Bill Maher is Right!

Bill Maher Takes on the Rally to Restore Sanity

Pessimism is well founded

The pessimism of this election is well-deserved because the no-nothings voted for change again, but they didn't have a clue about what that change would be and they have ensured another two years of economic stagnation and failure.

No distinctions were made regarding politicians, it really didn't matter what they stood for or how they had performed in the past, it only mattered that they were part of the status quo so anyone was else was more desirable.

The people want the politicians to "work together" to solve the very real problems of the country, so they voted in people who have avowed that they will not compromise, they will not work together, that its my way or the highway.

The people want civility in Washington so they vote in some of the most uncivil and almost voted in even worse.

The people want jobs so they voted in people who will not provide jobs, who will not stimulate the economy or future industries that could provide jobs, who will continue the ever-widening gap between rich and the rest, who are likely to shut down the government and engage in witch hunts for secret muslims, and global warming hoaxes, and finding a way to impeach the president and roll back health care for 35 million people [which the CBO says will save money for the government over the next 20 years].  They don't want to improve the health care bill, they want to repeal it, because the idea that health care should be a right not a privilege is socialism.

I realized after 2000 that elections do matter and that someone gets elected no matter what.  It is unlikely that any politician will actually change the system that made him or her.  It's unlikely that they will ever change the system where money is influence and influence sets much of the agenda.  Ralph Nader was right, Gore wouldn't be fundamentally different that Bush.  He was a representative of the powers that be and he would not significantly change those powers.  However, that said, change does occur on the margins.  We would not have unnecessarily invaded Iraq and spent almost 3T dollars had Gore been elected.  We would not have spent another 8 years denying climate change was real and starting to actually tackle the same energy crisis that Jimmy Carter warned about in 1979.  We might have had eight years of research into treatments and cures for diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.  Would the financial crisis that hit in 2008 have happened.  It's likely since the causes were set in motion 30 years ago with the deregulatory fever that gripped the nation with Reagan's ascendance.  It's likely because Alan Greenspan would still have failed to see the flaw in his economic theory and popped the housing bubble before it became an F5  tornado.  But on the margins, our lives would have been better.

The same is true in 2010.  A Democratic Congress would not have ended world hunger, put a chicken in every pot, fundamentally changed the broken election system or the broken financial system.  The Democrats are too beholden to special interest to fundamentally challenge the powers that run the world, but they would have continued unemployment benefits, they might have made infrastructure spending a priority, they might have moved us towards a better energy future, they might have made real improvements in education in this country.  These are where the margins meet people.  Instead, we have rewarded the obstruction and nastiness of the Republican minority, we have told them their efforts at bringing down the President and hurting the economy have worked for them politically, so why should they change.   I believe that most politicians aren't really in this job for the good of the country, its for themselves.  We just showed the GOP that the best chance they have for 2012 is more of the same no matter how bad it might be for the no-nothings who vote, because a bad economy in 2012 is their best chance of winning politically.

I keep saying, I'm glad I won't live to see the results of these destructive policies, but unfortunately, I will see the slow decline in that direction.  Ten years ago, it was widely believed that we had reached the end of history.  Boy were we wrong.  It appears like we are heading for the BRIC century, where unfettered capitalism wins, and political freedom is just another phrase for nothing else to lose.

Dear Jon Stewart

It's been a week since your rally and a few days since the election.  I keep trying to understand what you were saying and what the election is saying, but I keep coming up empty.  Your rally attacked the news media and entertained folks and was a small feel good moment of a picnic on the mall, but that's about all.  I found your false equivalency between Fox and the rest of the media, especially MSNBC disheartening and demoralizing.  I've tried to analyze why I see this mess differently since I've always appreciated your show for its political satire and calling out the emperor.

We have three types of [electronic] media reporting in the country.  One is opinion media, one is straight news and the other is infotainment.  In the opinion media, we have FOX and right wing radio, MSNBC and everyone else.  The major difference between FOX and MSNBC in my mind, besides size, is that FOX's right wing opinions are generally not based in fact, or if facts are involved and don't support their position, they just make something up.   MSNBC generally has a liberal point of view, but most of their opinions seem grounded in facts.   When they make a factual error, they usually correct it on the air.  Yes, they get carried away and rant and rave now and again, but most of their shows are a dissection of opinion and fact.  Now of course there are lies, damned lies and statistics so there will be disagreements about some of those facts, but in general they can be validated, even when you disagree with the conclusions the hosts have made based on those facts.

