Abby Martin Calls Out Rachel Maddow For Painting 9/11 Truthers As Potential Terrorist

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Election officials catch dead man donating $100,000 to Sen. Mitch McConnell

Officials with a Kentucky super PAC supporting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blame a computer error for a $100,000 contribution that appeared more than a month after the donor died. Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party filed a federal lawsuit to lift limits on posthumous donations.

“This is pure free speech,” an attorney for the Libertarian party, Alan Gura told USA Today. “A dead person can’t corrupt someone.”

The lawsuit, currently pending before a federal appellate court, seeks to count a $217,000 donation by a deceased Tennessee man, Raymond Groves Burrington, as a lump sum donation for the party’s national committee instead of dispersing it in annual installments. Records show a trust in Burrington’s name has already given the party $153,200.

Federal regulations currently limit posthumous political donations to no more than $5,200 a year for a federal candidate during an election cycle and $32,400 for parties.

USA Today reported that 32 people listed as dead on federal campaign records are credited with more than $586,000 in contributions since Jan. 1, 2009, with just under 20 percent of that coming from the donation to McConnell’s group, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, from Texas home developer Bob Perry, a longtime Republican supporter.

The donation was initially filed with the Federal Election Commission with a June 3 date, only Perry actually died on April 13. The group’s treasurer, Caleb Crosby, told the Louisville Courier-Journal on July 31 that the check for Perry’s contribution was actually received on April 12, and was subsequently corrected with federal officials.

But the donation was quickly questioned by an advisor for Alison Lundergan Grimes, McConnell’s Democratic challenger in his re-election bid.

“This raises a lot of questions that Kentucky voters deserve answers to,” Jonathan Hurst told theCourier-Journal. “The report appears to be as dishonest as their television ads.”

[Source]

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BAN KILLER ROBOTS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

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Matt Damon drops support for Obama over NSA and drone strikes

The non-partisan liberty movement often finds itself frustrated with Hollywood celebrities who railed against injustices under former President George W Bush, but who remain silent when similar abuses are carried out by a Democratic administration. The red team versus blue team mentality in America tends to make it difficult for issue-oriented activists to move the ball on efforts to restore civil liberties and a sensible foreign policy to the nation. This is exacerbated when pop culture icons unflinchingly back Democrats no matter how offensive their policies become.

Politically progressive movie star Matt Damon was once an ardent supporter of President Obama. However, whether or not one might agree with his stances on all the issues, he can no longer be counted among the hypocrites who apply double standards based on party affiliation. Matt Damon recently told BET that the President “broke up” with him over issues like drone strikes and the National Security Agency’s spying scandal. Let’s dish on Damon’s concerns, TMZ-style.

Obama Has “Some Explaining to Do”

Politico transcribed this quote by Matt Damon, which effectively summarizes his issues with the current President, “There are a lot of things that I really question – the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don’t live in a democracy. That’s a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he’s got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.”

Matt Damon’s support for President Obama had been waning over the past couple of years, as some of Damon’s comments to the media questioned the sensibility of the administration’s policies, but this marks a dramatic shift for the politically-engaged Hollywood superstar. In an interview with The Guardian, Damon suggested why Obama might have flip-flopped on his stances on privacy and foreign policy, “I think it’s tough for guys who weren't in the military. One: Their manhood is kind of challenged on some level, I imagine, and they allow themselves to get bullied. And Two: They’re just politically afraid of either looking soft or looking incompetent, so they overcompensate.”

Damon on Obama’s “Weird, Orwellian Turn”

Talking about the nation’s descent into tyranny, Damon told The Guardian in the above-linked interview, “It just seems to have taken this weird, Orwellian turn. It’s surreal. I don’t know where we are now.” In the BET interview, he characterized his relationship with the President as “he broke up with me.”

As a progressive, Matt Damon has complicated beliefs that themselves challenge fundamental rights to property, health care freedom, self-defense, and free speech for business owners, but, say what you will about his views, he is principled when it comes to civil liberties and foreign policy in a way that many other left-leaning celebrity politicos aren't. President Obama has ramped up all the policies that offended progressives under Bush, and Matt Damon deserves credit for having the courage to admit that when others will not.

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This recycling bin is following you

Recycling bins in the City of London are monitoring the phones of passers-by, so advertisers can target messages at people whom the bins recognize.

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Renew, the startup behind the scheme, installed 100 recycling bins with digital screens around London before the 2012 Olympics. Advertisers can buy space on the internet-connected bins, and the city gets 5% of the airtime to display public information. More recently, though, Renew outfitted a dozen of the bins with gadgets that track smartphones.

