Terrorists vs. Washington D.C.

No, this post's title is not what it seems. Yes, it's about the War on Terror(TM). No, it's not about IEDs or OBL, but rather about the fight between terrorists and the Feds to determine who can violate more of my rights and generally be bigger douchebags.

I had the joy of dealing with the TSA last week, just like every other person unlucky enough to have to board a commercial airliner in the Unites States of America. I know about the 'elevated' threat level and what it means in terms of added scrutiny of carry-on baggage. I also know that the whole thing is bullshit; consequently, I refuse to go down without at least a token resistance.

As my own little personal act of civil disobedience[1], I decided to disregard the new baggage restrictions. In the case of this particular day-trip, that meant I'd be bringing a whopping total of one verboten item with me: toothpaste. I did my best to put it deep within the bowels of my backpack, hoping that I had enough things stacked on top of each other to make the individual silhouette of my toothpaste tube less obvious. Despite that effort, the X-ray machine at PIA saw something[2] that caused the operator to have my bagged pulled aside for inspection. The TSA agent went through my bag, quickly finding my Aquafresh Tool of Terrorism just about where you'd expect it (in my Dopp kit).

I was feeling somewhat dejected after my plot had been foiled. I was down, sure, but I wasn't out! On the return trip, I decided to make a second attempt at defeating our pointless, ineffective, mis-targeted[3] 'security' policy. For numero dos, I used the free toothpaste I got from the hotel as my contraband. This time, I made no attempt to hide it. Lo and behold, I passed right through security (at PIT, this time) while the guy before me was almost cavity searched[4].

I really don't know what to make of this experiment. With a sample size of two, the fact that I got 'caught' only once could be due to any number of factors: differences between airports, X-ray equipment, X-ray operator skill, X-ray operator 'enthusiasm' for following the rules, or even random luck. The only clear result of this little study is that I need to do a bigger study! Leave me a comment if you have ideas for other ways to test the system. One particularly crude idea I've had is to collect a bunch of empty containers (toothpaste, pop, gel deoderant, whatever) and fill my carry-on with them. The best would be opaque containers, since nobody could tell they were empty without individually inspecting each one. Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions, so leave me one.

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[1] I don't mean to equate my actions with [far, far] more significant acts of civil disobedience that have changed entire nations, but one doesn't have to be MLK Jr. or Gandhi in order to do something worthwhile.
[2] It could have been the toothpaste, or it could have been that my plan worked /too/ well, and they could decipher so little with the X-rays that they figured they had better inspect my bag by hand. That has happened to me several times in the past (pre-9/11, even), and it could easily have been the case this time, as well.
[3] I could go on forever, but I'll stop. I hope you appreciate how diffcult that is. :)
[4] This was one of the guys I was traveling with. I know he didn't have a single banned item in his bag, because it had all been confiscated on the first leg of the trip. The poor guy had actually forgetten about the no-fluids rule, and had to throw away quite a bit of stuff after getting his bag searched at the security checkpoint.

one-trick pony

I've been in denial about this for a couple of seasons now, but I'm finally able to admit it. The Big XII has become an also-ran in the world of major college football. We are now what we always accused the PAC-10 of being: one team that is nationally competitive, and a bunch of others that are dangerous only to themselves.

Let's take a look at this week's scoreboard, shall we?
1) Kansas lost to Toledo, but K State beat Marshall. Trading wins with the MAC is not the mark of a top-notch, BCS conference.
2) Iowa State lost to Iowa. Losing huge rivalry games is always a let-down.
3) Baylor lost to Wazzu, Oklahoma lost to Oregon, Nebraska lost to Southern Cal, and Colorado lost to Arizona State. That's 0-4 against the 'weak' PAC-10!
4) Our perennial fireworks show of an offense, Texas Tech, was held to a field goal by Texas Christian.
5) We picked up wins against Rice, Florida Atlantic, New Mexico, and Army; if we can't be proud of those victories, what is there to fight for? :rolls eyes:

While Nebraska certainly could have fared worse against a surprisingly [to me] still-top-notch USC team, I agree with Callahan's statement that this wasn't even a moral victory. We lost, plain and simple. We are certainly improving over last year's team, but we're also not ready for the national stage yet. I'll be thrilled if we win our conference, no matter how shitty it might be, because it still means winning the North /and/ beating the South's victor on the field. That is still something that we can be proud of and hold over the heads of all those silly PAC-10 and Big 10 fans. :)

I am sick-o.

No, I'm not /a/ sicko. Estoy sick-o; you know, Spanish for rejecting-food-from-all-manner-of-orifices-and-being-so-sore-it-even-hurts-to-move-my-eyeballs.

I called my boss at 06:40 to let him know of my condition and the guy answered his phone! It sorta threw me off-guard, since I was expecting his voicemail at that early hour. As part of the opening pleasantries of our conversation, he whipped-out the oft-used 'How are you?' I answered in the same vein that I normally do; 'Not too bad.' Not too bad?? The whole reason I'm calling is to specify just how bad I am!

Rather than using this example as evidence of my distinct lack of phone conversation smoothness, I want to use it as evidence of the inane, worthless things we do just because society has taught us to do them. Not only was it pointless, in this case, but it was actually counter-productive.

Well, I've run out of steam and it's time to rest some more. Adios, all you lucky not-sick people.

Welcome to the family, russiandell!

There is a new addition to my household. Her name is russiandell, which is pretty self-explanatory when you consider the she's both a gift from my little sis (thanks!!) and a Dell Inspiron 600m.

Poor russiandell, you see, went all gimpy a few months ago. My sister, not being the type of person to fix a computer and definitely being the type of person to want an excuse to buy a new laptop, went out and bought herself a new Apple MacBook Pro.

Me being a helpful brother and all, I diagnosed her problem as a failed hard drive and also discovered, after many hours of thorough research and analysis (or two minutes at http://support.dell.com), that the computer was still under warranty! A couple days later, I had a new hard drive. My awesome sis told me I could keep the computer; after a few weeks of laziness and Broadcom-hating, I installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (homepage, Wikipedia page) and haven't looked back.

I could turn this post into a huge gush-fest about Ubuntu and how it pwns windoze, but I'll restrain myself. Instead, I'll just hit 'publish' now and concentrate on enjoying the fact that I'm making this copylefted post on a copylefted browser and operating system, all while sitting on my porch on a beautiful summer evening. :click:

fscking lawyers!

Disclaimer: I understand that there are one or two lawyers out there who are not the spawn of Satan. I really do. That said...

Class-action lawsuits (CALs, from here onward) are among the biggest scams perpetrated on the American public. Recently, I've received letters about two CALs of which I am a member. The first was against Microsoft, regarding the flagrant abuse of their monopoly, and the second was against Sprint, regarding some dodgy billing practices which caused a bunch of people to pay too much in fees.

The payout for both CALs was pretty small, ~$20 or less. Even worse, they were in the form of discounts for products and services offered by the defendant! What kind of bullshit is that?

Let's say I punched 2,000 people in the face, and they turned around and hit me with a CAL. It seems that the 'punishment' I could expect would be an order that I must offer them an UNCLBEN(R)-brand mouthpiece at half-price (which is still enough that I will profit from the sale), but only if they will allow me to punch them again! If they want to go be friends with someone else, who /won't/ punch them in the face, that's too bad; they'll get no compensation for the punch I dealt them.

Of course, CALs continue to thrive because the lawyers get filthy rich. A million people/victims get $10 each in coupons to the offending company, but the five lawyers/piles-of-excrement each get $2,000,000 in cold, hard cash. Fscking lawyers.