Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1087

TSA STOPS TODDLER YT: "A toddler in a wheelchair is stopped by the TSA at the Airport in Chicago and forced to into a sequestered area. On his way to a family vacation in Disney, this 3 year old boy is in a body cast for a broken leg. Despite assurances from his father that "everything is ok", he is physically trembling with fear while he watches his two siblings, mother, father, grandfather and grandmother pass through along with everyone else...only to be singled out."

MARRIAGE NEWS: AFER's Matt Baume with the latest on North Carolina, Colorado, and New Hampshire.

ROSIE O'DONNELL: Addresses her show's cancellation.

DONNA SUMMER REALNESS: An 80-year-old grandmother auditions for RuPaul's Drag Race.

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Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1078

INFINITY AND BEYOND: The first Lego space shuttle has reached the stratosphere.

ANN ROMNEY: "I don't consider myself wealthy."

BODY SCANNERS: Foiled?

SARAH PALIN: Anything is possible.

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Rand Paul's TSA Detention: VIDEO

A video has been released of Senator Rand Paul, who (along with his father Ron) made a big stink earlier this week about being "detained" by the TSA after refusing a pat-down in the Nashville airport.

The clip, this one with fictional dialogue and annotations, reinforces the fact that Paul was just being a drama queen about his signature issue.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

(via buzzfeed)

Politico reports:

In response to Monday’s incident, his father’s presidential campaign issued a statement slamming the Transportation Security Administration and promising to abolish it if elected.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Ron Paul’s campaign said. “One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.”

GOP Senator Rand Paul Detained by TSA at Nashville Airport

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has been detained by TSA at the Nashville Airport after reportedly refusing a pat-down.

CNN:

Paul went through a scanner at the airport and set off an alarm, said his spokeswoman, Moira Bagley. He wanted to go through the body scan again instead of getting a pat-down, but officers of the Transportation Security Administration refused, Bagley said.

Paul, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, is an outspoken critic of what he characterizes as an overly obtrusive federal government threatening to strip of citizens of various rights and civil liberties.

His father Ron Paul tweeted about the detention a shortt time ago: "My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville. More details coming."

In fact, Paul's just a drama queen who wants to draw attention to his signature issue.

TSA Confiscates Woman's Cupcake as 'Security Risk': VIDEO

Some pre-holiday nonsense from the TSA. Vanilla Bourbon icing on a red velvet cupcake caused a security scare in Las Vegas:

Rebecca Hains told ABCNews.com today that a Transportation Security Administration agent at Las Vegas- McCarran International Airport confiscated her cupcake, saying the frosting sitting atop the red velvet cake was gel-like enough to violate regulations...

...The TSA agent didn’t know what to do with the cupcake, so she called over her supervisor, Hains said.
“The TSA supervisor, Robert Epps, was using really bad logic – he said it counted as a gel-like substance because it was conforming to the shape of its container.”

“We also had a small pile of hummus sandwiches with creamy fillings, which made it through, but the cupcake with its frosting was apparently a terrorist threat…I just don’t know what world he was living in,” said Hains, speaking of the TSA officer.

Watch ABC News' report, AFTER THE JUMP...

Android Marriage, Gay Pirates And Other Ways To Poke Fun At Anti-Gay Activists

Rarely are the gay-related culture wars a laughing matter.

The amount of vitriol and spite lobbed in our direction can be frightful, distressing and all around depressing. Sometimes, however, socially conservative arguments against equality cross the line from worrisome to absurd, and actually give us a way to knock down their arguments.

Consider a rambling argument made by Robert Broadus, head of Protect Marriage Maryland, at a hearing on a proposed same-sex marriage bill.

If you pass this bill, you will set the groundwork that one day, when artificial intelligence is that advanced, we'll be considering whether or not people can marry their Androids.

If anyone has watched Star Trek, and you've seen the character Data, he was able to generate a tear, because he could feel emotion. If you knock down marriage between a man and a woman now, if you say any two people who love each other can get married, then you set that precedent.

The crowd couldn't suppress their giggles, of course.

Watch and read all about it, AFTER THE JUMP...