression)

The Vatican Defrocked 848 Priests For Child Abuse in the Past 10 Years - The Wire - and doled out lesser punishments to another 2,572 accused of raping and molesting children (slapped a few wrists for raping children; WLPO)

IC ON THE RECORD • DNI Announces the Release of Additional Documents... - Yesterday the Director of National Intelligence released additional documents related to the intelligence-gathering activities authorized by President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11 and subsequently transitioned to authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Trans-Pacific Plague: How TPP Spreads the United States' Terrible DRM Policies | Electronic Frontier Foundation - The US proposals call for users to be charged with a crime for circumventing, or sharing knowledge or tools on how to circumvent DRM (Obama loves extreme penalties for everyone but CIA liars and bankers)

Obama administration proves why we need someone to leak CIA Torture Report - Boing Boing (so transparent you can see right through him - sitting on 6K pages of torture docs)
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to NDAA Detention Power -- News from Antiwar.com - The standing argument effectively makes it impossible to challenge the NDAA statute, as it precludes challenges before the detention takes place, and once a person has been disappeared into military custody under the NDAA, the law explicitly denies them any access to the courts. (another one of Obama's trade-mark rabbit-holes)

A Bill Drastically Curbing the NSA's Powers Moves a Step Forward - the USA Freedom Act, is one of many proposed by legislators in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. The USA Freedom Act aims to end the NSA's bulk collection of data and the controversial phone records collection program, which lets the NSA collect the phone metadata of virtually every American.
Is the NSA Trying to Frighten Americans Into Dropping Lawsuits Against Dragnet Surveillance? | The Dissenter (they would never do that)
Released Emails Show 'Google in a Relationship With NSA' (bodily positions were not specified)
Drone memo author endorsed call for transparency | MSNBC (when Bush was pres)

? Molly Crabapple on Art, Journalism & the Theater of Justice - YouTube
Federal Appeals Court Finds Fault In Longtime, Unreviewed Solitary Confinement | ThinkProgress - . But there is no recourse for Brown, because the state corrections department and officials are entitled to immunity. (which is exactly why they can torture people)

Right-Wing Media Cash In On Benghazi Obsession | Blog | Media Matters for America - Five Examples Of How Conservative Pundits Are Using Their Benghazi Witch Hunt To Fundraise (1: defund State Dept security; 2: sacrifice 4 Americans; 4: blame Obama; 5. profit!)

GOP Benghazi Committee Chairman Gowdy Caught In Absurd Error | New Republic (more than one thought requires thinking)
Can ‘60 Minutes’ Afford to Take Lara Logan Back? -- New York Magazine - "Among other reporting triumphs, she was the only journalist from an American TV network to broadcast live from Firdos Square in Baghdad in 2003 when American soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein." ("reporting" on a staged fake event)
Here's Your Crucial Reminder That Lara Logan Has Breasts - The Wire - General David Petraeus had a picture of her in his office. When the news of her Baghdad affairs was trumpeted in the New York Post under the headline “Sexty Minutes,” [Jeff] Fager hung a framed copy in his office.

Wide Majorities Losing Faith In John Roberts' Supreme Court, Want Term Limits - By a 60-36 spread, those surveyed said that Supreme Court justices were more likely to be carrying out a personal or political agenda than working to render a fair and impartial judgment, an opinion that cut across party lines (Roberts lied, of course, because why not?)

Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros | Brookings Institution (more companies died than were born)

Sorry GOP, Most Americans Are Paying Their Obamacare Bills On Time (Republicans party of stupid and evil)

“Look at my gun!” Why NRA’s scary “open carry” craze is not about freedom - Salon.com - Freedom for a man with a gun trumps freedom for parents of kids who feel endangered by him. Our scary new reality (legalized intimidation by gun-nut psychos)

Justice Clarence Thomas - The Last Confederate Is Clarence Thomas - Esquire - It persists because there always are forces that seek power by denying the basic fact that of a United States of America, and that the reason for that is that the Constitution is an agreement between the citizens of that country, not between 50 independent republics.

Matt Bevin Says Alison Lundergan Grimes Is Just A Young Woman With No Life Experience + “an empty dress” who is "incapable of articulating her own thoughts."
NY Post Welcomes Monica Lewinsky Back In Typically Slimy Fashion (Murdock)

Mother's Day and Health: U.S. Mothers Found to Have Herbicide Chemical in Breast Milk -- Fusion. - The controversial chemical, known as glyphosate, was found in three of ten mothers tested in the U.S.

How to Avoid Self-Incrimination via Smartphone | VICE United States
Oakland City Council Approves $4.5 Million Settlement for Police Attack on Scott Olsen | National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter - Olsen’s skull was shattered and part of his brain was destroyed by the lead-filled “beanbag”, also known as a Specialty Impact Munition (SIM). As Olsen lay critically injured on the pavement, an OPD officer threw a CS Blast grenade onto him - a teargas device that explodes with a flash of light and loud bang.
Takeover: Protestors rush Albuquerque City Council bench | KOB.com - Protesters took over the city council meeting, even attempting to make a citizen's arrest of APD chief Gorden Eden.
Texas police shoot woman, 93 - CNN.com - Pearlie Golden, a longtime resident of Hearne, a town of approximately 4,600 people situated about 150 miles south of Dallas, was shot multiple times Tuesday.
After police and corporate secrecy on cell phone sniffers, will Boston cops be forthright with the public? | Privacy SOS
James Boyd's family to file wrongful death lawsuit | KOB.com - The family of the mentally ill homeless man who was shot and killed by two Albuquerque officers is planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department.
City of Huntsville denies wrongdoing after lawsuit alleges teen died from arrest injuries | AL.com - Police told the paramedics N.S. had swallowed a bag of drugs, causing him to choke, the suit claims. In an effort to retrieve the alleged bag, police had shoved a sharp object into the teen's throat, the lawsuit claims. No bag was retrieved at the scene or at the hospital where he was treated until his death, the lawsuit contends. (they slit his throat to find drugs that weren't there and he died but they were following standard procedure so no fault and they don't have to release the autopsy report either, there should be an award for this level of cop-insanity)

V. Stiviano Investigated Amid Blackmail Accusations: Reports (video) - The investigation was first reported by TMZ, which says Stiviano claims to have 100 hours of recordings of her conversations with Sterling.

What's the most embarrassing thing you did as a child? : AskReddit

Scientists Create First Living Organism With 'Artificial' DNA (X and Y bases added)

050614
Budget Cuts Mean Weather Forecaster Shortage in Tornado Alley - NBC News.com - With tornado season underway the National Weather Service is short nearly 200 meteorologists, including vacancies in Tornado Alley and at the office responsible for predicting tornadoes,
Climate Change Is Already Here, Says Massive Government Report - President Barack Obama plans to meet with meteorologists to discuss the report's findings, and the White House has several related events planned later this week. (not "climate scientists" but (Fox News) "meteorologists?"
Climate change wreaking havoc in America's backyard, scientists warn | Environment | theguardian.com - Scientists hope to spur US to action with dire warning • Obama plans push to amplify findings of definitive report
Federal Climate Change Report - The Great Climate Change Hoax Rolls On - Esquire
The Next Frontier In The War Over Science - a House Republican bill that they argue would dramatically undermine way research is conducted in America. (no shady "climate science")

Polio spread in Pakistan described as an 'uncontrolled outbreak' - The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of polio is an international public health emergency.

Israel’s thought police have failed the US-sponsored peace process | The National - On the ground, meanwhile, Israeli colonisation has continued apace. In nine months of formal talks, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government advanced construction for around 14,000 housing units in West Bank settlements. (Netanfuckyu)
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnap eight girls from village in Nigeria | World news | The Guardian - Incident comes after Islamist rebels threaten to sell as slaves more than 270 girls abducted from secondary school in April
Ukraine crisis worsens amid intense fighting and warnings of civil war | World news | The Guardian - Casualties on both sides as Kiev attempts to regain control of east and Russia insists that rebels be included in talks on equal terms
China denies making preparations for collapse of North Korea regime | World news | theguardian.com - Experts say leaked contingency plans, which include the detention of leaders and establishment of refugee camps, may be valid but do not suggest that the alliance is weakening
Alleged Anonymous duo officially charged, National, Phnom Penh Post - Two more alleged members of hacking group Anonymous Cambodia were slapped with court charges and sent to join two fellow “hacktivists” in Prey Sar prison.

Exclusive: Emails reveal close Google relationship with NSA | Al Jazeera America - National Security Agency head and Internet giant’s executives have coordinated through high-level policy discussions
In Possible FBI Entrapment Case, Lawyers Urge Judge to Uphold Decision Granting Unprecedented Access to Surveillance Data | The Dissenter

? The Illegitimacy of the U.S. Government - YouTube

The Death Penalty in the USA | ArrestRecords.com Blog

Tear Down This Wall! (Of Separation Between Church and State) - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - On yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court to open the door to state-endorsed religion:

Drone Journalism Is a First Amendment Right, Says Coalition of Media Giants | Motherboard (FAA can regulate paper airplanes)
PANEL: Tradecraft: Getting & Protecting Sources - FORA.tv

Five big US internet providers are slowing down Internet access until they get more cash - Vox
New Movement Aims to ‘Reset the Net’ Against Mass Surveillance | Threat Level | WIRED

Rightbloggers: Had Enough Benghazi? Too Bad! | Village Voice (they keep iterating the lost cause of the Confederacy)
Ronald Reagan's Benghazi : The New Yorker (the right's history is myth and Clio is gettng drunk)

Antivirus software is dead, says security expert at Symantec | Technology | theguardian.com - Information chief at Norton developer says software in general misses 55% of attacks and its future lies in responding to hacks

Cecily McMillan’s Guilt: Injustice at Its Most Basic | VICE News - The “felony assault” in question occurred when the officer, Grantley Bovell grabbed McMillan’s breast from behind, leaving visible bruises; she spun around instinctively, hitting the officer with her elbow. (seven years in prison for being assaulted by a thug cop)
Cecily McMillan's guilty verdict reveals our mass acceptance of police violence | Molly Knefel | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The hyper-selective retelling of events mirrors the popular narrative of Occupy Wall Street – and how one woman may serve seven years while the NYPD goes free

Elizabeth Warren: Obama Team 'Chose Wall Street Instead Of American Families' (they owned him from day one)

Death rate drops in Massachusetts after state health law implemented, study suggests - Health & wellness - The Boston Globe - The groundbreaking Massachusetts health insurance law may have prevented about 320 deaths a year, according to a Harvard study of the legislation that was used as a model for President Obama’s national health program. (so the Republicans are the death panels)
This Is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...: Governor Beshear: 413,000 sign up for health care in Kentucky: Live from The Roasterie CXLIII: April 29, 2014 - I am wondering: how soon before we begin to see the signal emerging from the noise as states that implement the ACA start pulling ahead, economically, of the others?

Los Angeles now spending more on Wall Street fees than on maintaining roads | PandoDaily

I Hope You Will All Engage In Some Serious Soul-Searching - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Mr. Frederik deBoer wishes to register a complaint about our commentariat.
I could get exercised about the golden age of TV or alternatively punch myself repeatedly in the throat | Fredrik deBoer

Don't use aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease, FDA warns | The Verge - Going against years of widely dispensed advice, the FDA warned the public in a statement yesterday that most people shouldn't take aspirin to prevent heart attacks, Bloomberg reports.

Paris Review – How Far Should a Writer Go to Police His Public Image?, Evan Kindley - David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, and the trouble with public image.

Video Landing Page - KPTV - FOX 12 (Oregon cop tazers skateboarder for reading a book while sitting on the ground)

Fox Developing 'Nazareth' Event Series About Jesus' Early Life (he was a banker and loved guns)

Paris Review – How Far Should a Writer Go to Police His Public Image?, Evan Kindley - David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, and the trouble with public image.

Angela Ahrendts' start date at Apple leaves Burberry investors confused | Business | theguardian.com - Burberry chief executive is to take up her new post as head of Apple's retail empire next (Apple primarily a fashion brand)

050514
Antarctic Ice Shelf On Brink Of Unstoppable Melt That Could Raise Sea Levels For 10,000 Years (Republicans succeed in destroying the planet)
Oklahoma Earthquake Risk Prompts Rare Warning - This is the first time the USGS has issued an earthquake warning for a state east of the Rockies ... Ongoing studies have found a link between Oklahoma's high-volume wastewater injection wells and regions with an uptick in earthquakes. (frack, baby, frack)

Pink Floyd members strike nerve with call on Rolling Stones to boycott Israel | The Electronic Intifada - Yesterday, Roger Waters and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd urged the Rolling Stones not to go ahead with a planned concert in Tel Aviv this summer.
Israeli Troops Protest Soldier's Reprimand For Videotaped Encounter With Palestinians (PHOTOS) - The reprimand of an Israeli soldier — who was caught on video cursing and pointing a cocked gun toward the head of a Palestinian teen — has triggered the biggest outpouring of frustration by Israeli soldiers in years about their service in the West Bank. (institutional racisim)

Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau Vows To Sell Nigerian Abducted Schoolgirls
Fox News used footage of random sad Asians instead of actual Koreans mourning the ferry | GlobalPost

Polio Spreading at Alarming Rates, World Health Organization Declares - NYTimes.com - which officials thought two years ago had been nearly eradicated. (a few thousand paralyzed babies for Obama's reelection)
How the CIA’s Fake Vaccination Campaign Endangers Us All - Scientific American - The U.S. was wrong to use health workers to target Osama bin Laden
Polio Outbreak CIA - Another Wonderful Idea From Your Friends At CIA - Esquire - Is it possible for these people to touch anything without completely fking it up?
How the anti-vaccine movement is endangering lives (looking at you, Jenny, The View and Oprah)

Doing well by doing good: The high price of working in war zones - The Washington Post - Along the way, the nonprofit rewarded its employees with generous salaries and millions in bonuses. Among the beneficiaries: the minister, Arthur B. Keys, and his wife, Jasna Basaric-Keys, who together earned $4.4 million in salary and bonuses between 2008 and 2012.

AT&T and Verizon got government data requests once every 60 seconds last year. And that’s probably lowballing it.

InfoSec Handlers Diary Blog - Coin Mining DVRs: A compromise from start to finish. (an internet of things running exploits)

Microscope and Telescope - NYTimes.com - As anyone I’ve talked with during the past week knows, I have been obsessed with trying to get my mind around the Supreme Court’s 6-to-2 decision to uphold Michigan’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action in admissions to the state’s public universities.
Supreme Court Upholds Prayer At Government Meetings - The Supreme Court said Monday that prayers that open town council meetings do not violate the Constitution even if they routinely stress Christianity. (you now officially live in a "Christian Nation")
Supreme Court gets it wrong on state-sponsored religion (Scalia says cross is not a Christian symbol)
Supreme Court Prayer Government Meetings - The Supreme Court Has A Prayer - Esquire - The Obama administration came down forcefully on the town's side (Barry is god-bothering)

How The Cliven Bundy Saga Exposes America's Most Enduring Myth (he's a socialist moocher)

Lara Logan's Future At CBS Uncertain Since Discredited Benghazi Report - Logan's interaction with Graham, before and after the broadcast, is one of the new details about the infamous Benghazi report found in a New York magazine feature published Sunday night.
Can ‘60 Minutes’ Afford to Take Lara Logan Back? -- New York Magazine - Is Lara Logan too toxic to return to 60 Minutes?
Media Matters' David Brock Urges CBS News To Re-Open '60 Minutes' Benghazi Investigation - Brock also wrote that CBS' review did not disclose that Logan consulted with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of administration's toughest critics on Benghazi, while preparing the story.

Inventing a Failure - NYTimes.com - “Nobody can make Obamacare work,” declared Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, a couple of weeks ago (when it was already obvious that it was working pretty well). How can they respond to good news?
EXCLUSIVE: Here's The House GOP's 'Incredibly Rigged' Obamacare Survey
Uninsured Rate Drops To New Low As Obamacare Sign-Ups Surge - The percentage of Americans without health insurance is at its lowest since Gallup started tracking such data in 2008.

Clock ticking on Hudson crossings, Amtrak warns | Capital New York - New Jersey governor Chris Christie spiked plans to build two new rail tunnels under the Hudson, likely leaving the metropolitan region for the next quarter century with all of two rail tunnels to carry New Jersey commuters into Midtown Manhattan. (fat fuck bully screwed his state)

Anti-Gay Stance Still Enshrined In Majority Of State GOP Platforms - The party's national platform, written in 2012, comes out strongly against LGBT equality and even calls for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. (haters gotta hate)

Target CEO Resigns Amid Fallout From Massive Data Breach

Obama's DEA Chief Refuses To Support Drug Sentencing Reforms - DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart
This Entire Family Of Medical Marijuana Patients Could Go To Prison For Growing Pot (Obama is a real asshole)

Libertarians Trail Meter Readers, Telling Town: Live Free or Else - NYTimes.com - here in charming Keene, where parking officers figure in a philosophical tug of war between a small band of activists who live by the motto “Free Keene,” and the great majority of residents who were unaware that their city was in bondage. (hippy-dippy libertarians hate parking meters)

‘Ag gag’ laws: The battle for animal welfare is a battle over information | Siobhan O'Sullivan | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Farmers and their political advocates are pressing for animal activists’ tactics to be outlawed. If they support animal welfare too, why don’t they open the gate and let the public in?

Las Vegas Police: Premarital Sex Could Cost You A Limb In Meth Lab Explosion - Premarital sex can result in a life of drugs and crime, and even death, according to an event co-sponsored by the Las Vegas Police Department.

‘Verbatim: What Is a Photocopier?’ - NYTimes.com

Allow the Liquid Nicotine Vaporizers to Challenge Cigarettes - NYTimes.com - What is it about e-cigarettes that gets the anti-smoking folks into such a tizzy?
E-Cigarettes Become An Unlikely Inspiration For New Medical Devices

AOL.com Article - Firstborn daughters most likely to succeed

050414
Black Sabbath - War Pigs (live Paris, 1970) - YouTube (birth of heavy metal)

Devo and Kent State - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Today marks the 44th anniversary of the National Guard murders of 4 students at Kent State University in Ohio who were protesting Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia.
? ohio- neil young - YouTube
Jackson State: A Tragedy Widely Forgotten : NPR
Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962 - Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962

Present Day Fukushima Tomioka Filmed Using Flying Drones | Hypebeast - this coastal town was once home to some 16,000 residents. Although it is estimated to be decades until radiation is brought down to an acceptable level for living

Netanyahu pushes to define Israel as nation state of Jewish people only | World news | theguardian.com - PM proposes rare change to basic law in response to 'constant and increasing assault' on aspects of Israel's legitimacy (nothing apartheid about that +you made us do it)

Ukraine Recovers Key Sites From Pro-Russian Rebels
CIA, FBI agents 'advising Ukraine government': report - Yahoo News - Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government, a German newspaper reported Sunday.
South Korea Ferry Was Routinely Overloaded - The doomed ferry Sewol exceeded its cargo limit on 246 trips — nearly every voyage it made in which it reported cargo — in the 13 months before it sank

President Obama and the World - NYTimes.com - The world sometimes seems as if it is flying apart, with Mr. Obama unable to fix it. (which is his job apparently)

Save the Internet! | PopularResistance.Org
Editorial: Clapper’s U.S. intelligence directive is the opposite of trust-building | Dallas Morning News - Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wants complete control over all Intelligence Community contact with the media, even as he has his own history of “least untruthful” sworn answers to Congress.
Apple Removed Encryption Protection for Email Attachments, Researcher Says - Truthdig - pple’s history of granting the National Security Agency access to users’ personal information, once presumed to be private, is well documented.
Security in Times of Surveillance

Hold on to your wallet: Doug Henwood on the Bitcoin scam by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly (Ezra/Vox is very libertarian)
Is Bitcoin the Future of Money? | The Nation - Libertarians and leftists alike predict a world of competing digital currencies.
Five Years Ago Today Bitcoin was Born – Read Satoshi’s Original White Paper | A Lightning War for Liberty
Shit /r/Bitcoin says (shit_rbtc_says) on Twitter

President Obama at the 2014 White House Correspondents' Dinner (HD Complete) - YouTube
Obama's A Little Jealous Of John Boehner Because 'Orange Really Is The New Black' - "These days, House Republicans give John Boehner a harder time than they give me," Obama said. "Which means orange really is the new black."
President Obama Zings CNN, MSNBC, Fox News At White House Correspondents' Dinner - "To be fair, I am not the first person on television between two potted plants," Obama said, pointing to a photo of "Fox & Friends'" Elisabeth Hasselbeck seated between her co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade.

Condoleezza Rice, Charged with War Crimes at Rutgers, withdraws as Commencement Speaker | Informed Comment

What Piketty’s Conservative Critics Get Wrong | Blog | The Baffler - A conservative backlash to Piketty was inevitable; the only surprise is that it’s taken so long to develop. But in the last week or so, responses from the right have finally begun to roll in. Send in the clowns! (Republicans not good at math +Megan McAddled reviews book without reading it because her calculator is broken)
my review of Megan McArdle’s review of Capital In the 21st Century | Fredrik deBoer - I apologize in advance, because I am going to talk about a piece that I have not yet read. (the Mcstupid is strong)
Capital in the 21 Century: Still Mired in the 19th (See correction) | Dean Baker
In America, being poor can be an expensive proposition by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The researchers also found that “typical round-trip airfare declines by $2.30 for every additional $1000 in median household income.” (they charge you for being poor)
Why Only One Top Banker Went to Jail for the Financial Crisis - NYTimes.com (in a word, "money")

The Death Penalty's Eventual Demise - Lawyers, Guns & Money : There’s a lot of Americans, especially of the older and whiter and conservative variety, who think the state executing someone in a manner that maximizes suffering is a great thing. (Republican sadists love torture)
NYC cyclist arrested for using cellphone to film cop, told iPhones are ‘being used as guns’
New Account From Witness on Shooting of Homeless Man by Milwaukee Police
City to Pass Law Allowing Cops to Seize Homeless People's Belongings | Alternet - Ft. Lauderdale, Florida is about to codify the total disregard for the property rights of the homeless into law.
Eyes Over Compton: How Police Spied on a Whole City - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - A sergeant in the L.A. County Sheriff's Department compared the experiment to Big Brother, even though he went ahead with it willingly. Is your city next?
Justice Department: Routine Use of Deadly Force by Albuquerque Police Result of ‘Culture of Aggression’ | The Dissenter
Police shoot, kill man in SWAT standoff | KOB.com - Albuquerque police say an officer shot and killed a man involved in a SWAT standoff at a northwest Albuquerque home on Saturday night.

Wisconsin’s GOP Secession Panic - The Daily Beast - Wisconsin Republicans are set to vote on a measure this weekend that would affirm the state’s right to secede from the union. Goodbye, U.S. of A., Hello U.S. of Cheese ... “Look at what is happening with the BLM and our good friend Mr. Bundy. Government agencies are out of control. It reminds me of Europe in the 30’s.” (Wississipi)
Kevin’s Korner: It’s Morning Again in the Iowa Republican Party | The Iowa Republican - At long last, Big Liberty’s stranglehold on the Republican Party of Iowa is coming to an end. Their members were emphatically swept out of office during district conventions on Saturday. Not one single Paulistinian was elected or reelected to the State Central Committee … ("paulistinian")

Clearly, This Is My Careerism Talking - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - There are two rather obvious flaws Freddie deBoer’s critique of Elias Isquith. Here’s his first argument: (Sterling/Eich)

Abdul-Jabbar: 'More Whites Believe In Ghosts' Than Think Racism Persists - That's why we don't have — that why we have shows like Ghostbusters and don't have shows like Racistbuster," Abdul-Jabbar said on ABC's "This Week."
Read Amy Schumer’s Ms. Gala Speech -- Vulture

ELI5: Why is the percentage of kids diagnosed with ADHD so high in places like America, but almost 0 in places like France? : explainlikeimfive

Diane Keaton Defends Woody Allen In Guardian Profile - In The Guardian profile, Keaton claims she saw Dylan Farrow "maybe three times," and was not close with Dylan's adoptive mother and Allen's former longtime partner, Mia Farrow.

Top Ten Books in America 2014 versus 2008: Atlas Shrugged Drops Off | New Republic - (Though other polls indicate its staying power: Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were number 1 and 2 respectively on the Modern Library’s Reader’s List.)

What is something that you will never forget as long as you live? : AskReddit
eicoolguy6 comments on What is something that you will never forget as long as you live? (comment and link)
When Hitting ‘Find My iPhone’ Takes You to a Thief’s Doorstep - NYTimes.com - Using the Find My iPhone app on her computer, she found that someone had taken the phones to a home in this Los Angeles exurb, 30 miles east of her West Hollywood apartment.

050314
Ukraine moves towards civil war as Kiev hits back at pro-Russia rebels | World news | The Observer - Fighting in east continues into second day as troops move in to Kramatorsk and advance on rebel HQ in Slavyansk
Ukraine: Odessa Unrest Planned And Financed From Abroad
Dozens Dead in Odessa as New Violence Spreads to Southern Ukraine
More Than 2,100 Confirmed Dead In Afghanistan Landslide - putting the death toll at more than 2,100, as rescuers turned their attention to helping the over 4,000 people displaced.
Kenya: deadly blast at Mombasa bus terminal | World news | theguardian.com - At least three dead in explosion at bus terminal, with second blast heard at hotel on coastline
Al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula: Yemen commander dead in US drone strike | World news | theguardian.com - Government officials confirm death of Ali bin Likra al-Kazimy
Al Qaeda Chief Ayman Al-Zawahri Urges Militants To Leave 'Political Disaster' In Syria - Iraqi al Qaeda's entry into Syria's civil war caused "a political disaster" for Islamist militants there
Ex-NSC Aide Brushes Off Fox's Rage Over Benghazi 'Dude' Remark (video) - "Dude, [Benghazi] was like two years ago."

Technology law will soon be reshaped by people who don't use email | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The US supreme court doesn't understand the internet. Laugh all you want, but when NSA, Pandora and privacy cases hit the docket, the lack of tech savvy on the bench gets scary (the dimmest of the dim)

Everyone is under surveillance now, says whistleblower Edward Snowden | World news | theguardian.com - People's privacy is violated without any suspicion of wrongdoing, former National Security Agency contractor claims
8 Thought-Provoking Quotes From the Surveillance vs. Privacy Debate: 8. "It's so much easier to debate people when you can pretend that they hold moronic position that they don't actually believe." — Greenwald (Munk Debate)

The race to bring NSA surveillance to the Supreme Court | The Verge - There are at least three pending cases against the agency with a shot at making it all the way

Lawyer: Barrett Brown is Remorseful, Will Continue Journalism | Long Island News from the Long Island Press - l. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 8 1/2 years. The potential prison time is exponentially less than the 100-plus years he faced prior to the government inexplicably dropping 11 counts related to his sharing of a publicly available hyperlink.
4chan Hacked - eSecurity Planet - The hacker leveraged a software vulnerability to access administrative functions and information from a database.
Company Uses Bogus Polls And Gag Orders To Protect Image Of License Plate Scanning | Techdirt - from the despite-all-these-efforts,-still-rather-reviled dept
All Things Alt: Ponzi Schemes, Blackcoin USBs and a Time Warp Attack
South Carolina House votes to ban warrantless cellphone tracking, 89-17 | OffNow: Stop the NSAOffNow: Stop the NSA - A bipartisan bill which would ban law enforcement from obtaining cellphone location tracking information without a warrant passed the South Carolina House yesterday. The vote was 89-17.

Energy Tycoon Dismisses Fracking Concerns, Says It 'Isn't Gonna Hurt Anybody' - Energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens dismissed environmental concerns about fracking this week, saying it is a long-term viable solution to America's energy needs.

Condoleezza Rice backs out of Rutgers commencement - following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War. (war criminal)

Inequality Has Been Going On Forever ... but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable - NYTimes.com (it just always works out that way for some reason)
Observations on Credit and Surveillance — No, America Is Not an Oligarchy - America is not an oligarchy. But it is becoming one as unions die.

GOP Candidate Opposed To Marriage Equality Once Worked As A Drag Queen

Donald Sterling’s “slippery slope”: The limits of our new anti-racist consensus - Salon.com - Sure, everyone condemned the Clippers owner's racist remarks. But why is it so hard for some people to go further?

Obama Orders Policy Review on Executions - NYTimes.com (he's "evolving" again)
Obama plan to close gun loophole stalled by NRA and pro-gun opposition | World news | theguardian.com - Executive action announced in wake of 2012 Sandy Hook shooting sought to reform legally certified 'gun trusts'
Wisconsin Passes First State Law Requiring Independent Investigations of Police-Custody Deaths (because killer cops are always innocent)
Man Who Set A Trap To Kill 17-Year-Old Intruder Invokes Stand Your Ground-Like Defense | ThinkProgress
You Should Listen To This Responsible Gun Owner Murder These Teenagers, Even Though You Do Not Want To
Tanya Weyker arrested for OWI after Deputy Sheriff Joseph Quiles runs into her - UPI.com - Tanya Weyker’s Camry was allegedly struck by Milwaukee County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Quiles’ patrol car last February and she suffered a broken neck in the collision. Since she was unable to blow into a breathalyzer due to her injuries, Quiles charged Weyker with OWI despite causing the crash himself ... Quiles has since admitted he was at fault and was suspended for nine days. (nine.whole.days.with.pay)

Scientists Accidentally Made Color-Changing Paint From Gold Nanoparticles - "When we see these gold particles aggregate, we find out they have very, very beautiful blue colors," chemist Yadong Yin told The Atlantic. That bright blue would dissipate like a sunset — morphing into purple, then red — when scientists warped the strings, breaking apart the nanoparticles. (whoa, blue gold)
Superheavy element 117 confirmed - Elements beyond atomic number 104 are referred to as superheavy elements. The most long-lived ones are expected to be situated on a so-called 'island of stability', where nuclei with extremely long half-lives should be found (Superheavium)

Up Close on Baseball’s Borders - NYTimes.com (NYT outfoxes Silver)

Ira Glass: 'The first time I took ecstasy, my anxiety lifted away' | Television & radio | theguardian.com - Host and producer of This American Life on Orange is the New Black, why he doesn't tweet and how his dog Piney is doing

What is the best one-liner joke you know? : AskReddit
What is something you did totally wrong for most of your life? : AskReddit

050214
Health officials confirm first case of Mers virus in US | World news | theguardian.com - American who works as healthcare worker in Saudi Arabia has been hospitalized with the deadly disease in Indiana

Here Is What You Need to Know About the Kidnapped Girls of Nigeria
'Many dead' in Ukraine offensive in Sloviansk - Turchynov - Many pro-Russia rebels have been killed, injured and arrested in the Ukrainian government offensive in the eastern city of Sloviansk, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has said.
Ukraine Launches First Major Assault Against Pro-Russian Forces - The Kremlin said Kiev's offensive against the insurgents "destroyed" the two-week-old Geneva agreement on cooling Ukraine's crisis.
Ukraine clashes: dozens dead after Odessa building fire | World news | The Guardian - Trade union building set alight after day of street battles in Black Sea resort city
DEA raids four Denver marijuana sites related to VIP Cannabis - The Denver Post - It alleges the men funneled money from Colombia into the bank account of a purported Colorado metals company and used it to try to purchase a large warehouse for growing marijuana.
Rand Paul Pro-Israel Bill - Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - Then one of the most respected Israel experts, former deputy national security adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams... (Jennifer "Drive all the Palestians into the sea and drown them" Rubinsteinowitzgold)

Obama Complains That TPP Critics Are 'Conspiracy Theorists' Who 'Lack Knowledge' About Negotiations | Techdirt - from the well,-that-would-appear-to-be-your-own-fault dept (it's your own fault you can't see his his sooper-secrit plans - Obama Rabbit-Hole(TM) #1/2 infinitiy)
White House seeks legal immunity for firms that hand over customer data | World news | theguardian.com - Obama administration asks legislators drafting NSA reforms to protect telecoms firms complying with court orders
Michael Geist - Is a Canadian Telco Allowing the Government To Mirror Its Subscriber Communications?

Watch Live: Glenn Greenwald Debates Former NSA Director Michael Hayden - The Intercept (Hayden and Dersh get stomped by Greenwald)
Post Munk Debate Show - Google+
Twitter / Thomas_Drake1: #munkdebates Hayden's Big Lie: ...
Twitter / kayteenesmith: Hello internet, please accept ...

Privacy Badger | Electronic Frontier Foundation
[tor-talk] Fake keys for Tails developers' email address

Dutch Student Sued By Kanye West Over Coinye Rejects Kanye's Settlement Offers; Prepares Countersuit | Techdirt - from the picking-a-fight-with-someone-who-has-nothing-to-lose dept

FBI informants may be revealed after agency loses court battle | World news | theguardian.com - Photographer arrested after 2008 protest wins ruling • FBI sought to protect 'confidential sources'
Judge: FBI must turn over documents containing information about confidential informants | Privacy SOS

Time for Democrats to Stop Celebrating Andrew Jackson - Democrats have rightfully condemned the racist name of Washington, D.C.'s NFL team. So why do they continue to name their fundraising dinners after the president who presided over the genocide of Native Americans?
Excerpts from WSJ Interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Washington Wire - WSJ

Court Tells Ex-Wife Of Husband Who Killed Himself To Use Copyright To Delete Anything He Ever Wrote Online | Techdirt - from the that's-not-what-copyright-is-for dept (whacko judges gave bitterly-divorced ex-wife power over his estate)
Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians (because Jesus wrote the Constitution and Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, remember him?

Broadband, Net Neutrality and airplane boarding: industries' love affair with stupid - Boing Boing
Live-Tweeting Prostitution Raids Is a Terrible Idea, But It's Happening Anyway | Motherboard

"You Might Get Hit by a Car": On Secret Tape, FBI Threatens American Muslim Refusing to be Informant | Democracy Now! (FBI looking like a crime org)
Social Media Fail or Big Media Fail? | Freepress.org - How the mainstream media is complicit in police abuse

Fearing for his store, embattled gun dealer sleeps there - The caller said, “You’re the guys selling the smart gun?” Raymond tried to reason with him. But the caller said, “You’re gonna get what’s coming to you (expletive).” Raymond took that as a death threat.

Sterling Tape Was Leaked By Third Party, Attorney Says
Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The Ass, Grifty Los Angeles NAACP Head - Last weekend you might have wondered, “why, pray tell, had the L.A. NAACP recognized ‘humanitarian’ Clippers owner Donald Sterling even as he was being sued for racial discrimination against people of color?” (collateral damage)

GOP Operative Pulls Election "Shenanigans" In New York House Race | Mother Jones - A political op connected to the Republican Party tried to put on the ballot two Green Party members who had no intention of running. That could have pulled votes away from the Dem.
Are White Republicans More Racist Than White Democrats? | FiveThirtyEight (duh)

HorsesAss.Org » What Makes Labor Costs Different? Control. - Labor is the only cost of business where you set the price. And that’s where I think a lot of this emotional response to the minimum wage comes from. It’s about control. Both controlling one’s costs and controlling one’s employees. (and Republicans love controlling other peoples' lives)
EmployRecApril2014.jpg - scariest chart updated to indicate longest recession ever

Steel parents file grievance against SAC charter vote | Parents United for Public Education - Yesterday almost 200 families voted in the first ever parent vote about whether to turn the last public school in Nicetown over to charter operator, Mastery Charter (which makes all the rules on voting)

Chula Vista, Calif.: As border security expands, complaints of abuse rise among Americans | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - At the end of six hours of “dehumanizing, invasive and degrading searches,” the CBP officers told her to sign a consent form for the medical procedures, saying it was the only way she could avoid being billed. She refused. The hospital later presented her with a bill for more than $5,000 for its services, the suit says. (America has a cop-thug problem)

How Birth Order Affects A Person's Educational Goals (STUDY) - firstborns had a greater probability -- 16 percent higher -- of attending further education, compared with later-born siblings.

GOP State Lawmaker Writes Letter To Editor About Dangers Of Anal Sex - He titled it "A One Way Alley for the Garbage Truck" and challenged the "medical and psychological communities" to weigh in on the matter.

7 Online Personality Quizzes That Are Actually Worth Taking

The surprisingly simple way Egyptians moved massive pyramid stones without modern technology - “The Egyptians therefore placed the heavy objects on a sledge that workers pulled over the sand. Research … revealed that the Egyptians probably made the desert sand in front of the sledge wet.”
xs
050114
Reprocessing: Only where appropriate | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - To date, no country in the world has implemented a permanent solution for managing nuclear waste in either of its two main forms: the spent fuel that emerges directly from reactor cores and the high-level radioactive waste that results when spent fuel is reprocessed. (nukes, baby, nukes!)

Twitter / Op_Israel: "Meanwhile, in the West Bank, ... - Palestinian siucide homes are ramming themselves into peaceful Israeli bulldozers."
When Australia Out Wingnuts the U.S. - Lawyers, Guns & Money : By criticizing corporations for complicity in killing 1138 workers in the Rana Plaza collapse, Amnesty International has created the greatest outrage in Australian history. Really it’s far worse than the genocide against the Aborigines. Not even close.

Rob Ford takes leave as recent drug videos emerge - The Globe and Mail - A second video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking what has been described as crack cocaine by a self-professed drug dealer was secretly filmed in his sister’s basement early Saturday morning. (caught on tape, again)
Rob Ford did cocaine on wild night, witnesses say | Toronto Star - Mayor Rob Ford’s latest spiral into substance abuse began just over a month ago at a party in an exclusive Exhibition Place club.

Northern Ireland’s most famous politician just got arrested for a 40-year old murder - Vox - Evidence recently unearthed by a Boston College research project on the Troubles linked Adams to the killing, so he's been arrested.
Vox Northern Irish Conflict - Vox Writes About The Northern Irish Conflict And Fails - Esquire - This makes the average USA Today pie chart look like it was compiled by the Durants. Mother of god, kids. Do better. (+misspells "whoa" +Vox looking pretty lame)
king
Peter King's Terrorism Problem | Mother Jones - The fiery GOPer says WikiLeaks supports terrorism. Legal experts say congressmen who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones—or raise money for the IRA.
Whoa or woah? Correct spelling and variants of the increasingly popular word.
The Grammarphobia Blog: “Career” vs. “careen”

Kerry: Government Critics 'Win Prizes' in U.S., 'Go to Jail' Elsewhere - US News - The top diplomat praises domestic freedom days after the administration fights a reporter's quest to avoid jail. (it's not even left hand/right hand; it's just plain bullshit)
Will the Fourth Amendment Go Mobile? SCOTUS and the Fate of 21st Century Privacy - If the Supreme Court upholds a police officer's right to search your smartphone without a warrant, the door is opened to the use of arrests on petty offenses to justify fishing expeditions of those computers we carry in our pockets.

Germany blocks Edward Snowden from testifying in person in NSA inquiry | World news | theguardian.com - Officials say a personal invitation for US whistleblower to attend hearing would put 'grave strain' on US-German relations - a personal invitation for the US whistleblower would "run counter to the political interests of the Federal Republic", and "put a grave and permanent strain" on US-German relations. (like the spying on her didn't; so, Obama is the boss of Merkel)

Oil spill threatens SLC drinking water | FOX13Now.com - A crash involving a pair of semis is threatening the drinking water for Salt Lake City.
Kinder Morgan Oil Spills Good For Economy - Oil Company "Study" Finds Oil Spills Are Good For The Economy - Esquire

Tom Coburn: I Don't Believe There Should Be A National Minimum Wage

John Paul Stevens is right: The death penalty is unconstitutional - The Week - Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett has only underscored the barbarism of capital punishment
Jim Inhofe Defends Death Penalty In Wake Of Botched Execution - Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is defending the death penalty in the wake of a botched lethal injection in his home state. (that would be the climate is a bunch of libruls Inhofe)

The U.S. Is Even More Unequal Than You Realized - As you can see, in some countries like Denmark the vast majority of income gains went to the bottom 90 percent -- SOCIALISTS! -- while nearly half of U.S. income gains went to the richest one percent because freedom, baby.

South Dakota GOP Senate Candidate Compares Food Stamp Recipients To Animals | Right Wing Watch
GOPer Who Compared Food Stamp Recipients To Wild Animals Blasts Right Wing Watch As 'Dishonest' | Right Wing Watch

Half in Illinois and Connecticut Want to Move Elsewhere - Montana, Hawaii, Maine boast lowest rate of residents wanting to leave

CSX Train Carrying 8,000 Tons of Coal Derails in Company’s Second Wreck in 24 Hours | EcoWatch

Nevada Ranch Militias Turn Against Each Other Over Drone-Attack Theory - The armed anti-government play-warriors who built a military force around a racist redneck rancher in Nevada have split into rival factions and are now at the brink of civil war, calling each other crazies and traitors and spreading rumors that Eric Holder planned a drone strike on them ... "In this Waco-wacko Woodstock of woolly-bully mountain men,"
Hot Gossip: Cliven Bundy’s Militia Buddies Have Broken Up, Are Never Ever Getting Back Together ("homosexual tension")
Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason | Mother Jones - Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration. (2010 background)

Here’s the First Look at the New Satanic Monument Being Built for Oklahoma’s Statehouse | VICE United States
State Sen. Mike Fair, Leading Sh**muffin Candidate, Has More Fun Creationist Plans For SC Schools - In arguments for the new science standards, Fair insisted that he was merely promoting open debate, albeit open debate between science and made-up stuff:
North Carolinians, Please Vote For This Greg Brannon Fella, You’ll Love Him, He’s Great (oh, another crazy wingnut doctor dude)
Sarah Palin soldiers on as a diminished figure in the Republican Party - The Washington Post (grifters ...)
Are conservatives deserting Sarah Palin? - "Sarah Palin is the one hit wonder who started out playing arenas, then moved down to the clubs, then moved further down to the county fair circuit," he writes.
Congrats, ‘Sentencing A Rapist To Volunteer At A Rape Crisis Center,’ You Are The Dumbest Idea Yet - Sir Young, who at age 18 raped a 14-year-old girl, a crime for which he could have received a 20 year sentence but because everything in this country is broken, he got 45 days. That would be a bog-standard level of dumb, except for the fact that he also got sentenced to 250 hours of community service AT A RAPE CRISIS CENTER.

That's three minutes I'm not getting back - Lawyers, Guns & Money : While there are many eviler, stupider, and otherwise more objectionable pundits than Dowd, I don’t think it’s possible to equal her for a certain sort of twee vacuousness that, like reading People magazine (something I did while waiting for a haircut yesterday; apparently I like to live dangerously), causes the reader to lose approximately five IQ points per minute:

This sub has turned into /r/middleschoolsummerreading since it became a default. : books
literature
Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Martin Amis Recall Surviving the Satanic Verses Fatwa | Vanity Fair
No, The Hugo Nominations Were Not Rigged | Whatever - Just to pull this out and give it its own post for emphasis.
alicublog: If I Don'T Win An Award It'S Because You're All Prejumadiced.

Ecstatic states | The Verge - "The people who thought psychedelics were dangerous drugs are getting old and dying off,"
Healthy obesity a myth, say researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital — Mount Sinai Hospital - Obesity brings increased risk regardless of cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure readings

Consumer Updates > E-Cigarettes: Questions and Answers
I have given up vaping! : electronic_cigarette
EVOD
Kanger EVOD eGO Bottom Coil Clearomizer

043014
WHO warns against 'post-antibiotic' era : Nature News & Comment - Agency recommends global system to monitor spread of resistant microbes.
Planet headed toward ‘post-antibiotic era’ when treatments don’t work: WHO
WHO says world poised for 'post-antibiotic' era : worldnews

Torrential Rain Hits Florida Panhandle (photos, video) - As much as 15 to 20 inches of rain fell on the Panhandle over a 24-hour period,
Ethanol fuels ozone pollution : Nature News & Comment - Shifts in use between petrol and ethanol in São Paulo’s cars creates unique atmospheric chemistry experiment. (but agribusiness did really well)

Desmond Tutu Responds To John Kerry's 'Apartheid' Controversy - The Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu doesn't object to Secretary of State John Kerry's use of the word "apartheid" to describe the future of Israel if a peace agreement is not reached. (Barbara Boxer and AIPAC will call statement "ridiculous" because they know what apartheid feels like)
Excerpt from The Battle for Justice in Palestine - The Intercept - Below is an excerpt regarding the coordinated campaign on American campuses to suppress pro-Palestinian advocacy and Israel critiques by equating them with hate speech.

Global terrorism rose 43% in 2013 despite al-Qaida splintering, US reports | World news | theguardian.com - tate Department says 16 Americans killed out of 17,891 total • Surge complicates sprawling counter-terrorism efforts led by US (oh, look, a counter-surge)
Russian Deputy PM sends sour tweet about space program relations [VIDEO] - UPI.com - Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Rogozin has some sour words after he is hit by U.S. sanctions. (zing)
Violence inflicted by pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine 'terrorism, pure and simple,' says U.S. embassy - UPI.com - The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine condemned the recent violence in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants as "terrorism, pure and simple."
Ukraine's government has lost control of east, says acting president | World news | theguardian.com - Oleksandr Turchynov says security forces are unable to control situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions
Afghan opium production explodes despite billions spent, says US report | World news | theguardian.com - Report by DC's Afghanistan war watchdog found opium cultivation unaffected by $7.5bn US spent to combat it (which could have been spent on nice things at home)
Sultan of Brunei unveils strict sharia penal code | World news | theguardian.com - Fines and jail terms for offences such as indecency and failure to attend Friday prayers, with future penalties to include flogging and death by stoning (your fez is really gay, dude)
Former intelligence chief murdered in Venezuela - UPI.com - Venezuela's former intelligence chief, Eliecer Otaiza, was found dead of four gun shot wounds outside the capital city of Caracas. Police are investigating the "suspicious" death and have not released any information regarding a possible motive.
Every 27 seconds, Canadian telcos hand over subscriber data to cops (mostly without a warrant) - Boing Boing

Google AdSense Leak - Pastebin.com (Google is stealing publishers' money on a grand scale and is evil, big-time)
Google Denies Shady Claim That AdSense Robbed Publishers | TechCrunch

Government starts testing online ID program — RT USA - State officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania have been awarded roughly $2.4 million in federal funds to test an online ID system that’s been called a “driver's license for the internet," and it could soon exist from coast to coast.

British Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA's Data Pools - The Intercept
Lobban NSA Visit Précis - The Intercept

CISPA Take 3: Feinstein & Chambliss Draft Another Cybersecurity Bill, Designed To Wipe Out Your Privacy | Techdirt - from the only-massive-amounts-of-government-can-keep-you-safe dept (DiFucker at work, again)
Journalists Must Disclose Sources or Face Jail Time | TheBlot - Journalists who face jail time for refusing to comply with the American government’s orders to disclose sources used as the basis of a report are not subject to harassment, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said on Monday - Jennifer Psaki (free the press by arresting them)
California Senate committee passes bill to pull the plug on NSA spying, 5-0 | OffNow: Stop the NSAOffNow: Stop the NSA
Silencing Barrett Brown - WhoWhatWhy | WhoWhatWhy - The lead prosecutor, Candina Heath, told the judge that, during the trial, Brown should be forbidden from publishing criticism of the government.
FBI — Alleged ‘Anonymous’ Computer Hacker Charged with 18 Counts of Cyberstalking - Salinas faces up to 10 years in federal prison on each of the charges, upon conviction. (140,000 yrs in jail)

Former FBI Agent: NYPD's Muslim-Spying Demographics Unit Was Almost Completely Useless | Techdirt - from the holds-several-'most-rights-violated'-trophies,-however dept (Bloomfuck's spy-state useless)

There's One Thing Missing From The Plan To Prosecute Big Banks - But their boasting so far leaves out one important thing: people. (well, wonder how that happened?)

Senate Republicans block Obama federal workers minimum wage bill | World news | theguardian.com - Minimum wage increase for federal employees, a top legislative priority for Obama administration, fell short of 60 votes needed (Republican love starving people to death)
Republicans See Poor People, Think They Are Too Rich - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In case you needed a reminder that the Republicans are engaged in open warfare with the poor, Republican senators filibustered the minimum wage bill today.
Minimum Wage Bill Dies In Senate - The Minimum Wage Increase Died In The Senate Today - Esquire - The proposal to raise the minimum wage died of neglect today in the Senate, which saved it from having to be drawn and quartered in the House of Representatives anyway.

The U.S. Government Lost $11.2 Billion Bailing Out GM - The U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors Co, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December, according to a government report released on Wednesday.

Here’s What Happens When the GOP Takes Over the Senate - The Daily Beast - From abortion bans to Obamacare cuts to, maybe, an empty Supreme Court chair, the Republicans already know exactly what they’ll do if they get control of both houses of Congress.
Rep. Thompson doubles down on racial remarks in interview with CNN’s Dana Bash – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - The Mississippi Democrat had argued Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a black conservative, is an "Uncle Tom" who doesn't stand up for African Americans. (o rly)
Justice Scalia Makes Epic Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion - "It is very unusual to see a passage that so clearly misstates the fundamental facts of a prior ruling, especially one written by the justice himself." (whoops, he just deleted his blunder)

Is porn really so 'high risk' that porn stars shouldn't have bank accounts? | Lux Alptraum | Comment is free | theguardian.com - People in porn often have to sacrifice a lot. But they shouldn't have to sacrifice their ability to take part in the financial system (Obama hates your porn even though it's legal)

Judge finds Wisconsin voter ID law unconstitutional | MSNBC - . “Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin,” Adelman writes, “and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.

When It Comes To Health Care, There Are 2 Americas, And These Maps Are Proof - Millions of lives could be saved if the low-performing states could close just half the gap with the top states, Schoen said. "We really need to stay focused on aiming higher.” (but Republican love killing Americans)
Senior Citizens Spoil Rick Scott's Hunt For Obamacare Horror Stories - Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) hunt for Obamacare horror stories during a visit to a senior center on Tuesday didn’t go exactly as planned, as all but one resident expressed satisfaction with the new health care law. (Republicans just want you to die if you can't afford your own helicopter)

Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs | Motherboard
Map: How each state chooses to execute its death row inmates
Oklahoma Botched Executions - Barbarians In Oklahoma - Esquire - The state of Oklahoma committed an act of fucking barbarism last night. It did so under the color of law, which makes every citizen of that benighted state complicit in the act of fucking barbarism. The governor of that state, a pink balloon named Mary Fallin, is a fucking barbarian. A state legislator named Mike Christian is a fucking barbarian, for reasons we will get to in a moment. Every politician in that benighted state belongs in a fucking cage this morning.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin Orders Probe Of Botched Execution That She Pushed For (Republicans love torture and killing)
Botched Oklahoma execution 'fell short of humane standards' – White House | World news | theguardian.com - ACLU condemns 'science experiment' after Clayton Lockett is left groaning and writhing on the gurney before dying of heart attack
Oklahoma lawmaker trying to impeach justices who delayed death row executions | Fox News - Republican state Rep. Mike Christian (yeah, Christian, loves killing people as painfully as possible)

Millennials Are A Huge Problem For Retailers - Business Insider - The young generation also has higher ethical standards than their parents.

From Bundy To The Keystone XL: Where's The Property Rights Outrage Here? - But many of the pundits and talking heads who rallied behind Bundy (at least before his racist outburst) are also advocating the Keystone XL pipeline -- despite the ranchers and farmers up in arms about pipeline owner TransCanada Corp. trying to force its way onto their land. (corps stealing your land is ok; you stealing goverment land is ok)
Congressman: Bundy Militia Has Set Up Road 'Checkpoints' In Nevada (sorta like ... Yemen!)
Oaf Keepers At Bundy Ranch - Esquire - and just so everybody knows, as Booda, head of security for the Bundy Family I can swear on the white skin that covers my ass there will not be an Oath Keeper --
North Carolina's New Gay Marriage Lawsuit Could Turn 'Everything On Its Head' - But in a unique twist, the suit adds that the ban also violates the First Amendment right of members of the clergy to practice their faith -- because the state's ban criminalizes pastors who bless same-sex unions, leaving clergy open to arrest. (freedom! in knots)
The U.S. Could Prevent A Lot Of Cancers If We Really Used The HPV Vaccine (Republicans would rather you die than get the slut vaccine)
Montana to re-sentence teacher convicted of raping 14-year-old student | World news | theguardian.com - The high court's decision cited in part the actions of District Judge G Todd Baugh, of Billings, who suggested the young victim shared responsibility for her rape because she had some control over the situation. (Republicans love rape)
Millionaires Are Hogging NYC's Affordable Housing - A polo-playing multimillionaire who allegedly broke up Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s marriage, a former tobacco executive who once chaired an anti-tax organization and the head of a hedge fund have all lived in rent-stabilized apartments in some of Manhattan’s toniest zip codes in the past few years, paying a fraction of their units’ true market value. (Republican moochers)
Tennessee Will Now Criminally Charge Pregnant Women Who Use Drugs | ThinkProgress (Republicans)
Donald Sterling's wife hasn't escaped controversy either - latimes.com

alicublog: THE LEFT IS ATTACKING THE CITY: A REVIVAL. - All of the principals in these dramas, protagonists and antagonists, are rich fucks, and their decisions have much more to do with perceived shareholder value than with the U.S. Constitution. The rich fucks fucked the rich fucks, and then ran to hang The Left.

Neanderthals Were Caring Parents, Bone Study Shows - Maybe not. Researchers from the University of York in England, studying burial practices of Neanderthals, particularly the bones of children and adolescents, say Neanderthal society was close-knit, caring and complex. Neanderthals made fine parents. (more evolved than Republicans)

Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America - The Daily Beast - “We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all,” he said. (Republicans will defend us from the terrorists and killers surrounding us in their dreams)

Cop Allegedly 'Fought Back A Smile' After Fatally Shooting Friendly Dog - Brian Thierbach of the Sulphur Police Department (famous on the internets for all eternity for being a sadistic mother-fucker puppy-killing cop)

Not Alone - "Perhaps most important, we need to keep saying to anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: you are not alone. We have your back. I’ve got your back."President Barack Obama, January 22, 2014
“But Why Are Colleges Involved In Penalizing Sexual Assault” Answered By President’s Task Force
US Department of Education finds Tufts University violating Title IX in sexual assault cases - Metro - The Boston Globe
Central College in Iowa allows accused rapist to choose his punishment: Immediate expulsion, or not being able to walk at graduation - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The five-person Sexual Misconduct Hearing Committee conducted an 11-hour-long hearing in which both the alleged rapist and his victim testified. The victim was instructed to answer questions from the man she was accusing of having raped her, an experience she found so stressful that she repeatedly vomited in the bathroom.
Stonewalling Rape: Police Can Investigate, But Will They? |

042914
EPA chief slams 'secret science' claims | TheHill - Republicans have used the "secret science" phrase to find fault with the agency's latest climate regulations, which propose carbon emissions limits on coal-fired power plants.
EPA's Cross-State Pollution Rule Upheld By Supreme Court - y backed federally imposed limits on smokestack emissions that cross state lines and burden downwind areas with bad air from power plants they can't control. (oh, what happened to states' rights to pollute other states?)

Kerry: U.S. Taped Moscow’s Calls to Its Ukraine Spies - The Daily Beast - The secretary of state claimed in a private meeting that the U.S. intelligence community has recordings of pro-Russian forces being managed by government handlers in Moscow.

Kerry Expresses Regret After Apartheid Remark - NYTimes.com (speaking to the Trilateral Commission)
Barbara Boxer: John Kerry apartheid critique ‘ridiculous’ - Jonathan Topaz - politico.com - Barbara Boxer: Jew Score: 13
Cohen: John F. Kerry’s Israeli gaffe a diplomatic nightmare | Boston Herald - By: Adriana Cohen (another dual-loyalty Jew)
Danish Police "Threaten" Former Colleague of Pirate Bay Founder in Cambodia | TorrentFreak (Obama's global war on "hackers")

Haji Gulalai In United States - The Torturer Next Door - Esquire - And, of course, if there is any attempt to haul this sociopath off to The Hague, there will be several earnest columns written about how unfair it is because of what "we" asked him to do, and about abandoning allies, and so on. We are all complicit accessories before and after the fact. C-Plus Augustus made us that way.

Snowden Retained Expert in Espionage Act Defense - NYTimes.com
Snowden to reveal secrets of Arab dictators - According to the Al-Arab Al-Yawm website, sources close to Snowden's Arabic translation team revealed that the upcoming leaks will have to do with what Arab rulers used to tell Americans behind closed doors and agreements with the CIA.

Maths spying: The quandary of working for the spooks - opinion - 23 April 2014 - New Scientist - Intelligence agencies hire lots of mathematicians, but would-be employees must realise that their work is misused to snoop on everyone, says Tom Leinster

Barrett Brown lawyer: US tried to 'kill a fly with a sledgehammer' | Technology | theguardian.com - Ahmed Ghappour speaks out after gag order was lifted and says effect of prosecutorial overreach is 'chilling to free speech' (Obama hates free speech; everyone is a terrorist)
Chris Hedges: The Crime of Peaceful Protest - Chris Hedges - Truthdig - Judge Ronald A. Zweibel (supports breast-grabbing cop thugs)
The Feds' Point-by-Point Demolition of Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht's Defense | Motherboard

Supreme Court to Decide If Cops Can Search Cellphones Without Warrants (Obama doesn't need no steenking warrents)

Reaganomics killed America’s middle class - Salon.com - This country's fate was sealed when our government slashed taxes on the rich back in 1980 (and white working-class voters loved slitting their own throats)
How Bank Watchdogs Killed Our Last Chance At Justice For Foreclosure Victims - The award for the sorriest chapter of the great American foreclosure crisis goes to the Independent Foreclosure Review, a billion-dollar sinkhole that produced nothing but heartache for aggrieved homeowners, and a big black eye for regulators. (Obama's favorite do-less-than-nothing program)

DOJ's 'Operation Choke Point' May Be Root of Porn Star Bank Account Closings - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Under "Operation Choke Point," the DOJ and its allies are going after legal but subjectively undesirable business ventures by pressuring banks to terminate their bank accounts or refuse their business. The very premise is clearly chilling— (Obama hates porn and a bunch of other legal stuff)

Real journalism is adversarial journalism | Tim Bousquet's next project - George Orwell: "Real journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations."
Tea Party Scammers Have Media Accomplices | Blog | Media Matters for America - Will CNN And Fox News Continue To Reward Hypocritical Tea Party Groups?
Seething hate even Fox News can’t deny: Cliven Bundy is not an outlier - Salon.com - There should be no surprise here: GOP thinking is that government "free stuff" is a form of slavery (while stealing lots of "free stuff")

How Bank Watchdogs Killed Our Last Chance At Justice

Post-ABC News poll shows Democrats at risk in November as Obama’s approval rating falls - The Washington Post - a majority of voters saying they prefer a Congress in Republican hands to check the president’s agenda (he stood for nothing but himself)

Missouri House Bill Agenda 21 - First, They Came For Our Golfs - Esquire ... To learn more about Agenda 21, please watch the following informative video from the John Birch Society.
Missouri House votes to nullify Agenda 21, 99-47 | Tenth Amendment Center Blog (you flunk, Missouri)
» SPLC Admits U.N. Losing Battle With Grassroot Activists Over Agenda 21 Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind! - The Southern Poverty Law Center recently admitted that proponents of the United Nations’ neo-feudalism program known as Agenda 21 are losing public support due to the ever-growing influence of grassroot organizations. (go home, Alex, and turn off your brain)
How North Carolina's Voter ID Law Could Actually Help Democrats This Year - The race is on to register voters.

Ralph Nader Vision For America - Ralph Nader Rolls Back The Stone - Esquire - The best thing that ever happened to the careers of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and the worst thing that ever happened to the Voting Rights Act, campaign-finance regulation, minority students in Michigan, the people of Iraq, the people of New Orleans, and the people of the United States generally, is back with another demonstration of his undeniable genius, and another invitation to the nation to join him on another unicorn hunt. (stfu Ralph, you will never escape hell)
St. Ralph: NoLabelsUnityUnitedForUnityHotSoup'16! - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Nader has his own vision for who he’d like to be president and has even put forward a proposal of 20 billionaires who he encourages to run for president – a list that includes media mogul Oprah Winfrey and environmentalist Tom Steyer. (evil will evil)

Adam Silver Donald Sterling NBA - What You Want, Adam Silver, A Cookie? - Esquire - So NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million, and probably is going to get the rest of the owners to agree to force Sterling into selling a team he bought 30 years ago for $12 million at what likely will be an eleventy-thousand percent markup
NBA Bans Donald Sterling For Life - "Effective immediately, I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers association or the NBA," Silver said. "Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices. He may not be present at any Clippers facility."
D'Alessandro: Donald Sterling's candid moment? It's business as usual, and NBA business is often ugly | NJ.com
ESPN Host Completely Nails The Part Of The Sterling Controversy Everyone Has Ignored - "When we start looking at all these people in these lists who are dying as an economic byproduct of the people like Donald Sterling and you now have a problem because, oh my God, he said something that intimated that he doesn't respect his players? I'm calling you out as a fraud."
Local GOP Party Chair Compares Obama To Zebra-Donkey Hybrid Who Is All 'A**' (Dems do it too)

Iowa GOP Candidates - Another Reason We Shouldn't Care About Iowa - Esquire - If you don't believe in heaven, you can't be a good judge. This is a "former federal prosecutor" saying this. (Iowa, land of the totally nuts)

On civility, again | MattBruenig | Politics - Here is the back story. Megan McArdle wrote a horrific piece at Bloomberg View in which she concern-trolled that making poor people unpoor will not eliminate other pains they might have (e.g. relationship, status, and so on). This is part of the new Paul Ryan right-wing that pretends to care about poor people only as far as to say that we shouldn’t design our distributive institutions so as to guarantee their material security. (rich kid of rich parents McMegan McArgleBargle was a failure at business but got bailed out)

Political Hostage Sarah Shourd On Spending 410 Days In Solitary Confinement: 'I Completely Lost My Sanity' (VIDEO) - "In the beginning, it reduces you to an almost animal-like state," she told host Marc Lamont Hill. "I spent all my days pacing my cell, punching the air, just full of rage. And then I would fall into deep depressions." (Obama loves this kind of torture)

MSNBC's Lousy Ratings Prompt Joe Scarborough To Lash Out At CNN - One person not taking MSNBC's woes lying down, though, would appear to be Scarborough. "Morning Joe" was beaten consistently by rival "New Day" throughout April, and Scarborough provided a scabrous quote about the situation to the Times (loser/whiner)

FedEx employee: Shooting suspect ‘looked like he was heading... | www.ajc.com (in "Guns Everywhere" Georgia, of course)
Shooter Injures Six In Georgia Town Where Everyone Is Required To Own A Gun | ThinkProgress

Former No. 2 in Denver Sheriff's office accused of $20K in thefts - The Denver Post - Michael Than, 46, turned himself in to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Friday on a warrant for felony theft of $20,000 or more, tax evasion and filing false tax returns, according to court documents.

35 Scientific Concepts That Will Help You Understand The World, by Aimee Groth

We like you all, so we wanted to let you know about some Privacy Policy changes : announcements
What Are Some Interesting Secrets About Reddit? : AskReddit

042814
U.S. storm system that killed 16 causes twister in Mississippi | Reuters

Exclusive: Kerry Warns Israel Could Become ‘An Apartheid State’ - The Daily Beast - The secretary of state said that if Israel doesn’t make peace soon, it could become ‘an apartheid state,’ like the old South Africa. Jewish leaders are fuming over the comparison. ("could become?")

Egypt Mass Trial: Judge Sentences 683 To Death In Single Mass Trial - including the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, the latest in mass trials that have drawn international condemnation and stunned rights groups.
Activists defy Egypt's anti-protest law - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Hundreds take to the streets to protest against anti-demonstration law which requires them to obtain police permission.
Twitter / haliliguler: Number of Nazis sentenced to ... - death in 1945-46 Nuremberg trials for murder of over 40 million: 12 #Egypt today sentences to death: 683 #Sisi
Chinese spies read Australian MPs' emails for a year: report | Reuters - A cyber attack on the Australian parliamentary computer network in 2011 may have given Chinese intelligence agencies access to lawmakers' private emails for an entire year, the Australian Financial Review reported on Monday.
China: 60,000 Workers Continue Historic Strike, Defying Repression by the State and Pressures from Western Corporations
In New Gaffe, Silvio Berlusconi Says Germans Deny Concentration Camps Ever Existed - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, about to begin a sentence for tax fraud, provoked fresh outrage from his political opponents on Saturday by suggesting that Germany did not acknowledge the existence of World War Two concentration camps. (lot of geezers with feet in mouth lately)
State Department Gives 87% of Afghan Funds to Only Five Recipients | The Dissenter - In fact, 69 percent of all taxpayer money spent went to just one contractor.
Patrick Radden Keefe: Catching the World’s Most Notorious Drug Lord : The New Yorker - How the world’s most notorious drug lord was captured.

Supreme Court rejects hearing on military detention case | Reuters - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to President Barack Obama's administration by declining to hear a challenge to a law that allows the U.S. military to indefinitely detain people believed to have helped al Qaeda or the Taliban.

US senators remove requirement for disclosure over drone strike victims | World news | theguardian.com - Bill had called for disclosure of 'noncombatant civilians' killed • Director of National Intelligence gives assurances to Senate (DiFi removes disclosure; kill at will)

? Glenn Greenwald at the ACLU of the Nation's Capital's 2014 Bill of Rights Awards Dinner - YouTube

Fact-checking Hillary Clinton's comments on Edward Snowden and the NSA - Boing Boing (she thinks in talking points)

FCC's New Rules Show Obama Has Not Kept Net Neutrality Promise | New Republic (Oliar)

Obama Administration Argues in Favor of Right to Fire Public Employees Who Testify at Corruption Trials | The Dissenter

Abu Ghraib’s Ghosts - Juan E. Méndez - politico Magazine - Ten years later, the United States still hasn’t come clean on its torture record. Torture, you see, is a cancer that corrodes the morality of the perpetrators. (looking forward, not back at Bush and Obama's crimes)

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: General Keith Alexander Extended Interview (HBO) - YouTube (far more adverserial than Sixty Minutes crap)

Inside the FBI’s secret relationship with the military’s special operations - The Washington Post - a little-known alliance between the bureau and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that allowed agents to participate in hundreds of raids in Iraq and Afghanistan. (isn't that supposed to be illegal?)

Twitter / DoubleJake: Well that's it folks, the ... - Internet has been won. pic.twitter.com/kTcGy2JsEX (brilliant)

DarkMarket, the Decentralized Answer to Silk Road, Is About More Than Just Drugs | Motherboard
Inside the ‘DarkMarket’ Prototype, a Silk Road the FBI Can Never Seize | Threat Level | WIRED

Silencing Barrett Brown - WhoWhatWhy | WhoWhatWhy - The lead prosecutor, Candina Heath, told the judge that, during the trial, Brown should be forbidden from publishing criticism of the government.

Hacking the hospital: medical devices have terrible default security - Boing Boing
Long Grove explosion: 2 hurt, 50 homes damaged - Chicago Tribune - First responders found a home had been leveled and several nearby homes had caught fire, said Giamberduca, who said early indications were that the explosion had been caused by natural gas.

The Bobblespeak Translations - Gregory: what I hear you saying is that Barack Obama is a terrible President. Blair: you are an idiot – and I knew George W. Bush

Obamacare's Poll Numbers Improve In Republican Districts - 52 percent of respondents want to “implement and fix” the 2010 health care reform law versus 42 percent who want to “repeal and replace” it. Those numbers were 49 percent to 45 percent, respectively, in the firm's December poll. (choice between stupidity and saving money is hard)

Robert Samuelson Is Badly Confused About the Well-Being of Retirees | Beat the Press - Robert Samuelson told readers in his latest column that we need not worry that people are undersaving for retirement. Unfortunately this conclusion rests largely on a confused reading of the data. (it's not that bad, they get $1200/month!)
Why the Housing Market Is Still Stalling the Economy - NYTimes.com
Koch brothers, major corporations sponsor pension reform seminar for judges | Center for Public Integrity - Attendees could decide fate of contentious cases across the nation

After the midterms: Democrats fear President Obama could give in - Darren Samuelsohn and Manu Raju - politico.com - Democrats have something else to fear after the November midterms besides just an all Republican-controlled Congress: President Barack Obama. (even more)

High Plains Moochers - NYTimes.com
Cliven Bundy Accidentally Explained What’s Wrong With the Republican Party - NYTimes.com - It turns out, Mr. Bundy’s mind ran to the condition of black Americans because the activists who have flocked to his ranch to defend his right not to pay grazing fees are almost all white. (whites hate government, except for free grazing)
Police investigating Cliven Bundy-related threats to Harry Reid - Manu Raju - politico.com
How The Government Killed The Middle Class, In 1 Chart - federal, state and local governments have been the biggest -- and just about the only -- industries that have cut jobs in the past four years. (because Republicans - who are all white - hate government)
1 In 25 Death Sentence Prisoners Is Likely Innocent, Study Finds

Judd Gregg The Hill Income Inequality - Things In The Hill That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The First - Esquire - Remember, as you read along, the president wanted to make this cluck his Secretary of Commerce. (Judd Gregg, which says a whole lot about Obama and his team of brilliant advisors +"lances of hate")

Donald Sterling Is a Registered Republican | Mother Jones - On Sunday, National Review ran a blog post originally titled, "Racist Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Is a Democrat." (Not all Republicans are racist, but all racists are Republican.)
Donald Sterling, The Most Influential "Democrat" On Civil Rights Since Robert Byrd - Lawyers, Guns & Money : UPDATE the second: Sterling is a registered Republican. Man, the wingnutosphere steps on more rakes than Sideshow Bob.
Donald Sterling: Same As He Ever Was - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money
Donald Sterling and the Neverending Fantasy of ‘Democrat’ Racism - The Daily Beast - Oh, how eager the conservative press is to call Donald Sterling a Democrat! It’s all part of their larger fantasy narrative about conservatism and race.
Your Complete Quotable Guide To Decades Of Donald Sterling's Racism
A Fan’s Worst Nightmare « - The many problems with Donald Sterling
Deadspin: Extended recording reportedly of Clippers owner Donald Sterling's racial comments released - San Jose Mercury News
Donald Sterling’s Personal Beliefs Are None Of Your Business — Right? | The New Civil Rights Movement - But shouldn’t Andrew Sullivan, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins, AEI fellow Charles Murray, Legal Insurrection blogger William A. Jacobson, former GOP chair Ken Mehlman, Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, Slate’s Will Saletan, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, among many others, voice support for Sterling?
CarMax, State Farm, Virgin America Pull Away From Clippers
Let's Talk About Donald Sterling's Girlfriend, 'V. Stiviano': Bitch Set Him Up! - Happy Nice Time People

Rep Michael Grimm Federal Investigation - Grimm's Fairy Tale - Esquire - Prospective journalist tosser Rep. Michael Grimm gave himself up to the FBI today, probably in the hope that the FBI would not break him in half like a small boy. . Forbes Israel recently ranked Pinto as Israel's seventh-richest rabbi, with a net worth of about $21 million. Pinto is something of a rabbi to the rich and famous. (very strange)
Michael Grimm: ‘I’m a moral man’ - John Bresnahan and Maggie Haberman - politico.com - But in a defiant, nine-minute press conference afterwards, Grimm vowed to prove his innocence in court. He portrayed himself as the victim of a “vendetta” and “political witch hunt” by his opponents.

For the first time, the U.S. high school graduation rate tops 80 percent, report finds - Low-income students in Texas and Indiana graduate at a rate of 85 percent, higher than anywhere else in the nation. Just six states can boast low-income graduation rates at or above 80 percent.

RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal Fired Following Domestic Violence Conviction - The company's board of directors fired Gurbaksh Chahal on Saturday night (who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' video)

Men And Women Have Very Different Views On Infidelity, And This Study Is Proof - "Males reported that sexual infidelity scenarios were relatively more distressing than emotional infidelity scenarios, and the opposite was true of females,"

Scientist Blasts Report Linking Casual Pot Smoking With Brain Abnormalities - "The paper is terrible on a number of levels," Lior Pachter, a computational biologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told The Huffington Post. "It reeks of dishonesty."
Does researching casual marijuana use cause brain abnormalities? | Bits of DNA - . More importantly, Breiter’s statement in the press release is a lie. There is no evidence in the paper whatsoever, not even a tiny shred, that the users who were getting high once or twice a week were having any problems ... the totality of math credentials of Hans Breiter consist of some logic/philosophy courses during a year abroad at St. Andrews while he was a pre-med student at Northwestern. (which made him a "mathematican")

Lab mice fear men but not women, and that's a big problem for science | The Verge - A new study casts doubt on decades of research
Surprising Frequency Of Total Solar Eclipses Explained - "Since the track of a solar eclipse is a very narrow path over the earth's surface, averaging only 60 or 70 miles in width, we find that in the long run a total eclipse happens at any given station only once in about 360 years." (or 375, depending on where you are)
Milky Way's Structure Mapped In Unprecedented Detail - "Were the human eye to have this accuracy, one could see individual molecules in one's hand," Reid said.
Authenticity Of The 'Gospel Of Jesus's Wife' Called Into Question - The arguments against the papyrus's authenticity by Depuydt and others are complex, but a key problem they cite is that the Coptic text is full of errors, to the extent that it is hard to believe that an ancient Coptic writer could have composed it.
Blood Of World's Oldest Woman, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, Suggests Limits Of Mortality - In a study published this week in the journal Genome Research, Dutch scientists conducted a deep analysis of van Andel-Schipper's blood and tissues, finding that human life does indeed have an expiry date. It's set by our cells' ability to divide.
Mulga Snakes Show Unusual Tendency To Bite People Who Are Asleep, New Study Shows - Unlike most venomous snakes, which tend to bite people who are either handling them or who surprise them, the large Australian mulga snake has also been found to attack people who are asleep.
'Teleconnections' Between North, South Poles May Explain Strange Weather Patterns - Long-distance atmospheric connections between the North and South poles are linking weather and climate in distant parts of the globe, according to data from a NASA spacecraft.
Wide-Hipped Women Have More Sex Partners, Controversial Study Shows - Thus, women with wider hips might subconsciously know that childbirth is less risky for them and be "a lot more relaxed in their social behavior," he said.

Driver Finds Himself Surrounded By Cops With Guns Out After Automatic License Plate Reader Misreads His Plate | Techdirt - from the automatic-bullet-catcher-creator dept
Corporations Divest Nearly $60 Million From Private Prison Industry | Mother Jones - "Companies that continue to stay with their investments in CCA and GEO Group are making a real decision about where they want their money and the ethical obligations they have to the greater society,"

Fox ‘tough love’: Kicking your kid off a skate ramp will make him ‘more successful in life’ - “He said ‘because he needs to learn’. I was like ‘pushing him down is not teaching him how to drop in’. And then he said ‘do you think you can raise him better than me?’ and I said yes,” Stephens recalled. Instagram user Ryan Stephens, 13 (Fox loves sadism)

Conservatives and the Concept of Consent: A Permanently Estranged Relationship - Lawyers, Guns & Money : So, Dreher’s logic: either women cannot consent to sex without permission from “Mommy and Daddy” or their representatives, or they cannot expect any legal protection when they get sexually assaulted. (Rod Dreher, Ross Douthat's twin religious idiot +all the fault of liberal co-ed dorms)
Eschaton: Civilizing - That Rod Dreher is a horrible person has already been established, so I'll just comment on the "co-ed dorm" thing.

What Rape Scene? Game of Thrones Marches On As If Nothing Happened - Esquire - The scene that provoked an online fury continues to haunt the show
Steven Attewell: Rape culture? What rape culture? - Lawyers, Guns & Money

‘Mad Men’ recap: Well that was awkward
'Mad Men' Episode 3 Recap: Don's Life With a Chaperone Still Better than No Life
‘Mad Men’ Episode 3 Recap: An Eventful ‘Field Trip’ | Variety

042714
The Koch Attack on Solar Energy - NYTimes.com - At long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels. (Republicans are against taxes except ...)

North Korea attacks South's 'prostitute' president after Barack Obama visit | World news | theguardian.com - Pyongyang hits out at Park Geun-hye's relationship with 'pimp' Obama and says it is ready for full-scale nuclear war (trash-talk escalates)
Sanctions Revive Search for Secret Putin Fortune - NYTimes.com - For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history.
Ukraine: kidnapped observers paraded by pro-Russian gunmen in Slavyansk | World news | theguardian.com - European military observers deny they are Nato spies while captors insist they are 'not our hostages – they are our guests' (permanently)
Abbas Calls Holocaust 'Most Heinous Crime' - Abbas' comments appeared, in part, aimed at reaching out to Israeli public opinion at a time of deep crisis in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts
Baghdad bomb attack kills dozens | World news | theguardian.com - Sunni militants Isis claim responsibility for three explosions at stadium where Shia rally was being held before elections
French police officers charged with raping Canadian tourist | World news | The Guardian - Two members of elite crime unit accused of raping 34-year-old woman in police headquarters in Paris on Tuesday night
Why Is Blackwater Helping to Train Brazil’s World Cup Security? | The Nation
Paedophiles to be treated as terrorists under new crackdown | Society | theguardian.com - PM moves to close loophole that allows sexual predators to produce and possess 'manuals' to help them commit crimes (well, they're practically the same thing)
Thousands disrupt far-right march in Berlin - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Police officers injured and arrests made as about 2,000 people block National Democratic Party march in German capital.

Sarah Palin says waterboarding is how she'd baptize terrorists | Early & Often (Dom Sarah)

55% Favor Government Oversight of Political Ads and Candidates’ Comments - Rasmussen Reports™ - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a case aimed at overturning an Ohio law that makes it a crime to make false statements in a political campaign. But most voters favor government policing of the truthfulness of campaign ads and statements. (but Republicans always lie, so the Supremes will fuck the truth)

Orwellian Piece By Ian Morris by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Ian Morris, a professor of Classics at Stanford, argues in the Washington Post that, in the long run, wars make us safer and richer. Perhaps it is just too difficult to make such a counterintuitive argument within the limited space of an opinion column, but his piece is one big mess ... he appears to compare the United States to the British Empire and suggest that we need to have the stomach to be the global sons of bitches the whole world needs us to be. War is Peace, in other words. And America needs to bring the peace. (they love killing people and profiting)

Tea Party PACs reap money for midterms, but spend little on candidates - The Washington Post - So far, its super PAC has mustered just $56,000 worth of mailers in Kentucky on Bevin’s behalf — less than half the amount it has paid Martin in consulting fees since July. (Teahadist Party full of grifters? who could have predicted? they certainly have their "expenses")

Here's All You Need To Know About Capitalist Class Solidarity, Courtesy Of Warren Buffett - "How sad," Nocera wrote in his op-ed. "If Warren Buffett won’t use his unparalleled clout to rein in excessive compensation, how can we expect anyone else to?"

Slaves to Prejudice - NYTimes.com - WASHINGTON — WHEN a cranky anarchist in a cowboy hat starts a sentence saying “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” you can be dang sure it’s going downhill from there.
Dana Milbank: Bundy saga reveals the risk of siding with rebels - The Washington Post - In general terms, Bundy’s notion of state supremacy — “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing” — is a variant of states’-rights claims that go back to the Civil War and were revived in the segregationists’ opposition to civil rights laws ... . Sen.?Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Tuesday said the federal government was “using the jackboot of authoritarianism to come against the citizens.” By Thursday, Cruz’s office was calling Bundy’s racism “completely unacceptable.” (flip-floopers)
Kathleen Parker: Cliven Bundy brought the GOP nothing but bad news - The Washington Post - The left does not entirely escape critique in this imbroglio. No sooner did Bundy launch his racist screed than leftward-leaning media began extrapolating Bundy’s racism to signify racism throughout the Republican Party. One man’s rant is not an institutional creed. (just because they all supported him)

Obama: Donald Sterling Comments 'Incredibly Offensive'
ESPN.com - Uncontested: The life of Donald Sterling - he asked: "Is she one of those black people that stink?" When Davenport told Sterling that Jones wanted to be reimbursed for the water damage and compensated for her ruined property, he replied: "I am not going to do that. Just evict the bitch." (+wtf, NAACP?)
Lorraine Miller: Sterling won't receive NAACP award - politico.com - NAACP Interim President Lorraine Miller said Sunday the NAACP will not go forward with plans to give a lifetime achievement award to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
LA Clippers Owner Donald Sterling's Racist Rant Caught On Tape: Report (UPDATES) - "It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people," he is heard saying. "Do you have to?" (everyone has their "culture)
Jew or Not Jew: Donald Sterling - (Donald Tokowitz) Jew Score: 8
Follow The Money: Political Contributions Of NBA Owners - RealGM Articles - Records show Sterling has donated just $6,000, with no activity since the early 1990s. He supported Gray Davis early in his career, as well as Bill Bradley.

KKK Leader Caught With a Black Male Prostitute -- NYMag - Notorious KKK Leader Frazier Glenn Miller Was Once Caught Doing ‘Rather Salacious’ Things With a Black Male Prostitute (psychosis dept)

Georgia man flaunts gun at local Little League field intimidating parents and children - Police report they received 22 calls to 911 reporting the man. After deputies arrived, they questioned the man who produced a permit for the handgun. According to authorities, since the man made no verbal threats or gestures, they couldn’t arrest him or ask him to leave. (Georgia, the state that just let guns into bars and churches)

The Shocking and Inspiring Story of a Teen Who Survived Unimaginable Violence, Rape and Prison Cruelty | Alternet - In the excerpt below, Teri Hancock recounts the horrific tragedy that landed her in prison and her struggle to survive there.

Sentenced to life in prison, man pins hopes on new clemency rules - CNN.com - A self-described "Deadhead," Tyler was busted after mailing five grams of the hallucinogenic drug to a friend who was working as an informant for the federal government. (a double life-sentence in Florida)

I'm Over "Mad Men"
? Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah - YouTube
Can someone help me find the meaning of these lyrics? (hallelujah)?
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen (Lyrics and Chords) - dove

Security flaw puts all Internet Explorer users at risk, exposes Windows XP | The Verge

042614
Watch All Four North Carolina GOP Senate Candidates Laugh When Asked About Climate Change | EcoWatch - Nearly every scientist breathing agrees that climate change is a serious, manmade threat to the planet, but the same can’t be said for four U.S. Senate hopefuls in North Carolina. (destroying the world is very funny to Republicans)

South Korean Prime Minister Resigns Over Ferry Disaster Response - South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won announced his resignation on Sunday over the government's poor response to the April 16 ferry disaster, in which it was first announced that everyone had been rescued.
Sars-like coronavirus spreads to Egypt - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz - Saudi Arabia reports 5 more MERS virus deaths.
Foreign Military Observers Held In East Ukraine - A pro-Russian insurgency leader in eastern Ukraine said Saturday that foreign military observers detained as suspected NATO spies could be released in exchange for jailed pro-Russian activists.
Multiple North Korean Nuclear Tests May Be in Offing: Sensor Data | Global Security Newswire | NTI
Qatar May Have 'Bought' The World Cup, But Can It Pay For It? - With average daytime temperatures of 106 degrees Fahrenheit in the Middle Eastern nation during summer months and an architect involved in one of the largest stadiums dismissing the bold air-conditioning claims, the 2022 World Cup may make an unprecedented moved from June and July to November and December.
What Scandinavia Can Teach U.S. Teens About Coming of Age - Eric Liu - The Atlantic (how to be a citizen)

Surveillance court rejected Verizon challenge to NSA calls program - The Washington Post - In denying the phone company’s petition in March, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer embraced the arguments put forth by the government that the program is constitutional in light of a Supreme Court decision in 1979 that Americans have no expectation of privacy in dialing phone numbers. (see, your phone is government-owned)

The 1-Star Amazon Reviews Of Thomas Piketty's Book Are Pretty Funny (the flying monkeys descend; people too stupid to read the book tell you not the read the book)

DC thinks it can silence a new Snowden, but the anti-leak hypocrisy is backfiring | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - If you're an intelligence official, attempting to explain public policy to a journalist may now be tantamount to a crime. As Aftergood declared, "Henceforward, the only news about intelligence is to be authorized news." Instead of allowing the press to report the facts, the government is trying to build something resembling a propaganda machine ... the Most Transparent Administration in American History™ has implemented a new anti-press policy that would make Richard Nixon blush. (Obama is not bright enough to see that his controlling the message is the message)

WATCH: Hillary Clinton Blasts Edward Snowden for Fleeing to Russia and China | Mother Jones - "I have a hard time thinking that somebody who is a champion of privacy and liberty has taken refuge in Russia under Putin's authority." "When he emerged and when he absconded with all that material, I was puzzled, because we have all these protections for whistleblowers," Clinton said (stupid, evil, or incompetent? alzheimers? a Republican? Koch-funded DLC candidate)
Hillary Clinton Mocks Snowden, Displays Her Ignorance When It Comes to Whistleblowers | The Dissenter (tragically out of it)

NSA Haiku Generator

Microsoft Is Challenging The US Government’s Use Of Search Warrants To Access Data Stored Abroad | TechCrunch
U.S. judge rules search warrants extend to overseas email accounts | Reuters (that will help American tech companies lose business, for sure)

‘NATO 3' Sentenced to More Jail Time After Prosecutors Rabidly Invoke Boston Bombing | The Dissenter - The three men were found guilty of possessing an incendiary device to commit arson, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison (next, life in prison for possessing "matches")
‘NATO 3' Sentenced to More Jail Time After Prosecutors Rabidly Invoke Boston Bombing | The Dissenter - Prosecutors argued in their sentencing memo that what the men had done was more dangerous than criminals who committed “murder-for-hire.” They also invoked the Boston Marathon bombing. (eight years in solitary for possessing a bottle with gasoline in it)
NATO prosecution shows Alvarez was on a real tear: Brown - Chicago Sun-Times - It should have come as no surprise, I suppose, that Alvarez would still be pushing the terrorism scare tactics at Friday’s sentencing hearing for Jared Chase, Brent Betterly and Brian Church — who the jury instead found guilty of arson charges for making four Molotov cocktails with the help and urging of undercover police.

A Revolving Door of Telecom Lobbyists Is Paving a Fast Lane Over the Open Web | Motherboard (the usual suspects)

A Rancher’s Romantic Revisionism - NYTimes.com - It appears that Cliven Bundy, the 68-year-old rancher and freeloader, doesn’t reject only the federal government; he rejects history - America committed this great sin, its original sin, and there will be no absolution by alteration. (slavery "original sin" of America)
Cliven Bundy, the NYPD tweets, and a Gay Inc bestseller: how not to do PR | Steven W. Thrasher | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Tellingly, this unholy trinity of major screw-ups in American spin showed not just that PR professionals consider the public to be morons – which they quite clearly do – but that the flacks are morons themselves.
Bundy Has A Surprisingly Nice Take On Undocumented Immigrants - "Now let me talk about the Spanish people," Bundy said in a new video unearthed by New York magazine, right after he concluded his thoughts on "the Negro."

Legalise marijuana, says former US supreme court justice | Society | theguardian.com - John Paul Stevens, 94, draws parallel with alcohol prohibition • Stevens also proposes ban on capital punishment
Legalizing Medical Marijuana Doesn't Lead To More Teens Smoking Pot: Study ... the new study adds to a "growing body of data" demonstrating little effect from legal medical marijuana on adolescent drug use (Boston Globe calls for "more studies")

Feds Preparing To Bring Criminal Charges Against Rep. Grimm - The feds have been after Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) for a long time. Now they're ready to pounce.

Understand the News - Vox ("cards" is a thing" and they get out-of-date)
Why Vox (and other news orgs) could use a librarian » Nieman Journalism Lab - Every 45 years, roughly half of the medical knowledge about cirrhosis and hepatitis is disproven or becomes out of date.
The Half-Life of Facts | Samuel Arbesman

Federal Prisons Throw Inmates In 'Little Guantanamo' -- And Don't Have To Say Why | ThinkProgress (because they are fucking sadists)
Furor Over Georgia 'Guns Everywhere' Law May Spell Trouble For Jason Carter - "No one that wants to be elected statewide in Georgia wants to be on the wrong side of a 2nd Amendment issue. Because they can't be and still be elected." (armed toddlers)

Donald Sterling Should Sell the Clippers by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Donald Sterling Should Sell the Clippers By Martin Longman - So, it seems pretty strange to want to be the owner of a NBA team- in a league in which roughly 80% of the players are black- if you don’t like black people. Why does L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling want to spend his days around blacks if he doesn’t even want his girlfriend to associate with them? (doesn't like the Shvartzes)
Clippers Owner Donald Sterling to GF -- Don't Bring Black People to My Games ... Including Magic Johnson | TMZ.com - Sterling has a documented history of allegedly racist behavior -- he's been sued twice by the federal government for allegedly refusing to rent apartments to Blacks and Latinos. (racist plutocrats)
Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Tells Girlfriend: Don't Bring Black People To My Games | ThinkProgress - At one point, Sterling asks her if she gets “a benefit” from associating with black people, and calls her “stupid” when she asks why the race of the people she associates with matters. Sterling doesn’t answer when she asks if it would have been different had it been Larry Bird in the photo. (racist asshole is racist asshole)

AER (104,4) p. 1320 - Do Physicians' Financial Incentives Affect Medical Treatment and Patient Health? - On average, a 2 percent increase in payment rates leads to a 3 percent increase in care provision

Verizon Wireless to expose customers' browsing to advertisers - Verizon will monitor not just mobile activities but also what customers do on wired or Wi-Fi-connected computers, then share that data with marketers.

Spark of life: Metabolism appears in lab without cells - life - 25 April 2014 - New Scientist - Metabolic processes that underpin life on Earth have arisen spontaneously outside of cells. The serendipitous finding that metabolism – the cascade of reactions in all cells that provides them with the raw materials they need to survive – can happen in such simple conditions provides fresh insights into how the first life formed ... "This is the first experiment showing that it is possible to create metabolic networks in the absence of RNA,"

Driver Who Fatally Injured Teen Now Suing Dead Teen's Family - A woman who struck three teens on bikes while driving her SUV, killing one and injuring the others, is now suing the deceased teen, his family, and the other two boys. She is claiming $1.35 million in damages for her psychological suffering. (Sharlene Simon, driving an SUV, of course and allegely talking on her cellphone and speeding)
TechCrunch Drops RadiumOne From Disrupt Conference Over CEO's Domestic Violence

blog.reddit -- what's new on reddit: Staying Gold (cool links like)
gabrielle1106 comments on Writers of Reddit, what are exceptionally simple tips that make a huge difference in other people's writing?
What is a subreddit you think everyone should check out at least once, and why? : AskReddit
Google+ Is Walking Dead | TechCrunch

042514
Drought Now Covers Every Last Inch Of California | ThinkProgress (as the Great Western Desert used to be known)

Ukraine: pro-Russian separatists hold European military observers captive | World news | theguardian.com - Monitors held in Slavyansk by Vyacheslav Ponomarev's militants, who captured Vice journalist Simon Ostrovsky
Tony Blair: ‘I say lies’ – Cassetteboy’s video mashup of Bloomberg speech | Politics | theguardian.com
South Korean ferry owner Yoo Byung-eun's home raided by police | Mail Online - doomed vessel was THREE times over its maximum load

Twitter / HalDockins: Yemeni & Pakistani children ... - killed in drone strikes ordered by President Obama in the last 5 years:
How We Read a NYTimes Story on Drone Strikes in Yemen | Just Security (NYT covers for Obama children-killing program)

State Dept Launches 'Free the Press' Campaign While DOJ Asks Supreme Court to Force Reporter James Risen Into Jail | Freedom of the Press Foundation (meanwhile, nothing has changed)

FCC's New Rules Show Obama Has Not Kept Net Neutrality Promise | New Republic
FCC asserts new set of net neutrality rules will preserve 'open internet' | Technology | theguardian.com - Early reports said rules would limit openness by providing a 'fast lane' for carriers who want to raise prices for access to their sites (game over; money won again)
Everything You Need To Know About The End Of Net Neutrality - "It will become more fragmented and more frustrating," he added.

Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence - The Washington Post - Judges at the lowest levels of the federal judiciary are balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and other sensitive personal data, declaring the demands overly broad and at odds with basic constitutional rights.

Justina Pelletier case: Hacker group Anonymous targets Children's Hospital - Business - The Boston Globe - Although there is no direct evidence linking Anonymous to the attacks this week against Children’s, cybersecurity specialists said the incident bore the hallmarks of the mysterious network of Internet agitators who cripple a target’s Internet operations with a barrage of traffic. (oh, a "barrage of traffic") Gabriella Coleman, a McGill University professor who has studied Anonymous, describes it as a “protest ensemble” that uses the Guy Fawkes mask as a symbol of its members’ anti-authority or populist tenets.

Court strikes down onerous Arkansas voter-id law | MSNBC - And in the Arkansas case, they crossed it brazenly, imposing restrictions that were even more outlandish than voter-suppression efforts elsewhere. In the hopes of combating a voter-fraud problem that doesn’t actually exist (Republicans hate democracy)

The Piketty Panic - NYTimes.com - Other books on economics have been best sellers, but Mr. Piketty’s contribution is serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a way most best sellers aren’t
The Power of Piketty’s ‘Capital’ | The Nation - A brilliant book has named the problem of our time. But will anything change?
Elizabeth Warren Simplifies Thomas Piketty: 'Trickle Down Doesn't Work. Never Did'
Occupy Amazon: Elizabeth Warren, Thomas Piketty, Michael Lewis Books Surging Online
Oh Hello, Face! Meet Palm. Because You're About To See A Really Uncomfy Chart About The Super-Rich. - Sometime around 50 years ago, something extreme started to change in the way rich people make and earn money in America. Actually, it was so extreme that we're still reeling from it now.
Republican monsters duke it out: The coming “Plutocrats vs. Tea Party” cage match - Salon.com

Arkansas Judge Strikes Down State's Voter ID Law

Road to political progress paved with gifts: Column - Earmarks help the nation by giving our representatives in Washington incentive to get things done.

Slow Roasted: Unprecedented - The deeply personal back and forth this week between Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor over race is without parallel in the court's history, legal experts tell Sahil Kapur.

Ain’t No eMeg in ‘16 by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - he’ll have to deal with the fact that he was the federal administrator of TARP at the end of the Bush administration. A lot of conservatives would probably prefer a sex offender.
George Will’s humiliating temper tantrum: Why he is a sensitive “stinkburger” - Salon.com - Offended by Obama's "adolescent" words, the rightwing dinosaur is not only a puritan but deeply ignorant of history

Never Saw This Coming » Balloon Juice - Apparently teabagger militiamen may have some issues with people of color:
Cliven Bundy saga forces Republicans into awkward U-turn from far right | World news | theguardian.com - Rancher's racist comments have highlighted party's baffling association with extremists after senators forced to back off
Radical racist context missed in rancher hype | MSNBC
Dana Loesch: Cliven Bundy not ‘media trained’ - politico.com - Conservative radio host Dana Loesch said that the flare-up over Cliven Bundy’s comments on race is missing the point.
Lawless Rancher's Slavery Comments Echo Conservative Media Rhetoric | Blog | Media Matters for America
Cliven Bundy and BLM: 10 things to know - Adam Sneed - politico.com (#11: he's a racist asshole)
The Welfare Rancher on the Merits of Slavery - The Daily Show - Video Clip | Comedy Central
Life at The Bundy Ranch, Uncensored - Esquire - Live From Bunkerville! Welfare negroes, the United Nations, sexually devious lawyers, satan, a Chinese solar farm, microchips, secret-agent NPS, and more!
Republicans Are Racists? No, It’s Just All a Big Coincidence - The Daily Beast - The revolting comments. The emails. The jokes. The posters. The T-shirts. The ghostwriters. It’s not like it’s a pattern or something.
Colbert Sings 'The Ballad Of Cliven Bundy', Says Bundy And Hannity 'Go Together Like Ku And Klux'
Posse Comitatus Act - A Lesson From History - Esquire - The Posse Comitatus Act came out of a compromise struck to settled the bitterly contested 1876 presidential election between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden.

'We don't discriminate': Mississippi business owners resist anti-gay law | World news | theguardian.com - Critics fear new bill could prompt officials to look away from discrimination carried out in the name of religious belief
Veterans’ cemetery won’t allow ‘the ashes of a couple old lesbians’ to be buried together - A veterans cemetery in Idaho is denying a 74-year-old Navy veteran’s request to be buried next to her spouse of 17 years.

The Larger Your Penis, The More Likely Your Wife Will Cheat Says New Study

No criminal charges for four Philly officers in 'Tainted Justice' cases - After years of investigation, federal and local prosecutors have decided not to file criminal charges against four Philadelphia narcotics officers accused of lying about evidence on search warrants and stealing from corner stores during raids, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told The Inquirer on Thursday. One of the officers was also accused of sexually assaulting three women. (rewarded with extra pay)
Preppy Drug Bust High on Hype - The Daily Beast - They’re the WASPy Walter Whites of the Philadelphia elite, if you listen to the district attorney. But a look at the government’s case reveals a very different story. (WaPo sensationalized the Stoner Cartel)

13 Minutes: The Average Warning-Time Before a Tornado Hits - Brendan Heberton - The Atlantic - Unlike other natural disasters, tornadoes can strike any time in much of the country.

Hey /r/askscience, I'm having a hard time understanding how force carrier particles (gluons, etc.) work, can you help me clarify? : askscience
Jim Koch Taught Me How to Drink All Night But Never Get Drunk - Esquire

042414
/ Putin: Sanctions Hurting Russia's Economy, But Not Critically
Vice President Joe Biden Promotes U.S. as Fracking Missionary Force On Ukraine Trip | DeSmogBlog - A key part of the package involves promoting the deployment of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Ukraine.
Dostum, a former warlord who was once America’s man in Afghanistan, may be back - The Washington Post - The return of a strongman known for brutal, reckless behavior would be a troubling development for the U.S. government, which has spent billions of dollars trying to build a stable democracy in Afghanistan. (all for nothing except to give billions to corrupt warlords)

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Says Americans Have 'Lost the Republic' | Motherboard (Obama killed America)

FBI knew of zero-day attack on websites, let hackers use it | Ars Technica - NY Times reports Sabu directed attacks with Plesk exploit after arrest. (FBI hopelessly corrupt and criminal)
Kansas City Shooter Frazier Glenn Miller Was Protected FBI Informant – Tablet Magazine - Exposed fellow white nationalists in 1987 for lesser prison term and new name
New leaks expose how the FBI directed Anonymous’ hacks — RT USA - Dozens of pages of previously unreleased documents pertaining to the prosecution of hacktivist Jeremy Hammond were leaked to the web on Thursday, further linking the United States government to a gamut of cyberattacks waged against foreign nations.

Obama Faces Growing Rebellion Against The Secure Communities Deportation Program - Going forward, Philadelphia officials would no longer acquiesce to the federal government's requests that they hold certain undocumented immigrants for extra time solely for deportation purposes. (Deporter-in-Chief finally gets push-back on his immigrants are terrorists program)

#myNYPD Twitter campaign boomerangs across the nation - latimes.com
The New York Police Department has learned the hard way that Twitter is a two-edged sword with a point that has deeply embedded itself into the department's self-image.
Former SDPD officer ordered to stand trial - 10News.com KGTV ABC10 San Diego - A former San Diego police officer accused of groping and illegally detaining four women must stand trial on felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor sexual battery charges, a judge ruled Wednesday.

DailyTech - Dotcom Bomb: U.S. Case Against Megaupload is Crumbling - MPAA and RIAA appear to be caught in framing attempt; Judge orders Mr. Dotcom's assets returned to him (oh, they lied? really? +informed commentariat)
Megaupload Asks Hong Kong Court To Drop Restraining Order On Megaupload Assets, Claiming Legal Violations | Techdirt (Big Content is their own state)

How to Starve the For-Profit Prison Beast | American Civil Liberties Union - Introducing a cell phone into a correctional facility used to be a misdemeanor in Oklahoma. Now, it's a felony. This change did not happen for any reason other than a private prison lobbyist provided his client with a good way to make even more revenue off of people already imprisoned.

New Docs: IRS Targeted Liberal Groups The Most. Darrell Issa To Apologize Any Day Now, We Are Sure - Even so, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Darrell Issa keeps insisting that only conservative groups were given extra attention, because he is kind of a lying shitweasel that way.

Oklahoma's Governor Has Quietly Passed a Bill With Devastating Consequences for Young People - PolicyMic - With this perfunctory stroke of her pen, Fallin claimed that raising the minimum wage would "drive businesses to other communities and states and would raise prices for consumers." The conservative governor, elected in 2010, went on to assert that most minimum wage-earners are "young, single people working part-time or entry-level jobs." (so screw the moochers; the South rose again in extreme insanity)

Never Saw This Coming » Balloon Juice - Apparently teabagger militiamen may have some issues with people of color: ” Bundy was quoted as saying to a group of supporters last Saturday. “And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” (said the big moocher)
Cliven Bundy Stands By Pro-Slavery Comments In Rambling Press Conference
Cliven Bundy Wants to Tell You All About 'the Negro' - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

Meet The Real Amazon Drones - "It's like they want us to be employees, but they don't want to pay for it," said Ballard, 45. (Bezos-slaves)

Supreme Court gives police new power to rely on anonymous tips | 89.3 KPCC - The 5-4 decision split the court's two most conservative justices, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and Justice Antonin Scalia penning the dissent. (Fourth Amendment is history; anonymous tips now reason for searches; what could go wrong?)
Feds Beg Supreme Court to Let Them Search Phones Without a Warrant | Threat Level | WIRED (do you have something to hide?)

Getting around the Puget Sound is about to get even more difficult - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This is not surprising, but quite devastating. The higher than expected sales tax receipts will probably prevent cuts from going all the way up to 17%, but the 14-15% cuts will still be devastating. While changes to the final cuts are inevitable, something approximating the coming carnage can be viewed here. Some thoughts: (Seattle defunds public transit because moochers and screw the environment)
Proposition 1 Failing - Faced with the choice between slightly higher taxes and draconian cuts to service, the voters have chosen the cuts. The impact will be most severe on the transit-dependent, but commuters of all modes, businesses in dense areas, clean air and water, and public health are all losers.
The Times Doesn’t Know How to Increase Efficiency - The gist of the Times‘s no on Prop 1 editorial ($) is that King County should not replace the expiring tab fee, but instead avoid cuts through the magic of vaguely-specified cost controls. (Seattle Times is very evil and deserves to die)

Albuquerque police kill third person in 5 weeks — RT USA - A 19-year-old woman was shot and killed by police in Albuquerque, New Mexico early Monday after being suspected of stealing a truck. This week's death of Mary Hawkes now marks the third time in five weeks that Albuquerque cops have killed a civilian.
Albuquerque Police Yet to Find Video of Shooting - NYTimes.com - Albuquerque’s police chief said on Wednesday that the authorities had not been able to find conclusive videotape footage of the fatal police shooting this week of a 19-year-old woman who was the 24th person killed since 2010 by members of the department, which is under federal and state investigation for violating use-of-force rules.

TSA to pay $75k for banning breast milk at security check — RT USA - Then, a Phoenix police officer joins her in the enclosure. According to Armato, the officer told her the TSA saw her coming and had it out for her because of her previous complaint, and that she should travel out of a different gate in the future. “He said TSA wants me to play along with their horse and pony show and if I don't then TSA can have the Phoenix PD arrest me!” Armato said. (breasts are terrorists)

London school confirms its pupils were abused by teacher in FBI investigation | Society | theguardian.com - Parents at Southbank International School in Westminster shocked that 'much respected' William Vahey who drugged and molested boys on school trip

Advertorial: an unnecessary evil | Tim Bousquet's next project (journo's story)
The Jan Wong column generator! | Tim Bousquet's next project

Georgia Says Screw It, Allows Guns In Airports, School Zones, Other Awesome Places To Have Guns ... Some critics have said it was hypocritical to allow guns in so many places but not the state Capitol (Nathan Deal is the real nut-ball deal but he's protecting himself, if nobody else)
Reuters’ Cool Upside-Down Chart Makes ‘Stand Your Ground’ Look Awesome - The rotten news is that plenty of charts lie more subtly, and deliberately, than this one, which ended up terrible not out of an intent to deceive, but to be pretty, if we take Christine Chan’s word for it, which, actually we don’t, because Christine Chan says things like this: (graphic designers should take some math courses, it's not just a "preference")
Visualising Data » Blog Archive » The fine line between confusion and deception
How to Lie with Data Visualization | Heap Data Blog

Marijuana Condoms Are Real and Awesome | High Times - Safe sex is important and we are happy to announce that it just got a little more fun! “Cannadoms” promise “realistic cannabis flavor and smell,” which is a good thing, right?
How 70-Year-Old Lynn Brown Rosenberg Rediscovered Her Sexuality (video +blinking)
Iggy Azalea Stopped Crowd Surfing Because 'People Try To Finger' Her - Apparently, her fans think it's fair game to sexually assault the rapper and try to slip their fingers into her body during the concerts.
When you call a rape anything but rape, you are just making excuses for rapists | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com - As reported by Al Jazeera America, colleges across the country are replacing the word "rape" in their sexual assault policies with "non-consensual sex" because schools don't want label students "rapists".
Nonconsensual sex: How colleges rebranded rape | Al Jazeera America - Why are hundreds of campuses now using the term ‘??nonconsensual sex?’ instead of ‘rape’ or ‘assault’?

FDA proposes ban on e-cigarettes for young Americans | Business | theguardian.com - If approved, new rules would stop sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, and would require health warning labels on all products
14 Electronic Cigarette Studies That Shame the Critics - ChurnMag (na-na, can't hear you)
What the New E-Cig Rules Don't Do - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic

The Hackers Who Recovered NASA’s Lost Lunar Photos | Raw File | WIRED

042314
Increasing Storm Tides in New York Harbor, 1844-2013 - Talke - Geophysical Research Letters - Wiley Online Library - The 10-year storm-tide has increased by 0.28?m. Combined with a 0.44?m increase in local sea-level since 1856, the 10-year flood-level has increased by approximately 0.72?±?0.25?m, and magnified the annual probability of overtopping the typical Manhattan seawall from less than 1% to about 20-25%. (Manhattan will flood at least once in the next 10 yrs; what fund has hedged this?)
Climate change & climate protection I Munich Re - Climate Change is a subject that concerns us all
North Carolina Senate Candidates - North Carolina's GOP Nominees Want To Make Rising Sea Levels Illegal - Esquire - All oppose the Affordable Care Act. All oppose medical marijuana. All want to eliminate federal agencies. All believe Russia is the biggest foreign policy threat. And all believe climate change is not a fact. (pledge to arrest the climate)
Jackfruit heralded as 'miracle' food crop | Environment | theguardian.com - • Climate change 'already affecting food supply' – UN (deniers claim science is a big lie)

Ukraine Ends Easter Truce, Relaunches 'Anti-Terrorism Operation'
Pro-Russian Militants Confirm Capture of Vice Journalist Simon Ostrovsky
Ukraine Crisis Russian Troops - The Ukraine Tangle - Esquire - Increasingly, it looks like Vladimir Putin is conducting his foreign policy in the immediate vicinity for the purpose of giving the Russian people a taste of the old Tsarist/Soviet moonshine, quenching their insecurity about Russia's place in the world, which goes back for centuries ("morning in Moscow")
Russian social network founder says he has been fired - Mr Durov had been asked by the Russian authorities to hand over the details of Ukrainians who had used the site to create groups related to anti-government protests. He was also asked to close down a group that supported Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Iran rape victim bound for gallows unless she changes story - Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, an Iranian intelligence agent, was killed by Reyhaneh Jabbari after she was lured to flat to undertake interior design work but sexually abused.
North Korea: the new generation losing faith in the regime | World news | The Guardian - After decades of absolute control, Pyongyang's iron grip on the lives of ordinary citizens is finally slipping.

Clapper bans US intelligence employees from 'unauthorised' media contact | World news | theguardian.com - Directive, signed by director of national intelligence, orders that contact with media must be authorised by officials (criminalizes talking to journalists)
Snowden revelations 'good for society' - By two to one, British people say it was good, not bad, for society that newspapers reported the materials given to them by Edward Snowden (Americans much less sure)

The FCC is planning new net neutrality rules. And they could enshrine pay-for-play. (all that protesting didn't do a damn thing)
FCC proposal would destroy net neutrality | The Verge
It's time for the FCC to stand up for Americans instead of ruining the internet | The Verge - Cowardice and capitulation could mess up a vital utility

Quentin Tarantino’s lawsuit against Gawker thrown out of court | Ars Technica - Linking to a leaked script isn't enough to sue news outlet over copyright. (dude should read up on the internets)

Human Strike Has Already Begun And Other Writings (Claire Fontaine) | The Anarchist Library - What starts to crumble at that time under the offensive of the two essential weapon-books by Deleuze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus is the fetishisation of consciousness as the organ that will lead the revolution.

#myNYPD Twitter callout backfires for New York police department | World news | theguardian.com - NYPD's Twitter feed deluged with images of brutal arrests and shooting victims after attempt to highlight best of officers' work (#FAIL)
Los Angeles Law Enforcement Looking To Crowdsource Surveillance | Techdirt - from the snitches-get-stitches-cloud-storage dept

Man named in Newsweek's bitcoin 'scoop' thanks supporters | Technology | theguardian.com - Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto appears in YouTube video to rubbish magazine claims he was founder of digital currency

No-fly list used by FBI to coerce Muslims into informing, lawsuit claims | World news | theguardian.com - Case highlights plight of people wrongfully added to database who face lengthy, secretive process to clear their names (they can do anything they want to fuck you over)

NY Times Changes Its Tune On TPP; Highlights Cronyism, Lack Of Transparency As Problems | Techdirt - The endorsement resulted in the Times being rightly mocked for endorsing a secretive agreement that the NY Times editorial writers had not seen (indeed, could not see). Apparently, some folks on the editorial staff took at least some of this criticism to heart, and have now released a new editorial that is much more critical of the TPP -- in particular, the process around it. (Obama's sooper-secrit corp giveaway)

Supreme Court Affirmative Action Michigan - The Wonderful World Where Justices Dwell - Esquire - The decision was written by Anthony Kennedy, who lives in that wonderful world where the law is a pure crystal stream running through green meadows, unsullied by the grit and silt that piles up in the actual lives of actual human beings. It must be a wonderful world in which Anthony Kennedy lives. (majoritarianism at work)
US supreme court upholds Michigan law that bans affirmative action | Law | theguardian.com - Justices say Michigan voters have the right to change their state constitution to stop colleges using race as a factor in admissions (look for Southern States to legalize slavery)
Justice Stevens Suggests Solution for ‘Giant Step in the Wrong Direction’ - NYTimes.com - “Essentially,” he wrote, “five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”
washington: Supreme Court upholds search of California driver based on anonymous tip | Suits & Sentences | McClatchy DC (there goes probable cause; police can "anonymous tip" themselves)
Supreme Court says child porn victims can claim payment from anyone who has their images | The Verge (but diluted by number of pervs)
Inside the Supreme Court for Aereo's last stand | The Verge - Is Aereo more like a parking garage or a valet, and other questions from today's Supreme Court case (geezers and dumbfucks)
Sotomayor and Equality - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Yesterday’s affirmative action case is a close question, but Sotomayor’s dissent is perhaps her strongest work yet.

Navy investigates ex-Blue Angels commander after complaint he allowed sexual harassment - The Washington Post - The Navy has reassigned a former commander of the Blue Angels, its acrobatic fighter squadron, and is investigating allegations that the elite team of pilots was a hotbed of hazing, sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination, documents show ... an internal military document that a Navy official inadvertently e-mailed to a Washington Post editor (uh-huh)

2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism | Hillman Foundation - Digby aka Heather Parton Hullaboo
Digby Hillman Award - Huzzah Times Three - Esquire - one of the saloons along the docks of Blogistan that I regularly visited was Hullabaloo, the outpost of the redoubtable Heather (Digby) Parton, because she could write like a dream and was impatient with the cant of people like, well, me.
Hullabaloo - Here's a surprise for an old country blogger: I've been awarded this year's Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. Who would have thought that could ever happen when I started this ugly little blog 11 years ago? I couldn't have seen it coming, that's for sure.
Blow up the Times Op-Ed page, and start again! Why Friedman, Brooks and Dowd must go - Salon.com - The New York Times Op-Ed page is the best real estate in media. Why is the Times OK with it being so embarrassing? (fire everyone but Krugman and hire Digby)

Obama Clemency Drug Offenders - The Drug War Reaches Appomattox - Esquire - Of course, President Romney would have done the same thing, if we'd only heightened the contradictions in the last election.

Final-hours push for Maine Medicaid expansion appears headed for another LePage veto | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram - A new proposal would use federal money allocated to expand the program to help low-income Mainers buy private insurance coverage. (getting tired of this asshole yet, Mainers?)
US Workers Were Once Massacred Fighting for the Protections Being Rolled Back Today | The Long View | BillMoyers.com - Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. For more information about this landmark event in US labor history, visit PBS’ “American Experience.”

Army general disciplined over mishandling of sexual-assault case in Japan - The Washington Post - After conducting an investigation, the Army inspector general rebuked Harrison in August for protecting the colonel and failing to take appropriate action. But the Army kept the results under wraps until this week, when it released a heavily redacted copy of the investigative report in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by The Post. (they always coverup)

Christie's ties to U.S. attorney's office delayed Hoboken mayor's claims of political retribution, letter says - News - NorthJersey.com - “We decided that Christie has friends throughout the U.S. attorney’s office,” she wrote in the newly disclosed journal pages. “Not much chance in getting help from them and it could create a nightmare for us.” (Christie organized crime boss)
Chris Christie: Father Of The Year - Esquire - Christie will be honored on June 4th in New York City. Past honorees include Cronus the Titan and Woody Allen.
Chris Christie Office Ombudsman - Chris Christie's Appetite For Destruction - Esquire - Chris Chrstie has decided to hire an ombudsman as part of delousing the governor's office. It was not a tough search. (+wtf, Cuomo)

A Criminologist Takes On the Lead-Crime Hypothesis | Mother Jones - Dominic Casciani of the BBC has a good piece up today about the hypothesis linking lead exposure in small children to violent crime rates later in life. Here's my favorite part:

College Professor GOP Rant - The Morning Butthurt - Esquire (Fox knows where to put the lip-gloss)

Sean Hannity - Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - Sean Hannity is in a bad place. Something has gone terribly wrong with Fox News's resident meathead. I suggest an intervention, stat.
Hannity Continues Move Toward The Fringe As Guest Accuses Liberals Of Contributing To A "Modern Day Holocaust" | Blog | Media Matters for America

Prosecutors: Cuckolded husband’s tape proves Dinesh D’Souza knew he broke campaign laws | The Raw Story - A former aide to the Reagan White House and author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, D’Souza is charged with using straw donors to illegally contribute $20,000 to the U.S. Senate campaign of Wendy Long, a former school friend of D’Souza’s who unsuccessfully ran against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in 2012.
How Conservatives Helped Dinesh D'Souza "Get His Story Out There" | Blog | Media Matters for America (the lie funnel)

2 former LA deputies accused of planting guns to justify medical marijuana dispensary arrests (updated) | 89.3 KPCC - Two former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies face criminal conspiracy, perjury and other charges for allegedly planting guns inside a South L.A. medical marijuana dispensary and arresting two people.

Listen as wrestler Steve Austin rips anti-gay Christians: ‘These motherf*ckers talked to God?’ | The Raw Story - “What also chaps my ass, some of these churches, have the high horse that they get on and say ‘we as a church do not believe in that.’ Which one of these motherf*ckers talked to God, and God said that same-sex marriage was a no-can-do?” the wrestler asked.
Dallas Archer busted in Tennessee with loaded gun in vagina - UPI.com - Dallas Archer had a loaded North American Arms 22 LR revolver hidden in her private parts. Souther told the Smoking Gun he would be happy to have “the little fellow” back after giving it “a bath in bleach.”
geryorama comments on My mom with Alzheimer's is missing the the Upper West Side of Manhattan

Ditch the 10,000 hour rule! Why Malcolm Gladwell’s famous advice falls short - Salon.com - Contrary to what the bestselling author would tell you, obsessive practice isn't the key to success. Here's why (Gladwell popularized bullshit)

You might also like this story about weaponized clickbait | The Verge - Sleazy tabloid links have taken over the web — but their days may be numbered
Famous reddit users: /u/karmanaut : MuseumOfReddit
Windows Phone 8.1 Already Installed on Over One Million Handsets
Ubuntu 14.04 review: Missing the boat on big changes | Ars Technica
Nokia Icon Review | Windows Phone content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

042214
Happy Earth Day. We Just Reached Another Scary Climate Change Milestone - In May 2013, it was big news when, for the first time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit 400 parts per million. Now, researchers say that number has been consistently above 400 for the last month.
One in Four in U.S. Are Solidly Skeptical of Global Warming - Nearly 40% are "Concerned Believers" in global warming, others are mixed (the same old 27% of completely insane Republicans, hi Vic!)
Two degrees: How the world failed on climate change - Vox - We're on track for 4°C of global warming — and 2°C is increasingly unlikely (Republicans have totally screwed the world) "I look forward to the forcible relocation of all Climate Deniers to remote little islands, just inches above the current sea level."
The New Abolitionism | The Nation - Averting planetary disaster will mean forcing fossil fuel companies to give up at least $10 trillion in wealth. In 1860, slaves represented about 16 percent of the total household assets—that is, all the wealth—in the entire country, which in today’s terms is a stunning $10 trillion.
The Spread of 'Debate is Over' Syndrome | Joel Kotkin - Political uniformity is certainly in vogue. A remarkable 96 percent of presidential campaign donations from the nation’s Ivy League faculty and staff in 2012 went to Obama, a margin more reminiscent of Soviet Russia than a properly functioning pluralistic academy. (the solution is obvously to abolish education or at least limit its dangerous spread)

Biden pledges support for Ukraine as east edges closer to union with Russia | World news | theguardian.com - Vice-president lines up $50m reform package as armed militia occupying government buildings continue to defy Geneva deal
Inside the Brutality of Egypt's New Regime: 2,500 Killed, 16,000 Political Prisoners, Torture Allegations Are Widespread | Alternet - Since the coup that toppled Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's human rights record has gotten much much worse.
BNP Banker, His Wife And Nephew Murdered In Belgium | Zero Hedge

9/11 Trial Grinds To A Halt As Evidence Surfaces That FBI Subverted Attorney-Client Privilege | Techdirt - from the hey,-it's-just-a-'privilege,'-amiright? dept
Obama Will Finally Have to Explain Why the US Can Kill Americans with Drones | Motherboard ("It's my favorite thing" he was heard to say)

MIT police officer's statement suggests FBI was watching Tsarnaevs the night Sean Collier was killed | Privacy SOS (you will never hear the full story)
After Boston, the FBI needs tighter rules to govern investigations | Privacy SOS

Clapper Clamps Down on Intelligence Employees Who Talk to the Press, Develops System for ‘Authorized Leaks’ | The Dissenter
Putin's 'Clapper' Moment: What He Said Vs. What Russian Intelligence Actually Does | Techdirt - from the did-anyone-expect-Putin-to-actually-confirm-this? dept

Bureau of Prisons Throws CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou’s Children Out of Visitors Room | The Dissenter

UK Govt “Caved” In Pushing SCOTUS To Prioritize Corporations Over Human Rights - “In the cases against Shell and Rio Tinto, business interests won over the human rights interests of the plaintiffs in the cases who had legitimate claims of torture and murder…”
Sotomayor Attacks John Roberts' Views On Race As 'Out Of Touch With Reality'

Will Obama finally end the war....on drugs? - President Obama has ended the war in Iraq -- heck, even W. probably wouldn't have screwed that up, although a "President McCain" probably would have -- and the coming months will reveal if he keeps his promise to also end the war in Afghanistan. But in his final 33 months in office, does Obama have the courage to end the longest of America's pointless wars, the "war on drugs"? (he's still "evolving" from being a Republican tough-guy)
Philly preppies accused in ‘Main Line take over’ drug operation aimed at cornering supply to fancy schools
Alaska postpones vote to legalise marijuana until November election | World news | theguardian.com - State could become third to legalise recreational cannabis when a ballot initiative goes before voters later than previously planned

Who Will Win The Senate? — The Upshot Senate Forecasts — NYTimes.com - According to our statistical election-forecasting machine, it’s a tossup. The Democrats have about a 51% chance of retaining a majority. (how they are rolling without dudebro Nate)
The Upshot, Vox and FiveThirtyEight: data journalism's golden age, or TMI? | James Ball | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A New York Times site completes the trio started by Nate Silver and Ezra Klein. Maybe it's all a little too much information
The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest - NYTimes.com - After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.
Canada passes US in middle-class wealth
Who Will Win The Senate? — The Upshot Senate Forecasts — NYTimes.com
Incumbent Southern Democrats Are Less Vulnerable Than You Might Think - NYTimes.com
The death of the Sunday shows - Dylan Byers - politico.com


GOP Lawmakers Fought To Keep These People Uninsured. Now They Have To Rely On Hope. (Republicans' message: fuck off and die)
US supreme court upholds Michigan law that bans affirmative action | Law | theguardian.com - Justices say Michigan voters have the right to change their state constitution to stop colleges using race as a factor in admissions (next: Slavery)

Student Loans Can Suddenly Come Due When Co-Signers Die, a Report Finds - NYTimes.com - Even borrowers who have good payment records can face sudden demands for full, early repayment of those loans, and can be forced into default.

Tu Quoque — Crooked Timber - To sum up, even when true, the tu quoque argument is an implicit admission of error. When it isn’t true, as in the case of the claims that the left and right are equally guilty of tribalism and anti-scientific thinking, it amounts to an intellectual coverup.
Confirmed: “Men’s Rights Activism” Is For Misogynists Without God | The Raw Story - MRAs refuse outright to admit that they simply oppose equality and come up with half-witted, belabored rationales for why positions and beliefs that functionally serve as opposition to equality are somehow not anti-equality.
But How Do You Know the MRAs Are Atheists? » Almost Diamonds (white, male, teen-aged, atheist, conservative, whiner dude-bros)
How Not to Talk About Wealth Inequality by Tina Dupuy - Have you heard we live in an oligarchy? Perhaps you’ve been told America is a plutocracy? Is that because of widespread demagogy? (Republican air-head with a small vocabulary complains about big words like "inequality")

I-Team: Bundy's 'ancestral rights' come under scrutiny - 8 News NOW - Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy's parents moved from Bundyville, Arizona and bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt. ("Sovereign Citizen" is big fat liar and super-moooch)
An abbreviated look at rancher Cliven Bundy's family history - 8 News NOW

Mayor Who 'Kind Of Agreed' With Alleged Jewish Center Shooter Resigns - Daniel Clevenger resigned as mayor of Marionville, Mo. at a town meeting after residents called for his impeachment over comments he made in support of Frazier Glenn Miller, the man accused of killing three people at Jewish facilities in Overland Park, Kan. t he did regret sending an anti-Semitic letter to the editor to a local newspaper 10 years ago
Mayor Faces Impeachment After He Spoke Fondly Of Alleged Jewish Center Shooter - In the letter, Clevenger described himself as "a friend of Frazier Miller helping to spread his warnings." He also decried the "Jew-run medical industry" and the "Jew-run government backed banking industry."

Secrecy Around Lethal Injection Drugs Has Halted Two Executions in Oklahoma | Motherboard
Chicago police face overwhelming gun crime as 45 people shot over weekend | World news | theguardian.com - Police officials point to need for stricter gun laws after city suffers bloody Easter weekend in which nine people were killed
Green Bay Cop Viciously Beats Bar Patron in Front of Shocked Crowd (Updated) | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC - But the only person who was out of control was Derek Wicklund, who happens to sit on the board of directors of the Green Bay Police Benevolent and Protective Association, which proclaims to “promote charity and good will within the community.”

Garth Ancier, David Neuman And Gary Goddard Accused Of Sexual Abuse In New Lawsuits - A man who has accused "X-Men" director Bryan Singer of sexually abusing him when he was a teen sued three more entertainment industry figures on Monday claiming they also molested him.

Pat Robertson Says Doomsday Asteroid Could Hit Next Week - "I don't see anything else that fulfills the prophetic words of Jesus Christ other than an asteroid strike. There isn't anything that will cause the seas to roil, that will cause the skies to darken, the moon and the sun not to give their light, the nations terrified on Earth saying 'what's happening?'"
What's the reason I don't remember every moment in my life? Is it because my brain is not recording every moment or my brain cannot retrieve what it has recorded? : askscience
ELI5: How do we know what the universe looks like today when all the light we see is from millions or billions of years ago?
When a baby cries at night, exhausted parents scramble to figure out why. He’s hungry. Wet. Cold. Lonely. But now, a Harvard scientist offers a more sinister explanation: The baby who demands to be breastfed in the middle of the night is preventing his mom from getting pregnant again. : science (sinister little anti-fuckers)
Parents that are aware of their children masturbating, what weird routines do they do to try and hide the fact that they are doing it? : AskReddit (a 10K+ thread)
great works about raising kids with mental illness - bookforum.com / syllabi

Elizabeth Gilbert’s New Chapter Begins - NYTimes.com - I’m ready to write a new book and I can’t do it in the ‘Skybrary’ because I feel like that room belongs to Alma,” the protagonist of “The Signature of All Things.”
The Aristocrats! Everything Is Illuminated Edition - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Literary power couple Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss have put their Park Slope limestone on the market for $14,500,000, as The New York Daily News was the first to report. Built in 1901 by the Woolworth family, the 7,670-square-foot house sits on a double lot that goes all the way through to the next block. It also has a conservatory with Tiffany stained glass.
David Foster Wallace's family object to biopic The End of the Tour | Books | theguardian.com - The family of David Foster Wallace have laid out their objections to a new film about the late author, which is based on a road trip he took with a Rolling Stone reporter in 1996, saying that "David would never have agreed that those saved transcripts could later be repurposed as the basis of a movie".

The Surprising, Easy Trick To Making Perfect Bacon
Circles Of Life | The 143 best songs in the world
? Meskel Square, Addis Abeba - YouTube

E-cigarettes and the vape debate - "As cigarette consumption both around the world and in the United States continues to drop, we should acknowledge that the growing popularity of e-cigarettes is a massive win for public health," he writes.

/ Aereo squares off with television broadcasters at US supreme court | Media | theguardian.com - ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS and others accuse Aereo of theft in case which could have detrimental impact on cloud computing industry
Airchat on Vimeo - Free Communications for Everyone.
Hacking Cortana: meet *all* of Cortana’s personas! | LeonZandman.com
Hacking Cortana: meet *all* of Cortana’s personas! : windowsphone
Reddit's /r/technology demoted over scandal of secret censorship that blocked Internet freedom stories - Boing Boing
-moose- comments on Archive
How Is It That A Random Comment On Reddit Leads To Your Friend Getting Tracked By The FBI? | Techdirt : technology
Tesla is banned from /r/technology, and so am I for finding out : teslamotors
[META] I'm honestly scared of what some users here might think, and I would like your input : undelete

042114
There Goes the Sun - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com - Like just about everyone who has looked at the numbers on renewable energy, solar power in particular, I was wowed by the progress. Something really good is in reach ... right-wing paranoia is worse than you can possibly imagine, even if you take into account the fact that it’s worse than you can possibly imagine
The Right Wing Trains Its Hysterical Eye on Renewable Energy | Mother Jones

South Korean President: 'Unforgivable, Murderous Acts' Committed In Sunken Ferry Disaster
Russia accuses Ukraine of violating Geneva peace deal | World news | theguardian.com - Sergei Lavrov says Kiev 'not lifting a finger' to control extremists as armed groups refuse to stand down in eastern Ukraine
Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia - NYTimes.com - Now, photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration on Sunday suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces — equipped in the same fashion as Russian special operations troops involved in annexing the Crimea region in February.
Russian Politician Bullies Female Journalists (video) - According to RT, Zhirinovsky ordered his aides to "rape" the reporter, then told her that pregnant women shouldn't be working. He also reportedly used several homophobic slurs. (they have Republicans in Russia also)
4 French Journalists Home After Long Syrian Ordeal - Four French journalists kidnapped and held for 10 months in Syria returned home Sunday to joyful families, a presidential welcome and questions about how France managed to obtain their freedom from Islamic extremists.
Church of England has up to £10m invested in arms firm - Home News - UK - The Independent (onward Christian soldiers)
Supreme court to review law over Jerusalem's status on US passports | Law | theguardian.com - The court said Monday it will review a lower court ruling that struck down a 2002 law that authorized identifying Jerusalem as part of Israel on US passports
Twitter bans two whistleblower accounts exposing government corruption after complaints from the Turkish government : worldnews

US ordered to release memo in Anwar al-Awlaki drone killing | World news | theguardian.com - Federal court rules in favour of ACLU and New York Times to force release of papers describing legal justification for strike ... , because President Barack Obama and senior government officials have commented on the subject, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. (see, if they hadn't said anything it would still be a sooper-secrit)

Snowden’s Camp: Staged Putin Q&A Was a Screw-Up - The Daily Beast - Even the NSA leaker’s closest advisers now say his appearance on a Kremlin call-in show, which touched off yet another international firestorm, was a mistake. (anonymous sources say ... says the Daily Beast which is immediately swarmed by NSA trolls)

The Internet and the Constitution: A Selective Retrospective - 9WJLTA135.pdf (Judges don't understand Fourth Amendment)
Intelligence Directive Bars Unauthorized Contacts with News Media - Secrecy News - The Director of National Intelligence has forbidden most intelligence community employees from discussing “intelligence-related information” with a reporter unless they have specific authorization to do so, according to an Intelligence Community Directive that was issued last month.
This Week in Review: Making sense of the Pulitzers, and a new daily paper in Los Angeles » Nieman Journalism Lab
To the Snowden story system a crowning Pulitzer might have gone » Pressthink - There’s no prize for the network of journalists and newsrooms that brought the surveillance story forward.
The Pulitzer Prizes Just Demolished The Idea That Edward Snowden Is A Traitor (HuffPo commenters mostly NSA trolls)

weev Wins Battle in The Hacker Wars | Vivien Lesnik Weisman - Said Aurenheimer, "I have instructed the best legal team money can't buy not to raise the double jeopardy defense. I am willing to go to prison again to win this case on the merits and overturn the CFAA."

