Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up? (video)

Funny stuff, no matter who you vote for.

Teabagger PSA

Senators Unconcerned About Dire Consequences Of Criminalizing Embedding YouTube Videos

Mike Masnick|TechDirt|June 19, 2011

This is really no surprise, but the same Senate Judiciary Committee that unanimously approved the PROTECT IP Act, despite worries from internet experts and major media about how it would break the internet, has now also unanimously approved the anti-internet streaming bill that makes it a felony to stream certain videos online -- potentially putting people in jail for embedding YouTube videos or just putting up YouTube lip synching videos.

What's really troubling here is that the media and plenty of concerned citizens have directly raised the issues about the unintended consequences of this law. And while Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons continue to insist that (of course) the law is not intended to be used against such people, they have made no move to fix the bill. Even supporters of this bill, who insisted that we were wrong about what the bill allowed, eventually conceded that our argument was accurate and that this bill could be used to put people in jail for embedding a YouTube video or doing a lip synch video.
And that's a huge, huge problem. Of course, no one thinks the bill is for that purpose directly or that it's going to be widely used for such purposes. However, the bill, as written, clearly allows law enforcement to charge people with a felony for that, assuming it meets a few other conditions. But those conditions are pretty minimal (ads on your page? you're in trouble...). The risk here of abuse is a serious risk, and it's incredibly troubling that Klobuchar, Cornyn and Coons failed to change or adapt the bill, and worse that the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee allowed the bill to move forward in such a broken state. They were clearly made aware of problems with the bill, but directly chose not to make any changes. How do you explain that other than incompetence or corruption.

KISS Shreds

OK, the "Shreds" gig has been going on for a while, but I missed it until a friend (for whom it also was new) sent me this link. Oh, wow. Enjoy:

Our "Bust" tops 300,000 views on YouTube

I swear I didn't post this and I have no idea who did, but it just topped 300,000 views, which seems like a lot to me...

vidlink

300,251

views

	Date	Link	Views
A	Sep 02, 2009	First view from a mobile device	13,409
B	Sep 20, 2008	First referral from related video - Cheaters - Sister gets caught up with her "White Boyfriend"	5,356
C	Jun 16, 2008	First referral from related video - Best Cheaters clip ever	13,327
D	Feb 21, 2008	First referral from related video - Best of Cheaters	19,328
E	Jan 07, 2008	First referral from related video - cheaters get even	18,934
F	Jan 07, 2008	First referral from related video - Rose Harden on Cheaters "Give this to your mother"	8,292
G	Dec 22, 2007	First referral from related video - Fight at Cheaters	9,057
	Unavailable*	First referral from YouTube search - cheaters tv show	17,667
	Unavailable*	First referral from YouTube search - cheaters	24,886

*Exact date is not available. The count of views from this link only includes views since 30 November 2007.

Audiences

This video is most popular with:

Gender	Age
Male	45-54
Male	35-44
Male	25-34

This video is most popular in: 

Weiner explains rant: "I believe a little raw anger right now is justified"

By Ron Brynaert | Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

He was mad as hell and he couldn't take it anymore.

In a column published in Wednesday's New York Times, Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner explains why he erupted against Republicans in a video that went viral the other week.

LAST week I got angry on the floor of the House. In this age of cable and YouTube, millions of people evidently saw the one-minute-plus clip. But there has been relatively little focus on why the substantive debate that sparked it matters.

At the Moderate Voice, Jerry K. Remmers observes, "Weiner’s portrayal of Jimmy Stewart playing 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' he thinks got lost in the translation to the American public by the right-leaning elements of our media."

"In a losing battle to secure passage of a bill to fund health care and compensation for ill 9/11 rescue workers, he unleashed a tirade against what he called unprincipled GOP opponents of the measure," Brett Michael Dykes wrote for Yahoo News last week. "Watch his outburst, which concluded in him smashing down the House rostrum microphone."

MYFOXNY added,

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner vehemently opposed the stance by House Republicans to vote 'No' on the 9/11 First Responders bill. He took to the House floor to deliver a forceful tirade against their actions. The resulting CSPAN footage has spread like wildfire on sites like Youtube and across social networks.

