Canada by Air, Land, or Lake?

[rfunk]

Those of us in the Great Lakes states can easily forget that we're actually living in border states -- Canada is just across the lake.

With that in mind, I was interested to learn that not only will passports be required (rather than just drivers license and birth certificate) to cross the Canada border by air starting in 2007, and by land starting in 2008, but that the passport requirement is not planned to apply to crossing by ferry or private boat. There are a LOT of private boats crossing between the US and Canada on the lakes every day.

If I were the type of person to be paranoid about terrorist attacks, I might start worrying about attacks on Cleveland -- or the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. Instead I'm more interested in the quickest and easiest way to flee the country if and when necessary. Well, I'd also just like to go see Toronto sometime.

Still gotta find my birth certificate though. And I've been intending to get a new passport anyway for a year now; the one I got when I was 17 is long-expired, and I'm hoping to avoid a passport with an RFID chip.

Comments

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The movement towards RFID chips in everything is one of those glorious few issues that I wish that the wingnut fundamentalists would really press and win on. How can we channel the fury of the fundy over to stopping the Mark of the Beast and away from worrying about everybody else's sex life, I wonder?

Anti-RFID fundamentalists

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

They're not about to leave the country (God and Country and all that) so they're fine with avoiding a purported Mark of the Beast just by not getting a passport.

However, if there were a rumor floated that RFID made you and your neighbors gay or horny or both, maybe then they'd work on stopping it.

[the-shampoo.livejournal.com]

If in the case of zombie attack o rworld war three you ahve a good place to flee to, could you be a pal and alert me to it?

places to flee

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

For the zombies, I know of this great mall over in Pittsburgh....

For WW3... hmm. Well, I suppose the Antarctic climate is getting more hospitable these days.

[loadhan.livejournal.com]

I don't think we have to worry about terrorist attacks on Dvis-Besse... Considering how they've been running the plant over the years, it's a surprise it hasn't already been destroyed along with the surrounding area (see one example and another incident that was partially covered up but second after Three Mile Island in severity). This doesn't even count when it was all-but struck by a tornado or when a swarm of june-bugs clogged its water intake valves. :P

Davis-Besse

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

So the terrorists just wait for Toledo to destroy itself, is that what you're saying? It would seem to be the easiest route....

Re: Davis-Besse

[loadhan.livejournal.com]

It's kinda like when al-Queda threatened to bomb passenger trains in the US. I knew they were just getting lazy. Our Amtrak trains derail so often as it is - they just want to take credit for it without doing anything! Tsk, tsk. Lazy-bum terrorists!

Lazy... hrm... well they do say if you go fantical against your enemy you become your enemy. I wonder if Osama watches reality TV... probably not or he'd realize he didn't need to destroy American culture - we're doing a great job of that already! ;)

[ceolnamara.livejournal.com]

I always know where my EU passport is these days. It's smart.

I think both of my passports are good until 2012... That'd be a good thing to check up on.

I wonder if one could just take a massive hammer (after covering the paper with cloth or something and then smash the passport a few times, thus smashing the chip?

My dad used is passport to get into a Vancouver when he had a conference this past spring.

I can't understand why they wouldn't regulate boat travel as well... Being that I'd be disasterously close to the epicenter for attacks on Cleveland or Davis Besse.