I took this photo at a major US airport recently. No caption is necessary.

What we see is at once hilarious, sad and perhaps deeply worrying. Do I need to explain? This is the state of airport security in the United States of America, and we, as American citizens, have allowed this to happen. Not only have we become willingly subjugated cowards, we've clearly lost our minds.

For my full essay on airport security, see here...

http://www.askthepilot.com/essays-an...y-on-security/

PS

I can't see your photo, but I did see a "no snow globes" sign departing LGA on Delta Shuttle. Geez Louise. Although I suppose it theoretically makes as much sense as a water bottle with some incendiary material.

I read every word until I got to the WBI part and you said they were effective. Then I started skimming and you said the puffer machines were good and we needed more. Then I skipped sentences and you said there shoud be more profiling and that the BDO's are a good idea, albeit bad at finding badguys. It's then that I stopped reading. It was good until your lost me tho.

That was obviously an attempt at comedy on the OP's part.

They were slow and stupid, but at least they detected stuff without forcing people to undress and show their private parts to pervert screeners.

OK, anybody who thinks that BDOs are a good idea, or that their program is the least bit effective is certainly no mental giant... It doesn't take a genius to realize that to date the program has detected and/or stopped no terrorists, and that the whole program is a waste of money (heck, TSA as a whole hasn't caught any either).

BDOs have had plenty of chances to "show their stuff" with detecting stressed out people who have caused other incidents that have happened on planes (like the JetBlue FA of yesterday) and have summarily failed at their jobs. What could possibly make anyone think that they could catch a real bad guy, especially when nobody is required to interact with them?

I saw the sign at MSY yesterday.

Someone told me that snowglobes, (even tiny ones), were considered HAZMAT because the liquid inside contained glycerin to make the snow fall slower. I'm not sure how "volatile" that makes it, but using the same logic, hand lotion/perfume of all sizes should be considered HAZMAT as well.

Given the nanny state we are in, I doubt something for children would be HAZMAT, although certain hand lotions will produce a positive ETD test.

I can tell you why they were put at LGA. Mostly it is for the Central Terminal Building where stores pre-security will sell you a globe and not tell you they are not allowed through the checkpoint. When people go back to the stores they can't get a refund.

The policy is nationwide so I'm not going to argue it. The signs were put up as a service to the passengers.

This policy may indeed be nationwide, and I suppose its arguable that it is helpful to some domestic passengers, but those of us transferring from an international to a domestic leg that are forced to undergo tsa scrutiny on return to the US don't really have the option of rechecking a bag if a snow globe is found in our cabin baggage. All in all it's an idiotic rule and just one of the reasons why the dhs and tsa must be eliminated by any means necessary.