(Get Fuzzy via GoComics.com)
Even in a murderous oligarchy, you just can’t get error-free tech minions:
(Reuters) – Human error likely caused a glitch in China’s Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing’s web censorship, sources told Reuters.
Hundreds of millions of people attempting to visit China’s most popular websites on Tuesday afternoon found themselves redirected to Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), a company that sells anti-censorship web services tailored for Chinese users.
The official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday quoted experts as saying that the malfunction could have been the result of a hacking attack, and domestic media was full of speculation along those lines…
However, sources familiar with the Chinese government’s web management operations told Reuters that a hacking attack was not to blame for the malfunction. They declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
They said the incident may have been the result of an engineering mistake made while making changes to the “Great Firewall” system the Communist Party uses to block websites it deems undesirable – such as the DIT site.
The state-run China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a microblog post that the outage, which lasted for several hours, was due to a malfunction in China’s top-level domain name root servers.
These servers administrate the country’s Domain Name Service (DNS), which matches alphabetic domain names with a database of numeric IP addresses of computers hosting different websites, a sort of reference directory for the entire internet.
Instead of matching the names of popular Chinese websites with their proper IP addresses, Chinese DNS servers instead redirected users trying to access websites not ending with the “.cn” suffix to the IP address associated with DIT’s homepage…
***********
Apart from lamenting the universality of imperfection, what’s on the agenda for the day?
OzarkHillbilly
Yeah. Right. Sure.
Also, I have some beach front property in Florida to sell. Did I mention that I am desperate for cash? A motivated seller? Make me an offer, no matter how ridiculous I will consider it. You never know, you just might be the lucky one.
Mustang Bobby
I’m wondering what kind of “government overreach” Bob McDonnell is going to learn about when he’s booked into the Rebar Hotel and ends up married to the guy with the most cigarettes.
On another note, my sympathies to those of you who have to dig your way out of another snowstorm or shiver through the cold. I’m listening to Interlochen Public Radio out of northern Michigan where it’s 7 F. Even here in Miami that makes me shiver.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: 19 in Athens but no snow.
Cervantes
You know, that’s something to be celebrated, not lamented.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Joe doesn’t like it cuz the feds are using an “old” law to go after him and his old lady.
“”The federal government’s case rests entirely on a misguided legal theory, and that is that facilitating an introduction or a meeting, appearing at a reception or expressing support for a Virginia business is a serious federal crime if it involves a political donor or someone who gave an official a gift,” McDonnell said. “The United States Supreme Court has already rejected this radical idea and for good reason: Because if it were applied as the law of the land, then nearly every elected official, from President Obama on down, would have to be charged for providing tangible benefits to donors.”
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mustang Bobby:
I’m a little south of there. My second job site gets me out in an open parking ramp for about an hour. It was somewhere between 10 and 15 degrees between 11pm and 12am. No wind, though, so it wasn’t horrible. What pisses me off more than the cold is the fucking lack of sunlight, day after day. Even when it busted up over the frezing mark, it was gray. Got a nice case of SAD goin’ right now.
raven
“I don’t think the feds should have been involved because it’s he’s the governor of Virginia.” Airtight logic there.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Might be hackers…Or it might be the PRC baiting a trap.
Poopyman
@Mustang Bobby: Seven above in Interlochen? Shit, here in Tidewater MD it’s 6 above. And the stars reach clear down to the ground, but the wind is nothing to mess with.
Poopyman
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Or it might actually have been human error which has … been taken care of.
OzarkHillbilly
This morn seems to be the opposite of yestermorn in terms of news. LOTS of good news. To start with: “Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Africa’s leading literary figures, has responded to a wave of recent anti-gay laws on the continent by publicly outing himself in a short story.”
Up yours Nigeria, Uganda.
