Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
Die verfluchte Huhre, Vernunft." (The damned whore, Reason).
[Martin Luther]
Evolution of Hormone Signaling
Modeling metazoan cell lineages
Generic bumps and recycled genetic cascades
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Nerds, rise up! | Main | Russian sea monster »
Category: Politics • Weirdness
Posted on: September 6, 2006 6:26 PM, by PZ Myers
…but next time you get on a plane, you are allowed to bring along "personal lubricants". Yes, what it sounds like.
National security will not be allowed to deter new recruits to the Mile-High Club.
(TrackBack URL for this entry: )
YES! Send me a free issue of Seed.
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $14.95. That's 50% off the cover price! If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
(Non-U.S. subscribers, click here.)
Comments
Thank non-god, they're being sensible.
Posted by: Warren | September 6, 2006 6:56 PM
Crikey!
Oh wait, wrong thread.
Posted by: Alex | September 6, 2006 7:17 PM
"Gel-filled bras..."
Eh?!
Posted by: A.Y. | September 6, 2006 7:17 PM
Only 4 oz. though. What good is that on a 4 hour flight? I mean come on.
Posted by: Alex | September 6, 2006 7:23 PM
4oz. is better than nothing.
Posted by: Aerik | September 6, 2006 7:31 PM
Cool. Looks like I'm flying to CA this month, maybe I'll take along a 6 gallon jug of Astroglide just to see the reaction.
I could say "Teacher always told us don't bring any unless we bring enough for everybody."
Posted by: craig | September 6, 2006 7:33 PM
oh. 4oz. nevermind. :(
Posted by: craig | September 6, 2006 7:34 PM
notice that you CAN take:
"Scissors - metal with pointed tips and blades shorter than four inches in length."
Did't the original hijackers do the deed with legally carried on box cutters of coniderably less than 4 inches?
Posted by: oldhippie | September 6, 2006 7:37 PM
Your partner can also bring 4 oz, too, you know...
Oh. Partner? You were...never mind.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
|
September 6, 2006 7:41 PM
At least SOME kind of explosions are still allowed to happen in mid-flight ;-)
Posted by: Aaron KinneyAaron Kinney | September 6, 2006 7:42 PM
Well, if you want to go that way, then certain types of "shootings" are still allowed as well.
Posted by: Alex | September 6, 2006 7:46 PM
are condoms allowed?
heck, i might get the urge to strangle somebody with one.
or maybe i could give them a nasty papercut with the unopened package?
Posted by: Ichthyic | September 6, 2006 7:54 PM
Well, I _guess_, the personal lube they are thinking about might be used for more medical (and less sexy) uses.
Hard to justify that tube of blow-and-it-heats-up "AstroStud" or "HotWetandRighteous", but, in general, water-based lubricants are used by a fair number of people for all sorts of mundane reasons. I suppose this is part of the "oh wait; we were punishing the sick and the old; oops" changes the industry has made the last few weeks.
Posted by: clvrmnky | September 6, 2006 8:01 PM
Yeah, some rich old ladies with dry uncomfortable hoo-hahs probably complained.
I love the fact that they keep telling us what liquids we're allowed to bring. Like the terrorists can't make up some fake breastmilk or K-Y.
This is soooo stupid. It's like patching the knees on a pair of pants with the ass torn out. Or fixing the hangnail on a patient with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Posted by: plucky punk | September 7, 2006 4:17 AM
Plucky Punk: It's more like taking out the tonsils of a guy with a gunshot wound to the chest and a hangnail.
You think that's bad; you can literally just drive onto the railyards in Roseville, and without trying very hard and at my level of knowledge I can think of at least a dozen ways to cause a major disaster by doing that and a couple things immediately afterward, ranging from derailing an Amtrak train at 80 miles per hour to creating an environmental disaster that would put one of the biggest shipping hubs on the west coast out of commission for weeks.
And they're taking people's toothpaste.
Why are Americans too stupid to see through this? Why aren't independent senators being swept into office based on promises to review these and other idiotic regulations and toss out the ones that aren't really needed.
Posted by: Azkyroth | September 7, 2006 5:18 AM
"Personal lubricants" - what a wonderful narrowminded expression!
But it doesn't make sense - why do they encourage the onboard use of penetrating objects?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | September 7, 2006 6:56 AM
Torbjörn, they aren't encouraging the use of penetrating objects on board, but, having seen Snakes On A Plane, they realize that it's going to happen... and a little personal lubricant will get them out of the loo a bit faster, and make it more comfortable for everyone.
Also, why is "personal lubricant" a narrowminded expression? I take it to be contrasted with "mechanical lubricant", or even "social lubricant"... though I suspect a great deal of "personal lubricant" is, in fact, dedicated to social use, albeit with a relatively small circle.
Posted by: Dennis | September 7, 2006 9:46 AM
"Personal lubricants" LOL What pinhead could come up with that ?!?!?
