NYC Mayor Bloomberg reaffirms his disregard for privacy rights

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long been renowned for sacrificing privacy rights and personal liberty on the altar of health and security, and now he’s gone and revealed just how many damns he doesn’t give about people’s concerns for his fantasized nanny/surveillance state:

Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the watchful eyes of surveillance cameras and even drones in the city.

He acknowledged privacy concerns, but said “you can’t keep the tides from coming in.”

“You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras everyplace . . . whether you like it or not,” Bloomberg said.

The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians — but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM.

“The argument against using automation is just this craziness that 'Oh, it’s Big Brother,’” Bloomberg said. “Get used to it!”

It’s one thing to claim that the rise of automated surveillance technology is perhaps inevitable, but it’s quite another to so openly embrace and exacerbate it under the thin guise of public safety.

It continually disturbs me just how many people act like Orwellianism is an ideal rather than a cautionary tale.

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Daily Blend: 03/20/13

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

Happy tenth anniversary to the clusterfuck in Iraq and the spoon-fed lies that got the US populace to go along with it.

Another underage victim blamed for being raped by football players. Some people are just fucking sick.

Why is it that so many of those in charge of laws pertaining to computers and the Internet are absolute morons about computers and the Internet? (Though, to be fair, Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) ^[pictured] is usually wrong about everything.)

Another day, another blatantly dishonest global-warming-denying article from a renowned crank in a Daily Mail-associated tabloid.

I’m really embarrassed by fellow progressives’ penchant for nanny statism at times. Is it really that hard to commit to the ideal of personal freedom even if it means allowing people to make unhealthy choices?

Faithlessness is healthy and growing in Canada.

More of that Christian Love^TM, this time in Nova Scotia, Canada.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, March 11, 2013

Duane Gish

Win for liberty: New York Supreme Court blocks New York City’s ban on large sugary drinks, which was to enter effect tomorrow.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Condescending asshole tries so desperately hard to make the case that the skeptical movement is actually a religion-in-disguise for condescending assholes. It was less annoyingly tedious to sit through Al Stefanelli’s “atheist cult” tirade.
(via The Daily Grail)

There’s a special irony to seeing Vox Day, who’s spent the last several months smearing John Scalzi as “McRapey” over his own bizarre misunderstanding, accuse Scalzi of exhibiting “juvenile behavior”.

Duane Gish ^[pictured], shameless Creationist liar famous for the popularizing the “Gish Gallop” style of “debating”, has died at 92.

And finally, just the thing to top off a Monday:
(via @EmergencyPuppy)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Wednesday, October 10, 2012

[full size (395×314)]

So it turns out that little shake I tweeted about last night actually was a 4.5 quake that hit the region. ^[pictured] It’s only the second earthquake I remember feeling. The important thing is everyone’s okay ^[pictured].

Newsweek derps again, publishes doctor’s typical “experience with the afterlife” as proof that “heaven is real”. Rational thinkers everywhere facepalm.

Swedish school lunch lady ordered to make her food less good to avoid making students at other schools jealous. Because that’s the real problem – cafeteria food that’s too tasty.
(via @RadleyBalko)

PETA attacks Pokémon for encouraging animal cruelty (!), succeed in “wast[ing] everybody’s time while simultaneously proving [they] don’t know what the hell [they]’re talking about. Again”.

And finally, Cracked.com reveals a few key details that were (in)conveniently left out of big news stories. (Spoilers: Vioxx is awesome and Hooker Chemical is an innocent scapegoat.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Fail Quote: Supporting NYC’s Nanny Statism by appealing to endowment?

From the totes legit sex expert, Ruth Westheimer, who seems to think a sophomoric appeal to a pervasive myth is a valid argument for New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s brand of health-crazed Nanny Statism:

Should big sodas be banned? All I can say to guys is: big bellies = smaller penis so ur choice, Big Gulp or big equipment?

— Dr. Ruth Westheimer (@AskDrRuth) September 13, 2012

To the uninitiated, that is what one might call “bullshit”. On a purely pedantic note, I’d like her (and anyone else who espouses this moronic idea) to explain by what biological mechanism the fat in one’s abdomen is supposedly extracted from their genitalia. More generally, I’d also like to hear how this argument is supposed to sway anyone who doesn’t already suffer from some crippling insecurity.

(At any rate, at the risk of going all TMI, I personally know at least one living refutation.)

