Monthly Archives: June 2003

Courtesy of my friend Lori, — UPC symbols are being replaced by RFID tracking chips in some items, which will help stores track individual products as they are carried around in the store. Which means that when you decide you don’t want that [item x] and take it out of your cart and set on any old shelf in the store, they’ll be able to find it and put it back where it goes. It’s possible that the technology could be used to track other things, like what you carry into the store with you if the tracker is still on it, but those issues are far in the future.

The Iraqis are so much better off now that we’ve liberated them, that they’re stealing the zoo animals to cook for food. Yeah for America.

Rand Beers, former special assistant to the president for combating terrorism, National Security Council, has a lot to say about his former boss, George W. Bush. Excerpts:

“The administration wasn’t matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They’re making us less secure, not more secure,” said Rand Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. “As an insider, I saw the things that weren’t being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out.”
“The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States’ counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an “ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy.”

“A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons. But such weapons have not been found in Iraq and were not used.
“Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most of the Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis; none was an Iraqi.”
Jesus. I know I usually set the curve, but this is really fucking ridiculous.