Quit your junk news

And get the real thing:
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

A couple hours after the show airs at 6:00 pm, mp3s of each of that night's segments are uploaded to the site. So you can pick and choose what you want to listen to. But for the most part, every bit is worth it.

Tonight they had an amazing piece about economic inequality in New Mexico. Fucking phenomenal reporting. Horrible shit. Preceding it was an interview with 2008 presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who many of us think of as a cocksucker, but damn he sounds good. Especially next to the disgusting policies we have been fed and will continue to eat.

Everyone says Hank Paulsen is a genius, but they say that about Hank Pym too. And I think they've both been acting skrully. I mean every week this guy's got a new plan to spend a ton of money to increase confidence. And if you've been watching closely over the past couple months, he keeps denying he'll need to go further. "Just this one last huge sum of money, please." Don't worry it won't seem so big compared to whatever he asks for next. I swear to god, it's like these guys want to destroy America. At least the Skrulls bring their own infrastructure to replace what they destroy and dismantle.

Hank's plan is nothing but trying to burn money as fast as humanly possible. The NewsHour keeps talking about what caused this mess, the economic policies and philosophies of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush. But we don't want to address the problems or create a better new system, just temporarily Socialize, and then return to the corporate heap. This has power grab written all over it. But it's what's happening. Despite having the greatest tool in the history of human communication, we have no idea what's going on. And when the dust settles we will all have boot marks on our asses.

So if Hank can spend a trillion dollars without a long term plan for success, I might as well give my plan. A trillion dollars, gosh... hard to even imagine how to spend all that. Okay, how about this, we buy a whole lot of really good acid. We dose the entire nation, except for the few who will be preaching love and inner strength and those who will distribute food, laptops, and medical aid after the nation's heroic death and rebirth. So after our Apocalypse we'll take a few weeks off to lay in the grass and talk to each other on the Internet, and figure out what we want to do next.

Okay, so maybe it's just ripping off an Alan Moore Apocalypse. Maybe all the comic books and 80s Dylan has rotted my mind, to the point where I am completely divested from our current way of living. Listen to the NewsHour report on Los Alamos, and ask yourself what should be done with the richest community in America. With blood on their hands, and empty bellies at their feet, these people need to have their minds cracked open. Showing them what they've done will be punishment enough.

Should I believe Barack will change this?

There is a persistent effort on the part of the Federal government and big business to denigrate and to attempt colonization of the new digital lives of free people. I have a mind, a body, a soul and a bed. And my computer gives me the ability to reach my second soul. I have a right to these things. We all do. Take them away and the silent pact is broken, the trust is gone, and the people consent by fear alone. Digital rights are human rights.

via the washingtonpost.com:

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
==
The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion."

The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "
==
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that "the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices." Searches have uncovered "violent jihadist materials" as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.

Message-Force Multipliers

MFM, not a rock band, actually a fascist power/greed scam revealed by the NYTimes:
(If perhaps you don't bother reading anymore, you can LISTEN about it.)

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

...

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

“You could see that they were messaging,” Mr. Krueger said. “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.” Some days, he added, “We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’ ”

On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a memorandum to Ms. Clarke. “Let’s think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over,” he wrote.

By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the imagery of mayhem.

The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight.

It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to “re-energize surrogates and message-force multipliers,” starting with the military analysts.

The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.

The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC, and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear regularly in the nation’s op-ed pages.

The trip invitation promised a look at “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.”

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had “about half the number of soldiers we needed here.”

“We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,” Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq.

Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon.

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

Don't Let Criminals Escape

President Bush wants the Senate to pass retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies who spied on Americans. For the President, this isn't just about letting his friends at AT&T and Verizon off the hook. He knows this is the American people's last chance to hold the Bush administration accountable for their warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans.

The key vote is scheduled for late Monday afternoon and the count is down to the wire. We need 41 Senators to stand up to President Bush and right now we have only 36.

