SO META: Here Are the Mugshots of the Guys Who Allegedly Run Mugshots.com (And Why They Were Booked)
Posted: May 19, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice | Tags: Addis Ababa, Backpage, California, Crime, James Larkin, Michael Lacey, Money laundering, Prostitution, United States Department of Justice, Xavier Becerra Leave a commentThe AG’s statement claims that Mugshots.com owners got $64,000 from about 175 people with billing addressed in the state. That’s over a three-year period. Of course, that falls way, way short of how much they raked nationwide: The four got over $2 million in “de-publishing” fees from 5,703 people.
Alberto Luperon reports: The alleged owners of Mugshots.com have been charged and arrested. These four men–Sahar Sarid, Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie, Thomas Keesee, and David Usdan–only removed a person’s mugshot from the site if this individual paid a “de-publishing” fee, according to the California Attorney General on Wednesday. That’s apparently considered extortion. On top of that, they also face charges for money laundering, and identity theft.
“This pay-for-removal scheme attempts to profit off of someone else’s humiliation.”
If you read a lot of articles about crime, then you’re probably already familiar with the site (which is still up as of Friday afternoon). They take mugshots, slap the url multiple times on the image, and post it on the site alongside an excerpt from a news outlet that covered the person’s arrest.
“Those who can’t afford to pay into this scheme to have their information removed pay the price when they look for a job, housing, or try to build relationships with others. This is exploitation, plain and simple.”
— Attorney General Xavier Becerra
According to the AG’s office, the owners would only remove the mugshots if the person paid a fee, even if the charges were dismissed or if the suspect was only arrested because of “mistaken identity or law enforcement error.”
You can read the affidavit here.
According to the complaint, a man identified as Jesse T. tried to have his mugshot removed. A friend had reached out to him, concerned he might be prison. T. discovered that his arrest information from Sept. 2, 2013 was posted on the site. It had his full name, address, gender, and the charge he was arrested for. He went to the link to get rid of the mugshot–unpublisharrest.com–but they demanded a $399 fee. He got in touch with the 800 number listed on the site, and when the man on the phone told him he needed to pay the fee, T. said that was illegal.
[Read the full story here, at Law & Crime]
“The man laughed and hung up,” the affidavit said. The man hung up again when T. tried calling back to say he had proof clearing him of the charges. T. tried calling again three times on July 23, 2016. It went to a recording every time. After that, he got an unlisted call on his home phone, and he turned on a recorder before answering, the affidavit said. T. played the following message for investigators [sic, as written in the affidavit; his name is alternately spelled “Jesse” and “Jessie” in the document]:
Jessie T.: Hello
Unknown Male: -this third time tell you fucking bitch we’ll never answer your calls again you’ve been permanently published faggot bitch.
Jessie T.: Hey I’d like my stuff removed.
Call ended.
Records cited by the affidavit showed that T. was only detained by cops, but his case was dropped due to lack of evidence. Even so, the damage was done. The incident was treated as “detention only.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Dead Parrot Flaccid Penis Caper: ‘It’s Garry Shandling’s Show’ Writer Janis Hirsch
Posted: October 18, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: California, comedy, Comedy writer, Garry Shandling, harassment, Janis Hirsch, Los Angeles, Penis, Showtime, Showtime (TV channel), The Hollywood Reporter Leave a commentComedy Writer Reveals Lurid Details of Harassment on Set — and Why It Cost Her a Job.
Janis Hirsch writes: In 1986, after only three or four years in Los Angeles, Garry Shandling called to offer me a job on his new show. I don’t remember how I knew Garry well enough for him to call me, but whenever I’d run into him at Hugo’s, we’d share a laugh or two, and once he asked me if I could help him find a snake man. Even though I lived in a snake-free condo, I found him one. And not to brag, but this was before Google.
Anyway, he offered me a job on Showtime’s It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, and even though all I knew was the title, that was enough for me. It started out as a lot of fun. A bunch of cool, smart guys and me working on a show where Garry didn’t just break the fourth wall but rode around behind it in a golf cart.
Once we got on the air, we were golden. I was, at any rate; I wrote two of first six episodes, both of which got a nice write-up in the L.A. Times, both of which said nice things about me, the writer, the only woman on staff. What could possibly go wrong?
The guys started excluding me from meetings: “Oh, we couldn’t find you”…at my desk. Then they started excluding me from the table, instead assigning me “the slit scenes” to write. Even though these scenes were the ones that featured the only female castmember, it didn’t occur to me exactly what slit they were referring to until one day in the ladies room.
[Read the full story here, at Hollywood Reporter]
My mantra became, “I won’t cry until I get home.” It was amended to “I won’t cry until I get into the parking lot,” which became “I won’t cry until I get into the stairwell,” which morphed into “Fuck, I’m crying.’
