Althouse: TSA agent: "What is this?" American citizen: "It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer."

November 19, 2010

TSA agent: "What is this?" American citizen: "It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer."

TSA agent: "Well, you'll need to show me that."

226 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 226 of 226

Ritmo Re-Animated said...: People want to visit, but the don't want to live there.

Because maybe like you, they are too cheap and classless to afford it?

Well, you get what you pay for.; 11/19/10, 10:34 PM
Anonymous said...: If you had any class in your upbringing and character and any respect for culture whatsoever, you would see this.

Yes, mr "culture" in action:

Blogger Big Gov't Trickling Down on You said...

DOn't worry, asshole.

And,
Fuck off and and shut your mouth

And,
FLYOVERS filled with bumpkins

And,
My idea of progress includes stuffing JAY in Yucca mountain or, better yet, storing spent nuclear fuel under his mattress.

So cultured!; 11/19/10, 10:35 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: I'm just speaking with the native in his own language, JAY. Sorry you don't like the way your language comes across when others communicate in it.

If you want to communicate and debate in a classier way, give it a try and see how the responses change.

But of course, you won't.

You can't.; 11/19/10, 10:38 PM
Cedarford said...: Gabriel Hannah -

TSA is stupid, annoying, and an infringement on my liberties, but not much of an infringement compared to outraged voters demanding legislation all out of proportion to the size of the problem--which is how we got TSA in the first place.

Yep, in a way, stupid voters demanding that "The Heroes" keep us perfectly and absolutely safe at any price because one terrorist attack would show "the terrorists won and everyone in US government failed" - set the stage for this.

The public set this in motion with demands for "zero tolerance" against ANY possible safety threat. The TSA then followed Congress - "zero tolerance, don't worry about costs, but for God's sake don't profile Noble Muslims - the vast majority who are peaceful, wonderful, and we could learn to love another 100 million because Diversity Makes Us Stronger"

Blame TSA, but also blame the idiots who said - "I don't care what it takes, I want to be perfectly safe, worship "The Heroes Who Keep Us All Safe", and keep my tax cuts too!"; 11/19/10, 10:41 PM
William said...: The TSA exists to keep explosive laden terrorists from boarding airplanes. Is there some other way of ascertaining that a mastectomy patient is not an explosive laden terrorist than by subjecting her to an embarrassing exam? This officiousness is not just devoid of common sense; it is actively hostile to it......I've got nothing against the pat downs or the scanners. Anything to keep the line moving. But different people have different boundaries. If someone makes a big deal of it, ask them a few extra questions or refer them to a supervisor. Is it that hard to differentiate a suicidal fanatic from a woman with issues?; 11/19/10, 10:43 PM
Quaestor said...: Rit-Moe wrote: But "you're" versus "your"? That's a very complicated error. Shakespeare himself might have not understood the difference.

And his spelling sucked!

And your point is what? Because your orthography occasionally lapses you should be compared the Bard of Avon? With what other laurels by association do you crown yourself.

And BTW mag-lev has been an interesting toy for nearly twenty years. It was not then nor is it now the basis of an economically viable system of transportation. A quarter-mile test track running a scale model mag-lev train is a "fer piece" from a full scale train for 300 passengers running on 700 miles of rare-earth electromagnets. In short it very expensive and will remain so for the foreseeable. If you can make it work for say $200 for a NYC/Miami round trip you are wasting your talents here.

The reason it won't be build any time soon is that costs would be born by the people who didn't use it.

wv: imsmian - what Ritmo will confess to under threat of waterboarding; 11/19/10, 10:52 PM
Quaestor said...: Of course this mag-lev brouhaha is irrelevant to the debate, which is this: are the security measures being imposed by the TSA reasonable?

A lot of people here find their methods objectionable, which they may be. I certainly find them so. But that is not a sufficient argument for their abolition. Generally I find paying taxes objectionable, but I acquiesce because the consequences of not paying taxes are even more objectionable.

A better question to ask is whether these body scanner/groin gropes are going to be effective. I doubt it, frankly. The whole thing smacks of hubris.; 11/19/10, 11:03 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Well, as long as we're not counting, then I won't remind you of how that first para should end with a question mark, Quaestor.

