More than meets the eye

Apparently, the Swiss aren't all about useful pocket tools, cheese, and neutrality during war. They have some nasty cows, too.

Obama '08?

According to the Times, he's making quite a name for himself internationally now.

Methinks that's very ambitious for a first-term senator, but right in line for someone who may be considering trying for a presidential nomination.

One wonders, then: Is there a chance of this happening? Assuming he does intend to go for it (which is admittedly nowhere near a definite), is he electable? He'd probably get a decent moderate vote, but he's A) inexperienced, and B) black, and America's still a country where a hell of a lot of people would refuse to vote for him solely because of issue B. If issue A weren't there, then I wouldn't think B would be as big an issue. But the guy's new to national-level politics, and I don't know if he'd have the skills and connections he'd need to make his policies and ideas speak louder than his race.

Newsflash: You're responsible for yourself.

The British government won't provide monetary compensation to British citizens if they're injured in terrorist attacks while overseas.

Well....yeah. Why would they?

Yes, you could say that if the actions of the British government (eg, essentially mindless support of American policies with little regard to the effects on Britain itself, let alone the rest of the world) may increase the liklihood of terrorist incidents. And yes, that is a bad thing and I think the British government ought to do something about it (eg, stop being so stupid on many issues.)

But here's some startling news: if you're an adult, you're an adult. If you make the choice to go travelling, you're taking a certain degree of risk. If you get on a plane, you're accepting the risk that the plane may crash or the pilot my take you to Ethiopia instead of Jamaica, or that someone might try to fill their shoes with explosives and blow the plane up. But you want to get somewhere quickly, so you take that risk. Similarly, if you want to go to Egypt, or Israel, or Indonesia, or wherever, you take a risk. These are not the most stable regions of the world. There's a sizable amount of anti-American/British/Western sentiment going on there.

Now, if you don't know that there's this risk, then I have no sympathy for you, because you're immensely out of touch with current events, to the point of absolute ignorance to a staggering dimension. Read a newspaper.

If you do know that there's a risk, then it's your responsibility as an adult to weigh that risk. Is your desire to go to wherever greater than your fear of something bad happening? If yes, then great: go, have a great trip, take whatever precautions you feel are wise, and I wish you the best. Have a nice holiday.

If your fear is greater than your desire to travel, then don't travel. I'm sorry you're so afraid, but that's your choice.

If you do evaluate the risk, and decide it's worth it, and you go and travel, then yes, the worst may happen. You may get blown up in a nightclub in Tel Aviv; you may be on a flight that's hijacked; you may be taken hostage in Cairo. These things happen. It's unfortunate and I have no doubt it would be unspeakably horrifying and traumitizing to the survivors.

However: You had a choice and you took a risk. Therefore, you are responsible for what happens. Don't expect your government to clean up the mess you got yourself into. We live in a world where people are not nice and things are not fair, but that's the same for everyone. Life isn't picking on you if your hotel gets shot up; that's just the way things are. You took a choice and now you have to deal with the consequences. It's an issue between you and the government of the country where it happened, it's between you and the management of the establishment you were in, and so on. Your government at home was not there and they're not your mother who's going to kiss your wounds and make you feel better.

Why do so few people in the world seem to be able to understand the concept of evaluating risk?

Woman...dog...car...what?

I just...I just don't know? What...what could possibly make people think some things are even ideas, let alone good ones?

Curse you, genetics!

So, first Pluto gets voted out because it's tiny. Not only do millions of schoolchildren now need to come up with a new mnemonic device (becuase "my very educated mother just served us nine" leaves you feeling empty and incomplete), but I think it sets an unsettling scientific precedent for size discrimination.

And now, science finds that taller people are smarter than us pocket-sized folk. I'm going to remain skeptical on this one, more for the sake of pride than anything else. Us tiny things have feelings too, you know.

Risk management

So, people are all sorts of terrified about planes and terrorism and whatnot, to the point where they demand racial segregation on flights and the flight crew goes along with it.

Myself? I admit to being a nervous airline passenger. No shame in that, I think. But I'm far more afraid that my pilot will be a completely incompetent idiot, use the wrong runway, and kill us all. The chances of a human making a stupid mistake are fairly greater than the chances of someone trying to blow up your plane and succeeding.

He...used the wrong runway? How does that happen? Have airlines started just hiring anyone who applies? "Hey, what runway do you use flying this type of plane, the long one or the short one?" "Gee, I don't know, but I look really good in that spiffy pilots uniform." "Great, you're hired! Have a nice flight."

“My take on this is that our country was founded on Christian principles.
It’s on our money — ’In God We Trust’ — it’s in our Pledge of Allegiance, it’s a
part of our lives,” Kinney said. “I know our community and we’re very in favor
of keeping this painting.”

From here, about another state v. school religious thing.

Um, neither modern American currency nor the pledge of allegiance are anything like founding documents, let alone legally binding ones.

Also, no, your "Christian principles" are not part of my life.

Lieberman calls for Rumsfeld to resign

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060821/ap_on_el_se/connecticut_senate_lieberman

 

Hello, irony. 

No, you may not violate the constitution

Warrrantless search is illegal.

Had they asked me, I could have told them that years ago.

Some interesting things you can and cannot bring on planes in the US

From here (Word doc).

• Toy Transformer robots are permitted on the plane.
  
• Umbrellas are permitted after inspection.
• Safety razors are permitted.
• Ice picks, meat cleavers, and swords are not permitted as carry-ons.
• Nor are spear guns, cricket bats, or bows and arrows.
• Flare guns may not even be packed as checked luggage, nor may gun powder.
  
• You may check "realistic replicas of firearms", though you may not bring it on the plane with you.
• Axes and hatchets, drills and drill bits, and cattle prods are not permitted on the plane.
  
• "Tools" smaller than seven inches in length are allowed as carryons. So, pliers, I suppose.
• Throwing stars are, disappointingly, not permitted in the cabin, thereby ruining my dream of an airline that employs ninjas as flight attendants.
• You are not allowed to check "realistic replicas of explosives". Why? Beats me.
• At first glance you're not allowed to carryon or check anything flammable: matches, lighters, lighter fluid, gasoline, paint thinner, gas torches.
  
• Lighters without fuel may be checked.
• Lighters with fuel may not be checked, unless in a DOT approved container.
• Strike anywhere matches may not be carried aboard nor checked.
• Saftey matches may be carried on, up to 4 books of them, but may not be checked.

• You may not bring your own fire extinguisher, nor check it.
• Tear gas is prohibited both in the cargo hold and the cabin.
• Rounded and/or plastic butter knives are permitted as carryons.

I sort of want to fill up a box with dull metal butter knives know and try to get it onto a plane with me. It would be fun.

Paranoia every day

So, in a fit of some liberal emotion or another, I sent an e-mail the other day, to the TSA and some of their colleagues at the British Department for Transportation safety division. It was a bit wordy, so I won't post the entire thing here, but this was really my main point:

My question is this: If previously-benign items such as clear plastic bottles of water (a clear substance which, if potable, one can generaly see through) and magazines (thin, paper objects often too thin to conceal anything) have become so dangerously exploitable, what of the incoming stock for the many stores and shops within airport terminals?

I'm certain that, in the past, incoming shipments have been more closely scrutinized for stores within airports than they would otherwise. Certainly if one was determined enough to commit an act of terrorism, it would be fairy simple for them to plant someone within a shipping company, and use those commercial shipments going to the airport to smuggle dangerous devices in past the security checkpoints. In this current time of ultra-heightened security, though, I'm curious as to whether or not any extra steps have been taken?

Okay, perhaps not the most intelligent question ever asked, but I had to do something to express how idiotic I thought this was or my brain would liquify (and then I couldn't bring it on a plane!).

A few minutes later I got an automated response from the TSA:

Please do not respond to this automated response.

Your e-mail has been received by the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Contact Center. Our goal is to respond as quickly as possible. However, at times, high volumes sometimes delay our response. We appreciate your patience. You may also find the answer to your question on our web site at www.tsa.gov .

To ensure that you are able to receive a response from the TSA Contact Center, we recommend that Spam filters be disabled and that your email account have ample space to receive large files and/or attachments.

