Here's a suggestion for the idiots who would rather risk being blown out of the sky than have an image of their body displayed on an airport scanner:
Next time you need to travel across the country, take a Greyhound or Trailways bus.
Rather than face such a journey again, I am certain that the world's most modest traveller would happily submit to a full body-cavity-strip-search in front of an entire airport.
3 comments:
I'm quite honored to become a "Joe Karson idiot"!
Not that I mind showing my business to strangers... no not that at all. It is the numbing down of Americans to authority figures as we continue our insidious slide into an Orwellian future.
You must know of course that the risk of getting cancer from one of these things is about the same as actually getting blown out of the sky by a terrorist? TSA is citing something like 1 in 100 million will get cancer. Scientists looking at how you can get an image like these machines do figure as much as 20 times more xrays than TSA figures.. so with 700 million passengers traveling a year, there's somewhere between 7 and 140 people who will get cancer a year - depending on how you parse your statistics.
This isn't including those 1 out of 20 individuals susceptible to xrays - whose chromosomes don't repair, or those subjected to above normal levels from other sources.
The statistic of how rare it would be for actually getting killed in this country by a terrorist means there's no need for these machines, which by many accounts would not have caught the underwear bomber. (I'm not providing links to all these things I'm layin' down but could - you can google them but if you want me to - I'll throw some out.. NPR has several articles on these points.) Flying mostly out of Alaska would probably mean even lower risk than say New Yorkers. If there was a 9-11 type event every year, with 3000 dead every year from terrorists, you would still be more likely to die from murder or a car accident. I doubt you are arguing that we should put Breathalyzers in all cars for a condition of driving, but that would save many more lives than will ever be killed by terrorists.
Americans are becoming scared out of their undies by a media constantly hammering this terrorism thing - you have been influenced by it. Americans also are into authority worship. I assume you are more the former since you seem worried about getting blown out of the sky but your blog indicates perhaps some skepticism of authority.
There will be no end of what the gov. and TSA go to as the terrorists try out new things. The way to stop it is the way that has worked. Intelligence - building good relationships with the countries that spawn these devils. It would have worked on 9-11 too since there were plenty of intelligence warning it was going to happen - it was just that nobody listened. Now we can't ship large ink printers. Next it will be a box of new shoes. Next a fishing pole tube. I look forward to the day we fly nude, but they better have the heat up. I'll still grumble though because it won't be because everybody is doing it for fun but because our overlords are telling us to.
Your friend, JD
Large ink cartridges I meant.. ;-)
Good points all.
I was unaware of the added x-ray risk from these machines--mostly reacting to the prudish, puritanical American attitude about the human body.
Yes,the best way to stop terrorism is by changing our national policies,but i'm afraid that will require a degree of enlightenment far beyond our grasp.
Rather than preventing trouble, TSA and the government will continue merely REACTING with more military intervention and more technology at the airport--it's all these people know,and I'm sure that intrusions into our lives will keep growing.
Osama is laughing his ass off.
If our country had more "idiots" like you, we'd be in a lot better shape.
Thanks for the info,
hang in there,
Joe
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