Do. Not. F***. With Dorothy Baker (© Good Morning America)

A mother in Baytown, Texas deserves a hearty BAMF designation, not only for selflessly protecting her kids, but also for thinking quite quickly when faced with something that’s supposed to be an urban legend. Via Good Morning America:

While Dorothy Baker and her 2-year-old and 5-year-old sons were shopping Friday at a CVS in Baytown, Texas, a man identified as Ismael Martinez allegedly hid out in her unlocked van, police said.

When the family got back into the car, Baker said Martinez “popped up out of the backseat and said that if I didn’t want my kids to get hurt, that I would do exactly what he said.”

Martinez, 54, allegedly pulled a knife on Baker while she was driving and demanded she stop at an ATM for money, she said.

When she refused, Martinez allegedly became violent, she said.

Baker said she fought back, refusing to compromise the safety of her children.

“She’s got a cut that goes across her chest, and she grabbed the knife and he bit her hand,” Baker’s husband, Charles Flugence said.

“I took my fist and I hit him in the face, and I told him to get out of my car,” Baker said.

Baker intentionally drove her van into a telephone pole in hopes of sending Martinez through the front windshield, according to the Baytown Police Department crime report.

Police said she managed to dial 911 while she grappled with the suspect in hopes that a dispatcher might hear what was going on in the car and find a way to help, ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston reported.

“I thought, ‘If you swerve and hit the pole, he’s not wearing a seatbelt, he’ll go through the windshield or at least hit his head, and you can stop him. You can do something to make sure that he doesn’t hurt your kids,’” Baker told KTRK-TV. “That’s all I was thinking of really, was just to get him away from my kids.”

Police said Martinez eventually jumped out of the van and tried to flee. But before Baker knew it, she had run her car into him.

“I didn’t mean to run him over,” she said. “I was just trying to stop him so he didn’t hurt anybody else.”

Her goal was to keep her kids safe, but she may also go down in BAMF history:

“You don’t come after people with kids,” she said. “I told him he messed with the wrong witch.”

I wouldn’t fault her at all if, in the moment, she didn’t use the word “witch.”

Photo credit: © Good Morning America

Alaska clocks in at #7, and I doubt anyone is ever going to overtake the winner, Russia’s Sakha Republic, which takes up a large percentage (about 24%) of Siberia. You could fit roughly 4½ Texases in the Sakha Republic. On the other hand, the greater Austin area has more people than the Sakha Republic, so we might be evenly matched in a game of pick-up basketball.

Yeah, that’s, uh, big.

Photo credit: By TUBS [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo credits: Monkeys on the move (1 and 2) by e-Eva-a, Monkey family 2 by goejsen, on stock.xchng.

LEGO technology has advanced considerably since the pinnacle of my LEGO constructions, which was around 1985-86. Back then, if you wanted a horse, you built a damn horse out of bricks. If you wanted a cave troll, you sure as shit didn’t have this:

© LEGO, via amazon.com

Anyway, in the realm of hypothetical LEGO models, I can’t think of anything cooler than my own house, built entirely out of LEGO bricks.

Okay, that’s not true. A full-scale LEGO model of the Star Destroyer Executor would be much, much cooler than my house.

Kraken optional (Ochre Jelly [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], on Flickr)

As it currently stands, though, I’m stuck with the hypothetical model of my house.

I don’t have access to 11,647,240 LEGO pieces, nor to the roughly $1,164,724 I’d need to procure that many pieces. I’m definitely never getting that Star Destroyer, alas.

Photo credit: Cave troll © LEGO, via amazon.com; Release the KR-KN! by Ochre Jelly [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], on Flickr.

I could conceivably see some trademark issues here… (© @KUboobs/Twitter)

The trend began after University of Kansas student Tiffany Kent tweeted a photo of her breasts in a Jayhawks shirt with the hashtag #kuboobs in the hope of boosting support for her struggling college basketball team during a game in February last year.

The move proved to be a successful one, inspiring a sensational turnaround for the Jayhawks, from a 19-point deficit to a one-point-lead over the Missouri Tigers by the end of the game.

The trend has since gone nationwide too, with over 30 spin-off ‘boobs’ Twitter accounts dedicated to cleavage-led support for other colleges, such as @UF_Boobs, @bamaboobs, @arboobs and @vandyboobs.

