Hemp Shortage in 3... 2... 1...

Seriously.  If all y'all government idiots keep this up, we're going run out sometime in October.

First up, a young Texas man (yeah, yeah - he just turned 19, so technically still a teenager) has been in jail since March for the heinous crime of trash talking during a League of Legends game.

A Texas teenager who has been in jail since March faces an eight-year prison sentence because of a threatening joke he made while playing an online video game.

In February, Justin Carter was playing “League of Legends” — an online, multiplayer fantasy game — when another player wrote a comment calling him insane. Carter’s response, which he now deeply regrets, was intended as joke.

“He replied ‘Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,’ and the next two lines were lol and jk,” said Jack Carter, Justin’s father, in a statement to a local news channel.

What the... seriously?  You have got to be kidding me.  I see far, far worse in WoW trade chat on any given evening.  It's a tasteless joke, sure; but in context, any reasonable person would figure he was just exaggerating for effect.  Unless, of course, you're the woman who reported him:

But a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter’s Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police. Carter was arrested one month later, and has been in jail ever since. He recently celebrated his 19th birthday behind bars.

Looked up his address?  Why?  If you honestly thought he was a threat to someone, why bother with that step?  Did she think he was a lazy psychotic killer?  "Oh, man, I'd totally go commit unbelievable acts of violence, but I'd have to walk, like, three blocks.  Maybe next week." [1]

Meanwhile, if you're the police, why do you put this guy in jail over something like this?  Investigate him, sure.  Have someone with experience in diagnosing mental illness check him out, and if he is really disturbed, get him somewhere where he can be treated.  Do something proactive instead of leaving him to rot in jail for the crime of making a tasteless joke.

Either there is way more to the story, or there are some folks in Austin whose careers deserve a good ol' length of hemp.

Next, we have a University of Virginia student charged with three felonies because Virginia state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents are (a) thuggish idiots who are (b) incapable of telling the difference between a case of beer and a case of water, and (c) can't grasp the concept of "check out the situation to make sure we're not endangering ourselves or others before performing the canonical example of a career-limiting move":

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked. 

That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot. 

"I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified," Daly stated.

Good Lord. Six plainclothes law enforcement officers, one with a gun drawn, jump a young lady and her friends in a dark grocery store parking lot.  What a great idea!

Now, I know that under those circumstances, my first thought would be, "Wow, this totally normal, and exactly the way that I would expect police to approach me!" [2]

However, Ms. Daly had the entirely unreasonable view that she and her friends were in terrible danger, merely because they were being attacked by gun wielding thugs [3] who were yelling at her, jumping on her car, and trying to break her windows.  How ridiculous, right?  I mean, it's not like anybody has ever impersonated a police officer.

Riiight.  I wonder if Harris Teeter sells rope?  We could use six lengths, I think.

So, naturally, she is the one who ends up being charged with a crime:

Prosecutors say she apologized profusely when she realized who the agents were. But that wasn't good enough for ABC agents, who charged her with three felonies. Prosecutors withdrew those charges Thursday in Charlottesville General District Court, but Daly still can't understand why she sat in jail... 

Agents charged Daly with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police, all Class 6 felonies carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines per offense.

Thankfully, the charges were dropped.  Kudos to Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman for having the good sense to look at the situation sanely.  I can only hope that some good will come out of this situation.  By which I mean, everyone involved in this dunder-headed bit of idiocy gets busted back down to zero, tossed out of their agency, and ends up having to work the graveyard shift   as a Wal-Mart greeter for the remainder of their days.

[1] Just in case you're concerned about my mental health, dear reader, pleased be advised that this is an example of a what we edumacated types call sarcasm, which involves the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

[2] That would be another example of sarcasm, just in case you're keeping score.

[3] Feel free to substitute "ABC agents" if you're feeling pedantic.  Not that there's much difference between the two in this story.

Sliding Down With The Post Office

A couple of months ago, in Going Down Easy, Sarah Hoyt spent some time talking about what she called "the gentile slide into chaos", where she noted:

This post comes from the fact I was talking to my husband and said “the first thing is usually the post office going unreliable.”

