Right-Wing Terrorism, Guns, Media, Voter Fraud, Voter Suppression, Campaign Ads, Elections 2012

Right-Wing Terrorism

• Joplin mosque razed in fire; 2nd blaze this summer
• Army Veteran Wade Page Identified As Sikh Temple Shooter--He was into hate-driven music (NYT).
• Fox News analyst: Sikh temple massacre 'not domestic terrorism'
• Right-wing extremist terrorism as deadly a threat as al Qaeda?
• DHS Crushed This Analyst for Warning About Far-Right Terror

Guns

• A Guide to Mass Shootings in America
• The NRA's big secret: Nobody is actually trying to take your guns
• NRA Sought Donations In Days After Colorado Shootings
• White House: Obama Supports Renewing Assault Weapons Ban — But Congress Won’t Act
• What they're saying: Gun control is irrelevant--"A conservative pretends gun massacres have nothing to do with guns." Salon
• Ohio police arrest man for bringing gun into 'Dark Knight' screening
• The Onion: 'Just Illegalize Us Already,' Nation's Assault Weapons Beg

Media

• Extremism normalized--"How Americans are efficiently trained to acquiesce to ideas once deemed so radical as to be unthinkable." Salon
• Infographic of the Day: Do the Mainstream Media Have a Conservative Bias?
• Harry Reid Is Vilified by a Press Corps That Tolerates Much Worse From the Right--How dare he make Mittens look bad!

Voter Fraud

• Repeat After Me: In-Person, In-Person, In-Person--Absolutely the only kind of voter fraud there can ever be, and anyone who says otherwise is a commie-loving hippie.
• Actual GOP voter fraud in Arizona
• Voter Fraud 'Study' Authored By Republican Who Pleaded Guilty In Abramoff Scandal

Voter Suppression

• Obama campaign sues Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted over early voting restrictions
• Justice Department Investigates Pennsylvania Voter ID Law
• The voter ID mess subverts an American birthright
• Chart of the Day: Voter ID and Racial Resentment
• Clarifying recent changes to our electoral system

Campaign Ads

• Lewis Black Takes Apart Dishonest Campaign Ads in Epic Rant
• The scandal behind Romney's new attack ad
• Veterans: Romney Lying About Obama Suit’s Effect On Military Voters--"Romney had claimed — falsely — that the Obama campaign opposed allowing members of the military and their families to vote in-person in the three days before the election. Actually, the Obama campaign wants all people in Ohio — including, for example, veterans, cops and firefighters — to be able to vote during that period."

Elections 2012

• A real corporate choice for VP: If corporations are Mitt Romney's peeps, why not pick one as his running mate?
• One Clue To Romney's Veep Pick: Whose Wiki Page Is Getting The Most Edits?
• Sen. Sherrod Brown's Wife Makes Conservative Blogger Look Silly--"Dear Ms. Shultz, We are doing an expose on journalists in the elite media who socialize with elected officials they are assigned to cover. We have found numerous photos of you with Sen. Sherrod Brown. In one of them, you appear to be hugging him. Care to comment?"
• New 'Twindex' plumbs voter mood by issue via tweet analysis
• Mitt Romney suspiciously gets 116K Twitter followers in one day
• A super PAC wake-up call for Dems Salon
• The Onion: GOP Trying To Keep Elderly Voting Base Alive Until November

Curiosity Chronicles; Pr0n Science, Pr0n Stars, The Internet is for Pr0n, CP

Curiosity Chronicles

• NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing
• The Curiosity Landing Already Has a Meme: NASA's 'Mohawk Guy'
• NASA's Mars Rover Crashed Into a DMCA Takedown--Scripps.com apologized for the accidental takedown on YouTube and for the "temporary inconvenience", but this isn't the first time they've sent in a bogus copyright claim.

