GoDaddy Bleeding Domains Thanks To SOPA Support
From Drew Olanoff at TheNextWeb regarding the GoDaddy SOPA support fiasco:It’s going to get worse before it gets better for domain registration company Go Daddy. Yesterday, we reported that Go Daddy had reversed its decision to support SOPA. Its customer service reps are even taking to the phones to beg you to keep your domains with the company.
It looks like these PR moves to save face, and business, are completely futile. According to TheDomains, 21,054 domains were transferred away from Go Daddy on Friday alone. At $6.99 a pop, that would make for a loss of $147,167, not taking future renewals into account. The day before wasn’t a good one for the company either, with 15,000 people taking their domains elsewhere. That means that even though Go Daddy changed its stance, people have had enough.
I have never liked GoDaddy. They always seemed pretty shitty, like they were trying to scam their customers and take advantage of people. Even if they never did any of that, the perception I get from their site, their advertising and their corporate image is that they are in the game for abuse. It is nice to see karma working the right kind of wonders for a change. (via TBR)
Purportedly from a North Korean history book:
“In 1941, a magical hummingbird visited the People of North Korea foretelling the birth of Kim Jong Il.
Later that year, the hummingbird’s prophecy was fulfilled atop Mount Paektu, the highest mountain ever. Kim Jong Il emerged, walking out from his mother’s Patriotic and Revolutionary vagina six months prematurely and without the aid of a physician, thus rendering the Korean medical community irrelevant. In shame, all doctors fled our Great and Innovative nation never to return.”
Is that not some of the most batshit crazy “history” you have ever read?
American Censorship Day: November 16
On 11/16, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system. This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same. Join all of us on the 16th to join together to stop this bill.
Everyone who runs a web site owes it to themselves to participate.
“I don’t think it requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false, or character assassinations,” Obama said, as reported by Univision.”It will be based on facts.”
“We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim,” he added. “We won’t even comment on them, we’ll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds.”
Obama on his re-election campaign.
Sounds quite ballsy methinks. (via boing boing)
The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence,” UC police Capt. Margo Bennett said. “I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest.
UC cops’ use of batons on Occupy camp questioned.
I have been leery of the entire occupy movement, mainly because of the lack of a coherent message, but this is just unbelievable. Do the police really think this line of reasoning is going to stand? (via reddit)
Studies challenge wisdom of GOP candidates’ plans
From the Washington Post:
“Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today,” writes Bruce Bartlett. He’s an economist who worked for Republican congressmen and in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, “It’s just nonsense. It’s just made up.”
Government and industry studies support his view.
Is anyone really surprised? Sounds like confirmation of what most folks already suspected. (via Alex King)
A debit of gratitude to Bank of America
Michael Hiltzik for the Los Angeles Times:
The big bank’s move created a consumer furor, with consumer activists proposing boycotts by or mass defections of BofA customers to smaller banks without fees, and the bank itself becoming a popular symbol of the financial industry’s supposed disregard for the average customer.
Unfortunately, because of the lobbying power of the banking industry - in particular the big banks like Bank of America - the smaller banks are finding it difficult to compete even with consumer friendly products.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much
Vanity Fair’s excellent article on Elizabeth Warren.
With her passionate defense of America’s beleaguered middle class, under assault today from seemingly every direction, she had become like a modern-day Mr. Smith, giving voice to regular citizens astonished at the failure of Washington to protect Main Street—and what increasingly appeared to be its abandonment of middle-class America. By July, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.—speaking for its 12 million members—had called on Obama to name Warren to head the agency. So had scores of consumer groups. Eighty-nine Democrats in the House of Representatives had signed a letter, publicly urging him to choose Warren. Newspapers around the country editorialized on her behalf, as did hundreds of bloggers. By July 18, when Obama announced that he was passing Warren over, he did so after receiving petitions signed by several hundred thousand people and organizations urging him to appoint Warren as the country’s top consumer watchdog.
NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act
From techdirt:
NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping.
This will be an important case to watch. An unclassified law with a classified interpretation appears to be a pretty egregious misuse of the classification system for the mere purpose of witholding information from the public.
For a president who promised a new era of transparency, Obama has a pretty shitty track record even though his administration continues to be lauded for their work on this subject. Someone needs to open their eyes and see the damage they are causing the nation - damage rivaling GWB at this point.
TSA Finally Realizes What The Rest Us Already Knew About Children
Jon Hilkevitch for the Chicago Tribune:
It turns out that children do not actually merit all the fuss the Transportation Security Administration has made over them since the shoe bomber tried to blow up an airliner almost 10 years ago. So in a welcome step for little feet and parents, children 12 and younger are no longer required to remove their shoes every time they go through airport security. “Intelligence and history have shown that allowing (young) passengers to leave their shoes on poses little risk,” the TSA said.
In this context, intelligence does not appear to be defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, otherwise this policy would never have been instituted. At least the TSA is finally acknowledging its approach to security is little more than theater.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires by Jackie Calmes for the NY Times.
This is merely another Obama proposal for the GOP to refuse to enact regardless of how much it makes sense, simply because Obama is not one of them and they protect their own.
An Ohio woman said Tuesday that she endured nearly four hours in police custody that included being forced off an airplane in handcuffs, strip-searched and interrogated at Detroit’s airport on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — all, she believes, because of her Middle Eastern appearance.
Shoshana Hebshi, 35, told The Associated Press she was one of three people removed from a Denver-to-Detroit Frontier Airlines flight after landing Sunday afternoon. Authorities say fighter jets escorted the plane after its crew reported that two people were spending a long time in a bathroom — the two men sitting next to Hebshi in the 12th row.
Passenger: Was Cuffed, Searched Over ‘Appearance’ at NPR.
The terrorists have won.
The study found that in 33 of 35 occupations, the government actually paid billions of dollars more to hire contractors than it would have cost government employees to perform comparable services. On average, the study found that contractors charged the federal government more than twice the amount it pays federal workers.
Use of Private Contractors Doesn’t Save Government Money by Ron Nixon for the NY Times.
Is anyone really surprised government workers cost almost half the price of a comparable contractor doing the same type of work?
The only reason the GOP believes government workers are overpaid - and I can tell you first-hand they are not overpaid - is because the GOP is digging deep into the back pockets of these contracting firms (ie. General Dynamics, CSC, SAIC, etc). Most Republicans have a vested interest in ensuring these companies can win high priced government contracts - the very contracts used to pay twice as much for comparable government personnel.
Does it make you feel comfortable to know your taxes are going to good use?
The Transportation Ministry said Saturday that the controller, who works at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, could face charges of leaking national secrets. Japanese officials appeared embarrassed by the breach, which also included the flight data of an American military reconnaissance drone.
Tokyo is apparently worried that the episode could raise new doubts in Washington about Japan’s ability to handle delicate information, after a scandal four years ago over the leak of American naval radar secrets. The newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may personally apologize to President Obama for the breach during a meeting this month in New York.
Japan Investigates Online Posting of Obama Flight Plans by Martin Fackler of the NY Times.
The plans were originally posted online in November 2010. The only reason the government knows about the posting is because of an anonymous tip. It sure makes you wonder what the poster did - did he piss someone off? did he wrinkle the wrong shirt? - to cause someone to alert officials about his illegal post ten months after the fact.
Listening to GOP Presidential candidates talk about science is like listening to children talk about sex: They know it exists, they have strong opinions about what it might mean, but they don’t have a clue what it’s actually about.
