Sunday Open Thread [8.11.13]

A tale of religious conservatives running away from a so-called over-reaching government, having to be saved by said government:

Hannah Gastonguay, 26, said Saturday that she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led us” when they took their two small children and her father-in-law and set sail from San Diego for the tiny island nation of Kiribati in May.

But just weeks into their journey, the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks, unable to make progress. They were eventually picked up by a Venezuelan fishing vessel, transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and taken to Chile where they are resting in a hotel in the port city of San Antonio.

Their flights home were arranged by U.S. Embassy officials, Gastonguay said. The U.S. State Department was not immediately available for comment.

Looks to me as though God is telling these folks to stop being dumbasses. They set sail across an ocean without appropriate sailing/navigation skills, trying to get to the first nation expected to be lost to global warming. This is one group of people I hope the government *is* watching — their apocalyptic impulses may hurt people besides themselves.

Have you been following the distress that has been following the meltdown of the Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary? Safe Haven has the animal control contract with Kent County and has been having multiple issues — money, management and too many animals. The Delaware SPCA has told the City of Wilmington that it can’t take more animals under its contract with the city, with the city making plans to take on the job of animal control itself. No Kill shelters seem to be running into a great many problems, especially in areas where pit bulls are popular. Long term care of animals while you are trying to place them in lifetime homes is a noble goal, but is it realistic?

ProPublica does us the service of documenting the state surveillance reforms that Senator Barack Obama supported:

As a senator, Obama wanted to limit bulk records collection. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted to require government analysts to get court approval before accessing incidentally collected American data. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted the executive branch to report to Congress how many American communications had been swept up during surveillance. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted to restrict the use of gag orders related to surveillance court orders. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted to give the accused a chance to challenge government surveillance. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted the attorney general to submit a public report giving aggregate data about how many people had been targeted for searches. […]

As a senator, Obama wanted the government to declassify significant surveillance court opinions.[…]

All of this still looks good to me.

What interests you today?