TSA Moving X-ray Body Scanners To Smaller Airports 168
OverTheGeicoE writes "If you're concerned about possible health effects from TSA's X-ray body scanners, you might be pleased to learn that TSA is making changes. TSA is removing X-ray body scanners from major airports including Los Angeles International, Boston's Logan, Chicago's O'Hare, and New York City's JFK. Then again, these changes might not please you at all, because they are not mothballing the offending devices. No, they are instead moving them to smaller airports like the one in Mesa, AZ. Is this progress, or is TSA just moving potentially dangerous scanners from 'Blue' areas to 'Red' ones right before a presidential election?"
Perhaps rednecks (Score:3, Funny)
Are vastly underrepresented in the mutant superhero business and the government has finally decided to do something about it.
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And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the implication is that Obama is moving the scanners to red states in an effort to increase his votes in those states and (possibly) flip one of them to blue. You would do this by impressing red voters with the "security technology" of the TSA and appearing to address the supposed security concerns of red voters. That's just my interpretation of the comment, I'm not saying I agree.
As far as I know, you'd have to be pretty delusional to think that anyone will be impressed with the scanners... but I guess it's possible.
I suspect the real reason is that TSA wishes to roll out something newer and more expensive to the country's major airports and needs to create space and need for them (by eliminating the older body scanners).
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Except if that's their goal, why bother moving them? Just disable them and store them wherever they are to make the undecided areas "happier", then bring them back after the elections.
The whole implication is fucking stupid. The TSA is already fucking stupid enough without trumped up political implications. Article submission deserves to be modded troll.
--Jeremy
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1. Obama would have had to have done this earlier.
2. We'd need evidence conservative voters respond to evidence rather than affiliation.
3. Voters would have to believe Obama was against the scanners - as far as I know he hasn't done anything to fight them. If anything, he's been yet another proponent. This is one thing that isn't likely to change at all based on who is in the oval office.
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It's very obvious that people in red states are more tolerant of environmental degradation so this makes perfect sense. If it's intentional is a different question. It might just be that airport managers in other places push back more.
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Also, they tend to believe more in the idea that our security theater is effective. Hypothetically it makes both sides happier.
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Statistically speaking, people who live in big cities are more against TSA than people who live in smaller cities in fly-over states (who are pro-TSA because it protects their barn from getting rammed by a 737). They are simply moving their equipment to serve the "customers" who are demanding it.
I hope this results in the small-town and rural population becoming anti-TSA.
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No, the TSA is above even the President ordering them around... They are their own special beastie now. Congress never had control of them.
Their mandate is TOTAL SECURITY. They pull old machines off the busy airports and move them to smaller, slower airports... Then they'll need to cover Trains (have you serm Galaxy Railways) and Busses (think of Speed) too.
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Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by the complete indifference of others?
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Hippies are republican?
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You've basically described hippies. In touch with nature, avoid artificial everything, use midwives and acupuncture instead of going to doctors. Homeschooling to prevent government indoctrination. Eat everything organic if possible, locally grown, go to farmers markets. I guess the only difference is that hippies are more socially progressive and lax on drugs?
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Republicans haven't balanced a budget since before Reagan, so I can understand them being fed up with the "not small government enough" attitude. Interesting that you attribute the pro-life attitude to groups other than Catholic/Evangelist, from what I've seen it generally comes from bible thumper creationists.
kind of behavior that liberals seem to think ...... Liberals also have had a habit of mandating behaviors in the past couple of decades
It's not really fair to paint all liberals with the brush of the Democrats, just like it isn't fair to paint all conservatives with the brush of the Republicans. Often, it is somebody who thinks they
Re:And... (Score:4, Insightful)
Possible implication: Only "blue" people are actually concerned about X-ray radiation harm, so they're moving the X-ray devices to areas less likely to care.
Or, rather, areas less likely to contain people with a voice. There's a reason why so many unethical human experiments were conducted in the South.
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Or, rather, areas less likely to contain people with a voice. There's a reason why so many unethical human experiments were conducted in the South.
These days, if anything, the South has a disproportionately loud voice in politics thanks to the GOP and the various iterations of its "Southern Strategy".
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A less sinister reason is found in genetics. Ethics not withstanding, reducing the number of variables increases the reliability of any experiment.
