Category: News

Everything you own, citizen, is at the government’s leisure and at its disposal. Or some government officials think:

American cell phones can already check e-mail, surf the Internet and store music, but they could have a new set of features in coming years: the Department of Homeland Security wants them to sense biological, chemical and radioactive material.

Putting hazardous material sensors in commercial cell phones has been discussed in scientific circles for years, according to researchers in the field. More recently, the idea gained support among government agencies, and DHS said publicly in May that it wants businesses to start coming up with proposals.

No doubt the wireless carriers are all behind this proposal because they’ll have an excuse to make everyone upgrade to new, more expensive phones and to charge all customers new monthly fees to support the mandatory program.

Not to worry:

Like the built-in GPS function many cell phones now offer, customers would have the option of turning the sensors off, McGinnis said.

Got that, citizen? For marketing e-mail, you have to expressly opt-in, but for intrusive government surveillance programs, you have to expressly opt-out, with that opt-out no doubt going to a database of people who suspiciously opted out.

I have no problem if this becomes a netcentric program like SETI At Home, but the government and its cronies in corporations don’t play like that. Because the government knows what’s best for you!

The San Francisco Chronicle laments the death of a wasteful tax-funded project:

For just 10 cents a day per child, California public school kids are getting to eat fresh apples, oranges and strawberries along with their Pop-Tarts and doughnuts at school breakfast.

At least, that’s been true for the last two years under the pilot Fresh Start program, designed to steer kids away from obesity and diabetes and toward healthy foods.

But Fresh Start is in jeopardy just as preliminary reports are showing its initial success. In an effort to cover a $366 million funding gap in the education part of the state budget, the Legislature recently cut the $11.1 million that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to keep Fresh Start going in the next school year and make it permanent.

The cut incensed child nutrition specialists and advocates.

California has accidentally done the fiscally responsible thing and eliminated a goofball project that steps outside the bounds of the government’s responsibilities. Notably, those who received the largesse are upset.

This post is getting a lot of hits for Jessica Cutler today, apparently because she just filed for bankruptcy.

Which helps traffic since I’m not posting anything much this week.

Oh, sorry, no; since it’s a bad thing for a particular woman, society should perhaps take extra steps to not do it: Texas woman on death row still represents rarity:

A neighbor in a suburban Austin neighborhood appeared to be the perfect babysitter for Eryn Baugh’s infant son and his 2-year-old sister.

“She’s the most sweet, endearing person in the world and put forward this good Christian front,” Baugh said of Cathy Lynn Henderson, who lived two blocks away. “She could sell snow to an Eskimo.”

But just weeks after Henderson started working for the Baughs, 3-month-old Brandon was dead and Henderson had fled the state. The infant’s body was found buried 60 miles away with his skull crushed, wrapped in his yellow-trimmed white blanket and stuffed into a box that previously held Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers.

Henderson, 50, is set to die in less than three weeks for the 1994 slaying that made her one of the most hated women in Texas. She would be just the 12th woman among the nearly 1,100 convicted killers executed since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1977.

Where are the people who complain about the fact that most corporate structures at the top favor men? For consistency, shouldn’t the underrepresentation of women on death row also be protested?

Silly boy; those who protest in their hearts of hearts often misquote Emerson: A consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Oh, no; a dispute over a sizeable sunken treasure find could derail the EU and cause Spain to send a vast armada–both of its remaining warships–up the Thames in an all-out war to break the backs of the English sea dogs: Deep sea treasure trove launches trans-Atlantic dispute:

Odyssey has insisted it found the wreck in international waters in the Atlantic but has kept the exact site secret, but Madrid suspects the ship was discovered in Spanish territorial waters and a Spanish newspaper reported the vessel itself belonged to Spain.

“What we’re seeing here is a presumed incidence of plundering,” First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday.

Spain opened a probe into the exact location of the wreck last week after the culture ministry became suspicious of the circumstances in which the cargo, worth an estimated 400 million dollars, was found.

Yeah, Spain, who probably minted the coins from stolen Incan or Aztec gold, is on record accusing the American treasure hunting company of plundering. But that’s apparently how it goes in 2007; any possession that was previously owned by someone from another country belongs to the previous owner as long as it’s old.

Bonus additional snark: Iranian officials also claim that the Odyssey was in Iranian national waters and regrets missing the opportunity to seize it.

When presented with a story like this:

A truck driver hauling more than 17 million bees was killed in an accident on Interstate 55.

I am torn as into which direction I want to snark.

Do I wonder Is this part of the great bee assassination conspiracy that’s killing all the honey bees, or do I wonder Whom will the bees sue? and make a list that includes the truck company, the makers of the guard rail, the family of the dead truck driver, and the makers of Honey Nut Cheerios just because General Mills has deep pockets?

The possibilities are endless.

Because one’s inalienable rights fluctuate daily here in America, I thought I’d provide a quick cheatsheet of what is or is not allowed today, May 25, 2007. Please, go by the cheatsheet and do not try to reason out what the authorities will let you do from day to day nor try to apply common sense, as these two mechanisms will lead you astray.

• Your dog pooping on the lawn: CRIME.
  If your dog evacuates itself outdoors, as animals are known to do, you could be cited and given a ticket for it. In some areas, you can go to jail for not having a pooper scooper when you walk your dog.

• Leaving dog poop on a political opponent’s doorstep: LEGAL.

