The Interocitor

Sick folk only need apply

Midnight Eastern Standard Time is the deadline for getting your 15-name roster into the isfullofcrap Deadpool. Got 15 people you think (or fervently hope) are going to die in 2006? Go to the Deadpool signup page. Rules here. Lots of prizes and NO entrance fee. You do have to be a blogger, though, and be willing to post on the Deadpool blog about your picks.

Who will rid us of these troublesome refugees?

The Sudanese refugees made a mistake: they thought the UN's High Commissioner on Refugees actually wanted to help refugees. Clearly not. What the High Commissioners wanted was the refugees to go away. They called the cops, who promptly showed up and beat and killed the refugees then bundled the survivors off to Sudan. The UN is the center of evil in the modern world.

If Bush did THIS....

Seems that Britain is on the verge of tracking every car trip in the country with it's network of surveillance cameras. The data will be kept for two years. Good thing this isn't those horrible conservatives doing this.

Kinda makes tapping al-Qaeda phone calls seem like child's play.

Wiretapping al-qaeda

To read the NY Times over the weekend, one might conclude that President Bush ordered the NSA to wiretap Granny as she swapped recipes. Over and over they use the unqualified term "domestic spying", when the actual activity was tapping communications with known al-Qaeda operatives and message drops overseas.

One crucial detail is never mentioned: a state of War exists between the United States and al-Qaeda, has existed since September 11, 2001, and will continue to exist until there is no meaningful residue of al-Qaeda left on the planet. The United States government has very little Constitutional limitation when in the process of prosecuting a war. It can quarter troops in private homes, seize property without court action, censor news, draft citizens and declare martial law. It has done all these things in the past.

Tapping the phones of people who call international numbers found in the phone book of the guy who planned 9/11 isn't even heavy lifting.

Memo to the NY Times: Don't you know there's a war on?

Apparently not. Perhaps the (hopefully forthcoming) arrest of the publisher, editor and the reporters involved on charges of espionage would make that more clear. Not that they need to go to jail -- just give us the names of the leakers and testify at their trial...

This crap has got to stop.

There oughtta be a law ... maybe there is

Fox has apparently axed the best new show on television, Reunion, after episode 13 of a widely advertised 22. They might not even show any past tonight's episode 9. Now this happens all the time, but with this show it's particularly annoying. It might even be actionable.

The idea with the show is that it's a mystery, following 6 close friends over twenty years, 1986 to 2006, one episode per year. One of them has killed another at their 20th high school reunion. Whodunnit and why? Dropping the show after 13 (or 9) episodes kinda blows the whole deal. Not even a DVD possibility. Of course, being a critically acclaimed, well-acted and intelligent show, it got low ratings, which is why they killed it.

On the other hand, unlike most other shows, they advertised it from the beginning as a season-length show. A "24", if you will. Stopping it mid-way seems to violate a not-so-implied promise, and may be false advertising as well: They knew they might not produce all the episodes yet made the claim anyway.

Now, if you believe Nielsen in the TiVo age, there were at minimum 4.3 million devotees, who have had 9 hours stolen from them. Is this actionable? Say, $1/hour times 4.3 million people. Or $38.7M. Any hungry lawyers out there?

Anyway, I'm pissed.

City of Putz

It seems that Graz is no longer proud of their famous son, the Governor. Apparently the last straw was Arnold's failure to commute the execution of cuddly Nobel Prize Nominee™ Tookie-bear. According to the mayor of Putz Graz, the good burghers are tired of having to defend Arnold to other putzes Europeans. So they're going to take his name off their sports stadium. They should replace it with Shirley Temple; more in line with European values if you ask me.

A majority of members on Graz City Council voted to rename the stadium after the Austrian-born governor of California approved the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, according to newspaper Kleine Zeitung.

Question on Miami plane shooting

Can someone tell me why bags that had just gone through the intensive coming-from-Medellin customs inspection needed further inspection for bombs? They should have known exactly what was in each bag. If security is so lax that bombs could get through Medellin-Miami customs, we're all in a lot of trouble.

Relieved passengers disembark

This photo from the Orlando Sentinel tells me that there is some fine tuning needed in air marshal procedure. One almost wonders if the follow-on response, which included blowing up baggage and interrogation of passengers, was intended to increase the atmosphere of crisis so that the shooting of a crazed passenger seemed more reasonable.

Yes, I understand the need for airline security since 9/11, but the federal response at every step has seemed rather heavy-handed and bureaucratic. Does anyone really think that passengers will ever again allow a lightly armed hijacker to take over a plane? 300 people held at bay by scissors? Or that a passenger really might sneak a bomb through in their carry-on? Is screening that bad?