Cops. Dangerous.

Consider this :
“According to the 3rd Quarter Report of The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, police officers were accused of sexual assault at a rate of 79 per 100,000 law enforcement personal. The rate of accusations for the general public is 28.7 per 100,000 general public.  When corrected for gender these numbers tell us that there are 1.5 times more accusations of sexual assault among  male law enforcement officers than among the general male population.  The fact that rapists seem to be concentrated among a group of armed individuals who have the purported authority to detain and arrest other individuals should be more than a little alarming for even the most prolific police bootlicker.” 

Read that again, if it didn't hit you like a ton o'bricks the first time : LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS are 1.5 MORE likely to have complaints filed against them for sexual assault than NON-pigs.

Your tax dollars, arming these people, who are already borderline social malcontents to start with... your money, arming rapists.

Fucking awesome.  USA #1, right?



Source :: http://beatyourselfup.com/post/14233514064/cops-are-not-good

Holy Fuck !

This new blogger interface is pure shite.

I swear to fuck, a shitload of incompetent product managers got fired from Facebook, and hired by Google.

To keep their respective teams' headcounts from getting slashed they create all manner of busywork to justify their staff.  The drawback are constant, needless UI changes to every google application, each one being more visually erratic, a pain to look at, and overall less intuitive to use (despite claiming "more intuitive", gcal being very notable in this regard).

Seriously, google needs to lay the fuck off on changing shit.  Maybe open their eyes a little, see how awful shit looks now, and maybe restore the option for us to use the old interfaces.

I'm glad I don't rely on blogger for anything of importance, because having to put up with this regularly would make me quit and move to another service.

Fucking amateurs. 

TSA Admits Bungling of Airport Body-Scanner Radiation Tests

Shocked, and appalled. Really. TSA, the least-skilled and most-deserving-to-be-shuttered agency, fucking up royally? Say it ain't so, Joe!

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/tsa-radiation-test-bungling/

"The Transportation Security Administration is re-analyzing the radiation levels of X-ray body scanners installed in airports nationwide, after testing produced dramatically higher-than-expected results.

The TSA, which has deployed at least 500 body scanners to at least 78 airports, said Tuesday the machines meet all safety standards and would remain in operation despite a “calculation error” in safety studies. The flawed results showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected."

What, did someone slip a decimal somewhere?

"...Businessman boards ... flight with loaded handgun"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339513/U-S-security-comes-businessman-boards-international-flight-loaded-handgun.html

The effectiveness of security at U.S. ports is being questioned after a businessman accidentally travelled on a flight with a loaded handgun in his luggage.

Iranian-American Farid Seif was screened by Trasport Security Administration officials at Houston airport in Texas. His hand luggage was also X-rayed before he took off on his international flight.

It wasn't until Mr Seif arrived at his hotel several hours later that he realised that he had forgotten to unpack a loaded snub nose Glock pistol from his luggage before he embarked on his journey.

The TSA is invasive, annoying - and unconstitutional

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604290.html

...


So there's good reason to believe that the machines are not effective in detecting the weapons they're purportedly designed to identify. For U.S. courts, that's yet another consideration that could make them constitutionally unreasonable.


...

X-Ray Nation | TSA Glass Box Mother Over Stored Breast Milk

Seems the TSA has gone from "keeping us safe" to "being fucking no-life thugs". Read some of the quotes the author provides of the things they said to her, and about their refusal to read the TSA's own rules.

WTF, Amerika?

http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/2010/11/x-ray-nation-tsa-glass-box-mother-over-stored-breast-milk/

As my items come through security this time, I notice immediately that I was dealing with the same people from the week before. The woman tells me right away that my milk might have to go through the x-ray, and then I tell her I printed the rules. I go to grab the rules on top of my bag and she freaks out and pushes my arm away. Another guy comes over and calls for “back up” and they put in me back in the glass cage. Standing 50 ft away are the same manager and supervisor I had dealt with the previous week.

They will stall for 20 minutes before coming over to me.

Meanwhile, one of the guys comes over to me and tells me “to be quiet if I know what’s good for me.” At the end of this portion I have been locked up for just under 10 minutes. The whole ordeal takes just under 1 hour.

