#37 pstd by ThrkLrd , My 12, 2008 6:19 PM

h, nd t dvrt t prphrl sbjct. cn nvr b qt clr n wh t s wh s vrppltng.......

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Cthlcs. Wht, brwn, blck nd yllw, Cthlcs.

sd t b th Cthlcs nd Chns. Thn Chn gt smrt nd nw tx y hvly f y hv mr thn n kd. f y lv n Chn nd hv ght kds, lk lt f Cthlcs d, thy tk y t nd sht y.

#32 posted by scottfree , May 12, 2008 4:56 PM

you must take super care of your car to expect the value of a used mini van to be that high.
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I KNEW someone would go there. Lol....

A Mexican chap takes a job at McDonald's, everyone gets upset;...
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I don't. I don't want that job. And I am not worried about losing work to people coming into this country. I do tech writing, which can be outsourced over the Internet to India for less than I charge. And there are a lot of well-educated, tech-savvy Indian tech writers who speak English as a second language better than most Americans speak it as their first.

I'm worried about overpopulation, and unlimited immigration. I'm worried about people squishing themselves into limited space like rats, and doing what rats do in that situation: chew each other's faces off. Literally.

Most humans are ants. And there's too damn many of them, everywhere.

#24 posted by The Dark Roux , May 12, 2008 3:58 PM
.Well, for starters, how about making legalization easy and painless with:
-Proof of residency, 5 years
-Clean criminal record in the States
-Proof of employment
-Proof of language adaptation (proof of enrollment in a class, for instance).
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This is brilliant in its simplicity, and it would work. Unfortunately, it will never be implemented bcs pst-hpp rsnng n th S mks vryn wrrd tht vrs thc grps wll gt pst. Yet ignoring the need for requirements like this is going to make the US a very scary, cramped place in 20 years. The infrastructure already cannot support the people here.

I'd love to implement this tomorrow, and apply to EVERYONE.....from Mexicans to Canadians to Arabs to my own British anglo relatives who come from the same poor white protestant tree as me.

America is full, end of story. And it's not racist to say so. ny fl wh thnk t s wll b sd n 20 yrs whn thy'r bng hsjckd rthr thn crjckd.

By that same thought, the WORLD is full. 50 years ago, India gave free transistor radios to anyone willing to get fixed. Let's start that up here, with free iPods or iPhones.

--Michael W. Dean (who had a vasectomy in 1999.)

#17 posted by Cefeida , May 12, 2008 3:30 PM

..I .. saw nothing racist or dehumanising about the cockroach comment. Didn't even cross my mind. I wonder what that proves?
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It proves that the world has become so PC that the only people you CAN make fun of are white people. (Especially poor southern white people.) Make a tasteless redneck joke, you get a laugh from everyone. Make a similarly tasteless joke about blacks, browns, Asians, Jews, Arabs, gays or anyone else, get the riot act read at ya.

Read "The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats" by Jim Goad:
http://www.amazon.com/Redneck-Manifesto-Hillbillies-Americas-Scapegoats/dp/0684838648

It's dead on.

I didn't even think of "la cucaracha" with the cockroach comment. I just thought of scurrying idiots making a cop's day harder, because they have some agenda, cop seems to think they're doing something illegal, and the cop is ostensibly there just to uphold the constitution. I don't always feel comfy with the actions of all police, but I I'm glad the cops exist. I can think of specific instances where I'd be dead a few times over if they weren't.

I don't know the whole story behind this video, but nothing about it says the cop doesn't have a good reason to chase them. Even if they're innocent, if it's a routine traffic stop, it's illegal to flee the cops. And if you're abandoning your vehicle to flee the cops, chances are you're doing something illegal. Would you give up a $15,000 car that you owned and run just because you're nervous, but haven't broken any laws?

I pretty much dislike most humans, especially the loud ones who step on my toes, mean ones who think their will is law, and the stupid ones who care more about bling than life. Most humans fit into one or more of these groups, and all these types come in all colors.

Most humans are either ants or cat food.

Michael W. Dean

Watch (or re-watch) the John Carpenter film "They Live".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

It's sci-fi, but it's the most truthful thing ever committed to celluloid.

Michael W. Dean

Cockroaches....I like the "in which the light has just been turned on", but I think describing humans as cockroaches is giving humans too much credit. Cockroaches are too hard to obliterate from the planet.

