'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web

source http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703358504575544381288117888.html

At 1 a.m. on May 7, the website PatientsLikeMe.com noticed suspicious activity on its "Mood" discussion board. There, people exchange highly personal stories about their emotional disorders, ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves.

It was a break-in. A new member of the site, using sophisticated software, was "scraping," or copying, every single message off PatientsLikeMe's private online forums.

PatientsLikeMe managed to block and identify the intruder: Nielsen Co., the privately held New York media-research firm. Nielsen monitors online "buzz" for clients, including major drug makers, which buy data gleaned from the Web to get insight from consumers about their products, Nielsen says.

"I felt totally violated," says Bilal Ahmed, a 33-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia, who used PatientsLikeMe to connect with other people suffering from depression. He used a pseudonym on the message boards, but his PatientsLikeMe profile linked to his blog, which contains his real name.

After PatientsLikeMe told users about the break-in, Mr. Ahmed deleted all his posts, plus a list of drugs he uses. "It was very disturbing to know that your information is being sold," he says. Nielsen says it no longer scrapes sites requiring an individual account for access, unless it has permission.

The market for personal data about Internet users is booming, and in the vanguard is the practice of "scraping." Firms offer to harvest online conversations and collect personal details from social-networking sites, résumé sites and online forums where people might discuss their lives.

The emerging business of web scraping provides some of the raw material for a rapidly expanding data economy. Marketers spent $7.8 billion on online and offline data in 2009, according to the New York management consulting firm Winterberry Group LLC. Spending on data from online sources is set to more than double, to $840 million in 2012 from $410 million in 2009.

The Wall Street Journal's examination of scraping—a trade that involves personal information as well as many other types of data—is part of the newspaper's investigation into the business of tracking people's activities online and selling details about their behavior and personal interests.

rest at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703358504575544381288117888.html

Insurers Denied Health Coverage to 1 in 7 People, Citing Pre-Existing Conditions #p2

source http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/insurers-denied-health-coverage-to-1-in-7-people-citing-pre-existing-condit

The nation's four largest for-profit health insurers denied coverage to more than 651,000 people over a three-year period, citing pre-existing conditions, according to an analysis of insurer data detailed in a Congressional investigation.

Between Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint, that averages out to a denial of coverage for one out of every seven applicants, according to an Energy and Commerce Committee memo about the investigation.

The memo, released by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak [1], both Democrats, touts provisions in the health care reform bill that address pre-existing condition denials.

But all politics aside, the investigation contains some interesting figures and information culled from thousands of pages of documents provided by the insurers. The memo points out, for instance, that since 2007, the number of denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions has risen each year, outpacing the increase in applications for insurance coverage:

A year-by-year analysis shows a significant increase in the number of coverage denials each year. The insurance companies denied coverage to 172,400 people in 2007 and 221,400 people in 2008. By 2009, the number of individuals denied coverage rose to 257,100.Between 2007 and 2009, the number of people denied coverage for pre-existing conditions increased 49%. During the same period, applications for insurance coverage at the four companies increased by only 16%.

Individuals were denied coverage based on "an extensive list of medical conditions," the memo noted. One company had a list of more than 400 medical diagnoses used to decline coverage to those seeking it, and common conditions such as pregnancy, diabetes, and heart disease were included on the list.

As we've noted, under the health care reform bill, insurers are no longer able to deny coverage to children [2] on the basis of pre-existing conditions, but this does not get extended to all age groups until 2014.

A spokesman for Aetna did not dispute [3] the memo's findings, but told The Wall Stret Journal that they "document what many health insurers, including Aetna, have been saying for years – that the individual market needs to be reformed so we can improve access for all consumers."

For more, read the full memo [4] [PDF].

rest at http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/insurers-denied-health-coverage-to-1-in-7-people-citing-pre-existing-condit

BP to Shutter the Safety Watchdog, Despite Rise in Employee Concerns

source http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bp-to-shutter-the-safety-watchdog-despite-rise-in-employee-concerns

BP plans to close the independent watchdog office it established after a deadly refinery blast in Texas City that killed 15 workers, according to The Guardian. Despite a growing number of safety concerns reported to the ombudsman's office by BP employees and contractors, the company told the U.K. newspaper that it would not extend the office's tenure past June of next year.