The page has over 62,000 followers, but the university sent a cease and desist letter objecting to the sale of unauthorized merchandise bearing KU and Jayhawk brands. This led to a campaign to save the page, which uses the hashtag #saveKUboobs. The school’s athletic director emphasized that they were not trying to shut down the Twitter page, but rather to stop the sale of trademark-infringing merchandise.

Lest you think that @KUboobs is just about boobs, they engage in charitable activities involving boobs as well:

KU won’t allow us to sell wristbands to benefit Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, but donations can be made here: main.acsevents.org/goto/kuboobs

— KU Boobs (@KUboobs) June 12, 2013

The Pirates of Cornwall: Senegalese authorities arrested two Cornish men who converted a yacht into a warship, sort of, and then took it from a Spanish impound in the Canary Islands. Because this story would be very boring without the words “marine commandos,”

It had sailed from Pendennis Point on April 16 under skipper Chris Enmarch, from Penryn, and crew member Andrew Bayliss from Saltash, among others.

An inspection by the Spanish authorities found no working guns or ammunition on the 127ft Defender, which is registered as a yacht.

Enmarch, who bought the ship in 2011, was fined €40,000 as waste systems did not meet standards set for pleasure vessels.

The ship’s British pendant was removed and it was placed under the custody of armed Civil Guards. In the early hours of May 31 while the guards were called away the Defender escaped – with the fine outstanding.

Five days later the former gunship was intercepted in Senegalese waters and boarded by marine commandos.

Let me be clear: there is no indication that the men intended to use their warship for piracy. It might have been the result of a game of Truth or Dare that went way too far.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: A newly-opened gun range in north Texas allows customers to shoot at targets from a helicopter. In flight.

Some of the neighbors aren’t happy about this.

Available without a background check.

Remembering What’s Important, Or Something: Just about everyone on the planet who’s seen the video agrees that Taylor Chapman is a bad person. She’s the 27 year-old in Florida who raised hell in a Dunkin Donuts, complete with multiple racist slurs, because she didn’t get a receipt with her order, and who proudly posted her idiotic tirade to YouTube or Facebook or something. The teenage Dunkin Donuts employee who primarily dealt with her, along with all the other employees, deserve a medal or something.

The point of contention, at least for some people on the internet, is whether or not Taylor Chapman is hot. She might, at least in one picture, bear a passing resemblance to Leslie Bibb of Talladega Nights fame, but not really. Anyway, who really cares?

Via everyjoe.com/© 2006 Getty Images

Photo credits: © @KUboobs/Twitter [Fair use]; Maegan Tintari [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons; Via everyjoe.com; © 2006 Getty Images, via famouspeoplephoto.com.

I’m not trying to be rude. In fact, this is my hail Mary attempt at saying this as politely as possible: your lengthy recounting of your “simple” legal issue makes me want to break things on your head. That’s not really your fault. It probably has a lot to do with the way several years of family law broke my brain. The specific reasons why I left the active practice of law are mine alone, but suffice it to say that I do not want to give out legal advice in exchange for money, so I really don’t want to do it for free in a social setting.

Of course, I’m too polite to say any of this to your face, especially when you are pouring out the sordid details of your recent arrest/divorce/custody battle/business merger/naturalization petition. About the only caveat I’ve ever been able to make before the onslaught of personal details involves the fact that I have never practiced criminal defense, yet this never stops people from asking questions about how to handle their upcoming court appearance. Here’s a hint for anyone considering asking a lawyer they know for advice: the advice can always be summarized as “Hire a lawyer, then go to court when ordered to do so.”

It is possible that I will return to legal practice some day. Even then, of course, I will not want to answer your questions for free. So please leave your legal queries for actual law offices or hotlines. If you want to talk to me, the following non-exclusive list of topics will almost never fail to engage me in conversation:

• Game of Thrones (the books or the TV show);
• What the plots of the new Star Wars movies should be;
• Why “ancient alien” theories are idiotic;
• Obscure aspects of World War II;
• Why most M. Night Shyamalan movies don’t actually have plot twists;
• The world’s best key lime pie;
• Improv;
• Why Tom Waits’ music was better before Swordfishtrombones;
• How to be an advocate for animal welfare while still eating bacon; or
• What might have happened in the 10th season of Firefly, had it not been cancelled.

Thank you for your attention, and please piss off with your legal questions.

Photo credit: By Liftarn [Public domain, GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The day of the West memorial service, President Obama stood in front of a grieving community and told them they would not be forgotten. He said his administration would stand with them, ready to help. We anticipate the president will hold true to his word and help us work with FEMA to ensure much-needed assistance reaches the community of West.

Rick Perry is not a man to mince words about his disdain for the federal government when it suits his momentary needs. He has no right to act surprised all of a sudden when that same government refuses to help the man who has said time and again that his state doesn’t need them (except, of course, when he does need them).

This is really about a Texas business avoiding regulatory obligations, killing a bunch of people through neglect, and then asking the feds to help clean up. They should be begging OSHA for forgiveness, not asking FEMA for money. If “freedom” from regulation is a Texas value, the rebuilding of West’s infrastructure is the cost Texas hoped to pass on to the rest of the country.

I’m reminded of the talk after the Oklahoma tornado about whether we, as a people, should support relief efforts there even though Oklahomans keep electing people who have nothing but contempt for the very notion of government aid until the moment they need some. My position was, and still is, that we owe them assistance and relief, but that we should not let them forget that their own elected representatives would probably deny it to them had they but lived a few hundred miles in any direction.

Now that the federal government is denying aid to a state that elected a guy who gives lip service to secession, a big part of me wants to say I told you so. Well, I guess I just said it. If so many Texans are so unenamored of the federal government, let us all lie in the bed they made.

Shorter version of what I just said: if you voted for Rick Perry and dare to say anything other than “we don’t need FEMA anyway,” you deserve to get punched in the throat.

One final thought: sooner or later, the lawsuits will start rolling in against West Fertilizer Company and whomever else might be civilly liable, asserting injury claims, wrongful death, and property damage. The odds are very good that Rick Perry will call these suits “frivolous,” or seek to undermine them in some other way. It’s fine to expect the nation’s taxpayers to foot the bill in Perryland, but I’m not so sure the private sector should ever have to pony up.

Photo credit: By Shane.torgerson [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

From the “Lady Sansa ღ” page on Facebook

In life, the monsters win.
A Game of Thrones, Chapter VI

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.
Chapter XIV

If we have learned anything from Game of Thrones (the books or the TV series), it is this: the seemingly noble qualities of justice and mercy can have dire, even deadly consequences. (Spoilers ahead.)

I knew the Red Wedding scene was coming from the moment the show started its run in 2011, but I can still say I was surprised that the show presented it in such a brutal manner. The addition of Talisa, a character who does not appear in the books, as well as the news of her pregnancy, added an element of brutality absent even from the books. Much of the reaction I have seen (from people who did not know that the Red Wedding was coming) has focused on bemusement, or even rage, that the show would kill off its main character, Robb Stark.

I have two thoughts in response to that sentiment: (1) Have you learned nothing from the death of Ned Stark? That was not a narrative outlier. (2) Why assume Robb Stark is the central character, or hero?

This is not to take anything away from the emotional impact of the Red Wedding. I read that scene in 2007 or 2008, and felt like I had been hit by something large and blunt wielded by the Hound. Even George R.R. Martin had difficulty writing the scene. An article by Paul Waldman at The American Prospect captured the narrative shock of Robb Stark’s death, when compared to Ned Stark’s death:

George R. R. Martin obviously has a good understanding of narrative conventions and is more than happy to subvert them. When Ned Stark was executed, it was so shocking not only because it left viewers without the person with whom they assumed they were supposed to most identify, but because the scene itself felt so familiar, right up until the moment when the blade met Ned’s neck. We’ve seen it repeated a thousand times, in every action or adventure story. At some point, the hero always suffers a setback—he is captured by his enemies, or he is betrayed by one he trusted, or he’s injured and looks on the verge of defeat. Then at the last moment, he finds some clever way to escape and triumph. Those who hadn’t read the books were waiting for that moment as Ned stood before the king, the executioner, and the crowd. And then his head rolled away.

But his son Robb’s death was portrayed in an entirely different way. It wasn’t preceded by a lengthy countdown; it was sudden and shocking, challenging expectations in a different way. “It’s kind of ridiculous that Robb Stark is killed so simply,” [NYU literature Professor Karen] Hornick says. If he’s a heroic warrior, we expect his death to be filmed with grandeur, maybe even in slow motion. And in the story, it has to serve some higher redemptive purpose, such as a noble sacrifice for the purpose of saving others. But it didn’t happen that way. Robb just died, along with his wife, his mother, and his army. Martin and the show’s creators found a different way to confound our expectations of what happens to heroes.

