"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive." T Jefferson

Guest post: Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things) | FP Passport

Seeded on Thu Mar 8, 2012 4:34 AM EST (Foreign Policy)

Whether you are skeptical of the #StopKony campaign or have embraced it ... this excellent analysis should be at the top of your reading list todya.

politics, africa, invisible-children, kony, social-media-campaign, joseph-koney

Komen CEO Compensation Tweet Rings False

Wed Feb 1, 2012 6:29 AM EST

Contrary to a very popular tweet, the current CEO of the Susan G. Komen Foundation does not appear to make almost $500,000 a year. According to Charity Navigator, Hala G.

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politics, breast-cancer, planned-parenthood, komen, pph, susan-g-komen

Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.

Tue Jan 31, 2012 5:52 AM EST

In Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer argues that Congress is a route to riches that is exempt from the same sort of laws that govern mere mortals.

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congress, politics, corruption, insider-trading, stock-act

YouTube Politics: Will You Be At Obama's Google+ Hangout Monday?

Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:53 PM EST

In 2007, Google and YouTube broke into presidential politics by holding a "debate" in conjunction with CNN. At the time, Google had owned YouTube for less than a year.

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google, media, politics, obama, society, youtube, sotu

Social and the 2012 Presidential Election

Sun Jan 8, 2012 3:32 PM EST

Who's doing the best job? Which technologies are most important? Who's the new kid on the block to watch? What makes you say/believe that? #MittRomney | #RickSantorum | #RonPaul | #NewtGingrich | #BarackObama Mitt Romney

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elections, social, politics, presidential-election, facebook, social-media, twitter, 2012-election, 2012-presidential-race

A Call For Political Transparency

Wed Nov 9, 2011 6:47 PM EST

If you run a political site -- such as a PAC or a campaign for a person or issue -- then you should not be able to hide who you are in the WhoIs database. In other words, any political action site -- a PAC or a site advocating for or against a person or an issue -- should contai …

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politics, transparency, advocacy, gov20, opengov

My Life With Apple

Thu Oct 6, 2011 8:20 AM EDT

In 1984, I convinced my about-to-be (then) husband not to buy a Macintosh ($2,495/$5,440 in 2011 $). It wasn't just because it was expensive. It wasn't interoperable, you see, and the dairy cooperative we worked for was an IBM shop.

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Online Gamers Crack Challenge, Move Researchers Closer To AIDS Cure

Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:49 PM EDT

In the book Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge envisions a world where crowdsourcing is S.O.P. and "games" can be a source of public good.

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aids, science, gaming, foldit

Gulf War Syndrome Appears To Be Physical Brain Damage, Not Psychological Issue

Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:58 AM EDT

According to a study published this week in the journal Radiology, “abnormal hippocampal blood flow” can be measured in the brains of some ill Gulf War vets. Brantley Hargrove writes:

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health, veterans, gulf-war, gulf-war-syndrome

9-11, Hysteria and Women's Health

Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:39 PM EDT

For most people, today is the day-after 9-11. For me, it's the 10-year anniversary of a different life-changing event. I don't watch television in the daytime, and I rarely watch live TV.

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health, womens-health, nih, hysterectomy, whi, womens-health-initiative, politics-of-health

Andrea Mitchell Tells The World She Has Breast Cancer, Confuses Risk With Prevalence

Thu Sep 8, 2011 3:41 AM EDT

Andrea Mitchell, 65, the NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent, announced on the air Wednesday that she has breast cancer and asserted that 1-in-8 women in America today (almost 15 million) have breast cancer.

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cancer, health, math, breast-cancer, andrea-mitchell, innumeracy

Congress + The FAA + U.S. Airlines = What's Wrong With America

Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:52 AM EDT

I was dumbfounded when I first read that between July 23 and August 7 American airlines would not be collecting federal ticket taxes because our straightjacketed Congress failed to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration.

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congress, politics, airlines, gop, faa, rep-john-mica

Making Sense Of The #UKRiots

Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:06 AM EDT

I was offline most of the weekend and Monday, so you can imagine my shock when I turned to Tweetdeck this morning and the first thing I saw was tweets about riots in the U.K. I found some articles to help bring me up to speed and provide some context. There were shocking bits:

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u-k, world-news, riots, tottenham, tottenham-riots, ukriots

Glenn Beck & Hitler Youth : Tracking The Story

Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:33 PM EDT

On Monday 25 July 2011, conservative commentator Glenn Beck compared the Norwegian youth killed on Friday with Hitler's youth camps.

