Get Cynical

From Yahoo! News:

SANFORD, Fla. – A central Florida dealership trying to drum up business is offering an unusual perk for potential used-truck buyers: A free AK-47 assault rifle.

General sales manager Nick Ginetta says that since the promotion was announced on Veterans Day, business has more than doubled at Nations Trucks in Sanford.

Customers would have to pass a background check before using the $400 gun shop voucher. They also have the option of using the money toward other firearms, or they can request a check in that amount instead.

Wait… You get a gun voucher? And you can use that toward any gun or just get a check? So isn’t that just a $400 rebate? Weak sauce.

(via Boing Boing)

I believe that this is called a single serving site.

(via Buzzfeed)

(Thanks Justin!)

This will probably be of no interest to anybody but me but here is a list of every book I’ve read in 2010 and the dates I read them. (I started doing this wayyyyy back in 2009. As with all other things, I blame Art Garfunkel)

The Forever War 1/2/10 – 1/4/10
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons 1/4/10 – 1/7/10
Fates Worse Than Death 1/10/10 – (Didn’t finish)
A Confederacy of Dinces 1/19/10 – (Didn’t finish)
Shutter Island (audio) 2/21/10 – 3/1/10
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (audio) 2/26/10 – 3/2/10
Under the Dome (audio) 3/8/10 – 4/5/10
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter 3/23/10 – 4/5/10
Little Brother (stanza) 4/6/10 – 4/14/10
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (audio) 4/6/10 – 5/26/10
The Indian in the Cupboard 4/6/10 – 4/8/10
Fragile Things 4/21/10 – 4/28/10
A Study in Scarlet 4/28/10 -5/2/10
Anansi Boys 5/24/10 – 6/3/10
The Sign of Four 5/2/10 – 5/3/10
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 5/3/10 – 5/7/10
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes 5/9/10 – 5/12/10
The Hound of the Baskervilles 5/12/10 – 5/13/10
The Return of Sherlock Holmes 5/13/10 – 5/18/10
The Valley of Fear 5/18/10 – 5/20/10
His Last Bow 5/20/10 – 5/23/10
Las Vegas Noir 6/3/10 – 6/7/10
The Stand (audio) 6/3/10 – 9/1/10
The Story of Britain 6/7/10 – 6/30/10
The Omnivore’s Dilemma 6/8/10 – 6/10/10
Little Fuzzy (stanza) 6/10/10 – 6/18/10
The Secret Garden (stanza) 6/18/10 – 6/28/10
The Autobiography of Henry VIII 6/27/10 – 7/7/10
Smoke and Mirrors 7/7/10 – 7/13/10
The Talented Mr. Ripley 7/11/10 – 7/15/10
Ripley Under Ground 7/16/10 – 7/20/10
Ripley’s Game 7/20/10 – 7/21/10
Ripley Under Water 7/21/10 – 7/23/10
The Maltese Falcon 7/25/10 – 7/26/10
The Boy Who Followed Ripley 7/26/10 – 7/28/10
Button, Button, Uncanny Stories 8/3/10 – 8/4/10
Shadow and Claw 8/6/10 – (Didn’t finish)
For the Win (stanza) 8/10/10 – 8/17/10
The Demolished Man 8/17/10 – 8/20/10
Mystery of the Dancing Devil 8/21/10 -8/22/10
Stranger in a Strange Land 8/23/10 – 8/25/10
Mystery of the Headless Horse 8/28/10 – 8/30/10
The Grapes of Wrath 8/30/10 – 9/8/10
Dolores Claiborne (audio) 9/7/10 – 9/11/10
A Canticle for Leibowitz 9/11/10 – 9/16/10
The Last Full Measure 9/22/10 – 9/27/10
The March 9/27/10 -10/2/10
True Grit 10/2/10 – 10/4/10
The Bucolic Plague 10/4/10 – 10/5/10
Darkly Dreaming Dexter 10/5/10 – 10/8/10
The Three Coffins 10/10/10 – 10/12/10
Oryx and Crake 10/12/10 – 10/19/10
Peeps 10/22/10 – 10/25/10
Gone With the Wind 10/25/10 – 10/31/10
Midwich Cuckoos 10/31/10 – 11/3/10
Carter Beats the Devil 11/5/10 – 11/14/10
Hellhouse 11/16/10 – 11/23/10
Into Thin Air 11/24/11 – 11/28/10
Fellowship of the Ring 11/29/10 – 12/6/10
The Two Towers 12/6/10 – 12/11/10
Good Omens 12/12/10 – 12/13/10
The Help 12/13/10 – 12/16/10
Life by Keith Richards 12/27/10 – 12/31/10

From The Atlantic:

A US Army staff sergeant, now serving in Afghanistan, writes about the new enhanced pat-down procedure from the TSA. Summary of his very powerful message: to avoid giving gross offense to the Afghan public, and to prevent the appearance of an uncontrolled security state, the US military forbids use on Afghan civilians of the very practices the TSA is now making routine for civilian travelers at US airports.

(via

From The Atlantic: A US Army staff sergeant, now serving in Afghanistan, writes about the new enhanced pat-down procedure from the TSA. Summary of his very powerful message: to avoid giving gross offense to the Afghan public, and to prevent the appearance of an uncontrolled security state, the US military forbids use on Afghan civilians [...]

From TheStar:

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

“The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport,” said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

“Two benign questions. The questions aren’t important. The way people act when they answer them is,” Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of “distress” — behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

“The word ‘profiling’ is a political invention by people who don’t want to do security,” he said. “To us, it doesn’t matter if he’s black, white, young or old. It’s just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I’m doing this?”

Once you’ve parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters.

Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion’s half-dozen entrances, another layer of security are watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer.

“This is to see that you don’t have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious,” said Sela.

You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side?

“The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds,” said Sela.

Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.