Today's arithmetic lesson.

This:

As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can’t read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.  Already, the cameras have been flown above major public events such as the Ohio political rally where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) named Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, McNutt said. They’ve been flown above Baltimore; Philadelphia; Compton, Calif.; and Dayton in demonstrations for police. They’ve also been used for traffic impact studies, for security at NASCAR races and at the request of a Mexican politician, who commissioned the flights over Ciudad Juárez.

Plus this:

A new app will allow total strangers to ID you and pull up all your information, just by looking at you and scanning your face with their Google Glass. The app is called NameTag and it sounds CREEPY. The "real-time facial recognition" software "can detect a face using the Google Glass camera, send it wirelessly to a server, compare it to millions of records, and in seconds return a match complete with a name, additional photos and social media profiles." The information listed could include your name, occupation, any social media profiles you have set up and whether or not you have a criminal record ("CRIMINAL HISTORY FOUND" pops up in bright red letters according to the demo).

Plus this:

The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.

Equal:

According to multiple law enforcement sources, the leased, luxurious Gulfstream IV on which [Justin Bieber] the 19-year-old Canadian pop star, his father and an entourage of 10 friends traveled was so full of marijuana smoke that the pilots were forced to wear oxygen masks.

Yes, Justin Bieber  is the most important thing in America right now. Any questions?

I was chatting with a kid at the computer store today, who said he used to shake his head at the paranoia of people who's laptops would come in for service with little pieces of tape over the camera. Says he couldn't believe those tinfoil hat wearing fruitbats were right all along.

But they are. And he puts tape on his laptop camera now too.

This little list here, had I posted it just five short years ago would be greeted with hoots of derision and suggestions that I get back on my meds. But now its What Is, and the media are scrambling to find new shiny things to take your mind off it. Some punk kid smoked up on an airplane? Front page! Some idiot actor kills himself with a heroin overdose? Week-long front page pity party! California doesn't have any freakin' water? LADY GAGA!!!!

Oh and by the way, the US Post Office has joined the US Dept. of Education in purchasing several million rounds of ammunition, possibly enough to arm every postie in the country. Because posties need to be issued guns, right? US Postal Service needs a SWAT team, right? Going postal set to acquire a whole new meaning in the Obama Nation.

Just thought you oughta know.

The Phantom