Category Archives: News and politics

I went looking for the various versions of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" that I quoted in a previous post.  Here are a bunch of them, some from Wikipedia.org

"Love your neighbor as yourself." – Torah, Leviticus 19:18

"What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others." – Analects of Confucius, 15, 3

"Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto other that you would not have them do unto you." – Analects, 15, 23

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man." – Hillel

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." – Luke 6:31; Luke 10:27

"Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you." – Muhammad in The Farewell Sermon

"No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself." – Sunnah

"What is harmful to you, do not to your fellow men.  That is the entire Law, all the rest is commentary" – Talmud, Shabbat, 31a

"This is the turn of duty, do naught unto others which could cause you pain if done to you." – Mahabharata, 5, 15:17

"One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire." – Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, 113.8

"Regard your neighbour’s gain as your own gain and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss." – T’ai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

"As you see yourself, see others as well; only then will you become a partner in heaven." Bhagat Kabir GGS 480

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 7:12

“The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Galatians 5:14

Do not say that if people do good to us, we will do good to them, and if people oppress us, we will oppress them. Instead determine that if people do good to you, you will do good to them; and if they oppress you, you will not oppress them. " – "The Sayings of Muhammad" with a foreword by Mahatma Gandhi“

Blessed is he who prefers his brother before himself” Baha’u’llah Tablets of Baha’u’llah 6.71

"Choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself" Baha’u’llah Tablets of Baha’u’llah 6.64

“Wish not for others what you wish not for yourselves” Baha’u’llah Aqdas 148.73

"This is an ordinance: Act for the man who acts, to cause him to act. This is thanking him for what he does." – The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant In line B1 142 page 64 of The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, tr. R.B. Parkinson OUP.

"That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self." – Dadistan-i-Dinik 94:5

"Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." – Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29

"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." – Udana-Varga 5:18

"The Sage…makes the self of the people his self." Tao Te Ching Ch 49, tr. Ch’u Ta-Kao

"Therefore, neither does he cause violence to others nor does he make others do so." – Acarangasutra 5.101-2, Jainism.

"It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing ‘neither to harm nor be harmed’). And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life." – Epicurus

"What you hate, do not do to anyone." – The Book of Tobit 4:15

"What you feel painful to yourself, do not do to others." – Tiruvalluvar, Tirukkural 316

"What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others." – Epictetus

"Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." – Kant’s categorical imperative

"Identity is the identity of identity and non-identity." – Hegel’s reflexive, antisymmetric identity, X = not(X), at foundation of all moral systems

I think I got most of them.

We’re into the third piece here, trying to figure out the real questions raised by "Disaffected people living in the United States".  The implication being the disaffected are likely candidates to commit acts as home-grown terrorists, the further implication being they’re Al Qaeda cement-heads all cranked  up and ready to go.

All countries have borders.  Borders often mean controls.  There is a person in authority standing on the line who is supposed to give the person trying to get in, a lookover, to see if they’re obviously bad.  To apply to get into the US, if you’re not from Canada, you have to have a visa of some sort.  Depending on what country you are applying from, getting an entry visa is easy or nearly impossible. 

Theoretically, someone reads what you put on your visa application and checks the rules.  If you are coming in to the US to be a tourist, you’re fine.  Go see the Grand Canyon, Branson, Missouri,  Christmas Town near Frankenmuth, Michigan, The Mystery Spot in New Hampshire and that place on the Florida-Georgia border that says "Guns – Fireworks –  Liquor" on the big sign.  After your trip, get out and go back to Elbonia. 

If you’re a student and have an acceptance letter, you can come in to do your studies.  If the acceptance letter is from Madame Esmerelda’s School of Cosmetology, that’s fine.  So is Harvard, Yale or Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School in Gainesville Florida:  You’re a student.  Study, finish your course and go back to Elbonia.

Before the Department of Homeland Paranoia, the visas were handled by the State Department and the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services, the INS.  State had controls over who got visas based on what country the applicant was from and what they wanted to do in the US.  INS handled those who wanted to stay permanently, to become citizens.

The follow-up after granting a visa was negligible to none. This has not changed under Chertoff’s Department of Homeland Paranoia:  They’re more concerned with X-raying Aunt Hazel’s walker at the airport.  Or confiscating the mouthwash in your carry-on.

Here’s the ugly part. 

