Why I Rarely Post Anything Anywhere Anymore

Context: 41 people did a very bad, inherently corrupt thing, that will have repercussions for years.

Me (elsewhere on the internet): "These 41 specific people are criminals. I mention this because they did a specific very bad, inherently corrupt thing yesterday!  Here's a link explaining more."

Old Friend #1: "You are a radicalized lunatic because you didn't also list the millions of other people who have also committed crimes in the history of our country!"

    Repeatedly.

     ...and just as that's finally starting to quiet down....

Old Friend #2: "You are sexist because you didn't also list all the previous crimes of those 41 people!"


Me: Seriously considering deleting every internet account I've ever had and moving to some remote corner of the world where they don't have wifi.

Astronauts could go blind on trip to Mars

  NASA reports that there's a chance Astronauts on a potential Mars mission could suffer some degree of permanent vision impairment, citing a recent study that shows that 29% of astronauts suffer some degree of visual impairment after a 5 month stay on the International Space Station. Details courtesy of Yahoo.

   Finally, NASA admits the consequences of their ill-considered "No Sex In Space" policy. No one would go blind aboard the ISS (or the way to Mars) if we'd just send a few hookers up there with them. I say we start a letter-writing campaign asking the House and Senate to buy the Astronauts the best lovin' our tax-dollars can buy.

God-Damn Fucking (in)Justices!

EDIT: I suppose I could have been more rational and eloquent about this and simply said: "the McCutcheon v FEC ruling has unfortunate corrupting consequences. It will likely require a Constitutional Ammendment to properly fix our democracy. I am rather upset about this turn of events. But, this is 'Repeated Expletives' so instead I ranted and bitched.

What the hell is going on in the heads of the assholes currently presiding in the Supreme Court? They damn well knew McCutcheon vs FEC wasn't really a First Ammendment case, just a blatant power-grab by the nation's wealthiest. And they went for it anyway, because they just want their share of the dirty money (filtered via third-parties since they themselves don't have election campaigns). It's god-damn Citizen's United all over again. Fuck them and the damn upper-class mafia kickback-scheme that they put in the seats where our government used to be! They don't deserve anyone's respect, the corruption-loving bastards. 

Excuse me. I'm a little steamed about this unfortunate turn of events, and needed to vent.

Voting in Seattle

Seattle, WA is a pretty awesome city and state to live in. I used to hate election season. Other places I've lived, it seemed like everyone always felt outnumbered and attacked no matter what their political position, and each election cycle was several months of hell. Moving to a progressive State (and turning off the TV in favor of the internet) has done wonders for my blood pressure and peace of mind. As it would happen, this election day I was terribly ill. I had contracted strep throat a few days before, followed quickly by an insane viral complication that felt like some Bond villain was keeping their prize school of man-eating piranha in my mouth. Three trips to the urgent care center down the street just prior to the election had me on a four different medicines and I was instructed to avoid all contact with other humans for two weeks. Luckily, we vote by mail here in Washington state. Instead of standing in some stupid line contracting and spreading god knows what, I was able to vote from my sofa. I could take my time, web-search every candidate and initiative via the iPad, and not worry that my illness (or impatience / forgetfulness / ignorance) was causing me to make some foolish decision. Plus, thanks to our lovely open primary and run-off system, I'd already done my research on these candidates two months ago, so for 80% of the races I could just check my notes from back then. It made for a really laid-back voting experience, no pressure or confusion, and with me being so damn sick I really appreciated that. As to how I voted: mostly Democrat, plus Greens where-ever possible. No big surprise there. We did have some pretty weighty issues on the local ballot initiatives this year, and I think that's definitely the most important part of voting this time around. If you'll indulge me whilst I ride this high horse up onto the soapbox... I'm a bleeding heart liberal and I look like a hippy, but those who truly know me will acknowledge I'm kind of a square. I have maybe 10 alcoholic drinks in an entire year. I have never ever done a recreational drug. Despite that notable degree of stick-in-the-mud-itude, I voted this year to legalize pot, and am really glad it passed. From my outsiders perspective, pot certainly seems no more harmful than booze. I've been threatened and even attacked by drunks before, but never by stoners. You just can't put enough weight on that, even if there are other reasons to be pro-legalization. Washington has no income tax, and I expect the extra money from regulated pot sales are probably going to really help keep our various liberal programs and infrastructure projects well-funded. Raking in the dough, instead of spending it to lock up generally harmless stoners. Legalized pot will hopefully take the wind out of the sails of the cartels, in much the same way that ending prohibition deflated the US mafia. Not that cartel influence is felt that much up here in the Pacific NorthWest, but it is a legitimate concern on the national level. Pot's status as a "gateway drug" is because most people think it's no big deal, and yet you have to break the law to do it, which pretty much trains people to think it's no big deal to break the law. Legalization seems to me like a huge win for sanity, all around. I also got to vote in favor of marriage equality, and am thrilled it passed as well. I'm about to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of my marriage to the most amazing woman I have ever met. Prior to meeting her, I experienced a miserable failed marriage and divorce. Gay people getting married is certainly no more threatening to the institution of marriage than stupid people who don't understand commitment getting married is. Don't take that out of context, there. I'm not saying gay people are stupid, I'm saying as long as idiots such as myself (particularly at the time of my first marriage) are allowed to get married, anyone ought to be allowed. Happiness, peace of mind, legal protection, soul-stripping emotionally vulnerability -- there's nothing about marriage that shouldn't be just as available for any two loving adults to partake in regardless of their genders or orientation. I'm dumbfounded by just how alarmed some of my fellow heterosexuals get over the notion that two guys somewhere might have a ceremony and sign a financial / legal document. If you think some stranger's marriage (or bedroom practices) is a threat to your way of life, you have a outrageously flawed sense of perspective.