Meanwhile, up in St Louis, the Missouri History Museum takes the first tentative steps to recover from the scandals which enveloped that storied institution. As a big time fan (and small time contributor) of all 5 institutions in the Zoo Museum District, I am almost giddy with happiness right now. So, here’s to Frances Levine as the new president of the History Museum. Live long and prosper.
Poopyman
Just checked the Weather Underground’s Wundermap to see how far south I’d have to go to be above freezing. Answer: Jacksonville, FL.
Mustang Bobby
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I spent a year in Frankfort and six in Petoskey. I think there were times when folks would sacrifice a goat to the sun god to see if that would bring it out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yep. But it sure as hell wasn’t an “engineering mistake”.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Poopyman:
Millions being routed to that one site, which specializes in getting around the Great Firewall? Makes me wonder if the PRC doesn’t actually own that site, or if they don’t have backdoor access.
Let me ask you this: If you were in China and you were interested in looking for a way around the firewall and then this just happened to happen, would you sign up?
Botsplainer
@Mustang Bobby:
From what I’ve read, their five kids are going to have to learn how to do Thanksgiving dinner without mom and dad, as those two will be eating off of metal trays and toasting the year’s bounty with Pruno.
I do expect that Ultrasound Bob et ux may come out of this with more appreciation for gay people, presuming that their prison husbands are nice.
NonyNony
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Or, and I know this may shock some people, it may be that the Chinese government is even more laughably inept at what they do on the internet as our own government is. Totalitarian societies have a major flaw, and that is that people are idiots – I can completely see someone attempting to add the DIT site to a blocklist, type it in the wrong file, and end up making it the page that you hit if you try to avoid the firewall. Speaking as a former network administrator who worked with idiots, this kind of thing at least used to happen far too often. All it takes is an admin who has more confidence than they have ability, a machine that is capable of having two files open at the same time, and the wrong window being active when said admin goes to make the change.
Mustang Bobby
@NonyNony: Not unlike the time someone wrote up a really snarky response to an interoffice memo and hit Reply All instead of just the one person they wanted to share it with.
No, that didn’t happen to me, but staff meeting was a little tense the next day.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mustang Bobby:
Yeah, but at least you’ve got M-22 up there in Frankfort when the weather is nice (and Petoskey ain’t far from some sorta heaven, either). If I knew that was coming in a couple of months, I think it might get me through the winter.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for the news on the Missouri History Museum I had not seen that. His graph is amazing:
I mean I am all for paying folks what they are worth even if it is with my tax dollars. If you want qualified people to work in government you have to pay them. But more than half a million does seem a little over-the-top.
Botsplainer
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
My wife just got back from Hong Kong (she had a few days after going to Thailand and Cambodia). She said the blocking was pervasive, but messageless. She couldn’t access any search engines that she knew (Google, Bing, Yahoo), CNN or a hotmail account she keeps for when she’s traveling (she doesn’t trust opening her work account from foreign locales). Facebook was problematic, too. The only place she went where the Great Firewall of China was down was the Apple Store.
Tommy
Well I just made the mistake of turning on MSNBC and getting hit with the Wendy Davis news. Look I don’t know about your family, but I am not totally sure of everything that went on and I am sure some things I know have been expanded on over time. I mean heck a few years ago I was at my grandfather’s funeral and some dude told me (and it was true) that my mom had been married before she married my father. I was like WTF. I asked dad, and true, but something I should never mention again.
Tommy
@Botsplainer: I didn’t know this was happening in Hong Kong. I mean I know China has now taken over control, but everything I heard (and I guess it was wrong) was that they are kind of “hands off.” They didn’t want to mess with Hong Kong’s financial markets as an economic powerhouse in the part of the world.
Botsplainer
@Tommy:
Fatbaugh has been raging that she was decreed divorced at 21 instead of 19 (his wives all were real quick to pull the trigger on filing, and didn’t go through long separations due to the fact they were broke), and that her ex-husband has been telling all these tales about what a horrible, skanky harridan she is. Plus, she didn’t live in a trailer all that long.
