The 217 Representatives Who Voted To Keep NSA Spying On All Your Data

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

from the what-4th-amendment? dept

We already talked about the Amash Amendment being voted down very narrowly (217 - 205). While it didn't pass, this was still a huge victory, because a few weeks ago (hell, even last week) people predicted that this amendment had no chance at all and might not even be debated. To come within seven votes of passing shows you why the NSA, the White House and the Senate's primary NSA enablers went absolutely ballistic in going all out against the amendment. Think about that: you had incredibly powerful interests working overtime against this amendment, and no special interests beyond basic common decency and grassroots support working for it... and the vote was still incredibly close.

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Republicans Sabotaging, Not Governing

Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future
Johnson writes: "Imagine a political party that would hurt the public, the economy and the country so they could say in the next election, 'Hey look at how the country is hurting, vote for us instead.' That could never happen here, could it?"
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News Anchor Unwittingly Draws Penis On Traffic Screen During Report (Watch)

News Anchor Unwittingly Draws Penis On Traffic Screen During Report (Watch)

 

News anchor Siobhan Riley of Saginaw’s ABC 12, was busy doing her job and reporting on traffic patterns in the area when she drew a penis-shaped traffic flow.

*Po' thang. :)

News reporters and anchors make their jobs seem easy as they read the teleprompter and deliver the news.

But sometimes, they have to give their attention to too many directions and …well…mistakes can happen…on the air.

According to the Daily Mail, Saginaw, Michigan’s ABC 12 News anchor Siobhan Riley, was innocently delivering the traffic report when she drew a few too many loops on the screen to exhibit the local traffic patterns.

The electronic pen got ahead of her and she didn’t realize until she was finished that she was looking at a penis-shaped traffic pattern on the screen.

(more…)

The 10 Coolest Things You Can 3-D Print Right Now

Cameras, guitars, RC aircraft and more!

By Joey Carmichael Posted 07.24.2013 at 10:00 am 7 Comments

Current 3-D Printing Instruments, flying things, figurines, and much more! 

 

View Photo Gallery

 

One survey of the 3-D printing landscape will quickly show you that it's brimming with novelty items and useless junk. But don't let that overwhelm you! We sorted through the clutter to create this list of 10 projects that are both awesome and practical.  READ MORE

Don't have a 3-D printer yet? Chicago's got you covered...

There's something about 3D printing

How Google accidentally uncovered a Chinese ring of car thieves

Looking for fraud on AdWords, the team found something more mysterious

By Russell Brandom on July 24, 2013 10:00 am Email 33Comments

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AdWords is the core of the business of Google, delivering billions of data-targeted ads to browsers every year. Most of the ads are legitimate, but not all of them, and it’s Google’s job to tell which is which. Last year, that meant kicking 224 million ads off the network. The majority were run-of-the-mill web fraud: counterfeit handbags, thinly veiled phishing schemes, the kind of thing any decent spam filter would take out. But in 2010, in the midst of reworking the ad-filtering model, something strange happened. The new model was flagging a lot of otherwise innocuous ads for used cars. Most of the bad products were counterfeit goods, and, as AdWords engineering director David Baker says, "We'd never heard of a counterfeit car." Had they trained AdWords into anti-car prejudice? Was the model simply broken?

The answer turned out to be even stranger. They were real cars, but they weren't really for sale. Scammers were taking pictures of cars on the street, and when a hapless customer showed up a few days later offering money, they'd steal the car and hand it over. By the time the mark realized he had purchased stolen goods, the sellers were long gone, taking his money with them. It's a lucrative scam, and in China, a well-known one — but to anyone looking at the ads, it just looks like one more crop of used-car ads.

For those who study fraud in China, on the other hand, this is far from surprising. "These people are very professional," says Dahui Li, an information systems expert at the University of Minnesota who specializes in Chinese online fraud. In the case of the car scam, he says the offline component is the most important part, as a way to assure skeptical customers that the sale is legit. "Chinese people want to see the product before they pay for it," Li says. "They have to see the car." So the criminal element developed a scheme that could show it to them.   READ MORE

  

 

Cost of Arctic Methane Release Could Be 'Size of Global Economy', Experts Warn

Iceberg. (Credit: © kathoo17 / Fotolia)

July 24, 2013 — Researchers have warned of an "economic time-bomb" in the Arctic, following a ground-breaking analysis of the likely cost of methane emissions in the region.

Economic modelling shows that the methane emissions caused by shrinking sea ice from just one area of the Arctic could come with a global price tag of 60 trillion dollars -- the size of the world economy in 2012.

Writing in a Comment piece in the journal, Nature, academics argue that a significant release of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have dire implications for the world's economy. The researchers, from Cambridge and Rotterdam, have for the first time calculated the potential economic impact of a scenario some scientists consider increasingly likely -- that methane from the East Siberian Sea will be emitted as a result of the thaw.

This constitutes just a fraction of the vast reservoirs of methane in the Arctic, but scientists believe that the release of even a small proportion of these reserves could trigger possibly catastrophic climate change. According to the new assessment, the emission of methane below the East Siberian Sea alone would also have a mean global impact of 60 trillion dollars.

The ground-breaking Comment piece was co-authored by Gail Whiteman, from Erasmus University; Chris Hope, Reader in Policy Modelling at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; and Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.
"The global impact of a warming Arctic is an economic time-bomb," Whiteman, who is Professor of sustainability, management and climate change at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), said.

Wadhams added: "The imminent disappearance of the summer sea ice in the Arctic will have enormous implications for both the acceleration of climate change, and the release of methane from off-shore waters which are now able to warm up in the summer. This massive methane boost will have major implications for global economies and societies." READ MORE

Tracking homicides in Chicago

New City, South Shore see 3 homicides

By Tracy Swartz posted July 2, 2013 at 12:00 a.m.

 

New City and South Shore each saw three homicides in the last week, a RedEye analysis of preliminary police data found.

In New City, a 5-year-old boy and 31-year-old woman were shot to death Friday in the 5300 block of South Winchester Avenue, police said. One day earlier, a 29-year-old man was stabbed to death in the 1000 block of West Garfield Boulevard, according to officials.
In South Shore, a 24-year-old man was fatally shot Sunday in the 2400 block of East 75th Street, police said. On Friday, a 16-year-old boy was shot to death in the 7500 block of South
Kingston Avenue, according to officials.

Two days earlier, an 18-year-old man was fatally shot in the 7500 block of South Merrill Avenue, police said.

Meanwhile, Washington Heights saw two homicides this week.
A 23-year-old man was fatally shot Tuesday in the 9900 block of South Halsted Street, police said.

One day earlier, an 18-year-old man was shot to death in the 10400 block of South Green Street, according to officials.

Citywide, gunshot homicides were logged in the last week in Englewood, West Lawn and West Pullman, RedEye determined.

June ended this week with 43 homicides, down from 47 homicides in June 2012, RedEye found.
Two homicides have been logged so far this month. Forty-nine homicides were recorded in July 2012, according to RedEye data.

Victims  READ MORE