Yesterday we caught wind of Paul Karl Lukacs getting detained at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) after returning from China this past April. It began with a simple question and answer.

“Why were you in China?” asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron. “None of your business,” I said. “Excuse me?” she asked. “I’m not going to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country,” I said.

And of course, this spiraled about where you’d think it would. Lukacs followed other requests, like moving his bags, providing ID, and following officers, but he refused to answer any questions. And though admirable at some level, at least in the sense of bringing awareness to an overlooked issue (citizens have a right to return to their own country unconditionally), it’s hard to follow this series of events and not think Lukacs wanted to profit from his 15 minutes of fame. Otherwise, why be so curt rude with the passport control officer? Lukacs could easily have responded with, “With all due respect, I’m not required to answer that question as a pre-condition to re-enter my country of citizenship.” Nor did Lukacs, in his blog narrative, seem to suggest that he made any effort at all to be nice to passport control, which may not be a necessary course of action, but a sensical one given that Lukacs knew he was about to start a chain reaction of shit.

But what’s worse is Lukacs’ take-aways from the experience, which run afoul of common sense and paint Lukacs with a degree of ignorance.

2. They’re Keeping Records. A federal, computer-searchable file exists on my refusal to answer questions.

Lukacs assumes that there’s simply a record of him not having answered questions like these before, but fails to consider the possibility that the records exist to document contentious interactions between passengers and security. And “contentious” is the right word in this context, because as we noted earlier, Lukacs didn’t address the issue in an amenable way, but rather in a manner with no outward regard for anyone else, without even attempting to explain, in detail, why he took the stance he did; if all Lukacs did was repeat his “pre-condition” line, it’s no wonder he ruffled feathers.

3. This Is About Power, Not Security. The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power. Well, CBP has no power over me. I am a law-abiding citizen, and, as such, I am the master, and the federal cops are my servants. They would do well to remember that.

Why does Lukacs believe that airport security has a set of guidelines designed, for no other reason, than to force U.S. citizens to “bow to their power”? Doesn’t that seem rather, well, schizophrenic? No doubt, there’s a degree of “mall-cop” syndrome among some airport security employees, but that phenomenon is not universal. Just because Lukacs doesn’t understand why certain questions are asked, doesn’t mean they’re intended to be malicious. Lukacs expresses his ignorance (arrogance?) further by using the slang term cop instead of using the respective individual’s actual titles. An emotionally charged rant or not, the use of “cop” is demeaning, as it suggests that law enforcement officers are merely individuals charged with capturing or snatching people – precisely the Orwellian motif that Lukacs is channeling.

What we find peculiar is that the core of Lukacs’ message is noteworthy, and yet instead of finding an appropriate way to communicate his observed deficiencies when United States citizens cross back into the United States, he makes a mess of the whole affair. He does a better job of explaining his message in his followup post about the ordeal.

A federal judge in Puerto Rico – a territory sensitive to the rights and privileges of its residents’ U.S. citizenship — said it best: “The only absolute and unqualified right of citizenship is to residence within the territorial boundaries of the United States; a citizen cannot be either deported or denied reentry.” U.S. v. Valentine, 288 F. Supp. 957, 980 (D.P.R. 1968).

One would think that Lukacs could have paraphrased this appropriately when standing before the passport control officer, but what’s likely is that Lukacs decided to remain silent upon the passport officer’s questioning on not much more than a whim, and only later found a way to intelligently argue his point. That’s not to say he didn’t have a basis for his decision, merely that it was executed extremely poorly, much like some of his later commentary.

CBP officers are law enforcement… who can detain you, arrest you and testify against you in criminal court. You place yourself in jeopardy every time you speak to them about anything. CBP officers are not your friends. CBP officers treat returning U.S. citizens as potential criminal defendants. You should likewise treat them as if they were corrupt cops on a power trip, targeting you to goose their arrest statistics. The best way to protect yourself against their depredations is to refuse to speak to them or to answer their questions.

Here, Lukacs alleges that because law enforcement officials have the authority to detain, arrest, and testify, that you ought to treat them as “corrupt cops on a power trip,” and refuse to speak to them as a form of protection. The problem is that this conclusion is not deductively valid, and at best, it’s a fallacy of hasty generalization.