The disaffected are already in the United States.  Disaffected, cut out of the American Dream, cranked up on religious intolerance and just waiting for the word from wherever to strike a blow against the Great Satan.  

Nobody from Homeland Paranoia, INS or State have ever been, or will ever be, called to account for the whereabouts of every visitor under any kind of visa to the US.  They don’t know where they are.  They have no way of finding them.  Those disaffected folks have gone to the Undisclosed Location:  America.

So what can we do about it?  Clamping down in the Internet is intellectually bogus.  If you want to stop the disaffected from hearing from their masters, you must turn off radio, TV, newspapers, telephones, mail, couriers and any other type of communication, including skywriting, smoke signals and the Trans-Atlantic String and Dixie cup system we put in last year. 

There is another possible fix.  I’m not positive it will work.  I do know a little bit about how humans behave, so I have a feeling it might work.  Downside?  It will take a long time, close to an entire generation, to see the results.  Also, it will cost some serious money.

Here’s what I think might work:  Remember the four commonalities that all humans share?  Shelter, Food, Security, Better life for the kids?  If a human gets all of those things, there is a reasonable possibility that they will be vaguely happy where they live.  They might even become proud of where they live.  This tends to shut down self-destructive disaffection and the willingness to become a terrorist.

To make it happen, the US is going to have to do a couple of things. 

Pay a fair minimum wage.  Humans can’t live in the US on $5.15 an hour.  Hungry, homeless humans become disaffected quickly and will listen to anybody promising something better.  There is no valid reason that anyone in the US should ever go to bed hungry or not have a roof over their head.  Ignore the business people who say that a fair wage will hurt business.  A fair wage means that a business won`t make 114% profit, they`ll have to suffer through with only 99% profit.  As a broad rule of thumb, a worker should be able to afford to buy some of the things he or she makes. 

Have cradle-to-grave universal health care that doesn’t cost the US citizen a dime.  There is no reason any citizen should have to live in the fear that they will have to declare bankruptcy and lose their home because they slipped on the sidewalk and broke a leg.  It doesn’t have to be a gold-plated system, just a comprehensive and fair one.  Fund it from the tax system. 

Shoot 90% of the lawyers.  Put the remaining 9% in an open pit mine and invite the general public to come by and throw rocks at them.  Keep 1% alive for the very few cases that actually need a legal opinion.  Bringing back the stocks in the town square might also work, if you haven’t got a spare open pit mine.

Shitcan about 99% of the tax code.  It is so full of loopholes and dodges that only the wealthy (and their lawyers) can use to wriggle around the confusing and contradictory laws.  The only people who actually pay income taxes are the same poor people who can’t afford lawyers. 

A gutting of the tax code also means that corporations will have to pay taxes, as all the shelters, incentives, finagles and paper accounting shenanigans are going to go away.  A 10% corporate tax is fair, considering big corporations will save at least that much by firing their tax accountants and feeding their tax lawyers into a shredder.

Simplify the laws.  The US Constitution is a good basis for most laws.  Try reading it sometime. 

Election term limits for everything from County Dog Catcher to President.  Two four-year terms are enough.  Politics is not a career path:  It is Public Service for the common good.  Plus, with term limits, the politicians can’t do too much damage, or skim off too much graft.

Encourage the media to be distrustful of anything that comes out of a government spokesperson`s mouth.  A grumpy, suspicious media means an informed citizenry and keeps business and government honest. 

Separate the Church and the State.  The government is a managerial structure for fairly and efficiently funding things for the common good of all citizens.  A Church is a place to feed the soul and to share with like-minded celebrants.  

Repeat after me:  The State Has No Place In The Bedrooms Of The Nation.  As long as the participants are of the age of majority and can actively consent, then the State has no say.  The Church can make it a part of their theology.  Sexual morals are a Church thing.  They know how to do guilt and shame.

Bring the military home.  The US should not offer to fix other countries until they fix their own country.  Use the military to protect your borders if you want.  When the US is fixed, then you can look outside your borders.  If you want to use the military to help in natural disasters overseas, that would be nice, but not expected by the rest of the world.

Treat every citizen with respect, tolerance and a bit of benign neglect.  Americans, even new Americans, are smart people.  They`ll find a way to make a prosperous life if you get out of their way and let them get on with it.  Take away the confusion, fear, manipulation and hatred by being nice to each other.  Perhaps learning about those brown or red or yellow or beige or blue or orange people down the street might help. 

