underground.net

Obama and Same-Sex Marriage plus North Carolina! Fresh off the...

Fri, 11 May 2012 19:32:59 -0700

Obama and Same-Sex Marriage plus North Carolina!

Fresh off the heels of North Carolina banning same-sex marriage and civil unions, and earlier the vice president stating that he supports same-sex marriage, Obama on Wednesday publicly stated that now he supports same-sex marriage as well.

But with roughly 60% of the vote in favor of the ban in North Carolina, and the fact that the state now joins 30 other states with similar measures.. it appears that same-sex marriage is still a hot topic in America.

Is the timing of Obama’s message a smart thing or will it ultimately hurt him in the upcoming election?

In order to answer that I think we need to see what percentage of Americans are in support of gay marriage and what percentage want it banned.

Recent polls show that 50% of Americans support same-sex marriage while 45% oppose it. And the opposition number has been decreasing by 2 to 3 percentage points per year since 2004. So based on those numbers, it appears that Obama has the majority supporting him on this issue.

The problem is that that majority of people may not actually vote… and it’s on Social Issues like Gay Marriage and Abortion that get people off the couch to vote.. so by supporting Gay Marriage, it may make it easier for conservatives to get their voters to the polls come November.

What do you guys think? Smart move or dumb move by Obama to come out in support of Same Sex Marriage?

Support for Gay Marriage Outweighs Opposition in Polls

Marrying dogs and ice-cream?

ICANN is about to open the Internet up to unlimired Top Level...

Sat, 05 May 2012 18:22:37 -0700

ICANN is about to open the Internet up to unlimired Top Level Domains.. these are things like .com, .net, .org. etc.

They say that it will allow for a much richer Internet experience, but all it will really do is put more money in ICANN’s pocket and put Billions into the pockets of registrars, while making the Internet less secure as demonstrated in the intro to this video.

How do I know this? Because last year ICANN created the .xxx domain and all it did was force places like the University of Kentucky and Nike to register .xxx domains at $200 a pop to stop porn websites from registering their names and and barely any porn websites bothered registering .xxx because it’s too easy to block their sites there.

So, adding the .xxx top level domain was ultimately a disaster, yet ICANN decided to go ahead open up the Internet to even more top level domains. And this past week ICANN disclosed that 1,268 new top level domains will probably happen next year!

Once those domains are in place the Internet will truly become a very scary place as you will not know whether your bank’s website is chase.bank or was it chase.money? You know what.. to be safe, you should just go to chase.com.. which puts us right back to where we were in the first place! What a joke!

More links on these new top level domains.

American Drone in Iran and Stuxnet 2.0 Computer...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:38:00 -0700

American Drone in Iran and Stuxnet 2.0 Computer Virus?

——

This week we pop over to Iran for some interesting news. L et’s get started, start the one minute clock.

Last December an American drone crashed in Iran and the Iranians were very excited as the drone appeared to be in almost perfect condition, allowing them to take the drone apart and learn how these highly secretive and very effective military spying machines are constructed and what their capabilities are.

Well, this past Sunday, Iran claims to have extracted secret intelligence from this drone, claiming that it revealed its previous missions to them, including that this particular drone had flown over Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan prior to him being captured in May of 2011.

Now, this seems highly suspect, as the United States has lots of drones, and it’s very unlikely that this particular one was used in the capture of Bin Laden.

In seemingly unrelated news, Iran this past weekend was forced to shut down its entire oil export infrastructure due to a computer virus somehow being uploaded onto its government computer systems.. similar to the Stuxnet virus that effected its nuclear program in 2010.

The Iranian government is still trying to figure out how that virus was uploaded.

Hmmm.. I wonder if these two stories are somehow related??

Iranians Say They Took Secret Data From Drone

Iranian oil terminal ‘offline’ after ‘malware attack’

Virus Attack Kills Iranian Oil

Turned off to politics? That’s exactly what the...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:06:20 -0700

Turned off to politics? That’s exactly what the politicians want.

From the Tom Toles Collection

Last week the state of Tennessee passed a law that forces...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:34:00 -0700

Last week the state of Tennessee passed a law that forces science teachers to teach alternate religious teachings of supposedly “controversial” scientific theories if a student brings those religious teachings up in class.

This bill specifically mentions evolution and global warming, which indicates that the purpose of this bill is actually to teach creationism in science classes.

Now, the problem with this bill is that because the United States does NOT have a government sponsored religion, if a student brings it up, teachers will have to teach Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Scientology.. even Pastafarianism, where believers think that the world was created by a flying spaghetti monster.

Now, I wonder how the creators of this bill will feel when their kids come home talking about how pirates are magical creatures and that we need to stop killing them as that is contributing to global warming. So the unintended consequences of this bill are that every religion will now have to be taught in government paid for science classes as opposed to science.

