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01 Dec 2010 23:37

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Politics: Poor guy: Dude loses joint custody of kids ’cause he’s agnostic

  • The poor guy in this Young Turks/MSNBC joint recently lost joint custody of his kids because he’s agnostic. No, really. The judge in the case cited Craig Scarberry’s (lack of) religion twice in making the decision to rescind the joint custody he had for four years. Anyone else see this as a first amendment/freedom of religion violation? Because we certainly do. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 22:28

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U.S.: Should U.S. State Department employees read Wikileaks?

  • NO a sternly-written memo told them not to go there source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 22:15

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Tech: Federal Trade Commission: We should have a “Do not track” button

  • positive In the wake of the Facebook scandal over Rapleaf, the FTC is recommending that there’s a “do not track” button for Web users.
  • negative They’re only recommending it, not pushing for legislation to make it happen. Instead, they plan to offer suggestions to companies. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 22:01

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U.S.: Illinois set to allow same-sex civil unions! Hoo-ray!

  • This will be the entry to a slippery slope. The next thing we’ll see will be consideration of gay marriage.
  • Illinois Republican state representative Ron Stephens • Stating the obvious about the state’s move to allow civil unions, as if that’s going to stop it from getting signed into law. We’d like to congratulate Illinois for making the move to be the second state to allow civil unions and the seventh to allow gay marriage or civil unions – eighth if you count Washington D.C. Another seven states allow domestic partnerships that give varying degrees of rights. (On an unrelated side note, our source link is using this awesome new highlighting feature that the New York Times introduced today. Check it out. It’s futuristic.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 21:32

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Biz: Clap your hands, unemployed people! We’re about to break a record!

  • 18 number of months that the U.S. has had unemployment above 9 percent, as of October’s numbers (November’s come out Friday)
  • 18 the record for consecutive months in the post-World War II era, set in the ’80s; you guessed it, we’re about to break this tally source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 20:54

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Tech: Amazon Web Services, Wikileaks and censorship: A harbinger

  • Amazon’s quickly taken over the Web with its cloud computing services. If you’re reading this on our WordPress site, the image of the logo is from Amazon’s S3 service. If you’re reading this on Tumblr, the entire infrastructure scales thanks to Amazon’s cloud computing functionality. Ditto Twitter. Even more than shopping, cloud computing has become Amazon’s biggest gift to the Web. But the way they quickly booted Wikileaks off their site is just … wow. This is a very bad sign for the Web’s future growth.
  • What happened? In the wake of the huge DDoS attack it faced prior to its document release on Sunday, Wikileaks, which usually hosts its servers in this secret lair in Sweden, turned to Amazon’s EC2 services to ensure they’d stay online as the data broke. This was how they managed to stay online despite being the biggest story of the entire week.
  • Congressional pressure Eventually, certain members of Congress, namely Joe Lieberman, criticized Amazon for hosting the site and said Amazon and others should boycott Wikileaks. A day later, Amazon (who just recently pulled the free-speech card on a pedophilia book) complied. Wikileaks had a suitably withering response to Amazon’s actions.
  • The implications The problem here is obvious. Amazon created a service so widely used that they couldn’t control it if they tried. The New York Times (which has run multiple Wikileaks reports) even uses Amazon Web Services. This tool is only useful is Amazon is completely impartial to the content on it. This incident proves they’re not. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 20:27

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Biz: This bailout number is easily the biggest we’ll post today

  • $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans made during the crisis source
  • » Whoa! Did your heart just stop? Ours did too. It actually created a short delay in posting this. *whew* Now that we’ve caught our breath, let us explain. After Bear Stearns went under in early 2008, a special plan was put in place to offer emergency, quickly-paid-back loans to banks during the financial crisis to ensure they continued to run smoothly. All loans required collateral, all were low-interest, and all have already been paid back. The program also ended in May of last year, so no worries about any residual effects. But yeah. Have you ever seen $9 trillion? It would probably require dozens of Scrooge McDuck’s money vaults.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

01 Dec 2010 20:05

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Politics: Senate Democrats make moronic mistake with food-safety bill

  • The Senate knows the rule and should follow the rule and they should be cognizant of the rule. Nobody ought to be surprised by the rule. It is in the Constitution, and you have all been lectured and we have as well about reading the Constitution.
  • House Majority Whip (for the next month or so) Steny Hoyer • Scolding Senate Democrats for doing something really moronic. See, any revenue-raising bill has to originate in the House. Usually, the Senate gets around this by using a discarded, recombobulated House bill as a shell. But they didn’t do that this time with the food-safety bill they just passed, because they’re inept and want to let the GOP walk all over them like they’ve been doing the last two years. Heckuva job. (thanks fuckyeahcoolquotes) source
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01 Dec 2010 12:36

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Offbeat: Posted without comment: Woman in undies, wheelchair at airport

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2010 11:20

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U.S.: Evil people steal puppy because they suck or something

  • » See these monsters right here? They stole a puppy in DC. There’s a $1,000 reward for information leading to Ivan’s return. Let’s get ’em, boys! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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