Yahoo! mail sucks to the 419th degree

I had one message in my Yahoo! account today.  Been trying to phase it out  years it seems.  Today though, one shiny new 419 scam message came through. I guess I’ll have to give my friends at Yahoo! a few tips on filtering.  Ok, so Yahoo! if a message comes through with the words, ‘inheritance’ and ‘Nigeria’, it’s a f–king scam and puts your users at risk!  When this occurs it should be sent into the bulk spam folder.  OK!? What’s that? I can filter things using my own mail options?  Normally that would be the case, but you chumps limited me to 8 filters and the slots have been filled since the first day I used your email service 15 years ago.

This message did make me smile though.  Could Yahoo be  wise to my personality from all their data mining and know we’ll all get a little chuckle at the lengths scamming parasites will go to fish for idiots.  They’ve been doing this inheritance bit since the ’70’s or something. I’m starting to think that 419 scamming is like a service that autostarts on Nigerian computers, kind of like a Google Toolbar.  “Thank you for installing Nigerian  Skype ‘Mr. Olaide.’ Check this box if you would like to additionally install the 419 Scam-bar so you can chat with your rich American friends.”

February 15, 2010 at 8:13 pm | rants | No comment

Does GM deserve help from you and me?

During this sad hour of automaker bailouts let us reflect on how they have squandered their opportunities to create a new world and instead caused their own doom by failing to respond to the people and instead doing business as usual. Very sad. We could be so much further than we are if it weren’t for several units of corruption within the auto companies, interest groups lobbyists and the oil industry.  And now, citizens will be paying for it.

You think we’ll be paid back?  We won’t unless we require that if we’re not paid back that all assets and patents belong to the public domain if the money isn’t paid back within a specific amount of time.  Who the heck would approve a loan without specific requirements, a co-signer and sufficient collateral?  Stupid congress in both parties that’s who. Do yourself a favor this holiday season and watch this movie.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Once you see the film in it’s entirety I believe you’ll realize how wrong the industry is, and how very wrong it is to let them keep on truckin’.  Companies are not working for the people, neither is the government. Face it, we’ve been burned so bad. And we come back for more.

Here is the film’s wikipedia article. If you like, start there and move onto the references cited.

December 9, 2008 at 3:00 am | conspiracy, design, politics, rants | No comment

New Mac Laptops are still weak

Apple just introduced new laptops this past week.  But unfortunately they just aren’t there yet.  Foolishly Apple is  omitting some things that really should be there for people. And sometimes I think they must be looking at some competitors and deciding purposely not do what others are doing even if those ideas are good. To me it should be very simple. You look at what you promise and you maintain a strong sense of what people deserve in the products you sell them.  The new MacBook and Pros still don’t have an embedded card reader.  Why is this?  They should have a CF and SD camera card reader. Probably a Sony Memory Stick and others should be there despite whatever political issues might be there. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Also, what is with these strange ports Apple uses sometimes?  Apple’s magnetic power port is a superior idea even though it’s a custom port. But when it comes to video ports and monitors and peripherals, they really need to just make it standard, to match everybody else. The more compatible the better we all are equipped. Even though it’s boring to be standard and its tempting to stylize ports a company shouldn’t create monitors and require the purchasing of a $30 adapter. How does it look when you overprice a connector while creating a headache for customers?  I hate having to carry these kinds of things with me.  Stop doing this to people. Stop making modified video, firewire, and USB ports on your and devices. Keep it simple because customers deserve it. And keep firewire when you make people depend on it.  They removed Firewire for the lesser MacBook and there’s really no reason other than an attempt to make people want to go over the threshold and buy the more expensive MacBook Pro. Unfortunately this will annoy people rather than encouraging them.

And that’s really what this is about. People buy things they don’t understand because they like what the technology does for them.  But as they understand it more and can compare with other products, if their product is missing something it’s frustrating because it’s limiting them. From my perspective, limiting people is wrong when you can do more to enable them. Free people to do more with what they have. You can be simple and standardized and connectable.

October 19, 2008 at 2:41 am | computers, rants | No comment

Renew your plates on Missouri’s pile of trash plate-renewal website

It was that time again for me.  Renew my plates.  I used to go downtown and do it.  Then I remembered that even though the lady at the desk and the ladies at the window are usually nice (when I’m prepared), everything else in between, the metered parking downtown on shitty one-way streets, the long lines (not always though) I decided it’s better for everyone if I just do it online.  After doing so I realize that somehow the MO plates website has been made to mimic the annoyance of the real life DMV.

