Blatant Reality

I must have just caught this right before they changed it but nevertheless, I still think it is funny.

That picture is supposed to be labeled as a new X-Ray technology they have at some airports. The corrected caption is:
UPDATE: 10 airports install body scanners; Devices can peer under passengers’ clothes…

If you don’t know who Todd Davis is, its the CEO of Life Lock who dares you to steal his identity while giving out his Social Security Number. And I bet you can’t guess what happened.

Yep, he got his identity stolen.

Note: it’s probably not smart to dare a nation full of potential hackers to try to do something like that. We got some pretty smart people out there.

I usually rely on my Google News Live Bookmark to give me the latest and greatest news out there. Usually I am quite pleased with what it shows me. Today, however, I’m not to sure if I should be trusting Google to bring me the most important news stories. Why have I lost my trust? Well when a story like this gets into the top three spots of my feed, I just have to wonder.

and they will put you on trial for it too. Not only that, but they are more than willing to frame you in order to try you. Consider that next time you declare that you will “move to Canada” if another Republican is elected to office.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is often herald as one of the few Senators to stand up against the immigration bill last summer. He was the one the tipped off Drudge to what was going on which led to the ultimate defeat of the bill in the Senate. According to Senator DeMint, this experience is what showed him the true power of the internet.

Now, in order to continue his message of border control, DeMint has created a new website to keep voters informed on what is happening.

He recently created a new Web site — www.completethefencenow.com — to update progress on security the nation’s border with Mexico. “People want to know. We’re responding in a traditional marketing sense. Here’s a consumer need. We’re going to put this site on and let people know,” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for people who call our office and say ‘Nothing is happening.’ I don’t hear anything.”

 

Byars said the site also is a way to communicate with bloggers, who can link to it or ask DeMint’s office to research questions they have about drug or sex trafficking along the border. “It’s an interactive way for us to work to build support outside the dome,” Byars said.

 

“If I don’t have support outside the dome — loud and vocal support — people inside are not going to listen to me,” DeMint added. “They’re going to ignore me whenever they can if it’s anything about changing the culture or the ways things are done. I’m almost completely dependent on the American people to help me push some things through.

 

“In some ways, it’s been encouraging that people have been responsive and engaged. They get information and have a way to respond. They do. It’s like it is a government for the people.”

This is the way government should work. It should allow the people to be educated about what is happening in Congress and allow them to voice their opinions. Whether or not the Congressman listen to their constituents all depends on if they feel voting against the people’s opinion is worth the possibility of them losing their job.

According to a new survey by Zogby, almost half of Americans get their news from an online source.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago. Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source - 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older. These oldest adults are the only age group to favor a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38% of these seniors who said they get most of their news from television. Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information. Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.

 

Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets - 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important. Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).

The article continues by stating that fewer than 1% of those surveyed said that the most trusted source of information were blogs which I can agree with. I know I have made a few errors and I know other bloggers have also. However, the difference between us and the mainstream media is that we often catch those errors (or have other point them out to us) and we try to fix them.

Here is another thing the survey found:

Republicans (79%) and political independents (75%) are most likely to feel disenchanted with conventional journalism, but the online survey found 50% of Democrats also expressed similar concerns. Those who identify themselves as “very conservative” were among the most dissatisfied, with 89% who view traditional journalism as out of touch.

Funny how both Republicans and Independents share such a high disenchantment with traditional media. You would think the independents would be more in the middle.

Well, if you have any dirty corporate laundry to air, I would do it now because it seems that a court has ordered the site to be taken offline in the US.

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

 

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after “several hundred” documents were posted about its offshore activities.

 

Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.

 

However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site’s domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.

You can still see the site here, but as hinted at in the article, I don’t know if all the information can still be accessed.

Hmmm…censoring the internet…I seem to remember some other country doing that also.

Well, I normally stick to politics but I found this too interesting not to blog about. According to Alexa.com, a web information company, it seems as though Facebook.com has overtaken Myspace.com in its “reach” of internet users. What does “reach” imply here? Well, this is how they explain it:

What is Reach?

 

Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. So, for example, if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that of all global Internet users measured by Alexa, 28% of them visit yahoo.com.

This flip from one to the other occurred just in the past month. Facebook.com has made an impressive showing the past six months by more than doubling its share of internet users while Myspace.com has more or less stayed constant.

Why might this be important and worthy of interest? Well, considering that both of these websites are currently ranked in the top ten most frequently visited sites, advertisers are sure to be interested in which site will most likely get them the most publicity. This information will definitely help Facebook.com with their recent pitch to local business owners to advertise with them.

However, since this shift has only just recently occurred, the longterm trend may not yet be apparent. It may be that people are just now getting both a Facebook.com and Myspace.com account and we will see a leveling off in the future with both holding fairly neck and neck with each other. On the other hand, it is always possible that we could see a complete shift in the market with Myspace.com’s reach beginning to fall as Facebook.com’s popularity begins to rise.

Here is a list of the top 500 websites in the United States. According to this list, Myspace.com is currently ranked 3rd while Facebook.com is only ranked 5th.