What's in your wallet? I mean, your file

I thought I should preserve his final instructions in case any of us ever want to make our own request...

However, if you are being detained at the border or if you suspect a problem with your records, then by all means request a copy. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is required by law to make your records available to you, with some exceptions. Your request must be made in writing on paper and be signed by you. Ask to see the "information relating to me in the Automated Targeting System." Say that your request is "made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552)." Add that you wish to have a copy of your records made and mailed to you without first inspecting them. Your letter should, obviously, give reasonably sufficient detail to enable an official to find your record. So supply your passport number and mailing address. Put a date on your letter and make a copy for your own records. On your envelope, you should conspicuously print the words “FOIA Request." It should be addressed to “Freedom of Information Act Request,” U.S. Customs Service, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20229. Be patient. I had wait for up to a year to receive a copy of my records. Then if you believe there's an error in your record, ask for a correction by writing a letter to the Customer Satisfaction Unit, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Room 5.5C, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229.

Liquid Knife

Synopsis:

PHILADELPHIA (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It uses a fast moving stream of water to help the body heal. The new tool called the liquid knife allows surgeons to treat burn patients by removing dead skin without damaging healthy cells. It may help tiny burn victims grow up without unsightly scars.

Future Attribute Screening Technology

It's a good thing no one distrusts the government or the people in power, because this is the type of technology that puts profiling to shame.

Excited to go home and see your sweetheart? Well, that makes you a terrorist.
Trying to get a job? Well, that makes you a terrorist.
Nervous because you distrust the new scanning technology? Well, that makes you a terrorist too.

7-11 Listeria

Since I spent a few days during the recent storm only buying food from the nearby 7-11, it is a little scary that there was a Listeria contamination (click link for details).

Twas the night before Christmas - Hog style

Reprinted from Sunset HOG Mail...

Twas the night before Christmas
Hog style
Author unknown

Twas the night be fore Christmas, and down at the shop.
The Harley's were waiting to thunder and pop.
Mike Durbin and staff, greet with a smile,
A new Harley wait's its very first mile.


Ready for sleep from a long work load.
In the distance I hear a Harley being rode.
I call it a night and settled in bed,
while visions of a new ride ran through my head.


Sudenly I hear.... a familiar noise,
It's a short red fat boy loaded with toys.
Raising the window and ready to holler,
I see a leather vested man with a studded collar.


The streets lights were full and
lit up the scene.
It was hundred and ten inch...6 speed...what a machine.
The rider was old as many I've seen,
Crusty and cranky and not so lean.


My eyes were bleary and then became clear.
This fat boy was towed by V-Twin reindeer.
Knowing the myth and the day of the week,
Was this Hogs version of Santa with rosy red cheeks.

In a moment the legend will definitely unfold,
Can he throttle to the roof..being this old?
Then he yelled and shouted and called them by name,
Now sportster, now dyna, now heritage and street bob,
On ultra, on road king, on crossbones and V-Rod.
From the front of the drive and over the wall,
Now crank it wide open.....to the rafters we go all.

So up to the peak the entire pack rode,
And across the roof the fat boy strolled.
I hushed myself...not to utter a sound,
Then down the chimney he comes....short, fat, and round.

He was dressed all in leather from head to toe,
With a sunset patch on the back you know.
He looked like a biker.. I remember so well,
Then went right to his work and did not dwell.


His sack carried chrome, and motor-clothes abound,
And then he was gone with nary a sound.
Never the less...he made it all so right.
Not many can say they saw Santa, on a Harley that night.
Yet I know the truth and it's all so cool,
He was a graduate of our group riding school. 


He looked very familiar and now I ask you,
Could it be that Santa is that fellow named Shoe?

But with thinning white hair and a beard all frumpy
I honestly think that Santa is Grumpy.

Then he cracked open the bike and rode out of sight,
and yelled have a Happy Harley Christmas and to all good night.

Majel Roddenberry Dies At 76

From Slashdot:

Majel Barrett-Rodenberry has passed away. The widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is best remembered as the gorgeous Nurse Christine Chapel from the original series, the pesky and officious Lwaxana Troi from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and of course the ubiquitous voice of Star Trek computers in movies, TV, and animated films.

If programming languages were religions...

Fun read. I made it quite a way through (not all the way) the comments too...

Tesla Down Under

He's got some very cool stuff on there. Check it out.

RIP Betty Page

Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.



Page was placed on life support last week after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. He said he and Page's family agreed to remove life support. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.



"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty.

"

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.



Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.



"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She was a very dear person.

"

Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.



After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.



"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young.

"

The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's liberation.



Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page" and Paige Richards had the role in 2004's "Bettie Page: Dark Angel." Page herself took part in the 1998 documentary "Betty Page: Pinup Queen.

"

Hefner said he last saw Page when he held a screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page" at the Playboy Mansion. He said she objected to the fact that the film referred to her as "notorious," but "we explained to her that it referred to the troubled times she had and was a good way to sell a movie.

"

Page's career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.



Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998: "I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous.

"

Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds.

"

In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialized in S&M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.



"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said later.



Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.



Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure" were nearly over.



She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce.



Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous breakdown.



In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again Christian.



After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.



A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles.



She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in a state mental hospital in San Bernardino.



A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for eight years.



"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper to her.

"

Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.



He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to $300 each.



"Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all," he told The AP last week.



Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings.

"

The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father molested all of the girls.



After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time Betty lived in an orphanage.



In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career took off.



___

Associated Press writers Denise Petski and Raquel Maria Dillon contributed to this report.

News from the Net

I know many of you miss my daily News from the Net.... Well, since I am waiting for a server to install, I'll go ahead and post a few tidbits for you :)

Mad Scientist Brings Back Dead With "Deanimation"

TSA Replacing Metal Detectors With Brain Scans

Visual Hallucinations Are a Normal Grief Reaction

Sci Fi Channel orders 'Battlestar' prequel 'Caprica'

Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars

For all the 2012 conspiracies: US report predicts nuclear or biological attack by 2013

And now for something completely different... how about some local news?

This kinda makes me glad I didn't accept their job a few years ago... Layoff watch: Sage Software

In case you missed it the other day, my Jack-in-the-Box was hit.

If you remember that little race car track on Cascade, expect it to be replaced with yet another car lot.

Diet change cured autism

New Asimov Movies Coming

Foundation, The End of Eternity and The Day of the Triffids.

Personally, I am really looking forward to seeing the Foundation series on the big screen.

Multiple Upcoming Games, Movies Based On Jordan's Wheel of Time

This is fantastic news... or maybe that is FANtastic?

Anyways, if anyone knows how to get my foot in the door to be in the film, work on the games - or both... please, do so. That would be freakin awesome.

Obama, McCain Campaigns Both Hacked

I was reading the synopsis at Slashdot and thought, who had the most to gain from hacking both campaigns? Based on our history, I'd say the most likely candidate would be our own military. Regardless of which campaign wins, you ensure that they believe there are terrorist that need squashing.

I mean, come on - this sounds too much like a first time sci-fi writer:

But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised.