Chiniqua to FOX News: Drop Dead

Some asshole on FOX news wants to have "muslims only" lines at the airport. I told you these fuckers weren't kidding. What an ass.
Anyone who tells you this is ok is a racist.
Anyone who accuses you of being too PC or "soft on terror" is an idiot. They don't know security from shinola. Point out the white fucking elephant in the airplane safety wars, which is economics.

How so?
Let's start with cargo. Did you know that in every commercial plane there is an enormous amount of crap down in the hold that is being shipped from one place to another? Not luggage but unaccompanied cargo. And 90% of it is unscreened. The security around it is loose. No one seems to be especially motivated to do anything about this. Look - they say bullshit all the time about how it would be "impossible" to screen all the cargo. Of course it's possible. They screen all the damn people, don't they? And we move around and get all ornery and shit.

OK, next: Notice that in England they banned electronics from flights (for the time being). Apparently (and my chemistry skills are pretty much non-existent, so I'm just parroting here) the terrorists need some sort of electronic circuitry to make a detonator for their little bombs. Now I have some questions about that - like, if they're just gonna blow themselves and the whole plane up, why bother with a detonator? But anyway. So you can't bring on your laptop, your ipod, your camera etc. on board. Here at home, while we were only too happy to get rid of liquids, electronics remained fine.

Or how about a pretty decent suggestion - do the check against terror watch lists before boarding, like when the passenger buys the ticket - so that by the time they get the the airport they're already 80% cleared. That's what they do in Israel, I'm told. It works like this: you provide slightly more information when you buy your ticket (birth date, passport number) (and no, I'm not wild about that but it seems at least egalitarian, you know?) and all the computer checks and stuff are done in advance. This requires (obviously) purchasing your tickets a little ahead of time. For those that don't, fear not! You can still go, but you will be subjected to an extra level of scrutiny. Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

So why don't they screen cargo, ban electronics and do pre-airport checks?

Because the bulk of the money that airlines make is from business travel and cargo transportation. You, Madam Tourist in your Expedia.com restricted ticket bought last month, are a place holder - you staunch the bleeding. The money comes from Mr. Road Warrior jetting off to that important meeting in Portland. His secretary got his ticket yesterday and it's business class and it probably cost five or six times what yours did. And he needs his computer on board and he needs to get on and off that plane toute de fucking suite. Time is money after all. And the cargo? They can't use that space down in the hold for people. Filling it with stuff means $$. But the reason why stuff gets shipped via air is because it's fast. There's no point flying crap somewhere if it has to sit around and be screened for a day or two beforehand.

So if they implemented these measures, ones that might have a demonstrable effect on safety (although I'd like to go down on record as saying: you will NOT take my ipod away from me - I am not advocating electronics confiscation, just pointing out logical fallacies) it would seriously affect their bottom line, and that's not gonna happen. So instead we get our bullshit shoe X-rays and our redonk war on toothpaste.