Pr0n Science

• TED Talks: The Great Porn Experiment--"Have our brains evolved to handle the hyperstimulation of today's Internet enticements? Gary Wilson discusses the disturbing symptoms showing up in some heavy Internet users."
• The porn effect on young men: A Q&A with the authors of 'The Demise of Guys'
• Santorum's bad porn science--The candidate claims that 'a wealth of research' shows porn 'causes profound brain changes.' Experts say he's wrong." Salon
• A pornography study was doomed to fail after scientists couldn't find a single man who hadn't viewed X-rated material
• I Did It For Science: Female-Friendly Porn

Pr0n Stars

• The Well-Hung Boy Next Door--"Men aren't porn stars. Not really. They're extras. They're props. They're stand-ins for guys everywhere. But not Mr. James Deen. Just by being, well, average (or let's say larger than average), Deen has gotten huge (oops). And what's even stranger is who he's gotten huge with (hey, we didn't mean that): women, young women, and even teenage girls. Wells Tower spends a week with the man who would apparently have the best job in the world. (He doesn't)"
• British porn star insures penis for $1 million
• Porn stars in election bust-up

The Internet is for Pr0n

• The New Republic of Porn--"Stuart Lawley portrays his .xxx domain as a virtual red-light district that will keep the Internet safe for—and from—smut. Larry Flynt and the Family Research Council are not amused."
• Pornhub & YouPorn Owner Funds Fight Against Cyberlockers
• Accused of downloading porn, Kentucky woman sues the pornographers
• Accused Movie Pirate Sues for Defamation and Millions in Damages
• Indonesia shuts down 1 million porn Web sites

CP

• Man reports CP in music download and is banned from seeing his own daughter alone--The ban was lifted.
• Malware Can Download Child Porn To Your Computer
• A Life Sentence for Possessing CP
• YouTube Musician Faces 20 Years in Prison for Clever Editing
• Canada: Top court quashes child porn conviction

Curiosity Not Killed by Martian Landing; Righting Injustices, Prisons for Profit, Lobbying, Incarceration Nation, Jail Tales

Mars rover Curiosity lands on the Red Planet--It survived its 7 minutes of terror.

Righting Injustices

• Brian Banks' rape conviction vacated--"In an initial meeting with him, she said she had lied; there had been no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record, court records state. But she refused to repeat the story to prosecutors because she feared she would have to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against Long Beach schools."
• Wrongly convicted man sings for the Rays--"[A] dog handler with dog scent evidence against him was discredited. A witness recanted and said she had sex with the lead investigator. A jail informant who said Dillon confessed had pending charges dropped. But the jury had said guilty. Dillon went to prison." For 27 years.
• Thaddeus Jimenez, Wrongfully Imprisoned Chicago Man, Awarded $25 Million In Damages--"In what is believed to be one of the most substantial verdicts in the city's history, a federal jury on Tuesday awarded $25 million in damages to a man wrongfully convicted, as a teenager, of murder and forced to serve 16 years in prison." He was 32 when he was released after spending half his life in prison.

Prisons for Profit

• Plantations, Prisons and Profits NYT
• Prisons, Privatization, Patronage NYT
• Ending the Cradle to Prison Pipeline and Mass Incarceration--"The Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison corporation, has proposed to 48 state governors that it will operate their prison systems for 20 years with a guaranteed 90 percent occupancy rate. A majority of all those incarcerated have committed nonviolent offenses."
• The Role of the Prison Guards Union in California's Troubled Prison System
• Michigan Republican Township Supervisor not happy with privatized prison in his area
• By the Numbers: The U.S.'s Growing For-Profit Detention Industry
• Prison workers used in many Cuban government enterprises--"Cuban prisoners earn little to nothing while working for numerous government enterprises."

Lobbying

• Private Prisons Spend Millions on Lobbying to Send More People to Jail
• Private Prisons Spend $45 Million On Lobbying, Rake In $5.1 Billion For Immigrant Detention Alone
• Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences

Incarceration Nation

• Senate panel holds hearing about solitary confinement
• Women allege widespread sexual abuse at Alabama prison, nonprofit group says--Accused of creating an 'orgy'-like atmosphere.
• Fire the Bail Bondsmen

Jail Tales

• Cell coverage: How a convicted murderer found his true calling as a jailhouse reporter and prisoners’ rights crusader
• Reading offers Brazilian prisoners quicker escape
• Blast from the Past: Condemned Texas inmate looking to deliver joke at execution--He was left hanging when they said no.

