Boycott Body Scanners! Update I

I found a great article (h/t Gizmodo) about the whole debacle. It's from the Washington Examiner. And it's someone saying some of the things I've been thinking. Like: what about explosives in body cavities? (Which we already know the terrorists do.) What about people keeping copies of my naked body? (Which the US Marshal Service did in Florida.) Etc. Etc.

The most telling point is my favorite. How many people have died from terrorism, in the US, during the last decade? About 3,000 on 9-11. But we have to give up a ton of civil liberties because of that. How many people were murdered during the last decade - 150,000. But we don't have metal detectors at the Interstates leading into New Orleans.

Think about it people!

Boycott Body Scanners!

There is a call for people to boycott body scanners at airports on Wednesday November 24, 2010. And I hope everyone does. This is something that I feel strongly about. I understand about safety. That we should go through metal detectors and have our bags scanned. That's fine.

But then 9-11 happens and all of a sudden the TSA is tearing 1" nail files off of fingernail clippers. It did nothing for safety, but hey, they could say they were doing something. They took safety seriously. (The fingernail files eventually stopped.)

Then a guy tries to blow up an airplane with a shoe bomb. So now we have to take off our shoes at airports, and have them scanned. And as far as I can tell there has never been a 2nd shoe bomb.

Then a guy tries to blow up an airplane with an underwear bomb. So now we have to go through a body scanner (which is a strip search!) or get a thorough physical pat down (sexual molestation).

What's next? Al-Qa'eda has used explosives contained in a body cavity before. Will I have to get a body cavity search next? Where will it stop?

Hell, it's so annoying that I never want to fly again. But I refuse to give them that satisfaction! I really have to wonder sometimes, how much of this is real safety, and how much is just plain juvenile meanness? You don't want someone seeing you naked - fine, we'll punish you with an invasive pat down! You don't like it - don't fly! Then we don't have to scan/pat as many people. Besides, what makes you think you deserve the right to fly anyway? (Alright, I'm heading to crazy town now . . .)

Dropping H's Part 2

Yes, an update to my stupid grammar rant. Because I found an exception to the H-rule. Actually, it's not an exception, but some people might think it is. An honorable profession: in this case it is an, because we don't pronounce the H in honorable.

The basic grammar rule is that if the first syllable of the word starts with a vowel, when it's pronounced, then it's an instead of a.

Examples: A one-room house, AN honest mistake, A history of mankind, AN open bar.

Thus concludes today's grammar lesson. Enjoy.

Do We Look That Stupid!?!

Alright, I'm sure by now that everyone has seen the video of the missile in California. Which is now "officially" a jet contrail. First of all, it looks like a missile contrail, not a jet contrail. Secondly, in some video shots you can actually see the flames of the missile. (To me, it looked kind of like shots of the space shuttle launching, once it's up high.) Thirdly, this happened the day before Obama was in South Korea. A friend of mine thinks it's a reminder to the North Koreans and others that we can launch missiles off of submarines. When I searched for it on Yahoo! I used the terms missile and California, and Yahoo! popped up North Korea there too.

The Pentagon isn't fooling anyone. Except people who really think the news is always correct and never wrong. I don't mean to sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist, but I used to live in the southwest. Sometimes we would see weird planes that didn't "officially" exist yet, but were being tested and were classified. So it also wouldn't surprise me if the missile was a new one being tested by the military.