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.

Dropping H's

Alright, one of my new pet peeves is people using the letter H incorrectly. And by that I mean, using "an" in front of a word starting with "H." Like last night, when CSI used the term An Historic Event. In this country, we pronounce the letter H, and it acts as a consonant (because it is one). It should be A Historic Event. I feel like whoever is writing these things has some idea that "it sounds fancier if I do it this way." Kind of like people who use the word whom, instead of who, but don't actually know the correct time to use it. (For the record, I sometimes use whom, but only when it's correct. You use it in places where you would use him or her. And it's mostly dropped out of usage anyway, because it seems to confuse people.)

Example: Who ate the leftover pizza? (He ate the leftover pizza.)
To whom are you talking? (I am talking to him.)

Well, saying An Historic doesn't make you fancy or knowledgeable - it makes you stupid. Unfortunately, it seems to be pervasive in many of the books I've read recently, which makes me wonder if grammar books recently changed, or will be changed, to reflect the new incorrect usage. Well, I say STOP! Take a stand against incorrect grammar! And while you're at it, stop using 's after words that end in S. When I was a kid it was the Smith's house and the Rogers' house. Apparently some grammar books are now saying it's the Rogers's house, which is horrible. STOP IT!

Last Pink Ribbon Rant?

October is almost done, so my ranting will be over until next year. So let me leave you with one last thought. You know how every now and then there's some really really annoying commercial on TV and every time it comes on you have to mute the volume, or else you'll start tearing your hair out and run screaming from the room? That's what pink ribbons have done to me.

What price, failure?

I just read an interesting post over on BlogHer (a site for women bloggers). It's called College Never Prepared Me for Not Using My Degree. I thought this part was especially telling:

College prepared me to succeed. Everyone I've ever known, as a friend or mentor, has told me that I can do anything I want. That if I just try hard enough, I'll be successful. But it doesn't really work that way, does it? I've always been prepared for success. No one sits you down and says, "Sometimes, you're going to try really hard, and you're going to want something more than you've ever wanted anything else in your life, and you're not going to get it. Sometimes, you're going to fail. You're going to fail in small ways, but you're also going to fail in great, big, embarrassingly, heart-breaking messy ways. And it's okay."

This is precisely what is wrong with our children. This girl is part of the first generation to graduate under the "no failure" model. Your team comes in last place - you still get a trophy! You flunked the test - hey, that's a 60%, not an F! Because no one fails anymore! And there are no consequences! Until you get into the real world. And then you're not prepared for it, because you've never experienced it before. I've read a number of those lists and articles about really successful people, and most of them list failure as one of the important turning points for them. But now we've taken that away from our children. It's alright to be an optimist, and to reach for the stars. Really, go for it! But you do need to realize that not everyone makes it. And that's okay.