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Archives for 2003
Look At All the Pretty Colors
So the Department of Homeland Security has been around for a year- two years, ah who the hell cares, and this is all that I can tell they have done:
1.) Provided a platform for Tom Ridge to fall far beneath everyone’s expectations regarding his abilities.
2.) Reneged or failed to follow through on most or all airline security measures that everyone agrees are necessary.
3.) ‘Streamlined’ our intelligence services into a large, new, multi-layered agency which appears to be more inept than the FBI, more secretive than the Justice Department, and more expensive than the CIA. The make-up is so damn confusing I don’t even know who to yell at anymore.
4.) Provided us with this pretty chart which means who the hell knows what:
Sure is pretty, though. Look at the use of color and the symmetry!
5.) Completely ruined the life of Dr. Thomas Campbell Butler, the Texas Tech scientist who is being screwed by the FBI and now no longer is able to continue his important work designing a cure for the Bubonic Plague. If you missed the damning 60 Minutes report last night, make sure you go here and read about it.
But don’t you worry! Our intrepid bureaucrats seem to be making some progress, and by way of the British press, I see that they finally have made us all a little safer:
A college student who told authorities he placed box cutters and other banned items aboard two airliners to test security was charged Monday with taking a dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft and was released without bail.
Nathaniel Heatwole, 20, told federal agents he went through normal security procedures at airports in Baltimore and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Once aboard, he said he hid the banned items in compartments in the planes’ rear lavatories.
What is the word, I am looking for, here. Oh yeah, it is “Whistleblower.”
The charge against Heatwole, a junior at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Discovery of the items Thursday aboard Southwest planes that landed in New Orleans and Houston triggered stepped-up inspections of the entire U.S. commercial air fleet – roughly 7,000 planes. But after consulting with the FBI, the Transportation Security Administration rescinded the inspection order and no other suspicious bags were found.
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale said Monday’s court action “makes clear that renegade acts to probe airport security for whatever reason will not be tolerated, pure and simple.”
“Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws,” McHale said. “We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them … This does not help.”
Then there are those of us who politely disagree with McHale. Some of us actually think you could FUCKING ASK HEATWOLE HOW HE DID IT, AND THEN PUT STEPS INTO PLACE SO IT DOES NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. When 20 year old poly sci students are a step ahead of you, most agencies would allot a little work time to some reflection and introspection, rather than trying to put a whistleblower’s head on a pike.
This kid does not deserve jail time. He deserves a medal.
In other news- this is a nice development:
The United States has won agreement from governments across Asia and the Pacific Rim to sharply restrict the use and transfer of shoulder-fired missiles that could be used by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to shoot down passenger planes, senior Bush administration officials said Monday.
They said the United States was pressing to have the restrictions on the missiles, like the American-made Stinger and the Russian-made SA-7, written into the final statement that will be issued at this week’s meeting in Bangkok of President Bush and his counterparts from Asian and Pacific nations.
Good news, I guess. This is probably more important:
While resisting calls on Capitol Hill for a multibillion-dollar program to install antimissile technology on American passenger planes, the Bush administration has taken several steps in recent months to deal with the missile threat.
Last month, the administration disclosed that it had decided to commit $100 million to the first phase of development of an antimissile system for passenger planes, a much larger research investment than it had discussed publicly.
Too Much Democracy
I just saw this on the Daily Show, and I thought it had to be a joke. It isn’t:
All he is saying is, give peace a chance.
That’s what Denver activist Jeff Peckman serenely replies to the critics and naysayers who blast his singular scheme for reducing stress in Denver: He wants to require the city to implement communitywide stress-reduction measures – such as mass meditation sessions, piping soothing music into public buildings, and serving natural foods in school cafeterias. And he’s gathered enough signatures to put the proposal to a public vote on Nov. 4.
Entitled “Safety Through Peace,” Initiative 101 ambitiously claims that by employing techniques proven to reduce stress, the city will “help ensure public safety by increasing peacefulness.” Moreover, it declares that reducing Denver citizens’ stress levels would result in “reduced war and terrorism,” plus a net financial gain for the city.
I don’t have anything to say that will be funnier than this actual ballot initiative.
Poor Ev. Dirksen
I bet the old man is rolling in his grave:
The federal budget deficit hit a record $374.2 billion in 2003, the administration reported Monday, as the costs of the war in Iraq, a new round of tax cuts and economic weakness pushed the government’s red ink to the highest level in history.
Aye Carumba.
However, Bush administration officials noted that the 2003 deficit represented just 3.5 percent of the country’s total economic output, below the 5 percent and 6 percent levels hit in the 1980s during the Reagan administration. The administration prefers to link the deficit to total economic output as a better measure of the country’s ability to carry the debt burden.
The $374.2 billion deficit figure represented an improvement from the administration’s forecast this summer when Bush officials projected the deficit this year would hit $455 billion. Officials credited stronger-than-expected tax collections in recent months in combination with less government spending for the improvement over the summer forecast.
Grotesque.
Over-Reach
If I were a vile anti-semite, and I am not- I think I am about as pro-Israel and pro-Jewish as the son of a West Virginia Quaker/Baptist union can possibly be, I might suggest that the ENORMOUS hullabaloo over Easterbrook’s stupid remarks (and even dumber apology) could be used as proof that the Jews are in fact running everything.
At any rate, the politcally correct crowd now has Easterbrook’s head, and they don’t know what to do with it. I just wish next time they would aim for Arafat, Al Sharpton, or most anyone employed by the governments of Syria, Egypt, and Sauid Arabia. Greg Easterbrook was not the enemy, it appears- and I’m sure we all feel a little less comfortable expressing controversial opinions. Who needs the Patriot Act when everyone can be hyper-sensitive?
Vicious Rhetoric
Watch all the Democrats in the blogosphere and elsewhere, the ones who thinks “Bushitler” is funny, or the ones calling Bush ‘A Miserable Failure,” all get their knickers in a twist over this:
Former first lady Barbara Bush and mother of President Bush described Democrats trying to unseat her son in the White House as a “sorry group” of politicians.
“So far, they are a pretty sorry group if you want to know my opinion,” said Mrs. Bush in an interview aired on Monday by NBC’s “Today” show, when asked about the Democratic line-up for the 2004 presidential election.
“This is the world according to Barbara Bush, not George, not George H.W., not anybody” she added.
Her husband also had some harsh words for the Democratic contenders whom he accused of using “vicious rhetoric.”
“The one who makes the most outrageous charges against the president gets his 20 seconds on the evening news. Hey I did not ride in here on a watermelon cart. I know how it works,” said the former president.
Post the links to the faux outrage in the comments section below.
Site Problems
If anyone has any idea what happened to my website, and why the right column is no longer loading, I am all ears.