If a federal officer claims you lied to him, you can be arrested and charged with the crime of making false statements… “Wait,” you ask, “what about telling the truth?” Doesn’t work. If, in the course of your conversation, you mis-remember something or speak inarticulately, you can now be arrested. Innocent mistake? Prove it in court after being jailed, charged, tried and paying for a lawyer. Cardinal Richelieu is alleged to have said, “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” That’s also how the false statement charge works. Any cop or prosecutor can concoct a “lie” from your statements. The only way to protect yourself from a false statement charge is to refuse to speak to federal law enforcement officers.

Does anyone at this point really believe that Lukacs is firmly grounded in reality? That law enforcement officers are arresting people because they can, based on a “loophole”? Following Lukacs’ reasoning, you’d think we’re all living in Orwell’s 1984 and should fear the thousands of “cops” whose job it is to arrest random people who don’t show proper fealty to the empire. We do not live in an era where we are prone to arrest because of some imaginary inquisition.

But Lukacs at least has the pretense to respond to being called “rude.”

To the authoritarian mind, there are only two responses to a demand: submission or defiance, and anything less than total submission is defiance. A Lutheran grandmother from Savannah with manners from an antebellum finishing school would be hassled if she refused to answer CBP’s questions.

Only, the reality is that we’re not dealing with a mechanical “authoritarian mind,” but rather with security personnel who are unequivocally human. Perhaps if Lukacs had been polite, he still would have encountered push-back, but likely, his treatment would have been better, and the whole process quicker. Appealing to reason, and emotion, is a common factor in charismatic individuals, who undoubtedly get their way over uncharismatic people in most social situations. Lukacs, quite clearly, is of the latter ilk.

Further, why is politeness a one-way street? Many commenters relayed stories about rude, abusive, mean and intrusive CBP officers. The entire cop ethos is based on intimidation and domination.

Politeness isn’t a one-way street, but in this situation, Lukacs was the one seeking a specific outcome, and since the obstacle in that outcome was the passport officer, then there’s more reason for Lukacs to be polite. (Never mind the fact that passport officers are likely advised not to make much small-talk with travelers in order to keep moving lines along, and that their whole job consists of repetitive questions and procedures. That’s not to say that they should be mean, but rather that it’s expected that they be curt. Lukacs’ response, however, was not expected, and should have followed with some deeper explanation.)

But Lukacs is, as we noted earlier, the type of person who likes to paint figures of authority negatively. This is abundantly clear in his belief that the fundamental values of a law enforcement officer is based on intimidation and domination, which, if anything, ascribes to Lukacs a heavily distorted perception of civil servants who happen to wear a badge; not only does Lukacs not respect law enforcement, but he cannot fathom the possibility that people would enter that line of work with the desire to do good, and thwart evil, because they must inherently be bad people who want to intimidate and dominate others.

In the end, it’s hard to cheer Lukacs’ actions at SFO, as it seems he’s more concerned with making the point that all government officials are corrupt and seeking to subjugate the masses under a reign of fear, rather than address his final point that “Travellers who have presented proof of U.S. citizenship should not be detained for refusing to answer questions.” Maybe Lukacs was never taught that “you can catch more flies with honey,” but maybe it’s time he learned, since he clearly has a couple good messages to pass on. But how about he do it constructively, and perhaps try to figure out why certain procedures are as they are, instead of focusing his ire on the guy at the bottom of the totem pole? Why invalidate your point by burying it in a flurry of hatred and Orwellian gospel?

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We’ve been urging Bones Wiley to update his website, as we know he’s been hard at work coming up with lyrics and new tunes now that he’s back in the United States. While there’s no update just yet, there’s a new video up on YouTube under the name FolkClouds. The video shows a dark figure hammering out a new tune, and for those in-the-know, that dark figure is Bones Wiley hisownself. Check it:

Here’s hoping Bones Wiley FolkClouds will keep up with the updates. Oh, and pick up some better lighting equipment.

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It seems like every few weeks, T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers are getting the shaft from AT&T at Starbucks, thanks to AT&T taking over the infrastructure for wireless Internet access at Starbucks locations. According to the transition, while AT&T will be taking over the hardware and maintenance of these hotspots, T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers should still have full access to wireless ‘net a access at Starbucks.

While we’ve had mostly smooth sailing with wireless Internet at Starbucks since the deal with AT&T was penned, every couple weeks there’s a major hiccup. In these instances, loading up a web-browser presents users with the typical Starbucks loading page, with a link at the top to access a T-Mobile HotSpot account. That link works too, but as soon as one’s T-Mobile phone number is entered in the username field, along with the associated password, the Internet connection is denied. This denial is illustrated in one of two ways:

1. A very unhelpful T-Mobile web page that says, “We’re sorry – proxied.” There’s a link to a service support FAQ that can’t be accessed thanks to the lack of Internet access, and a support number that takes a hour to get through to a HotSpot support tech.
2. An AT&T web page that kindly points out that the connection was rejected, prompting for a new username and password. Naturally, trying to input one’s T-Mobile HotSpot username/password into these fields leads to absolutely no success.

More frustrating is the fact that the two error results come up seemingly randomly, with perhaps a slight bias towards the AT&T error. Additionally, this problem seems to be occurring at Starbucks locations throughout San Francisco. After loading the initial login page and retrying to input one’s account information from scratch, there’s generally no change in status, but twice when we’ve encountered this error, it’s taken about an hour to resolve.

This hiccup may be linked to the transition of Starbucks’ wi-fi to AT&T’s able incompetent hands, but if that’s the case, one wouldn’t think this problem would come-and-go for months on end. Even the “proxied” error never came up before the AT&T transition announcement, so we’re adamant that AT&T is to blame. Thank the gods we’re not a subscriber of theirs anymore (SBC DSL FTL), and we’ll be quite angry if thee issues continue. If they do, bet your shorts that we’ll tether the living crap out of a 3G iPhone just to get AT&T back.

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When news exploded about Starbucks shutting down 600 stores in the near future, we weren’t particularly surprised. That’s because since our patronage of Starbucks some five years ago, we’ve seen a general lack of consistency in the brand. Even in the same city, albeit the considerable city of San Francisco, consistency among Starbucks stores has lacked to the point where group outings for coffee once prompted discussion about which store to go to if we wanted the best atmosphere, versus the best drink.

When all Starbucks stores were closed a couple months back for the staff to be retrained, it made sense, since employees at different stores did things differently. For example, in some stores, a “zebra” mocha will be stirred with a spoon when it’s made, while in other stores, the unmixed concoction will be served as-is. Even the water used in the mocha mixture differs from store to store, and while some stores make their mixture fresh every morning, other stores complete the mixture in bulk, and then save it for days.

The differences mentioned above make the drinks taste different, and that’s poor form for a company whose widespread footprint across the nation implies consistency. This consistency is what we consumers expect to find in a store with the same name and decorating as the one across town, the State, the country, or even the world. When that consistency fails, consumers may as well go to a competing brand, especially one that does manage consistency better than Starbucks.

Then there’s the issue of potency, which is one of the chief reasons for running out to get coffee in the first place. Perhaps its the fact that we’re used to coffee in general, but on days where we’ve had coffee consecutively, Starbucks doesn’t offer the pick-me-up they used to, while competing brands like Peets simply offer a product with a higher caffeine content. In other words, for the same $3.50, we can get a stronger drink at Peets, and one whose taste we can expect, whereas at ye olde Starbucks, we’re over-charged for an espresso that’s weaker and possibly strange to our once-Starbucks-attuned taste-buds.

During a recent interview clip from NPR, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was correct in blaming Starbucks’ poor financial performance on the company itself, rather than on its competition. In other words, it’s not the competition that’s getting a leg up on Starbucks, but rather Starbucks putting a leg down out of hubris. Of course, as many have pointed out, the closing of 600 stores isn’t entirely significant when one realizes that there are around 10,000 Starbucks stores in the United States, and in many cities, not a problem to find multiple Starbucks stores within a block of one another.

Nonetheless, hopefully the closing of 600 stores will finally bring to the company’s attention the real problems, and bring back the consistency and buzz that its consumers want.

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The rumour band-wagon is hastily moving forward that a gyroscopic controller from Microsoft will fulfill the role of the Wii’s innovative control scheme. Nintendo doesn’t feel particularly threatened, however, because they’re keen on pointing out how they did it first, and somehow, this first-to-market strategy is what they believe to be key to market success.

Sadly, Nintendo must not have realized that first-to-market does not mean ultimate success. Look at the Dreamcast for a recent example, as it was quickly dismissed for the PS2, which had fewer games, no online strategy, and much less of a homebrew community. The reality is that a console is only as good as its games, and even that reality is dwarfed by the hype that needs to be built through marketing and word-of-mouth.