Here's the Guardian, on the uptick in the reporting of employee concerns since the office was established in 2006:

According to the internal figures, the number of concerns received by the ombudsman's office increased almost fourfold between its inception and last year. Last year alone, the figure was up by two-thirds on 2008. Of the 252 known concerns received in total since 2006, 148 relate to BP's Alaska operations. These include 50 specific safety-related concerns at the North Slope operations.

rest at http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bp-to-shutter-the-safety-watchdog-despite-rise-in-employee-concerns

Ben Bernanke thanked Diamond in his doctoral dissertation yet (R) Shelby thinks hes unqualified?! #p2

source http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/business/07fed.html?_r=3&ref=us

In 1979, a 25-year-old economics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Ben S. Bernanke turned in his doctoral dissertation. In his acknowledgments, he thanked a faculty member, Peter A. Diamond, as one of four professors who "gave generously of their time, reading and discussing my work."

In April, President Obama nominated Mr. Diamond to the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, where his former student, Mr. Bernanke, has been chairman since 2006.

But under an arcane procedural rule, the Senate sent Mr. Diamond's nomination back to the White House on Thursday night before starting its summer recess. A leading Republican senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, said that Mr. Diamond did not have sufficiently broad macroeconomic experience to help run the central bank.

The Senate did not turn back two other nominees, Janet L. Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin, to join the Fed's board, though the soonest either could be confirmed now is mid-September. Ms. Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, is in line to become vice chairwoman of the Fed, the No. 2 to Mr. Bernanke.

All three nominees were approved by the Senate Banking Committee, and there does not seem to be enough opposition to permanently block Mr. Diamond. "This is standard operating procedure in the Senate, and we expect that the president will renominate Peter Diamond," a White House official said of the delay.

Mr. Diamond, 70, joined the M.I.T. faculty in 1966 and is an authority on taxation, Social Security, pensions, Medicare, labor markets and behavioral economics. He is so well regarded there that the university commissioned a work by the composer John Harbison to commemorate his retirement in April.

As Mr. Shelby noted, Mr. Diamond is not a specialist in monetary economics — the control of the supply of credit and the setting of interest rates — which is the Fed's traditional purview. But of the five current governors of the Fed, only two, Mr. Bernanke and the vice chairman, Donald L. Kohn, are academic economists who specialize in monetary economics. The other three include a former community banker, a former Wall Street executive and a legal scholar.

One of the current nominees, Ms. Raskin, is not an economist at all, but a lawyer who oversees banking regulation in Maryland. Ms. Raskin once worked for the Senate Banking Committee, and the tradition of senatorial deference could help explain why her nomination was not held up while Mr. Diamond's was.

Landrieu Will Not Lift Hold On Budget Director Despite End Of Drilling Moratorium

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/12/landrieu-will-not-lift/

Last month, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) announced that she would be blocking "the nomination of Office of Management and Budget [OMB] director Jack Lew until the Obama administration lifts its deepwater drilling moratorium," singlehandedly hobbling the OMB.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it will be ending its deepwater drilling moratorium. "The policy position that we are articulating today is that we are open for business," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters at a news conference. Yet Landrieu said in a statement today that she still refuses to lift her hold on Lew's nomination, and will continue to "evaluate if today's lifting of the moratorium is actually putting people back to work" and "whether or not drilling activity in both shallow and deep water is resuming" over the next month before making a decision:

Democratic senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana today applauded the Obama administration for lifting the moratorium on deepwater oil drilling but said she will continue to block the nomination of Jack Lew to head the Office of Management & Budget.

"I am not going to release my hold on Jack Lew," Landrieu said in a statement. "Instead I will take this time to look closely at how [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] is handling the issuing of permits and whether or not drilling activity in both shallow and deep water is resuming." Landrieu said she will use the remaining month before Congress convenes on November 15 for the lame-duck session to "evaluate if today's lifting of the moratorium is actually putting people back to work."

In her statement, Landrieu adds that she wants there to be "an action plan to get the entire industry in the Gulf of Mexico back to work. This means that the administration must continue to accelerate the granting of permits in shallow and deep water, and provide greater certainty about the rules and regulations industry must meet. I strongly believe that we can do this safely and swiftly."

Although Landrieu argued that the drilling moratorium "could cost more jobs than the spill itself," the actual economic impact of restoring the rule of law to offshore drilling has been minimal, while the economic, environmental, and psychological impacts of the oil disaster continue to grow.

Update White House press secretary Robert Gibbs castigated Landrieu for "playing politics" with Lew's nomination:

"We hope that, as we work through the normal course of a policy that ensures that oil drilling is done in a safe way, certainly that Senator Landrieu would judge Jack Lew on the merits of being a budget director, not of playing politics and getting issues that are ancillary to what he does involved in that equation," said Gibbs, reiterating his claim last month that Landrieu's hold is "outrageous."

