Tagged: news

Official list of organizations supporting SOPA: Call for boycott, Move Your Domain Day

This deserves its own post, and I promise I’ll have a more comprehensive post about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and why it’s a Bad Thing soon. Until then, have a look at this list of 142 organizations that are officially on record as supporting the bill. Some of the ones you may have heard of include ABC, CBS, Comcast/NBC/Universal, Disney, ESPN, GoDaddy.com, MPAA, NewsCorp, and several more. Several discussions on Reddit and around the internet have proposed boycotting the companies on the list. One specific proposal is Move Your Domain Day on December 29. On this day, if...

I am the 99%

When I was a child, my dad took out loans and worked full time to get a degree so he could make a better life for my family. By the time I graduated high school, he was able to do for me what his parents could not: pay for me to go to college without any debt. This wasn’t without other costs to me–my dad was gone a lot as he took on more responsibilities with his job and, following 9/11, served several tours of duty in the middle east. When the economy crashed as I was about to start my...

S&P’s downgrade of U.S. credit rating in a nutshell

Standard & Poors (S&P), one of three agencies that rate the credit of national governments, downgraded the credit rating of the United States from the highest rating, AAA, to AA+ with a negative outlook. This is the first time in history that this has happened. The U.S. Treasury, upon examining S&P’s analysis that prompted the downgrade, claims that it has found a math error that indicates that the downgrade should not have occurred. S&P rebutted that mathematical calculations are not the only factor in the decision to downgrade. Sovereign credit ratings, also referred to as national credit ratings and bond...

Governor Perry to organize “day of prayer and fasting” in conjunction with hate group

It’s rare that I title posts as sensationally as I have this one, but this particular story has been pushing my buttons since I woke up this morning. So consider this one of the times where I live up to the “frustrated” part of my blog title. Rick Perry, governor of Texas, has invited the governors of each state to join him at a “day of prayer and fasting” event called “The Response” that is being held in Houston, in partnership with the American Family Association, an organization that describes itself as “a Christian organization promoting the biblical ethic of...

Bin Laden confirmed killed: Questions and commentary

Not long after my Twitter and Facebook feeds exploded with exclamations about the rumors and then confirmation of the news that Osama bin Laden has been killed by American forces in Pakistan, a series of questions and concerns started rolling in. Some were directed toward me specifically–I’m the go-to “expert” on all things policy and politics for many of my friends and acquaintances (and for once I can honestly say that I do have a piece of paper that confirms that I am in fact more of an expert than most people)–others were questions asked of the internet in general,...