Here's a section of a disturbing little article I just read...

US Police Increasingly Peeping at E-mail, Instant Messages

Soghoian found through his research that law enforcement agencies requested more than 30,000 wiretaps between 1987 and 2009. But the scale of requests for stored communications appears to be much greater. Citing a New York Times story from 2006, Soghoian wrote that AOL was receiving 1,000 requests per month.
In 2009, Facebook told the news magazine Newsweek that it received 10 to 20 requests from police per day. Sprint received so many requests from law enforcement for mobile-phone location information that it overwhelmed its 110-person electronic surveillance team. It then set up a Web interface to give police direct access to users' location data, which was used more than 8 million times in one year [emphasis mine], Soghoian wrote, citing a U.S. Court of Appeals judge.
Those sample figures indicate the real total number of requests is likely much, much higher, since U.S. law does not require reporting and companies are reluctant to voluntarily release the data.
"The reason for this widespread secrecy appears to be a fear that such information may scare users and give them reason to fear that their private information is not safe," Soghoian wrote.

Newsflash for you: Your private information is not safe. It's not really even private anymore.

Double Standards

It amazes me that the same conservatives who are so against WikiLeaks can simultaneously be in favor of right-wing undercover operations such as posing as a charity to lure folks at NPR into saying something stupid in front of a hidden camera.

I mean, logic would dictate that if you're against whistle-blowing because it's somehow dangerous or wrong, you'd also be against going undercover in search of whistles to blow. I mean, unless you were a big fucking hypocrite that just didn't want your own group's secrets exposed, and couldn't give a damn about anyone else.

Oh well, the information is out there, and the public has a right to know about it, says non-hypocrite I.

Just the same, I think it's a shame that folks at NPR are losing their jobs (and NPR might lose its gov't funding) just because someone spoke (amongst what they thought to be like-minded individuals) two facts we all know to be true:

• the teabaggers are freakin' crazy, and
• most Americans are uneducated idiots.

Obama Caves Again

 EDIT: Man, when I get fired up, the hyperbole just gushes forth. If it's not obvious, nothing here is quite as bad as I made it sound. Quite. But I'm still voting for Jake in 2012.

Start digging the bomb shelters again, 'cause Obama just handed the '12 White House to the fucking nut job that thinks she's here to nuke the Russkies*  in accordance with God's will. I swear this guy desperately doesn't want to serve a second term - why the hell did he campaign the first time, anyway?

Obama is cementing his place on the list with Pierce, Van Buren, Adams (both of them), Polk, Buchanen, Hayes, Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Carter and Bush I. A single term will suit him just fine.

