bogen.org

These pictures speak for themselves.

One of the biggest reasons for having federal employees perform air passenger screening was to ensure uniform application of security procedures across the country.

People see everyday what a complete failure that has been.Going to Florida, I wore a pair of light hiking boots. At the Dane County Airport in Madison I strolled right through security without a problem.

At the West Palm Beach airport in Florida, I wore the same pair of light hiking boots. As I approached the metal detector, a TSA employee stepped in front of me and, without any prologue, said, “If you wear those shoes through the metal detector you’re going to secondary screening, even if they don’t set off the magnetron. I suggest you take them off and send them through the x-ray system.”

“Then I’ll go to secondary screening,” I said. I decided that I’d be bull-headed about the whole thing since that guy was being a jerk and I hadn’t had a problem in Madison.

“You could miss your flight if you go to secondary screening,” the TSA troll said, onimously.

“How long does it take,” I asked innocently.

“Three to four minutes,” replied the TSA troll.

“I’ll take my chances,” I said and walked through the magnetron with my hiking boots still upon my feet.

Of course, the magnetron didn’t go off.

The screener rolled his eyes and directed me to the secondary screening area. There another TSA troll said, “Now, why did you have to go and do that? Did you want to see me work for some reason?”

Of course, I had to take my boots off during secondary screening so that they could be sent through the x-ray system and my feet could be wanded.

Since I had nothing on my person deadlier than a cup of coffee (which I had to hold in a hand without rings so that the lazy TSA troll could wand my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee) and a handful of change, I escaped the TSA’s clutches once again.

However, it is just another in a million member series of TSA-mandated moments of stupidity. When will people get tired of this extremely wasteful and useless practice and demand meaningful change?

When ex-Wisconsin Governor, Tommy Thompson, left his position as Secretary of the US Health and Human Services Agency, he expressed concern about terrorists poisoning the US food supply:

“’For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do,’ he said, adding that he ‘worried every single night’ about terrorist threats to the nation’s food supply.”

Maybe the terrorists haven’t attacked the US food supply because it would be a duplication of effort?
If you’re feeling good about the food you eat, visit the US Government’s Recent Recalls webpage for a reality check.

Today, the top story in the Meat and Poultry Products category is “Wisconsin Firm Recalls Ground Beef Because of Possible Contamination with Hydraulic Fluid”. 123,000 pounds of ground beef that have been distributed to numerous states nationwide are being recalled because they may have hydraulic fluid in them. That’s what, 60 some tons of ground beef contaminated with a deadly fluid? Big business does it and it’s a mistake; fanatics do it and it’s terrorism. Does that make anybody any less dead after eating the beef?

That particular recall is classified as a Class I health risk. Class I is defined as “This is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

Next on the list, “Tennessee Firm Recalls Ham for Possible Listeria Contamination”. Mmm…Some of that ham was fed to customers of a restaurant chain on February 5th and 6th. Would you like fries with your Class I health risk?

A firm that decided that we alll need a bit more glass in our diet is next on the list. “Texas Firm Expands Recall of Frozen Food Products That May Contain Pieces of Glass” Over 300,000(!) pounds of frozen foods are being recalled because glass made it into the manufacturing chain. That’s what? 150 tons of wasted food? And, lest you think that someone at the plant caught the problem and acted proactively, “The problem was discovered after the company received consumer complaints.” Just another Class I health risk from our friends in Texas.

Are you hoping to avoid the problem by eating chicken instead of beef and pork? “New York Firm Recalls Empire Kosher Chicken Products for Possible Listeria Contamination” That’s a relatively small recall. Only 5,760 pounds of Class I health risk chicken are being recalled.

Here’s a company that’s not quite sure what it puts in its food products. “Massachusetts Firm Recalls Chicken Products Due To Undeclared Allergen” Turns out the chicken is marinated in yogurt, but there is no mention of milk products on the labeling. That’s just too bad for everyone in numerous states along the Eastern US that are allegeric to milk products.

