FreshBaked.com® Plan for a Safer America

by Greg Hill

Half of the people who live in the United States have nothing to do but surf the web all day and all night long. You can verify this by checking the traffic counts on virtually any popular website at practically any time of day. You know these people have too much time on their hands because whenever someone puts something scandalous or outrageous on an insignificant website, it is instantly known and millions of web surfers congregate on the site until it crashes from the sheer volume.

Given the fact that millions of people are staring at their computer screens at any given moment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, what on earth are they looking for? The answer is pretty evenly split between sex, free stuff, easy wealth, and work-related pursuits. The first and last groups are of no interest to us; they can never be distracted from their primary pursuits for long. But the freebies and get-rich-quick groups are perfect for the FreshBaked.com® Plan for a Safe America.

Since these two groups are out there, searching the web, filling out forms, printing coupons, playing games, or whatever they are doing, their efforts could easily be channeled into efforts that will keep our country safe from those who wish to commit mayhem. What if these people could participate in a Federal Government-sanctioned contest, where the prizes would be spectacular, with no entry fee, and no cumbersome rules?

Here is the plan. The government, with corporate support, buys a zillion cheap web cameras, preferably the wireless kind that can be positioned practically anywhere and has their own address so anyone can look in on them. Then, they get out their list of all of the places terrorists would like to bomb, and start deploying those cameras all around every one of them. For good measure, they could also put them every 50 feet or so along all of our borders, and any other places that need watching. Then they hook the whole mess to a central web site, where every visitor gets a different camera to view.

Now comes the good part. The government would establish a system of rewards given to anyone who spots something suspicious while watching one of these cameras and causes the "evildoers" activities to be interrupted. Prizes would go as high as a million bucks for, say, reporting a gang of terrorists about to blow-up a nuclear power plant.

There would, of course, be a lot of other details to be ironed out. We’re envisioning a cable channel running 24 hours a day to support the contest, with hundreds of operators standing by for your calls. When someone calls in, their camera will be broadcast while authorities are notified, and everyone can watch while the criminals are apprehended. Sponsorships and advertising will pay for the whole setup - this would be the ultimate reality show, with everyone in the country having a real stake in the whole thing. Hey, maybe Fox will do it without even calling the Feds!