There.  We can unwire the disaffected in the US by making it possible for all the citizens to get a piece of the American Dream.  Not a guarantee, but a reasonable possibility of having a roof over their head, a full belly, a bit of security and a better life for the kids. 

Nobody wants to turn that down.

As a reminder, here’s the first line of the quote with the money shot underlined: 

"BOSTON, Oct. 16 — Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday"

To get to the real questions we have to do some deconstruction and define some terms.  We’re going to chop this quote down to the real point.  This is not going to be a easy read, but here goes.  I know you’re up to it.

What I’d like to do is take out the buffoonery regarding the Internet.  If there was no Internet, then Al Qaeda would be using faxes, telephones, surface mail, or human couriers. 

Blaming the Internet is as logically valid as blaming the telegraph for Pearl Harbor.  ("Those sneaky Japs perverting Samuel Morse’s noble invention to attack the US by sending telegrams, in code, to Tokyo telling the Navy when the ships were in Pearl.  The bastards!  Ban the Telegraph!)  The Internet is a fast communications tool and nothing more.  Chertoff is engaging in faulty logic and some scare mongering at the behest of the Terror Trust who don’t want to answer the real questions.

Our sentence now becomes "Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." 

Next on the chopping block is "may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills"  Apply enough effort with creative storytelling using ‘holy’ documents as the basis, you could convince a cloister of Grey Nuns to become killers. 

With enough quotes out of context and a bit of charisma we get the Fighting Nuns of the 174th Regiment storming Juno beach under a hail of machine gun fire in 1944.  Or Jonestown.  Which do you prefer?  I prefer the image of Sister Mary Margaret leaping through barbed wire with a Sten gun blazing away, as it is wholly imaginary. 

Jonestown was too real a proof that anyone can develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.  Radical ideologies and violent skills are two bullshit terms, especially married with ‘may’.  Weasel words: Out they come.

We’re left with "Disaffected people living in the US." the implication being they will become terrorists.

Let’s ask the tough questions, more or less in order, and I’ll try to explain my take on it as we go.

First question:  Why are these people disaffected?  More correctly, why are these people disaffected enough to want to blow themselves up in a terrorist act? 

It isn’t religion, broadly speaking, as all religions preach peaceful coexistence with others.  For the religious scholars out there, don’t bother sending me quotes from this or that document that "proves" the opposite.  I can find enough obscure quotes on my own; we’re still talking broadly, OK? 

All the major brands and most of the minor brands have something along the lines of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  I’m using the Christian version, as I know it best.

Do unto others is a core teaching of whatever brand of God/Supreme Being/Deity/Galactic Mothership you happen to believe in.  Even atheists think that "Do unto others" is a good rule to operate your life by, leaving out the whole theology thing.

Religious extremism?  I don’t like to use the word "extremism" as it poo-poohs someone else’s deeply held beliefs.  What is ‘extreme’ to me, is panty-waist to someone else.  How about religious intolerance?  If the disaffected are not buying into a basic theological tolerance for everyone, then they’re being intolerant.

Religious intolerance is probably a good area to investigate.  Some cement-heads think the Bible says it is a good thing to plant pipe bombs full of nails in Family Planning clinics, or that God will answer your prayers for a lottery win.  The Quakers were so tight-assed they thought hard-core Presbyterians were sensation-crazed libertines. Early Buddhists got up to some weird stuff involving sealing devotees in large jars to see if their depth and sincerity of belief would protect them from the thirst and hunger of the mere human body.  It didn’t.

Grant me that every religion has their slightly odd element, ok?

We come back to our original question.  What did we (meaning the US in this instance, but Western folks in general) do to piss other folks off enough to take up self-destructive terrorism?  It isn’t a lifestyle choice like being a vegan or voting Green, we’re talking serious commitment to blow yourself up. 

Did these disaffected people try to get a piece of the American Dream at some time?  The US might have a number of serious problems, but it is fairly safe, without death squads roaming the countryside.  With some hard work (and a bit of luck) you might create a better life in the US than you had in Elbonia.  You at least have a chance, which you probably didn’t have back in Elbonia..

So did these disaffected take a run at the American Dream and not make it?  Now they’re bitter and twisted and figure revenge is as good an emotion as any?  Is that what happened? 