While Nintendo can gladly claim they envisioned the Wii-mote’s functionality first, and that they received excellent word-of-mouth from the get-go, things are different now. The Wii has a couple of exclusives that are worth playing, though all of these were developed in-house by Nintendo, and none of them are receiving the same types of ratings that the big-name titles on the XBox 360 and PS3 are getting. Sure, it’s true that Wii Sports was a phenomenal success, but for a free title that was bundled along with the Wii, it didn’t exactly manage to sell titles, which consoles are supposed to do.

Aside from Zelda, Smash Bros, Super Mario Galaxy, and the new Mario Kart, what’s really worth even looking at on the Wii? All but one of our gaming friends in San Francisco have allowed their Wii consoles to collect dust, while their 360s are receiving more play than ever. Even the XBox Live Arcade options are more appealing than what’s available on Virtual Console. In fact, after the BluRay vs. HD DVD debacle ended, we’ve seen more people buy PS3s than Wii titles, with no one picking up new Wii units since they were in high demand. In fact, we couldn’t even sell ours on craigslist, unless we were willing to take a major monetary hit.

Our point is simple: if Microsoft releases a Wii-mote clone and has even two solid titles that will maximize it (ala Wii Sports) at launch, the Wii is dead in North America. We may give Nintendo one more sale with Wii Fit just to see how great the novelty is compared to when the Wii first hit shelves, but with a poor library of games, there’s little reason to dump money Nintendo’s way when the 360′s library is not only established, but expanding.

The only thing that Nintendo’s shown with the Wii-mote is that the technology can be used well in a handful of games, and that’s all MS needs to gain a few more sales and ultimately oust the Wii’s growth in the North American market: a handful of games. Beyond that, MS has owned the competition in every which way aside from their banking on HD DVD. Nevertheless, they still have the best library of games, and it’s still a big question as to whether or not Sony can meet Microsoft’s sales in North America by the time the next generation of consoles is released. With a Wii-mote clone, we’re thinking that MS will firmly secure their lead.

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We’ve had an article from MAKE Magazine starred in Google Reader forever, and only recently got around to seriously looking into building a home carbonation system ourselves. The Cool Tools article linked to by MAKE describes a simple system for carbonating beverages at home, and is pretty dead on in regards to its description of savings potential. In summary, the system described can make over 1133 liters of carbonated water per refill of CO2. We’ll simplify this number some more, and downgrade the estimate to 1000 liters of water per 20-pound CO2 canister.

In the city of San Francisco, where bubbly water is sold cheaply at around $1.30 per liter, that thousand bottles of unflat water we’d like to drink would run us $1300, while the system we decided to put together, which is practically identical to the one featured at Cool Tools, ran us a measly $208. (We did opt for a smaller CO2 tank, though, at five pounds, rather than the 20-pounder at Cool Tools.)

At Cool Tools, the price was cheaper yet, because they were able to find many of the parts used online, while we were less patient and instead grabbed the requisite materials from San Francisco Brewcraft. The lesson here is that the parts for a home carbonation system don’t need to be scrounged up, but can instead be found at a one-stop brick and mortar retailer, in the form of one’s local brewing shop. Naturally, there are also a number of online brewing stores one can purchase the parts at also, but we found that San Francisco Brewcraft was reasonably competitive with online vendors.

Admittedly, the 250 bottles of water we can carbonate is a rather irrelevant number compared to more practical comparisons. At a fair estimate of consuming six liters of store-bought carbonated water per week, we’re leaving $7.80 at the grocery store each weekend, which comes out to $31.20 per month, or $405.60 per year. In other words, our home carbonation system pays itself off in about half a year, which is substantially better than buying bottled seltzer, and also better than buying proprietary carbonation systems, as the latter have more overhead in terms of CO2 refills or in parts replacement.

Beyond that six-month timeframe, we’re talking pure savings, since the system is already paid for, and the water we carbonate is then effectively free. At least, it’s free until we’ve gone through 250 liters, at which point we’re looking at a CO2 refill which will set us back another $20 or so. For completeness-sake, 250 one-liter bottles of seltzer means that our five-pound CO2 canister will last for about 42 weeks, or about 10 months.

Some may decree that bottled seltzer is cleaner, but to this claim, we merely counter that we can easily filter water with our Brita pitcher before carbonating, and though Brita filters will cost some additional overhead, the cost is negligible compared to the amount of money we’ll save on home carbonation after six months.

