Eideard

Users of online social network sites such as Facebook are editing their pages and tightening their privacy settings to protect their reputations in the age of digital sharing, according to a new survey.

About two-thirds, or 63 percent, of social networking site users questioned in the Pew Research Center poll said they had deleted people from their “friends” lists, up from 56 percent in 2009. Another 44 percent said they had deleted comments that others have made on their profiles, up from 36 percent two years before.

Users also have become more likely to remove their names from photos that were tagged to identify them. Thirty-seven percent of profile owners have done that, up from 30 percent in 2009, the survey showed.

“Over time, as social networking sites have become a mainstream communications channel in everyday life, profile owners have become more active managers of their profiles and the content that is posted by others in their networks,” the report said.

The Pew report also touches on the privacy settings people use for their profiles. The issue of online privacy has drawn increasing concerns from consumers, and the Obama administration has called for a “privacy bill of rights” that would give users more control over their data.

Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said their main profile was set to be private so only friends can see it.

Another 19 percent said they had set their profile to partially private so that friends of friends can see it. Only 20 percent have made their profile completely public.

The headlines in many articles on this topic describe folks was becoming “less social”. I’d say they’re just getting more sensible. Especially as reaction from members of the various networks react negatively to tales of broad swathes of info having been boosted by greedy marketers – positively as networks respond to criticism by offering more choices to limit distribution of personal demographics.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A pair of F-16s were scrambled to divert a Cessna aircraft after it entered the airspace of Marine One, the military helicopter ferrying the American president during a trip to California.

The small plane was forced to land at Long Beach airport, just south of Los Angeles at around 11am, where it was met by police.

A search of the aircraft uncovered 640 ounces of cannabis, the Associated Press reported, a motherlode worth around $160,000.

The unfortunate pilot and at least one passenger were handed to over to local police after being interviewed by US federal agents. The pilot has not been identified and it is not known whether they have been charged with any crime.

What do you think?

The US Secret service said Mr Obama was never in any danger during the incident.

Not even a contact high. American presidents never inhale.

The president was on the West Coast for a string of fundraising events ahead of November’s election…

…and a speech at Boeing Aircraft, today, on rebuilding America’s manufacturing business especially technology. Pretty good speech actually. Unlike Republican candidates for his job he doesn’t think this requires more tax breaks for wealthy corporations.

Turning their backs on Catholic women
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Seeking to allay the concerns of Catholic leaders and head off an escalating political storm, President Obama on Friday announced an adjustment to the administration’s health-care rule requiring religiously affiliated employers to provide contraceptive coverage to women.

Women still will be guaranteed coverage for contraceptive services without any out-of-pocket cost, but will have to seek the coverage directly from their insurance companies if their employers object to birth control on religious grounds…

Religiously-affiliated non-profit employers such as schools, charities, universities, and hospitals will be able to provide their workers with plans that exclude such coverage. However, the insurance companies that provide the plans will have to offer those workers the opportunity to obtain additional contraceptive coverage directly, at no additional charge.

Churches remain exempt from the birth-control coverage requirement. And their workers will not have the option of obtaining separate contraceptive coverage under the new arrangement.

The administration’s decision to make an adjustment reflected the high political stakes of an issue that had generated intense criticism in recent days from a growing chorus of Catholic and Republicans leaders, as well as some Democrats. In Congress and on the campaign trail, leading Republicans attacked the Obama administration’s position as a war on religion.

The article carries on with the usual blather about even-handedness, reflection, blah, blah, blah.

I thought I was only being pressed to vote against the evil of two lessers in the coming election. It appears I haven’t even that much of a choice. If I only get to choose between a reactionary politician and an opportunist who won’t stand up to reactionary politicians – I can refuse to vote for either one.

Japan and the United States agreed on Wednesday to decouple the transfer of thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam from the southern Japan island of Okinawa from plans to relocate a base on Okinawa, a step forward in resolving an irritant in relations.

The shift of U.S. Marines to the Pacific island of Guam had been linked to progress in relocating the Futenma airbase on Okinawa. But Tokyo has struggled to win the consent of islanders’ to the relocation plan…

Ain’t it nice the diplomats agree? The island’s population wants the air base gone and they’re screwed as usual.

The decision to expedite the transfer of U.S. forces in Okinawa coincides with pressure on the Pentagon to cut spending, including costs associated with the move to Guam, and a new U.S. emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region…

There are a total of about 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan…Each of which costs American taxpayers over $100K/year to support.

The Futenma facility is surrounded by more than 100 schools, hospitals and shops. Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka calls it the world’s most dangerous airbase.

The Mayor of Nago, however, restated his opposition to the relocation plan, Kyodo news agency reported. “We cannot put up with an additional burden stemming from the construction of a new military base,” Susumu Inamine said, noting that 11 percent of city’s total land was already occupied by U.S. military facilities.

Issues surrounding the Futenma relocation has bedeviled not only U.S.-Japan security ties, but also posed major problems for the Democratic Party government first elected in 2009.

