While I am on vacation, I’m having some old posts from my archives queued up for your enjoyment. If you’re interested in following the progress of the tour, a friend of mine has set up a blog and the Choir will be posting pix and text as things go.
Jim Downey
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23 February 2005
A Taxing Question
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
My buddy, Steve, who won $100k on Who Wants to be a Millionaire (see my piece on the show here), got into a discussion about the show and the fact that he’d have to pay a purported 43% of his winnings to the IRS. Someone asked him what questions the government answered for their 43%. I thought his response was perfect, and with his permission post it here:
What questions did the government answer for their 43%? Directly, obviously, none, but . . .
Tax money taught me how to read. Tax money bought the book Tom Edison, Young Inventor in the Hitchcock Elementary School Library in Galesburg, Illinois.
Tax money paid the salary of my eighth grade music teacher (whose name I have forgotten), who introduced me to opera, specifically Aida, and mentioned that it was written to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal.
Tax money funded Michigan State University, where my father pursued his graduate education in physics and astronomy, which allowed him to answer the question about aphelion.
Tax money paid the salary of Hal Devore, my eleventh grade history teacher, who taught me about the Depression, FDR, and the Bank Holiday.
I am far better off than I was on November 4 (the day before taping). But it is only because of the money that society has invested in me.
And if you think that this former teacher is too focused on education, I would mention that I enjoyed driving to New York on the Interstate Highway system.
Filed under: Government, Humor, Music, Politics, Religion, Society, YouTube
An old friend sent me a link to a video the other day. I’ve been busy enough getting ready to go on vacation next week that I hadn’t taken the time to sit and watch it.
I wish I had – it’s hilarious. Obscene, ranting (in a musical sort of way), but very funny. Well, it is to me, anyway, though if you’re a fan of Sarah Palin I imagine that it will make your head explode.
Heh.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, General Musings, Government, Politics, Privacy, Society
Md. Police Put Activists’ Names On Terror Lists
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.
Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.
“The names don’t belong in there,” he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It’s as simple as that.”
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists “fringe people.”
Yeah, we can’t be having those ‘fringe people’ who opposed the Iraq War enjoying the protection of the Constitution, you know. Who the hell do they think they are??
*sigh*
Is it time to get our country back from the fascists, yet?
Jim Downey
(Via John Cole. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Civil Rights, Constitution, Government, Humor, Preparedness, RKBA, Society, Terrorism
Couple of weeks ago I got my notice from the state that it was time to renew my CCW permit. The whole process was fairly straight forward: go to the sheriff’s office, hand over my driver’s license and other ID, have them renew the paperwork on their end (checking to make sure I hadn’t done anything which would warrant losing my permit); then over to the Driver’s License center for a new ID.
I use a non-driver’s ID for my CCW permit. It costs me an extra couple of bucks to have a separate ID, but that way if I have to hand over my DL to someone, they don’t know that I have a permit to carry. It’s not an issue for the police, should I get pulled over or something, since the CCW info is tied into the driver’s license database. And this way, I always have a second photo ID.
So, I got to the Driver’s License center. Light crowd, and it only took me a minute to get to a clerk. Who took my paperwork, pulled up the info on her computer, and said that since none of my information had changed, the simple thing to do was just to issue a renewal with the updated CCW expiration date. Cool.
Then she asked if I had a birth certificate or passport.
Yeah, the Real ID Act.
Now, think about this for a moment. I was getting a renewal of my CCW permit. Said permit requires initially a fairly thorough background check by the State Highway Patrol, along with plenty of ID and documentation about competency. The renewal paperwork had to be processed by the local sheriff’s office, and then an additional form issued requiring me to get the new ID endorsement within a week. Nothing had changed in my file since the original ID was issued three years ago – all they were going to do was just change the date of the CCW expiration. And yet they did not trust their own system to confirm that I was who I was.
Yeah, I had my passport with me. I knew not to underestimate the stupidity of the bureaucracy. I handed it over, and the clerk scanned it for just a moment before pushing the final key on her computer that spat out my new ID. But boy, I’m sure I’d have been in trouble had I not brought it.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Art, Bruce Schneier, Civil Rights, Constitution, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Society, Terrorism, Travel
A thought experiment for you: Consider, if you will, at what point the absurdity of “security theatre” crosses the line from the merely annoying to the actively dangerous (to our civil liberties). How would you detect such a point?
How about with a simple American flag?
