Random Musings, TSA Version

by Noah

Like everybody else, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the TSA and their use of Michael Chertoff’s Porno Scanners. I’ve been jotting them down as they come. Being what most people would call a cynic but I call a realist, some of my thoughts are snarky ones that often emanate from an overall mood of gallows humor. That’s just the way I often deal with things when anger and outrage just aren’t enough. I’ll start with one of those, using such humor to make a point, I guess. That’s no crime in my book. But, this is a very serious subject, and what’s going on in our airports is by no means pretty. In fact, it’s downright bleak.

Consider:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

-- Ben Franklin, February 1775 (as published in Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1818)

And:

“Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”

-- Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1756)

1. Remember when the Patriot Act and illegal phone taps were a hot topic and all the righties were saying something along the lines of “What’s the big deal about them spying on us, if you have nothing to hide . . .” Hmmm. Am I to assume, now that the righties are screaming and belching fire about their rights, that they do have something to hide?

2. Seriously, though, this is the next stage in our world becoming the one that George Orwell depicted in 1984. The end result of that one was every citizen had a camera in their homes that watched them 24 hours a day. For now, it’s scanners at the airport. Next it will be at the stadium. As soon as there is a terror incident at a mall, you’ll need to be scanned if you want to get into Nordstrom’s. The fact that the scanners have little chance of stopping an attack means little when there’s a pile of money to be made scaring the public and selling Rube Goldberg devices. A cowed and compliant public is a nice additional bonus and just may be objective numero uno anyway.

3. Before we had scanners, there was a group in the U.K. that had nasty plans involving detonating liquids. Next thing we knew, any liquid we were carrying on board had to be four ounces or less. Yeah, like four ounces or even two of some of the designer explosives wouldn’t be enough to bring down a plane. Even with an amateur concoction, all you have to do is mix enough of something capable of blowing a hole in a wall. So, what was the four-ounce rule all about? Fear and compliance, as if we aren’t all sheep already.

4. How does a scanner not prevent an attack? Well, one way is the same way that drugs can be smuggled into the country. Put some C-4 in a condom or a balloon and swallow it or stick it where the sun don’t shine. Get on the plane. Go to the toilet, and drop the bomb as it were. You think the terrorists and the government don’t know this? Sure they know, but just like KBR made money in Iraq building showers that electrocuted some of our soldiers, the goal is not to protect but to make money selling machines.

In this day and age, it all seems to be about greed and making money first. Iraq wasn’t about terror, and neither is this. It’s about profiteering on fear. Halliburton made billions on Iraq. You might say that Cheney tore it down and now he’s rebuilding it with the contracts in hand. I can see it now: Let Halliburton put a scanner on your block. Be the first to have one. Wanna check that kid who’s on a play date with your child? Sure you do! You wouldn’t be a good parent without demanding our new X-1 scanner in the playground. Now available for back-yard use.

5. We are told that the scanners are for our own safety, and people buy it without thinking about the profiteering, the politics, or the persistent chipping away at “our freedoms” and “our liberties,” as some phony-ass bozo used to say. But how come no other countries are using them, and their terrorism situation isn’t any worse than ours?

Last time I went to Europe, I was coming home through the airport in Amsterdam and all I had to take off was my jacket and my hat. They X-rayed my jacket on the conveyor, and they just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything under my hat. I walked through the metal detector, and that was that. Here at home, I have to take off my shoes because of the “shoe bomber.” I can just see the ramifications of some future “bra bomber.” Women, take off your bras and place them in the tray. Somehow, Woody Allen’s crazed South American dictator demanding that his subjects wear their underwear “on the outside, so we can check” is not so far-fetched anymore. We have become surreal.

6. How does a person who has been raped or otherwise violated feel about our brave new world? I can only imagine the unease and the horrible memories that will be dredged up. The name of the company that makes the scanners that Michael Chertoff has a piece of is Rapiscan. I wonder how the people behind all of this pronounce the name in their private time.

They have us right where they want us. But is "they" our corrupt government, the terrorists, or both? People don’t think. The next terror attack is either going to be something simple like a bomb in a crowd, as was attempted in Times Square and in Portland, Oregon, or it’ll be something we haven’t even thought of yet, and no scanner is likely to have prevented it.

Rest assured, the scanners will stay, and not just for profiteering reasons, but political ones as well, such as maintaining the appearance of “doing all we can do.” Imagine the outcry from the Fox loons if President Obama removed them and then there was an attack on a plane.

