Assange backlash: could WikiLeaks provoke U.S. crackdown on leaks?

'The consequences of (Assange's) behavior for the American press could be stark and painful'

“WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's crusade for greater official transparency could backfire by provoking a U.S. government crackdown on leaks that might entangle even journalists, legal experts warn.”

‘As It Stands’ will take a look at Julian Assange Sunday, and will ask the question “Is he Robin Hood feeding the masses information?”

Bank of America cuts off WikiLeaks payments

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Bank of America Corp said on Saturday it will not process payments intended for WikiLeaks, which has angered U.S. authorities with the mass release of U.S. diplomatic cables.

The largest U.S. bank by assets joins a growing group of financial services companies, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa Europe, that are restricting payments to the global organization which has said its next large document release will be bank information.”

Ever heard of the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009?

So there I was… 

Stumbling through cyber space when I found out about this interesting legislation. I never heard of it. Okay, big deal, I know. But don’t you think it’s strange? What prompted this Bill? Did someone with a warped sense of humor play modern day Frankenstein and get caught? If so, I sure would like to read about it. Meanwhile, here’s  S.1435:

111th CONGRESS - 1st Session - S. 1435

July 9, 2009

To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit human-animal hybrids.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds that--

(1) advances in research and technology have made possible the creation of human-animal hybrids;

(2) human-animal hybrids are grossly unethical because they blur the line between human and animal, male and female, parent and child, and one individual and another individual;

(3) human dignity and the integrity of the human species are compromised by human-animal hybrids;

(4) the uniqueness of individual human beings is manifested in a particular way through their brain and their reproductive organs/cells; and

(5) with an increase in emerging zoonotic infection threatening the global public health, human-animal hybrids present a particularly optimal means of genetic transfers that could increase the efficiency or virulence of diseases threatening both humans and animals.

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Here’s a look at where ‘As It Stands’ visitors are coming from today

Scientists Disrupt Moral Reasoning With Magnets To The Skull

Want to make somebody lose his belief that harming somebody else is wrong? All you have to do is hold a special magnet up to his head in the right place.

Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation - in which magnets are used to disrupt neural activity in specific parts of the brain - scientists managed to "turn off" people's moral centers. According to a recent release from PNAS, which published the results of the study:

“Liane Young and colleagues applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt neural activity in an area of the brain known to process information about beliefs and then asked twenty subjects to rate actions on a scale from one (morally forbidden) to seven (morally permissible). The researchers report that study participants judged actions in which a person believes he or she will cause harm to another person-but fails to do so-were more morally permissible during TMS application to the brain region responsible for processing beliefs, compared to when TMS was not applied, or applied to other brain regions.”

photo and text source

Fancy Florida ATM skips the folding cash, spits out gold

Can’t you just see some gangsters stealing the whole machine?

Machine that dispenses shiny 24-carat gold bars, coins installed at Boca Raton mall

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Shoppers who are looking for something sparkly to put under the Christmas tree can skip the jewelry and go straight to the source: an ATM that dispenses shiny 24-carat gold bars and coins.

Dog gone this is cute: See happy Pugs with Santa Claus

There’s more Pugs sitting with Santa Clauses right here.

Ho! Ho! Ho! 25,189-piece Santa collection sets Guinness record

Canadian teacher has a ho-ho-whole lot of Santas — 25,189 individual pieces

Jean-Guy Laquerre, a retired geography teacher, has a Santa Claus collection that contains 25,189 individual pieces. He started collecting in 1988.

Surprise! Hell hath no fury like a woman with a frying pan

71-year-old Kansan beats in-home attacker unconscious, police say

“Hutchinson police say a 71-year-old woman knocked a man who attacked her unconscious with her frying pan.

Police Sgt. John Moore said 25-year-old Kevin Funderburk talked his way into the woman's home on Saturday, claiming he was homeless and had nowhere to go.

Moore said that when he tried to attack the woman, she fought back and "beat him down with a frying pan."

"When we arrived, he was unconscious and lying in his own vomit in the back of the house," Moore told The Hutchinson News. "He was in the hospital in Wichita over the weekend and they stapled his scalp."

Ho! Ho! Ho! Wealth gap becomes chasm at Christmas

Luxury retailers see strong demand as lower-income shoppers hunker down

With just a few days left in the holiday shopping season, reports from retailers suggesting  strong sales are prompting analysts and investors to declare that “the American consumer is back.”

Make that "some consumers." With unemployment stuck near 10 percent, home prices falling and foreclosures still rising, holiday shopping this year has brought into sharper focus the divide between upper- and lower-income American households.

“It’s very much a tale of two worlds,” said Bernstein Research retail analyst Colin McGranahan. “There’s a big dichotomy between the well-educated, upper-income consumers — what the employment trends looks like, what the wage trends looks like — and the lower-income, less well-educated consumer. It’s a very different picture.”

image source

Study: Recession Will Cost Baby Boomers Up To $40,000 in Social Security Benefits

Unprecedented Economic Factors Will Lead to Rare Drop in Initial Social Security Benefits and Reduce Lifetime Earnings

“Baby Boomers will see greatly reduced Social Security benefits over the course of their retirements due to an unprecedented combination of low wage growth and no annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), according to a new study by The Senior Citizens League. And those who first become eligible for Social Security in 2011 will receive lower benefits than retirees born a year earlier.

This is the most comprehensive study ever released to show the recession's impact on Social Security benefits for the first wave of baby boomers.”