Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

12 Dec 2010 10:49

tags

U.S., World: Pastor Terry Jones bringing his Islamophobia across the pond?

  • infamy Terry Jones, the pastor who wanted to burn the Koran on 9/11 only to not do it because he thought he had brokered a deal with the “Ground Zero Mosque” folks in NYC (spoiler: he didn’t), is pretty much a laughingstock these days.
  • fandom Fortunately, Jones still has some supporters – in the U.K. He’ll be going to speak at a rally held by the English Defense League (which has nothing to do with soccer, BTW) in February. They’re pretty darn anti-Islamic, too, so he’ll fit right in. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Dec 2010 12:49

tags

World: “Air-traffic controller” now a form of slave labor in Spain

  • I cannot talk to you properly now. There are civil guards here, with pistols. If we don’t start work now, we will be arrested.
  • A Spanish air-traffic controller talking to the Daily Telegraph • Describing how he’s literally been forced to go to work by the Spanish military nearly a day after an air-traffic controller walkout sent Spanish airspace into chaos. Spain’s way of dealing with this crisis-inducing problem? They handed control of controlling the airspace to the military, who forced the striking workers to go back to their jobs, by force. So technically, this air traffic controller is working slave labor right now, eh? Classy. That’s one way to solve a crisis. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Nov 2010 20:01

tags

Biz: Julian Assange dropped a HUGE hint a freaking year ago

  • At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive’s hard drive. Now how do we present that? It’s a difficult problem. … To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it.
  • Wikileaks’ Julian Assange • Explaining how they leak material to the press, but dropping the fact that they have a bunch of stuff from Bank of America ready to leak. This was completely ignored by the press (and even we didn’t make much of it when we posted about it a few months back). But then our boy Julian talked to Forbes, people put two and two together, and all of a sudden Bank of America’s stock went down today. The difference? Assange wasn’t seen as a threat when he made this interview a year ago. Now … he’s a threat. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Nov 2010 10:48

tags

Biz, Tech: Comcast offers up some net neutrality ammo for Netflix fans

  • This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access. With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast’s subscribers at all, unless Comcast’s unilaterally determined toll is paid.
  • Level 3 Communications Chief Legal Officer Thomas Stortz • Expressing anger with Comcast’s added bandwidth fees on the internet middleman, which Netflix uses for its uber-popular streaming services. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Did you hear that? Yeah, we think we did. That’s the sound of the FCC nailing Comcast for anticompetitive activity and killing their planned buyout of NBC because they aren’t playing fair. What? You didn’t hear it? We must have imagined it. We can dream, can’t we? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Nov 2010 10:06

tags

U.S., World: The U.S. really freaking angry with Wikileaks right now (again)

  • WikiLeaks are an absolutely awful impediment to my business, which is to be able to have discussions in confidence with people. I do not understand the motivation for releasing these documents. They will not help; they will simply hurt our ability to do our work here.
  • U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey • Loudly voicing his frustration with Wikileaks, which plans to release thousands of diplomatic cables in the next few days. Let’s just say that the U.S. is gearing up for the worst-case scenario, which involves them having to explain to its allies why it’s privately talking crap about them and revealing things that were told to them in confidence. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Nov 2010 21:01

tags

U.S.: TSA topic du jour: How much we pay for the body scanners

  • $130k+ the cost of buying a new TSA scanner – they sell for as much as $170,000
  • 500 number of new scanners that Obama wants to buy next year alone
  • $88M the amount set aside in his budget for such invasive things source
  • » A big business: A lot of money is going towards these devices – $80 million has been paid already for the ones already in use, most of that coming out of the stimulus. The effect has been that many firms are trying to get on what’s proving to be very fruitful business.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Nov 2010 11:48

tags

World: Haiti cholera outbreak spreads to insanely overcrowded prison

  • 1,100 number of Haitians who have died during the recent cholera outbreak over the last month
  • 2,000 number of people in an overcrowded Haitian prison, which just reported fresh cases of cholera source
  • » Oh, and now there’s protests: To top off the whole drama with the cholera outbreak, protests against the United Nations have gained steam over the last few days. They claim that UN peacekeepers from Nepal caused the outbreak. The UN denies this.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

19 Nov 2010 11:34

tags

U.S.: Does Arizona’s transplant cut-off scream “death panel” to anyone?

  • To basically renege on what you promised was [going to] be a chance at life is a very, very bitter indictment of the ethics of the Legislature.
  • University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics head Arthur Caplan • Suggesting that Arizona’s recent plan to stop paying for transplants was very unethical. A total of 98 people have been given something of a death sentence in the wake of all of this, which is ironic because Republicans were the very people to speak out against so-called “death panels” during the health care debate. Now, here it is, and it’s happening on a Republican administration’s watch. In one case, a guy came on the list for a liver transplant and was literally screwed by the changes. The cuts were made to close a $1.5-billion gap in Arizona’s budget, but will only save the state $4.5 million, or .3 percent of that budget gap. (Thanks Jonathan Cunnigham for the find.)  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

12 Nov 2010 16:26

tags

U.S.: Protests growing against TSA’s ultra-invasive full-body scans

  • First off: Clever shirts, Despair. Second, are we finally reaching a point where regular people are starting to agree with our stance on the TSA? It appears that on November 24th, there’s going to be a protest against those super-invasive full-body scans. People will skip out on the process or not travel at all. That’s right, a TSA protest called “National Opt Out Day.” On the day before Thanksgiving, the busiest travel day of the entire year. Which is brilliant, but will piss off thousands of travelers in the process by making lines longer. Because the TSA is useless. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

10 Nov 2010 21:53

tags

Politics: Obama’s fiscal commission: Outside groups have their fingers in it

  • Taxpayers fund the commission and they should work independently of Washington lobbyists and power brokers. This is the type of shenanigans that average Americans are so upset about right now – that money talks and everyone else is left out.
  • National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare founder Barbara B. Kennelly • Explaining why she’s upset about Obama’s fiscal commission. Simply put: it has a weird staffing structure. One out of every four members of its staff don’t get a paycheck from the government and instead get paid by outside groups. This has the effect of making the committee’s staff very diverse, but angers people like Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut. Democrats have been concerned the panel leans a little too close to the conservative side and influenced by special interests, something the group disputes. Either way, when it comes to cutting stuff, expect there to be constant debate and complaining. Lots of complaining. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>