Tweezerman Gets His Wings Back
For those of your who are not female or transexual, Tweezerman is pretty much the best tweezers out there, the Cadillac of tweezing. Unfortunately for any woman or tranny with wayward brows, the little darling has been banned on planes since shortly after September 11 (as if that's made us safer -- not just more annoyed). Yes, a Tweezerman is a powerful thing, but let's be sensible people -- it would take about a year to chip into the cockpit, even with the mighty T-Man.

Perhaps owing, in part, to common sense, as of December 20...heeeee's baaaa-aaaack!...thanks to a few changes in the search procedues by the TSA. Eric Lipton writes in The New York Times:

The changes include a new type of random search, a revision of the pat-down process and the end of a ban on small scissors and certain other sharp tools in carry-on luggage.

The goal of the changes, which will be announced Friday and go into effect on Dec. 20, is to try to disrupt the now-familiar routine associated with security screening, a routine that federal officials fear would-be terrorists may have studied to figure out ways to circumvent it.

"We don't want the predictability of the system to be used against us," said Yolanda L. Clark, a security agency spokeswoman. "So we are introducing an element of randomness that makes it more difficult to manipulate."

Ms. Clark and other officials from the Department of Homeland Security declined to discuss the changes, saying they would be unveiled in a speech by Kip Hawley, the assistant secretary for homeland security who oversees the security agency. A five-page summary of the new policies was obtained Wednesday by The New York Times.

The summary document says the elimination of the ban on metal scissors with a blade of four inches or less and tools of seven inches or less - including screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers - is intended to give airport screeners more time to do new types of random searches.

...But Jon Adler, executive vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents federal air marshals, said that allowing scissors and small tools on planes was a mistake.

"These items in the wrong hands can become dangerous instruments that can ultimately threaten both air marshals' and travelers' safety," Mr. Adler said.

Yes, if a flight attendant tries to sell me a pillow I might go a little mad and overpluck some other passenger's brows. Oh, and P.S. being a somewhat hostile kind of girl, I bought myself a pillow today (at a store) just in case. It's nicer anyway, then snuggling up with everybody's cooties. (What? You think they sanitize those fiberglass-like pillow things? Or those nasty blankets? Haw, haw, haw!)