My Blackberry did not get the memo

About the time change being delayed.

Props to Arizona for abstaining from this whole bizarre ritual.

Though it was always cool in college to close down the bar....and then close it down again on the "fall back" weekend.

Why we fight

Listen, I know that not everyone with a finger in the Iraq war pie is a scumbag with more money than sense. But these guys are not doing a great job at persuading me otherwise.

Jezebel points out that the CEO of the leading corporation providing body armor to our troops--DHB Industries--has been busted for bilking his company out of millions in order to pay for a number of ridiculous things like his daughter's $10 million bat mitzvah.

And of course, part of this money was made when he dumped DHB stock after learning that it had made a bunch of body armor that actually did not stop bullets and would have to be recalled. (NY Post)

Who are these people?

Memo to whackjob Blackwater defenders

When you are leaving ridiculous comments on news and opinion articles in support of Blackwater USA, please note that the firm's private mercenaries are not actually "our troops." It is also a bit of a stretch to refer to them as "our guys." [For a delightful sampling of the whackjobs' opinions, see the comments on this recent column from Carl Hiassen.]

Homeland security pervs have my full support

It would appear that DCA is one of the airports at which the Transportation Security Administration is testing its new millimeter-wave"virtual strip search" machines. (CNN) I went through one of these for the first time a couple of days ago at National.

You are asked to stand in a phonebooth-sized pod, and what feels like many jets of air are blasted at you from openings within the pod. (Holy Quantum Leap! Will I be teleported? Preserved in carbonite like Han Solo for the duration of my trip?) Then you move on. But this is what some random TSA guy sees:


This particular virtual strip search technique is a little less invasive than the "backscatter" method, which produces images like this:
(Sydney Morning Herald)

The ACLU is still concerned because "the images generated require passengers 'to display highly personal details of their bodies,' which [they say] shouldn't be necessary 'as a prerequisite to boarding a plane.'" (ABC).

Maybe I'm missing some legal principle here, or maybe I just have zero natural modesty. (Or, more likely, both). But I personally could not care less if some government employee sees my anonymous, kinda-sorta naked body along with many others as part of an effective effort to prevent weapons being carried on board planes.

One would think that the fact that all air travelers would have to submit to the search is an argument for the appropriateness of such a practice, not an argument against it, as the ACLU would have it. The only question in my mind is whether this is a significantly more effective way of keeping weapons off of planes than the traditional magnetic scanner. If the added security benefit is enough to justify the increased invasion of personal privacy, and the scanning is applied non-selectively to all passengers, then there is no problem here.

Marathons: global warming casualty?

This past weekend's Chicago Marathon was only the latest to fall apart due to unseasonably high temperatures, though it did fall apart fantastically. It was 70 degrees at the 8 AM start--quite warm, but not impossible--but by 11:30, temperatures had hit the high 80s. Runners were collapsing, calling 911, and flooding aid stations in distress, and officials stopped the race. (This means the elite runners were all in, but many, many runners did not get to finish the race.) Worse yet, one man died during the race. (NYT)

Here in DC, there was also tragedy at the Army Ten-Miler that day. One runner died in the 80-degree, 94-percent-humidity conditions. (WP)

No one wants to bag a race after training for months and dropping a lot of money on travel and lodging. But after the bad experiences in Chicago, and in London earlier this year, I wonder whether more runners will think twice during the freak heat waves, cold snaps, and storms that are becoming more and more common.

Let's get personal for a minute here

I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to people mispronouncing, misspelling, and otherwise butchering my surname. I understand that the typical English speaker may be thrown for a loop by the double-A and the hard G. I have been hoping that the success of Haagen-Dazs would help, but no dice so far. I double-checked my college diploma after graduation and was pleasantly surprised they got it right.

So yeah, I get it, and I don't get uptight about

-My name being "corrected" on conference name badges and the like with a hastily crossed-out A. "Here you go, MS. WAGE! Sorry we misspelled it the first time."

-Being referred to as "Melissa Wahzh" or "Wage" or the dreaded "Waggy" during graduations and other such ceremonies.

-General discombobulation when meeting people for the first time in person.

-The ubiquitous extra G (Wagge. People who have known me for years still make this mistake). "Huh, I know there's an extra letter in there somewhere...I'll take a chance on G."

But I draw the line at misspelled business cards. This is America, God bless us all, and I am sure that you publishing companies have dealt with weirder names than mine. I filled out your form, very clearly, and fixed the proof you sent back "corrected," and when you called to inquire about this odd name, our staffperson confirmed its spelling. What gives? If the folks at Sports Illustrated can spell "Gebrselassie," I know you can do this.