Great Googly Moogly!

Overheard in the Office

(whilst hanging out in ETS)

SpongeMark Squarehands: "Go downstairs, see Erin."
Yours Truly: "What? Is she in a cast or something? A wheelchair?"
SMSH: "No... Just go see her."
YT: "A new tattoo?"
SMSH "Just. Go. See. Her."

A few minutes later down in the horseshoe...
After a cursory once-over looking for bandages, crutches, or a bright fuchsia Mohawk...
YT: "So... SpongeMark said to come see you... 'Sup?"

Holy crap!

Erin- Congratulations!
Mark- Good on ya, mate!

(Wow... The bachelor party is going to be Epic. Hmmm... Vegas? Macau? Rio? Prague?
The possibilities are staggering!)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Doorknob Hanger

Boy, that IS disturbing.

Blonde Joke

Small Changes

Current Events

This just in:
From the cheese-eating surrender monkeys-


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

OBL Has Won

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

75,000 Word Email From President Obama

Jeebus!
Originally I thought "What kind of sedative did they use on him when they doctored his split lip?"

Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail
by The Onion

WASHINGTON—Having admittedly "reached the end of [his] rope," President Barack Obama sent a rambling 75,000-word e-mail to the entire nation Wednesday, revealing deep frustrations with America's political culture, his presidency, U.S. citizens, and himself.
...
A 150-page printout confirms that while Obama's points are generally cogent in the first quarter of the message, the increasingly chaotic spacing, multiple spelling errors, and near total lack of commas rendered the later portions almost impossible to parse.

"JESUS CHRIST, WE LOST OVER @ MILLION JOBS BEFOREE I EVEN TOOK OFFICE!!!11!" reads a sentence occupying a large white space between two massive chunks of texts, one of which was a 6,500-word tangent on the Muslim community center being built two blocks from the former World Trade Center site.

Wow.
Satire, the Onion gots it.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

BBC's 100 Top Books Meme

BBC's 100 Top Books

Instructions:
Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen   
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee   
6 The Bible  
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell   
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens   
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare   
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier   
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger   
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot   
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald   
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll   
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame   
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 
34 Emma – Jane Austen   
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen   
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis   
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere 
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell   
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding   
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan 
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen   
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens   
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley   
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold 
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac   
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville   
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker   
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome 
78 Germinal – Emile Zola 
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 
80 Possession – AS Byatt   
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens   
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell 
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert   
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White  
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad   
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare   
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl   
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Hitting Close To Home

(Click for full-size pic)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

An Excellent Question

Constant Reader and all-around good guy Luc posed an excellent question:

Big Guy, question for you since you are somewhat of an expert on the subject: In the last year, how many explosive devices or real weapons (not including nail clippers) did the TSA found on passengers by screening them? 

 We aim (heh) to please here at L2UJ, especially when it comes to gun questions...

The actual stats are a bit long and most likely the average lurker will see that there is no T&A or Gun Pr∅n pictures and skip over the data, so let me offer this observation as a preface:

When the TSA or DHA actually do something of note (almost never) or try to take credit for something someone else has done (all the frickin' time - See underwear bomber, Times Square Bomber, etc) they hold big press conferences and trumpet long and loud their accomplishments to all and sundry.

Politico- Napolitano: "The System Worked"

A larger problem is that even when the information is right under their noses, they still don't recognize a terrorist attack.

WaPo- Napolitano: NYC car bomb is 'a potential terrorist attack'

Napolitano calls it a one-off, and is more likely an act of domestic terrorism.

It's a one off?

Oh- wait...
London 2007: Light GREEN Mercedes Benz loaded with Propane bottles,Gasoline containers,Nails, Electrical wiring, Detonators

Glasgow Airport 2007: Dark GREEN Jeep Cherokee, Propane bottles,Gasoline containers, Detonators

New York City 2010: Dark GREEN Nissan Pathfinder, Propane bottles, Gasoline containers, “Consumer grade fireworks”, Electrical wiring, Detonators.

One-off. Sure.

I'm not sure why they haven't banned driving Nissan Pathfinders in NYC...
After all, someone screws up an underwear bomb and now everyone gets a little testicle squeeze or labia pinch. Why are they still letting people drive SUVs in NYC? 

Crap. I'm getting side tracked, and you're probably getting bored.
Stand by one...

Wow. Gun Pr∅n and a prodigious rack. Who knew?

Ok... Now that I have your attention again... Back to Luc's question:

In the last year, how many explosive devices or real weapons (not including nail clippers) did the TSA found on passengers by screening them?"

