Its not funny

Underneath all the gales of laughter among the handful of people who even noticed this news item, there is the nasty little fact that someone in YOUR government actually considered the application of mandatory tracking devices that would treat all air passengers worse than a dog wearing an "invisible fence" collar.
I can't blame people for not taking this very seriously. The WashTimes is a Moonie-owned rag that few bother to read. But their writer Jeff Denning appears to have done his homework, even if he did it at that Halloween party we call the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security.

I eventually noticed that I was adding almost nothing to the general outcry against the corruption, incompetence, war mongering, bankrupting of the republic, pollution and scuttling of science that the Republicans embrace, represent and champion. The look likely to face at least some of the defeats they so deserve without another word from me. I go back and forth about posting at all for that reason. But I have to point out the fit-to-pattern when there is an in the flesh example of the "culture of corruption" with which progressives generally charge the Bush League.

If you read the article, you see the taser bracelet is real, the DHS official's letter expressing interest in the device is real and you have to assume that saner minds somehow prevailed in keeping this contraption from showing up at the security checkpoints of your local airport. Who would be stupid and fascist enough to think this disgusting idea would fly? Who would be stupid enough to hire the person who was stupid enough to entertain the idea in the first place? Who would take a congressional mandate to coordinate domestic security in the form of new cabinet level department and turn it into an opportunity to waste billions by appointing nitwits who have no respect for their fellow human beings?

Its just a symptom, people. You can't laugh it off. You have to clean the wound in your political establishments, cut out the infections of greed and selfishness and corporate privilege. You have bind the wounds with transparency and deep commitments of government, both in its persons and its processes, to work for direct benefits to common citizens [jobs, health care, transportation, education] rather than vague promises to attack abstract synthetic urgencies like "security" that have so far only benefited the purveyors of guns, planes, mercenary security forces, missiles, toxic house trailers and religiously motivated editing services who would censor scientific papers. Its not one damn bit funny.