Eurozone Crisis, Royal Bank of Scotland, Hostile Takeover, Don't Bank on Them, Bank Transfer

Eurozone Crisis

• Eurozone crisis: How the figures stack up
• The great EU conjuring trick--"The original players behind the single currency claim astonishing sleights of hand have brought the euro to its knees."
• A Bluffing Game: European Politicians in Denial as Greece Unravels
• S&P says Greek default is essentially a given--Getting ever closer to bankruptcy.
• Krugman: The Austerity Debacle NYT
• IMF's Christine Lagarde warns of '1930s moment'
• George Soros says 'debt crisis could destroy European political union'
• Zombie banks are dragging Ireland into the ground
• UK debt passes £1 trillion but there is still good news
• France pitches 'Robin Hood' tax

Royal Bank of Scotland

• Bailed-out RBS spends millions on Washington lobbyists--"Bailed-out bank has spent over £2.5m of British taxpayers' money to influence politicians reforming US financial law."
• Anger at further RBS bonus payouts--The uproar got RBS chief executive Stephen Hester to decline the bonus.
• Blocking RBS bonus 'would cause chaos', Iain Duncan Smith warns
• Former RBS boss Fred Goodwin stripped of knighthood

Hostile Takeover

• Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington
• The Quiet Coup--"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises."
• Moyers & Company Show 103: How power and influence helped big banks rewrite the rules of our economy.

Don't Bank On Them

• Missing Funds at MF Global May Have 'Vaporized'--"Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation."
• Bank of America Settlements Impede Fraud Probe, Arizona Says
• Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners
• Homeowner wins back her house after fighting foreclosure--"Karen Mena managed to get a foreclosure on her San Bernardino home rescinded. But she continues to negotiate with Bank of America over loan terms and could still lose the house."
• Banks imposing more fees, taking away free checking accounts
• Banks Taketh, but Don't Giveth NYT

Banks Transfer

• The Numbers Are In: "[A] staggering 5.6 million big bank customers have switched banks in the last 90 days"
• Personal Finance: Bank Transfer Day saw 600,000 switch
• If you don't like the way big banks are run, move your money

Do-Nothing Congress, Keystone XL, Lobbying, Debt and Taxes, Bailout and Bonuses

Do-Nothing Congress

• House Republicans Fear They Really Are a Do-Nothing Congress
• Obama blames a "deeply ideological" Congress for lack of action--"President Obama says it's not his relationship with Congress that's to blame for the lack of congressional action on his agenda -- but a 'deeply ideological' Congress that 'sees a political advantage in not getting stuff done.'"
• Congress logs most futile legislative year on record
• Polls: Job approval for Congress sinks to new low--How low can they go?
• NBC/WSJ poll: Majority would vote out every member of Congress
• Congress Doesn't Want to Give Up Its Insider Trading Privileges
• Republicans derail US ambassador to El Salvador

Keystone XL

• Obama rejects Keystone pipeline from Canada to Texas
• Demand That John Boehner Be Expelled Or Resign For Keystone XL Scandal--"Boehner's official acts on behalf of Canada's tar sands industry are scandalous because he owns stock in the aforementioned seven companies, and he is using his financial gain as impetus to hold 160 million Americans’ tax cuts hostage in return for immediate approval of the Keystone pipeline."
• Lobbying Disclosures Reveal Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Used State Dollars To Lobby For Keystone XL Pipeline--And Rep. Waxman wants to 'subpoena the Koch Brothers!'
• Republicans attempt to strip Obama of authority to reject oil pipeline plans.
• GOP tries new strategy to get Canada pipeline--By piggybacking it on a bill.

Lobbying

• Elizabeth Warren: 'Washington Now Works for Those Who Can Hire an Army of Lobbyists'
• Obama Campaign Refunding Money Donated by Federal Lobbyists
• Political Contributions from Financial Sector Increased 700% Since 1990

Debt and Taxes

• What If We Paid Off The Debt? The Secret Government Report
• Higher Taxes Help the Richest, Too NYT
• Billionaire Bill Gates Calls For Increasing Taxes On The Rich: 'That's Just Justice'
• Wealthy Bloomberg Subscribers Call for Higher Taxes
• Norquist: Republicans Will Impeach Obama If He Doesn't Extend Bush Tax Cuts
  
• Obama's and Bush's effects on the deficit in one graph
• Comparing Obama and Reagan’s economic records

Bailout and Bonuses

• Treasury Department approves huge paydays for execs at firms who received TARP bailout money--"Government approved pay packages worth $5M or more for 49 executives."
• Report: Taxpayers still owed $133B from bailout
• Barclays chief: Large bankers' bonuses 'rewards for success'

Google Goes Evil?, Privacy, Twitter, Search, Talk, Groupthink

Google Goes Evil?