Weiner angrily assailed Republicans for citing procedural hurdles as their reasons for voting against the bill. "You vote yes if you believe yes! You vote in favor of something if you believe its the right thing!," he yelled.

Attempts to interrupt Weiner were batted away as he pointed a finger at a representative believed to be New York's Peter King, and responded, "I will not yield to the gentleman and the gentleman will observe regular order!"

The most popular Youtube version of the tirade has nearly 500,000 views with a litany of other versions scattered across the popular video site.

Blogger Remmers adds,

Weiner’s dramatics was another nail the Democrats are hammering into the Republican obstructionist coffin.

It made me reflect on the path Sept. 11, 2001, has taken this nation: War in Afghanistan that inexplicitly got us into Iraq, the Patriot Act, compensation for 9/11 family victims and a former mayor of New York City who was accused of constructing every sentence on his presidential bid with a noun, verb and 9/11.

Since Weiner’s bill is deficit neutral without reminding us it is the right thing to do, I think he’s got the Republicans by the short hairs on this argument.

But the Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote at the Plumline last week, "To be clear, I'm all for the kind of passion Weiner is showing here, but let's direct it properly. Don't get into a shouting match about procedure. As emotionally satisfying as it may be to watch, raging against the GOP opposition machine's successful efforts to tie Dems in knots just makes Dems look whiny, weak and impotent."

Wednesday, Weiner writes, "More broadly, while I appreciate the concern over the future of civility in politics, I believe a little raw anger right now is justified. Democrats make a mistake by pretending there is a bipartisan spirit in Congress these days, and would be better served by calling out Republican shams."

The specifics of the debate last week should be an example of an issue beyond partisan dispute. The bill in question was created to help the thousands of citizens who went to ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks. These are Americans who wanted to help, and who scientific studies now show are falling ill and dying in troubling numbers.

After nine years, the House had a chance to make this right by voting on a bill that would provide treatment, screening and compensation to Americans who sacrificed their safety that day, as well as Lower Manhattan residents and others who have suffered injury from exposure to the dust and debris. 

Though it should have been a legislative slam dunk, the bill was defeated on a simple up-or-down vote, with only 12 Republicans voting in favor. Just 21 additional Republican votes would have been sufficient for passage.
....
The truth is that this is a limited program, with a cap, because it is restricted to 9/11 responders and others directly affected by the toxic substances. As we all remember, the victims of ground zero dust came from all over the nation — they weren’t just New Yorkers. And, frankly, I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to close a loophole that lets foreign multinational corporations avoid paying taxes on income they have earned in the United States.

"That’s why I got mad last week," Weiner concludes in his NY Times Op-ed. That’s also why I’m going to fight for this bill when we come back in session in September. I’m still angry. Playing politics on important issues is never right. But on health care for 9/11 responders, it’s an outrage."

Why I Was Angry
By ANTHONY WEINER
Published: August 3, 2010

LAST week I got angry on the floor of the House. In this age of cable and YouTube, millions of people evidently saw the one-minute-plus clip. But there has been relatively little focus on why the substantive debate that sparked it matters.

More broadly, while I appreciate the concern over the future of civility in politics, I believe a little raw anger right now is justified. Democrats make a mistake by pretending there is a bipartisan spirit in Congress these days, and would be better served by calling out Republican shams.

The specifics of the debate last week should be an example of an issue beyond partisan dispute. The bill in question was created to help the thousands of citizens who went to ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks. These are Americans who wanted to help, and who scientific studies now show are falling ill and dying in troubling numbers.

After nine years, the House had a chance to make this right by voting on a bill that would provide treatment, screening and compensation to Americans who sacrificed their safety that day, as well as Lower Manhattan residents and others who have suffered injury from exposure to the dust and debris.

Though it should have been a legislative slam dunk, the bill was defeated on a simple up-or-down vote, with only 12 Republicans voting in favor. Just 21 additional Republican votes would have been sufficient for passage.

