xEOD's Brainstew

 
I was talking with one of the guys I work with yesterday, and he brought up the subject of high speed pursuits by the police.  He had watched something on TV about them the night before, and told me almost 1,000 people die each year as a result of a high speed car chase going horribly wrong.  I glossed over the fact that he was almost surely watching "homeland security" propaganda designed to play off his human empathy and emotions, and said while admittedly tragic, I was curious about a few things:

1. "How many of those 1,000 are the nozzles that were fleeing the police in the first place, and not innocent bystanders?"  He didn't know, because that figure was oddly left out.  Red flag.
2. "What were the individual situations that led these people to think fleeing was preferable to just stopping?  Why were the police so intent on catching them that they would risk life and limb, and subject the public to extreme danger?  Were they rapists, murders, auto thieves, victims of police harassment?"  Again, he didn't know.  For me, this is an important question and needs an answer.  Red flag.
3. "So what do you think the solution is, then?"  This he had an instant answer for..."Put GPS tracking devices in every single car."

*sigh*

Let's, for a moment, forget completely the enormous privacy and governmental abuse issues this  radical solution raises and focus on the practical.  There are 765 motor vehicles (car, van, truck, motorcycle, etc.) per 1000 people in the US alone.  That's 1 vehicle for every 1.3 people, and since there's approximately 304,995,000 people in the US as of 2008 that comes up to almost 234,611,539 vehicles.  I checked with Amazon, just to price GPS units to see how much they even cost anymore, and found a price range of $100-1,500.  Now, this was for units like you see in the picture to the right...if you want to talk OnStar, that's a whole different kettle of fish, and also requires a subscription that can run several hundred dollars or more per year.  So let's shoot the middle on our Amazon units, say $700 is the average, go with that figure and assume that each person has the ability to install it themselves (thus not incurring an installation charge, as well), carry the one...that's $164,228,077,300 to self-install an average priced GPS unit from Amazon into every vehicle in the United States.  $164 BILLION.  For GPS units in vehicles.  That figures out to $164,228,077 per life potentially saved;  not saved, potentially saved and all this for an issue that affects 0.00000327% of the populace.  Wow, talk about a metric ton of cure for a microgram of illness.

Who's going to be responsible for paying all this money to put in, and maintain, a piece of equipment that MAY save the lives of approximately 1000 people per year?  I'm sure old Uncle Sugar would be more than happy to pass that cost off to each of us.  How motivated do you think a guy with a rust bucket of a 1977 Chevy Nova is going to be to put a piece of equipment into his car that's worth more than car itself?  I think on just 1 of the practical issues alone it's safe to say this is a stupid, knee-jerk reaction and a wholly unworkable solution, don't you?

To put these numbers and dollar amounts into a real perspective, consider this:  2.5 million Americans die each year from some form of malignant cancer.  We are not, nor would we ever dream of, spending over $164 million dollars on each one of them, and this is a disease that kills about 1% of the population yearly.  It would come out to a economy crushing $411 TRILLION a year.  Perspective, not histrionics please.

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse. "

Benjamin Franklin

But let's touch briefly on the privacy issue, and how easy it would be for government over-reaching to seriously endanger our privacy and thus our liberties, as well.  Someone has to monitor all these GPS signals.  Let's, for the sake of simplicity, say it's one lone guy sitting in a dark, windowless room somewhere in Washington D.C.  Let's further postulate that he has radio contact with every law enforcement agency in the US.  They (the cops) contact him in the case of a high speed pursuit so that he can monitor the vehicle's position (how he would determine which signal, out of 234,611,539 individual signals to monitor is beyond me, but I digress) remotely and in real-time and the police then back off.  Now we know that about 1000 of these high speed chases ends up in a death, but how many don't?  Let's just assume that out of every 1000 chases, only 1 results in a fatality.  I think that's a fairly liberal number and would leave us with 10,000 high speed pursuits per year, or 27 pursuits per day (or just over 1 per hour in a 24 hour period), nationwide.  Let's assume that because the police aren't chasing them, on average our bad guys stop after 10 minutes to find someplace to hide out.  That leaves our new Beltway Bandit monitoring bad guys for about 2 hours and 20 minutes of his 8 hour shift.  What do you think our 1 guy will  be doing the other 5 hours and 40 minutes?  Playing online Mahjongg and sipping Darjeeling?  Just keep in mind, the more people you add to the "monitoring" process, the more time they each need to burn up doing something other than monitoring bad guys; there's only, on average, a total of 270 minutes worth of potentially high speed pursuits to watch out of 1,440 minutes in every given day.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Where does it stop?"  How much time, money and resources do you think the government would spend to realize that GPS is just a stop-gap for the problem?  If the bad guys abandon the vehicle, and the police aren't around to see where they run off to or catch them, they get away.  So what, then, was the point of "following" them in the first place?  I guess we should abandon the GPS idea and go straight to the RFID chip, installed in every single person's body.  That way, we can track every movement anyone ever makes, anywhere and know exactly who they are at all times.  Or we could collectively decide that, while not a perfect solution, the way the cops handle things now isn't all that bad and leave it at that.  Just a thought.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

I was chatting with a friend yesterday, and we got on the topic of the reasons we each dislike porn.  Like her, I find the "actors and actresses" less than believable for one, and that alone turns the whole situation into a comedy.  Just look at their faces; you can see they're completely disengaged, and yet screaming their fucking heads off...it makes you want to bust out laughing.  It's the look you'd expect from someone assembling the same widget day in and day out on an assembly line somewhere in Bangladesh, not from two people having sex.  "Are you done yet?  I want to get my paycheck and go buy some new Crocs, dammit!"