For example, laboratory rats are, as nearly as possible, genetically identical.
This is accomplished through inbreeding.
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I don't get it... do you normally hold your pants up with your hands?
I'm confused... (Score:5, Funny)
The last sentence suggests that I should come up with a frothing political conspiracy theory; but I don't know which one I'm supposed to latch on to...
Are the jackbooted Obamunist gestapo making a last-ditch move to irradiate freedom loving Real Americans in order to ensure their demographic victory even in the event of electoral defeat? Or are the jackbooted Rethuglicans of the police state amping up the fear machine in order to increase the effectiveness of traditional 'democrats are weak on terror, especially ones that are secretly kenyan muslims' messages?
Help me out here, Slashdot!
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The last sentence suggests that I should come up with a frothing political conspiracy theory; but I don't know which one I'm supposed to latch on to...
Are the jackbooted Obamunist gestapo making a last-ditch move to irradiate freedom loving Real Americans in order to ensure their demographic victory even in the event of electoral defeat? Or are the jackbooted Rethuglicans of the police state amping up the fear machine in order to increase the effectiveness of traditional 'democrats are weak on terror, especially ones that are secretly kenyan muslims' messages?
Help me out here, Slashdot!
Maybe both?
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They are.
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They joined forces, and are menacing us with their X-ray weapons of mass destruction! WE AMS TEH DOOMED!
Oh, no, wait. It's just more of Slashdot's slide into the World Net Daily sinkhole. Never mind.
Re:I'm confused... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, what's happening is that the Bavarian Illuminati are using their control of Barack Obama, the NRA, the Ice-Capades, Mel Gibson, and the TSA to seize control of the Moral Majority from the opposing Adepts of Hermes.
Of course, everything I needed to learn about politics, I gleaned from playing Illuminati: New World Order [sjgames.com].
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Nah: as someone quite familiar with Discordianism, I chose to form my own sect, which just has one member, me. See, that ban on hot dog buns was just totally not cool.
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Are the jackbooted Obamunist gestapo making a last-ditch move to irradiate freedom loving Real Americans in order to ensure their demographic victory even in the event of electoral defeat? Or are the jackbooted Rethuglicans of the police state amping up the fear machine in order to increase the effectiveness of traditional 'democrats are weak on terror, especially ones that are secretly kenyan muslims' messages?
It's the work of subversive poor people who have realized the wealthy tend to travel a lot, so they made a device that'll slowly give frequent fliers cancer but not pose any risk to occasional users such as people going to see the family for christmas, etc. They used their fear of the poor uprising to institute draconian security policies that are now slowly irradiating them to an early grave. Unfortunately, after some of the screeners started karking, they realized the plot, and are now moving to put the s
unfortunately the "wealthy" use private planes (Score:3)
It's only normal people that fly with other passengers.
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The red/blue thing is stupid and submitter should feel b
Is this the latest Fox and Friends conspiracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Obamanation is moving TSA scanners to affect the election? Haven't seen the morning show recently to get my monthly dose of crazy.
Hits and my prediction (Score:2, Insightful)
Haven't seen the morning show recently to get my monthly dose of crazy.
In a couple of hours, you will see that this "article" will have hundreds of comments. Most of those comments will be two bit opinions; comments with "libtard", "bible thumping moron" and such; and plenty of poo flinging (purposeful reference to monkeys). Ad revenue for this "article" will be wonderful.
Fox News has shown that "crazy" sells. Getting people emotional, irrational and giving them an avenue for their two bit-opinions makes money. Allowing people to spout off and abuse the "other side" also sell
Re:Hits and my prediction (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern election politics has shown that "crazy" sells.
FTFY.
While FOX is well known for their... interesting and creative interpretations, they by no means have monopoly on irrational, bullshit fluff pieces.
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Week, the OP heard it on MSNBC.
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Obamanation is moving TSA scanners to affect the election? Haven't seen the morning show recently to get my monthly dose of crazy.
I guess you haven't watched NBC in the last month. If you want crazy, you only need to see what their flappy headed talkshow hosts are going on about.
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I guess you haven't watched NBC in the last month. If you want crazy, you only need to see what their flappy headed talkshow hosts are going on about.
