Why the U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Internet Speed and Affordability →

Largely a consequence of monopoly providers, the sluggish service could have long-term economic consequences for American competitiveness.

Downloading a high-definition movie takes about seven seconds in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, and people pay as little as $30 a month for that connection. In Los Angeles, New York and Washington, downloading the same movie takes 1.4 minutes for people with the fastest Internet available, and they pay $300 a month for the privilege, according to The Cost of Connectivity, a report published Thursday by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

Facebook Wants You to Vote on Tuesday. Here's How It Messed With Your Feed in 2012. →

This is the age of big data and powerful algorithms that can sort people and manipulate them in many hidden ways. Using those tools, national political campaigns, building on the Obama 2012 reelection effort, are learning how to "engineer the public" without the public's knowledge, as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has warned. Consequently, there is a strong case for greater Facebook transparency when it comes to its political efforts and experiments.

Pakistan-India border ceremony goes ahead after bombing →

Horrible.

Pakistan and India held their traditional flag-lowering ceremony at their shared border crossing on Monday, just 24 hours after a suicide bombing killed 55 spectators who had come to watch the nightly event.

Earlier the Indian home ministry had said they had agreed to a Pakistani request to suspend the ritual held at the Wagah border crossing near Lahore in order to honour those killed in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan for months.

The full ceremony is something to watch. There are a number of videos on YouTube.

Iraqi Kurds join fight against Islamic State in Kobani →

Iraqi Kurdish fighters have joined the fight against Islamic State militants in Kobani, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by U.S.-led air strikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the civil war, said heavy clashes erupted in Kobani and that both sides had suffered casualties, while the U.S. military said it had launched more air raids on Islamic State over the weekend. 

Protests force out Burkina president, soldiers vie for power →

Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore resigned on Friday amid mass street protests at his attempts to extend his 27-year rule, plunging the West African nation into uncertainty as junior officers vied with top military brass for power.
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Diplomats voiced concern after military chief General Honore Traore's announcement he was taking charge as head of state appeared to be challenged by presidential guard commander Lieutenant Colonel Issaac Zida, who announced his own set of emergency measures and deployed troops on the streets.

The Most Brazen Attempt at Voter Suppression Yet →

I'd quote this whole article, but here I'll give the nut:

According to a six-month-long investigation conducted by Greg Palast for Al Jazeera, “voting officials in 27 states, almost all of them Republicans, have launched what is threatening to become a massive purge of black, Hispanic, and Asian-American voters. Already, tens of thousands have been removed from voter rolls in battleground states, and the numbers are set to climb.”

Specifically, officials have a master list of 6.9 million suspected “potential double voters.” And in Virginia, Georgia, and Washington the lists are “heavily over-weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel, and Kim,” all common to Democratic-leaning minority groups.

The process for checking those names, a computer program called Crosscheck—touted by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a vocal supporter for voter identification—is incredibly inaccurate. “The actual lists,” notes Al Jazeera America, “show that not only are middle names mismatched, and suffix discrepancies ignored, even conflicting birthdates are disregarded. Moreover, Crosscheck deliberately ignores any Social Security mismatches, in the few instances when the numbers are even collected.”

Is it a coverup? House of Cards level corruption in Ferguson and beyond →

It turns, out, though, that the distance Mike Brown fled was not 35 feet, as was stated in the press conference and cited in hundreds of articles since. Nor was it 45 feet, or 75 feet, or even 95 feet, but approximately 108 feet away from Darren Wilson’s SUV. Below, you will find photos from the day of the murder, maps, infographics, and more to confirm for you that the distance was nearly 300 percent farther away than originally claimed by Chief Belmar and subsequently quoted as fact in almost every narrative of the case.

The various police departments involved have routinely released predominantly false information about what happened between Officer Wilson and Michael Brown. That this detail is likely false as well, shouldn't surprise. However, as the article details, that ~30 foot mark represents a significant claim in Officer's Wilson's defense.

It's a good article, which also covers likely corruption (and at least proves large, obvious conflicts of interest) in the St. Louis area police departments.

Nuclear Agreement with Iran May Become Midterm Election Fodder in Congress →

We've been through the six months of the Joint Plan of Action, plus the extension to 24 November. The Iranians have done everything--I emphasize: everything--that they were asked to do. They have been completely trustworthy throughout this process. We have made more progress in the last six to eight months than we have the last 20 years in terms of the Congress's major--the nation's major purpose and objective, which is to stop the Iranians' program from being able to make a nuclear weapon...