Review of the TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hide your wife

http://myhelicaltryst.blogspot.com/2010/11/tsa-x-ray-backscatter-body-scanner.html

Last spring, a group of scientists at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) including John Sedat Ph.D., David Agard Ph.D., Robert Stroud, Ph.D. and Marc Shuman, M.D. sent a letter of concern to the TSA regarding the implementation of their 'Advanced Imaging Technology', or body scanners as a routine method of security screening in US airports. Of specific concern is the scanner that uses X-ray back-scattering. In the letter they raise some interesting points, which I've quoted below:

"Our overriding concern is the extent to which the safety of this scanning device has been adequately demonstrated. This can only be determined by a meeting of an impartial panel of experts that would include medical physicists and radiation biologists at which all of the available relevant data is reviewed."

"The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X-rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high."

"In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist."

"There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations. We are unanimous in believing that the potential health consequences need to be rigorously studied before these scanners are adopted."

Possibly the worst news yet

If this is at all true, this is deeply disturbing news, to say the least. Travelers opting out of undo radiation treatment at airports are to be considered "domestic extremists".

So much for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and Constitutional protections. They're calling in a vague definition from the fucking PATRIOT act to render the Constitution null and void.

Each of us is now guilty until proven innocent, and even if you opt-out and proven innocent, you're now guilty automatically of a higher offense.

Welcome to East Germany, 1949.

---

TSA Administrative Directive: Opt-Outters To Be Considered “Domestic Extremists”


http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/tsa-administrative-directive-opt-outters-to-be-considered-domestic-extremists_11242010

According to Mr. Hagmann, he was contacted by a source within the DHS who provided an alarming memo detailing a new administrative directive agreed upon by DHS chief Janet Napolitano and the head of TSA John Pistole. The memo, according to Doug Hagmann, “officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as ‘domestic extremists'.”

The memo leaves no doubt as to who, exactly, is leading the charge to label Americans who refuse current security measures due to health and privacy concerns as extremists. “The measures to be taken in response to the negative public backlash as detailed [in this directive], have the full support of the President,” it says.

Chertoff-Lobbyists and Airport Scanners

A few people have queried, paraphrasing here, 'wtf is this shit you speak of, politicians making money off selling security products which do not improve our safety?'. Hap tip to Rene for the short answer. Here:

http://www.politicolnews.com/chertoff-lobbyists-and-airport-scanners/

The former Head of Homeland Security had an ulterior motive in promoting the Airport security scanning machines that people are objecting to so strongly. The company that makes the machine is now one of Chertoff's clients but in the past under the Bush administration Chernoff was selling these machines to the government and to the Obama administration and they bought it hook, line and sinker.

"TSA Enhanced Pat Downs : The Screeners Point Of View"

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/18/tsa-enhanced-pat-downs-the-screeners-point-of-view/

...


“I come to work to do my job. It is not up to me to decide policy, it is up to me to carry out my duties as dictated by the Transportation Security Administration. When a person stands in front of me and calls me a pervert or accuses me of molesting them it is disheartening. People fail to understand that neither of us are happy about the intrusive pat down I am carrying out. I am polite, I am professional and while someone may not like what I have to carry out, they came to me because they choose not to utilize the alternative and less invasive method of security at my airport.”

---

Yeah, yeah.... you're just doing your job; following orders. So were the fucking frontline Nazis.

On the lighter side

"The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother"

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.

That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

"It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for -- not for hours -- but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.
---

---
Of course, opponents claim that "it doesn't scale". Procedure *works*, but the *products* we use today, which lawmakers have a vested interest in seeing purchased by airports, do not. Safety in this case does not have a product, and does not have money for our lawmakers to collect.

Our lawmakers choose money for themselves over safety for us. Remember that.

"GOP lawmaker says naked body scanners violate Fourth Amendment"

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/gop-lawmaker-naked-body-scanners-violate-fourth-amendment/

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is violating the Fourth Amendment by forcing travelers to submit to scans that produce images of the naked body, according to one Republican congressman from Texas.

Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Ted Poe blasted former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for his links to one of the companies that makes the equipment, The Hill reported.

Poe claimed President George W. Bush's former DHS secretary had given interviews advocating for the scanners while "getting paid" to sell them.

What's that? Terrorists are winning? Still?!

"News flash: Deadly terrorism existed before 9/11"

http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2010/11/10/airport_security/index.html

...


That's a pretty macabre fantasy, no? A worst-case war-game scenario for the CIA? A script for the End Times? Except, of course, that everything above actually happened, in a four-year span between 1985 and 1989. The culprits were the al-Qaidas of their time: groups like the Abu Nidal Organization and the Arab Revolutionary Cells, and even the government of Libya.


