The School Knows Better Than You Do

Goodbye, sweet America. Can't figure out what to feed your own child? Are you addled brained of a parent that you're going to need someone else to decide what you child should and should not eat? Well, if you answered yes to those two questions AND if you have a child and they are currently attending (or going to attend) Little Village Academy in Chicago, then you are in luck! That's right. That's because the Little Village Academy in Chicago has decided that you have no idea how to feed your kid properly and therefore they have banned "...students from bringing lunches from home altogether."

That's right. It doesn't matter if you want to pack your kid's lunch. If your child attends Little Village Academy, you can't. According to the Chicago Tribune, "...students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria." NOT ALLOWED to pack lunches from home. In the land of the free. All right then. How...how...why is this? Well, because the school knows better than you, silly.

The principal, a one Elsa Carmona, explained that "...her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices." By telling folks how to parent. By telling them that they CANNOT choose what their own child eats. By taking away their freedom to raise their child how they see fit. All right then. This is asinine. Oh, and in case you were wondering what sort of meal they will be providing the children with for their own protection, please see the photo below. It is alleged that it is some sort of "an enchilada dish". Behold!

Oh, man. Kid, I feel for ya. Ms. Carmona claims that she created this policy six years ago. The reasoning? She saw students bringing "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" on field trips for lunch. Oh, no! Flaming hot chips! Soda?! The madness! She goes on to say that "Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school." Right. Because parents are completely incapable of packing a nutritious lunch for their children to eat. Those poor dumb, dumb parents. She also says that "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception." Wait. She what?

She would make an exception for kids with allergies or some sort of medical issue? You mean, the school doesn't know how to handle things like that better than the parents do? Why not? They seem to know what's best for every other kid out there when it comes to feeding them. Why can't they execute that same sort of care for the ones that really need some help? If you answered because this is an asinine policy to begin with, please come forward and claim your prize.

And in case you were wondering who pays for all of this, let us go to the part of the article that really aggravates me. It explains that "Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch." I see. Soooo...let me get this straight. By doing this, someone actually makes money. By taking away the freedom to choose, someone is profiting off of it. Huh. And the money that someone makes comes from where again? The federal government, was it? Yeah, OK. And that money comes from where again? OH. That's right. ME!

How many times do I have to point out to morons that this stuff happens ALL THE TIME. This isn't a "free" program. It's paid for by the taxpayers! Federal taxpayers! When did it become everyone else's job to feed someone else's kid?! I didn't sign up for that! I can think of about a hundred different ways that I would like my federal tax dollars to be used and not one of them involves feeding school children in Chicago! (And most of them don't include the many, many ways our tax dollars are already being pissed away, but I digress.)

Fortunately, there are some voices of reason with this issue. A one J. Justin Wilson, who is a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom, which is partially funded by the food industry, said "This is such a fundamental infringement on parental responsibility." Do you think?! Oh, sorry about that. He seems to be on my side. Never mind. I meant, yeah! It's an infringement. (I'm going to have to remember that phrase. Fundamental infringement. It sounds a little more responsible than "moronic" or "asinine".) He also asks the sadly rhetorical question of "Would the school balk if the parent wanted to prepare a healthier meal?" Hard to say, being as how they've banned lunches from home altogether, but I'd still like to know their answer.

Another voice of reason on this topic seems to come from a one Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach who is an "education policy professor" (whatever that is). She commented on the issue of the cost of requiring students to eat a school lunch at the cost of $2.25 a day. "We don't spend anywhere close to that on my son's daily intake of a sandwich (lovingly cut into the shape of a Star Wars ship), Goldfish crackers and milk". That lady is awesome. How cool of a mom is she? I want to know what Star Wars ship. I'm guessing the Millennium Falcon. Her son probably doesn't like crusts, so she cuts them off in a cutesy way. I like her. She's fun, she's reasonable and she's right. $2.25 a day for a school lunch? You can definitely bring a lunch from home for considerably less.

