Mercer Frey's Blog

Republican Senators block Dem Student Loan Bill

2012-05-08T17:51:00.001-04:00

Today in the Senate Republicans voted to kill the bill that would keep interest rates down for millions of college student's loans, as the two parties engaged in election-year choreography aimed at showing each is the better protector of families in today's rugged economy.

The 52-45 vote to start the debate on the legislation fell short eight votes of the 60 required, and stalled effort. Both parties expect there will ultimately be a compromise, and probably soon. For now each side is happy to use the stall to snipe at the other side with campaign-ready talking points while they are gridlocked at how to cover the $6 billion dollar cost.

President Obama's gay marriage views are "evolving"

2012-05-07T18:58:00.002-04:00

(Source)

President Obama said in an interview that for the past year and a half his views on gay marriage have been "evolving". The President has been tip-toeing the line between satisfying the rank-and-file Democrats, while also trying not alienate those crucial independent voters who could be turned off by the emotional social issue. Already Vice President Biden has commented, saying that he is just fine with men marrying men, women marrying women, and men marrying women and are entitled to the same rights, civil rights, and civil liberties. What do you think?

The CISPA and Cybersecurity bills are looming? Time for a Montage

2012-05-05T15:55:00.003-04:00

Last week, CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, H.R. 3523) passed the House. Now, the process moves on to the Senate, where the primary equivalent bill is the Cybersecurity Bill of 2012 or S. 2105. These security bills intend to modernize laws that govern the sharing of "cyber threat information" between private companies and the government, which is a reasonable goal. Cybersecurity is a serious issue, but we do not need to sacrifice privacy and due process to protect our networks. A majority of online uses and more than a handful of online sites are against CISPA and any other cybersecurity bills that don't precisely define what information can be shared between private companies and the government, how that information can be used, and adequate safeguards to ensure these protections. The privacy concerns for internet users are clear and we all share those as individuals, but why should a company like reddit be against such a bill? Even though reddit is exactly the type of business that these bills are supposed to help, they believe that CISPA would actually harm them. Anything that undermines the ability of users to trust that their private information will remain private ultimately affects a company's bottom line.

It's similar to the concept of restaurant health codes. Even though they are limited by health codes, restaurants ought to support them because it helps their customers trust that the food is safe to eat. We want our users to trust that their private data is safe, so it is in our own self-interest to oppose these bills which would remove reasonable liabilities we would have for sharing private data without due process. At reddit, we collect relatively little user information, but we are still stewards of vast amounts of private data, and believe it is critical to our business that there are clear and precise laws protecting this data.

Like many of you, we are not legislative or policy experts, and have been focused on othher things, so we all have some catching up to do, and there's only one way to catch up in a short amount of time... it's montage time [cue brass heavy inspirational music].

Read the bills - [H.R. 3523, S. 2105 also S. 2151], and this comparison chart (pdf).
Check out r/evolution 's outstanding CISPA Action List & Senate Cybersecurity Bill Guide.
Get involved in some of the subreddits discussing cyber laws or working to address related issues.
Join in the discussions with Cyber Security Bill experts on r/IAMA and elsewhere on reddit:

Watch these videos about CISPA and cybersecurity.
Contact your elected officials and make your voice heard.

What It's Like When the NYPD Raids Your Apartment At Dawn-- Because Your Roommate is in Occupy

2012-05-04T17:06:00.002-04:00

I chatted briefly with musician Justin Remer, whose Brooklyn apartment was raided by the NYPD on Monday morning in an incident that was first reported on Gawker and sure looks from all angles like a pre May Day intimidation tactic. I was curious about how the experience felt.

“At around six-fifteen I was woken up. I sleep in a lofted bed, and there's a police officer standing in my bedroom shining a flashlight in my face. He woke me up and said ‘get down in the living room," he said. Remer dressed, grabbed his ID as requested, and joined his housemates in the living room.

He said the officers--about six of them--took the residents' identification and began trying to match them with a list of warrants.

Finally they asked if there was a "Joe Ryan" in the apartment, and found their sought-for match. They told apartment resident (and another musician) Ryan, who had an old outstanding violation for an open container that he would have to come with them and promptly arrested him.