I analyzed more than a million bitcoin tweets. Here’s what that looks like — Tech News and Analysis

Julian Assange: 'We're heading towards a dystopian surveillance society' | MSNBC - Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange joins Alex Wagner to discuss society “heading towards surveillance totalitarianism,” his exile, censorship and why Edward Snowden “has become a symbol.”
Julian Assange: 'We're heading towards a dystopian surveillance society' (Assange news has been censored lately) : technology

Poll reveals majority of Americans distrust Big Bang theory - UPI.com - "The public’s level of factual knowledge about science has not changed much over the past two decades."

Officer Stands by His Account of Scuffle at Occupy Wall Street Protest - NYTimes.com - Testifying in Manhattan Criminal Court against Cecily McMillan, Officer Grantley Bovell conceded that he had been wrong in 2010 when he fixed two parking tickets for himself and a speeding ticket for a female friend. (proven liar)
Documentary Shows The Harsh Reality Of Solitary Confinement (America loves torture and always has)
Oklahoma to proceed with lethal injection amid confusion within courts | World news | theguardian.com - Execution of Clayton Lockett to go ahead after judges in disagreement over which court has the power to grant a stay

DOJ To Overhaul Clemency Process For Drug Offenders - a move that Attorney General Eric Holder anticipates will result in "thousands" of applications for reduced sentences.

As ‘Meet the Press’ struggles in the ratings, plenty of questions for host David Gregory - The Washington Post - Last year, the network undertook an unusual assessment of the 43-year-old journalist, commissioning a psychological consultant to interview his friends and even his wife. (Dancin' Dave in trouble)
‘Drop Dead, Man!’: When Bill O’Reilly Attacks -- Daily Intelligencer (speaking of insane)
How To Make Yourself Sound Nuts 101 - Sharyl Attkisson is the former CBS News reporter who left the network over what she claimed was liberal bias

Terry Richardson Spokeswoman Denies New Allegation - Model Emma Appleton tweeted a message suggesting that Richardson would not book her for a Vogue shoot unless she slept with him. Vogue spokeswoman: “We have no plans to work with him in the future.”

Your cellphone is killing you: What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields - Salon.com - The industry doesn't want to admit it, but the science is becoming clearer: Sustained EMF exposure is dangerous
International Journal of Obesity - Infant antibiotic exposures and early-life body mass - Exposure to antibiotics during the first 6 months of life is associated with consistent increases in body mass from 10 to 38 months. Exposures later in infancy (6–14 months, 15–23 months) are not consistently associated with increased body mass.
The Fat Drug - NYTimes.com

State-By-State 'Fertility Friendliness' Rankings Show Wide Range - Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey were the only states to receive an "A" grade,
Girls who get caught in a bad romance risk more than just their broken hearts | Jill Filipovic | Comment is free | theguardian.com - A study shows that bad relationships cause girls real damage. The lesson? Teach young women to value themselves
Girls' mental health suffers when romance unfolds differently than they imagined :: The University of New Mexico - parents, educators, and policymakers should think about how to help girls construct identities that are less closely tied to romantic involvement.
Peaches Geldof funeral to be attended by stars from music world | Culture | theguardian.com - Former Boomtown Rats singer Geldof paid tribute to his daughter alongside his partner Jeanne Marine, and Geldof's sisters Fifi Trixibelle, Pixie and Tiger,

The Sun Revolves Around You? Narcissism on a Cosmic Scale | Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D. - A conservative Catholic crank, Robert Sungenis, is now resurrecting the long-discredited geocentric model in a bizarre movie called The Principle ... "Of all the wrongiest wrongs that ever wronged wrongness, Geocentrism is way up on the list. The idea that the Earth is the center of the Universe makes creationism look positively scientific in comparison. It might be edged out by people who think the Earth is flat, but just barely."
RealClearScience - A Possible Cure for Ebola Virus Infection? - the discovery of a small molecule that rescues rodents and monkeys from various hemorrhagic fevers. Even more, the drug exhibited activity against a wide range of viruses.

Aereo Case Will Shape TV’s Future - NYTimes.com

Reddit downgrades technology community after censorship
Reddit downgrades technology community after censorship : technology
[recap] The failed moderation and gaming of /r/technology. : SubredditDrama
Drama-magnet and former mod Agentlame banned from /r/technology, SRD recap submission removed and flaired as "paywall" : SubredditDrama
TychoCelchuuu comments on What are the best objections to Ayn Rand's philosophy?
TheoryOfThugs
Reddit is the new Twitter - subredditsashashtags
Theory Of Reddit: Be the change you want to see.
What is the scariest shit you have seen in person? : AskReddit
Petty Revenge
Internet Meme Database | Know Your Meme

042014
? J.S. Bach. St. Matthew Passion. "O sacred head, sore wounded". Choir of King's College. - YouTube
? Botafumeiro - Santiago de Compostela 7/2012 - YouTube (Jesus is a smoking pot, or something)
The pagan roots of Easter | Heather McDougall | Comment is free | theguardian.com - From Ishtar to Eostre, the roots of the resurrection story go deep. We should embrace the pagan symbolism of Easter
Easter Is Not Named After Ishtar, And Other Truths I Have To Tell You | The Belle Jar - Yesterday, the official Facebook page of (noted misogynist and eugenics enthusiast) Richard Dawkins’ Foundation for Reason and Science shared the following image to their 637,000 fans:
The Babylonian Connection to Easter
Easter or Ishtar?
Is Easter based on the goddess Ishtar? - Easter is a pagan holiday honoring the Queen of Heaven goddess Ishtar; not a Christian Holy Day.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . . and He Feels Fine - NYTimes.com - We are living, he says, through the “age of ecocide,” and like a long-dazed widower, we are finally becoming sensible to the magnitude of our loss, which it is our duty to face.

Saudi Arabia Announces Jump In New Cases Of Deadly MERS Virus

In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin - NYTimes.com - Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.
Ukraine Forces Accuse Russia Of Staging Shooting
Turkey may leave World Wide Web says Communication Minister - Turkey may establish a national 'ttt' protocol instead of the regularly used 'www'. (that will work)
Twitter blocks accounts of users critical of Turkish prime minister | The Raw Story

Bob Corker: Assad Was 'Wise' To Kill 1,200 With Chemical Weapons And 'Embarrass' The U.S. (will they reach the insanity singularity?)

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - Putting the nation on alert against what it has described as a “highly credible terrorist threat,” the FBI announced today that it has uncovered a plot by members of al-Qaeda to sit back and enjoy themselves while the United States collapses of its own accord. ("Republicans will do our work for us" he cackled)

Glenn Greenwald - Events - Harvard Book Store - First Parish Church - in conversation with NOAM CHOMSKY - May 15 - 1446 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
Glenn Greenwald Reacts To Pulitzer Prize

The Government is Silencing Twitter and Yahoo, and It Won't Tell Us Why | American Civil Liberties Union - the government has sent a grand jury subpoena to Yahoo or Twitter and requested a gag order from a magistrate judge, attempting to bar these tech companies from informing the customers in question. To make matters worse, the government won't disclose its reasoning for requesting the gag, effectively shutting the public out of the courthouse without any explanation.

LAPD Kept Surveillance System Secret From Public | PopularResistance.Org - There’s no honesty or accountability in these statements. There’s only an admission that Los Angeles law enforcement feels the public is there to serve them and not the other way around. (spy-state standard procedure)

» Ludlow Massacre: April 20, 1914 Zinn Education Project (NYTimes supported massacre of women and children, ever the same)
The Ludlow Centenary - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Next week will mark the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. While it seems like a long time ago, in the New Gilded Age, it remains disturbingly relevant because the conditions that created such horrors in 1914 are returning to the United States of 2014. The historian Thai Jones gives an overview of the event and closes with this:

No More Mister Nice Blog - Ross Douthat, unsurprisingly, doesn't share the perspective on capitalism expressed in Thomas Piketty's book Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century

How 420 became code for marijuana
If You Support Legal Marijuana, Memorize These 13 Stats - $17.4 billion: The estimated total amount that marijuana prohibition costs state and federal governments every year, according to a 2010 study by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron. (dwarfs everything else)

For the third time in two years, feminists at a major Canadian university interrupt a male issues lecture on campus. The feminists yelled and talked over the lecturer, blew air horns in the lecture room, and later pulled a fire alarm to sabotage the lecture. : videos

Microsoft vs. Apple: Watch Cortana destroy Siri on the Arsenio Hall Show - GeekWire - Cortana: Are you deaf, bitch? He said grilled cheese.

041914
Salvation Gets Cheap - NYTimes.com - So is the climate threat solved? Well, it should be. The science is solid; the technology is there; the economics look far more favorable than anyone expected. All that stands in the way of saving the planet is a combination of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests. What could go wrong? Oh, wait. (yeah, Republicans intent on killing millions)

Boko Haram claim responsibility for Abuja explosion | World news | theguardian.com - Islamic extremists post video admitting they carried out rush-hour bombing that killed 75 in Nigeria's capital
115 Nigeria schoolgirls still missing after kidnap - Yahoo News
Israeli army installs new remote-controlled weapon atop separation wall | +972 Magazine
Japan risks angering China with military expansion | World news | theguardian.com - Planned construction of radar station near Taiwan is latest twist in row over disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands
Russia defends bolstering army on Ukraine border | World news | theguardian.com - Kremlin says move a response to instability in Kiev as poll shows big majority in south-east Ukraine against Moscow rule
Paper Shows U.S.-Flagged Plane in Iran Has Ties to Ghana - NYTimes.com - leased by a Ghanaian mining company owned by a brother of Ghana’s president.

Ten al-Qaida suspects and three civilians killed in Yemen airstrike | World news | theguardian.com - State news agency says 13 dead in unspecified air attack (Obomber strikes again)

Twitter / bmaz: Who could have ever guessed ... - that moment Snowden did what surveillance apologists demanded+Q'd Russia, they would hate that too
Snowden Calls BS On Putin's Answer: Says He Was Playing The Role Of Ron Wyden | Techdirt
Vladimir Putin must be called to account on surveillance just like Obama | Edward Snowden | Comment is free | theguardian.com - I questioned the Russian president live on TV to get his answer on the record, not to whitewash him
In '1971,' an analog precursor to NSA, Snowden - Yahoo News
The mentality of J Edgar Hoover’s FBI undergirds today’s surveillance state | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - People forget that the FBI is the NSA's primary partner in domestic spying, which allows them to work in secret
Sacramento News & Review - Is former Sacramento media employee Matthew Keys a victim of overzealous, misguided cybercrime prosecution? - News - Local Stories - April 17, 2014 - Lately, prosecutors have been taking advantage of the wide latitude afforded them by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to press cases involving “network security.” And they press hard.

Crypto-Gram: April 15, 2014

Senate candidate: Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a criminal - Salon.com - The long-term Maine ACLU director tells Salon she can beat Susan Collins, and calls out Congress for NSA complicity
The Next Shoe Just Dropped: Court Denies Attorney-Client Privilege | Zero Hedge - In other words, if a person works with legal counsel within the confines of the tax code to legitimately minimize the amount of taxes owed, that communication is no longer protected by attorney-client privilege.
? Hacker 'Weev': I Went to Prison Because Ronald Reagan Was Senile - YouTube

GOP’s heartless 2014 strategy is killing its 2016 prospects - Salon.com - Republicans may win back the Senate. But their plan to do it will doom any hopes of taking back the White House
The endangered GOP House majority? - Salon.com - 2014 will be a tough lift for Dems, but they may be closer than you think to winning back complete control of D.C.

Republicans Aren't Moving On From Obamacare - During the announcement, Obama said it was time for Republicans "to move on to something else," and chastised states that chose not to expand Medicaid "for no other reason than political spite" against him. (and the fact they are insane)

How The Clinton White House Played Politics With The Minimum Wage - But then there was this: "[S]ince the minimum wage would automatically rise each year, it would take away a good political issue for those who believe the minimum wage is an important tool to help low-income families." (keep them starving so they will have an issue with starving)
Income Inequality Institute Will Pay Paul Krugman $25,000 Per Month - for a distinguished professorship at CUNY’s Graduate Center and its Luxembourg Income Study Center, a research arm devoted to studying income patterns and their effect on inequality.
Zillow Rental Affordability 2013 Q4 | Zillow Real Estate Research
Did someone say patrimonial capitalism? The White House hosts a meeting of teenage billionaire “philanthropists” by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly (this is now a thing)

A rancher's armed battle against the US government is standard libertarian fare | Kieran Suckling | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Cliven Bundy's standoff with the BLM is over a paltry monthly grazing fee. But it's also over more - the idea of the public interest (and paying taxes, which apparently Libertarians don't have to do)

Tennessee set to criminalise pregnant women who use illegal drugs | World news | theguardian.com - Bill holds women accountable for harm to foetuses or newborns

What Are Misogynist Geeks So Afraid Of? | The Raw Story (misogynodudebrobasementdwellers)

These 13 People Were Killed By The War On Drugs. Their Lives Were The Cost Of Prohibition.

Oklahoma students know less about evolution after Biology I than they did before taking it | The Raw Story - one-fourth of Oklahoma public school life-science teachers place moderate or strong emphasis on creationism

Supreme Court Could Make It Harder For Victims Of Hazardous Pollutants To Get Justice (stand your ground for rich polluters)

In a Hole, Golf Considers Digging a Wider One - NYTimes.com (golf dying out before the UN seizes their courses)

This Map Shows Just How Quickly America Has Embraced Marijuana
? The Cosmopolitans - (How to Keep Your) Husband Happy - YouTube

041814
China just revealed a major state secret: nearly 20% of its farmland is polluted – Quartz
The Great Lakes Are Still Almost Half Frozen, And It Could Affect The Environment For Years

South Korea ferry captain arrested | World news | theguardian.com - Captain and crew accused of abandoning passengers on sinking 7,000-ton ferry Sewol
Iran Gets an Unlikely Visitor, an American Plane, but No One Seems to Know Why - NYTimes.com - Iran had an unlikely visitor: a plane, owned by the Bank of Utah, a community bank in Ogden that has 13 branches throughout the state. (Mormons visiting the Ayatollah?)
Relax Ukraine is Not Ordering Its Jews to Register | New Republic
HMRC to sell taxpayers' financial data | Politics | The Guardian - ?Firms could buy 'anonymised' financial details •?Plan 'borderline insane' according to senior Tory MP

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba: Guantánamo judge to CIA: Disclose ‘black site’ details to USS Cole defense lawyers - Guantánamo - MiamiHerald.com (black-site torture)

CIA torture architect breaks silence to defend 'enhanced interrogation' | World news | The Guardian - James Mitchell 'highly skeptical' of Senate report on CIA torture • 'It was not illegal based on the law at the time' • Mitchell said to have waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
James Mitchell Torture - Another Monster Heard From - Esquire - Looking forward and not back sends another piece of America's moral high ground sliding into the sea. (what we're not supposed to look backwards at)

Edward Snowden defends decision to question Vladimir Putin on surveillance | World news | theguardian.com - The NSA whistleblower says critics who accuse him of being a Kremlin patsy misinterpret his motives - “The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange between Senator Ron Wyden and DNI James Clapper… and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion” from Putin, Snowden writes. (which went over critics' heads because he's a "Kremlin patsy")

Private Spies Deserve More Scrutiny | Kevin M. Gallagher - The drama of Brown's case and cancelled trial is all but over, but the media and the public has dropped the ball on what he was trying to expose. That's the secretive world of private intelligence contractors -- an estimated $56 billion-a-year industry consuming 70 percent of America's intelligence budget.
Keep Rootin' for Putin: Establishment Pundits and the Twilight of American Competence (Barrett Brown

The Police Raided My Friend's House Over a Parody Twitter Account | VICE United States - he officers tore the 28-year-old’s home apart, seizing electronics and taking several of his roommates in for questioning; one woman who lived there spent three hours in an interrogation room. All for a parody Twitter account. (law enforcement is insane in America)

Supreme Court Will Likely Rule On NSA Programs, Antonin Scalia And Ruth Bader Ginsburg Suggest

Keystone XL pipeline decision delayed as administration eyes elections | Environment | theguardian.com - Decision ostensibly due to Nebraska supreme court case • Project likely to be significant issue in November midterms

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy - Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power. (Reagan killed America)

WASHINGTON: Trouble for Democrats: More Senate seats are at risk | Congress | McClatchy DC (looking forward to impeachment)

Obamacare Enrollment Hits 8 Million, Age Mix Looks Like Massachusetts | New Republic
How Will We Know If Obamacare Is a Success? | Mother Jones
Good News for Obamacare Is Bad News for Conservative Pundits - NationalJournal.com - Conservatives were sure at every turn that Obamacare would fail, but as the numbers roll in, those convictions are looking increasingly ideological.

Sandy Recovery Still Lagging - NYTimes.com (remember who was mayor?)

The Master Of Bad Timing - Esquire - Rep. Steve Lynch is a decent enough skin -- wrong on choice, rather Blue Doggish on other issues, but strong on the working class bread-and-butter stuff. Alas for Lynch, he seems to have the timing of a goat on ice skates. (also, stupid)

Almost 100 Hate Crime Killings Linked To One Website: Report - Stormfront.org is linked to close to 100 killings in the last five years, the Southern Poverty Law Center found.

How Gay Marriage Is Killing Absurd Adultery Laws - Esquire - The latest evidence comes from New Hampshire, where the state government voted to repeal a very old adultery law after a Democratic congressman pointed out that technically, under the law, gay people couldn’t commit adultery because a long chain of legal decisions defined adultery “as between a man and woman.”
Lawyer Of Bryan Singer's Accuser: More 'Hollywood Insiders' Will Be Named In Sex Abuse Suits - The lawyer representing Michael F. Egan III, who has accused "X-Men" director Bryan Singer of sexually abusing him when he was underage, told HuffPost Live on Friday that more recognizable Hollywood figures involved in sexually assaulting young men will be named next week. (Hollywood organized gay pedo ring)

The Civil War Death Toll, Reconsidered - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com - The evidence from the period makes clear that historians need to re-evaluate the way we have come to understand the carnage of the Civil War. (people were dying all the time anyway)

How Burrowing Owls Lead To Vomiting Anarchists (Or SF’s Housing Crisis Explained) | TechCrunch

CES 2014: Toyota shows off fuel cell car that can also power a home - latimes.com (game-changer)

Updated Review: Tamiflu Is a Bust After finally getting their hands on full clinical study reports, independent reviewers say the antiviral drug is ineffective. : science
ELI5: Why are Jews treated more like a race than other religions? : explainlikeimfive
Everything

Barbara Ehrenreich: 'Was that you, God?' | Books | The Guardian - Barbara Ehrenreich is proud to call herself an atheist. But in her latest book Living With A Wild God she recalls how more than 50 years ago she came face to face with something vast, terrifying and unknowable. Could she still call herself a non-believer? - This was not the passive beatific merger with "the all", as promised by the eastern mystics. It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once - (actual book excerpt, more detailed)
David Bentley Hart’s 'Experience of God' Isn't a Must-Read for Atheist | New Republic - In Douthat’s recent piece, “How to study the numinous,” he therefore tells us where Ehrenreich went wrong.

041714
The drought hitting 40 percent of the entire country, in 5 maps

Putin Admits Russian Soldiers Were In Crimea, Slams West For Role In Ukraine Crisis
Ukrainian Security Forces Kill 3 Pro-Russian Protesters - NYTimes.com ("protesters" = armed Russian thugs)
Leaflet tells Jews to register in East Ukraine - Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated,"

Hullabaloo - John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general and author of the 2002 memos advising the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques, said the Pulitzer committee’s decision did not vindicate Snowden. (war criminals reminding you of their tortured logic)

Guantánamo trial judge orders CIA to account for treatment of detainee | World news | theguardian.com - Judge James Pohl orders agency to produce detailed account of its detention of USS Cole bombing suspect at secret prison

Air Force Drone Pilots Are Bummed | Motherboard

America's Coup Machine: Destroying Democracy Since 1953 | Alternet - U.S. efforts to overthrow foreign governments leave the world less peaceful, less just and less hopeful. To place the coup in Ukraine in historical context, this is at least the 80th time the United States has organized a coup or a failed coup in a foreign country since 1953.

Edward Snowden Asked Putin About Surveillance - President Vladimir Putin told Edward Snowden on that Russia does not carry out indiscriminate surveillance on its citizens, responding to a question the former U.S. spy agency contractor in a televised question and answer session with the nation.
Edward Snowden Putin - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - But this "Our special services are strictly controlled by law" yadda-yadda is such hilariously arrant bullshit that Snowden ought to be embarrassed for helping to catapult it into the dialogue. (comments for a better view)
Snowden asks Putin LIVE: Does Russia intercept millions of citizens’ data? — RT News (which is not a bad question, even if Putin, like Obama, lies)

It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet | Enterprise | WIRED - The Heartbleed bug crushed our faith in the secure web, but a world without the encryption software that Heartbleed exploited would be even worse. In fact, it’s time for the web to take a good hard look at a new idea: encryption everywhere.
Confirmed: Nasty Heartbleed bug exposes OpenVPN private keys, too | Ars Technica - Private encryption keys have been successfully extracted multiple times from a virtual private network server running the widely used OpenVPN application with a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, adding yet more urgency to the call for operators to fully protect their systems against the catastrophic Heartbleed bug.

Your Favorite Websites Could Have Warned You About Heartbleed, But Didn't

As Occupy Protester Cecily McMillan's Trial Continues, Judge Orders Both Sides To Quit Talking to Press | Village Voice - Judge Ronald Zweibel has been visibly irritated for much of the trial, displeased by McMillan's supporters wearing pink paper hands and hearts in the courtroom, and seemingly by the heavy media attention paid to the case.

Susana Martinez’s administration sounds familiar - Salon.com - Vindictiveness, politicization of state business and undue influence of operatives aren't unique to New Mexico - Susana Martinez seems like a bad governor, and she would be a bad president, for most of the same reasons that George W. Bush was a bad president, but she is just another exemplar of America’s long and proud tradition of elevating assholes to high positions because they seem like they get things done.
GOP’s New Class of Jokers: Meet the Rising Stars of the Dumbest Rebrand Ever | Alternet
Republican Outrage At IRS Is All About Protecting Karl Rove, Dark Money, Dems Say
Who are the Koch Brothers and What do They Want? | Sen. Bernie Sanders

Objectively bad: Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Jonathan Chait and return of the “view from nowhere” - Salon.com - New work by Silver and two other influential reporters should have you worried about the future of journalism (young center-right dude-bros +Ezra is not part of the liberal "project" because liberals hate facts)
Jonathan Chait, race, and Obama’s presidency: What about the experience of black Americans?

Study: People of color breathe air that is 38 percent more polluted than white people’s | The Raw Story (racist air)
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody » Balloon Juice - Isquith goes on to tie Chait’s article in with Jay Rosen’s idea of establishment journalism’s View from Nowhere, “a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer”.

Jimmy Carter urges Keystone XL rejection - Business - CBC News - Former president says oil pipeline shouldn't be approved

Elizabeth Warren book 'A Fighting Chance' recounts her Washington battles over financial regulation - The Boston Globe - Obama told her that he dared not appoint her to head the consumer agency she created, because she made Senate Republicans and Wall Street bankers “very nervous.” A few weeks later, meeting outside for a chat that became as uncomfortable as the hot weather, Obama asked Warren to do the setup work for the consumer protection agency that she would not lead. When she resisted, Obama got testy. “You’re jamming me, Elizabeth,” Obama said. “He urged me not to overplay my hand,’’ she writes. “Got it.’’ (Barry's an asshole)
Elizabeth Warren Book - Our Next Feature Here At The Blog-O-Plex - Esquire - "He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider, or I could be an outsider," Warren writes. Outsiders could say what they want, he told her, but people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders get more access to push their ideas to powerful people. "But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders," Summers told Warren, she writes. "I had been warned."

Joe Scarborough And Paul Krugman Are Fighting Over Census Bureau Changes - "It’s really quite vile to have talk-show hosts who quite literally know nothing about the field, other than that they’re against covering the uninsured, casually accusing Census of 'cooking the books' to support Obamacare," he wrote.
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire - - What's More Pathetic? Is it, a) that Squintus Rex, host of a microrated cable television morning zoo crew, thinks that the fact that he was better on television once than Paul Krugman was means he is also smarter and better informed on economic policy than either Krugman or the Nobel committee? Or,

Steve Pearce Press Secretary - Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - Tweeting as ‘Politix Fireball', Brooks wrote that "the Jews had gone up in smoke," Muslims were "blood-lust conquerors," and compared President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler.
Theoretically Progressive Media Company Typically Anti-Union - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Media Matters for America is apparently resisting an effort by Service Employees International Union Local 500 to unionize its staff. (waiting confirmation)

A Children’s Treasury Of Larry Klayman & Friends Inviting Barack Obama To Go Sharia Himself (Benghazi!)
Same Song, Next Verse » Balloon Juice - The important point is that this kind of nuttery is not new. It’s essentially anarchism undergirded by flowery, circular, legalistic horseshit. The militant anarchism attracts people with more guns than sense. The legalistic horseshit attracts people who feel they’ve been screwed over by banks and government, and are attracted to a leader who they believe has found them a way to screw those institutions back. It’s an ugly mix, but it’s been around a long time.
This Map Shows There Are 10 KKK Organizations In My State. How Many Are In Yours?

Supreme Court Could Make It Harder For Victims Of Hazardous Pollutants To Get Justice

The Best Documentaries of All Time : The New Yorker
Documentaries - Lawyers, Guns & Money : What are the best documentaries of all time?

America's Top Young Scientists Warn Of Systemic Brain Drain: Colleagues 'Sort Of Disappear' (defunded by science-hating Republidiots)

Speakers | WSJ.D LIVE (oh look: billionaire dude-bros +is tilting your head to the viewers right a thing?)

8 Most Absurd Things We're Teaching America's Kids About Sex | Alternet - “men sexually are like microwaves and women sexually are like crock pots.”
The 10 Most Obese States in America (And the Right-Wing Policies That Promote Poor Health) | Alternet - “There’s a strong relationship between being food-insecure and being obese.”

13 Common Words You Are Probably Mixing Up (career and careen, dudes)
E-Cigarettes May Not Be As Safe As You Think

Fake Peoria mayor Twitter account prompts real raid of West Bluff house - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL (sue the fuckers)
The Lawsuit Over Calling Someone 'Fucking Crazy' on Twitter Is Fucking Crazy | Motherboard (Mara Feld is "fucking crazy" +Streisand effect, you idiot)

041614
A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia

Methane hydrate: dirty fuel or energy saviour? - "If all the methane gets out, we're looking at a Mad Max movie," says Mr Varro.

Chinese growth is weakest for two years | World news | theguardian.com - China's GDP grew 7.4% in the first quarter amid growing evidence that the powerhouse economy is easing off
At least 280 missing as ferry sinks off the coast of South Korea | World news | theguardian.com - At least four reported dead and 55 injured as ships and helicopters race to save passengers, including children bound for holiday island
Who are the men rolling into eastern Ukraine in armoured vehicles? | World news | theguardian.com - Fighters wearing mismatched camouflage and carrying a variety of guns include at least some locals
Ukraine Conflict: Government Forces Tighten Grip On Eastern Town, Prompting Warnings Of War From Putin
NATO Strengthens Military Presence Along Eastern Border In Response To Russian Threat
Armored Vehicles Enter Ukrainian City Flying Russian Flag
Nigerian Gunmen Kidnap Schoolgirls From Secondary School - "Over 100 female students in our government secondary school at Chibok have been abducted," said Audu Musa, who teaches in another public school in the area, around 140 km (90 miles) south of the Borno state capital Maiduguri.
Dozens Arrested Protesting FIFA's World Cup, Police Brutality Continues Despite Rising Death Toll - revolution-news.com
Refugee facing deportation from Sweden saved by fellow passengers refusing to let plane leave - Europe - World - The Independent - A man facing deportation from Sweden has been granted a temporary reprieve after fellow passengers aboard his flight to Iran prevented it from taking off by refusing to fasten their seat belts. (something else that would never happen in America)
Andy Coulson tells phone-hacking trial he heard David Blunkett voicemails | UK news | theguardian.com - Andy Coulson has revealed he heard voicemails of the former home secretary David Blunkett declaring his love for a married woman.

U.S. drone strike kills New Zealander, Australian in Yemen | Al Jazeera America - New Zealand PM describes strike that killed Australasian men allegedly associated with Al-Qaeda as ‘legitimate’ (Obama strikes again)
Every Drone Mission the FBI Admits to Flying | Motherboard

Winners Announced for 2014 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards | Business Wire - Glenn Greenwald (Journalism), political journalist, lawyer, author, blogger and columnist, who published the first in a series of reports detailing NSA surveillance programs based on classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

German media boss says he's scared of Google - The head of Germany's biggest media company says he is afraid of Google and wants the company to become more transparent.
Met chief Hogan-Howe defends Lawrence shredding probe - Mr Ellison's report, published last month, found evidence of "mass shredding" of files relating to Operation Othona - a top-secret anti-corruption initiative within the Met.

Lavabit found in contempt for trolling the FBI with 4-point font - Ladar Levison, the privacy-protecting email entrepreneur, has lost his appeal after punking the FBI in court.
Snowden’s Email Provider Loses Appeal Over Encryption Keys | Threat Level | WIRED

In the One-sided Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, It's Hard to Get The Whole Story | Electronic Frontier Foundation (another Obama rabbit-hole: court hears one side)
Secrecy and manipulation: On the FBI's propaganda war and the shaping of public opinion | Privacy SOS

The Most Bizarre Response To The Pulitzers Yet, From The Guy Who Authorized CIA Torture | Techdirt - The award wasn't for reporting on Snowden. It was on the NSA. And it's that reporting that vindicates Snowden. It's simply crazy that folks like Yoo are so focused on hating Snowden that they still don't seem to realize that. (the only crime is to reveal that they are criminals)

Crown loses bid to keep Dotcom assets | Radio New Zealand News - Internet businessman Kim Dotcom has won access to his confiscated assets. (Obama's fifth eye gets poked)

Interview: Ryan Ackroyd AKA Kayla of LulzSec - Freeanons - . I have been handed a Serious Crime Prevention Order by the court which prevents me from using encryption which allows hidden volumes, Virtual machines or from deleting my web history.
Your Anon News • Weev Tells Federal Government To “Bring It” After... - "I’ve sacrificed three years of my life to overturn this unjust law, and I didn’t do this to get a venue decision. The government should come litigate again. I’ll risk prison again to do this once more. It’s a terrible law…

Bitcoin Creator ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ Unmasked–Again? - MoneyBeat - WSJ - “Our study adds to the weight of evidence pointing towards Nick Szabo,” said Dr. Jack Grieve, a lecturer in forensic linguistics at the university and the study’s leader

Court Declares That, Yes, Bloggers Are Media | Techdirt - ...it is hard to dispute that the advent of the internet as a medium and the emergence of the blog as a means of free dissemination of news and public comment have been transformative.

REVEALED: Gov. Christie’s investment chief has major financial ties to firm that got $300M in NJ pension cash | PandoDaily

Jill Lepore: Reading Elizabeth Warren : The New Yorker
TwitLonger — When you talk too much for Twitter - Larry Summers explains Washington to Elizabeth Warren in one sentence:

Purdue and Cornell Researchers Find Up to 1,000 Times More Methane Emissions Than Estimated in Drilling Phase | EcoWatch (Obama's "study" was a big lie, just like everything else)

Supreme Court to consider challenge to law barring campaign falsehoods - latimes.com - The Supreme Court will hear a free-speech challenge to an Ohio state law that prohibits publishing false statements about political candidates. (Republicans can lie because freedom!)

How the President Got to ‘I Do’ on Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com - “Mr. President,” he said, “how can we help you evolve more quickly?” (he'd still be "evolving" if Biden hadn't kicked him in the butt; what a tragic waste)
Jo Becker’s Troubling Travesty Of Gay History « The Dish

Matt Taibbi: 'Hands Down' Bush Was Tougher On Corporate America Than Obama (video) (Obama was bought before we ever heard of him)
Matt Taibbi: Bush far tougher than Obama on corporate America - The Week
Matt Taibbi: America Has A 'Profound Hatred Of The Weak And The Poor'
Twitter / ZaidJilani: Taibbi isn't wrong. Financial ... - Financial prosecutions by year -- at a 20 year low under Obama (bought and paid for)
The Koch brothers posted something awesome on Facebook - Vox

Hillary Clinton, Youth Candidate - Republicans will nominate someone younger than her (sic), and it won't make a difference to young people.

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - : “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” (Bloomberg has a mansion in heaven with a helicopter and servants)

SCOTUSblog Denied Senate Press Credentials, May Sue - Despite winning major journalism awards and becoming a go-to source for comprehensive coverage of Supreme Court decisions, SCOTUSblog has struggled to obtain press credentials.

Did GM Reject Safer Ignition Switch Design in 2001 Because of Cost? - NBC News.com (what do you think?)

US judge overturns 6-week abortion ban - A federal judge on Wednesday overturned a North Dakota law that bans abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy and before many women know they're pregnant.
North Dakota Overturns Abortion Law - There May Be Limits On Limits After All - Esquire - Last year, lawmakers in oil-rich North Dakota allocated $400,000 that was requested by Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem to defend against any lawsuits arising from the state's new abortion laws.

Jameis Winston Rape Case - The Strange Case Of Jameis Winston - Esquire - Walt Bogdanovich of The New York Times has cranked up the bathysphere and descended to the depths of the case of Jameis Winston, last year's Heisman Trophy winner, who was accused of rape last year and never prosecuted. It is an amazing tale of incredibly awful police work, celebrity justice, and deliberate institutional ignorance and cruelty. Absolutely nobody gets out of this story alive.

Don’t make me a target » Balloon Juice - It was Richard Mack, a former Arizona county sheriff and founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs, who had said Monday that the gathered self-described militia had considered using women as human shields if a gunfight with federal officials erupted. (patriots)

School admins suspend L.A. science teacher for doing his job - The Los Angeles Unified School District has suspended a science teacher after two of his students made science projects that school officials thought looked like weapons. (schools now run by paranoid, overreaching, stupid cops)
Birth of 'new Saturn moon' witnessed - Scientists say they have discovered what could be the birth of a new moon in the rings of Saturn ... the object would become the 63rd moon in Saturn's orbit if confirmed.

Growing Pot Got These Siblings As Much Prison Time As Driving Drunk And Killing Someone - In Missouri, if you kill someone while driving drunk, you could go to prison for -- at most -- 15 years. That's what Natalie and David DePriest are serving -- for growing marijuana.
Congress Is Coming for E-Cigarettes | Motherboard (as usual, they want you to die)

Rapper Andre Johnson severs penis, jumps off building, but survives - CNN.com - Johnson, along with his recovered penis, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was being treated, Mann said.
Four decade mystery of missing South Dakota women solved - The human remains found in an old car discovered in a drought-parched South Dakota creek last year were two girls who disappeared without a trace in 1971, officials have said.

Hey redditors! Lionsgate is promoting The Quiet Ones in theaters 4/25. Can you tell us a story of your eeriest unexplainable experience? The first two prize winners will receive a Shitty Watercolour drawing depicting your story and more. : reddit.com

Hands Down, This Is The Cutest, Most Fun Commercial Of All Time. Watch This! | PetFlow Blog
I Can’t Believe How Funny This Is. I Am In Tears, Make Sure Your Sound Is Turned On! | PetFlow Blog

I'm a veteran who overcame treatment-resistant PTSD after participating in a clinical study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. My name is Tony Macie— Ask me anything! : IAmA

Resentment at techies might not be fair, but it's the future - Boing Boing - Jack Halprin is a Google employee who bought a multi-unit dwelling in San Franscico and evicted the occupants. He's getting a roasting, as you can imagine. Here's Benjamin Wachs, writing as "Faux Jack Halprin" defending his decision.
Individuals targeted as San Francisco tech money protests intensify | Reuters - Jack Halprin, a landlord in the city's gentrifying Mission district, became the focus of the latest blockade of a tech company commuter bus, with protesters demanding Google ask Halprin to rescind eviction notices he has sent his tenants.

041514
China's air pollution leading to more erratic climate for US, say scientists | World news | theguardian.com - Computer modelling showed intensification of US-bound Pacific storms, driven by fine aerosols from coal power plants and traffic

Ukraine crisis: Kiev launches 'anti-terror operation' in east – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Ukrainian military takes Kramatorsk airport, president says Jets, helicopters, special forces troops sighted
Radical Pro-Russia Presidential Candidate Oleh Tsarev Beaten Up By Crowd In Ukraine - A Ukrainian presidential candidate, known for his radical pro-Russia views, was beaten early on Tuesday by a crowd that took exception to comments he made in a television interview.
Venice votes on cutting ties with Italy - Yahoo News - Italians in Venice and its surrounding region are voting this week on whether to break away from the rest of the country and form their own state.
The World's Best Anti-Capitalist Video Games | Motherboard

Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations | Media | The Guardian - Pair awarded highest accolade in US journalism, winning Pulitzer prize for public service for stories on NSA surveillance
The Guardian, Washington Post Win Pulitzer Prize For NSA Coverage ("side-stepped the issue by honoring the "staff"")

Guantánamo judge adjourns hearings again over FBI spying claims | World news | theguardian.com - Judge overseeing prosecution of 9/11 terror suspects suspends hearings until Wednesday to allow defense team more time to look into Monday's allegations of FBI spying (Feebs totally out of control)
Guantanamo Hearings Stalled - Trials And Errors At Guantanamo - Esquire - Down in Guantanamo Bay, the kangaroo suits must be getting itchy, because corners are being cut, apparently with dull butter knives. And now, in the middle of a trial, the FBI reportedly comes blundering in like a drunk on a bender and they try to turn one of the defense attorneys over a fking leak.

FBI Abruptly Walks Out On Senate Briefing After Being Asked How 'Insider Threat' Program Avoids Whistleblowers | Techdirt - from the because-the-whole-program-is-about-whistleblowers dept
The Outrageous Trial of Cecily McMillan | The Nation - When police moved in to clear the demonstrators, a cop roughly grabbed her breast—photos show an ugly bruise—and she ended up being injured so badly that she had a seizure and ended up in the hospital. In a just world, she would be getting restitution from the City. Instead, in a grotesque act of prosecutorial overreach, she’s currently on trial for assault and facing up to seven years in prison. (Bloomthugs)
? Secret Service Heckled so bad he had to be saved - YouTube

I Drove Weev Home from Prison | Motherboard - "Did you know they have special laws to protect kid-fuckers in federal prison?” Andrew Auernheimer asked me with a grin on his face. “I can't hit them, it's a five year felony if I do. We're not held to the same standard because the feds protect kid-fuckers, and don’t want them to have a bad time in prison.”


Cybercrooks reportedly file fraudulent tax returns and pocket refunds - Hackers have gotten into the human resource departments of “more than half-dozen U.S. companies,” according to journalist and security expert Brian Krebs, and used the data obtained to file fake tax returns and collect the refunds.

Opinion: In U.S., right wing extremists more deadly than jihadists - CNN.com
2011 MLK Day Bombing - The Bomb On The Bench, Revisited - Esquire - What Harpham tried to do shook that city to its core. The bomb was designed and positioned to inflict the maximum damage to the maximum number of people. Compared to Harpham's bomb, what the Tsarnaev brothers touched off in Boston a year ago was a firecracker
Women On Front Of Bundy Standoff - The Latest From The Front - Esquire

What Would Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Do? -- Daily Intelligencer (Obama kind of deserves this but the rest of us don't)
Chris Cillizza, call your office: Buffoonish Obamacare critic gets it all wrong, again - Salon.com - New numbers undercut the right's Obamacare critique, again. But Chris Cillizza keeps painting the wrong impression
Obamacare, The Unknown Ideal, Continued - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com

Wisconsin Republicans To Vote On Secession (will call their new country "Kochtopia")

Court orders Ohio to recognize married same-sex couples - A federal judge in Ohio on Monday ruled against the state law barring recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages, although the order is temporarily stayed until state officials take further action. (what happens when you "let the States decide")
Pastor Kevin Swanson Slams Honey Maid's 'Wholesome' Ad, Compares Being Gay To Murder, Cannibalism
Nevada GOP Drops Opposition To Gay Marriage, Abortion From Official Platform - Previously, Nevada’s Republican Party platform outlined a “pro-life” position and defined marriage as “between a man and a woman,” in accordance with the state constitution.

IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt - Slashdot - "It was a shock," says Grice, 58. "What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can't prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus."' (TaxGhazi! but will Issa the Terrorist investigate?)
Social Security stops trying to collect on old debts by seizing tax refunds - The Washington Post - The action comes after The Washington Post reported that the government was seizing state and federal tax refunds that were on their way to about 400,000 Americans who had relatives who owed money to the Social Security agency. In many cases, the people whose refunds were intercepted had never heard of any debt, and the debts dated as far back as the middle of the past century.
TurboTax Fights To Keep Tax Filing Harder Than Necessary (and they get tax-breaks for doing it!)

Albuquerque’s long history of police abuse, cover-up and scandal - Albuquerque cops “too often use deadly force in an unconstitutional manner in their use of firearms.” (slap on the wrist for killing a bunch of people, natch)
Curious Cop Downloaded Hundreds of Private Prescription Records Because He Could | American Civil Liberties Union - If the Fourth Amendment means anything, it means that police cannot have free rein to flagrantly violate our medical privacy rights without judicial oversight or probable cause. (Obama crossed out the Fourth a long time ago)
Nahshon Shelton Pulls Out Submachine Gun, Threatens To Kill Over Soda Tax, Police Say - Once arrested, Shelton allegedly claimed that because this "is my neighborhood, I’m tax exempt,” DNAInfo Chicago reported.

America’s Abortion-Free Zone Grows - The Daily Beast
The secret anti-abortion law that's sweeping America | Erika L Sanchez | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Pro-lifers can't reverse Roe v Wade. So they're shutting down clinics with red tape and a smile. Don't believe the lie

“Men We Reaped”: A memoir of community, time and loss - Salon.com - “Hopefully, I’ll understand why my brother died while I live.”

Head of Uber NY Attacked a Woman On Twitter For Making "Trouble" - Josh Mohrer (technolibertardbrodudedick)

Teens threatening airlines on Twitter is now a thing

041414
Science AMA Series: I'm Prof. Stephan Lewandowsky, I study the cognitive science of conspiratorial thinking and the rejection of climate science, AMA! : science - I have also recently published 3 papers that show that denial of climate science is often associated with an element of conspiratorial thinking or discourse. Further confirmation for my research can be found in the work of Senator Inhofe, who recently published a book entitled “The Greatest Hoax: How the global warming conspiracy threatens your future.”

Deadly Virus's Spread Raises Alarms in Mideast - WSJ.com - "I'm not pretty sure that they are actually seeing how big this thing is," a Saudi doctor said on Sunday at King Fahd General Hospital, the large public hospital in Jeddah that has been hardest hit by a spike in the city this month. - MERS

Police: At Least 71 Dead In Nigeria Bus Station Blast - There was no immediate claim for the rush-hour blast, though the Boko Haram terrorist network has been threatening to attack the capital.
Israel places journalist in incommunicado detention | The Electronic Intifada - The Electronic Intifada has obtained the closed court transcript and gag order – which Israeli media are strictly forbidden from publishing – extending the detention and interrogation of 23-year-old Kayyal under the auspices of the Shin Bet (also known as Shabak), Israel’s secret police. (oh, a sooper-secrit journalism detention)
Pentagon: Russian fighter jet repeatedly flew over US destroyer in Black Sea — RT News - Pentagon defined the jet as a Russian Su-24 aircraft, or Fencer, which made 12 passes at low altitude near the USS Donald Cook that, at the time, was conducting a patrol in international waters in the western Black Sea, Reuters reported.
US sees 'obvious Russian hand' in Ukraine standoff as militias fortify cities | World news | theguardian.com - kraine requests UN peacekeeping troops • Russian jet makes 'provocative' move over US warship
Russia Wants To Annex The Moon - Moscow will plan on establishing a permanent base on the moon, which could mean that as its sole human occupants they'd essentially be in control up there.

The Media Is Still Dancing Around The Word 'Torture' - One study, for instance, found that major outlets abruptly stopped defining waterboarding as torture when the Bush administration began using it. (Obama's drone "killing" just "enhanced interrogation)

Anonymous critics to Dropbox: Drop Condoleezza Rice, or we'll drop you - CSMonitor.com - Dropbox's pick of Condoleezza Rice for its board set off an Internet firestorm over whether her past is at odds with the principles of openness and resistance to government surveillance.
Drop Condoleezza Rice or we will #dropdropbox

Guantánamo hearings halted amid accusations of FBI spying on legal team | World news | theguardian.com - Allegations surfaced Monday that the FBI turned a member of a 9/11 defendant’s defence team into a secret informant
Guantanamo Detainee Defense Attorneys Accuse FBI of Turning 9/11 Defense Team Member into Confidential Informant | The Dissenter
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba: Accusation of FBI spying stalls 9/11 hearing - Guantánamo - MiamiHerald.com

Chelsea Manning's 35-year prison sentence upheld by US army general | World news | theguardian.com - Decision to uphold findings of Manning's 2013 court-martial will automatically send case to the army court of criminal appeals

CIA's Pakistan drone strikes carried out by regular US air force personnel | World news | theguardian.com - Former drone operators claim in new documentary that CIA missions flown by USAF's 17th Reconnaissance Squadron

Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations | Media | theguardian.com - Pair awarded highest accolade in US journalism, winning Pulitzer prize for public service for stories on NSA surveillance

Bruce Schneier on Surveillance at Source Boston keynote | Threatpost | The first stop for security news - Flash forward to today’s digital age and ask the same question: How are those responsible for building our infrastructure callously disregarding privacy and security in favor of rapid online innovation?
Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence - The Washington Post
Another Google Glass Wearer Attacked in San Francisco (car-tipping and glass-punching new fads)
Google Buys Drone Firm That Facebook Pursued, Too

Dutch Police Make Arrest Over Twitter Terror Threat - Business Insider - A teenager who tweeted terrorist threats to American Airlines has been arrested at her home in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

FBI Plans to Have 52 Million Photos in its NGI Face Recognition Database by Next Year

Jewish Community Center Shooting Suspect Was Ku Klux Klan Leader - The man accused of killing three people in attacks at a Jewish community center and Jewish retirement complex near Kansas City is a well-known white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader who was once the subject of a nationwide manhunt.
Kansas City Shooting - It's A Day For All This - Esquire - Frazier Glenn Cross, the elderly maniac who exercised his Second Amendment rights at a Jewish community center in Kansas City yesterday, has a long history of being a dangerous political lunatic with a taste for firearms and murder.
Bateman Death Threats - Out Come The Crazies, The Consipiracies, And The Death Threats - Esquire - With article titles like, "Jewed Media: Female TV Journalists and their Slut Shoes" and "Women: Dumber Than Men?" not to mention: "(Rare) Black Achievement: Who Cares," this is a site that draws hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of hits. In America. In the 21st Century

Republicans against no-fault divorce: GOP politicians push for waiting periods and mandate marriage classes. (will require men to have ultrasounds of their dicks)

Fox's Brit Hume: Obama Uses Race As "A Sword" To "Attack Others" | Video | Media Matters for America - Fox News Continues To Lack Diversity In Discussions Of Race (+George Will in a flaming cauldron of stupid)

Let them eat McMansions! The 1 percent, income inequality, and new-fashioned American excess - Salon.com - Inequality is the point of the McMansion, and the McMansion is also, to a certain degree, the point of inequality; it’s the pot of pyrite at the end of the rainbow of shit that we have chosen as a nation to follow.
Old Economy Steve Is A New Meme That Will Enrage All Millennials Everywhere

In Bundy Ranch's War Against the U.S., Rightbloggers Pick Guess Which Side | Village Voice - tomt200.jpgThis weekend a scofflaw gathered some gunmen and drove off some federal agents who were trying to confiscate his property.
Sean Hannity Cliven Bundy - Range War In Nevada - Esquire - Not to put too fine a point on it but, one day, Sean Hannity, or someone very much like him, is going to help get somebody killed.
Big Government and the End of Slavery : The New Yorker - In case you missed it, DeMint, once a Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina and now the head of the once-rational Heritage Foundation, said that “no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves,” since, in truth, it was achieved by Christians acting on their own, vibrating in mysterious harmony with the Constitution.

Investigation Into David Samson Assistant - The Manhattan District Attorney Is Coming For David Samson - Esquire - As the noose knots around David Samson's neck, it will crush Christie's windpipe, too.

Scott Brown New Hampshire Campaign - Scott Brown Returns To Dickhead Mountain - Esquire - Hiring Papa Sununu and his poison glands is proof enough that you're decided to scale Dickhead Mountain one more time. But then there's this, also, too.

Oklahoma Protesters Threaten to "Secdee" From Union if Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos is not Cancelled - Topekas News - The first protests against Cosmos in the community took place some two weeks ago, after a local paper claimed an airing of Cosmos in a school caused several children to experience ‘demonic possession’. (by the SCIENCE DEMON! and the SPELLING DEMON!)
First Planet With A Potential Exomoon Buddy Spotted When The Stars Aligned - Forbes

Student government: U-M regularly missed deadlines on investigating sexual assault claims | Detroit Free Press | freep.com - “(U-M) routinely failed to meet its 60-day deadline to conduct investigations, apparently due to a lack of staffing,”
Teen convicted of disorderly conduct for using iPad to record bullies tormenting him | The Raw Story - Upon learning of the recording, South Fayette High School principal Scott Milburn and assistant principal Aaron Skrbin contacted Lieutenant Robert Kurta, asking that he come to the school because he believed there had been “a wiretapping incident.”

Flint's mystery booms explained: Police confirm secret bomb range | MLive.com - Now, the Flint police are confirming they have a bomb range in the area at an undisclosed location.
Missouri will fire 'sound cannons' at drivers to deter work zone speeding - Real World News - Neowin Forums - Apparently the threat of a costly ticket isn't enough to slow down drivers passing through work zones on Missouri's highways, so the state is taking extreme measures to solve the dilemma. Missouri's Department of Transportation is preparing to deploy the LRAD sound cannon

5 popular home products that can be surprisingly toxic - Salon.com

ELI5: What exactly is happening to your legs in Restless Leg Syndrome? : explainlikeimfive
Restless legs syndrome - National Library of Medicine - PubMed Health
Opioids Prove Effective for Restless Legs Syndrome

Hepatitis C: New drug treatment 'is a breakthrough' - A new treatment for hepatitis C "cured" 90% of patients with the infection in 12 weeks, scientists said.
Hepatitis C Drug Sovaldi Costs $84,000 | TheBlot - A California pharmaceutical company is defending its decision to sell a breakthrough hepatitis C regimen in the United States for $84,000 while selling the same drug for considerably less overseas.

Mad Men

041314
U.N. Climate Panel Warns Speedier Action Is Needed - NYTimes.com
U.N. Climate Panel Highlights Lack Of Action On Rising Temperatures (Republicans have screwed the world)
IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable | Environment | theguardian.com - Landmark UN analysis concludes global roll-out of clean energy would shave only a tiny fraction off economic growth

Ukraine: soldier reported dead in gun battle as tensions rise in eastern cities | World news | theguardian.com - Kiev claims at least one killed and others wounded in Slaviansk as forces exchange gunfire with unknown armed men
Reports of poison gas attack in Syria so far 'unsubstantiated', Powers says | World news | theguardian.com - US UN ambassador says 'we are trying to run this down' • Details of attack north of Damascus remain unclear
Gaddafi sons' war crimes trial begins in Libya amid security fears | World news | The Guardian - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and brother Saadi face accusations of masterminding campaign of murder and torture during civil war
Deadly Chile blaze destroys 500 homes | World news | The Guardian - Seven confirmed dead in port of Valparaíso as thousands evacuated and city declared catastrophe zone
French school to test DNA of male pupils and teachers to find rapist | World news | theguardian.com - More than 500 male staff and pupils face genetic testing at Catholic school in La Rochelle after 16-year-old girl raped - A private Catholic school in France
Iraq poised to legalize marriage for girls as young as 9 - By 1997, only 15 percent of Iraqi women were married as children, according to the Central Organization for Statistics. This figure was the same in 2004. (and then America "liberated" them back into the stone age)

Window Opens On Secret Camp Within Guantanamo - Connell is allowed to say virtually nothing about what he saw in the secret camp where the most notorious terror suspects in U.S. custody are held except that it is unlike any detention facility he's encountered. (Obama's favorite thing is secret torture sites)

The NSA's Heartbleed problem is the problem with the NSA | Julian Sanchez | Comment is free | theguardian.com - What the agency's denial isn't telling you: it didn't even need know about the bug to vacuum your privacy and store it indefinitely
Hacker successfully uses Heartbleed to retrieve private security keys | The Verge
Obama creates exception for NSA to exploit internet security flaws | The Verge (so predictable)

FBI arrests hackers who stole helicopter simulators from Army computers and hacked major video game companies. | TechWorm - FBI arrested three men who were found accused of stealing top-secret US Army helicopter simulator software from the U.S Army Computers and hacking several Major Gaming Companies including Microsoft's Xbox Valve Corporation, Activision Blizzard, Zombie Studios and Epic Games.

Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras return to US, blame government for climate of fear | The Verge - "President Obama likes to parade around as some sort of King Solomon figure in between the excesses of the NSA and those who are raising concerns about it," he says. "The reality is that he presided over this out of control system for five years … I think he is one of the obstacles to reform, not a vehicle for it."
2 reporters who probed NSA surveillance back in US - "This award is really for Edward Snowden," Poitras said.

'A New Level of Secrecy and Control': Jill Abramson on the Obama White House - The Takeaway - "The Obama years are a benchmark for a new level of secrecy and control," says Abramson.

The internet's biggest troll just beat his conviction | The Verge

Welcome to Bitcoin Island

Into the 'Truther Jungle - In these days of partisan division and epistemic siloing we all live in bubbles of a sort. But some, quite simply, do so so much more than others.
Lost in Their Truther Jungle by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - What seems to be going on is something more than just epistemic closure. An entire political party (excepting their few actual health care experts) is convinced that they’re winning a political argument based on facts that are completely absent.

Rand Paul: 'We Can't Invite The Whole World' To Immigrate To U.S. (like Obama is doing)
No More Mister Nice Blog: Soon they'll be demanding reparations - Prominent young right winger says conservatives are the new blacks, Colbert skit amounts to 'political blackface' http://t.co/BMBbgRMdcl

Rancher vs BLM: a 20-year standoff ends with tense roundup — High Country News
BLM halts seizure of Nevada rancher's cattle, citing safety concerns - latimes.com
Federal rangers face off against armed protesters in Nevada 'range war' | World news | theguardian.com - Dispute over cattle land causes Cliven Bundy, a rancher, to mobilise hundreds in ongoing standoff with government agency - The heavily armed crowd rallied under a banner that read "Liberty Freedom For God We Stand". Camouflaged militiamen stood at attention, communicating with earpieces. Most had signs, many of which chided "government thugs".(militards secede from America)
Sagebrush Rebellion Returns - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This guy won’t pay his grazing fees. He owes $1 million but refused to recognize the Bureau of Land Management as a legitimate government agency.

Recovery for Whom? - NYTimes.com (kids are screwed by neo-con racist anti-gay rich boomers)
The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence | The Nation - Most states shut down their debtors’ prisons more than 100 years ago; in 2005, Harpersville, Alabama, opened one back up.
Top Democrat: 'Not All' Republicans Are Racist - washington -- "Not all" Republicans are racist, said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) on Sunday, but "to a significant extent, the Republican base has elements that are animated by racism, and that's unfortunate." ("elements" = 99.2%)
The Government Listens To Lobbyists And The Wealthy, Not You And Me | ThinkProgress - But plenty of past research has backed up the idea that our government is far more responsive to the needs of the wealthy than those of the poor. Research from the University of Connecticut found that the Senate is only responsive to the policy preferences of the rich, not those of the poor and middle class.

Tom Frank interviews Barbara Ehrenreich: “You’re the anti-Ayn Rand” - Salon.com - Belief, Richard Dawkins, Jesus and the minimum wage, "The Fountainhead" and more, in our exclusive conversation - " the world flamed into life. Everything was coming at me. I was flowing out into it."
Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘Living With a Wild God’ - NYTimes.com
A Rationalist’s Mystical Moment - NYTimes.com - This was not the passive beatific merger with “the All,” as promised by the Eastern mystics. It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once, too vast and violent to hold on to, too heartbreakingly beautiful to let go of.
Barbara Ehrenreich Takes a Walk on the Wild Side - NYTimes.com

Capitalism simply isn't working and here are the reasons why | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer - Economist Thomas Piketty's message is bleak: the gap between rich and poor threatens to destroy us

O'Reilly Attacks Colbert As A 'Deceiver' For Mocking Him On Income Inequality | Crooks and Liars (said the big mouth of Satan)

Bundy Ranch Insurgents Physically Fight Federal Agents In Dispute Over Cows (video) - This is video of part of a confrontation between federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management and insurgents who reject the federal government’s claim of sovereignty over federal lands in Nevada.
Roger And Elizabeth Ailes Completely Incapable Of Not Being Litigious Bullies - Happy Nice Time People - This week, Roger and his lovely bride, Elizabeth, would like to sue people for “liking” something on Facebook.
Edwin Edwards’ last stand - Bill Nichols - politico.com
Holy Bible clears first hurdle to becoming Louisiana's official state book | NOLA.com (derp)

Roger And Elizabeth Ailes Completely Incapable Of Not Being Litigious Bullies - Happy Nice Time People - This week, Roger and his lovely bride, Elizabeth, would like to sue people for “liking” something on Facebook.

Morning Sideboob: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin Go to War - Happy Nice Time People - Friends of the couple point to a major double standard, with Gwyneth having pushed for open marriage so she could pursue other men, but demanding absolute fidelity from Chris. Chris is telling friends that Gwyneth was so self-involved that she believed she was more evolved than Chris and that she could better emotionally handle juggling out of marriage relationships with other men.

Sperm can pass trauma symptoms through generations, study finds | The Verge - A study in mice shows that trauma might be inherited through altered gene expression in sperm
Idea of New Attention Disorder Spurs Research, and Debate - NYTimes.com - sluggish cognitive tempo, the condition is said to be characterized by lethargy, daydreaming and slow mental processing. (drugz for daydreaming!)

Looking For Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius
293060_10151153888817744_2147360282_n.jpg (Apple announces the iTit) )
? Salut Salon "Wettstreit zu viert" - YouTube
? Beethoven would be PROUD ( Ass Version ) - YouTube

A ban on internet slang? That's derp | Books | The Guardian - Writers at Gawker have been warned by the website's new editor that 'amazeballs', 'lulz' and 'WTF' are off the menu. Massive fail, says Steven Poole (derp)

041214
Is global warming just a giant natural fluctuation? | Research and International Relations - McGill University - Statistical analysis rules out natural-warming hypothesis with more than 99% certainty (84% of Republicans disagree)

Flight MH370 co-pilot tried to make mid-flight phonecall, report claims | World news | theguardian.com - There have been unconfirmed reports in the Malaysian media of calls made by the captain before or during the flight but so far no details have been released.
Risk Of 'Gas War' Grows As Ukraine Halts Payments To Russia
Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in eastern Ukraine | World news | theguardian.com - Armed men storm police station and state security service building in Slavyansk and distribute weapons
Justice Department says Ukraine-based hackers used malware to steal millions | Technology | theguardian.com - Two Ukrainians living in UK extradited to Nebraska • Group charged with using Zeus malware to access accounts
Iran not planning to name replacement for UN diplomat denied visa | World news | theguardian.com - Hamid Aboutalebi barred by US for links to embassy takeover • Tehran says US stance violates international law (by same criteria ...)
Another Example of Mass Cowardice by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - I mean, does it seem reasonable that the United States would have what amounts to veto power over every other country on Earth’s diplomatic appointments to the United Nations?
Iraq goes to the polls with war as an inescapable backdrop | World news | theguardian.com - Fear of extremism is the dominant theme as Nouri al-Maliki seeks third term and violence rages close to the capital
Rumbling in Kashmir as prospect of Hindu nationalist win looms in India | World news | theguardian.com - It is feared that India and Pakistan have lost their best chance of lessening the long-running tension between the two
Syria Poison Gas Attack: Rebels, Government Blame Each Other
Associated Press - BEIRUT (AP) — The commandos infiltrated Syrian rebel-held territory near the Lebanese border, watching rebel fighters come and go from a two-story villa before slipping inside to plant a powerful bomb. The next morning, they detonated it as three rebel explosive experts and four assistants met inside, turning the villa to rubble in seconds.

Journalists who broke NSA story in Guardian dedicate award to Snowden | World news | theguardian.com - Greenwald, Poitras and MacAskill accept George Polk award • Barton Gellman of the Washington Post also honoured (Obama, Alexander, Crapper and Hayden are fuming; Hydra is planning next move)

CIA Torture Report Leak - Now We Know What's Being Done In Our Name - Esquire - We finally have been favored with the most inevitable leak in the history of the republic. Somebody's sent the Senate committee's report on the CIA's torture program, and its description of what was done in our name, out into the world ... Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein also declined to comment except to say: "If someone distributed any part of this classified report, they broke the law and should be prosecuted." (Difi in a nutshell)
Former Enhanced Interrogator is Haunted by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Eric Fair was an Arabic linguist in the U.S. Army from 1995 to 2000 and then, in 2004, he worked as a contract interrogator in Iraq. He remains haunted by what he did there ... As a country, we need to know what happened. We need to confess. We need to be specific. We need to open the book. (Obama: the book is closed)

Silicon Valley could force NSA reform, tomorrow. What's taking so long? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Tech CEOs are complaining, but bills are languishing. Time for internet companies to pull an OKCupid and call out the NSA, on every homepage

The Snowden Effect, Continued: Part Deux - Esquire - I'm sure there is a way that this doesn't matter because Glenn Greenwald is a big dork whom you will get at lunch period, but it appears that the NSA was willing to, you know, break the entire Internet in service of the messianic vision that infests the various cubicles.
NSA Said to Exploit Heartbleed Bug for Intelligence for Years - Bloomberg - “It flies in the face of the agency’s comments that defense comes first,” said Jason Healey, director of the cyber statecraft initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former Air Force cyber officer. “They are going to be completely shredded by the computer security community for this.” (they left your bank account vulnerable for years so they could spy on you)
The real reason you should be freaking out about Heartbleed - Salon.com - A catastrophic security vulnerability gave the keys to just about everything to the surveillance state. Accident?
The Heartbleed Bug Will Lurk in the Internet of Things for Decades | Motherboard
Cisco finds 13 products (so far) vulnerable to Heartbleed—including phones | Ars Technica

Is Weev free?
Andrew Auernheimer's conviction over computer fraud thrown out | Technology | theguardian.com - Lawyers for computer hacker nicknamed 'Weev' were racing to get him out of prison after circuit judge vacated his conviction (Obama loves his police-state)
Hacker “Weev” gets three years for accessing AT&T data - Salon.com - Rather, his conviction hinged on what data gets to be authorized or unauthorized and who gets to decide this. Like Swartz, Auernheimer was charged under the dangerously broad Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
UPDATE 2-U.S. court voids man's conviction for hacking celebrities' iPads | Reuters

Barrett Brown: American Journalist, Whistleblower & Prisoner | Long Island News (Obama dispises journalism, just like Muslims and China)

FBI Transparency - The Federal Bureau Of Incompetence - Esquire - Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe, who is the best cityside columnist in American newspapers, pretty much has had it with the FBI ... Why did the FBI slow-play the local cops on what the Russians told them about the elder Tsarnaev? They're not talking, not even to Congress, which really ought not to be optional at this point (+NYT covering their asses)
FBI Thinks Whistleblowers Should ‘Register’ So They’re Not Targeted by Insider Threat Program | The Dissenter (just turn yourself in now)

Sentencing for NATO 3 set for April 25 - Chicago Sun-Times
Bitcoin-branded ecstasy tablets send man to hospital
Israeli Hackers Expose 'Anonymous' Members - Business Insider

GM chief reportedly received 2011 email about steering problems | Business | theguardian.com - Documents quoted by House energy and commerce committee chair called into question the company's version of events (oh, she lied?)
Not Implicated In the Lois Lerner IRS Furor: The White House - That comes after extensive investigations by the committees that included questioning of dozens of IRS workers for depositions. The Oversight Committee collected more than 400,000 pages of documents and the Ways and Means Committee obtained 660,000. (insane Refucks wasting your taxdollars)

New York Prosecutors Open Another Front of Scrutiny for Port Authority - WSJ.com - Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. Subpoenaed a Broad Range of Records (fat bully fuck is crisp)
Mitch McConnell tells 402,000 Kentuckians they shouldn't have health care - As of today, 402,000 people in Kentucky have health insurance because of Obamacare. The state extended the deadline for enrollments until midnight tonight, and 30,000 people signed up in the last week alone. 402,000 of his own constituents he would sacrifice in order to win his primary and try to hold onto his seat. And he says it's Obamacare that has to go.

Who Started the Culture Wars, Anyway? | Mother Jones (who starts all the wars?)

North Carolina inmate charged with organising kidnapping from cell | World news | theguardian.com - Prosecutor's father rescued in Atlanta • Kelvin Melton accused of using smuggled mobile phone
DEA Raided This Woman's House After She Shopped At A Garden Store - "I bought a bottle of organic fertilizer, a 16-ounce bottle," said Kirking, a 46-year-old face-paint artist. "Three weeks later I was raided by DEA." (Obama's out-of-control drug war on Vigaro; they're lucky the DEA didn't squash their house with a tank) )
Jordan Miles who was Beaten By Police May Have to Pay Their lawyer fees - Hip-Hop and Politics - Miles who is top-notch violinist had recently performed for the first lady Michele Obama..
Parents of Texas 'affluenza' teen to pay part of state treatment | Reuters - The state facility he has been sent to costs $715 a day. His parents had offered to pay for private treatment at a private out-of-state facility. (rich kid sends bill to you)

Today's Specious "Free Speech" Martyr - Lawyers, Guns & Money : If one were to substitute “Jewish” or “Roman Catholic” for “Muslim,” the question of giving Hirsi Ali an honorary degree would be moot because there’s no chance it would happen in the first place.

Build (and Destroy) Your Own Solar System with This Awesome Exoplanet Game | Motherboard
Hubble Madness Puts Images Taken by Hubble Space Telescope in Competition - WSJ.com - Fans Vote for Favorite Pictures; Rooting for Horsehead Nebula
Evolution Slapping You in the Face with Its Whiplike Tail - Lawyers, Guns & Money

The Principles Behind the Mozilla Controversy by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But Friedersdorf isn’t really concerned about the victims in this argument, unless you mean the victims who are stigmatized not for being gay or of different races, but for wanting to deny gay people the right to get married. (the technodudebrolibertarians are so predictable)

Sexual Narcissists May Be More Likely To Cheat, Study Finds (meanwhile, in other news ...)
How I picked myself up after divorce | Life and style | The Guardian - the manosphere acronym SMV (sexual market value)

Florida closer to waiving gun laws during riots, other emergencies — RT USA - “To allow people to go into a riot while concealing a gun without a permit is the definition of insanity,” he told the Miami Herald. “The bill is crazy, it’s absurd.”
Special-Ed Student Records Bully, Gets Charged With Disorderly Conduct - In Pennsylvania, a high school sophomore with developmental disabilities was convicted of a crime after recording classmates threatening to "pull down his pants"

School Gives Adult Students An Existential Kick : NPR - Love, of course, work, family, play, and politics.

? True Facts About The Owl - YouTube (wait for the struwwelpeter)

The internet isn't harming our love of 'deep reading', it's cultivating it | Steven Poole | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Lengthy pieces of writing are increasingly found on the very internet that pessimists blame for turning us into skim readers

041114
WASHINGTON: CIA’s use of harsh interrogation went beyond legal authority, Senate report says | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - A still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee report calls into question the legal foundation of the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, a finding that challenges the key defense on which the agency and the Bush administration relied in arguing that the methods didn’t constitute torture. (too big to jail, of course)
CIA and White House under pressure after Senate torture report leaks | World news | theguardian.com - Senate committee found CIA interrogations and detentions to be 'brutal' and urges administration to release report as quickly as possible
CIA's 'Harsh Interrogations' Exceeded Legal Authority, Report Finds

At-risk cities hold solutions to climate change: UN report | Environment | theguardian.com - Smart choices by cities such as Miami in planning and investment could hold key to cutting emissions, IPCC draft says

Israel to confiscate vast area of Bethlehem village land | Maan News Agency - Israeli authorities on Thursday morning announced a decision to confiscate about 1,000 dunams (250 acres) of private Palestinian land in the town of al-Khader south of Bethlehem. (all your land are belong to us; oh wait, we already did that)

Here’s the absolute simplest way to protect yourself from Heartbleed | Death and Taxes
Test your server for Heartbleed (CVE-2014-0160)
It may be ILLEGAL to run Heartbleed health checks – IT lawyer • The Register - Do the right thing, earn up to 10 years in clink (another one of Obama's special rabbit-holes)
Information on Microsoft Azure and Heartbleed - Windows Azure - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Twitter / YourAnonNews: Arrival in NYC of Snowden ... - journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. No arrests made [yet] pic.twitter.com/7DCR2E1YTW

Full Show: The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com - s the Deep State, a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state, which is “out of control” and “unconstrained.” (and they own Obama)

Weev Is Free, Because You Can't Prosecute a Hacker Just Anywhere | Motherboard
Third Circuit Vacates Auernheimer (weev) Conviction » Tor Ekeland, PC: Tor Ekeland, PC - The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion today vacating Andrew Auernheimer’s conviction on the grounds that venue was improper in the District of New Jersey.
? welcome to the get along gang (free dl hacker shit) by ytcracker

Court Says FTC Can Go After Companies Who Get Hacked For Their Weak Security Practices | Techdirt
EFF Asks Court To Allow Human Rights Case Against Cisco to Proceed | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Case Argues Cisco Built Surveillance Tools Specifically Designed to Help Chinese Authorities Target Falun Gong
Investor group offers to buy Mt. Gox for one bitcoin: WSJ | Reuters
Sen. Coburn Offers To Put An Outdated Agency Out Of Its Misery With His 'Let Me Google That For You' Bill | Techdirt
Booking Video: Aaron Swartz Jokes, Jousts With Cops After MIT Bust | Threat Level | WIRED

The FBI Gamified the Hunt For One of Its Most Wanted | Motherboard
File This One Under Big Government Run Amok | Mother Jones - WTF? They just go after the eldest child first and work their way down? All because their mother was (allegedly) overpaid, which means a bunch of teenage kids benefited three decades ago? That's got to be the most cockamamie thing I've ever heard of. (but will Issa the terrorist investigate them?)

Poll: Republican Guvs Trail Dem Challengers In 5 Races (jerk Republican govs trailing sanity)

Rush: "CBS Has Just Declared War On The Heartland Of America" By Replacing Letterman With Colbert | Video | Media Matters for America
Stephen Colbert Strikes Back After Bill O'Reilly Calls Him A 'Fanatic'

Federal report: Albuquerque police have pattern of using 'unreasonable force' (+video) - CSMonitor.com - The blistering report by the US Justice Department said that the majority of fatal Albuquerque police shootings it reviewed between 2010 and 2013 were 'unjustified.' But it did not order federal monitoring of the police.
California's Mentally Ill Inmates Are Treated Unconstitutionally, Judge Rules (Sadistic States of America)

Weed Eases Anxiety, Says the Federal Government | Motherboard

Lab-grown vaginas and nostrils work, doctors report - The vaginal surgeries were performed on teenage girls born with absent or underdeveloped vaginas because of a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. The surgery might also work for women who need vaginal reconstruction because of cancer, trauma or other conditions, researchers say. (next up: ovaries)

For Sale: The Bay Area | Uptown Almanac - Thanks to Silicon Valley, the printing press is now an anachronism best suited for producing twee, artisanal invitations for your wedding to a Facebook millionaire (Flip-It)

041014
Evidence of Acceleration of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption on All Fronts - The report warned that climate impacts are already "severe, pervasive, and irreversible." (time for climate crimes court but Americans are all la-di-la science)
93 Harvard Faculty Members Call on the University to Divest from Fossil Fuels | Motherboard
Editors Resign From Frontiers Journal Over Retracted Paper That Upset Climate Science Deniers | DeSmogBlog - Three university professors are resigning as editors at a scientific publisher in protest at its decision to retract research linking climate change scepticism to conspiratorial thinking ... Brembs described Frontiers' retraction decision as “an outrageous act of a scientific journal caving in to pressure from delusionals” who, he said, were “demanding the science about their publicly displayed delusions be hidden from the world.”

MH370 search: fifth signal picked up by Australian aircraft | World news | theguardian.com - The latest 'ping' has been detected near where the Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield found signals earlier in the week

Satellite images reveal Russian military buildup on Ukraine's border | World news | theguardian.com - Nato images show fighter planes, helicopters and troops which officials say could be ready to move in 12 hours

American citizen Sharif Mobley is missing in Yemen – lawyers | World news | theguardian.com - State Department declines to comment • Lawyer says case a 'textbook disappearance' (Obama rendited him to a black site torture prison)

Americas overtake Africa as region with most murders | World news | theguardian.com - UN report finds nearly 40% of world's murders were committed in Americas in 2012 (we're #1!)
Sorry, there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - The Week - The harsh and ugly truth is that some conflicts really are intractable
Eschaton: The South - The ECB would have behaved differently if the crisis had been concentrated in the wealthier bits, because they of course wouldn't have been to blame.

Austerity terrorism: From Kiev to NYC — RT Op-Edge - The US State Department defines terrorism as the "use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies." Globally we are seeing a campaign of violence and repression designed to instill fear into those who challenge the economic setup in this time of crisis.
Greece is still a sucking chest wound in Europe - The Week - But with unemployment still over 27 percent, I'd say let's hold off on talk of a recovery.

Pirate Party Vindicated By Highest EU Court, Killing Mass Surveillance Law. Oldmedia Reacts By Writing Cat Story. - Falkvinge on Infopolicy
Swedish Man Sentenced to Half-Million Euro In Damages For Sharing ONE Movie - Falkvinge on Infopolicy - A Swedish man has been sentenced to the highest damages ever in Sweden, and possibly in the entire world, for sharing culture: 4.3 million SEK (€475,000) for sharing ONE movie. The movie Beck – Buried Alive, a typical Swedish taxpayer-subsidized B-movie, was uploaded to the culture-sharing hub Swebits. This represents a heavy escalation in the war over sharing knowledge and culture. (militarization of entertainment industry)
Movie Studios Demand Millions From Megaupload in New Lawsuit

Angela Merkel denied access to her NSA file | World news | theguardian.com - Frustration with US government rises over failure to clear up questions about surveillance of German chancellor's phone - The US government is refusing to grant Angela Merkel access to her NSA file or answer formal questions from Germany about its surveillance activities, raising the stakes before a crucial visit by the German chancellor to Washington. (NSA is running Obama, obviously)

Revealed: Senate report contains new details on CIA black sites | Al Jazeera America - Sources tell Al Jazeera the Intelligence Committee report accuses spy agency of lying about detention and interrogation
Why Human Rights Groups Attracted the NSA's Attention | Motherboard (civil rights are terrorists)

Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras Returning To U.S. For First Time Since Snowden Revelations
Edward Snowden: Whistleblower 'did complain to NSA' before leaking classified US Government documents - News - People - The Independent (NSA always lies)

Seymour Hersh unleashed - In a speech billed as a discussion of the Bush and Obama eras, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh delivered a rambling, conspiracy-laden diatribe here Monday expressing his disappointment with President Barack Obama and his dissatisfaction with the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
High-ranking members of US military part of ‘Knights of Malta,’ ‘Opus Dei,’ reporter claims | The Raw Story - Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details “how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government.” - “Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn’t get one,” he reportedly said. (instead, we got a spy-controlled anti-Constitutional scholar) “Don’t they get it? We’re gonna change moseques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody’s gonna give a damn. (onward Christian invaders)

Everything We Know About How the NSA Tracks People's Physical Location - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic - With Monday's new revelation, we can see the NSA's two-pronged system for finding out where people are.

Twitter / explanoit: "But NSA, why would you want ... - to record and store everyone's SSL traffic? It's gibberish." A few months later: "Oh."
The Heartbleed Hit List: The Passwords You Need to Change Right Now
The Bleeding Hearts Club: Heartbleed Recovery for System Administrators | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Heartbleed heartache” – should you REALLY change all your passwords right away? | Naked Security - And it's fair to say that there are a lot more people ready to heartbleed your new password right now than there were a week, a month or a year ago when you set the old password up.
How do you fix two-thirds of the web in secret? | The Verge - But why did some companies have advanced warning while others got left in the cold? How did Facebook find out while Yahoo was left out of the loop?
Meet the man who created the 'catastrophic' Heartbleed bug - That night, he made an error that has been compared to the misspelling of Mississippi, a careless but almost inevitable mistake that went undetected for over two years. (or did it?)
How The Internet's Worst Nightmare Could Have Been Avoided - “One question is whether companies that rely so much on the software are pulling their weight in terms of contributing to the overall project,” Felten said.

Adding Condoleezza Rice To Dropbox's Board Seems Incredibly Tone Deaf Following NSA Concerns | Techdirt (let's put a spy on our board dept)
Condoleezza Rice Joins Dropbox’s Board As It Names New CFO, COO | TechCrunch

Profiling Rules Said to Give F.B.I. Tactical Leeway - NYTimes.com (no change change you can believe in)

Journalists celebrate purchase of staid local newspaper by plucky rival. (Overlook plucky rival’s ties to Carlyle Group) | PandoDaily
Social Media Analysis Aids in Washington Mudslide Response - New tool searched Twitter for the word "missing" and relevant tweets were provided to emergency response officials.

Trial of Occupy activist struggles to find jurors impartial to protest movement | World news | theguardian.com - Series of potential jurors voice opposition to Occupy Wall Street • Cecily McMillan, 25, faces seven years in prison for assault (Americans love their overlords)

How corrupt Chicago politics fueled the high-frequency trading mess | PandoDaily - Noting that President Obama’s argument against such a tax is that financial firms would inevitably circumvent it, the Times’ editorial board says that translates into: “No politician has the courage to enforce a tax on Wall Street,” at least “until campaign finance reform is a reality.”

Shoe thrown at Hillary Clinton during Las Vegas speech | World news | theguardian.com - Woman taken into custody after throwing what she described as a shoe moments after Clinton took the stage (given the Bush treatment)


GOP Lawmaker Compares Abortion To Buying A Car - A Republican state lawmaker in Missouri defended his controversial bill forcing women to have ultrasounds before abortions by comparing abortion to purchasing a new vehicle. (he gives his new cars ultrasounds)

Facts Derail Lying Sharpton's Informant Tale | The Smoking Gun - The reverend was “flipped” by FBI agents three months after he was filmed in March 1983 (during a bureau sting) talking cocaine with an undercover agent.

Alabama Journalist Tells Us What It Was Like To Spend Five Months In Jail For Reporting A Story | ThinkProgress - “You get down to survival mode.” That was blogger Roger Shuler’s state of mind after being arrested and hauled off to jail for writing about a politically connected Alabama lawyer ... I get the feeling we’re in a culture right now, it’s sort of like arrest first, and ask questions later.” (no free speech for people who criticize those in power)

The Coast Guard Says It's Miserably Losing the War on Drugs | Motherboard
Potosi Prison Guards Known as “The Cowboys” Implicated in Torture Ring - Potosi Correctional Center, which could more accurately be described as the Potosi private torture dungeon, has for the past months or longer been home to a group of rogue prison guards, known as the “cowboys,” who specialize in torture and the denial of medication to inmates. (Missouri: cops love torture)
Carlos López busted with meth pipe in his butt - UPI.com - Carlos López had a glass pipe stashed where the sun don't shine during a bust in Fort Lauderdale.
No Prosecution For 84-Year-Old UWS Man Ticketed For Jaywalking « CBS New York - Wong’s attorney claims that police used excessive force and left him with a head wound. He needed four staples to close up a head wound after police stopped him to give him a jaywalking ticket in his Upper West Side neighborhood. The family plans to file a $5 million lawsuit against the NYPD. (Bloomthugs)
Hartford Courant - Lawyers Fight Placement Of Juvenile In Male Correction Facility - "This is really an embarrassment for DCF and the state on several levels'' said Romano. "Had DCF followed through in its child-protection mandate, this child would now be at the Middletown juvenile facility.'' (transgender abuse)
Connecticut Commissioner Joette Katz stored her BMW sports car in a state parking spot - Courant.com - Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families Joette Katz's sense of entitlement reminds us that the taste for privilege appears in unexpected places. (see above)
Nevada Rancher Says He’s Surrounded by Militarized US Government Forces Who’ve Come to Remove Cattle | The Dissenter - , now says he is surrounded by an army of federal agents who are there to show they have “unlimited” police power.
Armed federal agents surround Nevada ranch in latest standoff - Washington Times - “They’re carrying the same things a soldier would,” he said. “Automatic weapons, sniper rifles, top communication, top surveillance equipment, lots of vehicles. It’s heavy soldier type equipment.”
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Protect and serve, bitches. ... (every small town cop dept needs a big tank)

Study: 'Jesus' wife' fragment not a fake – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' likely isn't a modern forgery, scientists claim | The Verge - Analysis suggests that the controversial fragment is indeed ancient, but not everyone is convinced
Cambridge Journals Online - Harvard Theological Review - Fulltext - The Alleged Gospel of Jesus's Wife: Assessment and Evaluation of Authenticity - Leo Depuydt

Dino-Killing Asteroid Impact Dwarfed by Earlier Space Rock Crash | Space.com

These 9 Words Don't Mean What You Think They Mean (that begs the question)
Flirtation or sexual harassment? Here's how to tell the difference | Life and style | theguardian.com

A New Cancer Study Found E-Cigarettes Affect Cells the Same As Tobacco Smoke | Motherboard
The Smoke Detector for Meth Labs | Motherboard (Methminder calls the cops)

An interview with Dillon the Hacker, teenage 'leader' of 4chan and Anonymous
Here Are The Origins Of The Internet's Most Meme-orable Memes
Twitter / rob_swire: Best Guardian headline ever ...
KB35816-BSRT-2014-003 Vulnerability in qconnDoor service affects BlackBerry 10 smartphones
Memory lane: Before everyone loved Windows XP, they hated it | Ars Technica

040914

Critical Security Bug 'Heartbleed' Hits Up To 66 Percent Of The Internet

Israel cuts communication with Palestinians in response to unilateral moves - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - Netanyahu orders cabinet ministers not to cooperate with Palestinian counterparts, after Abbas' request to join international conventions.
Netanyahu Orders Israeli Ministers To Stop Meeting Palestinian Counterparts
Greeks hold nationwide anti-austerity strike ahead of Merkel visit | Al Jazeera America
Pakistan Bombing: Explosion Kills 20 At Vegetable Market On Outskirts Of Islamabad
Australia Declares Homeopathy Nonsense, Urges Doctors to Inform Patients - Slashdot
MPs who repaid expenses got money back in secret deal - Dozens of MPs who repaid money amid public outrage at their expenses claims were quietly refunded under a secret deal with the Commons authorities, it has emerged.

Good News: The US Will Soon Have Fewer Ways to Launch Nukes | Motherboard

German Interior Minister Warns US Spying Has No Boundaries - SPIEGEL ONLINE - In an interview, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, 60, warns that American spying has become "boundless" and expresses sorrow that approval ratings for the United States have plummeted in Germany.
Heartbleed: How did it get there? Why did it take so long to find? - Salon.com - The discovery of massive security vulnerability prompts speculation in crypto communities about NSA involvment (we had to break the internets in order to save it)

Most Americans Think Government May Be Justified In Torturing To Fight Terror - 68 percent think there are some circumstances when the government is justified in using torture, including 16 percent who think it's always justified, 33 percent who think it's sometimes justified, and 19 percent who think it's rarely justified. Only 22 percent of Americans think torture is never justified.

Judge criticizes U.S. State Department over Blackwater shooting case - A federal judge on Tuesday harshly criticized the U.S. State Department over its handling of a 2007 shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide security guards and asked the agency's watchdog to investigate problems that helped delay a related criminal case.

Top 5 Reasons for Hijabophobia - The Most Recognizable Identifier of a Muslim Woman

FiveThirtyEight’s Venezuela Problem | Jacobin - When it comes to Venezuela, shoddy data work and simplistic reasoning are too often embraced.

US marine in custody after fatal shooting at North Carolina base | World news | theguardian.com - Unnamed marine fired single shot at colleague inside guard shack at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina

Nothing Really Compares To The Koch Brothers' Political Empire
The short guide to Capital in the 21st Century - Vox - Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is the most important economics book of the year, if not the decade
Bank of America Reaches $772M Credit-Card Settlement | Fox Business

Gun Humpers Pretty Thrilled About Pennsylvania High School Boy Stabbing All Those Kids
Multiple stabbings at north Toronto office leave 1 critical - Toronto - CBC News - 1 employee in custody, 4 people taken to hospital, 1 in critical condition

No, Really, Blame John Roberts on Medicaid - As the Affordable Care Act slowly unfurls its many complex parts, many states are sitting on the sidelines—especially with the optional Medicaid expansion. The Supreme Court left a loophole in this summer's decision that is directly to blame for the millions who will start the year without health insurance.

Darrell Issa Tries Tactic In IRS Probe Last Used In McCarthyism

Millions More People Are Getting Health Insurance Because Of Obamacare, Survey Finds

GOP not fazed by paycheck vote - Burgess Everett - politico.com - Republicans working to improve their image among women aren’t worried about suffering a political backlash if they follow through with plans to block the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Rachel Maddow Goes After Her Favorite Nemesis, The 'Terribly Embarrassing' Scott Brown (that word, doesn't mean what you think it does)
Female GOP Senate Candidate Said Women Want Job Flexibility More Than Equal Pay - Talk about bad timing for Terri Lynn Land.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough Giving Keynote At New Hampshire Republican Dinner (no pretense)
>
Revealed: Rahm Emanuel’s top donor bought stock in Marriott just before it was awarded huge Chicago contract | PandoDaily

Chris Christie Report Interview Notes - In Interview Notes We Trust - Esquire - . Seventy witnesses, none under oath -- no stenographer, no recording device of any kind, and, of course, no transcripts. Forget about any Nixonian 17-minute gap in the tapes. There are no tapes, only the notes written up by the investigators themselves ... Smoke and mirrors and balls are all that Christie and his thugs have left. (and the balls aren't looking very good)

Jim DeMint on How Slavery Ended - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Since Jim DeMint has the ear of God, we know his view of history is also correct.
Jim DeMint Wrestles With History And Fails - Esquire - Jim DeMint, who runs the Heritage Foundation, an intellectual chop-shop serving that part of our political system with its toes in the oatmeal, has some American History that he would like to share.

What In Hell Is Wrong In Wisconsin? - Esquire - At the same time they elected Walker, the voters also tossed out Senator Russ Feingold and gifted themselves with Senator Ron Johnson, whose tenure has been marked by a) getting a new aperture torn in him by Hillary Clinton, and b) by his "Shreds Of Freedom!" shit-fit outside the Supreme Court. Now, it seems he has stepped on a very heavy rake indeed.

Mississippi Sex-Ed Law Permits Teachers To Instruct Students That Homosexuality Is Illegal - The law also requires male and female students to be instructed in separate classrooms and prohibits condom demonstrations in schools.

Los Angeles Times Was Wrong to Retract Article on Rape at Occidental

Technology’s Man Problem - NYTimes.com - “Titstare is an app where you take photos of yourself staring at tits,” Mr. Boulton began, as photographs of women’s chests on a cellphone flashed on the screen behind him. (sexisttechnodudebros at work)
Women Made Up Less Than 30 Percent Of Guests In 2013 (you're the problem Cokie)

San Diego family not liable for cost of rescue off Mexican coast | World news | theguardian.com - Charlotte and Eric Kaufman and their two daughters needed saving 900 miles from Cabo San Lucas after their boat broke down

Brendan Eich Contributed to a Disgraceful Campaign - Lawyers, Guns & Money : As Stern observes, “The campaign’s strategy was to debase gay families as deviant and unhealthy while insinuating that gay people are engaged in a full-scale campaign to convert children to their cause.”

Wingnuttiness in a Wingnutshell - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Listen to what Dana Perino has to say about the new film, ”Noah.” She basically says “This film does not mirror my ill-informed, misty, water-colored childhood memories therefore it’s wrong.” Can there be a better distillation of wingnuttism around? I mean, is wingnuttism anything more than ill-informed nostalgia for a world that never existed?

Frozen Merch Is Sold Out Everywhere and Parents Are Losing Their Shit

(3) Cortana (cortanaquotes) on Twitter

040814
Seymour M. Hersh · The Red Line and the Rat Line · LRB 6 April 2014 - Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdogan and the Syrian rebels (Obama's fake reason for war)
Sy Hersh Reveals Potential Turkish Role in Syria Chemical Strike That Almost Sparked U.S. Bombing | Democracy Now! - "Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria."

The Catholic church must apologise for its role in Rwanda's genocide | Chris McGreal | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The Vatican's reluctance to confront those accused of murder in its midst is rooted in its refusal to face up to the church's complicity in the events of 1994

Moscow may be planning intervention in eastern Ukraine, US warns | World news | theguardian.com - John Kerry fears potential Crimea-style action after pro-Russian forces cement control of government building in Donetsk
Ukraine Parliament Devolves Into Brawl Amid Russia Crisis - Deputies in the Ukrainian parliament brawled in the chamber on Tuesday after a communist leader accused nationalists of playing into the hands of Russia by adopting extreme tactics early in the Ukrainian crisis.
Ukraine Arrests Pro-Russia Demonstrators In 'Anti-Terrorism Operation'
Venezuela protests are sign that US wants our oil, says Nicolás Maduro | World news | The Guardian - In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Venezuela's president claims the Obama administration is fomenting unrest with the aim of provoking a Ukraine-style 'slow-motion' coup

Quebec election ousts separatists | World news | theguardian.com - Minority-governing Parti Quebecois went back to voters seeking a majority but ended up being trounced by Liberals - The Parti Quebecois went into the campaign with a polling lead but this turned to dust after star candidate Pierre Karl Peladeau, a media magnate, pumped his fist in the air in saying how he wanted "to make Quebec a country".

Guantánamo Bay: last British detainee suffering from PTSD, lawyers say | World news | theguardian.com - Lawyers for Shaker Aamer, cleared for release by US seven years ago and never charged with a crime, ask for his release (worst of the worst)

Open Rights Group - European Court of Justice finds Data Retention Directive invalid - The Court found that the Directive severely interferes with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.

Snowden Says NSA Is Lying When It Claims He Didn't Raise Concerns Through The Proper Channels | Techdirt (from the they-always-lie dept)
Timeline of Edward Snowden's revelations | Al Jazeera America
NSA logs reveal flood of post-Snowden FOIA requests | Al Jazeera America - The National Security Agency (NSA) has been flooded with thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from journalists, civil rights groups and private citizens who have asked the agency to turn over the top-secret records that former contractor Edward Snowden leaked to the media, Al Jazeera can reveal.

Edward Snowden: US government spied on human rights workers | World news | theguardian.com - Whistleblower tells Council of Europe NSA deliberately snooped on groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
Fury at attack on Dianne Feinstein by ex-CIA director Michael Hayden | World news | theguardian.com - Senate intelligence committee members condemn description of chairperson as 'emotional' over torture report (says ladybrainz don't understand need for torture, Wyden a sissie)
Wyden Calls Former CIA Director’s Attack on Senator Feinstein “Outrageous” | Press Releases | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden - General Hayden unfortunately has a long history of misleading the American public – he did it on domestic surveillance when he was the head of the NSA, and he did it on torture when he was the CIA Director. The best way to correct this culture of misinformation is to give the American people a chance to review the facts for themselves, and I’ll be working with my colleagues and the administration to ensure that happens quickly.”

Congressmen Say James Clapper Should Be Arrested for Lying About NSA Spying | Motherboard (and waterboarded)
Eric Holder pressed on James Clapper testimony - Josh Gerstein - politico.com

'Cuban Twitter' Is Getting Burned on Capitol Hill | Motherboard
WikiLeaks' trollish 'future of the Internet' leak explained

Dangerous Combinations | The Divine Trickster: Visiting weev
Stingray Cellphone Tracking Warrant In Daniel David Rigmaiden Case Was Proper, Judge Rules - The government didn't mention, however, that it would need to pretend its stingray was a Verizon Wireless tower to find Rigmaiden, or that it would collect the location of hundreds of innocent third parties' phones in the process. Nevertheless, U.S. District Judge David Campbell denied Rigmaiden's motion to suppress the crucial evidence collected as a result of that search.

Miriam Carey was shot five times from behind, autopsy shows - CNN.com - The lawsuit says Carey was unfamiliar with the area and mistakenly drove past the first guard post. When she tried to make a U-turn and drive away, a uniformed Secret Service officer threw a bicycle rack at her car, the lawsuit claims.

John Paul Stevens' Death Penalty Reversal Is Too Little, Too Late - As Atlantic Contributing Editor Andrew Cohen explains, Stevens' suggestion comes with "an apology of sorts for all that he got wrong," but he could also do something further:

Third Way’s Surprising Retirement Proposal | Economic Policy Institute - After getting into hot water for criticizing Sen. Elizabeth Warren for wanting to expand Social Security, self-styled centrist Democrats Jonathan Cowan and Jim Kessler of Third Way are testing the retirement waters again by proposing, in a New York Times op-ed, to expand savings in IRAs. (Third Way looks for new ways to steal your money and give it to rich bankers)
REPORT: Weekday Evening Cable News Silences Women On The Economy | Research | Media Matters for America - Only 28 Percent Of Guests In Segments About The Economy Are Women. From April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014, women accounted for only 28 percent of guest appearances in segments primarily focused on the economy during evening programming on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. (because ladybrainz)

Asymmetric Stupidity - NYTimes.com - Ezra Klein’s new venture Vox is up, and so far, so OK — some fairly interesting pieces, and nothing like Nate Silver’s lamentable decision to make a professional concern troll his chief writer on climate. I am troubled by Ezra’s big inauguratory think piece, but that’s because I think the piece raises a genuine intellectual puzzle. (why did Ezra say both sides do it when one side does it much, much more than the other?)
Bed wetting liberals: Democrats freak over setbacks, GOP doesn't. | New Republic

This Is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...: Five Nominations for the Best Weblog Post Ever! (see comments for more options)

The Pelosi porn, the panel & Ted Cruz's tattoo: this is the GOP women problem | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Republicans sifting through their ideological wreckage for a demographic advantage have aligned themseves with a new favorite artist – and it's not Miley Cyrus

The Roberts Court Just Endorsed Many Of Nixon's Most Corrupt Campaign Finance Schemes | ThinkProgress

Virginia’s Medicaid expansion fight: More proof that the Commonwealth is broken. - And low-income Virginians who fall into the Medicaid gap will suffer for it.
Obamacare Is Widening the Gap Between "Red" and "Blue" America | Blog, Connecting the Dots | BillMoyers.com
Scott Brown Party Affiliation - Such Are The Dreams Of The Everyday Has-Been, Continued - Esquire - Whoever filled out Brown's formal statement of organization for his campaign exploratory committee left blank the small gray box asking for the candidate's party affiliation

Does Ezra Klein Really Not Understand the Point of Politics? - Lawyers, Guns & Money : So Ezra Klein’s big lead-off article at Vox was, well, strange. Not that I disagree with all of it, although there is way too much both sides do it in here. But see here:

Brooklyn Man Walks Out of Court, Cleared of Murder After 24 Years in Prison - ProPublica - Jonathan Fleming and his family were overjoyed today after the Brooklyn District Attorney dismissed murder charges against him based on evidence withheld at his 1990 trial.
News-Star exclusive: McAllister says he's 'ashamed,' asking for forgiveness | The News Star | thenewsstar.com - Video shows US representative kissing woman who isn't his wife (hypocrisy, thy name is Republican)
First on CNN: Husband on kissing congressman: ‘He has wrecked my life’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - “I’m just freaking devastated by the whole deal, man. I loved my wife so much. I cannot believe this. I cannot freaking believe it. I feel like I’m going to wake up here in a minute and this is all going to be a bad nightmare,” Heath Peacock told CNN Tuesday. McAllister also made headlines earlier this year when he invited “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson to be his guest at the President’s State of the Union address.
L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department : The New Yorker - I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

Actos Verdict: Jury Orders Takeda, Eli Lilly To Pay $9 Billion In Damages - A U.S. jury ordered Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd to pay $6 billion in punitive damages and Eli Lilly and Co to pay $3 billion in a case claiming that cancer risks to the diabetes drug Actos were concealed, the plaintiffs' lawyer said.

Trending: No Charges In Death of College Student Shot by Police During Hostage Situation - Trending Now on Patch - Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow, NY Patch (cop just had to kill them both because cops)
Tucson cop who slammed woman not so tough after threats | The Daily Caller - The Tucson police officer who was caught on video brutally pummeling a female student as she walked innocuously near the campus of the University of Arizona has been identified as Joel Mann, according to local ABC affiliate KGUN.

OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too | Mother Jones - OkCupid's co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan once donated to an anti-gay candidate. (Yagan is also CEO of Match.com.) Specifically, Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in 2004, reports Uncrunched. During his time as congressman from 1997 to 2009, Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and for prohibition of gay adoptions.

How to raise happy kids, according to science - The Week
The Countries With The Highest Religious Diversity Are Mostly In The Asian-Pacific (wft? China?)
Petra's Ancient Monastery Was Built To Track Sun, Scientists Say (video) - Add the Monastery at Petra to the monuments that humans probably built for astronomical purposes. New research suggests that ancient architects tracked the motion of the sun and constructed the religious center with the winter solstice in mind.

Here's What You Need to Know About the 'Heartbleed' Bug That's Attacking Millions of Websites
Tor: If You Want Privacy or Anonymity, Stay Off the Internet This Week | Motherboard - Security holes are par for the course on the web today, but a new, massive bug dubbed "Heartbleed” is particularly nasty, and widespread: Experts say that two-thirds of websites and nearly everyone that’s used the internet in the last two years could be affected to some extent.
Twitter redesign looks a lot like Facebook | The Verge
Active Twitter Use Could Lead to Divorce and Infidelity, Study Says

040714
Timeline | Ghosts Of Rwanda | FRONTLINE | PBS
Hiding in plain sight in France: the priests accused in Rwandan genocide | World news | theguardian.com - Catholic leaders accused of acting as apologists for the slaughter by helping priests accused of murder in Rwanda evade justice

Pro-Moscow protesters seize arms, declare republic; Kiev fears invasion | Reuters
Israeli newspaper: The land of Palestine is not ours - Hebrew language newspaper Yated Ne'eman, which is affiliated with the United Torah Judaism movement, published an unprecedented article on Thursday morning that generated scathing criticism from other Jewish parties, under the title: "This land is not registered in the Land Registry for the people of Israel".
Anti-fracking protests in 60 Romanian cities call for Fracking ban - National Environment | Examiner.com
Australian civil servants ordered to fink on colleagues who criticize gov't online - Boing Boing (Oz looking pretty bad lately)
'Doctor Zhivago,' 'The Moon Is Down,' and the CIA's Subversion of Literature | Motherboard
DCMS Twitter account hacked amid Maria Miller expenses row | Politics | theguardian.com - Culture secretary described as being 'like a modern day Robin Hood' in series of tweets sent from hacked feed

A giant art installation targets predator drone operators | #NotABugSplat

Snowden to Receive Truth-Telling Prize - NYTimes.com - The Ridenhour prize for truth-telling will be given to Edward J. Snowden and Laura Poitras, the filmmaker and journalist who helped Mr. Snowden disclose his trove of documents on government surveillance.
24% Support Amnesty for Edward Snowden - Rasmussen Reports™ - , 62% believe it is good for the nation that the American people know about the NSA’s surveillance programs. Sixteen percent (16%) say this increased awareness is bad for the country, while slightly more (22%) are not sure.

Does NSA-style mass surveillance violate our human rights? - Mass government surveillance may soon be officially considered a human rights violation—in Europe, at least.
Twitter / trevortimm: Michael Hayden this week: @SenFeinstein is "emotional," @RonWyden "should've acted like a man," Senate Intel staffers are "sissies."
Fury at attack on Dianne Feinstein by ex-CIA director Michael Hayden | World news | theguardian.com - Senate intelligence committee members condemn description of chairperson as 'emotional' over torture report

U.S. Tries Candor to Assure China on Cyberattacks - NYTimes.com - “We clearly don’t occupy the moral high ground that we once thought we did,” said one senior administration official. (oh, how did that happen, Obambi?)
[cryptome] Re: Geoff Stone, Obama's Review Group - Part 2 - cryptome - FreeLists - Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 07:19:08 -0400

Long Read Watch: Torture & the Good Congressman (Angus) King » Balloon Juice
CIA Torture And Herd Immunity - Torture, The CIA, And How We Lost Our Herd Immunity - Esquire - Over the weekend, the inexcusable Fred Hiatt loaned the space over which he presides at The Washington Post to Jose Rodriguez, a truly monstrous figure in the events in question, so that Rodriguez could spread the infection even further through the subject population. (the death penalty would revax the herd)
What Are The Gobshites Saying The Days? - Esquire - "If he doesn't think that was torture, I would invite him anywhere in the United States to sit in a waterboard and go through what those people went through, one of them 100-plus-odd times...That's ridiculous to make that claim. This was torture by anybody's definition. John McCain said it's torture and I think he's in a better position to know that than Vice President Cheney."
Why the CIA Won't Give Up Its Drone War | Motherboard - Why the CIA Won't Give Up Its Drone War
Documents show Gogo boasted of helping law enforcement agencies spy on in-flight wifi | PandoDaily

‘US annexed the whole world through global spying' – Assange — RT News
CERF: Classified NSA Work Mucked Up Security For Early TCP/IP | Application Security News, Research, Trends – Veracode Blog - Internet pioneer Vint Cerf says that he had access to cutting edge cryptographic technology in the mid 1970s that could have made TCP/IP more secure – too bad the NSA wouldn’t let him! (but he blew his whistle ... oh wait)
aclu_comments_on_rule_41.pdf - ACLU Comment on the Proposed Amendment to Rule 41 Concerning Remote Searches of Electronic Storage Media

This Occupy Activist Could Go to Prison for Standing Up to the Cop Who Grabbed Her Breast - PolicyMic - Officer Grantley Bovell (is a real pig)

Mining Roundup: Solar-Powered Mining, DVR Malware and the 'Bitcoin Baron' - Then the price plummets, leaving everyone mining at high difficulty without the ability to cash in their coins at a significant profit.

How politics makes us stupid - Vox (Vox is open +both side do it)
Twitter / mlcalderone: NYT apparently changed @ezraklein ... - quote criticizing WaPo. Then: http://twitpic.com/e0k06j Now: http://twitpic.com/e0k08j (news you can trust)

White House defends soaring number of deportations for minor crimes | World news | theguardian.com - Immigration rights activists say administration has stepped up deportations to appease Republican opponents of reform (which always works)
More Deportations Follow Minor Crimes, Records Show - NYTimes.com - But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all (Obama is still deporter-in-chief)

Uninsured Rate Falls To Lowest Since 2008: Gallup

Millions of Americans forced to work part time - CBS News
Oligarchs and Money - NYTimes.com (monetary policy designed by/for oligarchs)

Jonathan Chait’s epic race fail: How a story about racism and Obama goes horribly wrong - Salon.com - New York magazine's cover story suggests liberals are paranoid, MSNBC is like stop-and-frisk -- and other oddities (Joan Walsh)
Why Race Has Been the Real Story of Obama's Presidency All Along -- New York Magazine - Optimists hoped Obama would usher in a new age of racial harmony. Pessimists feared a surge in racial strife. Neither was right. But what happened instead has been even more invidious.

Christie Prosecutor Gets Its Star Witness to Start Talking - Esquire - Chris Christie’s White House fever dream died at his January press conference, where he spent two hours wallowing in self-pity over how his aides had deceived him. Now that David Wildstein’s talking, his days as governor are numbered -- in weeks and months, not years.
Ryan Lizza: Crossing Chris Christie : The New Yorker - What the bridge scandal says about the Governor’s political style, and his future. (as a crossing-guard)

Does It Matter That Hospitals Have Close Ties to Drug Companies? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society - Nearly every large drug maker based in the United States had at least one academic medical center official on its board, raising questions about their independence.
Esquire Fitness - Esquire - A simple, if intimidating, workout plan created by Mark Merchant, co-owner of As One Fitness. Implement immediately. The GIFs should help.
E-cigarettes: Is Liquid Nicotine Safe? | Ruth Macklin (blah-blah, no studies)

A Hard Problem to Solve - With the wholesale price of marijuana falling — driven in part by decriminalization in sections of the United States — Mexican drug farmers are turning away from cannabis and filling their fields with opium poppies.

After Eich resigns, conservatives slam Mozilla—and call for boycott | Ars Technica - "If that attitude spreads, it will damage our society." (Sullivan gets his clickbait, Conservabros go nuts)
A Couple of Unserious Observations About a High-Tech Lynching » Balloon Juice - I find I enjoy the Internet a lot more as long as I stay away from Sully and his proteges, like Young Conor (pictured above in a group portrait of Dish interns). Unfortunately, the awful thing that was done to Brendan Eich keeps bringing those two clowns back into the limelight (here are a couple of excerpts).
Rightbloggers Defend Mozilla CEO Eich -- Not For Free Speech, But Against Gays | Village Voice
Everything is Like the Gulag, Except Sending People To Remote Locations To Be Tortured - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Since the resignation of Brendan Eich has already been compared to McCarthyism, fascism, and Jacobinism, I suppose calling it the new Gulag was inevitable
Again, On What Free Speech Means And What It Doesn't - Lawyers, Guns & Money : We seem to have to go through this every year or two, and based on some of the commentary surrounding Brendan Eich apparently we have to again
Gay People Are Shrill » Balloon Juice - At any rate, so thrilled our opinions leaders are on the lookout for gay intolerance. There are seriously days when I wonder why I subscribe to the Times. (Frank Bruni is nano-shallow)
alicublog: Today In Conservative Victimhood.
Eschaton: The Definition Of White Supremacy - As Sullivan wrote once upon a time: The notion that there might be resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe, an inherently racist belief (that should have been the end of Sullivan, but wasn't)

Portrait of a failed president: Inside the art of George W. Bush - Salon.com - George W. Bush unveiled a new collection of paintings last week. Here's what they unwittingly reveal
The 100 Best Sci-Fi Movies Ever - Esquire - 91. They Live (1988)

5 Year Old Hacks Xbox Live; Thankfully DOJ Apparently Uninterested In Prosecuting Cute Kid Under CFAA | Techdirt
Interview: John McAfee Answers Your Questions - Slashdot

040614
World Running Out Of Time To Stop Global Warming, UN Report Says (Republicans stick head in desert)
This Week in Dystopia: The Planet's Scorched and the 0.1% Are Living Large | Motherboard

5 Staggering Statistics For Why We Can Never Let A Tragedy Like Rwanda's Happen Ever Again - 1. Between 800,000 and 1 million Rwandans are believed to have been killed in just 100 days.
Netanyahu vows retaliation after Palestinian treaty move | Reuters - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised retaliatory measures on Sunday after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made unilateral moves towards statehood. (after giving Palestinians no other alternative)

Tony Blair 'knew all about CIA secret kidnap programme’ - Former British PM was 'fully briefed' on CIA's interrogation programme after Sept 11 attacks (time for the international war crimes tribunal)
Delays in Effort to Refocus C.I.A. From Drone War - NYTimes.com - "Some might want to getthe C.I.A. out of the killing business, but that's not happening anytime soon" (they got into it pretty fast)

Snowden, Greenwald urge caution of wider govt monitoring at Amnesty event | Reuters - The pair cautioned that government monitoring of "metadata" is more intrusive than directly listening to phone calls or reading emails and stressed the importance of a free press willing to scrutinize government activity.
Hayden equates Pollard to Snowden - politico.com (stupid, lying, or evil?)
Merkel ally says U.S. assurances on NSA spying 'insufficient' | Reuters

Hayden suggests Feinstein too ‘emotional’ about CIA interrogation techniques - On "Fox News Sunday," Hayden cited comments Feinstein made last month in which she said declassifying the report would "ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted." Hayden suggested Feinstein feels too strongly about the issue on an "emotional" level. (girls and their emotions shouldn't get in the way of illegal torture)
Angus King Thinks Dick Cheney Should Try Waterboarding 'If He Doesn't Think That Was Torture'

Anonymous Publishes 0-Day Exploit For D0xing Police Departments
DOJ Continues To Obstruct Efforts For Megaupload Users To Get Their Files Back | Techdirt - from the because-hollywood-once-told-us-someone-was-dr.-evil dept (and the because-they-can dept)

Military Drone Crashes Near School | NBC 10 Philadelphia (the new normal)



Rendell: Chris Christie 'not a factor' in 2016 presidential race | NJ.com (fat bully fuck is history)

Plowed Under (more environmental disaster)

Richard Dawkins is so wrong it hurts: What the science-vs.-religion debate ignores - Salon.com - Acolytes of Dawkins & Hitchens pretend that ignorant evangelicals represent all of religion. Here's what they miss
The worst atheist-bashing article of the year « Why Evolution Is True - For some reason, Salon is on a crusade to bash the hell out of atheists, living and dead.
Why Atheists Like Dawkins and Hitchens Are Dead Wrong | Alternet (xpost for comments)
? Neil DeGrasse Tyson - The Islamic Golden Age: Naming Rights - YouTube

d r i f t g l a s s: The Wingnut Circle Is Now Complete -- Update - Mr. Sullivan's periodic Holier Than Thou outbursts of hysterical histrionics about the horrors of the Lefty Liberal Left are getting to be a bit of a bore, but I guess he needs something to fizz up his Pot-'n-Popes-'n-Stuff blog's otherwise mostly trivial parade of aggregated-other-people's-stuff and pop-culture filler.
Further thoughts on Eich’s resignation - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Brendan Eich supported Prop 8, which was worse than you remember. - Early on, Prop 8’s supporters decided to focus their campaign primarily on children, stoking parents’ fears about gay people brainwashing their kids with pro-gay messages or, implicitly, turning their children gay ... We’re talking about concrete actions that harmed thousands of gay families and informed innumerable gay Americans that they were sinful, corrupted predators.

Google Wants E-Mail Scanning Information Blocked - Bloomberg - the world’s largest Internet-search provider, is seeking to black out portions of a transcript from a public court hearing that includes information on how it mines data from personal e-mails. (looking like the NSA - "too sensitive" to be revealed)

040514
Despite Troubling IPCC Report, Most Americans Still Aren't Worried About Global Warming (Republicans la-di-la)
Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change To Discuss Future Of Fossil Fuels
Climate Change Threats To 'The Least Of These' Compel Evangelical Christians To Act
Why Won’t Pro-Climate Republicans Speak Up? | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Americans are more climate-skeptical (if that’s the right term) because the U.S. has a two-party system with one party dedicated to climate skepticism. (yes, that would be the party of Satan)

Chinese ship detects 'ping' but time is running out for Malaysia flight MH370 | World news | The Observer - Pulse signal matches that of aircraft's black box recorder but batteries are about to expire

Israel negotiator: US should change its role in Middle East peace talks | World news | theguardian.com - Tzipi Livni called on US to allow for more direct talks between Israel and Palestine as current talks veered towards collapse
Afghanistan Presidential Election: High Turnout Amid Threats Of Violence
Japan Ready To Intercept North Korean Missiles
Japan cancels whaling hunt in Antarctic first time for 25 years - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video
Archbishop Of Canterbury Justin Welby Suggests African Christians Will Be Killed If Church Accepts Gay Marriage - As support for same-sex marriage grows in the West, Welby warned during an LBC Radio phone-in that if the Church of England were to accept gay marriages, it could lead to "catastrophic" consequences for Christians elsewhere, particularly in Africa. (whut?)

Britons guilty of U.S. terror charges denied access to secret files | Reuters - Two British men who pleaded guilty to raising money for al Qaeda and the Taliban were denied their bid on Friday to gain access to secret documents about a witness whose testimony could have a major impact on how long they spend in prison.
How the U.S. Deported One of Its Own Citizens - COLORLINES
Pentagon Inspector General Moving to Shut Down Key Whistleblower Advocate in Washington | The Dissenter
Mike Rogers Says Obama Has Gone ‘Kinder, Gentler’ Against al-Qaeda | TIME.com

Leak the CIA report: it's the only way to know the whole truth about torture | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Unless, of course, you think spies redacting 6,300 pages of their own sins is transparency. Look how much leaks told us this week (Obama will be remembered for covering up torture)
CIA 'misled public about interrogation techniques' - Yahoo News

The NSA Archive | American Civil Liberties Union - The Guardian released the first in a series of documents provided by Edward Snowden detailing the NSA's unlawful spying activities. All of the documents released since that day -- both by the media and the government -- are housed in this database. Together, they have triggered a remarkable and long-overdue public debate about the legality and propriety of the government's surveillance practices.

‘Cuban Twitter’ and Other Times USAID Pretended To Be an Intelligence Agency
Bolivian President Evo Morales expels USAID (May 2013, guess he was right)

Toledo Blade Sues Government Officials After Journalists Detained

The Health Care Reform War Without End - NationalJournal.com - The battle over Obamacare is running into overtime, with risks for both parties—and the country ... Alf Landon ran on repealing Social Security (so did Obama)

Greediest family on earth: Proof Koch brothers have just one political principle - Salon.com - The Koch brothers like to pretend they're high-minded free marketers. Here's proof it's a scam ("gaystapo")

Why Should “Flash Boys” Shock Us? | Blog | The Baffler

Pro-Pot, Pro-Gay, Anti-NSA… and Running for Senate - The Daily Beast - Meet Shenna Bellows, Maine’s former ACLU chief who’s looking to unseat Susan Collins with a mix of left and right issues that might appeal to millennials.
Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House: Politicians who cling to their old titles are pretentious, incorrect, and un-American. - Politicians like Newt Gingrich who cling to their old titles are pretentious, incorrect, and un-American.

Bridge Scandal Probe Heats Up: Grand Jury Convened - ABC News
Longtime Christie Aide Testifies In New Jersey Bridge Probe

Nine CEOs With the Worst Reputations - 24/7 Wall St.
Would Saul Alinsky Break His Own Rules? | Dissent Magazine - structure- and momentum-based organizing models have much fertile terrain to explore. T

Why Mozilla's Chief Had to Resign - NYTimes.com
Mormon Leader Outlines Opposition To Gay Marriage - The church sent a letter to local leaders that includes that message, Andersen said Saturday. "As the world slips away from the Lord's law of chastity, we do not," he said.
Mozilla CEO's Resignation Sparks Debate In Silicon Valley - Tech workers in Silicon Valley debated on Friday whether Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich got the comeuppance he deserved or was himself a victim of intolerance when he resigned under pressure this week amid outrage over his opposition to same-sex marriage.
Public-Private Poutrage » Balloon Juice - Modern conservatism in the US is predicated on a bizarre, ongoing inversion of reality. Item: an addled B-movie actor explodes the national debt and is lionized as a champion of small government. A cowardly, none-too-bright male cheerleader from a patrician clan is packaged and sold as a brush-clearin,’ neo-Churchillian, genius cowpoke.
How Rare Are Anti-Gay-Marriage Donations in Silicon Valley? | FiveThirtyEight (hardware guys are homophobic)
Bill Maher: "There Is A Gay Mafia -- If You Cross Them, You Do Get Whacked" | Video | RealClearPolitics
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community
Bill Maher: "There Is A Gay Mafia -- If You Cross Them, You Do Get Whacked" | Video | RealClearPolitics

040414
UN Human Rights Committee Finds US in Violation on 25 Counts - #1: Accountability for Bush-Era Crimes, Torture

The "Cuban Twitter" Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda Bucket - The Intercept

New York Times reporters collude in Israeli duplicity - To put that more bluntly, the Israelis reneged on an agreement to release a group of prisoners, pressed ahead with new plans to expand the Judaification of East Jerusalem, and in response the Palestinians said, enough is enough, we’re going to see if we can make some progress at the UN instead of remaining mired in fruitless negotiations with the Israelis.
Kerry hints Middle East peace talks are close to collapse as US reassesses role | World news | theguardian.com - US secretary of state issues pessimistic remarks in Morocco • Obama administration will reconsider participation in process (cut off their money)
Two Associated Press journalists shot in Afghanistan | World news | theguardian.com - Photographer Anja Niedringhaus is killed and another wounded after attack in Khost province on eve of presidential election ("God is great")
Afghan hope prevails on eve of presidential election | World news | The Guardian - Ordinary Afghans vow to defy fraud, violence and intimidation to turn out in large numbers to choose Hamid Karzai's successor
Under militia rule, Libya is beginning to disintegrate. Are the interventionists to blame?
Vietnam is sentencing corrupt bankers to death, by firing squad | GlobalPost (could this become a thing?)

The Rumsfeld Uncertainty Principle | Motherboard
Filmmaker Errol Morris: Donald Rumsfeld proved Americans are gullible morons | The Raw Story (remember, Kerry and Clinton were morons)
George W. Bush’s eerie, amazing, creepy paintings of Putin, cats and beyond — an analysis

WASHINGTON: McClatchy: Senate panel finds CIA illegally interrogated terror suspects after Sept. 11 - Nation - MiamiHerald.com - CIA officers subjected some terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks to interrogation methods that were not approved by either the Justice Department or their own headquarters, and illegally detained 26 of its 119 captives in CIA custody
Solitude’s Despair - Newsweek (America and Obama love torture)
State Department Official Freaks Out That Declassifying CIA Torture Report Might Make The World Angry | Techdirt (should-have-thought-of-that-before dept +your daily Rubio)

Two Britons who pleaded guilty to US terror charges seek access to secret files | World news | theguardian.com - Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan argue they have a right to more information on 'shoe bomb' witness with 'incentive to lie'
full-spectrum-cyber-effects-final.pdf
Digital Dao: Can You Spot The Fake SWIFT Transaction Document? - We've been working our way through almost 1GB of documents that were part of the Russian Industrial Investment Fund leak last month by Russian Cyber Command
Obama's NSA overhaul may require phone carriers to store more data | Reuters

Court: Improper for Judiciary to Decide Whether Killing US Citizens with Drones Violates Due Process Rights | The Dissenter - Whether it is permissible to kill a US citizen, who allegedly poses a threat or not, is a military decision and not one for the courts was part of the ultimate conclusion. (there goes one branch of the government)
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Over Drone Strikes - ABC News - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Obama administration officials over the 2011 drone-strike killings of three U.S. citizens in Yemen, one of them an al-Qaida cleric.
DOJ Apologizes For Misleading FISC Concerning Evidence; Hints Strongly That It Used Opportunity To Destroy Evidence | Techdirt - from the evidence,-who-needs-it? dept
"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Is About Obama's Terror-Suspect Kill List, Say the Film's Directors | Mother Jones

Germany opens hearings on U.S. spying - The Washington Post - The hearings also have the potential to provoke further anti­pathy. Indeed, a number of lawmakers here are demanding safe passage to Berlin for Snowden — who is living in self-imposed exile in Moscow — to testify before the eight-member committee. Any such move would likely outrage the United States, which is seeking to take Snowden into custody. (so?)

Cell phone tracking in Waltham and Boston: who knew what, when? | Privacy SOS (even more convoluted and is Coakley involved?)

NYPD Arrests a Dozen Veterans for Trespassing at a Memorial Dedicated to Veterans » RYOT News
NYPD officer embroiled in assault trial sued by another Occupy campaigner | World news | theguardian.com - Officer Grantley Bovell alleges Cecily McMillan assaulted him on same day Austin Guest alleges Bovell injured him (7 yrs in prison for having your breast grabbed by a psycho-cop)

Fort Hood: Guns Galore reportedly sold guns to both shooters | World news | theguardian.com - Lt Gen Mark Milley, the senior officer at Fort Hood, said Lopez bought the gun on March 1, about a month before Wednesday's attack. Hasan also bought his FN 5.7 tactical pistol not long before his rampage in November 2009.
Let's make the Fort Hood shooting end the myth of military PTSD and violence | Alex Horton | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Post-traumatic stress is many things to many people, but it is not a motivation for murder. And now it's time for the stigma to stop

So my advice to reform supporters is, go ahead and celebrate. Oh, and feel free to ridicule right-wingers who confidently predicted doom. (and we never learn from experience)

Want to cut the rich’s influence? Take away their money! - Salon.com - To really bypass the Supreme Court and fix campaign finance forever, it's time to get creative

Haslam Administration Linked $300M Offer To VW-UAW Process - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports - Were hundreds of millions of your tax dollars offered to Volkswagen -- and then pulled back -- to try to keep the United Auto Workers out of Chattanooga?

Hey, liberal hawks: Stop hating the anti-war left - The Week - Kleiman's post, finally, is preposterously unreasonable (shit gets deeper)

Sex Abuse Cost The U.S. Catholic Church Nearly $3 Billion According To Report By Bishops Conference
The Return Of The Back-Alley Abortion - since 2010, at least 54 abortion providers across 27 states had either closed or stopped performing the procedure. Sixteen more shut their doors after Texas lawmakers passed some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country last summer. A federal appeals court upheld two of the new restrictions in a ruling last week. (Christians winning war on women)
I’m feeling really filthy now » Pharyngula - Apparently, most of the state of Mississippi is damned to hell, so why is anyone paying attention to those sinners? (Peppermint Pattie abstinence ed because they can't deal with reality)

Dear Harvard: You're Not Winning (This Article Is About Rape, Not Basketball) | Winnie M Li
Dear Harvard: You Win | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson - This is a first-person, present-tense account of the aftermath of a sexual assault that took place in 2013. For reasons of both style and substance, we have left it in present tense.
6 suspended amid Missouri school rape allegations - Months after vowing to boost security at a Kansas City school where a student says she was dragged to a room and raped, district officials have suspended six employees amid new allegations from a 14-year-old girl who alleges a boy repeatedly raped her at school.

Sit-in over ex-student’s suicide called ‘disruption’ - Post-Tribune - A woman in the video is seen yelling at Tobias that the student was her son and that all they were asking for was a moment of silence over the intercom for him. Tobias is heard telling the woman, “Ma’am, you’re not in charge here, I am.” (Robin Tobias, famous on the internets for all eternity for being a moral moron +"moment of silence" is "glorifying" teen suicide)
Doreen Landstra, Elderly Woman Who Killed 3 In Car, Gets Suspended License - “She should have had her license removed immediately and she should have stopped driving years ago," he said. "That’s the reason for the tragedy.” (Florida stand your ground in your car law)

Big Data has big problems - Boing Boing - . Harford's point is that Big Data's premise is that sampling bias can be overcome by simply sampling everything, but the actual data-sets that make up Big Data are anything but comprehensive, and are even more prone to the statistical errors that haunt regular analytic science.
Star Birth Sparked at the Galaxy's Edge - Scientific American - For the first time astronomers have detected stars in an enormous stream of gas shed by the Magellanic Clouds, the two brightest galaxies that orbit our own.

Brendan Eich's coming-out party ended the Mozilla way: free, open – and shut | James Ball | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The Prop 8-loving former CEO was not the victim of 'hounding' from the gay rights community. If anything, his downfall is a victory for freedom of expression (technoliberatariandudebrogayhater +Graun comments depressing)
Dear Andrew Sullivan: 'Left-Liberal Intolerance' Did Not Bring Down Mozilla's CEO | Michelangelo Signorile (HuffPo commentors much smarter than Guardian's)
The Day After: Thoughtful, angry, and hopeful posts about Mozilla | intangible.ca
Gays Kill Mozilla CEO (comment: "Frankly, the best thing to come out of this was the reminder that Andrew Sullivan is fucking terrible." +Dave Winer is still around? + We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.” – Karl Popper)
Outfoxed: how protests forced Mozilla's CEO to resign in 11 days | The Verge

Google Wireless Service Analysis: US carrier have something to fear | BGR - Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile should all be on high alert, then, because Google is once again rumored to be toying with the idea of launching its own wireless service. (yeah, disrupt the fuckers)
I Can't Stop Reading This Elderly Couple's Tech Review Column | Motherboard
Normcore: Fashion Movement or Massive In-Joke? - NYTimes.com - Normcore: Fashion Movement or Massive In-Joke?

040314

North Korea: Kim Jong-un Orders Mass Purge of Uncle's Allies - A former North Korea intelligence officer, who has defected to the West, has revealed the extent of the turmoil pervading the communist regime with former leader Kim Jong-il targeted by a series of coups and failed assassination attempts.
Musharraf Assassination Attempt: Bomb Explodes Near Former Pakistan Leader's Convoy
Number of Syria refugees in Lebanon passes 1 million mark - Yahoo News
U.S. sending 175 Marines to Romania as part of Africa crisis team - World | The Star Online
U.S. Secretly Created 'Cuban Twitter' To Undermine Communist Government - the plan was to develop a bare-bones "Cuban Twitter," using cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba's strict control of information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet.
The Outlaws May Return to the Southern Ocean Despite the ICJ Verdict - Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - Masayuki Komatsu, who refers to the Minke whales as the "cockroaches of the sea," is now stating that Japan will find a way to get around the verdict of the International Court of Justice.
Ukrainian officials hint at Russian involvement in deaths of protesters | World news | theguardian.com - 12 police officers are arrested in Ukraine as Russia claims 25 Ukrainians have been detained for planning terror attacks
Ukraine's ousted president Yanukovych says loss of Crimea is 'major tragedy' | World news | theguardian.com - Former leader says he hopes to negotiate with Vladimir Putin for return of region annexed by Russia (not the brightest bulb)
Miley Cyrus caught up in Russia sanctions row | Culture | theguardian.com - Helsinki venue in which Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake are due to perform is owned by three Russians who have been blacklisted by the US government

Ex-State Department adviser Stephen J. Kim sentenced to 13 months in leak case - The Washington Post - after a pointed courtroom debate about the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of unauthorized disclosures of top-secret information ... Kim pleaded guilty in February to sharing classified information from an intelligence report on North Korea with reporter James Rosen (Obama hates journalism)

Four dead, 16 hurt at Ft. Hood; shooter was troubled Iraq war vet - latimes.com
Shooter among 4 dead in Fort Hood spree, 16 people injured — RT USA
Twitter / MikePrysner: If 22 veterans suicides a day ... (1 a day in active-duty military) isn't enough to embarrass US politicians/officers, maybe 2nd Fort Hood will

Errol Morris, on Donald Rumsfeld and His New Documentary, The Unknown Known - Esquire - It’s a remarkable interview. I’ve made many movies about self-deception over the years—about individuals who have somehow never reckoned with what they’ve done or who they are. But this might be the example of the most severe case I’ve ever encountered. (his soul is bullshit)
Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience by Gitta Sereny — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists - Based on 70 hours of interviews with Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka (the largest of the extermination camps), this book bares the soul of a man who continually found ways to rationalize his role in Hitler's final solution.
The Mysterious Core | Desperado Philosophy

Senate committee votes to declassify parts of CIA torture report | World news | theguardian.com - Landmark vote authorises release of portions of report that accuses CIA of conducting abusive interrogations after 9/11 ("parts")
CIA torture report to remain largely secret despite declassification vote | World news | theguardian.com - Senate committee will vote to declassify 6,300-page report • White House would review process with spy agency's input (Obama/CIA redactions of secret torture techniques you're not allowed to know about +aiding the enemy +$13 Million for the 9/11 Commission...$40 Million to Investigate CIA Torture... $4 TRILLION and counting on "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Banning warrantless data, Utah Governor signs privacy bill into law | OffNow: Stop the NSAOffNow: Stop the NSA - makes any electronic data obtained by law enforcement without a warrant inadmissible in a criminal proceeding. This includes data gathered by the NSA and shared through the super secret Special Operations Division (SOD) or fusion centers. The new law also stops Utah law enforcement from obtaining phone location data without a warrant.
Homeland Security Study Praises Occupy Sandy, With Murky Intentions
DOJ Flips Out That Evidence Gathered Via FISA Orders Might Be Made Available To Defendants | Techdirt - from the of-course-they-do dept (our parallel, aConstitutional state)
Dragnetting the entire population | Privacy SOS - Al Jazeera America did a two-part special on license plate readers, location tracking, and government employee abuse of databases. It's well worth watching. (your police state really matured under Obama's leadership)

Barrett Brown Signs Plea Deal in Case Involving Stratfor Hack | Threat Level | WIRED - Brown didn’t steal the data but simply copied a hyperlink from one public chatroom and reposted it to another. (committed the crime of "internet")

MF Global Customers to Be Paid Back in Full - NYTimes.com

Obama’s Immigration Policy Error - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Obama however has tremendous discretion over how to enforce immigration laws and his aggressive implementation of those laws leading to record deportation has severely depressed Latino belief in the American political system at a time when Democrats not only should be wrapping up Latino voters for the next generation but need them in the midterm elections.

David Brock On MSNBC's Up: "Conservative Forces" Have Been "Successful In Manipulating The Mainstream Media" To Smear The Clintons | Video | Media Matters for America
The Sexism Of This WSJ Editor Keeps Getting Worse | Blog | Media Matters for America - James Taranto Clueless About Access To Reproductive Health (just look at him)
Charles Koch Is Sick Of 'Collectivists' Calling Him 'Un-American' (boo-hoo)
The Media's Enormous Gender Problem, In One Chart (mansplaining to ladybrainz)

Chris Christie Bridge Scandal Investigation Clears Big Hoboken Hurdle - Officials in Hoboken, New Jersey, on Wednesday approved a measure that would allow a city attorney to cooperate with investigators probing claims of political intimidation by aides to Republican Governor Chris Christie, a likely White House contender.

