Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:58:27 -0400
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] NASFiC
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> wrote:
>> How did you manage that?  I thought you had an aversion to
>> government-issued IDs?
>
> I dislike passports, but I only absolutely object to *internal*
> passports.  If Americans need passports to travel within the US, why
> did the US bother to have a cold war?  It would have been cheaper
> and safer just to surrender to the USSR.  The only reason not to was
> to preserve freedom.  So if we're not going to bother with freedom
> anymore, what was the point in spending trillions and risking
> nuclear war?

Understood, and agreed.

>> I've driven as far as Indianapolis to avoid flying in the last
>> few years,
>
> Thanks.  If more Americans felt the way you did, security theater
> would soon come to an end.

Once I was there, I was even happier that I'd chosen not to fly.  The
event was an Aikido conference, and it was in a hotel that was literally
a stone's throw from the airport (part of the hotel parking lot was
within the exclusion zone around the terminal building, so you couldn't
park in that section, and some of us walked over to the terminal for
lunch on Saturday).  Flying would have been very convenient...except
that several of those who did fly missed half the conference due to the
Airlines unilaterally changing their flights from Sunday evening to
Sunday morning.  It was a Saturday/Sunday event.  Having driven, I
didn't have any problems and attended the whole thing, and left for home
about 5pm Sunday (got home about 4am).  I also didn't have to worry
about whether my wooden weapons would be damaged or lost by baggage
handlers.

>> but if I ever want to see my dad again, I'm going to have to fly at
>> least this once.
>
> Fortunately my mother and my brother live within walking distance of
> me.  (My father died six years ago.)

My dad is about 2400 miles away...driving would take something over 30
hours each way, and I only have a week total.

>> Maybe I should look into flight training again so I can fly myself...
>
> Are you sure the security theater isn't just as bad for that?
> Especially if one end of your trip is anywhere near DC?

If you are flying within 30 miles of D.C. you have to be on a flight
plan, and under control of air traffic control.  That requirement shut
down the flight schools at GAI years ago, but for licensed pilots it's
just an inconvenience...and Frederick is outside that zone and has a
very nice airport.  For most areas there is no security theater for
private planes...no different than using the car as far as that goes.

>> Or hold camp-cons...overnight charges at campgrounds are still
>> pretty low, and there's plenty of space available...
>
> Good idea.  One thing that may have kept people away from NASFiC was
> that Pennsic was going on at the same time.  I've considered attending
> Pennsic, but I'm not all that interested in the dark ages.  Especially
> since, if the government keeps doing what it's doing, we'll get to see
> real dark ages soon enough.

I haven't been to Pensic since about 1989, but it was fun when I did go
for a few years.  It's not the dark ages...it's the dark ages the way
they *should* have been.  It is the SCA after all.

If you go, you'll probably want to join up with an organized group.  The
thousands of people who attend have resulted in space issues, so there's
a "land grab" in July every year where space gets allocated, and it
mostly goes to large organized groups first, with individuals in the
leftover areas...which are not ideal in many ways.

> One piece of good news is that Metro has quietly dropped their plan to
> select entering passengers at random and search their bags.  Perhaps
> they figured they already had enough bad publicity, what with their
> never-ending delays and unreliability and their sky-high fares.  Maybe
> they finally got a clue.  Or perhaps not, given that their website
> implies that the only thing passengers care about is the fatal crash
> that happened in June of last year.  They don't seem to realize that
> Metro is at least a hundred times safer than driving, and that people
> are giving up on Metro and switching to driving because of the
> frequent delays.  And because they *can't afford* to take Metro
> with the new fares.  Driving is cheaper unless you park downtown.

I haven't been on a Metro train in years.  Since they've stopped taking
money to pay for parking, and don't have any anyway most of the time,
only frequent users who have sprung the cash for a dumb-card get to use
it.  The rest of us still have to subsidize it with our tax money, but
it is useless to us.  Don't have much reason to ever go into D.C.
anyway...there's enough stupidity out here in Maryland.  Don't need to
go into the real of the D.C. City Council for a megadose.

> They've broken ground for the Metro extension to Tysons.  I've been
> awaiting that extension for decades, but at this point I think it
> should be postponed until Metro proves it's able to reliably operate
> the existing system, with reasonable fares, and to financially break
> even when doing so.  If they're unable to do so, I think they all
> ought to be fired, and the whole system sold to the highest bidder.

I read about an analysis of the BART system once.  For the same
expenditure of money and energy that it took to build that system they
could have divided all the highway lanes in half, and built 6 million
half-width electric commuter cars and given them away to commuters, and
moved more people, more cheaply, with less environmental impact than
what they built.

-- Mike B.