August 8, 2007 by karateexplosions.

After September 11, airlines began to crack down on what you can and cannot bring on board a plane in your carry-on baggage. Definitely no box cutters. No knives or guns or anything like that, either. Or scissors. Or nail clippers, for some reason. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), thought they had everything covered. But then along comes bug-eyed Richard Reed with a bomb in his shoe.

How did this happen? How did Richard Reed get on the plane with a bomb in his shoe? The folks at the TSA asked themselves those same questions and figured it out: “Bomb inside shoe” wasn’t on the list. “Oh well,” sighed the TSA, “those rascally terrorists got us this time.”

So they added a whole bunch of things to the list and started making people take off their shoes, thinking they had the problem solved. They would eventually add a bunch more things to the list as time progressed. Now, the list looks something like this:

TSA LIST OF THINGS YOU CAN’T TAKE ON AN AIRPLANE

• Knives
• Box Cutters
• Ice Axes
• Ice Picks
• Meat Cleavers
• Sabers
• Swords
• Baseball Bats
• Bows and Arrows
• Cricket Bats
• Golf Clubs
• Hockey Sticks
• Lacrosse Sticks
• Pool Cues
• Ski Poles
• Spear Guns
• Flare Guns
• Starter Pistols
• Just Guns in General, Basically
• Axes
• Hatchets
• Cattle Prods
• Crowbars
• Hammers
• Drills
• Drill Bits
• Saws
• Construction Equipment in General
• Pepper Spray
• Nunchakus
• Stun Guns
• Throwing Stars
• Dynamite
• Fireworks
• Hand Grenades
• Plastic Explosives in Shoes
• Plastic Explosives not in Shoes
• Gasoline
• Torches
• Tear Gas

Then last year they banned toothpaste, hair gel, mouthwash, shampoo, hand sanitizer, lotion, Jello, pudding, and anything else gel- or liquid-related that was in a container larger than 3 ounces.

The TSA sat back, smugly and admired their list. “I think we got it covered, boys and girls!” they cheered. “Nobody’s gonna get anything past us. We really though it through this time. People bringing ice picks, cattle prods, meat cleavers, and drill bits alike will be stopped by our Awesome TSA List. We thought of EVERYTHING!”

But they didn’t think of everything. They forgot one very important item.

• Monkey hiding under hat

A man flying was taken into custody by police at New York’s LaGuardia Airport because as he was sitting on the plane from Fort Lauderdale, a small monkey called a marmoset crawled out from under his hat. Apparently the monkey was better-behaved than most children on airline flights, but it was placed into quarantine to ensure it was not carrying some weird tropical monkey herpes or something. You can read the story here.

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On hearing the news, a TSA official reportedly responded, “Well, that’s just great. I guess now we’ll be making everybody take off their hats at the same time they are taking their shoes off. In fact, you know what? How about everybody just disrobes completely before walking through the metal detectors? Make it easy for everybody, and it’ll save an awful lot of time in our special extra-security ‘rubber glove’ line.”

Insiders at the TSA indicate that tiny monkeys will also likely be banned from handbags, briefcases, and coat pockets when new procedures are completed.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous | 92 Comments »

August 7, 2007 by karateexplosions.

EDITOR’S NOTE: From time to time, “KE: The Blog” will feature public service announcements from prominent guest commentators seeking to enhance the public safety, possibly as a condition of their probation. The following is one such public service announcement.

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Imagine that one fine July day you decide that it is a good day to go for a walk in the park. So you drive to the park and get out of your car, excited about the nice walk in the park you are going to take. But suddenly you realize that you have to go to the bathroom very badly. So you head to the park’s public men’s restroom (for the purpose of this hypothetical situation, you are a guy).

At some point, you discover that someone else is in the stall next to you. You discover this fact the same way ALL men in a public restroom figure out if someone is in another stall — by peeking over the stall door and making eye contact with the stall’s occupant.

