As IF Times

link Scarlett Johansson Threatens to Sue Over Nude Photos – UsMagazine.com.

Of course, the FBI is all over this one.  Apparently dozens of agents have volunteered their own personal time to work on this case.  The amount of time spent poring over evidence will be astronomical.   Staff will be pulled off cases looking for terrorist bombers in order to solve this pressing case.  Removing nude pics from the Internet.  Good luck with that. 

Poor Scarlett is obviously aghast that someone would hack into her telephone and steal private photos of her.  Living as she does in fairyland, she was unaware that just recently, Congressman Anthony Weiner had also suffered the fate of having his tighty-whities displayed on the world’s biggest billboard.  Of course in Weiner’s case, he was targeting a specific audience. but unlike Scarlett, the only ones who may have been interested were probably gay men.

The philosophical issue is that pictures stolen from Scarlett’s phone are equivalent to having them stolen from a locked drawer in her house.  I suppose that makes sense in theory and we won’t argue with the principle.  But here is the essential seam which separates principled types from common sense types: theory is not reality.  I can bake a pie and place it on my window to cool, but if it’s on a busy street, certain unprincipled types are going to take my pie.  If I want to park my convertible on Chicago’s south side, it may not be a good idea to leave the Nikon in full display on the car seat.  

Celebrities who need exposure to further their careers are often the ones to bleat about privacy issues when they know that their lives are lived under a microscope.  At least Oprah and Joy Behar are smart enough not to take nude pics of themselves on their phones.  Imagine the audience for that.  Anyone who thinks cell phones are private are plain delusional.  If Wikileaks can hack into top military secrets, what makes anyone think their Verizon account is safe?   In real life, people regularly have things stolen from their cars, their homes, they may even have nude pics of themselves circulating without their consent, but those are the hazards of real life.  Years and years of indifferent applications of punishments for law breaking has resulted in expectations of a certain amount of criminal behavior in our society.  How many people these days don’t lock their car or house when they leave?  What does it say when years ago, in many cities, it was common to see “no radio” stickers on car windows?   Most petty crimes aren’t even prosecuted any more for the time and effort involved. 

Celebrities should not live under the delusion that they are immune from the vicissitudes of life that normal people deal with.  Celebrity status does not entirely insulate them from the society they choose to live in.  They only benefit is that they get to publicize their moral outrage.

link My Way News – Defense, friends say Ore. bomb plot suspect set up.

The only comparison to the response of the idiots in Portland in the animal world are whale beachings.  In the case of whales, it’s believed that they only perform this act of suicide because of illness.  Beachings serve to end their suffering and speeds their death.  In the case of the Portland contingent who are rallying to Mr. Mohamud’s defense, I suppose they would benefit the rest of society if they too were to beach themselves.  Perhaps liberalism is an illness after all.

The only possible explanation for the crowd rallying in defense of Mr. Mohamud is because they have latent suicidal tendencies.  Of course, there are strong hints of this as reflected in their voting proclivities.  Portland is one of the most liberal places in the U.S..  Up to now, they are  the only city in America which does not cooperate with the FBI on homeland security issues. 

If you struck yourself on the head with a ball been hammer a few times, you may be able to see their position.  That is,  Mohamed Osman Mohamud was likely selected from the population by the FBI because Mohamed was a suspicious name.  I mean, outside of the UK, how many people have a name like Mohamed?  They planted the idea of blowing up people in his otherwise innocent brain and framed him for the glory of breaking a huge case.   Let’s face it, given an opportunity, anyone would be willing to arrange for drums of explosives to be delivered to crowded public place to be detonated at the most opportune time….purely for amusement.  They do it in Sylvester Stallone movies all the time.

The gentle citizens of Portland, rather than express outrage and relief that the plan did not go off as expected are instead chastising the FBI for apprehending an innocent kid.  Note to anthropology students; this is as close to beached whale suicide behaviour as it gets, followed closely by electing Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer in California.  This is the equivalent of the fraternity hazing ritual of being paddled on your bare butt, whereupon you say, ‘thank you sir, may I have another?”  We only hope this innocent child recieves a fair hearing and the FBI excoriated for their police state tactics.  Go pick on real criminals; like the ones who don’t recycle.