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The modern news consumer ignores Weblogs and online citizen journalism at his own peril. But not everyone has the time to keep track of what's going on the Web. With this blog we hope to track the highlights of what's being discussed online so when news breaks from the Web, we're ready.

Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

Send a message to Will at spotter@msnbc.com



Don't tase me either, bro

Posted: Friday, September 21, 2007 10:55 AM by Will Femia

Run away the ray-gun is coming: A test of US army's new secret weapon - We've already heard all about the new weapon that makes a person feel like they're on fire so it's not really news to watch this guy zap himself. What strikes me as I read this account, however, is how the tide has turned against non-lethal weaponry. I seem to recall there being a real call for non-lethal weapons in the face of disturbing statistics on gun related injuries. I'm not able to drag anything specific out of Google but my recollection is of a spate of stories about cops shooting inner city kids who were holding toy guns or Three Musketeer bars and one line of thought in response was that police officers needed a non-lethal tool of force - just in case (in searching I found a lot of stories from 1999 that also mention Amadou Diallo). But as bad press for tasers stacks up with outrage over torture accusations against the United States, the ability to manipulate people with excruciating pain does not hold as much promise as an alternative as it may have initially seemed. Somehow, at least in recent media coverage, it's become a tool for the suppression of the irretrievably outraged.

Speaking of bad press for tasers, Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times. This actually happened in April of 2006 so it's not clear to me what the new hook is.

Here's another: "Norman 'was handcuffed, leg shackled, hog-tied, blindfolded and tasered numerous times,' according to a news release issued by her attorneys." If I was actually looking for these stories I'm sure I'd find more. These are just the ones I'm coming across as I look at what the online community is talking about.

Speaking of this subject occupying the attention of the online community, "Don't Tase Me, Bro!" Jolts the Web - A round-up of how the phrase has taken the Web by storm.

Why does it seem like the MediaDefender story has been a top headline for a week? Because it's actually three stories and now there are stories about how much this anti-piracy company is getting its butt kicked. Hackers are taking credit for at least three breaches at anti-piracy firm MediaDefender. --Oops, better make that four separate stories of MediaDefender leaks/hacks. Apparently among the anti-piracy strategies employed by MediaDefender is to pollute BitTorrent networks with bogus files.

Once I picked myself up off the floor, I came to the conclusion that I believe the Oscar De La Hoya crossdressing photos are fake. The photos are not exactly naked or graphic but unless you have a really peculiar job, these are not work safe. The most likely explanation appears to be that this is a prank connected to "a bet De La Hoya had previously made with Sugar Ray Leonard over a minor fight in which the loser would then handle ring card girl duties during the subsequent main event."

'Cancer cured' headline of the day: Cancer cure 'may be available in two years' - Y'know, I've been making this joke for a long time and I realized today that it may be losing some of its original edge. For the record, I think these stories - or at least the headlines - border on cruelty. Here's a guy facing a few months left to live, leaving behind a wife and three small kids, trying to keep a positive face. I hope he has a dark enough sense of humor to chuckle when he sees headline after headline announcing new cures.

"This unusual species of flying fox was recently discovered in the Philippines not long after it was deemed not to exist."

"Moral hazard" was not an expression with which I was familiar until I read this bit about Ron Paul putting the question to the Fed chairman. "How can it ever be morally justifiable to deliberately depreciate the value of our currency?”

Mint Wins TechCrunch40 Top Company Award; Takes $50,000 Prize - "Mint is a personal finance application that lets users track and monitor their financials in one place without the need of routine maintenance or accounting knowledge."

"San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders expressed his support for same-sex marriage, after revealing his daughter is gay." This is one of those videos you probably saw on TV in just a few seconds of video with the anchor talking over it. This is the full video of his announcement. Quite moving.

"This video is making the rounds among military folks." NOTE: Ends with a pronounced S bomb -no pun.

List of countries by current account balance - You know whenever you see "list of countries..." that it's meant to show some shortcoming in the United States. Still, it's quite a contrast in numbers.

I don't know what Dan Rather is thinking with his lawsuit against CBS. You'd no doubt heard about the story already so I won't belabor it except to remind you that Rather's downfall marked the coming of age for pundit blogs. There's little doubt they'd love to put on an encore performance of those facts and analysis. For that matter I'm sure there are more than a few liberal bloggers who wouldn't mind re-opening the question of Bush's military service.

I saw an brief story on TV about the role of black bloggers in generating energy for the Jena 6 rally yesterday.  Some bloggers feel the cause should have had more support from the progressive blogosphere and bloggers as a whole.

