08.30.06
UK airports confiscate pens
That would kill me if I had my Omas Arco Celluloid fountain pen with me. Via Boing Boing, here are the rules. Among them:
You’re allowed only one carry-on item when boarding a plane at a British airport, and it may not exceed these dimensions:
- 45 cm (about 17 3/4″) long
- 35 cm (about 13 3/4″) wide
- 16 cm (about 6 1/4″) deep
They are incredibly strict about this size restriction. …
As rows were called to board the plane, everybody had to go to one of three security stations set in front of the jetway. A security person would ask you to empty your pockets and place the items on a table. If you had a carry-on bag, it would be very thoroughly searched by hand.
Next comes the personal search. I haven’t been frisked so throughly since my check-up at the doctor’s last month. The security guy did a full police-style pat-down search, including checking under the collar and the waistband of my jeans. You’ll also be asked to take off your shoes for inspection. …
Another thing they don’t tell you — in fact, they don’t tell you until the search at the gate: they won’t let you bring a pen onto the plane. I only lost a ball-point pen which I’m pretty sure came from Tucows’ office supply closet. Others were less fortunate; in the bin where confiscated pens were being collected, I saw a at least a dozen “executive” pens, including Crosses and Mont Blancs. If you’re accustomed to carrying an expensive pen, do not take it with you!
Without pens, we had nothing with which to fill out the immigrations and customs forms required for international flights arriving at their first port of entry to the United States. We ended up — all 172 of us — sharing the chief flight attendant’s pen, passing it from row to row.
More on the secret hold by Sen. Stevens
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) held up a bill that would create a free, searchable database of government contracts and grants because he was worried about the proposal’s price tag, his spokesman told me this afternoon. Its cost has been estimated at $15 million.
Stevens’ office has asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the sponsor of the bill, for “a cost-benefit analysis to make sure this does not create an extra layer of unnecessary bureaucracy,” spokesman Aaron Saunders said. The Senator “wanted to make sure that this wasn’t going to be a huge cost to the taxpayer and that it achieves the goal which the bill is meant to achieve.”
Saunders added that Stevens’ hold was not “secret,” and that he would back the bill if the analysis shows that “it achieves its goal and it achieves its goal well.”
But Sen. Coburn’s spokesman John Hart questioned Stevens’ motive. “The only reason to oppose this bill is if he has something to hide,” Hart said.
Hart said that Stevens, who’s on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, failed to attend any hearings on the bill, an assertion backed up by vote tallies. “If he had concerns, he should have addressed them in regular order rather than blocking something that will benefit millions of taxpayers,” Hart said. He added that after Stevens’ office raised the concerns, Coburn’s office requested a meeting, but never got one. Read the rest of this entry »
A moment of silence for the 1st Amendment
An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words “We will not be silent” before boarding a flight at New York.
Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.
Mr Jarrar said he was shocked such an action could be taken in the US.
US transport officials are conducting an inquiry after a complaint from the US Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
JetBlue said it was also investigating the incident but a spokeswoman said: “We’re not clear exactly what happened.” Read the rest of this entry »
Speaking of “addictive”: nicotine levels up
The Washington Post runs a story that tobacco companies have increased the level of nicotine in cigarettes, making them more addictive:
The level of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette has risen about 10 percent in the past six years, making it harder to quit and easier to get hooked, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Department of Health.
The study shows a steady climb in the amount of nicotine delivered to the lungs of smokers regardless of brand, with overall nicotine yields increasing by about 10 percent.
Massachusetts is one of three states to require tobacco companies to submit information about nicotine testing according to its specifications and the only state with data going back to 1998.
Public Health Commissioner Paul Cote Jr. called the findings “significant.”
The study found the three most popular cigarette brands with young smokers — Marlboro, Newport and Camel — delivered significantly more nicotine than they did six years ago. Nicotine consumed in Kool, a popular menthol brand, rose 20 percent, for example. Read the rest of this entry »
High-church services bad for your health?
Science News reports a potential problem in high-church services: serious pollution from candles and incense. (The same problem clearly could occur in homes that are heavy on candles and incense.)
Even brief exposure to contaminated air during a religious service could be harmful to some people, says atmospheric scientist Stephan Weber of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Essen, Germany. A previous study in the Netherlands indicated that the pollutants in smoke from incense and candles may be more toxic than fine-particle pollution from sources such as vehicle engines.
