Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all.

Yep, I can see it now, your body scan will soon be on the web, probably on one of those snarky sites like People of Walmart. Probably called People Who are Dumb Enough to Fly (commercial airlines that is!). Heck, a TV show is probably just around the corner, Americas Funniest Vacationers, or something like that. I’d worry about some nefarious government plot, except as we already know, there are so many government agencies and contractors spying on you that they can’t even coordinate their own efforts. Yep, your privacy is a thing of the past.

TSA's millimeter wave body scan (Credit: TSA.gov)

As Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook would say, “Get over it!”

This morning, I noticed an increase in aircraft near our house and went outside to look. Sure enough, there was an impressive column of smoke rising from the mountains, and all day there was a steady string of air drops by fire bombers. Tonight, the fire has crested the mountains, and there is a line of fire slowly moving down the mountains. Fortunately, it is still a good distance away from our house, and the sparse vegetation does not lend itself to a rapid advance, still, it is disconcerting to see this fire that has been burning for a week making headway.

?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s

Recently it became obvious that we would need to replace our kitchen range. We had already made one service call, and frankly it never heated the oven accurately, often off by 25 – 30 degrees. When we started looking, I was surprised by the few choices of retail outlets for major home appliances. It seems that most of the lolcal stores have disappeared, victims of the big national chains. So, we looked at the big home stores and I decided to also check Sears. Turns out that we found a range at Sears that had everything we were looking for and the price appeared reasonable.We decided to purchase it, and told the floor sales person to ring it up. That’s when the troubles began.

The sales rep said that free delivery and hook was included in the price. Whoops… we are on propane, and that requires a plumber to hook it up, so instead of free delivery, there was a charge. We purchased the range on Thursday, but the first delivery slot available was on Monday. Then at the register, the sales rep said they were heavily booked for deliveries on Monday, and Tuesday would be better. I said “fine”. The sales rep had a hard time entering the sale at their register (rather a POS terminal). She had to ask 2 other reps for help. I wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t mind the wait. BUT, when the transaction was finally completed, the delivery date had now magically slipped to Wednesday. The clerk was at a loss to explain this, and said that “the system” must have assigned the date. Alright, I would wait 7 days for the delivery.

Wednesday arrived. I was somewhat concerned that I had not heard from anyone at Sears concerning my delivery. So, I called the 800 number on my sales receipt. The woman that answered took my area code and phone number and then replied”Sorry, you are not in the system!” Hmmm, I suggested that she should try our old area code and phone number(the area code for our part of New Mexico changed 2 years ago). Ahh yes, there I was, but there was no delivery scheduled in “the system“. I informed the rep on the phone that I had a receipt showing a promised delivery date of that day and I expected to see a range delivered. After a few minutes of waiting, the rep promised to call me back (hopefully at the correct area code). My next call was to the store. Needless to say, our sales person was not available. However my wife spoke to another person who identified them-self as the department manager. This person told us that the 800 number rep did not know what they were talking about. She said that when she looked in “the system“, it clearly showed a scheduled delivery. Surprisingly, the 800 number rep, actually called me back. She said that clearly the store was wrong, but she would work diligently to straighten things out. She said that “hopefully” I would have my range delivered that day. She also assured me that she had changed my phone number in “the system“. After a couple of hours with no update, we called the store back. Our salesperson was still not available, and now, the department manager was too busy to talk to us! The 800 number rep said that our delivery was now in “the system“, and someone had accepted the delivery… but not until tomorrow. I told the rep that if I did not receive the range first thing on Thursday, they could cancel the order and refund my money! I finally received a call from the installer about 5 PM, and he promised to be at our house at 8:00 AM on Thursday. When he did arrive Thursday morning, (about 8:15), he said that we were unlucky to get the sales person we did, and that he had had numerous issues with her.

Well, we have had the range for about a month, and are quite happy with it. Like I said, I like Sears appliances, if only they could get the sales part right. Sadly, this experience is not unique to Sears. I seem to have trouble getting people to take my money on numerous occasions at various retailers. What has happened to retail that they are so totally incompetent any more? Oh, here’s the range, a Kenmore model 7748:

Stay tuned for my Sears sad saga – part 2!

From AOL:

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

I bet you won’t hear this story on the nightly news!!!

Read the full story here:

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1TRfOt1WGI

Also in the mid 1950’s, Sunday night was the Disney show. For those early days of television, Walt Disney had some of the best production values. In 1954 Disney introduced us to Davy Crockett, ‘King of the Wild Frontier’. Crockett was a real historical character that few people had heard of or remembered. I seem to remember that the original was a three episode(per IMDB: ‘Davy Crockett; Indian Fighter’, ‘Davy Crockett Goes to Congress’ and ‘Davy Crockett at the Alamo’) story that followed Davy on his way to the Alamo. Disney chose a tall lanky actor called Fess Parker to play Davy. That show set off a storm of Davy Crockett mania. Before you new it many kids were wearing (fake) coonskin hats. I am proud to say that I never owned one, or even desired to have one. Disney then re-cut the TV shows and released them as a movie. Despite the fact that Crockett died at the Alamo (in fact and on the show), he was too popular to ignore, so Disney made 4 more TV movies with Davy Crockett including the popular ‘Davy Crockett and the River Pirates’. Parker also played the (mostly absent) father in the classic Disney movie ‘Old Yeller‘.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Tu8NskR-E

I don’t remember it in color, but then when I was a kid we only had a black and white TV. Parker went on to star in a 1 season TV show ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’ based on the Frank Capra/Jimmy Stewart film of the same name. He then put the coonskin cap back on and starred in the ‘Daniel Boone’ TV series that ran for 6 years . After the Boone series ended, Parker left acting and started the Fess Parker Winery in the Santa Ynez region of California. His wines are well respected and like the many wineries featured in the movie ‘Sideways’, specializes in Pinot Noir. As a little trivia note for those who saw the movie ‘Sideways’, the famous spit-bucket scene that took place at a winery called ‘Frass Canyon’ was actually filmed at the Fess Parker winery. Well, I guess you could say I grew up with Fess Parker, we both went from Davy Crockett to Pinot Noir.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-piSNIIzm-8

So, I found this news article interesting:

Delta Flight Canceled Because Of Flight Attendants Fighting

www.youtube.com/watch?v=REp0cIecFHk

All right, what other pop artist could mention in an interview the Bau-Haus school of art, the impact of Beethoven and Bach on pop music, evolution, confronting ones own fears, and the problems and challenges of digital music? And speak cogently about all of them. There are some pop stars (Britney, Jessica?) who couldn’t even carry on a conversation, let alone know what was discussed in this interview! This next video is from 2005. At that time she was still Stefani Germanotta from New York, and a student at NYU. According to the description, this video is from NYU’s annual talent show. She would have been 18 or 19.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM

I don’t know about you, but I liked both of those songs. Seems pretty talented to me.