But then, said Remer, they tipped their hand and asked the third housemate, Zachary Dempster, to come talk to them in the other room.

This is an excerpt taken from an article on allnet.org, to read the entire story click here

Japanese Government vs Japanese Citizens, is Nuclear Power worth it?

2012-05-04T15:47:00.002-04:00

Everyone has heard about the Tsunami and Earthquake combo that devastated japan, especially after japan came close to having another nuclear disaster. Coming up for its mandatory 13 month inspection, Japans last nuclear reactor is set to shutdown permanently and leave Japan nuclear free for the first time since 1966. The government is stressing to the citizens that nuclear power is important and that there could be a power crisis this summer if the demand for fossil fuels rises too much. But since they require a local consensus for nuclear power decisions the local leaders aren't convinced that the agencies that oversee the nuclear power plants are up to the task of preventing another near-miss meltdown like the Fukushima Daiichi. Before the Fukushima accident, Japan operated 54 commercial reactors. which accounted for about one-third of the country’s energy supply. But in the last year, 17 of those reactors were either damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami or shut down because of government request. Thirty-six others were shuttered after inspections and have not been restarted. Japan’s cabinet said last year that the country needed a new nuclear safety agency that is “trusted both domestically and internationally,” and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had hoped to have the new agency in place by April 1. But politicians are still squabbling about how the new agency will operate, and the extent to which it will coordinate with the cabinet. Experts say it could be months before Japan creates the new watchdog.

0420.de: quit stealing our letters

2012-05-03T20:16:00.001-04:00

0420.de: quit stealing our letters

Despite high earnings, Carnival Cruise staff still underpaid.

2012-05-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

According to a survey done in 2011, Carnival Cruise staff on UK ships are paid well below average, they are paid $1.20 an hour, or 400$ a month basic wage. These workers lose their tips which make up roughly 15% of their wages if they don't achieve a favorable customer rating of at least 92%. The wages they earn are well below the minimum level recommended by the Joint Maritime Commission of the International Labour Organization which was set at $555 a month for salaries paid after January 1, 2012. The rest of the article can be read here, but this is rediculous when you put into account that Carnival raked in a whopping 2.2 billion dollars in 2011.

Cheese Most Shoplifted item according to survey

2012-05-02T23:30:00.003-04:00

( Rennett Stowe )

The First WorldWide Shrinkage Survey is not about taking a scientific approach to a Seinfeld plot line. Instead, it measures shoplifting around the globe. "Shrinkage," in retail parlance, is when people take things from stores without paying for them. And according to their study, the most shoplifted item in the world in 2011 was cheese.
Close behind that came fresh meat and candy. Infant formula also made the list.
Are the cheese purloiners just big lacto-philes? Nope.
"It's not just grannies saying, 'I need some cheese I'll just go and steal it'," Dr. Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research told The Huffington Post. "A lot of the theft is for resale and a lot of this cheese will be resold into other markets or to restaurants."
Cheese carries a lot of value in a compact package. It's small, easy to slip into a pocket, and it's not traceable. Just peel off the cheesemonger's sticker and you're in business.

Cardinal Brady will not resign over 'abuse failure'

2012-05-02T13:20:00.002-04:00

To put it bluntly, a Cardinal with the catholic church in Ireland had the names and numbers of children who were being sexually abused by a priest in ireland, but failed to act and give police the information, instead he let him continue. And after it all he refuses to resign! And people wonder why the Catholic church gets a bad rap...The entire article done by BBC including video interviews can be found here