#HD182: Court strikes Josephs from the May 2014 ballot - Keystone Politics - This particular petition challenge case has gained notoriety with readers due to the alleged forgery of political blogger Duncan Black’s signature by Josephs campaign representatives.

Republican voter suppression rationales: Why “voter integrity” is nonsense. - The GOP’s claims of defending “voter integrity,” “fairness,” and “uniformity” are complete nonsense.

Rogue court stenographer causes chaos for New York legal system | World news | theguardian.com (two words: tape recorder)

Supreme Court to decide Texas execution drug case - The U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to halt Thursday's execution of a Texas serial killer whose attorneys are challenging the state's refusal to release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.
Albuquerque mayor asks DOJ to help with police - Days after violent protests led officers to launch tear gas at hundreds of unruly demonstrators, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry on Wednesday requested the Justice Department to step in and help the city overhaul its troubled police force. (cops took over city)

? Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control - YouTube

Ocean discovered on Enceladus may be best place to look for alien life | Science | The Guardian - Evidence from Cassini spacecraft suggests a large body of liquid water beneath the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus
Diet drinks linked with heart disease, death
Ketamine, LSD, Magic Mushrooms and Ecstasy: The Illegal Drugs Which Can be Good for You

Banks are warned about ATM hacks - latimes.com - Hackers can change controls on automated teller machines to allow thieves to make huge withdrawals, regulators say.
Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigns in wake of backlash to Prop 8 support | Technology | theguardian.com - Chief executive steps down after less than two weeks • Eich had donated to California anti-gay marriage law (libertarian technodudebro folds +what were they thinking? +gave money to Pat Buchanan)

040214
Tweet of the Year by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - To attract coverage, perhaps the IPCC should scatter its climate report on the Indian Ocean http://t.co/40PmnkQDJ7 — Sam Wang (@SamWangPhD) April 2, 2014
Tsunami warning and evacuation of thousands after earthquake in Chile | World news | theguardian.com - Deaths reported and people on coast spending night in the hills after magnitude 8.2 undersea quake triggers emergency
You Can Barely See Through the Smog in the UK and France Right Now (avoid breathing)

End of Mideast Peace Talks? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
John Kerry's Peace Negotiations Are Almost Dead. A Preemptive Obituary | New Republic - As Kerry was also pressing Netanyahu to suspend housing starts in exchange for Pollard’s release, his government issued today 700 tenders for housing starts in the occupied territories. (Israel is your boss +they will still probably get Pollard back)

Venezuela: A Call for Peace - NYTimes.com - By NICOLÁS MADUROAPRIL 1, 2014
25 Tales Of Corruption From Documents Found At The Abandoned Palace Of Ukraine's Ousted President - Documents show Viktor Yanukovych spent millions of dollars on furniture, hundreds of thousands of dollars on fresh flowers, and had a bodyguard who kept tabs on the opposition.
China’s plan for global network of surveillance satellites spurred by fruitless search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 | News.com.au
Researchers Cracked How to Make 'Invisibility Cloaks' the Size of a Fighter Jet | Motherboard
China Is Bankrolling No Fewer Than 40 Different Invisibility Cloaks | Motherboard
NASA Halts Work With Russia's Space Agency — Except on the ISS
Sisi mocked in Egypt internet campaign - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Presidential hopeful subject of sarcastic 'vote for the pimp' movement on social media, leading to calls for a ban.
Australian government may ban environmental boycotts | Environment | theguardian.com - Parliamentary secretary says there is 'an appetite' for removing environmental groups' exemption from secondary boycotts ban

Why Google Maps gets Africa wrong | World news | theguardian.com - From colonial cartographers to digital depictions the continent is being sold short
Map of Africa’s major infrastructure | ONE
Human impact on Poland's environment seen from the air – in pictures | Environment | theguardian.com - Side Effects is a new book from Kacper Kowalski, an award-winning aerial photographer and pilot, documenting the effects of human activity on the landscape in his native Poland

Twitter / ewenmacaskill: Guardian wins Newspaper of ... the Year at British press awards tonight. Editor Alan Rusbridger pays tribute to source Edward Snowden.
Twitter / rj_gallagher: Why does WaPo still insist ... on calling these tactics "brutal interrogation", not "torture"? http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-misled-on-interrogation-program-senate-report-says/2014/03/31/eb75a82a-b8dd-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html … pic.twitter.com/do5dFniUR4
Twitter / ggreenwald: I'm very skeptical of claims ... by Congress that they were misled on CIA torture program: many of them knew & approved, now looking for excuses

LISTEN: In Private Speech, Dick Cheney Talks Bombing Iran and GOP Donors Applaud | Mother Jones - The former vice president also calls criticism of the NSA "hogwash" and rips the "increasing strain of isolationism" in the GOP.

CIA torture report to remain largely secret despite declassification vote | World news | theguardian.com - Senate committee will vote to declassify 6,300-page report • White House would review process with spy agency's input
U.S. confirms warrantless searches of Americans - The Obama administration has conducted warrantless searches of Americans' communications as part of the National Security Agency's surveillance operations that target foreigners located outside of the U.S., the administration's top intelligence official confirmed in a letter to Congress disclosed Tuesday. (Obama wouldn't know the truth if he fell in it)
David Ignatius: A tortured debate between Congress and the CIA - The Washington Post - These details — recounting filthy conditions and vicious interrogation techniques — will shock the conscience in the same way that the Abu Ghraib and waterboarding revelations did.
CIA’s Own Records of CIA’s Lies to Congress | emptywheel - Monday, WaPo made big news for reporting what Ron Wyden made clear 14 months ago: a key conclusion of the Senate Torture report is that CIA lied to Congress (and DOJ and the White House).
James Clapper Continues to Cover Up FBI’s Back Door Searches on US Targets | emptywheel - That may be because Ron Wyden always focuses on the NSA, and as a result James Clapper mentioned the NSA in his letter to Wyden.

Ex-Intel Analyst Gets Prison for Documents Leak - ABC News - A federal judge has sentenced a former State Department intelligence analyst on North Korea to 13 months in prison for passing classified information to a journalist.
Many say NSA news changed their behavior | TheHill - Nearly half the nation's adults changed their behavior online because of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) snooping programs, according to a new poll.
Help Support the Little-Known Privacy Tool That Has Been Critical to Journalists Reporting on the NSA | Freedom of the Press Foundation - Tails, a ground-breaking operating system that forces privacy best-practices by default.

Free Barrett Brown? New indictment hints at a plea deal | The Daily Dot
Inside the ‘PayPal 14’ Trial - The Daily Beast - A long and secretive legal battle against a group of activists accused of attacking the e-commerce site in the name of WikiLeaks has finally neared its end.
The 7 Strangest Records People Requested From The NSA
Yahoo Bolsters Encryption Between Data Centers, Promises New, Encrypted Messenger In “Months” | TechCrunch

Ohio Newspaper May Sue Army Over Civil Rights Violations - The Blade, a newspaper based in Toledo, Ohio, may file a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Army after two journalists were detained Friday for photographing the exterior of a tank plant that’s visible from the street.

McCutcheon Decision Campaign Finance - The American Government Is Open For Corruption - Esquire - The remarkable story of how we have come to privatize political corruption in this country reached another milestone today as the Supreme Court, John Roberts presiding, handed down its decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, effectively demolishing the aggregate, two-year limit on contributions by individuals, and taking a big chunk out of Buckley v. Valeo, the misbegotten 1976 decision that got the ball rolling in the first place. (Democracy, RIP)
Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Political Donation Cap - NYTimes.com - — The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its abolition of limits on election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount any individual can contribute to candidates in a two-year election cycle.
Supreme court strikes down cap on overall campaign contributions | World news | theguardian.com - Justices rule in favor of Alabama tycoon Shaun McCutcheon, but critics claim ruling allows wealthy individuals to buy influence
w Supreme Court’s abomination: How McCutcheon decision will destroy American politics - Salon.com - Thanks to Scalia and co., the rich will now be able to buy politicians as effortlessly as they buy anything else
McCutcheon v. FEC: Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Limits On Campaign Contributions
McCutcheon v. FEC campaign finance decision: Justice Roberts doesn’t believe in money’s power to corrupt, so there’s that. - The chief either doesn’t believe, or doesn’t care, that money corrupts politics.
The subtle awfulness of the McCutcheon v. FEC campaign finance decision: The John Roberts two-step. - The Supreme Court takes a big step closer to gutting the last bits of campaign finance reform. (thank you Monica Lewinsky, Ralph Nadar and SD O'Connor)
The Supreme Court’s Ideology: More Money, Less Voting | The Nation
Opinion analysis: Freeing more political money : SCOTUSblog
Circa 2016: The next domino to fall will be the ban on state political parties spending funds raised under state laws to support or oppose a federal candidate.

A working class disarmed | LBO News from Doug Henwood (Labor is emasculated)
UPS Fires 250 Drivers After They Protested A Coworker's Firing | ThinkProgress
Structural Inequality and Infant Mortality - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Resist changing? For Republicans, rising inequality is the stated goal, with an underlying racial tone that gets poor whites to buy in against their own economic interests.
Inequality Kills | Boston Review - For nearly two hundred years America was one of the healthiest and longest-lived countries, but today, over thirty countries have better health by many measures. What happened? (Republicans)

Unskew the ACA! - Lawyers, Guns & Money : It’s obviously not surprising that Republicans are making up various reasons to ignore the relatively positive news on health insurance enrollments.

GM Didn't Fix Deadly Ignition Switch Because It Would Have Cost $1 Per Car - Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette cited a 2005 GM document that she said showed a cost of 57 cents per fix. (the price of a human life to bigcorps)


Texas Governor Refuses To Comply With Rules To Curb Prison Rapes | ThinkProgress (Repubicans love rape)
Falkenberg: We expect more from our heroes than being sued by them - Houston Chronicle - In less than 10 minutes, the delusional man is shot several times. He is pronounced dead an hour later at a Katy hospital.
Albuquerque - Law Enforcement Shot Another Unarmed Man and Confiscated Videos *Graphic Warning*
Police: 'Voices' told mother to sit on sons in tub - Laurel Michelle Schlemmer, 40, told detectives she "thought she could be a better mother" to a third son, the oldest, "if the other two boys weren't around, and they would be better off in heaven," a police complaint said.

Getting Your Kids Off the iPad Is Worth the Fight | Parenting - Yahoo Shine - But even tiny controls can make an impact, considering that children spend an average of 40-plus hours a week in front of a screen — not even counting time spent on their school computers

Lawmaker Predicts Marijuana Will Be Legal Within 5 Years
'Love drug' makes group members lie more - Members of a group are more likely to lie after they inhale the "love hormone" oxytocin, a study has found. The results suggest that individuals in closely bonded groups are more likely to lie when it benefits the group than when it only benefits the individual.

SodaStream Losing Streak Deepens as Sales Slow: Israel Overnight - Businessweek
Penn investigates wild women's lacrosse party at Fado - The Daily Pennsylvanian also reported that student groups affiliated with Penn’s Wharton School are already banned from making reservations at Fado due to past unruly conduct, including allegations of cocaine use in the bathrooms and urinating on the bar.

Anonymous-Deadmau5 April Fools' Joke Branded 'Lame and Irresponsible' - An elaborate April Fools' Joke perpetrated by hacktivist collective Anonymous and music producer Deadmau5, has been branded lame and irresponsible by one security expert.
Mouse and keyboard-friendly Windows 8.1 Update arrives April 8 | Ars Technica
“Internet of Things” is the new Windows XP—malware’s favorite target | Ars Technica - Bitcoin miners and DDoS apps are targeting a new crop of low-hanging fruit.
Spyware increasingly a part of domestic violence - Boing Boing
Microsoft scam man is sentenced in 'landmark' case - A man who ran a Microsoft computer scam tricking people into paying for free anti-virus software has received a suspended four-month jail sentence.

040114
Is The Latest Climate Report Too Much Of A Downer? : NPR

Syria death toll over 150,000, says human rights body | World news | theguardian.com - Third of casualties in three-year-old civil war are civilians, claims Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as peace talks stall
Farmer to serve prison time for naming donkey after Sisi | Egypt Independent - The police, when notified of this act from anti-Morsy villagers, arrested Abul Maged along with his donkey and after six months in custody, the court issued its verdict on Sunday.
The military intervention that the world forgot | Al Jazeera America - the intervention by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Bahrain in mid-March 2011. Three years later, foreign troops are still there, serving at the pleasure of King Hamad.

nsa-spy-cos-2.PDF - nsa-nymrod-spy-cos.pdf - Filling in some of the missing from Greenwald's [Der Spiegel’s] "release" of the Target Knowledge Base list of 122 world leaders spied on by NSA in 2009:

NSA performed warrantless searches on Americans' calls and emails – Clapper | World news | The Guardian - NSA used 'back door' to search Americans' communications Director of national intelligence confirms use of new legal rule (the "we can do anything we want" rule)
President Obama Defends NSA Surveillance on Leno: ‘We Don’t Have a Domestic Spying Program’ | Video | TheBlaze.com - Aug. 6, 2013 (this statement is no longer operative)

What We Know About Who the CIA Tortured, How, and What Good It Did - The Wire
John McCain: Classified Senate Report on Torture 'Chilling' - Defense - GovExec.com - "There's a couple stories [in the report] that are so chilling that I can't repeat them right now."
CIA’s Self-Authorization for Ice-Drowning Human Beings | emptywheel
The CIA and the Moral Sunk Costs of the Torture Program - Once they sold their souls, they had to justify the sale, even if it meant misleading everyone about what torture was achieving.
Senate CIA Torture Report - The Damning New Torture Report Shows The CIA Doing What It's Always Done - Esquire
CIA misled public on interrogation program, newspaper reports | Reuters
Anonymous US Officials Talk to WaPo about the CIA Torture Report | MyFDL - The officials spoke about a previously unknown torture techniques never having been approved by the Justice Department (OMG), used in Afghanistan: dunking a terror suspect in a vat of ice water. Also:
Senate CIA torture report could throw Gitmo hearings into chaos | Al Jazeera America

Groups tell Congress to go big on NSA overhaul | TheHill - Dozens of privacy, technology and political organizations are calling on Congress to radically overhaul surveillance programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government offices.
Court Orders Government Not to Destroy Evidence in EFF Cases Against the NSA | Electronic Frontier Foundation
The FBI's Failed Two-Year Campaign Against a Group of Nonviolent Activists in the Midwest | VICE United Kingdom
FBI Ordered to Conduct New Search for Records on Internet Activist Aaron Swartz by Jason Leopold — Beacon
Twitter / JasonLeopold: For some reason, in 2012 I ... - I filed a #FOIA w/ODNI for all docs containing surname "Leopold." Just got 330 pgs all abt me. Some w/h under b1.
Barrett Brown: Author and Hacktivist Goes to Trial | All Things Crime Blog
Anonymous Unmasked | High Times - Ask Dmitriy Guzner. In the early-morning hours of July 2, 2008, six men in bulletproof vests with light-mounted M-16s pounded on the door of his parents' two-bedroom second-floor apartment in Brooklyn (because scientology, yeah)

Newspaper Threatens Legal Action Over Mistreatment Of Reporters - The Toledo Blade is threatening to take legal action after its reporter and photographer had their equipment confiscated by military police on Friday.
Resolution Adopted To Protect Journalists Covering Protests

Obamacare On Track To Hit 7 Million Sign-Ups On Deadline Day: Sources
Obamacare Deadline Safety Valve Comes In Handy As Website Buckles
The Obamacare Train Did Not Wreck -- Daily Intelligencer - Republicans express their beliefs about government as abstract ideology (big government is bad) while Democrats express their beliefs in the form of benefits for groups. The differences are enormous: (wish-fulfillment didn't work)
Obamacare Deadline: It's OK to Like the Affordable Care Act Again | New Republic

Permahawkery - NYTimes.com - Martin Feldstein warns us that the Fed isn’t taking the risk of rapidly rising inflation seriously enough. Certainly nobody can accuse him of that failing: he’s been warning about looming inflation for four years, eleven months,and two weeks, and hasn’t let the fact that inflation has kept falling below target alter his concerns in the slightest. (ideologues never adapt to reality)

How You, I, and Everyone Got the Top 1 Percent All Wrong - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic - the top 0.01 percent—that's the one percent of the 1 percent—was leaving the rest of the top percentile behind.

Debt Collector Malpractice: Someone Else's Debt Could Ruin Your Credit | New Republic - Debt collectors are pursuing one in seven Americans—and often screwing up

Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy: The Company's Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers | Mother Jones

Mississippi Approves Religious Freedom Bill, Governor Expected To Sign It Into Law - After simultaneous debate in both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature Tuesday, state lawmakers approved a religious freedom bill that some have argued could lead to discrimination against LGBT people and others. (religious freedom to discriminate against people you don't like)


Accidental voice mail catches RCMP mocking assault complainant - Nova Scotia - CBC News - 'So did she deserve to get hit?' one officer asks, laughing

Methane-spewing microbe blamed in Earth's worst mass extinction | Reuters - The implicated microbe, Methanosarcina, is a member of a kingdom of single-celled organisms distinct from bacteria called archaea that lack a nucleus and other usual cell structures.

Mozilla boss toughs out backlash over opposition to gay marriage | Technology | theguardian.com - Brendan Eich declines to discuss donation to campaign against gay marriage in California and insists he will not resign
Censorship flood: takedown notices to Google increased by 711,887% in four years - Boing Boing
Deadmau5 Twitter and Facebook Accounts Hacked by Anonymous

033114
Guinea faces Ebola epidemic on unprecedented scale, doctors warn | World news | theguardian.com - Médecins sans Frontières says lethal virus has broken out in areas hundreds of miles apart, while death toll passes 80

CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says - The Washington Post (it's all about torture and Obama not dealing with it)
Twitter / emptywheel: A GREAT DEAL of our country's ... - counterterrorism policy builds off torture, among other things. Including NSA spying
Twitter / ThomasonTweet: @emptywheel In parallel, the ... - up-tick in police brutality seemingly correlates to the techniques of civilian engagement deployed in Iraq.
Twitter / ggreenwald: Keith Alexander's deputy ... - announces through world's most subservient reporter very classified info about NSA in Iraq
Sources and Secrets » The Snowden Revelations » CUNY TV » City University Television
Dianne Feinstein set to move on CIA report - Burgess Everett - POLITICO.com

The Arctic: Where the U.S. and Russia Could Square Off Next - Uri Friedman - The Atlantic - A closer look at Moscow's claims in the northern seas
James Lovelock: environmentalism has become a religion | Environment | theguardian.com - he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms (human race has at least a couple of hundred years left)
UN Panel: 8 Reasons to Worry About Global Warming - ABC News
How Scientists Are Moving Climate Change Conversation Forward | EcoWatch
UN Climate Change Report - The Latest Climate Change Report For People To Ignore - Esquire - Yes, climate change is getting worse. Yes, it is causing not only environmental damage, but also political turmoil.
Facing Rising Seas, Bangladesh Confronts the Consequences of Climate Change - NYTimes.com - Facing Rising Seas, Bangladesh Confronts the Consequences of Climate Change

U.S. is considering release of Israeli spy as Kerry detours to Mideast in bid to save talks - The Washington Post - The Obama administration is considering the early release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard as part of an effort to keep U.S.-backed peace talks from collapsing, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
Philippines stands by rejection of Beijing's claims to South China Sea | World news | theguardian.com - China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims across the busy South China Sea.
International Court Rules Japan’s ‘Research’ Whaling Illegal in Landmark Case | EcoWatch - ruling that Japan’s JARPA II whaling program in the Antarctic is not for scientific purposes and ordering that all permits given under JARPA II be revoked. ("research' how to cheat treaties)
Ukraine's Darth Vader bids to lead nation to the dark side | World news | theguardian.com - Sith lord runs for president as candidate of Ukrainian Internet party, vowing to 'make an empire out of a republic'
Israeli ex-PM Olmert convicted of corruption - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Tel Aviv district court finds former prime minister Ehud Olmert guilty of corruption linked to property development.
China ramps up army of "opinion monitors" - Index on Censorship | Index on Censorship - The Chinese government has revealed it is expanding their censorship of the internet with a new training programme for the estimated two million “opinion monitors” Beijing organised last year.
Who's Behind Newsweek? | Mother Jones - a group she called "the Community," a Christian sect led by a charismatic Korean pastor named David Jang. (who pays slave wages)
CyberGuerrilla soApboX » China Embassy in Moscow hacked. Russian deployed equipment to spy on Intertelecom Ukraine.
Armenian bill would ban online anonymity | The Daily Dot - Armenia is growing wary of the Internet's whole "saying things online without using your real name thing." So it's considering banning the practice outright.
Prison books row: justice secretary could face legal action, says lawyer | Books | The Guardian - Leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC intervenes against Chris Grayling as Nick Clegg backs book-sending ban (the ban isn't on "sending" it's on "receiving")

NSA employee implicated in Snowden probe resigned, memo says - The Washington Post - A National Security Agency employee has resigned from his job after admitting to FBI investigators that he allowed Edward Snowden, then an NSA contractor, to use his personal computer credentials to gain access to classified information, according to an agency memo.
Exclusive: NSA infiltrated RSA security more deeply than thought - study | Reuters - Security industry pioneer RSA adopted not just one but two encryption tools developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, greatly increasing the spy agency's ability to eavesdrop on some Internet communications, according to a team of academic researchers.
Don’t Listen to Google and Facebook: The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership Is Still Going Strong - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic - And real corporate security is still impossible.
New Docs: For MN cellphone location data, police & attorneys submit administrative subpoenas; law enforcement spins vs warrant bill | HongPong.com - administrative subpoenas, which don't involve judges at all. In Minnesota, law enforcement agencies demand cell phone location data, including cell tower records and GPS data, from cell phone providers via administrative subpoenas, and virtually no one has any idea how large the scope of this shadowy scene really gets.
Want to Keep Data Private? Encrypt It Before It Even Reaches a Server | Motherboard
Mylar
DNSCrypt home page

The Trillions of Dollars U.S. Companies Are Hoarding Overseas - Matthew O'Brien - The Atlantic - And a tax repatriation holiday is no way to get them to bring it all back home.
Why did GM take so long to respond to deadly defect? Corporate culture may hold answer. - The Washington Post (whut?)

Poll: Obamacare Support Breaks Even For First Time - For the first time, the Washington Post-ABC News poll has found more Americans support Obamacare than oppose it.
Obamacare Signup Surge: Republicans Say Obama "Cooking the Books" | New Republic - That Good News on Obamacare? Republicans Insist It's Not Real (Republicans hate statistics)
Charges for handing out info on Obamacare likely to be dropped: cops - Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago Police detained and later charged two men last week after receiving a report that they were going door-to-door, possibly scamming elderly residents of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood.

Chris Christie Bridget Kelly - Why Chris Christie Had To Smear Bridget Kelly - Esquire - To make his story work -- to preserve the illusion of complete innocence for the governor, and to let her know that if she does cooperate and Christie faces impeachment or worse, they will do their utmost to destroy her -- the Christie Report had to smear Kelly as a loose, lying gash. ("gash???")
Urban Dictionary: gash
The Courtship Of Sheldon Adelson Continues - Esquire - Once again, let us thank Justice Anthony Kennedy for helping to inaugurate this glorious new era in how we allow skeevy old casino gazillionnaires to buy our elections, and in which we have the spectacle of prospective presidents going out to Vegas like high-rollers gorging themselves at the all-u-can-eat buffets. It is the essential dignity of American democracy that makes us a light unto the world.

Senate report claims Caterpillar avoided $2.4bn in US taxes | Business | The Guardian - Carl Levin's subcommittee on investigations says the equipment-maker routed money through a Swiss subsidiary (while screwing their employees)

AP News : Albuquerque police face hundreds of protesters
@MKLNews/Event: ABQ Protests on Twitter
The Return of the Albuquerque Death Squads » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - November 23, 2011

Public Intellectual Deathmatch: Ta-Nehisi Coates & Jonathan Chait
Other People's Pathologies - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

Until We Can Level Down, Level Up - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Du Pont heir faces child sex lawsuit
One Percenter Convicted Of Raping Infant Child Dodges Jail Because He 'Will Not Fare Well' - In her decision, Judge Jan Jurden suggested Robert H. Richards IV would benefit more from treatment. Richards, who was charged with fourth-degree rape in 2009, is an unemployed heir living off his trust fund. The light sentence has only became public as the result of a subsequent lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, which charges that he penetrated his daughter with his fingers while masturbating, and subsequently assaulted his son as well.
Superior Court of Delaware Official Web Site - The Honorable Jan R. Jurden, a Delaware native, was appointed to the Superior Court of Delaware in May 2001. (Justice for rich people)

Cuomo's budget deal puts charter chains over New York City's special needs kids - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has struck a budget deal with Republican legislators that includes unprecedented new giveaways to charter schools, particularly in New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio had threatened to modestly rein them in. Diane Ravitch sums it up:

Waiting on a fix | Al Jazeera America - 'Life without parole is a walking death' (racsism in "justice" system)
Pot should be legal, NJ prosecutors say | NJ.com - Gov. Chris Christie has said he opposes legalization.
The Parable of the Mashed Potato Police - Jason Edward Harrington - POLITICO Magazine - Another one: It’s 2010, and a passenger is trying to bring her live goldfish through security. One of my co-workers informs her that the fish can go through but the water cannot.

'Enough is enough': the fight against everyday sexism | Life and style | The Guardian - When Laura Bates set up her blog Everyday Sexism, she was told to relax: the battle for equality was pretty much won, wasn't it? Here, she looks at the extraordinary pressures on girls today
Number of babies born to women over 50 doubles in four years in UK | Life and style | theguardian.com - Experts warn of health risks and pressure on NHS as number of mothers in 40s and 50s continues to rise

Study: Humans Can Make More than 20 Distinct Facial Expressions - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic - You will raise your eyebrows and curl up the corners of your mouth when you realize what this new study has discovered about emotion processing.
What Can You Do With a Humanities Ph.D., Anyway? - Elizabeth Segran - The Atlantic - The choice to leave academia does not have to mean life as a barista.
The Jobs With the Highest Obesity Rates - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic
Texas girl improves rapidly after obesity surgery - TODAY.com - The Cibolo, Texas, girl drew international attention earlier this year after NBC News first reported that insurers were refusing to pay for doctor-recommended weight-loss surgery to treat hypothalamic obesity, a rare condition that developed after Alexis had brain surgery two years ago.
The Drugging of the American Boy - Esquire - By the time they reach high school, nearly 20 percent of all American boys will be diagnosed with ADHD. Millions of those boys will be prescribed a powerful stimulant to "normalize" them

NYC Vaccination Rates - Here's Some Stupid For Lunch - Esquire - And Jenny McCarthy remains employed.

Noah vs. Son of God: The Twin Pitfalls of Biblical Films - Emma Green - The Atlantic - Can a story from scripture ever be satisfying as a mass-market Hollywood blockbuster?

Thinking About Mozilla | Incisive.nu - I was quite startled last week to discover that the board of the Mozilla Corporation—a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, my employer—had appointed as CEO a man whose financial support of Prop 8 had already been a major topic of conversation a few years back.
Arrested Revenge Porn King Allegedly Paid Hacker to Steal Nude Photos | Threat Level | WIRED - The site operator, 27-year-old Hunter Moore, was paying a hacker to steal nude photos of innocent people right from their email accounts.

033014
Climate change is a threat to food, security and humankind as a whole | Environment | theguardian.com - Warming is leading to more volatile weather patterns that are already reducing crop yields, the IPCC has warned
UN Report: Global Warming Worsens Security Woes - Top scientists are saying that climate change will complicate and worsen existing global security problems, such as civil wars, strife between nations and refugees. (Repubicans will defund reality)
The paper they don’t want you to read! – Pharyngula - The climate change denialists are a bit thin-skinned; they’ve also been exposed as a bit on the wacko side. The journal Frontiers in Psychology is about to retract a paper that found that denialists tend to have a cluster of weird beliefs (NASA faked the moon landings, the CIA was in charge of the assassination of political figures in the US, etc.) because the denialists screamed very loudly ... a lot of denialists are libertarians. Are you surprised?
Recursive Fury: Conspiracist Ideation in the Blogosphere in Response to Research on... - Europe PMC Article - Europe PubMed Central - This article has been retracted
Arctic Sea Ice Extent In Perspective (updated) – Greg Laden's Blog

More Items Pulled From Sea But None Related To Plane So Far - Despite what Australia called an "intensifying search effort," an international hunt Sunday by aircraft and ships in the southern Indian Ocean found no debris linked to the Malaysian jet that vanished more than three weeks ago.

Risk of slide ‘unforeseen’? Warnings go back decades | Local News | The Seattle Times - While a Snohomish County official said the area hit by the mudslide “was considered very safe,” the hillside’s history of slides dates back more than 60 years. One expert says he was shocked when homebuilding was permitted after a big 2006 slide.
A Mudslide, Foretold - NYTimes.com - DON’T tell me, please, that nobody saw one of the deadliest landslides in American history coming. (unregulated logging)
Some victims of Washington state landslide may never be found | World news | theguardian.com - In recent days attention has shifted to codes and regulations which permitted homes to be built near slopes known for landslides, and the lack of a national system to monitor and map slide activity.

US isolated in latest UN vote on Palestine | The Electronic Intifada - The UN Human Rights Rights Council in Geneva passed four resolutions on the question of Palestine, and as these tweets from the Palestine Liberation Organization indicate, the United States was the sole “no” vote in every single case. (AIPAC is your daddy)
Chris Christie Apologizes For 'Occupied Territories' Remark, Says He 'Misspoke' - at an event hosted by billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson (so much wrong with this picture)
photos: Protesters demand an end to ‘rape culture’ in Tel Aviv | +972 Magazine - he protest took place as a number of cases of sexual violence made national headlines last week, including a sexual harassment complaint against Minister — and presidential hopeful — Silvan Shalom (your patriarchal religions suck)
Obama gives Iraq war a more generous spin - President Obama, whose presidential campaign in 2008 took off in large part because of his criticism of the Iraq war, on Wednesday used that war as a contrast to what Russia is doing in Ukraine. (get back to us after Russia kills 200,000 civilians)
Crimea Switches To Moscow Time, Finalizing Incorporation Into Russia
Crimean Tatars, opposed to Russian occupation of Crimea, plan to declare autonomous territory within Crimea - UPI.com - The decision to declare autonomy was prompted by the Crimean government's order that Crimean Tatars relinquish their land to the government, now part of Russia.

NSA revelations 'changing how businesses store sensitive data' | Technology | The Guardian - Survey suggests many firms choosing more secure forms of storage over 'cloud computing' in light of Snowden's disclosures
No NSA reform can fix the American Islamophobic surveillance complex | Arun Kundnani | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Muslim Americans likely make up the bulk of US domestic spy targets. This is what it's like for innocent citizens to live in fear

Kill ‘Em All and Let God Sort Them Out by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Nixon intervened, and Lt. Calley’s sentence was reduced. He was paroled after only three years under house arrest. To be clear, it was association with the prosecution of Calley, not with the massacre itself, that was a “political threat” to Nixon.
Hullabaloo - The good old days (My Lai and Nixonland +South favors killin civilians in war)
Hullabaloo - Monday, May 21, 2007 - Loudmouths (history)

Aaron Swartz and MIT: The inside story - Metro - The Boston Globe - More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT’s handling of the hacking case persist (never accept responsbility)

Commemorating Suicides, Vets Plant 1,892 Flags on National Mall - ABC News - 1,892 flags on the National Mall today, one for each of the veterans that the group says took his or her own life in 2014. (support our troops with a bumper sticker)

Prosecuting mortgage fraud not a priority - A better headline might have been “Justice Department Acknowledges that Rich Bankers Who Committed Fraud Won’t Go to Jail.” (Obama had their backs)

Pew Research death penalty poll: Why whites support capital punishment more than blacks. - Nearly twice as many whites as blacks favor the death penalty. There is a simple, and disturbing, reason why. (racism)

NAFTA at 20 - What have workers learned from 20 years of NAFTA? (never trust anyone with the last name "Clinton" or, for that matter, "Obama")

He’s a man, with a plan, got a counterfeit dollar in his hand » Balloon Juice

The Only Appropriate State Fossil of South Carolina is a Piece of the True Cross - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell blocked the proposed amendment because it introduced a new subject. He has since amended the amendment to describe the Columbian Mammoth as “created on the Sixth Day with the beasts of the field.”

Why I can't donate to WHYY :: Blogs :: The Naked City :: Philadelphia City Paper - CEO Bill Marrazzo's $538,412 compensation package ... "I work very hard for my salary," he said. "So do a lot of people here," Moss-Coane responded. (tote-baggers bagging your money)

Teen banned from track meet over pink Mohawk to support cancer-stricken mom | Fox News - But Barker says it was,in fact, his principal, in addition to his track coach, who said it was shave his head or not compete in the track meet. (they always lie)

Here's How The World's Most Brilliant People Scheduled Their Days
America’s Most Content (and Miserable) Cities - 24/7 Wall St.

How to Think About the Risk of Autism - NYTimes.com - A STUDY published last week found that the brains of autistic children show abnormalities that are likely to have arisen before birth, which is consistent with a large body of previous evidence. Yet most media coverage focuses on vaccines, which do not cause autism and are given after birth. How can we help people separate real risks from false rumors? (prenatal stress and early c-sections)

Conspiracy theories: The dark heart of alternative medicine – Respectful Insolence
After all this time, Dr. Bob Sears finally tips his hand on vaccines, part IV – Respectful Insolence
JAMA Network | JAMA Internal Medicine | Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States
Mayim Bialik is a problematic ambassador for science – Aetiology - She is also anti-vaccine, and a spokesperson for the “holistic mom’s network,” which eschews much that modern medicine has to offer and features several prominent anti-vaccine advocates on its advisory board.
London skeletons reveal secrets of the Black Death - The Washington Post - Archaeologists were surprised to discover that the skeletons lay in layers and appeared to come from three different periods: the original Black Death epidemic in 1348-1350, and later outbreaks in 1361 and the early 15th century.
Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers | Science | The Observer - . It was therefore a pneumonic plague rather than a bubonic plague. Infection was spread human to human, rather than by rat fleas that bit a sick person and then bit another victim

Facebook Has Become The New Yahoo - Business Insider - Most of Facebook's users still have small, crappy screens.
Ways to get the Tor Browser Bundle | The Tor Blog

032914
Arrest Climate-Change Deniers - Man-made climate change happens. Man-made climate change kills a lot of people. It's going to kill a lot more. We have laws on the books to punish anyone whose lies contribute to people's deaths. It's time to punish the climate-change liars. (maybe this could happen sooner than we thought)
Hullabaloo - House Republicans want to see no climate change, hear no climate change, speak no climate change: House Republicans want government scientists to focus on predicting storms, not climate change. (Republicans defund the climate and their own brains)

Earthquake strikes near Los Angeles: 'We felt a really good jolt' | World news | theguardian.com - Magnitude 5.1 quake 20 miles from Los Angeles • Little damage reported from Friday-evening event

Israel to consider war crimes case - Features - Al Jazeera English - Israel's Supreme Court will hear evidence that officials committed war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza.
Syria leak prompts espionage probe in Turkey - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Turkey has started an espionage investigation after a recorded discussion between top officials on potential military action in Syria was leaked on YouTube, heralding a possible government crackdown on its political opponents after elections on Sunday.
Police spies still get free rein to have sexual liaisons, say women suing Met | UK news | The Guardian - They say they have suffered enormous emotional trauma after discovering that the men they had been in relationships with for years were undercover officers who had been sent to spy on political groups.
Palestinian child describes details of torture and mistreatment during his arrest
Brazil grows wary of Venezuela under Maduro, reduces support | Reuters

NSA listed Merkel among leaders subject to surveillance – report | World news | theguardian.com - Special databank said to hold 300 reports on chancellor • Der Spiegel and Intercept cite document supplied by Snowden
GCHQ and NSA Targeted Private German Companies - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Britain's GCHQ intelligence service infiltrated German Internet firms and America's NSA obtained a court order to spy on Germany and collected information about the chancellor in a special database. Is it time for the country to open a formal espionage investigation?
Der Spiegel: NSA Put Merkel on List of 122 Targeted Leaders - The Intercept

Hullabaloo - Huckleberry Graham and the torture fantasy - But Graham isn't really an outlier in this. Republicans in general believe in torture (which is kind of obvious)
An Actually Weak President by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - . But why do people have such an easy time condemning Cheney, or even Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Rice, and such a hard time condemning George W. Bush? It seems one of the lasting features of the Bush administration is that people simply don’t think that Bush was calling the shots and, as a result, they are inclined to give him a pass on the decisions he made.
I Want My Torture! by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Support for “enhanced interrogation” is a cultural signifier for a “patriotism” based on dehumanizing “enemies” wholesale, and for the kind of “toughness” that has led to some of America’s most shameful moments (My Lai, anyone?). So don’t expect Graham or Cheney ever to change their torturing ways. (Butchmeup acting manly)

Beware the surveillance reform Trojan horse: what's not in the new NSA laws? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Here's what the privacy geeks are worried about after a whirlwind week – that the spies might get more out of these bills than Snowden or the people he tried to protect
Matthew Keys: [ALERT] NSA agents didn't understand phone meta... - App.net Broadcasts - The National Security Agency repeatedly misinformed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the gathering and search methods its agents used with regard to telephone metadata that was collected, new court documents published on Friday revealed.
IC ON THE RECORD • Newly Released and Reprocessed Documents...
Ethiopia: the first "off-the-shelf" surveillance state - Boing Boing

Journalists, media under attack from hackers: Google researchers | Reuters (and bloggers)

ABQ officials: We’re addressing Anonymous cyberthreat head-on - Albuquerque Business First - The international hacker group Anonymous has announced that, in the wake of several police shootings, it will be attacking the city’s website, city officials said Wednesday.
FBI confirms investigation into foothills shooting | Albuquerque News & Weather | Abq, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, NM | krqe.com - The March 16 fatal shooting by two Albuquerque Police officers of a mentally ill homeless camper in the city’s foothills is now the subject of a federal criminal investigation.

Maryland set to replace troubled health exchange with Connecticut’s system - The Washington Post

Growth Versus Distribution: Hunger Games - NYTimes.com - A new study finds that in poor and lower-middle-income countries, one of the most crucial aspects of well-being, child malnutrition, isn’t helped at all by faster growth:
Class War with a Smiley Face | Blog | The Baffler - In Silicon Valley there really is a class war going on, a wage-fixing cartel that’s pitting the one percent against everyone else. (techobrolibertariandudeonepercenters)
Boeing Got $7,250 In Tax Breaks For Every $1 It Spent Lobbying (nice ROI)
Anti-Obamacare Guest Has Meltdown On Live TV - Hayes found himself in a full-blown feud with his guest, Americans for Prosperity’s Jennifer Stefano. (wow, what a psycho)

Bridget Anne Kelly's Lawyer Responds To 'Venomous' Christie Report - He also hinted that, given the right circumstances, Kelly would cooperate with the investigation. "Ms. Kelly is not a liar," he said in the statement. "If Ms. Kelly were provided with the appropriate procedural safeguards," he went on, she would be "fully cooperative" with the probe.
w The Christie Way? - Generally speaking when you throw someone under the bus and you want them to play along, you add as much padding to the process as possible. That doesn't appear to be the Chris Chrisitie way. The main fallperson turns out to be former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly.

Let Us Have Our Own Laws by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The extent to which the “religious liberty” movement on the Right reflects a broad-based determination to carve out a separate society where cultural conservatives simply don’t have to obey the law (because liberty!)

The Split of the Ages - NYTimes.com - Older voters and younger voters used to be largely on the same page when they went to the polls. No more ... U.S. Seniors Have Realigned With the Republican Party (white boomers are awful people)

A Shifting Landscape: A Decade of Change in American Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Issues - Support for same-sex marriage jumped 21 percentage points from 2003, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, to 2013. Currently, a majority (53%) of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, compared to 41% who oppose. I
ZEEK: Articles: Psst: New Study Shows American Jews Overwhelmingly Support LGBT Rights. Far Too Quietly - Americans’ perception of Jews’ feelings towards LGBT people. Only a quarter of Americans believe Jews are friendly toward LGBT people, a third believe we are unfriendly and 41% do not know or refused to answer the question. We are perceived to be only 1 point friendlier than evangelical Christian churches — and 6 points less friendly than African-American churches. (Americans don't know any Jews)

Shrinking Majority of Americans Support Death Penalty | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project - According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. A significant minority (37%) oppose the practice. (peaked during Clinton's tough-on-crime years)
Number of Executions in Each State Since 1977 | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

Alabamans Struggle Most to Afford Healthcare and Medicine - Iowans and Minnesotans are least likely to struggle with healthcare costs
Bama Totally OK With That Big Racism in its Greek System by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - The University of Alabama, in an astounding display of cultural insensitivity, has decided it has no business reforming the Greek system despite the fact that it still seems to maintain essentially segregated fraternities and sororities.

For most wireless-only households, look south and west | Pew Research Center - Where you’re most likely to find a landline: New Jersey, where 78.9% of households have one (regardless of how much they use it).

The Most And Least Liked TV News Anchors Revealed - CBS' Scott Pelley is the most-liked news anchor, while Chris Matthews falls in last place as the least-liked newscaster.
Former NYPD Chief Ray Kelly Joins ABC News (he will stop and frisk the news)
Piers Morgan Delivers One Final Blow To Gun Violence In Last Show - But he went on to say that an estimated 100,000 Americans per year are hit by gunfire, and argued, "I am so pro-American, I want more of you to stay alive." (NRA terrorists)

Eschaton: The Worst Person In The World - Dottie Sandusky: "I trust my husband," she said. "That's what the world is about today. People don't trust anybody. And all these young kids, all they think about is sex."

Hullabaloo - Readers with sharp memories may recall that I wrote a takedown of this right-wing screed disguised as a Cadillac ad: Well, Ford has delivered up a delicious response:
In California, Gwyneth's 'conscious uncoupling' sounds as normal as any other new age fad | Film | The Observer - The advisers who coined the term "conscious uncoupling" for Paltrow and Martin fit right into that Californian tradition. Habib Sadeghi and Sherri Sami run an outfit in west Los Angeles called Be Hive of Healing. He is an osteopath and she is a paediatric dentist

Three Mozilla Board Members Resign over Choice of New CEO - Digits - WSJ - Three Mozilla board members resigned over the choice of Brendan Eich, a Mozilla co-founder, as the new CEO ... because he donated $1,000 to the campaign in support of Proposition 8, a 2008 California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state. (antigaylibertarianbrodude)
What’s Happening Inside Mozilla | intangible.ca
The Story So Far… » Blog Archive » Let’s Talk…Just Not About What We Need To Talk About - That money went to ads that played the Gays Are Coming For Your Children card! Living with the lies you paid a thousand bucks for come home to roost is another lonely place. You could renounce them, but it seems you won’t, and that makes them your lies too. (technoliberdudebro not sound too smart)

The Best Dash Cam | The Wirecutter
Dash Cam Talk

032814
Climate Change Already Felt 'On All Continents And Across The Oceans,' IPCC Finds (2025: Climate Court and climate criminals)

America Is The Only Country Where A Child Can Be Sentenced To Life Behind Bars

Dick Cheney On Torture: 'If I Would Have To Do It All Over Again, I Would' (possibly the largest moral stain on America)
The Eagle - Dick Cheney denies war criminal allegations at KPU event
Lindsey Graham Terror Trials - Lindsey Graham Pines For The Bush Days Of Torture - Esquire - Huckleberry J. Butchmeup is pining for thumbscrews here, and waxing nostalgic over black sites and packing crates at Bagram.

Deposed Ukrainian President Yanukovich Wants Referendum In Each Of Country's Regions (Putin's pulling his strings)
Russian Border Buildup Stokes Worries - WSJ.com - Pentagon Alarmed as Troops Mass Near Ukraine Border

UK Govt: DVD and CD Ripping Will Be Legalized This Summer | TorrentFreak - uk-flagTo most consumers it is common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this is currently illegal. (UK enters 20th Century)

US Takes a Break From Condemning Tyranny to Celebrate Obama's Visit to Saudi Arabia - The Intercept
Dahr Jamail | Iraqi Government Killing Civilians in Fallujah - Fallujah doctors, residents and NGO workers accuse the Iraqi government of war crimes and crimes against humanity in its ongoing attack against the city - conducted ostensibly against al-Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The Palestinian refugees of Lebanon | Mondoweiss - It’s a tragic tale of refugees meet refugee camp. (Israel's effects are far and wide and tragic)

CISPA's Author Has Another Privacy-Killing Bill to Pass Before He Retires | Motherboard
NSA ally Mike Rogers to leave House intelligence committee for talk radio | World news | theguardian.com - Exit part of sweeping change in US surveillance leadership • Move comes just days after Rogers introduced NSA reform bill (see above for "reform")
Mike Rogers Retirement - Mike Rogers' Strange Next Career Move - Esquire

Senator McCain Says Snowden Is Working For Putin Based On 'Timing' Of News Reports Snowden Has Nothing To Do With | Techdirt - from the our-elected-officials dept (actually, demented McCain dept)
White House Cyber Chief Says Snowden Damage Will Be Felt for Decades | Washington Free Beacon - Obama opposes foreign government control of Internet, Michael Daniel says
Twitter / johnmcquaid: Judge tells govt. to remove ... - woman from no-fly list, citing her "Kafkaesque ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ treatment" http://bit.ly/1jCEgXI pic.twitter.com/igSOkMnzeW (very)

Supreme Court Hears Argument in Case Alleging Bush Protestors Were Treated Less Favorably than Supporters by Secret Service | American Civil Liberties Union - The lawsuit claims that the protestors were targeted because of their political views, in violation of their free speech rights. (Scalia disappointed at the narrowness of the argument)

America’s Taxation Tradition - NYTimes.com (Teddy Roosevelt, good Republican)

Judge Rules Goldman Must Face Lawsuit Over Mortgage Securities - NBC News.com - A proposed class action by a Detroit pension fund accusing Goldman Sachs of misleading investors about mortgage-backed securities can go forward, a federal judge has ruled.

MSU could lose $500k for offering labor courses | Michigan Radio - “Why just this program?” asked state Sen. Morris Hood III, D-Detroit. “And I would guess to believe that this is a hot topic item and it ruffles a lot of feathers.” (there are a lot of academic subjects Rethugs would like to criminalize)

Logging and the Washington Landslide - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - We may never actually know whether logging contributed to it or what precisely caused the collapse. But there is a very high probability that logging is at the root.
Is There a Connection Between the Mudslide and Our State's Historical Mishmash of Logging Regulations? | Slog
Oso Mudslide: Links to the Geology Behind the Tragedy | Rosetta Stones, Scientific American Blog Network

5CA Upholds Texas’s War on Roe v. Wade - Lawyers, Guns & Money : All three members of the 5CA panel were appointed by Reagan or George W. Bush.

Christie Report Finds A Culprit: A Scorned, 'Emotional' Woman (acushla)
Lawyer For 2nd Ex-Christie Aide Calls Pro-Christie Report 'Venomous' And 'Sexist'
David Samson Resignation - Chris Christie Meets The Press - Esquire - And David Samson has decided to leave the agency he helped turn into a whorehouse.
Chris Christie Internal Investigation - Now That Christie's Report Is Out, The Truth Is Yet To Come - Esquire - The internal investigation of Chris Christie paints him as an honest shepherd of the public good, led to media slaughter by two roguish hirelings.

Libertarian: Everybody Loves Libertarianism -- Daily Intelligencer

FiveThirtyEight Apologizes On Behalf Of Controversial Climate Science Writer - Two prominent climate scientists say Roger Pielke Jr., a controversial writer at Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight site, sent emails threatening possible legal action in response to their criticism of his findings for the data-driven news site ... Pielke, a political scientist at the University of Colorado, has been called a climate change skeptic, a label he doesn't apply to himself. (not lookin' good, Nate-bro)

Conservatives Have Figured Out A Disturbingly Effective Strategy: Tell Lots And Lots of Lies | The Raw Story - However, there’s a fuck ton of research that shows that, when people read a factual debunking of their beliefs, they actually double down and believe even harder. Being corrected, it seems, makes people petulant and more insistent on their lies.
Gish Gallop - RationalWiki - The Gish Gallop is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time.
‘Noah’: Twitter conservatives outraged that film deviates from Bible’s original English | The Raw Story


Virginia Cop Block Founder Nathan Cox Sued by VSP Trooper Melanie McKenney | - My suspicion is that she may be upset that her Dashboard Camera video, along with my cell phone videos, did in-fact make it to You Tube and have accumulated more than a Half a Million views. (Trooper Melanie McKenney of the Virginia State Police famous on the internets for all eternity for being, like, stupid)

Apple, Google lose bid to avoid trial on tech worker lawsuit | Reuters
Multiple Pinterest Accounts Hacked, Flooded With Butt Pics | TechCrunch

032714
Eschaton: Why Did We Invade Iraq - Errol Morris was on Colbert last night, discussing Don Rumsfeld. - Shorter version: nobody has any fucking idea. (Morris: "there was nobody home")
The Certainty of Donald Rumsfeld (Part 1) - NYTimes.com (Rumsfeld in a cloud of bullshit)

Seismic Readings Show Oso, Washington Had 2 Major Landslides
Here’s a shorebird’s-eye view of the Galveston oil spill | Grist - When an oil barge collided with a container ship on Saturday in Galveston, Texas, as many as 168,000 gallons of fuel were spilled into the estuary, threatening wildlife and shutting down the busy port for days.

Congress approves major Ukraine aid package | World news | theguardian.com - Partisan bickering had held up $1bn in loan guarantees, but Senate and House pass bills to help shore up Ukraine economy
Police use of Tasers rises sharply in 2013 | UK news | The Guardian - Figures show rise in use of Tasers in last five years as they have been adopted by forces across England and Wales

US human rights record chastised in UN report | World news | theguardian.com - UN human rights committee raises concerns over torture, drone strikes, the death penalty and NSA data collection
\ UPDATE 2-U.N. watchdog urges Obama to curb drone use, surveillance | Reuters
Obama formally proposes end to NSA's bulk collection of telephone data | World news | theguardian.com - President says: 'I am confident this approach can keep us safe while addressing the legitimate privacy concerns raised' (by my police state) At the White House, the reversal in positions by Obama on bulk data collection has not translated into leniency for Snowden. “There's no change in our position that he needs to return and face the felony charges against him,” Hayden said.
Obama's NSA Reforms Cut Mass Phone Surveillance, But Nothing Else | Motherboard
US lawmakers to vote on secret CIA interrogation report - Yahoo News - A US Senate committee will vote next week on whether to declassify its report on a CIA interrogation program, potentially shedding light on some of the most objectionable tactics of America's war on terror.

DOJ Describes Its Use Of Malware As 'Augmenting Content' As It Pushes For Great Ability To Hack Computers | Techdirt - "the website would augment that content with some additional computer instructions." (sort of like extra porno)
Hackers Target Monster Jobs Website with Gameover Zeus malware | HackRead - Latest Cyber Crime - Information Security - Hacking News

Statement on Chelsea.pdf
Manning Lawyer Wants Leak Conviction Reversed - ABC News - Convicted leaker Chelsea Manning is asking an Army general to reverse her conviction and 35-year prison sentence for sending reams of classified information to WikiLeaks.

Two Lawmen, Two Stories of a Boston Marathon Witness Killing » CounterPunch (bullshit gets thicker)
Crime Scene Didn't Match Description in Ibragim Todashev's Confession

Darrell Issa Hearing Reveals IRS-Targeted Groups Prefer To Be Political - Many of those groups actually want to preserve the option to run as "dark money" political operations.

The Release Of Roger Shuler Is Good News, But The Fight Continues | Liberaland - The details of his release are not clear yet, but the important thing for now is that the proprietor of “The Legal Schnauzer” blog is free and America no longer has a journalist behind bars for the crime of “journalism.”

Nate Silver And Paul Krugman Are In A Bitter, Bitter Feud
Nate Silver, Paul Krugman: When Two Wonks Go to War (Go to War, Go to War)
Noahpinion: "Data" the buzzword vs. data the actual thing - I'm a big Nate Silver fan, but let me join the chorus of people looking at his new "data-driven" blog site and saying "WTF?". As far as I can tell, it's barely data-driven at all!
Data as Slogan, Data as Substance - NYTimes.com - Noah Smith has the definitive piece on what’s wrong, so far, with the new FiveThirtyEight. For all the big talk about data-driven analysis,what it actually delivers is sloppy and casual opining with a bit of data used, as the old saying goes, the way a drunkard uses a lamppost — for support, not illumination. (cold)
The Krugman-Silver Sparring Match
The Nate Silver-Paul Krugman Feud Just Won't End
Why Paul Krugman Turned Against Nate Silver -- Daily Intelligencer - The real cause of Krugman’s disdain is the sheer ambition of Silver’s new venture. Silver’s great added value was to bring basic statistical literacy to the fields of political forecasting and sports commentary, which are dominated by old-line hacks who rely on horse sense and either disdain data in any form or use data very badly.

ACASignups.net | Tracking Enrollments for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
Obamacare Enrollment Reaches 6 Million

House GOP Says It's Too Late To Pass An Unemployment Extension - Republicans in the House of Representatives say it's just too late to pass legislation restoring unemployment benefits to the 2 million workers who've missed out since December.

Giving Up on 4-Year-Olds - NYTimes.com (zero-tolerance for childhood)

Texas's hardline abortion restrictions upheld by federal court | World news | theguardian.com - Appeals court rules Texas law governing where and how women may obtain an abortion 'does not impose an undue burden' (of course not)
U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Tough Texas Abortion Restrictions

Corporate America's Long, Dark History Of Evangelizing At Work

Rick Snyder's Position On Same-Sex Marriages 'Head-Spinning,' Key Lawyer Says - "[The governor] said that the marriages were legal but that the state would not recognize them on the basis of the state

Official Says He Told Christie of Bridge Lane Closings, According to Report - NYTimes.com - The report said that Mr. Christie did not recall any such conversation, and it found no evidence that he was involved in the scheme ("I forgot")
Chris Christie Says Aides in Bridge Scandal ‘Inexplicably Stupid’ - ABC News - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said today that former aides were "inexplicably stupid" when they allegedly shut down lanes of busy George Washington Bridge and flooded a New Jersey town with traffic.
Report: Messy office dynamics in Bridgegate - Katie Glueck - politico.com

Modern Luxury | San Francisco Magazine | The Indictment Against Leland Yee Puts "The Wire's" Clay Davis to Shame - If you thought the charges against Leland Yee would be bad, you had no idea

Do We Live in the Matrix? | DiscoverMagazine.com - Tests could reveal whether we are part of a giant computer simulation — but the real question is if we want to know...
Scientists Use Computer to Mathematically Prove Gödel God Theorem - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Two scientists have formalized a theorem regarding the existence of God penned by mathematician Kurt Gödel. But the God angle is somewhat of a red herring -- the real step forward is the example it sets of how computers can make scientific progress simpler.
between science and pseudo-science - bookforum.com / omnivore
Over Time, Buddhism and Science Agree - Issue 9: Time - Nautilus

TurboTax Maker Funnels Millions To Lobby Against Easier Tax Returns | TechCrunch - Intuit has spent $11.5 million lobbying the federal government — more than Apple or Amazon.

Tulsa police: No gun, drugs found after fatal shooting | www.krmg.com - Police say an officer opened fire after a suspect made threateing movements during a drug raid


032614
New Satellite Images Show More Than 100 Objects That May Be From Plane - in the southern Indian Ocean that could be debris from a Malaysian jetliner missing for 18 days with 239 people on board, Malaysia's acting transport minister said on Wednesday.

Washington Mudslide Death Toll Continues To Rise - With the grim developments came word that a scientist working for the government had warned 15 years ago about the potential for a catastrophic landslide in the community.

Turkish Court Overturns Government’s Ban on Twitter - NYTimes.com - A court in Turkey ruled on Wednesday that the government could not ban Twitter, and it ordered the country’s telecommunications authority to restore access to the service, which the authorities sought to block five days ago.
Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in southern West Bank | Defence for Children International Palestine - Yousef al-Shawamrah, 14, was shot in the back and hip with live ammunition near his village of Deir al-Asal al-Fawqa, which sits alongside Israel’s separation barrier, on Wednesday March 19.

ELI5: Why are super-wealthy Russians described as "oligarchs" while super-wealthy Americans are described as "business magnates"? : explainlikeimfive - tl; dr: At a minimum, Russia's head of state is worth 10 times more than every member of our federal government combined. That, my friends, is an oligarch. (perspective)
The New Billionaire Political Bosses | Robert Reich - America is not yet an oligarchy, but that's where the Koch's and a few other billionaires are taking us.

Obama Says N.S.A. Curbs Would Address Worries - NYTimes.com
Obama’s NSA reform leaves out email, text and social media | Death and Taxes

The Rise of the Drones (Infographic) | Informed Comment

Why We Need To Worry About Every Other Country's NSA Too | Motherboard -
Hacker Weev's attorney: The FBI is intercepting my client's mail | The Daily Dot
Drone that can hack your Smartphone and steal your data. | TechWorm - London-based Security Researchers team at Sensepost Research Labs have developed a drone called"Snoopy" which can steal data and contents from your smartphone without your knowledge.

Inside America's illegal "Little Guantánamos" - Boing Boing - Prisoners in America's notorious communication management units (called "CMUs" or "Little Guantánamos") are making great strides in their legal action against the US government over the prisons' illegal status, the illegally discriminatory detention of people in CMUs based on their political or religious beliefs, and their inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Inside the Kafkaesque World of the US’s 'Little Guantánamos' | VICE United States

Is there a link between Todashev shooting and Tsarnaev trial? - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com
Report reveals little new info on Boston bombing - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com
Russia Warned FBI About Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Report Finds - Russian authorities warned the FBI in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two Chechen brothers accused of carrying out last year's Boston Marathon bombings, but U.S. authorities missed chances to detain him, NBC News reported on Tuesday. (FBI flunked spelling)
More questions arise after report on FBI shooting of Todashev - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com - David Boeri of WBUR points to the “stunning” revelation that, in the course of his investigation, Florida State Attorney Jeffrey L. Ashton did not interview the FBI agent involved in the shooting.

Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?

The battle for Bitcoin is over, and libertarians lost | The Daily Dot - Bitcoin is not a currency, and anyone who thinks of it as such is missing out on its true potential.
OKCoin CEO on Expansion and China's Competitive Edge
The Fierce Battle for the Soul of Bitcoin | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

The Supreme Court's Women Justices Take On Hobby Lobby : The New Yorker - There were two lessons from Tuesday’s argument in the Hobby Lobby case in the Supreme Court. First, it’s very important that there are now three women Justices. Second, it’s even more important that it takes five votes to win.
How To Read RFRA - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Given that the religious freedom claim being advanced by Hobby Lobby seems to be a combination of scientific ignorance and political opportunism, it’s tempting to conclude that their claim should be dismissed as not being based on a sincere religious belief at all.
Confusion plagues the right: Why it doesn’t understand liberal views of the Hobby Lobby case - Salon.com - Opposing a religious exemption to the contraception mandate is about more than just principle
Hobby Lobby: The Derp Never Stops - Seven words to the Left Feminist Fascists ... Pay for your own damn coat hanger.
Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby: Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the contraception mandate case. - It sure looks that way after the Hobby Lobby argument.
Echidne Of The Snakes: Fun And Games in the Supreme Court. The Hobby Lobby Case And Women's Human Rights. - Paul Clement, the attorney for the companies, rejected that by calling it a “parade of horribles” that would not materialize.
Rachel Maddow: Here's Why Anti-Contraception Republicans Will Lose - "The idea that contraception has become a problem unexpectedly has become Republican party orthodoxy now, but it has also become a general election problem for Republicans," Maddow said.

Divided Federal Appeals Judges Debate Obamacare

The Day of the I-Word Approacheth by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The Prospect’s Steve Erickson reminds us all of a salient political fact that we will soon be facing: particularly if Republicans do well this November and capture the Senate, the I-word—impeachment—will be very difficult to avoid.’

GOP States Are The Most Dependent On Government - The states with elected officials most likely to espouse anti-taker sentiments -- i.e., Republican-dominated states -- are the most dependent on federal spending, while returning the least to Washington in the way of tax dollars.
Bernie Sanders Blames Republicans For 'A Very Ugly Moment In American History' - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) railed against Republicans who “stay up nights figuring out how” to grant billionaires tax breaks while cutting social programs such as Social Security and food stamps during an interview on MSNBC Tuesday.
Rick Snyder: Michigan Won't Recognize Same-Sex Marriages - Gov. Rick Snyder says Michigan won't recognize more than 300 same-sex marriages performed last weekend.

Unemployed, and heading toward foreclosure | MSNBC - Brooks is now among the millions of unemployed homeowners who risk default, foreclosure, and huge debt loads—even if they manage to find a job again. (Obama's program designed to screw people)

Christie's Bridgegate investigation is baloney: Editorial | NJ.com - It cost New Jersey taxpayers at least a million bucks, but here’s what we finally know for a fact: Gov. Chris Christie’s lawyers think he’s innocent. He knew nothing — nothing! — about those controversial lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in September.

The Pro-Coal Waste Party - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Republicans may hate national parks, but they love dumping coal waste into streams: The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow coal mining companies to return to an old practice of dumping mining waste into streams. (freedom! to pollute your drinking water)

The Nation's Most Segregated Schools Aren't Where You'd Think They'd Be - The nation's most segregated schools aren't in the deep south -- they're in New York, according to a report released Tuesday by the University of California, Los Angeles' Civil Rights Project.

MSNBC is in serious trouble - POLITICO.com
Is Nate Silver Biting the Hoof That Feeds? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - In the days before the 2012 election, one-fifth of visitors to the New York Times’ website ended up at FiveThirtyEight.

NLRB Rules in Favor of Northwestern Football Players - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This is a very big day for college athletes seeking the right to unionize:

Theater of Justice | VICE United States - A plain-clothes cop had grabbed her breast from behind, hard enough to leave a bruise shaped like his handprint. Instinctively, she elbowed him. Most women would do the same if a man grabbed them from behind. The cops beat Cecily till they broke her ribs. As she had a seizure on the pavement, the crowd screamed for the police to call 911. The police just watched.

Kentucky bill would prohibit filming of farm operations without owner's consent | Politics and Government | Kentucky.com - The Humane Society of the United States contends that the legislation, if enacted, would keep consumers in the dark about the sources of their food. A spokesman said that whistle-blowing employees who have made such videos have played a vital role in exposing animal abuse, unsafe working conditions and environmental problems on industrial farms.

(NSFW) What is the strangest thing that has happened to you during sex? : AskReddit

Dwarf planet stretches Solar System's edge : Nature News & Comment - Icy body found far beyond Pluto raises questions about cosmic history.

This Map Tracks Cyberattacks Around the World in Real Time | Motherboard
Are You Cynical Enough to Hate Upworthy? -- Daily Intelligencer

032514
Malaysia Flight 370 Sent Final 'Partial Ping' That Could Aid Investigation - WSJ.com - The Cause of the Partial Ping Could Have Several Possible Explanations, but Human Interaction Has Been Ruled Out
Chinese families clash with police, slam Malaysia over lost plane | Reuters - Dozens of angry relatives of passengers on a lost Malaysian jetliner clashed with police in Beijing on Tuesday, accusing the Southeast Asian country of "delays and deception" a day after it confirmed the plane crashed in remote seas off Australia.
Opinion: How mechanical problem could have downed Flight 370 - CNN.com - Les Abend
chris goodfellow - Google+ - 3/25/14 Les Abend senior 777 on CNN …

Air Pollution Kills 7 Million People Every Year, World Health Organization Report Finds
Tracking Australia's bloomin' jellyfish problem - ABC North Coast NSW - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Deadly jellyfish are likely to become more toxic according to scientists at the CSIRO. A new research program aims to map problems caused by Australia's jellyfish.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones and tsunamis: the world's 10 riskiest cities | Cities | theguardian.com

Seeking Living in Mudslide Path, Rescuers Fear They’ll Find Only Dead - NYTimes.com - 176 reports of people unaccounted for — up from 108
Risk of slide ‘unforeseen’? Warnings go back decades | Local News | The Seattle Times - : While a Snohomish County official said the area hit by the mudslide “was considered very safe,” the hillside’s history of slides dates back more than 60 years. One expert says he was shocked when homebuilding was permitted after a big 2006 slide.
Washington mudslide Q&A: What caused it? - latimes.com - For example, the hillside that ripped away on Saturday had suffered previous mudslides in 2006 and the 1960s, experts said, although Saturday's was thought to be larger.

Shipping Channel Opens Partially After Huge Oil Spill in Galveston Bay - NYTimes.com
BP to Blame for Exxon Valdez: Environmental Disaster 25 Years Later | Interview with Greg Palast - YouTube

This Man Is Suing The NSA, FBI And DIA For Answers In Decades-Old Mandela Mystery - A Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing three government agencies to get answers about America's role in Nelson Mandela's infamous 1962 arrest. (America's super-secret history of CIA criminality)
Government claims “national defense” excuse to keep Mandela files secret - Salon.com - MIT researcher Ryan Shapiro filed suit against NSA, CIA, FBI for failure to comply with Mandela files FOIA (America is being attacked by the truth)
NSA, CIA, FBI & DIA Sued Over Withholding of Records on Capture & Surveillance of Mandela | The Dissenter (FOIA is a terrorist)
The Crimea Blame Game Turns To Edward Snowden - Claims classified information released by NSA leaker Edward Snowden may have allowed Russia to evade U.S. efforts to anticipate Moscow’s invasion of Crimea hold little water, according to U.S. and foreign intelligence officials. (and not their own stupidty)

Rumsfeld bashes Obama on Afghanistan, says ‘a trained ape’ could do better - "A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement," Rumsfeld said. "It does not take a genius. And we have so mismanaged that relationship." (speaking of "trained apes")

Putin's cyborg army
Egypt’s Miscarriage of Justice - NYTimes.com (look in the mirror, NYT)
Vatican Chief Justice: Obama’s Policies ‘Have Become Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization’ « CBS St. Louis - Cardinal Raymond Burke said that Obama “promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.”
Another Bloomberg Editor Explains Why He Has Resigned, Over Its China Coverage - James Fallows - The Atlantic - "For the international press, there are many reasons for crimped ambitions."
» Ben Richardson quits Bloomberg News over handling of investigative piece Jimromenesko.Com

Edward Snowden Statement on Administration’s NSA Reform Plan | American Civil Liberties Union - "I believed that if the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people.
Snowden welcomes Obama's plans for NSA reform as 'turning point' | World news | theguardian.com - President has confirmed the US plans to end bulk collection • NSA whistleblower praises action by Congress as deal nears
Obama is cancelling the NSA dragnet. So why did all three branches sign off? | Jameel Jaffer | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Well, at least the phone part of the dragnet. Here's hoping it's the end of laws of the spies, by the spies and for the spies
The House's NSA bill could allow more spying than ever. You call this reform? | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Congress' serial fabricator has the audacity to call his new law the 'End Bulk Collection Act'. Obama's proposal isn't much better
International Proscriptions on Mass Surveillance (or What’s Missing in the Greenwald vs. Wittes Debate) | Just Security
Lawfare › A Reply to Ryan Goodman

NSA would gain access to cellphone records under Obama plan - latimes.com - The National Security Agency would lose its authority to collect and hold years' worth of telephone calling records but gain access to cellphone information it currently lacks under an Obama administration proposal aimed at quieting controversy over the spy agency’s data archive
Obama to Call for End to N.S.A.’s Bulk Data Collection - NYTimes.com - in a way that — if approved by Congress — would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year, according to senior administration officials ... It was part of the secret surveillance program that President George W. Bush unilaterally put in place after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, outside of any legal framework or court oversight.
Obama's New NSA Proposal and Democratic Partisan Hackery - The Intercept - ABC News described Obama’s decision as “a complete 180.” More amazingly still, Obama adopted the exact arguments that Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney were making over the prior two weeks to attack him specifically and transparency generally: to justify his desire to suppress this evidence, Obama said that “the most direct consequence of releasing the [photos], I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.
Glenn Greenwald: Obama's NSA Proposals Are A Vindication Of Our Reporting
It's Time to Grant Immunity to Edward Snowden - Esquire - Obama's overhaul of the NSA spying rules proves it
Obama to set out proposal to end NSA's mass collection of phone data | World news | theguardian.com - Administration plan would require NSA to seek a court order to search phone records held by telecoms companies
Twitter / trevortimm: Before: "reasonable articulable ... - suspicion" of terrorism only. New bill: "associated" or "in contact with" suspected agent of foreign power
The Other Problem with the Obama Proposal: Who Does the Pizza Joint Review? | emptywheel
Restricting the NSA - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The fact that the House Intelligence Committee is proposing a weaker bill doesn’t make me confident, but we’ll see.
Judge Scalia Suggests The Supreme Court May Be Asked To Determine Constitutionality Of Metadata Program | Techdirt - from the might-allow-terrorism-to-trump-the-Constitution dept (terrorism has won)

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Leaks: Pentagon Says Employee Was Prohibited From Providing Report to Congress | The Dissenter - Multiple national security leaks by US officials occurred during the production of the Oscar-nominated film, Zero Dark Thirty, which dramatized the hunt for Osama bin Laden that ended in his execution. But, when the Pentagon Inspector General’s office investigated what had happened, the office found then-Pentagon chief Leon Panetta had mishandled classified information.

Report released in killing of Ibragim Todashev by FBI agent - Metro - The Boston Globe - Ibragim Todashev, a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s, sustained seven gunshot wounds in the incident, according to an autopsy.
Report on FBI shooting of Todashev to be released - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com ("pole" or "knife" or something)
The Todashev Case - Esquire - The Orlando Police surrendered jurisdiction entirely to the feds, and the FBI agent in question was not interviewed by the prosecutor but, instead, submitted a written statement in which he related his account of what happened in the apartment, including what he says was Todashev's decision to fight rather than to flee. (+Boston cops blew it)

LAPD says every car in Los Angeles is part of an ongoing criminal investigation - Boing Boing - because some day, someone driving that car may commit a crime ... "This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity."
OPD Promoted Cops Involved in Scott Olsen Case | East Bay Express - The department promoted two officers who were involved in a case in which the city agreed to pay an Iraq War vet $4.5 million for the injuries he received.

Hobby Lobby Ruling Could End Anti-Discrimination Laws as We Know Them | New Republic - The stakes in Tuesday's Hobby Lobby arguments couldn't be higher
Justice Kennedy Thinks Hobby Lobby Is An Abortion Case -- That's Bad News For Birth Control | ThinkProgress (we are ruled by truely stupid people)
Hobby Lobby Case - The Hobby Lobby Case And Our Diminishing First Amendment - Esquire - Point The Second: It appears that, as in so many other things, everything will depend on Justice Anthony (Weathervane) Kennedy. This, according to Think Progress's Ian Millhiser, is a very bad thing.
Terrible Arguments Against the Contraception Non-Mandate: Ladies Against Women Edition - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - , let’s look at the Independent [sic] Women’s Forum’s inadvertently instructive arguments against the contraception non-mandate. (new meaning for "Independent")
Supreme Court Struggles In Hobby Lobby Case With Question Of Companies' Religious Rights

Why is Wall Street so divorced from reality? A psychological explanation. - The Week - The Masters of the Universe are in a state of denial
Charge of the Right Brigade - NYTimes.com - It has to be in some sense political; the canon appeals to certain kinds of prejudices, in particular the prejudices of angry old white men with money to invest. But it remains amazing how little those prejudices have been dented by their failure to meet the most decisive real-world test you could imagine.

Republicans losing it over new Obamacare data: Why their position is collapsing - Salon.com - Obamacare enrollment could hit 7 million before the midterms; meanwhile, GOP still has no answer for beneficiaries
Morning Plum: The incredible shrinking Obamacare sob story
Glenn Kessler Fact Checking - Fact Checking The Fact Checkers - Esquire - Why the gingerly mention of what C-Plus Augustus "blamed" for misleading the country into a foreign-policy catastrophe? Why the Jesuitical parsing of what Reagan "firmly believed"? I can hazard a guess. Kessler wanted to stay as far away from those monumental human consequences as possible. Bold truth-telling is an odd business. (WaPo will WaPo)
The Bizarre Case Of Matt Drudge And His Obamacare 'Liberty Tax' - In summary, Drudge apparently volunteered to fork over money to the IRS far earlier than he needed to. And he did it before the rules for doing so were final. TPM reported on Friday that was one of the possibilities from the facts Drudge laid out last week.

HorsesAss.Org » New Study: Minimum Wage Hikes Have “No Measurable Negative Impact on Employment”

Chris Christie Internal Investigation - The Wheels Of Blind Justice Grind Slowly In The Christie Investigation - Esquire - Chris Christie's internal "investigation" has apparently cleared him. Bullshit. (Big chicken says he's "innocent")

The New Marxism | National Review Online - A prominent liberal economist contends capitalism will inevitably increase inequality.
Why everyone is talking about Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century - The Week - The French economist's magnum opus explains the history of income inequality — and represents a real threat to the reign of the 1 percent

The Surprising Failures of 12 Steps - Jake Flanagin - The Atlantic - How did a regimen so overtly religious in nature, with a 31 percent success rate at best, a five to 10 percent success rate at worst, and a five percent overall retention rate become the most trusted method of addiction-treatment in the country, and arguably the world?

Georgia Gun Laws - Cancel My Dinner Reservations In Georgia - Esquire - I would have thought that Georgia would be more enlightened about the dangerous consequences of allowing guns in bars and restaurants (and schools, churches and airports) The Devil's in the house of the rising sun.

Colorado approves retroactive reversal of marijuana convictions — RT USA - But with upwards of 9,000 marijuana possession cases being prosecuted each year before then
http://www.genengnews.com/keywordsandtools/print/3/34345/ - Studies find LSD and other psychedelic drugs could treat PTSD and substance abuse

Girl Shaves Head for Pal, Breaks School Dress Code - ABC News - Kamryn Renfro of Grand Junction shaved her head to help Delaney Clements get through chemotherapy. Kamryn at first wasn't allowed to return to classes at Caprock Academy, the charter school she attends. (fascist little fuckers aren't they)
Middle School Girls Protest Sexist Dress Code: 'Are My Pants Lowering Your Test Scores?' | ThinkProgress - Earlier this month, Haven Middle School administrators notified parents that female students are no longer allowed to wear shorts, leggings, or yoga pants because those articles of clothing might be “too distracting” for their male peers.
Christian School Tells Eight-Year-Old Girl She Looks Too Much Like A Boy - "You're probably aware that Timberlake Christian School is a religious, Bible believing institution providing education in a distinctly Christian environment," the letter read. (probably getting taxpayer money)
Little Girl Taken Out Of Christian School After Told She's Too - WSET.com - ABC13 - "How do you label a child, eight years old, or discriminate against an eight year old child? It just don't happen" said Carroll Thompson. (traditional sex roles start early)

NYC Freedom Tower B.A.S.E. Jump - YouTube
Skydivers arrested for World Trade Center jump - It wasn't immediately clear how investigators zeroed in on Rossig, Brady, skydiving instructor Marko Markovich and Kyle Hartwell, accused of being their cohort on the ground. Police searched their homes last month and got video of the jump, which hadn't been posted online or otherwise publicized

Solfeggio Mirror - 825Hz Silver Violet Fire - YouTube

Are the robots about to rise? Google's new director of engineering thinks so… | Technology | The Observer - Ray Kurzweil popularised the Teminator-like moment he called the 'singularity', when artificial intelligence overtakes human thinking. But now the man who hopes to be immortal is involved in the very same quest – on behalf of the tech behemoth

Deal with the devil: why Netflix broke its own rules on net neutrality | The Verge - By agreeing to pay Comcast, Reed Hastings set a painful precedent (game over, you're fucked by big internet)

032414
Jimmy Carter: Violence Against Women Is The Most Pervasive Human Rights Violation In The World | ThinkProgress

Man isolated in Saskatoon with "hemorrhagic fever" after African visit | News Talk 650 CKOM - Health region can't rule out Ebola virus

MH370 families attack Malaysian government over loss of plane | World news | theguardian.com
Missing flight MH370 lost in southern Indian Ocean, says Malaysian PM | World news | theguardian.com - Najib Razak says analysis of satellite data shows that last position of missing plane was far from any possible landing sites
Malaysia prime minister: Flight 'ended in the southern Indian Ocean' - latimes.com
Flight MH370: how Inmarsat homed in on missing Malaysia Airlines' plane | World news | The Guardian - UK satellite firm and AAIB cited for 'groundbreaking maths' to narrow the flight corridor of missing passenger jet and help solve riddle
Various Thoughts on MH370 - Lawyers, Guns & Money

AP News : Big climate report: Warming is big risk for people - The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse. (invade the climate)
Climate Change Dangers Here Now, Will Worsen Many Human Ills, UN Panel Warns
108 unaccounted for in Washington mudslide - News Nation - Boston.com

Exclusive: Dungeness nuclear power station quietly taken offline for five months over fears of Fukushima-style flood disaster - Home News - UK - The Independent - EDF closed the reactor on the Kent coast on 22 May to allow work on a new flood protection wall, after alerting the Office of Nuclear Regulation that without urgent work the site was at risk of being inundated by sea water.

The Eternal Ratfker - Esquire - Forty-six years ago this week, elements of the American armed forces entered the village of My Lai 4 in Vietnam and systematically slaughtered 504 civilians in a deliberate war crime. The only reason the death toll wasn't higher was because some American heroes, including Hugh Thompson and Larry Colborn, placed themselves between another group of civilians and the marauding Americans - A crook is so much the least of the darkness that Richard Nixon really was.
He Was a Crook - Hunter S. Thompson - The Atlantic - June 16, 1994
Exclusive: Yale tells students to keep Kissinger talk secret - Salon.com - “Dr. Kissinger’s visit to campus will not be publicized, so we appreciate your confidentiality..."
How state secrecy protects government agencies from embarrassment, then and now | Privacy SOS (it's always a "national security" issue)

Egypt sentences 529 Mohammed Morsi supporters to death in single trial - Largest mass death sentence in modern history handed down to Muslim Brotherhood supporters over riot which killed policeman
Dark Net Traffic Spikes in Turkey as its Twitter Ban Deepens | Motherboard
Comment: Why has Grayling banned prisoners being sent books? - Children are not allowed to send a homemade birthday card. Prisoners with a particular expertise or interests cannot receive magazines, no matter how innocuous it might be to want to know about bird watching or steam trains.
Ukraine and Crimea: what is Putin thinking? | World news | The Guardian - Recent events are both a knee-jerk reaction by Putin and a culmination of his years of grievances with the international order
Ukraine withdraws Crimea troops | All media content | DW.DE | 24.03.2014 - The decision was made shortly after Russia took control of the Feodosia naval base, the third Ukrainian military facility to fall into Russian hands within 48 hours.
Ukrainian women's sex boycott goes viral in Russia - EJ Dickson | The Daily Dot - “Don’t give it to a Russian” (accompanied by a slogan of two hands clasped together, suggesting a certain part of the female anatomy)
Afghan president Hamid Karzai backs Russia's annexation of Crimea | World news | theguardian.com - Referendum reflected people's 'free will' to decide their future, says President Karzai in unexpected move
Israeli interrogator threatens sexual assault, home demolition, says Palestinian child | The Electronic Intifada (Orthodox Thug State)

China Slams U.S. Over New Spying Allegations - China said Monday it was demanding an explanation from Washington over allegations U.S. intelligence agencies hacked into the email servers of Chinese tech giant Huawei and targeted top Chinese officials and government institutions.
Bloomberg editor quits over China story - POLITICO.com - Bloomberg News editor Ben Richardson has quit the organization in protest of the editors’ handling of an investigative piece on China.
U.S. Scurries to Shore Up Spying on Russia - WSJ.com - In Crimea, Russia May Have Gotten a Jump on West by Evading U.S. Eavesdropping (not to mention their dim minds)

NSA: House bill would lower standards for collecting individuals' data | World news | theguardian.com - Draft bill would allow collection of electronic communications records based only on 'reasonable articulable suspicion'
Report: Obama to Propose Changes to NSA Data-Collection - News Politics - Boston.com - The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration plans to announce a new proposal that would “drastically overhaul” the NSA’s phone records-collecting program.

Terror Report Release May Fuel The Spat Between Congress And The CIA - If senators vote this week to release key sections of a voluminous report on terrorist interrogations, an already strained relationship between lawmakers and the CIA could become even more rancorous, and President Barack Obama might have to step into the fray. ("step into the fray," yeah, sure)
Risen: Obama administration is this generation’s ‘greatest enemy of press freedom’ | Poynter. - The administration’s aggressive prosecutions have created “a de facto Official Secrets Act,” Risen said, and the media has been “too timid” in responding. (nice legacy you got there)

Greens want to call Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to parliamentary surveillance inquiry - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - Edward Snowden and Julian Assange would not be protected by parliamentary privilege if they give evidence to a Senate committee about what they know about government snooping on Australian citizens, according to advice given to the ABC.

Mike Rogers Pushes Discredited Theories of Snowden Under “Russian Influence” to Distract from His NSA Oversight Mismanagement | The Dissenter - , “He is actually supporting in an odd way this very activity of brazen brutality and expansionism of Russia. He needs to understand that. And I think Americans need to understand that. We need to put it in proper context.”
The Domestic Spying of Hoover’s FBI Is an Eerie Prequel to the NSA’s Snooping Today - The Daily Beast - In the ’70s Americans learned the hard way that intelligence agencies hate to tell the public what they’re doing. Recent revelations about the NSA prove that oversight and accountability are as necessary now as they were four decades ago.

Galveston Bay Spill Will Take Economic, Ecological Toll | The Texas Tribune - With no end in sight to containing a spill that may have dumped 150,000 gallons of fuel oil into Galveston Bay on Saturday, the hit to Texas’ economy and environment is already huge — and sure to grow.
Anti-fracking activist heads to court after being banned from 40 percent of Pennsylvania county | The Raw Story - An anti-fracking activist is set to ask a Pennsylvania judge on Monday to lift an injunction that bars her from her local hospital, grocery and other properties that sit atop vast lands leased by a Texas-based company for shale gas extraction.

The Bobblespeak Translations (Chertoff??)

Nate Silver Predicts GOP Senate Win, Democrats Promptly Freak Out - Silver gave Republicans a 60 percent chance of wresting the Senate out of Harry Reid's hands—a big blow to the final two years of the Obama presidency. (yeah, Silver's "opinion" is the blow, not Obama's incompetence)
Nate Silver Is 'Happy To Forgive' Paul Krugman For Acting Like A Hedgehog - The stats guru instead named Krugman's conservative colleague at the Times, Ross Douthat, as "someone who shows some originality." (which says a lot about Silver)

A vulnerable Dem who is campaigning on expanding Social Security - Senator Mark Begich of Alaska is embroiled in one of the toughest reelection fights in the country. His solution, in part: To campaign on a proposal that’s far outside the mainstream of what appears to constitute respectable Beltway discourse on entitlements.

PLOS ONE: Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study - Our results revealed that a vegetarian diet is related to a lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption. Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life. Therefore, public health programs are needed in order to reduce the health risk due to nutritional factors.
New study shows people with vegetarian diets are less likely to be healthy, with higher rates of cancer, mental disorders, require greater medical care, and have a poorer quality of life. : science
Electronic cigarettes ‘don’t aid quitting’, study says : Nature News & Comment - But some researchers argue that it is too early to dismiss potential health benefits. (like not fucking smoking)
Electronic cigarettes ‘don’t aid quitting’, study says. : science
RRP: $59.99 (You save $25.00) Price:

Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Chateau Petrus, Part The Less Than Infinity - Esquire - Dear Mother of Jesus, we are a heavily armed nation of fkwits.
Kindergarten teacher: My job is now about tests and data — not children. I quit.

For Jared Remy, leniency was the rule until one lethal night - Metro - The Boston Globe - The trail of alleged victims runs back to his teen years. So does the line of judges who somehow saw fit, time and again, to give him one more chance.

Florida Moves To Restrict Media Access To Stand Your Ground Case Records
More Americans Killed By Police Than By Terrorists: With Crime Down, Why Is Police Aggression Up? | Alternet - We're safer than ever. So why are we seeing an ever increasing militarization of policing? (you are terrorists)
Death Penalty Evolution Map: How Executions Have Changed in States | New Republic
Watchdog: Feds Are Muzzling Us for Reporting Alleged Immigrant Detainee Sex Abuse | Mother Jones - After a community group raised concerns about alleged sexual abuse at an immigrant detention facility in California, the feds asked the group to sign away its First Amendment rights.
Autopsy determines Texas cop fatally shot student in back — RT USA - A Texas college student killed after reportedly making a sarcastic remark to a police officer likely died from a close range gunshot wound to the back, according to an autopsy report that sheds new light on a tragedy that made headlines late last year. Cameron Redus, a 23-year-old student at the University of the Incarnate Word in Texas, was shot five times by Christopher Carter, a campus police officer, after a traffic stop on December 6.
Video: Camper turning from officers when shot | ABQJournal Online - Officers fire bean-bag rounds at him as he’s on the ground, then let loose a police dog, which grabs his leg and shakes it. He doesn’t move. Then officers approach and cuff him, blood on the rock above him. He died the next day at the hospital.
Lawsuit challenges fatal shooting by Miami-Dade police as excessive force - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com - On an early spring evening, two armored Miami-Dade police vehicles carrying 16 helmeted officers thundered into a middle-class Miami Lakes neighborhood for a raid on a suspected pot dealer.
Joe Arpaio Faces More Trouble Over Racial Profiling Case - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his top aide are required to appear before a federal judge who believes the two have mischaracterized and trivialized the judge's key findings in a racial-profiling decision issued last year against the police agency.

St. Louis County mother furious after being arrested for consoling son | KMOV.com St. Louis - She got to her son’s classroom and immediately started to console him. Then the school principal informed her she was violated school policy by not signing in. “I didn’t sign the book, but I had to check on my son. You can bring me the book, She said oh no, I’ve already called the police. You called what,” said Williams (the militarization of public schools)

Silicon's Valley's Brutal Ageism | New Republic - Years of experience, plenty of talent, completely obsolete? (dudebrotechdudes have a short shelf-life +botox)

Survey Says 1 In 5 Unhappily Married Women Are In A Sexless Marriage - Specifically, 22 percent of the American women surveyed admitted to having no sex with their husbands at all.
Women of all ages: how has your sex drive changed? | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Gloria Steinem, who turns 80 this week, thinks a dwindling libido can be a 'terrific advantage'. What do you think? - "The brain cells that used to be obsessed are now free for all kinds of great things."

Judge: IP-Address Is Not a Person and Can't Identify a BitTorrent Pirate | TorrentFreak - District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro dismissed a lawsuit filed by Malibu Media, arguing that the IP-address evidence can't identify the person who actually downloaded the pirated file. (next up, traffic cams)
Which Are The Best Anonymous VPN Providers? | TorrentFreak

? Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (Grace Slick, Woodstock, aug 17 1969) - YouTube
? Riders on the Storm - The Doors HD - YouTube
The Doors In Hd - Jim Morrison - The End - Live In Concert - Amazing !!!! - YouTube

032314
French satellite image also shows possible plane debris | Reuters

Guinea deaths: Ebola blamed for deadly fever outbreak - The Ebola virus has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever now believed to have killed nearly 60 people in southern Guinea, government officials say.

NATO commander warns of Russian threat to separatist Moldova region | Reuters - NATO's top military commander said on Sunday Russia had built up a "very sizeable" force on its border with Ukraine and Moscow may have a region in another ex-Soviet republic, Moldova, in its sights after annexing Crimea. (Putin on a roll)
NATO says Russia has big force at Ukraine's border, worries over Transdniestria | Reuters
James Meek · Putin’s Counter-Revolution · LRB 20 March 2014 (it's complicated)
Juliane Fürst · In Simferopol · LRB 20 March 2014

What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden - NYTimes.com
Pakistan Printer Censors New York Times Front Page Article (Bin Who?)
Twitter / aysharalam: This has been bothering me ... - all morning. What is so offensive?
Pakistan Protected Osama bin-Laden updated- Educate YourselfEducate Yourself

Turkey downs Syria military jet 'in airspace violation'
Israel closes embassies around the world as diplomats strike | Reuters - By escalating the action to a full strike - the first by the diplomatic corps since the country's establishment in 1948 - the diplomats will close all of Israel's 102 missions abroad, paralyzing most diplomatic work with other countries and the United Nations.
Hamas warns Israel over calls to attack Gaza - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Group's leadership says Israel will "pay a very high price" if it heeds Israeli calls to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. (most warlike country in the world)
Report: Germans seize cocaine on its way to Vatican - CBS News - Officers at Leipzig airport found 12 ounces of the drug packed into 14 condoms inside a shipment of cushions coming from South America.
Metropolitan police sued over officer who preyed on domestic violence victim | UK news | theguardian.com - Woman seeks compensation over officer who she says plied her with drink and sexually exploited her following 999 call

Anti-austerity protest turns violent in Madrid - Some protesters started to throw stones and bottles at the large numbers of riot police present and attacked cashpoints and hoardings. The police fired rubber bullets to disperse them, according to video footage seen by Reuters. ("protest turns violent" = "protest attacked by riot police")
22M Dignity Marches Gather a Million Peaceful Protesters in Madrid; Government of Spain Answers with Riot Police Violence - revolution-news.com (what we said)

Poder 360° - La NSA en México - De tiempo atrás se conocen los métodos de espionaje estadounidense, y la reacción que éstos suscitan en los gobiernos mexicanos. (Snowdenistas ask why NSA spying on Mexico)
Chiapas cries out: the sound of Zapatista silence | ROAR Magazine - With the Zapatista communities under attack by capital and state, the indigenous support bases are rising once more to defend their autonomous utopia.

Two Gitmo guards face sexual assault trials in SA - Navy - Stripes - It is the first time NCOs at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, where 154 detainees are now held, have faced sexual-assault trials.

Some Facts About How NSA Stories Are Reported - The Intercept

"The Story of Our Lives" at the Sources and Secrets Conference - The NSA, America's all seeing eye, doesn't want to know everything about everybody, Barton Gellman said today, his face hovering on a screen at the front of the New York Times' airy auditorium. "It wants to be able to know anything about anybody."
S&S Background Brief Abridged Report By Josh Meyer - S_and_S_Background_Brief_Abridged_Report_By_Josh_Meyer.pdf - Sources And Secrets –Background Brief - A Forum on the Press, the Government and National Security March 21, 2014, at TheTimesCenter in New York City

Before Snowden, Nixon Admin Pioneered Evidence-Free 'Russian Spy' Smears Against Daniel Ellsberg | Freedom of the Press Foundation
Intel Chairman Sees Snowden Supporting Russia's Crimea Seizure - NBC News.com
Twitter / ggreenwald: If having a Congressman run ... around accusing people of Russian allegiance based on secret evidence isn't "McCarthyism", what is? #MikeRogers

Chuck Schumer, Author Of Media Shield Bill: It's 'Probably Not Enough' To Protect Glenn Greenwald
Twitter / ggreenwald: I've always thought that's ... - what America needs most: Chuck Schumer deciding who is & isn't a journalist
Hullabaloo - Renouncing all of his allures

Inside the admissions process at George Washington University - The Washington Post - GW also asks students to list a role model and two words to describe themselves. As for herself, Freitag said, she would list “Martha Stewart/Tina Fey” and “sassy/classy.” This year, she’s seeing a lot of Edward Snowden citations.
? The Emerging Culture Of Resistance | Dr. Margaret Flowers | American Autumn | Bonus material - YouTube

In our opinion: The Obama administration's all-out assault on press freedom | Deseret News - And yet the Obama administration has been waging an all-out assault, largely under-reported, on this freedom. It’s time for the nation’s media to make this an issue. (Obama hates your freedoms)
Is Revealing Secrets Akin to Drunk Driving? Intelligence Official Says So - The Intercept - The intelligence community’s top lawyer on Friday defended the Obama administration’s hostility toward revelations of national security secrets — and likened the act of publishing them to drunk driving. (sobriety test for journos, oh wait, that was Schumer's idea)
Video: Is The Obama Administration The LEAST Transparent In U.S. History | Ben Swann Truth In Media - Obama Administration says they are responding to a record number of FOIA requests, more than 700,000! That is true but what the media isn’t talking about is HOW the administration is responding and how little information is is actually being released to journalists.

China's Huawei condemns reported NSA snooping | Reuters - "If the actions in the report are true, Huawei condemns such activities that invaded and infiltrated into our internal corporate network and monitored our communications," Huawei's global cyber security officer, John Suffolk, told Reuters. (oh, the ironies)

N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat - NYTimes.com - American officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create “back doors” in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets. (when all along ...)

A new report finds that the plight of the long-term unemployed is bleak — and likely to remain so by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Of workers who were unemployed for over 27 weeks or more between 2007 and 2012 and interviewed a year later, only 11 percent had returned to full-time, permanent work. 30 percent were still unemployed and looking for work, and 34 percent had dropped out of the labor force entirely. (Obama driving his unemployment numbers down with hopelessness you can believe in)

The Answer is Class - Lawyers, Guns & Money : This Times op-ed on why people born in certain counties dominate Wikipedia entries spends a lot of words to miss the obvious answer
The Geography of Fame - NYTimes.com

Texas City dike closed after barge and ship collide - Houston Chronicle - 90,000 feet of containment boom was deployed to protect the coastline from as much as 168,000 gallons of thick shipping fuel that may have spilled into Galveston Bay after a ship and barge collided near the Texas City dike.
Crews try to contain oil spill in Galveston Bay
Oil Spill In Galveston Bay After Barge Collides With Ship

FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control | FiveThirtyEight - Our new forecast goes a half-step further: We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber. (Obama campaigning hard for Republinuts)
Nate Silver’s latest forecast shows the GOP regaining Senate control. Forecast for his FiveThirtyEight venture remains cloudy. by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Tarnished Silver - NYTimes.com - Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight. I sorry, but I have to agree: so far it looks like something between a disappointment and a disaster ... Basically, it looks as if Silver is working from the premise that the supposed experts in every field are just like the political analysts at Politico, and that there is no real expertise he needs to take on board
The Limits of the Wonkosphere
Men who get paid to write about politics for a living who don’t understand the birth control provision of the ACA, part the infinite by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - , Emily Crockett has a nice piece on the Obamacare birth control benefit. It grew out of a Twitter exchange she had with Timothy B. Lee, the latest libertarian dudebro to join Ezra Klein’s new Vox journalism outfit. (mansplaining from Ezra's dudebrotechnolibertarian outfit)
Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - How Jonathan Chait and other Obama-era progressives misunderstand the role of white supremacy in America's history and present
The real “culture of pathology” is neoliberal discourse about poverty by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

Left-Wing Darling Pacifica Radio Is Sliding Into the Abyss | LA Weekly - . A Pacifica fund drive, meanwhile, sounds like a never-ending infomercial for products created by a street-corner lunatic.

Lawmaker To Introduce Legislation For Legalized Pot « CBS New York - Voters in Colorado and Washington have made recreational cannabis legal in their states, “and has not had the dire results that critics have predicted,” Scutari said.

The Daily Dot - Could a petition force the White House to address nonbinary genders? - A White House petition to legally recognize nonbinary genders has managed 34,000 signatures in less than two days.

? Solfeggio Harmonics - 396 HZ - Liberation from Fear - YouTube (who knew?)

There’s a Gene for That | Jacobin - Biological determinism seems plausible precisely because it gives the illusion that it is grounded in scientific observation ... If the philosophical and scientific bases of genetic determinist claims are so problematic, why is such sloppy thinking rewarded with front-page articles in the New York Times Science section

Who Made That Standing Desk? - NYTimes.com
This Cheap, Strong Cardboard Standing Desk Will Let You Ditch Your Deadly Office Sitting | Co.Exist | ideas + impact
Computer Desks, Standing Desks, and iPad Carts from Anthro
9 Dirty Things In Your Kitchen You Probably Haven't Been Cleaning

Teen Sexter Sent Girls Nude Photos, San Bernardino Cops Say | The Informer | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly - In a first-of-its-kind case for the Big Bear community, a 17-year-old boy was facing 10 counts of suspicion of annoying telephonic communication this week, San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department officials told the Weekly.
Revealed: Apple and Google’s wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees | PandoDaily - what began as a secret cartel agreement between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt to illegally fix the labor market for hi-tech workers, expanded within a few years to include companies ranging from Dell, IBM, eBay and Microsoft, to Comcast, Clear Channel, Dreamworks, and London-based public relations behemoth WPP. All told, the combined workforces of the companies involved totals well over a million employees.
Twitter Turns 8; May Drop Hashtags and @replies - Slashdot (and renames themselves "TwitBook")

032214
Flight MH370: China sends ships to verify debris | World news | The Observer - Relatives of missing plane's passengers await possible confirmation of wreckage following sighting by Chinese satellite in southern Indian Ocean
How to Plausibly Deny Disappearing a Commercial Jumbo Jet

Ebola Kills Dozens In Guinea, May Have Spread To Sierra Leone

Crimea Base Besieged By Russian Troops
Shots fired as Russian troops force their way into Ukrainian base in Crimea | Reuters
White House responds cautiously to Russian takeover of Crimea airbase | World news | theguardian.com - Belbek commander reportedly taken away by Russian troops Obama hopes to increase Russia's isolation on Europe trip

Senators urge Obama to stand firm over Iran nuclear talks | World news | theguardian.com - Twenty-three Democrats write to president• Letter less aggressive than earlier Senate message (AIPAC puppets)

Tens of Thousands Protest Austerity Measures in Madrid - NBC News.com (victims of a deluded policy designed to punish the people for the misdeeds of the elite are restless)
The Markets Recovered But Social Peace Hasn’t Been Won | Igualitárista

NSA targeted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei – report | World news | theguardian.com - NSA created 'back doors' into networks Huawei networks Company claims to connect a third of world's population Report comes as Obama set to meet Xi Jinping on Monday (they didn't want US using shit they already knew as compromised)

UK's Intelligence Watchdog 'Group' Only Has One Full-Time Member, Oversight Efforts Compared To British Sitcom | Techdirt - In Britain, the question, "Who watches the watchers?" has been answered. The answer is, apparently, hardly anyone. (very Brit)

Exile: Sarah Harrison On Paying The Price For Helping Edward Snowden | Techdirt

FBI Bust Another Handcrafted 'Terrorist' For The Crime Of Thinking About Supporting A Terrorist Organization | Techdirt - from the snared-in-the-FBI's-(en)trap(ment) dept The FBI's string of thwarted, self-created terrorist plots continues unabated. Why look for terrorists when you can just craft them yourselves? Digital Fourth has the rundown on the latest "coup" by the agency.
Police scrutinized over Stingray devices - Columbia Daily Tribune | Columbia Missouri: News - Police across the country might be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they're refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do

Florida state attorney denies reports FBI agent in Todashev shooting cleared | World news | theguardian.com - Ibragim Todashev died in probe linked to Boston bombings • Statement: 'Release of purported information is inaccurate'

Hillary Clinton Tacks Right of Obama on Foreign Policy - WSJ.com - Remarks on Iran, Russia Suggest How She Might Differentiate Herself in '16 Run


Lawyers For 2 Ex-Christie Aides Call For Immunity

The Death of American Universities | Jacobin - by Noam Chomsky - As universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is being imposed by force.

Worse Than Shirtsleeves in the Oval Office » Balloon Juice
Can Heritage Foundation Posterboy Bono Save the GOP? - The Daily Beast - Bono was into the spiritualization of finance waaaay before it was cool, like it now is becoming.

Do Corporations Believe in God? The ‘Hobby Lobby’ Case Has the Answer - The Daily Beast - The Supreme Court will decide whether corporate personhood, a dubious idea they’ve already affirmed, means business can deny birth control coverage on the grounds of “religious freedom.” (the real question is can they go to hell? try that limited liability thing with the Almighty)
If Hobby Lobby Wins, It Will Be Even Worse For Birth Control Access Than You Think | ThinkProgress
Why Can’t the FDA Fix Outdated Birth Control Labels? - The Daily Beast - Contraceptives like Plan B don’t prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman’s body. But their labels still say they do—and they’ve become a tool for conservative activists. (“embryocidal.”)

The Right-Wing Book Market is Dying a Free-Market Death | Blog | The Baffler - Free market’s a bitch.
Tom Clancy, Military Man | Andrew J. Bacevich | The Baffler - Clancy’s own career took off when President Reagan plugged Red October as “my kind of yarn.” As well he might: Clancy shared Reagan’s worldview.

Is Innovation Killing Cambridge? | WGBH News
The People’s Republic of Zuckerstan | John Summers | The Baffler - Ever since Mark Zuckerberg reappeared in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2011 and announced that this old city had growth potential after all, the region’s public officials have been eagerly positioning themselves to ride a wave of digital startup commerce ... If you are Suzy Phelps, you pick up your bag of tricks and skedaddle. In October 2013, soon after her photograph appeared in Scout Cambridge and arrived in everyone’s mailboxes, Hubba Hubba was washed away in a tide of Innovation Economy payola.

Subatomic Free Will « The Dish

Joel Osteen's church theft opens can of worms: Jaws drop as folks do the math - Hartford Pop Culture | Examiner.com - . Based on Osteen’s reported amount of money in this theft, it appears his Lakewood Church takes in $32 million a year. Calculator keys were punched around the nation taking the $600,000 for Olsteen's weekend donation collection and timing this by the 52 weeks in a year. (grifters will)

It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a ... Weapon? - NYTimes.com (zero tolerance for idiocy)

032114
We Need Three Planets to Keep the Human Race Alive, NASA Scientist Says | Motherboard - “The entire ecosystem is crashing,” Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist of NASA’s Langley Research Center said Thursday. “Essentially, there’s too many of us. We’ve been far too successful as the human animal. People allege we’re short 40-50 percent of a planet now. As the Asians and their billions come up to our living systems, we’re going to need three more planets.” (Republicans defund space)
World's Oldest Direct Measure Of Atmospheric CO2 May Lose Its Funding | ThinkProgress (Republicans defund facts)
Keeling Curve Funding - The Top CO2 Measurement Is In Trouble - Esquire - The Republicans have discovered that the solution to global climate change is the same solution they have for everything they see as a problem with the government -- cut its funding!

Missing Plane Search Continues; Still No Sign of Plane Or Debris, Australia Says

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will "Significantly" Restrict Online Freedoms | Motherboard (Obama hates your freedoms)
Tech companies to Senate Finance Committee chair Wyden: no Fast Track for TPP! - Boing Boing - We urge you not to pass any version of Fast Track or trade promotion authority, or approve any mechanism that would facilitate the passage of trade agreements containing digital copyright enforcement provisions designed in an opaque, closed-door process. (which is Obama's favorite way to do things)

Congress raises pressure on CIA in torture dispute - CSMonitor.com - Congress and the CIA are battling over who will write the official history of one of the darkest eras in American spying — the waterboarding and brutal interrogations of Al Qaeda prisoners in undeclared prisons overseas. (even worse than you thought, but Obama will keep it all seecrit)
JURIST - Sidebar: Legitimate Penological Interests? Challenges to the Use of the Water Cure in Guantanamo Bay - US military personnel at Guantanamo Bay are grievously abusing hunger-striking detainees, using force-feeding techniques akin to a medieval form of torture called "pumping" and colloquially known as the "water cure." (your "Commander-in-Chief" loves torture)
Guantánamo, Where Unsubstantiated Suspicion of Terrorism Ensures Indefinite Detention, Even After 12 Years | Andy Worthington

Ukraine signs EU trade pact as Russia finalizes Crimea annexation - CNN.com
McCain: 'It's Tragic' There's No U.S. Military Option In Ukraine | ThinkProgress (you know what is tragic?)

ACLU of Massachusetts and ACLU of Florida call for public transparency on FBI shooting death | ACLU of Massachusetts - Unbroken FBI track record of clearing its agents who use deadly force leads to renewed calls for openness and accountability, especially regarding role of Massachusetts state troopers.
Florida state attorney denies reports FBI agent in Todashev shooting cleared | World news | theguardian.com - Ibragim Todashev died in probe linked to Boston bombings • Statement: 'Release of purported information is inaccurate' (we had no choice but to shoot him 6 times in the torso and once in the back of the head +FBI wiretapped prosecutor's phone, probably)
FBI agent cleared in Florida shooting of suspect questioned about Boston bombing - The Washington Post

Why Is Turkey Blocking Twitter? | Electronic Frontier Foundation - “Twitter and so on, we will root them out. The international community can say this or that – I don’t care. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic.”
Turkey Twitter users flout Erdogan ban on micro-blogging site | World news | The Guardian - Twitter use breaks new record in country as Turks defy purge of social media platform by Ankara
Istanbul-New York-Tel Aviv: Tweet Tweet: Erdogan's Failed Attempt at banning Twitter (Turkish Local Election Coverage 2014, 5) - courts throughout Turkey issued orders for the social media Twitter to be blocked. In other words, twitter is now banned in Turkey! While this certainly has sent out shock waves in Turkey, and the world, it is not a great surprise considering the recent passage of the internet law. (Erdogan making his corruption widely known)

Taliban gunmen kill nine civilians in attack at Kabul's Serena hotel | World news | theguardian.com - Four foreigners among victims in attack on luxury hotel as wave of violence sweeps Afghanistan ahead of presidential elections
Israeli settlements require international legal attention, envoy says - UPI.com (always push, push)
Jerusalem child threatened with sodomy, placed under house arrest | Defence for Children International Palestine - A boy from East Jerusalem who signed a confession after Israeli interrogators threatened him with sodomy spent over two months under house arrest.

RIP Lawrence Walsh - Esquire - It was a clean getaway. And so much of what those thieves stole from the rest of us never had been recovered. We are a lesser country for all of that. (what looking forward gets you +Ford's Chief of Staff was Darth Cheney)

Oakland to Pay $4.5 million to Iraq War Vet Scott Olsen | East Bay Express - The Oakland City Attorney's Office said in a statement this morning that the city will pay $1.8 million of the settlement with Scott Olsen, and that the city's insurance carrier will pay the rest of the $4.5 million.
Judge finds police ‘lied, exaggerated and colluded’ about cellblock assaults captured on video | Toronto Star - Ontario Court judge says officers used excessive force on a man in custody, violating his Charter rights, then “created a narrative” to cover it up. The videos are being kept secret despite being evidence in a public trial.

Has James Clapper been indicted for perjury yet? - It has been ___ days since James Clapper lied to Congress and the American people.

President Obama considers ditching his BlackBerry for a Samsung or LG | World news | The Guardian - The smartphone that he said during the campaign would have to be pried from his grasp may be on its way out (the closest Barry got to a "computer")
Obama's move to relieve snooping fears | TheHill - The White House said Obama and the executives — which included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and Google chairman Eric Schmidt — discussed steps Obama had ordered to restrict government intelligence activities.

New Jersey Muslims appeal federal ruling on NYPD surveillance | World news | theguardian.com - Judge William Martini said NYPD activities were lawful • Attorney: ruling sanctions 'targeted, religious discrimination'

Harry Reid asks CIA to limit Congress interaction during spying investigation | World news | theguardian.com - Senate majority leader escalates row in letter to CIA director • Senate sergeant-at-arms to examine computer networks (so they don't spy on his investigation of their spying, CIA stands behind claim of Senate "hacking" their computers)
Inside the NSA’s Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators - The Intercept
Reports of the Death of a National License-Plate Tracking Database Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - The Intercept - The only thing actually new at DHS — the solicitation for services the Post decided was front-page news — was a different form of paperwork to pay for access.

Microsoft tightens privacy policy after admitting to reading journalist's emails | Technology | theguardian.com - After outrage from privacy campaigners, the tech firm will now seek legal advice before examining the contents of customers’ inboxes (see, it's really "their" email, they just license "you" to read it)
Microsoft has always reserved the right to read and disclose your Hotmail messages - Boing Boing
Microsoft admits reading Hotmail inbox of blogger (worse than Googlevil)
How Much Microsoft Charges the FBI for User Data - An invoice from December 2012 totals $145,100 which boils down to $100 per request. The rate had doubled by August 2013 when Microsoft charged the FBI $200 per request for a total of $352,200. The most recent invoice from November 2013 is $281,000. Remember: all of those six-figure sums (provided by taxpayers) are for one month's worth of user data requests. That adds up to millions of dollars a year.
The Daily Dot - U.K. begging Yahoo to stay in London so it can keep snooping - The U.K. is reportedly begging Yahoo to not move its European headquarters to Ireland, where it may not face the same level of surveillance it currently does.

Austerians’ Pound of Flesh by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - That these numbers could have been a lot worse is comforting, but only if you forget what might have been done for the economy if Washington hadn’t spent most of the last three years focused on deficit reduction. (no one to blame but Obama and Larry Summers)
Meet FirstNet: the surveillance industry's blueprint for national data sharing | Privacy SOS - FirstNet is a public/private cooperative surveillance and information exchange enterprise—a vast network to share Americans' personal information—conceived by and written into law with the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. (remember that one? Obama also de-regulated Silicon Valley IPO's, win-win-win)

Tea Party and Wall Street Are Getting Along Just Fine | New Republic (Teastupids owned by Koch Bros)
GOP Field Hasn’t Been This Split in 40 Years | FiveThirtyEight - The pack is now huddled in the low teens, according to polls of GOP voters. (all the clowns are midgets)

Representative Wingnuts by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Anyone who thinks the two parties are “equivalent” in extremist influence either isn’t paying attention or is moving the goalposts by pretending that whatever Obama and Democrats are doing is some sort of revolutionary Marxist outrage, even if it’s been ho-hum policy for Democrats and even for Republicans for years.

House To Vote On Controversial ‘No More National Parks’ Policy | ThinkProgress (Republicans hate parks)

Killing Conservative Books: The Shocking End Of A Publishing Gold Rush - A decade ago, mainstream publishers became convinced they could make millions by churning out books for the right — and now the bubble may be bursting. From Allan Bloom to Ann Coulter. (peak insanity?)

The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers. (they bought Canada)
Google Earth Caught This Power Plant Dumping Cancer-Causing Pollution Into a Major River - PolicyMic - On Monday environmental groups released images of a coal-ash plant in Kentucky allegedly dumping illegal waste into the Ohio river — and it's not a pretty picture.

The Last 30 Years, As Told By Newspapers (what's a "newpaper?")

Whooping Cough Outbreaks Tied to Parents Shunning Vaccines - US News - Study finds that areas with high rates of nonmedical vaccine exemptions also had high number of cases (go fuck yourself, Jenny)

Products: Treadmill, Stand At Desks & Desk Accessories | TreadDesk
Treadmill Desks Burn Calories <em>And</em> Boost Work Performance, Study Suggests

Hawaii police urge lawmakers to keep in place undercover sex exemption | World news | theguardian.com - Officers in Hawaii say they need provision that allows officers to have sex with prostitutes during investigations
Man assaulted and locked wife in shed after she kept singing 'ding dong, the witch is dead' when his mother died - Crime - UK - The Independent
Meet Patrick Howley: The Daily Caller's Resident Sexist | Blog | Media Matters for America - Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson has apologized for reporter Patrick Howley's sexist and inappropriate comments about Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray, but Howley has a history of pushing misogynistic rhetoric at Carlson's outlet.
Grunt08 comments on I will be desecrating Fred Phelps' grave. His church has caused me untold amounts of misery. CMV.

Nun Rocks It On Italy's 'The Voice' Singing Competition And No One Can Believe It: Sister Cristina Scuccia Wows
? Billy Joel and Jimmy Fallon Form 2-Man Doo-Wop Group Using iPad App - YouTube
? The Doors Sing "Reading Rainbow" Theme (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) - YouTube
The 13 greatest opening lines from novels of the 1960s | Whizzpast

ELI5: String Theory : explainlikeimfive
Khan Academy Gets Rare Partnership To Close Wealth Gap In College Test Prep | TechCrunch

032014
First Climate Article On Nate Silver’s Data Website Uses 'Deeply Misleading' Data, Top Climatologists Say | ThinkProgress

Eschaton: They Sucked On It Tom - I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie. (Tommy Friedman - never forget)

Israel approves 184 new settlement homes | Reuters

Turkey's PM Erdogan Vow's to Eradicate Twitter, Doesn't Care About International Reaction
Saudi Arabia: New Terrorism Regulations Assault Rights | Human Rights Watch - Campaign to Silence Peaceful Activists
Research | Journalist Safety | IWMF - Every year, women journalists are killed, assaulted, threatened and defamed – all in pursuit of the truth. They do it in defense of their societies, bearing witness in countries where media are not free. Many of these women face not only the implicit dangers of hostile environments, but cultural and social prejudices that would keep them silent.
d New Zealand Supreme Court Says DOJ Doesn't Have To Provide Its Evidence In Megaupload Extradition Case | Techdirt (of course not)

Details of Illegal Torture That the CIA Doesn't Want You to Know About - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - Any agreement to refrain from investigating torture as a criminal offense would itself violate the law. The UN Convention Against Torture, signed by Ronald Reagan and later ratified by the U.S. Senate, compels signatories to investigate torture and "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution." Perhaps the U.S. will one day adhere to the law. (not if Obama can help it)


Don't Fall For Misleading Story Being Spread By NSA Suggesting Tech Companies Lied About PRISM | Techdirt - Update: With little fanfare, the Guardian has now added a note (at the bottom) saying that it has adjusted the story because of the initial misleading claims:
Google Encrypts All Gmail Messages After NSA Snooping | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
The Daily Dot - Hacked emails show what Microsoft charges the FBI for user data - Microsoft often charges the FBI's most secretive division hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to legally view customer information, according to documents allegedly hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.
Microsoft Looked Through Reporter's Hotmail And MSN Chat Accounts To Identify Windows 8 Leaker | Techdirt - from the scroogled? dept (also the wait, what? dept)

A Question for Mr. Charles Pierce | The Daily Banter
A Response To The Daily Banter - Esquire - I guess I should reply to this with something beyond, "Witless sarcasm is no way to go through life, son."

Prosecutors Admit They Don't Understand What Weev Did, But They're Sure It's Like Blowing Up A Nuclear Plant | Techdirt (technology is complicated)

New Report: Fortune 100 Companies Have Received a Whopping $1.2 Trillion in Corporate Welfare Recently | Alternet - Military contractors, oil companies and banks are the biggest 'welfare queens' around.

The GOP’s Prague Spring Is Officially Over -- Daily Intelligencer

Chris Christie's General Achieves Peak Chutzpah - Esquire - Slimy with chutzpah, yeah, but these are not good men. Neither Samson nor Christie may ever be charged with any crime, much less spend a day in jail, but both have abused their power and should be removed from office. The sooner, the better.

The Sex Scene Is Dead - Esquire - And Nymphomaniac hasn't done anything to revive it

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic

Landmark Alzheimer's Study Pinpoints Protein That Protects Aging Brain - . But in those with Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment, the protein -- RE1-Silencing Transcription factor -- is absent from key brain regions.
Joe Rogan Experience #470 - Amber Lyon - YouTube
? Puzzling Puzzle Prank - YouTube

Student involved in razor incident will return to school Friday | WAVY (we need zero tolerance for administrative idiocy)
Fla. woman who shot mom awaits 'stand ground' ruling - JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A mother of six who says she was forced to shoot her own mother in self-defense clings to a controversial defense that continues to garner criticism and legislative action. (it's the white male clause in stand your ground that's the problem)

Twitter Is Public. Deal with It. - Duly Noted - Testa didn’t need permission to cover a newsworthy event on her beat any more than a metro reporter needs permission to cover a rally in a public park.
BuzzFeed reporter’s use of tweets stirs controversy | Poynter.
What's Missing from Journalists' Tactic of Snagging Stories from Twitter? Respect. | Bitch Media (public shit is public, deal with it)
The Daily Dot - Hacker who broke into 'League of Legends' database arrested
Federal Agents Arrest More Than a Dozen in Internet Child Pornography Ring | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth - Federal agents announced the results of one of the largest online child exploitation investigations in history Tuesday, involving victims in 37 states and five foreign countries.

031914
California officials prepare for the worst as historic drought deepens risk of wildfires | Environment | The Guardian - Severe lack of rain and sun-scorched earth means that when it comes to fire risks, California is now in a class of its own
FiveThirtyEight | This Winter Wasn’t the Coldest, But It Was One of the Most Miserable
Texans Attack ‘Muslim Weather’ - The Daily Beast - “It’s called a dust storm..Texas is not a rag head country.”

Missing Plane Most Likely In Southern Indian Ocean: Reuters Source
A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet | Autopia | Wired.com
MH370 disappearance: Chris Goodfellow's theory about a fire and Langkawi is wrong.
Did the airplane hide in a "radar shadow"? Probably not. Did the flight crew act like heroes? Possibly so.
How Conspiracy Theories Go Viral | Motherboard

Navy Yard Shooting Review - The Broken Military And Its Broken People - Esquire - This is one of the deeper and more profound elements of the legacy of a decade in which an administration recklessly employed the military out of panic and geopolitical fantasy. Aaron Alexis is the product of the country's lingering fever dream.

Russia: Government Tightens Screws After Sochi | Human Rights Watch - Detentions, Harassment of Peaceful Protesters Amid Ukraine Crisis
Kiev announces plans to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Crimea | World news | The Guardian - Ukrainian servicemen come under pressure from Russian troops and local forces to abandon Crimean bases
Russian Forces Storm Ukrainian Naval Headquarters In Crimea

NoW offered hacking reporter 'crude' deal to keep job by not spreading blame | UK news | theguardian.com - Former royal editor told he would only be sacked if he said others were involved in phone hacking, Old Bailey told
Brazil No Longer Plans to Secede from the Internet | Motherboard

US tech giants knew of NSA data collection, agency's top lawyer insists | World news | theguardian.com - NSA general counsel Rajesh De contradicts months of angry denials from big companies like Yahoo and Google (who lied?)
Why Does the NSA Want to Keep Its Water Usage a Secret? | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com - The National Security Agency has many secrets, but here’s a new one: the agency is refusing to say how much water it’s pumping into the brand new data center it operates in Bluffdale, Utah. According to the NSA, its water usage is a matter of national security. (because terrorists (journalists) would win)
Get your masks ready: Facebook says it has achieved 97% face recognition success 'in the wild' | Privacy SOS - DeepFace is coming for what's left of your privacy. (they really called it that)

NSA Surveillance Past Calls - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - Apparently, the all-too-human, yet curiously error-prone, heroes of the surveillance state have invented themselves a kind of atavachron.

Judge: FBI must explain why it is withholding documents about assassination plot against occupy activists | Privacy SOS
Judge: FBI Explain Withholding Records Of Occupy Houston Assassination Plot | PopularResistance.Org - A federal judge has ordered the FBI to explain why it withheld some information requested by a graduate student for his research on a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston protest leaders. (read that again, slowly)
NSA Conducts So Many Back Door Searches on US Persons It Would Be Impracticable to Approve Those Queries | emptywheel (another Obama logical rabbit-hole(TM)

Weev Is Still in Jail Because the Government Doesn't Know What Hacking Is | Motherboard
Errata Security: Weev’s lawyers appear in court

How Cold War-Hungry Neocons Stage Managed RT Anchor Liz Wahl’s Resignation - Truthdig - By Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek - Before joining RT, Wahl interned for the right-wing Sean Hannity on Fox News. (things are not always as they seem dept)

Eschaton: Symptom - Whatever one thinks of Bill and Hill personally, their ability to surround themselves with truly horrible people is impressive. Mark Penn's a convenient - and uniquely awful - scapegoat, but it's ridiculous to see him as The Problem. Look in the mirror all you people talking to Mother Jones.
Hillary Insiders Say They Won't Work for Her If She Hires This Man | Mother Jones - "I would do anything for Hillary. Except work with Mark Penn."

This Chart Shows How Little We Really Know About Where Political Money Comes From - The initial spike in dark money spending took place in 2008, after the Supreme Court’s 2007 Wisconsin Right to Life ruling. That ruling freed nonprofit 501(c) organizations to make “issue ads” mentioning candidates -- as long as they didn’t directly call for the election or defeat of a candidate.
The stunning dishonesty of Charles Murray - Salon.com - Paul Ryan’s “inner city” expert explains why insisting blacks and Latinos have lower IQs isn’t racist. He's wrong (Joan Walsh is shrill)
Paul Ryan is victim-blaming men now - The Week - No, men don't lack a "culture of work" — they lack decent jobs
The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults | Brookings Institution - Employment prospects for teens and young adults in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas plummeted between 2000 and 2011
So the young feel defeated and trapped. Guess what? So do their parents | Suzannne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian - When the young have no jobs, no houses and no hope it is not just a problem for them. We are all in this together
The Underemployed Generation - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - For young people with low levels of education, the employment situation is bad indeed and they have little hope of significant improvement going forward. It’s not that they can find no work necessarily, but it is a generation of underemployed people working low-wage jobs:

FiveThirtyEight | When Living Wage Is Minimum Wage - A generation ago, people making the minimum wage were largely teenagers. Today, as President Obama pushes to give 25 million low-wage workers a raise, that’s no longer true.
Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight and the dangers of being ideologically neutral - The Week - By claiming the mantle of pure analysis, Silver is falling into a familiar journalistic trap - Here's where we find Silver's ideological commitment, I think: contrarianism. (Woah, the Silver-Klein twins +Nate is a crypto climate-denier)
Sergeant Friday Was Not A Fox - NYTimes.com
Are Corporations Hoarding Cash? It's Complicated. | Mother Jones - Over at the newly launched—or relaunched—FiveThirtyEight.com, Ben Casselman updates us on the enormous mountains of cash that have been piling up in company treasuries ever since the recession ended:
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire - The occasion this time is Leon Wieseltier's hilarious why-do-they-laugh-at-my-mighty-sword? diatribe regarding Silver's abject disrespect for the pundit class. Byers, who will never learn, concludes that the problem is that Both Sides Do It.

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class - Salon.com - Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth -- even democracy (if you ignore the 1% and policies they bought, anyway)

Many in Michigan won’t be able to buy “rape insurance” because individual plans don’t offer it - Salon.com - Insult to injury for reproductive rights: There are no individual providers currently offering new abortion riders

The Landscape-Scarring, Energy-Sucking, Wildlife-Killing Reality of Pot Farming | Mother Jones - This is your wilderness on drugs. (when you criminalize it and grow it outdoors, anyway)
WASHINGTON: Feds accused of steering funding to anti-pot researchers | Economy | McClatchy DC

This Is A Painting Of George Washington Dunking On Kim Jong-un

Louisiana Public School Finds Out It Can't Force Christianity On Students - a science teacher at the school, Rita Roark, told her class, which C.C. attended, that the Big Bang never happened and that God had created the universe 6,000 years ago. She allegedly refused to teach the theory of evolution to the class, saying it was a theory "stupid people made up because they don’t want to believe in God.” ("science" teacher +Rita Roark, famous on the internets for all eternity for being "stupid")
Racists Declare White Man March a Success, Everyone Else Wonders If It Actually Happened (Kyle Hunt, famous on the internets for all eternity for being a racist asshole)

Malcolm Gladwell debunked: Practice may not be the main key to success - Salon.com - A new study shows that the "10,000 hour rule" might be a lot less important than previously touted (10,000 hrs is only 1/3 of the story)
Quantum Supergravity Could Explain Weirdness of Black Holes - Wired Science
How An Ordinary Camera Phone Can Photograph Objects Hidden Behind Other Things — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium
Dinosaur dubbed 'chicken from hell' was armed and dangerous | Science | The Guardian - Feathered beast, Anzu wyliei, was built for speed, measured three metres from beak to tail and had long, sharp claws

Behold the Most Perfectly Scathing Missed Connection of All Time - Tuesday evening, a commuter on the T in Boston observed a man approach a woman and — without any prior interaction — tell her to lose weight
The 20 most memorable Love Letters of the past five years - Relationships - Boston.com

We are the Microsoft OneNote team. Ask us Anything : IAmA
OneNote is freaking amazing!!! : windowsphone
Top 10 things you didn’t know about OneNote | Office Blogs
Keyboard shortcuts - OneNote - Office.com
Where have you spotted OneNote? | Office Blogs
Try the Onetastic add-in to bring tons of new features to OneNote | Office Blogs
Onetastic for OneNote

031814
Climate change is putting world at risk of irreversible changes, scientists warn | Environment | theguardian.com - AAAS makes rare policy intervention urging US to act swiftly to reduce carbon emissions and lower risks of climate catastrophe (Repubicans defund the climate)
West’s Drought and Growth Intensify Conflict Over Water Rights - NYTimes.com - A sprawling petrochemical complex at the junction of the Brazos and the Gulf of Mexico held senior rights to the river’s water — and with the Brazos shriveled, it had run short. (oil wins over food)
Iditarod 2014: Musher Monica Zappa on climate change, Alaskan snow shortage. - Alaska’s famous Iditarod race has precious little snow this year.

Malaysia Plane Search Spans Asia, But Investigation Shows Little Progress - An international land and sea search for a missing Malaysian jetliner is covering an area the size of Australia
Thailand Gives Radar Data 10 Days After MH370 Goes Missing - it didn't share the information with Malaysia earlier because it wasn't specifically asked for it.
Pakistan, India, Taliban say know nothing about missing plane | Reuters - "We wish we had an opportunity to hijack such a plane," he told Reuters by telephone from the lawless North Waziristan region.
CNN's Don Lemon Raises Every Crazy Theory About Missing Malaysian Plane (video)

Ukrainian Navy Man 'Killed' as Russian Troops Storm Simferopol Military Base (""killed"")
Ukrainian troops being attacked at base by Russian forces: Interfax | Reuters - Ukrainian troops at a base in Crimea's main city, Simferopol, said on Tuesday that they were being attacked by Russian forces and one soldier had been injured, Interfax news agency said quoting a Ukrainian military spokesman.
Was Yanukovych's Ouster Constitutional? (no)
Putin confirms Crimea annexation as Ukraine soldier becomes first casualty | World news | The Guardian - Russian president denounces hypocrisy of west but Ukraine's PM accuses Moscow of war crime after soldier is shot dead ... "I do not want to be welcomed in Sevastopol by Nato sailors," said Putin, speaking of the Crimean port where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.
Russia Suspended From G-8 In Wake Of Crimea Crisis, France Says
Crimea’s referendum corrected Soviet-era mistake - Gorbachev — RT News
Russian Army Spetsnaz Units Arrested Operating In Ukraine - Slashdot
Ron Paul Is Supporting Russia’s Illegal Occupation of Crimea - The Daily Beast - The libertarian godfather has become one of the biggest cheerleaders for the "referendum" that will lead to Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
Twitter / AmbroseEP: Reliance on Russian gas (Baltics are screwed)
Putin condemns western hypocrisy as he confirms annexation of Crimea | World news | theguardian.com - Russian president makes speech laced with bluster and anger at west, saying Russia has been 'cheated again and again'
Crimea Annexation: Putin Signs Treaty Making Region Part Of Russia
FiveThirtyEight | Another Explanation For Crimea Referendum Landslide - the Ukrainian parliament’s “foolish steps” — such as canceling and later reinstating a law granting equal status to minority languages in Ukraine. He still thinks the context of the referendum, including the Russian troops and Russian propaganda present in Crimea, were the dominant factors in the vote. (and not Putin voting a million times)

Twitter / billmon1: @TonyKaron @barbaraslavin1 ... - Obama: "New settlements? What new settlements?You must've spilled some coffee on that map or something."
Obama and Abbas meeting 'difficult', says chief Palestinian negotiator | World news | theguardian.com - Saeb Erekat said delegation showed US president ‘very ugly map’ of recent Israeli settlements at ‘candid’ meeting (push, push)
Israel's defense chief says U.S. projecting weakness | Reuters (and they are experts)
Afghanistan Suicide Bombing Claims 15 Lives; Just The Latest Attack Before Presidential Elections
Twitter / KeaneBhatt: .@GeraldoRivera's oped urges ... - US support for "Venezuelan people" to "throw the bum out" even though Maduro was elected

Eschaton: It Was The Stupidest Of Times - Of course, there's Kenneth Pollack, but also Paul Berman, Michael Ignatieff and, surprise, Elie Wiesel, the great writer on the Holocaust. Berman: "It's something of a scandal in my eyes that hundreds of thousands of people are not marching in support of the oppressed Iraqis." Hundreds of thousands are dead. Bygones, Paul.
Moral Injury: The Grunts - The Huffington Post - Almost 2 million men and women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are flooding homeward, profoundly affected by war. (screw our troops)

Revealed: Inside the Senate report on CIA interrogations | Al Jazeera America - “Whatever is in the report is big enough and significant enough that the CIA has fought tooth and nail to keep it buried,” Anders said. “If what comes out in this report is as bad as some senators have said, it’s going to require a broader and deeper discussion about what took place, and it will be up to the president and Congress to lead the country through it, figure out what it means and how we need to respond to clean it up.”

Reports of the Death of a National License-Plate Tracking Database Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - The Intercept - So rather than being the tale of an averted threat, the bulk license-plate tracking saga is actually a story about yet another previously unimaginable loss of privacy in the modern information age.
Pentagon watchdog 'not aware' of NSA bulk phone data collection | World news | theguardian.com - Admission that DoD office doesn’t have investigations open into the controversial surveillance comes as new report reveals NSA can harvest every call made in unnamed foreign country ... Thomas, an Air Force and intelligence veteran who became deputy inspector general in March 2013, said he “can’t quantify” the amount of oversight he performs on the NSA. (no oversight anywhere)
NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls - The Washington Post - White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the White House will not comment on every NSA report. (of course not)
After Snowden, Australia’s cops worry about people using crypto | Ars Technica - Proposal for reform has state police asking for Web browsing history, too.