From our “It All Looks the Same When It’s Ground” Department: “California Firm Recalls Beef Products Due To Mislabeling” and “California Firm Recalls Pork Products Because of Mislabeling” Apparently, somebody at the factory pulled the “Shrimp” lever instead of the “Beef” or “Pork” lever while making dumplings. Sorry, all you folks allergic to shell fish. Just another Class I health risk from a US company.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but that would only belabor the point that the US food supply is in enough danger from US residents and companies. Terrorists need not apply to further muck up the US food chain. We’re doing just fine on our own, thanks.

Newsweek’s 20 Dec 2004 issue contains an article about the current shortage of armor for troops in Iraq. An exploration of why an armor shortage exists, the article says:

Other Army officers complain that the nation does not have the industrial base any longer to produce equipment for a new kind of war.That sort of statement really rubs me the wrong way.

In Wisconsin alone, there are thousands of recently unemployed workers that previously were employed in metal fabrication industries. When the work those folks previously did was moved abroad, the factories were shutdown and the workers laid off. Of course, none of the buildings have been torn down yet, and most of the workers still retain their skills. To restart those factories wouldn’t require much more than a government contract (to reassure investors) and someone willing to make money by restarting the factories, rehiring workers, and replacing any worn or missing equipment.

In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio there must be hundreds of thousands of people who previously were employed in metal fabrication industries. In Cleveland alone there must be three or four steel foundaries sitting idle, just waiting for a reason to start functioning again.

And what sort of equipment do they think we need to fight this “new war” that the American industrial base cannot produce? Tanks? No, not really. Bombs? Boeing makes those by the truckload. Planes? Only wearing out, not really being shot down. Trucks? Oshkosh Truck Corporation makes those. Armor? Apparently not, since they seemingly gave up on ordering that.

Where does the Army get nearly 100% of its equipment already? The American industrial base. The same industrial base that the Army now says it cannot trust. Weapon systems are almost exclusively designed and produced under contract to the Armed Services by American companies. To turn around and proclaim that American companies cannot meet the needs of the Army sounds more than a bit specious.

Even more insulting is the implication that American “know how” went missing sometime in the last twenty years. When World War II was in full swing, did the Armed Forces sit back and say, “Damn! Those German tanks really kick ass! We better not even try to make tanks.”

Of course not. Americans decided that if they couldn’t make tanks as individually powerful as German tanks, we would make tanks that would overwhelm the Germans by force of numbers. The American industrial base then produced those tanks at a rate that Germany could never, ever hope to match.

Did the country lose that drive, that desire, that creativity sometime in the last year or so? After all, the US is the country that invented the Internet, the PC, HDTV, stock options, and innumerable other modern marvels. Does the Army brass think we can no longer manage to put together some lousy armor plate? How insulting is that?

Comments like the one above make me wonder just how much the Army brass and the Adminstration are covering their asses and just how many people have died in Iraq (both American and Iraqi) to further that goal.

It always seemed ironic to me that the telephone company’s primary method of receiving outage information from its customers was a telephone number. So, if your telephone doesn’t work, the telephone company wants you to call them and tell them about it.And, when you do call them to report that your telephone is non-functional, they always ask, “Are you calling us from the number you are reporting as down?”

In that spirit, I love this disclaimer that I found on a web site today:

The Internet is a global network that is not maintained by any one entity. Therefore, it is quite possible to experience outages and delays. Please be aware that if this site is unavailable, there could be outages between you and this site beyond our control.

So, if I cannot reach the web site in question, how can I read the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen to learn that the problem at hand is not caused by the company whose web site I cannot reach?

Colin Powell wants us to believe that Iran is working on how to deliver nuclear weapons.

…

Sorry, I’m laughing so hard, I can hardly see the screen to write.

Colin, a few words of advice.

