TSA Log Shows Passengers Say the Darndest Things

coondoggie writes "There is no humor in an airport. It's a fact. And while most travelers business or otherwise know that, there are a few out there who haven't gotten the message or perhaps the choose to ignore it. Either way the 'People Say the Darndest Things' or 'What Not to Say at an Airport' section has become one of the more popular destinations on the TSA Blog site." The collected wit and wisdom of airline passengers linked unfortunately does not distinguish between stupidity (claiming that you have a bomb to get through security faster) and seemingly sensible questions that get at the heart of the problems with the current and long-running engagement of Homeland Security Theater. (It's also hard to know whether some passengers might have innocently thought their tone, facial expression, body language or context would have served as notice that they weren't actually threatening murder.)

Comments

Cool story bro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeats the same three anecdotes 11 times. Stupid people will say the word "bomb" sarcastically. Headline news.

Re:Cool story bro.

[daern]

Repeats the same three anecdotes 11 times. Stupid people will say the word "bomb" sarcastically. Headline news.

...and stupid people take them seriously.

Re:Cool story bro.

[khasim]

...and stupid people take them seriously.

They have to. Because they cannot rule out that someone crazy/stupid enough to bring a bomb on a plane would not also be crazy/stupid enough to brag about it.

And it also serves to discourage such jokes that make the other passengers uncomfortable. Because you are, literally, joking about killing them.

Re:Cool story bro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Detaining the person whose bag you just searched because s/he asked if you're looking for "a bomb or something" is not "being thorough"; it is "being a thug." That the person in question is joking is not a suspicion; it is a confirmed fact -- acting on it imparts precisely zero additional security / protection because, having just completed a search, you know that there is no bomb. Inference by way of tone and body language is not necessary, and there is precisely zero risk to simply ignoring the comment.

Acting on this does nothing but hold up one or more plane(s) of innocent, paying customers, and subject at least one of those passengers to a level of scrutiny largely reserved for murder suspects, all to satisfy a petty personal vendetta against a single individual.

Period. End of fucking discussion. Anything further is apologist bullshit likely typed out by some jackass in a TSA uniform.

Re:Cool story bro.

[AK Marc]

And a number of those were caused by what I've been told by officials is a federal crime (having checked baggage travel without the owner on the plane).

If I were Emperor of the Universe, I'd declare that anyone whose luggage goes "missing" be given a free ticket to wherever it landed. Going to HI and your luggage ends up in Cairo? Free trip to Cairo.

Re:Cool story bro.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Has anyone EVER been caught with a bomb after saying the word "bomb"? People have attempted to carry bombs on board (both successfully and unsuccessfully), but I've never heard of single terrorist plot that was deterred because of a Freudian slip.

Re:Cool story bro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything further is apologist bullshit likely typed out by some jackass in a TSA uniform.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a shill for the group you disagree with. Please stop saying things like this: you're making anyone who tries tries to have a discussion like an adult look bad.

Re:Cool story bro.

[sedmonds]

6oz of liquid? That's even worse than having a bomb!

Re:Cool story bro.

[SternisheFan]

"I've heard that our in-flight movie is a real bomb!"

- - -

"Hey! Let go of me!"

Re:Cool story bro.

[Minwee]

They have to. Because they cannot rule out that someone crazy/stupid enough to bring a bomb on a plane would not also be crazy/stupid enough to brag about it.

You know what else? You also cannot rule out that someone crazy or stupid enough to bring a bomb on a plane would _not_ say anything about it. So you'd better close down the airport and call in a SWAT team every time a passenger doesn't say anything about bombs.

Re:Cool story bro.

[Anonymous Coward]

The alternative position is untenable absent personal bias or other, similar motivation. Disagreement over this point is simply not honest, as any objective person with an IQ above room temperature could tell you. As such, I am not insulting "everyone who disagrees with [me]"; I am insulting apologist, bullshit, jackasses, and rightfully so.

That some other Anon may have an issue with that will, I assure you, cause no lack of sleep for this Anon. You're welcome to ignore these posts if you find the prose offensive.

Re:Cool story bro.

[fahrbot-bot]

And a number of those were caused by what I've been told by officials is a federal crime (having checked baggage travel without the owner on the plane).