The rise of VPN service users among young file-sharers

2012-05-01T16:48:00.000-04:00

Faced with the almost impossible task of physically restricting people’s activities online, during recent years authorities and copyright holders have moved to have legislation tightened up, and encourage citizens towards a path of “doing the right thing” through the fear of more and more serious consequences.
In Sweden, the results of intense lobbying are clear. Due to a combination of fat Internet pipes and its status as the spiritual home of The Pirate Bay, Sweden and file-sharing go hand in hand. Because of this, the result is that the counter is being looked at with more and more online surveillance.
But according to new research from the Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University, an increasing proportion of the country’s population are taking measures to negate the effects of spying on their online activities. The study reveals that 700,000 Swedes now make themselves anonymous online with paid VPN services such as The Pirate Bay’s iPredator. A similar study was done in 2009 and revealed that over 500,000 Swedes were already subscribing to VPN services. Of particular interest is the response to surveillance by the younger generation. According to Cybernorms, 200,000 individuals between the age of 15 to 25-years-old are now hiding themselves online. This figure represents 15% of the total group, up from 10% in 2009. What do you think about how strict the laws for online privacy is becoming?

FBI categorizes actions performed by millions of americans as 'suspicious'

2012-04-30T17:03:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that they have been the subject of online ridicule for months, the FBI put out flyers as part of the "Communities Against Terrorism" which points out behavior including using cash to pay for a cup of coffee as a suspicious activity, has been characterized as reasonable by the mainstream media, even the New York Times will admit that most of the recent terror plots in the United States has originated from the FBI. In a strange headlined story entitled Are You a Terrorist?, CBS 12 lends the flyers credence by completely failing to mention that they include a list of mundane behaviors that have nothing to do with terrorism or anything relating to "suspicious activity" at all. Earlier this year one of the flyers sent out to Internet cafes instructs businesses to report people who regularly pay with cash for their coffee as potential terrorists. Other examples of suspicious behavior that was outlined was anyone expressing concern about privacy while surfing online in public, which is far from being a 'suspicious activity' is pretty much a prerequisite for using the internet these days. In a flyer distributed to Military Surplus stores, the purchase of any storable food supplies in large quantities, a increasingly common trend amongst "preppers," is also defined as an indication of terrorism. Despite the fact that since they place activities performed by millions of Americans in the context of 'suspicious behavior' they are virtually worthless when it comes to identifying real terrorist threats. So Do you think the mainstream media should be accepting these flyers as a credible source of information? or should they be questioning them just like a majority of those who use the web regularly? Leave your comments below

Keeping a secret can make us feel Physically burdened?

2012-04-29T19:03:00.001-04:00

Apparently,
Can you keep a secret? We refer to keeping secrets as if they are material things. And a new study suggests that when we know a secret, we perceive ourselves as being physically burdened.
Researchers recruited participants to write a description of either a serious secret, like a story of infidelity or sexual orientation, or a more trivial secret. Then they looked at a hill straight on and were asked to rate the hill’s steepness. Those subjects who wrote about an important secret perceived the hills as steeper than those who wrote about trivial secrets. The research is in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Earlier studies have shown that people who are physically weighted down also perceive hills as steeper than those who are not.
In a separate investigation, researchers found that subjects who recalled a significant secret also judged a target to be further off in the distance than those who remembered a less meaningful secret.
Hmm. So maybe divulging secrets will relieve you of a burden—then again, we better wait for a study on how stressful it is to lose every friend who confides in you.

Cops Confiscate Cameras at Ohio Congressman’s Town Hall

2012-04-29T12:13:00.000-04:00

A congressman from Ohio had cops grab the cameras of constituents during a town hall meeting. Steve Chabot, a Republican, had cell phones and cameras confiscated in order to “prevent an embarrassing Youtube video from making the rounds,” according to Carlos Miller, who runs a blog documenting efforts by the state to stifle the First Amendment rights of photographers. Police said the cameras were taken “to protect the constituents.” A local television station, however, was allowed to videotape the meeting and the bold move by Chabot and the cops.
Think Progress, the Soros-funded media operation, also reported the incident, primarily because Chabot is an establishment Republican and protesters outside the event called for more taxes. The Democrat blog reported:

Media were permitted to record the event, making the ban on citizen cameras all the more baffling. Clearly no “security” threat existed; rather, as one of Chabot’s staffers told ThinkProgress, they wanted to “prevent” people from “making a show” of the event. Indeed, Chabot and his staff were worried enough about citizens voicing their anger at his policies that they only accepted pre-screened questions chosen by the congressman’s staff.