  Seriously. So dog poop is a bad thing, a health or aesthetic hazard when a dog leaves it behind as a matter of its lifecycle, but it’s not art. Or political metaphor. That, my friends, trumps health or ethical concerns regarding feces and urine.

• Flyers with, you know, words on them: CRIME.
  A felony, no less. Sure, the circumstances of the case are off-putting; it was a vendetta, and it expressed a moral sentiment that our revered betters in the government don’t often believe, but the girl is probably going to get jail time for pamphleteering.

Perhaps if you’re walking your dog, you will not be in trouble if you bring political flyers for it to poop on, or perhaps you’re protected from sensationalist hate speech prosecutions if you poop on your pamphlets before passing them around. Regardless, proper poop application seems to be the determining factor here.

Poop is protected speech, but words are not, except in those cases where poop is not protected speech. Ladies and gentlemen, the first amendment of your constitution as it stands today, May 25, 2007.

(One link seen on Instapundit.)

If you’re hoping to buy the latest Slayer CD this morning, forget it; it’s going to be sold out before today is done, as will a lot of Jack Daniels and black candles:

For the second time in a week and the sixth time in the past seven months, triple digits have been drawn in Pick 3. The numbers 6 – 6 – 6 were drawn in the May 22 evening Pick 3 drawing. This is the second time this combination has been drawn in the past two months. The triple 6 combination was drawn in the March 22 midday drawing.

Jeez, it’s bad enough that I have to worry about fools and the corrupt in the world. I’d rather those with demonic powers not revel in their power so obviously.

Well, that’s a relief, almost:

A big rig whose trailer was stolen was actually hauling 28 pallets of commercial “shop vac” style vacuum cleaners and not five tons of fertilizer as authorities had announced, police said Monday.

Until one begins to wonder how many shipments of bad things haven’t bothered the authorities because they only thought the criminals had gotten shop vacs.

Now that there’s a name for the honeybees’ disappearance:

It’s called colony collapse disorder.

The surviving honeybee population needs professional, certified help to allow it to feel its pain and to move on.

(Link seen via Instapundit, an academic blogging in Tennessee. Since he sent some traffic my way this weekend, I thought I’d return the favor.)

Let’s see here:

• A talk show host known for being acerbic and insulting says something stupid and insulting about a basketball team: fired.
• A talk show host and former political “leader” says he thinks a rival talk show host killed his mother, who died in an accidental fire: Suspended, replaced by his son, a current political “leader” under several clouds.
• A talk show host makes a humor bit about a crime in the community where the humor relies on mocking a local paper columnist: Fired, although the radio station was planning to replace her soon with syndicated material anyway.

In all of these cases, the target of the radio talk show host’s ire was of a different race. In one, the radio talk show host was suspended. Because of White Privilege!, he must have been treated differently.

They told us all along that reelection of George W. Bush would result in the further encroachment of fascism on the American public. Here’s a new proposal in Baltimore to give the mayor the power to set up checkpoints and block off whole sectors of the city for, well:

A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore’s rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown.

“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week.

Under Curran’s plan, the mayor could declare “public safety act zones,” which would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks, and halt traffic during two-week intervals.

Police would be encouraged to aggressively stop and frisk individuals in those zones to search for weapons and drugs.

You know, something’s missing in that story. All the stories on the wire just lack a certain detail whose omission is glaring. What is it? I can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh, wait.

“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran (D, District 003) told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week. [Emphasis added, as well as a big blinking D]

I guess we know why some Democrats want the US troops out of Iraq: so they can set up checkpoints, conduct raids, and do their pacification in the United States.

Fortunately, another city councilman takes a bold stand for civil liberties:

Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., a mayoral hopeful, said Curran’s idea was an interesting concept but it raised questions about civil liberties.

“We have to make sure we’re not declaring martial law,” he said.[Emphasis added]

An interesting concept? Forget it, we’re done.

And you know, I made a big deal about Curran’s party affiliation, but it’s not so much democratic party as it is the new Aristocratic party:

With strong family ties to politics (his brother is Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., and his niece Catherine Curran O’Malley is the mayor’s wife and a District Court judge in Baltimore City), Curran was one of 10 council members to hire relatives for staff positions. Curran reportedly put a niece on the City Council staff payroll. Hiring a niece was legal, though the council found itself in ethical hot water because of it.

Like the Gores, Blunts, Carnahans, Bushes, et al., our country sure looks to be heading toward a rule by self-selected families instead of citizens, is it not?

Gorilla Injures 4 in Zoo in Brief Escape:

A 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo Friday, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued, officials and a witness said.

After all, he’s only fighting for a just cause: he wants to be recognized as a man.

Another Critical Mass in Berkeley, another attack on a motorist. Instead of a mother and her kids, this time the hooligans targeted a 70-year-old man:

A Friday clash between a Berkeley minivan and Critical Mass bicyclists continued to generate conflict Monday as the van driver said the bicyclists placed bicycles under his front tire during the violent melee.

“A certain number of the bicyclists were prepared to do this with malice aforethought,” said Harlan Head, 70, driver of the Chevrolet minivan. “They shoved bicycles under the car and attempted several other things.”

Critical Mass organizer Jason Meggs, 38, who filmed part of the incident on his digital camera, called Head’s accusation “outrageously ridiculous.”

How convenient that the leader of the bihadists had a video to upload to YouTube. So that next month’s Critical Smash event is even more popular amongst the brown jerseys who think they’re not only above the laws of the road, but the laws of the land as well.