Ebony and Ivory

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar:

The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes.

Where do ya think you're goin with that thar woodwind, boy!?! You got any papers with that?

This article is very telling. On one hand, you have over zealous government officials conducting raids in the name of draconian environmental regulations, and on the other hand you have musicians - who do more than there share of concocting said draconian regulations - whining and reviling over the injustice of the same regulations. Hmmm.

This is why I don't fly anymore

His ordeal began last Friday when airport security in Freeport, Bahamas found a .32-caliber bullet inside his fanny pack. He was charged with possessing ammunition and sent to a jail in Nassau. Lapp says he thinks he left the bullet in his pack after a hunting trip.

How would you take it if this happened to you while traveling with family on vacation? I'm certainly capable of overlooking a shell casing or bullet in a travel bag. How about you?

All of these so called security measures that have been enacted around the world rely on policy and not thought. One security yahoo with the capability to produce conscious thought would have kept an innocent man out of jail if he or she were only able to act on what they know, and not on what a zero-tolerance policy tells them to.

Saving the world from warriors and knife collectors

TSA spokesman Kawika Riley says an officer operating an X-ray machine at Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport last week noticed something suspicious in the man’s luggage, and a fellow officer’s search turned up the knives. Riley says they included switchblade knives and a butterfly knife.

This wouldn't be the first time some dude lost all of his knives to the meat-gazing, kiddie -fondling, TSA pecker-checkers at the security checkpoint at BWI; I have had almost the exact same thing happen to me once while on my way to the beautiful beach-like resort of Ramadi in the exciting province of Al-Anbar, and I guess it would be alright if I told another whopper of a story this week about that experience:

About five years ago I had a task to go to Iraq as a contractor on a program for a year, and I had a lot of training to get done in a short amount of time which meant that I had little time to pack. I was offered the services of a company that ordered a large portion of the equipment that I needed, and my time to pack it came the night before I was to leave from BWI to El-Paso for processing into South West Asia.

I packed all through the night waiving all of my time to sleep, and the finished product was two very packed seabags, a lock box to transport my M9, ammo, and magazines, and my ruck that was almost ripping at the seams from my gear. My wife took me to the airport that morning to see me off and, having very recently married to compensate for the timing of this trip, and the fact that she was saying good bye to her husband for a year while he went to a dangerous place to do dangerous things, she was not in high spirits. Neither was I.

I checked the two seabags and my M9, at which point the ticket lady said that I could not check any more baggage, but my ruck was small enough that it would pass as a carry on item. Tears were already flowing at this point and my mind was elsewhere, so I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed the ruck and headed over to the security station. I was the only one being checked at that moment, as there was nobody in line, so I kissed my wife goodbye and watched her walk around the corner before picking my ruck up and putting it onto the conveyor for an x-ray.

By that time a few other travelers had shown up for the violation of their rights, body and property, and I was cursing under my breath at whichever one of those morons was holding up the x-ray machine; I needed to get going to catch my flight. There was a dogpile of TSA goons at the x-ray machine, all in one great big confused ball, and then two police officers showed up and postured themselves like something was wrong.

Then it hit me. . . .

"Oh. OH! Yeah, about that bag. . . .hey guys, uhhhmmm. . . . I know what y'all are looking at, and I can explain" I said to the TSA people, because I had just realized the mistake that I had made at the ticket counter. All of my knives were in my ruck, along with an MSR stove and empty aluminum fuel bottle, several large sharpening stones (a TSA goon asked me if they were "rune stones." Amazing), and also my desert boots and cammies and stuff. I had intended to check that bag, but in the moment of everything I had forgot that I had packed my 8" tanto Ka-Bar, CRKT M21-04 folder, Cold Steel Arc-Angel balisong, Klein folding electrician's knife, and Gerber and Leatherman multi-tools, and had just carried them right into a security checkpoint.

This was all a misunderstanding because I wasn't trying to sneak them through security, and I had no intentions of harming anyone in this country with those knives, so I hoped that cooler heads would prevail and I would be escorted back to the ticket counter. That turned out to be a stupid idea.

I was promptly arrested and charged with the same charges the man in the above article was charged with. The arresting officer and his Sergeant were realists about it, telling me that this happens all the time and that Soldiers, Marines and such go to jail left and right for forgetting that they have a knife in their pocket or a multitool in their bag. The Sergeant even told me that he had to arrest a Marine Brigadier General the week before who forgot his loaded M9 was in his briefcase when he flew back from Iraq.

One older officer there though --officer Diddlydooright -- was a complete and total fucking moron, and was a constant douchebag about every little thing even though I was as calm and cooperative as I could be and had shown everyone my government orders, ID, cammies, and the ticket stub from my M9 that I checked at the ticket counter. Why would I try to smuggle a bunch of knives on a plane to do harm when I had a pistol and ammo? That didn't matter to Diddlydooright.

