Multiple choice

For our friends in the ACLU and other leftists opposed to profiling in our current war on terrorism:

  1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
    a. Olga Korbut
    b. Sitting Bull
    c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  2. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
    a. Lost Norwegians
    b. Elvis
    c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  3. During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
    a. John Dillinger
    b. The King of Sweden
    c. The Boy Scouts
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  4. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
    a. A pizza delivery boy
    b. Pee Wee Herman
    c. Geraldo Rivera
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by:
    a. The Smurfs
    b. Davy Jones
    c. The Little Mermaid
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  6. In 1985 TWA Flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:
    a. Captain Kid
    b. Charles Lindberg
    c. Mother Teresa
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  7. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
    a. Scooby Doo
    b. The Tooth Fairy
    c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  8. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
    a. Richard Simmons
    b. Grandma Moses
    c. Michael Jordan
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  9. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
    a. Mr. Rogers
    b. Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill’s women problems
    c. The World Wrestling Federation
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  10. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed and thousands of people were killed by:
    a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
    b. The Supreme Court of Florida
    c. Mr. Bean
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  11. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
    a. Enron
    b. The Lutheran Church
    c. The NFL
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

  12. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
    a. Bonnie and Clyde
    b. Captain Kangaroo
    c. Billy Graham
    d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

So can we get this through the thick skulls out there? Only one segment of world society has shown, since World War II, the propensity for terrorism and violence shown above: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

Mothers with small children, 80-year-old grandmothers, pilots with the proper credentials, artificial-implant patients, and Medal of Honor winners are not boarding planes with the intent of hijacking them. Let’s stop harrasing millions of perfectly innocent people who are simply trying to get from point A to point B, and search the folks who actually fit the profile of terrorists.

You do not have a right to not be offended. If you look like, and have a name similar to, Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40, you should expect to be searched at the airport. Repeatedly.

You can bet your behind that if the IRA had pulled off what a bunch of Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40 did on 9/11/01, then every white male in America would be getting stopped at the airport, especially those named Patrick, Kelly, et al. The terrorists with a grudge against the United States have a profile, yes. It’s about time we started using it. (Thanks to Kelly for the quiz via email.)

Character Palette

Instead of hunting up the Key Caps application under Mac OS X 10.2, use the Character Palette instead. Go to System Preferences, click on International, then choose the Input Menu tab. Select Character Palette in the list of layouts, and voila! you now have a new icon in your menu bar that you can consult from any application.

Lapvantage Deluxe Dome

My review of the Lapvantage Deluxe Dome is now online in the November issue of About This Particular Macintosh.

Industrious Clock

A very interesting web page clock. (Thanks, Jay!)

Blog spam

For crying out loud, now I have to worry about spam links showing up in my blog. Spammers are now stuffing blogs’ referral logs–a list that automatically updates links to sites that have linked to them–with links to sales pitches and porn sites. Yet more proof why spammers and the marketing companies that support them are the scum of the ‘net. (Thanks, Lee!)

Aloha!

I’m on vacation on the Garden Isle of Kaua’i, Hawai’i, right now, so posts will be few and far between. I’ll try to get a few pics up here and there, but don’t hold your breath. 🙂

Windows messages rewritten

Courtesy of Neil Gaiman, and like Neil, it made me smile: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Windows Messages, as if Rewritten by Scott, This Guy Who Bullied Me in the Second Grade.

To be honest, it made me, and a couple of my coworkers, out-and-out laugh.

Air passenger ban possible

America’s Finest News Source has revealed that the FAA is considering a ban on air passengers in order to make our skies safer. In the wake of September 11th, this kind of thinking, while not surprising, is still disheartening.

Transmit 2.0

I failed to mention yesterday that Panic Software released Transmit 2.0, their outstanding FTP client. Version 2.0 has been rebuilt from the ground up using the Cocoa APIs, and is Mac OS X-only.

I helped beta-test this release, and it’s been really solid for me. I like how it handles both regular FTP, and SFTP, which is how I connect to my own domains for file transfers. Give it a try, and support future development by registering the software.

Hypocrisy as a way of life?

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle appeared on Fox News Sunday this past week. During the interview, hypocrite Daschle remarked: “Well, it’s not necessarily the position in that legislative approach that I think is the concern. It’s the attitude. It’s the way that we have gone about foreign policy, especially, Tony, this unilateral approach to foreign policy, dictating on a unilateral basis what the United States’ position is going to be and expecting, really, all these countries in a very autocratic or very authoritarian way to comply.”

What hypocrite Daschle fails to remark on is why he’s voted in favor of all the U.S. policies he discounts as “dictatorial” and “unilateral.” It couldn’t possibly be because it’s an election year, could it?