However, sharp human eyes connected to a sharp human brain will always be the best protection. They know this in Israel. They’re real good at reading people over there. They call it "profiling," but it’s not quite the same as what we in America call racial profiling. Yes, they have fewer airports, but our TSA people aren’t being trained in all of the right skills. Do they have the right sensitivities to notice things? Drug dealers have been known to smuggle drugs in the corpses of “sleeping” babies held in mom’s arms. What’s to stop a terrorist from doing the same thing?

In Vietnam they used to hand a kid a grenade, pull the pin, and send the unknowing child into a crowd of soldiers in the street. We live in a world where most of us think no one would ever do such a thing. Most of us would never even think of it. We see a mother with a sleeping baby, and we’re lulled into some sort of primal fog. Are you confident that a TSA agent, with or without a scanner, would even think to check if a baby was breathing?

#

People With Clout, Including Wealthy Travelers, Can Avoid Airport Security

Roland and I fly a lot, and we like to feel safe. Roland, like the vast majority of Americans, seems to be pretty complacent about the latest TSA efforts to look like they're keeping the flying public safe with the full-body scanners and intrusive, aggressive full body patdowns, even though I keep telling him it's all a ruse. Last night he told me that he read somewhere that the latest in terror tactics will be for suicide bombers to fill their stomachs with plastic explosives, and we should enjoy the little inconvenience the TSA is inflicting on us now because its going to get a lot worse.

Yesterday's NY Times laid out all the complaints about the new TSA initiative, from the serious dangers of cancer and blindness to the rapaciousness of a crook like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who got this ball bouncing on behalf of one of his firm's clients, Rapiscan Systems, which Chertoff recommended as the manufacturer for our airport safety and which has already benefited to the tune of a quarter-billion dollars.

I still recall standing on long lines and feeling Big Brother was further dehumanizing me, and I blamed it on Bush. I'm sure there were plenty of otherwise-apolitical frequent flyers who turned away from the GOP because of the increasingly authoritarian nature of airport security. I remember talking with fellow passengers about how things would start to get better under Obama. But Obama seems politically tone-deaf to what's going on at the airports. And it doesn't help that rich people and politically connected people (like John Boehner) don't have to go through what the rest of us have to.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Ronald Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. There was no waiting for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the identification-checking agents, the metal detectors and the body scanners, and whisked directly to the gate.

The Republican leader, who will become the second person in line to assume the presidency after the new Congress convenes in January, took great pride after the midterm elections in declaring his man-of-the-people plans to travel home as other Americans do. In a time of economic difficulty, it was a not-so-subtle dig at Ms. Pelosi, who has access to a military jet large enough to avoid refueling for her flights home to San Francisco.

If you want to pay to join a Verified Identity Pass program like Clear, you can almost be treated as well as Boehner.

Members who pay the $99.95 annual fee to join and who submit to biometric and background screening are given access to a private lane, which purports to usher them through security with more predictability, greater speed and less hassle ($28.00 of that fee goes to the TSA to cover the cost of completing a security threat assessment). “Clear has made this new life of flying commercial, which has gone down the toilet, a little more bearable,” said program member Henry Morgan, regional manager of Highline Products in Orlando.

Clear [$199/year] is one example of the Registered Traveler programs that the Transportation Security Administration has developed in conjunction with private companies in order to, as the TSA puts it, “provide expedited security screening for passengers who volunteer biometric and biographic information” and who “successfully complete a security threat assessment.” To date, Verified Identity Pass and four other companies-- Unisys, Saflink, Verant and Vigilant-- have satisfied TSA’s criteria to act as providers of Registered Traveler services. As the TSA notes, "The program is market-driven and offered by the private sector with TSA largely playing a facilitating role."

President Obama may think working out "free"-trade agreements with China and Colombia which ship more American jobs overseas is a better use of his time, but some American voters are boiling that this airport screening mess is being handled so poorly, and they're not going to blame faceless bureaucrats, or Joe Lieberman or Michael Chertoff. They're going to blame Barack Obama. It almost looks like Republican congressmen are already blaming Obama for Michael Chertoff, Bush's corrupt DHS secretary! Although I wonder what would have happened to, for example, Ron Paul (R-TX) if he had said any of this while Bush was president, not that he ever would have:

I see what has happened to the American people is that we have accepted the notion that we should be treated like cattle. We've had it... I think this whole idea of an "opt out" date is just great. We ought to opt out and make the point-- get somebody to watch it, take a camera-- it's time for the American people to stand up, shrug off the shackles of our government, of TSA at the airport.

