Politics Plus

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

This is the second week in a row that I don’t really have anythig appropriate. Not, certainly, that it has been a week without outrage – far from it – but what appear to be the big news storeies seem not quite right. Yes, it’s been – almost a month really – that we’ve been fixated on guns. But I can tell the ladies to go deal with Wayne La Pierre in twenty-five words or less. I don’t have anything we don’t all know. The White House revolving door – I don’t know who will be the next to leave, and the Furies probably don’t either. And Mueller’s investigation – which is big and getting bigger – the more we can leave him to do it in peace, the better it will be for all of us (tempting as it is to discuss it.)

What I do think maybe needs to be talked about AGAIN is religious persecution. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch sends out five stories a week on the craziest things the right wing is doing and saying. It isn’t all with regard to the religious right, but it does so happen that this week five of the stories do explicitly feature the religious right (I might say “the guanopsychotic religious right,” but that’s a bit of a tautology, and also anticipates the material.)

Here are this week’s headlines, all five of them:

Lori Bakker: Liberals Want To Lock Christians ‘Away In Mental Illness Centers”
Yes, that’s Jim Bakker’s (new, trophy) wife, and his show is her platform If only there were such a thing! Maybe mental illnesses could be treated which are now going untreated for lack of funds and lack of caring.

Cindy Jacobs Convenes The Court Of Heaven At ‘Prophetic’ Turnaround Conference
The “court of heaven” is to rule over SCOTUS through these nutjobs who are “God’s enforcers in the Earth for His will to be done.”

Extremist Anti-Choice Activists Boasts Of Sharing His Views As Public School Substitute
I’m calling this one not explicitly religious, but what do you want to bet he “shares his views” on that too.

Mike Cernovich Says Social Media Censorship Is A ‘Warm-Up’ For Christian Persecution
It’s only surprising he talks about the persucutin as being in the future. Most wing nuts think they are already persecuted.

Paul McGuire Warns Christians Who Oppose Trump Will Not Get Into Heaven
Well, I don’t want to go where he’s going, that’s for sure.

Given all of this, it’s clear that SOME people need a reminder of what is and is not violation of religious liberty. This list has been all over without attribution, but for here I thought I’d better research the origin, which was not difficult. It’s taken verbatim from a chart based on the work of the Rev. Emily Heath of the United Church of Christ. And as long as SOME people think that “religious liberty means they have a right to infringe on other people’s religious liberty,” it will need to be re-circulated.

How To Tell If Your Religious Liberties Are Being Violated

Your Religious Liberties ARE Being Violated If:
You are not allowed to attend a religious service of your choice.
You are not allowed to legally marry the person you love.
You are being forced to use birth control even if it is against your religion.
You are not allowed to pray privately in your home or a public place.
You are not allowed to read, possess or purchase religious books and materials.
You are not allowed to teach the tenets of your faith to your children at home.

Your Religious Liberties are NOT Being Violated If:
Others are allowed to attend a religious service of their choice, or not at all.
Someone else is allowed to legally marry the person they love no matter what your religion says.
You are unable to prevent others from using birth control.
You are not allowed to force others to pray publicly.
Others are allowed access to books, movies and websites that you don’t like.
Public schools are teaching science in science classes instead of your religion.

Please share this far and wide, attributed to Emily, not to me. And one other thing that I ran across, which might just scare a Seven Mountains Dominionist (and that would be a good thing) –

Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, you share it too. Thanks.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into
normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These
incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come
and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. Even though there are many more
which I can’t include. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there
were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone.
These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

TomCat has written more than once about exploding oil trains, and I think I have
posted a site through which one can determine just how close one lives to the rails on which these trains move. Through it, I learned that my home is indeed in the ‘blast zone,” so that if a train were to explode just by my street, I would be toast, literally.

But, as the EPA prepares to further destroy our air, our water, our land, our oceans, and all living things contained therein, this risk begins to shrink to a relatively minor consideration. To take me out, an oil train would have to explode opposite my street, plus or minus about a mile either way, and I would have to be home at the time (that of course is fairly probable, but not certain.) But there is another risk which not too many people know about, partly because information on it given to the public was deliberately faked and knowingly used by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality under the leadership, at the time, of Kathleen Hartnett White. That issue the issue of radiation in public tap water. Ms. Hartnett White, incidentally, was recently nominated by Trump (the nomination has since been withdrawn) to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Radiation in drinking water affects not just people who live within certain small radii, but everyone who lives within a system where the water is radioactive. It doesn’t kill as fast or as certainly as being consumed in a puff of flame, but it does kill over time. And one doesn’t have to be “at home when it happens,” because it is happening constantly, and anyone who drinks water is subject to its effects.

