Author: DhammaSeeker

This, my friends, is a bad idea

Frequent Fliers to Get Security Pass – Forbes.com

It’s a fucking travesty that the terrorist attacks of 09/11/01 have led us down the primrose path to hell to this point.

The Registered Traveler card would let frequent fliers go through airport security lines more quickly if they pay a fee, pass a government background check and submit 10 fingerprints, according to a federal official familiar with the program’s details, which were being announced Friday. The program will begin June 20.

*insert that cliche quote about liberty and security here*

“It sounds like they want private companies to be in the business of law enforcement and intelligence gathering,” Hofmann [an attorney with the privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center] said.

Once again. Bad idea.

There’s already a private company running a Registered Traveler test program at the Orlando (Fla.) Airport. Verified Identity Pass, which was started by media entrepreneur Steven Brill, charges $79.95 for the card.

Earlier this month, the company told the TSA that it tested whether commercial data services could authenticate that a person is who he says he is.

The results: “We dropped the idea after fully testing it and finding that it had no security benefits and significant, almost show-stopping negatives,” the company said in a document responding to the TSA’s request for information.

Well of course it’s got no security benefits. The entire TSA operation of airline passenger screening has not appreciably increased airline safety for anyone I contend.

Other private companies such as General Electric, ARINC and Iridian Technologies, along with airports, think there’s money to be made in the business of verifying people’s identity at airports.

Well of course there’s money to be made here. Isn’t that the entire fucking point?

illusion-like enlightenment

All things in this worldly existence
That are colored by attachment and aversion
Are in reality devoid of any existence.
When this is seen, everything is seen as golden.
When we meditate upon the illusion-like nature
Of all illusion-like phenomena,
We attain illusion-like enlightenment.

~ Dakini Niguma, sung to Tibetan yogi Khyungpo Naljor in a charnal ground, 1th Century A.D., India (trans. Glenn Mullin)

Beloved figure at Statehouse collapses, dies

Tommy Thompson

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
January 12, 2006
Tommy Thompson, a much-beloved sergeant-at-arms for the state House of Representatives, died of an apparent heart attack on the opening day of the legislative session Wednesday.

Thompson, 82, was making copies for work when he collapsed Wednesday evening, said Marilyn Eddins, chief clerk for the House.

His death stunned lawmakers.

“He was the best,” said Rep. Mark Cloer, R-Colorado Springs, who sobbed when he got the news. “I loved Tommy.”

Thompson was one of six sergeants-at-arms, the green-coated men who maintain order in the legislative chambers and meeting rooms and run errands for lawmakers.

Thompson had worked at the Capitol since at least 1997. Eddins said Thompson was afraid that because of his age and health problems he wouldn’t get invited back to work this year.

“He loved the Capitol, and he was thrilled to come back,” she said.

Rest in peace, Tommy. You’ve earned it.

Denver Post Obituary
Sergeant-at-arms Tommy Thompson, 82, was the Capitol's oldest staffer.

Remembering

Heather knows me better than I know myself. Or, rather, she remembers some of me that I seem to have forgotten. She got me more than a few movies for Christmas, and I have to admit I was surprised by the titles. In particular, What Dreams May Come (1998). I watched it last night though, and, as I told her, I really enjoyed it more watching it for the second time (years after my first) than I remember upon the first viewing. As I was watching the movie, though it won an academy award for visual effects, I kept thinking to myself that watching this movie is really just trying to watch a metaphor. Though the visual s were stunning – it wasn’t the sights that made the most impact on me last night. It was the writing, nay it was the thing that the writing was pointing to that resonated with me so well. The movie would have had equal effect if I could have only heard the dialog and not seen the pictures — possibly even more impact. What struck me is that there have been parts of me that I used to identify with so well that I’ve let atrophy over recent years. And I’m ashamed for it. I like or liked) those parts and I’d hope to find them or develop new ones in a similar vein. I’ve got more thinking to do on this subject. Much, much more.