Lately I've been describing humans as ants. Got the idea from a Bill Bryson travel book where he mentioned two countries where the local nickname for foreign tourists who arrive every summer is "ants" in the native tongue.

But I've been thinking a lot and expanded it to "Humans and their agendas and silly goals and plans and mechanizations are not as important as they like to pretend. Humans are just ants in the grand scheme of the universe, even in the grand scheme of the all-time existence of this planet."

Though sometimes I watch the TV show "COPS" and see really stupid and/or really selfish violent people and just think "Grind them into cat food."

Michael W. Dean

#20 posted by mkultra , May 1, 2008 3:02 PM
"......Of course, if you're really concerned, just keep all of your sensitive data on a SD/HD card that's inserted into your digital camera. I doubt they pull them out and check them for non-photographic data."
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They will now.

MWD

I'm really concerned about the issues raised in this thread, but really DO have nothing to hide. My laptop has a lot of legal porn. It has erotica. It has essays critical of the gov, but not seditious. Other than that, a TSA goon would find a lot of pictures of cats, and a lot of "I'm so great" congratulatory writing, in several different fields, but certainly nothing of a matter of national security.

I thought the point with laptop checks was to just make you turn it on, to show that it's not a bomb disguised as a laptop. (Though it would certainly be possible to rig a smaller, working laptop inside a bigger laptop case with plenty of room for anything else.)

Don't know if I'll consent to a search of laptop next time I fly, will have to think about that. Have to weigh rights vs. missing an important flight.

Curious what Cory would do...Cory if you were on your way back from UK to US or vs. versa, to speak somewhere important, would you refuse if it meant missing your flight and missing the seminar? Anyone else want to weigh in on that about themselves?

It's tricky, because if everyone refuses, they might change the policy, but the majority of business travelers (which are a bulk of travelers) will not refuse.

What I'm now more concerned with is #18, GARYS, sitting next to me on the plane with the big magnet in his pocket, a couple inches from my laptop. lol.....

Michael W. Dean

#15 "an exhaustive search (read, time-consuming..."

Yup. When cops have a warrant, with due cause, take ONE laptop, and think they know what they think they're looking for, police computer forensic personnel (that is, very intelligent, highly educated, crafty scientists who are well trained, specialized in, and on top of changes in computers and security, with a lab full of software and hardware, not the case with TSA luggage checkers) can spend 100s of man hours on ONE machine looking between the cracks for, decrypting, reading (which may require translators) and analyzing whatever it is they're looking for.

MWD

P/s....I wonder if I just made the list for "random screenings" next time I fly?

#11 "Final icing on the cake is this traveler is a presenter going to a security conference."

LOL!!!!!!!

Well, it's been a long morning, and my First- and Fourth-Amendment rights have received plenty of exercise for the day. I'm going to the range to exercise my Second-Amendment rights.

--Michael W. Dean

I'm no lawyer, but I believe that entering a plane is like attending a sporting event or rock concert, in that you agree to waive some of your rights to enter.

A rent-a-cop at a football game cannot search you against your will if you refuse, but he can refuse you entry to the stadium if you refuse a pat down. I know that's on the "EULA" agreement on the back of most sporting and concert event tickets. And doesn't that count as a contract that you "sign" by entering the facility?

(For the record, I have no problem consenting to this. I don't want to be in a stadium with a lot of guns and liquor. Mass hysteria can be a very scary thing even without guns and liquor.)

Does anyone have an airline ticket handy? What's it say on the back?

If this is the case that the contract on an airline ticket says something similar, is the issue that the contract is unconstitutional?

(Again, I have no problem waiving that right. I don't want to be on a plane with guns and box cutters and bombs. As for data, I'm not so sure that should be checked for like guns and box cutters and bombs are checked for.)

An adult in America is free to waive his rights in some cases. This is certainly the case with cops entering your home or car, if they don't have enough "plain view" evidence, they can still ask, and many people, when scared, say "sure, go ahead and search." People should know they do not have to consent to this.)

Sometimes, if you look like a druggie to cops, they'll, say "Well, if you have nothing to hide, you can wait here for two hours while we get the dope dogs, or you can consent to a search, and leave now, like I said, if you have nothing to hide."

I think the airline equivalent here would be "enter your password or miss your important flight."

I suppose the issue here is that TSA people should be searching for weapons or bombs, not data, right? What are they looking for? I'm assuming national security stuff. Bomb plans? Bombing plans? OK, I can see that.

