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So, audioguy (one of our sysadminy types) was checking the firewall logs and apparently one of the speedbumps we put in for bots got tripped by an L-3 Communications Holdings address. Not to be confused with Level 3 Communications, L-3 is the sneaky spy corp born of the Lockheed Martin merger. So, yes, we're officially being actively (as opposed to the passive scraping the NSA does to everyone's traffic) electronically surveiled.

Mind you, since they're tripping our firewall, they're not going to be seeing much unless they throttle back how many connections they use at once. They really should make use of the API for bot stuff. It's still firewalled but there are bits in it that can get you much more info at once and save us both the overhead of inefficient scraping.

Not a big enough deal to get an article. Prices start at $460-$535, significantly more than 8 TB drives which can be bought for $200 on sale.

Seagate Announces 10TB Consumer HDD Lineup With Five Year Warranty

Seagate's New 'Guardian Series' Portfolio Brings 10TB Helium HDDs to Consumers

Seagate BarraCuda Pro 10TB Helium HDD Capsule Review

Melania Trump speech appears to plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention address

Watch Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic Convention Speech

Pakistani QT killed by brother for what would be usual vanity stuff for Westerners on social media:

Qandeel Baloch: Pakistani social media star strangled by her brother

Qandeel Baloch, one of Pakistan's most famous and controversial social media stars, has been strangled to death in what police are calling a case of so called "honor" killing in the city of Multan in the country's province of Punjab. Azhar Akram, Multan's chief police officer, told CNN that Baloch was killed by her brother in her family's home after he had protested at the "kind of pictures she had been posting online."

[...] She had nearly 750,000 followers on Facebook, where her videos went viral but were also the subject of much debate and discomfort. In recent weeks, several of her posts encouraged her audience to challenge old practices of Pakistani society. In a July 14 post, Baloch referred to herself as a "modern day feminist."
Hamna Zubair, the culture editor of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told CNN that she had received much criticism for carrying pieces on Baloch. One commentator asked her if she would be "reporting from a brothel" next.
Baloch tightly controlled her narrative in the media. She shared little about her personal life and was something of an enigma; nobody really knew which city she was based in.

She found fame and slipped into the national consciousness after declaring that she would perform a live strip tease online if Pakistan won a cricket match against arch rival India.
As her media profile grew, Zubair said Baloch became aware "of her power to deliver a certain message about being female in Pakistan," and that she had become a "burgeoning activist for increasing women's visibility" in the country. She made more headlines after posting selfies on her Instagram account with Mufti Abdul Qavi, a senior member of the clergy. The bizarre pairing led to frenzied media coverage and resulted in Qavis's suspension from his post on one of Pakistan's religious committees. After news of Baloch's death, while waiting to go on air on a local channel, Qavi told CNN that "her death should be a lesson for all those who point fingers at someone's honor."

[...] A couple of days ago, local media reported that Qandeel Baloch had married at 17 and left her husband about a year later. After the reports were published, she confirmed that her legal name was Fouzia Azeem and that she had been using an alias for safety reasons. Earlier this week Baloch had stirred up more controversy by releasing a kitschy music video on YouTube called "Ban," which mocked some of the restrictions that she had been subjected to. Behind the scenes, however, things were a bit different. Hassan Chaoudhry, a reporter for local paper Express Tribune, told CNN he had spoken to Baloch on the phone just two days ago, saying she was sobbing and "feared for her life." On the morning she was murdered, Qandeel had shared a picture of herself staring defiantly into the camera, wearing a pair of leopard print pants and a black tank top. She had written that she was a fighter. "I will bounce back," she said, adding she wanted to inspire women who have been "treated badly and dominated by society."

This is a story that can only be found on NextBigFuture and wire services:

Super controversial Brilliant light Power aka blacklight power claims to be generating bursts of megawatt power and claim independent validation

Wikipedia article.

I will preface this by saying that I have been a staunch supporter of Bernie Sanders.

There is a lot of anger on my feeds today at feeling betrayed by the good Senator for his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. My basic response is, "Well, what the hell did you expect him to do, go rogue? We love the guy because he has integrity. I continue to love him, because he still does."

The other thing to note is that we're talking about an adept parliamentarian who knows how to play a strategic game. The last 8 weeks or so, he's used the HUGE amount of leverage we, his supporters, gave him during the primary season to pressure Democratic Party insiders to reject business as usual. As a side note, it seems that some establishment figures, perhaps, have felt safe to do so as well. In some cases, serious primary challenges to entrenched Democrats have exerted the best kind of pressure on these folks.

More generally though, since he's failed to secure the Democratic nomination (sure lots of reasons for it, both legit and shady), he's limited in what he can do. Here's the key thing though, he's done more as a runner-up than any primary candidate in any party than I've seen in my life time Change is hard and it can take some time, but our foot is quite literally in the door at this point, let's not squander it with temper tantrums.

