We are not alone

We're going to have to get used to drones.  They're available everywhere and getting better and cheaper as electronic toys do. HD TV cameras can be added that are now tiny and lightweight and cheap and can even see in the dark

I hope we don't have to get used to the constant surveillance they make possible and it's not just the invasion of our private spaces by government agencies I'm alarmed about.  Various people and groups of people with all kinds of ideas about what you're doing, aren't doing and should be doing are now able to watch and record from hundreds of feet above wherever you are.

PETA, one of those well-intentioned groups whose sentimentally extremist views about things like the personhood and civil rights of insects isn't the kind of  organization I want watching me if I'm out in the woods or down at the dock fishing seeing as for them, fish are sensitive and loving and self aware creatures and catching them is murder. But hunters are evil too as are those with leather shoes or eating sushi and PETA intends to   "monitor those who are out in the woods with death on their minds," according to a press release.  Those feral hogs we have here need to be protected against my violating their civil rights as well, and what about the local butcher shops!  Death on their minds! But according to the FAA, as long as you fly your Hammacher Schlemmer drone below 400 feet, there's no problem with areal reconnaissance. For extremists, kooks, voyeurs and fanatics, it's a whole new day.

"The average person has no worries" is the kind of  'reassurance' one expects from advocates of random and warrantless stops and searches.  Steve Hindi, president of yet another animal rights group called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, assures us we have nothing to fear from him unless you have death on your mind.  He likes to watch bird hunters and post video on line and sending links to law enforcement. Perhaps the average hunter has no worries but what looks like one thing may look like another thing from a TV camera from 40 stories in the air and after all, Steve doesn't want you hunting in the first place you evil carnivore Bambi murderer you.

Of course flying your drone a few hundred feet above people with shotguns has it's hazards. Drones have suffered mysterious failures and there's a lot of giggling going on in the bird shooting community.  Might be some mirth in my back yard as well should there be an unidentified flying object hovering over my swimming pool, but I'm not sure the future doesn't hold endless drones over our heads and perhaps under our feet making sure we don't have aces up our sleeves or that we're not walking on the grass or filling out our golf score cards improperly or actually are playing cards with the guys like we said.  But let he who is without sin not worry, right?

Drones are the future.  Insurance companies are already 'offering' gadgets that record how fast you drive -- to save you money of course, but also to deny claims because you might have been observed at 5 over the limit.  Red light cameras don't seem to reduce collisions at intersections and may actually be causing more, but hey, you have nothing to fear in our brave new world where you have so many big brothers watching our for you.

Sometimes a missile is only a missile.

Other times, maybe not.

So North Korea now has two mobile IRBM's standing proudly erect and America's eyes in the sky are watching.  Little Kim, the only fat man in North Korea may be erect too but nobody's watching and nobody cares, the whole thing being so disgustingly Freudian.

The likelihood that the PRNK is conducting a prank, waving it's mechanical member at us, is pretty high in my opinion as the notion that they have a nuclear weapon that can be fitted to one of these things is pretty low. Can we be sure that it will function and be accurate enough even for nukes?

Speaking of dicks, the old war criminal himself has made it a point to express his nervousness about the smallest of the Korean Matriushka dolls, the son of the Glorious General who descended from Heaven and totally awesome Commander Kid and his WMD.  Interesting to note as this time there may actually be a WMD even if it's only a clumsy prototype. I'm glad he no longer has the launch codes even as much as I'd like to see the Great Sun of the 21st century vaporized, his little dick and all.

But the opinion of the other Dick, notwithstanding, I'm not really worried about being attacked.  I'm more worried about the Republicans dredging that old Three O'Clock phone call meme to go after Obama The Unprepared from another angle. It's Junk Un who has to be sitting up nights worrying about military coups or the Chinese flyswatter or a war that would be over before he could empty his bladder in his pants. Even if he's firing blanks, he may draw fire on himself and if he just puts it back in his pants, he'll look like the 8 year old in the Superman suit he really is.  Nobody will criticize him at home, not until someone gets up the nerve to assassinate him, but my guess is, that he's already lost this opening gambit and that he can't afford another.

