CSotD: What is, what was and what should never be
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It's pretty nerdy out there, on a holiday that I think can only be celebrated in the US of A, with Frazz the best of those marking it in the funny pages.
We'll have to make a much bigger deal of this in two years, assuming we've all recovered from the whole Y2K scare enough by then to have stopped writing dates with all four year digits.
And that we haven't converted to the Every Other Civilized Nation In The Universe Date Notational System, which would ruin it completely.
We dwell upon a nerd comedy knifeblade, my friends.
Speaking of the Universe
I'm sometimes loathe to use xkcd here because it eliminates the mouse-over gag unless I really make an effort that I think would go beyond fair use. Today is no exception, so chuckle here but then go back there, mouse over the strip and catch the second act.
But also go back there because Randall Munroe has good news for demi-nerds like me, who like the strips that I get but have to shrug off the ones that fly whooshing over my head, and especially the subset of fans who look for gifts that will amuse and educate the upcoming generation: It's a book compiled from his "What If" blog, which you can pre-order now but which will not be released until Sept 2.
"What If" is kind of like if Bill Nye or Neil Degrasse Tyson took over the Straight Dope column: Munroe breaks down silly geeky questions into answers that you don't have to be a scientist to understand but in a way that makes you feel like you're being allowed into the Secret Clubhouse for a peek, and he does it in a way that doesn't make you feel like the little girl who wrote "this book told me more about penguins than I wanted to know."
September is still a couple of months away and Christmas is yet a couple of months after that, but I'll have everything all worked out before the light that just left Sirius, or even Proxima Centauri, arrives. All of those being closer than you probably think.
And as last night's light was leaving Rigel …
… some Irish scribes were recording the saga of the Cattle Raid of Cooley on an unusually tan-colored bit of parchment, which for that reason is known as "The Book of the Dun Cow."
Now, just in time to act as a welcome antidote to the Annual Steppin' McFetchit Festival, this positive bit of non-plastic Irish culture is noted in a review by Shaenon Garrity of two graphic approaches to the saga, one of which I had forgotten about but intend to revisit now that it's (somewhat) further along, and another of which I was unaware.
Holier than the Pope?
Jeff Danziger takes on the issue of CIA interference with the Senate torture investigation in a way that avoids the tsk-tsk air of self-righteousness other commentators have brought to the story.
If Senator Feinstein is correct, this is an outrageous, wholly illegal act of defiance that undermines the safeguards of our society every bit as much as Nixon's attempt to use the FBI to cover his criminal activities relating to Watergate and Ellsburg.
The approach by some commentators that it's "business as usual" is a frightening kowtow to Big Brother, or at least an admission that they just don't get it.
I am not the only veteran of the Sixties who has opined that universal surveillance is the same as no surveillance at all, that gathering information on everyone produces a haystack so massive that it really doesn't matter how many needles may be in there.
Nor does the ability to search by computer make it any different today than it was 40 years ago, since the greater capacity to search is confounded by the greater capacity to amass things to search through.
So spare me the brilliant observation that, for all their data collection, they didn't anticipate Putin's moves in Ukraine and they can't find that missing airliner. CSI is just a TV show, and Tom Clancy was no historian, folks. Sometimes reality is a lot less whiz-bang than fantasies, either the Hollywood kind or the tinfoil-beanie variety.
That said, there is a difference between the futility of universal surveillance and the precision of specific breaking-and-entering. The ability of the CIA to go directly after a specific threat like the Senate Intelligence Committee should not be in question here. Of course they can do that.
Now then.
The fact that Senator Feinstein, as head of that committee, was supportive of legal surveillance that followed the law — regardless of what you or I felt about that law — does not in any way preclude her from objecting to illegal surveillance.
Let me break this down in two ways:
1. If the speed limit on a particular road is 75 mph, that may be an insane speed limit for that stretch of highway. Maybe you should pressure the state to lower it to 55 mph or 30 mph. But, in the meantime, police are not required or expected to ticket people for going 75 mph. However, the fact that they don't write tickets for speeding if people go 75 mph does not mean they cannot or should not write tickets for people going 95 mph on that stretch of road.
2. If a priest sexually abuses a child, there is nothing that says a Catholic should not be offended by this action. In fact, the same people who are now calling Feinstein a hypocrite are the ones who holler loudest at Catholics who defend pederast priests. Get your morality in focus here, people: Those who most support legal surveillance should be the first to raise the alarm over illegal surveillance.
Maybe they don't, and they should certainly be criticized for that.
But it is both counterproductive and idiotic to attack them when they do.
If the CIA is actively preventing legal oversight of its activities, we need to see heads on plates. But not the heads of the whistleblowers.
Nobody who has been defending Snowden and is now attacking Feinstein can be considered part of the solution.
But no hard feelings. Here, scratch that earworm …
(Oh, and here's a little Zep news for yez)
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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