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Ruth Westheimer • obesity • penis • endowment • New York City • Big Gulp

Daily Blend: Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Daniel Tosh

Phew! How’s that for a day of blogging? Now, if only the Internet would send me this many interesting stories every day … (On second thought, please don’t, Internet. I’d surely die.)

Survey: 5-10% of Canadians are LGBT. (You can count on the 18-34 age group being the most accurate, given the increasingly accepting climate they grew up in.)
(via Joe. My. God.)

“Comedian” Daniel Tosh ^[pictured] goes from terminally unfunny to straight-up asshole. (He has since apologized on Twitter.)

The Oatmeal’s final message to Charles Carreon.
(via @radleybalko)

Obama administration lays out rules for proper accommodations for temporary agricultural workers. Conservatives wingnuts: “Nanny State”!!!

Vox Day: Richard Dawkins criticized fellow evolutionary scientist over notoriously poor research, ergo, he’s a “deeply unpleasant individual”, and academic disagreement on a single detail means the entire Theory shouldn’t be taught in schools.

This totally unbiased, super-credible, WorldNetDaily-promoted Daily Caller report claims that 83% of U.S. doctors might quit over ObamaCare.
(via Joe. My. God.)

I spy with my little eye a new xkcd Q&A project! Go check it out. (It includes nuclear baseball.)

“I was raised to believe in god and now someone says they don’t believe in god so I don’t like it.”

And finally, PZ Myers posts his own (first-ever) vlog about the FtB/Thunderf00t kerfuffle:

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Canada • homosexuality • Forum Research • National Post • Daniel Tosh • rape jokes • rape • The Oatmeal • Matthew Inman • Charles Carreon • FunnyJunk • Obama administration • Barack Obama • Human Events • U.S. Department of Labor • Diane Katz • Heritage Foundation • conservatives • wingnuts • Theodore Beale • Vox Day • Richard Dawkins • E.O. Wilson • Theory of Evolution • group selection • ObamaCare • Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act • WorldNetDaily • WND • The Daily Caller • Doctor Patient Medical Association • DPMA • what if? • xkcd • baseball • speed of light • relativity • Omaha, NE • Omaha Coalition of Reason • atheist billboards • Emlyn Forsuh • PZ Myers • Thunderf00t • misogyny • Freethought Blogs • freethought

Fort Lee, NJ bans texting while walking on sidewalk

ILLEGAL (in Ft. Lee)

The weary residents of Fort Lee, New Jersey should be thankful that law enforcement is finally putting an end to the latest death-defying craze that’s gripping a large number of people in the area. I’m talking, of course, about the decision to ban texting while walking on sidewalks:

Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.

Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.

More than 117 tickets have already been issued, injecting approximately $10,000 into the city coffers already. But then, I’m sure this latest crackdown on citizen inattentiveness isn’t so much a cheap cash-grabbing ploy and rather an expression of genuine concern for the plight of the endangered (and occasionally bothersome) texteratti, right?

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: texting • Fort Lee, NJ

Daily Blend: Monday, October 17, 2011 – Another late edition

Walter Reaves

Hey, it’s not ten o’clock yet!

• Wow: Texas DA ^[pictured] opposes post-conviction DNA testing because an exoneration might “[override] what a jury decided”. Isn’t that rather the fucking point?
  (via The Agitator)

• Another seven days, another 13 holy crimes (including 6 child sexual abuse cases).

• More divine morality: New documentary exposes how the Spanish Catholic Church stole 300,000 babies and put them up for adoption for more “appropriate” parents, telling the birth mothers their child had died (and showing only a frozen infant’s corpse as “proof”). I … don’t know what to say.
  (via Pharyngula)

• Animal rights nuts successfully get California Nanny-Statists to ban foie gras. (See Anthony Bourdain debunk the supposed harm of forced duck/goose feeding. More here. Not glamorous, but leagues away from cruel.)
  (via The Agitator)

• Glenn Beck’s The Blaze proves its journalistic merits by revealing that Texas schools actually teach Spanish in Spanish classes.
  (via @SimonMaloy)

• If you want self-torpedoing battleships, self-destructing cannons and self-sinking nuclear subs, look no further than Soviet Russia. (And these people were a threat …?)