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media, politics, news, society, hypocrisy, glenn-beck

On Crime and Punishment: Shining A Light On Norwegian Prison Sentences

Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:10 AM EDT

It's the outrage du la semaine: Twitter, Facebook and mainstream news sites remain a virtual maelstrom of people who are beside themselves because Norway reportedly has a maximum prison sentence of "only 21 years." In holier than thou fashion, many of these folks believe that the …

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norway, terrorism, justice, world-news, criminal-justice

Meme Correction: Norwegians Can Be Incarcerated For More Than 21 Years For Murder

Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:52 PM EDT

Many folks on Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus and various online forums in the English-speaking world are outraged that, as @PiersMorgan (who has a million followers) tweeted, "this inhuman psychotic killer can only be jailed for a maximum of 21 years" [1].

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norway, politics, crime, homicide, capital-punishment, oslo

Attack On Norway Takes Me Back In Time

Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:44 PM EDT

In 1975, I spent the summer in Oslo, at the International Summer School hosted at the University of Oslo.

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Eric Cantor & Betting On Default

Seeded on Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:26 AM EDT (Salon.com)

Worth a reminder: the "GOP's chief debt ceiling negotiator" is holding a short position on U.S. Treasury Bonds.

politics, gop, conflict-of-interest, debt-ceiling, eric-cantor

Murdoch's Properties Go On The Offensive

Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:15 AM EDT

New Corp. is embroiled in a legal and ethics scandal in the U.K., and closure of the newspaper at the heart of the mess, News of the World (NOTW), has done nothing to contain the damage. News Corp.

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media, politics, fox, murdoch, rupert-murdoch, news-corp, wsj, notw

Debt Ceiling Increases Since FDR (Crowdsourcing Request)

Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:09 PM EDT

Updated (thanks to DisplayName0 for adding to the chart!)Updated (chart): There have been a lot of Congressional votes to raise the debt ceiling since FDR (1940). I've put together a public spreadsheet based on White House data. Vote dates and P.L.

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politics, debt, debt-ceiling, crowdsourcing

Mea Culpas In The Digital Era

Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:23 PM EDT

There have always been mistakes made in journalism. Newspapers report “errata”, usually on page two. Unknown how many people actually read those corrections.

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reuters, corrections, errors, mistakes, wired, salon

Worth Remembering: Republicans Usually Support Debt Ceiling Increases

Wed Jul 13, 2011 4:05 AM EDT

Updated (3): Since 2009, after Barack Obama was inaugurated as President, Republican Senators have stood steadfastly against raising the debt ceiling: in 2009, two supported H.R. 1 and one supported H.R. 4314.

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congress, senate, politics, gop, republicans, debt, u-s-senate, debt-ceiling, partisanship

Farm Program Article Misses Mark By A Mile

Sun Jul 10, 2011 11:05 PM EDT

It's been years since I worked in agricultural policy, but as I read "In battle over deficit, farm aid on the block" by Hal Bernton of the Seattle Times, I shook my head.

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wheat, politics, agriculture, seattle-times, farm-policy, agricultual-policy, frm-subsidies

Microsoft + Skype + Facebook : Cause For Celebration, Yawn or Alarm?

Thu Jul 7, 2011 1:09 AM EDT

In 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million to buy 1.6 percent of Facebook (preferred stock purchase; FB has yet to go public). The deal bought Microsoft closer access to Facebook's ad revenue; at the time MySpace was still the largest online social network.

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google, technology, microsoft, skype, facebook

Astroturf Alert: Guess Who Is Leading The Battle To Force Amazon To Pay Sales Taxes?

Mon Jul 4, 2011 11:19 PM EDT

According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Home Depot and Best Buy have joined the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, a coalition reportedly originally comprised of mom-and-pop stores that believe "Internet merchants that aren't legally required to collect s …

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politics, wal-mart, california, gop, amazon, sales-tax, terry-nelson, dirty-tricks, astroturf

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Kathy Gill

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Articles Posted: 294
Links Seeded: 246

Member Since: 1/2006Last Seen: 5/16/2012

Kathy Gill is a writer, educator and political junkie who has worked inside government -- at the state and federal level -- as well as outside governm …

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