Archive for the ‘Dr. Evil’ Category

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QotD: “The very model of a modern major massacre”

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Please forgive me for laughing when I read Tam’s headline on her View From the Porch post.

The whole thing is that good, short, and well worth the read.

The cherry on the icing of the cake of the night was the mealy-mouthed General Cone simpering from the lectern about “We don’t go armed around here, this is our home,” which caused me to look at the loaded pistol on the nightstand in bafflement. I thought Texas had that “Castle Doctrine” thing? I know Texans on the internets are always bragging about how it’s legal for them to shoot someone stealing their hubcaps after dark, so I’m pretty sure a guy Allahu Akhbar-ing his way through a hospital waiting room gets the green light in the target selection sweepstakes.

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Posted in Bill of Rights, Dhimmis, Dr. Evil, Fighting Back, First Responders, Government Idiocy, Guns and Ammo, Jihad, Self-defense | Comments Off

Triage at The Gray Floozy

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Sheri Fink at The New York Times on “Choosing Who Survives in a Flu Epidemic“:

New York state health officials recently laid out this wrenching scenario for a small group of medical professionals from New York-Presbyterian Hospital:

A 32-year-old man with cystic fibrosis is rushed to the hospital with appendicitis in the midst of a worsening pandemic caused by the H1N1 flu virus, which has mutated into a more deadly form. The man is awaiting a lung transplant and brought with him the mechanical ventilator that helps him breathe.

New York’s governor has declared a state of emergency and hospitals are following the state’s pandemic ventilator allocation plan — actual guidelines drafted in 2007 that are now being revisited. The plan aims to direct ventilators to those with the best chances of survival in a severe, 1918-like flu pandemic where tens of thousands develop life-threatening pneumonia.

Because the man’s end-stage lung disease caused by his cystic fibrosis is among a list of medical conditions associated with high mortality, the guidelines would bar the man from using a ventilator in a hospital, even though he is, unlike many with his illness, stable, in good condition, and not close to death. If the hospital admits him, the guidelines call for the machine that keeps him alive to be given to someone else.

Would doctors and nurses follow such rules? Should they?

[Bold mine.]

Something’s being slipped in here that the Times seems not to notice: The scenario apparently posits confiscating the patient’s own ventilator, his personal property, for public use.

I’m just going to say right now that such confiscation ought rightly be utterly abhorrent, that the possibility ought not even be in training scenarios except as an absolutely not! example. And yet the Times slips it in without comment, as if to say, “Well, of course that’s a reasonable option.”

No, ma’am, no it’s not.

This article, and the scenarios it discusses, also fail to take into account a principle John Ringo makes much of in his novel about a catastrophic epidemic, The Last Centurion:
Emergency plans always leave out the emergency.

We are given the impression that these decisions will be made in the context of an unusually busy Saturday night in the ER, that people will be sitting around a conference table, or at least clustered around the nurses’ station, coffee cups in hand, spending a few moments discussing the file of each patient coming up for review….

No.

If things have gotten to the point justifying the imposition of real triage rules, much less the confiscation of private property, here’s what’s going on:

The vaccine distribution plan has already failed. For whatever reasons, and government stupidity is likely to be a dominant factor, the vaccine did not protect enough people to contain the disease.

Half the hospital staff is either dead or dying, bunkered down with their families, or have fled the city. The remaining staff have not slept more than two hours in the last forty-eight. The Benzedrine ran out two hours ago.

There is a riot brewing outside the hospital among people demanding treatment.

The cops, if any, are occasionally firing on rioters who press the doors too closely.

Ventilator Guy’s appendix has already burst because he could not get to the hospital, and his ventilator is inflating the lungs of a dead man — if there is even power to run it.

Remaining staff is deciding, moment to moment and essentially on personal whim, who gets saline and bandages, because those are the only resources the hospital has left to allocate. The pharmacy was ransacked yesterday.

You want natural childbirth? You think anything else is even on offer? Women are pushing babies out while lying on the floor, attended by their husbands or other new moms. Or alone, in alleys, as nature intended.

Meanwhile, the flickering TV monitor in the ER waiting room shows a grim but calm President reassuring his people that everything is under control, and if people will simply follow CDC guidelines….