The idea is to bring internet tracking cookies to the real world. The bins record a unique identification number, known as a MAC address, for any nearby phones and other devices that have Wi-Fi turned on. That allows Renew to identify if the person walking by is the same one from yesterday, even her specific route down the street and how fast she is walking.

Here, an image from Renew’s marketing materials makes it plain:

The technology, developed by London-based Presence Aware, is supposed to help advertisers hone their marketing campaigns. Say a coffee chain wanted to win customers from a rival. If it had the same tracking devices in its stores, it could tell whether you’re already loyal to the brand and tailor its ads on the recycling bins accordingly. ”Why not Pret?” the screen might say to you. Over time, the bins could also tell whether you’ve altered your habits.

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This kind of personalized advertising was famously envisioned in the movie Minority Report—except, in this real-life example, brands are scanning iPhones instead of irises. Retailers like Nordstrom have tested similar technology in their stores, the revelation of which sparked a minor outcry. Kaveh Memari, CEO of Renew, doesn’t think what his company is doing violates anyone’s privacy.

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“From our point of view, it’s open to everybody, everyone can buy that data,” Memari told Quartz. ”London is the most heavily surveillanced city in the world…As long as we don’t add a name and home address, it’s legal.”

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In the European Union, websites are legally required to inform users if a tracking cookie is placed on their computer. Tracking smartphones and other Wi-Fi devices isn’t nearly as regulated, in part because the technology is so new.

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Renew would like to expand the technology to all of its recycling bins in London as well as those in New York City, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur. In its test this summer, Renew installed the tracking devices in 12 of its London bins, most of them along a stretch of Cheapside, a busy street lined with retail stores:

The company still needs to sell retailers on the concept. Memari said he was working on a proposal for a bar that would install five tracking devices: one by the entrance, one on the roof, one near the cash register, and one in each of the bathrooms. That would allow the bar to know each person’s gender (from the bathroom trackers), how long they stay (“dwell time” is the official metric), and what they were there for (a drink outside or a meal inside). And targeted advertising for the pub could follow those people around London on Renew’s omniscient recycling bins.

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In the first month after installing the trackers, Renew says it picked up over a million unique devices. On July 6, a record day, its bins identified 106,629 people, taking note of their presence 946,016 times, according to the company.  This chart, provided by Renew, shows one recycling bin’s readings over the course of a week, with spikes during commutes and lunch:

Memari notes that MAC addresses, while unique, don’t reveal the owner’s name or other identifying information. He says companies like Facebook and Google collect more information about people. Of course, those sites have terms and conditions of use, even if few people read them. In theory, MAC addresses could be paired with other consumer data collection, like a supermarket loyalty card, which could reveal the person’s name. Memari says that would go too far.

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It’s possible to avoid one’s phone being tracked by turning off Wi-Fi on the device or filling out an online form. Memari says 80% of people in London leave Wi-Fi on when leaving their home or office.

RR

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“The chances are, if we don’t see you on the first, second, or third day, we’ll eventually capture you,” he said. “We just need you to have it on once.”

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Google Glass: 4 Ways It Will Change the SEO Game

It stands to reason that technology will never stop evolving, always seeking innovations that make our lives more convenient. When personal computers were first launched, people thought that these were just limited to processing words and computing numbers. Soon after the internet was made available to public, and the rest is history. Those who are familiar with the use of different search engines on the web to find more information about specific topics, news, press releases, products, services, people and places, would also know that the concept of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is not far behind.

Through this, Internet users would be able to find the items that they wish to purchase, get the data that they need for a research and even promote, advertise or sell new products and services, easier and faster.

The ever changing methods of searching for something online has given birth to the latest project that Google has been working on. Presenting Google Glass.  This is a head-mounted computer that doubles as eyewear and serves as your actual source of information that comes from the World Wide Web. Through this smart eyewear, people can connect to the internet via Wi-Fi and talk your way to discovery. The glasses feature LED screens, similar to those you find installed in your smartphones.

A Complete SEO Game Changer

Using this new gadget could make searching easier and will completely change the face of Search Engine Optimization – users will discover a new side of SEO they never imagined. Not only will this improve your search engine experience, it will also transform the concept into something bigger and better:

• Localize Your Search – have you ever searched for products and services and the results are either too far from what you are looking for, or are literally located on another side of the world? Google Glass sets out to address this issue by making your searches more localized. The idea is to better find establishments, business offices, and sellers near your current location if need be.
  Not only that, you will also get exact directions for better travel. Say that you are in a new place and you seem lost, using your computer eyewear, you will be given actual and real-time instructions on where you should go to get to the place you intend to visit.
  
