Color Coded Conditioning

One day you'll tell your grandchildren about this, but they won't believe you. They'll say in disbelief, "you mean they had a color coded chart to tell you how scared to be?"

"Yes," you'll tell them. "And for nine long years it only varied from yellow to orange and back again."

"Why did they change it to orange?"

"Usually to make us forget about a Democratic National Convention or a Republican scandal."

But then a wizened smile will grow across your face and you'll say, "but the comedians and snarky bloggers ridiculed the dumbstupid thing and eventually the government gave up their dang rainbow charts."

Then your precocious little grandkid will pipe up with, "now when they want us to forget they use the neuralyzer!"

"sigh."

"Grams, tell me more about the good-old days!"

Mission Impossible

I always thought the whole "master of disguise" plot device was unrealistic, cheap, and best suited for Scooby Doo mysteries.

But now Canadian authorities are detaining a young Asian man who boarded an Air Canada flight wearing a high-quality head and neck mask which disguised him as an elderly white man. For whatever reason, he decided to take off the disguise mid-flight.

(CNN video.)

Well, there goes one argument for racial profiling. A high-grade silicone mask is all it takes to change your race or age and avert TSA scrutiny. But I'm sure our Homeland Security is already dreaming up countermeasures. Maybe in addition to the new freaky groin and breast pat-downs, TSA can also try to peal off your face!

As many others have said before, all this airport hassle and humiliation is not making us safer. We already took the most important measure which was reinforcing cockpit doors. Passengers are also very alert now and will not let some idiot with a knife commandeer a flight. All this other expensive security theater can be bypassed by anybody who is marginally smart and highly determined.

Speaking of airport humiliation, EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the deployment of body scanners at US airports, pending an independent review. They allege that the naked scans these machines produce violate the Fourth Amendment, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act.

Yep, our government is no better than a pervert with a web cam.

Transparency for All

Of course, the Department of Homeland Security insists this is no big deal, but somehow a private government contractor posted a TSA air passenger screening manual online. And unfortunately, the supersecret parts of the PDF were redacted by drawing black boxes over them. Oh! Nobody will ever figure that out! The MSM will try to tell you that "hackers" used their elite skills to remove the black boxes, but in reality all it took was a copy of Acrobat Professional.

So what was revealed? Well DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano says "the security of the travelling public has never been put at risk," but I don't believe it. I'm sure many terrorists would love to know what size electrical wire can go undetected by airport screening machines or how to sneak in through the exit lane.

However, if you're traveling this holiday season, I suppose this new level of transparency can be very helpful! Gawker has kindly assembled 10 tips to get you past airport security based on the TSA manual. Tip number seven was the most disturbing to me:

7. Be Disabled:
The FSD may authorize the following modifications for the screening of Persons With Disabilities:
1) ETD searches are not required for:
a. Wheelchair and scooter cushions
b. Footwear of disabled individuals that cannot be removed
c. Prosthetic devices, casts, or support braces
d. Orthopedic shoes

Well, thanks Internet! It's not like this wheelchair user does a lot of traveling anyway, but now the TSA will be sure to overcompensate and give me an anal probe.

Ranks of the Insane

"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." — Marcus Aurelius

I thought I had said enough about that tea party thingy two weeks ago, but apparently it's the gift that keeps on giving:

An Oklahoma City man who announced on Twitter that he would turn an April 15 tax protest into a bloodbath was hit with a federal charge of making interstate threats last week, in what appears to be first criminal prosecution to stem from posts on the microblogging site.

Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, was arrested by FBI agents who identified him as the Twitter user CitizenQuasar. In a series of tweets beginning April 11, CitizenQuasar vowed to start a "war" against the government on the steps of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, the site of that city's version of the national "Tea Party" protests promoted by the conservative-leaning Fox News.

"START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!," read a tweet at 8:01 PM that day. "After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!," he added five minutes later. Then: "Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps."

Hayden's MySpace page is a breathtaking gallery of right wing memes about the "New World Order," gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama's covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.

I'm wondering if the Republicans will come to regret embracing those tea parties? I dared to view Dan Hayden's MySpace page -- the deluge of videos is enough to crash your web browser -- and I saw an awful lot of crazy there. His blog posts are long winded, paranoid, political rants. He claims Obama has some kind of hypno power and Bush was drunk at G20. Looks like he supported Ron Paul, but I get the impression he really hates all government.

But I give him credit for making that recent DHS report on right-wing extremism seem even more urgent.

I'm honestly trying to understand this new conservatism. AlterNet has a compelling article about the different moral priorities of Republicans and Democrats, and one of the observations is that Republicans have much more respect for authority and order. Well then, why all these threats of violence against the police? "Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads..." Huh? They must have changed their moral priorities when they lost the election.

Homeland Security Idol

American Idol meets DHS in ABC's new reality show Homeland Security USA. Tonight, I watched it so you don't have to.

From the start, a faceless and booming voice-of-authority tells us how brave men and women safeguard our country and enforce our laws while patrolling our borders. I assume they mean these border regions that nearly 2/3 of the US population lives in, and the ACLU refers to as a "constitution-free zone."

So how do you turn an absurd bureaucracy with an Orwellian name into fun family entertainment? Well, you have to have some zany characters like the Swiss belly dancer who, in broken English, wanted to know if she would get a refund on her airline ticket because she was being sent back home. I was waiting to hear her sing, but then I remembered that show doesn't start until next week.

A reality show has to promise a lot of suspense. Oh look, we caught a terrorist using his real name and birth date! Oh wait. A case of mistaken identity. But how nice of the kindly agents to tell the family, after traumatizing their children with guns, how to handle the situation in the future. (We don't hear what this advice is, by the way.)

The producers must have an easy time making this show. Everything is right out of the Bush-Cheney propaganda handbook. They stick to the official script that DHS is securing the United States from terrorist threats and attacks. But where were the threats? The umpteen pounds of drugs confiscated don't scare me in the least. Make them legal already. The barbecued bats from Thailand? That's definitely gross and they might have made a few people sick, but I wish our government could put the same effort into inspecting imports which are a very real threat.

Finally, we're treated to the new American experience of airport security theater. The bizarre scene of a boy around age 11 dutifully reporting the contents of his backpack to an agent made me wonder if Bush ever envisioned a Youth League. Hey, it's not too late, George. You've got two weeks left.

The message of the show was clear. Shut up. We're doing this for your own good. Now stand still while we put this collar around your neck.

I rate this show "code red." Be on high alert if you dare to watch it.