9-11 Five Years Later

I  was just taking off in an American Airlines flight to Chicago from Ottawa on that morning.  As we reached cruising altitude near Kingston the aircraft started a 180 degree turn.  The pilot came on and said we were going back to Ottawa, landing and unloading.  There was nothing wrong with the plane, don’t worry. 

I called Marylou on the airphone and was greeted by a stream of tears.  An airliner had crashed into the World Trade Centre.  Nobody on the plane knew the actual reason we were being returned to Ottawa.  All the flight crew got was a message to take it back to Ottawa, land it, unload and wait further instructions.  I became the source, repeating news from the phone to the passengers and cabin crew near me.  We were all dumbstruck.  As we neared Ottawa the connection was dropped for some reason.  I tried to connect again but was unable to get a dial tone. 

Since we had cleared US Customs in Ottawa, we were an embargoed flight and technically had to clear Canadian Customs.  We landed then held short of the gate, so I turned on my cellphone and called home to more tears from Marylou.  Things had gone from bad to worse.  There were rumours that more flights were crashing out of sky and my sudden disconnection had dropped Marylou into a puddle of tears, as she assumed that my flight was in flames somewhere. 

After calming each other down there was a gasp in her voice.  The second flight had just slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, live on every television channel.  Our flight trundled up to the gate and we were unloaded into the airport without going through customs.  The message from American Airlines was terse:  Get your bags and go home. 

I have never and hope I never again hear, 3,000 people making no sound whatsoever.  We all stood there, mouths agape watching the playback again and again.  There would be an occasional sob.  A younger couple from Seattle were standing next to me, trying frantically to get a dial tone on their cellphone, with no success.  I fired my phone up, got a dial tone and handed it to them; they protested it would cost me minutes.   “Call your family, let them know you’re ok.  Don’t worry about it, just do it.” I said.  They called, briefly told their family what was happening and handed my phone back.  They murmured thanks and walked away with that slow shuffling walk of people who are in a state of mental overload. 

Marylou arrived at the airport and hugged me tighter than I have ever been hugged.  We rushed home.  We parked on the sofa for the next three days trying to follow the events. 

I saw the towers fall, live on TV.  I still can’t process the logic that 220 floors of structure, offices and people was pulverized into elemental dust.

I saw the cloud of dust hang like a grisly apostrophe over the New York City skyline. 

I heard the reporters, notably Paula Zahn and Aaron Brown, try to wrap their reportorial minds around what they were seeing. 

I saw the shaky video of the scene at the Pentagon, some kind of huge blast tearing a flaming slice out of the building. 

I saw the images of people running away from the danger:  Panic and tears distorting faces into wet masks of fear.

To this day I still cannot imagine that day, or those emotions, without weeping.

Since that ghastly day, we have learned much about what went on, the timelines, the people, the mistakes and the heroic efforts.  None of it brings back the nearly 3,000 people killed on that day, or restores the families and lives that have been irreparably damaged. 

Nothing anyone can do will put things back to the way things were on September 10^th, 2001.  I’m sorry for that.

Michael Schumacher Retires

Michael Schumacher, 37, is retiring at the end of this Formula One season.  So says Michael in the press room at Monza after he won the end of the today’s F1 event.

Some of you don’t follow motorsport, so let me fill in the blanks.  Schumacher is the Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Russ Howard and Peyton Manning of Formula One racing.  Since his first race in the Big Show in 1991 he has won 7 World Driving Championships, 90 wins, 68 pole positions and 153 podium finishes, records all.

Schumacher earns a reputed $80 million US a year from his racing, endorsements and personal appearances.

To say that he is an extraordinary driver is like saying Michelangelo’s La Pieta is a not-too-bad piece of sculpture, Chuck Yeager was an OK pilot and Iggy Pop is a touch odd.

Schumacher is lucky, in that he isn’t dead, as his chosen career does tend to claim a few lives.  He is also as skilled as can be imagined in the rain, in the dry and with a less than perfect car.  So far, no details on what he’s going to do, aside from lock himself in the basement and count the money. 

Formula One is a sport of thousands of a second, thousands of an inch and thousands of wannabes.  Schumacher was one of a very few who conquered those thousands of thousands.

