Airport
Idiocy
Now that the holiday get togethers are over and the world has gotten back to normal I thought I would get over here and say hi to everyone to got to enjoy the recent airport security fiascos, as I did.
My mother arrived into
town on Christmas day. And, like any good son, I picked her up from the airport.
Happily, she made it safe and sound into LAX and we had a lovely visit.
Unfortunately, I had to return her to the fiasco that is the LA International
Airport on the following Saturday. And this is where the real nightmare began.
It seems that with the higher terrorist warnings there came increased security measures that fucked up everyone's day. Now, I wouldn't bitch about it except that the security measures were incredibly stupid, inefficient and increased the likelihood that a terrorist group might effectively kill thousands of people before they even got off the ground.
You see, upon arrival at the airport, the traffic was nearly halted. Police were checking people and cars, creating a hell of a good traffic jam. Essentially, traffic in and out of the airport was a nightmare and at a near standstill.
Once in the airport, itself, the lines were staggeringly long. People had to wait in staggeringly long lines to get themselves checked into the airport so that they could board their respective flights. Nearly everyone seemed to be directed into one line, only to find out that they were, in fact, in the wrong line and had to go wait in another, interminably long, line.
Once they were checked in, and if they had baggage, rather than checking the baggage in at the check in point, they had to wait in another line to have their baggage X-Rayed.
Now, I have no trouble with getting my baggage X-Rayed. It would have been more efficient, however, to take the baggage from the customer, at the check in, and then have it run through the X-Ray machines in the back and as it came in.
However, they had everyone waiting in another line that stretched out the doors and on to the sidewalk, outside just to get their baggage put into a pile of luggage to be X-Rayed later. Then, they got into another line to get through the metal detector and then to their flight. All of this in the name of higher security.
As I was waiting in these lines, with my mother, I couldn't stifle the thought a terrorist, could do away with thousands of innocent individuals without even boarding a plane. All that would need to be done is to get some explosives into a suitcase and leave it in the pile of luggage to be X-Rayed step outside and set offthe explosives remotely. That's all.
Then, because the traffic situation was so bad, emergency services would be hard pressed to get victims out of the airport. In fact, getting the extra emergency services into the airport would have been a nightmare, as well, due to the traffic problems outside of the airport.
Thousands of people would be injured or killed with a simple coordination of a few terrorists BECAUSE of the extra security measures and the havoc that they caused.
It's simply staggering, to me, that the so-called "extra security measures" created such an easy set of targets. It's even more amazing to me that no one in charge thought of that.
Which leads me to wonder what kind of idiots are running that whole set-up. Are they really trying to halt terrorist activities or are they just trying to give them another target that wouldn't require them to blow themselves up with their victims?
Talk about inmates running
the asylum!
