Tammy and me at Kitty Hawk

Today is the 120th anniversary of the first powered air flight, by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk on the  Outer Banks of North Carolina.

In May of 2017, not long after coming back east after nearly a year of traveling across America, I took my dog Tammy on a day trip to the Outer Banks.  I wanted her to be able to say (to other dogs anyway) that she has seen the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  We drove down to Cape Hatteras and visited the lighthouse, then went back north.  We spent a little while at the Wright Brothers monument, and got our photo taken at the spot where that very first airplane flight took off from:

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TSA removing cancer machines? Really?

I haven't heard Mitt Romney say a single nary thing about eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and completely scrapping the Transportation Security Administration. That he hasn't and apparently approves of those governmental monstrosities is just one more reason why the Romney/Ryan ticket won't get my vote next month. Neither will Obama/Biden, but that's a post for next week.

But just in time for the election, The TSA is removing those cancer machines it euphemistically calls "body scanners" from major airports. The official line is that the cancer machines are being relocated to smaller airports in an effort to "speed things up" across the board.

But there are serious reasons to consider that rather than completely giving up on Nude-o-vision(tm), the TSA may in fact be gearing up to implement even WORSE technology: namely scanners with much finer resolution and stronger abilities at detecting small objects on a person (what objects those are is an exercise for the reader). In other words, the government-mandated radiation risk may not be going away at all and might be set to get worse.

(Many of us are still waiting for Janet Napolitano, the head of Homeland Security, to go through one of those machines herself. Alas! She adamantly refuses.)

In the meantime, the Transportation Security Administration thugs continue to sexually grope people with terminal cancer, strand U.S. citizens in Hawaii because of the nebulous and unconstitutional "no-fly list", steal iPads from passengers just for the hell of it, steal money from passengers because said passengers weren't "obedient" enough and complained about TSA abuse, refuse to allow passengers to board because of "bad attitude", and habitually grope and harass little children and elderly citizens.

Had enough of this crap, Mr. and Mrs. America? Is it gonna take getting tumors all over your body to say "enough"?

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Airline "security" costs: $85 billion and 900,000 lost jobs

It can safely be said ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration that the federal government's efforts to make air travel "safer" constitute one ginormous cluster%#@&.

Now we have an idea of the economic impact: $85 billion wasted and 900,000 jobs destroyed. From e-Travel Blackboard...

After a decade of enhanced aviation security post 9/11, US Travel Association president Roger Dow is set to testify in a Senate Committee Hearing on 2 November, claiming current security procedures are hampering travel and US economy growth.

According to the US Travel Association, the US economy is missing out on $85 billion in consumer spending and 900,000 jobs because American travelers are avoiding flying due to the “hassles of air travel”.

“A 2010 study…found that American travelers would take an additional two to three flights per year if the hassles in security screening were eliminated,” the US Travel Association said.

“The price of security has come at the cost of efficiency and billions of dollars are being lost every day.”

I'm telling y'all here and now: whoever running for President right now will come out and tell us that the Department of Homeland Security was one of the biggest blunders in the history of anything and that it should be scrapped completely, will go a long LONG ways toward earning my vote a year from now.

(Tip o' the hat to Lee Shelton for directing my attention to this article.)

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Security Theatre: Full-body scanners begin to be deployed (and how to possibly foil those using them)

Eleven airports - most of them in the Midwest and California but also Charlotte-Douglas International here in North Carolina - will be the first in the country to receive the full-body scanners that create a virtually naked image of the person being examined and leave nothing to the imagination.

The Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security over it, claims that the images created by these machines are not stored in any way.

Does anybody possessing more than the minimum neurons for a working ganglia honestly believe anything that this asshat excuse for a government tells us anymore?

This is simply more "security theatre": measures that make it look like our government is sincerely doing something to deter "the terrists" but in reality is just a multi-billion dollar puppet show.

If the government was serious about both stopping terrorism and serving its people, domestic airports would adopt the tactics of those in Israel. I'm told by many people that the average time between arriving at the terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport and then coming to the gate for departure is around 15 to 25 minutes... with no shoes being removed and certainly no full-body scans! And Israel has a helluva lot fewer problems with airborne terrorism as a result (like, none at all).

