When you outlaw Geiger counters, only outlaws will be able to measure radiation levels...

Very few people have heard of the problem the police have been having in New York City with false alarms arising from the private use of machines that monitor the environmental, or about the millions of dollars spent chasing associated bad leads and keeping the public from exploding into a frenzy of raw panic.

The reason so few people have heard of these things is that they haven't happened.

That hasn't stopped city officials from seeking to nip things in the bud, though, by criminalizing the unlicensed possession of such devices (such as Geiger counters, or asbestos sniffers). If you want to test for pollution in your neighborhood, you're going to have to get permission from the cops, first.

More from an article in the Village Voice:

"There are currently no guidelines regulating the private acquisition of biological, chemical, and radiological detectors," warned Falkenrath, adding that this law was suggested by officials within the Department of Homeland Security. "There are no consistent standards for the type of detectors used, no requirement that they be reported to the police department—or anyone else, for that matter—and no mechanism for coordinating these devices. . . . Our mutual goal is to prevent false alarms . . . by making sure we know where these detectors are located, and that they conform to standards of quality and reliability."

[Councilman Peter Vallone, who introduced the bill,] nodded his head, duly moved by Falkenrath's presentation. Nevertheless, he had a few concerns. When the Environmental Protection Agency promised that the air surrounding Ground Zero was safe, Vallone said, independent testers proved that such assurances were utterly false. Would these groups really have to get a permit before they started working? "It's a good question, and it has come up prior to this hearing," Falkenrath replied. "What I can assure you is that we will look extremely carefully at this issue of the independent groups, and get the opinion of the other city agencies on how to handle that, and craft an appropriate response."

Well, at least he didn't add, "In any event, ignorance is strength, wouldn't you agree?"

Cheers...

A mixed-up kind of a day...

Today's sim went well, and it was as if I hadn't been gone at all.

Galina appears to have picked up something serious enough to send her under the covers. I hope I don't pick it up, too.

More work is being offered, but my time is limited, and I haven't a second monitor or the ability to print things out easily (and of course, the work being offered is in un-OCR-able PDF format). The same company called me yesterday, while I was at the airport, wanting to chat about the possibility of going in-house for an upcoming project, and while I agreed to discuss the matter further when I didn't have a jukebox blaring in my other ear, I'm pretty certain that kissing off all my clients and going in-house for six months is not in my future.

In other news, I got through about 2/3 of Patricia Cornwell's Predator yesterday and, while I kept turning the pages, the plot threads managed to have me flip back from time to time to recall who was who, where they were, and who they were interacting with. I finished the book today after returning from the sim, while Bruce Willis ran around on the tube in yet another disappointing movie (Hostage?).

Tomorrow's sim starts late, but I can't afford to sleep in.

Cheers...