Thursday, June 27, 2013

Most. Optimistic. Local. News. Station. EVER.

Apparently Central Florida didn't get being the center of a media circus out of its system during the Casey Anthony trial, because here we are again with George Zimmerman.

[Note: I'm not going to comment on the specifics of the trial because 1) I haven't been following it closely enough to feel informed, 2) I'm pretty sure the internet isn't suffering from a lack of people offering commentary; and 3) there's approximately eleventy bazillion things I'd rather write about.]

Anyway! From what I've seen on social media the past few days, the trial has been quite...entertaining. (A witness testified she could hear grass? Huh? Yeah, I'm OK not watching every minute of this.) And then WFTV tweeted this:

Friday, June 14, 2013

Immigration reform poll shows Floridians support secure borders and "registration for undocumented immigrants"

Public Policy Polling conducted a poll of Florida voters earlier this month regarding immigration reform, and there are a number of interesting results. I'd also like to highlight the specific wording used in the poll, because the actual questions asked have a big impact on how people respond to the very complicated issue of immigration reform.

First, immigration reform is definitely a priority for Floridians, with 86% of respondents saying that it's "very" or "somewhat" important to "fix the immigration system" this year. 

The poll also shows that Floridians want immigration reform to include secure borders and a process for people who are here illegally to register for legal status, with a "long list of requirements" to be met for over a decade before they could be eligible for citizenship.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Oops. Maybe Verizon should have revised their privacy policies. [UPDATED]

Another week, another invasion of privacy and violation of rights for regular citizens. It's becoming quite an alarming routine from the Obama administration, isn't it? 

The latest "Are You Kidding Me?!" story is how the NSA has been collecting records from tens of millions of Verizon wireless customers in the U.S. under a top-secret court order, including "the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls." 

Image by Ben Howe

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