February 2012
17 posts
“There’s no good way out of it… If you put up your hand and say, ‘I’m going...”
– A former executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News International subsidiary, describing the predicament that Murdoch and his subordinates are in.
Rotten, through and through: Senior "journalists"... →
Rupert Murdoch is flying to London after five of the tabloid’s most senior staff were arrested in an ongoing inquiry into alleged bribery, which was triggered by revelations about invasion of privacy by News of the World employees last summer. The Guardian has more.
“The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant...”
– Excerpt from Justice Felix Frankfurter’s majority opinion in Minersville School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Gobitis.
“The French, I found, seem to have a whole different framework for raising kids....”
– Excerpt from Pamela Druckerman’s “Why French parents are superior”, published by the Wall Street Journal.
“I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost...”
– Actor Will Wheaton, slamming the MPAA for spreading misinformation in response to what its operatives say is misinformation.
Echoing MPAA, RIAA claims Internet strike was... →
Still reeling from last month’s successful online protests against the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “Protect IP Act”, the RIAA has taken to the pages of the New York Times to defend the bills and lash out at companies and nonprofits that participated in the protest. Ars Technica has a good takedown of their ludicrous op-ed.
Treasurer of fund for fallen Lakewood police... →
A police officer entrusted with serving as treasurer for the Lakewood police guild’s memorial fund has been charged in federal court with ten felony fraud counts relating to his theft of nearly $120,000 from the fund.
Department of State rethinking its grand plans for... →
The U.S. Department of State has finally reached the conclusion that trying to maintain embassy in Baghdad with a massive security and diplomatic presence is not a good idea.
“Where’s my cut? I helped build this thing, too. Facebook laid the foundation of...”
– The New York Times’ Nick Bilton suggests users should be able to cash in on Facebook’s initial public offering.
Rural Searchlight, Harry Reid, and the Nevada... →
Lindsey Meeks reports on the Republican caucus in rural Searchlight, Nevada for the University of Washington’s Election Eye 2012.
Stephen Colbert is winning the war against the... →
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explains how Stephen Colbert is making a mockery of pro-corporate Supreme Court majority that handed down the “Citizens” United decision back in 2010.
“Mr. Romney’s position seems to be that we need not worry about the poor thanks...”
– Paul Krugman, excoriating Mitt Romney for his doublespeak in regards to our social safety net.
Six things you need to know about the Komen... →
Whether Americans were suspicious of Komen to begin with or just fed up with the politicization of women’s health, this feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. A must-read primer by Sarah Seltzer.
VeriSign, maintainer of Internet's DNS, warns it... →
VeriSign, the company that manages a key internet database for routing traffic to websites and email addresses, exposed private information after being hacked on multiple occasions in 2010, the company quietly disclosed late last year.
“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there…...”
– Mitt Romney, speaking to CNN during an interview following his victory in the Florida Republican primary.
'Gasland' journalists arrested at hearing by order... →
Proving that they don’t give a #$%* about the First Amendment, House Republicans ordered that documentary filmmaker Josh Fox, nominated for an Academy Award for Gasland (also listed under NPI’s Recommended Films) be arrested simply because they didn’t want him at a public hearing.
“Consumers have the right to know and to say no to the presence of software on...”
– Ed Markey, explaining why he introduced the Mobile Device Privacy Act.
Kennedy family's Hyannis Port home to become... →
The Kennedy family’s oceanfront home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts is to be turned into a center for learning about public life, the BBC reports.
January 2012
23 posts
Muppets diss Fox Noise in response to accusations... →
The Muppets have responded to accusations leveled by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Business network that they are part of a Hollywood plot to undermine public support and confidence in the oil industry.
“A Legislature unable to raise and appropriate funds cannot meet its primary...”
– Excerpt from a legal challenge filed against a two-decade old Colorado ballot measure explicitly designed to choke the state’s common wealth. Tim Eyman sponsored a copycat measure in 2009 in Washington State, which voters resoundingly rejected.
Connecticut town mayor shoots his mouth off - on...
REPORTER (SPEAKING TO MAYOR OF EAST HAVEN): What are you doing for the Latino community today?
MAYOR JOSEPH MATURO, JR.: I might have tacos when I go home; I'm not quite sure yet.
Right wing turns on its own noise machine,... →
The Republican Noise Machine is, hilariously, at war with itself over its presidential candidates. Many right wing media outlets and pundits support Mitt Romney and don’t want to see Newt Gingrich win in Florida - so they are attacking him. Gingrich supporters are furious, and are turning the likes of Matt Drudge, who are running anti-Gingrich headlines and stories.
Poland protests ACTA, the evil cousin to SOPA and... →
Thousands of people are marching in the streets of Poland to protest the signing of ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), which is a treaty that shares some similarities with SOPA and PIPA. ACTA has already been signed by the United States, Canada, and several other nations.
