October 28, 2017

Facebook to show who buys political ads

Source: BBC News

Political advertisers will have to verify their identity and location and their posts will carry a disclosure saying "paid for by".
....
"When it comes to advertising on Facebook, people should be able to tell who the advertiser is and see the ads they're running, especially for political ads," Rob Goldman, Facebook's vice president of ads, said in a blog post. By clicking on the "paid for by" disclosure, users would be able to see more details about the advertiser, he added.

Facebook said it was expanding the transparency measures to all ads, and that they would all have to be linked to a page. Users would also be able to view the ads any page was running, it added.

Tests for the new tools would start in Canada, with a goal of having them in place in the US ahead of the midterm elections, in November 2018.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41785158

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Facebook has known about this problem for over one year. They need not wait to roll this out. Maybe they are "reaching out" to their funders for approval. /cynicism

The article discusses Congressional investigations and Twitter's gestures toward "not ruining the world".

October 26, 2017

St. Andrew Episcopal Church in Mentor offers sanctuary to woman facing deportation and her two child

Mexicans have immigrated to Lake County in Ohio to work in our landscape nursery farms. Of late, heartless cops have begun calling ICE on anybody they could pick up on a traffic stop. There was one man who they intercepted on his way out of Lake West Hospital where he had been admitted after a crash.

It has become an issue for local law enforcement to deal with. The sheriff is in the middle of all this.
***
Laura, who is a mother of two, was recently pulled over by Painesville Police on a routine traffic stop and reported to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, said the Rev. Lisa O’Rear, who is the rector of St. Andrew Episcopal Church.

“Laura was then told that she would be deported shortly,” she said. “Laura was born in Mexico, but has lived in the U.S. for 15 years. One of her sons was born in the U.S. and the other has lived here since he was 2 years old. Laura has no criminal history and considers Lake County her home.”

After hearing that Laura could be separated from her sons, O’Rear said the church felt called to help one of their neighbors . They opened their doors to Laura and her sons on Oct. 21.

“We weren’t seeking to become a sanctuary church,” O’Rear said. “We just really felt called to help this family. We understand the risks and we are entering this on faith.”

http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20171024/st-andrew-episcopal-church-in-mentor-offers-sanctuary-to-woman-facing-deportation-and-her-two-children

August 31, 2017

In God We Trust (or Give Me that Prime Time Religion), the Marty Feldman classic

Back on DU2, we were chatting about this gem. The closest we came was a used VHS tape. Now it is out on Vimeo/Youtube. This movie really captures the evangelist bullshit culture of forty years ago. And Marty Feldman's slapstick and physical humor is not to be missed.

Are there any other Louise Lasser fans here?

I still get a laugh out of "Armageddon T. Thunderbird" played by Peter Boyle. Andy Kaufmann stole the show, though. Enjoy

https://vimeo.com/146669215

June 21, 2017

A Reminder: Internet Atheists Fucking Suck

Yes, I knew that would get your attention. It's the title of the article and not my words!

I had no idea this was going on. I found this article on the Facebook "Atheist Safehouse" after joining that group and reading a lot of nasty posts about Islam. The posts were not just criticizing the epistemology of another batty Abrahamic religion, but they were bigoted and racist attacks on every person born into Islam. Any poster who objected to the over the top language was verbally assaulted as being an apologist for terrorists.

The Facebook profiles of the nastiest members had articles posted by the "nationalist" sites of the "alt right". Profile pictures included variants on the Pepe frog mascot. They totally revealed themselves when one of them referred to me as a "cuck", which is a term only used by them.

Somebody actually posted this article in the Atheist Safehouse. Predictably, it led to denial and a postings of nasty memes and name calling. The moderators of that site are fools. The article is from the perspective of an Old World Muslim who became a skeptic and dealt with writing that denigrated him for his origins. Excerpt:
____|/____|/____|/____|/____

...Like the majority of young people who grew up in religious environments – particularly those from non-Christian backgrounds – my first interaction with atheism was also my first meaningful engagement with the internet. In these atheist forums I found a race and class-blind safe space, one in which I could express a private contempt for the theological doctrine I had been forced to study during my years in religious school. Indeed, in those atheist communities on the now defunct Totse.com, eBaum's World and, eventually, the darker corners of Myspace, I found a community in which I could reject the identity I was born into, and instead forge a new one on my own terms.

Yet, for a growing number of people who turn to the internet to talk about leaving religion, the online atheist / sceptic community has become more alienating than accepting. Atheism – like most online communities – has always had characters who enjoy being confrontational; Pat Condell – the former comedian, turned old man shouting at clouds – existed long before Reddit. However, recently, rather than remaining an outlier, content like Condell's – which disregards theological critique for snarky racial and orientalist tropes about Muslims – has become a staple of the online atheist community. And thanks to the rise of populism across the western world, connections between the internet's atheist community and far-right identitarians have never been more clear.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/a-reminder-internet-atheists-fucking-suck

____|/____|/____|/____|/____
big sigh

https://www.facebook.com/groups/470446856461411/

June 13, 2017

Goddamned Greenwald revealed Reality Winner to the feds, now she is in detention

How it all came to light

On May 30, three weeks after Winner allegedly printed the classified document, The Intercept (Glenn Greenwald's current mode) contacted the U.S. government, likely through the NSA, to discuss an upcoming story based on the intelligence document it had obtained. The Intercept even shared a copy of the document with government officials, who confirmed that it was indeed classified at the top secret level, "indicating that its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security," the affidavit said.

