ANDREW MICHTA: Russia And Ukraine: Time To Take Sides.
Archive for 2014
July 20, 2014
AT AMAZON, up to 65% off on Jewelry.
STILL WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO BRING BACK THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR: Christians flee Iraq’s Mosul after Islamists tell them: convert, pay or die.
WELL, GETTING RID OF COMMUNISM HELPED: Global Income Inequality Is Falling.
SPYING: Sites Like Travelocity Turning Over Full Credit Card Numbers, IP Addresses Of Users To Feds.
The 76 new pages of data, covering 2005 through 2013, show that CBP retains massive amounts of data on us when we travel internationally. My own PNRs include not just every mailing address, e-mail, and phone number I’ve ever used; some of them also contain:
The IP address that I used to buy the ticket
My credit card number (in full)
The language I used
Notes on my phone calls to airlines, even for something as minor as a seat changeThe breadth of long-term data retention illustrates yet another way that the federal government enforces its post-September 11 “collect it all” mentality.
They’re really good at spying on us. But they can’t even stop a terrorist when the Russians warn us in advance and they send people to do an interview. Plus:
“Why isn’t the government complying with even the most basic cybersecurity standards?” Cate said. “Storing and transmitting credit card numbers without encryption has been found by the Federal Trade Commission to be so obviously dangerous as to be ‘unfair’ to the public. Why do transportation security officials not comply with even these most basic standards?”
Because they don’t have to. And nobody will lose his/her job over this, unless I miss my guess.
SAY, I THINK I LIKE THE CUT OF THIS FELLOW’S JIB: Arizona Congressional Candidate Throws “Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms” Fundraiser.
Republican Congressional hopeful Andrew Walter throws a fundraiser with a bang.
He held an event called Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms at the Scottsdale Gun Club Friday night.
Walter is a former Arizona State University quarterback now running for District 9 in the United States Congress.
“This fundraiser is definitely unique and that’s kind of what we were going for,” Walter said. “Politics don’t always have to be bland or dry.”
For a donation to the campaign of $250 to $1,000, supporters can shoot anything from a Glock to an automatic weapon.
“What’s more all-American than guns, cigars,” said supporter Allison Quinn. “What a great way to get people together, shoot some guns, smoke some cigars, and support the man that we want in Congress.”
Walter only took a quick break from the shooting to discuss politics.
“The price for food, the price for gas, college, health care — these are all going in the wrong direction,” he said. “And wages are either stagnant or down, so we need economic freedom and that’s really what my campaign is all about.”
The event wrapped up with cigars on the patio and drinks at a restaurant nearby.
Cute.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Woman shoots boyfriend because he didn’t ejaculate enough. “Somehow, she’s out on bond — even though it’s the second time she’s shot one of her sexual partners, her husband back in 1991.”
When women shoot their boyfriends, it’s not domestic violence, it’s funny.
BYRON YORK: Progressives split over Arizona convention. “The division inside the progressive world could have serious consequences. Netroots Nation attracts the leading lights in the Democratic Party — this year’s meeting in Detroit featured Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In 2015 the party’s presidential race will be fully under way. With some key elements boycotting the Phoenix convention, will top Democrats attend or stay away? Their decisions could lead to charges that one candidate or the other, or one faction or the other, is insufficiently pure on immigration, an issue that many Democrats count as one of the party’s great strengths. The fight inside the progressive community could spill into Democratic politics at large, at just the wrong time.”
FREE SPEECH: Appeals Court Says Texas DMV Violated First Amendment. “Submitted in August 2009, the Texas Board initially voted to approve the specialty plate, but after fears circulated concerning the potentially offensive nature of the Confederate flag, a second vote was held and the plate was rejected. . . . Since Texas had not deemed all flag-bearing or war-commemorating plates impermissible, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Board engaged in viewpoint discrimination by singling out the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ request for rejection.”
STEPHEN L. CARTER: Liberals Make ‘Profit’ a Dirty Word.
It’s been weeks since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the contraception-mandate case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, but the pace of urgent fundraising appeals has barely slackened. Several times a day, another pops up in my e-mail inbox. Some are from politicians; some are from advocacy groups; some are from various organs of the Democratic Party.
So far, the number of e-mails accurately describing the decision is, as my physics professors used to say, arbitrarily close to zero. But there’s one underlying fact they all get right: the justices ruled in favor of a “for-profit” employer. This little hyphenated term appears in e-mail after e-mail, suggesting that it’s the for-profitness that creates the perniciousness.
Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to use this column to add to the flood of arguments about whether Hobby Lobby was rightly or wrongly decided. What interests me is why exactly fundraisers believe that including the term “for-profit” will raise the ire of their contributors.
The only reasonable interpretation is that the fundraisers believe — or believe that their targets believe — that there is something wrong with profit, that the proprietors of a for-profit firm are less admirable than those who run companies pursuing other goals. True, the various religious universities whose lawsuit challenging Obamacare’s contraception mandate will be before the Supreme Court next year certainly have their critics, but they somehow don’t manage to excite the same degree of disdain as a profit-making firm. And although the National Organization for Women gamely included the Little Sisters of the Poor in its list of the “Dirty 100” seeking exemptions from the mandate, all it garnered was for well-earned ridicule.
That’s why the fundraisers have been so careful to remind their targets that Hobby Lobby is a for-profit company. They are hinting that profit is different from other motivations. Less noble. Maybe even wicked.
Well, sure. A company that turns a profit is self-sufficient.
July 19, 2014
WAR ON PHOTOGRAPHY: It’s Perfectly Legal To Photograph Buildings In Washington, DC But When Benny Johnson Did It He Was Harassed By Law Enforcement.
I think we should have a “photograph public buildings day” where everyone does just that. Starting with the 6 in DC where Johnson was hassled.
DEPARTMENT OF PRE-CRIME: Police to doorstep sex crime suspects. “Police are to issue their first ever warnings to men they suspect of sex crimes but cannot find enough evidence against to prosecute. . . . The new scheme – called Persons of Interest – will be launched shortly as a pilot in one of Scotland’s 14 divisions. It will see officers visit such suspects and issue them with letters, but only on the authority of Ms Raphael or, in the future, another officer of her rank.”
JUSTICE: Transcript reveals shocking grand jury intimidation of witness. “They eventually browbeat Dockery into completely changing her story. She was then arrested for perjury. She couldn’t make bail. When she was released, she became the prosecution’s star witness. Brown was convicted and sentenced to death. According to the Chronicle’s Lisa Falkenberg, seven years later, a phone record showed up proving that Brown had called Dockery from her apartment on the morning of the murders, supporting his story — and hers, before she was pressured to change it. That important bit of exculpatory evidence was found in the garage of a Houston homicide detective. Brown is still waiting to learn if he’ll get a new trial. We don’t often get to see the transcripts of grand jury proceedings. Here again, the secrecy is supposed to be for the protection of the wrongly accused. And here again, that same secrecy not only makes the process less transparent, often to the detriment of justice, it can also be used as a weapon.”
EVEN THOUGH AMERICANS HAVE BEEN GETTING FATTER OVER THE SAME PERIOD: Stroke Rates Are Declining. “Researchers followed 14,357 people, ages 45 to 64 at the start of the study, from 1987 to 2011. After accounting for coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, statin use and other factors, they found that the incidence of stroke decreased by about 50 percent over the period of the study, and stroke deaths by about 40 percent.”
BREWING BEER with space yeast.
#YESALLWOMEN: Female teacher accused of using grade threat for sex. “A Stamford High School English teacher is accused of threatening to fail a student if he broke off their sexual relationship.”