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Here is where things get a little tricky from a self-defense standpoint. If the guy you just made eye contact with is a physically intimidating big black guy, you cannot just peek over the door of his stall, make eye contact, and then just walk away. It would be rude, and he might pummel you. The best thing to do in this situation is to make eye contact with him again, this time by looking through the door.

If he greets you, then you must engage him in conversation. A polite “hi” should be enough to keep him from beating you to death.

At this point, you are faced with an unfortunate choice. If you leave now, the big intimidating black guy may feel that you are snubbing him. He may pursue you out of the men’s room and savagely pound on you until you are just another statistic of big black man violence. The only other option is for you to enter his stall, close the door behind you, and say, “This is kind of a public place, isn’t it?” This will remind the big black man that you are in a public restroom and that other people might be around, which should keep you from becoming just another statistic.

Hopefully that will work and you will be safe. However, if he says, “Do you have somewhere else we can go?”, this is bad news. It means he wants to go to a more secluded spot with you, where he will probably lose control of his big aggressive black man self and kill you for no reason.

After your life gets done flashing before your eyes, you must face the reality that there is only one thing you can do in this situation. Every martial arts expert or self-defense guru — such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or Chuck Norris — will all give you the same advice I am giving you now:

IF YOU SEE A BIG BLACK GUY IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM AND YOU DON’T WANT HIM TO KILL YOU, YOU MUST OFFER TO GIVE HIM $20 AND A BLOWJOB.

Now, I am sure that there will be people out there who say, “But Representative Allen, what makes you think that every random black guy who happens to be in a public restroom would want a blowjob from an ignorant-ass white hick state representative like yourself?” To those people, I will only say that they don’t call me ‘Hoover’ just because I support Republican economic policies that would leave people standing in line for bread and living in tent cities, OR because I like to wear fluffy dresses and lace stockings, if you know what I mean.

So there you have it. If a big black man is in the restroom with you, do not panic. Simply follow these basic life-saving steps:

1. Peek over the stall door at him and make eye contact.
2. Look at him through the stall door and make eye contact again.
3. Enter the stall door and close it behind you.
4. Engage him in conversation.
5. Verbally acknowledge that a public restroom is a public place.
6. Offer to give the big black man $20 and a blowjob.

The life you save may be your own.

Bob Allen is a Republican member of Florida’s State House of Representatives. He is currently awaiting trial on charges of soliciting prostitution stemming from an incident in which Rep. Allen offered a big black police officer in a public restroom $20 to have oral sex. He has a staunchly anti-gay voting record and sponsored legislation to strengthen laws against public sex, lewdness and indecency.

Posted in Scandals, Hypocrisy, Satire, Humor, Politics, Current Events | 56 Comments »

August 6, 2007 by karateexplosions.

At this point, there can be no doubt that the Bush administration supports the troops more than anyone. They give them training, they give them weapons, they give them explosives and body armor and money. The problem is that I’m referring to the insurgent troops.

The US has lost track of about 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces since the 2003 invasion, some of which will have ended up in the hands of insurgents, according to an official report published in Washington. Among the missing items are AK-47 rifles, pistols, body armour and helmets.

Keep in mind that there are approximately 160,000 troops in Iraq now, which means that we have lost more weapons than we have troops in Iraq. And did you catch that last part about the body armor? Well, guess how OUR troops are getting the body armor they need?

Still, she tried to remain supportive of her son and his fellow Marines. She helped organize a local bake sale that raised $4,000 for body armor to send over to Iraq.

At least the Bush administration supports SOMEBODY’S troops.

Posted in Iraq, Outrages, Politics, Current Events | 4 Comments »

August 4, 2007 by karateexplosions.

MSNBC now has an interactive map of the United States which allows you to see a more detailed, graphical view of the data I presented yesterday concerning structurally deficient bridges. The map also includes data on functionally obsolete bridges and has a feature which allows you to click on your state and see a county-by-county list of deficient and obsolete bridges nationwide.

Click on the map to open the interactive graphic on MSNBC.com.