Ties with Washington were strained after the election after then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sought to keep his campaign promise to move the Futenma base off the island.

The government, however, could find no alternative site and was forced to reaffirm the 2006 agreement. Hatoyama stepped down.

That is pretty much a lie designed to keep the heat off Obama. What happened was that once Hatoyama was in power he was shown the secret treaties which let the United States do pretty much whatever they wish to in Japan – in perpetuity.

Hatoyama couldn’t fight the agreements signed by a then-occupied Japan without losing tremendous face for preceding governments who let this stand, as well. The embarrassment was the death-stroke for his government.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

President Barack Obama pitched a plan on Thursday to boost U.S. use of natural gas and open more land for offshore drilling during a campaign-style tour aimed at bolstering confidence in his economic stewardship.

At a stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Democratic president sought to counter Republican criticisms of his energy policies as he proposed tax incentives for companies to buy natural gas trucks, which would help build demand for abundant domestic supplies of the fuel…

Obama said the United States needs an “all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above strategy” to develop energy resources at home and that doing so would create American jobs…”A great place to start is with natural gas,” Obama said during a visit to a UPS facility in Las Vegas, which received stimulus funding to invest in liquefied natural gas vehicles and build a public LNG refueling station.

“We’ve got a supply of natural gas under our feet that can last America nearly a hundred years,” he said. “Developing it could power our cars, our homes, and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way. The experts believe it could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade…”

Using domestic natural gas as a cleaner alternative to importing foreign oil has been heavily promoted by Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens and has attracted support from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Still, Obama’s natural gas truck proposal, which would need congressional approval, could face an uphill battle to make it into law. Republicans, campaigning on promises to cut government spending, would likely resist costly energy subsidies…

Obama also announced that the Interior Department will hold the last scheduled offshore lease sale of the government’s current five-year drilling plan in June, offering 38 million acres for development in the central Gulf of Mexico…

Analysts said those results were a sign that drilling is rebounding in the Gulf after the administration temporarily shut down deepwater exploration after the BP disaster.

The Oil Patch Boys are still whining, of course, about oversight and regulations being resumed. They became accustomed to doing just about anything they wished during the Bush/Cheney years. Reality began to return with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – not that oil companies ever cared much for reality if it hinders profits.

We have the first natural gas-powered bus fleet in the country here in Santa Fe and it is a boon keeping our clean air clean. The cost in gasoline equivalent has risen over the years to $1.61/gallon. With serious federal help, it could be less.

The Obama administration said Friday that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge, and it rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for insurance provided to employees of Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities.

Federal officials said they would give such church-affiliated organizations one additional year — until Aug. 1, 2013 — to comply with the requirement. Most other employers and insurers must comply by this Aug. 1…

Since I’m a devout member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster can I get a similar one-year dispensation, say, from paying my income tax?

The rule takes a big step to remove cost as a barrier to birth control, a longtime goal of advocates for women’s rights and experts on women’s health.

In announcing details of the final rule on Friday, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said it “strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

“Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women,” Ms. Sebelius said, and “it is documented to significantly reduce health costs.”

Catholic bishops issued a statement saying…“Blah, blah, blah, bladiddy-blah, blah, blah!”…

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…The Obama administration is poised to require drug companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. Many researchers have found evidence that such payments can influence doctors’ treatment decisions and contribute to higher costs by encouraging the use of more expensive drugs and medical devices…

The Times has found that doctors who take money from drug makers often practice medicine differently from those who do not and that they are more willing to prescribe drugs in risky and unapproved ways, such as prescribing powerful antipsychotic medicines for children.

Under the new standards, if a company has just one product covered by Medicare or Medicaid, it will have to disclose all its payments to doctors other than its own employees. The federal government will post the payment data on a Web site where it will be available to the public.

Manufacturers of prescription drugs and devices will have to report if they pay a doctor to help develop, assess and promote new products…Royalty payments to doctors, for inventions or discoveries, and payments to teaching hospitals for research or other activities will also have to be reported…

Allan J. Coukell, a pharmacist and consumer advocate at the Pew Charitable Trusts, said: “Patients want to know they are getting treatment based on medical evidence, not a lunch or a financial relationship. They want to know if their doctor has a financial relationship with a pharmaceutical company, but they are often uncomfortable asking the doctor directly…”

Although the Congressional Budget Office does not predict immediate savings, it has said that, “over time, disclosure has the potential to reduce spending,” by reducing instances of overprescribing.

The law also requires drug and device companies to report the amount of “any ownership or investment interest” held by doctors or their immediate family members, other than holdings of publicly traded stocks.

The administration intends to apply the same disclosure requirements to doctor-owned companies that distribute medical devices. Such companies allow doctors to benefit financially from sales of devices they use in surgery.

The same political Sluggos who refused to support oversight of investment banks and sleazy sub-prime investments want us to presume that the ethics missing from Wall Street – are completely in place among millionaire doctors. Frankly, if you walk through their country clubs, I think you would have a hard time telling one from the other. Maybe the doctors have cleaner hands because it’s required of their craft.