But hey, for those of us tired of the 24/7 wailing, weeping and mourning and trembling in our Nike's that someone will shoot us as we watch a movie, or maybe sneak through our Smart Meters to steal our guns and raise our taxes Sharia Law style, it's almost a relief to contemplate nuclear war, Gangnam style.

What is it about Islamic fundamentalists?

Anybody who knows me (statistically, damned few of you) is aware that I am not a faithful churchgoer. And some of you probably worked that out from my nom de blog.

However, for all that unbelievers in America face discrimination, idiocy and occasional threats, we have it better than people in some parts of the world.

I tend to reserve most of my bile for Christianity, mostly because it's the religion that keeps trying to take over America. Which happens to be where I live. I don't happen to appreciate people trying to shove their beliefs down my throat - I'm not going to compare it to rape, but there are philosophical similarities. Much in the way that a house fire would be similar to a nuclear holocaust, but still...

In fact, due to the excessive and overwrought hatred of Muslims that is typically found among members of the Right Wing, I've tended to shy away from pointing out the less-brilliant aspects of Islamic beliefs. But let me just say this.

Muslim societies, on the whole, are less advanced than those of us in what they call the "West." Their educational levels frequently aren't even on a par with Mississippi, they are roughly as set in their ways as the Catholic church, and they share many beliefs with the Westboro Baptist Chuch. And they have an unpleasant tendancy toward violence similar to members of the NRA.

Bangladesh, for example, is nominally a secular democracy, but they seem to have forgotten what "secular" actually means. When Bangladesh gained independance from Pakistan in 1971, they set up a constitution that included "Four State Principles" - Secularism, Democracy, Nationalism and Socialism (factors which were upheld in Bangladeshi court in 2010).

However, with a population that is almost 90% Muslim (89.4% in 2010), they seem to be adding two more principles: Bigotry and Intolerance.

And Violence. So maybe three principles. (I could add "Murder," but it would rapidly grow into a Monty Python sketch about the Muslim Inquisition.)

See, there's an atheist blogger in Bangladesh named Asif Mohiuddin. In January, he was attacked in an apparent murder attempt, by three men who tried (but failed) to stab him in the throat. A month later, on 15 February, another atheist blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was hacked to death in a machete attack in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

For the crime of making himself a target, the surviving blogger, Asif, was arrested last Wednesday, and his blog on www.somewhereinblog.net ordered shut down by the government. He was the fourth blogger in two days to be arrested for "defaming Islam.".

The government is cracking down on athiests because Muslims are rioting. Which is, of course, the perfect response: you should always give in to violent threats. On 13 March, the Prime Minister's office formed a committee tasked with identifying "blasphemous" bloggers.

Earlier in the week, four online writers were arrested on charges of hurting Islamic religious sentiments in a country where 90 percent of people are Muslims.

Following recent protests over the war crimes tribunal, the government has blocked a dozen websites and blogs to stem the unrest. It has also set up a panel, which includes intelligence chiefs, to monitor blasphemy on social media.

Under the country’s cyber laws, a blogger or Internet writer can face up to ten years in jail for defaming a religion.

What is it about radical Islam that causes them to attack and kill anyone they disagree with? If girls try to go to school, they get shot. Cartoonists who draw pictures of Mohammed are attacked with axes. Being "too Western" or committing "sexual impropriety" will get a woman murdered by her family.

Now, among Christians, the percentage of fundamentalists varies: in the Bible Belt (sociographically, the "East South Central Region" - Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama), it stands at about 58%, while in New England, it climbed slightly during the Bush era to 13%. If we assume that the same percentages hold for the Islamic peoples, that's still a buttload of fundamentalists. And in any religion, it's the fundamentalists who make the worst neighbors.