• Google announces privacy changes across products; users can't opt out--And these changes, which will come into effect on March 1, won't affect Apps for business, government.
• Google+ pseudonym policy lets Google reject names that aren't "established"--And they're into censorsing profiles
• Use Google? Time to Get Real About Protecting Your Digital Self
• Evil, Greed, And Antitrust Aren't Google’s Real Problems, Relevancy Is
• Dirty little secrets: The trouble with Google's social search

Privacy

• Europe proposes a "right to be forgotten"--You can look into how to permanently delete your Facebook account.
• Facebook's Timeline is a tweak too far
• Department of Justice Misdirection on Cloud Computing and Privacy
• The World's Worst Privacy Policy
• O2 shares your mobile phone number with every website you visit--O2 has now fixed this and claims that now it only shares customers' numbers with 'trusted partners'

Twitter

• Tweets still must flow--"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why."
• Twitter Ignored Request To Keep Subpoena Under Wraps
• Man sued for keeping company Twitter followers
  

Search

• Why We Desperately Need a New (and Better) Google
• Google Employs Users to Help Spot, Block Spam Sites Sites
• Google to content farms: It's war
• Google's War on Nonsense NYT
• The Dirty Little Secrets of Search

Talk

• The Art of Conversation Salon
• If Everyone's Talking, Who Will Listen?
• "We are becoming a nation of narrow thinkers, thanks to the Internet, newspapers, and schools."
• Online blowhards are killing democracy Salon
• How the Internets will transform us all into Nazis--Claims a guy who wants to keep the masses uninformed.
• Listening to the Dot-Commenters
• Matt Gemmell: Comments Commentary
• Data suggests people using pseudonyms leave better comments

Groupthink

• Sharing Information Corrupts Wisdom of Crowds
• Slashdot Founder Questions Crowd’s Wisdom
• Fark creator says wisdom of crowds is overrated
• When the "Wisdom of Crowds" turns on itself: IMDB Edition
• Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism--What constitutes "truth" in Wikipedia?

Oil Embargo, Iran, Israel, War on Terror, Police State and Surveillance, TSA, Feds

Oil Emargo

• EU Iran sanctions: Ministers adopt Iran oil imports ban--Around 95% of the world's tankers won't be transporting the oil.
• Sanctions take toll on ordinary Iranians
• Strait of Hormuz Will Stay Open, U.S. NATO Ambassador Says--And Britain, US and France sent warships there.
• Iran oil ban will up oil prices by 30%: IMF
• Tehran Pushes to Ditch the US Dollar--Wasn't this what Gadaffi wanted to do before?
• Revenge for EU Sanctions: Iran Set to Turn Off Oil Supply to Europe
• We've hit "peak oil"; now comes permanent price volatility

Iran

• How the media is legitimising war with Iran as if Iraq never happened
• US has arrested Iranian scientist--"The United States has arrested and charged an Iranian semiconductor scientist with violating U.S. export laws by buying high-tech U.S. lab equipment, a development likely to further worsen Iranian-U.S. tensions."
• 'Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012'
• Israel Senses Bluffing in Iran's Threats of Retaliation NYT
• History of U.S. Intervention in Iran - 1953 Until Present

Israel

• Publisher Regrets Suggesting That Israel Assassinate Obama
• The "anti-Semitism" smear campaign against CAP and Media Matters rolls on Salon
• An interview with Norman Finkelstein: Israel 'has lost a lot of ground'
• UN tells Israel to halt demolition of Palestinian homes
• Secret EU report launches scathing attack on Israel

War on Terror

• US marine in Haditha case 'should serve no time'--"A US marine who admitted charges linked to the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2005 should face no time in detention, a judge has recommended."
• Rules of American justice: a tale of three cases Salon
• Former CIA officer charged in leaks--What about those who were engaged in torture?
• Railroad Association Says Hack Memo Was Inaccurate--Was the DHS crying wolf?
• We Are Not The Dead: soldiers' faces before, during and after serving in Afghanistan

Police State and Surveillance

• Creeping authoritarianism on Capitol Hill Salon
• Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
• CIA Tracks Public Information For The Private Eye
• WikiLeaks Supporters Lose Court Bid to Protect Twitter Records
• FBI releases plans to monitor social networks
• Hawaii may keep track of all Web sites visited
• Supreme Court Court Rejects Willy-Nilly GPS Tracking

TSA

• TSA turns away Sen. Rand Paul at airport checkpoint--His father, Sen. Ron Paul, says that the "police state in this countrry is growing out of control."
• Opting Out of Naked Scans at the Airport: A Protest Movement--"[T]he status quo demeans a free people; and unless a critical mass of Americans gum up the works, TSA is sure to transgress against us more in time.
• TSA agents steal $40,000 from passenger luggage; sentenced to only five months in prison--" Any normal person found guilty of stealing $40,000 from, say, a bank or an employer, would likely be sentenced toat leastfive years of prison. But when you work for the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), you can expect to be given special legal treatment and sent on your way."
• Woman Claims Husband's Ashes Went Missing After TSA Made Her Move Them To Checked Baggage
• Random Acts of TSA Kindness, and Other (Mainly) Good Airport News
• More Friendly TSA Tales -- Plus, Is It Possible Ever to Change?
• It's fun to stay as the TSA

