TSA porn and you

It will only be a matter of time before your naked body, posed hands up in surrender, winds up on the Internet. Or perhaps that of your children.

Officials have time and again assured the public that images won’t be stored or transmitted; they will be immediately deleted after they are looked at.

Of course they can store and transmit the images, and will. They have to.

Think about it: If something happens on a flight, why would they destroy potential evidence that a passenger had something (or conversely evidence that clears them)? Like robbing a convenience store, what’s the first thing detectives do? Check the security tapes, which are stored for some period of time.

It may be that the images are deleted after said passenger lands without incident, gets their bag and goes on their way, but what sense does it make to destroy potential evidence before they are out of the system? They may not be kept forever, but certainly at least while they are still a risk (or at risk). Which means your body scan will be linked with your name and other personal information – easy to do.

An article at Rawstory said

On its Web site, the TSA explains that “this state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image. In fact, all machines are delivered to airports with these functions disabled.”

The last part of the quote here is key — the machines will be delivered with those functions disabled, not without those functions at all. The TSA’s procurement guidelines (PDF) for the body scanners state that the machines will have two modes, a “test mode” and a “screening mode.” The machines will not be able to store and transmit images when in “screening mode,” but will be able to do so in “test mode.”

Which also means, yes, if you’re taking, storing and transmitting naked images of people under 18, you are violating child pornography laws. Will individual TSA agents get a waver to victimize children, or can anyone with a badge have a go? Remember, if you’re consenting to these scans and you’re over 18, you’re consenting to have your naked image taken, stored and transmitted. How long do you think it will take for your image to hit the net?

If the scanners are put on any network, they can be hacked, and likely will – just for fun, if not for nefarious reasons.

An unsigned editorial at the Washington Post said, essentially, “Don’t worry. You can trust the TSA”

According to the agency, the machine’s ability to store, print, transmit or save the images is disabled when it is delivered to the airport. And here’s one last precaution: Officers in that remote screening room are prohibited from bringing in cellphones, cameras or any device with a camera.

This comes as little comfort to anyone who has ever had something stolen from their luggage.

Will the TSA officers have to pass through their own security scanners before entering the “viewing room” or will it just be a rule they are expected to follow when they’re all alone with the monitor?

Feel safe yet? I don’t. If my out-of-shape nakedness ends up on the internet, the least the TSA can do is give me a cut of the royalties.

economic coal for corporate stockings

I was sent an email suggesting ways to fix the economy. I’m sure it was satire (Dear God, let it be satire!) but here is the meat of it

“Patriotic Retirement Plan”:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.  Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.  Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR.  Forty million cars ordered – Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis fixed.

It can’t get any easier than that!!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes…

So the suggestions are:
-Discriminate against the aging, and completely wipe out Social Security.
-Print money and give it to a failed auto industry that uses ever-scarcer, polluting fuels.
-Printing MORE money, and giving it to the banks that have resumed risky bubble-building trading and speculation without significant regulation or oversight.

You know who else prints money to solve their economic woes? Zimbabwe.
According to the Cato Institute, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate (of Mid-November 2008) 79,600,000,000%. Prices effectively doubled every 24 hours. (http://www.cato.org/zimbabwe)

Imagine starting Monday with a $2.50 loaf of bread being $5 on Tuesday. $10 on Wednesday. $20 on Thursday. $40 Friday. $80 Saturday. $160 Sunday. By the time you need to buy another loaf next Monday (kids gotta eat, right?) a single loaf of bread is $380.

My solutions:
-Bring our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Japan, and Germany, and shutting down those bases.

Bringing our soldiers home from the sandbox alone would save about $1 million dollars per soldier per year. Put them to work rebuilding major infrastructure projects that the Army Corps of Engineers says are crumbling, or insufficient (New Orleans’s levies come to mind).

-Legalize, regulate and tax marijuana and prostitution.