Why is everyone obsessing about long-distance travel? Travel of different distances just might be best accomplished through different modes. No one is arguing for rail as a way to connect Miami to New York. Or SF to DC. Except you know who. (The guy that can't stand to have the flyovers passed up in such "boondoggle" projects. Without such ideas to fight against, it's like there's no reason for living, politically speaking at least).

If it's 600 miles or more, air is the best way. Between 60 and 600 miles, yes, a high-speed rail is better. But it seems like everyone is obsessed with air (because bicyclists from Ohio first "conquered" it) and road (because Henry Ford - while writing letters of admiration to Adolf and turning the American worker into a robot - first mass produced that self-contained unit known as the auto. He also led the way to convincing Detroit to become an unlinked city that would plan its own obsolescence, but that's neither here nor there).

Well, I'm here to tell you that not everything is about privacy or mastery of the elements.

It's about the fact that we have some major cities that are very close together and for which the best method of travelling between them consists of neither a road nor an air route. Congested traffic, and hour-long check-ins with pat-downs and shoeless passage both have drawbacks that certain other things don't.

That's just how it is.; 11/19/10, 11:12 PM
Gene said...: The trouble with high speed rail is that it just isn't high speed. The Washington DC--Boston line only averages 70 mph. People drive faster than that in the freeway slow lane here in Los Angeles.; 11/19/10, 11:15 PM
Joe said...: "Representative John A. Boehner, soon to be the Speaker of the House, has pledged to fly commercial airlines back to his home district in Ohio. But that does not mean that he will be subjected to the hassles of ordinary passengers, including the controversial security pat-downs.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate"

Fucking asshole.

The house should immediately vote to have remove this fucker as next speaker.; 11/19/10, 11:51 PM
Joe said...: To extend my remarks; the asshole republicans politicians still don't get it. We are fucking sick and tired of congress acting like royalty.; 11/19/10, 11:55 PM
jr565 said...: I've been reading a bit more about the enhanced pat downs and the way it sounds in fact is that you may not even have to go through the enhanced patdown. The enhanced pat down woulld only occur after a sequence of events -
""Prior to conducting this pat-down, all other means of detection will be exhausted, including the walk through metal detector, interaction with behavior detection officers, hand-held metal detector and other less invasive pat-down searches."So you'd have to first get beeped by the walk through metal detector, then the behavior detection, then the handheld. and first a normal pat down. It would only be after continously setting off all the alarms consecutively and them not finding the cause of the alarm ringing, they would THEN finally get to an enhanced patdown. But if you go through the xray and the hand held metal detector and nothing beeps there's no reason to continue on to the normal pat down, so you would not get the enhanced interrogation in most cases. IF you're for profiling though, people behind the scenes might say, "give that suspicious person over there who we're profling" the ehnanced interrogation after he fails his other tests. That way they'd profile the person without showing that they've profiled him.; 11/20/10, 1:46 AM
jr565 said...: So for all the people crying about the enhanced patdowns lets follow the chain of events. You don't necessarily get a patdown unless you set off a metal detector and then the personal detector. Then you'd get a pat down, and if they still didn't find anything THEN you'd get the grope patdown.
Is this at all unreasonable. Are we to believe that your security would be SO lax that you would put someone through a metal detector and it would go off and then you'd put them through the hand scanner and it would go off, and then you wouldn't even do a basic pat down? Knowing that you've already set off metal detectors? Are you for real?
Tell me how this is an unreasonable procedure. What would be unreasonable would be assuming that even though you set off two metal detectors that noone should even be allowed to search you and you should get on a plane.; 11/20/10, 1:56 AM
Terrye said...: I am not saying this is ok or anything. There should be someway to prescreen people like this so that they can pass through without a problem...but, I work in health care and I have a prosthesis like this, usually you can just reach in and pull them out. They are like expensive padding in your bra. It is not as if you have to strip down..although it probably felt that to the lady.; 11/20/10, 5:04 AM
Anonymous said...: Sorry you don't like the way your language comes across when others communicate in it.

Um, I haven't used a single curse word.

You have.

Idiot.; 11/20/10, 6:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Because maybe like you, they are too cheap and classless to afford it?

Yes!

Attack people that don't want to live in decaying states with huge debts!

Then state it is all in my language and stuff!; 11/20/10, 6:03 AM
Anonymous said...: So, let's compare.

