I’ve been harping on this for a long time……. this is just unbelievable to me.

Less than two years into the great cultural awakening to the vulnerability of personal data, companies and institutions of every shape and size - like the data broker ChoicePoint, the credit card processor CardSystems Solutions, media companies like Time Warner and dozens of colleges and universities across the land - have collectively fumbled 93,754,333 private records. Or at least that’s the rough figure the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy organization in San Diego, has tallied thus far.

An entry from Sept. 7: Chase Card Services, a division of J. P. Morgan Chase, announced that it had begun notifying 2.6 million current and former Circuit City credit card account holders that computer tapes containing their personal information had been inadvertently tossed in the trash.

The bank said it believed the tapes were safely “buried in a landfill” somewhere, but it was nonetheless offering affected consumers the now pro forma consolation prize: one year of free credit monitoring.

Article at the New York Times

Johnny Winter, Rock Me Baby
I’ve been a fan of the Winter Brothers for more years than I’d like to admit. One of my favorites is Illustrated Man, but alas, YouTube doesn’t have it.

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writer
Posted September 24 2006, 8:06 PM EDT

NEW ORLEANS — By the time 88-year-old Blackie Campo got back to his Shell Beach home after Katrina, everything was gone.

Well, his house, his business and his car were destroyed.

What he did salvage was his New Orleans Saints jacket and an autographed football. And what he held onto were the season tickets he’s had for almost 40 years.

“I got nothing but a concrete slab,” Campo said. “But when the Saints get on that field Monday night I can forget my worries for a while at least.”

Full article here

2701 U.S. DEATHS NOW

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press Writer
Posted September 24 2006, 9:48 PM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq’s feuding ethnic and sectarian groups agreed Sunday to consider amending the constitution and begin debating legislation to create a federated nation, while the Shiite prime minister appealed for an end to violence during Ramadan.

Despite Nouri al-Maliki’s plea for peace, violence killed at least 20 Iraqis and wounded 37 a day before the official start of the Muslim holy month. Two U.S. Marines died in combat in restive Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders broke a two-week deadlock and agreed on a compromise that will allow parliament to take up Shiite-proposed draft legislation to permit creation of partly self-ruling regions.

Read article at the Sun Sentinel

Drilling for oil and gas around the harsh, remote island of Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East was never going to be easy, but a political chill has put some of the world’s biggest energy projects in an unexpected deep freeze. In the decade since they
negotiated separate drilling agreements with Russian authorities, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have gone way over budget and incurred the wrath of leading environmental groups.

But last week, the two oil majors faced their biggest challenge so far: a Kremlin backlash that could hold up or even potentially derail their plans. Moscow revoked a key environmental license for Shell’s $20 billion project, and took a tough line with Exxon over likely cost overruns on its $13 billion efforts. Russian officials also took aim at a third big oil exploration site in the Arctic by France’s Total, saying it wasn’t performing as promised.

Read the article at Time

“This is what happens when Russian oil companies have their headquarters at the Kremlin,”

This is an amusing statement, when you consider you could say the same thing about the American oil companies. Look at the huge amount of U.S. military presence and bases around the globe, and you see a track record of building bases to protect big oil interests.

Laughter produces its own music and tonight that is what this
Improv Everywhere post is about.

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 50 missions involving hundreds of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.

The Amazing Hypnotist Redux

Keep in mind that this is a performance, a prank.
C’mon! Make music! Laugh!

Gah! I miss New Yorkers!

In Maine and parts of Canada, McDonald’s seasonally offers a sandwich called the “McLobster.” I kid you not. While these days they apparently advertise it sometimes as a “lobster roll” and “100% real lobster” (I would be shocked if that claim was not misleading in some fashion), back when I first saw it advertised in 1988, McDonald’s proudly claimed - again, I kid you not - that the McLobster was “made with flecks of real lobster!” Yes, that’s right, “flecks.” The only person I know who actually admitted to trying it was, shall we say, underwhelmed.

There’s a lot of buzz currently about Chris Wallace’s interview with Bill Clinton, where Wallace sandbagged the former President - namely, Clinton was told he was going to be asked about his Global Policy Initiative, and Wallace pulled a bait-and’switch by asking Clinton about his record on catching or killing bin Laden. Is Clinton’s terrorism record a fair subject? Of course. But it’s completely dishonest to misrepresent an interview to one’s subject beforehand. It’s also standard practice for Fox News.

The Washington Post has a brief write-up here (and Howard Kurtz is sure to cover it tomorrow). Questiongirl has the video posted here. ThinkProgress has a full transcript here.

While the Post article notes that Wallace is “not usually accused of being part of the network’s conservative commentariat” at Fox News, and he in fact spoke out against the distortions of ABC’s propaganda piece The Path to 9/11, there’s little question of what this segment was about. Besides being a typical Fox News sandbag job, its other goal is of course trying to rewrite history and paint the Democrats as weak and Bush as responsible on national security before the election.

Of course Fox has a commercial agenda as well a rightwing one - they-ve been selling this interview as “Clinton Gets Crazed!” - not far off from “Presidents Gone Wild!”

But just imagine if Clinton hadn-t responded so forcefully? Conservatives will doubtlessly sell this as “Clinton gets defensive about his lousy record on terrorism.” But I think Chris Wallace has gotten so used to Faux Dems (”I-m not a liberal, but I play one on Fox News!”) he forgot what it was like to try to sandbag someone who would fight back. (Imagine if Kerry has responded to the Swifites with this sort of fire!)

Hmm… I just caught the tail end of Wallace on Fox with Brit Hume and the gang. Wallace lifts two quotations from Clarke’s book - the second one could be used to criticize Clinton’s critics, but is used to criticize only Clinton. (I-ll try to get some more links up later.)

Almost all of them talk about how “touchy” Clinton was, and speculate it’s because he’s “sensitive” about his legacy. No one points out that Clinton was sandbagged, with Wallace misrepresenting the interview before hand! NPR’s Juan Williams and Mara Liasson make a few points, but they know what Fox is paying them for - and again, why the hell do you have non-partisan, neutral reporters representing the left on a talk show? Hume trots out some standard GOP talking points about Clinton after cutting him a little slack - basically, he and the other GOP folk acknowledge Clinton was dealt a tough hand, but also imply had he been a real man he’d still have done precisely what they were arguing against him to do at the time!

This is Fox News- typical seasonal offering for imminent elections; same BS as usual, but piled higher and deeper. Fox News is the McLobster of journalism - if you dig through it you can find “flecks” of real news in there, but overall, it’s an over-processed, artificial sham that-ll have you rushing for the toilet.

Ahhhhhh late services Happy Sunday to you all……GO BEARS!!!!

“Memo to the Panthers: If you don-t want to see an old clown who likes to gamble riding public transportation, cover the spread.”

Normally, I dislike cross-promotional stunts, especially if it involves characters I like shilling some product - but somehow, having the characters from The Simpsons make football picks doesn-t set off my Crass-Meter. Maybe it’s because they-re shilling for the NFL in general, versus the Fox network specifically. And it’s a fun twist on the “celebrity pick” features USA Today and other media outlets employ. Aren-t the Simpsons characters tailor-made for making fun of that practice, just as they make fun of absolutely everything? Plus, it’s a fun read!

This week the character making the picks is Krusty the Klown, who I was honor-bound to link because Questiongirl keeps on asking where my red nose is. Sigh.

Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday with Chris WallacePART I

PART II