Ads You Love To Hate

We’re going to start a new category in here: Ads You Love To Hate. 

You know the ads I mean, the ones that make you desperately want to run from the room.  The commercials that make you want to throw your coffee cup at the TV, except you suddenly realize that a 9 oz ceramic coffee cup, hurled at your big screen plasma mondo-deluxe video display will put you back $3,000.  The ads that make you want to cuss.

The nominees have to be national or regional in nature, meaning the House of Guitars ads from Rochester, New York are not eligible, as readers in other areas of the continent can’t see them and appreciate their hideousness. 

The nominees should be current, as in the last six months or so.

Describe the ad as best you can and your reasons why the ad should be sent to burn in hell for all eternity. 

Voting will be held by either trackback or comment, which you can click on at the end of each posting.

Prizes?  Not a freakin’ one.  Revenge potential?  Oooooh baby!

Semi Fake News IV

It seems that arrests and apologies dominate this week.

RADAR Online (Jeff Bercovici) NEW YORK  50 Cent is being held at New York’s Midtown South precinct house on West 35th Street after being pulled over for a traffic violation. An officer on the scene told Radar the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, had been charged with a section 509 violation, driving without a license or with a suspended license.

A crowd of at least 75 people gathered around the precinct house, taking photos of Fiddy’s vehicle, a chrome-finished Lamborghini Murcielago with dealer license plates reading "Unique Auto Sport." Unique’s website features a photo of the rapper posing with the car, worth an estimated $466,000. Officers were trying to keep the traffic-snarling crowds on the opposite side of the street, but one did pause long enough to provide Radar with some color on the arrest:

"He was being an asshole, speeding or some shit. They stopped him and he wouldn’t give up his license. He kept saying, ‘You know who I am. I know you know who I am,’ so they had to lock him up." The officer then turned to a colleague and said, "You believe this mook?"

At least they didn’t Taser him first, like the LA Cops do.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Celebrity Paris Hilton was arrested in Hollywood early on Thursday for suspected drunk driving, but she said the incident had been blown out of proportion and that she may have been speeding to get a late-night burger.

Hilton, 25, the heiress to the Hilton hotel dynasty known for her hard-partying lifestyle, was pulled over by police in Hollywood around 1 a.m. for driving erratically.

She told KIIS-FM radio in an interview on Thursday morning that she had been to a charity fund-raiser party after a long day shooting a music video and had just one margarita.

"I had one margarita (and) was starving because I had not eaten all day," she said. "Maybe I was speeding a little bit and I got pulled over. I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out Burger and get my famous face all over the media as my career is tanking by the hour.  I might have to do another night-vision porno.”

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized on Friday for calling a Latina state lawmaker "very hot" in private remarks obtained by a newspaper — although the legislator herself said she wasn’t offended.

Schwarzenegger made the comment about Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia during a closed-door meeting with members of his staff last spring. A tape recording of the informal session was obtained by the Los Angeles Times, which printed them on its front page.

"I mean, they are all very hot," the governor said of Cubans and Puerto Ricans, according to the paper. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them and together that makes it."

According to the Times, the film star-turned politician was referring to the fiery personalities of Cubans and Puerto Ricans in general and of Garcia in particular.

"Anyone out there that feels offended by those comments, I just want to say I’m sorry," Schwarzenegger said during a news conference. "I apologize because that was not the intention. The fact is that if I would hear those kind of comments in my house, by my kids, I would be upset."

Gov. Schwarenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, said that “He should talk about hot, he’s got a schvantz on him like a baby’s arm holding an apple in its fist.  But he also knows I’ll cut it off and shove it up his ass if he wants to dip his wick anywhere but my tight little Cape Cod Cooch.”

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA scrubbed Friday’s launch of the space shuttle Atlantis again, this time because of a problem that has bedeviled the space agency before: a faulty fuel tank sensor.

The launch was rescheduled for 11:15 a.m. EDT on Saturday, when NASA will try a fifth time to get Atlantis off the ground and send it to the international space station to resume construction on the orbiting outpost, which has been on hold since the Columbia tragedy 3 1/2 years ago.

