B-b-but safety!

WTF, people?

Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support

Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn't close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.

I want you all to note the key word here: "solve".

Solve crimes. Not PREVENT crimes!

Cameras do not make you any safer!

Not even as deterrents. Deterrents only make criminals more careful and more creative.

"B-b-but it'll help catch the criminals and get them off the streets so they won't do it to anyone else!"

Yeah, whatever. Once the bomb blows up, the bomb has blown up. Catching criminals serves no purpose save vengeance. If that's a viable goal for you, fine. Have at it. Meanwhile the dead are still dead.

Shall I count the ways cameras are a bad idea? No need to do it here; you can read the article below. Our being for or against the cameras won't make any difference in whether they go up anyway, only in how easy they are to spot.

Oh, and this article predates Google Earth. Think about Google Earth for a while. And remember: if they see you, they can shoot you.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Clyde Lewis on the air tonight

Clyde Lewis will be doing his first LIVE Internet broadcast tonight at 6 PM PST! Go to iDEOcast.com for details.

Edwards versus ThemTM

John Edwards says that They^TM want to shut him up.

Honey, we all want all of you to shut up...

Edwards: "They want to shut me up"

If we don't stand up to these people, if we don't fight em, if we don't beat them, they're going to continue to control this country. They're going to control the media. They're going to control what's being said. They do not want to hear us talking about health care for everybody.

Senator, do you really think that They^TM haven't already charted out in great detail who's likely going to say what, who's going to be allowed to say what, what the official and popular reactions are going to be reported to who says what, and precisely how much squat it's going to matter to the outcome? That this entire circus isn't meticulously scripted?

Of course you don't think that, because you know better. Senator John Scion-of-Bilderberg Edwards, you ARE Them^TM.

So shut up.

False threat trifecta is complete

Here were the first two:

One
Two

and now, the finish:

Bomb Threat Forces Jet Back To Sea-Tac

Airport police took into custody a man who told a gate agent there was a bomb on the plane shortly after it departed, airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt told the Associated Press.

Are we so starved for visual stimulation to accompany a news item that they have to include a slideshow of parked planes and buses on the flight line? I guess we are.

I swear to god I don't think I ever want to see another airport or another plane. I have to fight that aversion, though, because that's what They^TM are trying to accomplish by reporting this non-news: making us want to stay right where we are. Resist! Take a flight.

If you really want to stick it to Them^TM, take a flight on a foreign airline, so they only get some of the money. And if you're smart, you'll stay in whatever country you travel to.

secret aaa-gent man....

Two great tastes that taste great together: more American informants, and more Russian spies!

FBI Proposes Building Network of U.S. Informants

Putin Orders Boost in Military, Spying

Welcome back, Cold War. We missed you. We missed the pervasive, yet incomprehensible threat of hearing a siren whoop and then suddenly ceasing to exist. We missed the genteel cloak-and-dagger days, so free of vulgarities like dirty little brown people blowing things up right in front of us. War should be abstract. It lasts so much longer that way. And the supermarket fiction was better.

My favorite quote from the FBI story:

"It's probably a good sign they are not adopting CIA recruitment techniques wholesale," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, an expert on classified programs. U.S. intelligence officers abroad can use bribery, extortion, and other patently illegal acts to corral sources into working for them, Aftergood noted. "You're not supposed to do that in the United States."

That's what I love about my country, by jingo: we'd never do things we're NOT SUPPOSED to do, right?

Boys and girls, if you are approached by these people, and you want to join up, ask what's in it for YOU. Take control of the negotiations immediately.

Unclean, unclean....

Microchips mulled for HIV carriers in Indonesia's Papua

"Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those infected people who can pose a danger to others," Manangsang said.

"The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what they know about the disease and spread the virus to others."

I've already seen where this would lead. Norman Spinrad wrote a novella in the eighties called "Journals of the Plague Years". The spread of the plague (AIDS and mutations thereof, though it is not called by name in the story) is so prevalent that, included in the information on the national ID, there is a field with information about the person's infection status. Uninfected people's cards, when scanned, returned a blue indicator; the infected, or anyone who had missed their last scheduled medical test, came up black. Most black-carders were rounded up and shipped off to the quarantine city, San Francisco, which was surrounded by walls and guards in boats and all.

When people would meet and consider dating, there were readers in public places for the purpose of confirming one's status to the other. (I think there may have been home blood test kits, too; it's been twenty years, and the book is out of print now.)

And when a person's card registered black, they would often dive into the underground immediately, as it meant the authorities would be looking for them.

I won't go into the plot details. But that's where this is heading. Black cards, not just for diseases, but for any undesirable behavior.

Consider the usefulness of underground networks in such a case, or that of card counterfeiters and identity brokers. Should a similar future come to pass, They^TM will want to use chips because they're harder to counterfeit, but I have faith in human inventiveness.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Public Service Announcement

A public service announcement from On Beyond Zero:

Be prepared for resource depletion in your area.

I don't mean "be prepared" as in "here it comes", I mean it as in the Boy Scout motto.

