War on XX, redux redux

Just in case the outstandingly (good and bad) events in WI have taken your eyes off the criminals in Washington, a quick overview courtesy of the New York Times might be in order.

Besides the gobsmackng stupidity at a variety of state levels, we have the budget bill pushed through the the House last saturday which contained:

• Defunding of Planned Parenthood
• The elimination of support for Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income women that provides birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases.
• Slash support for international Family Planning, reimposing the odious global “gag” rule, which forbids giving federal money to any group that even talks about abortions.
• Cut by 10 percent the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, which serves 9.6 million low-income women, new mothers, and infants each month, and has been linked in studies to higher birth weight and lower infant mortality.
• The G.O.P. bill also slices $50 million from the block grant supporting programs providing prenatal health care to 2.5 million low-income women and health care to 31 million children annually.
• $50 million in cuts to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant that “supports state-based prenatal care programs and services for children with special needs.”
• $1 billion in cuts to programs at the National Institutes of Health that support “lifesaving biomedical research aimed at finding the causes and developing strategies for preventing preterm birth.” 
• Nearly $1 billion in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its preventive health programs, including to its preterm birth studies.          

Additional bills include:

• Two bills in the Republican House would go even further than the current Democrat agreement to stop insurance companies from offering plans that cover abortions in denying coverage to the 30 percent or so of women who have an abortion during child-bearing years.        
• A bill, offered by Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, has a provision that would allow hospitals receiving federal funds to refuse to terminate a pregnancy even when necessary to save a woman’s life.       

In the opinion section there is a somewhat more strongly worded article (hooray!)  which states:

It is savagely immoral and profoundly inconsistent to insist that women endure unwanted — and in some cases dangerous — pregnancies for the sake of “unborn children,” then eliminate financing designed to prevent those children from being delivered prematurely, rendering them the most fragile and vulnerable of newborns. How is this humane?        

...

Of the 33 countries that the International Monetary Fund describes as “advanced economies,” the United States now has the highest infant mortality rate according to data from the World Bank. It took us decades to arrive at this dubious distinction. In 1960, we were 15th. In 1980, we were 13th. And, in 2000, we were 2nd.        

While I am a little anxious about graphs than mix a large number of things up on the same axis wo/ units, this still tells the tell tale story:

This is a fucking mess.  If one of these cowards who voted for this ever contends than they think of women as less than secondary citizens, call them out for the lying shitbags that they are.  Cutting access to health care to the majority of all women will require a whole lot more spine than the "firm leadership" called for in the same NYT article.  I am pleased that they printed the article, but the democrats can not be counted on to do anything but throwing women's health and equal rights issues under the bus to placate their theocrat wingnut opponents.

s.e.

Koch Whore: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker answers his master’s call

This is just too cool...

Social engineering at it's finest - call up Her Walker and pretend to be David Koch.

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

I have had some problems getting through since the site is getting kinda popular at the moment..



and



Just a quick taste:

Koch: Well, they’re probably putting hobos in suits.

Walker: Yeah.

Koch: That’s what we do. Sometimes.

Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they’re paying for these guy—I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that’s not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators—their food, their lodging, anything like that…[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to “show him a good time.” ***]

[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]

Walker: …I’ve got layoff notices ready…

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.

Walker: [bragging about how he doesn't budge]…I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum…so we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them…

Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That’s what I’d do.

Walker: I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.

Koch: Beautiful.

Remainder of transcript and utube links are at:

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

s.e.

Mephistopheles dental floss, or Toe Jam

I am at a loss for the bolts falling off our so called society, so I counter the irrational fervor with a good serving of word salad.  You try putting "Mephistopheles dental floss" into google image search and see what you get.