Metal plates send messages to airport x-ray screeners
One of my favorite artists, Evan Roth, is working on a project that will be released soon – the pictures say it all, it’s a “carry on” communication system. These metal places contain messages which will appear when they are X-Rayed. The project isn’t quite done yet, Evan needs access to an X-Ray machine to take some photos and document. If you have access to an X-Ray machine he’s willing to give you a set of the plates for helping out.
There are two such plates shown at the site, made up as stencils carved into an X-ray opaque plate about the size of your average carry-on bag. One says “NOTHING TO SEE HERE”. The other is an American Flag.
Now, consider, what do you think the reaction would be from your friendly local airport authorities upon seeing such an item in your luggage?
Would you (reasonably, I think) expect to be given additional scrutiny? Have your bags and person checked more thoroughly? Be ‘interviewed’ by the security personnel? Perhaps miss your flight? Have your name added forevermore to the ‘terrorist list’, meaning hassles each and every time you’d try and fly in the foreseeable future?
For having a stencil of an American Flag in your luggage?
I’d say we’ve reached that point.
Perhaps we should reconsider this.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Another for the “Taser Abuse” files:
NEW YORK (AP) _ A naked, distraught man fell to his death after a police officer shocked him with a Taser stun gun as he stood on a building ledge, authorities said.
The man, Iman Morales, 35, was pronounced dead at a hospital after his nearly 10-foot fall Wednesday. Police said he suffered serious head trauma when he hit the sidewalk.
The death of the man, who witnesses and neighbors said had become distraught and had threatened to kill himself earlier in the day, brought renewed focus to the use of Tasers by the police.
Gee, I can’t imagine why.
Then there’s this:
Man Passes Gas, Charged with Battery on Officer
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — As if getting a DUI wasn’t enough, a man arrested for driving under the influence got in a lot more trouble at the police station.
Police stopped Jose Cruz on Route 60 in South Charleston Monday night for driving with his headlights off.
Then, he failed sobriety tests and was arrested.
When police were trying to get fingerprints, police say Cruz moved closer to the officer and passed gas on him. The investigating officer remarked in the criminal complaint that the odor was very strong.
Cruz is now charged with battery on a police officer, as well as DUI and obstruction.
Mr. Cruz should just be happy they didn’t Tase him, I suppose. Of course, that could have led to ignition of his gas. And then they’d have to charge him with terrorism, I suppose.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI. HT to ML for the first story.)
Filed under: Blade Runner, BoingBoing, Bruce Schneier, Civil Rights, Constitution, Cory Doctorow, Emergency, Expert systems, General Musings, Government, Guns, movies, Philip K. Dick, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Privacy, Ridley Scott, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Terrorism, Violence
So, according to FOX News, our friends at the Department of Homeland Security will soon have a new trick up their sleeve: MALINTENT.
Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.
MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security’s directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.
I’m . . . sceptical. Let me put it like this: if this thing actually, dependably, reliably works the way they tout it in the article (go read the whole thing, even if it is from FOX), then the TSA would be perfectly fine with allowing me to carry a gun onto a plane. After all, I have a legitimate CCW permit, have been vetted by a background check and accuracy test, have had the permit for three years, and have never demonstrated the slightest inclination to use my weapon inappropriately. If I could pass their MALINTENT scanners as well, they should be completely willing to let me (and anyone else who had a similar background and permit) carry a weapon on board.
Just how likely do you think that is?
Right. Because this sort of technology does not, will not, demonstrate reliability to the degree they claim. There will be far too many “false positives”, as there always are with any kind of lie detector. That’s why multiple questions are asked when a lie detector is used, and even then many jurisdictions do not allow the results of a lie detector to be admitted into courts of law.
Furthermore, the risk of a “false negative” would be far too high. Someone who was trained/drugged/unaware/elated with being a terrorist and slipped by the scanners would still be a threat. As Bruce Schneier just posted about Two Classes of Airport Contraband:
This is why articles about how screeners don’t catch every — or even a majority — of guns and bombs that go through the checkpoints don’t bother me. The screeners don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough. No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there’s decent chance of getting caught, because the consequences of getting caught are too great.
Contrast that with a terrorist plot that requires a 12-ounce bottle of liquid. There’s no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did. If some copycat terrorists try to bring their liquid bomb through airport security and the screeners catch them — like they caught me with my bottle of pasta sauce — the terrorists can simply try again. They can try again and again. They can keep trying until they succeed. Because there are no consequences to trying and failing, the screeners have to be 100 percent effective. Even if they slip up one in a hundred times, the plot can succeed.
