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Unless you are actually breaking the law, what is the point of all of this?

Because: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did
posted to MetaFilter by RonButNotStupid at 4:49 AM on June 27, 2013

without any privacy concerns

eyeroll.

as for this: Unless you are actually breaking the law, what is the point of all of this?

Well, it's the principle of the thing.

And the principle is: "It's none of your business why I want privacy."
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:26 AM on June 27, 2013

> I'm puzzled how a trillion more dots would help.

The people with the budget authority to finance all of this are technologically unsophisticated. The people selling the systems are doing a con job.

Petraeus resigned because the feds read his email to his girlfriend. Accidentally when they were investigating somebody else. Think Keystone cops.
posted to MetaFilter by bukvich at 10:26 AM on June 27, 2013

More on the metadata collection program from the guardian.

On December 31, 2012, an SSO official wrote that ShellTrumpet had just "processed its One Trillionth metadata record".

What strike me about this is that 9/11 was blamed on a failure to 'connect the dots'. I'm puzzled how a trillion more dots would help.
posted to MetaFilter by el io at 8:56 AM on June 27, 2013

Today's revelation - Email metadata collected.

According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general – published for the first time today by the Guardian – the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States".

Eventually, the NSA gained... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by el io at 8:52 AM on June 27, 2013

As I understand it, Zimmerman would have the burden of proving self defense to get immunity from prosecution based on the FL SYG law, but for self-defense in the context of defending against 2nd degree murder, it is up to the state to prove he did not act in self-defense.
posted to MetaFilter by snaparapans at 11:46 AM on June 27, 2013

I would just pay Russian hackers to commit my heists.

They would love that model. That way they get your money and the money from the heist.
posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan at 12:54 AM on June 27, 2013

Oh my.

*adjusts tie*

"Tough room!"
posted to MetaFilter by tonycpsu at 12:13 PM on June 24, 2013

The Pardon Edward Snowden petition has reached 100k signatures.
posted to MetaFilter by jeffburdges at 1:04 AM on June 24, 2013

You have presented ZERO solutions to the problem which is tormenting you.

Since when do the people trying to sound an alarm about a problem also have to have solutions for that problem? Most of the time, they don't - if someone is calling 911 because they've got a fire in their house, they're doing so to alert the people who are much more equipped to solve the problem and summon them to their aid. They don't call 911 to say "hey, there's a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EmpressCallipygos at 5:07 PM on June 26, 2013

There's too much CO2 (not "carbon", damn it)

Saying "carbon" also covers other greenhouse gases like CO_x and methane (CH₄).
posted to MetaFilter by telstar at 4:51 PM on June 26, 2013

Regarding the Smith case (that has been discussed at some length in this thread), Representative Grayson attacks the applicability of that decision. Grayson has been a lawyer for 20 years (ie: more than a GED).

The entire speech is worth watching.
posted to MetaFilter by el io at 11:25 AM on June 26, 2013

The jokes obscure the real lede here, which is that, apparently, since no one in the broader GOP/conservative movement wanted to give Santorum a party sinecure, or an invitation to join a lobbying firm or a think tank, or even an invitation to lecture somewhere, he's taken a gig with a small—Echolight's own linkedin page states that the company only employs 51-200 people—business that produces mostly direct-to-video Christian movies. That's not quite as far a fall as Sarah Palin, but it's still... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by octobersurprise at 8:38 AM on June 26, 2013

The jokes just write themselves. The only way this could get better is if he, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry move into a house together.
posted to MetaFilter by arcticseal at 7:26 AM on June 26, 2013

I feel sad that no one is commenting on how magnificently awful that fake beard is in that trailer. It's so aweinspiringly it may rival that one that Stonewall Jackson had in Abraham Lincoln vs. the Zombies, which is something I thought was near impossible.
posted to MetaFilter by lesbiassparrow at 1:44 AM on June 26, 2013

I've seen santorum in a movie before.

Wait...are we all talking about the same thing here?
posted to MetaFilter by GoingToShopping at 11:07 PM on June 25, 2013

TheTingTangTong:You have presented ZERO solutions to the problem which is tormenting you.

I am not tormeted. Again, you employ condescension to present yourself as someone who's got it "all figured out".

As for solutions, I and others have discussed this multiple times in this thread and the other climate change thread, in comments you no doubt skipped while escaping Plato's cave. We need to make the intermediate... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by spaltavian at 11:01 AM on June 26, 2013

It just feels dangerously close to solipsism, TheTingTangTong.

If you acknowledge there are other beings than yourself, and those beings can suffer, and suffering is undesirable, that suggests we should each do what we can to reduce the overall level of suffering in the world.

