Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Keeping America Safe from puppeteers Okay, this one I understand. Bunch of  puppet freaks. I feel safer: Homeland Security vs. San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild. Mark Frauenfelder: Brian Stokes says: "I kid you not. My beloved San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild is under investigation by Homeland Security. According to their latest newsletter, its assets have been frozen ever since my friend and Treasurer Pam Brown resigned after 20 years and passed the miniscule nestegg to a new bank account a few months ago. The bank apologizes but legally can't do anything until Homeland Security determines this group of puppet fans and professionals is not planning to attack our country. "This is the Guild where Jim Henson met a young Frank Oz and Jerry Juhl back in the 1960s. Not long ago, I was President, and before that, Secretary. "But now our government thinks it's harboring terrorists." Link [Boing Boing] 8:10:44 AM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal Keeping America Safe from 1-year-old children Baby: the other white terrorist! Babies on the no-fly list. Cory Doctorow: The government's no-fly list of suspected terrorists contains many common names held by non-terrorists from all walks of life, including many babies. Babies who have names similar to known terrorist aliases are being held up boarding airplanes until their parents can prove that the infants aren't terrorists. Sarah Zapolsky and her husband had a similar experience last month while departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. An airline ticket agent told them their 11-month-old son was on the government list.... Well-known people like Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and David Nelson, who starred in the sitcom "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," also have been stopped at airports because their names match those on the lists... The TSA has a "passenger ombudsman" who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2. Link (Thanks, Owlswan!) [Boing Boing] Note that children under 2 do not need a ticket to fly if they sit on an adult's lap. An unticketted child would never be flagged by the "don't fly list". In addition, once the question was raised the TSA claimed that their instructions are that no child under 12 should ever be checked. Somehow their own employees don't know this. 8:09:23 AM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Keeping America Safe from John Kerry quotes Rather than force people to read actual quotes fron John Kerry, reporter Carl Cameron makes some better ones up and they just happen to wind up on the Fox News site. They invent, you decide. Fox News publishes made-up Kerry quotes, then pulls story without comment. Mark Frauenfelder: According to Talking Points Memo, Fox News ran a story with made-up quotes from Kerry, then yanked them without explanation. Some of the quotes: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" Kerry said Friday. Women should like me! I do manicures" About himself and the president: "I'm metrosexual — he's a cowboy." Talking Points Memo has contacted Fox News for a comment. He's waiting to hear back from them. Link UPDATE: Michael McDaniel sez: "Looks like FOX News has retracted their story, now that they've done as much damage as possible with it." [Boing Boing] 3:45:21 PM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Monday, August 30, 2004

Keeping America Safe from Bea Arthur Do not taunt Happy Fun TSA! Bea Arthur's fight against the Transport Security Agency. Cory Doctorow: Bea Arthur forgot to take her pocketknife out of her purse last week at Logan airport and when the TSA found it, she ran around screaming, "The terrorists! The terrorists put a knife in my purse! We're all doomed!" She was being funny -- it's what she does. She's the funniest of all the Golden Girls, that's for sure. The TSA didn't take it well. Kur5hin has an appreciation of Ms Arthur and her sense of humor today: It should be obvious to us that an 81-year old woman committed a crime by making a snide remark when hassled for carrying a pocket knife? I'm just glad that she had the guts to call the security guards out for their ridiculous behavior, even if most Americans think she's crazy for making a joke. As such, I present a simple proposition: Bea Arthur for President! Link [Boing Boing] 7:51:22 PM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal Keeping America Safe from The Supreme Court If the citizenry really knew what went on in the Supreme Counrt, they'd all be in trouble. Justice Dept censors Supreme Court ruling. Cory Doctorow: Becky sez, "The Justice Dept. blacked out (censored) the part of a Supreme Court decision that calls into question the willy-nilly use of the vague notion of 'domestic security' to suppress dissent. Oy." Ostensibly, they would use their powers of censorship only to remove material that truly could jeopardize US operations. But in reality, what did they do? They blacked out a quotation from a Supreme Court decision: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent." The mind reels at such a blatant abuse of power (and at the sheer chutzpah of using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using national security as an excuse to stifle dissent). Link (Thanks, Becky!) [Boing Boing] 7:50:16 PM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Keeping America Safe from wireless internet The Reverend AKMA gets hassled by the man: So Weirdly Wrong: And I walked back to the studio, dumbfounded that someone just rousted me for picking an open wireless signal in public — indeed (as it turns out) for using a laptop within a wireless signal’s range of the library. Weird. We should all