A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: news

Sep 19 2011
Mark Twain, probably

In Deficit Plan, Obama Drops Compromise for Confrontation

In Deficit Plan, Obama Drops Compromise for Confrontation

Binyamin Applebaum, writing for the NY Times:

The key points of the plan read like a mirror image of the priorities espoused by House Republicans. The president proposed raising taxes by $1.5 trillion, mostly on the wealthy, while making only modest cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and walling off Social Security from any changes. The plan also would reduce military spending by more than $1 trillion. […]

“This is not class warfare,” Mr. Obama countered Monday in his Rose Garden remarks. “It is math. The money is going to have to come from someplace.”

I’m happy about this. Glad to see Obama trying a different strategy for dealing with the harsh realities of governing our divided country.

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Sep 18 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Atom splitting in my kitchen was a hobby, man tells Swedish police

Atom splitting in my kitchen was a hobby, man tells Swedish police

The AP:

A Swedish man arrested on charges of unauthorised possession of nuclear material after trying to split atoms in his kitchen says he was only doing it as a hobby.

…

Handl kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Only later did he realise it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s radiation authority, which sent the police.

SMALL MELTDOWN ON HIS STOVE

hblrbhrlbhrlhbrlbhrlbhlrhblrhblrhblrhlbrh

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Sep 16 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Scotland Yard attempts to force The Guardian to disclose sources

Scotland Yard attempts to force The Guardian to disclose sources

The Guardian:

The Metropolitan police are seeking a court order under the Official Secrets Act to make Guardian reporters disclose their confidential sources about the phone-hacking scandal.

In an unprecedented legal attack on journalists’ sources, Scotland Yard officers claim the act, which has special powers usually aimed at espionage, could have been breached in July when reporters Amelia Hill and Nick Davies revealed the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone. They are demanding source information be handed over.

Seriously?

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Sep 16 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Space station to be crewed for SpaceX docking

Space station to be crewed for SpaceX docking

This article on TPM’s IdeaLab blog (which is relatively new and has been doing a great job covering tech and science news) is mostly about how the ISS is doing after an August crash of an unmanned Soyuz rocket. But this caught my eye. Carl Franzen:

In any case, the decision is great news for the private spaceflight company SpaceX, which planned to make history by docking its Dragon capsule with the space station on November 30, the first such commercial spacecraft visit of its kind. Following the Aug. 24 Soyuz crash, the company had worried that its mission would be delayed, as there wouldn’t be any astronauts aboard the station to receive the craft, but according to NASA’s current launch schedule, its still a go for November 30.

I hadn’t heard about this, and didn’t realize SpaceX was this far along. Bad. Ass. I remember when the ISS was nothing more than an idea, much less something visited by commercial spacecraft.

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Sep 12 2011
Mark Twain, probably

US Gets Chance To Catch Up On Credit Card Security

US Gets Chance To Catch Up On Credit Card Security

Peter Svensson of the AP on the slow move toward EMV credit card technology (probably more commonly known as chip and PIN) in the U.S.:

The U.S.’s status as a holdout has also started to cause problems for travelers. While most European stores and restaurants still accept magnetic-stripe cards, Americans are finding that their credit cards don’t work in European automated kiosks, like the ones that sell tickets for the Paris Metro. Some U.S. banks, like Wells Fargo, have started issuing smart cards to customers who travel abroad.

Next year, Visa will start dangling this carrot in front of store owners: If they replace most of their terminals with ones that accept smart cards, they will no longer need to have their payment-system security checked every year. U.S. stores spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year for these audits, according to the NRF.

In an even more momentous shift, in 2015 Visa is shifting the liability for a certain kind of fraud from the banks to stores.

EMV is definitely not perfect either, and there have been a few successful attacks demonstrated in the U.K., but it is certainly more secure than what we have now.

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Sep 10 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Survivors recall doomed Zanzibar ferry

Survivors recall doomed Zanzibar ferry

MSNBC.com, with contributions from Reuters and the AP:

Passengers on the aging, crowded boat headed for one of Tanzania’s top tourist destinations said they realized something was wrong when the overnight ferry began to list from side to side.

Then water rushed through and killed the engines, sending the M.V. Spice Islanders upside down and pitching hundreds of people into the deep sea early Saturday morning. A witness counted nearly 200 bodies, and the president of the nearby island of Zanzibar said more than 570 people were rescued, suggesting the boat was overloaded. Some survivors said the boat’s capacity was about 600.

