There's a commercial here for Bulmer's Cider that features a bunch of people picking apples in a golden-autumn orchard looking delighted to be alive and eventually people in a pub joyfully drinking the cider, apparentl just-pressed and yet vintage at the same time. I want to know where *that* autumn in Ireland is taking place, because here it remains wet and effortlessly green.

Unrelatedly, there are way too many pretty boydoctors (well, medical students) running around this hospital right now. It's a little overwhelming, like working on the set of the Irish ER back when it was good and had lots of hot people.

And in less lighthearted news, Flier detained by TSA for writing opinion on plastic bag:

I was detained for about 25 minutes today after passing though the TSA checkpoint at MKE terminal E.

I thought about posting this in the other treads devoted to their experience today under the new new liquids-are-okay-in-a-quart bag rule, but I decided it needed its own thread.

Yesterday, while discussing the new rules a fellow Flyertalker suggested we write "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" on the outside of our clear plastic quart bags. So I did just that.

At the MKE "E" checkpoint I placed my laptop in one bin, and my shoes, cell phone and quart bag in a second bin. The TSA guy who was pushing bags and bins into the X-ray machine took a good hard look, and then as the bag when though the X-ray I think he told the X-ray operator to call for a bag check/explosive swab on my roller bag to slow me down. He went strait to the TSA Supervisor on duty and boy did he come marching over to the checkpoint with fire in his eyes!

He grabbed the baggie as it came out of the X-ray and asked if it was mine. After responding yes, he pointed at my comment and demanded to know "What is this supposed to mean?" "It could me a lot of things, it happens to be an opinion on mine." "You can't write things like this" he said, "You mean my First Amendment right to freedom of speech doesn't apply here?" "Out there (pointing pass the id checkers) not while in here (pointing down) was his response."

(The ACLU has been contacted regarding this incident, and is on the case.)

The neighborhood where I work is God's Socialite Waiting Room.

I just saw an inbred, overcoiffed, octegenarian in gauchos.

Speaking of the new TSA rules, apparently it really has to be a quart-sized ziploc bag. msbelle's mother got grief for having her stuff in a sandwich bag. I shit you not.

apparently it really has to be a quart-sized ziploc bag. msbelle's mother got grief for having her stuff in a sandwich bag. I shit you not.

Seriously? Because that's beyond fucked-up.

I swear, it's a profit-making plot concocted by aquafina and ziploc.

I mean, that would at least make sense, now wouldn't it?!

From a NYT article on Woodward's book:

And he suggests that President Bush chose Mr. Rumsfeld as his defense secretary, in part, because he knew his father mistrusted Mr. Rumsfeld, and the younger Bush wanted to prove his father wrong.

Nice.

A Portrait of Bush as a Victim of His Own Certitude

I think not working is a good plan for the day. who's with me?

And he suggests that President Bush chose Mr. Rumsfeld as his defense secretary, in part, because he knew his father mistrusted Mr. Rumsfeld, and the younger Bush wanted to prove his father wrong.

I am absolutely unsurprised by that.

I think not working is a good plan for the day. who's with me?

Yo.

Seriously? Because that's beyond fucked-up.

I don't think it was actually a problem, and was, I'm sure, just caused by a dim-bulb employee who got a memo that said "quart sized ziploc," and not any actual policy, but yeah.