Video: Popping balloons with a really strong laser

Don't try this one at home.

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Is News Corp violating FCC rules?

Considering the number of defenders of Fox News (the entire GOP and too many Democrats) this will probably not amount to anything but it's still interesting to see the issue even being raised. If there's a requirement of "good character" then News Corp fails miserably. Hacking the phones of murdered teenagers, police and hundreds of others is hardly appropriate. We still don't know whether News Corp was involved in similar acts in the US though the possibility is there. The Guardian:

Under FCC regulations, broadcast frequencies can only be handed to firms run by people of good "character" who serve the "public interest" and speak with "candor". In making that judgment, the FCC is entitled to consider past conduct of media owners, including conduct that does not relate directly to their broadcasting interests, as well as any patterns of alleged misbehaviour.

The FCC has so far shown an unwillingness to be drawn into the billowing phone hacking scandal concerning the News of the World and other News Corporation outlets in the UK. Last July, Genachowski indicated that he did not expect his agency to get involved in the probe.

But Crew insisted that as more information emerges about the failure of News Corp to deal with its hacking crisis, federal authorities would eventually be forced to act. The watchdog has also written to the US Senate and House committees on commerce calling for congressional hearings into whether the Murdochs were fit to hold the Fox TV licences. A similar request from Crew last year went unanswered.

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How Romney should have handled the Bin Laden raid

The Romney camp really needs to get some competent spin doctors. So far their approach to the anniversary of Bin Laden's death has only succeeded in making their candidate look weak, whiny and shallow.

Romney's attack might have cost Obama some votes by reminding liberals and progressives that Obama's foreign policy has been a continuation of the same crypto-colonial approach that has been in place since Eisenhower. But Romney will undoubtedly have lost rather more votes to independent voters, and even Republicans, who would prefer a competent neo-con foreign policy than another clown show like the one delivered by the Bush administration.

Whether Romney likes it or not, most US voters consider eliminating Bin Laden to have been a success that President Obama deserves credit, and praise, for. Attempting to persuade them otherwise is a fool's errand, but what could the Romney camp have done instead?

Rather than trying to dismiss the attack as a decision that any US president would make, Romney should have done the opposite. Romney's biggest problem as the challenger is to demonstrate that he understands the job of President better than the incumbent. This week he had an opportunity to demonstrate that he is not just an empty suit with an eight figure going on nine bank account. Romney should have praised the President for taking a big risk, and backed it up with historical context to remind people that even though this particular raid succeeded, many similar raids that have failed.

Instead, Obama is getting to make those points [NBC]

“I did choose the risk,” the president said in an exclusive interview with Rock Center Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams. “The reason I was willing to make that decision of sending in our SEALs to try to capture or kill bin Laden rather than to take some other options was ultimately because I had 100 percent faith in the Navy SEALs themselves.”

Obama is not the first President to have authorized a raid on Bin Laden. Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack in 1998. That is the attack Bush II referred to derisively saying "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt."  The Clinton Administration considered a second attack but did not go through with it. There was even an attacked planned by the Bush administration in 2005, which Rumsfeld called off.

The Republican camp is currently busy trying to swiftboat Obama with fake stories about Navy SEALs angry with the Commander in Chief for taking credit for 'their' work. It is the same old Rovian strategy of trying to turn a weakness into a strength. They did it with Al Gore, with the fabricated story that he claimed to have invented the Internet, and then they did it by attacking John Kerry for his purple hearts, and now they are trying it against Obama for finally doing what a Republican president could do, kill bin Laden.

In fact, the bin Laden raid was a team effort, and even if a president has 100% faith in their commando team, no president can or should ever have the same degree of confidence in their intelligence service. The intelligence services might have got the wrong house or miss-judged the Pakistani air defenses or made any one of a hundred other missteps that could have led to catastrophe.

That is the reason that the raid was a team effort, and that team was not just SEAL Team 6 -- according to what we know today it included at least the CIA, the NSA and the State department. Claiming that 'any' President would have authorized the raid is nonsense.  The raid might have had to be called off for any one of hundreds of operational reasons.

In claiming that this was a decision any President would have made, Romney demonstrates that he does not understand that it was a decision that only a President could make. Read the rest of this post...

