@Randem

Tuesday marked the beginning of a new year, and that means new regulations. Yes, our friends in the government have stepped up their vigilance in the war against photography - er, I mean terror. Starting with the beginning of this year, they won’t allow you to bring spare lithium batteries on your plane. Naturally, they don’t say why. So if you’re flying out to do some photography, you’d better make sure it can all be done on one battery.

Last September, Scott Kelby wrote about his experience in Minneapolis/St. Paul where TSA agents made him remove his DSLR camera from his camera bag and place it on the scanning belt separately, the way that you have to with laptops. Then they dusted his camera bag for explosives! They claimed this was part of a new policy instated in August which few airports have actually implemented. (Sounds like bullshit to me.)

It all kind of makes you wonder if some property of the lithium batteries doesn’t react well to the new security scanners. I wouldn’t be surprised if the batteries had a characteristic that prevented the scanners from seeing behind them, making them some sort of camouflage for other forbidden materials. I may just have to find myself a lithium battery from somewhere and take it with me next time I fly, just to see if they actually even notice.

Oh, how boring would my life be if I didn’t have the TSA to keep me entertained? Just like last time, these ever-vigilant defenders of justice have thwarted a deviously masterminded plan to sneak a cup of coffee on board an airplane, clearly violating that most important of safety regulations: no liquids.

Well thank God our heroes of the airways stopped that passenger from drinking all that coffee, because he had a box-cutter. If he’d been allowed to get all wired and jittery on caffeine, while cramped into that tiny space on board the plane, he might have gone crazy!

I’m starting to see the logic. I mean what other possible catastrophes may have been thwarted thanks to the liquid ban?

• Too-much-aftershave-guy can’t bring his Aqua Velva in his carry on, preventing the people next to him from getting fed up with the scent and going ape shit at 30,000 feet.
• Kids can’t bring their 400-oz aluminum can of energy drink with them, so they get tired of kicking the seat in front of them after an hour or so, instead of three or four hours, causing the person seated in front of them to go ape shit at 30,000 feet.
• Pet lovers won’t be able to put their goldfish in a bag of water and fly it with them on vacation. Sure, maybe the fish will die from not being fed, but at least it won’t cause the cat in the lap of the person next to you to go ape shit at 30,000 feet and scratch up everyone in the cabin.
• Vegetable oil, which kills you from the inside, will definitely not be clogging any arteries, making your heart go ape shit at 30,000 feet.
• No shampoo, so there won’t be any women getting naked and shampooing their hair with Herbal Essesnces, causing some sex-starved maniac to go ape shit at 30,000 feet.
• There will be no sun-tan lotion, relieving you of the temptation to climb out onto the wing and work on your tan at 30,000 feet.

The last bastions of hope in our defense against hijacking hijinks, the TSA, have proven once again that safety and security are not possible with bureaucracy.

In their latest caper, those wild-and-zany protectors of our freedom ran a passenger’s bag through the security scanner and saw something that looked suspicious. The scanner operator waved over another TSA employee, who confirmed the suspiciousness of the item on the scanner. Lucy! You got some ’splainin to do! The passenger had brazenly tried to carry a container of pudding on board the airplane, and it would have worked, too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.

The crusaders of justice had prevailed, thwarting another evil attempt to carry a liquid onto an airplane. Freedom has been protected. Americans can sleep safely at night, confident that Bin Laden and his brood won’t get past our defenses.

Later in the day, after his first flight and before his connecting flight, our passenger was rummaging through his bag in search of a pen, when he discovered he had inadvertently left a knife with a four-inch blade in his bag. One can only presume that possession of a stabby-stab knife of stabbing is not nearly as big a threat to our national security as a pudding. Maybe it’s the calories.