New Orleans didn't teach the Brits much:

Looting, panic buying - and a water shortage

Be prepared for a water shortage, a food shortage, a power shortage.

Also, be prepared for a communications shortage. Land phones. Cellphones. The Internet.

Certainly prepare for a local law enforcement shortage (and prepare as well for the government's response to it), and a shortage of courtesy and kindness. I'm not going all care bear here, guys. Prepare for a shortage of decent human behavior.

That is all. For now.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Okay, Rupert, we're getting the hint

Guess what the new season of 24 is going to feature?

Female President Next for Fox's '24'

Jones' term will coincide with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid, but Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said fiction and real-world politics will not intersect.

Mmright. It's the news that intersects. And news...is politics.

For six seasons -- well, five; the first season, being experimental, was relatively free of it -- people have called 24 on its parallels to current events and its fear-inducing political slant.

Evil Middle Easterners. Evil Mexicans. Drugs. Nukes. Bioweapons. Conflict with Russia. Conflict with China. Capture and torture. Oh, yes, and, last season, a bad guy named Fayed, just in time for the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana's death.

And now a female president.

Which will our Hillary-surrogate be: the villain or the potential disaster?

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Y Kant Reporters Rite?

Senate Again Blocks Fairness Doctrine Ban

I truly hate it when I read things like "blocks a ban", because some people have to draw a flowchart to figure out whether they've voted for or against something.

This article tries to spell it out for the 'tards:

More senators wanted to consider fairness than didn't, according to last night's 49 to 48 vote, but an attempt by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., to get the ban added to a higher education measure failed to get the 60 votes needed for consideration.

Wait, what? This paragraph actually says that the senators rejected the ban because they didn't want the ban. Seriously. Read it carefully.

And that's the whole point: no one reads these things carefully, no one reports them carefully, so no one votes for them carefully. That goes for Congress as well as the public. Sooner or later, enough negatives will be chasing their own tails that someone's agenda is going to get slipped in sideways *coughcoughpatriotactcough*.

In a related aside, have liberals not noticed that, if the conservative stations start having to allow liberal viewpoints, the liberal stations have to allow conservative viewpoints, too?

Just sayin'.

An executive order to be NICER?

Bush Alters Rules for Interrogations

The White House declined to say whether the CIA currently has a detention and interrogation program, but said if it did, it must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the executive order.

"If it did"...didn't O.J. Simpson say something like that?

The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2006 that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

The legislation said the president can "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

Okay, I remember that. So now he's apparently advocating the opposite. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it...

Congressman Godwin

I guess once you're in Congress, you can say anything you want, as long as you don't care whether you're being re-elected.

Bush like Hitler, says first Muslim in Congress

Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

This comparison is valid, and no amount of "b-b-but six million Jews" is going to change the fact that the methods are the same. People who know what they are talking about (as opposed to people who just use Hitler's name for shock value) don't compare Bush's accomplishments to Hitler's accomplishments, nor Bush's crimes to Hitler's crimes; they compare the two leaders' use of propaganda, and their gradual insinuation of dictatorial privilege into the law.

To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you".

Oh, come on...you were doing so well.

Whether or not they planned it, they planned FOR it. They did not plan for it in order to stop it; they planned for it in order to use it.

Mark Drake, of the Republican party in Minnesota, said: "To compare the democratically elected leader of the United States of America to Hitler is an absolute moral outrage which trivialises the horrors of Nazi Germany."

Hitler was democratically elected, you dolt.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

False threat trifecta now in play

I just posted a story about a flight attendant claiming a passenger threatened her in order to get said passenger removed from the plane.

Now there's this story:

AA flight diverted to NY in "misunderstanding"

American Flight 136 from Los Angeles to London made an emergency landing "out of an abundance of caution" at JFK Airport at 2:30 a.m. after a flight attendant identified a suspicious passenger, TSA said. The flight was canceled and passengers were rebooked on other flights.

The "suspicious passenger" was instead: "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CNN he had received a report the man in question was an employee who was traveling in a private capacity."

Have we learned nothing from those people who call in bomb threats because they don't want to go to work? I guess we have: it works. Worth the jail time? Well, it wouldn't be to me...unless I, like, REALLY hated my job...no, not worth it.

Next?

Sue, baby, sue

Flight Attendant Boots Gwinnett Mom, Baby From Plane

Video

“As we started taxiing, he started saying ‘Bye, bye plane,’ said Penland. “At the end of her speech, she leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, ‘It’s not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up.’

[...]“She then said, ‘You know, it’s called baby Benadryl. And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight.'

I have no children, so I was unaware of the concept of DRUGGING the little monsters for flights. But yes, it is happening.

Bad enough that parents are asked to -- in some cases, expected to -- drug their children when they attend school, but now you're supposed to drug a TODDLER?

Now, I have certainly doped myself for flight. With prescription medicine, prescribed specifically for me. This is my prerogative.