Not only would that create jobs, bring in millions in tax dollars, there would be billions in savings for Federal and State governments who don’t need to put people in prison for petty crimes. Mexican drug cartels would not have a major source of income, dropping violence at the borders and in parks -saving more money in police/security.

-Nationalize energy and gas utilities, and make an immediate infrastructure switch to Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Geothermal power, and hydrogen-electric vehicles.

Millions and millions of jobs would be created. We proved we can do massive economic switching and retooling in WWII, when we went from producing thousands of cars to producing thousands of airplanes, jeeps and tanks in a matter of months. The middle east -a major source of problems and our oil- would not hold our economy by the balls, and fuel prices wouldn’t spike just because of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. It would require a lot of spending to do, but long term environmental impact not happening would save us a ton of money, and keep us healthier. Speaking of health…

-Single-payer health care.

Either make all health service providers non-profit (Canadian style) and set up the government to run insurance on a 21st century digital platform, or make health care providers government employees (UK style) and set up a standardized-across-the-

country 21st century digital platform for records and sharing information. Make these services available free of charge for everyone in the United States legally and with proper documentation.

-Steep tariffs on goods not produced inside the US.

Every other country does this to encourage people to “buy local” and they have more manufacturing and distribution jobs. We outsource everything, for free. We sometimes provide “tax incentives” to companies that hire domestically, but that is not the same as making it more expensive not to. Don’t confuse FAIR trade with FREE trade. Imagine how much happier and more confident American consumers would be if they called customer support and got an American that spoke American English.

This is not isolationist policy. This is leveling the playing field and giving American workers and the American military a fair chance. We’ve been calling it “National Defense” without doing any defending here at home. You can’t attack to defend. That’s called aggression.

Admittedly, it worked really well for the Roman Empire. And the Holy Roman Empire. And the Ottoman Empire. And the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And the British Empire. And the Japanese Empire. And the Nazis. And the Soviet Union. They’re all still around, right?

If you want to cry “Socialism,” go ahead. Just remember we have also socialized (government owned) the Police, Fire, Rescue, Military, Postal and Railroad services and our primary and secondary schools. People can use private security, fire protection, ambulances, FedEx/UPS and freight companies, and private primary and secondary education if they want to and can afford it.

However, isn’t it nice to know there’s a “strong public option” for the rest of us?

On Columbus Day 2009

Observations of Columbus Day have split in to two camps: One of celebration and one of mourning. Those celebrating the discovery of the “new world” – which tells you exactly for whom it was “new” – and all the richness of progress the Americas have made for freedom, independence and equality for all. As long as “all” of you are Christian god-fearing, land-owning white males. But, you have to start somewhere. The other camp is one of sadness and anger, mourning the deaths of innumerable people, the loss of culture, land, and marginalization of a slow-burning American holocaust.

One cannot deny the contributions to the story of humanity the Americas have made. Out of the post-colonial western hemisphere have come people of ingenuity, compassion, sacrifice, and courage. Some music, art, science and ideals of liberty and freedom are uniquely American and invaluable today. Of pre-colonial Americas, we know little about. Which brings me to the other camp…

History is written by the victors, and the survivors whom the conquering have not yet silenced. Some indigenous peoples of the “new world” were wiped out – not just killed off by disease or violence – but erased from history. Of those that remained, their cultures have been mixed up and caricatured. They have been removed from their ancestral homelands, and had tribal governments gutted and replaced over and over because they were not “friendly” enough to the assimilationist interests of colonizers.

The scars on native America are so deep, so ugly, that they cause some observers to turn away the critical eye and instead fantasize about pan-Indian ideals, or co-opt what is found comfortable or novel. The very notion of what it means to be native has caused once united peoples to turn on themselves, challenging who is, and who isn’t part of the tribe.