Feds

• FBI agent admits deleting emails amid terror probe--"An FBI agent testified Thursday that she deleted potentially sensitive emails covering several months when she was helping spearhead an investigation of a terror suspect."
• ICE mistakenly deports a 14-year-old U.S. citizen to Colombia: The Colombian govt is now refusing to release her from a detention center
• Another one in the net: Thou shalt not watch whales eating

Campaign Finance and Corporations, Citizens United, Super PAC, Vote Machinations, Romney

Campaign Finance and Corporations

• Lawrence Lessig: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It --I posted a Rolling Stone link before; this one's a video presentation.
• RootStrikers.org--A grassroots project of United Republic, a nonprofit foundation created to curb the undue influence of corporate lobbyists over the US political process.
• Eleven Shocking Facts About Campaign Finance--"Here’s eleven disturbing facts about the extent to which money is playing an increasing role in our politics."
• The Big Spender Always Wins?
• Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable--"7 signs the corporatocracy is losing its legitimacy ... and 7 populist tools to help shut it down."
• Poll: Only 17 Percent Of Americans Agree That Corporations Should Be Allowed To Spend Unlimited Money On Elections
• International campaign finance: How do countries compare?

Citizens United

• Sen. Sanders: We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy--"Unless we can reverse the supreme court's dreadful Citizens United decision, US politics will become a plutocrats' plaything."
• Two Years Later: Showdown With 'Citizens United'
• John McCain Goes Off Message, Predicts 'Major Scandal' Related To Unlimited Political Giving

Super PAC

• The Age of the Super PAC
• The charade of super PAC independence--Just ask the Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC. Salon
• Super PACs' money could tip balance of power in Congress
• Scalia on unlimited political ads: Turn off the TV
• Brown, Warren agree to anti-super-PAC pledge, other candidates could follow
  
• Who Is Sheldon Adelson, the Gingrich Super PAC's Billionaire Backer?
• Former New York Post Publisher Funded Herman Cain Super PAC

Vote Machinations

• Fox's South Carolina "Dead Voters" Story Collapses
• Maryland Republican Campaign Funds Used To Defend Voter Suppression
• Texas Sues Feds Over Voter ID; Says 'Colorblind' Policy Bans Racial Breakdown Of Voter Data
• Controversial Kentucky Redistricting Effort Fuels Tensions, Prompts Assault Inside Capitol Building--"Lexington's new senator is Dorsey Ridley, who lives 200 miles outside of the district he now represents."
• Redistricting map shakes up L.A. political landscape

Romney

• Romney: I Won't Release My Tax Returns Because 'I Don't Want To Give The Democrats A Nice Little Present'--He's flipflopped since then but won't release more than two years of tax returns because of "the Internet", but the most important years missing are from his time with Bain. (NYT) So that just means he probably has something to hide.
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income
• Mitt Romney's Tax Returns: Here's What Really Matters--"His taxes don't show that he's done anything wrong. They show that the tax code is wrong."
• Should I Put My Money in Caribbean Tax Havens Like Mitt Romney Does?
• The Daily Show: I Know What You Did Last Quarter

ACTA, Copyfight, MPAA, Court, Trademarks, Video Games

ACTA

• What is Acta and why should you be worried about it?
• Secret ACTA fights over iPod border-searches
• Thousands march in Poland over Acta internet treaty
• Ireland and EU to sign controversial ACTA treaty
• New Petition Asks White House To Submit ACTA To The Senate For Ratification

Copyfight

• The Freedom to Be Free: Battle Lines Drawn in Global Copyright Confrontation--"Recent weeks have seen spectacular arrests and mounting tension between those who would like to make it harder to share copyrighted material online and those who champion Internet freedom."
• It’s Time To Go On The Offensive For Freedom Of Speech
• On pirates and piracy
• Mobilizing the Public Against Censorship, 1765 and 2012
• Why was MegaUpload really shut down?
• Sen. Leahy Isn’t Giving Up On PIPA Yet
• US record labels trying to sneak SOPA's provisions into Canada's pending copyright legislation

MPAA

• Wil Wheaton Says Chris Dodd Is Lying About Lost Jobs; Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy
  
• Thirty Years Before SOPA, MPAA Feared the VCR
• Blast from the Past: Teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs

Court

• Judge says taking similar-looking photos is piracy--Should ideas by copyrightable? Here are the photos in question.
• How "CSI:NY" Most Definitely Didn't Steal My Story--This one didn't get that far, but it might have been an interesting case.
• Judge blasts "unlawful invasions of privacy" by "rogue" P2P attorney
• Hurt Locker Lawsuit Fragged in Court
• Hasbro drops 'Scrabulous' lawsuit
• U.S. District Court judge dismisses Gibson Guitar's patent claim
• Bratz copyright lawsuit tossed