The latest bit of capitulation on his part is reaching across the isle to give rich people money.  $700 Billion dollars to rich people, to be precise.

He could have stood his ground, stuck to his principles, and made a big stink about how the GOP was causing all our taxes to go up by insisting on fillibustering to keep tax breaks for millionaires from running out. Hell, I'd have gladly coughed up the $3,000 the "average American family" was going to have to pay in taxes, just to see a Democratic leader actually find their fucking spine. But instead, he caves, which allows the Republicans to claim that their strength and leadership saved us all thousands.  Just hand the election away again, why don't you?

Let me remind you of his previous position regarding the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, back in 2007. It goes something like the first 9 seconds of this video:



Whatever happened to that brilliant idealist who was going to clean house and fix the system? I loved that man. He sure gave some rousing speeches. He was all full of charisma and genius. I wonder where he went? In his place is the guy who says crap like this (while knuckling under to the teabaggers)...

Obama: GOP threatened ‘collateral damage’ if wealthy didn’t get tax cuts

"I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts," President Obama said. "I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers -- unless the hostage gets harmed. Then, people will question the wisdom of that strategy."
"In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed," he said.

Jesus Husein Christ, Mr. Obama, everyone who's ever watched an action-adventure movie or a single episode of 24 knows that "the President of the United States DOES NOT negotiate with terrorists and hostage takers". As you keep waving that damn metaphor in one hand, and the white flag in the other, take a moment to think about what you've just done.

Could you send a worse message, Mr President?  You just:

• Looked like a wimp and a coward. You drew people's attention to the Hollywood-driven trope of what the President of the United States is supposed to be, and then ran screaming from it like a bullied 12-year old would.
• In the process, reminded us that you are an effete elite liberal milquetoast brainiac who spends his time reading books instead of watching movies like a real American. You announced to the world: "Remember when you thought I was hip and cool (and young)? Yeah, I'm not really that guy. I'm his much-nerdier (and older) father."
• Capitulated to, and thus emboldened, the tea-bag radical Right. You conceded the initiative to all those clueless junior Palin-clone congressmen your party lost the elections to last month. Apparently, you've forgotten that they are not reasonable. Given up ground to them will not ingratiate them to you, it will not earn you brownie points, or get them to reach across the isle.  That is the whole point of why the Michelle Bachman's and Christine O'Donnel's of the world are so fucking scary - because they are idealogical nutjobs with a failure to understand cause and effect or basic human decency.
• Sent a message to the fucking terrorists that you actually are willing to negotiate with them, all they have to do is threaten to kill more Americans. You've encouraged them to imperil us. ...Or, at least, that's how idiots like (me and) Fox News are going to choose to interpret that sound bite. For an eloquent, educated, intelligent man, you sure are good at giving your enemies ridiculous quotes than can repeat out of context.

Every one of those perception issues is going to cost this country, it's people, and your administration. Every one of those points is going to undermine your ability to get re-elected.  Your entire first two years has been all about back-pedaling and making concessions, and it's gotten us nowhere.

Just as none of us noticed when you gave us our Stimulus bonus in the form of $16 a paycheck break instead of a lump sum check we would have had to take to the bank, virtually no one in America will notice when they don't pay an unexpected $3,000 dollars more come April 15th.You have gained nothing by caving.

The sad thing is, the President (assuming he's not secretly the scum-sucking money-serving scum-bag that I don't think he is)  clearly imagines that by bending over backwards like this he's actually preserving his principles and doing what's right. He thinks he's being mature, realistic, and centrist. He thinks that in doing so, he's making the next two years a little better.

I ask you, Mr. President, What hurts America more, taking $3,000 out of our pockets, or getting us all Killed by Palin sometime in early 2013**? As much as I like my money, I value not being nuked just a little more. So why are you giving up the game to the other side, when the correct is so damn obvious.

The right play here would have been to hold your ground and refuse to buckle. Then the tax-breaks for everyone would have expired. The new Congress reconvenes in January shortly before your State of the Union Address, in which you could have drawn attention to the fact that unless Congress gets it's ass in gear, we'd all have significant tax increases. That (plus their own greed) would motivate them to put the breaks back in, and if they proceeded to put in the cuts for the richest again, you'd have yet another opportunity to repeatedly point out that they were doing so specifically to benefit the rich. You could hold on to your principles there, and rest assured that the damn Republicans would have no choice but to fix it pronto, or else they'd be the ones standing to loose an election over it.

