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DHS Budget Includes No New Airport Body Scanners
OverTheGeicoE writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been examining the White House's proposed budget for Department of Homeland Security for 2013, and they point out that it doesn't include any money for additional airport body scanners for TSA. Did the recent scandal involving TSA workers targeting women for scans make the White House realize that TSA is a national embarrassment? Does the executive branch finally understand the questionable safety and effectiveness of these devices? Or does DHS just think it has enough scanners once TSA installs the 250 new scanners in this year's budget?"
It's a step in the right direction, though if you ask me only the full, outright abolition of this pathetic, unconstitutional joke of an agency qualifies as "enough." It'll be "fun" to see what kind of tantrum Chief Molester Pistole throws about being denied his latest batch of toys. Here's hoping Congress tells him to shut up and be thankful he got any money at all. Why they don't just strip all funding from TSA at this point is beyond me.
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The new DHS budget should include no money for the TSA, period. The whole organization is an ineffective, Constitutional-rights breaking embarrassment and a waste of money.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Seriously? In a country where reality TV is king and our presedential candidates are in the pockets of corporations, the last thing the US cares about is embarrassment.
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Or does DHS just think it has enough scanners once TSA installs the 250 new scanners in this year's budget?
Probably that one. It's not like they're going to --GASP-- spend less money by not buying full body scanners. They're just going to spend that money on other stupid stuff.
Porquoi?
Basic horse riding is pretty trivial and could be learned in an afternoon with additional solo practice after the fact. Training/taming a horse on the other hand, is the real problem.
Learning to ride a horse is thoroughly enjoyable. You should try it.
Also -- they're not actually all that efficient when you consider the massive quantities of food and space they need to live in.
-GiH
Really? I'm pretty sure most Americans could ride a horse. We all managed quite well 200 years ago. I grew up riding horses; it's not hard. It's more about communication -- learning what signals the horse is giving you, and how to properly give signals to the horse.
I have to take exception to this "Americans are dumb" sentiment. Americans are vastly undereducated on the whole -- both in an institutional context and a cultural/parental one -- but they are no more or less intelligent than any other country's inhabitants. They are never inspired to push themselves, to be challenged, to learn. In fact, American culture has come to think of intelligence as "uncool" -- a frightening development. That's why what's going on in our country is such a tragedy. But saying the average American is not intelligent enough to ride a horse -- that's just elitism.
Yup, my grandma had a ranch and boarded horses for a living before she passed away.
Stallions aren't reasonable like men are. You get a few men in with a few women and the men'll at least bargain on which woman each is gonna get. No so with stallions, you put even equal parts stallion in with equal parts mare and you're gonna have a lot of head-jerking, stomping, risking possible injury.
You gotta read a horse's body language, their ears. A horse may be fine with you, but they will dominate and be disobedient to other riders until they break 'em. Horses aren't cats. These are large animals, symbols of pure strength and stamina, that'll kick your jaw off and go off running.
Having spent a lot of time on a horse ranch in my youth, I learned how to have the most fun with horses: wait until they piss, so their penises are dropped, and shoot 'em in their swingin' dicks with a BB gun from outside the corral. Doesn't cause damage and leads to much whoopin' and hollerin' as the horse takes off. Cap the night off with some of granny's old mint schnapps (at age 13) and good times were had for all.
Oh, the budget will get amended to include them after the elections. Political donors are invested in the company from which the government buys the machines. First rule of an election year is to understand that anything said, promised or done in favor of the citizens is an attempt to buy their votes. Once the citizens have cast the votes bought by the politicians (foolishly believing anything a politician said), everything will resume it's normal path of securing more power for the government and funneling more money to politically-connected donors.
Learning to ride a horse is thoroughly enjoyable. You should try it.
I'm sure it is. I just know that riding a horse is one thing, truly understanding it is another, and long term care another still. If people took care of horses in the same way they do their cars the horse would be dead in a month.
Also -- they're not actually all that efficient when you consider the massive quantities of food and space they need to live in.
Are you talking about the horses or the humans? :)
"Could ride a horse" and "could ride a horse great distances" are very different things.
I have family that has horses, so I occasionally ride. But, I get terribly sore, even if I'm just out an hour. If I had to use one daily, it would take a while to get accustomed to it.
As far as the generalizations about Americans, I believe they too are unfair. There is a growing segment of the population who expects to always depend on welfare and food stamps, but on the whole, I'd still put us up against any other nation.
I grew up in a small rural town in the heartland, but still felt like the sky was the limit for what I could be/do. I've been on missions trips to other countries, and their provincial/rural areas are entirely different. Those born in rural areas of most other countries have no hope of education, and and rarely have the opportunity of doing anything different than their parents before them.
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short of a complete takeover by Republicans
Eh? It was republicans that created the TSA.
Training/taming a horse on the other hand, is the real problem.
Heh, well, I've broken horses before. You just have to know how to do it.
It's fairly simple: as you're starting to lose your seat, you will notice that one of your arms starts flailing. It is at this point that you must make a quick maneuver; I've found that pushing the left stick in the opposite direction as you're falling, will keep you on the horse. After about 10 to 30 seconds of this (depending on the top speed of said horse), you'll hear a victory noise and the camera will spin around, and the horse is yours.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The French built the "Maginot Line" of fortifications along their border with Germany--at enormous expense--between World War I and World War II. The Germans simply went around it through Belgium and defeated France in a few days. The TSA is our Maginot Line.
Only in the Bush era could a treasury-looting boondoggle this bad actually go all the way to implementation.
These machines can be defeated by any illiterate petty criminal. Hello... body cavities?
Every actually respectable expert is on record against them, from Bruce Schneier to El Al's former head of security.
This is not just garden variety incompetence. The program was so wildly and thoroughly stupid that it goes beyond negligence into prima facie malicious intent. The bigs from the vendors and the feds on the procurement side should see prison on the grounds of corruption alone. It's no different than selling the army a billion dollars worth of non-working guns or vehicles to pocket the profits. God willing, someday we'll watch the trials on CSpan.
That's leaving aside the laugh-till-you-cry repugnant aspects of what they actually did - which is, let's not sugar coat it, take nude photographs of thousands and thousands of children.
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The real winners are the vendors of scanning equipment, uniforms and staffing companies.
...and the people who made the decision to install the scanners just happen to own shares in those companies.
http://thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/5240-getting-rich-from-the-naked-body-scanners
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