Here's a funny bit of fact checking. Yesterday President Bush said he got a B in Econ 101. "President Bush as an undergraduate at Yale did not in fact receive a grade of B in his economics course. Bush received a grade that would correspond with a C-."

The hard science of making video games. It looks at how the game designers have to figure out how to make the graphics behave like the real world.

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Comments

Of course, it's hard to tell from a short clip – but I question whether that's a video of an IED or not. The amount of material that was moved indicates it was buried quite deep. Also, the cracking pavement shows it's location was underneath the pavement. If that was a real attempt to harm our troops, then the insurgent went to extraordinary lengths (deep burial and road repair) which “nerfed” the power of the bomb.

To me it seems more like a case of unexploded munitions that the Iraqis had inadvertently paved over. Perhaps the speed and weight of the US convoy was sufficient to make the long dormant munition detonate. In any case, I'm glad no one was hurt!

Hmmm... (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 1:26 PM)

Visit some of the military websites or Michael Yon's Blog and the first thing you will learn is that IED's can be enormous and buried under highways. This has been one of the issues with the military.  The work done to bury these explosives is major and the local populace has to be aware of them, but do not inform the local police or the Military.  This one is real.

Lynette, Wichita, KS (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 2:52 PM)

As much as I hate to do this...  Has Michael Roston never heard of grading on a curve?  When I was a student (both undergrad and grad), there were classes in which a 71 would constitute an A.  Those were chemistry courses, but I can't believe that Econ would not be graded on a curve as well.

rdherric, Rochester, NY (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 3:28 PM)

I dont agree. I used to work for Caltrans and we used explosives in seismic surveys. We would put sandwich bag of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel in a three foot hole and set it off. The kind of buckling of the ground is consistent with what we saw on a larger scale. If you think about it,the IED HAS to be under the road or it does not do a lot of good. There are several ways they could have done it. They could have dug a hole from the side of the road,but that would take some effort. Its hard to see the quality of the road in the video,but you can imagine if you could find a cracked part,you could remove a chunk,bury your bomb and then put the piece back and it wouldn't look any different than the rest of the road. Its speculation,but that would certainly do the job. As for "nerfing the power of the bomb",anything like a Humvee driving over that would be in bad shape. Anything like those new armored vehicles or larger still wouldn't be driving after going over that. It would be on its back or side. Anything with a soft belly is going to be in really bad shape. As the explosion first starts road will be thrown up at a very high rate of speed. Those soldiers were very lucky.

Michael Kent Oh (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 3:28 PM)

I'm of mixed feelings about the ray gun, or pain gun, as I tend to think of it. I can see its benefits in the right circumstances. But the potential for abuse is truly terrifying. Maybe it’s time to get a tin-foil suit to go with my hat.

Abby Normal (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 5:26 PM)

Tasers are nasty and do seem to be used more frequently per detainee  and per incident than a law enforcment officer would  scream, use their fist, or a billie stick or gun. The incident seemed excessive to me. The woman appeared afraid and tried to run away from pain.

coluzzi (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 5:28 PM)

Will,

i haven't read all the links etc, and i hesitate somewhat to bring this up, but . . .

tasers and other non-lethal devices were sold originally on the idea of disarming folks in what normally could escalate to lethal situations (knife-wielding crazies, drugs trips gone bad).

the problem is the proliferation of uses of tasers in situations where a police gun never would have been drawn to begin with -- as in the Kerry speech situation. it seems that an awful lot are used simply to save a bit of physicality. i think a case could be made that use of the things has increased the number of injuries overall, simply because of their ubiquitous use. and of course we see the abusive end of that in publicly posted vids.

tony gallucci (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 6:56 PM)

I need to preface this with the fact I'm in the Army and find the use of force a necessity in my line of work, which is perhaps an understatement.

On the "tasing" incident most recently in the news. I have only now seen a video which starts at the beginning of the questions being asked.

I have to say this tasing was a HORRIBLE implementation of the use of force. Starting with one basic premise, that a taser is used to limit the risk of serious injury the other options available to the security should have been used.

There were no less than 4 officers in use. One officer per limb would have made it very easy to put on the handcuffs. This would have been a much easier use of force, and get him much less air time than using a device on him which is DESIGNED to cause pain and lose of voluntary muscle control.

His actions were objectionable, but his questions were NOT laced with profanity as the campus security suggest was their reason for arresting him. He used one word which, strictly speaking, is a slang term not profanity. He did not drop the "F-Bomb" until after the security were asked to escort him out. But you wouldn't know that by reading their report.

