We’ve had some issues lately with actions taken against WikiLeaks opponents. Sure, it sounds like fun to take down the Visa and MasterCard public websites, but it does nothing to impede their operations (dudes, go after the authorization servers!), and it sets a bad example. Shouting down your opponents — which is what a “denial of service” attack amounts to — just makes you out to be a bunch of petulant hooligans.

Which is why we’re pleased to see that “Anonymous,” one of the more prominent ad hoc cyberprotest groups, is adopting a new tactic:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmlzklHPgNM

So we had a clever premise in mind — “Suspicious Activities at Walmart” — but as we sat down to compose a list of hilarious! entries, we encountered an Insurmountable Problem:

We’ve only been to a Walmart once in our life.

And really, Greeter gags will only get you so far.

Homeland Security deploys video to Walmarts [Salon/early-warning credit to Jamie Sommers]

Another thwarted wannabe terrorist, another FBI affidavit…

We won’t dive as deeply into this one, because now we know what to look for: Was there a plot afoot before the FBI stepped in to aid and abet? Was the FBI protecting us, or just appearing to protect us?

Our story begins, as all stories do, on Facebook:

On September 29, 2010, MARTINEZ made a public, open source posting on his Facebook account stating: “The sword is cummin the reign of oppression is about 2 cease inshallah ta’ala YA muslimeen! don’t execept the free world we are slaves of the Most High and never forget it!” On October 1, 2010, he made another public posting: “Any 1 who opposes ALLAH and HIS Prophet PEACE.Be.upon.Him I hate u with all my heart.” On October 8, 2010, the CHS brought this information about MARTINEZ to the attention of the FBI.

CHS stands for Confidential Human Source, or Freelance Fink. We’re told nothing about the Fink, which is a shame. This being Baltimore, we’re curious which character from The Wire we’re dealing with.

And how did the Fink come across the Perp’s Wall — apparently some days after those posts? The story we’re not being told is actually more interesting than the one on the page.

For that matter, the story on the page is curiously familiar:

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While The Preznit busies himself fending off the Puritan Left, the Charlatan Right continues its Crusade against the Kenyan Infidel:

Members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus have written to President Obama asking him to correct a speech he gave in Indonesia incorrectly replacing the nation’s motto of “In God We Trust” with “E pluribus unum.”…

“For the president of the United States to incorrectly state something as foundational as our national motto in another country is unacceptable,” said [Virginia Congresscritter and Caucus founder J. Randy] Forbes. “The president is the primary representative of our nation to the world, and whether mistake or intention, his actions cast aside an integral part of American society.”

The judges have to award the point to Forbes: “In God We Trust” is indeed Our Nation’s Motto.

Since, um, 1956. Not exactly “foundational”.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Newt Gingrich and Mrs. Gingrich III.

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

[via Sully]

Company	Action	Cowards?	Explanation
Amazon	Removed WikiLeaks cables from its “cloud” data service.	Yes.	Only 612 cables (out of a quarter-million) had been released, and Amazon was hosting the redacted versions already published by the New York Times and other newspapers.
Tableau Software	Removed charts illustrating statistical summaries of WikiLeaks cables.	Yes.	Never hosted the cables themselves.
EveryDNS	Removed “wikileaks.org” from its free DNS service, which translates domain names to numeric Internet server addresses.	No.	Attacks on system threatened entire service.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UQ2vqFJvpA

One of the enduring frustrations of our childhood is that we could never get the damn Hot Wheels track to work. We now recognize that this was a monumental failure of imagination.

Chris Burden’s latest project “a portrait of LA” [Kottke]