Puny Miscellaneous Links for Mortals: 2010

[Shale]

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/11/16/children-draw-h-p-lovecraft-cthulhu/

Fourth-graders draw Lovecraft's finest.

[superaielman]

http://bluesundaycolts.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-peyton-manning-is-doing-and-how-to.html

Peyton Manning is likely the greatest QB of all time in the NFL. This article's worth reading (If you can power through the jargon) to see how he runs it. Short version: He is a freak of nature who obsessively studies opposing players/coaches, to the extent of being able to tell what the next play is based on simple gestures.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

http://bluesundaycolts.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-peyton-manning-is-doing-and-how-to.html

Peyton Manning is likely the greatest QB of all time in the NFL. This article's worth reading (If you can power through the jargon) to see how he runs it. Short version: He is a freak of nature who obsessively studies opposing players/coaches, to the extent of being able to tell what the next play is based on simple gestures.

He was also raised for it literally his entire life. He and his brother were essentially the product of a Football Sibko.

[superaielman]

That doesn't always work, in fairness. See: Todd Marinovich.

[metroid composite]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/health/20docs.html?_r=2&ref=us
So apparently Dick Cheny no longer has a heart.  Or a pulse.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
Interesting article about how Israel does airport security much better than the US.

http://boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html
Law professor and Police officer agree: it's never advantageous to talk to the police.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-now-putting-hands-down-fliers-pants.html
Extreme airport security patdown....

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html
Airports...aren't required to use TSA; they can use a private company instead.

[Lady Door]

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
Interesting article about how Israel does airport security much better than the US.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/11/16/backscattering-and-groping/

As an aside, one thing I occasionally see people asking why the US (and Canada) can’t run  airports more like Israel does. I don’t pretend to know enough to give a genuinely sufficient answer to this, but I will hypothesize that one reason may be that the Israeli way is possibly not scalable from a small, militarized country of seven and a half million to a large and largely civilian country with 40 times the population. Israel has 11 airports (two international and nine domestic); the US has 376 which have regularly scheduled airline service. This isn’t to suggest the US couldn’t do its airport security better or less invasively. Just that I don’t know if we could do it like Israel.

Let's not forget daily volume (in the U.S., 1 million-2 million passengers flying every day) and personnel logistics. And, you know, the difference in government. The US and Canada can't run airports more like Israel does because the US and Canada are not Israel.

A little anecdote, relative to the comment from the article met linked to about how "Israelis... don't take sh-- from anybody." I was taking the ferry to mainland Washington from the island my parents lived on. I had done so once or twice before in my time visiting, and it tended to take 1-2 hours, mainly because of needing to sit there and wait in line for the stupid ferry. The loading/unloading never took more than 20 minutes.

On this trip in particular, we had to get on the ferry that involved a stop in Canada. As such, security was doubled -- not only did we have typical transportation security measures, now we had U.S. Customs involved. That trip took around 3.5 hours even though the ship was half as full as it had been on any other ferry trip.

We're talking, now, about a short jaunt from mainland WA to a WA island. Domestic travel. Simply adding in an international port (which happened prior to the stop I got in on, so we're ignoring the extra distance traveled by the ferry to make that stop) and all the security measures that went with it nearly doubled the normal timing of the trip.

Do you want to know what the extra security measures were?

They checked passports.

Somehow I think psychologically profiling passengers would cause a snarl in air transportation efficiency which, yeah, really doesn't need the help.

...

Not to say that something doesn't need to change. I am looking at 2 flights in the next 6 weeks involving three different airports, each of which has a backscatter machine/"enhanced pat down" security protocol. I am not looking forward to that any more than I did the inane "remove your shoes, take your laptop out of your backpack, belts off, take off your coat, walk through here, okay, step away and get redressed elsewhere" shit that has been part of every flight I've ever taken since I was prepubescent.

For the record, if I'm pulled to the extra screening, I will be refusing the backscatter and requesting the pat down. I'm not interested in facing fines or jail time over trying to visit my parents for Christmas unmolested. I do think it's ridiculous that I have to make that choice. Jail time/fine, molestation, or <insert various cancer-causing or cancer-accelerating exposures to radiation here>. Just for traveling, mind you. Not because I am acting suspicious, or because they have any reason to believe I might be carrying something that would cause harm to anyone, but because I am trying to get from point A to point B using public transportation.