It goes deeper for me, though.  As I told her, it's much like going to the strip club:  it's all window shopping.  I still have work to do, but here's a reminder that I get to do it by myself.  I can get the job done without torturing myself with what I'm not getting and besides, the stuff I have up in my head is much more interesting than the mutual masturbation session they have going on in any porn flick.  At the very least, my partner and I were really enjoying ourselves.  I don't need to visualize someone else's fantasies or horrendous acting.

After spending the day thinking about it (I did other stuff, too...get off me), I found a deeper level still and I would suggest there is a more sinister and cynical agenda where porn is concerned.  As some of you already knew, I was an active part of or had knowledge of some of the darker things the military was involved in when it came to intelligence and such.  One of the most important facets of intelligence is what's called PsyOps, which is short for Psychological Operations.  As you may have deduced from the not-so-clever name, it's warfare but instead of using bombs and bullets to kill and maim, you use things you know will demoralize your enemy and degrade their ability to fight back.  Dropping leaflets telling them their cause is futile and they're doomed, blasting music 24/7 at people who are holed up where you can't do a frontal assault on them and even carpet bombing an area can be used as a PsyOp.  And yes, porn is an extremely effective means to demoralize and degrade a population as well, and is used extensively by intelligence services the world over.

Don't believe me?  I'll cite just one of a multitude of cases where it was used.  When the most recent Palestinian infatada in the West Bank and Gaza kicked off back in 1999/2000, the Israeli military locked those areas down tight and got control of 2 of the 3 Palestinian run TV stations in the region.  Israeli intelligence began to broadcast their own programing on those stations, and guess what the show du jour was?  Yup...hardcore pornography all day, all night.  Trust me, if anyone has a handle on how to run a successful PsyOp, it's the Israelis.  And before anyone pops off about me being anti-Semitic, I would like to go on the record again and say I hate everyone with equal measure, so fuck off and get to the back of the bus.  No soup for you!

I would go so far as to say we are being targeted; purposefully subjected to a daily dose of some of the most vile stuff conceivable, and you need to look no further than your kid's Yahoo mail account to know I'm right.  It's gotten so pervasive, a whole new multi-billion dollar industry has sprung up out of the concrete to combat it:  Spam Controls, Pop Up Blockers, Parental Controls.  But it still floods through, so after a while we hardly even notice it.  Sure, it's a nuisance, but we're used to seeing grown men and women having sex with farm animals and little kids now; we've been so desensitized it barely registers anymore.  The stuff we put up with today would have sent generations before us rioting into the streets with a collective determination to put heads on pikes.  I guess we're just more refined, huh?  *rolls eyes*

Why?  Why would someone use tactics like this to target us?  Because people are easier to control and sell shit to when they feel alone; isolated and hopeless.  It is my contention that porn is allowed to flourish because it does such a great job keeping men and women from forming real, long lasting relationships by retarding their emotional growth and health.  It tricks us into believing casual sex, meaningless and empty of emotional and familial bonds, with dozens of partners is normal and healthy behavior.  Look at how porn is framed...the guy is usually faceless, just a prop with no real meaning or consequence, a cock the size of a small school and a 3 or 4 word vocabulary (indecipherable grunts aside, of course).  The woman is a sex crazed whore who's not only eager and willing, but desperate to spread her legs for someone she doesn't even know, let alone give two flying fucks for (well she does, but she's getting paid for those flying fucks).  Most of them literally beg to be treated like a slut, slapped, choked, etc.  I have even seen "ads" in my email for movies featuring 1 girl with 150 guys taking turns bouncing on top of her - I'm hoping they're doing it one, two or three at a time, or that would make it a snuff film - hell, that's not even an orgy; it's a stress test gone completely out of control.  I'm sorry folks, but you can not get me to believe making or watching this stuff is anything like healthy behavior.  I am not a prude by any measure, but this shit just makes me sick.

Divide and conquer - getting the men to treat the most precious thing available like trash and tricking the women into seeing the men as mere play toys and nothing more - it's precisely how you get a society to sign off on bank-breaking wars and multi-million dollar congressional boondoggles, sell them cargo ships full of crap from China they don't really need anyway, and get them pay $4 a gallon for gas and piss away exorbitant amounts of their hard earned money for lousy food.  Look at the "industrialized world's" birth record in the last few decades; we have plunged well below replacement level birthrates.  What does that mean exactly?  More people are dying every year than are being born to replace them...a lot more, and no one seems to notice or care.  No wonder all the industry is moving to India and China.  We aren't going to have enough people here to do the work, but we'd be a great bunch to sell all the shit they make to, don't you think?

