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Saturday Night Open Thread

By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 09:53:08 PM EST
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National Opt-Out day: If you're flying Wednesday, will you refuse the scan? Here's the latest: A bladder cancer survivor is left soaking in his own urine after a humiliating pat-down.

Anyone online tonight? If so, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

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    Saturday Night Open Thread | 26 comments (26 topical)

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    Just left this in the last OT (5.00 / 3) (#1)
    by nycstray on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 10:10:13 PM EST
    about my conversation tonight with my mom. I was really surprised she was checking out the TSA site. And she wasn't wimpy a$$d when she said why she was checking and that she wasn't going to fly. Again, I will say I was really surprised. It was fun relating my college experience when some a-hole tried to cop a cr*tch feel in a bar and I decked him down to her :) Apparently, we are on the same "don't touch me there" page :-P And we won't even go the radiation/virtual strip route.

    Road Trips!!!!

    Hey!!!!~ Let's hear it for High-Speed Rail Projects!!!!

    Sadly, the airline industry isn't responsible (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Inspector Gadget on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 10:35:17 PM EST
    for this, but they are the ones who will suffer the most for it. It's almost as though the ones pulling the strings and holding the cards want to destroy the travel industry.


    Parent
    you're right (5.00 / 2) (#9)
    by nycstray on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:46:46 PM EST
    it isn't the airlines, and that is exactly why my mom was searching TSA. She has figured out she can't leave from any Bay Area airport without a violation of her body/rights to visit what's left of her existing family and/or return home without the same violations.

    It's one thing when I'm on a rant, but my mom  checking all area airports with no immediate trip planned?! O.M. Dawg . . . . but that is one of the reasons why I love her :)

    Parent

    Here's another event bound to (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by oculus on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 10:50:13 PM EST
    anger the flying public, and, who knows, maybe even our federal government?  Woman must show prosthetic breast to TSA

    Clueless Obama (5.00 / 0) (#8)
    by dissenter on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:38:47 PM EST
    So they bring up the TSA subject in Lisbon and he says understands Americans are "frustrated" and "inconvenienced" by the process...which he admits he has never been forced to endure.

    Like most things, he seems to miss the main point! Does the WH read the newspapers??????

    Condencsed Hoyer: (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by ruffian on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 09:57:54 AM EST
    Bring the juries to Gitmo too! It's a Carribean island, not a gulag!

    Lol, thanksnSteny, I needed that.

    On a happier note, I am driving (none / 0) (#4)
    by oculus on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 10:52:34 PM EST
    (probably in the rain) to Walt Disney Hall for:  (1) Salonen's return to conduct L.A. Philharmonic, (2)Midori recital, and (3) Bryn Terfel singing Schumann's "Liederkreis," with the excellent Malcolm Martineau at the piano.  

    Tutoree update re science fair project. (none / 0) (#5)
    by oculus on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:07:44 PM EST
    He was stymied (and sd. he was feeling "helpless") re assembling the necessary equipment.  Got the springs.  Thanks to The Google we found an apparatus package which looks like it may solve the equipment problem.  Yeah!

    Joshua went through (none / 0) (#11)
    by Militarytracy on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 06:38:30 AM EST
    several periods of being overwhelmed.  He loved altering the guns and doing the actual experiment though.  But getting all the materials together overwhelmed him too.  He needed to turn in a report the week before the whole project too and that overwhelmed him until about halfway through.  Putting the whole thing together on the story board did too.  Since his hands have such a hard time cutting we relied on a papercutter.  And he backed his photos and his data printed out from the computer with poster board that was in the Nerf gun colors of yellow, neon orange, and neon green.  A lot of kids have those cricut cutters in their households now, and I saw some great fonts and letters cut out using them.  Not having one did not seem to impede Joshua though.  He printed out his data using bright orange and green in places too.  I got him one of these Elmer's no wrinkle glue pens too for gluing down large sheets of the paper and it worked great.  He used it for the whole project but it was used up before we were all done, and he finished using a regular glue stick that started out purple but dried clear....can't remember the make of it.  It did  hold up to the bitter end as well but it was not doing a lot of the heavy work.

    Parent
    Thanks for the input. Science teacher (none / 0) (#18)
    by oculus on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 10:31:13 AM EST
    didn't answer question re where to get the components.  Kind of surprising.  I suggested to tutoree to ask for help from a man who mentored a high school boy in physics at our tutoring site for a month of so. Hope this man will give some well-needed advice as I don't remember learning about Hooke's Law in high school physics.  

    Parent
    I used this place for my son's science fair stuff (5.00 / 1) (#22)
    by Dadler on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 12:10:48 PM EST
    KLM BioScientific. In Clairemont-Mesa next to Superior Court. They were very good.

    Parent
    I missed it. (none / 0) (#6)
    by diogenes on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:17:03 PM EST
    Isn't the point of the revealing scans to be to eliminate the need for pat-downs; if there is a need to identify something strange (e.g. prosthetic breasts) then that can be done without pat-down.  I thought that only those who chose to skip the scan would thus end up having chosen the pat-down.  I might be missing the whole point here.

    no (none / 0) (#20)
    by Jen M on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 11:17:19 AM EST
    they pull people out of line after they have been through the scanners. You know, if they have medical implants and such. So those with a medical history not only get the extra radiation they get the humiliation of having prosthetics removed and seals on stomas broken.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news

    Parent

    When I do fly.... (none / 0) (#7)
    by Ben Masel on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:17:50 PM EST
    "How about if I just take my clothes off?"