With CNN primetime you also is opinion media, its just that it's everyones' opinions sprinkled with some facts.  You rightly pointed out the dozens of analysts on election night. What does that sort of political journalism do for anyone?  It's chaos.  All these folks talking over each other, and no one mediating the truth or the facts.  You then have PBS, our high brow news, which when it comes to political journalism or more fightening almost any controversial issue, does basically what CNN does, except with a little more decorum.   On one show, they might have Dick Armey or Tom DeLay, David Brooks or David Gerson, and some "lefty" analyst.  Each says what they think from their point of view and you the viewer can decide which one was more persuasive or likeable.   Occasionally you have dueling experts - a climate change advocate and a climate change denier - full equivalency no matter the subject. No one vets these folks or challenges their facts for the most part - they are just allowed or encourage to have their say.  No analysis of the facts are provided in any straightforward way, just you decide who you like better.  PBS actually doesn't do this when it comes to health issues, or education issues, or even some financial issues, they actually try to educate the viewer to the issue and present different solutions for their consideration, but only the low passion stuff gets this treatment.  These they treat as issues which can be explained, facts which can be presented and sometimes even cause and effect and alternative solutions.

Can't quit without discussing the network media.  They provide 17 minutes of news every night.  Most of its is presented in 1-2 minute segments in a fairly straighforward journalistic manner.  For the last several years, they have reserved at least 1-3 minutes of this airtime for the positive story - something uplifting, heartwarming, optimistic or the like, basically leaving less than 15 minutes a day to cover real news like war in Afghanistan, terror attacks in Europe, the stock market, political shenanigans in Congress or the administration, and crime and corruption in America and elsewhere.  The local news picks up a little of the slack, especially on the crime and corruption, but most local news outside the really big cities is really bad and uninformative.

Finally, you have the infotainment news which covers Hollywood, dead celebrities, reality tv stars, criminals, Chilean miners, natural and man-made disasters, and missing teenagers in Aruba or Utah.  This is, of course, the highest rated news on TV.

The interesting thing is that most people in America for the most part don't listen to any of this news.  They prefer sports, reality tv, dramadey and other mindless crap exposes.  We are generally a nation of morons who get to vote periodically and make those decisions based on negative tv ads and as Stephen Colbert would say their gut!  The gut knows.  Jay Leno used to demonstrate this regularly on the Jay Walk Allstars.  I always thought this segment must have taken hours of video to put together since I was sure they had to look for these idiots who were so proud of their no-nothing knowledge of news.  However, I saw an interview with Jay, where he indicated he became demoralized about the segment because it was so easy.  It seldom took more than 15 minutes or so to find the people who were showcased.  How sad is that.

All this to say, what do you want?  What solutions do you have?  Do you really think that there should be no counterpoint to FOX's distortions and lies?  Maybe having a counterpoint is counterproductive, but it really feels better that someone describes what is going on there, that someone says what is going on there.  To stop is just unilateral disarmament.  Only FOX and Rush and Glenn and Michael Savage, and all the rest of the hate mongers.  Do you really feel that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann or Lawrence O'Donnell belong in this same category just because they present a point of view?  No politician is bragging about having them in their pocket, or how they can use them to get their message out.  Further, the main reason that their programs are so one-sided is because most of the conservative politicians and the spokespeople won't even go on the shows because they know, that unlike FOX they might actually have to explain their positions or answer some of those pesky questions Sharron Angle promised to answer WHEN she was Senator.  Guess we'll never know now.

So please, tell us what you think will fix the news because I don't see any answers on the horizon but I do see MSNBC as a little counterweight to the overwhelming force of FOX and friends in the political morass we are in.