Those lucky enough to find something to cling to floated in the dark waters for at least three hours until the strong currents began to wash them up on the white sandy shores of Zanzibar.

Holy shit.

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Sep 10 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Newspaper Chain Drops Righthaven — ‘It Was a Dumb Idea’

Newspaper Chain Drops Righthaven — ‘It Was a Dumb Idea’

David Kravets, Wired’s Threat Level blog:

The new chief executive of MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post and 50 other newspapers, said it was “a dumb idea” for the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain to sign up with copyright troll Righthaven.

The Denver-based publisher’s year-long copyright infringement litigation deal with Righthaven is terminating at month’s end, said John Paton, who replaced Dean Singleton to lead the company on Wednesday.

“The issues about copyright are real,” Paton told Wired.com in a telephone interview. “But the idea that you would hire someone on an — essentially — success fee to run around and sue people at will who may or may not have infringed as a way of protecting yourself … does not reflect how news is created and disseminated in the modern world.”

If you’re not familiar with Righthaven, it’s a company that exists solely to license copyrights for news articles and then sue bloggers for posting parts from them, splitting the damages awards with the licensing newspaper. Really a delightful business model.

Kravets also wrote a piece about Righthaven’s legal setbacks in court that explains a bit more about how they were formed and how they work. I hope they go away exceedingly quickly.

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Sep 06 2011
Mark Twain, probably

‘Twitter terrorists’ face 30 years after being charged in Mexico

‘Twitter terrorists’ face 30 years after being charged in Mexico

Jo Adetunji for The Guardian, with contributions from news agencies:

A man and a woman are facing 30-year prison terms in Mexico for allegedly using Twitter to spread panic over a series of child kidnappings.

Gilberto Martinez Vera, 48, a private school teacher, and Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola, a radio presenter, were accused of spreading false reports that gunmen were attacking schools in the south-eastern city of Veracruz.

The resulting panic caused dozens of car crashes after parents rushed to save their children from schools across the city and jammed emergency telephone lines, which “totally collapsed” under the pressure.

The prosecution was possibly overzealous (terrorism?), and lawyers for both people argued that they were just repeating rumors and didn’t start them, but this whole thing is still fucked up. Twenty-six car accidents.

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Sep 04 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Steven Seagal ‘Will Not Accept Role’ of Animal Abuser; Accused of Killing Dog on Reality Show

Steven Seagal ‘Will Not Accept Role’ of Animal Abuser; Accused of Killing Dog on Reality Show

The International Business Times:

A Phoenix man says Steven Seagal is responsible for the death of his dog, who was shot and killed after the “Under Siege” actor drove a tank into the man’s home while filming a scene in the reality show “Steven Seagal: Lawman.”

Jesus Sanchez Llovera was the subject of a raid filmed for the show, an A&E series that chonicles days in the life of Segal as a volunteer reserve deputy sherrif. Llovera’s home was raided on suspicion he was running an illegal cockfighting ring.

Llovera alleges that one of the sherrif’s deputities who participated in the destructive raid (not Seagal himself) shot and killed his dog, and has filed a $25,000 claim against the sheriff’s office for humiliation, emotional distress and property damage. He has also demanded a written apology from the actor.

What

I

What.

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Sep 04 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Nevada ‘scrappers’ hit new low of stealing metal from Washoe County cemetery

Nevada ‘scrappers’ hit new low of stealing metal from Washoe County cemetery

Jaclyn O’Malley for the Reno Gazette-Journal, with contributions from the AP:

In July, a 35-year-old man allegedly pillaged Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery in Reno and stole more than 150 bronze vases that were meant to hold flowers for the deceased, Reno police said. Brett Taylor Allen, who has been charged with burglary and possession of stolen property, told investigators during an interview that he was “ashamed” of his grave-robbing, according to a report. He was released on bail Aug. 16.

Cemetery operations manager Sophia Mitchell said a staff member in July noticed that flowers were thrown on a sidewalk instead of resting in their bronze vases. Mitchell discovered that about 150 of the vases were missing, while flowers remained in the bronze ring that formerly held the vases.

Thefts of metals, copper in particular, have been on a big rise in the past few years. But cemetery vases? Really? Sigh.

And we’re not the only ones. Double sigh.

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