The TSA Joke

The Transportation Security Administration of the Homeland Security Department is a joke.

As you well know, unless you’ve been living as a hermit in the Himalayas, deodorant, toothpaste, and even short pocket knives have been banned from carry on.  Shoes must be removed for X-ray inspection.  Gee, I feel safer already.  In the meantime, bin Laden must be laughing his arse off over there in his little cave, knowing that, even if he can’t bring us down, he can certainly make us waste our hard-earned time and money.  We may yet bring ourselves down.

I’ve just returned from a business trip.  I work with, around, and on computers.  So I happened to bring my little tool-kit with me.  I didn’t expect to need it, but I figured I’d be better off having and not needing than needing and not having.  They saw the pliers in the x-ray machine and pulled me aside.  They got out a ruler to measure the pliers!

Nope.  Too long.  Have to check this under the plane.  What???

I mean, come on!  Pliers?  “LOOK OUT YOU INFIDELS, I’VE GOT A PAIR OF THREE INCH PLIERS, AND I KNOW HOW TO USE ‘EM!!”

For Your Protection?

Then, the TSA gets a-hold of my bag.  It’s not enough to make me wait forever in baggage claim, they have to rip open my bag.  I’m waiting patiently for my bag to come down, and I see my green tag that I use to identify it – and all this tape wrapped around it.  So I’m thinking, well that looks like my bag, but I certainly don’t remember wrapping it in tape like that – ARRRGH!  IT IS MY BAG!

And I do mean they ripped it open.  Then put a little card in there letting me know they ripped it open because it was “locked.”  LOCKED?? You mean that little bitty string I tied around the zipper so it wouldn’t open by accident?  THIS is what the TSA calls “LOCKED?”

Maybe they use itty bitty strings to lock their house.  No wonder burglary is rising.

The little card politely informs me that destroying my luggage is for my own protection, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  Sorry, tough luck.  Buy another bag.  Send the bill to bin Laden.

Please Remove Your Shoes –
Terrorists Please Line Up Here –

I also want to give a mention to this “taking off the shoes” thing.  All this nonsense just because somebody was caught sneaking a bomb in their shoes.  I’ve got a newsflash for you – if a bomb can be snuck in shoes, it can be snuck in anything.

What are they going to do when a terrorist is caught sneaking a bomb on board in her tampon?

Maybe I should just shut up before I give ‘em any more ideas.

As you may or may not know, you have to show them your medications in a quart-size plastic bag. Mine was larger. “Sorry sir, but next time, please use the quart-size.” “Why?”, I ask. “Just policy, sir.” Oh great. A rule with no reason.

I just can’t tell you how safe I feel, protected by unionized federal civil servants who can not be fired. Protected from shoes, deodorant, pliers and oversized plastic bags.

I was reading the signs as I was going through security.  In particular, the ones that read, “NO JOKES.”  As I was going through, one of the agents was laughing and joking and making hand gestures as if herding cattle.  I caught her eye, smiled, and said, “Hey, the sign says, ‘no jokes!’”  At which point, she laughed, and pointed clandestinely to the agent who was currently inspecting my carry-on – as if to say, “THIS fellow is the JOKE!”

No, ma’am, you’ve got it wrong.  The whole TSA is a joke.  Only it’s not funny.

WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

Last week Lady Liberty received yet another black eye from Congressional Republicans looking to shore up their religious conservative base.

Touting the “morality” – or lack thereof – with Internet gambling, they passed new regulations that would make it virtually illegal for any US bank to process transactions to Internet gambling companies. This effectively shuts down Internet gambling almost completely, since Americans spend more than half of all gambling worldwide.

And they snuck it into a port security bill, as if protecting us from terrorists has anything whatsoever to do with protecting us from our own hobbies.

Nevermind that gambling is legal all over the world, specifically, in places where the Internet gambling companies operate. Nevermind that the law expressly carves loop holes big enough to push a stack of crap tables through for US lotteries, US horse racing, US fantasy sports betting, Indian casinos, and, of course, online betting handled by US companies in states where regular gambling is already legal.

Dubya will sign it. Of course he’ll sign it. He has never seen a morality issue that can’t be signed into the Law of the Land, regardless of whether it’s anybody’s business, let alone the Federal Government’s. Want money for your religion? Here y’go, Faith-Based Government Money. Want cheap drugs for Grandpa? Step right up, here’s a nice trillion-dollar Medicare bill that your great-great-grandkids will still be paying for. Having a little trouble with competition? How’s about some nice fat steel and lumber subsidies. Nevermind making steel and wood products (practically everything) cost more for everybody else.

