It’s over folks. The age of civilian air travel is coming to an abrupt end. It’s time to mothball our jets, shut the airlines, and go back to trains and ocean liners as our primary means of long distance travel. The United States as a country simply cannot fly anymore.
Why? Because of terrorism you ask? No, not because of terrorism. It’s because we’ve become a nation of panicky pussies. That’s why.
To be sure, on Christmas day 2009, a terrorist did try – we think – to blow up a plane. Hiding a syringe with chemicals and incendiary devices in his underwear, he ignited his payload as the flight he was one prepared to land in Detroit. The only immediate casualties, fortunately, were his crotch and – we hope – his ability to procreate. In this case, Darwin may have prevailed.
Shortly thereafter though, I realized that one other casualty resulted from this incident: our common sense. It started right away with Republicans and politicians in Washington. Rather than actually caring about the safety of the public and working towards learning from this experience to see how we can adapt reasonably and safely to this threat, if it IS a threat, they chose to pounce on this as a media stunt and politcal scare tactic. That’s right, because some silly Nigerian chose to roast his crotch on a flight, to them this clearly meant that Obama failed us.
So, while Washington was busy wrestling with that idea and preferring to focus on the potential political fallout of whether “the system” was working or not, the people who are allegedly tasked with protecting the public good and safety basically stopped focusing on protecting the public’s good and safety. Inevitably, this means “the system” that everyone was so busy arguing about has pretty much begun to break down all on its own anyway. That left the general public with the impression that they must now pretty much fend for themselves on the matter.
The result? Now we must get molested before we board an airplane, even though it probably won’t help the situation anyway. We now also have to deal with air travel being more erratic and unpredictable than before, ranging from the cut off of internet access and other in-flight amenities, to denying passengers the use of bathroom facilities. Because we all know that terrorists won’t possibly consider blowing up the plane if they will be denied those last couple minutes of facebook-time, or are unable to take a leak before the big moment, right?
Of course, none of these measures really add to the security of the flights. The hope, everyone agrees, is that maybe it’ll just help people feel a little safer, even though we’ve already told them, through the powers of twitter, cable TV news and the iReport, that these measures are fruitless and ineffective.
So, what happens when you tell a sick patient that the medicine you’re giving them is a placebo? Simple. They go apeshit crazy and panic.
And, boy, have we panicked! In the past three days, jet fighters have been scrambled to escort two flights because passengers on these planes were perceived to be unruly and possibly threatening. And not threatening in the they-just-told-people-we’re-going-to-blow-up-the-plane kinda sense, either. We’re talking threatening in the OMG-that-guy-beamed-remotely-negative-thoughts-at-me-and-OMG-I-think-he’s-crazy! kinda way.
Take, for instance, the case of poor Joseph Hedlund Johnson. Yeah, his mugshot makes him look a little creepy, but the guy is clearly no Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist. He just got a little cranky because he was told he couldn’t put his carryon bag under his seat… the same bag they probably would’ve charged him $20 for the mere privilege of checking into the cargo hold of the plane. Naturally, he wasn’t happy about this and decided to tell the airline of his annoyance in a comment card he filled out and handed to a flight attendant.
The flight attendant, being a nosy little snot, opened the card and read the following:
“I thought I was going to die, we were so high up,” the card said. “I thought to myself: I hope we don’t crash and burn or worse yet landing in the ocean, living through it, only to be eaten by sharks, or worse yet, end up on some place like Gilligan’s Island, stranded, or worse yet, be eaten by a tribe of headhunters, speaking of headhunters, why do they just eat outsiders, and not the family members? Strange … and what if the plane ripped apart in mid-flight and we plumited (sic) to earth, landed on Gilligan’s Island and then lived through it, and the only woman there was Mrs. Thurston Howell III? No Mary Anne (my favorite) no Ginger, just Lovey! If it were just her, I think I’d opt for the sharks, maybe the headhunters.”
That kinda conclusion was a bit of a stretch if you ask me. But apparently, the head flight attendant and even the pilot of the damn plane agreed that it was time to scramble the jets!
So now, everyone on the flight has to bear the inconvenience of fighter jets scrambling, the plane turning back to its starting point, and everyone being molested and cavity searched while the poor creepy jerk faces felony charges.
Moral of the story: if you don’t like the airline’s service, don’t you dare complain about it. Because if you do, you might be branded a terrorist.
And if you think this was one single, isolated incident, they did it all again just two days later with a totally different guy.
(CNN)—In the second such incident in three days, fighter jets escorted a diverted commercial flight on Friday after an unruly passenger caused alarm onboard. The military sent up two F-16s in response to reports of an unruly passenger aboard AirTran Flight 39, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement. The passenger had become belligerent and refused to leave the restroom, airline spokesman Tad Hutcheson told CNN on Friday. The passenger appeared to be intoxicated, he said.
The military sent up two F-16s in response to reports of an unruly passenger aboard AirTran Flight 39, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement.
The passenger had become belligerent and refused to leave the restroom, airline spokesman Tad Hutcheson told CNN on Friday. The passenger appeared to be intoxicated, he said.
And what good is a Christmas wish from scaredpoet.com without our traditional dose of awkward Christmas moments?
Right up our alley: sketchysantas.com. Really folks, not EVERY Santa is entirely golden, and this site certainly points that out. This is dedicated to all of those people out there who’ve had an awkward Santa moment.
And whatever holiday you celebrate around this time of year, we hope it was awesome, and that an awesome new year awaits you.