Okay, that's pretty much what I was expecting. I picked their "general questions and concerns" address, so, no surprise. I may even hear back from a real person, but I'm not going to be terribly upset or surprised if I don't.

Not quite twelve hours later, I got another blank email from the same automated address. Okay.

Then again, another auto response the next day. And the next. And...:

So. Yeah. I can understand a minor glitch where the auto response gets sent twice, but four times?

If I get it again tomorrow, I'm just going to go totally paranoid.

A rebuttal

Here, yesterday, Ouroboros pulled out the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to be afraid of" argument. A brief response for him, perhaps to give him something to chew on before Don Quixote consumes his life. I'm calling you on this one, sir.

My first reaction was "That's a stupid argument, and why hello Mr. Orwell, yes, your dystopic vision of the future is in fact coming true."

That's not very academic nor a very sound argument, though. So my question is: Have you the Constitution? Do you understand that it is The Document our nation is based on? The government is not built on the Constitution and...some other stuff. Yes, judicial precedent is often factored in, but judicial preceden can't in any way compete with the Constitution itself.

The Constitution quite clearly says that we as Americans are safe from "unreasonable search and seizure". If someone wants to search me or my possesions - be it within my house or standing out on a public sidewalk - they must have a warrant from a judge saying "NinjaGeek's bag and contents may be searched." The only way that warrant can be issued is if someone in law enforcement approaches a judge and says "Here is some convincing, compelling evidence we have that NinjaGeek is Up To No Good. We think that searching her belongings will help prove this and benefit the public."

In the situation in New York, this has not happened. There's no warrant, there's no probable cause, there's just "OMG terrorists!".

Sure, if I were cruising around NYC, I'd probably let them search my bags, because I'd have someplace to get to. And no, I don't have anything to hide. But I do have a right, as an American in America, to not need to surrender to searches without a warrant and probable cause. Therefore, I'd be mighty pissed off about being searched.

When civil liberties are outlawed, only outlaws will have civil liberties!

NEW YORK, Aug. 11 -- A federal appeals court said Friday that random bag searches on New York subways are constitutional, agreeing with a lower court that the police tactic is an effective and minimally invasive way to help protect a prime terrorism target.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected a challenge to the searches by the New York Civil Liberties Union, saying U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman properly concluded in December that the program was "reasonably effective."

Searches on the nation's largest subway system began after the deadly terrorist bombings in London's subways in July 2005. The NYCLU sued, arguing that they were an unprecedented intrusion on privacy that terrorists could easily evade.

The appeals court agreed with Berman that preventing a terrorist attack on the subway was important enough to subject subway riders to random searches.

Via the Washington Post.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Via the Bill of RConstitution of the United States of America.

I honestly don't care how dire the threat is. If continue to get all crazy and scared and live in constant terror, then it's possible some of the eeee-vil terrorists may be laughing at us as we do their work for them. The point of terrorism is not, really, to kill people. It's to make a point about a government/group by inflicting fear upon the masses.

I think the wrong guys are winning this one.

It burns.

Since yesterday I have not been able to stop thinking about the new travel restrictions, and how flamingly idiotic they are.

Here's something for you:

At Dulles International Airport near Washington on Thursday morning, one traveler reported that screeners were also making passengers remove all food items from their carry-on luggage for inspection, and one passenger was told to peel her banana.

A banana? Seriously, I just watched that Monty Python skit in And Now For Something Completely Different last night. They meant it as a joke. Now it's apparently federal security. (Hint: if it grew that way on a tree, it's not a bomb.)

Screeners "are trained to cipher out what's inside the bag," said Darrin Kayser, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman. "If we're not sure, upon putting them through the X- ray machine, we'll have a visual inspection as well."

His advice was "bring as little as possible. It'll make it easier for everyone."

No, no it won't. In September my sister will be flying to London from somewhere in the US. In October, my parents. In December, I will fly from London to the US. I assure you it will not make my life easier if I can't bring a bottle of contact lens solution with me. It will not make my life easier if I can't bring my laptop with me and need to entrust it to the luggage-handling demons. It will not make things easier for me if I'm expected to sit in an airport departures lounge and then on a plane of upwards of six hours without the benefit of my CD player or, god forbid, the highly dangerous item of a book!

