Facebook arrogance re. privacy is reason for concern over stock offering

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and the leader of Facebook, has repeatedly shown his arrogance in the selecting, handling and sharing of Facebook user data.  Take a look at what results from a Google search of “Facebook Privacy Issues.”  In November of 2011, the feds accused the company of engaging in “unfair and deceptive” practices, only settling after ordering the company to respect the privacy wishes of its users, subjecting it to regular privacy audits for 20 years.

That’s heavy stuff for a company some of you trust your most private data to.  But the smart ones don’t and they have finally been heard from in a recent AP-CNBC poll revealing that 57 percent of Facebook users never click on ads or other sponsored content.  The obvious reason, they are concerned it will be used in a way that breaches their privacy.  Another 26 percent hardly ever do this and only 4 percent indicate they often click on ads.

This could be the primary reason that General Motors, the third-largest advertiser in the U.S., will drop Facebook from all its advertising.  Apparently it didn’t sell cars.  Considering the Facebook public stock offering coming this month, it exposes the riskiness of the overall Facebook model, according to Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research on MSN/Money.  And it’s not just Facebook; another large consumer products company thinks it may not be worth the money spent.

Mark Zuckerberg

I did a blog recently, “What U.S. company do you hate the most?”  Guess who came out number 1.  That’s right.  Facebook.  Here’s a quote from the entry: “Facebook has the lowest customer satisfaction score from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.“  Further, “The company’s customer service was described as poor by 25.9 percent of users in 2011.”  In most industries that would spell disaster but fortunately for Zuckerberg, he holds the edge.

He’s giving away a communications vehicle that is absolutely free.  All he asks is that you give him all your private information to use in any way he chooses.  And there lies the problem of this whole mess.  It translates into yet another distrust by users where 54 percent said they would not feel comfortable using Facebook for financial transaction in purchasing goods or services.  Just imagine what that kind of thinking would do to a site like Amazon.com.

Watch this alarming video on your lack of Facebook privacy:

Analysts say this kind of e-commerce is necessary if the company is to survive.  But only 8 percent said they would feel safe in buying through Facebook.  These are all figures that, if they aren’t changed and changed quickly, could provide such a negative picture of this social media that it begins to lose both users and more advertisers. I have followed Mark Zuckerberg on his privacy raids since they first started and he appears completely clueless on the merits of the issue.

This has all had its effects on the current stock offering with an evaluation of around $100 billion, with half in the poll saying that is overvalued.  That number jumps to 62 percent with active investors.  There is also no consensus whether Facebook would make a good investment which does not bode well for the long term.  And Zuckerberg garners only 18 percent in those who have confidence in him as a leader of the company.  Has he just been lucky so far?

For as long as I can remember, users have been suspicious of Facebook’s use of their personal data.  In the AP_CNBC poll, which was conducted May 3 through May 7, 59 percent of respondents said they had “little or no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.”  Yet the company has grown to 901 million monthly users worldwide.  The answer is really simple, just give the very minimum of information to identify yourself and never your birth date.

Finally, an online survey the pollsters asked readers to respond to asked the following question: Do you trust Facebook to keep your personal information safe?  The results:

Total of 34,564 votes

Yes-2.1%-740 votes

No-93.7%-32,390 votes

Not Sure-4.1%-1,434 votes

More calls to repeal the 2nd Amendment

There is another debate going on re. whether to repeal the 2^nd Amendment with a pro/con between Steve Zorbaugh and Elizabeth Roberts, both Pennsylvanians, and both very eloquent.  However, Roberts places much of her reasoning against repeal in her interpretation of what the Founding Fathers intended in their amendment plus a general distrust in the American government.  Zorbaugh shoots all this NRA malarkey down and makes a very strong case in favor.

But Zorbaugh starts with an interesting statement that I had to research further.  He said: “There are 788,258 words in a standard King James Bible. The word ‘gun’ isn't one of them.”  That would indicate a direct connection between religion and guns, and I found that there is.  At least in the minds of the gun worshippers.  There is a lawyer by the name of Herb Titus who is part of the Gun Owners of America who draws this parallel between the 2^nd Amendment and religion.

The article in the second site, above, exclaims that “…the Tea Party movement emerges out of the confluence of different strands of the far right, including Christian Reconstructionism.”  We all know that TPers are staunch gun rights supporters and gun toters.  Further, “The militia movement and Christian Reconstructionism both contend that our current civil government, most especially the federal government, is illegitimate.” At the very least, scary.

