Oh, boy, I'm sorry - I should have known better. I didn't mean to start a war. <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

But let's look at your statements - why on earth shouldn't the rent-a-cops let card-carrying Al Qaeda members board the plane carrying an ice-pick? Seriously? What's he gonna do with it?

"they killed thousands on 911 with $2 box cutters"? Big deal. I could kill tens of thousands with my finger - if they'd sit still and let me. Do you know how much warning the passengers on the fourth flight had? 35 minutes - that's how late the plane was in taking off. The 35 minutes spelt the difference between the hijackers crashing it into the White House, and crashing it into an uninhabited forest.

The weapon the hijackers used on September 11 wasn't boxcutters - it was surprise. Nobody expected it. (Why, I don't know. In hindsight, it was inevitable.) The problem with surprise is that, unless your enemy is terminally stupid, it's a weapon that can only be used once.

I've pointed out several times, and so have others, that you can still buy glass bottles inside the security perimeter. A broken bottle is a much deadlier and scarier weapon than a $2 boxcutter. But nobody's tried to repeat the Sept. 11 attacks using broken bottles - why not? Because they'd get their asses handed to them by the passengers.

What could a hijacker do with an ice-pick nowadays? He might be able to kill a couple of passengers, but again, so what? He could do a better job in a shopping mall in Boise, and he'd stand a better chance of getting away. Why does it become a national security issue just because it happens on an airplane in flight?

Look at El Al - 31 years to the month before the WTC attacks, two Palestinian hijackers tried to take over an El Al airliner. And they weren't armed with boxcutters - they had guns and bombs. One flight attendant was shot five times (but survived). Wanna know what happened?

The pilot, Captain Uri Bar-Lev, warned the Air Marshals to fasten their seatbelts, then he pulled a maximum negative-G manoeuver which threw the hijackers at the ceiling. (At negative 4-G in an airliner, it's equivalent to being dropped on your head from 12 feet up, and you have less than a third of a second to react.) One hijacker died, the other was knocked unconscious and woke up in handcuffs.

El Al pilots lock themselves in the cabin before the passengers board, and they don't come out until the passengers have deplaned. El Al won't say whether they carry guns in the cabin.

Most El Al Flight Attendants are ex-military and have combat training. You pull an ice pick on that cute 5'2" brunette who served your coffee and she'll probably feed it to you point first.

Wanna know what's so great about that type of security? NOBODY EVEN NOTICES IT'S THERE UNLESS THEY GET HIJACKED.

The security that's been implemented in North America is not even bad security - it's ugly security. It's obnoxious, it's in-your-face, it's all for show. It's a knee-jerk reaction that was never properly thought out. Somebody went "Weapons bad, 2-hour line-ups good" and never considered that those 2-hour line-ups may kill more innocent people than the hijackers did on Sept. 11.