The obvious, stated

It appears that someone FINALLY gets it.  Anne Applebaum of Foreign Policy magazine says in a mainstream publication what I've been saying for years on my little blog.

HOMELAND SECURITY HASN'T MADE US SAFER

Hardly anyone has seriously scrutinized either the priorities or the spending patterns of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), since their hurried creation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Sure, they get criticized plenty. But year in, year out, they continue to grow faster and cost more -- presumably because Americans think they are being protected from terrorism by all that spending. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the agencies are making Americans any safer.

DHS serves only one clear purpose: to provide unimaginable bonanzas for favored congressional districts around the United States, most of which face no statistically significant security threat at all. One thinks of the $436,504 that the Blackfeet Nation of Montana received in fiscal 2010 "to help strengthen the nation against risks associated with potential terrorist attacks"; the $1,000,000 that the village of Poynette, Wisconsin (pop. 2,266) received in fiscal 2009 for an "emergency operations center"; or the $67,000 worth of surveillance equipment purchased by Marin County, California, and discovered, still in its original packaging, four years later. And indeed, every U.S. state, no matter how landlocked or underpopulated, receives, by law, a fixed percentage of homeland security spending every year.

As for the TSA, I am not aware of a single bomber or bomb plot stopped by its time-wasting procedures. In fact, TSA screeners consistently fail to spot the majority of fake "bombs" and bomb parts the agency periodically plants to test their skills. In Los Angeles, whose airport was targeted by the "millennium plot" on New Year's 2000, screeners failed some 75 percent of these tests.

Terrorists have been stopped since 2001 and plots prevented, but always by other means. After the Nigerian "underwear bomber" of Christmas Day 2009 was foiled, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed "the system worked" -- but the bomber was caught by a passenger, not the feds. Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber, was undone by an alert stewardess who smelled something funny. The 2006 Heathrow Airport plot was uncovered by an intelligence tip. Al Qaeda's recent attempt to explode cargo planes was caught by a human intelligence source, not an X-ray machine. Yet the TSA responds to these events by placing restrictions on shoes, liquids, and now perhaps printer cartridges.

Given this reality -- and given that 9/11 was, above all, a massive intelligence failure -- wouldn't we be safer if the vast budgets of TSA and its partners around the world were diverted away from confiscating nail scissors and toward creating better information systems and better intelligence?

Amen, sister!

Now that it's been said out loud in the mainstream, can we PLEASE have a rational debate about this colossal monstrosity Washington has created?

Keep in mind that the REAL purpose of DHSS* isn't to protect us. The real purpose of DHSS is to convince the American people to forfeit their freedoms in exchange for purported protection and safety.  As Ms. Applebaum has appropriately noted, we haven't gained a lick of enhanced security from the agencies of oppression, DHSS, and its bastard stepchild, TSSA*. 

Isn't it time to stop pretending and put an end to this mindless charade?

* You can't abbreviate Schutzstaffel without the double 'S'

Two-bit terrorism in the PRM

Terrorism has hit in the Great State People's Republic of Maryland!  Call the National Guard!  Call DHSS*!  Call Janet Napolitano!

Terrorism in the PRM?  Uh, yeah....about that...

State and federal officials are investigating small incendiary devices that "flared up" at the Maryland Department of Transportation's headquarters in Hanover and a state government building in Annapolis on Thursday.

What do you mean "small incendiary devices"?  Who's behind it?  What kind of damage did the devices cause?  The answers:

A disgruntled "lone wolf" is believed to be behind incendiary devices sent to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley, investigators believe.

The two devices burned the fingers of two employees when they were opened in Annapolis and Hanover 15 minutes apart Thursday.
[...]
When the worker opened the package that had five holiday postage stamps on it, it produced a "puff of smoke and a sulphur-type smell, like if you would strike a match."

That's it?  A stink bomb that resulted in some burned fingers?  C'mon, are you kidding me?  I've had camping trips that resulted in more carnage than that!

Yes, one of the packages was address to Governor Martin O' Owe-Malley...hey, how 'bout that [/sarcasm].  Old Marty was unharmed by the "attack".  He can go on taxing and spending with impunity.

Of course, you just KNOW that law enforcement and the DHSS are going to WAAAAAAY overreact to this little prank.  Are we going to be subjected to TSSA* groping when we go to the post office?

Kinda adds new meaning to the phrase, "Let me inspect that package, sir!"

* You can't abbreviate Schutzstaffel without the double 'S'

Message to the looter class

How can you tell when your society is destined for ruin?  Easy.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

An excerpt from Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand.

How valid is Rand's assessment.  Pretty spot on, if you ask me.  Pretty spot on.

A hearty welcome to the 112th Congress of the United States.  Loot on!

What anonymity really means

There once was a blog called Coram Non Judice (known to regular readers of this fine blog as Caput Penitus Culus).  The blog was purported to present valid legal opinions on issues related to the FLDS raid in Texas.  The blog was run pseudonymously by a fellow identifying himself as TxBluesMan.  No one knew his real name.  No one knew what his credentials were to opine on legal matters.  No one.