There is precedence for revenge.  Timmy McVeigh was a straight-up revenge act.  The Crusades were a revenge act gone bad over a couple of hundred years.  The Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials and even WW II were acts of revenge.  Humans can do revenge easily. 

Combine revenge with some religious intolerance plus a bit of theological gymnastics and you can easily see how someone can become disaffected enough to blow themselves to bits, taking as many other people as possible. 

I’m not saying that the American Dream is the only way:  It is just one way to measure a life.  I’ve done enough traveling around the world and talked with enough regular people to come to a conclusion regarding humans.  Here’s my take on the Big Secret:

Humans want:  A roof over their heads.  A full belly.  A bit of personal security.  A better life for their kids than they had. 

As best I can tell, these are the commonalities all humans share.  Humans who can get, or get near enough, to all four commonalities are reasonably calm and behave in non-destructive ways.  If the theology they choose to follow has something equivalent to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" written in big letters, then the whole group of humans tends to get along.

Following the logic, the disaffected have lost hope of getting any of the four commonalities of all humans.  Add some revenge anger, a couple of rounds of theological Twister and you get a potential terrorist.  It makes sense.

In the next post we’ll nail down the second part of the quote.

This on MSNBC today, from Reuters:

BOSTON, Oct. 16 — Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday. ”We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet,” Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of International Association of the Chiefs of Police.
       ”They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination,” Chertoff said. ”Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites.”
       Chertoff pointed to the July 7, 2005 attacks on London’s transit system, which killed 56 people, as an example a home-grown threat.
       To help gather intelligence on possible home-grown attackers, Chertoff said Homeland Security would deploy 20 field agents this fiscal year into ”intelligence fusion centers,” where they would work with local police agencies.
       By the end of the next fiscal year, he said the department aims to up that to 35 staffers.

I’m going to go out on a limb, just for giggles.  First point, Chertoff doesn’t scratch his ass without clearing it with the White House, so you can assume this comes from the Terror Trust of Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney and JoJo the Idiot Boy.

In their worldview the Internet is full of encrypted file swapping Evildoers of the Axis of Evil, plans for an atomic bomb on every server, homosexual talk with Congressional Pages everywhere and radicalized terror groups just waiting for the word from a mysterious source to open war on the Homeland.  To help stem the tide, Chertoff is going to relocate 20 agents to local police forces.  Presumably these 20 (soon to be 35) agents will have an Internet connection on their desk.  Might even be a broadband connection, rather than dial-up. 

I’m not quite following what this score of agents are supposed to do to make the Homeland safer?  Are they supposed to read every Arabic language site for hints of radicalism?  Are they supposed to troll for disaffected youth?  (Mark Foley tried trolling for disaffected youth and see what it got him?)  Are these agents supposed to break up terrorist rings by breaking into a chat session and typing "Halt! In the name of the Department of Homeland Paranoia!" in all caps, with an angry Smiley emoticon?

If it is monitoring the Internet the Terror Trust wants, they already have the capacity.  The Patriot Act lets the US government tap into anything, without a warrant, on suspicion of terrorist activities.  I suspect that the Department of JustUs and Homeland Paranoia have discovered that they are being swamped by data and can’t make sense of the firehose gushing of ‘suspect’ communications.  There’s the downside of no controls on surveillance:  You’re afraid you’re going to miss something, so you take everything.  Then you can’t sort through it.

The real problem is in the first line of the story.  "Disaffected people living in the United States…"

I’m going to try to answer those problems in the next post.  Notice the word ‘try’.  I don’t have all the answers and neither does anyone else.

At 7:07 am Hawaiian time, 1307 hrs Eastern, Hawaii got the shakey jakes with a string of earthquakes, the first measuring 6.5 or 6.6 in magnitude.  What has happened is the power is out and there has been some minor damage.  There has been no tsunami reported. 

Things are shook up with the power being off, but there are no high-rise collapses, or reports of whole communities falling into the ocean. 

Since the earthquake went off at 7 am, I have to ask the impertinent question:  Of the honeymooning couples on Hawaii at the time, who may or may not have been engaging in honeymoon activities at the time, will they ever be able to live up to it again?  Or, was intimacies during an earthquake the ‘pinnacle’ of their lives together, in a matrimonial sense? 