Senators Clinton and Obama are the missing votes. If Senator Clinton or Obama stands up and leads from the floor of the U.S. Senate and calls upon the 8 senators that have endorsed their campaigns to stand with them, we'll have the votes we need and the American people will win.

[Prove It]

Young actor's murderer still on the loose - could this be the beginning of a spree?

I have recently received insider information from an actor working in New York, that Heath Ledger was killed by the Joker. Ledger was recently quoted as saying that playing the part of the psychotic Joker in the upcoming film, The Dark Knight, put such a strain on the actor that he could not sleep at night.

Ledger told The New York Times last year that Heath Ledger stressed a little too much over the role.
The interview was done in London during the filming of Batman.
'It is a physically and mentally draining role (his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully ) and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much," Heath Ledger told The Times.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”
[Link]

So there you have it. Now the Joker's started killing people out here in the real world. Well, kind of the real world. New York City anyway, not LA, or Tokyo or one of those DC cities. A proper Marvel city. I'm starting to see it more and more. Life drifting into the broad strokes of a comic book: pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Chick Stone, and fuck sake let's say it, script by Stan Lee.
And that might be putting too precise a point on it. The inks aren't always by Chic Stone, and sometimes the pencils are by Steve Ditko. But regardless, like in the Mighty Marvel Age of the 1960s what we're seeing around us is a world shaped by the artists. A world that is running a few steps faster, and a fews steps deeper than what the writers are picking up or getting down.

Things are starting to happen which lead me to think that the dread iron system, whose shadow we have been cowering under since the birth of our New American Century, when on September the Eleventh the assault on the hearts, minds, and rights Americans began, but what I'm trying to say, is maybe that's ending now.

Yeah, so this is the thing. I might be fooling myself, and even if I am, its okay I need the break from the bleak. But I really am starting to think that maybe things are getting better. I really don't want to jinx it, but maybe the brutal and much loathed system, will just break. Fall apart like a poorly thought out Rube Goldberg machine. Not so bad. Weeds are springing up through the cement. Tree roots cracked it but the dandelions have the flowers now.

But it seems this is a transition period; reality is becoming less fixed, and change starts to happen faster and faster. New technologies are rippling into ever facet of life and every field of thought. And so the world starts to look more like a comic book. But I've said that already, so let's go to some examples:

Okay Tom Cruise is a lot of my evidence. I don't know when you first realized that he's a super hero, but for me it was a picture I saw on some tabloid last May that looked something like this,
I believe here he's pictured riding towards Avengers Mansion shortly before his falling out with Hollywood types he once considered nearly family. So far Tom Cruise seems a lot cooler than Tony Stark, who he was originally on the team to replace. Perhaps since Tom Cruise thinks he can move things with his mind, and did overcome his dyslexia through hard work, his mental powers make him more appealing than a gadget hero like Stark's Iron Man.
[Tom Cruise taking ‘Mission’ to Tribeca]

Also if you watched the latest Tom Cruise bit to hit the web, (but not the news, copyright is still ironclad for them) you may have gotten the impression that Tom Cruise's legacy will overshadow that of Scientology. I think he is using his mental powers and personal energy to summon forth something. And his image is starting to represent that something more than the dying cult he is presently apart of.
[Watch the Secret Scientology Tom Cruise Video]


And if Tom Cruise is our superhero, we know we're in the Marvel Universe since his arch villains are a shadow band of hackers known as Anonymous who have vowed to destroy Scientology. Sometimes, over the top is exactly the spot you need to hit. Seems like this could actually start some commotion.
[Message to Scientology]

I'll try to start posting more comic art and more evidences of this most enjoyable turn of events. And hopefully as my world outlook has been brightened, the stories I find and share will be a bit more upbeat from now on. But no promises.

"You're being paranoid, John."

Watch the [.mpg4] and enjoy the [transcript] of the McLauglin Group from FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2007 BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JULY 14-15, 2007.

In which, John McLaughlin suggest that Michael Chertoff's "recent gut" feeling that America could experience an, "increased summer threat," is part of a disinformation plot on the part of the White House.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And why was that story surfaced this week? Do you think some of this was designed, on the part of the administration, including the sentiment expressed by the head of Homeland Security that he feels it in his belly, was this designed to keep the Republicans in the Congress at bay?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was it designed as a kind of a prelude to the president's press conference?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me ask you this about Pakistan. Was the release of that story -- let's go back to that. Was the release of that story about Rumsfeld designed to send a message to Musharraf? Namely, "You either cooperate with us or we'll go forward with that kind of Rumsfeld plan." In other words, this is kind of a fearmongering for him and it's fearmongering for the Congress.

(Blankley denies this idea that the Rumsfeld story is beneficial to the Bush Administration and claims the author, Andrea Mitchell is an aggressive reporter and no friend of the White House. However, she is Alan Greenspan's wife, and doesn't come off well in this Media Matters coverage of the 2004 election.)
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the president announcing a third front, and that's Pakistan?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Exit question: What is the main factor fueling the rise of al Qaeda? Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: The United States' invasion and occupation of an Arab country, Iraq, and the four-year war we've fought against the resistance in Iraq, that has created an enormous movement across the Arab and Islamic world to drive the United States out of there. And there are volunteers -- tremendous numbers of volunteers for al Qaeda.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you seen that happen before, where jihadists would flow from all over the world to any sector in order to evict an occupier?

MR. BUCHANAN: Sure. You've seen it in the Battle of Algiers.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where else have you seen it?

MS. CLIFT: Afghanistan.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You saw it in Afghanistan, did you not?

MS. CLIFT: Absolutely. And a western country invading an oil- rich Muslim country is a recipe for disaster.
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You don't see how this whole event was a prelude -- that is, the director of Homeland Security -- was a prelude to Bush's press conference?

MR. BUCHANAN: This is one of these Machiavellian --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Don't you realize that by creating --

(Cross-talk.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- by creating an atmosphere of fear, by creating an atmosphere of fear --

MR. BUCHANAN: You are paranoid, John. You are paranoid.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- he holds the Congress in place? He holds them in place.

MS. CLIFT: I would have agreed with you --

MS. HUFFINGTON: But it didn't help Bush. On the contrary, I think it had the opposite effect. How does it help Bush to have an official estimate of an increased strength of al Qaeda?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The atmospherics of terror are such that if the president then appears strong in Iraq, it's misconcluded by the American public that he is fighting terrorism. And therefore, they give him more license to do so.

As always John McLaughlin speaks the truth. The rest aren't stepping back and seeing how the sentence reads if you skip three words a beat. The Misconclusions of the Public are written by the television press which have universally degraded the quality of debate, and forgotten their public responsibility not to publish propaganda. The others on the show, liberal and conservative make the mistakes that plague the over-informed. They assume Americans are as well.

MR. BUCHANAN: They smacked down -- Chertoff got smacked down by both Bush and Tony Snow, for heaven's sakes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, why? You know that.

MS. CLIFT: No, no. Chertoff --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Just as --

MR. BLANKLEY: John --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It is uncharacteristic of Chertoff to talk about anything originating in his gut. So he gets a phone call.

MR. BLANKLEY: John, you're --

MR. BUCHANAN: You're moving way out there, John. (Laughs.)

MS. HUFFINGTON: John, the final proof that you are wrong is that the president at his press conference actually said the exact opposite. He said that al Qaeda is weaker because of our actions since 9/11. He said that. So if this was some kind of planned leak, then he wouldn't have contradicted his own Machiavellian plan.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: No, I think they jibe together. It works perfectly.

MR. BLANKLEY: Arianna, he's just that cunning.

They make funny of him, call him paranoid, but John McLaughlin is absolutely right. To understand this administration you can't look at what they say, or what the facts admit. But rather the message they are able to convey through Fox News and the pressure it creates in tandem with an Executive branch unified around that centralized message. This message and those who created it are all honorary parts and products of the Ministry of Truth. And it is important for such a Ministry to have a role call.