And while not all schools in the Chicago area have implemented this policy that you and I pay for (funny, I don't feel like I live in Chicago), others have come up with their own equally ridiculous policies. Take the Claremont Academy Elementary School on the South Side. Over there you can bring a lunch to school, but the school "officials" will "...confiscate any snacks loaded with sugar or salt. (They often are returned after school.)" Right. That makes perfect sense. Because the kid won't eat it after school. Noooo. If you're not eating it at school, it takes all of the fun out of it! But do you know why they do it? If you ask Principal Rebecca Stinson she'll tell you that "...most parents expect that the school will look out for their children."

If that last quote doesn't horrify you to your bones, then I can't help you here. Sure, I expect schools to "look out" for children when the children are there. But when I think of being "looked out" for, I think of the school keeping the children safe...and not safe from a Cheeto! Next thing you know, they're going to want to tell the kids what to wear, what doctor to go to, etc. And what, exactly, happens on the weekends when the school isn't around to guide these completely soft-headed parents in raising their children? What are they going to do? How will they know what to choose? Where is the school when we need it?! Holy crap. I think I made myself sick typing these last few lines. Goodbye, sweet America. With policies like the ones described here, we are not only doomed, we are screwed. We are so scroomed.

Not Intended To Be Factual

Here's a new one. Man, I always hate it when I say that. Only because it means that something more ridiculous than previously thought has occurred. It's almost never really good. And I'd guess that probably only about half of the time it's amusing. And this instance follows those guidelines. Not really good and kind of amusing. But only amusing in the way that is so ridiculous that you don't know what else to think.

Let's take a look at some of the profound statements of a one Senator Jon Kyl (R-eally? Arizona.) Senator Kyl is the Senate Minority Whip. I don't know what that is and I don't think that I care. If I had to make an assumption, I'd probably guess it has something to do with Miracle Whip, but I don't know what. Regardless, Senator Kyl had the floor on Friday during the whole budget showdown/will the government shut down debacle of 2011. He said that abortion was “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” And for the record, really only about three percent of Planned Parenthood's work has to do with abortion. There's a big difference between almost all and almost none. But that's OK. It wasn't supposed to be factual. Wait. What?

Correct. It wasn't meant to be factual. What was it meant to be? According to the thinking folks over at Think Progress, "...CNN anchor TJ Holmes relayed a statement from Kyl’s office walking back the comment". How do you walk something like that back? It's so far out of the gate, isn't it going to be impossible to walk back? Not if you're a moron, apparently, Kyl's office explained that "his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions." But....but...he said....what...whatis going on here?!

His remark was not intended to be a factual statement? Why in the hell not?! Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing when you're making an argument for your side? Give your basis in facts?! No? When did that change? Oh, that's right. IT DIDN'T. You can't just say something that is totally false and then pull a Pee Wee Herman on everyone and say, "I meant to do that!" That's not how this works!

I certainly hope that this doesn't become some sort of trend. I hope that all of these clueless politicians don't just start blowing alleged facts out of their arse and then blow over it when they're confronted on their falsehoods by saying that it wasn't supposed to be the truth and that it was supposed to illustrate a point. Oh, believe me. Senator Kyl made a point all right. He made the point that he's clearly not fit for the office that he holds. He made the point that he'll say whatever he needs to in order to sway people whichever way he wants to. He made the point that he isn't about the truth, he's just about what he wants. I can't get behind that. We're just doomed. Doomed, I tell you.

Jingle All The Way

I know that we live in an overly litigious society. And I know that it is completely out of hand. Both of these facts I am well aware of. So why am I so surprised when I see such a ridiculous result of the accumulation of those two things?

I wish I had the actual video/commercial to post here, but I can't find it online, so you're just going to have to rely on my stellar gift of colorful storytelling in order to understand what it was that I saw tonight. Once you understand that, you'll definitely understand why it was so ridiculous. The incident in question was a commercial for Degree antiperspirant or deodorant. One of those. Maybe both. It was definitely Degree, though. The premise of the commercial was simple. They had a bunchy of women (it's apparently a female under arm remedy) wear what was essentially a bracelet of jingle bells. (They used the term 'jingle bells'. Not me. Bells would have sufficed for me. We're not at the North Pole.) The idea was to get the women to realize how much they moved around all day long. Apparently, they would have had no idea of that were it not for the jingle bells making noise on their wrists.