Here's the thing. Islam has been round for about 1400 years. Know what Christians were doing at about the same point in their history? Crusades and Inquisitions: killing people of other religions, and locking people up for daring to speak against them. The only difference is, modern Muslims have access to more technology than Christians did in the Middle Ages.

You have to wonder if this is a cycle that all major religions go through.

Constitution-free zone ahead

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

______________

It's one of those news items that's been out there on the Web since February, In fact the ACLU has been talking about it since 2008,  but I had to hear it from someone in another country.  It's a situation I haven't heard on The Situation Room or even  on the blogs I read and yet it's the sort of thing one would have expected to arouse paranoia and rebellious rhetoric amongst the people who obsess about the Government taking away our freedom and our guns and our privacy.  Actually it seems to entail the government taking away what it damn well pleases for any reason it can think up -- and even for no reason at all.  Worst of all, and unlike your run-of-the-mill Chicken Little fantasies -- it's real.

The DHS has worried me since its inception and when national security became homeland security my innate suspicions were aroused.  I still think I was justified.  Yes, there have been exceptions to the 4th amendment proscriptions against searches and seizures of property since the beginning and many are there to allow customs enforcement, but now it seems our borders have by fiat, been arbitrarily moved 100 miles inland and nearly 200 million Americans -- almost 2/3 of the population can, without probable cause and without a warrant or reasonable suspicion and at the whim of law enforcement be stopped, required to prove citizenship, searched, papers and effects rummaged through and have property seized,  and you sir -- you can't do a damned thing about it.  The majority of the US population now lives in a 4th amendment free zone says the ACLU.

I and everyone else living in Florida for instance, which is all within 100 miles of the border, can have our computers and smartphones confiscated and contents downloaded and examined in the name of  Homeland security. No warrant, no pardon me, no apology.  There's a war on, you know and there always will be. So much for being secure in our papers, effects and persons.

We can be patted down for looking like someone who might possess the wrong kind of cigarettes -- or in other words black or Hispanic -- or just young.  And all your papers, documents, pictures, private correspondence, political opinions, records, music, love letters and secret formulas for barbeque sauce can and will be violated, unreasonably searched, downloaded and seized in the name of  Homeland safety and security. For the most part, it's all based on precedent and as with the run up to the total collapse of  the legitimacy of government we experienced in 1930's Germany, they've always got a good and convincing reason.

The insistence on freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures as a fundamental right gained expression in the Colonies before the Revolution based on experiences such as that of John Wilkes.  We've forgotten it.  We've been so conditioned to fear by polemicists on both sides of the governmental aisle, by think tanks, propagandists, do-gooders, evil doers, fear mongers and greedy, power hungry bastards that authoritarianism and its false promises of safety have taken us full circle.  Yes, there have been great strides made in some aspects of personal liberty with respect to minority rights, women's rights and religious freedom, but perhaps that success has blinded us to the non-monetary costs of our perpetual wars and pseudo-wars.


As George Bush said in 2001, we're going to have to give up some of our civil rights and so we have and little has been done since to reverse that trend. We are not secure in our homes and persons and effects and papers because someone blew up some buildings a dozen years ago.  We are not because we have a war on drugs that defies reason and erodes freedom. We've become a prison state where we can detain, imprison without charge, torture, kidnap and kill without due process, where nearly every quotidian government document is classified and the telling of the truth is treason and as long as they can keep us riled up about taxes and fictitious attacks on religion and trumped up dangers we just don't care because we're cowards and encouraged to be cowards for whom freedom is secondary.

Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013)

I lived in the U.K. during the Thatcher years and can tell you from first hand experience: It was not a happy time. It was an era marked by high unemployment and stagnant wages - and a combative and bullying style that treated everyone as ‘whiners.’ In retrospect, one cannot say for sure why Thatcher won reelection (or why some folks choose an enema to treat chronic diarrhea). One thing certain: Margaret Thatcher did change England – but not for the better.

