The TSA does NOT save us from terrorists

There's an old joke:

A:  Elephants are really good at hiding in trees.

B:  Wait, what?  That can't be right.  I've never seen an elephant in a tree.

A:  Well, right.  See how well they hide?

The TSA operates on pretty much the same principle.  There is enormous expense and hassle, including a lot of just aggressively personal abuse (just this week, I saw an old lady yelled at until she burst into tears, just because she had an artificial hip and didn't know what to do).

But there are no terrorist attacks.

See how well the TSA is protecting us from terrorist attacks?

Well...as usual, Adam Ruins Everything.

Had a Bad Day

This guy had a bad day.

Making me think of the song.

In turn, making me think of this set piece from the past.  Or this guy.

Still, I think the "falling naked out of the ceiling of the ladies' loo and then running naked and bleeding down the concourse, then being charged with attempted murder in an airport" may be worse.

Arlo

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Grier

"I'm not proud....or tired."

New MCM Home Page

I have for years taken (fully justified) abuse on how crappy my web site was. So, I found a guy (or rather he found me, saying, "Man, your web site is crappy!  Can I fix it for you?").

And now it's much, much better.  If you are interested:  http://www.michaelmunger.com

And if you are interested in the web services of the maker, I want to give him some props:  His name is Mark Cunningham, and his portfolio of web sites is here....

It has been a real pleasure working with him.  And that silence you hear is the end of the giant sucking sound my old web site was making.

What inaugurations are good for

Pickin' up wimmen, right Bill?

KPC Readers: The BEST

KPC readers are the best, the very best around.  The sharp-eyed MK saw this, and just knew right away it was KPC-worthy.

Excerpt:


Waning infestations of [pubic lice] have been linked by doctors to pubic depilation, especially a technique popularized in the 1990s by a Manhattan salon run by seven Brazilian sisters. More than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair -- part of a trend that’s increasing in western countries. In Australia, Sydney’s main sexual health clinic hasn’t seen a woman with pubic lice since 2008 and male cases have fallen 80 percent from about 100 a decade ago.

“It used to be extremely common; it’s now rarely seen,” said Basil Donovan, head of sexual health at the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute and a physician at the Sydney Sexual Health Centre. “Without doubt, it’s better grooming.”

The trend suggests an alternative way of stemming one of the globe’s most contagious sexually transmitted infections. Pubic lice are usually treated with topical insecticides, which once included toxic ones developed before and during World War 2. While they aren’t known to spread disease, itchy skin reactions and subsequent infections make pubic lice a hazardous pest.

Clipping, waxing and shaving the groin destroy the optimal habitat of pubic lice. The practice has helped spur sales of depilatory products for companies such as Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc. (RB/). 

...About a block from New York’s famous Fifth Avenue shopping strip, women in fur coats and Louis Vuitton handbags are filing in and out of a beauty salon on a recent Friday afternoon. They perch on metallic silver and red floral sofas in the reception located in a Midtown Manhattan office building, waiting for a woman dressed in white to escort them to a waxing room.

The shop run by Jonice Padilha and her sisters Jocely, Janea, Joyce, Juracy, Jussara and Judeseia may be ground zero in the war on pubic lice. Growing up in the Brazilian coastal city of Vitoria, the sisters, like other women there, routinely waxed their pubic hair off to accommodate the ever shrinking bikinis worn on the beach.

In 1994, they introduced the waxing technique at the J Sisters nail salon they opened in 1986. Things exploded from there, Padilha said.

About 200 clients a day, including celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker, come for treatments ranging from complete hair removal to custom designs. Regulars returning every four weeks pay $75 for a Brazilian. Men of all ages and sexual orientation are going for the “Sunga” wax, a $90 treatment in which all pubic hair, including on the testicles, is removed.  Hygiene and comfort are key reasons customers keep coming back, she said.

“It’s like a freedom,” said Padilha of the salon’s signature bikini wax treatment. “When we started the salon 26 years ago, we never thought it would be a success.”

Nor was it expected to aid in the fight against pubic lice, she said.  “Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations,” said Ian F. Burgess, a medical entomologist with Insect Research & Development Ltd. in Cambridge, England. “Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species.” 

1.  First of all:  Sunga wax?  Good God.
2.  Is the Obama admin going to outlaw waxing?  Suppose, for the sake of argument, that pubic lice really do become so scarce as to endangered, and that waxing really is the reason.   As MK put it, in an email:  "When the last pubic louse is gone from Mother Gaia, we will all be the poorer for it."

Lang may yer lum reek.

So many thing pass, and life is long.

Here is scan of a picture I have had in my office for more than 20* years.  It is Angus and the EYM.  I think the EYM was about 10 months old, and this was taken just after we had moved to NC from TX.  Seems like a long time ago.  The EYM is now 23, living in Chile, teaching at UDD, and applying to grad schools.

Angus and I were so much older then.  We are younger than that now.  Lang may yer lum reek.

*typo corrected.

Robert Reich Haiku

Tim Worstall gives a nice paraphrase of Robert Reich's view of the world.

I was just disappointed that Tim didn't realize that he had very nearly written a Reich haiku.  So I finished it for him.  Enjoy, Tim!

RR Haiku

I like time off, see?
So millions must take time off
To be more like me

Say Cheese

That pretty much says it all right there, no?

For a less concise, but no less heartfelt, critique, click here.