It was frustrating to hear Republicans say these people didn’t deserve more help because, as one put it, “people get killed all the time.” Others called it another big entitlement program. Some said it was a giveaway to New York, or complained that the bill would have been paid for by closing a tax loophole. We responded to each of these arguments over the summer in the hours of hearings and markups of the bill. And the answers are pretty simple.

The truth is that this is a limited program, with a cap, because it is restricted to 9/11 responders and others directly affected by the toxic substances. As we all remember, the victims of ground zero dust came from all over the nation — they weren’t just New Yorkers. And, frankly, I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to close a loophole that lets foreign multinational corporations avoid paying taxes on income they have earned in the United States.

There were also Republican objections that we put the bill on the “suspension calendar,” which is generally used for noncontroversial legislation, as this measure should have been. This move meant that the bill required a two-thirds favorable vote for approval rather than a simple majority, but it also kept the bill from getting bogged down in debate and stuck with poison-pill amendments.

Still, what upset me most last week were comments voiced by Republicans who claimed to be supporters of the bill, yet who used their time on the House floor not to persuade skeptical Republican colleagues to vote yes but to excoriate Democrats for using the suspension calendar.

Although I had already spoken earlier in the debate, on Friday I felt it was important that someone object to this effort to make the health of those at ground zero just another partisan issue. And I got angry. I didn’t break decorum, but I did say what I was thinking and feeling.

I love the House of Representatives and its rules, and I was careful to respect regular order. But I believe sometimes we mistakenly assume you can’t follow those rules and also say what you think, forcefully. Especially when this galling behavior has been on display for years now.

This wasn’t the first time obstructionism has come to us cloaked in procedure. Recall that after months of negotiations, Republicans voted unanimously against the health care reform bill. And then they complained about process. Similarly in January, after Senate Republicans introduced a bill calling for a deficit commission, they refused to support the legislation when the president took them up on the idea. And, of course, they used technical objections as an excuse.

Instead of engaging in a real debate about how to address the challenges we face, Republicans have turned to obstruction, no matter the issue, and then cry foul after the fact. They claim to want an open legislative process with more consultation and debate, but the truth is they simply don’t want to pass anything.

Meanwhile, conservative television and talk radio programs are full of false anger, intended to scare Americans. I think some genuine frustration at this misleading tactic is overdue.

That’s why I got mad last week. That’s also why I’m going to fight for this bill when we come back in session in September. I’m still angry. Playing politics on important issues is never right. But on health care for 9/11 responders, it’s an outrage.

Pictures and Infographic and Simpsons and a video

vidlink

YouTube exposes your Gmail contacts

'Indicative of the media’s inclination to monetize every last bit of our information,' advocate says
By Allen McDuffee | Monday, June 28th, 2010

Before you call your spouse over to see the newest cute kitten video on YouTube, you had better check twice to make sure no indiscretions will be exposed on your YouTube homepage.

As part of an effort to make YouTube more like Facebook and other social networking sites, a re-design of YouTube’s homepage for registered users may reveal some of your deepest, darkest email secrets.

The new layout, rolled out over the course of the spring, while you’re logged in displays all of the individuals you’ve emailed with in a large text box front and center on the homepage, in the hope you will connect with them and expand the matrix of viewers of your (and their) videos. But the unsolicited suggestions to connect with exes, former employers or where adult purchases may have been made, isn’t a welcome intrusion for many particularly when it’s based on a history of online correspondence that was presumed to be private.

The apparent motivation for the change is to find new ways to encourage more page views and increase the likelihood of viewers clicking on Google’s advertising. Combining YouTube and Gmail—both Google, Inc. products—maximizes the audience potential (and therefore advertising revenue) exponentially. (Full disclosure: Raw Story uses and earns revenue from Google's AdSense service, a program which provides contextual advertising to pages like this one.)

Google did not respond to a request for comment about the change.

Jennifer L. Pozner, executive director of Women In Media & News and author of the forthcomingReality Bites Back, said that “While Youtube’s shift wont make as great of an impact as Facebook’s draconian privacy rules, it is still indicative of the media’s inclination to monetize every last bit of our information whether we feel comfortable with it or not and whether it’s useful to us or not.”

