Anonymous downs government, music industry sites in largest attack ever

Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.
RT: 20 January, 2012


In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Music Group.

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.gov,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.

Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

The latest of sites to fall is FBI.gov, which finally broke at around 7:40 pm EST Thursday evening.

Less than an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites came down, the website for the RIAA, or Recording Industry Association of America, went offline as well. Shortly before 6 p.m EST, the government's Copyright.gov site went down as well. Thirty minutes later came the site for BMI, or Broadcast Music, Inc, the licensing organization that represents some of the biggest names in music.

Also on Thursday, MPAA.org returned an error as Anonymous hacktivists managed to bring down the website for the Motion Picture Association of America. The group, headed by former senator Chris Dodd, is an adamant supporter of both PIPA and SOPA legislation.

Universal Music Group, or UMG, is the largest record company in the United States and under its umbrella are the labels Interscope-Geffen-A&M, the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group and Mercury Records.

Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”

Although many members of Congress have just this week changed their stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, the raid on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a threat to the Web.

Brown adds that operatives involved in the project will use an “experimental campaign” and search engine optimization techniques “whereby to forever saddle some of these congressmen with their record on this issue.”

Hollywood threatens Obama over SOPA

RT - 20 January, 2012
If you see the White House invaded by aliens, blown up by laser beams or bombed by terrorists in any of the big summer blockbusters this year, consider it a subtle hint to the Oval Office by way of Hollywood.

After US President Barack Obama demanded revamped provisions in the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, Los Angeles film executives are rescinding their support of the commander-in-chief.

While Hollywood hot-shots were in the past major contributors to the 2008 campaign for Barack Obama, movie execs are heated up over the presidents halting of SOPA. On the West Coast, filmmakers and affiliated are insisting that the move is a major blow to the movie industry and it will only further encourage an Internet already ripe with pirated motion pictures.

Under the proposed SOPA legislation, both websites and Web surfers involved in sharing copyrighted material would be imposed with hefty fines and imprisonment, imposing a government-sanctioned firewall of sorts to shut down a large chunk of the Web. Advocates for an open Internet have protested in droves against both SOPA and its sister legislation, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, and a massive campaign against them both on Wednesday this week brought thousands of websites down to show the impact the laws could have. Search engine giant Google warned users of the acts’ implications on Wednesday, and both Wikipedia and Reddit turned their sites black for the day. On Twitter, users used the microblogging sight to tweet opposition to SOPA and for a while the term “Save Porn” became the top trending topic in America, as passed legislation would no-doubt cripple the online adult entertainment industry.

Although Obama has won the favor of much of Silicon Valley by striking down SOPA for now, downstate in the Hollywood Hills, executives are furious that the president has put his foot down on the legislation, potentially allowing for the sharing and pirating of films to continue endlessly.

In Los Angeles, execs are fearful of the consequences and are revoking their support. For Obama’s re-election campaign, that could be one big dent in his 2012 fundraising efforts out west.

President Obama has managed to garner substantial support from the Internet and computer tech industry, although the Democratic National Committee has, as of September 30, 2011, received around $1 million more from the Hollywood and entertainment industry than their Silicon Valley counterparts. Among those that are at the top of the donor list are DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenerg, who personally has raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election so far and has contributed $2 million to a super PAC with similar viewpoints.

If the backlash already aimed at Obama is any indication, however, the amount in the money well might begin to dry up.

“We just feel very let down by the administration and Obama for not supporting us,” one anonymous movie exec tells the Hollywood-geared website Deadline.

Another executive, who is identified only as a well known movie mogul and a supporter of the administration until now adds, “At least let him remain neutral and not go against it until we can get the legislation right. But Obama went against it. I’m personally not going to support him anymore and not give a dime anymore.”

With Hollywood funding not just Obama but the Democrats as a whole, a rift is dividing the president’s own party as lawmakers are forced to take sides with anti-SOPA supporters and the entertainment industry.

Former Democratic Senator Chris Dodd campaigned for Obama in 2008 but today heads the Motion Picture Association of America. He called the blackout on Wednesday waged by anti-SOPA advocates “the height of irresponsibility” when speaking to MSNBC and equated it to children screaming until they hold their breath.

Others within the Hollywood elite, including Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, have in the past donated large sums to the Obama campaign, which hosted three separate fundraisers at the Sony Pictures movie studio in Los Angeles before.

While 19 US Senators flipped their stance regarding SOPA on Wednesday alone and became opponents of the bill, the vast majority of them are Republicans.

