I warn you ahead of time . . .

. . . this is going to sound like one of those Kip questions.

Is requiring college students to buy a Sprint cellphone with GPS tracking a legitimate government* function?

What if the student's dad works for AT&T? What if the student is Amish?

When I went to [S]MSU, they had an exclusive Coke contract so that no Pepsi vending machines would be allowed on campus, but even THEY did not require you to purchase Coke. You could always go to Dillon's or Git-n-Go and buy Pepsi and bring it back to campus.

[H/T 2 Two Johns No Waiting on KMOX.]

* - Montclair State is a public college, supported with tax dollars and therefore a tentacle of the government.

Kissing: Illegal in America.

Big Brother is whacking off.

Feds plan database containing every porn star in America.

Tell me something.

How does keeping tabs on Frank Martini's little side job help the children?

And are they going to chase down and identify every peckershot on the Internet?

And how does one sign up to be the Official Government Porn Looker-Atter?

[H/T 2 Kippy. (He LOVES it when I call him 'Kippy.')]

Weary of harassing Big Tobacco, Congress goes after Big Clove.

The committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., that would ban clove cigarettes, reversing a controversial decision by Kennedy to allow the FDA to make that decision.

Kennedy, the panel's chairman, said he was responding to several senators who contacted him with concerns that a ban on cloves would not be compliant with World Trade Organization rules. But Kennedy agreed to the ban after several senators objected.

Most cloves are marketed in Asia, and Philip Morris, a unit of New York-based Altria Group Inc., recently launched a Marlboro cigarette flavored with cloves in Indonesia.

Kennedy said at the meeting that Philip Morris had "nothing to do with our decision" and he supported the clove ban as long as it is WTO compliant.

Because, you know, SO MANY AMERICANS DIE FROM CLOVE POISONING EVERY YEAR! And there are all those studies that conclusively prove cloves are harmful to your health! Look out; the clovey menace will get you! It's Clove Madness, I tell you!

Sick of Big Brother and his absurd, irrational, foaming-at-the-mouth histrionics yet?

Try homegrown.

Or catnip, which kind of smells a little like marijuana.

I know what marijuana smells like only because I've seen shows about it on TV.

Hackers, or heroes?

Hackers shut down police-state cameras in the City of Big Brotherly Love.

The Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation which runs the cameras,
says hackers and a lightening strike were the reasons the cameras were
off.

The president of the PCDP says the cameras should be working again by
Friday, and he wants the D-A and the US attorney to investigate the
hackers.

Lieberman: Big Brother Not Big Enough.

“The Brits have got something smart going in England, and it was part of why I believe they were able to so quickly apprehend suspects in the terrorist acts over the weekend, and that is they have cameras all over London and other of their major cities,” Lieberman said.

“I think it’s just common sense to do that here much more widely,” he added.

Proposed Rolla ordinance would jail Noah.

While the proposal presented at the City Council meeting Monday sought to
ban both poisonous and non-poisonous reptiles, spiders and insects, Kearse said
there is reconsideration being given to turtles and some snakes.

“We’re not looking at keeping a child from having a pet turtle or a
garter snake,” Kearse said. “That’s not the intent.”

Apparently the intent is to keep adults, however, from having a pet tarantula or iguana.

Defining cruelty down.

In Vermont, the jackbooted thugs apparently think making faces at their canine partners constitutes cruelty.

This monster should be imprisoned.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

The Ominous Parallel Parkings.

Here's a snippet that will really brighten your day:

May 31
THE NEWS OUT OF Washington today is that our very own Caltrans,
Metropolitan Transportation Commission and University of California, Berkeley,
researchers are joining forces to monitor the movements of all vehicles in the
United States.

Brit Brother Surveillance Drones to Buzz Liverpool.

From ThisIsLondon:

Planned targets will be everything from youths riding motorbikes in a park to
clashes between rival football fans and armed sieges where it might be unsafe
for officers to come too close.

