Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 10:00:36 am
The stupidity here is of monumental proportions. In a column for Slate earlier this week, Aisha Harris wrote that she had always been confused as a child because the Santa in her home had brown skin like her, but the Santa in malls and on television was always white. So Harris ...

Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:34:45 pm
Boy, I sure am glad this whole racism thing is over now. Houston Police have refused to explain why they took a 13-year-old white girl from her two black guardians over the weekend and placed her in the custody of Child Protective Services. Landry Thompson's mother had signed notarized papers giving ...

Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:06:43 pm
Political map of Africa (2012) courtesy of UT Perry-Castañeda LibraryYes, Angola again. I know you might be tired of hearing about it by now, but I despise yellow journalism, so I tend to be like a dog with a bone when ridiculous fake stories make the rounds on the internet. ...

Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 6:11:58 pm
I'll forego the temptation to say "what took you so long:" Google's Eric Schmidt Announces New Blocks on Child Porn. Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has outlined how his company is introducing new measures to block child pornography from appearing in its searches. Schmidt explained the changes to Google's search ...

Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 9:04:48 pm
Instagram, which does not have a specific policy that bans users from selling firearms, has become another vehicle for online gun sales according to a Daily Beast report. While 91 percent of Americans support a law requiring anyone who purchases a gun to pass a background check, weak state ...

Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 11:23:56 am
Here we go again, folks. The Republican Party's plot to hold the nation hostage in order to kill the Affordable Care Act is not working out very well for them, but are they going to climb down off the ledge now and get back to work? No, silly! Of course not. ...

Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 8:13:32 am
Yesterday marked the beginning of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health exchange rollout. While some refer to this as Obamacare with derision (and there are polls that indicate that people have a much more favorable view of the term ACA than Obamacare even though they refer to the same program/law), ...

Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:20:18 am
The latest CNN poll on the government shutdown shows that the American public isn't falling for the Republican Party's attempt to reverse victim and offender: CNN Poll: Republicans Would Bear the Brunt of Shutdown Blame. Washington (CNN) -- If the federal government shuts down starting Tuesday because of a bitter ...

Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 11:26:36 am
But disappear is exactly what she did next. Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, a well-known provocateur, hacker, and anti-Semite, circulated her home address and Social Security number online. He also made false statements about her being a battered wife and a former prostitute. Not only did Sierra find herself a target ...

Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 10:03:02 am
I don't even know what to say about this insanely overblown hysteria any more: NSA Analysts Intentionally Abused Spying Powers Multiple Times. MULTIPLE TIMES! (Run around screaming.) MULTIPLE TIMES! THIS IS BAD, PEOPLE! Oh wait. You mean, "multiple times" is actually ... ten times, in ten years? And they were reported, corrected, ...

Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 12:23:40 pm
Here's a good piece on the NSA internal audit published by the Washington Post and what it really shows us, by Benjamin Wittes: NSA Spying Defense: The Case the Administration Isn't Making. Wittes actually makes many of the same points about the document that I have previously: NSA Uncovered and Corrected More ...

Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 2:12:38 pm
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has released the following Statement on NSA Compliance, in response to the Washington Post's leaked internal NSA audit. "By law, the Intelligence Committee receives roughly a dozen reports every year on FISA activities, which include information about compliance issues. Some of ...

Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 9:48:29 pm
YouTube You can buy this song at http://bit.ly/wmJwqv You can stream this song at http://www.gregholdenonline.com Thank you to the amazing response to this song in The Netherlands, and now also the USA. This song was inspired by the book "What is the What?" by American writer Dave Eggers. It is about a ...

Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 11:40:06 am
VOR also spoke with Bryan Fischer, head of the American Family Association, who has a different view on the situation. "Russia is not being homophobic, it's homorealistic - the Russian government is trying to take the issue into consideration and establish public policy to contribute to public health, as this ...

Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 11:18:57 am
An excellent piece from Joshua Foust on Glenn Greenwald's numerous misrepresentations of the NSA's XKeyscore tools: Getting XKeyscore Right. Foust zeroes in on a Greenwald rhetorical trick I've also pointed out several times: he conflates the ability to do something with actually doing it. This is such a common theme in ...

Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 2:46:38 pm
Some interesting comments today from NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander, speaking at the annual Black Hat cyber security conference in Las Vegas: "What you're hearing is, 'Well they could...,'" NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said, referring to claims, most notably by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, that the agency could ...

Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:00:51 pm
A couple of weeks ago when Glenn Greenwald posted an attack on Microsoft, I pointed out: I've learned that when a new Greenwald bombshell comes out, you can cut right to the chase by searching the document for the word "warrant." And sure enough, in today's new "bombshell" story by ...

Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 11:01:06 am
On ABC's This Week... Video Today on "This Week," Glenn Greenwald - the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs - claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans. "The NSA has trillions of telephone calls ...

Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 1:34:30 pm
Well, I see the entire right wing blogosphere is still having a crazed orgy of overt racism today. The Zimmerman acquittal and Obama's subsequent statement have given them a huge hit of hate juice, and it's a little amazing how many wingnuts are out there ranting about "race war." It's ...

Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 11:01:53 am
Now I have another reason not to watch The View -- they've hired one of the most notorious fear-mongering anti-science spokespeople of the insane anti-vaccination movement: Jenny McCarthy Joins 'The View'. "We are delighted that Jenny will be joining us as a permanent co-host," Walters says, adding McCarthy "brings us ...

Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 3:43:00 pm
On the far fringes of the Wingnutosphere is a growing meme about mobs of black youth randomly attacking white people, and the "media blackout" surrounding it. It's been going around for awhile now, but it's gaining momentum as the George Zimmerman trial has gone to the jury, and mainstream ...

Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 2:09:32 pm
LGF Pages: Your Personal Blog LGF Pages is a fast, powerful blogging system that lets you create posts with embedded images, videos, and tweets, schedule posts, automatically tweet when you post something, and many other features. Getting Started The Basics Some Sophistication Additional Enhancements Things That Happen When You Publish a Page Getting StartedBack to top Pages are ...

Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 6:25:30 pm
According to documents released today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, moved nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund in 2007 specifically to shield it from lawsuits by victims of clergy sexual abuse. The New York Times has the scoop: [T]he files released Monday contain a letter ...

Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 12:17:07 pm
Here we go again. Glenn Greenwald's latest overheated, over-long, deliberately confusing piece claims to reveal: The Top Secret Rules That Allow NSA to Use US Data Without a Warrant. Notice the extravagant use of scare quotes. Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show ...

Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 12:02:23 pm
You know how Republican Party leaders constantly deny that there's a significant number of racists among them? Well, uh ... what about when the racists are the Republican Party leaders? Erika Harold, GOP Candidate, Targeted in Racially Charged Attack by Jim Allen, Illinois GOP Official. An Illinois Republican Party chairman apologized ...