Part of my ritualistic Monday night House-viewing is turning on the TV and setting it to FOX, just to make sure I don’t miss a second of brilliance. This, of course, has its downsides, as I start cooking for House night around 7 (yes, an hour early), and FOX airs plenty of garbage before House comes on. The particular garbage I’m referring to in this instance happens to be The Insider. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it’s a way to keep up with the latest stupid shit celebrities are getting themselves into. All with a running commentary.
I feel I should clarify something before I continue: I do not care about the lives of celebrities, generally speaking. Yes, it is unfortunate when one of them drops over dead. However, it’s no more important to me than the dozens of people in the obituaries every single day. The rest is just them leading lives with considerably more money than the rest of us, oftentimes doing things considerably more ass-backwards than most of us (there are stupid people in every walk of life, so I can’t justify saying celebrities are dumber than everyone else).
Now, digression aside, I normally tune this out and focus on not burning my food (or setting the apartments on fire), but I heard mention of actual news on there this past Monday. News that, on its own, had already sent me into a fit of rage. The whole thing about the Salahis crashing a party at the White House. We’ll get to my thoughts on that in a minute, though. Needless to say, my attention was grabbed away from the task at hand to see what these nitwits could possibly have to say on the matter shy of “Oh, at least they were dressed nice but that was wrong.” Sure enough, they ended up debating whether or not the Salahis should be thrown in jail for this. Oh, but it gets better. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember not too long ago, when there was a huge fervor over warrantless wiretapping? Back in the bad old days of the Bush Administration (and maybe even today), Verizon and AT&T willingly participated in permitting the NSA to monitor communications traffic on their networks, without the need for silly little things like, oh, search warrants and due process. And boy, everyone sure got all in a huff when they found out! Despite it being an extension of legislation hurriedly rushed into law to appease a panicky public, the citizenry refused (as they often do) to look at themselves in the mirror for being panicky petes, and instead the “Big Two” carriers mentioned above got the brunt of the public’s ire. Lawsuits were threatened and all kinds of punishments were dreamed up for the corporate actors in this conspiracy, all while the Bush administration pretty much got shrugged off by the general public for, well, doing what they always did.
Another company to get a pass was Sprint. You just didn’t hear about what their involvement might’ve been.
But it looks like now more than ever, surveillance is alive and well, and Sprint is making it incredibly easy for Law Enforcement to find out where any use of their network might be. So easy in fact, that Law Enforcement has tracked the wherabouts of Sprint users more than 8 million times in the past year alone!
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers’ (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. This massive disclosure of sensitive customer information was made possible due to the roll-out by Sprint of a new, special web portal for law enforcement officers. The evidence documenting this surveillance program comes in the form of an audio recording of Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance, who described it during a panel discussion at a wiretapping and interception industry conference, held in Washington DC in October of 2009.
The evidence documenting this surveillance program comes in the form of an audio recording of Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance, who described it during a panel discussion at a wiretapping and interception industry conference, held in Washington DC in October of 2009.
My copy of “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” occupies a space on my desk that is exclusive to it. Nothing else I own is permitted to take up its space, although my copy of “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac” seems rather intent on doing so when I’m not paying good enough attention. I regard the Hitchhiker’s books in the way that rabid Tolkien fans froth over the “Lord of the Rings” books (and I should note that there is nothing wrong with this).
Now, as I have a Borders card and a Barnes & Noble membership, I receive plenty of e-mails from each. Barnes & Noble at least has the sense to tempt me with coupons that will invariably result in me spending a considerable amount of cash that I would otherwise not be willing to part with. However, I digress. One such e-mail, not too long ago, arrived during one of my late-night Stumble!Upon sessions. I opened it up, curious to see what Borders thought I should buy, so that I may laugh at how wrong it was, only to see this:
My immediate response consisted of something to the tune of, “What the [expletive removed] is this?” Having never read any of the “Artemis Fowl” books, I had no idea who Eoin Colfer is. However, as I have some level of reading skills, I can tell it isn’t “Douglas Adams”, and this is what I take issue with.
Let’s participate in a hypothetical exercise. Imagine taking your copy of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, in whatever incarnation that you own it in. Now grip it by the spine and hold it so the open side of the book is parallel to the floor. See that? It’s a book so laden with brilliance that it drips from the pages. Now, if you actually did this, and your copy is as well-loved as my original copy, you may also see some pages fall out.
As I have not read any of Eoin Colfer’s writing, I’ve had to depend on what I hear from others. The “Artemis Fowl” books have been deemed the apparent heir to “Harry Potter”, which I found enjoyable enough. Sure, I imagine that the final installment in the series could be classified as a potentially lethal weapon, but this is beside the point.
Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I would love to know what made Eoin Colfer even think to add to Douglas Adams’ masterpiece that is The Guide. Writing a fantasy series reminiscent of Harry Potter qualifies him to complete this task no more than my ranting about George W. Bush in the past qualified me to be President (though it should be noted that I have already bestowed the title of “Emperor of the Mother-Effin’ Known Universe” upon myself).
There are two authors I feel are even slightly qualified to undertake this task, which I feel was surely botched in “And Another Thing…” and those would be Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Perhaps Neil Gaiman moreso, although I’m willing to concede both writers are far better alternatives. I am willing to admit that I could be entirely wrong here, mind you, which is historical enough on its own.
I’ve asked for this book for Christmas, and intend to buy it should I not receive it that way. I’m going to give it a chance, despite wanting to find Eoin Colfer and beat him with this book. Maybe it’ll be good. Or maybe I’m right.
