Poor Mojo's Newswire

Well, it turned out that LJ wanted money too. Lots and lots of money. So they came up with a clever plan. They wrote a java script that looked for links to sites that give out money, and *if there was no affiliate number on the end*, they modified the link to add their OWN affiliate number. So if I put an innocent link to Amazon on my journal, LJ would see that it had no affiliate number and add their own, so that if anyone bought books after clicking my link, LJ would get a kickback from Amazon. Or that was how it was supposed to work. In reality, what happened was that the script stripped off all affiliate numbers and added LJ's own. So even if I wanted to use my number, I couldn't. LJ would steal my money from me by rewriting my links. Now, this is shady and underhanded, but it's not the only thing that the script did. You see, the company that wrote the script, "Driving Revenues" was not so smart with the code-fu. So what the script did was look at the end of URLs to determine if an affiliate number should be added. The problem with this is that 'sanfranciscobay.com' and 'ebay.com' both end in bay.com, so the script would add a bunch of gobbledygook to the sanfranciscobay.com link as well. This breaks the link. It had no way of distinguishing amazon.com from fucklikeacrazyamazon.com, or target.com from crossbowandtarget.com. And since the script had over three hundred websites on its list of links to mess with, understandably a lot of links got broken. Users were pissed. . . .

As soon as the Obama administration announced that it had Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab in custody and was questioning him about his failed Christmas Day bombing, conservatives began complaining about the fact that authorities had read him his Miranda rights. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL), for example, inaccurately complained that as soon as Abdulmutallab “was read his Miranda he did in fact stop cooperating with our intelligence.” In reality, officials did not mirandize Abdulmutallab until after he had already made clear that he wasn’t going to talk. Even afterward, Abdulmutallab gave authorities valuable information after the FBI gained the valuable assistance of his family members, who persuaded him to cooperate. Nevertheless, Republicans are rushing out their same playbook in the case of Times Square bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad: – “I think obviously that [mirandizing Shahzad] would be a serious mistake until we’ve — at least until we find out as much information as we have, and there are ways — legal ways — of delaying that.” — Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) – “I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he’s an American citizen but still.” — Rep. Peter King (R-NY) . . .

(05-02) 19:40 PDT SANTA CRUZ -- A May Day rally in Santa Cruz erupted into chaos Saturday night when about 200 protesters, some with torches, stormed the city's main street. Some smashed windows and spray-painted anarchist graffiti, police said. Jimi Haynes, 24, was arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism after witnesses saw him shatter two windows at a Pacific Avenue jewelry store, police said. They said Haynes, a parolee from Fresno County, had been in Santa Cruz for several weeks and had learned of the rally by picking up a flyer at a "local anarchist cafe." The incident started after protesters at a labor rally at the town clock marched down Pacific around 10:30 p.m., police said. At least 15 businesses were vandalized. A video posted on YouTube shows several people in masks smashing windows, with some others in the crowd confronting the vandals.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King said tonight that he has told representatives of BP Plc. that they should stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians. The agreements, King said, essentially require that people give up the right to sue in exchange for payment of up to $5,000. King said BP's efforts were particularly strong in Bayou La Batre. The attorney general said he is prohibited from giving legal advice to private citizens, but added that "people need to proceed with caution and understand the ramifications before signing something like that.