With both camps having some truth, and as each clamors for the spotlight today, I instead  choose to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice that native peoples have made in making America what it is. It is easy to forget that all the “Indian names” of places scattered around the country came from somewhere, that the different tribes were actually different cultures, and that many of them are still living, still native, today. Every year, then, I shall acknowledge the people that have shaped native America. I will praise those who, in the tumultuous post-contact years, have been examples of courage, ingenuity and compassion to preserve precious native ways, and make contributions to fledgling America, and beyond. I will address different tribes, time periods and the men and women that are the heroes of “Indian country,” to put in print stories that will hopefully create a new camp that serves the memory of those that came before, and does not try to seek revenge in their name.

I will start this new tradition in print with a native hero of print itself: Sequoyah of the Cherokee. Although it is not known exactly when he was born, author Tom Underwood wrote that “he was old enough to fight in the Creek war of 1812 in a company of Cherokee volunteers.” Four years later, he was a signatory on a treaty (of the many) that ceded large swaths of Cherokee land. What is known, is that he was fascinated by the European’s “talking leaves” (books).

Sequoyah understood the power of the written word. He saw the potential for communication, government and sharing ideas. Through hard work, ridicule and some setbacks -including his wife burning every one of his notes in frustration- he crafted an 86-character syllabary, representing all of the sounds of the Cherokee language. In just a few years the Cherokee had gone from a completely illiterate people to one that could read and write in their own language, thanks to one man. That single act of creation may have been what saved Cherokee culture from complete annihilation.

In 1824 the council recognized Sequoyah’s achievement and voted him a medal of honor, the one he is often seen wearing in portraiture. By 1825, a Cherokee was translating the Bible into the new writing, and by 1828, a Cherokee printing press was made. In 1828, The Phoenix, the first bilingual newspaper of the United States was printed in English and Cherokee. Although under more recent scrutiny, the content of the paper’s “native culture” was brought into question, the interest that remained in preserving Cherokee language and culture has never faded.

In 2009, under the leadership of Principal Chief Chadwick “Corntassel” Smith, every employee of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma has to learn how to speak, read and write the language. Every government program and document has Cherokee translations in Sequoyah’s characters. Even The Phoenix, which is still in print today, has stories in English and Cherokee. There are many other bands of Cherokee around the United States -some recognized by the Federal government, some not- that are all united by the common script.

Thanks to one man, a warrior and a scholar, the Cherokee forever have their own “talking leaves,” and this time in their own native tongue. Happy Columbus Day. Never forget where you come from.

William Kostric brought a gun to Obama’s town hall and nobody reported on it

You might not have heard of William Kostric before today, but today you still might not have heard about him at all.  He was the man who brought a loaded semi-automatic handgun, strapped to his leg, and waited along the route for President Obama to arrive. In addition to the firearm, he carried a printed sign that said “It’s time to water the tree of liberty,” a reference to the Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty is periodically watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

See this video on Rawstory for the brief MSNBC coverage this morning, along with an interview later with Chris Matthews where he is questioned about his political affiliations and his motivations for bringing the gun. Be sure to watch both videos in succession, both from MSNBC.

The Rawstory article said:

Portsmouth police chief told [local anchor Ron Allen]the man’s gun is legal, because he is on private property — he is on the grounds of a nearby church. Police say his gun is registered and he can keep it on him as long as it is not concealed.

In addition, it was reported that the church gave him permission to be on their property. In theory, Kostric violated no laws, save common sense. It was simply a man bringing a sign, and expressing his right to the first and second amendments.  But is it ever really that simple?

This event raised more questions than it answered, even after Kostric was interviewed by MSNBC’s Matthews.  For the following, please refer to the video linked through RawStory – specifically the “developing news” by Carlos Watson.

1:05-1:07 – You see a government style radio earpiece (clear plastic coil) in Kostric’s right ear. The lead bulges out when he turns his head to the right.