After the episode with the Red Wedding aired last weekend, my wife asked me where the story could possibly go after that. I pointed out that Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, Bran Stark, Davos Seaworth, and Theon Greyjoy still have their story arcs more or less intact, but it is certainly true that what seemed to be the central conflict of the story, i.e. the Starks versus the Lannisters, is mostly at an end. This is part of the brilliance of the story, in that it always keeps the reader/viewer guessing.

Via stannisisawesome.tumblr.com

I. What We Learned from Ned Stark

Ned Stark was often a less-than-inspiring hero, as demonstrated by the “Stupid Ned Stark” meme that prevailed during the first season of the show. He was deeply principled and committed to honor, and it pretty much killed him. As he told Varys in the dungeon, “the madness of mercy” led him to tell Cersei that he knew her big secret, in order to give her an opportunity to flee King’s Landing with her children. It never seemed to have occurred to him that she might instead have the king killed and take power herself. That didn’t work out too well for her, as Joffrey proved impossible to control, but it worked out much worse for Ned.

Had Ned taken Littlefinger‘s advice and thrown his support behind Joffrey, it is possible that they could have tempered some of Joffrey’s abuses, at the very least by depriving him of the power trip of ordering Ned’s execution. Had Ned taken Renly Baratheon‘s advice and joined with him to take up arms against the Lannisters, who knows what might have happened, but there’s a better chance Ned would still be alive.

Robb Stark was undoubtedly his father’s son. He often chose honor over pragmatism. His marriage to Talisa, in direct violation of his oath to Walder Frey, is different from his marriage in the books to Jeyne Westerling. He married Talisa for love, but in the books he married Jeyne for honor. Either way, he put his own honor and sense of duty over what turned out to be more important obligations.

A better example of Robb’s lack of pragmatic thinking was his execution of Rickard Karstark. Karstark committed an unspeakable crime, to be certain, killing two Lannister children in vengeance for the death of his son. At least the show changed the story so that Jaime Lannister murdered Karstark’s son in cold blood, as opposed to on the battlefield (not that I think it makes a difference, but it would make a difference in Westeros.) Robb Stark had the choice of executing Karstark for treason, or holding him captive in order to secure the continued loyalty of Karstark’s soldiers. He chose execution, which was presumably more honorable. Karstark even taunted him about his tendency towards mercy (i.e. Catelyn Stark). The execution led to the mass desertion of the Karstarks, requiring Robb to ask for help from Walder Frey, and the rest is history. Robb may have been honorable, but that’s pretty much what got him killed. The Lannisters and Roose Bolton also got him killed, but Robb’s stubborn honor made it easier for them.

From the “Lady Sansa ღ” page on Facebook

II. Why Ned/Robb Stark Was Not the “Hero”

Two major themes of both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire, in my opinion, are that outward heroism masks inner weakness, and that almost no one is uniformly “good” or “evil.” From the beginning, readers/viewers have struggled with viewing Tyrion Lannister as a protagonist when he is basically aligned with the clear antagonists. During the Battle of the Blackwater, we had the choice of rooting for the Lannisters defending King’s Landing or Stannis Baratheon’s forces. I think most people just rooted for Tyrion. In fact, Tyrion Lannister is now probably the closest thing to a main protagonist the show has, and he is formally allied with the characters we hate the most.

We also saw a major crack in Sandor “The Hound” Clegane’s facade in the Blackwater scene, when he faced his mortal fear of fire and abandoned the city. He offered to take Sansa Stark with him, and in doing so made us realize that, for all his cruelty towards her, he had done more to protect her than anyone else since her father’s death. Later, the Hound captured Arya Stark, but did so in order to return her to her family. Without ever attempting to justify his many crimes, George R.R. Martin turned him into an ally of a protagonist, if not a protagonist himself.

Much the same could be said of Jaime Lannister, for whom we might actually feel some semblance of pity. Yes, he’s a monster, but damn has life dealt him all kinds of shit. Again, without ever justifying or forgiving his crimes, we find ourselves rooting for Jaime’s efforts to redeem himself, through his rescue of Brienne and other events that I won’t mention because the show hasn’t gotten there yet.

