Google invests another $200,000,000 in Council Bluffs, bring Iowa total to $1.1 billion

Take a look inside Google's Council Bluffs, Iowa data center here. It's as close as you're likely to get.
     Google provides free wi-fi to Bayliss Park and will do the same in Dodge Park.

Surprise! Omaha cop union prez, Sgt. John Wells, on latest dog execution: 'I don't see that the officers acted inappropriately... [video] doesn't tell the whole story... officers were left little choice but to protect themselves'

The Omaha Police Union seems to be working from the hollow bullet points used by most PDs in justifying even the most outrageous, cavalier and indefensible summary pet executions. 
     At least the local Humane Society didn't pile on this time, as it did several years ago, when a cop entered a gated Omaha yard to investigate improper registration on a vehicle and then shot a friendly pit bull whose owner subsequently was the subject of a Humane Society complaint for "failing to restrain" his dogs.
     In the latest case, the dog's walker, Chris Schulte, was thrown to the ground apprehended for having an open container and 'obstructing' police.
     Despite the fact that it was an Omaha policeman who got to experience the thrill of wasting the family pet, (one of those notoriously vicious lab/golden retreiver mixes) Sgt. John Wells assured Omahans that the responsibility for the shooting of the dog rested with Schulte and not with the officer who pulled the trigger.

Shirtless FBI agent shows up during Letterman monologue

Letterman: Part of this Gen. Patraeus deal is, a guy investigating it for the FBI is an agent who investigates without his shirt. He likes to take pictures of himself without his shirt and shoot them around to various people and somehow he became involved in the Patraeus and the other generals and the CIA thing... and I thought: "Wait a minute, this rings a bell, oh yes, at the FBI, J Edgar Hoover used to do the same thing, except it was usually in a backless evening gown...
[Man wearing sun glasses, no shirt and suit pants runs up from behind]
Letterman: Oh, geez! Holy god!
Fake FBI Agent: If it wasn't my day off...
Letterman: Uh, huh.
Fake FBI Agent: ...I'd arrest you.
Letterman: Sure you would. Now get out of here. There he goes. He smelled nice.

Grand Island gay rights fight turns into pissing match between homophobic mayor and city council

On October 9th, Grand Island, Nebraska's fourth largest city, rejected an ordinance prohibiting discrimination in employment by a margin of 8-2, but the issue returned in the form of a scaled-down change to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in hiring for city jobs. (Grand Island currently protects gay people already employed by the city.)
     This HR change passed Tuesday, 6-4, ("no" votes: Mitch Nickerson, Chuck Haase, Scott Dugan and Peg Gilbert) but was vetoed by Mayor Jay Vavricek after he called on council members to explain why they voted pro or no, provoking two council members who had previously voted "no" to switch their votes. Grand Island requires a supermajority of seven to override a mayoral veto.
     In the end, after Nikerson and Haase changed sides, only Peg Gilbert and Scott Dugan voted against the override.

Shirtless photo sent by FBI investigator in Patraeus scandal to Jill Kelley: self-effacing joke emailed to dozens of others, too, including a reporter

The Seattle Times has published the gag photo, entitled
"Which one is Fred" sent by 47-year-old FBI agent
Frederick W. Humphries, posing between two shooting
range dummies, to Jill Kelley and several others,
including a Seattle Times reporter.

Reports of a shirtless photo sent by an FBI agent to Tampa Socialite Jill Kelley, who instigated an FBI investigation of harassing emails sent anonymously to her by Gen. David Patraeus paramour Paula Broadwell, sounded much worse than they turned out to be.
     The picture was a self-mocking gag sent to dozens of others, including a reporter, and Jill Kelley was a family friend.
     The Seattle Times reports:

Kelley, a family friend, first contacted Humphries about the emails, according to Humphries and news reports. Humphries referred Kelley's complaint to the bureau's cybercrime unit and was not directly involved in the investigation, according to the sources...
     Humphries, 47, confirmed the photograph exists and was sent to Kelley and dozens of other friends and acquaintances in the fall of 2010, shortly after Humphries had transferred to the Tampa office from Guantánamo Bay, where he had been an FBI liaison to the CIA at the detention facility there.
     Indeed, among his friends and associates, Humphries was known to send dumb-joke emails in which the punch line was provided by opening an attached photo.