The TSA publishes a weekly "body count" at tsa.gov every Tuesday.

Keep in mind that these are raw numbers with no follow up info to explain the circumstances.
I'll promise you that if they found a gun and evidence that a hijacking was to be committed, you'd see the same "The System Worked" canine and equine show that the DHS/TSA is so famous for.
I have a feeling that the "firearms found" figures are a variation of "I have a ccw and forgot it was in my briefcase where I always keep it", a LEO who is not following correct procedure, a Fed Air Marshall who didn't sign the log book or is late for flight and tried to pass the Screen Point without going the the appropriate hoops, test scenarios where undercover TSA Agents are bringing guns through to evaluate hardware and wetware, and things of that ilk, rather than real, bona fide hijackers and terrorists.

Now- the numbers (just the first 6 months of this year... I got tired of chasing the info):
TSA week at a glance:
12/27/09 To 01/03/10
    * 28 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents
    * 12 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 24 incidents that involved a checkpoint closure, terminal evacuation or sterile area breach

 01/04/10 To 01/10/10
    * 22 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents
    * 20 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 5 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 26 incidents that involved a checkpoint closure, terminal evacuation or sterile area breach

01/11/10 To 01/17/10
    * 9 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents
    * 8 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 0 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 20 incidents that involved a checkpoint closure, terminal evacuation or sterile area breach

01/18/10 To 01/25/10
    * 2 artfully concealed prohibited item found at checkpoints
    * 21 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 14 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

01/25/10 To 01/31/10
    * 5 artfully concealed prohibited item found at checkpoints
    * 17 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 21 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

02/08/10 To 02/14/10
    * 5 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 24 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 22 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

2/15/10 To 02/21/10
    * 6 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 19 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 5 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

 02/22/10 to 02/28/10
    * 3 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 17 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 5 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

03/01/10 To 03/07/10
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 19 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 13 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

03/08/10 to 03/14/10
    * 2 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 23 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 2 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

03/15/10 to 03/21/10
    * 2 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 28 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 5 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

03/22/10 to 03/28/10
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 14 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 14 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

03/29/10 To 04/04/10
    * 2 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 18 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 3 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

04/05/10 to 04/11/10

    * 3 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 24 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 4 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

04/12/10 to 04/18/10

    * 3 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 28 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 0 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

04/19/10 to 04/25/10
    * 6 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 16 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 0 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

04/26/10 To 05/02/10
    * 7 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 14 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 13 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

05/03/10 to 05/10/10
    * 5 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 15 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 9 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

05/10/10 To 05/16/10
    * 2 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 27 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 2 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

05/17/10 To 05/23/10
    * 0 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 5 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 6 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

05/24/10 To 05/30/10
    * 3 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 10 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 2 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

05/31/10 To 06/07/10
    * 5 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 18 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 11 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

06/07/10 To 06/13/10
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 8 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 9 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

6/14/10 to 06/20/10
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 10 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 3 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

6/21/10 thru 6/27/10
    * 4 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 13 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 15 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

6/28/10 Thru 7/04/10
    * 3 artfully concealed prohibited items found at checkpoints
    * 128 firearms found at checkpoints
    * 15 passengers were arrested after investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents

To answer your question, a shitload of firearms, no explosives, and the guns they find are not worthy of a follow-up with the press corp, so they are, as a rule, a non-event.

Hope this answers part of your question.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Hell Hath No Fury...

...like a woman scorned.

As these pictures illustrate, men just don't get it.

(Click pics for full-sized images)















Of course, sometimes guys can be just as evil...

We're Hurting Their Widdle Feewings!

Hey TSA Officers:

Ready to solve the puzzle?


TSA workers face verbal abuse from travelers

“Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me. ...These comments are painful and demoralizing,” one unnamed TSO posted on Frischling’s website.

Another said: “Being a TSO means often being verbally abused. You let the comments roll off and check the next person; however, when a woman refuses the scanner then comes to me and tells me that she feels like I am molesting her; that is beyond verbal abuse.”

Awwww. You're breaking my fricken' heart!

Well, children... It's just like when you tell me:
"You don't like it? Don't fly."
So then...
You don't want to get abused?- Get another job.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Quantitative Easing for Dummies

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Opinions. Not Worth A Tinkers Dam

When TBG started to go off regarding the TSA's new pat-downs and sooper-dooper xray machine, I thought to myself "That dude needs to switch to decaf."

After all, how bad can it be?

Look! CBS says most of us don't mind.
CBS Poll: 4 in 5 Support Full-Body Airport Scanners

Americans overwhelmingly approve of the use of full-body digital x-ray machines - a new technology in use at some airports in the U.S.

