things and more things

Thing the first: I owe comments, big time. Raise your hand if you're surprised. I'll be doing that tomorrow, but in the interim, THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my post about Matthew's idiocy. I really appreciate the support.

Thing the second: WHY is K-Mart open for seven hours on Thanksgiving day? Pre-Black Friday sale, wtf? You know, a lot of people like to say that gay marriage is the downfall of this country, of civilization, etc., but honestly? I think it's shit like having a major chain store open on what's supposed to be a family day. I'm old enough to remember when nothing was open on Sundays (it was a Big Deal when the malls started being open from noon to five on Sundays), and when you were *damn* lucky to find a gas station and/or convenience store open on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It just really bugs me. Obviously.

Thing the third: We're supposed to have a high of 70F on Thanksgiving; the high on Friday (my birthday! *g*) is supposed to be 36F. o_O

Thing the fourth: I'm incredibly amused by the fact that come Friday, Matthew and I will once again be the same age. See? He's 16, so 1+6=7 and I will be 43, which is 4+3=7. Pretty cool, huh? Yes, I'm a geek, thank you. :)

Thing the fifth: There was a story on the nightly news tonight about a stripper who was raped and physically assaulted. The soundbite before the actual story was just that: a stripper was raped, etc. So I'm expecting a story about some dude who thought he was owed more than just a lapdance or whatever. No. What I got was two women who worked at the same strip club together, one of whom thought the other had stolen (something, money maybe) from her. So she drove to the presumed-thief's house, threatened her at gunpoint, restrained her, stole some money from her, cut her with a sharp object and then sexually assaulted her with said sharp object.

Nice, huh? People really just suck. Period.

okay, this TSA thing

I've been reading this article about the scans/pat-downs, and I got to a paragraph that's confusing the hell out of me:

Pistole pointed out that the pat downs are not mandatory -- passengers receive them only if they opt out of a screening with advanced imaging technology. The technology is the TSA's best effort, he said, to head off attacks like the would-be Christmas Day bomber last year. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan. (the bolding is mine)

If all of this is being ramped up due to that incident, don't they have it kind of backwards? The flight was coming IN TO the US from another country. So the full-body scans and pat-downs at US airports...isn't going to make one bit of difference if the would-be bomber is coming from somewhere NOT here. Right?

And then this: There has never been an explosive found on a flight from one U.S. city to another, Pistole acknowledged. But, he pointed out, domestic terrorists exist -- Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, for instance -- and there are people who want to do the government harm. While America is "fortunate" that such an incident has not occurred on a domestic flight, he said, it could conceivably happen.

Again, I understand the idea that they're presenting, can't be too careful, we've had domestic terrorists, etc., BUT. The three men used as examples had nothing to do with bombs aboard airplanes. Even Kaczynski's bombs -- he sent them to airLINES, but they weren't found on board any flights.

So, anyone want to try and make this make sense for me? Because things just aren't adding up completely for me.

And now I really think I'm going to go to bed. Also? Very glad I'm not traveling and definitely not planning to fly anytime soon.

somehow, I'm really not surprised...

...considering I tend to go fetal, when LJ goes down *g*

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