Democrats, on the other hand, are largely in support of both SOPA and PIPA, with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) personally raking in almost one million dollars from supporters of the legislation. In a report published by the Raw Story on Thursday, the top 20 beneficiaries of special interest money in favor of PIPA doubles as a roster of some of the left’s biggest names, including Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Patrick Leahy, among others. In all, writes the website, the total amount of money handed over to the Democrats on the list of supporters of the act from special interests favoring SOPA amounts to more than $7 million. Anti-SOPA lobbyists, in comparison, have only contributed $807,502 to those very same Democrats.

“God knows how much money we’ve given to Obama and the Democrats and yet they’re not supporting our interests,” another anonymous Hollywood insider tells Deadline. “There’s been no greater supporters of him than we’ve been from the first day and the first fundraisers continuing until he was elected. We all were pleased. And, at its heart institutionally, Hollywood supports the Democrats. Now we need the administration to support us. This is a very important time for Hollywood.”

The Internet and computer industry has supported the Democratic Party to the tune of $52 million since 2007, which the Center for Responsive Politics says is up $12 million from the period of 2001 to 2006.

In regards to the week’s blackout, a senior Democratic congressional staffer close to the issue tells the National Journal, “Before this happened, the perception around here was that those who are in favor of ever-increasing copyright protections always won.” Because of Wednesday’s blackout, adds the staffer, “This may shift people’s expectations. It’s hard to say how much, but I think in a way that we haven’t seen in a long time. Folks on the Hill are realizing that there are a lot of people out there, and not just tech companies, that care about copyright issues.”

“This is something that could be repeated, but it couldn’t be repeated on just any issue. It resonates with people in having the freedom to go on the Internet and not be censored,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California and an opponent of the bills, adds.

Why McDonald's Happy Meal hamburgers won't decompose - the real story behind the story

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) It's always entertaining when the mainstream media "discovers" something they think is new even though the natural health community has been talking about for years. The New York Times, for example, recently ran a story entitled When Drugs Cause Problems They Are Supposed to Prevent (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/h...). We've been covering the same topic for years, reporting on how chemotherapy causes cancer, osteoporosis drugs cause bone fractures and antidepressant drugs cause suicidal behavior.

The latest "new" discovery by the mainstream media is that McDonald's Happy Meal hamburgers and fries won't decompose, even if you leave them out for six months. This story has been picked up by CNN, the Washington Post and many other MSM outlets which appear startled that junk food from fast food chains won't decompose.

The funny thing about this is that the natural health industry already covered this topic years ago. Remember Len Foley's Bionic Burger video? It was posted in 2007 and eventually racked up a whopping 2 million views on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyD...). And this video shows a guy who bought his McDonald's hamburgers in 1989 -- burgers that still haven't decomposed in over two decades!

Now, he has an entire museum of non-decomposed burgers in his basement.

Did the mainstream media pick up on this story? Nope. Not a word. The story was completely ignored. It was only in 2010 when an artist posted a story about a non-decomposing McDonald's hamburger from six months ago that the news networks ran with the story.

Check out the video link above and you'll see an entire museum of Big Macs and hamburgers spanning the years -- none of which have decomposed.

This is especially interesting because the more recent "Happy Meal Project" which only tracks a burger for six months has drawn quite a lot of criticism from a few critics who say the burgers will decompose if you give them enough time. They obviously don't know about the mummified burger museum going all the way back to 1989. This stuff never seems to decompose!

Why don't McDonald's hamburgers decompose?

So why don't fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, "Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won't eat them." While that's part of the answer, it's not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don't decompose and won't be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You'll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they'll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don't decompose is their high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald's meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium -- so much so that they qualify as "preserved" meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there's not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind is why don't the buns mold? That's the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald's hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you're a chemist you probably can't even read the ingredients list out loud. Here's what McDonald's own website says you'll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar,(both?--jef) yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Now here's the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald's hamburger bun (except a human) is because it's not food! (dogs will eat it--jef)
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No normal animal will perceive a McDonald's hamburger bun as food, and as it turns out, neither will bacteria or fungi. To their senses, it's just not edible stuff. That's why these bionic burger buns just won't decompose.

Which brings me to my final point about this whole laughable distraction: There is only one species on planet Earth that's stupid enough to think a McDonald's hamburger is food. This species is suffering from skyrocketing rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and obesity. This species claims to be the most intelligent species on the planet, and yet it behaves in such a moronic way that it feeds its own children poisonous chemicals and such atrocious non-foods that even fungi won't eat it (and fungi will eat cow manure, just FYI).

That's the real story here. It's not that McDonald's hamburgers won't decompose; it's that people are stupid enough to eat them. But you won't find CNN reporting that story any time soon.

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