Apparently you can still buy liquids beyond the security checkpoint - we won't be forced to choke down airport food without some assistance, at least - but you can't bring it on the plane.

Passengers could still buy drinks once past security, but were not allowed to bring them onto the aircraft. The only liquids allowed were baby formula and prescription medicines.

Because...you might have...put the bomb that you got past security into you McDonalds soda? What? I also like the way we're now forcing mothers to drink infant formula. That's just uber-safe, isn't it.

Well, hello Internets!

I've had some technical issues the past few days, so my only internet access has either been at work (which rules out blogging) or via GPRS on my mobile, which also rules out blogging. To sum up my reaction to the second half of this week: Holy hell the world has gone completely and totally mad.

I rolled into work Wednesday morning and discovered this. I say good job to the Democrats of Connecticut and it's about freaking time we start taking serious, real action against the idiots sitting in Congress screwing things up. Some guy comes basically out of nowhere with a different stance than "the establishment" has, people vote for him, he wins? My faith in America may be restored a bit.

But wait! It's not over yet, kids! Sen. Lieberman, in his concession speech, said he's not dropping out of the race.

On the one hand: Good on him. Politics shouldn't, in theory, be limited to Democrats v. Republicans. But on the other hand, talk about being unable to accept a loss. Get over yourself, man, and step aside. You've been in Senate for nearly 20 years now. Give someone else a turn.

Then...John Snow is commenting on the Connecticut Democratic congressional primary. And...um...Dick Cheney is? Dick Cheney is giving a press conference via phone (no doubt from an undisclosed location) about the Dem's congressional primary in Connecticut? Dick Cheney is saying that...not voting for Lieberman is...like voting for al-Queda?

WHAT? Just - what? Why the hell is any of this happening? Are some little Repubbies feeling a wee bit threatened, perhaps?

So: bask in the joy of a decent election, and the absurdity of Dick Cheney comparing not voting for a democrat to voting for bin Laden.

Next up: Yesterday as I waited for the subway to whisk me off to work I puzzled over a sign about new restrictions if you're going to Heathrow. I was not going to Heathrow, so I ignored it, and then I discovered: A dastardly terrorist plot had been thwarted! We're now safe from the menace of...um...bottles of water on planes. And lip gloss! And eyedrops, and non-essential medications, and deoderant, and books, and iPods, and newspapers!

As blogger xopl points out, there are a few flaws with the implementation of these new restrictions. Such as: If you, out of habit or common sense, show up to the security checkpoint with a bottle of water, they're just going to dump it right there. In the middle of the airport. Probably in a bin with loads of other bottles of water.

Huh. I sense that the system could fairly easily be worked around.

Forty years of folly

In case you've been living in a cave for the past week or so, the US is pretty excited about this: Fidel Castro has temporarily stepped aside and handed presidential power to his brother, as Castro undergoes stomach surgery.

The American government, of course, is really hoping that there'll be complications, or that Castro will resign, or that some almighty deity will shoot some lightning bolts at Castro, or something. They've been trying to get rid of him since he came into power, and the fact that Castro is the longest-sitting head of state in the world probably makes some US officials slightly uncomfortable. Why? Well, there's the part where we sort of embarrassingly tried to get rid of him and failed pretty terribly, for one. And we all know that Cuba is the home to numerous human rights violations, and imprisoning people without a trial is wrong.

Anyway, so a whole bunch of CIA types are probably really hoping that the Cubans are bluffing and Mr. Castro is not recovering well. Personally, while I'm not a big fan of dictatorships, I think that as far as non-democratic nations go Cuba's pretty nice. According to the CIA World Factbook, their death rate is 7.22 deaths per 1,000 people; infant mortality rate of 6.22/1,000, HIV infection rate less than .1%, and a 1.9% unemployment rate.

The US, by contrast, has a 5.1% unemployment rate, .6% HIV infection rate, 6.43% infant mortality rate, and 8.26% death rate.

Clearly, the communist menace of Mr. Castro - him with his 97% literacy rate - must draw to an end, and soon.