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Scary Toothbrush Prompts Shutdown of World's Busiest Airport
McGruber writes "The big buzz for travelers today is the story of how a scary toothbrush prompted the closure of Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport: 'Airport officials told Channel 2 Action News that an electric toothbrush began vibrating inside a bag checked onto an AirTran flight, causing workers to alert airport officials to the strange noise.' The terminal and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) subway were both temporary closed 'out of an abundance of caution.' ATL has been the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998, and by number of landings and take-offs since 2005."
It's nice to see that we haven't let the terrorists win... oh wait.
This is what happens when we let fear reign supreme. All common sense goes out the window.
Seriously, logic and common sense seem to go out of the window whenever air travel is involved. The conversation should have gone something like this:
Security Officer: Err, what's that buzzing noise
Passenger: Whoops, looks like my toothbrush turned on, I'll just turn it off
Note the distinct lack of mass panic and knee-jerk reactions.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Of course they shut down airports for no reason whatsoever because they have no motivation NOT to because they are paid by the government, not the airlines themselves.
A worker who is hired by the airline and reports to airline management is not going to overreact because an overreaction means that the airline loses money. On the other hand a TSA agent has no reason not to shut down an entire airport. I mean, what do they have to lose? It isn't their money, they'll get paid no matter what and the airline doesn't have a say in their hiring/firing decisions.
We really need to abolish the TSA and replace it with security guards who are hired by the airline itself and security policies decided by the airline itself. Thus allowing for passengers to choose where they feel safest, be it in an airplane where all the passengers are free to carry pistols if they so choose, or in an airplane where passengers are subjected to an intensive cavity search before boarding, or anywhere in between.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Cost who a million dollars?
Did they have to hire additional TSA agents?
Did they pay compensation to anyone for the delay?
Why can't these stupid TSA agents realize that if you hear buzzing its not a bomb. You won't hear the bomb that kills you.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What sort of idiot bombmaker would make a bomb that vibrated, ticked or had a big freaking waste of money LED showing a countdown? It's right up there with literally having a red wire and a blue wire. The extension of this, then, is what sort of idiot "airport official" closes an airport because he saw something vibrate?
No, people fly planes into buildings, people fly ships into space, and people do a great number of other things. What separates the ones flying planes into buildings from the ones flying spaceships is that the first group is crazy in a bad way, and being crazy in a bad way is wholly independent of religion.
For instance, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, identified his religion as science and claimed to be agnostic, the crusaders identified as Christian, and the 9/11 terrorists identified as Islamic (quick note: I'm not suggesting that science is a religion; rather, I'm suggesting that crazy acts can be perpetuated by someone regardless of their claimed religion or lack thereof). The most you could say is that certain religions attract that sort of crazy more often than others.