About the only way the Democrats could get my vote back would be with a Kucinich-McDermott ticket. That's particular pipe dream has about the same odds as the DNC mastering the ancient art of necromancy to raise FDR and Wellstone from the grave for 2012.

 I'm voting Jake in 2012. Jake, I'm counting on you to hold me to that.

Footnotes:
*: Whom she can see from her front porch, don't ya know.
**: Remember, the church she attends teaches that it's God's plan that the Apocalypse will happen in our lifetimes, and Alaska will serve as a refuge for the least evil of those who are left behind after the Rapture. I'd be surprised if she waits 10 minutes from be sworn in till the missiles are in the air.

Airport Security

If I were a pedophile (or just sexual predator in general), I'd apply for a job at the TSA. Getting paid money for groping folks all day long, that'd be sweet. For a sick fucking perv.

If I were a terrorist, I'd be thrilled with the long lines at the Airports. It used to be that to use a bomb to kill hundreds of Americans and disrupt transportation, you had to smuggle the bomb through airport security. Now that the TSA and DHS's "safety" procedures have lengthened the time you spend in lines at the airport, and conveniently packed more Americans per square foot into the kill zone, you could just detonate a bomb inside the airport itself. Psychopaths and religious extremists alike must be very encouraged at the potential to blow up people in lines outside the security checkpoint.

But alas, I am neither a terrorist nor a molester, so instead of being happy I find myself angry and critical of our government.

I'm a cancer survivor, so it wouldn't be particularly smart or safe for me to go through backscatter x-ray scanners if I can reasonably avoid doing so.

I'm also a sexual abuse survivor, so I probably wouldn't want to opt-out of the scans and have to get an invasive pat-down of my genitals (to make sure I hadn't wired my penis to explode).

I guess I'll just have to opt out of flying all together.  Wow.  Thanks, TSA and DHS, I feel safer already!

Creepy Conspiracy Revelations

A few interesting headlines and conspiratorial developments of late, all three of which came to my attention this morning as I read over my favorite news collection service, RAWstory.com

#1:  All Our Diplomats Are Spies
International online whistleblowers WikiLeaks released a huge chunk of State Department documents. The documents include a troubling set of directives encouraging US diplomats to covertly gather DNA samples, fingerprints, passwords and credit card numbers of other nation's diplomats. Basically, turning a very large number of US diplomats into spies.

In response, the gov't is looking in to criminal charges against WikiLeaks, and some in Congress are calling for WikiLeaks to be classified as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" which would allow for severe penalties to any US citizen that offers them "material support" of any kind. That's a Constitutionally-alarming proposal, as it would empower the government to take strong actions against any US citizen that made any sort of donation or information sharing with the organization.
Links:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/clinton-ordered-diplomats-spy-un/ 
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/wikileaks-chief/

#2: Saudi Arabia Funds Al-Qaeda
Anyone remember that part in Fahrenheit 9/11 where Michael Moore repeatedly draws connections between the Bushes and Saudis? Wherein he made the case that Saudi Arabia was likely behind al Qaeda's plots against us, but that because of business connections and friendships, the US Intelligence and Propaganda machines have politely looked away? I remember the political pundits and White House apologists saying it was patently false and unfair to make such connections.  We were repeatedly told this was not a war about oil, and the Saudi's were definitely not getting any special treatment just because they happen to be rich.

This weekend, in the stack of State Department documents in this weekend's WikiLeaks release, comes this little gem in the New York Times:

"Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda." 

It would appear that Michael Moore may have gotten it right. Our government knows the Saudis are the main source of revenue to "the enemy", but yet we're not taking any major actions against Saudi Arabia. Seems like maybe all that activity in Iraq, Afghanistan, and just over the border into Pakistan is a little misguided. As the saying goes, "follow the money!" Bombing poor people doesn't make us safer, it simply makes the rich richer. Bombing the rich? Well, the US hasn't given that a fair try since at least the 1940s.

