![\"paul's](\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/pauls-grab-bag.jpg\" "\\"paul's")
<\/a><\/p>\nTasers:<\/p>\n
- \n
- This<\/a> seems like good news, and it comes not a moment too soon: “Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use their stun gun simply because the person is disobeying orders or acting erratically, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Monday.”\u00a0 According to Amnesty International<\/a>, nearly 400 people in the USA alone have been killed by police using “non-lethal” Tasers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Northwest Flight 253:<\/p>\n
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- Media reports and government spokesmen keep implying that the “heroic passenger” who climbed over seats to wrestle with failed terrorist\u00a0Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Flight 253<\/a> somehow saved the day.\u00a0 Bullshit.\u00a0 The only thing that saved the day was the bomb’s failure to detonate properly.\u00a0 The heroic passenger reacted to the fire that started when the bomb fizzled.\u00a0 Had the bomb gone off as designed, it would have bought the plane and all its heroic passengers down on metropolitan Detroit with many additional ground casualties.<\/li>\n
- This is not to belittle the fire Umar started in his britches, of course.\u00a0 Fire in an airliner cabin is deadly serious business, but it was flight attendants who put it out, not the heroic passenger.<\/li>\n
- Another common media response to the latest attempted terror bombing, particularly in reaction to new TSA rules, has been to belittle the seriousness of other terror plots and attempts since 9\/11.\u00a0 You know . . . the shoe bomber was an idiot (and look how stupid he appears in that mug shot they show over and over); and then there were those dopes who were going to take over Fort Bliss with a pizza delivery truck . . . with terrorists like these, who needs new TSA rules?<\/li>\n
- Am I alone in remembering that there have been several successful terror attacks since 9\/11?\u00a0 There were the anthrax letters, still unsolved.\u00a0 The Madrid train bombings, carried out by Al Queda.\u00a0 The London subway bombings, ditto.\u00a0 Internationally and within the USA, authorities have successfully thwarted several quite serious terror plots.\u00a0 And that idiot shoe bomber could in fact have brought down an airliner over the Atlantic, just as the idiot underwear bomber could have brought down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas day.\u00a0 I don’t think we should be in such a hurry to belittle incompetent terrorists . . . not as long as the only difference between a competent terrorist and an incompetent one is a bomb that works as designed.<\/li>\n
- That doesn’t mean I like the new TSA rules.\u00a0 As I reported here two days ago, I’m seriously consider giving up airline travel altogether<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Recreactional reading:<\/p>\n
- \n
- I’m reading Soul Patch<\/em>, a Moe Prager mystery by Farrel Coleman.\u00a0 I reserved the book at my local library and didn’t notice until I started reading it that they’d given me the large print edition.\u00a0 I cracked the book open at a salad bar yesterday afternoon and was so embarrassed I almost closed it.\u00a0 But then I realized I was surrounded by old people, as one almost always is in Tucson restaurants.\u00a0 And then I had to admit to myself that when old people look at me they see a fellow oldster.\u00a0 So what the hell, I thought, I’ll read it anyway.\u00a0 But it’s like using one of those elevated toilets with grab bars you find at hospitals and rest homes.\u00a0 You just don’t feel right about it.\u00a0 I shouldn’t joke . . . if I somehow manage to stay alive, large print books will surely be part of my future.\u00a0 Old folks’ toilets, too.<\/li>\n
- Anyway, Farrel Coleman just described a high-rise apartment complex built near an abandoned landfill as a “pile of puss.”\u00a0 Surely he didn’t mean puss, as in kitty?\u00a0 How could there be a pile of cat?\u00a0 It doesn’t make sense.\u00a0 Of course he meant “pus” but even that image fails.\u00a0 Pus doesn’t come in piles (thank God).\u00a0 Why didn’t he describe the high-rises as a “pustule”?\u00a0 That would have worked.\u00a0 This will go poorly for Farrel when I get around to reviewing his book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Hair care:<\/p>\n
- \n
- For the past several years I’ve been having my hair cut at a nearby Cost Cutters franchise.\u00a0 Sometimes I get a good barber and sometimes an indifferent one, but the last one was truly awful: she blocked the hair on the back of my head at a 20-degree angle.\u00a0 Normally, when a barber screws up she’ll say “oops,” but this one kept her cool.\u00a0 I should have suspected something when she failed to offer me a hand mirror to check the back, but I was thinking of other things and didn’t notice the lapse.\u00a0 When I got home, Donna started screaming.\u00a0 The hair on the back of my head looked like the hair on the front of Hitler’s head!<\/li>\n
- Donna took me to her hair stylist, Marti, who did what she could to salvage the situation, and now Marti’s my hair stylist too.\u00a0 Of course I pay Marti twice what I paid the ladies at Cost Cutters, but it’s worth it, if only for the luxury of having a set appointment with the same stylist every time.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 I love<\/em> having my beard trimmed!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Tasers: This seems like good news, and it comes not a moment too soon: “Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use their stun gun simply because the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,10,3,16,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-culture","category-current-events","category-flying","category-media","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3378"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3391,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3378\/revisions\/3391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Anyway, Farrel Coleman just described a high-rise apartment complex built near an abandoned landfill as a “pile of puss.”\u00a0 Surely he didn’t mean puss, as in kitty?\u00a0 How could there be a pile of cat?\u00a0 It doesn’t make sense.\u00a0 Of course he meant “pus” but even that image fails.\u00a0 Pus doesn’t come in piles (thank God).\u00a0 Why didn’t he describe the high-rises as a “pustule”?\u00a0 That would have worked.\u00a0 This will go poorly for Farrel when I get around to reviewing his book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Media reports and government spokesmen keep implying that the “heroic passenger” who climbed over seats to wrestle with failed terrorist\u00a0Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Flight 253<\/a> somehow saved the day.\u00a0 Bullshit.\u00a0 The only thing that saved the day was the bomb’s failure to detonate properly.\u00a0 The heroic passenger reacted to the fire that started when the bomb fizzled.\u00a0 Had the bomb gone off as designed, it would have bought the plane and all its heroic passengers down on metropolitan Detroit with many additional ground casualties.<\/li>\n