Never What It Seems

FBI Halts Terror Plot

While I commend the FBI and other nations police and intelligence organization to identifying these plots, I must join the voices that have already raised concerns about this and the Miami “plot” cracked down on last month: Where’s the evidence?

This isn’t some knee jerk liberal reaction, the fact is we cannot convict these people based on conversations. We need proof of their intent and there is none. No explosives, no al Qaeda money, no terrorist organization contacts, no building plans, nothing more than conversations in a chat room. This means in 6 months to a year when all the pres s has gone away, these people will be back out on the street…with a grudge.

Granted, these dweebs weren't even smart enough to figure out the tunnel wouldn't have flodded anyway, but once they're out and pissed off, who knows what damage they could do? Would it have been so hard to set up a sting operation, tried to sell them some explosives or something, in order to get some real evidence so we can get these people locked away?

And if we do convict these people based merely on chat room conversations, what sort of precedent does this set? What sort of door are we opening here? Think about how many people say “I wish my boss or my ex-wife or whomever would some version of dying a horrible fiery tortuous death” but have absolutely no intent of actually doing anything about it. Do we want the door to be opened to 50% of the population being arrested just because of what they say?

I think it’s great that the FBI and other organizations worldwide are diligent in rooting out terrorism, but I wish they had the patience to actually collect some evidence so we could put these people away.

Movies

I watched Syriana over the weekend. Wow.

First of all, just as a work of art, I was very impressed. I had not seen Traffic and so it took a little time to get into the director’s pacing and keep all the information flowing out of all the disparate storylines straight, but once it gets rolling you are really swept along to it’s almost abrupt, intellectually and emotionally jarring conclusion.

Secondly, Brava to Siddig El Fadil (a.k.a. Alexander Siddig a.k.a Dr. Julian Brashir of DS9) for getting a good role he could sink his teeth into which he does in a very understated manner. P.S. He’s still hot too.

(Very interesting background Sid has: Sudanese and British. Though British raised his fraternal uncle served as Sudan’s PM twice. His maternal uncle is Malcolm Mc Dowel.)

As a statement, I have not read the book it was based on “See No Evil” by Bob Baer, but I get the strong impression from what I have read online that it’s a pretty accurate representation of the how the American Oil Industry sets U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East with a philosophy of purposeful destabilization and exploitation. Syriana makes you think about what America’s role is in creating terrorism. I don’t condone terrorism by any means. Terrorists are murderous thugs that need to be arrested, tried and executed as far as I am concerned. However, it’s takes two to make a fight and as a responsible American, we have to ask what are we doing to contribute to that fight? What are we doing that fosters this environment? We cannot force a culture to change. The failure of that ideal is playing out in Iraq as we speak, but we can stop adding fuel to the fire by changing the way we as a nation approach the Middle East.

Participant Productions has a website that lists recommendations of how you can reduce your “energy footprint”, reduce your oil usage, but nothing more than most of us have heard already. The depressing thing is that there do not appear to be any answers real answers, the power players are so high up and so well protected by banks of lawyers and legislators, that stopping the oil industry from running our government foreign policy seems impossible for those of us on the ground.

Seems.

The only thing I can think is to make alternative energy research one of the principal deciding factors in our votes for the next couple decades and to do so conscientiously.

I am open to any other suggestions.

Then I watched 8 Below to decompress and sobbed like a little girl when Dewy died.

Human character dies, I’m fine. Dog character dies, I’m a wreck.

No truly, 8 Below was much more entertaining than I expected it to be. Don’t bother with the people, just watch the dogs (they’re much better actors). It was a good adventure story and it had requisite satisfying happy ending.

Plus it’s got the furries (Siberians and Mallys). I like the furries. :D

It was based on a Japanese film about the true story of a Japanese expedition to the Antarctica in 1958 in which a team of nine sled dogs had to be left behind due to an early evacuation and was left there the entire winter. When they returned the following spring 2 had survived (the movie is much more “up” don’t worry). In real life the owner didn’t make a special trip and I don’t blame him. Rationally, it just wasn’t feasible. I understand that. However, no one has accused me of being rational and I *so* would have done what the character in the Disney version did. Hell, I would be hanging out in Queensland trying to rent a kayak to paddle my way down if one of my pups got left behind like that.

Racing

Saturday night I went and finally checked out some of the action at one of the local tracks. Little ½ mile asphalt oval. Very cool. Turn two seemed tricky. It dipped down which tended to throw the cars toward the outside wall. The ones who had it nailed pulled a late apex in the turn, turning in the center of one and two which brought them towards the inside coming out of the turn.

But there was some good racing. Pure stock, modified streets, super stocks, stock look-a-likes (mind you, I’m still not sure of what the difference is in all the classifications) and even some midget racing (O.K. I do know what those are). Lot of locals, a few imports and some great moves. The first race in the pure stock had a couple young girls (probably 14 or 15) racing in it, which elicited some jokes from the older set, but half way through the race they had raced their way into 2nd and 3rd with some pretty good moves and when one driver tried to put the 3rd place girl into the wall, the only thing out of the stands was “Boo! Don’t you take that from him!”

Anyway, I really enjoyed myself, it was a great little track and some really nice folks.

The next day was Cup racing at Chicago. I didn’t go out to watch but followed on trackpass.

I heard that RYR purchased a Roush chassis for Elliott to run yesterday.

I hope they kept the receipt.

Sadler fought that thing pretty much from lap one, complaining about a 1/3 of the way through the race it felt like his left rear was coming up off the ground and throwing him either to the inside or outside of turns. It was so bad his transmission sounded like “This is the loosest car I have ever had. It keeps twitching to the...holdon..” *goes through turn three and four* “I can’t tell which way this thing is going to jump to the inside or the outside, it feels like the rear wheel...holdon...” *goes through turns one and two*…

Proof is in the pudding, Good Gawd.

As frustrating as the day was for them I have to commend them A. for not giving up. B. For having great communication. As horrible as the car was running, the team seemed to be operating very smoothly and C. Positive feedback from the cockpit, even when things were rough. That’s leadership. Also a good job wrestling with that thing all day. From what it sounded like it was not easy to keep that thing from spinning out in every turn.

Still, some great long green flag runs, a good race all in all. All my guys pretty much stayed where they are at in the standings, so while it wasn't a great weekend, it wasn't all bad either.