My open letter to TSA

Most of you know that my family travels a lot.  A Lot.  Not just hubby and I, but kids too.  We will have soon covered 5 continents in a year.  Heck our little one-eyed dog has racked up a fair bit if air miles too.  I usually roll with whatever is the panic protocol de jour.  While I don’t always agree that they may be effective, they’ve not really been harmful before.

I am struggling with the current imaging and groping in place.  I’m not sure the safety of the imaging, and that is not what concerns me.  It’s the images themselves.  My take, as a frequent traveller and someone that I believe possesses common sense follows.

  • About those images, as long as TSA is government owned/ran the images might fall under the Freedom of Information umbrella.  That makes images of me, my husband, our children, open to anyone smart enough to snoop.  Don’t tell me the images are not saved.  I’m not that gullible.  How could they ever be used as evidence if not saved?  Isn’t that the goal, stop something and prosecute?  Yea.
  • About the “enhanced pat downs,” really?  Take a step back and think about what exactly you’re doing here?  Are you using anything resembling logic here?  If you think there’s logic at work here, I am scared at what you call logical.
  • Put those together and explain to me how you are screening your employees to ensure you are not hiring sexual deviants that get off on this?  A medical professional goes thru some extensive training before they start groping people.  I am truly curious how many years of proper training your agents have before they are set loose on our anatomy and what special training they have about handling people of different ages.  Do they practice groping on each other to learn what different varieties of normal anatomy might feel like?
  • Let’s talk about protecting our kids from YOU (we’ll cover the traditional evil-doers in a minute).  You have procedures in place that might keep kids 12 and under from your paid molesters and voyeurs.  That’s a start.  However, do I need to send you links and articles on the people that take advantage of teenagers?  Who is protecting my teenage daughter (or son) from your misplaced intentions?  For a minute we can assume your staff does not get off on grabbing my teenagers’ private bits, do you have an easily accessible private area so the creep in the next line doesn’t get off on watching you molest my children while I supervise you (and give you the worst hairy eyeball you’ve ever had)?
  • You need to hire a handful of global security experts to teach you how to do what you are trying to do.  You are not trying to protect us from the Billy Bob’s, so you can’t act like a redneck, like you are now.  You will have no choice but to do some profiling (well, you already do that, but you’ll have to admit it and do it better).  BUT, what does an evil-doer look like?  Figure that out, profile THAT.  It is not male or female, it is not Muslim or Christian, it is not old or young.
  • You need to outsource more things, rules change when you are not the government.  There is more of an opportunity to use common sense.  Start with those stupid imaging machines and operators.   Have  a private firm do that and rules changes on access to the images.  That is the first step at protecting my daughter (and me and husband and son I suppose) from pervs seeking a thrill and a peek using FOIA.
  • Train whoever is left at identifying behaviors, not just at groping with the hope of finding something shoved in some random dude’s pants.  Have your staff chat with travellers, small talk.  Teach them to recognize abnormal reactions to simple questions about the weather and their vacations.
  • Mix it up a bit more and don’t tell us what you’re doing.  Figure out how to protect us without violating us, then shut up.  When you’re on every nightly news explaining what you’re doing, you are simply giving the evil-doers a checklist of things to cover.

 

I totally understand that commercial air travel is not a constitutional right.  I really, totally GET that.  It’s not about rights.  You look absolutely asinine with what you are doing and you make us (the US as a whole) look like idiots that are scrambling around without a clue.  We the people have a clue, it’s you that are clueless.

I hate to do it, but I have to reference a cheesy overused quote from Wayne Gretzy.  You need to go to where the puck (terrorist) is going, not where it has been.

 

TSA lists myths, facts about passenger security measures - CNN.com


CRM Migration Assistant @ Mitch Milam's Dynamics CRM Discussions

CRM Accelerators has released the CRM Migration Assistant to help developers transition their JavaScript from CRM 4.0 object model to the CRM 2011 object model.

Not only does the Migration Assistant perform an object model conversion, it also converts many commonly used, but unsupported, development practices into fully-supported CRM 2011 JavaScript.  Things like she showing and hiding of fields, tabs, navigation elements, etc. 

Finally, a report is produced during the conversion process identifying the usage and location of attributes, functions, and iFrames found within your JavaScript.  It also notes any conversion issues or points where you may need to hand-modify the converted code to prevent future issues.

For additional information and to download the demo, visit:

http://blogs.infinite-x.net/crm-add-ons/crm-migration-assistant/

CRM Accelerators is giving any xRMVirtual User Group member 10% off the list price of the application.

Just apply the discount code: XRMUG

During the checkout process.

CRM Migration Assistant @ Mitch Milam's Dynamics CRM Discussions


CRM 2011 for ISVs and Developers- new whitepaper

Looking for details on Dynamics CRM 2011 and how it applies to you, an ISV?  A technical decision-maker?  A developer?  A curious nerd looking for what’s new?  Here you go!

Ok, so here’s some of the nitty gritty details…

Paper is titled:

Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011
Building Business Applications with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
A guide to Independent Software Vendors and Developers

Some details you can learn about:

  • Modeling of your business data
  • A better user experience
  • Visualization and reporting of data
  • Programmability including OData, WCF, LINQ, Dialogs, Workflows and more
  • Cloud cloud cloud (CRM Online and Azure both covered)

Brought to you by a couple of your favorite (I hope) CRM nerds, myself and David Yack, were asked to write this paper to follow-up on the one we produced for the similar topics for CRM 4.0.

I hope you find something useful inside!

whitepaper download


Today I’m a nerd because…

Monday the Colorado Court of Appeals will be hearing cases at our high school.  I’m going and I am really kinda giddy to be able to go watch the process in action.  That’s enough for me, but then we have icing too.  My oldest is in Honors Government and will be there as well, we’ll get to chat about it over dinner and such before and after.

We got an email with the cases they’ll here, and I think they’ll be pretty cool too, great for the kids.  Interesting enough to get their interest but also take on concepts that are important to them.

Love this part of being my own  boss, I don’t have anyone to ask to take Monday off and go.  (but I am a cool enough boss that any employee that asks this kind of thing would get a hell yes to their request)

The two cases are…

Whipple v. BNSF: Lavern Whipple is asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to review a jury's conclusion that BNSF Railway Co. was not negligent in connection with a workplace accident that left him with a neck injury. After the trial, one of Mr. Whipple's coworkers recalled a set of photographs of the accident scene that Mr. Whipple believed could have changed the jury's verdict.

People v. Shepard-Duncan: Ms. Shepard-Duncan was convicted of felony drug possession after a stabbing incident occurred at her home when she was not there. The charges were based on drug paraphernalia and two plastic baggies containing methamphetamine residue found by a police officer who searched the home. Ms. Shepard-Duncan is asking the Court of Appeals to review her case, arguing the trial court should have concluded the officer illegally searched her home, and should not have admitted the drug evidence.


Blog re-post…My son is gay from Nerdy Apple Bottom

What an inspiring blog post from this mom…  it starts with..

My son is gay.  Or he’s not. I don’t care. He is still my son. And he is 5. And I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don’t want to know you.

goes on to…

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

and wraps up with…

And my little man worked that costume like no other. He rocked that wig, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Please click thru and read.  I do not know this woman, but sure wish I did and wish she could influence more people, which is exactly why I am posting it here, in the hopes that someone will read it and be inspired to make change in the world.

Bravo mom!

My son is gay « Nerdy Apple Bottom