Americans: gluttons for punishment

Look, I’m not the svelte man I used to be anymore either, but there’s a reason everybody else thinks Americans are all fat fucks and it’s that y’all eat things like this:

A dozen-egg omelet filled with mushrooms, onions, American cheese and smothered with our chili and more cheese. On the other half of a 15-inch pizza pan is a generous pile of homefries and two biscuits.

(Found at Unfogged.)



Humongous dishes are not just a fast food chain speciality. As Man v Food shows, every other crappy restaurant unable to compete on quality goes for quantity, creating some insane signature dish of such gargantuan proportions that eating it becomes punishment rather than pleasure:

But what I’d really like to see is what happens the next morning, when the show presumably turns into Man V Poo, as Richman empties the dauntingly substantial, hopelessly compacted contents of his engorged colon, clenching the bathroom doorhandle between his teeth as he attempts to give birth to a leg-sized hunk of fecal sod without killing himself. Cue footage of him sweating, shaking and sobbing like a man impaled on a clay tree, before eventually squeezing out a log with the dimensions and weight of a dead gazelle in a greased sleeping bag. As he mops his brow (and backside), he smiles weakly with exhausted triumph, whispers farewell, and the credits roll. And we’ve all learned something about the price of excess.

And lookig at this NYTimes restaurant critic’s food diary eating in upscale restaurants won’t save you either…

Somewhat related: fast food ads v reality.

Isolated incidents

Democratic representatives and senators are threatened for voting yes on Obamacare:

WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health care bill, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said Wednesday, as the Congressional debate over the issue headed toward a bitter and divisive conclusion.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said at least 10 House members had raised concerns about their personal security since Sunday’s climactic vote, and Mr. Hoyer characterized the cases as serious.

At least two Congressional district offices were vandalized and Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a senior Democrat from New York, received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.

I’m sure these are all isolated incidents and have nothing to do with the overblown and violent rhetoric coming from the rightwing media and politicians…

Save Us From Dr Evil, Super Wario!

It’s Monday morning. Bleh. Who’s got the energy to bone up on why it is the Americans are having conniption fits re N. Korea, just so’s to be able to look knowledgable to your workmates in the coffee break, or even just to make sense of that burbling on the radio?

To save you the trouble of googling, and because I’m nice like that, here’s a handy 2 minute summation, Super Mario style:

It’s a bit of a quandary for the UN security council when people don’t comply with international treaties, isn’t it? And now Kim the younger’s got space capability too.

Mind you, there is an upside to this ‘immediate threat to the international order’ -a Dr Evil with nukes against whom world leaders can unite to mutual political and economic advantage is the very thing to divert attention from the collapse of a global economy nobody seems able to fix.

Is Google Streetview NL In Breach of EU Data Protection Law?

naamplaatjes
naamplaatjes

Streetview may be winning in court in the US, but they may find the legal going a bit stickier in the EU.

The furore in the British press this morning about the advent of Google Streetview in UK and NL echoes that of its US launch, when Google Streetview, which allows the casual browser to wander at will virtually peeking in windows, gardens and doors, or wherever else Google’s camera poked its invasive lens, faced legal challenges on breach of privacy grounds.

So far Google’s defeated its legal challengers – but will EU data protection laws defeat Google?

Streetview’s just been launched here in NL too, and lo and behold! There’s our house: and our bedroom window, which you can look right into. And our front door, with our names on it.

That’s because it’s obligatory when you move into a property here to register your residence with the local authority, the gemeente. They then give you or you buy an embossed nameplate (see above), which you put on your front door, usually above the letterbox or by the doorbell. (Makes it easier to round you up – the Arena bomb hoaxers arrested up the street the other day had their names on the letterbox too).

This means that what Google Streeetview has done, in effect, is to compile a visual database of the names and addresses of every resident in the Netherlands save those paranoids – or the sensible, your choice – who haven’t complied with the local gemeente‘s pettifogging door-labelling rules.

Did Google or its licensers in government ever consider that, because it’s possible to zoom in on this database and that therefore it’s accessible to any casual viewer, they are potentially in breach of EU data protection laws – specifically Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data?

Google claims it owns all Streetview data. Streetview NL is a database, although it’s visual. Surely any database containing individuals’ names and addresses should be subject to EU data protection regs? I’d certainly contend it should*.

Any EU member government body that allows or licenses Google to compile such a database might also be in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees the privacy of individuals and families; broadly, it covers “private and family life, .. home and correspondence”, subject to certain restrictions that are “in accordance with law” and “necessary in a democratic society” .

I’m no expert on EU data protection laws and their application in NL – *I am no longer a lawyer – but that jumped right out at me.

Why didn’t it jump out to any of Google’s high-priced advocaten?

UPDATE

Heh.

When interviewed, a Google Streetview driver/photographer demanded he not be photographed.

Maintaining Impartiality

I know the BBC has shot itself in the foot a number of times this weekend what with Gaza and all, but this beats everything yet.

Jonah Goldberg has a gig on on Andrew Marr’s Radio 4 discussion programme, Start The Week. Yes, really.

He’s going to discuss his new book, apparently;

The Los Angeles Times columnist JONAH GOLDBERG calls for a re-evaluation of fascism. He argues that by using the word as a synonym for anything that is undesirable, we are blinded to the examples around us of real fascism from both Left and Right wing governments. Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning is published by Penguin.

New? WTF? Someone at the beeb was wilfully misinformed.

Either that or Justin Webb’s been given editorial control. He must’ve met the Pantload on the Koolaid aisle in Safeway.