Technicalities

How to Deal with France...

DO NOT under any circumstances sign an oil contract with them.

That is all.

When in Danger...

Or in doubt
run in circles
scream and shout

This has become the norm for dealing with the public about terror threats...

Ridge Warns of Election Terror Plot

Now please people, does anyone seriously think there WON'T be some attempt at a terrorist strike as the election gets close? After Spain? I am of 2 minds about these type of press releases.

First of all, there is the huge problem the government faces - if you don't SAY anything, you can't possibly be DOING anything. It's one of the more irritating aspects of dealing with the current media. They insist on irrelevant chit chat. I assume this is to fill up newsprint columns and empty air time. After all with news 24/7 they really need LOTS of fodder to fill in the holes. This leads us to press conferences giving us absolutely useless information, which brings me to...

My second point - what exactly are we supposed to DO with this type of information? Are we supposed to look for suspicious Middle Eastern men? (Do most Americans know a Mid-East Male if they see one? I'm of the opinion about the worst thing a dark skinned man can do is to wear a turban - for some reason, people equate this with being an Arab.) Do Americans know what a "suspicious looking" package might look like? Can they tell the difference between someone hanging around waiting for a friend to show up and someone "casing" a building looking for a good way to do damage?

Short of someone driving up to me and pointing out a trunk full of explosives to my direct notice, I'll leave the finding of terrorists to the proper authorities. In the article linked above it seems Tom Ridge is adhering to my first point.

Asked why he had made a public announcement on Thursday, Ridge said that after the attacks in Madrid, Spain, he considered it "very important, on a periodic basis, to frankly just give Americans an update as to where we are and what we are doing"

Well fair enough and short of him disclosing actual security precautions, which is rather like broadcasting troop movements to the enemy, I must assume they are hard at work doing their jobs. Naturally a Democrat has to give his take, for that balanced storyline...

But Texas Rep. Jim Turner, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said what is needed is action. "A press conference will not deter a terrorist," he said.

Um - gee ya think? I do hope that Tom Ridge takes Jim Turner's suggestion under consideration. Perhaps if Tom calls the next press conference and carts an M16 in with him...

A Few Things

I've been very busy working, but between some of the small jobs, I've been looking around and found a few things to blog about.

Over on Slashdot, they are hearing rumors that the LOTR:ROTK extended version may be released in theaters. I couldn't get to the articles they link, but... LONGER??? OMG!!! LONGER!!! Um - no thanks.

In other news Federal court upholds Calif. e-voting ban and all I can say is IT'S ABOUT TIME!!! There are some pretty significant security problems with these machines. Not the least of which is the complete absence of a paper trail! Apparently some disablity rights group was protesting...

The plaintiffs argued that banning the systems would disenfranchise visually or physically impaired voters.

These machines have not been around that long. If this is a cause for disenfranchisement, what in the world did they do before these machines came along??? Please don't try to tell me they weren't allowed to vote - because I don't buy that one at all! They need a better excuse than that! Also, it seems they aren't even thinking of their best interests - REAL disenfranchisement will happen if these machines break and NONE of their votes count!!!

Last of all (and I'm a couple of days late with this - always catching up, that's me!) Laughing Wolf has a tribute to James Doohan, known and loved as Scotty of the old Star Trek series, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I wish I had been able to meet him, but I will always enjoy watching him in the Star Trek reruns.

Local Library Extorts Money from State

The local headline caught my eye...

State to pay library $70,000

I took notice because Illinois is one of the few states in the country having financial difficulties. So, I went to check it out. It turns out to be my very own local library managing to pick up this little windfall. And as this just annoys the hell out of me, I decided to blog about it.

A little history is in order to put this in proper perspective. Lake County in Illinois (the county just North of the City of Chicago) has basically had the same road grid in place since 1958. A few major streets have been widened, but considering the growth of the area, the roads are severely inadequate to carry the current traffic. Thus Chicago and vicinity have a well deserved reputation for having extremely bad traffic problems.

For about the last 30 years (yes YEARS) there has been an effort to try and upgrade the road grid - widening Route 22 - a MAJOR east-west road from 2 lanes to 5 has been one of the big projects that has caused some fierce fighting. Also, for many years now, there has been a plan (once the roadwork commenced) for Route 22 to bypass the middle of our town. With only minor variations this has been in place and the placement of the road being pretty much a done deal - no surprises pulled out of a hat or anything of that nature for at least 10 years.

