Thursday, March 8, 2012
Obama's Mentor: 'We Hid This Throughout 2008 Campaign'
"Open your hearts and open your minds to the words of Prof. Derrick Bell." Those are the words of Barack Obama in reference to the controversial racialist Derrick Bell. Prof. Charles Ogletree, Barack Obama's mentor said "We hid this throughout the 2008 campaign." As more is uncovered about Prof. Derrick Bell and his radical views, it will become clear why Prof. Ogletree wanted this video hidden.
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Wednesday, March 7, 2012
"Anonymous" Declares War On Religion: Hacks and Defaces Christian Websites
Anonymous declares war on religion: hacks and defaces Christian websites, leaves atheist video by Richard Dawkins as a calling card, along with this message: “Religion Sucks LOL."
On Friday, hacktivists claiming to represent the international Internet hacktivist collective known as Anonymous hacked and defaced three Christian websites representing three different North Carolina churches.
IBT reports the homepages for Bethel Outreach International Church, Charlotte International Church, and Crossfire Ministries were all hacked and temporarily defaced on Friday - replaced with the 30-minute long YouTube video, "Richard Dawkins: An Atheist's Call to Arms," and an informal declaration of war, with the title, "religion sucks lol (laugh out loud)."
China Pastors See Many Come To Christ Through Hotel Outreach
Ministry reports out of China are mixed. Some report ministry is more open in China than it's ever been before. Others say Christians are more oppressed. Eric Burklin, president of China Partners, just returned to China with an eye-witness report that offers another perspective.
Indeed, Burklin says pastors are using avenues outside the local church to introduce people to Christ. For example, Burklin says one registered church pastor is seeing many turn to Christ through hotel outreach.
Here's how it works: Organizers rent a ballroom at a local hotel. Each church member brings a non-Christian friend or family member to the special event.
"They have dancing, plays and music," Burklin says. "At the end, he preached an evangelistic message, and 60 accepted Christ." That pastor also says he's baptized more than 200 new believers.
Many people wonder if the hotel outreach is illegal. Burklin did, too.
"I asked this pastor very specifically, 'Isn't this illegal?' He said, 'Well, we didn't ask authorities ahead of time. We just did it. We figured that if they weren't going to say anything, we were just going to do it.'"
China Partner provides training to church leaders in the country. Burklin says the leaders are asking for something controversial: youth training. It's illegal to evangelize children under 18.
"They would have to figure out how they could legally do that," Burklin says. "The government is very concerned about not forcing anybody under 18 to make a decision in any religious direction."
Despite that, China Partners is raising money for this new ministry push. Burklin says it's important, especially since many young people who are in their late teens and early 20s are interested in knowing about God.Read More From Charisma News
Pat Robertson Blaming Victims Of Tornadoes Not God For Distruction
Pat Robertson, host of "The 700 Club," said Monday during the program's airing that God does not send tornadoes "to kill people" and that those affected by the deadly string of twisters in the Midwest and Southeast only had themselves to blame for living in tornado-prone areas.
Answering a viewer from Illinois as to why it is that "God sent the tornadoes," Robertson was quick to respond that "God didn't send tornadoes."
The question, featured in the program's "Bring It On" segment, in which the program invites "millions of viewers" to send in questions about "life, love, finances, morality, and what it means to be a Christian."
As co-host Terry Meeuwsen listened, Robertson went on to provide a meteorological explanation as to why and how tornadoes occur.
"God doesn't send tornadoes to hurt people," the Christian Broadcasting Network founder said. "He doesn't send – what you call 'acts of God' – but they're not. So, all I can say is – why do you build houses in places where tornadoes are apt to happen?"
Meeuwsen suggested, however, "The bigger question for people spiritually is always...why didn't He intervene?"
Robertson responded by speaking about prayer being able to "still storms" – as exemplified by Jesus in the Bible – before turning to offer a scientific explanation for hurricanes. He ended his commentary by repeating once more that people who suffer from natural disasters only had themeselves to blame for deciding to build houses "on the edge of an ocean."
