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This is a short-short piece meant to illustrate some things about my character in Jeff's excellent Queen Abby's Mob game.
More...Dec. 8th, 2004
"Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned."
Mark of the Beast! Mark of the Beast!
This wouldn't be quite as disturbing if they weren't referring to Falljuah as a potential "model city." If that's the model for all of Iraq, I can't say I'm too optimistic. As always, I have no doubt that these tactics will increase security in at least the short term. As always, I am deeply concerned that we have failed to ask ourselves whether or not increased security is worth the cost.
Of course, once we attacked Fallujah, something like this was inevitable. And once we attacked Iraq, it was inevitable that we would have a rebel city like Fallujah on our hands. (Given the competence level of the people running our country.) It was even predictable.
The invasion of Iraq, however, was not inevitable. It's no good going back that far and saying "well, we had to invade Iraq." Alas, the wild horses are now coming home to roost.
So I had to send my laptop into Apple for repairs a month or so ago. My own fault: I dropped it. The next time I used the DVD drive, I noticed it wasn't working. OK; I called Apple up and said "Hey, this happened, I need to get it fixed." I kind of expected that they'd charge me for it, since chances are it broke when I dropped the laptop.
Nope. Since they didn't catch it the first time round, they decided it was their fault and fixed it for free. I dropped my laptop in a box on Monday of this week, it arrived at Apple on Tuesday, they fixed it and sent it out on the same day, and it's in my hands again on Wednesday. That's what I call rapid turnaround.