Shares of Papa John’s declined on Tuesday following news of class-action certification for a lawsuit that claims the pizza chain had unsolicited text messages sent to cell phones.

THE SPARK: The lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle claims Papa John’s violated state and federal law when they had the marketing company OnTime4U send unsolicited text messages on its behalf to cell phones advertising their pizza products. The lawsuit says that 500,000 illegal text messages were sent to Papa John’s customers across the U.S.

Papa John’s faces potential damages of more than $250 million. The plaintiffs may each potentially receive $500 or more in damages for each text message.

Messages left with Papa John’s seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Link

Enough. Here is another article arguing for ending the drug war. Google the subject and you will find hundreds more. I feel we are enforcing laws passed by a long dead Archie Bunker based on his outmoded morality.

suntimes.com

Let states make marijuana laws

November 13, 2012 7:40PM

Shortly before the House of Representatives approved a federal ban on marijuana in 1937, the Republican minority leader, Bertrand Snell of New York, confessed, ‘I do not know anything about the bill.’ The Democratic majority leader, Sam Rayburn of Texas, educated him. ‘It has something to do with something that is called marihuana,’ Rayburn said. ‘I believe it is a narcotic of some kind.’

Seventy-five years, millions of arrests, and billions of dollars later, we are still living with the consequences of that ignorant, ill-considered decision, which nationalized a policy that punishes peaceful people and squanders taxpayer money in a blind vendetta against a plant. Last week, voters in Colorado and Washington opted out of this crazy cannabicidal crusade by approving ballot initiatives that will set up experiments from which the rest of the country can learn — assuming the federal government lets them run.—->Continued

A case of GIGO from the GOP ticket in believing in their own bullshit….

slate.com

Why Romney Never Saw It Coming

He was the numbers guy. But in the end his numbers were all wrong.

By John Dickerson|Posted Friday, Nov. 9, 2012, at 9:15 PM ET

Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney’s campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008. ‘It just defied logic,’ said a top aide of the idea that Obama could match, let alone exceed, his performance with minorities from the last election. When anyone raised the idea that public polls were showing a close race, the campaign’s pollster said the poll modeling was flawed and everyone moved on. Internally, the campaign’s own polling—tweaked to represent their view of the electorate, with fewer Democrats—showed a steady uptick for Romney since the first debate. Even on the morning of the election, Romney’s senior advisers weren’t close to hedging. They said he was going to win ‘decisively.’ It seemed like spin, but the Boston Globe reports that a fireworks display was already ordered for the victory. Romney and Ryan thought they were going to win, say aides. ‘We were optimistic. More than just cautiously optimistic,’ says one campaign staffer. When Romney lost, ‘it was like a death in the family.’

How did the Romney team get it so wrong? According to those involved, it was a mix of believing anecdotes about party enthusiasm and an underestimation of their opponents’ talents. The Romney campaign thought Obama’s base had lost its affection for its candidate. They believed Obama would win only if he won over independent voters. So Romney focused on independents and the economy, which was their key issue. The Republican ground game was focused on winning those voters. ‘We thought the only way to win was doing well with independents and we were kicking ass with independents,’ says a top aide. One senior adviser bet me that if Obama won Ohio, he would donate $1,000 for every point that Romney won independents to my favorite charity. (That would be a $10,000 hit since Romney lost Ohio but won independents by 10 points). In the end, Romney won independents nationally by five points—and it didn’t matter one bit.

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign was openly dismissive of the Obama ground game. Why are they wasting so much money with neighborhood offices, they asked? (In Ohio, for example, Obama had almost 100 more offices than Romney.) In retrospect, the Romney team is in awe and full of praise of the Obama operation. ‘They spent four years working block by block, person by person to build their coalition,’ says a top aide. They now recognize that those offices were created to build personal contacts, the most durable and useful way to gain voters.

——>Continued

Your text to link…

A delegation of Muslim imams from France pray during a memorial ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem, November 13, 2012. The religious leaders later visited the graves of those shot by a terrorist in Toulouse in March 2012.

My Note: Truly snatching some victory from a vicious tragedy

Creationism in science classrooms pushing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who did not see why we would want to spend federal money on something called ‘volcano monitoring’ just as volcano was shutting down world travel, etc just figured out he belongs to the “stupid party”.

blogs.ajc.com

Jindal: GOP should ‘stop being the stupid party’

9:36 am November 13, 2012, by Jay

From Politico:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to ‘stop being the stupid party’ and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich….