AlterNet recently covered this story with material from Environmental Working Group, including links to their Tap Water Database (which contains information on pretty well every contaminant you can think of as well as some you have never heard of), and their interactive map, which just locates radium (which is the most common radioactive element found in water.) Either will also link you further to information on filters that work and how costly they are. You can limit your search based on the kind of filter you are interested in and based on the contaminant or contaminants you are concerned about.

I wouldn’t look up everyone’s water department for you, even if I had all your addresses, because I’m sure you wouldn’t want them published. So I’m showing, as I did for the blast zone, my own. But the map’s not that tough to use. Bigger dots serve more customers. Darker dots have more radium. If you can’t get the mouse to give you the right pointer, you can put your Zip code in instead of clicking.

Bear in mind that

[F]ederal drinking water standards are based on the cost and feasibility of removing contaminants, not scientific determinations of what is necessary to fully protect human health. And like many EPA tap water standards, the radium limits are based on decades-old research rather than the latest science.

EWG prefers the guidelines set by the California Office of Environmental Hazard Assessment to the Federal guidelines. Although not legally enforceable, they are at least calculated based on actual cancer risks. California looks at two isotopes of radium separately, which the EPA does not. It looks to me, however, like the radium from my water utility is running somewhere between twenty and a hundred times what California recommends. I have a household reverse osmosis filter, though, and even though it comes in already filtered, I run it through the refrigerator filter anyway if I plan to drink it. Or cook with it.

I’m not going to point any finger at any states over this – all fifty states have water systems with radium. Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, and staff, you will have plenty to do. If you should get bored, however, you can always look at lead.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. Even though there are many more which I can’t include. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Well, we all know that gerrymandering is real and a clear and present danger. But since the time Eldridge Gerry invented it, it’s been a matter of getting into power (at the right time) and then drawing the right maps. But now, something new has been added. The ante is being upped.

Pennsylvania Republicans are willing to go above and beyond to prevent losing. The map they have been using for years has resulted in Pennsylvania sending 5 Democrats and 13 Republicans to Congress … and similar proportions in the two State houses … despite the fact that Trump won the state by less than one point. The (gerrymandering) case went to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court this year, and the court overwhelmingly said that new maps must be drawn, the current ones being outrageous. In a panic, Republicans sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court for a Stay to try to salvage 2018. This request went to Justice Alito. Justice Alito could have asked the rest of the court to look at it. He didn’t. He essentially said, “Nuts” and sent it back.

So we now have maps so obscenely gerrymandered that JUSTICE ALITO won’t keep them even temporarily. Are Pennsylvania Republicans giving up? Are they admitting defeat? Heck no.

THEY ARE TAKING STEPS TO IMPEACH FIVE MEMBERS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT.

Fun fact! The five justices [they want] to impeach are the five Democrats on the bench.

State Representative Cris Dush (so many Republicans have names you would think would dissuade them from entering politics) is spearheading this effort. He has submitted an Official Memorandum requesting colleagues to join him. Carolyn Fiddler writing for Daily Kos has done a very professional job of explaining exactly why this is so important to Republicans there … and why they think they can get away with it. Spoiler: It does NOT involve putting country over party.

(As an aside, I hope Cris Dush doesn’t have a sister who married a fellow whose last name is Bag. At least I think I hope that. Ah, what the heck.)

Republicans have the numbers to do this. They need a majority in their House, and they have that. They need a supermajority in their Senate, and they have that too. And, they are not just thinking of 2018. They are thinking of 2021, when a new census will require new maps. Even if they can hold their majorities till then, similar gerrymandered maps will be tossed out by the Supreme Court if it still has its present makeup. Pennsylvania Supreme Court judges are elected … but incumbents only face retention elections, which are gimmes. They also have mandatory retirement at 75. The next Democratic justice to hit 75 will do so in 2022.

The consensus among Pennsylvania residents seems to be that this proposition is all hat and no cattle. But, even if that is the case, it may give other Republicans ideas. It needs, not just to fail, but to fail decisively.

Mitch put the Move On petition, which is also sponsored by Common Cause, into yesterday’s Open Thread, but, in case you missed it, here’s the link again.