Like many grownups I have engaged in acts of an intimate nature.  One particular act, many, many, years ago, involved a bed collapsing, breaking actually, in a furnished apartment in a town up in the Ottawa Valley.  The bed was irreparably damaged and I had the dubious pleasure of telling the landlady that her bed was broken.  I did leave out the part about the activities that were going on at the time, as that would be seen as causative and increase my culpability. 

My landlady was an older German woman named Mrs. Schaefer whom I did not wish to offend.  I suspect her activities in the 1938 to 1945 time span involved prison camps, with her as chief jailer.  She certainly seemed formidable enough to control 1100 prisoners of war with little more than a raised eyebrow and a stern expression. 

My question still stands.  How many men in Hawaii leaned over on one elbow at 7:08 am and uttered those magical words "Was it good for you, honey?"

I can only make so much stuff up in any given month.

Nurse ‘savaged’ by enraged giant pig
Last updated at 22:00pm on 13th October 2006 Daily Mail Online

A nurse has spoken of her terror after she was attacked by a giant pig which charged the horse she was riding and then savaged her after she was thrown to the ground. Suffering from broken ribs from the fall, Carolyn Robinson feared for her life as the enraged pig hurtled at her.

The ferocious beast, which she describes as "huge", mauled the 51 year old and snapped at her legs as she tried desperately to fight it off while lying prone in a quiet country lane. The pig was eventually driven off by Mrs Robinson’s worried teenage daughter, with the help of passers-by.

The animal is believed to still be on the loose in Hampshire’s New Forest and police are urging people to be cautious and report any threatening pig incidents. Police are also not encouraging people to go into the forest with lettuce, tomatoes and bread, as pigs know about the BLT sandwich and may attack in self-defense.

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Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary
Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:22am ET

HANOI (Reuters) – A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant. The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened. Oanh’s husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.

"Honestly, the Angel of the Lord came unto me on death row." said Oanh. "He said something about his son coming back. I don’t get it though, I’m a Buddhist and this stuff doesn’t track with me."  Through a spokesman God said "Sorry, wrong person.  It won’t happen again.  Ever."

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Bush Is Said to Have No Plan if GOP Loses
By Kenneth T. Walsh Posted 10/13/06 US News & World Report

Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7–a concern aggravated by the president’s news conference this week.

"They aren’t even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing. If Democrats win control of the House, as many analysts expect, Republicans predict that Bush’s final two years in office will be marked by multiple congressional investigations and gridlock, just like the last twitches of the Nixon White House. 

"The Bush White House has had no relationship with Congress," said a Bush ally. "Beyond the Democrats, wait till they see how the Republicans–the ones that survive–treat them if they lose next month." GOP insiders are upset by Bush’s seeming inability to come up with new ideas or fresh approaches. There is even a heightened sensitivity to the way Bush talks about advisers who served his father. 

President Bush, when asked about plans for a Republican defeat in mid-term elections said that "The US won’t cut and run.  I’ll be in Crawford with the First Lady who won’t cut and run either.  None of us will cut and run.  Cut and run…cut and run…cut and run…Axis of Evildoers of the Axis of Evil Axis"  A spokesman for the President said that Bush was suffering from a head cold and the effects of oxygen deprivation from his pretzel choking incident in January 2002.

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Running of the Elephants.
Republican uses animals, mariachi band to critique border security
By SARA INÉS CALDERÓN
The Brownsville Herald

October 11, 2006 — Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.  It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

"Since I could get an elephant and a six-piece mariachi band across the border, I figured, why not try something bigger.  Next week I’m going to have a concert with George Michael, Boy George, Barbara Streisand, Liza Minelli and Elton John floated across the border on a barge.  The only downside I see is seating for the fans and getting enough porta-potties in place." said Bhakta.

According to his Web site, he is in favor of “sensible immigration reform” and supports a border fence, local law enforcement assistance with immigration laws and the use of the National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol.  “To my surprise, the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up,” Bhakta said of the stunt. “I’m astounded.”

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Mayor Daley the Lesser has decreed it to be so in a meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board:

"Security and terrorism won’t be an issue if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games because, by that time, there’ll be a surveillance camera on every corner, Mayor Daley said Wednesday.