I agree that I do not want to explode in mid-air, I agree that I do not want to have to tackle a terrorist to survive, I even agree and appreciate that the potential of these things are real concerns for our government. I do not agree that it must be presupposed, "randomly," that I could be causing that threat. Or even the person next to me. Or the person who cut me off on the way to the counter.

I don't know how on earth we would implement it, but goddamnit, what happened to intelligence? I'm not talking the smarmy "har har our politicians are idiots" personal intelligence (even if it is frequently true), I mean in the sense of government functions and security measures. You know, that whole "fourth amendment" thing.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I am honestly intensely curious about the place of airport security weighed against the fourth amendment. Is it possible that by merely being present at the airport with an intent to travel, we are giving up our right to be secure in our persons, papers and effects? Are we undermining the "reasonable expectation of privacy" (the Katz v. US refinement) by just going along with it? Is it really just that the fourth amendment hasn't been applied to personal privacy? We seem to be missing a lot of that "immediate need" and "probable cause" stuff that's supposed to filter exceptions.

...

tangent. Yes. It's obviously been on my mind.

[metroid composite]

Legally, yes, the right to not be searched doesn't apply because you are entering private premises.  This is why they can, for instance, insist on X-Raying your bag--whereas a police officer can't walk up to you on the street and say "you have to let me x-ray your bag."


I feel like they must be stepping over some other line, however.  Plenty of people need to fly for work reasons.  There are federal regulations against exposure to excess radiation in work environments.  There are federal regulations against being regularly groped in your work environment.

EDIT: The enormous fine for refusing search doesn't make sense to me either--OK, so on closer inspection after making my purchase, I've decided I don't want to go skydiving; I'm not asking for a refund, I'm just going to chicken out and go home.  How could this possibly justify a fine?

[Hunter Sopko]

Legally, yes, the right to not be searched doesn't apply because you are entering private premises.  This is why they can, for instance, insist on X-Raying your bag--whereas a police officer can't walk up to you on the street and say "you have to let me x-ray your bag."

Airports are private property? I thought they were run by the state/government, or at the very least accepted federal funds. I mean, I know the airlines themselves could enact their own security measures, but I'm pretty sure airports are not private property, unless there is some crazy loophole I'm missing.

Also, I would opt for the X-Ray. If someone wants a picture of my naked self, let them have it. If they want to pat down my junk, I'm charging a baggage handling fee.

[Lady Door]

In the United States and Canada, commercial airports are generally operated directly by government entities or government-created airport authorities (also known as port authorities).

Many US airports still lease part or all of their facilities to outside firms, who operate functions such as retail management and parking. In the US, all commercial airport runways are certified by the FAA under the Code of Federal Regulations Title 14 Part 139, "Certification of Commercial Service Airports"[3] but maintained by the local airport under the regulatory authority of the FAA.

So... whatever that means. >_>

Also, the argument that you're entering private premises and thus lose your right to not be searched does not make much sense to me. I get the point you're making, m.c., though I don't know anything about the relevant laws.

In fact, that's kind of scary, isn't it? No one seems to be sure who owns/controls the airport, what laws apply or do not apply, what you give up by going there, etc. (In general, that is - I know someone knows that, or at least several someones, but it's not widely held knowledge, which is a PR problem to the nth degree given the current brouhaha.)

The fine for refusing search is based on the overarching "protecting against terrorists" concept. If there were no penalty to saying, "No thanks, I won't deal with this today," it would be too easy for a terrorist to case the joint and just keep trying to go through until they made it past the extra screening. It's called "leaving the security area without permission." So says what I've read, anyway.

If they want to pat down my junk, I'm charging a baggage handling fee.

I honestly hadn't heard that one before. It is awesome.

Airports are private property? I thought they were run by the state/government, or at the very least accepted federal funds. I mean, I know the airlines themselves could enact their own security measures, but I'm pretty sure airports are not private property, unless there is some crazy loophole I'm missing.