One point to keep in mind about the list is that structurally deficient bridges are those in need of repairs and/or weight restrictions, while functionally obsolete means that a bridges physical properties don’t meet the standards for today’s traffic (i.e. lanes too narrow, not built to withstand today’s traffic volume, etc.). The bridges are also rated on a 0 to 100 scale, with 50 percent being the threshold at which a bridge most likely needs to be replaced. The Minneapolis bridge that collapsed August 1 was rated at exactly that 50 percent mark.

Posted in Current Events | No Comments »

August 2, 2007 by karateexplosions.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has been on the media several times in the past 24 hours repeating something that he hopes will save him against critics who are already pointing out that he vetoed key transportation and infrastructure legislation. The mantra goes something like this: “The bridge passed inspections in 2005 and 2006.” First of all, I am by no means a civil engineer or bridge expert, but my 2007 inspection of the bridge on my television screen (this is the Bill Frist diagnostic method) indicates that it is failing its current inspection, being that much of it is in the Mississippi River, along with scores of automobiles and a number of people who divers are still attempting to “recover”.

Second, it reminds me of a bit that Mitch Hedberg does. Something to the effect of:

I rent a lot of cars, but I don’t always know everything about them. So a lot of times, I drive for like ten miles with the emergency brake on. That doesn’t say a lot for me, but it really doesn’t say a lot for the emergency brake.

That the bridge collapsed in spite of allegedly passing inspections in 2005 and 2006 does not say much for the bridge, but it really doesn’t say a lot for the bridge inspections. Of course, the next logical question to be asking is this: If this bridge collapsed after passing inspections, what other “Passed Inspection” bridges are out there ready to collapse into the Mississippi River, the Ohio River, the Missouri River, the Columbia River, the Colorado River, Snake River, etc?

As has been mentioned several times in the media, the I-35W Mississippi River bridge was deemed “Structurally Deficient” by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration. So how many other bridges in the United States fit into that category? In 2006, the number was that 73,764 bridges were considered Structurally Deficient. According to the Department of Transportation, “structurally deficient” means that the bridge has elements that need corrective action. The following table breaks it down by state:

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In addition to the bridges rated structurally deficient, 80,226 bridges in the United States are considered “Functionally Obsolete”, which means that they have elements such as lanes or shoulders which are too narrow for today’s traffic.

So where’s all the bridge construction money? You know where.

Posted in Politics, Current Events | 182 Comments »

August 2, 2007 by karateexplosions.

It’s currently a chilly 102 degrees Fahrenheit at 11:00 PM local time in Baghdad but it may get as low as 89 degrees before the night is over. In Baghdad tomorrow, the forecast is for a brisk 116 degrees Fahrenheit — perfect temperatures for American foot patrols with full gear on. The low tomorrow night will be a crisp 89 once again, so I hope the American troops brought their windbreakers. Luckily, members of the Iraqi parliament will not have to worry about this cold snap, because they will be at the Crawford ranch clearing brush took the month of August off.

Oh yeah, and once again… many Iraqis only get one hour of electricity per day.

Posted in Politics, Current Events, Miscellaneous | No Comments »

August 2, 2007 by karateexplosions.

With the tragic events of last night’s Minneapolis bridge collapse during rush hour still dominating the news, some reporters and media personalities have begun asking the obvious questions of whether this disaster should have been foreseeable and whether the I-35W bridge disaster is just a horrible freak accident or a bellwether of things to come. A May 2006 Downtown Minneapolis Freeway Study has this to say:

I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, Industry Square/Washington Ave. Interchange (south of the River), and SE University Ave.–4th Street Inter-change (north of the River)—This area includes an important bridge over the Mississippi River that will need to be reconstructed or replaced in the coming years; it also includes interchanges with important local arterials near each end of the bridge.

But structural bridge repairs had been delayed as Minnesota legislators attempting to pass a gasoline tax to fund bridge repairs such as this one were met with veto threats by Republican governor Tim Pawlenty. When the legislature finally did pass funding initiative, Pawlenty made good on his veto threat. As Dr. David Levinson, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota and part-time blogger going by the name of “The Transportationist“, noted:

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty recently vetoed a legislature-passed increase in the gas tax that could have raised money to repair bridges like this one. The latest gas tax would not have solved this problem, but previous taxes that were not passed (due in part to Pawlenty’s previous veto threat) may have, had the money been spent on this kind of thing.

