(TSA FAIL) Boy Flies To Vegas from MSP Without Ticket

Boy Boards Plane To Vegas At MSP Without Ticket � CBS Minnesota: MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO/AP) — A 9-year-old Minneapolis boy was able to get through security and onto a plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport without a ticket, an airport spokesman said Sunday.

Security officials screened the boy at airport shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Patrick Hogan said. The boy then boarded Delta Flight 1651, which left for Las Vegas at 11:15 a.m.

The Promise and Peril of Pope Francis - NYTimes.com

The Promise and Peril of Pope Francis - NYTimes.com: The most traditional groups have been relatively resilient. The more liberal, modernizing bodies have lost membership, money, morale. And the culture as a whole has become steadily more disengaged from organized faith. There is still a religious middle today, but it isn’t institutionally Judeo-Christian in the way it was in 1945. Instead, it’s defined by nondenominational ministries, “spiritual but not religious” pieties and ancient heresies reinvented as self-help.

Of late, this process of polarization has carried an air of inevitability. You can hew to a traditional faith in late modernity, it has seemed, only to the extent that you separate yourself from the American and Western mainstream. There is no middle ground, no center that holds for long, and the attempt to find one quickly leads to accommodation, drift and dissolution.

And this is where Pope Francis comes in, because so much of the excitement around his pontificate is a response to his obvious desire to reject these alternatives — self-segregation or surrender — in favor of an almost-frantic engagement with the lapsed-Catholic, post-Catholic and non-Catholic world.

It's OK to overreact to shootings in Washington - The Week

It's OK to overreact to shootings in Washington - The Week: The Secret Service, Capitol Police, Park Police, and Washington, D.C. police have prepared and rehearsed for all sorts of unknown troubles; the biggest X factor is simply trying to respond proportionately when there is no way of knowing what is actually happening; whether one event is connected to another, or whether others are yet to come. Interoperability between those agencies is better, but not perfect. And until the voice of God says, "This is only a crazy person trying to ram her car into a White House perimeter stanchion and nothing else," I'm fine if the Secret Service triggers contingency plans while it prepares for something much worse.

Great Places in America: Neighborhoods

Great Places in America: Neighborhoods: Constantly changing and evolving, downtown Decatur's character comes from the successful marriage of historic and contemporary buildings and uses. The emergence of downtown as a dynamic and prosperous neighborhood spans more than three decades and is a story of planning, commitment, patience, and investment.

‘Shame on us’: How businesses brought the debt limit mess onto themselves

‘Shame on us’: How businesses brought the debt limit mess onto themselves:
Look, I had the chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, Fred Upton, tell me that he got into an argument with one of these young guys on his committee about the defunding of Affordable Care Act. Well the argument was 'look, Energy and Commerce had 50 hearings on that bill. Like it or not, it passed. The president signed it. The Supreme Court upheld it. So you don't get to pick a bill you don't like and link it to the entire financial well being of the United States.' Well the response is, 'I didn't come here to govern.' Well what did you come here for? What did you come here for? To burn it to the ground?

So when you talk about getting back to the fife and drum and getting back to American roots, are you kidding me? This is so antithetical to everything that America has been about.

So there's a sense in the business community that this is just appalling. You don't get to default on the United States. I've got 70 offices in 26 countries. I've got CEOs and government leaders around the world who take me aside privately and say 'what on earth are you doing over there? If you can't get this right, how the hell are we going to get this right?'

And all this stuff about China and India and Brazil? Baloney. We are still 24 percent of the world's GDP and we are the flywheel that drives all those other economies. And we are out to lunch.

5 Americans who used NSA facilities to spy on lovers

5 Americans who used NSA facilities to spy on lovers: Last month, we reported on LOVEINT, the facetious term used to describe NSA analysts who misuse their surveillance powers to spy on romantic interests instead of terrorists. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the NSA to get more specific about the misconduct the NSA had uncovered. So the NSA sent Grassley a letter with details of the 12 LOVEINT incidents it has uncovered since 2003.

GOP stands firm against funding bill, will link to debt ceiling fight | WashingtonExaminer.com

GOP stands firm against funding bill, will link to debt ceiling fight | WashingtonExaminer.com: Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who is close with leadership, suggested that the House majority is prepared to hold the line on a government funding bill and the debt ceiling increase if Senate Democrats refuse to negotiate a compromise.