The pundits and journalists who have lubed the way for new policies and war, should be recognized. Conner linked to The Long Now Blog in the sidebar and through it I found this Radar Online article that's wonderful on, The Iraq Gamble. It traces the careers of eight pundits, and sees what their pre-War stance got them. Those with the wrong stance, the risk everything for this fun idea stance, those pro-war assholes made big bucks and kept everyone's ear. Not so for those who opposed the war and disagreed with Bush's NON-existent WMDs.

This is really a long now kind of issue, because in a longer time frame then we are currently appreciating life at, there becomes room and need to have a list. Lynne Cheney made a list of professors after 9/11 who she considered "un-American." Schools were pressured not to hire the professors for speeches or teaching positions. Truly another dark day for American freedoms. But perhaps it is time to start drawing up new list. A list of those who, through intent or neglect, lead America astray with a weak reporting of the facts.

America has made some bad decisions in the past six years. Decisions that rock the core security of our democracy. To preserve our freedoms and our nation, we must identify the problem. So when Gore comes to power in the early Winter of 2008, he can clear our the trash before 2010.

The Radar article is really worth reading but here is the gist of it,

McLauglin closes last Friday's show with,

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The House Oversight Committee this week heard testimony of ex-Surgeon General Richard Carmona. He served the current Bush administration from 2002 to 2006, a four-year term as the nation's top doctor.

The surgeon general's duties are to provide Americans, quote, "the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness."

On Tuesday, Dr. Carmona lambasted the Bush administration for substituting politics for science.

RICHARD CARMONA (former U.S. surgeon general): (From videotape.) Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointee's ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized or simply buried. The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Among other examples, Dr. Carmona pointed to stem cell research funding as an instance of where his analysis and his opinion were spurned.

DR. CARMONA: (From videotape.) I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made. "Stand down. Don't talk about it."

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Carmona says that his speeches were censored on issues ranging from second-hand smoke to AIDS to sex education to birth control.

DR. CARMONA: (From videotape.) You don't want Republican or Democratic scientific information. You want real scientific information.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Carmona also said that the administration told him to mention Mr. Bush's name three times on every page of every speech.

That final bombshell McLauglin points to as proof of the "cult of personality," which maintains the President's loyal 30 percent. Bush's little brownshirts are ignorant of the counter-facts Huffington and her techno-elite dine on. Instead they are fed fear by their strong leader, and so they stay our nations course, and defend an impeachable Administration.

"Asbestos Not Found in Air After Blast, Officials Say"

I'll believe that when the first responders don't get cancer.
Clipped from the NYTimes:

Asbestos has been found in the muddy dirt and debris that was spewed forth in a thunderous steam pipe explosion that jolted Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday evening. But no asbestos was found in the air, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others had initially feared.

The explosion on Wednesday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

One person died, officials said, and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically.

“There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

That's a relief. As Mike Dukakis would say, the infrastructure is deteriorating. And it has been for years, so no alarms and no surprises there. I feel better already. As to, I don't know, repairing the infrastructure, maybe not all of the anti-terrorism money that's being sent to the cities will be spent on crowd suppression weapons and surveillance. Maybe they'll find it in their cold cold heart's to throw the people a dime. But I wouldn't hold my breath unless I didn't want Asbestos related cancer in the future.

The place where fascism and the environment meet for casual sex and everyone watches...

Here's a follow up to the fact-flash that NYC will soon be graced with the same video surveillance that helped protect London on July 7, 2005.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A proposed ``congestion pricing'' toll system to reduce traffic and pollution will be too expensive, its array of cameras for enforcement will threaten civil liberties, and downtown businesses will shrivel.

New York City, 2007?

Try London 2002. Those were the dire predictions a half-decade ago when the British city pioneered what New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes to repeat now. In London, the results include a drop in traffic congestion by 20 percent and similar decrease in carbon emissions in London's central zone since 2003.

But the plan to help fight global warming, in which cars would be charged $8 and trucks $21 to drive into Manhattan south of 86th Street, will first have to get through state lawmakers in Albany on Monday. It faces some strong opposition and bad timing.