Of course, compaines ship other people's packages on commercial flights all the time w/o the owner on board, and many of those packages undergo less-rigorous screening than passengers and their checked luggage. From: How safe is the cargo on passenger flights?

While much airport security is concentrated on screening passengers and their checked bags, about half the hold on a typical passenger flight is filled with cargo. In fact, over a third of cargo by volume that entered the United States in 2010 was shipped on passenger jets, according to the Department of Transportation. That is 3.7 billion tons. Another 7.2 billion tons of air cargo came in on all-cargo aircraft, according to the DOT.

And the screening requirements for such cargo are not as strict as they are for passengers and their checked bags.

Most of the cases described in the article involve in-bound international flights, and there is a US law requiring 100% screening of all cargo, even US officials admit that the screenings would have caught some of the items discussed in the article.

Under TSA guidelines, cargo screening can involve a variety of methods including physical inspection, dogs, a variety of single-view or multiview X-ray machines, and "explosive trace detection" ... (but) Physical inspection of every package is impractical given the volume of cargo...

Re:Cool story bro.

[sycodon]

Has anyone been caught with a bomb period?

All I hear about is test fake bombs that get through.

Re:Cool story bro.

[Nyder]

Repeats the same three anecdotes 11 times. Stupid people will say the word "bomb" sarcastically. Headline news.

...and stupid people take them seriously.

If you had your hands in your pocket and a cop pulls a gun on you and tells you to take your hands out of your pockets, are you going to say, sarcastically, "But I have a gun in my pocket?" or "my gun will fall out" or something about having a fucking gun?

Sarcastically or not, joking about bombs when you are trying to board an airplane is stupid, i mean, really fucking stupid.

Re:Cool story bro.

[cygnwolf]

The impression I get from your previous post is that you feel you are always right and your word is law, and anyone disagreeing with you about anything at all is not just wrong, they're lying. Now, I at least partially agree with your previous comments about being a Thug for detaining a person for asking what you were looking for, but most of the incidents in TFA were not someone asking 'Were you looking for a bomb or something?" they were people saying "hey, there's a bomb in my bag", something completely different. And yes, I looked through them. Ony 3 out of the 30 seemed to have worded the question 'what if there was a bomb' or 'there could have been a bomb'. The remaining 30 examples in TFA were all someone claiming to have a bomb, gun, or similiar item, or to be a terrorist, or to have knowledge of someone else's bomb on the plane. NONE of these qualify for your What are you looking for, a Bomb or something example. In all of those 30 situations, even if you have already searched, the person who said that just confessed to having contraband that you missed, and more complete search is called for . This is undeniable. For all you know, when they later claim 'it was a joke' they could be trying to cover up an inadvertant slip of the tounge. Sure, Zero Tolerance Policies like this don't leave any room for the agent to intrepret what the person meant. That is kind of the point of a Zero Tolerance Policy. There is no risk of a judgement call being the wrong decision.

Re:Cool story bro.

[sconeu]

Or what if I had a DVD of the movie "Ishtar"? Could I legitimately say I had a bomb in my bag?

Re:Cool story bro.

[Solandri]

Detaining the person whose bag you just searched because s/he asked if you're looking for "a bomb or something" is not "being thorough"; it is "being a thug."

I suspect the agents have very little say in the matter. It's probably TSA policy that any statement about a bomb, even if perceived to be in jest, is supposed to be treated as if serious. The point isn't really to single out people who make jokes about a bomb. It's to single out people who aren't behaving normally. And joking about a bomb in your bag simply isn't normal behavior (as witnessed by how few cases have been recorded). It wouldn't be the first time a terrorist used social engineering to get a bomb aboard. And TSA policy is probably to detain anyone who might be using social engineering.

Disclaimer: I think airport security is security theater which provides no benefit aside from keeping the masses calm, and the TSA is led by people who don't realize this and take their jobs way too seriously. But if you accept that they're going to take their jobs seriously, then treating jokes about bombs as a potential threat is consistent behavior.

Re:Cool story bro.

[crakbone]

The problem with zero tolerance is the world is not black and white. true the large number of people saying they have a bomb as a joke should get the full treatment. But just asking if your searching for a bomb, or do you think I have a bomb is not a threat or should even be treated as one. The comment "I hope the residue doesn't show up on the test." is just as innocent. The could be a miner, a farmer, special effects expert, fireworks technician, or just gone shooting. That is not a threat. Asking questions or non-threatening statements should not cause an airport to be shutdown or criminal prosecution.