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Posted in Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Economics, Health, Plague | 1 Comment »

Expect A Lot More of This Under Obama Care

Friday, October 9th, 2009

From Reason:

Last month a federal judge sentenced Rosa Martinez, a physician in Yakima, Washington, to a year’s probation and a $1,000 fine for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The fraud occurred when a physician’s assistant in Martinez’s practice mistakenly charged the government for her services at the physician’s rate, which is allowed only when the supervising physician is present, which Martinez wasn’t. She said she was unaware of the rule but accepted responsibility for the errors because they occurred on her watch. The overcharges totaled $22.

This isn’t just a nationalized medicine case, although it is that. It’s primarily a Drug War case:

This pathetic outcome is all that is left of a federal prosecution that threatened Martinez with up to 20 years in federal prison, portraying her as a taxpayer-bilking drug pusher.

The article explains how the government’s entire case was “gutted”, but although Martinez “wanted to keep fighting, but she ‘had run out of money’ and assets, having ‘lost her home in the process of defending herself against the charges.’”

Posted in Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Drug War, Government Idiocy, Law, ObamaCare | Comments Off

Section 1233: Advanced Death Planning Consultation

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Well, OK, that’s a bit of exaggeration. Section 1233 of House Bill 3200 (a.k.a. the Obamacare bill, a.k.k. Socialized Medicine) is actually titled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.”

This is the section which Republicans claim is going to require doctors to tell the terminally ill and elderly to just die, already; and which Democrats say is just a funding provision to allow patients to talk with their doctors about “end of life” care.

(“End of life”? Isn’t that what was formerly known as “Death” or “dying”?)

I tried to read it, and I suggest you do to: it starts on page 425 of the bill, which you can download here, and runs on to page 434, almost ten pages.

Two of those pages, about fifty lines, specify the exact content of the consultation as provided by a doctor to his elderly, sick, and very likely confused and deeply frightened patients:

                                               425
11  ... Such
12 consultation shall include the following:
13                    ‘‘(A) An explanation by the practitioner of ad-
14              vance care planning, including key questions and
15              considerations, important steps, and suggested peo-
16              ple to talk to.
17                     ‘‘(B) An explanation by the practitioner of ad-
18              vance directives, including living wills and durable
19              powers of attorney, and their uses.
20                     ‘‘(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the
21              role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.
22                     ‘‘(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list
23              of national and State-specific resources to assist con-
24              sumers and their families with advance care plan-
25              ning, including the national toll-free hotline, the ad-
                                               426
  1            vance care planning clearinghouses, and State legal
  2            service organizations (including those funded
  3            through the Older Americans Act of 1965).
  4                   ‘‘(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the
  5            continuum of end-of-life services and supports avail-
  6            able, including palliative care and hospice, and bene-
  7            fits for such services and supports that are available
  8            under this title.
  9                   ‘‘(F)(i) Subject to clause (ii), an explanation of
 10              orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar
 11              orders, which shall include—
 12                            ‘‘(I) the reasons why the development of
 13                     such an order is beneficial to the individual and
 14                     the individual’s family and the reasons why
 15                     such an order should be updated periodically as
 16                     the health of the individual changes;
 17                            ‘‘(II) the information needed for an indi-
 18                     vidual or legal surrogate to make informed deci-
 19                     sions regarding the completion of such an
 20                     order; and
 21                            ‘‘(III) the identification of resources that
 22                     an individual may use to determine the require-
 23                     ments of the State in which such individual re-
 24                     sides so that the treatment wishes of that indi-
 25                     vidual will be carried out if the individual is un-
                                               427
   1                     able to communicate those wishes, including re-
   2                     quirements regarding the designation of a sur-
   3                     rogate decisionmaker (also known as a health
   4                     care proxy).

The bill then runs on for another couple of pages trying to specify exactly when such consultations are eligible for reimbursement by the Feds.

(And again, folks, the whole plan is like this, at least the pieces I’ve seen. The best parts are the ones amending some already established law, which is referenced but not printed. Thus, you don’t really know what’s going on until you look up the act in question. This kind of hyperdetailed crap, written by lawyers not doctors, will utterly control the most sensitive and personal areas of your life if it is passed. Ahem.)

Now comes Sarah Palin to explain the confusion arising from this section:

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]

As Lane also points out:

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive — money — to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]

Emphasis mine. Read the whole thing for [references].