Or, better yet, we could just immediately stop dropping bombs on other countries.

Links:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/shocker-admits-saudi-donors-chief-financiers-al-qaeda-leaked-cable/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html?_r=1&hp




#3: Court Orders CIA To Come Clean About Mind-Control Implants
On an unrelated, but none-the-less conspiratorially-creepy-as-hell, there's a lawsuit currently going on where several military veterans are suing the CIA for implanting electrodes in their head for the purpose of remote control of their brain function and human behavior.  If I'm reading the article right, the CIA is not denying having conducted such surgery, but is offering as it's defense that it only did this to prisoners, mental patients, and elderly shut-ins, not active duty military personnel. Isn't that creepy? A judge has just recently ruled that the CIA must provide the court with it's records concerning experiments conducted on thousands of soldiers in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Links:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/cia-allegedly-implanted-electrodes-brains-unsuspecting-soldiers/
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/11/17/31924.htm 
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/cia_brain_experiments_pursued.html

2 cigars lit with $100 bills per day

This video from the floor of congress shows us what the rich will be doing with the big Republican-sponsored tax cuts for the rich, and then one modest proposal of what we could do instead with that same amount of money.

Stupid For Senate

This debate video is bizarre. There's this total fucking idiot who's running for Senate in Delaware on the Republican / Tea Party ticket, and she's completely hung up on her imaginary world where there is no Separation of Church & State. The Democrat she's debating against correctly points out that the First Amendment says the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and she spends the next several minutes repeatedly asking him "does it say that in the First Amendment?" as though she doesn't believe him. I'm just plain shocked that someone that unfamiliar with the First Amendment could possibly be considered politically competent enough for a major party to endorse her. There are two different parts in the video (2m55s and 7m30s) where the audience laughs at her ridiculous claims.

If you want to get shivers running down your spine at just how fucked our future is if the Tea Baggers win big this election, watch this video. Christine O'Donnell is terrifyingly ignorant.

Acting against ACTA

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is ostensibly supposed to cut down on illegal pirating of copyrighted materials. It's full of ridiculous baggage and demands, but the most alarming provision is the "three strikes and you're out" rule, where if someone is accused (not convicted) of three or more acts of copyright infringement, the international body can have that person banned from the internet for life.

That's pretty sick. I don't think I could live without the internet. Admittedly, it'd make me slightly more productive, but a lot more isolated and miserable in the process.

Read more at www.anti-acta.com. The most level-headed report I've read on it was here. He makes it sound a little less dire, but is still rightly concerned about it.

ACTA has been worked on, largely in secret (but with several big leaks), for the past two or three years, and unless people speak up against it on a large scale, it's likely to be completed and signed in the remaining months of 2010.

Here's an amusing video on the subject, by someone who's very good at angry ranting:



This one's less amusing, and a bit calmer:


International protests are planned for Sept 18 and Nov 5.  There's a online petition to Stop ACTA. Annoying letters to various government personages  and media editors probably wouldn't hurt either, if you've got a few minutes to spare to help ensure the internet doesn't go away any time soon.

Suing Arizona

Just a quick update on everyone's favorite wacky racist Arizona sheriff. He's getting sued by the Federal Government:

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.
...
In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.

Kinda warms the heart, don't you think?

Read more about the lawsuits here.

Tax Cuts

CNN shed little diamond-encrusted platinum tears today on behalf of those supposedly unfairly disadvantaged, the US citizens who make about $250,000 a year. Boo-hoo, it's so hard to be them, especially now that the Bush tax cut package is expiring.

These are individuals whose household income might bring them into the top tax bracket of $250,000 a year but who, with two parents working, might still find themselves struggling to stay in the stability of the upper-middle class in the expensive urban areas where they often work.
Much of the anger about the scheduled sunset of the Bush tax cuts for the increase in top-bracket taxes comes from this productive group of Americans.

Sounds awful, doesn't it? I almost felt sympathy, because not only is it expensive to live in suburbia, it's also just generally boring and tacky there.

