BREAKING – O’KEEFE MEDIA RELEASES VIDEO SHOWING IBM COERCING MANAGERS TO DISCRIMINATE: CEO of IBM Arvind Krishna admits to using coercion to fire people and take away their bonuses unless they discriminate in the hiring process. I hope they sue the fuck out of this guy, and that the feds bring charges.

 

Not Robert Zubrin.

 

RE-THINKING THE MARS PROGRAM: Over at SpaceNews, Mars Society President Robert Zubrin makes a good argument for cutting our losses and sending more robots to Mars to do in-situ work, rather than continue to pursue the long-troubled Mars Sample Return mission. I hope his ideas gain traction. I also hope that someday Elon Musk strolls into the NASA director’s office and empties a sack of astronaut-retrieved sample tubes on the director’s desk and exits whistling.

 

The nation’s seven largest pharmacy chains, CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart Stores, Inc., The Kroger Company and Rite Aid Corporation all participated in the briefings along with Amazon Pharmacy. All of them admitted to sharing records with law enforcement without requiring a warrant, the letter said, and most do not alert customers to such demands despite being legally permitted to do so.

 

MORE WARRANTLESS DATA SHARING UNCOVERED: We can now add pharmacies to the long list of businesses who regularly share your personal info with the police without a warrant. This was discovered by Democrat congresscritters who are concerned about the privacy of women who are prescribed the abortifacient drug Mifepristone. HIPAA seems to not apply here, or the federal government is looking the other way. HIPAA only penalizes medical industry professionals who improperly disclose such data; it does not apply to random third parties who obtain and possess such data. In related news, Apple says they will no longer release push notification data to law enforcement without a court order.

 

 

A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH AND FREE ENTERPRISE: Norfolk (VA) City Council approves permit for Armed Forces Brewing Company, avoids lawsuit. And why would this be in any way controversial, you ask? Well, apparently an owner with a minority stake in the business once said mean things about the QUILTBAG++ movement. Or something. Opponents also tried to frame this as a land use issue, ignoring that they were opposing job creation in a formerly depressed neighborhood. Their attorney, Tim Anderson, is a rising star in Virginia politics and an all-around nice guy.

 

 

THE LEGACY OF JOHN MCAFEE? Photos of a very special dolphin inhabiting the waters of Corinth, Greece are surfacing. A dolphin born with hook-shaped “thumb” flippers, was spotted twice this summer by researchers with the Pelagos Cetacean Research Insitute.

 

 

HOPEFUL NEWS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST COMPELLED SPEECH: On Thursday, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a high school teacher who was fired for refusing to use pronouns that didn’t match a student’s biological sex could have his lawsuit against the local school board reinstated. This is not a win, but at least he’ll get his day in court. The government schools in the little paper-mill town of West Point (not to be confused with the town in NY where the USMA is located) has a long history of being involved in trans-related litigation.