So, no, the bill does not order physicians to make their patients agree to die. It simply offers to pay them to bury their patients in bullshit, including a disguised offer to allow themselves to be neglected to death, because remember: from here on out, your health care will administered with all the compassion of the IRS or the DMV. And eventually, there will be no alternative.
Via The Other McCain, who makes must-read comments.

Posted in B. Hussein Obama, Dammit!, Democrats, Dr. Evil, Economics, Health, Palin, Politics & Politicians | 2 Comments »

Updated: If They Can Tell You You Can’t, They Can Tell You You Must

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

I’ve been saying for a long time now that if the government takes the power to stop you from doing something, they also have the power to force you to do that very same thing.

Zombietime now shows how far it goes:

Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

I’ve been holding back, but I’m saying it now:

Very slowly, the wall of approval shielding Obama during his rise to power (and keeping him in power now) is beginning to crack. People who supported him and voted for him are beginning to realize who he really is. That’s all to the good, and I sincerely hope it’s not too late, although I’m beginning to fear it is. (And, in all honesty, has been since at least the sixties, very likely since the New Deal.)

As someone opposed to Obama from the beginning, as someone who desperately wants people to recognize the monster now sitting in the Oval Office for what he is, I know I should pat the newcomers to my camp on their backs, sympathize with them, let them know they’re welcome here on the barricades.

Not so fast.

I don’t feel sorry for you. I blame you. There is a horrible disaster looming, and it’s your fault.

You are welcome, here on the barricades, because you’re needed. Every single body taken away from Obama is a body fighting to hold back the tide of tyranny.

But understand: You are going to be scolded and ridiculed. It will be a very long time before anyone takes you seriously ever again, before anyone trusts you ever again.

You brought this down on us. Don’t be surprised when you get all the scut jobs and all the suicide charges. Don’t be surprised when the only thing anyone wants to hear out of your mouth is “I’m so sorry.”

My gods, I’m a latecomer on this, and I am far too weak to hold to my own principles. Anybody who takes me seriously is a fool, but please: you don’t have to trust me, but follow the links on my posts and see.

I need to clarify:

This isn’t about voting for a different set of candidates, or even changing your party affiliation. It’s not about tweaking your preferences on public policy. This is about changing your principles. It’s about opposing the very idea of “public policy”, as an unwarranted intrusion into the sovereignty of a free people.

It’s about rejecting almost all of the current accepted wisdom of American political discourse. The very vocabulary is corrupt: right v. left, conservative v. liberal, and of course, Democrat v. Republican. The real spectrum of political discourse is statist versus individualist, and the vocabulary has been hijacked and redefined by the statists. Use their words, lose the argument, and they’ve taken ownership of all the words.

It’s about defiantly, actively, deliberately, not voting for any of the damn bastards. The political class has hijacked the election process, and there’s not much daylight between the two parties any more. They’re not arguing about whether or not they should control your life, only about which aspects of your life they will control. And not much difference even there.

I voted in the last election, for Palin and McCain. My shame in that act of betrayal has been growing apace ever since. When I voted for them, I didn’t vote against Hussein Obama and Idiot Joe, as I intended. I voted to accept the results of the election, and to abide by the policy of whoever won.

I won’t be making that mistake again. For the 2010 election, I plan to burn my voter registration card, and post video on Youtube.

Join me. Burn it down, starting with a little paper rectangle.

And by the way, to old timers like Billy Beck: I am so sorry.

[update 2]: Billy Beck links in (Thank you, sir!), and hammers home exactly what’s being done here:

What I would like you to think about is the assertion of “balance”, and consider the prospect that this man even now views your life — you, yourself — as anything more than an insect to be managed in his own personal laboratory. You can take that bet if you want to.
…
[He would] “take politics out of science” — from the seat of a “czar”. He has “wasted years” to make up — at bringing America into line with slugs and poofters the world over who have still never produced on the general level that our forebears did. He’s bringing “new regulations” that will prevent scientific advice from being influenced by politics — in a culture of euphemasia: the murder of truth by dissociation of the language from reality. What you’re seeing here is the assumption of science by politics. This is a wholesale expropriation of science by conceptual and linguistic perversion: the disclaimer of politics in a manifestly political arena arrives as a command to ignore the reality of politics as “scientific” motive.
…
Never before has the essential intellectual dynamo that sustains human life been so comprehensively in the hands of collectivist ideology in America. They have a lot to tear down, these nicely-dressed savages who would dictate the terms and conditions of your life.