Trademarks

• ;-) trademark claim makes us go :-o and then >:-[
• Group wants to own trademark on "awareness" of a rare disease
• Geek Squad owners send cease-and-desist letter to God Squad

Video Games

• "The Witcher 2" Devs Are No Longer Pursuing Damaging Anti-Piracy Lawsuit
• 90% Of World Of Goo Installs Are Pirated--"As a programmer, if you write software and charge money for it, your software will be pirated. Guaranteed."
• Ubisoft DRM wants you to re-buy their games every time you change your graphics

State of the Union, The 1%, Class War, Wall Street, Banks

State of the Union

• Obama’s 99 percent speech Salon
• Obama: People Making Over $1 Million Should Pay At Least 30% In Taxes
• Obama Urges Tougher Laws on Financial Fraud NYT

The 1%

• The plight of the 1%--"The fact is that the ultra-rich really aren’t productive, and instead mostly collect rents from people who are. This is what capital always does, of course: it buys labor (some people call that “job creation”, even if the jobs being created are mostly in China), and then extracts dividends from it."
• The rise of the overclass--"We've all heard of the 'underclass': now its mirror image – a super-rich elite that is equally cut off from the rest of us – is defining the political debate."
• Chefs, Butlers, Marble Baths: Hospitals Vie for the Affluent NYT

Class War

• George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War
• 'Quiet Rooms' and Republican Class War
• The Rich Get Richer While The Poor Get Poorer...Inequality Visualized

Wall Street

• Obama Will Create Unit to Investigate Mortgage Misconduct After Protests
• Obama Is on the Brink of a Settlement With the Big Banks—and Progressives Are Furious--Getting mixed signals here.
• Is This Why They Won’t Prosecute? Top Justice Officials Represented Big Banks, Freddie, Fannie and Mers
• Wall Street Fraternity Mocks OWS and Laughs About Job Creation
• Goldman Sachs cuts pay and bonuses as profits halve

Banks

• Credit Card Arbitration Trumps Lawsuits, Court Says--"These arbitration clauses have become a 'get out of jail free' card," says Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending.
• Rare Legal Fight Takes On Credit Card Company Security Standards and Fines
• How Mastercard and Visa rip off merchants with secret, 1,000-page "agreement"
• Illinois Teen Learns About Bank Fees the Hard Way
• BofA Debit Fee Plan Led to 20% Jump in Closed Accounts--"Bank of America's failed plan to impose a $5 monthly debit card fee led to a 20 percent increase in closed accounts in the last three months of 2011 and a public relations headache, which other companies may be keen to avoid."
• Evicted Detroiter: '100 years old, and don't have a home'
• A 375-Year-Old French Bank Forgives Debts of Paris' Poorest

Bad for Your Health, Good for Their Bottom Line; Abortion and Birth Control; Health Care Reform; Unhealthy

Bad for Your Health, Good for Their Bottom Line

• Money Saved at Misdiagnosed Vets' Expense--"The Vietnam Veterans of America says the Pentagon has 'systematically and wrongfully discharged' more than 22,000 veterans since 2001 'on the basis of so-called 'personality disorder' - rather than post-traumatic stress disorder - to deny them medical care and save the Pentagon $12.5 billion in medical and disability payments."
• F.D.A. Finds Short Supply of Attention Deficit Drugs--"The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people...." NYT
• Tobacco Companies Think Their Trademarks Are More Important Than Your Health
• The Health of Children and Consumers is Threatened by Conservative Push for Corporate Speech Rights--"Some pro-business federal judges have shockingly approved a constitutional right for big companies to avoid revealing product dangers on labels."
• Deaths at UBB 'entirely preventable,' MSHA says--"Federal regulators on Tuesday blamed the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster on "a workplace culture that valued production over safety," and prosecutors said a record $200 million settlement could set the stage for broad industry reforms."
• Blood Feud: The Man Who Blew the Whistle on One of the Deadliest Prescription Drugs Ever
• US drug shortage — Big Pharma wants 'financial incentives'--"Oh, break out the bloody violins. The pharmaceutical industry is indirectly threatening that supply of drugs will be unreliable if it doesn't get higher prices. This disgusting, parasitic, deny-everything industry, which has spent a lot of its money in US courts fighting class actions against its shoddy and occasionally lethal products is crying poor? "

Abortion and Birth Control

• The state of Roe v. Wade in 9 charts--Thousands marched in Washington to protest the decision at its 39th anniversary.
• Abortion a bigger problem than joblessness, says Catholic Church--And Spanish bishop legitimates rape.
• Obama Administration Approves Rule That Guarantees Near-Universal Contraceptive Coverage
• CDC: One-Third Of Teen Mothers Didn't Use Birth Control Because They Didn't Think They Could Get Pregnant
• Longshot presidential candidate to put abortion in your face during Super Bowl
• Court allows Texas law on ultrasound before abortion
• Rick Santorum On Opposition To Abortion In Cases Of Rape: 'Make The Best Out Of A Bad Situation'--Says a rape baby is a 'gift from God'.
• Plan B's Good Boyfriend Dilemma
• Mexico's Anti-Abortion Backlash
• Rate of abortion is highest in countries where practice is banned--"In Africa and Latin America researchers found that 95 to 97 per cent of abortions were unsafe." Whereas liberal abortion laws led to fewer abortions.