    You could (none / 0) (#12)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 07:15:43 AM EST
    do the commercial for Blue Fly!

    Parent
    Women in Ukraine (none / 0) (#13)
    by MO Blue on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 07:49:05 AM EST
    staging bare breasted protests. I guess you could do a bare a$$ protest.

    Parent
    Hooray for austerity (none / 0) (#10)
    by andgarden on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 11:48:21 PM EST
    in Ireland!

    Mr. Rice, 25, is in training to become an electrician, but he would have trouble getting his license here -- there are so few jobs that he cannot log the required hours. His brother has won awards as an electrician, and even he cannot find work, Mr. Rice said.

    Ms. Neary, 22, just finished her training as a midwife. But because of austerity measures the national health system is unlikely to hire anyone soon. She takes temporary work when she can get it. Some weeks, she will get called to cover for three shifts. But other weeks, none.

    "Things here are not going anyplace," Mr. Rice said recently. "This place is just stuck."
    Yes, I keep wondering why it (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Anne on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 09:04:48 AM EST
    is that the geniuses who design our monetary and economic policy - including the deficit hysterics who are screaming loudest of all - think there are no lessons to be learned by other countries' decisions to go austere.

    Am guessing this:

    "Oh, this is America - that can't happen here!"

    is probably why.  Just as "uniquely American" was the reason we were somehow going to take the existing health system model and somehow make it work like never before just by rearranging it a little.

    At some point, "uniquely American" is going to be code for "incredibly stupid."

    Parent

    Because they live in the banker bonus (5.00 / 1) (#23)
    by BackFromOhio on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 12:50:41 PM EST
    etc bubble - don't feel the squeeze, so no incentive to find effective solutions.    

    Parent
    I think "uniquely American" is (none / 0) (#15)
    by observed on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 09:40:52 AM EST
     defined by much of the world by the ability to kill vast numbers of brown people, mostly civilians, whilst patting ourselves on the back  for being morally superior. As I've said before, our denial about having a military empire is the salient aspect of our national schizophrenia. Sure, the tribute goes to the bankers and oilmen, but it is still tribute.Brilliant Silber piece

    Parent
    Austerity (none / 0) (#24)
    by CoralGables on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 01:25:06 PM EST
    isn't what caused Ireland's problem. It's huge deficits and bankruptcy.

    Parent
    It's how Ireland has responded to (5.00 / 1) (#26)
    by Anne on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 04:48:54 PM EST
    those deficits that tells the tale...it has chosen to choke off spending and rather than helping, it is hurting.

    Are we going to learn anything, or aren't we?

    I'm guessing we will decide that somehow, we can do the same thing Ireland and Greece have done, but with different results.

    Parent

    Flying with medical device: (none / 0) (#17)
    by the capstan on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 10:28:18 AM EST
    Back in the early 80's, I used a TENS unit when traveling.  Since that item has wires and a battery, I checked with the airlines.  I was told to bring a doctor's report on my need, plus some literature about the device's function.  Generally, I got thru without attracting attention because I did not wear the control till I was at my gate.  But at one German airport, their wand discovered the wires and I was more closely examined.  But my backup was always the doctor's statement and the device's literature.

    I recently read the TSA info for travelers with medical disabilities.  The gentleman had some rights he did not insist on.  Know, THEN go!

    Know, THEN go! (5.00 / 2) (#19)
    by Rojas on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 10:52:30 AM EST
    Is all very nice, but many of these folks are not going to be Internet savvy. The level of training of the typical screener is deplorable and is directly responsible for some very callous behavior to the elderly and people with disabilities. It's a GD national travesty.

    Parent
    Re the upcoming Spielberg (none / 0) (#21)
    by brodie on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 11:32:25 AM EST
    movie on Lincoln, I'm fine with Daniel D-L as Abe and suspect he's capable of turning in as good a performance as the older Pres Lincoln as Henry Fonda did in the 1930s with the Young Mr Lincoln (dir: John Ford), which is still the gold standard in Abe depictions on screen.  Though it would be a nifty touch referencing the great Hank Fonda performance if Spielberg could find a way to include son Peter Fonda, say as one of the cabinet members like Stanton or Speed.

    Sally Field also is a good choice as Mary Todd Lincoln, though I'm somewhat already biased in her favor for other reasons.  Great actress and there is that facial resemblance.  Of course some of you would say Elizabeth Edwards has a stronger resemblance, and I would agree, but alas she missed her big chance at screen glory when she chose instead of acting to go into the retail furniture business.

    I kind of liked... (none / 0) (#25)
    by desertswine on Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 03:53:24 PM EST
    whoever it was who played the Lincons on that was Abe Lincoln Honest commercial.

    Parent
    Saturday Night Open Thread | 26 comments (26 topical)

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