  • Lead to Better Approaches to SEO Queries – the thing about using the traditional search function on a computer is that people have a tendency to key in fragmented phrases that either produces general and sometimes irrelevant search results. What these smart eyeglasses aim to do is to provide a more efficient way to conduct your searches. Searches won’t be limited to several keywords at a time, because the gadget will respond to queries in complete and well constructed sentences – just like when you ask someone for directions. This will now encourage SEO experts to produce better leads and search results.
  
  
  • More Social Media Presence – users wearing smart eyewear can definitely increase their social media presence, since they can upload photos and videos, and manage their social media accounts with a few verbal commands. Imagine seeing a wonderful scene that you would like to share to the rest of your friends, you can instantly capture moments without having to pull out your digital camera, tablets or smartphones. This makes staying on top of what is happening in the world of online marketing and social media marketing a far easier task, providing even more fodder for optimizing searches based on consumer behavior.
  
  
  • New SEO initiatives and potentials for businesses – with the release of smart eyeglasses like those from Google, businesses can take advantage of the increase in the number of internet users. They can increase the number of links that lead to their social media sites, business home pages, blogs and online stores.
  
  
  The SEO industry will never be the same once the Google Glass reaches its peak in terms of popularity and usage. The task that search engine optimization experts have is to make sure that it finds the best ways to take advantage of the different benefits that computer eyewear can provide.

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SNOWDEN WIKIPEDIA PAGE EDITED FROM A SENATE COMPUTER TO SAY ‘TRAITOR’

Someone in the Senate isn't a fan of Edward Snowden, and they’re using Wikipedia to get their point across.

The Wikipedia page for the man responsible for leaking classified National Security Agency files to the media has been updated hundreds of times since he started sharing sensitive documents in early June, but one of those revisions — and a questionable one at that — comes courtesy of someone in the United States Senate.

On Friday, someone logged into Wikipedia and changed a line in Snowden’s biography from “American dissident” to “American traitor.” Joe Klock at The Daily Dot website was the first one to report on the edit, and quickly noticed that the revision was made from a computer connected to the Internet from within the walls of a US Senate building.

The word change only stayed on the Snowden page for around one minute, but it still managed to create quite a stir.

On a discussion page for the entry, one Wikipedia editor confirmed that the change was made by someone with access to a Senate computer.

“The edit was made by this IP and the IP does belong to the US Senate. The edit was reverted within 1 minute due to the fact that it does not reflect a neutral point of view which is one of the Five Pillars that governs how Wikipedia operates. In that way, Wikipedia not only performed as it should but it did so incredibly quickly,” the post reads.

Nailing the perpetrator responsible for that single edit will likely be task all too impossible, though. While the IP address behind the change is indeed registered to the Senate, it isn’t restricted to one particular user.

“If the agency or facility uses proxy servers, this IP address may represent many users at many personal computers or devices,” the discussion page acknowledges.

Screenshot from wikipedia.org

Should someone want to do some serious digging, though, determining who made the change might not be all too impossible. As Klock pointed out, though, that same Senate IP address has logged onto Wikipedia a handful of times during the last few weeks to make other revisions, including edits on the page of the novel Five People You Meet in Heaven and another for a tiki bar located inside a San Francisco hotel.

Of course, Snowden does already have his fair share of critics on Capitol Hill. Last month, the bi-partisan Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously for the Department of State to consider sanctioning any country willing to assist Snowden as he battles extradition attempts from the US government. That bill’s author, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), told the committee, “I don’t know if he’s going to stay in Russia forever. I don’t know where he’s going to go . . . But I know this: That the right thing to do is to send him back home so he can face charges for the crimes he’s allegedly committed.”

Previously, Sen. Graham said the US should boycott next year’s Sochi Olympics if Snowden remains in Russia. Last week, he was granted one years of asylum there. Upon news that his request was approved, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) called Russia’s response “a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States.”

“It is a slap in the face of all Americans. Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia,” said Sen. McCain.

“Regardless of the fact that Russia is granting asylum for one year, the action is a setback to U.S.-Russia relations,” added Sen. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey).

That isn't to say, though, that Snowden is equally hated among American lawmakers. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said “Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy,” and Gordon Humphrey, a former Republican senator for New Hampshire, wrote Snowden to thank him “for exposing astonishing violations of the US Constitution.”

Meanwhile, the executive branch isn't sure how to handle the issue yet either. The White House is expected to announce this week if President Barack Obama will proceed with plans to meet with Russia’s Pres. Putin at a previously scheduled summit in Moscow.

[Source]

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