Why I Hate Spirit Airlines and So Should You!

Los Angeles, CA—I should have written this sooner but the negative experience I had with this airline has been continually relived in my mind.  Better I do this late than never!  

It was well over a year ago I had to take a short notice flight to Chicago.   I searched for the cheapest fare, which was anything but cheap.

Spirit Airlines came in at the lowest fare but not by much.  This was my fist and hopefully last flight on this carrier. 

What went wrong you might ask?  To begin with Spirit is following the competition in doing the things I hate like those confusing nickel and dime schemes over baggage fees.  I want to be charged a single price and be left alone.

Because of the fees overhead bins are always overstuffed and the loading and unloading of passengers is painfully slower than need be. 

From the boarding counter to exiting the plane their clerks and crew were unfriendly and downright mean.  I never once saw any of them smile.

The pre-boarding loudspeaker announcements were always tense and agitated.  They warned us like we were Nazi prisoners boarding trains to death camps that the plane was absolutely full.

When I got to my seat it had a brown colored stain on it and since the plane was full I could not change it.  Then I learned that the seats do not recline even an inch!  I’m 6 feet tall and weigh in at over 200 pounds.  L.A. to Chicago is a somewhat long flight. 

The flight attendants were very impatient with the passengers that were seemingly to slow at obeying commands to stow those electronic devices.

I was wondering where Spirit recruited their help.  Those people showed every sign of hating their jobs and the passengers.

I can’t imagine that every flight is like that because if they were, Switzerland’s Human Rights organizations would be investigating. 

I have to admit I’m old enough to remember when flying was fun.  Once upon a time, there was no frisking passengers or searching their luggage.  You could pay for your flight with cash and board planes without ID. 

The flight crews of old were delightfully friendly.  There were no flight attendants.  Stewardesses took care of the passengers needs.  They were young, radiant and incredibly pleasant.  Women that were hard on the eyes or men simply were excluded from these positions. 

The glory days of airline travel are long over and so what if I got spoiled but I refuse to pay for what Spirit dishes out.  I'd rather walk!

Frankly this single round trip experience with Spirit was enough for me and I will gladly pay more to avoid this airline.

Breaking News! California’s Concealed Weapon Ban Struck Down By The 9th Circuit Court of appeals!

San Francisco, CA—Today the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals followed recent rulings by The United States Supreme Court by striking down the California ban on concealed weapons.

In a 127page opinion ruled that the long standing law that allowed for “may issue” permits was un-Constitutional. 

The stricken aw had given police official’s absolute power to issue or deny permits to applicants.  The permits were almost exclusively issued to politicians, bureaucrats and heavy political campaign donors in the more populous jurisdictions. 

Appeal is unlikely because of the SCOTUS McDonald decision that is in fact the law of the land.  That case is what toppled Chicago’s ban.  Illinois officials  are currently issuing thousands of permits to law-abiding citizens. 

What this really means is that if a gun owner is free of felony or domestic violence convictions and is not mentally ill the current law requiring a permit to conceal a loaded firearm in their vehicle or on their person is simply unenforceable.

The police may still decide to make an arrest but the case will eventually crumble in court. At some point arrestees may be able to sue police for violating their Civil Rights for making such an arrest.

California will now have to write a new law that is not in conflict with citizens Second Amendment rights.   That law must mandate that permits be issued freely to qualified gun owners.  

If California chooses to not promulgate a new law there will in effect be no law to regulate concealed weapons.  I’m sure they will write something.

Here is the opinion below:

 

Anatomy of a Residential Burglary Caught on a security Camera System

Westchester, CA—In this quiet West L.A. neighborhood three amateurish, hoodie and glove wearing African-American burglars invaded a home. 

This is crime particularly dangerous because you will see in the video below that at least one of the thugs is armed with a black semi-automatic handgun.  

The burglars are using backpacks and their pockets to conceal the items that they are stealing. They got away with $20,000.00 in jewelry in this January 20th crime. 

They cut the power lines to disable the home alarm and but were unable to defeat the home security and video system.  Remember for the most part the thugs were looking downward. 

Well-lit rooms help with better camera resolution.  Keeping drapes open will help.  Most every residential burglary is a daytime operation.

The victims are usually at work.  Your video security system should have its own power supply and the ability to send e-mail or text messages.  You should use only covert cameras inside and find a good hiding place for the recording deck.  Otherwise they will take those too!

Hopefully a pet resistant motion detector would send you a text message that would cause you to remotely view the crime.  You could then call the police.

This video gives me good ideas for better camera placement.  Shooting from above seems logical but having a camera or two shooting from below would have captured their faces.

There is no chance of recovering fingerprints or DNA here.  The best hope is for a unique sneaker print or two to be recovered. 

Last but not least there are lots of wonderful dogs waiting for homes at your local animal shelter.  Perhaps it’s time to bring one to your home.  I bet some serious barking might have caused these creeps to victimize some other home.  Every home should have a K-9 pal.  

Realistically if these burglars were discovered and the police were called the likelihood that they would arrive in time to catch this thugs is slim to none.

