It's been a while since my last update. No excuses; just lazy. zBlogger's down so I'll have to remember to copy this crap later.

In any case, I meant to post the following last week:

There's A Bear

I'm not too keen of blog/linking, that which I've recently accused a friend of succumbing to in too extreme a fashion. However a recent post of hers contains a link to Glenn Reynolds which I actually followed and felt that a response was necessary.

Follows the links, read the posts, and then come back.

By any chance does that brand of paranoia from Bush sound familiar? There's a threat out there and they MAY get us, so we better get them first. "There's a bear in the woods..." It's that whole paranoid bullshit from the Reagan Cold War era. But instead of Marshal Ronnie vs. the big, bad Commies, we have Crusader George vs. the big, bad terrorists. We have Bush using Terrorism as an excuse for his militarism, trashing of our economy, destruction of our privacy, and all the other things that for mere mortals would result in a long walk down a dark hallway to the Big House, complete with harmonica in the background.

Just shows that paranoia sure isn't pretty.

No Spam

It's nice of our Government to be going after those evil, annoying spammers. Hey, once the spammers are curtailed, how about going after marketers who send all those throwaways in the mail. That garbage is annoying and may cause physical debilitation when lifting a large pile to throw away.

But why stop there. Let's get rid of those annoying billboards. No one LIKES them. They're as unwanted as spam. And, and, and TV ads as well - get rid of them.

All the annoying Marketing that is the backbone of our consumer corporations have to go!

It's like alcohol and marijuana. They're both drugs and potentially dangerous. Why outlaw one and not the other? Why go after spam and not unwanted ads in general?

Wonder what would happen if the spammers started making political donations...

Hot Winds A-Blowin'

In sunny So Cal this time of year we usually get hot winds called Santa Anas blowing in from the deserts towards the Pacific. These hot winds make people crazy. Temperatures shoot up to the 90s and 100s, and the wind just keeps blowing. It's the worst time of year for fires which is what we're having right now. Already over 100,000 acres and numerous homes have been charred around So Cal.

And though my house is in minor danger from a nearby fire my thoughts about all this keep returning to "What a simple act of terrorism this could be."

I'm not saying that these fires were a terrorist act but, instead, it could have been a simple act of terrorism and there is no way to protect any one from it. Billions of dollars for Homeland Security and fancy, privacy-invasive databases that amount to nothing. Airports with screening procedures worthy of Nazi Germany, with dubious effectiveness. Some one tell me how our Government will ensure our security when a truly destructive terrorist act could involve nothing more than a calendar and a pack of matches, with the calendar being optional.

No paper trail. No training required. Nothing. All a terrorist would have to do is wait for the Santa Anas to come steam rolling in around late September, and then play firebug. With the hot winds a-blowin' a true Firestorm obviously can quickly become a reality. The Fire Departments end up playing only defense and praying for rain.

Or how can Homeland prevent a terrorist from doing a McVeigh on the L.A. freeways? Load up a car with fertilizer and knock out an interchange like the 405 and 101, or the 405 and the 10. Get a bunch of those wackos and you can cripple L.A. by taking out enough interchanges. Planning and costs - minimal.

Or the electrical grid. Take the aforementioned fertilizer cars and go after the power stations.

And that's just L.A.. Fertilizer cars could knock out the bridges in the Bay Area, take out tunnels/bridges in New York. How about a series of small private planes loaded with fertilizer?

Point being that terrorism can be a simple, cheap and highly destructive economically and psychologically. So how is Homeland going to protect us?