I watched one show last Tuesday night with some crazy old, rich, straight, white guy that still uses binders, of all things, for something. He was talking about trusting him to fix something or another with *magic* - I'm not sure, 47% of me wasn't really listening to him... Just one of the wacky things you see on TV these days.
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That's pretty good. I saw one where various people went on about if you don't vote for Obama you're automatically a racist. Then there was some other stuff about how if you're questioning the president it's unpatriotic. Then there was the black commentator who went on, and on, and on about how the tea party was full of racists.
Yeah, very funny stuff you see on TV. I guess bias is highly subjective within the reality distortion field.
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...about how the tea party was full of racists.
I'm quite sure that one was a documentary.
You might find this entertaining and informative: The Truth About the Tea Party. [rollingstone.com]
Political Slurs (Score:3, Insightful)
Obamination! Now that's a good one. Here I thought that the kind of trolls who made up slurs were just incapable of doing anything clever with the man's name: Obummer, Odumba are clearly failures.
I did think "Mittens" was kinda cute.
But overall, if you aren't pandering to senseless frothing morons, you may want to refrain from turning a person's name into some sort of slur. Given that this is a national election, it's politic to pander to the undecided voters, not the base. Didn't you get the memo?
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Given that this is a national election, it's politic to pander to the undecided voters, not the base. Didn't you get the memo?
The alternate theory is that the election turns on getting your base to show up and vote while actively discouraging the other guy's base from voting. So in that kind of environment, you'd pander to the frothing morons in your party, and disenfranchise the other party's voters by:
- passing laws [ohio.com] requiring them to travel hundreds of miles and pay a fee to get an ID needed to vote,
- putting up billboards [motherjones.com] in neighborhoods that tend to vote for the other guy reminding them that attempted voter fraud will result
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I did think "Mittens" was kinda cute.
Not nearly as plausibly deniable as Rmoney.
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Huh?!? (Score:1)
...or is TSA just moving potentially dangerous scanners from 'Blue' areas to 'Red' ones right before a presidential election?"
Yeah, it's a conspiracy to radiate the "Red" states and keep all the "Blue" states healthy and eventually we'll have this Socialist TSA run Utopia with Democrat Presidents for all eternity.
I guess Slashdot is going the way of Fox News ....
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What? (Score:1)
" 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. "
what does that even mean?
And what the hell is with the politics? Here is how to know Obama is doing a pretty good job: Almost all major accusations against him are factually wrong, or nonsense.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is how to know Obama is doing a pretty good job: Almost all major accusations against him are factually wrong, or nonsense.
Bullshit. Obama has failed to faithfully enforce the laws of the United States by failing to prosecute anyone for the well documented torture under the Bush administration, or any of the well documented fraud that lead to the 2008 financial crisis. He continues to engage in warrantless wiretapping. He signed the unconstitutional NDAA. He has prosecuted government whistleblowers under the espionage act at a rate that exceeds all previous administrations combined.
No, Obama is not doing a pretty good job, unless you thought Bush was doing a pretty good job. In that case, Obama is doing a fantastic job by embracing and extending virtually all of Bush's abuses of power.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It seems equally likely that the goal is to create an implicit deal between the 2 US ruling parties: We won't prosecute your past crimes if you don't prosecute ours.
I blame Gerald Ford, although it's quite possible it started earlier than that.
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Robert E Lee was never president of the United States. He wasn't even president of the Confederacy.
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No, it's been viewed as a gentlemen's agreement between aristocrats that they will consider each other above the law.
un-Wrong accusation (Score:2)
Here is how to know Obama is doing a pretty good job: Almost all major accusations against him are factually wrong, or nonsense.
Obama had an American killed without trial.
Care to explain the inaccuracy in that statement?
(Note: I don't care about "killed", we kill people all the time for good reason. The "without trial" part is illegal on its face.)
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The "without trial" part is illegal on its face.
Not quite correct: The police are allowed to kill somebody who is resisting arrest with deadly force, for instance. The key is that there was no indictment, and no chance for the American citizens in question (Anwar Al-Awlaki's son was killed a couple of weeks later, also by a drone strike, and there's no evidence publicly available linking him to any crime other than being the wrong guy's son) to surrender himself peacefully to stand trial.
Not that the courts have been helping on this: Al-Awlaki's father s
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Obama has failed... at a rate that exceeds all previous administrations combined.