...

"Flier hauled off plane over too many bathroom breaks"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40343938/ns/travel-news/

For travelers this holiday season, make sure to pack light, keep a sense of humor during an intrusive pat-down and, apparently, don't drink too much water.

A passenger on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Denver was pulled off a plane Tuesday after other passengers said he was taking too many potty breaks, reports 9News.com.

---

Great... now we've been made to be overly paranoid against each other.

Another win for terrorists.

"EPIC v. DHS (Suspension of Body Scanner Program)"

http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanners/epic_v_dhs_suspension_of_body.html#lawsuit

EPIC has filed a lawsuit to suspend the deployment of body scanners at US airports, pending an independent review. On July 2, 2010, EPIC filed a petition for review and motion for an emergency stay, urging the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to suspend the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) full body scanner program. EPIC said that the program is "unlawful, invasive, and ineffective." EPIC argued that the federal agency has violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. EPIC cited the invasive nature of the devices, the TSA's disregard of public opinion, and the impact on religious freedom.

"Enough Is Enough!"

Ron Paul on TSA abuse of US citizens.

"Woman Says She Was Cuffed And Booted From Airport For Questioning Body Scanners"

http://consumerist.com/2010/11/meg-mclain-singled-out-by-the-tsa-cuffed-to-a-chair-her-ticket-ripped-up.html

Meg McLain claims that the TSA ripped up her US Airways plane ticket and called police who restrained her in a chair, cuffed her, and escorted her out of the airport after she opted out of the backscatter can. Her radio interview describing the incident is at 390,000 hits and growing, and the TSA has posted CCTV of the incident on their blog.

---

A little outside the TSA's operating realm. Actually, WAY outside of. Utter abuse of "power" by little-trained, unskilled workers.

"Pilots told to avoid new airport scanners, "demeaning" pat-downs"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/american-airlines-pilots-advised-to-avoid-new-airport-scanners.ars

Just over a week ago, we learned that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was stepping up its efforts to get Americans in front of its new clothes-piercing "backscatter" and "millimeter wave" scanners at airports. The devices have raised all sorts of concerns about privacy (they can see through clothes) and radiation, but those who don't go through them will now suffer an intimate pat-down of nut-busting proportions. And pilots have had enough.

Dave Bates heads the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots and claims to be the largest independent pilots' group in the world. Bates recently told his members that they should refuse the new scans, together know as "Advanced Imaging Technology" (AIT). And he thinks the new pat-downs are a disgusting breach of a pilot's "privacy and dignity."

From the lighter side

"Another TSA Outrage"

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/11/18/another-tsa-outrage/

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

---

Yeah. Armed soldiers returning from combat are OK. Unloaded rifles are OK and "not weapons" because they don't have bullets, but nail clippers? OH GOD NO!!!!

Land of the Free

A shirt a friend from TX sent me many, many moons ago. Applies now, more than ever.

"Former Gov. Ventura Will No Longer Fly Due to Abuse He's Endured at Hands of TSA"

http://www.infowars.com/breaking-former-gov-ventura-will-no-longer-fly-due-to-abuse-hes-endured-at-hands-of-tsa/print/

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, the former governor of Minnesota and host of the popular TruTV show, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, announced he will no longer use commercial airlines due to the egregious abuses of the TSA and the government.

Ventura said he made the decision to avoid public aircraft after he found himself becoming too comfortable with being routinely searched. He said he was subjected to pat down and search three or four times a week when he traveled for his television show. Ventura had hip surgery and the metal in his body invariably sets off airport metal detectors.

Jesse said he will no longer be forced by the TSA to prove he is not a criminal or terrorist. He refuses to be considered guilty until proven innocent by the government in violation of the Fourth Amendment. He also admitted the decision not to fly may put an end to his career.

TSA Clothing #2

http://www.despair.com/tsa.html

TSA Clothing #1

http://www.cafepress.com/TSAMassage

Source for this ultimately traces back to Spaf. Not sure if he originated it, or was passing it along.

