TSA security loophole exploited

As this blog has reported on multiple prior occasions (in 2006, 2008, and 2009, at the very least), the fact that U.S. airport security separates the checking of the boarding pass by TSA from the use of a boarding pass to check in to board makes it easy to get through security with a boarding pass that matches your ID while flying under a boarding pass on a ticket purchased in a different name.

Now, as The Economist (July 2, 2011) reports, Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, a 24-year-old Nigerian American, has been arrested after successfully doing something along these lines to fly around the country, apparently on multiple occasions.  Only Noibi wasn't even using boarding passes valid for the flights he was on--he was caught with a boarding pass in another person's name for a flight from a day prior.  And he wasn't caught because the boarding pass was detected at check-in--he had already successfully boarded the flight and was seated.  He was only caught because of his extreme body odor and a fellow passenger complained, which led to his boarding pass being checked and found to be invalid.

United breaks guitars

From Sons of Maxwell:

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

UPDATE (August 18, 2009): "United Breaks Guitars" song 2 and video are now on YouTube and below:

D.C. and the inauguration

Kat and I made arrangements to travel to D.C. for the inauguration a few months before the election. Our plan was to attend regardless of who was elected president, but we preferred Obama over McCain and his winning the election solidified our plans. We flew to D.C. on U.S. Airways Flight 44 to see the 44th president inaugurated, leaving 72-degree weather in Phoenix and arriving to 26-degree weather in D.C. We had prepared with layered clothing, but I found that my toes were still freezing in my shoes with two layers of socks, so we visited a mall near our hotel and found evidence of massive price deflation in coats and boots. I picked up a nice pair of Dupont "thinsulate" insulated boots, and Kat bought a full-length padded coat, each of which were only $20. We saw some further evidence of price deflation in goods at the Smithsonian gift shop in the National Museum of the American Indian, where T-shirt prices had been lowered from $20 last time we visited to $16 this trip. Food prices, however, seemed to be about the same, and the price of a 7-day Metro pass had climbed from $20 to $26.40 (no doubt still a subsidized price).


On Saturday, we visited the newly-reopened National Museum of American History, where there were special events going on with actors portraying figures from American history such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. We paid a visit to the American flag from Fort McHenry (the star-spangled banner), the First Ladies' dresses collection, the pop culture exhibit, "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden," musical instruments, the Gunboat Philadelphia, and a few other exhibits. We followed this up with lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian, then checked out the new Capitol visitors' center and took a look at the setup for the inauguration. We then walked over by the Newseum, passing the Canadian Embassy and its huge banners welcoming President Obama.

The theme of pending change was everywhere--not only the expected political banners, but in commercial advertising (e.g., Metro ads from Pepsi and Ikea), religious advertising (the Seventh-Day Adventists were handing out a magazine with Obama's photograph on the front), and even by the homeless begging for "change I can believe in."


On Sunday we went to the Columbia Heights Metro station and were amazed at how much the area has changed. We visited an apartment building in the area where Kat used to live in the 1990s, finding it boarded up and for sale (last sold 10/16/2008 for $1.1M). Next was Adams-Morgan, where there was a kiosk to "Tell the President ... tell him what you think! tell him what you want!" by sticking up handwritten notes. A few examples: "TAKE A STAND 4 PALESTINE," "WE ARE HUMANS NOT MACHINES," "GAY MARRIAGE," "Make Weed Legal," "fix our schools," "NO MORE LIES PLEASE," "Respect our privacy! Stop USA spying on Americans!," and "MAKE LOVE TO ME."

We visited a friend's clothing store (Redeem, on 14th St. south of S), walked past the Church of Scientology near Dupont Circle that was in the act by offering free "touch assists" for D.C. visitors, and approached as close as we could to the White House, which was to walk on Pennsylvania Ave. near the president's inaugural parade viewing stand. From there we could hear U2 playing at the "We Are One" concert on the Mall, which we chose not to brave the crowds to see.


Monday we spent time with family in the early afternoon, and spent the rest of our afternoon paying a visit to the American Humanist Society's MLK Day open house. In the evening, we went back to Dupont Circle, where a giant inflatable George W. Bush with a giant nose labeled "GIVE BUSH THE BOOT" was available to throw shoes at.