Jaime also provides a valuable perspective, the “villain’s” view of the “hero.” We have always assumed that Ned Stark was the hero and Jaime Lannister the villain, but Jaime makes a plausible case otherwise. The title “Kingslayer” has followed Jaime his entire adult life, and he is condemned among many of the highborn for breaking his oath to King Aerys. We now know that Jaime killed the previous king in order to stop him from burning King’s Landing to the ground, saving over 100,000 lives. He should have been the hero of the day, but instead he is the Kingslayer. He blames Ned Stark’s sense of honor for this, as he did not believe Ned would accept saving the life of everyone in the city as justification for breaking his oath. From what we know of Ned Stark, he’s probably right, and so we have another example of honor as a destructive force.

All of that said, I would not call Jaime Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Sandor Clegane, or anyone else the “hero” of this story. I do not think this story has a hero. Although it takes place in a fantasy world with dragons and the Lord of Light, the story of Game of Thrones is rooted firmly in reality. Everyone has the capacity for evil, especially when they intend to do good, and even the worst characters of them all can have their good moments. That is how the real world works. Deal with it.

Way back in the early days of TIA, i.e. 2002, my friend Todd conceived of a patriotic means of helping the government keep tabs on all of us law-abiding folk. See, sifting through peta-, exa-, or even yottabytes of data takes a substantial investment of resources, and is likely to yield quite a few false leads. Besides that, they might miss a few emails in the process. In order to ensure that the government knows we are on the level, Todd proposed this:

I recently sent the following e-mail to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Attorney General Ashcroft to inform them of my plan to do my part as a patriotic American in these fearful times:

Esteemed Sirs:

I have recently become aware of your administration’s plan to gather more information on American citizens than was previously legally possible, including, but obviously not limited to collecting private e-mails.

I cannot applaud this move loudly enough. It seems like every new day brings with it a new warning of imminent terrorist attacks and, while nothing has yet come of those, I find myself living in constant fear.

Obviously, something must be done about this, and you have made the obvious deduction that we can no longer afford to simply collect information on suspected terrorists.

In an effort to support this bold new initiative, I am doing my part as an American to let you know I have nothing to hide, as I am not a terrorist.

Accordingly, I will henceforth forward to you all of the e-mails that I write, that my non-terroristic intent may be laid bare for all to see. I have done nothing wrong, so I have nothing to fear.

Although I must admit to my confusion as to how this will help us catch the terrorists, I nonetheless trust that my elected officials obviously know better and will use this data for good.

I thank you for continuing to fight for democracy here and all over the world.

Naturally, I urge all who read this to also join me in our fight for freedom and also forward all your e-mails to president@whitehouse.gov, vice.president@whitehouse.gov, and AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.

It is my hope that our efforts will lead America to an unqualified victory in this war on terror much as it has enjoyed similar successes in its past wars against drugs, Vietnam, poverty, and Iraq (the first time).

I think it is a brilliant idea. I bet you could configure your email to include the above three addresses in the bcc line of every email you send, thus doing your part to pave the way to freedom and liberty.

Things could be much, much creepier. Also, why would a top secret surveillance program need a logo?

Of course, I think I know the answer to that last question, and it is similar to the newfound outrage people had over the TSA’s groping practices: now the “war on terror” is affecting us (and by “us” I mean affluent white people, mostly.)

Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers fame, is warning about the “United Stasi of America,” as if that is something that could happen tomorrow if we don’t do………something, I’m not sure what. The story has also given Glenn Greenwald, a writer I used to respect greatly, more opportunities at self-aggrandizement.

The simple fact is that most legislators have unclean hands in all of this, save a few. The revelation of this program’s existence gives us an opportunity to have a national dialogue about how much surveillance we are willing to accept in the name of “national security,” but I have my doubts that we’ll actually get to that discussion amid all the hysteria. Everything the White House has done was arguably authorized by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, so the first thing Congress could do would be to repeal, or at least limit, that law. <crickets>

Here are a few relevant quotes from an update on the surveillance program offered by the Guardian, with my commentary:

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been empowered by a secret order issued by the foreign intelligence court directing Verizon Communications, a mobile phone provider with 98.9 million wireless customers, to turn over all its call records for a three-month period. [It is a limited period of time, subject to a court order. It is critical for us, the public, to know more about what is going on, but remember the kerfuffle a few years ago over the administration's need to bypass the foreign intelligence court entirely?]