Yes, totally valid criticisms from a real Man’s Man.
MikeJ
@NonyNony:
It’s not just the government. Big complex systems are big and complex, and people are going to screw them up, private sector or public.
In other words, shit happens.
Tommy
@Botsplainer: After my father retired he and my mom moved back to the town my family has lived in since like 1867. My family name is well known there and he sits on all these broads and gives a ton of his time. Folks beg him to run for office. He is like why the hell would I want to do that and have people attack me, my family, and dig through my past looking for any little thing to use against me?
I think we get the government we deserve and I have to believe there are many folks out there like my dad that would do a really good job if elected, but they refuse to run. It is really kind of said IMHO.
JPL
@raven: Gov. Christie approves of that logic.
OzarkHillbilly
@NonyNony: This luddite will bow down to your superior knowledge.
monkeyfister
How it happened: http://boingboing.net/2014/01/21/stamping-chinese-banknotes-wit.html
“An anonymous anti-censorship group is stamping Chinese banknotes with a QR code and the message “Scan and download software to break the Internet firewall.” The stamps encode a URL for Freegate, a firewall-busting service. ”
But if the Chinese want to pretend a glitch happened… well… there ya go.
tybee
@Poopyman:
yup, it’s below freezing here.
Baud
@monkeyfister:
Huh? How does a QR code circumvent blocking?
Tommy
@MikeJ: Amen.
I say the same thing over and over again and often folks don’t believe me. Back in my advertising agency days a few of my clients were some of the largest technology firms in the world. Oh the stories I could tell. My favorite is Peoplesoft, which wasn’t my account but the account of the lady in the office next to me.
We were running all these ads about the “paperless office” and how their software made billing easier. We did about $7M a year with them, and by the end of the year the account rep had like 3-4 3 inch ring binders of PAPER POs from Peoplesoft.
Oh and my largest client was Lucent. I’d sit in on weekly conference calls with their senior executives. I recall in like 1995 them saying they thought the Internet was a fad. They were in a place where they should have crushed Cisco, I mean they literally did what their tagline said at the time “we make the things that make communications work” but also they didn’t see the future and Cisco crushed them in a matter of a few years.
IowaOldLady
We’re back from Florida, and I expect to spend the day on laundry. At Universal Studios, we were waiting in line for the Transformer ride and Mr IOL looked around and said “We are the oldest people here.” True. Good for us.
CarolDuhart2
Throwing things out to Juicers and a long story.
Yesterday I went to work, and as I was leaving, I found out that my coat was locked in a place where not even the guards could get to. Called my brother for a ride, but even with a ride I had to walk out to the car. Feel sore afterwards, and still a little sore this morning. I called off.
Do you have any suggestions for feeling better?
OzarkHillbilly
Oh, and from the “You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up” department:
The lawyer for the appropriately named Freedom Industries, High Spoiler of Waters, Chief Avoider Of Creditors, and the Arch Evader of Lawsuits, his name is (and I kid you fvckin’ not) Mark E. Freedlander.
Tommy
@IowaOldLady: I am not sure how “old” you are “IowaOldLady” but I was there in my late 30s and I felt old. I was there for a conference and thought there was no way I’d like that evening event, I mean I am too “cool” for this. I had a flat out blast.
IowaOldLady
@Tommy: I wanted to see the Harry Potter area in Islands of Adventure. IMHO, Rowling’s biggest achievement was the world she created, and it really felt like we were entering Diagon Alley.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve ranted on this for days. My best friend works at the EPA as an enforcement lawyer. Does “Ground Water.” The number of hours we’ve talked about ground water is staggering and it scares me how hard it is for the EPA to enforce much of anything.
When this all happened I found Wired has an actual environmental reporter who has been doing stunning reporting. I guess there are high priced toxic databases of chemicals. She searched them. She called the EPA and other experts. Most didn’t even know what the chemical spilled was. So she went to Twitter asking for input and what she learned was terrifying.
