SpaceX has launched — and landed — an orbital rocket at Cape Canaveral. Whoohoo! ADDED: Better link. If you’ve got friends or family who don’t think there’s anything wrong with being on a government list, or who believe the gov’s pledges of privacy or promises that missions will never creep … have them read Carl-Bear’s latest over at TZP. Real world example, right there. If those friends are against the wide dissemination of “dangerous” information, Historian says, “Ask the Jews of Warsaw.” Kaiser Permanente opens its own medical school with a focus on teamwork. I can see some positives and…
Category: Privacy and self ownership
Owning our own information and telling Big Brother to get lost
They shouldn’t have euthanized the alligator. Should have given him a medal. No, Colbert. The problem isn’t that you don’t have to show ID to buy ammo. The problem is that you do have to show it to buy Sudafed. This is how tyranny creeps its creepy little way into our heads. Barack Obama … um created Donald Trump. Two good ones from TZP: Bear Bussjaeger’s “Speaking Ill of the Dead” and William Lehman’s guest commentary, “Controlled Violence, or Pistols and Other Things that Go Boom”. Subscribers to TZP alerts got an early look at both of these. Guess you…
A social-justice pecksniff explains that there’s nothing wrong with suppressing free speech and erasing history. It’s just a way of achieving a better future. Meanwhile, both members of the formerly well-regarded Couple Christakis have now fled Yale because they can’t work in such an environment. Kevin of The Smallest Minority takes all of three lines to explain weapons of war You already know the USPS has been photographing the outside of all your mail (“security,” of course). Now they’re offering to email you the photos. As a service. (H/T ML) The answer to terror: tougher (armed) citizens, not bigger government.…
It’s long. It’s thorough. It’s a just-published Cato policy analysis by Dave Kopel on the costs and consequences of “gun control.” And in shorter, rougher language, El Neil excoriates those who would even ban useable information about firearms. (Found via Rational Review News) Canadian judge fines man $1 for growing pot. Oh, the times they are a changin’. (H/T MJR) OMG. This article about the addictive Internet is fascinating — until the author gets down to proposing “solutions.” Then it’s just creepy, and not because of what the developers are doing. Speaking of creepy, Chucky is far from the only…
I shouldn’t laugh. That’s an awful way to die. But at least his family can proudly accept his Darwin Award in his memory. The climate change people have been shouting, “The end is nigh!” Well, if they’re honest (big “if,” I know) the end is nigh — for them. Is this like leaving handy nooses tied to lamp posts? Or is it something very much else? Only the doers know right now. This guy never heard of backups? Fifteen years and not a single backup? I don’t know whether this is rare, as some say, or prevalent throughout parts of…
I like Ross Douthat. In this day of screaming absolutes he always has a nuanced take on things. But even he says that the current campus crisis is something U.S. universities deserve. And if anybody had doubts about what a bunch of whiny brats those “oppressed” university students at Mizzou are, check out their reactions to the slaughter in Paris. Whaaaaaa-waaaaa, nobody’s paying attention to US! Will the little narcissists ever feel shame? Meanwhile at Yale the social justice pecksniffs protest a free-speech panel. Australia is going to try out a hip, cool, and groovy cloud-based virtual passport system. Think…
Wow. Somebody thinks federal employees aren’t paid enough when compared with people in “similar private-sector jobs.” The article never explains what private-sector jobs are similar to … oh, career money confiscator, thug who tells businesspeople how to run their businesses, or professional killer of nursing mothers. Integrity. Doctors Without Borders refuses Pentagon money to rebuild Pentagon-bombed hospital. There is a war on Christians. It’s being conducted in the Middle East and to a lesser extent in the regulations of western governments. Not at or by Starbucks. F*c*b**k: Now testing a new form of creepy. Yes, it appears (certain) black people…
Doxing: yet another reason for privacy. OTOH, it’s so entertaining when one corrupt politician decides to take revenge by outing a bunch of others. Fourteen strange but true facts from tech history. “What we owe the MythBusters.” A renewed interest in and understanding of the scientific method. Two traits of lasting relationships.
There’s one deadly sin that we do less as we age, says the WaPost. Actually, I can think of several. But the article is still a nice reminder that getting old has its great benefits. MamaLiberty tests 9mm ammo. OTOH, while 9mm is emerging as the clear favorite in TZP’s current poll, Mike Vanderboegh offers a rather compelling, if strictly empirical, argument on why .45 ACP is “better.” (Great link to ballistics tests, too.) The Blackphone2: “not recommended at this time” for paranoid patriots. So typical. So very, very, very typical. That crooked cop who staged his own “murder” had…
Take driverless cars, for instance. If we were in a less tech-perilous, tyranny-seeking time, I think most of us would be excited about them.
You and I may be skeptical about a specific new technology, but we tend not to be technophobes. We’re not ones who reject the new out of hand. We may not want to buy the first flying cars or be on the first ship to colonize Mars or the Moon, but we probably have friends who do want to and maybe even know a few who will. We jumped on computers years ahead of the average and were getting acquainted on BBSes before the Worldwide Web tempted slower adopters in.
So no, we don’t innately distrust tech.