When asked if House Republicans would vote on a "clean" continuing resolution, he said, "Why in the world would you do that?” Cole said of the clean funding bill. “That’s basically, at this point, a surrender to the Democratic position.”

On Capitol Hill, the Obamacare fight is no longer about Obamacare | WashingtonExaminer.com

On Capitol Hill, the Obamacare fight is no longer about Obamacare | WashingtonExaminer.com: Sometimes fights become so intense and so tangled that the original cause becomes obscured. In the government funding battle, the issue that sparked it all, Obamacare, was no longer center stage less than 24 hours after the shutdown began. The fight is now about the shutdown itself, and Obamacare has been pushed to the side.

Marc Thiessen: The GOP flunks Hostage Taking 101 - The Washington Post

Marc Thiessen: The GOP flunks Hostage Taking 101 - The Washington Post: Obama has accused Republicans of hostage taking. Let’s be clear: I’m all for taking hostages. Both sides do it all the time. But one of the first things they teach you in Hostage Taking 101 is that you have to choose a hostage the other side cares about saving. Obama and the Democrats don’t care about stopping a government shutdown. With a shutdown, Republicans are essentially putting a gun to their own heads and threatening to pull the trigger if the Democrats don’t capitulate. Not surprisingly, it’s not working.

Some congressional Republicans can’t seem to get it though their heads: When it comes to a government shutdown they . . . have . . . no . . . leverage. By contrast, when it comes to the debt-limit showdown, they do have leverage; while Obama can let the government close and blame the GOP, he cannot allow the United States to default.

Was The "Breaking Bad" Finale All Just A Fantasy In Walter White's Head

Was The "Breaking Bad" Finale All Just A Fantasy In Walter White's Head: Earlier today, Norm Macdonald, (who you should follow on Twitter if you A) Love Breaking Bad B) Love golf C) Love gambling) posited this theory that the final episode of Breaking Bad, “Felina” was actually nothing but a fantasy. Sounds a little far-fetched… until......................

Bot & Dolly | Box

Bot & Dolly | Box: "Box" explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping on moving surfaces. The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera. Bot & Dolly produced this work to serve as both an artistic statement and technical demonstration. It is the culmination of multiple technologies, including large scale robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering. We believe this methodology has tremendous potential to radically transform theatrical presentations, and define new genres of expression.

The American Spectator : When Paul Corrected Peter

The American Spectator : When Paul Corrected Peter: Has Pope Francis not been paying attention for the last 50 years? The only vibrant religious orders are traditional ones; the only packed churches are traditional ones; the only seminaries producing shepherds for the flock are traditional ones. To use his analogy, at the Catholic Left’s “field hospitals,” all the patients are dead.

Pope Francis has made many commendable remarks about the Virgin Mary, Satan, and the need to go to confession, among others. And some of the criticism does seem petty: Who cares if he bunks at the Vatican hotel or putts around in a used car? That’s fine. But it is not petty, disrespectful, or un-Catholic to object to the liberal parts of his agenda. Indeed, the need for a St. Paul to correct him grows with each passing week as his pontificate emboldens the Church’s enemies and undercuts her friends and most loyal members.

Interview On Obamacare With Jonathan Gruber - A Brief Interlude With Expert Opinion - Esquire

Interview On Obamacare With Jonathan Gruber - A Brief Interlude With Expert Opinion - Esquire:
"In my experience," he said, "it is totally unprecedented to keep challenging a law that's already been passed. The Republicans know that, once this takes place, they're in big trouble because it's going to work."

Gruber shares my amusement with the fact that the Republicans are all in favor of those parts of the law that poll really, really well -- the protections for folks with pre-existing conditions, the ability of kids to stay on their parent's insurance until they're 25, and the ban on lifetime caps -- but have announced their unyielding opposition to all the provisions in the law that make those things possible, specifically the individual mandate. This, he reminds us, hearkens back to the golden days of St. Ronnie, who told us we could have a massive tax cut, a massive military spending spree, and no cuts at all in the programs we love because...sparkle ponies!

"What's been great about this process is that it's been a fairly intellectually honest process," said Gruber. "You have to have your spinach if you're going to have your cake. That's what the Republicans are pretending not to understand. Up here in Massachusetts, the biggest opponent of the individual mandate was John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO. He said it was going to be the end of employer-based health-care here. Well, that certainly wasn't the case.