"Assume the position: TSA begins new nut-busting pat-downs"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/assume-the-position-tsa-begins-new-ball-busting-patdowns.ars

---

Including this link for the bite here:

"But the new rules may not really be about "thoroughness" anyway, because "the obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech ball check." "

"Pushy fliers may show up on TSA's radar"

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-05-24-TSA-threatening-fliers-watch-list_N.htm

WASHINGTON — Airline passengers who get frustrated and kick a wall, throw a suitcase or make a pithy comment to a screener could find themselves in a little-known Homeland Security database.

The Transportation Security Administration says it is keeping records of people who make its screeners feel threatened as part of an effort to prevent workplace violence.

Privacy advocates fear the database could feed government watch lists and subject innocent people to extra airport screening.

"Is this going to be the baby watch list? There's a potential for the misuse of information or the mischaracterization of harmless events as potential threats," American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Michael German said.

A TSA report says the database can include names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers of people involved in airport incidents, including aggressors, victims and witnesses.

"New York, Orlando join anti-TSA rebellion, TSA mounts PR effort"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/new-york-orlando-join-anti-tsa-rebellion-while-tsa-mounts-pr-effort.ars

New York and Orlando aren't taking the TSA scanner/pat-down controversy lying down. Instead, officials in both places are fighting back. In Orlando, the Sanford airport is reportedly planning to take advantage of a little-known clause that allows airports to opt-out of TSA protection and instead use a federally approved private screening company.

"You're going to get better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service," a Sanford Airport Authority official told a local Orlando news outlet. The airport is moving ahead with the opt-out, and says it will take about a year to complete.

Further north, in New York, Democratic city council officials are plotting to ban the TSA's nude scanners entirely, Wired reports. No airport or other facility would be allowed to operate a backscatter scanner inside New York city limits.

---

Only prob with Sanford's move is that the private screeners are still required to use current TSA methodologies. However, I'm more OK having a highly paid Blackwater-grade professional groping my hardware than a mall cop.

"Air travel: One step behind terrorists"

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/130243-analyst-new-tsa-procedures-will-kill-more-americans-on-the-highway

Precisely because terrorist plots are "ever-evolving," it is fruitless to keep trying to prevent the last terror attack. Yet that is just what TSA keeps doing. What's worse, it treats every airline passenger as a potential terrorist who must be searched for weapons — any imaginable weapons — before being allowed to board. That is a crazy system — crazy in its ineffectiveness, in its breathtaking cost, and in the staggering degree of inconvenience and invaded privacy it imposes on innocent passengers. In security expert Bruce Schneier's cogent term, TSA provides not security, but security theater — "measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security."

"Analyst: TSA methods 'will kill more Americans on highway'"

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/130243-analyst-new-tsa-procedures-will-kill-more-americans-on-the-highway

The recent public ire toward the TSA's new pat-down and body imaging screening methods is likely to cause more people to drive automobiles and forego airline travel, say two transportation economists who have studied the issue.

As the nation readies for one of the busiest traveling holidays, Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, told The Hill that the probable spike in road travel, caused by adverse feelings towards the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) new screening procedures, could also lead to more car-related deaths.

God in human form; George Carlin on airport security

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?”

http://www.hlswatch.com/2009/10/15/

I am left to wonder whether my own passive acceptance of these evolving search procedures has contributed to a potentially fatal dichotomy: what we allow TSA screeners to do in order to maximize efficiency and enhance our perception of safety, or what we really need them to do in order to preserve our rights and dignity and enhance our actual safety.

We have asked TSA to find the tools terrorists use and prevent both from boarding a passenger plane. We have unintentionally created an agency that now seeks efficiency and compliance more than any weapon or explosive.

"TSA Terrifies, Too"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704496104575627151860149756.html

When will Americans declare the Transportation Security Administration a terrorist organization?

The TSA has evolved far beyond shaking down little old ladies for hair gel and children for liquid-filled snow globes.

Now it snaps naked pictures with creepy Advanced Imaging Technology machines, subjecting you to unknown health risks from radiation. And if you don't want to submit to this high-tech horror, one of its tub stackers will gladly pat down your genitals instead.

Several U.S. senators last week told TSA Director John Pistole that maybe his agency has gone too far. Ya think?

"I wouldn't want my wife being touched in the way these folks are being touched," Sen. George LeMieux, (R., Fla.) cried.

Mr. Pistole, an impeccably shaven former FBI official, was freakishly unrepentant: "I recognize the invasiveness of it. I also recognize the threats are real."

How Airport Security Should Be Done

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

"It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

---

Yup... US gets it completely wrong.

