Archive for the ‘Transportation Safety’ Category

Trump’s Wall (Limerick)

Saturday, March 11th, 2017

Yikes! Trump’s proposed budget pays for his pet wall by raiding the TSA, FEMA, and Coast Guard budgets.

Remember Trump’s thunderous call
For a Mexico-financed “great wall?”
Coast Guard funds, FEMA cash,
And the TSA stash–
Trump will slash them to build it. What gall!

Are you feeling more secure yet?

TSA Rules Still Don’t Gel (Limerick)

Saturday, December 24th, 2011

This TSA incident surely takes the cake:

A woman says an airport security officer in Las Vegas confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought the icing on it could be explosive.

It seems the TSA agent told her the cupcake’s “frosting was ‘gel-like’ enough to constitute a security risk.”

TSA Rules Still Don’t Gel (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The TSA rules must be eased
Cuz a cupcake in Vegas was seized.
And when icing on cakes
Is deemed fishy, it makes
All the TSA guys look diseased.

An Open Limerick To Airline Passengers

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

My open limerick to the traveling public was inspired by this article about gynecological pat-downs and this letter from physicist Rep. Rush Holt, which questions the safety of full body scan technology:

An Open Limerick To Airline Passengers
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Airline riders, it’s time to speak out.
The TSA rules we must flout.
Radiation or mauling —
They both are appalling.
To submit gives the terrorists clout.

(You can find my Pat-Down Put-Down limerick here.)

Pat-Down Put-Down

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately. But I have a great excuse: Mark and I went on the first annual Lewis Black Comedy Cruise. You can read all about our fun comedy cruise adventures here.

But now it’s time to get back to the work of political mockery. Fortunately, I’ve returned from my travels just in time to make fun of the TSA’s delightful new privacy-invading screening procedures. And I’m still trying to figure out which I prefer as my ticket to plane boarding: a “nude body scan or genital groping.”

That brings me to my latest limerick:

Pat-Down Put-Down
By Madeleine Begun Kane

You’re a teen and can’t get to first base?
You’re a fondler, but fearful of Mace?
Well a pat-down career
Can be yours. (Front and rear.)
Be a TSA Feel-Her-Up Ace.

Shameless Republicans On Christmas Attack

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Republicans have been treating Nigerian Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253 like a Christmas gift from Al Qaeda — something really juicy to exploit.

In fact, the Republicans’ partisan response to this attempted terrorism has been so shameless, even Politico noticed.

Republicans like Pete Hoekstra, James DeMint, Dan Burton, and many others have earned themselves a triple limerick by playing politics with national security:

Shameless Republicans On Christmas Attack
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Exploiting a terror attempt
Is surely beneath all contempt.
But that never would stop
Such a GOP op:
“Bash Obama! He failed to preempt.”

There is plenty of blame they should share
For that terrorist scare in the air.
We’ve no TSA head:
DeMint “held” him instead
Of a vote. It’s Republican guerre.

As for funding our air travel screening,
They vote no. Seems they’re pro-terror leaning.
Though their record is poor,
They keep spouting full-bore.
Please Republicans, spare us your preening.

NOTE: Here’s some unrelated, but timely, New Years Resolutions humor: It Is Hereby Resolved.

Heinous Heenes?

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Last week I managed to avoid the Balloon Boy media frenzy. Reality show participants with an endangered child on an AWOL helium balloon? Yeah … right. Then again, I don’t spend my time watching kids being rescued from wells either.

In any event, I’m not surprised that Wife Swap participants (and reality TV series pitchers) Richard and Mayumi Heene may be arrested for “concocting a publicity stunt by pretending that their young son [Falcon] had climbed aboard a homemade helium balloon and was hurtling through the skies above Fort Collins, Colo.”

The Heenes’ lawyer David Lane expects the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office to file charges this week, and Denver man Robert Thomas says Richard Heene gave him advance word of a media stunt.

And that brings me to my latest limerick:

Heinous Heenes?
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Two publicity mongers named Heene
Are accused of a hoax quite obscene:
Claimed their wayward balloon
Held their child. Opportune
For a shot at “reality” green.

Update: I’ve heard the Heenes’ name pronounced three different ways, two of which screw up my rhyme scheme. Since I’m not sure which pronunciation is correct, I guess I’ll leave my limerick up as written.

Fox Pundits At Sea

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Fox News “pundit” rants always look foolish, especially when they’re packed with gleeful predictions of Democratic failures. And most especially when their predictions turn out to be dramatically wrong.

Such, thankfully, was the case with the loony rantings indulged in by Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck and sundry Fox News personalities who “bet against the Obama administration’s ability to rescue Richard Phillips, the American ship captain who was taken hostage by Somali pirates.”

How those Fox nuts salivated in anticipation of Obama’s failure! And how disappointed they must surely be in the wake of Phillips’ rescue after the Obama-authorized killing of three pirates.

I, for one, don’t expect any gracious apologies any time soon. Do you?

Fox Pundits At Sea (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Obama’s been tested and won.
Three pirates were killed with a gun.
Now will loons who foretold
That he’d fail to be bold
Say they’re sorry, congrats, job well done?

NASA Air Travel Study Cover-up

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

The AP is reporting about the latest Bush administration cover-up:

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers. …

This doesn’t surprise me.  After all, the only threats to our safety that the Bush administration wants us to know about are fictitious threats that suit Bush/Cheney’s warmongering purposes.[tags]NASA, Air Travel Safety, Bush Administration Cover-Up[/tags]