interesting things
Sigourney Weaver seemed to storm offstage on opening night of her new Broadway play, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,†last week. Our spy…
via NY Post: Page Six http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/exit_stage_right_88nJ3Obdm0TDpBCBGshAvK?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=%20%20%20%20%20%20Page%20Six
A rich, high-stakes gambler was dragged out of his opulent comp suite at the Crown Towers casino in Melbourne, accused of participating in a $32M scam that made use of the casino’s own CCTV cameras to cheat.
The Herald Sun understands remote access to the venue’s security system was given to an unauthorised person.
Images relayed from cameras were then used to spy on a top-level gaming area where the high roller was playing.
Signals were given to him on how he should bet based on the advice of someone viewing the camera feeds. Sources said the total stolen was $32 million.
They are capable of transmitting the most intricate detail of goings-on inside the building.
Casinos were the world leaders in CCTV use, and really represent ground zero for the panopticon theory of security. What is rarely mentioned is that “security” measures can be turned against defenders if attackers can hijack them. This is as true when a mugger uses his victim’s gun against him as it is when a casino’s own CCTVs are used to defeat its own anti-cheating measures. This is the high-stakes gambling version of all those IP-based CCTVs that leak sensitive footage of the inside of peoples’ houses onto the public Internet.
Crown casino hi-tech scam nets $32 million [Mark Buttler/Herald Sun]
(via /.)
Jake Tapper’s new show “The Lead” premiered Monday evening.
via POLITICO – TOP Stories http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/zucker-tapper-face-of-new-cnn-89050.html
If Congress operated according to public opinion, Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee would be a pariah in the halls of the House.
A self-proclaimed social conservative, DesJarlais has been in political trouble since news reports revealed he pressured a former patient of his to get an abortion after they had an affair, details that emerged during divorce proceedings. Later, after he won reelection, reports showed he and his wife had agreed to have two abortions before their divorce.
But unlike some other scandal-wracked politicians like Anthony Weiner, Eric Massa, or Eliot Spitzer, DesJarlais hasn’t become an outcast at all. Republican leaders haven’t punished him. He still holds positions on the Agriculture and, yes, the Oversight and Government Reform committees. Even more glaring: He’s getting fundraising assistance on Tuesday from six influential colleagues, including three committee chairmen (GOP Reps. Darrell Issa of California, John Kline of Minnesota, and Frank Lucas of Oklahoma) and two potential Senate candidates (Kline and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia).
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-are-republicans-raising-money-for-a-scandal-plagued-congressman-20130318
Feinstein says the ban won’t be in a Democratic bill expected to reach the Senate floor next month.
via POLITICO – TOP Stories http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/assault-weapon-ban-for-gun-control-loses-steam-89046.html
Sameer Rahim in The Telegraph:
“In the coming years I have two great calamities to face: death and a biography,†says a poker-faced Philip Roth. “Let’s hope the first comes first.†He is speaking at the start of a new PBS film, Philip Roth Unmasked, based on extensive interviews with the author, and made to coincide with his 80th birthday. You can understand him wanting to guard his own story. His work over the last 50 years – from Goodbye, Columbus (1959) to what he claims is his final work, Nemesis (2010) – has mined his own Jewish upbringing in Newark, testing and teasing the reader to guess what is fact and what is fiction.
As Jonathan Franzen comments here it has always been Roth’s shtick to seem “more honest†and “more outrageous†than any other writer. His early work was condemned by Jewish organisations that felt he showed Jews in a bad light. He responds here as he did 50 years ago by saying he told the truth: “There were Jewish girls who bought diaphragms, there were Jewish men who were adulterous.†Sex is the driving force of Roth’s work. His favourite moment in Ulysses is when Bloom ogles a pretty girl by the sea while surreptitiously arousing himself. “At it again,†says Roth, quoting Bloom. “That should be on my tombstone!†Roth’s masturbatory classic Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) goes at it, again and again. Its combination of sex, comedy and high art made the book a hit, selling 350,000 copies in its first month. The novel’s genesis is fascinating. Always funny in company, Roth had never seiously tried doing the same on the page. Alexander Portnoy, the Jewish boy who can’t leave it alone, was the perfect vehicle. Framing it as a confession to a psycholoanalist gave him permission to say what he wanted, whatever way he liked. Roth warned his parents the book might make trouble for them and sent them on a cruise when it was published. But his father, far from being ashamed, sold copies on board signed “Hermann Roth, Philip Roth’s fatherâ€.
More here. (Note: Saw “Unmasked” and loved it. At the Film Forum in Chelsea. Free. If you can, go and see the film)
The tea party favorite backs a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.
via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/rand-paul-endorses-immigrant-path-citizenship-033313583–politics.html
It’s always seemed unlikely that Congress would reinstate a version of the 1994 assault weapons ban, and Harry Reid is now poised to put the final nail in the coffin. Politico reports that following a meeting with the Senate majority leader on Monday, Dianne Feinstein said the bill she sponsored won’t be part of the Democratic gun bill that might be offered on the Senate floor as early as this week. “My understanding is it will not be [part of the base bill],†Feinstein said. “It will be separate.†The assault weapons ban would be offered as an amendment, which would almost certainly be defeated.
When asked about the reasons behind the decision, Feinstein said, “You will have to ask him [Reid].” The move highlights that it will be difficult to pass any gun control measure in Congress, even without the assault weapons ban. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a gun trafficking bill, a plan to increase school safety, and a universal background checks proposal backed only by Democrats (efforts to reach a bipartisan deal fell apart, though Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin are still hoping to get a Republican senator on board). Negotiations are still underway, but Politico reports that there are two paths Reid is likely to pursue:
Reid could advance a gun trafficking bill with a school safety provision; some form of background checks and the assault weapons ban would then be offered as amendments. In the other scenario, Reid might offer a background checks bill that includes the gun trafficking and school safety provisions, with assault weapons again offered as an amendment.
The Senate Majority Leader has never been a big proponent of Feinstein’s assault weapons bill. On This Week With George Stephanopoulos last month he wouldn’t commit to supporting it himself, and remarked, “I didn’t vote for the assault weapons last time because it … didn’t make sense.” Though, Reid has promised that “the assault weapons ban gets a vote on the floor.”
Read more posts by Margaret Hartmann
Filed Under:
gun control
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via Daily Intelligencer http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/assault-weapons-ban-probably-isnt-happening.html
The joke comes just days after a report that entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt is upset over the host’s jabs at the network.
via Hollywood Reporter http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jay-leno-calls-nbc-execs-429653?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Fnews+%28The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories%29
Why does Satan look suspiciously like President Barack Obama in the History Channel’s hit series The Bible?
That’s the question on many viewers’ lips after Sunday evening’s episode of the popular show featured a devil-playing actor with an uncanny resemblance to the 44th POTUS.