Tuesday morning, we got up at 5:30 a.m. and got to the Silver Spring Metro Station by 6:40 a.m. The station was packed, and we squeezed into a very crowded train. We got out at Gallery Place and walked towards the Mall, where we ran into an immense crowd at 7th and E that was waiting to go through security screening to the inaugural parade seats. We hung out there for a while, where several people from Meetup.com were handing out nametags and pens, and then walked around the security perimeter to the west to get to the Mall. This required us to go back north to I St., and west to 19th St. (we could have gone down 18th, but 19th was less crowded). We went through no security and had no trouble getting to the Mall.

We walked east past the Washington Monument, but U.S. Army soldiers suddenly closed the road at 15th St. and so we went back and found a good spot in front of the Jumbotron just northeast of the Monument. The crowd continued to build, and the Jumbotron showed a replay of the "We are One" concert from Sunday (which would might have been annoying if we had already seen it).

At long last, the Jumbotrons switched to a live (with audio slightly delayed) feed, with a live mike somewhere in the expensive seats that seemed unintentional. We got to hear one side of multiple conversations, including Sen. Joe Lieberman telling someone, "I love your mother!" The captioning was a little behind the already-delayed audio, and occasionally bizarrely off. When Aretha Franklin sang, one caption at the end of her song said "THREAT RING."

I thought that Pastor Rick Warren's invocation was awful--it was sectarian and it was blatantly hypocritical (cf. Matthew 6:5-7), and I considered it, along with the cold, to be the low-light of the swearing-in ceremony.

George W. Bush attracted some mild booing, and we almost (but not quite) felt sorry for him. But the crowd was ecstatic at Obama's being sworn in (and at Bush's helicopter leaving).

Obama's inaugural speech seemed to mostly be fairly generic new-politician-in-office platitudes, but there were a few standout positive points for me. First, his acknowledgement that some Americans are nonbelievers and we have a stake and a voice in this country was a breath of fresh air. I cheered that line, and several people near by looked at me and smiled. His affirmation that science must be "restore[d] ... to its rightful place" was another good one, as was his statement that we cannot give up the Constitution for safety.


It is a pleasure to again have a president who can speak in complete English sentences and not make me cringe every time I hear him.


After the swearing-in ceremony was over, it took us well over an hour to leave the Mall. People were packed in trying to leave, and at one point we saw the crowd knock down a barricade on the north side of the Mall, and a second barricade just north of that, to get access to Constitution. We moved in the opposite direction, which proved to be the right move to get to a flowing stream of people moving towards the actual exit. Police showed up at the downed barricades after about ten minutes, and put them back in place.


On Wednesday, we visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in North America, on the grounds of Catholic University of America. It was interesting to see the different ethnic versions of Mary, Mother of Jesus in the Shrine, including Our Mother of Africa, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnam). We did a little shopping for Obama swag at Union Station.

On Thursday, our last day in D.C., we visited Battleground National Cemetery on Georgia Ave., a little-known burial ground of Union soldiers killed at the battle of Fort Stevens, the only Civil War battle that occurred in D.C. We also visited Fort Stevens itself, which has a monument where President Lincoln stood on the rampart and was told to "Get down, you fool" as he was likely to be killed by attacking Confederate soldiers there. Finally, we visited the recently restored Lincoln Cottage at the Old Soldier's Home, just north of Catholic University of America, where Lincoln spent about a quarter of his presidential term, made many of his decisions, and drafted and finalized the Emancipation Proclamation.

Criminal activity by air marshals

Looks like the air marshals have a problem similar to the TSA and the Border Patrol:

Shawn Nguyen bragged that he could sneak anything past airport security using his top-secret clearance as a federal air marshal. And for months, he smuggled cocaine and drug money onto flights across the country, boasting to an FBI informant that he was "the man with the golden badge."

Michael McGowan used his position as an air marshal to lure a young boy to his hotel room, where he showed him child porn, took pictures of him naked and sexually abused him.

And when Brian "Cooter" Phelps wanted his ex-wife to disappear, he called a fellow air marshal and tried to hire a hit man nicknamed "the Crucifixer."

Since 9/11, more than three dozen federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct, an investigation by ProPublica, a non-profit journalism organization, has found. Cases range from drunken driving and domestic violence to aiding a human-trafficking ring and trying to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan.

More details at USA Today.