Saturday is the last time NASA has to launch Atlantis before it has to go to the back of the line, behind a Russian Soyuz capsule that is slated for liftoff Sept. 18 on a flight to the space station. Both Atlantis and the Soyuz cannot be at the space station at the same time.

ISS Astronauts are now down to one can of Ocean Spray Cranberry Jelly, two boxes of Kraft Dinner and a partially eaten box of Wasa Crispbreads.  Astronaut Michail Bitchakokoff, in a NASA two-way radio interview said he was “So goddam pissed that jets of steam are coming out of my freakin’ head.  Over.”

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I wish I could make this stuff up.

NATO Wants Help

The chief of NATO, General James Jones, says the next few weeks could be decisive for the alliance in the fight against the insurgents in Afghanistan.  Big surprise that, as the Taliban funfest has been heating up from beyond a peace making operation to a balls-out war for the past six months.  Canada is up to its armpits in Afghanistan, with a few thousand boots on the ground getting shot at, killed and wounded.  The most recent casualties were several injured and one killed in a friendly fire incident near Panjwaii.

The call for reinforcements overlooks an elemental feature of the whole Afghanistan/Iraq battle zone:  You can’t hold ground unless you have people on the ground.  This is Tactics 101 and has been true since Roman times.  Unless you have troops in the location, you cannot hold the location. 

This was never more true than in Viet Nam.  The Viet Cong could control vast areas of the south, using the wonderfully effective tool of terror.  The Viet Cong could hold ground with a lightly armed company as the non-combatant civilians were utterly cowed.  The US would get annoyed by this and send in a couple of thousand troops by helicopter.  The troops would patrol aggressively, shooting up everything in sight.  Lines would be drawn on maps in various colour grease pencils, press conferences would be held, body counts taken and more rounds fired off.  A week later, the US troops would helicopter out feeling all victorious.  By the afternoon, the Viet Cong were back in control of the area. 

Afghanistan and Iraq are exactly the same.  You cannot hold ground with an absentee landlord. 

There are two ways to get a population to accept your position.  The first is to terrorize them beyond all possible sense.  Ask any former Soviet-bloc country, like Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Yugoslavia or Poland:  Terror works just fine. 

The second is to have a lot of well-armed troops, visible, all over the place.  Again, ask any former Soviet-bloc country.  Knowing that there were a couple of dozen divisions of armoured troops just the other side of the border with Russia, tends to adjust your attitude as a country.

Since NATO has decided not to pursue Option #1, (thank heavens) that leaves Option #2. 

NATO and the US in their other conflicts have tried to use air power as a way to hold ground.  It didn’t work 1963 through to 1972 until Nixon turned the B-52’s loose and used them as a terror weapon to bomb the snot out of anything that moved.  Total destruction of whole swaths of Ha Noi convinced the North Viet Nam government to come back to the bargaining table.  Only by using air power as a terror weapon can you change anything except narrow areas of landscaping.  Ask Israel about using air power as a terror weapon:  They can explain it just fine. 

Boots on the ground are the only way to bring about change in a vaguely humanitarian way.  The problem is NATO and the US do not have enough boots on the ground.  To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you fight with the army you have, not the army you want.  Except Rumsfeld has had nearly three years to get the army wanted over there and working to adjust some attitudes.

The only way to close down the insurgency in Afghanistan and stop the civil war in Iraq is to put a lot of troops into the area.  We’re talking about units on most street corners, ready and willing to bring all kinds of hell down on anyone dumb enough to fire at them.  This would require, according to some estimates, close to 500,000 troops.  There aren’t enough troops available to do it in Iraq or Afghanistan, which explains General James Jones’ comments.

The US might be able to muster some more if they bring back Selective Service and draft about 100,000 able-bodied citizens.  There is the other issue of how to pay for it, but Dubya and Rumsfeld have proven that they have no shame about racking up the biggest federal deficit ever.  What’s another trillion, right?  Especially when their buddies get a big slice of that pie, those two would do it.

