Russia has declassified a huge, Soviet-era bunker buried deep underground in a residential area. It’s unclear what it was originally used for (possibly launching/coordinating nuclear attacks), but it was clearly set up to withstand a nuclear attack. Now it’s a Cold War themed museum. Some great photos here, especially the propaganda posters.
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I’ve never written to a Congressman before, but these new airport security measures have inspired me to do so. Here is my letter:
Congressman,
I’m writing to say that I oppose the new invasive airport security procedures (backscatter imaging and aggressive pat-downs). You’re probably hearing this a lot, but perhaps not from people with my background.
First, I’m not a frequent flyer. I fly on average once per year to visit my family during Christmas. And it appears that the airports I’m scheduled to fly out of do not have the full body scanners. Even though this may not affect me for a while, I want to voice my opinion while there is still time to do something about it (and save taxpayer’s money).
Second, I am a registered Republican and while I don’t always vote straight Republican, you’ve had my vote whenever you’ve appeared on my ballot.
Third, I consider myself something of a patriot. I have over a decade in the defense industry. I watched with horror as the towers fell, and I understand the need for security. However, regarding these procedures, I think the cost to our liberty is too high.
I also object to the supporters of this initiative who frame this issue in black and white: we either give up all our rights as travelers and fly with complete safety, or we let anyone and anything on board our aircraft and watch them fall from the sky. Clearly, nobody has to make this choice.
I know you are busy, but please take the time to read this fascinating article about how Israel, who faces terror threats far more often than we do, has secured their airports without engaging in security tactics that are demeaning and demoralizing. Yes, it will take personnel with more training and intelligence than your average TSA employee, but I believe this is exactly what travelers would like to see and would be happy to pay the price.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199
Thank you.
As we approach elections, I hear more grumbling about the two party system. In general, you get two politicians and neither look good. Intelligent alternative voices are silenced by being excluded from televised debates. That really stings because it keeps us further in the dark about important issues that neither candidate wants to touch.
But when you look overseas at countries that don’t have a two party system, you start to see one of its big advantages: more moderate candidates. I’ve read about elections abroad where there were 5 or more candidates and someone wins with 18% of the vote. How do the other 82% of voters feel? Or, as a friend informed me, the parties coalesce to capture more votes, and after the elections it can take weeks before you know who your president is because you voted in a hastily made party, not an individual.
In a two party system, candidates need to sway the majority of the population, which means more balanced policies that benefit more of the population. Yes, technically with the electoral college you don’t need to win the popular vote, but in general (and lately) you’ll still get about 50% of the country supporting you. This also explains why when the president does poorly after being elected, his approval rating can quickly drop into the 30′s.
So here is my solution. I remind you that I am biased by logic and common sense, so extremes don’t appeal to me. Also that this idea came to me at 4AM, so there may be a fly in the ointment that I haven’t seen yet.
Give citizens more votes. Specifically, allow them to rank the candidates (not vote multiple times for one candidate). This will result in electing politicians that more people agree on instead of polarizing figures that half the country is unhappy with.
If this sounds familiar, you may be a member of the Academy since that’s how their voting works. Here’s the process step by step:
- Everyone votes by ranking the candidates starting with their first choice.
- Looking at the first choices, if one candidate has more than 50% of the votes, he or she wins.
- If not, the person with the fewest votes is removed from all ballots, and the other candidates ranked lower on the ballot are moved up one.
- Go to step 2.
This is how a popular but polarizing film like Avatar loses to a widely praised film like The Hurt Locker. While more complex, ranking is something we all understand, and a computer could tally results in seconds. Yes, I’m suggesting we do all computer voting.
In my proposed system, you still have to get on the ballot by getting the support of a reasonable number of voters across the country, so you’re not ranking 100 candidates. However, I think you’ll get more people breaking party lines to run. In particular, I think Ron Paul could have run and possibly won if he went as an independent since politicians with a Libertarian philosophy tend to pull votes from conservatives and liberals alike. Likewise, I think Bob Barr (and certainly Ralph Nader) would have done better as well. And most importantly, all would have been invited to the debates, resulting in more educated choices by voters.
chinaSMACK1 is a very interesting website that gives English speakers insight into the minds of the Chinese. They do this by translating the hottest, most popular news and blog articles into English – along with their comments. Granted, they don’t translate all comments (which would be tiring and frustrating for the translators), so they try to choose those that are representative of the whole. Fascinating stuff.
One piece that caught my eye: “Jewish girls with guns.” Essentially, it’s a photo album of attractive female Israeli soldiers (with a few hot civilian pics thrown in for good measure). But the comments (which are similar to another story about guns for sale in American Walmarts) display a belief that Chinese society would suffer greatly through crime and civil unrest (including possible revolution) if their citizens could own guns. They also touch upon the differences in political systems between our countries. Seems like a must read for anyone trying to get into the Chinese market or has an anthropological bent.
