Smile, you are on camera

As predictable as it is dumb: some German politicians and cops are calling for increased video surveillance after the Boston terrorist attack.

Others show a more patient approach. We are firmly on the side of those living by the credo of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Don't Panic

But reducing the calls for more cameras to panic would be shortsighted, would ignore the agenda, the push for more control over society.

The somewhat diverse team of the K-Landnews has nothing but jokes for those powerful people who let a wingnut or two dictate policies affecting the lives of a billion people. 

One idiot trying to set a shoe on fire has caused untold manhours of costs and brought sock manufacturers (for male passengers) new business.

Full body airport scanners  have done for the world what the naked participants in the annual Berkeley, CA, parade only did locally: show that clothes do serve a purpose. The underwear bomber did, however, not lead to too many dropped pants at airports -- why?

Because the sanctity of the groin trumps the sanctity of life?

We suspect it is really because there are even fewer males on the planet who want to die with their balls going up in a blaze of glory than there are fans of explosive vests.

The K-Landnews team knows that terrorists need control freaks and control freaks need terrorists but we can do better and make a prediction we will not live long enough to witness.

The all out surveillance state will ultimately not be caused by terrorists but by advances in medical science. Once those with enough resources get to see their lifespan extended to a couple of hundred years with a state of health good enough to support the headline "150 is the new 30", keeping them out of harm's way will be enough motivation for real surveillance, not just more cameras or more software that works only half the time, and so on.

Wingnuts with a suitable ideology will continue to be useful to get enough real or perceived public support for the sought measures but they will be even less of the drivers than they are today.

One more thing:
We just discovered the charm of unfounded predictions for the distant future. We won't see them relegated to the trash can of thought, which is very important to us because, unlike the control freaks and the wingnuts, we have some residual shame left.