An interesting point, the private security vs. TSA thing. I am pretty sure part of why the TSA gets away with this is because it's a government agency. Again, this is not a comment about government mismanagement, they're the ones that make the laws so they can break them, etc. I mean, the government has a lot more leeway in proving AT THE MOMENT whether what they're doing is legal or not. They are subject to a much greater degree of scrutiny if someone decides they've screwed up, true, but until then they've got a lot more flexibility than your average private security firm, especially when it comes to emerging legal questions (like, say, the right to privacy, or what right a public transportation port has to protect everyone by using preemptive, general, thorough search). Everything about the unwarranted wiretapping comes immediately to mind.

[NotMiki]

I can answer some of your 4th Amendment questions re: airports.

I am honestly intensely curious about the place of airport security weighed against the fourth amendment. Is it possible that by merely being present at the airport with an intent to travel, we are giving up our right to be secure in our persons, papers and effects? Are we undermining the "reasonable expectation of privacy" (the Katz v. US refinement) by just going along with it? Is it really just that the fourth amendment hasn't been applied to personal privacy? We seem to be missing a lot of that "immediate need" and "probable cause" stuff that's supposed to filter exceptions.

First, the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy does not apply where courts say that the American people can not objectively believe they will have the ability to keep their persons and effects private.  In other words, because everyone in America knows that you have to go through a security check to get on a plane, it's probably not a "4th amendment search" for the government to look at your stuff (assuming it is the government doing it and not a private party).  Since it's not a search according to the 4th amendment, it doesn't have to be reasonable or need a warrant.  It can be completely unreasonable without violating the 4th amendment.

Don't quote me on that, though.  That's how the Katz test works, but I haven't read anything applying it to the airport context.  And I know for a fact it's a "search" for the government to do more than pat down the outside of your bags on a bus.

When the 4th amendment applies, it is very much concerned with the sanctity of one's person against being manhandled or x-rayed, by the way.  Police cannot detain you (in the sense that they make it clear you can't go anywhere) without a reasonable suspicion that you are involved in some criminal activity, and they cannot frisk you without a reasonable suspicion that you are armed.  Now, "reasonable suspicion" is a low bar, to be sure, (the police officer needs to be able to point to specifically articulable facts that lead him/her to the suspicion that you're armed, not generalized hunches) but it's something.  I know for a fact that this standard applies to government agents at airports.

One other thing: the vast majority of stops and searches are consented to, so the government doesn't need to prove anything beyond that the person consented to the search in a situation where that person reasonably would have believed they had the choice to refuse.  And people really do say "yes" almost all the time, for some reason.  If the police have no "reasonable suspicion" to stop you and you refuse their consent, they can't use your refusal to consent as a reason to search you, because refusing to consent is you asserting your 4th amendment right, and the courts are not about to let the government use your assertion of a constitutional right as an excuse to detain you.

------------------

I think it's absolutely fascinating that Israel's heavy airport security means Israelis, to quote that article, "don't take shit from anybody."  The use of that phrase in the way they mean reveals so much about how different the Israeli and American mindset are when it comes to governmental authority.  When they say Israelis don't take shit from anybody, they mentally equate the people with the state and mean the state of Israel doesn't take shit.  If I said, in the context of Airport security, that "Americans don't take shit from anybody" I would mean that the American people as individuals will not take shit from the state.

Let's not forget daily volume (in the U.S., 1 million-2 million passengers flying every day) and personnel logistics. And, you know, the difference in government. The US and Canada can't run airports more like Israel does because the US and Canada are not Israel.

The people who come up with this stuff must think it's criminal that the US doesn't have broadband when dinky European countries like Belgium (think it was Belgium, anyway, maybe the Netherlands) does.  Gee, maybe it's because Wyoming is the size of Germany and has a population of 500,000?

[metroid composite]

Legally, yes, the right to not be searched doesn't apply because you are entering private premises.  This is why they can, for instance, insist on X-Raying your bag--whereas a police officer can't walk up to you on the street and say "you have to let me x-ray your bag."

Airports are private property? I thought they were run by the state/government, or at the very least accepted federal funds.

Entering the San Francisco courthouse, I had to have my bag x-rayed.  Entering the Canadian parliament building I had to have my bag x-rayed.  I'm betting that if I entered a government-owned broadcasting station (like BBC or CBC) I'd have to have my bag x-rayed.  In some places, there are public schools with metal detectors.  To say nothing of, say, a government research lab, which I may not be allowed to visit at all.