Daily Kos has its own petition, which can be reached through the linked Daily Kos story, or HERE

Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, I hope you will sit on this guy, but protect yourselves. Dushing has been determined by qualified medical professionals to be damaging and dangerous. If there is not a Democratic candidate running against him, you might try to recruit one. That would be grabbing him by the midterms, all right.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

So this happened. And the boss told me I should go for it as an article.

I don’t use a fitness tracker, and this is why. Not that I am nefarious enough to have imagined the scope of something like this; I’m not. (And I also don’t do any fitness activities worth tracking.) People who do use fitness trackers, however, want to have convenient access to the information from them. And putting information on the internet is certainly one way to provide unfettered access.

The only problem with this is that one aspect of the information provided by these trackers is GPS. And GPS means that the trackers are tracking exactly where on the globe the users are at any given moment (and previous moments as well.)

Let’s look at Strava as an example – a pretty good example, since Strava is the one the Washington Post found out about and has done a couple of stories on. It’s also handy for us at PP, since Strava is the one Nameless featured in a Friday Fun, almost two years ago now, because a Canadian biker was using it as an art creating device.

At the time, we all thought this was cool, and then probably forgot about it. The art in question is featured on the Strava home page of the artist, and doesn’t provide any information that can’t publicly be obtained almost anywhere. But there is more to Strava than personal home pages and art.

An interactive map posted on the Internet that shows the whereabouts of people who use fitness devices such as Fitbit also reveals highly sensitive information about the locations and activities of soldiers at U.S. military bases, in what appears to be a major security oversight….

Most parts of the United States and Europe, where millions of people use some type of fitness tracker, show up on the map as blazes of light because there is so much activity.

In war zones and deserts in countries such as Iraq and Syria, the … map becomes almost entirely dark – except for scattered pinpricks of activity. Zooming in on those areas brings into focus … unknown and sensitive sites – presumably because American soldiers and other personnel are using fitness trackers as they move around.

The name of this map is the Global Heat Map, and it was posted online in November 2017, but it was only this week that a 20-year-old Australian student (of international security and the Middle East) looked closely at it, specifically searching for military.

Few occupations are as obsessed with the employees being physically fit as is the military. It’s not surprising that a lot of soldiers have fitness trackers. In fact, in 2013, the Pentagon gave 2,500 of them out “as part of a pilot program to battle obesity.”

I don’t suppose that there was such a thing as a Global Heat Map in 2013. However, there has been a GPS feature in fitness trackers since – well, I assume since they were invented. And it all this time. it apparently did not occur to soldiers, it did not occur to the Pentagon, it did not occur to anyone involved in the manufacture and/or coding of fitness trackers that if there were a map, it might just reveal information that impacted someone’s national security.

I am only seeing this in the Washington Post, and I would say that’s probably a good thing (why give spies ideas if they didn’t already have them?), but it has been all over the Internet, particularly people in the security community, on Twitter and others.

On one of the Strava sites, it is possible to click on a frequently used jogging route and at what times. One Strava user demonstrated how to use the map and Google to identify by name a U.S.Army Major and his running route at a base in Afghanistan.

On a separate Internet site, it is possible to establish the names and home towns of individuals who have signed up for a social sharing network on which runners post their routes and speeds.

I’m not showing any cuts from the Global Heat Map here (although the Post did – I guess they figured it was already out, so why sit on them). Instead, I’ll show a couple of “paintings” from Nameless’s article. Please realize I am not trying to pick on Strava.

Privacy experts noted that Strava is far from alone in collecting and using location data and that such granular information about the movements of individuals could reveal where they live, work, shop, and socialize.

I might point out that cell phones also have GPS technology, and many people leave theirs on all the time except when charging … so maybe the Pentagon should look into that, if they aren’t already. They have announced a huge policy review on privacy and privacy settings, so they probably are.

Privacy experts have longed warned that tech companies often make personal information – including contact lists, social media posts, and location data – available by default. That means users who do not routinely read privacy notices and tweak settings can be surprised by how much information is collected by private companies, as well as how that data ultimately is used.

And Americans in all walks of life have long routinely ignored these warnings.

The Post has a lot more on this. In fact, I haven’t done much more than scratch the surface. But one thing not mentioned did occur to me.

Can you imagine the howls from Republicans that we would hearing now and up to forever had this map been posted and this information come out on Obama’s watch? (Not that they won’t try to find a way to make it Obama’s fault somehow, of course.)

Cross posted to Care2 HERE