Mind Scalpel

Man, I turn my back for three short months to work on my meson cannon, and look what they’ve done — the world’s hardly worth taking over anymore.  Drives me crazy.

But I must say, the several trillion dollars the world economy has “lost” will all be worth it, if only to prove the prescience of my last post.  Things were nigh-blissful, with a Congress floundering about, passing, at best, absurd non-binding resolutions like commemorating the Kingdom of Bhutan’s participation in the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival (seriously).

And then all hell breaks loose.

Did you ever see the movie “Heat”?  If not, then I recommend it, if only for appreciation of Al Pacino’s character’s interrogation technique.  Essentially, he’d burst into a room, maybe even with a search warrant, grab the guy he wanted to question by the lapels and scream at the guy, practically nose-to-nose, “GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!  GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!!!”  The hapless target would basically crumble in the face of this unexpected onslaught and, indeed, give Pacino’s character whatever he wanted.

In case you haven’t noticed, in this metaphor, Hank Paulson is Al Pacino, and our beloved Congress is the hapless target.

In a paroxysm of utter panic and confusion, Congress did, indeed, in the words of an incredibly intelligent Continue Reading »

(Non-humorous screed alert!)

Alright, this one was so damn subtle it almost slipped by me. But not subtle enough!

Currently, there is in at least one East Coast market a radio ad campaign for “Wireless Amber Alerts.” One ad features someone who is obviously supposed to be a police dispatcher making a radio call for an Amber Alert — the abducted child is said to be something like a “six-year-old African American girl.”

The suspect?

A “Caucasian male, 30-35 years old, blue shirt, black jeans, 180 pounds…”.

I’m in favor of the Amber Alert system, and I think the addition of the Wireless Amber Alert text messaging system is a great idea — in fact, I went to the web site to sign up for it.

Then I heard the above radio ad again, a few times.

And I thought, wtf?

Why, exactly, was this particular racial combination (African-American victim; Caucasian suspect/offender) chosen to be the example for the Wireless Amber Alert ad? How often, based on actual statistical evidence, is that particular racial combination of the suspect/offender and victim present?
Continue Reading »