Energy, Climate Change, Environment, Pollution, Ecology

Energy

• Natural Gas Fracking Industry May Be Paying Off Scientists--"Last week the University of Texas provost announced he would re-examine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It's the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking in America."
• Chevron ordered to pay $19bn in environment damages
• Ethanol Subsidies: Even Stupider Than We Thought

Climate Change

• The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic NYT
• Record Heat Wave Pushes U.S. Belief In Climate Change To 70%
• Opinion: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought
• Warming gas levels hit 'troubling milestone'
• Sen. Sessions: 'I Am Offended' By Views Of Climate Scientists--I'm offended by his deliberate disregard of the facts.

Environment

• Sea-level bill becomes law in NC; gov refused veto
• Canadian Mining Company Destroys Panama rainforest, destroys local people's livelihood
• German renewables output hits record high in H1
• China, Canada and Oil: A Complicated Calculus
• Is the WWF too close with industry?

Pollution

• Chinese protesters force officials to cancel industrial waste pipeline project
• Hong Kong suffers worst air pollution in two years
• Garbage-Eating Drone Destroys Ocean Pollution

Ecology

• King Juan Carlos of Spain ousted from WWF presidency after row over hunting trip
• Brazil: Dead Penguins Washed Up On Rio Grande Do Sul Beaches By The Hundreds
• Thailand customs seizes $700,000 in ivory from Kenya
• South Africa reports 281 rhinos killed this year
• Affluent Vietnamese driving rhino horn poaching in South Africa, report warns
• Vietnamese soldiers held over deaths of rare monkeys
• Great White Shark 'Protected' Status Questioned--What do you think? (The Onion)

Customer Diss-service, Consumer Information, Tickets, Tech Cases, HDMI Hoodwinks, Credit Card, Paypal

Customer Diss-service

• Chile Daily Must Pay Readers For Exploding Churros
• Russia: Autistic children denied Oceanarium visit – as they 'disappoint' the visitors
• UK: Wedding photographer ordered to pay compensation for 'dreadful' £350 video

Consumer Information

• Retailers Rush to Adjust to Price-Smart Shoppers NYT
• Shrouded Attributes, Consumer Myopia, and Information Suppression in Competitive Markets
• 13 Step Method For Buying A Car While Controlling The Sale And The Price
• Is It Better To Buy Or Rent
• Downloads: 'It's cheaper to pay a wage, fly to the US and back twice'--"Australians are paying 50 per cent more than American shoppers for downloaded music and games, as well as computer software and hardware, consumer watchdog Choice says."

Tickets

• A Band Battles Ticketmaster on Sales Fees--String Cheese Incident buys $20,000 of its own tickets to sell back to fans without Ticketmaster's gouging fees. NYT
• Louis C.K. Shuns Ticketmaster For New Tour--He's also looked into a way to beats back scalpers.
• LCD Soundsystem Thwarts Scalpers

Tech Cases

• Microsoft forbids users from joining class action lawsuits
• Japan whistleblower wins in Supreme Court in nation first as judge dismisses Olympus appeal
• Jury finds Toshiba guilty of LCD price-fixing

HDMI Hoodwinks

• Apparently This Matters: $1,300 HDMI cables
• Expensive HDMI cables make no difference - the absolute proof
• Is There Anyone Stupid Enough to Believe That This Cable Has Anti-Virus Protection?

Credit Card

• Should we fear a cashless society? Salon
• For Credit-Card Issuers, a Silver Lining in the CARD Act
• Recurring Credit Card Charges Horror

Paypal

• Paypal Does it Again
• Embarrassing security failure at PayPal
• Paypal Restores Account of BitTorrent Friendly VPN
• PayPal Bans Major File-Hosting Services Over Piracy Concerns--Putlock says that, "[t]hey basically wanted access to the backend to monitor all the files being uploaded, and listing all files of users if they wanted, regardless of the privacy setting that the user might have selected."
• PayPal Narrows Boycott of 'Obscene' Publishers--Because they're the guardians of morality.