Why manslaughter charges may be brought against BP managers

Chris and Jordan review the new Lumix GH3

domke803: How do you get the birds to come to you like that?
TheCameraStoreTV: Charisma.

Although Chris Niccolls emceed the video, Jordan Blake wrote the accompanying the blog post, here.
     AKSARBENT's sense, from seeing internet postings of GH3 stills, is that the camera is far less lackluster than was the GH2 in that mode.
      Another photo web site, Imaging Resource, in a great interview, got Panasonic executives to admit that 80-90% of users have been clamoring for focus peaking and that it is a "top priority" for a firmware upgrade — and there's a possibility Panasonic might throw in Zebra striping too.
     Some months ago, Chris and Jordan torture-tested memory cards, the process of which involved both of them being in a bathtub, which elicited an inevitable query about them being gay, to which they responded: "You sound like our wives."
     Incidentally, Chris' son's Easy-Bake oven was commandeered for the heat test.
     AKSARBENT, for its part, will refer to that video with an accompanying screen grab in all future posts about this Calgary camera store.

Real world sex allegations hit voice actor whose hand is frequently up Elmo's ass

Uh Oh.

Trailer: Detropia

Roger Ebert gave this documentary three stars:

Via beautiful cinematography, the film wanders the city, contrasting a new automaker's towers with abandoned hotels, derelict theaters, ruined houses and people walking through the snow down the middle of streets because there's no traffic. Such shots are intercut with performances by the Michigan Opera Theatre, which clings to life with the support of the Big Three car companies.

Matthew McConaughey's extreme weight loss for HIV+ role

McConaughey, starring in The Dallas Buyer's Club, is playing Ron Woodruff, an 80s drug addict who got HIV, then became one of the first AIDS activists and launched one of the first AIDS support groups.

Maureen Dowd: GOP & Fox News bought in to their fake world

Maureen Dowd. (Fred Conrad photo)

...But the truth is, Romney was an unpalatable candidate. And shocking as it may seem, his strategists weren’t blowing smoke when they said they were going to win; they were just clueless.

      Until now, Republicans and Fox News have excelled at conjuring alternate realities. But this time, they made the mistake of believing their fake world actually existed. As Fox’s Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove on election night, when he argued against calling Ohio for Obama: “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

Iowa GOP State Sen. Sandra Greiner is queen of dark money in USA; in Wisconsin alone, she ran $250,000 of attack ads against gay Rep. Tammy Baldwin

Iowa District 45 State Senator Sandra Greiner,
president of American Future Fund, the third-
biggest dark money 501(c)(4) in the US, swears
on a Bible to support Iowa's constitution and
faithfully discharge the duties of senator. Greiner
was not actually wearing a tiara at the time

In 2012 more than 100 dark money organizations (entities organized as 501(c)(4)'s to hide wealthy donors) collectively spent more than $300,000,000.
     But only three spent more than the Des Moines-based  American Future Fund, whose president is Iowa State Senator Sandra Greiner.
     Last month, Greiner bought more than a quarter-million dollars of Wisconsin television attack ads (watch below) targeting Wisconsin's 2nd District US Representative, Tammy Baldwin, in an failed attempt to derail her successful bid for the US Senate.
     Sara Jerving at PRWatch has demolished the substance of Greiner's TV ad, which was based on so many exaggerations and flawed economic interpretations as to be indistinguishable from a lie: 