Re:Cool story bro.

[onyxruby]

When I first got out of high school I worked as a security guard in a bank skyscraper. We had a form for people calling in bomb threats as this was one of the tallest buildings in a large metropolitan area and it attracted it's share of nutcases.

One of the very first questions that we would ask callers is what their name is. People instinctively answer certain questions with Freudian slips all the time and the bank knew this. You would be surprised how many people got arrested after answering that question.

We never had a real threat of course, just the crazies who should have been in the loony bin.

Agents do have some latitude

[damn_registrars]

I was going through security one time and had to be patted down. The guy behind me in line decided to be a joker and made a comment along the lines of "they could at least give you a drink for this!". I was really expecting them to unleash the dogs on him for that, but they let him through with just the usual scan. I'm not sure if he would have been so lucky had we been at a larger airport.

So I would say the TSA agents do have some latitude on what they do - but I wouldn't recommend testing it if you want to make it on time to your flight.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[operagost]

I'm not sure if he would have been so lucky had we been at a larger airport.

Why? Are we supposed to show obeisance to the stormtroopers of our overlords?

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[gstoddart]

I was really expecting them to unleash the dogs on him for that

Well, there's little room to interpret buying you a drink as anything threatening.

But the people who make jokes about having bombs or firearms? Well, that's just stupidity on their behalf, because it won't be taken well. You might as well go to a women's crisis center and make rape jokes -- they're just not going to work.

I've long since learned that at an airport, it's best to just play it cool, and be seen to be non-threatening or angry with them. Untie the shoes before you even get called, make sure you know what's in your pockets so you can remove it (a shocking amount of people don't seem to know what they're carrying), smile at them -- they may be idiots with no real training in some cases, but they respond to polite a whole lot better.

Some people seem to think it's a good time to make a political statement or otherwise act like an ass. It's your choice to do that, but certain kinds of jokes with these kinds of people are never going to be taken nicely. Hell, even "Airplane" in 1980 was making the "Hi, Jack!" jokes, and that was long before people got ramped up to the current state.

On the other hand, I once had a TSA agent become very interested in the my GPS for golf after he'd examined it. A friendly chat and a quick product endorsement, and I was on my way.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[Anonymous Coward]

You really expected them to react to that line?

My last experience involved a pat-down with a TSA agent at MIA. He asked me, "May I ask what your objections are to the scanner?" I said, "No, you may not."

Didn't go over well. Got a 20 minute lecture on why I should just trust the scanner. I didn't really react which made him angry.

He was a Cuban guy and he was starting to make me angry. I caught myself about to make some potentially racist remark along the lines of "This may be acceptable where you came from, but it's not here." Instead I took a deep breath and asked him if I was free to go.

The guy was going full jerk by now and yelling at me to remove my items from the area. I had them in my hands and was stepping away before he could even finish the sentence.

Flying again in a week. Joy joy.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[preaction]

Yes, though they prefer to be called "Our Benefactors". Now pick up that can.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[gstoddart]

That's hard for some people when you find out that your conecting flight has your luggage, but you are 30 seconds late to board, so all your belongings are headed on, but not you.

That's odd, because for the last 10 years, when they're calling the flight and if you don't come to the desk, they say they'll pull your luggage. They're not supposed to let your luggage fly without you. If they're putting your luggage on and not you, I think they're in violation of FAA policy.

And, the people you need to be angry with are the agents of the airlines NOT the security folks. The customer dis-service reps deserve a little ire now and then. But getting into it with security is just asking for trouble.

I've been flying long enough that I allocate *lots* of time to make connecting flights -- like 1.5-2 hours minimum to absorb any delays, more if it's winter or an international flight. Mostly because I've learned you need to account for delays and other things which work against you.

Any time I see someone who allocated 20 minutes to catch a connecting flight, I just shake my head, because it was never realistic for you to make that connection in the first place. In some airports it can take more than that to get to your next gate if it's in a different concourse.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[gstoddart]

Are you an idiot? Nice false dilemma there skippy.

Yes, I voluntarily work in a field which occasionally requires air travel, because it pays better than McDonald's.

