What’s it like to go to prison school?

Have you ever wondered what it is like to learn how to run a prison, you should check out this video: This Bureau of Prisons video has become public in an unusual way. It was part of a huge grab of "free" public records that was obtained then made much more accessible by two activists. The story is told here, and is close to my heart because it involves criticism of the enormously clunky PACER system, which contains all federal case filings. The activists decided to download all of the recent cases on PACER in order to make them more accessible. They were in the process of doing that when the federal courts shut them down. Fascinating stuff. They also obtained government videos that they've collected into "FedFlix,"

a growing archive of many films originally produced by the federal government, which he’s been uploading to the Internet Archive and a YouTube channel.

The 524 films in the FedFlix catalogue so far include such gems as “Sludge Management,” “Welcome to the Bureau of Prisons!” “Foreign Lottery Scams,” “(Motorola Presents) Atomic Attack,” battle footage and training films from World War II and Vietnam, and the Cold War classic “Duck and Cover” [starring "Bert the Turtle"].

Does the word "propaganda" come to mind when you're viewing any of these? For a lot more information, visit the activists' website, Public Resource.

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Why is a tax cut for 98% of Americans being attacked as a tax hike?

Media Matters is asking why a tax cut for 98% of Americans is being attacked as a tax hike. Short answer: because it disproportionately affects those with disproportionate power to control the media.

Last week, President Obama unveiled a budget outline that extends the Bush tax cuts for all but the top two percent of taxpayers and makes permanent a tax credit of up to $800 for low- and middle-income workers that was included in the recent stimulus package, among other tax cuts.

On the other hand, individual taxpayers with taxable income above $200,000 ($250,000 for families) per year would pay more in taxes under Obama's plan, under which the tax rates paid on income in the top brackets would revert to their levels under President Clinton in the 1990s -- from 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent. Slate.com's Daniel Gross estimates that for someone with $350,000 in income, this will amount to about $1,500 a year in increased taxes.

But the media, eager to hype their bogus "war on the wealthy" storyline, have portrayed it as a tax increase.

Media Matters gives lots of details substantiating its observation that several major media outlets have been busy spinning the news rather than reporting it.

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Why is Dangerous Intersection such a slow-loading website?

Why is Dangerous Intersection such a slow-loading website? [UPDATE: If you can see this update, you are now on DI's new faster server, and the rest of this post is moot.] I'm painfully aware of the problem, which is being caused by problems with our current hosting, an upgrade to a new design and growing traffic, which now brings us about 6,000 visitors every day.

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