2010-12-24 09:37 | fche blog seriously a holiday isomorphism
| santa | god | |
| subject | children | adults |
|---|---|---|
| surveillance | watches you all year | watches you all your life |
| reward | brings you presents | sends you to heaven |
| punishment | brings you coal | sends you to hell |
2010-12-15 00:00 | fche blog seriously free to a good home
My Tim Hortons gift card is looking for a new owner.
Read more...2010-12-10 20:22 | fche blog seriously I do not consent
I do not envy the jobs of police officers, especially those who pull highway speed-trap duty. By the nature of their assignments, they will engage antagonistic civilians, not least because of the generally capricious nature of speed enforcement. My first time occurred this week.
Read more...2010-11-26 00:59 | fche blog enun-dorsals, seriously sorry about the noise
About seven minutes ago, a narrow band of nasty weather woke me up due to the strong winds. About six minutes ago, electricity was lost in our neighbourhood. About five minutes and fifty seconds ago, our recently installed house-wide backup generator started up “in anger” for the first time, making a fair bit of noise and a stream of electrons that let me write this.
UPDATE: About one hour later, the grid returns, the generator rests. Time to go back to sleep.
2010-11-25 20:59 | fche blog seriously in other words XIV
headline: Strippers angry, in tears over peep shots
summary: underdressed professional strippers take breaks on building roof, plainly visible to people in nearby buildings; some guy takes pictures, made to feel like a criminal, strippers feel like victims, sympathy to ensue (?)
in other words: Taking your clothes off in public to titillate others for money: empowerment. Taking your clothes off in public not to titillate others not for money: victim.
source of that background din: the world’s smallest violin playing a sad, farcical tune
2010-11-14 12:19 | fche blog enun-dorsals, eric, tech sparkling night
As last year, Eric's and Stuart's halloween costumes were home-made, thanks to a month of crazy late-night sewing sessions by Juimiin. Eric wanted to dress as a lamp, and Stuart eventually decided on a comparatively simple tiger.
2010-11-14 07:38 | fche blog flying, politics positive side of TSA patdowns
It’s been easy for me to have given the benefit of doubt to US TSA folks in their efforts to keep US flying passengers safe. They have in some ways an impossible job. And, being spoiled with private aviation, I am unlikely to be subjected to the full monty of the TSA any time soon.
But stories like this one and this one and this one make one wonder just what the end game is here. How much are people expected to put up with, before throwing their hands up, and giving up on commercial air travel? (Only an aggressive few may ever sue.)
Then it struck me. Perhaps people giving up on commercial air travel is a not-unfavourable outcome, as far as the current US federal government is concerned. After all, it would cut down on flying, which would cut down on flights, which would cut down on fuel consumption. Wouldn’t that be a simply splendid counter-manoeuvre to the failure of efforts to curteil that horrible CO2 gas?
2010-11-11 18:53 | fche blog eric milestone
We wished happy birthday to our first brat, who turned six today. At his request, instead of the perfunctory song, we put on a high-fidelity version of this amazing excerpt from Disney’s Fantasia 2000.
Eric often talks about that he would like to be remembered when he dies. I hope he grows up on his present trajectory – rather like the free spirits shown in the cartoon. If over his many remaining years, he manages to express the sort of genius of Gershwin and the Disney animators, he will certainly be remembered. Then again, he also mentioned wanting to find a potion that lets him stay six years old forever, so maybe that’ll be enough time.
2010-10-31 21:38 | fche blog seriously looks like halloween
Our home is in a kid-laden neighbourhood, and we received a typical number of candy-beggar visitors, perhaps a hundred total. Most houses were decorated with pumpkins, skeletons, miscellaneous goo, but we’re too lazy (or shall we say, unconventional?) for that. Instead, I repurposed our main entrance’s shade/screens into a proper screen.
Read more...2010-10-23 22:55 | fche blog stuart little character
Two surprising facets of 3.9-year-old Stuart showed up today.
Read more...2010-10-23 18:21 | fche blog politics comic timing
2010-10-14 11:23 | fche blog politics alternate histories
Or maybe obscured history associated with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The quotes are all referenced in the book.
2010-09-28 10:26 | fche blog seriously peas in a pod
Two great british satires of the news business:
Martin Robbins on web news
Charlie Brooker on tv news
2010-09-26 22:36 | fche blog politics in other words XII
Headline: South Korea will deliver aid to North in October
In other words: Please send more torpedoes and threats at our soldiers. XOXOXO. Luv.
