- Of all the scurvy deeds F*c*b**k has attempted, this may be the worst: trying to get hospital records so they could de-anonymize them and match them to specific FB users. (Via M in comments)
- But of course, FB’s troubles all result from excess idealism. We should never doubt their deep, deep commitment to our privacy.
- Seattle’s mayor wants to impose tolls on downtown streets.
- The Atlantic has caved to the intolerant mob and fired Kevin D. Williamson. (I don’t agree with the man on many issues, but he writes like an angel and this was pure cowardice.) More on the hypocrisy.
- Scott Greenfield examines the latest cop hit on an unarmed victim.
- An app warned some people about today’s L.A. earthquake half a minute before the quake struck.
- Kit Perez, who has experienced her share of them, explains why gun rallies are pointless.
- Commander Zero says you definitely should NOT live like there’s no tomorrow.
- More dogs die on United than on any other airline. But the reason isn’t all that simple or necessarily damning.
- The saddest dog on the Internet (not really).
I am proud to say after years of procrastination, that I initiated the {14 day!) process to delete my F*c*b**k account. Next step is G**gl* but I’m not sure what to do about my Android phone.
Congratulations and good luck, DistOne!
In related news: Zuckerberg finally speaks — and makes matters infinitely worse on the subject of FB censorship and surveillance:
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-privacy-scandal-zuckerberg-interview-messenger-app/
Madame Eyebrows is gorgeous! And her make-up reminds me of that famous sad clown Emmitt Kelly. (Gosh I hope I’m recalling the correct name!)
Yes, you are! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Kelly
Good memory; good comparison.
I don’t rarely if ever disagree with Kit, and I believe her points about rally’s are very well taken but I am going to give another opinion.
I have been to many rallies going back over decades some of which have been in the mid to even higher six figures as to attendance, far larger than the astroturf rally we just witnessed in DC.
Rally’s can show all of your weaknesses for sure and it is very likely that can & will happen when you have a press who has another agenda. But I have seen that overcome if the planners are smart about it.
However they do bring people together, sometimes some bad people but also good can come together too.
IMHO times are changing, some of that change is being forced on different people in different states, I have heard about gatherings (not rallies) recently that started with a handful and ended with over a 1,000 once it took place and will be growing from there.
IMHO as tyranny raises it’s ugly head, liberty minded people will want and have no other choice than to fight back, having the soap box as an outlet is good, it gathers those together who are of like mind, when the bad is weeded out, good can become of that.
You have to be careful of who is behind the rally and what their intentions/agenda really are but I am a big proponent of using all of the three boxes to their fullest because no sane person should ever want to go to the fourth until those other three have been drained completely and there is no other choice.
And folks IMHO we all will be facing some hard choices in the future.
The photo of Emmet Kelly’s vain efforts to fight the infamous 1944 tent fire is one of the most soul-harrowing pictures ever taken. “The Day The Clowns Cried” indeed.
RE: F*c*b**k
I don’t know what to make of this, but a couple of days ago, I received a phone call (a live voice, but you could tell it was from a call center) inviting me to a “town hall” meeting being put on by Breibart News at a local restaurant with the topic being F*c*b**k and privacy. I said I would not be attending.
Then this morning I received another live call from “Julie” with some Internet organization (she named the group by I didn’t catch it) wanting to know if I use F*c*b**k or have heard the latest news about the release of personal information. I cut her off at that point and said I didn’t use F*c*b**k and hung up.
Could forces be trying to line up supporters for an anti-F*c*b**k push?
Adam, from what I am seeing on some of the blogs of the left, they have become very anti f******k, I already suspect that has been true from the right for a while now.
Heck zuck might just bring us all together yet.
The photo and the story: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/06/tears-of-a-clown/
“Heck zuck might just bring us all together yet.”
LOL! Just what he always aimed to do. Maybe not quite the way he aimed to do it.
And Adam … you get interesting telemarketing calls.
Claire,
I’m one of those old fools who still has a listed, landline phone for business purposes. Robo telemarketing calls are the norm, but getting live calls are rare these days.
I’m not much of a group joiner, so I don’t know why I would have been targeted by those two recent callers. And, I’ve never had a F*c*b**k account.
Another angle on FB: listening to NPR’s Science Friday briefly, in the car, they had a guest lamenting the “medical quackery” pages there, and describing the attempts to shut them down and remove them. My thinking is, one person’s quackery is another’s free speech. The “harm” these posts are doing, according to the establishment guest, is discouraging people from seeking “real” medical treatment.
