HEY KIDS! NEXT TIME YOU FLY, YOU GET TO LEAVE YR SHOES ON, UNLIKE YR PARENTS!

ITEM: DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano tells the Senate that the TSA will implement new security procedures for fliers under 12, who will still be subject to pat-downs, but via a different method. And they no longer will have to take off their shoes.

Put another way, the DHS and the TSA have arbitrarily decided that children under 12 probably aren’t as big a terrorist risk as they were for the first ten years after 9/11.

Maybe one day they’ll decide the same thing about grown-ups. Or at least beverages.

Stay thirsty,

This is dF

FRENCH TELEPHONE COMPANIES ARE RUN BY KITTENS

Observe.

Add ten (10) points if you got the Machete reference.

BONUS MATERIAL: There’s an English version, but somehow it’s less funny, as it’s fairly standard telecom advertising marketspeak. I’m sure it’s the same in French, but I speak no French, so the French version works better for me because I can write my own subtitles in my head.

Maybe people who only speak French will find the English version funnier.

Lost in translation,

This is dF

BOB TURNER IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF NY’S 9TH DISCTRICT AND THEREFORE THE USA

Emergency opinion from Team Frog Political Fringe Science advisor Lucky Bensonhurst.

I find myself grimly amused by the current dithering over the New York 9th Congressional District race to fill Anthony “That’s Not My Junk” Weiner’s seat, which now belongs to Republican Bob Turner.

Not unexpectedly, the GOP is making the usual overblown hay over it, claiming that Turner’s 53%-45% win means that America doesn't want Obama to be president anymore because he hates the economy and Israel.

Well, politicians always say silly horseshit like that. On the other hand, so do voters, such as these disappointed (former) Obama supporters:

"Unfortunately the Democrats have let us down lately," said Anne Lenihan, 65, of Queens, who said she supported the president in 2008. "I'm disappointed in the Democrats and we need change."

Mark Russell, 37, a Democrat, said he didn't vote because he could not get excited about supporting Weprin, despite numerous calls from the Democratic get-out-the-vote operation.

"In 2008 I voted for Obama, and I made a big mistake then," said Kelly Redmond, 47, who cited the economy and the president's policy toward Israel as reasons for supporting Turner.

That hardly adds up to a repudiation of all things Democratic in favor of all things Republican. It’s more of a symptom of the fact that many voters don’t toe party lines and use their vote as an expression of disapproval of the incumbent rather than approval of the challenger. Also, the swing vote – while crucial in polarized times like these – is a small proportion of the entire voting base, so it’s not like these people represent the majority of eligible voters. (In other words, the party loyalists aren’t likely to switch parties no matter how lousy a job their people do.)

Business as usual, Jim.

But I can’t help but marvel at the inherent dilemma of rejecting Obama and the Demos in favor of the GOP, who blew it badly during the Bush II years and have only gotten weirder since then thanks to the growing influence of the Tea Party wing.

So it’s not like voters unhappy with Obama and the Demos don’t know what they’re likely to get from the GOP.

We could peg that down to the frustration they must feel that their only other realistic option is the Democrats. In which case, why not keep going back and forth and voting against the incumbents until someone gets it right?

Still, even as someone who has no use for either party, I have a hard time processing the concept that anyone who lived through the Bush II era (and isn't a neocon, a defense contractor or a Fox News contributor) would trust a Republican with their laundry, let alone the country.

But then people like me probably felt the same way when Jimmy Carter was president. Carter seemed like a good idea at the time, particularly after Nixon’s paranoid shenanigans and Ford’s forgiveness of him for it. Four years later, Carter was shown the door and the GOP ruled the White House for the next 12 years.

So it could happen again, I suppose, although none of the current GOP frontrunners look all that convincing in an Obama faceoff. But if the economy tanks again, who knows? It’s not like Obama has a plan that any Republican is ever going to sign off on in the next million years.

(Obama: “No more games. Pass this jobs bill.”

Congress: “Make us, Commie.”)

In which case I’d like to sum up the rest of the decade thusly:

Fucksticks.

L. Bensonhurst