Talk Like a Terrorist

To make government spying useless everyone should talk like a terrorist all the time.

NSA Wiretapping Public Service Announcement - watch more funny videos

Trey Gowdy's Unrelenting Scourge of the IRS

This guy is a bulldog. God, I wish he would primary Lindsey Graham.

Bird Watchers Shocked as Rare Bird is Killed by Windmill

This sounds like it had been written by someone associated with Monty Python but it's true. A rare bird is sighted and throngs of elated bird watchers turn out to see it killed by a wind turbine. A wind turbine that was probably viewed oh so favorably by the "twitchers". It would stop glacial melting and surging sea levels and make them one with Mother Gaia but it showed it's true self. It's only a machine but to them it is an icon of environmental awareness and a monument to their own inspired wisdom. Fate can be cruel!

There had been only eight recorded sightings of the white-throated needletail in the UK since 1846. So when one popped up again on British shores this week, twitchers were understandably excited.
A group of 40 enthusiasts dashed to the Hebrides to catch a glimpse of the brown, black and blue bird, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia.
But instead of being treated to a wildlife spectacle they were left with a horror show when it flew into a wind turbine and was killed.
John Marchant, 62, who had made the trip all the way from Norfolk, said: ‘We were absolutely over the moon to see the bird. We watched it for nearly two hours.
‘But while we were watching it suddenly got a bit close to the turbine and then the blades hit it.
‘We all rushed up to the turbine, which took about five minutes, hoping the bird had just been knocked out the sky but was okay.
‘Unfortunately it had taken a blow to the head and was stone dead.

DARPA Can Hack Your Automobile And Michael Hastings Is Dead

AND THEY CAN HACK YOUR INSULIN PUMP TOO

WHEN EVERY CONSPIRACY THEORY BECOMES CREDIBLE

Obamacare Might Cause Hollywood To Move Offshore

Barrycare for thou but not for thee.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/28/suddenly-obamas-pals-in-hollywood-dont-like-his-health-care-scheme-so-much/

Facebook's Other Face; Profiles and Shadow Profiles

Facebook is asserting an unique claim. It claims to have more rights to your data than you do. If suppose you, like me, are not a Facebook user but you gave your email address, phone number, and street address to a friend who was good enough to upload his contact list to Facebook. Since legally once you gave your information to your friend it became his and since he gave it to Facebook it's none of your damn business what they do with it. A tongue in cheek quip from Slate puts it this way;

Congratulations: You’ve just donated all of your friends’ and colleagues’ email addresses and phone numbers to that social network’s internal database. If you’re lucky, its employees will treat your friends’ contact information with more respect than you just did.

The inadvertent disclosure of data by Facebook of some 6 million users has not drawn a lot of attention either in the mainstream media or the political blogosphere so it is probably news to many that Facebook not only disclosed its users personal data but also the data of non users. Furthermore the data disclosed was not the data furnished by the users but also a "shadow profile" it had constructed by, for want of a better verb, spying on its users and any non user whose data was divulged by users.
Ed Snowden, where are you when we need you? If the Facebook fiasco has been mentioned in the mainstream media I am not aware of it. It has been written about at Slate, ZD Net and a few technical blogs but as far as I know my own single post is the only entry on a political blog. Does not the fact that personal data of millions Americans is stored on private sector servers that have in the past been compromised by hackers interest anyone? We have heard about the many safeguards that NSA employs lest essentially the same data collected by Facebook be misused but while James Clapper lied about collecting personal data Facebook has never been asked the same question. The question arises how much data does Facebook have on its users? In the video below Facebook had collected 1,222 .pdf files on an Austrian user, Max Schrems with only 234 friends. Imagine the files Facebook has on Sarah Palin or better yet another prominent user, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In Europe, where Silicon Valley does not fund raise for presidents or surreptitiously fund so called Tea Party Republicans to do it bidding on immigration reform, Facebook does not have it so easy. Any user can demand to know what data Facebook has collected on him. Might I suggest the same right should be extended to all Americans, Facebook users and non users alike? And what about the famous Obama data base that Congresswoman Maxine Waters brags “That database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before?" Should not every voter have a right to know what the Democratic Party knows about them?


 

McCain, Flake To Face Recall?

A new website is calling for a grassroots effort to recall Arizona Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain. The recall petitions are based firmly on the grounds of the Senators’ support of the  Immigration Reform Amnesty Bill. The two “Gang of Eight” Senators have chosen to turn their backs on those who voted them into office and it is high time that Arizona gets their payback on the two RINO Senators.

Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/06/arizona-voters-look-to-recall-sens-mccain-flake-following-amnesty-vote/#ixzz2XHaxN7GB
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/06/arizona-voters-look-to-recall-sens-mccain-flake-following-amnesty-vote/

The Case Against Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants V

The IRS sent more than $46 million in tax refunds to 23,994 “unauthorized” alien workers who all listed the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to an audit report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/21/irs-sent-46-million-in-tax-refunds-to-23994-unauthorized-aliens-all-at-the-same-address-in-atlanta/

Facebook's Shadowy Profile

For some reason and from the very beginning I have distrusted Facebook. I have never signed onto the service despite the fact that virtually all of my extended family and most friends have. Intuitively I thought there was something wrong with the idea that one should share personal and confidential information with a company. Of course my bank, my broker, my doctor, and several insurance companies have my personal data but in those instances there is a need to know.
The revelation that Facebook is compiling "shadow profiles" of its users strikes me as both unethical and downright scary. If reports are correct Facebook's behavior is as bad as NSA's except there is no national security excuse. As ZD Net reports;

The personal information leaked by the bug is information that had not been given to Facebook by the users - it is data Facebook has been compiling on its users behind closed doors, without their consent.
A growing number of Facebook users are furious and demand to know who saw private information they had expressly not given to Facebook.
Facebook was accidentally combining user's shadow profiles with their Facebook profiles and spitting the merged information out in one big clump to people they 'had some connection to' who downloaded an archive of their account with Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.
According to the admissions in its blog, posted late Friday afternoon, Facebook appears to be obtaining users' offsite email address and phone numbers and attempting to match them to other accounts. It appears that the invisible collected information is then being stored in each user's 'shadow profile' that is somehow attached to accounts.
Users were clearly unaware that offsite data about them was being collected, matched to them, and stored by Facebook.

As I have posted earlier Facebook, Google, Linkedin, and several other Silicon valley companies have purchased Marco Rubio and Kelly Ayotte through their faux Americans for a Conservative Direction political action group to promote "immigration reform". It will be interesting to see where the political class stands on Facebook's spying. In the past credit rating agencies that merely tracked consumer transactions were thought to be the biggest threat to privacy. They were the subject of both congressional and the FTC investigations. Silicon Valley is inextricably linked to the Obama administration so one can't expect the politicized DOJ to look for criminal behavior. The European Union is not so much enthralled with the Valley and Germany is especially skeptical of private sector data collection and Google's Street View. It could be that cyber security will have to be off-shored like everything else.

Can We At Least Mention The Economics of De Facto Amnesty

Even though we are bombarded with scandal and the exposure of nefarious activity, we must not lose sight of the battle at hand. Bank robbers have sometimes exploded a bomb or started a fire or created some other  sort of diversion immediately prior to their robbery. This administration is chock full of diversionary tactics. It is trickery all the time with the Chicago Gang.

Let's do some ball park math. According to the Cato Institute it cost about $13k to educate a child k-12 in Virginia in 2010. You can bet that price has gone up since then.

We don't know how many illegal immigrants are in America. 10 million? 20 million? A large number of these are school children. Free education is a huge incentive for illegal immigration. If there are five million illegal immigrant children--and there are probably more--they are costing state and local governments $65 billion/year or roughly $1.3 billion per state.

I like to use Massachusetts as a numerically typical state because it holds roughly two per cent of the US population. Conveniently, Massachusetts has a budget of about $33 billion. Thus, if there are 5 million illegal alien school kids and Massachusetts has their proportionate share (they exceed the norm, trust me on that one) their public education will account for 4% of their annual budget. 4% !

That 4% does not include other forms of freebies such as free health care, subsidized housing, in-state college tuition and those ubiquitous food stamps. Nor does it include the cost of incarceration and prosecution of undocumented criminals. Illegal aliens are a drain on the economy. Even if they ultimately pay a fine I doubt if it will cover a $169,000 education tab for each child.

We need to resist Rubio and Flake and Ryan with every morsel of our resolve. Our states are teetering on bankruptcy they want to do what? In the face of IRS/NSA/DOJ/EPA bullying, we cannot let the dreaded immigration bill slip by us. In the words of Chico Esquilla, "Keep your eye on the ball."

Some Of My Best Friends Are Illegal Immigrants

Some of my best friends are indeed illegal immigrants. Those are the ones whose status I can verify. I suspect that a lot of acquaintances are also here illegally but those are merely hunches.

I have flip-flopped on the illegal immigrant issue. I used to be an open borders guy. They are just doing the work Americans will not do and so on. In the not too distant past, illegal immigrants could not collect government benefits. Nada. Nil. Zilch. As I saw it, illegal immigrants were here to work and work hard. If they ceased working they would have to go home. Nice and simple.

