OK ... SOMEONE MAKE SENSE OUT OF THIS FOR ME.

I recently flew commercial from Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, to Atlanta.  We cleared U.S. Customs in Freeport, thus allowing our AirTran 717 to coast right into a regular Hartsfield concourse and send us to our cars.  That's good.  I only wish I could clear U.S. Customs in Freeport when I'm in my own airplane; but nooooooo.  I have to fly to Ft. Pierce, land, empty the airplane, go through customs, re-load the airplane and then continue on toward home.

Now .. let me walk you through the way the Freeport airport handles departures to the United States.  First, let me say that every single person I encountered at the airport was friendly and courteous.  The people aren't the issue.  The process is.

Step one:  You line up to get your boarding pass  and check your luggage at the ticket counter.  So far, so good.

Step two:  You take off your shoes, take your laptops out of their bags, remove all cell phones, jewelry and such, and go through the metal detectors while your bags go through the x-ray machine.

Step three:  You go through U.S. Customs passport control.  The U.S. Immigration agent snarls and you and waves you on.  God, these people look like they hate their jobs.

Step four:  You retrieve the baggage you previously checked from a conveyor belt.  You then go through the U.S. Customs checkpoint.  You then put your checked baggage on yet another conveyor belt and it gets whisked off to the airplane.

Step five:  You take off your shoes, take your laptops out of their bags, remove all cell phones, jewelry and such, and go through the metal detectors while your bags go through the x-ray machine.  You are then in the departure area.

OK.  Just why do you go through the metal detectors and baggage x-ray the second time?  That one's easy.  It's because you had access to your checked luggage for a brief period of time, and you could get something nasty or dangerous out of your checked luggage and then carry it onto the airplane.  Thus the second screening.  Fine.  But now you're left wondering why they have the first screening?  Why make you go through the metal detector and carry-on x-ray the first time?  I've been obsessing over this.  Maybe one of you wonderful listeners out there can tell me what, if anything, is being accomplished here ... except, that is, creating a job for a few people.

MORE AID FOR AFRICA

This seems to be the cause of the day.  President Bush and Tony Blair have jointly pledged more aid from their respective countries to Africa.  It will be $674 million more from the United States.  More accurately, it will be $674 from the taxpayers of the United States.

Here is a continent with more than ample natural resources ... yet it is been mired in poverty and despair for hundreds of years.  Two countries on the African Continent that actually have achieved some decent standards of living for a high number of citizens have a common heritage ... and that common heritage is European. 

If it's in our self-interest to pour American taxpayer dollars into Africa .. go for it.  But if those taxpayer dollars just end up in the Swiss bank accounts of some tin-horn African dictator ... no good.   George Bush and Tony Blair did pay some lip service to keeping the money out of corrupt dictators and sending money to countries that embrace democratic principals ... but time will, I think, show that lip service is about all there is on this issue.

That huge giant sucking sound you hear coming down the road is the sound of Africa consuming more and more of the wealth of the American and British people, while little or nothing is done to free the African people from oppressive and corrupt dictatorships.

Just thought I would warn you. 

DEAN UNHINGED.. AGAIN

The only explanation for Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean's repeated, reckless and ridiculous public statements about Republicans has to be this:  he no longer wants the gig.  Perhaps he is trying to be as outrageous as possible in order to get fired.  With more and more Democrats distancing themselves from Dean, and with his coming up short in the fund-raising department, one wonders when he'll be canned.

But let's take a look at his most recent statement, made Monday in San Francisco.  He was asked by a reporter about the loss of support of Republicans among Asian and women voters.  Dean's response:

"They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

Allrighty then.  How long before Howard Dean apologizes?  Will the mainstream media jump all over him the way they would jump all over a Republican?  Imagine if a Republican...say, Bill Frist was to something like this about Dean and his Democrats?  Calls for his resignation would be on page 1 of every newspaper in the country.

