TSA STUPIDITY
Before you begin reading this post about TSA stupidity, understand I’m pro-security, pro-police, and pro-military. What I’m not is pro-stupidity, and there are times when agencies do dumb stuff. Sadly, it brings us all down, and everyone thinks all security is dumb. This is one of these times, and I feel genuinely sorry for the agents who have to enforce this drivel.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP
This is a short one today illustrating the monumental idiocy of both the TSA and governments in general. It’s no secret that most government agencies are as much use as chocolate firemen. I suspect that’s because they’re largely manned by people too inept to be hired by the private sector. How’s this for TSA stupidity? While we’re all limited to carrying liquids in 3.4 oz bottles while flying in the USA, you are allowed to carry a 12 oz bottle of hand sanitizer!! Yep, hand sanitizer. The primary ingredient is isopropyl alcohol. Flammable, in other words. This is from the CDC itself, and there are some examples here of people actually being burned by them.
“ABHS contains ethyl alcohol, which readily evaporates at room temperature into an ignitable vapor and is considered a flammable liquid.”
So, while your mum can’t have more than 3.4 ounces of shampoo, don’t worry, she can take a cup and half of a flammable liquid on board.
If you’re going to relax the rules on aviation safety due to Covid, why would you still enforce the 3.4 oz limit on the other non-flammable stuff like, oh, I dunno, water? You read that correctly. You are not allowed more than 3.4 oz of water but a cup and a half of napalm is no problem. Don’t worry. At least the terrorist-igniting napalm on your flight will have split ends.
NOT THEIR FINEST HOUR
This, of course, isn’t the only nonsense they come up with. How about the no nail clippers and no kubotan* rule. Pretty sure if I lined up anyone to fight Mike Tyson and gave them a choice of a) nail clippers, b) kubotan or c) flashlight (which you can take on board), nobody’s picking a or b.
*For the unvitiated, a Kubotan is a small piece of dowel about the thickness of your little finger and as long as a pen. Years ago, some big roughty toughty federal agents got their wrists hurt doing a class with them and said, “boy, these things are dangerous, we need to ban them on planes.” What, the terrorists were going to take a plane over with threats of “I’ll really hurt your wrist unless you fly me to Cuba.”
MY BROTHER THE KNAVE
My youngest brother came to visit me from Australia. He was prepping for a traditional martial arts test and needed to hone his skill with karate weapons. He brought his Jo over to train with. For the uninitiated, is a lot like Little John’s quarterstaff in the Robin Hood movies. While he was in town, I showed him a Kubotan, which is an upgraded version of another old weapon called a Yarawa stick.
He didn’t have one, so I gave him mine and packed him off home. Now, keep in mind this was pre-9/11. We got to the airport, and he was going through security with his quarterstaff in hand. Roughly 4 feet long and as thick as a D-cell battery. No problems. Then the security lady saw the Kubotan and had a conniption. “Oh, honey, you can’t take that on the plane with you. You’re going to have to go back to the ticket counter, and they’ll give you an envelope. You can put it in there, and they’ll give it to the Captain. He’ll give it back when you get back to Australia.” But the 4-foot-long, solid oak quarterstaff was fine. As I said. Dumb.
Let’s put that on a tray. Nice.