Skip on down if you want to avoid the not-quite-a-rant…
I’ve been quite surprised at the number of weird statements lately that are out of character. For example, Stossel on O’Reilly…
Libertarian pundit John Stossel admitted to Bill O’Reilly tonight that he can’t join in the libertarian outrage over the NSA surveilling Americans’ private communications because it just doesn’t bother him that much. He argued that privacy is already being violated en masse by large companies like Google and Facebook. O’Reilly challenged him, saying that there should be cause for concern due to potential government abuse like in the case of the IRS.
Stossel told O’Reilly, “My privacy is already blown… Amazon knows, Facebook knows all kinds of things about me.” O’Reilly admitted he’s confused by all this tech stuff, saying that while he can understand websites like his own being able to track who pops on and goes to certain pages, he can’t imagine how these sites are tracking all sorts of user information.
Stossel shrugged his shoulders and said it could happen, but ultimately, “I figure everything is out there, I try not to have secrets.” He did admit there is a difference between companies monitoring user data and nations monitoring the people’s data, because “Google and Facebook… can’t lock me up or kill me.”
O’Reillly shot back that there is strong potential for abuse if someone involved in the surveillance leaks information through improper and illegal channels. Stossel acknowledged his position has put him at odds with his fellow libertarians, saying “I’ve been called a traitor to the libertarian cause.” He concluded by the segment by saying it should be an outrage that four million people are given the security clearance to see these programs in action.
I’m not going to call Stossel a traitor but I am surprised.
It doesn’t really matter what the gov’t intentions are, searching without cause just isn’t cool and is not protected behavior that the gov’t can engage in.
Ann Coulter was ok with cameras watching everything after the Boston bombing.
Rubio shouldn’t be supporting “immigration reform”. Even the sanitized name is loathsome. Good friends of mine were sent packing back to Germany, so why should illegals from south of our border be given a pass?
The New York Times is the voice of reason to not arm the Syrian rebels?
Has the world gone nuts?
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Co-worker Butcher of Lansing brought in a duo-pak of these, demo’ed one, gave me the other to show to the kids. Hackerboy will love it. I’m still kind of appalled.
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Here. Have a zombie squirrel. THIS is the source of the upcoming zombie plague. Not the manatees like I originally thought.
Miss Iowa Missing Forearm.
Holy crap, they better catch the guy that took it.
Oh, come on. Just kidding. Relax. You got to hand it to her.
Relax. Get a grip.
(sigh) No, really, good on her for competing. Hard enough competition as it is, it must take some bravery to get up there like that.
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Father in law is here. Good visit. He’s being well-fed so he’s happy. We’re going to treat him to sushi sometime this week so I thought I’d dig this pic up.
Yes, I’m horrible for thinking it is funny. No, I did not do it. Don’t even remember where it came from.
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I saw this five days ago and just thinking about it today caused a testicular rupture.