Uncategorized

The SlitherBot Threat is Real!

24 Comments

Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings Constituents,

With the mid-term election less than one month away I have been looking in vain for an issue that will give me enough traction to wriggle back into office.

Many of my House colleagues are going nuts over Ebola, Immigration, Benghazi and Obama Care with varying results. Some high-minded politicians have tried to make a big deal out of Net Neutrality, and in the process have put their constituents to sleep.

I decided I wanted to go my own route and have been trying a few things on for size.

Most recently I decried President Obama’s admission that he didn’t have a strategy against ISIS. That critical angle really started to work for me and people were even sending money to endorse my assertion that the president should have started word-bombing Syria immediately, but when he began bomb-bombing instead, the contributions just fizzled out.

An earlier attempt to generate some genuine outrage fell flat when people simply refused to care that legions of robots are being programmed to cooperate.

I thought it would generate waves of concern among the populace that our beloved Congressmen could someday be replaced by machines that will compromise their personal needs in favor of getting things done. I guess I overestimated people’s fondness for partisan bickering. I really thought it was popular!

Now I’m second-guessing that, but I’m still pretty sure there’s a strong anti-robot feeling out there. I’d still like to exploit that fear, if possible. The key was to find something people hate as much (or more) than robots.

Fortunately, I just discovered something so alarming I think you’ll agree that Congress should pass a law restricting it as soon as possible – Robot Snakes!

Apparently some scientists (thank God they continue to tickle our worst fears with their outrageous experiements) developed a robot snake that will slither up a sand dune like a sidewinder. Through careful research they learned that sidewinders flatten their bodies out to get a better purchase on an unstable surface. Ugh!

Don’t get me wrong, this is probably useful knowledge that will benefit mankind somehow in the future, but for now I feel I’ve been gifted with the extremely sinister image of a robot snake with an eerily flattened body speedily writhing its way towards you (and your children!) across an otherwise peaceful and secure beach.

This must never be allowed to happen!

My opponent, and everyone else in Congress and the nation, have been silent on the looming SlitherBot threat! But if I am re-elected to represent the 9th District, I promise I will introduce legislation to prohibit the release of autonomous sidewinder robot snakes into the wild! Especially near bodies of water, which, as you know, is primarily what you’ll find in my district.

My critics will say no one anywhere is on record with a plan to do this, but as far as I’m concerned, that means the planning must be happening in secret, which is even more dastardly! Why go underground with it unless your aims are nefarious?

OMG. Could there be Underground SlitherBots?

Respectfully,
Your only anti-cyber-snake candidate,
Loomis Beechly

What election issue has your attention?

24 thoughts on “The SlitherBot Threat is Real!”

  1. Good morning. Beechly seems to have gone off the deep end with his plan to make robot snakes an election issue. Doesn’t he know that character assassination of political opponents is now being favored over taking a stand on issues as campaign material?

    Why bother with bringing up issues when all you need is an unflattering picture of your opponent and some ugly words about his or her character. Also, don’t worry about presenting your stand on issues. Just come up with some flattering pictures of yourself playing with happy children or something like that.

    Like

    Reply

  2. i was not even aware of the dangers of robosnakes. i think maybe we could ask governor rick perry of texas for some guidance, he bought some glasses so he could answer these and other hard questions. he isnt responsible for the irresponsible oversights in his state and i agree that now as we button up the borders of texas against the onslaught of ebola mexicans we should add ebola mexicans with robosnakes to the list of federally funded job creating fence erection that he could help us with. i dont think rick has his vice president chosenyet. perry/beechly… it has a nice ring to it

    Like

    Reply

  3. i live in eden prairie and we dont have issues. just discussions over if the rules of elections need to be followed. the problem is always how the tea party is sending out their koch brothers dollars incorrectly to solidify the troops that didnt know how all the liberals were raising taxes and giving relief to the interlopers for third world countries who are causing our taxes to cost too much. we have politicians who specialize in saying nothing at all. if they say something they usually step in something they attempt to shake off their boots so its better not to talk. former congressman trying to get back in doesnt acknowledge he ran before just koch dollars to show pictures of how his opponent lives in a big house and pays for stuff with your tax dollars.
    now robo snakes. that will work on snow all winter long and crawl inside your engine compartment to keep warm. thats a problem. how much will the repair on my car cost? why did the liberals bring those snakes to minnesota anyway?

    Like

    Reply

    1. tim, the evening TV news here is dominated by Koch brothers money. Every other commercial is an attack ad slandering Jeff Merkley, the Democrat who occupies the Senate seat that is being contested now. I’m serious: every other ad. If you watch a half-hour news show, you will see Jeff Merkley slandered eight or ten times. Or if you watch all three hours of local news, that is maybe 60 attacks. There seems to be no limit to Koch money.

