UncommonSense

5/10/2002

Do you follow politics? Have you ever gone to a political speech to hear a president or former president? Do you visit political websites? Well, then you'd better watch what you say or you might find yourself surrounded by cops, the FBI and the Secret Service on a closed-off highway off ramp, with guns pointed at you and people searching your things and asking you about your political opinions. And God-forbid you should be young, male and swarthy. After all, the police have a responsibility to the public. Funny, I always thought my right to be safe also included my right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure. Wasn't it part of the Bill of Rights... oh yeah, the Patriot Act trumps all that.

So what constitutes reasonable? Happening to ask a convenience store clerk about security checkpoints going into the Olympics because you are running behind, and then mentioning your opposition to war to one of your companions. That's all it takes. "I'm actually fearful now of having any material or speaking out against our government. I felt I couldn't be safe with that, that I could be arrested or put on a list somewhere. You cannot be critical of the government right now. If you're not patriotic or a nationalist, you could be singled out."

This story has a sniff of suspicion about it, just the sort of story to get the Face on Mars people squawking. Why is the National Research Council urging NASA not to look for life on Mars? Is it really an honest fear of alien diseases, or is it that life on Mars would once and for all crack the foundations of Christianity, Judaism and Islam?

I mean, what if it were proven that life on Mars was older than life on Earth? What if intelligent life had arisen, flourished and died a hundred million years before the first apes came down from the trees? What would that do to the Genesis story? What day did God create creeping things on the face of Mars?

On another note, why don't people just sign themselves into prison? I can understand that they have severe health problems and these implanted chips might (might) save their lives. But if this technology can be put in something the size of a grain of rice and put under your skin, for Pete's sake, the same thing can be done with something less invasive, like a ring that you always wear. There is absolutely no reason to put a chip inside your body. Just because a thing can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Oh good God. "One official familiar with the investigation said some committee requests for information have required the compilation of hundreds of thousands of documents. But the investigation has uncovered no single missed piece of intelligence that would have allowed U.S. authorities to stop the attacks." You mean to tell me that, with access to classified material and the resources of the FBI and CIA, they have not yet discovered that there was a complete breakdown of the air defense command structure on 9/11, and that had they followed their own published procedures, in all likelihood, only the first plane would ever have struck it's target? Who are these idiots doing the investigation? Oh, yes, I forgot, the ones given specific orders to hide the truth. Somebody's blowing smoke up our asses.

With allies like these, who needs enemas?

Tony Blair will be receiving an angry call from the White House today.

5/9/2002

Great minds think alike. Today it is the incomparable Helen Thomas - one of the few Washington insiders willing to bare her teeth. Compare what she says to the 4/23 update (scroll down) of Uncommonsense.

And the aura of secrecy continues to spread. Here's something you can read into this article. The US government has pushed to include unusual biological and chemical weapons into bio and chem weapon treaties, while at the same time developing these same weapon systems. This seems to be a model of government policy - force everyone else to sign a treaty that you yourself have no intention of honoring.

Or how about this - the Office of Homeland Security isn't an agency and so it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. What kind of bullshit is this? Does it spend tax dollars? Then it isn't exempt, PAS.

UFOs and 9/11 - what's the connection? There is no connection. But, on the night of July 15, 2001, 10 unidentified objects were tracked by radar over New Jersey and were seen by over a hundred witnesses. Yet the event received almost no media coverage. Given the heightened state of alert after 9/11, could the media afford to ignore a similar incident?

This week, we had a local primary election. Nothing spectacular. The one person I wanted to vote against was a Republican, so I couldn't vote against him. He won, by the way. But I'll get to vote against him in the real election.

So last night, one of the local Clear Channel minions was telling about his voting experience. He goes to his usual polling place, only to be told that he isn't on the list. He's talks to a supervisor, who informs him that they changed the district lines in his area. 'Where do I go to vote, then?' he asks.

'Well, it's one of four different places, but I don't know which one, and we don't really have any way of finding out - you'll just have to try your luck at each place.'

Now, if you know Tennessee, you know that these sorts of election day shenanigans are pretty common. According to some, the 2000 elections in Tennessee made Florida look like a demostration of Democracy at work. But was anything done to improve the situation? Not exactly. For this DJ, they changed his district without notifying anyone in that district of where they were supposed to go, or even that a change had been made. People didn't find out until they arrived at their usual polling place to cast their vote.

Seems like a sure fire method of keeping unwanted voters from the polls, doesn't it? A warm up for the November elections? Don't wait and see. Call your election commission now to find out where you go to vote. Ask them to send you a statement in the mail, so that when you show up at the polls this November to vote those Republican lunatics out of office, you'll have some official documentation to back you up.

5/8/2002

Every day brings frightening new revelations. So we learn yesterday that the Army has stockpiles of weaponized anthrax. Today, we learn that access to these laboratories was lax. Gee, how could the anthrax mailings have happened? It must have been someone with a high degree of skill and access to sophisticated equipment. Not.

And yesterday in St. Louis, there was a new anthrax scare. No word yet if it is the real thing or a hoax. But something in this article caught my eye.

"Authorities believe at least one other letter -- never found -- passed through the postal system and led to the October 5, 2001, death of a photo editor in Florida, the first fatality."

So where is this missing letter? Good question. Was it opened at the National Enquirer and then tossed? Or did the National Enquirer's mail get cross-contaminated?

Here's one theory about that missing letter that no one seems to be investigating. Suppose the missing letter is the letter that contained the initial source of anthrax. Suppose this letter was mailed from inside the bioweapons lab to the anthrax mailer's home. In transit, it contaminated the Florida mail. Then, once he got his package, he distributed its contents to the other letters and sent them out.