Howard Dean isn't doing Democrats any favors.  He's saying what most Democrats think, but just don't think it prudent to say in public. It will be interesting, not to mention fun,  to see how long he hangs on.  It's also interesting to see the level of hate that is bubbling up in a party that is so unaccustomed to losing control of the congressional power levels.

BORDER INSECURITY

This should make you feel safe and secure while you're on vacation this summer.  The porous (full of holes, for those of you in government schools without dictionaries) U.S. border with Mexico makes all headlines because of the illegal immigration problem.  But an equally dangerous situation exists at the Canadian border.

A dirty little secret is that there are a number of unmanned border posts with Canada.  That's right...someone, anyone...could walk right across into the United States, completely undetected.  Canada has much more lax immigration rules than we do, so Islamic terrorists can easily sneak in.  So with all of that as a backdrop, we take you to the U.S.-Canadian border located at Calais, Maine.

Gregory Despres (left) -- I think we've found a new boyfriend for the runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks (right)

JIMMY CARTER'S WAR ON TERROR

VARIOUS

Is there any greater sign of delusion than running around in a minivan with a "My child is an honor student at the so-and-so (government) school"?  Well .. maybe it would be putting a "congratulations graduate" sign in the front yard of someone graduating from a government high school.  That's like congratulating someone for completing an eye exam.

The Drudge Report says that the phone numbers of hundreds of Chinese celebrities have been posted on the Internet.  There's hundreds of Chinese celebrities?

Watch the Democrats in the judicial nomination process.  Do you know what frightens them to death?  A nominee who believes in our Constitution ... especially those portions of our Constitution that speak to individuality.

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

Fabulous. Glad to see rednecks have discovered the fine art of toilet talking. View the rest of the Redneck Scrap Book. And yes, I do think we can draw this thing out forever. There seems to be an endless supply of material.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

It's a rare 2-guest day on the Neal Boortz show: Comedian, Ron Whiteand hip hop pioneer, Russell Simmons. It should be an interesting day.

The Wall Street Journal editors write of the negative implications of the Supreme Court's medical marijuana ruling.

Socialized medicine in the United States is inevitable. It cannot be stopped.  Fueling this inevitability is the belief held by almost all Americans that the responsibility for their health care lies not with them, but with their employer or the government.  Here's a well-written story about one woman's adventure with a medical emergency; first in the British system, and then in the United States. 

OK ... so you show up at the U.S. Border.  You're carrying a bloody chainsaw.  You have a sword and a hatchet.  You also have a knife and some brass knuckles.  Do you get into this country?  What do you think?

Politics is rearing its ugly head in an unlikely place: Ground Zero.  Michelle Malkin explains why you should care about what's going on there.

Looks like The Poodle didn't do too well while he was in school at Yale.  As a matter of fact, he did worse than George Bush did.  Lots of D's...not too good of a showing for the next JFK, is it?

China...the communist dictatorship, may soon have something in common with the Federal Election Commission here in the United States.  They're requiring all blogs to register.

There's a new book coming out about The Hildabeast, and there must be something rather explosive in it.  Rather than ignore it, the Clinton camp is paying it an awful lot of attention.

As if it needed repeating, it's important for somebody to point out that the "insurgents" in Iraq are really Islamic terrorists.  Mark Goldblatt has the reality check.

Tony Blair and George Bush are in a giving mood with tax dollars....handing out money to Africa.  Mark Steyn says it's time Africa learns to make it on its own.

Perky Katie Couric loves The United Nations and Kofi Annan, as evidenced by her kid-glove treatment of the Secretary-General recently on the Today show.  The Media Research Center reports.

Walter E. Williams tackles the touchy subject of victimhood amongst black folks.  Is the clock being turned back on civil rights?  Not at all.  Excellent column.

Howard Dean is getting huge help from the media in hiding his ridiculous statements.  It's interesting how the left is covering for one of their own, writes Brent Bozell.

George Will points out that the marijuana ruling by the Supreme Court defies labeling...liberal vs. conservative in the drug war, but it's impossible to automatically know where each justice stood.

Residents of a Serbian village were shocked when it started raining frogs.

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