Then I popped over to the Washington Post, and looked at this chart comparing the expiring tax cuts and the ones Obama is trying to replace them with:

The Bush tax plan vs. the Obama tax plan in one chart

In case that's too small to read, the $200,000 to $500,000 yearly income line sees a change in tax burden of $409 a year. Those "poor" "disadvantaged" working Americans making 250,000 a year are going to be paying extra taxes of about one tenth of a percentage point of their yearly wages. The equivalent, if you were making say $50,000 a year, would be having to pay an extra $81 in taxes. Don't get me wrong, I too would prefer to have an extra $80, but even if were going to be out by $400 at my families current income level, it wouldn't be enough of a hardship on me or mine to justify column inches at CNN. Whatever little sympathy I might have had for those who make several hundred thousand a year melted away when I saw that chart. As it melted and flowed, it took my respect for CNN with it.

That Washington Post chart is awesome by the way. It makes it very clear who the Bush tax plan helped, with it's clear delineation that once you hit millionaire, your tax cut jumps to 6 times it's previous size. "Thanks for joining the Club, here's your $85,000 door prize..."

Staggering Evidence of Voter Fraud in the US

This is a really under-reported story from earlier this summer. It documents obvious evidence that the Primaries in South Carolina were rigged and stolen. It should have made repeated national headlines, but I just heard about it today despite being 2 months old.

In South Carolina, the majority of votes are placed on electronic voting machines at the polling stations. Machines that have no transparency or safeguards, so you can't be certain that your vote was tabulated or reported accurately. As near as I can tell, that's why Alvin Greene won the Democratic primary.

Greene is unemployed but somehow came up with the $10,440 filing fee to get on the Primary ballot. He's currently indicted on two criminal counts - one a felony - and was arrested for them both 6 months before the Primary. His master plan to save the South Carolina economy is to create jobs by making and selling action figures of himself. As I understand it, he had no TV ads, no website, he neither scheduled nor attended any campaign rallies, did no fund raising nor any campaigning of any recognizable sort. He had no political background at all.

Watch this downright bizarre interview where Keith Olbermann asks Alvin Greene about how he campaigned:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

His chief opponent in the primary was a four-time State legislator who did lots of campaigning.

Despite those many handicaps, Alvin Greene won the Primary by a landslide victory at the polls - with the electronic voting machines in some precincts reporting more votes for Green than total ballots cast!  In most precincts in South Carolina, the only paper trail left after an election is the absentee ballots. Traditionally, absentee ballots tend to have similar results ratios as polling-place ballots. However, in this case, Greene got only 16% of the absentee ballot vote, but got 59% of the non-traceable, non-verifiable electronic votes at the polls.

Read more about his ridiculous logic-defying win at:
The BRAD BLOG
RAWstory
mainstream media's feeble attempt at pretending they care whether or not an election is stolen by their secret masters

The best case scenario seems to be one of State-wide election-machine error, and the more chilling yet more likely scenario seems to be systematic fraud and rigging of an election. Right here in the USA, not in some rinky-dink third-world banana republic.

Of/By/4 (the People) in 18 minutes

The latest iteration of Lawrence Lessig's latest speech clocks in at just 18 minutes, which means everyone can find time to watch this one, and it moves at a pretty rapid pace.

As a long time a champion of copyright reform, Lawrence Lessig fought against Disney at the Supreme Court. He's the originator of the Creative Commons license. Now he's hard at work trying to tear down the special interests that have corrupted Congress. This man kicks ass.




Hey Obama, your next Supreme Court appointee should be Lawrence Lessig!

6 major reasons the Arizona law is unsound

Problems with the controversial Arizona law:

1) A subset of US Citizens are effectively being forced to carry ID, or else they can be arrested at any time.

• Those with lily white skin are unlikely to ever be asked.  That's a discriminatory double-standard. It's essentially no different from Blacks having to ride on the back of the bus, "Whites Only" drinking fountains, or Gays not being allowed to marry or serve in the military. All of those things are wrong, plain and simple.
•  Certain individuals are likely to be targeted again and again.  That's harassment, regardless of whether it's for racial reasons. That they're being targeted because of an accent, skin color, or because they drive a mexican-made vehicle makes it worse, but is also sort of beside the point. Humans have a right to live life free from harassment, and to pursue happiness without undue interference.