Just a theory, you know.

So the US was playing Three-Card Monty with the UN mission to Jenin. Why does this not surprise me?

5/7/2002

Isn't this what I've been saying - that the critical flaw in the anthrax investigation is the assumption that the army and the CIA have been abiding by biological weapons treaties and don't have tons of weaponized anthrax just sitting around in warehouses waiting for some talented shoplifting janitor or lab assistant to mail himself a packet of the good stuff in a ziplock bag? Now the army admits that it, well, uh, well, we do have some of this stuff sittting around but it's all secure and it's all here, by golly, no problems here don't worry about us.

World-renowned microbiologists are dying at a rate of two per month. One of them died right here in my home town. When mentioning him, this article says that forensic experts have concluded that Dr. Don Wiley may have had a dizzy spell and fallen off a bridge over the Mississippi River. I can't speak for the other ten deaths, but I do have something to say about the death of Dr. Wiley.

First of all, let's check out this forensic expert. He's our county coroner. That's the limit of his expertise. Sure, he's probably competent to investigate the everyday crimes of any medium-sized city.

But his conclusions in this case are pure speculation. He says that Dr. Wiley may have become disoriented and struck a construction barrier while driving over the bridge. Then he parked his car and got out, walked to the rail for some reason, then became dizzy and toppled over the side, striking a beam and breaking a button on his shirt before falling to his death in the river below.

The conclusion that Dr. Wiley struck a construction barrier is based on the damage to the rental car and some yellow paint left on the car. The Hernando-Desoto bridge is undergoing repairs, but having driven over the bridge to check out this story, I can tell you that there are no yellow construction markers - they are all orange. And the car would have to have been airborn to hit them. There are no painted construction barriers or markers of any kind low enough to be struck by a vehicle.

Dr. Wiley stopped his car and got out, then walked to the rail. This was at three in the morning (or thereabouts). Because of the construction, the bridge is down to two lanes, so his parked car would have blocked half the passable lanes on the bridge. Then he would have crawled over a concrete barrier and crossed two lanes of torn-up road to reach a rail that only came up to his hips. He then had to climb up on the curb in order to be high enough to topple over the side during a dizzy moment. The coroner states that he might have stepped up on the curb to examine the damage to the car. If he had done this, he would still need a ladder, as his car was two lanes away and behind a concrete barrier.

Dr. Wiley then toppled over the side. No one saw this happen, despite the fact that this bridge receives constant traffic 24 hours a day, and that his stalled car was blocking half the passable lanes, forcing all other traffic to slow in order to safely pass his car.

On the way down, he struck a beam and broke a button. But hold on a second. Let's look at a plastic button. You can try this at home - take a slab of ribs, put them on a cutting board, and put a plastic button on the ribs. Now take a hammer and see if you can hit the button hard enough to break it. I bet you can't. Yet we are to believe that Dr. Wiley broke a button after a fall of 20 feet or so. He then fell to his death, suffering fatal injuries consistent with a fall from a great height. He did not drown, as far as I know.

Of course, none of this addresses why Dr. Wiley was driving around in his car 3-4 hours after he returned to his room for the evening. This doesn't address why he was driving west over the bridge. On the other side of that bridge is West Memphis, and there is nothing in West Memphis. Especially not at three in the morning.

Here is an alternate theory, one equally as speculative but which fits the known facts as well as, or better than, the theory offered by the coroner.

On his way back to his hotel, Dr. Wiley was involved in a collision that was no accident. The other vehicle was yellow. It sideswiped him, driving him into a barrier, resulting in damage on both sides of the car. When he got out of the car to examine the damage, a second car struck him, killing him instantly and breaking a button on his shirt. His assailants then waited until approximately three in the morning to drive his car over the bridge during the time when there would be the least amount of traffic, park the car, and dump his body into the river.

So which explanation makes more sense?

5/6/2002

Some of those work-related problems have been dealt with, but I still have a looming deadline for a large project. Therefore, the style and content of UncommonSense will change for a while - fewer links, and less-regular updates.

I've been dreaming again. For some reason, I have my most profound dreams on Sunday nights. I don't know why. Maybe God is trying to tell me something.

Last night, I dreamed I was in prison. It was a political prison for those who express opinions contrary to the official government position. There were lots of other people in this prison with me.

One strange thing about the prison was that the prisoners had to pay for their own incarceration. You had to pay for everything. If you wanted to use the sink, you had to insert fifty cents. If you wanted to use the toilet, you had to pay the guards. You weren't allowed to own anything - you had to rent everything from the prison, even a toothbrush, or do without.

Strangely enough, the guards were not bad. In the dream, I needed a drink of water, but I didn't have any money. So a guard paid for my water.

So anyway, in this prison, there was this book that was being passed around among the prisoners and everyone was reading it. The book was an instruction manual for revolution. I was struck by how this institution of absolute government control was in fact sowing the seeds of the revolution it so feared. They were creating revolutionaries out of people who otherwise would never have done anything more political than writing a letter to the editor or casting a ballot in a boring local election.

In the dream, I was given the book to read. Unfortunately, I can only remember one sentence from this book, but this one sentence stuck out:

Even our greatest advantage is sediment in a lake.

This statement struck me. At first, it didn't make sense, but then I began to see its greater meaning. Even great talent, genius, intelligence, or tenacity is useless unless it is stirred up. A revolution cannot occur in a lake. In the placid waters of indifference, even the greatest advantage sinks into the mud of obscurity.

The powers that be know this, and it is to their advantage that things remain as calm and unruffled as a pond in the woods. That, I think, was the message of the book. If things are to change, if democracy is to be restored, the waters of discourse must be muddied.