Literally nobody is entirely sure what the chemical is. NEVER been tested. So as you might guess they don’t even know what levels could be harmful.
OzarkHillbilly
@IowaOldLady: Mr IOL I guess his first name is IOM?
IowaOldLady
@OzarkHillbilly: How did you guess?
scuffletuffle
@Tommy: I wouldn’t run for public office either if I made a habit of sitting on broads!! ;-)
Napoleon
So that guy who shot someone in a theater for texting is claiming self defense:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/a-movie-date-a-text-message-and-a-fatal-shot.html?hp
Tommy
@IowaOldLady: I am a pretty huge nerd/geek. But somehow I’ve never gotten into Harry Potter. Which is strange cause I am a reader. And folks I know as adults that don’t read have read most of her books. But I can agree that the world she created is kind of stunning. I mean wasn’t a fan of the movies and their plots, but the world was just stunning. If I could walk into that I’d like that very much.
BTW: Since I am in Illinois and I assume you are in Iowa you might get to Flordia the same way I do. Check out US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. It is almost on the way. I don’t have children myself, but my brother and his wife have this wonderful little girl. She is almost five and for the last couple years they drive to Disney World et al. Last year she asked to leave early and to go back and see the rockets. As a family that has not had a female born into our family in 100+ years that she likes rockets makes all us males really happy :).
Tommy
@scuffletuffle: Oh I’ve been posting to message boards and later blogs like this since the 80s. I am totally sure I said things that were totally stupid. I’ve never worked hard to hide my identity, so therefore clearly no way I could ever run for office. Maybe a small office, but anything where people might troll around for things I’ve said, well I’d be done.
BTW: Got the joke/typo.
Steeplejack (tablet)
It’s 5° here in NoVa, wind chill –11°. That’s the coldest I’ve seen it in my eight years here. No more snow, but the 6″ on the ground is crunchy and hard. Glad I’m not driving anywhere this morning.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (tablet): Was shorts weather here last night, currently 1/4 to 5 and 53 degrees. My wife took me to dinner for my b-day and it was still about 65 at 9pm.
Tommy
@Steeplejack (tablet): I lived for many years in DC (and NOVA) and I don’t ever recall it getting that cold. Not that long ago we had a high of -5 and something like -35 windchill where I live now. The folks that live around me laughed at me cause I was outside walking around. They were like why?
I said I am 44 and it was the coldest time ever in my life and I wondered what he felt like. It felt like what you might think.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tommy: A couple of old friends of mine went to SLUH and for their Senior community service project they decided to investigate National Lead Industries and their polluting of the Mississippi River. As part of their investigations they went to the Corps of Engineers to inspect the records held their. They found several smoking guns including one memo which stated something to the effect of, “NL Industries is currently dumping several thousand gallons of NameAPollutantaPhrene per day. Make sure this information does not get out!”
Of course they requested copies of all relevant documents, but when they received them, the really incriminating documents had all mysteriously disappeared. Imagine that.
The best part, to my sick and cynical mind anyway (my buddies too), the lawyer in charge was named, and again I kid you fvckin’ not, Bob Muffler.
raven
@Tommy: Illinois to Florida on 65? I guess if you were going to the Panhandle.
Mustang Bobby
@Napoleon: You can add popcorn to the list of deadly weapons in Florida, right after iced tea and Skittles.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yea and your ass is going to burn up in a wildfire!
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: Let me tell you an EPA story. I said my best friend was an enforcement lawyer at the EPA. Ground water. Works in DC. If you have ever been in DC not that far off the Mall the Potomac River runs through it. Well the sewer system in DC is so old that if it rains a lot, raw sewage backs up into the Potomac.
The EPA just wanted signs saying this. To not swim or fish in the river after heavy rain fall.
It took him 7 years to get this done. The signs are now there. Ponder that for a second. Seven years.
