Dick Bombs
A while ago Anwar al-Awlaki made some guy put a bomb on his dick. al-Awlaki is also connected to guys like the Fort Hood shooter and the recent toner bomb, and it looks like he's not going to stop any time soon.
After the toner bomb, the TSA decided that the threat of dick-bombs as well as toner bombs was too much. They made new rules: you either need to step into the x-ray machine so that we can look at your dick, or we're going to touch your dick, because there might be a bomb on it. A bunch of my friends are outraged by this. And I understand their outrage. It's outrageous that someone is demanding to check out your dick. They're calling it "a choice between being irradiated and being groped". I understand how this choice could seem unsavory, but that's a false dilemma. It's really a choice between being irradiated, groped, maybe some dick bombs being on your plane, or not flying. All four of these options suck. It's worth lamenting that we live in a world where these are our options, but what's missing from the conversation is discussion of the alternatives. I've heard a lot of complaining about TSA looking at dicks, but very little discussion about what a tolerable dick bomb limit should be, or how to prevent dick bombs without manual or remote inspection.
I should note this (admittedly irrelevant) irony: the people complaining that someone might see their dicks are mostly people whose dicks I have seen. Hot-tubbers, Burning-man-mud-bathers, etc. Of course my previous viewing of their dicks does not entitle TSA employees to view their dicks, but I'm surprised that today's dick-conscious have been in the past generally dick-liberal and vice-versa. I'm not saying it's a completely frivolous issue, I'm just saying the hubbub seems way too much over way too little.
These objections seem to come from the same people who would call this "security theater" if they weren't getting their dicks touched. "Why bother checking bags when terrorists can just strap bombs to their dicks?" Detractors imply that the TSA has suddenly gone dick-crazy, which I don't accept because of my experience at Burning Man. Marginal dick utility drops off significantly after seeing your twentieth dick of the day, and those screeners are going to see tens of thousands. The dick that stands out in that crowd is truly a dick to be reckoned with. I don't really care who sees my dick especially if it's one of the thousands of dicks they've seen that day. Everyone knows I've got one. Everyone can hazard a guess what it looks like, and I daresay their guesses would be reasonably accurate. The same goes for every other dick I've ever seen. Except for Extreme Elvis's and the ones in porn - hardly privacy-conscious dicks.
In the past I've written that we should safeguard privacy from wiretapping because the enemies of our government and the enemies of the persons in our government are not the same enemies. Because our government works better when held in check by a loyal opposition. But our loyal opposition's dicks have very little to do with that. I cannot think of anyone in history whose works would be diminished by someone viewing their dick, or even pictures publicly released of their dick. (Perhaps ignorance is bliss. Perhaps George Washington's dick looked was so horrific its photographs would have distracted the Colonial soldiers and we'd all be speaking British now. Or perhaps it's no less crazy to speculate that pictures of Hitler's single testicle would have toppled the Nazis. The dick-sword cuts both ways.)
If you want to criticize the TSA's new policy that's fine. It's worth having a discussion about the significance of risks, and whether the cure is worse than the disease. But reducing the conversation to some sort of "oh my stars and garters someone's going to look at and/or touch my dick" just seems a little hollow and unserious to me. Don't complain about security theater and then display these kinds of theatrics.
Caveat: There are potential health risks associated with some types of dick scanning, although those risks seem debatably minimal. Certainly the TSA employee who spends all day near the dick scanner is going to get it far worse than any individual passenger, and I'm happy to let him be the canary in the coal mine.
After the toner bomb, the TSA decided that the threat of dick-bombs as well as toner bombs was too much. They made new rules: you either need to step into the x-ray machine so that we can look at your dick, or we're going to touch your dick, because there might be a bomb on it. A bunch of my friends are outraged by this. And I understand their outrage. It's outrageous that someone is demanding to check out your dick. They're calling it "a choice between being irradiated and being groped". I understand how this choice could seem unsavory, but that's a false dilemma. It's really a choice between being irradiated, groped, maybe some dick bombs being on your plane, or not flying. All four of these options suck. It's worth lamenting that we live in a world where these are our options, but what's missing from the conversation is discussion of the alternatives. I've heard a lot of complaining about TSA looking at dicks, but very little discussion about what a tolerable dick bomb limit should be, or how to prevent dick bombs without manual or remote inspection.
I should note this (admittedly irrelevant) irony: the people complaining that someone might see their dicks are mostly people whose dicks I have seen. Hot-tubbers, Burning-man-mud-bathers, etc. Of course my previous viewing of their dicks does not entitle TSA employees to view their dicks, but I'm surprised that today's dick-conscious have been in the past generally dick-liberal and vice-versa. I'm not saying it's a completely frivolous issue, I'm just saying the hubbub seems way too much over way too little.
These objections seem to come from the same people who would call this "security theater" if they weren't getting their dicks touched. "Why bother checking bags when terrorists can just strap bombs to their dicks?" Detractors imply that the TSA has suddenly gone dick-crazy, which I don't accept because of my experience at Burning Man. Marginal dick utility drops off significantly after seeing your twentieth dick of the day, and those screeners are going to see tens of thousands. The dick that stands out in that crowd is truly a dick to be reckoned with. I don't really care who sees my dick especially if it's one of the thousands of dicks they've seen that day. Everyone knows I've got one. Everyone can hazard a guess what it looks like, and I daresay their guesses would be reasonably accurate. The same goes for every other dick I've ever seen. Except for Extreme Elvis's and the ones in porn - hardly privacy-conscious dicks.
In the past I've written that we should safeguard privacy from wiretapping because the enemies of our government and the enemies of the persons in our government are not the same enemies. Because our government works better when held in check by a loyal opposition. But our loyal opposition's dicks have very little to do with that. I cannot think of anyone in history whose works would be diminished by someone viewing their dick, or even pictures publicly released of their dick. (Perhaps ignorance is bliss. Perhaps George Washington's dick looked was so horrific its photographs would have distracted the Colonial soldiers and we'd all be speaking British now. Or perhaps it's no less crazy to speculate that pictures of Hitler's single testicle would have toppled the Nazis. The dick-sword cuts both ways.)
If you want to criticize the TSA's new policy that's fine. It's worth having a discussion about the significance of risks, and whether the cure is worse than the disease. But reducing the conversation to some sort of "oh my stars and garters someone's going to look at and/or touch my dick" just seems a little hollow and unserious to me. Don't complain about security theater and then display these kinds of theatrics.
Caveat: There are potential health risks associated with some types of dick scanning, although those risks seem debatably minimal. Certainly the TSA employee who spends all day near the dick scanner is going to get it far worse than any individual passenger, and I'm happy to let him be the canary in the coal mine.