How Many Swastikas Does a Guy Have to Tattoo on His Face Before We Can Safely Assume He's Racist?

Far Right Hate Groups “Like” Facebook

If you're the leader of a loud, disorganized European hate group, you've probably figured out by now that the best way to recruit followers is the same way Ashton Kutcher does it: use Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.
A lot.
The AP reports that European hate groups—including the English Defence League, an organization that Norway terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik claims to have communicated—are increasingly relying on social networking sites like Facebook to recruit members.
In just two years, EDL membership has shot up from a few dozen to more than 10,000, a dramatic increase that EDL leader Stephen Lennon attributes to popular websites, as well as underground online fora. The AP has the interview:

I knew that social networking sites were the way to go…[b]ut to say that we inspired this lunatic to do what he did is wrong. We've never once told our supporters [it's] alright to go out and be violent.

Lennon, who was sentenced to "community rehabilitation" in England this week for inciting and leading an EDL street fight, isn't the only far-right (or far-left, or far-anything) organizer using Facebook for maximum publicity or reach. All sorts of anti-Muslim and racist cliques have been greatly supplementing their blog-based fulminations with modern social media, and they often do so unimpeded because sites like Facebook claim to uphold "the sharing of controversial ideas and opinions." (Facebook's methods for selecting what stays and what gets pulled frequently seem, well, curious: for instance, Holocaust denial stays, but UK labor strikes get the boot.)
It's not all bad news. Buried in the AP report is a short paragraph on law enforcement's mixed feelings regarding the groups' online recruitment:

Intelligence and law enforcement officials have mixed feelings about the sites. On one hand, they recognize the potential for recruiting groups or individuals into violent movements. On the other, the sites allow officials to track and catch perpetrators. Germany's interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, told local media this week that he's more worried about extremists who go underground and "radicalize in secret."

That's a good point. When white nationalists and "racial realists" start pumping out tweets and web comments, it makes them much easier to locate. A trail of un-deletable evidence comes in handy when you want to prosecute someone for crimes against humanity.
Asawin Suebsaeng @'Mother Jones'

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OwenJones84 Owen Jones

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“Fuck” is a 2006 scholarly paper by Ohio State U law prof Christopher M. Fairman, published in Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies Working Paper Series No. 39. It starts with anecdotes about three legally trained people — a Master’s student in law, a sheriff, and a federal judge — reacting irrationally to the word “fuck,” and goes on to explore the way that psycholinguistic factors makes English speakers go crazy in the presence of the word, and the effect that has had on law. Fun reading..!

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Fuck

Mo Money, Mo Problems: Songs for the Debt Standoff

Last night, when President Obama addressed the nation about the debt ceiling, and Speaker of the House John Boehner responded, there was an overwhelming sense of deadlock: Obama pointed at House Republicans for refusing to compromise; Boehner shot back that the President was irresponsibly seeking a “blank check.” (Amy Davidson has more on the speeches.) The frustration on both sides was palpable. Since music soothes the savage Congress, we thought that there might be some songs to help both Democrats and Republicans get through this crisis. At the very least, they can’t hurt. (Note: We couldn’t find any songs that had the word “loggerheads” in the lyrics.)

Marvin Gaye, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” (1962)

President Obama was just a year old when Gaye had his first major Motown hit with this song. The lyrics aren’t specifically about the debt ceiling: they are a declaration of romantic persistence. At the time of the song’s release, the debt was a relatively paltry $250 billion...