And then he asks the killer question:

How can you wait until the next election while they’re doing that?

Honestly? I don’t know what I can do, other than educate myself, talk to folks, rant here, prepare. Burning my draft voter card has symbolic value only, and then only to those who see it. I never believed anything else.

You people thought Bush was “anti-science”. Well, he was, actually. But at least he mostly just tried to block specific lines of inquiry, and did it by withholding federal funding.

Obama, Holden, and the rest of the gang plan to eradicate scientific inquiry, except for a few “authorized” lines, change the words we use to talk about it, punish people who persist on their own and come up with the “wrong” answers. Most of all, though, the changes he is making in society at large will eradicate the wealth needed to fund schools, labs, and industry. It’s all deeply intertwingled. You don’t get to pick just the stuff you want; you have to have it all.

Dammit, I’m too old to go through a depression, to say nothing of a revolution.

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Posted in Abortion, B. Hussein Obama, Biology, Communism, Culture War, Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Economics, Health, History, Political Correctness, Politics & Politicians, Press, Science | 5 Comments »

CPSIA Declares Science Too Dangerous for Children

Friday, May 29th, 2009

If you don’t know what the CPSIA is, look it up. Briefly, it’s a law designed to protect children from dangerous toys, by imposing a set of testing standards on items to be sold for children.

Unfortunately, it’s so poorly written, very little passes its standards — and the testing and approval protocols are so expensive that even toys that would be declared safe are taken off the market because the manufacturers can’t afford to have them tested.

It’s a new law, and people are just beginning to realize how insane and stupid it is.

Like I said, look it up. Horror stories abound, and let me make it clear: this isn’t stuff that might happen; this is all stuff that has already happened, is happening right now.

Latest horror: Schools are having to cut out hand-ons science education, because…well, see the headline.

Here’s a good intro to the problem:

The impact of the CPSIA on the educational market is getting more and more worrisome. Two recent events shocked me for their implications. First, Michael Warring of American Educational Products reports that a school opted to stop using AmEP’s rocks to teach Earth Science and will instead rely on a POSTER. Not quite the same educational experience . . . . Yes, the school has become convinced that rocks are too dangerous for kids to touch.
…
For many reasons, science items are particularly exposed. That does not mean they are dangerous – their record for safe use is sterling – but under the rigid and unthinking arbitrary standards of the CPSIA, they are verboten, whether it makes sense or not. Up to now, perhaps you thought this issue was simply a product of my feverish imagination. Then comes along the Potato Clock. This clever product can be purchased from more than one source, and is also a DIY home science project, perfect for Science Fairs. Please note that the homemade Potato Clock utilizes “dangerous” items like nails, clips, wire, batteries, etc. Welcome to science education . . . .

Anyhow, recently a manufacturer of the Potato Clock decided to test its version for compliance with the newfangled CPSIA. In their eager beaver-ness, they shot themselves in the foot, discovering (horrors) that the insulation on the product’s potato wires contain trace amounts of lead over the arbitrary limits of CPSIA. Not that anyone has ever been hurt from wire insulation (at least not from nibbling on it). Unfortunately, safety is the least of anyone’s concerns under the CPSIA.

The actual knowledge of the product’s testing failure precipitated the kind of CPSIA horror story that has been interfering with my sleep for months. First, the company decided that since it now knew of the test failure, it had an immediate reporting obligation under CPSIA Section 15(b). In addition, they concluded they had an obligation to immediately stop sale, since continuing to sell would be another “knowing” violation – yes, kids, that’s a felony with possible penalties of jail time and asset forfeiture (goodbye house and car!).

Presumably, the executives at this company could not imagine going to jail for selling Potato Clocks as they had for years, but heck, Congress writes the rules. The CPSC, apparently, upon receiving this (unwanted) 15(b) report concurred – yep, the wire insulation exceeds the standard, and yep, you have to stop sale.
…
[T]he WORST part of this story, the most chilling, is the part about the wire insulation. The Potato Clock was recalled for having too much lead in the wire insulation. Why did it have lead in it at all? Wire insulation contains lead because it is recycled vinyl, probably recovered principally from scrap of other wire. Remember, recycling is good for our planet, and responsible companies try to use recycled materials whenever possible. Only virgin vinyl can be certified lead-free. A switchover to virgin vinyl insulation would be very costly and would means that the old vinyl wouldn’t be recycled anymore. That won’t happen.

