Category: Things that matter

Today in History – US Constitution is signed

With all the efforts by our current and recent government leaders to reduce our rights and take away privacy, this might not be nearly as important as it used to be, but we can still celebrate when our leaders signed the Constitution.  Back then, the Constitution and the follow-on Bill of Rights served as a sign that our leaders were trying to improve the country, protect the people, and assure the citizens that the government was to serve the people, not intrude upon their lives and remove liberties.

The Constitution of the United States of America is signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Supporters of the document waged a hard-won battle to win ratification by the necessary nine out of 13 U.S. states.

. . .

On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president.

. . .

On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

King George was a threat to all these ideas then, just as King George is a threat to these ideas now.  Not that my conservative friends agree, but I just don’t like all the recent laws that have reduced our rights and privacy in the name of fighting terrorism.

[tags]Today in History, The US Constitution is signed, The threat of King George[/tags]

Fed Gov’t to run tax money tracking site

If you’ve ever thought your tax money was just going to waste, our government has plans to open a web site that should show you how right or wrong you are.

The House on Wednesday passed by voice vote and sent to President Bush legislation to create a Web site that will give people ready access to information on the $300 billion in grants issued to some 30,000 organizations annually, and the roughly 1 million contracts exceeding a $25,000 threshold.

“It’s a great, bipartisan plan to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely,” said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Bush, in a statement, welcomed the bill, saying it showed the commitment of Congress ‘to giving the American people access to timely and accurate information about how their tax dollars are spent.’

And that’s a good thing. Of course, it will cost more to track all this money properly AND get the information on a web site. But this should make it easier for the average citizen who cares about government spending to have some idea of where it is going. On the other hand, the average citizen doesn’t pay attention to this stuff in the first place…

[tags]Government spending web site, Your tax dollars at work[/tags]

Gas!

No, no – not the kind of gas that guy who sits a couple of cubicles away from me has.  This is about deadly chemical use during war – specifically the risk of chemical attack against Americans during World War II.  The Modern Mechanix blog has all the gory details, as revealed in the April 1946 issue of Modern Mechanix magazine.  This is a long article, but it has lots of interesting information in it.

America was ready to give and take if the Axis had turned loose with the most inhumane of all modern weapons!

LOOK carefully at the pictures on these pages—if you’ve been wondering what we would have done in case the Axis powers had introduced deadly chemicals in the recent war.

It seems fantastic, weird and remote, now that the shooting is over. But here are the brutal facts, revealed for the first time by the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service. It was alert and ready to retaliate in heaping measure had our enemies used gas. Although the U. S. is not a party to any treaty or other agreement not to use gas, we have long been committed to the policy that we would not resort to this horrible weapon unless it was first employed by our foes. The fact that our troops were fully prepared for offensive and defensive gas warfare undoubtedly stopped the Axis from challenging us on this score.

Continue reading “Gas!”

Books with murder verboten on planes?

Sometimes, I can’t figure out for sure if there is a collective complete brain shared among all the people making up the dumb rules we have to live with since authorities successfully used intelligence methods to stop a terrorist attack. This latest involves a man travelling from London to Berlin. Because he had forgotten to remove a cream from his luggage, he was subjected to extra security screening. I don’t like that (which you already know if you’ve read much of my recent posting) but I can live with it – that’s a rule we know about, and he made a minor error and had to pay for it.

While security officers were checking his back, they found a book titled “Murder in Samarkland” which greatly concerned them. This story of former British ambassador Craig Murray’s [bad] experiences in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). That is, it’s based on factual events. But that didn’t seem to matter security personnel.

“Is that about terrorism?”, asked the lady that examined my onboard luggage. “Humm, well, it contains mentions of that, but it’s about your former ambassador to Uzbekistan and more about diplomacy”, I replied politely. “Does it have al-Qaida in it?” I looked a bit confused. “What?” – “Well, I have to check this with my manager, the rest of your stuff is fine, though.”

The manager then came after a minute or two. “Hello Sir, can you tell me about this book?” “Sure, it is about Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan.” “Where, if I may ask, did you buy this book?” – “Well, it is available at any Waterstones here in Britain. I just bought my copy in the Angel branch yesterday.”

“I am afraid you cannot take this onboard, Sir.” You must be kidding me. I just spent 20 pounds on a book that, despite arousing some controversy in the UK, should not be banned onboard a flight to Germany. I understand that the terror plot (which coincidentally seems to have an Uzbek dimension) makes for some overwrought nerves.

More wow moments in time. Yes, a book is allowed, unless it has a scary word in the title.

[tags]More troubles for air travellers, Book with “Murder” in the title not allowed on a plane[/tags]

British Airways considers aerial photography dangerous?

Well, this is just shockingly unfathomable. While flying home from India, Josh Simons wanted to take a few landscape photos at 35,000+ feet. After snapping only a few pictures, a flight attendent closed his window shade and informed him that aerial photography is not allowed on British Airways flights for security reasons. WTF?

On my recent trip back from India on Britis h Airways, I was inspired by Julieanne Kost’s recent book, Window Seat (not to be confused with another book of the same title by Dicum) to snap some landscape photos at 35000 feet. I think we were over Iran at the time. After taking several shots, imagine my surprise when one of the BA attendants closed the window shade and informed me that it was against British Airways policy for passengers to take such photos for security reasons. I thought she was kidding, but the head attendant confirmed what I had been told. And that it had nothing to do with where we were flying.