"By the time 2016 [rolls around], we’ll have more cameras than Washington, D.C. … Our technology is more advanced than any other city in the world — even compared to London — dealing with our cameras and the sophistication of cameras and retro-fitting all the cameras downtown in new buildings, doing the CTA cameras," Daley said.

"By 2016, I’ll make you a bet. We’ll have [cameras on] almost every block."

Mayor Daley the Greater had a better idea than cameras on every block.  He had the Chicago Police.  I need only remind those of you of the correct vintage about the 1968 Democratic Convention whereby the Chicago Police were told to go out and crack some heads during anti-war demonstrations outside the Convention Center.  The Chicago Police did exactly that, as well as escorting unfriendly reporters out of the hall and standing in front of TV news camera that were trying to film the riots going on.  One of the escortees was Dan Rather of CBS. 

Now the Son of Richard Daley, obviously cut from the same cloth on this subject, wants to see surveillance cameras on every block of the great city of Chicago.  The ostensible reason is to cut down on street crime, which is a good thing. 

Perpetual, unblinking surveillance however, is not a good thing.  Please don’t tell me that "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."   That argument is like a Chihuahua dog:  It don’t hunt.  The same argument is used by the Department of Homeland Paranoia, with a slightly different wording. 

The same argument was used by the Stasi in East Germany in the glory days when East Germany was owned and operated by the Soviet Union.  The same argument was used in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and the rest of the former-Soviet bloc countries.  Today, North Korea and Mainland China are the two most obvious practitioners of "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" mantra.

The big loophole in the argument is defining "nothing to hide".  Citizens in a reasonably free society do not always agree with everything their government does.  That is a cornerstone of what we call ‘democracy’.  Voters are allowed to complain, sometimes vehemently. 

What pervasive surveillance seeks to do is to preclude even the potential for legal dissent.  It doesn’t take a Master’s in history to know that the lawmakers, as soon as they have the ability to snoop, will snoop.  As soon as they can snoop, the laws will be changed to make even the slightest deviation from the ‘norm’ an offense against the state. 

This is not new.  The Pilgrims would shun or even stone someone for not wearing the correctly modest dress.  The Catholic Church during the Inquisition put people to death on nothing more than the word of one person that they were a witch.  The Soviet era departments of Internal Security would send people for ‘re-education’ from which not many came back. Today, Mayor Daley wants to use cameras and microphones on every street corner.

Nothing much has changed, except the technology.

The deep-pocketed Google brain trust has bought YouTube for 1.6 gazillion dollars and the various media outlets are all excited.  If one were to only read the financial and computer rags, this event marks the Second Coming of the Messiah, the discovery of life on Mars and the Bush Twins doing a spread for Hustler all rolled up into one big puppy pile of glee.  What the purchase truly is, is P.T. Barnum brought to life, again.

Google we all know.  It is a search engine.  More correctly, a search engine that sells search engine ranking positions for money.  Google rankings have a much to do with the size of the wallet as the popularity of the ranked site.  Not to knock Google completely, as for a few years they had the pre-eminent method for finding things on the Word Wide Wait.  Google even became a verb as things evolved.  Google has, at least according to some, indexed everything on the web and now is trying to figure out how to copyright it all as Google property so they can sell it back to you. 

This explains why this blog has a copyright tag on it, as it is almost entirely original writing and by definition, my property.  It is not the property of Google, MSN Search/LiveSearch, Technorati or anyone else except me, unless I very specifically give up the rights to it.  Which I would do for money.  Lots of money.

YouTube is a place to post videos that you can share with others:  Essentially, YouTube is "Earth’s Dumbest Home Videos".  I despair of our planet if alien life is tapping into YouTube as an example of how humans live.  YouTube has rules regarding posting material that is not yours to post, for instance posting clips of the original StarTrek without permission of Paramount.  As best I can determine a lot of the rules regarding copyright are only enforced if someone with a lot of lawyers complains. 

Despite the copyright shenanigans, YouTube gets millions of visitors a week.  Those visitors are what marketing wanks call ‘eyeballs’.  The more eyeballs, the more likely some of the eyeballs will click on links or banner ads on each page.  The more clicks, the more money the website gets. 

This is not new.  Before electronic media, competing newspapers engaged in circulation wars, trying to sell more papers.  More papers sold meant more eyeballs and therefore more people potentially reading the advertisement for McMurchee’s Patent Undergarments or Dr. Saslove’s Medicinal Ointment.  The more eyeballs, the more you could charge for the advertisement.  The same measurement methods moved into radio, then television.  A mutant version moved across to the Web.