UPDATE (8 March 2015): Another air marshals scandal:

What began as an internal investigation into allegations of harassment and threats stemming from a spat between ex-lovers has expanded into a criminal inquiry focused on the Federal Air Marshal Service’s dispatch hub in Herndon, Virginia. More than 60 federal employees are under scrutiny as investigators look into whether flights considered at risk of hijacking or a terrorist attack were left without marshals on board, sources with knowledge of the investigation told Reveal.

TSA airport security is a waste of time and money

Jeffrey Goldberg explains why in The Atlantic. The check for whether you're on the no-fly list is at the time of ticket purchase and check-in; there is no validation of your actual ticket against your ID at the TSA checkpoint (you can easily print and use a fake boarding pass at the TSA checkpoint); there is no check of ID when you board the plane. The checks for substances and items at the TSA checkpoint are easily subverted, with the restrictions on liquids probably the most absurd and pointless.

We're throwing away billions of taxpayer dollars per year on security theater.

(Hat tip to John Lynch.)

(Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.)

Palin collected per-diem from Alaska while at home

Yahoo reports:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has charged her state a daily allowance, normally used for official travel, for more than 300 nights spent at her home, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

An analysis of travel statements filed by the governor, now John McCain's Republican running mate, shows she claimed the per diem allowance on 312 occasions when she was home in Wasilla and that she billed taxpayers $43,490 for travel by her husband and children.

Per diem payments are meant for meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. State officials told The Post her claims — nearly $17,000 over 19 months — were permitted because her "duty station" is Juneau, the capital, and she was in Wasilla 600 miles away.

Palin spends little time at the governor's mansion in Juneau, especially when the Legislature is out of session, and instead prefers to live in Wasilla and commute to her office in Anchorage.

I think the travel to and from Wasilla is arguably reasonable, depending on frequency, but per diem for meals and incidentals in Wasilla seems as wrong as if she were taking the per diem for meals and incidentals while staying in the governor's mansion.

UPDATE (September 15, 2008): The Palins haven't yet released their tax records, and it may be that she owes taxes on those per diems.

DHS responds to my FOIA request for my travel dossier

On September 26, 2007, I submitted a request to the Department of Homeland Security requesting copies of information relating to me in the Automated Targeting System (ATS), a system that collects information about individuals who travel internationally. Travelers are then assigned a risk score; passengers who have higher scores are subjected to a higher level of screening, despite the fact that Congress has attached restrictions to its appropriations for passenger screening stating that "None of the funds provided in this or previous appropriations Acts may be utilized to develop or test algorithms assigning risk to passengers whose names are not on government watch lists."

Traveler risk scores are maintained for 40 years and individuals are not allowed to know their scores. The system has come under criticism for sometimes including information such as what books or magazines a passenger is carrying.

I followed the process suggested by The Identity Project, which stated that DHS was supposed to respond within 30 days. It took a little longer than expected--I just received my travel dossier today. It's fifteen pages of fairly cryptic documentation, with frequent short redactions. The redactions are each labeled with the section of 5 USC 552 which provides grounds for exemption from disclosure, (b)(2)(low), (b)(6), and (b)(7)(C). The first of those "exempts from disclosure records that are related to internal matters of a relatively trivial nature, such as internal administrative tracking," and accounts for the majority of the redactions. The other two are for "personnel or medical files and similar files the release of which would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" and "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." I have a few of each of that type of redaction.

The documents include most--but not all--of my international air travel, including from as far back as 1984. There appear to be reports from two systems. There are four pages labeled "TECSII - PRIMARY QUERY HISTORY" and "PASSENGER ACTIVITY." TECS II is the Treasury Enforcement Communications System II, the primary database of IBIS, the Interagency Border Inspection System. This report lists a series of records of two lines each. The first line contains my name, date of birth, date and time of the query, the agency making a query, a result column (entirely redacted under (b)(2)), a column labeled "LNE TYP" that appears to use both of the two lines and has codes such as "API," "AIR," and "VEH." Finally on the first line are a completely redacted column labeled "TERM" and single-letter codes under the headings "API" and "DIM." The second line of each record contains airline flight numbers in some cases, and the name of the departure city in one case, a field labeled "DOC:" followed by a blank or my passport number, and, under the heading "LANE," the characters "INSP:" followed by a blank or a redacted field, probably the name of the agent making the query. At the bottom of each page of results are three or four lines that are completely redacted, probably part of a help screen or menu--the output looks like something from an IBM 3270 display terminal.