Listen, I don't care if you're a man or a woman, but if you don't realize that you're moving all over the place all of the live long day, you are incredibly unaware of yourself. Might I suggest a class? Do you really need jingle bells on your wrists like you're some sort of wayward feline to point out that you have a busy day and are constantly moving? Personally, I don't. But the morons at Degree think that we do. And they think that some of the things that we do when we're going about our day are things like catching cabs, roller blading and folding laundry. (OK, she was fluffing a towel over a balcony, but I think that it was supposed to represent folding laundry.) The point here is that the whole commercial was ridiculous.

But here's the kicker: As they start to show their jingle bell wearer montage, a little footnote/caption thing pops up at the bottom of the screen. Guess what it said. Just guess. Here, I'll help you and give you some clues. People roller blading...getting in a cab...fluffing a towel...possibly doing some laundry...come on! You see the connection, right?! No? Do I have to spell it out for you? Fine. At the bottom of the screen it said (wait for it): Do not attempt.

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Are you freaking kidding me? Do not attempt...to fold a towel? I don't get it. Are the Degree people so afraid of being sued that they need to put that sort of a disclaimer on the advertising for their product, lest some crazy woman out there decide to get in a cab one day after seeing it on TV? Do not attempt?! Do not attempt every day actions? No one was on fire or anything. Do not attempt what?! To understand the commercial? Done! We are so freaking doomed. Doomed!

We're Scientifically Doomed

I came across an article over yonder at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that was titled "Why does U.S. fail in science education?" My question after reading that headline was "Why does the U.S. not only fail in science education, but also in proper grammar?" But I digress. Back to science. I really find the scales that they use to be completely meaningless, as they tend to categorize students as being 'proficient' or not. The problem with that is that in order to qualify as 'proficient' one usually has to get a minimum of around 60%-65% of the material correct. Sixty or sixty-five percent of anything is not proficient. It's barely half. And on most grading scales, it's all but failing. So I like it better when I am provided with how many people could actually answer the questions correctly. But let me be clear. I like the format better, not the results.

And that's what the article over at the Post-Gazette provides us with. They give us the percentage of people who could correctly answer some of the science questions. The results are so dismally low that I really want to know what people answered instead of the correct answers, as the correct answers seem to be pretty easy to noodle through. Let's take a look at some of them.

Fourteen percent of test takers thought that sound travels faster than light. OK, that's a solid 86 percent getting it right. I'm good with that. What I'm less good with is that 33 people disagree with the fact that Earth goes around the sun once a year. What the hell do think happens? Do they think it goes around more than once a year? Less than once a year? Do they think that the sun goes around Earth? There aren't a lot of choices that would make sense. I don't get it.

Here's one of the more appalling ones: 41 percent of people disagree with the statement that astrology is not at all scientific. Almost half. Geez. Just because stars are involved, it does not mean that it is scientific. It's a load of crap. I realize that there are plenty of people out there who really believe in this load of crap. I also realize that there are plenty of people out there who really like this sort of crap. That's all just fine. You can believe in it. You can even like it. But that doesn't change the fact that it is not scientific. No matter how much you like it.

And this one is as troubling as it is mystifying. 49 percent of people think that ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, but genetically modified tomatoes do. This just makes my head hurt to even think about. Where do those dimwits think that the genes to modify the tomatoes come from? The gene store? Even if you don't know squat about genetics specifically, shouldn't you be able to noodle this one through? Apparently not.

Do I take any consolation that, while in 1988 only about 10% of adult Americans were rated to be 'scientifically literate', in 2008 that number had risen to around 28%? No. Not really. 28% percent is abysmal. And who even knows what that means, anyway? We're just doomed, that's all. Simply doomed.

Bureaucracy At Its Finest

I, like the pelicans, enjoyed the Gulf Coast while it was not so oily. You know, back in the day. Like, March. But I have the feeling that those days are completely gone. It's become clear to me that it is no longer a matter of when the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster will be cleaned up, but it's a matter of IF it will EVER be cleaned up. Actually, I'll take that a step further. It's now a matter of anyone will be ALLOWED to ATTEMPT to clean it up. And if the federal government is going to have much more to do with it, the answer will be a resounding no.