Small Drones Are the 'Worst' Threat to Privacy, Says Senate Intel Chair | Motherboard - Dianne Feinstein has a bone to pick with drones, especially since she confronted one on her own lawn ... a tiny toy pink helicopter
Hundreds of Twitter accounts hacked starting Sunday, Australian Minister Julie Bishop is one of them | TechWorm
How Google Can Repel the Attack of the NSA Quantum Computer | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com - The way to combat NSA eavesdropping, he says, is to encrypt data as it moves across the wire.
California man arrested near U.S.-Canada border on terrorism charge | Reuters - A California man who prosecutors say was on his way to Syria to join an al Qaeda splinter group was arrested on Monday near the U.S.-Canada border in Washington state on a terrorism charge, federal officials said.

Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It - Wired Science - After years of predicting it would happen — and after years of having their suggestions largely ignored by companies, farmers and regulators — scientists have documented the rapid evolution of corn rootworms that are resistant to Bt corn. (remember antibiotics?)

The 1% have gained back their recession losses and then some - The top-line finding for the United States is that the share of pre-tax income going to the top 1 percent of earners continues to be the highest among OECD countries, standing at 19.3 percent in 2012.
Facts About A Totally Unsexy Issue That Ought To Raise Some Eyebrows (the rise of the American oligarchs)
Politico Populism - Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity - Esquire - Perhaps Summers can take up his "politics of inclusion" with, say Brooksley Born, who was not included because she knew the system was rigged while Larry Summers, member of the Democratic power elite, was insisting that it wasn't. (inequality, and the people Obama surrounded himself with)
The Case Against Larry Summers - NationalJournal.com - When Brooksley Born, then the chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, devised a 1998 proposal suggesting that over-the-counter derivatives be regulated, he called her, livid.

UA doctor gets key federal support for marijuana research - Sisley called the approval “a historic shift in policy and medical marijuana drug-development research.”

Worst States For Pregnant Rape Victims (infographic)
Unpaid Intern? You Probably Aren't Protected Against Sexual Harassment | Mother Jones - Why interns find themselves in legal limbo when something goes wrong.

Tax-Hating States Totally Fine With Taxing The Poor - Not mentioned in the report are some of the factors that play into high sales tax rates. In the South, especially, property taxes are very low, and voters have historically rejected attempts to raise them. The region also has a history of handing out huge tax breaks to large manufactures in order to persuade them to move there.
Federal Drug Prosecutions Drop To Reagan-Era Levels

Hullabaloo - The fallout from Grand Bargaining - But Jolly had an easy comeback: He denied wanting to privatize Social Security, and fired back by noting that Sink voiced some support for the Simpson-Bowles debt-reduction plan, which included cuts to Social Security. (Obama fucks the Dems and they love it)
Hullabaloo - As for what governments should do to prevent social unrest in the wake of mass unemployment, the Microsoft cofounder said that they should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms. (Gates is a real dudebro tech asshole; tax the fucker)

Bill Baroni George Washington Bridge - It's Only A Matter Of Time Before One Of Christie's Men Squeals - Esquire - The real pressure now is on U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman to lean on Bill Baroni or Charlie McKenna until one of them talks.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's campaign manager kept in loop about George Washington Bridge complaints, emails show - NY Daily News - Bill Baroni, former executive director of the Port Authority, explaining to a New Jersey legislative panel on Nov. 25 that the lane closures were part of a traffic study, a story that has since been discredited.
Christie's Stronger than the Storm Jersey Shore post-Sandy ad cover up | New Republic - Which in turn brings to mind the extreme yet comically ham-handed efforts of Governor Chris Christie’s administration to keep secret the process that led to the controversial selection exactly one year ago of a firm to run a $25 million ad campaign for last summer’s tourist season touting the Shore’s comeback from Superstorm Sandy.
Eschaton: Assholes - n some ways bridgegate isn't the biggest deal in the world. It just demonstrates that we handed an immense amount of power to some particularly nasty 13-year-olds ... Not just bullies, but childish bullies. I blame lead. (fat fuck bully lying Christie and they voted for him)
Chris Christie's campaign manager made aware while bridge lane closing underway, email shows | lehighvalleylive.com - “I know it’s not a fun topic ... but you did great,” Stepien wrote in late November, a few weeks after Christie easily won re-election.

Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap - NYTimes.com - “Poverty not only diminishes a person’s life chances, it steals years from one’s life.” (the rich tell the poors to just die)
GOP Lawmaker Says Businesses Should Be Allowed To Deny Services To Black People - State Sen. Phil Jensen (R-S.D.) doesn't believe governments should interfere in the private sector’s ability to engage in race-based discrimination, according to an interview published in the Rapid City Journal on Sunday. (Republicans to legalize slavery next, because free market!)
Did Christie Go Easy on a Human Trafficker Just to Bust a Small-Time Pol? - The Daily Beast - Chris Christie built his reputation as a crime-fighter. So why did he cut a deal with an accused sex slave ringleader—and send to jail a Democratic mayor, instead?

NYPD claims its Freedom of Information Act policy is a secret "attorney-client communications" - Boing Boing
Florida Legislature Seeks Compromise On Reform Of 'Stand Your Ground' Law - A legislative committee took a major step toward clarifying Florida's hotly debated 'stand your ground' self-defense law on Monday, approving some restrictions on its use and clarifying that the statute does not permit 'vigilantism' by neighborhood watch activists. ("vigilantism" = shoot anyone with non-white skin)

FiveThirtyEight | British Teeth Aren’t That Bad (American Teeth Are Far Worse) - Here’s one statistic: In the past year, about seven in 10 people in Britain visited a dentist, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Only four in 10 Americans did the same. (socialized teeth)

The Satanic Temple Weighs In on the Impending Death of the Leader of the Westboro Baptist Church | VICE United States - we asked Lucien what he thought of the recent news of Fred's demise, and if there are still plans to turn him gay after he dies. We have republished his response in full below.

'Waves' detected on Titan moon’s lakes - Scientists believe they have detected the first liquid waves on the surface of another world.
Is there any significance at all to Earth's position in the universe? Anything at all unusual? Or are we situated in a completely unremarkable neighborhood? : askscience
Despite what you've been told, you aren't 'left-brained' or 'right-brained' | Amy Novotney | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The brain is more complex than corporate team-building exercises suggest, but the myth is unlikely to die anytime soon

What's the weirdest thing that you've seen at someone's house that they thought was completely normal? : AskReddit
People Who Use E-Readers Dive Far Deeper Into Books | Underwire | Wired.com - adult readers tend to read more and stick with books longer if they’re using an e-reader.

Appmethod: a new platform for creating “truly native” apps for Android, iOS, Windows and OS X - The Next Web
Facebook's working on facial verification that's 'nearing human-level performance' | The Verge

031714
Missing Plane’s Path Seen as Altered via Flight Computer - NYTimes.com
Questions Over Absence of Cellphone Calls From Missing Flight’s Passengers - NYTimes.com
Keith Ledgerwood — Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
As U.S. Looks for Terror Links in Plane Case, Malaysia Rejects Extensive Help - NYTimes.com
Malaysia backtracks on satellite data evidence; unsure when system went offline - The Washington Post
Investigators Consider Suicide As Possible Motive In Malaysia Airlines Plane Disappearance
Last Words From Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane Came After One Of Communications Systems Was Disabled
Malaysia Airlines Missing Plane: Police Probe Focuses On Flight Engineer
The Vastness and Darkness of Earth, According to One Missing Airliner | Motherboard

Ukrainian government refuses to remove troops from Crimea, prepares for war
Crimea Votes To Join Russia, European Union Imposes Sanctions - U.S. official says massive evidence ballots pre-marked and anomalies in vote more than 100% of population voting in Crimean capital (in Russia, the ballots vote for you)
Russian State TV Anchor: Russia Could Turn US To "Radioactive Ash" - Slashdot
M of A - Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands - It will take some time to implement all of this. What dirty tricks will the neocons in Washington now try to prevent this peaceful outcome?
Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Putsch | Consortiumnews - Behind the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the democratically elected president of Ukraine are the economic interests of giant corporations – from Cargill to Chevron – which see the country as a potential “gold mine” of profits from agricultural and energy exploitation, reports JP Sottile.
Obama's Russia Sanctions Elicit A 'Meh' From Moscow To Washington

Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape - Salon.com (in case you forgot; what Obama doesn't want you to remember)

March against police brutality declared illegal, broken up - Montreal - CBC News - An estimated 150 protesters surrounded in police 'kettle' manoeuvre on side street
Dead Kennedys - Kill the poor - YouTube

US Navy SEALs board rogue Libya oil tanker - Africa - Al Jazeera English - US Navy SEALs have boarded and taken control of an oil tanker that escaped earlier this month from a rebel-held Libyan port with armed men at the helm, the US Department of Defense said.

Man sues ex-wife for having ugly children | WGN-TV - Then, the ex-wife came clean about something. Before they met, she had $100,000 worth of plastic surgery. He sued her on the grounds of false pretenses, and he won.

Britain's five richest families worth more than poorest 20% | Business | The Guardian - Oxfam report reveals scale of inequality in UK as charity appeals to chancellor over tax
Hullabaloo - Just a regular guy (Bill Gates supports your police/spy state)
Bill Gates interview: Robots will take people’s jobs | BGR
society in a globalizing world - bookforum.com / omnivore

The Australian Law that Would Force Suspects to Hand Over their Passwords | Motherboard
Push for Australians' web browsing histories to be stored (you have to register your browsing history with local PD)

Hacktivists Leak Data from Personal PC of Russian Industrial Investment Fund President - “Today we aren’t going to say much, since we aint got nothing to say pretty much, except that Putin has lost his mind. Russian Industrial Investment Fund is one of the biggest Russian ‘non-profit’ as they declare organization but they attract investments into Russian economy,” the hackers wrote on Cyber Guerilla next to links to the leaked data.

Guardian editor receives European Press award for Edward Snowden story | Media | theguardian.com - Alan Rusbridger given award for NSA revelations that 'set alarm bells ringing throughout the world'
IBM Denies Giving Client Data to NSA - In a blog posting, IBM insists that it hasn’t been involved in PRISM or other surveillance efforts.
Revealed: the MoD's secret cyberwarfare programme | UK news | The Guardian - Multimillion pound project will look at how internet users can be influenced by social media and other psychological techniques - Programmes ranging from studies into the role of online avatars to research drawing on psychological theories and the impact of live video-sharing are being funded by the MoD in partnership with arms companies, academics, marketing experts and thinktanks. (LOL)
Google Admits Mining the Data of Students Through Apps for Education Tools - described by the plaintiffs as crossing the "creepy line", according to court documents. (do no creepy)

Dorian Nakamoto's denial blows up Newsweek's bitcoin 'scoop' - latimes.com
Your Anon News • Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto: I did not create, invent or otherwise work on Bitcoin

Obama Administration Cites 'National Security' More Than Ever To Censor, Deny Records (most opaque Pres evar)

Twitter / ageis: Nice @EFF diagram showing how ... - Tor and HTTPS protect you

Congress Just Undid The One Good Thing It's Done On Climate Change (mostly Dems)
That Old-Time Whistle - NYTimes.com - But you have to admit that he’s a very articulate guy, an expert at sounding as if he knows what he’s talking about.

Pensiongate? Christie Campaign Donors Won Huge Contracts | The Nation - While trumpeting “pension reform,” the New Jersey governor placed retiree assets in the hands of hedge fund managers bankrolling his political career. (Pierce's "Big Chicken" meme has caught on)

The Origin of Ideology by Chris Mooney | The Washington Monthly - Are left and right a feature (or bug) of evolution?
Interdisciplinary World: On the Origins of Liberals and Conservatives
the means and ends of the political - bookforum.com / omnivore


When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too - Wired Science (surgery is history; Agribusiness killed the world)
Cosmologists Finally Capture an Elusive Signal From the Beginning of Time - Wired Science - A team of scientists may have detected a twist in light from the early universe that could help explain how the universe began. Such a finding has been compared in significance to the detection of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012 ... , primordial B-modes have been called the “first tremors of the Big Bang.”
Cosmic inflation: 'Spectacular' discovery hailed
Primordial gravitational wave discovery heralds 'whole new era' in physics | Science | theguardian.com - Gravitational waves could help unite general relativity and quantum mechanics to reveal a 'theory of everything'
Small Data: What are the chances of being hit by lightning? - Apparently, the chances are 300,000 to one, according to David Hand in his new book: The Improbability Principle. But while 300,000 to one looks like a minor risk for an individual, there are lots of people on the planet.

Guinness Pulls Out Of Anti-Gay New York St. Patrick's Day Parade - The move came on the same day that Boston's Irish-American mayor skipped that city's St. Patrick's Day parade after failing to hammer out a deal with organizers to allow a group of gay and lesbian activists to march openly.
Rupert Murdoch Urges Boycott Of Guinness For Its Pro-Equality Stance | Blog | Media Matters for America - News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch charged that gay groups had "bullied" Guinness into pulling out of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade, calling for a boycott of the Irish brewer. (world's biggest asshole)

Florida Has Never Executed A White Person For Killing A Black Person | ThinkProgress
NYPD Officer Claims Boss Sexually Harassed Her & Called Her His "Work P---y": Gothamist - "Sgt. John often pulls his pants down in front of me. He often sleeps in the office with his belt undone, and then will pull his pants down, grab his groin and say, ‘Ann, hold this for me,’ and will do this in front of other officers." ("frathouse culture")
AGAIN? Black man supposedly shoots himself while handcuffed in back of cop car. | blacksankofa
The Daily Dot - A definitive report on the Internet's underground sex trade - “Over the years, the Internet became an easier way to get money without having to take so many chances as far as injury or assholes on the outside,” a jailed pimp told researchers.
Pinkberry co-founder who beat transient was once homeless, friend says - latimes.com - Young Lee, co-founder of the Pinkberry frozen yogurt chain, was sentenced Friday to seven years for beating a panhandling homeless man with a tire iron. Lee said he'd been offended when the man flashed a tattoo of a stick-figure couple having sex to the people in Lee's car, who included his fiancee

Five things you didn't know about Jesus – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
The unopened 'Pleasure Hospital' of Bobo - Victims of female genital mutilation in Burkina Faso are struggling to get surgery to remove pain and increase pleasure during sex. A hospital for this purpose was built by donors from the Raelian movement in America but never opened. Why? (Catholic Church)
Scarlett Johansson On Woody Allen Sex Abuse Allegations: 'It's All Guesswork'

great works about raising kids with mental illness - bookforum.com / syllabi
Civil Rights Panel Probes "Patient Dumping" by Hospitals

Are You a Netspeak Know-It-All? Take This Quiz and LMK (and LOL)

031614
Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com - Natural and social scientists develop new model of how 'perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system (Republicans call for more tax breaks for "world destroyers")

Hullabaloo - 11 years ago today - ... we were one day away from the invasion of Iraq. Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press. Here's a little bit of what he said that day: (keep lookin' forward)

Search for Flight 370 Enters Daunting New Phase - WSJ.com - Search Moves to Two Huge New Areas Spanning Bay of Bengal
Passengers and Crew of Missing Plane Scrutinized for Aviation Skills - NYTimes.com - anyone on board with a navigation or aircraft background in response to evidence that the plane was deliberately diverted from its route and, after communication was lost, navigated by someone with deep experience at the controls.
Malaysia Airlines Jet Made 'Tactical Aviation Maneuvers': Law Enforcement Officials - ABC News - U.S. authorities believe only a person with extensive flight or engineering experience could have executed the maneuvers. They also are suspicious of what appeared to be attempts to evade radar.
Investigators Look For Motive In Malaysia Plane Disappearance
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Evidence Points To Takeover - One clue is that the plane's transponder — a signal system that identifies the plane to radar — was shut off about an hour into the flight.
This Map Outlines the Last Known Position of the Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic
Malaysia 370 Update: Landing Strips, Cell Phones, and More - James Fallows - The Atlantic - Has the plane landed at a secret site? Probably not; here's why.
Is missing Malaysian jet the world's first CYBER HIJACK? Chilling new theory claims hackers could use a mobile phone to take over the controls | Mail Online - Anti-terror expert said plane's direction could be changed by radio signals Speed and altitude could also be changed from device using 'codes' (Obama in the WH basement with his joystick and anon mask)

Christopher Clark on Parallels Between 1914 and the Ukraine Crisis - spiegel online
Ukraine Defense Minister: Russia, Ukraine Agree To Short Crimea Truce
Crimea Votes On Joining Russia
Russia's Cyber-Weapons Hit Ukraine: How to Declare War Without Declaring War | Alec Ross
NATO websites hit in cyber attack linked to Crimea tension | Reuters
BNO News -- Inbox - "I condemn the fact that this referendum has taken place, in breach of the Ukrainian constitution and in defiance of calls by the international community for restraint.

?‘Serene’ referendum: Italian region votes on restoration of Venetian Republic — RT News (and the Medici empire)
Google Translate: The hackers, who have recently released a series of l eaks for action against the Italian Navy , attacked the site ForzaNuova with a heavy DDoS.

US cites security more to censor, deny records (Obama is a compulsive hider)

Abuses by Border Patrol agents declared “systematic” | Current Events Inquiry - the mistreatment of unauthorized border crossers while in US custody is a “systematic practice.” (Obama's anti-immigration policies)

The Syrian War In Photographs: A Look Back At Four Years Lost To Conflict

Bill Gates: Edward Snowden Is No Hero - "If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of 'OK, I'm really trying to improve things.' You won't find much admiration from me." (conservo-tech-bro-one-percenter-anti-Constitutional-richbro-spy-collaborator)

The Covert Report - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 03/12/14 - Video Clip | Comedy Central - The Senate finally gets around to investigating the CIA's use of torture, only to have damnable data disappear from the committee's computers. (06:18)(torture)

MetaPhone: The Sensitivity of Telephone Metadata « Web Policy - President Obama has emphasized that the NSA is “not looking at content.” “[T]his is just metadata,” Senator Feinstein told reporters. In dismissing the ACLU’s legal challenge, Judge Pauley shrugged off possible sensitive inferences as a “parade of horribles.” (yeah, they all lied, like they always do)
Who is winning the 'crypto-war'?

The demographic underpinnings behind America's blue shift, illustrated with interactive maps

Obama Factor Adds to Fears of Democrats - NYTimes.com - Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama’s sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law.

Pressing Issues: Eleven Years Ago: David Brooks, Iraq War Hawk - Here's an excerpt from a column he wrote at his then-home, The Weekly Standard, March 10, 2003 (and then, of course, the Times hired him forever)

MSNBC Finds It's Hard to Get Good Help: Abby Huntsman on Social Security | Beat the Press - Abby Huntsman's warning to millennials about the risks posed to them by Social Security (the riches and their richness)

Fracking Industry Tries to Buy Democracy in Rural Illinois | EcoWatch - Johnson County, IL has oil and gas interests panicked about a local effort to stop fracking. They’re spending tens of thousands of dollars in the rural county to defeat a referendum that opposes fracking and defends local rights.

100 serial rapists identified after rape kits from Detroit Crime Lab are finally processed - WXYZ.com (400K unprocessed rape kits nationally, what does that say?)

The sleazy auto dealers war on the free market, with an assist from Chris Christie - As I've written before, Tesla is engaged with a running battle with auto dealers hell-bent on crushing the startup's business model.

Attention School Districts: Camille Paglia Does Not Care For Your Sex-Ed Condoms And Gaydoctrination - Happy Nice Time People - Sometimes I worry I’m turning into old weird Camille Paglia. “YOU ARE CRIMINALIZING THE MALE ESSENCE!!!!1!” I shriek when girls go, “he whistled at me, I am malegazeraped, waah.” So it is good to know I am not turning into Camille Paglia, since she is now sexplaining why sex ed should be more prude.

Columbia University Fired Two Eminent Public Intellectuals. Here’s Why It Matters. | The Nation - Like many schools of public health, Mailman operates on a “soft money” model, which means that professors are expected to fund much of their salaries through grants. (Many professors there, including Vance and Hopper, work without tenure.) Recently, the amount expected has increased—from somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of their salaries to as much as 80 percent (new model for higher education: you pay them to let you teach +Kristof)

In the Shadows « - As NFL free agency is set to begin, Aaron Hernandez’s case still looms large over the league (CPP)

Chilling Effects DMCA Archive is "Repugnant", Copyright Group Says | TorrentFreak (the truth is always "repugnant" to the rich)
The era of Facebook is an anomaly | The Verge (it's complex, or something)

031514
Malaysia Officials, Saying Missing Jet Was Diverted, Open Criminal Inquiry - NYTimes.com - the plane had been deliberately diverted and then flown for as long as seven hours toward an unknown point far from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Radar Suggests Jet Shifted Path More Than Once - NYTimes.com - Flight 370 experienced significant changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once as if still under the command of a pilot, American officials and others familiar with the investigation said Friday.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Probe Sharpens Focus on Sabotage - WSJ.com - About an hour into the flight, the plane's transponders stopped functioning (apparently airplanes have a "do not track" button in the cockpit, of course)
Malaysia Airlines Missing Plane: Actions Likely 'Deliberate,' Prime Minister Najib Razak States
How the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet Could Have Been Hijacked | Autopia | Wired.com
U.S. Navy Strategists Have a Long History of Finding the Lost - NYTimes.com

Putin’s Dangerous Game
Ukraine Says Russian Forces Move Outside Crimea
Ukraine Crisis | Al Jazeera America
Ukraine Liveblog Day 26: Has the War Already Started? | The Interpreter - Has the war already started? There are unconfirmed reports of two dead in Kharkiv, an explosion at Kharkiv University, and Russian paratroopers on the ground in mainland Ukraine
Ukraine's threat from within - latimes.com - Neofascists are as much a menace to Ukraine as Putin's actions in Crimea.
The ‘Realists’ Misjudged Ukraine - The Daily Beast - The paradox at the heart of foreign policy realism, is that the same, all-powerful West which is capable of overthrowing governments with the flip of a switch is incapable of confronting Russian hard power.

You Thought It Was Tough Being Gay in Uganda. "It's Hell in Nigeria." | Mother Jones - Beatings, harassment, unemployment, homelessness, fear—scenes from Nigeria's anti-gay crackdown.
Fourth Year Of Syrian War Unlikely To Bring Relief From Bloodshed
UK Women Suing Undercover Cops Who Dated Them | PopularResistance.Org - Police chiefs have been forced to drop an attempt to block legal action by a group of five women who say they were duped into having long-term relationships with undercover police officers.

Drone attack in Marib leaves one dead | Yemen Times - A drone strike late Monday killed a 16-year-old in the Wadi Abeeda district of Marib governorate, according to a local security source. (Obama in WH basement with a joystick)

White House withholding over 9,000 docs in CIA torture probe | Alternative - For the last five years, the White House has withheld over 9,000 top-secret documents from a Senate investigation of the CIA’s former detention and torture program. The report comes one day after the CIA was accused of interfering in the probe
Did CIA’s Handsomely Paid Contractors Doctor Its Log Books, Again? | emptywheel - In addition, by destroying the torture tapes, CIA destroyed evidence that:
Is Obama A Phony On Torture? « The Dish - I’m dismayed – and somewhat sickened – by the continuing passivity of the president on one of the most important issues the country faces: accountability for the gravest crimes under international law in the first decade of the 21st Century (Sully just work up; Barry is a big fat liar)

U.S., Rebuffing U.N., Maintains Stance That Rights Treaty Does Not Apply Abroad - NYTimes.com - The Obama administration declared Thursday that a global Bill of Rights-style treaty imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad, rejecting an interpretation by the United Nations and the top State Department lawyer during President Obama’s first term. (CIA/military pulling their puppet's strings)

Main Core - Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. ("millions")

Observations on Credit and Surveillance — In 1975, the CIA Director Told Congress That Enemies of America Could Destroy the CIA with Freedom of Information Act Requests - In mid-1970s, feminist and peace movement activist Congresswoman Bella Abzug tore through the intel world, fearlessly taking on the CIA and the NSA for surveilling Americans. (DiFi is no Bella)

Compare the NSA's Facebook Malware Denial to its Own Secret Documents - The Intercept
Syrian Electronic Army hacks U.S Central Command & threatens to leak Secret Documents - The Hacker News - From the screenshot, it appears that the group has hacked into the repository of Army Knowledge Online (AKO), which provides web-based enterprise information services to the United States Army, joint, and Department of Defense customers.
British spies lied about getting super-censorship powers over Youtube - Boing Boing - But as Techdirt's Mike Masnick points out, the fact that senior UK government ministers believe that Youtube should remove anything "that may not be illegal, but certainly is unsavoury" is a pretty disturbing insight into the mindset of our censorious masters.
Twitter / Thomas_Drake1: Compromising Internet integrity ... - &security now a primary mission of #NSA &its partners-gov't&corp. Offensive Ops defeating defensive security
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg phones Obama about NSA | Internet & Media - CNET News - The call between the two chiefs won't lead to immediate reform, so Zuckerberg also turns to his Facebook page to amplify the volume of his frustration. (Zuck's got Barry's # in his speeddial)

9 Calif. law enforcement agencies connected to cellphone spying technology

US Makes 'Enemies Of The Internet' List For First Time - The US joins countries such as Bahrain, Syria and Belarus. The United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Russia also made the list for the first time. (Obama hates the internets)

Debunked: Eight Things the U.S. State Keystone XL Report Got Wrong About the Alberta Oilsands | DeSmog Canada

Eschaton: But Killing Them Is Helping Them - If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.
10 of the best Tony Benn quotes - as picked by our readers | Politics | theguardian.com

What Can We Learn from the Progressive Era? by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

Hullabaloo - The Justice Department sends another message --- "we're liars!"
U.S. Criticized for Lack of Action on Mortgage Fraud - NYTimes.com (Obama's program designed to do diddly-shit)
The Battle for Chattanooga: Southern Masculinity and the Anti-Union Campaign at Volkswagen - Working In These Times
Southern Masculinity and the UAW Defeat in Chattanooga - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - There’s a long history in the South of working-class whites showing political deference to their social and financial superiors and it came to play again in Chattanooga. This deference is based on ideas of masculinity that promote individualism for yourself but loyalty to your superiors in rejecting invading forces.
Columbia, SC: Election 2014: Lindsey Graham challenger calls SC senator "ambiguously gay" | Homepage | The State

Climate Change Not a Top Worry in U.S. - Climate change and the quality of the environment rank near the bottom of a list of concerns for Americans, who are instead far more worried about more basic economic issues such as the economy, federal spending, and the affordability of healthcare. Concerns about the environment typically rank low among all Americans, but the current level of worry is even lower than in the past.
Republicans: Concerned with Big Gubmnet and Scary Mexicans. Democrats: Concerned with Equity and Maybe Not Destroying the World - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The second thing I noticed is how Republicans are concerned primarily with resentment and fear while Democrats are concerned with equity and a fair shake for people. And at least more concerned with the greatest problem facing the world in the 21st century, if not concerned enough.

Fox News Cuts Ties With Scott Brown - Fox News said that it has ended its contract with Scott Brown now that he has officially taken steps towards a Senate run.
Scott Brown To Run In New Hampshire - Such Are The Dreams Of The Everyday Has-Been, Continued - Esquire - Well, it looks like former Senator McDreamy may have found his cojones in the old carpetbag after all.
Former New Hampshire GOP Chair Saves $1,000 A Month With Obamacare - But Fergus Cullen said the savings aren't enough to turn him into a supporter of the new health care law.
In old memo, a glimpse of conflict ahead for Hillary Clinton? - latimes.com - All seven travel office veterans appeared before Congress the day after the president praised his wife in the State of the Union address. Angry and tearful, they testified that the accusations by the Clinton White House had ruined them financially by forcing them to incur massive legal bills to clear their names.

New federal rules target for-profit colleges - Students at for-profit colleges represent about 13% of the total higher education population, but a disproportionate number of federal student loans — about 31% of all loans --go to such schools
McDonald's Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers | Mother Jones
Car Dealers Are Terrified of Tesla's Plan to Eliminate Oil Changes | Wired Business | Wired.com

Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers. You Just Brought Back Measles in NYC. - The Daily Beast - Measles was considered eliminated at the turn of the millennium. Now it’s back, thanks to the loons who refuse to vaccinate their children.
This May Be Bill Maher's Most Intense Rant Against Religions – All Of Them - Yet - But more important than the implausibility of the tale, Maher says it's immoral. "It's about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and his name is God."

The 'But What Were You Wearing?' Rape Myth

Ezra Klein, I'm Calling Bullsh*t on Your Defense of Hiring Brandon Ambrosino, and Here's Why | Noah Michelson - that barfed his now-trademark brand of despicable, delusional railing against the queer-rights movement all over the Internet.

House Republicans Want To Sue The President For Not Arresting People For Marijuana - The Republican-controlled House passed legislation on Thursday to force President Barack Obama to crack down on states that have legalized marijuana in any form. (authorization to use military force on Colorado)

Scientists May Get Best View Yet of a Black Hole in Action - Wired Science
Black Hole 'Information' Paradox May Have Been Resolved - the universe, which is assumed to have started with the Big Bang, actually emerged — because of quantum gravitational effects — from a "big bounce," following an earlier contracting phase. (verifying Indian mythology)

Humans of New York

A Kiss Is Just a Kiss, Unless It’s an Ad for a Clothing Company - NYTimes.com - (By comparison, President Obama’s appearance on the popular online comedy show, “Between Two Ferns,” posted Tuesday morning, had about one-third the traffic.)

The Daily Dot - Sexist culture and harassment drives GitHub's first female developer to quit (the dudebro techdude rape culture)

031414
Sharp Changes in Altitude and Course After Jet Lost Contact - NYTimes.com
Malaysia Airlines Missing Plane: Radar Data Suggests Jet Flew Deliberately Toward Andaman Islands, Sources Say
Swiss Air Flight 111 Plane Crash History - Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy - Esquire

Russia Is Preparing to Invade East Ukraine, Estonia Says - Bloomberg - Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to “invade eastern Ukraine” after occupying the country’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, Estonia said.
Police stole watch, bungled evidence at Pistorius home - Yahoo News

Syrian hackers say they’ve compromised US Central Command - A group of computer hackers who are loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad say they’ve accessed hundreds of documents after allegedly penetrating the network of the United States Central Command and other systems.

Obama CIA John Brennan - Obama, The CIA, And The Limits Of Conciliation - Esquire - It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in one very important way, the president has lost control of his own government. The current constitutional crisis between the CIA and the Senate committee tasked with investigating its policies regarding torture during the previous administration has only one real solution that is consonant with the rule of law
CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger is no stranger to controversy - latimes.com - Top CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger, criticized by Sen. Dianne Feinstein this week, has faced such scrutiny in other cases. But ex-colleagues defend him. (named 1600 times in Senate report which may never be released because Obama)
Pelosi: Alleged CIA spying on Senate committee ‘appalling’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called recent allegations of CIA spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee "pretty appalling" and said the agency’s response to the controversy has been "befuddling" so far.

Britain is treating journalists as terrorists – believe me, I know | Sarah Harrison | Comment is free | The Guardian - My links to WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden mean I am treated as a threat and can't return to the UK. We need a free speech roadmap

EU-funded research surveils social sites | EurActiv - Spying on social networks is the latest in a string of EU-funded projects to develop automated counter-terrorism and criminal surveillance systems that have sparked new fears of government snooping.
Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages | World news | The Guardian - Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism • Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch • Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
The Daily Dot - Mark Zuckerberg calls out U.S. government in Facebook rant - "To keep the Internet strong, we need to keep it secure," he wrote. "The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat."
A Close Look at the NSA's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool | Wired Opinion | Wired.com - . But it also includes gadgets like a plug-in to inject into MySQL connections, allowing the NSA to quietly mess with the contents of a third-party’s database. (This also surprisingly suggests that unencrypted MySQL on the internet is common enough to attract NSA attention.)
Tor, FoxAcid, Flying Pig: NSA attempts to sabotage countersurveillance tool. - the NSA has devised a way to identify targeted Tor users, and it has the capacity to covertly redirect targets to a set of special servers called “FoxAcid.”
Missouri house bans cellphone tracking without a warrant, 134-13 | OffNow: Stop the NSAOffNow: Stop the NSA

An Excerpt From Barrett Brown’s Keep Rootin For Putin: Thomas Friedman Chapter | FDL News Desk

The Rebranding Of SOPA: Now Called 'Notice And Staydown' | Techdirt - from the catchy-and-stupid dept
The Daily Dot - Why Vine really banned NSFW content - : A Daily Dot investigation into Vine’s content revealed thousands of explicitly sexually videos posted by minors, who in some cases may be younger than 12.

Courage - A Tribute to Whistleblowers on Vimeo

US power grid could be knocked out by a handful of substation attacks, says report — RT USA - The entire US power grid could be shut down for more than a month if just nine of the over 55,000 electric substations placed throughout the nation were sabotaged by terrorists or other criminals, according to a new report. (and they already ran the test)

Boston Marathon reviews still incomplete - Nation - The Boston Globe - Nearly a year after the Boston Marathon bombing — and just weeks before the next race — multiple security investigations remain bogged down, leaving unanswered questions about missed signals and communication breakdowns ... “We need to do a little more scrubbing, and we will get it to you in the short term.” (a year of "scrubbing")

Fear of Wages - NYTimes.com - Four years ago, some of us watched with a mixture of incredulity and horror as elite discussion of economic policy went completely off the rails (and Barry bought right into it)

Another building collapse: 'The whole jawn came down' - Philly.com (American infrastructure crumbling and exploding)
The etymology of “jawn” | City Life | Interview | The A.V. Club Philadelphia
Photographer Uses Drone to Shoot Harlem Building Collapse, Asked to Leave by NYPD

New Resolution Condemns Darrell Issa As 'Offensive' - Democrats stepped up their condemnation of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) Thursday, offering a second resolution to reprimand the Oversight Committee chairman for a pattern of "offensive" behavior against lawmakers from their party.

Rachel Maddow Fact Checks Critics Of Obama's 'Between Two Ferns' Interview - The MSNBC host looked back at presidents who have appeared on shows with comedians, and played clips of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon doing just that.

Obama Orders Review Of Deportation Practices, Looks For More Humane Options - Seeking to pacify frustrated immigration advocates, President Barack Obama is directing the government to find more humane ways to handle deportation for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, the White House said Thursday. (after six years of highest deportation level ever)

Better Than Ezra » Balloon Juice - No matter how much richsplaining Paul Ryan does about how it’s all the young bucks fault, what’s been done to these children is fucking awful. (oh look, poverty not really an urban hell-hole issue, another reason for Southerners to be ashamed)

The 50-Year-Old Agreement Preventing Marijuana From Treating PTSD | Motherboard (no research allowed so they can say no research available, because Obama)

Fracking Boom Would Increase California's Earthquake Danger, Report Finds - Hundreds of Oil Wastewater Wells Near Active Faults and Major Cities Already Raising Quake Risk for Millions of Californians

How The Upshot Will Help Navigate the News (Time Mag will "navigate" the news for you)

U.S. citizens score legal victories after ICE detention :: News :: Philadelphia City Paper - A federal appeals court has twice upheld the rights of American citizens wrongfully detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including one case involving three Philly taxi drivers who allege they were held for hours after they proved their U.S. citizenship.
? raw video: City College student who was pepper sprayed recalls event - YouTube
Philly cop charged after wrongfully arresting war vet — RT USA
Missouri Man Who Accidentally Shot Himself Sues Police For Taking His Guns - “I’m talking about anyone who suffers from mental illness, in my opinion, should not be in possession of firearms,” Dane told the Courier.
Andrew Solomon: The Father of the Sandy Hook Killer Searches for Answers : The New Yorker - The father of the Sandy Hook killer searches for answers.

Choose to be gay? No, you don’t. - Last Wednesday, Brandon Ambrosino—continuing his swift ascent as chief homophobia apologist of the gay blogosphere—wrote a vacuous and meandering piece in the New Republic claiming that homosexuality (including his own) is a choice.
Is Being Gay a Choice? No, It's a Civil Rights Issue. | New Republic
Many gay activists insist that they were born this way, hey. But what about those who choose otherwise?
Biological basis for homosexuality. The fraternal birth order explanation could be bad news for gay people. - Scientists may have found a biological basis for homosexuality. That could be bad news for gay rights ... a disproportionate number of gay men are born into disproportionately homophobic households.
Sexuality as social construct: Foucault is misunderstood by conservatives and liberals.

holyfuckbuckets comments on we often ask men but did any of you ladies have misconceptions about real sex as a result of porn??
REAL Lesbians React to Lesbian Porn! - YouTube

A tragic wake-up call for SXSW? - latimes.com - Austin's South by Southwest festival is back in full swing after an accident, amid debate about its expansion.

Young Model's Shocking Terry Richardson Story Sparks a #NoMoreTerry Boycott - Allegations that Richardson has done horrible things to young models are all too common. For going on a decade now, many models have come out with harrowing stories of their experiences with him while some others came out in his defense.

Are you making the most out of life? Here's how you can. - The Week - Research confirms that you can't just put the good life on hold
Scientists catch brain damage in the act - Scientists have uncovered how inflammation and lack of oxygen conspire to cause brain damage in conditions such as stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.
Oklahoma news channel "accidentally" cuts Cosmos' mention of evolution - Some of us, apparently, would prefer to keep looking at the ground, with our fingers in our ears, screaming "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU SCIENCE" apparently.
Watching, Waiting, Anticipating » Balloon Juice - The Incidental Economist passes along the latest research on the prostate cancer treatment debate. The United States has a culture of treatment as soon as prostate cancer is bio-chemically detectable. Most of Europe has a culture of treatment at a milestone.
Answering the Unanswerable: What is the Resolution of the Human Eye?

031314
Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search area widened to Indian Ocean | World news | theguardian.com - Authorities admit they have not discounted any possibilities almost seven days after the airliner vanished
Oil rig worker says he saw Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 burst into flames | Herald Sun
Search for Missing Jet Shifts to Indian Ocean Amid Confusion Over Radar - NYTimes.com
U.S. Investigators Suspect Missing Malaysia Airplane Flew On for Hours - WSJ.com - Engine Data Suggest Malaysia Flight Was Airborne Long After Radar Disappearance (plot deepens)
Malaysia Airlines Missing Plane: Search Confused By False Leads
Malaysia Denies Missing Plane Flew For Hours After Losing Contact
Malaysia Airliner Communications Shut Down Separately: US Officials Say - ABC News
U.S. Investigators Suspect Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane Flew On for Hours - WSJ.com - U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.
Officials: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have flown for hours - CNN.com

Before And After Photos Capture Extent Of Harlem Explosion's Devastation
New York building collapse death toll rises as search for victims continues | World news | theguardian.com - At least seven people killed and more than 70 injured • Explosion raises questions about New York infrastructure (Bloomberg was only interested in "infrastructure" for billionaires)
Harlem Explosion: Rescue Workers Search For Survivors As Death Toll Rises (Video/Liveblog) - the death toll rose Thursday to at least seven from a gas leak-triggered explosion that reduced the area to a pile of smashed bricks, splinters and mangled metal.
East Harlem Building Collapse - The United States of Rubble - Esquire - Go to Harlem today, Mr. Speaker. The bill is being paid in blood. (Republicans want you to die)

In Turkey, Renewed Anti-Government Protests - In Focus - The Atlantic (meanwhile)
Russia deploys 10,000 troops near Ukraine border | World news | The Guardian - Ukraine prime minister accuses Russia of carrying out a 'military aggression' as Crimea crisis deepens
US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones | World news | theguardian.com - Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guantánamo
U.S. Troops Unloaded 'Over A Hundred Bullets' Into Osama Bin Laden's Dead Body, Sources Claim

Gay hero super-boffin Turing 'may have been murdered by MI5' • The Register - LGBTI campaigner Tatchell wants poisoned-apple inquiry
Angry anti-NSA hackers pwn Angry Birds site after GCHQ data slurp • The Register - Anti-NSA hackers defaced ?Rovio's official Angry Birds website ?on Tuesday night as a reprisal against revelations that GCHQ and the NSA were feasting on data leaked from the popular smartphone game.
Fancy a little kinky sex? GCHQ+NSA will know - thanks to ANGRY BIRDS • The Register - Evil spooks slurped EVERYTHING about your life from app's phone-home data
Google is encrypting search globally. That’s bad for the NSA and China’s censors.
Foreign Officials In the Dark About Their Own Spy Agencies' Cooperation with NSA - The Intercept

The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency's Role in Torture for Years - The Intercept
WASHINGTON: White House withholds thousands of documents from Senate CIA probe, despite vows of help | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC - The White House has been withholding for five years more than 9,000 top-secret documents sought by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for its investigation into the now-defunct CIA detention and interrogation program, even though President Barack Obama hasn’t exercised a claim of executive privilege. ("Obama is not a crook")
White House refuses to hand over top-secret documents to Senate committee | World news | theguardian.com - The White House is refusing to hand over top-secret documents to a Senate investigation into CIA torture and rendition of terrorism suspects, claiming it needs to ensure that “executive branch confidentiality” is respected. ("confidentiality" = "coverup of war crimes")
The CIA, the Senate and the breakdown of American democracy - World Socialist Web Site - The trajectory of this conflict is an ominous warning: the criminality of the military-intelligence apparatus is metastasizing into an open onslaught on constitutional principles, including such fundamental precepts as the separation of powers.
She was a tool of the Israeli government in claiming falsely in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons.

Former Church Committee Chief Counsel Pushes for New Investigation Into Secret Government | The Dissenter - The former chief counsel for the Church Committee, Frederick A.O “Fritz” Schwarz Jr., is pushing for a new committee that would investigate secret government, particularly actions by government since the September 11th attacks. (everything Obama was hired to hide)

NSA Decides It Wants To Hold Metadata Indefinitely, Asks FISA Court To Reverse Decision Telling It To Destroy Records | Techdirt - from the we-have-all-the-data,-now-we-have-all-the-time dept
The Numbers In Your Phone Can Reveal Your Illness, Religion, and Gun Purchases | Motherboard

Something Dead Wrong Here: Investigating the mysterious and central character, “Danny”. Part 2 of 2 - WhoWhatWhy | Marathon Bombing (things are never how they seem dept: remember the guy they carjacked? doesn't add up +Todashev)
Interrogation Turned Deadly: New Questions In FBI Shooting | WBUR (Todashev)
FBI War on Boston Witnesses - WhoWhatWhy |

Firstlook.org Site Info (growing quickly)

Medicaid expansion vote has real-life impact for low-income Mainers | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram - The 22-13 vote in favor of expansion fell short of the two-thirds needed to override a certain veto by Republican Gov. Paul LePage. (vote different, Mainers)
Georgia Governor Has Genius Plan To Save Money: Don’t Let Poors Go To The Emergency Room

Wingnut Media Agree: Paying People For Work Makes Them Lazy - This crazy new idea — requiring employers to pay people for work — is almost certain to consign America to economic doom.

Catholic Group Leader Calls For Liberal Academics To Be 'Taken Out And Shot' - Austin Ruse, president of the nonprofit research group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, said on American Family Radio Wednesday that liberal leaders of “modern universities” should “all be taken out and shot.”

Ezra Klein's Queer New Hire - Vox Media's decision to bring Brandon Ambrosino on board is click-bait contrarianism at its worst. (bad Ezra; you're no Glenn Greenwald)
Gay-Bashers Shouldn’t Be Covering LBGT Issues For Your Publication - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - I am, however, puzzled why he would hire a dispositive argument against “contrarianism” like Brandon Ambrosino.
Ezra Klein’s Awesome New Website Vox Hires Awesome New Gay Writer Who Doesn’t Actually Like Gays
Ezra Klein’s Awesome New Website (comment: the internets meet English)
Brandon Ambrosino to Vox: He's unbelievably terrible.
Nate Silver Interview: The New FiveThirtyEight -- Daily Intelligencer
Nate Silver, Foxes & Hedgehogs » Balloon Juice

Two Charts That Will Enrage Everyone (Well, Except Bankers)
Here's 1 More Map That Should Outrage Southerners
Bible Belt leads the nation in consumption of gay porn

Wesleyan Students Watched As Woman Was Raped In Fraternity Common Room: Lawsuit - A female student, who was not named by local media outlets, claims in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that she was raped in the common room of the Psi Upsilon fraternity while surrounded by other students at a party in May, according to WVIT.
Rachel Maddow Hammers Michigan's 'Rape Insurance' Law - Rachel Maddow was dismayed on Wednesday by new Michigan legislation that opponents call the "rape insurance" law.
'Daily Show' Exposes $172 Million in Federal Penis Pump Spending (Video) - TheWrap - Critics of Obamacare don't want women's contraceptives covered — but hey, hands off the penis pumps

Colorado Appeals Court: Some Marijuana Convictions Can Be Overturned Under New Law


We've found a file spying backdoor in Samsung phones – Replicant devs • The Register - Snoops can silently poke around your data over the radio network, it's feared

031214
MH370: China releases satellite images of possible crash site – live | World news | theguardian.com - China says images were taken on Sunday Another ‘last’ sighting of the missing plane revealed Military ‘baffled’ by lack of distress signal

The west's do-somethings will do nothing for Ukraine | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian - The response to Crimea shows just how easily misjudgment can emerge from political machismo and belligerent posturing (Volcano John, Cheney, etc)

Libya on the brink | Al Akhbar English
A Deal with the Right Devil - WhoWhatWhy | WhoWhatWhy - How do you replace an El Chapo? Insert an El Mayo. The thing about arresting a drug lord is, it rarely makes any difference.
Thousands of Orthodox Jews swarm NYC streets to protest Israel's draft | Mail Online - Israel wants to extend its compulsory military service to some of its most religious residents Many ultra-Orthodox Israelis see this as a form of religious persecution (taking away their welfare is persecution)

Reset the Net
How to Use Edward Snowden’s Three Tips for Digital Privacy - Personal Tech News - WSJ
European lawmakers threaten US trade veto unless EU tackles snooping | Reuters - * Data protection big issue going into European elections

Obama: White House won't wade into CIA torture report dispute at this point | World news | theguardian.com - White House distances itself from fierce dispute between top senators and CIA over report into use of torture in post-9/11 interrogations (+not the first time they fucked with DiFi, agreed not to do it anymore in 2010)
Obama battles to contain CIA-Senate feud in wake of Feinstein accusations | World news | theguardian.com - CIA chief John Brennan rejects allegations that agency used intimidation to hide role in the torture of terrorism suspects ... For years, Feinstein has had the CIA’s back. Now she’s out for blood. How the CIA managed to turn one of its staunchest defenders into one of its fiercest critics is just mind boggling.” - “If I did something wrong, I will go to the president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did, and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go,” Brennan said. (the buck stops there, or not)

The documents that disappeared: how a furious CIA-Senate row erupted | World news | theguardian.com - Dianne Feinstein’s intervention on the Senate floor blew open a feud with the CIA that long been simmering. But what prompted it? Paul Lewis charts a story of double-dealing and intrigue

Did secret CIA whistle-blower leak to the Senate? (+video) - CSMonitor.com - At issue is how Senate Intelligence Committee staffers obtained portions of a sensitive internal CIA study named the 'Panetta report.' The committee chairman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, mentioned a whistle-blower possibility Tuesday.
Calls for Brennan's Ouster Emerge Along With Details of CIA Search of Senate Computers - The Intercept

Dianne Feinstein CIA - Dianne Feinstein Takes On The CIA - Esquire - Keeping that report secret is nothing more than allowing the cancer with which the Avignon Presidency infected the government to further metastasize, and to cover the asses of the criminals who committed the crimes. What this controversy needs is another Otis Pike, another Dan Schorr. What it needs, seriously, is its own Edward Snowden.
CIA Director Tries To Release His Side Of The Senate Spying Scandal; Actually Confirms Feinstein's Accusations | Techdirt - from the nice-try dept
CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis - The Intercept - By Dan Froomkin
The Rude Pundit

Dianne Feinstein — Bush’s key ally in the Senate — to support telecom amnesty - Salon.com - Nov 10, 2007 (a little historical context)
Robert Eatinger and CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Lawyers’ Lies about Torture: A Timeline | emptywheel

The CIA likes to write its own rules, but spying on Congress crosses a new line | Ted Gup | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Brennan v Feinstein is a new DC turf battle steeped in typical Langley defiance, where the spies are always right. No longer ... John Brennan’s is a new kind of defiance for threatened architects of the CIA’s dark arts, an unflinching brand of outright denial.
Senators Okay With Spying On Citizens, But Outraged It Happened To Congress
Lawfare › Did the CIA Violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by Accessing Intelligence Committee Computers?

Snowden accuses Senate intelligence chair of hypocrisy over CIA disclosures | World news | theguardian.com - NSA whistleblower accuses Dianne Feinstein of double standards, pointing out her lack of concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens

CIA steals the limelight from the NSA – and finds itself in full-blown crisis | World news | theguardian.com - But releasing a report outlining what Feinstein called the “horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed” will immediately raise the question of why Obama and attorney general Eric Holder opted in 2009 to spare responsible CIA officials from legal ramifications of actions Obama barred by executive order – an order that, critics note, can be rescinded by any future president at any time. (looking forward boy)
The Intercept Welcomes Its New Editor and Two New Writers - The Intercept

How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware - The Intercept

Prosecution of Barrett Brown Still Threatens Journalistic Freedom in U.S. | Electronic Frontier Foundation

How a Court Secretly Evolved, Extending U.S. Spies’ Reach - NYTimes.com ("How Bush secretly set up a secret court")
The NSA won’t shut up about Snowden, but what about the spy who stole more? | Mike German | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Why the incoming NSA chief needs to crack down on international espionage, not worthy whistleblowing
Snowden Isn't Exactly a "Traitor," Says the Top Nominee for NSA Director | Motherboard
Court stops NSA from destroying call records relevant to ongoing lawsuit | The Verge

FBI Redacts Letter About Drone Usage That Was Already Published In Full By Sen. Rand Paul | Techdirt
The Daily Dot - Deep Web hub hacked and shut down over child porn links

Obama Will Seek Broad Expansion of Overtime Pay - NYTimes.com

Eschaton: They Kicked The Can - "Everybody" thought everything would just return to normal in recovery summer. Almost 4 years ago.

Adolph Reed's Harpers Essay About Obama is Naive About Tea Party | New Republic - Left-wing naivete about right-wing radicalism
DownWithTyranny!: Stick With Nick - Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sanford Biship (D-GA), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Dan Maffei (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Bill Foster (D-IL), Filemon Vela (D-TX), Jim Costa (D-CA), Cheri Bustos (D-IL), Joe Garcia (D-FL), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Collin Peterson (D-MN) - ConservaDems voting more Republican than they need to)

Attorney General Refuses To Defend Gay Marriage Ban, Breaks Down Crying. Humanity Cheers.
Alaska's AG Gets Slammed for Low Rape Prosecution Rate. You Won't Believe His Response. | Mother Jones - A sexual-assault and domestic-violence victim advocate calls his remarks "insensitive and derogatory."

Joseph Williams Retail Worker - A Look Into The Future - Esquire - Joe Williams is a friend of mine and a helluva reporter. He lost his job with Tiger Beat On The Potomac because the Presiding Geniuses, including Mike (Payola) Allen, chickened out like children when the howler monkeys descended. You should read his account of his days in the sales economy. He remains a helluva reporter.

Mariska Hargitay set to produce documentary in Detroit on rape kit backlog | News - Home - More than 11,000 untested kits dating back 25 years were found in 2009 in a Detroit Police Department storage facility. T
The right's poverty plan: shame poor kids and the vaginas that birthed them | Sadhbh Walshe | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Conservatives want to make low-income Americans feel bad about babies and diets to cut birth control and food stamps
New Hampshire GOP Lawmaker Jokes About 'Battered Women': 'I Still Eat Mine Plain'
FYI, Hymens Don't Break — Here's Some Real Talk About That 'Pop Your Cherry' Myth

The scientific study has become a flawed manual for living | Anne Perkins | Comment is free | theguardian.com - We're told women with partners may be less likely to die of heart disease, but how are we supposed to act on such findings? According to the Million Women Study, women can smoke until they're 30 with almost no impact on life expectancy
Rough diamond hints at vast quantities of water inside Earth | Science | The Guardian - Battle-scarred diamond provides evidence of 'wet zone' 410km below the surface where water is locked up inside minerals
Pygmy tyrannosaur roamed the Arctic | Science | theguardian.com - Newly discovered cousin of T rex, Nanuqsaurus hoglundi, inhabited an Arctic island continent around 70m years ago

Gonorrhea is about to become impossible to treat | The Verge - Antibiotic resistance means the STD might soon spread more aggressively than ever

Gigapan: 1 World Trade Center
I am Tim Berners-Lee. I invented the WWW 25 years ago and I am concerned and excited about its future. AMA : IAmA
The Web's First Rules of Etiquette Still Define the Internet Today | Motherboard
A partial history of the open web, in snakes and ladders form | Technology | theguardian.com

031114
Senate Democrats’ All-Nighter Flags Climate Change - NYTimes.com - “Climate change is real. It’s here,” Mr. Reid said, adding that it was time to stop acting as if those who ignore it “have a valid point of view.”

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: The facts and the mystery - The Source - Latest news and updates from Boston.com
Use of Stolen Passports on Missing Jet Highlights Security Flaw - NYTimes.com
Airline probing report 2 visited cockpit in 2011 (6 mile high club)

Ukraine forms new defense force, seeks Western help | Reuters
Putin’s Man in Crimea Is Ukraine’s Worst Nightmare | TIME.com - Little is known about Sergei Aksyonov, the pro-Russia Crimean leader, who rose from obscurity in a month and who is driving the region toward secession

Indian Maoists kill 16 in attack on police | Reuters - Maoist rebels ambushed police and killed 16 involved in a mine clearing operation in a remote part of eastern India region on Tuesday, police said, as the insurgents demonstrated their strength ahead of a general election next month.

Dianne Feinstein launches scathing attack on CIA over alleged cover-up | World news | theguardian.com - Intelligence committee chair accuses CIA of smear campaign Feinstein alleges CIA broke law and violated constitution CIA director John Brennan denies thwarting investigation ... “This is a defining moment for the oversight role of our intelligence committee ... and whether we can be thwarted by those we oversee,” said Feinstein in a special address on the floor of the the US Senate. (shoes on the other foot dept)
Senate raises 'possibility of a criminal violation by CIA personnel' – live | World news | theguardian.com - Dianne Feinstein lashes into CIA on Senate floor Intelligence chair says CIA invaded Senate computers CIA lawyer filed crimes report against Senate staff Same lawyer was named 1,600 times in secret Senate report CIA director John Brennan denies effort to thwart Senate
Feinstein publicly accuses CIA of spying on Senate computers - latimes.com - "I have grave concerns that the CIA search may well have violated the separation of powers principles," Feinstein said on the Senate floor. "I am not taking it lightly."
Feinstein says CIA spied on Senate computers - CNN.com - "The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the internal review or how we obtained it," Feinstein said in blistering remarks on the Senate floor. "Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee's computer."
Top Lawmaker Accuses CIA of Illegally Snooping on Senate | TIME.com - Sen. Dianne Feinstein publicly accused the Central Intelligence Agency of illegally spying on Senate staff computer systems being used to investigate Bush-era interrogation practices, escalating a war of words between Congress and the spy agency with an accusation that CIA head John Brennan called "just beyond the scope of reason" ("Bush-era interrogation practices" = "war crimes and torture")
Senator Feinstein Finally Finds Surveillance To Get Angry About: When It Happened To Her Staffers | Techdirt - from the well,-look-at-that dept
Vodafone Germany rolls out SIM Card-based end-to-end Encryption

US Spy Boss to Criminalize Journalists Who Publish Leaked Documents ("we will arrest them all")

Snowden: US helped create loopholes in NZ law - National - NZ Herald News

Supreme Court Must Set Limits on Cell Phone Searches | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Changing Technology Demands New Rules for Police
Chicago PD's Big Data: using pseudoscience to justify racial profiling - Boing Boing
The Disturbingly Curious Case Of Barrett Brown « Palisades Hudson Financial Group

Guantánamo hunger-strikers endure 'water cure' torture, federal court hears | World news | theguardian.com - Lawyers say inmate Emad Hassan has been force-fed 5,000 times as practice gets first legal challenge at US federal level
Guantanamo Now Calls Hunger Strikes “Long-Term Non-Religious Fasts” | VICE News (Obama rabbit-hole(TM))
The First Amendment vs. death penalty secrecy laws : Columbia Journalism Review - In Missouri, it’s against the law to name pharmacies that produce drugs for lethal injections. Two news organizations did so anyway. What happens next? (Freedom! to hide shit)

Soldiers accused of sex assaults denied right to use military conduct in defence | World news | theguardian.com - US Senate unanimously passes bill that also strengthens legal rights for victims of sex crimes in military courts (watered-down Blue-Dog bill)

Cancer Patient Who Blamed Obamacare For 'Unaffordable' Costs Will Actually Save Money - “I personally do not believe that,” Boonstra said. (Julie Boonstra, famous on the internets for all eternity for being a big fat liar)

John Stoltzfus Baby Boomers - Business Insider - 11 Reasons Why America's Baby Boomers Don't Have The Money To Retire
Eschaton: Simple Solutions To Simple Problems - I don't agree with the policy predictions (either that they should or (hopefully) will happen), but, yes, the retirement catastrophe is here. If only there were some simple low cost program that could be easily expanded to meet the needs of current and near retirees. Thinking, thinking...

Chris Christie Attornies - Who's Afraid of Bridgegate? Not Preet Bharara - Esquire - It's trench warfare lately on the legal front here in New Jersey - Fishman's in a tough spot. Samson hired Michael Chertoff to defend him, and Chertoff was Fishman's boss for many years when Chertoff was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.

'Sundays Are The Worst' Website Urges Christians To Tip Better - "So while it is statistically false to say that Christians are bad tippers, it is true that Christians are more likely to stiff their servers than people of other religious (or non-religious) bents." (depends on your definition of "bad" and "statistics")
Idiocracy: Oregon allows students to leave school for daily Biblical indoctrination | The Raw Story - Adams spoke about the animals that went aboard, including dinosaurs, and the class ended with a recitation of the 10 Commandments and singing in the church’s chapel. (nice no separation of church and state you have there)

Walmart Gives Anti-Union Manual to Store Managers | TheBlot

A dynamic map beautifully illustrating the USA's territorial history

Colorado Recreational Pot Purchases Add $2 Million to State Revenue | TIME.com - The state of Colorado's collected $2 million in taxes on the approximately $14 million in recreational marijuana sales since the drug was legalized and regulated.
Vaping Is the Fanboy-Charged Future of Cigarettes and Weed | Motherboard

Co-author of stem-cell study 'loses faith' in paper
Canadian student has "out of body experiences" whenever she wants
NASA unveils a gorgeous new gallery of celestial images
'Cosmos' - NASA Images of a Space-Time Odyssey - a set on Flickr
New map reveals the Milky Way's location among the "Council of Giants"
Dark Matter Disk Could Have Killed Dinosaurs, Scientists Say - The authors suggest that as the Sun oscillates up and down, it crosses a denser layer of dark matter — like the ham in the middle — causing a gravitational push and pull that disturbs comets in the Oort cloud.
No, "Planet X" does not exist - One of the reasons for the so-called Nemesis Theory is the apparent observation of periodic mass extinction events on Earth.
NASA discovers 715 new planets - CNN.com
Did good weather lead to the greatest land empire of all time? - The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in human history. But its meteoric rise and remarkable run might not have happened if it weren't for an uncharacteristic change in weather that brought sustained rainfall and mild warmth for a short period of time.
Touching Men's Sexy Boxer Shorts Activates Brain's Reward System In Women, Study Suggests - Women, more than men, connect sex to emotions.
Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope | Scope Blog - “Foldscope”
Foldscope: Origami based print and fold paper-microscope
Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects

Fat cat traps Oregon family in bedroom and prompts 911 call [VIDEO] - UPI.com - A large Himalayan named Lux had the family trapped.
Nicolas Cage bemoans ‘the advent of the celebutard’ | Death and Taxes - While promoting his role in David Gordon Green’s movie “Joe,” Nicolas Cage told festival circlejerkers at SXSW how “celebutards” are a degradation to Hollywood and that, more or less, President Clinton should have not been indicted on impeachment charges in 1998.

Twittapocalypse! Twitter site implodes, locks out tweeps around the world • The Register - Website falls over, mobile and desktop apps knackered in major outage
Popcorn Time reinvents the seedy process of torrenting | Ars Technica - A pretty Netflix-like app that does bad things to copyrights.
Canadian Movie & Music Pirates to Be ‘Fined’ Without Court Orders

031014
Fukushima operator may have to dump contaminated water into Pacific | Environment | theguardian.com - Senior adviser to Tokyo Electric Power says controlled release into sea is much safer than keeping contaminated water on-site
Leaked Emails Expose NRC’s Cover-Up of Safety Concerns Days After Fukushima Disaster | EcoWatch

6.9 quake rattles northern California coast — RT USA

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: search area widened - live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Official says men on stolen passports looked like ‘Balotelli’
Investigators Chase 'Every Angle' In Missing Malaysia Jet
Interpol: Database Not Checked Pre-Malaysia Flight - Interpol said Sunday that no country checked the police agency's database that held information about two stolen passports used to board an ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight.
Why Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared - The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.
There is precedent for a jetliner going missing - CNN.com - Embedded in the plane's computers, it tells the airline how the aircraft is performing -- speed, fuel, thrust. "If anything fails, it will send a signal to Malaysia Airlines," Quest said.
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Family of Chinese passenger says mobile phone working

Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com - Resource scarcity, competition to dominate Eurasian energy corridors, are behind Russian militarism and US interference
Russia's Cyber-Weapons Hit Ukraine: How to Declare War Without Declaring War | Alec Ross
US Sends Fighter Jets to Eastern Europe - latimes.com
Arseniy Yatsenyuk Meeting With Obama - Still Doubting Where Obama Stands on Ukraine? - Esquire
Congress Wants to Frack the US to Save Ukraine | Motherboard (drill, baby drill for liberty)

» Blog Archive » Disgusting. Horrifying. - Ten bullets were put into Jawhar’s feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, they received the news that soccer would no longer be a part of their futures (Israel's war on Palestinan soccer players: disgusting)
? Al Qaeda media arm announces new English language magazine - YouTube - Al Qaeda's media arm as-Sahab released a new video on Sunday teasing the launch of an English-language magazine called "Resurgence."

? Edward Snowden and ACLU at SXSW - YouTube
Snowden has shown the 'huge disparity of surveillance and power', says Gellman | Technology | theguardian.com - Government needs reminding that they work for us, says Pulitzer-winning reporter Barton Gellman, who describes Edward Snowden as ending an era of indifference to surveillance
? Edward Snowden and ACLU at SXSW - YouTube
Why Edward Snowden Chose SXSW For His First Live Video Appearance - Forbes
Snowden: Proposed NSA reforms vindicate my data leaks | Reuters
How ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner Became Snowden's Lawyer - Forbes

Declassify the Senate report on CIA interrogation methods - The Washington Post
CIA Accused Of Spying On Senate Panel Investigating Torture - Lawmakers who OK'd NSA spying now crying foul about CIA monitoring of their activities
The NSA Wants To Spy on Itself | Motherboard

Op-Ed: NSA chief seeks to end free press (Keith Alexander doesn't need your steenking Constitution)

A Dispatch From Outside the Prison Holding Barrett Brown | Motherboard

Arthur Nakamoto: My brother, Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto... : Bitcoin
Anonymous hackers uncover alleged proof of MtGox fraud from site’s CEO | Ars Technica - "It’s time MTGOX got the bitcoin communities wrath instead of Bitcoin getting Goxed."
Mt. Gox CEO's blog hacked; alleged Bitcoin balances posted | Internet & Media - CNET News - Hackers claim the data allegedly collected from the exchange's servers shows a disparity in the number of bitcoins deposited versus how many it claims were stolen in a security lapse.
Bitcoin Miner Earning $8 Million a Month

Sister of Kent State Student Slain by National Guard to Testify at UN - The 1970 shooting of unarmed students at Kent State University will for the first time be brought before the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva on March 10-14, 2014.

The Big Lie That Haunts the Post-Crash Economy | New Republic - Exposing the big lie of the post-crash economy (and now "you" get austerity for your punishment)
McDonald's says wages could rise - Fast food giant McDonald's has said growing concerns over income inequality may force it to raise its wages.

U.S. Subpoenas Port Authority Records Tied to Chairman, a Christie Ally - NYTimes.com

The Party of Me - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Not only is Nader’s belief that there’s no meaningful distinction between progressive politics and massaging Ralph Nader’s insatiable ego longstanding, so is his conviction that someone like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush in the White House wouldn’t be so bad, and anyway surely a speculated rise in ineffectual opposition will more than make up for it.


? Massachusetts man arrested after recording police officer in street - YouTube - A Fall River man has been charged with violating the Massachusetts wiretapping statute for recording a police officer talking on his cell phone and cursing while working a street detail. (sue the fuckers into the ground)

The Disgraceful Rejection of Debo Adegbile - Republicans voted against his approval as part of a broader anti-civil rights agenda, but the 7 Democrats who joined them ought to be mortified by their own cowardice. (asshole Blue Dogs)
Primary Colors - A Smarter Way to Primary (dudes, 4 shades of yellow is not the way to do this)
Targeted Democrats » Primary Colors - Below is our full list of House Democrats who are too conservative for their reasonably liberal districts. (and neither is requiring an email to see the list)

Rape kits backlog: Joe Biden announces $35 million to reopen cases | New Republic - It’s one of the most shameful numbers in American law enforcement: According to the Department of Justice, some 400,000 “rape kits” are languishing in evidence lockers across the country because local authorities can’t afford to process them. The kits, some of them dating back to the 1980s, contain DNA evidence that could convict rapists. (not a priority)
Supreme Court Won't Hear Dispute Over 'Boobies' Bracelets - The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a Pennsylvania school district that wants to prevent students from wearing "I (heart) Boobies!" bracelets to promote breast cancer awareness among young people. (Repubican officials wasted a lot on money on that one because "boobies are lewd")

UCLA Study Links Tweets About 'Sex' and 'Getting High' to Areas With Higher Rates of HIV and Drug Use: LAist

American Transit Ridership Hits 57-Year High | Streetsblog USA - “There is a fundamental shift going on in the way we move about our communities”

How the Hippies Saved Physics by David Kaiser » About the book - Fundamental Fysiks Group,

Avedon's Sideshow: If I had my way I would tear this building down - RIP: Bartcop, aged 60. Not just the blog,* the man*. His real name was Terrence R. Coppage, though we never knew that back then.

16 Ways You Can be Phone Scammed
Forest Heights Middle School teacher accidentally shows a sex pic of herself in class - UPI.com - The Forest Heights Middle School teacher had the picture stored on her iCloud account.
Scores arrested at Massachusetts 'Blarney Blowout' - An early St. Patrick's Day celebration around the University of Massachusetts' flagship campus known as "Blarney Blowout" spun out of control Saturday as police officers in riot gear arrested more than 70 people while dispersing massive crowds, including unruly students throwing beer cans and bottles.

U.S. Court Orders Seizure of "DVD Ripping" Software Domains, Servers and Funds | TorrentFreak - A New York federal court has granted the seizure of several domain names, bank funds and social media accounts belonging to DVD ripping software company DVDFab (that DVD you thought you "bought" ...)
Justin Bieber's twitter Account hijacked, Malicious link tweeted to over 50 Million followers. | TechWorm
Bug in Twitter could allow anyone to read tweets from protected accounts - E Hacker News

030914
100% Renewable Energy Is Feasible and Affordable, According to Stanford Proposal | Singularity Hub - “The greatest barriers to a conversion are neither technical nor economic. They are social and political,” the AAAS paper concludes.

Vietnam Search Team: Spotted Object Near Oil Slick Area

David Remnick: Will Ukraine Be Putin’s Undoing? : The New Yorker
Robert Gates On Crimea: 'I Do Not Believe That Crimea Will Slip Out Of Russia's Hand' - WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Sunday that he believes Russia will ultimately control Crimea, the disputed peninsula in the Black Sea.

Chinese Officials Claims They Were Violently Tortured By Government
Women protest against proposed Iraq law that would allow marriage of nine-year-old girls | The Raw Story - About two dozen Iraqi women demonstrated on Saturday in Baghdad against a draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet that would permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls and automatically give child custody to fathers. (that worked out really well +marital rape)

More about the Pew poll on evolution acceptance « Why Evolution Is True = accepting creationism has become part of Republicans’ “team” or “tribal” identity: very religious Republicans were already mostly creationist for religious reasons, and now less religious Republicans are following for reasons of party solidarity.
Republicans’ views on evolution | Pew Research Center - Significantly fewer Republicans believe in evolution than did so four years ago
What, if anything, is wrong with the Pew poll on evolution acceptance? « Why Evolution Is True
Tribalism, Biology, and Macroeconomics - NYTimes.com - The point, instead, is that Republicans are being driven to identify in all ways with their tribe — and the tribal belief system is dominated by anti-science fundamentalists.
www.culturalcognition.net - Cultural Cognition Blog - Have Republicans changed views on evolution? Or have creationists changed party? Pew's (half-released) numbers don't add up ... 
Pleiotropy: Bill Nye totally won that debate
Religion and Science in Conflict—Scientists are much less religious than other Americans | Iranianredneck's Weblog (why Wyoming just outlawed science teaching)


Spiritual Facts | Triangulations

030814
Wyoming Governor Takes Major Stand Against Modern Science - Wyoming took an unprecedented step this week when the governor approved a budget that would prevent the state from reviewing or funding a new set of science standards that treat climate change as fact.
In Parched California, Town Taps Run Nearly Dry - NYTimes.com

239 feared dead on Malaysia Airlines flight as oil slicks spotted in sea | World news | The Observer - Mystery over Bejing-bound MH370 compounded as diplomats confirm two passengers travelling on stolen passports

Israel cuts off water supply to 45,000 Palestinians (typical)
U.S. Armed Forces Sickened After Fukushima Meltdown Get Help From Online Fundraising - "I put in a claim for radiation exposure," Sebourn said, "and it came back completely denied." (screw our troops)
Libya Threatens To Bomb North Korean Ship If It Exports Seized Oil

Ukraine: Are oligarch appointments at odds with new sense of fairness? | World news | The Observer - Appointment of super wealthy to positions of political power upsets protesters who hoped for new era (your protest was pointless)
Ukrainian authorities suffer new cyber attacks - Yahoo News - Ukraine's top security body said on Saturday that it and the national news agency had been hit by cyber attacks, the latest suffered by state organizations since the start of the crisis over Crimea

President Obama: Grant Edward Snowden Immunity Now | American Civil Liberties Union (sign here)
Julian Assange tells SXSW audience: ‘NSA has grown to be a rogue agency’ | Media | theguardian.com - Wikileaks founder: ‘All of us have to do something’
Assange Says NSA Holds The Power In The Obama Administration | TechCrunch (it is slowly becoming apparent that they have Barry's balls in a jar)
Chris Hedges: Our Sinister Dual State - Chris Hedges - Truthdig
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: NSA critics got lucky because agency had no PR strategy | Security & Privacy - CNET News - Though the WikiLeaks founder and critics like Edward Snowden were forced into exile, they took advantage of the previously silent NSA's lack of experience at spinning public opinion, Assange told SXSW.

Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations - NYTimes.com (nice fair and balanced report +read Truman's warning in comments)
In an apparent violation of the Constitutional separation of powers, the CIA probed the computer network used by investigators for the Senate Intelligence Committee to try to learn how the Investigators obtained an internal CIA report related to the detention and interrogation program. : news
CIA Spies On Senate Intelligence Committee In Effort to Block Senate Report On Disastrous CIA Torture Program Washington's Blog

sxsw_letter.pdf - Mike Pompeo (R, Idiot) wants SWSX to "censor" Snowden
I got 30 months in prison. Why does Leon Panetta get a pass? - latimes.com - The Espionage Act should be rewritten to deal with issues of intent and motive, and it should be enforced equally. (Panetta, Brennan and Alexander belong in prison)

Meet CUPID: The Drone That Will Shoot You With an 80,000 Volt Taser

New York Post's Defense Of Notorious Boston Marathon Cover Gets Laughed Out Of Court
Hullabaloo - Stopped clock alert: David Brooks is right. Really right. (Bobo comes out against torture)

Commonwealth Foundation, if you live in a glass house ... : Matt Zencey | PennLive.com - I’d take the whole issue more seriously if Commonwealth Foundation didn’t have its own hand deep in the taxpayer-subsidized well.
Results | Conservative Transparency (the 1% trying to get totally rid of unions)
Eschaton: Unions vs the 1% - all you need to know in one chart)
We Need To Fix The Economy Before This Chart Becomes Our Reality
This Map Shows Why The Plan To Split Up California Would Be A Dystopian Nightmare (classic hedge fund strategy)
Economic Inequality: Why Isn’t There More Outrage? by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - However, the media’s failures only explain a part of the public’s eerie underreaction to the skyrocketing economic inequality we’ve seen over the past several decades. There’s got to be more to the voters’ lack of outrage. I wish I knew what it is.

Oops: The Texas Miracle That Isn’t by Phillip Longman | The Washington Monthly - Conservatives say the Lone Star state’s recent record of growth validates their economic agenda. That record crumbles upon inspection. (it always does)
South Carolina’s anti-gay witch hunt: legislature cuts funds to colleges that teach books by LGBT authors by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - . The South Carolina legislature has taken upon itself to yank funding for public colleges that have assigned books by LGBT authors. (writing while gay no a crime)

The religious right’s 5 most demented persecution fantasies - Salon.com - Anti-Christian oppression takes many forms, apparently: Hipsters. Paperwork. Johnny Weir's wardrobe. (Christian warriors and their delicate fee-fees)

CPAC’s version of ‘Firing Line’: Ann Coulter on the right, Mickey Kaus on the left | The Raw Story

Medical Marijuana Research Is Being Blocked, Scientists Say - Leaf Science
How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis Legalization by Mark Kleiman | The Washington Monthly - Leaving it to the states is a recipe for disaster.
Teens Who Try E-Cigarettes Are More Likely To Try Tobacco, Too : Shots - Health News : NPR
Hangovers 'don't deter drinkers' - Hangovers neither deter nor encourage more drinking, says the University of Missouri team.

CDC: Antibiotic Overuse Can Be Lethal - WSJ.com - About 36% of patients studied were given the powerful antibiotic vancomycin without testing or for too long, the report found.
Breast cancer isn't sexy. Nipnominate's cleavage shots trivialise a devastating illness | Daisy Buchanan | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Epiphenom: Hell and happiness - Believing in hell seems to make people unhappy.

030714
Pentagon: Climate change enables terrorism — RT USA (so people like Rush Limbaugh and the Kochs who enable climate change are?)
China’s desperate need for water is forcing the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people - Quartz
Climate change could mean more malaria in Africa, study says | Environment | theguardian.com - First hard evidence that malaria creeps to higher elevations during warmer years, study of South America and Africa finds
New Government Report Warns of 'Cascading System Failures' Caused By Climate Change

Malaysia Airlines loses contact with plane carrying 239 people - Yahoo News UK
Erdogan sounds social media ban warning - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Turkish PM says YouTube and Facebook among networks in crosshairs as online leaks fan flames of corruption scandal.
Gang Rape Survivor In India Gang Raped Again While In Police Protection - The two police officers in charge of protecting the woman were eating dinner when it happened.
Venezuela protests: two dead in barricades clash | World news | theguardian.com - Motorcyclist and officer die in Caracas shooting as President Maduro calls protesters 'vandals who hate the people'
'Sarkozy phone was bugged' after rumours Gaddafi funded campaign | World news | The Guardian - Claims of phone tapping described by former French president's lawyer as 'monstrous' violation of his client's legal rights
Choe Ryong Hae, Kim Jong Un's Number Two Man, Reappears After Mysterious Absence
Israeli drones to patrol Brazilian skies during World Cup - Business Israel News | Haaretz - Drones join tanks, remote-controlled robots, thermal cameras and other security measures to be deployed by federal government.
Italy's Public Prosecutor Orders ISPs To Block Dozens Of 'Pirate' Websites Just Because He Said So | Techdirt - from the wave-that-magic-wand dept
Qatar, Bahrain, UAE ban “Noah” film; Al Azhar says it violates Islam : Jihad Watch

Eschaton: Cutting Their Way To Prosperity - Austerity can never fail, it can only be failed ... All that suffering, because Osborne prefers sadism to economic growth.
Heating up: Job creation accelerates in February - Economists polled by Reuters expected the U.S. economy to have created 149,000 jobs in February, up from 129,000, which was revised higher from 113,000.

Russia's Vladimir Putin Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Putin Rebuffs Obama As Ukraine Crisis Escalates
Crimea Military Post Taken Over By Russians
McClatchyDC.com - Ukrainians say there’s no military way to stop Russia from absorbing Crimea
Ukraine Liveblog Day 18: Moscow and Washington Are Far Apart on Crimea | The Interpreter
Hackers Join In the Struggle for Crimea | The Interpreter
Armed men confiscate AP equipment in Crimea - Armed men in Crimea's capital city have confiscated equipment from Associated Press employees and contractors working there.
EU leaders draw up plans to send gas to Ukraine if Russia cuts off supply | Business | theguardian.com - Europe braced for possible battle with Moscow after Gazprom threatens to cut off gas supply if Ukraine does not pay bill

updated : jail them !before they kill … and kill … and kill again | robinlea - If they cannot be jailed by the dysfunctional system of injustice in our USSA, move on to the Hague. Or what are we … you and I … going to say to the families of all the innocents these two murderers will kill between now and doomsday ? What can we say to the 2500 or so they’ve killed already ?

McClatchyDC.com - FBI probing alleged removal of documents from CIA by Senate staffers
Operation Stall | emptywheel - My favorite part of this passage, though, is that contractors are helping choose with documents CIA’s overseers are allowed to see. Because contractors should surely have more visibility into what the CIA does than CIA’s overseers, right? (another twisty Obama rabbit-hole + the CIA is the covert action arm of the Presidency or the other way around)

NSA chief says legislation to stop media leaks is only weeks away | The Daily Caller - Gen. Keith Alexander told a cybersecurity panel Tuesday that the “media leaks legislation” he proposed to prevent journalists from reporting on government surveillance programs like those leaked by Edward Snowden could be here within weeks. (Obama to criminalize journalism)
Minstry of Truth: Russia Drafts Law That Targets Journalists as Terrorists

vjhvekoen1ww.pdf - I would like to thank the European Parliament for the invitation to provide testimony for your inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens. The suspicionless surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so many others that we learned about over the last year endanger a number of basic rights which, in aggregate, constitute the foundation of liberal societies. (Snowden statement to EU)
Snowden Gives Testimony To European Parliament Inquiry Into Mass Surveillance, Asks For EU Asylum | Techdirt - from the impressive,-as-ever dept
Snowden to EU: NSA Spying distracts from real threats | TheHill
Daniel Ellsberg: Obama Should Say 'Thank You Edward Snowden' -- Fusion.

Glenn Greenwald: Raving Leftist | FrontPage Magazine - Although Wilentz never comes out and says it directly, the reader is left with the distinct impression that he believes neo-communist Greenwald shouldn’t be considered a member-in-good-standing of the Left. In fact, Wilentz seems to insinuate that Greenwald is an extreme right-winger at heart, a proposition that cannot survive serious scrutiny.
Guardian to Make Management Changes - NYTimes.com - The Guardian will make broad changes among its most senior editors this year, the newspaper said Thursday, announcing that Janine Gibson, the editor in chief of its operations in the United States, will return to London.
Propaganda, or the other side of the story? | the first casualty. - At around 5 PM on Wednesday afternoon, RT (formerly Russia Today) anchor Liz Wahl decided to call it quits on-air, accusing the channel of “[whitewashing] the actions of Putin.”
Teju Cole: By the Book - NYTimes.com - require the president to read one book? (he's a murderer, more literature won't help)

Snowden: I raised NSA concerns internally over 10 times before going rogue
Snowden: Spy Services of EU Member States Independently Hawk Domestic Access to NSA, GCHQ | The Dissenter
Lawmaker asks SXSW to withdraw Snowden invite | TheHill - Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who has denounced Snowden’s leak of hundreds of thousands of NSA documents, said his appearance via webcast would undermine the “fairness and freedom” the event is meant to promote.

CIA: We Only Spied On Senate Intelligence Committee Because They Took Classified Documents That Prove We're Liars | Techdirt - from the good-luck-with-that dept (DiFi looking increasingly complicit)

Transcript of secret meeting between Julian Assange and Google CEO Eric Schmidt - On the 23 of June, 2011 a secret five hour meeting took place between WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was under house arrest in rural UK at the time and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. - JA: Tor or Thor? ES: Yeah, actually I mean Tor. Uh... JA: And Odin as well.

Court blocks government's request to keep NSA phone records longer than five years | The Verge
How the Military Uses Twitter Sock Puppets to Control Debate and Suppress Dissent — Medium - Is Your New Little Friend on Twitter an NSA analyst?
The NSA Has An Advice Columnist. Seriously. - The Intercept
The NSA Has An Internal Office Advice Columnist And Yes, She's An Inconsistent Hypocrite Too | Techdirt - from the spy-versus-spy dept

Free Barrett Brown — Comment on the government's motion to dismiss - The charges against Barrett Brown for linking were flawed from the very beginning. In response to a rigorous legal challenge mounted by his defense, the government has finally recognized it and signaled that this is a battle they don’t want to fight. (but they overprosecuted because they can)

Man Said to Create Bitcoin Denies It - ABC News - The denial came after Newsweek published a 4,500-word cover story claiming Nakamoto is the person who wrote the computer code underpinnings of bitcoin.
Bitcoin Creator Returns To Internet To Say, 'I Am Not Dorian Nakamoto' - Forbes
REAL Satoshi Nakamoto denies being Dorian Nakamoto : Bitcoin - It's like Jesus himself posted on /r/catholic.
If you believe the report about Satoshi Nakamoto's identity look at this : Bitcoin
The Daily Dot - Massive Bitcoin fundraiser under way for Dorian Nakamoto
The Daily Dot - A history of people misidentifying Satoshi Nakamoto
Satoshi Nakamoto Is Whoever You Want Him to Be | Motherboard
UPDATE 2-Man called Bitcoin's father denies ties, leads LA car chase | Reuters
Satoshi Nakamoto's Page - P2P Foundation

Drone operators free to operate commercially in U.S. airspace, rules federal judge - Blog - Drone Hire - The long stand-off between commercial drone operators and the FAA has just taken an extraordinary twist: A federal judge has rejected the FAA’s ban as unenforceable, ruling that commercial use of drones in the United States is unequivocally legal. (game change; champagne in Bezos' office)
FAA Appeals Commercial Drone Ruling, Cites Safety Concerns | TechCrunch

Kirsten Gillibrand’s sexual assault bill derailed - Darren Samuelsohn and Juana Summers and Anna Palmer - politico.com (Dems kill it +Cruz voted in favor)
The Pentagon's shameful culture of sexual assault can still be uprooted | Elise Collins Shields | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s bill failed, but when we start over, let’s start at the very beginning: the military academies
Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act blocked in Senate vote

College Grads Taking Low-Wage Jobs Displace Less Educated - Bloomberg

Teju Cole: By the Book - NYTimes.com - require the president to read one book
JPMorgan whistleblower gets $63.9 million in mortgage fraud deal | Reuters

After pledging transparency, PBS hides details of new deal with billionaire owner of NewsHour | PandoDaily
Expanded Thoughts — How Working In Washington Taught Me We're All A Little Like RT America - One of the controversial topics that was very constrained in our writing at ThinkProgress in 2009 was Afghanistan. CAP had decided not to protest Obama’s surge, so most our writing on the topic was simply neutral — we weren’t supposed to take a strong stand.
Podesta is grilled over e-mail | TheHill - In a March 9 e-mail, David Sirota, a fellow at CAP, accused 16 pro-business Democrats of supporting bankruptcy-reform legislation because they received political contributions from the commercial banks and credit-card companies that stand to benefit if the legislation becomes law.

Ex-Chris Christie Aide Fights Order To Give Up Records - A former aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says in legal papers that there's a "real and substantial threat" of self-incrimination if she gives state lawmakers records they have requested from her as they look into a political payback scandal involving Christie's office.

These 9 Maps Should Absolutely Outrage Southerners (freedom to be stupid and bigoted)
Somebody Is Stealing Children To Put In Paul Ryan Speeches!

Massachusetts OKs bill outlawing 'upskirt' photos - The legislation says anyone who "photographs, videotapes or electronically surveils" another person's sexual or intimate parts without that person's consent would face a misdemeanor charge and a maximum penalty of two-and-a-half years in jail and a $5,000 fine. (and just how far up a leg is the "sexual" part?)

State Police: Man in custody shoots and kills self | KATC.com | Acadiana-Lafayette, Louisiana - . White was taken into custody, handcuffed behind his back, and transported to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office for processing," Hammons said.
Three Latino Police Officers Awarded $3.5 Million Over Racial Discrimination: LAist
Fun and Games With Stratfor: APD and DPS collaborated with private 'geopolitical intelligence firm' – including bomb demonstrations and undercover surveillance - News - The Austin Chronicle - APD and DPS collaborated with private 'geopolitical intelligence firm' – including bomb demonstrations and undercover surveillance
APNewsBreak: FBI investigates prison company
'Sluts Are Just Whores In Training,' And Other Wisdom Offered By A Sitting Arkansas Judge | ThinkProgress (just look at this asshole's face)
Teen shot by Miami Beach police Taser died of accidental cardiac arrest - Miami Beach - MiamiHerald.com - A young graffiti artist shot by a Miami Beach police Taser stun gun died of heart failure from the “energy device discharge,” authorities said Thursday.
Four Correction Officers Charged With Beating Rikers Prisoner: Gothamist

Touring the marijuana facility growing plants to save children’s lives | Al Jazeera America
w Police: Tampa family sickened by meat laced with LSD - FOX 13 News - The family bought the bottom round steak at the Walmart on 1501 N. Dale Mabry in Tampa, police said.

? BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU - YouTube

The Daily Dot - 2 million Facebook users tried to see their friends naked and got a virus instead
xs
030614
NATO airstrike in Afghanistan's east kills 5 Afghan soldiers - BNO News - Five Afghan soldiers were “accidentally” killed Thursday when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) carried out an airstrike in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. It is likely to further anger the country’s president who has refused to sign a security agreement with the United States.

Ukraine crisis: Obama says Crimea referendum would 'violate international law' – live | World news | theguardian.com - Crimean parliament votes to join Russia ‘A farce’, says Ukrainian acting president
LIVE: Ukraine crisis: Crimean Russia vote - Crimean parliament asks to join Russia and plans referendum in 10 days' time on endorsing the move
White House Imposes Visa Restrictions On Some Russians And Crimeans As Obama Authorizes Sanctions (that's gotta hurt)
Are Russia's Security Agencies At War (With Each Other)? / ISN - While the SKR and FSB seem to be cooperating against the MVD, they are nevertheless competitors on other fronts
? RT's Abby Martin says there is no difference between American "corporate media" and RT - YouTube

Bustler: Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg to design July 22 Memorial sites in Norway
US Embassy and Godaddy conspire to censor dissenting Mexican political site - Boing Boing
Outrage as 500 fatcat bankers take home bonuses of £1million - Daily Record - BARCLAYS and Lloyds made more millionaires than Camelot last year – shelling out 508 mega-bonuses to swell the bulging accounts of bankers.

Given Alleged CIA Spying on Senators, When Will Senate Intelligence Committee Release Torture Report? | The Dissenter (DiFi: "never")
Twitter / YourAnonNews: 'I am deeply dismayed that ... - some members of the Senate have decided to make spurious allegations" - John Brennan, professional liar

US prosecutors drop hyperlink charges against Barrett Brown • The Register - A little sanity returns to the world (BB still faces 70 yr sentence for calling FBI agent "cocksucker")

In defence of Julian Assange | Books | The Guardian - Julian Assange's publisher writes about his experience of working with the much-criticised WikiLeaks founder
Andrew O’Hagan · Ghosting: Julian Assange · LRB 6 March 2014 (they always focus on "personality")

A vast hidden surveillance network runs across America, powered by the repo industry | BetaBoston
Security Firms Don't Think Snowden's Leaks Have Dulled Their Tools | Motherboard
NYC Drone Artist Cleared of Charges | Arts & Culture - Attia faced five charges, three of which were felonies, and 56 counts for possessing a forged instrument. Attia faced possible jail time.

Political Prisoner Marshall Eddie Conway Released After 44 Years - Scores of former Black Panthers are serving virtual life sentences in prison, largely the result of the efforts of J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered his FBI in the 1960s and '70s to target the Black Panther Party - as revealed by the 1977 Church Committee Senate hearings.

The Senate Decides Being A Lawyer Disqualifies You From Holding A Legal Post - Lawyers hoping for a political appointment in the future, take note: the U.S. Senate is now judging attorneys based on their representation of politically unpopular clients. (fuck the Dems who blocked this)
Senate Blocks Obama Civil Rights Nominee For Representing Death Row Inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal

The Face Behind Bitcoin - Newsweek - Satoshi Nakamoto stands at the end of his sunbaked driveway looking timorous. And annoyed.

Chris Christie Paul Fishman - How Far Will U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman Go In The Christie Case? - Esquire - Governor Chris Christie and U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, the man in charge of prosecuting him, make a strange Tale of the Tape

Ohio judge dubs Greenpeace protest stunt reckless - CSMonitor.com - Nine Greenpeace activists were charged with burglary and vandalism Tuesday after using a zip line to unfurl giant banners from P&G's headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. A judge chastised the activists, saying they put people in danger.

Sanjay Gupta: "I am doubling down" on medical marijuana - Boing Boing
Researchers Are Working On 'Curing' Dozens Of Babies Born With HIV | ThinkProgress

Two Texas Reproductive Health Clinics Close, a Harbinger of a Coming Access Crisis
Bigotry is not all bad things - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Henry Farrell’s reply to Conor Friedersdorf’s mess of a column this morning. But I want to highlight one particularly clueless passage: (clueless Catholic Libertarian)

Brooklyn Rabbi, Teacher Charged With Distributing Child Pornography « CBS New York
We've gone too far with 'trigger warnings' | Jill Filipovic | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Universities and blogs do students no favors by pretending that every piece of offensive content comes with a warning sign (helicoptering their delicate fee-fees)

Russell Crowe film ‘Noah’ edited to appease Christians upset by ‘historical inaccuracies’ | The Raw Story (yeah, you read that right)
Classic paintings of world cities meet Google Street View – in pictures | Cities | theguardian.com


Are e-cigarettes a tobacco product? L.A. regulation called 'short-sighted.' (+video) - CSMonitor.com - The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to prohibit e-cigarettes wherever regular tobacco products are banned. Supporters of the e-cigarette industry say such laws are premature.
E-cigarettes are all the rage with kids these days: What else to do but panic?

Apple loses bid for U.S. ban on Samsung smartphone sales | Reuters - over various smartphone features patented by Apple, such as the use of fingers to pinch and zoom on the screen, as well as design elements such as the phone's flat, black glass screen. ("fingers" and "a flat screen" were patented)
How Snapchat imitator Puffchat managed to do everything wrong | ZDNet - Early this week Snapchat imitator Puffchat threatened a hacker for disclosing serious security holes and fallacies in the app's privacy claims. As expected, things aren't going well for Puffchat's arrogant founder.

030514
Global Warming Slows Antarctica's Coldest Currents - Scientific American - The deep, salty currents that carry oxygen and nutrients to the ocean depths have been disappearing over the past few decades
Sydney Opera House and Statue of Liberty 'will be lost to sea level rise' | Environment | theguardian.com - Nearly one-fifth of world cultural heritage sites would be affected by global warming of a further 3C, scientists warn - nearly one-fifth of the planet's 720 world heritage sites will affected as ice sheets melt and warming oceans expand.
Documents Show Australia Ignored Expert Advice Against Dredge and Dump in Great Barrier Reef | EcoWatch - Last December the Australian Federal government gave the go-ahead to dredge and dump in the Great Barrier Reef. It did so despite strong, expert advice from the independent authority charged with protecting the reef that it was dangerous to the reef’s health.
Michigan Oil Spill Protest May Land These 3 Women In Prison - Three women each face up to two years in prison for protesting the replacement of an oil pipeline in western Michigan responsible for the biggest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

US and Russia fail to reach Ukraine deal on day of frantic diplomacy | World news | theguardian.com - John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov to resume talks on Thursday as pressure grows on EU to pass punitive measures against Moscow
Ukraine's revolution and Russia's occupation of Crimea: how we got here | World news | theguardian.com - A guide to what's happening, how it got to this point, and why some people say 'the Ukraine'
Ukraine Uprising: Revolution Or An Orchestrated Coup | PopularResistance.Org - (is it hard at all for you to sermonize against invasions of sovereign countries given, you know, how often you yourself support them?)
The Last Argument of Kings » Greystone Limited mercenaries operating in Ukraine - All these people were identified as employees of private security companies Greystone Limited. It is a subsidiary of Vehicle Services Company LLC (which is a private security company Blackwater USA’s notorious was renamed in 2009). Currently, the number of employees of this company in Ukraine is said to be up to 300 people.
Statement of left and anarchist organizations about “Borotba” organization (English, German, Polish, French, Serbo-Croatian)
Lindsey Graham Blames Benghazi For Ukraine Crisis | ThinkProgress (Butch-Me-Up is a living joke)
RT Host Abby Martin Condemns Russian Incursion Into Crimea – On RT - The Intercept
Anchor Resigns On Air Over Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine - Russia Today anchor Liz Wahl resigned on air Wednesday saying that she could no longer be part of a network that "whitewashes the actions of Putin."

US says it worked with Israel to track seized Iranian rockets | GulfNews.com - Obama also directed military to work out contingencies in case it became necessary to intercept vessel
Boris Johnson: Children at risk of radicalisation should be in care - Mr Johnson said they should be removed from their families to stop them being turned into "potential killers or suicide bombers".
Arab states withdraw ambassadors from Qatar in protest at 'interference' | World news | theguardian.com - Qatar has acted as a cheerleader for the uprisings of the Arab spring while the other Gulf states have fretted about their own stability at a time of regional change.
Chad/CAR: New humanitarian crisis for those fleeing violence in CAR | Amnesty International USA
The Washington Post Uses Biased Experts to Promote Propaganda on Venezuela - The Intercept

Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee, senator claims | World news | theguardian.com - White House declines to comment after Mark Udall says agency spied on staffers preparing scathing report into CIA torture after 9/11 (Obama loves torture, murder and spying; impeachment time)
CIA and senators in bitter dispute over Capitol Hill spying claims | World news | theguardian.com - John Brennan, CIA director, rebukes intelligence committee as tensions over torture findings explode into public sphere (Brennan guilty of war crimes, accuses Intel Committee of hacking the CIA)
C.I.A. Employees Face New Inquiry Amid Clashes on Detention Program - NYTimes.com - C.I.A. employees were improperly monitoring the work of staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to government officials
WASHINGTON: Probe: Did the CIA spy on the U.S. Senate? | National Security & Defense | McClatchy DC
The Inverse of Oversight: CIA Spies On Congress - The Intercept ("undersight")
More Details Revealed Concerning CIA's Spying On Senate Intelligence Committee | Techdirt - from the oh-and-back-to-those-questions dept
Yes, The CIA Spied On Congress « The Dish - Why? The torture report, of course: These war criminals cannot be appeased any longer. They need to be brought back under constitutional control.
CIA And Congress Clash Over Interrogation - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - We see this again today as the Congress and the CIA start laying clubs on each other.

Diane Roark Talks NSA Retribution by Kelley B. Vlahos -- Antiwar.com
Exclusive: Freed Ex-Black Panther Marshall "Eddie" Conway on 44 Years in Prison & FBI Surveillance | Democracy Now! - At the time of the shooting, the FBI was also monitoring Conway’s actions as part of its counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. Numerous groups have campaigned for years calling for his release, saying he never received a fair trial and was convicted largely on the basis of testimony from a jailhouse informan

NSA Director’s Comments Suggest Anti-Leaks Legislation Being Secretly Developed in Response to Snowden | The Dissenter - “We’ve got to handle media leaks first,” Alexander additionally declared. “I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks. I am an optimist. I think if we make the right steps on the media leaks legislation, then cyber legislation will be a lot easier.” ("Fuck your so-called jounalism" he added)

US government moves to drop key charges against Barrett Brown | Technology | theguardian.com - Federal prosecutors had come under widespread criticism for seeking to prosecute Brown for the republishing of a hyperlink ... In total, Brown still faces a possible maximum prison sentence of 70 years, though an additional 35 years have been removed through the dismissed counts.
EFF Statement on Dismissal of 11 Charges Against Barrett Brown | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Government backs off case against journalist who faced decades in prison for posting hyperlink | The Verge

Middle Schoolers Win C-SPAN Prizes for NSA Documentaries | Electronic Frontier Foundation
28 Year Old CEO Of Bitcoin Exchange Dead After Possible Suicide | NEWSWATCH - Tech in Asia has updated the article to emphasize that suicide is only suggested and not certain
Native American tribes adopt Bitcoin-like currency, prepare to battle US government | The Verge - MazaCoin could be what the Lakota people need to boost them out of longstanding poverty, but is it legal?
The Doomsday Cult of Bitcoin -- Daily Intelligencer
Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping | Ars Technica - This GnuTLS bug is worse than the big Apple "goto fail" bug patched last week.
Sally Beauty Data Hack: Another Day, Another Retailer in a Massive Credit Card Breach - Businessweek - he latest target, according to cybersecurity blogger Brian Krebs, is the beauty supply chain Sally Beauty (SBH), a retailer that draws customers from salons and other stylists.

Eschaton: But The Washington Post Tells Me Paul Ryan Really Cares About The Poor - If Paul Ryan's plan involved putting poor people in wood chippers, the Washington Post would dutifully inform us that he was concerned with helping the poor.
NPR Tells US That Pew Expert Paul Taylor Wants to Promote Generational Conflict | Beat the Press - It is striking that NPR is willing to focus so much more attention on the threat to the living standards of millennials presented by a 2-3 percentage point increase in payroll taxes than the policies that could lead to much or all of the benefits of productivity growth over the next three decades going to those at the top, as has been the case for the last three decades.

The Morning Plum: Why GOP won’t evolve on gay marriage - Note the religious breakdown: White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage, by 66-28. By contrast, white non-evangelical Protestants support it by 62-27, and white Catholics support it by 70-26.

Angelina Jolie Opens Up About Life After A Double Mastectomy - a preventive double mastectomy after she tested positive for the mutated BRCA1 gene, with her doctors estimating that she had an "87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer." (James Woodman doesn't believe that statistic, or in biomarkers in general; see disdainful and dismissive personality disorder)

Nearly Every Star In Our Galaxy Hosts At Least One Alien Planet, Scientists Say

Women radio presenters under pressure 'to sound more like men', says Mary Beard - TV & Radio - Media - The Independent

Cops used cell phone surveillance tool 200 times without court’s permission — RT USA - ?The American Civil Liberties Union wants to learn more about any secret surveillance gadgets used by Florida law enforcement agencies after uncovering proof that police there relied on one type of spy tool upwards of 200 times without permission.
Pa. State Trooper Sentenced In Deadly DUI Turnpike Crash « CBS Philly - A former Pennsylvania state trooper who was off duty and drunk behind the wheel will spend at least six months behind bars in connection with a fiery fatal crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, near Plymouth Meeting, nearly two years ago.
Suspended Passaic County sheriff’s officer faces new accusation of role in stolen car ring - NorthJersey.com
Settlement reached in Warren "cut on camera" case - WXYZ.com
Bradshaw's widow files civil lawsuit - Bowling Green Daily News: News - Specifically, Heidi Bradshaw claims a member of a responding agency reported that Bradshaw was “10-7” – police code for deceased – before EMS personnel approached Bradshaw and found he still had a strong pulse, causing at least a seven-minute delay of possibly life-saving medical treatment, and that law enforcement failed to preserve evidence that may have shed light on the events surrounding the shooting.
National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 03-01-14 to 03-04-14 | PoliceMisconduct.net
DEA deputy director: "Every single parent" opposes pot legalization - Boing Boing - "Your statement that all parents are against this is ludicrous," said Cohen. "What do you think, that people who are in favor of decriminalization or changing policy don't procreate?"

California Residents Go Ballistic Over Los Angeles Area School Superintendent's Ridiculous Salary - Business Insider - Centinela Valley Union High School District head Jose Fernandez made $663,000 in 2013 for overseeing a district with three schools and about 6,500 students. By comparison, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John E. Deasy — who is in charge of over 200 schools and about 650,000 students — made $390,000 last year.

Cell Metabolism - Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population
HIV gene therapy using GM cells hailed a success after trial | Science | The Guardian - Radical treatment helps patients' defences against virus by replacing immune cells with genetically modified versions
LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy - NYTimes.com

Los Angeles moves to ban e-cigarettes, joining NY, others | Reuters - "We also have a responsibility to protect our youth and everyone else in public places from the carcinogens found in the ultra-fine particles in e-cigarette aerosol," he said.
Passive smoking causes irreversible damage to kids' arteries | NDTV.com - Exposure to second-hand smoke in childhood causes irreversible damage to children's arteries - increasing their risk of heart attacks or strokes when they grow up, according to a large international study published on Wednesday.

Arielle Scarcella And Nickalaws, Vloggers, Release 'It's Hard Being A Bottom'

gabrielle1106 comments on Writers of Reddit, what are exceptionally simple tips that make a huge difference in other people's writing?

030414
Ukraine crisis: Kerry says Russia 'hiding hand behind falsehoods' – live | World news | theguardian.com -
Putin's Press Conference on Ukraine Proved Merkel Right: He's Nuts | New Republic
Putin Pulls Back Troops, Says No Need for Military Action in Ukraine
Cyber battle apparently under way in Russia-Ukraine conflict • The Register - Kiev security chief says 'IP-telephonic' attack is targeting Parliament
Putin’s power play in Ukraine - The Washington Post - But the world is a darkening place, and the precedents being set are ones that will haunt us for decades to come unless the U.S. administration can act decisively and persistently against Russia. (WaPo wants Bamz to do ... something)

China says military will respond to provocations - China's military is prepared to respond to all threats to the country's sovereignty, a government spokeswoman said Tuesday, ahead of the expected announcement of another big bump in defense spending.

Rebekah Brooks: Charlie concealing bags was a 'monumental cock-up' | UK news | theguardian.com - Ex-NI chief tells court she 'lost it' when she heard her husband had hidden items including 'his rather large porn collection'
Top Aide Behind U.K.'s Porn Filters Arrested for Child Porn - A top aide to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who helped Cameron draft the legislation behind the county's national Internet porn filters, has been charged with "a potential offense relating to child abuse imagery."

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case That Would Have Challenged NSA Warrantless Surveillance of Lawyers | The Dissenter - “The Supreme Court’s refusal to review this case guarantees that the federal courts will never address a fundamental question: Was the warrantless surveillance program the NSA carried out on President Bush’s orders legal? The Court’s decision also guarantees that the Obama administration, which has for the last five years refused to take any position on that question, will now never have to answer either,”
NSA chief criticises media and suggests UK was right to detain David Miranda | World news | theguardian.com - Keith Alexander says revelations have caused ‘grave damage’ and claims officials are making ‘headway’ on ‘media leaks’

Edward Snowden to Talk Privacy With the Tech Community at SXSW | American Civil Liberties Union - In his first conversation in front of an audience since his disclosures began making global headlines last year, Edward Snowden will appear via live video next Monday at SXSW Interactive, the festival that brings together tens of thousands of technology professionals and enthusiasts every year in Austin.

Attorneys for Barrett Brown want case on linking to hacked material dismissed | Law | theguardian.com - The US activist-journalist faces 100 years in prison for posting hyperlink to site containing hacked material in chat room

CyberGuerrilla soApboX » The future for CgAn


Free Money for Everyone by Ryan Cooper | The Washington Monthly - A wacky-sounding idea with surprisingly conservative roots may be our best hope for escaping endless, grinding economic stagnation.

Chris Christie Andrew Cuomo - Why Andrew Cuomo Needs To Come Out Of Hiding - Esquire - Andrew Cuomo has let Christie have his way
In Job, Appointee Profits and Christie Gains Power - NYTimes.com - the agency’s executive director, Patrick J. Foye, last week said that Mr. Samson lacked the moral authority to remain chairman.

Scott Brown New Hampshire - Such Are The Dreams Of The Everyday Has-Been, Continued - Esquire - "They keep running these negative ads and crushing my integrity and distorting my votes and the like - almost antagonizing me, challenging me to get in," Brown told POLITICO. "Had they left me alone, I may feel a bit different. But they didn't."

As SC allows guns in bars, 15 people are accidentally hit in bars in other states: GunFAIL LVIII (what could possibly go wrong?)
News from The Associated Press - - A central Ohio principal says she suspended a 10-year-old boy from school for three days for pretending his finger was a gun and pointing it at another student's head.

Keystone XL Pipeline Report From State Department Underestimates Pollution Impact: Study
State Department Pipeline Study Flawed - The New Keystone Pipeline Study - Esquire - The State Department review has proven to be an insufficient fig leaf for any decision.
Study Finds Keystone XL Would Have Much Larger Impact Than State Department Suggests - downplays the significance the pipeline would have for development of the Canadian tar sands, according to a new analysis from a United Kingdom-based group. The analysis also argues that the State Department underestimated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would come with that development. (another fake Obama "study")

Dark matter looks more and more likely after new gamma-ray analysis | Science | theguardian.com - Scientists describe as 'extremely interesting' new analysis that makes case for gamma rays tracing back to Wimp particles
Ancient Virus 'Resurrected' From 30,000-Year-Old Ice In Siberia - The newly thawed virus is the biggest one ever found. At 1.5 micrometres long, it is comparable in size to a small bacterium.
Animal protein-rich diets could be as harmful to health as smoking | Science | The Guardian - People under 65 who eat a lot of meat, eggs and dairy are four times as likely to die from cancer or diabetes, study suggests
Spending more time in the dark could boost hearing in old age | Dana Smith | Science | theguardian.com - Hope for non-invasive treatment for age-related deafness as scientists find neurons can compensate for disability at any age

Northwestern Professor Cancels Class Ahead of Planned Protest | NBC Chicago - Students planned to converge upon Peter Ludlow's 12:30 p.m. class before walking out together at 1 p.m.
America's universities: where you're all too likely to be sexually assaulted | Sofie Karasek | Comment is free | theguardian.com - How many more victims have to speak out before US universities and the federal government take meaningful action?


030314
Hundreds rally in Tokyo against dropped Fukushima crisis charges | The Japan Times - Hundreds rallied Saturday in Tokyo to protest a decision by prosecutors to drop charges over the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, meaning no one has been indicted, let alone punished, nearly three years after a calamity ruled “man-made.” (melt-downs go unpunished, whether bankers or reactors)

Internet Censorship World Map Shows Worst Censorship Offenders | BGR

Obama Russia - Happy Monday - Esquire - Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. "In another world," she said. I'm not sure we needed to start the week knowing that.
LIVE: Ukraine crisis: Grip tightens
Russia says Yanukovych asked for intervention - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Moscow's envoy tells UN Security Council that ousted Ukrainian leader requested Russia's armed forces to enter Ukraine.
Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine (Dispatch One) | VICE News
US Ships Approaching Sevastopol? Mapping US Naval Assets | Zero Hedge - #BreakingNews #US Navy USS George Bush nuclear aircraft carrier declares high alert in the #Mediterranean (oh, the irony)
Ukraine: Russia demands that 2 warships surrender - Russia issued an ultimatum Monday, demanding that the crew of two Ukrainian warships in Crimea immediately surrender or be stormed and seized, a Ukrainian military spokesman said.
Arms, 400 kilos of explosives seized from Kiev radicals on Crimean border — RT News - Russia-1 TV channel reports. (they wouldn't be biased, or anything)
G-8 Is Now G-1: Nations Boycott Summit in Russia
The Wikileaks cables that anticipated the Russian invasion of Crimea. - A 2006 cable under the name of Kiev Deputy Chief of Mission Sheila Gwaltney, who as it happens is now the highest ranking diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Moscow following the departure of Amb. Michael McFaul, warns of a possible Russian threat to Crimea – Ukraine’s “soft underbelly”:
Vladimir Putin can destabilize Ukraine: The Russian president doesn’t need to invade to cause chaos. - Vladimir Putin doesn’t need to invade Ukraine. He can destabilize it from the Kremlin.
Crimeans protest Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster: Rallies in Crimea’s capital call for autonomy. - Viktor Yanukovych may be a crook, but in Crimea he’s still the president.
The Resolve Fairy and the Precedent Fairy - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Essentially, partisans of the Resolve Fairy are demanding that Obama create in Putin’s mind the belief that a Russian invasion will be met with US military force, despite the fact that there is nearly zero chance that any administration, in a similar position, would use force.
Inside the lavish residency of fugitive president Victor Yanukovych  - Images - News - The Independent

Obama to Israel -- Time Is Running Out - Bloomberg View
Islamabad court suicide attack strikes terrorism blow in Pakistani capital | World news | theguardian.com - At least 11 people including judge killed in attack two days after Pakistani Taliban announces ceasefire
Attacks kill dozens in area of Nigeria targeted by Boko Haram | World news | theguardian.com - Two bombs explode in crowded district of Maiduguri, while gunmen open fire in nearby village
Interview: Karzai says 12-year Afghanistan war has left him angry at U.S. government - The Washington Post - To Karzai, the war was not waged with his country’s interests in mind. “Afghans died in a war that’s not ours,’ he said
Injuries as protesters storm Libya parliament - Africa - Al Jazeera English - Armed protesters storm the parliament building while legislators were in session, shooting and wounding two MPs.
Bin Laden's son-in-law to stand trial for conspiracy to kill Americans | World news | theguardian.com - Highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial in US • Judge rejects Suleiman Abu Ghaith’s claim of mistaken identity
Yemen drone strikes, ambushes kill 10 | Reuters - At least four suspected al Qaeda militants were killed in air strikes in Yemen on Monday, following the deaths of several soldiers in the south of the country, local officials and state news agency Saba reported.
Poor taking items back to food banks as they can’t afford to cook, Oxfam claims - Home News - UK - The Independent - More than one third of councils are subsidising meals at food banks while some families are so short of cash they are returning food which they cannot afford to heat, it emerged on Sunday night.

No 10 aide arrested over child porn: Police quiz man who advised Cameron on web filters | Mail Online - The 62-year-old was involved in drawing up policy on child porn
Cameron aide arrested over allegations relating to child abuse images | UK news | The Guardian - Patrick Rock resigned as deputy head of Downing Street's policy last month on day before arrest
Rebekah Brooks: NI's 'rogue reporter' defence shaky after 2009 revelations | UK news | theguardian.com - Former News International chief tells phone-hacking trial that company's corporate line came from NoW editor Colin Myler
Boris Johnson slams Julian Assange for costing Met Police £5.3million | The Sun |News|Politics

Can Greenwald's digital magazine Intercept help to reinvent journalism? | Media | The Guardian - Founder plans non-hierarchical newsroom and wants to build First Look Media on collaboration

Labour to overhaul spy agency controls in response to Snowden files | UK news | The Guardian - Yvette Cooper says debate over privacy, civil liberties and the role of the intelligence agencies has barely started in Britain
CIA Scrubbed Surveillance Files on Thousands of Americans (Including Chomsky) Under 60's-70's CHAOS Program | LeakSource - I can now confirm that the reason why the CIA could not locate its file on Noam Chomsky, despite the fact that the CIA had in fact maintained records on him, is that the CIA destroyed them and, unfortunately in my view, the destruction was authorized by the Archivist of the United States. (we don't need no steenking history)

EFF Fights National Security Letter Demands on Behalf of Telecom, Internet Company | Electronic Frontier Foundation - The briefs—one filed on behalf of a telecom company and another for an Internet company—remain under seal because the government continues to insist that even identifying the companies involved might endanger national security. (because terrorists would win if America were a democracy with rule of law)
Homeland Security Relies On Secrecy To Violate People's Rights And Humiliate Them At The Border | Techdirt - no oversight, no one can find out about its policies or activities, and that allows it to act with impunity, to attack and humiliate people, to violate their rights, to leave people with lasting mental scars, often requiring therapy, and to never have to answer for any of it.
Trustycon: how to redesign NSA surveillance to catch more criminals and spy on a lot fewer people - Boing Boing
Snowden made cyber-geek nightmares true. Can 'private' be normal again? | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The NSA leaks created everyday interest in products built to protect. At a security pow-wow turned sour, that’s a good thing
Briton Lauri Love faces new US hacking charges - If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.
Suspicionless Searches at the US Border: A Growing Problem for Press Freedom | Freedom of the Press Foundation - “The U.S. border may be the next battleground for press freedom.” (Obama's war on journalism)
Hacking in the newsroom? What journalists should know about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act » Nieman Journalism Lab - At the NICAR conference this weekend, data journalists and legal professionals discussed the ethical and criminal implications of hacking in the newsroom. (searching a PDF is now "hacking" and can you thrown in jail; Obama rabbit-hole(TM)
Lawfare › The Debate About the NSA Is Over - Well, not really. But you know that a trend is going against the NSA when the American Bar Association offers a course entitled, “The Ethical Implications of NSA Surveillance.” According to the the ABA:
Sprint Accused of Overcharging Feds Millions for Wiretapping | Threat Level | Wired.com
Why The TSA Hassled A Traveler 'With Bitcoin In His Bag' - Forbes - Practical takeaway: Feel free to wear your Bitcoin t-shirt through airport security, but be prepared for extra questions if your bag is (weirdly) filled with Bitcoin novelty coins.
EPIC - EPIC Files FOIA Lawsuit for Information About Massive Telco Database "Hemisphere"

Obama Administration Won't Release Real Name of American It's Considering Killing Without Trial | Mother Jones

The Inflation Obsession - NYTimes.com - Recently the Federal Reserve released transcripts of its monetary policy meetings during the fateful year of 2008. And, boy, are they discouraging reading. (the best and the brightest were stupid and catastrophically wrong)

Echidne Of The Snakes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy - The way politics is financed in the US, combined with the increasing inequalities in income and wealth, means that democracy is at risk.

The Bobblespeak Translations - Gregory: Marco Rubio says we are not friends with Russia anymore Kerry: who cares what that child thinks?

'I'm Going To Prison For Working At A Pot Shop That Was Legal In My State'
"Let's Make This Work": The First Weed Commercial Is About to Hit American TV | Motherboard


Fantasy New York Times Columnist Page - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Maureen Dowd’s column about Francois Hollande not cheating on his partner in the right way had to be an all-time low point for her, although the competition is stiff. Then there’s Tom Friedman writing columns that are nothing more than job advertisements for Google. Meanwhile, Kristof is flying first class around the world saving people while consistently refusing to support people trying to improve their own lives.
Ross Douthat looks at gay marriage and wonders what’s love got to do with it | The Raw Story


On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - The irrelevance of black life has been drilled into this country since its infancy, and shall not be extricated through the latest innovations in Negro Finishing School.
Florida woman's sentence could be tripled in stand-your-ground retrial | World news | theguardian.com - “Incarcerating Marissa Alexander will send a strong message to all survivors that violence against them will be ignored and they instead will be subject to prosecution if they defend their lives,” (stand your ground only applies to guys)
Marissa Alexander Retrial - Be Careful What You Wish For - Esquire - Yes, this is the same Angela Corey whose office couldn't convict George Zimmerman and that couldn't convict Michael Dunn of killing the person he actually killed, and she's going to go right to the mattresses on Alexander.



NICAR Debate: Static vs. Dynamic Web Applications (with images, tweets) · tylrfishr · Storify
Popcorn Time - app to stream torrent movies - Boing Boing
Comcast takes lobbying to new heights | Dallas Morning News - Companies often want their lobbyists to hobnob with lawmakers and regulators. Comcast takes that to new levels, increasing lobbying expenditures 23 times over 2001 levels, to $18.8 million last year — behind only Northrop Grumman Corp. in spending by a single company.

030214
I-25 pileup: 104 vehicles involved, 1 killed, 30 hospitalized after snowy disaster - The Denver Post - "People were just driving too fast for conditions," said Darrell Barber, whose Chevy Tahoe was hit repeatedly during the chain of crashes. "It was totally preventable."

European flood risk could double by 2050 | Science Codex - Losses from extreme floods in Europe could more than double by 2050, because of climate change and socioeconomic development. Understanding the risk posed by large-scale floods is of growing importance and will be key for managing climate adaptation. (half of Europe underwater?)

Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation - Bloomberg - The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say. (and no one will go to jail)

White House: No more drone killings information will be released | The Daily Caller - White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that the Obama administration will not be releasing any more information about the controversial use of drones to kill American citizens. (you don't need to know who we extra-judicially murder)
China Slams U.S. Human Rights Record - A Chinese government report published on Friday accused the United States of “serious infringes on human rights.”

Ukraine in Maps - NYTimes.com
The Ukraine Crisis in Three Maps
Ukraine_topo_en.jpg (the fourth map)

The Ukrainian Grand Delusion (with tweets) · billmon1 · Storify - U.S. and E.U. to pro-West Ukrainians: "You fucked up, guys. You trusted us." (once again, Obama looks incredibly naive or out of the loop)
Ukraine Mobilizes Reserve Troops, Threatening War - NYTimes.com
Denis Berezovsky, Ukraine's Navy Chief, Defects To Crimea's Pro-Russian Authorities - Ukraine launched a treason case on Sunday against the head of the navy, who surrendered his headquarters on Sunday in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on only his second day on the job.

Making Russia Pay? It’s Not So Simple - NYTimes.com - Former Bush deputy NSA: “There’s nothing we can do to save Ukraine at this point." (another foreign policy blunder by Oblunder)
Crimea—Not “Ours” or “Yours” | LeftEast - The Ukrainian peninsula has had the misfortune of finding itself on the intersection of Russia’s imperialist ambitions and the brute nationalist politics of the “new” Ukraine. Open Left declares – the Crimean self-determination movement precedes both the imperialist games and the nationalist frenzy.
Center for a Stateless Society » Ukraine: The Legacy Of Colonialism - Because Russia’s colonies did not generally take the form of overseas possessions populated by peoples with different skin colors and dramatically different cultures, the fundamentally colonial nature of the Russian project is often missed.
The Invasion Of Crimea Is Russia's Worst Foreign Policy Blunder In A Generation - Forbes
Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine: President Obama had no options for saving Crimea. - Obama had no good options to stop the invasion. In fact, the only mistake the president made was ever suggesting there would be “consequences.”
Reporters and Foreign Affairs Analysis: Ukraine Edition | Hylaean Flow (the "resolve fairy")
Ukrainian miscalculations | Kings of War - So, the Crimean peninsula is gone. Write that one off. Move on.

Eschaton: Acts Of Agression - Russia's "incredible act of aggression" amounts to "a stunning willful choice" by Putin to invade another country on a "trumped-up pretext," Kerry said. Senator Kerry voted aye for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Joke of the day - John Kerry: ... - "You just don't in the 21st Century behave...by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext"
Twitter / kgosztola: Kerry on "Face the Nation" ... - admonishes Russia to "behave like a G8 country." Isn't violating sovereignty of countries what G8 countries do?
Twitter / StephenWalt: Amazing thing re #Ukraine: ... - US & EU colluded to help oust corrupt but pro-Russ leader, yet expected Moscow to do nothing about it.

Ukraine Update » Balloon Juice - I guess watching the Russians do what they want in Ukraine is how the rest of the world felt when we invaded Iraq. Not much we can do. In our defense, at least we had fancy terms like coalition of the willing and had the backing of Tonga, Moldava and other powerhouses ... This is the point in an international crisis when we all wait silently to see what Obama does so we can criticize whatever it is. — Dana Milbank

Putin Goes to War in Crimea : The New Yorker - —a demonstration war that could splinter a sovereign country and turn very bloody, very quickly.
Ukraine Mobilizes For War, Calls Up Reserves
Russia's Gas Can Blow Up Ukraine Tomorrow - Ukraine highly depends on Russian energy. Rising gas prices decided by Moscow could lead, at any moment, to the country’s collapse.
Unidentified Gunmen Surround Ukraine Base, Block Soldiers From Leaving
Map: All the Countries John McCain Has Wanted to Attack | Mother Jones - Syria, Iraq, Russia, North Korea, and nine other nations the Arizona senator has been eager to bomb, invade, or destabilize.
Preoccupied With Ukraine by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said about McCain by phone. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books - Viktor Yanukovych. He wanted to be not only the president but the oligarch-in-chief. His son, a dentist, was suddenly one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Tens of billions of dollars simply disappeared from the state budget. Yanukovych built for himself a series of extravagant homes, perhaps the ugliest in architectural history.

China Knife Attack: Separatists Blamed For Assault That Kills 33 - he Kunming violence would be a new kind of attack for ethnic Uighurs — premeditated and outside Xinjiang — but still rudimentary in weaponry.
Pakistan to halt targeted air strikes against Taliban
Saudi women activists demand end to ‘absolute’ male control - Daily News Egypt - Saudi Arabia imposes a strict interpretation of Islamic law, forbidding women to work or travel without the authorisation of their male guardians.
Thousands march in Hong Kong to condemn attack on ex-newspaper editor | Reuters - Dressed in black and wearing blue ribbons, symbolizing press freedom, protesters carried a large banner with the words "They can't kill us all". Other banners and placards read "Freedom from fear" and "Protect press freedom".

U.S. Marijuana Legalization and the Future of Mexico | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - n the final analysis, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem, much less a marijuana problem: It has a state capacity problem. That is, its institutions are too weak to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens.

Protesters Demand Freedom for Julian Assange at Ecuadorian Embassy London - Julian Assange has been inside the Ecuadorian Embassy for 619 days since being granted asylum due to the threat he faces from the United States.

Forget the NSA, the LAPD Spies on Millions of Innocent Folks | LA Weekly (your fascist cop spy state)
The Daily Dot - Tor takes anonymity mobile with new smartphone OS - The team behind Tor, the world’s leading online anonymity service, is developing an anonymous smartphone operating system.

West Virginians Raise Alarm as Research Links Coal Mining to Cancer, Birth Defects (Freedom! to not breathe)

Fixing the op-ed page - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - In comments on Erik’s Douthat post below, there is some discussion of the staggering and utter vacuity and general uselessness of the non-Krugman* op-ed writers there

A Brief History Of The Republican Alternative To Obamacare: Your Sunday Morning Conversation - The "Republican alternative to Obamacare" exists in an eternity where there is no time, nothing can grow, nothing can become, nothing changes, and everyone is reborn, but into the same effort to replace Obamacare that they’ve always been born into.

Eschaton: Horrible Governors - Cuomo and Christie, corrupt BFFs. - “They set the governors up to look like heroes. It was all a farce.”

Jerry Brown and Potheads by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Brown said he was worried about what would happen to the nation if too many people used the drug too often. (he dated Linda Ronstadt)

You Share 98.7 Percent of Your DNA With This Sex-Obsessed Ape | Mother Jones - In modern humans and these other hominins, chromosome 2 shows clear genetic evidence of a fusion event that must have happened after our lineage split from chimpanzees and bonobos, but before our divergence with Neanderthals and Denisovans. The proof is right there in the DNA.

America Doesn't Read Much, Says Map (America watches Fox News and doesn't have to read; on the other hand, SK has 10 gigabits directly to the brain)
The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go (but Up) - NYTimes.com - in San Francisco County, where the average teacher earns $59,700 a year, not a single home now on the market is within the reach of the average public-school teacher. For police officers, who make an average of $80,000 a year, there is one affordable home. (who needs cops and teachers when you have helicopters and armed guards?)

tsa on Instagram

The Daily Dot - Man loses $80K settlement over daughter's Facebook brag - “Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,”
The rise of OpenStreetMap: A quest to conquer Google’s mapping empire - The Next Web

030114
World War III: A picture | GeorgieBC's Blog (Heather Marsh, 2012)

Crimean coup is payback by Putin for Ukraine's revolution | World news | theguardian.com - After what Moscow regards as the western-backed takeover of Kiev, the Kremlin's choreography has been impressive
Most Russians believe the Crimea is theirs – Putin has acted on his belief | Masha Gessen | Comment is free | The Observer - The invasion of Ukraine is likely to lead to an increased crackdown on political dissent in Russia
Senators suggest recalling Russia’s ambassador from US over Obama speech — RT News - Obama’s “aggressive” comments on the situation in Ukraine
Ukraine: pro-Russian leaders election illegal - Yahoo News
Tensions Rise Between Ukraine And Russia Over Crimea

Venezuela Opposition Protests Are Not Ukraine, Thanks To Maduro's Grip On Power - The man they are up against, President Nicolas Maduro, has a near-complete grip on the military, broadcast media and institutions from congress to the judiciary after 15 years of socialist rule.
1,094 Arrested in Major Baby Trafficking Bust - At the end of this month, four major baby trafficking rings were busted by authorities in Beijing and Jiangsu, rescuing 382 babies and arresting 1,094 people involved.
Louise Mensch thinks the real face of British Islam is a man of Sikh heritage - UK - News - The Independent

The Budget Deal Is a Big Win for the Pentagon | Mother Jones - One out of every five tax dollars is spent on defense.

Noam Chomsky Quotes (My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons)

The Silliest Snowden Theory Yet | Mother Jones - "The Snowden Operation": A short book that's long on wacky spy stories about the real source of the NSA leaks ... Economist editor Edward Lucas and the most ridiculous thing I've ever read, his short new ebook, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster (Ecomomist)
Yahoo webcam images 'harvested by GCHQ spies' - Politics - News - London Evening Standard - As much as 11 per cent of the pictures stored by the listening post contained "undesirable nudity", the Guardian reported.
On the Meaning of Journalistic Independence - The Intercept - This morning, I see that some people are quite abuzz about a new Pando article ”revealing” that the foundation of Pierre Omidyar, the publisher of First Look Media which publishes The Intercept, gave several hundred thousand dollars to a Ukraininan “pro-democracy” organization opposed to the ruling regime
The price of eggs — BuzzMachine - Now in Pierre Omidyar’s case, I pointed out yesterday as Greenwald did today that it took only .3 milliseconds in a Google search to find that the Omidyar Network had funded civil society groups in Ukraine; they sent out a press release about it in 2011
Of Neo-Fascists and Smiley-Face Neoliberals | emptywheel (Pando looking stupid)

Boston Marathon bombing: Tsarnaev's defence team want charges thrown out | World news | theguardian.com - Repetitive counts are prejudicial, say lawyers, while prosecutors claim prisoner has made remarks that harm his case

Arrested Anonymous Hacker will serve 12 years in prison for hacking the Federal Reserve | HackRead - Latest Cyber Crime - Information Security - Hacking News - A British individual has been accused of cracking into the servers of the Federal Reserves of U.S, and for stealing and online posting of confidential information. (which is 12 times longer than any banker got for wrecking the world economy)

Andy Stepanian: Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into some of the... - Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into some of the most important and underreported stories of our time – secret kill lists, unauthorized war zones, drone strikes and targeted assassinations that stop short of no one, including our own.

Utah Attorney General Makes Gay Adoption Harder

The Citizens United of the Culture Wars - "Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign against Civil Rights," (liberty to discriminate - up is always down)
TN Republican Admits Bill Attacking Free Speech Is Designed to Take “Preemptive Measures” Against Union Growth « Smart Union - n another example of the “war on workers,” Tennessee Representative Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin) introduces a bill denying the First Amendment right to free speech pertaining to a citizen’s right to picket

U.S. Students/Grads Carrying Over $1 Trillion In Debt - Slashdot - an alarming spike in delinquent loans that looks a bit like mortgage delinquencies did at the beginning of the sub-prime crisis
Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy | TIME.com - American students are well over $1 trillion in debt, and it's starting to hurt everyone, economists say
Student Loans Are Ruining Your Life. Now They’re Ruining the Economy, Too (TIME) : news

Doctors warn new FDA-approved painkiller is deadly dangerous — RT USA - Zohydro

Lawsuit Alleges 'Sadistic Culture Of Brutality And Violence' At Cook County Jail: Chicagoist
Prussian Blue twins Lynx and Lamb: 'Marijuana changed us from Nazis to peace-loving hippies' | Mail Online - Twin sisters who sparked outrage with pop band named after gas used on Jews claim they've grown up

5 Things Kentucky Could Spend $73 Million On Instead Of A Fake Noah's Ark
Structural concerns shut down $60 million Allen Eagle Stadium | Dallas Morning News - Allen’s Eagle Stadium -- a $60 million jewel rivaling college facilities -- may sit idle when the state champion football team kicks off its season next school year because of structural concerns. (priorities)

Why Don't We Have Viagra for Women Yet? - The FDA's kinda sexist.
Dirty R&B — The Magazine on Medium — Medium
America’s Angriest Store — Culture Club — Medium - How Whole Foods Attracts Complete Shitheads.

TIL that Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. When they made Breakout for Atari, Wozniak and Jobs were going to split the pay 50-50. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to do the job. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350 : todayilearned

022814
This Chart Proves Just How Miserably America Is Failing On Climate Change

More trouble hits TEPCO’s water cleanup system - The Japan News - The troubled radioactive water cleanup system at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was hit by a new problem Wednesday, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
Japan blocked presentations on nuclear effects at 1955 U.N. confab | GlobalPost - , facing U.S. pressure,

Pope Gets Real With Bishops - Your Occasional Pope - Esquire - Papa Francesco has had enough of your royalist bullshit.