It’s probably best if science classes stuck with science and religious classes stuck with religion.

Tennessee teacher law could boost creationism, climate denial.

The actual bill SB 0893.

New Law Says Creationism Is A-OK in Tennessee Public Schools

Student punished for Spaghetti Monster beliefs.

More about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

How a US soldier finally got his Pastafarian dog tags.

Sopatrack You think you live in a democracy? See how money buys...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:51:34 -0700

Sopatrack

You think you live in a democracy? See how money buys congressmen and their votes.

The Supreme Court and Strip Searches: Last week, the extremely...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:43:00 -0700

The Supreme Court and Strip Searches:

Last week, the extremely activist Supreme Court issued another sharply divided 5-4 ruling with the conservative judges stating that police officers can strip search anyone who has been arrested for any offence, no matter how minor.

As justification for this ruling, conservative justice Kennedy argued that one of the 9/11 terrorists was “ticketed for speeding just two days” before hijacking Flight 93.

Now, I seriously doubt this hijacker would have had a box cutter shoved up his butt two days before hijacking that plane.. so I have no idea how this law would have stopped 9/11 from happening.

Dissenting Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliating strip searches after being arrested for such things as having a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell.” So the intro to this video was not far off from reality.

So.. there we go people.. another right to dignity and freedom taken away by our Supreme Court. What’s next? A ruling that it’s OK to gather ethnic Americans and put them all in internment camps against their will? Oh yeah.. sorry.. the Supreme Court already ruled that that’s constitutional and that law still stands today, believe it or not.

Justices Approve Strip-Searches for Any Offense

Strip Search Nation

Supreme Court ruling regarding Internment Camps.

youranonnews: Will The Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up (feat....

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:09:39 -0700

youranonnews:

Will The Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up (feat. Eminem)

TED Talks: Rob Reid and the Copyright Myth Math. See just how...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:48:00 -0700

TED Talks: Rob Reid and the Copyright ~~Myth~~ Math. See just how much money the Entertainment Industry is really losing due to “copyright” violations.

Contraception is BAD for you? Two weeks ago the Obama...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:54:32 -0800

Contraception is BAD for you?

Two weeks ago the Obama administration issued a Health and Human Services mandate that companies now have to provide access to contraception for their employees. Seems like a good idea since we have so many unwanted pregnancies these days, right?

Well, no. . Immediately the Catholic Church was appalled and accused the Obama Administration of trampling all over the their religious beliefs.. by forcing them to provide for something the church doesn’t believe in, contraception.

The problem is the fact that approximately 90% of all Catholic women have used contraception at some point in their lives (the same percentage as ALL women by the way).. so if the church is allowed to not honor that obligation, they would be discriminating against Catholic women just because they are Catholic.

The Grand O’l Party - or GOP as most of you know them - jumped all over Obama, for violating the separation of church and state. These are the same people, by the way, that are trying desperately to inject religion into our politics - see “State Santioned Rape” Ultrasound Bill in Virginia.

The problems with this argument is that the Obama administration is actually HONORING the separation of church and state by not giving the Religious organizationsthem an exception.

Think about it. If a religion believes that a woman should be stoned to death for committing adultery, are we supposed to allow that stoning to happen? Nope. Religious beliefs cannot super-cede the law of the land. Nobody is forcing these people to use contraception against their free will, they are merely providing for its availability for those that want or need it, regardless of their religious beliefs.

If you allow religion to affect the laws of the land you are in effect allowing religion to MAKE the laws of the land.

If you don’t want to find yourself living in a country where religious leaders tell you what you can and cannot do, then we need to stop allowing religious leaders from writing our laws.

The People Don’t Know Their True...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:52:41 -0800

The People Don’t Know Their True Power

superpunch2:

People power.

22 very wealthy people will pick the next US President. This...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:44:00 -0800

22 very wealthy people will pick the next US President.

This past week, Obama decided to officially embrace a Super PAC to help him get elected when he had previously stated that Super PACS where a threat to democracy.

Has Obama gone to the dark side you ask?

In a way.. yes.. because it’s the ONLY way he’ll get elected. Period.

The person who spends the most money in an election wins nine times out of ten.

Until recently, there were limits on how much money a company or person could give to a politician for fear of corrupting that politician. Which makes sense, right?

Well.. the Supreme Court felt that there is no proof that politicians can be corrupted by money (yeah right!). In their Citizens United ruling, they opened the floodgates for unlimited contributions by individuals and corporations and even allowed the contributors to remain hidden!

Whereas Obama’s average contribution was $55 from individuals over half of all the money that’s gone to the top Super PACS was given by just 22 donors each giving over a half a million dollars apiece.

That means that the next president could be bought and paid for by just 22 wealthy individuals.

Until the law is reversed, Obama has no choice but to succumb to the dark side to get elected.