2010-09-23 11:43 | fche blog politics uncivil incentive
Ever since about a year ago, when the Ontario provincial government announced a crazy-generous ‘feed-in-tariff’ program for photovoltaic power generation, I’ve sat on the fence about whether to go for it. As a recap, this scheme, practised in various enlightened jurisdictions around the world, subsidize a personal solar electricity setup. Not just a bit: they pay the solar generator dude 5-10 times market rates for electricity, intending to guarantee a good investment rate of return for 10-20 years.
Read more...2010-09-22 20:42 | fche blog eric, stuart opting out
Every weekday, a small number of school buses rumble past my home office window. Last year, Eric used one pair of them, meaning rushed mornings and impeccably timed rendezvous at the stops. Not any more.
Read more...2010-09-20 09:56 | fche blog enun-dorsals linked utility
Today I wish to preach about the work-oriented social network known as LinkedIn.
Read more...2010-09-19 09:25 | fche blog stuart four years ago today
... our #2 brat was still stuck imprisoned in his watery cell.
2010-09-16 20:47 | fche blog politics alternate history
Over at the EU Referendum blog, there is a readworthy article about the myth (!!) of the Battle of Britain. Richard North and associates have been playing historian for several months now, collecting a day-by-day rundown of this famous battle. They’re troubled by some of their findings, where official history appears to differ from actual history. Give it a read if WWII – or government propaganda – are of interest.
2010-09-14 20:04 | fche blog enun-dorsals within spitting distance
The family visited a nearby park this weekend. Not any park, for there are plenty of ordinary parks here. There’s one just on the other side of our back fence, with streams and frogs and snakes and birds and everything except beer bottles and bears. No, we went to the Backus Heritage Conservation Area.
Read more...2010-09-10 10:07 | fche blog seriously a shallow theory of negligence
Why do people take poor risks, like flying in dangerous conditions, failblog-worthy stunts, doing conspicuous illegality?
Maybe it’s Bruce – trying to sabotage themselves because they deserve failure.
I’ve met my Bruce many times, but now that he has a name, I’ll try to expel him.
2010-09-09 16:26 | fche blog politics speaking down to muslims
If I were a muslim, I would be more than a bit offended at the current hubbub surrounding the burn a koran day event apparently coming this weekend. Sure, it’d suck that these silly pyromaniacs would burn the book and all. But, I’d be an adult and could live with that stunt.
What’s baffling and offensive is all the dire predictions of mayhem that may follow. These experts and officials say that “we” muslims might just lose control, and turn into terror-spewing maniacs and start killing people and blowing shit up.
Now, really. Surely all these people don’t honestly believe that, upon provocation, muslims turn into mindless rage robots, unable to accept responsibility for their own actions. For that would be a bunch of bigoted bullshit.
UPDATE A week later, Jonah Goldberg expands on this same point.
2010-09-09 12:51 | fche blog tech accident datagasm
In my ample spare time, I enjoy reading accident reports. I am too genteel to settle for the newspaper/TV abbreviated summary abstract excerpt, if a detailed technical report is also available. For major disasters, book-length technical reports are sometimes issued. These serve not just to explain how some system failed, but also introduce technically minded non-specialists to the area. Some examples:
- Deepwater Horizon – BP report
- Space Shuttle Columbia disintegration
- Sinking of the BC Ferry Queen of the North
- 9/11 commission report
Do you have any other favorites?
2010-09-08 22:23 | fche blog stuart silly life
Excerpts from a conversation with our 3.8-year-old:
Read more...2010-08-27 09:19 | fche blog seriously critical acclaim
During half an hour of goofing around on our synthesizer (though that’s interesting too), I managed to eke out enjoyable (or at least recognizable) enough noises that Eric awarded me with a proposed name for my act: “Airship Disasters Music Band”. Someday, I’ll leave the computer business for music, and I’ll use that name. You heard it here first.
2010-08-21 14:43 | fche blog enun-dorsals, tech hacker documentaries
For those of us who started their hacker careers in the 1980s, documentaries like Jason Scott’s Get Lamp and BBS are a pure sentimental pleasure. They cover technologies we grew up with, participated in, which gave us our impetus in the field. Their authenticity separates them from a routine TV show: the interviews are given by the real people who built and championed all that great early home computer stuff. However, Jason is a talented enough to weave them into stories that are interesting to non-specialists too. My dear lady wife has enjoyed whole chunks of the BBS documentary.
