I know what you’re thinking. 30,000 drones isn’t NEARLY enough. No? OK, let me guess again: Wait, is this real?
Answer: Yes, this is real.
As I explain in the above videocast, Congress approved a FAA modernization bill that includes some weird little surprises for the American people. One of those surprises is 30,000 drones over US skies by 2015; all the better to see you with, and hunt you with, my dear.
As pointed out in the video, the ACLU has major issues with sky robots conducting 24/7 warrantless surveillance over our own citizenry, and I have issues with it as well. Some in the blogosphere have speculated these drones will be equipped with “less than lethal” weaponry designed to disburse, and discourage, peaceful protest.
I would tell you to start an online petition or something, but a government this overtly aggressive and totalitarian doesn’t care about a Change.org petition or a Facebook group. Sorry.
Also, this dovetails nicely: As New York magazine and others reported yesterday, the Justice Department’s top man is now making the public argument that the U.S. government has the right to kill American citizens without trial or judicial review.
Let’s hope those 30,000 drones are only equipped with tasers and sound guns, and nothing more lethal. Either way, if you see one of these bastards in the sky, I’d take cover.
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About David Seaman: David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and is the host of The DL Show. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth…For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.
If you appreciate David’s brand of fearless, unfiltered truth, please support future reports by donating to his Kickstarter.
“I definitely dabbled in BDSM in my personal life.”
– Eric Schaeffer
Eric Schaeffer has a history with SuicideGirls. We interviewed him for his book, I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single, in 2007 and then featured him as a “sexpert” for a few weeks on the radio show. The author, TV producer, actor and filmmaker just released a new movie, After Fall, Winter so we got to reconnect.
Winter is the second in Schaeffer’s anticipated quartet, where every 15 years he will tell another story in Michael (Schaeffer)’s life. In Winter, Michael moves to France where he meets Sophie (Lizzie Brochere), who he doesn’t know is a professional dominatrix. Their manipulative relationship shifts as Michael explores masochism separately from Sophie.
A lot has happened for Schaeffer in the last five years. His dating blog tied to the release of his book became scandalous as women publicly challenged it. He’s also produced two more TV series and has another on the way. I’m sorry this interview becomes two guys complaining about dating. We felt each other’s pain, but came to a happy, hopeful place.
In fact, just before my phone call with Schaeffer, he’d reconnected with Betsy Fine, a girl he loved in 7th grade. She found him on Facebook and it turns out she’s a life coach, he’s researching a new show, Eric Schaeffer: Life Coach, so he spoke to her for research. She told him everything he imagines is true. So after Winter, there’s hope for Spring connections.
We haven’t met yet, but I’d like to introduce myself…I’m @JenFriel. I am a lifecaster and corporate sponsored minimalist that went out on over 103 dates in 9 months while I was couch surfing for a year building my website (TalkNerdyToMeLover.com) and bartering social media to live. I’m an accidental expert in dating, and am here to share with you some tips and tricks that I learned during the course of my ongoing OKCupid project.
What is OKCupid, you may ask? Well, it’s only the nerdiest of nerdy dating websites! They use math to get you dates, and created an algorithm for compatibility that I can attest is pretty darn accurate!
Algorithms aside though, the one thing that I have noticed is that guys don’t understand how to actually set up a profile. I mean, they get the very basics – but they don’t understand what a female is looking for in a profile, or WHY some profiles work over others. This is where I would like to help. Here, pull up a chair…
1. Choose your username wisely.
I can’t begin to tell you how important choosing a username is – it’s one of the FIRST things a chick will notice.
A good username will consist of something that reflects your personality, and shows off who you are (while still remaining anonymous if that’s your cup of tea). Example: JohnLuvsGiants
A username such as that might tell me that one, your name is John, and two that you either love the football team The Giants, or you have a Paul Bunyan fetish. Either is kosher for Passover, but does tell me a bit about who you are.
A less than desirable username is anything that includes and of the following words: crazy, horny, mofo, bad, 69, fyckr, humpyoulikedogandyoulllikeit.
Chicks notice this, man – be true to you, and keep it real.