It wasn’t like folks didn’t know this. We went down there and could see and smell it happening. But again a ton of resources were spent just getting the most basic thing done.
Tommy
@raven: I don’t have the AAA TripTik in front of me, but I think that is it. We go to Destin, FL first and then south of the state.
Tommy
I am just going to mock NYC. Snow came down. What like 4 inches. You can’t drive in that? They were all saying they needed plows in the city. I ask, cause I don’t know, where do they put the snow they plow? In my little town we got a few inches the other day, outside my house there was a mountain of snow cause that was where it was pushed. You push that snow up on a street corner?
MomSense
I think I have lost perspective from living in snow country for so long but they are complaining about the roads in NYC and we are all looking at the footage and not seeing the problem. We don’t even plow when there is that little snow in the ground.
TS
@raven:
What I heard this am
“Why are the Feds charging him? He hasn’t broken any Virginia Laws”. Which is probably why the Feds are charging him rather than the Virginia AG.
Joe seems to be losing all his favorite governors – is it wrong that I smile.
Baud
@Tommy:
You know who else put up signs?
Tommy
@MomSense: I recall going camping in the Tahoe area. I asked a bartender what those tall poles were on the side of the road. She said that is so you know where the road is when it snows. I was like that is kind of hardcore.
Tommy
@Baud: Not sure what you mean?
Baud
@Tommy:
Godwin joke. Internet tradition.
raven
@Tommy: Yea, that would be it. We go to Seagrove Beach about 20 miles east of Destin and I go out on the boats at the Destin Harborwalk.
Baud
@Tommy: @Baud:
“You know who else did X” is a reference to Hitler. It mockes Hitler comparisons which are too often used.
OzarkHillbilly
A really long read, and a very sad story, but well worth the time it took me to read it: Joyce Carol Vincent: How could this young woman lie dead and undiscovered for almost three years?
Reminds me of a neighbor I had when I lived on Nebraska on the South Side of STL. Didn’t know him hardly at all even tho we lived across the street from each other almost 2 years. I’d say hello, he’d wave across the street, like that. Longest conversation I ever had with him was after somebody hit his car and took off. I got the license #, but he declined it. Then one mid-morn the street was choked with cop cars and an ambulance, cops asking questions nobody could answer. He hadn’t been to work in a few days and a coworker came by to check on him. Found him with his brains blown out and a .45 on the floor beside him. Been dead about a week.
For a week I had been looking across the street and could see his TV on thru his window and part of the chair he always sat in silhouetted against it. In my mind I can even see his head leaning back. Don’t know if that is a real memory or manufactured. Doesn’t matter because for a week I was looking at a dead man and never thought twice about it.
This world.
Steeplejack
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, every day I see your boring ±70° and curse you roundly. In the summer when I’m hot and in the winter when I’m cold.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Linky no work. You fix.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
rikyrah
it’s ok….the dust went in my eye reading this too.
https://twitter.com/JakeIsMobile/status/425640005433049088/photo/1
rikyrah
Landmark discussion tackles immigration in black America
by Kunbi Tinuoye | January 21, 2014 at 11:39 AM
SNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid is taking time out of her busy schedule on Wednesday to participate in a high-profile panel discussion on immigration and how it impacts the black community.
Reid, the managing editor of theGrio and a regular MSNBC contributor, will join forces with New York City’s new first lady Chirlane McCray and the Rev. A.R. Bernard, alongside other prominent figures at the All Faces, All Races immigration forum to be held at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, where Rev. Bernard is pastor.
Other speakers scheduled to attend on Wednesday include Grammy-award winner Pras Michel, composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, Bishop Orlando Findlayter of New Hope Christian Fellowship, and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.