This should not be confusing – the controlled corporate media can be trusted to not embarrass Rep. Chabot, at least not on points that matter, while citizens can not.
It is also interesting that Think Progress attributes the current economic implosion to Chabot and the Republicans when Democrat Obama is in the White House and allegedly in control. In fact, neither Obama or the Republicans control the economy. It is controlled by a Federal Reserve that has doubled the monetary base since last August.

Coca-Cola's new "Spoof" marketing Campaign

2012-04-28T21:48:00.001-04:00

You wouldn't translate the word Coca-Cola to "Hug me" into singaporean english would you? Thats the premise of the new marketing campaign that Coca-Cola is running. A Coke vending machine was installed overnight at the National University of Singapore. It looks like a fairly ordinary machine, in the brand’s iconic red and white. But instead of it’s logo, this machine says “Hug Me,” in the logo font. The marketer is using the license afforded by the infamous spoof logo t-shirts to spoof themselves. And instead of money, this machine responds only to the currency of hugs. Specifically, you have to squeeze the sides of the soda dispenser in a specific way to make a free Coke come out.
Positioning this stunt at a university is a smart move in Singapore, where public signs of affection have long been discouraged, but are on the rise among the young. Coke is positioning itself as a non-threatening ally to affection demonstrating youth. Check out the video to see it in action!

Irish priests will disobey new confession box law on child abuse

2012-04-28T18:30:00.001-04:00


Photo by Mark Duffy

Recently a new piece of legislation put into place by Ireland’s Justice Minister Alan Shatter will force the clergy to reveal all details disclosed in confession. But even with the threat of a 10 year jail sentence the priests have vowed to defy the law, while the 800 strong Association of Catholic Priests have even told newspapers that they will flout the law. The Spokesman Fr Sean McDonagh told the paper: “I certainly wouldn’t be willing to break the seal of confession for anyone -- Alan Shatter particularly.”

Under the new law, every person in the state is obliged to report suspected sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to police. Personally I am ok with this piece of legislation, many would claim it is infringing on religious freedom, but this type of behavior is harmful to others, I think the law should be edited to also include murderers and all kinds of felonies. What do you think about this law, do you agree or disagree? leave your opinions in the comments below!

Superhydrophobic Coating Repels EVERYTHING

2012-04-28T15:53:00.003-04:00

It never fails, every freaking time you get something new, you mess it up within the first two hours of purchase. “Hey dude check out my new phone! I got it earlier today, disregard the giant crack on the side, I dropped it after getting it out of the box…” But this bad luck goes with everything, including shoes, especially if they are white. But thanks to NeverWet, you’ll be able to live a stain free stress life for months at a time.
NeverWet was developed by Ross Nanotechnology to allow any type of fluid, liquid, and even oils to slide off machinery, materials, and even electronics. The superhydrophobic silicon coating creates a 160 degree angle over your product. This angle makes it impossible for liquids to get attached to anything. If you check out their website, you can see them use cover an iphone in this coating to make it waterproof. Finally, dropping ketchup on your white kicks is not going to break your style!

2012-04-28T13:47:00.001-04:00

This is Art

By Louis Peitzman

No, You Can’t Strangle Puppies for Art

Close call, everyone: a German artist has been denied the ability to perform his piece Death as Metamorphosis, in which he was going to strangle two puppies to death on stage. Despite the horrific, seemingly anti-puppy content, the artist claims he had the noblest of intentions.

According to a report in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper, the provocative piece was meant to highlight the plight of sled dogs in Alaska and hunting dogs in Spain, which are said to be killed in the same way once they can no longer work.

While the artist insisted the Germany's constitution guarantees artistic freedom, the Berlin administrative court countered with animal protection laws that prohibit killing an animal onstage. In this case, I'll go ahead and side against artistic freedom.
Another controversial German art piece on the horizon: Berlin's University of the Arts students Iman Rezai and Rouven Materne would like to guillotine a sheep on camera — provided they get enough online votes.
Yeah, they're determining this sheep's fate based on an online poll. (If it's any consolation, so far "no" is winning, 190,000 to 120,000.) Are we the sheep for voting online, or is the sheep the sheep for being a sheep? Also, is this sheep anywhere near as cute as a puppy? No matter — this is art.

