Security Breach at Newark Airport

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Not sure if it’s anything other than a major hassle for travelers, but Fox News has this:

Authorities are searching for a man who walked through a screening checkpoint exit into the secure side of a terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport. Flights have been grounded, and passengers are being re-screened.
Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Sari Koshetz says a man was seen walking down an exit lane at Terminal C about 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
Once aware of the situation, TSA officials with assistance from the New York Port Authority reviewed security videotape to identify the errant individual.
As of 8:40 p.m. Sunday, security was unable to locate that individual in the terminal.
The security line was emptied, and passengers were waiting in check-in areas at about 9 p.m. . . .

Read the rest at Fox. CNN is also covering this story.

Massachusetts Senate: Scott Brown Is Running — and Martha Coakley’s Hiding

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Republican Scott Brown‘s Massachusetts Senate campaign is gathering momentum. The Jan. 19 special election is to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacated seat (Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment) and, in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, a GOP victory would be a shocking upset.

In addition to the built-in leftward tilt of Massachusetts voters, Brown’s opponent, state attorney general Martha Coakley, has an enormous advantage in terms of both statewide name recognition and campaign cash. So she’s flooding the airwaves with TV ads and — in a campaign version of the NFL “prevent defense” — is trying to run out the clock by refusing to debate Brown and dodging the press:

[The Massachusetts Business Journal] wanted to give Attorney General Martha Coakley the benefit of the doubt when her campaign staff was initially stand offish after we approached them about setting up an interview for our story on the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat.
But then we were put off several times by her staff. We suddenly got the feeling Ms. Coakley, a Democrat, didn’t want to speak with us, and the media in general.

When even the liberal Boston Globe is complaining about Coakley’s disappearing act, you know that reporters are scenting fear. With the growing unpopularity of the Obama agenda, Martha is at risk of becoming that rare breed of loser — a Democrat who gets beat in Massachusetts — and so she’s afraid to answer questions about her record. Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has much more.

(Via Memeorandum.)

Roger Scruton: ‘Our World Has
Turned Its Back on Beauty . . .’

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“. . . and because of that, we find ourselves surrounded by ugliness and alienation.” On our inaugural Rule 5 Sunday of the New Year at the new site, please watch this video and then we’ll talk more about beauty:

That’s one of a six-part series of YouTube videos collected in one post by blogger Ray Sawhill (hat-tip: In Mala Fide). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Roger Scruton, who is a contributor to The American Spectator. Scruton’s point about the ugliness of modernism reiterates points made by Fred Ross in a 2002 feature I wrote about the revival of traditional aesthetics in art:

Nothing exemplifies art’s turn toward tradition as much as the revived interest in William-Adolphe Bouguereau, the 19th-century master of the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. . . .
Among Bouguereau’s most enthusiastic admirers is collector and critic Fred Ross.
Bouguereau is “the greatest painter in the history of the world,” says Mr. Ross, a New Jersey businessman who has founded the Art Renewal Center, dedicated to encouraging artists in what he calls the “humanist” tradition. . . .
“We have put our artistic culture into the hands of philistines and I’m just trying to find a jawbone of an ass,” says Mr. Ross, referring to the Israelite hero Samson’s feat against the original Philistines.
Though most people prefer traditional art, the opinions of critics prop up the reputation of modern art, he says.
“Real people will reject modernism every time, if they’re given a context that justifies the feelings they’ve always had,” Mr. Ross says, likening modern art’s critical hegemony to “the emperor’s new clothes.” . . .

You can read the whole thing, but if you want to see more Bouguereau beauty Continue reading Roger Scruton: ‘Our World Has
Turned Its Back on Beauty . . .’ →

Band at JSU Banned at LGF:
Time for a Neo-Confederate Music Fest!

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Fight on, fight on for ole Jax State
We’re proud that we’re from Alabama . . .

The lyrics of the fight song at my alma mater, Jacksonville (Ala.) State University, would almost certainly result in immediate banishment from Little Green Footballs.

“Proud that we’re from Alabama“? It would be worse than down-dinging a comment by Sharmuta.

The latest Johnsonoid insanity at LGF escaped my notice because of the new site launch. But we got linked by one of the commenters at an Ace of Spades thread discussing Charles Johnson’s latest madness. CJ accuses Jim Hoft of “a textbook case of libel” for a Gateway Pundit post that describes Johnson “Supporting Child Porn in Classrooms.”

This is another of those “Bwaaahahaha Heard ‘Round the World” moments of unintentional irony. Johnson, who called Pamela Geller a “poster girl for Eurofascists,” suddenly decides that he is the victim of defamation?

Tonight, Johnsonoia is all over Memeorandum — American Power,   iOwnTheWorld,  Weasel Zippers, JustOneMinute,  Snooper Report, Big Government and Conservatives for Palin — and I feel like I’m not doing enough to drive CJ nuts nuttier. When even Patterico is joining the LGF beatdown, if I’m not in on the action, it could erode my Right Wing Crazy-Hater street cred. So tonight I Twittered this:

Yeah. I’m considering posting something neo-Confederate just to distract CJ from Jim and Patterico ;=)

Hmmmm. It took me about two seconds to think to myself: Who  do I know that plays a really fine version of “Dixie”?  If you click “read more,” brace yourself for the finest sound on the planet. Ladies and gentlemen, the Jacksonville State University Marching Southerners!
Continue reading Band at JSU Banned at LGF:
Time for a Neo-Confederate Music Fest! →

Your Printer Is a Narc

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Well, maybe not your printer, but my printer is clearly spying on me. Over dinner today, my 20-year-old daughter had a suggestion that inspired me to design a thank-you note to send to our tip-jar hitters. When I went to do a test printing, however, the machine printed only half the card.

Hmmm. Try again, same result. So I looked at the half-printed page, and there was a URL for a Web site, RulesForUse.org, where I read this:

Every country has legal restrictions on the reproduction of banknote images. The counterfeiting of currency is a crime, and while restrictions vary from country to country, in some countries, any reproduction of banknote images — even for artistic or advertising uses — is strictly forbidden. . . Continue reading Your Printer Is a Narc →