The other contentious issue is the political will to reestablish the Selective Service draft and then actually draft a lot of people into the military.  Wrap it up in the “War on Terror” and that sandwich would be swallowed by the Conservative Right with a big glass of milk.  Needless to say the bulk of draftees wouldn’t be the children of the Republican base, as the college deferment would pop up instantly.  There would also be a draft deferment based on owning more than one cell phone and having five pieces of Abercrombie and Fitch apparel in your closet.  Oh, and being white, wealthy, lazy and from Texas. 

I dare not suggest that mandatory Selective Service for all undocumented aliens wanting citizenship is a solution.  Those swine in DC like Cheney and Rove are vile enough to figure they could make it fly, especially if Halliburton and KBR do the selecting and the initial training for a fee.  I don’t want my name anywhere near that idea and I feel guilty for even having the concept come to mind.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.

Could the US and NATO win in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Nope.  Not with the way things are today.  There are not enough feet in the dirt.  It hasn’t worked in the past.  It won’t work now, even with the most high-tech of high-tech weapons.  Ground is held by armed troops, not computer screens and consultants.  And you can’t improve the current situation until you hold the ground. 

By the way, I define “win” as having the local population confident enough to run their own affairs.  The lights have to be on, the water has to work and there has to be some kind of infrastructure for security that will keep the local market operating so people can buy, sell and grow food.  The rest of it (Full Jeffersonian Democracy bowing to Washington five times a day) is immaterial and will never happen if the people don’t have food, water and a little bit of security.

So, the options in front of us change. 

The first is to put as many feet as possible over there and try to control things long enough for change to happen.  This could take another year or two of deaths, horrific injuries, shattered lives and destruction beyond all sense for everyone involved.  It might even mean a massive military mobilization on a scale we haven’t seen since World War II.  Run by who?  The UN?  Please don’t make me laugh that hard; my lips are chapped and my leg hurts.

The second option is to pack it up and go home.  Pull up the tents, pack up the tanks and say “Thank you for playing.  Good Bye.  Whoever is left alive in six months’ time can call us.”  This means making a difficult moral decision to look at our responsibilities for causing a lot of the madness in the area.

My personal thought is that we may be responsible for half of the insanity.  Remember that Saddam was a US ally, funded and CIA-supported when he was fighting Iran.  The Taliban were our allies, funded and CIA-supported when they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, so the US and by extension the Western World, does have some blame to shoulder. 

I could bring up a lot of oil and politics jiggery-pokery about Hamid Karzi being a former Unocal fixer, Halliburton having their fingers up the arse of  the Iraq State Oil Company as well as ARAMCO from Saudi Arabia and the whole House of Saud being propped up by Big Oil.  But I won’t, as it is too long a post as it also includes monomaniacal American support for Israel and some other stuff that is too disturbing to contemplate or explain.

Iraq and Afghanistan also have to smarten up a goodly bit.  Stop behaving like tribal assholes and remember that you are part of the whole world.  Otherwise the West is going to have to cut you loose to kill each other and live with our guilt over causing it.    

Dubya Confessional

Today Dubya has finally admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency has some high value prisoners in custody at various places around the world.  In an afternoon press conference a fartcatcher for Dubya said that he will announce that high-value detainees now being held at secret CIA prisons will be transferred to the Department of Defense and granted protections under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.  It has been rumoured that the CIA was operating what they call “rendition” flights using private aircraft to ship captured Al Qaeda prisoners around the world in a global shell game.

The reason for the off shore jails are simple enough.  If the captured folks, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, were put in American or Department of Defense prisons, the CIA would be forced to play by the commonly accepted rules of international behavior.  Off shore, the CIA can use the rules of “whatever works” to get confessions and information from the persons in question, or the local legal rules, whichever is harsher. 

As an example, Romania has a simple human rights charter:  You Ain’t Got None, Now Shut Up. Consequently the CIA folks could start their questioning with simple concepts like:  “How many of your fingers will I have to cut off with these here bolt cutters before you tell me everything I want to know?” or “Would you like 90 volts or 120 volts applied to your balls in the next 30 seconds?  Concepts like evidence, innocent until proven guilty, rights to legal counsel and the right to not self-incriminate go out the window.  However, Khallid Sheikh Mohammed never gave the people in the World Trade Centre or in the airplanes that crashed into it, a warning that bad things were about to happen, so I am of two minds here.