All sorts of shit is going on now and it is getting a little weird.  What troubles me is not that I think that all of these things will pass, but what sort of world would exist if they did, and what sociopath would push for such a dream?  Quick bullet point list:

• Defunding Planned Parenthood
• Defunding PBS (ok, I get defunding Elmo...)
• Defunding NPR
• Whatever the fuck is going on in WI: War on unions (rather, those who did not suck Scott Douchbag Walkers ass), teachers, universities and other  non-trolls
• Tearing down Social Security
• Significant Defunding of many state schools
• Authorizing the assassination of medical providers (see prev post)
• And So Much More!

On the other hand, the same federal congressional brain trust voted to continue having the US Army spend more than $7 million a year to sponsor NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Ryan Newman and several million more as part of a partnership with NASCAR.  Since I lack many of the essential social boundaries that lubricate our "normal" interactions, I will indeed ask: what did Ryan have to do to who to get such an excellent contract???

This is life in new america folks.

If you are not in, you are out in the cold of some sort of Dicken's novel.  Except without any hope of a good ending.  Just a cold angry fearful place.  Just in case I am planning on re-reading The Handmaiden's Tale for homework.

As an antidote to the bile that I have been choking down, I offer you this:

For the first time in a while I am actually proud of the people who live here.  Tens of thousands of people have gone down to the capitol building for days now to protest the absurdity of our current state governor.  The mighty Mrs. set.element and I are dragging thing1 and thing2 down there to provide a little demonstration of participatory democracy.   Now that makes me happy.

s.e.

HB1171: codifying abortion provider killing

I have blovated at length about the world spinning down and the continuing war against Reason and decency.  I have scooped up a big stinking pile of shit and waited for the mushrooms to grow.  And still I wait.  So here in this happy place I discovered a new low.  Go figure.

HB1171 is a bill currently in play in South Dakota which redefines justifiable homicide in such a way as to make it legal to shoot abortion providers in cold blood.  No doubt it will not make it out of committee, but that kinda misses the point.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable homicide to provide for the protection of certain unborn children.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:

Section 1. That § 22-16-34 be amended to read as follows:

22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.

Section 2. That § 22-16-35 be amended to read as follows:

22-16-35. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.

If you have the stomach, read more in a Mother Jones about this.  I am going to lose my shit for a moment.

This bill is sponsored by Rep. Phil Jensen a "committed" foe of abortion rights.  He is just another chickenshit doushbag from the religious right.  He lacks the fucking stones to actually say what he means - he says "This simply is to bring consistency to South Dakota statute as it relates to justifiable homicide" which is bullshit.  What a bastard.  Every one of these people acts like this - a fucking refusal to step up and actually own the consequences of their actions.  These fans of "personal responsibility", these baby jebus loven' freedom hating spoiled shits get the wingnuttery all riled up then sit around and have the gall to stare blankly into a camera and say they had NO IDEA that thirty years of increasingly violent hate speech would somehow be a problem after people start being killed.

I am not better now, but if I do not stop I might write something that is ALL IN CAPS and FULL OF THINGS THAT MIGHT GET ME IN TROUBLE.

Looks like the bill made it out of committee and will be on the floor of the state house.

By the way if you see the beautiful Mrs set.element today, please give her a hug cause today is a hard one.  Also I apologize to Spiros for the terrible violence I have committed against the english language.

Peace

quick amendment - the delightful Mrs set.element just pointed out the creepy master/mistress/servant language.  WTF?  These people are so many damned layers of creepy I just want to take a shower after reading this.

Another day where my head slowly spins...

In order to keep everyone as informed (and depressed) as possible, I am going to post quite a bit more for a while.  Pointless I assure you.

So todays irritant involves the collective activities of google (you know them?) as well as the Connecticut AG in a change of attitude about some activities involving privacy and data collection.

A moment about google - I acknowledge (and even embrace) the irony of using a "free" public blog hosted under google services while I call them names.  I know (as do you) that if you are not purchasing a product from a company that in fact you are the product.  And yes, Soylant Green is made of people.

A moment about what google did.  Short version - in order to have a better idea about who is exactly where when they use the google location services.  As part of the street view program (where they drive around and take pictures of streets, houses and whatnot) they hoovered up wireless data from unsecured wireless installations instead of just the id of the transmitter.  After denying that they did this (a profoundly dicky thing), they acknowledged the act and threw the programmers under the bus since that it what management does.