I saw a comment in one my Bernie Facebook groups from someone complaining about how he wasted his $27 on this guy. To that I say, "Go fuck yourself, seriously. And when you're done, go do it again."

First, you helped fuel a progressive awakening across the nation, was that not worth $27?
Second, your $27 bought people at the top, calling for a $15 min wage, Free public college and some pretty hefty healthcare reforms -- this stuff could really end up being a HUGE return on investment for you.
Thirdly, there were never any guarantees, it was always a long shot, and now you're pissed that what, you backed the wrong horse? Clearly, you failed to internalize the entire ethos of Bernie's message, "It's not about him (or you), it's about all of us."

Please don't take any of the above to say that I'm now a Clinton supporter because Bernie says so. On the contrary, I think she's terrible for a host of reasons much like all US Political Dynasties. That is to say she's probably no worse than 1 or 2 standard deviations from your Average Politician. The bigger problem is how awful an Average Politician is. This is one of the core problems we should focusing our energies on. Lean hard on the system to make our elected officials truly accountable to us, not to corporate money. It will take *your* continued involvement to root out the snakes and charlatans AT THE LOCAL LEVEL, as this will naturally flow upwards to the national level.

We CAN claw this place back from the brink -- $diety willing we'll be able to do it without guillotines.

Chris Evans has announced he is leaving his role as a presenter on BBC Two's Top Gear after one series.

He tweeted: "Stepping down from Top Gear. Gave it my best shot but sometimes that's not enough.

"I feel like my standing aside is the single best thing I can now do to help the cause."

His resignation comes after falling ratings for the show - which hit a series low on Sunday night, with an average of 1.9 million viewers.

Source: BBC

It is just over a year since Evans was given the job of reinventing Top Gear for the post-Clarkson era, an appointment that was controversial from the start after he had repeatedly denied he had been approached to host the show.

The then BBC2 controller, Kim Shillinglaw, said Evans’s “knowledge of and passion for cars are well-known and combined with his sheer inventiveness and cheeky unpredictability he is the perfect choice to take our much-loved show into the future”. But Shillinglaw lost her BBC2 job before the show went on air, one of a string of senior departures to hit the show, also including that of its executive producer Lisa Clark.

Source: The Guardian

http://www.vice.com/read/oakland-underage-sex-work-scandal

Not so long ago it was possible to point to Oakland as a police reform success story. In the last decade, the cops have gone from conducting an average of 3,000 searches without probable cause every year to 280 in 2015. Officers are now required to wear body cameras. After decades of abuse, violence, and corruption, the police department seemed to finally be changing.

In the last few weeks, though, a scandal has emerged that threatens to tear the department apart. In brief, 14 Oakland police officers are currently under investigation for sleeping with an 18-year-old sex worker—three of them when she was 17, thus allegedly committing rape and sex trafficking under California law. The woman, using the alias Celeste Guap, told the East Bay Express earlier this month that she was having sex with the cops for money and protection; she had been given a friend's arrest history and information about undercover prostitution stings.

Hints of the scandal surfaced last year, after a suicide note written one of the officers involved, Brendan O'Brien, mentioned Guap, prompting an investigation. But the higher-ups allegedly dragged their feet, and the supposed cover-up has only widened the sordid scandal has since expanded. (According to Guap's later comments to the media, she's actually had sex with "more than 30 officers" from multiple agencies around the Bay Area.)

The shocking and salacious events were the catalyst to Oakland appointing four police chiefs in two weeks. Initially, Sean Whent, who was promoted to top cop at the end of a similarly messy 2013 shuffle that saw three new police chiefs in three days, got canned because he allegedly knew about Guap sleeping with Oakland cops but didn't press for a speedy and public investigation.

A funny article I found on NBF:

Do not "blame" life extension for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, If Murdoch died Fox would still be right wing

Which is a response to: Bonus Level: The World's Most Powerful Humans are Getting Another 10-15 Years on Earth

A common argument against life extension is that it would allow the elites to live indefinitely, accruing more power, wealth, and influence for themselves. To that I say: If you're so worried about it, stop waiting for them to die, and start killing them.

Alabama ACLU and Newspaper Criticize Police for Arresting Citizen Journalist by Bama Camera

The Alabama police department that had a man arrested on a felony charge of jamming up their emergency lines – even though he did not make a single call – is now taking heat from the local ACLU as well as the local newspaper.

But the Wetumpka Police Department is still sticking to its guns, threatening to arrest anybody else who posts their non-emergency phone number of (334) 567-5321.

They claim that by calling that number, it somehow leads turns into a 911 call, which they claim makes it difficult to respond to actual emergencies.

But all they were doing were exercising their First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by complaining about how officers ripped a camera out of Keith Golden’s hands for recording the police department from public property.

First Amendment Audit (Wetumpka PD) "I don't care about your 1st Amendment Rights"

Arrest Update by Bama Camera
**UPDATE**FPS-USMS-BAM CAMERA by News Now Houston