1:08-1:12 – You see him display the sign which has been professionally printed and attached over his home-made sign on yellow material. The bottom of the sign (1:12) shows “This message brought to you by RestoreTheRepublic.com”

I got a phone number for the Restore The Republic’s Washington office off their website and called it, trying to get information on who this guy was, how he got their sign and why, and if they had anything to say about it, assuming they knew.  The lady that answered the phone (didn’t get her name) seemed confused about what I was talking about and said “we don’t make those signs” and didn’t seem to know anything about it, even after I pointed out the “brought to you by” on the bottom of the sign.  She was polite and the conversation was civil and friendly, but unhelpful, so I said thank you and hung up.

Mere seconds later, I get a phone call back from them, and talked to a gentleman who gave his name as “Gary Franchi, National Director“. I did not give my number to the lady, but I assume they have caller ID.

He was polite but very, very direct about asking the usual “Who sent you? What’s your agenda?” questions.  I asserted that I am an unaffiliated, unpaid writer, who just thought it was odd someone would bring a gun to this type of event, and he remarked with the snappy talking point of “don’t you believe in the 2nd amendment?”

Yes, of course I do. I’m still not going to bring my heater around the Commander in Chief. Ever. Ever. Ever.  The Secret Service are very good at what they do with our tax dollars, and I don’t want them to have any motivation to do it at me.

I pressed Franchi about the sign, with which he was equally unhelpful. “We gave away lots of those signs,” and generally seemed reluctant to affiliate his organization with Kostric in any way other than a general sentiment of “we support Americans expressing their rights.” Over the course of the conversation, I directed him to RawStory, and the video, and pointed out exactly what I was seeing.

Franchi then enquired about my writing, my political affiliation (“Vehemently Independent”), and asked if I would be interested in writing for him.  I said that I did not know enough about his organization, and had to look over it more; I have to be very careful about who I affiliate with. He understood.

So, conversation ended, I still have a few questions that nobody has answered to my satisfaction:

• Why did Kostric feel it necessary to bring a loaded firearm to proximity of the President just because it was within his right to do so? What was he trying to prove, and how did he think it related to the conversation of Health Care (bullets don’t cure anything)?
• If he was not implying violence, why did he choose a violent quote, instead of something like “Dissent is a lesser evil than the lethargy of despotism” (also Jefferson) or my favorite “We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately?” (Franklin)?
• Did the church specifically give Kostric permission to be there with his gun?
• If so, who at the church actually gave the OK?
• What was Kostric doing wearing a government style radio earpiece? Franchi said it was for his cell phone, to which I responded, I have never, never seen an earpiece like that. It’s no Motorola I know.
• How did Kostric acquire the sign, and what is his affiliation with RestoreTheRepublic.com?
• What did his original sign say, and why did he cover it up?
• Why is the only coverage of this on MSNBC and the blogosphere, when every other “bring your gun to church” or “bring guns to dinner” public statement is covered on multiple networks?  This wasn’t on Washintonpost.com, WTOP, C-SPAN, CBS, ABC, FOX or even NBC. Why the silence?

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/11/protester-seen-with-gun-outside-obama-town-hall/

Makings of a Police State in America

There are two ugly words that nobody in the media or government wants to say, but Colbert I. King, columnist for the Washington Post has  alluded to in this column: police state.

n. A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police or military force; one with a brutal, arbitrary government. (police state. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/police state (accessed: August 08, 2009).)

I will be the first to admit that our police are not outwardly “brutal”, but there is a thin, hazy blue line between excessive force and self defense. Those of us without a badge are not allowed to defend ourselves against anyone who has one. In fact, any attempt to protect yourself from an officer that is using force against you, even for the most specious of reasons is considered “assault” on said officer.

Undoubtedly, law enforcement officers need to protect themselves, thus most have issue kevlar vests, semi-automatic sidearms, pepper spray, tasers, batons, and hand to hand combat training. Most civillians do not.

What do we have left to protect ourselves with? The Law? If an officer is accused of excessive or criminal conduct, he (or she) is put on paid, administrative leave – not counted against their vacation – until the matter is “internally investigated”. If it were you or I, or a Harvard professor, we are put in jail, until the investigation is complete.  If we are lucky, and it’s minor enough, we can “post and forfeit” and be on our way, like this lawyer allegedly arrested for saying “I hate police”. “Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear” does not, and has not been true for some time.