Crimea’s Bloody Past Is a Key to Its Present - NYTimes.com (charge of the light brigade)
Obama warns Russia: There will be costs for intervention in Ukraine - CNN.com
A divided Ukraine - CNN.com (the map)
Ukraine Acting President Says Russia Has Invaded Ukraine, As 2000 Russian Troops, Military Jets Arrive | Zero Hedge
Russian 'invasion' of Crimea fuels fear of Ukraine conflict | World news | The Guardian - White House issues warning to Kremlin, as Ukrainian official claims 2000 Russian troops have arrived in peninsula
Obama Warns Russia Not to Intervene in Crimea - NYTimes.com
In Ukraine's Crimea, Armed Men Seize Two Airports; Russia Denies Involvement
4 Reasons Why Crimea Is The Most Tense Place In Ukraine
Pierre Omidyar co-funded Ukraine revolution groups with US government, documents show | PandoDaily

The race for Arctic oil: Russia vs. U.S. - The Week - The coldest war?
Hundreds of babies rescued as Chinese police smash four child-trafficking rings | World news | theguardian.com - Parents warned against kidnappers using internet or lying in wait at hospitals and schools as 382 infants rescued in crackdown
El Chapo: drug lord's arrest sparks apprehension from Mexico to Chicago | World news | theguardian.com - Sinaloa cartel leader’s capture leaves Mexicans fearing more bloodshed, while few in US believe the flow of drugs will slow
Rebekah Brooks: 'I understood illegality of payments to police' | UK news | theguardian.com - Former editor asked in phone-hacking trial to explain emails from reporters at Sun about sources connected to police and military
World Bank postpones Uganda loan over anti-gay law | World news | theguardian.com - Loan worth £54m withheld after Ugandan president signed law that imposes harsh penalties for homosexuality

Outgoing NSA chief Keith Alexander signals openness to surveillance reform | World news | theguardian.com - Alexander says NSA could accept a change where agency would only be allowed to collect phone data related to terrorism
NSA head floats idea: What if we only gathered terrorist communications? | Ars Technica - Gen. Keith Alexander raises possibility of reining in NSA's metadata program.
How a British Citizen Was Stripped of His Citizenship, Then Sent to a Manhattan Prison | The Nation - Britain’s citizenship deprivation processes may help obscure the Obama Administration’s willingness to kill and kidnap Britons.
Pentagon wants contractor to pick propaganda audiences | Action Reporter Media | fdlreporter.com

Senators to investigate NSA role in GCHQ 'Optic Nerve' webcam spying | World news | theguardian.com - Three senators condemn UK spy agency’s ‘breathtaking lack of respect’ over interception of Yahoo users’ webcam images (global porno ring)
So you think you have nothing to hide... | American Civil Liberties Union (because you're stupid)
Undercover FBI Agent Tried to Get Activists to Send Money to PFLP, a US-Designated Terrorist Organization | The Dissenter
The Government's Secret Plan to Shut Off Cellphones and the Internet, Explained | Mother Jones
How a Hacker Intercepted FBI and Secret Service Calls With Google Maps
TSA Reportedly Demands To Inspect Man’s Luggage For Bitcoin [Updated] | TechCrunch - The problem is, of course, Bitcoin is a completely digital currency; it’s like if Delta banned you from traveling with your Facebook profile. Baker was admittedly snarky in response, asking “What did the Bitcoin look like?”, thinking it would be impossible to describe a nonexistent physical object.

Chris Christie Raab - Nine Reasons Why Chris Christie Is Done - Esquire (FFB is crisp)

Civil War Was About Slavery - It’s About Slavery, Stupid - Esquire - The American Civil War is one of the few demonstrable cases in which the losers gained control of the narrative of history. Much as the Nazis developed the myth that the German Empire did not lose the First World War on the battlefield (they did) but instead that their armed forces were, "stabbed in the back" by liberals and Jews on the homefront (they were not), the Confederates in the post-Civil War era managed a concerted effort to conceal the causes of their rebellion.
The Infinite Circle of Black Responsibility - Bill O'Reilly is convinced that if only Kanye West would sing some Bing Crosby tunes, we could achieve a racial utopia.
Same sex marriage, public opinion and religion - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The framing of ‘secular vs religious’ is so pervasive that pro-SSM religious people fail to recognize they’re in the majority in their own church.

The Veto That Doomed America by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It’s gotta be a difficult time for the culture warriors who were deeply invested in the “religious liberty” campaign that hit a land-mine in Arizona this week. The worst part had to be the speed with which Republican pols abandoned the campaign when it lost altitude.

Wall Street threatens GOP on bank tax - Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer and Lauren French - politico.com - Rep. Dave Camp’s tax proposal — which jacked up taxes on banks and threatens the bottom line of some major private equity players in New York — has infuriated donors in high finance.
Tea Party: We're Still Here

Here's How Much Your State Is Losing If It Didn't Expand Medicaid

NU Student Sues Professor Who Allegedly Harassed Her | NBC Chicago - Accuser alleges Peter Ludlow harassed her after an art event in Chicago in February 2012 (what's with philosophy professors?)

Ralph Nader Is Still Politically Stupid | Library Grape
Keeping Up With (and By) Academia by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

NPR whitewashes resumé of Holocaust-revisionist hate group leader - How did NPR’s Michel Martin describe Lively to her audience? Simply as “Evangelical leader Scott Lively.” (not so polite Republicans)
BREAKING: Idaho Governor Signs Ag-Gag Law Making It Illegal to Expose Animal Cruelty
AOL.com Article - Cracks force closure of $60M Texas HS stadium - Eagle Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Allen will be closed until at least June for an examination of "extensive cracking" in the concrete of the stadium's concourse,

Georgia man won’t be charged for shooting 72-year-old wandering Alzheimer’s patient dead | The Raw Story - Walker County District Attorney Herbert Franklin told Think Progress that he interviewed the shooter, 35-year-old Joe Hendrix, who believed he was acting in self-defense at the time.
Evidence of Concealed Jailhouse Deal Raises Questions About a Texas Execution - NYTimes.com - newly discovered evidence suggests that the prosecutor in the case may have concealed a deal with a jailhouse informant whose testimony was a key part of the execution decision. (time to execute Texas)
'I Spent 15 Years In Solitary Confinement For A Crime I Didn't Commit'

Why Every Woman Over 50 Should Practice Bisexuality | Arlene Schindler - maybe ending the night with some light cuddling. That's a snapshot of a day in the life of an affectional bonding relationship.

TSA not sure if DC drivers licenses are valid ID - Boing Boing - DC resident Ashley Brandt was surprised to meet a TSA agent at Phoenix airport who didn't think that DC drivers' licenses were valid ID, because DC isn't a state.

Seth Rogen Gives a Mini-Primer on Making Change in Washington - Esquire - Of course, two (2) (!) senators showed up to this hearing at all. (Alzheimers)

Lawrence Lessig Wins Damages For Bogus YouTube Takedown | TorrentFreak - Lessig has agreed to receive damages from an Australian music label. Without considering fair use Liberation wrongly had some of Lessig's work removed from YouTube and threatened to sue - it didn't go well.
Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security | Technology | The Guardian
Nokia Lumia Icon review: The best Windows phone yet — Tech News and Analysis

022714
Ukraine: Pro-Russia Gunmen Seize Government Buildings In Crimea
Tony Blair urged to come clean over secret letters to IRA fugitives | Politics | theguardian.com - SDLP assembly member Alex Attwood says former PM needs to 'account for his actions' and outline what other deals were done

Amnesty International accuses Israeli armed forces of possible war crimes | World news | theguardian.com - Human rights group says soldiers have killed dozens of Palestinians with virtual impunity in West Bank
Amnesty International Report Shows Israeli Army and Police Use Excessive Force in West Bank | Amnesty International USA - Casualties Over Past Three Years Include Children
‘Trigger-happy’ Israeli army and police use reckless force in the West Bank | Amnesty International
Rebekah Brooks 'authorised half a dozen payments to public officials' | UK news | The Guardian - Brooks tells court she sanctioned payments if she thought there was overwhelming public interest in publishing information
Demanding a Monopoly on the Middle East Narrative by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
The Battle Over Middle East Policy, and its Genesis by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Could America, if it chose to, detach itself from the Zionist project? And can the American state do politics and policy coherently?
Broken Promised Land by Heather Hurlburt | The Washington Monthly - Truman’s quick recognition of Israel was tragic, dysfunctional, and quintessentially American.
The Assault On John Judis | The National Interest Blog - New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier alternately mocks and dismisses his colleague, a vocation he specializes in. Though the letter was sent privately by email, it was clearly intended to go public.

Army Dismisses 588 Soldiers From Sensitive Positions After Sexual Assault Review - The Army has dismissed 588 soldiers from positions including recruiters and sexual assault counselors after they were found to have previously committed acts such as sexual assault, child molestation and drunken driving, USA Today reports.

? How the Government Manipulates Your Thoughts Online | Big Brother Watch - YouTube - Abby Martin talks about journalist Glenn Greenwald's report regarding the intelligence community's use of subversive and manipulative online tactics to destroy the reputations of businesses and individuals. (deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, distract, delude, destroy)
Due to activist lawsuits, US gov’t wants to keep our metadata longer | Ars Technica - "A more limited retention of the [business records] metadata is not possible." (you always lose)
James Clapper's Office Hilariously Cites 'Privacy' Concerns In Blanket Denial To FOIA Request For NSA Reform Submissions | Techdirt - from the that-time-when-the-agency-suddenly-pretended-to-care dept

The Moazzam Begg Arrest: Part of the Effort to Criminalize Muslim Political Dissent - The Intercept

Statement on GCHQ's war against Anonymous - Project PM - Project PM urges a renewed effort by an informed citizenry to oppose and expose rogue elements of the intelligence community, consistent with the serious threat to human rights, democracy and transparency posed by this creeping militarization of the internet.
UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users | World news | theguardian.com - Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk • 1.8m users targeted by GCHQ in six-month period alone • Yahoo: 'A whole new level of violation of our users' privacy' • Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images
UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users : worldnews
German webmail providers try to trick users into removing Adblock Plus - Free webmail providers Web.de and GMX – subsidiaries of Germany’s United Internet – have been caught trying to deceive users into uninstalling ad-blocking browser extensions like Adblock Plus.
Boeing launches Ultra-Secure 'Black' Smartphone that has Self-Destruct Feature - The Hacker News

Documents for raids on anti-war activists unsealed | Committee to Stop FBI Repression - Reveal McCarthyite attack on free speech, right to organize (Obama hates your so-called "dissent")
FBI Report targets anti-fracking activists as terrorists for non-violent protests, movie attendance | The Columbus Freepress
Fracking Waste is Being Dumped Into the Ocean Off California's Coast | Petroleum | ReWire | KCET

Eschaton: Not So Leaky Bucket - Piketty says that wealth distributions skewed to the top decile reduces economic growth, and now the IMF reports the same is true of skewed income distributions.
Fortune 500 companies receive $63 billion in subsidies | PandoDaily
Bitcoin: By The Privileged, For The Privileged | ThinkProgress
w
House Democrat Unleashes On Obama Judicial Nominees, White House Pushes Back Hard - Michael Boggs and Mark Cohen, and said the president will thank them for it later. Boggs, a former state legislator, has come under intense fire from civil rights leaders, abortion rights groups and those representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people over past votes to keep the confederate insignia on the Georgia state flag, to tighten restrictions on access to abortion and to ban same-sex marriage. Cohen, meanwhile, has taken heat for successfully defending Georgia's voter ID law in court. (Obama loves his right-wing Republicans)
How Scalia Helped Screw Texas' Case Against Gay Marriage - Garcia isn't the first federal judge to use Scalia's words to undermine a state's defense of a gay marriage ban. In Utah, Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky, federal judges fully embraced Scalia's predictions last year in his dissent in United States v. Windsor, the case that struck down key portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Scalia wrote in that dissent that he believed the majority's logic would inevitably lead to other judges striking down same-sex marriage bans.

Republicans Have Slight Edge In 2014 Elections, Poll Finds (Obama working to make the margin larger)

Senate Blocks Bill Expanding Veterans Benefits - Senate Republicans Kill a Bill to Expand Veterans' Benefits - Esquire (Republicans hate our troops)


GWB Scandal: Release of previously redacted messages reveals new information - NorthJersey.com - The private messages that linked Governor Christie’s office to lane closures at the George Washington Bridge also contain jokes about causing “traffic problems” at the home of a New Jersey rabbi associated with the Port Authority, newly released documents show. (you're so funny, Bridget)

When 'Religious Liberty' Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia | ThinkProgress - The premise of the bill is that discrimination becomes acceptable so long as it is packaged inside a religious wrapper.
Judge strikes down Texas same-sex marriage ban - latimes.com
Conservative Pundits Lose It Over Veto Of Arizona's Anti-Gay Bill - The biggest complaint was that Brewer was tossing aside the freedoms of Christians:
6 Truly Unhinged Right-Wing Reactions to Jan Brewer's Veto of AZ's Anti-Gay Bill | Alternet - "Tyranny is on the march," and "Now, we'll all have to bake penis cakes."
Fox's Tucker Carlson: It's "Fascism" For Businesses To Have To Treat Gay Customers Equally | Blog | Media Matters for America
Gay couples rushing to take advantage of order recognizing same-sex marriages in Kentucky | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com
NYC Church Warns That 'Homo Demons' Unleashed By Obama Will Steal Men
Inside the 'Religious Liberty' Debacle

What if Americans Demanded the Ouster of This Government? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - the US government, while talking in a high-minded manner about the importance of the right to protest and criticizing governments that use police in a repressive manner, is actually doing the same thing here at home.
Police Probe Threatening ’1 Percent’ Graffiti Left On Atherton Homes « CBS San Francisco - Vandals have targeted one of the Bay Area’s wealthiest communities and their handiwork has gotten the attention of the FBI.
Man Gets Arrested After Video Recording NYPD Cops Piling on Top of Man over Bus Fare | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC - But that is doubtful considering de Blasio inherited what Bloomberg described as his personal army, boasting it is the “seventh largest army in the world.”
Officers Who Shot a Homeless Man 11 Times Over a Stolen Cup of Coffee Won’t be Charged : I Acknowledge - Saginaw, Michigan police officers who shot a man 11 times, and fired a total of 47 bullets, have been given the all clear by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Texas officers suspended for homeless sign contest | Mail Online - Midland Police Officers Derek Hester, 25, and Daniel Zoelzer, 26, were suspended for three days without pay two months after being found out
It's Really Easy to Buy a Gun on Facebook | Motherboard
SC officer shoots man reaching for cane - The Washington Post - A police officer in South Carolina shot a 70-year-old motorist who was reaching for a cane during a traffic stop because he thought the man was grabbing a rifle from the bed of his pickup truck, investigators said. The man was expected to survive.

Childhood Obesity Rate Declines, but Don't Give Michelle Obama Credit | New Republic - So stop applauding Michelle Obama for reducing it!
New F.D.A. Nutrition Labels Would Make ‘Serving Sizes’ Reflect Actual Servings - NYTimes.com - Those labels were based on eating habits and nutrition data from the 1970s and ’80s, before portion sizes expanded significantly, and federal health officials argued that the changes were needed to bring labels into step with the reality of the modern American diet.
Dark Skin Evolved In Response To Skin Cancer Threat, Albinism Study Suggests - African America skin has a sun protection factor of 13.4, compared with 3.4 in white skin, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
Nasa finds 715 new planets | Science | theguardian.com - Kepler space telescope's discoveries include four planets that could hold liquid surface water, believed to be key for life
HPV vaccine effective for Danish women | ScienceNordic - The HPV vaccine against cervical cancer was introduced in Denmark in 2006. New research shows that it is already working as it should and has significantly reduced the risk of cervical precursor lesions. (Christians hate the "slut vaccine")

Northwestern Faculty Protest University For Failing To Punish Professor Accused Of Sexual Assault - philosophy professor Peter Ludlow.

Carl Icahn branded 'misleading' by Pierre Omidyar in bitter eBay row | Technology | theguardian.com - Icahn proposed eBay sell PayPal, the electronic payment unit, as a bitter row over the future of the auction site escalated

Robert Reich: WhatsApp Is Everything Wrong with the U.S. Economy | Alternet - The instant messaging service connects millions, but its record-breaking sale won't generate new jobs.
Technology's Mindfulness Racket | New Republic - In yet another sign that the new age lingo of the 1960s is still very much with us, “mindfulness” has become the new “sustainability”

022614
Study claims USS Reagan crew exposed to extremely high levels of radiation near Fukushima — RT USA (Navy couldn't afford radiation detectors)
Documents Say Navy Knew Fukushima Dangerously Contaminated the USS Reagan | MyFDL - A stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago.
Fukushima Radioactive Water - It's Time To Stop Listening To "Experts" On Fukushima - Esquire
The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe | The Skeptics Guide to the Universe | Page 444 - News Items: Self-Cleaning Clothing, Fukushima, Tiktaalik Update, Universal Flu Vaccine, Snowden Alien Conspiracy, Blood Type Diet

The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World's Top Drug Lord | Motherboard

US considering $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine; no decision yet, says Secretary of State John Kerry - @Reuters - breakingnews.com - Secretary of State John Kerry: Possible military intervention by Russia in Ukraine would be a costly decision
Russian Ships Arrive On Ukraine's Crimean Coast As Fears Mount Over Russian Invasion In the Region
Jon Stewart Reminds Fox That Reagan Created An International Mess - "The point is, Reagan acted, no matter what the f*** was going to happen!" Stewart joked. "Not like old President Sits On His Hands, Content To Do Nothing But Fire Hell Missiles And Arm Syrian Rebels And Bomb Libya, you know, passive stuff."
Chaos as company accidentally invites 61,000 people to job interview - Police called to quell anger after Swedish employment office sends out email to every jobseeker in Stockholm
Breaking News: U.S. Students Traveling in Israel Get Surprise of their Lives from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry « Project Interchange - University student leaders traveling in Israel through AJC’s Project Interchange got the surprise of their lives today when US. Secretary of State John Kerry dropped by a briefing being conducted by State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki for the university student delegations.

Credit Suisse helped wealthy Americans cheat the IRS, Senate report says - The Washington Post - Swiss banking giant Credit ­Suisse helped wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars from U.S. tax collectors for several years and federal prosecutors have done little to hold violators accountable, according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report due out Wednesday. (bankers have a standing pardon from Obama)
Taxing the rich is good for the economy, IMF says - Business - CBC News - Research paper debunks theory that taxing rich people slows overall growth

Obama Asks Court To Make NSA Database Even Bigger | Zero Hedge - When a hypertotalitarian banana republic takes another turn for the gigasurreal, even Elon Musk is speechless ... The gruesome irony of course is that after his so heartfelt, if completely scripted and rehearsed, appearance before the US public one month ago, when Obama promised he would do everything in his power to reform the NSA ...
Reddit Censors Big Story About Government Manipulation and Disruption of the Internet | Zero Hedge - The moderators at the giant r/news reddit (with over 2 million readers) repeatedly killed the Greenwald/Snowden story on government manipulation and disruption of the Internet … widely acknowledged to be one of the most important stories ever leaked by Snowden. (or maybe there were just multiple posts)

Law Enforcement & Hacking: When Cops Control Your Webcam | LeakSource
Op-Ed: NSA has a special fusion center in Mexican U.S. embassy
Lauri Love refuses to turn over Encryption Keys in UK demand under RIPA - Freeanons - ection 49 essentially allows the UK government to compel, under threat of up to five years imprisonment (this doubles to ten years if national security is seen to be at stake), any citizen to disclose their personal encryption keys. The law allows for this legal compulsion on grounds ranging from “the interests of national security” to “the purpose of preventing or detecting crime “ and “interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom“.

Exclusive: Inside the Army Spy Ring & Attempted Entrapment of Peace Activists, Iraq Vets, Anarchists | Democracy Now!
Why Skype isn't safe for journalists : Columbia Journalism Review - Here are some alternatives for secure voice calls to use instead

NSA reform advocates oppose White House proposal to hand data to FBI | World news | theguardian.com - Jim Sensenbrenner among those concerned by proposals on the table and says stance to end bulk surveillance is ‘unwavering’

Confirmed: DOJ Uses Section 702 to Get Title I FISA Warrants | emptywheel
DOJ: Our Delayed Notice Doesn’t Mean You Can Withdraw Your Plea | emptywheel

?Post-WikiLeaks, Manning, Snowden world brighter for freedom fighters — RT Op-Edge
Barrett Brown's New Book 'Keep Rootin' for Putin' Skewers Mainstream Media Pundits | VICE Canada
Department of Homeland Security Monitoring of Occupy Sandy | Muckrock - Department of Homeland Security Monitoring of Occupy Sandy
Data breach at Indiana University: Are colleges being targeted? - CSMonitor.com - While information on 146,000 students and graduates may have been exposed, Indiana U. says, the data breach was not a targeted attack. But cyber-criminals may just be catching on to colleges as targets.
Congressional Investigation Finds FDA’s Unprecedented Whistleblower Surveillance Program Was Unlawful | The Dissenter - A congressional investigation into a surveillance program by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which was “unprecedented in scope and intensity” and directed at whistleblowers working within the agency, concluded that the spying operation was unlawful. (employees are terrorists)
The Daily Dot - Senator asks U.S. to ban Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies - Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has called for the U.S. to ban Bitcoin, and by extension all anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Keystone XL handled well by State Department, inspector general says - Darren Goode - politico.com


Missouri Republican senator introduces bill allowing the refusal of service for religious reasons (insanity virus spreads to MO)
Texas' ban on gay marriage ruled unconstitutional - San Antonio Express-News (Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush to wed)

Ohio Early Voting - It's Still Hard To Vote In Ohio - Esquire - Telling Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted not to finagle around with the franchise is like telling a dog not to lick his balls. The dog will do it because he can, and Husted continues to do it, come hell, high water, or judicial dope-slapping, because he can.
Ohio Early Voting Will No Longer Take Place On Sundays, Weekday Evenings - The cuts to early voting hours could negatively impact African-Americans and voters who take part in "Souls to the Polls" drives after church on the Sundays leading up to Election Day, MSNBC reports:



EXCLUSIVE: Records Show Top Chris Christie Advisor Lobbied To Bring More Inmates To Troubled Halfway Houses | FDL News Desk

Ronan Farrow's New Show Gets Off To A Rocky Start In The Ratings - "Ronan Farrow Daily," which airs at 1 PM, brought in just 216,000 viewers Monday -- which Deadline said was the day's smallest viewership for the network.
CNN Has Another Rough Month In The Ratings - CNN, which just announced Piers Morgans' departure, came in third place with 399,000 total viewers during primetime — a 39 percent drop from February 2013

Meteorite smashes into moon in largest lunar impact ever recorded | Science | The Guardian - Rock travelling at 61,000 km/h punched a crater 40 metres wide and produced a flash that could be seen from Earth
The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia | Ars Technica

The internet is fucked | The Verge
REVEALED: MPAA’s latest anti-piracy move accidentally, completely screws Hollywood studios | PandoDaily - Pando has learned that visual effects industry workers plan a mass demonstration against the major studios’ ongoing efforts to offshore post production work. That offshoring has led to the slow collapse of the American FX industry at the very moment digital effects have become a central ingredient in entertainment products.
360 million recently compromised passwords for sale online | Ars Technica - Login credentials from multiple services available in underground crime forums.
Twitter restores $50,000 @N username to its owner | Ars Technica - A simple social engineering attack lost Naoki Hiroshima a very valuable handle.
YouTube Ordered to Remove "Illegal" Copyright Blocking Notices | TorrentFreak
Are PCs Dying? Of Course Not, Here’s Why (suck it up, iHeads)
Are PCs Dying? Of Course Not, Here’s Why : technology

022514
Pope revolutionizes Vatican by opening finances to scrutiny | Reuters

Alba Gonzalez Camacho is Spain's first Twitter terrorist calling for Mariano Rajoy's death | Mail Online - Alba Gonzalez Camacho, 21, incited violence against two senior politicians
In a First for Spain, a Woman Is Convicted of Inciting Terror Over Twitter - NYTimes.com - The same month, a federal judge in the United States sentenced a man to 16 months in prison for threatening on Twitter to kill President Obama.
Uganda: Tabloid gay list publication 'chilling' | Amnesty International UK
Uganda Newspaper Names '200 Top' Homosexuals After President Signs Anti-Gay Law

Who Tried to Silence Drone Victim Kareem Khan? - The Intercept (the CIA)

Overusing solitary confinement is shameful. Hiding it just makes it worse. | American Civil Liberties Union (Obama loves torture)

Headlines for February 25, 2014 | Democracy Now! - "The broader point," Greenwald writes, "is that ... these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats."
GCHQ's dirty-tricking psyops groups: infiltrating, disrupting and discrediting political and protest groups - Boing Boing
The Daily Dot - U.S. spies target German ministers now that Merkel is off-limits - there are currently 320 business and political leaders in the country being monitored by the U.S. agency.

Was Apple security ‘flaw’ actually a NSA backdoor? | The Raw Story
Why I Oppose H.R. 1123, The "Cell Phone Unlocking" Bill | Sina.is (they always subvert)
Choosing a Secure Password - Boing Boing
Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List | EEVblog - The Electronics Engineering Video Blog - My delivery address in Element 14's system has “David Jones” on it, and apparently the US government are watching someone called David Jones, so you know, a parts distributor in Australia has to flag that and put my order on hold. Makes sense huh?
House oversight panel seeks documents on Target breach | Reuters

Mt.Gox site disappears, Bitcoin future in doubt - Feb. 25, 2014 - What was once the world's largest trading platform for bitcoins is now a blank page.
Mt. Gox’s Demise Marks The End of Bitcoin’s First Wave Of Entrepreneurs | TechCrunch

Republicans Drag Senate To A Halt To Force A Vote On Iran Sanctions - Senate Republicans are dragging the upper chamber to a halt in an effort to force a vote on a bill that a wide cross section of observers warn will bring the U.S. closer to war with Iran. (Israel/AIPAC taking American blood and treasure in another insane war)

Budget Sequestration - The Feast Of Fat Things - Esquire - The same people doing the math here are the people doing the math for our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline. Maybe they, too, are counting the strippers.

Arizona bill’s other outrage: Why anti-gay bigotry is just the beginning - Salon.com - Legalizing discrimination is horrible enough. But a sneaky pro-corporate provision in the bill will also shock you
Arizona "Citizens United"-type law protects corps' "religious beliefs" - A draconian new law, on its way to the governor of Arizona for her signature, would make businesses “people” for the purposes of claiming “religious discrimination” in the state.

Supreme Court Makes Big Decision On When Cops Can Enter Your Home - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent that "Fernandez's objection to the search did not become null upon his arrest and removal from the scene." (the logic of the Rethug Supremes)

Chris Christie's Mom Story - Chris Christie's Favorite Story - Esquire - And how it shows that any son who leaves his mother's deathbed to head back to his job might be something of a lunatic

Georgia Lawmakers Want to Allow Businesses to Kick Gay People Out of Diners | Mother Jones (gay water-fountains planned)
Lobbyist drafts bill to ban gays from NFL | TheHill - Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman on Monday said he is preparing legislation that would ban gay athletes from joining the National Football League.
Family Research Council Lobbyist Also On DC Madam’s List - Jack Burkman, the GOP strategist and conservative talking head who used to be seen on the cable news shows a lot more often before his MySpace sleazery was exposed, is also on the DC Madam’s phone list!
Jack Burkman-Michael Sam: GOP lobbyist's cynical ploy to ban gays from the NFL. - The Hill was the first to give Jack Burkman the attention he was looking for, but his homophobic PR stunt also gained varying degrees of traction in the national media and among local outlets (the latter of which were largely less skeptical of Burkman's motives).
Katrina Pierson Shoplifting - Katrina Pierson: Texas' Tax Dollars At Work - Esquire - Government dependency made her do it. This is a novel alibi, I must admit.

NYPD Stop-and-Frisk of Black Man Caught on Video | TheBlot
Today in Florida Man

The Daily Dot - Is sexting a 13-year-old girl 'free speech'? This Texas court thinks so - Because Williams did not technically solicit the girl for sex or invite her to visit him at his home, the texts weren’t enough evidence to penalize him for another charge.

FDA weighs risks of three-person embryo fertilization | Al Jazeera America - that could eventually create babies from the DNA of three people, with the goal of preventing mothers from passing on debilitating genetic diseases to their children. (slippery-slope to super-baby)
PLOS’ New Data Policy: Public Access to Data - EveryONE - In an effort to increase access to this data, we are now revising our data-sharing policy for all PLOS journals: authors must make all data publicly available, without restriction, immediately upon publication of the article.

Verizon and AT&T Have Netflix Deals in the Works, Too

022414
Fed knew about Libor rigging in 2008 - Senior Fed official first flagged Libor issue at a policy meeting in April 2008, newly released documents reveal (and sat on it for 3 yrs, because bankers freedoms!)
Rates Rising for Modified Loans - NYTimes.com - “HAMP was designed for a two-year crisis,” Mr. Dorpalen said, “and we had a five-year crisis.” (Obama's designed to fail program is now screwing you)

Russia denounces Ukraine 'terrorists' and west over Yanukovich ousting | World news | theguardian.com - Moscow claims new government violating ethnic Russian rights and accuses west of one-sided geopolitical calculations
Medvedev: Ukraine's new government not legitimate - live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Yanukovych wanted for ‘mass murder’ Ousted president said to have fled from Crimean peninsula
Ukraine's fugitive president wanted for mass murder | Reuters - Ukraine's new authorities issued an arrest warrant on Monday for mass murder against ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, who is on the run after being toppled by bloody street protests in which police snipers killed demonstrators
Anonymous Ukraine releases Klitschko e-mails showing treason - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video - Anonymous Ukraine is battling the forces in Ukraine that are funded and directed from the West and attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government of the sovereign country of Ukraine. (the view from Russia)
Revolution Is Ukraine's Most Popular Facebook Page | Motherboard
Experts fear Crimea could become next flashpoint | StratRisks - Tensions also mounted in Crimea, in the southeast of Ukraine, where pro-Russian politicians are organizing rallies and forming protest units, demanding autonomy from Kyiv.

“El Chapo” Arrested—Why Now? - WhoWhatWhy | WhoWhatWhy - Did Chapo finally become a liability for the authorities? Was it time for this chess piece to be removed from the board?

Whistleblower: NSA secretly continues Merkel surveillance by bugging other German officials - Boing Boing - An anonymous NSA leaker revealed to the German magazine Bild am Sonntag that the agency has been spying on senior German government figures. (he stopped spying on Merkel, but continued spying on everyone she talks to; Obama's usual logic rabbit-hole : NSA now running the country)
Undeniable proof of Obama's spying on Merkel - Imgur

Inside the Mind of James Clapper - The Intercept - the government has argued in most cases that the story and accompanying documents should not be published. And in almost every single case – 99% if not more – those arguments have been rejected in their entirety (there is basically nothing you are allowed to know)
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations - The Intercept - . Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations”. (Obama's fascist police state)
Spy Chief James Clapper: We Can’t Stop Another Snowden - The Daily Beast - President Obama's Director of National Intelligence spent his life protecting secrets. Then came the biggest leak of all.

Pentagon Plans Shift From Occupation Armies To Assassinations And Cyberwarfare | FDL News Desk (Obama in the WH basement with a joystick)
Americans Are Finally Learning About False Flag Terror Washington's Blog - Governments Admit They Carry Out False Flag Terror

Surveillance Evangelist Arrested in California | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Azano, and three Americans who acted as his agents, are now facing felony charges in an alleged conspiracy to illegally pump roughly $500,000 into local election campaigns in the border city of San Diego. (hey wait, he's a corporation!)
Inside the Booming Commercial Surveillance Industry | Motherboard
New documents prove U.S. Army actively targeted leftist protesters, group says | The Raw Story - he United States Army used a multi-agency spy network to gather intelligence on nonviolent, antiwar protesters and to disseminate their findings to both the FBI and local police departments.

Eric Holder Officially Signs New Rules To Protect Journalists... But Fine Print Shows They're Meaningless | Techdirt - from the that's-a-mighty-big-loophole-you've-got-there dept (Obama's usual bullshit)
Criminalization of Journalism: Birgitta Jonsdottir on Barrett Brown (Obama hates democracy)
Visiting CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou in Federal Prison | The Dissenter

Fewer Americans Think Obama Respected on World Stage

At Newark Airport, the Lights Are On, and They’re Watching You - NYTimes.com - the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently installed LED fixtures. But they probably will not realize that the light fixtures are the backbone of a system that is watching them.
Anonymous Dropped Another FEMA Leak | Motherboard
How Youtube's automated copyright system lets big music screw indie creators - Boing Boing

California's Water Crisis Is Becoming A Beer Crisis | ThinkProgress - “It would be like brewing with Alka-Seltzer,” Jeremy Marshall, Lagunitas’ head brewer, told NPR.

Mississippi River closed for 65 miles after oil spill - latimes.com - A 65-mile stretch of the Mississippi River, including the Port of New Orleans, was closed to all water traffic Sunday as crews cleaned up oil that spilled from a barge after it ran into a towboat between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Coast Guard said.


Steve Martin of Virginia on abortion: State senator calls pregnant women "hosts." - Virginia Republicans just don't know how to avoid being wildly offensive.

Ten Of The Most Ludicrous Fox News Guests | Blog | Media Matters for America - During the interview Fox host Megyn Kelly pointed out that "detractors" say Willey is a "dishonest person," and that "there's no direct evidence tying the Clintons" to some of Willey's more outrageous allegations. But the fact that Willey is dishonest and lacks evidence for her smears merely highlights the folly of giving her a platform in the first place. (our Megyn at work)

Backlog of untested rape kits drawing attention of US legislators | World news | theguardian.com - Tennessee is among 17 states proposing legislation to address backlogs that in at least one case dates back 30 years (rape not a crime in TN, other patriarchal southern states)
Cop Harasses Photographer, Steals His Cellphone Battery And Attempts To Get YouTube To Pull The Incriminating Video | Techdirt - A New York City cop beat up and arrested a man for video recording him inside a subway station from 30 feet away Saturday night, walking up to him and getting in his face all while claiming the man was invading his personal space… (a cop's "personal space" is infinite)
Police chief forced to apologize over comments saying that at least jogger didn't have to deal with police who sexually assaulted her | NJ Newsday - Stephen was one of 28 people who were stopped for jaywalking Thursday. A total of seven pedestrians were issued citations.

4.4 bn year old zircon reveals life on Earth appeared earlier than believed — RT News - There are now grounds to suggest that Earth cooled down much sooner, and that life appeared way before many scientists had thought.

The 'C-Spot' May Be The Key To Women's Orgasm Troubles, Says Study - The clitoris is a woman's most sensitive body zone. And as it turns out, its size matters — a new study has found that in women who have orgasm problems, the clitoris is smaller, and located farther from the vagina.


Why Is Apple Taking So Long to Patch Mac OS X? - The company's habit of releasing as little information as possible could harm it in this situation.
The Apple Security Hole Keeps Getting Worse - a major vulnerability that would let a hacker intercept email and other secure communication sent from iPhones and iPads on Friday. Hours later, outside experts found the same flaw in the Safari browser on Mac computers. (suck it up, "macs have no viruses" iheads)
Apple's 'Gotofail' Security Mess Extends To Mail, Twitter, iMessage, Facetime And More - Forbes

022314
Supreme Court Climate Case Looks At EPA's Power - Industry groups and Republican-led states are heading an attack at the Supreme Court against the Obama administration's sole means of trying to limit power-plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming. (Republicans killing the planet)

Photo by youranonnewsorg - The Lenin Monument from #Kiev, #Ukraine being transported to the junk yard.
Western nations scramble to contain fallout of Ukraine crisis | World news | The Guardian - EU leaders worry about country fracturing into pro and anti-Russian factions in aftermath of Viktor Yanukovych's ousting
Yulia Tymoshenko is back centre stage in Ukraine – but not all want her there | World news | The Guardian - "Her people always bring a bust of her head into negotiations, so that she can watch on," said one European who spent time in negotiations with the various political forces around the protest late last year. "Frankly, it's a bit creepy, like you're dealing with a cult."
Yulia Tymoshenko: She's No Angel - The Daily Beast - She amassed an enormous fortune in the natural gas business. People started calling her “The Gas Princess.” And there she was helped by the sweetheart deals Lazarenko allegedly sent her way.
Ukraine crisis: MPs vote in Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president | World news | theguardian.com - Parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Turchynov voted in • MPs impeach Yanukovych, who goes to ground • Elections set for 25 May • Tymoshenko freed from prison
Ukraine: Rice warns Russia military action would be a grave mistake – live updates | World news | theguardian.com - Susan Rice says return to violence is in no one’s interest. Oleksander Tuchynov to hold position until May elections Viktor Yanukovych’s whereabouts unknown
Russia feels double-crossed over Ukraine – but what will Putin do? | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Ukraine's future security, political cohesion and territorial integrity depend on how Putin reacts to the collapse of the EU deal
> Twitter / EuromaidanPR: Security Service in Kharkiv ... is burning documents

Taliban kill 21 Afghan soldiers in night raid on Pakistan border | World news | theguardian.com - Five other soldiers taken prisoner in show of strength against Afghan army just weeks ahead of critical election
France Protesting Against Airport Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

U.S. now bugging German ministers in place of Merkel: report | Reuters - The National Security Agency (NSA) has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by Barack Obama to halt its spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag paper reported on Sunday. (so who's in charge?)

What the hell is Barack Obama's presidency for? | Gary Younge | Comment is free | The Guardian - His ascent to power had meaning, but now his interventions are too rare and too piecemeal to constitute a narrative (it was always about himself, duh)

The Myth of German Austerity - NYTimes.com - Germany did less austerity than almost anyone else in the euro area. (do what I say, not what I do)
The Urge To Tighten - NYTimes.com - People are going through the Fed’s 2008 transcripts, and finding that most officials had no idea what was going down. (Incidentally, guys, whatever you want to call 2008, the one thing it definitely wasn’t was a FISCAL crisis. A case of BowlesSimpson on the brain?) I’m a bit surprised, but that’s not the most surprising thing. (the best and the brightest thought a Dem Pres would ruin the economy so they ruined it first)
Washington Center for Equitable Growth | I Am Sorry. What Was Tim Geithner Looking at in January 2008?: Saturday Focus: February 22, 2014 - Tim Geithner January 2008 FOMC Minutes: “The World Is Still Looking Pretty Good”: “In January 2008–right as the U.S. economy entered a recession–the former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman (and later Treasury Secretary) was still very optimistic…. (tool)
Hullabaloo - Our genius overlords (Geithner kept failing upwards)

Jeff Flake, Arizona Senator, Calls On Governor Jan Brewer To Veto Anti-Gay Bill - Jeff Flake, Republican senator from Arizona, joined a chorus of critics against a state bill that would let businesses deny service to gay customers based on religious beliefs.
University Of Notre Dame Once Again Rejected In Battle Over Birth Control (their freedom to impose their religious views on employees)

Chris Christie's Foil, A Northeastern Liberal, Makes His Way On The National Stage - Shumlin didn’t answer whether the Affordable Care Act should be referred to as Obamacare or not. "You can call it whatever you want. I call it health care for people who desperately need it," he said.

Controversies - Massachusetts Joins New Jersey in Demanding Police Warrants for Cell Phone Tracking - AllGov - News

Rebecca Solnit · Diary: Get Off the Bus · LRB 20 February 2014
The solution to inequality in San Francisco — and America? It’s the taxes, stupid! by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The median rent for an apartment in the city is shockingly high — approximately $3,256. As Solnit depressingly points out, “Minimum wage would have to be more than $50 an hour for someone to be able to buy a house in San Francisco, or to ensure that a $3200 a month rent accounted for no more than a third of their pre-tax income.”

Recline! - Why "leaning in" is killing us.
Feminism’s Tipping Point: Who Wins from Leaning in? | Dissent Magazine
Opinion piece of the day: Rosa Brooks on why workers need to “Lean Out” by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - one of the most troubling features of Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” philosophy. The issue, basically, is that Sandberg’s prescription of relentless workaholism, and her chirpy acceptance of the dystopic hell of a work culture that requires employees not only to put in long hours at the office but to be on call 24/7 during “non-work” hours, don’t do much to advance the cause of feminism, in the end.

2029: the year when robots will have the power to outsmart their makers | Technology | The Observer - Ray Kurzweil, Google expert in artificial intelligence, predicts that by 2029 robots will make jokes and flirt

Colorado Guv Warns States To Be Cautious In Following His Lead On Weed - "It's a segue drug that I think ends up creating a lot more problems than it solves," Branstad said. ("seque" is the new "gateway")

Debunking the myth of Kitty Genovese | New York Post (NYT loves a good story even when it isn't true)

Dr. Drew’s daughter details battle with anorexia & bulimia | Page Six - Paulina, 21, describes how she admitted to her mom during a car ride, “I’ve been throwing up since the seventh grade.” She continued, “After a silence that lasted far too long, she responded, ‘Well, get your teeth checked.’

Comcast’s deal with Netflix makes network neutrality obsolete
Comcast And Netflix Make A Deal To End Traffic Jam - Comcast Corp customers are about to get improved streaming service from Netflix after the two companies announced on Sunday an agreement to give Netflix a direct connection to the broadband provider. (RIP net neutrality)

022214
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine by Timothy Snyder | The New York Review of Books
Ukraine’s Leader Flees the Capital; Elections Are Called - NYTimes.com
Ukraine's Government Disappears Overnight - Uri Friedman - The Atlantic
Ukrainian Protesters Take Control Of Presidential Offices In Kiev
Ukraine's former PM rallies protesters after Yanukovych flees Kiev | World news | The Observer - Yulia Tymoshenko addresses crowd in Kiev after release from prison, as MPs vote to impeach Viktor Yanukovych
Ukraine: Tymoshenko freed as president denounces coup - live updates | World news | theguardian.com
Twitter / MaximEristavi: The crowd on Independence Sq ... - tonight, @YuliaTymoshenko is expected soon
LIVE: Ukrainian MPs vote to oust President Yanukovych - Mr Yanukovych appears on TV, brands events in Kiev as a "coup" and refuse to step down
activistworldnewsnow - live streaming video powered by Livestream
Ukrainian rabbi tells Kiev's Jews to flee city - Jewish World NewsIsrael News - Haaretz Israeli News source - Fearing violence against Ukraine's Jews, the Jewish community asks Israel for assistance with the security of the community.
A Dictator's Guide to Urban Design - Matt Ford - The Atlantic - Ukraine's Independence Square, and the revolutionary dimensions of public spaces.

Venezuelans on streets again as protest leader awaits trial | World news | theguardian.com - Opposing marches on Saturday come after president Nicolás Maduro played down protest movement on Friday
FOCUS | How Washington Is Playing Venezuela Like a Fiddle - nited States foreign policy can be summed up as hard power vs. soft power. An example of hard power is the US backing the unsuccessful 2002 military coup d’état against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, when businessman Pedro Carmona Estanga briefly took power. An example of the US’s soft power is the current situation in Venezuela.
US investigates illegal military equipment shipments from Israel to Iran - US Homeland Security says Israeli arms dealers have been sending spare military jet parts to Iran in breach of sanctions (yes, you read that right)
Sinaloa cartel chief captured by US and Mexican authorities | World news | theguardian.com - Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, arguably most powerful drug trafficker in the world, reportedly arrested in Mexico hotel
Editors Choice | Reuters.com - A man holds a sign which reads, "Not extendable" amid smoke and fire after angry protesters set tyres on fire in a street during a demonstration against the General National Congress (GNC) in Benghazi February 21, 2014.

Break-in Reported at Project on Government Oversight - It’s probably nothing, but the office of a major Washington, DC national security whistleblowers organization was broken into last week. (yeah, nothing)

Daniel Soar reviews ‘The Snowden Files’ by Luke Harding · LRB 20 February 2014 - The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man
Legal Community Disturbed About Recent Allegations of Spying on Privileged Communications | Electronic Frontier Foundation - The NSA appears to have been involved in the surveillance of privileged attorney-client communications, and the legal community is not happy about it. (Obama the anti-Constitutional scholar)
Leaked documents show how US authorities hounded WikiLeaks - Reporters Without Borders

ChatSecure — ChatSecure - Free and open source encrypted chat for iPhone and Android.
Why AT&T's Surveillance Report Omits 80 Million NSA Targets | Threat Level | Wired.com
What Happens When You Marry The NSA's Surveillance Database With Amazon's Personalized Marketing? | Techdirt - from the spying-in-the-service-of-seduction dept

House of Cards’ Jimmi Simpson on Cashew -- Vulture
Plowshares Sentencing Shows U.S. Government Afraid Of Peace Activists | PopularResistance.Org - Sr. Megan Rice: “To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest honor this court could bestow on me.”
Twitter Blocks Kickass.to Links, Says They're Unsafe | TorrentFreak - Twitter is refusing to link users to Kickass.to, the second largest torrent index on the Internet. People

Case dismissed against NYPD over surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey (+video) - CSMonitor.com - A federal judge says NYPD surveillance of New Jersey mosques, businesses, and student groups was not motivated by religious bias. Former city officials call the dismissal a vindication. (they just happened to be all Muslims)

How the GOP Sabotaged Marco Rubio -- Daily Intelligencer - We can now, in hindsight, identify last February as the apex of the Rubio bubble. Over the next few months, conservatives shook off Rubio’s charm offensive and whipped themselves into a familiar frenzy against his immigration-reform plan.

Fed transcripts from 2008 reveal inner workings as US teetered on the brink | Business | theguardian.com - Janet Yellen’s jokes pepper Federal Reserve members’ struggle to describe severity of financial crisis as it developed (except for Bernanke and Yellen, they were pretty stupid)

America’s Invisible—and Very Diverse—Working Class | CEPR Blog - As it shows, at 44 percent, the share of Americans identifying as working class in 2012 was the same as the share identifying as middle class. Only about 8 percent of Americans identified as lower class, slightly higher than the roughly 5 percent on average who identified as lower class before the Great Recession. (no one wants to be "lower class")
Student Debt Crisis is Slowing Household-Formation for Millenials | New Republic (Boomers left their children to inherit the wind)
Study: Republican presidents are associated with higher infant mortality rates

Why creationists can’t be scientists - Salon.com - In contrast, William Saletan sees creationism as “harmless” because scientists who espouse it can “compartmentalize” their beliefs. (he's obviouisly not a scientist)
Saletan is at it again » Pharyngula - I don’t say this lightly, but Saletan is one of the more dishonest pundits out there — I’ve read multiple columns by this guy where he lies with numbers and fudges the evidence to fit his preconceptions, and this is no exception

Doxxing Internet babes: “She wanted it” - Salon.com - The latest female victim of online outings: An Olympic volunteer who dared to be attractive in public

Diplotwoops - All deleted tweets from diplomats

Cops hit my car, then arrested me: suit | New York Post - “I was smiling, like, ‘How’d you run into me?’?” he recalled. “Then the cop said, ‘Dude, you ran into me.’?” (parked while black)
Austin police drag jogger to car screaming after jaywalking without ID | The Raw Story (show your papers when jogging)

> Letting Go of Asperger’s - Hanna Rosin - The Atlantic - Months after our son was diagnosed, the label officially disappeared. And that turned out to be a good thing.
Two thirds of women are not taking folic acid supplements before pregnancy to prevent spina bifida

Will John Henry Save the Boston Globe? - Maybe, but his ambitions are much grander. “I feel my mortality,” he says. So here’s his plan: He’s going to use the time he has left on earth to try to save journalism itself.

Six Organizations That Secretly Run The Internet at WhoIsHostingThis.com

022114
? Kiev drone footage: Aerial view of burning Maidan amid Ukranian riots - YouTube
Ukraine peace deal signed by president, opposition leaders
Sudan court convicts gang-raped teenager of 'indecent acts' | World news | theguardian.com - Pregnant 18-year-old's sentence condemned by activists who say it will discourage other rape victims from speaking out
24 hours to stop Uganda’s anti-gay bill - All Out
Eight anti-Putin protesters convicted in Russian 'show trial' | Reuters
US ranks low in first-ever global index of LGBT inclusion in armed forces | World news | theguardian.com - US placed 40 out of 103 countries’ armed forces based on inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender service members
Canadian Forces Members Accused Of Posting Libellous Comments On Facebook - The complaints centre around Katherine Bickford, a transgender woman and former member of the Canadian military based near Comox, B.C.
Adelina Sotnikova’s Upset Victory Is Hard to Figure - NYTimes.com - The governing body, with its judging ranks tarnished by questionable officials and its scoring system favoring math whizzes over artists, is killing its own sport. But the athletes suffer the most.
Venezuela threatens to expel CNN over protest coverage

Jews DO control the media | Manny Friedman | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel - Let’s be honest with ourselves, here, fellow Jews. We do control the media. We’ve got so many dudes up in the executive offices in all the big movie production companies it’s almost obscene. Just about every movie or TV show, whether it be “Tropic Thunder” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is rife with actors, directors, and writers who are Jewish. Did you know that all eight major film studios are run by Jews? (appears not to be satire)

At the Pentagon, once a secret, always a secret — even if everyone knows - And now, more news from the front in the never-ending battle to pry historical, formerly secret documents from the Pentagon. The latest skirmish involves a 50-plus -year-old, formerly “top secret” document going back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. (makes you wonder what they are really hiding)
ABA asks NSA how it handles attorney-client privileged information in intelligence work « ABA News Archives (share it with the prosecution, duh)

US psychologists renew push for ban on assisting military interrogations | World news | theguardian.com - American Psychological Association angered many by choosing not to censure psychologist who took part in Guantánamo detainee’s torture (they lost their soul when they started taking insurance)

UK Government Refuses To Confirm Or Deny If Your Pronunciation Of Its Massive Surveillance Program 'Tempora' Is Correct | Techdirt - from the oh,-come-on,-stop-being-tiresome dept
Documenting Darkness: How a Thug State Operates - We do know that, in 2011, the whole government reportedly classified 92,064,862 documents. If accurate and reasonably typical, that means, in the twenty-first century, the NSS has already generated hundreds of millions of documents that could not be read by an American without a security clearance ... Shadow government has conquered twenty-first-century Washington. We have the makings of a thug state of the first order.
The Persecution of U.S. Political Prisoner & Whistleblower John Kiriakou | Ben Swann Truth In Media - “Diesel therapy” is a method of continually moving a prisoner from prison to prison across the country via bus, van, or plane. This continual movement results in the inmate being unable to receive calls, mail, or visitation. In many cases family members and even the attorney don’t know where the inmate is located at any given moment. (Obama is a thug)
More Executive-Minded than the Executive : Just Security - The English judiciary continues to show its habit of subservience to the government on security matters.
Free Barrett Brown — Debunking supposed "threats" - Brown, upset at the FBI agent’s threats to charge his mother (who was coerced to plead guilty and is now serving 6 months probation), said that he was going to ruin Smith’s life, but he explicitly and immediately added that he didn’t mean it as a physical threat

Writing The Snowden Files: 'The paragraph began to self-delete' | Books | The Guardian - Was it the NSA? GCHQ? A Russian hacker? Who was secretly reading his book on Snowden while he wrote it, wonders Luke Harding

Hullabaloo - Tailgunner Mike - His letter indicates such a high level of arrogance and delusion that I think if there's any danger to our country, it comes from the fact that this loon has access to America's secrets.
NSA explores options for relinquishing vast telephone record database - The Washington Post (they could give it to ... Comcast!)

Judge Tosses Muslim Spying Suit Against NYPD, Says Any Damage Was Caused by Reporters Who Exposed It - The Intercept
NYPD Spying On Muslims Was Legal, Judge Rules - A federal judge has ruled that the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey was a lawful effort to prevent terrorism, not a civil rights violation. (racial profiling judge decides racial profiling ok and all Muslims are terror suspects)
Judge William Martini Endorses Hunting for Terrorists in Muslim Girls Schools | emptywheel
William J. Martini « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site – (same dimbulb compromised judge)

Director of National Intelligence Approves ‘Challenge Contest’ to Help Root Out Potential Leakers | The Dissenter (the spy on your coworkers program)

» Chelsea Manning acceptance statement of Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence Private Manning Support Network
Two anti-surveillance bills pass New Hampshire house committee | Nullify NSA!Nullify NSA! - Today, a New Hampshire state house committee passed a bill designed to thwart the effects of warrantless surveillance, the second such bill passed by the committee this week.

The Daily Dot - Here's how easy it is to get your paws on Dogecoin
SPIROL Hacked, 70,889 Clients Information Leaked After Being Warned | Cyber War News - SPIROL is a international business going back to 1948 specializing in the fasting industry.

The Increasingly Unequal States of America: Income Inequality by State, 1917 to 2011 | Economic Policy Institute - Income Inequality by State, 1917 to 2011 (MA very elitist; just read the failing Globe)

When lawmakers and lobbyists are family – Anderson Cooper 360 - CNN.com Blogs
Family Ties of Members of Congress

How Tea Party Absolutism Cost The GOP A Huge Win On Entitlements - Back in the summer of 2011, Republicans had it within their grasp. A dejected President Barack Obama placed the crown jewels of liberalism on the chopping block, offering Republicans hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Limits of Wingnuttery In Kansas? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - A new PPP survey of Kansas shows that pace Tom Frank, there are limits to the appetite of Sunflower State voters for the aggressive wingnuttery of the currently ascendant conservative wing of the GOP.
American journalism, brimming with once-in-a-generation talent (hundreds of generations)

How should we think and talk about large, complex, internally riven institutions? - Lawyers, Guns & Money : 1) The Catholic Church considers the use of contraception to be a flagrant violation of God’s designs and plans for human sexual flourishing; it is sinful and impermissible for practicing Catholics.

The Daily Dot - Compromising emails ensnare another GOP politician

Climate Change Denier Roy Spencer Says People Who Use Word 'Denier' Are 'Global Warming Nazis' | DeSmogBlog - Prince Charles is a “global warming Nazi” and, apparently, so is U.S. President Barack Obama.

Girl Scout Does Brisk Business Selling Cookies Outside San Francisco Pot Club | NBC Bay Area - Danielle was able to sell 117 boxes within two hours outside the cannabis clinic -- 37 more than what she sold within the same time frame at a local Safeway the next day, according to Mashable.
These Charts Show Just How Bad America's Heroin Problem Has Become

Because Racism, Lethal Edition - Lawyers, Guns & Money : “In SYG states, 13.6% of homicides were ruled justifiable; in non-SYG states, only 7.2% were deemed such.”

New Jersey's 'Bishop Of Bling' Is Taking A Ton Of Heat - It turns out that a lot of people don't like the idea of a man of God living in a home with an indoor swimming pool and a hot tub.

Local Government Shocks UK Couple By Requesting Removal of ‘Harmful’ Solar Panels | EcoWatch - The Skinners were encouraged by their local council to install solar panels on the roof and side of their United Kingdom home, only to later be told by the same officials that their $33,300 energy system presented a threat to the community. (terrorist solar panels)

Texas Senate Holds Hearing To Congratulate Itself On Women's Health 'Achievements' (guarding their ladyparts)
States fight to push anti-gay bills. But will they pass? | MSNBC
Arizona legislature sends ‘anti-gay’ bill to Republican governor Jan Brewer | World news | theguardian.com - Bill would allow businesses, churches and individuals to cite religion as reason for denying service to gay people
The ACLU Warns That Alabama's Latest Push To Restrict Abortion Is An 'Assault On Women' | ThinkProgress
GOP Lawmaker: UT-Knoxville Students Can Have 'Sex Week' In 'A Field Full Of Sheep' - "They can go out there in a field full of sheep if they want to and have all the Sex Week they want."
How Conservatives Can Develop A Better Class Of Political Celebrities Than Donald Trump And Ted Nugent | ThinkProgress

Why I Do Not Warn Movie Viewers About Content That Could Be Upsetting | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - I take a break from film recommendations this week to address an ethical issue about film reviewin

Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science Course | TechCrunch
Dogs' brain scans reveal vocal responses - Devoted dog owners often claim that their pets understand them. A new study suggests they could be right.

What 'House of Cards' Got Right About Hackers | Motherboard
American wireless customers pay more for less speed | The Verge - All LTE isn't equal, but US carriers are a raw deal
Update your iThings: Apple splats scary SSL snooping bug in iOS 6, 7 • The Register - Encrypted connections vulnerable to tampering
Risk Is Low And Business Is Booming In The Malware Market : All Tech Considered : NPR
Android WebView Exploit, 70% Devices Vulnerable
White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls - Slashdot - The White House also announced that it would launch a new crowdsourcing initiative focused on identifying prior art (evidence of existing inventions) that the USPTO can use to reject bad patent claims and will expand a USPTO patent examiner technical training program by allowing outside technologists to help with the training." (that will really help)

022014
New radioactive water leak at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant - CNN.com - The leak of an estimated 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water was discovered late Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said in a statement.
Fukushima deaths now higher than in Tsunami - Prime Gazette - Health complications from Japan's 2011 tsunami have killed more people in one region than the disaster itself, according to authorities.

Ukraine's bloodiest day: dozens dead as protesters regain territory from police | World news | The Guardian - Corpses on Kiev's Independence Square as police deploy snipers and use live ammunition
Everything You Need To Know About The Growing Crisis In Ukraine | ThinkProgress
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine by Timothy Snyder | The New York Review of Books - The dictatorship laws of January 16 were obviously based on Russian models, and were proposed by Ukrainian legislators with close ties to Moscow. They seem to have been Russia’s condition for financial support of the Yanukovych regime.
Kiev: '70 protesters die as police held hostage' - Prime Gazette
Kiev, Ukraine Protests Are Vladimir Putin's Worst Nightmare | New Republic - He is said to have said as much to George W. Bush in 2008. "Don't you see, George, that Ukraine is not even its own state?" he is reported to have smirked. ("smirked")
Ukraine Protests: Top Medic For Protesters Says At Least 70 Activists Have Been Killed In Clashes
Ukraine Protests: Truce Fails To End Battles Between Police, Demonstrators (photos)

What’s Really Happening in Venezuela? » CounterPunch (CIA financed coup attempt)
Wikileaks Exposed US’ Efforts To Destabilize Venezuela | PopularResistance.Org
The Global Intelligence Files - Re: Insight - Venezuela: CANVAS analysis

New report by UN rights investigator accuses Israel of “inhuman acts” - UN Watch - - A controversial United Nations human rights investigator is accusing Israel of “inhuman acts" and calling on the world body to support a “legitimacy war” against the Jewish state. (the UN is "anti-semitic"

Talks called off – The Express Tribune - The government decided to pull the plug on the moribund peace talks with the Taliban as the prime minister and the military leadership decided that “proceeding with the peace talks amid the bombings and slaughter of soldiers would be injustice to terror victims.”
How US Aid Fosters Human Rights Violations in the Philippines | The Nation

Here's Why Obama Can't Get Democrats To Back His Trade Deal - "When you go on a charm offensive, it's probably not helpful to tell the targets of your seduction a bunch of lies, that if they knew better, they'd agree with you, and any time they call you on your lies, they're being hostile," said one attendant. (kind of defines Obama's style)

Identities of 71 Gitmo prisoners eligible for hearings released by US | Al Jazeera America - List of those who qualify for parole-board-style appearance includes high-profile former CIA captive Abu Zubaydah
Egypt puts three Al Jazeera journalists on trial | Reuters (learning from Obama)
Urgent: Please Help Save Net Neutrality in the EU - Open Enterprise
NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts | World news | The Guardian - Agency given more than 200 numbers by government official • NSA encourages departments to share their 'Rolodexes' • Surveillance produced 'little intelligence', memo acknowledges

New Details of Attack on Yemeni Wedding Prompt More Demands Obama Explain Drone Policy - The Intercept - A new report on the U.S. drone missile strike that killed 12 members of a Yemeni wedding convoy has renewed calls for the Obama administration to make public its own investigations into the incident — and explain how such strikes are consistent with international laws of war.
Report: U.S. drone strike may have killed up to a dozen civilians in Yemen | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour | PBS - A U.S. military drone strike in Yemen in December may have killed up to a dozen civilians on their way to a wedding and injured others, including the bride, a human rights group says. U.S. officials say only members of al-Qaida were killed, but they have refused to make public the details of two U.S. investigations into the incident.
Report: Deadly drone strike in Yemen failed to comply with Obama’s rules to protect civilians - The Washington Post - A U.S. drone strike in December that killed at least a dozen people in Yemen failed to comply with rules imposed by President Obama last year to protect civilians, according to an investigation by a human rights organization released Thursday.
Jon Stewart Compares Obama's Drone Program With Bush's Torture Policy (Romancing the Drone)
UK shared ops room where drone targets were identified – Yemen president | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - Yemen’s president has said that the UK is a participant in a secret ‘joint operations control room’ in Yemen’s capital, from which individuals who are ‘going to be targeted’ are identified. (when will Obama be brought to justice?)

The Busting Of Tony Blair « The Dish - As the years go by, the smell intensifies. If you want a glimpse into the utterly corrupt British Establishment under Tony Blair, look no further than the evidence produced yesterday at Rebekah Brooks’s trial in charges of phone-hacking.

Hacking of US Navy Computers by Iranian Hackers will Test new NSA Commander Rogers | HackRead - Latest Cyber Crime - Information Security - Hacking News - US NAVY faces 110,000 cyber attacks every hour. Now a report has gone viral that Iran’s penetration into the US Navy’s computer network was far more extensive than previously imagined, according to Wall Street Journal

ProPublica Wins MacArthur Foundation Award - ProPublica - , a one-time grant of $1 million, will add to its reserve, laying the groundwork for an expansion of its investigative newsroom.

The Daily Dot - Why Barrett Brown should not be in jail - Almost everything about Barrett Brown's case is extreme and concerning. (Obama's corp/spy/police state)
Reading Between the Lines of Redacted NSA Documents | Threat Level | Wired.com (no information for you)
Greenwald: Clapper statement ‘vindicates’ Snowden - In light of Clapper’s confession to the Daily Beast, they might just ask, “Is this really critical to national security, or is it something that you should have disclosed to the American public years ago?

Letter To The Editor: Rep Mike Rogers: Leaking security information imperils lives - Washington Times - Hawking access to stolen classified information for personal gain is not journalism. (here's your Congressional "oversight")

Journalist, Terrorist. What's the Difference? | Motherboard
UK: Miranda ruling fails to protect public interest journalism · Article 19 (criminalizing journalism)
Snowden warns 'overclassification' is danger to democracy - Yahoo News - Former US security contractor Edward Snowden on Wednesday spoke out about the use of state secrecy privileges as he presented an Oxford University award to fellow intelligence leaker Chelsea Manning.
Chelsea Manning Wonders Whether She Could Have Gotten Anwar al-Awlaki’s Treatment | emptywheel - Chelsea Manning Wonders Whether She Could Have Gotten Anwar al-Awlaki’s Treatment (Obama probably considered it)
Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden Criticize the “Decline” of US Democracy | Motherboard
David Miranda detention lawful - High Court judgment demonstrates problem with overbroad Schedule 7 power | Liberty - protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights - “If such a barefaced abuse of power is lawful then the law must change. Miranda’s treatment showed Schedule 7 for what it is: a chillingly over-broad power, routinely misused. People are held and interrogated for hours, their property confiscated while they’re swabbed for saliva – all without any suspicion that they’ve done anything wrong.”
In remission: Miranda v Home Secretary | OISC

Mike Rogers On Leaking Security Information - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - Somehow, I have very little faith in congressional oversight as it is practiced by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Quantico).
Kickstarter breached, CEO warns encrypted passwords can be cracked - SC Magazine - After popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter announced on Saturday that it experienced a breach, all users are being urged to change their passwords, even though the company uses encryption.
More than a million Android devices infected with bootkit trojan - SC Magazine - More than a million Android mobile devices worldwide are now infected with a crafty bootkit trojan known as Android.Oldboot.1.origin – a number that has more than tripled since Russian anti-virus company Dr. Web posted about the malware on Jan. 24.
Engineer bypasses Snapchat's CAPTCHAs with fewer than 100 lines of code - SC Magazine - after individuals took advantage of a vulnerability in the popular messaging app's application programming interface (API) and stole a database of 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers.

Anonymous has a new video, and Anonymous is not thrilled | The Raw Story

Matt Taibbi to Lead First Look’s Next Digital Magazine | Business Wire - Former Rolling Stone journalist and best-selling author will build a team to report on financial and political corruption
Thank You, Rolling Stone | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - Today is my last day at Rolling Stone. As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.
Matt Taibbi Slams David Gregory: 'I Don't Know How He Can Call Himself A Journalist'

Obama To Drop Social Security Cut From Budget - President Obama will not include cuts to Social Security and other earned-benefit programs in his upcoming budget, the White House confirmed on Thursday. (it took him this long)
GOP’s Social Security disaster: Conservatives just lost their chance to cut benefits - Salon.com - The president dropping Chained CPI from his budget is a reprieve for the left -- and a message to the right - . One of the White House’s most poorly kept secrets is that many of Obama’s economic advisers support Chained CPI on the merits, or believe it to be the least-bad benefit cut Obama could offer Republicans.
Four Reasons The GOP Has A Huge Advantage In The 2014 Elections (it's going to get much, much worse)

Turns Out Anti-Union Volkswagen Workers May Have Screwed Themselves And The South (they were watching Fox)
All Cities Are Not Created Unequal | Brookings Institution

New Study Shows Glaring Differences Between GMO and Non-GMO Foods | EcoWatch - New studies conducted by scientists independent of the biotech industry are showing glaring differences between genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their non-GMO counterparts. (an apple is "mostly equal" to an orange)

Keystone pipeline approval in limbo after Nebraska ruling | Reuters - - A Nebraska court on Wednesday voided the governor's decision to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to pass through the Midwestern state, creating another snag for the controversial project to link Canada's oil sands with refineries in Texas.

The minority report: Chicago's new police computer predicts crimes, but is it racist? | The Verge - Chicago police say its computers can tell who will be a violent criminal, but critics say it's nothing more than racial profiling
Comic explains problems with Oakland's Domain Awareness Center surveillance plan - Boing Boing
NY woman slain after police plea untranslated | National News - KCCI Home - "No one translated it and they just put it away or placed it into the system ... three complaints were filed by Deisy, and none of the times she filed a complaint did police actually arrest Mr. Mejia, her ex-husband."
Media Outlets Ask Judge for Video in Justin Bieber's Miami Beach Arrest | NBC 6 South Florida - A South Florida judge heard arguments Thursday on a motion by media outlets seeking the release of police videos made shortly after Justin Bieber's recent arrest in Miami Beach
Recording Traffic Stop Lands Davie Woman In Jail « CBS Miami

Tea Party's Mike Lee leads unlikely Republican push against poverty | World news | theguardian.com - Utah senator has been on a quiet mission to rebrand his image and that of the radical Republican wing he represents ("poverty" = "the poor")
Scott Walker Ordered Doctor Fired Because She Was Once A Thong Model (Republicans are obsessed with thongs)
Rahm Emanuel Mayor Interview - Rahm Emanuel Profile - Esquire - "Trending toward insolvency." "The country's worst school system." "The murder capital of America." This is Rahm Emanuel's third year as mayor of Chicago, and everything is under control.

A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace - NYTimes.com - The archbishop's 4,500-square-foot vacation home, in Pittstown, is getting a 3,000-square-foot addition.

New Report Exposes America's Highest Paid Government Workers | PR Watch

? How to Not Get Raped - YouTube
The Dark Power of Fraternities - The Atlantic

This Is What Happens When Massive Black Hole Gobbles Up Sun-Like Star (video)
Cat Bites Are Linked To Depression | Popular Science - The reason why is not fully clear. Maybe cats just dislike depressed people.
After combing through the health records of 1.3 million people over 10 years, researchers found an unusual link between cat bites and depression : science

Study maps Twitter’s information ecosystem | Al Jazeera America - New research outlines the six types of communities on the social network and what that means for communication
E-Z-2-Use attack code exploits critical bug in majority of Android phones | Ars Technica - Just-released code creates drive-by attack that exploits 14-month old bug.
The Daily Dot - The real reason Verizon has been slowing down Netflix - "ISPs are under no obligation to accept Netflix's peering and caching offers. Teaming up with netflix might improve performance, but not doing so isn't the same as refusing to carry traffic."

021914
Why Kiev Is Burning, Explained | Mother Jones
Ukraine Liveblog: Day 2 of The Battle For Maidan | The Interpreter
Ukraine leader denounces ‘coup’ bid as EU weighs sanctions | Al Jazeera America - At least 25 are killed as protesters torch cars and police fire into a crowd in central Kiev
Obama condemns Ukraine violence, warns of consequences - CNN.com (while his CIA is at work)
Ukraine Puts ‘Extremists’ on Notice After Deadly Clashes - NYTimes.com - The security authorities in Ukraine offered the first indication on Wednesday that the deadly political violence afflicting Kiev had spread far beyond the capital

Israeli PM brands boycotters ‘anti-Semites,’ bent on ‘destruction of Jewish state’ — RT News (boycotting apartheid state = terrorism)
North Korea's Horrors, as Shown by One Defector's Drawings - Matt Ford - The Atlantic - The graphic sketches depict atrocities committed by Kim Jong Un's regime.
North Korea Is Officially the Worst Place on Earth. Now What? | Motherboard
Video: Pussy Riot attacked with whips by police at Sochi - Russian punk group Pussy Riot is attacked by government security forces as they try to perform under a sign for the Sochi Olympics (Putin is always innovative)
Immigration Department data lapse reveals asylum seekers' personal details | World news | theguardian.com - online database provides personal details of almost 10,000 people in serious and embarrassing security breach (OZ)
Bosnian Protestors Press Home Demands - Institute for War and Peace Reporting - P214 - Calls for an end to poor government, corruption and illegal privatisation as popular unrest continues.
Turkish President Approves Internet Censorship Bill ("Yes We Ban" - cute)
Australian naval incursions blamed on errors | SBS News - Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says the federal government has reassured Indonesia that Australian navy boats won't breach Indonesian territorial waters in future.
Former US soldier guilty of rape found hanged - Americas - Al Jazeera English - Former soldier was 19 when he raped and killed teenage Iraqi girl and shot dead her three family members.
Pregnant teenager alleging gang-rape charged with adultery in Sudan | World news | The Guardian - Ethopian teenager says she was raped by seven men last August, and now faces possible sentence of death by stoning

Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks on phone-hacking scandal, court hears | UK news | theguardian.com - Blair also told her he was "available" to her and Rupert and James Murdoch as an "unofficial adviser" on a "between us" basis.

Gallup Afghanistan Poll - This Historical Amnesia In Gallup's Afghanistan Poll - Esquire

UK Court: David Miranda Detention Legal Under Terrorism Law - The Intercept - A British lower court has ruled that London police acted lawfully in employing an anti-terror statute to detain and interrogate David Miranda for nearly nine hours at Heathrow Airport last summer, even while recognizing that the detention was “an indirect interference with press freedom.” (journalism = terrorism)
On the UK's Equating of Journalism With Terrorism - The Intercept

Surveillance and Pressure Against WikiLeaks and Its Readers | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Yet another document shows the depth of the legal effort against WikiLeaks, indicating that the Obama administration "urged foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange over the group’s publication of the Afghanistan war logs."
NSA Targets Pirate Bay And Wikileaks Despite 'Inadvertent' Collection Of US Data According To Latest Leak | Techdirt - from the speech-keeps-getting-chillier dept
Julian Assange on Being Placed on NSA "Manhunting" List & Secret Targeting of WikiLeaks Supporters

Wark_A-Hacker-Manifesto.pdf - There is a double spooking the world, the double of abstraction.
VIDEO: Eminem, Ice Cube and Korn Team Up with Anonymous to Call For Global Revolution | Alternet - 'Everything's corrupt, everything's fucked up.'
FBI “Terror Plot” Claims Continue to Unravel
Megaupload founder Dotcom loses in search warrant case | PCWorld - A court in New Zealand has ruled that warrants used to search the homes of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his colleague Bram van der Kolk were valid, but objected to the removal to the U.S. by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of copies of the electronic items seized. (of course they did)

DHS cancels national license plate tracking plan - The Washington Post - The order came in the wake of a story by The Washington Post reporting that ICE last week solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. (that didn't take long)

JPMorgan banker jumps from Hong Kong high-rise | 2014-02-18 | HousingWire - Third JPMorgan employee, fifth banker in three weeks to die

Third party hype 2005-13 - Brendan Nyhan

The Endless Third-Party Fantasy by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Since third-party fantasies reemerge every time there is evidence Americans hold their elected officials in minimum high regard, Brendan Nyhan provides a public service with a compendium of “here comes a third party!” predictions dating back to 2005. Moreoever, only a few of them were written by Thomas Friedman.
Watch This CNN Anchor Stop The Spin On The Minimum Wage | Blog | Media Matters for America - CNN's Carol Costello shot down conservative talking points disparaging the minimum wage, correctly noting that raising it would increase incomes and decrease poverty.

Rents Used to Pay Blackstone Leased-Home Bonds Decline 7.6% - Bloomberg - Rents collected on the collateral for the first U.S. rental-home securities declined by 7.6 percent from October to January, according to Morningstar Inc. (no one could have predicted)
Loan Complaints by Homeowners Rise Once More - NYTimes.com (deja redux Obama pardoned them all)

Cool New Kansas Bill Would Let Everybody Spank Your Child - Corporal punishment is defined under the bill as using one’s palm to strike the clothed buttocks of child up to ten times and using reasonable physical force to restrain the child. The bill acknowledges that this may lead to bruising. (while they cut education funds by 17%)

Holt, Science Advocate From New Jersey, Won’t Seek Re-election to Congress - NYTimes.com - Representative Rush D. Holt Jr. of New Jersey, a research physicist who became Congress’s chief advocate for scientific research over eight terms, announced on Tuesday that he is not seeking re-election this year. (Inhofe to be the new scientist)

Trading Water for Fuel is Fracking Crazy | EcoWatch - It would be difficult to live without oil and gas. But it would be impossible to live without water. Yet, in our mad rush to extract and sell every drop of gas and oil as quickly as possible, we’re trading precious water for fossil fuels. (let them drink gasoline)
Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale - Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie
"Frackgate": Ohio Regulators Planned to Subvert Eco-Groups, Promote Fracking in State Parks
Energy Secretary Moniz Announces $6.5 Billion Loan For First Nuclear Plants in Nearly 30 Years | EcoWatch

Judge expanded secret probe a day before Walker's 2010 election - The day before Scott Walker was elected governor in 2010, a judge expanded the secret investigation to four more of his top aides, thousands of pages of documents released Wednesday show.
Scott Walker, eyeing 2016, faces fallout from investigations as ex-aide’s e-mails are released - The Washington Post

Montana Prosecutor Says Feds Trying To 'Bully' Him Into Sexual Assault Reforms
Half of U.S. prison sex crimes involve staff toward inmates: fed study | Reuters - Nearly 9,000 incidents of sexual victimization against inmates in U.S. prisons and jails were reported in 2011, with roughly half of them involving corrections staff, according to a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Johns Hopkins Gun-Control Study: Background Checks Really Work | New Republic - The study, from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, found the murder rate in Missouri jumped 16 percent—an additional 55 to 63 murders a year—after the repeal in 2007 of a state law that required anyone purchasing a handgun to obtain a permit showing they had passed a background check.

Arizona toddler with 160 IQ admitted to Mensa | Reuters - a 3-year-old Arizona girl has been accepted into an exclusive global society known for its brain power.

Science Nice Time: Rumors of Adorable Moon Rover Jade Rabbit's Death Exaggerated - Happy Nice Time People
3-Year-Olds Can Learn to Code — One Robot Turtle at a Time - Robot Turtles by ThinkFun is the most-funded board game in Kickstarter history, far surpassing its $25,000 goal with $630,000 in pledges. The company is now accepting preorders, priced at $24.99, and will ship in June.

How Netflix is turning viewers into puppets - Salon.com - "House of Cards" gives viewers exactly what Big Data says we want. This won't end well
The Daily Dot - Greek politician who sued Wikipedia editor clearly never heard of the Streisand Effect - What is clear though is that Katsanevas's own dogged prosecution of Liourdis seems to be backfiring. Rather than quashing the controversy, he's only brought more attention to it.
57 Ways To Sign Off On An Email - Forbes
Ubuntu phones arriving in 2014 from Meizu and BQ Mobile - The bad news is that neither of these manufacturers have a large presence in US, so the chances of picking up a high-end Ubuntu phone on Verizon in 2014 is pretty slim.

021814
Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline risks for downstream communities and fisheries.pdf

TopTaxBracket_TaxRate.jpg Photo by OnlyObvious | Photobucket
Shocking Charts Predict 2014 Crash | Michael E Kelley - Multiple charts exist which predict another recession this year!

Elderly nun sentenced to 35 months for Tennessee nuclear break-in | Reuters

9 policemen among 20 killed in Ukraine riots as Kiev city center burns — RT News
Riot police move in against Kiev protest camp - thousands of riot police armed with stun grenades and water cannons attacked the sprawling protest camp in the center of Kiev on Tuesday, following a day of street battles that left 18 people dead and hundreds injured.
Kiev, Ukraine. #euromaidan
At least nine protesters killed as Kiev clashes continue | World news | The Guardian - Hopes for a settlement of Ukraine's three-month crisis are evaporating amid scenes of rioting, burning buildings, police bombings and rubber bullets in Kiev that left up to nine protesters reported dead and more than 100 seriously injured.
Stephen Cohen: The Questionable Motives Behind Western Involvement in Ukraine | The Nation
US support for regime change in Venezuela is a mistake | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The US push to topple the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro once again pits Washington against South America (CIA's long bloody history and Obama's part in it)
More than 500 Indian workers have died in Qatar since 2012, figures show | World news | The Guardian - As Qatar construction boom gathers pace ahead of 2022 World Cup, Indian government confirms scale of death toll - analysis of the lists of dead Nepalese workers showed that more than two-thirds died of sudden heart failure or workplace accidents.
How we ended up paying farmers to flood our homes | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - This government let the farming lobby rip up the rulebook on soil protection – and now we are suffering the consequences
Panty Protests In Russia And Kazakhstan Sparked By Lace Lingerie Ban - On Sunday, 30 women protesters in Kazakhstan were arrested and thrown into police vans while wearing lace underwear on their heads and shouting "Freedom to panties!"
Living in fear in Hebron - Features - Al Jazeera English - Thousands of Palestinian homes have been emptied in recent years, some through evictions and others over restrictions.
Terror case collapses as ‘activist’ witness admits being informant - Mapuche men acquitted of arson to seek official redress, after being detained for two years as minors under anti-terrorism law.
Spain, Land of 10 P.M. Dinners, Asks if It’s Time to Reset Clock - NYTimes.com - . But now that it is trying to recover from a devastating economic crisis — in the absence of easy solutions — a pro-efficiency movement contends that the country can become more productive, more in sync with the rest of Europe, if it adopts a more regular schedule.

US intelligence chief: NSA should have been more open about data collection | World news | theguardian.com - James Clapper tells interviewer the spy agency could have avoided controversy by being up front with American citizens (Pres So Transparent You Can See Right Through Him)
Spy Chief: We Should’ve Told You We Track Your Calls - The Daily Beast - The U.S. government long considered its collection of Americans' call records to be a state secret. Now the Director of National Intelligence admits it would have been better if Washington had acknowledged the surveillance in the first place.
Edward Snowden 'humbled' by his election as Glasgow University rector | World news | The Guardian - In statement to the Guardian, NSA whistleblower describes vote as bold and historic decision in support of academic freedom

NSA Surveillance Debate Exposes Divisions In Democratic, Republican Parties - Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the House and Senate leadership are on the other side, defending the Obama administration's surveillance programs as necessary to prevent terrorism.

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters - The InterceptThe Intercept - GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.
‘Manhunting Timeline’ Further Suggests US Pressured Countries to Prosecute WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief | The Dissenter - t the United States pressured officials of countries around the world to prosecute WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, in 2010. (oh, like Sweden?)
Julian Assange on Being Placed on NSA "Manhunting" List & Secret Targeting of WikiLeaks Supporters | Democracy Now!
U.S. and U.K. Targeted WikiLeaks With Surveillance and Political Pressure, Documents Show | American Civil Liberties Union - . “Publishers who disclose abuses of government power should not be subjected to invasive surveillance for having done so, and individuals should not be swept up into surveillance dragnets simply because they’ve visited websites that report on those abuses. Further, the United States should not be urging allied countries to pursue prosecutions that would be unconstitutional if undertaken here at home.” (remember, this is all Obama)

The Testing Ground for the New Surveillance — Medium - Oakland, California
EFF Submits Letter Opposing Oakland's Domain Awareness Center | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Anti-NSA spying bills pass first vote in two states | Nullify NSA!Nullify NSA! - Today, an Oklahoma state House committee voted 9-3 to pass a bill designed to thwart warrantless surveillance programs of the National Security Agency (NSA), while a New Hampshire house committee voted 12-1 to approve a bill blocking some practical effects of federal spying.
The DHS Sends Out The Call For A National License Plate Database | Techdirt
Moot is right — we’re a lot better off with online anonymity than we would be without it — Tech News and Analysis
A Hacking Game Where You Hijack the US Government

Protesters crash Google talk on corporate mindfulness at Wisdom 2.0 conference | Tricycle - Mindfulness is enabling corporations to “optimize impact”?
The Mindful Workspace:  — Medium

Wikipedia mounts courtroom defense for editor sued by politician | Ars Technica - Wikimedia lawyer: Greek pol's €200,000 lawsuit is "an assault on our users."

AT&T's first transparency report reveals 300,000 total law enforcement requests | The Verge (America will have to invade America)
The government asked AT&T for location data nearly 38,000 times last year


I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society -- Daily Intelligencer - Here, after all, was a group that included many of the executives whose firms had collectively wrecked the global economy in 2008 and 2009. And they were laughing off the entire disaster in private, as if it were a long-forgotten lark (thanks to Obama)
Matt Miller’s Long War On Social Security - Lawyers, Guns & Money : At any rate, Miller has been making the “liberal [sic]” case for Social Security cuts for time out of mind. (Incidentally, I would like to reiterate that rarely has a public official been more overrated than Daniel Patrick Moynihan.)

Chevron Offers One Free Pizza (Special Combo Only) to Residents Affected by Natural Gas Drilling Explosion | EcoWatch - A week ago today an explosion at a Chevron Appalachia natural gas drilling site shook the town of Dunkard, PA. The ensuing fire burned for days and one missing worker has been presumed dead, according to CBS Pittsburgh. (one per customer)
West Virginia Fracking - West Virginia Is Open For Business - Esquire - I don't care any more what's the matter with Kansas because Kansas doesn't seem to care what the rest of us think, but what in the fk is the matter with West Virginia?


Hillary Clinton Past - Here We Go Again - Esquire - I hate to say I-Told-You-So. Honest, I do. But I told you bastids so, and now it's coming true. The simple possibility of a candidacy of Hillary Clinton for president of the United States has brought us all back to those thrilling days of the 1990s, the ones that culminated in the pursuit of the president's penis all around the Beltway, the career-maker for so many truly appalling alleged journalists, a group which definitely include Byron York, who has chimed in today with an early masterwork of the form.

Unemployment The Number 1 Problem For Americans, Gallup Poll Says - More people named joblessness as the nation's top problem than "government and politicians," which had been the most popular answer among survey respondents since the government shutdown last year.

More smoke bellows from the remains of Planet Christie - According to a report from MSNBC, documents obtained by the legislative committee investigating New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's lane closure scandal show that a childhood friend of the governor who serves as a Port Authority police officer was in close contact throughout the lane closures with former Port Authority aide David Wildstein, who directed the operation.

Nixon still runs the GOP: How the white South dominates the party - Salon.com - Many believe that Reagan or Goldwater founded modern conservatism. But it's Nixon whose legacy truly lives on
Democrats Not Running In Alabama - The Absent Democratic Party In Alabama - Esquire - Remember when Howard Dean made such a pest of himself with his ludicrous 50 State Strategy, which ran contrary to the political hippie-punching genius that is Rahm Emanuel? This is what you get if you listen to Rahm. For the first time in Alabama history, the Democrats are not running anyone for U.S. Senate For the 140 state legislative races, no Democrats are running in 57 races. (Obama's favorite rightwing asshole helped destroy the Dems)
Pat McCrory North Carolina Grocery Store - Pat McCrory Runs Into Trouble At A Grocery Store - Esquire - Maybe it's the governor's effigy that let Duke Energy have a pass for poisoning that river. How does one distinguish an effigy of Pat McCrory from the real thing anyway? More straw in the head?

Ted Cruz just doomed the GOP — but not in the way you think - Salon.com - He won a small battle with his debt limit gambit, but also made the GOP's extortion tactics much harder. Here's why
The matter with Kansas now: The Tea Party, the 1 percent and delusional Democrats - Salon.com - Democrats believe demographics alone will defeat the Tea Party. It's a smug fantasy: Economic populism's the answer

'Joe the Plumber' takes a union job at Chrysler (how have the mightly fallen)

80-year-old man fatally shot by police acting on bad tip of meth lab — RT USA - An 80-year-old California man was shot and killed by police who raided his home based on an incorrect, anonymous tip that the senior citizen was housing a methamphetamine lab on his residence, despite having no criminal record prior to the incident.

The Omnivore » Hatchet Job of the Year - AA Gill wins the third annual Hatchet Job of the Year Award for his Sunday Times review of Autobiography by Morrissey.

Hot Pockets Recalled: Nestle Pulls Philly Cheese Steak From Shelves | TIME.com - We don't know what an unsound animal is, but we're pretty sure we don't want to eat one (your food chain at work)

This App Trains You to See Farther - Popular Mechanics
Autoimmunity: A new clue to sleepiness : Nature Reviews Immunology : Nature Publishing Group - a subset of CD4 T cells that are specific for orexin, a wake-promoting hormone, are found only in people with narcolepsy.

Valve, VAC, and trust : gaming

021714
@ErikLoomis' History of the Presidents (with tweets) · papicek · Storify
How To Celebrate President's Day (with tweets) · alymaybe · Storify

North Korean human rights abuses systematic and unparalleled, says UN | World news | theguardian.com - Inquiry chairman writes to Kim Jong-un warning he could face trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity
UN Documents North Korean Torture Chambers, Prison Camps In Damning Report
18 dead in Nepal Airlines crash | Al Jazeera America - Helicopter spots wreckage of plane, which crashed into a mountain, killing all on board
Hamid Karzai orders changes to draft law amid fears for Afghan women | World news | theguardian.com - West and human rights groups warned that ban on relatives testifying would shield domestic abusers
Newspaper owner gunned down in Brazil - Committee to Protect Journalists - News reports said the paper had frequently alleged corruption in the local government and a friend of Palma's told the daily O Globo that the publisher had received threats but had not taken them seriously.
Lech Walesa: Putin Has 'Evil Twin' Seeking to Dominate World - "And there is his evil twin, who still hopes that one day he will show the whole world who is on top. He hopes his day of triumph will come, but until then, he has to sit tight.
Bling bishop used charity millions for HQ: report - The Local - It led him to be dubbed the “Bishop of Bling”.
AFP: Gunmen kidnap six-strong polio team in NW Pakistan - Masked gunmen kidnapped a six-member polio vaccination team -- a doctor, two local employees of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and three guards -- in northwest Pakistan on Monday, an official said. (Obama's scam had repercussions)
Anders Breivik: Norwegian mass murderer is threatening to go on a hunger strike until he get's a newer Playstation. - (Note: I'm guessing given he's specifically asking for a Playstation 3 that he's unaware that a newer model, the Playstation 4, came out this past fall. Either that, or the request is an odd show of moderation for a prisoner asking for new toys.)
You Wouldn't Believe What I Saw in the Dachau Gift Shop  - Bloomberg - But I’m not sure I’ll ever warm up to the idea of concentration camp gift shops, particularly those that sell Woody Allen biographies.

Three ex-Barclays bankers charged in Libor-fixing case - live | Business | theguardian.com - Serious Fraud Office accuses three ex-Barclays employees of fraud
Rupert Murdoch's empire receives $882m tax rebate from Australia | Media | theguardian.com - Payment revealed by News Corp in US likely to reignite debate over how much tax is paid by international corporations

The raw prawn: Marty Natalegawa takes swipe at Tony Abbott over prawn spying claim - The latest spying revelations and Tony Abbott's response have once again irritated Indonesia, with Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa taking a barely veiled swipe at the Australian Prime Minister on Monday. “Those are well understood … but … I find it a bit mind boggling, a little bit difficult, how I can connect or reconcile discussions about shrimps and how they impact on Australian security,” Dr Natalegawa said.

Journalists who broke NSA story in Guardian receive George Polk Awards | World news | theguardian.com - Ewen MacAskill, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras honoured • Polk curator: repercussions of NSA ‘will be with us for years’
Glenn Greenwald Among Four To Win Polk Award For Snowden Stories - Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras of The Guardian and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post will receive the award for national security reporting for stories based on secret documents leaked by Snowden, a former intelligence analyst.
Intercept Editors Win Polk Award for Coverage of Snowden Documents - The Intercept
New Left Project | Articles | Adversarial Journalism in a Corporate World - Glenn Greenwald and Michael Albert discuss the difficulties of doing good journalism within the confines of mainstream media, secrecy and corporations and Greenwald's new media project - The Intercept.

The NSA May Not “Target” Lawyers, But It Does “Spy” on Them | emptywheel - Congratulations to Ben Wittes who, with this post, demonstrates how the NSA can “spy” on Americans without “targeting” them.
AP News : What can unite liberals and tea partyers? The NSA - By exposing the NSA's vast surveillance web, Snowden created a link between tea partyers and liberals - two tribes camped on opposite sides of the nation's political chasm.

EXCLUSIVE - Dogecoin founder: “I turned down half a million dollars. Because f*** that” » Techly - despite huge offers of investment from Australian venture capitalists.
Reporting From the Web’s Underbelly - NYTimes.com - Brian Krebs, writer of the cybercrime blog Krebs on Security
The Daily Dot - DDoS attacks are the new black - A record-breaking distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack at nearly 400Gbps hit European networks and an unnamed Cloudflare customer.
The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail: The White People Meeting | FrontBurner | D Magazine
Report: Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) Scans Your DNS History - Slashdot - Reportedly, the company's Valve Anti Cheat system (VAC) looks at all the domains you have visited, and if it finds that you've frequented hack sites, you'll be banned.

Hullabaloo - Foreign .001 percenters are people too (and their money has free speech!) - federal prosecutors say a Mexican businessman funnelled more than $500,000 into U.S. political races through Super PACs and various shell companies

After Chattanooga | Jacobin - Examining the roots of the United Auto Workers’ defeat at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant.
The UAW’s Waterloo « Commentary Magazine - The United Auto Workers Union suffered a devastating defeat on Friday, when its attempt to organize the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga failed on a vote of 712-626 (53-47 percent)


The Bobblespeak Translations: This Week with George Stephanopoulos – February 16, 2014
The Bobblespeak Translations: Meet The Press – February 16, 2013 (with more Mitt!)

Addicted on Staten Island - NYTimes.com - Across the country, one of the most significant social shifts of the 21st century has been the migration of drug use from centers of urban poverty to places that are suburban, white and middle- or marginally middle-class. (oxycontin the new gateway drug: nothing to do with your fucking recession, NYT)

Same-sex marriages increasingly being recognised by courts across US | World news | The Guardian - Rapid change leads gay rights advocates to predict wave of legal victories they hope will continue to supreme court
There's No Place Like Homophobic Kansas - The state's anti-gay discrimination bill is doomed, but this is just the first we've seen of stand-alone "religious liberty" bills.
What’s Not the Matter With Kansas - Lawyers, Guns & Money

“Racists, Or Just Trolls?” - Lawyers, Guns & Money : You may remember Amy Chua from such arguments as “you should make the life of your children miserable so they can attain certain markers of status that will make you look good.”
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld’s The Triple Package, reviewed. - Why Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld’s argument about success and ethnic groups doesn’t hold water.
The Return of the Tiger Mother | The Nation - A new book raises the question: Are Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld racists—or just equal opportunity trolls?
?The Tiger Mom's Guide to Ignoring the Tiger Mom

Michael Dunn’s sick license to kill: The hot-blooded murder of Jordan Davis and Florida’s perverted justice - Salon.com - Dunn created the confrontation, then made it deadly. Under Florida's insane laws, the prosecution was still limited - That law works like this: If Dunn had a reasonable fear that he was about to suffer “great bodily harm,” then he had a legal right to shoot Davis to death, rather than, for example, choosing to protect himself by driving away, even if Dunn knew that driving away would have protected him from harm.
Missouri gun murders 'rose after law repeal' - The study links the abandonment of the background check to an additional 60 or so murders occurring per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.
Investigative Reporters and Editors | NYPD denies FOIA request for department FOIA guide - The New York Police Department’s Freedom of Information Law Unit is refusing to release its FOIA guide. Yes, you read that right. calling the guide “privileged as an attorney-client communication.”
Metro-area police use technology to scan license plates - The Denver Post - During 2013, the cameras scanned more than 12 million license plates. Approximately 322,000 of those resulted in an alert for reasons like a stolen car or a connection to a wanted suspect. (all your cars are terrorists)
Cops raid DC Man for Empty Shotgun Shell | Ben Swann Truth In Media - Gun owners: Take notice. A Washington D.C. man faces possible jail time and a hefty fine for keeping a souvenir shotgun shell from a hunting trip.
Police arrest a woman for failing to return 9-year-overdue J-Lo VHS | Ars Technica - “I didn't rent a movie with the intent of keeping it, at the time i had to up and move out of state due to my husbands job and honestly forgot all about it just as I'm sure some of you haters have done. I'm no criminal, but pickens county sheriffs office sure made me feel like i was.”
Arkansas man guns down 15-year-old girl for egging son’s car as a prank | The Raw Story

Barbara Bowman Speaks About Bill Cosby Sexual Abuse Allegations - Last week, Newsweek interviewed Tamara Green, one of 13 women who accused Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them in a civil lawsuit

New York, California move to ban beauty products containing microbeads | Grist - Finding microbead-free products isn’t easy right now — you have to read ingredient lists and steer clear of products that contain “polyethylene” or “polypropylene.” Natural alternatives include ground almonds, oatmeal, and pumice.

Is it time to join the Preppers? How to survive the climate-change apocalypse | The Raw Story - Should I take my family (and could I eat them)?

Mother's milk made to order for boys, girls › News in Science (ABC Science) - One common theme: baby boys often get milk that is richer in fat or protein — and thus energy — while baby girls often get more milk.
Building Chernobyl's New Safe Confinement | In-depth | The Engineer
The Old Testament’s made-up camels are a problem for Zionism | The Raw Story - Whoever put the camels into the story of Abraham and Isaac might as well have improved the story of Little Red Riding Hood by having her ride up to Granny’s in an SUV.
Ancient baby DNA reveals origins of Native Americans | Al Jazeera America - Genome sequencing on DNA of baby buried 12,000 years ago shows he is an ancestor of modern indigenous peoples

The Daily Dot - Twitter users post 10,000 racist slurs every day, study finds - Just how racist is Twitter? About .00007 percent racist, according to a new study.

021614
Tepco took months to release record strontium readings at Fukushima | Reuters - The operator of Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant knew about record high measurements of a dangerous isotope in groundwater at the plant for five months before telling the country's nuclear watchdog, a regulatory official told Reuters. (time for the UN to invade TEPCO)
Possible radiation leak at New Mexico military nuclear waste site | Reuters - Unusually high levels of radioactive particles were found at an underground nuclear waste site in New Mexico on Saturday in what a spokesman said looked like the first real alarm since the plant opened in 1999.

U.S. seeks new bases for drones targeting Al Qaeda in Pakistan - latimes.com - If the U.S. must withdraw all forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, alternative sites will be needed for drone strikes on Pakistan targets. (Obama loves his drones, Army needed to support them)

Al-Qaeda figures or associates linked to Iran - The Washington Post
'Syria's death toll now exceeds 140,000' - Hindustan Times - More than 140,000 people, over 7,000 of them children, have been killed in Syria's uprising-turned-civil war, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
Ukraine protesters, police pull back in contest over president | Reuters
Ukraine announces amnesty for protesters in opposition win - Yahoo News
Tens of thousands of Turks stage anti-government protests in Istanbul - Xinhua | English.news.cn - Sunday's demonstration is the largest protest to take place in the country since corruption charges were filed against the sons of three cabinet ministers in a high-profile graft case that began in December.
Protests in Bosnia: On fire | The Economist - The latest troubles in Bosnia may wake up the country’s inept leaders - Eighteen years after the end of the war the people are poor, the politicians are rich and corruption is rife.
Roots of Bosnian Protests Lie in Peace Accords of 1995 - NYTimes.com - But the terms of the accords were in time supposed to be replaced by a more streamlined system. They were never supposed to remain in force this long. (kleptocrats)
Bosnian People Voice Their Dreams In First General Assembly | PopularResistance.Org
Five Journalists Charged For Story On Chemical Weapons Factory - Myanmar police have charged five journalists with "disclosing state secrets" after their newspaper carried a story about an alleged chemical weapons factory, state media reported Sunday.
South African Miners Trapped In Abandoned Gold Shaft - South African rescuers were trying to reach more than 200 illegal miners reported trapped underground in an abandoned gold shaft in a suburb just east of Johannesburg on Sunday, an emergency services spokesman said.
Thai police fail to reach deal with protesters | Reuters
Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr 'to retire from politics' - Born into a religious Shia family, the cleric galvanised anti-US sentiment in sermons and public interviews after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein eleven years ago.
Ugandan President To Sign Anti-Homosexuality Bill - Members of the party of President Yoweri Museveni have “welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants,” tweeted his spokesperson when announcing his decision. (Christians at work)
Obama warns Uganda over anti-gay law | Reuters - enacting an anti-gay law would complicate U.S. relations with Uganda and would be a "step backward for all Ugandans."
Brazil's World Cup courts disaster as delays, protests and deaths mount | World news | The Observer - An attack on the president's office was just the latest alarming episode in the runup to June's tournament

Germany is 'planning to step up counter-espionage': report | News | DW.DE | 16.02.2014 - Germany is planning to possibly resume counter-espionage measures against several Western allies, according to a report in the news magazine Spiegel. The report said British and US embassies could be targeted. (good work, Barry)

1.1 million petition Brazil to give Snowden asylum | TheHill - A petition with more than a million signatures was submitted to the Brazilian government on Thursday urging President Dilma Rousseff to grant asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Letter to Sibel Edmonds - markklein2009 - Your latest diatribe aimed at the heroic Edward Snowden, “The Entire NSA Cache Exposed Once and For All” (Jan. 31, 2014), is a ridiculously absurd attempt to denigrate Snowden's exposure of the NSA threat, suggesting that his contribution amounts to nothing new ... Your tone has the quality of sour grapes.

Latest Snowden Smear in Rotation Courtesy of Totally Discredited NSA: Co-Worker's Credentials - Jesselyn Radack
‘Why Have You Gone to Russia Three Times in Two Months?’—Heathrow Customs Agent Interrogates Snowden Lawyer | The Dissenter - Jesselyn Radack told Firedoglake she was directed to a specific Heathrow Border Force agent. He “didn’t seem interested” in her passport. She was then subjected to “very hostile questioning.” (Obama and Cameron's goons +they have been violating attorney-client prividge since at least 2002)
print:Who?s Tracking Your Calls? And how far will the Department of Justice go to burn a leaker? | Human Rights |Axisoflogic.com - a document that raised a separate and creepy issue: Had Justice traced calls from Isikoff to Radack?

The US’s Long and Sordid HIstory of Persecuting Journalists » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - These criticisms are reasonable and just, but RWB is mistaken in asserting that the US “for a long time was the embodiment of an established democracy where civil liberties reign supreme.” In fact, the US government has a long and sordid record of persecuting journalists, dating back nearly to its founding. (Obama escalated this war)

The Number Of U.S. Soldiers Forced Out Of The Army For Crimes Or Misconduct Has Soared - The number of U.S. soldiers forced out of the Army because of crimes or misconduct has soared in the past several years as the military emerges from a decade of war that put a greater focus on battle competence than on character.

Forbes Hack is larger than expected, Syrian Electronic Army leaks 1 Million Forbes user login details. | Techworm - The leaked data contains Users login details including username, email and passwords, while the passwords are in encrypted format used by the wordpress websites. though the encryption is not too difficult to crack for someone having basic information over the "hashes" types and decryption procedure.

MIT Is Still Working on Its Response to Aaron Swartz Case – Wired Campus - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is still trying to figure out how to answer criticism of its response to the controversial federal prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the hacker and activist who was arrested on the MIT campus in 2011. (completely vague; they could try telling the truth, for once)

Extraordinary N Atlantic Storms Driving Gulf Stream Water into Arctic, Sea Ice Melting in February - the stormiest winter in the long English weather records which go back to 1766.
Kerry calls climate change a weapon of mass destruction, derides skeptics - The Washington Post - he derided climate-change skeptics at home and blamed big companies for hijacking the debate.
WATCH: Bill Nye And GOP Rep. Spar In Climate Change Debate (VIDEO) - "Now, you know, when you look at the social cost of carbon, and there is a lot of ambiguity around that, what you also need to be doing is looking at the benefits of carbon and what that has on increased agriculture production," she said. "A lot of good study out there about that. A lot of good scientists and biologists who have done that study." (Dancin' Dave +Marcia Blackburn received a B.S. in Home Economics from Mississippi State University)
Questions about the climate change debate between Bill Nye and Marsha Blackburn? Ask our panelists here! : askscience


Senator Cruz Exposed His Colleagues by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Chris Cillizza doesn’t think that Ted Cruz plans on being in the Senate for very long, and he predicts that he will never rise to any leadership level in the upper chamber.

Something is the Matter With Kansas by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Kansas State Representative Keith Esau has introduced a bill that would eliminate no-fault divorce in the Sunflower State. He has some interesting ideas on matrimony

Whiskey Fire: Oh, Is That How It Works? - "Greg Mankiw" is an exact anagram for "Grima Wormtongue." Look it up. (NYT loves their rich people)
Inequality By Design: It's Not Just Talent and Hard Work | Beat the Press - Greg Mankiw is out there defending the 1 percent again. He put forward the argument that the big bucks are simply their just desserts; the rewards for exceptional skill and hard work.
Dear Nicholas Kristof: We are right here! - Nicholas Kristof has a well-meaning but highly dramatic and one-sided op-ed in the New York Times, desperately shouting out: “Professors, We Need You!” The piece rehashes familiar claims that seem to resonate well on the Times opinion page: academics write in obtuse prose on arcane tiny issues that are of little interest to the public. Even worse, they sometimes use math

Duke Energy: 2nd Leaking Pipe At North Carolina Coal Ash Dump Is No Danger (as long as you never drink water)
Plan Shows Regulatory Agency and Fracking Industry in Cahoots to Promote Drilling in State Parks | EcoWatch

2014 State Primary Dates and Runoff Dates (MA != MS)

Thomas Michaels, Longtime Christie Friend, Involved In Traffic Scandal: MSNBC - According to Kornacki, Thomas Michaels is a Port Authority police officer who grew up in the same town as the New Jersey Governor. He even coached Christie's son in hockey. (tight little circle you have there)
New Orleans Deserved a Better Scandal than Ray Nagin's - The city's residents are bummed to have been duped by such a dullard.
El Cid of Louisiana by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - If the El Cid routine doesn’t work out for Bobby, I’m sure he has some other angles to play until he ultimately achieves his destiny as HHS Secretary in the next Republican administration.

36 Hours On The Fake Campaign Trail With Donald Trump - Over the course of 25 years, he’s repeatedly toyed with the idea of running for president and now, maybe, governor of New York. With all but his closest apostles finally tired of the charade, even the Donald himself has to ask, what’s the point? On the plane and by the pool with the man who will not be king. (a lifelong scam)

What’s Going to Happen to Doctors? Look at What’s Happening to Lawyers by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - The story of the legal profession is one of the more interesting subplots to the Great Recession. (next: doctors and their expensive educations)

On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - The irrelevance of black life has been drilled into this country since its infancy, and shall not be extricated through the latest innovations in Negro Finishing School.
Twitter / YourAnonCentral: "Stand Your Ground" laws in the U.S (bitter irony)
Florida district attorney isn’t a fan of a free press, an informed public, or reading - It still blows my mind that politicians would even admit to, much lest boast about, their lack of interest in reading. But there’s apparently a constituency for it. But that isn’t the most offensive thing in the passage. If Corey was quoted accurately about her desire to bar the media from covering high-profile cases, that alone should disqualify her from public office.
Angela Corey’s Checkered Past | National Review Online - Her peers describe an M.O. of retaliation and overcharging. (scary lady)
Unarmed Man Shot And Killed By Houston Cop For Wearing A Hoodie While Black | Dispatches from the Underclass (by a cop, so you don't hear about it)

NYPD Detective Has Been Sued 28 Times Since 2006, Cost The City Nearly $1 Million: Gothamist (Bloomfuck's legacy: costing taxpayers more than $1 billion)
Montana Prosecutor Allegedly Told Mother of 5-Year-Old Sexual-Assault Victim That "Boys Will Be Boys" | Mother Jones - And other shocking details from the Justice Department's report on the Missoula County Attorney's Office. (and cops will be assholes)w
Innocent man beaten and tasered by California police for signaling he is deaf — RT USA
Pa. woman admits Craigslist killing in interview - “When I hit 22, I stopped counting.” ... from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.
The Real Paramilitary SWAT Trucks of Orange County - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - In fact, the scariest event in Irvine's history may be the day our leaders decided putting a SWAT truck there was the best way to allocate $238,000 in public safety funds.
George Zimmerman says he’s homeless and suffering from PTSD: report  - NY Daily News - The man who killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012 told the Spanish language station Univision that Martin threatened him and he felt his life was in danger. He said he now fears for his life but thinks he did the right thing.

Wells report, Richie Incognito: The NFL’s investigation of the Miami Dolphins locker room is the best report on bullying I’ve ever read. - The NFL’s amazing investigation of the Miami Dolphins locker room.

The Woody Allen case - latimes.com - Wallace Shawn is a playwright, actor and essayist. He first worked with Woody Allen on the film "Manhattan."

Why major creative breakthroughs happen in your late thirties - Quartz - There’s evidence from the humanities, though, that genius doesn’t decline with age at all. Over 40% of both Robert Frost’s and William Carlos Williams’ best poems were written after the poets turned 50. Paul Cézanne’s highest-priced paintings were made the year he died.

Buddhist Cave Temples Are Jaw-Droppingly Gorgeous
Diamonds Are Bullshit
An unruly market may undo the work of a giant cartel and of an inspired, decades-long ad campaign

12 Reasons Google+ Isn't As Bad As You Think
All wrong: Wired: Six tech trends to expect in 2011 : technology

021514
1 In 4 Americans Thinks The Sun Goes Around The Earth, Survey Says : The Two-Way : NPR - A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the (the same %)

Mob attacks alleged gays in Nigerian capital - A mob armed with wooden clubs and iron bars, screaming that they were going to "cleanse" their neighborhood of gay people, dragged 14 young men from their beds and assaulted them, human rights activists said Saturday. (by the police also)
Nine policemen injured in anti-government protests in Montenegro | Reuters - Montenegro is the second former Yugoslav republic to see street clashes in the past 10 days over a lack of jobs.
Syrian girl stoned to death for using Facebook account - daily.bhaskar.com (Islamofucks at work)
Venezuelans Blocked on Twitter as Opposition Protests Mount - Bloomberg
Brazil is spying on social media accounts of protesters, hoping to protect World Cup | HackRead - Latest Cyber Crime - Information Security - Hacking News - According to the officials, the security forces of Brazil are constantly using secret agents and thoroughly supervising the social media in order to make certain that the aggressive protesters against government do not wreck the world cup of soccer this year. (sportocracy)
Paul Calandra court documents point to family dispute over money, assets - Before he was elected in 2008, the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra, was embroiled in an ugly family dispute in which he was accused of taking money from his dying mother and suggesting he should kill his sister.
Russian enviro who criticized Olympics sentenced to three years of forced labor | Grist (Putin more and more like Obama)

George Brandis signals government crackdown on online piracy - The Abbott government is considering a major crackdown on online piracy, including forcing internet service providers to block websites that allow users to illegally stream or download movies, music and television shows. (why are all the Brit governments run by conservative assholes?)

Navy's UCLASS Could Be Air to Air Fighter | USNI News - Manazir contemplated the possibility that that the UCLASS, which is primarily being designed for the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike roles, could be used as a flying missile magazine which could supplement the firepower of the F/A-18E/F and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter in air-to-air combat as a robotic wingman of sorts.

Twitter / YourAnonNews: http://t.co/s06SVJv7JZ<: United as One, Divided by Zero /a>

Merkel, Hollande to discuss possible European communication network that avoids U.S. - Yahoo News (Obama has ruined the internets)

NSA Surveillance Lawsuit Tracker
NSA uses Google cookies to find targets for hacking, spying - Ashkan Soltani, Andrea Peterson, Barton Gellman

Ron Paul launches petition to grant Edward Snowden clemency | The Verge (notice no Democrat would do this)
Debate: Was Snowden Justified? Former NSA Counsel Stewart Baker vs. Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg | Democracy Now! (transcript)
Snowden Was Justified – IQ2 Debates
Hullabaloo - With all that revealing of sources and methods, it's a wonder we've survived (more lies)
Twitter / ggreenwald: Which brave journalistic outlet ... - will be the first to report that anonymous NSA sources told them that Snowden leaked 7 bajillion documents?

Lunch with the FT: Glenn Greenwald - FT.com - The journalist who collaborated with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden talks about his abrasive approach and his new online venture ... . A high-school debating champion in south Florida ... Greenwald adds: “What is interesting here is that Pierre is going to end up funding people he cannot control, by design.” ... “But I am going to return, on principle, some time within the next year. I am not going to be exiled for doing journalism.” (+Guardian sucks to some degree)

13-year-old defies ‘big brother’ and refuses to be fingerprinted (Includes interview) - When meal time arrived, Melody entered the cafeteria wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, which has become the most recognized symbol of the Anonymous collective. She stated that she was not going to comply and did not have parental consent. A cafeteria employee then reportedly tried to place her finger on the scanner anyway.

Spying by N.S.A. Ally Entangled U.S. Law Firm - NYTimes.com - A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance in which Americans were ensnared by the eavesdroppers, and is of particular interest because lawyers in the United States with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance. Risen and Poitras ("terror" is the excuse for economic espionage; Obama hates your so-called "Constitution" and screw your attorney-client privilege)

Obama DOJ's New Abuse of State-Secrets Privilege Revealed - The Intercept - The bogus national security claims invoked were even more outrageous because they were used to continue the persecution of someone the government knew to be innocent.
Was It Really ‘Human Error’ That Had a Malaysian Doctoral Student Put on the No Fly List? | The Dissenter - Again, the question remains: Did the FBI agent really commit a “human error”? Or was this a theory of what happened concocted when the government realized the judge was not going to let them continue to keep information secret from Dr. Ibrahim? (hands of Satan always lie)

Everything We Know About How the NSA Tracks People's Physical Location - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic - With Monday's new revelation, we can see the NSA's two-pronged system for finding out where people are.
Crypto-Gram: February 15, 2014

Kickstarter hacked, user data stolen | Security & Privacy - CNET News - The crowd-funding site says hackers broke into its systems and made off with data. Apparently credit card numbers escaped the attack.
Silk Road 2.0 'Hack' Blamed On Bitcoin Bug, All Funds Stolen - Forbes - the same “transaction malleability” bug in the Bitcoin protocol that led to several of the cryptocurrency’s exchanges halting withdrawals in the previous week.

Inequality, Dignity and Freedom - NYTimes.com - It’s all very well to talk in the abstract about the dignity of work, but to suggest that workers can have equal dignity despite huge inequality in pay is just silly. In 2012, the top 40 hedge fund managers and traders were paid a combined $16.7 billion, equivalent to the wages of 400,000 ordinary workers. (wage slaves with "dignity)

Obama On California Drought: Climate Change Threatens The Nation (one side of his mouth)

The Remarkable Parallels Between Obamacare And George W. Bush's Medicare Part D

Dana Milbank: Ted Cruz’s ego trip carries a high cost - The Washington Post - Very few Americans know how close the country came to catastrophe this week. (Republican terrorist with bombs strapped to their heads)
The Sad And Hilarious Story Of America's Most Incompetent Deficit Hacks - Earlier this week, Politico's Byron Tau reported on the sad state of The Can Kicks Back, a deficit-hack outfit spun off of Fix The Debt, whose unique strategy in the "OMG TEH DEFICITZ" Wars was to attempt the enlistment of millenials in the effort to impoverish their grandparents ... These people were drunk on Thought Leader-speak. (and internet old internet memes! - fogey fail)

Kansas Republican leaders get cold feet over 'anti-gay' bill | World news | theguardian.com - Bill approved by Kansas house would give religious individuals and groups the right to deny services to same-sex couples - mainly southern states that are putting up dogged resistance to the spread of same-sex marriage rights across the US (taking their hatred to new levels)
Episcopal Bishops Rebuke Kansas Anti-Gay House Bill 2453 With Religious Righteousness - Some people regularly suggest that the Church should stay out of politics (the Church of Kansas is politics, Bishop guys)
What The Hell Just Happened In Kansas? « The Dish - As Rush Limbaugh recently noted, “They’re under assault. You say, ‘Heterosexuality may be 95, 98 percent of the population.’ They’re under assault by the 2 to 5 percent that are homosexual.”

Patton, Perkins Announce Trolling Merger -- Daily Intelligencer

Texas suspends first doctor under new abortion law | Al Jazeera America - The new law has led to the closure of nearly one-third of Texas' abortion clinics (keep voting Repubican, girls)

Will Chris Christie Face The Washington Press Corps? - The political calendar has New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on a crash course with the Washington press corps a week from Monday, but it's unclear whether he will show up.
Maher: Chris Christie's 2016 Chances Are '350 Pounds Of Toast'
A Titanic Defeat - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - The United Auto Workers lost its attempt to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga after Tennessee politicians interfered to defeat the vote when VW acquiesced to unionization.


Corbett calls for investigation into Chesapeake Energy | StateImpact Pennsylvania - Governor Corbett is calling for an investigation into allegations of fraud against Pennsylvania’s biggest natural gas driller– Chesapeake Energy. (when your Republican governor attacks your fracking operation you are doing something wrong)
Tracks at site of Pennsylvania oil train derailment cleared -operator | Reuters - Norfolk Southern on Friday cleared the tracks of tank cars carrying Canadian crude oil that derailed in Pennsylvania and said the spill that resulted from the accident was slightly larger than it first estimated. (but only "slightly")

Millions of Americans Are Cut Out of Our Democracy | American Civil Liberties Union - . Once a Florida resident is convicted of a felony, the only way to regain his or her voting rights is through the clemency process.
Locking People Up For Being Poor | PopularResistance.Org

WNET to Return $3.5 Million Grant for Pension Series - NYTimes.com - WNET, the New York City public television broadcaster, said on Friday that it would return a $3.5 million grant it received to sponsor an ambitious project on public pensions in the face of charges that it solicited inappropriate underwriting for the series. (corrupt tote-baggers sponsered by anti-pension rich fuckers)
Matt Miller - Andrew Cuomo and the liberal case for Social Security cuts (another WaPo hack lying to you)

This Map Will Change How You View Public Transportation In America (Republicans hate public transportation)

Study Confirms Marijuana Can Help In Arthritis : news (anti-inflammatory)

Reasons Chipotle Is Killing McDonald's - Business Insider
The Crushingly Expensive Mistake Killing Your Retirement - Matthew O'Brien - The Atlantic - 401(k) fees are costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. (another scam by the rich and their congressional bots)

San Francisco police beat up and detain Good Samaritans who call 911 and perform first aid on accident victim - Boing Boing - For Partensky, the take-away message is clear: if you see someone who needs medical assistance, don't call 911, because the police might come and beat you up. Instead, help that person get to the hospital in a taxi.(SF pig cops)

Richie Incognito Is What You Thought He Was - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - Despite Richie Incognito claiming exoneration was on the way, the Wells Report, which the NFL commissioned, pretty much shows him to be who Jonathan Martin claimed and a good deal worse: (Richie Anti-Incognito)
The NFL has a problem - SBNation.com - "Breaking" a teammate is not a team-building exercise, and as long as NFL coaches keep excusing how players act in the locker room, incidents like the one in Miami aren't going to go away.
? Dale Hansen Defends Michael Sam in Jaw Dropping Speech On Gay NFL Players - YouTube
Awful Details From the Wells Report -- Daily Intelligencer (worse than you thought)

Citius, Altius, Frigidiores « - but even in this field, skeleton stands out for its fusion of radical danger and senseless awesomeness. The real question might be: What would compel a person to dress up like the Earth’s realest Power Ranger and swan-dive down a frozen track at such screaming speeds that s/he experiences the same g-force as a Formula One driver? (great writing)

Psychologists examined Internet trolls and found that they are narcissistic, psychopathic, and sadistic. : science (and really sociopathic)
Internet troll personality study: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism.
Thomas C. Retzlaff (one example)
Oklahoma man arrested for operating revenge porn site in... | www.ktvu.com - Casey E. Meyering, 28, of Tulsa, has been arrested in Tulsa by agents with the California Attorney General’s eCrime Unit, the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety and the Tulsa Police Department.

iPhone, IE10 Suffer 'Monster' Hacks - A zero-day flaw in IE 10 is being used by attackers via a compromised VFW site; Apple won't talk security with developer who found 'monster' iPhone flaw.
Target's cybersecurity team raised concerns months before hack | The Verge - at least one internal analyst had called for a thorough review of the defenses around Target's payment terminals, which were later infiltrated during the sophisticated attack. That request was initially "brushed off"
You're not going to read this | The Verge - : "We've found effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading" (cargo-cult FB passing stuff around without anybody reading it because reading is hard)
When You Fall in Love, This Is What Facebook Sees - Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic - “During the 100 days before the relationship starts, we observe a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple.” (and then they start talking to each other)

021414
Approximately 100 Cars Involved In Crashes On Pennsylvania Turnpike « CBS Philly

Olympic Commercial From Norway Is The Greatest Ever - YouTube

Indonesia volcano eruption prompts mass evacuation | World news | theguardian.com - Ash cloud from Java island's Mount Kelud forces 100,000 people to flee their homes and international airports to close
Syria's disintegration alarms Israel | World news | theguardian.com - Bashar al-Assad looks like the least bad option as fears mount of growing strength of jihadi groups
Coalition row after MPs recall plan is shelved - Plans for a "power of recall" for MPs who have committed "serious wrongdoing" have been abandoned following a dispute between the Tories and Lib Dems. Lib Dem Party President Tim Farron said the "modest" plan was blocked by the prime minister David Cameron.
Venezuela braces for more violence – but it could work in Maduro's favour | World news | theguardian.com - Violent protests could make Chavistas rally round president after growing discontent about country's economic woes
Uruguayan president says US and Europe need new strategy on drugs | World news | theguardian.com - José Mujica says countries that are biggest markets for drugs should consider moves such as regulated sale of marijuana
Upbeat Kerry says China willing to press North Korea on nuclear program | World news | theguardian.com - On visit to Beijing, secretary of state says China and US share common goal to ‘achieve a de-nuclearized North Korea’
Iraqi newspaper bombed after Ayatollah caricature - Index on Censorship | Index on Censorship - Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed has fought for its independence for 10 years. It needs solidarity now more than ever
Ugandan President To Sign Anti-Homosexuality Bill - Members of the party of President Yoweri Museveni have “welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants,” tweeted his spokesperson when announcing his decision.
Piers Morgan was questioned by Scotland Yard's hacking squad | Media | theguardian.com - Former Daily Mirror editor confirms he was interviewed by officers from Operation Weeting in December

Pakistani anti-drone activist 'interrogated and tortured' - DAWN.COM

Poland's Surveillance Programs Could Be Worse than the NSA | Motherboard
Forbes website (forbes.com) and twitter Accounts hacked by Syrian Electronic Army | Techworm
Hackers used previously unknown Internet Explorer flaw in new attacks | Reuters - A previously unknown flaw in a recent version of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer web browser is being used to attack Internet users, including some visitors to a major site for U.S. military veterans, researchers said Thursday.
6 Anti-NSA Technological innovations that May Just Change the World | SCG News

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet | Politics News | Rolling Stone - Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever (a major part of Obama's "legacy")

Cruz Senate Stunt Goes Unpunished as Old Tools Don’t Work - Bloomberg - “In this day and age, there are no tools available to a leader to punish a member like Senator Cruz, especially because Senator Cruz doesn’t care what either the leader or the rest of his caucus thinks,”

Obamacare: Economic Boon? | TIME.com - Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven’t emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the arm for the economy.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Virginia Gay Marriage Ban
Kansas's Radical Attack on Gays and Lesbians - Not only does the state's proposed law allow private businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples; it permits state employees to deny them basic services. (re-segregation)
Kansas House OKs bill allowing refusal of service to same-sex couples - CNN.com
Anti-Gay Jim Crow Comes to Kansas - The Daily Beast - A new Kansas proposal would legalize discrimination against gay couples in the state, echoing one of the ugliest parts of American history. Ambulances can refuse to come to the home of a gay couple, park managers can deny them entry, state hospitals can turn them away, and public welfare agencies can decline to work with them.
Kansas House Bill 2453 Gay Marriage - Kansas Continues To Lose Its Mind - Esquire - liberals have not demonstrated the proper respect for Bible-based bigotry, the value of certain passages in Leviticus in the modern world, or the necessity of taking into account the fact that people have been anchoring their cruelty and ignorance in the Scriptures since Constantine discovered what good imperialists Christians can make. (bigots need their freedom! from discrimination)
Virginia’s gay marriage ban ruled unconstitutional: A perfect record for equality post-Windsor. - A perfect record for equality post-Windsor.
Antonin Scalia Gets Big Shoutout In Judge's Decision Against Virginia Gay Marriage Ban - "We might have let the People decide," he said. "But that the majority will not do." (and look what happened)

Clarence Thomas: Americans Are More 'Sensitive' About Race Now Than In The 1960s

James O'Keefe Sued By 'Wrongfully Terminated' Former Employee - James O'Keefe, the conservative activist behind Project Veritas, is being sued by a former employee for wrongful termination and defamation.

Tom Perkins' big idea: The rich should get more votes - Feb. 14, 2014 - "The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes," Perkins said. "But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"
Tom Perkins: People With More Money Should Get More Votes
Tom Perkins Has a Fascinating, Radical, Un-American Voting Plan - David A. Graham - The Atlantic - The venture capitalist—who compared progressivism to Kristallnacht—wants to disenfranchise non-taxpayers and give wealthier voters more votes. (a face of evil)
We Did the Math on Tom Perkins' Vote-Buying Scheme - Esquire - Voters making between $50,000 and $90,000 a year started to break for Romney. He took 52% of those voters compared to 48% for Obama. Voters who made more than $100,000 a year went 54% for Romney and 44% for Obama.

Chris Christie David Wildstein - Chris Christie's Smoking Gun - Esquire - The bullets have flown ever since David Wildstein was required to supply documents and testify under oath before a New Jersey Senate committee
Chris Christie Corruption - The Passion Of Big Chicken, Continued - Esquire

Securities Fraud Investigation Nabs Ohio Republican Along With A 'Secretive' Church | Crooks and Liars - A Republican Ohio state representative was indicted today on 53 counts, along with a Cincinnati based church, described as 'secretive' Ark by the River (scary face)

1 out of 4 city workers makes more than $100,000 - Boston.com - One out of four full-time Boston municipal employees made more than $100,000 last year, a figure more than double the city’s median income. (cops and firefighters busting the budget)

Good Samaritan Backfire — Medium (SF cop pigs at work: Officers Kaur, Espinoza, Gerrrans, etc)

This is rape culture – and look at the damage it does | Life and style | theguardian.com - We live in a world where sexual assault can be dismissed with jokes or excuses, even used in a chatup line or plastered across a T-shirt. The UK rape statistics are shocking, and so are these harrowing reports to the Everyday Sexism Project

Study Finds Underestimated Methane Emissions Negate Industry Claims of Fracked Gas’ Benefits | EcoWatch
Just a natural gas well exploding into flames — nothing to see here! | Grist
North Carolina Coal Ash Pond Still Leaking as Feds Launch Criminal Probe
West Virginia water after the spill: 'We do not drink it. My pets do not drink it' | World news | theguardian.com - Very little is yet known about the substance that entered the area’s water – and residents feel angry and misled (try voting for someone else)

Male sexual orientation influenced by genes, study shows | Science | The Guardian - Genes examined in study are not sufficient or necessary to make men gay but do play some role in sexuality, say US researchers - . Scientists tested the DNA of 400 gay men and found that genes on at least two chromosomes affected whether a man was gay or straight.
Change in mental health after smoking cessation: systematic review and meta-analysis | BMJ
Chimpanzee 'Mega-Culture' Discovered In Remote Congo Forest Might Be Africa's Largest - Across Africa, chimpanzee numbers have been plunging over the last few decades, as habitat loss, the bushmeat trade and diseases such as the Ebola virus and respiratory diseases transmitted by humans decimate chimp communities.
News from The Associated Press - In a statement, Mohammed Ibrahim said the rare find in a preserved wooden sarcophagus dates back to 1600 BC, when the Pharaonic 17th Dynasty reigned.
Ivory trade's shocking toll: 65% of world's forest elephants killed in 12 years (warning: graphic image)

29% of U.S. Adults Under 35 Still Live With Parents -- Marriage Key To Moving Out | CNS News - A new survey shows that 29% of U.S. adults under age 35 are living at home with their parents, while 51% of those between 18 and 23 are living at home.

California prison doctor linked to more inmate sterilizations - Capitol and California - The Sacramento Bee - A prison doctor investigated by the California medical board after ordering tubal ligations without state approval is responsible for hundreds of other inmate sterilizations, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

Sen. Bernie Herpin says "maybe a good thing" Aurora theater gunman had 100-round magazine | The Spot — The Denver Post

When Age Belies Buying Power - NYTimes.com - Now get ready for a new group of well-to-do buyers who are quickly gaining momentum: under-40 multimillionaires. (another NYT article about the super-rich and their real estate issues)

ELI5:How is the Holocaust seen as the worst genocide in human history, even though Stalin killed almost 5 million more of his own people? : explainlikeimfive

Penguin blames 'intolerant' Indian laws for pulping of book | World news | theguardian.com - Publisher says it was forced to withdraw Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus because of law threatening jail for insults to religion - it hurt "the religious feelings of millions of Hindus"

Dolphins Report By Ted Wells Says Richie Incognito Harassed Jonthan Martin, Two Others (homophobic gay culture)

Brain Pain Group (946 Members) - We read challenging novels that depart from the standard forms of narrative fiction.
I'm not sure how to phrase this without sounding arrogant and patronizing, but the main audience of Goodreads seems to be fairly young. Is there a similar website with a large, yet older userbase? : books
LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

Changing Skyline: SEPTA needs to solve bus 'pass-up' roulette - What makes things worse is that SEPTA's board is dominated by suburban representatives, who hold all but two seats, even though about 80 percent of riders are city residents.
STFU, Parents - "I always park in spots reserved for expectant moms but I’ve never been pregnant… I just stick out my stomach & waddle into the store."

This Is What The Comcast-Time Warner Deal Does To Cable TV (It's Appalling)
Comcast takeover of Time Warner Cable 'will throttle choice on the web' | Media | The Guardian - Angry consumer groups say proposed $45.2bn mega-deal will drive up costs for millions – and call on FCC to block takeover
The Dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence - Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee - The Atlantic - Reasons to cheer the rise of the machines

021314
At least 17 dead as winter storm blankets northeastern US in snow | World news | theguardian.com - Most fatalities caused by traffic accidents • Recorded snowfall ranges from 9in to 18in

The NSA and Climate Change Spying: What We Know So Far | DeSmogBlog - Taken together, these leaks suggest the United States and its allies are engaging in Cold War-era tactics and realpolitik even as the effects of climate change become increasingly dire. (Obama attempting to sabotage climate-change talks to protect his corporate owners)
NSA Uses Online Data Mining to Predict Global Political Unrest – Validated Independent News - the Open Source Indicators (OSI) Program

New Global Study Reveals Number Of Female Sexual Assault Victims - Worldwide, one woman in 14 has been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner, according to the first global estimate of the problem, published on Wednesday.

Can AIPAC Stop the Obama-Kerry Plan for Israel-Palestine? | The Nation (probably; American Jews for War)

Hyperlinking is Not Copyright Infringement, EU Court Rules | TorrentFreak (Obama still considers it a crime)
Phew! Europe’s Highest Court Decides Not to Break the Internet - Digits - WSJ

Judge Who Sentenced Protesters Shot Dead in Ukraine | World | RIA Novosti - One of Lobodenko’s most recent rulings, according to the Ukrainian newspaper Telegraf, sentenced two pro-European activists on January 28 to two months of house arrest.
China's censors censor press censorship report • The Register - The Press Freedom Index 2014 puts China down two more places from the previous year, now above only Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria and Somalia. (175 out of 180)
Greece jobless rate hits new record of 28% - Harsh austerity measures have led the Greek economy to shrink by a quarter in four years. (thanks to Merkel)
Postal service 'spied on worker with cancer' - The Local - The 44-year-old woman had been employed by Deutsche Post for 23 years. Last summer she was having cancer treatment and came back to work while she was still undergoing chemotherapy. (they still love their Stasi tactics)
Indian Parliament erupts in chaos after MP uses pepper spray | CTV News
Mexico City Mulls Legalizing Sale of Marijuana - ABC News
Destruction of the Idols - Intifada Palestine | Intifada Palestine - Islamic fundamentalists in Syria have started to destroy archaeological treasures such as Byzantine mosaics and Greek and Roman statues because their portrayal of human beings is contrary to their religious beliefs. (Islamofucks)

David Cameron holds crisis cabinet meeting as floods continue | Environment | theguardian.com - PM vows never to let current flooding situation happen again, saying UK 'has to do better' in face of abnormal weather events (threatens to arrest the climate after cutting funds for CC research by 40%)

Anti-drone activist kidnapped in Pakistan before he was due to testify in Europe — RT News - A prominent Pakistani journalist and anti-drone activist has gone missing after nearly two dozen men stormed his home and abducted him, his lawyer announced on Monday – just days before he was due to testify before European parliamentarians.

