Morning Media Summary
Tech:
Captcha adverts capture your attention:
“IT IS an online advertiser’s dream. Some ads on the websites you visit could soon be impossible to ignore, as they will be integrated into the “captchas” used to check whether site visitors are human.”
Facebook buys most of content-sharing site drop.io:
“Facebook said it purchased most of drop.io, an online content-sharing service, but the social-networking giant sounds more interested in acquiring the company’s developers than its technology.”
UK Government Wants to Make ISPs Responsible for Third Party Content Online:
“The UK governments Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey, has ominously proposed that broadband ISPs could introduce a new Mediation Service that would allow them the freedom to censor third party content on the internet, without court intervention, in response to little more than a public complaint.”
Police To Get Facebook Lessons:
“The police are to receive training on how to use Facebook and Twitter to catch people committing serious crimes. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) will overhaul its training modules to include sessions on the social networking sites for detectives.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
California voters could reverse state level regulations modeled after Kyoto Protocol:
“Americans living in the most industrialized regions of the country have a special stake in the outcome of a California ballot initiative that would suspend implementation of that state’s global warming law until after unemployment drops, according to policy experts who favor a free market response to energy needs.”
GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientists:
“Reporting from Washington —
If the GOP wins control of the House next week, senior congressional Republicans plan to launch a blistering attack on the Obama administration’s environmental policies, as well as on scientists who link air pollution to climate change.”
Insurance / Gambling:
New Regulations make shopping for health insurance more confusing:
“If shopping for health insurance was a challenge before this year, it’s a veritable minefield now, say local brokers.”
Health / Safety:
Contraception could be ‘free’ under health care law:
“Fifty years after the pill, another birth control revolution may be on the horizon: free contraception for women in the U.S., thanks to the new health care law.”
Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine:
“British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.”
FoodPolitik: Put Down the Margarine and Come Out With Your Hands Up!:
“Last week, a Korean carry-out in Baltimore’s downtown Lexington Market was slapped with a $100 fine for — are you sitting down? — cooking food in margarine (most recently demonized as “trans fat” ).”
Economics:
Chavez Says Venezuela’s Golf Courses Should Be Seized, Put to Other Uses:
“President Hugo Chavez said some of Venezuela’s golf courses should be expropriated and used for other purposes.”
Wyoming Rep. Lummis: Estate tax rise has some planning death:
“U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis says some of her Wyoming constituents are so worried about the reinstatement of federal estate taxes that they plan to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before Dec. 31.”
Venezuela’s Chavez nationalizes local steel company:
“Sidetur, a subsidiary of local steel company Sivensa, produces mainly rebar, bar, beam, angle and flat products. According to its website (www.sidetur.com.ve), it has six plants in Venezuela, an annual production capacity of more than 835,000 tonnes and exports products to 25 countries.”
Legal:
2,000 rally in Moscow, demand freedom of assembly:
“Nearly 2,000 people gathered in central Moscow on Sunday demanding freedom of assembly in a rare sanctioned rally.”
Phone Recording Sets Off Firestorm in Alaska:
“Employees at a CBS affiliate in Anchorage left an accidental voicemail for an aide to GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller in which they discussed and laughed about the possibility of reporting on the appearance of sex offenders at a Miller rally. And they chatted about responding with a Twitter alert to “any sort of chaos whatsoever” including the candidate being “punched.””
Labor:
SEIU 1199, Excela Frick hoping to come to contract agreement:
“Union and officials with Excela Health Frick have been meeting in hopes of coming to a contract agreement.”
Transportation/ Land Use:
Leaders of high-speed rail authority also were paid advisers to firms with something to gain from project:
“Two prominent California High-Speed Rail Authority leaders who are already under scrutiny for holding potentially “incompatible” public offices have received tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from firms with financial interests in the $43-billion project.”