NSA Chief’s Former War Room Was Modeled After the Starship Enterprise
BC’s Daily Physical Activity Requirement
A parent in Coquitlam, BC received this letter from his child’s School Board. The Daily Physical Requirement is explained here. While exercise is a good thing, one wonders if the education bureaucrats should be intruding into a family’s life outside of school hours? It’s unclear what would happen if a parent refused to fill out the form.
h/t ‘Pongo’
When It’s Done for Barack Obama, Then It’s Not Illegal
The continuing scandal of the IRS targeting conservative groups provides an interesting juxtaposition with a recent Climate Change Rally in Washington, DC where no one showed up. What precisely is the BarackObama.com website that organized this and other rallies? A visit to the site’s About page provided this explanation:
Organizing for Action
Statement of PurposeOrganizing for Action is a nonprofit organization established to support President Obama in achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012. OFA will advocate for these policies throughout the country and will mobilize citizens of all parties and diverse points to speak out for speedy passage and effective implementation of this program, including gun violence prevention, sensible environmental policies to address climate change and immigration reform. In addition, OFA will encourage the formation of chapters that will be dedicated at the grassroots level to this program, but also committed to identifying and working progressive change on a range of issues at the state and local level. In carrying its work, OFA will operate as a “social welfare” organization within the meaning of section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.
So what precisely constitutes a “Section 501(c)(4)” group devoted to “Social Welfare”? The IRS’s website provides a long explanation. A portion of the last paragraph is key:
The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. However, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.
Interesting. One wonders how an organization devoted to promoting the objectives of one political party, purporting to be a grassroots group specifically for one politician, does not violate everything stated in the IRS’s own rules?!? Perhaps there’s an unwritten exemption from any & all rules if the work you’re doing is for Barack Obama PBUH.
Get That Guy Who Road-Raged A Cyclist Into The Next World On The Phone
Sun News: Ontario Premier says patchwork laws for exotic pets need to be reviewed.
On Closed Embassies, the Worldwide Travel Alert, and Wimpitude
Don’t know about you, but I find this pre-emptive cringing unworthy of a great country, even humiliating. Why do we allow a bunch of extremist thugs to close us down, rather than the reverse? For what purpose do we pay for the world’s best military and largest intelligence services if not to protect ourselves from this sort of threat?
Via Wretchard – “This is global “shelter in place”. If they can’t use the interval to catch the perps the AQ can create a tremendous amount of economic damage simply by being a threat-in-being.”
I question the timing.
Tommy Douglas, not dead enough
The single biggest misconception about Canada’s Healthcare system.
“I just think with the amount of shortage of doctors in this town, and that it’s a government provided service, I don’t really feel that they should be able to deny,” she said.
You Can Imagine My Relief
Chambliss said he recently spent time with NSA officials and was assured that the programs Greenwald describes have been exaggerated.
“I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials,” Chambliss said. “And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.”
After all, a couple of hours with Nanny ought to be enough to sooth anyone.
“Culture trumps economics”
Read all about it at The Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Free Big Meany!
Sun News: Manitoba PC MLA Kelvin Goertzen debates the merit of his cyber bullying legislation with Ezra Levant.
Nobody Likes a Traitor
… but after some 5000 years of human history where governments turn on their own people, why would anyone be surprised when their own government proves not to be a friend.
“Snowden, I don’t like him at all, but we would never have known what happened if he hadn’t told us.”
How’s That Hopey Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
“We don’t want to quit, we were forced out of the business. We can’t spend enough money to comply,” he said. “We’ve been farming for 117 years. I’m the third generation and we’re being put out of business by the government. We can’t comply with all of the safety laws. We haven’t poisoned anybody with an ear of corn for 117 years and we’ve shipped it all over,” he said.
“I can fight the bugs, I can fight the lack of rain, but when the guy comes with a clipboard what are you going to do?” Bessemer said.
Related: More Welfare Recipients Than Workers In The US
If You Have Nothing To Freeze, You Have Nothing To Worry About
In a seemingly innocuous revision of its Energy Star efficiency requirements announced June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency included an “optional” requirement for a “smart-grid” connection for customers to electronically connect their refrigerators or freezers with a utility provider.
The feature lets the utility provider regulate the appliances’ power consumption, “including curtailing operations during more expensive peak-demand times.”
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
Marty the Magician and others in the business of pulling a rabbit from a hat are under strict orders from the federal government to develop a “contingency plan” for handling their critters in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. […] Said plan will be evaluated once a year, when enforcers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) make their annual unannounced bunny home inspections. Oh, and all magicians are required to carry a copy of the contingency plan at all times and make it available for inspection while in “travel status.”
“The fallout from the Prism leak continues.”
As people digest what the leaks mean, ripples are going out into the business community. Firms were moving towards free, American, reliable cloud-based services; now things are screeching to a halt, as they think “do we want the NSA having access to this?”
[…]
Perhaps the hardest hit is Canadian phone manufacturer RIM, who make the Blackberry phone. One of the last things going for the struggling firm was the perceived security of the Blackberry handset, and particularly the BBM instant messaging system. However, following on from the allegation last week in the Guardian that British intelligence was regularly “Penetrating the security on [G20] delegates’ BlackBerrys to monitor their messages and phone calls”, rivals to Blackberry in the secure messaging market have seen sales surge.
Ha.
I can see Senator McCain’s lips moving.
Maybe try an immigration bill that doesn’t have a 1200 page ‘ammendment’ and will enforce laws and border security before any legalization.
New Coke: Twice in a Month
DRM + Always on Internet + Prism == Really Bad PR + Backtrack fast!
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States.
Uprising in Brazil
Brazil appears to be the latest nation where the people have grown fed up with their corrupt, elitist, out of touch politicians. Interesting comments, in English, from a Brazilian vlogger.
Update: More videos from Brazil here and here.
It’s about control, not firearms.
Firearms safety would be the most popular class in school . . . again.
Some 2,700 teens aged 16-19 died in car crashes in 2010, the most recent year for which the federal agency’s website has figures, and 282,000 were injured. So, the nation’s schools have rightly implemented programs that teach teens to be safer drivers.
h/t, Instapundit
The Crash Of Socialism
The sorts of people who dig through medical journals to find some ingenious nanny state micro solution from the UK, Japan or South Africa that increased or decreased some petty statistic by some petty percentage don’t think in terms of people. They think in terms of statistics. They see people the way that Intel engineers see computer chips and they’re just trying to engineer them to get the best and most efficient performance out of them.
The modern nanny state is a diseased bastard child of Sociology, Marketing and the efficiency experts who used to roam the halls of GM and IBM back when companies still had company songs. It has an Asperger’s level of understanding of actual people, but is an incredible whiz with statistics.
The rest is here. (h/t Adrian)