A key claim in the ad comes from an Op-Ed article by Jeff Landin of the Wisconsin Paper Council, who used figures from a 2010 study commissioned by the American Forest and Paper Association and Fisher International, a consulting and information services firm to the pulp and and paper mill industry. The ad extrapolates findings of the industry study which noted "at risk jobs" in the Midwest from the regulation. The study, according to Dr. Charles Kolstad, Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, "purports to estimate the increased costs borne by the industry from the proposed regulation, the number of mills that may be shut‐down from the rule, and the number of jobs that may be lost from the rule. Unfortunately, the methodology is fundamentally flawed in many respects; thus the results reported are useless." He added that "If I were grading this, I would give it an F. The economics is all wrong (lack of an incidence analysis or acknowledgement of its importance; failure to draw on the relevant literature), which of course would be my main concern." Laurie Johnson of the Natural Resources Defense Council echoed this statement: "a cursory examination reveals gross exaggeration of compliance costs and employment impacts, and a lack of understanding of even introductory-level economics."
     The ad also does not note that Baldwin met with EPA's Lisa Jackson this spring to press for an extension to implementing this rule so that paper companies in Wisconsin and elsewhere can spread the associated costs of the rule over time, a move requested by the industry...
     AFF is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not disclose its donors despite being largely dedicated to running television and web ads that promote right-wing causes and influence elections. The group is currently running pro-Romney ads in Wisconsin, and spent over $4 million in California in support of the anti-union Proposition 32.
     A large percentage of their 2010 funds came from a single source, the Center to Protect Patients' Rights (CPPR), another 501(c)(4) which made massive donations in support of various conservative groups for the midterm elections. The Center gave AFF $12 million, about half of their total budget for that year. CPPR is run by Sean Noble, who Politico described as an operative of the billionaire Koch brothers. Nobel was hired by the Kochs to coordinate with other conservative Super PACs to target Democratic representatives in 2010. One of Koch's subsidiaries, Georgia-Pacific, is a lead manufacturer of paper products in Wisconsin, including consumer tissue, towel and wiper products, corrugated packaging, and hardboard.

David Letterman tries to find out if Anderson Cooper has gaydar

Regrettably, the clip has been removed, so here's a description of the banter.

How Minnesotans beat back constitutional referendum banning marriage equality

Eric Ringham and Sasha Aslanian of Minnesota Public Radio have published a remarkably detailed and incisive deconstruction of how Gay, Straight, Democratic and Republican Minnesotans, all working in relentless coordination, beat back an anti-gay marriage referendum in a state that isn't as liberal as many people assume. It was neither easy nor cheap, but they got every major thing right — and succeeded where their counterparts in 30 other states had failed.
     MPR's exhaustive (and instructive) post mortem explored in great depth the campaign's research, political alliances with Republicans, fundraising, enlistment of prominent Minnesotans and training of anti-amendment voters on how to talk to their neighbors.

David Fleischer

RESEARCH
Among the resources available to Meyer and Kaner-Roth was a report by California LGBT advocate and consultant David Fleischer, who had made a study of the unsuccessful attempt to thwart Proposition 8 in California in 2008. His report was a document "that all of us read religiously," Meyer said.
...The strategy of using straight people in the ads was not without controversy.
"And part of the reason for that is when you do polls to test potential messages, messengers and ads, gay people don't test that well. Turns out we're unpopular," Fleischer said. "When you let people choose chocolate ice cream, or chocolate ice cream with added gay, people choose chocolate ice cream! ... I just summarized millions of dollars of research done for these campaigns."
      Fleisher warned Minnesotans United to prepare a response to the inevitable ads the other side would bombard voters with in the final weeks of the campaign. Ads run by marriage amendment supporters in other states warned of young children being taught about gay marriage in school, stoking a visceral fear in many parents. Twenty days before the election, Minnesota for Marriage released the ads Minnesotans United had been waiting for, and Minnesotans United pounced.
      They'd pre-bought a million dollars' worth of ad time. They hoped the conversations with real people would inoculate voters from the power of the ads. They prepared a rapid-response team. One of Gov. Dayton's communications staffers was on loan to fact-check ad claims and push the information out to the media. Clergy United spoke out against claims in the ad. Several media, including MPR News, fact-checked the claims and found them misleading.

...When it came to claims about children, the Vote No coalition helped to neutralize Minnesota for Marriage's arguments by having the Minnesota Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in its corner.

THE AD CAMPAIGN
The strategy behind the one-on-one conversations also played a part in the campaign's advertising.
     Both had expert help from Phyllis Watts, a California psychologist who advised the Minnesota United campaign.
     ...Watts says voters don't see same-sex marriage as a political issue, but more as a question of values:       "And they're struggling with competing values. And one set of values is tradition. ... you know, 'this is just the way it's always been.'
     ... And then another set of values, which is important and equally compelling for them, and that is to do right by others, to genuinely treat others fairly ... which is a pretty deep value in most people. And quite frankly, in Minnesotans, I think very, very deep."
     Watts helped Minnesotans United put together an ad campaign to try to win over these conflicted voters.
      "A lot of times what people need is to hear from folks that they can identify with who have long-term marriages, solid marriages, good marriages, have kids, and who say, I'm voting no on this and here's why."