OK, so then why do it? Why introduce these scanners at all? Why intrude on the privacy of people wanting to get on an airplane?
Control. As I noted earlier this year, about the news that the US military was deploying hand-held ‘lie detectors’ for use in Iraq:
The device is being tested by the military. They just don’t know it. And once it is in use, some version of the technology will be adapted for more generalized police use. Just consider how it will be promoted to the law enforcement community: as a way of screening suspects. Then, as a way of finding suspects. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to some critical facility. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to an airplane, train, or bus.
Just how long do you think it will be before you have to pass a test by one of these types of devices in your day-to-day life? I give it maybe ten years. But I worry that I am an optimist.
An optimist, indeed. Because here’s another bit from the FOXNews article:
And because FAST is a mobile screening laboratory, it could be set up at entrances to stadiums, malls and in airports, making it ever more difficult for terrorists to live and work among us.
This is about scanning the public, making people *afraid*. Afraid not just of being a terrorist, but of being thought to be a terrorist by others, of being an outsider. Of being a critic of the government in power. The first step is to get you afraid of terrorists, because then they could use that fear, and build on it, to slowly, methodically, destroy your privacy. Sure, the DHS claims that they will not keep the information gathered from such scanners. And you’re a fool if you think you can trust that.
Jim Downey
Via BoingBoing. Cross posted to UTI.
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, Government, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
I’m not real big on conspiracies. I don’t think that the US government was behind the 9-11 attacks, or that the UN has an agreement with extra-terrestrials to reveal their presence and influence in our world in 2017. While the Warren Commission had problems, I don’t think that Oliver Stone was right about the JFK assassination.
But maybe – just maybe – the International Banking Conspiracy nuts have a point. I’ve never really thought so, despite the growth in power and scope of multinational corporations, the increasing symbiosis between politics and industry, et cetera. I just figured that normal political & economic forces were at work.
But the Big Bailout Debacle(tm) has me wondering. From the AP:
US to ‘press’ countries to forge financial bailouts: Paulson
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States will press other countries to forge bailout plans for financial institutions where needed, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday.
Paulson said the Treasury’s proposal to Congress for authority to spend 700 billion dollars to buy toxic mortgage-related assets from financial institution could serve as a blueprint for foreign authorities facing similar problems.
* * *
Asked whether the plan provides for government purchases of tainted assets owned by foreign institutions, Paulson said that would occur as long as they have operations in the US.
“Obviously, we’d want to buy from financial institutions that are employing people, and are an important part of our economy. Because to the American people, if an institution is doing business here is clogged, and can’t perform the role they need to do, it’s a distinction without a difference — whether it’s a foreign or a US owned.”
“Remember, our system is a global one,” he said.
But don’t worry, he feels really bad about the whole thing. No, seriously:
Paulson said that “it pains me tremendously to have the American taxpayer put in this position but it is better than the alternative.”
Yeah, right now the thought of some vast, shadowy, international conspiracy that actually knows WTF it is doing being behind all of this is actually kind of comforting.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
I wanted to follow up this post with a note about what has happened in the two weeks since. Particularly over on UTI there was some discussion about my assessment of the true scope of the situation being wildly overblown:
Trillions? Really? Do you have a source for this prediction other than “I have a degree in economics”? You’re predicting that 10% or more of these loans will go bad, or that interest rates on these mortgage backed securities will go up after the government starts guaranteeing them. Both of these outcomes seem unlikely.
Well, guess where we are just two weeks later:
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is asking Congress to let the government buy $700 billion in toxic mortgages in the largest financial bailout since the Great Depression, according to a draft of the plan obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
The plan would give the government broad power to buy the bad debt of any U.S. financial institution for the next two years. It would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue. The proposal does not specify what the government would get in return from financial companies for the federal assistance.
And:
Nearly one-in-10 American mortgages is delinquent or in foreclosure. The government would be buying debt backstopped by the U.S. home values that have been falling in value for eight consecutive quarters, according to the S&P Case-Shiller U.S. Home Price Index.
And there is still more to come.
9/21EDIT TO ADD: for an excellent summation of how we got to where we are, how bad it really is, and who is primarily responsible, take a look at this post on Daily Kos.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 