One day, I was sitting in Garry’s office across the desk from him. A few of the writers and one of the actors were in the room, too. I felt a tap on my shoulder, I turned, and there was that actor’s flaccid penis draped on it like a pirate’s dead parrot. Riotous laughter ensued from all but one of us. Read the rest of this entry »
Jesus Campos, Security Guard Who Confronted Las Vegas Gunman Stephen Paddock, Vanishes
Posted: October 17, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere | Tags: ABC News, Associated Press, California, CNN, Fire, Hollywood, Jesus Campos, LAS VEGAS, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Sonoma County, Stephen Paddock Leave a commentJesus Campos was set for appearances on Fox News, ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC when he seemingly disappeared.
The Times on Monday reported that Jesus Campos has apparently vanished from the public eye after encountering shooter Stephen Paddock earlier this month.
The president of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America union said that it had been four days since he had seen Campos.
“We have had no contact with him,” Dave Hickey said. “Clearly, somebody knows where he is.”
Hickey said he was with Campos last Thursday, helping coordinate a series of television interviews the guard was slated to give about the rampage.
Campos was scheduled to appear on Fox News’s “Hannity,” and he was also set for appearances on ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC.
Hickey said that Campos was staying in a suite in a Las Vegas hotel, only to apparently depart while he was attending a meeting.
The union president added that after his meeting with MGM representatives ended last Thursday afternoon, Campos was no longer present in a nearby room. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Nancy Pelosi Politicizing Faith at Rally in California
Posted: April 10, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, U.S. News | Tags: California, Democrats, DNC, Free Beacon, Nancy Pelosi, news, Protest, video 1 Comment
[VIDEO] This Self-Taught Programmer Is Bringing Transparency to California Politics
Posted: March 28, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Science & Technology, Think Tank | Tags: California, Democratic Party, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Lakers, Reason (magazine), Reason.tv, Rob Pyers, Twitter, West Hollywood Leave a comment
Rob Pyers was a laid-off grocery bagger who learned to code on YouTube. Now the website he runs, the California Target Book, is shining a light on spending by politicians, their campaigns, and outside groups.
Rob Pyers didn’t set out to bring transparency to establishment politics. In fact, he didn’t even have any programming experience before he built the electronic systems for the California Target Book, a go-to resource for political transparency in the state. He initially came to Los Angeles with aspirations of becoming a screenwriter, but ended up stuck in his day job, bagging groceries. Then Walgreen’s laid him off, and he needed something else to do.
After joining the Target Book, Pyers taught himself how to code, mostly by watching YouTube videos. Two years later, the 41-year-old has built its systems from the ground up, and now runs the website from his cramped West Hollywood one-bedroom. He is often the first to publicize major donations and new candidates, making his Twitter feed invaluable to campaign consultants and journalists alike.
Pyers, who describes himself as “95 lbs of concentrated tech geek,” has become an expert on pulling data from hundreds of voter databases, election filings, and campaign finance disclosures. He’s done all this despite the fact that the state’s main resource for campaign information is an inaccessible hodgepodge of ZIP archives and tables that even the current Secretary of State has called a “Frankenstein monster of outdated code.”
“California’s Cal-Access website is notorious for being just sort of an ungodly, byzantine mess,” says Pyers. “If you have no idea what you’re doing, it’s almost impossible to get any useful information out of.”
The state is currently working on a multi-million dollar upgrade to the site, with an expected rollout in 2019. But while the government builds its new system, the Target Book has already proven its worth. During one 2016 Congressional race, the L.A. Times used Pyers’ data to reveal that candidate Isadore Hall may have misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign cash. Read the rest of this entry »
Bad for the Glass: No Roman Polanski Deal, But Sides Have Talked
Posted: March 20, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, France, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Academy Awards, California, Harland Braun, Lancaster, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County District Attorney, Plea, Roman Polanski Leave a commentThe Gunson testimony has been at the heart of attempts to resolve the case. Taken on a provisional basis when it appeared Gunson’s life might be in danger from illness, it touches on a supposedly broken promise by the late Judge Laurence Rittenband to limit Polanski’s sentence for a 1977 statutory rape conviction to time he served during a prison psychiatric evaluation. Only a month ago, Braun insisted that opening the sealed testimony was among his principal aims.
“I am only interested in obtaining the Gunson transcript and obtaining a ruling on whether a California court will respect the ruling of the Polish Court,” he wrote in a February 21 email, which referred both to the testimony and to a determination in a Polish extradition hearing that Polanski should remain free.
That Braun, at least for purposes of the Monday hearing, was pushing his Gunson demand to the side lent credence to what my colleague Dominic Patten has spotted: Rumors that Polanski’s lawyer and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, though still at loggerheads in court, have been talking. Read the rest of this entry »
Spooked by Spike in Cyber Extortion, Businesses are Stockpiling Bitcoin for Payoffs
Posted: February 17, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Economics | Tags: Affiliate marketing, Andrei Soldatov, California, Federal Security Service, Kaspersky Lab, Massachusetts, Mountain View, Ransomware, RUSSIA, Russian language, Waltham Leave a commentPaying ransom just invites the next attack.
Tim Johnson reports: U.S. corporations that have long resisted bending to the demands of computer hackers who take their networks hostage are increasingly stockpiling bitcoin, the digital currency, so that they can quickly meet ransom demands rather than lose valuable corporate data.
The companies are responding to cybersecurity experts who recently have changed their advice on how to deal with the growing problem of extortionists taking control of the computers.
“It’s a moral dilemma. If you pay, you are helping the bad guys,” said Paula Long, chief executive of DataGravity, a Nashua, New Hampshire, company that helps clients secure corporate data. But, she added, “You can’t go to the moral high ground and put your company at risk.”
“A lot of companies are doing that as part of their incident response planning,” said Chris Pogue, chief information security officer at Nuix, a company that provides information management technologies. “They are setting up bitcoin wallets.”
Pogue said he believed thousands of U.S. companies had prepared strategies for dealing with hacker extortion demands, and numerous law firms have stepped in to facilitate negotiations with hackers, many of whom operate from the other side of the globe.
Symantec, a Mountain View, California, company that makes security and storage software, estimates that ransom demands to companies average between $10,000 and $75,000 for hackers to provide keys to decrypt frozen networks. Individuals whose computers get hit pay as little as $100 to $300 to unlock their encrypted files.
Companies that analyze cyber threats say the use of ransomware has exploded, and payments have soared. Recorded Future, a Somerville, Massachusetts, threat intelligence firm, says ransom payments skyrocketed 4,000 percent last year, reaching $1 billion. Another firm, Kaspersky Lab, estimates that a new business is attacked with ransomware every 40 seconds.
[Read the full story here, at The Star-Telegram]
“If you’re hit by ransomware today, you have only two options: You either pay the criminals or you lose your data,” said Raj Samani, chief technical officer at Intel Security for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “We underestimated the scale of the issue.”
Hackers often send out email with tainted hyperlinks to broad targets, say, an entire company. All it takes is one computer user in a company to click on the infected link to allow hackers to get a foothold in the broader network, leading to hostile encryption.
“At least one employee will click on anything,” said Robert Gibbons, chief technology officer at Datto, a Connecticut company that offers digital disaster recovery services. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Santa Monica Evicts Airbnb: The War on Homesharing
Posted: February 8, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: A Royal Affair, Adam Bierman, Airbnb, California, Free market, Homesharing, Instagram, Los Angeles, Reason (magazine), Reason.tv, Santa Monica, Santa Monica Pier, video Leave a comment
The popular “homesharing” service made it affordable to book a beachfront property in Santa Monica. Then the city intervened.
With Trump Presidency, Will Mickey Mouse Clock Move Closer to Midnight?
Posted: January 26, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: Animation, Beverly Hills, Bulletin of the Disney Scientists, California, Cartoons, CBS News, Disney, Donald Duck, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Parody, satire, singularity, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Walt Disney Leave a commentThe 12 o’clock hour represents human civilization’s ultimate animated transhuman Mickey Mouse singularity.
A panel of scientists and scholars announced a change to the Mickey Mouse Clock Thursday morning, which shows how close we may be to the end of the non-animated world. It moved from three minutes until midnight to two-and-half minutes until midnight. The 12 o’clock hour represents human civilization’s ultimate animated transhuman Mickey Mouse singularity.
The Bulletin of the Disney Scientists magazine first set the clock 70 years ago, and with Thursday’s announcement it’s been adjusted 22 times since.
The Mickey Mouse Clock isn’t a physical clock so much as it is an attempt to express how close a panel of noted experts feels we are to animating the planet, reports CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave. Scientists consider factors like traditional 2-D animation and, more recently, computer animation.
“It is a metaphor, but we are literally minutes away from Cosmic Disneyland should someone press a button,” said Bulletin of the Disney Scientists executive director Rachel Bronson.
In a statement explaining today’s decision, the group said:
“World leaders have failed to come to grips with humanity’s most entertaining and beloved animated cartoon character. Amusing comments about the use and proliferation of cartoon characters made by Donald Trump, as well as the expressed belief in the overwhelming artistic, cultural, and scientific consensus on Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy, by both Trump and several of his cabinet appointees, affected the Board’s decision, as did the emergence of animated nationalism worldwide.”
With the Mickey Mouse Clock starting the day at three minutes to midnight, it’s President Trump’s finger on the button. Prior to taking office, he called for the U.S. to “strengthen and expand its cartoon capability.”
“Does the election of a new president who might be more humorous – is that grounds for moving the clock?” Van Cleave asked.
“Those are the issues that the science and security board take into consideration. We very rarely make a decision based on an individual,” Bronson said.
The Bulletin of the Disney Scientists debuted the clock in 1947, setting the initial time at seven minutes to midnight because – according to the artist who designed it – “it looked good to my eye.”
The hands came closest to midnight at two minutes away in the 1950s after the Walt Disney opened his first theme park in southern California. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] 600 Days & Counting: US Air Force’s Unmanned Space Plane, X-37B, on Verge of Breaking Record for Longest Time in Space
Posted: January 16, 2017 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation | Tags: Boeing X-37, California, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, El Segundo, Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, Geocentric orbit, Kennedy Space Center, Orbiter Processing Facility, United States Air Force, USA-240, Vandenberg Air Force Base Leave a comment

In a testing procedure, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle taxis on the flightline March 30, 2010, at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, FLa. (Courtesy photo)
[VIDEO] JetPacks Are Finally Real
Posted: December 13, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Robotics, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation | Tags: Apple Inc, California, Elon Musk, Futurism, Jetpack, media, news, video Leave a comment
It can reach an altitude of over 6,500 feet and travel at over 65 miles per hour.
Rocket Men: Why Tech’s Biggest Billionaires Want their Place in Space
Posted: December 5, 2016 Filed under: Robotics, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation | Tags: Artificial Intelligence, California, Earth, Elon Musk, Falcon 9, Federal Communications Commission, Interplanetary spaceflight, NASA, SpaceX, Stephen Hawking Leave a commentForget gilded mansions and super yachts. Among the tech elite, space exploration is now the ultimate status symbol.
On board was a $200m, 12,000lb communications satellite – part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org project to deliver broadband access to sub-Saharan Africa.
Zuckerberg wrote, with a note of bitterness, on his Facebook page that he was “deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite”. SpaceX founder Elon Musk told CNN it was the “most difficult and complex failure” the 14-year-old company had ever experienced.
It was also the second dramatic explosion in nine months for SpaceX, following a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” of a booster rocket as it attempted to land after a successful mission to the International Space Station.
Later that day, Nasa’s official Twitter account responded: “Today’s @SpaceX incident – while not a Nasa launch – reminds us that spaceflight is challenging.”
Yet despite those challenges, a small band of billionaire technocrats have spent the past few years investing hundreds of millions of dollars into space ventures. Forget gilded mansions and super yachts; among the tech elite, space exploration is the ultimate status symbol.
Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, is arguably the most visible billionaire in the new space race. The apparent inspiration for Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark character in Iron Man, Musk has become a god-like figure for engineers, making his fortune at PayPal and then as CEO of luxury electric car firm Tesla and clean energy company Solar City. Yet it is his galactic ambitions, insiders say, that really motivate him. “His passion is settling Mars,” says one.
[Read the full story here, at The Guardian]
SpaceX has completed 32 successful launches since 2006, delivered cargo to the International Space Station and secured more than $10bn in contracts with Nasa and other clients. Musk has much grander ambitions, though, saying he plans to create a “plan B” for humanity in case Earth ultimately fails. He once famously joked that he hoped to die on Mars – just not on impact. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Video Restored (Was PragerU Gets Censored Again By YouTube)
Posted: December 5, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Alt-right, Associated Press, California, Donald Trump, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hate crime, Jews, Muslim, November 2015 Paris attacks, San Bernardino, September 11 attacks Leave a commentHow do devout Muslims born in the West feel about Jews? How do they feel about Western values in general? Kasim Hafeez, who was raised a devout Muslim in England, explains.
Source: PragerU
YouTube censors video of pro-Israel Muslim as ‘hate speech’
A petition to restore the video promptly gathered over 105,000 signatures in less than a day. Late Monday evening, Youtube re-uploaded the video in “Restricted Mode,” partially restoring it. This mode marks the video as explicit content, similar to pornography, and effectively makes the video impossible to view on public internet connections at libraries and schools.
Prager is a conservative, nonprofit educational organization that produces short, educational videos. This isn’t the first time Youtube has targeted the group. YouTube put 21 of Prager University’s videos on “restricted mode” in October and currently still lists 18 PragerU videos under that mode…(read more)
Source: Daily Caller Foundation – Bizpac Review
Kanye West Hospitalized in Los Angeles
Posted: November 21, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Beyonce, California, Cleveland, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Los Angeles, MTV Video Music Award, Profanity, Roc Nation, Sacramento, Saint Pablo Tour, Twitter Leave a commentBefore West canceled the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour, he made a number of statements on stage and in a new interview that has left his fans both puzzled and outraged.
The cause and his condition were not immediately clear after the 1:20 p.m. incident.
Further details were not immediately available. A rep for the star did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Before West canceled the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour, he made a number of statements on stage and in a new interview that has left his fans both puzzled and outraged.
On Monday morning, the concert promoter Live Nation announced that West was canceling the remaining 21 shows of his tour and that all tickets would be refunded.
[Read the full story here, at ABC News]
The news came a day after he unexpectedly canceled his Los Angeles concert just hours before it was a scheduled to begin and two days after he walked off the stage 30 minutes into a concert in Sacramento.
West’s rep pointed to the statement from Live Nation when asked for comment.
- Kanye West Cancels Rest of Saint Pablo Tour Dates
- Kanye West Cancels LA Concert Day After Politically Charged Rant
- Kanye West Goes on Political Rant During Concert, Says ‘I Would Have Voted on Trump’
But the 39-year-old hip hop artist said plenty before that on a variety of subjects before the cancellation of his tour. Here now is Kanye West in his own words.
Nov. 20
Surface magazine releases its interview with West conducted in between stops on the Canada leg of his Saint Pablo Tour. In the 30-minute videotaped interview, West touches on a number of subjects from how he does business to his artistic abilities to his views on the future of communication. Here are some highlights:
“I think business has to be stupider. I want to do really straightforward, stupid business — just talk to me like a 4-year-old. And I refuse to negotiate. I do not negotiate. I can collaborate. But I’m an artist, so as soon as you negotiate, you’re being compromised.” Read the rest of this entry »
Google’s New Home Helper Flexes Powerful AI Muscles
Posted: November 6, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Amazon Echo, Bedroom, Brian Lam, California, CBS This Morning, Cloud computing, CNN, The New York Times, The Times, Twitter Leave a commentTech’s biggest companies are all trying to show you they have the most useful virtual assistant.
Tom Simonite writes: Google didn’t change much when it ripped off Amazon’s idea of making a compact home speaker with a voice-activated assistant inside.
Just like Amazon’s Echo, Google Home, released today, has microphones tuned to hear from across the room. Both devices can be asked to cue up music on Spotify and other services, set alarms and timers, and pose factual queries. And both companies say their devices will gain powers as other companies integrate their services, letting you do things like order takeout from your couch.
But Google has a crucial advantage in the race to prove out that idea. It’s been working on technology that answers people’s questions for a long time, and has invested more heavily in machine learning than its rivals.
Early reviews suggest that advantage is already apparent. People who compared Echo, and its Alexa assistant, with Google Home found the latter to be significantly better at understanding language and answering questions. Read the rest of this entry »
[BOOKS] Beach Boys Icon Brian Wilson on Faith, Forgiveness and His New Memoir
Posted: October 8, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Reading Room | Tags: Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, California, California Girls, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Good Vibrations, James S. Hirsch, Los Angeles County, Love & Mercy (film), Mike Love, Pet Sounds, Spahn Ranch, The Beach Boys Leave a commentOn Oct. 11, Random House Canada will release I Am Brian Wilson, written with Ben Greenman. It’s Wilson’s first real memoir, having disowned a title from 1991 completed while he was still under the “care” of psychotherapist Eugene Landy. Landy, who helped Wilson recover from the addictions he struggled with in the 1970s – but later kept him in a fog for several years while limiting his contact with family and friends and charging him up to $35,000 a month – is a major character in this edition.
So is Wilson’s wife, Melinda, whom he met at a car dealership in the 1980s, and who worked with his family to emancipate him.
[Read the full review here, at The Globe and Mail]
And so is his father, who pushed him toward a musical career but was physically and emotionally abusive. Wilson says he forgives his dad, who died in 1973, but it will take “a year and a half” to forgive Landy. “Actually, I’ve already forgiven him,” he says during an interview in his hotel suite in New York. “He wasn’t all that nice to me, but he taught me how to eat right, how to exercise, how to sleep at night.”
“When I sit at a piano, I feel God this far above my head. And I can feel his presence – makes my hands glide over the keys, and it helps me write a song.”
“It’s a feeling that you can’t deny. Something you can really feel. You just know there’s somebody, a higher power above me, that helps me out when I’m scared.”
— Brian Wilson
It’s useful, if somewhat strange, to review Wilson’s narrative in the light of 2016.
He is still beloved, but the boomer market is shrinking, and millennial fans like myself constitute a niche. For a lot of listeners, the Beach Boys stand for white-dad rock, which stands for a worldview we’re in the necessary process of
dismantling. The 1960s mainstream was tailored to a limited range of people, with a limited range of experiences. This also means that Brian Wilson’s story was forged at a time when empathy was less considerate of the personhood of people with mental illness. The flip side of stigma is fetishization.
“What made it worse, at least early on was that the voices that were in my head trying to do away with me were in a crowded space. They were in there with other voices that were trying to make something beautiful. Voices were the problem, but also the answer. The answer was in harmony.”
Wilson started the Pendletones, soon to become the Beach Boys, with his brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine, scoring a long string of hits in the early 1960s – “it’s been written about so many times that it’s almost like a story that someone else is telling me instead of a piece of my own life,” Wilson writes. (Love, who has elsewhere been pegged as the villain of that story, has his own memoir out this year.) In late-1964, Wilson had a breakdown on a flight to Houston, and decided to stop touring, devoting himself instead to songwriting.
That was the year he first tried LSD, and shortly thereafter he started hearing voices, which would continue for the rest of his life. He’d hear his father and early manager, Murry. He’d hear Phil Spector, whose production of Be My Baby had changed Wilson’s life. And he would hear other, stranger and more menacing voices. “I said, ‘What happened?!’ I took this stupid drug, and that drug made me scared,” he says today. “But it made me write better music. It made me write more sensitive music. I was going to make an album called Sensitive Music for Sensitive People. Isn’t that a great title?”
Pet Sounds was released in 1966, to famously lukewarm sales, followed by less celebrated but still canonical albums such as Wild Honey, Friends, and Surf’s Up. But Wilson began to struggle with drugs, alcohol and overeating, gaining more than 100 pounds and retiring to his bed, leaving his first wife, Marilyn, to take care of their two daughters. Desperate, she called Landy, a “therapist to the stars” whose 24-hour methods, unbeknownst to her, would involve screaming at Wilson while wresting control of his creative output, fortune, and cognition. “If you help a person to get better by erasing that person, what kind of job have you done?” Wilson writes. “I don’t know for sure, but he really did a job on me.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] College History Professor Pulls Down 9/11 ‘Never Forget’ Posters
Posted: September 9, 2016 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: 9-11, California, California Legislative Analyst's Office, Campus, Community college, Left Wing, poster, Progressive, Saddleback College, September 11 attacks, Southern California, Twin Towers 1 Comment
A history professor a Californian community college was caught on video ripping down “Never Forget” 9/11 memorial posters.

One of the World Trade Center’s twin towers collapses after it was struck by a commerical airliner in a suspected terrorist attack September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Wells Fargo Fires 5,300 for Creating Millions of Bonus-Padding Phony ‘Ghost’ Accounts
Posted: September 8, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Economics, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Bank, California, CNNMoney, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Credit card, Customer, Deposit account, Employment, Richard Cordray, Wells Fargo 1 Comment‘Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses.’
Matt Egan reports: Wells Fargo said on Thursday it fired 5,300 employees for creating ghost accounts over the past five years without the knowledge of customers. Regulators allege millions of these bank and credit card accounts were opened.
“Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn’t even sign up for.”
That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.
On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.
“The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized.”
The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.
“Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their knowledge or consent, the CFPB said the analysis found.”
“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.
Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that it had fired 5,300 employees related to the shady behavior. Employees went to far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said.
“Many customers who had unauthorized credit cards opened in their names were hit by annual fees, interest charges and other fees.”
The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized, according to the CFPB. Read the rest of this entry »
Apple Rolls Out Swimproof ‘Apple Watch Series 2’ with White Ceramic Option, Nike+ Version, GPS, More
Posted: September 7, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Apple Inc, Apple Watch, Battery (electricity), Byte Magazine, California, Cupertino, Global Positioning System, Hermès, iPhone, iPhone 6, Smartwatch 1 CommentApple CFO Jeff Williams has unveiled the next generation of Apple Watch on stage at its big event today.
Apple CFO Jeff Williams has unveiled the next generation of Apple Watch on stage at its big event today.
The new model is called Apple Watch Series 2. Adding to the splash proof feature of the original model, the new Apple Watch is actually swim proof. Apple Watch Series 2 adds swim tracking to the Workouts app including pool swimming and open water swimming. The Apple Watch speaker is the only unsealed part of the casing and it intelligently ejects water after a workout.
[For full coverage check back with 9to5Mac‘s ongoing announcements]
Apple Watch Series 2 features a new S2 chip with a faster dual-core processor and a new GPU with 2x graphics performance. The new display is also 2x brighter at 1000 nits, the brightest for any Apple display.
Built-in GPS is also included for outdoor running and walking without iPhone. Apple Watch Series 2 improves the pace and distant tracking and displays routes on the iPhone even when you don’t bring it along.
Apple Watch Series 2 adds a new ceramic (white) build option in addition to aluminum and stainless steel. Hermès is also introducing two new bands with Series 2.
Apple Watch Series 2 is also available in a new Nike+ version with a special version of the Sports band paired with the aluminum model watch. Nike+ Apple Watch is offered in four color options. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] IT’S HUGE! Giant Black Slug!
Posted: August 31, 2016 Filed under: Global, Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Animals, Aplysia vaccaria, Aplysiomorpha, Black Sea, Black Sea Hare, California, Pacific Ocean, Sea Slug, Slugs, Tide pool, video 1 Comment
Behold the super-slimy awesomeness that is the Black Sea Hare (Aplysia vaccaria), the world’s largest species of sea slug, weighing up to 30 lbs and measuring over 3 feet long. Black Sea Hares come to shore to lay their eggs and are apparently even slimier to the touch than they look.
Watch as Coyote Peterson of the Brave Wilderness Channel and tide pool expert Aron Sanchez encounter a spectacular specimen of this colossal gastropod mollusk in a tide pools off the coast of the Pacific Ocean in San Pedro, CA Read the rest of this entry »
Ex Top Cop: We Need a New Model of Policing
Posted: August 20, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: African American, Apple Valley, Associated Press, Baltimore Police Department, Baton Rouge, California, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Louisiana, Minnesota, Myrtle Beach, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Saint Paul, South Carolina, University of Chicago 1 Comment
The horrific deaths of Philando Castillo in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, give us an updated and up-close glimpse of police encounters gone bad—but they are rooted in decades of problematic policing in America. “Historically in this country, the police have never really been the friends of the black community,” says Neill Franklin, a former officer with the Baltimore Police Department and current executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P).
Franklin talked with Reason TV Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie at this year’s Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Nevada, pointing out that slavery may have ended officially in the late 1800s, but a lot of policing was born out of that era and the one that followed, when police deliberately enforced laws in ways that targeted black citizens. Even today, police are tasked with enforcing laws—from driving without a license to missing a court date—that tend to target poor communities and communities of color.
“You know a $250 fine doesn’t mean much to people who have money,” says Franklin. “But when you enforce these policies in poor communities, a hundred dollar fine can devastate a family.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Dick Van Dyke and the Vantastix surprise a crowd at Denny’s in Santa Monica
Posted: August 17, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: California, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Denny's, Dick Van Dyke, Dick Van Dyke and The Vantastix, Facebook, Good Day L.A., Mary Poppins (40th Anniversary Edition) Leave a comment
Dick Van Dyke and his quartet The Vantastix do a little singing after having breakfast at Denny’s. The group just finished a visit to Good Day LA to promote their upcoming show in Cerritos, Dick’s book “Keep Moving”, and their album “Put On A Happy Face”.
Powerful NSA Hacking Tools Have Been Revealed Online: ‘Keys to the Kingdom’
Posted: August 16, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Science & Technology, Self Defense, War Room | Tags: Apple Inc, Asunción, Berkeley, California, Cloud computing, Hack, Hacker, Internet, Internet service provider, NSA, The Washington Post, University of California 1 CommentStrings of code were released to the Internet by a group calling themselves ‘the Shadow Brokers’. They claim the code is a tool that can be used to hack into any computer.
The cache mysteriously surfaced over the weekend and appears to be legitimate.
Ellen Nakashima reports: Some of the most powerful espionage tools created by the National Security Agency’s elite group of hackers have been revealed in recent days, a development that could pose severe consequences for the spy agency’s operations and the security of government and corporate computers.
“Faking this information would be monumentally difficult, there is just such a sheer volume of meaningful stuff. Much of this code should never leave the NSA.”
— Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California at Berkeley
A cache of hacking tools with code names such as Epicbanana, Buzzdirection and Egregiousblunder appeared mysteriously online over the weekend, setting the security world abuzz with speculation over whether the material was legitimate.
The file appeared to be real, according to former NSA personnel who worked in the agency’s hacking division, known as Tailored Access Operations (TAO).
[Read the full story here, at The Washington Post]
“Without a doubt, they’re the keys to the kingdom,” said one former TAO employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal operations. “The stuff you’re talking about would undermine the security of a lot of major government and corporate networks both here and abroad.”
Said a second former TAO hacker who saw the file: “From what I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that it was legitimate.”

“Without a doubt, they’re the keys to the kingdom. The stuff you’re talking about would undermine the security of a lot of major government and corporate networks both here and abroad.”
Strings of code were released to the Internet by a group calling themselves “the Shadow Brokers”. They claim the code is a tool that can be used to hack into any computer.
The file contained 300 megabytes of information, including several “exploits,” or tools for taking control of firewalls in order to control a network, and a number of implants that might, for instance, exfiltrate or modify information.
The exploits are not run-of-the-mill tools to target everyday individuals. They are expensive software used to take over firewalls, such as Cisco and Fortinet, that are used “in the largest and most critical commercial, educational and government agencies around the world,” said Blake Darche, another former TAO operator and now head of security research at Area 1 Security.
The software apparently dates back to 2013 and appears to have been taken then, experts said, citing file creation dates, among other things.
“The tools were posted by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers using file-sharing sites such as BitTorrent and DropBox.”
“What’s clear is that these are highly sophisticated and authentic hacking tools,” said Oren Falkowitz, chief executive of Area 1 Security and another former TAO employee.
Several of the exploits were pieces of computer code that took advantage of “zero-day” or previously unknown flaws or vulnerabilities in firewalls, which appear to be unfixed to this day, said one of the former hackers.
The disclosure of the file means that at least one other party — possibly another country’s spy agency — has had access to the same hacking tools used by the NSA and could deploy them against organizations that are using vulnerable routers and firewalls. It might also see what the NSA is targeting and spying on. And now that the tools are public, as long as the flaws remain unpatched, other hackers can take advantage of them, too.
“The disclosure of the file means that at least one other party — possibly another country’s spy agency — has had access to the same hacking tools used by the NSA and could deploy them against organizations that are using vulnerable routers and firewalls. It might also see what the NSA is targeting and spying on. And now that the tools are public, as long as the flaws remain unpatched, other hackers can take advantage of them, too.”
The NSA did not respond to requests for comment.
“Faking this information would be monumentally difficult, there is just such a sheer volume of meaningful stuff,” Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, said in an interview. “Much of this code should never leave the NSA.”
The tools were posted by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers using file-sharing sites such as BitTorrent and DropBox. Read the rest of this entry »
California Democrats: Let Felons Vote in Jail
Posted: June 2, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Administration of federal assistance in the United States, Berkeley, California, East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), Felony, Jail, New York City, Prison, San Francisco Chronicle Leave a commentWill AB2466 pass in the state Senate? Hint: in 2014, three state senators — more than 10 percent of the Democratic caucus — were charged with felonies. The state Democratic Party owns Sacramento, and it’s still not enough. Democratic lawmakers must look at jail and think they hit the jackpot: a captive audience of kindred spirits.
Debra J. Saunders reports: California lawmakers seem intent on making Sacramento the place where reasonable reforms, much like runaway trains, jump the tracks. In that no-speed-limit spirit Tuesday, the California Assembly voted 41-37 to allow convicted felons to vote in jail. (Yes, you read that correctly — in jail.) If Assembly Bill 2466 becomes law, the ACLU estimates that 50,000 adults will be able to vote behind bars. The state doesn’t trust these people on the streets, but they are welcome in the voting booth.
“If Assembly Bill 2466 becomes law, the ACLU estimates that 50,000 adults will be able to vote behind bars. The state doesn’t trust these people on the streets, but they are welcome in the voting booth.”
When individuals commit crimes that endanger public safety, they forfeit their civil rights upon conviction. The National Conference of State Legislatures notes that the concept of “civil death” goes back to the Greeks and Romans. In some states — Florida, Iowa — convicted felons are permanently disenfranchised. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently made news by suspending permanent disenfranchisement by temporary order.
[Read the full story here, at SFGate]
No need for that in California. In 1976, voters amended the Constitution to end the permanent disenfranchisement of felons. The California Constitution now reads: The Legislature “shall provide for the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent or imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony.”
With such clear language, you would think that a measure to allow felons to vote behind bars first would have to go before voters as a constitutional amendment. But voters get no say thanks to an unholy alliance of California politicians, California courts and the ACLU. In 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Realignment Act, which mandated that low-level felons serve their sentences not in state prisons, but in county jails or under county supervision. It was Brown’s clever way of alleviating state prison overcrowding by moving felons to largely overcrowded jails.
In the county system, “it’s not called parole any more,” explained Assemblymember Melissa Melendez, R-Murrieta (Riverside County) who, like every other Republican member, voted against AB2466. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Memorial Day Morons: Americans Clueless About Holiday and Reason For It
Posted: May 30, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, History, Mediasphere, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Arlington National Cemetery, California, Mark Dice, media, Memorial Day, news, San Diego, Veterans, video Leave a comment
Many Americans are clueless about what Memorial Day means and why it is a holiday in the United States. Many think it’s just a three day weekend and an excuse to get drunk. Media analyst Mark Dice talks with beachgoers in San Diego, California about the meaning of this important holiday.
[VIDEO] Anti-Trump Protesters Pepper Spray Children at California Rally
Posted: April 27, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Anaheim, Associated Press, California, City Council, Donald Trump, Ed Driscoll, Laguna Niguel, Los Angeles Times, Pepper spray, Protest, Rally, Republican Party (United States) Leave a comment
Supporters and opponents of Donald Trump clash at a rally in Anaheim, California on Tuesday, with pepper spray being used against each other. Police say five people, including two little girls, were pepper sprayed by a demonstrator during the heated confrontation.
At Instapundit, Ed Driscoll writes:
Note that in the tweets from San Francisco-based KCBS and ABC News that Twitchy links to, it’s ambiguous as to who was doing the pepper-spraying. Both tweets link to an AP report that requires wading past the headline and three paragraphs before being told “At one point, an opponent unleashed a hand-held pepper-spray device on the pro-Trump crowd.” If all you read were the tweets or the headlines and ledes, you’d have no idea who was doing the pepper-spraying.
Justice Department to Apple: ‘Never Mind’
Posted: March 28, 2016 Filed under: Law & Justice, Science & Technology, Terrorism, U.S. News | Tags: Apple Inc, Apple iPhone 5C, California, Federal Bureau of Investigation, IOS, iPhone, James B. Comey, San Bernardino, The Wall Street Journal, United States Department of Justice Leave a commentThe Justice Department is expected to withdraw from its legal action against Apple, as soon as today, as an outside method to bypass the locking function of a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone has proved successful, a federal law enforcement official said Monday.
[Read the full story here, at USAToday]
The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said the method brought to the FBI earlier this month by an unidentified entity allows investigators to crack the security function without erasing contents of the iPhone used by Syed Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the December mass shooting that left 14 dead.
Monday’s withdrawal would culminate six weeks of building tensions.
The foes were poised to exchange legal body blows in a court room in Riverside, Calif., last week before the Justice Department belatedly asked for — and was granted — a postponement.
“It’s not about one phone. It’s very much about the future. You have a guy in Manhattan saying I’ve got a hundred and seventy-five phones that I want to take through this process. You’ve got other cases springing up all over the place where they want phones taken through the process. So it’s not about one phone, and they know it’s not about one phone.”
— Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an interview with Time last week.
Since a federal magistrate in California in mid-February ordered the company to assist the FBI in gaining access to San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook’s seized iPhone, the legal filings and rhetoric between the world’s most valuable technology company and one of the largest crime-fighting organizations in the world had sharpened into verbal vitriol.
This month, Apple said the “Founding Fathers would be appalled” because the government’s order to unlock the iPhone was based on non-existent authority asserted by the DOJ. Read the rest of this entry »