2) US Citizens and Legal Resident Aliens now have disrupted access to emergency health services.

• Walk around any Emergency Room - you'll see there's almost always cops there. Those cops now have an obligation to card people. Think of a time when you were scared about the fate of a loved one. Now imagine a cop demanding to see your paperwork in the middle of that. It'd be pretty ugly.
• If a Hispanic is at home and their child drinks drano or falls down the stairs, they now have to remember to grab their ID before they rush them to the hospital. If your kids life is on the line, you shouldn't have to drive back home and get your wallet.

3) Law Enforcement will be impeded by the decreased willingness of Hispanics to talk to them. This will likely either decrease police effectiveness, increase the crime rate, or both.

• If you're a U.S. Citizen of Hispanic ethnicity (over 30% of AZ's population) and a witness to a crime or accident, you're less likely to stay around to make a statement to the cops if you fear they're going to harass you, or if you forgot to bring your ID today.
• If you're an illegal alien and you know of a crime (child abuse, for example) there's now significantly less chance you'll report that to the police, because doing so will disrupt your life immensely. We've just raised a huge barrier to their being able to do the right thing. This law will end up shielding violent offenders in heavily Latino communities.

4) Cops will have to spend time fighting lawsuits.

• The AZ law actually makes it possible for individuals and organizations to sue police officers and departments who DON'T enforce the law. So if I think someone is an illegal, and I see a cop NOT card him, I can file a complaint or law suit that eats up the officer's time. It opens the door for all sorts of meddling by people who think they can do the cop's job better themselves.
• White supremacists could easily abuse point 4a. Not because they have any legitimate reason to believe the person is an illegal, but purely for racist motivations.
• U.S. Citizens of Hispanic descent who feel their rights have been infringed by points 1, 2, and 3 are certainly going to launch lawsuits aimed at over-turning the law or to seek compensation or punitive awards.

5) The law reinforces discrimination against Gays and Lesbians.

• There's already an unfortunate double-standard in most states that a straight person who falls in love with someone from another country can marry them, and thereby assure their love interest can stay in the U.S. If you're homosexual, you're out of luck.  If you're a non-caucasian homosexual in Arizona that divide is now even more pronounced than it was a few weeks ago. 

6) Requiring certain ethnic groups to carry IDs is, historically, often an early step towards other discrimination, or things far worse. It's a slippery slope.

• Nazi Germany did this to many groups, most famously the Jews. (Yeah, this is bordering on Godwin's Law. Hitler ate sugar, etc. But in this case it's actually valid.)
• Apartheid South Africa, where one could actually be arrested for not carrying one's ID while asleep in bed. (Specifically mentioned in one my sources, below, I think it was the Huffington Post article.)

---

The following news sources and blogs served as inspiration for this post, or came to my attention while I was doing fact-checking for this post:

ABC News
CBS News
Opposing Views
People's World
Desmond Tutu at the Huffington Post
ImmigrationProf Blog
Advocate Dot Com

The source of the awesome "crayon diagram" is Buzzfeed

Peaceful as a Dove (that's soaked in gasoline and lit on fire)

I'm all for Freedom of Speech. I understand that one man's art is another man's blasphemy, or the other way around. I've been involved in a good deal of both. As a general policy, I'm largely in favor of legalizing anything that doesn't hurt anyone, and decriminalizing (but probably still regulating) anything that only hurts yourself.


Just the same, I can't help but wonder if maybe the folks at the Dove World Outreach Center  have a different definition of "World Outreach" than I do, and I'll bet money that there's is an immensely ironic meaning. We also probably don't envision the same iconography and symbolism when we talk about Doves, either.

via RAW: 

Florida church’s ‘Burn a Koran Day’ brings Islamist threats

...

"On September 11th, 2010, from 6pm - 9pm, we will burn the Koran on the property of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam," 

Sad, so very, very sad.

Unless they're affiliated with Dove Chocolates, they should probably change the name of their organization.

incompetent racist militant self-important hick pigs

The latest on the stupidity in AZ:

Via Raw and the AP:

Arizona sheriff not relenting after court ruling

...
Arpaio, a 78-year-old ex-federal drug agent who fashions himself as a modern-day John Wayne, launched his latest sweep Thursday afternoon, sending about 200 sheriff's deputies and trained volunteers out across metro Phoenix to look for traffic violators who may be here illegally.