[snip]

"People clamour for the feeling of safety which cameras give," said Assistant Chief Constable Simon Byrne.

Secure Beneath The Watchful Rotors.

The Jones Report adds a snippet from Orwell:

"In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered
for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight.
It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not
matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered."

Chapter 1 of George Orwell's 1984

While we're adding pop-culture excerpts, here's an addition of my own:

By the time Skynet became self-aware it had spread into millions of
computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm
rooms; everywhere. It was software; in cyberspace. There was no system core; it
could not be shutdown. The attack began at 6:18 PM, just as he said it would.
Judgment Day, the day the human race was almost destroyed by the weapons they'd built to protect themselves. I should have realized it was never our destiny to
stop Judgment Day, it was merely to survive it, together. The Terminator knew;
he tried to tell us, but I didn't want to hear it. Maybe the future has been
written. I don't know; all I know is what the Terminator taught me; never stop
fighting. And I never will. The battle has just begun.

- John Connor, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

These are the people who gave birth to our Republic?

Dateline UK: Big Brother spray-paints circles around dog poop.

No, honest!

Pedestrians in Cheltenham have been playing an impromptu version of
hopscotch since the local council ordered street cleaners to leave dog mess
where they find it.

Instead, the cleaners have been instructed to call a dog warden,
who arrives with an aerosol and sprays a red circle around the mess. If it is
still in situ a week later, a yellow circle is added and, after a further week,
a white one.

Your tax euros at work.

UPDATE: Our friends north of the border seem to be more appreciative of poop. Or depreciative of their mothers; I can't tell which.

He's an adult.

So why are Big Brother and/or Big Ed and/or Big Media keeping the name and nationality of the MU-Rolla quasi-terrorist a secret?

University spokesman Lance Feyh described the 22-year-old man as an "international" student but did not reveal his name or nationality.

UPDATE: The Rolla Daily News identifies the man as "Sujith Venkatramolla, a 22-year-old graduate student," "from India."

My own digging reveals little on the internet about him. Here he left the following comment on something called the Valmiki Group:

Here's an enlargement of his picture. Sorry about the image degradation due to the resizing.

And here, he apparently won some competition in his homeland.

UPDATE 2: After I emailed this post to them, KY3 now has an article up.

This first graphic is from my stat counter. Keep in mind it is set to the Eastern time zone.

[Graphic removed by blogmaster.]


This second one is from the bottom of KY3's article.

Nice of them to mention where they got their tip from.

In case you can't tell, that last bit is what we call sarcasm.

UPDATE 3: (3-1-07) I got a nice email from Perrie Campbell complimenting me on my work, and another from the same person asking if I could obscure the part of the graphic that listed KY3's IP address because his (or her?) employer might not be amused. Since my point was made, I removed the graphic.

KY3 used the picture I dug up on their noon newscast yesterday, but again no mention of me. I can kind of understand that on a newscast, where there is no time for extraneous information, but you'd think they could mention this little blog somewhere in their online edition.

Columbia's smoking ban is bad for the environment.

Lauren Schult points out:

Since Columbia’s smoking ordinance took effect in early January, more cigarette butts have been showing up on sidewalks and streets as smokers have been forced outside. The litter is not only unsightly — it’s a source of water pollution as the butts wash down storm drains that flow into streams.

...

The most environmentally hazardous part of a cigarette butt is the filter, which is made of condensed cellulose acetate, a mass of plastic fibers thinner than sewing threads that doesn’t decay easily.

Experiments with the crustacean Daphnia (often called a water flea) concluded that the toxic chemicals in cigarette filters dissolve in water and are lethal to the freshwater crustacean, which is a crucial link at the lower end of the aquatic food chain.

Where are all the Greenies with their protests on THIS one?

On a related note, 'burber and business owner Karon Rowe gets a boost from tobacco refugees and makes a business decision to stay outside the city limits.

Big Brother is watching you pee. And shouting orders.

Just what we need -- bossy urinal cakes.

Will they tell Claire McCaskill when to clap?