Here’s my walkthru because you have a few minutes.

Our story starts off ok at plates.mo.gov.  Right at the top, a single big link to “Click Here to Renew Plates Online” cool!  Or maybe not so cool.  I’ll explain in a couple points.

1. Quickly it all goes to hell.  Next we have a long list of reasons why I won’t be able to complete this process.  A bunch of exceptions. Thanks for the vote of confidence.  Just like the mean ladies downtown.  Why not shove these on a sidebar m’kay?
2. After the exceptions list we have the prominent “Click Here” button.  That must be it.  It has to be, I’m so tired of reading exceptions. Well actually it’s not it. ‘Click Here’ and a page tells me my renewal is not complete.  No kidding.  That’s why I’m here.  Site error? After trying that button 5 times, I realize I’m not experiencing a site error, it’s just a horribly placed and vaguely labeled button.  That button is to  check if my renewal went through. It’s for people who did this 5 days ago and want to verify the system accepted it.  Why is this “click here” button here? The first site page told me to this page to renew my plates.  If I wanted to check my already renewed status, that option should have been on the very first page.  I’ll repeat this just so it sinks in.  On the “Renew my plates” page I start off with reasons why I might not be able to renew and then just under that we have the unlabeled link to check my renewal.  Oh but it gets better.
3. After figuring out the first half is not applicable, we scroll down to “Getting Started”  Wait, what?  I thought I already started 10 minutes ago? Oh that’s right, the first 10 minutes you are just playing with yourself.  Duhh.  If you haven’t realized it yet, this chunk that says “Getting Started” info needs to be placed at the top.
4. Next we have a big orange panel of what we need.  Now were talking.  I like strong color backgrounds used for emphasis. This colored list is good Except for #6, you actually do not need your insurance card to do this.
5. Next we must agree that we won’t submit false information and a reminder that’s against the law.  I’m kind of mixed on agreements these.  As someone who would never do that, it seems cheesy. I’m also not sure this will matter to one who intends to insert false info.  Oh well it’s not too annoying.  “I agree, please continue.”
6. Enter your pin and license plate#.   Aw dang it.  What is my plate #.  Why didn’t that nice orange box tell me I needed that?  Oh good it’s on the paperwork.  You see if I took the time to find my license plate, the session would have timed out in a matter of a hundred seconds idle time.  Then I have to start over.  Thanks.
7. After entering my pin and license itt verifies my information. Cool,I’m in the system! That’s convenient right?
8. Then it verifies your information again (pay special attention to the way your name is listed there).
9. Then you have a form that says “enter ID and product code. But then it says if you aren’t from X counties you don’t need to do option one, move on to option 2.  Interestingly option one, which is the product code area, isn’t actually labeled as such? But that has to be what they mean right?   Hurray! I can skip to option 2, Jackson County has it’s privileges!  Option two isn’t labeled either, so go ahead and muddle your way through that, which is the best way to fill out critical government forms anyway in my opinion. Hope I’m right.
10. Option 2 is Fill out your name, address, city state etc. (as printed on your tax receipt, and they say damnit make sure if your address has two lines, then use both address lines of the form. ) Ok, Ok I will.  I need to follow the format of the tax receipt. I’m fine with that.  But wait, why am I even filling this out again?  You already showed me that you had my information.  You verified it to me 2 or three times where you made me agree it was correct.  This is just another chance for me to make a mistake and get kicked out again.   And…
11. Error, (I’m paraphrasing) “You need to fill out the appropriate information.”  That’s vague.  So I DID need the product code and ID from Option 1?  But I don’t have a product code or ID on my tax bill.
12. So maybe just a temporary error.  I’ll try again…Error, And again, keep getting it.  WTF?  I read the error page thoroughly.  It mentions I might need cookies enabled.  And it links to instructions for IE and..Netscape Navigator?  Jesus, that browser isn’t supported any longer and is unmistakenly dead.  I’m using Firefox.  Then I wonder is this a Firefox issue?  I’m going to be really mad if Firefox isn’t supported and netscape is.  And what about people on Mac using Safari? Screw this, I’ll go to the horrible unsecure Internet Explorer in order to submit my legal information over the internet.
13. Now I’m in IE, ladadadada,  doing it all over again. Then I notice something.. When it makes me verify my personal information twice, it shows my name as Last, First M.  I didn’t notice it the first time because it’s just a quick verification.  Wait, you don’t think that I need to print it that way on the next page do you?  But I followed the tax receipt, like they told me and on the tax receipt it was printed normally.  Ok, I’ll try it.
14. Blammo, it works. Thank GOD.
15. Then 38 seconds of screaming, one broken coffee mug. Who in the hell is going to realize this naming convention? I’m lucky. I spotted it by pure luck. Everyone else is going to get pissed off and bring their anger to the DMV office.  Why do they want this?
16. Ready to pay?  Great!  Simply fill out your personal information AGAIN.  AHHHHH!!!!! You already have my info!!! WHY WHY!!!!
17. Next, do you want to pay by Credit card or E-Check?   (It’s a trap.  I remember it from months ago. Pay by credit card and it will cost you a few dollars, and an e-check is 60 cents charge) Obviously I’m gonna go with e-check but how many people don’t realize this?  Yeah everybody else.  Later and on other pages, they call these “convenience fees.”  Hey DMV dickwads, It’s more convenient for YOU if I pay by credit card or check, because it eases your lines, your parking and your employees.  And yet you make ME pay for YOUR convenience.  And even though it’s just 60 cents, FU.
18. Next we have the longest processing time ever.  I am on the supposed double-fast DSL and it just creeps along. Normally I don’t complain about this kind of thing, but if this was dial-up, it’s totally gonna time out on me.  After all that work if it times out on me,  I’m grabbing my torch and saber.  If it happens to time out, it won’t tell me if the payment went through.  Then everything’s in limbo.  Then I’m going to call the DMV, take up their time and give them the 3rd degree.  So, find a fast way to process payments. Period.  And if it costs more, you fire one guy from your web team who created this monstrosity and pay for it that way.
19. Lastly we end on a good note.  A decent 1 page formatted receipt that we can print out.  But the happiness of that is quite thin because going back to point #2, because I received this notice that it went through, why would I come back and check that ridiculous ‘Click Here’ button on the front page to verify my renewal.  I suppose I could somehow forget that I didn’t renew and I come back to check?  Given the rarity that would happen, it makes that “Click Here” button at the beginning seem very dumb for it’s placement.