Presented by African-American think tank The Black Institute, the interactive town hall forum aims to heighten the visibility of black immigrants and put the spotlight on current immigration laws, reform efforts, and their impact on immigration.
http://thegrio.com/2014/01/21/landmark-discussion-tackles-immigration-in-black-america/
rikyrah
Chief: Boy ‘saved those other 6 people’
Tyler J. Doohan knew he didn’t have school Monday morning because of the holiday, and asked his mother if it would be OK if he stayed at his grandfather’s trailer at the East Avenue Manufactured Home Community off Route 441 in Penfield.
It was a place Tyler knew well. He stayed there frequently, playing with other kids in the neighborhood and having barbecues and bonfires with his family in the summer.
It was in the back bedroom of that small, single-wide trailer at 39 Fondiller Ave. that firefighters found Tyler’s body Monday morning, just a few feet away from the bed of his disabled Uncle Steve, who investigators believe Tyler was trying to save.
Firefighters say Tyler, an 8-year-old who seemingly spent much of his young life in different homes and school districts, was killed along with his grandfather, Louis J. Beach, 57, and Steven D. Smith, 54, in a fire that appears to have been caused by an electrical problem at the front of the trailer.
And as Penfield firefighters — working their third trailer fire in a little more than a year — sorted through the rubble of melted toys and furniture charred beyond recognition, neighbors discussed the number of people who’d taken up residence in a metal home which they say had been deemed unlivable more than once.
“The roof had collapsed on the front half of the trailer and one of the individuals was found there, probably on a couch but there was nothing left to even see if it was furniture,” said Penfield Fire Chief Chris Ebmeyer.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/2014/01/20/fire-chief-he-saved-those-other-six-people-/4668401/
rikyrah
The Eight Juiciest Revelations From The Bob McDonnell Indictment
Eric Lach – January 21, 2014, 6:21 PM EST22676
Earlier this month, Bob McDonnell became former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. On Tuesday, he became indicted former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Just days after he left office, the Republican and and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, were charged in federal court with more than a dozen counts related to the tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and loans they accepted from a wealthy Virginia businessman. (The ex-governor maintained on Tuesday that he had done nothing illegal.)
The fact that the McDonnells were under scrutiny from prosecutors was no secret. Stories about the investigation, and the relationship between the McDonnells and the businessman, Jonnie Williams, had been appearing in the press for months. We knew (thanks in large part to stellar reporting from The Washington Post) about the Rolex, and the Oscar de la Renta dress, and the Ferrari joyride, and the golf outings. But the 43-page indictment filed on Tuesday did reveal numerous new details about the scandal, and confirmed several other points which had been fuzzy or in dispute.
Here are the highlights:
1. It All Started With An Inauguration Dress
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/mcdonnell-indictment-revelations
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: Try this.
rikyrah
Republicans Seek To Sabotage Obamacare With Higher Premiums
Sahil Kapur – January 22, 2014, 6:00 AM EST1819
Conservative wonks and Republican lawmakers are coalescing around a new strategy to sabotage Obamacare by repealing a temporary piece of the law designed to hold down premiums in the event of major market disruptions.
The provision — called “risk corridors,” but dubbed the “Obamacare bailout” by the law’s opponents — seeks to stabilize costs by creating a pot of money that takes in funds from insurers who enroll healthier customers and uses it to pay out insurers who enroll sicker customers. It’s a safety valve that sunsets after 2016. The repeal push is clever messaging in a sense because it lets conservatives snatch the mantle of populism from liberals against wealthy insurance companies. But it comes with its share of dangers, too.
Last November, as TPM reported, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation to repeal this provision. Since then it has picked up 13 Republican co-sponsors, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and two companion bills in the House, which are supported by numerous Republicans. The idea has been championed by conservative lobbying groups like the Club For Growth and Heritage Action, and pushed by writers including Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, Ramesh Punnuru in Bloomberg View and Deroy Murdock in National Review.
The conservatives are open about the end goal: collapse Obamacare by causing higher premiums on the law’s marketplaces for the newly insured, which progressive experts who support Obamacare agree would occur.
