Open Thread

The GOP in Asheville, NC objected to a rainbow flag hung at city hall (voted on unanimously by Asheville City Council), and the GOP hung a Nazi swastika flag alongside it as a protest. This is how we know them, right?

This ought to be the talk of everyone today -- with the Texas Ebola problem, we are seeing how the US Public Health system has been deliberately broken: That chart is from a great piece in the Scientific American, showing how Public Health spending has been on the decline. The author, Judy Stone, provides some context for how Public Health considerations have been undermined over the past few years. Read the entire thing, then take a look at some of the material she provides in the links at the end of the article:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-will-no-longer-unlock-most-iphones-ipads-for-police-even-with-search-warrants/2014/09/17/2612af58-3ed2-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html?hpid=z2" target="_blank">Kudos to Apple today</a>: <blockquote>Apple said Wednesday night that it is making it impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police — even when they have a search warrant — taking a hard new line as tech companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated in government efforts to collect user information. [...]The key is the encryption that Apple mobile devices automatically put in place when a user selects a passcode, making it difficult for anyone who lacks that passcode to access the information within, including photos, e-mails and recordings. Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.</blockquote> If you have data in the iCloud, this does not apply, but I like locking down your devices from law enforcement not just as a privacy standard, but also as a marketing differentiator. All of the rest of the cell phone purveyors need to offer this level of privacy immediately.

On the money (about 1 and a half minutes long):

Stealing this from Geezer in the Sunday Daily Delawhere thread:

I'll treat this as the open thread so I can post this link to Thomas Frank's piece from Salon, which is the best thing I've read so far this morning. http://www.salon.com/2014/09/14/all_these_effing_geniuses_ezra_klein_expert_driven_journalism_and_the_phony_washington_consensus/

John Manifold responds Geezer's post of the Frank article with this:

Thomas Frank : Ezra Klein Rousseau : Voltaire

Today is a major protest by some of the Internet's favorite sites to show users what an internet without net neutrality would look like:

You'll find spinning wheels at the top of Netflix, Etsy, Foursquare and other top sites today, as they take part in Internet Slowdown Day. While sites won't slow down for real, participating Internet companies will be covered with the symbolic loading icons "to remind everyone what an Internet without net neutrality would look like," the organizers write on their website. It's all part of a push to get the Federal Communications Commission to enact stronger protections for net neutrality. "We're going to reach millions and millions of people who have never heard the words "net neutrality" before," writes Fight for the Future's Evan Greer. The group advocates for tougher net neutrality protections.

Interesting, I haven't noticed the slowdown yet -- have you?

As states restrict the ability of women to get legal abortions, there will be more stories like this:

A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to up to 18 months in prison for obtaining so-called abortion pills online and providing them to her teenage daughter to end her pregnancy. Jennifer Ann Whalen, 39, of Washingtonville, a single mother who works as a nursing home aide, pleaded guilty in August to obtaining the miscarriage-inducing pills from an online site in Europe for her daughter, 16, who did not want to have the child. Whalen was sentenced on Friday by Montour County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gary Norton to serve 12 months to 18 months in prison for violating a state law that requires abortions to be performed by physicians.[...] Whalen told authorities there was no local clinic available to perform an abortion and her daughter did not have health insurance to cover a hospital abortion, the Press Enterprise newspaper of Bloomsburg reported.

And this is what the War on Women looks like -- criminalizing what shouldn't even be the state's business.

It's been GOTV weekend here in Delaware and there are still races that are worth talking about -- witness Mike Protack running against Janet Kilpatrick for NCCo Council proudly waving the flag for Metropolitan government (joining the governments of Wilmington and NCCo):

If elected, Protack said he would push for a metropolitan government in which the county would take over most functions from the city of Wilmington, which he called "a giant anchor" for New Castle County. He claimed without county intervention the government would be bankrupt, like Detroit, within five years. "It could be a shining diamond, so it's really a shame," he said. "We need to save it from itself."

Oh my.