Well there you go. At least he does something better than anybody else.
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He's doing a pretty good job of not doing what John McCain wanted to do WRT wars and torture.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
The interesting thing about all that is that this argument has not once come up in the presidential debates. Why? Because it's safe to say that Mitt Romney and the Republican political establishment agrees wholeheartedly with all of those decisions.
And people wonder why I'm voting for a minor party this year in what everyone thinks is a critical swing state.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
I despised Bush. Obama is smarter but carries on most of the same policies, especially when it comes to foreign policy and economic intervention. About the only place where he really differs is on social issues and the role of government aid programs.
All this has done is make his opposition even more insane. So, now I get to choose between a guy who is mostly like Bush and a guy who seems to have no beliefs of his own, but is beholden to a base made up of lunatics. Awesome choice there.
I voted for Obama, again, because I could not in good conscience vote to further empower the deranged hysterics of the Republican Party.
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You did the wrong thing. What you should be afraid of is not a bad president. What you should be afraid of is a never ending sequence of bad presidents that we can't do anything about because our electoral system is broken. By voting either D or R, you are casting a vote in favor of lack of choice. That has far worse consequences than just one bad president. Take the long view next time.
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bush was a horrible president, I think most can agree there. but with obama there is no excuse, the only promise he made that he kept was passing obamacare, which over 1/2 the country didnt even want. He continues to claim that the Rs will defund medicare when he took 3/4 of a TRILLION from medicare.
If you planned on voting for obama this time, because y
I think... (Score:5, Insightful)
this is about money (Score:2)
Makes perfect sense! (Score:4, Interesting)
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This makes perfect sense. These machines are slower than the new one, so they are moving them to smaller airports where there are less people, and shorter lines for security.
These machines were also banned in Europe
So it makes perfect sense that they'd move it to smaller airports, instead of maybe a warehouse while they are running a health study?
The conspiracy is only the fact that these machines were purchased and are/were deployed to begin with.
Broken Link (Score:3)
No, they are instead moving them to smaller airports [azcentral.com]
Of course they are (Score:2)
Eventually you will find the at the entrance of every burgerdoodle and street corner.
Welcome to the 'new world', hope you enjoy your stay.
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Eventually you will find the at the entrance of every burgerdoodle and street corner.
Welcome to the 'new world', hope you enjoy your stay.
The only place I've seen metal detectors on every "street corner" (well, every mall), is Israel. Israel don't even bother with these detectors at their major airport TLV. They do have a MMW scanner at Erez for people coming from gaza, but that's the only non-metal detector device I've seen.
Risk Mitigation (Score:4, Interesting)
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The "investment" is a sunk cost whose continuing use is of negative value.
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Small airports is where all the hot chicks are (Score:1)
Who's the criminal (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it interesting that the TSA has caught more thieves (within their own ranks) than terrorists.
It seems like you hear about "airport personnel" (i.e. TSA employees) who would use their searches to locate and remove valuables from passenger luggage.
However, I have yet to hear about a single terrorist caught by the TSA.
It looks to me like the TSA is committing more criminal activity than they are preventing.
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I find it interesting that the TSA has caught more thieves (within their own ranks) than terrorists.
It seems like you hear about "airport personnel" (i.e. TSA employees) who would use their searches to locate and remove valuables from passenger luggage.
However, I have yet to hear about a single terrorist caught by the TSA.
It looks to me like the TSA is committing more criminal activity than they are preventing.
I blame this whole thing more on Napolitano than on Obama, and I am no fan of Obama. I also think the parent (quoted) has been unfairly modded down -- it was the closest thing to a discussion item so far in this thread.
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I find it interesting that the TSA has caught more thieves (within their own ranks) than terrorists.
Citation needed
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It looks to me like the TSA is committing more criminal activity than they are preventing.
Their job requires them to violate people's rights to begin with. I'd say that's criminal in and of itself.
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Far be it from me to defend the TSA - I think it represents a ridiculous misprioritization of security theater over civil rights. However, your criticism here is misguided. You're assuming the only success case for the TSA is if they catch a terrorist red-handed. It's not.
As you say in your last sentence, a success case for the TSA is when
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However, I have yet to hear about a single terrorist caught by the TSA.
