Well, today is the last day that the book is getting checked… Then tonight I give it a last go over and then in the morning it goes to press. Of course, all that means is that I have to do a big (or as big as possible) image update today, and then hopefully restore the drives on the server tomorrow. So I don't think I'll be saying goodbye to 120 hour work weeks any time soon.
I imagine most of you know that the various US forces are using urban and rural domestic environments for training exercises… Here's what happened in Raleigh, NC: A young cop notices a suspicious vehicle and pulls it over. The trainees in the car assume the cop is part of the training exercise and attempt to disarm him. Then they all start shooting each other with real bullets. I'm not saying that they should stop these exercises (although it sounds like they need to be a bit more thorough on informing local law enforcement), but it just really sucks when young soldiers — and young cops — are killed meaninglessly…
Maybe it's just me, but I really find all this limiting of access to information worrying. Right now it's “voluntary” limitations helped out by libraries, schools, etc… But the basic problem is that companies like Paladin Press publish analogous information as their primary business. So shutting down a library doesn't shut down a publisher… So worry about what the next step is…
Now I do want to mention one that I thought was sort of scary. After the 9/11 attacks, there were of course people who pointed out the obvious “maybe America got what's coming to it” — Now, independant of it's truth, that statement is overly simplistic and in very poor taste given the timing, and as a result gets angry reactions (don't I know it). But… Should you go to jail for it? William Harvey did. He's been nailed for disorderly conduct — apparently speech is judged in America not by it's CONTENT, but by the public's REACTION. Scary stuff… So does that mean that if the general public is upset by the ModCon book, I have yet another reason I can't enter the land of the free without it becoming my prison?
Finally, two quick links on the various “disappearing acts” after 9/11 in The Times and in the Indepedent.
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