In London, where the fees were about double what Bloomberg proposes, ``there was enormous opposition, both politically and from business owners and ultimately it was approved through a long and arduous political process, much like we have here,'' said Steven Polan, a Manhattan lawyer who worked for London's government on its congestion pricing plan after working for New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
[link]

All in the name of fighting global warming in the global city. Imagine what President Bloomberg would do? For that matter what President Gore will do.

Here's a quote from Raymond Kelley, NYPD Commisioner when he was on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

Well, it's long been settled in the law that there is no expectation of privacy in the public place. That's been the law of the land for quite a while. There was a landmark Supreme Court decision, I believe, was in 1968.

So it's simply not a legal issue. It's not a violation of the Constitution. It's not a violation of statute. I think what the professor is talking about is policy. And we're really -- you know, we're not talking about a violation of anyone's constitutional rights.

Will there be, you know, some aberrations? You can always point to some misuse of a piece of equipment. But by and large, I think it just simply makes sense to have cameras, to have the ability to monitor activities in this most sensitive location, I'd say for the United States of America, not just for New York City.

Good advice Ray. So next time your necking your girl in Central Park, remember to make it look extra good, because your not alone and the Watchmen like it hot.

They Will Not Go Quietly Into That Goodnight

I just watched a short Bill Moyers program from 1987 called, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis. It's devastatingly frightening. Moyers traces the beginning of the end to the National Security Act of 1947. I can't recommend watching this 22 minute documentary enough. America's War of Terror makes much more sense when seen in it's historical context. This is war has lasted over half a century so far, and has no intention of stopping. And we probably can't stop it.

Moyers says when America employed Nazi war criminals as spies and scientists we made a pact with the Devil. This is true. The death worship and imperial dreams of the Nazis were not defeated, merely transmuted.

This is too frustrating to bear. Here are 5 links, a warning and a solution:

"Reagan Aides and the 'Secret' Government," Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
Continuity of Government in the United States
'Shadow Government' News To Congress, March 2, 2002
U.S. Can Confine Citizens Without Charges, Court Rules, September 10, 2005
Security Cameras Coming to New York City

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
...
We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address
17 January 1961



And any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

Malcolm X

On Seat Belts

Google News is abuzz with local news reports about the states actively involved in a Click It Or Ticket campaign, to increase the use of seat belts. Sorry safety belts.

There are two types of safety belt laws: primary and secondary. A primary law allows a law enforcement officer to write a ticket if he or she simply observes an unbelted driver or passenger. Under a secondary law, an officer cannot ticket anyone for a safety belt violation unless the motorist is stopped for another infraction. Primary laws are very effective in increasing safety belt use. In 2002, belt use in States with primary laws was 80 percent, compared with 69 percent in States without primary laws. [NHTSA, National Occupant Protection Use Survey, June 2002]

As of April 2003, only 18 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had primary safety belt laws. The primary-law States are Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington. New Hampshire is the only State that has no adult safety belt law.

And here are a bunch of lousy facts about all the lives seat belts can save. I can't find much other than blog comments on the one fact which makes primary seat belt laws a really bad idea. One fact. Can't trust the cops. They will use primary seat belt laws to harass anyone they feel like.

And let's close on enotes' Encyclopedia of Law explain why people don't wear seat belts:

According to the MVOSS study, the primary reason occasional seat belt users fail to buckle up is that they are only driving short distances (56 percent). More than half said that they simply forget on occasion. For those who never wear a seat belt, the most commonly cited reason (65 percent) is that seat belts are uncomfortable. Other reasons people gave for not wearing their seat belts include the following:

Being in a hurry and not having time to buckle up
Light traffic on the roads when respondent drives
Not wanting to get clothing wrinkled
Resentment at being told what to do
Knowing someone who died in a crash while wearing a seat belt
Resentment at government interference in personal behavior
Never having gotten used to seat belts
The belief that with air bags, seat belts are redundant

Safety experts point out that many of these reasons are based on faulty logic.

