Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Government think, airport edition

Some of you may have heard the latest grumblings over airport security measures in the U.S. over this past weekend.

One troublemaker took offense at having his genitalia felt up by TSA workers and accused them of sexual assault and threatened to sue them.

When they felt up a 3-year old girl, she began struggling and screaming, "Don't touch me there!" and made an unpleasant scene. Another little malcontent, undoubtedly. Apparently her misguided mother had told the little girl never to let strangers touch her.

90-year old disabled grannies in wheelchairs get the same rude treatment.

People get doses of radiation every time they stand in front of the new body scanner which shows them naked under their clothes. This because of the "Underwear Bomber" in a flight coming in to Detroit last year.

Since the "Shoe Bomber" Reid, everyone who flies in the U.S. has to take off their shoes and have them x-rayed. Or whatever the new see-through technology is called.

Pilots of the passenger airlines have to go through the same security and are complaining that their doses of radiation are piling up because of the frequency of the scans they have to endure.

Now there is talk of exempting Muslim women from searches because... I don't know. Just because. It offends them I guess.

Ann Coulter, the columnist hated by the far left, made an interesting comment yesterday (on Fox News, no less, so you know it is something to be immediately dismissed) that if a Martian were to come to earth and observe our "anti-terrorist" efforts in airports, he would undoubtedly point out that we have one advantage over the terrorists that we are not taking advantage of: they all look alike.

Ah, well. Profiling is sooooooo politically incorrect. I wonder what airport security in the enemy's land (Saudi Arabia) would do if all their terrorists were white? But, holy cow, they are barbarians and we're not, right?

So are the Israelis. If they don't like how you look, they pull you out of line and check you out up close and personal. But if you pass inspection and get on the plane, they hand you a steak knife to go with your in-flight meal. Seems to work. But they are concerned with security rather than hurting the feelings of shifty-eyed nervous-looking people in line.

Profiling is not the American way, though, by gosh. That would be (horrors) ummm... unfair to a few and fair to 99%. Americans would rather make everyone be screwed with. And their children. And their grannies. And the pilots of the planes they are about to ride on.

So, what IS the American way?

Stupidity:

Pilot of aircraft to TSA worker: "I don't like to keep going through that thing so often. I'm getting radiation poisoning. Why do you have to feel me up each time, anyway?"

TSA worker: "We want to make sure you don't have a box cutter hidden on your person. If you did, you might storm the cockpit and take control of the plane."

Pilot: "But I am ALREADY in the cockpit. I'm ALREADY in control of the plane. I can crash it anytime I get the notion. So what are you proving?"

TSA employee to supervisor on radio: "I have another troublemaker here. He's trying to use logic on me. Permission to stip search."

7 comments:

  1. Oy! I heard about this.

    More and more I hate flying.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think it's already been pointed out that the radiation dose from a backscatter scanner pales into insignificance next to the radiation dose pilits receive when flying at high altitudes?

    "A passenger would need to be scanned using a backscatter scanner, from both the front and the back, about 200,000 times to receive the amount of radiation equal to one typical CT scan," said Dr. Andrew J. Einstein, director of cardiac CT research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. "Another way to look at this is that if you were scanned with a backscatter scanner every day of your life, you would still only receive a tenth of the dose of a typical CT scan," he said. By comparison, the amount of radiation from a backscatter scanner is equivalent to about 10 minutes of natural background radiation in the United States, Einstein said. "I believe that the general public has nothing to worry about in terms of the radiation from airline scanning," he added. For moms-to-be, no evidence supports an increased risk of miscarriage or fetal abnormalities from these scanners, Einstein added. "A pregnant woman will receive much more radiation from cosmic rays she is exposed to while flying than from passing through a scanner in the airport," he said."