Cass Sunstein, Constitutional Lawyer and U.S. Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on repealing 2nd Amendment:

Larry Pratt, Exec. Dir. of GOA said: “we’re not really talking about a right but an obligation, as creatures of God, to protect the life that was given them.”  Now we don’t just go back to biblical days where there is a fantasized association between gun and religion, but according to Pratt it came right from the mouth of God.  More on this in a later post.  It is beyond me where these maniacs come up with this crap but of course the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) comes to mind.

Zorbaugh refutes Roberts’ Founding Fathers drivel in one compact, precise statement: “The justification for gun ownership that existed in 1787 no longer exists today.”  But he follows up with a multitude of other refutations that should make a brainwashed NRA membership think.  But it won’t.  He does acknowledge the need then to have protection against the King of England and against unfriendly Native American tribes that we confiscated our land from. 

But that was over two-hundred years ago.  Things have changed.  The only thing outside one’s God worshipped today is guns, not thrones.

Zorbaugh proclaims: “After 225 years, the Second Amendment has clearly outlived its original purpose.”  He is looking for a new Constitutional Amendment that will value the community’s right to being safe over the demands of the gun bubbas that want to carry their weapons anywhere they want to at anytime they want to.  And the only way this can be accomplished is with stronger gun control. 

One good reason for more control is Philip Cook’s statement that the cost our society pays each year to guarantee gun ownership exceeds $100 billion and is growing annually at an alarming rate.”  This comes from Cook’s book, “Gun Violence: The Real Costs.”

There is one solution affirms the pro-repeal author.  Require gun owners to carry insurance on their weapons just like they are required to do on their automobiles, for potential death and injuries.  This would at least mandate registration which we all know would send the NRA into its next aberration.  It would be worth the try just to see Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s CEO and Exec, Vice President, come off the spool…again.

ARIZONA…where the hate groups flock

J.T. Ready and his U.S. Border Guard group are just the latest hate group to pop up in the news in Arizona after he shot and killed his girlfriend, her daughter and her boyfriend and the girlfriend’s granddaughter, only 15 months old.  We still have the neo-Nazi skinheads, the National Socialist Movement led by Harry Hughes, the Ku Klux Klan, the Vinlanders Social Club, another racist skinhead group and Minutemen American Defense.

Shawna Forde, founder of MAD and two of her henchmen were convicted of first-degree murder in 2009 for the deaths of two, one a 9-year-old girl.  Dennis Mahon, a White supremacist from Illinois, even came all the way to Arizona in 2004 to send a mail bomb to Don Logan who was black and working for the city of Scottsdale.  Jeffrey Harbin from the Nat’l Socialist Movement in Apache Junction was convicted of making explosive devices in 2011.

A USA Today article chronicles how easy it is for the hate groups to get started and flourish in the great state of Arizona.  Bill Straus, Arizona regional dir. of the Anti-Defamation League said, "Immigration is pretty much unarguably the No. 1 recruiting element in the White supremacist world."  Having lived in the state for over 20 years, I can vouch for the fact that there is little temperance here for minorities, particularly undocumented immigrants.



Hate in the South



Arizona’s anti-immigration law, SB-1070, sponsored by former state senator Russell Pearce, a known racist, and signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer, also known for being one of the worst governors ever to lead a state, was the impetus for these hate groups to raise their ugly heads and send Arizona into a tailspin that has made it the laughing stock of the country.  Not to be outdone, the boneheaded state legislature passed its share of stupid laws in its support.

Brian Levin, dir. of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Calif. State U.-San Bernardino, claims that he knows of neo-Nazis who “…want to make pilgrimages to Arizona.”  Levin continues, "They believe that there are a lot of people in the state who are sympathetic to them."

The above is a fact that should be troubling to Gov. Brewer and the legislature but both are clueless in the matter.  The key factor here is that Arizona would have to tighten its gun laws—the loosest in the nation—to do anything about the extremism, and the state’s gun bubbas would never allow that.  They, along with the Tea Party, have Arizona so tightly controlled at the moment that it has become near impossible to even raise progressive ideas.  But it is happening.

FAIR and hate groups video:

USA Today says that Ready’s death, “…has pulled back the curtain on the shadowy world of extremism in Arizona that seems to teeter on the edge of violence.”  So add to the cross-country ridicule of Arizona the fact that it is now the leader in “Hate-States.”  Pathetic!  Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center says there were a total of 17 hate groups in Arizona as of 2011.  And it can all be traced back to the proliferation of guns to create this hate and violence.

