Technicalities

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.

Wow! End Spam in 2 Years!!!

This little headline caught my eye earlier today

Web Spammers Can Be Beaten in Two Years-Regulators

And I think... Jumpin' Jiminy! Yahoo! Who is the genius behind this idea? And what IS the idea?

The global battle against spammers who use the Internet to disseminate pornography, distribute unsolicited sales pitches and engage in the new menace of "phishing" can be won in two years, officials running a three-day U.N. meeting told a news conference.

Ah, looks like the UN is trying once again to get into the technology business. They have made claims before that THEY should be the ones running the internet. I wonder HOW they plan on accomplishing this great feat of technology that has so far stymied the experts...

"If we achieve full international cooperation among governments and software companies, this plague which affects so many of us in our everyday life will be defeated in short order," said Robert Horton, Australia's top regulator.

Anyone beginning to feel warm and squooshy? Do you have the urge to sit around the campfire and sing Kum-bi-ya? What I would really love for Mr. Horton to do is to tell me his method for achieving "full international cooperation"! There is no doubt that if all the governments around the world fully cooperated and passed laws and cracked down, yeah, Spam could be mostly eliminated. But we can't even get the entire friggin' world to agree that dictators who murder millions should be taken out of the game altogether.

So tell me, is SPAM so much worse than genocide that it will bring all the countries of the world together to solve this horrific problem??? And who are we going to put in charge of this project? If we follow the lead of the UN Human Rights Committee, we should go directly to all known spammers and offer them a seat on this worthy project to save humanity.

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...

Is the Weekend Over?

I hope everyone had a lovely Independence Day/July 4th weekend. I must admit to having gotten very little of anything done. I had a total brain-fried collapse weekend. Rather annoying since I have still got so many things that need to be done around the house. Did a tiny little bit of blog reading. Had no ambition to post anything, therefore things were pretty quiet around here.

Beloved blogless husband and I did go over to some friends for dinner on the 4th - it's pretty far out from town, so we didn't see any of the professional fireworks. But the neighbors had spent mega-bucks and brought out some pretty good ones to shoot off over the pond. The weather was very nice for Sunday after Saturday's numerous storms. Played some Trivial Pursuit (I really suck pond water at that game) and got home around 2am.

Tomorrow it's back to work - hopefully fully rested up and ready to start doing things again. I just know that having a 3 day weekend is going to throw me off for the rest of the week. Now if only the neighborhood teens can finish shooting off all those black cats and M80's they bought, it might quiet down enough for sleeping.

The Stages of Moving

So, I browsed by the New Blog Showcase tonight (yeah, like I have extra time... but there it is) and found this terrifically funny post about the Stages of Moving.

1. Denial and Isolation (but also, add Procrastination): As soon as you find out that you're going to move, you look around your house and when you realize that all these things that you have mysteriously acquired over the years (seriously, where'd it all come from though?!) will now have to somehow be removed from said house, you go into instant denial.

Go read the rest of it, you'll be so glad you did. I haven't checked out the rest of the blog yet, but if this post is anything to go by, it's a hoot!

A Help or A Hindrance?

Bill Hobbs feels that Michael Moore's latest venture into fantasy land... Fahrenheit 9/11 will actually help Bush in the upcoming election.

Extremism, real or perceived, by one political party tends to help the other political party in America.

That's a view I hadn't really considered. I had thought the people who would be swayed by this movie are the type of people who never really pay much attention to anything outside their own sphere of entertainment. They don't read newspapers, they only peripherally listen to television news, they like the morning shows that are "fun". They form their opinions by sound bytes, so the slick well choreographed film will win them over. We all know by now, a picture is worth 1000 words!

These people would never know that the movie is full of outright provable lies, the documentary label would certainly lead them to believe it's all true. After all, they believe Oliver Stone movies are simply the truth with a little drama thrown in. I tend to think the only way this group will change their minds or be turned off by what they saw in the movie, is if Katie Couric does a segment on GMA (or whatever morning show she resides on) about the movie being wrong. (somehow I doubt they would ever call Moore on his lies, but they might say, he was "wrong about a few things")

OTOH Bill could be hitting the nail directly on the head. I certainly hope he's right! It would be a wonderful thing if Moore's excesses backfired on them all. As usual we have to wait and see. And most certainly Bill has given me some good food for thought.