Tag: Twitter

Somebody at Organizing For America (aka Obama For America, OFA) thought that a twitter campaign featuring a be-speckled twenty something wearing plaid pajamas would be a good way to #GetTalking about the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).

Until the the “reality based” twitter community decided to counter the White House propaganda machine with their own version of #PajamaBoy

h/t to RainbowGirl @ Corrente

I have to admit, I was surprised to be notified that Historian Rick Perlstein of Nixonland fame, devoted an entire column in the Nation to two tweets replying to him; one from myself and one from another commentator on twitter. It’s also surprising, because I have been a fan of some of what Perlstein has written in the past, and I have cited him before. However, after this, I and certainly a lot of other people surprised at this lack of professionalism from an established writer, won’t do it again.

After all, one doesn’t normally read columns by established historians devoting entire pieces to complaints about tweets they received or people on twitter. Especially, one tweet that was merely a question about a widely cited article at CNET. I certainly don’t know why Rick Perlstein was so offended by that to devote an entire piece in the Nation to mine and one other tweet he received. I have to wonder if he realizes how unprofessional he looks by doing so. The excellent responses to Perlstein’s shoddy piece in the comments section certainly speak to that.

On Glenn Greenwald and His Fans

Read another tweet:

“NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants cnet.co/1agOFCy via @CNET What say you, @RickPerlstein ?”

I think we can detect here an accusatory tone, especially given the way the tweeter, “therealpriceman,” fawns over Glenn Greenwald generally. (Though you can never be sure on the Internet, and besides, why do people pursue political arguments on Twitter anyway? I’ll never understand how, for instance, “When u talk gun violence lk in mirror PA here we cling to guns-apologz to PRES O”-another tweet directed my way, apparently somehow meant to respond to this-could possibly contribute anything useful to our common political life.) I detect in this message: even the NSA says you’re wrong about Glenn Greenwald, so when are you going to apologize? And if I’m reading right, that’s some really smelly stupidity. Because the whole point of my original post was that there was plenty Greenwald had “nailed dead to rights” in his reporting. What I had in mind when I wrote that (I should have specified this, I think) was the stuff on Verizon turning over metadata to the NSA. And yet what therealpriceman links to is an article suggesting something that Greenwald has not (yet?) claimed, and which still remains controversial and undetermined: that the NSA has acknowledged that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, a claim sourced to Representative Jerrold Nadler, which Nadler based on a classified briefing he and other Congressmen received, but which it has since been established Nadler probably just misunderstood.

{…..}

And given that perspective, I would love to know why Glenn Greenwald thinks the establishment cannot do to him, a relative flyspeck in the grand scheme of things, what they did to Dan Rather, a towering giant of Washington reporting going back to Watergate. Which is: consign him to the outer darkness, where the only people who care about what he has to say are the likes of my good friends @therealpriceman and @runtodaylight.

He starts out by assuring the audience that he has thick skin, but then goes on to prove just how thin it really is.  By whining for 13 paragraphs or so about criticism, criticism from a couple of tweets he received days ago, it really doesn’t show the maturity he was initially hoping to espouse. So since I apparently hurt his fee fees so bad, in 140 characters or less, I’ll go ahead and put his suppositions to the test.

So Osama bin Laden is dead and buried at sea. I’m sure there will be those who will not accept any evidence of that, even if they were standing there when it happened. Such are the conspiracy theory skeptics.

What amazes me is that the DNA testing confirming the body was indeed bin Laden was done so quickly, within hours. Yet, death row prisoners are often denied that testing to prove their innocence. One would think that an honest judicial system would ant to be sure they had the right person, the key word being honest. In NYC, the remains of the 9/11 victims still are unidentified after 10 years. Around the country rape kits go untested and the rapists go free because of statute of limitations in many states.

This comment from TalkLeft fairly sums up my thoughts on the events of the last 24 hours:

1.     There is one less evil person in the world; that’s not a bad thing, but if I removed one eyedropper of water from a full bathtub, would it look any different?

2.     Are we now officially an eye-for-an-eye society now, where when we kill someone who killed others, “justice” has been done?  It appears so, which is both offensive and frightening.  I am troubled by the expression of this sentiment from the president, who is supposed to be a defender of the Constitution.

3.     The real legacy of Osama bin Laden may not lie in the numbers of deaths he was responsible for, but in the erosion of freedoms, the loss of privacy and the perversion of our system of justice, which I do not believe will ever be restored.

4.     Dancing in the streets in front of the White House to celebrate the killing of bin Laden is a scene I could have done without; a candlelit vigil in memory of all the lives lost and lives affected would have been a more fitting way to mark the occasion – in my opinion.

5.     “Now is not the time to let down our guard” is the watchword of the day, just as I expected it would be; bin Laden’s death is not the end of anything, just another data point on a spectrum that continues to move away from strengthening and protecting our individual rights.  Who will the new Face of Evil be, and what will we have to give up in that fight?

