Sunday Morning Open Thread
— andy

Comment like a boss!

Posted by: andy at 04:04 AM | Comments (282)
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The "It's Been Three Hours" Stale-Breaker Thread [Niedermeyer's Dead Horse]
— Open Blogger

Something light and airy to break through the stale.

How about something pretty to look at?

And something to remind us that football is just around the corner.

Let the flame war begin.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:25 PM | Comments (421)
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Leno: "We Wanted A President That Listened To All Americans - Now We Have One"
— CDR M

Leno is still bringing the jokes on Obama. I'm sure he'll be getting a phone call/audit soon.

JAY LENO: Well, let's see what's going on. Hey, Snoop is back in the news. Not Snoop Dogg, Snoop Obama. Yeah, Snoop Obama. A big change at the White House today. They closed the gift shop and opened a Verizon store.

Posted by: CDR M at 04:20 PM | Comments (289)
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Overnight Open Thread (8 June 2013)
— CDR M

22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Different From Each Other. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:05 PM | Comments (1096)
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Too Smart Technology [Niedermeyer's Dead Horse]
— Open Blogger

This post is sure to garner a few "Get off my lawn" responses and , just maybe, I'm becoming an old fogey but, frankly, I just don't want my television to be smarter than I am.

Take a look at the site for the new Samsung "smart" television.

It's suppose to replace your computer for certain functions, such as web browsing and Skype calls, but.... do you really want it to recognize your face when you turn it on?

Personally, I say "No."

Maybe I'm becoming a bit paranoid but, tell me, given the recent discoveries about NSA programs such as PRISM, do you want a camera aimed at the center of your living room... or bedroom.

Call me old fashioned, but I long for the simple times when WE watched the t.v., not the other way around.

What are your thoughts? Am I being paranoid?

Oh, and open thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:35 AM | Comments (401)
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Out of the Mouths of Liberals: Denial [OregonMuse]
— Open Blogger

Last week, I solicited responses to the question, what is the dumbest thing ever said to you by a liberal, and thanks to you morons, the thread was pure comedy gold.

I think what surprised me the most, although maybe it shouldn't have, were the examples where the liberal simply refused to look at contrary evidence, even when the conservative held it up right in front of their face. Here are some examples:

99 My ultra-Leftist sister told me she could never vote Republican because of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and the plight of the American Indian.
I informed my sister that the Republican Party was founded by fifty men determined to end slavery, that her Democrats tore America in two and went to war in defense of slavery, that her Democrats founded and controlled the Ku Klux Klan, and that the Trail of Tears was the direct result of a lawless Democrat president choosing to ignore the ruling of the Supreme Court.
She told me that "everyone knows that none of that is true."
I offered her three history books. She refused to take them.
Posted by: Sam Adams at June 01, 2013 12:19 PM (ECDAN)

221 91 This isn't quite as stupid but my father, who has a PhD in mechanical engineering so he's no dummy, told me that Bush lied and the Republicans forced the authorization of force through the Senate. I told him that the Democrats controlled the senate in September 2001.
He wouldn't look at my phone when I pulled it up on the internet.
Posted by: Timon at June 01, 2013 12:17 PM (LGDTn)

200 "Margret Sanger was not a racist eugenicist!"
Upon showing him a website to the contrary (this was before Wikipedia) he declared it to be conservatively biased.
The website in question: Columbia University's History Department.
Posted by: tsrblke at June 01, 2013 12:41 PM (GaqMa)

555 Another otherwise bright co-worker was upset that Military Spending was more than the US GDP. When I pointed out that it was more around 5% or less of GDP he said I didn't know what I was talking about. When I sent him a link to the government figures he responded "Everyone is entitled to their own facts."
Yes, really. He said that.
Posted by: Mr. Feverhead at June 01, 2013 05:56 PM (SzAZ7)

Isn't that bizarre? And we're not talking about opposing opinions based on subtle differences of interpretive nuance, but simple, bare-bones facts that everyone ought to know. You can argue about the truthfulness of the fact, or the accuracy of the fact, or the significance of the fact, or the relevance of the fact, but to simply pretend the fact isn't there makes me wonder how it's possible to even talk to these people, much less reason with them.

Oh, and one more amusing item. I gave some examples of stupid liberal crap just to get the ball rolling, including this one:

"The main stream media are hopelessly biased in favour of the right - a result of the fact that they are owned by mega-corporations."

"Mega corporations" of course being the number 1 bad guy in the progressive left cosmology. So, after giving this as a prime example of liberal dumbass-itude, along comes one of our clueless resident trolls with:

527 The main stream media is biased towards earning the mega corporations that own them the largest profits possible.
Posted by: occam at June 01, 2013 04:32 PM (DAHhf)

See what the halfwit troll did there? He all but cut and pasted the original dumb-assed comment and presented it as serious wisdom.