Behold the Selective Outrage Over National-Security Leaks - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - Whistleblowers are hounded for exposing classified information, but national-security insiders are allowed to do so with impunity.

Clapper Reads From the Bush/Cheney/Nixon Playbook to Fear-Monger Over Transparency - The Intercept - By Glenn Greenwald
Exclusive: Snowden Swiped Password From NSA Coworker - NBC News.com - A civilian NSA employee recently resigned after being stripped of his security clearance for allowing former agency contractor Edward Snowden to use his personal log-in credentials to access classified information, according to an agency memo obtained by NBC News.
Leaked NSA Memo: Fueling the Perception Snowden Did Not Work Alone & Is No Whistleblower | The Dissenter
NSA To Congress: Edward Snowden Copied Co-Worker's Password

Cecily McMillan's Occupy trial is a huge test of US civil liberties. Will they survive?| Chase Madar | Comment is free | theguardian.com - For years, comparing American freedom to Russian tyranny seemed like an exaggeration. But maybe we're not so different after all (Obama's corpofascism)

Elizabeth Warren's Postal Banking Idea Has Big Public Support, New Poll Finds - Many Americans say they would support the U.S. Postal Service expanding into basic banking and financial services and would sometimes use those services if they were available, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. (a stroke of Obama's pen would do this; so he won't)

Exclusive Data Paints Troubling Picture Of Skyrocketing CEO Pay - Since 1950, however, the ratio of CEO to employee pay has widened by 1000 percent, according to Bloomberg data. Across party lines, the American people believe that corporate execs make too much. A new HuffPost/YouGov survey found that two-thirds of people say the payouts are too high, with even 58 percent of Republicans agreeing. (piss-down economics)
From & Friends | The Nation - The New Democrats and the Return to Power argues that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the group he founded in 1985 to push the Democratic Party to the right, has won: the party has been reformed, and there is no going back to the dark days when, according to From, Democratic presidential candidates suffered humiliation after humiliation at the ballot box for the party’s thralldom to protectionism, isolationism, “constituency groups” and the dread leviathan Jesse Leo Jackson.

Rightwing GOP senator Mike Lee defends procedural stunt on debt vote | World news | theguardian.com - Republican leaders forced into embarrassing ‘cloture’ motion to pass bill after filibuster threat from Tea Party-aligned Ted Cruz - the staunchly conservative Cruz (have you ever heard of a "staunch" Democrat?)


Why the Curious Right-Wing Silence on Michael Sam? | The Nation - Further, the Michael Sam story doesn’t really give them a way to attack the Obama administration or the Democrats, which is almost their sole function at this point.”

Chris Christie's Rise and Fall | New Republic (NJ is very, very corrupt)

South Dakota Bill Threatens Abortion Providers With Life In Prison (Red-State assholes at work)
Kansas anti-gay segregation bill is an abomination. - On Tuesday, the Kansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a measure designed to bring anti-gay segregation—under the guise of “religious liberty”—to the already deep-red state. (because Freedom!)
Amid criticism, California to modify solitary confinement rules | Reuters - Long criticized for keeping inmates in near-solitary conditions for years on end, California is developing reforms that would make it harder to send convicts to isolation-style units and offer a way out to those already placed there.

‘New York Times Magazine’ Cover on Wendy Davis Draws Criticism | The Nation - As is so often the case with politicians in recent years, the Times goes the extra mile to make them look odd or ugly or off-putting, usually in close-up shots. Then there are the downright dumb efforts, such as the woman-in-the-moon Hillary Clinton graphic earlier this month.

Mayor Invites Volkswagen to Expand to Lansing - "come to a real car town, leave Tennessee behind."
Daily Kos: The Mayor of Lansing, Michigan hilariously trolls Tennessee over UAW crackdown - As some of you may know, and a diary or two may have discussed, the idiot Republican Legislature and Governor of Tennessee have threatened to eliminate the tax breaks that benefit Volkswagen for placing their manufacturing plant in the State.

W.Va.: Ice buildup caused slurry spill into creek - West Virginia officials say ice buildup on a pipeline caused the spill of 108,000 gallons of coal slurry into a creek. Tuesday's spill at Patriot Coal's (Freedom! for Patriots!)
Norfolk Southern Railway says crude oil leak from derailed train in Pennsylvania amounted to 3,000-4,000 gallons - @Reuters - breakingnews.com (more patriots)
Another Day, Another Industrial Disaster: Gas Pipeline Explosion in Kentucky | Earth First! Newswire

TSA wants new generation of scanners — RT USA
Newark police to be monitored by federal watchdog, sources say | NJ.com

TED Talks Don't Cover Abortion Because They Say It Doesn't Count As A Human Rights Issue | ThinkProgress - “Abortion is more of a topical issue we wouldn’t take a position on, any more than we’d take a position on a state tax bill,” Stoetzel said, explaining that it simply doesn’t fit into TED’s focus on “wider issues of justice, inequality and human rights.” (TED run by rightwing businessMEN)
The Empowerment Elite Claims Feminism | The Nation - It might have been the homogeneity of the audience—mostly white women with coiffed hair—or the gift bag so voluminous that it required a “gift bag guide.” Maybe it was the ticket price: nearly $1,000. (Though TED’s general conference costs more than seven times that much. Maybe this was TEDWomen’s gender-wage-gap bargain?)

Strong Religious Beliefs May Drive Self-Perception of Being Addicted to Online Pornography : News : Parent Herald - People who consider themselves very religious and view Internet porn even once may perceive they are addicted (why they are so afraid of gay sex)

Darren Aronofsky wins 'battle' with Paramount over final edit of Noah | Film | theguardian.com - The Black Swan director was 'upset' over the studio's attempt to appease religious audiences by recutting his biblical epic

Revolving Door: Top Obama Admin Antitrust Officials Tied To Comcast | Republic Report
Comcast, Time Warner Cable Deal Is A Disaster For Customers
Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable For $159 Per Share - Business Insider
Comcast takeover of Time Warner Cable 'will throttle choice on the web' | Media | theguardian.com - Angry consumer groups say proposed $45.2bn mega-deal will drive up costs for millions – and call on FCC to block takeover

The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life - Page 1 - News - Dallas - Dallas Observer - A young man's violent threat on Facebook lands him in jail, and limbo.
Facebook Adds New Gender Options - You don't have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them.
Little boy who had no one to invite to birthday party now has 13k new Facebook friends | Mail Online
Japanese hacker that taunted police with cat collar clue 'caught' (Wired UK) - Remember that hacker who had taunted the Japanese police with a series of clues, including one attached to the collar of a stray cat?

021214
Ice Storm Causes Havoc Across Carolinas, Georgia And Other Parts Of The South - Ice combined with wind gusts up to 30 mph (come to New England for real wind)
Global Warming Hearing Scheduled Right Before Expected D.C. Blizzard - By Sean Davis (see: it's snowing!)

Fukushima And The Navy: Sailors Sue Japan Nuclear Plant Owner, Saying Disaster Made Them Sick

Sex slavery an 'indescribable' wrong: Murayama | The Japan Times - Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said Wednesday that Japan committed “indescribable wrongdoings” by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as wartime sex slaves.
Bosnia on fire: a rebellion on Europe’s periphery | ROAR Magazine

Algerian Army Plane Crash Kills 77

In Yemen, questions and anger over U.S. drone targets after civilian deaths - The Washington Post - Drones are “a tool for killing outside of the law,” said Ali Ashal, a member of parliament who represents a district where U.S. cruise missiles killed 41 people in 2009 but missed their alleged target (is Obama really this stupid?)

U.S. Plummets in Global Press Freedom Rankings | Josh Stearns - the United States plunged 13 spots in the group's global press freedom rankings to number 46. (between Romania and Haiti; Obama hates journalism)
Reporters Without Borders - The 2014 World Press Freedom Index

New York Times Editor: Government Requests To Hold Info Are 'Almost Blanket Policy' - “We take every request from the government seriously, but I worry that their requests to withhold information have become almost blanket policy,” Carolyn Ryan, the Times' Washington bureau chief, told HuffPost in an email. (Obama couldn't be more super-secret)
New York Times Accidentally Leaks NSA Employee's Name

Edward Snowden asylum demand dropped by European parliament | World news | theguardian.com - MEPs fail to reach consensus on amendment to inquiry calling on governments to assure NSA whistleblower of his safety
German Government Tries To Neuter FOI Requests By Refusing To Allow Responses To Be Published | Techdirt (your Freedom of Information isn't really "free")

Clapper Reads From the Bush/Cheney/Nixon Playbook to Fear-Monger Over Transparency - The Intercept
Report: EU loses faith in U.S. ability to manage Internet | PCWorld - The European Union will push for diminished U.S. influence on Internet governance because of “loss of confidence” in the current U.S.-centric model, according to a news report.
European press chief to UK: Ease up on Guardian over Snowden leaks - Europe's main media freedom watchdog told Britain on Wednesday it believed political pressure applied to the Guardian newspaper over its handling of leaked intelligence data could have a "chilling effect" on independent journalism.
Opinion: Stop the NSA while we still can - CNN.com

Do Respectable Journalists Want to Be Associated With Bill Keller?
His Loss Is Their Gain: Bill Keller Suddenly Exits ‘The New York Times’ | The Nation - He couldn’t get Obama to bomb Syria—or make a cancer victim stop tweeting. So maybe Bill Keller felt it was time to move on.

First Look hires its general counsel away from The New Yorker | Capital New York
Appelbaum: 'No belief that president has control' | 11.02.2014 (which raises the queston of who IS in control)
NSA spying undermines separation of powers: Column - The program makes it easy for the president to spy on and blackmail his enemies. (now reverse that thought)
Drones, metadata, and 'Dirty Wars' | MSNBC - Chris Hayes talks with “Dirty Wars” author and filmmaker Jeremy Scahill about the bombshell revelations on the NSA’s metadata campaign.
Does a ‘savvy media observer’ require anonymity for smack talk? Apparently so! | Poynter. - In Lloyd Grove’s column about The Intercept, a “savvy media observer and journalist” lets Glenn Greenwald’s new publication have it:

Washington: Americans find swift stonewall on whether NSA vacuumed their data | Mass Surveillance | McClatchy DC
Reforms won’t hamper NSA’s efforts, official says - The Washington Post (nice reforms you got there)
3,000,000 sqft office building for sale - 3 million sqft of floorspace, parking spaces for 18,000 cars. Cafeteria, drugstore, barbershop, post office, ticket counter for major airlines and bank included.
The CIA Helped Build the Content Farm That Churns Out American Literature | Motherboard - he Iowa program, arguably the most influential force in modern American literature, was profoundly shaped by a CIA-backed effort to promote a brand of literature that trumpeted American individualism and materialism over airy socialistic ideals. Read: More Hemingway, less Dos Passos.

In Letter, Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Says Nothing is ‘Corrected’ at Loretto Prison | The Dissenter
LAPD scopes out Israeli drones, ‘big data’ solutions | Los Angeles | Jewish Journal

Utopia, Silk Road's Latest Replacement, Only Lasted Nine Days | Motherboard

Obama Sparks All-Out Revolt Over Socially Conservative Judicial Nominee - President Barack Obama has now infuriated abortion rights advocates, civil rights leaders and Democratic lawmakers in his push to confirm a Georgia judicial nominee they argue is too socially conservative. (anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-not-rich, perfect Obama nominee)

Unemployed Americans Increasingly Frustrated With Congressional Inaction
Is one of “the crazy ones” behind a threatening email sent to House Republicans? - Salon.com - Capitol Hill mystery! Someone in the GOP doesn't want his colleagues to raise the debt limit
Senate Passes Increase Of The Nation's Debt Limit
Obamacare Enrollment Reached 3.3 Million In January
Why Boehner capitulated | TheHill - Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) abrupt decision to capitulate and hand President Obama a straightforward debt-ceiling increase resulted from simmering divisions that have virtually paralyzed his majority.

North Dakota Oil Spill Cleanup Will Take At Least 2 More Years - Tesoro has excavated soil at depths of more than 30 feet. (drill, baby)
BP sued by Minnesota for fraud over $25 million in tank cleanups | Star Tribune - Minnesota’s $25 million case alleges that the oil giant lied about having insurance coverage to clean up leaking underground tanks.

Ohio National Guard Drill Right Wing Violence - What History Is Like Inside The Bubble - Esquire - The flying monkeys are aloft again because of documents that have revealed that the Ohio National Guard held what are perceived to be politically incorrect maneuvers, at least by various gun-fondlers, tricorn-fetishists, and freelance Buckeye paranoids of every stripe.
War On Voting - The Real Reason For The War On Voting - Esquire - Consider how Jonah Goldberg put it in a 2005 Los Angeles Times column: "Voting should be harder, not easier-for everybody. ... If you are having an intelligent conversation with somebody, is it enriched if a mob of uninformed louts, never mind ex-cons and rapists, barges in?
Maine Gov. Paul LePage Looks Set To Reject Overdose Prevention For No Good Reason - "His main objection is his belief -- and I have to emphasize 'his belief' because there is no evidence that supports this at all -- his belief that increasing the availability of Narcan or naloxone will lead the drug user or drug abuser to have this feeling of invincibility," Gideon said.
The Illuminati, "Obama's 'Secret Mistress,'" And Cancer "Cures": CNN's Gingrich Has A Bizarre Email List | Blog | Media Matters for America

The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division | PandoDaily - “Pension Peril” is secretly funded by former Enron trader John Arnold, a billionaire political powerbroker who is actively trying to shape the very pension policy that the series claims to be dispassionately covering. This refusal came despite PBS being a public institution that watchdog groups insist is subject to Freedom of Information Act regulations. (tote-baggers at work)

Police Officers Who Shot at Two Innocent Women 103 Times Won't Be Fired - The Wire

Daily Kos: Black Man in Jasper, Texas Found With Cut Throat And Missing Ear - Ruled ‘Accidental Overdose`.
Racist Restaurant that Won’t Serve ‘Ni*gers’ or ‘Fa*gots’ Gets Yelp Reviews for ‘Best Gay Bar’ (Images) | Americans Against the Tea Party

Live coverage: Ray Nagin convicted, guilty on 20 charges | NOLA.com

Christian School Faulted for Halting Abuse Study - NYTimes.com - For decades, students at Bob Jones University who sought counseling for sexual abuse were told not to report it because turning in an abuser from a fundamentalist Christian community would damage Jesus Christ. Administrators called victims liars and sinners.

Fusion energy milestone reported by California scientists - The Washington Post - In the latest incremental advance, reported Wednesday online in the journal Nature, scientists in California used 192 lasers to compress a pellet of fuel and generate a reaction in which more energy came out of the fuel core than went into it.
Study questions value of mammography to reduce breast cancer deaths - Health - Boston.com

UFC successfully sued at least one man for $12,000 last year for watching two pay-per-view streams.

This Very Complex Malware Has Been Spreading Since 2007, and It's Not Clear Where It Came From | Motherboard - While the virus, also known as The Mask, appears to have originated in a Spanish-speaking country—careto, a Spanish slang term for an ugly face, was found in the code—it's so complex that it's not clear the average hacker could have built it.
Survey: Online trolls are 'everyday sadists' - CNN.com
Trolls just want to have fun (hurting other people; congruent with Republicans)

021114
How an Anti-NSA Campaign Took Over the Internet | Motherboard

Nigerian restaurant busted for cannibal cuisine - Boing Boing - police discovered two human heads on the premises along with weapons and ammunition.
Gorbachev Threatens 'Daily Show' Reporter For Asking Him To Rebuild Berlin Wall - "Who asked for this meeting?" Gorbachev demanded. "If you bring cameras in here again, I will put you against the wall."
Transgender woman held in Toronto-area men's prison | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun - Avery Edison, who has legally been a woman since 2009, was detained Monday at Pearson International Airport when she tried to enter the country to see her girlfriend, Romy Sugden, of Toronto.
SodaStream controversy continues to bubble - Features - Al Jazeera English - Despite supporting the call to boycott Israeli goods, West Bank workers can't afford to boycott work opportunities.
Marius the giraffe killed at Copenhagen zoo despite worldwide protests | World news | The Guardian - Young giraffe unsuitable for breeding was shot, dissected in public and then fed to lions despite offers of a new home

Bateman Solutions For Military Rape - So Now What Do We Do About Military Rape? - Esquire - Part one of the solutions to the military's rape and assault crisis

? Report: Obama Administration Considers Assassinating Another American Overseas - YouTube

?Journalism drones on the rise, already flustering police — RT USA

Missouri Anti-Spying Bill Passes Committee | Nullify NSA!Nullify NSA! - On Monday, a Missouri state Senate committee approved a proposed state constitutional amendment that would protect private data and end a practical effect of NSA spying.

Snowden Says He Is Willing To Answer Questions From European Parliament, Which Also Wants Him To Go There In Person | Techdirt - from the would-that-be-wise? dept

Omidyar's New Site Hopes to Beat the Surveillance State Bloody - That site, The Intercept, is the new home of Glenn Greenwald and what might be called his merry band of left-wing muckrakers, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras. And that's why Greenwald -- as the journalistic face of the Snowden revelations -- has become such a hated figure in much of Washington. (Obama hates GG)
The Geography of Secret Places: Watching the Watchers with Trevor Paglen | Motherboard
Greenwald’s new media venture and the limits of billionaire journalism | ROAR Magazine - The Intercept can deal a major blow to the ideological apparatus of the security state — but how far can it go in attacking the privileges of the 1%?
Froomkin: The Terrible Toll of Secrecy - The Intercept - Despite their staggering implications, Obama has proceeded to establish the rules for them unilaterally, almost entirely in secret, based on dubious legal arguments, largely unchecked by judicial or congressional oversight, and with a seemingly unshakeable yet remarkably unfounded faith in their value. (at least 440 civilians dead from drone strikes; Obama keeps murdering despite knowing he's killing babies)

You Know Who Else Collected Metadata? The Stasi - ProPublica (Obama's model)

Facebook: "We Need Government Surveillance Reforms" | Motherboard
Lights Out for NSA? Maryland Lawmakers Push to Cut Water, Electricity to Spy Agency Headquarters - US News
#StopTheNSA lights up Twitter - Tal Kopan - politico.com
ODNI 'Releases' Month-Old Public Document, Pats Self On Back For Its 'Transparency' | Techdirt

On the Day Ron Wyden Asked Whether NSA Complied with US v. Jones, It Collected 4 Billion Cell Location Records | emptywheel
How Obama Officials Cried 'Terrorism' to Cover Up a Paperwork Error | Threat Level | Wired.com (more image control failure)
Judge Renews Protection Order for Military Colonel That Limits Drone Protesters’ Rights | The Dissenter

The Daily Dot - In the age of mass surveillance, we are all black - In 1971, activists burglarized an FBI field office in Media, Pa., taking several dossiers that exposed the existence of COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram). They passed the material to news agencies, but many organizations initially refused to publish them. The information documented long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordering his agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of the civil rights movement and its leaders.

SOPA Vs NSA Protests, In Pictures | TechCrunch
Boston equips city buses with 360-degree live surveillance cameras — RT USA - This week the city began installation of the high-tech and internet-ready cameras on 10 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority busses across the greater Boston area, but by summertime they expect to have a fleet of 225 vehicles totally equipped to monitor the activities of MBTA passengers.

Why Does This Anti-Censorship Interview From 1959 Seem Terrifyingly Relevant Today? - Rod Serling (best known for creating "The Twilight Zone") sits down to discuss censorship in the media. It's over 50 years later, and now it's the Internet's turn to deal with neutrality and censorship. By the way, how crystal-smooth is Rod Serling's voice?

Here's What Bothers Keith Ellison About Obama's National Security Programs - Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said Monday that the "assassination" of American citizens under President Barack Obama's drone warfare program is unacceptable, and called the scope of surveillance activities carried out by the National Security Agency "disturbing." (your authoritarian Pres is still "wrestling" about killing Americans)

John Boehner To Bring Up Clean Debt-Ceiling Vote
How The GOP Plans To Crush The Tea Party Revolt
White House Forcefully Defends Latest Health Care Law Change - One of the president's top advisers on Tuesday accused Republicans of being transparently political in their criticisms of delays made to the Affordable Care Act.
“Explosive” New Revelations About HRC: No There There by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But also because it brought back the disgraceful bilge volcano of the Clinton years-the non-stop garbage peddled and sleazed by Drudge and Rush and the then frisky young Fox Network, the fact that the Clintons were accused of drug-trafficking, murder, financial scandals and all sorts of vile craziness-none of which proved to be true. And no apologies have ever been forthcoming from the greasy perps.

Eric Holder Backs Restoration Of Voting Rights For Former Felons (after governing as a Republican for six years, Obama is trying to appeal to his base)

Republican Donors Worry About Chris Christie's 2016 Prospects - Christie's robust persona and blunt style can pack a room. Some donors, however, have expressed reservations about his future ("robust" personality)
Washington Death Penalty Suspended By Governor Jay Inslee - ov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state, announcing a move that he hopes will enable officials to "join a growing national conversation about capital punishment."

GOP Debt Ceiling Bill - Is Anyone Even Listening To John Boehner Anymore? - Esquire - Is anyone listening to Boehner any more? His caucus is completely beyond his control; he needs 10 percent of it to agree to allow the country to pay its damn bills, and he can't be sure he has that ... there are only two kinds of Republicans in the Congress at the moment -- the ones who have no intention of governing, and the ones who have forgotten how. (he can barely get 18 votes not to let the country go bankrupt: we are ruled by terrorists, how ironic)

Republicans Defend Websites That Tricked Donors Into Believing They Were Pro-Democrat | TechCrunch (they alway lie, cheat and steal)

West Virginia Water Hearing - Another Step In The Clean Getaway - Esquire - In other words, over a month after the spill occurred, the answer given by most responsible officials to the question, "Can we drink the water yet?" is "Fked if we know." Overregulation is such a burden. (drinker beware - Freedom! for death corps)
Breaking: Third Coal-Related Spill in the Last Month Contaminates West Virginia Waterway | EcoWatch (maybe you guys should try voting for someone else)
? Bakken explosion near Tioga - YouTube

Wall Street Journal Writer James Taranto's Rape Column Draws Outrage - In a column on Monday entitled "Drunkenness and Double Standards," Taranto suggested the female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated.
WSJ Editor: Intoxicated Sexual Assault Victims Are Just As Guilty As Their Attackers | Blog | Media Matters for America - Taranto's victim-blaming approach furthers his attempts to disingenuously redefine the problem of sexual assault as a problem of alcohol
The WSJ Needs to Stop Publishing James Taranto's Rape Apologia (they obviously didn't)

Yes, building more apartments can stabilize rents - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Good news from the Oakland of the North. Because the city (unlike the home of the NFC runner-ups) has not egregiously abused zoning laws to protect the financial interests of incumbent landlords, at great costs to both renters and the environment, rental costs’ previous upward trajectory appears to be stabilizing. sunk costs can be a particularly difficult concept to grasp when you’re the one who did the sinking in the first place.

Steve Stockman's Conflicting Statements On His Record Draw Questions - He told The Dallas Morning News in 1995 that he had reported to jail for a two-day sentence stemming from a traffic violation and officers found three 10 milligram tablets of Valium in his underwear during a strip search.

Statistics on Religion in America Report -- Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life - Key Findings and Statistics

Video: Darth Vader Watches Man Smash Cop Car At Hollywood Walk Of Fame: LAist - A man violently smashed the windows of an LAPD car in the heart of Hollywood's Walk of Fame today. Oh, and Darth Vader was right there watching him.

PayPal chief reams employees: Use our app or quit | VentureBeat | Business | by Jordan Novet - David Marcus sent a memo to employees working at PayPal’s San Jose, Calif., headquarters yesterday, scolding them for not installing the company’s app and forgetting their PayPal passwords.
A Screaming Comes Across the Sky: Google vs. the Counterforce - NYTimes.com
Silicon Valley Is Now Public Enemy No. 1, And We Only Have Ourselves To Blame | TechCrunch
Netflix, YouTube Streaming Gets Worse on Major ISPs, Who In Turn Blame the Deep, Dark Mysteries of the Internet | Techdirt - from the what-the-hell-is-going-on dept
Google Video Quality Report
What The DMCA System Is NOT For: Shutting Down Twitter Accounts You Don't Like And Sending Anonymous Tips | Techdirt - "Their tweets are also in violation of the International Thespian Society"

021014
The Intercept - The Intercept (swamped on rollout)
The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program - The Intercept
New Photos Of NSA Headquarters Revealed By Trevor Paglen | The Creators Project
Welcome to The Intercept - The Intercept - By Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill
How to Securely Contact The Intercept - The InterceptThe Intercept
Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill: The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program. "At least 273 civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have been killed" : worldnews (when will Obama's trial be held?)
Glenn Greenwald's new website launches with fresh NSA revelations | Media | theguardian.com - The Intercept one of several sites to be launched by new media company First Look, started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar
Glenn Greenwald's New Website, The Intercept, Is Now Live

Georgia governor declares state of emergency as winter storm looms | World news | theguardian.com - With memories of thousands of vehicles gridlocked for hours on icy metro Atlanta highways fresh in their minds, officials in north Georgia prepared Monday for another round of winter weather, with the governor declaring a state of emergency for 14 counties. (up to an inch of snow)
Florida Ordinance Makes it Illegal for Homeless to Use Blankets to Protect Themselves from Weather

Syrian regime and opposition begin new round of talks in Geneva | World news | theguardian.com - UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is due to hold separate talks with each side on Monday morning
Iran agrees to explain nuclear detonators to IAEA | World news | theguardian.com - Development marks a step forward in international efforts to settle decade-old dispute over Iran's nuclear programme
Spain orders arrest of former Chinese president, others over Tibet | Reuters - allegations of genocide in Tibet.
Congo warlord Bosco Ntaganda led ethnically motivated murder, ICC told | World news | theguardian.com - Prosecutors say he was key in planning attacks on civilians in north-east DRC, but defence denies ethnic character of conflict
Email Shows Chinese Regulator Asked Jamie Dimon For A Job 'Favor': Report - China's top insurance regulator directly asked JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon to hire a family friend as a "favor", The New York Times reported, citing a confidential email.
Suicide Bomb Instructor Accidentally Kills Iraqi Pupils - NYTimes.com - BAGHDAD — A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said.
Frustrated by Karzai, U.S. Shifts Afghanistan Exit Plans - WSJ.com - The U.S. military has revised plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan to allow the White House to wait until President Hamid Karzai leaves office before completing a security pact and settling on a post-2014 U.S. troop presence, officials said.
Hotline lets callers inform on Jewish-Arab couples | The Times of Israel - Lehava group steps up campaign to stop intermarriage and ‘save the daughters of Israel’ from their non-Jewish suitors (sounds like ...)
The B.D.S. Threat - NYTimes.com (Roger doesn't like BDS)

Drone Attack Controversy: Obama Administration Wrestling With Whether To Target U.S. Terror Suspect - And President Barack Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House. (unnamed; could be Snowden?)
US Suspect Possibly Targeted for Drone Attack - ABC News - An American citizen who is a member of al-Qaida is actively planning attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials say, and the Obama administration is wrestling with whether to kill him with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy issued last year.

Tyrone Hayes Surveillance - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - In reaction to the revelations by Edward Snowden of the activities of the all-too-human, but curiously error-prone, heroes of our intelligence community, many people have argued that we have no legitimate expectation of privacy any more anyway. (Because...intertoobz!) (just like Google!) -Not only does the Obama Administration, in the person of former regulations chief Cass Sunsteinm come off really badly, but, more important, this is the surveillance state in action, in the daily lives of people far removed from it.
Researchers uncover cyber spying campaign dubbed 'The Mask' | Reuters - A computer security software firm has uncovered what it calls the first cyber espionage campaign believed to be started by a Spanish-speaking country, targeting government agencies, energy companies and activists in 31 countries.
NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show - The Washington Post
DARPA's Building a New Search Engine to Crawl the Deep Web | Motherboard
A Surprisingly Easy Tool for Encrypting Email, Courtesy of an Ex-NSA Employee | Motherboard

Email shows effort to shield bin Laden photos - McRaven's order to purge the bin Laden material came 10 days after The Associated Press asked for the photos and other documents under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Typically, when a freedom of information request is filed to a government agency under the Federal Records Act, the agency is obliged to preserve the material sought — even if the agency later denies the request. (always above the law)

Cecily McMillan Trial Begins. Faces 7yrs in Prison After NYPD Beating - that left her beaten and unconscious.
Occupy activist faces up to seven years in jail for 'assault' on police officer | World news | theguardian.com - Defence to claim blow from elbow was unintentional • Cecily McMillan, 25, has spent two years awaiting trial = “We’re going to present evidence that indicates: No1 that she had no idea it was a police officer behind her and No2 that she reacted when someone grabbed her right breast.” (7 yrs for being sexually assaulted by one of Bloomfuck's cops)

Trolling Could Get You 25 Years in Jail in Arizona - A sweeping update to the state's telecommunications harrasment bill could make naughty, angry words a Class 1 misdemeanor. Or worse. any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person." (Republicans hate the First Amendment)
$10m look into games and gun violence a bust - Boing Boing - After the Sandy Hook shootings, at presidential behest, $10 million was allocated to to explore links between gun violence and video games. A year later, Mike Rose reports that nothing seems to be happening. (Obama hates video games, wasted $10million trying to prove a connection)

Florida prosecutors file legal charges against heavy Bitcoin traders | Ars Technica
The World’s Oldest Bitcoin Exchange Might Be Dead | Motherboard - The price of Bitcoin plunged over $200 over the last few days as Mt. Gox, the world’s first Bitcoin exchange (and at one point the largest by volume) responded to user protests by indefinitely suspending Bitcoin withdrawals on Friday, citing technical issues

GOP grows confident of Senate takeover - James Hohmann - politico.com (as Obama destroys the Democratic Party)
The Hillary Papers | Washington Free Beacon - Their conclusion: “What voters find slick in Bill Clinton, they find ruthless in Hillary.”
Marc Caputo: Hillary Clinton's Univision ties met with near-silence in media; 'pay-to-play' claim from GOP - Marc Caputo - MiamiHerald.com
US relaxes strict rules on potential immigrants with limited terrorist links | World news | theguardian.com - First action by Obama on immigration since State of Union • Automatic bar lifted for giving ‘limited material support’
Does National Public Radio Have the Ability to Control Its Obsession With the National Debt | Beat the Press (Republican tote-baggers)

Chris Christie Investigators Issuing New Subpoenas In Bridgegate Probe - At least a dozen new subpoenas were authorized Monday by a New Jersey legislative committee investigating a plot by aides to Gov. Chris Christie to create traffic gridlock on the George Washington Bridge, apparently for political retribution.
Christie bridge scandal: Recipients of 18 new subpoenas revealed | NJ.com
Prominent New Jersey Newspaper Says It Regrets Endorsing Chris Christie - New Jersey's most highly-circulated newspaper, The Newark Star-Ledger, said on Sunday that it regrets endorsing Chris Christie in his last campaign for governor.
Chris Christie Morning After - Chris Christie's Morning After - Esquire - After losing an endorsement from New Jersey's biggest newspaper, Chris Christie has been sashaying from town to town like some corrupted beauty queen
In Inquiry, It’s Christie Against Prosecutor - NYTimes.com - For most of the nearly 1,600 days that Paul J. Fishman has been the United States attorney for New Jersey, he has carved out a strikingly different path from the juggernaut who preceded him: Gov. Chris Christie. (the screw turns)
Lawyers for Christie administration seeking documents, interview with Hoboken mayor - NorthJersey.com
Amid Christie Scandal, Buono Says Some Democrats Have ‘Buyer’s Remorse’ - NYTimes.com (the race Obama ordered Dem money to stay out of)

Interviewer Apologizes For Misquoting Scott Walker On Reagan Comment - Right Wing News apologized Monday for misquoting Walker during its January interview. (which makes no grammatical sense)

Eschaton: One Of America's Worst People Leaves NYT - Last seen going after a cancer patient for clogging up the twitters with all her bummer cancer stories, Bill Keller is apparently leaving the NYT. A legacy of horrible. Cut entitlements? Check. The internet makes us stupid? Check. Delaying important stories? Check. Support horrible wars because it sent a thrill up your leg? Check. Learn absolutely nothing from that? Check. Firing someone for once being associated with a liberal cause? Check. (it's a start, anyway)
Bill Keller, Former Editor of The Times, Is Leaving for News Nonprofit - NYTimes.com - will leave the paper to become editor in chief of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism start-up focused on the American criminal justice system.

North Carolina Protest - The Massive Protest You Missed This Weekend - Esquire - Somewhere around 100,000 people got together in Raleigh this weekend in order to petition the newly insane state of North Carolina to stop being insane any more.

Trey Gowdy Democrats Work Scheme - Leave The Poets Alone - Esquire - Trey Gowdy is a congresscritter from down in the home office of American sedition, and he's had quite enough of you lazy moochers and your trochaic tetrameters.

Scrap the KXL project - So it is with great sadness that I inform you that I have decided to terminate my Democratic Party registration, and ask others to join me, if you decide to approve construction of the northern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Tanks in West Virginia leak not in compliance months before, official says | World news | theguardian.com - Federal safety official says chemical tanks ‘not necessarily’ in compliance months before spill that contaminated water supply

largest mental health center in America is a huge compound here in Chicago, with thousands of people suffering from manias, psychoses and other disorders, all surrounded by high fences and barbed wire. Just one thing: It’s a jail. The only way to get treatment is to be arrested.
NFL Executives Say The League Isn't Ready For Michael Sam - speaking with 12 different NFL GMs, coaches, and scouts, and to a man, they say that being gay will either hurt Sam's draft stock, or cause him to not be drafted at all. Also to a man, they refuse to put their names behind their comments. A sampling:

The Millions : Style Sheet: A Conversation with My Copyeditor

Pilots often head to wrong airports, reports show | The Detroit News

NRA Board Member: Bullied Children Commit Suicide Because Young Boys Have Been "Neutered" | Blog | Media Matters for America

Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 051303 (2014): Evidence for Massive Neutrinos from Cosmic Microwave Background and Lensing Observations

Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface : news (their best products; why Wall St is stupid)
Author: When It Comes To High-Speed Internet, U.S. 'Falling Way Behind' : All Tech Considered : NPR - "You may think it's the YouTube application. You may think there is something wrong with your computer. It's probably the network provider making life unpleasant for YouTube because YouTube has refused to pay in order to cross its wires to reach you. And we'll be seeing much more of that kind of activity in the future."
Hello Reddit – I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Microsoft founder. Ask me anything. : IAmA
The Daily Dot - Two strikes against the 'six strikes' advisory board - Over the past year, 625,000 Comcast customers have received anti-piracy letters warning them about their online behavior, according to information obtained by TorrentFreak. (Leahy bought and paid for)

020914

Inside the Israeli-made security system at Sochi | GlobalPost - An Israeli company called NICE Systems (yes, really) (but funded with your tax dollars and now in Russian "hands")
Class War In Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Government Is On Fire - revolution-news.com - Capitalism’s “creative destruction,” which robbed Bosnians of their resources, while allowing Western-backed feudal barons enrich themselves in the name of “the market,” finally got what it deserved. (the Western "oligarch model")
Photo by youranonnewsorg - Brilliant #Graffiti from #Turkey on the Internet #Censorship Law.

French Jews Migrate To Israel Citing Rising Anti-Semitism - “If my children are to live their full Jewish identity, their future is in Israel and not in France,” (your "full Jewish indentity" doesn't work in a secular state)

Military Sex Abuse Investigation: Documents Reveal Chaotic Punishment Record - The handling of allegations verged on the chaotic, with seemingly strong cases often reduced to lesser charges. In two rape cases, commanders overruled recommendations to court-martial and dropped the charges instead.


Alleged Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Pleads Not Guilty On All Charges - Forbes - Those charges, which were formally levied against Ulbricht on Tuesday, claim that he conspired to traffic in narcotics, hack computers, and launder money, as well as that he engaged in a “continuing criminal enterprise,” a charge sometimes called the “kingpin statute,” often aimed at mafia and cartel bosses.
Is Freeing a Duck Terrorism? » North American Animal Liberation Press Office - A lawsuit filed today seeks to strike down the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. (w.t.f. - the marketing of "terror")
Whack Job: Conflating Character Assassination With Investigative Reporting in the #NATO3 case | Chicago Indymedia (don't trust Steve Horn)

The Cult Of The Savvy Slays The Congressional Budget Office: Your Sunday Morning Conversation - And yet, lots of reporters and headline writers got it wrong. It's crazy. (reporters really aren't that smart and a lot are Republicans)
The GOP Thinks Obamacare Is Making You Lazy - Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Sunday suggested that Obamacare is making people lazy, shifting away from a now-discredited GOP talking point on a recent nonpartisan jobs report update on the health care law. (these people are truely evil)
AOL chief reverses changes to 401(k) policy after a week of bad publicity - The Washington Post - AOL is the first known major company to have adopted the controversial 401(k) policy change and then reversed it. Other companies, including IBM and Deutsche Bank, have cut pay and stuck to their policies. (now if they would reverse his obscene salary)
Tim Armstrong blames “distressed babies” for AOL benefit cuts. He’s talking about my daughter. - That “distressed baby” who Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter.

Could the ACA help the millions of Americans drowning in debt? A new study of Massachusetts health care reform offers some clues. (get sick and die, moochers)
Crybabies of the 1 percent: Spoiled rich kids, Tom Perkins and the real affluenza - Salon.com - Forget affluenza. The rich's real "disease" is failing to get that their privileges come at a price: our contempt
Opinion piece of the day: Paul Campos on the whining one percenters by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The lyrics, as you’re probably aware, are by Stephen Sondheim (my brother wears a dress, that's why I'm sick)

How Dogecoin Occupied Wall Street | Motherboard


This Is Why So Many Reasonable People Think Anti-Marijuana Crusaders Look Ridiculous - "When it comes to marijuana, the only ones stumbling around, grumbling incoherently, and slowly dying off are those fighting to keep it illegal," (+zombie invasion)

Why do we #optout?: Just fighting the good fight. – @ THE CHALK FACE - Common Core Testing using Smarter Balanced requires the 100 % proficiency level. There is no escape. We will all fail. And we’re supposed to. This ”proves” the failing schools narrative and allows reformers to close our community schools. (the game is always rigged in favor of corps)

Water safety threatened by North Carolina coal ash spill, group says - latimes.com - Arsenic levels in the samples were 35 times higher than the maximum containment level set by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water, the group said. ("perfectly safe to drink" says coal company)
Illinois Mine Safety Head Took Thousands in Campaign Contributions from Coal Baron Chris Cline | EcoWatch - Over several years, including time while Mayville was responsible for regulating Illinois coal mines, he collected thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies owned by billionaire coal mine operator Chris Cline. In November 2013 a fatal accident occurred at a coal mine owned by Chris Cline and regulated by Tony Mayville.

Texas Man won't be Prosecuted for Killing Cop in No-Knock Raid | The Libertarian Republic
Kentucky State Police Begin Operation R.A.I.D. - Operation R.A.I.D (Remove aggressive, Impaired. and Distracted Drivers from Kentucky Roadways) will remain active for one year. This includes eating and drinking. (sipping water or coffee while driving now "aggressive")
Charlevoix County News reporter faces felony charge - Charlevoix Courier: Crime - Video from a fatal airplane crashing in Boyne City is causing a local Charlevoix County News staffer some turbulence of his own. Michigan State Police arrested Damien Leist, 38, of Boyne City, at his home Jan. 29 for “photographing dead body in a grave,” a felony in Michigan with a maximum two years in prison and possible $5,000 fine. (they will always find a reason)

Is An Emotional Affair Worse Than A Sexual One? Men And Women Disagree - 72 percent of men said sexual affairs were worse than emotional affairs. 69 percent of women said emotional affairs were worse than sexual affairs. 76 percent of women would forgive their partner for a strictly sexual affair Only 35 percent of men would forgive their partner for a strictly sexual affair.
Try Doubting Everyday Sexism After Watching This Video
Iris Krasnow’s new book, Sex After ...: Women Share How Intimacy Changes as Life Changes interviews midlife and older women about sex.

The Dylan Farrow case and the power of internet by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
The New York Times publishes an open letter from Dylan Farrow, accusing her adoptive father Woody Allen of sexual assault by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Compartmentalizing Woody Allen: What America chooses not to see - Salon.com - Dylan Farrow has written an eloquent letter accusing Woody Allen of abuse. Will Hollywood listen?
My response to Roxane Gay about public intellectuals and Dylan Farrow — Woody Allen week continues! by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Why Young Sexual Assault Victims Tell Incoherent Stories - Natalie Shure - The Atlantic - As soon as children make allegations, they're forced to take a crash course on a very daunting topic. This puts them at a huge disadvantage—and their attackers count on it.
I Believe Dylan Farrow: But Whom You Believe Depends on Which Story You Recognize - The Cut
s In The Court Of Public Opinion, Let’s Try Preponderance Of Evidence As The Standard | The Raw Story
Brainwashing Woody | Excremental Virtue
How we failed Dylan Farrow: What we’ve learned since 1992 - Salon.com - The way investigators handled Farrow's allegations against Woody Allen would never happen today
Cool Justice: Maureen Orth cooks Woody Allen like Thanksgiving Turkey - 10/07/13
Soon Yi Iq | 'I've been a model, model father,' says Woody Allen - Baltimore Sun - August 25, 1992

4 Books to Scare the Life Out of You
Morning music: Dum Dum Girls, “Lost Boys and Girls Club” by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Meanwhile, here’s a video from the new Dum Dum Girls album, Too True. (comment: "It's Ronettes without the desire, Shangri-las without the melodrama, Darlene Love without the chops, and Blondie without the sex and irony. And without the fun of any of them.")

How Marriage Impacts Health - Business Insider - Married Men — Not Women — Are Fatter Than Their Singleton Counterparts
PW puts local musician with suspicious number of Twitter followers on cover :: Blogs :: The Naked City :: Philadelphia City Paper

iOS vulnerability allows to disable 'Find My iPhone' without password - The Hacker News - Users are recommended to activate Apple’s device Lock system, which blocks a thief from erasing and re-activating a stolen phone unless they enter your Apple ID and password.

020814
?Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO — RT News

Civilian Casualties In Afghanistan Rise, More Children Dying In Violence: Report (see Iraq)
? Warlords of Tripoli (Part 1/5) - YouTube

Twitter / davidfrum: Ever get the feeling that for ... - many reporters on Iran deal, it’s more important that Israel lose than that US win? (American press not pro-Israel enough)
Sochi in History - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - But on the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi and the surrounding areas, it’s helpful to look back and remember that 600,000 locals died from starvation, exposure, drowning and massacres in a concerted campaign by the Russian Empire to expel the Circassian people, as they were called, from the region.
NBC Cuts Anti-Discrimination Comments From Olympics Opening Ceremony
The Fifth Ring: How Conspiracy Theories are Born | Mother Jones - As we all know, there was a glitch in the Olympic opening ceremonies yesterday. But not everyone saw it:

Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and 'Dirty Tricks' - NBC News.com
Brit Spies used sex and dirty tricks: above the law: docs)

Snowden Keeps Outwitting U.S. Spies - The Daily Beast - A new assessment of the damage caused by Edward Snowden’s breach of classified U.S. intelligence networks on first glance looks catastrophic. But first impressions can be deceiving.

Mike Rogers' Comments Are Latest in Disturbing Pattern of Intelligence Officials Attacking the First Amendment | Freedom of the Press Foundation (Constitution violaters in the mold of Obama)
“The NSA Doesn’t Spy On Americans” : Just Security - Over at Lawfare, Ben Wittes is making excuses for the intelligence officials who’ve been saying the NSA doesn’t spy on Americans. Ben acknowledges the statement is false—“not quite accurate,” is his rather dramatic understatement. (it's not quite accurate to describe down as up)
PBS's Smiley Doubles Down On Praise of 'American Hero' Edward Snowden | NewsBusters - Smiley’s eagerness to repeat his offensive notion that an American traitor should be memorialized on a postage stamp as well as bringing on a guest who supports these extreme views expose how out-of-step the PBS host’s views are with the American public. ("American public" = Republican traitors +DiFi and Obama)
The terrifying surveillance case of Brandon Mayfield | Al Jazeera America - With NSA overreach, nobody is safe from confirmation bias (guilty until proven innocent; FBI always has their man)

The Story Behind 'Milk Road,' The Bitcoin Cookie Stand - Forbes

DOJ Plans To Recognize More Rights For Same-Sex Couples


It's Lonely At the Top - Will Republicans ever realize that deifying business owners is bad politics?

Drumthwacket is Stalag 13 » Balloon Juice - And Chris Christie is Sgt Schultz:

Republican Official Says Gays Should Be Purged From GOP, Blames Homosexuality On Satan - Mary Helen Sears of Houghton County in the state's Upper Peninsula (true spawn of Satan)

Cops With Google Glass: Horrible Idea, Or Good One? - Slashdot

Los Angeles: FB Page Goes Viral Calling for “Repairs, Not iPads” | Diane Ravitch's blog - Two Los Angeles teachers critical of the decision by Los Angeles school leaders to use construction funds to buy iPads have created a Facebook page that has gone viral ... raise questions about its $1 billion iPad program (making your kids stupid and Apple even richer)

Woody Allen responds - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Dylan Farrow responds: Woody Allen is lying in New York Times column.
Dylan Farrow's brother speaks out against mom Mia Farrow, defends Woody Allen: ‘Of course Woody did not molest my sister’  - NY Daily News - Dylan Farrow also shot back at her brother’s claims, saying his words come as a ‘betrayal’ to the family.
Dylan Farrow Responds to Woody Allen: 'Distortions and Outright Lies' - The Hollywood Reporter - the only final ruling in this case, by the New York Supreme Court in 1992. In denying my father all access to me, that court: (Dylan doesn't know what the "The New York Supreme Court" is)
The Woody Allen - Dylan Farrow case: media spin for the Farrow family? | Michael Wolff | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The debate over Allen's alleged abuse of Dylan played out in the media two decades ago. Very curious how it's back again (Ronan's show)
Andy Thibault - The Litchfield County state's attorney thought he'd seen it all - and then he ran into Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.
A Question for Mia Farrow: If You Hate Child Abusers, Why Are You Still Friends With Roman Polanski? | The Daily Banter
Farrow: Polanski was in despair | Media | The Guardian - Actor tells libel trial she did not see director misbehaving in restaurant
Roman Polanski's victim on accusations leveled at Woody Allen: "Everybody should pull back and not make this such a public thing" – Piers Morgan - CNN.com Blogs


Baybrook Remodelers, Still In The Midst Of Suing People For Negative Reviews, Deploys A Disastrous SEO Hitman | Techdirt - from the hand-me-that-optimized-shovel,-will-ya? dept
After 5 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes
Google posts large privacy violation notice on French homepage — Tech News and Analysis
Google Overtakes Exxon As Second-Biggest US Company | Zero Hedge

020714
Free Trade Disagreement - NYTimes.com (Obama and his super-secret non-transparent corporate deals)
Kip Currier Copyright and "Open" Movements Blog: Free Trade Disagreement; New York Times, 2/4/14 - "Issa and other members of Congress have voiced concerns that the leaked versions of TPP suggest that the United States is promoting Internet policies that Congress specifically rejected in January 2012, when the House killed the Stop Online Piracy Act... (when you've lost Daryl the terrorist ...)

4th Financial Services Executive Found Dead; "From Self-Inflicted Nail-Gun Wounds" | Zero Hedge
Exclusive: Pentagon to boost missile defense spending by over $4 billion: sources | Reuters

Security Researcher Punches Holes In NBC's 'Everyone Going To Sochi Will Be Hacked" Story; NBC Doubles Down In Response | Techdirt - from the because-'being-careless-will-get-you-hacked'-isn't-headline-material dept (bet they reply to all their Nigerian spam too)
How The Copyright Industry Made Your Computer Less Safe | Techdirt

Fitch downgrades Ukraine's credit rating as currency controls are imposed | World news | theguardian.com - Ratings agency fears steep and uncontrolled depreciation of the currency as central bank limits private transfers abroad of around $5,700 a month
Russia Denies Leaking 'F*** The EU' Call - An aide to Russia's deputy prime minister, who was among the first to post a video online containing a bugged phone call between two U.S. diplomats, says neither he nor the Russian government played a role in leaking the tape.

Now Even AIPAC Says It's Not The Right Time To Advance Iran Sanctions Bill (the worms crawl away from the light)
70 percent of Israelis distrust US on key security issues in peace deal - poll — RT News - Tensions escalated last week when Kerry spoke of "an increasing de-legitimization" campaign building up against Israel internationally and "boycotts" if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained unresolved ... Israel’s Minister of Strategic and Intelligence Affairs for International Relations told journalists that what Kerry said was "unfair and intolerable." (the truth is always unfair and intolerable to them)

Anonymous leaks Singapore govt employees' personal data | ZDNet - In response to recent arrests in Singapore linked to Anonymous, the hacktivist group is threatening to release more personal info unless it sees "a sense of justice and fairness" from the government.
Airport riot mars end of China's new year holiday | Reuters - A riot at a major airport in China by passengers angry about delays caused by heavy snow has marred the end of the traditional week-long lunar new year holiday, state media said on Friday, as millions rush to return to work.
Brazilian Police Employ Bloody Repression On Protest Against Bus Fare Increase - revolution-news.com
Globes [online] - Israel to exchange bank account data with US

Stephen Kim Agrees to Plea Deal in North Korea Leak Case | Mother Jones - As you may recall, this is the infamous case where the Obama/Holder DOJ was caught classifying a journalist, James Rosen of Fox News, as an "aider and abettor" of espionage.... (Obama hates journalists)
Guilty plea in Fox News leak case shows why Espionage Act prosecutions are unfair to reporters' sources - Boing Boing

Statement on GCHQ's war against Anonymous - Project PM
RCMP and CSIS face complaints of illegal spying on environmental activists opposing oil pipelines | Georgia Straight, Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly (gov spies are an arm of the corps)

Obama administration starts to implement changes to NSA phone records program - the court granted a motion to modify the most recent primary order authorizing the 215 phone records program to ensure that the metadata will only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a "reasonable, articulable suspicion" that the selection is associated with an international terrorist organization "absent a true emergency."
NSA is collecting less than 30 percent of U.S. call data, officials say - The Washington Post

Minister reveals phone calls monitored by Dutch intelligence services instead of NSA - Xinhua | English.news.cn
CIA confirms agency obliged to follow federal surveillance law | World news | theguardian.com - Law concerns financial information and government hacking • Motive for question at Senate committee not known (are they their own country, or not?)
Police Could Access Medical Records in the UK's New Health Database | Motherboard

Glenn Greenwald Plans Return To United States To Test Press Rights | FDL News Desk - Glenn Greenwald plans to “force the issue” by returning to the United States despite the possibility that he may be arrested.
How Edward Snowden went from loyal NSA contractor to whistleblower | World news | The Guardian - He was politically conservative, a gun owner, a geek – and the man behind the biggest intelligence leak in history. In this exclusive extract from his new book, Luke Harding looks at Edward Snowden's journey from patriot to America's most wanted
emptywheel and First Look Media: Beginnings and Continuity | emptywheel - As Pierre Omidyar and Eric Bates just announced, I will be joining First Look Media as part of a new magazine that will publish Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and others’ work. It’s really exciting to join Glenn and others in their work, and to join the larger First Look effort as it launches.

Twitter: Transparency rules violate First Amendment | Al Jazeera America
Twitter Says DOJ's Settlement On National Security Requests Not Good Enough; It Will Fight For The Right To Disclose | Techdirt - from the good-for-twitter dept
This iPhone-Sized Device Can Hack A Car, Researchers Plan To Demonstrate - Forbes
Popular Resistance Newsletter – People-Powered Media Beats Corporate Media | PopularResistance.Org

Journalism After Snowden: A Conversation About Digital Privacy, State Surveillance, and First Amendment Rights of Journalists | LeakSource
Former CIA director: In order to spy on domestic dissidents, just call them Terrorists | Privacy SOS
Verdict in Chicago NATO 3 trial: guilty of mob action and arson, but not terrorism - Boing Boing
NATO 3 cleared of all terror charges | Privacy SOS - The verdict is a major hit to the dangerous implication, insinuated at all levels of law enforcement for decades in the United States, that dissent and terrorism are interchangeable
Chicago jury deliberates in alleged NATO summit attack plot | Reuters - The men are accused of planning attacks during the Chicago meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials using firebombs, targeting police stations and President Barack Obama's re-election headquarters, along with other locations.

Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Lawmakers must understand that we will no longer tolerate a surveillance state. An online protest on 11 February is a first step

Keystone Pipeline - The Keystone Pipeline Is (Basically) On - Esquire
Obama Bundler Nominated As Ambassador To Argentina Says He's Never Been There
Barack Obama's Conservative Utopia - Esquire

Hullabaloo - Senator Warren asks the right questions - "Does anyone on this panel seriously think that the government's current enforcement for financial crimes is actually working in the sense of deterring future lawbreaking?" (Obama is a banker)
US adds just 113,000 January jobs as unemployment rate dips to 6.6% | Business | theguardian.com - Freezing winter weather in America blamed for another set of lackluster figures that fell short of forecasts of 180,000
US turns to 'extraordinary measures' on debt but GOP will not use default threat | World news | theguardian.com - Deal must be done on debt ceiling by end of February • Speaker Boehner: ‘We’re not going to default on our debt’

AOL’s Tim Armstrong Blames ‘Distressed Babies’ -- Daily Intelligencer
AOL chief cuts 401(k) benefits, blames Obamacare and two “distressed babies”

Author: When It Comes To High-Speed Internet, U.S. 'Falling Way Behind' / ideastream - Northeast Ohio Public Radio, Television and Multiple Media - The U.S. needs to start treating the Internet like electricity or railroads, law professor and author Susan Crawford says. "We can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement," she says. (and not by corp-owned Obama who did nothing for six years about Bush's giveaway)

If You Thought You Couldn't Go To Jail For Debt Anymore, You're Wrong - Business Insider (they brought back the debtor's prison, of course)

Woody Allen Speaks Out - NYTimes.com
Dylan Farrow Responds To Woody Allen's Op-Ed, Calling His Response Full Of 'Outright Lies'
Woody Allen responds: I’ve been falsely accused, Mia Farrow coached Dylan - Salon.com - In an op-ed in the New York Times released tonight, he denies molesting Dylan, and blames acrimonious Mia split
What Cate Blanchett should say if she wins the Oscar - Salon.com - She'll have to decide whether to thank Woody Allen -- and that decision matters video
10 Undeniable Facts About the Woody Allen Sexual-Abuse Allegation | Vanity Fair
Here's The 1993 Woody Allen Custody Ruling In Its Damning, Detailed Entirety | Danny Shea
The Secret Report From 1993 That EXONERATED Woody Allen: Doctors Told Cops That Dylan Farrow’s Sex Abuse Story Was ‘Fantasy-Like,’ Influenced By Mom Mia — Read It Here | Radar Online

Public Health Advocates Find Flame Retardant Fight Follows Familiar Formula - The companies' claim turned out to be a "big lie," Gillham, a corporate affairs consultant who has also worked for the tobacco industry, told The Huffington Post.
Did The First Person Ever Really Just Die Of Marijuana Poisoning? Here's Why That's Unlikely. - "From half a joint? That's ridiculous," Dr. Yasmin Hurd, professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the paper.

Judge denies bail for Florida ex-cop charged in movie theater shooting - CSMonitor.com - A Flordia judge has denied bail for retired Tampa police officer Curtis Reeves, who faces charges for fatally shooting Chad Oulson during an altercation in a Florida movie theater.
Oakland officer arrested by S.F. police in IHOP gun case - SFGate - Officer Kevin Kelly was cited by San Francisco police and released for allegedly showing a gun to a server in an attempt to impress her
Sheriff Fires Cop Who Threatened to Arrest Me for Taking Photos of Cops | Slog - King County deputy Patrick "K.C." Saulet has been fired for threatening to arrest me last summer, when I was photographing several officers on a downtown street corner, and then lying to investigators about the incident, says King County sheriff John Urquhart.

Amazon.com: 100 Books To Read In A Lifetime: Books
Stephen Wilkes
Sweeping Images - Imgur - Stephen Wilkes

Are Cats Spies Sent by Aliens? A Deep Examination of One of the Internet's Best Conspiracy Theories | Motherboard - cats are alien camcorders tracking our every move.

The Google-Microsoft ecosystem war: a full history | The Verge

020614
Sao Paulo Biggest Water-Supply System May Run Dry Within 45 Days - Bloomberg

US official apologises to EU counterparts for undiplomatic language | World news | theguardian.com - Victoria Nuland reportedly said ‘Fuck the EU’ speaking of Ukraine crisis, though department didn’t confirm it was her voice on tape - Blaming the Russians for leaking a conversation that was presumably obtained by covert means poses problems for the US, as documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the US has in the past listened into the communications of its allies, as well as enemies.
Obama official: 'F--k the EU' | TheHill - President Obama's top diplomat to Europe has been caught on tape saying “F--k the EU.”
U.N. nuclear watchdog expects cooperation at last in Iran inquiry | Reuters
One Night at a Palestinian Land Reclamation Party | VICE United Kingdom - the ongoing "peace" process led by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Although the specifics of his plan are unknown, the general outline is clear; it would allow Israel to maintain a significant military presence – complete with US-funded drones and surveillance equipment – in the Jordan Valley for the next ten years, supposedly to quash any "destabilising" security situation
Vatican envoy rejects UN panel's critical verdict on clerical abuse scandal | World news | theguardian.com - Committee attacks church's handling of sex abuse allegations, but archbishop says findings are outdated and ideological
Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law - Boing Boing
We wish Nadia and Masha well – but they're no longer part of Pussy Riot | Pussy Riot | Comment is free | theguardian.com - We hope that justice will be restored on 21 February, the anniversary of our teasing performance in Christ the Saviour Cathedral, with the song "Mother of God, put Putin away!"

CPJ Risk List: Where Press Freedom Suffered - Committee to Protect Journalists - Surveillance, restrictive Internet legislation, and cyberattacks compel CPJ to add cyberspace to the list of places trending in the wrong direction.
For the NSA, espionage was a means to strengthen the US position in climate negotiations | Information - According to observers, the spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations
How UK spies committed illegal DoS attacks against Anonymous - Boing Boing - "Regular citizens would face 10 years in prison and enormous fines for committing a DoS / DDoS attack. The same applies if they encouraged or assisted in one. But if you work in the government, it seems like you're an exception to the rule."
Did an undercover cop help organise a major riot? | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - The wrongly convicted activist John Jordan claims the Met helped plan serious civil disorder. An independent public inquiry is now vital
These Are the Companies the FAA Has Harassed for Using Drones | Motherboard

Snowden Keeps Outwitting U.S. Spies - The Daily Beast - A new assessment of the damage caused by Edward Snowden’s breach of classified U.S. intelligence networks on first glance looks catastrophic. But first impressions can be deceiving. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said if one were to stack the documents stolen by Snowden it would be three miles high. (+Rep Rogers is a dumbfuck)

FBI Checks Wrong Box, Places Student on No-Fly List | Threat Level | Wired.com - The government contested a former Stanford University student’s assertion that she was wrongly placed on a no-fly list for seven years in court despite knowing an FBI official put her on the list by mistake because he checked the “wrong boxes” on a form, a federal judge wrote today. (they are never wrong about anything)

First Look Media to launch with Snowden-themed online magazine | Media | theguardian.com - New journalism outlet funded by Pierre Omidyar will start publishing next week, as company announced new hires

EFF Challenges New Jersey Subpoena Issued to MIT Student Bitcoin Developers | Electronic Frontier Foundation (New Jersey had no standing but the judge didn't agree)
US Gov’t Track Record on Cybersecurity: Fails Basic Preventative Measures; Common Password on Systems is “Password” | LeakSource
EFF's HTTPS Everywhere + Firefox = most secure mobile browser - Boing Boing - Iphone and Ipad users will unfortunately have to switch to Android to get this level of security because Apple has locked Mozilla Firefox out of their platforms.
New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours at a time - The Washington Post
Facebook Domain was almost hacked by Syrian Electronic Army
How to Find out Anything from Anyone | TIME.com - A former intelligence officer shares interrogation tips for getting people to spill on first dates and their salaries
How Seecrypt Protects Your Phone from Call Surveillance | Motherboard
When Facebook's Terms Of Service Decide What Kind Of 'Speech' Is Okay, Activists Get Silenced | Techdirt - from the that's-a-problem,-isn't-it? dept

JustOneMinute: Power Station Sniper - What motivated the sophisticated sniper attack on a San Jose power station last April? The Times wonders:
Judge orders Cal Fire to pay $30 million for ‘reprehensible conduct’ in Moonlight fire case - Fires - The Sacramento Bee

Target Hackers Broke in Via HVAC Company — Krebs on Security - According to the company’s homepage, Fazio Mechanical also has done refrigeration and HVAC projects for specific Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and BJ’s Wholesale Club locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

Obamacare's Founding CEO Wants To Bring Single Payer To Massachusetts - On his first day as governor of Massachusetts, Donald Berwick promises to set up a commission tasked with finding a way to bring single payer to the Bay State. It'll have report back to him within a year -- ideally sooner. (alternative to Martha Fucking Coakley)

Jobless Benefits Fall One Vote Short After GOP Filibuster
CNN Poll: Is Bush still to blame for economy? – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - More Americans continue to blame former President Bush and the Republicans. But the number who say the GOP is more responsible - now at 44% - has dipped below the 50% mark for the first time since Bush left the White House. Fourteen percent blame both parties equally
The Koch Brothers Left a Confidential Document at Their Last Donor Conference—Read It Here | Mother Jones - A list of one-on-one meetings between VIP donors and the Kochs and their operatives offers a revealing look into their mighty political machine.
Twitter / roshart: "Yes, the planet got destroyed. ...
» Blog Archive » The poor persecuted rich
The Four Principles of Prosperity | Ian Welsh
Pete Seeger's Last Letter | The Fretboard Journal
Living on Earth: Remembering An Afternoon WIth Pete Seeger

James Carville joins Fox News - politico.com - James Carville, the "ragin' cajun" Democratic strategist, has signed on with Fox News, the network announced Thursday.

AOL Chairman Slashes 401K Benefits, Blames Two Women Who Gave Birth To Sick Babies | ThinkProgress - “We had two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general,” Armstrong said. (apparently, AOL directly pays their employees' health bills)
Progressive linguist George Lakoff: ‘Liberals do everything wrong.’ | The Raw Story (seems to have confused "progressives" with the Koch Bros)

Far right learning to love Christie: Corruption, payback and bluster = GOP hero - Salon.com - A new poll shows Chris Christie actually gaining support with one group of voters: People who love jerks! (and people who are jerks: Republicans)
Today in Racists - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In describing his border plan, Abbott said, “We must do more to protect our border going beyond sporadic surges…I’ll add more boots on the ground, more assets in the air and on the water, and deploy more technology and tools for added surveillance.” He instead proposed a “continuous surge” of state troopers to the region. ("war" on brown people)
? The Shocking Truth About Black People - (from @LeeCamp) - YouTube
xs
A Look At The Crazy In Oklahoma - Yeah, Both Sides Are At Fault - Esquire - This is all the kind of poison that floats through the conservative media bloodstream day after day, radio show after radio show, mass e-mail by mass e-mail, until it finally develops by sheer repetition a lucrative universe of demented suckers, and a class of politician that can't look dementia in the eye with common human sympathy. These are the fking mole people.

West Virginia water crisis: Tests show presence of chemical at 5 schools » Today's Front Page » The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia
More Bad News On West Virginia Water - The Flood Of Bad News Continued In West Virginia - Esquire - Those two schools remained closed today. Around 6 a.m., Robins Elementary cook Nicole Carte said she turned the dishwasher on and ran hot water in the sinks, like she has been told to do each morning, and the black licorice smell was instantly detectable. Carte's eyes began burning, and fellow cook Brandy Holstein said she felt nauseated.

Cops Arrests Firefighter Rendering Life Support At Major Accident Scene - Because He Wouldn't Move His Firetruck | Alternative - The tyrannical police have completely lost their efffing mind. It has gotten so bad now, that even when a firefighter that was trying to save lives at the scene of a rollover was handcuffed for not obeying the testosterone filled out of control thug of a police officer.
Officers in Dorner mistaken-ID shooting will be returned to field - latimes.com - Eight Los Angeles police officers who violated department policy when they mistakenly opened fire on two women during the hunt for Christopher Dorner will be retrained and returned to the field, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a department-wide message Wednesday.
At Least 26 Children Or Teens Died In Florida Stand Your Ground Cases | ThinkProgress (excuse to kill mostly black kids)

‘Shy’ male sues Women’s Studies teacher for failing him after he refused to attend class | The Raw Story - “I felt anxiety,” Kim told The Toronto Star. “I didn’t expect it would be all women and it was a small classroom and about 40 women were sort of sitting in a semicircle and the thought of spending two hours every week sitting there for the next four months was overwhelming.”
sexgenderbody • @asplenia: "Porn gives young people an...

Los Angeles Times Passed On Dylan Farrow Op-Ed: The Wrap

E-Cigarettes: FDA Regulation Looms for $1.5 Billion Industry - Businessweek

One Ad to Rule Them All
Campbellian anthology: more than 860,000 words of free fiction from new sf/f authors - Boing Boing


020514
UN denounces Vatican over child abuse and demands immediate action | World news | theguardian.com - Devastating UN report demands Vatican 'immediately remove' all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers - The Vatican has failed to acknowledge the huge scale of clerical sex abuse and has implemented policies that have led to "the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators"

US limits Pakistan drone strikes amid political battle over military moves | World news | theguardian.com - No drone strikes since 25 December, but lull puts onus on Sharif government to act, as on-off Taliban talks illustrate
Multiple explosions rock Iraqi capital - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - A wave of bombings in Baghdad, some near the heavily-protected 'Green Zone', leave at least 40 people dead.
Volgograd Bombings Suspect Killed By Security Forces, Russia Says - Russian investigators say security forces killed a militant who may have helped train the two suicide bombers who struck the southern city of Volgograd.
NBC News' Richard Engel: My Computers, Cellphone Were Hacked 'Almost Immediately' In Sochi - NBC News' Richard Engel said that upon arriving in Russia to cover the upcoming event, he was hacked "almost immediately" -- and privacy is not something visitors should expect to have. (if you click on that shit)
Phone-hacking jury sees letter exposing Brooks and Coulson affair | UK news | theguardian.com - Jury reads letter found by police on old computer belonging to former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks


The first congressman to battle the NSA is dead. No-one noticed, no-one cares. | PandoDaily - “Pike will pay for this, you wait and see—we’ll destroy him for this.” —Mitchell Rogovin, CIA special counsel, 1976

War on Anonymous: British Spies Attacked Hackers, Snowden Docs Show - NBC News.com
British spies launched cyberattack on Anonymous, according to leaked documents | The Verge - Operation 'Rolling Thunder' led to arrests and convictions, but some say the government's tactics went too far
The New Snowden Revelation Is Dangerous for Anonymous — And for All of Us | Wired Opinion | Wired.com - There are clearly defined laws and processes that a democratic government is supposed to follow. Yet here, the British government is apparently throwing out due process and essentially proceeding straight to the punishment — using a method that is considered illegal and punishable by years in prison. (who are the criminals?)
Jake Davis: Following Latest GCHQ Revelations, Who are the Real Criminals? (citizens rebranded as terrorists)

#NATO3 trial commentary 2/4/14 (with image, tweets) · allshiny · Storify

Why Thomas Jefferson Favored Profit Sharing - Newsweek - James Madison, the Constitution's main author, described inequality as an evil, saying government should prevent "an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches." He favored "the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort."


Christie and Romney, the GOP odd couple - The Washington Post (they never fade away)
Christie's 'High School' Attack On Wildstein Has One Big Flaw
Port Authority eliminates 'director' job created for Wildstein | NJ.com - No one really seemed to know what that business was supposed to be doing. But whatever he was doing, he made it clear he did so at the behest of the governor.
Is Chris Christie Being Treated Unfairly? - Every little thing anybody associated with him is being scrutinized. But that's the price of playing in the big leagues.
Chris Christie Republicans - Why No One Is Sticking Up For Chris Christie - Esquire - Why you're not hearing Rudy, Mitt, or anyone else defend Chris Christie
Chris Christie Presidential Run - The Passion Of Big Chicken: A Parable - Esquire - The local Jersey papers are kicking all sorts of ass on the unfolding saga of "How Chris Christie Is Not Going To Be President" -- a story on which there is all kinds of ass waiting to be kicked -- but this latest from the Bergen Record is just, well, pathetic doesn't even begin to cover it.
Chris Christie controversies are like high school antics - By Maureen Dowd
Watch: Jon Stewart compares Christie, Wildstein relationship to 'The Breakfast Club' | NJ.com

A Lot Of Media Outlets Botched The CBO's Obamacare Report
CBO director: Obamacare will reduce unemployment

The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page | The New York Observer - “I think the editorials are viewed by most reporters as largely irrelevant, and there’s not a lot of respect for the editorial page. The editorials are dull, and that’s a cardinal sin. They aren’t getting any less dull. As for the columnists, Friedman is the worst. He hasn’t had an original thought in 20 years; he’s an embarrassment. He’s perceived as an idiot who has been wrong about every major issue for 20 years, from favoring the invasion of Iraq to the notion that green energy is the most important topic in the world even as the financial markets were imploding. Then there’s Maureen Dowd, who has been writing the same column since George H. W. Bush was president.” (Abe's kid at work keepin the Times stupid +uniformly nutball rightwing commenters)
d r i f t g l a s s: New York Times Reporters Go Full Driftglass -- UPDATE - So it turns out that in a world where, for want of gainful employment, real journalists wait tables and real writers busk for nickles, the Texas deck of America's newspaper of record has been stocked with monstrously overpaid and over-privileged hacks (Not you Krugman) that anyone who can string five words together regards as a joke...by a trustifarian fop in the thrall of a bullying asshole.

U.S. Highways 'A Disaster' In Need Of Gas Tax Increase, Ray LaHood Says (Republicans hate infrastructure)
T&I Chair Bill Shuster Complicates Matters With Push for VMT Fee | Streetsblog USA - At a Bloomberg Government event yesterday, Shuster came out in favor of a plan to tax drivers not per gallon but per mile. (with an NSA GPS/tracker in every car!)

Fracking is depleting water supplies in America's driest areas, report shows | Environment | theguardian.com - From Texas to California, drilling for oil and gas is using billions of gallons of water in the country's most drought-prone areas - Fracking those wells used 97bn gallons of water, raising new concerns about unforeseen costs of America's energy rush.

Cop Who Allegedly Said ‘We Don’t Have Time For This’ Before Shooting Schizophrenic Teen Dead Has Been Indicted | ThinkProgress - A police officer who allegedly yelled “we don’t have time for this” before shooting and killing a schizophrenic teen has been indicted on manslaughter charges.

? Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham - HD - YouTube
Bill Nye debates Ken Ham [Live 15 mins from post] : EverythingScience
Discussion Thread: Nye/Ham Creationism Debate, February 4th, 2014, 7PM EST (February 5th, 00:00 UTC) (self.Christianity) : Christianity
Shorter Ken Ham Supporters: Magnets, How Do They Work? | The Raw Story
BioLogos: Science and faith in harmony

Scott Brown Rents Out Email List To Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theorist - "Dear Patriot," wrote Brown. "I thought you might be interested in the offer below from our sponsor Newsmax Health," (Scottie boy looking for a job on The View)

DARPA publishes all its open source code in one place | The Verge
Cheating and Large Testicles | Psychology Today - So, while larger testicles do not result in greater infidelity in female primates, larger testicles do correlate with high levels of promiscuity in female primates.

7NEWS - 'Merica Day ban at Fort Collins High School draws protestors; Adminstrators agree to America Day - Local Story - UrbanDictionary.com defined 'Merica as a "hick" phrase meaning "If you don't like they way things are here in Merica then you can git out."
Federal judge rules drivers allowed to flash headlights to warn of speed traps | Fox News - A federal judge in Missouri ruled this week held that drivers have a First Amendment right to flash their headlights to warn other motorists of nearby police and speed traps.

Realistic statue of man in his underwear at Wellesley College sparks controversy - Wellesley - Your Campus - Boston.com - "[T]his highly lifelike sculpture has, within just a few hours of its outdoor installation, become a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for many members of our campus community," ("many" Wellesley girls have been sexually assaulted)
Realistic statue of a man in his underwear next to a busy road in Massachusetts : WTF
Facebook's 'Spotted' pages: everyday sexism in universities for all to see | Life and style | theguardian.com - Two-thirds of female students report experiencing harassment while at university. And the way their male counterparts are using social media isn't doing much to make things better

Simon & Schuster’s New Site Will Be Another Expensive Failure | Betabeat - Second, 250 words might be an awkward length for a daily essay. It’s too long to be casually consumed on the morning commute (TELL ME EVERYTHING IN 140 CHARACTERS OR FEWER), but it’s too short to have any real value as a longer, more in-depth read. (quick reads for busy rich people)

Israel brings Dead Sea scrolls to life with upgrade of digital archive | World news | theguardian.com

Dylan Farrow's Brother Moses Defends Woody Allen - Scandals & Feuds, Dylan Farrow, Mia Farrow, Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen : People.com
Moses Farrow defends Woody Allen over child abuse accusations | Film | theguardian.com - He continued: "I don't know if my sister really believes she was molested or is trying to please her mother. Pleasing my mother was very powerful motivation because to be on her wrong side was horrible."
The kangaroo court of Twitter is no place to judge Woody Allen | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Dylan Farrow's accusations of abuse against her father could encourage forgotten victims to speak out
An Imbalance of Power: The Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow Controversy «
In The Court Of Public Opinion, Let’s Try Preponderance Of Evidence As The Standard | The Raw Story
The folly of Mamma Mia: Wouldn't Mia Farrow be better off helping her own dysfunctional family? | Mail Online

?Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby's Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?

Exclusive Inside Story on Bieber's 'Pot' Plane - NBC News.com - According to multiple law enforcement sources, the leased, luxurious Gulfstream IV on which the 19-year-old Canadian pop star, his father and an entourage of 10 friends traveled was so full of marijuana smoke that the pilots were forced to wear oxygen masks.
Hurley’s Ex-Lover Caught On Bombshell Audio Recording Revealing Ex-Prez’s White House Sex Romps Behind Wife Hillary’s Back | Radar Online - Clinton said, “Listen Elizabeth, this is the President!” Sizemore recalls. “‘I don’t have any time for this ****. I‘m keeping the world from nuclear war all the time. I’m sending a plane to pick you up.”

Twitter posts revenues of $242m but share price plummets as growth stalls | Technology | theguardian.com
Tinder Is The Night: Dating App Gets You More Ass Than the L Train | Betabeat
Verizon using recent Net Neutrality victory to wage war against Netflix - Dave's Blog - In my personal opinion, this is Verizon waging war against Netflix. Unfortunately, a lot of infrastructure is hosted on AWS. That means a lot of services are going to be impacted by this. (VRZ already ratfcking Nfix)
Don't panic, but that public Wi-Fi comes from ... inside your house - Daily Democrat Online (without paying any rent)

020414
Climate Change | New Scientist

Iran snow cuts power to nearly 500,000 homes
New Afghanistan law to silence victims of violence against women | World news | The Guardian - Small change to criminal code has huge consequences in country where 'honour' killings and forced marriage are rife
Karzai Arranged Secret Contacts With the Taliban - NYTimes.com - The secret contacts appear to help explain a string of actions by Mr. Karzai that seem intended to antagonize his American backers, Western and Afghan officials said. (all that blood and money for nothing)
Guantanamo detainee cites POW stipulation in bid for freedom - latimes.com - Fawzi Odah of Kuwait, whose father worked with U.S. troops in the 1991 Gulf War, contends in a lawsuit he should be freed when America withdraws from Afghanistan.
Video of Journalists’ Arrest in Egypt Seen as Threat to Media - NYTimes.com
$1M lawsuit after troubled teen's arm broken by police in removal from school bus - Times Union - Rotterdam chief says his officers took appropriate action
Australian PM's YouTube message flagged for 'deceptive content' - Tony Abbott's video about 'delivering on our promises' temporarily taken down. (flagged by users as a lie)
Infographic: More than 1,400 children killed by Israeli soldiers, settlers since 2000 | The Electronic Intifada
German minister calls for sanctions threat against Ukraine | World news | theguardian.com - Social Democrat's comments contradict chancellor Angela Merkel, who last week ruled out imminent sanctions
BREAKING: Scotland legalizes same-sex marriage – LGBTQ Nation - Scotland becomes the 17th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill by an overwhelming majority.
Ukraine protesters replace statue of Lenin with a golden TOILET to highlight 'corruption' in government | Mail Online (well done)

Corruption across EU 'breathtaking' - EU Commission (Spain and Greece most corrupt)
Dad Can’t Buy Daughter Shoes as Argentine Currency Falls - Bloomberg
World Shares Fall To 4-Month Low Amid U.S. Slowdown, Emerging-Market Woes
New Fed Study On Jobs Crisis Is Extremely Misleading (everyone has given up looking for a job; Obama's lowest priority)
Budget Deficit Falling To $514 Billion: CBO (i.e., rate of increase has slowed)
Wall Street Journal Ruth Wisse One Percent - I Am Confused - Esquire - The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal were taken to the zoo in the 1980s by a conservative shaman named Robert Bartley. They never truly have come home again. (thinking there's a problem with 6 people owning half of America is anti-Semitic)
Prosecuting The People Who Caused the Economic Crisis Would Be Just Like Auschwitz - Lawyers, Guns & Money : The Wall Street Journal doubles down on the claim that criticizing the 1% could lead to the next Holocaust.
27 Shocking Numbers That Reveal the True State of the Union | Politics News | Rolling Stone (Obama's America)

New Net Neutrality Bill Introduced, Has No Chance Of Passing | Techdirt - from the this-is-not-the-solution-you're-looking-for dept - it's still the same old situation trying to kludge together a temporary solution for the real problem, which is the lack of a competitive market. (Obama hates the internets anyway)

Potent Pro-Israel Group Finds Its Momentum Blunted - NYTimes.com (AIPAC is America's daddy)

James Clapper Confirms NSA Engages in Domestic Surveillance | emptywheel
Dept of Justice official admits NSA ‘probably’ spying on members of Congress — RT USA
NSA hörte Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder ab - Politik - Süddeutsche.de
Guardian reveals threats of imprisonment and closure over Snowden leaks - World Socialist Web Site (Obama ordered Cameroon to bomb the Guardian)
Pirate Party members nominate Snowden, Manning for Nobel Peace Prize — RT News - For Snowden, it is the fourth such nomination - his third this year. (momentum is building)

Intelligence chairman accuses Glenn Greenwald of illegally selling stolen material - Josh Gerstein - politico.com
Is Glenn Greenwald a Criminal? | The Nation
Senior US congressman Mike Rogers: Glenn Greenwald is 'a thief' | World news | theguardian.com - Rogers accused journalist of illegally selling NSA documents Congressman is chairman of the House intelligence committee Greenwald denounces Rogers for 'fabrications and lies' (just look at their faces)
Oh Look, Rep. Mike Rogers Wife Stands To Benefit Greatly From CISPA Passing... | Techdirt (they are always corrupt)
This Parody of NSA's PRISM Was So Good Police Almost Shut It Down | Motherboard
Alleged Silk Road creator indicted on 'kingpin' charges in New York | PCWorld
The Daily Dot - Anti-NSA activists shine giant, horrifying eye on Verizon NYC building
Anonymous hacks the FBI - We know who your agents are | TechEye - The Slovenian branch of Anonymous claims it has hacked the FBI and uploading email addresses and personal information relating to the director to online storage site Pastebin.
FBI Seized All TorMail Data And Is Using It To Catch Hackers | PopularResistance.Org
NZ spy agency in illegal Kim Dotcom wiretap 'deletes key evidence' ahead of hearing — RT News - "The GCSB spy agency seems to have deleted evidence relevant to my case against the GCSB for illegally spying on NZ residents,'' Dotcom tweeted.
Tech giants increase transparency about NSA requests. So what? - Salon.com - Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo release data about FISA requests. Let's not celebrate their efforts yet

Thomas Bach, IOC President, Slam Politicians Over Sochi Olympics - OC President Thomas Bach accused world leaders Tuesday of using the Sochi Olympics as a political platform "on the backs of the athletes," and of snubbing the games without even being invited.

US army investigates hundreds of soldiers for recruitment fraud | World news | theguardian.com - Officials tell Senate that illegal kickbacks cost the US at least $29m as part of national guard program to boost enlistment

Hundreds of Actions Are Planned to Protest Keystone XL | The Nation (Obama's death-funnel)
Senate Democrats break from Obama - Burgess Everett - politico.com - From trade to Iran sanctions, the Keystone XL pipeline, Obamacare, the National Security Agency and energy policy, Senate Democrats seem unusually comfortable criticizing the president, with only minimal concerns about repercussions from the White House.
Smithsonian Tar Sands Mining Report - More Bad News About Pipelines - Esquire - The flimsy argument advanced by the State Department has been shredded even further by a new report that you can read about in Smithsonian. The whole project is a slow-rolling ecological catastrophe from start to finish.

Antonin Scalia: 'You Are Kidding Yourself If You Think' Internment Ruling Couldn't Happen Again - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students at the University of Hawaii on Monday that the nation's highest court was wrong to uphold the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but he wouldn't be surprised if the court issued a similar ruling during a future conflict. (with Democrats)

Feds launch criminal probe into West Virginia chemical spill - CSMonitor.com - A federal grand jury has launched a criminal investigation into last month's chemical spill in West Virginia amid concerns from residents that the water still may not be safe to drink.
West Virginia calls for stricter regulation after chemical spill | World news | theguardian.com - tate officials testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday Delegates have proposed laws to improve chemical regulation (but Freedom!)

White House pushes back against CBO over jobs claim in healthcare report | World news | theguardian.com - Estimates suggest Affordable Care Act would result in 2 million fewer people working but Obama insists new law will help most Americans
The Explosive CBO Report On Obamacare Wasn't As Explosive As It Seemed - The health care law wouldn't cause those jobs to be eliminated by employers. In fact, the nonpartisan CBO's report specifically stated, "there is no compelling evidence that part time employment has increased as a result of the ACA."
Obamacare as job-killer: How the CBO thinks it'll work. - The point, however, is that we're talking about people quitting not about people getting fired.

Obama Aides Doubt Clinton Strategy - “I just don’t see any strategic value in stories positioning her as inevitable or the preemptive nominee, and I don’t think people who are out there talking about this help her, and I think she should make that clear,” (Queen Hillary)
I love it when you call me Big Poppa » Balloon Juice (Bush v. Clinton!)
Mitt Romney Speech - The Return Of "I'm Mitt Romney, Bitches" - Esquire - "I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm still all you got left.

House GOP finalizes debt-limit playbook - Republican leaders have narrowed their list of possible debt-limit strategies to two options: trading a one-year extension for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, or trading a one-year extension for repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s risk corridors. (terrorists hold America hostage)

Mike Lofgren | Gates Agonistes - One does not have to believe, as Parry does, that Gates was involved in the October Surprise, an alleged deal between the Reagan campaign and Iranian operatives to withhold return of the US hostages in Teheran until President Reagan was inaugurated. (+deep in Iran-Contra, wrong on Russia and even the CIA hated him)

Eight U.S. states have policies similar to Russia’s ban on gay ‘propaganda’ ("no homo promo" homophobe states)

Breaking: Obama’s Deputy Drug Czar admits that cannabis is less of a public health threat than prescription drugs and alcohol | MyFDL
Florida Supreme Court OKs medical marijuana for ballot | www.wftv.com

Kaiser Permanente Share | Simple, At-Home Test Will Detect Most Colorectal Cancers - collect a single stool sample at home and then send it to a lab for analysis will detect about 79 percent of colorectal cancers
60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll: Lying - CBS News - Americans are far more likely to forgive Bill Clinton than Bernie Madoff. The theme of this month's poll is about truth and lies
Graphene circuit's wireless promise
Can couples really get stuck together during sex? - "The muscles of the woman's pelvic floor contract rhythmically at orgasm. While those muscles contract the penis becomes stuck and further engorged."
A football field compared to the International Space Station - Another comparison: The United States spends about $10 billion per year in the NFL and about $3 billion in the ISS.

On Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow’s Open Letter | The New York Observer - J.D., Roman and Woody: Why ‘Great Men’ Get a Pass From Their Peers - Because Oscars matter more
Woody Allen and Young Girls: A History -- Daily Intelligencer
Mariel Hemingway Admits Woody Allen Kiss
Stephen King on Dylan Farrow’s open letter: “There’s an element of palpable bitchery there” - Salon.com - The horror author's abhorrent comments stirred outrage Monday night
Barbara Walters Heatedly Defends Woody Allen Against Dylan Farrow Allegations - "I have rarely seen a father as sensitive and as loving and as caring as Woody is," she said.
Woody Allen’s biggest defender: Robert Weide’s attack on Mia Farrow and her daughter is sleazy and passive-aggressive. - Why are so many journalists lauding Robert Weide’s sleazy, passive-aggressive attack on Mia Farrow and her daughter? - The first thing you need to know is that this is what Robert Weide’s Twitter profile looks like.
Rewatching Woody Allen - Dylan Farrow Woody Allen Movies - Esquire
Woody Allen in Exile - Esquire - 1994

Christie’s Sopranos-style mess: Why more and more stink will engulf the bridge scandal - Salon.com - Why the governor's strategy for defending himself from Bridgegate will create more sludge and grime for himself
Must-see morning clip: Is Chris Christie a “petty, vindictive bully”? - Salon.com - Jon Stewart lampoons the New Jersey governor over the ongoing "Bridgegate" fiasco

Record number of people exonerated of crimes in US in 2013 | World news | theguardian.com - Eighty-seven people cleared of conviction, including in many cases which investigation revealed no crime ever committed (which is no longer necessary to be jailed; our failed "justice" system)
RAID FILMED: Ankeny Police ‘Traumatize’ Family | WHOTV.com - Members of a Des Moines family say they were terrorized in their own home by Ankeny police.

Have 24-hour TV news channels had their day? | Media | theguardian.com

Laying tefillin while female: Modern Orthodox Judaism will not survive if it keeps alienating women. - he Fight Over Women Wearing Tiny Leather Boxes Is Why Modern Orthodox Judaism May Not Survive (submit to patriarchy)

The Most Walkable Cities and How Some Are Making Strides - More people walk to work in Cambridge, Mass., than any other large city in the country. (#1!)

Facebook’s fatal weakness: Why the social network is losing to Amazon, Apple & Google - Salon.com - Ten years in, Facebook has its eye on world domination, but one tricky hurdle stands in the way: People hate it
What does Google want with DeepMind? Here are three clues - DeepMind, a company that specialises in artificial intelligence technologies. (Skynet)

020314
Japanese radio commentator quits after being told to shut up about Fukushima nuclear plant | Vancouver's News
50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima | EcoWatch - Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye. (long history of la-di-la-radioactivity)

Worldwide cancer cases expected to soar by 70% over next 20 years | Society | theguardian.com - New cancer cases expected to grow from 14m a year in 2012 to 25m, with biggest burden in low- and middle-income countries
Al-Qaida struggles to unite extremist factions | World news | theguardian.com - Ayman al-Zawahiri co-founded al-Qaida to combat division among Sunni militants, and he is still fighting the same fight
Al Qaeda Says It Has Broken Ties With Syrian Affiliate - NYTimes.com - Al Qaeda’s top leadership moved publicly on Monday to sever the organization’s relationship with its Syrian affiliate, which has been widely blamed in recent months for stoking rebel infighting in Syria’s civil war.
Corruption scandal tests Turkey's cowed media | Reuters
The SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in the world excluding China, 2012 — www.sipri.org
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters slams Scarlett Johansson over Israel | The Electronic Intifada

? The Pathetic Reason Howard Dean Opposes a Deal With Iran - YouTube (MEK/AIPAC/Isael)

GAP Client Edward Snowden Speaks to German Press - Government Accountability Project
'Chaos Computer Club' filed criminal complaint against German government Over Mass Spying

NSA/FBI Got Access To Content Of Around 40,000 Yahoo/Google User Accounts In First Six Months Of 2013 | Techdirt (hundreds of thousands of America terrorists running around)
Judges Poised to Hand U.S. Spies the Keys to the Internet | Threat Level | Wired.com - Which is why the appellate court challenge pitting encrypted email provider Lavabit against the Justice Department is so important: It’s the only publicly documented case where a district judge has ordered an internet company to hand over its SSL key to the U.S. government — in this case, the FBI.
DEA teaches agents to recreate evidence chains to hide methods | Muckrock - Trainers justify parallel construction on national security and PR grounds: "Americans don't like it"
At the same time, the companies are still legally barred from notifying the owners of all those accounts that they've been surveilled. And don't let the limited number of accounts involved in FISA requests fool you: the NSA still has been shown to collect billions of social interactions a day on the public web, and its metadata collection affected millions of people.

Blog > Attention Internet publishers: Linking limits libel liability - In that case, Sheldon Adelson sued a Jewish political organization over a press release alleging that he had “’personally approved’ of prostitution.” Adelson claimed the claim was libelous and was not protected by any privilege, because the press release didn’t attribute the charge to any official proceeding. (yeah, that fucker)

Morning Plum: GOP may kill immigration reform because #OBUMMER
My personal Fox News nightmare: Inside a month of self-induced torture - Salon.com - I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month (no poors, except for the "handouts" and "moochers" no foreign news, and Obummer, but Megyn is hot)

News from The Associated Press - Lew says he will start using emergency measures after Feb. 7 to avoid a first-ever default on the national debt. He says he expects to exhaust those measures quickly. (America under attach by Teathugs: time to bomb them?)
Treasury secretary Jack Lew demands action on debt ceiling 'very soon' | World news | theguardian.com - Deal to avoid default runs out at end of February • Conservatives seek confrontation over issue
Janet Yellen sworn in as first woman to chair the Federal Reserve | Business | theguardian.com - Yellen makes no remarks at Washington ceremony
Chief economist’s apparent suicide is the latest in a series of bizarre deaths in the financial world this week | Financial Post - Russell Investments’ Chief Economist Mike Dueker was found dead in an apparent suicide in the United States, the latest in a series of untimely deaths among finance workers and business leaders around the world this past week. (what did they know?)
Why Are Bitcoiners Going to Jail for Money Laundering While Big Banks Walk? | Motherboard
xs Could Wal-Mart Be the Next Giant Failure in Retail? (peak Walmart?)

Study: US abortion rate lowest in four decades | Al Jazeera America - More contraception use, rather than increased restrictions on access to the procedure, behind decline

Eschaton: Yah They Screwed It All Up - So people were stranded at the Superbowl because too many people wanted to take the train home and they were way above capacity. From what I can glean from various sources (I think true, some inconsistencies in reports) (Christie's NJ Transit System at work guaranteeing profits!)
Chris Christie Allies - The Company Chris Christie Kept - Esquire - The Christie ally who prepped an official before his testimony on the George Washington bridge scandal is now fair game for investigation - : For Christie to survive his second term as Governor, many people -- all with careers, families, and dreams of their own -- would have to fall on their own swords. Such people may, in theory, exist. None of 'em worked for Chris Christie. (fat liar bully fuck is toast)
Report of Christie As Non-Goon Sounds Goonish -- Daily Intelligencer
Feds seek files from Christie's office; ex-aide Kelly won't turn over documents in response to subpoena - NorthJersey.com
GOV. CHRISTIE’S NJ STATE POLICE BODYGUARD BUSTED FOR THEFT Report by Mark Lagerkvist

Bill O'Reilly Is to Journalism What the WWE Is to Fighting - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - His Super Bowl Sunday interview with President Obama was faux-tough and filled with questions that were virtually guaranteed to fail.

The Leafly App Is Like Grindr for Weed | Motherboard - Leafly's a strain-indexing startup often described as the "Yelp of cannabis"—with "strong notes of Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary"

Philip Seymour Hoffman and a double standard over drugs | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | theguardian.com - We turn a blind eye to an unworkable law and assume it does not apply to people like us – then take draconian vengeance on others

Woody Allen: Dylan Farrow letter 'untrue and disgraceful' | Film | theguardian.com - The director Woody Allen has rebutted claims of abuse alleged by adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, and urged people to remember 'no credible evidence of molestation' was found when the case was originally investigated
Woody Allen’s Good Name – The New Inquiry - If you are saying things like “We can’t really know what happened” and extra-specially pleading on behalf of the extra-special Woody AllenHi, The Daily Beast!, then you are saying that his innocence is more presumptive than hers. You are saying that he is on trial, not her: he deserves judicial safeguards in the court of public opinion, but she does not.
Mia Farrow: Where is Her Outrage Over Her Own Brother, A Convicted Sex Offender Now In Prison? | Showbiz411 (whoa, even more complicated)
Soon-Yi Previn - Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen (comments)
Doctor Cites Inconsistencies In Dylan Farrow's Statements - New York Times
Mia Farrow's Vanity Fair Interview References 1997 Connecticut Magazine Article - Connecticut Today - September 2013
Dylan Farrow Describes Woody Allen’s Alleged Sexual Abuse in Open Letter | Vanity Fair
Exclusive: Mia Farrow and Eight of Her Children Speak Out on Their Lives, Frank Sinatra, and the Scandals They’ve Endured | Vanity Fair - October 2 2013
Allen Loses to Farrow in Bitter Custody Battle - June 8, 1993
Mia's Story | Vanity Fair - November 1992
Twitter / alivingiano: A 1976 profile of Woody Allen ...

A Torrent Site Wants to Be the New Academic Library | Motherboard - They warn in bold letters—twice—that “All files must be licensed to legally reshared,” and users are instructed to enter the license when they upload materials (though how, or if, this will be policed isn’t immediately clear).
Staples made a test that determines how many words per minute you read and how you rank up to the world average. : books

020214
Twitter / YourAnonNews: "Football, beer, and above all gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult." - George Orwell

Severe Drought Has U.S. West Fearing Worst - NYTimes.com - The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply. (evacuate)

UN Says More Than 733 Iraqis Killed In January
New Saudi Counterterrorism Law Alarms Activists - NYTimes.com - Saudi Arabia put into effect a sweeping new counterterrorism law Sunday that human rights activists say allows the kingdom to prosecute as a terrorist anyone who demands reform, exposes corruption or otherwise engages in dissent.
Israeli security minister slams Kerry over boycott threat, warns IDF may invade Gaza — RT News
IOC Urging Sochi To Sort Out Hotel Problems - Some media have arrived and found they had no place to stay, and thousands more journalists are expected to arrive Monday. (Putin hates journalists almost as much as Obama)
South Korean Protesters In Miryang Sit Surrounded by Police With Necks Chained Together For 32 Hours
Amanda Knox case judge lambasted by Raffaele Sollecito's lawyers for remarks | World news | The Guardian
Why Amanda Knox is innocent. - The Italian Justice System Is Insane
Dear Scarlett Johansson – A Letter To A Woman I Once Admired | The Jihad

transmediale - YouTube

http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.html#efmNojN05 - “it was the police who made up the charges”.113 (Sweden's false rape case falling apart)
Juristen fordern Schlussstrich unter Assange-Fall - Radio Schweden | Sveriges Radio (Swedes realize their governmanet if fucked up)
SMS from Swedish woman at centre of Assange case say police "made up the charges" against Assange. : worldnews

David Miranda's detention: a chilling attack on journalism | World news | The Guardian - When the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald was detained at Heathrow airport last August under the Terrorism Act, MI5 were pulling the strings and knew full well that he wasn't a terrorist (but they were)
NY Times' Jill Abramson: Obama Crackdown Has Created 'Freeze' On Reporting - New York Times editor Jill Abramson once again condemned the Obama administration's crackdown on leaks, saying that the government's treatment of Edward Snowden has scared potential sources and created a "real freeze" on reporting. (Obama hates journalism even more than Putin does)

Canadian Wifi spying: Harper's secretary spins, lies, and slanders in Parliament - Boing Boing - The most shameful part of this was when Calandra used ad hominem to distract his audience from his government's criminal acts, slandering journalist Glenn Greenwald by calling him a "porn-spy," incorrectly stating that Greenwald had sold the leaked documents to the CBC, and then making a big deal out of the fact that Greenwald's bank account is in Brazil. The last part would be a bit mysterious, except for the fact that Greenwald lives in Brazil. (a known haven for terrorists)
UK media alarmed by govt bill allowing seizure of journalists’ notes, files — RT News - UK media organizations have warned that if a government bill authorizing police to seize journalists' notebooks, photos and digital files is passed Monday, it could seriously endanger press freedom in the country. (UK outlaws journalism; sounds like Egypt/Turkey)
NSA and GCHQ spoofed LinkedIn to hack Belgian cryptography professor — Tech News and Analysis - Belgium’s federal prosecutor is looking into the likely hacking of noted cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater by the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ, as first reported on Saturday morning by De Standaard. There are many hypotheses (about 12 or 15) but it is certainly an industrial espionage plus a surveillance of people working about civilian cryptography.”

The NSA Gathering Metadata No Different Than Feds Making Copies of Your Mail | Nullify NSA!Nullify NSA! - Time to #NullifyNSASupporters of NSA spying come up with all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify its gross violations of the Fourth Amendment.
Google knows nearly every Wi-Fi password in the world | Computerworld Blogs

Brazil Must Offer Edward Snowden Asylum, Glenn Greenwald Says - Journalist Glenn Greenwald believes the Brazilian government should offer asylum to Edward Snowden, the ex-CIA analyst currently taking refuge in Russia.
After Snowden: How vulnerable is the internet? - The internet was designed to be free and open. Eight months after Edward Snowden's first leaks of classified information, is that still the case?

jeremy hammond – tribute to a badass anarchist hacktivist | we are not afraid of ruins - Jeremy Hammond, 28yrs old, sits in a Federal Prison right now. Since March the 5th of 2012, over ten months ago, he has been held without bail or trial. Jeremy is accused of accessing the intelligence firm Stratfor and its database then releasing 5 million internal emails. He is facing numerous charges having the potential of sentencing him up to 37yrs to life in prison. (Obama's priorities and no speedy trial for you)
Green is the new red: The problem of treating activists as terrorists | TED Blog
Reality Denial: Steven Pinker’s Apologetics for Western-Imperial Violence | Public Intellectuals Project

Coming to a Post Office Near You: Loans You Can Trust? | Sen. Elizabeth Warren - it is worth reading David Dayen's article about it at the New Republic -- "The Post Office Should Just Become a Bank: How Obama can save USPS and ding check-cashing joints."

Hillary Clinton calls on Senate not to impose more sanctions on Iran | World news | theguardian.com - Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential heir apparent, has urged her former Senate colleagues not to pass new sanctions on Iran, even as she called the Islamic Republic a “threat to global security”.

Watch Chris Hayes Explain Why Obama Is Like An Addict When It Comes To Oil - Obama has been like an addict who knows he has a problem—in this case, with oil—but isn't taking the steps to do anything about it. Hayes urged Obama to reject the Keystone pipeline.

Republicans face 2016 turmoil - The Washington Post - serious conversations about whether it could happen,” said Lanhee Chen, Romney’s former policy adviser, who noted the recent release of a documentary showing Romney in a new light. “The overwhelming consensus is ‘probably not,’ but it’s not completely far-fetched.” (Romnoid 3.0!)

Christina Genovese Renna, Chris Christie Staffer, Resigns Amid Probe - A member of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's administration who has been subpoenaed in an alleged political payback investigation has resigned.
Chris Christie Mounts Defense, Rips Into Former Ally David Wildstein
Worse Than I Realized - It's genuinely shocking that a sitting governor and presidential aspirant finds himself or his key defenders writing a sentence like this: "He was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior."

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wrong on N.J.'s AshBritt contract: Editorial | NJ.com - Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is a partner in a lobbying firm that works for AshBritt, the giant Florida debris-removal company. He’s also a big backer of Gov. Chris Christie. (how the wheels turn)
The Daily Dot - Rob Ford closes out January with a jaywalking ticket - Ford eventually lost sight of the crosswalk, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ticketed the pride of Toronto for jaywalking.

Gay-marriage debate takes new twist in Oregon: religious exemption | Reuters - whether the state should be the first to allow florists, cake makers and others to refuse to participate in these weddings on religious grounds. (your cake-maker with a public business is "participating" in your wedding)

Hillary Clinton, Richard Branson, and the 25-Year-Old Wunderkind Dems Fell For - NationalJournal.com (Dems have grifters too)

Cops cheer NYPD Officer Richard Haste, charged in death of teen Ramarley Graham - NY Daily News - 'That’s how they work,' Graham's mother cries
video: Warren officer restrains, cuts hair of a woman - Fox 2 News Headlines - "There is a policy about removing wigs, but, that doesn't cover scalping a person," says Griem.
Cop Charged with Purposely Spreading HIV for Nearly 7 years, Brags About Sex with Victims | Filming Cops - Women in multiple cities and counties have been issued a warning to come forward immediately for testing, after a police officer, Ervans Saintclair, has been charged with intentionally spreading HIV to multiple victims as far back as 2007.

An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow - NYTimes.com
Dylan Farrow’s Story - NYTimes.com
Twitter / kgosztola: Here's @Eric_Alterman refusing ... to imagine what it's like for girls to be led into attics by Woody Allen:
Twitter / Eric_Alterman: Not so fast: http://t.co/fOrYixRi5m
The Woody Allen Allegations: Not So Fast - The Daily Beast - Twenty-one years after the first allegations that Woody Allen abused his adopted daughter, that incident is back in the news thanks to the director’s ex-partner, Mia Farrow, and estranged son, Ronan Farrow. But what does a closer examination reveal?
Cate Blanchett responds to letter by Woody Allen's daughter, Dylan Farrow | Film | theguardian.com - ‘What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett?,' Farrow had asked in open letter alleging Allen sexually abused her (if you call that a "response")
tossitinsecret comments on So imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter. Are you imagining that? Now, what’s your favorite Woody Allen movie?
The New York Times publishes an open letter from Dylan Farrow, accusing her adoptive father Woody Allen of sexual assault by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Ronan Farrow: young blue eyes | From the Observer | The Observer (Brando, really)
Twitter / tejucole: http://t.co/dGz2Fg8UN8

The Romance of Birthright Israel | The Nation - By providing all-expenses paid trips to Israel for Jewish young adults, US funders and Israeli politicians are creating the next generations of American Zionists.
Jewfros in Palestine — Crooked Timber
Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl - Triple Canopy

Teen's Epic Monologue Will Change How You View Hospital Patients (video)

California marijuana legalization supporters to start collecting signatures for ballot measure | 89.3 KPCC
Legal Weed Causing Sky-High Travel Demand To Denver - people from around the U.S. are searching for flights to Denver much more than they used to and the spike began just as the state's new retail marijuana laws went into effect on Jan. 1.

If It's Hip, It's Here: The 62 Naughtiest, Raunchiest and Sexiest Christmas Ornaments Available - Pornaments.

Catching neutrinos with Fermilab's massive next-generation detector | The Verge - The detector is as wide as a basketball court and about twice as long, making it quite a large contraption and the largest free-standing plastic structure in the world.
‘On’ switches for cells | Harvard Gazette - Researchers find early developmental signal hidden amid ‘noncoding’ RNA

BBC - Blogs - Adam Curtis - WHAT THE FLUCK! - amara Mellon is best known for creating the Jimmy Choo brand - and empire.

Hackers steal Western Michigan University professor's paycheck | MLive.com - "If the hackers are this smart that they can go in there, wait and delete the email, you would have to be watching your computer almost continuously," he said.
Two factor Authentication - secure your Microsoft account [Tip] | wpCyte
How Putin's cronies seized control of Russia's Facebook | The Verge - Amid mounting pressure from the Kremlin, Pavel Durov steps away from the internet giant he created

020114
Violence Grips Thai Capital On Eve Of Election

Hundreds protest against Israeli settlements - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Palestinians and Israeli activists occupy abandoned houses in Jericho to protest against settlements in West Bank.
Why Israel Fears the Boycott - NYTimes.com - These days, Israel seems as terrified by the “exponential” growth of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (or B.D.S.) movement as it is by Iran’s rising clout in the region.
Canadian Privacy Law Blog - Google+ - CSEC has no legal authority to collect metadata (including WiFi) of Canadians without a warrant
Terrorizing Dissent: Harper's approach to defining terrorism is shamelessly bald | rabble.ca - the Harper Conservative playbook. For instance, organizations (most famously KAIROS Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives) failing to toe the government's "with-Israel-through-fire-and-water" line have been defunded and denigrated as anti-Semitic. (AIPAC runs Canada too)

The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail: Secrets of the Illuminati, or, Yay, Cookies! | FrontBurner | D Magazine - At the end of 1990, the U.S. federal prison system held about 65,000 inmates. At the end of 2010, it held 210,000. (Obama loves putting people in prison)
Lawyers for Lavabit founder: judges may dismiss civil liberties concerns | Technology | theguardian.com - Ladar Levison challenges contempt of court order • Secure email service was used by NSA leaker Snowden
Are CIA Cyber-Spooks Hacking Americans' Computers? | American Civil Liberties Union - At Wednesday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, titled "Global Security Threats," Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) hinted that CIA agents might be engaging in abusive cyber operations against Americans. And CIA Director John Brennan did little to dispel the notion. (but DiFucker saved his butt)

Meet the Press with David Gregory - Sundays on NBC News - Julian Assange on Snowden, Spying

Postal Service Banking: How the USPS Can Save Itself and Help the Poor | New Republic - The Post Office Should Just Become a Bank How Obama can save USPS and ding check-cashing joints

Fort Lee Mayor: There Are 'Credibility Issues' With Latest Christie Allegations - "Look, from my perspective, from Fort Lee's perspective, there's obviously credibility issues with Mr. Wildstein and he certainly is bucking for immunity."
Christie Critics Seize On Ex-Loyalist David Wildstein's Claims
$4.8M in Sandy Relief Money Went to Fund Luxury Apartment Tower in New Brunswick | New Brunswick Today - Gov. Christie's Administration Struggles to Explain Connection Between Hurricane and Boraie Development's Skyscraper at 135 Somerset St. (corrupt mob boss "Fat Fuck" Christie under fire)

David Brooks Wants Bowles-Simpson for Everything -- Daily Intelligencer - Brooks alone has cited Bowles and Simpson in nearly two dozen columns. (Brooks is a Whig, or something)

Washington Redskins Hire All-Star Villains -- Daily Intelligencer - The Washington Redskins, fighting off campaigns to force them to change their team name, have hired not only comically sleazy Washington lawyer Lanny Davis but also consulted an entire roster of Beltway super-villains
? Proud To Be - YouTube

Obama Lies to Jake Tapper About His Ability to Reschedule Marijuana | Just Say Now (stupid or lying?)

Man with rifle, machete arrested for threatening ex-President Bush | Reuters - A New York man sitting in a car that had a loaded rifle, machete and a container of gasoline was charged on Friday with threatening to kill George W. Bush after professing a romantic interest in the former president's oldest daughter, prosecutors said.


KAALtv.com - Austin Man Avoids Prison for Child Sex Abuse - Court documents show the abuse started when the girl was seven years old. It lasted for five years.
KAALtv.com - Questions Raised Over Child Molester's Sentence


The Daily Dot - How federal agents became the movie industry's copyright enforcers - "Industries are getting taxpayers to do their work for them. What other industries get federal agencies to act as their own private police force? It's nauseating," said Aram Sinnreich, a journalism professor at Rutgers University and author of The Piracy Crusade, a book on the music and film industry's anti-piracy efforts.
Expansion urged for the Web's upcoming 25th year | PCWorld
GoDaddy Updates Its User Protection Policies In Wake Of Infamous Twitter Account Extortion | TechCrunch

013114
In The American West, A Battle Unfolds Over Bugs, Climate Change And The Fate Of An Iconic Species - "You have a bureaucracy that changes slowly, and you have an ecology that is being compressed in time in a way that we've never experienced as humans on this earth,"

Stand Up Against the Surge by Molly Ivins on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent (Molly Ivins' last column)

Gaza residents fear another Israeli military offensive | Mondoweiss
Israel strikes Gaza after rocket attack - Al Arabiya News
Breastfeeding Is Now Required By Law In The United Arab Emirates - The Emirates' Federal National Council has passed a clause, part of their new Child Rights Law, requiring new moms to breastfeed their babies for two full years, The National reports. Now, men can sue their wives if they don't breastfeed.

Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize | Free Snowden (up to three)
Edward Snowden's weasel ways - latimes.com - I was the Snowden of my day, a disaffected ex-spy who rocked the security community. But I took my lumps. (Frank Snepp +LAT commentors pretty harsh)

It’s not just the NSA: local prosecutors can get your data without a warrant, too | Privacy SOS
Obama: Clapper ‘should have been more careful’ in congressional testimony | TheHill

TSA Agent Confession - politico Magazine
Fear and self-loathing: confessions of a former TSA agent | The Verge

Undercover police testifying at NATO 3 trial : chicago
NATO 3 trial’s most alarming revelations aren’t about the defendants: Brown - Chicago Sun-Times

Now we know Ottawa can snoop on any Canadian. What are we going to do? - The Globe and Mail
CSEC Snowden docs: MPs grill defence minister on spying revelation - Politics - CBC News - Tories say independent report shows CSEC obeys law as NDP, Liberals call tracking, spying illegal
Canadian spies illegally tracked travellers using free airport Wifi - Boing Boing
How the cops watch your tweets in real-time | Ars Technica - Products like BlueJay search all your tweets, then present results to cops.
New Google patent suggests automatically sending your videos and photos to law enforcement

Google Glass At The Movies - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - how in the unshirted fk does the fear of movie piracy impact the security of my beloved Homeland? What's the national security apparatus of the country doing running the ball for entertainment conglomerates in a situation that, if it ought to involve the government at all, should be the province of the FBI? How are the profits of Fox Searchlight a national security concern?
MSNBC Phil Griffin Reince Priebus - How Not To Run A Liberal TV Network - Esquire - But some poor bastard -- whose identity, I guarantee you, the flying monkeys are at the moment seeking because they need an actual head on the wall -- has lost a job behind this now because Griffin took a ridiculous figure like Reince Priebus seriously. This is like getting held up by mail.

Elizabeth Warren Explains Why Income Inequality Has Gone Up Under Obama

GOP Slams ‘Imperial’ Obama After Fewest Executive Orders In 100 Years (CHART)

Montana GOP Candidate Calls Hillary Clinton The 'Anti-Christ' - The candidate, state Sen. Ryan Zinke, is one of five Republicans competing for the nomination to succeed Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT) who is likely to run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). (new meme)

Futile pursuits: chasing rainbows and rescheduling cannabis - Jacob Sullum, always willing to let his ignorance be the measure of other people’s knowledge, utterly unwilling to let mere facts get in the way of libertarian ideology, and eager to please his paymasters by slagging a Democratic President, illustrates my point in his response to the latest CNN Obama interview.

Ex-Port Authority Official Says ‘Evidence Exists’ Christie Knew About Lane Closings - NYTimes.com (tick ... tick ... tick)
Letter From Wildstein’s Lawyer on Lane Closings - NYTimes.com - Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew about the lane closings as they were happening, a letter released on Friday by the lawyer of David Wildstein said. JAN. 31, 2014
Chris Christie should resign if bombshell proves true: Editorial | NJ.com
Chris Christie is falling apart: His hilarious 2016 hubris finally takes its toll - Salon.com - As a new report finds him looking at '16 general election, he loses a top promoter and polls show him fading fast
Looks Like Christie Shouldn’t Have Dissed the Nerd » Balloon Juice - if this NYT story accurate, that means Christie LIED FOR TWO HOURS DURING PRESS CONFERENCE
They Play Rough - I learned a lot more about the Christie bridge scandal tonight. This from a TPM Reader who must remain anonymous because ... well, they play rough. (the Jersey Mob)
Chris Christie Bridge - The End Of Big Chicken? - Esquire

About That Coin - NYTimes.com - Some comments I’ve seen indicate that people still think the trillion-dollar platinum coin idea was self-evidently ridiculous. Guys, you missed the memo — literally. From last month:

Catholic diocese files for bankruptcy protection - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena filed for bankruptcy protection Friday as part of a proposed $15 million settlement for hundreds of victims who say clergy members sexually abused them over decades while the church covered it up.
Maine Supreme Court sides with transgender girl in fight over school restrooms | The Raw Story - Administrators at Asa Adams School in Orono, part of Regional School Unit (RSU) 26, told Maines that she could not use the girls’ bathroom in 2007. On Thursday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-to-1 that the school violated the Maine Human Rights Act.

Millions Are Now Realizing They're Too Poor For Obamacare - Now, 764,000 low-income adults in Florida will remain without insurance because of the coverage gap, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. And they're beginning to understand the tragic consequences of that public battle (Rick "Lex Luthor" Scott conducted his own panel and sent 764,000 low-income adults in Florida off to the unensured death camps)

“Cynical and diabolical”: Issa attracts allies in quest to demolish Postal service - Salon.com - Union president tells Salon the lawmaker is “a pure enemy of the Postal Service” -- and he has bipartisan partners

These Are The Colleges Accused Of Mishandling Sexual Assault Cases (infographic1)

Fox's Free Lunch Double Standard | Blog | Media Matters for America - Fox's compassion for these children, presumably from homes with the means to typically purchase school lunches, stands in stark contrast to the network's treatment of school meals for low-income children.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin Apologizes To Reince Priebus Over Tweet, Fires Employee - MSNBC tweeted Wednesday night, "Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family." The message referred to the backlash against a Cheerios commercial in 2013, and the network apologized for the tweet shortly thereafter.

Eschaton: Are There No Prisons? (all you need to know about prison-state America in one chart)
Omaha cop, fired for beating suspect, then raiding house of citizen who recorded him, is back on the job - Boing Boing
Lawsuit: Denver sheriff's deputy ignored inmate's screams in attack - The Denver Post - A Denver sheriff's deputy ignored an inmate's blood-curdling screams and looked on with indifference as a group of fellow inmates brutally attacked him and scalded his genitals with hot water, the man's attorneys wrote in federal court filings filed this week.

Watch: Jon Stewart slams Republicans for their bullsh*t SOTU reaction - Salon.com - "The Daily Show" host isn't buying the GOPs' pleas for bipartisanship
A defamation lawsuit may kill National Review - Salon.com - Conservatism's flagship publication is losing a legal battle that could end in disaster - Climate scientist Michael Mann is suing National Review and Mark Steyn, one of its leading writers, for defamation.

The Inside Story Of The Charlatan Who Duped The Nation's Top Conservatives | ThinkProgress (dumb and dumber)
Food Stamp Cuts Leave Rural Areas, And Their Grocers, Reeling : The Salt : NPR - "In many rural areas around the country, we do have, proportionately, maybe higher participation in the SNAP program," Anderson says. "And a lot of that gets spent locally, obviously, because that's where it can be spent, in those local grocery stores." (Republican war on people who live in their districts)

"Where is this phantom poo?" Park inspector alleging poocrime refuses to disclose location of poo - Boing Boing

Quantum Cloud Simulates Magnetic Monopole - Scientific American - quantum simulation,
JohnFatherJohn comments on Quantum Cloud Simulates Magnetic Monopole : Physicists have created and photographed an isolated north pole — a monopole — in a simulated magnetic field, bringing to life a thought experiment that first predicted the existence of actual magnetic monopoles more than 80 years ago.
Simulation: Quantum leaps : Nature News & Comment - Fully fledged quantum computers are still a long way off. But devices that can simulate quantum systems are proving uniquely useful.

New York Times: Is waxing your pubic hair déclassé? - Salon.com - As goes the pubic hair of wealthy professional women, so goes the nation

California Cracks Down on Hacker Boot Camps | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
The Daily Dot - French police arrest the man who tortured a cat and recorded it for Facebook - The Frenchman who was captured on video brutally torturing a cat has been arrested less than a day after 4chan flooded social media with his personal information. (internets wheels of justice are very fast)
PayPal denies providing payment information to hacker who hijacked $50,000 Twitter username : technology

013014
? NASA | Six Decades of a Warming Earth - YouTube
California May Have Hit Its Driest Point In 500 Years And The Effects Are Frightening (68% of psychopathic Republicans think warmist propaganda is a liberal plot to deprive them of the lifestyle and Jesus)

Turkey's Re-loaded Internet Censorship Bill Set to be Passed Thursday - Proposed amendments to Law No. 5651 would provide for additional penalties on authors, content providers, and users of content it deems inappropriate with no effective means of redress.

Legal experts: Illegal to spy on Denmark and the UN | Information - It is not legal for a foreign intelligence service to spy against Denmark and the delegates at a UN summit on Danish soil. But Denmark can only respond through diplomatic channels
Snowden Docs: U.S. Spied on Negotiators At 2009 Climate Summit (the climate is a terrorist)

Vice-admiral Michael Rogers to take command of embattled NSA | World news | theguardian.com - Rogers is currently commander of navy Fleet Cyber Command Richard Ledgett will become the NSA's new deputy director New leaders to face ongoing fallout from Snowden disclosures
NSA Sees "Grave Damage" to National Security If Draft Talking Points on Surveillance Released | Freedom of the Press Foundation
Lessons in FOIA Terrorism by Jason Leopold — Beacon - The Freedom of Information Act is one of the most powerful tools available to journalists and the public. I’ll show you how to use it aggressively.
FBI Director admits to warrantless cell phone location tracking, citing 'relevance' standard | Privacy SOS - the FBI has finally ‘fessed up and admitted that it does not obtain a probable cause warrant to demand our location information from cell phone companies.

How to Spot a Paranoid Libertarian - Bloomberg - Cass R. Sunstein (this guy is on the PCLOB)

Immersion: a people-centric view of your email life (how your metadata looks to the NSA)

Did an Angry Birds Leak Risk Spies’ Lives? - The Daily Beast - So far, the U.S. intelligence community has described the damage from Edward Snowden’s leaks in vague terms. Now they say the leaks could have fatal consequences–especially the one about the U.S. spying on smartphone apps.
Terror Defendant Challenges Evidence Gathered by NSA Spying | Threat Level | Wired.com - A U.S. terrorism defendant who was formally notified that he was spied on by the NSA filed a challenge to the constitutionality of the surveillance today, in a case likely to be litigated all the way to the Supreme Court.
California Assembly approves bills limiting use of drones by police, public agencies - Boing Boing

John Kerry in final push to disprove cynics on Middle East peace deal | World news | theguardian.com - Secretary of state and elite team of US diplomats return to Israel as goals shift for the US's once-ambitious peace plan

Iran Sanctions Bill 'On Ice' As Momentum Fades In Senate - The bipartisan bill had been gaining steam over the past two months, picking up a whopping 58 cosponsors -- including 15 Democrats.
Mujahideen-e Khalq: Former U.S. Officials Make Millions Advocating For Terrorist Organization - All told, at least 33 high-ranking former U.S. officials have given speeches to MEK-friendly audiences since December of last year as part of more than 22 events in Washington, Brussels, London, Paris and Berlin. While not every speaker accepted payment, MEK-affiliated groups have spent millions of dollars on speaking fees, according to interviews with the former officials, organizers and attendees.
Howard Dean Opposes Iran Nuclear Deal | Washington Free Beacon - Says U.S. has not placed enough emphasis on human rights issues in talks

Chilean football club counters jersey ban with more prominent map of historic Palestine – Sixteen Minutes to Palestine
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Here's the banned Scarlett Johansson Super Bowl ad that made pro-Palestinian activists so mad
Scarlett Johansson quits Oxfam role over SodaStream row

Feds illegally poured through journalist’s computer for evidence of hacking, says attorney — RT USA - “The warrant did not give the power to rummage through the journalist’s files,” he said Wednesday, nothing “there is no indication of why all this information needed to be seized.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Death Penalty - On Dzhokhar Tsarnaev And The Death Penalty - Esquire - But, frankly, as heinous as these crimes are, in an age in which some states are reconsidering the business of judicial killing while, at the same time, other states are buying bootleg drugs to keep on killing, the federal government should give the death penalty a good leaving alone, even in this case. This is not the business a liberal democracy should be in.

Gallup Poll Finds Democrats More Compassionate; Republicans More Psychopathic | Eric Zuesse - Clearly, selfish fears swept concerns on the Republican side, whereas concerns for others (and especially the weak) swept concerns on the Democratic side. (why America is psychopathic)
Pastor Steven Andrew Says President Obama Follows Satan And Encourages 'Homosexual Sin' In 'God's State Of The Union' - "The military court-martialed homosexuals so God would bless the military! Look, with Barack Obama bringing homosexual sin to the military, they can't even win in Iraq!" (psychopathy)

Reid Pushes Back on Fast-Track Trade Authority - NYTimes.com
Fast Track - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Good for Harry Reid, denying Obama’s desire to fast track free trade agreements that will send even more jobs out of the United States. And as Scott has noted about Reid before, the man rarely speaks without knowing that the Democratic Caucus is behind him.

Capitalism vs. Democracy - NYTimes.com - Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.
Eschaton: Not Trade - For some reason including labor standards in such agreements is communist, but including absurd intellectual property protections is Freedom Reagan Squared. Because.

Justice Department looks to commute sentences for some drug offenders | Law | theguardian.com - Bipartisan bill to amend mandatory minimum sentencing advances as attorney general signals president's approval
City of New York and Center for Constitutional Rights Announce Agreement in Landmark Stop and Frisk Case | Center for Constitutional Rights - With Questions of Law Settled, Next Phase of Charting NYPD Reforms to Begin

GOP’s devious immigration trick: Why Democrats have a looming dilemma - Salon.com - What would Democrats do if Republicans said yes to permanent legal status -- but no citizenship -- for immigrants?
Lunches seized from kids in debt at Salt Lake City elementary | The Salt Lake Tribune - But cafeteria workers weren’t able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches, Olsen explained. The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away, he said, because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another. (let the little moochers starve; more psychopathy)

Wolff & Samson, Firm At Heart Of Christie Controversy, Has Had An Ally In The Governor
Christie Insider Tapped To Run New Jersey Ethics Commission - Here's the thing: as the website NJ Spotlight points out, the commission would rule on any ethics complaints that arise in connection to the George Washington Bridge lane closings scandal.

States subjecting death row inmates to longer deaths amid scramble for drugs | World news | theguardian.com - Review finds executions taking up to 20 minutes longer since EU boycott of lethal drugs leads states to employ other methods
Herbert Smulls: Missouri executes convicted murderer with final appeal still pending.

MSNBC fires staffer after new controversy - Critics are swarming the network over a prejudicial tweet over a Cheerios ad, not to mention an edgy tweet by MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow

How Pressure Mounted for Development in Hoboken - NYTimes.com

Gender Diversity On Broadcast Sunday Shows Unchanged Over Last 5 Years | Blog | Media Matters for America (3-1 mostly conservative men brainz)

Scientist Sues NASA, Alleges Failure To Investigate Alien Life On Mars - But NASA identified the object as a rock -- an odd rock that was somehow flicked into view, possibly by the rover itself -- but a rock nonetheless.

Amanda Knox Verdict: Italian Court Finds American Student Guilty Of Murder
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito lose Meredith Kercher murder appeal | World news | The Guardian - Florence court of appeal upholds guilty verdicts for American and Italian accused of killing British student in 2007

Yahoo reveals attempted hack against email accounts | Technology | theguardian.com - Yahoo called for a re-set of affected email accounts
Facebook's Toying With A Radical New Idea: Letting You Be Anonymous

012914
Twitter / trutherbot: "The general population doesn't ... - know what's happening and it doesn't even know that it doesn't." ~ Noam Chomsky

Georgia, Alabama try to clear roads as deep freeze pulls in - CNN.com
Photos: Snow slams metro Atlanta | www.ajc.com
Gridlock continues as unspeakably horrible commute home... | www.ajc.com
More than 300 crashes reported in Central Texas | kvue.com Austin
Winter Storm Causes Massive Gridlock, Strands Commuters And Students In The South - Tuesday's storm deposited mere inches of snow, barely enough to qualify as a storm up North. And yet it was more than enough to paralyze Deep South cities such as Atlanta and Birmingham, and strand thousands of workers who tried to rush home early only to never make it home at all.

Amnesty chief condemns Al Jazeera detentions - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Amnesty International cites need to keep up pressure on Egyptian government amid crackdown on freedom of expression.
Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves?
Israel to Create Cyber Attack Emergency-Response Team
Top lawyer finds GCHQ spying is illegal & UK spies who help US drone strike may be accessories to murder - Boing Boing
Metropolitan police accused of acting on behalf of big business | UK news | The Guardian - Lord chief justice voices fears after Virgin Media offered Met a 25% share of compensation recovered from fraudsters

Group Condemns APA’s Ethics Decision on Former Guantanamo Psychologist | The Dissenter - The letter sharply criticizes APA for sitting seven years on an ethics complaint made against Dr. John Leso, who was a military psychologist at Guantanamo and an early member of that prison’s Behavioral Science Consultant Team (BSCT). Rather than a dust-up between psychology groups, the issue goes right to the heart of the US’s ability to conduct coercive interrogations and torture with the input of behavioral specialists. (psychologists lost their ethics when they started taking insurance)
Northern Arizona Won't Interview Former Army Psychologist With Ties to Abu Ghraib | Inside Higher Ed

Snowden Nominated For Nobel Prize By Norwegian Politicians - Being nominated just means Snowden will be one of scores of names that the Nobel committee will consider for the prestigious award.

Intelligence Chief: Snowden and 'Accomplices' Should Return 'Stolen' NSA Documents - "Snowden claims that he's won and that his mission has accomplished," Clapper said during his opening statement. "If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents." (scarily stupid +"accomplices" = "journalists")
The Snowden Effect, Cont'd - Esquire - There are a lot of things Clapper can do. "Retire and raise begonias" is one of the more polite suggestions. But one thing he can't do is loosely accuse "accomplices" of crimes because, I mean, Jesus, just wow. "The least untruthful manner." You wouldn't buy that from your toddler.
US intel chief James Clapper: journalists reporting on leaked Snowden NSA docs “accomplices” to crime - Boing Boing
Feds imply that reporters are in cahoots with Snowden | Politics and Law - CNET News - During Senate testimony, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper refers to whistle-blower Edward Snowden's "accomplices."
UT Documents: Does Obama administration view journalists as Snowden's "accomplices"? It seems so. - Is it now the official view of the Obama administration that these journalists and media outlets are "accomplices" in what they regard as Snowden's crimes? If so, that is a rather stunning and extremist statement. Is there any other possible interpretation of Clapper's remarks?
Twitter / ggreenwald: How to Commit Felonies, Avoid ... - Prosecution, Keep Your High-Level Job, then Anoint Yourself Arbiter of Others' Criminality, by James R Clapper

ODNI's "Worldwide Threat Assessment" 2014 ("activists" are a threat)
Dianne Feinstein Protects John Brennan from Being Called a Liar | emptywheel - Later, Udall suggested that Brennan’s stonewalling on this internal report suggested he might have been less than forthcoming in his earlier answers about the torture report (remember, Brennan has been dodging Udall’s questions on the torture report for a year). (DiFucker controlling information about illegal activities)

Is CIA Spying Domestically by Hacking Americans’ Computers? | emptywheel
Adel Daoud Wins Review of FISA Application | emptywheel - The judge in his case has just done what no judge has ever done before — grant his lawyers a review of the FISA application against him. As Charlie Savage first noted, Judge Sharon Coleman granted the defense the ability to review the FISA Application against Daoud.

Angela Merkel warns US over surveillance in first speech of third term | World news | theguardian.com - 'A programme in which the end justifies all means … violates trust,' German chancellor says
It Only Took the NSA 61 Years to Hire Its First Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer | Motherboard
Clapper and Comey want congress to give the FBI power to access more data about us | Privacy SOS

Federal agents accused of unwarranted search through journalist's computer | World news | theguardian.com - Attorney for journalist Matthew Keys, indicted for conspiring with hackers, contests the legality of investigators' tactics

We put your privacy first — Mozilla
Radical activist sentenced to read Malcolm Gladwell - Salon.com - A punishment cruel and unusual: A jailed 90's environmentalist faces a harsh, moralizing sentence
Eco-Saboteur Rebecca Rubin Gets 5-Year Federal Prison Sentence | Earth First! Newswire (Freedom Industries goes free!)

Collateral Damage in the War on Protesters: Neighbors of the NATO3 Cuffed, Held at Gunpoint | Alternet - In this exclusive, neighbors of activists accused of "terrorism" give their stories of aggressive, seemingly incompetent and extralegal harassment by the Chicago Police. , 'Well if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.'
Colorado Lawmakers Reject Journalist Protection Proposal - Opponents of the bill argued Colorado's law already offers sufficient protections to journalists.

The Most Alarming Omission In Obama's State Of The Union | Motherboard - In his nearly 7,000 word speech, Obama devoted just one sentence to his proposed NSA reforms, giving just a cursory nod to the broader debates over privacy and civil liberties:
FULL TRANSCRIPT: Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address - The Washington Post
President Obama Acknowledges Climate Change While Fully Supporting Fracking in SOTU | EcoWatch
Transcript: President Obama's State of the Union Remarks on Energy and Climate Change | DeSmogBlog
An Occupy Response to the State of the Union Address by President Obama | OccupyWallSt.org - by Kshama Sawant (Socialist, Occupy, Seattle City Councilmember)
Twitter / BoingBoing: Boehner’s current tan threat ... - level. “@zdroberts: @BoingBoing Shade: Pantone Orange
The Internet Won the State of the Union, Which Can't Possibly Be Good for Democracy | Motherboard

Republican Responses To State Of the Union - The Republican Clown Car - Esquire - And then there was Cathy McMorris Rogers, who was not nutty, but who, I believe, was attempting to sell me a dinette set. Also, can I just say to the nice furniture lady that I'm happy that she and her retired Naval commander husband both had that sweet government health-care so that their newborn son's pre-existing condition wasn't the kind of hardship it is for parents who are only now, through the Affordable Care Act, able to stave off financial disaster in similar circumstances.
Oh, Now I Get It: Emptiness Is What They Were Going For by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - It was all there — easygoing populism, an emphasis on jobs and her family, which includes a son with Down syndrome and a Navy veteran husband. It was as if a Republican pollster had somehow created a politician with the exact profile that Republicans are looking to promote as they head toward this year’s midterm elections.

