Climbing Mountains

That said, if I really value being seen as an individual first, rather than my gender, size, race, then I must accept that other women are also free to make choices about the way they lead their lives as well. More importantly, I must actively work to ensure their ability to make choices I might not personally make is free of sexist, transphobic, classist, ableist, homophobic, racist and sizeist oppression. After all, they are my sisters – regardless of whether or not my own lived experiences mirror theirs or I agree with their life choices.

Applies to men as well though that is off topic for yet another excellent Snarkey's Machine post.
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How to Delete Your Facebook Account.

Seems to work.
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As the Twig Is Bent ...

The founder of Facebook IMs a friend shortly after starting Facebook:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

Indeed we are.
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This Is Consistent

Atrios:

Politicians routinely fetishize the "small business owner" perhaps just slightly less than they fetishize "the troops" or "the family farmer," so it'd be nice if that love translated into policy.

It does. It Does! Who gets screwed most consistently by Government policies? Small business, the troops and the family farmer.
Feel the love. Talk the talk. And get to the curb slave.

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It's Catching

NYT:

The Diaspora* group was inspired to begin their project after hearing a talk by Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University, who described the centralized social networks as “spying for free,” Mr. Salzberg said.

Lot's of folk don't like the con.
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From the Dept of Empty Gestures

I've had it with Facebook. Can't quit, but can 'deactivate' so I did that. No offense offered to anybody else, so please don't take any.
As Marquis wrote:

dear boss
everyman s hand is turned against a cockroach
and occasionally his foot.

sometimes i sit alone and think
there is nothing lower than an ugly little kink
like me like me like me
last night i cried
i decided a suicide
i d be i d be i d be
so i climbed to the sixth floor window
and out of that window
my little carcase i hurled
but i wasn t dashed to the pavement dead
i floated up to the eighth floor instead
i ask you boss
how insignificant
can a fella get

With the realization that this gesture is even more futile then that of the bardic cockroach, I remain:
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UPDATE: Googleads, ever solicitous, greets the publication of this post with four (4!) ads offering to improve self-esteem!

Chairman of the Bored

Lapsang Souchong has taken too many meetings of late.
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Today in Aphorisms

As usual our political fate hangs on the independents: people who cannot commit, or make up their minds, or pay attention.
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Politico's Anthem

Goldy posts about an RE listing of Reagan Dunn's home. The prominent pol has a very commodious manse. It reminded me of the musical "Fiorello!", by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. It featured pols speculating on how Beau James's* aides would tell the judge to account for their luxurious life style. It featured lyrics such as:

I can see Your Honor doesn't pull his punches
And it looks a trifle fishy, I'll admit,
But for one whole week I went without my lunches
And it mounted up, Your Honor, bit by bit.
Up Your Honor, bit by bit.

As Brecht might have put it: How does a lunchless politician compare to a bought pol?
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*James J. Walker, aka: "Gentleman Jim" and Beau James, Mayor NYC in the Early Thirties of the last century. (Gad! Never thought I'd survive nuclear winter to write that phrase!)