Of course, he'll probably claim he was being ironic.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:45 PM | Comments (315)
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The Weekend Before E3
— Gang of Gaming Morons!

Good Afternoon Horde, I hope your Sunday is proceeding at a pace the NSA can keep up with.

So Big stuff this weekend. E3 Starts, Shitstorm over XBONE DRM, The Summer Eve War, The Last of Us, F*CK YOU THIS ISN"T A WORTH READING!!!!11!

So yea Zakn at the helm this week. I'm sure The Dude will post some sharp elbows along with bonus content.

Also Iceland stuff. more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 11:13 AM | Comments (45)
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Professor of International Security: "Privacy is effectively a 20th century concept like the steam engine."
— Purple Avenger

Steam engines never spied on anyone though.

...Richard Aldrich, a professor of international security at the University of Warwick, said he expected Mr Cameron to say "rather as President Obama has said, that you can't have your cake and eat it - you can't have 100% privacy and 100% security".

"What they're not going to say is, actually, we're very rapidly accelerating to a point where we're going to be in a transparent society," he told Today.

"Privacy is effectively a 20th century concept like the steam engine."...

Well, the 100% security part is patently BS and unattainable... particularly when the threats from the state start exceeding internal and external ones. If the value proposition of such a tradeoff becomes suspect, as it seems to have done, maybe its time to put down the crack pipe of impossible goals and back away from the table, eh?

Ostracize/weaponize/polymerize/tenderize the thread more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:51 AM | Comments (465)
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Saturday Morning Open Thread
— andy

Rainy morning in the NE. Slept in, and proud of it!

Posted by: andy at 03:59 AM | Comments (416)
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Prism: Background Info [ArthurK]
— Open Blogger

In "The Day of the Jackal" a mole high inside the French govt. is supplying info to the assassin. Det. Lebel ferrets out the mole.

Afterwards, a minister asks him about the investigation.

Minister: ... one thing: how did you know whose telephone to tap?

Lebel: I didn't, so I tapped all of them.

---------------

The Prism revelations blew my mind yesterday and I went on a twitter rant. Ace asked me to flesh them out for an info post.

Why listen to me?

I was trained in Communications Intelligence when I was in the Air Force. I worked at NSA while in the AF. I worked for a civilian NSA contractor after I left the AF. And this field is a reading hobby of mine. Other than reading, not involved since 1980. I probably know more about it than most journalists writing on it.

Executive Summary:

Holy. Crap.

--------------

Here's the main article. It goes to the despised WaPo but they deserve THESE hits.

Note that a huge amount of non US data flows through the US because the US has so much internet equipment.

Here's what caught my eye as the BIG DEALS from the story

"President’s Daily Brief cited Prism data in ***1,477*** articles last year."
(of course, Obama doesn't read the daily brief all that often...)

4 articles a day in the PDB have some or all of their sourcing from Prism.

NSA relies on Prism as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only reason I stopped at 27 "!" is the 140 char limit in Twitter. Most people don't understand what a massive intelligence agency NSA is. After Pearl Harbor, the US vowed not to get caught by a surprise attack again. After nuclear weapons a surprise attack isn't survivable. Simply put, NSA has had as much money as it wanted (often not shown on the budget) since the early 1950s.

So it's big and collects all sorts of electronic data in all sorts of ways. That ONE SOURCE could generate 1/7th of all reports... I can't describe how much that blows me away!

Remember NSA is supposed to collect FOREIGN intelligence. Prism is supposed to be 51% likely to be foreign - not that anybody checks.

Twitter is supposed to be Prism free. (that just means NSA will take stuff and not say anything) (It's A Secret)

It's legal for you to be scooped up by Prism if you're 1 or 2 connections (Kevin Bacon style) away from a legit foreign target.

SKYPE? Sure, given the limitations I'm guessing most of the time Prism will let legally them listen to those calls.

(Before WW2, the Feds would go to the ATT office and collect all the overseas telegrams they wanted*. I don't think there was any enabling legislation - ATT and the Feds just came to an understanding.)

(*they mainly wanted diplomatic traffic. But I don't know that ATT ever said no to a request for anything else.)

(The NSA has excellent working relationships with other country's, similar, intel agencies. If you think the NSA doesn't see intel from the UK's GCHQ that the NSA can't legally collect...)

---------------------

What do I think?

1. It should be possible for the Feds to do this.

2. If the Patriot Act allowed it, there are certainly quite a few congresscritter who are surprised by that. We had to pass that bill to find out we were going to do this?!

3. It looks like the current oversight is abominable and a new law to allow this sort of data collection should be debated in Congress.

4. CBS says Prism info stopped a 16 backpack bomb attack in the NY subways a couple of years ago. We need a debate in Congress on whether the drawbacks of Prism* are worth these rewards.

*an amazing boon to tyranny.

(follow ME! @ComradeArthur)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:49 PM | Comments (283)
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