Creationists of Poverty are Social Darwinists

Breaking news (that breaks the back of families and labor):

The Florida House just passed a bill that overrides local living wage and sick time ordinances, meaning that South Florida employees could take a 40 percent cut in pay ...

According to a recent MIT study, someone in Broward County must earn at least $11.72 an hour, working full-time, in order to support themselves. To support a child as well, an hourly wage of $22.95 is required to meet daily expenses [ed. note: state minimum wage is $7.79 per hour] ...

Miami-Dade enacted a living wage ordinance in 1999, "to allow citizens to support themselves and their families above the poverty line and with dignity." It applies to any county contract over $100,000 and any work at Miami-Dade Aviation Department facilities. 

The bill, which passed Thursday 75 to 43, also overrides benefits granted by local governments such as paid sick leave and domestic partner benefits, according to the Sun Sentinel.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, Disney World, and Darden Restaurants [brands include Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and LongHorn Steakhouse, among others] were backers of the bill.

“Workers who do not have access to paid sick days are one-and-a-half times more likely to go to work sick with a contagious illness, putting their co-workers and customers at risk, and costing an estimated $160 billion each year in lost productivity. Children are more likely to go to school sick when their parents can't get off work to care for them, causing illness to spread. Delaying treatment for illness can cause conditions to worsen, leading to more emergency room visits and increased costs for public health insurance programs. 

An estimated 40 million workers, or forty percent of the workforce, cannot take sick days without losing wages or possibly their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Efforts to Kill Paid Leave Ordinances Tied to ALEC ).

Other paid sick leave laws have been passed in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, New York, and Washington DC.

However, corporate-backed bills passed at the state level have nullified and permanently preempted paid sick leave ordinances at the local level.

Similar bills introduced in Florida, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Washington have been linked to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This kind of legislation will drive down wages even further, punish a beleaguered labor force battered by harsh economic conditions, while offering yet another plum to corporate America earning record profits.

ALEC is EVIL.  I intend to boycott Darden and Disney - and all other corporate sponsors of ALEC-inspired legislation.

Some Gun Violence Truth

Unwanted, of course.  From a study by the Center for American Progress, here's a little map of gun violence in the United States by State:

I thought that it would be interesting to compare this with the following, a map of how States voted in the last Presidential election.  Note that this map was issued before the idiots in Florida could count their votes.  Florida should be blue on this map:

I'll save you the trouble of counting.  Every State in the top 20% of gun violence, with the sole exception of New Mexico, voted Republican.  Exactly three Republican voting States were in the lowest 40%.

Of the 26 States that voted Democratic, 20 were in the lowest 40%, 6 were not.

Draw your own conclusions.  While we are on the subject of maps, here is another interesting one I ran across a few days ago:

This is a map of how happy or angry people are in the various States, with green being the most happy and red the most angry.

I'm telling you, they don't call the South red states for nothing.

Ant Colony Optimization

By (O)CT(O)PUS

A tiny cube, two watch motors to power the wheels, a pair of antennae for light sensors, limited memory and less processing power, scientists have built and tested robotic ants that behave just like a real ant colony.

Individually, each cube is a dumb cube - moving around at random and getting lost. Yet, their secret is in their ability to take cues from other cubes – just like a swarm of insects.

Just like real ants, robotic cubes leave a trail that others can follow – not a pheromone trail – but a trail of light that will stimulate other cubes to follow the same path.

As Simon Garnier of the SwarmLab explains: "[The robots] have two antennae on top, which are light sensors. If more light falls on their left sensor, they turn left; and if more light falls on the right sensor, they turn right."

"If there are two possible paths from A to B and one is twice as long … the ants [or] robots start using each path equally.

"Because ants taking the shorter path travel faster, the amount of pheromone (or light) deposited on that path grows faster, so more ants use that path."  The result is a positive feedback loop that causes them collectively to take the shortest path 2pointB.

Limited memory, less processing power, blathering to a base of robotic cubes, ant colony optimization sorta reminds me of Republicans.