Ponnuru, labeling the risk corridors “outrageous,” writes that without them insurance companies “would have to raise premiums and thus make their plans even more unattractive than they already are — or just withdraw from the exchanges. Obamacare would, in other words, become even less likely to succeed than it already is.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-bailout-risk-corridors-conservatives-sabotage
rikyrah
Jim Roberts ✔ @nycjim
Follow
For Christie & MSNBC, a Messy Divorce Plays Out in Public. via @nytimes. Ratings win for @Maddow http://nyti.ms/19Ghd9B
7:22 AM – 20 Jan 2014
Glocksman
@Napoleon:
Not surprising, though given what’s come out so far I can’t see it sticking unless the prosecution’s totally inept, the judge disallows any evidence of his past nuttiness about texters, or the jury is clueless.
Never mind.
He’ll walk.
If he’s on suicide watch (that green vest is what you wear on suicide watch), part of that is solitary confinement in an isolation cell.
How much of that is because he’s a suicide risk and how much of that is to keep other prisoners from beating the shit out of an ex-cop?
rikyrah
Democrats win state Senate seat in Northern Virginia — and perhaps control of the chamber
By Caitlin Gibson and Ben Pershing,
Democrats remained on course to take control of the Virginia Senate after winning a key special election Tuesday, as thousands of Northern Virginia voters braved snow and bitter winds to cast ballots in an unusual, three-way contest.
In the race to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D), Democrat Jennifer Wexton prevailed over Republican John Whitbeck and independent Joe T. May, a former Republican delegate running as an independent, according to unofficial election results. The district encompasses a slice of Fairfax County and a hefty portion of eastern Loudoun County, a region that has leaned toward Democrats in recent elections but remains battleground territory.
With the Virginia Senate previously split 20-20, Democrats must hold the two seats vacated by Herring and Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam (D) so they don’t lose control to Republicans. If the chamber remains evenly divided, Northam would act as a tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats control of the chamber. Republicans had previously controlled the chamber with a GOP lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, providing the tie-breaking vote.
The race to replace Northam in his former Senate district, which is based in Norfolk and also leans Democratic, remains undecided. Del. Lynwood W. Lewis (D-Accomack) was certified the winner of a special election by just nine votes, prompting Republican Wayne Coleman on Thursday to request a recount.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrats-win-state-senate-seat-in-northern-virginia–and-perhaps-control-of-the-chamber/2014/01/21/6a0eecac-829a-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story.html
rikyrah
Ed Sykes @EdSykes29
Follow
Many talking abt Mrs. McDonnell’s role in case. @aburnspolitico calls her “Lady Macbeth with an AMEX card…” http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/bob-mcdonnell-virginia-indictment-scandal-102460.html?hp=t1_3 … #vagov
10:01 PM – 21 Jan 2014 from Richmond, VA, United States
rikyrah
The Independent ✔ @Independent
Follow
Pope Francis tells Davos business leaders: ‘Ensure humanity is served by wealth, not ruled by it’ http://ind.pn/1c0iOGD
4:48 AM – 22 Jan 2014
rikyrah
Acceptance Speech by Martin Luther King Jr. (12 minutes)
Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964.Copyright © Norsk Rikskringkasting AS 2012
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1853
rikyrah
Maddow spent the first 22 Minutes of her show on Governor Transvaginal Ultrasound.
Loved it all…LOL
http://on.msnbc.com/1aoWMia
JoyfulA
@Tommy: In Philly, they (used to) plow heavy snows into the rivers. I imagine NYC does the same.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: What a hero! I wish he’d realized that Uncle Steve didn’t want him to die trying to save him.
We told our little kids to never worry ablut us, their job is just to get the hell out of the house. He probably still would have gone back in…
Cervantes
@Tommy:
McCann?
The Raven on the Hill
Well, Staples and Target have stopped offering health insurance to their part-time employees.
Meantime, it is reported that high Chinese officials are sending their fortunes off-shore to avoid taxes, just like good little capitalists.