The post office?  Really?  She went on to explain:

The slide goes like this – it begins with mail distribution twice a day six days a week, and the mail fairly reliable in the sense that yes, you do get human error and things delayed a bit.  Then it goes to once daily...

Then slowly the mail becomes more unreliable.  Then one day is cut out.  Then delivery is every other day.

BUT the most important thing is how unreliable it gets.  We’re already pretty unreliable, the reason they’re mostly used for spam.  (Though their tendency to misplace stuff doesn’t help.)

But along that slide comes the time when the mail is COMPLETELY unreliable.  Anything you entrust to them has a fifty/fifty chance of arriving, and anything even vaguely useful/valuable WILL get stolen, unless you’re very, very crafty.

An interesting idea: post office reliability as an indicator of societal health.  I wondered how reliable an indicator this would really be, though.  So the post and comments got filed away into corner of my mind that records all the various bits of trivia that I come across on a daily basis.

It might have stayed there for a good long time, except that it got dragged back into daylight by this recent post from Peter [1] at Bayou Renaissance Man:

I ordered some business cards to take to Libertycon, which Miss D. and I will be attending this weekend.  To my intense displeasure (euphemism!), the package was shown by the courier service as having been delivered, but I hadn't received it.  Inquiries proved fruitless.  This evening Miss D. and I went for a short walk, and found the package ripped open at the side of the road and my business cards thrown into the nearest storm-water drain.  Clearly, someone had hoped to find something valuable inside, and tossed the contents when they proved worthless to him.

Emphasis mine.  Hmmm.  What did Sarah have to say about that?

This is a sign post on the way down.  When you start seeing outright unabashed theft by postal employees, and no attempt to track down your registered package, it’s time to have your preparations for the rest of the slide made.

Because that type of theft is a “societal strictures have broken down.”  It’s not “the neighbors will rape and pillage” but it is the “people will pilfer from strangers as a matter of course.”  A package, entrusted to strangers to carry across the country is, of course, at high risk.

Bad delivery person?  Bad neighborhood?  I don't know.  The "pilfer from strangers" idea does seem to be gaining some traction with government employee now, though.  Just look at the TSA.  Which makes me think that it might be prudent to keep a closer eye on news reports about the postal service (and the TSA) for a while.

 

[1] Speaking of which: take the time, go to Amazon, buy his book, and enjoy.  Srsly.  "Take the Star Road" is good, solid, classic, Heinlein-esqe SF.  You'll be happy, Peter will be happy, and - best of all - he'll be encouraged to write moar books, which will make us all happy.  It's a win-win-win situation, all for the low price of $2.99!

Lest We Forget

President Obama would like you to forget Benghazi.

The White House would like you to forget Benghazi.

The State Department would like you to forget Benghazi.

The media would like you to forget Benghazi.

Hillary Clinton would like you to forget Benghazi.

Unfortunately for them... we remember it pretty well.

Yard signs outside of Tarentum, PA.

One Fast Library Of Congress

Library of Congress Turns to Avere for Data Storage

Pittsburgh, PA June 26, 2013—Avere Systems, the leader in network-attached storage (NAS) optimization, has announced today that the Library of Congress has selected the company to increase the efficiency and performance of its storage infrastructure.

The Library of Congress website and file repositories will be supported by Avere’s FXT Series Edge Filers, enabling congressional and public users quick access to valuable content.

The mere existence of data doesn't do you any good unless you can get at it.  Just ask the NSA. 

Mining The Heavens

Mining the heavens: In conversation with Planetary Resources' Chief Engineer

In which Gizmag visits the company’s Bellevue, Washington headquarters and talks to the President and Chief engineer, Chris Lewicki.

A nice little article.  One of the highlights:

Our capacity as a species to move into an area, become the masters of that area, to improve the quality of life for everyone by using resources and developing businesses and creating economies means we’re at a point where we don’t want to constrained by the surface of this planet. Our mission statement is expanding the economic sphere of humanity off the surface of the planet. 