Health Care Reform

• How The Lives Of 2.5 Million Young People Changed on 1/1/2012
• U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors NYT
• Too many tests? Routine checks getting second look

Unhealthy

• "Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke."
• Bone Scan Mania: A 12 Year Drug Industry Con Finally Exposed
• First cases of totally drug resistant TB in India, one dead
• Toxic Trade: Is India investing in a future health crisis by importing asbestos from Canada?
• Military Still Struggling to Treat Troops With Brain Injuries
• Nicotine patches don't work in the real world, study finds
• How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body NYT

SOPA/PIPA, Voices, Copyfight, Piracy and Economy, Public Domain

SOPA/PIPA

• SOPA Is Dead: Smith Pulls Bill
• Reid Calls Off Protect IP Act Vote
• How The Web Killed SOPA and PIPA
• The week the web changed Washington
• Why doesn’t Washington understand the Internet?
• After Outcry, SOPA Backers Are Mainly Democrats--" The push for antipiracy legislation brought lawmakers together for much of the past year, but in the Senate at least, the support that remains after nationwide protests appears to be mostly from Democrats."
• MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren't Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought

Voices

• Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Father of the web backs SOPA protests
• David Pogue: Put Down the Pitchforks on SOPA NYT
• Peter David: Where I stand on SOPA
• Maddox: I Hope SOPA Passes
• Coding Horror: Defeating SOPA and PIPA Isn't Enough
• Clay Shirky: Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)
• Joel Spolsky: Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up

Copyfight

• Feds shut down Megaupload--And their assets have been seized. This then prompted Anonymous to go nuclear and go after the FBI, Filesonic to kill its file-sharing service and Uploaded.to to block US visitors.
• Don't Stop at SOPA: SOPA and PIPA are (almost) dead. Now can we talk about the law that already exists?
• EFF: No more back room deals -- Users must have a voice in governing the Internet
• Joe Peacock: 'It's 2012! Ignorance is inexcusable!'
• Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood

Piracy and Economy

• How Copyright Industries Con Congress--How much does piracy really hurt the US economy?
• Pop Didn't Eat Itself: Why Piracy Didn't Destroy The Music Industry
• Does Online Piracy Hurt The Economy? A Look At The Numbers

Public Domain

• Supreme Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works
• Copyrights on Foreign Works Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court--"[T]he ruling takes works by Alfred Hitchcock, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and J.R.R. Tolkien out of the public domain, barring use without permission of the copyright owner."
• Publishers pushing bill through congress to deny Americans access to taxpayer-funded research NYT

Facebook: CaseBook, BlockedBook, SchoolBook, TeenBook, WorkBook

Casebook

• Facebook user poked - by the courts
• Facebook Linked To One In Five Divorces in the United States
• Bulawayo man arrested over Facebook message
• Driver sued for updating Facebook during fatal crash
• Facebook to delete prison inmates' active accounts
• Australian deported from Bahrain over Facebook posts
• Politico sues Facebook because he lost election

Blockedbook

• Facebook Rejects Lesbian Film Ad
• Facebook shuts down page of lead gay active-duty military group, refuses to restore it
• Christian Progressives Censored by Facebook

Schoolbook

• Students suspended, expelled over Facebook posts
• California Teen Avoids Suspension for Facebook Status, Thanks to ACLU
• Another School Suspends a Student for Criticizing a Teacher on Facebook

TeenBook

• 'Karma' Facebook post leads to criminal charges .
• Teen arrested after allegedly ranking girls on Facebook
• Wisconsin Teen Gets 15 Years for Facebook Sex-Extortion Scam
• Teenager Gets Ass Whoopin for Acting Hard On Facebook
• Facebook douche of the day

Workbook

• It's Getting Harder for Your Employer to Use Facebook Against You.
• Md. corrections department suspends Facebook policy for prospective hires
• Depressed woman loses benefits over Facebook photos
• Feds settle case of woman fired over Facebook site
• REPORT: Facebook Usage At Work Is Still Rising

Air Fare, Unfriendly Skies, Flight Fright, Device, No Dice

Air Fare

• American Airlines Files For Bankruptcy In Order to Assault Unions After Doling Out Big Bonuses to Execs
• Casey to US Airways: Please rethink fare hikes--"The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Tuesday that when Southwest Airlines Co. drops its flights between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Jan. 8, the price for a US Airways round-trip ticket will jump from $118 plus tax, to $698 plus tax."
• Delta airlines under lawsuit over lost baggage--"Delta airlines is being sued for how it deals with lost baggage, telling customers they are only entitled to a fraction of reimbursement."
• New Obama Administration Rules Require Airlines To Disclose Full Ticket Prices Upfront
• Why Europe Has The Cheapest Airfare
  