The other eleven pages of output look like IBM 3270-style output pasted into a single Word document that begins with my name and birthdate. It's divided into several sections, each headed with a date of travel and containing what appears to be passenger name records (PNR) taken directly from SABRE. The redactions in these sections seem to be somewhat haphazard--in one place part of my corporate email address was redacted, in another a different form of my corporate email addresses was not. My American Express card number is present, as is my Hertz #1 Club Gold membership number. It includes complete itineraries for the most recent travel, including hotel booking information (including type of room and bed), airline seat assignment information, and ticket price. There's less information for older travel, which is mostly obscure to me apart from dates and airport codes.

Next I'll have to check out my FBI file...

UPDATE (September 9, 2008): DHS has responded to charges that it is illegal for them to be recording and keeping certain border-crossing records in ATS by moving them to another database, called BCI.

UPDATE (December 31, 2008): DHS is in violation of its obligations to U.S. citizens under the Privacy Act, and to foreign nationals in Europe under the DHS-EU agreement on access to and use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data. DHS has not been complying with requests for data in the legally required time periods, nor with all of the relevant data. Data has also been illegally copied into other databases. Not surprisingly, the DHS's own internal review claims, even as the evidence contradicts the claim, that it is in compliance with the law.

Edward Hasbrouck has posted about the difference between American and European attitudes towards privacy and surveillance, and notes that at least one European airline, KLM, had never developed processes for complying with the law for passenger requests of records.

UPDATE (July 19, 2014): An editor at Ars Technica has just discovered that his PNR contains full credit card numbers and IP addresses. Not exactly news, at this point...

Back from Maryland

We got back from Maryland last night, after spending most of a week at Deep Creek Lake and making day trips to D.C. and Baltimore. The Deep Creek Lake time was mostly relaxing, spending some time on the lake, visiting a few sites in nearby Oakland, visiting Swallow Falls and Muddy Creek Falls, and attending the Garrett County Fair, where I viewed my first demolition derby and pig and duck races. We went to a few of the less common attractions in D.C.--the crystal skull exhibit in the basement of the National Museum of Natural History, Owney the dog at the National Postal Museum, and had an excellent lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian. In Baltimore, we visited Fort McHenry, Poe's grave, and Fells Point.

Owney the dog traveled the world from 1888 to 1897, when, as the National Postal Museum's website says, "Owney became ill tempered and although the exact circumstances were not satisfactorily reported, Owney died in Toledo of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897."

Candy cigarettes are now "quality sticks"

Photograph taken at the Farmer's Market "Candyland" near Deep Creek Lake, August 14, 2008.

They also make candy "crayons" that are packaged much like candy cigarettes, and also called "quality sticks."

There's a reason you've never heard of "bus rage."

Bad timing for this ad campaign. I suppose Greyhound will be looking for a new ad agency?

Expert tells China visitors to encrypt data as U.S. announces policy of laptop seizure

I saw two articles this morning which I think invite comparison. First, Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of PGP Corporation, says people visiting China should take laptops with no data, or encrypt what data they have:

Travelers carrying smart cell phones, blackberries or laptop computers could unwittingly be offering up sensitive personal or business information to officials who monitor state-controlled telecommunications carriers, Dunkelberger said.

He said that without data encryption, executives could have business plans or designs pilfered, while journalists' lists of contacts could be exposed, putting sources at risk.

Dunkelberger said that during unrest in Tibet in March, overseas Tibetan activists found their computer systems under heavy pressure from Chinese security agencies trying to trace digital communications.

"What the Chinese tried to do was infiltrate their security to see who in China the Tibet movement was talking to," he said.

...

Dunkelberger, whose firm serves many multinational corporations operating in China, said, "A lot of places in the world, including China, don't have the same view of personal space and privacy that we do in the United States."

"You've got to suspect that every place you're doing work is being monitored and being watched," he said.

Dunkelberger's advice is good as far as it goes. Of course, PGP Whole Disk Encryption won't help protect data in transit, and while PGP Email will protect the content of email messages, it won't conceal the source and destination. The threat described is one where traffic analysis enough can reveal a lot, and so you'd want to make use of a corporate VPN, some kind of proxy, or a system like TOR if you want to protect information about where your Internet traffic is ultimately going. PGP is a good company that makes great products; my employer uses PGP Whole Disk Encryption and Email products.