One commenter on the article says his checks with other employees of British Airways indicate this aerial photography ban is not company policy, but could not account for Josh’s experience.

[tags]British Airways bans aerial photography?, Photos from 35000 feet considered a security risk?[/tags]

T-Shirts can now be security risks

Poor Dave Osborne. Seems he was a threat to everyone on his flight. Thankfully, someone in security knew how to eliminate the threat.

A TOURIST was told to turn his T-shirt inside-out at an airport — as a picture of two guns on it was deemed a SECURITY RISK.

Dave Osborne, 21, was bound for Newark, New Jersey, when guards hauled him out of the queue for his Guns N Rollers T-shirt.

They told him the two pistols on the front could constitute a security risk and upset passengers.

He was ordered to turn his top inside out before boarding.

The design engineer from Lichfield, Staffs, said: “I am all for extra security but this was just plain stupid.”

I agree, Dave. I agree.

Last night bosses at Birmingham International Airport apologised and said security guards “over-reacted”.

Gee, you think?  You know, I’m really thinking I need to add a “Stupid people/procedures” category for my site.
I won’t post the image, as the site has a right-click blocker saying “Blah, blah, protected image.” Yes, this is easy to disable, but if they don’t want me posting their image, I won’t. Just hit the site to see the security risk just recently discovered by the amazingly brilliant people who are protecting us all.

[tags]Security providers proving dumber over time, T-shirt a security risk due to scary word[/tags]

Stupid Security 2006 call for nominees

Privacy International has opened up their Stupid Security 2006 contest with a call for nominees. If you aren’t familiar with the contest, I recommend looking back at the 2003 winners (the last year the contest was held).

Here’s some background for this year’s contest.

We’ve all been there. Standing for ages in a security line at an inconsequential office building only to be given a security pass that a high school student could have faked. Or being forced to produce photo ID for even the most innocent activity.

(long article follows)

Continue reading “Stupid Security 2006 call for nominees”

Responses to the “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide” comments

In the US, we are accustomed to certain levels of privacy.  Many politicians at all levels of government want to reduce our expectations of privacy.  From installing cameras everywhere (including inside private homes) in a certain town in Texas to illegal wiretaps on US citizens to the previous uses of Carnivore to gather online communications we have faced constant intrusions into our privacy.  So many governmental apologists would respond that if you are doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide.  The natural corollary to this would be that you have nothing to worry about from being spied on illegally by the government.

For those of you that are not satisfied with that claim, perhaps you’d like to try some of these responses to people who tell you that?

The idea that “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” assumes that the government is full of good people that would not abuse their power, ever. Even if this were true now, we cannot be sure it’ll be true in the future. The US Republic was founded on the idea that humans are corruptible and we need to have checks and balances against corruption built into our government. Because corrupt people will oppress those who have done nothing wrong.

. . .

So whenever I hear the nothing to worry about line, I usually respond with something along the lines of “yeah…, isn’t that what Stalin used to say?” It usually shuts them up, but won’t change anyone’s mind.

. . .

It honestly doesn’t matter what you think or “feel” about who should be carted off, and how. We have a Constitution in this country that guarantees every American citizen the right to face his or her accusers in a court of law. This is the law. It is not up for debate:

“No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

I know plenty of people who will disagree with my belief that I’m still entitled to privacy, even though I’m doing nothing wrong.  I don’t want the government watching me just because someone wants to.  If the government wants to watch me, there are legal means to do so.  And until those legal means are pursued, no one has a right to watch my every move just out of curiosity or just in case.

[tags]US citizens’ right to privacy[/tags]

Pre-war intelligence – what we knew and what we didn’t

I’ve been reading more official and unofficial accounts of what was known before the US went to war in Iraq. I’m trying to get a better understanding of what intelligence we had which we were sure was correct, what we had that was unverified (or unverifiable), what questions were or were not asked about our sources, and more. So far, I’m finding anecdotal evidence that warnings were made about how questionable some of the pre-war intelligence used to justify the war was. But I’m also finding official reports that indicate some intelligence wasn’t properly corrborated and investigated, but nothing to indicate there were doubts raised about the sources.

Continue reading “Pre-war intelligence – what we knew and what we didn’t”

Keith Olbermann puts another painful smack down on Bill O’Reilly

Before you watch this, you might want to look up something of the Malmédy massacre (good sources at HistoryNet or at Wikipedia). That out of the way, watch this video in which Keith Olbermann again points out how horribly wrong Bill O’Reilly is, even when O’Reilly tries to tell his fans that he didn’t say what he said. The really disgusting thing is Fox News changed the transcript of the broadcast to make it appear that O’Reilly did not say what he clearly said – two times. I think Bill O’Reilly is an even worse mouthpiece than Rush Limbaugh, so seeing someone point out anything he does which is this horribly wrong just makes me happy.

Olbermann: Abraham Lincoln did not shoot John Wilkes Booth. The Titanic did not sink a North Atlantic iceberg. And Fox News is neither fair nor balanced. These are simple historical facts intelligible to all adults, most children, and some of your more discerning domesticated animals. But not, as the third story on the countdown proves yet again, not to Bill O.

I have downloaded this video (thanks to the VideoDownloader extension for FireFox), but at nearly 20 Meg, I cannot afford the bandwidth to post it here for all visitors. If you cannot get to the YouTube to watch the video, give me your email address in the comments section (appropriately obfuscated to avoid harvesting bots if necessary) and I’ll post it somewhere and shoot you a link.

[tags]Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly is wrong again, Fox News is neither fair nor balanced[/tags]