As noted below, it's near-useless to bandy about simple amounts of proposed defense cuts without putting them in perspective — unless you're trying to frighten people with the "billions and billions" on the chopping block.
In other words, $487 billion sounds like a lot (which it is), until you realize it's (a) over a decade, and (b) out of an overall estimated spend during that decade of $8 trillion. Or about 6%. Which is hardly crippling. #ddtb
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Military Budget Cuts: Denominator Please | Beat the Press
Since the Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that this is illegal / unconstitutional activity, one does have to wonder why state legislatures keep trying this:
- Hoping that nobody will notice?
- Hoping that SCOTUS will change its mind?
- Because they hate scientists and want to make them cry?
- As a defiant declaration of their mighty spiritual beliefs?
- As a way to garner political support?
I wish they'd stop it, regardless. #ddtb
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Indiana Creationism Teaching Bill Moves Forward In State Senate
Indiana legislators are moving forward on a bill that would allow creationism to be taught alongside other theories in the state's public school system. The Senate Education Committee voted 8-2 Wednes…
How dare they allow anything other than male / female relationships in a computer game? The nerve of 'em! I mean, no problem with inter-species romance (those Twilek chicks are hawt!) but they better have the appropriate matching sets of male-analog parts and female-analog parts! #ddtb
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FRC: 'Rebel Fleet Surrenders to Gay Empire' | Right Wing Watch
In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, S…
Newt keeps trolling for the evangelical vote, this time by labeling same-sex marriage as "perfectly natural pagan behaviors" but "a fundamental violation of our civilization". Indeed, Newt notes, we are seeing a "rise in paganism."
Of course, our civilization rose out of the pagan civilizations of Rome and Greece (wouldn't you agree, Mr. History Professor Gingrich?). And even if one wants to posit the case of Biblical influence — "Marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament," Newt assures us — should we then also be discussing legal concubinage and polygamy and all the marriage-related bits of the Old Testament? (Pretty much all Jesus has to say about marriage in the New Testament is that divorce and adultery are a big no-no … but Newt probably doesn't want to discuss that, either.) #ddtb
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Gingrich: Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘Pagan’ Behavior
Thrice-married Newt Gingrich, who has previously described same-sex marriage as “a temporary aberration that will dissipate,” told a right-wing radio show this afternoon that gay and lesbian unions ar…
Bottom line: the GOP don't like Newt. Newt screwed them over during his House leadership in the 90s, and he's "obnoxious and disliked" by those who've worked with him. It's not surprising (though it's entertaining) that his resurgence in the primaries has pulled his former critics out to derail him in favor of the much more electable Romney. #ddtb
Reshared post from +Bob Shrader
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Conservatives turn on Newt Gingrich, compare him to Bill Clinton – CSMonitor.com
A growing number of critics on the right are casting aspersions on the conservative credentials of Newt Gingrich, saying that he, like Bill Clinton, is a '1960s-generation self-promoter.' Gingrich dis…
Mapping the actual frequency/volume of roadway usage via geotagged Tweets. A cool idea, and a great way to figure out which routes really are popular, and where one might consider expanding mass transit routes. #ddtb
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Infographic Of The Day: Could Twitter Help Us Create Smarter Transit Routes?
Traditional city maps visualize just one aspect of urban design–the city's intended structure, full stop.
And a tip of the hat to Sen. Collins. It may very well be that the amount of ionizing radiation present in the backscatter scanners is too low to actually do anything, but it would be nice to hear it from someone other than the TSA itself.
Also worth examining is how well the machines are being kept calibrated and maintained. It's great if they're harmless when new and used properly; what are the risks (and frequencies) when the equipment ages and wears and is not handled properly? #ddtb
Reshared post from +Bob Shrader
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Bill Would Require Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners – ProPublica
Sen. Susan Collins is planning to introduce a bill that would require the TSA to conduct a new, independent health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers for explosives at …
I mean, that's what it really boils down to. While the Arizona AG is pursuing BofA on fraud charges regarding mortgage modifications, BofA is busy doing mortgage modications with the folks who complained … as long as they promise to not say anything bad about them and delete all their blog entries, Facebook posts, and Tweets where they said bad things about BofA.
Sounds like buying silence to me. Not to mention potentially obstruction of justice. Also, kind of despicable.
Though, for the record, if US Bank chooses to pay off my home loan (which is not with them), I might be tempted to delete a particular post on my blog … #ddtb
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Bank Of America’s Offer To Homeowners: We’ll Modify Loans If You’ll Erase All The Mean Things Said About Us On Twitter
In late 2010, Arizona launched an investigation into Bank of America, alleging that the bank misled homeowners who were seeking mortgage modifications. Arizona’s attorney general claims that Bank of A…
"This Twitter's My Twitter, That Twitter's Your Twitter …"
Twitter enables by-country censorship content management of tweets out there. Your country sensitive about disrespect toward Deity X or insults of Political Figure Y or mentions of Government Crackdown Z? Now Twitter makes it possible for your country to censor said posts … but just for your country, not for the whole world.
