Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Using Tasers to Secure Airplanes

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If every adult sober passenger is issued a specialized taser as they enter a plane, and has to return it at the end of the flight, it might discourage hijacking.

Only one in every six tasers would actually be capable of a full stun charge. Every taser would have a disable button, that the passenger could depress at any time. Thus if the passenger didn't want to be part of the defense team, they could hit the button. If a passenger felt that they were about to be overpowered, they could hit the button. There would be no indicator on the device to tell if the button had been pushed.

In addition, there would be an initializer sequence button, which would prevent the unit from being used for 20 seconds. This would be a double interlocked system requiring both hands to operate. Any taser in the process of setting up for use would immediately sound alarms throughout the plane, and would flash red lights in the general vicinity of the soon to be activated taser.

The end result of this would be that the element of surprise is taken away from the terrorists, should they try to use the tasers. Inadvertant activations are virtually eliminated, yet the power of several hundred suddenly armed passengers can be brought to bear on the terrorists. All in all, coupled in with the secure cockpits, it makes it very hard to use the plane as a guided missile, 9/11 style.

Other than booking half the flight, it would be very difficult for a terrorist to take control of a plane, regardless of any weapons they get past TSA. And, for good measure, keep those armed sky marshals flying.

Why You Might Look Forward to a TSA Body Scan...

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As I said before, doctors should be consulted, to add a few tumor detecting features to the TSA scanners.

Then you have a master scan done at the hospital and transferred to a chip. The chip goes in the scanner at the airport’s computer, which then does a live, on the spot scan, with no humans observing. If there is a difference, then a human is called in. This way, every time you flew, you’d be getting a free scan, that might save your life by catching something way early. And your privacy would be saved, and the scanner lines would probably move a lot faster, as the machine would be doing the looking and comparing.

So I’ve sped up screening, and saved millions in health care dollars, what more do you want from me this morning?

Monday, November 08, 2010

You're STILL a Good man, President Obama.

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Just had to say it.

How to Redraw Legislative Districts Fairly

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A "commission" will evolve to just as bad as the legislature itself.

The only fair system I can conceive of is using the census data, and a group of students and faculty, from a different UC campus computer science department each election, to design a program that defines the lines of the districts, one year in advance of the election. The program is run 3 different ways, faculty final design, student final design, and compromise, including design elements of both. Faculty and students work together to get to a near final design.

The legislature then has 30 days to take one of the three, or it defaults to a coin toss.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Political Ads Making Fun of the Handicapped

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Focusing on Bouncing Obama is a myoptic delusional approach to making the USA stronger, in an increasingly rougher global economy.

After two years of this kind of crap, it's time for the Tepid Party Lite, AKA, the Republican Party, to get out of diapers and stop with the temper tantrums.

And the first person of TPP persuasion that screams, "HONOR OUR MANDATE!" with be reminded by me, "Why should we, you never honored ours."

BTW, there's no mandate in the Senate, and there's no way in hell I'll ever vote for a Republican after watching the anti-Ami Bera ads where they deliberately used slo mo and repeated frames to make the distinguished MD and professor, look like a drool cup special ed adult. The most deliberately dishonest and make fun of the handicapped ad I've ever seen. Duck Lundgren!