#NBCFail, Corruption, Twitting the Olympics, London Riots Anniversary, UK not OK, Police State, Murdoch Mysteries

#NBCFail

• NBC Cut Terror Victims Tribute Because It Wasn't 'Tailored for the U.S. Audience'--So they're saying Americans can't handle a six-minute tribute?
• NBC Spoiled Missy Franklin's Tape-Delayed Victory Just Moments Before Airing The Race
• NBC Hit For Editing Ksenia Afanasyeva Gymnastics Routine Out Of Olympics Broadcast
• NBC's Tape Delay Of London Olympics Helps Ratings, Hurts Athletes
• NBC catches more online criticism as Olympic streams falter

Corruption

• Was This Disgraceful Olympic Boxing Match Fixed?
• The Worst Thing an Olympic Athlete Can Do Is Try to Lose
• Corruption trial hailed as good sign for Brazil

Twitting the Olympics

• Tom Daley Twitter abuse: Boy arrested in Weymouth--"A 17-year-old boy was arrested at a guest house in the Weymouth area on suspicion of malicious communications." And yeah, what this guy wrote mostly likely crossed the line as far as the UK is concerned.
• Critic of NBC has Twitter account suspended after network complains--Gary.Zenkel@nbcuni.com is not a personal e-mail address, and Twitter's corporate-cocksucking actions have been called out leading up to NBC's withdrawal of the suspension.
• Swiss Olympic team expels soccer player for racist, violent Twitter message

London Riots Anniversary

• Secret UK censorship court orders BBC not to air documentary
• London Riots one year on: 'The police like to give the impression that they're the biggest gang'
• Hundreds still face trial over riots as Londoners rebuild their lives

UK not OK

• Snooping errors twice led to wrongful detention, watchdog reveals
• British democracy in terminal decline, warns report--"Corporate power, unrepresentative politicians and apathetic voters leave UK 'increasingly unstable', says study."
• Most young people 'don't trust' politicians or parties
• Theresa May 'planning changes to immigrant test'
• Fijian-born soldier who served 13 years in the British army, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, denied UK citizenship

Police State

• In The UK, You Will Go To Jail Not Just For Encryption, But For Astronomical Noise, Too
• UK Police jails man for using a non-standard internet browser
• Hard Rock Calling 2012: England a 'police state', says Bruce Springsteen guitarist
• UK: Fake cigarette caused M6 police Megabus coach swoop--The terrorists have won.
• G4S chief predicts mass police privatisation

Murdoch Mysteries

• Phone hacking: Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and six others face charges
• Another Murdoch journalist arrested in phone-hacking case
• Rupert Murdoch steps down from NI boards

Educamation, Math and Science, Students, Karen Klein, Suicides, Think of the Children

Educamation

• NYC Dept. Of Education Bans 'Evolution' And Other 'Offensive' Words From Tests
• Backtracking on Florida Exams Flunked by Many, Even an Educator NYT
• Texas Republicans express 'regret' for officially opposing critical thinking skills
• Dumbing down America one child at a time
• Edmonton teacher suspended for giving 0s--"Lynden Dorval, a physics teacher at Ross Sheppard High School, has been giving the mark for work that wasn't handed in or tests not taken even though it goes against the school's 'no-zero' policy."

Math and Science

• Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?
• Obama proposes $1B for science, math teachers
• UK: Make maths compulsory for all A level students, say Lords
• Is Algebra Necessary?--Asks the political scientist. NYT
• Teachers find bonus pay not a matter of degree--"[B]ecause [Scott Johnson's] master’s degree [in astrophysics] wasn’t in math, the subject he taught this past year, under a new state law he didn't qualify for the $2,625 bonus pay teachers can receive for having that higher degree."

Students

• The order putting Diana Tran, the honor student working to support her family, in jail for truancy has been vacated--Why are students going to jail for absurd reasons?
• University sues student who 'studied too fast'--"A private German economics and business university is suing one of its students for lost income after he finished his Bachelors and Masters degrees in about a quarter of the normal time."
• Senate Report: For-Profit Colleges Exploit Students

Karen Klein

• People Are Awesome: Bullied School Bus Monitor Gets a Really Nice Vacation--And a retirement.
• Bus monitor Karen Klein opens up about kid bullies
• 4 Bus Monitor Bullies Suspended a Year From School

Suicides

• 7-year-old's suicide shocks Detroit community
• Teen who committed suicide wrote bullying post herself, friend tells inquest
• Why are young Indians killing themselves?

Think of the Children

• Time is now for grown-up talk on drinking age--"The drinking age should be 18, period."
• Why are American kids so spoiled?
• Zen Magnets: Public response to the CPSC--Concern-trolling Consumer Product Safety Commission wants the company to shut down.
• 5-Year-Old Seriously Injured After Swallowing Buckyballs
• Blast from the Past: Choking Warning Labels for Hot Dogs?

Military Industrial Complex, Money Pit, Cyberwar, Wikileaks, War on Terror, TSA, Who are the terrorists again?

Military Industrial Complex

• Enough! Study Finds Voters Overwhelmingly Want Big Defense Cuts
• Defense firms warn of job losses if Congress fails to stave off automatic budget cuts
• Military Industry Descends on Capitol Hill to Fight for Their Perceived Right to Profit
• Pentagon Contractor Caught Illegally Selling Military Technology to China
• Army bars company co-owner from contracts--"The Army has suspended the co-owner of the military's top propaganda firm in Afghanistan from receiving federal contracts after revelations about the owners' tax debts and the admission by one owner that he launched an online campaign against journalists, according to government documents."
• Why Is the U.S. Selling Billions in Weapons to Autocrats?--"The export of American arms to countries around the world -- even those actively repressing their own citizens -- is booming."
• Soldier battling bombs irked by software switch--"The Army ordered the destruction of a report that praised the performance of an off-the-shelf software program that finds buried explosives in Afghanistan and replaced it with a revised, less-favorable assessment, according to internal Pentagon documents."

Money Pit

• How to blow $6 billion on a tech project--"Military's 15-year quest for the perfect radio is a blueprint for failing big."
• At DoD, 6 IT projects, $8 billion over budget--"Six Defense Department modernization projects are a combined $8 billion — or 110 percent — over budget and suffering years-long schedule delays — in one case, more than 12 years — a new audit report finds."
• The M1 Abrams: The Army tank that could not be stopped

Cyberwar

• U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say
• How Flame virus has changed everything for online security firms--"The Flame virus went undetected for two years by every online security firm. Now they need to find a new way to protect the world's PCs from malware."
• Manufacturer declares death of bugs Stuxnet used to sabotage Iran nukes
• Stuxnet Will Come Back to Haunt Us--Even though it has stopped operating. NYT
• Stuxnet leak prompts US House to consider prosecution of journalists
• Microsoft Revokes Trust in 28 of Its Own Certificates
• GOP Senators Press For Independent Counsel In Leak Probe
• Defense expert: US should hire hackers to conduct cyberwarfare
• Move over, Flame: New Messiah-themed malware targets Iran, Israel
• Dirty Deeds: Iranian nuclear program hit by 'AC/DC virus'?

Wikileaks

• WikiLeaks wins case against VISA --And they're daring credit card companies to block them again.
• US can continue to withhold embassy cables already on WikiLeaks
• Why the WikiLeaks Grand Jury is So Dangerous: Members of Congress Now Want to Prosecute New York Times Journalists Too
• GI’s lawyers largely barred from raising at trial any harm done to US interests by WikiLeaks
• Evidence of a US judicial vendetta against WikiLeaks activists mounts
• Julian Assange has done us all a service. He needs support
• How WikiLeaks Revitalized Brazil's Media

War on Terror

• Police made up evidence against Muslim student--"Rizwaan Sabir was held for seven days without charge as a suspected terrorist after police allegedly fabricated evidence."
• David Hicks to keep all profits from tell-all Guantanamo book--"The Commonwealth has dropped its attempt to seize the proceeds of David Hicks's memoir, Guantanamo, My Journey."
• Robin Hood Airport tweet bomb joke man wins case

TSA

• Op-ed: TSA should follow the law
• Judge acquits Ore. man who stripped in TSA airport protest
• Transportation Security Administration Fires 8 New York Air Marshals For Drinking On The Job
• The TSA's Dumb Air-Security Rules Are Not Based on Science--"Outdated screening rules aren't making for safer skies—just longer lines."
• Giant infographic reveals TSA to be the worst thing ever made by humankind

Who are the terrorists again?

• Man Claims TSA Agent Spilled His Grandfather’s Ashes During Security Screening, Laughed About It
• Deaf man writes that TSA agent mocked him as “F*cking deafie,” then stole his candy, ate it
• Fort Worth woman 'humiliated' after Love Field pat-down
• TSA Checkpoints Exposed: Journalist Tracked, Targeted & Harassed for Filming
• Jonah Falcon, Man With World's Largest Penis, Frisked By TSA At California Airport