Terror on the planes

I may watch too many spy shows, read too many spy books, but how would we not know that this wasn't some kind of a test run? Or that it is not a a feint or misdirection to make us take the eye off the ball somewhere else? Think about it this way. They send out a piece of "converted" equipment with a couple of wires and then throw in some white powder. Might as well throw in the "kitchen sink" of terrorist tools too as an inside joke on their part. That should get us going in circles. And then they watch what we do and look for the weak spots. The information came from an ally. How did that information get passed on? Is there a mole? Did the plans include a snitch? Is someone looking out for us? Still the last few "terrorist" boobs failed. So has this. But is this just another failure or is this a test and we can expect something elsewhere? Are we giving them too much credit or not enough? Of course with the elections a few days off that is an advantage for causing fear to expand.

Oklahoma May Ban Islamic Law

Oklahoma voters may be out of work. They may even be losing their homes. But at least they won't have to worry about being tried in Islamic court if a ballot measure to outlaw Sharia law passes next week, reports the Los Angeles Times. There's no recorded case of Islamic Sharia law ever appearing in Oklahoma, but backers of the measure urge vigilance. "Oklahoma does not have that problem yet," said Republican state Rep. Rex Duncan, who wrote the measure placed on the ballot by the state Legislature. "But why wait until it's in the courts?" In Europe, Muslims can choose to hash out divorce and custody cases in Sharia courts. Other cases remain the province of secular jurisprudence, but advocates of the amendment say the European situation is a cautionary tale. The measure, known as state Question 755, had the support of 49 percent of Oklahoma voters back in July. No recent polling data is available, but last week the group Act for America—which trumpets its crusade against radical Islam—launched an advertising campaign to support the amendment. Representatives from the Muslim community in Oklahoma say the state is doing O.K. "There's no threat of Sharia law coming to Oklahoma and America, period," said a spokesperson from the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. "It's just a scare tactic."

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2272841/?wpisrc=newsletter

Marshall McCluhan

IF IT WORKS,
IT’S
OBSOLETE

Marshall McLuhanisms

The story of modern America begins With the discovery of the white man by
The Indians.
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity.
Whereas convictions depend on speed-ups, justice requires delay.
The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most
frivolous possible activities—like making money.
With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is
“sent.”
Money is the poor man’s credit card.
We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
the future.
Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is
managed by men with Newtonian goals.
Invention is the mother of necessities.
You mean my whole fallacy’s wrong?
Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.
The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.
Why is it so easy to acquire the solutions of past problems and so difficult to solve current ones?
The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.
People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.
The road is our major architectural form.
Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.
Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.
The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.
News, far more than art, is artifact.
When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.
Tomorrow is our permanent address.
All advertising advertises advertising.
The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.
“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.
This information is top security. When you have read it, destroy yourself.
The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.
One of the nicest things about being big is the luxury of thinking little.
Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.
The missing link created far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being.
In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
When a thing is current, it creates currency.
Food for the mind is like food for the body: the inputs are never the same as the outputs.
Men on frontiers, whether of time or space, abandon their previous identities. Neighborhood gives identity. Frontiers snatch it away.
The future of the book is the blurb.
The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.
A road is a flattened-out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.
At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images.
“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.”
—Copyright © 1986, McLuhan Associates, Ltd.

Alexis de Tocqueville on religion in America

There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.

There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country.”

Life in Afghanistan: War by the Numbers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/life-in-afghanistan-war-b_n_773235.html
When I returned from the service in the sixties after 4 years, I had seen very limited battle action. Most of my activity had been routine but I'll spare you the details of the other things. All I can say is I was lucky. Still I had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. How incredibly hard it must be then for these soldiers when they return, if they return and in one piece. As a nation we should be disturbed by what these men and women have to go through and we should be demanding a withdrawal now. Personally I feel ashamed that I can do very little except complain or just protest. Why are we continuing to be engaged in Afghanistan? It is nine years. Let's cut our losses and leave and let's fix this country!

NY's Retiree Issues

N.Y. Faces $200 Billion in Retiree Health Costs

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Published: October 12, 2010

The cities, counties and authorities of New York have promised more than $200 billion worth of health benefits to their retirees while setting aside almost nothing, putting the public work force on a collision course with the taxpayers who are expected to foot the bill.

The total cost appears in a report to be issued on Wednesday by the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a research organization that studies fiscal policy.
It does not suggest that New York must somehow come up with $200 billion right away.

Overcoming Procrastination

Twenty-one years ago, psychologist Neil Fiore release his book The Now Habit. Here's a look at his revolutionary book on overcoming procrastination at work and enjoying our free time guilt-free.
Image a composite of a photo by Chris Willis and The Now Habit cover.
Note: All parenthetical citations in this article refer to the page numbers in the 2007 edition of The Now Habit.
If you've climbed out from under a soul-crushing project list, cleaned out and redefined your to-do list, and set firm boundaries between work and play, but you still feel like you aren't handling the weight of broken commitments and unaccomplished work, plain and simple procrastination may be the root of your stress.

http://lifehacker.com/5658620/the-now-habit-overcoming-procrastination-and-enjoying-guilt+free-play