In a related note, I am happy to report that The Crack Team is no longer banned in China.
- tip o’ the hat to Masterchief [↩]
Tags: china
Time for a little break. So much going on at work, you tend to stay away from TV, movies and popular culture. But those who are blessed with a job1, however tenuously, should take a break and thank the Power-That-Be for the people responsible for these humorous asides:
Sarah Palin does a pretty credible job getting back at our old friend William Shatner. If Bill’s reaction is genuine surprise at her sudden appearance, then I am even more impressed with Bill’s acting abilities !! Someone really, really needs to get him in the Star Trek sequel quickly, before he joins Scotty and Bones in the big Starship in the Sky.
Oh, and by the way. Bill is a Canadian actor taking valuable Hollywood jobs away from US citizens. Can someone get the immigration problem in this country corrected? Too many Canadians are coming down to take our high-paying white-collar jobs in this country. Forget the Mexican border; folks down there are coming to take the lesser-paying jobs and will not affect your six-figure, professional position. It’s the Canadians that are the problem. And they look just like you and me so that they are harder to find and deport.
However, good going Conan. You are so good at this that I may start watching the Tonight Show again. I stayed away for the last 15 or so years, but I think the Show is in good, capable hands again. Can anyone tell me what happened to Triumph, the Insult Dog?2
Finally, I just have to mention this item that I read in the news about poor Tiger Woods. No more jokes, this is serious. Here’s the excerpt in the news from one of his supporters:
“One thing people don’t understand is that we’re human,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade said in Miami. “You’re not born with a menu on how not to do things wrong. You’re going to make mistakes like every human being.”
Actually Dwyane, there is a menu that you were given when you were small. It’s called The Bible. Sure it’s old and seemingly out-of-date or out-of-touch. It’s as old as Humanity, and it does seem to be in touch with the foibles and peccadillos that affect all of us, all of the time, since the beginning of time. I don’t think Mr. Woods is the first person that has ever cheated on his wife; plenty of those stories in the Bible. You may want to crack it open one of these days.
ly evil.
Lately it seems every reference to wrongdoing is now compared to Hitler or at least one of his actions. It’s especially seen on the news. People believe that their point won’t be realized unless the reader/viewer comes to terms with the following:
If you disagree with me, you are pretty much a Nazi.
and it works. “I don’t want to be like Hitler! So I agree with you!”
Hitler. The go-to bad guy, king of the unholy.
Did he set the bar or what?
Osama Bin Ladin is like “helloooo, I’m blowing things up here! Compare something to me!”
Even Satan’s sighing “You know… once everyone blamed ME for all the evil in the world.”
Dude. Hitler gased and cooked millions of innocents, wanted to take over as much of the world as possible, and got much of his country to agree with his actions. Wow!
When it came to charisma, this dude rolled an 18 for sure.
Sorry Satan, but anything short of armageddon ain’t going to outshine Hitler’s life. Stop dancing around in that lame red ensemble, drop the pitchfork and get to work.
And Osama, look at you! at least Hilter knew the importance of grooming. Hitler was married to Eva Braun. She was hot!
Come on Osama. Hanging out in caves plotting with other men day after day, does nothing for your image.
All I’m saying is, when it came to evil, Hitler turned it up to eleven.
Hitler is to bad
like
golf balls are to hail.
Without him, there’d be no decent reference.
You gotta respect a guy for giving it his all.
Like it or not. He’s immortal.
There’s been opposition to the President’s plan to broadcast a “do well in school” message to the American student body. In and of itself, the message is probably harmless and probably a good idea; who is better able to motivate our students than a good-looking, young President Obama? Why are people making a fuss and opposing the president at every turn? The problem lies in that it is being encouraged (some would say pushed) onto the American school system.
Officially, it is a voluntary program. But we remember other “voluntary” programs like prayer in schools. In that instance, any kids that refused to pray with all of the others were either ostracized or branded as atheists. So I’m sure that any kids that opt out of the President’s inspirational message will be similarly affected. I personally do not mind being branded a discontent at age 10, but it does affect your chances to get hired at the local hardware store for the summer when you turn 14. That’s a heavy burden to bear.
The President should bear in mind other efforts to inspire young people without a chance for other voices to be heard. This one-party messaging could eventually morph into something akin to Hitler’s propaganda machine. One of their weirder efforts was this coloring book exhorting the Young German to do something that was probably decent and helpful. But when a commendable exhortation turns into “obey my orders” and “kill Jewish people” then we have a little problem.1
Hitler's Coloring Book
- Just to make sure my message doesn’t get lost: Hitler was a bad man and killed a lot of innocent people. We don’t want to be like him [↩]
Race relations are a big topic this year. From the office of the Presidency to the next Supreme Court Justice to the selection of Surgeon General, race would seem to be a central factor in selection. Not that these folk are not good, smart people; they seem to be good enough to do what their positions require. But were they selected because of their overwhelming qualifications, or because they held some promise and they also advanced the color-blind American agenda? Don’t get me wrong: it’s a good agenda.