The documentaries are CC-licensed, so you can watch/try them for free. If you like them, toss some bucks Jason’s way and get the disks.
2010-08-19 17:58 | fche blog politics in other words XI
 claim: When convinced he’s right — which is often — he turns his head at the podium to the right and left, gazing above his audience into the near distance…in fewer words: “Obama’s teleprompters make him look haughty” |
UPDATE: Barack, Can We Talk?
2010-08-11 21:21 | fche blog eric, stuart overheard
Upstairs, just after bath time for the brats, after some hallway chatter about protons and density, then:
`Enough talking about the periodic table, put on some clothes!’.
2010-08-11 16:08 | fche blog tech systemtap is not a "rejected kernel patch"
If this article quotes Ted Ts’o correctly, we have a problem.
Read more...2010-08-01 19:49 | fche blog tech fedora upgrade
I’m flabbergasted at the ease of upgrading a live fedora system between versions. This is not supposed to work, especially with lots of customized public/service processes. Yet, a ‘yum update’ from Fedora 11 to Fedora 13, live, worked almost with out a hitch.
Well, there is always postgresql, breaking updates since (before) 2007.
2010-07-05 10:15 | fche blog politics in other words X
Headline: Obama’s new mission for NASA: Reach out to Muslim world
In other words: Charles Bolden pulls a great practical joke on al-Jazeera. I think…
2010-07-01 17:14 | fche blog politics, seriously contraband
Find this wonderful little track on youtube and play it while reading the following.
Read more...2010-06-23 21:44 | fche blog flying dive dive dive
Last night, I renewed my IFR privileges for another two years, after passing a flight test with my friend Charlie Rampulla. One mistake I made may be interesting reading for other pilots.
Read more...2010-06-23 09:57 | fche blog seriously words
Sweet words heard recently around the house:
(Eric, frequently): “My whole life is a hug.”
(Stuart, pleasantly surprised): “I just can’t believe my eyes!”
(Juimiin, midnight): “Come closer.”
2010-06-20 18:55 | fche blog enun-dorsals toy story 3 - not a little kid movie
Having just seen the aforementioned, I’m not sure yet whether it was a good movie. But it was definitely not a good little kid movie.
Read more...2010-06-13 17:44 | fche blog seriously least worst past
This wee blog is almost six years old, spanning some five hundred ruminations. Egads, will he ever stop, you ask yourself? Has he ever written anything worthwhile?
Read more...2010-06-08 12:46 | fche blog enun-dorsals dell satisfaction
I’ve owned quite a bit of Dell computer hardware over the years. My main home server is a now-discontinued Dell PowerEdge 2900 box, with plenty of RAM and disk. It has been completely solid, and I expect will do the job fine for another few years. There was only one upgrade still worth doing: the processors.
Read more...2010-06-07 11:14 | fche blog enun-dorsals tick tock chomp
Saturday morning, our family had the misfortune of running out of sufficient groceries for a big breakfast, so opted to try a new nearby restaurant. It was full, so we were prepared for slower service. But what we got was slower than slow. It was slow enough that all four of us had to eat up time by drawing, because to talk would have meant to grumble. My humble contribution:
2010-06-03 16:41 | fche blog politics funny floater
What a way to find some mirth in the gaza ship fiasco.
2010-06-03 10:00 | fche blog seriously in other words IX
insult: Paul McCartney: “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that knows what a library is.”
in other words: “I sure wish I had multiple college degrees like George W. Bush, instead of just grammar school.”
2010-06-03 09:00 | fche blog politics read & weep
If you have fifteen minutes to spare, read this essay about connections between modern western appearance-mania and clear-headed eastern brutality.
2010-05-30 09:28 | fche blog politics governmental dyslexia
Always trying to help, but remaining invincibly ignorant about the wisdom of the market, observe multiple instances of a government in spasm trying to take over private industry, and imposing a pricing model by fiat.
Read more...2010-05-29 09:11 | fche blog politics nytimes speaks the truth
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Read more...2010-05-28 12:50 | fche blog seriously important safety tip, thanks Egon
When you have a sudden back ache possibly caused by muscle spasms due to recent overload, and if your lovely wife offers her weight as an inaccupressure sitting treatment for the region, politely decline. It may save you the debilitating escalation of said pain for the next 16 hours.
2010-05-17 16:16 | fche blog flying criss cross pause
During last night’s return flight from KCMH, there was a brief air-traffic-control “teaching moment”.