The interesting part is that Dubya is now admitting that these kinds of things have gone on and are going on.  Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have kept the pressure on the US, resulting in the CIA closing down their little off shore hideaways in Poland and Romania back in December.  Now it is rumoured the detainees are treated to the hospitality of some small Pacific Rim countries and a resort or two in Afghanistan. 

The black-helicopter brigade are all a-twitter about it.  The general plot-line being if the CIA is now being caught at (well, let’s call it what it is) prisoner torture in 2006, how long has it really been going on?  Since the Bay of Pigs?  Since Watergate?  Since the Second World War?  I hate to fan the flames of the black-helicopter fires, but the kidnapping and torture of suspected spies, terrorists and assorted other bad guys has been going at least since the American Revolutionary War. 

My family originally lived in Brockton, Massachusetts and were prosperous textile merchants.  The Smiths were on the boat that followed the Mayflower.  One night a small group of armed and very angry men came to the house and invited the family to leave immediately or die in a horrible fire.  The family, having a lick of sense, packed up what they could carry and headed for Canada the next day, abandoning the textile mill and all their possessions that wouldn’t fit on a wagon.

This happened in 1775.  The original Smith clan were what were called Loyalists.  Upper Canada welcomed them with open arms and they settled in what is now Brockville, Ontario to become drunkards, gamblers, thieves and reprobates. 

During the Second World War, the Allies had a couple of facilities near Liverpool that obtained information from downed German airmen and any spies that were captured.  The methods were, um, effective.  The Germans did the same thing.  So did the Russians, the Japanese and the Americans.  For that matter Canada had a place near Oshawa that was used for all kinds of things including ‘special detention’ facilities.

At least Dubya has admitted it has been going on and now detainees will be treated ‘humanely’.  The out is the pronouncement only applies to those detainees in the custody of the Military.   CIA detainees are excluded and the real number in CIA custody is somewhere from a dozen to two dozen.  Fourteen have been admitted to by Dubya.  As for how many will survive long enough to be turned over to the military is anyone’s guess.  Oooopsie.  There was a terrible accident and, well, you know.  Business as Usual.      

Voting Machines and Bin Laden Free Pass

There were two stories that got a vein on the side of my head to pulse today.  The first is a follow up to a RoadDave on the old website a few years ago.  In that old post, I pointed out that voting machines that do not provide for a paper backup record of my choices were evil little pieces of poo.  As our US neighbours go into mid-term elections, my attitude has not changed. 

Diebold, one of the two big names in e-voting machines, selling zillions of them, had their ‘secure’ e-voting machine physically hacked.  The work was performed by two middle-aged women with little or no skills except some understanding of ‘righty-tighty-lefty-loosey’ and an Allen key wrench.  Go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org if you want to see how it is done, as it is so simple as to make you fall over.  The most troubling problem with a physical hack is that the memory card that holds your ‘vote’ can be replaced without a trace. 

I wouldn’t suggest that the Republicans would do that, any more than I would suggest that a sitting President would lie to the American public about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

The second vein-throbber for me was this one from ABC News correspondent Brian Ross’ blog: 

“Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life," Pakistani officials tell ABC News.

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

So far, this week, we’ve lost seven Canadian soldiers fighting the Taliban who have cut a deal with the Pakistan Army.  To put a fine point on it, Pakistan is not interested in capturing Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice.  The Afghan Taliban have proven they don’t give a shit either. 

The US government is not serious about being in Afghanistan or Iraq, as demonstrated by their refusal to commit the number of troops needed to get the job done.  Too much of the budget needed to get an effective number of boots on the ground is being sucked up by Haliburton and the other contractors who look at these occasions as a payday.  They know that Dubya and Cheney will just stand up and say “war on terror, evil-doers, national security, axis of evil’ to distract anyone from looking too closely at the money.

Do remember that, my dear American friends, when you go to vote in a mid-term election on an electronic voting machine that can be fudged in four minutes or less.  The money to pay for the war on terror and that hackable voting machine came out of your pocket.

