1682 Scanner Day

I read this interesting article the other day. Seems the Transportation Safety Administration, those folks in charge of our airport security, are conducting some tests, measuring the potential radiation hazards from the full body scanners they use at over 100 airports.
They didn't test them first.
Oops.
Worse, they have no plans to test what radiation exposure is happening to passengers. No, they are just testing what happens to airport security officers who are indirectly exposed to the machines.
While I applaud the concern the TSA is showing for its workforce, and would suggest private industry adopt similar safeguards for its full body scanners—if and when the need develops to employ full body scanners as well as random drug tests and Facebook background checks—it still seems a little callous to test the folks behind the machines and ignore the people they are forcing through the machines. Not unlike testing slaughterhouse cattle dispatchers for indirect exposure to the stun gun they use.
As one cattle/passenger, James Babb of We Won't Fly put it, "We have no idea how much radiation is being imposed on travelers by a properly functioning machine, a malfunctioning machine could be particularly nasty."
Moo.
Another example of a large organization stepping on the needs of the little guy, like also happened in Samoa last December. Seems they, whoever they are, needed to move the international dateline. So Samoa lost a whole day. Yep, December 30th vanished into who knows where. I don't know about you, but that would totally screw up my calendar. Especially if it was my birthday. Or Christmas vacation. What do you mean we lose a whole day?
On the positive side, if I was an airport scanner worker, that's one less day to accidentally fry my organs.
Makes you wonder if in compensation one day the TSA will be offering frequent fryer miles…
America, ya gotta love it.