Bob Dylan is surely one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived. This may be my new favorite song.

(Thanks to Leslie Webb for the email and link.)

Shawn, an American hero and verbal critic of the Cult of Scientology, was found dead on February 16th, 2008.

Rest in peace, Shawn Lonsdale.

Welcome to the new America, brought to you by your ignorance and the leaders of the Republican and Democrat political parties alike.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

From Slashdot:

The Department of Homeland Security’s Real ID program has a real challenge on its hands from California. DHS had said it will only grant extensions from the Real ID rules taking effect on May 11 to states that apply by March 31 and promise to implement Real ID by 2010. California requested an extension but would not make the latter promise. DHS buckled and said, in effect, “Good enough.” Perhaps they realized that trying to slap giant California around is qualitatively different than doing the same to New Hampshire.

Click here for the full article.

From the article:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

From the article:

THE US economy lost the title of “world’s biggest” to the euro zone this week as the value of the US dollar slumped in currency markets.
Taking the gross domestic product of both economies in 2007, the combined GDP of the 15 countries which use the euro overtook that of the US when the European currency surged to a record high of more than $1.56 per euro overnight.

“The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone’s annual output has now exceeded that of the US,” the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, said in a note to clients.

Taking official estimates of 2007 GDP, $US13,843,800 billion ($14,726,000) for the United States and 8,847,889.1 billion euros for the euro zone, the economy of the latter passed the US once converted into US dollars, shortly after the euro topped $1.56.

The US dollar sank to $1.5688 per euro late in European trading hours overnight, at which rate the euro zone’s 2007 GDP equates to $13,880,568.4 billion.

The 2007 GDP estimates are as published by the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and provided to Reuters on request for the euro zone by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office.

I really enjoyed reading this article, although I think TheOnion.com would be much better suited publisher.

Here are some excerpts:

Banking experts say there is one thing that will save your money if your bank goes under. That’s FDIC insurance. “It’s the gold standard,” says banking consultant Bert Ely. “The FDIC has ample resources. It’s never been an issue,” he says.

As loan delinquencies rise, and bank failures increase, the FDIC is shoring up its reserves.

That’s fascinating, because last I checked (about five minutes ago), the FDIC had in its assets about 1.2% of the deposits it claims to “insure”.

If your bank bites the dust, there’s nothing to fear according to the FDIC. A healthier banking institution normally buys the failed bank according to Barr. “There is little or no interruption to the consumer,” he says. “If you go to bed one night as a customer of a bank, and you wake up as a customer of a new bank, there is nothing you have to do.” Your checks will still clear, you can still use your ATM card.

See? Bank failure isn’t even a bad thing!

The press release — complete with contact information — was posted on free internet press release service PR Log early yesterday morning. It reads as follows:

CLEARWATER, Florida - Anonymous announced their intention to combat the activities of the Church of Scientology on Monday. A spokesperson said that the group’s goals include bringing an end to the financial exploitation of Church members and protecting the right to free speech, a right which they claim was consistently violated by the Church of Scientology in pursuit of its opponents.

This announcement came as a response to attempts by the Church to keep secret an internal video meant to be viewed only by Scientologists, featuring actor Tom Cruise. Despite their efforts, the movie was leaked and rapidly spread across the Internet. The video caused much controversy, and members of Anonymous posted a message to several of their websites proclaiming war against Scientology. Soon after, Anonymous struck at the church; they blocked access to its website, made prank calls, organized protests, distributed anti-Church pamphlets and information, and extracted secret files from the Church of Scientology and its parent company, the Religious Technology Center.

Anonymous’ members cited several reasons for their actions against the Church of Scientology: many have stressed the alleged human rights violations under the auspices of the Church.^[1] Others accused the Church of fraud due to its costly ceremonies, while some merely sought the entertainment they refer to as “lulz,” a corruption of the Internet slang “LOL,” or “laugh out loud.”

Most members, however, were concerned with the threat to free speech that the Church posed. This was most evident in the recent attacks on websites such as Digg and YouTube, where the Church filtered anti-Scientology comments and replaced their content with the text “[This comment is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Church of Scientology International].”

“The so-called Church of Scientology actively misused copyright and trademark law in pursuit of its own agenda,” one Anonymous commented. “They attempted not only to subvert free speech, but to recklessly pervert justice to silence those who spoke out against them.”

The Church of Scientology’s legal struggle with its online detractors began in 1994 with the Usenet group “alt.religion.scientology”, a community which spoke out against the Church. Legal representatives from the Church confronted them specifically over the use of Scientology in their name, citing trademark infringement and misrepresentation. This led to numerous lawsuits,^[2] and the group was shut down.^[3] The Church of Scientology later found itself in several further conflicts on the Internet,^[4] including some with popular websites such as Google and Slashdot,^[5] as well as an alleged “war” with users of the website YTMND.com.^[6]

The members of Anonymous do not plan to end their attacks on the Church of Scientology. Instead, they will continue until the Church of Scientology reacts, at which point they will change strategy. Their main goal is to render the church powerless, and so the war could be one of attrition.

Science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church in 1953. In the 55 years since its inception, the Church has faced allegations of being a commercial enterprise that harasses its critics, exploits its members, and neglects adults in its care. Scientology has also faced criticism over the cost required to progress through its “auditing” system, with the total bill for completing the course estimated at $365,000 - $380,000.^[7]

[1] http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Universal_Declaration_of_H …
[2] http://www.discord.org/%7Elippard/skeptic/03.3.jl-jj-sci …
[3] http://www.nyupress.org/netwars/textonly/pages/chapter06 …
[4] http://www.news.com/2100-1023-959236.html
[5] http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml
[6] http://www.ytmnd.com/news/?news_id=40
[7] http://www.xenu.net/archive/prices.html

The press release is rapidly making its way into the internet via such models as StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, BoingBoing, and MetaFilter. Stay tuned!

I’d like to congratulate Fox News on beating their own record of outrageous censorship, again.  This time, instead of removing a 4th place candidate from straw poll results, they’ve removed a Top 3 candidate from the results of a presidential election!  Take a look:

Here are the uncensored results from the Nevada Republican presidential caucus:

Here are the results that Fox News reported:

Thanks to Stephen Gordon at Third Party Watch.