LAX Security
<flame>
Airport security is usually an opportunity to feel the grip of the
American police state, but this was a whole different level. I wear a
military style belt, with a flat piece of metal as the buckle. There
was a time when the metal detectors were turned down low enough that I
could get through. No more. I set it off nearly every time. I'm pretty
accustomed to being wanded after the beeper goes off. I now tell the
person that my belt will probably set off the alarm. In Albany on the
way out, they wanded me quickly, finding a dime that I had neglected
to take out of my pocket. They also asked me to turn the belt buckle
out; what I could be hiding behind it I know not. In LAX, however, one
guy wanded me, and then handed me off to a woman, who did it all over
again. Her wand was so sensitive that it beeped on the metal in my
shoelace eyes. She could not be convinced that I had nothing under my
belt. She asked if she could touch me there. Not wanting to be felt up
in the airport by a homely security guard, I said, "No". So I ended up
unbuckling the belt so that she could tell with her wand that there
was nothing beneath it. Meanwhile, another woman was putting my PC
into a second X-Ray machine of some sort, and inspecting it in
detail. Guess she didn't see anything, as noone asked me to open the
bag. My thought afterward was, "Shall I take out my schlong so you can
check that it's between the regulated minimum and maximum lengths?"
Good line for next time this happens, hehe. It appears that I'm going
to have to start taking off my belt buckle and putting it in the
little box with my pilot, keys, pen, change, etc. Oh, the guy also
asked to turn on my pilot. Noone has ever asked for that. They assume
it's just a wallet; the leather case looks like one. They used to ask
to see PCs turned on before we figured out that putting them through
the X-Ray isn't harmful. On the way back I noticed that Albany now has
the machine that I call a "sniffer". I first saw one of these at JFK
in NYC. They rub the outside of your bag with a piece of cloth on the
end of a stick, and then put it in a machine that does some sort of
chemical analysis. I don't know what they're checking for. Likely bomb
material. Maybe drugs. Talk about your warrantless search.
</flame>
I'm not at the Million Marijuana March today. My wife went to a midwifery seminar, and I've got the kids. s'pose I could have taken them with, but it wouldn't have been much fun for them and I needed my beauty sleep. Still planning to march for the second amendment on Mother's day in Albany. Guess I need to get poster material this weekend.
P.J. Gladnick at Laissez Faire City Times - Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles: a movie review by Al Gore - does include some info about the movie, but is mostly an hilarious skewering of Big Al (and I do mean BIG). [grabbe]
My main course was an extra-large tub of buttered popcorn. You can pop popcorn at home all you want but it will never match popcorn popped in movie theater coconut oil. And don't give me some health lecture about coconut oil. All those steroids I took to look buff in the last campaign will give me a heart attack a lot quicker than coconut oil. Plus one of the side effects of steroids is that my Talleywhacker shriveled up which is why I wore a Prosthetic Crotch Enhancer (rolled up socks) prescribed for me by my Alpha Male Guru, Naomi Wolf. Other side effects were a rotting of the teeth, an incredibly snippy attitude that I displayed in my first debate with G.W., and the strange delusion that I had been elected President in November.
...
One pleasant surprise was the wonderfully sparkling carbonation of my extra large sugar-enhanced soda. Usually the sodas go flat after about half an hour but this one kept its effervescence for almost the entire movie. This is very important because I always slowly nurse my drink in the movie theaters. If I drink it too quickly, it gives me the overwhelming urge to take a bathroom break well before the movie ends. I learned this lesson when I drank ice tea too quickly at White House meetings. Every time the President began discussing illegal fundraising schemes I was forced to miss out on what he said because I had to run down the hallway to the restroom for my tea-tea break. Therefore, I now pace myself so my bladder doesn't fill up to its bursting point until the closing credits of the movie.
Amy Standen at Salon - Is the FBI tracking online protesters? - a good story on the dickheads messing with the Independent Media Center. This is old news, but I hadn't linked to it before.
Jennifer Garrett at Capitalism Magazine - Look Who's Supporting School Choice Now! - Kalifornia teachers who just recently fought against a voucher program are fighting just as hard against a law that would require government school teachers to send their own kids to government schools. Can you say hypocrite? Y'all should know that I'm no fan of vouchers. They are paid for with plundered money, just like the government schools. Get the coercion out of education. Privatize all schools. Abolish attendance laws. [zero]
Now, if a third of the teachers and nearly half the members of Congress pull their children out of public education, what does that tell us about it? It tells us that those who know most about public education in this country understand the value of choice. But it doesn't tell us why choice shouldn't extend to all families.
Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley at Kent State University - The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy - Yesterday was the thirty-first anniversary of the murder by government of four Kent State students. The National Guard should never have been there. There is never any business for any military force on American property except to repel foreign invasion. Never. If private property is attacked by protesters, the owners of that property are responsible for its protection, and are entitled to do so with extreme prejudice. [desk]
This article is an attempt to deal with the historical inaccuracies that surround the May 4th shootings at Kent State University by providing high school social studies teachers with a resource to which they can turn if they wish to teach about the subject or to involve students in research on the issue. Our approach is to raise and provide answers to twelve of the most frequently asked questions about May 4 at Kent State. We will also offer a list of the most important questions involving the shootings which have not yet been answered satisfactorily. Finally, we will conclude with a brief annotated bibliography for those wishing to explore the subject further.
Dan Eggen and Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post -
U.S. Grand Jury Indicts Traficant 
- Rep. James A. Trafficant
Jr. has been indicted on charges of racketeering and bribery. My guess
is that this is retribution by the Washington corrupt for
Mr. Trafficant's incessent dissing of their corruption. Beam me
up. [grabbe]
"I'm as frightened as anyone can be," Traficant told reporters yesterday while awaiting the indictment in Poland, Ohio. "I'm going to say this to the U.S. attorneys, 'You'd best defeat me, because if I beat you, you'll be working in Mingo Junction.'" That is a small town in eastern Ohio.
...
Traficant, 59, has long predicted that he would be indicted and pledged on the House floor last year that he would "fight like a junkyard dog" against the investigation. He made repeated corruption accusations against former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno and federal prosecutors in Ohio, and accused FBI agents of being "on the payroll of the mob."
Cycorp - Press Release 03/06/2001 - Doug Lenat's company, that has been creating since 1984 a huge common sense knowledge base, is releasing an open version: OpenCyc. Very good news. In 1991 or thereabouts, some MIT students did some work at the Apple Lab in Cambridge, MA to get Cyc up under Macintosh Common Lisp. I'm glad that Cyc is still alive. [iowa]
Paul Snively at Hack the Planet - Re: What is OpenCyc? Paul thinks OpenCyc is a big deal. He's probably right. [wes]