UPDATE: Glad Obama Understands The Traveling Public's Unhappiness With All This New Invasiveness But...

Looks like not all the blame can be placed on Chertoff. Corporations really need to be taken in hand and made to serve the public interest, rather than dominate it. Rapiscan's CEO was invited along on President Obama's trip to India this month-- yes the company Chertoff lobbies for.

The CEO of one of the two companies licensed to sell full body scanners to the TSA accompanied President Barack Obama to India earlier this month, a clear sign of the deep ties between Washington politicians and the companies pushing to have body scanners installed at all US airports.

Deepak Chopra, chairman and CEO of OSI Systems and no relation to the New Age spiritualist, was one of a number of CEOs who traveled with the president on his three-day trip to India, which focused primarily on expanding business ties between the US and the emerging Asian power.

That a manufacturer of body scanners accompanied the US president on a foreign trip shows the extent of the ties between the industry and the US government. With anger growing at the intrusive news screening procedures, many observers have focused attention on Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary whose consultancy, the Chertoff Group, counts OSI as a client.

The original orders for body scanners were made in 2005, during the Bush administration when Chertoff was still head of Homeland Security. Chertoff stepped up his lobbying for body scanners late last year after the attempted Christmas Day bombing.

"Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected '[the alleged Christmas Day bomber's] explosive," Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, told the Washington Post.

"Airport security has always been compromised by corporate interests," wrote James Ridgeway at Mother Jones. "When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same."

Good riddance to more Bush rubbish: Alice Fisher, who more or less paralyzed DoJ's Criminal Division, joins the exodus--and this story may not be over

"She will leave a void that will be tough to fill."
--Andrew C. Lourie, "a former top aide to Fisher who is a defense lawyer in Washington," quoted by the Washington Post's Carrie Johnson on the departure at the end of this month of Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher [right], head of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division

Well, counselor Lourie, that's one view. However, it's emphatically not the one I'm getting from the legal eagles I consulted.

The contrasting view is that in nearly three years at the helm of DoJ's Criminal Division, responsible for overseeing the fight against public corruption and corporate fraud (a pretty awesome job in the Bush regime, of which public corruption and corporate fraud seem to be the very lifeblood)--our Alice pretty much brought whatever work was being done in these areas to a screeching halt. (She's described to me as a "Chertoff protege"--does that chill your blood the way it does mine?--and, oh yes, as having ties to Tom DeLay's defense. Better still!)

There's even a suggestion that flames of scandal may be rising in the direction of our Alice. Just last week her onetime Criminal Division subordinate Robert E. Coughlin II entered a guilty plea to felony conflict of interest, for swapping favors on an apparently routine basis with crooked lobbyist Kevin Ring, who's not only a crony of the crookedest lobbyist of them all, Jack Abramoff, but a former aide to California Rep. John Doolittle, who sits atop DWT's list of Republicrooks Most Urgently Still Awaiting Indictment.

McClatchy Newspapers' Marisa Taylor reported on April 22 that Coughlin made his admissions "as part of an agreement to cooperate with federal prosecutors in exchange for a lighter sentence." She added, "Prosecutors, who plan to seek four to six months in prison, declined to comment."

Firedoglake's Christy Hardin-Smith speculated last week about the implications of the Coughlin plea story, which came rife with mentions of "various government officials" and "officials, including those with the department":

Hmmmmm ... by my read, that puts a whole host of "other officials" (note the plural in that) -- both within the Department of Justice and within the government at large -- on the potential hook from Mr. Coughlin's cooperation deal. Were there higher-ups at DOJ pressuring him to help out good ole Jack? Or a pal of Doolittle [right] like Ring clearly was?

And, beyond that, is Ring now also cooperating with the government and/or soon to be indicted? Because he's been under substantial scrutiny for a while now. Have they reeled him in for a cooperation and plea information as well? How many others strands of the Republican corruption web does this tug on at once? How many more officials like Coughlin and Stephen Griles are dangling off the web, just waiting to be reeled in for more cooperation with the government on the next person up the chain of power?

Because that's how a complex corruption scheme is cracked, one cooperation plea at a time. Coughlin got nailed for failing to report gifts of food and beverage and such as required by DOJ regs -- and of such small infractions, large cases are cracked. This certainly puts a lot of pressure on Ring to flip on the next folks up the chain -- because someone with a straight arrow reputation like Coughlin is likely to spill everything in penance for his transgressions.

