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09 Jun 2011 17:32

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U.S.: Iowa’s 18-week abortion ban passes state house

  • The most restrictive ban in the country? Well, only if it passes the Iowa Senate, which isn’t certain as it’s firmly in Democratic control. Regardless of the success of this bill, though, we’ve seen a pronounced and aggressive campaign across a number of states to restrict abortion rights lately. Five states other than Iowa have already banned abortion after 20 weeks — a tactic that, in its likely envisioned endgame, could lead to a Supreme Court challenge. That’s the pro-choice movement’s critical weakness in this; challenging any of these bans could lead to a SCOTUS ruling, the outcome of which would be unclear. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 16:49

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Music: Today would have been Les Paul’s 96th birthday

  • Happy electric guitar day, everyone! Les Paul, the musical legend centrally responsible for developing the electric guitar, as well as a range of musical innovations (he also pioneered multi-track recording), was born today in 1915. Paul led a long and industrious life; and still regularly performed into his 90s, ultimately passing away in 2009 from pneumonia complications. In honor of Paul’s birthday, Google has a pretty cool logo variant up that lets you strum some guitar chords, definitely worth a look if you have a few idle moments. A tidbit about the man’s commitment: he shattered his right arm in a car crash, and had the doctors pin his elbow at a 90-degree angle so he could continue to play, even though he’d lost all movement at his elbow. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 15:48

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Politics: Gingrich’s campaign suffers high-level staffer exodus

  • A bad day for big Newt: Want to know what can’t fill your heart with confidence heading into a Presidential primary? When your press secretary tells the AP he’s resigning, and your campaign manager, along with a spate of aides throughout Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina follow suit. Gingrich has said that he will continue to run, undeterred by this “rats fleeing the sinking ship” sort of moment. As it happens, Gingrich wasn’t even in the country a few days ago — he’s on vacation with his wife near the Greek Isles (which, in the midst of a campaign in such crisis, doesn’t make him seem that serious about all this). source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 15:08

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Politics: Herman Cain believes homosexuality is both a sin and a choice

  • I believe homosexuality is a sin because I’m a Bible-believing Christian, I believe it’s a sin. But I know that some people make that choice. That’s their choice… I believe it is a choice.
  • GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain • Speaking to CBS News reporter Brian Montopoli in an interview yesterday. You know, we’ll admit we expected this sort of stuff out of Rick Santorum, but we’re pretty surprised Herman Cain has made casual bigotry such an element of his campaign (you may also recall that he refused to appoint any Muslims to his hypothetical cabinet). Cain is, despite the utterly absurd things he’s said the past few days, a man of undeniable charisma and energy, and frankly if he focused on promoting himself as a successful self-made man he could be a real player in this election. Of course, that’s the grisly nature of the GOP primary process; you have to swing hard right to get the gig, then hard back to the center to win a general election. In any event, Herman Cain in his own words is very rapidly removing himself from the ranks of politicians with independent or mainstream appeal. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 14:04

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World: Viagra possibly being used for some horrific stuff in Libya

  • Disturbing allegations An International Criminal Court prosecutor has claimed that Gaddafi is buying a “Viagra-like” drug for his troops to help them commit sexual assaults. The prosecutor is trying to prove that the Gaddafi regime is using sexual assault as a weapon of war. The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has been working on this case for some time and is serious about taking Gaddafi down.
  • Denials on both sides Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, says they haven’t shipped any of their drugs to Libya since the sanctions started back in February. The report says “Viagra-like,” but it’s possible Gaddafi’s troops are getting the real thing from the black market. Libyan spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim also denies the charges, calling them the “same old nonsense.” Either way, this whole thing is disgusting. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 13:22

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Tech: HP’s TouchPad: Similar style, similar price to the iPad

  • $499.99 the cost of the new HP TouchPad’s 16GB model
  • $599.99 the cost of the TouchPad’s 32GB model; sound familiar? source
  • » Openly gunning for Apple’s market: The TouchPad, coming out on July 1, doesn’t just share the same cost as the iPad; it’s also the same size, and has many other striking similarities as well. However, what does set it apart is WebOS, which will also make its way to HP laptops eventually. It will be interesting to see how this feature-for-feature cage match pans out.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 11:21

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Tech: Apple backs down on controversial in-app subscription policy

  • Apparently they heard that they lost The Financial Times to this mess. While Apple didn’t back down from the 70/30 split that gave publishers pause, they did change a rule that won’t force companies to offer app subscriptions at the same price as an outside subscription — or if they don’t want to, offer an Apple-sanctioned subscription at all. Apparently, developers’ loud grumbling about the policy (which led the Financial Times to create a HTML5 version of their iPad app, shown above) appears to have gotten through to the company, which updated their App Store Review Guidelines earlier this week ahead of a June 30 deadline. The differences:
  • How it read before “Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions. “
  • How it reads now“Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

09 Jun 2011 10:58

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Biz: Citigroup: Yeah, a bunch of bank card numbers got hacked

  • 200k number of customers Citi says were affected by a breach of their system
  • 1% share of Citigroup’s overall North American customer base affected by the hack
  • one number of months it took the company to tell consumers about the incident source
  • » So what was affected? The company says that the hack involved names, bank card numbers and contact information such as e-mail addresses. Not affected were cardholders’ social security numbers, card expiration dates or CVV numbers. All this is of course is awesome to wait a month to tell everyone!
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 10:32

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Politics: On Anthony Weiner and the drumbeat for his resignation

  • This is a massive overreaction and I don’t understand it.
  • Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Melanie Sloan • Offering one of the few defenses to Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has been told by members of both parties that he should resign. Even close friends of his — including Fox News commentator Kirsten Powers, an ex-girlfriend of Weiner’s — are forcing the issue. In that case, what’s a little surprising is that he went out of his way to help Powers when her parents were stuck in Egypt during the Arab Spring, and she defended Weiner long after many correspondents quit. It took a lot for her to turn on him — though she now claims he used her. But for us, Sloan’s point — that Weiner likely did nothing illegal, considering that all of his affairs were virtual in nature, and a guy who actually paid for prostitutes, Sen. David Vitter, is still in office — isn’t really getting heard. He screwed up, but really? Really? Come on now. People do worse things every day.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Jun 2011 03:06

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Offbeat: Someone had to do it, right?

Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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