Six Double Five, Three Two One, Do You See That Line? That Means, Your Feet Should Be ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT!

OK, so it isn't quite that bad. But it certainly tell you something about the Ashcroft-like mindset of the people running things here when you see this:Guardian Unlimited-U.S. Fingerprinting Plans Dismays Some.

If one wants to contort logic into the shape of a pretzel, I suppose this makes some degree of sense: after all, we've been forcing the, uh, less pasty skinned to submit a fingerprint sample for some time now. But perhaps a MORE logical trend would be to gradually REMOVE the countries where non-pasty skinned people predominate, once we've determined that it's paranoia that caused us to fingerprint in the first place.

By Bush logic, though, everyone is a potential criminal. Which is a perfect 180 degrees removed from what the United States once stood for. About the only positive spin you can put on this is that they're certainly going all out in the attempt to universally piss off the planet.

Civilization will ALWAYS have risks--they are inherent once you make the great leap from clan to tribe to city. That doesn't mean you have to give up on preventing terrorist attacks: Spain proved today that not every attack succeeds, as did the US when agents foiled the Millenium Plot. Investigation and law enforcement, though, have plenty of tools at their disposal--without the Patriot Act--to provide PLENTY of protection, provided we don't have an administration that has their heads up their collective asses and missile defense envy (an odd thing to have, since NO ONE ELSE HAS missile defense, but hey, it's not like these folks are the sharpest knives in the drawer. Just the rustiest).

These trends are part and parcel to the REAL isolationism that Bush pretends he's against, when, in reality, he's got us so far out on a limb that gravity alone might cause it to snap, unless Rove can somehow get the gasoline he needs to run his chainsaw.