What if they find something else? A novel critical of the government, but not seditious? Literary erotica? Hard-core adult porn? (legal, but not everyone likes it)? An expose on TSA screening policies you've written for a newspaper you work for? etc. etc. etc.....

.....etc. etc. etc.

We live in complex times. The world gets exponentially more intricate every day. (I recommend everyone go back and read the 1970s best seller "Future Shock" and underline all the predictions that have come to pass. Your copy will have ink on almost every page of that very long book.)

Complex times raise more questions than answers, not much is black and white, and the noise-to-signal ratio rises daily.

The majority of Americans are more concerned with American Idol and bling than with Constitutional rights, and there are six billion strongly conflicting agendas on this big blue ball, and that number is rising by the second.

And people wonder why I boarded over and soundproofed the only window in my office.

Michael W. Dean
http://www.stinkfight.com

#33 posted by toad , April 29, 2008 11:57 PM

I am all into Scifi and was hoping for more from Artemis Eternal, but they are asking money without telling anything about what the movie is going to be about. They just have a nice poster.
======

Ed Wood would be proud.

But he had a better rant about "turning hollywood on its ear." And he actually made films, they actually had stories, and people still watch them.

Michael W. Dean

GTA offends me, but as much for the violence against men in the game as the violence against women (I'm not any kind of "-ist", but am more of a humanist than a feminist if anything.) And I'm offended just as much by the "gotta get mine, bling bling bling" overall motif of the game (and yeah, I've played it, and sadly, I rather enjoyed it. It's a really well done game.)

But I'll also fight for the right of this company, or anyone, to put out sociopathic garbage like this.

That said, I am more offended by McDonalds ads, Diamond ads and especially by American Idol.
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Also, this "...f ths s wht dgrs n gndr stds hth wrght, plysyllbc blggrs stll crpng bt th ptrrchy, pls fckng stp hndng thm t" is one of the funniest, most right-on things I think I've ever read."

--Michael W. Dean

Any time I've agreed to be interviewed for anything, I get in writing the right to approve how it's used, right to view rough cut, whether it's print, video or audio. And I also bring my own camera and film the interview myself.

It's very common these days for people from all sites to use "ambush" or false pretenses to get people out of context. It seems to be used by everyone from Michael Moore to Borat to Fox News.

It's a drag.

Michael W. Dean

Well, I'll give it an A for effort.

But these days whenever I see a bunch of "We're gonna tear down the walls" kids doing this, I fear I might be somewhat responsible:
http://tinyurl.com/5nz92n
(That's not commercial spam, I recommend that you grab it Pirate Bay instead, seeing as how the company somehow forgot to include the updates I slaved over for the third printing of the second edition).

I'd almost feel guilty, if it weren't for the fact that many other people are more responsible for inspiring this kind of stuff. It's great when it works, but bores me now when it seems to have little to back it other than the the the imperiousness of youth.

And I'd feel bad if I weren't spreading the word, for free, that the future is not about the big screen, it's not about one-to-many, it's about one-to-few, using technology to go back in time to the story around the campfire in the cave. And moreover, THE FUTURE WILL BE ALL ABOUT SPOKEN AUDIO.

Michael W. Dean
cranky old man.

Um, I know about that case, but don't get the joke. cough.

Are you saying that Bill O'Reilly May have agendas? OK. I agree. Pervy and pushy agendas, even. And he works for a corporation. NewsCorp, in fact.

If the joke is more than that, please explain. I don't get it. Cough.

MWD

People and their friggin' agendas. Pleah!

Are some of these corporations any different from the mafia? Or from crotch grabbin' gangatas who "gots to git paid"? Or smash-and-grab meth heads stealing all the copper in America's heartland?

Sometimes this stuff makes me want to digitize every piece of media, and every trade secret, that I have access to and release it on BitTorrent.

Michael W. Dean

People and their friggin' agendas. Pleah!

Are some of these corporations any different from the mafia? Or from crotch grabbin' gangatas who "gots to git paid"? Or smash-and-grab meth heads stealing all the copper in America's heartland?

Sometimes this stuff makes me want to digitize every piece of media, and every trade secret, that I have access to and release it on BitTorrent.

Michael W. Dean

#45 posted by Scuba SM , April 20, 2008 3:40 PM
Michail W. Dean:
I'm not so sure I could carpet my walls.... I'd start to feel like I was in a padded room... ;)

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That's exactly the POINT!

Michael W. Dean