2. Answer the questions
I know that that sounds weird and straight forward since that is what the site is about – but I can’t begin to tell you how many guys have said to me, “I just wanted to wait for the date before getting to know the person.” The problem with that statement is the fact that you are NEVER going to get to know the girl, because she won’t reply back to your message because you had a 0% compatibility because you didn’t answer any friggen questions! Yes, dating has an ebb and flow, and yes, first dates are about discovery – however, to get that first date you have to get her attention. How are you going to do that? Be the guy that answers questions and show her how compatible you are by commenting on one single detail from her profile, and asking her to elaborate on it in the email.
3. Select a default that is a clear shot of a face with you genuinely smiling, and then have the rest of the pictures in your profile tell the story of your life.
I can’t begin to tell you how many guys mess this part up. They put a picture of themselves at a bbq with a sunglasses and hat on. I even had one friend have himself in a field with flags as his default picture. When I inquired as to why he selected that for his default his response was, chicks love flags!
*facepalm*
Dude, chicks don’t like flags. A chick wants to see your FACE!!! A clear shot, with a genuine “this is me actually being happy and not forced” smile. Let the female judge your attractiveness; it is your job in the default to be as neutral as possible.
Then, in all of the additional photos uploaded to the album (up to 10), you tell the story of your life. Like hiking? Show off some pics of you on various trails. Have you gone skydiving? Or like something equally cool and rad? Show it off!!! Post those pics, be you – have fun with it, tell the female your story.
4. Keep your profile brief and to the point.
I heart twitter. The microblogging site has conditioned me to get CRAZY good at finding ways to say things in as short of characters as possible. Do this with your profile!! Spit it out, get it out, but keep it brief. No one wants to be reading a novel when it comes to a dating profile. Keep things light and funny, while showcasing your personality. (Unless of course you are a horribly boring human being that enjoys watching paint dry and counting the holes in your ceiling; in that case, maybe online dating isn’t for you.)
Best of luck out there guys, and if you have any questions please hit me up on twitter: @JenFriel. I’d love to hear from you! xoxo
***
Like what you’ve read? You can also join Jen and her friends in the Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover live stage show called the Dirty Truth About Nerdy Girls on March 23 at 9:30 PM at The Little Modern Theater in Hollywood, CA. For more info visit TalkNerdyToMeLover.com/stage-show/
Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Greg Palast led a four-continent investigation of BP PLC for Britain’s television series Dispatches. From 1989-91, Palast directed the investigation of fraud charges in the Exxon Valdez grounding for Alaska Native villages.
Some deal. BP gets the gold mine and its victims get the shaft. And a few lawyers will get vacation homes — though they won’t be so stupid as to build them on the Gulf Coast.
On Friday night, the judge-picked lawyers for 120,000 victims of the Deepwater Horizon blow-out cut a back-room deal with oil company BP PLC which will save the lawyers the hard work of a trial and save the oil giant billions of dollars. It will also save the company the threat of exposing the true and very ugly story of the Gulf of Mexico oil platform blow-out.
I have been to the Gulf and seen the damage — and the oil that BP says is gone. Miles of it. As an economist who calculated damages for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, I can tell you right now that there is no way, no how, that the $7.8 billion BP says it will spend on this settlement will cover that damage, the lost incomes, homes, businesses and boats, let alone the lost lives — from cancers, fetal deformities, miscarriages, and lung and skin diseases.
Two years ago, President Barack Obama forced BP to set aside at least $20 billion for the oil spill’s victims. This week’s settlement will add exactly ZERO to that fund. Indeed, BP is crowing that, adding in the sums already paid out, the company will still have spent less than the amount committed to the Obama fund.
There’s so much corrosion, mendacity and evil here in this settlement deal that I hardly know where to begin.
So, let’s start with punitive damages.
I was stunned that there is no provision, as expected, for a punishment fee to be paid by BP for it’s willful negligence. In the Exxon Valdez trial, a jury awarded us $5 billion in punitives – and BP’s action, and the damage caused in the Gulf, is far, far worse.
BP now has to pay no more than proven damages. It’s like telling a bank robber, “Hey, just put back the money in the vault and all’s forgiven.”
This case screamed for punitive damages. Here’s just a couple of facts that should have been presented to a jury:
For example, the only reason six hundred miles of Gulf coastline has been slimed by oil was that BP failed to have emergency oil spill containment equipment ready to roll when the Deepwater Horizon blew out. BP had promised the equipment’s readiness in writing and under oath.