So who really gives a shit?

Former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last December in response to Google's 'accidental' collection of payload data from WiFi networks had the following to say:

 “Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

I like this for many reasons including the simple fact that it is the right thing to do.

Enter new Attorney General George Jepsen, who is now saying:

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

Note that google does not have to get rid of the data that it has.

So why, good readers am I so pissed off?  We are living after all in a Business Friendly universe now.  There is a second press release which says in part:

For Immediate Release FRIDAY JAN. 28, 2011 

HARTFORD – In recognition of Data Privacy Day, Attorney General George Jepsen Friday advised Connecticut residents to protect their personal and communications data by encrypting their own wireless Internet networks. 

The recommendation stemmed from Connecticut’s investigation into Google Inc.’s collection of payload data being transmitted over unsecured business and consumer networks. That investigation led to a stipulation with Google that will avoid the need to go to court as settlement negotiations continue. 

“Google’s collection of payload data demonstrates that others may be watching your Internet activity without your knowledge,” Jepsen said. “Consumers should know that the wireless routers they purchase from the store are not automatically encrypted, and they need to activate the encryption feature to ensure better protection,” Jepsen said.

So it is the users fault. So think of it like this.  Google goes around the neighborhood and tries all the doors.  If it is unlocked they write down your address, take a picture of your house and walk in and copy any sort of mail or paperwork that happens to be sitting around by the door.  Then they leave.  They are asked about it, and deny it.  A month later they say that they were actually doing this and sorry, we were only planning on trying the doors and writing down the addresses!  The AG asks to see what sort of personal correspondence was copied and is told to go fuck himself.  Later a new AG says that the correspondence is more or less irrelevant and that people need to have done a better job of locking their doors and keeping their bills in order.

This is why I am slowly going mad.

Another day where my head slowly spins...

In order to keep everyone as informed (and depressed) as possible, I am going to post quite a bit more for a while.  Pointless I assure you.

So todays irritant involves the collective activities of google (you know them?) as well as the Connecticut AG in a change of attitude about the activities.

A moment about google - I acknowledge (and even embrace) the irony of using a "free" public blog hosted under google services while I call them names.  I know (as do you) that if you are not purchasing a product from a company that in fact you are the product.  And yes, Soylant Green is made of people.

A moment about the offense (since there seems to be no real suggestion that they did not in fact do this I remove the usual 'alleged' qualifier).  Short version - in order to have a better idea about who is exactly where when they use the google location services.  As part of the street view program (where they drive around and take pictures of streets, houses and whatnot) they hoovered up wireless data from unsecured wireless installations instead of just the id of the transmitter.  After denying that they did this (a profoundly dicky thing), they acknowledged the act and threw the programmers under the bus since that it what management does.

So who really gives a shit?

Former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last December in response to Google's 'accidental' collection of payload data from WiFi networks had the following to say:

 “Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

I like this for many reasons including the simple fact that it is the right thing to do.

Enter new Attorney General George Jepsen, who is now saying:

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

Note that google does not have to get rid of the data that it has.

So why, good readers am I so pissed off?  We are living after all in a Business Friendly universe now.  There is a second press release which says in part:

For Immediate Release FRIDAY JAN. 28, 2011 

HARTFORD – In recognition of Data Privacy Day, Attorney General George Jepsen Friday advised Connecticut residents to protect their personal and communications data by encrypting their own wireless Internet networks. 

The recommendation stemmed from Connecticut’s investigation into Google Inc.’s collection of payload data being transmitted over unsecured business and consumer networks. That investigation led to a stipulation with Google that will avoid the need to go to court as settlement negotiations continue. 

“Google’s collection of payload data demonstrates that others may be watching your Internet activity without your knowledge,” Jepsen said. “Consumers should know that the wireless routers they purchase from the store are not automatically encrypted, and they need to activate the encryption feature to ensure better protection,” Jepsen said.