But, corporate payoffs and kickbacks are not the sort of business practices that have ever inspired confidence in honesty in my lifetime.

The Obama administration said over the weekend that it would not support legislation mandating changes to Internet infrastructure to fight online copyright and trademark infringement.

“Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security,” the administration said in a statement on Saturday. “Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk…”

The DNS-redirecting provisions in both bills were designed to prevent American citizens from visiting sites the attorney general maintains are dedicated to infringing activities…without having to prove a damned thing in a court of law!

The Obama administration’s announcement appears to have conceded to opposition from security experts who say the plan would sabotage U.S. government-approved efforts to secure DNS against hackers and break the Internet’s unified naming system by introducing lies into infrastructure. The government is agreeing with experts who maintain that the SOPA and PIPA and the Senate’s Protect IP Act would break the Internet’s universal character and hamper U.S. government-supported efforts to roll out DNSSEC, which is intended to prevent hackers from hijacking the net through fake DNS entries.

Victoria Espinel [L] with some other folks from work

The White House announcement was penned by Victoria Espinel…Aneesh Chopra…and Howard Schmidt…

The usual creeps – ranging from RIAA and MPAA to individual Congress-critters beholden to lobbyist bucks – made the usual excuses and ready themselves to fall back on revisions which still mean operating outside constitutional law.

UK-based Diageo, the world’s biggest liquor company that sells Captain Morgan’s rum, is enjoying a $2.7 billion subsidy from the U.S. Virgin Islands, aided in part by a tax break rubber-stamped by Congress annually with little public debate.

Recipients of more than $30 billion of tax breaks like these hope to catch a ride on the payroll tax legislation expiring next month, with special interests – from Diageo to Nascar racetrack owners to major U.S. banks – lobbying to win renewals of their preferences in the sprawling U.S. tax code.

Popular items…like a shorter write-off period for motorsports complexes that primarily benefits owners of Nascar tracks, are in the mix.

“…Once you get into that caboose, you catch a ride every year,” said Steve Ellis, a vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal spending watchdog group…

The last time lawmakers revamped the tax code was 1986. That took years to do and came only after President Ronald Reagan made it a priority and was safely ensconced in a second term…

Obama and lawmakers fought through the end of 2011 over renewing the payroll tax cut for workers, settling on a two-month fix. Businesses see a potential to attach breaks onto any deal that may emerge from the need to address the expiration of those tax cuts at the end of February.

“People are looking at the payroll tax legislation as a potential vehicle and kind of licking their chops,” said Marc Gerson, a former tax attorney for House Republicans, now representing business interests at Miller & Chevalier…

One big tax break that is on a yearly lease helps financial institutions defer taxes on some income, such as royalties from a patent, earned abroad. Critics say the provisions helps big banks and other firms dodge taxes. That provision costs the government about $4 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Even if I feel it likely that Obama will be re-elected given the crap clump of candidates the Republicans offer, experience has taught us that he and the Dems can’t be trusted anymore than Republicans to actually produce significant change. Standard liberal packages and the odd touch of civil rights are no less than what we are owed for putting them into power in the first place.

The need for serious reform of archaic Congressional rules which clog potential progress, tax reform, an end to lobbying rules still filling Congress with the stink of the Gingrich counter-revolution – and a law, thank you, limiting election expenses and the power of corporate donors over ordinary folks – all need to be enacted in the next Congress or two. Ain’t nothing like starting to put on the heat, now.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cautioned global rivals on Sunday not to misjudge U.S. plans to slash military spending over the next decade, saying America would still field the world’s strongest military and nobody should “mess with that…”

Pressed on whether the United States could take out Iran’s nuclear sites without using nuclear weapons, Dempsey would only say: “I absolutely want them to believe that that’s the case…”

The tough talk comes days after President Barack Obama unveiled a new military strategy that calls for a smaller force as the United States cuts $487 billion in projected defense spending over the next decade in an effort to deal with the nation’s $14 trillion debt…

Dempsey said he worried that some countries might misunderstand the debate Americans are having over changing strategy and the need to cut defense spending…”There may be some around the world who see us as a nation in decline, and worse, as a military in decline. And nothing could be further from the truth,” Dempsey said…

Panetta said U.S. rivals should not misunderstand the situation…”I think the message that the world needs to understand is: America is the strongest military power and we intend to remain the strongest military power and nobody ought to mess with that,” he said…

Congress missed a deadline for reaching a compromise that could have stopped the new defense cuts, but it could still take action to override the spending reductions before they are due to go into force next year.

Obama, in unveiling the new defense strategy at a Pentagon news conference on Thursday, noted that even with the $487 trillion in cuts to projected spending, the defense budget would continue to grow in nominal terms.

He also said the U.S. defense budget would still be by far the world’s largest – roughly the size of the 10 next-biggest defense budgets combined.

Phew. I was worried the retired generals and admirals infesting the infrastructure of the military-industrial complex might be forced to make do on their pensions.

BTW – don’t you love it when the “peacemakers” we elected can’t help but brag to the rest of the world how easily we can kill and destroy everyone?