The simple charge of ‘disorderly conduct’, whatever that may mean to that officer at that moment, is being used as a tool to threaten and intimidate, not just maintain “order”. It’s just a little reminder that people need to be kept in line, “or else”, while the arbitrary arrests are used to justify ever-inflating police budgets. Is crime going down as much as budgets go up?

The issue is broader than street-level. Privatized prisons make incarceration a for-profit venture. The more laws that are made to criminalize larger sections of the population – the most vulnerable being already-disadvantaged poor and minority demographics – the more people go in to these prisons. The more people in the prison, the more money the prison’s parent/holding company makes. Laws that give end-user drug crimes tougher sentences than high-level distribution and trafficking crimes are perfect examples. Why are crack and meth (and once-vilified pot) users given disproportionally harsher sentences than those that sell or traffic it? Because they can, and the hapless users likely cannot afford an expensive lawyer to fight on their behalf. They are to do time “as an example” to others. One “example” after another, and another, and another… until it seems the prisons are full, and more need to be built.

Federally, the public can only but watch as they are told their phones may be tapped, they may be indefinitely held (and possibly tortured) as “enemy combatants”, or simply “threats”. We have yanked people off the streets in foreign countries, tortured them, and held them for years without trial – and even when we have told them and each other that they are innocent of wrong, they are still “too dangerous” to let go. Watch as the rhetoric of “homegrown terrorism” starts up and see who is yanked off the streets, what socio-economic demographic they come from, and how transparent their proceedings are.

The government is beholden to “defense contractors” that have their hands in all the military branches, the alphabet soup of secretive security and intelligence agencies, and even state and local police departments. Who do you think provides the military-style equipment and uniforms that have replaced Barney Fife’s patrol car and six-shooter? They make a lot of money perpetuating conflict and fear, and selling new systems and new security and enforcement practices to “protect” us.

Are some changes to security and police practices necessary? Of course. Threats from abroad and at home are changing, and the genuine need for protection and self-defense of the nation and its people needs to change with it.

What’s missing is the critical, open, transparent discussion of what those changes mean, whom they will affect and how they will be implemented. Hiding behind the veil of “security” makes more and more law enforcement actions “secret” and ultimately arbitrary, especially when the police and military have the same gear, guns and training provided by the same contractors.

Sounds like the makings of a police state to me.

Alabaman National Guard may be called to police civilians in budget crisis?

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/troops-may-be-deployed-to-alabama-county/

This RawStory article looks at an Associated Press story by Jay Reeves about how the Alabama National Guard may be called in to “assist” police in the cash-strapped Jefferson County.

This quote from Reeves’ story mentions the Alabama National Guard’s involvement:

A spokesman for Hale, Randy Christian, said the sheriff told Riley after the ruling that state assistance may be needed to perform basic law enforcement tasks once the department’s current funding is exhausted in early September.

“We will certainly be looking at calling in the National Guard,” said Christian.

The RawStory article does not go into the details of the “assistance” all, only mentioning that it is a possibility. If Governor Riley, who is the Commander in Chief of the Alabama Guard orders (or allows) them to deploy to Jefferson County, then some precedent-setting questions will be raised:

• Even assuming everyone means well and tries not to purposefully run roughshod over the mostly-unarmed civilian populous, will the Alabama National Guard be trained well enough to protect the population’s legal rights while performing police duties?
• If they mess up, what kind of recourse will civilians get?
• If fiscal crisis = security crisis, what is the threshold for calling in the Guard when other states have a lot of red ink? What kind of precedent will this set?

The Military Economy of the United States

“Bread and circuses”
Answering the question posed by this RawStory article, “Is America building a military economy?” is simple. We already HAVE sold our economy out to the military.