      Like

      Reply

  5. I thought it would generate waves of concern among the populace that our beloved Congressmen could someday be replaced by machines Someday??? I’m kinda thinking any day now could not be too soon.

    My election issue is the negative campaigns. I’ve noticed that this year the politicians aren’t even bothering to talk about what they bring to the table at all – just how horrible their opponents are. And if you listen closely, you can hear opponents using the same “facts” to discredit each other. It’s almost enough to make me not want to vote – and that’s saying a lot. I’ve voted in every single election since I turned 18, including absentee ballots when I’m traveling.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Y’know, it’s one of those “yes and no” things. I got a call from my agent a few weeks back, asking if I’d do a political spot. He said upfront that it was for a conservative candidate but it wasn’t an attack style ad. So, I agreed to do it. But it hearkens back to what my old voice coach used to talk about. Are there some ad’s that you don’t want to do because you’re morally opposed to them. As a voice talent, would I do ad’s for tobacco? Tobacco, specifically, isn’t an issue now but the point stands. From an ethical/moral standpoint, are there some ad’s that, as a voice talent, I would not do. I haven’t really run into anything as of yet but it’s always a question at the back of my brain when I go for an audition…

        Like

        Reply

        1. Believe it or not, there are occasional moral conundrums in my job as well. A peer was once asked (this was a few years back) to provide some input on entertainment for a group of 30 males during a program in Amsterdam. It’s likely that some of these men were married, although since it wasn’t a spouse included program, we couldn’t know for sure. Since prostitution wasn’t illegal in Amsterdam, the client thought this wasn’t a problem to arragne. After much deliberation, my peer went ahead and arranged something. It was easier for me to state my position, since it wasn’t my program, but I’m not 100% sure whether I would have done this or not.

          Like

        2. The area I bike in has quite a few political signs. A huge area of cornfield lies right beside me as many along the border. The man who owns it is rich, is holding out for a high price for the land. Meanwhile he rents it out
          to plant. The surprising thing is that he supports democrats. Only democrat signs appear along his land, quite a few for several candidates. They get blown down, maybe knocked down. Most are by a sidewalk. I always stand them back up.
          In other places I ride are signs not in a front yard that get blown down too, but they are not all for candidates I support. I stand all those back up as well. My reasoning is that I would not actively take down anyone’s signs, so why would I do it passively?
          I even put one back up one for a local candidate who bothers me, who has my last name.

          Liked by 1 person

  7. One of the short stories in Asimov’s “I, Robot” is about a man, or is he a robot, who gets elected world leader. Asimov leaves it neutral. Would a robot programmed to be moral and an intelligent decision maker be the right leader of the world?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. 1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      2.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. But can it be president, or in a future world of ethical robots, would a man want the electorate to think he is a robot?

        Asimov also has a short story called, I think, “The Election.” In the future world the mega computer does all the electing by demographics and watching the campaigns. But it needs the human input. So it picks out one human, calls the person in and asks him/her some random questions to factor in that human capriciousness and then declares the winners.

        Like

        Reply

    2. it would be worth a shot. maybe make it mayor of minneapolis first and see how it does. ethics would be good enough for me. id like to see that.

      Like

      Reply

  8. For me, the most alarming political reality is how Kochs and Adelson are buying the airwaves – not to mention that they’ve bankrolled the most extreme right wing groups across the country. Fox influences low information voters 24/7 and Rush does the rest. lnciting fear and anger always motivates the low-info folks to vote .l swear, if the democrats don’t show up in full force Nov. 4, they (we) will deserve what we get.

    Adding to this grim picture is voter suppression and the massive gerrymandering done after the 2010 election. l read that this grip won’t loosen until 2020. lf the Get Obama Party takes the Senate, the gridlock we’ve endured with the Congress the last six years will look like kindergarten antics. A GOP run Congress will do nothing but devote themselves to repealing every law the democrats have passed, including abortion and funding the ACA. Dare l forget the witch hunts for smoking guns – 448 hearings thus far. Or Supreme Court appointees.

    Frankly, l can’t imagine a worse nightmare happening to our country.

    Like

    Reply

  10. I don’t usually put up any yard signs or put bumper stickers on my car. I did get a yard sign opposing Voter ID, though. Although it failed in Minnesota, there are still many states that are disenfranchising low-income voters, or trying to. It’s the single biggest threat to a healthy democracy.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment