From CNN:

The Twitter accounts of President-elect Barack Obama, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears, Fox News and 29 others were hacked Monday according to the microblog site, leading to false and inappropriate messages being posted on their accounts.

Among those inappropriate messages were, apparently, a message about Bill O’reilly’s sexuality, a post from Rick Sanchez of CNN about how he was on crack and not going to work, something vulgar about Britney Spears, random letters on HuffPo, and a bunch of spam links on Obama’s page. The hack also affected 29 other people but everything is supposed to be back up and running:

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the site’s blog that the accounts were compromised after a hacker accessed tools the support team uses when a Twitter user can’t remember or wants to reset their login info.

“We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline,” Stone said in the blog post. “We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure.”

Jennifer Dargan, Director of Public Relations for CNN confirmed Sanchez’s account was compromised.

Sounds like a pretty embarassing hack for Twitter. I mean someone being able to hack into your support tools and get into some of the highest-profile…um… profiles just ain’t good. But, hey, something like this is pretty much bound to happen when you get as big as Tiwitter is.

Valley Wag has a list of screen shots from the most famous hacked accounts, though I dont think their story of what happened is correct.

Bill Ayres has a column at HuffPo - NewsBusters

Leftist nutcase: Informer who prevented deaths a traitor - Hot Air

Burris circus marches on - Ace

Winter blunderland - Diversity Lane

You just can’t make this stuff up:

Turn off that Wi-Fi network — it’s disturbing our chakras.

That’s what many residents of Glastonbury, a lovely medieval town turned New Age hub in southwestern England, are demanding the local government do.

Ever since the town’s free municipal wireless broadband network went online in May, people have been complaining of, as an online petition puts it, “headaches, dizziness, nausea, severe tiredness, brain fog, disorientation and loss of appetite, loss of balance, inability to concentrate, loss of creativity” — all ailments an examining physician would find it difficult to prove or disprove.

These people couldn’t be more out of touch with reality if they thought they were living on King Arthur’s grave site. Oh, wait… they do believe that:

(Glastonbury is) Thought by many to be the burial place of the mythic King Arthur

One nut is even making “orgone generators, which use crystals, semi-precious stones and gold to purportedly put out positive energy”. He plans on distributing them in order to “combat” the evil wifi waves floating around the town:

“I have given a number of generators to shops in the High Street and hidden others in bushes in the immediate vicinity of the antennae. That way you can bring back the balance,” Matt Todd told the Telegraph. “The science hasn’t really got into the mainstream because the government won’t make decisions which will affect big business, even if it concerns everyone’s health.”

He also thinks the wifi is disrupting mysterious, ancient, and invisible webs of energy called “ley lines”. But not to be out done other nuts in the town are claiming the evil rays of wifi are keeping them awake:

“The pulsed microwaves feed the pineal gland with false information,” local Jacqui Roberts tells the Western Daily Press. “Melatonin fights the free radicals and cancer-producing cells.”

Yet, perhaps the saddest part of all this is the fact that some of these people actually have children and are teaching them this insanity:

“I don’t want my son exposed to risk 24 hours a day, including at his primary school, which is within the Wi-Fi zone,” yoga teacher Natalie Fee tells London’s Telegraph. “I would be failing in my duty as a parent if I did.”

Yea… what do you say to some one like that? I mean, sure, The Telegraph and Fox News included some quotes from scientists who  confirmed that these people are nuts but does anybody really believe that will convince them? I doubt it.

But it may be the officials who installed the system are the real idiots here. After all, the system of government internet (why the heck is the government providing internet anyway? How is that their responsibility?) costs $15,000 a year to operate and has, thus far, been used by a whopping 422 people.

The Illinois House could vote as early as next week on whether to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The Illinois House has bumped up its schedule and will meet several days next week. They had been set to reconvene on Jan. 12.

This comes as a little bit of a shock to me. After they showed no political back bone a couple weeks back I figured they would never actually vote to impeach Blagojevich. Maybe the Burris appointment and the circus that followed it has made them think twice?

But I still doubt this will come to anything execpt maybe another tent in the circus. You see, while it only takes a majority of the house to impeach it takes two thirds of the Senate to convict. Thats a pretty big feet for a state congress that couldn’t (or wouldn’t) even pass a bill taking the appointment power out of Blagojevich’s hands.

We shall see what happens…

(Picture from Chicago Magazine)

That’s the new ad campaign from our friendly failures at Chrysler. A great big thanks for the quick cash!

Well I have a little message for Bob Nardelli and Chrysler. Most of America never wanted to bail you out. We are not happy that you got bailed out. And we certainly do not want you to remind us of your bailout!

Thanks for nothing

Songs of the Month

Every month I will bring my favorite music of the moment. I will put my picks in a post and in the widget in the right hand column cleverly labeled “Songs of the Month”. And, of course, you can and are encouraged to buy this awesome music directly from the Amazon widgets.

This month the picks are The Glass Passenger by Jack’s Mannequin and Foile à Deux by Fall Out Boy:

P.S. You might not have noticed but Amazon has a special exclusive Jack’s track titled “Doris Day”. Check it out… its awesome:

From CNN:

The U.S. military formally handed authority over Baghdad’s “Green Zone” to Iraqis on Thursday as new pacts governing the mission of international troops replaced a U.N. mandate.

Iraqi troops took over checkpoints around the heavily protected district, formally known as the International Zone, which houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy.

While victory in Iraq has been evident for some time now, I think its safe to say that this will be the moment that history remembers as the successful end of the war. An end which will be remembered as a momentous victory for both the United States and the people of Iraq.

These quotes from both Iraqi and American officials crystalize the meaning of this achievement:

“This day is a great day in the history of the Iraqi people,” Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta said.

Maj. Gen. David Perkins, a U.S. military spokesman, noted the significance of turning over the former Republican Palace.

“The palace was handed back to the Iraqi people, significant as symbol of the head of the government and a sign for increased sovereignty,” he said at a news conference with Atta.

Perkins went on to describe exactly what this hand over means on the ground:

“We will continue to be there to provide some technical capacity, to provide some mentoring, but you will see less and less American forces and more and more Iraqi forces — and they will have the majority of the responsibility for making those key decisions which determine the security of the capital.”

Of course none of this would have ever been possible without the decision of President Bush to implement the surge and the brilliance of General David Petraeus in carrying it out.

Here’s to our soldiers, President Bush, the Iraqi people, and person of the year General David Petraeus.

Thanks to your help The College Politico has been more successful than I could have imagined. It has garnered over 27,000 page views and has been linked at sites like Newsbusters.org, Hotair.com, Freerepublic.com, Stoptheaclu.com, and Conservativegrapevine.com.

It’s been a good year!

God Bless you and here’s to 2009!