>> So other than possibly taking a few
>> moments of your time before boarding
>> your flight, it's business as usual.

If by "business as usual", you mean tactics with little grounding in scientific theory, I concur wholeheartedly.

Mr. Burns, do you ever stop and think about what you write, or are you like a parrot (with all due respect to those highly intelligent creatures) who merely mimics what he is told?

Now let's actually think for a bit ...

Suppose Mr. Terrorist did manage to smuggle his liquid explosives past your hawk-eyed screeners at the checkpoint. Why would he be holding the container at the gate, pretending to drink the "beverage"? It would be hidden away in his bags, of course.

Now since large liquid-filled drinking bottles are banned from the checkpoint, there are two possible sources for any beverage a passenger is drinking at the gate:

* The passenger has filled his empty bottle with water from the water fountain. A positive result from a test on such a drink would indicate some major issues with the municipal drinking supply, and an immediate call for all residents of the city to stop drinking tap water would inevitably need to be issued at once.

* A passenger has bought a drink from an airport vendor. These vendors -- Starbucks, Hudson News, etc. -- typically supply airports nationwide. A positive result from a test on such a beverage should necessarily lead to an immediate grounding of all the nation's planes, for it would indicate a plot involving a nationwide supplier of airport concessions.

That neither of these actions would come from a positive test result shows that these random tests are a sham.

They only benefit two classes of people: TSOs, for providing more work beyond staffing checkpoints; and vendors such as Smiths Detection, whose lobbyists have successfully convinced your bosses that without their equipment, planes would be falling daily from the skies.

I realize, Bob, that it is clear that you do not have the thinking capacity to understand any of this. Unfortunately, it is quite clear that no one at the TSA or DHS does either.