PhoneBoy Says

I encountered my first airport naked body scanner while flying out of California today, and of course I decided to "opt out" of the scan. You do this by telling the blue-shirted TSA agents that you simply wish to opt out of the body scanner. Here's what happened after that:

via naturalnews.com

I actually did receive a pat-down once without having to "opt out" of the naked body scanners. It was at Sea-Tac and they didn't have the scanners yet, though I understand they are coming. Apparently, the TSA agent thought my clothes were too loosely fitting and decided I need a quick pat-down. It covered the extremities and my trunk--without the "back of the hand" crotch pat down.

I have only seen the naked body scanners with my own eyes in one place: the International terminals at SFO. At that time, I went through the machine, even though I felt weird doing so. Everything I'm reading suggests I should opt-out, if for no other reason than to stand up for my rights. I'll make sure to arrive extra early so the TSA agents have plenty of time to "screen me."

The only proper functions of government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach and fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.

Too bad there is no government on earth that adheres to these simple rules…

No one else's truth can be Absolute Truth for me. Others can share with me their thoughts, others can give me their ideas, but I have to make up my own mind about what is true for me.

via spiritlibrary.com

"Absolute truth" is defined as inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. For example, it is a fixed, invariable, unalterable fact that there are absolutely no square circles and there are absolutely no round squares. That is because squares and circles are defined by truly objective rules that are not subject to debate.

Absolute Truth in a religious context is generally not objective. Most religions define some things as "unknowable" or that we must accept certain things that we cannot verify with rational thought (i.e. we have to accept it on faith). As Ayn Rand put it in Atlas Shrugged:

They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say—and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge—God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out.

Absolute Truths not based on objective principles are not Absolute Truth, regardless of who--or what--they come from.

The thing that strikes me most about this case is the realization that no one is immune to the stresses and misfortunes of life, but that is not a legal basis for the state to strip us of our rights. That and if a judge won't follow the plainly written law, why should anyone?

via examiner.com

This guy checked with the New Jersey State Police on how he could legally transport his firearms. There are clear statutes regarding how this can be done. He followed them. But yet this judge decided not to inform the jury of these exemptions, and the guy sits in jail, wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit.

If we can't count on our judges to uphold the laws as they are written, not how they might wish them to be written, who can we trust?

Listening to the speeches at Thursday's massive "Get Out the Vote" rally for Sen. Patty Murray (D) at the University of Washington, one was left wondering: Are the politicians here that out of touch with the political zeitgeist? Or are the voters here just that liberal? The answer may lie somewhere in between, but some of rhetoric on display at the event was mindboggling given the political climate in other parts of the country.

via nationalreview.com

It's not really Liberal versus Conservative, it's who gives the best handouts. Our Congress Critters in Washington State do a pretty good job of making sure we get more than our fair share of earmarks, stimulus funds, etc. The problem is: people forget where that money comes from.

The most notable results in the poll came in the question that asked "If the election for the United States Congress were today and the candidates were Republican Doug Cloud and Democrat Norm Dicks, for whom would you vote?" The answer options were "definitely for Cloud, leaning for Cloud, definitely for Dicks, leaning for Dicks, and not sure". Doug Cloud received a combined 609 votes for "definitely for" and "leaning for" while Dicks only received 558 for the 2 answers. 95 were still unsure.

via dougcloud.blogspot.com

Having watched Norm Dicks speak at today's Decision Makers II event, I can see why he's won 17 terms as the congress critter for the 6th Congressional District in Washington State. He talks a good story.

Regardless of how you might feel about Congressman Dicks voting record, 34 years is long enough to be in office. You've served us long enough, Congressman Dicks. Give someone else a chance.

A logging truck accident in Mason County set off a chain reaction that left all of Gig Harbor and surrounding areas in the dark Thursday evening.

The crash along U.S. 101 knocked down a power pole and some very powerful transmission lines. In turn, that caused an outage in the transmission systems at Tacoma Power's Cushman Generation Project, which serves all of Peninsula Light's customers.

The power started being restored around 7 p.m. with most back online by 8 pm.

via gigharbor.komonews.com

It started with the power going out briefly in Starbucks during my usual afternoon outing. Then I came home to discover we were entirely without power. To make life even more fun, our generator didn't work due to a failure in the carburetor. It made for an interesting evening until the power came back online at about 7pm.

I do wonder what all the helicopters and sirens were about, though. Nothing in any of the local news sources about that.

"We protested when the government ran up trillions of dollars of debt. We sent e-mails when they nationalized health care. We asked them to get off the backs of small business so we could create jobs. We pleaded with our government to secure our border. And you know what? They heard us, and yet they ignored us. And folks, on Nov. 2, they will ignore us no more."

via nationalreview.com

This has to be one of the best campaign ads I've ever seen. Simple, direct, and it doesn't attack anyone in particular other than whoever's in office now.

On the other hand, it also doesn't promise anything, so the candidate has nothing to live up to. That makes the ad perfect :)