why I won’t fly

I don’t fly. Since the TSA put its latest set of security-theater rules in effect, I just can’t do it (or ask my family to) in good conscience. It comes down to this: I know too many people who would be traumatized by the kind of treatment the TSA has made mandatory. I can think [...]

Posted by Chris in Bummer, Crime, Family, Government, Law, Philosophy, Security Theater, Travel on January 19th, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Mr. Bush, tear down this wall

Oh, you have got to be kidding me: A U.S. military brigade is constructing a 3-mile-long concrete wall to cut off one of the capital’s most restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods that surround it, raising concern about the further Balkanization of Iraq’s most populous and violent city. U.S. commanders in northern [...]

Posted by Chris in Iraq, Security Theater, You have got to be kidding on April 20th, 2007 | Comments Off

a small measure of privacy

Getting a new passport in 2007?  I will be, and the first thing I’ll do after getting it is “sit on it wrong”.   With a hammer.  Why?  Because the old-fashioned printed-on-paper part of it is just as useful as a 2006 passport, which people will need to be able to deal with until 2016 at [...]

Posted by Chris in Government, Security Theater, Technology on December 29th, 2006 | 4 Comments »

shall not be silen(ced)

Here’s a ponderable: was a man at JFK actually required to remove his t-shirt because it had a peace protest slogan in arabic? If so, what does that say about the (police) state of our airports?

Posted by Chris in Iraq, Security Theater, Travel on August 31st, 2006 | 2 Comments »