Quotulatiousness

November 23, 2010

Succinct summary of Irish situation

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:08

From Andrew Bloch’s Twitpic page and brought to my attention by Damian Penny.

QotD: “Shut up and be scanned”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, Media, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:59

More on your authoritarian media . . .

Earlier today, my colleague Matt Welch ran off a list of newspaper editorial boards who are lining up behind TSA. The headline to this post is the actual headline from the L. A. Times’ editorial. Given such cowardice about defending civil liberties in the face of hysterical hand-wringing about national security, I was going to post a snarky comment about how the L.A. Times would probably have told Japanese-Americans to “shut up and report to your internment camp” back in 1942, too.

Then I did some Googling, and discovered that the paper pretty much did exactly that. As did a number of other papers.

Radley Balko, “Shut Up and Be Scanned”, The Agitator, 2010-11-22

A Whedon-less reboot of “Buffy”

Filed under: Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:42

The good news: they’re talking seriously about doing a cinematic reboot of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. The bad news: Joss Whedon won’t be anywhere near it:

Joss Whedon, who created Buffy for the original 1992 film and subsequently guided her to TV success, will play no part in the project.

Although Whedon wrote, produced and directed the hit TV series, he apparently does not own the film rights. He told E! Online: “There is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly.”

Anderson is aware that in Whedon’s absence, “the most devoted fans of the old series will be keeping a skeptical eye on this nascent revival – and sharpening their wooden stakes”.

She assured the LA Times, though, that she’d “take the touchstones of the Whedon world but frame them in ‘a new story’ that is very much of the moment”.

Wendy McElroy: This rumour has “legs but no body”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:19

After reading one of the several stories about the TSA considering (or already having) an exemption from the invasive “pat-down” for Muslim women, Wendy McElroy tried to find the truth of the matter:

“Sexual assault” and “child molestation” are just some of the accusations leveled at the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) revealing scanners and full-body pat-down procedures, which were introduced on November 1.

At long, long last, the public is saying no to the savaging of personal liberty.

But a bizarre attack from a different direction should cause concern for at least two reasons. First, the particular accusation against the TSA is almost certainly incorrect and could dilute the credibility of other criticisms. Second, the attack seems rooted in anti-Muslim fears and feeds back into them.

The rumor: The Department of Homeland Security may exempt Orthodox Muslim women from the sexually invasive scanners and physical exams that others must undergo as a prerequisite of air travel.

On what evidence is the rumor based?

Don’t print these off and attach them to your luggage

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:08

A few bumper stickers/luggage tags from Hit and Run:

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