This is Protectionism at its finest. This is Big Government at its best.

SO WHY AREN’T WE HEARING FROM ALL THESE SELF-LABELED FREE MARKET, SMALL GOVERNMENT, BUSINESS-FRIENDLY CONSERVATIVES ABOUT THE INTERNET GAMBLING ISSUE?

Maybe – they agree with a ban on Internet gambling?

That would be typical. I’ve long said that many conservatives are all against Big Government right up until they see a good use for it. I.e., they don’t like Big Government butting into their lives, but it’s ok to use it to butt into other peoples’ lives. Religious conservatives believe that the gambling is “evil”, so sure, use Big Government to make it illegal. They believe televised “sleaze” is “evil”, so sure, have the FCC penalize it.

Thank you, Christio-fascism.

(I just coined that term, like it? It means, in effect, agreeing completely with Sharia law, except using the Bible instead of the Koran.)

The whole thing is a protectionist scam. US gambling companies are going to jump on this bandwagon big time, you’d better believe it. Americans are still going to spend billions of dollars gambling, regardless of what it might say in the Bible. They’ll just be forced to do it in Nevada, or at an Indian casino, or at their local Lottery (tax on stupidity) retailer.

So why don’t we hear about this on Townhall.com? WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

Is the Foley sex scandal all that juicy that we’re going to let it distract us from real issues?

All I hear from conservatives is, “Democrats this” and “Democrats that.” Geez, I get so sick of hearing about how awful the Democrats are. It’s like being nagged about cleaning up your room or washing the dishes. Everybody agrees it needs to be done, but after the 300th reminder, it kinda goes in one ear and out the other.

Republican apologists keep trying to remind us all that, well sure, Republicans in the last few years have been a little, well – disappointing – but hey, Democrats would be worse! (but, it was Republicans who broke all the spending and big-government records) – but hey, Democrats can’t handle the War on Terrorism! (even though Democrats sent troops and arms into Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, et cetera) – but hey, the Democrats would spend all your money and be hypocrites about it (oh, well, I suppose Republicans would know all about that) – etc. etc. etc.

I don’t know, folks, but I think that fellow who said there was only a dime’s difference between the two parties is waiting for his change.

Yah, it was published, too!  Yowza!! I get a few things out into the public now and then!

Definitions

No, I’m not gonna define “spam” for you.  We don’t need no legalistic legalisms here.  YOU know what spam is.  If you’ve had an e-mail account for more than 10 minutes, you’ve probably already deleted 30 of ‘em.

Numerous options are being explored for the elimination of “Spam”.  I believe there’s an option that just doesn’t get the attention it deserves.  To be “formal” about it (and coz I’m cut-n-pasting from my letter), the option I’m talking about is the “Economic” method.

I.e., everybody gets charged a penny for every e-mail they send.  Not for e-mail they receive – only what they send.

The Economic Spam Control Method

The economic method for fighting spam is given short shrift. One of the reasons the "penny per e-mail" method is too often dismissed is that there’s not much discussion of exactly where that penny goes. The sender pays a penny, but who gets it? The right answer to that question can mitigate some of the concerns: The penny should go to the owner of the ISP that delivers the e-mail to the final recipient, so that, in effect, an ISP charges others to deliver e-mail to its customers.

That was in my letter.  But you know, I think the real reason is the general Anti-Capitalistic attitude that permeates the entire world these days.  Like, why can’t I sell my own blood?  It’s mine ain’t it?  People have gotten this “Money can’t buy happiness”, and “The good things in life are free”, and garbage like that, all stuck in their brains.  Yah, it oughta be free until you’re the one who has to provide the “good things”, then alla sudden it’s “WHERE’S MY MONEY, DUDE???”

Some objections are that no ISP is set up to charge this way. But 10 years ago, no ISP in the world was set up to validate relayed e-mail or to filter spam.  Now both practices are common. This required changes to mail-server software, and adding a "sender pays" system would not be much different.

(As a matter of fact, this “open-relay” system was touted as one of the strengths of the Internet – if one server goes down, another one automatically takes over the routing!  Well, that was great when it was the ARPAnet, and only used by the military and universities – now, as a commercial enterprise, that’s proven to be a liability.)