Brian Brown: National Organization for Marriage was outspent in United States, so it's going to pour more of its contributions into Quatar, India and China!

Brian Brown, President and Voodoo Economics
Chief of National Organization for Marriage

In printed excerpts published by the American Independent from a remarkably (and stupidly) candid conference call, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, whose crusades against marriage equality issues just lost in Iowa, Minnesota, Maine, Maryland and Washington State last Tuesday, said that the remedy for being outspent in the US was to pour more money into boycotts against gay-friendly companies like Starbucks in places like India and Quatar. Take note, NOM donors!
     In that American Independent piece, Sofia Resnick also noted that Brown (presumably behind a long line of foaming, but well-heeled teabaggers who want their $390,000,000 back) ripped Karl Rove:

“I think that the Republican Party in general was sold a false bill of goods this election, and the notion that we should only talk about economic issues gained the day,” Brown said. “This was really sort of Karl Rove’s strategy. There was hundreds of millions of dollars raised for outside groups, and they wanted everyone to stay on message on jobs. … Clearly it was a mistake, because it didn’t work.”

David Frum on Morning Joe: 'Republican message is no longer relevant to middle class America'

Joe Scarborough's recent guest was GOP pundit David Frum, who said, in part:

The problem with Republican leaders is that they're cowards... The real locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican donor base. They went apocolyptic over the last four years. That was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world... Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex... I went to Tea Party rallies and I would ask this question: Have taxes gone up or down in the last four years? They could not answer that question correctly... Do we spend a trillion dollars on Welfare? It is false, but it is almost universally believed.

Chuck Todd added that he found it "interesting that McDonnel isn't being touched here," before practically giving an on-air attack ad roadmap to primary challengers of the Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky.

Petraeus resignation: why was FBI investigating CIA chief?

Teabagger Romney boosters get free directions to Canada from Fox (!) traffic reporter; remember to switch from 73/75 to I-29 near Omaha!

Here's a little more granularity to your itinerary, Teabaggers: In Omaha, 73/75 ends at the Sorenson Freeway / 30th Street Interchange. You'll want to follow 30th street north to the Mormon Bridge, then continue east over the Missouri river to I-29 north. While on North 30th St., stock up on cheap smokes and chewing tobacco at Four Aces. Tobacco is expensive in Canada! You're welcome.

Romney, Inc. to the help: cab rides are for closers

NBC's Garrett Haake noted, in The Last Days of Romneyland, that the campaign cancelled its credit cards as soon as Mitt finished his concession speech, leaving some staffers and aides in awkward positions paying for cabs or hotel rooms. Haake noted that a lot of Marriott points will probably be cashed in shortly. And yes, AKSARBENT stole half of its headline from commenter Mike Nichols in Esquire's treatment of this event.

Dan Savage's YouTube answer to Family Research Council video exploiting him in antiObama video

Minnesota: Lakeside Christian Church Pastor charged with 8 felonies for sexually assaulting men while 'counseling' them about their sexual orientation

(Ex-Gay Watch via Rawstory)

Monsanto, Coke, Pepsi, Kraft Foods et al. spend nearly $50 million to defeat Prop 37 in CA; bill would have required labeling of genetically modified foods

French rats fed Monsanto's genetically engineered 'Roundup-
Ready' NK603 — a seed variety made tolerant to Monsanto's
Roundup weedkiller — died early: 50% of male and 70% of
female rats died prematurely, compared with only 30% and
20% in the control group, said the researchers.

Prop 37 backers raised less than $10 million.
     Said the New York Times: "The election in California was closely watched because it had national implications. It could have led to a reduction in the use of genetically modified crops, which account for more than 80 percent of the corn, soybeans and sugar beets grown in the United States. That is because food companies, fearing that some consumers would shun products labeled genetically engineered, would instead reformulate their products to avoid such ingredients."
     Recent studies in Europe have cast doubt on the safety of Monsanto products.

48% of Americans now live in states permitting marriage equality or civil unions

To see a bigger version of the map, go http://www.marriageequality.org/current-status-map

Omaha Catholic Archdiocese still collecting petitions to kill LGBT bill, warning politicians not to cramp its style

St. Cecilia, home of the Omaha Archdiocese, was festooned with at least a dozen signs designed to
intimidate liberal politicians like Bob Kerrey (whose signage was in a supporter's yard
across 40th St.) who disagree with it on matters like civil marriage equality. Kerrey lost.

