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Avenue of the Giants Weekend Run - Sat. March 23, 2024

Saturday will be a very full day of cruising from Novato up through the Avenue of the Giants and ending at Eel River Brewing in Fortuna. Sun...

THX 1138 - Are We Almost There?

The 1971 George Lucas sci-fi thriller THX 1138, set in the 25th century, centers around a man and a woman who rebel against their rigidly controlled society. The human race has been relocated to a underground city located beneath the Earth's surface. In the underground city, the population is entertained by holographic TV which broadcasts sex and violence and  a robotic police force enforces the law. In the underground city, society controls all life, all citizens are drugged to control their emotions and their behavior and sex is a crime. Factory worker THX-1138 stops taking the drugs and he breaks the law when he finds himself falling in love with his room-mate LUH 3417 and is imprisoned when LUH 3417 is pregnant.  Escaping from jail with illegal programmer SEN 5241 and a hologram named SRT, THX 1138 goes in search of LUH 3417 and escapes to the surface, whilst being pursued by robotic policemen. 

Well, when we read these three items it got us thinking how prescient George Lucas may have been:

Apparently Arizona has decided it is the officer's choice, not the detainee's choice, whether to use a breathalyzer, urine sample or blood sample. (We have real concern over possible abuse.  Let us see - "Yes, your Honor. He attempted to resist so I put him on the ground and handcuffed him face down.  As I handcuffed him I smelled alcohol so I stuck him with a hypodermic needle to draw blood.  The first four sticks were unsuccessful.").   Would you want a police officer to take blood from you in the field, with no witnesses and without proper medical supervision?
 
The Posse Comitatis Act, a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385), generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act. (Seems to us the CHP/USMC "partnership" in local roadblocks is illegal and just one step away from a police state.)

The project is supposedly to create a robotic soldier that won't commit "war crimes". (I wonder whether they can be programmed to draw your blood?)

So you see, 38 years after THX 1138 debuted, a world of robotic military personnel roaming our streets and enforcing our drug laws is not that far off.