The second article, however, casts some doubt on the last part of what Dunkelberger says. It looks like the U.S., where the NSA engages in warrantless wiretapping with the assistance of the large incumbent telecoms (and a spineless Congress gives them immunity for violations of the law), the CIA spies on foreign visitors within the borders of the U.S. in conjunction with the FBI's counterintelligence division, isn't so different from other countries. It's now publicly admitted by DHS that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers have the right to seize laptops and other electronic devices from people entering the U.S. and hang on to them indefinitely in order to search them. Therefore Dunkelberger's advice should be taken by anyone coming into the U.S., as well--use blank laptops or laptops with encryption only. Some companies have begun to only allow employees to have a web browser and a VPN client on their laptops, and keep all data in the corporation, which can completely eliminate this particular governmental risk.

Back from Seattle

We're back from a week of vacation in Seattle--this was my third time in the city, but my first time with free time to do touristy things. We saw the usual sights--the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square and the Underground Tour, and we took a Snoqualmie Falls/winery tour and paid a visit to Bainbridge Island. We also saw the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, the Olympic Sculpture Garden, the UPS Waterfall Garden, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, and the oddities at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, including the feejee-mermaid-like objects pictured and a collection of tsantsas (shrunken heads). We also managed to see some local crazies--a 9/11 conspiracy theorist outside Pike Place Market, Lyndon LaRouchies at Westlake Center, a Church of Scientology "free stress test" center, and building housing the Discovery Institute.

And we had plenty of great meals, including a few with friends we haven't seen in a while (or hadn't met before in person). Lots of Thai and Indian food.

We didn't get around to visiting the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks, the Roman exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, or trying a doughnut at Top Pot Doughnuts. Maybe next time for most of those.

Seattle is a fun city, we had great weather almost the entire time, and we were happy to see how dog-friendly it is. I'm sure we'll return.

Interesting photos of abandoned Antarctic outposts

Robert F. Scott and Ernest Shackelton's Antarctic campsite cabins at Cape Evans on Ross Island have been sitting there since 1913 and 1908, respectively, and are still intact and remarkably well preserved. The Fogonazos blog has the photos.

(Via The Agitator.)

Back from D.C.

Kat and I returned yesterday from a week-long trip to our nation's capitol to visit friends, family, restaurants, and museums. We apparently just missed the worst of the summer's heat wave and had mostly excellent weather.

One of my must-see places for this trip was the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center, an extension of the National Air and Space Museum located near Dulles Airport. The second picture above was taken there, and shows one small piece of one wing of the Center, with an Air France Concorde in the center and a Lear Jet 23 above it. The Center also has an SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, and a huge variety of military and commercial aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. Two of Paul MacCready's planes are at the Center--the high-altitude solar-powered Pathfinder and the English Channel-crossing human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Condor. MacCready's Gossamer Albatross, the first human-powered aircraft capable of sustained flight, is down at the Mall in the main National Air and Space Museum, which we also visited on this trip.

We spent much of our last day in D.C. at Arlington Cemetery--the first picture above shows Pierre L'Enfant's grave, overlooking a great view of the city he designed. We visited the usual sites such as JFK's grave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and the Custis Lee Mansion. I also tracked down the gravesite of John Wesley Powell (first or possibly second man to travel the length of the Colorado River by boat and second director of the U.S. Geological Survey) and a number of other lesser-visited gravesites (e.g., a number of Supreme Court justices buried near JFK, the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie memorial, and President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft's grave, which although well-marked did not seem to be well-visited).

We also visited the Freer and Sackler Galleries' exhibition on "Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries," saw what was open at the Hirshhorn during some maintenance, made a quick pass through the mammal exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, saw some part of the collection at the National Gallery of Art's West Building, visited the Washington National Cathedral, and spent a day at Mount Vernon.

Back from the Grand Canyon

I spent most of the last nine days in the Grand Canyon, rafting down the Colorado River on the National Center for Science Education's 2007 trip. I met interesting people and made new friends, ate great food, and saw amazing sights. This was my third trip down the Canyon, but my first in the last two decades (my previous two were in August 1976 and June 1985).


This trip included the presentation of both creationist flood geology and real geology, but there was no contest--when you have hundreds of feet of successive ocean floor beds full of fossils of marine life that has lived and died, and a large variety of completely different kinds of formations that have clearly been deposited in different kinds of events, it's transparently nonsense to claim that it was all laid down in a single year-long flood.

Top photo: Grand Canyon about 25 miles downstream from Lee's Ferry (mile 0); bottom photo: downstream view of river from Nankoweap Canyon (mile 53).

UPDATE (August 7, 2007): Here's a blog post about our trip by a member of the crew.

Mitt Romney's dog

David at Blue Mass Group offers comment on the Boston Globe's story which reveals that Mitt Romney used to strap his dog's carrier to the roof of the car and put the dog in it for 12-hour trips from Boston to Ontario (the specific story takes place in the mid-1980s). In the story, the children are disgusted because the dog, Seamus, has emptied his bowels in his crate, and the animal waste is dripping off the back of the car:

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

David at Blue Mass Group, quoting Ana Marie Cox:

Massachusetts's animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal "in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon." An officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals responded to a description of the situation saying "it's definitely something I'd want to check out." The officer, Nadia Branca, declined to give a definitive opinion on whether Romney broke the law but did note that it's against state law to have a dog in an open bed of a pick-up truck, and "if the dog was being carried in a way that endangers it, that would be illegal." And while it appears that the statute of limitations has probably passed, Stacey Wolf, attorney and legislative director for the ASPCA, said "even if it turns out to not be against the law at the time, in the district, we'd hope that people would use common sense...Any manner of transporting a dog that places the animal in serious danger is something that we'd think is inappropriate...I can't speak to the accuracy of the case, but it raises concerns about the judgment used in this particular situation."

In the comments, several people correctly observe that a crate-trained dog won't relieve itself in its own crate unless it absolutely has to or is under extreme stress.

Not surprising from a man who wants to double the size of Guantanamo.

Back from the UK

We are back from a trip to London (with side trips to Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford, and a couple days in Cambridge). Although we didn't plan it, we happened to see a number of interesting things on St. George's Day--the immediate aftermath of the attempted suicide jumper rescue at Millennium Bridge (my own photos are much less interesting than the Daily Mail's) and the Guinness Record attempt (successful, I believe) for largest coconut orchestra at Trafalgar Square (with Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and the cast of Spamalot in attendance, singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"). We got to see both Oxford and Cambridge's respective Bridges of Sighs (Cambridge says theirs is better because it's over water; Oxford's is really named Hertford Bridge), had lunches at the Eagle Pub and at The Orchard.

The photo is me in a doorway at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Unfortunately, we did not make it to Logic Lane.

Inside the TSA

Barbara Peterson took a job as a TSA screener and has written an interesting description of her experience for Conde Nast Traveler. She blames TSA's incompetence not on the individual screeners (who are generally doing as well as they could be hoped to under the demands of the job) but on Congress.

Bad Google directions

Anson Kennedy got this wonderful set of directions on how to get to a location in New Jersey:
Stan Schwartz also received some creative directions:

Back from Buenos Aires

I got back this morning from a few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a business trip. It was a beautiful country, with great summer weather. The people were very friendly (and patient with my attempts to use a few Spanish words and phrases, as I'm just a beginner at the language), and the food was excellent. I hope to return for a longer time in the future, and hopefully to get some Spanish tutoring while I'm there.

Buenos Aires is a huge modern city (population around 15 million) undergoing a lot of construction, especially in the Puerto Madero neighborhood, where this picture was taken. This was an old port that ceased being used in the 1960s, but is now the location of many restaurants, hotels, and businesses.

Although a website about Argentina business warned me that subjects not to discuss were the Perons and the Falkland Islands, both subjects were brought up by Argentinians I conversed with, and it wasn't a problem.

This was one of those rare trips where I returned home to Phoenix to find the weather much colder and wetter than it had been in the place I was visiting.

UPDATE (January 26, 2007): CNN Money recommends travel to Buenos Aires, and specifically offers this dining suggestion:

Tip: Cabana las Lilas in the Puerto Madero section of Buenos Aires is often cited as the best spot for grilled beef.

But Robin Goldstein, a writer for Fodor's travel guides, says you'll find a more authentic dining experience at half the cost just next door at La Caballeriza (address: Alicia Moreau de Justo 580).

I didn't visit Cabana las Lilas, but did eat at La Caballeriza with a large group of locals, and it was excellent (even the blood sausage wasn't bad).