Two days later, the FBI was notified of the matter and initiated an investigation to determine the source of the leak.

Further analysis of the documents showed that they "appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secure space," according to the affidavit.

Winner was one of just six individuals who had printed the intelligence document, according to an internal audit of the agency that housed the report. The audit also revealed that Winner was the only individual of the group that had email contact with the news outlet.

FBI agent Justin Garrick said in the affidavit filed with the court that he interviewed Winner at her home on Saturday and that she "admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue" and sent it to a news outlet.

The news outlet was not identified in the charging documents, but a source with knowledge of the matter confirmed that the charges were connected to The Intercept’s Monday report titled: "Top-Secret NSA report details Russian hacking effort days before 2016 election."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/leaking-secret-nsa-report-russia-unfolded/story?id=47858751

April 11, 2017

Nuclear Power's Original Mistake: Trying to Domesticate the Bomb (Bloomberg View)

Op Ed:
... The Shippingport plant soon began generating electricity, and the government pronounced the reactor a success. And on one level, it certainly was: it sparked the construction of dozens of nuclear power plants in the U.S. and abroad, a good number of them designed and built by Westinghouse. Everything miraculous about the nuclear power industry began at Shippingport.

But so did everything that is overwhelming it now. Aside from the cost overruns, the electricity produced by Shippingport was quite costly. Though Duquesne Light bought electricity from the government at the rate of 8 mills per kilowatt-hour, the actual cost ranged between 55 and 60 mills.

In succeeding decades, nuclear power costs declined, but the industry remained heavily dependent on subsidies. And in recent years, the investment cost of developing new nuclear plants ballooned from $2,065 per kilowatt in 1998 to $5,828 in 2015, according to a World Nuclear Association report.

All of this bodes ill for the future of nuclear power. But the failure for nuclear to live up to its potential should hardly surprise us. It began as an idealistic attempt to domesticate the bomb in peacetime; the actual economic cost and benefits of doing was a secondary concern at best.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-08/nuclear-power-s-original-mistake-trying-to-domesticate-the-bomb

Subsidies: http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

March 29, 2017

CNN Sciutto: CENTCOM Commander says Russia is likely "providing some kind of support" to the Taliban

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/847105025973219330

It is a twitter tweet from 8:15 Wednesday morning

Jim Sciutto? Verified account
@jimsciutto
Just in: CENTCOM Commander says #Russia is likely "providing some kind of support" to the Taliban in Afghanistan

The following tweets don't dispute Jim Sciutto's report. The US Army is fighting the Taliban.

March 14, 2017

What is the word that means "bigot against another religion"?

How do I tag a RW dumbass who posts horrible things about Muslims? There is one polluting my favorite gardening forum. For Jew haters, we have "antisemite". That term has problems in it's origin, but it's meaning is clear enough to everybody.

So I need a term for "anti Muslim bigot" that can also be applied to people who hate on broader classes of religious identities. "Racist" is a good broad term for typical bigotry, so I need a parallel. These America-great-again types get their blood boiling with adrenaline hating on Muslims at this moment, but they are the sons and daughters of that American tradition of hating Jews, Catholics, Mormons, etc. One of their campaigns led to the assassination of a beautiful President. More on that later.

Ok, help me with the term. I thought I would post it here in the land of atheists because you would understand. Of late I call myself a skeptic, but I like to tell people that I am "an apostate Catholic". I have an upbringing that gives me license to apply my moral umbrage. Ooops, I am wandering. Good morning, good day, whereever you are.

February 11, 2017

Davis-Besse Ohio nuclear plant may be closed in cost-cutting move

The endangered FirstEnergy plants in Ohio sell their energy at market prices that have been pushed down by a glut of cheap energy from natural gas and other sources, and those low prices aren't high enough to continue to justify operating those power plants, Jones said. FirstEnergy and other power companies have asked Ohio to set energy prices at a level that would make the plants more profitable for the companies. But price controls seem unlikely, he said.
http://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2016/12/29/davis-besse-plant-may-closed-cost-cutting-move/95953290/

FirstEnergy continues to analyze how we can thoughtfully yet expeditiously move away from competitive markets over the next 12 to 18 months in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. We first announced this effort during our quarterly earnings call on November 4, 2016.

As part of the process, we are exploring a variety of strategic alternatives for plants owned by FirstEnergy subsidiaries operating in the competitive marketplace, including Davis-Besse. These alternatives include converting generation to a regulated or regulated-like construct, seeking solutions for nuclear units that recognize their environmental benefits {sic}, exploring the sale of additional generation assets, or moving forward with additional deactivations.

- Jennifer Young, First Energy

**
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio had given to First Energy a rate arrangement to keep this sad plant online by raising our rates as protection if "natural gas prices rose in the future". It is still non competitive.