Congress axes $8.6bn from food stamps in farm bill | World news | theguardian.com - Richer farmers get bigger subsidies in immediate snub to Barack Obama's State of the Union call for action on inequality

Comparing Obamacare to Its Alternative - NYTimes.com (the tax-the-poor and give-to-the-rich nonafforadable preexisting-conditions-to-bad care act)
America's Health Care Crisis Is Far From Over, In 1 Chart

Jerry Springer: Fox News Will Fade Because 'Liberals Always Win' - The talk show host agreed with New York magazine columnist Frank Rich's latest piece that Fox News is heading toward termination. Springer said in an interview on HuffPost Live Tuesday that the conservative network will lose its power as the country becomes increasingly liberal.

Senate Democrats Back Off Iran Sanctions Vote - Both of the bill’s main sponsors, Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), held their ground when asked for their reactions to Obama’s veto threat. (Israel robots Manchin and Coons backtrack)

For Christie, Politics Team Kept a Focus on Two Races - NYTimes.com - how a detail-obsessed governor could have been unaware of the closings or the effort over months to cover up the political motive.
Huck the New Christie? by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - There’s growing buzz about a new PPP poll that shows Mike Huckabee, fresh on the publicity over his comments about contraception and the female libido, taking the lead in a 2016 GOP trial heat, even as last month’s leader, Chris Christie, experienced a “collapse” of support. (even better +"club for greed")
Chris Christie Countdown Clock - Introducing the Christie Countdown Clock - Esquire - Chris Christie is a dead man at the microphone. Just follow the money
Revealed: The Actual Fort Lee Traffic Study - NYTimes.com

Roger Ailes Esquire Profile - Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America? - Esquire - Indeed, with most of the potential Republican candidates for president in 2012 on his payroll, he may be said to be just getting started. Hmmm. Maybe we don't know this Roger Ailes as well as we think we do. Maybe we don't know him very well at all, which is, of course, just the way he likes it ... Until now.

Steve Stockman Says He Walked Out Of SOTU - Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) couldn't bear to watch President Barack Obama promise to abuse his constitutional powers, his office said, so Tuesday night he walked right out of the State of the Union address. (but no one noticed so he had to do a press release)
What Congress Looks Like When You Average All Of Their Pictures Together - Congress was 82 percent white and 81 percent male in 2013 (old, male, white and overweight)
New York GOP Congressman Caught On Tape Threatening Reporter - physically intimidated a reporter after the reporter tried to ask Grimm questions he didn’t want to answer. Grimm is currently under federal investigation for alleged campaign finance violations.
Congressman refuses to apologise after threatening to break reporter 'in half' | World news | theguardian.com - New York's Michael Grimm caught on camera making threat to political reporter after interview following State of Union address ... "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this fucking balcony." Scotto replies: "Why? I just wanted to ask you," before Grimm says, "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy." - a former FBI agent
Boehner ousts Huelskamp from agriculture and budget committees | Wichita Eagle - Republican leaders in the U.S. House kicked U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp off the House Agriculture and House Budget committees this week – a move that dismayed many in the state’s powerful agriculture sector. (suck on it Kansas)
Senator Rand Paul to Offer Amendment Allowing Guns in Post Offices - Gun Owners of America

Rich CEO Tells 'Daily Show' The 'Mentally Retarded' Are Maaaybe Worth $2 An Hour - Peter Schiff, the extremely conservative CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, who FREAKING HATES the minimum wage:
Today’s One Percenters Approaching French Aristocrat Levels of Blithe Self-Parody | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - I don’t know who this toad Kevin O’Leary is, but somewhere in the great media world he has a job opining on the global situation.

Watch This Anita Hill Documentary Trailer and Remain Calm, I Dare You

Wardrobe Malfunction -- In the Beginning, There Was a Nipple - Ten years ago, 90 million people watching Super Bowl XXXVIII saw Janet Jackson's breast for nine-sixteenths of a second. Our culture would never be the same. (JJ's career imploded; Justin Timberlake was fine)

Food bug toxin may trigger multiple sclerosis - Medical News Today - New research presented at a scientific meeting adds to a growing body of evidence that a toxin produced by a common food bug may trigger multiple sclerosis, an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system.
Scientists Discover 'New' Area of Brain - Region helps us ponder what could have been - The lateral frontal pole is a newly identified part of your brain which, scientists believe, helps us recognize when we've made poor decisions. "
New 'Genetic Adam' Study Links All Men To Ancestor Who Lived 209,000 Years Ago (VIDEO) - A new study indicates that the guy scientists call "Y-chromosomal Adam," or "Genetic Adam," walked the Earth around 209,000 years ago.

TIME's Beautiful, White, Blonde 'Mindfulness Revolution' | Joanna Piacenza
American Buddhism's Racial Divide - Beliefnet.com - Buddhists in the United States are split into two camps: Asian Americans and 'New Buddhists.' Can they be brought together?

Trying to Ban Sex Offenders from Social Media Is a Waste of Time | Motherboard - New Jersey has become the latest state to try to regulate how (and if) sex offenders can use social media, an increasingly tricky problem facing legislators around the country. But privacy experts say the laws are problematic, and probably unconstitutional.
As I Was Saying About Web Journalism ... a Bubble, or a Lasting Business? - NYTimes.com
Blogging turns 20: look back and cringe with us | Media | theguardian.com
How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username — Medium - A story of how PayPal and GoDaddy allowed the attack and caused me to lose my $50,000 Twitter username.

012814
Folk singer Pete Seeger dies at age 94
Hullabaloo - A tiny historical note about government police power and freedom - MR. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.
A Moment Of Pete: When Pete Seeger Murdered HUAC, Just Like A Communist

Ukraine PM resigns amid unrest, parliament revokes anti-protest laws | Reuters
Mexico Legalized Vigilantes, Arrests Knights Templar Drug Cartel - Business Insider - security forces had captured one of the four top leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel, which the vigilante groups have been fighting for the last year.
Indian supreme court refuses to review ban on gay sex | World news | theguardian.com - Judges reject petition from government and campaigners calling on court to reconsider decision to reinstate colonial-era law
Giant Hologram of Turkish Prime Minister Delivers Speech - Matt Ford - The Atlantic

U.S. Customs grounds fleet of drones after crash at sea | Reuters - The drone and systems on board were worth $12 million, he said.
US lifts veil on Obama's Guantánamo detainee review process | World news | theguardian.com - Public given first glimpse into president's inmate review board touted as key step in closing notorious detention centre

Noam Chomsky Quotes - "My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons.

NSA Data Mining: U.S. Researches How To Securely Store Phone Records Outside Government

Feinstein: No evidence Snowden is a Russian spy | MSNBC (after playing cole)

Mike Rogers Will Likely Be Nominated To Replace Keith Alexander: Officials (typical Obama move)
Lawmakers demand Obama dump Clapper | TheHill - A bipartisan group of House members is criticizing President Obama for not going far enough in his attempts to rein in the country’s surveillance programs.

Microsoft PowerPoint - readfiles_109.ppt - snowden_youtube_nbc_document.pdf (how they think)
Snowden-Interview: Transcript (Seite 1)| NDR.de - Ratgeber - Netzwelt - t was clear from the President’s speech that he wanted to make minor changes to preserve authorities that we don’t need.
Snowden Adviser: New Republic Story 'Heavily Lifted' From Other Articles
GCHQ head Sir Iain Lobban stands down | UK news | The Guardian - Foreign Office claims 53-year-old spy chief's departure part of long-planned move and nothing to do with Edward Snowden revelations

Pierre Omidyar: First Digital Magazine to Launch in 'Coming Weeks'

Huge swath of GCHQ mass surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer | UK news | The Guardian - Legal advice given to MPs warns that British spy agency is 'using gaps in regulation to commit serious crime with impunity'
?NYT improperly redacted latest NSA leak doc, revealing name of agent and a target — RT USA
Snowden docs reveal British spies snooped on YouTube and Facebook - Investigations - By Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole and Mark Schone, with Glenn Greenwald,
NASA and Britain’s GCHQ Mapping “Political Alignments” of Millions of Smartphone Users Worldwide. | Global Research
New NSA documents reveal massive data collection from mobile apps | The Verge
If You Used This Secure Webmail Site, the FBI Has Your Inbox | Threat Level | Wired.com - While investigating a hosting company known for sheltering child porn last year the FBI incidentally seized the entire e-mail database of a popular anonymous webmail service called TorMail. (very selective)
Tor Browser 3.5.1 is released | The Tor Blog
FBI arrests five over 'hackers for hire' websites - Two men have been charged with running and three others with being customers of websites that allegedly offered to obtain access to email accounts.
What You Need to Know about the Third-Party Doctrine - John Villasenor - The Atlantic
Candidates of both parties run vs. NSA - Manu Raju - politico.com

US nuclear-force cheating scandal escalates as more members implicated | World news | theguardian.com - Number nearly doubles from 34 service members initially cited • Air force also investigating criminal drug use by some airmen
Military brass, behaving badly: Files detail a spate of misconduct dogging armed forces - The Washington Post - Here’s what the Army didn’t tell the soldiers: At the time, Roberts himself was under investigation by the military over allegations that he physically assaulted one of his mistresses on multiple occasions. (just "one of his mistresses")

The Selective Secrecy Of Bill De Blasio « The Dish - And if you were to say that AIPAC was so powerful it could get a left-liberal mayor of New York to give a speech so fulsome in its cravenness and excess it adds whole universes of meaning to the word “pander” and also insist that it be kept secret, even to the extent of hauling a reporter out of the hall, then all bets would be off - " it is my belief, it is our obligation, to defend Israel, but it is also something that is elemental to being an American because there is no greater ally on earth, and that’s something we can say proudly." (disgusting +sooper sercrit)
Reporter Kicked Out of Bill de Blasio’s Secret Pro-Israel Speech - the mayor can be heard praising the United States’ strategic alliance with Israel as “elemental to being an American” because America has “no greater ally on earth.” According to Capital, de Blasio promised that “City Hall will always be open to AIPAC.”

Obama To Raise Minimum Wage For Federal Contract Workers By Executive Order
Chart: Obama's spare use of executive orders | MSNBC (less than any previous president/term)

Leaked Report: What Percent Of State Legisatures ‘Owned’ By ALEC | PopularResistance.Org - Iowa has 150 in each column, and South Dakota has 105 in each column. The third column, for both states, shows the “% of ALEC Membership in Legislature” as being “100%.” (completely bought)

Who is new FBI director James Comey? | World news | The Guardian - The former US deputy attorney general has experience in arms sales, hedge funds and banking. Does that make him qualified for the job? (10 yr appointment; typical Obama move)
James Comey: Two Thumbs-Up on Waterboarding? | American Civil Liberties Union

How the right destroyed itself: History, ideology and strategic blunders - Salon.com - Republicans can't moderate because their base won't allow it. Even if they could, Democrats already beat them there
Polarization is Real (and Asymmetric) | voteview blog

State of the Union 2014: Obama calls for 'year of action' – live reactions | World news | theguardian.com - Next piece of speech: You Republicans are dumb, because you shut down the government, which was dumb.
‘Duck Dynasty’ to represent at State of the Union – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs - In a press release, McAllister said he looks forward to "bringing some diversity to our nation's capitol" Tuesday night with the attendance of his bearded guest.

Farm Bill Agreement Reached By House, Senate Negotiators - The measure announced Monday by the House and Senate Agriculture committees preserves food stamp benefits for most Americans who receive them and continues generous subsidies for farmers.
How Republicans Lost the Farm - Molly Ball - The Atlantic - The Tea Party has pulled the GOP away from the interests of rural Americans—some of the party's most loyal constituents.
Charles Lane Comes Out Against Freedom of Contract | Beat the Press - But Lane is going beyond just this issue that the Supreme Court is now considering. He apparently wants to outlaw public sector unions.

WSJ/NBC Poll: Sharp Reversal on Chris Christie - Washington Wire - WSJ - In the new poll, more Americans view Mr. Christie negatively than positively, by a margin of 29%-22%. That’s a swift reversal from October when an earlier poll found 33% of the respondents viewed him positively, compared with the 17% who viewed him negatively.
Now It’s Time to Talk About Chicago’s Tale of Two Cities - Rahm Emanuel’s economic politics put him at the far right wing of the Democratic Party and out of step with the current breed of populist big-city leadership. (but in step with Obama)

Hannity Proposes 'Adopt-A-Woman' Program For Birth Control Coverage - Conservative radio host Sean Hannity on Monday proposed that women create an "adopt-a-woman" program to provide birth control to those who cannot afford it, while discussing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's (R) comments last week that the government should not help women who can't control "their libido or their reproductive system."
House Republicans Pass Sweeping Anti-Abortion Bill - The House of Representatives passed a bundle of abortion restrictions Tuesday that would dramatically reduce the number of health insurance plans that cover the procedure. The vote was 227 to 188, with one lawmaker voting present

Snakebite victim charged $89,000 for 18-hour hospital stay - Yahoo News - Shocked at the price tag, Ferguson told the Charlotte Observer he and his wife found the same vials online for retail prices as low as $750.

Study: 20 young people a day hospitalized for gun injuries (arm the little suckers)

End the Ban on Psychoactive Drug Research - Scientific American - It's time to let scientists study whether LSD, marijuana and ecstasy can ease psychiatric disorders
An Aging Brain Is Still Pretty Smart - It may be slower, but it has a wealth of information to draw from.
Scientists find ancient plague DNA in teeth - Scientists say two of the deadliest pandemics in history were caused by strains of the same plague and warn that new versions of the bacteria could spark future outbreaks.
Marijuana Use During Pregnancy Affects Babies' Brain Development (STUDY) - Using marijuana during pregnancy could affect a baby's brain development by interfering with how brain cells are wired, a new study in mice and human tissue suggests.
Alcohol use, not pot, more likely to lead to domestic violence

School ditches rules and loses bullies - National News | TVNZ - The school is actually seeing a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism, while concentration levels in class are increasing.
Infidelity in Marriage - Cheating Statistics - Woman's Day - Discover things you never knew about infidelity that could save your marriage - Fact #6: Women cheat just as much as men, and their affairs are more dangerous.
STUDY: Discrimination May Be A Risk Factor For Transgender Suicide Attempts | ThinkProgress - 41 percent of transgender and gender non-conforming people have attempted suicide, a rate far higher than the national average of 4.6 percent.

In Utah, Stage Set For New Fight Over Curbing Liquor Laws - A Utah lawmaker has proposed scaling back some of Utah's famously strict liquor laws just days after the Mormon church urged legislators to keep existing regulations in place. (Utah theocracy)

Connection failed: internet still a luxury for many Americans | Money | theguardian.com - As schools put emphasis on computer use in class, school-age children without internet access at home suffer (contrast with South Korea)
Outed by Google: Trans community raises privacy concerns | Al Jazeera America

In His Own Words: Loskarn Letter Reflects on Arrest, Painful Memories : Roll Call Hill Life

012714
US midwest nears record cold as officials issue weather warnings | World news | theguardian.com - Over 500 flights cancelled at main Chicago airports • Snowdrifts and strong winds make travel dangerous
Weather and climate » Balloon Juice - For those of you wondering what happened to your jet stream, folks in Nome are enjoying a record high of forty six degrees (forty with wind chill) and looking at an overnight low around thirty three. It is raining in Anchorage.
Weather and climate » Balloon Juice (comment)
Global Warming Battle Is Over Market Share, Not Science - Bloomberg
Agnotology | The Big Picture - “People always assume that if someone doesn’t know something, it’s because they haven’t paid attention or haven’t yet figured it out,” Proctor says. “But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what’s true and what’s not.”

California grows all of our fruits and vegetables. What would we eat without the state? (we'll soon find out)
California's Fruit-and-Veg Behemoth: Too Productive for Our Own Good | Mother Jones
xkcd: Cold

Ukraine Protests: Opposition Leader Rejects President's Proposal To Become Prime Minister
Africa is not a country | World news | theguardian.com - There are 54 states on the continent, yet the media insists on referring to it as one place. A new app identifies the culprits (contrary to Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods)
Greece, Farmakonisi: The Coast Guard accused for drowing the migrants » x-pressed | an open journal - However, according to survivors’ testimonies, the Coast Guard boat towing their vessel was heading, at high speed, towards the Turkish coast, when the tragic incident happened amid rough seas. The same witnesses said people were screaming for help, since there was a large number of children on the boat. ("Coast Guard" = "Golden Dawn")
HSBC apologizes after cash withdrawal issue in Britain - NDTVProfit.com - "It is not mandatory for customers to provide documentary evidence for large cash withdrawals, and on its own, failure to show evidence is not a reason to refuse a withdrawal," (the Drug Cartel Bank agrees to give depositors their own money back)
Northern Cyprus votes to legalise gay sex | World news | theguardian.com - Campaigners hail 'historic day for gay people' after MPs approve repeal of Europe's last remaining ban on homosexual acts
News of the World reporter hacked phones a thousand times, he tells court | UK news | theguardian.com - Dan Evans tells Old Bailey that when he arrived at paper he was given a list of celebrities including Simon Cowell and Cilla Black
Valérie Trierweiler speaks publicly for first time since split from Hollande | World news | theguardian.com - The 48-year-old visits India on behalf of charity as separation from president prompts debate in France about role of first lady
Muslim woman will not testify after being told she must remove face veil | UK news | theguardian.com - Defendant Rebekah Dawson's lawyer tells court she will not give evidence in witness intimidation trial
‘Turn the curse into a blessing’: Netanyahu wants UN of the internet — RT News - “There should be a sort of UN for the internet. A coalition of the leading companies in the cyber world…and in my opinion Israel is the most advanced,” he added. (whut?)

Is the West Building Its Own Iron Curtain? - Slashdot - . 'Sir Peter, who leads the Association of Chief Police Officer's "Prevent" strategy on counter-terrorism, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that those returning from Syria "may well be charged and investigated, but they will be put into our programmes".' The program seems to consist of being spied on by the returnee's cooperative neighbors."
Fraudster paid government to help promote fake bomb detectors | Politics | The Guardian - Documents reveal ability of UK firms to hire top diplomats and serving soldiers without checks on products' authenticity

U.S. carries out air strike in Somalia targeting militant suspect | Reuters - The U.S. military carried out a missile strike in Somalia on Sunday targeting a suspected militant leader with ties to al Qaeda and al Shabaab, a U.S. military official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. ("suspected" but dead for sure)
US military condemns release of 'dangerous' Afghan prisoners | World news | theguardian.com - US says 37 men to be freed from Bagram are 'legitimate threats to security' and some have links to attacks on Nato forces
Afghanistan Exit Is Seen as Peril to C.I.A. Drone Mission - NYTimes.com - Mr. Obama is expected to say that by the end of this year the Afghan war will be over — at least for Americans — slightly more than 13 years after it began, making it the longest in American history. (for fucking nothing)
Malnutrition In Afghanistan - Malnutrition In Afghanistan Is Going To Have Dire Consequences - Esquire - More than half of Afghan girls and boys suffer damage to their minds and bodies that cannot be undone because they are poorly nourished in the crucial first two years of life, doctors and other experts say. (Obama will night-raid them out of their misery; never much money for food from the blood-thirsty war makers)

Justin Bieber rampage may have al-Qaeda links, terrorism analysts warn - "This is a massive failure by the Obama administration to anticipate and guard against the rising dangers of Canadian terrorism," one member of Congress warned, urging that the White House allocate more funding to security walls along the U.S.-Canada border.

Tech Companies to Post NSA Request Details in U.S. Deal - Bloomberg - The U.S. Justice Department today announced an agreement with the companies allowing them to publish, for the first time, information about how many orders they receive under the so-called Prism program, as well as national security letters.
NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps like Angry Birds to scoop user data | World news | theguardian.com - US and UK spy agencies piggyback on commercial data • Details can include age, location and sexual orientation
FBI is keeping a giant stash of e-mails from defunct Tor Mail service | Ars Technica - Data harvested from servers in France is being used in multiple investigations.
Snowden docs reveal British spies snooped on YouTube and Facebook - Investigations

Scarlett Johansson ad becomes online meme for Israeli-Palestinian conflict — RT News - The images appeared following announcements of Johansson becoming brand ambassador for SodaStream, a firm which operates a factory in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Twitter / Maie_AD: #ScarlettJohansson’s ... - #SodaStream Endorsement Deal Conflicts w/ Charity Work
Twitter / MairavZ: This Scarlett Johansson ... - meme is hilarious
Twitter / theIMEU: SodaStream has a history of ... - mislabeling its products as “Made in Israel.”
Former Aboriginal affairs minister Strahl quits CSIS watchdog amid controversy | APTN National NewsAPTN National News - Former Aboriginal affairs minister Chuck Strahl quit his post as chair of Canada’s spy agency watchdog after facing criticism for also lobbying for Enbridge and a First Nation energy company doing business with the Chinese. Strahl is the second CSIS watchdog chair to step down amid controversy. His predecessor Arthur Porter ended up in a Panamanian jail. Harper appoints members of the spy agency review committee.

Bureau of Prisons Considers CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou’s ‘Letters from Loretto’ to Be Dangerous | The Dissenter - Kiriakou was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official US policy under the George W. Bush administration.
Contrary to Obama's promises, the US military still permits torture | Jeffrey Kaye | Comment is free | theguardian.com - The Obama administration has replaced the use of brutal torture techniques with those that emphasize psychological torture (Obama loves torture, yes he does)

Edward Snowden: There Are 'Significant Threats' To My Life - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told German TV on Sunday about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails. (Obama, hit-man-in-chief)
? Gysi: „Ich bin dieses Duckmäusertum sowas von leid" (deutsch/english version) - YouTube
Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve? - Slashdot
Indonesia Australia Snowden Effect - The Snowden Effect: The March Of War - Esquire - It seems that Australia nearly celebrated Australia Day by having a war with Indonesia. And it further seems that every authoritarian meathead in every government everywhere around the world has a brand-new alibi. Edward Snowden made us do it. immediately after the surveillance was revealed, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the Indonesians to pound sand.

What is a GPG Public Key? -
Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested - The founder of a prominent Bitcoin exchange company has been arrested and charged with running an illegal scheme to sell the digital currency to customers trafficking narcotics on the now-defunct drug website Silk Road, prosecutors said Monday.

The Battle For The Internet's Future - Esquire - Esquire went inside the Internet Underground – Anonymous, LulzSec and other groups of pranksters and protesters – to find that as the authorities harden their stance, the hackers are regrouping, wounded but defiant. And the battle has only just started. (against Obama's authoritarian corpo-fascist state)
Your Anon News • Surveillance State Madness - From cafes and concerts to internet browsers, government spying creates a climate of fear
A hacker's story: Mitchell Frost explains his motivation | PCWorld - Frost launched a series of denial of service (DDOS) attacks against several conservative websites, including Billoreilly.com, Anncoulter.com and Rudy Giuliani’s campaign site, Joinrudy2008.com. He is accused of taking down the O’Reilly site five times ... spending over two years behind bars and owing thousands of dollars in legal and restitution fees for his crimes
» Update 1/26/14: From the war on hackers to the war on whistleblowers Private Manning Support Network - “The US crackdown on hackers is our new war on drugs,”

AIPAC Reverses Course, Defends Debbie Wasserman Schultz In Iran Sanctions Dust-Up - It's unclear what caused AIPAC to flip, though the sanctions bill appears to be losing momentum. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment, nor did it respond to a request to explain why it told its members the HuffPost story was inaccurate.
Patty Murray Comes Out Against Iran Sanctions Bill

Citizens United Rolls On - Still More From Anthony Kennedy's America - Esquire - This is not simply because the Court opened the floodgates by which the system is now drowning in money, but also it is because the decision turned the electoral system of the United States into a madhouse.

Why are US corporate profits so high? Because wages are so low | MacroScope - Corporate cash piles have never been bigger, either in dollar terms or as a share of the economy. The labor market, meanwhile, is still millions of jobs short of where it was before the global financial crisis first erupted over six years ago. (because Obama loves the 1%)
The Brittle Grip, Part 2 - If you've been in the media slipstream today you know the outrage and mockery directed at Tom Perkins, one of the world's wealthiest and most successful Silicon Valley venture capitalists, for an oped he wrote in the Wall Street Journal comparing the rising critique of income inequality and "the 1%" to Kristallnacht. (they know Obama has their backs)
Across 110th Street - Lawyers, Guns & Money : partner at Dewey, Ballantine, he made about $250,000, in line with other new partners. At Dewey & LeBoeuf, his income peaked at over $500,000 during the flush years before the financial crisis. In 2012, he made $351,000, and last year, while at White & Case, he made $356,500. He listed his current monthly income as $31,500, or $375,000 a year. And he has just over $1 million in retirement accounts that are protected from creditors in bankruptcy. *Owens’ current salary is higher than that of 99.8% of non-instutitionalized adult Americans (or 99.65% of such people who are working or currently seeking work). (whine from rich babies)
Heritage Foundation Notes Food Stamps Given To Stupid College Grads Who Picked Wrong Major Like German Or Not Business - Yes, that’s right. Congress will finally finally unveil a compromise farm bill that seeks to only cut $8 billion in food stamps. Cutting food stamps is like the sucker punch after kicking a guy in the nads, which happened when Congress decided not to extend unemployment insurance at the end of December. Happy 50th anniversary, War on Poverty! Here’s to 50 more years!

Negative View Of Obamacare Rollout Eases: AP Poll - Negative perceptions of the health care rollout have eased, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds. But overall, two-thirds of Americans say things still aren't going well. (he had one job)

Republicans Decry Obama Plans To Bypass Congress To Advance Agenda - U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy to bypass Congress this year with executive orders to advance his policy agenda received a cold reaction on Sunday from Republican leaders, who accused the White House of arrogance and sidestepping the political process. (said Ted Cruz)
Obama Administration Reorganizing - The Jackboots Of February - Esquire - Many of the flying monkeys are agog at this Washington Post account of how the president plans to be president whether the flying monkeys like it or not. The screeching and Clayton Kershaw caliber poo-flinging is primarily centered around this particular passage.
GOP’s hot new craze: Why everyone wants to give a State of the Union response this year - Salon.com - After the president, Americans will hear from the Republican Party, the Tea Party and also Rand Paul

14 Things The GOP Gets Totally Wrong About Poverty ("get wrong" = "blatently lie about")
Trey Radel Resigning From Congress - Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.), who was arrested and charged with cocaine possession last October, is resigning, according to Politico.
Another cover-up in Chris Christie's administration?: Editorial | NJ.com - Barlyn says that after he secured an indictment in 2010 against Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout, a Republican with political ties to Christie, he was fired and the case hastily killed by Christie’s appointed attorney general at the time, Paula Dow. (a barrel full of bad apples acting independently)

Frank Rich on Fox News, Roger Ailes -- New York Magazine - The conservative news channel’s only real power is in riling up liberals, who by this point should know better ... The most interesting news about Fox News is that for some years now it has been damaging the right far more than the left.
Right-Wing Media Freak Out Over Same-Sex Marriages At The Grammys | Research | Media Matters for America - Right-wing media figures condemned the weddings of 33 same-sex and opposite-sex couples at the 56th annual Grammy Awards, describing the ceremony as an attack on Christianity.

Outsider candidate with insider friends? - The pastor lives in Overbrook, about four miles outside Penn Alexander's catchment area. So, how'd his three kids end up there? Friends in high places, multiple sources told the Daily News.

Marijuana Advocates Call On White House To Fire DEA Chief - “The DEA administrator’s continued refusal to recognize marijuana’s relative safety compared to alcohol and other drugs flies in the face of the president’s commitment to prioritizing science over ideology and politics,"

Freedom Industries kept West Virginia spill details secret | Grist - The company at the center of the West Virginia water crisis immediately knew a second chemical leaked from its plant into the Elk River, and told its workers in an email, according to a state environmental official. However, Freedom Industries did not let state government officials know about the second chemical until days after the spill. (because Freedom!)

Today in Responsible Gun Ownership - Esquire - The problem, of course, is the citizen who appointed himself to be the local shed-rattlin' enforcement officer didn't own the property on which the shed-rattlin' occurred.
Bateman G2R Ammunition - Meet The Most Insane Ammo To Hit The Market - Esquire - Can we get through even one weekend without a multiple murder in suburban America? more than 230,000 weapons are stolen from "law abiding citizens" every year? Yep, the "law abiding citizens" are effectively acting like the world's largest Wal-Mart for guns, for free, to criminals

Creationism in public schools, mapped. Where tax money supports alternatives to evolution. (LA and TN win the stupidest award, but the South +OH/IN dominates; get your children out of there)
Most And Least 'Bible-Minded' Cities Of The United States List Released By American Bible Society (yay, Boston)

Pesticide DDT Linked to Heightened Alzheimer’s Risk - Bloomberg
Ask Healthy Living: How Germy Are Restaurant Lemon Wedges? - How germy are those lemon wedges we plop into our water glasses at restaurants?

N.H. legislator threatens constituent who wants pot legalized - News Local Massachusetts - Boston.com - New Hampshire State Senator Andy Sanborn (R-Bedford) doesn’t want to legalize pot. And if you e-mail him suggesting he consider it, he just might threaten you. (Andy Sanborn now famous on the internets for all eternity for being an asshole)

Light Skin Genes Evolved More Recently Than Previously Thought, DNA Study Shows - An ancient European hunter-gatherer man had dark skin and blue eyes, a new genetic analysis has revealed.
Google to buy artificial intelligence company DeepMind | Reuters - Google, which is working on projects including self-driving cars and robots, has become increasingly focused on artificial intelligence in recent years. In 2012, it hired Ray Kurzweil, considered one of the leading minds in the field, and in May it announced a partnership with NASA and several universities to launch the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Celebrity Gossip - The Superficial - Because You're Ugly
Gather Round And Watch Quentin Tarantino And Gawker Try To Beat Each Other's Brains Out - Happy Nice Time People

Stephen Glass refused admission to California state bar in court ruling | World news | theguardian.com - State supreme court decision ends years of effort by the disgraced former journalist to become a lawyer in California
Mail Online to switch to .com domain name | Media | theguardian.com - Owner Daily Mail & General Trust is thought to have paid potentially as much as £1m-plus to secure the valuable domain name.
Microsoft renames SkyDrive to OneDrive | The Verge (BSkyB trademarked the whole sky)

012614
Ukrainian president offers surprise concessions as protests turn violent | World news | The Observer - Viktor Yanukovych says he will make opposition leader prime minister and offer amnesty, but protesters demand more
Himmler hoard of letters and diaries discovered in Israel | World news | theguardian.com - Cache of Nazi leader's documents, authenticated by German federal archive, to be published over eight days in Welt am Sonntag (letters somehow made their way to Israel)
Religious difference, not ideology, will fuel this century's epic battles | Tony Blair | Comment is free | The Observer - there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion. It is a perversion of faith (the Poodle wants to distract you from corporate capitalism and his own terrorism)
Twitter / Rubiconski: Pamphlet given to Euromaiden ... - protestors in #Kiev #Ukraine & pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in Cairo
Yukon Government Opens Vast Wilderness to Mining - a 2011 plan developed under Yukon land claims treaties that would have maintained the wilderness character of 80 percent of the area, which is known as the Peel watershed region. The government's new plan all but reverses that figure, opening some 71 percent of the watershed to mining.
Brazil: anti-World Cup protesters clash with police after Sao Paulo rally | World news | theguardian.com - More than 100 arrested after demonstration against high cost of this year's football tournament turns ugly

Somali militant commander killed by missile in suspected drone attack; militants blame US

German TV: Edward Snowden says NSA is involved in industrial sabotage | World news | theguardian.com - Public broadcaster ARD to air interview Sunday night • Snowden: information not related to national security is taken
German TV: Snowden Says NSA Also Spies On Industry
Daily Kos: Snowden is in cahoots with evil space aliens, or maybe orcs and trolls, or maybe even ... Satan!
Apple CEO Tim Cook on the NSA: There's no backdoor, but 'we have a gag order on us' | VentureBeat | Security | by Eric Blattberg
Israeli defence computer hacked via tainted email -cyber firm | Reuters - Hackers broke into an Israeli defence ministry computer via an email attachment tainted with malicious software that looked like it had been sent by the country's Shin Bet secret security service, an Israeli cyber security firm said on Sunday.

DOJ: Feinstein’s Committee Controls Torture Report; Has Final Say Over Public Release | Freedom of the Press Foundation - A report completed more than a year ago by a Senate panel that investigated the CIA’s torture program can only be released by the committee, which maintains complete "control” over the highly classified document, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday. (how convienient; DiFucker is her own government)
Democrat Dianne Feinstein proves an obstacle to Obama’s push for changes at spy agencies - The Washington Post - Feinstein is “a hawk who is asserted to be a liberal. She covers their left flank.”

Told Ya So: NSA's Collection Of Metadata Is Screamingly Illegal - Forbes
Obama's NSA blind spot - latimes.com - The president has no right to sit on the sidelines waiting for the Supreme Court to tell him what the Constitution means.

Bitcloud developers plan to decentralise internet

Peter King slams RNC on NSA resolution - Katie Glueck - politico.com

Trial of Chicago’s NATO 3 reveals Stoners not Terrorists - The trial of three young men charged with terrorism prior to 2012’s NATO Summit in Chicago is revealing that Chicago Police officers all but carried out the alleged crimes themselves and then pinned the wrap on the three stoned idiots they targeted for arrest all along. The trial hasn’t even concluded yet and local media outlets are already ridiculing the government’s efforts. (at the bottom: the brilliant fascist Rahm Emmanuel)
Storified for great justice: @shitnadiasays_ (with image, tweets) · plussone · Storify
NATO 3 trial exposes intensive police surveillance against leftists during year when most murders went unsolved | Privacy SOS
I Never Actually Made It Into the Courtroom on the First Day of ‘NATO 3' Trial | The Dissenter

The Koch Party - NYTimes.com - Only a few weeks into this midterm election year, the right-wing political zeppelin is fully inflated with secret cash and is firing malicious falsehoods at supporters of health care reform. (Satan's lies)
Tech Bazillionaire Tom Perkins Warns Of New Holocaust: People Complaining About Google Buses - Meet Tom Perkins. He is an uber-gazillionaire tech dude who once killed a man with his yacht. (Kliener Perkins and you have to be willing to make a few sacrifices)
snapshot-unionmembership.png: inequality and union membership all you need to know)
Washington Center for Equitable Growth | Evening Must-Read: Justin Fox: Income and Wealth Inequality and Immobility Are a Matter for the Moral Philosophers

Jay Carney Says Obama Will 'Bypass Congress' In 2014
Will The End Of The Filibuster Mean Obama Starts Nominating Less Corporate Judges? (he doesn't know any)

Arizona GOP censures McCain for 'liberal' record - The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative.
Rand Paul discusses cutting government help for unwed mothers who continue having kids | Politics and Government | Kentucky.com
Why Is the American Dream Dead in the South? - Matthew O'Brien - The Atlantic - Upward mobility has stayed the same the past 50 years despite skyrocketing inequality. But it's lower in the South (and Ohio) than anywhere else in the U.S.—or the rest of the developed world.

The Louisiana Public School Cramming Christianity Down Students’ Throats - The Daily Beast - A Buddhist family sued Sabine Parish School Board for violating their right to religious freedom. The lawsuit contains a shocking list of religious indoctrination. (Christian state)

DEA Chief Slams Obama For Pot Remarks: Reports - "You would think that one of her lowest points would have been when she completely embarrassed herself by failing to state the obvious scientific fact that marijuana is less harmful and addictive than heroin. Almost half a million Americans saw her make a fool of herself."

300 Sickened On Royal Caribbean Cruise, Officials To Investigate - U.S. health officials will board a cruise ship docked in the U.S. Virgin Islands to investigate an illness outbreak that has stricken at least 300 people with gastrointestinal symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea, a cruise company spokeswoman said Sunday.

Opossums Are Unloved, Yet Hard to Resist - NYTimes.com

Right-Brained Or Left-Brained? Actually, You May Be Neither - the top is exclusively involved in creating and monitoring plans. The bottom, meanwhile, classifies and interprets information. four modes of thinking -- mover, stimulator, perceiver, and adaptor -

Verizon Willing To Let 62-Year-Old Man Die Unless Cops Pay $20 Of His Overdue Bill – Consumerist - “I was more concerned for the person’s life,” Sherrif Williams said. “It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill. Ridiculous.”
UPDATE: Double Homicide Victims' Names Released - Inside Black's home, deputies seized many weapons and ammunition. "These two men had every legal right to be where they were," said McComas.

Courtney Love cleared of Twitter libel: what it means for the rest of us — Tech News and Analysis
What is the best website that nobody knows about? : AskReddit
10/10 would bookmark again
Live Webcams - Free, public web cams found online

012514
Putin’s Olympic Fever Dream - NYTimes.com
Five Egyptian embassy staff kidnapped in Libya | World news | theguardian.com - Abductions in Tripoli follow threat of retaliation from militia group whose leader was arrested in Cairo
Iraq hit by multiple fatal bombings | World news | theguardian.com - At least 12 killed, including soldier and family, in series of blasts
US citizen 'kidnapped' and held for three days in Cairo | World news | theguardian.com

The truth about French women defies their cool and stylish stereotypes | World news | The Observer - As rumours about François Hollande's alleged affair swirl, the women of France admit they don't live up to their chic image
French President Hollande Splits From Partner Valerie Trierweiler: Report

HSBC imposes restrictions on large cash withdrawals - Some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it, the BBC has learnt. (give us a really good reason)
TransCanada Natural Gas Pipeline Explodes in Southern Manitoba | Earth First! Newswire

U.S. Willing to Hold Talks if Snowden Pleads Guilty - NYTimes.com (so, no trial / one of the best Obama Logical Rabbit Holes yet)
Eric Holder: If Edward Snowden were open to plea, we’d talk - Josh Gerstein - politico.com
Putin: Snowden Can Come To The Olympics (well played, Vlad)

'Snowden Effect' Threatens U.S. Tech Industry's Global Ambitions
#AskSnowden What Edward Snowden Didn’t Answer | Arts & Culture

Hullabaloo - The collection of all this mass data amounts to a government dossier on every individual who has a cell phone or a computer. It's forcing journalists, teachers and political dissidents to be afraid of doing their jobs and exercising their democratic rights.

An Open Letter from US Researchers in Cryptography and Information Security - The choice is not whether to allow the NSA to spy. The choice is between a communications infrastructure that is vulnerable to attack at its core and one that, by default, is intrinsically secure for its users

Progressive Kristallnacht Coming? — Letters to the Editor - WSJ.com - I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich." (we're coming for you)

No, There Was Never a Legitimate Traffic Study About the Fort Lee Lane Closures | Mother Jones
To Roger Stone, Bridgegate ‘Cover-Up’ Is Another Watergate — And He Would Know | The National Memo - “The mentality that existed around Nixon – that Teutonic, buttoned-down, we-give-you-orders, you-carry-them-out – that mentality exists inside this administration…It just doesn’t seem plausible to me that this Kelly woman, who seems perfectly pleasant, stepped up to her computer and said, ‘Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.’ Someone told her to do that.” (+full Nixon tatoo on his back)
Anti-Conspiracy Theorist » Balloon Juice - I’ve got a bit of a Somerby fixation, I admit, but it is interesting to watch him try to wiggle out of writing what’s apparently, for him, the world’s most difficult declarative sentence: “Rachel Maddow was right.” (the decline of Bob Somerby)

Slow Progress On Long-Term Unemployment Benefits As 1.6 Million Miss Out
Wall Street's Frightening New Plan To Become America's Landlord

U.S. Cites Evidence of Anti-Semitism in School District - NYTimes.com

What Cop T-Shirts Tell Us About Police Culture

Open Thread – When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra… » Balloon Juice - Petri piles on poor old Bill Keller (isn’t being married to Emma punishment enough for you jackals?), not only for being a concern troll and a horrible human being but, worse still, a blatant and premeditated user of “passive constructions” in his writing. (links)
Enter the Concern Troll
‘Concern Trolls,’ Passives, and Vultures – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education (nice use of the cat theme)

Want Proof Evolution Is Real? Just Look at Creationism | Mother Jones - From invoking astrology to legally defining "destiny," the attacks on evolution and climate science just keep on…evolving.

The Couples Therapy Expert Esther Perel Takes On Sex and Sexuality - NYTimes.com
kmdr comments on My (16F) mom (46F) read my journal and is now punishing me for what's in it. Help!!

012414
AFP: Fears that molten fuel went into ground after melting through containment vessels at Fukushima — They still can’t find three reactor cores (meanwhile in La-Di-La Land)

Ukrainian president offers concessions to protesters | World news | The Guardian - Viktor Yanukovich promises to reshuffle government and bring opposition leaders into anti-crisis team after days of deadly riots ... But the package is unlikely to bring an end to the conflict, which has already claimed at least three lives in the capital.
Syrian government and rebels agree to face-to-face talks in Geneva | World news | The Guardian - Day of frantic efforts at UN headquarters ends in agreement to hold first direct negotiations between the two sides on Saturday
Poland to look into new allegations about secret CIA jail | Reuters - Polish prosecutors investigating allegations the CIA ran a secret jail in a Polish forest said on Friday they will look into a newspaper report that gave new accounts about the alleged "black site." former CIA officers as saying that the agency paid $15 million to Polish intelligence in 2003 for use of the site, handing over the cash in two cardboard boxes. (we know nothing, nothing)
UN Special Rapporteur: Oil, Gas & Mining Operations Brings Increased Sexual Violence | Native News Online
Qatar World Cup: 185 Nepalese died in 2013 – official records | World news | The Guardian - Death toll in 2013 likely to rise as new cases revealed, sparking fresh wave of concern over treatment of migrant workers
Up to 10 devices linked to Rebekah Brooks missing, hacking trial hears | UK news | theguardian.com - Ex-News International chief's lawyer contests claim, suggesting several of the devices are obsolete and not connected to her

MIT Report: Obama Used Bogus Intelligence to Push Syria War - A new report and analysis on the deadly chemical-weapon attack in Syria last August — blamed on the Assad regime by warmongering Western governments and Sunni Arab dictators — offers further evidence that the Obama administration almost certainly used deception in its failed bid to more deeply embroil the United States and its military in Syria’s ongoing war. (lying country into war is popular)

Tomgram: Nick Turse, Secret Wars and Black Ops Blowback | TomDispatch (they created what they tell you to be afraid of +America’s Secret War in 134 Countries)
ELI5: Why does the United States have bases in so many countries? Is this still necessary? : explainlikeimfive
? General Wesley Clark tells of how Middle East destabilization was planned as far back as 1991 - YouTube (the dual-loyalty neo-cons were always at work)
Remote U.S. base at core of secret operations - The Washington Post

The Hawks' Hypocrisy on the Iran Sanctions Bill - Peter Beinart - The Atlantic - Some of the same commentators who say the Senate proposal will guarantee an agreement sticks have already declared a diplomatic deal will never work and that war is the only option. (oh, look: the same old neocons and Israeli fronts)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Privately Urging House Democrats To Oppose New Iran Sanctions - Hoyer is a close ally of AIPAC and regularly leads the AIPAC-funded House Democratic trip to Israel.
One of Congress’s Most Pro-Israel Lawmakers Isn’t Pro-Israel Enough for AIPAC - That AIPAC was driving hard for new Iran sanctions legislation surprised no one. But its use of a right-wing blog to target a well-connected Jewish Democrat with a long history of support for Israel raised eyebrows among some current and former AIPAC officials.

FISA Court Waited Until After Snowden Leaks To Actually Explore If Bulk Phone Record Collection Was Legal | Techdirt

End the Phone Data Sweeps - NYTimes.com

Russia Plans to Extend Snowden Asylum, Lawmaker Says - NYTimes.com
Justifying the Unjustifiable: Deconstructing the Lies of the NSA - YouTube
Twitter / puellavulnerata: You'd think #NSA shipment ... - 'interdiction' would be more subtle..
Snowden: "I think a person should be able to dial a number, make a purchase, send an SMS, write an e-mail, or visit a Web site without having to think about what it's going to look like on their permanent record." : worldnews
Snowden: laws aren't enough to stop spying, we need technology that keeps our secrets - Boing Boing

NSA domestic surveillance condemned in Republican party resolution | World news | theguardian.com - Republican National Committee members call for special panel to investigate extent of bulk data collection on Americans (but they all voted for it)

Court system hit with cyberattack - Tony Romm - politico.com
A Giant Military Surveillance Blimp Is Going to Constantly Monitor the East Coast | Motherboard - JLENS also doesn’t have to focus on just one target at a time. According to Raytheon, it can “track hundreds of airborne and surface moving threats, in 360 degrees.” And it’ll be flying full time by the end of the year.
? US Army wants to replace soldiers with robots - YouTube
How a teenager helpfully reported a government security flaw – and could be charged in return | Asher Wolf | Comment is free | theguardian.com - In Australia, individuals who report critical security flaws face potential legal action, while corporations who fail to report data breaches to paying customers go unpunished

John Kerry defends US foreign policy against accusations of 'standing down' | World news | theguardian.com - US engagement 'as broad and deep as at any point in history' • Secretary of state calls on Iran to deliver on nuclear pledges ... Obama’s critics have contrasted the White House’s diplomatic approach to settling conflicts in the Middle East with the willingness of his predecessors to use military force. (because that always works +Guardian writes ENTIRE article without attributing source of "claims" - hello, invisible Israel)

Fined Billions, JPMorgan Chase Will Give Dimon a Raise - NYTimes.com

Chuck Schumer risks Obama's wrath by doubting focus on healthcare | World news | theguardian.com - NY senator says healthcare 'not top of most Americans’ to-do lists' and party better off tackling economic inequality (not his style, really)
Obamacare Signups For Private Plans Surpass 3 Million

Does the Republican Party Have to Change? - Molly Ball - The Atlantic - The GOP's effort to rebrand itself didn't get far—but it may not matter: It's winning anyway.
Watch what happens when Obama picks a top donor as ambassador - Yahoo News - Here’s how the White House described wealthy executive George Tsunis when President Barack Obama nominated him to be the top U.S. diplomat in Norway in September 2013: Norwegian media described Tsunis as having “trampled through the salad bowl.” (another rich dimbulb)

Radioactive Waste Dumped by Oil Companies Is Seeping out of the Ground in North Dakota | Alternet - There have been 300 oil spillages in the state since 2011, and now that toxic waste is coming back up.
Vt. pipeline subcontractors charged with making meth - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Indiana Pulling Out All the Stops to Block Gay Marriage | Mother Jones - Indiana's Republican leaders are so dead set on banning gay marriage they upended the traditional process for putting initiatives on the ballot. (they always cheat)

GOP Candidate Who Made Marital Rape Remarks Drops Out of Congressional Race | Mother Jones - Black said: "I don't know how on earth you could validly get a conviction in a husband-wife rape when they're living together, sleeping in the same bed, she's in a nightie and so forth. There's no injury, there's no separation, or anything."
Why Republicans Keep Calling Women Sluts - "If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government then so be it! Let us take that discussion all across America because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be."
Will the last Republican woman turn out the lights? - Salon.com - Keep talking, Mike Huckabee. Your creepy obsession with women’s libidos will just elect more Democrats

Deputy's shooting of teenager prompts protests - latimes.com - The family is demanding to know what led the officer to fire his gun, rather than subdue the boy by some other method. Alva Alvarez said the teenager didn't have a gun
Virginia State Legislature Bans American Flags On Sticks, But Lets Guns In | ThinkProgress

Eric Holder Wants American Banks and Legal Pot Shops to Be Buds | Motherboard

Study Debunks Classic Argument About Low-Wage Workers - Low-wage workers are a lot more educated than they were nearly 50 years ago, but they are making much less, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
OWS Punches Walmart In the Gut By Leaking The Scripts Used to Keep Unions Out - The myth that Walmart doesn’t actively discourage employees from unionizing was dealt a blow today when Occupy Wall Street leaked the actual scripts Walmart uses to teach managers how to discourage employees from forming a union.

Columbia Students Continue To Probe University's Mishandling Of Alleged Sexual Assaults: Gothamist - Last month, it was revealed that Columbia University may have mishandled rape and sexual misconduct accusations three female students lobbied against a male athlete. Now, student-run magazine "The Blue and White" has kicked off an in-depth two-part series examining the experiences of the three alleged victims, highlighting how the university's internal investigation allowed the accused student to walk free.

Judge Orders Hospital to Remove Pregnant Woman From Life Support - NYTimes.com - Doctors refused, citing a state law that prevents them from withdrawing or withholding “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient, and her husband filed suit asking a judge to order the doctors to remove her from the machines.

1nf1del comments on 6th grade girl bullies get destroyed.

Stephen Hawking: Black Holes May Not Have 'Event Horizons' After All - In place of the event horizon, Hawking invokes an “apparent horizon”, a surface along which light rays attempting to rush away from the black hole’s core will be suspended.

Save The Cat | The American Conservative - “Inside Llewyn Davis” is the Coen Brothers’ portrait of the artist as a young failure. No wonder the Academy voters didn’t like it.
Richard Sherman Was Mic'd Up vs. Michael Crabtree So You Can Hear His Sportsmanship (VIDEO) - Moments after being shoved in the face by Crabtree, Sherman had a microphone put in his face by Erin Andrews of FOX Sports. At that point, he excoriated Crabtree and loudly proclaimed himself the best cornerback in the NFL. (the internets only took a week to figure that one out but we did learn the new n-word is "thug")

Steve Jobs, Google CEO plotted ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to keep wages down – report — RT USA (fuckers will be fuckers)
After Major Outage, Gmail Slowly Comes Back
Google Shuts Down Gmail For Two Hours To Show Its Immense Power | Video | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
Glitch Is Causing Thousands Of Emails To Be Sent To One Man’s Hotmail Account | TechCrunch
I hate Buzzfeed.

012314 Pope Francis calls the Internet a 'gift from God' - Washington Times

Highest Yet: Radiation level hits new record in Fukushima groundwater well — Over 3,000,000 Bq/liter of strontium and beta emitters (meanwhile in La-Di-La Land)

Obama's Drone War Has Killed Over 2,400 People in Five Years | Motherboard - At least 273 were reportedly civilians. (more than 10% innocent casualities and that's if you believe their "high-value" target bullshit +will Obama eventually be held accountable? will anybody?)

The hidden history of the CIA’s prison in Poland - The Washington Post (rendition and torture black prison; no one held accountable)

? Raw: Kiev Clashes Continue As Deadline Looms - YouTube
Texas Shouldn't – BUT JUST DID – Execute a Mexican National | American Civil Liberties Union
Sochi 2014: IOC jeopardized safety of athletes and fans in awarding Games to Putin’s Russia - The Washington Post - IOC officials have long collaborated with plunderers, and treated human rights abuses as acceptable if it meant good commerce, regardless of the harm
Indian Woman Gang-Raped By 13 Men On Orders Of Village Court In West Bengal: Police - - A 20-year-old woman in eastern India was gang-raped by 13 men on the orders of a village court as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different community, a senior police officer said on Thursday.
Morocco repeals 'rape marriage law' - Africa - Al Jazeera English - Controversial article previously allowed rapists to avoid charges if they married their victims.
China blocks foreign news sites that revealed elite's offshore holdings | World news | theguardian.com - Guardian among sites blocked over reports • China Digital Times publishes details of directive
Twiggy Garcia, who attempted citizen's arrest on Tony Blair awarded over £2000 - UK - News - The Independent - The website that inspired his actions, George Monbiot's Arrest Blair website, has now awarded him a quarter of their funds, a total of £2222. It seemed that Mr Blair’s unpopularity with a certain portion of the population was rivalled only by an instrinsic dislike of those considered “hipsters”.
You won’t believe why the Victoria Line is currently suspended - Us Vs Th3m - The civil engineering team has poured fast-setting concrete into the Victoria Line signalling equipment room and shut everything down (well)
Argentinian peso in freefall as economic crisis deepens | World news | theguardian.com - Currency falls at fastest rate since 2002 collapse as central bank runs out of reserves to enter market

Live Q&A with Edward Snowden: Thursday 23rd January, 8pm GMT, 3pm EST | Free Snowden (truth speaks and is very inteligent and revealing; contrast with Obama-talk)
Top moments from Snowden's live chat | Al Jazeera America
Exclusive: 'Incredible strain' in relations between Ecuador and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over his involvement in Edward Snowden NSA whistleblower affair - World Politics - World - The Independent - Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa was furious with his own diplomat Fidel Narvaez, who – in conjunction with Mr Assange – organised the handing of a safe passage letter to Mr Snowden. (7/13; Snowden almost didn't make it but for Fidel Narvaez)
US hints at Edward Snowden plea bargain to allow return from Russia | World news | The Guardian - Attorney general prepared to 'engage in conversation' with NSA whistleblower but says full clemency is 'going too far' (how about a Presidential Medel?
Snowden Effect New York Times - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - One of the more dishonorable ways to discuss the what our all-too-human, but curiously error-prone, heroes of the NSA have been up to since we all decided to hide under the bed in 2001 is to make it all about Edward Snowden, International Man Of Luggage, and what he did, and about Glenn Greenwald, and what he did.
Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End - NYTimes.com - The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance, underscoring that the issue was not settled by a high-profile speech President Obama gave last week. (Charlie Savage)
Edward Snowden responds to phone spying investigation, lays out hopes for reforms | The Verge

US government privacy board says NSA bulk collection of phone data is illegal | World news | The Guardian - President Barack Obama rebuked over his defence of security agency’s gathering of Americans' phone data
Watchdog Panel: NSA Phone Spying Is Illegal — Stop It | Threat Level | Wired.com
US govt watchdog slams NSA snooping as illegal, useless against terrorism • The Register - But panel split on its findings, fears public will hate spies if another 9/11 happens
White House rejects review board finding that NSA data sweep is illegal | Fox News
Judge Enforces Spy Orders Despite Ruling Them Unconstitutional | Threat Level | Wired.com
Even A FISA Court Judge Basically Called The NSA's Bulk Record Collections 'Illegal' | Techdirt - from the the-casual-abandonment-of-the-4th-Amendment dept
Human Rights Watch annual report 2014 criticises NSA mass surveillance | Law | The Guardian - States with poor human rights records may use spying scandal as excuse to clamp down on internet freedom, report warns

CNN Twitter account compromised by Syrian Electronic Army | The Desk

'The Internet's Own Boy' fights for reform after Aaron Swartz's death | The Verge
Female Undercover Cop Who Helped Chicago Police Target ‘NATO 3' Testifies on Recordings at Trial | The Dissenter (extreme entrapment)


The Daily Dot - The final confessions of a Silk Road kingpin

Developer finds Chrome eavesdropping bug - Any computer running the Chrome browser can be subverted to eavesdrop on conversations happening around it, claims a developer.

Justice Department says USIS submitted 665,000 incomplete background checks - The Washington Post

Blimplike surveillance craft set to deploy over Maryland heighten privacy concerns - The Washington Post
The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

The Global Elite Are Sleeping Inside a Golden Egg in the Swiss Alps | Motherboard
Americans In Both Parties Agree Income Inequality Is Growing, But Disagree On How To Fix It - A sixty-nine percent majority says the government should work to reduce gap between the rich and everyone else ... A smaller, 54-percent majority supports raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to expand programs for the poor ... 57 percent of Republicans believe that the rich have worked harder than others, and 51 percent that poverty is due to a lack of individual effort.
Right-Wing Media: Low-Income Americans Are Inheriting Too Much, Working Too Little | Blog | Media Matters for America (up is always down)
? What this Millionaire Thinks of Poverty Will Make Your Blood Boil | Heroes & Villains - YouTube (comments pretty unified for YT)

Obama’s Fifth Year Job Approval Rating Nearly Identical to Bush | FDL Action (since the hard core was always with Bush, this means Obama has destroyed his base)

Uninsured Rate Drops Amid Obamacare Rollout: Poll - the uninsured rate for U.S. adults dropped by 1.2 percentage points in January, to 16.1 percent. The biggest change was for unemployed people, a drop of 6.7 percentage points. That was followed by a 2.6 percentage-point decline for nonwhites. Traditionally both groups are far more likely to be uninsured than the population as a whole.

Supreme Court upends top patent court’s “burden of proof” rule | Ars Technica - The burden of proving infringement is always on a patent owner, high court says.

Patty Murray Comes Out Against Iran Sanctions Bill - The Post reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has likewise sent a letter to constituents opposing the bill. Warren had already voiced skepticism about the idea of adding more sanctions at a Dec. 13 hearing and has favored the interim deal. (call your crazy Dem Senator from Israel)

Virginia Attorney General Says Gay Marriage Ban Is Unconstitutional And Will Not Defend It - Following a seismic political shift in Virginia's top elected offices, the new attorney general has concluded that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional and he will no longer defend it in federal lawsuits, his office said Thursday.

There Has Been An Average Of One School Shooting Every Other School Day So Far This Year | ThinkProgress (how crazy will it have to get?)

NYT Critic Who Trashed Fox News Book Is Friend of Fox Newser - Omitted from Maslin’s review, however, was an important disclosure: The critic has maintained a 30-year friendship with Fox News’s editor-at-large, Peter J. Boyer, who plays a prominent role in one of the book’s chapters, and who was personally recruited to the channel in 2012 by Ailes. (that's pretty corrupt)
Dinesh D'Souza indicted for excessive Senate campaign contributions | World news | theguardian.com - Conservative commentator charged on two counts • Senate candidate in question not named in indictment (Delicious)

Can 'Roe' Survive the Roberts Court? - So, more than four decades since Roe, and that is the question at hand: Will the Roberts Court do to Roe and abortion rights what it did to health-care reform and keep just enough of it intact to call it legal, while rendering it nearly impossible to obtain? So far, all signs point to yes.
Judge Throws Out Oklahoma Morning-After Pill Bill - News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports | - An Oklahoma County judge has ruled that legislation making it harder for women to obtain the morning-after pill birth control pill is unconstitutional and has barred the state from enforcing it.

Apache Canada pipeline spills produced water northwest of Edmonton | CTV Edmonton News - Alberta Environment says about 1.6 million litres of produced water leaked from the pipeline across a leased road and affected a small, unnamed tributary.

Public misinformed about seal of approval from US drug agency - Between 2005 and 2011, nearly half of all new drug formulations in the US were approved without companies having to demonstrate a tangible benefit, such as relieving disease symptoms, extending life, or improving someone’s ability to go about normal activities.

Cop ‘Stops And Frisks’ African American Teen, Literally Destroying His Genitals : Political Blind Spot
I witnessed Ohio's execution of Dennis McGuire. What I saw was inhumane | Lawrence Hummer | Comment is free | theguardian.com - I don't know how any objective observer could come up with any conclusion other than that injection was an evil way to go (sadistic murderers)
DOJ Report Claims Jail Staff Forced Women Prisoners To Perform Strip Show « CBS Atlanta ... underreported for nearly 20 years ("under" = "un" +your criminal justice system)
Mount Pleasant Police Chief Charged With Possessing Child Pornography | NBC New York - The child pornography was allegedly contained on Fanelli’s home computer, officials said ... taught sex-abuse awareness classes to children
More Bribery Allegations Surface In Chicago's Red Light Camera Program: Chicagoist - “providing government officials with lavish gifts and bribes.”


How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love - Wired Science

Revenge porn magnate Hunter Moore has been arrested by the FBI | The Verge


012214
There Are 85 People Who Are As Wealthy As Half The WORLD, Oxfam Reports - This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems. Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown.
Aron Cramer: 'Income Inequality And Climate Change Are Actually Very Directly Linked'
A much-read story about a reformed Wall Streeter ignores the bigger picture about our broken financial system
Robert Reich: David Brooks is full of it - Salon.com - The former secretary of labor dismantles the Times columnist's ideas about the "social problems of the poor"

US psychology body declines to rebuke member in Guantánamo torture case | World news | theguardian.com - Complaint dropped against John Leso, involved in brutal interrogation of suspected 9/11 hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani (APA decides to charge for toture)
Impunity for Gitmo torturer - Salon.com - U.S. Army Reserve officer John Leso took part in what even the Pentagon called "torture" but will not be rebuked
Guantánamo by the Numbers [Infographic] | American Civil Liberties Union

Bush-Appointed Judge Rules that No-Fly List Makes Some Americans "Second-Class Citizens" | Mother Jones - A Virginia man who claims that as a teenager he was detained, interrogated, and abused in Kuwait at the behest of the Obama administration (Obama loves his totalitarian controls)

Guardian blocked in China after story about leadership's offshore wealth | World news | theguardian.com - Access to the front page of newspaper's website blocked and availability of other stories intermittent (that didn't take long)
Syrian peace talks stuck over Assad's future - Peace talks to carve a path out of Syria's civil war got off to a rocky start Wednesday as a bitter clash over President Bashar Assad's future threatened to collapse the negotiations even before they had begun.
Syria accuses the west of pouring arms into the hands of terrorists | World news | theguardian.com - Foreign minister Walid al-Moallem delivers provocative speech at start of Montreux talks
Ukraine protests: three protesters killed | World news | The Guardian - Two people shot, a third falls to his death, and many more seriously injured as unrest in capital Kiev boils over
Photo by youranonnewsorg: Kiev: what the Guardian calls "unrest")
Ukrainian government lifts restrictions on use of water cannons in cold weather - ForUm - Ukrainian government lifts restrictions on use of water cannons in cold weather (ice-cannons)
Israel air strike kills two in Gaza | World news | theguardian.com - Israel says one of the men killed in Beit Hanoun had fired rockets across the border during Ariel Sharon's funeral last week
Uganda courts orders immediate deportation of British man for being gay | The Raw Story
Drax protesters' undercover police case convictions quashed - Twenty-nine people sentenced after a power station protest at which an undercover police officer was working have had their convictions quashed.
3 east Jerusalem al-Qaida recruits arrested, 'planned massive bombings' | JPost | Israel News - The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Wednesday that it arrested three Palestinians from east Jerusalem recruited online by an al-Qaida operative in Gaza

Verizon says it received over 321,000 legal orders for user data in 2013 | Ars Technica - Of those, over 6,000 were court orders to provide metadata in real time. (over 300,000 American terrorists)
New cyber threat known as "Tweet Storm" emerges: IDA - Channel NewsAsia - Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority recently noticed a call for a "Tweet Storm" to target the government's Twitter accounts. It added that tweet storms do not affect the government infrastructure network. (any kind of speech is a "threat" to authorities)
Much of China's web traffic mysteriously sent to Wyoming house | The Verge - It's suspected that China's censors had actually been trying to block the servers that it accidentally routed all traffic too: the Times reports that the servers' owner, Sophidea Incorporated, appears to help people evade China's firewall. an address that was the focus on an extensive Reuters profile in 2011, which discovered that it was home to more than 2,000 companies, despite measuring just 1,700-square-feet
Guccifer reportedly arrested - Salon.com - The hacker who brought us George W. Bush's curious self-portraits reportedly detained in Romania
The Army Goes Cyberpunk, Embraces Virtual Battlefields and Killer Robots | Motherboard

Snowden Denies Suggestions That He Was a Spy for Russia - NYTimes.com ("absurd" "smears" +Rogers and Difucker are either very stupid or totally corrupt)
Snowden responds to US politicians' spy claims: 'Spies get treated better than that' - Boing Boing - “This ‘Russian spy’ push is absurd,” said Snowden. “Spies get treated better than that” by the likes of Russia and China, which US politicians have implied Snowden is snooping for.
Edward Snowden a traitor but US spy review is welcome, says Julie Bishop | World news | theguardian.com - Australian foreign minister questions NSA contractor's motives but supports US proposals for greater oversight of spy agencies

Stewart Skewers Obama’s NSA Speech: Privacy Is Important!… Unless We Decide It Isn’t! | Mediaite (which we have already decided)
Liberalism is Not the Security State - Lawyers, Guns & Money (Conservative love their spy state)
Both sides are not the same: Conservative Republicans Guilty Of FISA Tyranny | FreakOutNation - December 29, 2012 - Breakdown of the 2012 FISA yea votes: House GOP 97% Senate GOP 93% House Dem 40% Senate Dem 61% (Obama's conservative Republican authoritarian core)

Independent commission to investigate future of internet after NSA revelations | World news | theguardian.com - Two-year inquiry headed by Swedish foreign minister, set up by Chatham House and CIGI thinktanks, is announced at Davos (the elites will observe themselves)
A new 'crypto-war' breaks out, as citizens and criminals learn to hide from government – Telegraph Blogs - A new 'crypto-war' breaks out, as citizens and criminals learn to hide from government

The Video That Made Anonymous | Motherboard - Six years ago today, the first video missive ever created by Anonymous went viral. Titled “Message to Scientology,” the two-minute video by activist Gregg Housh was eerie with its time-lapsed footage and text-to-speech manifesto threatening the Church of Scientology, which they accused of attempting to censor the internet. This was back in 2008, before Anonymous was even considering organizing protests around the globe.

TV News Programs Seem Focused On Making Sure NSA Defenders Get Nearly All Air Time | Techdirt - Fair & Accuracy in Reporting is noting that the big Sunday talk shows seem to be dominated by NSA defenders, very rarely allowing NSA critics to even appear. (corp/spy state controlling your opinions)
Breaking: Pentagon workers strike over poverty pay - Salon.com - “Mr. Obama, I work hard to serve American heroes, and I shouldn’t end up with zero”

Files Show Chicago Archdiocese Hid Decades Of Child Sex Abuse « CBS Chicago

Obama's Job Approval Points to 2014 Trouble for Democrats | RealClearPolitics (taking the Dems down with him, Republicans will impeach)

Sen. Mike Lee to deliver tea party response to Obama - The group has been offering a second GOP response of sorts in recent years. Past speakers include Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). (new rule: Republicans get TWO responses)
GOP insiders freak out: Could Tea Party blow another election? - Salon.com - 2012 was just the beginning: Republicans are stuck in a civil war that threatens to derail even more winnable races
The real problem with the American right: Aging, white radicals - Salon.com - Everyone knows the GOP has been unable to moderate its image or agenda. But less understood is the true reason why (Calhounists)
GOP congressman: Wives should “voluntarily submit” to their husbands - Salon.com - In his recently released memoir, New Mexico's Steve Pearce says the family should be run using a chain of command
The ugly, sordid, damning details in the Bob McDonnell indictment | WashingtonExaminer.com

Poll: Christie favorability rating drops after George Washington Bridge controversy | The Political State | NorthJersey.com - Christie’s favorability rating is now at 46 percent, down 22 points from a survey taken just before his landslide re-election victory last year, a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released today found. Forty-three percent of those polled said they have an unfavorable view of the governor. (the bully is toast)

Covered California Daily News: Milestone Enrollment Numbers Released By Covered California and Department of Health Care Services - Covered California™ and the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) announced today that 500,108 Californians enrolled for health insurance and selected plans through the end of 2013 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while 584,000 applicants were determined likely eligible for Medi-Cal coverage. DHCS also transitioned 630,000 individuals into the Medi-Cal program from the state’s Low Income Health Program. (death spiral)

Anti-Highway Protester Faces Eight Year Sentence | Earth First! Newswire - As punishment for Will’s more than 11 day stand on behalf of the Valley’s land and people, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster is charging him with 16 misdemeanors (14 counts of “unlawful entry” and two of “resisting arrest”), with a maximum eight-year jail sentence. He also wants Will to pay Caltrans a mind-boggling $490,002 in restitution (corpcop state)
LAX cops left for break without telling anyone minutes before fatal shooting — RT USA - Police officers at the Los Angeles International Airport went on break without notifying their supervisors, just before a gunman opened fire and killed a Transportation Security Administration agent last year, according to a new Associated Press report.

West Virginia: second chemical leaked during spill prompts new probe | World news | theguardian.com - Freedom Industries failed to report second chemical leak during spill that tainted drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians
West Virginian Communities Still In Need After Coal Chemical Spill | DeSmogBlog - West Virginia American Water, the company that owns the water treatment facility contaminated by the coal chemical, is only offering a 10 dollar credit (1000 gallons) to consumers. The cost of flushing homes will therefore fall on already struggling West Virginians, where poverty is rampant and Walmart is the largest single employer.
Former West Virginia Miner: We've Been Dumping Those Chemicals In The Water For Decades - Business Insider

Creationism in Texas public schools: Undermining the charter movement. - An investigation into charter schools’ dishonest and unconstitutional science, history, and “values” lessons.
Creationist charter schools: not just for Texas, not up to scratch | Leaving Fundamentalism
Charter Chain Defends Teaching Creationism | Diane Ravitch's blog - Last week, Slate published an article about a large Texas-based charter chain that teaches creationism in its science classes. A spokesman for the chain, Responsive Education Solutions defended the practice.
Charter school leader defends creationism in schools' curriculum | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news (supported by Wallmart)
? The Erosion of Progress by Religions - YouTube

DOT traffic projections fail. - We see that as VMT (vehicle-miles traveled) growth slowed, stalled out, and then went into decline, the DOT has consistently just forecast that it's on the verge of taking off again. (new roads for less cars!)

Abortion polls 2014: Do most Americans think most abortions should be illegal? (Saletan: lifers lie, most Americans want legal abortions but it's icky)
Politicians And The Public Think Differently When It Comes To Abortion - two-thirds of the American population believe that decisions on abortion should be made between a woman, her family and her doctor
'Red' States Have Higher Divorce Rates Than 'Blue' States, And Here's Why - Specifically, putting pressure on young people to marry sooner, frowning upon cohabitation before marriage, teaching abstinence only sex education and making access to resources like emergency contraception more difficult all result in earlier child bearing ages and less-solid marriages from the get go, Glass writes in the paper.
Andrew Forrest: 'The Issue With Slavery Is That It Is Everywhere'

Hullabaloo - Get off my lawn or I'll shoot you dead (vigilante gun-nut fantasies +the hoodie defense)
Trooper gives sex lesson | Sandusky Register - An Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper with a history of domestic violence won't face charges related to alleged sexual encounters involving a boy, Sandusky County Sheriff's Deputy Sean O'Connell said. (they always walk)

A 13-Year-Old Wants to Map All the Bullies in the US | Motherboard - The student, Viraj Puri, is one impressive teenager. He runs the blog Bullyvention, which is a popular resource on Capitol Hill, has worked directly with members of Congress (or "lawmakerz" to use the blog's parlance), and now is teaming up with data scientists to develop a live index of bullying in communities around the country. (Florida: land of the bullies)

It Took Ariel Castro to Get Ohio to Start Taking Away Rapists' Parental Rights. Here Are the States That Haven't Yet. | Mother Jones - The Ohio bill, if signed into law, would make it so that rapists are unable to seize inheritance or parental rights of children they conceived through the rape

Google Glass deemed 'not appropriate' by cinema chain following homeland security incident | Film | theguardian.com ("Homeland Security" and terrorist movie-goers; a SWAT team for any occasion in corp-state America)
MPAA and ICE admit they yanked an innocent man out of a movie for wearing Google Glass - Boing Boing - the MPAA and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency confirmed that they worked together to yank a Google Glass wearer out of a movie theater, detain him in a small room against his will, confiscate and inspect his electronics (including his phone) and coerce an interview out of him with legal threats.

Myself: When is it okay to use the reflexive pronoun in a sentence?

How Supertramp got involved with one of the weirdest 9/11 truther conspiracies ever - Salon.com - What does the British classic rock band have to do with 9/11? Nothing ... or everything?
7 of the most amazing women you’ve never heard of - Salon.com
6 reasons female nudity can be powerful - Salon.com - A reporter's question about Lena Dunham's nudity pointed to a bigger issue: Naked women can threaten the status quo

Yale Student Creates Unblockable Replacement For Useful Course Catalog Site Yale Blocked; Yale Reconsiders Initial Block | Techdirt - from the boom-goes-the-dynamite dept - Yale dean Mary Miller has admitted to perhaps reacting too hastily, and recognizing that technology has changed quite a bit. (the internets will never forget how stupid you are, Mary Miller)

Domain registrar auto-enrolls customers into $1,850 security service (updated) | Ars Technica
Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers | Technology | The Guardian - Forecast of social network's impending doom comes from comparing its growth curve to that of an infectious disease (scientists working on a vaccine)
Google is trying harder than ever to be Facebook. Gmail and YouTube users aren’t happy. - Having linked your real-life identity to your content, Google can do things like use your YouTube reviews next to your name and face in advertising endorsements, another recent move that was met with similar backlash.

012114
Wealth of 85 people equals that of billions of poor, charity says | Nation & World | The Seattle Times - The charity Oxfam also reports that the recent financial crisis was an enormous burden on the world’s poor but hugely beneficial to the rich elite, who collected 95 percent of the post-crisis growth.

Map: Vaccine-Preventable Outbreaks | Map (America has Jenny McCarthy disease; contrast with say Brazil)

United States wants to expand its rapid-reaction force based in Spain | In English | EL PAÍS
China's princelings storing riches in Caribbean offshore haven | World news | The Guardian - Relatives of political leaders including China's current president and former premier named in trove of leaked documents from the British Virgin Islands (this will get the Guardian kicked out of China if they haven't been already)

Retired Generals and Admirals Urge President to Close Guantanamo, End Debate on Torture | Human Rights First - Thirty-one of the nation’s most respected retired generals and admirals today sent a letter to President Obama urging him to make good on his executive order to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

WASHINGTON: More oil spilled from trains in 2013 than in previous 4 decades, federal data show | Economy | McClatchy DC
Omaha Plant Collapse Oklahoma Plant Explosion - Things Fall Down, Things Blow Up - Esquire - Imagine if there were three terrorist events in two weeks. First, terrorists poison a state's water supply. Then, they rig a building to collapse and rig another one hundreds of miles away to explode. Nervous politicians would be blue-pencilling the Bill of Rights by daybreak. The NSA would throw a parade for itself. Edward Snowden would be hung in effigy, if we couldn't do it in person. Somebody's ass would get droned in Waziristan. But these were not the acts of terrorists. These involve Job Creators. The only similarity is that people were killed whom they never knew.

Costa Rican newspaper accuses government of ‘unprecedented’ spying on its reporters — The Tico Times
The Daily Dot - As much as one fifth of Germany had its email hacked - Sixteen million email users in Germany have had their passwords and other account information stolen, BBC reports.
Nearly HALF of South Korea hacked in insider data theft • The Register - Temporary contractor cuffed after credit card swipe
Stamping Chinese banknotes with censorship-busting QR codes - Boing Boing

Snowden to ask Russian police for protection after US threats – lawyer — RT News - “We are concerned with the situation around Edward. We see the statements made by some US officials containing potential and implicit threats and openly calling for causing him bodily harm,” Kucherena said.
Here's What Edward Snowden's Trial Could Look Like - But legal experts say a trial could expose more classified information as his lawyers try to build a case in an open court that the operations he exposed were illegal. (Obama has a secret court for that)
Edward Snowden bids to become Glasgow University rector

Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorism? | The National Security Program - A in-depth analysis of 227 individuals recruited by al Qaida or like-minded groups, and charged in the U.S. with an act of terrorism since 9/11, shows the contribution of NSA's bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal, and that traditional investigative methods were more helpful.

US withholding Fisa court orders on NSA bulk collection of Americans' data | World news | theguardian.com - Justice Department refuses to turn over 'certain other' documents in ACLU lawsuit meant to shed light on surveillance practices (they don't need no steenking courts)
The NSA Sent Daily Metadata Reports to the FBI for Years | Motherboard

Dianne Feinstein: NSA Would Never Abuse Its Powers Because It's 'Professional' | Techdirt - from the your-logical-fallacy-is...66t4r dept
How Can We Tell Obama's NSA Reforms Are Weak? Michael Hayden Doesn't Have Much Of A Problem With Them | Techdirt (or DiFucker)
Google's Eric Schmidt denies knowledge of NSA data tapping of firm | Technology | The Guardian - Executive chairman says search company has 'complained at great length' to the US government over intrusion
US telecoms giants express unease about proposed NSA metadata reforms | Business | theguardian.com - AT&T concerned US may force company to retain data
It will soon be technically impossible to be anonymous – Telegraph Blogs
Judge: IP-Address Does Not Prove Copyright Infringement | TorrentFreak

Why is Illinois, Not the US Government, Putting ‘NATO 3' on Trial for Terror Conspiracy? | The Dissenter - The conduct of the undercover police involved strongly suggests they played some role in pushing the activists to allegedly prepare Molotov cocktails.
Inside the FBI Entrapment Strategy | CrimethInc. Far East Blog

The Cypherpunk Revolutionary - Julian Assange | Robert Manne | The Monthly

RSA Conference Loses Speakers | TIME.com - After report privacy company gave NSA backdoor access
eBay to allow Bitcoin sales in 'virtual currency' category | Internet & Media - CNET News - "We're believers in BTC," eBay's US and UK branches say they will let people sell digital currencies in the classified ads sections of the sites.

MPAA & ICE Confirm They Interrogated A Guy For Wearing Google Glass During A Movie | Techdirt - Even so, it seemed incredible that ICE would take direction from the MPAA on something as small as a guy in a movie theater, rushing to the theater to help with the interrogation of someone there, but we underestimated the willingness of ICE to say "how high" when the MPAA says "jump."
The Daily Dot - FBI agent snatches Google Glass off man's face in movie theater - Some poor guy had an FBI agent allegedly grab the gadget off his face during a screening of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, after which he was taken from the theater and subjected to three hours of heated interrogation. (Record Industry has their gang of thugs called the FBI)

Earmarks are Back, Baby! | Mother Jones
GOP Image Has Changed Little A Year After Planned Reboot - since GOP Chairman Reince Priebus published his prescription for broadening the party's appeal despite its investment in outreach to the racial minorities, women and gay voters who backed Democrats decisively in 2012.

Bob McDonnell, Wife Indicted On Federal Corruption Charges: Report (next: below)

The Empire Will Strike Back by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - At the Daily Beast, Mike Tomasky looks at the meta-politics of the Christie saga, and winds up almost exactly where I’ve been from the moment the New Jersey governor got into big trouble: the 2016 Republican field no longer has a bankable Establishment figure who can wow conservatives with fabulous general-election prospects.
Most Voters Skeptical Of Chris Christie's Bridgegate Claims, Poll Finds (doesn't add up)
Rachel Maddow Slaps Back Chris Christie Camp's Attacks On Her - And until that question is answered, people are going to keep asking what the answer might plausibly be, even if Governor Christie’s spokesman prefers that we all stop doing that and attacks us when we do."
Jennifer Rubin Now Worshipping Chris Christie -- Daily Intelligencer - One can only wish Rubin had been in the room when Mitt Romney's campaign vetted Christie and dropped him like a hot potato. (The highest form of Rubin amusement comes when her principles collide and she is forced to pretend one of them doesn't exist.) Her return to classic form may be the single most gratifying outcome of the bridge scandal.

Sexist Digs At Wendy Davis Ramp Up After A Big Fundraising Report - A week after Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis' gubernatorial campaign trumpeted "record strength" in its first fundraising report, her conservative opponents have launched a series of gendered attacks on the Democrat's personal history.
States with the highest percentage of people who don’t pay any taxes - Lawyers, Guns & Money (look at the moochers: the South + Idaho)

Chemical Spill Muddies Picture in a State Wary of Regulations - NYTimes.com - at an event sponsored by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, West Virginia’s junior senator and former governor, Joe Manchin III, was preaching a familiar gospel of an industry under siege by overzealous regulators.

Ezra Klein Leaving Washington Post - Ezra Klein is leaving the Washington Post for his own venture, the paper announced Tuesday.
WashPost PR | The Volokh Conspiracy joins The Washington Post (conservatives join)
Why The Washington Post passed on Ezra Klein - Dylan Byers and Hadas Gold - POLITICO.com - But when Klein proposed the creation of an independent, explanatory journalism website — with more than three dozen staffers and a multiyear budget north of $10 million — the Post said enough is enough.

Gay Juror Was Taken Off Panel Improperly, Federal Court Rules - A federal appeals court has ruled that potential jurors may not be removed from a trial during jury selection solely because of sexual orientation
New Mexico Lawmaker Introduces Bill Legalizing Recreational Marijuana
Florida State House Candidate Joshua Black Says Obama Should Be Hanged For War Crimes (but not Bush or Cheney)

How Red States Are Holding Back Obamacare | New Republic
White hat hacker says he found 70,000 records on Healthcare.gov through a Google search | The Verge

Is our tech making the world too complex? – Samuel Arbesman – Aeon - It’s complicated Human ingenuity has created a world that the mind cannot master. Have we finally reached our limits?

The Country Named The World's Best Place To Retire | InternationalLiving.com - Panama Wins First Place on InternationalLiving.com Global Retirement Index 2014

The Best Of Bill Murray's Surprise Reddit AMA, A.K.A. The Internet's Dream Come True

Jonathon Ferrell shooting: Grand jury declines to indict officer - CNN.com - "Defendant Kerrick, in direct violation of written CMPD regulations, fires 12 high-velocity bullets at Jonathon, striking him 10 times in the chest and arms," the lawsuit continues. (injured, unarmed man seeking help; cop walks)

Apple Falls Behind Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony in New Consumer Experience Survey - Mac Rumors

012014
MLK, Spying, and the “Urgency of the Moment” | American Civil Liberties Union - A few months ago, I wrote about that campaign and its connection to the vast domestic spying on ordinary Americans undertaken by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI:
How The FBI Invaded Martin Luther King Jr.'s Privacy -- And Tried To Blackmail Him Into Suicide - One FBI memo refers to King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." (racist fucks)
FBI tracked King's every move - CNN.com - The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.
Deconstructing Reconstruction by Nicholas Lemann | The Washington Monthly - The tumultuous decade that followed the Civil War failed to enshrine black voting and civil rights, and instead paved the way for more than a century of entrenched racial injustice. (terrorism by whites)
Dr. King And Surveillance - MLK, Victim Of The Surveillance State - Esquire - The most queasy-inducing part of the president's big NSA speech last week was this passage:

Three 'NYT' stories propagate rightwing Israeli narrative
Former 'NYT' reporter says Times should assign non-Jews to cover Israel/Palestine - Several folks have sent along a sharp interview in Haaretz of Clyde Haberman, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times who left the paper in December, in which Haberman tells Chemi Shalev that Jewish reporters are increasingly being replaced by Asians in the trenches of journalism. (except for covering Israel)
? Max Blumenthal and Ian Lustick speak at Penn - YouTube (NYT inside Israel's narrative)
Wasserman Schultz won't stand up for Obama on Iran sanctions - Wasserman Schultz is on the president’s side, yes. But she is plainly fearful of alienating the Israel lobby.
How long must we wait for 'the fierce urgency of now'? - Joining 132 others, two self-described progressive congressmembers, James McGovern (D-MA) and Alan Grayson (D-FL) lambasted the American Studies Association for having the audacity to join Palestinians in the boycott of institutions that are complicit in the military occupation of Palestinian land.
Rejecting collective punishment from Gaza to Syria | Mondoweiss
Scarlett's Letter - Social media pillory Johansson for representing settlement business SodaStream (Mondoweiss)

First UK legal challenge to CIA drones blocked by Court of Appeal | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - First UK legal challenge to CIA drones blocked by Court of Appeal

Fighting the Last War by Elizabeth Dickinson | The Washington Monthly - As president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe triumphed over a fierce narco-insurgency. Then the U.S. helped to export his strategy to Mexico and throughout Latin America. Here’s why it’s not working. (it's much worse than "not working" in other countries)

World's 85 richest people have as much as poorest 3.5 billion: Oxfam warns Davos of ‘pernicious impact’ of the widening wealth gap - World Politics - World - The Independent - World's 85 richest people have as much as poorest 3.5 billion: Oxfam warns Davos of ‘pernicious impact’ of the widening wealth gap (someone call David Brooks)
The Undeserving Rich - NYTimes.com (Brooks, Bret Stephens stomp on the truth)
In the Name of Love | Jacobin - ?“Do what you love” is the mantra for today’s worker. Why should we assert our class interests if, according to DWYL elites like Steve Jobs, there’s no such thing as work? (DWYL is easy if you are a billionaire)
How the young elite rise in Washington, D.C. - Salon.com - The White House engages in blatant class discrimination by allowing One Percenters to subsidize it - While colleges and other institutions sometimes fund unpaid internships, their major beneficiaries are rich kids (Obama loves his 1%)

?China’s dirty emissions creeping into the US - study — RT USA
Photo by youranonnewsorg - The charred remains of a police bus in #Kiev.
Ukip Shipping Forecast: There Are Warnings Of Gay In Bongo Bongo Land (listen)
Slave trade documents among illegal Foreign Office cache | World news | The Guardian - Papers might provide information for people seeking compensation for ancestors' suffering, says historian (UK more involved in slave trade than previously acknowledged)

Congressional Leaders Suggest Earlier Snowden Link to Russia - NYTimes.com (Rogers, Difucker "offered no specific evidence" +"cyberskills!)
UT Documents: Reuters on Snowden - Other U.S. security officials have told Reuters as recently as last week that the United States has no evidence at all that Snowden had any confederates who assisted him or guided him about what NSA materials to hack or how to do so.
What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days? - Esquire - Here, for example, is the increasingly useless Diane Feinstein, visiting with the Dancin' Master, and dishing out some ironclad speculation about Comrade Snowden.

Obama’s NSA Speech Has Little Impact on Skeptical Public | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - Most Say U.S. Should Pursue Criminal Case Against Snowden (ladybrainz still behind the curve +Obama's approval sucks)
Trust in U.S., other governments plummets after state missteps | Reuters
NSA Built Back Door In Microsoft's All Windows Software by 1999. | Techworm - The Article states that A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has reveled the special Access codes prepared by US National Security Agency, which have been built secretly in windows. The NSA Access system has been built in every windows operating system now in use, except windows 95 and its predecessors.
Microsoft's Office blog hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army hours after redesign | The Verge
Sacramento garbage collectors collected and delivered evidence for the DEA | news10.net

At Home With Glenn Greenwald | Motherboard - "The UK and US governments hate the journalism that we're doing," he told VICE at his home near Rio de Janeiro, regarding Miranda's 11-hour detention and questioning by authorities at an airport in London in July. He was held under an anti-terror law, which was "a way of saying look at what it is we can do to people who defy us if we choose."

? Week One of the New Hampshire Rebellion - YouTube

Philosophers have long noted the utility of fear to the state. Machiavelli notoriously argued that a good leader should induce fear in the populace in order to control the rabble.
The Liberal Surveillance State — Crooked Timber - But then the whole article – an attempted hack job on Snowden, Greenwald, Assange and the liberals who like them – is weird like that. In one sense, I can understand why the New Republic went for it – it’s perhaps the purest exercise in even~the~liberal~New Republic~ism that the magazine has published since its change in ownership (rich libertarians)
Race Man | New Republic - Sean Wilentz: But it remains to be seen whether the latest ploy by the Obama camp--over allegations about the circulation of a photograph of Obama in ceremonial Somali dress--will be exposed by the press as the manipulative illusion that it is. (2008 for the background and irony)

The Supreme Court's Two Warrantless Phone Search Cases Are Already Outdated | Motherboard - . While it's heartening to see the 40-year-old case law that governs such searches get scrutiny from the court, one of the cases—and arguably both—hinges on technology that's already out of date (as is the Supreme Court)

Bush veterans eye office as the former president's image rebounds | TheHill - But five years later, they say things have changed and that he’s no longer toxic. The former president’s personal approval ratings reached positive territory last year for the first time since early in his second term. (Obama's don't look at the war criminals is really paying off)
The Price For Letting Them Off Easy by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - There was way too little legal accountability for the various crimes of the Bush administration, and the effort to reach out (remember the vote on the Stimulus?) was met with a petulant stiff-arm. The result is that the Bush Era has begun to take on less of the flavor of criminality and more of mere incompetence. In reality, it was a lethal combination of both, and we should have never let America develop amnesia about that fact.

West Virginia Water Company Declares Bankruptcy - Freedom Industries' Clean Getaway In West Virginia - Esquire

G.O.P. Advice for Christie: Pick a Better Team - NYTimes.com (yeah, right, NYT; has nothing to do with being a corrupt fucker)
Rachel Maddow: N.J. bridge scandal proves the need for dogged local journalism - The Washington Post

Officer acquitted in Kelly Thomas’ death receiving $40k a year pension from LAPD — RT USA

There’s a Gene for That | Jacobin - Genetic determinism, and its uglier cousin social Darwinism, are making a comeback. Armed with large genomic datasets and an arsenal of statistical techniques, a small but vocal band of scientists are determined to hunt down the genetic basis of all we are and all we do. (Genome-Wide Association Studies: GWAS

Doctor angry Ohio executed inmate despite 'horror' warning | World news | theguardian.com - Anaesthesiologist David Waisel warned Ohio court Dennis McGuire would experience 'agony and horror' during execution (and the Republicans said "great")

Jared Diamond, Please Stop Propagating the Myth of the Savage Savage! | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network - Diamond is so intent on dispelling the Myth of the Peaceful Savage–the idea that before civilization all people were “peaceful and gentle”–that he has replaced it with an equally absurd idea, the Myth of the Savage Savage.
Mummy of Forgotten Pharaoh Discovered in Ruined Egyptian Tomb - weather.com - An unknown pharaoh named Woseribre Senebkay has been unearthed in southern Egypt.


The best God joke ever - and it's mine! | Stage | The Guardian - Emo Philips


011914
The Feed | Live Video / Audio Feed Map

Putin rejects claims of corruption over Sochi Winter Olympics | World news | theguardian.com - Russian president rubbishes claims by IOC member that huge parts of $50bn outlay have been purloined
Putin, the Winter Olympics and why there are two kinds of homophobia | Barbara Ellen | Comment is free | The Observer - "You can come here, gay people, and we won't instantly attack and imprison you – but you must curb your disgusting paedophile ways for the duration of your stay."
Notorious Russian Anti-LGBT Activist Reportedly Arrested In Cuba - Maxim Martsinkevich, known as “Tesak,” is the head of “Occupy Pedophilia,” a group that humiliates and harasses gay men and puts the videos online.
Is China's Historic Credit Bubble About to Pop? - Matthew O'Brien - The Atlantic - In five years, China's shadow banks have increased credit from 120 to 190 percent of GDP—a bigger run-up than the U.S. housing bubble.
'I wanted to stop black terror,' said man who stabbed Eritrean baby in suspected hate crime | JPost | Israel News - Indictment issued in Tel Aviv court states that Mordechai Michael Tzerki, 59, told police he set out to stab a dark-skinned baby “because I hate them, they’re black and cause problems.” “a sword of vengeance for the whites against the terror against white people.” (racist failed neo-nazi state of Israel)
Protesters clash with police at large Ukraine rally | Reuters
Protest Against "Dictatorship" In Ukraine Turns Violent - “War’s finally started,” wrote one opposition lawmaker. “Laws don’t apply anymore.”
David Cameron's Immigrants Benefits Plan - Business Insider - Benefits will be stripped from immigrants who cannot speak English, it has been reported.
How Erik Prince, Founder Of Blackwater, Will Help China Subjugate Africa | Zero Hedge

The NSA Speech: Obama Accepts the Logic of Staying Terrorized - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - If the vision he laid out Friday prevails, mass surveillance on innocents will continue and we'll never enjoy pre-9/11 privacy again. (Obama's eternal war)
Obama embracing surveillance structure of George W. Bush, Hayden says | TheHill - cutting into agility a bit, putting administrative burdens on; that could be risky, but it looks like he's going to accept that risk in order to fundamentally preserve the programs ("risky")
Obama’s NSA reforms: The president’s proposals for metadata and the FISA court are surprisingly substantial. - The three ambitious NSA reforms endorsed by Obama, and the one he rejected.
Obama NSA reform speech: The six questions he didn’t answer. - The president’s NSA surveillance speech left six key questions unanswered.
The Tech Back Door in Obama’s New Spying Policy | emptywheel

? VICE Meets Glenn Greenwald: Snowden's Journalist of Choice - YouTube

Intelligence chair: NSA leaker Edward Snowden may have had Russian help | World news | theguardian.com - Rogers: Snowden 'a thief whom we believe had some help' • House homeland security chair McCaul backs claim ("we believe" " I don’t think" " Dianne Feinstein, a staunch defender of the NSA’s programmes ... McCaul said he could not “definitively” say ... Rogers did not give any supporting evidence for his claims)
UT Documents: Trustworthiness of Congressman Mike Rogers
Mike Rogers: You Can't Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don't Know About It | Techdirt - from the say-what-now? dept
Top House Republican Believes Snowden Was 'Cultivated By A Foreign Power' - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not rule out the idea that Snowden was working on behalf of the Russians during an interview on "Meet The Press." (DiFucker onboard)
Page 2: Vladimir Putin Defends Anti-Gay Law, but Vows No 'Problems' for Olympic Visitors - ABC News - Asked whether Snowden could stay as long as he wants, Putin replied: "Yes, sure, definitely."
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup | New York Post - A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks. (compare and contrast)

The Brian Lehrer Show: A Running List of What We Know the NSA Can Do. So Far. - WNYC

Child-tracking wristbands edge us closer to a dystopian future | Technology | theguardian.com - Parents will soon be able to track, log and judge the every movement of their offspring. God help those children
Kaptoxa malware with Russian code used to steal Target credit card data

Iran Sanctions Update: Have Senators Actually Read This Bill? - James Fallows - The Atlantic - Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "We cannot let Israel determine when and where the United States goes to war." (she actually had to say that +bad Dems at work starting wars +Menendez, Booker, all Republicans and AIPAC can fuck themselves)
The Most Dangerous Part of The New Iran Sanctions | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly
Former Israeli Intel Chief Says Deal Allowing Iran Civilian Uranium Enrichment Is 'Reasonable' | ThinkProgress
Senator Says New Iran Sanctions Bill Signals The U.S. Wants 'Regime Change' | ThinkProgress - Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), said on Tuesday that a new Iran sanctions bill currently being pushed in Congress’s upper chamber will “blow up” the negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program and signal to the Iranians that the U.S. is only interested in regime change.
Analysis of Faults in the Menendez-Kirk Iran Sanctions Bill (S. 1881) | Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation
U.S. Senate sanctions bill is all about torpedoing a nuclear deal with Iran - Opinion Israel News | Haaretz - How can a bill purportedly aimed at promoting a diplomatic deal with Iran simultaneously pledge unconditional U.S. support for an Israeli attack?
U.S. Strategy and Added Sanctions on Iran: The Role of the Administration and Congress in a “Good Cop, Bad Cop” Approach | Center for Strategic and International Studies

Unclear Future For Executions After Inmate's Slow Death - A gasping, snorting Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die after the chemicals began flowing Thursday — the longest execution of the 53 carried out in Ohio since capital punishment resumed 15 years ago, according to an Associated Press analysis.
State Considers Execution By Firing Squad - One day after a controversial lethal injection case in Ohio put the death penalty in crosshairs, another set of state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would allow execution by firing squad.

13 arrested in protest of Calif. officer acquittal - NewsTimes
Hundreds protest Kelly Thomas trial verdict; 13 arrested - The Orange County Register - Protesters march near the Fullerton Police Department after two former officers were found not guilty of beating a homeless man.
Kelly Thomas' "Army" To Fullerton PD: We Will Not Forget Your Savage Brutality ... Child crying after mother arrested for jaywalking during Kelly Thomas rally
Cops leave elderly man a bloody mess after he jaywalked | New York Post

New Jersey Democrat Says Committee Will Investigate Chris Christie Sandy Aid Claims
Twitter / JoeNBC: The left wing obsession of ... (Joe Scar and the Meat Puppet rush to fat fuck bully's defence)

Obama: Marijuana No More Dangerous Than Alcohol (because pot kills at least 50,000 people a year)

Did Woody Allen molest his adopted daughter 22 years ago? Reviewing the evidence. - Let’s take a break from the Hollywood tributes to him and reconsider the evidence.

To all the feminists I know : AdviceAnimals (women and science)
Yale censored a student-made course ranking website...so another student made an un-blockable chrome extension to do the same thing : technology
Ambien, Adderall, and "natural male enhancement": The Longform guide to making, taking, and selling pills. - The Longform guide to making, taking, and selling pills.

Study finds troubling relationship between drinking and PTSD symptoms in college students - News Center - The estimated 9 percent of college students who have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are likely to drink more alcohol than peers without the psychological condition. In turn, heavy alcohol consumption exacerbates their PTSD symptoms over time, prolonging a vicious cycle.
Transgender parenting: Doctors can’t refuse treatment.
Essay Anne Vanderbilt, Dr. V's Magical Putter: Grantland’s exposé of a trans con artist privileged fact-finding over compassion.

And So it Begins...: Top 10 Movies That Take Place in Real Time
What's the most obscure subreddit that gives you the greatest pleasure? : AskReddit
Yale censored a student’s course selection website. So I made an unblockable replacement (brilliant)
Yale censored a student-made course ranking website...so another student made an un-blockable chrome extension to do the same thing : technology
Gil_V comments on IAMA 54 year old Redditor. Ask me anything!
What's the single most bone chilling / haunting song you know? : Music
Potizzle comments on Doesn't seem like a big deal but it happens so rarely (or never) that I'm honestly dumbfounded.
The New York Times' Most Popular Story of 2013 Was Not an Article - Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic - I’ll repeat: It took a news app only 11 days to “beat” every other story the Times published in 2013. It’s staggering. (the future of journalism)

Spanish Activists Use Fake Aaron Brown Persona to Digitally Protest Corruption | Motherboard

011814
Eschaton: We Did Offer To Bomb The Shit Out Of Them - All of the people who wanted war because it was necessary to save the poor refugees have been awfully silent lately.
Winter clothes for Syrian refugees stuck in Halifax - Nova Scotia - CBC News - Shipping company won’t send container
The Daily Dot - The U.K.'s overzealous porn filters are blocking 'League of Legends'

Fast Track Opponents Predict More Lost Jobs, Higher Trade Deficit; Big Business Sees Unlimited Trade
On the News With Thom Hartmann: The TPP Is a Threat to the Environment, and More
‘A Public Relations Exercise’: TPP Agreement Chapter for Environment Released by WikiLeaks | The Dissenter
Major Political Donors Have Access to TPP Documents. Everyone Else? Not So Much | Techdirt - from the shockingly-unshocking dept (Obama loves money, cares less about democracy)

Greenwald on Real Time w/ Bill Maher Discussing NSA, Obama Reforms, Snowden on Vimeo
Obama’s restrictions on NSA surveillance rely on narrow definition of ‘spying’ - The Washington Post - By Barton Gellman (capturing all your phone calls, text messages and cc info is not "spying" oh look, another Obama rabbit-hole)
Mumia on COINTELPRO Activists and Other Ordinary Heroes » CounterPunch

Chicago ‘NATO 3’ trial limits public access - Chicago Sun-Times - If you want to observe Tuesday’s trial of the protesters known as the NATO 3, be prepared for an inconvenience of unusual proportions even by government standards and don’t be surprised if the door is shut to you. (Obama loves his secret trials)
Bloggers get the same libel protection as traditional journalists, federal court rules | The Verge (set back for Obama and Feinstein)

I’ve Had Enough of Mitt by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The man told too many lies. Maybe some of you know how many Steve Benen ultimately documented. By late-August 2012, it was up to 533. It was just incredible how frequently and shamelessly Mitt Romney made outright false assertions. And I think forcing nearly half the country to defend that kind of behavior has a crippling effect on the moral character of America

Chris Hedges | The Trouble With Chris Christie
Gov. Christie's Office Subpoenaed in Bridge Scandal - WSJ.com - Assembly Committee Issues Broader Demands for Records in Bridge Scandal
Bridge scandal subpoenas hit Chris Christie's inner circle | NJ.com - > Wildstein lawyer, Alan Zegas, said yesterday his client is ready to testify if he is granted immunity from prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office
Christie camp held Sandy relief money hostage, mayor alleges | MSNBC - “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different. This week I found out he’s cut from the same corrupt cloth that I have been fighting for the last four years.”
Hoboken Mayor Levels Accusations At Christie Administration by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - how a mere four acres of land in the northern end of Hoboken became a hostage for the whole city’s Superstorm Sandy relief.
Chris Christie's Office Goes Off On MSNBC: 'A Partisan Network That Has Been Openly Hostile'

Former U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull Sent Hundreds Of Bigoted Emails Throughout Tenure - Former U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull sent emails to personal and professional contacts that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religious faiths, liberal political leaders, and some emails contained inappropriate jokes about sexual orientation

Half Of Americans Favor New Regulations After West Virginia Chemical Spill - 30 percent said current regulations on those companies are about right and 7 percent said the government should do less.
New testing finds contamination in North Texas water spreading; scientists point to driller

ACLU: Border Patrol Agents Routinely Violate Rights Of U.S. Citizens At Highway Checkpoints | Fox News Latino
Unclear Future For Executions After Inmate's Slow Death - McGuire's adult children said it amounted to torture, with the convicted killer's son, also named Dennis, saying: "Nobody deserves to go through that."
The NRA Is Directly Behind A Bill Loosening Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' Law (now you can shoot anybody if you feel "threatened")
HS Student Says He Suffered Serious Injuries During Arrest - Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29 - Exactly why the students were stopped and questioned remains unclear, but Manning says he was put in handcuffs. He then says during a pat down a female officer squeezed his genitals so hard-it ruptured his testicle.

Study reveals how ecstasy acts on the brain and hints at therapeutic uses : Top Headlines : MD Connects - Communication between the medial temporal lobe and medial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in emotional control, was reduced. This effect, and the drop in activity in the limbic system, are opposite to patterns seen in patients who suffer from anxiety.


Gawker Beats Hulk Hogan: Appeals Court Reverses Sex Tape Injunction - What the gossip website posted is determined to be a matter of public concern and protected under the First Amendment.

Page 3: 10 bold predictions for 2014: How 3D printing, the NSA, and porn will shape our world | Games | Geek.com

011714
American Climate Change Denial Is at an All-Time High | Motherboard - One in four Americans currently does not believe in climate change ... That's a huge spike in disbelief; it represents some 20 million Americans changing their minds despite no swing in the scientific consensus. (don't believe in "science" / happy to destroy the world / Inhofe responsible for millions of future deaths)
House Republicans Pick Climate Skeptic To Head Environment Subcommittee - House Republicans selected Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who is on the record questioning whether humans are causing climate change, to head of the Science Committee's environment subcommittee.
Hullabaloo - In our quest to appease superstitious neanderthals and short-sighted plutocrats we are abandoning the future
U.N. climate chief calls for fossil-fuel divestment | Grist
This Is How Little Time Television News Devotes To Climate Change

At least 13 killed in attack on Kabul restaurant in diplomatic quarter | World news | The Guardian - Foreign Office confirms one Briton was among dead at Lebanese restaurant in fortified area of Afghan capital
Aid Group People In Need Goes Public With Deaths Of Staff In Syria - Three aid workers with the Czech humanitarian organization People In Need were killed by a mortar strike in the Syrian city of Aleppo last week, the organization has announced.
Phone hacking: Wall Street Journal wins ruling on reporting restrictions | Media | theguardian.com - US-based newspaper will be able to report fully report on the trial of Rebekah Brooks and others without signing written agreement
Emails reveal UK helped shale gas industry manage fracking opposition | Environment | The Guardian - Government officials accused of cheerleading for fracking by sharing 'lines to take' and meeting for post-dinner drinks
6,000 litres of oil leaked from Hibernia offshore platform - The Globe and Mail

60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History - Written in the frenzied, emotional days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President Bush the ability to retaliate against whoever orchestrated the attacks. But more than 12 years later, this sentence remains the primary legal justification for nearly every covert operation around the world. Here’s how it came to be, and what it’s since come to mean.

Obama revamps U.S. surveillance - Josh Gerstein and Reid J. Epstein - politico.com - A blue floor-to-ceiling curtain covered the partially nude statues known as the Spirit of Justice behind the lectern in the Justice Department’s Great Hall. Eight American flags stood behind the lectern where Obama is to speak. (they became what they didn't want beheld: they coverup the naked emperor)
Despite Obama's NSA changes, phone records still collected - CNN.com - Initial reaction indicated those favoring robust intelligence gathering agreed with the President. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Obama "took a measured and thoughtful approach," while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he supported the reforms. (if they like it ...)
READ: Obama's Full Speech On NSA Surveillance Reforms
Everything you need to know about Obama’s NSA reforms, in plain English
Ten things you need to know about President Obama’s NSA proposals | Privacy SOS

Your Anon News • Info graphic courtesy of the ACLU. Further...
Obama presents NSA reforms with plan to end government storage of call data | World news | theguardian.com - President stops short of ending controversial bulk collection • Obama assures allied foreign leaders on NSA surveillance • Reforms also include added Fisa court safeguards
How Obama took on six major areas of concern about NSA surveillance | World news | theguardian.com - Which recommendations – from his review panel, privacy groups and others – the president embraced, delegated or ignored
Obama's NSA speech: an affirmation that mass surveillance has a future | World news | theguardian.com - The president's rhetoric pursued balance but his speech suggests an NSA victory in its fight against restrictions (they own Obama)
Obama's NSA 'reforms' are little more than a PR attempt to mollify the public | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Obama is draping the banner of change over the NSA status quo. Bulk surveillance that caused such outrage will remain in place
President Obama's NSA reforms show both promise and peril | The Verge

NSA surveillance: American debate, British denial | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian - Barack Obama's speech on NSA reform has paved the way for a proper evaluation of security and privacy. The UK must do the same (Greenwald returns briefly to the Gruan)
Obama’s Speech, Annotated Version | emptywheel - Note that Obama presumes a war footing, even while 2 of the 3 primary foreign intelligence objectives he discussed (and others, as I’ll note) have nothing to do with war. (he's at war with the American people +"our government engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques" weaslespeak for "torture")
Obama NSA Speech - Today President Obama Asked Everyone To Give Some Civil Liberties Up - Esquire - The president's big speech on the NSA today was an extended exercise in running in place. The one thing it was not was an ability to strike a "balance" between the current surveillance state and civil liberties "concerns." (You will note that the Bill of Rights is now apparently a Bill of Concerns.)
? Julian Assange Responds To Obama's Big NSA Reforms Speech: "I Think It's Embarrassing" - YouTube
Obama Fans Aren't Even Pretending That Was a Good Speech | MyFDL - more people seem to be slowly, agonizingly slowly, finally, finally, finally, recognizing what a complete huckster he is when it comes to pretty speeches about his crimes.
Global Privacy Leaders React to Obama's NSA Reform Proposals | Electronic Frontier Foundation
ACLU Comment on President’s NSA Speech | American Civil Liberties Union

? NSA Blackmailing Obama? | Interview with Whistleblower Russ Tice - YouTube (seems pretty obvious)
Transcript: Another NSA Whistleblower, Russell Tice

Spies Want Snowden Dead - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - "I would love to put a bullet in his head," one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. "I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single handedly the greatest traitor in American history."
Terrorism - "Do you regard Edward Snowden -- the national security consultant who released information to the media about the phone scanning program -- as more of a traitor, or more of a whistle-blower?" (whistleblower, but what he whistled was bad)

The First Totally Open Source Laptop Is Almost Real | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
My Doctor Can Disclose My Medical Records to the NSA Without My Authorization (and so can yours) | The Dissenter
The Surveillance State of Tomorrow - Cell phone metadata is nothing compared to what will be gathered about you before long. And the NSA wants it all.

US supreme court to consider two cases on warrantless cellphone searches | Law | theguardian.com - Court will take on two cases about evidence obtained without search warrants from phones of suspects who were arrested
Obama's NSA speech: 53 years after Ike's warning - "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

How government officials get scared by unlikely threats - Mr. Obama was told before his inauguration of a supposed plot by Somali extremists to attack the ceremony, what David Axelrod, his adviser, called a “welcome-to-the-N.B.A. moment before the first game.” Although the report proved unfounded, it reinforced to Mr. Obama the need to detect threats before they materialized. “The whole Somali threat injected their team into the realities of national security in a tangible and complicated way,” ("was told")

Cybercrime firm says uncovers six active attacks on U.S. merchants
Is your refrigerator really part of a massive spam-sending botnet? | Ars Technica - Ars unravels the report that hackers have commandeered 100,000 smart devices.

Copyright Week: Fair Use Is Not An 'Exception' But The Rule | Techdirt - from the it's-your-rights dept
Corporations Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
Here's a new scenario I just created illustrating what happens if net neutrality disappears. [PIC] : pics (4 yrs ago when they almost got their way)

The US Senate approved a $1.1 trillion budget Thursday, making permanent the vast majority of last year's “sequester” cuts while increasing federal employee pension contributions and weakening corporate regulations.
Company behind West Virginia chemical spill files for bankruptcy | World news | theguardian.com - Freedom Industries Inc seeks Chapter 11 protection • Filing will put a stay on more than 20 suits related to leak (corps' ultimate get-out-of-jail card)
Pregnant? Bottled water recommended  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports - - State health officials late Wednesday advised pregnant women who get their water from West Virginia American Water's Charleston-based system to drink only bottled water until levels of the chemical "Crude MCHM" are not detected at any level.

Nation Recalls Simpler Time When Health Care System Was Broken Beyond Repair | The Onion - America's Finest News Source - “When I had esophageal cancer and needed $180,000 worth of treatments not covered by my health plan, I knew immediately I’d lose my house,” said 58-year-old Tobias Czwerda of Braintree, MA, who smiled as he flipped through snapshots of the Christmas he and his family spent in a homeless shelter. “Yes, sir, things were simpler then. You knew in advance that no matter how much you argued with your insurance company, in the end it would always come down to the same two options: pay or die.”

David Brooks' Primitive Defense of the Rich | Beat the Press - David Brooks is sweating hard trying to defend the one percent against the rest of the country and reality. His column today desperately warns readers:

Judge strikes down photo ID law for Pennsylvania voters | 6abc.com - Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard L. McGinley, a Democrat, said the law would unreasonably burden the fundamental right to vote, and the state had been unable to convincingly explain why it was necessary.

Chris Christie's Crisis Plunges Republican Party Deeper Into The Wilderness - The establishment freaks out as another favorite son falls from grace. “There are definitely people jumping ship.”
Rachel Maddow Thinks Chris Christie's Presidential Ambitions Might Be Over - Maddow compared those statements to older clips of Christie refusing to say whether he would serve out a full term as governor and saying "We'll see what happens" when asked his future plans.

A simple test for conservative poverty proposals - There’s a simple way to tell whether the Republican Party’s newfound commitment to fighting poverty is more than rhetoric: Follow the money.

Wisconsin Republicans propose 7-day work week at behest of business lobby | The Raw Story
Paul LePage America's Craziest Governor - politico Magazine - What better way to start a governorship than to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day breakfast and, when the NAACP complains, tell them, on camera, to “kiss my butt”?

7,000 New Orleans teachers, laid off after Katrina, win court ruling | NOLA.com - During the appeal, lawyers said the damages could amount to $1.5 billion.
Mapping the Cultural Commons - I’m going to start by asking you to contemplate the unimaginable – the age-old fantasy of the total archive, the comprehensive record of humanity’s time on earth.

Ohio Botched Execution With Untested Drug Cocktail - A Botched Execution In Ohio - Esquire - . In court proceedings last week, an Ohio state prosecutor said bluntly: "You're not entitled to a pain-free execution," and a judge allowed the execution to proceed.
They gave us a republic...:: They took it as a challenge - Missouri could carry out executions with firing squads under legislation proposed in the House.
Colorado Woman Says TSA Agents Groped Her During Pat Down On Day She Wasn't Flying
Five dead after Utah police officer murders family then kills himself | World news | theguardian.com - Officer shot dead his wife, mother-in-law and children Police lieutenant says there were 'no warning signs'
4-year-old boy shot by 4-year-old cousin in Detroit | Detroit Free Press | freep.com - the cousin found a rifle — loaded and not locked in a case — underneath the bed.
A man was shot for texting at a movie. This isn't an anomaly in America | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | theguardian.com - You keep a gun out of an argument, you will save lives. Thousands are killed in the US because quarrels escalate fatally ... Since Florida grants concealed carry permits via its Department of Agriculture, rather than, say a criminal justice agency, the state cannot use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to screen applicants. (see what they did there?)

'Duck Dynasty' Ratings Are Down Dramatically From Last Season - Fans no longer give a quack about "Duck Dynasty." ("quack" = fuck)
Conduct of judge in Roman Polanski statutory rape case questioned | Film | theguardian.com - Emails from judges in 2008 reveal allegations of misconduct by judge in original case, and could potentially pave way for Polanski's freedom
So MTV reduces teen pregnancy. Why are we surprised? | Kat Keene Hogue | Comment is free | theguardian.com - I worked on the MTV show 16 and Pregnant. It was raw and real. I understand why it was effective birth control - MTV's controversial hit series 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and Teen Mom 2 are responsible for a 5.7% drop in the teen birth rate in the 18 months following their debut. This amounts to a full third of the overall decline in teenage births in this period. the US still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world.
Here Are the Unretouched Images From Lena Dunham's Vogue Shoot
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole of NYC’s Lena Dunham Obsession


Woman Gives Nigerian Scammer $500k After Meeting Him On ChristianMingle.com | Techdirt

This Ultimate G Vibrator Promises 'Third-Level' Orgasms

Target Email To Customers Offering Free Credit Monitoring Is Not A Scam - “I won't put my Social Security number in. They try to help you, but they're asking for more information," 51-year-old Pam Kassner told Reuters. Concerns like Kassner's are addressed by Target here.

011614
Planet Likely to Warm by 4C by 2100 | Mother Jones - A new climate model shows a warming planet means less cloud formation, which in turn contributes to increased termperatures. Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scientific study. (which was predictable)
California Has Driest Year Ever -- And It May Get Worse

Afghanistan Watchdog Warns Of 'Narco-Criminal State' After 12 Years And $7 Billion In U.S. Aid (that worked out really well)
U.S. has deployed military advisers to Somalia, officials say - The Washington Post - since 1993, when two helicopters were shot down and 18 Americans killed in the “Black Hawk Down” disaster.

Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying - NYTimes.com (buried: NSA staged a fake Somali terrorist attack on the Inauguration to show Obama who is daddy)
NSA Reformers Brace For Disappointment From Obama's Speech
The Virgin Rebirth of CIA’s Drone Wars and NSA’s Cyberwars | emptywheel - Obama’s going to get up tomorrow to try to pretend to respond to the many criticisms of his NSA’s dragnet. But whether because he has lost control of his wars to the Deep State, or because he wants to continue to approach risks using tools of war, the entities driving this issue seem to be the Deep State (and the contractors it keeps fat).
Schneier on Security: Debunking the "NSA Mass Surveillance Could Have Stopped 9/11" Myth

NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep | World news | theguardian.com - NSA extracts location, contacts and financial transactions • 'Dishfire' program sweeps up 'pretty much everything it can'
The Latest Reason Not To Text While Driving—Or Not Driving by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - This revelation from the Guardian’s James Ball should surprise no one, but it’s probably unwelcome to the president the day before his announcement of measures to deal with the National Security Agency’s surveillance program:
Snowden Effect And Text Messages - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - So all that our shadowy heroes have to do is scare the piss out of every incoming president, and they get whatever they want and whenever they want it
Fighting Back Against the NSA's Dragnet Web: Can Activists Turn the Tide in a Draconian Digital Era?
Big Text Message | emptywheel - But I think the story and accompanying document is most telling for the kinds of information they’re mining in a program called PREFER. By mining the content of SMS text messages, NSA is getting information:

Former Presiding Judge, John Bates, Makes Compelling Case to Eliminate FISA Court | emptywheel

The Schneier Briefing: Some Observations | emptywheel - 6 Congresspersons and a security researcher walk into an unsecure room. … And that’s the best briefing they can get on some of the things NSA might be doing.

Twitter / tejucole: The NSA was the first to know ... - that my dude @jeremyscahill was Oscar-nominated for "Dirty Wars."
Twitter / jeremyscahill: Family members of the Afghans ... - in this photo were killed in a US night raid. Two victims were pregnant women (now he's killing the terrorists before they're born)
Jeremy Scahill: Two Degrees of Separation from the Dirty Wars Dragnet | emptywheel

West Virginia Water - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money - Sure am glad the relevant agencies declared West Virginia water safe now after the Freedom Industries chemical spill: " 101 patients visited area emergency rooms in the 36-hour span ending at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, reporting symptoms related to exposure to tainted water"

Obama Urges Senate Democrats To Oppose Iran Sanctions In Closed-Door Meeting

Massachusetts Repoductive Clinic Buffer Zone Case - Massachusetts' Buffer Zone Law Is In Danger - Esquire - In other words, the law has worked so, therefore, it should be abandoned.
On Buffer Zones and the First Amendment - Lawyers, Guns & Money

A Scientist Laments The NIH Budget: I'm 'Bitter And Cynical' About The World I 'Wanted To Help' - -- Disappointment with the funding levels for biomedical research in the budget deal has trickled down to the community of young scientists dependent on those funds for future projects. (Republicans hate science)

Blue Dog Democrats In Congress - Blue Dog Blues - Esquire - In danger of losing even more clout, the leading Blue Dogs are regrouping and rebuilding.

Man to get $1.6M for humiliating 3-enema ordeal after traffic stop - Eckert's suit also named Gila Regional Medical Center and the doctors who performed the exam as defendants, and that portion of the case is ongoing.

Why Did 17 Charter Schools Fail in Columbus Last Year? by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - . The city had 75 charter schools. And last year a quarter of them went under. Several closed without warning. According to an article in the Columbus Dispatch (freedom from oversight, which was the whole point +profit)
PhD Debt Project: Google doc survey collects figures of graduate school debt. - A shocking number of users also report $100,000 and up; some $200,000 and over, even with a funding package.
Southern New Hampshire University: How Paul LeBlanc’s tiny school has become a giant of higher education. - At SNHU, online courses are created centrally and then farmed out to a small army of adjuncts hired for as little as $2,200 a class. Those adjuncts have scant leeway in crafting the learning experience. “The instructor is just there to deliver the content,” says Steve Hodownes, the head of SNHU’s online division, which, he says, “helps us create standardization.”
Yale Students made a better version of its course catalog. Then Yale shut it down.

I started buying the signs that the homeless use to beg. Here's what happened | Andres Serrano | Comment is free | theguardian.com - I purchased 200 signs from homeless people in New York City. The collection tells the story of poverty in America and the world (Mom told us to wait right here. That was ten years ago)

How to Make Money in Marijuana Investing: Fleece Investors | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Legal cannabis will be a commodity, and a cheap one at that. Maybe somebody has a clever branding strategy to make money anyway, but what are the odds you’re going to pick that lucky company to invest in as opposed to the 99 others that are going to go broke when pre-tax retail prices hit $3/gm. for sinse, with concentrates trading at a discount on a per-milligram-THC basis?

DickWhiskey comments on D.C. Circuit strikes down FCC's Net Neutrality Rules

LillyPhilia comments on My husband's fleas are out of control and I don't know how to cope.
Who Utters “I Love You” First: Men or Women? | Psychology Today - Contrary to folk wisdom, men are romantic at heart.

Music Timeline

Point-of-sale malware infecting Target found hiding in plain sight | Ars Technica
A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware — Krebs on Security

011514
Afghanistan Watchdog Warns Of 'Narco-Criminal State' After 12 Years And $7 Billion In U.S. Aid
Iraq Bombings Strike Markets And Funeral, Killing Scores
Israel's defence minister apologises for 'offensive' Kerry remarks | World news | theguardian.com - Binyamin Netanyahu seeks to repair damage after Moshe Ya'alon dismisses US envoy as 'obsessive and messianic'
Burma military 'using rape as weapon' - Burma's military has continued to use rape as a weapon of war even after a nominally civilian government was elected in 2010, a women's group says.
Indian diplomat seeks dismissal of visa charges, arguing permanent immunity | World news | theguardian.com - Lawyer for Devyani Khobragade, who left US amid bilateral storm, makes submission as countries work to mend ties
The Tablet - News - Francis sacks four cardinals on Vatican Bank commission – 11 months into their five-year term
Night Raid by US-Backed Forces Reportedly Leads to Death of Eight Afghan Civilians After Airstrike | The Dissenter
Senate report: Attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi could have been prevented - The Washington Post (no mention of Republicans de-funding security)

Abu Ghraib 2.0? Horrifying images of US Marines burning Iraqis prompt military investigation — RT USA (another thing Obama didn't want to look backwards at)
Photos Allegedly Depicting U.S. Marines Burning Iraqi Corpses Forces Investigation

Canada's carbon emissions projected to soar by 2030 | Environment | theguardian.com - Tar sands expected to help drive 38% increase in emissions, Harper government admits in submission to the UN

Border-patrol drones being borrowed by other agencies more often than previously known - The Washington Post

Dianne Feinstein Admits That Her 'NSA Reform' Bill Is About Protecting Existing Surveillance Programs | Techdirt - It was an incredibly cynical move by Feinstein and her staff, pretending that their bill to actually give the NSA even greater power and to legalize its abuses, was about scaling back the NSA. But that's the spin they put on it -- which almost no one bought. (Difucked)
Washington State Bill Proposes Criminalizing Help to NSA, Turning Off Resources to Yakima Facility | Nullify NSA!Nullify NSA!

I am Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Edward Snowden is my hero. AMA : IAmA

Dragnet at Bernie’s: On Spying on Congress | emptywheel - It turns out that Mark Kirk — not Bernie Sanders — was the first member of Congress to raise concerns about the NSA spying on Senators after Edward Snowden’s leaks started being published.
NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Database To See If It Spied On Congress | FDL News Desk - they can’t search their own database to see if they spied on members of Congress because that would, wait for it, break the law. (yes, they do think you are that stupid)

NSA: The Hegemon’s Economic Spying Is Okay, Unlike the Challenger’s Economic Spying | emptywheel - As part of an NYT story on implants the NSA has placed in 100,000 computers around the world, some of them via radio, it lists “trade institutions inside the European Union” among the targets for Computer Network Exploitation. (and Merkel's phone, of course)
NSA review panel casts doubt on bulk data collection claims | World news | theguardian.com - Panel members said phone data had limited role preventing terrorism in testimony before Senate judiciary committee
Hullabaloo - The "Intelligence" boondoggle - The actual funding lines for America’s spy agencies have been a matter of secrecy until recently, when the Washington Post obtained a $53 billion “black budget” list for fiscal year 2013 from Edward Snowden. That document, reported the Post, mapped “a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny." the DEA is considered a secret "Intelligence" agency
Edward Snowden isn't the only truth teller who deserves clemency | Michael Ratner | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Jeremy Hammond deserve the same public outrage and support as Snowden
NSA Radio Pathway Into Computer Surveillance - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. ("backlash" from his bosses)

Blackphone Could Be the First NSA-Proof Phone
Blackphone: a privacy-oriented, high-end, unlocked phone - Boing Boing

CBP 'Discovers' An Additional 200 Drone Flights It Didn't Originally Include In Its FOIA Response | Techdirt
North Dakota Man Sentenced to Jail In Controversial Drone-Arrest Case - US News and World Report - He is first American to be sentenced to jail following an arrest made possible by a domestic drone

WikiLeaks Exposes Obama Administration’s Weakening of Environmental Policies in TPP | EcoWatch (one of Obama's big secrets)
WikiLeaks' Assange to speak at SXSW Interactive - Austin Business Journal - via satellite

New York agrees $18m settlement with 2004 Republican convention protesters | World news | theguardian.com - Payout ends decade-long saga over aggressive NYPD • Lawyers for protesters described 'Guantánamo on the Hudson' • Settlement over 2004 arrests does not admit police liability (send the bill to Bloomfuck)
How The NYPD's Use Of Civil Forfeiture Robs Innocent New Yorkers: Gothamist

Forget About the Obamacare “Death Spiral” For a While by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So next time you hear gabbers confidently talking about the “death spiral,” feel free to ignore them or ping them to update their talking points.

West Virginia ERs Report an Influx of Patients After Water Deemed Safe | The Nation
State acknowledges it had no plan for Freedom spill  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -
Water Returns To West Virginia - A Business Friendly Environment - Esquire - It appears that some of the good people of West Virginia can have tap water again for a while. Mistakes, of course, were made that denied them that luxury for the better part of a week.
West Virginia Spill Exposes Disturbing Lack Of Data About Hazardous Chemicals (you don't need to know what's killing you because freedom)
Freedom Industries, Company Behind West Virginia Chemical Spill, Under Scrutiny
John Boehner On West Virginia Chemical Spill: 'We Have Enough Regulations' (to make sure you die)
Look How Gross The Water Is After The Chemical Spill In West Virginia
I’m From West Virginia and I’ve Got Something to Say About the Chemical Spill | Earth First! Newswire
West Virginia Spill Exposes Disturbing Lack of Data About Hazardous Chemicals | Mother Jones - Disaster prevention and preparation are hindered by poor access to chemical storage information.

North Dakota’s top oil regulator is also its top oil promoter | Grist

Major Newspapers Speak Out Against Iran Sanctions Bill - The bill, backed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) (and other Dem-Hawks bought by Israel)

Time To Talk To Your Senators About Unemployment Benefits | Crooks and Liars - Every vote cast against extending emergency unemployment insurance belonged to a Republican senator.
Unemployment Insurance Fails In The Senate (fuck off and starve)
Regulators Trim Portion Of Volcker Rule After Banks Complain

Abortion clinic buffer zones challenged in US supreme court | World news | theguardian.com - Massachusetts anti-abortion protesters, kept at bay by 35ft rule, want right to more closely approach people entering clinics

Clinton May Face No Challengers - "American politics is full of surprises. But right now, the smart money is on Hillary facing little to no opposition if she runs in 2016."
Ads Attacking Health Law Stagger Outspent Democrats - NYTimes.com

Poll: Christie cruising through bridge scandal (so far) - First Read - Nearly 70 percent of Americans say the bridge-closure scandal engulfing Chris Christie has not changed their opinion about the New Jersey governor, according to a new NBC News/Marist poll. In addition, 44 percent of respondents believe he’s telling the truth about his knowledge of the events surrounding the controversy.
Christie faces speculation about aides’ real motives in New Jersey bridge scandal - The Washington Post
Chris Christie promises to cooperate in 'Bridgegate' investigations | World news | theguardian.com - Our citizens deserve better,' Christie said in his address State of the State proposals overshadowed by scandal
Stories Add Up as Bully Image Trails Christie - NYTimes.com

Roger Ailes biography The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman, reviewed by Michael Wolff. - Gabriel Sherman is part of a group of young media reporters—many starting out at the New York Observer under the tutelage of then-Editor Peter Kaplan, an avowed media nostalgist—who have seen their subject, the power of the media, pulled out from under them. (not an issue anymore)
Politico’s Mike Allen and Fox News PR
Inside The Laughable Cable News Blog Roger Ailes Reportedly Created | Blog | Media Matters for America - "The Cable Game" Fawned Over Fox Talent, Smeared Network Enemies
The Long Con | Rick Perlstein | The Baffler - Mail-order conservatism (2012 history of snake-oil Reublicans)
Dog Whistle Politics: How the Use of Coded Racial Appeals Have Helped Wreck the Middle Class | Crooks and Liars - From this Tuesday's Democracy Now, Amy Goodman sat down with author Ian Haney López to discuss his new book which "explores how politicians have long used veiled racism to lure white voters into supporting politics that favor the wealthy and hurt the poor and middle class."

Kansas Board of Regents’ social media policy imperils academic freedom. - Kansas’ ability to fire professors for posting on social media is bad news for academic freedom—and may not even be legal.

Cancer Patient Condemns The Kellers' Lisa Adams Comments

Police shooting at Redondo Beach man during Dorner manhunt was ‘reasonable mistake,’ DA says - “Being anxious and afraid does not justify attempting to execute a man on his way to go surfing,” Sheahen said. “It’s gibberish from the D.A.’s office covering up the buffoonery of the Torrance police.” (there were no "unreasonable" mistakes)
Pedestrian deaths from vehicle strikes are quickly rising in New York City - NY Daily News - According to an analysis of NYPD reports conducted by the Daily News, if things keep pace with the first 12 days of 2014, there could be more than 200 such deaths by the end of the year. Police data shows there were 156 fatalities in 2013, an increase from 152 in 2012 and 142 in 2011. (license to kill in NYC)

The Online Avengers - NYTimes.com - Are antibullying activists the saviors of the Internet — or just a different kind of curse?
Lawyer: Assaulted teen had drawings, name on body - Yahoo News - 15-year-old Audrie Pott (hanged herself)

Netflix exposed as net neutrality rules gutted - Netflix may see extra $75 million to $100 million in annual content delivery costs to cable companies for access to residential customers who are streaming Netflix content, analyst estimates
Net neutrality D.C. circuit court ruling: The battle’s been lost, but we can win the war. - But now we can finally win the war.
Net neutrality is dead. Bow to Comcast and Verizon, your overlords - latimes.com
3 Million Teens Leave Facebook In 3 Years: The 2014 Facebook Demographic Report | iStrategyLabs – (cf sex, drugs and rnr)
To Safeguard the Public Domain (and the Public Interest), Fix Copyright’s Crazy Penalties | Electronic Frontier Foundation - Threats of six-figure penalties for sharing a movie or song are credible, because they have actually happened. For a home Internet subscriber, paying a troll $3,000 to go away can look like a better option than gambling with $150,000.
'Inside job' alleged as thousands of Google+ and Maps listings hijacked | Technology | theguardian.com - Anyone with Google+ account can submit changes to 'verified' business listings for approval - but target site owner denies involvement
The Daily Dot - LGBT community finally gets to kick a** in a video game - The game pits LGBT characters like “Bisexual” Jaqlyn Daniels and Timmy Spears, “the Asian Twink,” up against the League of Oppressive Self Righteous Zealots who want to destroy and brainwash the gay community. There’s even a Sarah Palin-inspired villain named Anne Paylin who mutters things like “hockey” and “Alaska.”

