… 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.”
“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
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
DRM + Always on Internet + Prism == Really Bad PR + Backtrack fast!
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.
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.
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 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)
They gamed votes.
They’re gaming functions of the IRS.
They’re gaming the rules governing the EPA.
What’s left? Oh…the Justice system. (Via Ace).
Benito would be proud of the modern-day black-shirts.
Ignore him – he’ll be too busy running for President;
A fuming Bloomberg made the threat against Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman at Madison Square Garden’s private 1879 Club during last Thursday’s Knick playoff game, a witness said yesterday.
“It was like Gene had kidnapped his child. He used the f-word twice,” the witness said.
h/t Black Mamba
Where the jihadists caper unmolested: Two men arrested over ‘offensive Twitter comments about British soldier’s death’
“To do so, he may need to do more than to promise to bolster embassy security and to shut down the IRS targeting operation. He may need to forcefully condemn the half-truths and distortions disseminated under his name.
He may need to fire people who can’t get his story straight.”
Well known American blogger Pamela Geller is scheduled to speak in Toronto this month. But if the allegations are true, then some in the York Regional Police force appear to have decided that she should not appear:
Insp. Ricky Veerappan of the force’s diversity, equity and inclusion bureau, confirmed he and officers from the force’s hate crimes unit met with Rabbi Mendel Kaplan of the Chabad Flamingo Synagogue on Tuesday.
Christie Blatchford commits journalism.
Related*
‘Solyndra’, and crony capitalism.
“My wife has been crying for three or four days now saying: ‘Why should we pay and not them?'” says Andreas.
It was revealed last week in Greek media that Laiki, the Bank of Cyprus and the Hellenic Bank forgave loans amounting to millions of euros to companies, local authorities and individual politicians.
It’s what happens when politicians and business people spend time together on the golf courses.
H/t: Dick Slater
Maybe ‘substance’ is the last thing Canadians should be worried about:
Trudeau”s not worried about those who say he lacks substance: “I’m not going to go around reciting PI to the 19th decibel” he says #cdnpoli
— The West Block (@TheWestBlock) April 7, 2013
A proud teacher who won’t back down from the Harper Conservatives, err, the Ontario Liberals.
Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and where do you put your junk?
Residents filling in a survey on household waste were stunned that, after being asked about recycling reward schemes, the sizes of bins and whether their property has space to store them, the questionnaire inquired if they were heterosexual, gay or bisexual.
h/t Me No Dhimmi