This is what a burglary looks like.  Needless to say if you recognize this trio the LAPD would like to hear from you!

Our Police State, Identification Requirements and Modern Technology.

Chicago, IL—Make no mistake liberty, privacy and freedom died here decades ago.  Most people just don’t have a clue freedom is dead until they experience government tyranny first hand.  Apparently hearing about some neighbor’s troubles does not raise enough red flags.

Despite that our Bill of Rights and Constitution never provided politicians a simple method to make amendments they’ve taken the law and our formerly guaranteed liberty into their own hands.  

Americans have been brainwashed through constant media propaganda into believing their rights somehow must be balanced against the collective safety and security needs.  There is no lawful way to trade liberty for security outside of properly amending the Constitution for restricting rights.  Even if there were a legitimate way this concept simply won’t work.   

Government cannot guarantee safety even in maximum-security prisons.  How can this be accomplished in a free society?  Safety and security was never guaranteed, but the founding fathers did give us the right to keep and bear arms for just that purpose. That of course includes protecting ourselves from government.

As a child of the 1950s I learned identification cards were needed primarily to insure the return of a lost wallet or to assist first responders in identifying you in case of accidents or death.  When you bought a new wallet a blank identification card always came with it for you to fill out.

If you drove, and neither of my parents did throughout their lives they would have needed a driver’s license.  There was no such thing as a state issued identity card back then.  They would have needed passports for international travel but for them this was unnecessary.

Social Security cards were issued in connection with employment, tax collection and receipt of earned benefits only.  Despite the high profile assurances of our politicians to the contrary, today that became our primary identification number!

Until recently in our history anyone could board a bus, boat, train or plane for domestic travel without identification or being frisked like a criminal.

Until the mid to late 1970s there were no photos on our driver’s licenses.  Soon all 50 states required them and California even insisted on a thumbprint on every application.

Computers gave government raw power to find anyone living on the so-called grid with even partial information.  Currently our cell-phones provide the government exactly where we are at all times!

There are ways to defeat government snooping on us but for the most part they involve committing crimes to accomplish.  

Most Americans think this massive intrusion into their lives is somehow for their own good!  You can always show some anecdotal example on how a criminal was caught or some fraud was exposed.  The fact is that liberty and privacy is being unlawfully restricted in the name of security.

The latest threat to liberty and privacy is facial recognition software.  Right now Google is readying their massive database of our pictures for public and government consumption.

Google glass users will be able to snap an image of you and within seconds they will be looking those profiles you were kind enough to post on various Social Media sites! Government employees will see your driver's license data, criminal history and whatever secret files they have amassed on you. 

Needless to say very soon government agents from the hated and unwashed TSA thugs to the local cop on the corner will be making judgments about you before they even talk to you! 

Speaking of the TSA, our founding fathers would be shooting and/or hanging those bastards if they were alive today!  

Per capita America has more people incarcerated than any other nation on earth.  Needless to say our wrongful conviction rate is beyond troubling.

The tattooed number at the top of this story fit the technology available for the Nazis 70 years ago.  They tattooed these numbers on Jews and others deemed undesirable.  They could match them with a central registry providing instant identification. 

The difference between the Nazi tattoo system and what they will use on every man, woman or child is through modern technology even trumps Hitler’s methods! 

Who is willing to say no to our government about spending tax money on this kind of tyranny? 

It should be more than obvious that we are no longer living in the land of the free or the home of the brave. 

News Reporting in this New Candyassed Nation

Florence, AZ—Phoenix television stations must be starving for news today.  They sent crews out to Anthem Elementary School in this not so nearby Phoenix suburb.  It is about a one-hour drive each way for TV news crews responding to this “important” story.

Apparently a troubled 8^th grader there sent a text suggesting he did not want to live and put out a list of those he was unhappy with.  Without being specific the Florence police officials told reporters that they determined that the message was ambiguous and not a valid threat.

I don’t suggest for a second that the matter should not be investigated.  It was, and there was no crime.  I’m sure this event deserved some legitimate concern for the depressed lad in question.

Whoever called the media to this event was more dangerous than the kid.  More than that, the decision by assignment editors to make a news story out of this garbage is more troubling.

Whoever called the media in on this was obviously some taxpayer-funded attention-whore trying to appear heroic.

Every eighth grader has bad days and people they don’t like.  Yes, they make lists and want the objects of their angst out of their lives.  At that age kids are just learning about what’s acceptable and what is not.  They also want to push the envelope as far as they can. 

Here there was never a valid criminal event but making such a mountain out of a molehill sends the wrong message to the kids and the TV news viewers.

Must we be at such a state of siege in our schools that we over-react to things like the child who bit his Pop-Tart into the shape of a pistol? 

This is a diverse and divided nation of over 300,000,000 people and there will be killings at schools and all kinds of crimes.   I must ask, is every kid with an emotional meltdown somehow a news story today?

It would be different if a child was injured or there was an attempt at stabbing or shooting.   That certainly was not the case here. 

Do news providers serve any purpose by worrying parents everywhere with non-newsworthy events like this one?

Once the news crews investigated and returned to their stations any intent to actually broadcast this story was really ill advised.