Okay, so one asshole tries to blow up an airplane with a pants bomb... Knee jerk reaction in three-two-one...
Ohmygodweneednewrulesnoworwearegoingtodie!
The following new rules are now being added during the last hour of flight:
- no books or personal items
- no items under the seat in front of you
- no blankets or items in your laps
- no bathroom
- no television or position indicators
The implication here is that as long as no one blows up a bomb in the last hour of flight, we're all safe, so go ahead, blow it up in the first 5 hours of flight -- the joke is on you!
How the hell does this help? As if someone with one of those time-detection devices (wristwatch) couldn't just figure out approximate time to detonate. Or someone could use one of those light osmosis membranes (windows) to look out and see what their position or altitude was. Or blow it up on the runway.... I just can't quite fathom why the last hour of flight is sacred for bomb detonation prevention. It's as if the feds are saying "We don't know what to do but we have to do something."
And if the shoe bomber made us all have to stand in line and take off our shoes... does the underwear bomber imply that now we need to stand in line and strip naked? And if someone packs a bomb in little balloons ala heroin smugglers... does that mean we all need exploratory surgery before boarding the plane?
The more likely reaction is that a bored, cold mass of cranky travelers with ruptured bladders that have recently been strip searched will revolt and take over the airplane out of pure frustration.
You want my solution? All passengers will be cryogenically frozen 6 months before the flight. They are stored naked in a warehouse for the 6 months to allow for delayed detonation possibilities. They should pass through a hyperbaric chamber to simulate altitude to allow for pressure based detonation. The actual shipment would be at a semi random time and date in the 6 month quarantine.
9 comments:
This is just another indicator that, on September 11, 2001, the terrorists won. Terror has ruled the U.S. since that incident. Billions of man hours have been wasted as people stand in line to board a plane holding their pants up with one hand and their shoes in the other scared to death that something untoward might happen to them. They stand there blank-eyed and slack-jawed without a brain cell lighting up not realizing that they just survived a much more dangerous ordeal driving to the god-damned airport.
Yes, more rules will solve all the problems. It would only work better if those new rules required 2000 pages of documentation.
Only 2000 pages? Oh, Kari, you would not make a good bureaucrat.
Well, obviously the 2000 pages would only cover this particular situation. For a man with explosive pants who hoped to detonate them during the first hour of the flight, we would need an additional 2000 pages.
I personally think a mere 4000 pages should cover the concept that exploding clothing is not allowed at all.
Read this Slate article by Hitchens:
http://tinyurl.com/yb54fw6
Yep. Spot on.
I find it odd that we as a people are so appeased by some feel good measures. And I firmly believe that there is a serious diminishing return from them. We could spend much more money and have much more asspain and find we have only slightly (if any) more security.
Bad stuff happens. The upside is that your odds are pretty good it won't be you.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin
Exactly two things have made us safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door and convincing passengers that they need to fight back. All the rest is security theatre against a movie plot threat. It was the second of these that, on Christmas Day, quickly subdued Abdulmutallab after he set his pants on fire.
Now the powers that be will be doing more security theatre to make the populace think that they are actually doing something to improve their safety... when in fact they are just playing into the terrorist's hands by spreading terror and making everyone suffer more ridiculous rules.
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