Why The Right Fights - NYTimes.com

Why The Right Fights - NYTimes.com: This divide, I think, explains a lot of the mutual incomprehension surrounding size-of-government debates. To liberals and many moderates, it often seems like the right gets what it wants in these arguments and then just gets more extreme, demanding cuts atop cuts, concessions atop concessions, deregulation upon deregulation, tax cuts upon tax cuts. But to many conservatives, the right has never come remotely close to getting what it actually wants, whether in the Reagan era or the Gingrich years or now the age of the Tea Party — because what it wants is an actually smaller government, as opposed to one that just grows somewhat more slowly than liberals and the left would like. And this goal only ends up getting labeled as “extreme” in our debates, conservatives lament, because the right has never succeeded in dislodging certain basic assumptions about government established by F.D.R. and L.B.J. — under which a slower rate of spending growth is a “draconian cut,” an era of “small government” is one which in which the state grows immensely in absolute terms but holds steady as a share of G.D.P., and a rich society can never get rich enough to need less welfare spending per capita than it did when it was considerably poorer.

House Republicans are failing Americans in their effort to kill Obamacare - The Washington Post

House Republicans are failing Americans in their effort to kill Obamacare - The Washington Post: This time, fiscal responsibility isn’t even a topic. Instead, Republicans have shut much of the government in what they had to know was a doomed effort to derail the Affordable Care Act. That law, in case you've forgotten in the torrent of propaganda, is hardly revolutionary. It is an effort to extend health insurance to some of the 40 million or so people in this country who have none. It acts through the existing private-insurance market. Republicans tried to block its passage and failed; they hoped to have it declared unconstitutional and failed; and they did their best to toss Mr. Obama out of the White House after one term in order to strangle it in its cradle, and they failed again.

They’re entitled to keep trying, of course — though it would be nice if someday they remembered their promise to come up with an alternative proposal. But their methods now are beyond the pale.

Why Boehner doesn’t just ditch the hard right

Why Boehner doesn’t just ditch the hard right: RC: What we're seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they're improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don't always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and tea party conventions and Fox News invitations. And so the conservative strategy of the moment, no matter how unrealistic it might be, catches fire. The members begin to believe they can achieve things in divided government that most objective observers would believe is impossible. Leaders are dealing with these expectations that wouldn't exist in a normal environment.

Lincoln on the shutdown

The Idiocy of the Shutdown, in 3 Acts: Map, Thought Experiment, Speech - James Fallows - The Atlantic: Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong...

FBI shuts alleged online drug marketplace Silk Road - Orlando Sentinel

FBI shuts alleged online drug marketplace Silk Road - Orlando Sentinel: NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down "Silk Road," an anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and criminal activities such as murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it arrested Silk Road owner, Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings.

Don't compromise with hostage takers!

U.S. Congress’s dereliction of leadership on government shutdown - The Washington Post: Ultimately, the grown-ups in the room will have to do their jobs, which in a democracy with divided government means compromising for the common good. That means Mr. Boehner, his counterpart in the Senate, Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), minority leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the president. Both sides are inordinately concerned with making sure that, if catastrophe comes, the other side takes the political hit. In truth, none of their reputations stands to benefit.

Why This Is Not Just 'Washington Breakdown,' in 3 Graphs (and 1 Story) - James Fallows - The Atlantic

Why This Is Not Just 'Washington Breakdown,' in 3 Graphs (and 1 Story) - James Fallows - The Atlantic:
Still, all evidence suggests that without post-2010 gerrymandering, the Democrats might well control the House right now, along with the Senate and White House. For instance: Obama easily beat Romney in Pennsylvania, but post-2010 gerrymandering means that Republicans now hold 13 House seats there, versus only
fivefor Democrats.
In short, we have a faction making historically unprecedented demands -- give us everything, or we stop the government and potentially renege on the national debt. And it is doing so less than a year after its party lost the presidency, lost the Senate (and lost ground there), and held onto the House in part because of rotten-borough distortions.
You can call this a lot of things, but "gridlock" should not be one of them. And you can fault many aspects of the President's response -- when it comes to
debt-default,I think he has to stick to the "no negotiations with terrorists" hard line. But you shouldn't pretend that if he
hadbeen more "reasonable" or charming he could placate a group whose goal is the undoing of his time in office.