A Pox on Your House

I expected it but I hoped against it, but my expectations were met and exceeded.  It's unfortunate, but many of the people who voted in protest against big government and health care will get what they voted for and so much more.  Gridlocked government at a time that calls for bold action and a very unpleasant and partisan witch hunt on Capitol Hill for the boogeymen in Obama's administration.  Impeachment hearings anyone?  The red scare is on among many who were elected -- following Glenn Beck and Faux News they will hold hearings and demand the czars explain themselves.  They will extend the tax cuts, [which the weasely Dems will jump on board with] causing further damage to the debt and deficit without providing any of the stimulus or demand that the country so desperately needs.  More than ever, the corporate interests will rule -- while I doubt that many rules, except perhaps the clean air ones [Murkowski's pet project], will be rolled back, there will be no improvements on food or drug safety, oil or mine safety, biomedical research, alternative energy, or climate change, among others.  The long slow decline of American jobs will continue as the incentives to not keep jobs here won't be repealed.  The gap between rich and poor will widen and our infrastructure will crumble.  I can go on, but why bother.  The American people are ignorant of what goes on - they follow Dancing with the Stars much more closely than the people running for office, they are helpless and hopeless so they strike out in anger, which only makes things worse. 

I have to remind myself that I am not worse off personally, although the value of my house will likely decline further, I can afford my payments, and don't have to sell and I'm not in the bottom 95% of the economic ladder.  Any negative changes or lack of change will affect others far more than myself, so I need to adopt the mindset of so many others - hear no evil, see no evil.... It isn't the end of the world and this too shall pass, but its sad that so many people will suffer [although clearly many of them have wrought this themselves with their vote or lack of one] and times do not bode well for the American Experiment in the long run - but alas, at least I won't live long enough to see the really awful results.  I do hope this does not mean we will go to war in any other countries for a while.

Ask America

Wow, am I depressed.  I thought the election was the bottom of my unhappiness, but so many of the results in this ask america poll are even more disheartening.  Significant majorities actually believe the Dems are more partisan, that is doesn't matter whether Dems or Rep are in power for the economy, that war til victory, even where there is no likelihood is basically hooray, that the tea party is here to stay.  I could go on, but you should see for yourself.  Much is contradictory - majorities for a trade war with China but against government protecting workers and jobs, majorities for civility but against compromise.  There does appear to be a green streak still alive and homophobia is definitely on the decline.  People believe the immigrants as bogeyman and this notion that they broke the law so no quarter.  And nothing seems to be informed by events, facts or history. 

askamerica.yahoo.com/

Poverty rate goes up, but commenters blame the poor!

I'm appalled at many of the comments on this page: More Americans Living in Poverty
I'm so tired of people blaming the victims.  Tired old hackneyed excuses of too many babies, too lazy, deserving of being poor.   This economy only works for the well off. A "living wage" is double what the minimum wage is and yet millions of people don't receive one. Many people do back-breaking work for 40 or 50 years at very low wages. There is always someone willing to do the job at that wage, so they have no choice. We despise unions because they try and increase the wages of working people to a living wage standard. Illegal mmigration is a boon to American corporations because it holds down wages, so that is why it never gets fixed. We should be demonizing the people who hire illegal immigrants, not the people just seeking to work and provide for their families. We are falling in our standard of living for the vast majority of Americans, while other developed countries aren't. We used to be number one - we are lucky to still be considered number 11 now. It's only a matter of time before we slip further. Henry Ford believed that you needed to pay people well so they could buy the products you were selling. We no longer believe that, because 1) we don't make many products anymore and 2) corporations can always sell those products overseas instead [see GM selling more cars in China than US]. But the reaction is to blame people who are poor for being poor, people who are unemployed for being unemployed, people who are sick and uninsured for being sick and uninsured. A rising tide lifts all boats, but a falling one grounds all those boats on dry land. We are grounding millions of Americans, in a misguided ideology of inidividual responsibility, when the corporations and the rich are really pulling the strings. Wake up, before it is too late.

Mass Murder - is it just the modern world?

I just read about a serial or perhaps spree killer in the Philippines who went on a rampage in the last month killing 9 people. They found him through his Facebook page. He was an educated and employed 28 year old computer tech. Yesterday, the news carried the arrest of a serial killer from the metro DC area, charged with the murder of two sets of mother/daughters and suspected of more. He is college educated and employed. The things that made these stand out are the foreignness of the first and the race of the second. Most [I read 85%] serial killers on record are white, middle class Americans. I'm wondering if we are just rubbing off on the rest of the world or if there is something else going on. I read one article which says it is a phenomena of urbanization and alienation. That would at least explain its increase over the last 100 years. It would be interesting to see if the spread of media is correlated with this phenomena, or is it that we just hear about it now, where once it was a local event. I had always assumed that civilization would lead to civilized people, but it seems to lead to the opposite. Or perhaps there are just so many more people in the world, that even a small percentage of deviates produce significant numbers of these killers. Nonetheless, it is depressing.

