July 25, 2008
July 24, 2008
AMBER ALERT
George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran, giving the plan an amber light.
As Tehran tests new missiles, America (bush & cronies) believes only a show of force can deter President Ahmadinejad
President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.(BushCo wants the “negotiations” to breakdown, though.)
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I KNOW WHO YOU ARE……
Google ORDERED to Turn Over User Data of YouTube
By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: July 4, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far.
The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site’s visitors.
Viacom also said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers, who will use it solely to press Viacom’s $1 billion copyright suit against Google.
Still, the judge’s order, which was made public late Wednesday, renewed concerns among privacy advocates that Internet companies like Google are collecting unprecedented amounts of private information that could be misused or fall unexpectedly into the hands of third parties.
“These very large databases of transactional information become honey pots for law enforcement or for litigants,” said Chris Hoofnagle, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
For every video on YouTube, the judge required Google to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who had watched it, and the address of their computer, known as an I.P. or Internet protocol address.
Both companies have argued that I.P. addresses alone cannot be used to unmask the identities of individuals with certainty. But in many cases, technology experts and others have been able to link I.P. addresses to individuals using other records of their online activities.
The amount of data covered by the order is staggering, as it includes every video watched on YouTube since its founding in 2005. In April alone, 82 million people in the United States watched 4.1 billion clips there, according to comScore. Some experts say virtually every Internet user has visited YouTube.
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July 23, 2008
BORRRRRRINGGGGG!
Nevada GOP Cancels Convention,
Opts for Conference Call
Brad Haynes reports on the presidential race.
Citing a lack of interest, the Nevada Republican Party has called off its state convention and will instead pick its delegates to the national convention by private conference call.
The state party broke up its original convention in April when supporters of Ron Paul hijacked the proceedings and tried to elect delegates for their candidate to the national GOP convention in September. Party officials tried to reconvene on July 26, but they needed a quorum of 675 and received only 300 RSVPs, according to local reports.
The Tattlesnake – Humor You Can Use Edition
Or: Further Examples of Why It’s Hard to Write Satire These Days
“Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this?”
– Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) from the film “Casablanca,” 1942.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Republicans snickered and goaded Obama over not visiting the Middle East; Obama took the bait, called their bluff, and turned the trip into a three-point photo-op score showing him looking presidential with various world leaders and greeting smiling US troops. For a bonus, he even got an endorsement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his 16-month Iraq troop withdrawal plan, leaving Blinky McCain to impotently twist in the wind. Obama also defined the role of a US commander-in-chief in strong Trumanesque terms – no more of the weak Bush Boy’s lame ‘I’ll leave it to the generals to tell me what my policy is’ nonsense. Meanwhile, back stateside, Ol’ Crazy-Eyes is left with egg dripping off of his face, peevishly grousing about the amount of media coverage Obama is receiving and whining that The New York Times won’t publish his op-ed wherein he waves the bloody flag of victory in Iraq without bothering to define it.
12-Step On You Program: “Wall Street got drunk,” dribbled our Worst President Ever last Friday trying to explain why the country’s headed into its second Great Depression. Gee, how’d that happen, Junior? Was Cheney providing them with firewater while you were on vacation in Crawford, recovering from your ‘hard work’ vacationing in Washington? Remember when this goof was advertised as the first MBA president? Was that ‘MBA’ as in ‘Master of Bumbling Assessments’? Oh, brother.
Hit and Run Off at the Mouth: Creature of the Night Bob Novak emerged from the Soil of his GOP Homeland recently to float the story that McCain was going to name his Veep pick this week in a desperate attempt to counteract the massive media coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip. Then the Prince of Darkness flipped later in the week, and claimed he thought the Republicans may have played him and the story wasn’t legitimate after all. “Pretty reprehensible,” is the hilarious way Bob the Impaler described the possible McCain camp attempts to ‘use’ him to garner publicity for their candidate. Imagine that – Rove’s Water Boy on the Plame leak and the shoehorn for scores of other GOP-inspired balderdash entering the media mainstream ‘shocked, shocked’ to discover gambling at Rick’s Café. Roll your eyes and laugh, children.
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