First, you and pretty much everyone else in the Bush Administration have no credibility left when it comes to warning the world about countries that have weapons of mass destruction.

Remember that whole Iraq mess that we’re still muddling through? Remember how you went before the UN and presented detailed evidence about how the US knew just where all these weapons of mass destruction were located inside Iraq? Remember all the charts, graphs, reports, and other eye candy you presented as hard evidence of the fact? Remember how Dickie Cheney, Georgie Bush, Donny Rumsfeld, and yourself spent innumerable hours trying to convince anyone who would stand still long enough to listen that Iraq had oodles of weapons of mass destruction?

Does any of that ring a bell or five?

So why, exactly, should we believe you about Iran?

Beyond that, however, let’s assume for just a minute that Iran has nuclear weapons. Heck, let’s go crazy and assume for a minute that I have a nuclear weapon or two that I picked out of a “Free” box at a garage sale this summer.

Like most weapons, nukes are useless without some sort of delivery system. A bullet is nearly worthless without a gun.

An artillery shell won’t do much damage if you lack cannons. Infantry chucking 12″ shells at the enemy isn’t going to cause too many casualties. Some laughter, maybe. But casualties, no.

Bombs are nearly worthless without their delivery system, which we cleverly named “bombers” years ago.

Having really powerful conventional explosives doesn’t do you much good if those explosives cannot be delivered to the target. Imagine if the Navy had to drop blocks of plastic explosives on submaries by hand. Don’t delivery systems like torpedoes and depth charges sound more efficient?

The rules of the game become even clearer when we start talking about the big boys in the arsenal: fuel-air explosives; chemical weapons; nuclear weapons. These are depopulate-Rhode-Island-style weapons. If you think that someone is going to set off one of those weapons by pulling a pin, yelling “Fire in the hole!”, and running like Hell towards a trench to take cover, you’re wrong.

This is really basic stuff, Colin. As a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I expect you at least got a briefing on this stuff at some point.

If the Iranians have nuclear weapons, you bet they’re going to work on a delivery system of some sort. They’d be stupid not to. Short of nuking a city in your own country, there isn’t much one can do with a nuke that lacks some sort of delivery system.

So, Colin. Save it. Even if you can be believed, your warning is worthless.

Sarah and I usually do our grocery shopping on Wednesday evening. This week, we noticed that the Christmas candy was already on the store shelves. In addition, a ten-foot wall of Coca-Cola products in Christmas packaging was built around the dairy products area (don’t get me started on the symbolism of forcing people to confront and detour around a huge wall of Coca-Cola products to get to the milk).

Someone needs to tell those in charge of marketing that Christmas anytime before December is too much Christmas. Christmas functions like anything else: the more of it you have, the less valuable it is.

Though the stock market may have fallen yesterday during the election, the stocks of the big, corporate, alcoholic drink manufacturers should have been rising.

After all, how else will we numb the pain of yet another four years of Bush and a Republican Congress?

From an article in today’s Wisconsin State Journal:

Two fans, Bonnie Torre, 45, of Madison, and Dick Story, 57, of Madison, complained that police confiscated a Snickers bar and bag of peanuts they’d bought from a vendor just outside the stadium, although they’ve been allowed to bring in similar items for years. Police said it was necessary because of terrorism concerns, Story said.Yes, the truth is out. No one can find any evidence that Saddam Hussein cooperated with terrorists, but I think we all agree that someone else did.

Mr. Peanut, you can hide the truth from us no longer.

81,000+ fans would assuredly have suffered the most terrible of all imaginable consequences had Mr. Peanut’s devilish progeny been allowed on the stadium premises.

We should all thank our faithful, ever vigilent law enforcement agencies for protecting us from the scourge of salty and chocolate covered snacks.

One delightful aspect of being in Europe was that the Republican National Convention is very nearly completely off the radar screen of Europeans. As such, European news agencies don’t expactly feel compelled to spent ten hours each day airing the same old, same old about the convention.

