Friday, July 1, 2011

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Twitter Is Under Federal Investigation

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:18 AM PDT

By Nicholas Carlson and Dan Frommer, BusinessInsider.com

The Federal Trade Commission is actively investigating Twitter and the way it deals with the companies building applications and services for its platform, we’ve learned.

In Spring 2010, Twitter started making noises that it planned to provide users “official” versions of services that, until then, had typically been provided by third-parties – ads, photo-sharing, URL shortening and mobile apps.

Over the following year, Twitter followed-up on its promise. It acquired third-party Twitter clients such as Tweetie and TweetDeck, blessing them as “official” Twitter apps.

Meanwhile, serial entrepreneur Bill Gross – best known for inventing search advertising – launched a company called TweetUp. The initial plan was some kind of Twitter ad network. Later, Gross started buying Twitter apps.

Eventually, his company got funding from Accel with the idea that the money would be used to buy TweetDeck. It sort of looked like Gross might be planning to launch a Twitter competitor – or at least string his Twitter clients into their own monetized network.

To read more, visit:  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ftc-is-investigating-the-way-twitter-is-handling-its-platform-2011-6

WAR NO. 6: U.S. uses drone aircraft in Somalia to attack militants

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:11 AM PDT

By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post

A U.S. drone aircraft fired on two leaders of a militant Somali organization tied to al-Qaeda, apparently wounding them, a senior U.S. military official familiar with the operation said Wednesday.

The strike last week against senior members of al-Shabab comes amid growing concern within the U.S. government that some leaders of the Islamist group are collaborating more closely with al-Qaeda to strike targets beyond Somalia, the military official said.

The airstrike makes Somalia at least the sixth country where the United States is using drone aircraft to conduct lethal attacks, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. And it comes as the CIA is expected to begin flying armed drones over Yemen in its hunt for al-Qaeda operatives.

Al-Shabab has battled Somalia's tenuous government for several years. In recent months, U.S. officials have picked up intelligence that senior members of the group have expanded their ambitions beyond attacks in Somalia.

"They have become somewhat emboldened of late, and, as a result, we have become more focused on inhibiting their activities," the official said."They were planning operations outside of Somalia."

To read more, visit:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/us-drones-target-two-leaders-of-somali-group-allied-with-al-qaeda/2011/06/29/AGJFxZrH_story.html?hpid=z1

Death Panel Rejects Breast Cancer Patients’ Avastin Pleas

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 05:44 AM PDT

By Neil W. McCabe, Human Events

In a sign of things to come, members of the Food and Drug Administration's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted Wednesday to reject an appeal of its December 2010 recommendation that the FDA withdraw its sanction of Avastin for treatment of breast cancer.

The day before, in what now seems futile, advocates for the drug rallied at the FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., with signs, chants and a folk singer.

Blocked by a team of Homeland Security police officers in combat uniforms, the nearly 100 pink-shirted protesters massed in front of the entrance to the agency’s campus demanding it continue to approve Avastin for metastasized breast cancer.

Standing face-to-face with the on-site commander of the police contingent, which included deputies, keeping the protesters from marching toward the looming edifice 100 yards away, Terrence Kalley, the leader of the protest, said into his bullhorn, "We will continue to obey the law."

Because Kalley, whose wife, Arlene, is battling metastasized breast cancer, was a scheduled witness to speak to the FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee hearing on Avastin, he was allowed to proceed to the building, after he put down his bullhorn and sign.

Kalley said his mission is to convince the panel to recommend that the FDA continue to sanction the drug bevacizumab, the technical name of c, for the treatment of breast cancer.

To read more, visit:  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44557

Ron Paul Slams Absurd Libya War Powers Debate

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:41 AM PDT

Democrat Senator: Illegal Alien Could Be Our Future President

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:37 AM PDT

Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:30 AM PDT


By PAUL BEDARD, US News & World Reports

Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend’s July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

“Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party,” said the report from Harvard.

“The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans,” write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them.

