The Unreasonable Man

Thanks to my friend Peter West for this tip: great song, haunting sound:

Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel by the Franz Family

See? Atheists can like beautiful music, even religious music.

We can make travel safe. But at what cost?

Every time I bring up my slipperly slope argument, people accuse me of scaremongering.

Oh yeah? Wake up, everyone. My life as a traveller is now much worse than it was 15 years ago. Much.

Now it gets worse. The pilot has to approve bathroom visits, and “no luggage at all” on flights to the USA, Canada’s airport authority has announced, says The Globe today. And “there are increasing calls for full body scanenrs”, say the media. The average person does not, it appear, mind being scanned naked in order to “assure safety”. I have already said it’ll be strip-searches for all. That is coming closer.

Slipperly slope? We’re in the lake already.

And for what? Air ravel is safe already. The cost/benefit analysis is utterly missing from any discussion of “terrorism”.

“Security trumps all”. Yeah? That’s what Goebbels said, too.

If I sound more scathing about our own people than I do about Al Qaeda, that’s because that is exactly how I feel. We should know better.

How I will travel, I am not sure, My $20k of equipment will not be insured and may wel not arrive if I have to check it. So… from now on I drive.

From a news article:

Passengers travelling to the United States should expect delays at Canadian airports as major changes to security procedures come into effect Saturday morning, a day after a suspected terrorist attack on a U.S. airliner.

Every passenger on flights to the United States will be subject to a secondary search at the gate area prior to boarding the aircraft - which will include a physical pat-down search and a hand search of carry-on luggage, Air Canada and WestJet said in separate news releases early Saturday.

The new measures will also limit the amount of carry-on baggage to one item per person travelling on flights from Canada to the United States. Previously, passengers were permitted to a carry two bags on board.

One item, so how does that work for photographers? Geez. It really cannot be long until we travel naked. I am so not travelling anymore, and of course  that means Al Qaeda has won, and of course we’ve done it, not them.

I was going to review Avatar, but I don’t have to: The Independent did it, saying everything I would have said better than I would have said it. Here.

My summary: great effects, wonderful world, but plastic story. While that did not bother me at all in “2012″ it leaves me less impressed here.

Today, I feel like that Grinch. I have no Christmas spirit today.

CNN is airing sycophantic specials about “faith”. The respectful way they interview “religious leaders”… instead of asking hard questions. I just think “go away, superstitious retards”.  Preachers know no more about morality than I do - in fact I think my morality is a lot better than theirs. Mine does not involve telling other people how to think and how to live.

Meanwhile the stores are out of the “specials” they advertise, and have only the twice-the-price items. My new TomTom GPS is a piece of dross, with updates that don’t work, and TomTom support is gone for two days because of our irrational belief in Jesus, so I can’t get service. Stores are compulsorily closed tomorrow, the one day I have time to shop. Heating or not, I’m bloody freezing. No visitors for either Xmas or New Year’s eve - other than what I thought, we’ll be alone.

On top of it all, only the government in Ontario decides what we drink, and the local LCBO (Liquor Licensing Board of Ontario) store has stopped carrying Leffe beer (the only beer I drink) because “there is no demand”. So in Soviet Godly Ontario, only McDrinks are available. Plenty of Coors Light and Labatt Blue.

No, I am not enjoying this “festive” season at all. Why would I? Tell me anything about this week that is not worse than all other weeks?

Why do I always forget that every Java update on Windows installs a “Yahoo Toolbar” unless you are very careful?

Not that I use my Winodws PC much at all since I went to Mac two years ago, but this just serves to remind me again how evil Sun and Microsoft are. And it gives me another reasopn for disliking Java. Slow, and owned by an evil corporation. And linked with Yahoo. Bad combo.

Now -sigh - I guess I start investigating how to remove this unwanted Yahoo toolbar.

Google appears to be turning more and more evil.

Only bad people want privacy, Google appears to be saying.

And just try to contact Google because someone has appropriated your company name as a gmail address. There is no way to contact Google that I can find. All you get ais a web of FAQ pages and other nonsense.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On 22 January 2009, two days after inauguration, Mr Obama set a deadline of a year for closing Guantanamo. He now says it will “probably” be in 2010.He promised. Now it is “we” that are experiencing practical difficulties.

All politicians lie. So of course Mr Obama does, too. Why am I surprised? “Under ever stone there lurks a politician”, wrote Aristophanes 2,500 years ago. Plus ça change. Although I think Aristophanes was being unduly kind to the politicians.

Sure, closing an illegal prison camp is tough. But I can think of many other concentration camps whose closure would have presented practical difficulties, and that is no reason for therefore not closing them. But I would think that:

1. Tough or not: Guantanamo, and holding prisoners without trial, is illegal and unjust and by its very existence destroys any legitimacy the West, and in particular the USA, has. Next time the Iranians hold people without trial, do not moan. Oh wait - they give their prisoners a trial. Iran is more trustworthy than the United States. How ugly is that?
2. If closing Guantanamo is that tough, then don’t promise it.  Stupid, naïve, or dishonest: neither are good for a president. There is zero upside here. It is all bad.
3. What’s the big deal, anyway? If these people are criminals, try them and they will be convicted.
4. By holding some confused morons (some of whom were mere teenagers when arrested) “because they are too dangerous”, we protect ourselves. Oh really? Any idea how many mpore muderous teenagers have been motivated over the past years by Guantanamo’s gross injustice?

I think it is scandalous that this same Mr Obama is about to receive a Nobel peace prize.

Reading “The Third Reich At War”, the third part of Richard J. Evan’s epic Third Reich history, I am struck by the parallels by that world and today’s world.(If you have not read that trilogy, order it on Amazon today).

Trusting politicians is a giant mistake. Mr Obama has done us all a favour by confirming that. Perhaps that is the one upside to this broken promise: that we learn again never to trust anything any politician says.

Great workshop, great state.