Double Blind

I am currently at the Air Canada Lounge waiting for a trip out to LAX. This is the first trip I have taken by plane after the big terrorist scare in London. I am very happy to report that there is seemingly no chances in security procedures (i.e. nothing to delay what is already a fairly stupid process). However, the one change I can detect is the following:

At the airport lounge, there are two refrigerators. One carries soft drinks (pepsi, juices, etc.) while the other carries alcoholic beverages (beer and wine). The fridges are locked! You have to get an attendant to open up the fridge, and get them to pour you a glass of whatever and then they will put the remainder of the drink back in the fridge again (and then lock the fridge). You can carry the glass carrying the beverage you wanted wherever you want in the lounge (the area in the transborder lounge is very spacious and in case if you were a terrorist, nobody would see you pouring that liquid into a container).

I can’t believe what I am seeing. To make matters more interesting, they are serving a nice clam chowder (New England style, not the Manhattan crap) which is a nice thick consistency. They allow you to serve yourself this soup in a nice ceramic bowl. What distinguishes soda in a can versus soup in a bowl? Apparently the ability to take the can somewhere, while terrorists couldn’t be smart enough to put a cap on a glass and take it with them on board.

This is so pathetic I can’t even write anymore to describe how stupid the state of aviation security has become. Have we as a society become so risk intolerant that we can’t even drink pop out of a can anymore? How is this endangering a flight when there are six thousand other methods that terrorists can use to bring liquids on board?

Ultimately terrorists are to blame for this, but a close second comes governments and airport authorities that allow this stupidity to continue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.