• OK, this isn’t nearly as sexy as, say, EveryBlock or the Sunlight Foundation. But throwing records of the past decade of crimes online represents a new era of transparency for a famously-guarded city. Or as Brett Goldstein, the city’s chief data officer and former police officer, puts it: “It’s a whole new era of openness and transparency. You determine your own analysis.” And on top of that, EveryBlock could totally plug into this database if they wanted to. Some have been a bit critical of what isn’t in the data — race, for example — but many analysts note that this is more than a lot of cities offer. You done good, Rahm! source

• Wikileaks staff-whomever’s calling the shots there is unconscionably aiding/abetting the enemy;don’t contribute to this. Speak out. Do right
• A tweet from @SarahPalinUSA • Taking on Wikileaks’ decision to release more Afghan War documents. Despite the fact that Wikileaks is an organization with no U.S. ties that attempts to operate outside of any government’s control, she invokes freedom of the press in criticizing Wikileaks: “Free press protection gives no license to aid enemy,” she writes. Odds that someone at Wikileaks will heed this: Zero. source

• 100 million poor Facebook users’ details scraped source

• 92,000 documents from Wikileaks source

• three newspapers – The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel – were given first crack at the info
• yes the papers each decided to run the news at the same time, but took great care not to reveal state secrets
• no we have no idea who leaked the info online – our wildly inaccurate guess is Adrian Lamo

• The amount of work that went into this is impressive. Beyond the stories themselves – an early Pulitzer contender about how the government’s intelligence apparatus has grown so huge that nobody knows how big it is – is an immaculately-designed mini-site, full of huge amounts of data about where all that intelligence money goes. It includes a pretty smart use of the jQuery carousel feature, immersive graphics (above), and data to last you for weeks. The Post has long been the ugliest of major old-guard newspapers, cluttered in all the ways that the Post itself is clean and classy. This – to us – proves that they have the capacity to turn that ship around. (Edit: Scott Clevenger notes that this series will also become a Frontline special on PBS.) source

• Lots of potential, but many Americans aren’t convinced. The new ABC News/Washington Post poll on bizarro hippies (not to be confused with the similar New York Times/CBS News poll a few weeks ago) suggests that the party has a lot of opportunity to grow their base, but could find themselves ticking off moderates in the process.

• 2% of Americans are directly a part of the bizarro hippie movement

Would you vote for these guys?

• 15% of registered voters are more apt to
  support a bizarro hippie candidate
  running for Congress (9 percent
  “much more likely”)
• 24% are more apt to oppose
  that candidate because they’re
  a bizarro hippie (17 percent “much more likely”)

Do you like what you hear?

• 34% like bizarro hippies the more
  they hear about them
• 43% hate bizarro hippies the more
  they hear about them

• » The neutral problem: There’s a large sub-section of the population that’s fairly neutral to the bizarro hippies – around 44 percent – and 45 percent of them really REALLY grow to dislike them the more they hear about them.

Understanding their constituients

• Bizarro hippies may be a movement built out of republican weakness. While progressives largely stand behind the Democratic party, Republicans on the other hand have trouble getting their political equals under the same tent, according to the study:

• 86% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning indie kids say the party represents their values
• 56% of Republicans and Republican-leaning indie kids say the same thing about their party
• 29% of Republicans would much rather wear a funny hat and tape tea bags to the rim of it

Who doesn’t like Obama? Bizarro hippies

• 84% of bizarro hippies think Obama is lamesauce

• 87% of bizarro hippies say race is not a reason that the support the movement
• 57% of evil socialists think race is a huge reason why bizarro hippies hang out and party together

• » Other notes: Bizarro hippies think that race is less of a problem in this country than the country at large, but they also tend to be more likely to be white. 81 percent of bizarro hippies are white, versus 74 percent of all adults and 65 percent of people who think bizarro hippies are lamesauce. Just as many bizarro hippies think Obama is doing too much for black people as he is not doing quite enough, which matches the population at large. source

• $89.99 for unlimited voice and text if you are on Verizon – which is a good deal, but doesn’t include data plans (though those have been improved quite a it)
• $89.99 for the same thing from AT&T – unless you’re on a smartphone like an iPhone, in which case you can get unlimited with a data plan for $119.99 source

• The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
• “Fake Steve Jobs” (a.k.a. Daniel Lyons) • On “Operation Chokehold,” his plan to stress test the AT&T network in protest of their awful coverage and attempts to punish iPhone users for their heavy amounts of data usage. You know, instead of improving their network and making their customers happy. The event takes place December 18 at noon Pacific time. We’ll keep you posted on the app they pick. Also, while you’re waiting, give this article a read. It may be the best Fake Steve article ever. source

• Google has a lot of data streams on you and just about everyone else. It’s a huge responsibility of theirs to keep all that information safe. So, to help build transparency in the system, the site just launched Google Dashboard. Is it a good idea? Vote about it here.source