Deal of the Day: Companies will offer big savings to customers willing to be pitchmen on Facebook and Twitter.

Customers seeking the best deals may have to pester their friends.

Some of the latest coupons from retailers and other businesses can only be activated by sharing them with Facebook friends or Twitter followers. And the deals grow even more valuable when customers convince members of their network to buy in, too. Think of it as a new twist on the old-school referral discounts that businesses offer clients for bringing in new customers, says Deborah Mitchell, a clinical associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University.

CONTINUED at Smart Money.

Hide the children. Darken the windows. Get out your all-black clothing. Jeremy Clarkson told a South African radio program that British motoring revue Top Gear will not return until 2013. We think this might be because of the London Olympics. Remember that this summer when you’re watching Synchronized Swimming.

Specifically, while talking about the Top Gear Live road show Clarkson says it’s the only time the three hosts will be together the rest of this year.

“It is going to be, it better be absolutely fantastic, it’s also about the only time the three of us are working together this year because there’s no Top Gear on this year.”

We think this means we’ll have to wait until 2013 for the 19th season to start. We’ve reached out to the BBC for a comment.

Source: Jalopnik.

UPDATE: Jeremy Clarkson Confirms No Top GearUntil 2013, Blames ‘Fat People Singing’

Jeremy Clarkson just confirmed our report about there being no more Top Gear until 2013 is true, although the reason is not the Olympics. It’s Simon Cowell.

Yesterday, we reported that the Jezza let slip on a South African radio show that they weren’t going to be showing any Top Gear in the fall, meaning we’d have to wait until January to get our fix.

People threatened to jump off things. Others tried to find some way to deny it. Denial was strong with fans of the British motoring show, but in typical Clarkson fashion he took to his very real Twitter account to say “it’s true.”

The “fat people singing” is probably a cruel reference to Susan Boyle and Cowell’s show Britain’s Got Talent. Or one of the like 60 other shows Cowell produces.

Oh Jezza, never change.

Source: Jalopnik.

Social networking giant maintains ‘Kill Zimmerman’ page despite massive condemnation.

Twitter has refused to delete a profile page advocating the violent murder of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin, even after a massive media backlash and despite the social network’s regular practice of deleting accounts for the comparatively minor offense of spamming celebrities or discussing certain political issues.

The profile page features an image of Zimmerman in crosshairs and includes tweets such as “Fuck the government. & #KILLZIMMERMAN,” “Rt if you think Zimmerman should Be Shot Instead Of Goon To Jail #KILLZIMMERMAN,” “Since I don’t have a date or escort I’m thinking about running away and killing Zimmerman,” “we should just all get up and #killzimmerman ourselves; fuck the system,” and “I ain’t no hater but I hate that cracka.”

One of the Tweets also expresses support for the fact that Obama has publicly involved himself in the Trayvon Martin controversy.

The page has been active for around a week and despite widespread media attention, Twitter has refused to remove the profile.

Is Twitter taking a political stance amidst one of the most racially charged public debates America has ever seen by keeping the ‘Kill Zimmerman’ page active? A brief summary of pages that weredeleted by the company in the recent past suggests the answer is yes.

Blogger David Seaman had his Twitter account temporarily suspended after sending out numerous tweets trying to get celebrities with large numbers of followers to draw attention to issues such as the NDAA and Occupy Wall Street. The fact that Seaman was sending so many messages to celebrities was characterized as spamming by Twitter.

Apparently, according to Twitter spamming celebrities is not OK, but advocating murder is perfectly acceptable.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Late last week, Spike Lee re-tweeted the address of ‘George Zimmerman’ to his quarter of a million followers.

Except it was the wrong address. It was the address of an elderly Florida couple whose son… William George Zimmerman (no relation to shooter) – lived briefly there in 1995. Now the 70-year-old school cafeteria lunch lady with a heart condition and her 72-year-old husband have been forced to move out of danger into a hotel temporarily after receiving hate mail, threats, harassing visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors.

The woman’s other son Chip Humble told the Orlando Sentinel, “It’s scary because there are people who aren’t mentally right and will take this information and run with it. To endanger people who are innocent because people are angry is not the answer. That’s not how we’re going to heal. It’s not [going] to help the Martin family for someone else to be hurt.”

The O’Reilly Factor contacted Spike Lee’s production company “40 Acres and a Mule.”  Instead of issuing a statement or an apology, the executive office told Factor producer Jesse Watters that Spike Lee had “no comment.” That’s it. The famous filmmaker is coming under heavy pressure on Twitter to apologize. Lee’s tweet has been removed, but it continues to be retweeted. Developing…

Source: Fox Nation.

UPDATE: Spike has since apologized but the media is reporting that his Tweet could potentially lead to a lawsuit.

This is an informational graphic from Intel showing some of the things that happen in a single minute of internet time. I was honestly surprised that some figures were as low as they were. Only 20 identities stolen? Those aren’t the Nigerian scammers I know! Not included on the list: 80,000 moms forward spam emails, 30 dudes sign into Chatroulette with the intention of showing their dongs, my roommate maxes out our bandwidth downloading porn and brings my internet connection to a crawl, enough Viagra to pop a 1,000-year boner is purchased, and like five million people read Geekologie. “Five-million, really?” You heard me, five-million — like a five with two zeros.

What Happens in an Internet Minute? [intel]

Thanks to Patty, who heard every four minutes on the internet a man signs up for a dating website as a woman with the sole purpose of seducing himself through his regular profile. Wow, that…sounds strangely erotic.

Source: Geekologie.

“American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis tells his Twitter followers that he’s been toying with the idea of writing the sequel.

