The "if i had nothing to hide" argument is a fast slippery slope. Some families value privacy, some may not value privacy but may not want a relic of their child's life being caught in a shitstorm. The presumption of guilt is just as fallacious when you poo-poo the people who were mad at the PATRIOT act.

Lin has tailed off for a number of reasons.  The reality is though, he shouldn't of gotten hyped to the level he did.  Knicks are now winning again, with the coach being fired, and Lin is in a role player roll.  Knicks won like double digits a large number of games, getting score over 20, without Lin being a factor.   But, it isn't Lin at the Jordanesque level that he was at during the start of Linsanity, where he was transcending the NBA and becoming the story.  I follow the Knicks actually.

The point anyhow is that, in the age of the Internet, things will blow up in a hurry and go nuts, for no logical reason.  Occupy did this, for example, and you have Kony 2012, which happened with certain celebrities being targeted to tweet.  Did Kony 2012 deserve what it got attentionwise?  No it didn't, but it happened.

The main reason not to engage in political threads is because no one's views ever change in those threads. So there's no true discourse on any subjet. Same goes for God / religion threads. They're pointless.

And i've noticed that Kony 2012 is basically gone already as well. Linsanity could return if the Knicks make the playoffs or something, but this Treyvon Martin thing will stick around until the end of Zimmermann's trial. If he's innocent he gets a book deal and fades into obscurity, if he's guilty he rots in jail, but either way, forgotten.

Why not? The way a Facebook campaign was able to instantly turn people who were unable to point out Uganda on a map into experts on the country (albeit experts who were still unable to find Uganda on a map) could have major implications for the future of education.

My problem with it is that Kony's largely harmless now. Certainly he needs to be brought to justice, but that isn't the sort of thing people should be donating for, unless the Kony 2012 donations were going towards direct aid to the victimized peoples in Uganda. Seems like it all ran rather behind the times...

My problem with it is that it exposed how many people don't know the difference between Joseph Kony and Carl Weathers. How is that even possible? Are there any movies besides Rocky and Predator? And even if there are, why would you watch them?

It may not be popular to say but the only reason any of us know who Trayvon Martin's name is presidential politics ...

Barack Obama has been a pretty poor president in general, and (based on results) an awful president for minority groups (especially black people). While I would agree with people who claim that it is not within his power to do anything about this, from a political perspective it doesn't matter. No matter how he tries, Barack Obama will have difficulty pandering to minority groups based on performance; and there will be an increased emphasis on racial incidents from the media to gin-up racial conflict to scare minority groups into continuing to support Obama.

What it reminds me most of is Carlos Santana.  When he had one huge hit and suddenly everyone thought he was a new star. 

I'm pretty sure you just missed badgenome's sarcasm though.

Hell it's all a part of what may be my biggest pet peeve "Documenteering" made popular by Michael Moore, or probaby someone else before him I don't know.

Hell for another recent example look at Mike Daisy on "This American life."

Or that recent documentry on Sarah Palin.

Someone makes a documentary that's awful and often filled with lies to fit a certain viewpoint, it's passed around like it's true and presented like it's true, the author gets some backlash and falls behind "It's meant to envoke an emotion on the issue, not be 100% factual."

90% of docuemntaries made today would better fit under the label "Propaganda."

Yeah... envole a fake emotion based on your premanufactured garabge.  IE meant to be Propaganda.

The United States created a 100 man task force to go hunt him down, and were addressing it.  Kony fits into the usual category of a warlord, but ended up being the issue of the month earlier this year.