TSA Perverts

[rascaljim]

So what do you all think about someone in a back room looking at your private parts so you can get on a plane?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080610/ts ... 0610211153" target="_blank

[DBCooper]

"Once the transportation security officer has viewed the image and resolved anomalies, the image is erased from the screen permanently. The officer is unable to print, export, store or transmit the image."

Unless, of course, the officer is with HS, and is listening in to your phone calls, too...

[iiipopes]

As for me, I'm loud and proud. Let'm look all they want while my wife smiles.

I'm more concerned about being in line with those who may have "anomolies," as set forth in the article.

[Tom Mason]

Here are two theories that live by when travelling:

1. I'd rather go through the machine than get pat down.
Last year, on a trip through Frankfurt Germany, I was ran through security twice. The second time, I was patted down in the private areas, in front of about thirtry others. Everyone else in the area was treated in the same fashion. While I didn't particularly like this, it was done quickly and impartially. I would love to have gone through the x-ray machine, but the technology wasn't present.

2. I'd rather be pat down than be on a plane in the air with someone with a bomb or weapon. I hope this speaks for itself.

Tom Mason

[lgb&dtuba]

[MaryAnn]

I don't believe any claims that radiation is not dangerous. There wasn't any radition to speak of just a few hundred years ago, and now there is tons of it, and everybody and his brother has cancer. YOU figure it out, along with the change in the food supply over just the last 50 years or so.

I've been patted down and just didn't give a damn; it's not like I'm a nun or something, and besides it wasn't 12 hairy tuba players doing the patting, it was one middle-aged female wearing latex gloves and using the back of her hand. A friend of mine simply refused to go through the machine (70 year old woman) and they pressured her to do so, with the "threat" that she would be patted down instead. She told them to go ahead and pat her down but she was NOT going through the machine. She won. Tough lady.

MA

[rocksanddirt]

I agree that 12 hairy tuba player pat down is not the same as a middle aged TSA employee with gloves on....

and that sometimes one is preferable to the other....

(the internets are evil, just say'n)

[MikeMason]

MA,just devil's advocating,but,we live30 or 40 yrs longer now.I'm sure people died of cancer and nobody knew it.Autopsies weren't done very often.People just died.Diagnostic radiation alone probably adds several years to our lifespans cumulatively.Tons of radiation coming down just from the sun.Radiating our food supply would save many lives and huge amounts of money in handling,storing and transporting food.Nuclear power could dramatically improve the world's situation,especially ours,since we have a great supply of nuclear fuel and plenty of technology.Radiation-it does a body good....

[chipster55]

The last time I was on a commercial flight was in 1997 - I haven't missed any of the hassles one bit.

[tubatooter1940]

With my funny body, I can see myself sashaying up to an airport x-ray machine and seeing the operators rolling on the floor - laughing.

[OldsRecording]

I don't believe any claims that radiation is not dangerous.

MA

not sarcasm:

I believe that radiation, Post Toasties, doorways, hills, lumber, chickens, and TubeNet are all dangerous...but HOW dangerous?

I took the "roof" off of my mower, because it gets in the way when I'm cutting around trees. Yesterday, I spend eight hours mowing, and will spend about two hours finishing up today...In a week-and-a-half or so, I'll repeat the process...then again...and again...and again. I wear a baseball cap, a long sleeve T-shirt, jeans, shoes, and sun screen on my neck and face. Somehow, I'm more worried about being killed by the mower flipping over or falling into the pond than from 8-10 hours of exposure to radiation. btw: I have my (right on schedule) summer case of poison ivy as well. Some people die from that.

bloke "The sun screen is dangerous as well - I'm quite sure."

As Lt. Frank Drebbin said in The Naked Gun:

There is always risk. You take a risk getting up in the morning, crossing the street... or sticking your face in a fan.

However, I do steer clear of Post Toasties at all cost.

[MaryAnn]

Weeelllll.....I think that perceived danger from most things except being run over by a bus, is based on belief. You believe one set of data or another; it's not like we all do our own scientific studies.

Me, I think the increased life span is partly statisics (one level up from damned lies) and mostly due to increased knowledge of sanitation.

MA

[OldsRecording]

Weeelllll.....I think that perceived danger from most things except being run over by a bus, is based on belief. You believe one set of data or another; it's not like we all do our own scientific studies.

Me, I think the increased life span is partly statisics (one level up from damned lies) and mostly due to increased knowledge of sanitation.

MA

I know, it seems like 'everyone' is getting cancer, but I think that cancer has been around for a very long time, but nowadays, we not only have a better udnestanding of it, thus we can recognize it easier, and most of the other diseases that people tended to die of have either been eradicated or controlled.

[lgb&dtuba]

Me, I think the increased life span is partly statisics (one level up from damned lies) and mostly due to increased knowledge of sanitation.

City officials around here are trying to get people to NOT flush their toilets to save water. Sanitation knowledge levels seem to be declining. The good news is that soon there will be fewer people dying from cancer.

[Rick Denney]

Me, I think the increased life span is partly statisics (one level up from damned lies) and mostly due to increased knowledge of sanitation.

An increase in average lifespan just means a higher percentage of people are reaching old age. That means they are routinely surviving (or avoiding) situations that, in the past, killed them at a younger age. By surviving one set of potential mortalities, they may indeed become more likely to die from mortalities that tend to affect older people. That alone could indeed cause a rise in reported cases of cancer, which affects old people more often than young people.

That's why statisticians control for those sorts of possibilities, even though their controls are rarely repeated by people who use those statistics to reinforce whatever they believed at the outset.

Here's a completely different example of how people misunderstand statistics:

People tend to drive at a desired speed, which is related to the type of road they are on mixed with their personal situation and values. As a traffic engineer, I may prevent them from driving their desired speed by making them stop at a traffic signal (or stop sign, or speed bump--whatever) every once in a while. That lowers the average speed. But it does not make them slow down--when unimpeded they go as fast as ever. In fact, some studies show they may go faster. It just increases the percentage of time they are stopped or forced to slow down, and that lowers the average. Thus, for those sorts of treatments to cause a behavior change, they must be placed so often that people don't have an opportunity to ever reach their desired speed. But they will certainly be stopping and starting a lot. (This is called "traffic calming", though it never seems to have that effect on me.)

Then, it gets in the hands of the planners. They are interested in air quality. The (flawed) models that they use are based on averages, usually gathered from freeways and not streets with traffic control devices that purposely cause interruptions in flow. And those models say that as average speed increases, so do emissions. So, when I improve the operation of traffic signals to minimize stops and delay, which increases the average speed, these dolts claim that I've increased emissions. Given that people spend less time in the network, less time idling, and less time accelerating (which is the big producer of emissions), I have actually reduced emissions with my improvements, and significantly so, based on (less flawed) microscope simulation models and actual field measurements. But when I try to tell that to the planners, all I get is a blank stare and raw disbelief. That also does not make me calm.

Rick "thinking ignorance of simple statistics causes more damage than lying with them" Denney