Oh. My. God. What a dog's breakfast of blatant grant-milking. What did they do with the grant money they got for this? Piss it away in Vegas and then put this mess together the night before they sent it off to DHS?
By the time you check through every category of potential threat indicator, pretty much everyone in the entire country fits at least one warning sign or another, from the #OCCUPIERS to the Tea Party to the Greens to the Birchers. (Do not miss the multi-layered wedding cake of irony where ethnic minorities and racists are both potential sources of terrorism.)
What an amazing piece of ass-covering! No matter who commits the next terrorist attack on US soil, the guys who
It's like a weatherman telling you that tomorrow's going to be either rainy or sunny or maybe snowing. Or possibly cloudy. Or hot. You never know...
Thanks for nothing, DHS. You never fail to live down to my expectations.
Why don't you just set my tax dollars on fire? That way at least someone could get some use out of them, like heat or light.
Or, wait, since you're in the mood to be handing out grant money for bogus nonsense, I have a proposal for thorough ballistic testing of potential terrorist weapons. I'll need enough money to buy... well, pretty much one of everything in last year's Guns & Ammo Annual. Plus I'll need some machine guns. And lots of ammo. Let me get some back-of-the-envelope figures put together regarding what we're talking about here, dollar-wise, and we'll talk, okay?
25 comments:
I heartily endorse this plan and would offer to co-author this fine paper with you. And assit in the testing.
While we're at it, we might want to test out some Stingers, RPG-7s, and maybe a few mortars and recoiless rifles. You *never* know.
;)
i've never been on a .gov watch list. kewl. :)
Well, there's a reason that our overlords (Rs and Ds alike) keep getting legislation through Congress that turns the 4th Amendment into a dead letter and makes everyone a suspect, if not an outright criminal. At this point if you read the Bill of Rights in a public place you'd be arrested for incitement to riot.
"Give us the person, we'll find the crime..."
Don't forget when you fill out the Grant Form that you need at least 3 miles of Above Ground Range Land for the Barret Testing, the Custom-Built 400 Yard Underground Ballistics Tunnel, the Solar Powered Roofing Tiles for the Range Shed, Electronics Targets, etc.
If you gotta go for it, go large.
Isn't this not-news? I could swear DHS said the same thing like 2+ years ago...
I'm recently out of a defense contractor. We should be able to do this for maybe, 250 megadollars. Hmm. Maybe we should plan for a few cost over-runs.
Tam, you hit the nail on the head with the grant money quote: I can tell you from first-hand knowledge what happens to it. It gets wasted on stupid, feel-good garbage. In the PDR of IL, DHS grants gave every first-responder in the state a CBRN mask and canister. So my rural fire district has 35 of these $200 masks. But with no haz mat suit to go with it, they are COMPLETELY USELESS. But we aren't much of a nuke target for terrorists....
Through a regional DHS grant, we were given a generator/lightbox. Weighs 40 pounds. The floodlight is 500 watts. The generator is 500 watts. So if I need a light and a saw, I'm screwed. So it's basically a 40 pound flashlight. There are radios that we can't use, portable showers that are rotting because they aren't needed, and other equipment that was wasteful or pointless. I'm sure someone's brother-in-law made a lot of money.
DHS is scary as well, no doubt about it. They gave my town a cool million to outfit our harbormaster with CBRD gear, underwater cameras, a magnetometer and a collection of dive gear to 'inspect ship hulls and port facilities' even though the harbormaster isn't allowed at the little oil terminal since his boat is gas-powered and an explosion hazard, and there are not one but TWO coast guard stations within 10 miles. It was just a gimme, and when I suggested the money be returned, my goodness, what a stink.
Also, full disclosure: asshat DHS regs left my boat stranded without food the last few days, so I have an ax to grind.
Think of it as battle-space preparation.
News Reader: "In Indianapolis tonight, an internet crank and self-describe freelance rider was arrested on charges of terrorism. According to multiple independent studies provided to MSNBC by the Department of Homeland Security, the suspect, whose name is being kept undisclosed during the investigation -- and I quote -- had a "reverence for liberty and the founding of America." Rachel Maddow has commentary.
You ARE right-on about the last-minute all-nighter before the paper was due. The baby bolsheviks who write these things are in it for the scam. They don't want to have to do anything like -- you know -- actually WORK for the gummint gimmes.