The new layout has been immensely unpopular among users, registering hundreds of negative comments on the YouTube blog and sparking some to take their protests to other social networking sites, including a Facebook group called The New YouTube Sucks!!, which encourages members to offer their testimony of the problems associated with the new homepage.

For many, the new version forces social networking on a site that many joined purely for the purpose of entertainment.

One user wrote this about the new version in a YouTube help forum:

“I have 380 friends on YouTube. I had no reason to deny friend requests until now, so I didn't see any harm in it. They had no major affect on my channel or homepage, and every now and then they might recommend a good video to me. Now, however, every single activity of all 380 people is flooding up my feed, and I have to scroll through everything just to see if my subscriptions have uploaded anything. Did Mega64 upload a new video? I'm not sure, because 20 people have favorited 20 different videos, none of which I actually care to watch.”

This annoying scenario can quickly turn into an embarrassing one for those who took advantage of the auto-connect feature, which would unwittingly dredge up videos of people in your past and place them in your stream on your homepage.

But no matter how many annoying or embarrassing occurrences there may be, it’s not likely that Google will face any sustained protests from users, according to Cato Institute research fellow, Julian Sanchez.

Sanchez, who works on technology, privacy, civil liberties, and new media issues, said, “What they ought to do, rather, is make very clear on each site that a user’s identity on one can be linked to the others, and give people an opportunity to think twice about which connections they may not want made.”

What’s problematic in all of this, according to Sanchez, is “the reminder that online identities a user might have conceived of as distinct are in fact linked. To create such links against a user’s expectations is a privacy violation, but here Google isn’t actually creating the link so much as drawing attention to one that already exists.”

Sanchez pointed out that all of this might serve as a helpful reminder that “someone who’s got your Gmail address can already find your YouTube videos—and if you don’t want that prospective employer seeing last week’s drunken karaoke session, maybe you should think about opening a separate account.”

He continued, “Even when the link is preexisting, there can be an effect on privacy in practice, insofar as it effectively announces the existence of an account that an email contact might not have bothered to search for manually.”

However unsettling this may be, it oddly may be a step in the right direction for Google, according to media technologist and social media consultant, Deanna Zandt.

“At least they're asking, that's a start,” says Zandt.

“One of the major failures of the release of Google's Buzz product was that it didn't do a whole lot of asking; thus you ended up with women inadvertently sharing things with abusive ex's because those ex's were their most contacted person,” Zandt pointed out.

Buzz is Google's social networking platform in which Gmail users had their contact lists automatically made publicly available unless they opted out—many of whom did not immediately know such an option existed.

But even with the ability to “opt-out,” it might just be time to get over any notions of true privacy.

Zandt, author of Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, says, “What we all need to wrap our heads around at this point is that privacy is not a binary option anymore—there's no absolute private and absolute public. We have nuanced and varying degrees of privacy (we always have, it's just more apparent now), and the social networking applications that claim to enhance our lives better be working hard and fast to represent those nuances accurately.”

Some say Google hasn’t been sensitive to the privacy concerns of its users. In a December 2009 CNBC interview, CEO Steve Schmidt said, “If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.” He continued, “But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time.”

But the company did pull out of the Chinese market earlier this year, saying that they could no longer comply with the country's extensive censorship rules. Google accused China of hacking its popular Gmail service, which may have been intended to spy on anti-government activists.

Google first faced intense scrutiny over privacy issues on a broad scale surrounding the company’s popular Gmail service, where advertisements would appear in the sidebar directly related to the content of the email. Google insists that the only reader of Gmail is the account holder and bots are used explicitly to increase the relevance of advertisements.

In January 2009, as President Barack Obama moved into the White House, the Obama administration drew heavy criticism for granting a waiver to YouTube from the White House’s privacy policy promising that the site would not use long-term tracking cookies. It was a direct contradiction to a long-standing rule keeping federal agencies from tracking visitors.

YouTube, created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees, was purchased in 2006 by Google Inc. According to YouTube, 2 billion videos are viewed each day and hundreds of thousands of daily video uploads means that 24 hours of video are uploaded each minute.