By their own admission they haven't caught any, yet they've let several through. But don't worry, they did find about 1000 guns that law enforcement officers forgot they had with them.
And they've managed to stop most (but not all) people from carrying a bottle of water into the airport!
I always opt out (Score:5, Interesting)
Yesterday, for example, I opted out of the microwave scanner at Burbank airport. I do this every time I encounter a machine like this, and have the time to still make my flight. I don't do it because I feel they are unsafe (this particular machine is a ambient-microwave imager, it emits no radiation whatsoever) but as a (albiet incredibly weak) political statement -- I feel that if nobody opted out, soon enough nobody would be able to.
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I don't think I understand what statement are you making? You are worried that we will never be able to choose to be hand-searched instead of machine-searched?
If you turned around and refused to be searched altogether, that would be a political statement. Choosing to be searched one way instead
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If 5% opted out the system could come to a halt. I always ask to be manually searched and they also search my bag (large foot powder, I wear the finger shoes, they drug test it...).
Never submit to the machines. Make the people work.
And if they get close to your junk just say "Oh yeah" or groan a little. The search goes much more quickly after that.
I'm a guy by the way, I can understand a woman not wanting to do this, but they can ask for a woman to do the frisking, then it's game on.
What the, I don't even... (Score:2)
Darwinian selection at work... (Score:3)
MMMmmmmmm, I love the smell of roasting fundies at the airport. It smells like the second coming!
This was a parody, this is only a parody, had it been a real malapropism, there would have been no disclaimer, only a pithy insult, once again, this was only a parody... for those too young to get the reference, please look up "Apocalypse Now" associated with the phrase "I love the smell"
Though folks willing to be nuked for "Security" reasons can't be surprised when successive generation get smaller and smaller, and more and more mutant... just saying life is full of trade-offs.
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For an online community that largely values a scientific way of looking at things, I'm rather disappointed in slashdot every time the topic of airport scanners comes up. Unless my understanding of these scanners is dramatically incorrect, using the word "X-rays" is a misnomer. So far as I know, these scanners are using non-ionizing radiation. Nothing is getting 'nuked'. Even using these words in jest contribute to public fear of anything involving radiation.
Now, if you have objections to the TSA seeing
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I am rather disappointed in you also, there are two types of scanners, MMW (millimeter wave aka microwaves) and X-Ray scanners, the X-Ray scanners are the two blue boxes you walk in between the MMW are the big round grey cylinders.
So people are getting irradiated with ionizing radiation. I always opt-out.
Yea or... (Score:1)
Obvious (Score:2)
*Everything* the TSA does is political theatre.
Where is Assange when you need him? (Score:3)
It would be soo awesome to have some internal memos detailing evidence of TSA playing security games for *political* reasons right now before the elections.
Yep, just went through one last week. (Score:2)
In the town of Belgrade Montana, population 7300. Beautiful log beam airport and with no security line wait. They have two of the machines there. Surprised the fuck out of me. But considering that, at least per capita, a red neck from the high country is more likely to forget to check his side arm, I can kind of see the reasoning.
Also consider it's not that far, at least in Montana miles, from where the Unibomber was found.
But it still doesn't work.... (Score:2)
I formerly flew for a living and got patted down atleast once or twice a week because I won't use the Rapidscan 1000 which is installed at Phoenix Airport. I have no idea whether 10 uRems of ionizing radiation is bad for me, but all the Rapidscan techs all wear radiation dosimeters. Clearly, someone is concerned. Alas, I get enough radiation as is - so why risk it? I don't have the same concerns about the Thz non-ionizing radiation units made by L3. However, I don't have that job anymore and won't get
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How long before Al Qaeda has people terrorists board with Ebola or Hemoraggic Fever or some other horrendous disease that you can't treat?
Basically never. WHY bother? There are much juicer targets.
This isn't about Al Qaeda, this isn't about Muslims, this isn't about terrorism. This is about control, and money, and finding drug smugglers.
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[...] Amazon semen swallowing [...]
I think you may need a calm, stern lesson either on biology or mythology, there...
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No, the most degraded way to see them is to hire the visually impaired as TSA agents, they they have to inspect them in a hands on capacity.
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there was absolutely no reason for that last sentence to be included with the lead in. Fuck you, you inflammatory asshole.
The editors left it in (or added it) to drive page impressions. Chill.