Case in point is this simple fallacy. See if you can spot the problem (and in this case it has nothing to do with his politics):

What Ramirez seems to be missing here is that the Y2K bug, the H1N1 outbreak, and the I-405 problems didn’t come about because there was a hell of a lot of work done to prevent them happening in the first place.

We’ll start with Y2K. Indubitably it was true that modern software was capable of handling a double-nought in the year field; however, quite a lot of embedded and entrenched systems had not been modernized for years prior to 2000. Those systems were, in fact, quite vulnerable to year-related errors, and it was only the work of a large team of engineers that prevented a widespread failure of these systems. That nothing bad happened is evidence of their success, not the unreality of the problem.

H1N1 has a similar story. There was in fact a threat to human populations from a vector of avian flu a few years ago; again, it was a campaign of education and immunization which forestalled widespread outbreaks — not a Chicken Little (so to speak) overstatement of the threat.

Finally, the I-405 modifications … are recent enough history that I don’t think I need to go into what happened there. Public awareness campaigns obviously worked.

Why does this even matter? Because as soon as we begin to take as fact that averted threats were nothing we needed to worry about in the first place, we’re apt to become complacent, and downplay the reality of other perceived threats — possibly to our ruin.

If we want to mock possible threats, it’s probably safer to mock the idea of surgically implanted bombs in terrorists (or the sexual assaults performed daily by TSA) than to make fun of measured, sensible, nuanced responses to situations that are generally agreed to be valid problems.

Can you think of anything else that might be a problem which is being downplayed (by right-leaning interests, as it happens) as insignificant despite overwhelming evidence?

I mean, just look at this. Here’s the first page.

Staging in a cabin, and genuinely Wellesian lighting and framing…

A legend brought to life…

…And the Lorelei, on the Hudson.

Now imagine page after page after page of this, complete with a compelling story of intrigue, romance, heartbreak … and mermaids.

Anyway, here. These are M4A format.

Lorelei, Ella Fitzgerald

Bonus tracks!

Stormy Weather, Ella Fitzgerald

Lorelei, Tom Tom Club (different song)

Suboceana, also Tom Tom Club

I got into Tom Tom Club mostly because Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were also in the Talking Heads — which is one of the best bands from the second half of the Twentieth Century. They don’t have an oceanic obsession, but the congruity is fun.

She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes.

Let me make it clear.

She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes.

I have no idea why — really — but she said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes.

She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes.

The love of my life said YES, and I am going to be a husband.

She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes. She said yes. She said YES. SHE SAID YES. She SAID yes. She said YES, she said yes, she said yes.

I mean, wow. You know?

SHE SAID YES!

…Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Buddha…

…and one Chas. Darwin of Down House.

Wanna guess who gets pissed off? SPOILER: It won’t be the atheists, and probably won’t be the Buddhists.

Via the fun folks at SP-Studio, formerly Planearium.

What’s striking is that I was thinking it just this morning. There is no way that a “body scanner” can possibly tell you anything about the person being scanned. Reliance on technology to provide us “safety” or “security” is a fool’s path, and will fail us. Machines can always be outsmarted — and the trained chimp running the machine is even easier to get past.

El Al, the Israeli carrier, was a terrorism target in the late 1960s. They have since changed their security measures, as a result of which they haven’t been hit again. Since 1970, there have been two “fatal events” on El Al, neither of which had anything to do with hijackers or terrorists.

They manage this partly by maintaining their aircraft, of course; but mostly by screening every passenger that boards — with a combination of security measures and questions that make the TSA’s list look like the joke it is.

They do not use “full-body” scanners.

What they do is profile their passengers, and use watch lists compiled by multiple international agencies. There might be some evidence that El Al scrutinizes Muslims more closely. Given the fact that all 19 of the 11th September murderers in this nation were known to be Muslim, and that Islam is the only religion that currently endorses killing of non-Muslims, and that those murderers committed their killings in the name of Islam, this seems like a sensible policy.

If this is a form of ethnic profiling, I have to say I’m for it. It sure as hell seems to work for El Al.

The problem (PC whining aside) is that if we were to implement similar security measures here, we’d have to go into proactive rather than reactive mode. We’d have to hire intelligent and educated TSA employees, and pay them more than minimum wage. We’d also have to train them extensively, keep their training current with frequent update seminars, and we’d need an awful lot of them in order to properly screen every passenger.

This translates into a lot of tax dollars being spent on preventive measures. A fraction, to be sure, of what’s being spent on endless wars on civilians in countries known to be Muslim.*

Three guesses which course we’ll choose, and the first two don’t count.

Meanwhile, enjoy your “safe” flight, and be sure that when someone blows up an airplane with the bomb he’s shoved up his asshole, the Fed will respond in the only way they know how.

Unfortunately it’ll still be TSA workers doing the “inspecting”, not proctologists.

UPDATE: We can rest easy. The TSA has been aggressively seeking out travelers whose names appear on their watch lists, including this eight-year-old. They frisked him for the first time at the age of two.

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* For some people the only acceptable kind of ethnic profiling is at gunpoint.

Via Cagle’s pad.

He was, of course, Muslim.

Now before you get twitchty about this, it’s happened with all right-wing godtards. The Christians are every bit as bad. They even go to church, just to shoot doctors.

Of course, it wasn’t a group of Christians that flew those planes into the WTC, and it’s not Christian terrorists that have cells all over the Middle East.

Anyway, something from Steve Benson via Cagle. It nicely sums up why the US will never be able to get along with fundamentalists in general, and Islamic fundamentalists in particular.

Why? Well, it hit me fast, and it hit me hard. Wasted no time at all stampeding directly into my lungs, and it partied there most mightily. It certainly wasn’t a cold, and given the pandemic status of novel H1N1, well, you know. The odds are in my favor, if you want to look at it that way.

Anyway, I’m looking at some possibilities for a logo rework on something, and drew a couple things into my trusty Moleskine at the local café this evening. I figured I’d share them with you. To begin, we have a quail.

Naturally this is the inked rough. In final form, if we decide to use it, I’d end up essentially tracing the shape out in Illustrator so it would be pure vector start-to-finish. As you can see, I’ve been inspired by* local aboriginal art.

Here, we have some mountains.

Same kind of deal. These are actually more or less representative of the kinds of mountains/hills/bluffs/promontories we have around here — a caricature of the landscape, in a way. This is hinted at in my acute physical rehab ad; while we do have a local mountain range, this city is actually in a basin amid several mountain regions, and so what you see locally is typically a semi-eroded mesa surrounded by alluvial dross and basin-fill.

Why was I scribbling this on a Friday evening? Well, we may or may not see, fairly soon. More prosaically, what seemed to be a casual deadline (“Oh, a month or two”) has rather suddenly concretized into the middle of next week. Eep. It’s a damn good thing I’m damn good.

Meanwhile, I have a good starting point to discuss my process, once I get more involved in that process. At the moment it’s no more evolved than these sketches, of course. The real fun won’t begin until Monday, when I start scanning and roughing out some comps.

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* This is a euphemism for “I shamelessly ripped off the design and artistry of a much older and often-venerated culture to suit my own ends.” Lest you think this somehow creatively dishonest of me, please do note that the Romans started it by co-opting Greece, Egypt and pretty much everyone else they liked/conquered.

Not saying it’s a good thing. Just saying.