Viet-Justice

Common sense has evaded the middle east again. Apparently sending text messages with your phone can be immoral depending on what you do with your text messages. For some reason the religious nutjobs have issued a fatwa that a Lebanese reality show is immoral and using your phone to vote on the show happenings is unislamic.  I never realized it was possible to do something that would make you hellbound with your phone.  But in order to save the souls of immoral muslims everywhere Mobily along with Saudi Telecom have decided to block text messages from reaching the show’s producers.  I guess that will teach those young people!  Now they’ll have to sit down at a computer and vote.  Think of all the money that these telecoms are losing because of a few Wahhabi fundamentalists who think everything is evil.

USNews is running a story on Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants. As usual there is a lot of fear mongering over invasion of privacy. Federal agents have been spying on muslim sites in the Metro DC area looking for radiation. For some reason people are upset that due to some level of negligence these muslim sites are open to snooping by geiger counter.

Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: “They don’t need a warrant to drive onto the property — the issue isn’t where they are, but whether they’re using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause.”

I can not agree with Prof. Cole’s analysis of the situation. If you are within earshot of someone do you have an expectation of privacy? It would seem that walking around with a geiger counter that can detect radioactive particles that are freely floating about would not be an invasion of privacy. If I aim a $1000 parabolic microphone at a building that has not implemented reasonable countermeasures, am I invading privacy? I could go on and on about snooping on bluetooth headsets, or war diving for unencrypted WiFi access points and countless other areas where people take their privacy for granted while being lazy in protecting said privacy.
There are several solutions for this whole mess. First, muslim terrorists should store their weapons materials in boxes that the government can not find. No amount of snooping can get past several feet of lead an concrete. Second, common citizens should go out and snoop for law enforcement. That will solve the problem of government spying without warrants. Private citizens don’t need warrants to walk around with geiger counters or point parabolic microphones at mosques. Think of it as an urban version of the Minutemen on the Mexican border. As long as citizens just call the police when they find something and don’t get involved then it isn’t vigilantism. The greatest benefit is that the news headlines will be about crazy citizens rather than crazy FBI agents. Change is good.

Flash News report. Iran is planning to unveil their latest marvel in cloning technology. Yes, that’s right Iran will be ready to show the world that they can clone sheep.

In less than two months, Iran is hoping to celebrate the birth of a cloned sheep, the first such cloning attempt in the Middle East and part of Iran’s ambitions – along with its nuclear and space programs – to become a regional high-tech powerhouse.

if you read closely this is somewhat disturbing. Iran has already ventured into nuclear technology and rockets. With the ability to clone sheep at their disposal the ability to work with biological weapons would not be that difficult. We can assume this must be the end game that the leadership in Iran is hoping for. Vehicles capable of space travel can also deliver nuclear and biological weapons to any part of the world enabling the jihaddist’s to imprint their brand of militant Islam throughout the world. The ultimate act of sabotage would be to incorporate a little pig DNA into their cloning experiment. The end result could be quite comical.

A Canadian court has reversed the ban on swingers clubs.

“Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society,” said the opinion of the seven-to-two majority, written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

Good for the Canadians.  Now if only the US would get in the game and realize that the government is not in the business of protecting people from their own decisions whether they are good or bad.  Unfortunately the religious right seems to think they have to save everyone these days.

Michelle Murray, convicted kitten dumper, has been sentenced to a night in the cold by an Ohio judge + up to 15-days in jail.  This is the start of a reasonable sentence; however, since the kittens became sick it would only stand to reason that Ms. Murray should stay out in the cold until she becomes sick.  This could be the beginning of a very cool reality show where animal abusers are dropped off in the wilderness and have to make it back to civilization before they die.  Think of Running Man meets Survivor.

It appears that everybody in Congress is in a panic over spying by the US National Security Agency.  According to the article by Fox news President Bush authorized the NSA to spy on international phone calls and e-mails without warrants.  Senator Arlen Specter says that there are limits to what the president can do.  I would have to disagree with the good senator in this case.  Since the wiretaps are focused on international communication is possible that the location of the NSA wiretaps could be outside US jurisdiction.  This is much like traveling in international waters or after you enter the gate to an international flight.  At such point you are no longer protected by US law or the Constitution and can be detained or cavity searched by US authorities without a warrant.  On the other hand, if the wiretap is located within the United States rather than at the border I would take issue with the legality of such an implementation.  The people that work for the NSA are very adept at interception of communications in other countries and it is almost certain that they have the capability to spy on Americans in an international zone where their activities could not be legally challenged.

Here we go again with the American flag bashing. Duluth GA, a suburb of Atlanta, is having a fight over whether or not an American flag painted on the street is graffiti. Ok, so a bunch of neighbors got together and painted in their cul-de-sac. Whoopie do! But apparently a dumbass by the name of Glen Coryell at 3816 Whitney Pl Duluth, GA 30096 (770-476-5327) decided to complain to government burecrat Phil McLemore who in turn decided to say that the American flag violates the city graffiti ordinance. Let’s see folks, a group of consenting neighbors in the same cul-de-sac decide to do something together and some moron who doesn’t live in the cul-de-sac goes out of his way to label the American flag as spray can graffiti. Way to go Glenn. I suggest that you move to a nice cul-de-sac in Tehran where you can sand blast all the American flags you want.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is at it again as the FCC Warns Cable, Satellite: Clean Up TV Raunch

“You can always turn the television off and, of course, block the channels you don’t want,” Martin said, “but why should you have to?”

Mr. Martin does have a very good point. You can always take a bath in the morning, but why should you have to.

His argument that you shouldn’t have to turn off the television is absolutely silly. Cable and Satellite are services you pay for. If you don’t want raunch then why are you paying for it?