‘We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,’ Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. ‘We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.’

He was just as blunt on how the GOP should speak to voters, criticizing his party for offending and speaking down to much of the electorate.

‘It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,’ Jindal said. ‘It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.’

– Jay Bookman

Changes in Atmosphere Could Worsen Orbital Debris

Growing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s upper atmosphere from human activities can be expected to induce a gradual contraction of the thermosphere, a change that will lower the drag on satellites but also diminish a natural destructive force for the re-entry of man-made orbital debris, according to a new study.

The study from a U.S. and Canadian science team led by the Naval Research Laboratory offers the first direct evidence that CO2 emissions from human activity are rising to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, including the thermosphere, or above 90 km (56 mi.) altitude.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience on Nov. 11, are based on observations made with the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer aboard the Canadian SciSat-1 satellite between 2004 and 2012.

The observations confirm suspicions that concentrations of CO2 originating from human activity are increasing through the entire atmosphere, not just in the troposphere at 15 km and below. Prior to the study of SciSat-1 data, CO2 trends had not been measured above 35 km, the study team led by NRL’s John Emmert reports.

According to study estimates, concentrations of CO2 and carbon monoxide (CO) in the thermosphere are growing at a rate of 23.5 parts per million, plus or minus 6.3 parts ppm, each decade, which is about 10 ppm per decade faster than predicted by current simulation models of the upper atmosphere.

In the troposphere, concentrations of the greenhouse gas are increasing at a rate of about 20 ppm per decade. CO2 levels near the ground are about 390 ppm, and the study team believes that changes in the vertical mixing and transport of the atmosphere are responsible for the increased levels of carbon at higher attitude.

More…

Engine Tech, Cyber-Espionage Key to China’s Progress

One important factor could act as a brake on China’s rapid progress while another has almost certainly assisted it, to an unknown extent. The limiting factor is engine technology: so far, all China’s modern, operational fighters fly with Russian-supplied engines. The positive factor is China’s intense and apparently effective campaign of cyber-espionage against Western industries and governments.

The degree to which China’s progress has been aided by cyber-espionage is not easy to determine, but that is not surprising. What is known euphemistically as the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)—a pattern of sophisticated and continuously evolving penetration attempts aimed at computer networks, predominantly originating in China—was not identified in the West until 2006, and Chinese aircraft and weapons that have been disclosed in any detail mostly date from before that.

Details of newer products, such as the low-observable systems—materials, edge treatments, door and aperture design and electronic apertures—on the J-20 and J-31, and the J-10B’s active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, will be a more telling indicator of the value of the APT.

What is certain, however, is that cyber-espionage is potentially the most valuable addition to spycraft since the advent of signals intelligence. The intake can include large volumes of detailed technical information that can be disseminated with relative freedom to end-users—people designing and engineering systems. The relative freedom comes from the fact that no agents are at risk and the techniques and software used for network penetration are not designed for a long life: The presumption is that they will be detected, countered and replaced with something new.

More…

Bethany Ann Deaton’s death was supposed to look like a suicide.

Sheriff’s deputies found her body inside a van at Longview Lake on Oct. 30. There was a note and an empty pill bottle, and over her head was a white plastic bag.

Now prosecutors say the 27-year-old woman was murdered to keep her from revealing a history of sexual assaults on her by several people living under one Grandview roof.

Micah Moore, 23, of Kansas City, was charged Saturday with first-degree murder.

According to court documents, Moore met with a detective on Friday, 10 days after Deaton’s body was found, and said, ‘I killed her.’ He said he had feared that Deaton was going to tell her therapist about assaults that had occurred over the previous few months.

The statement said Moore admitted that he was with Deaton at Longview Lake and that he ‘placed a bag over her head and held it there until her body shook.’

Moore and several witnesses whose names were redacted from court documents told investigators that they had been roommates with Bethany Deaton and her husband, Tyler Deaton, in the 7300 block of East 122nd Street. They described a household where Tyler Deaton served as the ‘spiritual leader’ of a ‘community.’

Read more here: kansascity.com

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