Problem is, I think those 4 out of 5 are like me, and only travel once every 5 years or so, and are NOT travelers like TBG (thank God) and travel all the frigging time.

I guess you might have a different view, if like TBG, you had to submit to both the scanner and a pat-down. (We exchanged a series of rather colorful emails about this... I'm sure a 4th Amendment post is in-process. Don't miss it.)

Two things regarding the CBS poll...
They are playing fast and loose with their stats and sources. I hate it when pollsters don't discuss their polling criteria and methodologies...

The fine print? Here:

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,137 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone November 7-10, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

Do they travel? How often? Have they experienced the TSA enhanced pat-down?
If not, then STFU. You don't have a valid frame of reference to give an opinion.

So, since I have no frame of reference, or as TBG phrased it "you don't have a dog in this fight..." I'll just keep my lip buttoned and watch the game from the sidelines.

One other thing that might cast a suspicious pall over the CBS article is the following quote:

Most [Americans], meanwhile, do not approve of racial or ethnic profiling - a practice not in place.

I'm not sure they asked the question in an appropriate context.
How do you think the questions was asked?:

"Do you approve of racial profiling?"
-or-
"Should individuals meeting specific criteria for know terrorist activities be subjected to more scrutiny than the average traveler?"

Yeah. Get back to me on that...

Meanwhile, for your amusement, a cartoon that MIGHT have some validity, if you look at the situation pragmatically:


Proxi, a non-traveler.

Fun & Feast Friday

Lots of fun on Friday-
It was the annual IDS Thanksgiving feast and wiffle ball home-run derby...

As per usual, I has a hand in the cooking, my contribution was the prep and cooking of a roast pig...
A 66lb porker named Roxanne.
I picked her up from Terry's on Penman Rd on Thursday afternoon. (1.79/lb. Can't beat that with a stick.)
When I placed my order I asked that they butterfly the carcass, but I guess they aren't really set up to do that, so all they did was cut her in half from stem to stern. Eh- mai wenti.
And since I really didn't want to gross anyone out, I had them remove the head.
After a liberal soaking in mojo criollo, I made slits in the meat to insert slivers of garlic under her skin and throughout the meat. I put her in the cold box to steep and I hit the hay since to have the things ready for this particular shindig I had to be on site at about 4:15am...


About 4:30 AM, and it's 40 degrees; Prepping the Caja China for action. Roxy is in the cardboard box.

I had two helpers volunteer to assist, although it was mostly for immoral support...
Jingalls showed up about 5:00, so we made a pot of coffee then we got down to business. Roxy was strapped to the rack, put into the Caja China and we lit the coals at 5:20.
At 5:45 we started the timer and started to watch the internal temperature of the meat.
(NB: Always use a remote probe thermometer. We used one this time and it worked out great.)

About 6:00 our other partner in crime arrived with more coffee...JessicaS improved our topics of conversation, and to a somewhat lesser degree, our language. There were only a few occasions we had to ask her to go "earmuffs-on" mode to spare her delicate feelings as we discussed Florida gun laws, TSA madness, restaurants, and travel spots.

About 7:15, it's about 52 degrees - Cooking is well underway, and the sun is just coming up...

Other participants began arriving as we neared the 9:00 hour-

We had just put on the next load of charcoal when RonH, KathyK and CynthiaW arrived to shoot the breeze and enjoy the heat... (Jess is cooking marshmallows over the fire.)


How's she doing?
We opened the box after several additional loads of charcoal, and it looked like things were just about perfect.

Internal temp in the ham was 168°... the round things are slices of sour oranges, in case you were wondering.

Ok... Let's flip her over to finish cooking and crisp up that skin!

Yours Truly and JIngalls doing the flip... Easy does it.
The welding gloves are a pretty important  item to have on-hand (heh) too.

Next- to help render the fat and get good heat distribution we have to
modify the packaging...

Gotta get at the fat under that skin... Nurse! Scalpel please!

All right, no scalpel ... I'll just use my Cutco Santoku instead...

X marks the spot.

Lest you think we were all alone, rest assured, we were not.
Directly behind us, RallisP was manning the turkey fryers.
The Big Bossman fried 6 turkeys to go along with our petite porker...
(After all, we were feeding about 110 people, give or take a few.)

Rallis standing guard over the pots of hot oil... The guys in the background are watching the wiffle ball home run derby. That competition stared about 10:30 in the morning and lasted several hours...


Jeremy putting one across the plate... Zach is one of the 200 point targets in the outfield.