• xkcd now in bed with the Fire Nation.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: McLennan County, TX • Walter Reaves • DNA testing • exoneration • Anthony Melendez • clergy • priests • Catholic Church • child molestation • BBC • This World: Spain’s Stolen Babies • Spain • Catholic Church • foie gras • California • forced feeding • PETA • John Burton • The Blaze • Achieve Early College High School • Texas • schools • Spanish • Mexico • Soviet Russia • Cracked.com • Avatar: The Last Airbender • Mendeleev

Daily Blend: Friday, September 16, 2011

• Dept. of Transportation now wants to ban e-cigarettes on planes for “passenger comfort”.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Texas schools slowly (and hopefully surely?) realize that abstinence-only sex ed doesn’t work.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Canadian “psychic” Nikki ^[pictured] finally accepts Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge. Okay, just kidding – she cowardly backs out after making up phony excuses.

• Spot the fallacies! Vox Day: One physicist denies global warming = scientific consensus is no more.

• Heartbreakingly cute: Ginger-furred seal pup abandoned by the rest of his colony.
  (via @jakiking)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: electronic cigarettes • cigarettes • Department of Transportation • airplanes • sexual education • sex ed • Texas • contraception • Nikki • psychics • Million Dollar Challenge • frauds • Vox Day • Ivar Giaever • physicists • seals

Georgia cops shut down kids’ lemonade stand

Pictured: Criminals [source]

More public servants doing society a favor in protecting us all from the scourge of unlawful child-run enterprises:

MIDWAY, GA. — Police in Georgia have shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls trying to save up for a trip to a water park, saying they didn't have a business license or the required permits.

Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar says police also didn't know how the lemonade was made, who made it or what was in it.

The girls had been operating for one day when Morningstar and another officer cruised by.

The girls needed a business license, peddler's permit and food permit to operate, even on residential property. The permits cost $50 a day or $180 per year.

One girl, 14-year-old Casity Dixon, says the three had to listen to police and shut down.

The girls are now doing chores and yard work to make money.

That’s what you get for trying to be responsible citizens out to make their own money through honest work, kids. I can only wonder how many comic book, sitcom and literary characters would be criminals in this modern, over-regulated world.

Though, on the other hand, given my experience today (hence the lack of blogging), the cops probably just saved (or delayed) the girls from an unseemly number of scrapes and bruises, not to mention the sort of muscle soreness not felt since Atlas’s first week on the job.

*winces*

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: Midway, GA • Kelly Morningstar • Casity Dixon • lemonade

Daily Blend: Saturday, June 11, 2011

Alayna May Wyland (8 months old) with untreated hemangioma

• Faith-healing parents who let their baby girl become deformed by illness [pictured] convicted of criminal mistreatment, “likely to receive probation or possibly some jail time”.

• Malaysian group “Obedient Wives Club” wants to help women “serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute”. Uh … huh.

• Orlando, FL arrests 5 more activists for feeding homeless people in a park, bringing total number to 12.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Shocking: Nonsense about “space station on Mars” is, well, nonsense. A graphical artifact, specifically.
  (via @BadAstronomer)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Alayna May Wyland • Timothy Wyland • Rebecca Wyland • Obedient Wives Club • Malaysia • Orlando, FL • Bio Station Alpha • Mars

Daily Blend: Monday, June 06, 2011

US Military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” website banner

• US Military opens new “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” website [pictured], complete with key facts (no, it’s not fully repealed yet) and a FAQ.
  (via Joe. My. God.)

• Group arrested, faces up to 60 days in jail for trying to feed the homeless in an Orlando, FL park.
  (via The Agitator)

• Sarah Palin defends her comments about Paul Revere, mangles history even more.

• Also, Palinbots now hilariously trying to edit Paul Revere’s Wikipedia page to match Palin’s ignorant narrative.
  (via ThinkProgress)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: US Military • DADT • Orlando, FL • Jessica Cross • Benjamin Markeson • Jonathan McHenry • Sarah Palin • Paul Revere • ignorance • Wikipedia

Daily Blend: Thursday, February 17, 2011

• Today in bullshit zero tolerance: Colorado teen Bill Smith barred from returning to school unless he stops taking his anti-seizure meds (which contain small amounts of medicinal marijuana).
  (via The Agitator)

• Rick Santorum (R-PA) talks about his Google problem. Absolutely schadenfreudelicious.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Oh, please. My parents once duct-taped me bodily to a chair when I was about three to get me to stop swearing; they even filmed it while laughing. And as irking as that memory may be, it’s no more child abuse than this is.
  (via @BreakingNews)

• Nanny Statists in Maryland now want to stop kids from walking dogs.

