Topic: Delay of requirements for security screening of passengers on charter flights using aircraft weighing more than 95,000 pounds. Such planes are typically used by sports teams, very large corporate charters, and some not-regularly scheduled vacation flights.

Speaker: James Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation
Association

"A lot of these real famous football, basketball, baseball players getting off at Gate C33 and marching through the regular terminal?" he said. "They see it as distractive and creating another security risk."

Silly me, I thought the security we were worrying about here was someone using a large aircraft as an involuntarily manned cruise-missile. Turns out we were really worrying about the security needs of professional athletes not wanting to deal with the public.

He thinks adding more security to a private charter is overkill. "These are the most closely guarded planes, short of Air Force One, on the planet," he said.

Nice to know Mr. Coyne isn't prone to exaggeration. I'm sure he's very trustworthy, and that he has security listed as job one.

Aside: Individuals and small groups flying on their Gulfstream GV's magically fall under the 95,000 pound limit by just 4,500 pounds. Don't you think the
powers-that-be could have been a little less obvious how they consider themselves, and their ilk, above the law? They would have provided themselves at least a modicum of cover had they chosen to peg the weight limit at 100,000 pounds and higher.

Tony, stick to the photo-essays, 'cuz your politics are whack!

And BTW, its Galaga, not Galga.(A link is a link is a link.)

Headline on Yahoo:

Water is Single Largest Killer of Asian Children, Says Report

Other than their own parents. For girls, anyway.

So much to be angry about, so little time.

[Via DailyPundit] By working their last one day before retirement in a position covered by Social Security, Texas public school teachers have been avoiding the Government Pension Offset (Also known as "The Windfall Elimination Provision") The worst part, this is actively pushed by the union, and facilitated by public school boards that actively advertise, and charge participants, to provide one-day jobs in order to avoid the law.

Fools! Don't they know that NYS doesn't consider topless women nude?

Well, this might be the final straw.

Blogger presented me with this message:

Clicking on "why?" brings up this:

UPDATE: FOUR HOURS LATER, THIS FINALLY POSTS.

FURTHER UPDATE: I've been thinking about this, and I finally know why it makes me mad: its that damn indefinite article. Pyra doesn't claim ownership of the overwhelmed server, it merely refers to "A server". What's up with that? Reminds me of this exchange from Fight Club:

Narrator: My suitcase was vibrating?
Airport Security Officer: Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while...
[whispering]
Airport Security Officer: it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article "a dildo", never "your dildo".

Thanks to its one-family/one-child rule and the resulting selective abortion and infanticide of females, China currently has about 40,000,000 men with no prospect of ever having a wife. (Think of it as a really big gathering of Star Wars fans, just replace the light sabers and helmets with farm implements and coolie hats. Still, not a woman in sight.)

Arabia faces the opposite problem. There are a large number of unmarried women living (for now) under the rule of the house of Saud that have no desire to enter arranged marriages.

There must be some way, short of a shooting war, to hook them up with each other.

On second thought, maybe a shooting war is exactly what is called for here. We could enlist these men in the war on terror, letting them loose to topple the Saud regime as they see fit. Afterwards, once they've kicked the Saud's ass, we hold the biggest "Sixty Second Dates" session in history.

Just call me Yenta.

[George Will article courtesy The Hub.]

[This is Satire. I further understand that our world resists satire, so let me make it clear that I do not think that this is really a good idea. Still further, I wish disclaimers were not required...]

Being that my best man's place, my favorite place to stay when in NYC, is literally in the shadow of the Citigroup Center, I am happy to hear that the tower is being armored against a street level truck bomb attack.

Not a visit to my friend's place, before or after 9/11, goes without a supposition of just how many blocks that building would fall if knocked on its side.

Mike Trossman is still angry. Still really angry. [Well, at least this explains his absence from posting.]

(Homeless Brit's local government may not pay his med-school tuition.)

Should I be mad at the likely lack of equal protection, or should I rejoice in socialists eating their own?

Four legs good, two legs better.

Amtrak had to pull the plug on all its Acela trains again today. Isn't it past time we pull the plug on Amtrak?

Den Beste explains it all. In under 4,000 words The Captain manages to explain the driving force behind our greatest enemy, and why their goals are incompatible with our system.

I consider this one of his best essays, an analysis of the international scene on par with the quality of RLK's domestic analyses.

[RLK's writings linked to in sidebar]

This week's Daily Probe is funny as hell. Sample headlines:

• Heartstring Pullers Working Overtime for 9/11 Anniversary
• Estate of John Holmes Restates Penis Length
• Incompetent Space Aliens Create Shitty Crop Pattern
• Houston Texans to Restate Win/Loss Expectations

  And, from my favorite section, News From Travistan (Article at link)

• Travistan Upholds Old Navy Embargo

Good. American University student Ben Wetmore is planning a lawsuit against AU over his treatment during the Tipper Gore video flap.

