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06 Dec 2011 21:25

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Politics: Jon Huntsman turns tail on climate change rhetoric

  • There is — there are questions about the validity of the science, evidenced by one university over in Scotland recently. I think the onus is on the scientific community to provide more in the way of information, to help clarify the situation.
  • Jon Huntsman • Betraying his earlier stance on climate change, which had won him some respect in environmentally-minded quarters. To be clear, this is in stark contradiction to the Jon Huntsman of months past. For instance, in August: “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” Honestly, we’re surprised by this. Huntsman’s prior stance impressed us, despite a very skeptical GOP base. We thought his conviction on this issue was pretty strong, especially as he voiced it during a televised debate, but now it seems he’s flip-flopped to add juice to a recent polling uptick. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2011 15:41

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Politics: Rick Perry attacks Obama over support for LGBT human rights

  • Just when you thought Barack Obama couldn’t get any more out of touch with America’s values, AP reports his administration wants to make foreign aid decisions based on gay rights. …This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop.
  • A statement by Rick Perry • Criticizing President Obama over a memorandum he issued today, which stated broad support for advancing LGBT rights and protecting them from violence. It explicitly mentions the efforts of foreign governments to criminalize LGBT persons (the state of affairs in Uganda the last few years being one such galling example), and states that foreign aid will be directed to promote LGBT human rights. Rick Perry (clearly attempting to spark some momentum for his flat-lined bid for the GOP presidential nomination), decided to pounce, saying further: “Investing tax dollars promoting a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong. President Obama has again mistaken America’s tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles. I will not make that mistake.” source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2011 15:03

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Politics: Gingrich campaign seeks to pay off debt by end of year

  • $1.2 million of debt to be paid by the Gingrich campaign source
  • » Less money, more problems: The relevance of this lies in the amount of debt relative to Gingrich’s opponents; he’s spent about $3 for every $2 he’s raised in contributions, and now that he’s surged into front-runner status, this ratio is hurting his ability to add staffers and purchase advertising. A possible culprit for the red ink on the Gingrich balance sheet? The early stages of his campaign, in which he was spending heavily on fancy hotels and $30,000 jet flights. Compare this to Mitt Romney’s campaign, which already has a thriving ground-game in place and is reporting zero debt, and one wonders whether Gingrich can raise the organization in time to keep contending.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2011 14:41

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U.S.: ProPublica study reveals striking racial disparities in presidential pardons

  • And justice for all? A study broke this weekend that flies in the face of that notion. ProPublica journalists Dafna Linzer and Jennifer LaFleur investigated the last decade’s worth of presidential pardons, and found some alarming things. For starters, white applicants were four times more likely to receive a pardon than minority applicants, with blacks having the lowest chance of approval. After taking office, President Bush outsourced the pardons process to lawyers in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who claim their protocol for examining cases never included any mention of the applicant’s race, but that non-statistical factors like candor and remorse were taken into account. That said, there are striking examples of minorities being denied for very similar or lesser offenses than successful white applicants. Of the thirty-four drug-related pardons President Bush authorized, all were white. Of President Obama’s twenty-two total pardons to date, twenty have been white. Pro Publica’s reporting on this is excellent, and far more in-depth than we can possibly summarize; we urge you to look for yourself.
  • Exhibit A Two women, one white and one black, both from the same city in Texas, filed for pardons on tax related offenses. The black woman had been fined $3000 for underreporting her income in 1989, while the white woman had faked multiple tax returns to reap over $25,000; only the white woman’s pardon was approved.
  • Exhibit B A first-time, black drug offender from South Carolina was given probation for possessing 1.1 grams of crack; his pardon was denied. Conversely, a white four-time offender, who had served prison time for selling 1,050 grams of methamphetamine, was pardoned; only the white man’s pardon was approved. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2011 15:38

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Tech: Carrier IQ CEO tries to tamp down privacy criticisms

