Wonkette

Here’s a picture we took last night, of absolutely nobody in line to see the liberal Joe Lieberman lecture Republicans at the convention. Seriously, this was at about 8 p.m. local time, at the main entrance/security checkpoint, before Fred Thompson or Lieberman gave their speeches. MORE »

America’s finest opinion-writer-of, Peggy Noonan, recently visited an airport somewhere — possibly in West Texas, Oklahoma or Central California. She is the Merle Haggard of the Jet Age, the Woody Guthrie of business travel. Also, she is an old white lady and the TSA minorities are sticking the beeping wand between her withered old thighs, and that ain’t right! It’s unnatural, as she is not even an Arab! Let’s enjoy an Okie-Dog of Metaphors with the Op-Ed Princess of Bloomingdale’s, after the jump.

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Wonkette salutes an unidentified 64 year-old German man who had it up to here with the stupid rules about carrying liquids on airplanes. The poor soul was just trying to make his was home to Dresden from Egypt when airport security in Nuremburg told him he’d either have to pay to check his liter bottle of vodka or throw it away. In protest, the gentleman chugged the entire bottle while security watched. He didn’t make his flight to Dresden, but that’ll teach those young whippersnappers. [Yahoo News]

Air travel’s been fucked up for a while and the government is part of the problem. From refusing to let us in with contact lens solution (did anybody else try finding a bottle of 3 oz or less right after the ban and have to try more than 3 stores?) to making us remove our shoes on rainy days to dicking around with the air traffic controllers to having a variety of stupid regs that contribute to full airplanes sitting on runways for hours without food, the government is not helping us. But, now they’re going to try! They promise!

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The TSA is busy doing much of nothing these days. Last week, they warned us about this crazy new device called a shoe bomb and modified their profiling of people with turbans. What’s next, will they reintroduce Clear, that program where you paid the TSA $100 a year to speed you through airport security? Whatever happened to that shitty idea? That really took off, didn’t it? Anyway, we’d to take a moment and congratulate these hardworking men and women on the front lines who build snaking lines with on-the-job training of troglodytes, police academy dropouts and lazy thugs. And a special big thanks to Maine’s Portland International Airport, (”The Preferred Airport for Terrorists!”) where we noticed a number of TSA agents hanging out at the bar. It’s true, we are winning the war on terror. MORE »

America’s boldest government effort to employ the retarded — the Transportation Security Administration — just announced its security guards are now unable to notice a record 75% of the fake bombs brought through Los Angeles International Airport’s x-ray machines. The numbers are almost as miserable in Chicago, where 60% of the fake bombs went unnoticed by TSA losers at O’Hare.

But TSA chief Kip Hawley proudly noted that the airport screeners took 96% of passengers’ toothpaste, 88% of their dry stick deodorant and an impressive 79% of $3 bottles of water purchased after going through security.

Most fake bombs missed by screeners [USA Today] MORE »

“Specially trained security personnel” at the airport will now be studying your “body language and facial cues… for signs of bad intentions.” They’re called “Behavior Detection Officers,” and their 16 hours of training will lead to a glorious new era of total security. Because one place where nervous, angry, hateful, or frustrated people will definitely stand out from the crowd is the airport. [McClatchy]

Did you know that wearing a t-shirt with arabic writing to an airport is the equivalent of a “”person wearing a t-shirt at a bank stating, ‘I am a robber’”? No? Then you clearly don’t work with the TSA, who barred Reed Jarrar over there from boarding his flight at JFK because his shirt had terrifying non-Roman characters on it. MORE »

Man sneaks tiny monkey through security at Florida airport; al Qaeda begins diabolical plans to recruit thousands of tiny monkeys, outfit them with adorable itty-bitty dynamite vests. [WTOP]

Hey, remember when the TSA discovered people traveling with cheese and wires and declared it to be signs of terrorist dry runs? But then it turns out that they weren’t? Well, now we’re going to make extra sure that they aren’t. Gaming nerds will think twice before they bring their precious Nintendo Wiis and XBox 360s and PlayStation Whatevers onto airplanes in their carry-on bags, because now they’re going to have to fish them out and put them on the conveyor belt at the security checkpoint, just like you have to do with your laptop! MORE »