Public Property =/= State Ownership =/= Private Property

So...yeah, should have used a more specific term, I guess.  But I'm pretty sure in this case that State Ownership and Private Property follow the same rules.

[Shale]

First, the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy does not apply where courts say that the American people can not objectively believe they will have the ability to keep their persons and effects private.  In other words, because everyone in America knows that you have to go through a security check to get on a plane, it's probably not a "4th amendment search" for the government to look at your stuff (assuming it is the government doing it and not a private party).  Since it's not a search according to the 4th amendment, it doesn't have to be reasonable or need a warrant.  It can be completely unreasonable without violating the 4th amendment.

Okay, unless I'm missing something, that logic is intensely scary. It's legal to search everybody who enters an airport because everybody who enters an airport gets searched? That works?

[Lady Door]

That was pretty much how I interpreted the Katz test, too. Thanks for clarifying, Jim.

First, the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy does not apply where courts say that the American people can not objectively believe they will have the ability to keep their persons and effects private.  In other words, because everyone in America knows that you have to go through a security check to get on a plane, it's probably not a "4th amendment search" for the government to look at your stuff (assuming it is the government doing it and not a private party).  Since it's not a search according to the 4th amendment, it doesn't have to be reasonable or need a warrant.  It can be completely unreasonable without violating the 4th amendment.

Okay, unless I'm missing something, that logic is intensely scary. It's legal to search everybody who enters an airport because everybody who enters an airport gets searched? That works?

Yeah. That was my concern too. The actual court case (Katz v US) was over a phone tap performed on a toll phone (eg, a phone booth phone), iirc. The determination was that 1) the place was a space you could reasonably expect to be private, even though it was a "public" space; 2) any reasonable person would expect privacy; 3) even though there was no physical intervention (that is, no one touched him), the wiretap counted as a search.

The first part is the one relevant to my question. Does an airport count as a space where you'd reasonable expect a degree of privacy, whether it's of your person or of your possessions? And the answer, now at least, seems to be, "Not really." Because, yes, we have accepted that searches happen, and it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.

Crazy shit, man.

[NotMiki]

Okay, unless I'm missing something, that logic is intensely scary. It's legal to search everybody who enters an airport because everybody who enters an airport gets searched? That works?

Like I said, I don't know that it actually applies to airport inspections, but yeah, that's how the rule works, and it is scary shit.  And of course the courts are the ones that decide what "America" thinks.  There are some ridiculously scary inroads: pretty much anything you keep with a 3rd party, like your bank records, are not covered (relax, after the Supreme Court said they weren't covered, congress enacted a law that says yes, they are).  Anything people could see with the naked eye from the street is not covered, nor are conversations you have with people who later talk to the police (or happen to be informants already), nor is anything on your property outside the area immediately surrounding your house even if police would have to trespass to see it.

The government wins almost every 4th Amendment case there is, with the exception of ones that invade the home.  (Targeting homes with infrared heat sensors is a "search" under the 4th amendment and may not be done without a warrant; a police officer with probable cause to arrest a suspect may not do so if the suspect is in his home, there are no exigent circumstances, and there is no warrant.)

[Just Another Day]

Don't have a law background or anything, let alone in American law, but from a Canadian journalism perspective it's been emphasized to me that a lot of these reasonable expectation of privacy standards are highly subjective and situational. You may or may not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own living room if the drapes are open and you're visible from the street, but you probably do if your drapes are closed, even if someone standing on the sidewalk can still see into your house, for whatever reason (silhouettes on the shade, or through the gap in the middle, or whatever). Similarly, if you're doing something private (comforting a crying child is the classic example, the "tender moment" defense) it's more likely that the courts will grant your reasonable expectation of privacy.

In Canada at least, and I strongly suspect the US, expectation of privacy can be overridden by public interest; if you're committing a crime in your own basement and someone takes a picture of it through an improperly covered window, it's publishable despite your expectations of privacy. This'd be a possible defense, I imagine, of airport security.

Mind you, without having any real clue as to their legal status re: public/private property, privacy expectations, etc., I think it's pretty obvious that airport security procedures are broadly speaking legal. The questions with the exposure to radiation vs. public sexual shaming thing, it seems to me, stem less from the existence of security measures generally and more from their specific terribleness. Like they're awful, possibly dangerous, possibly injurious, and they don't accomplish much or maybe even anything. Less a legal and more a policy issue, I guess I'm saying.

