I think the plan to have heavily-armed police randomly patrolling subways is a fundamentally stupid, fear-mongering, ineffective and money-wasting load of shit.

In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city’s subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said on Friday.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Each team in the operation will comprise a bomb-sniffing dog and six officers: a dog handler and a sergeant and four officers from the Emergency Service Unit who will be outfitted in heavy, bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets and will carry automatic weapons, either an M-4 rifle or an MP5 submachine gun.

This does nothing except intimidate people, waste money and promote fear. Pathetic. Atlantic Avenue is a daily stop for me. I’m not looking forward to commuting a route patrolled by some underpaid douchebag with an automatic weapon. Is the city going to equip the commuters with kevlar?

This is by far the coolest trick (that I’m way too chickenshit to actually try) that I’ve read about in a long time.

From Bruce Schneier’s blog:

If you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane or train…

1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.
2. Remove your laptop.
3. Boot it.
4. Make sure the person who won’t leave you alone can see the screen.
5. Open your email client to this message.
6. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky.
7. Then hit this link.

Awesome.

While I’d love to to be the kind of person with the balls of titanium required to pull this prank off, I do prefer to arrive at my destination on time without a cavity search. Still, I’m totally behind shit like this.

Fear is what you make of it. Why not make it a joke? As far as I’m concerned this “Culture of Fear” shit that vomits out of my television every time I make the mistake of switching on the local or national news is one huge, shameless farce. It seems only fair for people to join in the fun. Anyone stupid enough to buy into the administration and media network’s mantra of “Live in Fear or Die” (a long, long way from the old “Live Free or Die” motto) pretty much deserves to be treated like the mindless sheep they are.

I’ve always had a suspicion that there’s something in the water that people drink in places like middle America and the southern states that fosters the propensity for idiotic, reactionary behavior; usually enacted to protect children, marriage, culture, or the English language. Throw in some irrational terrorist paranoia, inbred racism and deep-seated belief that the world outside their teeny little town is evil and you’ve got the tribe of the great, white and bloated buffalo that is the part of America that I hope to never really understand.

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

It is articles like this that make me wonder why these people haven’t devoured themselves and their insular, head-up-the-ass clusterfuck of a terrified, milque-toast culture in one huge Hail Mary implosion. Perhaps they’re waiting for the rapture.

I leave tonight to mingle amongst the natives in the forest. I’m sucking it up, hopping a plane and flying to Vermont to spend the weekend in a tent, likely in an intoxicated stupor with dirty, fiddle playing, hippy longhairs. Daveb keeps it real.

I’m not too psyched to be flying, but since my free time is short, it’s the difference between 11 hours and 48 minutes. Mind you, these are 48 slow, excruciating minutes of sheer intestinal bunching terror, but it gets me there fast. It would be nice if I could do this without the massive hangover I’ve been nursing all day, but I’ll have to make do and hope I don’t blow chunks all over a stewardess.

I haven’t slept in a tent in years. I assume that Vermont, being how it is this time of year, will require me to wear disturbing amounts of bug spray in order to remain sane. Going mosquito crazy is not pretty. I once watched a bunk mate at the stupid-ass Catholic sumer camp my parents used to dump me at go shit fucking nuts, screaming, crying and clawing at himself one night. It was mosquitoes. Being thirty, I’d really rather not end up like he did amongst my hippy peers.