At least the BBC isn’t airing wall to wall convention coverage.

If it isn’t news, nor suspenseful, why must every news agency report on it constantly?
It was quite unfornate to find myself back in the States listening to non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage of the convention on US radio statins.

Fortunately, one of the local radio stations, carries the BBC World Report. As such, I’ve been able to keep up with the rest of the world, even as the US media beats the dead RNC Convention horse into the dirt and mud.

If, as the news media claims, the RNC Convention is so boring, stage managed, and completely devoid of life, why does it receive so much attention?

The Democratic party was in Florida over the weekend adopting a largely do-nothing platform.Why on earth would I vote for a party’s candidates when its platform can be best described as “measured”, and “watered-down”.

Perhaps my favorite measured idea is a lack of condemnation of the war in Iraq. Rather than declare the war a mistake, the Democratic party chooses to say that it was a mistake to “rush to war.”

So, it is okay to persue wars with uncertain ends for false reasons if we do so slowly? I’m glad those razor-sharp Democratic minds cleared that up for me.

Oh, and they are afraid to take on the PATRIOT Act. The Democrats (minus Russ Feingold who was the only member of the Senate who did not vote for the accursed Act), are turning tail on their original votes to enact the Patriot Act and now they spend their time half-heartedly attacking the damn thing. Of course, they don’t want to attack it too strongly because that might give the Republicans some sort of basis to attack the Democrats.

In other words, the Democans don’t want to appear too different than the Republicrats.

And you ask why I’m voting for Ralph Nader?

As I wrote nearly one month ago, the Medicare prescription drug benefit (read: pharmaceutical company give-away) recently enacted by Congress is DBIEA (Dead Before It Even Arrives).

The Cheney^H^H^H^H^H^HBush Administration no longer mentions the Medicare drug benefit in campaign speeches. It seems that senior citizens generally have a very dim view of the Legislation, and they remember quite well who helped to ramrod it through Congress.

With the ballooning federal budget deficit in the news, and with tax season fresh in most Americans’ minds, ideas on how to “fix” America’s system of taxation are getting plenty of play.One idea tossed around with some frequency these days is that of a national sales tax. Believers in a national sales tax claim that 45 states already have a sales tax, so retailers will now just collect an additional 23% on top of any state and local sales taxes.

There are numerous problems with this idea:

• Not every state taxes the same retail goods. For instance, Massachusetts has a list of items that are not taxed at the checkout that varies from that of Wisconsin and California. So, while Massachusetts may not tax breath mints, diapers, boat shoes, or prescription drugs, the federal government may. Deciphering that mess certainly sounds like fun at the cash register. The national sales tax would supposedly not affect so-called necessities, but who decides what is a necessity without creating a sales tax with all manner of odd exceptions and loopholes (just like the current system)?
• Sales-taxers claim that a simplified tax code (i.e., the national sales tax) will reduce prices because the cost of the current taxation scheme will no longer be built into goods. True. The current scheme’s costs will just be replaced by the new scheme’s cost. Given how disparate taxation laws are across the nation, retailers will have to build in the costs of rationalizing state, local, and federal tax schemes at the register. This will not lead to the promised 20-30% drop in prices.
• While forty-five states already collect sales tax, many states also collect income tax. Why not just flip the argument and say that since those states are collecting an income tax, let’s just make them collect the federal income tax as well, and just have the states forward checks to the federal government? The argument is no weaker than that of the sales-taxers.
• Sure, eliminating the income tax will eliminate the IRS, but the sales-taxers will create a completely different government agency to send checks out to Americans every month. So, the only big change will be the government workers’ mission and sponsoring agency, not the total number of workers employed.

Perhaps an even more radical idea is required. One that even respects states’ rights and the original ideas of federalism.

Since we know the population of the USA every ten years within some reasonable margin of error, and can estimate the population growth and migration of people even in non-census years, why not use that information to our advantage?