• No, Vox Day, you just can’t claim to be more moral than atheists when you say shit like this.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Sen. Jane Cunningham (R-MO)

• Missouri Sen. Jane Cunningham (R) wants to repeal child labor laws across the state, citing government intrusion.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Indiana legislature reaffirms its institutionalized anti-gay bigotry.
  (via @jennifurret)

• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN): Michele Obama’s plan for tax breaks on breast pumps for working mothers is “the new definition of a nanny state”.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• 5 Ways Hi-Tech Retailers Are Secretly Screwing You.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Health • Technology • Cracked.com

Daily Blend: Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Ray Comfort

• Republicans continue their attack on abortion.

• Fundy Christian parents whose son died of pneumonia because they opted for faith healing sentenced to 10 years probation, ordered to seek proper medical care for their other children.

• From the annals of “this should be parody, but isn’t”: Court forbids man with IQ of 48 from having sex with his long-time partner.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Ray Comfort [pictured] conflates “nothing created everything” with “everything came from nothing”. Do school him on the critical difference involved.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Free Speech

• Almost satirically perfect example showing how whenever someone says “there oughta be a law”, there really shouldn’t be. [pictured]
  (via The Agitator)

• Latest faux right-wing outrage: State dinner pianist chose a Chinese song! Anti-American!

• Fake sex trafficker tried to pull a James O’Keefe on Planned Parenthood. It didn’t work.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Excellent and insightful post by Jen at Blag Hag debunking the latest insane WorldNetDaily tripe about how gays may use genetic screening to abort heterosexual babies.

• Iowan Christians to gays: “Here, have a cookie while we try to take away your hard-earned right to marry.”

• Oh, the startling maturity of Fox & Friends.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Gay marriage • Iowa • Fox & Friends • SOTU

Daily Blend: Friday, October 15, 2010

FBI GPS tracking device

• Good news: Canadians defeat SunTV (“Fox News North”)!

• The true size of Africa. Holy whiz, it’s big.

• California student finds hidden FBI GPS tracking device [pictured] on his car. FBI shows up, demands it back. Oh, and the fact that the student is Arab-American has nothing to do with it, I’m sure.
  (via The Agitator)

• Nanny State: Upper Moreland, PA Police Chief Thomas Nestel wants to fine people $25 for leaving their cars unlocked.
  (via The Agitator)

• The Bad: That Congress can’t get “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed due to Republican obstructionism (and general incompetence), while pathetic, is understandable. That President Obama can’t get it done because he actively goes back on his promise and tries to keep DADT going for as long as possible is not.

• The Good: Despite Obama’s backtracking, the Pentagon assures it will comply with the court order and immediately cease any and all ongoing discharges and investigations commenced under DADT.

• <Nelson>Ha ha!</Nelson>
  

• Threaten to burn Qurans (though later cancel the event), win a new car. At least he’s giving it away to charity.
  (via @religionnews)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Canada • Canadians • SunTV • Fox News North • Africa • geography • FBI • Yasir Afifi • Thomas Nestel • US Congress • Barack Obama • Don't Ask, Don't Tell • DADT • Pentagon • Jennifer McCreight • Creationists • Terry Jones • Burn a Koran Day

Daily Blend: Friday, June 25, 2010 – Another record!

Rick Oliver Hereby known as “unlucky bastard”

New record: 16 links! Gracias, Fark.

• There’s unlucky. And then there’s this poor bastard [pictured]. Tip: Don’t ever say “Getting attacked by a bear is as rare as getting hit by lightening” in front of him.
  (via Fark (lost the link))

• Here we go again: Illinois Family Association’s Laurie Higgins once again raising her fiery pitchfork at Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) for … well, for criticizing anti-gay bigotry, it seems. What else?

• The news: an opinion piece in the New York Times asking whether it’s time to make the birth control pill available over-the-counter rather than by prescription. My reaction: … wasn’t it it already? (I keep telling you I’m a n00b.) And seeing as not, then why the hell not? With a country plagued with underage pregnancy issues, you’d think that putting a harmless, easy-to-use and critically needed birth control method within reach of anyone freely would logically be the first thing done, but apparently that’s being too optimistic.
  (via Blag Hag)

• Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment’s Larry O’Connor thinks he’s discovered President Obama’s secret radical agenda! … in a public address that has been broadcast and emailed across the nation (and, thanks to the Net, the world). Now that’s good paranoid “journalism”!