Read more...2010-05-14 16:31 | fche blog enun-dorsals dedication to the automobile
The markers are ten minutes apart, representing just under nine hours of solid driving. Someone must really like it.
2010-05-11 20:37 | fche blog seriously about that beret incident
Approximately half of my handful of readers may remember a certain event about, oh, fifteen years ago. June 7, 1995 to be exact.
Read more...2010-05-07 22:48 | fche blog flying odd flow
Here in southwest Ontario this afternoon, there was an unusual weather pattern. Looking straight up, one could see clouds moving in opposite directions. It was like an animation in a planetarium (remember those?): standing still, but the whole upper hemisphere rapidly shifting/rolling, with some smaller foreground objects moving in other directions. This is the first time I noticed this in a natural steady-state setting.
Read more...2010-05-07 10:47 | fche blog tech frame pointers vs. debugging tools
Pithy commentary from my colleague Roland McGrath, regarding placing complexity into debugging tools vs. penalizing everything else.
[14:57:49]yeah, well, we’re silly. we let the compiler people make the right optimization decisions and then don’t degrade them to make writing debugging tools easier but instead work on making debugging tools work with optimal code. solaris is big on hyping how fabulous their debugging tools are because they quietly constrain them to working in the easy cases by degrading the compilations.
2010-05-06 11:56 | fche blog politics punchline of the day
“Faisal Shahzad’s Motive Shrouded in Mystery,” ... It must be terribly frustrating to the jihadis: we’re completely upfront about our goals and rationales, and they still don’t take us seriously. What do we have to do?
More here
2010-05-05 11:31 | fche blog enun-dorsals paging Les Lonkovic
You've had your fun. You got the goatse message, yet you keep snooping. Go away. Read more...
2010-04-15 18:41 | fche blog eric different drummer
Our 5.4-year-old little guy took part in a regional music competition the other day. People who know him will not be surprised that he stood out.
Read more...2010-04-14 20:50 | fche blog seriously act fast
Limited time offer!
I blame this development on Weird Al.
2010-04-12 11:08 | fche blog enun-dorsals bugzilla for meatspace issues
This service is a great idea. It’s a newish free problem-tracking system for concerns in one’s municipality. One can use it to report “streetlight out on the corner of X and Y”, and if one’s city has employees who monitor the list, the problem’s resolution can be tracked publicly. Many cities already use this to some extent.
2010-04-10 07:37 | fche blog flying hollywood plot idea: assassination by ILS
This unfortunate disaster made me wonder whether such an event is possible as a form of assassination.
Read more...2010-03-29 16:10 | fche blog flying private flyers: customs/entry airports in the USA
This fine document serves as the master copy of where private airplanes may land within the US for customs clearance purposes. It is delightful for reading on paper, but not helpful for geographical flight-planning purposes. Say, this humble canadian wants to visit the Shenandoah Caverns: where best to land to clear customs? Good luck answering that one by just looking at the CBP document, unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of towns within a few-hundred-mile radius of any random point.
As I have found no other web site with this data, I’ve started a wee google map where some of the CBP-staffed airports are graphed. The map is currently open to public edits, so is just aching for a transcription slave to fill in the other airports and contact info. Please help! I hope eventually airnav.com or ourairports.com or runwayfinder.com or some other aviation-oriented community database site, or even the CBP itself (gasp!), will supplant this.
2010-03-29 10:25 | fche blog tech so long, powerpc
If this announcement is not a joke, then Sony’s move would turn off the most accessible machine on which one can develop/test software on the powerpc architectures. For fans, or conscientious programmers who wish to test the portability of their code, this means that ppc is becoming ephemeral. It is not worth $severalK to buy an IBM box, and simulators may or may not be good enough. With linux distributions also dropping powerpc, there will be less and less software to run on the thing in whatever form. IBM must be thrilled. Intel might feel some schadenfreude, but then again the ia64 was never a hobbyist platform.
Sony, you suck.
2010-03-28 17:52 | fche blog politics field of dreams
2010-03-26 18:54 | fche blog politics right level of government
Every budget season, almost every lower level of government whines and moans about how it needs some sort of handout from a higher level of government. This sucks, and here is how you can see it sucks too. The key is to ask “Why should X pay for Y?”, where X is some sibling place and Y is some supposedly threatened local expenditure. It only sounds rhetorical.
Read more...2010-03-26 00:00 | fche blog stuart questions too soon
3.3-year-old Stuart has started asking some challenging questions. They are not only difficult to explain to someone at his level in general, but also requires us to study some to brush up on the respective areas.