Let’s take the federal budget, and come up with a per-head figure. So, if the federal budget is $3 trillion (I’m generally pulling that figure out of the air), and if the population of the United States is 290 million, then each person in the US would have to dig deep for just shy of $10,500 each year to meet our fiscal obligations.

Now, let’s assume that Wisconsin has 5 million residents. That would mean Wisconsin residents need to pony up $52,500,000,000 ($52 billion) anually to keep the federal government in business.

Now that we Wisconsin residents know what figure we’re shooting for as a state, let us figure out how to get there. If we want to have a large sales tax, then so be it. If we want to have a massive income tax, that’s our business. As long as we make our payments to the federal government on time, who cares how we, the citizens of Wisconsin, choose to raise the funds. It’s generally none of the federal government’s business, as long as we dont’ break any federal laws regarding interstate commerce and the like.

This setup would let people have a louder, clearer voice in how taxes are collected and who is burdened most heavily by them. State governments are much more responsive to citizens, and much more nimble than the federal government.

Citizens who didn’t want to pay an income tax could either move to a state that doesn’t have one, or lobby their state to eliminate the income tax. Those who were not comfortable with a high sales tax could move to a state that favored income or property taxes.

As populations ebbed and flowed around the nation, tax burdens for states would change to reflect these changes. So, if Utah created a tax scheme that many people loved, and if those people all moved to Utah, Utah’s tax burden would be increased proportionate to the number of new residents it gained. Similarly, as residents left other states to move to Utah, the tax burderns of the other states would decline proportionate to the number of residents lost.

Such a system would remove the burden of federal tax collection from employers and businesses, and allow them a greater voice in what taxes they must collect.

A system like I’ve described above would also allow states to easily incentivize certain behaviors (like buying a hybrid car, for instance) or to penalize other behaviors (like operating a coal electricity generating facility) with tax breaks and penalties. Such carrots and sticks could then be used to lure desirable businesses and industries to states with favorable tax codes.

Those who favor states rights and a true sense of federalism would also have to favor such a system as it would give states great leeway to decide just how they are going to collect taxes from their citizens.

Had Lenin and Marx been able to observe the modern office, neither one would have been comfortable advancing the theory of communism.The office break room or kitchen offers the clearest evidence that communism cannot function. In corporate break rooms all across America, coffee pots go un-refilled, microwaves go uncleaned, and refridgerators go unpurged.

All of that because people feel that doing any of that work is someone else’s job.

Most people will do anything to avoid having to make another pot of coffee. They’ll go out and buy coffe rather than make another pot of free coffee; they’ll pour just enough coffee out of the pot to slake their thirst, but not so much as to empty the pot to the unspoken level at which the pot must be emptied and another pot brewed.

Microwaves are routinely filled with numerous food splatters. People heat up their lunches, and just walk away from the greasy mess they created in the microwave because they feel it isn’t their job to clean the microwave.

Water coolers will sit for hours or days with an empty water bottle on top until some desperate soul comes along and places another bottle on top.

Refridgerators are often filled to the brim with forgotten lunches, snacks, leftovers, and condiments. Whose job is it to ferret out the good food from the bad? "Not mine," is always the answer.

So, communal property goes untended and unmaintained. We’re all too busy to even bother to clean up after ourselves or to refill any sort of vessel we empty.

Marx and Lenin would surely have seen how most people living in a modern society generally believe that someone else (who that someone else is, no one can say, but they’re sure they exist, even when presented daily with evidence to the contrary) will take care of communal property for little to no reward so that those who don’t care for the community’s resources can prosper.

It’s all well and good that the Federal Government is going after Bernard Ebbers, Jeffrey Skilling, Andrew Fastow and others for criminal conduct including securities fraud. Some of these people, including Martha Stewart, have even been found guilty.

The Bush administration will, no doubtedly, point to these convictions as evidence that they are vigorously persuing corporate malfeasance.However, until I see Ken Lay facing a judge and jury after being walked into the courthouse wearing handcuffs, the Bush administration deserves no credit.