And it is a parent's decision whether to administer over-the-counter medication to their child. There may be something to be said for giving a child a decongestant for stuffed ears, if one can be given safely. (I don't know whether one can.) Likewise a prescribed calming agent, if a doctor deems it necessary.

But this flight attendant used coercion when she caused the passenger to be removed from the aircraft for having not silenced the child, having implied that the woman was expected to use drugs to do so.

And how did she cause it? By telling the pilot that Penland had threatened her.

If the statement was false, then this, ladies and gentlemen, is a criminal act.

The young mother said she later learned the flight attendant told the pilot that she had threatened her. Penland said that never happened.

The passengers have backed Penland up. They concur that the threat never happened.

Last time I checked -- it was, in fact, just now, right here (.PDF file) -- making false statements concerning threats to aircraft is a CRIME.

15—Threats and false statements
(1) A person shall not threaten, state that it is his intention, or make a statement from
which it could reasonably be inferred that it is his intention, to destroy, damage or
endanger the safety of an aircraft to which this Part applies or to kill or injure all or
any of the persons on board such an aircraft.
(2) A person shall not make a statement or convey information, being a statement or
information that he knows to be false, to the effect, or from which it could reasonably
be inferred, that there has been, is or is to be a plan, proposal, attempt, conspiracy or
threat to—
(a) take or exercise control, by force or violence, of an aircraft to which this Part
applies; or
(b) destroy, damage or endanger the safety of such an aircraft; or
(c) kill or injure all or any of the persons on board such an aircraft.
Penalty: Imprisonment for two years.

(bolds are mine)

The flight attendant took advantage of today's climate of fear and broke the law for her own convenience.

Don't just sue this flight attendant and her employer, Ms. Penland. Demand that criminal charges be brought.

THEN sue her.

Parody or conspiracy?

Before I got into Ground Zero, this would merely have been funny.

The Onion is a parody news site. They have a counterpart, The Onion Radio News.

Today, while I was in the car, a station played the rerun of this story from 2005:

Bush Determined To Find Warehouse Where Ark Of Covenant Is Stored

WASHINGTON, DC—In a surprise press conference Monday, President Bush said he will not rest until the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel holding the original Ten Commandments, is located. "Nazis stole the Ark in 1936, but it was recovered by a single patriot, who braved gunfire, rolling boulders, and venomous snakes," Bush said, addressing the White House press corps. "Sadly, due to bureaucratic rigmarole, this powerful, historic relic was misplaced in a warehouse. Mark my words: We will find that warehouse." Bush added that, after they are strengthened by the power of the Ark, U.S. forces will seek out and destroy the sinister Temple of Doom.

The reason I spat iced tea at hearing this was not that it was funny (though it is), but can best be understood by reading the Ground Zero articles I've included with this post. They deal with Hitler's and FDR's interest in the occult, and the aspects of our involvement in the Middle East which indicate that Bush has similar interests.

Laugh, scoff or believe...it'll make you think. Enjoy.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

At last...everything will be done FOR you.

69% Say Government Responsible for the Helpless

Support for a government safety net for the poor is at its highest point in many years -- roughly seven-in- ten (69%) now believe the government has a responsibility "to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves" -- up from 61% in 2002. The number of Americans saying that the government should guarantee "every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep" has increased by a similar margin over the past five years (from 63% to 69%); agreement with this statement is the highest it has been since 1991.

How do you think most helpless people get that way in the first place?

Yes, there are definitely exceptions. But the trend you see above is a sign of more and more people failing to take responsibility for themselves while they're still able to.

This is called "learned helplessness".

And believing that the government should take over that chore is called "sense of entitlement".

Be careful what you wish for, or you'll soon "entitle" yourself to forced compliance with mandated lifestyle alterations. They'll take care of you. They'll fix you! Make you better!

Remember, if you teach a man to fish, he can eat for a lifetime; if you give a man a fish, you can put tranquilizers in it first.

Ground Zero articles of interest:



Shut Up!
Ground Zero montage
featuring spoken word by Jello Biafra (2.41 MB)

Cirque du Terreur

A most intriguing choice of adjectives:

Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned

We've gotten "secret", "fear", "terror" -- all triggers -- along with the jarringly incongruous "spectacular", all in one headline! Cue "Entrance of the Gladiators"!

(Yes, you know "Entrance of the Gladiators." Think "circus". Hear that music? That's it.)

One question: Why has it always got to be about US?

US, the pronoun. Perhaps it's no accident that "United States" is abbreviated that way. When you go to the article (yes, I do suggest you RTFA), look at the some of the Related Articles: "U.S. Told About Glasgow Threat 2 Weeks Ago." "Heavy Weapons Teams at U.S. Airports." "U.S. Reacts to London Bombs."

You know what the U.S. is reacting to London bombs with? Jealousy. The United States thinks it is the most important thing in the universe. How dare the terrorists concentrate on Britain? It can't be because Britain is, like, important or anything. It's got to be a warm-up for attacking US. You guys might have a few exploding cars, but we're going to have a Spectacular Event! One wasn't enough! We need ATTENTION!

Our exploding cars will be full of CLOWNS!