So it is the users fault. So think of it like this.  Google goes around the neighborhood and tries all the doors.  If it is unlocked they write down your address, take a picture of your house and walk in and copy any sort of mail or paperwork that happens to be sitting around by the door.  Then they leave.  They are asked about it, and deny it.  A month later they say that they were actually doing this and sorry, we were only planning on trying the doors and writing down the addresses!  The AG asks to see what sort of personal correspondence was copied and is told to go fuck himself.  Later a new AG says that the correspondence is more or less irrelevant and that people need to have done a better job of locking their doors and keeping their bills in order.

This is why I am slowly going mad.

The Grey

It has been approximately a year since I felt like there was time to sit and write out my frustrations to the world.  Well, there is even less time than before, but I am tired and need to get a few things off my chest.

I am sitting in my office overlooking a city composed from this perspective completely of muted grey, browns and white.  A single red pipe sticking up from the new construction across the way composes the only primary color in view.  The two things, the Grey and the Tired, are probably not unrelated and in part seem to be kept in check by the miracle of Modern Pharmaceuticals for which I am happy.

In reading the interwebs the other day I run across this little gem -

DOJ seeks mandatory data retention requirement for ISPs ; Joins police chief organization in calling for law to bolster enforcement efforts to fight child porn, other online crime

John Douglas, chief of police in Overland Park, Kansas and a representative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, echoed similar concerns (PDF).  "Clearly, preserving digital evidence is crucial in any modern-day criminal investigation," Douglas said in his prepared testimony for the House subcommittee. On occasion, law enforcement has been able to use existing legal processes to get ISPs to preserve data in connection with specific investigations, he said.

However, because of widely varying data retention policies, sometimes law enforcement requests for protecting data are made too late. "There are cases where we are not able to work quickly enough -- mostly because a 'lead' is discovered after the logs have expired or we are unaware of the specific service provider's protocols concerning data retention time periods," Douglas said.

What is being asked for is that ISP's retain data about online activity for a period of two years.  The form of the data that is being asked for has not been fully described but any form of this retention represents a significant erosion of the notion of privacy.  In the more full bodied version, providers would be required to keep full session information (think of this in terms of all your "web traffic").  Two years is a long time.

Now this strikes me as a little stinky.  There is almost no discussion of privacy concerns except perhaps:

A discussion about data retention is also not about whether the government should have the ability to obtain retained data. Retained data is held by the provider, not the government. Federal law controls when providers can disclose information related to communications, and it requires investigators to obtain legal process, such as a subpoena or court order and in some cases with a search warrant, in order to compel providers to disclose it.

Any way, the same DOJ jokers who currently break the law and abuse the system will just get another tiny speed bump put in place to see whatever you have been doing on line for the past couple of years.

This is by no means a suggestion that it will be used by unethical folks for illegal actions, but really people give me a fucking break.

In a larger perspective we can look back on the NSA coercing telecommunication companies into allowing them to engage in warentless surveillance.    I have gone on and one about this in the past so, this will be short and to the point.  From one of my favorite sites:

Senator Barack Obama, desperate for some traction against Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic nomination for president announced (via) he would support a filibuster if it contained retroactive immunity, but in the end he supported it. The phone companies were off the hook (har) and no one had to find out anything.

Why dredge up this ancient history? Because it sent the message to the business community that if the government comes calling it is best to go along. There is no downside to cooperating, apart perhaps from some anxiety while the pretty theater in the capitol plays out. There is a definite downside to pushing back, though.

This scenario appears to be repeating, this time with Internet companies. Twitter just received a subpoena for user data along with a gag order preventing it from telling the targets. To its enormous credit, it fought back, challenging and quashing the gag order. WikiLeaks - the target of the investigation - raised the entirely reasonable question of whether, say, Facebook and Google have received similar orders. What assurance can anyone have that their data is being protected from US government surveillance?

Honestly compared to this, the NSA buildout in various telcos is totally kids stuff.

Just another day in The Grey.