As for procedure, the steps over at Cool Tools are a good start. The regulator we purchased has a nice fail-safe should our hose connections suffer terminal failure. The professionals at San Francisco Brewcraft affixed the hoses to the regulator, however, so we have no doubts as to the hose’s security. Basically, we fill a water bottle with water, afix the carbonator cap, and then squeeze out whatever air is left inside. We then attach the hose running off the regulator to the cap, turn the valve on our CO2 canister, and then pop the valve that runs to the regulator. There’s a small surface dial on the regulator that lets us control the PSI entering the water bottle. (Numerous sources claim that most plastic water bottles can hold 40-50 PSI, not the 200 claimed by Cool Tools.) We ran our PSI just past 30, shook the water bottle vigorously, then switched the system off. Voila – cheap, home-made seltzer, which tastes just like the stuff we were buying for $1.30 per liter at the grocery store. (Instructables has a keen video of the process.)

While we’re quite happy with the system we’re using, the downside is that we’re still forced to keep plastic bottles around. In reality, what we want to do is get rid of any sources of BPA, and this we can do by simply carbonating our water in a three-gallon cornelius keg, which is made out of stainless steel. This setup would allow us to carbonate 11.3 liters of water in a single go, and with a spigot attachment, we can pour our carbonated water directly into our drinking container of choice, or into any BPA-free storage bottle for portability. We’re aiming for a three-gallon keg because it can be stored away more easily and in more places, including the mini-fridge we use for beverages. The three-gallon cornelius keg runs for more than a five-gallon keg, but the trade-off is worth it. This three-gallon accessory runs for $120 through San Francisco Brewcraft, with comparable prices online.

The total cost of our completed system will be around $350, which is still cheaper than a year’s worth of bottled carbonated water. Plus, compared to the latter, our system will have much less of an environmental footprint, since we’re significantly reducing the amount of plastic bottles that need to be produced, destroyed, and transported. In effect, carbonating water at home makes you green, and fancier than your flat-water drinking friends.

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We’re not sure how many dead kittens it takes to manufacture a computer, but we happen to think it’s at least a few, at least if the computer can crank out more than a few cycles each second. That is to say, computer innards aren’t exactly grown on trees, so it’s a bit silly to expect them to not spit pollutants into the air/ground/water during their production process, but the green fad is nonetheless growing, and just as we should expect computers to not be the cleanest things on earth, we should certainly expect computer companies to jump on the eco bandwagon.

Forever Geek reports that Dell is one of these green computing forerunners, with the release of their Dell Earth initiative. While Dell’s front page didn’t have any obvious reference to the initiative, some quick digging revealed more information. In short, not only will Dell release an eco-inspired PC later this year, but they plan to become the first carbon neutral computer company. Why this information wasn’t more readily available on Dell’s front page is curious, and begs the question as to whether it truly has the whole company’s support.

In any case, pictures of Dell’s “bamboo computer” can be found at earth2tech, and the concept is worth raising a few eyebrows for. Firstly, some of the materials in the computer are made from recycled parts, while the exterior offers a nice bamboo casing. With the proliferation of greens out on the streets, especially in areas like San Francisco, it’s not a huge leap of logic to assume that these kinds of computers will bring in a ton of sales for Dell, and it’s a shame that other computer manufacturers haven’t announced similar plans. This is especially true for Apple, who seems to be on the forefront of pretty computer designs, and is a logical leader in any emerging green market. Logical as it would seem, however, aside from offering low-power LCDs and downsizing their packaging, Apple’s nowhere to be found with a sweet green concept PC. If anything, a company named after an organic fruit ought to have some natural looking computers out there.

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It is highly amusing that the only thing coming to the XBox Live Marketplace of apparent note is programming that may have but a handful of people interested. This is not to say that programs for bi/homo/trans-sexual audiences, or country-music fanboys, doesn’t have a handful of people clapping their giddy hands, but for what is supposed to be more than a gaming machine, the XBox 360 isn’t enticing the mainstream, or even attempting to compete with the programming on AppleTV.

This isn’t even a matter of exclusivity, if networks like Comedy Central are playing both sides of the fence. Why, then, is Microsoft incapable of getting real programming on the 360, unless they’re intentionally holding off because they expect IPTV to cover all TV-watching on the 360 in the near future? Is the current TV show lineup on the 360 meant only to be a placeholder, until IPTV arrives at the end of the year? I argue that such a move may be too late, since by that time, Apple may have come to its senses and rolled out an appropriate amount of programming for the AppleTV, instead of its current, incomplete offerings.

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