Filed under: BoingBoing, Bruce Schneier, Civil Rights, Emergency, Failure, Government, Humor, Predictions, Preparedness, Privacy, Terrorism
the makers of Depends:
In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed new restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability of international passengers to move about an airplane.
The government was vague about the steps it was taking, saying that it wanted the security experience to be “unpredictable” and that passengers would not find the same measures at every airport — a prospect that may upset airlines and travelers alike.
But several airlines released detailed information about the restrictions, saying that passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps. It was not clear how often the rule would affect domestic flights.
That’s from today’s NYT’s article. Here’s what’s on the TSA site:
The Department of Homeland Security immediately put additional screening measures into place- for all domestic and international flights- to ensure the continued safety of the traveling public. We are also working closely with federal, state and local law enforcement on additional security measures, as well as our international partners on enhanced security at airports and on flights.
The American people should continue their planned holiday travel and, as always, be observant and aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior or activity to law enforcement officials.
Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere.
And here’s this from a tech news site:
Multiple sources, among them Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing, have also been told that no electronics are allowed on international flights. None. So you can’t even play video games to distract yourself from how badly you have to pee.
Jeez. As I noted back in September, Bruce Schneier has already talked about an ‘underwear bomb’:
For years, I have made the joke about Richard Reid: “Just be glad that he wasn’t the underwear bomber.” Now, sadly, we have an example of one.
Time to invest, I tell ya. The demand for Depends is going to go up. They’re not just for grandma anymore.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
. . . this would make for a fascinating take-off point:
Largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure found in UK
LONDON – An amateur treasure hunter prowling English farmland with a metal detector stumbled upon the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered, a massive seventh-century hoard of gold and silver sword decorations, crosses and other items, British archaeologists said Thursday.
One expert said the treasure would revolutionize understanding of the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic people who ruled England from the fifth century until the Norman conquest in 1066. Another said the find would rank among Britain’s best-known historic treasures.
* * *
“It looks like a collection of trophies, but it is impossible to say if the hoard was the spoils from a single battle or a long and highly successful military career,” he said. “We also cannot say who the original, or the final, owners were, who took it from them, why they buried it or when. It will be debated for decades.”
You can see images, and get more information, from The Staffordshire Hoard (I’m impressed that they got a nice website up and running in time for the news of this to break.)
Jim Downey
Take a good look at this picture:
Guy looks reasonably well supplied, right? Good clothes, pump shotgun. Full sized backpack, sleeping roll visible on the bottom. He looks to be in decent physical condition, about 30-40 years of age.
Now read the first bit of the article that goes with that picture:
It promised to stretch reality television to the limit: one man pitting his wits against the Yukon wilderness with just a camera for company.
But hopes for an epic three-month contest between man and nature were dashed when adventurer Ed Wardle failed to go the distance.
Seven weeks after striding out into the rugged forests of western Canada armed with a rifle and a fishing rod, Mr Wardle had to be airlifted back to civilisation suffering from starvation.
Here’s another bit:
Mr Wardle was chosen for the project because of his abilitiy as a cameraman and producer, and his experience of filming in the North Pole and on the summit of Everest.
He has worked on shows for Channel 4, ITV, BBC and Discovery.
But he had no specific training for living alone in the remote territory, 80 per cent of which is pristene wilderness.
OK, I saw this story early this morning, and have been thinking about it. It’s stuck in my head sufficiently that I can’t concentrate on working on the caregiving book until I write about it and get it out of my system. I’ve had several reactions to the whole thing, but I keep coming back to: “what kind of idiot do you have to be to try something like this without at least rudimentary training in wilderness survival?”
But close behind that is: “what kind of idiot, that well equipped (the article says that he had a fishing pole and tackle, as well), would you have to be in order to *not* survive just fine for three months in an environment teeming with fish & game?”
I mean, yeah, sure, anything can happen. Twist an ankle or break your wrist in a fall, and you’re in pretty deep shit. But look back at that photo – that guy could easily have enough decent gear and a change of clothes to get through three months of living rough without any problems. Hell, I’m in poor physical condition (relative to him, anyway) and I’m confident that I could do it just fine. I would’ve preferred a good .22 over the shotgun – much lighter ammo, and living off of small game is easier – but still.
Well, OK, that’s out of my system. Back to work.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Civil Rights, Constitution, Emergency, Government, Guns, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Terrorism, Violence
Following up to the March revelation that the Bush Administration had concluded that it had the legal authority to effectively suspend civil liberties, comes a piece in the New York Times about how they almost used that authority in 2002:
Bush Weighed Using Military in Arrests
WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.
OK, so in March we found out that the Bush Administration had constructed a legal theory that would allow it to suspend at least some of the Bill of Rights. From the initial Harper’s article:
Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United States.
And, curiously, the author of that article did wonder about how it may have been considered being used by the Administration:
We need to know how the memo was used. Bradbury suggests it was not much relied upon; I don’t believe that for a second. Moreover Bradbury’s decision to wait to the very end before repealing it suggests that someone in the Bush hierarchy was keen on having it.
