Seat-hogs, stair-blockers, butt-touchers, open-mouth coughers, loud music listening people beware. You have been called out. Finally. These people are bad at riding the subway, and its even worse when you are crammed next to them during rush hour. They must be put in line. Enter artist Jason Shelowitz. He surveyed New Yorkers about their subway peeves and wrote rules around them. Now he’s launching a guerrilla etiquette campaign and Im sure its bound to get the attention of a lot of subway riders. Lets just hope the ones who are being called out actually pay attention and straighten up their act. Check out the rest of the posters that are making their way around the NYC subway stations here.

Yahoo has been battling the Dept of Justice in federal court in Colorado over their right to have access to user email.  Yahoo has refused to give access to targeted user email saying that prosecutors are required to have warrants and email users are protected under the 4th Amendment.  Google, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center For Democracy and Technology  have come to the aid of Yahoo in this fight under the notion that society relys on the privacy of email the same as it does personal docs or telephone conversations.  In 1986 a law was passed which the gave the gov’t the ability to access email without probable cause that was unopened for 180 days or more.  Now the gov’t is looking for email that is read and under 180 days old without probable cause.  This is a huge debate for the internet generation and I’m sure we will hear more in the months to come.

The Back Story:

On December 3, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Yahoo to hand to prosecutors certain records including the contents of e-mail messages. Yahoo divulged some of the data but refused to turn over e-mail that had been previously viewed, accessed, or downloaded and was less than 181 days old

Political blogger Ethan Persof compiled this graphic showing an extensive collection of merchandise with anti-Obama sentiment from the last two years. Judging by these examples, conservatives sure do hate communism. I really don’t have an educated opinion on the matter because like I said a million times I don’t get involved with politics, but I do enjoy these over the top images of Obama seen below.
(more…)

“It’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle.” It’s the line an Apache chopper pilot uses after they’ve just killed 12 civilians including 2 Reuters journalists in Iraq.

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on collateralmurder.com
(Click the more button below to continue reading and to watch the video, WARNING: graphic content.)
(more…)

1. The Photograph That Ended a War But Ruined a Life
“Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief” Eddie Adams, 1968

“Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world,” AP photojournalist Eddie Adams once wrote. A fitting quote for Adams, because his 1968 photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head at point-blank range not only earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also went a long way toward souring Americans’ attitudes about the Vietnam War.

2. The Photograph That Raised the Photojournalistic Stakes:
“Omaha Beach, Normandy, France” Robert Capa, 1944

“If your pictures aren’t good enough,” war photographer Robert Capa used to say, “you aren’t close enough.” Words to die by, yes, but the man knew of what he spoke. Caught under heavy fire, Capa dove for what little cover he could find, then shot all the film in his camera, and got out – just barely. He escaped with his life, but not much else. Of the four rolls of film Capa took of the horrific D-Day battle, all but 11 exposures were ruined by an overeager lab assistant, who melted the film in his rush to develop it. (He was trying to meet the deadline for the next issue of Life magazine.)
(more…)

These posters urging people to vote are really interesting. They play off of the idea that people usually dont take the time to educate themselves or vote on issues, because they think that everything is just fine. If you paid a little bit of attention, you would realize that things in this world are far from fine, and need to be changed. If everyone was more aware of the things happening in the world, and took some time to help make a change, then that change would happen. If you are interested in making a change, check out Things Are Fine.

(more…)

For some reason the idea of hacking and computer crimes doesn’t seem real, it’s like they are committed in a fantasy world with no real consequences.  Like killing people in a video game or something.   Well that’s not the case.  If you remember a while back retailer TJ Maxx’s parent company TJX Cos made national headlines when multiple banks accused them of false credit and debit card charges.  It was in fact a scheme orchestrated by this hacker below Albert Gonzalez in which he stole more the 90 Million credit and debit card numbers. Coined the TJX Hacker it’s reported as the largest computer crime ever prosecuted, he was sentenced to 20 years and ordered to pay 25K.  According to prosecutors the 28 year old buried 1.1million of his earnings in his parents back yard in Miami.   Gonzalez, called his enterprise “Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” had argued in court that his only motive was technical curiosity and an obsession with conquering computer networks. But chat logs the government obtained showed Gonzalez confiding in one of his accomplices that his goal was to earn $15 million from his schemes, buy a yacht and then retire.  Hacking the planet ain’t so easy anymore I guess now that the man hacks it back.

Now unless you have been living under a rock the past two days I’m sure you’ve seen Vice President’s introduction of President Obama. If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about reference the video below, where Joe drops the F bomb like a champ. Now what we have here is a full blown meme, a concept that spreads quickly via the Internet. People said the Health Care Bill couldn’t be neatly summarized? Teddy Roosevelt had the Square Deal, FDR had the New Deal, and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal. Now we, the next generation, have “A Big Fucking Deal”, thanks Joe. I’m going to start calling Obama’s economic policies/health care bill BFD. I hope it catches on!

(more…)

I used to consider myself more a moderate republican for the most part, because I am not a believer in big government, based solely on the notion that larger gov’t equals more taxes and more gov’t programs that don’t produce revenue just spend money.   Lately, however I have found myself listening to the Democratic argument more because the Republicans have been exposing themselves as large rhetoric screamers more than anything else without real solutions.  Think I will be moving to Independent soon.

Case in point the healthcare summit Obama held two weeks ago, which by the way I thought was a genius play and totally exposed the Republicans even if he was trying to or not.   Healthcare is a huge issue that the majority can agree needs to get resolved which is what Obama has been pushing for, but the back and forth finger pointing and inability of lawmakers to get anything done has pissed off the public who have now seemed to stop caring because they are tired of it.  The round table style summit which was nationally televised put Democrats and Republicans in a room to iron out their specific differences in the current bill and put together a bill that met the needs of both parties.  If you watched it, it was clear that Democrats showed up with some concrete suggestions and comprises and Republicans showed up to make campaign speeches and spit rhetoric.  Obama serves McCain here.

My 2nd point to this is the recent exposure of a Republican National Committee strategy document which surfaced after a RNC member left the 72 page document in their hotel room where the meeting was held in Boca Grande, FLA.  The point of this meeting is tell republicans what strategies to use to help raise funds for their campaigns this fall. One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.  The document uncovered by politico.com outlines using Obama and fear towards socialism to raise funds and tap the ego-driven wealthy with promises of access to the party.  Given Democrats used Bush to throttle to them power 2 years ago, it’s obvious Americans are fed up with politics like this.  Politics are not about facts, rather who has the best marketing machine, won by who ever has the most money behind them getting the american public to believe whatever they want.

We should really start a movement where elections are more focused around qualifications and the records of candidates with an equal $ amount provided by the gov’t that each can spend on their campaign.  The primaries would be open game, but after that you would have to play by the rules.  People are tired of it all and confidence in gov’t is nearly all lost, so something will need to happen sooner or later.