And while it may be comfortable enough on the deck chairs of the Titanic, perhaps there is something else that ought to be done with the time that remains until it slips beneath the waves.
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 10:58 AM on June 26, 2013

I personally find the lack of etiquette beautiful, some kind of infinite mystery that we may never fully understand. I choose to accept other commenters' rudeness and impatience rather than impotently rage against it. Life is too short to cry about pixels on my computer screen, I can sit on a beach with my dog and watch the sun fade away.
posted to MetaFilter by leopard at 9:36 AM on June 26, 2013

I know its hard to wrap ones head around the idea that all of humanity will eventually cease,

This isn't hard at all to wrap one's head around, agregoli, and it's this kind of condescension on display here and in TheTingTangTong's posts that people are objecting too. Your argument isn't complex, unique, enlightened, or interesting.

I don't think humans are special. Extinction is inevitable. The universe... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by spaltavian at 10:25 AM on June 26, 2013

The penis-artist is called Pricasso. Just for that, I fully endorse his artistic vision.
posted to MetaFilter by Dr Dracator at 9:04 AM on June 26, 2013

THE DECISION WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:

Attempting to compel a person to recommend that his employer approve an investment does not constitute the obtaining of property from another under the Hobbs Act!

Wooooo?
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:25 AM on June 26, 2013

I've got Lily Allen's perfect little anthem cranked up and am doing my happy swan dance.
posted to MetaFilter by orange swan at 7:21 AM on June 26, 2013

If the earth was warm then with high sea levels, doesn't that indicate a periodic fluctuation versus a byproduct of our existence?

All it is indicating is how massive and devastating climate change can be. What possible point can you have? Yes, climate change can happen naturally. It is currently happening do to man made factors. Cancer can happen due to completely out of your control genetic mutations. It can also happen because you are a heavy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by spaltavian at 9:10 PM on June 25, 2013

I think this has failing venture written all over it.

Don't count on that. A turd like Fireproof made $33,000,000 in gross. Never underestimate the potential of the white, middle-class, ideologically motivated movie market.

Then again, we haven't seen how much that market can take before it's saturated.

In Santorum, amirite?
posted to MetaFilter by fifthrider at 8:20 PM on June 25, 2013

I would expect his studio to produce a frothy mixture of comedies and dramas.

I'm sorry.
posted to MetaFilter by irrelephant at 8:07 PM on June 25, 2013

great message, terrible acting, horrible editing...They are not entertaining, they’re preachy.


So...sort of like his entire campaign, then?
posted to MetaFilter by jetlagaddict at 7:34 PM on June 25, 2013

What would Santorum know about good acting? He always reminded me of Eddie Haskell smirking while trying to get one over on Mrs. Cleaver.
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 7:31 PM on June 25, 2013

Yeah, I'm sure that happened.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 5:08 PM on June 25, 2013

Well, we've definitely got good representation from the "nothing we can do about it, so I'm goin' fishin'" crowd. Now all we need is the more aggressive "I've got 100,000 rounds of ammo and a bunker, so bring it on!" crowd. You know... for balance.
posted to MetaFilter by mondo dentro at 1:36 PM on June 25, 2013

I guess I'm a little befuddled about coming into a thread about tons of people suffering in the near future, where posters are discussing the need for action, and responding with "NOPE WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE ANYWAY GO PLAY OUTSIDE YOUR DISTRESS IS MEANINGLESS HUMAN NATURE SUCKS!"

What's the proper way to read this kind of thing? It's all nice and well that you're ready to throw up your hands and live out the rest of your own life in whatever comforts are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tequila Mockingbird at 12:32 PM on June 25, 2013

Well bless your heart.
posted to MetaFilter by Tequila Mockingbird at 12:14 PM on June 25, 2013

Yeah well, I hate to sound this way....

What way do you think you sound? "Fuck you, I've got mine"?
posted to MetaFilter by EmpressCallipygos at 11:57 AM on June 25, 2013

(in other news, the US government probably knows the contents of at least some documents that were handed to Greenwald).

Ah, let's not forget the quantum principles of the NSA:

- The information Snowden is leaking is widely know and Top Secret
- The NSA has numerous safeguards to make sure that US citizens are not spied upon and the NSA has no way of telling Congress how... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ryoshu at 3:04 PM on June 25, 2013

why this discussion about what might or might not happen 50 years or 50 million years in the future has devolved into yet another Republican/Democratic standoff

Um, because of the many important policies surrounding disaster mitigation will decide the fate of millions of actual human lives? People are going to vote on this, you know.

