Airline Security Problems Solved

Okay, so one asshole tries to blow up an airplane with a pants bomb... Knee jerk reaction in three-two-one...

Ohmygodweneednewrulesnoworwearegoingtodie!

The following new rules are now being added during the last hour of flight:

• no books or personal items
• no items under the seat in front of you
• no blankets or items in your laps
• no bathroom
• no television or position indicators

The implication here is that as long as no one blows up a bomb in the last hour of flight, we're all safe, so go ahead, blow it up in the first 5 hours of flight -- the joke is on you!

How the hell does this help? As if someone with one of those time-detection devices (wristwatch) couldn't just figure out approximate time to detonate. Or someone could use one of those light osmosis membranes (windows) to look out and see what their position or altitude was. Or blow it up on the runway.... I just can't quite fathom why the last hour of flight is sacred for bomb detonation prevention. It's as if the feds are saying "We don't know what to do but we have to do something."

And if the shoe bomber made us all have to stand in line and take off our shoes... does the underwear bomber imply that now we need to stand in line and strip naked? And if someone packs a bomb in little balloons ala heroin smugglers... does that mean we all need exploratory surgery before boarding the plane?

The more likely reaction is that a bored, cold mass of cranky travelers with ruptured bladders that have recently been strip searched will revolt and take over the airplane out of pure frustration.

You want my solution? All passengers will be cryogenically frozen 6 months before the flight. They are stored naked in a warehouse for the 6 months to allow for delayed detonation possibilities. They should pass through a hyperbaric chamber to simulate altitude to allow for pressure based detonation. The actual shipment would be at a semi random time and date in the 6 month quarantine.

That Pesky War on Christmas

Ahh... 'Tis the season for beautiful lights, secret presents and... self persecution. Yes, it's the magical time of year where a whole bunch of crazies stand up, lick their imaginary wounds and declare they are going to fight against... the war on Christmas.

Well, let me let you in on a teeny tiny little secret: there isn't one. There never has been one. It's all in your head.

Just because some greeter at Wal-Mart says "Happy Holidays" to you does not, in fact, mean he is on a jihad to wrestle your beloved religious beliefs out of your cold dead hands. It could mean lots of things. It could mean that saying the same "Merry Christmas" phrase over and over for 8 hours in a day is dull and tedious. It could mean that the corporation wants to sell trinkets to Christians, Jews, Muslims, and anyone that will fork over cash. It's not anti-Christian to say "Happy holidays" nor is it anti-Christian to say "Happy Hanukkah". I could take the extreme opposite approach and say your hatred of the Capitalist free market system this country was built upon is a war on Capitalism -- you commie pinko.

If, in fact, someone were to wage a war on Christmas, it wouldn't be by saying "I hope everyone has a nice time regardless of their religion". It would probably be in making fun of the whole story in the first place. You know -- virgin birth, seeing apparitions, stars leading wise kings around at night. This sort of thing just doesn't make sense and no sane person in modern times has seen this sort of thing occur. (Don't you scoff at the headlines in the National Enquirer ever! Alien babies are no less possible than an army of angels floating in the sky.) A war on Christmas would be in pointing out the worship of said birthday is really not part of the Bible, nor is there any reason that December was arbitrarily chosen other than as an invented holiday to coincide with the god-awful pagan solstice celebration.

As far as Christmas goes, it's a relatively new holiday, even if your earth is only 6000 years old. Remember that in the 19th century puritans strongly forbade their people to worship it -- as it was such an icky awful heathen tradition. Even in the god-fearin' US of A it has only officially been a holiday since 1894. That's only 2% of your 6000 year old planet's age. (Or 0% of my planet's near infinite age.)

And surely Christians must loathe Bing Crosby for his Christ killing 1948 hit "Happy Holidays" ... and don't get me started on the new-fangled hate in those new age "holiday songs" that ignore our beloved savior -- like "Deck the Halls", "Auld Lang Syne", "The Holiday Season", "Good King Wenceslas", "Jingle Bells", "O Christmas Tree" and "The 12 Days of Christmas". These all avoid the Christian message and do nothing but spawn Satanists and Muslims and Commie atheists.

So... this is just a reminder that probably needs to be sent out once a year now: the entire world is not out to forcibly squash your religion. In fact, many of us non-believers would probably go to pretty extreme lengths to protect your right to do something we think is ... well, rather silly. Calm down. Take deep breaths. Remember that you are 80% of the population of the USA and 100% of the governing body of the US. There is no one persecuting you. Get back in your Ford and be Bob of Taurus, not Paul of Tarsus.

I think I have a tear... in my eye

Let's ignore Taterize's love of socialized medicine for one brief shining moment. This demotivator photostream is teh awesome.

Spork silently bows his head in reverence.

Rodentia: the battle of wits between man and beast

My life has been full of pitiful, awful, failed attempts to outsmart rodents.

I am hoping to add to that list.