But Governor Pawlenty is only part of the problem. For years, the Republican administration and Republican Congress have slashed funding for state programs and projects — projects including critical infrastructure maintenance, repair, and replacement.

Instead, a large amount of our federal dollars have gone to the war in Iraq. The Iraq War was a voluntary war; a completely optional military action. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, was not involved with al Qaeda, and had nothing to do with 9/11. Our sanctions had impoverished, sickened and starved the population and they were not a threat to anyone — much less the biggest superpower in the history of the world.

$450 BILLION later, Iraq is a total disaster. Al Qaeda has resurged in popularity and influence as a result of our actions, and are able to operate relatively unmolested while U.S. troops remain pinned down in the middle of a sectarian civil war. And after five years of trying to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure — some of which we destroyed in the first place, some of which has been attacked by insurgents as a result of our presence — many Iraqis still only receive one hour of electricity per day. One hour of electricity in 130 degree heat.

So what could that $450 billion have bought us if we weren’t pissing it away on an unnecessary war? Well, first of all, levees in New Orleans. According to a Washington Post article from 2006, the cost to rebuild the New Orleans levees to federal standards (there’s a scary phrase, “federal standards”) was $10 billion — “and there might not be enough money to fully protect the region”.
So we spend the $10 billion out of the $450 billion and that leaves us with $440 billion. So now what could we buy? How about a new I-35W bridge? Though I don’t know exactly how much it will cost to clean up and rebuild the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, I can compare some bridge construction proposals over in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Kentucky where an 8-lane major interstate bridge in or near a large metropolitan area would cost approximately $1 billion.

So that leaves $439 billion left over. What’s next? Well, we could just build 439 more eight-lane metropolitan interstate bridges over the Mississippi just for the hell of it. But that’s probably not necessary. Maybe we should spend the money to renovate and repair other critical bridges and avoid a situation like this one happening. According to The American Society of Civil Engineers, it will cost $9.4 billion per year for 20 years to “eliminate all bridge deficiencies”. That’s $188 billion (not adjusting for inflation), leaving us $251 billion in change.

So what can you buy with $251 billion? Well, you could hire a $1 billion hooker for each Republican member of Congress and hope to get them to resign in shame and humiliation. Either that, or give 12 million students four-year college scholarships. Head Start for 33 million kids. Two million public housing units.

No amount of money can give us yesterday to do over again. It can only prevent yesterday from happening again tomorrow. And no amount of money could restore our national dignity if the richest nation on Earth allowed our critical infrastructure to literally fall around our ears. 99 days out of 100, “national infrastructure” is one of the most politically un-sexy topics out there. If we are to act on what we know, we must do it now, while people are finally, but no doubt briefly, paying attention.

Posted in Iraq, Outrages, Politics, Current Events | No Comments »

August 1, 2007 by karateexplosions.

A major interstate bridge connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul over the Mississippi River has collapsed, sending approximately 50 cars into the river and injuring scores of people. As of this writing, seven are confirmed dead but that number is all but certain to rise. The collapse occurred during rush hour and traffic was heavy due to regular commuter traffic as well as traffic related to a Minnesota Twins baseball game going on approximately a mile from the bridge.

Something to keep in mind as this disaster unfolds: There is a lot of critical infrastructure in this country in dire need of repair. Levees, steam pipes, bridges… these stories will continue to pile up until our infrastructure becomes a priority in this country. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimate that it would cost $1.6 TRILLION to update our country’s infrastructure. According to National Priorities Project, the unnecessary Iraq war has cost this country $450 BILLION so far — $450 billion that could have be used to repair the most critical of our infrastructure.

To donate to the Twin Cities Red Cross: (612) 460-3700

Red Cross Family/Friend Hotline:  (612) 871-7676

Posted in Current Events | No Comments »