Crikey!

Steve Irvin, the insanely popular Crocodile Hunter, was killed today off the coast of Australia, by a stingray barb through the heart.  Irvin, 44, was the man who made “Crikey!” a catchphrase and his wide-eyed enthusiasm for all manner of wild and dangerous animals, reptiles, amphibians and fish will not be soon forgotten.

Despite the weirdness of someone deliberately wanting to get that close and personal with animals that would just as soon eat you as let you pet them, Irwin did manage to communicate some of the essential nature of the animal kingdom.  That is as good an epitaph as you can get. 

He was shooting footage for a new series called “Ocean’s Deadliest” for the Animal Planet network in the US.  His death also brings up a small observation:  Animals don’t necessarily like human presence in their environment. 

At best, wild animals tolerate us.  Humans should remember that we are guests when we go into places where undomesticated wildlife has the run of the joint.  As guests that means we don’t leave anything behind except footprints and take out nothing but photos or memories.  

Semi-Fake News III

For some reason these are all out of Washington DC today.  I have no idea why.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for monitoring the tone of Iraq news stories filed by U.S. and foreign media.

Proposals, due Sept. 6, ask companies to show how they’ll "provide continuous monitoring and near-real time reporting of Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. media," according to the solicitation issued last week.

Contractors also will be evaluated on how they will provide analytical reports and customized briefings to the military, "including, but not limited to tone (positive, neutral, negative) and scope of media coverage."

Other media scope coverage tones are:  “Rumsfeld is a War Criminal”,  “Dubya is too stupid to be that clueless” and “Cheney is a thieving bastard who should rot in Hell for all Eternity”  Why not?

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING INFO)

The United States successfully carried out a flight test of ground- based missile defense system Friday, shooting down a warhead over the Pacific Ocean and saying it now has a "good chance, as soon as pigs can fly" to intercept long- range North Korean missiles.

The success, which came after two failed tests in December 2004 and February 2005, is expected to boost the recently stepped-up U.S. efforts to build up its missile shield since North Korea’s missile launches on July 5.

"I think we have a good chance" to shoot down long-range North Korean missiles, Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering said in announcing the successful test.  "And it’s one that I feel safer and sleep better at night," Obering told a press conference. 

Shortly after the press conference, the new missile shield weapon was pointed at the broad side of a barn.  Skeeter Murdock, 81, a farmer in Bumcramp, Nevada reported that his barn was missed by the shot, but his henhouse and outhouse were destroyed.

Mark Garagos, attorney for Skeeter Murdock, said that he will be suing the US Department of Defense for $114 gazillion dollars.

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By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

Associated Press Writer  WASHINGTON

The Postal Service recently, with great fanfare, issued a new set of stamps depicting motorcycles. Collectors who buy copies issued on the first day the stamps are available can get them with a special commemorative postmark. Unfortunately, the colorful postmark spells it "motorcyle."

Having discovered this, the post office announced Friday that new orders for first-day envelopes will have a corrected postmark.

Unless the buyer wants it spelled wrong. In that case they can still order the version with the incorrect postmark. Just include a note asking for the incorrect version.

The Postal Service is also offering new custom postmarks to collectors wanting the postmark to say things like “Vroom-Vroom”  “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” and “Franked by Chinese”

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By BRIAN WESTLEY

Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON

With the nation’s capital experiencing a spike in violent crime, Lori Boothroyd felt a little uneasy about bringing her family to the city.  "I told the kids to stay near me," the Noblesville, Ind., mother said as she paused on the National Mall to snap pictures of the Washington Monument.

Businesses and government officials are worried that other visitors will share the same concerns in the wake of robberies and slayings at tourism sites.

"If you keep mugging people on the Mall, you’re going to mug our economy at some point," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting member of Congress.

When asked for a reaction, Vice-President Dick Cheney, rolling naked in a swimming pool filled with $100 dollar bills at his undisclosed location said “Fuck that.  Just don’t go where there are Negroes.  Doesn’t she get it yet??”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S. guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday.

Mercury can be worn in amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to the EPA’s inspector general.

