- One year ago today, a man named Ian Tomlinson was attacked by police. He died minutes later. They tried to cover it up, of course. Most Americans have probably never heard of Tomlinson. Let’s just say our country has no monopoly on armed thugs roaming the street in uniform.
- Tip o’ the hat to Jim Bovard for this lovely interactive map that shows current rates of return for census forms. Good going, Texas! Some of your counties have rates as low as 19%. Interesting that basically the whole southern tier of states is balking at the snoopery. (To see your area, enter the name of your state; once the state comes up, you can mouse over individual counties.) The map does not address how many of those returned forms contained an answer to only the One Constitutional Question.
- Eva’s Useful Guide to Ubuntu 9.10. Johannes Eva left this link in the comments section of my recent Linux for Newbies thread. Could be helpful. (Hint: Using Mint instead of Ubuntu will save you having to download those media codecs, but you can still benefit from the guide since Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu.)
- This shouldn’t happen to a dog. Not even a government-contracted dog.
- Word for the day: Sousveillance.
- Great, great comment from the gutsy Larken Rose. He says he likes ObamaCare. And resistance.
- “Waiting for Sananda.” Dr. Phil Maymin explains how government and its true believers are like a tiny band of devotees who sat and waited for the end of the world 50-some years ago.
- And just in time for April Fools Day … (BTW, the clip tells so much more than the words do. We are being governed by even worse morons than we imagined.)
Claire
with your love of dogs I would LOVE to see a spoof from you on what the dog pound (Congresscritters) would ask on their census and what freedom loving dogs would artfully reply
(we too love our pups – we are on our 5th Neo Mastiff Rescue – to paraphrase the chip commercial – you can’t stop at just one!)
woofingly
Jake
Jake,
Sigh. I quit being able to write good spoofs about 10 years ago. No matter what goofy idea I’d come up with for satire, the government would always do something even more mind-bendingly weird about a week later. Still … love your idea. And OMG, Neapolitan Mastiffs? That’s wonderful. (Though I’ll bet you get desperately tired of all the Harry Potter comments!)
alas, truth is stranger than fiction
we live in middle of a National Forest populated by Griz & Wolves and such
so most folks ask where they can get one :>)
RE the British police and their ‘deteriorating relationships’ with the citizenry ( murder of Ian Tomlinson) a friend of mine living in Scotland sent me a photo of a popular T-shirt making the rounds there… two years ago! A plain, dark khaki with a ‘police’ looking shield on the left breast, bearing the large letters ACAB – local acronym meaning All Cops Are Bastards.
That is based on the fact that many UK cops do not hesitate to beat the hell out of local, native born Brit citizens, enforce the worst tyrannical forms of victim disarmament,, threaten prison tiem for )white_ citizens who carry a pocket knife –
but the same cops cower inoffensively in the shadows when illegal immigrants and muslim crowds run riot, attacking non-muzzies, bearing signs that promise the death or beheading of British citizens who do not submit to Allah Hugh Fubar, or whatever perverse deity it is that they scream about.
Thank God Britannia no longer rules the waves… but rather, they waive the rules.
“uuuuuhhhh my fear is that the whole island will become uhhhhh so overly populated that it will uuuuhhhh tip over and capsize.”
Damn! Did that guy get April Fools day mixed up with 420? I want whatever he’s tokin’ on….