Ok DMV, see ya next year.  At that time I’ll need an inspection so it’s gonna be even more fun.  Oh if anyone from that website group reads this.  Maybe consider spending about 2 hours, with some pizza and a couple testers to just walk through the paying process like I did.  This should never have created this poorly.  Clearly there was no testing done.  Or there was, but everyone was completed drunk when they did it.  And you know what.  I know that if their web guy or girl does read this, she’ll be upset.  I’m sure you are a nice person web guy/girl.  I don’t mean for you to get down in the dumps.  But you first need to admit this is bad logic, programming and design, and never do it that way again.  Because though you think it’s no big deal and my posting is much too offensive, It’s you who have caused pain to hundreds of thousands of people by doing this, including your co-workers who answer calls and have to pick up the pieces from a broken process daily.

March 28, 2008 at 8:55 pm | computers, general, rants, webdev | No comment

Mainstream media shows its maturity and balance again

Here’s how you write a good political headline:

Ron Paul Emerging As More Of A GOP Contender

This is from a CBS Denver Affiliate December 21st 2007. I can agree with it based on my own heavy news reading, although I believe he’s already well “emerged.” Considering he’s done well for months and months of smaller polls and of course all the money he’s earned from a hundred thousand or more individual donations.

Now here’s how you demonstrate your bias and bullshit agenda (from a day earlier than the above):

Will Ron Paul Play Spoiler?

And you know what’s really great? This is CBS national news. So we have an affiliate that must have seen the national headline and editors said, “our program and site is better than that, better than our parent company.” Denver has had a reputation of a good news market in the past. I don’t know if it’s true always, but here it definitely is. CBS national news is also following leads from elsewhere. Yahoo guilty, along with the AP this time, which makes me ready to drop their email all together. Bye Bye Yahoo Mail!

Paul shaping up as spoiler in GOP race

I’m not going to spend time analyzing this. What’s the point? I’ll spend the time writing letters. Let’s just identify something. The Yahoo story is from an AP feed. Who wrote the headline? And why is the headline, not part of the URL? Instead the URL uses a quote from the biased story “news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071220/ap_po/anti_war_asterisk.” In the story, it states that Ron Paul was not long ago, an Anti-War asterisk in the race for republican nomination. What exactly does that mean? Can somebody tell me if this comes from common political jargon? An asterisk. And don’t get me wrong, if you write Hillary Clinton, blah blah “asterisk“, I’m still left wondering if that’s like “special candidate” or footnote? It’s anything but an informational label for someone, we know that. And we know that news is supposed to be facts, not labels and stereotypes. Why is this allowed, and then even worse, tolerated.
Let’s get something straight here. There are no such things as spoilers. People still believe that there are, and stories are manipulated that way. When you have two shitty candidates, you simply have voters in a 3rd, 4th and 5th group that just don’t vote. And they still have something called a write-in vote. Mickey Mouse is still doing well there too. So to say that one candidate has a function of merely pulling votes away from another, is false.