Perhaps you remember Ken Lay. He’s the guy at Enron who gave Andrew Fastow and Jeffrey Skilling their marching orders. He’s the guy who has been sitting comfortably at home while his two former employees face prison terms and turn on each other in the courtroom.

Yes, that Ken Lay.

Perhaps you also remember that Ken Lay and Enron contributed millions of dollars to president Bush’s 2000 Presidential election campaign. Bush also flew around the country to various campaign stops on the Enron corporate jet.

Enron collapsed years ago and, strangely enough, Ken Lay is still in the clear. Why? Could it be the millions of dollars Kenny Boy (Dubya’s nickname for Lay) sent Bush’s way? Now there’s an interesting thought.

If you needed yet another example of how money really does buy freedom from the law, you need look no further than Kenny Boy.

The next time someone asks what you’re having for dinner, don’t be afraid to answer, “Potted meat, of course.”

Once again, government has stepped in to stop someone from doing something (for free) that benefits everyone and hurts no one.

A scientist at Fermilab in Illinois invented an ingenous snow plow that is pulled behind a bicycle. This plow is then used to clear a small section of a bicycle path. For the past three years, the scientist has used this brilliant invention to benefit everyone who uses the path.

So what did the governing authority do? They recently threatened him with fines if he keeps plowing the path.

How dare he perform a public service with no thought of reward or pay?!? Doesn’t this scientist know that only activities sanctioned by bureaucrats are allowed on paths paid for and maintained by the public for the public’s use?

Clearly, we should all check in with the local bureaucracy before heading out to enjoy the facilities that our tax dollars create. We should also ensure that we do not try to improve our public facilities in any way. This means that you shouldn’t pick up litter if you see it, nor should you attempt to shovel snow if you find yourself on public land. You should also not attempt to engage in any other form of non-invasive public facilities improvement without the explicit blessing of your local bureaucracy.

Metrosexual: “An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.”

Dude: “a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner”

The etymology of the word dude is somewhat unclear, but the word’s root seems to spring at least partly from what we might consider the Old West. Dudes were Easterners, often from large cities, who came out to western raches in their fancy clothes and perfectly coifed hair.

So, if those folks were from the big city and they spent a fair amount of time worrying about their appearance and lifestyle, wouldn’t that fit the definition of metrosexual almost perfectly? Did we really need a new word to describe that type of person when we already had a perfectly good word?

Sure, in recent years, dude has been almost exclusively linked to the modern declarative usage, “Dude!” But there are numerous words in the English language that carry two or more vastly different meanings and people rarely, if ever, suffer confusion as a result.

Down with redundant words! Let dude knock metrosexual back into the sludge pit from whence it came.

Have you looked up the word “sanctity” in the dictionary lately? It is clear that most of the nation’s politicians have not.

All this (moronic) talk of “defending the sanctity of marriage” is just embarrassing for its overt hypocrisy. Sanctity referrs to the holiness or sacredness of an object. Since when did the state (in the philosophical sense of that word) grant sacred status to objects? If the state does not make objects holy, does it make sense to assume that the state can make objects less holy?

For instance, how could Wisconsin make the Christian cross less of a holy object for Christians, thereby reducing or eliminating the sanctity of the object? The short answer, of course, is that it couldn’t.

To some, a marraige is only holy if it is performed by a recognized religious figure. Marriages performed by judges or justices of the peace are inherently state-sponsored unions with no religious blessings, and thereby strictly without sanctity.

So, how exactly, does banning gay marriages preserve the sancity of marriage when the state already sponsors a mechanism that creates marriages without any form of sanctity?

Sure, a dog will warn you when the mailman drops off the mail. And if you’re lucky, a cat will turn out to be a good mouser, and not just a worthless layabout. But will either of them alert you to a furnace failure like a loyal pet rat did for a New Hampshire man?