He flipped out that I even had a gun; flipped out when he found holsters in my ruck, yelling at me about "why do you need a holster!?!?" I told him I was on my way to Iraq; you know, that hot place where Americans are being shot at? I held up my government orders that stated where I was going, and that I was to be armed while I was there, signed by a Major General, so that Diddlydooright could see it, and his eyes glazed over like I had just told him I was heading to Ohio. "You don't need a gun! You don't need a holster! This is a SWAT TACTICAL KNIFE! What are you doing with a SWAT knife?!?"

IIIIIRRRRRAAAAAQQQQQ. He didn't get it.

That fucktard cop tormented me for hours and hours while I was booked. When he measured and photographed my knives, he recorded the blade size as being the entire length of the knife. About every fifteen minutes he would come by, pick up my CRKT, and then shout at me for having a SWAT TACTICAL KNIFE! "What err yeeew dooooooin' with a SWAT TACTICAL KNIFE?!?" Then he would stick me in a cell. Ten minutes later when the arresting officer or the Sergeant would come by and see me in there, they would shake their head and pull me out of there and uncuff me, letting me sit quietly in a chair next to them. Whenever officer Fuckface would walk by or try to talk to the other officers, they would roll their eyes or respond to him with a snarky comment. Whenever they would leave, officer Fuckface Von-diddlydooright would come by, sigh out loud, put cuffs on me and stick me back in the cell. I had the impression that everyone was waiting for his ass to retire.

The arresting officer eventually took me before the Magistrate, who let me go on my own recognizance. She also said flatly that this happens all the time, and that the officers are not allowed any discretion to solve the matter without arrest. There's the door - good luck.

By the time that I got to El-Paso about eighteen hours had passed. I still hadn't slept and was a very bitter person to say the least, and my anger was about to go full into the red. When I got to the unclaimed luggage office, the lights were off and no one was there. A stack of luggage four foot high completely filled the office and spilled ten feet out into the lobby; and there at the very end of the stack was the shitty plastic lockbox that held my M9, six magazines, and two fifty round boxes of 124 grain NATO ball ammo - a shitty plastic lockbox that could be opened with a paper clip.

Way to make the world a safer place with that zero tolerance policy. You guys really saved the day.

I ended up having to spend $2,000 on a lawyer to settle the charges. I tried to handle it on my own by calling the Clerk of the Court from an Iridium sat phone while sitting in the sand next to a dumpster, explaining to her my situation, but was told that if I missed my court date they would issue a warrant for my arrest and I would come home a fugitive. Tough shit.

I never did get the $600 in knives back. I picked up another Ka-Bar in Texas, and also a Benchmade Rukus to put in my pocket, and they served and still serve me well. I wonder about how many Servicemen and Servicewomen get jammed up in the gears of "justice" while trying their best to do their duty under adverse conditions. I have no doubts that the poor guy in the article above really is a knife collector, and just made a mistake. At least he doesn't have to go to war after being processed through jail.

No fighting chance

In the hallways of police headquarters, some police officials were struggling to understand the incident, saying it didn’t sound right.

Even Mayor Francis Slay reacted to the news with skepticism, wondering how three Marines, one of whom was carrying a knife, would lose their knife and a wallet to two un-armed men.

There is this idea perpetuated that Marines are always armed and itching for a fight. While this may be true in combat, and sometimes not even then (ask me how I know), the reality of the situation is closer to what the Marine Corps Spokeswoman said, that Marines are encouraged not to get into an altercation over anything other than a fight for your life. To neck that down to something less official to give to a media weeny, Marines are flatly told that getting into a fight out in public will lead to an end in your career, or a severe demotion, oftentimes being the exact same thing.

You think that the Marine Corps would trust their Marines, but there is no trust. They are not allowed to resist the criminal element, and are denied the means to do so, even on a base.

This was noted during the Fort Hood shooting, where the media was scratching their head in disbelief that a single man armed with a handgun could kill so many Soldiers armed with M16s, when they didn't know that military bases are very strictly kept Gun Free Zones. Paul Helmke even pointed out how the shooting went down at a "heavily fortified Army base", when it isn't very fortified at all, and is filled to the brim with unarmed Soldiers.

Back to the article, here you have two men who swore an oath to protect this nation and are willing to bet their life to uphold that oath, and they are barred from preventing their own robbery on their own soil by a threat of being kicked out of their Service with dishonor. Those Marines did exactly what they were instructed to do, and now the nation will read this article over a cup of coffee this morning and wonder why two highly trained warriors are such pussies. I guess that's better than a lawsuit. Frickin' blood sucking lawyers.

