Category Archives: General

General

The case of the jailed country clerk…

Anyone following the news must have at least some knowledge of Kim Davis, Country Clerk for Rowan Country, Kentucky, who refused to give out marriage certificates (any marriage certificates) because of what she described as her deep religious beliefs being in disagreement with the now legally settled issue of same sex marriages.  So, rather than give gay people marriage certificates, she would not give anyone marriage certificates.

She (or rather her attorneys) took the case to court(s) and were defeated at every turn.  Her last chance was to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in and, when they refused, it essentially ended whatever legal recourse she had left.

Despite this she continued to refuse issuing marriage certificates and last Thursday was brought before a judge for consideration of being held in contempt of court.  She was indeed found to be in contempt and, somewhat surprisingly, the judge sent her to jail…

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/04/politics/kentucky-clerk-same-sex-marriage-kim-davis/index.html

I say “somewhat” surprisingly because although this was certainly one of the judge’s options, the defendants asked she be fined until she complied.  The judge, however, viewed her continued flaunting of law as more serious and therefore took the more punitive measure.  Plus, some speculated, the judge was aware that anti-gay marriage groups might collect money to pay whatever fines he might issue against Ms. Davis, therefore rendering that form of punishment null.

Predictably, there are many on the conservative side of the coin -and even presidential candidates!- who reacted negatively to the whole affair…

Twitter Conservatives Lose It After Kim Davis is Jailed

What to make of all this?

I suspect in the long run people like Ms. Davis are a dying breed.  Societies and their mores inevitably march on, and things that were not allowed/forbidden/illegal years before can be scrubbed away and society isn’t necessarily the worse for it.

There was a time, after all, when it was illegal to sell and consume alcohol.  This was the law of the land!  The law was, of course, repealed and I highly doubt we’re ever going to see any such law reappear ever again.  Quite the contrary, it now appears we’re starting to loosen laws dealing with illegal drug use.

What is also clear is that with regard to Gay Marriage there has been a shift in tolerance and acceptance and that has, somewhat predictably in some parts, led to a blowback among those with more conservative leanings.

This explains someone like Ms. Davis.  But given the fact that the country hasn’t descended into Mad-Max-ian anarchy since the Supreme Court formally allowed Gay Marriage, I think its safe to say the majority of people in this country have little to no big issue with this ruling.

A vocal minority, therefore, is left to cling to the pre-Gay Marriage ruling and try to fight to somehow retain the previous status-quo.

It has been pointed out that Ms. Davis is hardly a great example of squeaky-clean Americana given her past marital history and there is more than a wiff of hypocrisy to her stand against Gay Marriage.  While interesting fodder, it is irrelevant to the bigger issue.

The bigger issue, to me, is that the fight is over.

Ms. Davis and the conservative foundation lawyers who I strongly suspect are the real “brains” behind her stand are like Hiro Onoda, the Japanese soldier who, along with a trio of companions, hid for years and continued fighting a war they would not accept ended in 1945.

Unlike abortion, which still divides this country, I suspect the issue of Gay Marriage will eventually become an afterthought.  It’ll be one of those things that when people are asked about they will shrug and wonder why there was so much fighting about it in the first place.

As with so many other things…we’ll see!

General

This n’ that…

Found a few interesting things this morning.

First up, want to see what Lady Gaga’s “meat dress” looks like five years later?  Sure you do:

http://jezebel.com/heres-what-lady-gagas-meat-dress-looks-like-five-years-1728266149

Apparently the dress is now on display at Cleveland’s Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame.  The video, presented in the above link, for those who don’t want to go to the website:

Tasty!

Next up, something that I suppose was bound to eventually happen:

Job Seeker Accidentally Sends Nude Selfies to HR Manager

No, the individual did not get the job.

Finally, a most eerie microscopic zoom…

A seemingly never ending microscopic zoom reveals the gross tiny germs

What the heck is this?  Why its a…

Microscopic zoom-in on a bacterium on a diatom on an amphipod

Now you know.

 

General

You learn something new everyday…

…even the very weird stuff.

Say you’re interested in figuring out the exact (or as near to exact as you can find) route taken by the Lewis and Clark Expedition when they famously ventured into the western frontier.  Given this was the very first exploration of said frontier, their maps were made on the fly and suspect.  Further, given the participants of this expedition are long dead, how would you go about finding the exact places they camped at?

Why, by digging up the many latrines along their general route, examining the deposits within them, and following the trail of Laxatives specific to the expedition, of course!

I kid you not.

Presented below is a link to an article by Esther Inglis-Arkell detailing that very fact and how Lewis & Clark’s expedition’s route was traced by their …um… droppings:

http://io9.com/archaeologists-tracked-lewis-and-clark-by-following-the-1727887223

Fascinating, fascinating -albeit strange- stuff!

General

You know you have to see it…

From the folks at purpleclover.com…

Totally Busted: The All-Time Best Celebrity Mugshots

Even more interesting, to me, than the mugshots themselves (although seeing a 13 year old Cher is quite something!) is the reason why the celebrities were arrested in the first place.

The reasons vary, with the most amusing (to me) being the Frank Sinatra one and the scariest, in terms of the sentence handed down -and later suspended- against a very young Nick Nolte.

Interesting stuff!

General

Adding insult to injury…

Given the bulk release of data from the “married-people-looking-for-a-fling” website Ashley Madison, one would have thought that the most scandalous information to be aired would be the famous names linked to the website, be they in the world of entertainment or politics.

Turns out, to my mind the most scandalous thing about the bulk release of information is the revelation that almost everyone using the website was male, and whatever females there were who used it may well have been fictional creations.  Annalee Newitz for Gizmodo offers a startling look at the data:

http://gizmodo.com/the-fembots-of-ashley-madison-1726670394

Reading this brings to mind the great line attributed to P. T. Barnum regarding capitalism/selling a product: There’s a sucker is born every minute.