Ok... time to serve up some pork.

Jingalls and I open up the Caja China... Internal temp on the meat- 190°.

Wow.

"That's beautiful! What is that, velvet?"

We remove the pork from the box...

WayneD and BenC are carefully supervising us...

The top rack is removed and we're ready to start pulling and cutting....

At this point I have to put down my camera and attend to business-
We were serving at 1:00pm, so we started picking & pulling about 12:15, after giving the meat a short rest and we had the meat at the serving table right on time...

Some other pics from the shindig-

Life is uncertain - pick up your dessert first, otherwise you might miss out.

Dennis trying to decide where to start at the dessert table...


Random folks in line for the food...

We got smart this year and rented tables & chairs to make the actual meal easier.
It worked out well, I think...

Random IDS folks-


More random IDSers...


And the last group...

It was a beautiful day- although it started out cool (40°) it finished out in the mid 70s, with clear skies.

Great food, great fun, great folks...
Days like this remind me why I work at IDS.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Quote of the Day

Democratic strategist James Carville dropped this one-liner:
“If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he’d have two.”

@ Politico

Yowza!


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

One Thing To Think About During TSA Interactions

I'm not-necessarily an Alinsky-style 'Rules for Radicals' kinda guy, but it doesn't hurt to remind the TSA Officers about their own procedures and why they are there.

You'll see most of the TSOs are wearing rubber gloves for their protection and yours (in theory)-
HOWEVER- the implication is that after they've pawed through the guy in front of you's dirty underwear in his carry-on or whatever, BEFORE they touch your carry on bag, they better be changing their gloves.
If they don't, I'd bitch long, loud and fill out a complaint form at the airport and fill out the form at TSA.gov .
It's been my experience that they don't change gloves often enough...

Same thing with the Grope-Fest over at the Rapid-Scan 1000 Porn-o-Scope...
New gloves for every person they touch.

You wouldn't let a doctor or nurse examine you with gloves they used with their last patient, why should it be different at this venue?

Just saying...


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

TSA Punch-out.

(Wow. Glad this happened. I thought I was going to be the first one to do it.)

A Connecticut man has been arrested after exchanging words and punching a TSA screener at a security checkpoint at Indianapolis International Airport.

First off:

Jim Fotenos, spokesman for the Transportation Security Agency, said in an airport police report, "Our transportation security officers work on the front lines to protect the nation from a terrorist attack and physical violence against them is shameful. TSA will work with local authorities to see that appropriate action is taken."

 Dude, you and the TSOs are NOT on the "front lines"... Hie your sorry asses over to Afghanistan if you want to be Front Line troops and get treated as such.

Second:

He had already stood and been scanned in a full-body advanced imaging machine before the incident.
... full details of the exchange are not in the police report, but it indicates that Christina said he has a history of medical issues, including two metal implants, a colostomy bag and a fused right wrist.

Anyone want to guess what happened?


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

TSA Anti-Grope Strategies

(pic by Oleg Volk)

Everybody's jumped on the bandwagon, talking about the TSA Nightmare...

JayG, Tam, Breda, Borepatch I and II, Joanna, etc...

Welcome to the party, y'all. I've been bitching about it for years.

Want to Play
Common Sense
DefCon Jumpy
Please Sir
Crotchbomber
I Hate LAX
More Hate
Letters
Etc
Etc


It's not just the TSA, it's DHS in general.


It's all well and good to say "I just won't fly."
It's somewhat less effective when you have to fly on a relatively frequent basis as part of your job.

This is how it works:

Employee: "I really hate it. I either have to be irradiated in the TSA Microwave Oven/Nude-o-Scope, or I get to have my junk juggled by the former do-you-want-fries-with-that  mouth-breathers turned oh-so-professional TSA screeners who can't tell a tight scrotum from a lump of C-4... Do you mind if I drive to Portland instead of flying?"

Employer: "Let eme do the math on that... tack 3 extra days on each end of the job for the trip and reimburse you for the mileage? Nope. Get your ass to the airport."

Employee: "We could rent a car for the trip and I'll take vacation days for the travel days. The rental and the gas will be a wash with the airfare."

Employer: "Well, the vacation-days thing would work for the first 4 or 5 trips. What then? What about your events in Europe and Asia?"

Employee: "...I don't know. Maybe I could get a transfer to a department or position that doesn't travel?"

Employer: "Why are you a special case? I don't think we should create a special position just so you don't get your crotch rubbed or have to get 3 seconds of high-intensity radiation a few time a year. If you don't want to travel, I'll hire someone else who will. Say goodbye to your (already dwindling) health insurance."