I first reconsidered my liberal viewpoint after September 11, 2001. I changed a lot of my opinions on that day. It wasn't even an overnight change of opinion. By noon of that day I was much more conservative on a multitude of issues. But mostly, I became a tight border guy. We got our wake up call and public safety outweighed the concerns of the overstayers and the gatecrashers. No more Muhamed Atta and his version of hope and change.

The second reason I changed my view on illegal immigrants is that it became crystal clear that invaders had illegally crashed our welfare system and were collecting benefits. They could get free health care, free housing, free food and free education for their kids. I am liberal when it comes to helping out Americans who need help but we cannot support every parasite in the whole world. But liberalism gave way to corruption and millions of illegal immigrants are now bankrupting America.

The third reason I am opposed to illegal immigration is that illegal aliens vote even though that is clearly illegal. This is where the Democratic Party sold its soul. They saw illegal aliens as an untapped voting bloc. They were willing to do whatever it takes to facilitate voting fraud including the once unimaginable practice of allowing a person to vote without identification. The ends justify the means for the Democratic Party and if a jihadist's dozen votes cancel the votes of twelve honest Americans, the Americans will just have to live with hope and change.

I hear that obnoxious radio ad that reminds us that the pathway pack will have to pay a fine. Cut the bullshit. I say let them repay every dollar of government assistance they ever received. If their children attended public schools in say, California, mandate that they reimburse the Golden State for their actual cost to the taxpayer. If they had four children who each spent twelve years in California public schools at a cost of say $10k/year, let them pay the half million to the Broken State before we talk about fines and language skills.

Free public education is one of the big draws of illegal immigrants. As atrocious as American public education has become, it is still probably better than what is offered in say, Mexico. As soon as this current batch of undocumented Democrats are sworn in as citizens, a new tsunami will  arrive. And then another until we are officially drained of resources and our corpse is shrouded.

The following video was originally posted here on 9/23/10. It is still pertinent. It showcases so much that is wrong with America. Not just our immigration policies but the deep, pervasive corruption that puts a smile on the faces of loyal Democrats are displayed in two minutes, forty five seconds.



FLEECE THE TAXPAYER! YES WE CAN!

Do Terrorists Bitch About the Drinking Water?

Wow! Complain about the drinking water and Homeland Security thinks you're a terrorist. A Smyrna, Tennessee based group that had been working with Maury County residents to tackle water quality complaints were surprised to hear that they maybe be terrorists. A Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director warned the group that “unfounded complaints about water quality could be considered an 'act of terrorism.' We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously. But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.”
Listen

When contacted regarding the apparent threatening tone of the deputy director’s warning, officials stated they were “looking into” the allegations, adding: “This is not the way we like to handle this sort of situation." Really?

We have to pass Hoeven-Corker to see what's in it

Whatever happened to Senator Ben Nelson? That's a question supporters of the Hoeven-Corker amendment to the Gang of Eight Bill should be asking themselves. The former senator became a former senator by over estimating the limit of his electorate's patience. Nelson agreed to vote for Obamacare after he received a concession known as the Cornhusker Kickback that would spare Nebraska, and Nebraska alone, the cost of expanding Medicaid at the expense of the other 49 states. Nebraskans had more integrity than Nelson and as the outrage intensified the senator and his wife found it impossible to dine in public. Not surprisingly he retired rather than face the voters again.
The lesson that should have been learned is that the voters look at process and procedures as well as content when judging a bill. The Hoeven-Corker amendment is 1200 pages long. It has probably changed the original bill dramatically and given concessions to key senators to win their votes. We the voters and probably most of the Senate will not know what is in the bill until after the vote on Monday. There is almost no way any of the senators voting on it could have read it all, and it’s unlikely even their staff members could do so in a thorough and responsible way in that time. Only the people who wrote it will know what it says, and I imagine it was written in parts by numerous people from several senate offices.
One supposes that Rubio will have the good sense not to tell us that they must pass it to see what's in it but it's doubtful that he will recover his principles enough to oppose it. The public has seen this all before and the comparison to Obamacare is inevitable. An unpopular piece of legislation is rammed through the Senate by senators who have not bothered to read the bill. The Hoeven-Corker amendment does give House Republican the moral high ground to oppose the Gang of Eight Bill and will pretty much end Marco Rubio's future in the Republican Party. He is quickly become the new Ben Nelson.

Yahoo blogger outs Obama as a Kenyan

Click to enlarge Rachel Rose Hartman of Yahoo probably won't be invited to the White House anytime soon. Something tells me this was not an error.