Filed under: BoingBoing, Bruce Schneier, Emergency, General Musings, Government, Preparedness, Psychic abilities, Science Fiction, Sleep, Society, Terrorism, Writing stuff
[This post contains mild spoilers in the first paragraph. The rest is safe, even if you haven’t read the novel.]
One of the major themes of Communion of Dreams is examining the nature of reality. The title of the book alone gives this away, though I am constantly surprised by comments people make which indicate that they didn’t really take that very big hint into consideration when reading the book. Anyway, the whole notion is that we live within a controlled reality, in that there are artificial limits on what we understand of the outside universe. I use dreams as one access point for information which gets around these limits, and then more fully explore the psychic abilities which are latent in humans later in the book.
I’m a big fan of the TV series Foyle’s War, with its excellent acting and attention to historical details. It provides a brilliant insight into what it must have been like in the United Kingdom during World War II, and shows both the bravery and the cowardice of a population under real threat from a superior enemy. In particular, those episodes set early in the war (during the Battle of Britain) show how the possibility of invasion by Nazi Germany pushed people to do both inspiring and dispiriting things, but mostly how the entire population just ‘got on with it’, coping with the threat and their fears pretty damned well.
Which is why when I read things like this, I just cringe:
Hundreds Evacuated from North Sea oil platform after ‘dream’ sparks bomb alert.
A 23-year-old woman is expected to appear in court today after reports of a bomb on a North Sea oil rig sparked a full-scale emergency operation involving the army, RAF and police.
According to one report, the scare started when a woman employee on the rig was overheard recalling a dream she had had about a bomb on the platform. Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, one of the biggest unions representing offshore workers, said: “It was complete madness. This girl had a dream about a bomb being on board and she was a bit shaken. The next thing anyone knew workers were being evacuated.”
He said the rumour that a bomb was on the accommodation block – or “flotel” – had spread to senior managers within an hour. “It was complete madness on behalf of everyone. There was never any reason to evacuate the platform.”
Read the whole thing. It is clear that this was nothing short of bureaucratic panic. What do I mean? I mean that when bureaucrats are given procedures which they have to implement in order to cover-their-asses, they will do so whether or not the situation really calls for it, and no matter how disruptive and pointless the exercise will be. This is the exact same mindset in operation with the TSA’s Security Theater (credit Bruce Schneier), but played out in a more dramatic fashion.
Somebody overheard someone else talking about a disturbing dream they had. And they panicked. It’s that simple.
We’ve allowed the bureaucrats to so control our lives out of fear of being held responsible, that we’ve become afraid of our own dreams. How pathetic. How sad.
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing. Slightly edited version cross-posted to UTI.)
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Cory Doctorow, Emergency, General Musings, Government, Health, Politics, Preparedness, Press, Science, Society, Survival, tech, Terrorism
Try to wrap your head around this:
NYPD Seeks an Air Monitor Crackdown for New Yorkers
Damn you, Osama bin Laden! Here’s another rotten thing you’ve done to us: After 9/11, untold thousands of New Yorkers bought machines that detect traces of biological, chemical, and radiological weapons. But a lot of these machines didn’t work right, and when they registered false alarms, the police had to spend millions of dollars chasing bad leads and throwing the public into a state of raw panic.
OK, none of that has actually happened. But Richard Falkenrath, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, knows that it’s just a matter of time. That’s why he and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have asked the City Council to pass a law requiring anyone who wants to own such detectors to get a permit from the police first. And it’s not just devices to detect weaponized anthrax that they want the power to control, but those that detect everything from industrial pollutants to asbestos in shoddy apartments. Want to test for pollution in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of childhood asthma? Gotta ask the cops for permission. Why? So you “will not lead to excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety,” the first draft of the law states.
***
“There are currently no guidelines regulating the private acquisition of biological, chemical, and radiological detectors,” warned Falkenrath, adding that this law was suggested by officials within the Department of Homeland Security. “There are no consistent standards for the type of detectors used, no requirement that they be reported to the police department—or anyone else, for that matter—and no mechanism for coordinating these devices. . . . Our mutual goal is to prevent false alarms . . . by making sure we know where these detectors are located, and that they conform to standards of quality and reliability.”
This is insane. This is the perfect example of just how far a government obsessed with control – of people, of information, of knowledge – wants to go. Notice the source of this recommended legislation: Department of Homeland Security. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, they want to make sure that people do not have access to even basic information about their environment. Such legislation would allow bureaucratic control of just about every type of pollution research, would mean that many scientists could not conduct experiments within the city, and would likely criminalize even possession of much lab equipment used in schools.
And using the argument that ‘false alarms’ would cause undue panic and anxiety would also necessitate outlawing every kind of burglar or theft alarm, fire alarms, smoke alarms, et cetera.
This has nothing really to do with fighting terrorism. It is only about control. As the article points out, if this legislation were in place following 9/11, independent environmental testing would not have been allowed which eventually proved that the EPA’s assurances that the environment around Ground Zero was safe were nothing but lies. This is a bald-faced attempt by the government to say: “we will tell you what you need to know.”