Unfriendly Skies

• How are flight attendants supposed to deal with fornicating passengers?
• The most absurd red carpet ever — at the airline gate Salon
• Fired RIM execs 'chewed through restraints' on flight

Flight Fright

• 30 years after Air Florida crash, skies safer than ever
• What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447
• Qantas Flight Plunge blamed on computer
• Passengers panic over false crash alarm
• BA passenger jet makes emergency landing after both pilots 'pass out' at the controls

Device, No Dice

• Fliers Still Must Turn Off Devices, but It's Not Clear Why--Readers chime in. NYT
• Tests Cast Doubt on F.A.A. Restrictions on Kindle and iPad NYT
• Alec Baldwin Incident Raises Questions About Airlines' Device Policy
• What Alec Baldwin doesn't know about air travel--"Could Words With Friends really bring down a plane? The actor jokes, but cellphone interference can be serious." Salon
• Mythology at 10,000 metres

Marriage Equality, Opponents, Canadian Conniption, Awesome Australia

Marriage Equality

• 70-plus mayors form group for gay marriage; Boston, Houston, LA, NYC, San Diego head effort
• Washington Governor Gregoire proposes legislation to legalize gay marriage
• Seattle: Another Republican for Marriage Equality; Bill Now One Vote Shy in Senate
• Microsoft Calls for Gay Marriage in Washington State
• The Wives Of Marriage Equality Foes
• Marriage Equality Boosted Iowa Economy By $12 Million
• Gay marriage 'improves health'
• Conan O'Brien Officiates Same-Sex Marriage On-Air

Opponents

• The Logical Fallacy Gay-Marriage Opponents Depend Upon
• Gay marriage a threat to humanity's future: Pope
• Nigeria approves Bill criminalising gay marriage--"Nigeria's senate voted on Tuesday to criminalise gay marriage, instituting prison terms of more than a decade for violations in a nation where gays and lesbians already face discrimination and abuse."
• Santorum wants to invalidate gay marriages
• Michele Bachman gets things straight on gay marriage--She's definitely has had lots of experience in this regard.

Canadian Conniption

• Canadian Gov’t Dissolves Thousands of Same-Sex Marriages (Including Dan Savage's)
• Justice minister to review gay marriage law
• Canadian Government Declares All Same Sex Marriages Legal and Valid

Awesome Australia

• Queensland's civil unions debate blow by blow--"After nearly four hours of late-night debate, Queensland Parliament has voted to allow same-sex civil unions."
• Australia’s Ruling Party Endorses Gay Marriage Salon
• Priscilla director calls on celebrities not Canberra for marriage equality--Now if only Hugh Jackman weren't already married.

SOPA/PIPA Blackout Aftermath, Medical Marijuana, 420, War on Drugs, Mexico

SOPA/PIPA Blackout Aftermath

• US backers end support for anti-piracy bill--For now. They plan to take it up again this February.
• The Real SOPA Battle: Innovators vs. Goliath
• Post-SOPA: the path forward for addressing piracy
• Google Protest of Anti-Piracy Bills Upends Traditional Lobbying--And millions signed the anti-SOPA petition.
• 'SOPA Blackout' is Web's political coming of age
• Why Should We Stop Online Piracy?: A little copyright infringement is good for the economy and society.--"Stopping online piracy would be a social and economic disaster."
• The "Downfall" of SOPA--Hitler hits the nail on the head.

Medical Marijuana

• Arizona Medical-Pot Suit Dismissed by Judge Seeing No Prosecution Threat
• Get a Medical Marijuana Card, Lose Your Second Amendment Rights
• Pot Shots: How to Smoke Medical Marijuana

420

• On marijuana legalization, a promising year--"The Seattle Times editorial board expresses its support for medical marijuana and for the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana generally, and hopes for change in 2012."
• Hallelujah! Canadians agree it's time to legalize marijuana--A constitutional challenge has also been filed.
• Jury Refuses to Convict Anyone for Marijuana Possession!--Jury nullification at work (NYT).
• Barney Frank Goes After George Will Over Marijuana Legalization On This Week
• Mom of 4 reflects on first year in prison for $31 pot sale--First year out of 12.
• Marijuana Shown to Be Less Damaging to Lungs Than Tobacco
• Get Busted for Marijuana, Work as Police Informant, Get Killed? How the Drug War Turns Arrests Into Deaths

War on Drugs

• How Americans really feel about drugs Salon
• Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America--"[M]any of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs."
• Ken Burns on Prohibition, Pot, and PBS
• The Case Against the War on Drugs
• 40 Years of a Pointless, Tragic Drug War - But As Feds Crack Down, Reformers Fight Back
• Retired Police Chief Joseph D. McNamara: The Law Adds to the Harm NYT
• Reagan's War on Drugs Reduced Crime in an Unexpected Ways--"A group of anthropologists at City University floated a theory for the ongoing crime reduction in New York that they extrapolated nationally: Crime is falling because drugs are getting cheaper."