And here’s the sick, sick part. This is exactly the same thing BP did in the Exxon Valdez case. It was BP, not Exxon, that was responsible for stopping the spread of oil in Alaska in 1989. In Alaska, decades ago, BP told federal regulators it would have oil spill “boom” (the rubber that corrals the spreading stuff) ready to roll out if a tanker hit. When the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef, BP’s promised equipment wasn’t there: BP had lied.
And in 2010, BP did it again. Instead of getting the oil contained in five hours as promised as a condition of drilling, it took five days to get the equipment in place (and that was done by the US Navy on orders of the President).
This was more than negligence: it was fraud, and by a repeat offender. Now BP is laughing all the way to the bank.
And there’s more. BP mixed nitrogen into the cement which capped the well-head below the Deepwater Horizon. BP claimed to be shocked and horrified when the cement failed, releasing methane gas that blew apart the rig. BP accused the cement’s seller, Halliburton, of hiding the fact that this “quick-set” cement can blow-out in deep water.
But, in an investigation that took me to Central Asia, I discovered that BP knew the quick-set cement could fail – because it had failed already in an earlier blow-out which BP covered up with the help of an Asian dictatorship.
The lack of promised equipment, the prior blow-out — it all could have, should have, come out in trial.
Think about it: BP knew the cement could fail but continued to use it to save money. Over time, the savings to BP of its life-threatening methods added up to billions of dollars worldwide. BP will get to keep that savings bought at the cost of eleven men’s lives.
Other investigators have uncovered more penny-pinching, life-threatening failures by BP and its drilling buck-buddies, Halliburton and TransOcean. These include bogus “blow-out preventers” and a managerial system that could be called, “We-Don’t-Care Chaos.”
As BP had no choice but to pay proven damages and conceded as much, what exactly are the lawyers getting paid for? (Don’t be surprised if the fee requests hit a billion dollars.)
How could these lawyers let BP walk away on the cheap? The judge picked the lawyers that would settle or try the case for the 120,000 plaintiffs. His Honor side-lined the legal “A-Team,” like Cajun trial lawyer Daniel Becnel, guys with the guts, experience and financial wherewithal to go eyeball-to-eyeball with BP and not blink. Welcome to Louisiana, oil colony.
So BP walks without the civil punishment that tort law and justice demand, grinning and ready to do it again: drill on the cheap with the price paid by its workers and the public.
But stopping a trial denies the public more than the full payment due: it denies us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The President has just opened up the arctic waters of Alaska for drilling, has reopened the Gulf to deepwater platforms, and is fiddling with the idea of allowing the XL Pipeline to slice America in half.
So we need to know: Can we trust this industry?
Without a trial in the Deepwater Horizon case, we may never get the answer, never get the full story of the prior blow-outs, the fakery in the spill response system, and other profits-first kill-later trickery that bloats the bottom line of BP and the entire drill-baby-drill industry.
***
For more on Palast’s worldwide investigation of BP and the industry in Central Asia, the Gulf, Alaska, and the Amazon, read his new book, Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores, available via VulturesPicnic.org. You can read “Chapter 1: Goldfinger,” or download it, at no charge here.
I think thats the job of a director, to funnel all the creativity into one centralized point of being.”
– Peter Jackson
As a horror nut I first discovered Peter Jackson when Dead Alive was released on VHS tape back in the early 90s. After viewing that first film I knew Jackson was destined to become one of the great filmmakers. I immediately saw his other works such as the Oscar nominated Heavenly Creatures and Meet the Feebles. When his first Hollywood film, The Frighteners, was going to be released I thought that the entire world was going to discover him then. But I was dead wrong because that film tanked. But as everyone knows, Jackson beat the odds and created a near perfect movie trilogy with the Lord of The Rings films.
Now Jackson is releasing his interpretation of the movie King Kong. He has kept the film set in the 1930s and cast Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Jack Black as a crazed filmmaker and Adrien Brody as the screenwriter whose jungle script takes them to deadly Skull Island. With King Kong, Jackson has created a spectacle that may change the world almost as much as the original Kong did back in 1933.