James Turgal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix division believes that domestic terrorism is “very active” in Arizona, giving credit to the Nat’l Socialist Movement, neo-Nazis and something he called the “anti-government sovereign citizen” movement.  And Mark Potok of the SPLC was quoted as saying, "There are a lot of really thuggish individuals associated with the nativist movement in Arizona."  That’s a term no state should want associated with its citizenry. 

If the dethroned Russell Pearce gets his way, he will be back in Arizona’s senate by the end of the November elections; he is running for a seat in another state district from where he was booted recently.  In all likelihood the lame-brained legislature would probably elect him president again, and the great state of Arizona would return to business as usual.

UNLESS…progressives continue to do their thing and start a conservative cleansing that will rid us of these un-patriots.

Stories behind the mindless side of the gun rights movement

Sometimes you can’t resist illustrating just how far the marginally intelligent will go to attempt to prove their point that anyone should be able to own a gun and take it anywhere they want.  I question their IQ quotient because in a couple of the instances below, the people must be dealing with double digits or less.  If not, they are clearly a menace to society and should be under the observation of mental health specialists.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican (what else?) from Kentucky has placed his political support behind a gun group’s email campaign that has an image of a rifle pointed at President Barack Obama’s head.  It is funded by the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR) based in Virginia, who also has bolstered the conspiracy, along with the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), about the alleged government plans to take weapons away from American gun owners.

Ladd Everitt, dir. of communications for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, says that death threats against Obama are up 400 percent compared to former President George W. Bush.  Considering the complete ineptness of GWB’s administration, you might wonder if this is based on the fact that most guns are in the hands of conservative Republicans.  Either that or is there another underlying factor which centers on Obama being the first black president?

Trayvon Martin target

And then we have this crackbrained entrepreneur from Orlando, Florida who has come up with the ludicrous idea to sell targets for the gun range, made in the image of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman.  Supposedly in a self-defense situation, Zimmerman was charged with 2^nd degree murder.  Even Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara said, "This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility."

What says even more about the gun nuts that bought the targets is the fact that they sold out in 2 days.  This scrapes the under-belly of the barrel of bad taste but is representative of a group whose priorities are so far out of whack that they cannot see beyond the barrel of their gun.  The National Rifle Assn. (NRA) has turned these poor souls into a lunatic fringe for their guns, convincing them they have the right to do anything they want with their weapons.

The targets were offered for sale on a popular firearms auction website and the sellers said they "support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug."  No mention of supporting Zimmerman’s case from the proceeds of the sales of the targets, rather, it appears that these slime-balls have just decided to profit off the death of this black teenager.  This incident provides perfect insight into the mentality of an extremely dark side of the gun rights movement.

Finally, one for the books.  With Mexico overrun with weapons, did you know that there is only one legal gun store in the country?  If you’re a Mexican looking for a gun, you must go to the one store that is housed on a military base run by the army.  That’s if you want to do it legally, because Mexico has some of the strongest gun laws in the world.  But if you want a weapon from the so-called black market, you look to the U.S. just like the drug cartels do.

The ATF estimates that at least 68,000 guns found in Mexico by their government have been traced back to the United States.  Now, did you know that there are 20,834 gun stores on the U.S. side of the Mexican/American border?  Coincidence?  With the weak gun laws in this country, these stores are free to sell to whomever they please and in quantity.  Not losing a step, Republicans and the NRA still oppose any laws resisting the sale of assault weapons in the U.S.

Added to the above, it was reported by the Brady Campaign that gun dealers “lost” more than 62,000 firearms since 2008.  Described as “A Criminal’s Delight,” they also report that gun manufacturers, the biggest supporters of the NRA, lost more than 16,000 firearms since 2009.  Pennsylvania leads the nation when it comes to guns missing from gun shops.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t Arizona.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer carries questionable baggage in barring Planned Parenthood funding

Continuing to worship at the altar of Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, her conservative supporters in the legislature and her like constituents have once again given her the impetus to dump on those in need, turning them out to fend for themselves.  Arizona already bars tax dollars for abortion, but backers, including the Susan B. Anthony List group, say the law is needed to prevent indirect monies from reaching these organizations.



Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer,
still at her best 

Forbes magazine accuses Brewer of “Slipping Back into the Dark Ages.”  What Forbes may not realize is that the country’s worst governor entered the dark ages when she first got into politics and has just continued to unravel since then.  The magazine called her a woman governor playing God with women’s rights.  And this was all in the headline.  What Forbes and most of the other articles about this issue don’t mention is Brewer’s family connection which I cover later. 