… There have been few investigations of the health consequences of candles and incense, even though they are usually lit indoors, sometimes in crowded spaces with limited ventilation.
Weber conducted the new study in St. Engelbert Church in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. The church staff burns candles during each mass and incense on some holidays.
Weber installed two devices that continuously sampled air during a 13-day period that began on Christmas Eve of 2004. The equipment measured concentrations of particles up to 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) and also those 1 µm or smaller (PM1), which endanger people’s hearts, lungs, and arteries. Read the rest of this entry »
Interesting crackpot book
Julian Jaynes, of Princeton University, wrote a fascinating book titled The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, finding scattered bits of evidence that indicated that we became conscious as our bicameral mind melded—until then, we heard (in what more or less corresponds to our left-brain mind) “voices” (from our right-brain mind), which we obeyed. There’s much more to it than that, and though it’s crackpot (IMHO), it’s interesting crackpot. Some of it is based on the kind of misreading that (and the Classical Daughter will correct me if I’m wrong) led some to speculate that, in Homer’s time, people’s vision responded to different wavelengths of light, hence the ubiquitous “wine-dark sea,” the sea being, as we know, not wine-dark at all. But them someone noticed that the flanks of working oxen were also “wine-dark,” as was the forearm of a fighting man, and realized that perhaps the word meant something like “sparkling from drops of water” or the like.
USPS Global Priority flat-rate envelope
Here’s a shipping option for international shipments that you may not know: UPDATE As of 14 May 2007, the small Global Priority envelope is no more. The large Global Priority cardboard envelope (to hold a 9×12 envelope) is $9.00 to Canada and Mexico, $11.00 to other countries. Use the small custom form, and you write the address directly on the cardboard envelope (i.e., there’s no separate form for that with a blister pak).
You can mail up to 4 lbs in the Global Priority envelope.
Also, there’s a flat-rate Global Priority (I think they now call it International Priority) box: $37 to Europe. It takes the larger customs form, and you get insurance coverage free, the amount based on the weight of the box.
Learning Go
I got an email from someone asking how to learn Go. This site (scroll down to “Learn the Basics”) has some excellent links that should be helpful. Note the interactive Go tutorial (requires Java).
Hybrid racer
The Eldest and The Son-in-Law are big Formula One fans. I can’t wait to hear their reaction to this:
… breaking news from Italy that N.Technology S.p.a. and Tatuus s.r.l. have signed a deal to produce a new single-seater Formula car. Tatuus, which builds Formula Renault cars, will take care of bulding N.Technology’s concept and will also provide technical assistance and spare parts service to the teams involved in the new series.
The new single-seater car will have a 2-litre, 4-cylinder, 250-bhp engine, gearbox and clutch controls on the steering wheel and has been conceived to be fitted with an hybrid engine system. N.Technology’s Andrea Fiorani reports that the first season for the formula will be the 2007 season. Formula N.T07 cars will compete in a new international series within the European rounds of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Eurosport will be responsible for the TV production and broadcasting of the events of the international series. That’s the first sketch of the Formula N.T07 car which predictably looks a lot like a Formula Renault – more news when it comes to hand, but we must say we’re excited at the prospects of creating an environment where creative and higly competitive engineers develop hybrid technology.
Photos at the link. Clarification: this is not a Formula One car—but it is a racer. See comments here.
It was Stevens!
I knew it. Here’s the whole ugly story. Stevens should be ashamed, but as we know, that little part is broken or missing—that became quite clear in the “bridge to nowhere” story. What scum. Yet Alaskans apparently love him. Go figure.
Lieberman: despicable
Just when you think Lieberman could not get more despicable, he does.
GOP and corruption
This one is exceptional, even for the GOP: a conservation appointee runs a horse-racing operation out of his office. And he has a long history of corruption:
State Department investigators have concluded that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, improperly hired a friend on the public payroll for nearly $250,000 over two and a half years, according to a summary of their report made public this afternoon by Democratic Congressional staff members.
They also said that Mr. Tomlinson, whose job puts him in charge of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, used his government office for personal business, including running a “horse racing operation” in which he supervised a stable of thoroughbreds he named after leaders from Afghanistan, including President Hamid Karzai and the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, that have raced at tracks across the United States. They also said that Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly used government employees to do his personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit. Read the rest of this entry »