What Google purchased is the potential to reach millions of eyeballs a week.  It is nothing more than Viacom buying CBS a few years ago.  There is no paradigm shift, societal redirection or change in the angle of declination from the plane of the ecliptic.

Yes, the two YouTube founders are getting a whack of Google stock and if they sell it tomorrow, will make a mammoth amount of cash.  Google gets potential eyeballs that they can sell to advertisers and make more money from the advertisers. 

As long as the YouTube brand and place keeps attracting viewers, Google will do fine.  As soon as the YouTube brand reaches the end of its’ life, YouTube will be another ghost town on the Web and we can all go back to sleep.  This is the essence of media:  Attract enough attention and you get enough eyeballs.

Phineas Taylor Barnun, circus promoter, knew this in his bones.  Barnum was possibly the best practitioner of advertising, ever.  Barnum knew that people wanted distractions and to see something unique, different, or even a bit frightening.  If the event was a bit naughty, so much the better.  More people would come to see it and in order to see it, they had to buy a seat.  As soon as they bought a seat, you had their money and the game was over. 

Incidentally, P.T. Barnun never said "There’s a sucker born every minute."  It was actually said by a Syracuse, New York banker named David Hannum who was part of a hoax in 1869, called the Cardiff Giant.  Hannum was the one who uttered the timeless phrase.

Even so, regarding Google and YouTube?  There’s a sucker born every minute.

At this moment, live on CNN, the camera is locked down on US Forward Operating Base Falcon.  Something or someone has caused a fire to break out.  FOB’s contain all kinds of bad things, including, but not limited to:  Ammunition of various sizes.  Mortar rounds.  Missiles.  Explosives.  MRE’s and clean sox.

The various bad things are cooking off as we speak, huge black and white explosions lighting up the Baghdad skies like (sweeping away a tear of fond memories) the original Shock and Awe.  Reports as to why things are blowing up are still spotty.  Reports as to what kind of badness is there are also strangely missing.

One thing is known.  Just before the fire started, someone heard a voice say "ﻥﻋ ‘ﻥﺍ ‘ﻩﮔ ‘ﻥﺩﻴﺭ."

I am reliably informed that is the equivalent of, in colloquial English, the expression "Shit!"

Kim Jong-Il has applied for membership in the Nuclear Club.  We have obtained his application and are reprinting it here:

Name: Kim Jong-Il  Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Address:  1 Presidential Palace, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Phone:  011 850 1

email: kji@northkorea.kp

Sponsoring Country:  "We get by with a little help from our friends" and Pakistan

Reason for Application:

I let one off on Monday.  About 15 kilotons or so.  Same size as the Fat Man did for Hiroshima in 1945.  Big goddam ball of flame.  Loud sonofabitch too.   Measuring hole now.

Supporting Evidence:

US all a twitter. Japan is urinating their kimonos.  Russia is quiet as mouse in empty Pyongyang silo.  China annoyed.  India is making giggling and Pakistan is holding parade of celebration for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea next Tuesday.  Israel strangely quiet for Jews who talk with hands and dance in circles.  Frenchers and UK not happy.  Plus, seismic squiggles making large amplitudes. 

Demands (Rational):

Increased worldwide attention paid to Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-Il.  More episodes of "Three’s Company" written by Kim Jong-Il with original Krissy.  Food for military.  Old McDonalds in Presidential Square please.  Have much requirement for Fillet O Fish as example of decadent western imperialism and tartar sauce.  Need DVD of Paris Hilton video plus night scope camera too from Sony only not Samsung.  New BitTorrent client and downloads for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Il.

Demands (Irrational)

Feed populace and place for them to be housed that is not South.  Perhaps in Mexico to obtain American citizenship after voting in elections for California Governor Arnold.  Ship of oil for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Mercedes-Benz.  Ship of Nikees in mixed sizes but mostly 11 EEE.  Hair Club for Men Platinum Membership.  Noble portrait of Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Il on US Five dollar bill for next year.  Box seats Yankee Stadium, Blue level near third base line.  Tennis Lessons from Annika Sorenstram.  Lasik surgery in Austin Texas.  Hat of Cheese Head labeled Go Packers Go!

Signed

KJI