• On the one hand, schools in Provincetown, Mass., will be allowed to hand out free condoms to any students who ask regardless of age, from elementary to high school. On the other hand, giving a kid a condom and teaching him about sex ed won’t instill in him a burning desire to stick his willy into the next girl he sees. So to hell with the prudes: Go for it. We need more contraception, and the earlier the education begins, the better.
  (via Fark)

• Boring: Milford, Connecticut TV reporter caught shoplifting. Interesting: She claims it was for a story she was covering. Dumbass: She’s a traffic reporter.
  (via Fark)

• As if they weren’t crazy enough: North Korea demands that the United States pay them $US65 trillion in compensation for all the hardships they’ve had in six decades of hostility. … No joke.
  (via Fark)

Daily Blend: Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Sample Natural Harvest soufflé That glaze is not what you think it is (or anything you’d want it to be)

On today’s menu of depravity: all-too-natural foods, extra-kinky smut, and plenty of bigotry. Eh, the first two are good types of debauchery. Get sinning!

• Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy examines the Christian Ten Commandments and which modern (US) laws, if any, truly have a verifiable foundation in Christian theology. I’m surprised he conceded as much as he did. The fact that both the Ten Commandments and our modern laws expressly forbid acts such as murder and theft doesn’t mean the latter is rooted in the former, but merely that they have common grounds without necessarily being linked. I stand by my previous assertion: no modern law – in the US or Canada, at least – as any concrete basis in Christian theology, or any other religion. And we’re all the better for it.

• The Irish Catholic Church’s new plan to foster better PR: more dogma to “clamp down on liberal secular opinion”! Damn those seculur libruls and all their conniving, conspiring, brainwashing, law-breaking, woman-oppressing, child-molesting – oh, wait …
  (via Pharyngula)

• Same old story: Jehovah’s Witness kid rushed to the hospital, requires life-saving blood transfusion, denied care because of religious beliefs, dies. Except that this time, it was the kid’s own decision. However, as I’ve stated before, I don’t give a crap what minors believe: they need to get proper medical care, at least until they’re legally adult and can throw all that scientifically-proven medicine away as they see fit.
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• Get a load of this: the US Conference of Catholic Bishops – okay – reacts to the passage of a new anti-discrimination bill that would prohibit anti-gay discrimination – uh-huh – by sending an official letter that states – you ready for this? – their opposition to the bill! I know, right? How shocking!
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww
  (via The Agitator)

• Nanny State of Europe shoots for the moon, misses, instead settles for logging every Google search for two years. Okay, that’s just fucking wrong. I’d like my searches for gay furry smut^[NSFW] to go unnoticed, thank you. (And you know I had to link to that for realz.) (And now you have to click that out of curiosity. I know, I’m a bastard.)
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) shares his own disagreement with Pat Condell’s fiery rant against the proposed “Ground Zero mosque”. (See my previous mention on the matter, here.)

• A happy ending to the Arizona school mural racism affair: first, racist and moronic city councilman and talk show host Steve Blair, who started the whole thing, gets fired. Now, it’s confirmed that the mural will remain unchanged after all. It damn well better.

• Gay exorcisms – in the US. Beyond baffling.
  (via @religionnews)

• FDA apparently considering approving a “Plan C” pill that would be even more effective than “Plan B”. Please please please please please
  (via Diaphanitas)

• The pictures BP doesn’t want you to see, part two. Also, this.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Goddammit, now I will never look at creamy foods [pictured] the same way again. Stupid pervy humans!

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, June 07, 2010

“Dwile flonking”

I really need to stop reading stories with romantic/love themes. Driving myself miserable again.

• Nanny State of Britain’s newest banned activity: dwile flonking [pictured]. … Wait, what?
  (via The Agitator)

• Doggycide: cops shoot and kill man’s medical dog from another yard whilst looking for burglary suspect.
  (via The Agitator)

• Roger Ebert on racism, how bigots come to be as they are, and what it must be like for those confronted by race-themed hate on a daily basis.

• Glenn Beck once again claims that “big government never lifts anybody out of poverty. It creates slaves”. Media Matters’s Jeremy Holden, who survived as a child and was put through school thanks to the help of one such “big government”, begs to differ.

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.