"It's their fault, it's not God's," Robertson concluded. "Don't blame God for doing something foolish."
The viewer who posed the question about God sending tornadoes revealed that he was from Illinois, which is one of the handful of states that saw a string of tornadoes and freakish weather over the past few days that has claimed at least 39 lives, including that of a 14-month-old girl. The little girl, from New Pekin, Ind., was initially found alive in a field after surviving the tornado, but later succumbed to her injuries. She also reportedly lost her mother, father and two siblings in the storm.
Kentucky, Ohio, Alabama and Georgia also experienced fatalities related to the tornadoes that struck last Friday. Recovery efforts were currently underway in those states, with faith-based organization Samaritan's Purse working with a church in Charlotte, N.C., which also saw storms.
On Saturday, "The 700 Club" posted a link to Operation Blessing on its Facebook page, informing followers as to one of the ways in which they could aid tornado victims in Illinois.
One follower, Donovan White, responded to the Operation Blessing post on Monday, well after the "Bring It On" segment had aired, writing:
"Which is it Pat? This time around you said [G]od doesn't cause tornadoes 'it's just nature' but during Katrina and the Haiti earthquake you said they were being punished for being evil...you make it up as you go and no one seems to notice!"
Anti-Pornography Group Attacked Over Support Against Porn On Airplanes
One News Now--An anti-pornography organization says reaction to a recent incident on an airplane demonstrates the type of heavy attack the group receives from the porn industry and those who support it.
Morality in Media's (MIM) Dawn Hawkins says she was exposed to child-themed pornography on a Delta flight to Texas last month when a man in front of her was openly viewing it on his iPad. She asked him to put it away, and even asked for help from a flight attendant, but to no avail. Following the incident, she made a YouTube video detailing her experience.
Pat Truman, president and CEO of Morality in Media, says he and everyone else in the organization were surprised by what happened next.
"A group of porn consumers produced a video and condemned her for being uncomfortable looking at pornography that she didn't want to look at and condemning her for producing a video to tell about it," he details. "And these people, many of them said that it should be fine to look at pornography on an airplane; people should just get used to it."
Truman tells OneNewsNow that MIM, its executive director, and her family have all been harassed for Hawkins' stance against pornography being displayed in public.
"These pornography consumers shouldn't assume that their rights trump everybody else's rights," Trueman contends. "Yet that's what they assume when they condemn Dawn Hawkins and try to shut down our website over this incident."
Since Hawkins' experience, MIM has been contacting airlines to make sure that they have good anti-pornography policies in place. In a new video, she reports that "surprisingly, Delta has been very positive," assuring people that they "do not allow pornography or obscenity on their airlines."
Government Using "Pink Slime" Meat For School Lunches
Huffington Post--Pink slime -- that ammonia-treated meat in a bright Pepto-bismol shade -- may have been rejected by fast food joints like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, but is being brought in by the tons for the nation's school lunch program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 million pounds of the "slime" for school lunches, The Daily reports. Officially termed "Lean Beef Trimmings," the product is a ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. It's then blended into traditional meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties.
"We originally called it soylent pink," microbiologist Carl Custer, who worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service for 35 years, told The Daily. "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."
Custer and microbiologist Gerald Zernstein concluded in a study that the trimmings are a "high risk product," but Zernstein tells The Daily that "scientists in D.C. were pressured to approve this stuff with minimal safety approval" under President George H.W. Bush's administration. The USDA asserts that its ground beef purchases "meet the highest standard for food safety."
Controversy surrounding "pink slime" stems from various safety concerns, particularly dangers associated with ammonium hydroxide, which can both be harmful to eat and has potential to turn into ammonium nitrate -- a common component in homemade bombs, according to MSNBC. It's also used in household cleaners and fertilizers.
In 2009, The New York Times reported that despite the added ammonia, tests of Lean Beef Trimmings of schools across the country revealed dozens of instances of E. coli and salmonella pathogens.