The Man in the High Castle

I just finished reading Philip K. Dick's The Man in The High Castle. Really tremendous. The ending was a bit disappointing, but I might just need to read it again, or get smarter. Anyway, the book is set in a world where the Germans and Japanese won World War II. It made me realize all sorts of things, primarily that things could be way worse. I've been doing some peripheral research and here's what I've found:

Nazi and East German Propaganda
Calvin College has an impressive collection of content, including Goebbels speeches. P.K. Dick said he wanted to write a sequel, but didn't want to do the necessary research, because it was too intense. I'm inclined to agree, maybe someday I'll have the strength to read through some more of those speeches, but not anytime soon.

The Big Lie

[Hitler's] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. - OSS report page 51

I Ching
I hope I will have the strength to learn as much as I can about the Book of Changes. It sounds fascinating.


And to contextualize the date, here is a quote from today's newspaper:

“The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in bringing an end to a charged debate on the House floor. “The American people see the reality of the war; the president does not.”

Say Goodbye to Your Right to Assemble

THE MARTIAN HEAT RAY HAS COME TO EARTH, AND SOON IT WILL BE GOING TO IRAQ

The U.S. Military has certified the Active Denial System for use in Iraq. ADS is a microwave based ray gun to be attached to a hummer for use in crowd control.

According to Wired Magazine, December 02006, Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon:

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.

The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military's claims.

We can also say goodbye to public speech as we know it. Today's military uses the weapons of tomorrow's police force. Make no bones about it, this technology will be used against Americans on American soil within 10 years. The tear gas of WWI was eventually turned on American citizens by their own government. This will be no different. Except with this technology a government can suppress public dissent almost entirely. Imagine what the protests of the 1960s would have looked like if Richard Nixon's government had this technology.

Eventually, the heat rays will trickle down into the untrained hands of your local police. In June 2006, after the Supreme Court decided to allow no-knock searches, John Tierney wrote an editorial for the New York Times on the 'SWAT Syndrome,' the militarization of small town police forces through over armament.

Of all the excuses for weakening the Fourth Amendment, the weirdest was the one offered by Justice Antonin Scalia last week in a Michigan drug case.

He wrote the majority opinion allowing police officers to use evidence found in a home even if they entered without following the venerable rule to knock first and announce themselves. To reassure traditionalists, Scalia declared that unreasonable searches are less of a problem today because of ''the increasing professionalism of police forces.''

Well, it's true that when police show up at your home in the middle of the night, they're better armed and trained than ever. They now routinely arrive with assault rifles, flash grenades and battering rams.

So if your definition of a professional is a soldier in a war zone, then Scalia is right. The number of paramilitary raids has soared in the past two decades as cities, suburbs and small towns have rushed to suit up SWAT teams.

Eventually small cities and towns will want their very own death rays, and Raytheon is always ready to lend a helping hand. They have developed their own smaller, commercial version called The Silent Guardian.

More from the Wired article on the Active Denial System:

Eye damage is identified as the biggest concern, but the military claims this has been thoroughly studied. Lab testing found subjects reflexively blink or turn away within a quarter of a second of exposure, long before the sensitive cornea can be damaged. Tests on monkeys showed that corneal damage heals within 24 hours, the reports claim.

The beam penetrates clothing, but not stone or metal. Blocking it is harder than you might think. Wearing a tinfoil shirt is not enough -- you would have to be wrapped like a turkey to be completely protected. The experimenters found that even a small exposed area was enough to produce the Goodbye effect, so any gaps would negate protection. Holding up a sheet of metal won't work either, unless it covers your whole body and you can keep the tips of your fingers out of sight.

Wet clothing might sound like a good defense, but tests showed that contact with damp cloth actually intensified the effects of the beam.

System 1, the operational prototype, is mounted on a Hummer and produces a beam with a 2-meter diameter. Effective range is at least 500 meters, which is further than rubber bullets, tear gas or water cannons. The ammunition supply is effectively unlimited.