I… I don’t think that’s the video that’s supposed to be there.
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Well, That’s Confusing
Category: Politics
If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.
I look forward to the day that someone being gay is about as newsworthy as announcing if you have an innie or outie belly-button. But, until we get to that point, stuff like this well-written bit o’ business are important.
In remarks at the Brookings Institution on Thursday, Comey used the phrase “going dark” to describe the decisions by companies like Apple and Google to encrypt by default more and more of their services… The problem, Comey argued, is that the process locks away for good some data that could be useful to law enforcement as it fights crime.
It’s a complicated dynamic, and Comey appeared eager to punt the confusion over to Congress. He called for the House and Senate to begin rethinking the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, better known as CALEA, which empowers the FBI to access electronic communications. The 20-year old law, Comey argued, should require companies big and small to build into their systems “lawful intercept capabilities” that aren’t stymied by encryption.
Wait, this ass-clown thinks that Congress is going to actually go up against the interests of companies like Google or Apple?
FOX News’ Shepard Smith on Ebola. It’s reasonable, non-sensationalist, clear and coherent.
No, I don’t know when we fell into a portal that landed us on the Bizarro world, either.
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Net Neutrality
I’m assuming you’ve gone to DearFCC.org or Free Press’ Save The Internet, but, if you haven’t, you should get on it.
Please?
I’ll buy you a cookie!1
- That’s a blatant lie. Sorry. ↩
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Drunk Dial Congress
As Members of Congress quickly returned from their final symbolic, non-effective and otherwise useless votes to avert a government shutdown, the heavy drinking began. Reports of our representatives getting plastered on the government’s dime – the one we have left – have come streaming in from witnesses all over Capitol Hill. Now’s your chance to tell your Representative what you really think of their actions.
I especially love the drink recipes at the bottom.
New York Magazine on the playbook that the GOP has been using since January:
The first element of the strategy is a kind of legislative strike. Initially, House Republicans decided to boycott all direct negotiations with President Obama, and then subsequently extended that boycott to negotiations with the Democratic Senate. (Senate Democrats have spent months pleading with House Republicans to negotiate with them, to no avail.) This kind of refusal to even enter negotiations is highly unusual. The way to make sense of it is that Republicans have planned since January to force Obama to accede to large chunks of the Republican agenda, without Republicans having to offer any policy concessions of their own.
Good strategy: the “do what I want or I’m taking my ball and going home” method of negotiation always works out for the douches who do it.
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Stop and Frisk
A judge has ruled that NY City’s Stop-and-Frisk practice violated the rights of New Yorkers.
In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York, and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.
Glad to see this, but isn’t calling for a federal monitor to ensure compliance with any amendment in the Bill of Rights like asking Lindsay Lohan to be your sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous?
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Boehner’s Boner
I don’t know, I’m woefully under-informed on the issue… I’m really linking to this because my Mom sent me this article in an email saying that the coin should have House Speaker John Boehner’s face on the coin, since his party is the one causing the issue, and that made me think that a great name for the coin would be the “Boehner’s Boner Memorial Coin”, because that would be comedy gold.