[NotMiki]

a lot of these reasonable expectation of privacy standards are highly subjective and situational.

We prefer the term fact-specific.  Sounds less arbitrary that way, y'know.  And though the contours of reasonable expectation of privacy (RXP for short) are weird, there's actually no 'public interest' exception based on what activity was actually going on in private.  If a person has an RXP in their living room, for example, and the cops bust in without any probable cause that any emergency is going on, that guy could be balancing bricks of cocaine, wearing a bloody t-shirt emblazoned with the logo 'arrest me I'm a puppy molester,' and all that evidence is going to be suppressed, so that a jury never sees it.  The judge at the suppression hearing decides whether a "search" occurred without reference to what the search turned up.  Now, in real life are the cops going to lie about the circumstances of the search, or is the judge going to bend his decision improperly based on what the consequences of it would be?  I'm sure that happens, yeah.  But legally, there's no exception based on the severity of the result.

(Not to get into ALL of the US law concerning searches and seizures, but even if someone has RXP, they can still be subject to search if the cops have a warrant or certain 'exigent circumstances' exist, like a suspect fleeing into a house or probable cause to believe a violent crime is in progress in a house.  Those are all based on what the police perceive to be happening, not what is actually happening, so cops can bust in on what looks like a crime but isn't, but if they bust in on an actual crime because they just felt like busting doors down, they can't use what they find to convict.  Shit, I really am explaining a lot of it.)

EDIT: I'm studying for my upcoming criminal procedure final at the moment.  About 80% of that class is based on 4th amendment searches and seizures, in case you're wondering where all the long-winded explanations are coming from.

[Just Another Day]

That makes sense. It occurred to me as I was writing that rules for privacy re: search and seizure are probably very different from rules for privacy re: can I photograph it and publish the pictures. My understanding is that I can publish/distribute stuff that is privacy violating if I can demonstrate clear public interest (or rather, can convince the company's lawyers that we can defend the decision as in the public's interest if we get sued); a relatively well-known example here in BC a few years back was a reporter who took video through the window of police officers trooping through a prominent politician's living room carrying boxes of documents.

But it makes perfect sense that what the cops can do and what's admissible in court follow radically different and I would hope stricter rules. Though there's always the morass of contempt for what you can publish when there're legal proceedings involved, and Canada's way stricter than the US in that area; you can get in a lot of trouble for publishing anything being kept from the jury (prior charges are the big one, as well as evidence stuff, pretty near anything from a prelim or bail hearing, etc. etc.)

Stumbling back towards topic, as others've pointed out, a variety of security searches are pretty clearly standard in all kinds of places, and I don't see how a slightly more invasive groping need be more legally problematic in terms of privacy; a search is a search, right? No matter how perfunctory or thorough. The issue I have isn't so much that people get searched in airports in theory as that A) it's pretty clear they don't do a damn thing in practice and B) the stated purpose of the new TSA gropings is to shame people into being scanned, and that's just fucked.

edit: Link for B), since it's kind of a bold claim: http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/tsa-admits-to-punishing-travelers/

[NotMiki]

My understanding is that I can publish/distribute stuff that is privacy violating if I can demonstrate clear public interest (or rather, can convince the company's lawyers that we can defend the decision as in the public's interest if we get sued); a relatively well-known example here in BC a few years back was a reporter who took video through the window of police officers trooping through a prominent politician's living room carrying boxes of documents.

US has laws against invasion of privacy, but it's extremely hard to violate them.  you pretty much have to publish private people having sex to run afoul of them.  Pamela Anderson Lee, I kid you not, was unable to prevail in a civil suit against the company that published her sex tape against her wishes because of her status as a sex symbol.

Canada's way stricter than the US in that area; you can get in a lot of trouble for publishing anything being kept from the jury (prior charges are the big one, as well as evidence stuff, pretty near anything from a prelim or bail hearing, etc. etc.)

In the US, the Supreme Court has made it explicitly clear that if the government or the courts reveal anything about a case to the media, even accidentally, the media cannot be punished for reporting it, no matter what.  Judges can't hold the media in contempt for that sort of thing.  Goooo 1st Amendment.

I don't see how a slightly more invasive groping need be more legally problematic in terms of privacy; a search is a search, right? No matter how perfunctory or thorough.