Planned Parenthood does provide abortion funds but they do much more for the needy including: providing cancer screenings, birth control, plus regular wellness exams for women.  Only 10 percent of females seek abortion services from Planned Parenthood of Arizona.  But Jan Brewer’s bill shuts out the other 90% that need regular healthcare.  This all stems from ideology originating with the domination of conservatives including the religious right, and the Tea Party.

See a video on Arizona's new law:

As the Republican Party has added seats in state legislatures across the country, in many cases led by TPers, the strength to pass laws like Arizona’s has become more prevalent.  What these ideologues don’t understand—or maybe they do and just don’t care—is that this kind of legislation only delays the inevitable which is the fact that these folks eventually end up in the emergency room at taxpayer expense.  But common sense has never been a staple in Arizona politics.



Planned Parenthood protestor

Planned Parenthood says this is just “bad health policy, bad fiscal policy, and bad politics.”  But it is the GOP way and it is an election year.  PP recounts that “Court decisions in Indiana, Kansas, and now North Carolina have made it abundantly clear that it is unacceptable for states to pass laws that prevent women from going to their trusted health care provider to get primary and preventive care.”  We’re not talking abortions, just plain healthcare.

Laws similar to Arizona’s have already been signed in Texas, Tennessee, Vermont, Indiana, and Kansas and are under consideration in New Hampshire.  Many are already being disputed.  And the statistics do support Planned Parenthood.  Forbes reports: “…fully 42% of abortions are requested by women below the poverty level; 61% of women seeking abortions already have at least one child; and 1/2 of the pregnancies in the United States are unintentional.”

Co-PP’s founder, Margaret Sanger, says, “They live and die on the fringes of society, in pockets of dire poverty and inner city tenements, even in an ultra-rich country like ours.  Yet they might as well not exist as far as politicians, and commentators are concerned.”  No doubt she means the conservative talk-radio circuit.  Another point is made that Arizona’s and other states’ budget deficits might be solved by releasing this financial burden on families.

But Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer has a deeper, more covert interest in Arizona’s “Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act.”  Almost sounds wholesome, doesn’t it?  The only site that had the guts to report this aspect of the story was Jezebel.com, saying in its headline, “Governor Who Cut Funding for Sexual Assault Victims Has Son Who Was Charged With Sexual Assault.”  Brewer’s new law won’t help the victim but it will help her son.

Ronald Brewer “…broke into a woman’s apartment, slapped her several times, and committed sex acts on her.”  And although the man had been functioning as a normal human being prior to the attack, his mother, the Governor, had him committed because she said the trauma had deteriorated his health.  At the same time she had the case’s records sealed by the court.

The question is whether she put the guy away to help him or was it because she didn’t want Ronald to embarrass her during her administration?  She needn’t have worried, Brewer has done nothing but embarrass herself since becoming Governor.

Forbes had an interesting statement at the end of their article.  It read: “It is reprehensible enough when governments like the Chinese enforce a rule of no more than one child per family.  How is it any different when a government insists that we cannot limit the size of it?”  The anti-abortion people should take note of this.  But Jan Brewer wouldn’t have a clue what they are talking about.

Florida man provided driving force behind “Stand Your Ground” law

An elderly James Workman in Pensacola, Florida was the impulse for the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) to devise and advance Florida’s, the nation’s first, “Stand Your Ground” law in 2005.  It was November 3, 2004, at 2 a.m., seven weeks after Hurricane Ivan made landfall, when FEMA worker Rodney Cox came to the Workman’s door and asked for a drink of water.  Workman and his wife were in a temporary RV in the driveway of their unlivable home. 

Residents were on edge following an earlier incident where police had to subdue a man with a machete at the house next door.  Rodney Cox approached the workman’s front door as Kathryn Workman—awake because she couldn’t sleep—watched, then woke her husband who grabbed his .38 pistol and confronted Cox.  After mumbling and asking for a drink of water, Workman ordered him off his property, firing a warning shot.

At that point they say Cox dashed toward the trailer where Kathryn was waiting, a phone in one hand, her own .38 in the other.  She screamed at the 911 operator who heard a struggle, then was told by the wife that her husband had shot the intruder, who apparently got up after being shot.  In the hours before being shot Cox had called 911 himself to report he had been a victim of domestic violence, his skull fractured, possibly explaining his disoriented condition. 

It was this particular episode that was the motivation for “Stand Your Ground.”  But, interestingly, the Workmans were never asked to testify at the legislative session considering the law.  They had to find out about it on the evening news.  It would almost appear that the NRA saw the incident as an excuse to enact another stupid law that is now being questioned in many of the states where it has been passed. 