Infrastructure Changes and Free Services

It’s been argued that it would require an entirely new infrastructure for the industry. But we already have most of the pieces of such an infrastructure, including Internet credit card payments, Internet bill payments, PayPal, and similar services.  Even Yahoo! will let you send money via e-mail with their "Yahoo! PayDirecot from HSBC."

Some people worry that "sender pays" would kill free services such as Yahoo! and Hotmail.

Balderdash!! (Oh, I love that word!  I’ve been waiting years for an excuse to use it!)

This is simply one additional cost added to their existing costs. Yahoo!, Hotmail, et al already pay for computers, hard disks, bandwidth, and personnel. It’s all funded from advertising. However, at the same time, it is an additional stream of income. Yahoo! et al would receive a penny for each e-mail they deliver to their customers. They’d probably throw away all their spam filtering software the day such a system is put into place!  “AH HAH!!  MORE MONEY!!  YAH BABY!!”

What about their out-going e-mail, that the Yahoo! customer would have to pay?  Feh!  Once again, it can come out of their advertising budget.  They’d easily set up their systems such that no-pay customers get X number of e-mails sent for free every month, and after that, they have to purchase a “premium” account.

Probably overall the expense of sending e-mails would be more-or-less balanced by the income of receiving e-mails.

Further, the penny doesn’t have to be paid immediately upon receiving e-mail. The larger ISPs could easily set up accounts where payments could be made monthly based on the actual auditable number of e-mails. This easily solves the issues of "fractional penny" payments and addresses concerns about massive additional e-mail traffic for processing payments.

But I think "fractional penny" is absurd!  Make it a full penny per e-mail!

Touching on this “additional e-mail traffic” for a second – WHAT additional traffic?  Spam currently takes up EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT of all e-mail traffic in the world!  You don’t think a system that cuts that down to maybe 5 or 10 or even 50% would be worth a little overhead??

Mailing Lists are Anachronisms (gesundheit!)

Some have complained about expenses for mailing lists.  Gee, I didn't know that old anachronism still existed!  Isn't that all done on the Web now?

Well, nevermind.  Would such a system make mailing lists economically unfeasible?  Of course not!  Any mailing list can simply require that each recipient send an e-mail back to the main server for each e-mail they receive. The list can send out 10,000 e-mails to 10,000 customers at a cost of $100. Each of 10,000 recipients sends an acknowledgement e-mail back, so that the list then receives 10,000 pennies.

Any recipient who fails to perform this duty, which they’d have to agree to as a condition of joining, is dropped from the list. It wouldn’t be long before mail client software would have a "penny payback" system in place, where the user can control exactly which recipient receives acknowledgements automatically.

After I wrote this in my letter, it occurred to me that the list owner probably isn't the ISP, and probably doesn't have their own server in place for e-mails, and so the list owner wouldn’t really get the payments.  But I still think it’s a workable solution.

Instead of a "penny payback", the list owner can just charge their members for the service of being a member of the mailing list.  Come on, people!  If your mailing list is all that valuable, why shouldn’t people pay for the privilege?  If you don’t want to pay for a membership, maybe you need to cut back on the mailing lists you’re a member of.  That’s back to this Anti-Capitalistic attitude I mentioned earlier.  Everybody thinks everything is supposed to be free.

Sorry, folks, but the Real World don’t operate like that.  You might not pay for the "free lunch," but somebody has to.

And just how much money are we talking about, anyway?  What do you get, 10 emails every day from a mailing list?  You can’t afford $36.50 a year for membership?  Come on, I’ve heard of cheap, but this is ridiculous!

Penny Email and the Law

One final difficulty I’d like to address is that the system would have to be legally mandated, but can’t be mandated worldwide.

(This little detail doesn’t seem to bother drug warriors, who are constantly badgering other nations to step up their drug enforcement efforts to match our misguided efforts.)

But this does not need to be legally mandated.  Sure, we could speed things along by passing a bunch of laws and crap.  But the Internet community already has numerous standards bodies that create rules and protocols for all sorts of interactions, such as the correct way for two mail servers to interact in sending each other e-mail. The millions of mail servers out there are perfectly free to follow those rules or not.

The ones who break the rules too severely end up being avoided in one manner or another.

