There has been a remarkable amount of news today in the realm I like to call the "tee hee OH FUCK" news category. I call it that because some of the things that are going on today are so incredibly unbelievable they become rather amusing.
Today's TSA announcement I find particularly interesting because my friend Prima was recently racially profiled up the ass (forgive the expression, she didn't experience any sort of anal exploration) on her most recent return flight from France. This is the kind of stuff that we have been seeing more and more of, but this article is especially chilling because of its blatantly vague wording and the fact that this stuff will inevitably become reality.
A brief snip: "The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, would rank all air passengers according to the likelihood of their being terrorists."
Does that freak you out as much as it does me? I'm white and male, the least likely group in the world to get profiled, but I still find myself shaken by this statement. What the hell kind of criteria are going to be used to establish "likelihood" of terrorist activity? I'll tell you. Brown skin. The article further down explains how the system would work. It mirrors the idiot-proof guidelines of our so-called "terror alert" color-coded warning system (that no one gives two shits about anymore, coincidentally). Unfortunately these color-coded guidelines aren't at all idiot-proof, since obvious idiots created them in the first place! But anyhow, the colorbook fun is as follows: "Suspected terrorists and violent criminals would be designated as red and forbidden to fly. Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening. The vast majority would be designated green and allowed through routine screening." We're also assured that privacy will be upheld, and data collected about you will be "stored securely" and destroyed once your travel completes. One word: Bullshit.
Now I don't wear a tinfoil hat but you could probably call me paranoid. Can you blame me? It doesn't really sit well with me that you could be completely barred from a flight because somehow you raise a flag. Prima's experience of being one of the all non-white group called up to the flight counter and "entered into the database" makes me wonder if she already has been classified as "yellow" (asian jokes aside) and gets watched every time she flies. With a name like Prasertrat, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. And would it even stop there? Naw. How many protests do I have to go to before I get flagged as a "threat?" Heh, for that matter, how many times do I have to say George Bush is an idiot to be flagged? Oh yeah, probably already there.
Still further today, we have Colin Powell's "surprise" visit to Iraq. Is it just me, or has poor Powell become the brunt of some huge Bush administration joke? He's the guy who gets to go around looking like a huge asshole in front of other countries (witness the "Anthrax Vial" incident in front of the UN) while Bush (invariably the much bigger asshole) somehow escapes ridicule by anyone but John Kerry. Call Clinton's presidency the Teflon Administration, this makes Bush's rule the Eternally Lucky-as-Hell KY Presidency. Nothing sticks to this man. But Powell, who loses my respect daily by being the idiot patsy for the administration, gets to be the flypaper. I do not envy the man.
Powell today had the dubious honor of echoing George W's idiotic pro-war rhetoric when he visited Baghdad. He said, no doubt with his straight "don't take no gump" face:
"The people of Halabja never have to worry again, neighbors never have to worry again because you have removed -- you and your buddies have removed -- a horrible dictatorial regime."
...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wait let me take a look at that article again ...
"He told hundreds of U.S. soldiers and civilians, now frequent targets for attack, that Iraq and its neighbors need no longer fear Saddam Hussein's chemical arsenal -- even though U.S. experts have found no such weapons in a year-long hunt."
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
gasp
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST you could've fooled me! Let's go over this again, maybe I'm not as smart as these guys to quite get this right. Okay so Saddam Hussein and his regime have been removed. That we know. "The people of Halabja never have to worry again..." stretches it a little bit, don't you think? I find it just a tad awkward to say something like that a day after two dozen people get blown to bits by a terrorist carbomb and two Iraqi journalists get killed by American soldiers. Saying something like "you no longer have to fear chemical attack" when a year after the war is over they still can't find any WMDs kind of flies in the face of truth, doesn't it? The term "foot in mouth" comes to mind. But this is worse than foot in mouth. This borders on dick in mouth.
It doesn't surprise me that the Iraqi people are starting to wonder if things were better when Saddam was around. He certainly was a creepy despot and was no lover of human rights. But I'm sure there are a whole lot of Iraqis thinking "at least you could go to the store without fear of body parts going flying." Ask the iraqi woman interviewed on TV (absolutely brilliant clip, by the way, saw it on the Daily Show) how "safe" she felt when that hotel bomb went off just as she was being interviewed. I've never seen someone duck off camera faster. And you know what the sad part is? I could've missed it, but she really didn't have any expression on her face. It was almost like "ho hum, another bomb, another 30 people dead. Time to cover my head." You know something is seriously wrong when people have become accustomed to terrorism as common.
It raises a tough question. Do we leave terrible dictators like Saddam in power to ensure regional stability? Or do we remove said dictators from power and risk regional instability? Certainly we're seeing the results of the latter even as I type. The Middle East is a complete disaster now, and George Bush I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you fucked up bigtime. I'm sure the parents of soldiers are really feeling confident and justified when every day they see on the news another story about a group of soldiers bombed or ambushed.
My rambling is probably something you've all read or thought about before, so I guess it's nothing really new. Just thought I'd share those fresh little gems of steaming bullshit served up courtesy of your favorite national government: ours!
The first thing today I have to offer is my new (poorly drawn) "Favicon." It's the icon you see up in the addressbar and also when you bookmark my site. If you don't see it, then you may have to delete your browser cache (known in Internet Explorer as the "temporary internet files"), refresh the page, or sacrifice a virgin to the gods of the internet. It really all depends on how fiesty your computer is feeling today.
Also a rant today which I aptly title "Joke of the Year." It covers the sad state of affairs we are privileged enough to live through.