Which on the one hand is a good thing for people in other countries. It's just a bad thing for making it easier to censor your little patch of the Internet. #ddtb
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TechCrunch | Twitter Changes The “Contours” Of Censorship With Country-By-Country Blocking
Twitter has announced in a blog post a glorious new ability: "the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world." At las…
Bob Dole issues a statement (through the Romney campaign) claiming that Newt's antics during his tenure as House Speaker torpedoed his own '96 presidential aspirations. An excerpt:
"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself."
#ddtb
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Livewire
| TPM
I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for count…
Gov. Brewer seems to have dominated the headlines regarding Obama's visit to Phoenix yesterday by telling the press elaborate tales of a confrontation between the two of them over her portrayal of him in a book she wrote (which book has, conveniently, seen a huge overnight surge in sales).
The only problem is, her story doesn't seem to be backed up by another Republican who was on the tarmac at the time. Oops. #ddtb
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Mayor Seems To Contradict Gov. Brewer’s Story On Obama Run-In | TPMMuckraker
President Obama didn’t exactly walk away from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer during their disagreement on Wednesday at an airport tarmac near Phoenix, said one of the only people to witness the exchange up c…
Tennessee has been going through stranger times than usual during the past year of so. And GOP State Senator Campfield is living proof, managing to squeeze into one interview such juicy tidbits as:
- It's "virtually impossible" to catch AIDS through heterosexual sex
- Homosexuals have a vastly shorter lifespan than heterosexuals
- AIDS originated with gay men having sex with infected monkeys
None of which is true, of course.
I'm not sure if it's more damning if he believes it (and thus is spouting off falsehoods which he hasn't bothered to research), or if he knows he's lying. #ddtb
Reshared post from +David Badash
If words were weapons he would be in jail. This man is not only a racist and a homophobe, he is spreading dangerous information.
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GOP Senator: “Virtually Impossible” For Heterosexuals To Contract AIDS
Tennessee Republican State Senator Stacey Campfield today said that it is “virtually impossible” to get AIDS through heterosexual sex.
We're going on a week-long cruise to Alaska in July, which sounds really fun, but is a non-trivial amount of money.
Then I saw the info on Super Bowl tickets:
"The cheapest seat sold so far on Ticket Exchange, the NFL's official resale site run by IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI) unit Ticketmaster, is $2,614 in Section 422 in the upper corner, while the highest price paid was $17,048 on the 40-yard line."
Suddenly, a 7-day Alaska cruise looks like an absolute bargain. #ddtb
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Super Bowl tickets starting at $2,800
New York-Boston matchup keeps demand for tickets high, though Indianapolis location could limit those looking to travel to Feb. 5 game.
Yes, I'm sure the good people of Mississippi would have been thrilled to vote on that in 1964
Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, indicates he'll veto any gay marriage bill that passes his desk, because he thinks it ought to be voted on in a popular referendum. Yeah, a regular "Profiles in Courage" candidate, right there.
As part of his argument, he says, that, yes, it would have been better to have put racial civil rights up for a vote in the South. "The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South."
Because, of course, the white racists in the South wouldn't have done everything in their power to influence that particular referendum. Dolt. #ddtb
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Christie: African-American Civil Rights Should Have Been Put Up To A Vote
Gov. Christie this week said that African-American civil rights should have been voted upon, in lieu of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in response to gay marriage.
It's a very positive trend, if you ask me, and a continued sign of the demographic countdown against those opposing equal rights for gays in our society (et al.). #ddtb
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UCLA National Poll: 7 Out Of 10 College Freshmen Support Gay Marriage
A new poll finds that 71.3% of college freshmen support same-sex marriage equality, and 60.7% of college freshmen believe abortion should be legal.
Being more than a bit sensitive to privacy issues and the like, I was a bit worried with some BREATHLESS AND HORRIFIED articles started popping up about how GOOGLE WAS DESTROYING OUR PRIVACY AND NOT GIVING US ANY CHANCE TO AVOID IT (with great choruses of DOOOOOOOM! in the background).
Reading a bit further over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that it's mostly terror and/or fear-mongering due to …
- Folks who are overly afraid of their privacy (not in a "I'm being stalked by my ex-husband" but in a "The Internet is out to kill me!" kind of way).
- Folks who don't like Google.
- Folks who stand to profit from folks not liking Google.
Bottom line:
- Google is going to be sharing data between its apps that you may be using, to allow synergies and more intelligent services.
- Google has had all this data all along (and, in fact, I thought they used it already).
- Google is still not giving any data away to 3rd Parties.
The only worrisome bit here is the synergy with ads — not because I'm concerned about targeted ads, but for reasons similar to that kid who got kicked out of his home because the ads served up by Facebook spilled the beans to his doltish parents that he was gay. But the ad synergy is already there in Gmail, and can be very easily opted out of / unpersonalized. And, honestly, most folks I know run AdBlocker so they don't see the ads anyway.
In short, there's nothing here that's worrying me, nor that should worry the vast majority of folks out there. Though I'm willing to hear arguments to the contrary. #ddtb
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How Will Google's New Privacy Policy Affect You?
If you were hanging around the internet yesterday afternoon, you probably noticed some hubbub around Google's new, unified Terms of Service Agreement.