The only thing that will do that outside of taxpayer dollars, which are finite and contested, is to create an economic engine and an economic reason for doing it. We fully believe that space resources are that economic engine. 

To be able to use the resources of space, to explore space, imagine that if we were building railroads that we had to ship in everything from Europe. We didn't do that, of course. It’s all about using those resources locally, so in space the first resource we’re interested in is water. 

Water is such a simple thing. Why would you ever need water? There’s plenty of it here on Earth. We’re not bringing water back to Earth. We don’t want to ship water into space because it’s very heavy and very expensive to send it there. Just to send a liter to the International Space Station it’s US$10,000 and to the Moon it’s $50,000. 

Space habitats, space stations are going to need hundreds of thousands or millions of liters of water, but there are some asteroids 75 meters across that are water rich. Just one has enough hydrogen and oxygen to fuel every Space Shuttle that’s ever been launched. It’s useful for fuel, its useful for supporting life and it’s full-blown radiation shielding for all those people talking about going to Mars. So, that is a resource that is of near-term interest.

Interesting.  These folks are thinking smart, and thinking about sustainable living in space.  It's not glamorous, it's not fancy... but it's a necessity if we're going to establish permanent colonies off of the Earth.  It's even more of a necessity if we want to establish independent colonies.

If I were in charge of HR at Planetary Resources, one of the first questions I'd ask prospective employees is if they've ever read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress...

We Haz A Smart

Pittsburgh Ranked Smartest City in America - The 412 - June 2013

According to data on the 100 most populous cities in the U.S., Pittsburgh is the brainiest of the bunch. 

Henry Ford once said that failure is simply the opportunity to begin again — this time more intelligently. That observation seems particularly relevant to Pittsburgh’s remarkable post-industrial transformation. For decades after the steel industry’s collapse, Pittsburgh was the butt of jokes (heck, even the rebooted “Arrested Development” hit the ’Burgh with a low blow recently).

While the rest of the world slept on our city, we rebuilt — this time more intelligently.

Of course, Washington, D.C. came in third, so there's some obvious flaws in their methodology.  However, they can't be completely off base...

You may also find it relevant that Baltimore was 38th on the list. Cleveland? 47th.

Oh, trust me - we do.  We definitely do.

Where DId They Get That Idea?

The DOJ, DoS, IRS and NSA all seemed to hit on the same brilliant idea in the past few years: we can do whatever we want, and just lie like a rug to Congress and the public to cover it all up when we get caught.  The media?  Eh, they'll do their job and make sure that they spin the story as whatever we say the story is.

I wonder where they got the idea that was acceptable behavior?

Well, Time To Go Out In Front Of A Bunch Of People And Lie To Them

By Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary

Well, it looks like we’re about ready. The reporters have taken their seats, the photographers have set up their equipment, and everyone in the briefing room is waiting for me, the White House press secretary, to walk up to the podium and address the American public’s most pressing questions. And all that means only one thing: It’s time for me to go out there in front of all those people, take a deep breath, and then completely lie to their faces for about an hour.

Good grief.  I'm going to have to add a post label just for poor Jay.

Speaking of which, I wonder where Mr. Carney gets off thinking he can pull this off, day after day?

A major part of what I’m about to do comes in the preparation. Long before I mislead the media, I work closely with the president and his staff to make absolutely sure I’m disseminating the appropriate lies on all the hot-button issues—government surveillance, the economy, Syria, the IRS, whatever.

Oh... yeah.  Right.

Well, at least the media watchdogs will call him out on it, thankfully!

And I almost forgot to mention the craziest part about all of this: When I go out there and deceive these reporters, it won’t end there. Sure, I might start out spinning lies in front of the 50 or so journalists who actually attend the press conference, but then these people go back to their offices and write stories that circulate my lies—pretty faithfully, I might add—to their millions of readers. And then, in turn, these fictions are repeated again and again throughout the public discourse until they eventually attain a level of societal acceptance that ensures the actual truth remains hopelessly obscured, along with any semblance of executive transparency on the issues. Pretty wild, huh?

