When facing legal charges, you do yourself the most favors by shutting your mouth.

It isn’t a surprise that some crazy people use video sharing sites to inflict their various complicated problems (and implausible stories surrounding those problems) on the world.

What worries me is that it could conceivably work.

Read the full column here in WND News.

When the TSA announced in early March that it would permit certain small pocketknives aboard flights, the response was predictable.  While knife owners rejoiced at this rare act of sanity from government (and quasi-governmental entities), much hand-wringing ensued from citizens and government figures alike.  How could the TSA make such a decision, given the nature of the September 11^th, 2001 attacks?  What could possibly motivate the TSA to permit sharp objects in airplane cabins?

“This is part of an overall Risk-Based Security approach,” read the TSA’s blog at the time, “which allows Transportation Security Officers to better focus their efforts on finding higher threat items such as explosives. This decision aligns TSA more closely with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.”  The blog post goes on to point out that razor blades and box-cutters would still be still prohibited in carry-on luggage.

The implications seemed clear enough: The threat from the types of small, non-locking pocketknives the TSA would have permitted (originally as of 25 April, 2013) through airport security checkpoints is relatively low.  Simply put, these tiny utility blades don’t offer much of a threat.  Hunting for them and confiscating them takes more time than TSA personnel wanted to spend.  They have finite resources and a lot of ground to cover in a typical day of air travel; therefore, they would rather have spent their time looking for things like bombs that can bring down an entire plane, rather than pocketknives that pose relatively little danger.

Unspoken in the now aborted policy revision was the acknowledgment, too, that the air travel paradigm has changed.  Where once it was possible for men armed with blades to take over an aircraft, passengers now know that simply complying with hijackers’ demands does not guarantee their safety.  There was a time when you could be reasonably certain, provided you could endure the experience, that you would end up safely back on the ground if a passenger jet was seized.  September 11^th changed that — and citizens changed their behavior accordingly.  Today a would-be hijacker is much more likely to be tackled and beaten by wary travelers, whose fates may well be sealed if they do not resist.

The change in TSA policy was nonetheless  opposed by a variety of special interest groups and unions, most notably Airlines for America, FliersRights.org, the Federal Law Enforcement Association, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the  Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).

The AFA’s opposition was particularly political.  Its website describes the organization as “the world’s largest labor union organized by flight attendants for flight attendants.  AFA represents nearly 60,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines, serving as a voice for flight attendants at their workplace, in the industry, in the media and on Capitol Hill.”  Shortly after the announcement by the TSA that it would relax knife restrictions on planes, an enormous graphic on the AFA website, www.afanet.org, proclaimed, “No Knives On Planes.”

“The knife lobby,” sneered the AFA’s web copy, “representing a group of knife manufacturers, gloated that their efforts to lobby the TSA for years finally ‘paid off’ and they were ‘instrumental’ in getting the TSA to change the policy.  …Now they are on Capitol Hill fighting us.  So the TSA policy change is not about aviation security and it’s certainly not about the safety of crewmembers or the traveling public — it’s about corporate interests and their paid lobbyists. …We have to make sure knives are not allowed back on our planes. At great cost, we know the danger of lifting the ban on knives.”

TSA Director John Pistole defended the policy change in mid-March, saying before a Homeland Security subcommittee that he “could have done a better job” of involving flight attendant groups (like the AFA) and law enforcement agencies in the decision to modify screening rules.  He insisted, however, that improvised explosives are the more significant threat.  The guidelines to which the TSA would have begun screening in April matched (as indicated on the TSA’s blog) those of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency that promotes air travel safety worldwide.

Ultimately the debate over the TSA’s rules revolved around those special interest groups and politicians angry that they weren’t consulted prior to the change.  Politico reported that House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul was irate over learning of the change through media reports. Pistole, undeterred, insisted that he was aware of no incidents involving knives of the type TSA wanted to allow aboard, while explaining that the screening time now allotted to finding thousands of pocketknives in travelers’ pockets and carry-on bags is simply resource-prohibitive.

Per a PDF file distributed last spring through the TSA’s website, a knife would have been explicitly allowed if…

•  It had  a blade shorter than 2.36 inches (6 centimeters)
• The blade was no wider than .5 inch at its widest point
• The blade did not lock (and the knife was not a fixed blade)
• The knife did not have a “molded” grip

Exactly what constitutes a “molded grip” was unclear at the time. The TSA’s PDF file offered specific examples of prohibited knives, to include all fixed blades, knives with wide blades, knives with finger-grooved plastic handles, and even a knife with finger-holes in its grip. A Swiss Army Knife (or a copy thereof) was shown among its examples of knives that would be allowed onboard, as were various keychain folders, bottle openers, and “wine knives.” (Curiously, among the other items that would have been allowed onboard planes were hockey sticks, golf clubs, and novelty miniature baseball bats.)

After first delaying implementation of the rules change from April to an unspecified date, the debate ended on  6 June, 2013, when Pistole announced TSA was dropping the change.  The result is no change.  TSA personnel will continue to waste screening time rooting out blades that represent very little actual threat, while honest citizens are harassed for carrying even the most basic of utility blades.

The problem with all screening rules is that, in the absence of a list of explicitly permitted knives by brand, unless the knife in question matches a knife on some list issued by the agency, it is virtually impossible to guarantee that a carried blade will or will not make it onboard. A lot depends on the discretion of individual screeners, as anyone who has flown in the last decade can attest.  Then, too, there is the possibility that a small knife could simply be missed by one screener and flagged by another. TSA personnel are far from infallible and security screening horror stories abound.