I could choose to be a wage slave and work for shit money because it wouldn't involve air travel, but that wouldn't get me anywhere. You could choose to not be so thick.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[cervesaebraciator]

You know, I gotta say that as somebody who travels all over the country for work, the people who get the hassle from the TSA are the people like you who think they're being cute, funny, or "proving a point" by being a smart-ass to the TSA agent, and cracking jokes about weapons, or sexual assault.

This is very likely true. Given my temperament, I try to be polite and get on my way in situations like this and I am rarely if ever hassled. Even so, we've a real problem if being a smart-ass is grounds for suspicion. Talk of bombs and weapons aside, if TSA agents are groping someone and he chooses to crack wise about being molested, that is no excuse for getting hassled by said agents. To be detained or delayed for such is an attempt on the part of the agent or the agency to chill free speech.

You might get aggravated by such smart-ass grandstanding--I probably would a bit myself were I waiting in line--but the real people responsible for the delay aren't the smart-asses but the policy-makers and those they choose to execute their policies. Nothing is so clear a sign of the loss of civil liberty and the rule of law as people in authority who can treat heckling as suspect.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[matrim99]

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
- George W. Bush

I believe that this quote sums up the frame of mind that justifies making casual comments about any national security issues potential threats themselves (the comments).

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[seepho]

It's ridiculous that it's gotten to the point where you should act non-threatening and nice to people? While there is a degree of absurdity in the fact that a dude with a paper badge has authority over you, if all you have to do to avoid the wrath of that authority is not be a dick I'd say it's not a big deal. Why not save your protest for someone who can the policy you disagree with, rather than manifesting your civil disobedience as sarcastic remarks to the guy who is power tripping on his menial job?

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[RougeFemme]

And the smart terrorists would know this. But I'm sure there are dumb ones out there, especially domestic ones. Or dumb wanna-be terrorists, whether domestic or not. Just because we don't hear about them doesn't mean they don't exist and don't get caught. And no, I'm not a fan of the TSA.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[cheekyjohnson]

When you're so terrified of the government that you can't even make a joke without fear of being punished by it, I think something is very, very wrong. And to think that all this is because people are afraid of a nearly nonexistent threat...

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[cheekyjohnson]

People who travel frequently hate the guys like you because you disrupt the line, distract security, and waste our time - we wish you'd get ball cancer and die.

Actually, it's the TSA who is disrupting the line with their nonsense. Who's violating people's rights? The TSA, of course. Who is holding the line up? The TSA, of course.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[nospam007]

"I'm no Bush fan, but I don't think he ever said that."

There's a wikipedia page about that sentence from him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[Darinbob]

The policy makers aren't at fault because they policies aren't being followed. There is no policy that says to hassle passengers who aren't properly subservient, but the employees do that because they're given a position of power with no supervision or adequate training. You think you hate standing in line, they do that all day long and are bored enough that they'll make a scene just to have something to do.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[flimflammer]

The sad thing is that you are exactly the kind of person the government wants. The poster child of the hopefully voting population. You simply roll over and accept anything that happens to you because you can't be bothered to question anything.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[cervesaebraciator]

There is no policy that says to hassle passengers who aren't properly subservient, the employees do that because they're given a position of power with no supervision or adequate training.

Yes, people (in this case employees) will do what they can get away with. I agree with this and everything you say thereafter. But part of crafting good policy is ensuring accountability as part of that policy. A policy which puts people in power without adequate supervision and training--as well as regular means of ensuring these are implemented--is a faulty policy. Any curative would require policy changes (in oversight,guidelines, management procedures, hiring requirements, transparency, redundancies, etc.). The responsibility for making such changes and therefore the responsibility for continued delay until changes are made rests with the policy-makers.

Re:Agents do have some latitude

[aug24]

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate"

Print version

[XxtraLarGe]

The layout of this article was awful. Here's the print version so you can see them all on one page.

That article...

[Anonymous Coward]

...was the bomb.

Nothing new, really

[wcrowe]

The first time I flew was in the 70's and I can remember seeing signs at the security checkpoints warning against joking about guns or bombs. It's not something distinctive to the TSA.

Re:Nothing new, really

[Reverand Dave]

They've never taken kindly to joking at the airport, but it wasn't until relatively recently that you'd be dragged off, finger fucked, and arrested for doing so. That's really the difference.

