I readily admit that it's difficult for me to disguise my utter disdain for one of the most vile, perverted, useless, and incompetent government agencies in existence. You can imagine, then, how hard it would be for me to pass up the opportunity to call attention to this TSA story from The New York Post:
A bumbling TSA agent "playing around" with a pepper-spray container at Kennedy Airport fired the caustic liquid at five fellow screeners yesterday, sending all six to the hospital, a source told The Post.
The agent, Chris Yves Dabel, discovered the device at the Terminal 2 security checkpoint and tried to determine if it was real, a source told The Post.
He told Port Authority cops that he "found the canister on the floor and thought it was a laser pointer."
"They were playing around with it," said one Kennedy Airport official.
The screener sprayed five other TSA agents around him, sending all six to Jamaica Hospital and halting security checks at Kennedy for at least 15 minutes, police said.
Just another shining example of how the TSA keeps us safe.
It used to be enough to just witness a significant event. Not anymore, as you can see by the tech-savvy crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square to see the new Pope.
Congress has rebuked the IRS for spending $60,000 on "training" video parodies of Star Trek and Gilligan's Island. The IRS claims that the video training saved the agency $1.5 million compared to the costs of training employees in person.
Two observations. First, I find it incredibly ironic that members of Congress would complain about the wasting of taxpayer dollars. Wasting money is their sole purpose for existing.
Second, the following video does give us a rather candid glimpse into the bureaucratic mind. The video description pretty much sums it up:
The US Internal Revenue Service spent $60,000+ of your money to produce this terrible Star Trek spoof. Despite being really bad, the film does demonstrate the culture of government: You, the citizens, are tax cattle to be farmed for the state. Without genius central planners civilization itself would fall.
So, sit back, relax, and enjoy $1.5 million worth of IRS training.
If you haven't seen Duck Dynasty on A&E, you're missing one of the few decent shows on television. For those of you familiar with the show, you will appreciate these beardless pictures of Willie, Phil, Jase, and Si:
If you haven't checked out Brusspup on YouTube, you're missing out on some amazingly cool experiments and optical illusions. His latest involves water and sound.
You can read how he did it on his YouTube page. While you're there, be sure to check out some of his other videos. Here's a brief sampling:
The Library of Congress, working with $22 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, has created an online digital archive of five million newspaper pages. Tom Tryniski of Fulton, New York, has created a database of 22 million newspaper pages with only a few computers and a microfilm scanner.
You can peruse Tryniski's newspaper collection here.
Who hasn't thought of jumping out of a plane (or at least off the garage roof) with an umbrella? Extreme athlete Erik Roner decided to play Mary Poppins for real. From a hot air balloon. The results aren't exactly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, so it's a good thing he had the sense to bring along a parachute.