Memory Hole

I really am sick and tired of conservatives calling for the fainting couches over stuff happening under Obama which they actively defended when Bush was in office.

Seriously, I’m super busy today, guys? So look, if you want to know what I think about all of this NSA spying crap everyone is acting like is some new thing? Just click on the little tags and categories thingies below? Because I’ve been talking about this since I started blogging, which was like six years ago. It was bad under Bush, it’s bad under Obama, but no one wanted to listen to any of us hippies on the left (and some on the right) who were crying “civil liberties! civil liberties!” back in the day. So stop your fucking whining and Obama blaming now.

Here’s a nice little trip into the memory hole for y’all:

U.S. President George Bush called on Congress Monday night to broaden protection for telecommunications carriers that helped the government monitor phone calls and e-mail.

The Protect America Act, which allows the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without first obtaining a court warrant, is due to expire Friday and Bush called for its extension as part of his final State of the Union address.

“To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning,” he said in the televised address. “Last year, Congress passed legislation to help us do that. Unfortunately, Congress set the legislation to expire on Feb.1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted.”

Failure to extend the legislation won’t just hit the NSA. The telecommunications carriers that worked with the agency despite the lack of court warrants also face privacy lawsuits and an extension to the legislation would provide them legal protection. Bush touched on that point as well.

“Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America. We’ve had ample time for debate. The time to act is now,” said Bush to applause from mostly Republican members of the audience. Vice President Dick Cheney, seated behind Bush, also applauded the call.

Cheney and the White House last week pushed Congress to extend the act and provide protection for telecom carriers. AT&T and other carriers are facing lawsuits in San Francisco by civil liberties groups and individuals who allege that the surveillance program is illegal.

Earlier Monday, efforts by Republicans to curtail debate in the U.S. Senate and force a vote on an extension to the act failed, and debate is due to resume Tuesday.

Got that? This isn’t some new thing under Obama, it’s something we’ve been talking about for about 10, 11, 12 years now. Since 9/11 at the least. And by the way, that article above is from January 29, 2008. Not only did they want the NSA wiretapping without warrants to continue, the Republicans in the Senate tried to ram it through and were thwarted thanks to the Democrats. As I wrote at the time:

I’m sure the Republicans will be up to their usual screetching about terrorists, but we all know this has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with protecting corporate cronies at Big Telecom. Liberals refer to it as telecom immunity, neocons as “liability protection,” but it all comes down to protecting AT&T and Verizon Wireless from scores of lawsuits because they knowingly broke the law.

Please. Y’all are getting on my last nerve with this IOKIYAR shit. Knock it off. We’re not that stupid.

WTF, Time Magazine?

Holy racist rant, Batman. I cannot fucking believe that Time magazine printed this crap from Joel Stein about how those stinky brown people need to move back to India so his hometown can go back to the way he remembers it:

My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime.

I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?

This was supposed to be funny? Oh, FFS! Why is Nashville home to one of the world’s largest populations of Kurds? Why are there so many Somalis here, and now people from Burma are arriving? You know why? Because of refugee resettlement programs and support services from all of our churches and Catholic Charities. So Stein wants to know why Indians chose Edison, New Jersey? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe just to piss you off with “the amount of cologne they wear.”

Honestly, is this click-bait or what?

(Both Time and Stein has apologized for the column’s offensiveness, BTW.)

Great Moments In Corporate Citizenship

The West, Texas fertilizer plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance, reports AP:

Tyler lawyer Randy C. Roberts said he and other attorneys who have filed lawsuits against West Fertilizer’s owners were told Thursday that the plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Brook Laskey, an attorney hired by the plant’s insurer to represent West Fertilizer Co., confirmed the amount Saturday in an email to The Associated Press, after the Dallas Morning News first reported it.

“The bottom line is, this lack of insurance coverage is just consistent with the overall lack of responsibility we’ve seen from the fertilizer plant, starting from the fact that from day one they have yet to acknowledge responsibility,” Roberts said.

Roberts said he expects the plant’s owner to ask a judge to divide the $1 million in insurance money among the plaintiffs, several of whom he represents, and then file for bankruptcy.

He said he wasn’t surprised that the plant was carrying such a small policy.