Marriage Equality wins in Washinston state, along with Maryland, Maine and Minnesota

This 30-second ad cost the National Organization for Marriage $13,240 to produce

Source

The ad was made by Mission Public Affairs and the 13 grand was only for ad production, not the cost of TV spots throughout Iowa.
      NOM spent at least $140,000 (not counting matching funds given to the Iowa Family Leader) targeting Wiggins for removal from the Iowa Supreme Court because he decided (in a unanimous decision) in 2007 that denying gay couples civil marriage licenses violated the equal protection clause of Iowa's constitution.
   Put another way, NOM squandered between 1 and 2 bucks for each ballot in the 110,000+ vote margin by which Wiggins was RETAINED.
     NOM also lost (Marriage Equality referenda yesterday) in Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota and is on the way to failing in Washington State. Looks like NOM and Mission are no longer cost-effective ways for the Knights Of Columbus to promote antigay legislation.

AKSARBENT cat assaulted in obviously homophobic political attack

AKSARBENT's pre-owned, semiferal calico mascot, whose name is being withheld since she never answers to it anyway, was assaulted several days ago in a viciously homophobic attack clearly instigated by a grey shorthair who lives, according to reliable information, in a household which posts pictures of Tim Tebow and biblical references on its door.
     AKSARBENT has learned secondhand that the perp evidently did not get away with its politically-motivated terrorism and intimidation unscathed, as it is moping around listlessly and now refuses to go outside. One report also alleges a severe case of perp diarrhea, which shall remain unconfirmed.
     Calico is grounded for the duration of her cat penicillin pills regimen and likely will now be permanently restricted to supervised leash outings, which we will probably NEVER hear the end of.

Cedar Falls, Iowa Democrats defeat Iowa Family Leader homophobe who claimed he was being honest by lying

Click graphic to enlarge. (Source: Iowa Secretary of State)

Here are details of another loss for Bob Vander Plaats and the Iowa Family Leader, who  may as well have taken the hundreds of thousands of dollars their donors gave them this election cycle to turn out Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins and thrown it down the same sewer from which Vander Plaats gathers content for Family Leader attack videos.
     Even Michele Bachmann has never been as brazen as Matt Reisetter (the former Iowa Family Leader staffer who failed yesterday to unseat State Senator Jeff Danielson) when he told Iowa college students at an event he put on entitled “Homosexuality: Is it okay to be gay?” that he was "being honest" in admitting to them (when challenged) that the false accusation he had just told them was a "scare tactic."

Here's an excerpt of his shameless contortions via Keenan Crow of Northern Iowa Democrats.

• “Where does it stop? [...] By logical reasonable outgrowth of people who support same sex marriage, you’ve got to support polygamy, you’ve got to support man-boy relationships with NAMBLA (the National American Man Boy Love Association) they’re advancing that cause right now.”

[During Q&A]

• Cody: I thought it was very curious that you were trying to throw [NAMBLA] in there as a scare tactic and I wanted to address it and ask why you brought up NAMBLA when I think we can all come to the consensus that NAMBLA is somewhat different than consensual male to male or female to female relationships. 
  Matt: I think you’re right, I think I’m probably using that as a scare tactic and I’m being honest.

Iowa State Sen. Jeff Danielson, getting Humane Society award.

Below, Matt Reisetter attacked his opponent for trying to tack on an amendment (S-5030 to amendment S-5004 (H.F. 589)) to Iowa's infamous "Ag Gag" law, passed last session despite Danielson's "no" vote, which would imprison people who document animal cruelty undercover in agricultural production facilities in the state. To mitigate this free reign to abuse animals, an amendment was proposed to require oversight of animal treatment in such facilities via internet-connected security cameras for review by state officials to safeguard against abuse. It was defeated and the Ag Gag law, (which Reisetter evidently supports) was passed. Now, in Iowa, livestock owners can engage in practically any degree of sadism they wish, and can get outsiders who bust them put behind bars. The law, which impinges on press freedom, has been called unconstitutional.

Conan's election coverage photobombed by Japan

Romney thanks his wife, kids, Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and everyone else who helped him lose. (OK, he didn't thank Karl Rove)