Let me tell you what happened yesterday. Tell me if this does not make you just want to pound your head upside a wall and not stop until you lose consciousness and/or at least a pint of cranial fluids. According to something called the Associated Content and the more familiar ABC News, there really doesn't seem to be anyone in charge of anything. That's why Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana (who seems to act like a distant relative of Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock on occasion) has spent the last ten days trying to get a bunch of barges out into the gulf so that they can begin sucking up some of the bazillion-gazillion gallons of oil that is ruining the ocean. He finally got his barges. He got sixteen barges. And they got right to work sucking up that oil. That is, until the US Coast Guard shut them down.

So here we have something finally being done and being effective in the way that that oil that shouldn't be in the ocean was being removed from the ocean by these barges. OK? That's a good thing, right? Naturally, with some progress (albeit a small amount of progress) being made, there had to be a pretty good reason for the Coast Guard to halt the work of these barges and send them back to shore, right? Well, that's what you'd think. But in this ridiculous, utopian world that people are trying to create, that's not exactly what happened here. No, the barges were ordered to stop sucking up the oil and to return to shore so that the Coast Guard could make sure that the barges all had fire extinguishers and life jackets aboard. Um, wait. What the what?!

You have got to be dry shaving me! Fire extinguishers?! Oh, right. Because if there had been fire extinguishers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded, a fire extinguisher would have been key! And life jackets?! Really? They're BARGES. THOSE are the reasons why you're having those sixteen barges return to shore? Where they would then SIT for another 24 hours?! What in the world is wrong with you people?!

Tell me this: Could the Coast Guard have not sent someone out to those barges to poke their nose around while the barge was at sea and was actively vacuuming up oil to do their little fire extinguisher count? Why did it take over 24 hours to inspect 16 barges? Couldn't they have just checked with whoever made the barges or whatever and asked them how many fire extinguishers and life jackets were provided for each vessel? Oh, well, sure. They could have done that. But apparently, they had trouble finding the barge making folks. So instead of having a barge out at sea without enough fire extinguishers, they decided to have all of the barges stop what they were doing, return to shore and sit there while the oil continues to wreak havoc on the once beautiful and once wonderful ocean.

This could possibly be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. And it's a perfect example of how the perceived necessity of over-regulation is going to be the downfall of this country. It's already proving itself to be the downfall of the Gulf Coast environment. Give it time. It will make its way to the rest of the land. I guarantee it.

Taxing And Re-Taxing

It's come to my attention (via FOX News correspondent Anita Vogel on something called Fox and Friends yesterday morning) that states are so damned broke lately that they've taken to the notion that it's a good idea to find new things to tax. Never mind silly ideas like taking a look at what programs could be cut back on. No, the correct thing to do is to continue spending the same amount of money that we are now, even though there isn't enough tax revenue coming in to support that sort of spending, and just find new ways to suck more money out of folks. What a novel thought. And here are some of the novel things that are being taxed across this great (but kinda dim-witted) land of ours.

According to something called Don't Mess With Taxes, in the state of Maine they are taxing blueberries because they need to "...conserve and promote the prosperity and welfare of this State and of the wild blueberry industry of this State by fostering research and extension programs, by supporting the development of promotional opportunities and other activities related to the wild blueberry industry." Uh-huh. That almost sounds believable until you learn that Maine "...produces the most wild blueberries of any state in the U.S. or province in Canada. In fact, the state produces 99 percent of the wild blueberries in the United States." Hmm. Sounds to me like the blueberry industry is doing just fine on its own. It doesn't sound like it needs a whole lot of fostering. It sounds like it has a stranglehold on the North American blueberry industry. But Maine needs cash, so they've slapped a 3/4-cent tax on every pound of blueberries.

Now, over in West Virginia, we're getting really silly. Over there, according to taxfoundation.org, they are taxing Fourth of July staples such as sparklers. And not just sparklers! No, they've added a tax to sparklers, glow worms, snakes (the pyrotechnic, not the reptile), and noisemakers "...which produce a small report designed to surprise the user." What's a "small report" supposed to mean? Like the Penske file or something? Apparently, fireworks are illegal in West Virginia, so they've come up with what they call the "Sparkler and Novelty Registration Fee" for all other items. I don't know who it is that decides what is "novel" or not, nor am I aware of the defining parameters of a "novelty". It's unclear as to what this fee goes to pay for. Other states impose taxes on fireworks and then the proceeds are allotted to firefighters. I don't know that you can do that when you're taxing noisemakers. Maybe the proceeds go toward programs for the deaf. I don't really know.

