TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
AP: ce86f2fa-6e56-420e-9dea-45221a37bd87
TSA officer Robert Howard signals an airline passenger forward at a security check-point at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Wash. Flight attendants, pilots, federal air marshals and even insurance companies are part of a growing backlash to the Transportation Security Administration's new policy allowing passengers to carry small knives and sports equipment like souvenir baseball bats and golf clubs onto planes. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

Are you ready to be a hero?

BY Dave Ross  on March 8, 2013 @ 5:55 am (Updated: 6:51 am - 3/8/13 )

Have you heard that the TSA is relaxing some of the check point rules? How could you not - it's all over the news.

Air travelers will be permitted to carry some small pocket knives provided the blades are no longer than 2.36 inches.

There you are - the exact dimensions of the kind of knives that will now be allowed on aircraft.

As I was watching and hearing all these reports all I could think was - why don't we just hold a How-To workshop for terrorists?

Soon, they say passengers will be able to carry some golf clubs, lacrosse sticks, and ski polls aboard the plane. The decision allows for pool cues too.

Obviously the TSA should update its procedures from time to time - but why splash it all over the news? We should keep the bad guys guessing.

But no - we just come out and tell them - sure bring your pool cues into the passenger cabin. (I mean seriously - I see people who can't even stuff a sweater into the overhead bin. You're going to allow pool cues and lacrosse rackets?)

Of course this will lead passengers to demand even more changes.

One passenger at the airport told a reporter, "In fact on the way here they took a little jar of peanut butter, and I had no idea that counted as a liquid and a gel."

But you see - and not to offend you, sir, but I'm actually GLAD they arbitrarily confiscated your peanut butter. Not just to protect the planes, but because I find that with all the armed wackos out there, the secure area of the airport concourse has become a relaxing oasis of disarmament. Plenty of shopping, any kind of snack you want, and if by some chance you run into the occasional crack pot - you don't have to worry about a shootout. Or a knife fight. Or someone threatening to fling peanut butter at you.

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (13)


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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Dave, I'm far more scared of a TSA guy with a latex glove than I am of a pen knife.
    March 8, 2013 6:33 am
    Who knows where that glove's been last passenger.
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  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    liberal utopia
    March 8, 2013 6:38 am
    The secure area of an airport...kind of like North Korea.

    Of course, if we were to do that nationwide we would have to have a border like N Korea's. Otherwise those guns that our agents provide to drug cartels would get back in. We must keep the border open so the Dems can retain power.

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  • mobeta wrote...
    Doesn't Dave look like Charlie Manson?
    March 8, 2013 7:02 am
    Whocares about all this. It's only going to get worse.
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  • Cash wrote...
    HA
    March 8, 2013 7:20 am
    Best comment of the week!
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    What opinion prevailed in the "ski poll"?
    March 8, 2013 7:11 am
    Sometimes, even spell check lets you down. :-)
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  • cdbtx wrote...
    Messiah - I assume that was an attempt at comedy
    March 8, 2013 7:18 am
    and if it was.. that's pretty scary...

    Ron Prevost on the other hand.. I'm with you again on that... the photo Dave posted is as scary as it gets...

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  • shark75 wrote...
    Never fear, your 5-year old will still be mollested in the security line
    March 8, 2013 7:24 am
    Thanks the TSA's airport "Kabuki Theatre" security.
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  • Pete in Seattle wrote...
    Must be a shortage at TSA
    March 8, 2013 8:46 am
    Early in 2002 I happened to be in Atlanta on the day the government relaxed rules and announced it was okay to have nail clippers again. This was all over CNN and its channels. SO I get to the airport and there is CNN Headline News with a bold banner announcing the changes while at the same time TSA was confiscating all nail clippers. There was a huge tub of almost nothing but nail clippers at the checkpoint and and the agents were acting like they made the rules and not the government, refusing to look at the screens right over their post that said it was okay while they were saying no. So I figure this is a way to get people to bring pocket knives to the airport so TSA can sonfiscate them. Maybe those who are about to be furloughed are training to be street thugs? Or perhaps that is where they were hired from so that is where they will return?
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    On a more serious note (But, DANG, that TSA guy is scary)
    March 8, 2013 9:48 am
    A pen knife is about as good to a terrorist as his belt (think about it) or simply forming a blade from an on flight pop can. ..... And (as Luke - he probable disdains coach) don't first class passengers still get steak knives with their meals ?

    All this does is make things a bit more convenient. No need to empty your pockets and put stuff in checked luggage, And - heck - my Swiss Army knife even has a tooth pick.

    But if everyone is still worried about 'weapons' on board - when is the last time an army went to war armed only with pen knives???

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