011414
? Global Warming and the Polar Vortex - YouTube

DEA Negotiated With Mexican Drug Cartel Members: Report (can't ... connect ... the ... ...) Sinaloa Cartel Runs The Chicago Drug Game - Business Insider

Report that DEA protects Sinaloa cartel contrasts sharply with official claims | Privacy SOS
DEA Agent: American Government Backed Murderous Mexican Drug Cartel Between 2000 and 2012 | Alternative

Appeals court rules against FCC's right to protect 'net neutrality' | Technology | theguardian.com - Decision means internet service providers could slow or block traffic to competitors and privilege sites of commercial partners (Republicans/bought Dems/Big Content win again in their war on the internets)
Federal Court Guts Net Neutrality Rules | Threat Level | Wired.com

Russia expels US journalist David Satter without explanation | World news | The Guardian - Asked why Russia had kicked him out, Satter said he did not know the answer. But he speculated that the FSB's decision may be linked to his writings on Russia's 1999 apartment bombings – one of the murkiest episodes in the country's post-Soviet history. (Putin did it)
South Sudan Conflict: 200 Dead After Boat Fleeing War Sinks
François Hollande refuses to answer questions about his personal life | World news | theguardian.com - French president stays off subject of his affair with an actor, Julie Gayet, but says he will not be further tightening privacy laws

Judge Grants Relief to Woman Wrongly Included on ‘No Fly’ List—But Government Wants to Keep Secret | The Dissenter - A district court judge has issued an order which grants relief to a woman who was incorrectly included on the United States government’s “No Fly” list and had been denied due process when seeking to correct this mistake. However, the government would like the judge’s order to be kept secret. During the trial in December, the government sought to retroactively classify information that was already in the public domain so that it could close proceedings. This upset the judge greatly. when when they lose, they win)

The NSA Can't Tell Bernie Sanders If It's Spying On Him, Because That Would Violate His Privacy (another one of Obama's patented rabbit-holes)
Edward Snowden To Join Daniel Ellsberg, Others on Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Board of Directors | Freedom of the Press Foundation
Kim Dotcom: 'I'm not a pirate, I'm an innovator' | Technology | The Guardian - "We are all children of Assange," he says, later noting that "the internet is by the people, for the people.
Mozilla Calls on World to Protect Firefox Browser From the NSA | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
Indiana state senator introduces bill to thwart NSA spying | Communities Digital News - Following legislators in California, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas, Indiana is now the fifth state to consider legislation to push back against the NSA.

US will not enter bilateral no-spy deal with Germany, reports media | World news | theguardian.com - Despite assurance from Barack Obama, United States has not ruled out bugging political leaders' calls, claims German paper (you know how much Obama's "reassurances" are worth)
If You Want Obama to Rein In the NSA, You're About to Be Disappointed - Oversight - GovExec.com

New Memo: Kissinger Gave the "Green Light" for Argentina's Dirty War | Mother Jones - a new memo has emerged that provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina's neo-fascist military junta the "green light" for the dirty war it was conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people. (murderers walk and get prizes)

De-Manufacturing Consent- “The PayPal 14, Pierre’s Shame & the Billionaire Independent Media” - Guillermo Jimenez Presents Stanley Cohen
N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers - NYTimes.com

? Everything You Wanted To Know About 9/11 In Under 5 Minutes! (MIRROR) - YouTube

Four of 11 counts dropped against NATO 3 - Chicago Sun-Times - The three men were arrested before the 2012 NATO summit and slapped with an 11-count indictment, which included little-used state terrorism charges for an alleged plot to attack Chicago Police officers and damage President Barack Obama’s downtown campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Ravenswood home.
FBI to Students: Watch Out! Socialists Are TOTALLY Gay. - Boing Boing - In 1971 the Young Socialist Alliance ended its policy of barring gays. The FBI's San Diego office seized on this announcement "to play on people's bigotries to dissuade them from joining a political organization"
The Law Belongs In the Public Domain | Electronic Frontier Foundation (Obama loves secret laws)
RIAA Wants Google to Implement Five-Point Anti-Piracy Plan | TorrentFreak - This week the global music industry sent its 100 millionth DMCA takedown request to Google.

Critics Say Spill Highlights Lax West Virginia Regulations - NYTimes.com
As a precaution, Cincinnati shutting its intake valves | WVXU - Beginning most likely Tuesday night, the Greater Cincinnati Water Works will shut its water intake valves as a precautionary measure, following the chemical spill that happened in the Elk River near Charleston, West Virginia.

Senate Confirms Robert Wilkins, Completes Overhaul Of Key Appeals Court
The Budget Deal Came Out And The Scientific Research Community Isn't Thrilled - According to the NIH's own numbers, meanwhile, it is approximately $950 million less than its 2012 level. In fact, the number is lower than during President Barack Obama’s first year in office and, when adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in every year but the first of the George W. Bush administration. (Obama hates science more than Republicans)
Democrats concede to curb funds for Wall Street regulators in spending bill | World news | theguardian.com - GOP drops demands for cuts to food stamp programme (de-regulate Wall St even more and we'll give you a few food stamps; Obama is a skilled negotiator)

An Object Lesson on Not Being Jerks » Balloon Juice - The funny thing about all of this is that no matter how bad all their ideas are, no matter how disastrous their governance has been, no matter how many horrible things they have done to the economy and this country, what really is killing the Republican party is that deep down, they are just complete assholes. (John Cole, 2009)

Howard Kurtz Lied About Business Ties To Fox News Contributor
Washington Post, Politico Editors To Meet After Bombshell Mike Allen Reports (UPDATE: Allen Speaks Out)

Chris Christie Addresses Bridge Scandal In State Of The State: 'Mistakes Were Clearly Made'
GWB bridge scandal: Democratic lawmakers ask Bergen County Prosecutor to investigate | NJ.com
Aide Fired by Christie Is Called Loyal Team Player, Not Rogue Operative - NYTimes.com - Bridget Anne Kelly is devastated that Gov. Chris Christie denounced her as stupid and a liar — but she also is distraught over how much her actions have damaged him politically. (a cushla)
Christie, Official Who Arranged Bridge Closures Were Together During Fiasco - Metropolis - WSJ - Mr. Christie addressed Mr. Wildstein in a news conference last week, saying he had not encountered him “in a long time.”
Chris Christie Endangers Lives of NJ Women with Veto Of Lisa's Law - - “Lisa’s Law,” was designed to aid victims of domestic violence. It did so by giving courts the power to order electronic monitoring for certain offenders. (like himself)

Marijuana Prohibition Was Racist From The Start. Not Much Has Changed.
Los Angeles Detectives Search Justin Bieber's Home in Egg Vandalism Case | NBC Connecticut - The man's name was not immediately released, but Thompson said the cocaine was in plain view in Bieber's house when deputies arrived.

Two children injured in New Mexico middle school shooting | World news | theguardian.com - Shooting at Berendo Middle School in Roswell Roswell police said the suspected shooter was arrested
Shooting reported at New Mexico middle school - CNN.com - CNN first learned about the incident on Twitter.
CWC Texts : A to Z : Fuck the Police - Seven Myths about the Police
Cop Beats 4 Year Old Boy, Puts Him in Critical Condition | The Free Thought Project - This man was such a thug that he beat his girlfriend’s 4 year old child, nearly to death. Imagine if this aggression would have been triggered during a traffic stop.

The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail: The Poetry of William Blake | FrontBurner | D Magazine

Scientists plan to recreate a DYING STAR on Earth to learn more about red giants | Mail Online - Nanocosmos project will use three machines to recreate interstellar dust Will manipulate elements such as hydrogen, carbon and iron at 1500°C
Researchers dismiss sixth sense – and put their faith in common sense | Science | theguardian.com - people could reliably detect a change in their surroundings, even if they could not accurately describe what that change was. However, the research concluded that this was not due to any kind of supernatural ability, but rather from cues picked up from more conventional senses such as sight.

Why Isn't Gatsby in the Public Domain? | Electronic Frontier Foundation - A diminished public domain doesn't just rob us of past works, but of the future works that could rely on an expanded public domain.

Dana Goodyear: The Valley-Fever Menace : The New Yorker - Dust storms in the West stir up microscopic spores of the toxic soil-dwelling fungus Coccidioides immitis. The Centers for Disease Control reports a tenfold increase in infections, some of them fatal.
Socialising in pubs ‘boosts mens’ mental health’ - The Scotsman
'Too Much Estrogen': The Golden Globes, Chris Christie and Men Who Don't Want to Share Culture | Soraya Chemaly - Brit Hume thinks Chris Christie is paying for a "feminized atmosphere," in which his naturally tough guy (read: male) behavior has been erroneously cast as bullying. Meanwhile, the NY Post's film critic Kyle Smith's take on the Golden Globes was that there was just "too much estrogren."
A Guide to Properly Washing Your Hands -- Because You're Doing It Wrong - Esquire - Focus on your fingertips. Use hand sanitizer. Stop licking your palms.
How vanilla became shorthand for bland. - Vanilla has a PR problem. As a noun, vanilla refers to our most fragrant and complex flavor, the one we use to improve everything from cheesecake to chocolate. But as an adjective, it is a pejorative, employed to describe anything common, generic, or bland.

? 4 midgets relay race against a camel. - YouTube

Google Trends - Web Search interest: twerking - Worldwide, 2004 - present
Why Her Will Dominate UI Design Even More Than Minority Report | Wired Design | Wired.com
Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly | Technology | theguardian.com - "Hello. Epiphany is upon you. Your pilgrimage has begun. Enlightenment awaits."
HuffPost policy banishes trolls — and drives away some frequent commenters | Poynter. - Meanwhile, HuffPost users are leaving the site, expressing anger at what they see as a lack of transparency — and broken promises, since they expected to be grandfathered into the new commenting system based on remarks by HuffPost Managing Editor Jimmy Soni.

011314
Global Warming 'Pause' Isn't What Climate Change Skeptics Say It Is - weather.com

Iran to implement nuclear deal as Obama repeats Congress sanctions plea | World news | The Guardian - John Kerry says Tehran will start to implement November's 'comprehensive agreement' on 20 January
Mumbai fashion designer raped by 13 men in Dubai
Nigeria's president signs law imposing up to 14 years' jail for gay relationships | World news | theguardian.com - US criticises Goodluck Jonathan's crackdown on 'amorous relationships', gay marriage and belonging to gay rights groups
Valérie Trierweiler to remain in hospital for several more days | World news | theguardian.com - François Hollande's partner was said to have suffered a 'very strong emotional shock' after hearing claims of affair . One official said she was receiving treatment for "a severe case of the blues". (yeah, sure)
Journalists Call For Release of Imprisoned Al Jazeera Reporters - Fifty-two correspondents and editors from various international news organizations signed a joint letter on Monday calling for the release of the Al-Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt.
Spies in U.K. To Get "License to Speed" | TIME.com - Next time a British spy is pulled over, he just needs to calmly explain that he’s an International Man of Mystery and then go on his way. That’s because starting Monday, spies in the U.K. will have a “license to speed” when they are on a case.

The U.S. Government And The Sinaloa Cartel - Business Insider - An investigation by El Universal has found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs in exchange for information on rival cartels. (the real Fast and Furious: your war on drugz is entirely fabricated)

Noam Chomsky: Obama Trade Deal A 'Neoliberal Assault' To Further Corporate 'Domination'

Exclusive: Devastating dossier on 'abuse' by UK forces in Iraq goes to International Criminal Court - UK Politics - UK - The Independent - , and could result in some of Britain's leading defence figures facing prosecution for "systematic" war crimes (and when will Bush and Cheney's turn come?)
How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Includes Torture (updated) | The Dissenter - how the Bush administration, with the connivance of key members of the press and the human rights community, sold a continuation of torture as an end to torture.

James Risen Takes His Press Freedom Fight To The Supreme Court

The Daily Dot - Defense industry: Cyberwarfare is a greater threat to America than terrorism - The greatest threat to the United States is cyberwarfare, according to a recent Defense News poll of 352 defense, military, and national security leaders. Digital threats outranked terrorism, China, Iran, climate change, and North Korea, across all respondents. (0 Repubicans believe in climate change)
The Daily Dot - Everything you need to know about Copyright Week

The Daily Dot - Study finds the NSA isn't using your phone records to catch terrorists - President Obama has expressed the same sentiment, saying "we know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information." (which was a big lie)
Study: Analysis of 225 Terrorism Cases Finds NSA Phone Record Collection Didn’t Prevent Attacks | The Dissenter
You'll Never Guess How Many Terrorist Plots the NSA's Domestic Spy Program Has Foiled | Motherboard - just one conviction came out of the government's extra-controversial practice of spying on its own citizens. And that charge, against San Diego cab driver Basaaly ­Moalin, was for sending money to a terrorist group in Somalia. There was no threat of an actual attack.
NSA FOIA LOGS FY 2012_13 INTERIM RELEASE.pdf (NSA fucks with Jason Leopold)
You Can't Opt Out: 10 NSA Myths Debunked | Peter Van Buren
Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com - His alternative is called Twister. It’s a decentralized social network that, in theory, can’t be shut down by any one entity. What’s more, Twister is designed to prevent other users from knowing whether you’re online, what your IP address is, or who you follow.
Microsoft red faced again as Syrian Electronic Army hijacks Twitter feeds - Techworld.com - Finds way into Twitter, official blog and even emails (your security sucks, MS)

West Virginia Officials Knew Potentially Dangerous Chemicals Were Stored Near Elk River
West Virginia residents cope, with days of water woes still ahead after chemical spill - The Washington Post - “Jesus is taking care of us. He sent us the rain,” she said. “I’ve been watching ‘The Waltons’ and ‘Little House on the Prairie’ for years, and I didn’t watch those shows for nothing.” ... on Friday the Republican-led House quietly passed the "Reducing Excessive Obligations Act," gutting the EPA's Super Fund cleanup obligations (Jesus hates environmental regulations)
West Virginia chemical spill company was exempt from EPA inspections (you can "store" as much deadly chemical as you want)
Freedom executive Kennedy had felonies  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports - - "We are excited to offer our customers inventive products like Talon that push past the status quo in coal recovery to bring profit and productivity benefits to mining preparation plants," Joshua Herzing, a Freedom executive, said in the press release.
Sunday Shows To West Virginia: Drop Dead! - Plus CBS' "Face The Nation" just had to commemorate the Hudson River landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 -- the five-year anniversary of that is in three days!

US supreme court rejects Arizona bid to restrict abortions | Law | theguardian.com - High court's refusal to take up the case means that an appeals court decision striking down the controversial law will stand

Hillary’s Hit List - Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes - POLITICO Magazine - The Clintons keep a favor file of saints and sinners, according to this excerpt from HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton.

Enemies of the Poor - NYTimes.com (NYT blocks copypaste)
Morning Plum: Republicans all over the map on jobless benefits - The GOP poverty agenda right now includes opposing expanding Medicaid to millions of people; advocating for $40 billion in cuts to food stamps; and near-party-wide opposition to extending unemployment benefits. (the party of fuck you)

Supreme Court Case Obama Nominations - Today's Supreme Court Case You Haven't Heard About - Esquire - while the rest of the country's political class remains fascinated by the Passion Of Big Chicken, the future of the entire Obama presidency today is hanging fire before the United States Supreme Court. Only real SCOTUS wonks saw this one coming but, should the court decide in favor of the plaintiff in National Labor Relations Board v. Canning, there simply will not be much left for Barack Obama to do in office except greet NCAA championship teams and drone people to death in Waziristan. (Rethugs will outlaw recess appointments)

Christie Story Attracts Little Public Interest | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press - Recent Opinions of New Jersey Governor Are Largely Unchanged
New subpoenas could go out today in GWB lane closure probe | NJ.com
Bridge scandal: Wildstein to appeal contempt order, lawyer says | NJ.com
Is the Chris Christie bridge scandal an extension of the governor's 'culture'? | NJ.com - Based on the release of internal documents, a circle of Christie staff and allies appears to have taken political retribution to a new level when it conspired to send the borough of Fort Lee into traffic chaos by closing lanes to the world’s busiest bridge — and then covered it up, say Democrats and political observers.
Chris Christie Facing Federal Investigation Over Sandy Funds: Frank Pallone - whether the governor used Hurricane Sandy relief money to produce tourism ads starring himself and his family,
NJ Rep.: 'Unbelievable' That Nobody Told Christie (Big Turkey)
Steve Kornacki Floats New Theory About Chris Christie's Bridge Scandal
New Jersey Lawmakers Create Special Investigatory Committee Into Bridgegate (the knives are out)
Local Journalism Matters by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - One very clear thing emerging from the BridgeGate brouhaha is that the whole thing might never have been detected if not for careful reporting by the Bergen Record, the kind of small-market newspaper that has been on the endangered species list for decades.
Chris Christie Spent Extra $2.2M To Ensure Sandy Recovery Ads Featured NJ’s #1 Tourist Attraction Chris Christie - “It’s wrong if federal investigators conclude that you spent $2.2 million more than the next highest bid just because the highest bidder was clever and proposed to make the ad into a hagiography of you and your family.”

Ted Cruz Delivers Huge Slap In The Face To House GOP Leaders - hiring an operative they fired just last month for working with conservative groups to undermine the leadership's agenda.
Millionaire divorced dad helps write Wis. bill to cut child support | News-Herald Media | marshfieldnewsherald.com - A controversial bill that would allow high-income parents to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in child support was written with the help of a wealthy donor to the bill’s author, Rep. Joel Kleefisch.

Jill Lepore: The Reputation of Roger Ailes : The New Yorker
Roger Ailes’s Permanent Pushback Campaign - NYTimes.com
New Book Reveals The Real Roger Ailes | Blog | Media Matters for America - Fox News Was Right To Be Scared Of Gabriel Sherman's The Loudest Voice in the Room
Roger Ailes: Incoherent Like the Wolff
Roger Ailes Did Not Spend All That Money On A Glass Desk To Not Be Able To See Your Snatch

Guardian deletes Emma Keller post about cancer patient | Poynter.
Bill and Emma Keller’s bizarre pieces about cancer patient Lisa Adams - Salon.com - Worst of all is that Ms. Keller shared private messages she’d exchanged with Adams — ones not intended for publication and ones published without even a warning to Adams. (and then claims TMI +"dignified")
Readers Lash Out About Bill Keller's Column on a Woman With Cancer - NYTimes.com
The Other Time Christie Was Accused Of Steering Million Dollar Contracts To Political-Connections - Christie hand-selected the firm of his former boss U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft to serve as a monitor. Ashcroft’s firm was poised to collect an estimated $52 million in 18 months — one of the largest deals ever for a federal monitor.
Heroic Measures - NYTimes.com (Keller wants death panels for people who talk too much about their terminal illnesses)
Bill and Emma Keller Tag-Team Concern Troll a Woman with Stage Four Cancer - The Wire
On Live-Tweeting One's Suffering - Megan Garber - The Atlantic - Journalists question the ethics of cancer—of fighting it, and of blogging about it. * Update, 12:40pm: The Guardian has deleted Emma Keller's post entirely. Its explanation: "This post has been deleted with the agreement of the subject because it is inconsistent with the Guardian editorial code."
Bill Keller Criticized For Op-Ed About Cancer Patient Lisa Bonchek Adams
Mr & Mrs Keller Convene A Death Panel » Balloon Juice
Bill And Emma Keller Wish You Would Just Shut Up About Your Cancer Already, Lisa Adams

Woody Allen Golden Globe greeted with derision by Mia and Ronan Farrow | Film | theguardian.com - Former partner and estranged son post mocking tweets as Golden Globes present Allen's Cecil B DeMille award

The shame of Cooper Union | Felix Salmon - The Cooper Union Board of Trustees today managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was a depressing and yet entirely predictable vote, which resulted in a depressing and yet entirely predictable statement.
Free is not for Nothing. — Medium - he Vote to Save Cooper Union

Police not guilty in Kelly Thomas death; DA won't try 3rd officer - latimes.com - An Orange County jury Monday found two former Fullerton police officers accused of killing a schizophrenic homeless man, Kelly Thomas, not guilty.
Retired cop guns down man for texting at Florida movie: sheriff - U.S. News - A retired cop, irked that the couple in front of him were texting at a Mark Wahlberg war movie, opened fire in a Florida theater Monday, killing the man and wounding his wife, authorities said.
Lawsuits Allege Private Prison Company Covered Up Youth Sex Abuse - A pair of recent lawsuits against a private youth prison operator in Florida amplify claims that the company, Youth Services International, has frequently covered up reports that staff sexually abused young people held inside its facilities.

Don't Believe The (Marijuana) Hype | The Fix - What most people think they know about marijuana—especially media columnists—is just years of unscientific, paranoid, and even racist government propaganda. (lookin' at you little Davie and Ruthie)
How To Make Weed Butter, For Those Of You Who Can Now (video)

Womb transplants hailed as success in pioneering Swedish project | Society | theguardian.com - Doctor says nine women have received wombs from relatives and will soon try to get pregnant
These 12 Viruses Look Beautiful Up Close But Would Kill You If They Could (photos)
xs
Mainly Manly Writing about Manly Men - Lawyers, Guns & Money

Blogger At Cruz Rally: Shoot If You See California License Plates - The blogger, Bill Whittle, is a regular guest on Fox News and frequent contributor to Pajamas Media. He also previously wrote for National Review Online.
Two Theories of How To Break the Web's 'Rage Machine' - Emma Green - The Atlantic - Does the Internet's ever-flowing stream and cesspool of comments make it an angry place?

011214
Official: Tepco has failed at Fukushima, no progress made — Tepco to change name, start new business — Tepco demands nuclear workers return payments, anger passed tipping point (Japan completely unaccountable)

Iran to implement nuclear deal as Obama repeats Congress sanctions plea | World news | The Guardian - John Kerry says Tehran will start to implement November's 'comprehensive agreement' on 20 January
Syria conflict: 700 killed in eight days in early January, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - Fierce fighting between jihadists and rival rebel groups in Syria has killed almost 700 people in just eight days in early January, a monitoring group said on Sunday.
Alcoa To Pay $384 Million Penalty For Bahrain Bribes : NPR

Eschaton: TPP - the introduction of fast track for the TransPacific Partnership agreement. It's not clear whether Congress or their staffs will be allowed to read the agreement (no reason to; they can't amend it under the legislation.), but they are nonetheless expected to vote for it. (Obama hates democracy)

The misuse of American might, and the price it pays - latimes.com - The United States no longer knows how to win wars, but it continues to start them. Andrew J. Bacevich (well, we did nuke Japan ...)

NSA makes final push to retain most mass surveillance powers | World news | theguardian.com - While Inglis conceded in his NPR interview that at most one terrorist attack might have been foiled by NSA’s bulk collection of all American phone data – a case in San Diego that involved a money transfer from four men to al-Shabaab in Somalia – he described it as an “insurance policy” against future acts of terrorism.
NSA phone record collection does little to prevent terrorist attacks, group says - The Washington Post - An analysis of 225 terrorism cases inside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that the bulk collection of phone records by the National Security Agency “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
John McCain seeks congressional investigation into 'broken' NSA | World news | theguardian.com - There has been overreach' says Republican senator
Retiring NSA Deputy Director Admits Agency Can’t Prove Terrorists Changing Tactics Because of Snowden | The Dissenter (yeah, we were bullshitting you)

The Daily Dot - The Internet fights back against the NSA with the biggest protest since SOPA - The date is set: On Feb. 11, the Internet will finally formally protest the type of spying revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Twitter / YourAnonNews: EU Parliament committee finds ... - the UK government violated David Miranda's and the @Guardian's human rights:
Total corruption: Organised crime infiltrated and compromised UK courts, police, HMRC, Crown Prosecution Service, prisons, and juries - Boing Boing

Canadian spy agency admits to illegally spying on Canadians - Boing Boing
Sources: We were pressured to weaken the mobile security in the 80's - Aftenposten
Former Swedish Prosecutor Urges Termination of Julian Assange Case | The Dissenter

Lawyer Accuses Police of Torching an Anarchist Puppet « Snitch Watch (and lying and never, never backing down)
Looking for "Intel" On Occupy Protesters? Bank of America Boasts To the Washington State Patrol It Will Find It First | Slog (Obama's unified corporate-NSA surveillance-state)
Confronting the specter of corporate and police spying - Waging Nonviolence
CFAA amendments, new criminal statute proposed in Senator Leahy’s bill | Cybercrime Review - Also added within the bill would be a new criminal statute: 18 U.S.C. § 1041 Concealment of security breaches involving sensitive personally identifiable information. According to Senator Leahy, the new statute would provide "tough criminal penalties for anyone who would intentionally and willfully conceal the fact that a data breach has occurred when the breach causes economic damage to consumers.”
Why Johnny can’t stream: How video copyright went insane | Ars Technica - Deploying 10,000 tiny antennas makes no technical sense—but the law demands it. (and even that will soon be illegal)

Blogger’s Incarceration Raises First Amendment Questions - NYTimes.com - For over six years, Roger Shuler has hounded figures of the state legal and political establishment on his blog, Legal Schnauzer, a hothouse of furious but often fuzzily sourced allegations of deep corruption and wide-ranging conspiracy. (NYT notices 1st Amendment problem)

Security Breach Hits More Prominent U.S. Retailers, Report Says - Target has not disclosed how the attackers managed to breach its network or siphon off some of its most sensitive data.

Supreme Court Weighing Presidential Recess Appointments Power - The court battle is an outgrowth of increasing partisanship and the political stalemate that's been a hallmark of Washington for years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009. (Republican don't want him to appoint anybody)

Democrats plead with Obama to abandon Social Security cut | TheHill - The president proposed a new formula for calculating benefits in his budget last year, in hopes that the olive branch to Republicans would persuade them to back tax increases in a broader fiscal deal. (of course he did and of course they didn't)

''Light at end of the tunnel,'' but no timeline for water  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -
Chemical Leak Into West Virginia River Far Larger Than Previously Estimated | ThinkProgress - As over 300,000 people in West Virginia face a fourth day without water, state environmental officials are now estimating that as much as 7,500 gallons of a chemical used to process coal — Crude MGHM — may have spilled into the Elk River. That number is a substantial increase from early estimates of 2,000 to 5,000 gallons.
West Virginia Chemical Spill Aftermath Leaves Residents Struggling (drink this, reg-free WVA)
Watch a Local Reporter Refuse to Let Smug CEO of Company Responsible for Poisoned WV Water Off the Hook (Video) | Americans Against the Tea Party (while CEO chugs bottled water)

Christie Showed His Stripes as U.S. Attorney by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - The U.S. Attorneys who were fired were fired for insufficient partisan zeal. In some cases, they refused to open meritless voter fraud cases. In other cases, they wouldn’t open meritless investigations on Democratic politicians. In still other cases, they were actually investigating lawbreaking by Republicans. (Christie rose out of that festering swamp of corruption)
New Jersey turns on its tough-guy governor after bridge fiasco threatens his ambitions | World news | The Observer - A petty act of vengeance has left the moderate Republican governor woefully short of political allies
Christie scandal: 5 things we don't know | TheHill
The unanswered ‘Bridgegate’ questions - Maggie Haberman - politico.com
Chris Christie Scandal Is An 'Impeachable Offense' If He Knew, Dem Lawmaker Leading Probe Says (Big Chicken is about done)
Fox's Hume: Christie Seen As A Bully Because He's An "Old Fashioned Guy's Guy" In Today's "Feminized Atmosphere" | Video | Media Matters for America (bow down before the macho men bullies)
Senior Republicans rally round embattled NJ governor Chris Christie | World news | theguardian.com
NJ Mayors: Was Christie Getting Revenge on Me, Too? - WNYC (all he knows how to do is fuck with people)

The Anti-Scientific Revolution in Macroeconomics - NYTimes.com - But if you follow right-wing talk — by which I mean not Rush Limbaugh but the Wall Street Journal and famous economists like Robert Barro — you see the notion that aid to the unemployed can create jobs dismissed as self-evidently absurd. You think that you can reduce unemployment by paying people not to work? Hahahaha!

America is still a deeply racist country | Chris Arnade | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Gone is the overt, violent, and legal racism of my childhood in the 1960s. It's been replaced by a subtler, still ugly version

We preach 'no means no' for sex, but that's not what the law says | Deborah Tuerkheimer | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Over half the states have a 'use of force' requirement in order to prove rape. US law must be updated to better protect victims

Eschaton: Gun Nut Logic - Guns can be banned as long as local governments pay for protections like metal detectors and security guards, ensuring the safety of those they have disarmed.
Keeping Public Buildings Free of Guns Proves Too Costly for Kansas Towns - NYTimes.com - Reasoning that more guns mean greater safety, Kansas lawmakers voted last year to require cities and counties to make public buildings accessible to people legally carrying concealed weapons.

Grisly Details In Two Separate Chicago Police Torture Scandals Emerge: Chicagoist (culture of torture fixed with one-day "training session")
Daisy Coleman's mother vows to prove daughter's alleged rapist was cleared for political reasons | Mail Online - The mother of the girl who claimed she was raped by a high school football star has vowed to keep fighting and use the ‘Sunshine’ law to prove the alleged attacker was cleared for political reasons. (small-town politics win)

Eschaton: Promise Not To Be A HOOOOAAAAARRR - They'd never ask a man to sign such a thing.

Doughnut-shaped skyscraper completed in Guangzhou - A circle with a 50-metre diameter punctures the heart of the 33-storey structure, turning the building into a hollow circle. When reflected in the river, this shape becomes a figure of eight - a lucky number in Chinese culture.


How Colorado disrupted the Drug War | PandoDaily (and made Obama very sad)
Desperate parents turn to medical marijuana in last-ditch effort to improve their children's lives | Herald Sun - Victorian mum Cheri O'Connell spoke out about the benefits of liquid marijuana, which she says saved her epileptic daughter who was only given months to live.
Colorado Marijuana Dispensary taps Bitcoin to Evade Federal Laws - A somewhat bigger problem for dispensaries lurks in federal law. They cannot accept credit card payments, so all purchases must be in cash – or bitcoin.

011114
Fukushima radiation reaches 8 times govt standards — RT News

Israel: Ariel Sharon’s Troubling Legacy | Human Rights Watch - Evaded Prosecution Over Sabra and Shatilla Massacres
Former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon dies after eight-year coma | World news | theguardian.com - Death of Sharon, aged 85, comes as less of a shock to Israel than stroke that felled him at height of his premiership in 2006
Ariel Sharon Dead: Former Israel Prime Minister Dies At 85 - What followed was a Palestinian uprising that put Mideast peace efforts into deep-freeze.
Afghan boy killed by US forces as Nato staff die in aircraft accident | World news | theguardian.com - Four-year-old shot dead in Helmand after being mistaken for enemy, as aircraft 'mishap' kills three in eastern Afghanistan (army: "he looked like a baby terrorist")
?Afghan toddler killed by US troops amid heightened tension over security pact — RT News - “As the weather was dusty, the marine forces based there thought he was enemy and opened fire. As a result of mistaken fire, he was killed,” ("bad weather" killed him)
Russia Arrests 5 Terror Suspects In North Caucasus
FBI says all attackers probably died in Westgate mall siege in Nairobi | World news | theguardian.com - We believe the four gunmen inside the mall were killed' • NYPD report had suggested some militants may have escaped (NYPD now international spy agency)
India says more work needed to repair US ties after diplomatic 'mini crisis' | World news | theguardian.com - Foreign minister blames Washington for row between allies • Arrest and strip search of consular official outraged Indians

/ Close Guantánamo prison, says first US commander on 12th anniversary | World news | theguardian.com - Major General Michael Lehnert says facility is a liability • 'Terrorists aim to change our behaviour. They have succeeded' (in destroying American democracy)

Introducing the TGM SecureDrop Vault | The Global Mail - The SecureDrop system is also behind both The New Yorker’s Strongbox and Forbes’ SafeSource. It’s a powerful encryption network that allows media organisations to securely accept documents from anonymous sources

City Of London Police Cannot Seize Domains Just Because Hollywood Says The Websites Are Infringers | Techdirt


Aaron Swartz's Tragic Battle With Copyright | Motherboard
Noam Chomsky: MIT Shares Blame For Aaron Swartz Tragedy (and they lied)
Lawrence Lessig Walking Across New Hampshire In Memory Of Aaron Swartz

Robert Gates: Obama Only Showed Passion For Military On Leaks, 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' - "One quality I missed in Obama was passion, especially when it came to the two wars.
Robert Gates' Portrayal Of Obama Has Democrats Feeling Relieved - All told, the picture of Obama painted by Gates isn’t the kindest one -- unless, apparently, the picture is being viewed by House Democrats. (two failed wars the Republicans were "passionate" about - rot in hell, killers)
Commentary: How Washington Broke Robert Gates | The National Interest - The Obama White House’s instinct for gathering close the reigns of policy, and particularly national security policy, is a reflection of Obama’s character, and his wonkish confidence in the righteousness of his own policy analysis.

House Dems Unhappy With Reid's Unemployment Insurance Proposal - Under the Reid proposal, approximately $17 billion would be raised for an unemployment insurance extension this year by prolonging sequestration’s 2 percent cut to Medicare into 2024.
Obamacare Website's Biggest Security Threat May Be Darrell Issa - Not only does the bill target a nonexistent problem, but the most credible threat to the website's security may be the loudest critic of the website's security: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The Medicaid Cure - NYTimes.com - well, the curve is bending, and it’s likely that the cost control measures that are part of Obamacare (and have been in effect for several years) are part of the reason.

Everything you need to know about the war on poverty (which would be a lot worse if not for LBJ)
Studies Find That Successful People Tend To Be Bad | Eric Zuesse - To the extent that a person wants his child to succeed (in the ordinary sense of that term), to rise or stay at the top in social standing, the parent will teach his child not to care about the welfare of others but only of himself, and to do anything or crush anyone in order to win what he wants. (in other words, be a Repubican)
A Hammock In Kentucky? - NYTimes.com - The underlying story of Appalachia is in fact one of declining opportunity.

The Truthification of Political Discourse by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - So, can Ohio ban lies in political advertising? What’s a lie these days? Nobody seems to know anymore.

Christie Doc: Cops Told People Bridge Closures Were Fort Lee Mayor's Fault
Vulgarity-laced emails show attempts to silence GWB story - NorthJersey.com
No, really: It’s over for Christie in 2016 - Salon.com - The bridge scandal lets national media dredge up every instance of pettiness, rage and payback. There are plenty
Christie’s Allies Abandon Him by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Christie’s allies now have the long-knives out, and he can’t afford to continue using the same bullying tactics he employed to win the support of Democratic mayors. He hasn’t even been sworn in for his second term, and he’s a lame duck.
Chris Christie Mentor: Bridge Scandal Begs The Question 'Do You Really Want That In Your President?' - "If there's a pattern of these things, if other incidents emerge with similar characteristics, that's going to be a real problem," Kean Sr. told the AP. ("if")
5 big unanswered questions in Bridge-gate (#6: Is Chrisie a big fat lying bully?)
New N.J. documents show extensive coverup in Fort Lee traffic shutdown - The Washington Post
Poorly executed toll lane reallocation trial at Geo Washington Bridge escalates - two top execs of PANYNJ are out in political furore - Toll Roads News (12/17/13: indepth background before the shit really hit the fan)

Freedom Industries execs are longtime colleagues  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports - - In 2005, federal prosecutors charged Kennedy with failing to pay more than $200,000 in income taxes, according to reports at the time. In 1987, he pleaded guilty to selling between 10 and 12 ounces of cocaine, according to reports. (because "freedom")

CNN Chief Trashes Fox News: 'Republican Party...Masquerading As News'

Commentary: A Scary Thought: President John McCain | The National Interest - McCain continues to find ways to demonstrate why his fingers must never be near the button.

Milky Way Galaxy Has Four Spiral Arms, New Study Confirms | Astronomy | Sci-News.com - A 12-year study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has confirmed that our Milky Way Galaxy has four spiral arms, following years of debate that it has only two arms.

Judge in "kids for cash" ruled liable for damage - cleared the way for about 2,500 plaintiffs to collect damages from Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., one of two former judges convicted in the "kids for cash" corruption scandal.
Portland pimp sues Nike for $100 million for lack of warning label after beating victim with Jordans | OregonLive.com

Let’s Be Real: Online Harassment Isn’t ‘Virtual’ For Women
Let’s just call it talking » Pharyngula
Dickwolves - Geek Feminism Wiki
Here is a project: Troll! Data! Analysis! | Super Opinionated!
Debacle Timeline - The Pratfall of Penny Arcade - A Timeline, Part 2
What Happens to Women Who Write Things Online - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Victims Of 'Revenge Porn' Open Up On Reddit About How It Impacted Their Lives
Antivaccinationists abuse reporting algorithms to silence pro-vaccine skeptics on Facebook – Respectful Insolence

Dropbox website goes down, hackers claim responsibility (update) | The Verge

011014
Top Russian cleric seeks nationwide referendum on criminalizing male homosexuality — RT Russian politics ("cleric")
Evicted teachers in Mexico City denounce state criminalization of social protest | Coop média de Montréal
Cocaine trafficking horrors: Users are complicit in the atrocities of the drug trade. - The gruesomeness of the drug trade rivals any atrocities in history. (another piece of Obama's so-called "legacy")

The Daily Dot - Senate bill could fast-track trade agreement that 'threatens the Internet' - The bill was introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, with support from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. (all you need to know)

West Virginia chemical spill triggers widespread tap water ban | Reuters - Up to 300,000 residents in West Virginia were left without tap water on Friday after a chemical spill that forced the closure of schools and business in the state capital and led the federal government to declare a disaster. (let them drink air)
State of emergency, water ban issued in West Virginia over chemical leak — RT USA
Freedom - Lawyers, Guns & Money : I now see why the Republicans passed the bill to gut Superfund. It’s clearly unnecessary, what with a company actually named Freedom Industries taking care of the good people of West Virginia. (+"the giant Dark Age Restoration machine that is conservativism.")
Betty Is Right, You Really Can’t Make This Shit Up » Balloon Juice - Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to drink. (John Cole in WVa)
West Virginia Water Contamination - Let The Waters Of Freedom Flow - Esquire
Parents Outraged Over Radio Disney’s Participation in Pro-Fracking Educational Tour | EcoWatch
Terror charges faced by Oklahoma fossil fuel protesters 'outrageous' | Environment | theguardian.com - The terror charges facing two environmental protesters who unfurled a banner and dropped glitter at an oil and gas company's office in Oklahoma are "outrageous" and "egregious", according to the lawyer representing them.

Millionaires In Congress - Our Elected Aristocracy - Esquire - For the first time, more congressional representatives and senators in the United States are millionaires than not

FBI completes probe of Chechen man shot during questioning in Florida - FBI spokesman Christopher Allen said the agency had turned over its findings to the U.S. Department of Justice. These would be reviewed in February by a panel made up of FBI and Department of Justice members which would determine whether the shooting complied with the department's deadly force policy. (state-run death squad)

Duty: The funniest part of Robert Gates' very serious new memoir. - I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, "For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe, you be my witness." I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters. Yes, what would give the president that idea?
Gates: U.S. Tried to Oust Karzai in 'Failed Putsch' - The central players in the backchannel effort to unseat Karzai, according to Gates, were Richard Holbrooke, then the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Karl Eikenberry, then the U.S. ambassador to Kabul. (and you wonder why Karzai doesn't trust Obama)

The Daily Dot - The Internet fights back against the NSA with the biggest protest since SOPA

"Aaron Swartz passed away a year ago tomorrow. We are Cory Doctorow, Brian Knappenberger, Peter Eckersley (EFF), and David Segal (Demand Progress) here to talk about Aaron and a protest we're organizing on 02/11 in his honor. Ask us anything." : IAmA
A New Bill Would Expand the Law That's Landing Hactivists in Jail | Motherboard (Target an excuse to crack down on hackers, hmmmm)

Target Data Breach Affected Up To 70 Million Customers - sensitive information, including customers' names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, was stolen from up to 70 million people in the late November to early December data breach.

Deserting the Digital Utopia (CrimethInc., Anonymous) | The Anarchist Library

White House Dares Democratic Senators Pushing Iran Sanctions To Admit They Want War - The White House on Thursday challenged a group of senators to admit they are working to push the country toward war with Iran, upping the tension between the administration and Senate advocates of tough new sanctions amid nuclear negotiations.

J. Edgar Hoover and the WASPocracy | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - Hoover’s basic lawlessness, and his habit of keeping files on politicians, were an open secret until the Media documents finally persuaded Katherine Graham of the Washington Post to make FBI skulduggery discussable in political circles. (The New York Times, by contrast, refused to publish.) (the village elite kept it a secret as usual +"a kakistocracy of Kochs and Murdochs")

Federal Government Will Recognize Utah Same-Sex Marriages, Eric Holder Announces

Liberal Self-Identification Edges Up to New High in 2013 - Fifteen-percentage-point conservative advantage ties as smallest to date (+demoderation)
How Millennials Have Already Reshaped Politics - NationalJournal.com - Political parties are taking young people's policy preferences into account, but that doesn't mean they're getting everything they want. - The millennial generation, comprising the 90 million-plus young people born from 1982 to 2002, is now the nation's largest.
Beyond Polarization to Warfare by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - But it’s the broader acceptance of political warfare in the conservative movement and the GOP—typified by the perpetual rage against the Obama administration—that’s most alarming.
Polarization we can live with. Partisan warfare is the problem. | The Monkey Cage
The Partisanship That Dares Not Say Its Name by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - That they change their self-identification rather than their actual thinking and behavior tells you everything you need to know about the MSM’s determination to impose their perspectives on public opinion—at the expense of understanding it.
Why people call themselves “independent” even when they aren’t (because media has told them "partisan" is bad)

People Not In Labor Force Soar To Record 91.8 Million; Participation Rate Plunges To 1978 Levels | Zero Hedge - People Not In Labor Force Soar To Record 91.8 Million; Participation Rate Plunges To 1978 Levels (a third of words have just given up, so they aren't counted as "unemployed")

What Did Christie Know & When Did He Know It? » Balloon Juice - Haldeman: "On the investigation, the Democratic break-in thing, we’re back in the problem area because the FBI is not under control."
Daily Kos: Christie asked Cuomo to back off investigating Fort Lee. In mid-December.
EXCLUSIVE: Top lawmaker leading 'Bridgegate' probe blasts Chris Christie's claims as 'not believable' and says the public has seen 'just the tip of the cover-up' | Mail Online - Christie's claims that he knew nothing of the scandal as 'not believable' and says the public has seen 'just the tip of the cover-up'
Cover Story: Barry Blitt’s “Playing in Traffic” : The New Yorker
Port Authority Chief Warned That Bridge Lane Closures Were Illegal - Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye wrote an impassioned email to the general manager of the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 13, arguing that lane closures that spiraled into a major scandal this week were illegal.
Bridge Scandal Documents Indicate Effort to Hide Political Motive - NYTimes.com - Officials loyal to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey went to elaborate means to make it appear that the September closing of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., was part of a traffic study, even though their private communications suggest the move was purely political, documents released on Friday show.
Bridgegate: Thousands of new documents in GWB scandal expected to be released this morning | Crooks and Liars
Bridgegate: Six N.J. residents file lawsuit against Christie, Port Authority | NJ.com
Fox News Host Admits Chris Christie Bridge Story Is A 'Scandal,' Not A 'Distraction' - "We cannot sit here and dismiss this as a distraction," he said. "That makes us look like complete hypocrites, because we would explode. ... We have exploded here at this table when somebody says Benghazi is a distraction or...is a phony scandal."
Chris Christie's Favorability Rating Down Post-Scandal: Poll
The Christie aides brought down by Bridgegate - Katie Glueck and Emily Schultheis - politico.com
Rachel Maddow Presents New Chris Christie Bridge Scandal Theory - Rachel Maddow on Thursday presented a new theory why New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) may have wanted to close George Washington Bridge lanes -- a festering feud between the governor and Democrats over state Supreme Court nominees.
NJ Senate President Rejects Maddow's Alternate Bridge Scandal Theory - "That's a real conspiracy thing, right?" Sweeney said, after TPM described to him the gist of Maddow's argument.
At the heart of the scandal | MSNBC - In 2010, soon after Christie’s inauguration, he did something unprecedented: he declined to reappoint one of the justices: New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John Wallace, the court’s only African-American member. Wallace was not burdened by scandal or allegations of wrongdoing; Christie simply didn’t want him on the high court anymore.
Former New Jersey Governor Richard Codey: Chris Christie 'Knew This Was Bulls**t' - “Come on, you knew this was bulls**t," Codey said. “This has been an ongoing part of the administration, the way they attack anybody who doesn’t agree with them, on policy or anything else," Codey continued.
Help me build a comprehensive list of petty Chris Christie scandals. (can't ... connect ... the ... ...
15 Chris Christie Controversies You Missed - Olivia Nuzzi - POLITICO Magazine - The GWB scandal wasn’t the governor’s first dip in hot water.
Chris Christie to be investigated for misconduct as US Attorney General | NJ Election 2009 - Chris Daggett and Election Candidates (one of those dots)
Eschaton: Governor Shouts At Teachers - . It isn't that they're horrible people because I disagree with their politics, it's that they're people who are seemingly horrible in every way except in their ability to get the press to suck up to them.
The Outlaw Jersey Whale | TBogg - So Chris Christie went rogue Tuesday night, turning what was supposed to be the Keynote address into (as someone put it on twitter) a Me-Note address where he explained that he took the vast wasteland that is Jersey and turned into a fucking paradise on fucking earth. (Christie's me-note at the Repub Convention; when you're an asshole you treat everyone like shit)
Occam’s Razor Lost Its Edge » Balloon Juice - “Chris Christie demands to know why nobody told him what everyone in his office is up to.”
David Simon | “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes…” - I’m sorry for Mr. Christie, who seems in his better moments to be something of a leader. But anger and argument lose all charm when they are employed for stakes so small, stupid and selfish. He knew. And he’s lying about it now.
Right-wing Twitter responds to Chris Christie’s epic press conference - Salon.com - Yeah, Chris Christie may have messed up, but he’s still better than the mainstream media, Democrats, Obama … and did you hear about Benghazi?

Supreme Court to mull right to lie in political ads - politico.com (corps have free lies)

Happy 12th Birthday NCLB! by Anne Hyslop | College Guide | The Washington Monthly - Given that 42 states and Washington, D.C. now have waivers freeing them from many of the law’s provisions, you might think that No Child Left Behind has been, well, left behind. That’s true in certain respects, but not in fundamentals. (some accountability achieved)

Begich misses jobless vote for speech in Hawaii | TheHill - Begich delivered a keynote speech Wednesday morning to the American Aviation Issues conference, an annual event hosted by the American Association of Airport Executives.(priorities)

Georgia GOPer Attacking Free School Lunch Expensed $4,200 In Meals

Charts: Vermont's "Full-Blown Heroin Crisis." - The epidemic in Vermont might be caused in part by the incentive big-city drug dealers have to do business in smaller towns. A bag of heroin that would cost $5 in a big city can sell for as much as $30 in Rutland, Vermont

Daisy Colemans alleged rapist will not face sex assault charges | Mail Online (so sorry)
Miami-Dade Politician Files Criminal Complaint Against Local Reporter Making Inquiries | Photography is Not a Crime: PINAC

Stephanie Brown’s Speed: Facing Our Addiction to Fast and Faster, reviewed. - Brown’s major tactic is to simultaneously pathologize banal aspects of human life and conflate very real substance abuse problems with her made-up speed addiction. (Yglesias speed-reads Speed and "The last thing a person pressed for time needs is to waste even a few hours on this book.")
Her: Movie by Spike Jonze with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson lacks a real woman. - Her topped many of 2013’s 10-best film lists and convinced critics that a love affair between a beta male and his beta software could be the year’s realest on-screen relationship.
Judith Mackrell’s history of flappers, reviewed.
S-Line, V-Line, and 19 More Korean Body Lines
Jennifer McCarthy Pulls Gun From Vagina After Dispute Over Space Aliens: Cops - "She was in the doorway. She had stripped in there and dressed her body for the boudoir, soft ladyclothes baring flesh and something more, down at the forking of her legs. Hard nickelplate steel, the Smith & Wesson. Her hand was on it.

Laughing gas for labor: Could nitrous oxide be the next big thing in American childbirth? - Labor is no laughing matter, at least not in the U.S. Today, most women in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and Scandinavia use laughing gas (otherwise known as nitrous oxide) for pain relief during childbirth, but for years it has not been available for labor in the U.S. beyond a few lucky maternity wards—until now.

New York Times website redesign, reviewed.

Comcast's Khan Academy partnership could be trouble. - (Currently, Internet Essentials customers may get speeds of up to 5 Mbps, which isn’t even as fast as Comcast’s most basic package in the Washington, D.C., area. Whether those speeds are sufficient for streaming media-rich online educational content is also questionable.)

The Daily Dot - Some idiot in Alaska shot out an entire town's Internet service - Ralph Eller, owner of Yukon Telephone and Supervisions Cable TV, summed up the situation to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in just four words: “You can’t fix stupid.”
The Daily Dot - Here's how much porn we watched during the polar vortex
The Daily Dot - How to stop Google from giving every user your email
Neiman Marcus says hackers may have stolen payment card data | Reuters
Fascist Facebook? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - Yesterday, on 9 January 2014, after over five years of operation, popular Facebook page Anarchist Memes was permanently taken down by Facebook. With approximately 90,000 likes and hundreds of comments each day, Anarchist Memes established itself as one of the radical left’s most prominent Facebook pages. (FB hates your so-called "dissent")
Anarchist Memes | Facebook (replacement)

010914
US energy secretary calls off India visit as diplomatic row escalates | World news | theguardian.com - Moniz mission postponed and New Delhi closes ex-pats' club in dispute over arrest of official in New York
How People in Muslim Countries Think Women Should Dress - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic - One of the region's most liberal societies prefers one of the more conservative head coverings

The Wedding That a U.S. Drone Strike Turned Into a Funeral - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - A human-rights activist who interviewed witnesses said women and children in a nearby village are still too fearful to sleep through the night. (Obama's legacy)
An Awkward Question for Robert Gates: Has the Deep State Taken Over? - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - The former secretary of defense believes that the uniformed military "had taken control of the policy process" during the war in Afghanistan. (deep state)

European parliament invites Edward Snowden to testify via video | World news | theguardian.com - Not yet clear if NSA whistleblower will accept invitation from European parliament committee investigating surveillance
NSA Insider's Message For Obama (video)
NSA and GCHQ activities appear illegal, says EU parliamentary inquiry | World news | The Guardian - Civil liberties committee report demands end to indiscriminate collection of personal data by British and US agencies

On the Outskirts of Crypto City: The Architecture of Surveillance | Creative Time Reports
When the FBI asks you to weaken your security so it can spy on your users - Boing Boing - After a recent presentation, she was approached by an FBI agent who asked her if she'd put a back-door into Wickr.

FBI Promises To Release Report On Killing Of Florida Man Linked To Boston Bombing Suspects - The internal FBI probe into the deadly shooting of a Russian immigrant who was being interviewed in Florida in May about his links to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect is "definitely" something the bureau will release down the line, FBI Director James Comey told reporters Thursday. ("down the line")

Trade Bill In Congress - The Trade Scam Arrives In Congress - Esquire - The president who speaks so eloquently on income inequality wants an easier time passing a trade deal that inevitably will make that inequality worse. (there is no moral center behind the slogans)
TPP Won't Wrap Up This Year, But Fast Track Remains a Threat | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the 4th Amendment “Exemption Zone” | The Progressive Cynic - Last week, Judge Edward Korman—a Reagan appointee to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York—confirmed that federal authorities can search the electronic devices of any American within 100 miles of any border without the need to obtain a warrant.

Christie’s Waterloo  - NY Daily News
Chris Christie Apologizes For Bridge Scandal, Insists He's 'Not A Bully' - "Mistakes were made, and I'm responsible for those mistakes," he added.
U.S. Attorney Expected To Open Preliminary Inquiry In Chris Christie Bridge Scandal
David Wildstein Held In Contempt After Refusing To Testify About Bridge Scandal
Full transcript: N.J. Gov. Chris Christie’s Jan. 9 news conference on George Washington Bridge scandal - The Washington Post
Here's Proof That Governor Christie Is Still Misleading The Public On Bridge Scandal | ThinkProgress
Why Bridgegate Is So Dangerous to Chris Christie's Reputation - David A. Graham - The Atlantic - The governor's popularity rests on his credibility and his competence. It's hard to see how he comes out of this without serious damage to one or the other.
Chris Christie's Bridge Scandal, Explained | Mother Jones - New emails suggest a senior aide to Christie—a 2016 presidential contender—ordered a nasty traffic jam in Fort Lee as political payback.
Conclusions From Chris Christie Scandal - Big Chicken Exposed - Esquire - I admit, I was somewhat dismissive of the impact of the obvious political morass into which Big Chicken had been led by the people in whom he had so naively trusted never, ever, to lie to him

Obamacare To Cover Breast Cancer Prevention Drugs

Man charged with misdemeanor in Missouri case Anonymous publicized | Reuters - A Missouri man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl at a 2012 party was charged Thursday with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child in a case publicized by the hacker group Anonymous, according to court records. (Maryville rapist slapped on the wrist)
ACLU Sues City Of Omaha, 32 Police Officers For Use Of Excessive Force, Warrantless Search And Seizure | Techdirt - 20+ cops who stormed the house (without a warrant, obviously) in order to seize and destroy the footage of the arrest contained in Jaquez Johnson's cell phone. (terrorist militarized cops got themselves video'd again)

Addendum to the Great Public-Intellectual Debate - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - Or, how to apply for the TNC Public-Intellectual Prize

CNN Morality Poll Reveals Surprising Trends In America (adultery big no-no)
This Guy Wants To Outlaw Oral Sex Between Teenagers In Virginia ... Virginia law allows heterosexual 16-year-olds to marry; they can get hitched even younger if there's a pregnancy.

'Tiger mother' returns with provocative theory of 'cultural group' success | Books | theguardian.com - Amy Chua's new book outlines contentious explanation of the success of Jews, Chinese, Nigerians and others (Tiger Mom is racist)
The best worst U.S. map ever
Bryan Fischer Satanic Statue Oklahoma - A Brief Theological Debate - Esquire


An Excerpt From Gabriel Sherman's 'The Loudest Voice in the Room' -- New York Magazine - When the head of Fox News moved to Garrison, New York, he bought a little newspaper and tried to instill his own brand of American values. Guess what happened next? (paranoid fatfuck and the Foxification of a small-town newpaper +"Other local contractors helped install a bunker that could weather a terrorist attack underneath their mansion. “He can live in there for more than six months,”)

The Chicago Man Accusing the Cops of Raping Him with a Gun | VICE United States

No, the 'College Bubble' Isn't Popping - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic - The reckoning, they say, is already upon us, as total college enrollment has fallen 1.5 percent since 2012. (for-profits tanking)

Scale Of Universe Revealed In New Ultraprecise Galaxy Map
'Golden age' of antibiotics 'set to end' - Far fewer pharmaceutical companies are working on new antibiotics than in the past
A Lesser-Known Dementia That Steals Personality - Erika Hayasaki - The Atlantic - Frontotemporal dementia, unlike Alzheimer's, often hits people in the prime of their lives, and can make them act like a completely different person.
Searching for the Amazon's Hidden Civilizations | Science/AAAS | News - Terra preta—literally “black earth”—is soil that humans have enriched to have two to three times the nutrient content of the surrounding, poor-quality soil

DoS attacks that took down big game sites abused Web’s time-sync protocol | Ars Technica - Never-before-seen technique abused the Network Time Protocol to worsen effects.

010814
US military veterans 'frustrated' by Falluja standoff | World news | theguardian.com - 100 Americans died and 1,000 wounded in city during war • Al-Qaida gains in city a bitter disappointment for many
China blocks the Guardian, censorship-tracking website says | World news | theguardian.com - Some attempts to access the Guardian site in Beijing fail, but no clear reason for China's leadership to take issue with recent content
India cracks down on US embassy club in diplomatic row | World news | theguardian.com - India says US embassy must cease commercial activities benefiting non-diplomats, after Indian envoy's arrest in New York
A Charity Claims the IRS Is Harassing Them Because They Sent Aid to Palestine | VICE United States
AP News: American held in UAE over video to be released
UK police cleared over death of unarmed man - Europe - Al Jazeera English - Family outraged over jury ruling that police lawfully shot Mark Duggan, whose death lead to widespread riots in 2011. The police officer who fired the fatal shot testified that he saw a firearm in Duggan's right hand.

Oil and propane train derails and catches fire in Canada | World news | theguardian.com - Homes evacuated after derailment close to US border in New Brunswick but train staff escape unhurt

CIA Sued To Solve Decades-Old Nelson Mandela Mystery - A transparency researcher sued the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday for the release of potentially embarrassing files on Nelson Mandela, the South African freedom fighter and Nobel Prize laureate who died last month at the age of 95.

Commander Who Reversed Conviction to Retire - ABC News - The commander whose decision to overturn a sexual assault conviction forced major changes in military law said Wednesday he is retiring, blaming public second-guessing of his actions as a distraction for the Air Force.

White House Defends Joe Biden Against Robert Gates Criticism - , Gates writes that Biden is "a man of integrity," but also a political figure who has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
Eschaton: If Only We'd Had Infinite Money, Lives, And Time - Obama's mistake wasn't losing faith in the Afghanistan strategy, it was having any faith in it to begin with.
Robert Gates was wrong on the most important issue he ever faced - . I am not appropriately positioned to evaluate Gates's positions on "every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." But I can tell you how he performed on the single most important one he ever confronted: ending the Cold War. He was, quite simply, dead wrong. (cold warrior and Iran-Contra graduate)

'Underwear bomber' was working for the CIA | World news | The Guardian - Bomber involved in plot to attack US-bound jet was working as an informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged (review: 5/2012 was this a "thawrted plot")

Obama nears decision on NSA reforms as spy leaders meet at White House | World news | theguardian.com - Decision on surveillance expected before state of the union • Congressional leaders to join as president mulls NSA review
FBI Burglars Praise Edward Snowden -- And His Decision To Flee
“NSA Four” Whistleblowers Memo to Obama: Input for Your Decisions on NSA | LeakSource - Thomas Drake / William Binney / J. Kirk Wiebe / Edward Loomis

The NSA Leaks Are About Democracy, Not Just Privacy - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - Edward Snowden-sourced stories that aren't about spying on Americans still have an important value because they inform citizens about public policy.
Navy's 757-Sized Drone Will Provide Big-Time Surveillance | Danger Room | Wired.com
How did we end up with a centralized Internet for the NSA to mine? - O'Reilly Radar
RSA Conference Speakers Should Start an NSA Debate, Not Just a Twitter War | Motherboard - All is not well at this year's RSA Conference. Security and privacy experts are dropping like flies from their scheduled panels.
The FBI (or NSA?)’s Bulk National Security Letters | emptywheel

Your Anon News • Governments have transformed the internet into a...
Your Anon News • A few other privacy tools you may want to check out:

How the NSA Threatens National Security - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic
Commentary: What to Make of the National Security State | The National Interest
Ministry of Defence funding research into online habits | UK news | The Guardian - PhD papers sponsored by military include studies of hacker culture, crowd behaviour and social networking sites

Dianne Feinstein Admits That Her 'NSA Reform' Bill Is About Protecting Existing Surveillance Programs | Techdirt - In other words, "my bill is for people who already support these programs." Exactly the opposite of what her marketing and public statements about the bill have been. Oops. Next time, she should try to not misrepresent her own bill, and maybe she can keep her story straight.
Judge In No Fly List Trial Won't Let Plaintiff Or Her Lawyers See The Evidence | Techdirt - Dr. Ibrahim was told she could see the evidence if she was present in the courtroom, but since the State Department denied her a visa... she wasn't able to be there. (another one of Obama's special rabbit-holes_)

PrittsPrivacyFinalDraftweb.ashx - The Importance and Value of Protecting the Privacy of Health Information: The Roles of the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the Common Rule in Health Research Joy L. Pritts, JD

The Catholic Supreme Court’s War on Women - Jamie Stiehm (usnews.com) - Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can't trust you on women's health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx just dropped the ball on American women and girls as surely as she did the sparkling ball at midnight on New Year's Eve in Times Square. Or maybe she's just a good Catholic girl.

ICP, ACLU Sue Feds Over Juggalos Gang Classification: Chicagoist

The CIA, Amazon, Bezos and the Washington Post: An Exchange with Executive Editor Martin Baron | MyFDL

Utah will not recognise same-sex marriages performed before court ban | World news | theguardian.com - Around 1,400 couples were legally wed after 20 December • Supreme court halted marriages pending appeals court ruling (just got unmarried)

Former New York police charged in suspected $400m disability scam | World news | theguardian.com - Dozens falsely claimed benefits saying they were left traumatised by 9/11 attacks, says Manhattan district attorney

That Green Lantern Won’t Raise Itself - Lawyers, Guns & Money : In her “conversation” with David Brooks, Gail Collins manages to capture in two sentences how not to think about legislative change (Collins buys the myth of the "Republican plan" but it still wouldn't help)
Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

What happened to US life expectancy? | The Incidental Economist - Why did the US fall behind the OECD median in the mid-1980s for men and the early 1990s for women? (industrialized for-profit health care is killing us)
Washington Center for Equitable Growth | What, Truly, Has Happened to U.S. Life Expectancy, and Why? (because we're stupid)
Chart of the Day: America's Health Care System Is Killing You | Mother Jones

Rachel Maddow is getting her lesbian matriarchy all over your teevee screen | The Raw Story - National Review Online has up one big old honkin’ mess of a ‘story’ about how Rachel Maddow is some kind of “queen” who is nancying up MSNBC with her butch ways and also her feminine wiles which is making us all totally gender confused about what the hell is going on not only in America but also in our pants.
Megyn Kelly, Fox News’s (quickly) budding star - The Washington Post - Her slate-blue eyes widen, her nostrils flare and she begins to quote the movie.

Colorado Recreational Marijuana Sales Exceed $5 Million In First Week
How Many Days Were Between Colorado's Vote On Legal Marijuana And The First Sales? 420, Obviously. - In perhaps the most fitting twist of all, it turns out that exactly 420 days elapsed between Nov. 6, 2012, the date Colorado citizens voted to legalize marijuana with the passage of Amendment 64, and the date of the first sale. (God's plan)

Stories Add Up as Bully Image Trails Christie - NYTimes.com (fatfuck Christie is a paranoid and vindictive bully)
Emails link top Christie aide to GWB lane-closing controversy - NorthJersey.com (the children of Democrats can go fuck themselves also)
Chris Christie's Top Aide Linked To Traffic Jam Payback Against Democratic Mayor
Investigator reacts to leaked bridge scandal emails: Chris Christie is clueless or a liar | The Raw Story (let's go with #2)
Eschaton: Petty Vindictive People - Given what Christie's people were willing to do because a Democratic mayor was not willing to endorse a Republican for governor, one can only imagine what they spend their time doing every day. Punishment must be their job #1. Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.

As 2014 Begins, Toll Rises for "The Most Expensive Sheriff in America" - Andrew Cohen - The Atlantic - Another multi-million-dollar bill comes due this year for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's reckless antics in Maricopa County, Arizona. And that's why more taxpayers may finally be asking: Who keeps voting for this guy, anyway?
Roger Ailes Offered Employee A Raise In Exchange For Sex, New Book Claims
Dumbest column of 2014 has already been written. Richard Cohen hardest hit. | The Raw Story - Cupp, whom you may understandably mistake for Elisabeth Hasselbeck in glasses
Harvard psychiatrist on David Brooks' pot column: "His ignorance about this subject is vast." - Boing Boing

No Free Lunch - FIRST DRAFT - Hand stamps for the poor kids: (they are considering tattoos)
Principal stopped school’s shaming free lunch kids with hand stamps, says it got her fired | The Raw Story - A former principal at a charter elementary school in Colorado ("charter" = for profit)

Cambridge named 4th Gayest City in the U.S. | Boston Spirit Magazine | Boston.com - 1. Washington, D.C. 2. Pasadena, CA 3. Seattle, WA 4. Cambridge, MA
How Cambridge ranks up against other towns - Cambridge - Boston.com - SELF magazine ranked Cambridge as no. 1 overall healthiest city for women, citing below average rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and depression.
Cambridge: where Bohemia meets big bucks - CSMonitor.com

Horrifically mutilated rabbits dumped in family car of Maryville 'rape victim' | Mail Online
Charge Being Dropped Against Ohio School Principal - ABC News
Police: Indiana man pulled over with guns, bombs, and plans for Navy SEAL facility | The Raw Story
Cormac McCarthy’s ex-wife arrested in Cormac McCarthy-like scene with a gun | The Raw Story - Authorities in Santa Fe, New Mexico have accused the ex-wife of novelist Cormac McCarthy of threatening her boyfriend with a gun she pulled out of her vagina. t 48-year-old Jennifer McCarthy pulled the gun on Jan. 4 following an argument regarding “space aliens.” (she was packing)

Utah Avalanche Was Largest In Modern History, Study Finds - The avalanche near Salt Lake City last year that carried enough rock, dirt and debris to bury New York's Central Park under 66 feet of rubble was North America's largest such disaster in modern history, according to University of Utah scientists.

Why Do Cats Knead? Your Cat Thinks You're a Giant Cat Says Cat Sense | TIME.com - Consider yourself a kitten's mommy? You're actually more like its freakishly large roommate.

AMA: How a Weird Internet Thing Became a Mainstream Delight - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic - Reddit's question-and-answer format imports the aspirational norms of honesty and authenticity from pseudonymous Internet forums into mainstream interviews.
I just finished reading The Road. That book has destroyed me. : books


010714
Southern, Eastern U.S. Brace For Record-Breaking Cold - Frigid air that snapped decades-old records will make venturing outside dangerous for a second straight day, this time spreading to southern and eastern parts of the U.S. and keeping many schools and businesses shuttered. Meanwhile, residents driven from their homes by power outages in the Midwest worried about burst pipes.
Polar Vortex in U.S. May be Example of Global Warming | Climate Central
America's Coldest Day in 20 Years May Have Been Manmade | Motherboard

Radiation on California Beaches » Safecast - So the actual science here immediately disproves claims that there is radiation from Fukushima hitting the beach in any detectible levels. Yet – an important distinction – as many existing scientific models show that trace, though detectible levels will reach the coast in the next few years, a topic we’ll address in a future post. (evacuation postponed)
Officials reject concerns over 500 percent radiation increase on California beach — RT USA (or not)


"The Sea Washed it Away" - On the Ground After Typhoon Haiyan

AP News: UN decides to stop updating Syria death toll - The U.N.'s human rights office has stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war, confirming Tuesday that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July.
The Massacre in Syria That Wasn’t | The Interpreter - A look at Russian media coverage of Adra
The Perfect Storm In Turkey – Corruption, Conflict, Conspiracy - the PM's alleged support of Al Qaeda fighters engaged against the Syrian government.
Hundreds of Turkish police officers dismissed - Turkey has removed 350 police officers from their posts in the capital Ankara, following a corruption probe targeting people close to the government. The prime minister has accused the police and judiciary of a "dirty plot". (to uncover his corruption)
Honduras and the dirty war fuelled by the west's drive for clean energy | World news | The Guardian - The palm oil magnates are growing ever more trees for use in biofuels and carbon trading. But what happens to the subsistence farmers who live on the lucrative land?
Twitter / violentfanon: War criminal Moshe Dayan explains ... - seizure of Golan Heights by Israel in 1967 war.
Occupation Magazine - `it was the other [Israeli] side who insisted on provoking the Syrians until they clashed together and then claimed that the Syrians are the aggressors.`
Israeli Foreign Minister says Britain was right to let Bobby Sands ‘commit suicide’ | Irish News | IrishCentral - Avigdor Liberman praises how Margaret Thatcher handled hunger strikers deaths
Hillel on College Campuses Fractures as Students Debate Israel | New Republic - America's most important Israel argument is happening on campuses
Boy of 12 hauled out of class by police over David Cameron Facebook protest - Mirror Online - A schoolboy trying to save his youth club was hauled from class after his plan to protest outside David Cameron's constituency office was spotted - by anti-terror police.
Breaking: Chief spy watchdog working for Enbridge since 2011 | Vancouver Observer
An NSA Agent Is Co-Chairing a Project to Encrypt the Web | Motherboard
James Clapper Talks NSA Changes With Advisory Panel

Former US defense secretary criticizes Obama administration in new memoir | World news | theguardian.com - Robert Gates, who also served under George W Bush, says relations between White House and Pentagon are strained ... Obama did not believe in his own strategy for ending the war in Afghanistan, which he was “skeptical if not outright convinced ... would fail,” and that he was skeptical at best about the leadership of the country’s president, Hamid Karzai. (well, no fucking shit)
Obama Called For Criminal Investigation Into New York Times Leak, New Book Claims - President Obama demanded a criminal investigation into leaks to the New York Times just a month into his first term, a new book by his former defense secretary claims. (Pentagon was leaking all over the place)
Obama Didn't Believe In His Own Afghanistan Strategy, Robert Gates Claims In Memoir
Robert Gates Memoir's Criticism of Obama is Not What Bob Woodward Says | New Republic (oh, look who's here)

The Department of Defense Can't Find Any of Its Drone Crash Data | Motherboard

Snowden has more U.S.-Israel secrets to expose: Greenwald | Reuters
The Danger of NSA Spying on Members of Congress - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - An executive-branch agency has been empowered to store revealing information about the communications of everyone in the legislature. former Democratic Representative Jane Harman ... a criminal case against Harman was dropped because she was a useful ally to the Bush Administration (there is now only one branch of government and it's not one of the ones they taught you in school)
US, UK Hacked Into The Phone Network Of Uganda - Hackers News Bulletin
At last, a law to stop almost anyone from doing almost anything | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian - The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person"

How the NSA Threatens National Security - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic - Our choice isn't between a digital world where the agency can eavesdrop and one where it cannot; our choice is between a digital world that is vulnerable to any attacker and one that is secure for all users.
The WikiLeaks Mole: How Siggi Thordarson Betrayed Julian Assange | Politics News | Rolling Stone - How a teenage misfit became the keeper of Julian Assange's deepest secrets - only to betray him (weird)
How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet | Threat Level | Wired.com
After PRISM, tech companies gear up for a long fight with the NSA | The Verge
Sucky Assessments of the Phone Dragnet Reveal How Much They’re Keeping “Secret” | emptywheel
IEEE Xplore - Assessing the Attack Threat due to IRC Channels
The Daily Dot - How a major bank and the U.S. government joined forces to spy on Anonymous

2014 Brian Knappenberger: “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz” | Video | Sundance Institute

"Guccifer" Files Further Detail Hacking Spree | The Smoking Gun - Online outlaw's "archive" identifies scores of new high-profile victims ... and a Gibson Dunn partner with the improbably Dickensian name Cantwell F. Muckenfuss III.
Exclusive - openSUSE Forum Hacked; 79500 User Data May Be Compromised
xs Researchers warn of new, meaner ransomware with unbreakable crypto | Ars Technica - the new malware, alternately dubbed PrisonLocker and PowerLocker,
Developers mull adding data nuke to Kali Linux | ZDNet
Navy Accidentally Emails Reporter Its Plans to Deny His FOIA Request

Ex-CIA lawyer says Bush not told at first about waterboarding - latimes.com - John Rizzo disputes former President George W. Bush's claim that the CIA sought his permission to use waterboarding and other techniques on Al Qaeda suspects.Bush later signed on, and Rizzo repeats previous CIA claims that key members of Congress, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), were fully briefed on what the CIA called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and did not object, something Pelosi has denied.
Burglars Who Took On F.B.I. Abandon Shadows - NYTimes.com - They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups.
Democracy needs whistleblowers. That's why I broke into the FBI in 1971 | Bonnie Raines | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Like Snowden, we broke laws to reveal something that was more dangerous. We wanted to hold J Edgar Hoover accountable
FBI Burglers - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - The New York Times has a fascinating story today that says a lot about why the whole debate over what the NSA has been up to should not be wholly concerned about one's opinion of Edward Snowden, International Man Of Luggage

Hullabaloo - Exclusive Preview: excerpt from Rick Perlstein's new book (on how the Village reacted to the CIA revelations back in the 70s) (they always say journos are "selling secrets")
Twitter / bartongellman: "No one has greater respect" ... - than @michaelphirsh for my witless adoption of anti-American journalism. Also, slavery.

Reinhart And Rogoff Make Mistake IN FIRST SENTENCE Of New Paper - Writing "2014" when they should have written "2013."

The battle of the anecdotes: Gird yourself for Obamacare’s newest fight
Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For | Politics News | Rolling Stone - Guaranteed jobs, universal basic incomes, public finance and more

The Cheney Brand Is Dead - NationalJournal.com - Liz Cheney's Senate campaign never gained traction in Wyoming. That's because Republican voters stopped embracing the Bush-Cheney legacy.
The Inside Story Of Liz Cheney's Tone-Deaf Candidacy - Cheney’s campaign was marked by a Palinesque series of news stories involving ham-handed politics and small-time personal dramas:

New Confederate Army Bateman - Meet Our Nation's New Confederate Army - Esquire - "All of our hours, waking or sleeping, are for liberating the Confederate States of America." (nuke them from orbit this time)
The South and the Cult of Phony Victimhood by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Melissa Harris-Perry, Mitt Romney, and Public Apologies : The New Yorker - Like so many of our current maladies, the culture of reverse victimhood finds its origins in the Civil War, during which a region devoted to human bondage wrapped itself in the garb of an oppressed people shrugging off tyranny.

Theater shooting victims denied access to evidence - The Colorado Supreme Court has refused to allow some victims of the deadly Aurora theater shooting to obtain copies of evidence from the criminal case to use in a civil suit against the theater owner.

Gun sales hit new record, ammo boom to follow - Washington Times - Background checks show peak is reached after a record year

Gonzalez: Yankees Stadium garage company to get $200M in subsidies if city OKs soccer stadium - NY Daily News - The Yankees and Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan propose to pay an estimated $25 million for the nearly bankrupt Yankee Stadium garage they plan to demolish and build a new Major League Soccer stadium. (rewarding the crooks in Bloomberg's NY)
Bloomberg's Pals Begged Him to Help Move 'Hideous' Citi Bikes, Emails Show - Chelsea - DNAinfo.com New York
NYC Prisoners With Serious Mental Illnesses to No Longer Be Put in Solitary Confinement - NY1 (Bloomfucker was tough on mental illness)
Why Fox News Lost Interest in Chicago Murders | Blog | Media Matters for America

Report: Kentucky authorities investigated 20 allegations of child human trafficking | Public Safety | Kentucky.com - "It tells us that Kentucky is unfortunately a state that is rife with human trafficking,"

What TSA Left Out of the Cartoon It Made for Your Kids - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic (TSA rapes three-yr old girl)

Daisy Coleman hospitalized in Kansas City after suicide attempt | fox4kc.com
Daisy Coleman's mom reveals bullied teen is potentially brain damaged | Mail Online - 'Where are you and your super hacking skills now': Mother of 'sex attack victim' Daisy Coleman calls for Anonymous not to abandon her daughter's case as the teen attempts suicide over cyber-bullying
Executed Against the Judgment of 12 Jurors - Marc Bookman - The Atlantic - The vast majority of states that have a death penalty require a unanimous vote by a jury before the death penalty is applied. But three states—Florida, Alabama, and Delaware—do it differently. This is how Beauford White came to be executed against his jury’s wishes.
Cop Shoots Schizophrenic Teen Who'd Already Been Tasered, After Saying "We Don't Have Time For This" | Alternet - The boy's father said, "They killed my son in cold blood. We called for help and they killed my son."
Let's Watch Cops Bash Some Guy For No Good Reason - Here you will see a video showing several Seabrook, NH police officers slamming a prisoner in their custody into a wall and pepper spraying him for no apparent reason.

Roger Ebert's Wife on His Final Moments - Esquire - "He was sitting almost like Buddha, and then he just put his head down."

'Ask Me Anything': How a Weird Internet Thing Became a New Form of Media - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic - Reddit's question-and-answer format imports the aspirational norms of honesty and authenticity from pseudonymous Internet forums into mainstream interviews.

The Next Civil Rights Issue: Why Women Aren't Welcome on the Internet - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society
When Misogynist Trolls Make Journalism Miserable for Women - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - How many talented women dropped out of the blogosphere rather than deal with hateful Internet feedback?
Policing Internet Threats Against Women by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - e very long (and harrowing) but essential article at Pacific Standard by online journalist and Slate contributor Amanda Hess about threats and intimidation aimed at women on the internet

Global Internet Porn Habits Infographic | PornMd Sex Search
We are the Pornhub team. Ask Us Anything. : IAmA
This Documentary About Men Who Dress Up Like Rubber Dolls Is Amazing
Redditors who have undergone Sexual Reassignment, how do people treat you differently now that you're a different sex? [serious] : AskReddit

Vimeo Debuts Rebuilt Player & Adds New Tools for Creators | Tech Void
3D TV Is Dead - The Wire (4K is the new 3D)d

010614
Twitter / YourAnonNews: Most of the country will be ... - below freezing January 7th. See, no global warming! (pic)
Polar Vortex Brings Dangerous Cold Temperatures To Midwest (video/photos) - The forecast is extreme: 32 below zero in Fargo, N.D.; minus 21 in Madison, Wis.; and 15 below zero in Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. Wind chills — what it feels like outside when high winds are factored into the temperature — could drop into the minus 50s and 60s.
Intellicast - Jet Stream in United States
Intellicast - Weather Active Map
Polar Vortex Impact on Winter Weather | AER
If the "polar vortex" has displaced frigid air that would normally be over the Arctic into North America, what air is over the Arctic at the moment? Is it balmy there now, relatively speaking? : askscience
Australia Rings In The New Year With Record-Breaking Heat Wave | ThinkProgress
Spain Achieves Renewable Energy Breakthrough: Wind Supplies More Power Than Any Other Source | EcoWatch

Fukushima Worker Says 'Slipshod Work' Done on Storage Tanks | Common Dreams - 'I couldn’t believe that such slipshod work was being done' (invade Japan or evacuate California - you decide)

Canada's ex-defense minister: Aliens would give us more tech if we'd stop wars | Technically Incorrect - CNET News - Paul Hellyer, who has long insisted that aliens have visited Earth for many years, says that when aliens saw the atomic bomb they decided that we were a great threat to the cosmos.

Nearly a million flee violence in Central African Republic - CNN.com
Children Beheaded as Violence Engulfs the Central African Republic
Children targeted in CAR violence - Africa - Al Jazeera English - UNICEF says more children are being targeted in attacks as bloodshed continues unabated in Central African Republic.

Standard Digital News : : Lifestyle - Eight-year-old girl divorces her husband, 14, in India
Polish woman raped in India while travelling with daughter—police | Inquirer News
Afghanistan girl wearing suicide vest detained - A young Afghan girl has been detained wearing a suicide vest in southern Afghanistan, officials say.

Ten years gone - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Apparently Iraq is once again on the verge of full-blown civil war:
Al Qaeda Fallujah - Here's What's Going To Happen Next In Fallujah - Esquire
Fueled by Syria war, al Qaeda bursts back to life in Iraq | Reuters
U.S. steps up military deliveries to Iraq to help fight al Qaeda: White House - Yahoo News (that'll work)
North Korean execution by dog story likely came from satire | Reuters - (Reuters) - An international media frenzy over reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's uncle had been executed by throwing him to a pack of dogs appears to have originated as satire on a Chinese microblogging website.
Mexican vigilante gunmen disarm local POLICE so they can rid town of feared Knights Templar drug cartel | Mail Online

Iran Plans to Legalize Marijuana | Cyberwarzone
Activist Post: Marijuana: So Evil, the U.S. Gov’t Owns the Patent “Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants”
High Times launches private equity fund for marijuana investment - The Denver Post

Greenwald On ‘First Look;’ How Funding Will Liberate Independent Media | PopularResistance.Org
Sen. Schumer is Wrong; Snowden Would Be Barred From Arguing His Case At Trial | Freedom of the Press Foundation (Chuckie-Fuckie is wrong again - "evidence" is always top-secret)
Senators Differ Sharply on Penalty for Snowden - NYTimes.com - But a leading Democrat, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, took a directly opposing view. (Times prints his bullshit)
IT firms lose billions after NSA scandal exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden - News - Gadgets & Tech - The Independent
CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: Prison Broke Promise of Nine Months in Halfway House, Will Resume Letters | The Dissenter (trust them)
Obama Plans Cosmetic Surveillance Changes After All, Will Set Up Pretend Fight Over NSLs | Techdirt - from the theatrical-reforms dept
School of Privacy - Why 2-Factor Cellphone Authentication just got a bit weaker, or has it always been?

FBI Drops Law Enforcement as 'Primary' Mission (now responsbile for "intergalactice security)
Anonymous/Lulzsec FBI Records Archive Now Available | PR Watch

It's Time to Take Mesh Networks Seriously (And Not Just for the Reasons You Think) | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
iPhone Accelerometer Could Spy on Computer Keystrokes - Wired Science

Feds deny TD Bank alert records despite “key” role in massive Ponzi scheme | Muckrock (Obama pardoned them)

Supreme Court Puts Gay Marriage On Hold In Utah

Morning Plum: Senate may kill UI extension today. Then what? - By professing agreement with the goal of extending UI, and saying they disagree with Dems over whether to pay for it right now, the defeat can be blamed on Congressional bickering – that damn Congress can’t get its act together again! — rather than on the notion that one party wants to extend this lifeline, and the other doesn’t. (Rand Paul wants you to starve: Republican policies destroy jobs, it's your fault for being lazy)
A court just gutted your right to sue your boss - Craig Becker - POLITICO Magazine - The decision permits employers to require workers, as a condition of keeping their jobs, to agree to arbitrate all workplace disputes and to do so as individuals, standing alone against their employer.
Obamacare Will Lead to Single Payer, Michael Moore | New Republic
Noam Chomsky: The drug war is the latest manifestation of a centuries-old ‘race war’ | The Raw Story
Koch Brothers Political Network - Two Unaccountable Guys, All The Power - Esquire - Charles Koch and David Koch
Daily Kos: Rachel Maddow Speaks Truth to Powerful Koch Brothers

Court reviews Texas abortion restrictions | MSNBC - On Monday morning, the constitutionality of two of Texas’s abortion restrictions is being debated in a federal appeals court here. But for Texans seeking abortions, the full weight of the law, most of which is already in force, is anything but theoretical.
Texas anti-abortion law forces women to make tough choices | Al Jazeera America - On Jan. 6, an appeals court will hear a challenge to the measure, which has led clinics to close

Water in the West - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Although urban planners and environmentalists worry about these issues constantly, the blind faith by which most people involved with western development have assumed that water supplies would be found is amazing and disturbing. (peak water)
4 states confirm water pollution from drilling - Associated Press review of complaints casts doubt on industry view that it rarely happens. (and you can always trust what they say)

First on CNN: Liz Cheney to abandon Senate bid - CNN.com - "Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign," she said.

What's The Matter With 60 Minutes?: Cleantech Edition | Blog | Media Matters for America - In another one-sided report on Sunday, 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl concluded (she's still alive, apparently)

SeaWorld-Owned IP Address Linked To Majority Of Votes In Newspaper's 'Blackfish' Poll: Report - "[I]magine our surprise when we noticed that one single Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) accounted for more than 54 percent of the votes, or about 180 of the total 328 votes," reporter Richard Bilbao wrote in a post Thursday.

New theory behind King Tut's burial emerges - King Tutankhamun was mummified with his heart carved out, covered in black liquids, his penis kept erect — but why?

Study: Half of black males, 40 percent of white males arrested by age 23 - Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23, which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities. (Obama's tough-on-some-crimes prison state America)
Ready ... aim ... point ... talk - Times Union - Handgun used as laser pointer by state official reportedly rattles foreign delegates (when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a perp)
Number Of Officers Killed In The Line Of Duty Drops To 50-Year Low While Number Of Citizens Killed By Cops Remains Unchanged | Techdirt
New Flint police chief denies detective's claims of Detroit cover-up | MLive.com - the city's new police chief was the target of a lawsuit alleging he blocked a detective's efforts to solve the killing of an exotic dancer tied to a long-rumored party at the home of disgraced ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Chicago Gun Ban Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge - U.S. District Court Judge Edmond E. Chang said the municipal ordinance goes "too far." He delayed the effect of his ruling to allow the city to respond.

America's 'virgin births'? One in 200 mothers 'became pregnant without having sex' - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent - The results of a long-term study of reproductive health, published in the British Medical Journal, have revealed that one in two hundred US women claim to have given birth without ever having had sexual intercourse. Thirty-one per cent of the girls had signed a so-called 'chastity pledge', whereby they vow - usually for religious reasons - not to have sex. Fifteen per cent of non-virgins who became pregnant also said they had signed such pledges.
Satanic Temple unveils 7-foot goat-headed Baphomet statue for Oklahoma Capitol | The Raw Story

10 books written in the 1940s we love even more today
_shnazzy comments on 24 Awesome Skills to Learn for Free Online

A GoPro camera attached to a crab net produces amazing results. : videos
The Daily Dot - This is an actual academic paper about tracking time travelers online

10 Doge at a time all in one thread : DogeCoinPIF (underground appreciation economy taking root on Reddit)
T-Mobile 700MHz spectrum deal will help boost LTE coverage | BGR - T-Mobile on Monday said that it is paying Verizon roughly $2.37 billion in exchange for spectrum on the coveted 700MHz band that it will use to boost its LTE coverage.
The Daily Dot - 4chan launches social media campaign in support of the 'bikini bridge'

010514
AT&T's 'Sponsored Data' Program An Admission That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion | Techdirt
Top 13 Dumb Things Media Said About Climate Change in 2013 | EcoWatch
DON’T PANIC — The Facts About Population
Highlights from Ignorance survey in the UK

Race, Religion and Rounding Up Africans in Israel | Black Agenda Report
Israel 'secretly deports' 1,000 Sudanese who may face persecution at home — RT News
Stop Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill once and for all - Times Union
Lebanon Loses 78000 Books To Terrorism: Tripoli’s “Al Sa’eh” Library Burned | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog - extremist gunmen torched the city’s biggest library, Lebanon’s second, burning it to the ground.
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Cost $51 Billion - Businessweek - At $51 billion, the Sochi Games are the costliest ever, surpassing the $40 billion spent by China on the 2008 Summer Olympics

More than 250,000 and counting join Rand Paul in class-action lawsuit against NSA data collection | Politics and Government | Kentucky.com (do you have a phone number?)

Twitter / radleybalko: NSA collects personal info ... - on members of the one body that could hold NSA accountable. And there are people who don't see this as a problem?
NSA dodges questions about 'spying' on Congress | The Verge
Peter King: NSA Should Monitor Congress in Case They’re ‘Talking to an Al Qaeda Leader’ | Mediaite (since they are spying on everyone else)
ACLU Appeals Decision Upholding NSA's Mass Surveillance | American Civil Liberties Union

Michael Hirsh Aims at Edward Snowden, Accidentally Blows Off Own Leg | MichaelMoore.com
Napolitano: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should not be given clemency | World news | theguardian.com - Issue dominates Sunday talk shows after Times editorial • Paul: Snowden 'would come home for a few years in prison'
My 2014 resolution: stop my country from becoming a surveillance state | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com - This will be a vital year in the fight for privacy and an open internet. All Americans should join the cause before it's too late

Lawrence Wright: Could Unlimited Phone Surveillance Have Prevented 9/11? : The New Yorker - Edward Snowden broke the law, and the Obama Administration has demanded that he be brought to justice. No one has died because of his revelations. The C.I.A.’s obstruction of justice in the Cole investigation arguably also was a crime. Its failure to share information from the Al Qaeda switchboard opened the door to the biggest terrorist attack in history. As long as we’re talking about accountability, why shouldn’t we demand it of the C.I.A.? ?

Did Edward Snowden Ruin Google Glass? | Motherboard
French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt | Defense News | defensenews.com - Discovery of US Parts Raises Security Concerns (backdoors in satellites)

Selling social media clicks becomes big business - Yahoo Finance - In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers. In one case, its fan tally rose from about 10,000 to more than 2.5 million.
Yahoo malware attack: Tens of thousands affected per hour | WTVR.com - In a blog post, Fox-IT said Yahoo’s servers were releasing an “exploit kit” that exploited vulnerabilities in Java and installed malware.

Jesse Myerson throws down: five ideas that (may?) represent the left wing of the possible by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly -

Gay Marriage Opponents Call For Uprising In Utah - "The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats," Former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack said at the meeting. (having equal rights shoved down their thoats, why do they always use that metaphor?)

Slashing unemployment benefits carries huge costs to the economy. Here’s one economist’s shocking estimate. by Kathleen Geier | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - Congress’s decision to cut off long-term unemployment benefits wasn’t just punitive and nasty, it was also fiscally irresponsible.
New Year, Old Unemployment Crisis: Your Sunday Conversation
Obamacare Advocates Struggle To Convince Rural Uninsured

The Wolf of Wall Street is Real, and I've Been Reporting on Him for Years - Esquire - Disposable yachts, prison with Tommy Chong, and bilking the elderly. All of this stuff actually happened, or might still be happening

Journalist Itay Hod alleges that anti-LGBT Republican Rep. Aaron Schock is gay | The Raw Story - “this very same guy, the darling of the GOP, has also voted against repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’ opposed the repeal of DOMA, is against gay marriage and for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would add language to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriage and would likely strike down every gay rights law and ordinance in the country?” “Are we still not allowed to out him?” he said.
Aaron Schock Outed As Gay By Itay Hod, Journalist, On Facebook?

New York Set To Allow Medical Marijuana Use (Cuomo is a dick)

Steven Seagal says he may run for Ariz. governor (please!)

Leave David Aloonnnnnnnnnnnnne! - Lawyers, Guns & Money (Brooks)
David Brooks Goes One Toke Over The Line » Balloon Juice - If you read Brooks as claiming that one in six teenagers will be addicted then you run up against the actual lifetime risk for marijuana dependence, which, depending on the study, runs between 4 and 8 % of the population. You just can’t get from here to there.
Where Columnists Brooks and Marcus Went Wrong in the Debate Over Marijuana | TIME.com
Gary Greenberg | Author of The Book of Woe (Sullivan believed this)
Yuppie Prohibition League Denounces Pot Legalization | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
The Great Marijuana Experiment: A Tale of Two Drug Wars | Politics News | Rolling Stone - As Washington and Colorado create rules and regulations for selling legal marijuana, in many other cities across the country pot arrests are near record highs
Obama's Pot Problem | Politics News | Rolling Stone - Now that states have started legalizing recreational marijuana, will the president continue the government’s war on weed? (of course he will, being super-tough on non-corporate, non-governmental crime +Biden hates pot)
Marijuana and the limits of public policy - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Marijuana and Divergent Thinking – The Frontal Cortex

You Have the Right to Stay Out of Jail
Otter: State to take over privately run prison | Idaho Legislature | Idahostatesman.com - The move ends an experiment at a facility that was plagued by understaffing, lawsuits and allegations of contract fraud.

What is the most regrettable sex you've had, that wasn't my mom? [serious] [nsfw] : AskReddit

Internet Censors Came For TorrentFreak & Now I’m Really Mad | TorrentFreak (talking about torrents = porno)
The Daily Dot - Porn star Jenna Jameson just got 4chan to do her dirty work for her

010414
US grapples with snow as 'polar vortex' of subzero temperatures approaches | World news | theguardian.com - One meteorologist, Ryan Maue of Weather Bell, called the system of cold air approaching the midwest a “polar vortex”. “All the ingredients are there for a near-record or historic cold outbreak,” he said. “If you're under 40, you've not seen this stuff before.”

Living Alongside Wildlife: 10 Animals That Went Extinct in 2013

Majid al-Majid, Senior Al Qaeda Figure, Dies In Custody In Lebanon - "died this morning while undergoing treatment at the central military hospital after his health deteriorated."
Egypt Clashes Between Morsi Supporters And Security Forces Leave Several Dead
Panama canal expansion in doubt as president confronts European firms | World news | theguardian.com - Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli accuses Spanish and Italian companies of 'great irresponsibility' and endangering the massive project
Cabinet papers reveal 'secret coal pits closure plan' - Newly released cabinet papers from 1984 reveal mineworkers' union leader Arthur Scargill may have been right to claim there was a "secret hit-list" of more than 70 pits marked for closure.

Grappling With Holodomor - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic - Thoughts On Timothy Snyder's The Bloodlands

Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's Role in His Son's Death - After his son was arrested for downloading files at MIT, Bob Swartz did everything in his power to save him. He couldn’t. Now he wants the institute to own up to its part in Aaron’s death. (MIT deeply complicit, then lied about it)

Kim Dotcom’s Mother Was Raided, Too | Motherboard (in Germany!)
David Cameron's internet porn filter is the start of censorship creep | Laurie Penny | Comment is free | The Guardian - The question of who is allowed access to what data is a defining one of our age – and Edward Snowden has taught us to be wary
Arguments on surveillance heard in terrorism case

Obama Chastises Keith Alexander For Trying To Befuddle Him With Tech Jargon | Techdirt - from the not-looking-good dept (+Keith Alexander has an "advanced degree in electronic warfare")

Court Grants Secrecy for Memo on Phone Data - NYTimes.com - A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that the Obama administration may continue to withhold a Justice Department memo that apparently opened a loophole in laws protecting the privacy of consumer data. (secret court grants secrecy to secret laws)
Clapper did not lie to Congress on NSA, says national intelligence counsel | World news | theguardian.com - Robert Litt writes to New York Times to deny allegation • Says 'inaccurate' testimony could not be corrected publicly (another rabbit-hole of logic)
Former CIA lawyer says Bush didn't know about waterboarding — RT USA
The Case For Charging the NSA with War Crimes (an ongoing series) | Operation Slingshot

NSA statement does not deny 'spying' on members of Congress | World news | theguardian.com - Agency responds to questions from Senator Bernie Sanders • Statement cites 'same privacy protections as all US persons' (that would be "yes")
Secret without Reason and Costly without Accomplishment: Questioning the NSA’s Metadata Program (Mueller/Stewart) | LeakSource
Congress: Are you spying on us? NSA: We don't spy on you except to the extent that we spy on everydamnbody - Boing Boing

What Should Happen to Edward Snowden? - NYTimes.com
Clemency for Edward Snowden Would Not Set a Dangerous Precedent - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - In fact, it sets no precedent at all: His singular leak justifies special treatment.
TV Message by Snowden Says Privacy Still Matters - NYTimes.com
Adviser: Snowden amenable to plea deal – The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer - CNN.com Blogs (Jessica Radack: no plea-deal)

Syrian Electronic Army hacks Skype to accuse Microsoft of spying on user data | The Raw Story - Microsoft-owned Skype’s Twitter account displayed the message: “Don’t use Microsoft emails(hotmail,outlook),They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments.More details soon #SEA.”

USASpending.gov Microsoft gets $2+million for quantum privacy-cracker research)
The NSA Has Special Technology for Beaming Energy Into Computer Systems & You | The Dissenter
Bank of America employs 20 full-time social media spies, watches anarchists and occupy protesters | Privacy SOS
Was Mysterious Attack on Calif. Power Station a ‘Dress Rehearsal’ for Much Larger Assault on U.S. Electrical Grid? | Video | TheBlaze.com - there are indications that the timing of the attacks and target selection indicate a higher level of planning and sophistication. (billions tapping your phone, can't afford sheet metal around transformers)

Bodyguard of Zombies, Counterattack by Cockroaches - NYTimes.com

Obama’s Second Term Is All About Climate Change -- Daily Intelligencer

The ACA Was Not A “Republican” Proposal - Lawyers, Guns & Money - As promised/threatened yesterday, my longer piece on why it’s both wrong and pernicious to argue that the ACA was based on a Republican proposal.
Obamacare Logistical Apocalypse Nowhere To Be Seen (Yet)
Deportations of parents can cast the lives of U.S.-citizen kids into turmoil - The Washington Post
The Costs of American Immigration Policy - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Perhaps the blackest mark on the Obama Administration has been the significantly harsher enforcement of American immigration law and the subsequent deportation of people, breaking up families
Indoctrinating Religious Warriors - NYTimes.com - When you look at white evangelical Protestants, the evolution denialism gets even worse. Only 27 percent of that group believes in evolution. (but no mention of ladybrainz)
White House ‘We the People’ petitions unanswered two years later — RT USA
NYPD Decides To Ape FBI's Tactics And Cite The 'Mosaic Theory' As The Reason It Won't Disclose Budget Data | Techdirt - NYPD Decides To Ape FBI's Tactics And Cite The 'Mosaic Theory' As The Reason It Won't Disclose Budget Data

Leading Republicans' states among worst hit by jobless benefits cuts | World news | theguardian.com - Analysis shows rolling cuts to unemployment benefits will severely hurt constituencies of prominent GOP leaders (can Americans connect two dots?)

Tangled Role in G.O.P. War Over Tea Party - NYTimes.com - raise millions of dollars to protect centrist Republicans from Tea Party challengers. (the Cancer is eating them too)
2013: The Year You Stopped Loving Barack Obama
Econbrowser: The Year in Review, 2013: Fantastical Pseudo Economics - The Year in Review, 2013: Fantastical Pseudo Economics - The Shoveling Must Continue (they spew out their lies on every level)

Female Mortality Rates In The United States - Business Insider
Access to Abortion Falling as States Pass Restrictions - NYTimes.com - “I think we are at a potential turning point: Either access to abortion will be dramatically restricted in the coming year or perhaps the pushback will begin,” said Suzanne Goldberg, director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University. (Bible-Bangers war on women)
Anti-Choice-a-Palooza by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly - states passed 205 abortion restrictions between 2011 and 2013, more than the 189 laws passed between 2001 and 2010. Nearly half of the laws - 45 percent - fell into three categories: targeted regulations of abortion providers, bans on abortions after 20 weeks and restrictions on medical abortions. “States enacted 93 measures in these four categories from 2011 through 2013, compared with 22 during the previous decade,” the Guttmacher analysis finds. (no war on women)
The 9 Worst Things Said About Women, Abortion, and Rape in 2013 | Mother Jones - Meet the pols and public figures who strived to fill Todd Akin's shoes in 2013.

De Blasio Administration's Treatment of Homeless in Storm Represents Break from Bloomberg Policy - NY1 (lets homeless children into shelters; Bloomfuck left them to freeze to death)
?LA Sheriff’s Department misconduct includes rape, drug smuggling, kidnapping - report — RT USA
Here Are the Rights You Have When Interacting With a Police Officer in One Detailed Infographic | TheBlaze.com
Texas Student: After Reporting Rape, I Was Accused of "Public Lewdness," Sent to Disciplinary School | Democracy Now! - Her rapist was punished by being sent to a disciplinary school. Bradshaw-Bean was sent there too. She said she was treated "like a prisoner" for reporting the crime.

Flame-Retardant Furniture May Leave A Toxic Legacy

Will Marijuana Retailers Target the Poor and Minorities? - Robert Wright - The Atlantic - Andrew Sullivan and David Frum debate major issues posed by legalization in Colorado and beyond.
Big Cannabis: will legal weed grow to be America's next corporate titan? | Politics | theguardian.com - Critics of Colorado's new drug policy say the campaign for legal marijuana mimics cigarette's lobbying as 'Big Tobacco redux'
| INTELLIHUB - Activists to plant cannabis all over the country this 420
Here's An Updated Tally Of All The People Who Have Ever Died From A Marijuana Overdose

“The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”
This Guy Has Had a Months-Long Facebook Conversation With an Applebee's - Megan Garber - The Atlantic - "They never disappointed me. I love them."

Wonkette — The D.C. Gossip - “Past and current guest editors and contributors include Reason Magazine editor Nick Gillespie, Washington Post reporter David Weigel, DCeiver editor and Huffington Post writer Jason Linkins, Gawker editor and The Awl founder Choire Sicha, New York comedian and author Sara Benincasa, Chicago artist and journalist Lauri Apple, Boston Globe political blogger Garrett Quinn, cartoonist Benjamin Frisch, and Vanity Fair online writer Juli Weiner.” (+Alex Pareene)

Skepticism about TED Talks | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly - TED of course stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and I’ll talk a bit about all three. I Think TED actually stands for: middlebrow megachurch infotainment.

Do Animals Have a Sweet Tooth? - NYTimes.com

Digital Music Sales Decrease For First Time in 2013 | Billboard

Internet Memes Timeline
very origin, such meme | MetaFilter
Doge origin
fight fire with phire • hellotailor: dailydot: ...
I am aware of all Internet traditions | Know Your Meme

Rumor Has It That 2014 Will Finally Be The Year Of The 'iWatch' - rumors about the iWatch, a release date for a bigger iPad, a Siri-enabled smart dock, Apple-designed eyewear and more. (exciting!)

010314
Twitter / YourAnonNews: 97% of engineers agree the ... - bridge ahead will collapse. Would you keep driving?

Plumes of mysterious steam rise from crippled nuclear reactor at Fukushima — RT News (La-Di-La)
Atomic mafia: Yakuza ‘cleans up’ Fukushima, neglects basic workers' rights — RT News (like not to die)

UPDATE 2-Israel tests Arrow missile shield, eyes Syria, Iran | Reuters - One of several elements of Israel's still-developing defence against missile attacks, Arrow III is designed to deploy kamikaze satellites - known as "kill vehicles" - that track and slam into ballistic missiles above the earth's atmosphere, high enough to safely disintegrate any chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. (from Gaza)
The 1953 Qibya Raid Revisited: Excerpts From Moshe Sharett's Diaries - 4337.pdf (remember Ariel Sharon for his deeds)
Toddler seriously wounded in south Tel Aviv stabbing - NationalIsrael News - Haaretz Israeli News source - Man who police say was inebriated attacks Eritrean woman and her 16-month-old daughter; toddler hospitalized in serious condition.
Racist ringleaders 2013: Israel's war on Africans intensifies | The Electronic Intifada - Over the course of 2013, the war Israel is waging against African asylum-seekers has not abated. Sadly, in many respects, it has ramped up in intensity.
Antarctic rescue: Chinese vessel 'may now be stuck in ice'
Military Police Are Killing the Cambodians Who Make Your Clothes | VICE United Kingdom
Wife: Saudi blogger recommended for apostasy trial - CNN.com
Netizen Report: Will Saudi Take the “You” Out of YouTube? - Global Voices Advocacy
The worst countries for religious freedom - Index on Censorship | Index on Censorship
How Opium is Keeping US in Afghanistan: CIA’s Shady History of Drug Trafficking | MEDIA ROOTS – Reporting From Outside Party Lines
No, Kim Jong Un probably didn’t feed his uncle to 120 hungry dogs
'After All the People We Killed, We Felt Dizzy' - Newsweek

'Unmanned' director Robert Greenwald on how America embraced drone warfare | The Verge ("America" = Obama)

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world - physics-math - 19 October 2011 - New Scientist (reprise from 2011; Obama's paymasters)
The 147 Companies That Control Everything - Forbes (they are all financial companies)

The 'Obama as Civil Libertarian' Propaganda Rolls Out | Crooks and Liars - Daniel Klaidman apparently doesn’t see the contradiction with the conclusion of his tale on Obama's alleged push for NSA reform. (the truth is always the opposite: anti-civil libertarian and anti-Constitutional scholar)

Weeks in the Making, an Editorial on Snowden May Go 'Beyond What Is Realistic' - NYTimes.com - I agree wholeheartedly with this line in the editorial’s concluding paragraph: “When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government.”
Hullabaloo - Best columnist of the year - In my book this "award" goes to Margaret Sullivan, the NYT ombudsman.
Accuracy, Secrecy and Equality: What Mattered to Times Readers in 2013 - NYTimes.com - 6. The surveillance state. Despite what Time magazine decided, the person of the year clearly was the whistleblower Edward J. Snowden, and the story of the year was the far-reaching, secretive, everyday surveillance of Americans and many others by the United States government.
Should NSA leaker Snowden get clemency? – The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer - CNN.com Blogs - The New York Times has called for clemency for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Our panel debates possible ways forward. (the Toobes is on the panel and demonstrates stellar idiocy)
More Congressmen Say They're Open To Clemency Deal To Bring Edward Snowden Back To U.S - “I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s more of a whistle-blower than a villain,” said Rep. Jim McGovern.
Edward Snowden Clemency: The New York Times, The Guardian Urge Obama To Help NSA Whistleblower
Dear New York Times Editors: If Snowden Is a Whistleblower, What Is Chelsea Manning? | The Dissenter

My Q&A with Laura Poitras about Bill Binney
When It Comes to Security, We're Back to Feudalism | Wired Opinion | Wired.com (the plan all along)
Hullabaloo: On journalism and secrecy. Barton Gellman explained it a long time ago ... Gellman's speech took place during the early days of the Iraq war. He talks about the Bush administration lies that got us into that war and his own contemporary reporting exposing those lies.

Senator presses NSA to reveal whether it spies on members of Congress | World news | theguardian.com - Vermont's Bernie Sanders poses question to spy agency • Letter comes as court renews order for collection of US phone records - Sanders’ office suggested the senator, who called the collection “clearly unconstitutional” in his letter, did consider the distinction salient.
Bernie Sanders to NSA: Spying on Hill? - Tal Kopan - politico.com

New Decision Shows How Businesses Can Challenge Warrantless Records Collection, Even if You Can't | Electronic Frontier Foundation
The NSA Seeks To Control Entire Internet With TURMOIL, TURBINE And QFIRE | FDL News Desk
NSA Secret Toolbox: ANT Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need - SPIEGEL ONLINE - The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency's own catalog.
Schritt 1: Die Zielperson versucht, sich in ihren Yahoo-Account einzuloggen.
2 Agents 3 Hours a Day Weren’t REALLY Reading Anwar al-Awlaki’s Email | emptywheel - By all means, let’s hear what really happened back between 2008 and 2010, when the NSA missed multiple contacts with top AQAP targets and TTP targets and as a result missed two of the three main international terrorist attacks on this country since 9/11. That should be part of the debate.
How to Fight the FBI over FOIA Documents - I recently wrote about Shapiro for Mother Jones, and discussed how his technique is so effective at unburying sensitive documents, the feds are asking the courts to stop him.
The Privacy Threats of 2014 | Motherboard

Not So Anonymous VPN Uses Edward Snowden For PR | TorrentFreak - HideMyAss previously handed over personal details of a Lulzsec member to the U.S. Government.
Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously? 2013 Edition | TorrentFreak
Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2013 | TorrentFreak

Reporter sues NY police over Occupy protest arrest - The Washington Post - Chris Faraone says he was reporting for the Massachusetts-based alternative weekly magazine Boston Phoenix in September 2012 when officers tackled him, told him to stop reporting and denied him a lawyer. He filed his lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan. (Bloomberg's fascist cop-state)
Cops Must Submit To Post-Shooting Breathalyzers, Judge Rules: Gothamist

Hullabaloo - Whose secrets are they anyway? --- "secrets" are an inherently political construct. "secrets" are a form of currency that is used among the bureaucracy and the political establishment for their own aims
Hullabaloo - The currency of secrets - “Secrecy is a form of regulation,” Moynihan declares in his opening sentence, restricting what information citizens may possess about their government and the actions performed in their name.
Harvard Law Review Forum: Whose Secrets? - Responding to David E. Pozen, The Leaky Leviathan: Why the Government Condemns and Condones Unlawful Disclosures of Information, 127 Harv. L. Rev. 512 (2013)

How Tarek Mehanna Went to Prison for a Thought Crime | The Nation - As the government embraces a “counter-radicalization” approach to counter-terrorism, prosecutors are turning radical beliefs into criminal acts. No evidence linked him to actual acts of terrorism or suggested that he had conspired with a real-world terrorist organization or provided any terrorist group with property, advice, assistance or the like. However, he was found guilty in the trial court and sentenced to seventeen-and-a-half years in prison, and an appellate court recently affirmed the conviction. (Obama's America)
Simpsons Pirate Ordered to Pay Fox $10.5 Million in Damages | TorrentFreak - A lawsuit against a man who ran websites which linked to episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy has ended in the most expensive way possible. The judgment, which awards Fox $10.5 million in statutory and punitive damages, is the highest amount ever awarded by the Federal Court in Toronto, Canada. (linking is a crime)

Twitter / YourAnonNews: #FBI Informant Authorized Crimes: 5,658 in 2011, 5,939 in 2012 (RICO them)

Drug companies accused of holding back complete information on clinical trials | Business | The Guardian - MPs voice concern after report into decision to stockpile Tamiflu finds discussions about effectiveness hampered by practice

Why being a politician doesn’t pay, in 1 map - This amazing map -- which comes from a terrific Deadspin article in 2013 -- shows the highest paid state employee in every state. More than 80 percent (41 of the 50 states) are coaches

Hullabaloo - The Republican evolution revolution (still, no one picking up on the ladybrainz problem +list of educated conservatives and their answers)

Daily Meme: If They Were Invisible ... We'd Probably Be Better Off. (+George Hutchins—whose campaign website looks like the love child of Upworthy, the Space Jam website, and Ursula from The Little Mermaid—is running for congressional office in North Carolina for the third time. We imagine this year's campaign will have the same denouement as the last two.)
The Two Americas Will Be the Defining Trend of 2014 - Approximately 5 million Americans are missing out because of the refusal of Republican states to allow the Medicaid expansion, in what Ed Kilgore has evocatively termed the "wingnut hole." liberal states will become models of freedom, justice, and prosperity, while the conservative states will become hellholes of exploitation and cruelty.
EJ Dionne: The resurgent progressives - The Washington Post
Republican Reform Jobs - In Which I Continue To Despair Of The Rebranding - Esquire - And who were the original heretics, at least in the modern political era? Who was it that nailed the Laffer Curve to the doors of the cathedral? It was Ronald Reagan -- and, elsewhere, Maggie Thatcher -- and I don't recall any great howls of Papist outrage from Sullivan back then, when everything the pope condemns today was just winding into its political strength.

North Dakota’s oil is more flammable than other crudes, feds warn | Grist (giant flame bombs going through towns)

Pot sales exceed $1 million on first day | 9news.com
High demand has marijuana shops running low on supplies | gazette.com - Denver's 3D Cannabis Center owner Toni Fox thought she had enough marijuana to last through February when she opened her doors Jan. 1 for recreational pot sales.
This Is David Brooks on Drugs | The Nation
David Brooks smoking pot: Should black kids pay for his pothead sins? - A privileged white man professes remorse for smoking pot. But it’s not privileged whites who would pay for his sins.
Three Photos Of Stoner David Brooks In High School - The conservative New York Times columnist wrote an anti-marijuana op-ed Thursday citing his own high school marijuana use (he gave a presentation in English class high once). Here he is as a student at Radnor High School in Pennsylvania.
Slobber And Spittle (Archive): Another Dilemma - That this guy is taken seriously by what apparently is the most brain-damaged portion of America who still read newspapers is bad enough. On the other hand, if we lose more manufacturing jobs at anywhere close to the rate we've been losing them, nowhere near enough people will be able to buy newspapers any more. (2008: on David Brooks: hackity-hack)
Ruth Marcus: The perils of legalized pot - The Washington Post (their kids aren't going to jail)
Ruth Marcus David Books Marijuana Column - Two Dopes - Esquire - Come on down, Ruth Marcus, famous NSA apologist, weeper for misunderstood torturers, recent Glenn Greenwald heavy-bag workout, and scourge of teenage potty-mouths everywhere, and a woman who makes the late Erma Bombeck read like Rosa Luxembourg and who makes David Brooks sound like Richard Brautigan.
Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, and reefer madness. - Whoever's been drugging the tap water in the Acela, please just stop. Your efforts have resulted in complementary columns in the Washington Post from Ruth Marcus and in the New York Times from David Brooks. Unless ... did they come up with these columns all by themselves?
More US states could follow Colorado lead on marijuana - Yahoo News (like casinos, but better)
5 Harmful Drugs That Could be Replaced with Pot | High Times

Officer who forced dozens of anal cavity searches for fun gets only 2 years in prison - Boing Boing - Vagnini's fellow gang members got off with even lighter punishments, including a year of paid vacation and a polite request to resign from the police deparment. (Vagnini)
Aubrey Lee Price Captured In Georgia - Business Insider (driving while tinted)

Twitter / jayrosen_nyu: They aren't connected, but ... - it sure would be...what's the word?...awkward if the Post ended up losing Ezra Klein and retaining Richard Cohen. (and Ruth Marcus, married to former FTC chairman; and she went straight to the Post after Harvard Law)
Ezra Klein Is Said to Plan to Leave Washington Post - NYTimes.com
Twitter / jayrosen_nyu: This thoroughly screwed up ... - @LauraDimon story about Flint, Michigan http://goo.gl/LTHDIz got more page views than PressThink did for 2013. (Jamie's little girl is very down on poor people)
Update: NYC Writer Feels The Heat, May Come For 'Flint Fights Back' Follow-up –  Deadline Detroit

The Daily Dot - Brains stolen from a mental hospital were this close to selling on eBay

'Man flu': the truth that women don't want to hear - New study suggests that men may actually suffer more when they have influenza because high levels of testosterone can weaken immune response
You Probably Don't Have Bipolar Disorder (Or One Of These 7 Other Conditions)

The Dish Subscription Surge « The Dish - We end the calendar year with gross subscription revenue of $851K. We have no debt. We have almost 34,000 subscribers. Almost 9,000 of them are now on auto-renew, and if our 25,000 original supporters renew next year in numbers comparable with the very beginning, then we’ll finally have a solid basis for a ongoing, entirely-online blogazine with no sponsored content and (so far) no advertizing. (SulliePost)
Introducing Contributoria : January 2014 : : Contributoria - Writers propose story ideas in month one, and members back stories collectively using points allocated to them from their membership fees. Commissioning options are also available to media organisations to supplement the community’s crowdfunding activities.
Filthy Lucre | VICE United States - Every dollar I clawed, whether it was from modeling or an early gig drawing cocks for Playgirl, served to amplify my advantages. Art is sometimes seen as gnostic freedom. But being an artist means you're in thrall to cash.

OpAntifa Press Release – White supremacists, we will take you down!
The Year We Broke the Internet - Esquire - Share first, ask questions later. Better yet: Let someone else ask the questions. Better still: What was the question again? (what is real?)
How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic - To understand how people look for movies, the video service created 76,897 micro-genres. We took the genre descriptions, broke them down to their key words, … and built our own new-genre generator.
No Apologies: On Hack, Snapchat Founder Says 'We Thought We Had Done Enough' | Entrepreneur.com (which was nothing)

010214
Jang's execution bodes ill for China - unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, Jang was stripped naked and thrown into a cage, along with his five closest aides. Then 120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called "quan jue", or execution by dogs. The report said the entire process lasted for an hour, with Mr Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader in North Korea, supervising it along with 300 senior officials. (seriously, dangerously, wacko state)
Iraq suffers highest death toll in years - Human Rights - Al Jazeera English - Violence, which surged after deadly crackdown on protests, claimed more than 8,000 lives, mostly civilians, in 2013.
11 die in bomb blasts at Mogadishu hotel favored by Somali officials | Al Jazeera America - No claim of responsibility for explosions but al-Shabab, an armed group, has targeted venue in past
Beirut car bomb blast causes death and injury in Hezbollah stronghold | World news | The Guardian - At least five people killed in the latest in a series of bombings that mark a sharp deterioration in security across Lebanon (the whole region is going to shit)
Jamal Al-Jamal, Palestinian Ambassador To Czech Republic, Killed By Explosives In Embassy Safe
Egypt: Terrorism Charges For Al-Jazeera Journalists Eurasia Review - New accusations of terrorism have been levelled at four members of Al Jazeera’s Cairo news team, including false news and joining a terrorist organisation.
“Reprimanded” Israeli soldier still posting violent, racist material on Instagram | The Electronic Intifada
Two Indian Women Gang Raped Twice Almost Exactly A Year After Brutal Delhi Rape - One of the victims died on New Year’s Eve after she was allegedly set on fire by the rapists’ friends.
Happy 20th Birthday, Zapatistas! | VICE United Kingdom - The Photo Editor of Mexican Investigative Weekly ‘Proceso’ Shares a Selection of Images from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the First Indigenous Rebellion of the Internet Age
The Mystery of Mikhail Khodorkovsky - The Daily Beast - When Soviet dissidents came to the West, they cleverly defied their old masters. The former prisoner of Vladimir Putin has said almost nothing since being released. Why?

Navy's $670 Million Fighting Ship Is 'Not Expected to Be Survivable,' Pentagon Says | Danger Room | Wired.com - Navy’s $670 Million Fighting Ship Is ‘Not Expected to Be Survivable,’ Pentagon Says (Chinese anti-ship missles made it obsolete before it was launched)

The Torture Remains the Same | Shaker Aamer (the Commander in Chief" has no power over this)

The Drone Survival Guide Explains How to Take Down Flying Robots | VICE United States

Glenn Greenwald and Ruth Marcus Get in Explosive Exchange over Snowden and ‘Horrible’ D.C. Media | Mediaite
Ruth Marcus: Snowden, the insufferable whistleblower - The Washington Post (does she have any idea what she sounds like?)
Edward Snowden Clemency - The Snowden Effect, Continued - Esquire - (For a sad and hilarious example of what I'm talking about here, we have this Washington Post column by Ruth Marcus, scourge of potty-mouthed teenagers, whom Edward Snowden has forced to think complicated things.)

Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower - NYTimes.com - Rick Ledgett, who leads the N.S.A.’s task force on the Snowden leaks, recently told CBS News that he would consider amnesty if Mr. Snowden would stop any additional leaks. And it’s why President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden’s vilification and give him an incentive to return home. ("further leaks")
Snowden affair: the case for a pardon | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian - Snowden gave classified information to journalists, even though he knew the likely consequences. That was an act of courage ... There has been some talk of an amnesty – with NSA officials reportedly prepared to consider a deal allowing Mr Snowden to return to the US in exchange for any documents to which he may still have access. ("may still have access")
Edward Snowden Clemency: The New York Times, The Guardian Urge Obama To Help NSA Whistleblower
Rep. Peter King Attacks the New York Times as 'Apologists For Terrorists' | Crooks and Liars
Avedon's Sideshow: The shape of things - Here's an astonishing piece of crap from Alan Dershowitz: " As far as Greenwald is concerned, he's an ideologue.

Have I been pwned? Check if your email has been compromised in a data breach

How Every Part of American Life Became a Police Matter | Mother Jones

The Daily Dot - Border officials can still search and seize your laptop - It's a decision that has stymied the cause of the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates who have resisted the erosion of Fourth Amendment rights at airports and border crossings
EFF: "Everything we know about NSA spying" from 30C3 - Boing Boing - The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kurt Opsahl
Jacob Appelbaum: Futuristic-Sounding "Radar Wave Devices" Can Help NSA Monitor Your Computer Usage | Democracy Now!
WikiLeaks: defeating the conspiracy of governance | ROAR Magazine
American companies respond to new NSA hacking claims | The Desk - Oracle remains silent on NSA exploit

NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption - The Washington Post (and cause the singularity)

Disinformation on Inequality - NYTimes.com - Miles Kimball catches Bret Stephens pulling a fast one on Wall Street Journal readers – but it’s much worse than Kimball says.

Senate Democrats plan fast-track fix to reinstate lost unemployment benefits | World news | theguardian.com - Democrats plan to make poverty and inequality election issues • Senator Reed tells Guardian: 'Many of these people are desperate'
Congress to the unemployed: eat confetti | Amy Goodman | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Unemployment benefits are expiring for more than a million Americans. Congress will only do the right thing if we speak up
U.S. judge asks: Why haven't the financial executives been prosecuted? - latimes.com - You won't find a better, more incisive discussion of the question than the one by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of New York in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. "Companies do not commit crimes," Rakoff observes; "only their agents do...So why not prosecute the agent who actually committed the crime?" (Obama's choice)

Half Of Americans Think Our Democracy Needs 'A Lot Of Changes' Or A Complete Overhaul - The percentage of Americans saying the nation is heading in the right direction hasn't topped 50 in about a decade. In the new poll, 70 percent lack confidence in the government's ability "to make progress on the important problems and issues facing the country in 2014."
The Rise of the New New Left - The Daily Beast - Bill de Blasio’s win in New York’s Democratic primary isn’t a local story. It’s part of a vast shift that could upend three decades of American political thinking. By Peter Beinart
Social conservatives make big money plans - Kenneth P. Vogel - politico.com
Ted Cruz’s Canadian Panic - The Daily Beast - The Texas senator’s vow to renounce his dual citizenship by year’s end is just a taste of all the zany good fun a Cruz White House bid promises. So why can’t the Democrats run with it?
GOP’s 2014 horror strategy: Exploit Americans’ misfortune, drum up fake outrage - Salon.com - Prepare for them to search high and low for people disappointed with Obamacare -- then pretend to share their pain - They’ve walked into a cul-de-sac planting mines behind themselves along the way.
Joe Lieberman Joins Private Equity Firm - Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) announced Thursday he has joined the private equity firm Victory Park Capital, where he will serve as chairman of the firm's Executive Board ... "critical player" (which he swore he wouldn't do)

Young and homeless in New York | Al Jazeera America - More than 3,000 youths sleep on NYC streets every night, says shelter director (good job, Bloomie)
Trial of anti-nuclear activists ends with unusual sentence | National Catholic Reporter
12-Year-Old Activist Speaks Out About Her Arrest At Rose Parade: LAist
The Statehouse Bubble Bursts: Illinois Revolts Against Fracking | Will Reynolds
Tar Sands facing aboriginal “legal onslaught” in 2014 | Warrior Publications

Yup, Voter ID Laws Have Nothing to Do With Fraud - The Daily Beast - New research confirms what was obvious: Republican voter identification laws are purely partisan power plays, targeted at groups that vote for Democrats ... the rush for voter ID has nothing to do with fraud—which is near non-existent—and everything to do with political gain. (Republicans will always lie, cheat and steal)

Anti-abortion pregnancy centers thrive in Texas as real clinics close | Al Jazeera America - Unlicensed and unregulated clinics have white coats and ultrasound machines, but provide no medical care
Here's How Much It Costs To Buy Weed In Colorado Now

Scandinavian scientists develop dog 'translator'
Why are we fat? | Edinburgh Eye

Marineland Is a Hellhole | VICE Canada - There’s a Place I Know in Ontario Where the Sea Lions are Buried in Mass Graves

Nigella Lawson back in control in gentle US TV grilling after fraud trial | Life and style | The Guardian - Chef attacks legal system during first television interview since former PAs were cleared of defrauding her and Charles Saatchi

West Virginia ‘Heathers’: Was Skylar Neese Murdered by Her Best Friends? - The Daily Beast - Skylar, Rachel, and Shelia were the best of friends—until one of them went missing and the other two were implicated in a grisly murder case that has upended their idyllic town. (mean girls)

? The Yardbirds - For Your Love - YouTube
? The Doors - GLORIA - dirty version (music video, fantasy cut) - YouTube
? The Doors - Riders On The Storm (ORIGINAL!) - driving with Jim - YouTube

Salinas Crop Circle Attracts Visitors, Skeptics - At first, Scott Anthony, who owns the land, hired security guards to keep thrill-seekers off the property. On Tuesday, he had the field plowed over. (that was stupid)

The Daily Dot - 'My So-Called Secret Identity' will change your view on women in comics
Archive | My So-Called Secret Identity
The Daily Dot - Animating female characters is 'really, really difficult,' says Disney - Animating female characters is “really, really difficult” because you have to “keep them pretty” while they go through “a range of emotions”? (women are more complex)
The Hawkeye Initiative

Making Your Own Cryptocurrency Has Never Been Easier | Motherboard - One such innovation is Mastercoin, a programmable layer on the Bitcoin block chain that recently announced $5 million (4,700 BTC) in investor funding.
The Daily Dot - Lawsuit alleges Facebook reads your private messages - It turns out your private messages on Facebook aren't so private after all. And that means more legal trouble for the world's largest social network.
The Daily Dot - How Internet providers are stopping customers from cutting cable

010114
TEPCO Quietly Admits Reactor 3 Could Be Melting Down NOW - Susanne Posel | Susanne Posel (evacuate California NOW)

Top 25 Censored Stories from 2012-2013
Bloomberg: Trans Pacific Partnership Is "Corporatist Power Grab", "As Democratic And Transparent As A One-Party State," Shrouded In "Big Brother-Like Secrecy" Washington's Blog
TAFTA) Corporate Tribunals: A U.S. / EU Holiday Gift to Foreign Firms? | Sierra Club Canada (they will be their own police-states)

Egypt's Crackdown On The Muslim Brotherhood Intensifies
Thousands march in Hong Kong in escalating battle for democracy | Reuters

Mass murderer Breivik treated better than hacker, campaign says - News - The Copenhagen Post - Gottfrid Svarholm Warg's supporters say Danish prison system treating hacker unfairly

2013 in Review: CDA 230 and Recurring Threats to Strong Online Speech Protections | Electronic Frontier Foundation (child porno is always the excuse)
The Privacy Threats of 2014 | Motherboard

Email is broken - but Dark Mail Alliance is aiming to fix it | Technology | theguardian.com - Edward Snowden's email provider is teaming up with secure communications firm Silent Circle to try and fix email for good
NSA Server vulnerable to SMTP Spoofing, can be used for Social Engineering - E Hacker News
Scary Site Blocking Announcement Threatens 750,000+ Sites | TorrentFreak - Scary noises coming out of the Russian telecoms regulator responsible for the blocking of file-sharing and other ‘banned’ content suggest that it will target a number of foreign ISPs with total censorship if they fail to take down unfavorable content.
Is Metadata Anonymous? Of Course Not | Motherboard - “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Obama famously said in June,

Barrett Brown and the U.S. government's war against sharing links | Digital Trends - Understanding the case against Barrett Brown

Anonymous: 10 Things We've Learned In 2013 - InformationWeek
TOM THE DANCING BUG: Five Tips for Living In a Surveillance State - Boing Boing
Ubisoft Says Watch Dogs Is Inspired By Anonymous And State-Sponsored Hackers | My Nintendo News
Even small microSD cards contain chips that might be hacked - Hackers News Bulletin
Your USB cable, the spy: Inside the NSA’s catalog of surveillance magic | Ars Technica

Daily Kos: Some ass got shot at the Home Depot! And it was attached to a concealed carrier, too. GunFAIL L - fifteen kids who were accidentally shot last week.

With new year, Medicaid takes on a broader health-care role - The Washington Post (near civil war over this?)
Post-Political Critiques of “Post-Political Politics” - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Obamacare: Catholic groups get temporary reprieve on contraception | World news | theguardian.com - Organisations providing insurance have objected to being forced to fund services in violation of their stated beliefs
The Obamacare We Deserve - NYTimes.com - Michael Moore (Vermont)

Pot Shops in Denver Open Door to $578 Million in Sales - Bloomberg
Marijuana in Colorado has a long history and an uncertain future - The Denver Post

Trayvon Martin And 2013 Revealed Harsh Reality Of Racism In America
Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson is everything that is wrong with conservatives | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | theguardian.com - We already knew he was racist and homophobic. Now it emerges that he thinks girls should marry at 15 or 16
2013: The year in whiteness - Salon.com - From Phil Robertson to Megyn Kelly, peddling white grievance became a bigger, crazier, more lucrative racket

Frontiers in Zoology | Abstract | Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field - Dogs preferred to excrete with the body being aligned along the North-south axis under calm MF conditions (first time in mammals, sensitivity to polarity, not intensity)

Why Has Republican Belief in Evolution Declined So Much? - David A. Graham - The Atlantic - There's been a drop of more than 10 points—to just 43 percent—in the last four years.
On Christmas, Republicans Quietly Declare War on Themselves | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
People Are Allowed to Read Mike Allen -- Daily Intelligencer

Book News: Efforts To Ban Books On The Rise : The Two-Way : NPR
Tweaking 'twerk' : Columbia Journalism Review - “selfie.”

Review - Life After Life - Fiction - by Kate Atkinson
This Is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...: Donna Minkowitz Thinks About Orson Scott Card: Live from **La Farine** The Roasterie LXV: January 1, 2014

Royal Deluxe II | Saturday Night Live - Yahoo Screen - Royal Deluxe II It rides smooth because they're built right. You could even circumcise a baby in one
January 1: Ecce Foreskin - Lawyers, Guns & Money (8th day of Jesus' birth is circumcision)
The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, Steinberg
Meet the Fantastically Bejeweled Skeletons of Catholicism’s Forgotten Martyrs | Past Imperfect

We need to talk about TED | Benjamin Bratton | Comment is free | theguardian.com - Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol – as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster - Technology, Entertainment, Design: middlebrow megachurch infotainment.
big think - YouTube

I Decided To Delete All My Facebook Activity, And It Was Incredibly Hard - Business Insider
I Decided To Delete All My Facebook Activity, And It Was Incredibly Hard -- "On average, it took 20 to 30 minutes to purge a month’s worth of posts. After about 12 hours of hand-deleting stories, I decided it was time to automate" : technology
Alleged Snapchat hackers explain how and why they leaked data on 4.6 million accounts | The Verge - "Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed," they say. "Security matters as much as user experience does." (ignored warnings, screwed their users)
Saving the Lost Art of Conversation - Megan Garber - The Atlantic - “I am going to be a little boring,” Sherry Turkle announces as we sit down to tea in the living room of her sprawling Boston townhouse. “And you’re going to be a little boring, too.” ... The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other. (o rly)