Some practitioners believe that the mercury, which forms tiny droplets in liquid form, can attract love, luck or riches, and even ward off evil, the report said.

The EPA’s inspector general did say that as long as the religion wasn’t mainstream God-Fearing Christian, Protestant and mostly White, he could give a rats’ ass if they all died from mercury poisoning.

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I wish I could make this stuff up.

Mouse Prints and Finger Prints

The Walt Disney company is going a step too far.  The Mouse is taking the fingerprints of guests to ensure that those who buy tickets to the Orlando Greedfest are who they say they are.  According to a story on WKMG (www.local6.com) the newest wrinkle in getting into the park is to give up your fingerprints.

To prevent the widespread fraud and resale of Magic Kingdom tickets, you have to tie your identity to the ticket.  In the past, Disney used finger and hand shape recognition to check identity.  Now, the actual fingerprint is taken and, according to the Disney PR fartcatcher, the data is held for 30 days.

Disney, being a technologically advanced company, has developed a reliable, durable fingerprint reader that will scan the digit in less than a second and generate a numerical value to associate the ticket with the human.  After that, all the park has to do is ask for the human’s finger again to ensure that, yes, this human belongs here.  Of course, these readers will be mandatory at each attraction to “ensure security” and to see what attractions are popular, unpopular, over-attended or will be experiencing crowds. 

I’ve had to submit my fingerprints to get various security clearances over the years.  I have no problem with the general concept of a background check for government work and work that might entail material of a secure nature.  I can choose not to apply for those kinds of jobs and the government has reasonable controls over who has access to that information about me.  Those who have access to the nuclear launch codes should be screened extensively; no question there.

The identity of a human for the purposes of conducting day to day business has some value.  Your Driver’s License is proof to the police that you are remotely familiar with the Rules of the Road and have paid the fees and insurance mandated by law to access the privilege of driving a motor vehicle in Ontario.

Your SSN, or SIN number in Canada, is proof that you are entitled to have Social Insurance payments and taxes deducted at source then forwarded to the government on your behalf. 

Your health card number and picture means you are entitled to wait in a lineup in a hospital emergency room. 

Your passport means the Federal government has given you a cursory look, is satisfied that you are a citizen and in the Name of Her Majesty the Queen is asking a foreign government to give you all aid and assistance without let or hinderance.

CostCo wants to see my membership card to ensure that I have paid my membership fee and I should be allowed into the store:  Same with a library card, video rental card or a CAA membership.

For those purposes, I have no problem giving up the data.  It is legal, lawful, reasonable and sensible. 

The rest of the data collection is utterly unwarranted and I refuse to play, as the companies involved are just fishing.

My personal favourite is the request from certain stores for your telephone number along with your signature on a credit card slip.  On more than one occasion I have signed my name as Dirty Sanchez or Avery T. Deacon Harry.  The T stands for Tom.

I’ve also use 613-745-1576 as the phone number.  That phone number is the National Research Council Official Time Signal, by the way.  Call it as often as you’d like.

In every case, the clerk doesn’t give a rats’ ass, as long as there is some kind of squiggle on the slip.  All the credit card company cares about is the physical presence of the card in the reader.

As best as I can determine, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, does not contain high security data of National Security grade, or the launch codes for nuclear war.  As long as my ticket is not counterfeit and I have presented it myself, then I would like admittance.  Disney can choose not to admit me, as that is their right, as long as I get a refund.  I have the right to not buy their ticket in the first place.   

There is no reason why, including the elusive ‘security’ that you should have to give up fingerprints to a commercial organization.  Especially if there are no controls over the database of fingerprints except the lame mouthings of a PR flack who says they ditch the data every month.  If the Department of Homeland Paranoia demands the fingerprint data of all the customers in the Magic Kingdom, then Disney will give it up in less than ten seconds.

The time is coming when you are going to be asked for your fingerprints for even the slightest transaction, if the paranoia preachers have their way.  You can resist this by refusing to give out data that you feel is none of their business. 

The only entity with the right to demand your fingerprints are the police, and then, only if you are charged with a crime and arrested.  Tell the rest of them to stick a finger in their stink if they want some prints.