Avoid These Words, Stay Off Government Watch List

The US Department of Homeland Security has released a list of the keywords and phrases the agency monitors online to find potential threats. Obviously posting "Al Queda" and "dirty bomb" online will get the government to start looking at you real closely, but "pork", "cancelled", "ice", "crest" and other oddly normal words are also on the list.  (Oops!  I'm on the list...)

In response to a freedom of information request, the department posted its Analyst's Desktop Binder (a manual for the agency's security analysts) containing this hotlist. The keywords cover domestic security, HAZMAT and nuclear, health concern, infrastructure security and other threats.

According to the Daily Mail, the Department of Homeland Security says it only uses this keyword list to look for genuine security threats, not signs of general dissent. Nobody wants Big Brother looking over her shoulder—and you shouldn't have to feel like you need to censor yourself in this way—but if you're particularly paranoid about the government spying on you, you might reconsider using too many of these keywords together when you post something online. Here's the full list:

Guilt by Proximity (and how to count the bodies)

We'll figure out how to count you once you're dead...  "It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program."

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No Kill List

The New York Times reports that President Obama has created an official “kill list” that he uses to personally order the assassination of American citizens. Considering that the government already has a “Do Not Call” list and a “No Fly” list, we hereby request that the White House create a “Do Not Kill” list in which American citizens can sign up to avoid being put on the president’s “kill list” and therefore avoid being executed without indictment, judge, jury, trial or due process of law.
> Click To Sign Petition <

Propose

"A man in Japan effectively used the solar eclipse to propose to his girlfriend."

Pub Dog!

Remember School Lunch?

She's 9.  School lunch was bad... So she started a blog!

What a great story!

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"The facts are irrelevant" Say Supporters of Citizens United Decision

In an all-out broadside against the current state of campaign finance, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) submitted a brief on Friday morning urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand Montana's century-old ban on corporate money in political campaigns despite the court's Citizens United ruling two years ago declaring unconstitutional a similar federal law sponsored by McCain.

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Know Your Friendly Filibuster

Excellent background on filibuster.

• "In Federalist 22, Alexander Hamilton savaged the idea of a supermajority Congress, writing that “its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of government and to substitute the pleasure, caprice or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junta, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.”

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15 Current Technologies A Child Born Today Will Never Use

How things change...

Who remembers an 8" floppy in a magazine?

"From the moment that I found out my wife was pregnant with our first child, a son, I’ve thought of his development in terms of tech. When pregnancy sites described our six-week-old fetus as the size of a “lentil,” I referred to him as the length of an RFID chip. When the doctor said he had reached 1.3 pounds, I told all my friends that my son was the size of an iPad. When he was born this week, he was about the size of an HP Envy 15, though unfortunately his cries did not use Beats Audio..."

>Click here to read more.<

Happy Mothers and Others Day

A post from a friends blog:

I’m not sure what my friends Mike and Aaron do on this special day. My two gay friends, parents of Zach, are hopefully celebrating. I find it ironic that Mother’s Day falls only days after a North Carolina constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The great thing about being a parent is that it is document and legislatively agnostic.

I am not savvy in the known or simply understood gay protocol, so forgive me. I know this...over the years through my profession, as a citizen of a diverse community, as a patron and participant in the arts, and as a student of life, I have been fortunate enough to develop dear relationships with humans of extraordinary differences in their color, their religious practices, their ideologies, their ethnicity, and yes, their preferences in their life partners. My dear gay friends value my presence and love me in all of my white, middle-aged, heterosexuality. Perhaps because they are so fully aware that love and commitment are not concepts limited to a gender formula. These people, most of them in very long-term, committed relationships, represent some of the best of humanity. I am honored, blessed, grateful, and thrilled to know and love you all. I am a better man because you are in my life.
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Don't pay attention to the man in the dark coat...

He's there to protect you.  Is no one in the administration or congress concerned about this?  Just remember its gay marriages, abortions, women's rights, the war on Christmas, and gas prices.  Don't worry about your civil liberties.  We've got you covered.

One of the running jokes in the 1980s was how the former Soviet Union spied on its private citizens. As comedian Yakov Smirnoff used to joke: "In Soviet Russia, TV watches you!" But here in America, we were all safe from the prying eyes of the government.

Fast forward to 2012, when the U.S. government actually has the tools and capabilities to spy on all its citizens. These eyes go well beyond red light cameras. Right now, the government is tracking the movements of private citizens by GPS, reading private citizens' emails, and possibly even reading what you're saying on Facebook. It does so all in the name of law enforcement and Homeland Security, of course — but whether or not that makes you feel safer is up to you.

Does a new Utah facility really monitor your emails?1. The NSA is building a massive data center in Utah to read every email you'll ever send.
Many of us are aware that little of what we say on social networks is really private. But you'd think your emails would be safe from prying eyes — especially those of your government. Not so, once the government completes work on a top-secret Utah data center reportedly built to spy on civilian communications.

The $2 billion facility, slated to be complete by September 2013, is allegedly designed to be able to filter through yottabytes (10^24 bytes) of data. Put into perspective, that's greater than the estimated total of all human knowledge since the dawn of mankind. If leaked information about the complex is correct, nothing will be safe from the facility's reach, from cell phone communications to emails to what you just bought with your credit card. And encryption won't protect you — one of the facility's priorities is breaking even the most complex of codes.

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The Videos keep coming... I wsh I had caught this train!

In April 2012 Copenhagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester) surprised the passengers in the Copenhagen Metro by playing Griegs Peer Gynt. The flash mob was created in collaboration with Radio Klassisk. All music was performed and recorded in the metro.

Its Video Night!

Re-imagineering Martin Scorsese's classic film "Taxi Driver" with a Disney twist.  Follow Mickey Mouse-obsessed Travis Bickle as he looks for love in a rapidly transforming New York City.

Cute!

Love this!
Two six year old friends who love the song "somebody that I used to know" by GOTYE make a music video...

The Condition of the Glass

Which type are you?

Glass half full.

Glass half empty.

Never happy no matter how much is in glass.

The glass is always full.  Half of something and half of air.

For those thinking a little too much:

(1)  I'm presuming the glass is not in a vacuum.  (Note - not assuming.)

(2)  Even if the glass is in a vaccum, I believe quantum physics or some science that I have no grasp of says that there is still "something" in the half of the glass that "appears" to be unoccupied.

(3)  For those on a more metaphysical path, one might ask "Does the glass exist at all?"  Not even going to argue with you on that one.

Here's the interesting thing, I've never met anyone who asks what is in the glass.

For me, I like to think its bourbon.  And, can I have another?  I prefer full!

How about you?

Information Is Beautiful

Here's a great site to kill sometime on.  It is amazing how some people can "picture" data.

Information is Beautiful

Here's a couple of my favorites:

The end of the world
Snake Oil

What's Wrong with American Politics

A thoughtful piece by David Gergen Michael Zuckerman.

As this election season unfolds, we are watching an age-old dream in politics go horribly smash. It isn't good for politics, and it sure isn't good for the country.

President Franklin Roosevelt helped to fire up the dream during his second term in office. Coming off a massive landslide in 1936, he believed that it would be far better for governing if the Democrats became the liberal party and Republicans the conservative one. In the 1938 congressional elections, he barnstormed across the South trying to purge the Democratic Party of several incumbent conservatives.  His efforts backfired -- the incumbents won and were sore at FDR -- but the dream became a staple of politics.

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