Between 2005 and 2009, E. coli was found three times and salmonella 48 times, according to the Times, including two contaminated batches of 27,000 pounds of meat.
A public outcry against the "slime" is led perhaps most prominently by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver,
who had also successfully waged war against flavored milk in Los Angeles schools and continues a crusade for healthier school lunches.
News of the USDA's plan to bring 7 million pounds of "pink slime" to school cafeterias nationwide comes just weeks after the government announced new guidelines to ensure students are given healthier options for school meals. The new standards call for more whole grains and produce as well as less sodium and fat in school meals. While the measures mark a step forward from previous years, they still compromise amid push-back from Congress to keep pizza and french fries on the menu -- counting both the tomato paste on pizza and the potatoes that make fries as vegetables.
Still, some schools -- like several in California -- have taken the matter into their own hands, and have found ways to profit from those efforts. Umpteen school districts have taken part in a decade-long initiative, supported by a philanthropic organization, that provides schools with equipments and chefs who teach cafeteria workers to cook from scratch and produce fresh meals.
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than a third of high school students were eating vegetables less than once a day -- "considerably below" recommended levels of intake for a healthy lifestyle that supports weight management and could reduce risks for chronic diseases and some cancers.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Hackers Get Into Protected Systems Because Passwords Are Tooo Easy To Guess
SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- The number one way hackers get into protected systems isn't through a fancy technical exploit. It's by guessing the password.
That's not too hard when the most common password used on business systems is "Password1."
There's a technical reason for Password1's popularity: It's got an upper-case letter, a number and nine characters. That satisfies the complexity rules for many systems, including the default settings for Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) widely used Active Directory identity management software.
Security services firm Trustwave spotlighted the "Password1" problem in its recently released "2012 Global Security Report," which summarizes the firm's findings from nearly 2 million network vulnerability scans and 300 recent security breach investigations.
Around 5% of passwords involve a variation of the word "password," the company's researchers found. The runner-up, "welcome," turns up in more than 1%.
Easily guessable or entirely blank passwords were the most common vulnerability Trustwave's SpiderLabs unit found in its penetration tests last year on clients' systems. The firm set an assortment of widely available password-cracking tools loose on 2.5 million passwords, and successfully broke more than 2.1 million of them.
Verizon came up with similar results in its 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, one of the security industry's most comprehensive annual studies. The full report will be released in several months, but Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) previewed some of its findings at this week's RSA conference in San Francisco.
Exploiting weak or guessable passwords was the top method attackers used to gain access last year. It played a role in 29% of the security breaches Verizon's response team investigated.
Verizon's scariest finding was that attackers are often inside victims' networks for months or years before they're discovered. Less than 20% of the intrusions Verizon studied were discovered within days, let alone hours.
Even scarier: Few companies discovered the breach on their own. More than two-thirds learned they'd been attacked only after an external party, such as a law-enforcement agency, notified them. Trustwave's findings were almost identical: Only 16% of the cases it investigated last year were internally detected.
So if your password is something guessable, what's the best way to make it more secure? Make it longer.
Movie Theatre No Longer Allowing Children In "R" Rated Films Even If Accompanied By A Parent
CHICAGO (WBBM) – It’s an unprecedented move in the Chicago area. Starting Saturday, the Classic Cinema chain will no longer allow children under age six into “R” rated movies. This includes theatres in 13 locations and 100 screens.
“Our reaction from the public has been about 98 percent positive,” said Classic Cinemas’ marketing manager Mark Mazrimas.
An email went out to all subscribers of the family-owned, independent Classic Cinemas, which stated they would be changing their “R” rated policy, excluding all children under age six. In addition, children ages six to eleven will be subject to pay full price, adult fares.
The decision came about following the holidays when Classic Cinemas were showing “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and parents had brought their small children to the theatre.
Mazrimas said Classic Cinemas wants to give movie-goers a distraction-free environment and young children tend to get bored with R rated films and can act-out.
“R” rated films are limited to those aged 17 and up, unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.
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