About 5 years ago, it was decided that the library of that time was not large enough nor was there enough space to upgrade that facility. So, land was bought and a new library built. When the new facility was built, the bypass plans were ALREADY IN PLACE!!! So, where do they place the building? Oh naturally they put it so that the back of the building is extremely close to the easement for the proposed road!!! And to top it off, they also build a "children's patio" back there. THEN they refuse to cooperate with the bypass project...

The library board had refused to sell a 1.7-acre strip to the state for its bypass project through Lake Zurich until the screening issue was resolved. Officials were concerned about the potential safety hazard with trucks passing so closely to the patio and subjecting children to noise pollution.

What WANKERS!!! The library and it's parking area are on a HUGE hunk of ground. It's not as if they couldn't have positioned the building differently. This is complete and total incompetence from the planners and the city (because they approved the final plan). So, what's next... well obviously more and more extortion...

The children's patio gets first priority, but there are two other patios on the north side of the library building used by teens and employees that may be affected by highway noise.

Yeah, why should you stop with one pay off when you can keep on getting money?

Johnson is also concerned about a future bike path that will run parallel to the bypass, and a library parking lot where deliveries are received and patrons can drop off books at a drive-through area. She thinks a fence may be required.

Once the gravy train is flowing, just keep right on lapping up all that good ol' cash. And as long as you moan about how the lack of money will affect "THE CHILDREN" you can get politicians to give you anything you want.

There you go - your Illinois tax dollars at work. Sadly I've lived in this state long enough to believe that they not only knew about this problem before approving the plans, but they actually COUNTED on this problem being a way to get extra money from the state and extra landscaping for the back of the library. That is what makes me so very angry. We won't even start on what I think about the inside of the new library...

I Know I'm Way Behind in News Reading

So, it's possible I've missed references to this on other blogs and brought up in news stories. I just haven't had the time lately to keep up with everything.

I was once again on my noon - get me out of the house - routine. Since I work at home, I try very hard to get out of the house for at least one hour every day, generally around lunch time. This means I get in the car and drive out to do various small errands - leading to me listening to talk radio for a short period of time daily. (I can't listen and work at the same time, so I only hear it at lunch time).

Today Tom Sullivan was sitting in for Rush Limbaugh and he brought up a point I hadn't considered before. The tape that was sent to Al Jezeera with Kim Sun-Il pleading for his life... why was Mr. Sun-Il pleading in English? A small point I grant you, but since he is

-South Korean
-under a great deal of stress

AND

-was supposedly sending a message to his own government/people of Korea

then why isn't he making his plea in Korean? That would seem to make a great deal more sense to me.

The supposed purpose of these monsters capturing and killing him, is to intimidate the Korean people and make them pull out of Iraq. If that is truly the intention, then shouldn't his message be in a language that all the people of Korea understand? Now granted many many Koreans speak English very well, but it isn't their native tongue and a plea in a foreign tongue doesn't carry the same impact - there's that translation thing...

The other point was the fact that although Al Jezeera apparently has a tape of his murder, they are not releasing it. I wonder why? They were MORE than happy to release the tapes and spew the vileness all over the world when it was Daniel Pearl, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson... Did they suddenly become enlightened? I hardly think so. It makes me wonder what's in that tape they don't want the world to see.

CBS partners with Amazon

Instapundit is pointing to the story at Ratherbiased.com. CBS is confirming that they have created a partnership with Amazon.

In an interview, CBSNews.com sales director David Ghiraldini verified the existence of the relationship but declined to discuss the partnership or its ethical ramifications for a news organization profiting from the sale of controversial political books, especially since CBS News isn't known for being particularly friendly with conservative authors.

Somehow I think that ethics never entered into their thought process when they set this up. The other day, I was listening to WBBM news radio in the car, a Chicago CBS radio affiliate. I must say I was taken aback when they announced they would be airing excerpts from Bill Clinton's book all week long. Apparently I am not the only one who has issues with this turn of events.

Besides its controversial vending of the books of authors featured on its news programming and its unprecedented decision to devote an entire 60 Minutes episode to Dan Rather's dialogues with former president Bill Clinton, CBS has also come under fire for forcing all of its radio affiliates to carry a live townhall meeting featuring Clinton tomorrow.

"It's going to be like one big commercial for the book! Why didn't Mr. Clinton's publisher just buy an hour," a CBS Radio News affiliate exec told Matt Drudge last week. "This is not news, this is marketing. I already feel dirty!"

Well, it's nice to know that some of the people running these news operations actually have qualms about these things. I would like to know what their opinion is of airing excerpts from the book during their broadcast day. Even if the spots are paid for - it looks and feels like CBS News promoting Clinton's book.

