Ted's Soapbox 2.0

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I had a pretty good birthday. My friend Jason took me to Red Robin and told them it was my birthday so they gave me ice cream and sang to me. Oh, I also got two balloons which I gave to a little girl as she was leaving, I ate the ice cream. Thanks Jason. Later Dawnell took me to dinner and then we had my favorite cake, Italian Cheese Cake, it is like a brick, but I love it. I am not sure the boys like it or not.

The Pond Guy came out on the 27th, he has to come back with more rocks and boulders but so far the pond looks good and he made a wetlands area also. Dawnell put her fish in the pond and they are happy and so is she now.

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NIPPLE OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

The Transportation Security Administration said Friday its officers at a Texas airport appear to have properly followed procedures when they allegedly forced a woman to remove her nipple rings — one with pliers — but acknowledged the procedures should be changed.

The woman involved — Mandi Hamlin — told reporters earlier Friday she was humiliated by last month’s incident, in which she was forced to painfully remove the piercings behind a curtain as she heard snickers from male TSA officers nearby. The incident occurred at the Lubbock, Texas, airport.

The officers “rightly insisted that the alarm that was raised be resolved,” the TSA said in a statement posted on its Web site Friday afternoon. “TSA supports the thoroughness of the officers involved as they were acting to protect the passengers and crews of the flights departing Lubbock that day.”

However, “TSA has reviewed the procedures themselves and agrees that they need to be changed,” the statement said. “In the future, TSA will inform passengers that they have the option to resolve the alarm through a visual inspection of the article in lieu of removing the item in question.”

TSA said in its statement it acknowledges “that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets (the) situation in which she found herself. We appreciate her raising awareness on this issue and we are changing the procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.”

The incident occurred February 24 as Hamlin, 37, was preparing to fly to Dallas-Fort Worth from Lubbock, where she had been visiting her elderly great-uncle.

Hamlin said she also has navel and ear piercings and has never set off a metal detector or been singled out for additional screening at an airport.

She did not set off the metal detector at Lubbock International Airport, but was pulled to the side for additional screening, Allred said. A hand wand used by a TSA officer beeped when it was waved over her breasts.

Hamlin told the officer she had nipple piercings, Allred said, and that officer called over another officer, who told her she would need to remove them.

“Ms. Hamlin did not want to remove her nipple piercings,” Allred said, reading from a letter she sent TSA. “After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove. In addition, once removed, the pierced skin may close up almost immediately, making it difficult and painful to reinsert the piercing.”

More officers were called over, and the group grew to four male and two female TSA officers, according to Hamlin. Also, a small crowd of onlookers had started to gather. The officers insisted that Hamlin remove the nipple rings, Allred said.

Afterward, Hamlin underwent another scan, but realized she had forgotten to remove her navel ring. She offered to remove it, Allred said, but an officer told her it was not necessary because he could see it. Hamlin wondered why a similar visual inspection of her nipple rings would not have sufficed, Allred said.

“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Hamlin told reporters. “I felt surprised, embarrassed, humiliated and scared. No one deserves to go through this.”

In a statement earlier Friday, the TSA said it “is well aware of terrorists’ interest in hiding dangerous items in sensitive areas of the body. Therefore, we have a duty to the American public to resolve any alarm that we discover.”

TSA included in its statement a picture of a prototype training device it will use to simulate a “bra bomb” in training and testing its officers.

**** TSA is fast becoming America’s GESTAPO ****

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FOLLOW UP

Jayci Yaeger has died, just a day after her wish to see her father was granted. Her imprisoned father, Jason, went to her bedside Wednesday, a visit federal authorities allowed only after being deluged with letters and phone calls from across the nation.

Jayci had terminal brain cancer. Her family had been pleading with federal prison officials in Yankton, S.D., to allow her father to see his daughter before she died.

On Wednesday afternoon, prison guards drove Jason Yaeger to a Lincoln hospice, where he spent time at her bedside. No one else was allowed in the room except Jason Yaeger, Jayci and the escorts.

Sources said Yaeger did leave the girl’s side to consult with hospice counselors and get some direction on how to speak with the girl about what she was going through.

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“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”

–George W. Bush, LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

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297 Days Left
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Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring
Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central
Command: 4474

Its more than a number