Food Fight: Who Gets to Cook Ethnic Dishes?

This is ridiculous. Give me a freaking break.

John Oliver on Net Neutrality

Jon Stewart vs. Diplomat Buyers Club

*Sigh.*

WHAT?

I'm too horrified to come up with any other blog post title for this news item from Denmark:

COPENHAGEN Zoo turned down offers from other zoos and 500000 euros ($760000) from a private individual to save the life of a healthy giraffe before killing and slaughtering it to follow inbreeding recommendations made by a European association. 

The 2-year-old male giraffe, named Marius, was put down on Sunday using a bolt pistol and its meat was fed to carnivores at the zoo, spokesman Tobias Stenbaek Bro said. Visitors, including children, were invited to watch while the giraffe was dissected.

Oh my God.  That second paragraph is a nightmare.

Tweet of the Day: Idiocy On Display

Remember how I've been slamming the Obama Administration for being deeply, disturbingly, delusionally unserious about foreign policy?  That meant for a little while I wasn't looking very hard at domestic policy.  Well, guess what, I'm finding equally epic unseriousness there too.  This is an actual tweet from the official White House Twitter account. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME.  

Obama and company are trying to peddle Obamacare to an increasingly skeptical nation, its initial boosters are now jumping ship, the government's having to delay piece after piece of this craptastic law's implementation, and the best you can do is caption a gorram mouse on a swing?!   And, NO, rising insurance premiums are NOT ADORABLE.  I want to slam my head against the wall.  I wish we could call for a big fat vote of no confidence.

Take it from this guy: Insurance companies can no longer put lifetime limits on your coverage (h/t @AdorableCareAct) pic.twitter.com/ToSlV7fz0l
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 26, 2013

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: Da Plane, Da Plane!

Well, I had noted this thing flying around Asia, but now it's in LA.

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: Hello Fruit-Flavored Beer

NOOOOOO!  

If you're morbidly curious, here's a review by some poor sap who actually tried this.

Nerd News: Oh God, No!

Isn't higher ed in enough trouble already?  

President Barack Obama unveiled a sweeping new plan for rating colleges based in part on affordability, with the goal of eventually linking those ratings to federal financial aid awards.

Everything he touches turns to rubbish.  What makes you think this will be any different?  I will bet you anything that this is just going to make things worse.

Fill In That Scandal-a-Palooza Wildcard Bracket, People

This scandal bracket was supposed to be a wry joke.  Well, nobody's laughing now as we know that we can definitely fill in that last wild card bracket with the news about the NSA and Verizon.  

People are furious, and they should be.  Don't give us that stupid argument that if we've done nothing wrong, then we've nothing to fear from government agencies snooping around.  Secret blanket surveillance is not OK.  This isn't even targeted.  This isn't about people suspected of wrongdoing.  The NSA's just indiscriminately scooping up everything on everybody.  Anyway, see this and this, which pithily snarks, "from the Verizon: home-to-nearly-100-million-terrorism-suspects! dept."

Oh, by the way, am I the only one starting to get a case of "scandal fatigue"?  Another day, another mess in the news ... Hey, government overreach?  Must be Thursday.

Also, Rand Paul.

UPDATE: But wait, there's more!

DNA, the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court Ruling

"Horrifying," opines Techdirt.  Certainly unsettling, wouldn't you say?  Don't miss Scalia's dissenting opinion.

The Department of Education Fails Voltaire 101

Geez, I hate the DOE.  How many times do I have to say it?  YOU DON'T GIVE UP YOUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS WHEN YOU STEP ONTO CAMPUS.  Campus speech codes are evil, and this latest version even more evil than before.  Let the lawsuits begin!  

Scandal-a-Palooza!

It's getting to the point where it's hard to keep track of all these exploding government scandals (wow, the snarky guys at Ace of Spades totally called it today).  There's too much fresh hell going on (need a scorecard?).  Here's your quote of the day, complete with awesome Arrested Development reference:

pissing off the tea party, natsec hawks, the press AND russia in a week's time is a Gob Bluth level of difficulty feat.
— john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) May 14, 2013

Hang Onto Your Wallets ...

When the government thinks it can decide how much money you can save for a "reasonable" retirement.

Rant: Press Freedom in the UK

Take a good look.  Here's a more humorous commentary on the topic by the famously eccentric Mayor of London.

Quote of the Day: the Bailout Debacle in Cyprus

Have you been watching the nightmare unfolding in Cyprus over the weekend?  It actually took me a couple hours before I could believe what I was seeing.  Imagine waking up and realizing that 6.7% to 9.9%  3%-15% (updated figures) of your savings accounts have been - oh, let's just say it - confiscated.  It might be a way to get back at dodgy Russian oligarchs using Cyprus and possibly money-laundering and whatever, but it's a horrible precedent and plenty of ordinary Cypriots are getting screwed.  This passionate rant gives us the quote of the day:

"The establishment of the principle that a government can, and at times of economic strain must, help itself to your savings, and that this is a legitimate tool of statecraft, ought to provoke riots. I am amazed at the tranquillity with which it has been accepted so far."

Perhaps there aren't any riots yet because everybody is right now busy sprinting to the ATMs.  Hell, I would!  Once folks figure out that they can't get to their money, then I'll expect panic to turn into rage.

Hey, remember all that crazy talk about how cash-strapped governments might start raiding people's retirement accounts?  Doesn't sound so crazy now, does it?  Meanwhile, all those jokes that the Cine-Sib and I used to make about putting your money into your mattress instead of a bank ("Haha, I'm sure my Sealy Posturepedic can give me a better interest rate") now aren't so funny anymore.

Anyway, the thought occurs to me as I watch Cyprus: the leadership in the euro zone could scarcely do a better job of crashing that country if they were trying to do so.  I mean, look at what's been done in the name of "saving it."  When you spark panicked bank runs in the name of saving anything, I think it's fairly safe to say that you've screwed the proverbial pooch.

PS: Interesting (and prescient) anecdote.

Quote of the Day: Surveillance Society

Absolutely:

It’s anyone’s guess how we are supposed to stop terrorism by focusing so much of our energies on monitoring the activities of people who will never be terrorists.

Not unrelated: the execrable (and useless) TSA, along with everything we've ever said about the encroaching, intrusive, snooping government playing fast and loose with civil liberties and every rant ever about how we are citizens, not subjects.

Headline of the Day on Libya

I present the following New York Times (!) headline without comment:

"U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands"

Morsi in Egypt: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Morsi decrees himself to be above judicial oversight and thus basically grabs tyrannical powers.  Meet the new boss pharaoh, same as the old boss pharaoh.  Oh, I'm sure this will turn out just frickin' awesome.

 

What Fresh Hell Is This? Email Privacy

Oh yeah, I'm sure this is going to turn out frickin' awesome:

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

UPDATE: Given universal outrage, Leahy backs off. Good.

Like Hormonal Middle Schoolers in Health Class

A sizable percentage of people in the Obama campaign is apparently obsessed with the birds and the bees.  From the DNC's weird morphing into LadyPartsFest and Birth Control-a-Palooza to the Lena Dunham "voting = sex" video to this fresh and completely creepy statement by David Axelrod, the evidence seems (to me, anyway) incontrovertible that these folks are not just crude and vulgar but unserious and desperately immature. What the heck is wrong with these people?  I mean, come on.  Oh, and Axelrod?  Here's some free advice, dude: Never ever say the word "loins" in public.  Like, EVER.

UPDATE: I just had another thought.  You know the term "NSFW" that you usually see attached to ... ah ... rather provocative images?  It applies perfectly to the Obama camp too!  It really is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Just look at the economy!  Unemployment figures!