What if someone jumps into the fake lake? I’m sure money has been set aside for that lawsuit. A BILLION DOLLARS!

I just came across it here.

Copied here:

(Without having a link to a specific instance, what I was talking about is the kind of crap nobody likes to see the other side doing, just restating the party line.)

Comparing the G8 and G20 to another G8 doesn’t make any sense.

If the 2002 G8 was $190 million, and the G20 is equal to the G8*20/8, then the combined expense would be expected to be $665 million. Which is a stupid calculation. But that’s what you get when you start with a stupid comparison.

I’m not saying the spending isn’t ridiculous, I’m just saying poor comparisons are no way to support that ridiculousness.

And then today, this in my “Updates:” “In the future, all notifications of proposed changes will come through the Facebook Site Governance Page. To receive future updates to Facebook’s site governance documents, become a fan of the Page.”

They’re sticking it to me. I’m going to have to have everybody see me “Likes Facebook Site Governance” if in the future I want to know in what ways my privacy is being violated.

Horrible.

Dibgy quotes Chris Matthews:

You know what when we get on an airplane, we give up all kinds of checks we don’t do by just walking down the street. I think we give up a certain amount of rights just getting on an airplane and I think you’ve got to recognize that your safety is tied up with everyone else on that plane’s safety and anybody else that gets hit on that plane. You don’t own the right to be on that plane because you’re getting on an airplane so you do have to yield some civil rights…

You know, people can do horrible shit in places other than planes.

You know, on a Greyhound bus, someone decapitated someone else and started eating his brain. Maybe before getting on a bus you should have to give up all kinds of rights.

A 737 will have about 150 people on it. In terms of the human toll (the economic toll/disruption would be different), bombing three coach buses (at 50 people apiece) would be about equivalent to bombing one plane. Yet it’s definitely more than three times as easy. Yet it doesn’t happen very often. Because people, generally, aren’t completely fucking insane. People are generally stupid, assholes, and schmucks, but it’s a big step to go from yelling at your kids and their baseball coaches to blowing up tens or hundreds of people.

What about buildings? Maybe before entering a building you should have to give up all kinds of rights. You could blow up a building really easily. In an average apartment building, you could run from top to bottom through the stairwells, dropping a bomb on each floor, without anyone saying anything. Yet it never happens. Because people, generally, aren’t completely fucking insane.

The list goes on.

It’s important to have security. And with good security, sometimes shit will still get blown up. And every time someone dies in such an incident it will be tragic. But it’s important not to lose our shit about it, especially when instead of blowing something up someone just sets his junk on fire.

It’s a quick and interesting read.

“Security theater” is the term used to describe airport security, and I like the ring that has.

Good anecdote:

During one secondary inspection, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, I was wearing under my shirt a spectacular, only-in-America device called a “Beerbelly,” a neoprene sling that holds a polyurethane bladder and drinking tube. The Beerbelly, designed originally to sneak alcohol—up to 80 ounces—into football games, can quite obviously be used to sneak up to 80 ounces of liquid through airport security. (The company that manufactures the Beerbelly also makes something called a “Winerack,” a bra that holds up to 25 ounces of booze and is recommended, according to the company’s Web site, for PTA meetings.) My Beerbelly, which fit comfortably over my beer belly, contained two cans’ worth of Bud Light at the time of the inspection. It went undetected. The eight-ounce bottle of water in my carry-on bag, however, was seized by the federal government.

I’ll say it once more: The security of the public rests mainly on the general decency of people.

The security theater isn’t just ineffective, it’s also a waste of resources.

I do recall that flying there (Amsterdam) from Prague was a new experience for me, in that at no point did I go through any real security with my checked or carry-on baggage, and on the way out we just walked right out into the street without having to talk to anybody.

And nobody even set themselves on fire.

As a gadget guy, it makes me wonder what kind of crazy stuff they have now.

As a political guy, it makes me wonder whether the somewhat decreased emphasis on assassination activities has decreased the rate at which such technologies have been developed.

As a paranoid guy, it makes me wonder how many various heart attacks or illnesses have been caused by this device or ones like it.

As assumed, limiting people’s basic freedoms has to cause more problems than it solves.