The real problem comes from the fact that the Potato Clock utilizes “ordinary” wire. Everyone and everything utilizes “ordinary” wire. No specially-coated wire is used in children’s products and even if it were available, it would be too expensive for this kind of application.

Now, tell me again, exactly:

Why do you want these rabid idiots to handle your health care?

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Posted in Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Edumakashun, Government Idiocy, Health, Science, Toys | 1 Comment »

Hope-nosis

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

There’s a paper floating around [PDF, 935 KB] alleging that Barack Obama is hypnotizing his followers using the techniques of “Neurolinguistic programming”, aka NLP.

You know, it’s tempting. Obama has captured so many otherwise intelligent, educated, sophisticated, well meaning people, and convinced them to believe things that simply do not hold up when examined closely (or even casually). At the same time, he’s managed to keep people, including virtually the entire press corp, from examining closely not only his ideas, but his past associates, words, and actions.

Discredited socialist, central-planner politics aside, I find Obama profoundly creepy, and don’t really understand what people see in him.

I absolutely agree that “this unaccomplished man’s unnatural and irrational rise to the highest office in the world [is] suspicious and frightening”.

However, scanning through this paper — no. I can’t easily identify it, but it has the faint reek of crank to it. The crowded formatting, the lack of a by-line on the first page, the exhortation to read the table of contents….

The command to “READ THIS DOCUMENT IN ORDER, FROM BEGINNING TO END, AS DEFINITIONS ARE BUILT ON TOP OF ONE-ANOTHER, AND UNDERSTANDING OF THESE DEFINITIONS IS NECESSARY TO FOLLOW LATER INTERPRETATIONS AND ANALYSIS”.

Sigh. All-caps, in an extra-large typeface. It might as well have more than three exclamation points at the end, the inarguable sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head!!!!

There’s the desperate footer, “EXPOSING OBAMA’S DECEPTION MAY BE THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY”. Again, note the all-caps.

Then there’s this video:

Here’s the give-away: many, many vaguely threatening clips of Obama, but not one clip of him actually speaking, nothing demonstrating the techniques allegedly in use.

Notice the oddly cadenced narration (“Why, it’s almost as if the narrator wants to hypnotize us to bypass our rational…Oh.”), and the vaguely threatening background music straight from the X-Files.

Oh, yes, Hitler and his rallies put in an extended appearance.

Not proof that this is crackpot work, but there’s simply too many signs to take it seriously.

Obama is indeed a dangerous demagogue, but he is using techniques that have been used for centuries, not some weird modern mind-control.

Via M. Simon’s Classical Values. I do recommend Simon’s article on “The Cult of Personality” at his other blog, Power and Control.

Update:
The Language Log has another skeptical article on Obama and NLP, with excellent comments on the history of NLP.

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Posted in B. Hussein Obama, Dammit!, Democrats, Dr. Evil, Government Idiocy, Philosophy, Political Correctness, Religion and Superstition, Throwing Out the Trash | Comments Off

Two Scoops With Cherries On Top

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

OK, there’s really, really important stuff to talk about, like factcheck.org lying about guns, B. Hussein Obama being a lying Commie tool, the current financial crisis resulting from Democrat efforts to force lenders to make bad loans, and the media response to Ike, but somehow this is what forces me to write:

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry’s To Use Human Milk

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow’s milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

“PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves,” the statement says.PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.

I’m, uh, trying to, uh, get a grip on the, uh,  logistics of harvesting enough human milk to cover Ben and Jerry’s production needs. As fantasy, every single aspect opens pornographic panoramas (and indeed, has been pornoed somewhere, sometime). As policy, this is a horror beyond even my fevered imaginings; “ripe for abuse” stretched to thin, pale tatters does not even begin to cover….

I’ve known for a long time that PETAns are deranged. This is proof positive that they simply do not understand the difference between humans and animals.

The official Ben and Jerry’s response: “We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child” . Bravo.

Via Snowflakes in Hell.

