Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Category: Gov’t / Law / Politics

  • Full Body Scanners

    I was starting to be okay with this description of a whole body imaging  Transportation Security Administration plans to implement. One, there’s technology that allows the body to be transmuted into merely a cartoon stick figure. So it’s not as if anyone’s genitalia or private parts are being revealed. Instead, it’s just an outline of…

  • Helping?

    Saturday I didn’t go anywhere. Sunday, a piece of paper fell out of the door. All my neighbors had what appeared to be the same paper in their doors. The point of the note is to be careful about letting people know you are away from home for Christmas. In a college town like here,…

  • NRA Poll

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    The National Rifle Association needs better pollsters. It might help to keep off the list people who are going to analyze your question for how it might be used and provide an answer just to be contrarian. An “Andy Bush” (I think that was the name) asked in a phone poll: Do you think 3rd world…

  • Healthcare

    Lorenia posted a funny video about the United States health care system being ranked #37. I briefly looked at The world health report 2000 – Health systems: improving performance. It is a 1.73MB PDF. I’d like to better understand both the claims that the United States has the best or 37th best health care system…

  • Trusting Social Networks

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    Sunday at brunch we had an interesting conversation about Facebook. Establishing the appropriate privacy levels to the various constituents see appropriate material is hard. So hard it takes a long pages of text and screenshots to just paint a picture of what to review for the top 10 Facebook privacy settings. We were discussing how…

  • Stalking Students

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    On the BLKBRD-L email list is a discussion about proving students are cheating. Any time the topic comes up, someone says a human in a room is the only way to be sure. Naturally, someone else responds with the latest and greatest technology to detect cheating. In this case, Acxiom offers identity verification: By matching…

  • Voting Rights Act

    The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects people from malicious actions by state and local governments to prevent people from voting. Yes, we have a president of African-American descent. Yes, the United States Supreme Court took no action. However, the majority opinion statement that, “We are a very different nation,” suggests it could be repealed.…

  • USPS Forever

    The United States Postal Service keeps raising postage rates. Yet, I still wonder about this statement regarding the 2 cent increase going into effect this year.  When the postal service announced price increases in February, postal officials estimated the hike will cost the average household $3 a year. Forever Stamps not lasting long: Brisk sales before rate…

  • Am I Suspicious Now?

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    Surely the GBI isn’t looking for anyone about 6’3″. That is a lot of folks out there…. Even me. Maybe my only saving grace is not looking like I weigh 240. Hopefully Bankhead’s quote was taken out of context?  While Zinkhan could have changed his appearance, [Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John] Bankhead advised people to…