According to Reuters, the brainless lawmakers who are trying to turn California into some sort of slap-happy utopia are proposing a tax on soda. The tax would be one cent per every teaspoon of sugar that is in the beverage. They claim that this would amount to tax revenue of $1.5 billion dollars a year. So, wait. One cent per teaspoon would equal 150,000,000,000 (that's billion, folks) teaspoons of sugar? That's a lot. Now, never mind that studies have been done that show that when you significantly raise the price of soda that the consumption of soda goes down. And while that's a good thing for health, that's not exactly what your state's economy needs. See, that's the part that all of these lawmakers miss when they're enacting this crap. They figure on the revenue from extra taxes being the same as if people won't be impacted by the tax at all. They don't think that people might cut their consumption of something if it costs more. They don't think that by deliberately increasing the price of something through taxation that it might cause their revenue to actually drop! But for cryin' out loud, keep doing it! God forbid if we cut spending for once. Holy crap. That would be insane.

In the new Health Care Reform Bill which was signed into Health Care Reform Law a week or so ago, there is a tax on tanning salon services. That's right. If you go to a tanning salon, there will now be a 10% tax on whatever it is that you're paying to lie underneath some fluorescent light bulbs so that you can have an unnatural orange-y glow about you. Now, some jackass named Doc Thompson was filling in for Glenn Beck a little while ago and he surmised that he "...would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans." Thus, he claimed that the tax made him "...as a white person, "feel the pain of racism." Hard to say which is more asinine, the tax or Doc Thompson.

And finally, let's go over to Illinois where they appear to have really taken the "tax things in weird ways" concept to a whole new level. Let's say you're looking at ingesting either a delicious Snickers bar (because Snickers satisfies, you know) or a delicious Twix bar (because you can chew it over with Twix). Which one of those choices is not going to be taxed? Yes, they both have chocolate. Yes, they both have caramel. Yes, they're both candy bars. So, the reasonable answer would be that they are both taxed. Not so fast. See, the Illinois tax defines candy as candy if it does "not include items that contain flour or require refrigeration." Soooo....what now? So, because of that completely reasonable line of thinking, a Twix, which does not contain flour, does not get taxed. Neither does a Nestle Crunch, a Kit Kat or the movie theater treat, Twizzlers. But if you're reaching for a Snickers, a Milky Way or some Starburst fruit chews, you're taxed. Starburst have flour? Really? I don't know for sure. I'm just going by what I found over on something called Openline Blog and they seem to know their stuff over there, so I'm going to trust 'em.

See? We're doomed. Doomed.

The information about the debacle that took place on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, known by some as the Christmas Crotchfire Incident, keeps trickling out and it keeps getting worse and worse. From what I can tell, and you're not going to like this anymore than I do, your chances of getting blown out of the sky by al-Qaida are about 50-50 if you're coming from one of the "countries of interest".

Listen, I don't have a problem with the system. From what I can tell (and it's not like I have access to all of the classified stuff because if I did, I'd probably hang myself), the system works just fine. It's a matter of finding competent and capable individuals that can work the system so that it does what it's supposed to do.

Let's start with Michael Leiter and John Brennan. Michael Leiter is the head of the NCTC. (NCTC stands for National Counterterrorism Center. I'm not sure why they threw in the "T" when it's not beginning the word, but I'm guessing that if you're going to be fighting terrorism, you have to have the initial in the acronym.) According to New York Daily News, Leiter was supposed to go on a "...ski vacation right after the Christmas Day bomber nearly blew up an airliner." Well, bummer that some guy with explosives strapped to his scrotum got in the way of that plan, eh? No one likes to change vacation plans, especially for Christmas, right? Well, right, but not so fast.

See, according to John Brennan, who is the top counterterror adviser, "Mike Leiter raised with me that he was in fact scheduled to go on leave to meet his son, and he asked me whether or not he should cancel that trip.And I said, 'Mike, no, you deserve this vacation. You need to be with your son.' " Wait a minute. What now?