It’s pretty clear that it served several purposes. Clearly it was designed to authorize sweeping warrantless surveillance by military agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Using special new surveillance programs that required the collaboration of telecommunications and Internet service providers, these agencies were sweeping through the emails, IMs, faxes, and phone calls of tens of millions of Americans. Clearly such unlawful surveillance occurred. But the language of the memos suggest that much more was afoot, including the deployment of military units and military police powers on American soil. These memos suggest that John Yoo found a way to treat the Posse Comitatus Act as suspended.
Today’s NYT report is the first which reveals that high-level Bush officials actively considered and even advocated that the power to use the military to arrest American citizens on U.S. soil be used. In this instance, Cheney and Addington argued that the U.S. Army should be deployed to Buffalo to arrest six American citizens — dubbed the “Lackawanna Six” — suspected of being Al Qaeda members (though not suspected of being anywhere near executing an actual Terrorist attack). The Cheney/Addington plan was opposed by DOJ officials who wanted domestic law enforcement jurisdiction for themselves, and the plan was ultimately rejected by Bush, who instead dispatched the FBI to arrest them [all six were ultimately charged in federal court with crimes (“material support for terrorism”); all pled guilty and were sentenced to long prison terms, and they then cooperated in other cases, once again illustrating how effective our normal criminal justice and federal prison systems are in incapacitating Terrorists].
Greenwald goes on to argue that it is critical for the Obama Administration to renounce the legal decisions behind the Bush Administration policies:
Those are the stakes when it comes to debates over Obama’s detention, surveillance and secrecy policies. To endorse the idea that Terrorism justifies extreme presidential powers in these areas is to ensure that we permanently embrace a radical departure from our core principles of justice. It should come as no surprise that once John Yoo did what he was meant to do — give his legal approval to a truly limitless presidency, one literally unconstrained even by the Bill of Rights, even as applied to American citizens on U.S. soil — then Dick Cheney and David Addington sought to use those powers (in the Buffalo case) and Bush did use them (in the case of Jose Padilla). That’s how extreme powers work: once implemented, they will be used, and used far beyond their original intent — whether by the well-intentioned implementing President or a subsequent one with less benign motives. That’s why it’s so vital that such policies be opposed before they take root.
Just consider for a moment how the Obama Administration (or some subsequent administration) might construe this same authority to “suspend” other components of the Bill of Rights. To shut down some particularly troublesome “fringe” religious group. To impose “limited” censorship on internet traffic. To “stop the terrorism of handgun violence”.
This is the legacy of the Bush Administration, and why so many of us were so very nervous about the precedents being set by it. Because history is long, and freedom is easily lost.
Jim Downey
(Via BalloonJuice. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Fireworks, General Musings, Health, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science Fiction
Well, it is for me, since yesterday was my birthday.
And it’s a bit odd, but I do feel as though something is different this time around. Usually, birthdays don’t mean that much to me. And I don’t tend to put a lot of emphasis on just numerical age – mine, or anyone else’s. Besides, 51 isn’t a significant milestone in any way – it’s not a big round number, it isn’t some threshold like 18 or 21, it isn’t even a prime number. It’s just 51.
And yet . . .
. . . something does feel different. Perhaps it is due to the fact that last Thursday I finally got the long-delayed physical exam I initially went to see my doctor for in September and the results were actually pretty good. In spite of all that I have done to myself over the years, I’m in decent physical condition. Surprise, surprise.
So maybe that’s it. Or maybe it’s because I have so much good work waiting for me to do – important work, worth doing well. Not just the conservation work, though there is a *lot* of that. But also work on the care giving book. That’s important, and will be a help to others. I’ve also been recently asked to join the board of a significant arts organization here in the state, as well as to apply for an important local government (volunteer) position – more on that when everything shakes out. There’s even a publisher who has shown some interest in Communion of Dreams, though I’ve been down that path enough times to not expect a pot of gold at the end. All of these things tend to bolster one’s mood.
So last night, as we watched a bit of the City’s fireworks display from our front porch, I felt happy. Productive. Strong. With a certain . . . resolve. I feel as though I have recovered a lot over the last year, found that parts of me have been hammer-hardened and honed properly.
It is a good feeling.
Whether it will last long, or not, time will tell. But I feel more complete, more prepared to move on and do the work before me, than I have in a very long time.
Happy New Year.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Bipolar, Depression, Gardening, General Musings, Habanero, Health, Preparedness, Survival
My special-order plants arrived yesterday. Bhut Jolokia, Fatalii, and Red Savina chile peppers (man, you gotta love a pepper with the name Fatalii). Ivory Egg and Opalka heirloom tomatoes. These will be supplemented with other peppers and tomatoes I can get locally.
So, since we’d gone several days without rain, I was finally able to get into the garden and do the tilling that has needed to be done for the last couple of years. And since it had been a couple of years since I had done it, the ground was hard, compacted, uncooperative. I basically spent six hours wrestling with the rototiller. Six hours being jarred, hands going numb, shoulders aching. But also six hours thinking.