Then again, this way we have capital hill shills porkbarelling companies they represent, which makes money for him, but does nothing for our safety. Another way to say this is that a government official puts his personal profits ahead of protecting citizens he's supposed to be protecting.

The only problem with the Israeli model is that it's not only effective, it doesn't have a huge monetary profit center associated with it. Also, changing to it now, nine years later, would be an admission that what's been done for the last nine years is completely effective.



Consider also, the TSA has not stopped one terrorist, located one bomb, done a single thing to make us safer. What has stopped terrorists? Answer: Passengers. But, rather than treat us as an asset, the government demonstrates it feels we're all guilty until proven innocent by "security" that has received little more training than the average mall security guard (no exaggeration!).

Bruce Schneier has said that only two things have made us safer: Improved cockpit doors, and passenger awareness. This 2nd part plays in again, here: Previous to 9/11 passengers were passive, they knew that whatever happened that negotiators would eventually get them released. 9/11 we see that hostage situations are no longer about negotiations and even passengers on flight 93 revolted and kept that plane from reaching its intended target.

"TSA airport screeners gone wild in San Diego- again"

http://www.examiner.com/county-political-buzz-in-san-diego/tsa-airport-screeners-gone-wild-san-diego-again


This time the defendant, Sam Wolanyk says he was asked to pass through the 3-D x-ray machine. When Wolanyk refused, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel told him he would have to be patted down before he could pass through and board his airplane.


---


Well, this guy took my idea.

SoCal burns (yet again)

I apologize that Blogger sucks cock like a two dollar whore and does not accomodate big, manly sized pictures. For the images below, please copy the image address and paste into your browser to view the uncut version. Yes, I tried using their "insert image" link and it still crops it.

A compilation of things written in various places:

It's about 90F outside, 11% humidity. Santa Ana wind conditions, and a fire a few miles directly upwind. I woke up thinking it smelled rather ashy out, knowing the winds had been blowing all night (it was a mere 83 when I got home around 0100). The sky's given everything a nice bronzey colour all day. About an hour ago it was dark enough that my neighbor's "on at dusk" security lights turned on, just past noon.
2008-11-15 13:40:13
.....
Well, I bailed for the day, simply because I couldn't breath. Winds were kicking up the night before, and I shut my windows as I left for the night, as I know I'll find a fine layer of dust all over if I don't. I hadn't opened them all night as the winds were still strong when I got home around midnight or so. By 1100 Saturday, the house just smelled of burning, and that with the dryness was giving a major headache.
.....
First time I saw Jetboy play live, the wrapped their show with "Feel The Shake" and at 0300 the next day the Northridge earthquake slammed SoCal.

They finished with it again last night, but today the sky is bronze from the fires just up the road from me. I took this out my front window about 10 minutes ago:

Note there is no colour retouching or light levels edited in that pic at all. That's what it looked like. About 30 minutes before when the smoke was more overhead, there was a slim margin of blue over the roofs, and the sun was filtered through the smoke so everything (like the bright white house) had an amber tint to it. It was all so very surreal.

Anyone reading this in a timely manner can go to:
http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?zip=92866&magic=1&wmo=99999
Click the box labeled FIRE at the bottom. I'm about an inch SW of the big cluster of fire, right inline with the wind.

This is what the fire map looked like early yesterday:

Note the small amount burning. The big green blob that normally represents "clouds" is actually "smoke". Yeah, gross. I wish I had captured a pic from late last night when the smoke trail per the map incidcator (the gray rectangle running to the SW was almost solid black and covering most of the map.

From there, we look at the map as of right now:

That's a lot of fire, right there. More of what I've written about this:

The wind's not as bad as yesterday, not by a long shot. I'd go so far as to call it "calm" by comparison. That's a huge boost for firefighting efforts.

My usual batch of links:

This is impressive for two reasons:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/11/celia-ordaz-a-7.html

A) The dude is The Man.


B) People were not soaking their roofs pre-emptively. Garden hoses, people!

One article as of 0300 today states:

"There have been 7,373 acres burned so far. The good news is that the Fire Authority says that there is a 5 percent containment, but there are still over 1,000 homes threatened."