Moscow's Homeless Canines Adapt

2012-04-27T22:41:00.001-04:00

Among Moscow’s large population of homeless canines, a small minority who frequent or inhabit its metro have attracted international attention due to their having learned how to use the trains to commute to and from various locations.
The dogs have learned to cross the street with pedestrians and have been observed obeying traffic lights. This is just proof of of how people and animals have evolved.

The Vendetta of a Hipster

2012-04-27T21:34:00.001-04:00

Today, I've been mentally making just about every unintelligible sound of irritation and disgust. Why, you ask? Well, I made the mistake of sleeping with red jade on my finger last night. I was thinking it might make me remember some more of my dreams (like I really need to...) but, no. I just woke up with a vendetta against the whole damn planet. Okay maybe not the whole planet. Just one particular individual. But backtrack a second. If you're unfamiliar with the whole spiritual/metaphysical properties behind red jade, I'll give you a brief little synopsis right now. As a general stone, jade is supposed to help with spiritual guidance, healing, dream recall, and love. Red jade in particular is an active stone. It helps the wearer speak his/her mind and things that they've been withholding from people in their lives. It can also cause a little bit of a temper to appear within the wearer if he or she has feelings of resentment or the like that just simply haven't been dealt with. I'm a little more angry than I thought, after all.
But, yes, I woke up extremely angry. Only angry with him though. Usually when I'm angry with someone, I'm angry with everyone. But not today, which is weird. Maybe it's a sign of some kind of maturity or something. (Ha.) Or I'm just getting priorities in order. I didn't even get irritated with incompetent people today. That's something that usually always gets me. My one tire was even flat today when I woke up. That didn't ruin my whole day. Neither did nearly being hit head on by some reckless driver on a back road AFTER just getting my tire fixed. My moods are always a little screwy. But this takes the cake. Except I think that this is slightly sweeter cake. I know exactly who to aim my anger and frustration at without taking it out on innocent bystanders or the whole damn planet.
I kind of just pity him whenever he eventually does contact me again. It probably won't be pretty. But how the hell else will he ever learn?

In other news: I woke up with Dessa songs stuck in my head. Listen and enjoy them. (Oh the live version of Dixon's Girl--so, so, so, so very good. I really hope that the Man I knew makes it onto her new album. Please? While we're on the subject of her live performances: they're always so amazing. And always just a tiny bit different--enough to notice musically. Seriously, if me rambling about her makes you curious about her at all: LOOK UP HER LIVE PERFORMANCES. Most of them are professionally shot so they're really decent quality. And, while you're at it, get at her music in general.)

Conservatives enjoy safety net programs

2012-04-27T19:15:00.000-04:00

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the

“I don't demand that the government does this for me. I don't feel like I need the government,” said KI GULBRANSON, who counts on an earned-income tax credit and has signed up his children for free meals at school.
Readers’ Comments

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

Full article @ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=1

I guess these conservatives feel they are the only ones entitled to safety net programs. Hypocrites!

2012-04-27T19:02:00.001-04:00

So, my mother has a 'friend' and he's like really old. Well, not really old, but he's like seventy... He comes over and he's pretty rich, so he brings presents for the kids and that sort of thing... Anyway, my mother likes to garden and she thinks she's good at it...[lol]... but that's not the point at hand, the point is, he brought her garden pots and flowers to decorate the garden with.

Tonight I picked up a man and his son. Once the son had been dropped off in his house, the man told me that he was going through a divorce. He told me that his wife has been cheating on him since two weeks after their wedding. He told me god awful things about her, but the one that caught my attention was when he mentioned the name of my mother's friend...

He told me that this woman had been seeing this man behind her husbands back. They would meet up and spend the night together and he would buy her little trinkets and garden things; like pots and flowers, etc.. just like my mam.

I've always known my mother was a complete whore and to be honest, this makes me laugh ^^... Still, who thought a guy could still be pimpin' at seventy? Hardcoree...