  • Do you trust them? That’s sort of the principal question at the heart of the Carrier IQ debate, since it’s been revealed that the company’s eponymous software is pervasive (they claim to be running on 140,000,000 mobile devices), largely impossible to detect or disable, and equipped to record nearly everything you do on your device, down to logging keystrokes. Whether or not this software has the power to be used for gross invasions of privacy seems obvious enough — it definitely can. Carrier IQ’s argument, however, is that their data collection is at the behest of the client companies who run the software on their phones, and functions to help companies improve customer experience with the mobile devices in question. However, operating secretly with no security options or ability to easily turn it off, Carrier IQ is courting serious controversy. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2011 14:54

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Tech: Apple denies Siri is anti-abortion, promises improvements

  • Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information, and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want. These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks.
  • Natalie Kerris, spokeswoman for Apple • Denying that there’s any sort of intent behind Siri, the computerized iPhone 4S helper that’s taken America by storm, being extremely unproductive at helping users find local abortion clinics. That the program understands the question is clear enough — when asked “where can I get an abortion,” Siri replies “I don’t see any abortion clinics. Sorry about that.” There have also been reports of Siri directing people seeking abortion services to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which often present themselves as outlets for abortion services information but are actually pro-life organizations that try to talk women out of the procedure. Apple’s response to this is more or less precisely what we’d expect, and given the attention on this we’d imagine a fix will be coming soon. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2011 14:36

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Biz: Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley moves on foreclosures

  • 5 major banks sued by Massachusetts over unlawful home foreclosures source
  • » The deluge of home foreclosures that the U.S. has suffered since the financial crisis has been a crippling blow to the general economy, land value rates in high-foreclosure areas, and most of all the families who’ve found themselves unceremoniously cast out. A notable amount of these foreclosures appear to have been fraudulently engineered, rife with examples of flat-out false documentation, as well as “robo-signing,” a practice in which foreclosure documents are fast-tracked with (in some cases) fraudulent signatures and without the signee ever having read them. This was the impetus for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filing suit against five major banks — BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Ally Financial.
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01 Dec 2011 14:11

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Politics: Gingrich says lack of border fence due to lack of “seriousness”

  • We haven’t been able to build a fence on the border because we have not been a serious country.
  • Newt Gingrich • Speaking on immigration policy to a group of Nationwide Insurance employees in Des Moines, Iowa, after signing a pledge to erect a Mexican border fence by the end of 2013. It should be said that this stance is in no way incompatible with Gingrich’s softer tone on long-term immigrants from the last GOP debate, in which he argued that undocumented people who’ve lived here 25 years, paid taxes, and raised a family shouldn’t be booted out of the U.S. It’s entirely possible to earnestly hold both of these positions at once. However, this is Newt Gingrich, he of the most dynamic and politically calculated flops and reversals this side of Mitt Romney (here’s a recent and unflinching one to whet your appetite). As such, it’s hard not to view this as a cynical, purely political calculation; take a general election-friendly stance in a nationally televised debate, then feed the base some red meat when less people are watching. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Nov 2011 21:22

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World: Britain orders closure of Iranian embassy, withdraws officials

  • “a breach of international responsibilities”: Such was British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s analysis of the recent storming of a British embassy in Iran by 200 or so students, protesters who belonged to a movement believed to be under the sway of the Iranian government itself. Britain has recalled their officials from the embassy in Tehran, and has ordered the Iranian embassy in Britain to be closed and for its officials to depart within 48 hours. That there’s a tense diplomatic posture between the two states is no surprise — last week Britain opted to cut off all financial ties with Iran, in opposition to its nuclear program. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Nov 2011 20:56

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Politics: LA sanitation department has a tall task with Occupy camp

  • 30 tons of stuff to be cleared out of disbanded Occupy LA site source
  • » Dumping the lot of it: Of the above-mentioned 30 tons of stuff (referenced in the article as a mixture of garbage, debris and personal effects, so likely a blend of stuff people both would and would not like to have had back), 25 tons have already been hauled off and taken to a landfill. We haven’t been able to find much information about whether the Occupy LA Library has seen its catalog meet this fate, as well — following the NYPD raid on Occupy Wall Street, protesters claimed thousands of their library’s books were missing or destroyed when they retrieved them from storage.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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