You know what?  Never mind.  Just... never mind.

Sweet Little Lies

Senators To NSA: Your 'Fact Sheet' Isn't Factual; Can You Tell Us The Truth For Once?

We recently wrote about the NSA's highly questionable "talking points" about the various NSA surveillance programs that have leaked. Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall -- who have long been leading the fight to get people to understand how the NSA was spying on Americans -- have now sent a letter to NSA boss Keith Alexander saying that the "facts" in the NSA's "fact sheets" do not, in fact, appear to be factual, and asking him to correct the errors.

The questionable points are not available - they're classified because, y'know, national security terrorist intelligence etc. - but Senators Wyden and Udall do explictly reference a 'misleading' statement that contradicts statements a letter that the DNI sent them two years ago.

Mr. Masnick sums it up nicely:

So, basically: were you lying to us then, or are you lying to us now?

Tugging On The Mask

Glenn Greenwald - like the majority of Americans - has some issues with the mainstream media:

But it is true that the Guardian generally, and me in particular, are outsiders, not members of the Beltway establishment media clique. I’ve purposely made myself an outsider by very aggressively and harshly criticizing not just the culture itself but the most prominent members of it, including David Gregory and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who this morning suggested on CNBC that I be arrested.*

And yes, Sorkin did suggest that Greenwald was aiding Snowden, and that he should be arrested for it. He's trying desperately to walk back that statement, but it was a pretty blatant accusation.

Some of what is driving this hostility from some media figures is personal bitterness. Some of it is resentment over my having been able to break these big stories not despite, but because of, my deliberate breaching of the conventions that rule their world.

But most of it is what I have long criticized them for most: they are far more servants to political power than adversarial watchdogs over it, and what provokes their rage most is not corruption on the part of those in power (they don’t care about that) but rather those who expose that corruption, especially when the ones bringing transparency are outside of, even hostile to, their incestuous media circles.

Sometimes, the media lets their mask slip, and you catch a glimpse of the evil that lurk behind it.  In this case, Greenwald took hold of the mask and gave it a good hard yank, and what's exposed is not at all attractive.

Perfidy, Thy Name Is Comcast

Comcast turns your Xfinity modem into public Wi-Fi hotspot

Comcast is transforming its customers' home modems into public Wi-Fi hotspots by adding a second signal to each device.

I am sure that absolutely, positively nothing will go wrong with this. I mean, allowing any random yahoo who happens to be in your neighborhood access to your wireless router?  What could possibly go wrong?

In addition to a customer's home Wi-Fi connection, Xfinity wireless gateways (which include the cable modem and wireless router) will by default broadcast a separate signal that other Comcast subscribers can log in to with a Comcast username and password.

Right about now, I am glad that (a) I am not an Xfinity customer, and (b) that we're more than a quarter mile from our nearest neighbor.

This might strike you as a little cynical, but I am pretty sure that should a commercial entity (say, a coffee shop) sign up for Xfinity and pass out a free wifi password for their customers, Comcast will come down on them like a ton of rectangular building thingies.

In other words: they want you to pay for - and host - their hot spot hardware, so that they can make mo' money off of your connection. 

That doesn't really strike me as the kind of deal that I would willingly enter into.

Oh, wait - as an article from MSN notes:

This is an "opt-out" service, not "opt-in." As soon as you get one of these new WiFi routers for your home network, your neighbors who are Xfinity customers can get free bits from you.

Ah, yes.  The wonders of opt-out.  It's nice to see that Comcast is finally making an effort to improve their reputation by dragging it, kicking and screaming, up to the level of such respected enterprises as viagra spammers and corporate mass-market email houses.  With a little extra effort, they could easily become as beloved as used car salesmen or the NSA.

If you're a Comcast Xfinity customer living in one of the trial areas described in this CNET article, you might want to investigate further and decide whether you want to opt out of this wonderful service:

Comcast started testing the new service last year in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Northern Virginia, and in and around Washington, D.C. Currently, more than 100,000 Xfinity Internet subscribers are using the new Wi-Fi access points.