Thursday, August 10, 2006

Are You Gellin'? (Liquid Terror!)

Random musings about the Liquid Terror bomb plot:

* Q: Are you gellin'?
A: I'm gellin' like a radical Islamic fundamentalist suicide bomber!

* Expect to hear this at a TSA checkpoint: "Put the fucking lotion in the basket!"

* Confiscating hair gel? If this were the late 80s to the early 90s, I would be in major trouble. And forget about using it as an explosive -- when I had short spikes gelled up, they were lethal by themselves.

As it happens, Royal Crown pomade, my current "product" of choice (and probably the reason I keep breaking out, since it's just vaseline, olive oil and fragrance) is just as banned.

***********
Maybe I'm succumbing to fear and hysteria, but passenger profiling is looking more and more like the only viable option right now. When you're getting to the point of banning all liquids, fluids, and gel-like substances, there has to be a better way to target suspects -- otherwise, we're headed to the no carry-on, paper jumpsuit route.

What's next: Because suicide arsonists could draw on atmospheric oxygen, all breathable air is now banned from passenger flights?

You have to wonder, why still the focus on airplanes, especially if you're not looking to hijack them to use them as weapon?

Okay, fine -- it's a target where once you cross a certain threshhold of damage, the death of all the passengers is pretty much guaranteed (damn you, gravity). And of course, you'd throw the air transportation system into chaos. But there are lots of other sensitive targets that would cause lots of casualties, without having to go through all that security.

Sounds like it's time to head into the End o' the World Box:

Pearls Before Swine: End o' the World Box



5 comments:

Techne said...

re the end of the world box: around th ebeginning of the Iraq war the meme among me and my friends was hiding under the bed drinking margaritas and watching the news.

media concepts said...

Can't the next set of thugs just ingest the stuff and then blow themselves up on the plane by taking a Contac time-release or drinking airline decaf or something? Then all bodily fluids will be banned from flights, and the security lines will be a mess of drainage tubes. Does Amtrak sell stock?

Dave Levinson said...

Hah! I knew that I've seen you before. No, not the hair gel. I saw you walking past the ATM machine yesterday in CC1 caf. I'll say hi next time.

Joelogon said...

Techne -- unless you've got a loft bed, that could get kind of uncomfortable.

Matt -- sounds like an upside-down margarita, only with liquid explosives.

John of ne -- The chances weren't just good... they were great!

Also, I may be numb, but I'm ugly, too.

ShanePBK said...

Across the pond here it is still an 'alleged' plot. The Bush admin anointed it an al-Qaida plot and played it up (hmm low approval ratings and elections coming up a factor?) - much to the dismay of the British government. Nine days on, nobody has been charged with any crime.