"Jack didn't have anything to do with issuing the moratorium, doesn't currently have anything to do with the moratorium. He passed two Senate committees with more than 40 votes and only one dissenting vote. And obviously a budget director in a time of economic concern and concern about our long-term fiscal picture is somebody that you need at work," Gibbs said.

republicans: Ten Ways to Bring the Senate to Its Knees #p2

source http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/09/minority_rules.html

Rove deflects criticism of his anonymous donors with torrent of misleading claims http://mediamatters.org/research/201010130030 In an attempt to defend against criticism that conservative political groups have put out millions of dollars worth of GOP attack ads from undisclosed donors, Karl Rove has embarked on a media blitz, attempting to create a smokescreen of false and irrelevant claims about liberal groups' campaign funds. CLAIM: CAP doesn't disclose who its donors are Rove: CAP is "a political group and doesn't reveal its donors." On the October 12 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, Fox News contributor Karl Rove attempted to defend himself against criticism that he's creating ads funded by undisclosed donors by claiming that "President Obama based his attack [on Rove's undisclosed donors] on a blog posting by Think Progress, which is associated with the Center for American Progress [CAP], a group headed by John Podesta, who was the chairman of the president's transition. It is a political group, and does not reveal its donors." Media Research Center president Brent Bozell made a similar claim in a recent column. FACT: Attacks on CAP are "absurd" because CAP doesn't "electioneer or run candidate campaign ads" CAP doesn't "electioneer or run candidate campaign ads." In response to Rove's criticism, CAP released a statement noting that it is not involved in any electioneering, and that it does not run candidate campaign ads: Neither the Center for American Progress nor the Center for American Progress Action Fund electioneer or run candidate campaign ads. If CAPAF ever does run such ads, we will disclose the donors funding that activity. 501c4's are not required to disclose donors and we do not see a disclosure problem with 501c4's, like CAPAF, that continue to operate in the traditional role of a public education and issue advocacy organization; nor have we criticized the Chamber for its traditional work in support of its mission. Our concern is with organizations like the Chamber and others who have taken advantage of the Citizens United ruling to behave like a PAC by running massive amounts of candidate campaign ads without disclosing the source of funding for the ads. There is a long standing legal requirement for PACs to disclose donations, the Chamber and others are acting like PACs but without the disclosure. Sargent: Rove's "comparison to the Center for American Progress is absurd, because it does not and has never run campaign ads." In an October 12 post to his Plum Line blog, Greg Sargent wrote of Rove's claim: "The comparison to the Center for American Progress is absurd, because it does not and has never run campaign ads." CLAIM: MoveOn.org doesn't disclose their donors Rove: A "lot of liberal groups" like "MoveOn.org -- do not report their donors." On the October 10 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Rove asserted that "a lot of liberal groups -- National Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters, Center for American Progress, AARP, MoveOn.org -- do not report their donors. FACT: MoveOn.org funds political activities through a PAC that discloses its donors Both MoveOn.org and LCV fund their political activities through PACs, which disclose donors. In fact, MoveOn.org funds its political activities thorugh a political action committee (PACs). This PAC, MoveOn.org Political Action is subject to the same disclosure requirements as political parties, and is required to disclose their PAC donations to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). As Sargent reported, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough retracted the similar claim he made about MoveOn.org Political Action. CLAIM: Obama's campaign benefited from groups that don't disclose their donors Rove: Obama "had no problem at all with this when groups were spending money on his behalf in 2008 and not disclosing donors." Also during the October 12 edition of Good Morning America, Rove asserted that "[t]he president is being hypocritical about this. He had no problem at all with this when groups were spending money on his behalf in 2008 and not disclosing donors." FACT: During 2008 election, Obama discouraged donations to outside groups Politico: "Senator Barack Obama's campaign is steering the candidate's wealthy supporters away from independent Democratic groups." Politico's Ben Smith reported on May 13, 2008, that "Senator Barack Obama's campaign is steering the candidate's wealthy supporters away from independent Democratic groups." Smith added that "major donors have begun to conclude that Obama is serious in trying to cut off funds to the outside groups." CLAIM: Obama didn't disclose its donors Rove: Obama "had no problem at all not disclosing his own donors." Also during the October 12 edition of Good Morning America, Rove asserted that Obama "had no problem at all not disclosing his own donors, tens of millions of dollars in contributions to his campaign, that did not -- whose donor names were not revealed." FACT: Obama disclosed more than 90 percent of his campaign donations More than 90 percent of Obama's campaign donations included name and occupation of donor. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 90.2 percent of all of the donations Obama recieved over $200 were reported to the FEC with the name and occupation of the donor. By contrast, Rove has admitted that one of his groups, American Crossroads GPS, does not disclose the identities of any of its donors. Contact: Karl Rove http://twitter.com/karlrove Contact: Fox News Channel FOX News Channel 1-888-369-4762 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036 http://twitter.com/foxnews

