Absolutely nothing about the royal baby....

Republicans are begging please please oh please that there be riots because of George Zimmerman.  Because it will be Obama's fault.  Because he dared talk about race or something.

We already live in a surveillance world.  What can we possibly do about it?

Goldman Sacs playing the aluminium market.

Darrel Issa's manufacturing of the IRS 'scandal'.

Defense contractor employee resigns and says why.

Poison ivy is getting more potent with climate change.

A Hyundai that will help fight off zombies in the next apocalypse.

A pregnant woman needing a life saving abortion is only a 'matter of convenience' to Missouri Republican.

YOLO.

Off to a running start...

The winners of the 2012 Golden Duke awards.

States that allow cameras in dressing rooms

Parenting in timelapse

Hunting pythons... in Florida.

Italy looks fondly back on Mussolini.. things must really be getting bad over there.

Ezra Klein's take on the fiscal cliff/ curve/ curb.  And BooMan reassures us.

Want your ballots counted by a warmongering corporation?

Via Eli of Multi Medium, The New York Times:

The United Technologies Corporation made public on Sunday an unsolicited $3 billion bid for Diebold, one of the largest makers of automated teller machines and voting machines.

United Technologies, which first approached Diebold two years ago, initially made the offer in private on Friday. The bid amounts to $40 a share in cash, or a 66 percent premium over Diebold’s closing price on Friday of $24.12, United Technologies said.

[snip]

In Diebold, United Technologies sees a chance to expand its electronic security business with one of the field’s largest players. Last year, United Technologies bought Initial Electronic Security Systems for about $1.2 billion.

“This transaction creates significant and immediate value for Diebold shareholders with no operational risk, while creating long-term value for U.T.C. shareholders,” George David, United Technologies’ chairman and chief executive, said in a statement on Sunday.

[snip]

On Feb. 19, Mr. David sent Diebold’s board a letter proposing talks about a deal. Two days later, Diebold’s chairman, John N. Lauer, responded that the company’s board had rejected any possible combination. He also said that a deal would not serve Diebold’s interests and requested that United Technologies refrain from contacting its directors.

Mr. Geisler declined to say whether United Technologies would press the bid if Diebold formally declined it, saying only that “we know what our options are.”

Founded in 1859, Diebold grew as a provider of security technology for financial systems. But Diebold was thrust into the spotlight in the 2004 election, when it was criticized over flawed electronic voting machines in Ohio and elsewhere.

More on the background of United Technologies:

United Technologies may be a Fortune 500 company, but it’s not a household name – and most people don’t realize that the maker of Otis elevators and Carrier air conditioners and heaters is a major military contractor. The Hartford, Connecticut-based company makes military helicopters, engines and missile systems. Its subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand creates flight systems for both commercial and military aircrafts, while UT subsidiary Pratt & Whitney designs and manufactures engines, gas turbines and space propulsion system for military aircrafts. In 2003, United Technologies also acquired the British electronic security company Chubb Ltd.

And here:

HARTFORD, March 30 (AP) — The United Technologies Corporation said on Friday that it had offered $1.16 billion for the electronic security division of Rentokil Initial of Britain, and that it planned to sell its own manned security businesses in Britain and Australia.

Rentokil said its board was expected to accept the offer. The deal still requires regulatory approval and discussions with employee works councils in Europe.

The company’s Initial Electronic Security Group operation sells integrated security systems, intrusion detection, closed-circuit televisions, access control and security software.

The business generated $580 million in sales last year, has operations in Britain, the Netherlands, France and the United States and employs 3,400 people in more than 100 branch locations.

A megacorporation that makes money each time we go to war? And just which candidate promised less jobs but more wars? And this corporation wants to count votes?

What on earth could possibly go wrong?

crossposted at American Street

A total surveillance society

Where no one dares stand out or question authority, where the type of person watching you becomes the difference between Gitmo and freedom....

Welcome to the brave new world:

"As you walk through a crowd, we'll be able to track you," said Professor Challapa. "These are all things that don't need the cooperation of the individual."

Since 9/11, some of the best scientific minds in the defence industry have switched their concentration from tracking nuclear missiles to tracking individuals such as suicide bombers.

[snip]

"And this idea about a total surveillance society," I asked. "Is that science fiction?"

"No, that's not science fiction. We're developing an unmanned airplane - a UAV - which may be able to stay up five years with cameras on it, constantly being cued to look here and there. This is done today to a limited amount in Baghdad. But it's the way to go."

[snip]

So far there is no gadget that can actually see inside our houses, but even that's about to change.

Ian Kitajima flew to Washington from his laboratories in Hawaii to show me sense-through-the-wall technology.

"Each individual has a characteristic profile," explained Ian, holding a green rectangular box that looked like a TV remote control.

Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is on the other side. His company, Oceanit, is due to test it with the Hawaiian National Guard in Iraq next year, and it turns out that the human body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up breathing and heart rates.

"First, you can tell whether someone is dead or alive on the battlefield," said Ian.

"But it will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking."

He glanced at me quizzically, noticing my apprehension.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It sounds very Star Trekkish, but that's what's ahead."

So how soon will this technology be used to contain free speech and stifle discontent? How soon will we lose all the freedoms we fought so hard to achieve?

The weirdness of the FISA bill

I am truly confounded and have taken several days trying to make sense of it.

Did the Democrats do what I think they just did? Are they that afraid of being handed the Iraqi hot potato? Do they think some sort of terrorist strike is going to happen in August and if they dared block the FISA bill they would be blamed? Do they think we will vote them into the White House just because they aren't Bush? What the hell were they thinking?

Anonymous Liberal at Crooks and Liars thinks the bill was worded to be deliberately confusing:

It is imperative that members of Congress and the media be made aware of the full scope of this bill. It is not as advertised. By carving out a large category of surveillance activities from the definition of “electronic surveillance,” the bill effectively exempts such surveillance from FISA altogether. And while the bill purports to establish conditions and procedures for conducting warrantless surveillance, these requirements are effectively optional and, in any case, there is no penalty in the statute for disobeying them. Those lawmakers who voted for this bill need to be confronted with these facts and shamed into doing something to correct the situation.

Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat has collected statements from John Dean, Glenn Greenwald, Marjorie Kohn, Marty Lederman and others.

Update 8/12: Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly:

...NSA (and the White House) were specifically looking for new authority to monitor communications that included U.S. persons. And not just communications related to terrorism. They wanted a free hand for warrantless surveillance of any communication between foreigners and Americans that was related to foreign intelligence in any way.

And then, once Democrats reluctantly agreed to that, they decided they wanted even more: the authority to monitor any communications — including domestic calls — "concerning" foreigners. With no FISA court oversight at all.

I'm still not sure about all this. I've read a bunch of media interviews from the period when this was being debated, and the issue of broadening U.S.-to-foreign surveillance rarely comes up explicitly. Whether this was because it was hard to talk about without revealing classified information, or because no one quite understood this was really what was going on, I don't know. But the technical "glitch" appears to have been nothing more than a smokescreen as far as the White House was concerned. From the get-go, they wanted a vastly broadened ability to monitor calls on U.S. soil without a warrant, and they wanted the FISA court out of the picture.

And in the end, thanks to incompetence on the part of the Democratic leadership, they got wildly more than they had ever thought possible. There is, at this point, virtually no oversight on NSA's data collection at all. Hooray.