Or perhaps you need to fly off somewhere. Let me dust off a little ditty Remy came up with last year:
You can read the lyrics at the link. And there are sublinks to explanations of some of the more obscure lyrics.
Will this become a holiday tradition at Pun Salad? Last year we linked to a classic TSA press release, TSA detects bullets artfully concealed in diaper at LaGuardia Airport. Artfully!
Well, this year, another scofflaw was detected: TSA officers at LAX discover surprising number of prohibited items in traveler’s carry-on.
What does it take to surprise TSA officiers, you might ask.
LOS ANGELES - Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are used to seeing a variety of usual and unusual items brought by travelers in carry-on luggage during routine X-ray screening in the security checkpoint. What happened Sunday, December 15, 2024, at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) surprised even the longest tenured and most experienced TSA officer.
Around 10 p.m. in Terminal 4 at LAX, a TSA officer flagged a bag for a bag check after seeing multiple prohibited items on the X-ray image. When the bag was opened with the passenger present, the TSA officer was shocked at its contents.
The carry-on bag contained a gamut of prohibited items: 82 consumer grade fireworks, three knives, two replica firearms and one canister of pepper spray. The bag belonged to a female passenger ticketed for travel to Philadelphia.
I almost expected them to finish up that list with "… and a partridge in a pear tree."
Shall we do this again next year? Assuming I'm still around, and Reason's advice to Abolish the TSA is not taken.
Also of note:
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Just a reminder of why he won't be missed. Speaking of Reason, their January 2025 issue is a compendium of goodbye-and-good-riddance reminiscences for the Dotard-in-Chief. Example: Joe Biden Tried To Use the Regulatory State To Micromanage Everything.
On domestic regulatory issues, Biden has shown initiative and a willingness to go above and beyond what is called for. It's too bad that's the opposite of what a good presidential job performance entails. The ideal candidate here is someone unwilling or unmotivated to find new outlets for regulation, but the Biden administration has proved all too eager to expand the regulatory state's reach.
Take Biden's obsession with "junk fees," by which he means basically anything a business charges for perks (such as checking bags during a flight) or as penalties (like bank overdraft fees). Such fees can serve important and legitimate purposes, but Biden has framed them all as simple points of corporate "greed." Because it can't directly eliminate them, the administration has decided they must be disclosed in particular ways—saving Americans from the pain of, say, having to read about cable costs in two separate lines instead of one.
Let me refer you, once again, to my GOVERNMENT WARNING post from 2012.
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Apparently, they were shushed one too many times. At Granite Grok, Arlene Quaratiello brings some holiday cheer: New Hampshire Defunds the American Library Association.
A recent article on the New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) website regarding Governor Sununu’s withdrawal of his state librarian nominee confirms that the previous state librarian withdrew the New Hampshire State Library (NHSL) from the American Library Association this year. While the reason given for this withdrawal was that “the yearly dues were not worth what the association provided,” there is more to this story.
Last February, as a New Hampshire State Representative and a librarian opposed to the ALA’s agenda, I wrote the letter below to Sarah Stewart, the Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which oversees the NHSL. This letter was co-signed by 100 other state representatives who shared my opposition. Along with fellow Representative Mike Drago (Raymond, NH), I met with Commissioner Stewart and State Librarian Michael York at the State House. We explained the reasons for withdrawing from the ALA as detailed in the letter that I presented to Commisioner Stewart at the end of our meeting. It appears that our demands were heeded and that New Hampshire has joined the growing list of states that have defunded the ALA!
Arlene provides the text of her letter. New Hampshire joined "Montana, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida" in disaffiliating with the ALA, saving "a few thousand dollars". And, if you're interested, her substack is titled No Shushing Now: Exposing Today's Woke Libraries. It's low-volume, but I've signed up.
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