Well, what about Special Funcie Lubricant : one part of plant oil, one two parts of nitrocelulose and ten parts of nitroglycerine ? Extra for lubricating the last two neurons of the moron who invented this lubricious gem.
Posted by: T_U_T | September 7, 2006 10:57 AM
"Gel-filled bras."
That's good. I'd hate to have any unnecessarily flat girls on my flight.
But then we have the prospect of huge explosive boobs beneath a burqa.....
Posted by: Coragyps | September 7, 2006 11:01 AM
"Gel-filled bras."
That's good. I'd hate to have any unnecessarily flat girls on my flight.
But then we have the prospect of huge explosive boobs beneath a burqa.....
Posted by: Coragyps | September 7, 2006 11:27 AM
Mmmm, Neil Gaiman and personal lubricants...
Oops, sorry.
The husband and I had a good chuckle over this list last night, it was pretty bad. I'm wondering about the scissors though. My mother told me that her friend brought her sewing with her but the scissors were confiscated because the ends were pointed instead of round. Now I have to find out if they were over 4" or if this was just another arbitrary thing, not that this would every happen!
Posted by: mena | September 7, 2006 12:20 PM
Mena, the best thing to do to ensure you can keep your scissors is to buy one of those round dealies with the blade inside. They have little notches that you can put your thread into to cut it. You can get them at fabric stores. Very handy little gizmo.
Posted by: STH | September 7, 2006 12:31 PM
Good point STH, I have seen them but didn't know how well they work. A couple years ago they wouldn't let me bring a cross stitch needle on board! For the uninitiated, the needle that you used for cross stitch, or in this case it was actually hardanger that I was doing, is thicker and shorter than the needles that you use for stuff like sewing buttons on your clothes. It is blunt at the end so that it easily goes into the holes on the cloth so that all of your stitches are even. It's also a very short needle, under 1.5". The eye end of the needle would probably do more damage to the person trying to use it as a weapon than the intended victim. These regulations are just NUTS!!!
Posted by: Mena | September 7, 2006 12:53 PM
Umm, the companies that make them.
Some years ago I was installing new audio wiring in the studio where I worked. Quite a bit of rubbish had fallen into the port on the floor where cables came out of the wiring duct and went into the equipment island, so I started clearing it out. Among the napkins, matchbooks and suchlike i spotted something that looked like one of the ketchup packets you get at a fast food joint.
When I fished it out and looked at it it turned out to be an empty package of "Trojan for Women Personal Lubricant".
At least they weren't doing it on top of the console.
Posted by: Ktesibios | September 7, 2006 12:55 PM
Frankly, this is "entirely" a case of the usual, "What!! You want a national standard? That's un-American!!", BS you get with school corriculums too. That is why we have tests and BS voucher systems, instead of one consistent, "This is what needs to be taught and while some schools are allowed to experiment, on the chance we might find a better way, we expect the rest of you to teach it exactly like this." In the case of airports, its thousands of commities (kind of like school boards) all making stupid guesses as to what they need to look for, and all of them whining about how they can't do anything efficiently or don't have the money.
But, that is "really" the only thing places like Britain have going for them, consistency. They are still fundimentally employing the same, "I hope our random checks catch anyone that our government doesn't!", game the US is. Imho, its all or nothing. I don't care if they have to strip search everyone or the government has to get off its ass and produce one bloody machine for everyone to walk through that can read density differences, sniff for chemicals "and" spot metal objects, the only way to be "sure" someone doesn't slip through is to **not** give them odds to play against in teh first place. If you give them a 50:1 odds of not being searched, all it takes is for just one unknown group to get in to the airport and just 1-2 of them to be completely missed by the random searches, and all bets made before on it not happening are worthless.
I fear we are playing the Drug Bust game. Catch X number of groups, and "maybe" we somehow scare off the next guy making a shipment, or if not, at least we look better than those people in the next state over that hasn't made a drug bust, or not as "big" a bust, in whole year. Competence and incompetence are just useless words if the "apparently" competent have simply been lucky enough to not miss anyone yet. When they inevitably do, it won't matter how competent they where in stopping everyone else before, and the airports are not "expected" to be able to catch all of them (or even, sadly, *most* of them), so guess whose fault everyone will claim it is...
The only thing we can say for sure is that its not as bad as the Airplane movies, where you can buy the bomb you need "in" the airport. Though, would be funny to see a new movie based on the premise of how things are currently working.. lol
Posted by: Kagehi | September 7, 2006 1:41 PM
Dennis:
"Also, why is "personal lubricant" a narrowminded expression?"
Because it seems to be a sexual aid, so the saying here seems sort of bigoted to me. "Sexual lubricant" says more. Now I will never more interpret "a lube job" as before. ;-)
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | September 7, 2006 2:21 PM
It seems to me that this is all desperately turning into a game of Mao ...
Posted by: Keith Douglas | September 7, 2006 2:41 PM