Wednesday, January 06, 2010

This From Canada

I was elated to learn that both Canada and Great Britain will not allow children 18 or under to undergo the full body scan. Why? It violates their laws regarding photographing children in the nude. Ahem. Especially since the monitors are in plain view of anyone who passes. It's a start.

An opinion piece in The Globe and Mail takes all this flurry about airport security and puts it in proper perspective. Remember now that both the Christmas day bomber and the shoe bomber boarded their repective planes in a country other than ours!

The writer, Margaret Wente, tells of the degree of absurdity in Canada via her sister who is a screener. It seems in someones infinite wisdom bottles of maple syrup resemble bombs. Therefore every time a tourist comes through security with a bottle of syrup, which is often in Canada, a supervisor has to inspect it to make sure it is in fact maple syrup.

That's right up there with confiscating play dough from six year olds in this country. To make matters even worse, play dough is not on the prohibited substance list, but the TSA screener has the right to confiscate it anyway. In fact TSA screeners have the right to confiscate anything they so desire. Another good reason to play sheep and not aggravate them!

I'd like to borrow a quote from Ms. Wente, for she sums it all up far better than I can.
Neither Barack Obama nor anybody else in authority is willing to state the plain and simple facts: that Islamism is on the rise worldwide, that the vast majority of terrorists who attack the West are young Muslim men, that such young men are a demographic time bomb in the Islamic world, that no security system can ever stop them all. Instead of telling us to hold our bladders, maybe they should start to tell the truth – even if it costs my maple-syrup-weary sister a job.
Amen to that!

2 comments:

Betty said...

I agree. We might as well resign ourselves to the fact that if a terrorist wants to do damage in this country, he/she'll find a way to come in, or may already be here, for all we know. Of course, we must do all we can, but I don't think we need to pat down or scan the elderly Americans in order to stay safe. It may not be to our liking, but we need to concentrate our efforts by a certain amount of profiling. Even then, there is only so much we can do.

Rinkly Rimes said...

I feel the urge to blow oneself up should be treated as an illness. If an illness only strikes part of the human race then just scan members of that part and don't worry the rest of us. But I suppose that would be racist!

Your word verification is nicksom! Add an 'e' and it could easily say 'Nick some!'Wish we could!