Word to the wise, Mr. Ring: he who spills earliest gets the best deal -- wait too long, and your buddy Doolittle will already have hung you out to dry. That sound you hear just might be Rep. Doolittle calling his lawyers ... again.

There could be a lot of mouths blabbering even as we speak, and that could be bad news for the head of a Criminal Division who may have been a tad fuzzy whether her mission was to combat or to promote corruption and fraud.

And that isn't the end of the speculation. My attention has been called to the fact that an Inspector General's report is expected soon on the handling of the torture question, within DoJ, and this could be deeply incriminating for our Alice. As I'm reminded, her involvement weighed heavily on the mind of Michigan Senator Carl Levin at the time she was nominated to head the Criminal Division.

Senator Levin went on to outline, then describe in great detail, his deep concerns about the administration's elaborate and persistent web of obfuscation and suppression of crucial information, which had marred not just Ms. Fisher's previous Senate confirmation hearings but also those of Michael Chertoff to become secretary of Homeland Security while he was head of the DoJ Criminal Division and our Alice was his deputy. There was good reason to believe, the senator suggested, that both of them were up to their eyeballs in knowledge of the already-in-place program of torture at Guantanamo.

In a speech he gave on the floor of the Senate in September 2006, Senator Levin said in part:

[T]he issue of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay is very much on our minds and in the headlines as we debate how we will treat detainees in the future. In this context, the nomination of Ms. Alice Fisher for the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice is not just a routine appointment. Alice Fisher was the Deputy at the Criminal Division while the abuse at Guantanamo was occurring and while concerns about interrogation tactics were being raised within the Criminal Division at that same time. We are being asked to confirm Ms. Fisher today with unanswered relevant questions about any knowledge she may have had or actions she might have taken relative to those interrogation tactics. . . .

The information I have sought relates to what Ms. Fisher knew about aggressive and abusive interrogation techniques in use at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during the time that Ms. Fisher served as deputy head of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department from July 2001 to July 2003. From publicly-released FBI documents, we have learned that FBI personnel raised serious concerns about these DoD interrogation tactics at weekly meetings between FBI and Department of Justice Criminal Division officials. I have sought to find out what Ms. Fisher knew about these FBI concerns over aggressive DoD methods; what, if anything, was reported to Ms. Fisher; and what steps, if any, she took in response.

If Ms. Fisher knew of aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo and did nothing about it, or she knew about them but has denied knowing, then I would be deeply troubled. The Administration has repeatedly obstructed efforts to get this information, information which is, in my judgement, relevant to Ms. Fisher’s suitability for the position to which she is nominated. . . .

*

Now the question is whether Judge Malarkey, the best darned U.S. attorney general we have at this particular moment, has given any thought to having his Criminal Division, in these waning months of his tiny tenure as AG, like, maybe, fight some friggin' crime.

Probably the real question, though is whether anyone has asked Senator Obama who he's thinking of sticking with the job of attorney general. Gadzooks, does that poor soul have his/her work cut out!

#

DHS capo "Judge Mike" Chertoff ruffles some Canadian feathers with his, er, unexpected conception of just what constitutes "privacy"

Bag that glass and send it to the lab for prints! Sec'y Chertoff's orders.

"A fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world. They're like footprints. They're not particularly private."
--Homeland Security Secretary "Judge Mike" Chertoff


HS Sec'y Chertoff will go down in history for, um, let's see . . . OK, first, for being the longest-serving out of all the first two overlords of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), having succeeded the legendary Tom "Plastic Sheets 'n' Duct Tape" Ridge (we can't of course count pathetic Rudy Giuliani stooge Bernie Kerik, whose nomination to succeed "Old Plastic Sheets 'n' Duct Tape" had to be withdrawn amidst, well, all that unpleasantness); and, then, for being as such the boss of Heckuva Job Brownie (of FEMA fame, or infamy) through all the unpleasantness down there along the Gulf Coast awhile back; and, finally . . . well, maybe the best is yet to come--as in going down for the third time, maybe?

Now Judge Mike (you'll recall that the secretary sat briefly on the bench of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals being tapped for the DHS job) finds himself in the crosshairs of our lampooning marksman pal Al Kamen in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column today. It seems Sec'y Judge Mike raised some hackles among our persnickety friends to the north. His scheme to do some grand-scale fingerprint swapping among our allies in the English-speaking world ran into unexpectedly stiff resistance from Canadian officialdom:

Wacky Canadians Still Believe in Privacy

By Al Kamen
Friday, April 25, 2008

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff caused a little ruckus up north a couple weeks ago as he was pushing his plan to share databases of international air travelers' fingerprints with the Canadians, Brits and Aussies.

In an interview with an excessively squeamish Canadian reporter, Chertoff was told: "Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing."

Nonsense, Chertoff responded. "Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world. They're like footprints. They're not particularly private," he said, according to Canadian news reports and privacy lawyer Peter Swire, a senior fellow and guest blogger at the Center for American Progress.

Absolutely. But the old-fashioned Canadians seem to think otherwise. They even have someone who monitors privacy issues, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who promptly wrote the minister of public safety and preparedness to object, noting that Canadian law "defines fingerprints as personal information" and that "fingerprints constitute extremely personal information for which there is clearly a high expectation of privacy." That's why, she wrote with a hint of huffiness, "Canadians rightly expect their government to respect their civil liberties and personal information from abuse."

Oh yeah? Well, our Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that you have to have probable cause before you haul someone off and fingerprint them. Justice Byron R. White wrote the opinion, joined by Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, no less.

But in wartime, maybe we have different expectations, okay? As Chertoff, who after all was recently a federal appeals judge, knows quite well, no one should expect privacy in a restaurant or anywhere else where a fingerprint might be left.

And we don't. That's why many diners here are beginning to use gloves when they eat at restaurants and some even wear those hospital booties. Others prefer just a discreet swipe of utensils and glassware with a Wet-Nap to ensure against DNA retrieval from saliva. (There is a growing -- and deplorable -- trend to bring personal cutlery, but that really seems excessive and, in finer establishments, downright disrespectful, especially if it's plastic.)

Is it possible the Canadians thought those signs at beachfront eateries -- "No shirt, no shoes, no service" -- were an effort to maintain appropriate attire? Everyone down here knows the restaurants just wanted to prevent the feds from trying to collect toe prints.

Canadians probably still go to barbershops -- where a single hair in the right hands can provide DNA, general health info, recent drug use data and other information. Our cousins probably haven't read about the growing in-home trim movement here.

And there's an easy way to guard against theft of your secret mattress Sleep Number. Just change the setting every morning before you leave.

#

If "The Judge" becomes our next attorney general, who's going to be his deputy? (Well, yes, naturally we do have a couple of suggestions to offer)

Wouldn't it be great to have the Chertoff-Brown team reunited?

Say, if Homeland Security Sec'y Mikey "Here Come da Judge" Chertoff gets to replace Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales as U.S. attorney general (as if anyone could replace Idiot Al), does that mean we can look forward to him bringing his old sidekick "Heckuva Job" Brownie back into gov't service as his No. 2, the deputy attorney general? Of course there are apparently several hundred other "top" jobs open at the Justice Dept. in case The Judge has someone else in mind to be his deputy. (Barney Fife would seem about right.)

But man, wouldn't that be something, having The Judge and our Brownie teamed up again and back in action? Doing for the DoJ, well, what they did for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Oh wait, didn't Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" already do that?

I BET BUSH GETS SOME SLIMEBAG INTO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAIR BEFORE HE DOES ANYTHING TO HELP NEW ORLEANS

On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush Regime may have no real plan to rebuild New Orleans, but they probably do have a plan to insert the incompetent knave who was in charge of homeland security at the time, into the Attorney General's job. Even before the news had leaked out that Gonzales was finally resigning, there were rumors that Chertoff would be the next Attorney General. Right-wing propaganda sites like Drudge and the Politico started the day claiming that Bush was going to make a recess appointment to avoid having the Regime's overwhelming criminality broadcast all over TV during confirmation hearings. Both the GOP-connected sites removed the recess appointment posts within minutes, apparently having gotten word from their superiors at the propaganda ministry that that wasn't today's message. (If you're wondering why Gonzales resigned today, instead of last week or last month or two months ago, Sidney Blumenthal makes a great case in Why Did Gonzales Resign? that "without Karl Rove around to give him his orders, and with the investigations closing in, 'Fredo' had nowhere to turn.")

If Bush doesn't do the recess appointment thing-- and he crossed his heart and hoped to die in front of Harry Reid that he wouldn't do that this time-- he could just try to get Chertoff through the way normal presidents do. (Best of luck with that, Bushie.) Or he could appoint a quasi-respected Republican senator. Senators always confirm other senators. Bush may have trouble finding one as corrupt and malleable as he would want, although John Cornyn would fit the bill. Or he could just leave Paul Clement in as Interim or Acting A.G. until the clock runs out. I guess for the next few days the traditional media will be able to talk about who'll be the next in line instead of Michael Vick finding Jesus or Owen Wilson's attempted suicide.