Re:Nothing new, really

[Mitreya]

The first time I flew was in the 70's and I can remember seeing signs at the security checkpoints warning against joking about guns or bombs. It's not something distinctive to the TSA.

I was not around in the 70s, but I am guessing that the worst you were looking at was a stern talking by a security agent

TSA could probably have you put away for 10-20 years. Or, at the very least, put you on a no-fly list as a lesson for joking (no review or appeal against being on no-fly list)

Re:Nothing new, really

[alexo]

Proverbs 21:19

Yes, I know that it is completely off-topic, and I don't usually comment on people's signatures, but yours got me intrigued.
Can you at least tell me who they were playing against?

Here's the deal

[Rob the Bold]

OK. Here's the deal. If they take it seriously and believe me when I say "I have a bomb," then why would they distrust me when I say "I don't have a bomb or gun or knife or anything dangerous" and let me skip the screening. Really, WTF? They're gonna search everyone, right? Then why the fuck do they care what they say? Because catching smartasses is easier than catching terrorists?

Re:Here's the deal

[AK Marc]

What's funny is that initially, the threat was prosecuted as a threat. But for a threat to be illegal, it must be credible. So they made new laws to make jokes illegal. Don't worry, it's just a free speech zone. No free speech in airports.

It's all just CYA.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Yeah, yeah, it's really dumb to suggest you have a bomb at the airport. But, in reality, if a terrorist was trying to detonate a bomb at the airport or on a plane, they wouldn't tell anyone. The whole reason for the overreaction from the TSA is because they think if there really was a bomb they would look extra dumb if it turned out the terrorist told them about the bomb and they still didn't find it.

If some guy says he has a bomb, but he clearly doesn't, he's either an idiot or trying to create a distraction. By closing down the airport, you either allow his idiocy to cause real damage to the economy and inconvenience people. If he was trying to create a distraction, you allowed him to succeed.

Obviously if someone might actually be a real threat, you do what needs to be done to keep people safe. But in every single one of these cases, it seems that it could be ascertained fairly quickly that they pose no real threat even if they suggested they might. I don't mind questioning these idiots in the back for a few hours, but let everything else continue normally.

Re:It's all just CYA.

[vux984]

So, I'm walking through security, and I've got a plastic 500ml bottle of CocaCola about 75% empty.

Security person watches me take another sip, then confiscates it, and tosses it in a basket at her feet.

I was annoyed, and she provoked me with something like "You didn't think you were bringing that on the plane did you?"

I replied almost without thinking...

"If its so dangerous you can't risk allowing it on a plane I'm surprised you are comfortable leaving it in a bin next to you."

Fortunately all i got back was a dirty look, but it really crystallized for me just how stupid the rules were. That so many people here are advising to just "follow the rules and keep your head down" is truly pathetic.

Re:It's all just CYA.

[TsuruchiBrian]

North Korea is saying they are going to pre-emptively strike the USA with nuclear weapons. Why aren't we all building/hiding in bomb shelters right now?

Re:It's all just CYA.

[RivenAleem]

What few people realise is that this may very well be exactly what the terrorists want.

Every day you hear a comment along the lines of "this now sets up the perfect scenario where a terrorist can blow up a big queue of people at a security checkpoint"

But what's not said is that this continuing erosion of free thinking, the indoctrination of "follow the rules, do as you are told" is the ultimate victory for the terrorist. We are in such constant fear of them that we have given up our freedom, surrendered it willingly to them.

I'm from, and living in, Ireland. For years we wouldn't go to Belfast for fear that that would be the one day a bomb would go off in a shopping centre. I also won't go to America for holidays, because I don't want to be finger-printed, scanned, groped whatever, treated like a criminal for wanting to spend money there. There are so many more places in the world I can visit (I haven't gone all around Europe yet) where they seem genuinely happy to have you come over and visit you. Even the French don't mind if you can't speak much French, when you are a paying customer!

Terrorists are not going to upset what they worked so hard to achieve. The cost to the US, both economically and socially is so high that the best thing for them is to keep it going as is.

Re:It's all just CYA.

[Muad'Dave]

North Korea is saying they are going to pre-emptively strike the USA with nuclear weapons. Why aren't we all building/hiding in bomb shelters right now?