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Posted in Critters, DNA, Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Laugh Dammit!, Political Correctness, Weird | 4 Comments »

Mythbusters Muzzled

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags are little paper stickers with circuitry hidden inside that can broadcast identification data when probed with the appropriate radio signal. They’re cheap- close-to-free, yet each one has a unique number, and that number is large enough that essentially every thing in the universe can have its own tag. They’re extremely useful for things like warehouse inventory, where radio transponders can continuously query the entire contents, and track the location of each and every pallet, carton, and box on the shelves.

I have one on the windshield of my car; it automatically debits my account when I go through local tollbooths. Passports have them.

Credit card companies are starting to put them into what they call “contactless cards”. The day is coming when you walk into the grocery story, stuff things into a bag or into your pockets, and walk away without going through checkout.

There are even implantable versions that can be placed under the skin. Currently, these are used for pet identification, but there’s no reason why they can’t be used on humans.

Problem: it turns out that it’s fairly easy to spoof existing RFID systems, including those being used for critical applications such as passports and, well, credit cards.

The brilliant Discovery Channel science education show Mythbusters was planning to do an episode on testing ways to spoof RFID cards. They’ve done this before with things like radar detectors and alcohol breath testers.

However, The Powers That Be turned out to be a bit touchier about RFID:

Link.

Adam Savage, one of the show’s co-hosts, explains what happened when they tried to contact Texas Instruments, a major manufacturer of RFID tags and readers, while doing research for the show:

Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else… They were way, way outgunned and they absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it’s on Discovery’s radar and they won’t let us go near it.

If the system is that weak, I don’t want it anywhere my bank account, my security, my health care, or my anonymity. RFID is scary enough on it’s own, but this response shows that those pushing RFID know that it is bogus, and want to keep that quiet, rather than fixing the problems before chipping the whole world.

Let’s be clear: the plan is to make RFID mandatory, in driver’s licences and other forms of official ID. “Show us your papers” becomes obsolete if you can’t hide your papers, if they’re actually planted under your skin, and it gets worse if somebody can claim to be you by showing your “papers” in places  you’ve never been.

Very, very scary.

Via Slashdot.

From Consumerist, how to get everything about a credit card, while it’s in someone’s pocket, using a reader bought for $8 over eBay. This requires basically patting the victim’s wallet with the reader — but this is essentially electronic pickpocketing, and it’s not hard to extend the range of the reader.

The RFID Buzz blog goes into my daily feed so I can keep up.

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Posted in Computers, Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Law, Media, Press, Science, Technology | 2 Comments »

The Idiot Face of Evil

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Take it away, Billy:

Behold the idiot, one Chris Benisch, who suspended an eight year-old kid at Harris Park Elementary School in Westminster, Colorado, who found the odor of a Sharpie marker interesting.


Video Capture of Principle Chris Benisch

There can be no outer limit of contempt for an asshole like that. He cultivates his own delusions as he sees fit, and is in the business of pressing them on budding minds completely without reference to facts of reality. Reality doesn’t matter to him. And now, that kid has gotten an object-lesson in arbitrary power: it can strike out of the blue for no reason at all and reason has nothing at all to do with any of it. This will be an element of his understanding of politics for the rest of his life unless something happens in his developing world-view to condition what this creep did to him as a psychotic aberration.

Tell me again, exactly, why home schoolers continue to be taxed to pay the salaries of child abusers like Benisch.

My message, via the Harris Park Elementary “Ask Us” form:

Principal Benisch: Your suspension of Eathan Harris over sniffing a Sharpie pen is, in my opinion, an act of overt child abuse.

I am so very, very happy no child of my acquaintance will come under your smothering Stalinist hand. Nevertheless, I weep for those that do.

“Policies” like this turn out mindless, pliant sheep, not informed, self-reliant citizens.

No, I am not even trying to “engage in a dialog”. I do not dialog with evil. I do not imagine that you are remotely capable of understanding why what you did was wrong.

Yes, your empty face is on my blog now, for what little that might be worth.

You and your kind cannot hide your wickedness anymore. We may not be able to take direct action, like packing the next school board meeting and demanding your head on a pike resignation firing, but at least you can be exposed to far wider ridicule than you ever imagined.

Oh, isn’t this precious? From the Harris Park Elementary home page:

Welcome to Harris Park Elementary

Home of the Unicorns!

Harris Park Elementary Unicorn Graphic

Hey, Mr. Unicorn? Looking for something to do with that sharp pointy thing?

Posted in Dammit!, Dr. Evil, Edumakashun, Political Correctness | 3 Comments »

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