This morning’s major outrage among my circle of internet associates seems to be a young British kid who sent a nasty-gram to the White House and has been informed he won’t be allowed to grace our American shores. The outrage comes from too many people believing the The Sun or The Daily Mail are actual news sources, and that the kid was in trouble for merely calling the President of the United States a prick. Of course, if one bothers to go to the original local news source, the story is a little more informative.

On Friday, Luke Angel, 17, from Silsoe told Bedfordshire on Sunday that he had sent one email about a month ago. He said he couldn’t remember exactly what he had written as he did it when he was ‘drunk and high’ but said he had expressed dislike for President Barack Obama and the US Government.

He said that he had called President Obama a ‘p***k’ but when asked if the action taken to ban him from going to America ‘forever’ was extreme, Mr Angel said he had been more abusive than that.

The teenager added that he had been watching some conspiracy theory programmes such as the ones about 9/11 and had been researching the Illuminati – a lot of which he believed in.

I personally have no problem with idiotic teenagers who believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories being told not to bother coming to America, especially if they are the sort to get drunk and high and write abusive and threatening emails to world leaders. We have enough of that kind of crazy already living within our borders. It’s actually against the law here in the USA to threaten the President, and oddly, the very same people shrieking to high heaven this morning about the outrage of a kid getting in trouble for “criticizing” the President are some of the very same people who have shrieked loudly in the past when some “redneck” American has done the same … insisting such a person should be watched closely as a person who may be crazy and dangerous.

And for all that is good and holy, please stop paying any attention at all to the British (or American) tabloids. Their sole mission in life is to create outrage to gain for eyeballs in order to line their coffers with gold. Serving up entirely factual news is not generally on their agenda. If you hate Fox News and don’t believe anything they report, why the hell would you believe The Sun or The Daily Mail are any better?

Just some links I have open to post that I don’t feel like babbling about. Rather spend more time going through my vacation photos!

“The seat … is like a saddle. Cowboys ride eight hours on their horses during the day and still feel comfortable in the saddle.”

Yes,, cowboys do get comfy in the saddle, after years of spending 8 hour (or more) days in one, but your average airline flyer? Not so much. These new saddle seats don’t look so comfy to me.

Since President Obama’s election, Fox personalities have expressed opposition to or called for the repeal of virtually every progressive achievement of the 20th century, including Social Security, Medicare, the Americans with Disabilities Act, portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution.

I’m quite fond of Victorian architecture, fashion, and literature myself, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be alive during that time period. Apparently, Fox News talking heads think is was the Good Old Days.

Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury is a long but very interesting article in Vanity Fair about Sarah Palin. Worth a read.

The Murfreesboro, Tennessee mosque is in the news again:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.

American-style terrorism, plain and simple. Thankfully, no one was injured, except for the construction business that has to buy new equipment (and which was statistically likely to be owned by a white, male, Christian). Mark my words, this crap won’t be stopping soon. It’ll just keep happening and escalating, because approximately 20% of Americans are stupid, hateful bigots.

I think Rev. Richardson, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Murfreesboro (the church next door to the new mosque location) said it best:

If we infringe their freedom, we infringe our freedom.

This just deserves a post of its own…

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

Wow. Just … wow. Un-freaking-believable. I can’t even rant about it, and I shouldn’t have to. Any adult human with minimal reasoning capabilities should be able to see that this is a very, very bad idea and total ridiculous. I can’t even fathom how it can be considered OK for any governmental body from any level of government, including police, to track someone’s every movement without having to show some reasonable suspicion in order to get a warrant. What’s next? Being able to listen to all our phone calls whenever they like? Oh, wait … they can already do that.

I hadn’t really wanted a fence around the front yard, but seeing as what differentiates between my driveway, on my property, being considered a place I can expect some measure of freedom and privacy or not is the existence of a fence, well … guess I want a fence now. Though I’ll tell you that anyone caught fussing around my truck under cover of night on my property is liable to get injured. Perhaps I need to staple a Trespassers Will Be Shot sign to the pecan tree by the street.

See, nothing’s really changed in the USA. We’re still jumping off the cliff into becoming a police state as quickly as we can.

Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans

“It’s no surprise that governments and vendors are very enthusiastic about [the vans],” says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC [Electronic Privacy Information Center]. “But from a privacy perspective, it’s one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable.”

“From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be,” he [AS&E’s Joe Reiss] says.

Well, I can think of a few objections, most of them having to do with my right not to have my home, car, or person searched without a warrant or at least reasonable suspicion. In short, I do NOT approve of roving xray vans. Nope, not at all.

Software Predicts Criminal Behavior

Developed by Richard Berk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the software is already used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to predict which individuals on probation or parole are most likely to murder and to be murdered.

In his latest version, the one being implemented in D.C., Berk goes even further, identifying the individuals most likely to commit crimes other than murder.

If the software proves successful, it could influence sentencing recommendations and bail amounts.

Emphasis above is mine. Didn’t really approve of the idea of this kind of software in the first place, because I don’t trust any software THAT much. Having it influencing sentencing and bail amounts? Definitely don’t approve. Feels a bit too much like punishing someone for a crime they have not yet committed.

Egg Kingpin Linked to Salmonella Scare Has History of Violations

The egg mogul linked to the widespread salmonella outbreak is considered by government officials a repeat offender, and the allegations and violations at his farms go far beyond sanitation to illegal immigration, unsafe workplace conditions and sexual abuse of female employees.

The whole story needs to be read. I can’t possibly quote all the sickening things in it without just copying the whole story. Then everyone needs to sit down and think about where their food comes from … and why people like this are still in business. Well, I can answer that last question: fines for infractions are too low. If a fine isn’t prohibitive –if it doesn’t hurt at all to pay it– and there are no other repercussions but the fine, fat cats will pay the fine and press on with business as usual. For example, if the fine for illegal parking was on $5 or so, I would be far more likely to park illegally when I can’t find a parking space, pay the fine, and press on with life. Three million dollars is a drop in the bucket to this guy. He won’t really even feel it’s loss, just like I wouldn’t really feel the loss of $5 if I got to park right in front of the door I wanted to enter.

And really … wow … this guy runs a disgusting business, for both people and chickens.

Gene Weingarten column mentions Lady Gaga.

My biggest beef with the New Newsroom, though, is what has happened to headlines. In old newsrooms, headline writing was considered an art. This might seem like a stretch to you, but not to copy editors, who graduated from college with a degree in English literature, did their master’s thesis on intimations of mortality in the early works of Molière, and then spent the next 20 years making sure to change commas to semicolons in the absence of a conjunction.

Funny story about the change in newspaper life with the onset of the internet. Well worth a read, and he’s right … as a former copy editor, I too bemoan the lost art of headline writing.

Police: NY cabbie is asked if he’s Muslim, stabbed

A drunken passenger riding in a New York City taxi cab attacked the driver after asking him if he was Muslim, police said Wednesday. The driver told police that when he answered yes, Michael Enright pulled out a folding hand tool, reached into the front seat and slashed him.

This is what I was talking about yesterday, and this isn’t going to get any better until Americans start acting less like bigots and more like the Americans we are expected to be. I’d like to go on more about this story, but don’t have the time right now. Find and read some other stories on it, or you can wait until I write my rant in the morning. There is a LOT more to this story. It hasn’t completely unfolded yet.

And I just want to point out this editorial cartoon as being the most disgusting piece of cartoon art I’ve seen in a long time. Truly appalling. I’d love to rant about it, but there really isn’t much else to say than … shut the f*ck up, Mr. Farrington.