Additionally, when reading the report it paints him as not resisting, but fighting or assaulting the security. Lets assume he was elbowing and shoving the security. Was he using a weapon? They outnumbered him by 4 to 1. What kind of threat was he really? Now we watch the video and we see someone who is jumping up and down, twisting and turning and pulling his arms free of security. I wouldn't describe his actions the same way as security did, but perhaps the excitement of the situation influenced their perception, just as many eyewitness experiences differ significantly from what a video of the event would show.

Should all of the officers be punished for inappropriate use of force, perhaps although I would say only lightly. The exception being the officer in charge who being in a position to see they had several officers at his disposal, knowing this is being videotaped, perhaps should have known to simply overpower the person and remove them, rather than use the "easy" way to taser him. Maybe that leader shouldn't be punished, but put back into a more subordinate position whose responsibilities are more commensurate to their now demonstrated judgment making abilities.

Jake Bechtel, Newport News, VA (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 11:14 PM)

Local (online) headline today "Springfield (IL) man Tasered, arrested during drug raid." This is probably not the first time it's happened - or maybe it is - but it's the first time I've seen it in the news here.
Very apt though since at one time we were the electro-shock capitol of the world, so I'm told.  

Julie H (Sent Saturday, September 22, 2007 12:26 AM)

on tasers today in maine a man  who went against  court order holed up in girls house  cops at bay cops approach house to give him cell phone with good battery so as to keep trying to talk him out. Turns out they decide instead to taiz bro the knife wielding man now taised supposedly he continues toward the officer who shoots him not once not twice but three times  they claim he was armed man is dead now

ryan (Sent Sunday, September 23, 2007 2:44 PM)

why is the electric chair not being used any more? Oh yeah inhumane  taise and then shoot someone is morbidly wrong and inhumane

ryan (Sent Sunday, September 23, 2007 2:47 PM)

Why does it matter if it is being taped, Officers should have the right to protect the public  and theirselves. Maybe years of proven facts to Supervisors has made this IN Charge Officer willing to keep his Officers safe. I do not believe they were their to bully but keep him or anyone else from bullying.Paying the price for keeping the peace. Too Late to talk now, Glad they were there to take action, what if the bully kept going? Really think about that.  

Ann Hamilton (Sent Sunday, September 23, 2007 5:55 PM)

The reason it's important to find and publicize all these incidents of egregious Taser use is that they highlight the growing militancy of police and the even-more-quickly-growing misuse of force and intimidation on the part of (seemingly) all government entities with authorization to use overwhelming force at any time for any reason (i.e., "SWAT" teams' violent entries, often resulting in injury, death, property damage, etc.).  Radley Balko, in his blog "The Agitator" (http://www.theagitator.com) and in his articles for Reason Magazine and other news outlets has chronicled these types of assaults well.

Tasers just make it that much easier for bad authority figures to feel OK with using force against anyone at any time because, after all, "It's non-lethal.  Mostly."

A.G. Pym (Sent Monday, September 24, 2007 2:52 PM)

It matters that it was being taped as he was a known attention seeker. At least that is how he is being painted.

So he kept his officers safe prior to this event. But at what price? By using inappropriate, or maybe even excessive levels of force?

So the appropriate response to "bullying" speech is force? I thought the right to express oneself ended where your fist impacted their nose, not when it hurt their feelings.

Oh your right what if the big bad bully kept talking. Why he might just have embarrassed a political candidate. Oh my, the horror. Perhaps we should ensure these officers start visiting some newspaper offices before some reporter or editor embarrasses some other politician.

Watch the video and then tell me who turned a verbal exchange into a physical confrontation.

Jake B (Sent Monday, September 24, 2007 9:58 PM)

I completely disagree with the economic article on how depreciating the dollar only hurts America. There was a reason he doesn't mention trade imbalances, interest rates, and the recent housing trouble. That is because it doesn't support his flawed arguement.

Justin, Washington DC (Sent Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:00 PM)

I want one

Steve Duggins SLC Utah (Sent Tuesday, September 25, 2007 6:03 PM)

Go Jerry Sanders!  That took a lot of courage and I am so touched by his statement.  Definitely teared up on that one :)  Every once in a while, just when you think politics are so irrevocably screwed up, one politician will stand up and make you realize, hey, yeah, they ARE human!

Summer, Seattle, WA (Sent Wednesday, September 26, 2007 12:38 AM)



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