Not serious thinking. Not most of the time. Not when I was in a life or death struggle with the machine. Mostly it was random free association, going over this or that neglected chore, replaying a conversation I’d had at a city meeting the day before. But there was also some time for real contemplation. Real introspection beyond consideration of how sore my back was.
And somewhere in there I discovered something. Strength. Not physical strength – at 50 I don’t really expect to reclaim the physical strength I had at 30. Rather, a kind of strength of personality. A sense of my own potency. A realization that this had come back to me.
Oh, it hadn’t been a complete stranger. It takes a kind of personal strength to close a beloved business, and to care for a beloved family member until their death. Instead of glimpses and flashes of the thing that kept me going the exhaustion of those years, this was more . . . whole? Unified? Tempered?
I dunno. But it was – is – there. A sense that I can do more now. That I am more capable. More secure in my abilities.
I have always felt as though this life were a thing caught just at the edge of full consciousness, in the mildly euphoric hypnogogic state as you emerge from a dream into morning. And so there is often the sense that one is only now coming to full wakefullness, full integration of your faculties. And so it is again, with this renewed sense of personal power, the upward arc of my bipolar cycle.
And soon, I’ll be planting tomatoes and peppers. That always makes me feel good.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Politics, Preparedness, SCA, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
There are other things I should be writing. Revisions for the BBTI site upgrade, work on the Caregiving book. Even (laughably) my own fiction.
But I’m in a bit of a reflective mood. And something I heard the other day has been churning around in my head. It’s this:
The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
Recognize it? That’s from Dune. I’ve been listening to the recent audio version of the book as I’ve been doing conservation work. I usually only listen to books I know well, because for the most part I need to maintain my concentration on the work at hand. But having a favorite book rolling along in the background is a help, allows me to get technical things done while engaging part of my creative mind, eases the hours to pass. Anyway, I was at a pause between tasks, and that quote came up (it’s actually a quote in the book, and referenced as such at a chapter heading, as a way to explain something about the main character.)
If Frank Herbert hadn’t read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he should have. That’s very much an insight of which Campbell would be proud. But then, I have long recommended Dune to any and all who would want a good primer on personal politics disguised as a SF story. Herbert’s understanding of myth was considerable.
Anyway, the passage caught my attention. And I spent the next little while musing on it, and how I had understood it and incorporated it into my way in the world when I was very young.
No, I am not saying that I am “great”. But I have been touched by myth, and had momentary brushes with greatness. Recognizing those moments, and understanding the role I played within them, made the experience all the more enjoyable – and less risky than if I fell into the trap of believing my own press releases.
See, there’s that sardonic touch – the wry, self-deprecating cynicism that disarms critics and endears friends. And it is not an artifice. It is who I really am – some deeply seated self-defense mechanism which has allowed me to play with greatness but not to be captivated by it. Nonetheless, I am conscious of it – aware of how the sardonic wit gives me latitude and a certain insulation from praise or popularity. Because of it, I have known when to walk away from lusting after greatness, how to shut my ears to the siren’s call which has destroyed others.
The one thing I worry about – well, ‘the one thing I wonder about’ is perhaps a better way of phrasing it – is whether this ability to walk away means that I have never risked enough to actually *be* great, and so have missed opportunity. Oh, I have come up to the line many times. And crossed lines which most people would not have had the nerve to cross. I have risked life and limb, reputation and financial security (and sometimes lost those bets). But there have also been times when I walked away.
Was this prudence, or was it fear?
Hard to say.
Jim Downey
* Full quote here. The first sentence of which is what I used as the motto for my Paint the Moon project, one of my more creative brushes with greatness.
Filed under: Ballistics, Emergency, Flu, Government, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival
Couple minor things . . .
The Ballistics by the inch site has broken 700,000 hits. The related blog has been getting more hits than this one, but I think that is mostly due to our recently having completed the second sequence of tests and starting to talk a bit about that.
Looks like things are stabilizing for now with the H1N1 virus. This is good, even if it means less publicity for Communion of Dreams. Yeah, I know, I’m not nearly as cynical as I like to pretend – I would rather not have a global pandemic, even at the cost of a bit of fame. Oh well, at least I have reviewed my preparations for the coming Zombie Apocalypse.
I still keep spending too much time flinging rocks. Being obsessive-compulsive is sometimes a pain.
Maybe more later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Flu, Government, Health, Pandemic, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Survival
. . . well, certainly not a babe (in either sense of the term):
Biden says avoid planes, subways; puts out clarifying statement
Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car “at this point” because swine flu virus can spread “in confined places.” A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.
“I would tell members of my family — and I have — I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said on NBC’s “Today” show.. “It’s not that it’s going to Mexico. It’s [that] you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. …
“So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field when someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing.”
Biden has a small problem – he says what he is thinking. Which is dangerous for a pol, and it never ceases to amaze me that he has managed to get as far in politics as he has.
Anyway, it is revealing what he said, even if the White House made him backpeddle. And I think that it is probably fairly good advice at this point. I know that I would have serious second thoughts about doing much traveling on public conveyance at this point. But semi-hermit that I am, that’s pretty easy for me to say (and do).
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 