December 22, 2007 at 4:14 pm | media, politics, rants | No comment

What makes websites lame

So I was reading this page, 21 Factors that influence website first impressions

I started writing this long comment on that posting, and after about 80,000 words I thought, “screw improving this guys site with my genius comment, I’m writing my own posting.”

So here it is with a dark and negative flavor. Let me start with my fist annoyance. Some time in the past few years, some guru destroyed the internet by convincing thousands of web developers and bloggers and marketing scammers that the best way to drive traffic to their site was to create “Top Ten” lists. The top ten is the new sex. It sells. Unlike sex, Top Tens have gotten really old. And so have top 5, 20, 11, 99 or any other kind of list. You are not David Letterman and your list isn’t nearly as useful as you think it is. In fact, it’s the least enlightening thing I’ve read all decade. But surely it got you some visitor traffic. Which is my problem with it. The average butthead is reading your stupid post when they should be reading thought-provoking nine page articles on foreign policy that aren’t getting the attention they deserve. That highly educated journalist is starving while your dumb ass just made enough adsense money to buy an oversized shower head from Amazon.com.

Just to be clear here, I’m not making fun of the author(s) I linked to above from Vandelay web design. This is about lists in general. His wasn’t too bad, but I skimmed it, which is another problem with these lists. They are so easy to skim, they encourage you to stop reading paragraphs all together. Which encourages fake learning through unfocused consumption. That’s what TV is for. Here on the web, we should have higher aspirations.

Speaking of potatoes au gratin, heres my next problem with lame websites. Now that 27 inch monitors are like $18 bucks, everyone has them. Which means that 9pt font size that used to be great back on EVGA, now looks like hollywood hacker type. And Jesus, please stop using Verdana. It’s really gross. I have been told that at one point Verdana had a purpose, but since I just told you not to use small type, you know now that you musn’t use Verdana. It has sucked since 2001. Especially for headlines. Ugh. When I think of Verdana, all I can think of is if Madonna had a sister, she would be named Verdana and she would be disproportionate, ugly, unfunny, lonely and always eating sugary cereal.

The next problem, or if you want to be a corporate wimp, the next “challenge” is the site that looks to be legitimate news site but is swelling from bias and propaganda. One of these is foxnews.com, but it’s not the worst surprisingly. I’m way too tired to even look for them, but they are bound to pop up somewhere for you. They are ruining everything, mostly because they are written by conspiracy sheep or the wrong kind of republican. So if you ever think you want to make a community based news site, let me totally encourage you by saying go for it, as long as you can actually tell the truth.

Next we have sites with imagery dysfunction. In other words, you don’t know how to work with graphics whatsoever, and yet your site has more graphics than a Tijuana hooker? I guess, people long ago, back in 1995 had nothing to do but build very horrid gif animations and offer them as freebie downloads, while making popup advertising money. Those who bought or downloaded those spinning candy cane horizontal lines, or the 3D cats, or anything blinky decided that their website might get lonely without them. I mean hey, who needs white space when you can have that sweet hit counter?

Continuing on, there are still about 500,000 sites out there with background colors that will blow your ears off. There aren’t laws of the web, but let me just write the first and only one. If you are making your first website, you are allowed to use for your background, either #FFFFFF or #EEEEEE as your background colors.

More graphic fun, my personal favorite in fact, the stretched image. This particular problem shouts out that you A.) used MS FrontPage Express to make your site and B.) you don’t care about human proportion at all. What kills me is that it’s nearly always a womans portrait photo that is stretched the worst. The type of woman who spends womanly-time putting together her best look, the public speakers, influential lawyers, and yet being stretched and gaining or losing 100lbs in the photo somehow goes unnoticed for years.

Add to that, processor eating javascript effects, mostly which are totally useless. My latest one is the moveable sidebars. Who started this? I don’t want to drag around your sidebars and customize your blog. Besides, its not like it saves changes anyway. Just make them static. If I want to stylize websites, I’ll make my own browser stylesheet or use Aardvark firefox extension to remove or add things to your pages. If your site was any good, you wouldn’t have to bother with these javascript toys anyway.

