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After reading about about a Detroit judge ruling against Bush’s secret NSA spying program, I had to find the full quote attributable to Chief Justice Earl Warren, in the case United States v. Robel:

Implicit in the term “national defense” is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. For almost two centuries, our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution, and the most cherished of those ideals have found expression in the First Amendment. It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties – the freedom of association – which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.

Beautiful launguage….and so true.

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I’m sure everyone has heard of the flight that got diverted today. If not, read here. The obvious implication is that I would not have been to upset with being diverted to Boston, since the Tigers were playing there tonight.

However, it boggles my mind how horrible air travel has become. I would like to run through a brief list of items that the TSA recommends you not attempt to bring through security:

• Gel shoe inserts
• Deodorants made of gel
• Lip gloss
• Hair gel
• Gel cap type pills

Excuse me, but did the TSA make a policy of hiring idiots for monitoring the security gates? I can imagine the dialogue between a would be terrorist and TSA agent at the security gate with these items could go something like this without these rules in place:

TSA Idiot: Hello sir…umm…you have quite a large bag of hair gel and medicinal gel caps there. What do you need that for?
Ali the Bomber: Ummm…(starting to sweat)…well….I very sick, and my hair requires much gel after removing my turban.
TSA Idiot: Well sir, your flight is only 75 minutes…
Ali the Bomber: Allah told me to bring them with me.
TSA Idiot: Oh, well then, that’s perfectly acceptable.

I can see it now: the next plot will involve strands of the terrorist’s clothing being laced with plastic explosives and the detonator being a watch. So, after the authorities ban all clothing and any other reasonable items you could take on a plane (not too far to go, eh?), we’ll all be sitting next to each other in our birthday suits.

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Everyone knows who Neil Armstrong is. Maybe that’s a bad assumption to make, but at least everyone in the USA knows who Neil Armstrong is. Ok, maybe that was an even worse assumption, considering the state of our public education system. Anyway, it seems that our buddies over at NASA might have lost the tapes that recorded the famous first steps Mr. Armstrong took on the moon.

It’s funny, in a serious way, because this type of thing is exactly what my job is trying to prove people need to have control over. My clients will put procedures in place to make sure they don’t lose backup tapes and can recover the information from a tape when needed. We audit those procedures to make sure the procedures they say are in place are actually, in fact, working.

I get this strange feeling that NASA might not do so well if we tried to audit their ability to know where things are and if they can get them back. Kinda makes you wonder if they should send people into space, doesn’t it?

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So right now, I’m in a town called Mount Vernon, Ohio. See where it is (green arrow):

As you can see from the map, this town is basically in the middle of nowhere. Notice, there are no major highways near this city. The one that is within 30 miles actually runs between Columbus and Cleveland. This means it does not get used when you drive to Mount Vernon from Detroit. That would be why it takes several hours to get here. It’s especially fun because you have to leave on Sunday or at 6:00 am Monday morning in order to be able to accomplish work on Monday.

We are staying here in Mount Vernon because Fredericktown, OH (red arrow) is actually where we are working at. As you can see, Fredericktown is even smaller than Mount Vernon. There are no hotels in Fredericktown. The chain restaurant/place to eat lunch in Fredericktown is…bum bum bum….Subway. Yes, that’s right, there is only a Subway in that town.

As for Mount Vernon, the options are better, but not much. Ruby Tuesday’s, W.G. Grinders, and some various fast food chains are available. It’s even more sweet that we can’t go to Mount Vernon for lunch because it’s too far away from Fredericktown.

I love traveling to little tiny small towns that have no good places to eat. It makes me enjoy my job so much more.

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