WoW Cataclysm Beta Spam Scam

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I periodically skim my Gmail spam folder for false positives. Once every 90 days or so, Google decides to start flagging the wrong type of automated message as spam (Twitter follower emails was the latest one). While doing this, I noticed the following type of email had started showing up recently. It appears spammers are now preying on the desire of WoW players who want to get an invite to the new World of Warcraft closed beta. Looking through my box there were 5 or 6 of them from just the past 24 hours, from multiple sources, each of them different. This particular one looked the most legitimate, despite that Google flagged it as malicious and its origin came from a Yahoo spoofed account. Nice try.

WoW Cataclysm Beta Spam Scam

Glenn Beck smears Obama's 11-year-old daughter

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From Media Matters:

Glenn Beck, who repeatedly and angrily tells his alleged persecutors to "leave the families alone," spent a good chunk of his radio program this morning mocking and attacking the intelligence of President Obama's 11-year-old daughter, Malia.

Obama remarked yesterday during his press conference that Malia asked him of the Gulf oil spill: "Did you Plug The Hole Yet, Daddy?" Beck, taking off on this, mockingly affected Malia's voice, asking "Daddy" why he "hates black people so much." Then Beck attacked Malia's intelligence, saying: "That's the level of their education, that they're coming to - they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' "

This routine continued for several minutes, as Beck and his co-hosts touched on a variety of topics and laughed the entire time, all of it at the expense of an 11-year-old girl.





Transcript below the jump:

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy? Daddy? Daddy, did you plug the hole yet? Daddy?

PAT GRAY (co-host): (imitating Obama) No I didn't, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy, I know you're better than [unintelligible]

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Mm-hmm, big country.

BECK: (imitating Malia) And I was wondering if you've plugged that hole yet.

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Honey, not yet.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why not, daddy? But daddy--

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Not time yet, honey. Hasn't done enough damage.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Not enough damage yet, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah?

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why do you hate black people so much?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) I'm part white, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) What?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) What?

BECK: (imitating Malia) What'd you say?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Excuse me?

BECK: (laughing) This is such a ridiculous -- this is such a ridiculous thing that his daughter-- (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: It's so stupid.

BECK: How old is his daughter? Like, thirteen?

GRAY: Well, one of them's, I think, thirteen, one's eleven, or something.

BECK: "Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?" Is that's their -- that's the level of their education, that they're coming to -- they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' " Plug the hole!

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yes, I was doing some deep-sea diving yesterday, and--

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I was doing--

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why--

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah, honey, I'm--

BECK (imitating Malia) Why, why, why, why, do you still let the polar bears die? Daddy, why do you still let Sarah Palin destroy the environment? Why are -- Daddy, why don't you just put her in some sort of a camp?

BP’s Photo Blockade of the Gulf Oil Spill

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Newsweek:

Photographers who have traveled to the Gulf commonly say they believe that BP has exerted more control over coverage of the spill with the cooperation of the federal government and local law enforcement. “It’s a running joke among the journalists covering the story that the words ‘Coast Guard’ affixed to any vehicle, vessel, or plane should be prefixed with ‘BP,’ ” says Charlie Varley, a Louisiana-based photographer. “It would be funny if it were not so serious.” The problem, as many members of the press see it, is that even when access is granted, it’s done so under the strict oversight of BP and Coast Guard personnel. Reporters and photographers are escorted by BP officials on BP-contracted boats and aircraft. So the company is able to determine what reporters see and when they see it.

See also: Mac McClelland’s first-hand report for Mother Jones.

The Big Picture: Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico

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The Big Picture: Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico:

In the three weeks since the April 20th explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and the start of the subsequent massive (and ongoing) oil leak, many attempts have been made to contain and control the scale of the environmental disaster. Oil dispersants are being sprayed, containment booms erected, protective barriers built, controlled burns undertaken, and devices are being lowered to the sea floor to try and cap the leaks, with little success to date. While tracking the volume of the continued flow of oil is difficult, an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil (possibly much more) continues to pour into the gulf every day. While visible damage to shorelines has been minimal to date as the oil has spread slowly, the scene remains, in the words of President Obama, a "potentially unprecedented environmental disaster."

Arizona GOP, this is why your diabolical plan isn't going to work so well...