Just witness the statue of Justice; it is blindfolded, ready to go into combat with that really big sword. Another blind entity dispensing martial arts justice1.
Disclaimer: I am not a Caucasian, if that is even important. Most dwellers of the Russian Caucasus region look nothing like your typical redneck person (sic) from the Deep South. I could not pass for White, whatever that means.
But I have to take issue with the case of the alleged discriminatory Swim Club in Pennsylvania. Much has been made as to how a daycare class of minority students was run out of the club by just-awful white racists. I think that the swim club is being harassed unfairly, by a day-care practicioner that has a chip on her shoulder. Look at the facts, in a color-blind way: Was the group large? Yes. Did the group create a crowd that is unusual for the club? Yes. Did the crowding enhance the ability to swim laps in the pool or to enjoy a quiet swim? No. Just for those reasons, I would have ended my contract with the daycare program: our facility is just too small to accommodate you. There were 2 other groups that received the same reasoning for termination of contract; they are not making any waves (sorry, I could not resist) about it.
Cute kids, ugly situation, flawed decisions.
But this one person decided that the swim club was too exclusive to be allowed to exist. Exclusivity being defined as having the need to swim in a calm environment without 65 kids jumping into the pool. Trust me, I have small kids, it gets very loud. So she took the comments of some of her students and decided to bring a lawsuit against the club. Allegedly, some daycare kids heard others at the swim club make derogatory remarks, eg:watch the dark skinned kids or they’ll steal your towel and don’t they ruin a perfectly good pool outing. Although I never automatically take a kid’s word above a trusted adult, this is what this unknown person did. And now the swim club may have to close, since it cannot afford to mount a legal defense.
Did the swim club err? Yes. They should have kept their contracts and notified members that certain swim periods would be crowded, since the club was assisting daycare groups that no longer had access to a regular swimming pool. Did club members have the right to complain? Yes. They had paid their dues and expected access to a swimming pool that was normally uncrowded. Did they have the right to make racists remarks? No. The club leadership should have used this opportunity to educate their members about life in the 20th, er, 21st Century. Should they have used the words “[the kids] changed the atmosphere and complexion of the club?” No. These are perfectly good English words, but they do sound like the color of the kids’ skin had something to do with the decision. Stupid word choice.
Solution? Have the swim club institute racial sensitivity classes for members (including its President); apparently they need them. Have the daycare come back to use the pool and drop its legal case. Contact between the swim club members and the general population is a good thing and would foster understanding between people. But now that the news shows have shown the swim club as a “bad” place and placard-wearing losers are using this as an opportunity to appear on those news shows (don’t they have jobs?), this mess will move to its sad conclusion: the swim club will close and those very stereotypes that should be destroyed will be reinforced. Oh yes, everyone out of the pool !!!
PS> The daycare is seeking punitive damages against the swim club. I’d hate to think that the daycare program is trying to shake down the swim club for money over this incident. A lot of good daycare programs are receiving reduced funds nowaways, and this may be a tragic way to raise money. I will continue to think that it’s only the sad interaction between flawed people that has gotten us to this point. That, and the eagerness of a lawyer to get some cash from (maybe) affluent people.
- remember the TV show Kung Fu? [↩]
One is a prominent Latina female. The other is trying to get into the Supreme Court. You be the judge as to who will have a longer lasting effect on the American people.
VS. 
My vote is with Zoe. She is from the Dominican Republic and is a living embodiment of the richness of African culture that came to the Caribbean and still influences the culture there. And she looks extremely hot in the Starfleet issue miniskirt and booties. A worthy successor to the lovely Communications Officer, Lt. Nichelle Nichols, and I believe Zoe speaks fluent Spanish.
On the other hand, we have an outspoken, intelligent Latina female, Sonia Sotomayor. She has been called a “racist” by the right-wing but I do not concur. From her isolated comments, I make her out to be more of a mysandrist1 But she is going into a Supreme Court slot that is being vacated by another liberal-leaner, Justice Souter, so her positions2 should not make much of a difference in upcoming court decisions. She will be outspoken, though, so it will be nice to hear a strident counterpoint to the pontificating statements of conservative Justice Scalia.
My score:
Zoe Saldana (1) for a fantastic Star Trek franchise debut.
Sonia Sotomayor (-1) for inflamatory statements that were issued when she was not open to micro-scrutiny as she is now. Once she gets coronated as a Justice, I’ll reset her at (0). I’ll give her (+2) rightaway if she trounces Scalia at the weekly Supreme Court Poker game. 3