Then on to another loose gun state, Texas, where Jose Luis Gonzales, fed up with burglaries at his house, shot and killed Francisco Anguiano, 13, when he broke into Gonzales’ house around midnight.  He was with three other kids ranging in ages from 11 to 15, and was shot in the back with a shotgun.  Looking for snacks, the boys were told to “drop it” referring to a bag of Cheetos, then said they were smacked with the shotgun.  They ended up on the floor face-down.



Texas guns



Uriel Druker, Webb County district attorney said the kids were subdued and “weren’t going to go at him.”  Gonzales was screaming at them to stay down, all of this which Druker said disproves Gonzales’ claim of self-defense.  Gonzales said he thought the 13-year-old was about to “lunge” at him.  Now common sense would tell most of us that, assuming the kid was on his stomach on the floor, and was shot for lunging at Gonzales, how did he get shot in the back?

The medical examiner even confirmed this, and, according to Druker, the homeowner didn’t even mention the kids lunging at him until he retained a lawyer.  It only took three hours for a jury to acquit Gonzales.  When Druker later confronted jurors meeting them around town, he asked why the jury agreed to acquit.  The standard answer was that they feared losing their right to protect their own homes.  That is gun mentality at its worse.  The statute was on trial.

The CNN article in the above link says, “The shooters feel remorse but are resolute in the belief that the law is on their side.”  I say that is a double-edged sword, and one these self-styled vigilantes should have to fall on instead of their victims.

When does self-defense become murder?

The “Stand Your Ground” law has taken flak since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Florida where the legislation was enacted for the first time under the complete supervision of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) in 2005.  Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder and there is some concern over Zimmerman’s pursuit of Martin in the incident, which the bill’s sponsors say was not intended as an option.

It’s like playing Wyatt Earp or vigilante, and we all know that isn’t allowed anywhere but in Arizona.  Precisely where SYG was re-enacted recently; that state passed the law in 2006 after only 20 seconds of justification by the NRA before legislators.  A total of 33 states have passed a similar version that allows the expansion of deadly force in protecting yourself outside the home.  Some question whether the 2^nd Amendment intended this.

Typical Arizona shootings yellow tape

Arizona just couldn’t wait to test the law and one of the state’s gun worshippers decided to do just that on April 3, at a Taco Bell in Laveen.  He shot Daniel Adkins, Jr. in what he claimed was self-defense.  The young man was 29 but with the mental capacity of a 13-year-old.  The shooter was not charged.  Adkins was walking past a Taco Bell just as the 22-year-old shooter was picking up his order.  The latter slammed on his brakes barely missing Adkins.

The two men exchanged words and according to the shooter Adkins swung his hands in the air in the direction of the SUV.  The question at this point is whether the shooter almost hit Adkins with his SUV; if so, who was the instigator of this altercation?  Or is that not considered under the SYG law?  Adkins wasn’t even close enough to touch the vehicle but when he waved his hands in the air again, the driver shot him with his S&W 40-caliber weapon, hitting him in the chest.

Adkins was not armed but the shooter “believed” he was carrying due to what he thought he saw was a metal pipe or bat in the victim’s hand.  Since the shooter’s fiancé was also in the car with him, it will be interesting to hear her take on the event.  CNN spoke to the shooter’s father who, behind the door of his home warned the reporter that he had a gun in his hand.  He did defend his son’s use of deadly force.  He also said witnesses said that Adkins “went berserk.”

Adkins family later said that all Daniel had in his hand, what the shooter thought was a weapon, was the leash of his loyal dog, a yellow lab named Lady.

In this retaliation Adkins is purported to say: “What the hell, you almost hit me,” and “watch where the f*** you’re going.”  Sounds like substantiation of the fact that the driver almost did hit him, and his following tirade does not appear to justify the taking of the man’s life.  It sounds more like wild-west justice based solely on the fact that the NRA has apparently driven home the ideology to its members and the public that it is OK to shoot first and ask questions later.

Local TV coverage of Daniel Adkins killing:

The senior Atkins told CNN, "Why didn't he shoot my son in the leg? It would've stopped him. He hit him right straight in the heart. He shot to kill."  Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California, said:

"When you arm people on the streets, the opportunities for tragic shootings like the one in the Martin case increase."  A 2007 Nat’l Dist. Attorney’s study also found that law enforcement is concerned over the “Stand Your Ground” laws.

In the next post, the incident that spawned the “Stand Your Ground” laws.