You can take the Acela express from DC to NY for $220 one way.

This "high speed rail" gets you there in 2 hours in 25 minutes.

Or, you can fly on Jet Blue from Dulles to JFK for anywhere between $89 to $125 and get there in 1 hour in 5 minutes.

Guess which mode of transport is government funded and loses billions annually?

Guess which mode of transport the left supports?; 11/20/10, 6:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Between 60 and 600 miles, yes, a high-speed rail is better.

Um, no, it isn't.

And you asserting it is, doesn't make it so.

The guy that can't stand to have the flyovers passed up in such "boondoggle" projects.

Huh?

High speed rail isn't economical, faster, or a good idea between DC and NY.

It is a leftist boondoggle.

Idiot.; 11/20/10, 6:08 AM
Anonymous said...: A car traveling at 60 mph from D.C. to New York cannot get there in anywhere near the time it takes a train travelling at 220 mph.

Um, ok. But not trains do or will travel at 220 MPH.

People like you, gave us Amtrak. Amtrak loses $32 per passenger.

People like you gave up the DC Metro. DC Metro has an estimated $40 million budget gap.

People like you gave us NJ Transit. NJ Transit is facing a nearly $300 million budget deficit in Fiscal Year 2011.

But the answer is more rail!

Its innovative!; 11/20/10, 8:01 AM
David said...: Given what my own reaction would be to having to spend my work day either looking at pictures of random Americans naked or feeling them up, I suspect that the real conspiracy here is a conspiracy of TSA agents to make application of the new rules so horrible and onerous that they get repealed.; 11/20/10, 8:52 AM
test said...: "I suspect that the real conspiracy here is a conspiracy of TSA agents to make application of the new rules so horrible and onerous that they get repealed."

I wondered this myself. Similar to how NFL referees sabotaged the first attempt at instant replay by insisting on doing everything in the stupidest way possible.; 11/20/10, 9:12 AM
Roger J. said...: Having waded throu this thread, I just wonder what in the hell do some people do on a Friday nite other than scream invective about high speed rail on a thread whose subject was TSA search procedures.

Oh well, it is the internet which apparently gives some folks their raison d'etre.(Damn--hope I got spelling and punctuation correct); 11/20/10, 10:26 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Oh well, it is the internet which apparently gives some folks their raison d'etre.(Damn--hope I got spelling and punctuation correct)

It's hardly your punctuation that matters to "JAY", Roger, but whether you are on the wrong side of the "leftist boondoggle" he obsesses over that elicits his classy, never-ending retorts of "idiot", "idiot", "idiot", "idiot", etc.

But you've got to give him credit for keeping his language clean, if cloddish and classless. His mother must be watching over his shoulder standing ready with a bar of soap every time he repetitively types out five more posts.

For all this, I predict another burst of...

"Idiot"...

"Idiot"...

"Idiot"...

We tried to offer him therapy for his Tourette Syndrome once, but then realized that if successful, he would have nothing left to say. It was sad, really. Involuntary tics, jerks and epithets comprise the entirety of his speech.; 11/20/10, 10:55 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: New Jersey won't allow the state to get rid of their rail system - temporary budget issues notwithstanding, which is only one component of NJ Transit anyway. It would be impossible and would result in much more money being lost in the private sector due to the incredible number of people now left without a way to commute to their jobs. Just ask your lord and hero, Republican governor of New Jersey Chris Christie.

The way some people see it, the government loses $782 billion on Defense, but I don't see any Republicans clamoring to trim that, let alone scrap it. And how much money do we "lose" on building and maintaining roads, BTW? What do those cost and what's the "payback" of it? How does the government get "its" money back on that?

Do I get to call you an "idiot" now?; 11/20/10, 11:06 AM
shirley elizabeth said...: From the article: "The TSA contend that the new machines are effective and have identified more than 130 dangerous or prohibited items this year."

My guess is the things they found were along the lines of forgotten nail clippers in a pocket. If they had found anything real it would be posted all over the media, extending the praises of these measures.; 11/20/10, 12:13 PM
Unknown said...: Does the Obama regime's decision to begin regimenting America and habituating it to fascism by using the TSA to force people to accept child molestation by government bureaucrats require 2nd Amendment remedies? http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/boycotttsa/; 11/21/10, 8:15 AM