RawStory writer Daniel Tencer comments on Floyd Norris’s article for the New York Times that “durable-goods shipments — a basic measure of industrial production — “fell by more than 20 percent during this recession, and would have declined further were it not for increased production of weapons.”" Then linked a military/nonmilitary chart that shows durable goods shipments and the distinction is graphically clear.

Think about the recent defense spending bill congress was fighting about:

Was anyone arguing that the reduced numbers of F22 fighters were possibly obsolete or ineffective/inappropriate for the “new war”? Not really. Only that their production was vital to hurting state economies. Other already-obsolete projects are still in the budget. Why? Not because they will do anything to protect us, but because the companies producing them stand to make a ton of money and maybe produce a few hundred jobs here and there while the R&D and manufacturing process is slowly dragged out.

The only way to ensure perpetual growth of defense budgets is to perpetuate war.

Look at the rest of our economy:
-Auto, Technology, Appliance manufacturing is now almost entirely outsourced to China (to whom we owe a ton of money) and other countries with cheap -sometimes child- labor and lax pollution standards.

-Fuel and energy production is beholden to foreign governments that otherwise hate our guts and have zero incentive to help us switch to clean, renewable, domestically produced energy; because they have no other export of their own, it’s important to them to keep us “hooked on oil”.

-Healthcare is run by Big Pharma and Big Insurance who’s only interest is -not cures or preventive medicine to keep us healthy- but to keep us barely alive but very well medicated, and paying ever more for a patchwork system of care that treat us like rude mechanicals, fixing not the damaged whole body, but the single broken part and ignoring the rest of our interconnected, interdependent biological systems.

-Farmers in America are subsidized because they cannot afford to compete against foreign imports from countries with (again) lax pollution standards and poor labor practices, unless they grow themselves to be ‘factory farms’ that produce questionable quality “food products” that are vulnerable to massive disease outbreaks (salmonella, e.coli among them) and bring harm to human and environment.

Not all corporations are bad, but those that adhere to the promise of taking care of their workers, their environment and their country have to work extra hard to compete with those that are only concerned with taking care of their bottom line.

Once the resources of the American People are used up -and those resources are finite- they will grow tired of “bread and circuses” and inevitably the sights of the only growing economic engine, the military industrial complex, will turn inward and we will have to deal with the monster we created.

“We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.” – Ben Franklin

Governor Granholm Speaks at Alpena Community College on the Stimulus Plan

Governor Jennifer Granholm made a rare appearance at Alpena Community College’s Granum Theatre on April 24th to promote her plan for implementing President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act package. The stimulus will bring $18 billion to the beleaguered northeast Michigan area, and have effects for years to come. About $7 billion of those funds will be for preexisting federal programs, and the rest in tax cuts. “Since the recession began, volunteerism is up 20%”, she said. “But we’re all in this together!”

Described as “use it or lose it” funding, it is the “largest investment in roads in at least 50 years”. It is also the “largest amount of tax cuts for low and middle income households in the history of the United States”. As it was “one-time” funding, she did not want education to try and design new programming, but rather invest in projects like new buildings and equipment.

Granholm said her main focus for Michigan’s chunk of the stimulus has three objectives: Diversify sectors of the economy in to green energy generation, educate citizens by doubling the number of college graduates, and protect citizens who want to own a home or have difficulty paying for the one they have. As she walked back and forth on the stage, she pointed out some of the effects of the stimulus, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit

Governor Granholm at Alpena Community College

being “raised to $5,657 for families of three or more”, unemployment eligibility being “extended for up to 79 weeks”, and the projected “creation of 109,000 jobs over two years”.

She was clear to point out that stimulus money would go to “real people” and brought up several of them to tell the crowds about how they are being helped. Tanya King and Dwayne Casebier talked about how the Bridge Card helps take some of the stress of finding enough to eat, and Jason Dutiel and Jessica Johnson

Jessica Johnson and Jayson Dutiel

talked about how the No Worker Left Behind program is helping them pay for school and get retraining.  Catherine McClure

Catherine McClare

told of how a crew came and “weatherized” her house as part of a $6.6 million program north east Michigan.

