By CHRIS PACKHAM
Keeping America safe from your "ROAD TRIP!!!!" playlist: So I guess I won't be traveling with any laptops, now that the DHS has disclosed a border policy whereby they can seize your computer or any other electronic device without probable cause, keep it indefinitely and release any personal information, such as the "short films" you hide in your Win32 folder, 
to any entity they choose, such as your wife. I don't even remember how to get outraged about stuff like this. If your Microsoft Zune gets disappeared down the terrorism hole, I'll probably laugh at you, just based on the fact that I'm already kind of laughing at you in my imagination, where you're sputtering like Niles from Frasier at the uniformed G.E.D. recipient at airport security, handing off your MacBook to a supervisor. HAHA!
These days, whenever I hear about one of these para-fascist airport policies, my first question is, "Will this upset Cory Doctorow?" If the answer is yes, there's a tiny little Donald Rumsfeld voice inside my head that says, "Good!" I'm no Benito Mussolini, but if vesting absolute political power in a single authoritarian office is what it takes to upset Cory Doctorow, then by all means, please don't stop with the fourth amendment; go ahead and dispense with the other nine bullet points on the Founding PowerPoint Bill of Rights slide show, too, and here are my personal electronics.
After the jump, some stuff about fiery explosions of money and some stuff about hardscrabble dirt farmers getting their land confiscated by rich oil barons. Click here, or on this fat, monocled plutocrat who wants to drill for crude where your child's bedroom used to be:
Everybody panic! I mean, more than you already are! So it turns out that the subprime explosion, where all the fancy mortgages ignited and burned up all the cheap credit, may somehow extend to regular-type mortgages in the coming year. People with good credit are now increasingly delinquent, because of character flaws, or something. Fannie Mae and, whatever, Bernie Mac are taking steps to modify delinquent loans and avoid foreclosures. I'm kind of vague on the details because what am I, The Kansas City Business Journal? If The Kansas City Business Journal worked at a Burger King, I think it would go something like this: "Blah blah, Berkshire Hathaway, blah blah, Morningstar flagship funds, blah blah low multiple relative to earnings, jargon jargon billion dollar writedown, please drive through to the second window." All of that in a Christopher Walken voice learned by copying Jay Mohr.
I don't even have a mortgage, so I figure either I'll come out of this smelling like a rose, credit-history-wise, or else scavenging the wastes of what was once Lenexa for various forms of copper infrastructure which can be melted down and sold for Thunderdome tickets which I can then scalp for bat meat, the only readily-available food source in the apocalyptic post-suburban near-future.
Git the hell off mah land: Speaking of The Kansas City Business Journal, and also speaking of getting your property confiscated, the KCBJ has this story about eminent domain in Missouri, and efforts to get a related constitutional amendment curtailing its application on the November ballot. Yes, I actually read it. Look, I made the generative decision in January that Daily Briefs would never be Jay Leno's stupid "weird news" headlines segment. I wish I could tell you that the Business Journal sat on a toilet for two years and became physically stuck to the seat, or its girlfriend cut off its dick, but the fact is, I have the form of mental retardation whereby I don't know how to make fun of stories that make fun of themselves. I'm still trying to get handicapped license plates because of my disability, but the state keeps sending the paperwork back with fucking questions.
Therefore, "Jargon jargon biotech sector, blah blah private equity and venture capital, Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" That impression preceded by the preamble, "If The Kansas City Business Journal was the star of Diff'rent Strokes, it might go something like this!" THANK YOU! I'll be at Catch a Rising Star all next week.
It's easy to see why people get worked up about eminent domain, since it involves the state confiscating private property, often from single working moms whose preschool-aged children wear glasses and have asthma, and handing it to private interests, like fat-cat real estate developers who strut around Main Street riffling fat rolls of hundred dollar bills and flaunting their silken finery. Shit, put that new restrictive amendment on the ballot and my autonomic nervous system might reflexively vote for it before I've even had a chance to read it. I'm just pointing out the article as an example of the kinds of boring things I'm prone to reading first thing in the morning.
I'd just like to say, thanks for reading the KCBJ, so I don't have to.
Posted at: August 4, 2008 10:23 AM