I guess common sense means nothing...

I mean, who brings a box of ammunition on a plane these days?

(AP) A Moscow court on Monday sentenced a U.S. pastor to more than three years in prison for smuggling hunting ammunition into Russia.

Phillip Miles, from Conway, S.C., has been in custody since his arrest on Feb. 3. He was arrested several days after customs agents at a Moscow airport found a box of 20 rifle shells in his luggage.

The court sentenced him to serve three years and two months in prison, with the sentence calculated from his detention date.

Miles has said he brought the .300 caliber cartridges for a friend who had recently bought a Winchester rifle. He said he did not know bringing such ammunition into Russia was illegal.

Judge Olga Drozdova accepted in her 20-minute summation that Miles had brought the ammunition for a friend, "as they are both inveterate hunters."

The cartridges were not initially found as he flew into Moscow. They were detected a day later as airport security put his luggage through an X-ray machine while he was on his way to check in for a flight to Perm, a city in Siberia.

Miles was dressed in a gray jacket and clerical collar for his sentencing.

"I'm very disappointed. It's a strange sentence for one box of hunting bullets," he said as court bailiffs led him in handcuffs from the courtroom cage, where defendants in Russian criminal courts are held during trial.

If what you were doing was that innocent, wouldn't you be smart to just "declare" the items and ask officials how to transport it to the friend BEFORE entering Russia? You know, something you could do by visiting their embassy or consulate?

And given what we know about air travel, how is it that someone still thinks getting on a plane with live ammunition is a good thing? Who is that stupid?

If you're curious, here's the Transportation Safety Administration site with their rules.

Airlines may have their own additional requirements on the carriage of firearms and the amount of ammunition that you may have in your checked baggage. Therefore, travelers should also contact the airline regarding its firearm and ammunition carriage policies.

Also, please note that many other countries have different laws that address transportation and possession of firearms. If you are traveling internationally, please check with the authorities at your destination about their requirements.

The Collapse of American Airlines

Another reason not to fly...

(CBS/AP) American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights Thursday to fix faulty wiring in hundreds of jets, marking the third straight day of mass groundings as company executives offered profuse apologies and travel vouchers to calm angry customers.

The airline is looking at 250,000 people or more who will be bumped from their flights, reports reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

The airline says a return to normal operations depends on how quickly mechanics can inspect and fix the wiring.

As of late yesterday, a spokesman said 60 planes had been cleared to fly, but more than 200 were being worked on or hadn't been inspected yet.

American, the nation's largest carrier, has now scrubbed more than 2,400 flights since Tuesday, when federal regulators warned that nearly half its planes could violate a safety regulation designed to prevent fires.

Is there an industry in worse shape than the airlines these days? Besides the media?

If my line of work depended on reliable air travel, I'd be looking for a new line of work right now. On the one hand--you have to commend them for ensuring they are being safe and that they are fixing or inspecting what might not work properly. On the other hand, the margin of error is very thin, and there's no flexibility in air travel anymore. Fewer airlines and fewer options means no ability to absord traveler who might be stuck.

If gas really does hit $3.60 a gallon, a lot of people are just going to stay home and watch their grass grow. Not THAT grass, dangit. Would someone get me an editor, please?

The one where we crow a little bit because we beat the Washington Post to this by almost three months

Remember all those heady promises of increased airline security so something like the attacks of September 11 could never happen again?

Technology was going to save us! Technology would provide sniffer machines that would detect explosives and biometric data collection systems would be a able to detect a terrorist by his shifty eyes.

Well...Been to the airport lately? Going on seven years after September 11 and what changes have been made? Lets see - I have to take off my shoes. My shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste are treated as weapons-grade materials, and my three year old granddaughter is likely on a terrorist watch list now because of the fit she threw when they took her sippy cup.

Yet GAO investigators had no problem getting real bomb making components past various incarnations of Roscoe P. Coltrain and his deputy Enos.

(Yes, we were three months ahead of the Washington Post - they are reporting today on the findings of a GAO report we read in November.)

The sluggish pace of technological innovation and deployment has left holes in checkpoint security that could easily be exploited by terrorists, according to government officials and outside experts. Congressional investigators reported last year that they were able to smuggle bomb components through checkpoints despite new security measures. Other investigative reports questioned the government's efforts to get emerging technology into the field.

"The snail's pace of deploying new technology is unacceptable," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "We remain vulnerable because we have not kept up with technological innovation."

The TSA in coming months is expected to begin the government's first substantial investment in new checkpoint security technology since the 1970s, according to officials at the TSA, which plans to spend about $250 million on new devices, up from about $89 million last fiscal year. The machines include upgraded X-ray equipment that will provide multiple views of bags and hand-held scanners that can detect liquid explosives in bottles after they are identified by screeners.

The machines my luggage passed through was the same vintage 70's equipment that was screening luggage on September 10, 2001.

So what happened? Why haven't these wonderful technological advances materialized? Well, the government says that private investment has been anemic and the private sector says the government hasn't done it's part to foster investment.

I get frustrated with such maddening petulance. Sometimes you just suck it up and do what's right - or that's how it's supposed to be. But in America 2.0, Beta it doesn't work that way. Nowadays, the mantra is "Fuck you if I can't make a buck!"

Is anyone else just worn out with this shit? I sure as hell am. I'm so god-damned sick of fucked-up priorities and wrong-headed, selfish behavior that it's all I can do to keep from banging my head on the desk out of the sheer frustration of it all.

Can we have the grown ups back in charge please? I don't like this "Lord of the Flies" reality these juvenile nitwits have created.