“It’s rare for Texas to require insurance for any kind of hazardous activity,” he said. “We have very little oversight of hazardous activities and even less regulation.”

A $1 million policy is not gonna do squat for West, Texas or the 14 families who lost a loved one, or those 200 injured people. But I guess the glorious free hand of the market will be there for them, right? That and federal disaster aid, of course!

By the way, maybe in addition to all of the prayers and moments of silence, the Texas House and Senate might want to pass a few regulations to help ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. After all, taxpayers all around the country are going to be footing the bill for the negligence of a Texas business — and the failure of Texas legislators to adequately regulate their dangerous industries. So yes, Gov. Rick Perry, as long as we all have to pay for it, you can take your “states rights” and shove it, you arrogant phony cowboy.

And since we’re talking about this, Texas is starting to look an awful lot like Bangladesh and China. Except in those places, the evil business owners are arrested.

Tin-Foil Hate In Ur Congress, Making Ur Laws

Hey everyone, gun control ain’t dead! There’s actually a bill in Congress that would ban ammunition purchases for six months! And, unbelievably, this bill has the support of far-right GOPers like Sen. Jim Inhofe Of Oklahoma.

What’s that, you say?

Yep, meet the AMMO Act (“Ammunition Management for More Obtainability,” cute, huh? Republicans love those clever acronyms). Will it stop suspected terrorists from buying ammunition? Crazy people? Convicted felons, domestic abusers, etc.? Nope. It’s directed at federal agencies:

The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a report on the purchasing of ammunition by federal agencies, except the Department of Defense, and its effect on the supply of ammunition available to the public. The AMMO Act would restrict agencies from obtaining additional ammunition for a six-month period if current agency stockpiles are higher than its monthly averages prior to the Obama Administration.

This bill stems from some long-debunked conspiracy theories circulating around the internet about the Obama Administration stockpiling ammo to disarm the American populace and prepare for civil unrest (oddly, the bill exempts the Defense Department; seems some folks don’t really understand the meaning of the term “martial law”).

Anti-government “tin-foil haters” like Alex Jones and Pat Dollard are cheering the bill. Of course they are, they’re the very folks who have been flogging this nonsense in the first place. The fact that there is actual legislation in the U.S. House and Senate addressing one of their crackpot conspiracy theories is a huge win for them. It shows how far their influence has reached inside the Republican Party.

And make no mistake, this is unique to the Republican Party. Yes, during the Bush years some lefties pondered the government’s role in 9/11; some folks believed a false national security event would occur so the Bush Administration could declare martial law and cancel the 2004 elections. But these were commenters on blogs, maybe a far-left radio host or two. Not people actually elected to the United States Senate or a state legislature. Not people holding office and in a position to influence public policy.

Not people like Tennessee Republican Rick Womick, or the crazy lady in New Hampshire’s state house who bought Alex Jones’ “false flag” nonsense about the Boston bombings. The fact that the Republican Party is increasingly associated with these fringe conspiracy nutters shows just how far off the rails America’s conservative political party has gone. Wake up, folks. Michele Bachmann has plenty of company in that crazy train.

I call them “tin-foil haters” because hate is exactly what these people are selling. It’s distrust of the government with a heaping pile of amygdala-tweaking fear thrown in, topped with a shining hero archetype. It’s the idea that only you, young Wolverine, have the exclusive truth and can save the world — or at least your corner of it. Only you can be the hero of this movie. And yes, I do blame Hollywood for a lot of this stuff. I can’t tell you how tired I am of seeing the White House or a national landmark blown up on the big screen (and hunky Channing Tatum alone can save us!). Hollywood, get a new storyline. This one’s played out.

By the way: if you think our government is too incompetent to regulate healthcare but is clever enough to pull off any of the convoluted conspiracy theories you’ve dreamed up, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

First Draft Tuesdays

Catch me over there, where I ask if I should change dentists.

Haley Barbour 2016

Apparently Mississippi “forgot” to ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Or, more accurately, they “lost the paperwork” when the Legislature finally got around to ratifying it in … wait for it … 1995.

Riiiiight.

Thanks to Steven Spielberg and the movie “Lincoln,” this oversight was brought to the attention of the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office and it has now been fixed.

Which can only mean one thing: Haley Barbour is running for president!

First Draft Tuesday

I have posted a rant about Big Food, Badvertising, and corporate idiocy over at First Draft today: Capitalism Has Failed. Catch me over there.

Free The US Post Office From Bondage

Count me among those who won’t miss Saturday First Class mail delivery, at all. In fact, at least as far as my house is concerned, they can take Friday and Monday, too.

Yes, I realize this translates into lost jobs. The U.S. Postal Service has already cut its workforce by 35%, according to the link. Yes, I understand there was a Congressional mandate to fund retiree benefits that the private, for-profit companies don’t have to deal with, but this story seems to indicate that even without those payments, the USPS still operates at a deficit of more than $10 billion.

The U.S. Postal Service is in trouble. That’s just reality, folks. The way people do business and communicate has changed, radically, and very quickly, and their traditional business model is now out of date. Change has already come. And the USPS needs to be allowed to change for the times.

Look, I go to my mailbox every day and 90% of what I get is shit I don’t want. It’s junk. It’s catalogs, coupons and unwanted marketing and direct mail pieces that I put in the recycling bin as soon as they come in. It’s wasteful.

The last time I wrote about this I proposed a couple of ideas that no one seemed to like: get rid of bulk rate, or slowly transition to an entirely digital postal service. Nobody liked those ideas so let’s look at some of the innovations which European postal services have adopted:

After selling off all but 24 of 29,000 post office buildings in the past 15 years, the German postal service is now housed mostly within other business “partners,” including banks, convenience stores and even private homes. In rural areas, a shopkeeper or even a centrally located homeowner is given a sign and deputized as a part-time postmaster.

At the same time, many European postal services, including the one here, have developed a host of electronic services that are increasingly making traditional post offices and mailboxes obsolete. Bills and catalogs can go first to digital mailboxes run by the post office on customers’ computers, and the customers can tell the post office what they want it to print and deliver. And while Americans are asked to send in suggestions for what celebrity should grace the next stamp, Germans can buy virtual postage from their cellphones.

Deutsche Post has expanded package delivery networks to profit from the uptick in online shopping and has also progressively expanded its offerings into completely new areas, like running online marketplaces similar to eBay for freelance writers.

Let me say, I love love love the idea of telling the post office what I want them to deliver.

Here’s another idea I like: “lockers” which deliver your packages at locations like supermarkets or train stations, with the locker code delivered to your cell phone. How about this:

SendSocial, a start-up in Britain, allows consumers to send packages to people even if they do not have their postal address – by showing SendSocial that they are friends on Facebook or by providing the addressee’s Twitter ID. The firm then turns around and sends a request to the addressee to get the delivery details. If she accepts, collection and payment details are confirmed, and the sender receives a label with delivery information – but without the real address, which is not divulged during the transaction.

Why can’t the U.S. Postal Service offer a service like that?

I admit I am not an expert on our USPS. But they need to be allowed to innovate if they’re going to survive — and people, they have to survive. The U.S. Postal Service is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. They’re not going away. So let’s untie the Postal Service’s hands and allow them the freedom to try some new stuff. Congress is the biggest roadblock to this — I guess that’s because they’re all about government not competing with private enterprise or some such — but they need to get the hell out of the way. Maybe, just maybe, a functioning postal service that isn’t bleeding money works for private enterprise as well as the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe, operating a post office in a private business like they do in Germany is something a private business would like to have as a traffic generator. Maybe, just maybe, the very existence of a functioning, innovating U.S. Postal Service isn’t a threat to the freedom monkeys and capitalism ponies some folks in Congress think it might be.

I love the USPS and they do some things really, really well. I use them for shipping all the time. But I’m not going to be nostalgic about maintaining a level of service I don’t want while at the same time preventing them from trying new stuff I really might like. The U.S. Postal Service is going to have to reinvent itself, just like all of us who have been displaced by the massive technological changes of the past decade have been forced to reinvent ourselves. Congress needs to get out of the way and let this reinvention happen.

Why Didn’t I Think Of This

Now I’ve heard everything:

A security check on a US company has reportedly revealed one of its staff was outsourcing his work to China.