Mexico

• Mexico kingpin Guzman 'world's most powerful'
• In Focus: Mexico Drug War, Five Years Later
• Mexico's drug war kills more than 47,000 in 5 years

SOPA/PIPA, Wall Street, Inequality, Elections, Vote Machinations, Tea Party, Colbert for President

SOPA/PIPA

• SOPA Delayed; Cantor Promises It Won't Be Brought To The Floor Until 'Issues Are Addressed'--This is by no means over, especially with PIPA up for a vote on January 24.
• Rep. Smith Waters Down SOPA, DNS Redirects Out
• Before Solving a Problem, Make Sure You've Got the Right Problem--"I was pleased to see the measured tone of the White House response to the citizen petition about #SOPA and #PIPA and yet I found myself profoundly disturbed by something that seems to me to go to the root of the problem in Washington: the failure to correctly diagnose the problem we are trying to solve, but instead to accept, seemingly uncritically, the claims of various interest groups."
• Protect IP Act Breaks the Internet
• Google calls Murdoch's piracy allegations 'nonsense'

Wall Street

• How Wall Street Made the Financial Crisis Worse
• Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale
• Bill Black: More Proof of Obama Policy of Covering Up for Elite Financial Criminals

Inequality

• Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality--"How Washington and Big Business colluded to make the super-rich richer and turn their backs on the rest of us."
• Krueger's Speech Seals Obama's 2012 Inequality Message
• Conflict between rich, poor strongest in 24 years
• Romney: Questions about Wall Street and inequality are driven by 'envy'--And should only be talked about in 'quiet rooms' (NYT).
• What do we mean by "middle class"?

Elections

• Andrew Sullivan: How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
• China Watches Anti-China Rhetoric in GOP Race With Alarm
• Super PACs could change historic winnowing pattern of candidates

Vote Machinations

• Judge: Fake Michigan Tea Party Scheme As 'Heinous' As Attempted Murder-- A former official in the Oakland County Democratic Party planned to put fake Tea Party candidates on the 2010 ballot in Michigan.
• Voter Fraud in the Lone Star State--Catholics accused of cheating?
• Fox News John Stossel: Young People 'Are Dumb Or Don’t Pay Attention, And They Shouldn't Vote'

Tea Party

• 2010: The Year of the Tea Party. 2012: Not so much
• Frustrations Mount As Conservatives Worry The Tea Party’s About To Blow It In 2012
• G.O.P. History vs. the Tea Party NYT
• A Voters' Rights Amendment as a Focus for Dissent--"Unification of the Tea Party and Occupy movements for a common goal - a Voters' Rights Amendment - will re-establish the United States as a democratic republic and will restore control of its government to the voters."
• The Tea Party For Obama?--Wait... what?

Colbert for President

• Stephen Colbert Takes Sunday Morning By Storm And Skewers Citizens United --Says Romney is a 'serial killer' of corporations.
• Stephen Colbert must be stopped!
• Jon Stewart Blows Colbert SuperPAC Money On Fancy Food By Mario Batali

Occupy Mah Authoritah, Net Surveillance, Police State, Militarization, Bad Cops, Caught on Cam

Occupy Mah Authoritah

• Oakland cops disciplined for name-covering episode
• NYPD raids studio used by OWS live-streamers
• TSA Air Marshal Arrested in Mugging of Boston Occupier

Net Surveillance

• CIA monitors 5 million tweets a day
• EPIC Sues DHS Over Covert Surveillance of Facebook and Twitter--The NSA was already data mining in 2009,.
• EPIC also says the DHS is monitoring 'political dissent'
• Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans
• Court Revives NSA Dragnet Surveillance Case
• No Warrant Needed for GPS Monitoring, Judge Rules
• Hacked memo leaked: Apple, Nokia, RIM supply backdoors for gov't intercept?

Police State

• Why 2012 is starting to look like 1984
• 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free
• Whistle Blower Threatened with 35 Years in Prison, Warns of Developing Tyranny
• Rahm Emanuel's Freedom of Assembly Conundrum
• CIA internal watchdog finds no problem with close partnership with NYPD
  
• New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction
• Feds Want Judge to Force Suspect to Give Up Laptop Password
• DHS' X-ray scanners could be cancer risk to border crossers
• Only in Orlando does chalk drawing on sidewalk merit jail time--After weeks, prosecutors have dropped the charges.
• The US schools with their own police--"More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?"

