A House ethics subcommittee found longtime Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel guilty Tuesday on multiple violations of House rules.

more HERE

About time.

Tam has an interesting link.

Really….We Don’t.

“The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period.”

Via UNC

Just in case you think that those who feel that the TSA is wasting out money and travellers time and patience:

Read this: “If I were a terrorist, and I’m not, but if I were a terrorist—a frosty, tough-like-Chuck-Norris terrorist, say a C-title jihadist with Hezbollah or, more likely, a donkey-work operative with the Judean People’s Front.”

Then ask yourself if the guy groping the nun is really doing anything to make you or the flying public (or those on the ground, for that matter) safer.

Some folks think that the TSA is just a method of getting everyone used to being compliant about searches for “safety”. Then, soon, it slips over into the same idea on “government” roads, sidewalks and buildings. Not me, I keep my tinfoil hat on tightly….But what if they are right?

Question: Why do my Constitutional rights end at an airport, federal courthouse, police station, state or municipal building?

Has anyone challenged the TSA (or any other restricted non private space) regarding the legality of the enforced searches?

As in Penn and Teller …

Via Walls of the City I found this little gem.

Read it. Penn has more status that most of us, and yet the TSA flunky had an attitude.

“Once you cross this line, I can do whatever I want”.

Srsly.

Think about it. History has a LOT of examples of institutional behavior like this.

Start with folks in say, the thirties in a european country that begins with “G”….

If the danger of terrorists smuggling explosives in their underwear or elsewhere on their person is so great that we have to have these new strip search machines backscatter scanners in order to detect the aforementioned explosives, then why did the TSA  wait until now to begin the strip searches if a flyer does not want to enter the scanner? Why are we not doing the more invasive search at those airports where the scanners are not yet implemented?

Why did we not strip search everyone from 12/25/09? (the day of the unsuccessful underwear bomber) Why now, after nearly a year, are we implementing searches that could/should find explosives concealed inside clothing/worn next to the skin? Why not on 12/26/09? If the danger is so great, then why wait nearly a year?  Why did the TSA ignore the danger for months and let all those potential bombers slide past without a search?

If this is really something other than a jobs program/pocket lining exercise for equipment suppliers (and let us not forget the ongoing training and maintenance programs above and beyond the (exorbitant) purchase price, then why didn’t we begin the groping hands on searches shortly after 12/25/09? If the threat was/is real, then those searches should have been implemented immediately, or the TSA has put untold millions of passengers and thousands of airlines at risk in the intervening months.

The thing is, many firms have sold many backscatter scanners, resulting in millions of dollars in profit. And once you have purchased them, you gotta use them, in order to justify the cost and in order to justify the purchase of more machines. Therefore the alternate searches are made to be as humiliating and irritating as possible, in order to cow the rest of the waiting passengers into taking the trip though the scanner.

But think about it. If the threat was real, if there was any significant need for these scanners, then as an interim solution, people should have been felt up ever since the “need” materialized nearly a year ago.

Why wasn’t it? And if the threat of a bomber is real, why should we not expect them to change their plans and carry their explosives internally? Breasts, anal cavities, uterus, all can carry enough explosives to do enough damage to an airliner. think of the damage a “fat” man could do with 20 lbs of explosives rather than fat in his belly.

And what is to prevent a terrorist from detonating him.herself either in line for the scanner/search, or at the scanner itself (especially during a busy time when things are exceptionally crowded)? The result would be the same as an exploded airliner…..terror, death/injury of hundreds, and further paralysis of our air travel system. Think of the headlines and the fear if they did so at a place like….Orlando FL? All those kids and their parents….Just the result they’d like to get from the media and the public.

Or am I missing something?

Yet here it is.

We moved that this morning. Friend of my parents had a dead tree cut down, and we moved (some of) the pieces to our yard to be split later. All told between 8 and 9 thousand pounds of wood. Thank god I have the Kubota to help me move it. I now have wood for the next 2 years , and well into the third….. oak, oak, and oak.

Of course, I have to split it now, after I get the last of it out of the man’s yard.

at least I will not have to pay the gas company their exorbitant prices per “therm”.

If you fly regularly, you might want to check out National Opt Out Day So that you can send a message to the ever burgeoning, power grabbing, bureaucracy that is the Testicle Squeezing Authority  (or is it Total Sexual Assault?) Transportation Security Administration.

I fly very little, and have no nudity taboo, so these new regulations make no difference to me….except for the precedence which it sets for the future.

It’s not like the TSA has ever actually accomplished anything except to make a new government bureaucracy (and more union members). The new (and ever increasing) regulations are poorly thought out, and reactionary, but not terribly effective. The TSA cannot face facts, and therefore still persists in checking “everybody” just to pander to the sensitivities of a minority. Like Obamacare, if they inconvenience many to make a few feel better, then that is ok.

And let us not forget the tremendous cost of these scanners.

and the asshole school administrator who made him take it off his bike…

Seems that the good citizens have made their displeasure known….and now the school administration has made a hairpin turn and decided that the kid CAN have his flag….

Perhaps there is hope for Kalifornia after all.