Read more...2010-03-25 12:02 | fche blog enun-dorsals paging Carola Lonkovic
There is something you need to know about the person calling himself with first name Leslie, Lester, Len, Les, Lesley, Steve, and/or Stephan and last name Lankovich, Lonkovic, Rankovic, Lokovic, and/or Lonkrovic.
UPDATE: Thanks for the call. I hope the information was useful.
2010-03-23 20:46 | fche blog eric wubba wubba
Eric insisted I publish this today. It has something to do with this video.
Read more...2010-03-16 12:55 | fche blog flying aopa letter
My humble brag(*) responding to AOPA’s airplane/car naming coincidence article(*) refers to this pair of beasts.
Now you know.
(*): AOPA member-only links. Pieces transcribed below the fold.
Read more...2010-03-08 17:17 | fche blog seriously, tech bright solar idea
Here in Ontario, the provincial government last year started our own super subsidized solar microgeneration program – $0.81/kWh “earned”, if generated from a rooftop photovoltaic panel, which is about ten times the value of that same electricity flowing the other way, purchased from the grid. I’ve been tempted to jump into it, just on the charming theory of personal backup power in case the grid goes down. (I will leave aside whether such a subsidy makes any economic or environmental sense.)
But for the scruple-free, it provides an opportunity to maximize profit using this European technique:
A German aristocrat of my acquaintance has figured out that the price he will be paid for the output of a solar panel is so high compared with the price he will pay for his input of normal electricity, that he is thinking of rigging up powerful arc lamps to shine on solar panels on his extensive roof.
UPDATE: Someone’s actually tried this scam.
2010-03-05 13:17 | fche blog eric, seriously bleat me daddy
OK. I’m stumped.
What the heck are the sheep talking about at the end of this sesame street classic?
UPDATE. Ah, this Andrews Sisters song.
2010-02-28 23:16 | fche blog enun-dorsals advice to salesmen
A broken piece of the household forced us to entertain a visiting salesperson. It went avoidably badly.
Read more...2010-02-27 12:25 | fche blog politics topical speech
30 minutes of Reagan from 1964. No teleprompter. Multiply his numbers by 5-10, and he’d be right on today.
2010-02-26 19:38 | fche blog seriously not one word
The family went on a brief swimming outing this afternoon to shake our fist at winter. One of the boys and I took a moment to look at the renovation in progress at the recreation centre. Two dozen steel columns have been erected and bolted to the concrete foundations for the new hockey arena. The sight of the mighty machines lifting those parts always swells the heart of a technical person.
As we were watching, two middle-aged ladies came out of the open part of the building. One took a big puff of her cigarette, and said aloud: “Wow, look at all those long columns, standing up so straight. It makes me so excited just looking at them.”
I said only “There’s a joke there, but I’m not saying a single word.” with as straight a face as possible, and headed into the building.
Behind me, the lady cracked up. She was still laughing out loud when we got out of aural range.
2010-02-23 21:35 | fche blog stuart how to find a lens cap
Consider a prized camera, being borrowed by a 3 year-old for some unsupervised roving photography all around the house. (Like his brother, he’s been self-sufficient on computers and cameras since about age 2.5, so this is not unusual here.) Listen for the shutter clicks all around as the brat roams. Relax and get back to work. An hour later, notice the camera, its job now finished, sitting someplace. Note with horror how its lens cap has gone missing.
Read more...2010-02-17 18:11 | fche blog tech passport privacy
I am a recent customer of Flashpass, a little software package to partially automate the US Customs data reporting necessary to fly to/from the USA in private aircraft. Flashpass is basically an XML editor that assembles all the personal information required by the USA government: passport numbers, full names, birthdates, home and away addresses, trip dates.
Now comes from the same outfit an online version of the tool, where a web browser is the client. The application and the all above data is presumably stored elsewhere. On the lobo-labs computers. In Mexico.
What could possibly go wrong?
2010-02-15 20:11 | fche blog flying ignored advice
Yesterday, a brief flight from Buffalo, NY, to Toronto had an excess of drama. Even music from the intercom — sesame street silly songs — was not funny.
Read more...2010-02-12 21:59 | fche blog seriously day ruler
Today was unusual. Due to no fault of my own, I was a hero five separate times.
