4 posts tagged “stupidity”
OK, TSA, now you bastards have gone too far.
Then another security guard entered and the second guard went through my bags questioning me on almost everything in them. He gave me a really hard time on several items. The first was a bottle of Allegra-D. He wanted to know why I had it and if I could prove it was actually allegra inside of it.
The second problem was that I had several graphic novels with me. I had planned to read them on the plane. I had “DMZ” volumes 1, 2 & 3, “The Nightly News,” and “Artemis Fowl.” The guard flipped through “DMZ” saw a ravaged New York City and them immediately called for two other security guards to join him in the room. I was then questioned for over an hour about the comics and why I had them. I was point blank asked if I was a terrorist or if I ever had desires to harm other. The whole ordeal was completely ridiculous. I can understand them being cautious but going ballistic because of the graphic novels I had with me is taking it too far.
I told them that I was the Executive Editor of Th3rd World Studios, an independent comic book company, and that as a result I always try to read as many other comics/graphic novels so that I know what’s out there. I explained that DMZ had gotten a lot of positive reviews and so I decided it was time I finally read it. But they didn’t seem to care. All they saw was comics with “terrorism” and felt that it was suspicious.
Looking back I understand now that I should have never left my stuff outside of the airport bathroom, but to go crazy over graphic novels is ridiculous. I’m sure they’ve never accused someone with a season of “24″ of being a terrorist. But comics, apparently not being as mainstream as I’ve hoped, are seen as this mysterious dark thing. It’s ignorance like this that makes the general public think comics are just for kids or that comics are ONLY superheroes. It’s sad.
I sure hope Rebecca likes long road trips, because this blogger isn’t going through any airports in the foreseeable future. [ed. - She does. w00t!]
Via Brian Wood.
stuff like this
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed what little privacy you thought you had, folks.
WASHINGTON (AP) - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.
[…]
Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are “perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.”
He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.
Millions of people in this country - particularly young people - already have surrendered anonymity to social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and to Internet commerce. These sites reveal to the public, government and corporations what was once closely guarded information, like personal statistics and credit card numbers.
“Those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it’s not for us to inflict one size fits all,” said Kerr, 68. “Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that.”
“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,” Kerr said. “I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn’t empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.”
Sounds innocuous enough, right? I mean, do we really have any expectation of privacy anymore, especially online?
Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual property rights, said Kerr’s argument ignores both privacy laws and American history.
“Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms,” Opsahl said. “The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together.”
Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service.
“There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy.”
“It’s just another ‘trust us, we’re the government,”’ he said.
And we all know how those kind of stories end, don’t we?
stuff like this
Dear CNN:
I'll make a deal with you: you stop telling me when Dubya is thinking about doing something smart (as opposed to actually doing something intelligent), and I'll stop making fun of you to everyone I know for being the most gullible rubes on the planet.
Seriously, how many times has this yokel burned you guys with big "announcements" that only turn out to be rephrased ways of saying "stay the course"? How many times have you given this fool air time for his huge speech events, only to find out that he is, in fact, saying the exact same thing over and over and bloody over again?
Get a clue, you idiots.
Regards,
Steven Perez
This has to be one of the funniest things I've read today. Apparently, some yo-yo over at World Net Daily thinks that consuming mass quantities of soy products makes men gay.
I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.
Estrogens are female hormones. If you're a woman, you're flooding your system with a substance it can't handle in surplus. If you're a man, you're suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally. [...]
Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.
Wow. That would explain my health improvement as of late: I'm not really healthier, I must be gay!!! {Note: This was sarcastic, to those who failed to pick up on it.]
Having been subjected to various health-food regimes over the years, and having recently kicked all red meat and pork out of my diet in favor of soy products, I can definitely say in all seriousness:
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I'm not sexually confused.
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I'm not gay.
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My "size" is none of your business, but it is quite healthy.
So I racked my brains trying to figure out where this clown would get a crazy idea like "soy makes your kids gay".
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Via Misty at Shakes Sis.