Unusual disaster in Brazil: High-rise buildings... →
Two buildings - one nearly 20 storeys high - have collapsed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, filling streets with masonry and covering cars with debris, the BBC reports.
“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re...”
– A former Apple executive, admitting that Cupertino consumer electronics giant has done little to improve working conditions in the factories of its overseas suppliers because it benefits from the status quo.
“Apple brings in some $400,000 per employee but little of that goes to those...”
– Seattle Times columnist Jon Talton, decrying Apple for its use of slave labor to generate profits.
Navy SEALs rescue two aid workers in Somalia in... →
Hurray for the U.S. Navy! A U.S. special operations team of Navy SEALs conducted a rescue mission into Somalia Tuesday night to free two aid workers, including thirty-two year old Jessica Buchanan, who had been held hostage for three months by Somali criminals. ABC News has more.
Mitt Romney among the wealthiest Americans →
Tax returns released by Mitt Romney show that his family fortune makes him one of the wealthiest individuals in the United States. In 2010, Romney’s effective tax rate was 13.9 percent. He paid about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million.
First Disney World, now Las Vegas...
The White House has just announced that President Barack Obama will travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday following the State of the Union address. He won’t be there to gamble, though: The administration says he’ll be delivering remarks at UPS Las Vegas South on Thursday morning after spending the night in an undisclosed location. No other public events have been announced, but we suspect...
“We need to fight back and get stronger… You will see and hear much more...”
– New Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins, pledging to do a better job competing against Apple and Google.
How fast is your Firefox? →
Use Mozilla’s new speed tool to see if your Firefox is as fast as it should be. The latest version of Firefox is 30% faster than previous versions.
“If the MPAA is truly concerned about the jobs of truck drivers and others in the...”
– Excerpt from Public Knowledge’s statement advising Hollywood to stop threatening elected leaders. Media executives are upset following the failure of their pet legislation, SOPA and PIPA.
Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license... →
Ed Bott blasts Apple for drawing up a horribly one-sided license agreement for its new electronic book authoring initiative, which restricts what authors can do with their own creative works.
“The MPAA studios hate us. They hate us with region locks and unskippable screens...”
– Marco Arment, expressing his displeasure with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its members, and warning that the MPAA will continue its lobbying activities in the District of Columbia.
Lowering flags of convenience for fish poachers →
New international measures to end fish poaching on the high seas would
enforce laws where the poacher calls, not where their ships are registered.
In defense of Seattle (Snow edition) →
Andrew Smith explains why the notion that Seattleites are “snow wimps” is silly. At Sportspress NW, Art Thiel agrees.
“I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American...”
– Jack Valenti, Chris Dodd’s predecessor as head of the MPAA, demanding in 1982 that Congress do something to stop companies like Sony from selling VCRs. Home video later became a massively profitable new market for Hollywood.
The man who crushed the Keystone XL pipeline →
The Boston Globe profiles Bill McKibben, crediting him with derailing the $7 billion oil project, organizing the largest environmental protest in history, and becoming the new face of America’s environmental movement.
“This was a whole new different game all of a sudden… This thing was...”
– MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd, lamenting the global Internet strike’s effect on SOPA and PIPA. Only hours after arrogantly denouncing the protest’s organizers, Dodd is suggesting they agree to attend a summit with Hollywood representatives to find common ground.
Proof that we don't need SOPA or PIPA: U.S. shuts... →
Following an FBI investigation, Department of Justice has charged the operators of online file locker Megaupload with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyrigh infringement, and conspiring to commit money laundering. The site itself is now shut down. And all this was done under existing laws already on our books.
“As supervisor of a media empire that is best known at present for hacking into...”
– Rogan Kersh, associate dean at New York University’s Wagner School, suggesting that Rupert Murdoch’s recent tirade against Google and Twitter over SOPA and PIPA did his cause more harm than good.
Millions participate in Day of Action against PIPA... →
Americans opposed to the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “Protect IP Act” blacked out their blogs or websites, signed petitions, wrote letters, made phone calls, and urged members of Congress to oppose the bills Twitter and Facebook. The Los Angeles Times has a roundup of some of the metrics.
PIPA cosponsors caught violating copyrights →
Vice’s Jamie Lee Curtis Taete asks: Won’t someone change the law to protect us from these awful, awful people?
Confessions of a Hollywood professional: Why I... →
On Daily Kos, a freelance film editor (who works on the ABC show Castle) explains why the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “Protect IP Act” will hurt legitimate tech startups and online services while failing to stamp out copyright infringement.
July 2011
1 post
“This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else....”
– A former close aide to Rupert Murdoch, speaking to award-winning journalist Carl Bernstein about the News International hacking scandal.