Video: How to stand behind Romney

From Andy Cobby and friends.

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Airline to charge $100 for carry-on bags

Every time I see these expensive luggage fees, I wonder where the savings part is for consumers. I'm still looking. The US airline industry has been gouging Americans with add-on fees for a while now and perhaps because it helps keep the industry out of bankruptcy, nobody in Washington cares. But with this soft economy, they should care if it's one charge after another that is slamming the wallets of voters.

On recent trips to the US, it's been shocking to see luggage fees tacked on during my US portions, as though somehow I'm no longer going to be carrying luggage on my round trip ticket.

In Europe, some airlines (such as EasyJet, Ryan Air and many more) do indeed charge luggage fees. The big difference is that their airfare rates are considerably cheaper than the US airlines for similar distances. If I'm paying $50 for a three hour flight, fine, an additional $20 for luggage is fine but if my three hour flight is $400 (as I paid recently in the US) plus I'm being charged an extra $25 per bag, then there's an issue.

The American public is no longer made of easy credit and disposable incomes. That attitude is pre-crisis. It's about time US businesses such as airlines, ISPs and phone companies caught up to the new reality. The only reason they don't is because they own Washington and they know it. By controlling the political donations, they can call the shots and muscle in or out candidates that behave.

As long as the airline industry continues to get a free ride by Washington, expect more ugly charges like $100 for carry-on luggage by Spirit Airlines. Even worse, look at the airports that they fly into, which aren't necessarily the most convenient airports. I just looked at a flight from Boston to Orlando for early June and was floored with their cost of $450. Since it's Orlando, this probably means vacation so who the heck doesn't have luggage? Even if it's for work, who does't carry clothes for a week? Read more about their many price increases and then check out just how expensive their flights can be. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Mommy thinks it's cute that lion is trying to eat her baby

Once again I'm not sure how to react to these YouTube videos where parents let bad things happen to their kids for the joy of the YouTube moment. In this case, the child wasn't in any danger, but honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to risk my kid (had I one) turning around and freaking out because a Lion is an inch away trying to eat him. I'm not child psychologist but I imagine that could be a traumatic experience. I don't know. It is an awfully cool video. Anyone else have qualms about this?



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You are being royally ripped off by your cell phone carrier

What's wrong with this picture?

This is my iPhone with my French plan
that costs only $26 a month. How much is yours?

Unless you're paying $26 a month for unlimited phone calls, unlimited text, free international calls, and 3 gigs of data, per month, you are being royally ripped off.  Because that's what they pay in France for far more service on their iPhones, and other phones, than we pay in the states for three times as much.

I pay $89 a month or so for my Verizon iPhone mobile plan in the states. That covers 450 minutes of call time a month, 2 gigs of data, and a set number of text messages (and I can't even confirm how many) - and being an American carrier, I am charged minutes for calls I receive. And don't even think of calling anyone abroad, I don't even want to know how much it costs. Also do NOT use your phone abroad, or it will cost you $1.29 a minute (or you can pay extra for a "special" deal that will "only" cost you $0.99 cents a minute). And if you use your cell phone's data/Internet plan abroad, well, you'd better take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for it.

Then there's my new French mobile plan from a company called FREE. (I travel enough for work that it's been worth it to have a plan over here.) My FREE plan, that I use on the same Verizon iPhone, costs me 19.99 euros a month, or US$26 at the current exchange rate (if you have their home Internet service, it's only 15.99 a month).

Keep in mind, this is for my FRENCH cell phone plan that's based in France, I can't use it in the states.  I'm just trying to show you what home-country cell phone plans cost in other developed countries that some of our countrymen like to consider inferior.  If it's $26 in France, why is it $85 in the states for less?

And what do I get for only $26 a month?

- Unlimited minutes for calls in France, to both cells and landlines.
- Unlimited minutes for calls to the US and Canada, both cells and landlines.
- Unlimited minutes for calls to landlines in most of Europe.
- No charges for calls received.
- Unlimited text messages and SMS in France.
- 3 gigs of data a month, then they throttle you down.
- You automatically connect to the company's wifi all over France and its territories.
- And I'm pretty sure you can set up your phone as a personal hotspot for free too (it just comes out of your 3 gigs a month).
- There's no minimum contract - you're charged each month until you cancel.  So if you want to get the plan for a week-long trip, go ahead (though you have to register it with a French address, and do it online as they have no physical offices).

