links for 2010-05-24

• MUSIC: The Church: Drums & Bells
  A blog devoted to talking about Church songs.
  (tags: media audio music bands TheChurch fan blogs songs discussion Drums&Bells)
• COMEDY: RELIGION: Don’t Worry. I Don’t Use Contraception! | Unfollowing Jesus
  I don't find this offensive at all. Calling reality like you see it is never offensive: It's reality itself that's offensive. :)
  (tags: comedy religion satire rape children Mohamad ThePope Pope UnfollowingJesus comics FriendlyAtheist)
• BAILOUT: U.S. drops criminal probe of AIG executives
  Nothing to see here. Move along, folks. Business as usual. Obama took more tax dollars than Bush ever did, and gave them away without any legal culpability to the corporations and people who caused the situation in the first place.

  Still think it's only Republicans who love big business?

  Think McCain would have done worse here?

  No… It's business as usual. Even when you vote Democrat.

  (tags: politics ObamaAdministration bailout JusticeDepartment DepartmentOfJustice DOJ criminal probes dropped corporations AIG government BigBusiness BusinessAsUsual)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR: Russian Man Aims To Reinvent "Taser" Technology
  Yes. Please get them out of the hands of the police before this comes to fruition! Jesus…
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar technology tasers Russia OlegNemtyshkin bareWires wires weapons Slashdot news articles)
• WAR ON DRUGS: Washington Drug Agents Seize Pot Legalization Petitions
  Yup. Signing a petition and trying to change the law — DEMOCRACY — is frowned upon by the police. Drug task force agents have seized people's legal petitions to legalize marijuana. The system is fighting victimless crime by perpetuating crimes against actual victims: The citizenry, and democracy itself. This is an unconstitutional affront to what our country stands for.
  (tags: politics WarOnDrugs drugs freedom democracy petitions Constitutionalrights Rights 1stAmendment FirstAmendment SensibleWashington I-1068 WestNet taskForces DrugTaskForces unconstitutional bullshit seizures NorthEndClub420 Tacoma PhilipDawdy TokeOfTheTown news articles government policestate)
• OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Same shit, different president. Bagram Prisoners Don't Have Guantanamo Habeas Rights
  Yup. Obama "closed" Bush's Big Bad Guantanamo — except he didn't. And he has his own guantanamo. Don't want the habeas corpus rights that took the Guantanamo people 9 years to earn? Just stick 'em in Bagram. No rights there.

  Same shit, different president.

  Indefinite detention of prisoners of war without actual geneva convention rights, and without ever declaring war. Obama may as well be Bush.

  But hey, I told you that in 2008.

  I love how part of the ruling is based on the fact that "there is no indication of any intent to occupy the base with permanence.” Yup. Tell that to Japan, Saudia Arabia, South Korea, or any of the other countries we have military bases on — over half the countries on the planet.

  (tags: politics ObamaAdministration WarOnTerror war terrorism WarInAfghanistan Afghanistan humanRights rights civilRights HabeusCorpus legal court rulings Bagram BagramAirForceBase PrisonersOfWar prisoners ConstitutionalRights FadiAl-Magaleh Guantanamo GuantanamoBay indefiniteDetention indefinite TruthOut news articles)
• PRIVACY: Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole – WSJ.com
  Except if you're a smart user, this is not a big deal. A profile based on ad clicks only applies to those of us who click on ads! My browser blocks ads entirely; I couldn't click 'em if I wanted to. They give profile IDs that companies can use to look up your real name – but I never Facebook my real name, and removed it from MySpace years ago.

  So lots of people are going to read this headline and whine about their privacy being violated, but really, this doesn't constitute that big of a violation if you're a smart user in the first place.

  (tags: privacy WallStreetJournal Facebook MySpace advertisements advertising internet DoubleClick RightMedia Google Yahoo)