New York Times Energy Bill Editorial

The last EIGHT Presidents, Republican and Democratic have recognized the need for a complete overhaul of our energy policies and the likely need for a price on carbon, but NONE of them have followed through and the Congress has put its personal members political interest in front of the country's everytime. I'm only glad that I won't live to see the full results of their cowardice, but unfortunately, I have to live through the decline. Until there is a price on carbon, we quit subsidizing oil and coal, and we get serious about energy conservation, there will NEVER be life without an energy crisis of some kind. Meanwhile, China, with its authoritarian government, can continue to build a coal plant a week, while still making leaps forward to make itself the leader of green technology throughout the world. Maybe when it is too late for us to take the lead we will wake up to what we are doing to jobs, the climate, the environment, and the middle class in this country. We can point the finger at our "leaders" but we are the ones who put them there and failed to demand accountability from them. All this talk about the burden the deficit will place on your children and grandchildren is pontification, since there won't be a livable planet for them to grow up in and the jobs to pay the debt.

Gun Insanity

I grew up with guns. My dad was a hunter and my brothers were often his companions. As a young girl I clamored to join this male bonding to be with my dad. He finally took me along on a hunting trip. When he had to club a rabbit to death to put it out of its misery after being wounded, not killed by his shotgun pellets, it was clear that this sport wasn't for me. I never went again, but it didn't stop the men in my family. My brother took the shotguns home after my dad and mom went to an assisted living facility.

When I was a teenager, I came home to find my mother trying to put a shotgun together in the living room. She wanted to kill herself. She had no clue how to assemble the gun so I found her alive trying, but not dead blown to bits in our house. She got help and I never had to come home to that again.

When I was a young women, I lived with an ex policeman who owned two handguns. We lived in NY where it wasn't legal. We were broken into several times in our Bronx apt. and in one of the breakins the burglars found and stole the hidden handguns. I lived in fear of when the police would come to interview us regarding the use of a handgun that was registered in Louisiana, fearing the news that they had been used to kill another person.

This is my personal history with guns. So no, I don't much like them but I'm not afraid of guns themselves, rather the ones who use them scare me greatly. Each time a horrific gun incident occurs, I think we as a society will finally come to our senses and realize that guns don't make us safer, they allow others to intimidate and attack us, they provide an easy way for the unstable in our society to kill themselves or others. Most of us don't want to be in a position of drawing down a bad guy to protect our lives and most of us would probably shoot the innocent if we had to try. However, each time, the gun lobby gets stronger. I just don't understand. Now we have concealed weapons in bars in Viriginia [but the carrier promises not to drink], and the national parks and trains. These were off limits for all the years I was growing up and since. But now, after Columbine, and Viriginia Tech and 99 mass shootings in the last year and a half, we are expanding the availability of guns. One gun a month isn't enough for the Virginia legislature, which is considering a repeal of that law.

During the anniversary of April 19th, the day an unstable but fanatic gun nut killed 165 people, people gathered in a national park under the runway for national airport to demand their "rights" with their guns strapped to their waists and slung over their shoulders. They were "peaceable" "non-violent" protesters, exercising their 2d amendment rights, protesting the imminent confiscation of their guns in a park which only recently, under the same President they fear, had those rights yet again expanded so they could carry guns in a national park.

Right wing radio hosts and others decry the idea that the words of support they provide, and the encouragement to hate and violence and fear that they dish out in a stead diet are the basis of any of the crimes against the innocents mentioned above. But it is those words that make people like Tim McVeigh believe that the government is trying to take those guns he loved away. It is those words and the support of others like him that made him beleive that he should kill 165 men, women and children to protest the "tyrannical" government. He thought it was a perfectly acceptable eye for an eye for Waco. This was where a gun crazed self-identified prophet, who molested children and raped women he chose as his chosen, preached about an Armageddon that he and his followers would ignite and ascend to heaven. And they did ignite it when federal agents, after a wait of almost two months, moved in again to arrest the child molester, rapist, killer [yes, when you kill someone in the process of a lawful arrest, you are a killer under civilized laws] and, yes, stockpiler of guns (hundreds or even thousands of weapons were in that compound). He and his followers then killed their fellow cult members, including woman and children, rather than let them surrender and very probably set fire to the compound to produce the Armageddon that Koresh had "predicted". [I didn't think you got credit for predictions that you created and then made come true]. And these cultists become hero's and victims to a segment of our society egged on by the talkers, as though they bore no responsibility for the actions of the government. [Whatever the tactical failures of the raids on Waco, only the most devout would dispute the need to stop Koresh from abusing his followers, especially the twelve year old girls he would take as his "wife" until they grew up a little and no longer interested him.

