It would appear that the confiscation and analysis of personal electronics at the US border is intensifiying and that people are starting to get up in arms about it. It's more than just laptops that US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) are spiriting away (for up to two weeks at a time, which defeats the purpose of trying to fly anywhere): Cellular phones are being meddled with and sometimes data is erased (for one reason or another; I tend to lean toward Hanlon's Razor to explain this), corporate laptops are being taken away from travelers unless the log into the …
Last week an article broke in the LA TImes that the insurance company Blue Cross of California was asking doctors to report medical conditions to them that could be used as grounds to cancel customers' insurance. It is true that under certain circumstances insurance companies are legally permitted to terminate insurance contracts if the customer doesn't report certain pre-existing medical conditions on the forms, but this particular arm of Blue Cross was fined last year for cutting people left and right from their rolls, to begin with. Since the California Medial Association, the public, and the government of the state …
Near the city of Panama City, Florida, 14-year old high school student Dakota Gates has been incarcerated in juvenile detention for 21 days following his arrest because administrators of his school are afraid that he was planning to come to school one day and start shooting the place up. Their reason? A note he wrote in a cipher inspired by an anime series by himself and some of his friends. A 'school resource officer' (I guess that's what they're calling the armed guards these days) found the note, sounded the alarm, and picked out the weird kid of the school …
Well, I'm mostly up and around these days. I'm writing this from my office at work, after braving the ice storm that's buried DC under sheets and sheets of the slick, shiny, scaly ice that's been causing automobile crashes and knocking out power and traffic lights for the past day or so. It started late on Monday night, I'm given to understand (I'd been to the doctor's office earlier in the day and it was actually pretty nice on Monday afternoon), slacked off a bit yesterday, and then really hit us hard last night. I discovered this during my attempt …
As I'd feared on Friday, whatever the hell it was that knocked me down while I was in Alabama has largely left my sinuses (thank the gods), but retreated into my inner ears. I lost all hearing in my left ear about two hours ago, and whenever I move my head I can feel fluid gurgling around in there (which hurts like a bitch, let me tell you).
I've already found a general practitioner that takes my insurance in the area; I'll be making an appointment as soon as I get up tomorrow morning, which I fear will be early …
I'm back from Tuscaloosa, though worse for wear. It seems that my remarks about the Chinese restaurant we visited on Tuesday were unfounded, and for this I formally apologize. I really don't think that we ate cat while we were there, and it wasn't their food that made me sick.
I've either contracted a cold that's taken years to study my immune system and figure out the best way to take it out, or I've caught the latest edition of the plague that makes its rounds between November and February every year. Either way, it sucks light years beyond anything …
Well, not so much. I was hoping to riff off of a famous Red Dwarf quote or two to make this post more entertaining, but after a few revisions it's just not coming together the way I'd hoped, so I'll spare your delicate sensibilities and optics the horror and push on.
As the title to this post suggests, I'm in the heart of Alabama on assignment. Granted, it's not too bad... the people down here are quite friendly, and the stereotypical southern hospitality isn't a stereotype, it's a way of life. People down here are so nice, polite, and helpful …
If you tell someone a way to test something that does not require large-scale reconstruction of a system and is reversible... they'll ignore you and trash their system to reinstall everything.