***

Under the order, the NSA only gains access to the “metadata” around calls – when they were made, what numbers they were made to, where they were made from and how long the calls lasted. [So no one is listening in on your calls, at least under this program.]

Obtaining the content of the calls, or the names or addresses of the callers would make the surveillance wiretapping, which would count as a separate issue legally. [Note the use of the conditional tense here. No one knows for sure that widespread wiretapping is going on.]

***

It is unknown how Prism actually works. [No comment needed, really.]

***

The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President George Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. [Don't act so surprised, everybody.]

***

A fact sheet leaked to the Guardian explains that almost 3bn pieces of intelligence had been collected from US computer networks in the 30-day period ending in March this year, as well as indexing almost 100bn pieces worldwide. [That's a lot of data. One might even call it a shitload. Not that it justifies such widespread data collection, but the odds are that they are looking for something more important than your phone sex habits.]

[Emphasis added]

I don’t think there is much information that the NSA is gathering that most of us don’t voluntarily hand over to private corporations every day (Google, Facebook, AT&T, etc.) Most of that information is mundane, or at worst pathetic. Yes, the “surveillance state” is getting bigger, and we absolutely have to address that, but we also need to accept that we have implicitly agreed to turn over details of our lives to others multiple times every day.

We are talking about hundreds of billions of records of metadata. Even assuming that each record is small, say a few dozen kilobytes or something, we are still talking about amounts of data for which most of us don’t even know the prefix. Petabytes, maybe, or even exabytes. It wouldn’t surprise me if the NSA ventures into yottabyte territory. Good luck doing anything useful with that much data, but I still don’t like having it lying around like that. I’m just not as worried about imminent tyranny as many seem to be. There is roughly zero chance right now that someone’s phone sex records could go from the NSA’s database to that person’s spouse’s divorce attorney—although the fact that a private sector contractor leaked the program in the first place would make such a disclosure more likely, really. Similarly, the odds of local law enforcement being able to access data from the NSA remains slim, and we have an opportunity to advocate for laws that prevent that from happening.

Do we want to keep the NSA’s data from other agencies, though? Consider this observation from The Economist:

It would also be a good thing if the NSA were blocked from routinely mining patterns from every phone call made in America in the hopes of finding something that matches up with terrorism. Another approach would be to see whether we can erect clearly enforced firewalls that prohibit the NSA from sharing its knowledge that you were in bed with your mistress with prosecutors. Then again, the fact that different intelligence agencies weren’t allowed to pool their knowledge was precisely what outraged Americans in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. [Emphasis added]

At a bare minimum, the NSA has a mandate to protect us and a modicum of accountability to the public (via elections, the 1st Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances, etc.) Google, et al have no such mandate, and can use the information we voluntarily give them just about however they want. In the long run, I’m far more worried about how the private sector uses this data than the government. That’s also why the government’s use of contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton is a critical part of this “scandal” for me.

This “scandal” (if it even remotely deserves that name) could still hurt Silicon Valley through consumer backlash, but I have my suspicions that it will be more like the backlash against the airlines over TSA groping. Remember how we stood up as a nation and demanded that the TSA respect our bodily integrity, facing delayed or even missed flights as the price of our fight for freedom? Neither do I, because that never happened, and TSA agents (who might have responded to a job ad on a pizza box) continue to touch our junk with relative impunity.

How much are we willing to do to fight back against encroaching surveillance? Remember how Google+ offered greater privacy protections than Facebook, and everyone abandoned Facebook en masse? Neither do I. We may have fewer privacy protections, and we may feel righteously outraged, but good luck giving up your cell phone or your steady supply of lolcats.

If people want to get outraged about this, they should. I’ll even stop asking why now instead of any time since 2001. If you want to actually do something, tell your Congressional representatives to support repeal or modification of the PATRIOT Act, to take away the legal justification for PRISM and other programs. If Congress refuses to do so, and we reelect the same people, then I guess we deserve what we get. If Congress repeals the law, and the White House keeps at it, then we’ve got problems.

UPDATE, June 11, 2013: I mischaracterized The Guardian as a newspaper that devotes multiple column inches to bikini bodies. I was thinking of The Daily Mail, which has intrepid reporting on Denise Richards’ well-defined calves and similarly hard-hitting stories. I regret the error.

Photo credit: By Kwertii at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.