The guy who is in charge of the anti-terrorism deal was given the OK to go off and go skiing right after this atrocity started to unfold? Are you kidding me? This is the guy who is leading the group, the NCTC, who are the ones who missed the gazillion clues that this guy was dangerous in the first place. And so since things clearly run so smoothly with him at the helm, there should be no problem in letting him take off for a few days of swooshing down the slopes while the rest of the Obama administration sorts through this mess, right?

Not only should that guy not have gone on his vacation, he shouldn't have asked if he could go. He should have just realized that one of the things about terrorism is that it is rather unpredictable and that your plans, even on Christmas, might get disrupted from time to time by some numbskull who can't set his groin on fire properly in order to take down a commercial jetliner. If this guy isn't going to stick around and deal with stuff when it happens, should he really be in that post? I think not. And the guy who told him he needed to go on vacation? Well, he is clearly incompetent and hasn't the slightest clue as to the meaning of the word "priority". Both of them should have been fired yesterday. At the latest.

Next up on the list of things that make me wonder how we've avoided another terrorist attack for as long as we have is the discovery that the Grundle Bomber was aboard Northwest Flight 253. Back to our friends at the NY Daily News for the information that "Homeland Security officials say they had flagged the suspect in the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt as someone who should go through additional security when he landed in the United States." Wow. Is that level of optimism common through all departments of Homeland Security? I was just wondering because that sentence makes it seem as if they assumed that he would land in the United States and would do so in tact (not in the bazillion little pieces scattered all over Detroit as he was planning).

Apparently, the way the system works is that the "Customs and Border Protection officials screen passengers against terrorist watch lists before international flights leave for the U.S." That seems reasonable. But then they "...check names against a different database while the flight is in the air." Um, wait. What is this second database and why is it different than the first? What good does it do anyone to check that second one when they're in the friggin' air already?! What say you check that first one and you check that second one before anyone gets on the plane? I don't get that at all. And of course "It was during this second check that officials flagged the alleged bomber."

Let's say that this nitwit had gotten away with this and had managed to set his loins aflame. How comforting do you think that would have been to the families of people on that plane to know that the guy was flagged while he was in the air? I'm guessing "not very". Not very comforting at all. That just seems (and I don't use this word very often) incredibly stupid.

And finally, as part of the changes that are going to be made after this incident, the LA Times informs us that "Obama also ordered the State Department to revoke visas when questions arise and to make it more difficult for people showing up in terrorism-related databases to receive visas." Wait, wait, WAIT! What is going on here?! Is everyone stupid?!

Let me get this straight. You're going to start revoking visas when there are questions?! You don't already do that?! Why in the bloody hell not? But before that gets answered, let's move on to the next one. Rather than not handing out visas when there are questions about people that show up, and I quote, "in terrorism-related databases" you're just going to make it "more difficult"? What does that mean? Only ask them the $2000 questions from Jeopardy! or something? These are people that are in, and I quote again in case you missed it the first three times I screeched about it, "terrorism-related databases" and all you're going to do is make it "more difficult". Not impossible; just difficult. I think we've finally come completely off the rails here.

That same article in the times (that I linked to above) also mentions in regard to the CIA that "...the agency gave itself a new 48-hour deadline for disseminating information on suspected extremists." A 48-hour deadline? To spread out the information? How in the hell long could the possibly need? And what, pray tell, what the "deadline" before this new rule? I can go into a Barnes & Noble bookstore and give them my phone number to receive my member discount and they can pull up in their database every damn book that I have bought from them since the beginning of time. Do you know how long it takes them to do that? Once the rhesus monkey working the register can get the phone number entered correctly (usually on the third try), I believe it takes approximately a third of a second for that information to pop up on their screen. That's at freaking Barnes & Noble. They're able to disseminate the information in their database rather rapidly, yet the CIA needs to put themselves on a strict 48-hour deadline when dealing with, not recently purchased reading materials, but terrorists. We are doomed.

I listen to this local, Northern California morning radio talk show called Armstrong and Getty. You'd like 'em. Trust me. (Download their podcast over yonder there at iTunes and check them out. They're hilarious and brilliant.) There's a term that they have coined which is a combination of being screwed and being doomed at the same time. They call it "scroomed". I am here to tell you that if this is how things are working in the intelligence departments and the counterterrorism departments around this country, we are all scroomed. Scroomed and scroomed hard.