It's funny but the conflagration in Los Angeles some fifteen to twenty years before when law enforcement justifiably tried to arrest members of the Symbionese Liberation army and the hideout went up in flames, I didn't see them becoming cult heroes. Perhaps it was because of their color or their politics? They didn't have an echo chamber to "carry on their legacy".

If anyone should be protesting, it is the many people who believe we have too many guns in our lives. These guns which are available to every nut case, child killer, wife killer, and outlaw in America. And instead of trying to take those guns off the streets of our nation, we are spreading them like its Tombstone 1889 and the law just isn't up to the task of keeping the citizens safe. There has never been a national effort to stop hunters from hunting, but if you listen to the rhetoric, you would thing that these hunters have been hounded into submission, their guns on the verge of disappearing. And yet, the gun rights movement is so much more than protecting hunters, it protects automatic pistols, it protects machine guns, it protects concealed and open carry guns, it protects stockpiles of hundreds of guns and ammo. And when the NRA finally has its way, there will be no protections for those of us who would really prefer to have their coffee in peace and not be threatened by their gun toting neighbors, waiting for the spark that will set the guns ablaze because some idiot poured coffee on another idiot's boots.

Filibusters be Damned

Just read a news article, supposedly of neutral news organization. Why is subjecting a piece of legislation to majority vote; a process that has been in effect for over 200 years, by-passing the legislature? The requirement for a super majority on all bills is a creation of this Republican party. The Democrats may have used the super majority too much, like 50 times in two years, but the Repubs are using it on everything - there are over 290 bills passed by the House most with substantial GOP votes that are awaiting a vote in the Senate and because they can't get 60 votes because the GOP Senate believes just say no is their path to election, they won't even allow an up or down vote.

Fortune and Despair

I'm so lucky. I have everything I need. I do not have to work another day in my life. I have a lovely house and good friends. I have worked for campaigns and voted in every election. I donate money to causes. I try to live my life and treat others as I would want to be treated. Yet, I despair. I heard on the radio that after 2008, young people are slipping away from the Democrats, which would be understandable, but toward the Republicans which is stunning. I could understand if it were toward Independents but R's, really? A CNN poll says the Republicans are the major cause of the gridlock, but Democrats need to do more to "compromise" to accomplish solutions. How can you compromise with a rock?

Income redistribution is a dirty word today, but for the last 30 years, the US has been redistributing income from the poor and middle class to the wealthy and no one has complained or acted to reverse it. Now any attempt is bought and sold as communism or socialism. The size of our middle class in the 50's an 60's was the envy of the world. How about now. Good jobs have been outsourced, capital has been invested in financial instruments instead of manufacturing and infrastructure. Our cities are crumbling and now our inner suburbs are too. But the only popular movement seems to be the tea partiers who have anger but a mish mash of solutions. Don't spend any more government money because we really want to have a depression rather than government spending.

I tell myself that I should quit thinking about all this and just sit back and live my life. I'm not likely to be hurt badly by any of the policies of either party so I could just quit caring what happens to other people and I would be so much more contented. I've thought about leaving the country. Going somewhere that fits my social conscience a little better and then perhaps quitting caring wouldn't be so hard. But such a drastic act is hard to take in my twilight years. Starting over in a completely unfamiliar place is daunting, especially all alone. So I sit here, thankful for my fortune and despairing of the state of our country and of civilization in general. The more we evolve, the less improvement there appears to be.

Criminal Minds Marathon

What does it say about us as a society that anyone could sit through a marathon of this show. While I have no qualms about the production value of the program, it is the content that amazes and repels me. The thought that people can sit through it weekly was enough to cause this reaction, but the idea that anyone would watch a marathon is beyond belief. The show deals with the absolute worst of criminal behavior. It worries me that someone can even make this stuff up. I hope it isn't "ripped from the headlines" because that would be the only concept that would be worse. The idea that people actually work in this field is also very disturbing for their psyche. But even if this stuff does occasionally happen is bad enough, I fear the idea of it being entertaining to the general public and worthy of a marathon says something terrible about us as a society.

