Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story

This, my friends, is an old-fashioned beatdown. After explaining to my kids tonight about the indefensible shooting of Malala Yousefzai I am feeling more protective than ever of women’s rights.

Don’t ever, ever, tell my daughter she isn’t as good as anyone else. Or my son, for that matter.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard fearlessly scolded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on Tuesday as he sat just six feet away over his record of “misogynistic and sexist” attacks on her.

Though Abbott pushed to have House Speaker Peter Slipper resign over crude text messages about female genitalia, Gillard still lashed out at Abbott during question time in the legislature, saying she would “not be lectured on sexism and misogyny by this man. … Not now, not ever.”

“If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror,” the prime minister charged.

via Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story.

Antidoping Agency Details Doping Case Against Lance Armstrong – NYTimes.com

The USADA has released a report on Lance Armstrong’s doping case. After reading the summary here in the New York Times I find it virtually impossible to think that Armstrong wasn’t doping all along.

What a sorry outcome. I used to love watching cycling but now I’ll never trust it again.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency on Wednesday released details of its investigation of Lance Armstrong, calling it the most sophisticated doping program in recent sports history — a program in which it said Armstrong played a key role by doping, supplying doping products and demanding that his top teammates dope so he could be successful.

via Antidoping Agency Details Doping Case Against Lance Armstrong – NYTimes.com.

Mother Jones on Romney Facebook hacking


Last week I was contacted by Erika Eichelberger of Mother Jones magazine who was curious about my blog posts covering the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking issue. She was interested in talking to other victims, so I put her in touch with a few people on the Hacked By Mitt Romney page.

Her story ran this morning but it concluded a whole lot of nothing:

So we asked the social-networking company to do that. Facebook agreed, and had a team research the issue. They concluded that users are probably liking the Romney page on a mobile device by either accidentally clicking on a Romney ad or a “sponsored story” from the Romney campaign in their news feed. A Facebook spokesman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the issue is unique to mobile because of the way the app works on small screens, and rejected the idea that the Romney camp was engaging in clickjacking. He added that the company is currently working to clean up its mobile interface.

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Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com

Great article in the NY Times about an effort to get more geeks in Congress.

Ahem.

In American public life, researchers are largely absent. Trained to stick to the purity of the laboratory, they tend to avoid the sometimes irrational hurly-burly of politics.

For example, according to the Congressional Research Service, the technically trained among the 435 members of the House include one physicist, 22 people with medical training (including 2 psychologists and a veterinarian), a chemist, a microbiologist and 6 engineers.

via Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com.

Twitter Updates for 2012-10-08

  • The big goofy dog and I ran 4.3 miles through downtown Raleigh this morning. Felt good! #
  • Getting ready to watch @SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch at 8:35 PM tonight. Go SpaceX! #nasa #iss #
  • Congrats to @spacex on a successful launch! #

Twitter Updates for 2012-10-08

  • The big goofy dog and I ran 4.3 miles through downtown Raleigh this morning. Felt good! #
  • Getting ready to watch @SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch at 8:35 PM tonight. Go SpaceX! #nasa #iss #
  • Congrats to @spacex on a successful launch! #

Here’s How Facebook Is Cracking Down On Fraudulent Likes – Business Insider

I posted earlier how Facebook would begin cracking down on fake Likes on their service. Somehow I missed this story on Business Insider that explains how Facebook is going about this.

This is worth a read, and as I pointed out earlier, the fact that Facebook has announced this effort is a tacit admission that Facebook hacking is possible.

Facebook announced that it will be making a concerted effort to crack down on removing Likes on brand Pages “that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook Terms.”

Although a source familiar with Facebook told Business Insider that engineers have already begun the suspicious Like invalidation process, brand pages can expect to see an average decrease of approximately 1 percent of Likes accumulated by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or purchased bulk Likes.

via Here’s How Facebook Is Cracking Down On Fraudulent Likes – Business Insider.

Yet another Romney hacking victim speaks


Early this morning another Romney Facebook victim mentioned getting hacked by Mitt Romney. Like many others, she insists what happened to her is not a sponsored link nor is it anything she did herself.

Dora Maria Costa

They are not advertisements that are showing up on my wall, they are posts that match the posts on the Romney page, and when I went to his page, it said I liked it. They are posts, jut like posts that arrive on my wall of pages that I do actually like, or from friends. I did not go to the Romney page and “like” it! I get the ads and the wall posts showing that friends of mine “like” the Romney page. But, this is different. How did Romney FORCE me to like his page???

Oil and those who can afford it

Gas prices in late February, 2012.


We were driving back from my daughter’s soccer game in Wake Forest and I remarked to Kelly how I just don’t like to drive anymore.

“You know those kids who are avoiding buying cars? “I said. “I know how they feel.”

Kelly apparently doesn’t read my blog (see how influential I am?) so I had to bring her up to speed about the Millennials’ trend of waiting a few years or more to get their first drivers licenses (and I’m not talking about DMV being that slow).

I don’t know how anyone working at minimum wage can afford to buy a tank of gas. I really don’t. I’ve also read some opinion pieces that say that gas is bound to get sharply more expensive in the not-so-distant future.
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Daily Kos: Romney Facebook Fraud-Is this legal?


I’ve been searching the web on a regular basis for mentions of Mitt Romney and Facebook. For some reason I just found this mention of Romney Facebook hacking that was posted on Daily Kos by user MilleNeon back on August 18th – long before I got hacked by Romney myself. As far as I know it’s the earliest mention of this phenomenon on the Internet.

This is a short diary, because I just want someone to tell me how to get this to someplace where it can be reported, like Huff Post.

Looked on my FB page, and in the ad column I saw an ad that said three of my FB friends had “liked” Romney. One is a close friend, and she was appalled that her name was in the ad.

Someone told me companies are bundling FB “friends” and selling them. Is this legal?

I grabbed a screenshot of the ad. Does anyone know who I can send this to so this fraud can be publicized?

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