Simpsons: Tapped Out One America

So I've been playing (auto correct says "paying") this game for a while, and have never seen anything quite like this.
Oneamericaappeal.org

DHS-2017-0038

On October 18th, the USDHS will begin tracking (aka keeping a permanent record of) some new information on US Immigration applicants, US Immigrants (Green Card holders), naturalized US citizens and anyone who interacts with them.

This information will include "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results", along with details from "publicly available information obtained from the internet, public records, public institutions, interviewees, commercial data providers, and information obtained and disclosed pursuant to information sharing agreements"

I don't think I need to tell anyone how to feel about this, but if you do "feel", then you should know that the federal register is accepting formal comments until October 18, 2017.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/09/18/2017-19365/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records

[Update: Oct 10 2017: So I finally got around to trying to slog through the 40 pages mind numbing references to other regulations and it is not at all clear from the language in the federal register, but a charitable reading suggests that — at least for Naturalized citizens and Green Card holders — they just keep/consolidate previously collected information.
By about halfway my brain was melting and it occurred to me to check for updates on the original articles. Sure enough Gizmodo got a response from DHS, though their claim that this just discloses policy that dates back to 2012 is hardly something that supports a charitable reading.]

More:
Gizmodo [Update Sept 28, 2017]
Buzzfeed

2016 MTV EMAs

I'm waiting for my sheets to dry, watching a station called MTVLive (did anyone know MTV is playing music again?), currently showing their European awards show and they just did their "best male" category and 4 of the 5 nominees were Canadian. Not that they are all my cup of tea, but "damn, way to go Canada.

So that just happened...

Automated "research firm" called my gv#.

Not very subtle info call for Ken Duncan for il state rep. Call ended after a series of "here is some information, now would you vote for him?" Questions, but the last information about his support for marijuana legalization didn't have the prompt ... The line just went dead.

Super cute.

Nature is

Nature is not your friend. We need nature. We depend upon it for much of our survival. But nature wants to kill us and turn us into something else. Probably random atoms. Nature will win. But until then we have each other. we will hold off the dark of entropy and in so doing we will strive to be less constrained and so less dependent on nature. We must learn from our enemy but we must always strive for one more day of victory.

We must establish a national Living Wage that's tied to the real cost of living. Too many families are falling behind in the light of rising costs of basic needs like health care, food, housing and transporation.

Insofar as the idea of a living wage depends on knowing what the real costs are for real people, any such system would be subject to error as it is generally more difficult to measure the real costs facing people, than it is to know their income. The idea that immediately lept into my head was that this could be mitigated by the provision of a packaged living wage lifestyle.

But on the other hand credit/debit/etc payments might be collecting very good information on what people are spending their money on, with specific regional granularity. Yikes, it starts to feel a little big brother.

A little related news

Disease and intelligence: Mens sana in corpore sano: "

Parasites and pathogens may explain why people in some parts of the world are cleverer than those in others

HUMAN intelligence is puzzling. It is higher, on average, in some places than in others. And it seems to have been rising in recent decades. Why these two things should be true is controversial. This week, though, a group of researchers at the University of New Mexico propose the same explanation for both: the effect of infectious disease.