So that's not really an option, is it?

Meanwhile the TSA will just keep pushing the issue, restricting our rights (hint: Fourth Amendment)
and reacting to last weeks threat.

Shoe bomber? (Wasn't caught by the TSA)
Let's start scanning shoes now.

The 2006 Liquids Plot from the UK?  (Wasn't caught by the TSA)
Ban all liquids.

Underwear Bomber? (Wasn't caught by the TSA)
Let's use a more invasive body scanning system, or just physically checking people's crotches.

Is that the best way to counter threats?
Something happens, then they find a way to counter what has ALREADY OCCURRED?


What is going to happen when someone smuggles an explosive on to a plane in a body cavity, extracts it in the lavatory of the plane and sets it off?

How will they know that's what happened?

And guess how will the TSA react?
Cavity Searches.
And they will expect us to put up with it.

After all- we put up with baggage checks.
We put up with metal detectors.
We put up with the explosive sniffer (which wasn't made by a company that Michael Chertoff is a stockholder/consultant so they can't use it any more.)
And now we're putting up with the nudie-scope and getting our genitals probed.

I had a list of things I want to say next time I get the rubber glove treatment.

I came up with another one... Especially with the same-sex-search policy.

Yo TSA dude. You think you're going to make me embarrassed?
The moment I start to get the genital grope I'm going to whisper to the Groper:
"Gosh, my boyfriend doesn't even give me this much attention."
I bet that search would cease pretty quickly.
Nothing like fomenting a little homophobia to hasten things along. Heh.


One good solution:
Go read The Gormogons....  How to Fix Airport Security
Or Jennifer's Comments

All in all, if you look at it the right way, the TSA is improving the world we live in:

1) TSA provides many great employment opportunities to registered and unregistered sex offenders, voyeurs and child molesters, thus keeping them away from your neighborhood.

2) Because many people are now avoiding the air travel altogether, the TSA actions reduce the pollution from the airplanes while increasing the number of passengers on the much more efficient public transportation such as trains or buses.

3) It will also generate more revenues for the shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS, due to expected increase in the number of packages sent from the Middle East.

4) TSA are buying so much radioactive materials for their scanners that Iran will never get enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

5) TSA has finally provided an indisputable proof that an alien spaceship really crashed in Roswell, NM in 1947 by incorporating in their procedures the most advanced and effective alien technology known to humans – the anal probe.

6) Female travelers will be able to opt out of the annual breast exam in favor of the pat-down, while males will be able to forgo the testicular examinations. And with the TSA success record you can be rest assured that they will not find anything dangerous there. Also, you would get a free massage.

7) For the children, TSA would provide a viable alternative to Catholic church: children would be groped and molested by a man in a uniform just as they think they are on their way to heaven.

8 ) The radiation exposure from the scanners will greatly reduce your chances of dying from Alzheimer’s, heart attack, car accident or other unrelated cause of death, although may increase your chances of dying of embarrassment.

9) The infamous “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct” pedophile how-to guide has been pulled from Amazon.com so that it could be converted into a TSA training guide named “The Patdownophile’s Guide to Glove and Security: A Child-Groper Code of Conduct”.

10) Finally, the TSA security procedures are making the potential terrorists realize that passengers aren’t the real enemy. And on the other hand, the passengers are realizing that terrorists aren’t that scary either.   -Mikhail Khlystov (известный в узких кругах мой коллега-квн-щик)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Oh My...

Perrier @ Yahoo! Video

 
TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Childhood Fears - Pt. 10

We didn't have the dirt floor, but we DID have the open stair risers...

Proxi - Living in fear since 1960

Childhood Fears - Pt. 9

It's that frickin' clown again.

Proxi - Living in fear since 1960

The New Boyfriend

The youngest girl at The Estrogen Palace has a new boyfriend...


No, not this little sweetheart...


This one. (Ain't she a sweetheart too?)

This is the new boyfriend.
He's a Rhodesian Ridgeback by the name of Koa (coe-uh) that lives across the street from us..


He's a big puppy... About 11 months old.

He's a stalker...

Can Böz come out to play?

Every morning there is a standing 7:30 playdate for the dogs...
It's an activity calculated to tire them both out for the day, in order to avoid household destruction by bored animals.

Here she is...

Special greeting: "Let's play vampire, I'll bite your neck."

There's quite a bit of biting...






And a good bit of laying about...





Here's his trademark ridge and whorls...

They play well together, provided there is no tennis ball involved...
If, however, she is outside attending to the serious business of fetching the tennis ball, she will brook no interference from this interloper...
The ball is hers and hers alone.



TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE