About the Murthy vs Missouri decision...

Regarding Murthy v. Missouri: the Supreme Court decision yesterday about government coercing social media companies to censor users' activity based on political content.  SCOTUS decided that the plaintiffs had no standing and dismissed the lawsuit.This seems like a colossal victory for the government and social media companies.  HOWEVER...The case was *not* dismissed....

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A federal judge just turned Twitter and Facebook into public utilities

In what might be the most hilarious case of unintended consequences in recent memory, today Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that President Donald Trump was wrong to have blocked users from his Twitter feed... which inadvertently has officially designated Twitter (and by extension Facebook and...

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The premiere of SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRES!

If you were to timewarp to some day many decades hence (I hope, gulp!) and find me about to depart this moral realm for the Great Beyond, and of all the questions you could ask me the one thing you would want to know is "What were your favorite websites of all time?"... Even then, one of the top three would be WWWF Grudge Match: that hilarious page from the earliest days...

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Chronicle of a manic-depressive episode

I'm a writer.  It's incumbent to my nature to put down my thoughts and observations, either for personal review later on or for appreciation by others so that they may come away from the time they have just spent with a little understanding and enlightenment.  At least, that is what I try to gain from anything from others that I take the time to read.  Writing is how I contribute to the larger world, and I have to be honest about what...

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The Knight Shift has an official Facebook page!

At long last, this blog has a bona-fide presence on Facebook!  It's been up for awhile now but I wanted to make some posts on it to sorta "furnish the place" before going public with it Anyhoo, the URL thingy is facebook.com/theknightshiftblog (pretty clever, huh?).  The Facebook site's primary function will be to share posts that I make here on the blog. ...

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Tired of negative political ads? So am I (and I'm gonna do something about it...)

Four years ago I made a solemn vow to myself, and I have kept to it. Not only that but my conscience has rested much better because of it...I pledged to not vote for any candidate for public office who runs even a single negative campaign ad against an opponent.I'm telling y'all right now that the ballot I cast in 2008 had a lot of wide open empty spaces. But the candidates...

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Betty White to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE on May 8th

Read all about it here.If you joined one of the many Facebook groups that have sprung up to get this to happen in the past month, give yourself a pat on the back.Maybe this is what it takes to get something done in the world today: just start up a Facebook group, like "Let's See if this African Dung Beetle can get more fans than Glenn Beck!"(For the record, I've not once listened to Glenn Beck or watched him on television, and only know what he looks...

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"Chuck Norris" was Facebook master password

And that's just for starters, dear readers! The Rumpus.net has an interview with a Facebook employee (whose identity is withheld to safeguard continued employment) about the real state of privacy on the popular social site. Bottom line: if you write something on Facebook, it's always gonna be there for Facebook employees to find (and even though the company has a policy...

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Burglar caught after logging into Facebook at victim's house

No wonder it's often called "Crackbook": some folks are addicted to it! Consider one Jonathan G. Parker, age 19, of Fort Loudoun, Pennsylvania. Police in the town responded to a call from a home on August 28th in which the resident reported a breaking and entering, and the theft of two diamond rings valued at more than $3,500.The cops didn't have far to look for a suspect, however: Parker used the victim's computer to log into his Facebook account...

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Southeastern Conference bans social media at sports events

"No Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or TwitPic!" That's the dictate being sent to sports fans and students of Southeastern Conference member schools if they want to attend athletic events. Under its newly adopted media policy, the SEC has informed its schools that "Ticketed fans can't produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture,...

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Gun-loving teacher's Facebook photo gets her suspended by Stasi-ish school officials

Betsy Ramsdale of Wisconsin apparently likes guns. Nothing wrong with that. And she likes them so much that she posted a picture of herself aiming a rifle on her Facebook page. Nothing wrong with that either: it's her own account, she gets to do with it on her own time whatever she likes and if Facebook doesn't think it violates the terms of service, nobody else should...

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New Facebook group: "I'm NOT Voting For ANY Candidate Who Runs A Negative Ad!"

This morning I started a new group on Facebook. It's called: "I'm NOT Voting For ANY Candidate Who Runs A Negative Ad!"It's exactly what it sounds like: a group for people who are sick and tired of negative campaign commercials from political candidates.The genesis for it came this morning, as I watched a seemingly non-stop torrent of commercials from this state's gubernatorial candidates. I can't recall any of the ads having anything upbeat and...

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No love lost between Duke and UNC on Facebook

CBS Sports has an Official NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets application on Facebook and among other things it lets you rank who your favorite teams are... along with who you loathe the most.I thought the current standings were pretty funny:Right now the Tarheels of UNC-Chapel Hill are the top favorite team, followed by the Duke Blue Devils. But in the Despised category,...

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Steve Jablonsky Appreciation Group on Facebook

Right now I'm listening to the CD of Steve Jablonsky's score for the movie D-War (it was mostly marketed as Dragon Wars when it came out here in the U.S.). It's the third time that I'm playing it and admittedly it's very hard to put movie soundtrack music in context without having seen the movie itself yet. But as a standalone album, the D-War score still rocks the house!...

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Hey, I can do "quiet repose" too! And someone else comments on Ron Price

My friend Tilly Gokbudak posted a really nice comment on his blog recently, and I just had to share it here...Lastly, my friend Christopher Knight of Reidsville, NC, has a quaint photo of himself visiting Natural Bridge near Lexington, Va. I was shocked by the stunning simplicity of this photo because Knight became a virtual overnight household name in the Triad for his great...

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"NOT MY DAUGHTER ..." Molly Weasley group on Facebook

It's the most memorable line of 2007 ... and it wasn't spoken in a single film or television show.You know what I'm talking about if you've read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's the five words that Molly Weasley screams out just before going full-tilt wacko in the final battle. The five words that are going to absolutely rock the house when the movie version comes...

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So now I've joined the mob on Facebook ...

Yegads, that place is even creepier than Myspace! Don't know how much time I'll ever spend on there but if you can find me on there, give me a holl...

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