America has become an ugly place to visit. After a year of travelling, I had planned a last, short trip. I was going to take the train from Montreal to New Orleans. The travels I had been undertaking earlier this year had brought me to places that were meant to form the background of my second novel. This trip, however was for my ... MORE
Low speed limits make roads less safe. Politicians, driver advocacy groups and even the police are trying to outlaw speed traps, not only because they’re annoying, but because when speed limits are too low, roads become more — not less — dangerous. Most drivers understand the need for speed limits. And yet they loathe speed traps ... MORE
Government's reacts as moneymaker is threatened. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is using the case of a Missouri man to challenge a municipal law — one of dozens, if not hundreds of similar laws throughout the United States — that punishes motorists who flash their headlights at oncoming drivers to alert them to a police ... MORE
Government gropers to become ubiquitous. Janet Napolitano’s TSA agents won’t keep their blue, latex-covered
paws to themselves. The TSA is now expanding its grope to rodeos, sports
stadiums, music festivals and train stations. The TSA’s signature move is like the signature move of a guy who
“accidently” brushes his hand against a woman’s ... MORE
Government expands its warrantless search program. As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds. The squad was not with the D.C. Police Department or Amtrak’s ... MORE
Luggage theft. Drug use. Sleeping on the job. These are just a handful
of nearly 10,000 reports of misconduct involving employees at the Transportation Security Administration from 2010 to 2012, according to a new watchdog report. As
disturbing, wrote federal investigators, is that these allegations are
on the rise: increasing from 2,691 reports ... MORE
More warrantless searches from the feds. The Transportation Security Administration is directing valet attendants to search parked cars for explosives at a New York airport, according to a report by local television station News10NBC. Traveler Laurie Iacuzza recently flew out of Greater Rochester International Airport and upon returning ... MORE
The enormous apparatus isn’t making us safer. Not long ago while walking through the airport, the following
announcement caught my attention: “Will the person who forgot their
hearing aids please return to the Transportation Security Administration
security checkpoint to reclaim them.” It took me a moment to absorb
entirely the irony of the ... MORE
Credo of the government bureaucrat. Once in a while, a government agency adopts a policy that is
logical, hardheaded, based on experience and unswayed by cheap
sentiment. This may be surprising enough to make you reconsider
your view of bureaucrats. But not to worry: It usually doesn't
last. In March the federal Transportation Security Administration . ... MORE
They are really asking for it this time. If you are an air traveler this week, you might get a dose of how it feels to be deliberately abused by your government to score political points. President Obama and the Democrat Party are so adamantly opposed to any semblance of cuts in government spending that they cannot abide the sequester that ... MORE
by Michael Barone. Forty years ago, American railroads were in trouble. The Penn Central, the largest railroad, had recently gone bankrupt. American freight rail was technologically obsolescent and hamstrung by union rules and government rate regulation. American passenger rail was unprofitable and unreliable. Freight rail was ... MORE
TSA demands marine take off his legs for search. Transportation Security Administration inspectors forced a wounded
Marine who lost both of his legs in an IED blast and who was in a
wheelchair to remove his prosthetic legs at one point, and at another
point to stand painfully on his legs while his wheelchair was examined,
according to a ... MORE
by Keith Laing. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) complained Monday she was subject to a very uncomfortable screening by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). McCaskill tweeted about the experience before boarding a flight on Monday. The senator, who has complained about the TSA's security techniques in the past, tweeted that ... MORE
Airport screeners love rifling through sex toys. Airport-security screeners apparently get a kink out of rifling through your sexy baggage. “My checked bag is searched almost every time I fly. I guess I’m just lucky, or look suspicious!” said sex blogger Rori Sweet of the DC area. Kitty Stryker, a California sex educator, added, “They always ... MORE
Ignorance and humiliation "public servant-style." Some days are worse than others. I've talked a lot on my blog
about what I experience as a butch lesbian, specifically how people
interact with me when they see that I don't conform to the gender
identities that they expect. I feel all lined up on the inside -- I am a
woman physically, and I feel like ... MORE