I don't have the energy to serve up retorts to the bizarre attacks on my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by windbox at 11:44 AM on June 25, 2013

TheTingTangTong Eh. Soon enough my whole family will be dead... In the meantime I can drink whisky and listen to Kris Kristofferson records while I watch sun sets from my front porch.

If you plan on being dead before the middle third of this century, you can safely ignore any global warming threads. A lot of us, however, can reasonably expect to be alive in that timeframe, and would rather not have to deal with a catastophe of this scope, and would... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by spaltavian at 10:31 AM on June 25, 2013

Just because no one is tracking every single person displaced by the increased frequency of extreme weather; doesn't mean they are not out there.

There's a guy down my block who was a Katrina refugee.

I think a mental block on this is simply that refugees don't look like what middle class USians expect. We've received so much media imaging that says that "refugees" are draggled people in camps somewhere who have... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 6:56 AM on June 25, 2013

Oh wait...that 50 million refugee thing is still totally gonna happen!

30 million in Asia alone implies they actually guessed pretty accurately.

...but I suppose that doesn't matter, I mean, it's brown people right? They don't really count, it's not like they drive a worthwhile car. Geez, they probably don't even golf.
posted to MetaFilter by aramaic at 5:52 AM on June 25, 2013

Oh wait...that 50 million refugee thing is still totally gonna happen! But it's been pushed back by 10 years to 2020.
50 million 'environmental refugees' by 2020, experts say
posted to MetaFilter by republican at 5:46 AM on June 25, 2013

Wow, so there were 30 million climate migrants only in Asia, only in 2010! (Linked from the bottom of briank's Guardian link.)

So not only is the 50 million number completely plausible, there's a cottage industry of denialism around it, based on playing semantics with the word refugee, and trying to mock the UN for trying to make it easier for people to migrate due to climate problems.

The denialist movement has serious problems if this is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Llama-Lime at 5:36 AM on June 25, 2013

So God promised not to destroy us with floods again. What has that to do with our destroying ourselves? Nothing!
posted to MetaFilter by Goofyy at 3:59 AM on June 25, 2013

“Everyone’s nervous about what the next thing will be, what will be exposed.”

Why are they nervous if they aren't doing anything wrong?
posted to MetaFilter by clearly at 2:27 AM on June 25, 2013

I just wish superhero movies would start skipping the origin story part. I really do. It is always the dumbest part. It never works. Why does anybody think it works? You have to endure the guy coming up with a name for himself and you have to endure the guy coming up with a costume. Every single time. (Does Man Of Steel skip that?) You can just have the guy show up like any other action movie badass. I have never seen a movie with superheroes suffer from skipping The Creation Of. Do we need an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by furiousthought at 11:04 PM on June 24, 2013

So everyone who claimed up and down the thread that China was not behind the treatment of Snowden is wrong.

So, it's not a "fact" that he's going to jail anymore, eh?
posted to MetaFilter by Drinky Die at 12:53 PM on June 24, 2013

Sounds good to me.
posted to MetaFilter by Drinky Die at 9:13 PM on June 23, 2013

Edward Snowden has a GED. I'm a litigator with 10 years experience.

Dunning-Kruger much? I am a litigator with ten years experience, too, and that really doesn't amount to a hill of beans as an indicium of knowledgeability. Sorry.

I would place far more stock in what an intelligent but uneducated guy like Snowden has concluded when his courageous, history-making ass is on the line than I would in an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Unified Theory at 7:16 PM on June 23, 2013

If we was an older vet with a war trauma and a red nose, and maybe some past legal issues to dig up, such as divorce and job terminations, most young supporters wouldn't have read past his photo caption.

This is a most remarkably patronising sentence.
posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan at 3:12 PM on June 23, 2013

The use of the word 'meanwhile' in this press release is glorious.
posted to MetaFilter by the duck by the oboe at 3:59 AM on June 23, 2013

At the risk of annoying Cortex, I would like to point out that the canard that "climate scientists used to be predicting an ice age in the 70s, so clearly they're unreliable and poor scientists", while not only poor logic (whether scientists we're wrong nearly half a century ago has no bearing on the truth of their claims today), but starts from an incorrect premise. Whenever this claim comes up, you will notice no link to an actual scientific paper, let alone a major review paper, is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bumpkin at 3:42 AM on June 19, 2013

as I've mentioned before, the data collection would either expose or slow corruption of all kinds.

Could you provide some evidence for this instead of just asserting it? Ideally, yes I agree with you, but history seems to tell a different story.

we have real enemies

Do we? It would seem that most enemies we currently have have been ones of our own making. Look at the clusterfuck... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:55 PM on June 21, 2013