1) taking a hangar mate for spontaneous evening flight in GXRP
2) winning a raffle at elementary school’s movie night to have a comfy couch, so my family could sit there instead of on comfy mats on the gym floor
3) winning another raffle at same event, closely guessing the number of chocolate kisses inside bottle
4) sharing said chocolate kisses with every kid in the movie night event – 30ish young ‘uns
5) giving audio-visual technical advice to the school staff to bypass crappy wires and allow the movie to proceed with sound
Such run of public luck is unlikely to reappear, but I promise I will advertise only better ones in the future.
2010-02-08 19:55 | fche blog politics a degree in rantology
This is making me want to watch TV again, just a little bit.
2010-02-07 21:56 | fche blog stuart body parts
Stuart, aged 3.1, noted today that he has a “funny looking” body part, right there below his nose. We looked at it really close, and determined that yes, he has a funny philtrum.
2010-02-02 10:31 | fche blog politics energizer writer bunny
2010-02-02 08:29 | fche blog eric, stuart uninvited
Time’s passing rubs itself in one’s face in all sorts of ways. This morning it was the brats’ show of “appreciation” after I built a little foam/mat house for them in the basement. They moved in right away and dumped a bucketful of toys.
Since this house was larger than usual, I was able to squish in and see what was going on. I told them them about the times long ago when I and my brothers played with cardboard forts on an apartment balcony, shooting waterguns in the summer. But not for long.
ERIC
Go away please.
FRANK
Why?
ERIC
Because you’re too old.
STUART
This is for kids only. Two kids. Zero adults.
FRANK
(moping, withdraws)
2010-01-28 20:24 | fche blog seriously picky picky
I was doodling around with our home synthesizer, with the brats and woman in the next room over. After fifteen minutes with my uneducated fingers, the wife comes over, and says
Hey, that sounds like boring elevator music. Try something more exciting. (Like what?) Like some baroque, with a twist of classical.
Yes, I am married to someone who thinks “baroque, with a twist of classical” is more exciting than modern elevator music.
Lucky me.
2010-01-19 07:29 | fche blog politics torture trust
Whom is one to trust on the efficacy and means of terrorist interrogation? People who do it, who know,, or whiny torture shriek monkeys?
2010-01-14 12:11 | fche blog politics dimming glitter
Wow, lefty intellectuals caught introspecting.
It it’s serious, it’s tragic. If he’s joking, it’s not very funny…
2010-01-12 10:18 | fche blog stuart no more sweets for me
3.0-year-old Stuart comments:
Your bum is too fat. It is monstrous.
2010-01-07 21:27 | fche blog seriously threefer thursday
As our third novelty item today, witness the headline Bogus Lawyer, Doctor Tries to Visit Fort Hood Massacre Suspect Nidal Hasan.
OK, don’t get excited, it wasn’t some vigilante who almost managed to shortcut the legal process and kill the guy.
But read the article to the bottom.
Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the Nov. 5 shootings. He is undergoing rehabilitation for paralysis.
Yes, you read that right. The mass murderer is undergoing rehabilitation, at taxpayer’s expense no doubt.
So perhaps the intruder wasn’t a vigilante, just an auditioning death panel adviser wannabe, looking to cut medical system costs by talking the good Mr. Nasan into declining the rehabilitation services. Better luck next time.
2010-01-07 20:58 | fche blog politics it's inevitable
For years, people complained during the W. years about preemptive military action, endangered civil rights, the terrorism-inducing inhumanity that is the USA, all of which was counter-intuitively (to them) effective in keeping the bad guys away from the homeland. The same ones are starting to crow that it is inevitable that some bad guy will get through and cause major terrorist damage. And when that happens, by golly we shouldn’t blame anyone — especially current government leaders — since, you see, it was inevitable.
The reasoning looks sound — if you ignore time. Yes, eventually, some guy is likely to successfully exploit one of the many weaknesses of the system. But the failures don’t have to happen on this guy’s watch. One can fight them by reacting to what they’ve tried, predicting what they’ll try next … smart and willing people can put up a fight.
But what does Mr. Security suggest? To roll over: all those new security measures and evolving counter-tactics are all a stupid game we should stop playing. Maybe they bad guys will just leave the “playground” and go home to shag some goats. Right. Or else they will succeed in an attack against weakened defenses, in which case it sure wouldn’t be our chief-executive pal’s fault, since it was inevitable.
Brilliant.
2010-01-07 12:44 | fche blog seriously only in china
Headline: Chopstick pierces tot’s brain through nose
Cultural trivium:
Chen said Li’s neurosurgeon was perfect for the job since he had extensive experience with surgeries involving chopsticks lodged in eyes, foreheads and necks.