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Diamond's Nobel Prize May Ease Confirmation to Fed Post - Sen Shelby still think hes unqualified?

source http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-11/diamond-s-nobel-prize-may-weaken-republican-opposition-to-fed-nomination.html

Fed Nominee Whom Sen. Shelby Deemed Too Unqualified To Confirm Wins Nobel Prize

source http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/11/diamond-nobel/

Richard Shelby thinks this Nobel laureate is unqualified to set monetary policy.

Earlier today, Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond won the Nobel Prize in Economics along with two of his colleagues. Yet, despite the fact that President Obama nominated this Nobel laureate to the Fed nearly six months ago, his nomination is currently being blocked by just one senator. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) believes that this year's winner of the highest honor in the economics profession is unqualified to actually set economic policy:

[U]nder an arcane procedural rule, the Senate sent Mr. Diamond's nomination back to the White House on Thursday night before starting its summer recess. A leading Republican senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, said that Mr. Diamond did not have sufficiently broad macroeconomic experience to help run the central bank. [...]

As Mr. Shelby noted, Mr. Diamond is not a specialist in monetary economics — the control of the supply of credit and the setting of interest rates — which is the Fed's traditional purview. But of the five current governors of the Fed, only two, Mr. Bernanke and the vice chairman, Donald L. Kohn, are academic economists who specialize in monetary economics. The other three include a former community banker, a former Wall Street executive and a legal scholar.

Shelby, of course, has a history of this kind of abuse of the Senate Rules to prevent eminently qualified nominees from being confirmed. Earlier this year, Shelby briefly took over 70 nominees hostage in an attempt to strongarm the administration into awarding a $35 billion defense contract to his state — although he later lifted these holds once they became politically embarrassing.

But Shelby, of course, is only able to get away with these kinds of shenanigans because the Senate's rules are shockingly easy to abuse. Indeed, while it is common wisdom that 60 senators are required to get virtually anything done, the reality is much bleaker — most Senate business now requires all 100 senators to consent.

The reason for this is because dissenting senators can force the Senate to waste hours or even days effectively doing nothing in order to pass a single bill or confirm a single nominee. Indeed, as a recent Center for American Progress white paper explains, there isn't enough time in two entire presidential terms to confirm all of a new president's nominees by the time that president leaves office:

In other words, the entire government can be hollowed out by a tiny group of senators with a vendetta. Today, Sen. Shelby thinks that a Nobel laureate doesn't know enough about economics, so that nominee must languish without an up or down vote.  Tomorrow, another senator could disapprove of a nominee's haircut, and that alone may be sufficient to spike the nomination.

Obama pick for fed reserve Governor won Nobel prize yet is blocked by Repuglicans

source http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2010/

MUST READ: GLENN BECK'S PROGRESSIVE HUNTER DANGEROUS RHETORIC @GLENNBECK

	October 11, 2010

Dear Friend,

This morning, Media Matters for America posted a striking new report that shows the growing danger of extreme and dishonest right-wing messages coming from demagogues like Glenn Beck.

According to police, Byron Williams engaged in a gun battle with law enforcement officers on a California highway on July 18. A police affidavit states that Williams said he was on his way to San Francisco to "start a revolution" by killing staff at progressive organizations, including the Tides Foundation, a group frequently targeted by Beck.

In an exclusive series of interviews and correspondence, Williams explains how much he relied on right-wing media -- and in particular Fox News host Glenn Beck -- for news. You can read the story here. Beck, who has declared himself a "progressive hunter," put Tides at the center of an alleged left-wing conspiracy, and the conspiracy theories featured on Beck's chalkboard were the basis for Byron Williams' dark revenge fantasies.

As Williams, who said Beck was "like a schoolteacher on TV," explained:

I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this.

What Williams learned from Beck and the right-wing media inspired him to depart on a journey that could have had deadly consequences.