Call it the Freedom Phone.

Oh, and it was painfully easy to sign up.  I just went to their Web site, entered my credit card, put in a local French home address, and when I arrived here I had a letter waiting for me (took about ten days to get), took the SIM card they sent me (the card is compatible with large size or micro SIM, you just punch out the size you need), put it into my phone, then went to their Web site and clicked the 'activate' button - and voila, it worked. It was that simple.

Why can a French company charge 1/3 the price of a US company to offer iPhone users a better cell phone plan?

And why haven't we had congressional hearings about why American consumers are being reamed by our phone companies?


[UPDATE: Someone raised the point that I "only" paid $300 for my iPhone, rather than $600 or $700, because AT&T and Verizon are subsidizing the cost of the phone, and somehow that skews the comparison of French and US cell plans.  Not really.  First off, check out the phones the French cell plan works with - far more than just the iPhone.  And check out the prices of the other non-iPhone phones in France, some are as low as 39 euros, or $50 bucks or so.  Try getting a phone plan like this for your 39 dollar phone in the states, with no contract.  Good luck.]

Folks, Americans need to wise up.  We are being royally ripped off, compared to the rest of the world.  When I tell people here that I pay Comcast $180 a month for home Internet and cable TV (and I don't even get the premium movie channels), they laugh, since folks here pay $30 a month for high speed 100 megabyte fiber optic Internet, cable TV, and phone service (that includes unlimited calls around the world) combined.

We should be embarrassed, and then outraged, by how badly we are being cheated by American phone companies and Internet providers.  70% of Americans don't own a passport, and with our lousy number of vacation days compared to Europeans, it's no wonder - it's a long flight to Europe, and who has a week of vacation time to spare, especially once you have a family?  But while our isolationism is understandable, we pay a serious economic price for it.

Americans have no idea how badly our own corporations are ripping us off.

(PS In good news, I was able to unlock my Verizon iphone, for international SIM cards, by simply calling Verizon.  Again, it only works for international SIMs, not for US competitors of Verizon, but at least that's something.) Read the rest of this post...

Did Rupert Murdoch break US law? US Senator wants to know.

For Rupert Murdoch's and News Corp, this slow drip of regular bad news has to be nerve racking. For most organizations and individuals, when you have bad news you want to get it all out as quickly as possible and move on. The pace may be frustrating for those who dislike Murdoch and News Corp, but the slow drip of bad news really is painful not to mention damaging for them. Rushing the process before all of the details are available could end up helping News Corp.

What surprises are going to emerge next in the ongoing News Corp scandal? More from The Guardian on Senator Rockefeller's request for information.

Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Senate committee opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws.

Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, has written to Lord Justice Leveson, who leads the British judicial inquiry into media ethics, asking if he has uncovered any evidence relating questionable practices in the US.

"I would like to know whether any of the evidence you are reviewing suggests that these unethical and sometimes illegal business practices occurred in the United States or involved US citizens," Rockefeller writes in a letter released on Wednesday.

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Occupy Wall Street should explicitly reject violence

This is an editorial, not a news item.

There has been a lively (but not too loud) debate within the Occupy movement about the issue of violence. Prior to the winter hiatus, almost all Occupy-related violence has come from the police — the muscle arm of the State in these matters, the designated suppressors of the "outside" resistance to the Rule of the .01 Percent.

• Side note: "Outside resistance" is sometimes called the "outside game" — the populist protests, the action in the streets — as opposed to more institutional responses like lobbying, law-making, and awareness writing. I'll be using the term "outside game" a lot in this context.
  
  Tahrir Square, for example, is an outside game. The Berkeley Free Speech movement is an outside game. Every rebellion needs one to complement its inside — institutional — game. It's the way this stuff works.

This one-sided violence has started to change, however. Police are no longer the only violent element at the protests. There are groups "within" the vaguely-structured Occupy movement that not only advocate violence, they seem to relish it (as a form of art perhaps, or frustration release). And so far, Occupy has not stepped up to reject violent solutions.

