Privacy Advocates Hijack Facebook Groups

You just have to admire their guts. They ‘could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty like ‘I Support Pedophiles’ Rights,’” :

‘A group advocating for social-networking privacy has hijacked nearly 300 Facebook groups over the past few days to point out weaknesses in the site’s control of personal information. The protesters renamed all the Facebook groups “Control Your Info,” pointing out that after administrators of groups step down, anyone else can take over. “We control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook,” said a posted message.

‘”For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty like ‘I Support Pedophiles’ Rights,’” the message said. Two users who posted those messages from hijacked groups have been booted from Facebook, despite claiming they were only advocating for better awareness, CNN reports. Not all fellow users saw it that way: “It’s pretty inappropriate that you hijacked a Facebook group for Palestinian rights to selfishly promote your little conspiracy theory page,” one user wrote. -CNN

UA Pilot Steering Drunk?

Flight 949 canceled at Heathrow:

‘British police pulled a United Airlines pilot off a Chicago-bound plane today at Heathrow airport and charged him with being over the alcohol limit while on the job.‘Police and airline officials say Erwin Vermont Washington, 51, was pulled from United Airlines Flight 949 after a co-worker suspected him of being drunk. The flight was canceled and the plane’s 124 passengers were put on other flights.’ -AP

Gorbachev Says Pull out of Afghanistan -updated

Has Gorbachev’s advice finally influenced an ambassador?:

‘The US ambassador to Afghanistan—a former general who served there as recently as 2007—is against increasing troop levels until the Afghan government gets its act together. In classified cables ahead of President Obama’s deliberations on a surge, Karl Eikenberry cites rampant corruption and mismanagement in Hamid Karzai’s administration. His dissent isn’t sitting well with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan and an ardent proponent of increasing troop levels, the Washington Post reports.’ -

Gorbachev rarely speaks. But I bet his word will surely make other bigwigs think:

‘Mikhail Gorbachev—the man who pulled the Soviet Union’s troops out of Afghanistan after a decade of stalemate—says the US should do the same. “There is no prospect of a military solution,” he tells Bloomberg. The nation is too fragmented among clans, dooming even a troop surge to failure, he says. “They should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops.”’ -Bloomberg

Plato on-line First Anniversary

It’s the first anniversary of Plato on-line today.
My target of 50,000 visits didn’t materialize but I’m glad about the surge of followers. The first surprise I got was that Google offered me a free Gmail account! (but when I imported my other contacts to it, my unread mails from the other was marked read). Seems ‘too much of a coincidence’ as we say in crime writing.
To all the followers of Plato on-line, specially Gryphon of gryphonscry and David of thegeekwhisperer who are always here for me, I express my utmost gratitude. More power to you all!
To all those who celebrate all kinds of annivs today, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to you too!