Militarization

• Cops Ready for War
• Local police stockpile high-tech, combat-ready gear
• New Police Drone Near Houston Could Carry Weapons

Bad Cops

• Police Brutality Epidemic: Darrin McBreen Investigates
• We Killed Your Daughter; You're Under Arrest
• Lee County Deputies Tied Suspect to a Chair, Gagged Him, and Pepper-Sprayed Him to Death--The death was ruled a homicide, "[b]ut to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff's office of any wrong doing." WTF?
• Man At Bar Ribs Cop 'Aw, You Suck At Darts,' Cop Responds 'I Can Do Whatever I Want,' Pulls Out Gun & Executes Him
• "Law Enforcement Expert" Says Pittsburgher Jordan Miles Must Have Known Cops Were Cops Before They Beat Him
• Unarmed 54-Year-Old Bloodied In Raid
  
• 5 Charged After A Fight Involving Police Officers Leaves Several Injured
• No Police Immunity for Claims of Urine Torture

Caught on Cam

• DOJ Urges Federal Court To Protect the Right to Record Police--Wow.
• Boston PD admits arrest for cell phone recording was a mistake--"The Boston Police Department has at last concluded that two of its officers made a mistake when they arrested a Boston man for recording the arrest of another man with his cell phone." Simon Glik says the "arrest was a vindictive attempt by some unscrupulous cops to suppress citizens' right to record, observe and comment on police actions."
• SPD dash-cam video shows questionable conduct by officers
• Utica Police Officers Caught on Tape--The police union is considering suing the paper that reported them planting evidence.
• Cops beat black 15-year-old after he surrenders
• LA police officer punches special needs woman in the face on a bus, then intimidates other passengers into giving up their phones
• Hidden cameras installed by cops, then busted

SOPA/PIPA, International News, Copyright, Public Domain

SOPA/PIPA

• Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA
• Geeks to Testify (Finally!) About SOPA Blacklisting Implications
• MPAA attacks Ars for "challenging efforts to curb content theft"
• Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA
• Best idea of 2011: Give control of Internet content to group that sued a dead grandmother
• Study Confirms: News Networks Owned By SOPA Supporters... Are Ignoring SOPA/PIPA
• RIAA: We Must Take A Shoot First, Ask Questions Later Approach To Censorship
• SOPA Is a Symbol of the Movie Industry's Failure to Innovate--"This controversial anti-piracy legislation is all about studios and other corporations making excuses for their technological backwardness and looking out for their short-term profit."
• Lamar Smith Can't Hear You
• Copyright Law: Killing Creativity

International news

• US Threatened To Blacklist Spain For Not Implementing Site Blocking Law
• TVShack's student founder can be extradited to US, court rules--"US customs agents seek to prosecute Richard O'Dwyer over TVShack, which linked to sites carrying pirated shows and films."
• Insane Entitlement: EMI Sues Irish Gov't For Not Passing SOPA-Like Censorship Law

Copyright

• Forget SOPA: Copyright owners must build a better BitTorrent
• Copyright Office Seeks To Make It More Difficult To Retain DMCA Safe Harbor
• Is copyright against your religion?--All hail the Church of Kopipism.

Public Domain

• What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?
• Help Preserve the Canadian Public Domain: Speak Out on the Trans Pacific Partnership Negotiations
• James Joyce moves into the public domain, mostly

Lego Week, Occupy Congress, Debt and Deficits, Economics, Europe, Greece, China

Lego Week

• How LEGO Bricks Work
• LEGO GBC 20 modules
• LEGO Alphabet Spaceships
• Working Lego Super-8 projector
• Fantastic Posters Released of Aragorn & Frodo for the Lord of the Rings LEGO Sets

Occupy Congress: 17 January 2012

Debt and Deficits

• Chart: A Hidden Source Of Budget Deficits
• U.S. debt is now equal to economy
• Paul Krugman: Keynes Was Right NYT
• U.S. wants leaner military; budget growth to slow
• Death of Pennies

Economics

• Ponzi Planet: The Danger Debt Poses to the Western World--Who owns the world’s sovereign debt?
• Money As Debt
• xkcd: Money

Europe

• France to lose AAA credit rating
• German GDP 'likely to have shrunk' in fourth quarter
• Italy and France Team Up against Germany--"Germany has long insisted that austerity be the primary strategy used in confronting the ongoing euro-zone debt crisis. Italy has now joined France in demanding a more nuanced approach...."
• Swiss bankers charged in $1.2 billion tax fraud
• The mafia is now Italy’s largest 'bank'
• Tony Blair and the £8million tax 'mystery'
• Iceland rejects Chinese bid for resort land

Greece

• In Greece, fears that austerity is killing the economy --Pharmacists are 'pleading for aspirin '.
• The Greek parents 'too poor' to care for their children--And the children are 'dumped in the streets'.
• Greece's Growing, Overqualified Agricultural Sector

China

• Why Every Maker Should Learn Chinese
• Chinese learning to be compulsory from 2013--In Pakistan.
• Cost of metals used in hi-tech devices soars as China limits supplies
• Data theft case may test US, China ties
  
• Why we left our factories in China--The flip side.
• Report: Half of China's millionaires want to leave
• These Chinese Beef Cattle Graze In A Garbage Dump