One of the aftermaths of the May Day demonstrations earlier this week are stories of violence.

• Here's what that looks like in the corporate press.
• Here's what that looks like in the Foxified press.
• Here's what the response looks like at the mayoral-police planning level.

I get that Occupy doesn't want to be a top-down movement. Outside games are always a mix of multi-headed leadership–organizing and broad bottom-up participation.

But by fetishizing "leaderlessness" the Occupy movement is doing two things wrong, in my view.

And if Occupy leaders (organizers) don't take on and reject violence, they will do lasting damage both to Occupy and to the broader movement of which Occupy is just one part.

What Occupy is doing wrong

In early stages, movements like Occupy are naturally amorphous; by definition they must spring up on their own. This bottom-up energy is what feeds and waters them; it's what allows them to reach "critical mass" if indeed they ever do.

But leaders always emerge, and leadership doesn't have to be all or nothing — absent or totally controlling. Mario Savio, for example, was clearly a leader (along with a number of others) in the Free Speech Movement. He didn't control it, but he guided it, and through his voice and mind the movement had focus.

There's a necessary symbiotic relationship between leaders and non-leaders in a truly populist movement. Dr. King (and others) had that relationship with the Civil Rights Movement of his era. There are many more examples.

By rejecting the place of leadership, Occupy risks rejecting two critical resources that leaders provide: education and guidance.

Education — Leaders don't just lead, they organize education. As I wrote just recently:

One of the most valuable and beneficial activities of the Vietnam War era were the teach-ins, where the Movement educated itself about what it was facing.

With that education, people understood how the U.S. replaced France in the fight against Ho Chi Minh, their former WWII ally, to whom they promised a free Southeast Asia after Japan, and later France, were defeated — that the "anti-Communist" frame, in other words, was a lie. Unity around a common understanding is both powerful and necessary.

I'll say that again — Unity around a common understanding is powerful and necessary.

Want a thought experiment to test that? Independent of strategy ideas (about which there can be differences), progressives who don't get that Obama is a corporatist cannot add positively to the Progressive Coalition for change and return to Rule of Law. Want to see the coalition that contains that confusion? Watch the Democratic Party.

This isn't a statement about how best to implement Progressive reform (Under Obama or Romney? Let's think about scenarios). It's a statement about how to understand what you see in front of your face.

Resistance movements that don't take self-teaching seriously are doomed to dilution. A cadre of leaders in a movement like Occupy (or in the Progressive movement of which Occupy is a part) is essential to guarantee that education. That's just a fact.

Moral and tactical guidance — I'll split these two in a minute. But it almost goes without saying, Not everyone with an idea has a good idea. Some ideas won't ever work, and some are immoral. For a great many of us, violence is immoral.

Seems obvious, right? Apparently not to Occupy. Care to split yourself into the OK-with-violence people and those who hate it? Go for it; those who hate violence will leave. From a morals standpoint, leaderlessness doesn't grow a movement; it reduces it to its least moral component.

As for tactical guidance, you need that to get good outcomes. In a resistance, it's not just about process. In a government, democratic process is critical, since running a nation or a city is all about the process. Think about that; the whole point of having a democracy as your government is the process.

But only part of the point of an outside game is the process; by definition an outside game also seeks an outcome. By fetishizing leaderlessness, Occupy could (perhaps very soon) surrender all ability to influence the outcome of its actions. All of your enemies are waiting for you to turn violent; I think they know what's good for them.

What happens if Occupy does not reject violence

Occupy is the tip the outside game resisting the Rule of the .01%. Police violence is the response.

You don't stop police violence with non-violence; but you justify it by violent acts of your own. Your violence guarantees escalation of violence on both sides, and guarantees that their violence (police beatings; pepper-swabbed eyeballs and throats; multiple strip searches; extended stays in urine-soaked solitary cells) will be sold as "necessary" by the entire troop of millionaire news-blond(e)s.

Dear Occupy — Is that the outcome you want?

Because if you don't develop leaders — and respect for leaders — who will teach and guide, that's the outcome you will get.