Apparently these thoughts never occurred to these people: (1) that if conventional medicine had better options for cancer, for example, than the cut, burn, and poison treatments that make patients wish they were dead, maybe these “quackery” alternatives wouldn’t be so attractive; and (2) that adults own their bodies and have the right to use any treatments they want.
An interjection: An adult does, in fact, have the Right to do with their bodies as they list. However:
Let us consider MMS; known variously as Master Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Solution, and a dozen other names: it is in fact a powerful industrial bleaching agent touted by “alternative medicine” guru James Humble as a cure for everything from the sniffles to autism to colon cancer. Humble and his acolytes insist that, among other things, MMS cures autism when administered in quantity, by force if needed, as an enema.
His idea of “curing” autism, as if autistics needed curing, is to force caustic bleach up a child’s asshole half a dozen times per day.
I have seen a LOT of MMS-shilling and similar throughout the libertarian sectors of the Web.
This guy’s “cure” is literal poison, and his suggested “treatments” involve cramming said poison up the nethers of a panicking, struggling child.
Oh, and in case you’re worried about the symptoms- the vomiting, the trots, the anemia, the chemical burns and ulcers- according to Humble and his myrmidons, those are nothing but toxins leaving the body, proof that MMS is working to rid tge body of… well, everything!
The questiok becomes this: what measure of suffering is permissible, inflicted upon a child by their vicious or idiotic parents?
And don’t tell me “the kid should take some personal responsibility and exercise their individual Right to divorce their parents.” Tell that to the autistic 3-year-old being bleach-sodomized by their mom.
It would appear that backpage.com has been taken down by the feds
http://www.backpage.com/
Curiously, that you guys are discussing f****b***k when I’m in the middle of reading the chapter on that, from this book I’m currently reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1549727621/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This book has me hooked on learning more about this “world”.
If Hillary had won the election and then the news broke that Cambridge Analytica had used FB data to help Trump, no one on the left would have cared much. It’s just that they’ve been reaching for an excuse for her loss since election day and they just can’t accept that people found her more despicable than Trump (though they did seem to accept it for about five minutes at one point). I imagine it was like thinking your candidate was the 1985 Chicago Bears only to find out she’s really the 1985 New England Patriots.
Anyone else bothered by the mis-identification of Madame Eyebrows as an English Bulldog? She looks like she may be an American Staffordshire Terrier, or possibly an American Pitbull Terrier but those breeds have been banned in Germany since 2001 (thus, I’m assuming, the reason for the fake news).
Video to put the Brooklyn police shooting in some context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAMPexQ7iVw
I agree the video looks damning and the guy was behaving crazily. But the cops knew this guy. They knew he was mentally ill and that he had the habit of picking up objects and fiddling with them. They also knew he had a reputation for being harmless.
I agree that if he was a complete unknown to them what we saw in that video would have been enough to get him shot. It’s just not the whole story.
havent heard a peep out of my facebook using friends that cant understand why I have nothing to do with them.
E. Garrett Perry:
I agree that what you describe is wrong, for it constitutes assault on another person (a child). That mala in se act is what should be prevented, or punished if it happens. Not free speech, which was the point of my comment..
The alternative (“quack”) treatment mentioned on the NPR program was cabbage juice, I believe. Not what you described.
The problem is that extreme examples are often used to justify more and more mala prohibita laws and restrictions. If people who tout MMS should be silenced because some parent somewhere might harm their child with it, where do you draw the line? Should the cabbage juice promoters also be silenced? Those who promote vitamins? And who makes that decision as to what speech is acceptable, and what should be banned?
Child abuse is another example that is vexing to me, at least. Again, where do we draw the line? No one wants to see children harmed. But child abuse is a growth industry for the police state, where the definition of abuse keeps being expanded to the point that parents can’t discipline their children. I have even seen some claim that making kids do chores or wear garage-sale clothing is abuse.
I don’t know what the answer is to the issue of how to protect children without violating the rights of their parents.
But when it comes to speech, I think the answer is more speech, not censorship. If anyone thinks a treatment suggested by anyone (including the medical profession) is harmful, then shout that from the rooftops.
Finally, I would point out the irony that the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S. is medical errors. The medical profession should clean up its own act, instead of trying to silence anyone with alternative views.
Re: the United story. It’s nice to see that some journalists actually do know how to dig into statistics to look for what is really going on rather than just jumping on the hysterics bandwagon to vilify someone/something based on very incomplete, skewed data points.
Now if they could just apply the same journalistic skills to gun statistics…