It turns out that what Ashley Madison was selling wasn’t the ability of a married person to have an affair but rather the fantasy that by joining this website and paying them lots of money you just might do so.  I can’t help but think, based on the information in the article above, that the site exclusively targeted gullible men more than willing to pay cash money in the hopes of having this no-strings-attached fling.  Women, on the other hand, appeared to have little interest in the site.  Those who did sign on, it was found in the article above, mostly lasted little more than a single/handful of sessions before bailing.

As a member of the male species, I have to tip my hat to women.

You’re a lot smarter than we are.

General

Seriously…?!

Want to see a crazy brave person by the name of Laso Challer jump an insane 59 meters down a cliff and into water?  Want to see said jump from his point of view?  Want to know what kind of psychological issues this man really, really needs to address?

The answers to all the questions (save the last one) can be found below!

General

Well that didn’t take long…or Oh Boy, Part II

Yesterday I wrote about the group involved in hacking Ashley Madison, the website devoted to married couples interested in starting an extra-marital affair, had released the information they stole (You can read about that here).

Let’s be clear here: What that hacking group did was illegal.  They deemed themselves entitled to not only break into this (admittedly rather sleazy) business’ private servers and steal all their data but also morally superior enough to release this material to the public at large.

That’s not to say I’m defending Ashley Madison or their clients.  As I said, the website boasts the ability of supposed married individuals to hook up with other supposed married individuals.  The clients who frequented the site were clearly hoping to find action outside their married life.

Having said all that, I wondered how long it would take before some “big” names were linked to the service.  It took all of one day and the “winner” is…

Conservative Family Values Activist, member of the now defunct reality show 19 Kids and Counting, and alleged molester of five young women (including four of whom were his sisters) Josh Duggar.  The story:

http://gawker.com/family-values-activist-josh-duggar-had-a-paid-ashley-ma-1725132091

One of my all time favorite quotes comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson and it goes like this:

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Putting aside (if at all possible) the whole Ashley Madison stuff for the moment, what is it about those who are the ones most engaged in public moralization that makes them so ripe to be involved in actions that run counter to their oh-so-loud moralizing?

There’s nothing new under the sun regarding hypocrisy, of course, yet one can easily lose track of the number of people, from senators to congressmen to clergymen to business leaders to what-have-you who talk one way yet whose actions are decidedly opposite of what they preach.

Which names will we find in the list tomorrow?

Computers/Electronics, General

Oh boy…

1 Comment

Are you at all familiar with the Ashley Madison website?  You know, the website that caters to married individuals looking to…uh…spice up their sex life by allowing them to find willing affair partners?

Well, a little while back a hacker group claimed they had broken into the website and taken their database of some 37 million users.  Was the breach real?  Looks like it might have been as the hackers have released the data to the “dark web”:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/experts-ashley-madison-hack-data-is-real_55d40edbe4b0ab468d9ef792

What does this mean?  Clearly anyone who used the website is now exposed, along with their personal and credit card information.  Given the nature of the website, those who are exposed may be in for a world of hurt when their spouses/significant others get wind of their lurking (at the very least) on that particular website.  And if some of the clients of that website wind up being higher ups in government or industry…?

Ouch.

As a society it seems we’re captivated and repulsed by sexuality.  We can’t get enough of it but it’s filthy to even consider it.  As parents we shield our daughters -how many times have you heard the old “my daughter won’t date until she’s in her 30’s” joke?- yet paradoxically encourage our sons to “play the field” (who exactly will they play the field with?).

We have no big problem with violent action on the television or movie screen but when presented with sexual matters, we’re quick to slap labels on it and, in some cases, hear from others how grotesque such displays of affection (!) are.

I don’t mean to get into a rant so I’ll get to my point: Ashley Madison is a perfect example of society’s sexual mores.  Politicians and “well respected” people rant and rail about our sexualized society yet when the opportunity is presented to covertly engage in your sexual fantasies, people (to the tune of at least 37 million) take advantage of such a service and now they may well stand exposed.

Am I applauding this big reveal?  Absolutely not.  And neither do I want to come off as Mr. Know-It-All…

I suppose the only thing I wish is that we as a society would grow up and honestly face our desires and urges instead of railing against them while engaging in them when we think no one is looking.

General

Wow…

Found this on Huffingtonpost.com (I’ll provide the link below the actual video) showing what has to be the two luckiest bicyclists of all time.  But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself:

The article, and the above video, can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/luckiest-bicyclists-ever_55d2b808e4b0ab468d9e3a63

General

Fourth Amendment and Driverless Cars…

Pardon me for once again offering a link to an article involving, yes, Driverless Cars and their impact on society.

Only this time, we go to the legal field, to the effect Driverless Cars will have on our Fourth Amendment rights…

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.

The article in question, written by John Frank Weaver and found on Slate.com, can be read here:

The Fourth Amendment and Driverless Cars

Driverless cars, by their very nature, are technological machines that require considerable computer equipment to perform their functions.  Because they are essentially moving computers, they will likely have considerable memory of their function and movement.

Currently, Mr. Weaver notes, there are cases involving search and seizure of smartphones, noting that because of the volume of information they hold, from emails to photographs to phone calls to contacts, etc. etc. etc., that police should have to request a proper warrant to look into any individual’s smartphone and cannot simply take it from a person and look at the information within it without doing so.

Driverless Cars, when they become what I suspect they will be in the very near future, present a very similar issue.  There is no doubt they will have records of where someone has been taken, where they left the car, when they returned to it, and, given the levels of technology in the vehicles, perhaps even conversations they had (if the car has its own cell phone device), etc.

An interesting read!