Friday, March 28, 2008

Oh. My. God.

I suppose I have my friends at Atomic Nerds to thank for this latest blood pressure spike. If it wasn't for them I would have remained blissfully unaware of the kerfuffle at Lubbock airport that seems destined to go down in history as "Nipplegate".

More importantly, I wouldn't have known about the comments over at Hot Air. See, in the post over there it only took seven comments for some gonadless denizens of Vichy America to turn up and defend the low budget rent-a-cops of the TSA. Seven comments before some toadying sycophants lauded the TSA for defending the American skies from exploding boobies.

Folks, if the jihadis have you quivering under the dust ruffle in fear of nipple-ring-activated breast bombs, then it's time to grab a rusty bayonet and Daniel Pearl yourself live on Al Jazeera because they have won. If you can't see that your spineless defense of this farcical bit of security theater makes you unworthy to empty the colostomy bag of an Iwo vet, then you should just turn in your Lee Greenwood albums, exchange your dollars for dinars, and pull a burkha over your buzzcut, bro, because it's all over here in the Land of the Formerly Free and the Home of the Not-So-Brave.
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19 comments:

Divemedic said...

Don't you understand? What ever it takes to make us SAFE.

9:00 PM, March 28, 2008
SayUncle said...

So, you just don't even read me anymore?

Like so many others who, well, honestly do a much better job than me, yet I promote them, and they forget their roots. I should just give up. Oh, wait, I just entertain me so, uhm, boob joke or gun porn or something.

Btw, none none should have to type qnzrjht so fix that verification thing.

-SayUncle

9:05 PM, March 28, 2008
Tam said...

For whatever reason, I somehow completely missed that story on all my normal rounds, Unc.

And I was a better person for it. :o

9:30 PM, March 28, 2008
Anonymous said...

My puritan roots are showing/

When kinky women are outlawed.....

Well then, whats the point?

9:33 PM, March 28, 2008
Anonymous said...

Oh, screw it.

If I have to take a plane to get somewhere in this brave new world of transportation security...I really don't need to go there in the first place.

Between the incompetence and poor service of the airlines and the officious incompetents manning the security checkpoints, it's a wonder anybody is still flying commercial...

And I got "ujudgu" for a verification password. I think that's a really nasty word in Swahili. And maybe a really bad Robin Williams comedy, too...

--Wes S.

9:37 PM, March 28, 2008
Anonymous said...

"Folks, if the jihadis have you quivering under the dust ruffle in fear of nipple-ring-activated breast bombs, then it's time to grab a rusty bayonet and Daniel Pearl yourself live on Al Jazeera because they have won."

To be fair, I don't think showing up decades after the country had successfully killed anything resembling "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and moving bodies around counts as a win.

9:48 PM, March 28, 2008
Anonymous said...

Having flown out of Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland and a lot of places like Riverton, WY or Traverse City, MI. What I find is that the back water areas of the country are the ones with the strictest interpretation of the rules. They are also the ones least up on the rules.

It just the nature of life in the nanny state. If we are going to put up with giving up our rights in general, we need to expect that stupid things like this will occur.

10:05 PM, March 28, 2008
mousestalker said...

Of course nipple rings are dangerous. You could put an eye out.

Sheesh.

10:06 PM, March 28, 2008
perlhaqr said...

My wife once had a similar, though thankfully nowhere near as traumatic, experience. At fscking SFO, of all places. (How has any Security Monkey at SFO never seen a nipple ring before? I'd figure at least 10% of the population there has something pierced that's not an ear.)

Fortunately, she managed to cause enough dismay in the Security Twit by threatening to expose her breasts in public that she was just waved on.

I myself haven't flown anywhere in over 3 years. Driving everywhere takes a lot longer, but it's way better for my blood pressure.

11:02 PM, March 28, 2008
Somerled said...

The feds should stop worrying about nipple rings and kick the jet tires and look around for some stress fractures.

Maybe paying customers will return to the once-again friendly skies so the airlines can make enough to hire more maintenance personnel.

12:50 AM, March 29, 2008
Anonymous said...

somerled--

I don't think it's so much a lack of worker bees as is it is the planes are scheduled so much tighter than they used to be.

The best mech they can hire can't work on it while it's at altitude, and they do well to get gas and baggage onboard on their turnarounds.

Been five years since I've flown, and it's probably a good thing; the more I read the more I realize I'm prone to completely lose it when dealing with these security twinks.

1:48 AM, March 29, 2008
Anonymous said...

Nipple rings should be outlawed.They obstruct the view.et45

5:08 AM, March 29, 2008
Mark said...

Nipple rings are terribly dangerous.

You could chip a tooth.

*koff*

I can't really get wound up about Security Theatre anymore. It's not much more senseless than invading Iraq over WMDs. It's not much dimmer than outlawing stem cell research, despite being able to get stem cells from adults now. It makes measurably more sense than banning fire extinguishers as a fire risk, ftheluvvagawd.

World's gone mad, kiddies - grab a drink and watch her burn.

7:39 AM, March 29, 2008
Rob K said...

mark, stem cell research is not outlawed and never has been. The only thing that's forbidden is using federal, er, my tax money to fund research on newly derived embryonic stem cell lines. It's legal, just not with tax dollars. Federal funds have always been available for adult and cord blood stem cell research.

And back on topic, I haven't flown for several years either. I'd feel a lot safer WITHOUT the security theater.

11:02 AM, March 29, 2008
Anonymous said...

A simple visual check by a female employee would have sufficed...though that still would have been a privacy violation.

12:06 PM, March 29, 2008
Zendo Deb said...

TSA is universally stupid. What do you want from a government bureaucracy?

Oh, and a pilot friend of mine tells me they make about 38 grand to start, and it seems a lot of them have discovered the federal benefits of having various injuries on the job.

5:05 PM, March 29, 2008
perlhaqr said...

Zendo: Though I know the Marines are better men than to stoop to that level, I'm still having a pleasant moment imagining them ignoring the TSA entirely, and just pushing onward to the plane as a unit.

8:00 PM, March 29, 2008
dr mac said...

Hurts so good.....

8:38 PM, March 29, 2008
Anonymous said...

Nipple rings? Thats a hippie thing, right? Let's just ban hippies... problem solved.
Diamondback

8:40 PM, April 01, 2008

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