In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
The Department of Vaterland Securitah frisked the Dalai Lama when he was going through airport security. Because, y'know, there's no telling what he's got under those robes -- maybe the Prayer Beads of Mass Destruction, OMG!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
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Illustrating the biggest flaw on Heimat Seicherheit -- the goons either do not know how to think, or are not allowed to think because of their rules.
ReplyDeleteI flew to Israel once in 1980 when I decided to spend the summer working on a kibbutz. (A lot of my Jewish friends had done that, and it seemed like a cheap way to get an exotic holiday in the sun, which it was.) I had a visa and everything, but here I was, a goy traveling alone, with no address to go to and no connection to Israel. I was taken aside by an El Al security guard and given a thorough, but not obnoxious, questioning. No frisking, just scrutiny by someone who was tough and intelligent. He had enough perception -- and the authority to act on it -- to assess that I was OK to fly.
But the drones at U.S. airports aren't that smart. They go through the motions, as if that's going to thwart an intelligent terrorist. They don't have enough awareness to recognize someone like the Dalai Lama, even if he's traveling with someone who says "That's the Dalai Lama." Or if they did, they'd still have to frisk him because there's a rule that says anybody in an orange robe gets a pat-down, no discretion allowed for the totally fucking obvious.
If and when there is a next international terrrrrrrrrrrist attack inside the U.S. (as opposed to the domestic terrorist attacks which I think are more likely) it will not be done by dummies. It will be perpetrated by calculating killers who will run rings around the flat-footed Barney Fifes of the TSA. Billions of dollars spent, and shoes removed, for the fake image of security...
Is frisking the Dalai Lama the same as subjecting 85 year old ladies to full pat down?
ReplyDeleteDone for strictly for show, not for anyone's safety.
someone is in for some bad karmic pat down payback.
ReplyDelete