What are the Israelis doing that we Americans aren't? From the moment a passenger arrives at the ticket counter onward, he or she is being observed by airport staff. That pretty lady behind the counter who's pleasantly asking you about your trip and your business? She's actually watching how you react to her questions. Israeli airport personnel are fully trained to watch for nervousness, hesitancy, and a lot of other indications that I could only speculate about. If there's enough reason to deem a person to be of interest as a potential threat, that person is discreetly taken aside and questioned without disrupting service to any other passengers.

It's a very simple system and it works brilliantly! And if the United States government had any sense it would adopt a similar plan for our own air travel.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. Nor do I plan on partaking in any air travel if it can at all be avoided.

But in the even that do have to travel by plane, I intend to purchase several packs of these things. Allegedly they're supposed to really work in defeating the peculiar wavelengths of the full-body scanners. So my scheme is to get several of them and assemble some makeshift undergarments that will not only shield me from the radiation of the scanners, but will also display the letters "F U" across what would otherwise be my bare behind.

Don't think that I wouldn't do it, either!

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Pornography by way of U.S. Government and two clicks of Photoshop

Need another reason to hate Transportation Security Administration (or as I call 'em "Thousands Slacking Around")? No thanks to the new "backscatter" virtual strip search machines that Janet Napolitano wants to put into more airports, the United States government will soon be the world's largest producer of pornographic images.

Here's a pic that's up on Drudge Report right now, showing a woman in one of the scanning machines...

And if you've got the nerve for it, here's what one dude was able to produce with three clicks of Adobe Photoshop.

(With the same image, I was able to produce an identical photo with two mouse clicks inside Photoshop, in less than 20 seconds.)

Our British friends are already noting that the machines violate child pornography laws over there. And there is some speculation that the electromagnetic waves used in the backscatter devices can destroy DNA and potentially cause cancer.

I say: let's see Janet Napolitano and everyone else associated with the Department of Homeland Security walk through these machines dozens of times on live television, as a good-faith demonstration that there's nothing for us to worry about. With all the resulting images being broadcast directly from the source in high-definition video.

What sayeth y'all?

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Here's a song dedication going out to Falcon Heene

Yeah, the kid from Colorado who was thought to have taken a ride in that balloon yesterday and then cryptically said on national television "We did this for a show".

Here is "Up, Up and Away" by The Fifth Dimension...

Now, let us never speak of this again.

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Fifty years ago today...

...was "The Day the Music Died".

It was on this date in 1959, just after 1 a.m., that the small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, along with their pilot Roger Peterson, crashed into a field near Clear Lake, Iowa.

There were no survivors.

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The hero

Like my Dad said this morning, "That is one cool dude".

Here's the photo that's most going around today of Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 who landed his stricken jetliner smack down the middle of the Hudson River in New York City yesterday, an ultra-rare feat that saved the lives of everyone aboard...

I've said before that this blog exists to share my thoughts on various subjects, and to highlight and give praise to those people and things that deserve it. Well, it's been too long since I've felt anything as terrific to report on as good Captain Sullenberger and what he and the US Airways crew did yesterday. This old world doesn't have nearly enough heroes anymore. Yesterday, "Sully" gave it back its heroes.

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Miracle on the Hudson: Everyone rescued after plane goes down in river

If you've got ready access to a television news channel you might wanna tune in right now 'cuz the story of the day is US Airways Flight 1549 from La Guardia in New York City to Charlotte, which had to land in the middle of the Hudson River after some birds hit the plane and cut out two of the engines...

The pilot was able to bring the Airbus A320 down in a controlled descent, right smack in a spot in the river that was plenty shallow without any risk of the plane sinking. The plane stayed in one piece and passengers were spotted standing on the wings awaiting rescue. Everybody got out safely.

That has got to be one of the best recoveries from an air emergency, that I can possibly recollect. And that pilot definitely deserves a medal.

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Things that you do not expect your airline pilot to tell his passengers...

"I am not qualified to land the plane."

Okay, I can see how this one should be allowed to let slide. This is a pilot with thirty years of experience and of course he had landed plenty of times. It just happened that on this occasion he had to land in fog, which he didn't have the proper training and clearance for with the type of aircraft that he was operating. The pilot absolutely did the right and professional thing by turning around.

But still, I thought that was too funny not to post :-)

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