The latest instalment in the “danger stalks the airport” saga might suggest that the Chaser boys are quite right to wrap themselves in plastic bags as flight wear (when they’re not collecting e-tickets under the names Terry Wrist and Al Kyder). And that Laura was right when she predicted on LP:
At Crooked Timber a commenter suggested that the logical end of this latest development is making everyone fly nude or in Guantanamo Bay orange jumpsuits.
The US Homeland Security authorities are concerned women might be the next suicide bombers on major international flights.
The answer? Couldn’t be that super effective passenger profiling targetting young men with beards and “middle eastern appearance”, could it? Salon reports:
Bad news for women who wear gel bras. Blotter, the ABC News blog, reports that “U.S. authorities are advising women not to wear gel bras on airplanes as information developed in the foiled London plot points to an expanding role for women in smuggling explosives on to an aircraft.” The article doesn’t go into the physics of bra-as-bomb but the thinking behind this latest advisory is that gel bras — like “baby bottles containing peroxide” or any number of female-specific terrorist devices (mascara, lipstick, hairspray) — could potentially be used to trigger an explosion.
Of course, enhancing your profile with a gel bra and being profiled as a possible terrorist is only one of the problems this choice of underwear poses for women, inclined or otherwise to suicide bombing.
They were danced in, they spent a week in Hamilton Island, they were worn to work everyday, they were prodded by boyfriends and female friends, they were jogged around the park and generally subjected to the rigorous ordeal of most women’s busy lifestyles.
Add “vigilant defenders of Western civilisation” to the phrase in bold, I guess.
Hat tip: Kate, whose link to Salon sent me there, where I spotted the story.
no lipstick, no hairproducts, no gel bras….thats gotta be counterproductive…..vain western women will be lining up in burqa’s in droves if only avoid being recognised sans makeup and hairstylists.
In addition to the metal detector wand and explosive swab, will female air travellers have to open their blouse at airport security, or merely submit to a “feel up”?
LOL at tanja.
Gawd. What’s next, Attack of the Lactating Fembots, squirting explosive “milk” around the cabin?
Heh.
You wouldn’t be making light of the fact that terrorists are in fact trying to kill people using airplanes are you Kim?
Of course there should be security measures at airports, Birdy. That doesn’t mean they should necessarily be the ones the authorities propose if they are ineffective and/or infringe people’s rights unnecessarily.
But with this post I was just trying to have a laff.
They should be profiling people Kim.
Why should you throw you perfume out. And be searched and all that. And Lefty being questioned about his pectoral enhancements seems pretty stupid also.
The idea is to profile young men. And even moreso young men who appear to be Islamic.
In any case these problems of hateful restrictions to our liberty all come about because we have chosen to let certain regimes wage war against us.
If you are aggressive enough you don’t need to ever play defense.
Could you please come with us Ms. Morgan
PB please forgive me. I’ve not the disposition for such po-faced heroics in the war on terror, here take my hankerchief and think of me in your no doubt lengthy dispatches to the authorities.
What if we let only people who vote conservative fly?
We could have some exceptions for lefty’s,but they would have to sign a Stat Dec that they would have only clean thoughts during the flight, with a stat promise, they would consider voting conservative some time in in the future.
A special tax could be formulated on air travel for lefty’s with the proceeds payed into the Liberal Party coffers.
ROFL!
The mind boggles as to where those fiendishly tricky terrorists could wind up concealing explosives in the future. Given the ingenuity that people smuggling drugs have shown in the past – and let’s face it, anyone who can pack 1/2 a kilo of smack internally could presumably pack the same quantity of semtex in the same way – it does make me wonder whether it will only be a matter of time before every flight involves some official with surgical gloves, vaseline and the command to “bend over and spread ‘em”? Not a vision I particularly want to dwell on, but there is no telling where this general state of paranoia is leading us…
Cheers…
I reckon Laura points the way forward – nude flights. The love plane, anyone?
Yes, but do we really want to encourage nude conservatives?
Conservatives in the nude,my God what a thought.Please don’t tell me they have sex as well Geezzzzzzzzzz fucking Luise.Perish the thought.
“…do we really want to encourage nude conservatives?”
All conservatives are nude under their clothing, Anna. (Whoops, didn’t mean ta scare ya like that…)
“We like the world because we do.”
– Wallace Stevens
If ’twere nae worth liking, lassie, then ‘twould nae be worth conserving, eh?
Bikinis were named after the place where bombs were detonated.
This latest development in explosive lingerie therefore has an enormously satisfying circularity about it.
Who knows. One day bikinis may be called bombs.
Well, they are da bomb.
^ I love it
!!
“but there is no telling where this general state of paranoia is leading us…”
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. And it should be pretty obvious by now that they really are.
Yep, with their exploding breasts.
So, from a practical point of view, ought the high-risk profile contain all male crossdressers or only Islamic crossdressers?
And what about men who wear codpieces? Are they automatically suspect, regardless of faith?
Yes.
SMH blogger Jack Marx had an interesting take on the nudity concept earlier this week: http://blogs.smh.com.au/thedailytruth/archives/2006/08/the_phwoar_on_t.html