The software developer, in his 40s, is thought to have spent his workdays surfing the web, watching cat videos on YouTube and browsing Reddit and eBay.

He reportedly paid just a fifth of his six-figure salary to a company based in Shenyang to do his job.

Operator Verizon says the scam came to light after the US firm asked it for an audit, suspecting a security breach.

Brilliant. Outsource yourself, beat Verizon to the punch.

The story goes on to say that the employee apparently ran his little scam with several companies, not just Verizon. So, it appears the guy was an independent contractor. You know what could have prevented this fraud? Hiring an actual employee. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Limits To Freedom

We watched the Golden Globes last night and saw Jodie Foster … say whatever it was she was trying to say. Her speech was made all the more oblique due to the fact that a big chunk of it was bleeped out. I don’t know if it was a technical glitch or the network was protecting us from a cuss word or what. But it reminded me that our local NBC affiliate, WSMV, has a really bad habit of censoring GLBT topics in its programming, for example, this incident from 2010. And back in November I noticed WSMV gave us another Time-Life infomercial instead of this SVU episode about sexual abuse at a boy’s school.

Let me add: I never watch SVU, or any of the procedural dramas. Never. Which makes me think WSMV’s censorship must be pretty pervasive it would twice cross the radar of someone who doesn’t even watch the damn show.

So welcome to life in America today. A local affiliate can bleep out cusswords or even replace entire hours of programming if it’s deemed offensive to our delicate sensibilities. It happens all the time, especially as relates to sexy talk and teh gaiii. But apparently there are absolutely no limits to be placed on the Second Amendment. None. Zero. Mah rights, Founding Fathers, tricorn hats, arggle bargle.

Someone remind me, when was the last time a cuss word killed someone? Maybe someone missed the fainting couch and hit their head on the coffee table when Bono called U2′s 2003 Golden Globe award “fucking brilliant.” I dunno. Probably not.

How truly bizarre.

Recently this piece from July 2012 crossed my path; it takes a historical look at our country’s traditional restrictions on gun ownership — including the NRA’s own support of gun control. For example:

The founders barred large portions of the population from possessing guns, including slaves and free blacks, who might revolt if armed. The founders also restricted gun ownership by law-abiding white people, such as those who refused to swear allegiance to the Revolution. Those weren’t traitors fighting for the British. They were among the approximately 40 percent of the citizenry who, in exercise of their freedom of conscience, thought 13 disorganized colonies taking on the most powerful nation in the world was a bad idea.

[...]

The founders also imposed onerous restrictions on gun owners through militia laws. Men over the age of 18 were expected to serve in the citizen militia, armed and ready to defend the nation. They would be forced to appear, with guns in hand, at public musters where they and their guns would be inspected. The founders had an early form of gun registration: States conducted door-to-door surveys to identify where the guns were in case the government had need of them.

I did not know that. Can you imagine the outrage if government officials went door to door today to do a firearms inspection? OMG.

I did know that our image of the Wild West gunslinger strolling through the center of town with a gun on each hip was a Hollywood fabrication. Years ago I’d learned that famous Western towns like Dodge City and Deadwood had strict gun laws that would make modern gun loons scream “fascism.”

I also did not know that the NRA once pushed state gun control laws. Is anyone surprised to learn that this all changed when the Black Panthers started taking up guns in the ’70s? I’m not. As soon as the blah people started arming themselves the white folk got a little nervous, didn’t they? I keep waiting for the “gun conversation” to address the obvious racism so pervasive in the pro-gun movement. Maybe after the next white male nutball shoots up an elementary school.

So, now it looks like we’re going to have guns in our schools, for some bizarre reason that defies logic and common sense. As has been stated a hundred times already, Adam Lanza’s first victim was his mother: a gun loon who let her disturbed kid use guns to “teach him responsibility.” How’d that work out for everybody? If Nancy Lanza’s guns didn’t protect her, why would guns protect anyone else?

Our discourse in this country is so crazy. By all means, let’s make sure no one can watch an episode of a procedural drama which features a lesbian character, but if you want an arsenal in your basement? Go right ahead!

This country is big-time messed up.

I’m tired of talking about this. I’m sure you’re tired of reading about it. Really, what more is there to be said?