In the US, there are actually different standards that must be met for different types of searches, and those standards are based on how invasive the courts perceive a search to be.  A police officer can frisk a suspect (pat down for weapons, hands on outside of clothing) at a very low standard, but if they want to strip search a suspect they'll have to meet a higher standard (and take the suspect somewhere private.  a public strip search is unconstitutionally invasive).  In New York a recent decision by the high court of the state held that police need to get a warrant to conduct a cavity search, even if they're 100% sure there's contraband in there (the dissent: "gimme a fuckin' break!  you know there's a baggie of cocaine in his ass because you can see the tip of it.  Just pull that fucker out!").

EDIT:

The US government may search and seize individuals and their property crossing an international border into the US, including international airports, without any suspicion of wrongdoing.  So there's that.  However, the court "leaves open the question whether, and under what circumstances, a border search may be deemed "unreasonable" because of the particularly offensive manner in which it is carried out."

[Captain K.]

Also, I would opt for the X-Ray. If someone wants a picture of my naked self, let them have it. If they want to pat down my junk, I'm charging a baggage handling fee.

I'm pretty sure that counts as a carry-on item.

Okay, unless I'm missing something, that logic is intensely scary. It's legal to search everybody who enters an airport because everybody who enters an airport gets searched? That works?

*shrug* People are playing Farmville because people are playing Farmville.

[Shale]

The difference being that there may well be perfectly good reasons to start playing Farmville when nobody else was, but if your only justification for a search is that people have gotten used to them, then before people got used to them there was no justification at all.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In the United States and Canada, commercial airports are generally operated directly by government entities or government-created airport authorities (also known as port authorities).

Many US airports still lease part or all of their facilities to outside firms, who operate functions such as retail management and parking. In the US, all commercial airport runways are certified by the FAA under the Code of Federal Regulations Title 14 Part 139, "Certification of Commercial Service Airports"[3] but maintained by the local airport under the regulatory authority of the FAA.

So... whatever that means. >_>

Also, the argument that you're entering private premises and thus lose your right to not be searched does not make much sense to me. I get the point you're making, m.c., though I don't know anything about the relevant laws.

In fact, that's kind of scary, isn't it? No one seems to be sure who owns/controls the airport, what laws apply or do not apply, what you give up by going there, etc. (In general, that is - I know someone knows that, or at least several someones, but it's not widely held knowledge, which is a PR problem to the nth degree given the current brouhaha.)

Who controls an airport depends entirely on which one we're talking about. From what I know, the relevant US airports are under the hand of state government. Over here, we have a multitude of airports that are state/county-managed, and there's a state company that manages a bunch of airports, which are responsible for the vast majority of the aerial movement in the country, but, if we're getting into the scrutiny of security in airports, -that- branch of government may not even be necessarily responsible for it. Over here, for instance, the matter of the body scanner is entirety within the Federal Police's jurisdiction, so its usage and limitations would follow -their- guidelines rather than the airport's, or a bizarre mishmash of the two - I know that we don't respond for the usage of the scanners on our end, nor do we even publically pronounce ourselves regarding it - that is the Police's task. The most complicated thing about the aerial system is that, at least over here, there's a multitude of organs that answer for various aspects of air control and that requires a tightly knit delegation of responsibilities and cans and cannots laid down.

[metroid composite]

http://www.straight.com/article-358334/vancouver/november-18th-have-sex-guy-mustache-day?ref=nf
November 18: have sex with a guy with a moustache day

http://www.amazon.com/WHAT-THESE-STRAWBERRIES-DOING-NIPPLES/dp/075151005X
Perhaps the greatest book title of all time?

http://wdbo.com/localnews/2010/11/sanford-airport-to-opt-out-of.html
First airport opts out of TSA

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2010/11/alec-baldwin-pledge-drive-promos
Alec Baldwin makes some parody NPR pledge drives.

[Yoshiken]

Not strictly a link, just a fun thing my sister found.

Google Maps. Look for directions from Japan to China. Check out result number 43.

When it just casually suggests something like that as though it's no problem at all? I was in fucking hysterics when I was shown it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Quote please? For those of us using a crap work computer and want to get the joke?

[Captain K.]

"43.  Jet Ski across the Pacific Ocean."