It's great that they're loosening up, but it's still all pretty fucking stupid as a response to a hypothetical attack that apparently would've been impossible to carry out in practice anyway.
(Am I hurting the Democrats' chances in November by saying something like that?)
They're also allowing: "Life support and life sustaining liquids such as . . . blood". Once again national security is subordinated to the demands of the vampire lobby.
What I want to know is why KY is the one thing in my luggage that inevitably leaks all over everything else.
Do the TSA agents that inspect my checked luggage take some perverse delight in giving the bottle a good squeeze before replacing it amidst my socks and underwear?
a hypothetical attack that apparently would've been impossible to carry out in practice anyway.
It would not have been all that impossible. The British authorities have muddied the water substantially by talking so much about TATP, which is not a liquid explosive and can't be sensibly prepared on a plane. They are presumably doing this for reasons of disinformation. The actual plot presumably involved nitroglycerine, which is a liquid explosive and which could do quite a lot of damage on a plane. I personally believe that the solution to such threats has to be based on specific surveillance of individuals (as it in fact was) rather than silly blanket restrictions which are public information, but IMO it is wrong to think that there is absolutely no substance to the threat.
They are presumably doing this for reasons of disinformation. The actual plot presumably involved nitroglycerine, which is a liquid explosive and which could do quite a lot of damage on a plane.
Exactly. Everyone keeps blathering on about binary liquids and other shit, but regular old nitro is not complex to make, and if you keep it cool it reduces the shock sensitivity.
I'm proud to be an American once again!
Posted by Hamilton Lovecraft | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 1:45 PM
Another dilemma for parents. "Mom? Can I have a
sleepoverpair of plane tickets?"Posted by Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:01 PM
No transatlantic flights until they're 18.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:29 PM
Do they specify the items one is allowed to carry in one's anus?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:36 PM
4: Up to two liters of lubricant.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:41 PM
4 oz of K-Y and a gel-filled bra? Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with that.
Okay, well, probably not, actually.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:55 PM
I guess the neopagan homofascists have gained the upper hand against the Islamofascists. What must Falwell think?
Posted by jhupp | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 2:59 PM
It's great that they're loosening up, but it's still all pretty fucking stupid as a response to a hypothetical attack that apparently would've been impossible to carry out in practice anyway.
(Am I hurting the Democrats' chances in November by saying something like that?)
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 3:01 PM
You hurt the Dems' chances just by existing, Adam. Don't let it worry you.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 3:03 PM
It's great that they're loosening up
ATM; on a plane
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 3:15 PM
They're also allowing: "Life support and life sustaining liquids such as . . . blood". Once again national security is subordinated to the demands of the vampire lobby.
Posted by Felix | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 3:19 PM
Look, personal dryness may be a joke to you people, but not it isn't a laughing matter for the moisturally challenged.
Why, without synthetic tears, my eyelids would stick to my eyeballs like stickers to a bumper.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 4:22 PM
The TSA dudes were listening to The Bends, when suddenly inspiration came over them.
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 4:32 PM
What I want to know is why KY is the one thing in my luggage that inevitably leaks all over everything else.
Do the TSA agents that inspect my checked luggage take some perverse delight in giving the bottle a good squeeze before replacing it amidst my socks and underwear?
Posted by zadfrack | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 4:34 PM
a hypothetical attack that apparently would've been impossible to carry out in practice anyway.
It would not have been all that impossible. The British authorities have muddied the water substantially by talking so much about TATP, which is not a liquid explosive and can't be sensibly prepared on a plane. They are presumably doing this for reasons of disinformation. The actual plot presumably involved nitroglycerine, which is a liquid explosive and which could do quite a lot of damage on a plane. I personally believe that the solution to such threats has to be based on specific surveillance of individuals (as it in fact was) rather than silly blanket restrictions which are public information, but IMO it is wrong to think that there is absolutely no substance to the threat.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 4:42 PM
15: I trust your judgment implicitly, dsquared. Consider my mind changed.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 5:55 PM
my source for this is good old Jamie Kenny, who knows a thing or two about explosions given that his own scrotum exploded recently.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 6:15 PM
Did he have nitroglycerine in there?
Posted by Nakku | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 6:49 PM
[From someone, via someone else]
Suspicious.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 6:51 PM
19 - Merely using my source's requested citation.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 7:00 PM
Is the TSA on Johnson & Johnson's payroll or something? Why only KY jelly and not, say, Astroglide?
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 7:04 PM
They are presumably doing this for reasons of disinformation. The actual plot presumably involved nitroglycerine, which is a liquid explosive and which could do quite a lot of damage on a plane.
Exactly. Everyone keeps blathering on about binary liquids and other shit, but regular old nitro is not complex to make, and if you keep it cool it reduces the shock sensitivity.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 7:04 PM
20 - suspicious.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 7:11 PM
I see that gel-padded bras are now permitted.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 9:00 PM
And they've been reclassified as prothetics.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 9:59 PM
I think you mean "prostethics."
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 10:01 PM
(I feel safer already.)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-26-06 10:09 PM
Do they specify the items one is allowed to carry in one's anus?
Each passenger is allowed one tart.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 08-27-06 6:43 AM