Some NY City Councilman wants to pass a law making bad cell phone manners illegal in theaters. His reasoning:

"It happens all the time," Reed said at City Hall. "This then gives the theater owner the authority to tell people, 'You are violating the law, you have to leave.' "

What an ass. If intrusive government, omnipresent bureaucrats and crippling regulations hadn't destroyed private property rights, freedom of association, free thought and self-sufficiency, then the theatre owner would be free to kick cell-talking jerks out on their keisters. Instead, they run their theaters in constant fear of litigation or investigation for discrimination, questionable business practices, labor practice violations, union thuggery and countless other cryptic regulations.

Great, the compensation system set up for the ridiculous TSA has lead to a brain drain out of the already embattled INS and Border Patrol. On second thought, this deserves an official "Whatever."

I suppose it is just as worthwhile to order your law-enforcement agents to be ineffective inside air-conditioned terminals as it is to order them to be ineffective in air conditioned cruisers.

It truly boggles the mind that we are pulling people off of our borders in order to root through granny's luggage, confiscate 1" long toy weapons, and make women drink their own breast milk. It is high time we Impeach Norman Mineta.

Another GI Joe doll disarmed by aiport security.
(Earlier cases reported here and here.)

We are all doomed.

Sorry loyal readers (both of you), but technical/ISP problems today lead to a forced absence. Here's a few tidbits to tide you over:

• Man sends federal court invoice for $16,800 for time ordered to be served on jury duty. I'm sure it has been tried before, but I wonder if anyone has ever successfully challenged lengthy jury service on 16th amendment grounds?

• Not happy with mere prop-eye-candy backdrops, President Bush is now squarely standing behind his messages.

• The Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor has some interesting dirt on the Illinois Air National Guard:

  The former commander of the F16 squadron that accidentally bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan had warned state officials that cronyism and mismanagement in the Illinois Air National Guard could cause safety problems in the future.

  Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Terry Rogan says he contacted the Illinois governor's office and other elected officials in 1996 to alert them to problems in the command structure that, he predicted, would one day cost lives. "I told them, 'It's not a question of if, it's a question of when'," he said.

  "These guys are going to take out people, and they're going to take them out in big numbers."

  Mr. Rogan was concerned that poor leadership of the Illinois Air National Guard was to blame for the inordinate number of accidents involving F16 pilots.

  A report in the Chicago Sun-Times found that the Illinois Air Guard had a serious accident rate that is nearly five times higher than the U.S. air force over a 10-year period.

Isn't is strange when a story takes five months to hit the national media, setting off anew a second round of blogging.

It's like this story had to ferment underground for a while before being ready for widespead consumption.

The first substantive post I ever made on this blog addressed why I blog pseudonymously. I still stand by that today, or, more accurately, my wife still does.

Minor quibble: Writings attributed to pseudonyms are not anonymous, rather they are pseudonymous.

Anonymous means without an attribution of source. All my posts are attributed to a pen name, that is, The Comedian. If you want to know whether or not to trust me, read some of my posts and decide for yourself.

And as for using Blogger (and not bucking up to get rid of the ads), let's just say that there is a reason my ebay UserID is cheapskate. Also, it's no secret that I post as Fixit on another forum.

Headline on Yahoo:

Humanity Loses $250 Billion a Year in Wild Habitat

Now -- Where's my metal detector?

[Oh, and the linked article is a bunch of crap,
so don't waste your time on it. I linked to
it just to prove that the headline is real.]

Page Six is reporting that Rosie O's magazine is on the way out.

"Those poor bastards at Gruner + Jahr," one media insider tells PAGE SIX's Ian Spiegelman. "Rosie pulled the old bait and switch on them. They thought they were getting Oprah Two. They didn't realize they were getting this woman who was going to retire from network TV and become an activist and a bit of a freak show."

Seems to me giving Rosie a magazine in the first place simply repeated a bad habit of many investors: If you like horses: Don't buy them, bet on them.

New England Stupidity Watch

A Rhode Island Jury awarded Judith Oliveira $27,978,201.00 for injuries suffered in an automobile crash four years ago. The judgment is against Chase Manhanntan Automotive Finance, the lessor of the vehicle. To repeat, the company that financed the purchase of the car that injured Judith Oliveira just lost twenty eight million dollars when one of its leased vehicles was involved in a crash.

I suspect that if is not overturned then within a few years you either will not be able to lease a car in Rhode Island, or lease prices will include a serious up-charge to cover the financial risk of facing personal injury suits in Little Rhody.

Wow, Reuters actually used the words "nail" and "bomb" together in a headline. Too bad it's a headline for an article about Worldcon and not for an article about splodey-dopes.

[In keeping with anti-Reuters policy, link has not been tested.]

I made this button last week, mostly as a joke, while listening to Radio FreeRepublic's "Unspun with AnnaZ and Mercuria" (carried by The Other Radio Network).

That wacky bastard just might win if he runs from prison.

[And yes, I'm whoring this graphic over at CafePress.com...]