Your TV is watching you.
Your Privacy, Your Devices, and You
Read the Shishmaref delegate’s remarks.
Category: Issues of the Day
News Story of the Day
How Often Do Mass Shootings Occur? On Average, Every Day, Records Show
“Mass Shooting” defined as four or more injured or killed including the shooter(s).
Headline of the Day
Amen
Best Line of the Day
Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.
The Hunt for Red October
An Award-Winning Marine’s Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis Is Required Reading
The Republican Platform
“But their positions on the central issues are not that far apart. Next fall, the Republican Presidential nominee will be committed to taking away health insurance from eighteen million people, keeping the minimum wage where it is, cutting tax rates on the wealthy to historic lows, reducing the progressivity of the income tax, creating trillions of dollars in new deficits, returning to a militarized foreign policy, and allowing Iran to resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by tearing up the deal just signed.”
Just Sayin’
“There will be significant terrorist attacks against the United States in the coming weeks or months. The attacks will be spectacular. They may be multiple. Al Qaeda’s intention is the destruction of the United States.”
CIA director George Tenet, quoting head of the Agency’s Al Qaeda unit at urgent briefing for Condoleezza Rice at the White House, July 10, 2001.
Bottled Water
I can rationalize easily enough buying bottled water for its convenience. Less than 10¢ a bottle in case quantities from Costco. I recycle the plastic. Good enough.
But what if that water comes from a location with a water shortage, say California?
Damn.
No Co
There is no such thing as a “co-pilot”. There are two pilots. One may be captain and the other may be first officer, but they are both pilots.
What He Said
Chastened Exceptionalism, Paul Krugman
Right for the Wrong Reasons
This is from six years ago today when I sold the revolver from my dad’s estate. I repost it for the punchline, wherein my satire has proven instead to be prescient (about not needing to worry).
I sold the revolver without incident — for a good price too, I think.
The shop was interesting — and very busy before 11 in the morning. I am not anti-gun by the way. I’d kind of like to own some authentic 19th century firearms if I knew what I was doing — as an investment. When I was curator of Richard Nixon’s musuem items (after he left office), I was impressed by the nice collection of firearms the firearm manufacturers had given him. I suspect most politicians — and at least five supreme court justices — have similar collections.
Two guys working in the gun shop wanted to talk about the election; how it worried them. I assured them not to worry, that the black liberal guy was sure to win.
What the 1% Don’t Want You to Know
Moyers & Company with Paul Krugman on Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
A Tale of Two Freds
“Fred Phelps, the hatemonger who picketed Mr. Rogers’ funeral, died on Mr. Rogers’ birthday.”
Command and Control
Heard author Eric Schlosser at the entirely fitting National Museum of Nuclear Science & History last evening. Schlosser’s Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
It was an informative, sobering talk with balanced doses of anecdotal history, criticism, praise and rant. Human beings create these devices and weapons systems. They are not perfect, the improbable happens, the result could be beyond our imaging.
Looking forward to reading my inscribed copy of the book.
Schlosser is the author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness.
Best line of the this or any day
“Because what I really believe is, Let’s spend a little more time leaving everybody alone. These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of.”
Best lines of the day
“This is an industry that demands payment from summer camps if the kids sing Happy Birthday or God Bless America, an industry that issues takedown notices for a 29 second home movie of a toddler dancing to Prince. Traditional American media firms are implacably opposed to any increase in citizens’ ability to create, copy, save, alter, or share media on our own. They fought against cassette audio tapes, and photocopiers. They swore the VCR would destroy Hollywood. They tried to kill Tivo. They tried to kill MiniDisc. They tried to kill player pianos. They do this whenever a technology increases user freedom over media. Every time. Every single time.”
From a piece by Clay Shirky.
As Shirky says, there is a reasonable discussion to be had here. The problem with SOPA/PIPA isn’t that the bills attempt to limit the unauthorized use of copyrighted material. The problem is that they are entertainment industry written and sponsored legislation ($100 million in lobbying) that give the industry vigilante rights.
None of us knows
… what we might do in a crisis, but the captain of the Costa Concordia takes irresponsibility to new heights.
Click and listen to the exchange. It’ll leave you shaking your head.
BBC News – Recording of coastguard telling captain to ‘get on board’
Wikipedia to go dark
“On January 18, 2012, in an unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.”
Press releases/English Wikipedia to go dark – Wikimedia Foundation
Announcement
NewMexiKen intends to go dark for 12 hours January 18th to protest SOPA/PIPA.
UPDATE:
To clarify, we are opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), Senate Bill S.968.
We are not opposed to sopapillas or Pippa Middleton.
Success?
“When you have a President encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 per cent versus one percent—and those people who have been most successful will be in the one per cent—you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.”
Willard M. Romney on the Today show this morning.
So, if you are not in the one percent you are, according to Romney, not among the “most successful”?
Money = Success
Really?
The Republicans’ Lost Privacy
“[I]n the debate Saturday night, Romney went beyond mere opposition to Roe. He said he thought Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that first made explicit the right to privacy, was also wrong. ‘I don’t believe they decided that correctly,’ Romney said.”
From a report on the Republicans and privacy by Jeffrey Toobin.
Griswold was the case that prevents states from prohibiting the sale of birth control products. It is more fundamental than Roe v. Wade.
Line of the day
“Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy…”
63 Years Ago Today
President Harry S. Truman, in his 1949 State of the Union Address:
We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses. We must remedy these shortages. Moreover, we need–and we must have without further delay–a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.