Insane. And essentially un-American.
Jim Downey
(Via Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Emergency, Flu, Flu Wiki, Guns, Health, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech, Violence, Writing stuff
As I have mentioned previously, I enjoy shooting. And I carry a concealed weapon (legally – by permit and where allowed by law) pretty much all the time. This isn’t paranoia, just a simple recognition that we live in an unpredictable and sometimes dangerous world. That same mindset applies to preparations for any kind of small-scale disaster, whether natural or man-made. If you live in the Midwest, you understand that power outages occur due to weather (tornadoes in Spring, Summer, and Fall, ice-storms in Winter), and that you may need to be self-reliant for days or even a couple of weeks. I’ve long abided by the Scout motto of “Be Prepared”, and while you wouldn’t find a years worth of supplies and a generator cached here, we could manage pretty easily for a period of a couple of months. That’s not too far off what is recommended by both the government and independent health agencies. As I’ve discussed, the onset of a pandemic flu may well cause a disruption of normal economic activity for a prolonged period, and I cite such a disaster as the background for Communion of Dreams.
Anyway, in an accident during one shooting trip this fall I managed to slice open my right thumb pretty well. I had ridden out to the family farm where I usually shoot with one of my buddies, so didn’t have my car, which contains a fairly complete first-aid kit. And, as it turned out, my buddy didn’t have any kind of first aid supplies in his car. We improvised a bandage from stuff in my gun cleaning kit, and things were OK. When I got home, I added a real first aid kit to my ‘range bag’, and didn’t think much more about it.
Then, a couple of weeks later I was back out at the farm with my BIL. We were walking the border of the property adjacent to a state park and marking it as private, since a lot of people don’t bother to keep track of where they are and we’ve had a lot of tresspassing. At one point down in a secluded valley my BIL and I paused for a breather, and just out of curiosity I checked to see if I had a signal for my cell phone. Nope. Hmm.
Now, it was nice weather, just a tad cool and damp when we set out. But it was November, and the leaves were slick in places where a fall could easily result in a twisted knee or a broken bone. I got to thinking – if I were on my own, what did I have with me that I could use in the event of an emergency? Oh, I had plenty of stuff in my car – but that was the better part of a mile away. What did I have on my person?
In truth, I was in better shape than most people would likely be in such a situation. I always have a Leatherman multi-tool on my belt, a small LED flashlight on my keychain, and a pistol and ammo. But still, since I don’t smoke I’m not in the habit of carrying matches or a lighter, I once again didn’t have any first-aid items, et cetera. I had stuck a small bottle of water in my jacket pocket, but that would hardly last long. I could probably cobble together some kind of splint or impromptu crutch, but it would be a challenge to get out of such a situation on my own.
When I got home I got to doing a bit of research about emergency survival kits. Google that, and you’ll come up with about 30,000 hits to sites offering everything from bomb shelters to equipment for first responders. Not particularly helpful. I decided to take a different tack, and started to think about what I wanted to have in a kit small enough that I would *always* have it with me. I set my goal for constructing a kit which would fit into an Altoids tin, since that is small enough to easily slip into any pocket.
This problem has been tackled by others, and there are actually some such small kits for sale that’ll run you upwards of $50. I looked over the commercially available kits, saw what others have done to solve the problems inherent in such a project, and came up with the following:
What you see there is:
- Surgical Mask (can also be used as a bandage)
- Fresnell lens for magnification or starting fires
- 20mm bubble compass
- Single-edged razor blade
- Suture pack (curved needle mounted with suture thread)
- Band-aids & steri-strips
- Antibiotic packet
- Emergency whistle
- Superglue (repairs, fabrication, wound sealant)
- Mini-lighter
- Cotton tinder tabs
- Water purification tablets (can also be used as antiseptic)
- 30′ of Spiderwire (15 lbs test)
- Safety pins
- Small ziplock bag for water
- Cash
- Painkillers
- Benadryl (anti-histamine, sedative)
- Anti-diarrheal tablets
Yes, it all fits in the Altoids tin. Just. It is not entirely satisfactory, as I would have liked to have a large piece (say 18″x24″) of heavy-duty aluminum foil, a couple of garbage bags, some lightweight steel wire, maybe some duct tape or heavier cord. But it is a pretty good start – any small kit like this is by necessity an exercise in trade-offs. (Edited to add 06/01/08: I wrapped about 15′ of 24ga steel wire around the mini-lighter in a single layer, tightly wrapped. Takes up almost no additional room, and will be easy to unwrap for use.)
In searching out the items I wanted (difficult to find items linked to my sources), it became clear that in some cases I would spend more on shipping for some of the components than I would for the actual items. So I made one such kit for myself, and another half dozen to give to friends. That got the cost down to under $10 each (not including the cash, obviously).
Your best survival tool in any situation is your brain. But it doesn’t hurt to have a few advantages in the form of useful items close at hand. With this small kit, and what I usually have with me anyway, I am reasonably well prepared to deal with most situations that I can envision. And I thought that since I went to the trouble to construct it, I would put the information about it here for anyone else who might have some use for it.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 