Some additional reading on Super PACS:

First Read - First Thoughts: A ‘Super’ reversal

Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. Election …

First Read - Group wants investigation of Obama, Romney Super PACs

Opinion: Will 2012 be shaped by social media or super PACs? - Maria Teresa Kumar…

nevver: Photoshop Makeover

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:34:06 -0800

nevver:

Photoshop Makeover

Twitter announces new country-by-country censorship. Last week...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:41:00 -0800

Twitter announces new country-by-country censorship.

Last week Twitter announced that it can now block certain tweets from appearing in a country if asked by that country’s government. On the surface this sounds horrible as Twitter has been used extensively during political uprisings.

Does this mean that Twitter is caving in to these repressive regimes? Well.. actually no. Here’s why. Prior to this announcement, countries would just go ahead and block Twitter as a whole. This is exactly what countries like Iran and China did.

Now.. Twitter can exist in those repressed countries, only blocking certain tweets if asked by the governments, but - and this is the most important part - those blocked tweets are still readable outside of the country.

This is actually a good thing as it allows the rest of the world know what is going on in a country rather than to be completely in the dark. In addition.. Twitter also showed that users can change their country in their profile and then be able to see the blocked tweets anyway… shhh… don’t tell the countries though.

So.. by offering this feature, it’s a way for Twitter to still exist in repressed countries.. .. while acting as a kind of back door to freedom of speech.

Some additional reading material regarding Twitter’s Country by Country Censorship:

Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter’s Tweet-Level Censorship | TechCrunch

Dick Costolo: Twitter Isn’t Looking to Censor Anyone - Ina Fried - Dive Into Med…

Why Twitter’s new policy is helpful for free-speech advocates | technosociology

Twitter isn’t censoring you. Your government is. (Nancy Messieh/The Next Web)

Twitter announces ability to censor content by region

Congressman Lamar Smith, really tried hard to get his SOPA bill...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:03:00 -0800

Congressman Lamar Smith, really tried hard to get his SOPA bill passed before Christmas. Over a 2 day period, watching a bunch of really old guys repeatedly state that they are not nerds, try to enact laws that would change the functionality of something as important as the Internet, really pissed off a lot of people.

Thankfully, they recessed over Christmas.. which, allowed the nerds rise up and seek revenge against these politicians! On January 18th websites like Wikipedika, Reddit as well as 115,000 others, went dark in protest for the day…. even Google censored its logo… and politicians suddenly started to change their minds about supporting SOPA.

Former Senator Chris Dodd, freaked out and said that all the people participating in blackout day were “corporate pawns.”

Oh really Mr. Dodd? Who are the “corporate pawns” here?

Thankfully the Internet community reminded the 435 representatives that the millions of us voters here are in charge… not a couple of corporations.

So good job everyone.. thanks to you, that piece of legislation has been shot down!

Here are some links to what went down:

The SOPA War: A Frantic Call, an Aborted Summit, and Dramatic New Details on How Hollywood Lost

MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren’t Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought

Petition Demands White House Investigate SOPA Supporter (Dodd)

Now a new battle is in the works:

ACTA ‘Is More Dangerous Than SOPA’

nevver: I Work For You

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:16:56 -0800

nevver:

I Work For You

The .01% - Occupy Rodeo Drive. (Katerina in Bev Hills this...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:04:00 -0800

The .01% - Occupy Rodeo Drive.

(Katerina in Bev Hills this morning)

SOPA - The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) America is...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:38:00 -0800

SOPA - The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261)

America is supposed to be a “role model for democracy” to the rest of the world, and recently the Internet has been one of the tools people have used to rise up against their tyrannical governments in their quest for democracy. So why would we adopt the exact same strategies these oppressive governments use to repress their own people with an act like SOPA?

Here are some relevant links to help you understand SOPA (H.R. 3261) and what you can do to let your elected government officials know how you feel about it:

Google’s “Tell Congress not to censor the web”

Law professors explain what’s wrong with SOPA.

A graphic of how SOPA works.

Find out where your local Representatives and Senators stand on SOPA.

Some resources where you can take action.

My Delicious Link Stack (constantly updated) on SOPA

Here is the text of the video:

Currently there is a bill that Congress is trying to pass, called SOPA which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act which was brought to the table by the Motion Picture Industry who paid the congressmen around $500,000 to create this bill.

Now, this bill, if passed, could destroy the Internet as we know it.

It gives the Motion Picture Industry as well as ANYONE the right to block access to ANY website they decide to take down.

For example, if someone were to upload a scene from the next Batman Movie to YouTube, the studio simply writes an official looking letter and YouTube will cease to exist. Period. No chance for YouTube to remove the video… the website will simply go away.

This is the same process that repressive regimes like China and Iran do keep their citizens in the dark.

So if you don’t want to find yourself living in a repressive regime yourself, click a couple links above to see what you can do..