“Sitting at my desk finishing a script and suddenly I’m making notes on where Patrick Bateman’s now”, says Ellis. “Maybe I’ll call my publishers on Monday … But have to figure out what the structure is … Definitely murders at prep school… If this American Psycho sequel pans out I’d get in touch with my agent first but will have to spend the weekend seeing if it works.”

Ellis said he would have Bateman be a hedge-fund manager working in Los Angeles in the sequel. He’s already dreamt up possible scenarios involving Chris Martin from Coldplay and David Beckham.
He would have a “very long dissertation about Coldplay’s oeuvre … His favourite song being Fix You.” A later scene would see “Chris Martin and Patrick Bateman eat waffles and talk about how cool St Vincent is … and then Patrick slits his throat”.

Bateman would be into “Hostel”, “Chicago” and Kirk Cameron (!) but hates the TV show “Dexter” because they stole his name.

“Patrick’s first killing would not have been at Harvard. It would have been before … it would have been his father’s mistress,” suggested Easton Ellis. The novel’s antihero would “post pics of murdered girls on Facebook and either no one would notice or post ‘Fuck yeah’”.

Could this work?

Source: Moviehole.

Keywords agency is tracking include “body scanner,” “nationalist” , “police,” and “immigration”.

A Homeland Security training manual belies claims made by DHS representatives during a Congressional hearing last week that the federal agency is only monitoring social media outlets for “situational awareness,” and proves the fact that Bis Sis is also tracking online criticism of government, including discussion of airport body scanners.

“Analysts for a Department of Homeland Security program that monitors social networks like Twitter and Facebook have been instructed to produce reports on policy debates related to the department, a newly disclosed manual shows,” reports the New York Times.

The manual, entitled Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center Media Monitoring Capability Desktop Reference Binder, was obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center via a FOIA request.

The controversy over DHS spying on social media erupted last month following the release of 300 documents which detailed how DHS had hired an outside contractor, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, to monitor social media outlets along with a list of websites, on a “24/7/365 basis,” in order to uncover “any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security.”

During a subsequent Congressional hearing on the matter, DHS representatives Mary Callahan and Richard Chávez denied the fact that tracking criticism of government agencies formed any part of the program, and that the effort was merely aimed at developing “situational awareness” of potential threats, mostly related to extreme weather events.

However, the 2011 manual makes it abundantly clear that the program was a backdoor effort to keep tabs on what the American people were saying about not just the DHS, but a whole host of federal agencies, including the CIA, the ATF, the TSA, FEMA, as well as organizations outside of the U.S. government such as the United Nations and the Red Cross.

CONTINUED at Infowars. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to ‘destroy America’ and ‘dig up Marilyn Monroe’.

Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?’

After making their way through passport control at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last Monday afternoon the pair were detained by armed guards.

Despite telling officials the term ‘destroy’ was British slang for ‘party’, they were held on suspicion of planning to ‘commit crimes’ and had their passports confiscated.

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail.

Critics say it proves Senator wasn’t being detained

Security video of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s run in with the TSA earlier this week has been leaked to a newspaper, and critics say it proves that Paul was not detained by the federal agency.

The footage, obtained by The Tennessean shows the Senator seated in a chair within a glass walled cubicle in the security area of Nashville airport after refusing to undergo a pat down.

As Paul talks on the phone, presumably to his office as he had stated in interviews, three TSA officials stand guard, along with police officers standing outside the cubicle.

The video then shows Paul later being escorted through the airport by an official. The footage represents about one minute of the incident which Paul said lasted over an hour.

The Senator is partially obscured by a column blocking part of the cubicle for some portions of the video. When asked why the camera would be set up only to be obscured by a column, airport spokeswoman Emily Richard told The Tennessean that cameras are “placed for the widest view possible, not a specific area.”

The airport authority and the TSA have declined to comment on the footage.

Watch the video below:

Although the report in The Tennessean points out that the footage contradicts a police report that claimed Paul was “irate”, critics jumped on the footage to suggest Paul over reacted and exaggerated the incident.

Max Read of blog site Gawker said he believes the video proves the Republican was “totally full of sh-t” when he called his spokesperson.

“I got a lot of mail, some of it syntactically and orthographically correct, disputing my account of Rand Paul’s full-of-sh-tness by referring to the dictionary definition of the word ‘detained.’” Read wrote.

“Here is my feeling: when your argument centers around ‘the dictionary definition’ of anything and involves the adverb ‘technically,’ you are full of sh-t. When you tell someone you are being ‘detained by the TSA,’ you don’t mean ‘sitting in a chair while they decide what to do.’”

Another blogger suggested that “the way Paul was treated (not a finger laid on him) doesn’t quite illustrate the harshness that word [detainment'] usually suggests.”

In response Paul supporters pointed out that just because Paul wasn’t shackled and pushed around doesn’t mean he wasn’t being detained by the TSA.

“‘Detained’ is a legal term that very much applies to this situation. It does not matter that he is not in handcuffs or behind bars; when a peace officer restricts your freedom to vacate an area through verbal instruction (the consequence of disobedience being immediate arrest for disorderly conduct), you are detained.” one commenter noted.

Following the incident Monday, Rand Paul told reporters “I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle! So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA at the Nashville airport.

The Twitter account associated with Paul staffer Moira Bagley, @moirabagley, tweeted around 10 a.m., ET, “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

A TSA spokesman said the agency was looking into the matter but could not immediately comment.

Paul apparently set off  an airport security full-body scanner “on a glitch,” a spokesman in Paul’s office told ABC News.

The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and were demanding a full body pat-down.

The Paul spokesman said his office called TSA administrator John Pistole about the incident this morning.

The Senate is back in session today at 2 p.m., with votes scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

The issue of pat-downs has been an important one to Paul, the son of libertarian-leaning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Sen.  Paul brought this issue up at a hearing earlier this year.

Source: ABC News. Video at link.