Triage for Disaster Response

I'm having a terrible thought about the Haiti tragedy -- that all this time and effort has been put into finding 70 people trapped in the debris while at least that many and probably many more have died because they couldn't receive even first aid treatment in the streets. Search and rescue is glamorous and uplifting when a person is pulled out alive; but how many people are dying in those same 20 hours that those 80 people could have saved, just by walking around. At a hospital in an emergency, there is a protocol of triage, where the dying are not the first priority but the living who might die if not treated. However, triage doesn't apply to S&R, except to decide where to dig. All these teams received priority for landing at the airport and priority for transportation to the site. This might work where there are plenty of others to assist in the first aid process, but is this the priority in this situation. Do responders need a triage plan for what gets delivered in what kind of an emergency. Does a S&R team deserved priority over a hospital team in this dire emergency. Seeing people pulled alive brings joy and relief to one person's friends and families, but at what cost to thousands without such help. There was an article about a hospice that was damaged but the people were without food and water. It was only a mile or so from the airport. Is it triage to not rush food and water to this site, while rushing it to an orphanage?

By saying this out loud, I'm struck by how heartless this sounds, but triage is heartless but effective in providing the best response to the most people.

Criminal Law and Anti-Terrorism

"If the government grants use immunity to a witness, it is prohibited from thereafter prosecuting the witness based on the testimony it compels or anything derived (directly or indirectly) from it. In other words, witnesses who admit to a crime while testifying under use immunity can't have their statements "used" against them in any prosecution for that crime.

The government can, however, still try to prosecute that crime, as long as it uses evidence from other places. Under the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Kastigar v. United States, prosecutors bear the "heavy burden" of affirmatively establishing that the evidence against an immunized witness is derived from independent and legitimate sources, not the witness." Slate magazine

Much is made of the decision to try the underpants bomber in criminal court because of issues related to interrogation of him regarding related plots and other information on the Al Queda cell in Yemen. Anything he says could be used against those people not being interrogated, but not against him in a court of law. Miranda is a standard of admisability, not a prohibition on interrogating a prisoner. The problem becomes separating the interrogation from the evidence gathering for the purpose of trial. See recent DOJ case on Blackwater guards for murding 17 Iraqi civilians. In a terrorism case such as the underpants bomber, it would seem very simple to separate the prosecution evidence from any information gained for purposes of anti-terrorism. We already legitimately have almost all the evidence we need to prosecute him for attempting to blow up the plane. Any information he might provide [to intelligence interrogators] regarding other plots or background on Yemen terror would appear to be irrelevant to the bomb prosecution and therefore, it would appear there would be no bar, as long as the interrogators didn't share the information gained with the prosecutors. Am I missing something?

Peter principle at DHS, CIA, NIA?

I've been puzzling over the Christmas underpants bomber [I think ridicule is much more effective than fear] and why he wasn't secondarily screened. The reason came to me and awakened me out of a deep sleep. JM from work who spent millions and produced nothing. They have someone like him overseeing the terror databases who has the same inability to see his limitations with computers but barges forward anyway, refusing advice and assistance, wasting billions and getting nothing in return, while his boss is oblivious to his weaknesses. What else explains the inability of the TSA/Airlines to match passenger lists to the terror database [sssss how many are there, when there should be just one?] Maybe they don't want the best people doing the job because then the costs might de-escalate instead of always going up. How much good will could we have bought in Yemen by spending $127 million on the population instead of bombs, and guns and ammo. But the war industry wouldn't have made any profit. Can I be right?

Have you tried Mint.com -- its a quicken kind of service on line. This [free] service provides an alert to your phone or email everytime a transaction occurs that is outside the perameters you provide, like exceeding your budget for widgets. If someone can create this for millions of people making billions of transactions a day why couldn't they match 1 million people or 500K people [from the reports its hard to know whether there are two large databases or one is a subset of the other] to the passenger lists and pull aside anyone who sets off an alert. But if JM were managing the databases they would just break down or put out garbage.

I now realize how insane this note is and I will likely not send it but I had to put it down in writing to get it out of my head.