I think they should change the titles of their various *cough*news*cough* entities to reflect the change in their direction. How about... CBS Radio Opinion, 60 Minutes : An Opinion Magazine, and last but not least CBS Evening Opinion with Dan Rather.

Hats Off to the Commissar

He has declared his blog to be a snuff free zone. As he notes, he could increase his traffic one hundred fold by hosting certain videos and pictures. He has taken the high road and decided not to do this.

Other bloggers are doing the same thing! Excellent. As the Commissar points out

There is also the fact that these huge waves of publicity encourage the terrorists.

Yes, terrorists live to spread fear. The more people they have watching their ghastly doings, the more often they will occur. Our time and effort would be better spent making sure the terrorists know we're coming for them - they will not succeed, we will take them out.

Commissar, I salute you!

It's Almost Comical

How surprised the news media seem to be over the tremendous number of people trying to pay their last respects to President Reagan.

Crowds Force Extension of Reagan Viewing

The bewilderment is evident. They aren't quite sure what to make of it. Yesterday, in the car, I heard a report from an "on the scene" guy at the college where people were waiting to board the buses. In the 3 or 4 minutes he was talking live to the hosts of the show, he said "I just can't believe the number of people that are here. it's truly amazing, they just keep coming" at least 4 times!!! None of these news media types can comprehend why so many people are taking the trouble to honor Reagan - of all people. It just boggles their minds.

By 6 a.m. Tuesday, more than 40,000 people had gone through the library, said Duke Blackwood, the library's executive director.

I think the fact that they always despised him, coupled with the fact that he's been out of office since 1988, led them to the false assumption that the rest of the American people would shrug and say "too bad, how sad" and not even take notice - except for watching their news reports.

Ah the media - always so amusing.

I Am Hoping THIS Won't Change

From Forbes we have a list of The 10 Most Fatal Jobs in the US.

Note that the occupation - Suicide Bomber - is NOT listed.

Journalism 101

I think I've figured it out folks! Two different things in the last couple of days have brought it all together for me. What am I talking about? Why the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy of today's journalists in the mainstream media.

First via Blackfive we have the most excellent Jason van Steenwyck catching a bunch of the major print media making exactly the same mistakes when reporting on a press conference.

Essentially, it looks like they're quoting each other, or some apocryphal Q source material. They're not quoting General Mattis. They didn't even show up at the press conference, and they didn't bother to get a transcript or listen to the tape. But all these reporters are passing their crap off as if they were right from the source material.

Then today as I was running a few errands I tuned into Rush who was talking about a coordinated effort by the press

...This is what I had seen Sunday night. I forget, USA Today, AP, New York Times. Three different publications. One story was, "Republicans May Lose House." Another story, "Republicans May Lose Senate." Another story was, "Democrats All excited, Kerry Has it in Bag," and I'm looking. These are stories Sunday night for Monday publication. Even when I'm away I'm working for you, ladies and gentlemen.

So I'm looking at this and I'm saying, "This is a coordinated media attack. Just last week the Democrats are trying to find somebody to replace Kerry. In less than seven days, they're now going to win the White House and they're going to win the House and they're going to win the Senate?" Come on, folks! There's nothing out there that indicates that, and it certainly, if it is effervescing out there, it hasn't shown up inside a week. You don't go... I mean, how many weeks has it been that the Democrats have been admitting that they are in panic over Kerry?...

Now for good reason you could have some questions regarding the legitimacy behind the stories we have been seeing. Yes, the Pew research poll recently showed very clearly that much of the media is liberal leaning. And yes there is certainly a clear agenda with most of those in the mainstream press. But I think we are giving them way too much credit.

Here's MY theory about what's going on with all of these news stories... Now don't tell anyone, but... There is really only one writer, everyone else is simply copying his story.

First we have the one person who is a fairly good creative writer, not good at research mind you, but can knock out a pretty good story in purely modern journalistic style. He's the guy who got "A's" in writing back in college because the prof thought it was more important that the story draw people in than be factual. (or the stories he wrote were so in tune with the way the prof was thinking - no checking on the facts was ever done and the dearth of facts was never noticed)

Then you have the rest of the saps who made it through journalism school by copying the work of someone else. Oh yeah, they change a few details to make it look as if they did the work themselves. (you know - add a few words here, omit a few words there - no problem) The nice thing about a press conference is that everyone there is supposed to have heard the same thing - so similarities in the stories are to be expected.

And viola! With this scenario you get the same bad story reported in a variety of ways, but similar enough to cause alarm to those seeing all the media bias.

Personally I don't think they're smart enough to form a conspiracy, after all they can't even do basic research. So, there you have my take on the latest blitz of bad news stories. It works for me - anyone else?