    We should oppose this scanning, and intrusive searches not because of a poorly understood fear of radiation, but because it's a system that treats every passenger (and flight crew) as a criminal, whilst airside personnel move freely around airports with impunity, our major airports are caught employing people with false identitty papers, and security's a joke.
    We dare not profile passengers, and now we're told moslem women may be exempted from the scan, and presumably the intrusive grope, on religious grounds.
    If that's the case, and I'm not exempted, then I'm being illegally discriminated against on terms of religion and gender.
    Last thought. What do you think would happen if you groped the TSA guy right back?
    I mean, who's to know they're not concealing an underwear bomb? Do they pass through the scanner at the start of every shift?
    Was the president, and all his retinue so scanned before boarding Airforce One? If not, why not? E Pluribus Unum cuts both ways, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stephanie: And I heard even more incidents on the news tonight. This may turn into a rebellion.

    Soubriquet: Well, that's the British version you are referring to. Ours is still leaking out like a 1937 dentist's xray. Well, what you say is true anyway - that our real concern is not the technology but the fact that they are treating us all like criminals. Backwards. And you are right about how easy it probably is to become a terrorist baggage handler and .... BLOOM!

    PS-E Pluribus whatever doesn't mean "treat everyone equally." It means "hold the mustard". You have a thing with that, don't you? :)

    Ah, Latin. A whole nuther world. Like the Jew who was touring the vatican and commented on all the paintings and statues and priceless fine art and suggested to the padre leading the tour that perhaps they might consider selling some of it and donating the money to the poor. To which the man of god replied, "Abscondo tu illigitimo!" (Get outta here, ya bastid ya.) I guess the tour padre was from Brooklyn.

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  4. Nil Illegitimi Carborundum is a good motto.

    I never knew that "E Pluribus Unum" meant "Hold the Mustard", so I'm indebted to you for that clarification.

    Perhaps you could help me with further confustications which trouble me mightily.

    "E Pluribus" appears on the great seal of the united states, but, in the picture of the seal, I see it's not a seal at all, but some kind of mutant turkey. Now, I also see it's not holding the mustard, but a bunch of twigs.
    Couldn't they afford a real seal? or have the canadians got them all? Surely even a walrus would have been closer than that turkey?

    Please explain about why holding mustard is good? I like mustard but rarely hold it.

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  5. I have not heard about this.

    it kind of makes me sick.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was traveling up and down the East Coast in the months after 9/11 and each tiny town had its own tiny little marina filled with boats of every shape and size flying flags from all over the world.

    You step off these boats and walk right into the middle of town. No security. No metal detectors. No nothing.

    The gazillons of unguarded miles of America's inland border are likewise secure, as any of the many Non English Speaking inhabitants of American can attest.

    Airport Security is nothing but Busy Work to give the illusion that the American Government is doing something-anything-to combat the possibility of another 9/11.

    I remember the security at Gatwick Airport in London. Soldiers in full body armor toting M-16s. That sent a slightly clearer message than molesting children.

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  7. Did you miss the recent story of U.S. troops returning from Baghram Airbase to the U.S.?
    They had to deplane at, I think Indiana?
    Carrying their rifles, squad automatic weapons, and, in some cases sidearms.
    These, they are permitted to travel with, but without ammunition.
    On attempting to reboard for their onward journey, and never having been permitted to pass outside of the "secure" side of the airport, they had to pass tsa screening and were searched.
    One man, carrying his military weapons, had his nail-clippers seiezed. So he couldn't use them to overpower the flight crew.
    Another had a gerber multi tool seized. I was tempted to say "stolen". I'd surmise he was planning to crawl out along a wing and unbolt an engine or two with it.

    Airport security theatre again. Morons led by idiots.
    I'd presume that, even unloaded, the average heavy lump of metal that constitutes a firearm would be perceived to be slightly more dangerous than 2" nail-clippers.
    And unless all of them are in on the plot, wouldn't a couple of hundred trained combatants be enough of a match for a clipper wielding crazy?

    Feel safe, America, no nail-clippers shall threaten you from the skies.

    ReplyDelete

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