Tricking an organism into believing something that's bad for it is actually good for it is nothing new; it's exactly how a virus fools your immune system into letting it live long enough to make you sick until you die.  Welcome to social Typhoid the hard way.  If you don't believe we're being targeted, please go back to sitting naked on your couch, stroking your TiVo remote and watching "Forrest Hump" for the 83rd time.  For the rest of us, porn is just the tip of a very large iceberg, and we really need to figure out how to get a handle on this mess without over-reacting and making things worse.  Personally, I like the "heads on pikes" idea, but I'm open to suggestions.

On a side note - my friend brought up an excellent question:  "How much do you think it costs to do all the laundry the porn industry generates?"  LMAO!  Any guesses?

I've got my kids for the summer, so tradition states that they get full run of the computers here until I get the itch, and then their usage gets pared down so I can actually use the damned things, too.  They don't have a computer to use at their mother's house, so computer games and the Internet are all the rage.  I know...they have a Playstation 2, as well as a Nintendo Gameboy DS and PSP each, but you know how it is when you're a kid:  it's not about what you have, it's about what you're missing out on.

I was also suspecting hacker infiltration of my network, so I wound up having to tear down one computer at a time, format and reload XP on to one of them, and slave the hard drives from the other two to it to scan for any nasties.  I found a couple of obscure trojans, but nothing to get my panties in a wad about.  Now, I just need to put everything back together and hook up my network again.  I did set about hardening everything while I was at it, though -  the whole process has taken about a week or so.

Couple all that with the fact that my father and my grandmother traveled in from Detroit to visit with us, and you have chaos.  I would love to tell you that it was controlled chaos, but that would be a lie.  I have a 2 bedroom place with about 800 sq ft; so you can imagine what it was like to have 5 adults and 2 kids running around it, not to mention the gyrations involved in the sleeping arrangements.  Nobody complained, everyone had a good time...but I was secretly glad to see them pulling out of the driveway.  I love my family, I just love them a little more on the phone.

We did go as a group to see "The Dark Knight", the second Batman installment.  I have only 1 word:  WOW!  It was a top flight movie, and Heath Ledger did such a wonderful job.  I was saddened to hear of his untimely death, but the sadness was more acute while watching him in his final role.  That part was made for him, and now he won't be able to see it through in the next movie.  Don't get me wrong, Jack Nicholson played a great Joker but his was the flamboyant, over-the-top Joker.  Heath was very understated, extremely dark and the epitome of a cruel, sadistic sociopath.  He was an enigma from beginning to end, and you leave with more questions than you come in with.  If you haven't seen it, go.  Now.  It's worth the $8.

On a side note, one of the trailers they showed before "The Dark Knight" caught my attention, and 5 seconds in, I knew what movie it was going to be.  I was so excited, I shouted the name of the movie out, and got some very strange looks from those around me...not because I shouted it out, but because those around me had no idea what I was referring to or how I knew what it was.  I've tracked down the trailer for you all, and imbedded it here for your viewing pleasure.  I can't wait to see it, and I was so excited about it I wasted no time making a date with someone that very night to go see it with me on March 6th, 2009!

I know, I still have a tag to post which I will get to soon...don't worry Shupe.  I haven't forgotten you!  The boys go back next weekend, so I should be back to posting in my normally irregular fashion any time now.  *smile*

Hey all!  I just got back from Michigan a few hours ago.  I went to go see my oldest son graduate from high school.  I can hear you all now:  "WHAT?!  Y-O-U have a son that's 18?"  Yes folks, it's  true.  It's also true that I was only 7 when he was born.  No...not really.  In case you couldn't tell us apart, he's the one with the red robe on.

It started out a beautiful 91 degree day but, being Michigan, rapidly deteriorated into a major thundershower right as the graduation ceremony broke up.  Cow-pissing-on-a-flat-rock doesn't do justice to the rainstorm that came out of seemingly nowhere, and you may be able to see that he and I are just finishing the dry off phase of the operation at the house.  Wouldn't you know...as soon as we got inside, it stopped raining.  Oh well.  I got to watch my oldest take a major step forward in life, and I didn't care if it was raining frogs.  I am supremely proud of him.

  "So how did history repeat itself," you ask?  I shall tell you:  20 years and 3 days ago, I sat in almost exactly the same seat, with a graduating class that had only 2 fewer students than his and received my diploma from the same small town school.  His mother and mine both sat in the stands cheering when they called my name, just like they did for him today.  Oh, and we both have the same name.  It's a bizarre enough feeling to watch one of your kids graduate; it adds a whole new level when you add all the other stuff on top of it.  Out of habit, I almost ran out and grabbed the diploma cover when my/his/our name was called.

So there you have it...that's how I spent a wonderfully hot, muggy day in Michigan.  I sincerely hope that each of you got to do something of equal excitement and fun with someone special this weekend!

PS - Shupe, please note the new addition to my wardrobe.  It was incorporated at your suggestion and behest.  *smile*