Because their 'attack the US' map has the ICBMs not taking great-circle routes. Some NK PR flunky hacked that map together with a Mercator projection and a ruler. Here is the GC route from Pyongyang to Austin, TX, one of the cities supposedly on the list.

I'll save you all some time

[Voyager529]

None of them are actually funny, at least in print. Nearly all involve passengers attempting to say "I have a bomb" in a humorous manner in some capacity. Now I'd love to see the TSA abolished as much as the next Slashdotter, but I for one don't find bomb jokes funny in the context of an airport.

Now, if you want to read something regarding airlines that are actually funny, might I recommend either this or this, or this.

claiming you have a bomb to go faster?

[roman_mir]

So some people claim they have a bomb to go through a security theatre zone faster? Where are they rushing to? Gitmo?

Re:"Yes, there's a shell bomb in my laptop..."

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Sure. They will just call the bomb squad, who will blow up your laptop in a bomb proof container. You will get the bill of the operation, probably some jail time and lose a laptop...

Damn. And I almost contemplated telling them that I'm bringing Occam's razor on board in my head as well. *That* would have been really messy!

Re:In all these cases

[spire3661]

You obviously are not human and never had said silly things while stressed. For some people, the TSA security checkpoint is a giant source of anxiety. Couple that with the fact that what they are doing is not strictly Constitutional, you can understand why people are going to be silly sometimes.

Last time I checked US was not a Police State

[WillAffleckUW]

We're a Police State Superpower.

There's a difference.

They x-rayed my burrito

[xeno]

A few years ago I made the mistake of grabbing something to eat outside the SeaTac security theater zone when I was in a hurry. There was no line (very late at night) but the flight was leaving soon, so I asked "Does my burrito constitute a 'tube of gel' or can I take it through to the boarding area?" Three luggage monkeys wearing aviator glasses at night and a harrumphing silverback later, they came to a conclusion.

They x-rayed my burrito.

How is it possible for me to take them seriously? I do risk management for a living, and -- while my jackass question and their retarded response was funny at the time -- there's no way to examine the situation that doesn't indicate heightened overall risk due to bewildered agents looking for irrelevant indicators. Sure, morons joking about a bomb and the forgetful gun-toter need to be weeded out, but neither is a material risk to the lives of anyone on a flight. A good revamp of the TSA would start from undesirable risk outcomes and work its way back to a determination of effective controls... nah. Not gonna happen.

My friend Jack

[mindcandy]

Never greet him at the airport.

Re:Don't go to the TSA blog!!!!1

[AK Marc]

My father (a lawyer) defended a woman once who did just that. She had a permit for it and traveled on bus to go from Detroit to Dallas, and when flying back, forgot to take it out of her handbag. Given the things I've found in my wife's handbag, I can believe it. She traveled for a family emergency and initially didn't pack for a flight at all.

Some TSA Agents

[TheBrando]

I always thought all TSA agents lacked a sense of humor, until my last trip to the airport that is. It was 6:30 in the morning and I had just passed through the body scanner. The TSA agent told me to wait. Then he told me I could continue. While picking up my stuff from the x-ray machine I turned back to him and asked, "Could you see my junk on the screen?" I was surprised he busted out laughing instead of putting me in hand cuffs.

XKCD

[Alarash]

You know you thought about this. http://xkcd.com/651/

Re:In all these cases

[Lithdren]

So....is it safe to say their joke bombed?

No? Hey, let me go!

Playlist Time

[unfortunateson]

I've been trying to come up with the all-time best "Not to sing along to in the TSA line" playlist. Amongst the top songs:

* Janie's Got a Gun - Aerosmith
* Boom Boom Boom Boom - Dr. John
* If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn
* Shot With His Own Gun - Elvis Costello (actually about consequences of sex, which makes it doubly good for this list "No, sir, I'm singing a song about a girl getting pregnant!")
* I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
* Tear Down the Wall - Pink Floyd
* Rosalita - Bruce Springsteen ("You pick up Little Dynamite, I'm gonna pick up Little Gun")
* Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band

What else? No rap please, it's just too easy.

Re:Playlist Time

[PhxBlue]

Also, never bring Susan Ivanova with you through airport security.

Dilbert

[BarryHaworth]

An old problem, as Dilbert discovered.

heh

[Khashishi]

I'm going to open a bottle of dihydrogen monoxide once the plane gets off the ground.