To read more, visit:  http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/30/harvard-july-4th-parades-are-right-wing

Glenn Beck will keynote midwest tea party convention

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:21 AM PDT


By Ashok Selvam, Daily Herald

Glenn Beck may go off Fox airwaves on Thursday, but in October he'll join fellow conservative pundits for the second-straight year in the Northwest suburbs.

The inaugural Midwest Tea Party Convention comes to Schaumburg for two days, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center. Organizers are billing the event as TeaCon 2011.

Andrew Breitbart and Steve Crowder will join Beck. Conservative talk radio station WIND 560-AM is organizing the event.

Beck and Breitbart appeared last year at the RightNation 2010 event held at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates. The United Republican Fund hosts that event, and organizers are prepping for the 2011 edition just a month after the tea party convention.

The lineup for RightNation 2011, to held Nov. 3-5, again at the Sears Centre, could be released on Thursday. That event markets itself as catering to all GOP members and Libertarians, not just the tea party.

Beck's last day as host of his Fox News Channel television show is Thursday. TeaCon organizers stressed their event will give Beck's fans a chance to see and hear him, despite his show being off the air. His Oct. 1 speech should focus on the 2012 presidential election, TeaCon organizers said.

To read more, visit:  http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110630/news/706309969/

Special Software Sheds Light on Who Really Wrote the Bible

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:12 AM PDT

By Associated Press, FOXNews.com

Software developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible.

The new software analyzes style and word choices to distinguish parts of a single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible its algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in the holy book.

The program, part of a sub-field of artificial intelligence studies known as authorship attribution, has a range of potential applications — from helping law enforcement to developing new computer programs for writers. But the Bible provided a tempting test case for the algorithm’s creators.

For millions of Jews and Christians, it’s a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible — the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. But since the advent of modern biblical scholarship, academic researchers have believed the text was written by a number of different authors whose work could be identified by seemingly different ideological agendas and linguistic styles and the different names they used for God.

Today, scholars generally split the text into two main strands. One is believed to have been written by a figure or group known as the “priestly” author, because of apparent connections to the temple priests in Jerusalem. The rest is “non-priestly.” Scholars have meticulously gone over the text to ascertain which parts belong to which strand.

When the new software was run on the Pentateuch, it found the same division, separating the “priestly” and “non-priestly.” It matched up with the traditional academic division at a rate of 90 percent — effectively recreating years of work by multiple scholars in minutes, said Moshe Koppel of Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, the computer science professor who headed the research team.

To read more, visit:  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/29/algorithm-answers-who-wrote-bible/?test=faces

Internet sales tax: Online retailers to start collecting sales taxes in California

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 09:07 AM PDT

By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

Shopping at Amazon.com Inc. and other major Internet stores is poised to get more expensive.

Beginning Friday, a new state law will require large out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases that their California customers make on the Internet — a prospect eased only slightly by a 1-percentage-point drop in the tax that also takes effect at the same time.

Getting the taxes, which consumers typically don’t pay to the state if online merchants don’t charge them, is “a common-sense idea,” said Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the legislation into law Wednesday.

The new tax collection requirement — part of budget-related legislation — is expected to raise an estimated $317 million a year in new state and local government revenue.

But those taxes may come with a price. Amazon and online retailer Overstock.com Inc. told thousands of California Internet marketing affiliates that they will stop paying commissions for referrals of so-called click-through customers.

That’s because the new requirement applies only to online sellers based out of state that have some connection to California, such as workers, warehouses or offices here.

Both Amazon in Seattle and Overstock in Salt Lake City have told affiliates that they would have to move to another state if they wanted to continue earning commissions for referring customers.

“We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive,” Amazon wrote its California business partners Wednesday. Amazon has not indicated what further actions it might take to challenge the California law.

To read more, visit:  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amazon-tax-20110630,0,4344787.story

Durbin: Illegal Alien Could Be Our Future President

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 08:43 AM PDT

From RealClearPolitics

After using illegal immigrants as props to push the DREAM Act, Sen. Durbin (D-IL) made the following statement at a Senate committee hearing:

“When I look around this room, I see America’s future. Our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our Congressman, our Senators and maybe our President.”

To read more, visit:  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/06/29/durbin_illegal_alien_could_be_our_future_president.html
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