And not only you, friends in Occupy — the rest of us as well. Occupy is not the whole resistance movement, only a part. Does Occupy bear a responsibility to the resistance movement as a whole?

If it does not care about outcomes, it abandons all responsibility to achieve what it says it cares about, and it risks being seen by the ungenerous as indulgent — much the way "drum circles" are seen within Occupy itself.

What am I asking?

I'm asking for one thing — that leaders within the Occupy movement, as a group, publicly reject violence and promote non-violent resistance.

That's the whole of my request. I'm not asking you to control the violence; I'm asking you to make sure that Occupy embraces non-violence as a non-negotiable core value.

I'm not asking on moral grounds (though those exist). I'm asking because I care about outcomes, and we need you to succeed.

Don't let Occupy become the "drum circle" within the broader resistance movement. You not only risk yourselves; you risk the rest of us. Right now, you're a big part of the solution. We need you to stay that way; the battle will be even harder without you.

• Side note: "We don't condone" and "We condemn" have two separate meanings. This is not the time for baby steps, in my estimation. Things could go very south very quickly.

Thanks for your ear; I appreciate it.

Singing in the key of Please Condemn,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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DEA left college kid handcuffed for 4 days with no food or water, drank own urine, tried suicide

His crime was smoking pot.

Oh my God, this story just gets worse and worse. He was handcuffed the entire time. And now the Associated Press is on the story, and you have to think that there's more to this if AP is buying it.

As we noted yesterday, this college kid was apparently getting high with his friends on 4/20 day when DEA agents busted in, arrested them, and without even charging him with anything, threw him in a holding cell, handcuffed, and left him for 4 days with no food, water, a toilet, anything. They just left him. The kid had to drink his own urine - an expert says this may have saved his life - and he finally tried to commit suicide after having hallucinations, and with his vital organs starting to shut down.

If this story ends up being true, a lot of heads need to roll, and this kid needs to get the $20 million he's seeking and then some. Horrific story.

After two days of being handcuffed in a tiny holding cell and desperate for food and water, Daniel Chong said he realized he had to stop wondering when he’d be let out and start thinking about how to stay alive.

Entering what he called “survival mode,” and already drinking his own urine, he futilely tried to trigger an overhead fire sprinkler for some water, stacking clothes and a blanket and swinging his cuffed arms in an attempt to set it off.

Chong, 23, a student at the University of California, San Diego, had been picked up in a drug sweep but was never arrested or charged.

He spent four days forgotten in the windowless cell before Drug Enforcement Administration agents opened the door.

This feels like part of the larger "don't f--- with me" attitude that we've seen in law enforcement, and even flight attendants, since the nation lost its mind post-9/11. Don't question anyone in authority or they'll beat the bejeesus out of you and/or have you arrested. (Though even private citizens have a growing sense of angry entitlement that's getting scarier by the day - the people who get out of their cars and threaten you after THEY blow a stop sign and nearly run you over.) Our country is getting nastier, and the war on terror hasn't helped. In many ways, bin Laden got exactly what he wanted, to change who were are, for the worst, at a basic level. Read the rest of this post...

UK to force ISPs to block Pirate Bay

Allowing people to work with rogue banks that shatter the economy is OK but downloading music or movies is worthy of a China-like internet ban. Got it.

Britain's internet providers have been ordered by the high court to block access to the filesharing website The Pirate Bay.

The high court on Monday told five leading internet service providers (ISPs) , including Sky and Virgin Media, to block the site in the UK after ruling that it breaches copyright laws.

The block, starting within weeks, will mean millions of Britons will no longer be able to access one of the biggest and longest-running global filesharing sites.

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Barclays shareholders object to CEO's $27 m payout

And once again, the vote is meaningless, just as it has been with other banker pay votes. Regardless of whether the votes even hit 50%, the banks should realize that enough people are fed up with the excessive payouts. In all likelihood, the only way the situation is going to change is if enough shareholders walk away. The only way that is going to happen is if proper regulations are passed and enforced that limit the gambling and taxpayer risk. Dodd-Frank was a start but it still needs to go much deeper than that. More on the Barclays vote at The Guardian. Read the rest of this post...