We have the full story this morning at Media Matters for America. I encourage you to read the whole thing here.

Williams' rhetoric and his worldview are shaped by, and echo, the conspiracy theories and falsehoods of the hard-right TV and radio talkers he cites as his inspiration. In this new interview, Williams says he was pushed over the edge by anger over a conspiracy involving George Soros, Obama, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP oil spill -- a conspiracy theory loudly touted by Beck in June (and debunked by Media Matters for America.)

Byron Williams took up arms because he thinks an evil cabal of left-wing extremists is trying to destroy the country and engaging in "hideous corruption." He believes that lie because that's the "very good information" he heard, constantly, from the sources he trusts -- sources like David Horowitz, Michael Savage, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.

Beck is playing a dangerous game -- convincing his audience that sinister threats are turning the country into a dictatorship and must be stopped, yet carefully backing off from his violent rhetoric just at the edge of incitement. He's instigating fear and rage with his lies while trying to avoid accountability for the results.

As Williams himself said:

Beck is gonna deny everything about violent approach and deny everything about conspiracies, but he'll give you every reason to believe it. He's protecting himself, and you can't blame him for that. So, I understand what he's doing.

Please give this important story a look and send it to others. It's a devastating indictment of the consequences of the toxic misinformation that Beck airs every day.

David Brock
Founder
Media Matters for America

P.S. The violent and extreme rhetoric from Fox hosts is just one of the reasons we support the "Turn Off Fox" campaign from Color of Change. Check it out here.

News Alert: Verizon Wireless to Pay Millions in Refunds to Customers

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Sun, October 03, 2010 -- 5:21 PM ET
-----

Verizon Wireless to Pay Up to $90 Million in Refunds to 15 Million Customers

Verizon Wireless said Sunday that it would pay up to $90
million in refunds to 15 million cellphone customers who were
wrongly charged for data sessions or Internet use, one of the
largest-ever customer refunds by a telecommunications
company.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na

Remember when Bush said his massive tax cuts were going to create jobs? Where are they? #p2

Remember, the lack of jobs in America today was created by Republicans. What happened to all the jobs [President George W.] Bush's big tax cuts were supposed to create? Now Republicans want more tax cuts for the wealthy and again say they will create jobs?

source http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-10-02/story/rants-raves-t-us-pursuit-young-readers-failing
source http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/10/03/verbatim-391/

Paladino Took Government Money By Pledging To Deliver Jobs, But Instead Pocketed The Money #p2

source http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/03/paladino-tax-breaks/

An investigation by the New York Daily News finds that New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, a multi-millionaire real estate developer, promised to revive the economy of Buffalo by creating new jobs, received $3 million in state tax breaks to do so, but then pocketed the tax refunds while delivering very few jobs:

A Daily News probe found Paladino's companies netted $3 million in tax breaks through a program called the Empire Zones – while producing a grand total of 25 new jobs.

To justify tax breaks in one instance, he sold a dozen vacant lots he owned to himself and claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in "real property investments." Seven years later, these "investments" remain what they were – vacant lots.

His Empire Zone investments consisted mostly of renovating his own buildings – $19 million worth. He completed no new construction and brought no new businesses in any of his Empire Zone projects.

Instead, the Paladino companies such as the Ellicott Group mostly generate income through six big office buildings that collect millions of dollars in rent.

Ironically, Paladino claims his campaign is standing up for taxpayers. For instance, he wants to slash the state's Medicaid spending by almost half because, he said, New York invites anyone to "come here and sit on the backs of our taxpayers."

Speaking before New York business leaders this past week, Paladino pledged to cut taxes for the rich, including across-the-board cuts in corporate franchise taxes. "I will provide businesses relief from the onerous taxes and regulations strangling them today," Paladino said. "I'm going to make our businesses competitive again." But his own experience suggests that cutting taxes for the wealthiest is hardly the best way to jump-start the economy.

One of Paladino's properties lost its Empire Zone tax credits during a state review last year, "with the state arguing the property did not create enough jobs to justify the tax breaks." Perhaps the taxpayers should be telling Paladino: "Don't tread on me."

Top Republican Eric Cantor “confused” about national debt #p2

source http://shortformblog.com/chatter/top-republican-confused-about-national-debt/

• claim House Republican Eric Cantor stated yesterday that the US has acquired more debt in the last two years than the last 200 years combined.
• fact The US accumulated $2.8 trillion in debt over the last two years. It was at $10.6 trillion prior to that; Cantor's estimate was off by about $7.8 trillion.  source