be glad that the local contstabulary are able to invent federal laws at a moments notice to save us from the scourge of freely available internet access. However, those godless commie librarians seem to have gotten off scott free. 9:50:54 PM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Keeping America Safe from Ted Kennedy Ted Kennedy's name is similar to an alias of some "evil doer". Proof that this list only catches the innocent is left as an exercise for the reader. If Senators are allowed to roam freely about the country, then the terrorists have already won! Reuters. Kennedy -- one of the most recognizable figures in American politics -- told a Senate committee hearing on Thursday he had been blocked several times from boarding commercial airline flights because his name was on a "no-fly" list intended to exclude potential terrorists. [John Robb's Weblog] 10:44:18 AM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Keeping America Safe from role-playing game manuals. Granted that the D&D crowd is pretty freakish and scary, but in this case "RPG" does NOT stand for rocket propelled grenade. I don't know if it's good or bad that this instance of security theater may turn out to be an improv act. D&D book reader on ferry hassled by security morons. A BB reader sez: "Thanks to the RNC, there are manditory bag searches happening on the NJ-NY Ferry. This fellow first got hassled with a re-search for carrying The Player's Guide to Faerun a D&D book, and then the next day, security tried to confiscate his copy of Exalted: The Abyssals as 'inappropriate.'" This morning, they're doing bag searches again to get on the ferry. And the guy doing the searches pulls me aside and says, "Sir, I feel that I need to confiscate this book." I pause and say, in that tone of voice that most people would recognize as meaning, "have you lost your grip completely, chuckles?": "You need to confiscate... a book." "Yes. I feel it's inappropriate for the other people on the ferry to be exposed to it." ... He gets all pissy at me and says, "Don't you understand this is for your safety?" "Confiscating someone's gun or bomb is for my safety. PErhaps confiscating someone's pocketknife or nailfile may be for my safety. What's so damn dangerous about my book?" "It's INAPPROPRIATE!" Link UPDATE Game designer Greg Costikyan took the time to send email to the NY Waterway to protest the rogue imbecile security guard who tried to confiscate the game manual (How much do you want to bet that the rogue imbecile security guard wanted to confiscate it so it could take it back to his home and use it as a masturbatory aid?). Greg Costikyan: Just spoke with people from New York Waterway, who say: 1. They're trying to track down mephron (the original poster) to get more detailed information from him--e.g., time and ferry route. 2. If the story is true, it is not only a violation of company policy, but also of martime regulations, and if it is true, they wish to correct the situation as quickly as possible. 3. Anyone with further information about it are invited to contact them directly. Sounds sensible to me... [Boing Boing] 7:36:18 AM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Keeping America Safe from elections Newsweek: "American counter-terrorism officials, citing what they call 'alarming' intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the US this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack." [Scripting News] Keep in mind that there's a difference between plan making and policy making. It is the job of the planners to prepare a course of action for any scenario, plausible or implausible. The existence of a plan does not on its own imply a non-zero chance of its adoption as policy. As with all breathless news that "X has a SECRET plan to do Y", I would actually be more suprised if they did NOT have such a plan available. That said, I wish I had faith that the current policy makers were not peeking over that wall. In other news, "Vote is threatened by terrorist attacks, vote suspended due to red alert" is ranked third at octobersurprise.com. 11:39:58 AM     Categories: Keeping America Safe LiveJournal

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radaR's LiveJournal   8:09AM PST Five. More. Days.. My entire department has been given the week after next off. This is on top of 14 of 15 days of regular personal vacation days, an extra week for exempt staff in my department, and 1 company floating holiday that I already have and am too retarded to figure out what to do with. By radarski@livejournal.com. Officially an ecovillain. I have now completely given up taking soda bottles back for the five cent deposit. I toss them in with the rest of the recycling plastic in the dumpster right here at the apartment complex, and lightning has not yet struck me down. By radarski@livejournal.com. Stick a fork in me, I think I'm done. Am I really done with my project that has made me feel like i was being beat with a stick? In time for a four day weekend? Is that actually the light at the tunnel, or an oncoming train? By radarski@livejournal.com. Kids these days!. Zork parody on a wiki. Cory Doctorow: A Uncyclopedia (parody of Wikipedia) user has created a Zork parody on the wiki, and many users are adding their own often hilarious turns and twists to the adventure. Examine Grue Man, you've really never played this game before, have you? The Grue devours you before you have a chance to scream. Start over Link (Thanks, Stuart!) [Boing Boing] I bet none of them even remember Addventure. By radarski@livejournal.com. I'm so tired. Working 60 hours per week for eight weeks, you can get as much done as working 40 hours per week for... eight weeks. I wish they told me that 100 hours and twelve weeks ago. By radarski@livejournal.com.