Deputy Bob Dalton and volunteer Heath Kowacz spotted a driver with a cracked windshield in a poor Phoenix neighborhood near a busy freeway. Dalton triggered the red and blue police lights and pulled over 28-year-old Alfredo Salas, who was born in Mexico but has lived in Phoenix with a resident alien card since 1993.

Dalton gave him a warning after Salas produced his license and registration and told him to get the windshield fixed.

Salas, a married father of two who installs granite, told The Associated Press that he was treated well but he wondered whether he was pulled over because his truck is a Ford Lobo.

"It's a Mexican truck so I don't know if they saw that and said, 'I wonder if he has papers or not,'" Salas said. "If that's the case, it kind of gets me upset."

Sixty percent of the nearly 1,000 people arrested in the sweeps since early 2008 have been illegal immigrants. Thursday's dragnet led to four arrests, but it wasn't clear if any of them were illegal immigrants.

I'm not sure which part of this to be more outraged about:

• Should I be more upset about the Sheriff Department's thinly-veiled racism and racial profiling?
• Or should I be incensed that this "John Wayne" Sheriff is going ahead with this despite the court knocking down key provisions of the new law?
  
• Or should I just be most angry at their gross incompetence and squandering of public money?

I mean seriously, you put 200 agents out on the streets for a day, after having been bolstered and empowered by a controversial new law, and yet make only 4 arrests?

If you're gonna be a racist militant self-important hick pig, you should at least try to be good at what you do. These guys are just wanna-be racist militant self-important hick pigs. Just racist militant self-important hick pig poseurs. Employing 50 racist militant self-important hick pigs per arrest? Pretty fuckin' sad, if you ask me.

...or maybe they've been overestimating the immigration problem in their state.

309,775,732 friends, 854,000 enemies

I want to take a moment to salute the reporters over at the Washington Post. As a tax-paying, freedom-loving American, I thank you for your hard work and bravery. You've ruffled a few feathers in Washington, and 9,999 other locations.

This is an era where shining a light on things that ought to be transparent in the first place is more than a little nerve-wracking. It's an era where comedian John Stewart is usually (and sadly) the only one asking the hard questions. So to see someone write a huge report on the 854,000 Americans who have Top Secret Clearance, and what they are working on, is pretty refreshing.

Such secrecy can undermine the normal chain of command when senior officials use it to cut out rivals or when subordinates are ordered to keep secrets from their commanders.
One military officer involved in one such program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it. Another senior defense official recalls the day he tried to find out about a program in his budget, only to be rebuffed by a peer. "What do you mean you can't tell me? I pay for the program," he recalled saying in a heated exchange.

The article, and its many interactive charts and maps, are worth at least 10 minutes of everyone's time, and most of us nerdly or paranoid types could justify burning much more time pouring through the 16 page main article and the amazing web of hyperlinks in the charts. Pop over to the Washington Post and take a look at the report. It's an accounting of which agencies and companies are doing what in the name of National Security. 1,271 Government Organizations and 1,931 Private Companies work together at 10,000 locations to publish 50,000 intelligence reports a year. It's too much for anyone to hope to be on top of it all, and we keep growing it bigger and making it more redundant. Yet despite all those Republicans and Tea Partiers harping about oversized government, they never seem to want to trim a few security agencies out of the mix.

854,000 people. If all the folks with Top Secret Clearance were gathered together in an empty part of the map to found a new city all by themselves, they would be the 12th-largest city in the U.S. It would be smaller than Detroit, but bigger than San Francisco.

I'll leave off with one of the amusing observations of the article:

Every one of these buildings has at least one of these rooms, known as a SCIF, for sensitive compartmented information facility. Some are as small as a closet; others are four times the size of a football field.

SCIF size has become a measure of status in Top Secret America, or at least in the Washington region of it. "In D.C., everyone talks SCIF, SCIF, SCIF," said Bruce Paquin, who moved to Florida from the Washington region several years ago to start a SCIF construction business. "They've got the penis envy thing going. You can't be a big boy unless you're a three-letter agency and you have a big SCIF."