To date I have concocted:

• La Camera de la Rata - a junky, broken laptop hooked up to an outdated web cam pointed at a rat trap in the attic. The drivers were not available except on some South American warez site -- and only in Spanish. Quieres reiniciar? Si / No. No photos of anything but the tremors caused by the AC kicking on and off.
• The Spörd - inspired by a Swedish friend. The Swedish Pool of Rat Destruction. A rolling platform baited with peanut butter and suspended over a drowning pool of deadly antifreeze. Utter. And. Complete. Failure.
• The Mole Funnel - aka Project Fudd. A lame attempt to force the mole to go through the damn trap instead of going around it. This made me fall into daily affirmations: I am smarter than a rodent. I am smarter than a rodent.
• And now I hear the words in my head again... "Wile. E. Coyote: Super Genius." Yes, in a burst of glory, I will now catch that last damn mouse in the shop with.... "Mickey's Bar and Grill." Pure genius, this is. The first four mice were just average every day Joe's. Hard working fellas that just wanted to come home to some peace and quiet. They fell to the normal mouse trap like man lured by pork products. But the last guy... the last guy is smart. Very smart. Two days have passed. And each day he licks the peanut butter off 6 traps like they were mere mice cream cones full of butter pecan. Oh but I will get you Smarty Mouse. I will get you.

  I have cleverly taken all 6 traps... and grouped them around one ice cold glass of beer. (I almost cannot type this without giggling... the smile frozen on my face... he will be mine.) Smarty Mouse will either get drunk and drown in his own beer... or stumble off to the missus and weave into one of my traps when his senses are dulled by the demon alchohol. I am unsure about the sex and the sexual orientation of Smarty Mouse. I considered placing a gaudy sign above the beer: "Live nude rodents" -- complete with lifelike animatronic silicone implanted female mice. My one worry here was that this might actually be some sort of overzealous feminist mouse. My lure might actually anger her, causing mouse protests in my shop -- maybe even little mousitov cocktails. No, this was too serious to submit it to this kind of risk. It must just be a friendly little place. A place where every rodent knows your name.

I will keep you posted...

[ updates in the comments section ... ]

the fireman comparison

It seems to be a new common comparison: Everyone likes the oh-so-socialist concept of the fire department. And it's just like universal health care! How in the world could you be against firemen, with their washboard abs and pinup calendars and fancy trucks and cute spotted dogs. They're the same damn thing as socialized medicine, so just get off your greedy bastard capitalist ass and pay up.

And to this I say: Non-sequitor much? They are exactly alike except that they're totally and absolutely different. In fact, they're different in so many ways that I'd have to attack them from multiple angles.

Mitigation v. Asset reimbursement

Let's be frank here. Health care insurance is -- well, insurance. Insurance is nothing more than a business contract where you (theoretically) enter on your own free will. You spread risk among a pool of similar risks. You insure some asset -- and if you lose or damage that asset, the contract agrees to replace or repair it. In the case of health insurance, your asset is your absolutely most valuable one: your own self.

Fire fighting is disaster mitigation. An asset (such as a home) has encountered a serious disaster (a fire, obviously) and firemen (with washboard abs) show up to intervene and keep loss at a minimum. This may mean they save a house. Or it may mean they contain the fire to one house to keep it from spreading to the house next door.

A more accurate analogy

Okay, come on. Let's think of another analogy that is more apropos that is similar to health insurance... Come on. It should be right there on the tip of your tongue. I'm practically giving it away. Still don't get it? Fire insurance, Einstein. Health insurance is to protecting your body as fire insurance is to protecting your house. Fire insurance is generally not considered a right (at least not yet). And fire insurance is not usually provided by the government with universal coverage. Why not? Because it's based on risk pools. Do you really want to pay your taxes in to a single universal pool where your house gets the same coverage (at the same premium) as the gasoline production plant across town? Your house -- worth maybe $200,000 -- versus a billion dollar petrochemical plant. Your house, where the chance of catching on fire are slim versus the plant that makes about 16 highly flammable materials. Why in the world would you not want to nationalize fire insurance and spread the risk for those poor petrochemical production folks?

If you really, really must draw an analogy to a fire department, the true analogy is a health department... You know, those folks that talk about washing your hands and give out restaurant scores -- not fricking nationalized health insurance. If you want an analogy to a fireman (with washboard abs) you'd be better off comparing him to a doctor or a nurse.

The problem of scale

And the analogy suffers from a severe problem of scale -- as if you finally agree your child can have a hamster and come home to find she's made a pet of a goddamn elephant. A fire department is a small, localized unit with a very defined task. Nationalized health care is an enormous undertaking on the federal level. It's a health program brought to you by the same health geniuses that brought you the food pyramid and the lipiphobic high carbohydrate diet that's turned us all into walking heart attacks while avoiding any semblance of science it can possibly avoid.

And on the topic of scale, I might also simply remind you: the US Constitution really does not apply so much to the ins and outs of local municipalities. It applies to the federal government.... you know, the one that wants to birth a behemoth.

One error means two is better

And why, oh why, do we think that because fire departments are operated in a socialist manner (assuming that really was true) that this would mean everything else in our lives should operate this way? Why not suggest the opposite? "The current mass of government regulation and intervention has totally trashed the business of health care. We should restructure fire departments in a way to totally avoid making this mistake. They should be paid for in a 100% voluntary manner." Add in our scale problems and the "it works for a fire department, so it must work for an enormous nationwide health care system" is sort of the same argument as "this fire in the fireplace looks pretty, why don't we set the whole house on fire?"

...if we did that, maybe those firemen would show up and we'd get to see their washboard abs.