After her presentation, Governor Granholm took a few questions from the audience, and then as she left, members of the press.
Michelle Swift from NEMSCA commented on how her agency helped people like King and Casebier fill out their taxes to maximize their Earned Income Credit.

Michelle Swift from NEMSCA

When a reporter for The CrossCut asked how the region could compete against China’s industrial policy making it the world leader in production of windmills and turbine technology, Granholm pointed out that the region was ideal for centrally located for turbine production. The lakes will provide shipping avenues for freighters, and there is already a former auto parts manufacturing company in Manistique turning out windmill parts. She said, “If you can bend steel for car parts, you can bend steel for turbines.”

Photos, and event lighting and audio by Robert Gandy

Fox’s March to “Running Man”:

Fox television is one step closer to the 1987 Governator movie Running Man

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/

The new show “Someone’s Gotta Go” will force employees to fight to keep their own jobs in a small (less than 20 person) company that is about to be downsized.

I bet $5 someone gets shot, or at least punched – in what can only be described as – “the face”.

My earliest exposure to “reality tv” was either Wild America with Marty Stouffer, or Yan Can Cook with Martin Yan. There, real life people were out in the real world, looking at real animals in real forests, or cooking real food in real kitchens – sometimes with other real chefs.
It was heaven to my young mind. How far those media angels have fallen.

When the blood, sweat and tears of sports – our modern day Rome’s gladiatorial matches – are not enough to satisfy the appetite of a hungry but complacent public, we’ve turned to the pornographic world of ‘reality tv’. There is not a lot more that can be said of or about it, the carnal fusion of sex and violence says enough.
Show link:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i974830d95caa5dbf5298c4dfb7681c93

How North Korea Cost Me $5:

The recent launch of a Taepodong-2 missile -under the guise of testing a new satellite- by North Korea cost me five dollars.  I’m not happy about it, as I doubt Kim Jung Il will ever pay me.

After leaving the launch pad in a graceful arc over Japan, the rocket sputtered out and splashed into the Pacific. By placing a sheet over the rounded nose of the device, Kim Jung Il tried to claim it was not a warhead shaped tip, and instead an experimental civilian sattelite.  He might have had a more effective cover had he also painted “NOT A MISSILE!!1!” on the side of it in big white friendly letters.  Despite all the careful preparation, the three stage rocket got only as far as stage two. Because of separation anxiety, stage three could not quite let go, and in an embarrassing embrace, the conjoined sections fell back to Earth.

How did this cost me $5?

There was much pre-launch saber-rattling by the United States -and much of the rest of the world- about the barely-disguised missile.  Various military powers made claims about shooting it down, including the laughable “If they’re just testing a rocket, we’ll be just testing our missile defense system”.  China spent much of this time quietly on its front porch, embarrased, with it’s face in its hand. Everyone has ‘one of those’ neighbors.

Just a day or two prior to the launch, the Pentagon finally said that it was not-quite-prepared to actually shoot down the rocket, but at the same time, Japan said it was fully capable of using it’s US-sourced Patriot missile batteries to knock it out of the sky.  That’s where my $5 comes in.

I bet my Editor-in-chief, and the Managing Editor five dollars that Japan would shoot down the rocket for us, so if North Korea got really mad, the United States could say, “Look guys, it wasn’t us!” As impoverished as North Korea is, I doubt it has the capability to attack Japan should that have happened. But it didn’t.

Instead, 200 DPRK commandos threw the missile as hard as they could up over Japan, but it was not quite hard enough to reach orbit.  Because Japan took no action (or did it? Where’s my tinfoil hat?), I owe the newsroom $5.

Thanks, Kim. If your rocket had worked, Japan might have freaked out enough to shoot it down, and I could have had a free burger today.  You owe me, man!