Category Archives: politics

Political quote of the day

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If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent.

– Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who had threatened to remove Barrack Obama’s name from the presidential ballot in that state unless he received absolute “proof” from Hawaii that Obama was born there.  When asked, Bennett admitted that the didn’t seek similar information from Michigan regarding Mitt Romney’s birth.

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Obama administration NOT on spending binge

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Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.
But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

– Source: Market Watch.

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Cell phone privacy

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If you use a cellphone, your movements are recorded by your carrier. How long do the carriers retain such data?

An internal Department of Justice document shows cell phone service providers keep that information for more than a year, Crump told the committee. Verizon stores the cell towers used by a mobile phone for “one rolling year;” T-Mobile USA keeps this information “officially 4-6 months, really a year or more;” Sprint and Nextel store this data for “18-24 months;” and AT&T/Cingular retains it “from July 2008 [over four years].”

And, of course, if the carriers have the data, the government comes looking for it. At a hearing yesterday in Washington, privacy advocates pushed in favor of a proposed national law to require a warrant for such requests and law enforcement objected, even though such information can provide a total picture of a person’s movements over months and years.

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TED starts self-censoring its own talks

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TED (conference)

TED (conference) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TED, who’s slogan is “Ideas Worth Spreading” and who has provided hundreds of insightful speeches for years, has decided not to spread one idea. They are refusing to provide access to a talk by a speaker who argues that income inequality is bad for America.

The speaker was Nick Hanauer, and here is part of what he said:

We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.

It is very odd, to say the least, for a forum for free expression to back away from one of their speakers.

Yet another TSA failure

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Now it appears that the TSA never properly tested whether its pornoscanners were capable of detecting explosives.

At a Congressional hearing last Wednesday investigating how the Transportation Security Administration acquires and deploys security equipment, members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee sharply criticized the agency for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on technology that they said had not been properly tested.

A report released by the two committees that day called the advanced imaging technology scanners being used in about 180 airports in the United States “ineffective.” And members of Congress who are privy to classified reports about the machines, including one issued in January by the Government Accountability Office, are getting more vocal about their concerns.

So not only are such machines improperly tested for safety, they also have not been shown to perform properly on threats.

Icons don’t change when technology does

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Scott Hanselman has a great overview of the increasing ambiguity of many icons we take for granted. For example, many applications use an icon of a floppy disk for the “Save” function. Since floppies expired some time ago, how long will it be that a floppy disk icon makes sense to someone learning software? He calls these icons “Old People Icons.”  It is a fun read.

Mitt Romney at Cranbrook

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Cranbrook School, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is, and long has been, a popular private college prep boarding school for the wealthy. So it is no surprise that Mitt Romney, son of auto-magnate and Michigan Governor George Romney, attended Cranbrook.

What may be surprising is that, while Mitt Romney attended the school, he and other students bullied a classmate for appearing different.

So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that to this day Romney does not support full equality for gay people.  In fact, the incident was so insignificant to Romney that he says he does not remember it. His “apology” is that standard political non-apology: if I hurt anyone, I apologize.

And when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he actively fought against anti-bullying efforts:

Mitt Romney clashed with a state commission tasked with helping LGBT youth at risk for bullying and suicide throughout his term as Massachusetts governor over funding and its participation in a pride parade. He eventually abolished the group altogether.

“We remember well what Romney tried to do as governor of Massachusetts and we now we have more info on some of his own attitudes that may have led to his policy actions,” Eliza Byard, executive director of LGBT anti-bullying organization GLSEN, told TPM, drawing a connection with reports that Romney cornered a youth in high school and cut his hair. “If he’s willing to dismiss that incident as ‘hijinks,’ I could understand that he wouldn’t understand at all why this program was so critical.”

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Political quote of the day

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At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

– President Barack Obama

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has pledged to support an amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And yesterday, Romney said that he even opposes civil unions:

My view is the same as it’s been from the beginning. I don’t favor civil unions if it’s identical to marriage, and I don’t favor marriage between people of the same gender. If a civil union is identical to marriage other than with the name, why, I don’t support that.

TSA quote of the day

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So finally an actual plot has been foiled, a real-live bomb has been kept off a plane, and what role was played by the TSA? None.

In fact, the Christian Science Monitor reports that, “It was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected” the Underwear Bomb 2.0. And speculation has been revived that al-Qaeda is working on bombs implanted in the wannabe martyrs’ bodies.

In other words, the next (as Janet Napolitano calls it) “little ping” on your privates will be completely pointless. The terrorists have already beaten the system.

But that’s been the problem from the beginning: You can’t beat the terrorists by playing defense. Forget the fact that the TSA didn’t stop this bombing. Can you name a bomb plot they have foiled?

* * *

So why do we treat every passenger like an al-Qaeda suspect? Why do we as citizens put up with it?

I love how the reaction to this new, undetectable bomb from TSA supporters has been “This proves we should be abusing passengers even more!” The answer for their uselessness and stupidity is more useless stupidity.

– Michael Graham, countering the TSA calls for even more offensive, ineffective airport security in the face of the fact that TSA had no part whatsoever in the undercover work that turned up the plot.

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Political quote of the day (updated)

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Romney said that he was responsible for the auto bailout? I’d have to look at the context of his remarks. I know that if the auto companies had gone into bankruptcy like thousands of small businesses had to do across America, they could’ve emerged without the sweetheart deal for the unions like was orchestrated by the Obama administration.

– John McCain, who admits he cannot explain Mitt Romney’s claim that he deserves credit for saving the US auto industry.

Update: This is what President Obama said on Thursday regarding Romney’s attempt to claim credit:

I think this is one of his Etch A Sketch moments. I don’t think anybody takes that seriously.

Bigot of the day

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So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.

Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”

You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”

Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.

– South Carolina pastor Sean Harris.  You can listen to the audio here.

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