I also hate bad forms. Forms that don’t indicate they were actually sent, or ones that request too much information for their purpose. Or my favorite, the ones that make you type in dashes for the phone number. But hey, your arbitrary database rules are much more important than my time aren’t they? It’s not like you could spend an extra 5 minutes implementing a few checks. How about Law #2, no more requesting phone numbers. What you want to call me? We can have an intimate conversation on the phone. You think I want you to call me? I’ll bet 98% of the shady looking shopping sites out there asking for YOUR phone number aren’t listing their own phone number for you to call. And you know what, here’s website law #3. Online Survey’s must NEVER have any required fields, except maybe a spam captcha. I’m doing YOU a favor by filling your survey. You gotta be pretty goddamn cocky to think that your radio button selections cover the gamut of my experience with your product. If I want to leave a question blank then you let me do it, or I will abandon you forever. Shit-for-brains.

I also despise signing up for things, so stop bugging me about your newsletter and how it can deliver your content to me often and more efficiently. I’ve seen every manner of newsletter popup, slide in, roll down. Screw off will ya?

Meh. I guess that’s about it. As all the top ten lists promise, if you follow these directions you will be successful. Now stop reading this crap and spend some time with your family.

November 28, 2007 at 7:08 pm | general, publishing, rants | No comment

Try not to anger your one true fan

I sent my mom a small stack of my new business cards in the mail before heading off to Japan. I was really proud of them because Juri and I collaborated on them for a considerable amount of time. The card was also meant to be the symbol of my new business. We even made one side of the card in Japanese so we could show them off to Juri’s family and some other VIPs we are meeting with. I’ll also have to talk more about the barcode that I put on the cards at some point.

Anyway, after my mom recieved the cards, she fired up the old PC to look at my website and what I had been up to. I have always had the suspicion that everything I write makes her roll her eyes. She’s has been supportive despite the eyerolling thing. I wrote a post over a month ago about 25 things I had been thinking about. In it, I mentioned that I wanted to encourage my dad to quit smoking, but I often felt blocked by her. Seeking to deter conflict between my dad and I, she would steer me away from yelling at him about it. Isn’t that the true mother’s role in the animal kingdom? In order to continue the species, the mother must occasionally prevent the idiot son from getting eaten by his father for mouthing off about something he knows little about.

My comment that she was an apologist came from my perspective on several situations. But perspective, like perception doesn’t mean s***. Because perspective doesn’t show you that when you weren’t looking, your mom has been hounding your dad at every appropriate moment how his smoking will affect her and him in the future. Perspective won’t tell you how someone has been battling behind the scenes. Your belief in your own perspective can render you absolutely wrong. How many times do I have to learn this? If you scrubbed through my site right now, I bet you’d find tons of very uneducated comments that I would be embarrassed to recall if you reminded me of them. Even right now, I have to ask myself “Have I looked over this entry to make sure it really says what I mean? Will this entry bite me later? Will this entry hurt my number one fan when she reads it?”

If only self-editing weren’t so troublesome and time consuming. If only we could change our minds about a subject given new knowledge and have all of our old writings updated for us automatically. “Oh you see I don’t really hate people from Florida, I’ve righted all those wrongs, just check out my blog now!” We could be consistent instantly and always. Of course it wouldn’t be good for those of us who need to be truly held accountable for our actions such as presidents and dictators. But for those of us who don’t want to ruin their number one fan’s day, that ability would really help.

May 31, 2007 at 8:36 pm | family, learning, rants, writing | No comment

I have no bookstores in my neighborhood

For whatever reason, the only bookstore in my neighborhood has closed up shop. They were given about fifteen days to shut down right after Christmas. It’s not a sad story of the small business being run out by a big dog, I mean it’s a Waldenbooks, owned by Borders. The store was in a mall that connects to the back of a Target store so surely it was doing enough volume to pay the rent.

How is the closing of a bookstore somehow news or significant? I suppose  it’s not, but it’s just economically interesting because my neighborhood has every other shop under the sun, but is strangely devoid of places to buy books.  Sure I can go down to the Plaza and hit the four story Barnes and Noble. But I just expect more considering we have about ten drugstores, just as many hair stylists, five grocery stores. I would call my area upscale Kansas City metro area. Am I the only one noticing this gap? Maybe Borders is looking to make a change of direction? They have their large scale stores with the cafe and places to site. Maybe the relaxing larger bookstore is what people have come to expect. Waldenbooks and B.Dalton really don’t have that kind of atmosphere whatsoever.

The closing was a good thing for me in the short term, giving me 40% off two books I had wanted for a while.  The sad part being that I had developed a routine with my wife to visit at least once every two weeks or more often to look at the true crime, computer and magazines.

So I am extremely curious when and how the gap will be filled. It just has to be filled right? I really could use some reassurance, somebody or some company that’s going to realize the void and step up.  I can imagine a Half-Price books fitting really well close by my house next to the Indian restaurant. I’d really love a family-owned store and cafe.  I’ll entertain that my perfect world,  within walking distance, I’d love a bookstore / smoothie / crepe dessert place. We don’t have a smoothie shop in town so I think we are ready for that too.

January 25, 2007 at 4:38 am | books, general, nostalgia, rants | No comment

Gutenberg rolls over in his grave

I just started a project for a coworker who got married last night. And before I tell you about it, there is a quote “we will always do more for others, than we will do for ourselves” which is so very, very true.

The project is: Me and Tracey Zoeller are combining the photos we took at a coworker Mike’s lovely little outdoor wedding and putting them into a printed hardcover book created through blurb.com. What a cool thing you can do and for under fifty bucks. Blurb gives you some decent software to put your book all together. We’re really excited to see what we can make. My friend Susan pointed me to an article on slate.com about some of the new online photo book creator services that were reviewed. I wanted to take a look at the review to make sure we were making the right choice.
My favorite quote from the article:

“All the Web sites promised that the books were easy to make. They lied. The simplest site required two hours of pointing and clicking. Some books took as long as four hours to create.”

Tragic isn’t it that the author had to endure such an ordeal? I mean really, how awful. You might compare it to the fate of Nelson Mandela, or Senator John McCain in Vietnam. Next you’ll be telling me that it’s going to take a full thirteen days to rebuild the World Trade center. She had to point AND even click for two hours to create her book. Reminds me of that really difficult day I had at my job recently. To complete a task, I literally had to get out of my own chair and walk down a flight of stairs. God I hope I don’t have to do anything like that ever again.

Being part of the publishing business, I know that books are rarely simple, but we must strive for efficiency and ease. There shouldn’t be any barriers to finishing your project quickly right? The other side is, I have no hope for future customers if people can no longer spend a few hours on a project, personal or not. Every video I’ve ever spent time with was a minimum of ten hours, personal or work. Even blogging this takes a couple minutes.

Perhaps the author would like to step back in time about fifteen years and see what it takes to put together a hardbacked, full color personalized photography book. About ten grand I’d say, with a minimum order of 500 copies. You have to draw it on layout paper, then take a cropper ruler and make the grease pen tick marks to every cropped image. And gasp, no world wide web. I’ve heard how the world is so advanced now that people from yesteryear couldn’t survive in this fast paced climate. I think it’s the other way around.

June 9, 2006 at 3:53 pm | computers, media, publishing, rants | No comment

Terror in the heartland

Thank goodness. Kansas City has a Anti-terrorism organization in place to help protect us. They are called the Terrorism Early Warning Group. At their site, you can get references as pointless as recognizing suspicious packages.

I suppose we are going to be safer now that this group will be first with the information on terrorist attacks. Hmm, let’s keep reading.
“The TEW is not currently equipped to take direct reports about suspicious activity. In an emergency, please call 9-1-1.”

So basically “terrorism” will be handled as it always has been.

Why is everything that used to be a disturbance, prank, playing music too loud, is now called a terrorist act? War on terror?  I encourage anyone who believes this garbage to read Blowback by Chalmers Johnson.  Man, back in the day, my friends and I used to blow off soda bottle bombs with a little of The Works and tin foil.  I wonder if I was 15 today and doing those sort of things, if I might be on some watch list. We all need to calm down.
Speaking of calm, let’s take it down to the soothing blue color in the Terror Threat Advisory. It means Guarded: General Risk of Terror Attacks. Are we at significant risk here? We’re guarded, things are pretty much handled.  By the way, here’s a clue that we are going to be yellow for a long time.  If you look on the websites that post this Threat Advisory graphic, they aren’t displaying the Advisory based on live real time data or anything. This is a static .gif file.  It ain’t goin nowhere. The country could explode and we’d still be at yellow.

April 10, 2006 at 10:55 am | police, politics, rants | No comment

Next Page »