5% is *good news*? Sure, it's better than 4%, but 5% is nothing. This is almost a replay of the canyons last year that I wrote about here, but when they burned only... 200 homes max could've been threatened, perhaps. This is massive. Over 40,000 evacuations across three counties already, 140 residences lost, as well as the main building of the local high school. The wunderground link above still is valid, just check the 'fire' box at the bottom. Another more basic map from CALFIRE:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=103014136534897026967.000459297be1421fde023

If you click the link for Yorba Linda (Freeway Fire) they're reporting 10k acres burned, 0% contained, 3500 structures threatened.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7732389.stm

And this bums the fuck out of me:

"We just started losing homes. We didn't have enough units," said Mickey Hansen, a safety officer with the Orange County Fire Authority. "There were just so many fires. There wasn't enough (resources) to go around."

Same song as 13 months ago. :(

2008-11-16 12:29:00

McCain : Ties To Terror ?

OK, people... you're being asked to use your brain here. If this is too much for you, click your browser's "back" button or hit some random user down the left side of your screen.

First, this video, which can simply be dubbed Politics of Hate. McCain's an old fuck who's run out of steam and has nothing substantial to stand on. He was a POW. Great. Congratulations and all... but what does that give you towards running a country? McCain, your VP... dude, you're a heartbeat away from the grave. Someone slams a car door you can have a heart attack and it's over for you and she's in charge. She ran a city smaller than fucking UCLA. Her state is hardly at all representative of the 48 contintental, she has no clue what the rest of the country is run like and zero foreign relations experience.

That ranting out of my system for the next 30 seconds, watch this and see how low the republicans and the xtian right have to stoop to further their cause:

Pretty fucking disgusting, isn't it? Yeah. Now that you've got that down, the flat out *lies* and *bullshit* they need to generate and foster just to try to win (and like cheating at solitaire, is that *really* a "win" if that's how they grab it? And how fucked are we if a liar like McCain wins?) take a gander at this article wherein we learn that McCain's Transition Chief lobbied on behalf of Saddam Hussein (known ter'rist!) to ease sanctions against Iraq!:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html

Selected portions:

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

...

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism.

This is a long article. Please read it. Be fucking informed; know what's going on around you. Don't trust NBC or CNN and gad help us, Fox, to get the entire story on anything whatsoever.

And really, how dumb *are* people? Note in this vid when people are putting pins on the map, every country they're looking for is where Australia is... and no one notices:

Why You Should Never Talk To A Cop

I'm not one to spend my time trying to read all the cool sites out there. I gave up on slashdot about 6 or 8 years ago, I think. While Rands has some atypical hardon for Twitter as a data source (I still WTF?! heavily over that) I rely on people. Sure, Twitter is fed by people, but it's mindless drivel that comes across it. (Keep reading, I'm going somewhere with this.)

No, I rely on people I know to forward links of interest. I like Google's Reader, because people I know can one-click-share content they find valuable. Good chance I find it valuable, also.

One of those is JB. He has good shit to share. Even if I'm not interested in every item he has (which is one of my criteria of Who I Pay Attention To... are their links mostly interesting? Is it lolcats? DIAF.) they're all good and relevent at some level.

Drilling down further and to tie this back in to the original point of entry on this post, of the ones he shares this is one of the most interesting (and from a "big" site which I can't be bothered to skim):

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html

Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you're innocent

In a brilliant pair of videos, ,(sic) Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department present a forceful case for never, ever, ever speaking to the police without your lawyer present. Ever. Never, never, never.

Those of you that know me know that I rarely (note that) use absolute statements. However, when they say "never" here, they mean "never" the same way I do when I say "never".

Buy Windows, Support Scientology

http://www.rowtow.com/2008/02/10/everytime-you-pay-for-windows-2000-xp-or-vista-you-fund-the-church-of-scientology

I have nothing else to say on the matter.

Why US Dollar Coins Fail

Sent to me by JB:

The answer that economists and sociologists miss.

An Excellent Resource For Kalifornians...

...or for anyone who has someone close living here:

http://www.iscaliforniaonfire.com/

Oldschool Photochopping (literally)

Freaking *amazing* photo editting, manually, pre-photoshop:

http://myblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/this-is-fascinating-me-right-now/

Holy Crap! Crows Evolve Simian Tool Skillz!

Crows. Developing skills usually seen in chimps. We're *so* fucked!

...and...

China Bans Plastic Shopping Bags

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/01/08/china-bags.html

I also read somewhere that some parts of Canuckistan have, as well.

For some reasonable agitprop:

http://www.onebagatatime.com