Current Configuration

Via Bruce Schneier’s blog, the Washington Post reports on “the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which represents the heads of police departments in the United States and across the world, has issued new guidelines saying that officers who confront a suicide bomber should shoot the suspect in the head.” But this isn’t the scary part, considering that not shooting at the bomb seems fairly obvious. This is the scary part:

The police organization’s behavioral profile says such a person might exhibit “multiple anomalies,” including wearing a heavy coat or jacket in warm weather or carrying a briefcase, duffle bag or backpack with protrusions or visible wires. The person might display nervousness, an unwillingness to make eye contact or excessive sweating. There might be chemical burns on the clothing or stains on the hands. The person might mumble prayers or be “pacing back and forth in front of a venue.”

The police group’s guidelines also say the threat to officers does not have to be “imminent,” as police training traditionally teaches. Officers do not have to wait until a suspected bomber makes a move, another traditional requirement for police to use deadly force. An officer just needs to have a “reasonable basis” to believe that the suspect can detonate a bomb, the guidelines say.

To be blunt: if you have a Middle Eastern appearance and luggage, or are an electrician, make sure that you’re never nervous in public, or the police may lawfully shoot you in the head. Y’know, to be safe. I sure hope this doesn’t get traction in the U.S. But it probably will. I’m less concerned about awareness of important warning signs than I am of a policy of ’preventative’ shooting to kill.

A friend of mine pointed me to this interview of Senator Rick Santorum by George Stephonopoulos, which demonstrates why his railing against “village elders” (by which he means liberal media and intellectuals) is so much fear-mongering to make the right look like the underdog when they have majority control of the U.S. government.

Santorum falls into the trap of believing the ideology over viewing the reality. He’s part of the group, which the Bush camp is part of, that instead of trying to see what the world is like, wants to just change it all in their own way, regardless of the reality of the world (see the war in Iraq for further examples). The interview is largely Santorum speaking about his views we’re familiar with, and refusing to apologize for implying that liberalism in Boston made priests sexually abuse children (a statement that was easily refutable, even when he made it in 2002). However, he is stopped dead in his tracks when it comes to his views on feminism and the “radical feminists” who are responsible for a “war” and a “crusade” against women who don’t work. Stephanopoulos asks him one simple question: who are these feminists. Read on to watch Santorum demonstrate the idiocy of his own position:

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