Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Ah, yes. Barely censored profanity and obscure cult film references. Yet another reason I have yet to be contacted to write a column for a major syndicate. John Kovalic, I feel your pain.

We’ve foiled another terrorist plot! Terrorists have been stopped from bringing chemical bombs onto planes! Granted, they hadn’t even started obtaining the materials for their plot yet, but isn’t it great that we stopped them that early?

And now within 24 hours of the results of the mid-term Democratic primaries – and while the news is still full of conservatives bemoaning the loss of Da Leeb (liberals, interestingly enough, are quiet – well, not so much quiet as that other thing, um, celebrating) – we have a terror alert pushed to Red and another addition to things that you can’t bring on a plane: drinks. As a way of tying those two together, let me just say that I love red Kool-Aid. ¹

There are many things that are wrong with the breathless news coverage telling us that we’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die! and with the accompanying response from the government and the airlines. But let’s consider just a handful.

1. Airlines have not installed suspended animation capsules in their airplanes. This is a serious oversight, given the fact that we are now just a few steps away from only being able to sit completely still in our seats with our hands in full view on the trays for the entire duration of the flight. Don’t drink. Don’t eat. Don’t talk. Dont. Blink. Oh, and thank you for flying Scared Stupid Air.
2. When we say drink your milk, we don’t usually mean drink your milk. Currently, many airlines are only allowing milk for babies to be carried onto planes – and then only if the accompanying parent tastes the milk first to prove that it isn’t a deadly chemical masquerading as expressed breast milk. There’s a whole potential level of wrong here that I don’t want to get into. Parents travelling with babies – maybe you’ll want to switch to formula for the duration of your trip.
3. We seem to be logic-impaired. Consider this. The plan involved carrying bottles of chemicals onto the plane. The chemicals would be inert on their own, and only become explosive when mixed together in what many news sources have referred to as a “chemical cocktail.” So as we confiscate these bottles, what are we doing with them? Apparently we’re mixing all their contents together in giant plastic tubs in the middle of crowded airports. [note: link contains very strong language – but so does this blog on occasion. still may not be suitable for uptight work environments] Yes! This makes perfect sense! I see no possible way in which this security measure could backfire.
4. Average people are brighter than we might think. I’m thinking of a passenger who calmly called the stewardess over and said, ‘Excuse me, but the man in the seat across the aisle appears to be trying to smoke his Reeboks.’ If the plan involved mixing together chemicals from different drink bottles once on board, don’t you think someone might have noticed that kind of activity? And maybe called a stewardess over to see what was going on? See, when they’re not too busy being scared out of their wits, people can actually be smart sometimes. I know. I was shocked, too.
5. There are mean people out there. Yes, there are bad, nasty folks. Yes, they want to kill you. Yes, they will try to blow things up. But you can’t live your live in fear that they will succeed. Do you want to spend the rest of your life encased in plastic sheeting and duct tape, cowering in your creepy bomb shelter bed? Why are you letting this guy scare the pants off of you (when most analysts disagree with him) and thanking him for the privelege, but you shrug off An Inconvenient Truth (which is backed by the whole freakin’ scientific community) as being mere scare tactics?

It’s not often that I point to the Cato Institute for anything (I don’t like regulation of individuals, but think that corporations could do with a whole heckuva lot more of it), but I wish more people would read A False Sense of Insecurity. [PDF link] Suffice it to say that there are bad things in the world – but we’re not nearly as bad off as you think. Worldwide, more people are killed in car accidents each year than are killed by terrorist activities. In an average year, more people will accidentally drown in their own bathtubs than will be killed by terrorists. But when you elevate terrorism to your chief concern, guess what? The terrorists have won.

¹ Yes, it’s late. No, that joke wasn’t good. Maybe I care.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 10th, 2006 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.