6.     Lots of questions about Pakistan: how could Osama have been hiding in plain sight of the Pakistani equivalent of West Point?  Is their intelligence that bad, have they been paid to look the other way – or worse – and what will the repercussions be, if any?

Finally, I said last night that for me, this is anticlimactic; bin Laden’s death is never going to see the restoration of all that we have lost as Americans.

That being said, I am not so jaded and cynical that I don’t understand that this may have brought some kind of closure to those who lost loved ones in the many bin Laden-engineered attacks both here and around the world, and it isn’t my intention to try to deny that to them; we all have to handle this in our own way – we all feel what we feel for our own reasons.  

On a lighter note, this IT guy, trying to find a safe place from the chaos, fled to the hills with his lap top for some peace and quiet in Abbottabad, when he was disturbed from sleep by helicopters hovering near by and began Tweeting. Unbeknown to him, he was Tweeting the biggest news since Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” thus making Sohaib Ather, “the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid”. He is now a much sought after media darling and has over 66,000 followers on Twitter. Nice job, Sohaib.

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” Jessica Dovey, student, University of Pennsylvania

Stephen Colbert has had a grand time taking on Sen. Jon Kyl’s blatant lie on the Senate floor that Planned Parenthood is using 90% of its services for abortion, when it’s actually about 3%. Kyl’s spokes person tried walking back the lie but Stephen took it to Twitter creating this hash-tag, #Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement

Transcript provided by Bruin Kid @ Daily Kos

Here comes another assault on your pocket book. Grocery store prices for just about everything from meat to soda will be expected to spike. On of the budgets cuts that Congress could make that might ease the pain at the checkout counter and the gas pumps is to end the billions that are wasted subsidizing ethanol production which not only costs more to produce than a gallon of gas but pollutes more in its production.

Corn Futures Spiking as USDA Reports Decrease in Supply

The outlook for international food and grain supplies is looking more uncertain after the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported projections that corn supply would decrease to lowest level in 15 years according to the Wall Street Journal.

The supply of corn has been depleted for a multitude of reasons including increased ethanol production, increased livestock feeding, and resulting rises in international demand. Luke Chandler, a commodity research analyst for Rabobank, has suggested that ethanol production has “changed [markets] in a structural way” and that the recovery for prices will take substantial time.

Consumption rates as evidenced by the USDA report show that the 12.4 billion bushels harvested in the US agricultural sector will decrease to 651 million bushels by August 31, 2011.

Say it isn’t so:

Is Twitter worth $10bn?

Talks with potential suitors Facebook and Google reportedly value Twitter at $8-10bn

Twitter has been holding talks with potential suitors including Facebook and Google that could value the micro-blogging site at $10bn (£6.2bn), according to reports.

The early stage talks are not believed to have progressed far but, according to the Wall Street Journal, one thing has been agreed on: the loss-making firm is worth somewhere between $8-10bn.

Twitter is a private company and does not disclose its revenues. Last year it is estimated to have had revenues of $45m but ended the year making a loss as the firm spent on hiring and new data centres. This year Twitter’s revenues are expected to more than double to between $100-110m.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Which Is More “Gangsta,” 50 Cent’s Twitter Stock Pitch or Goldman’s Facebook Deal?

Music was Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s second career. News reports say he began dealing crack at the age of twelve, after the murder of his coke-dealer mother. Early tracks like “Ghetto Quran” and “How to Rob” reflect a brutal, street-hustling life, and Jackson has the bullet wounds to match. He’s talented, wildly successful, and I sure wouldn’t mess with him.

But when he starts mixing social media with pumped-up investment pitches, 50 Cent is moving into Goldman Sachs territory. “Fitty” reportedly earned millions for touting a stock on Twitter, without disclosing that he owned shares in the company. How does that stack up against Goldman’s own social media deal with Facebook? When you move into the stock market, you’re going where the real gangstas roll. . . . . .

“Ok ok ok my friends just told me stop tweeting about HNHI so that we can get all the money. Hahaha check it out its the real deal.”

50 Cent about a marginal stock all weekend and into early Monday, calling it “BIG MONEY” and saying “you can double your money right now.” The effect was mindblowing.

Jackson’s credited with moving the stock of a company called HNHI by $50 million dollars in one day, even though its own auditor reportedly “expressed concerns about its financial future.” Fitty didn’t mention that he held 30 million shares of the stock, which he picked up for $750,000 last fall. Yesterday’s surge reportedly netted him somewhere between $8.7 million and $10 million. No wonder so many news accounts repeated the name of his hit album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

HNHI increased in value by about 200%. Even after it dropped more than 23% today, Jackson was way ahead of the game. Fitty’s attorneys presumably got a little worried, because the disclaimers started appearing late Monday: “HNHI is the right investment for me it might not be for u! Do ur homework,” “I own HNHI stocks thoughts on it are my opinion. Talk to your financial advisor …”