This is a tangent, but I say it again - behind every problem in this country is a battalion of scumbag lawyers. Every stupid "zero tolerance" policy ever imagined can ultimately be traced to its genesis, which is some team of attorneys who only know how to attorn. I complain about that, but I guess every ecosystem has to have maggots to pick the flesh from the bones.

St Louis is a beautiful city, and it's a blast to be there as a Marine. I highly recommend donning a toga during a weekend bar hopping tour while downtown. Not that I've ever done that. That said, there are some very very dangerous parts there, and combine that with a Marine's penchant for strong drink, and some bad policy making it a shameful crime to prevent some scumbags from taking your stuff, and you have yourself a clown show. It's a disgusting shame that the Marine Corps doesn't trust its own to carry a modern self defense tool, but they should at least give them a fighting chance by not barring them from breaking a few noses if threatened by criminals. Marines do know the difference between right and wrong, or they wouldn't be sent into another country with a terrifying arsenal designed to allow them to kill every bad guy in sight while not killing any innocent civilians. Have a little trust.

Where was the security?

Prosecutors say Alkebular attacked the 14-year-old boy twice on April 25 inside and outside the zoo. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the victim recognized the group Alkebular was with and tried to avoid it. Several people attacked the victim inside the zoo led by Akebular, who stabbed him twice in the arm before his group fled.

He then went on to catch up with the victim later and stab him in the guts repeatedly.

Uuuummmmm, the Smithsonian Zoo is a Gun Free Zone that is protected by a full time staff of security personnel. A quick check confirms the stipulation right there on their webpage that they "ensure your safety," and that carrying knives there is against the rules. I'm thinking the victim's parents have grounds for a claim against the Smithsonian, as getting stabbed multiple times by a group of youths runs counter to the idea of ensured safety. Notice the specific mention of knives and weapons:

Do not bring any sharp items into the museums such as knives (including pocket or "Swiss Army"-style knives), screwdrivers, scissors, nail files, corkscrews, etc. Firearms, pepper spray, and Mace are also prohibited.

Officer friendly at the top of the page, who appears to be gleefully handing out a parking ticket, looks to have a firearm on his duty belt. Lots of good it did the victim. If kids can wander into an allegedly secure area and stab people with impunity, than it's not really secure, and all you're doing with a policy like that is disarming everyone else. This sort of attack can happen to anyone at that zoo, and is the reason why I have/will never take my family there. I have actual knowledge that the Virginia Beach Zoo and the Virginia Beach Aquarium does not disarm its visitors, so I'll stick with going there.

Why not a study I can get behind

This short article explains that based on a recent study, DC is tied with Chicago on the worst traffic congestion in the nation, but I'm pretty sure the 70 hour figure is an extreme lowball number. To get at some truth, one has to scroll down and read the comments from the people who live here and drive this nightmare every day.

There does seem to be little interest in widening the I-95 corridor from Fredericksburg to DC, unless of course there's a way to bilk money from people by building a special lane for hippies and 18 passenger vans. Then you can only imagine the possibilities.

I learned about cause and effect in like 6th grade, and even then I could have told you that if you build thousands of homes every year and attract tens of thousands of people and families into an area in a short amount of time, you will have a horrendous spectacle of a roadway system unless you address it first. Fucking duh!

So now we have smarty pants people who presumably come to work wearing a white labcoat with pocket protector telling us that they're pissing away public funds studying the effects of piss poor infrastructure management, and then comparing notes to see which major city sux the most.

Well, thank you very much! I can take all that information that you just gave me and do exactly nothing with it, because I've sat in NYC, LA, DC, and Houston traffic, and can tell you without a single bit of doubt that the city management fumbled the fuckin ball bigtime there, and the locals are the ones paying with their time and funds! Super job!

Now, why don't you smarty pants types do us all a favor and do a study to find out the names of the people responsible for mismanaging the roadway systems so we can write them a nasty-gram, or kick them out or kick their ass for making all of us sit in traffic for days out of our lives while they pocket the money from letting greedy developers make a sport of cutting down all of our trees to make shitty homes! I can do something with that information!

Zero Intelligence Policy

The creators of Zero Tolerance Policies are doing a hell of a job of destroying this country. I'm sure, as always, that at the genesis of retarded laws like this are a legion of air-headed lawyers. You can count on that.

Here we have a high school student who, as far as we can tell, is an upstanding human being that loves his family and just wants to graduate and move on, but now is jammed up because some blow-hards in a board of supervisors meeting decided that toy guns were a menace worth ruining lives over.

Way to go guys. This would be the unintended consequences that people have been warning you about.

I don't know if there are such policies in my AO (wouldn't surprise me if there were), but if I knew a person who advanced such a stupid idea, I would not associate myself with them anymore.