M
I thought that the most interesting (and useful) part of the study was the bit showing that there is six times as much left wing terrorism than right wing terrorism.
So even when they cook the books there's still an overwhelming tilt against the lefties.
@Mark Alger, I think you have their intent identified correctly. I'm skeptical that it will have that impact. There's a very large mistrust of just about all authority these days - people no longer willing to call themselves "environmentalists", only 20% of people think that government does the right thing most of the time, that sort of thing. Wrapping themselves in a couple of junk studies probably won't have the desired impact.
I mean, it took 9/11 to get the USA Patriot Act passed, not some "p < 0.05" peer reviewed papers.
But I'm generally optimistic about the basic sanity of the American people.
It's difficult to respect any study which lists Harris County, Texas, as a rural area. Er, 'scuse me, that's Houston, folks, with some four or five million people.
Desertrat
chiefjaybob, I'm glad it's being spent on paper rather than an APC for Podunk Police Department or this.
I mean WTFF??
Desertrat, does Houston still play host to a lot of Katrina evacuees?
Still quite a few in Houston, given the crime rate.
After reading through this "study", it seems that the main reason for the absence of ultra-Left terrorism after the 1970s is that they have received what they wanted, and now run the government. Since their desires have been fulfilled, they have the power and can now define terrorism.
Desertrat
Ah, I see that the Baroness has returned! Now we can put our evil plan in motion!! COOBRAAA!! (wow, what a nightmare! Wait....ahh, poop...)
I was wondering about that "both sides" ass covering stuff.
Given that being anti-Castro can get you in "da list" but it's okay for the State to embargo the whole country.
Making everyone a criminal? Shocked, shocked I say.
Did anyone else raise an eyebrow (or two) at the following line?
"More than 2,600 terrorist events occurred in the United States between 1970 and 2008. "
I must have missed a lot of news to have not noticed all of those events.
Nukemjim
Nukemjim
And of course none of those "more than 2,600 terrorist events" happened at Fort Hood, the El Al counter at LAX, Waco, various no-knock puppy-stomping raids, or through the use of gunwalked ATF firearms.
This guy would have supported the grant if he'd run... but he quit drinking!
http://www.countryweekly.com/news/governor-tim-mcgraw-was-back-my-drinking-days-he-says
Um, Tam? You wrote "...pretty much everyone in the entire country fits at least one warning sign or another..."
Don't you think THAT was the point? Just like the bazillion laws that make us all criminals, we are all terrorists now as well.
Tam,
Let's do this right.
First is the white paper in which you include a spider chart of how each weapon is related to all the other weapons.
Then we do a Phase 1 study in which our conclusion is we need more $$$$ to do a Phase 2.
Then during the Phase 2 study we realize we forgot stuff we shouldn't have so we need Phase 3 at a higher billing rate.
In Phase 3 our goal is no less than a 20% cost over run and a change order to increase our billing days by 20%.
We'll get this job done if it takes every penny DHS has.
Gerry
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
Cardinal Richelieu (1585 – 1642)
"By the time you check through every category of potential threat indicator, pretty much everyone in the entire country fits at least one warning sign or another..."
What makes you think that's a bug and not a feature?
When everyone outside DC is a potential terrorist, it shows the security forces need more money, more surveillance, more drones, more people, and greater powers to deal with the "unprecented terrorist threat". For you and me, it means more federal borrowing, more money printing, higher taxes, fewer liberties, reduced privacy, and more frequent SWAT raids.
It's a thing of beauty, I tells ya.
Not a huge fan of Ayn Rand*, but this seemed appropriate for a comment in this thread:
Did you really think we want those laws observed? said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be
much easier to deal with.
If we're all terrorists, we can all be much more easily dealt with.
*My main quibble with her outlook on life is summed up in a big cognitive leap in her thinking - individual freedom is paramount, I agree, but where she and I part ways is the leap she took past that in that the only way a man can be free is if he is a total a-hole to everyone else who isn't him.
Printed it out on my .gov printer on .gov paper and took it home,thanks to all of us who paid for the paper. The dogs got me up stupidly early on a Sunday and I did read the damn thing.
What Tam said. What Desertrat said and RL as well.
Saving it for cleaning up the dog run before garbage day.
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