Almost all of the remainder of this most hated of all lame ducks' term will be about letting clocks run out-- including the disgrace of the inaction on New Orleans.

CHERTOFF AND SANTORUM COORDINATING THEIR TALKING POINTS ON TERROR AGAIN?

I'm sure you've noticed things have been going badly for Bush on every front. Cheney is down to a 13% approval rating and Bush is headed down the same sink hole. The country has turned against the Regime on every policy-- especially Iraq-- and even the Republican rubber stampers are too scared out of their wits to stick with him. But when it comes to scaring people out of their wits, no one knows how to use that better than Rove and the Bush Regime. The White House is already backtracking on that imbecile Chertoff's dire predictions-- or gut feeling-- on an imminent catastrophic attack on American soil. The level of terrorism emanating from the Bush Regime against Americans has gone way up as their fortunes have sunk deeper and deeper.

This morning a local Philly blog has a story about something defeated far right senator Rick Santorum claims to know.

Rick Santorum apparently has some sort of info that we don't, as he said yesterday on Hugh Hewitt's radio show that there's going to be a terrorist attack before the elections so people will vote Republican. How a terrorist attack during a Republican presidential administration would make people vote Republican is beyond me, but Ol' Ricky says the attack is totally going to keep the Republicans in power.

"Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view."

Interesting that Chertoff, Santorum and other Neocons are all spouting the same line on the same day. I hope there isn't something these psychos have planned.

I don't know what's happening with the BlackBerry crisis, but it's OK to hold the whipped cream on my blackberry shortcake (I'm cutting back)

Mmm, the ripe ones would make great shortcake, wouldn't they?

In my company e-mail this morning, I found this from our IT guy:

There is a outage with the North America blackberry system. Emails cannot be sent or received. The outage is estimated to last through the morning.

Translating IT talk into English, I gather that this is a problem afflicting BlackBerry users, which doesn't affect blackberry consumers at all. As it happens, personally speaking I have "a outage" of my own, blackberrywise, but it's entirely a function of market economics--the blackberry market and my personal economics.

Shortcake. Blackberries would make great shortcake. You could put just a dollop of whipped cream on top, with maybe a hint of vanilla whipped in, and . . .

Oops, I'm drifting. If blackberries are a subject of great interest to me (if there were just something we could do about the damned price), the BlackBerry is of almost none. Except for this sudden discovery that it's apparently possible to make the entire North American BlackBerry system go kerplooey!

I read just recently here on DWT that His Holiness Joe Lieberman, in his capacity as chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee, is proud to be able to cooperate with the Bush administration and has come increasingly to admire the job being done by Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Now, when Judge Chertoff first entered my consciousness some years back, I had the impression that he was a person of some substance, perhaps even accomplishment. But I know you have to be careful with these D.C.-esque resumes. As no one demonstrated better than Chimpy the Prez's own personal Poppy, George H.W.B., it's possible to build up a history of impressive-sounding jobs without ever doing anything, or even acquiring the know-how to do something if you wanted to. But by the time Chimpy tapped Chertoff to be secretary of homeland security, following the sudden unavailability of Rudy Giuliani's pal Bernie Kerik for the job, it's clear that the Chert had embraced rank chumpdom with open arms. (See: Katrina, Hurricane.)

I wonder how Secretary Chumpoff, I mean Chertoff, greeted the news that the entire North American BlackBerry system can be offed with a single whoosh. I suppose the Republican Noise Machinists' Union is looking at the usual suspects: godless, or rather wrong-godded, terrorists. I'm more inclined to think it's another case of business as usual, corporate-America-style.

The only reason to outsource the job to furriners like Osama bin-Laden is that they can probably do the job cheaper. But not better. No, never better. When it comes to fucking up America, nobody could hope to do a better job than our beloved corporate whoremasters. Is it any wonder we pay our CEOs the supermegabucks?

And you can hold the whipped cream on my blackberry shortcake. Lately I haven't been getting to the gym regularly. Oh, it was just whipped? With some vanilla and sugar? Well, we don't want it to go to waste. Environmentally speaking, we hate waste, don't we?

I'll keep you posted on the BlackBerry mess. Or better still, you just keep an eye on your BlackBerry for updates.