E.g., the old rules were that all a sender needed to say was “HELO” (that’s right, only one “L”).  The rules now stipulate that you have to say who you are in that statement.  An e-mail server at Hotmail for example would have say, “HELO hotmail.com”.  If it doesn’t, the recipient server complains and disconnects.

The "black hole" lists for open relays, for another example, already have a large number of subscriber ISPs refusing e-mail from anyone who fails to follow the rules concerning open relays.  Thus a large fraction of the e-mail servers in the world can not send e-mail to another large fraction of the servers that subscribe to these lists.  No legislation was required.

Market forces would bring most of the Internet community on board eventually. In the meantime, the customers of ISPs that use the method can have an address book of those for whom they’ll "spot" the penny. Senders not on that list can go into the "no penny" folder for later review. This is better than the black hole system, where senders unfortunate enough to share an IP address with a known spammer cannot send e-mail to half the Internet! Instead of e-mail falling into a “black hole,” the sender would receive a polite note requesting $0.01 to deliver the e-mail.

Conclusion

All in all, I think the method is worth additional investigation. I think somebody with some business savvy and some venture capital should start this right now.  There is a www.pennyemail.com, but as of this writing, they haven’t done anything useful with that site since August ’06.

The only people who really can’t afford a penny per e-mail are the ones who send out millions per day.  You know who I mean – spammers. 

Flying Jedi

I’ve never seen a Jedi fly. Why not?

Think about it – you’ve seen the movies, I know you have – the only people who haven’t seen at least one Star Wars movie died before 1977 or haven’t been born yet. People still milking on their mother’s breast have seen Star Wars. Folks have had DVD’s play for them on their death-beds. Jihadists from Darkest Trashcanistan have seen Star Wars. That’s just the way it is, don’t argue.

But when have you ever seen a Jedi actually fly?

No, you yutz, not in a spaceship! Heck, even I can fly in a spaceship, and I have enough Jedi power to turn off the light-switch – with a little help from my finger.

Check it out – just about every one of the movies featured a Jedi either falling to his death, or nearly falling to his death.

But he can use the “Force” to move everything else in the world all over the place! “Wooo, hoooo! Look at me-ee, I’m grabbing my light saber from meters away with the Power of the Force!  WOWee!”

So why can’t he move himself all over the place?

Come on, where’s the logic?

You can’t tell me it’s because the “Force” doesn’t work on his own body. Why the heck not? Isn’t his body made up of material stuff, full of all those goodies that “binds the universe together”?

Don’t tell me those midi-chlorines that give him the Power have a problem with moving their own host body, huh? What, they got issues?

Ok, let’s say that’s true. How about his clothing, huh? Ok, let’s assume for a nanosecond that a Jedi can’t move his own body, for some weird technical reason – so move the clothing around, and, you know, the body just goes along for the ride, being all inside the clothing and stuff.

Huh? Why not?

Oh, well, now maybe somebody says the Jedi has to move things relative to his body – it’s like putting a big fan on a sailboat to blow against the sails doesn’t work. Ok, I’ll bite -- move the ground away from you! Particularly, move it downwards. That’s simple, huh?

How about this excuse – the muddy-chlorides have to have some distance between the host and the objec’ d’ force, hmm? I got a solution for that too! Tie a line to your light saber or something!

That’s right – you’ve seen those retractable dog leashes, right? Ok, so toss one of those bad boys up into the air; hold on to one end, “Force” the other end higher and higher, and whoosh! You’re flying!

All right, now somebody says maybe, well a Jedi has to concentrate to make the “Force” work. Well, sure. But that’s what training is for, people! Jedi spend their whole lives, practically from infancy, in training. So you practice this!

Obviously your life might depend on it!

Hey, look – you’re falling from a treacherous perch outside of Senator Palpable’s apartment, accelerating towards your doom at 32 feet per second per second (or whatever it is on that planet) – don’t you think it would at least be worth a try??

Boy, howdy, I know I’d sure try it! Take off my belt and tie it to my shirt and holler, “Force, don’t fail me now!” Aim those mini-coloradoans at the ground floor, and PUSH!! PU-U-U-USH!!

Sheesh, I can’t believe Yoda’s been around for 900 years, and never thought of this! No wonder the Sitch Lords could beat their butts!

They got all the innovative ideas of a modern-day Democrat!

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