For now, politicking and resistance from special interests have guaranteed nothing changes in domestic air travel. A policy revision first hailed as a victory for those organizations supporting Americans’ knife rights has become an embarrassing reversal for John Pistole. It remains to be seen whether, at some future date, these rules might again be revisited.

It is only a matter of time before a piece of human filth who enjoys watching underage sex acts decides to bring his fantasies to real-world fruition.

In other words, even if you’ve never touched a child, if you have these sick desires inside you, you are a pervert and a pedophile.  In my opinion, you ought to “lean in and take one for the team,” as I once heard a comedian say, and kill yourself for everybody’s benefit.

Read the full column here in WND News.

It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. I was holding it for a friend. This isn’t want it looks like. These are not my pants.

Read the full column here in WND News.

No matter the subject, somewhere on YouTube there is a large body of fakes, frauds and freaks who… nonetheless have subscribers and followers, friends and allies.

Blaming an elaborate conspiracy at every level of state and local government, as well as accusing as co-conspirators anyone with whom he has ever interacted in real life or online, the poor fellow has been going slightly mad for a while now — making references to Christopher Dorner and worse.

Before that he was churning out a steady stream of “instructional” videos that were ridiculous at best and dangerous to the practitioner at worst.  He’s not alone. There are countless participants like him at video sharing sites.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Building guns is easy. It’s manufacturing ammunition that is relatively difficult.

The genie is out of the bottle. With plans for 3D-printed gun parts floating around the Pirate Bay now, anyone with the right printer can manufacture one of these weapons.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Specifically, I received an e-mail this morning from a law firm a few states away. When I replied and told the firm they had the wrong person, they got snide with me.

Now, stop and think about that from the standpoint of the client.  You’re the guy the law firm is SUPPOSED to be billing.  Your law firm accidentally sends your bill to somebody else and, when queried about it, insists they have the right person — apparently because they never bothered to confirm the e-mail address for you.  Would you be happy with a vendor or service provider who responded this way?

Attached is [redacted]‘s [date] services invoice. Please remit payment to the invoice address and reference the invoice number. If you have any questions regarding the invoice, please contact me at the number below. Thank you for your valued business.

ME: Excuse me, but who are you, and why am I be being billed?

I work with [redacted]. [So-and-so] did some legal work for you in regards to the [something] back in [sometime]. This is the invoice for his time. Please let [So-and-so] know if you have any additional questions. Thank you and hope you have a wonderful day.

It’s subtle, but there’s real arrogance in telling someone whom you’ve just billed incorrectly, and to whom you’ve disclosed accidentally the details of your work for another client, to have a “lovely, lovely day.”

A simple, “We apologize” without the smarmy editorializing would have been all that it took.  Instead, our attorney at law So-and-so acted like I had offended him for pointing out that maybe, just maybe, they should check these things before they tell people their clients’ business.

I’ve met a lot of lawyers and hired a few. Not once have I met one whom I would expect to respond this way — at least, not to a random e-mail generated by his own mistake.

Fat or skinny, Chris Christie is an unctuous, vulgar slob whose politics are “progressive” and whose attitude is classless.

Christie is fairly disgusting, yes. I say that as a fat man myself; I find him repellant.  But my disdain for Christie has nothing to do with his weight (despite his antics eating donuts on Letterman) and everything to do with his RINO politics.  Christie will do or say anything that hurts the GOP — when he isn’t bullying his own constituents with profanity, demanding they accept eminent domain encroachment on their shore properties.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Neither your belief that it is (or isn’t) nor a homosexual American’s belief that you are (or aren’t) a “homophobe” is germane to a free society.

Personally I’m tired of the fact that any comment not entirely affirming of someone’s lifestyle choices is now being used to condemn people as if they are heretics.  That’s not “tolerance” in a free society.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Curiously, this fellow, now late of the YouTube Ryu (until he grows bored with his new school), posted on one of his recent videos that he expects his “haters” to start, you know, hating upon him, now that he is — in his words — finally receiving “legitimate” training.  Apart from the startling realization that this means all of the training he proudly proclaimed to have before, including his black belt, must by implication be something less than legitimate, his comment underscores the peculiar flaw in the psyche of the average delusional martial arts fake.

To the fraudulent martial artist — the person pretending to be something or someone he is not — simply training at a reputable school and putting in one’s time over the long term, earning ranks as one goes, isn’t enough.  That’s why such people become fakes; it’s very hard for them to humble themselves and become students.  They’re too concerned with springing forth onto the mats fully formed as multiple-dan black belts.

When such a person finally decides to stop pretending and just… you know, shuts up and trains, this is not a cause for hatred.  This is a cause for celebration. This is precisely what the faker’s critics have been telling him he ought to do.

One of the things that characterizes delusional, fraudulent martial artists is that they’re forever challenging other people to fight while proclaiming how formidable they are. One of the reasons this obnoxious behavior irks legitimate students of the martial arts is that the challengers have so little justification for their inflated opinions of themselves. Their arrogance is grating and their lack of manners is off-putting.

Finally taking the step to train — long-term and consistently — at a legitimate school is the only cure for delusional would-be “warriors.”  Sadly, it is a cure that takes a great deal of time to work.  Too few of these obnoxious frauds stick with a real school long enough for it to do them any good because, damn it, training for real is hard. It requires the student to maintain an accurate self-image. It requires him to assess his progress separately from his ego and regardless of his insecurities.

It requires him, in other words, to be a real person… and this is harder than you might think for some people.