When asked how he justified writing anonymously what essentially amounted to hate-filled propaganda in the guise of legal opinion -- citing precedent often, of course -- TxBluesMan compared himself to the Founders, who at times wrote anonymous tracts against the colonial government and the King.

This, of course, was complete horse hockey.  There was nothing remotely similar to what the Founders did in anything TxBluesMan wrote.  The Founders hid behind anonymity to avoid arrest for sedition.  TxBluesMan wrote anonymously for a far different reason.

Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

As the tipster who passed this story on to me wrote, "That, boys and girls, is the story of TxBluesman."

100% true and accurate. Think I'm kidding? I was accused by TxBluesMan of being pro-polygamy and pro-pedophilia for simply opining that 4th Amendment protections were violated during the Texas Stoßtruppen's raid! 

TxBluesMan is an intolerant bully.  He desperately needed to be outed.  And he was.

TxBluesMan turned out to be Sgt. Gregory Prickett, AKA the Caput a Palos, AKA The Prickette.

Once he was outed, The Prickette immediately shut down his odious blog to try to bury the evidence.  You see, now his real self was linked to his Internet self -- and real consequences awaited.

It's not pleasant when the curtain is parted and the Great and Powerful Oz is revealed to be a two-bit loser with a penchant for throwing his weight around and playing the big shot.  At least, not for Oz.

UPDATE: The same tipster who passed on the NY Times article adds the following:

Just FYI: while online at any sites controlled by Google, your "anonymity" is subject to their selective authority that may or may not conceal it.

Wiener of the Year

Prior to 2010 I awarded the Wiener of the Week award and the Wiener of the Month award every week/month.  I discontinued that practice this year because it constrained my flexibility with regard to subject-matter selection.  It was a decision I'm glad I made, given that the past year I've had significantly less opportunity to post than in past years.

But at the time I announced the discontinuation of the Wieners of the Week and Month, I stated that the Wiener of the Year award would still be given out to the person or persons most deserving of that dishonor.

In past years I solicited nominations for the WotY.  Not this year.  There was no need for that.  The winner (wiener?) was decided months ago.  There aren't even any candidates for the runner-up spots.  Nope, for 2010 there's just one, and he may be the most deserving recipient yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Wiener of the Year for 2010 is: Sgt. Gregory Prickett (hereinafter referred to as The Prickette).

It's ironic, but The Prickette is a two-time Wiener.  Last year I picked co-Wieners when I awarded the WotY to two blogs noted for their anti-FLDS bigotry.  At that time the identity of the person behind the execrable Coram Non Judice (known by regulars here as Caput Penitus Culus - Head Inside Ass) was unknown.  Thanks to the efforts of The Pharisee and others, the identity of the Caput a Palos was revealed.  Rather than bore you with the history of what transpired in the wake of that revelation, you can read up on it here.  Suffice it to say that The Prickette has paid dearly for playing lawyer and accusing innocent persons of pedophilia.

What makes The Prickette Wiener-worthy?  Let me count the ways.

1. He shut down his blog once he was outed.   It's gone for good, deleted by its owner.  Note that The Prickette has never at any time denied that he is TxBluesMan, the sorry excuse for a human being who proudly used his purported legal "expertise" to espouse bigotry and hatred.
2. He presented himself to his blog readers as a legal expert.  He not only isn't a lawyer, he wasn't even a real law enforcement professional (campus cop does NOT count as law enforcement).
3. He lost his job as a campus cop.  It would be purely speculative on my part to posit a theory as to why he is no longer employed by UNT, but it is likely related to alleged misuse of university resources in furtherance of his malignant campaign of pure bigotry against the FLDS.
4. Now that he's been "outed", his relationship with Natalie Malonis has become fodder for speculation.  I wonder how Mrs. Prickette feels about the coziness between her pompous-ass husband and Ms. Malonis.
5. He has attempted to sue those responsible for outing him for "damages", yet, as noted earlier, he has NEVER denied being the cowardly subhuman behind Caput Penitus Culus.  Never.  Kinda hard to prove damages when the "damage" is the result of the revelation of the truth.

Face it, Prickette.  Your life is a colossal fail.  Epic.  You sat in judgment of others, flinging baseless accusations from behind the cloak of anonymity like an ape throwing feces at the zoo (a fitting mental picture of who you really are).  And you've proved to be a fraud, a loser, a nothing.

Congratulations, Prickette.  You're the Wiener of the Year.

 Pictured: the Caput a Palos himself

Back in the saddle again

OMG!  One week without wireless capability and I'm jonesing like a junkie for crack.  It just goes to show you how much some of us have become reliant on technology.  By "some of us" I certainly mean me.

So now I can resume my rightful place at the keyboard, lurking.

Home Sweet Wireless Home!