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AZ Truck driver forced to show birth certificate claims racial-profiling

The shape of things to come? Sure looks like it. And this incident happened before Gov. Jan Brewer signed the SB1070 into law on Friday. Video and story from AzFamily.com.

PHOENIX – A Valley man says he was pulled over Wednesday morning and questioned when he arrived at a weigh station for his commercial vehicle along Val Vista and the 202 freeway. Abdon, who did not want to use his last name, says he provided several key pieces of information but what he provided apparently was not what was needed. He tells 3TV, “I don't think it's correct, if I have to take my birth certificate with me all the time.” 3TV caught up with Abdon after he was released from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in central Phoenix. He and his wife, Jackie, are still upset about what happened to him. Jackie tells 3TV, “It's still something awful to be targeted. I can't even imagine what he felt, people watching like he was some type of criminal.” Abdon was told he did not have enough paperwork on him when he pulled into a weigh station to have his commercial truck checked. He provided his commercial driver’s license and a social security number but ended up handcuffed. An agent called his wife and she had to leave work to drive home and grab other documents like his birth certificate. Jackie explains, “I have his social security card as well and mine. He's legit. It's the first time it's ever happened.” Both were born in the United States and say they are now both infuriated that keeping important documents safely at home is no longer an option.

SXSW 2010, The Pitchforks Come Out Once Again (hey, it rhymes)

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As my previous post noted, Evan Williams was the Keynote Interview on Monday at South By Southwest Interactive at 2:00 pm (SXSWi). I stopped writing that post shortly after the one good quote that Evan made about openness because the wheels began to fall off of the wagon of the interview at that point

In 2007, Sarah Lacy famously crashed and burned when she interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, at SXSWi. Lacy was criticized for asking softball questions and generally getting too personal and seeming too comfortable with her interview subject. The Twitter backchannel, or conversation of audience members on Twitter while the interview was going on resembled a virtual pitchfork and torch mob who revolted in mid-interview. Things only got worse when Lacy turned over the interview to Q&A from the crowd when the crowd started to get audibly frustrated and hostile. It went down in history as the most notorious SXSWi Keynote Interview and many thought it's lessons would prevent anyone else from ever flopping an interview with a tech illuminati again.

That all ended today. One half-hour before the interview began, the room started to fill quickly. My wife and I arrived about 15 minutes before it began and had considerable trouble finding 2 seats next to one another near the back of the room on the left side. Several announcements were made for audience members to fill in seats and the interview started a bit late as more people tried to squeeze in. Many people were standing along the walls and near the back. And then it began

Umair Haque and Evan Williams walked onto the stage from the right. They quickly sat down and it took a minute or so for Umair to clear up a microphone issue he was having. At that point they briefly mentioned that Evan had an announcement to make about their new @anywhere feature they were rolling out soon. Evan breezed over this information rather quickly, showed a very short video demo, and they both moved past the news. I think many people were still contemplating this news, and wanting more info, when Umair started talking about anything and everything except what the audience wanted to hear from the interview. Within 20 minutes people started standing a leaving. I began to notice snarky tweets coming across my stream from people I follow noting that Umair kept talking about his own personal stories with twitter and his own blog posts. He would sometimes take 2 or 3 minutes to ask a question and then jump in quickly after only letting Evan talk for a short bit. His questions were uninteresting and boring. Consequently, whenever he allowed Evan to answer a question at length, his only response would be "Interesting." or "Fascinating". People started to make jokes on Twitter adding fascinating after their tweets mocking him.

Oh and during all of this? People were leaving. Now just a few people, but a LOT. 1/2 hour into the interview there was almost a line to get OUT of the Keynote because the volunteers weren't letting people leave through the rear doors, but instead, out of a set of large double doors on the side of the hall. This was because the hallway outside the keynote had already gotten so crowded from people leaving that people had no where to go once they got outside. My wife and I stuck it out until about 15 minutes before it was over. By the time we left at 3:00 (the interview ran until about 3:15 I think) there was a sea of empty chairs with a person or two every 2 or 3 empty chairs. I guess that about 60% (or more) had left at that point. You can check out some of these articles on other sites to see what people were saying on twitter. Look for yours truly in the Huffington Post one.

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