These pictures were taken today. Still on the run from XXXXX. I'll be somewhere else tomorrow and will post new pictures then… Hope the new features are fun, I'll try and add some more. I feel like some mythological Kimble-like character programming as I'm tossed about in the wind.
I don't know if people have been following how the “PATRIOT” act has been applied, but this “stop terrorism” act is being used in increasingly broad cases with less and less to do with “terrorism”. For example, the act defines chemical weapons as any substance that has the capability to cause serious injury. As such, they're doing things like charging people making meth labs (about a six month sentence usually) with terrorism and the manufacture of chemical weapons (which gets twelve months, plus they can bypass traditional checks-and-balances in the investigation and prosecution — and if Bush's new legislation goes through, the death penalty).
In another case, a guy who's homemade pipe-bomb blew up in his lap was charged with terrorism using a “weapon of mass destruction”. Anyone here that's ever built pipebombs knows that if it blows up in your lap and doesn't kill you, it's not much of a WMD. It's also been used to go after telemarketers, and even to start files on anyone who's protested the war in Iraq, since anyone who objects to war is of course a potential terrorist (didn't you know, most terrorists are also pacifists?)… (more, more)
That said, Bush and the Cabal have been very clear; this isn't enough. They don't just want to be able to give drug dealers and potential financiers of terrorism like telemarketing con-artists prison time after show trials — they want the death penalty, as well as the elimination of bail. In addition, they want to make it so federal agents can issue their own subpoenas without a judge's approval — because they say that the judges are slowing down the legal system and need to be phased out (more).
Here are some more pictures from my day. I don't know how long I'm going to be around here, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months, maybe more. Everything is in flux. Oh, as a point of trivia the first picture is the front yard of a house I'm thinking about renting for a little while.
In other news, I have one person freaking out at me for using the word “rape” in the sense of “emotional rape” saying that by doing so I somehow “belittle” anyone who's been raped for “real” (ie. violent/phsyical) by misusing the word… They didn't seem to understand that first, emotional rape is very real (click that link and find plenty of court cases, self help sites, and so on), and second, rape does have more than one meaning — ever heard expressions like “rape of the English language” or “raping the environment“? Other than that, I've got another goofball threatening to do anything he can to hurt me (“my mother is a lawyer”) because he was removed for multiple violations.
It's funny… People are all buddy buddy, and then they think they can break the rules, and then when they find out that they can't, the threats start a-flying. Oh well. In any large crowd there are good people and there are bad people. I still think this particular crowd still has more good than bad — it just sucks that I happen to be the target for the bad ones. I guess at least I get to see people's “true colors” more than most do.
I just took this photo about fifteen minutes ago. I'll post more tonight maybe as I figure out where I'm headed and all… It's still a mystery but I hope it's settled soon. I do have some more stamps on my passport though, after a lengthy period of interrogation that is.
It's hard to totally follow the news, but I thought that this article (click) about how war costs due to long-term damage to gear are much higher than reported was interesting, and that this article (click) on the over six thousand Americans that have been evacuated for medical reasons from Iraq was very sad… Both because it's not cool to see young people getting their legs blown off, and it's because it's not cool to hide that from the American people.
Oh, and Atrios caught this crazy quote from Ann Coulter that I thought was pretty funny:
On the basis of their recent pronouncements, the position of the Democratic Party seems to be that Saddam Hussein did not hit us on 9-11, but Halliburton did.
Um… Everyone (well, 30% of Americans these days, and 100% of the rest of the world) know that Saddam Hussein didn't do the 9-11 strikes. Whether ones believes it was Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, or some grand conspiracy, it was most definitely not Iraq. There's not a shred of evidence for that, and there never has been.
Coulter of course knows this as well, so one has to ask why she would make such a statement — the answer is simple: because current neo-con strategy is to redefine truth and history for that percentage of people who are too stupid to be able to understand it… The people who don't believe the obvious lies, well, they just don't count I guess.
After all, this is a democracy. If there are more stupid people than there are smart people (which statistically should be true), perhaps it is good strategy to characterize the intelligent as kooks, and market solely to the ignorant?