The High Cost of Health Care

By (O)CT(O)PUS

A man runs into a vet's office carrying his dog - shouting for help. The vet rushes the limp dog into the examination room and paces it on the table. After a few moments, the vet tells the man - with deep regrets - his dog has died. The man, clearly agitated and in denial, demands a second opinion.

The vet leaves the exam room and returns with a cat. The vet puts the cat on the table next to the dead dog. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, sniffs again, finally looks at the vet, and meows.

The vet says to the man, "Sorry, the cat thinks your dog is dead too." The man, still unwilling to accept the death of his beloved dog, refuses to accept the word of a cat.

So the vet brings in a black Labrador. The lab sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, sniffs again, finally looks at the vet, and barks. The vet looks to the man and says, "Sorry, the lab thinks your dog is dead too."

Finally, the man resigns himself to the inevitable and asks to settle the bill. The vet says, "$650 dollars, please."

"What, $650 dollars to tell me my dog is dead!"

"Well," the vet replies, "The first diagnosis cost $50. The $600 charge covers the cat scan and lab tests."

This story is even more ridiculous:  Top Republican Alleges Affordable Health Care Act is a Voter Registration Ploy.  Quick!  Grab the cat, bring the dog ...

Foxerwocky

I've been waiting a long time for Fox to sic their gibbering, barking, slobbering and leg humping dogs on Easter and they finally have.  Yep, there's a war on Easter although it's hard to tell who the combatants are and even what Fox New's position is.  Seems some school in Alabama, speaking (according to Foxlogic of course) for all schools in all of the United States, cancelled all Easter and other Christian themed events because they thought it inappropriate. It is.  One classroom could represent as many as six religions. 

Consideration for others and respect for the right to teach one's own children one's own religious traditions. That's the sort of things Fox and Fiends like to call "politically correct" since to attack what might otherwise be called tolerance or good will or common decency requires a meaningless epithet that can mean anything you need it to mean. PC.

All this means of course, that someone, somewhere is waging war on Easter even though there's no evidence anywhere that the celebration of the holiday is being suppressed.  It isn't; neither the mythology of  death and resurrection nor the syncretion  of  Jesus with the European fertility Goddess for whom the holiday is named. It's long been a Goddess holiday and students of semitic languages will notice that the Ish in Ishtar, for instance sounds like the Isha -- the woman created for the Ish, Adam.

Yes, one principal in one school in Alabama doth a war make because he decided that his school is not a Sunday School, but a secular school, supported by taxes, whose business is not to give parties, either with eggs and bunnies or ridiculous stories about resurrected first century Jewish revolutionaries as recounted by people who weren't there.

Of course having no factual knowledge or rational basis for argument, having no interest in educating or informing the public, the Fox Coven launched this morning into a typically fatuous farrago of fallacy and peremptorily non-sequitur assertions such as Gretchen the Witch's:

 “Have we just gotten so deep into this political correctness that we now just can’t take the religion as it is, celebrate it and move on?”

 Pardon me?  Are we so stupid that we didn't notice you haven't made a case at all - neither logical or mystical or truthful?  You've just snickered and sneered and flung dung and declared war. Decency is PC so let's do what we will? 

The real question of the propriety of making kids perform rituals, ridiculous or otherwise, was not addressed, not discussed, not acknowledged, as the 'discussion' devolved into a bouillabaisse of bullshit.  Easter celebrations can't be offensive because bunnies aren't in the Bible?  Are you the same morons who want to get rid of Halloween because it's pagan?  What's next, they cackle -- can't we say Nor'easter?  Can we still teach about Easter Island in Geography? It's a pagan holiday anyway, or maybe it isn't and why can't we just gyre and gimble in the wabe with The Christrabbit and eat Mithras buns with the Mome raths
?  Right or wrong, we're right because it's just so much fun to mock -- anyone can do it!  Brillig, man, just brillig.