Weekend Open Thread

Outside groups are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the coming elections—money that has long been hard to track.

This summer, the FCC ordered TV stations to publish online detailed records of political ad buys.

[Which they did, in PDF form]

So far it's impossible to search these files by candidate or political group-meaning it's impossible to get a full picture of the spending.

We want to change that.
Today, we're [making available] a new tool to help detail campaign ad filings in 33 swing markets.

[It's an online tool to enable volunteers to quickly extract 4 pieces of info - Candidate/PAC name, Ad Agency, Order Number and Gross $ amount - from each Ad order sheet.]

Every day, we'll be pulling fresh files from the FCC website, and asking for your help extracting key data points that will help uncover outside spending in the final days of the campaign.

Every file you help free will be added to our page, so we’ll all be able to get a better picture of the outside groups’ spending.

What do we expect to find in the FCC filings?
A range of information – from identifying which outside groups are buying ads and where, to finding new groups that enter the fray late in the game, to details on who is behind opaque nonprofits that are playing a larger role in the election.

Too bad they didn't do that with the Trans fats and the price of their food.

Wendy's is expensive for fast food and some of the most unhealthy.

Oh, and Frostys are PEOPLE! They're PEOPLE!

I just do not like the new buns at Wendy's. There's an after taste or a funny taste to them. Certainly not very tasty...

We need a Hardee's or preferably a Carl's Junior closer to DC than Aquia, VA....

Some veggies and fruits have protein. What matters is balance. Beans are rich in protein.

But humans digestive system is programmed to process both meat and veggies.

I'd say the real culprit is processed food. Also too much hcfs, it's everywhere even in bread.

It doesn't look to me as a reliable source. Most plant based sources don't have complete protein period.

I need to look no further than East Indian culture that is very vegetarian. How do the men look? They can't grow muscles and they do a lot of work.

Fish is a meat but its a much healthier source of protein that red meat. Wild salmon is rich in omega 3. Japanase culture is very heavy leaned toward consumption of fish and they are one of the healthiest people on earth who live the longest.

Stopped at a Mickey D's in London in 2000 and my friend, whom is an aficionado, swore the fried stuff (fries and Pies) was cooked in real cow oil and was more delicious then back in the states. I don't eat at MD enough to tell.

Dave

As for me, I am trying to eat healthier as my weight has taken a toll on my health. I am trying to eat at Subway more even though its pricey. I also like Panera bread.

Four of the FTC commissioners have become convinced after more than a year of investigation that Google illegally used its dominance of the search market to hurt its rivals, while one commissioner is skeptical, the sources said.

All three declined to be named to protect working relationships.

Two of the sources said a decision on how to proceed could come in late November or early December.

A long list of companies has been complaining to the FTC, arguing that the agency should crack down on Google.

Google rivals specializing in travel, shopping and entertainment have accused Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, of unfairly giving their web sites low quality rankings in search results to steer Internet users away from their websites and toward Google products that provide similar services.

If the agency finds that Google broke the law, the FTC and Google could hammer out a settlement that resolves the issues or, if settlement negotiations fail, the matter could end up in a lengthy, expensive court fight.

The FTC announced in April that it had hired high-powered Washington lawyer Beth Wilkinson to lead the probe. The hiring was seen as a sign that the FTC was contemplating filing a lawsuit against Google.

This is not the first run-in that Google has had with the agency.

In August, Google was forced to pay $22.5 million to settle charges it bypassed the privacy settings of customers using Apple Inc's Safari browser. The practice was in violation of a 2011 consent decree with the FTC over a botched rollout of the now defunct social network Buzz.

Stuntman, filmmaker, and former plumber Colin Furze has a one-month-old son, and did not want to waste time or energy pushing him around. Instead, he rigged up his stroller with an engine.

The result is the world's fastest stroller, with 10 horsepower, four gears, and a top speed of 50 mph.

According to The Sun, Furze began working on the stroller when he found out he was going to be a father

Imagine baby's curiosity just to see what it's like to get out of the stroller and get him/herself killed or injured.

Yeah, he shouldn't be a father pushing strollers at 50 miles per hour.

What's Happening?

the Army may have sprayed radioactive particles with zinc cadmium sulfide while claiming that it was testing a smoke screen that could prevent Russians from observing St. Louis from the air.

Those tests were concentrated in predominately-black areas of the city, which Army documents called “a densely populated slum district.”

In 1994, the Army confirmed to Congress that St. Louis was chosen because it resembled Russian cities that the U.S. might have to attack with biological weapons.

In a significant escalation by debt collectors who pursue consumers for payment, a major Canadian bank has threatened to foreclose on the homes of hundreds of Californians unless they pay back old credit card debts.

California law generally makes foreclosure available only to lenders using residential properties as security, and collectors of unsecured debts, like credit card loans, normally are limited to attaching wages or bank accounts.

But Credigy Receivables has taken advantage of California’s relatively lax debt collection laws.
The bank has repeatedly bypassed a legal hurdle that normally prevents credit card companies from threatening to take away the homes of debtors who refuse or are unable to pay.

Little-noticed except by debtors and consumer attorneys, Credigy’s unusual collection efforts begin with the purchase of judgment liens issued in California lawsuits filed by credit card lenders and other unsecured creditors. Credigy then names debtors who own residential properties as defendants in foreclosure lawsuits.

A 12-year-old girl suffered burns to one side of her body when a flash grenade went off next to her as a police SWAT team raided a West End home Tuesday morning.

"She has first- and second-degree burns down the left side of her body and on her arms," said the girl's mother, Jackie Fasching. "She's got severe pain."

A set of leaked internal AT&T training documents obtained by TorrentFreak reveal that the Internet provider will start sending out anti-piracy warning notices to its subscribers on November 28. Customers whose accounts are repeatedly flagged for alleged copyright infringements will have their access to frequently visited websites blocked, until they complete an online copyright course. It’s expected that most other participating ISPs will start their versions of the anti-piracy plan on the same date.

The parties agreed on a system through which subscribers are warned that their copyright infringements are unacceptable. After several warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures to punish the alleged infringers.

“The reports are made by the content owners and are of IP-addresses that are associated with copyright infringing activities. AT&T will not share any personally identifiable information about its customers with content owners until authorized by the customer or required to do so by law.”

November 28. A source connected to the CCI previously confirmed to TorrentFreak that all providers were planning to start on the same date, which means that Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon are expected to have a simultaneous launch.

measures AT&T will take to punish those who receive a 5th and 6th alert. When repeated infringers try to access certain websites they will be redirected to an educational page. To lift the blockade, AT&T will require these customers to complete an “online education tutorial on copyright”.

The training does not give any information on what sites will be blocked temporarily, but it’s mentioned that “access to many of the most frequently visited websites is restricted”.

Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, the outspoken Pennsylvania centrist whose switch from Republican to Democrat ended a 30-year career in which he played a pivotal role in several Supreme Court nominations, died Sunday. He was 82.

ref: »abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/long···17475869

I'm waiting for someone to tell them to stop standing around on a beach and go get a job.