Soldier Toy Disarmed at Airport

BBC News ^ | Monday, 5 August, 2002 | BBC Staff

[Dukie]

Thank you for the confirmation that this sort of dementia is a world wide illness.

When does the next spacecraft depart for a planet populated by sane inhabitants ?

[Dukie]

No, wait ...I saw the reference to the lady from England & mistakenly thought the disease had spread.

Fortunately the insanity is still confined here.

[kaboom]

"They can have my toy gun when they pry it from my cold, dead, kung-fu grip" - Joe

[Renegade]

The lady was about 75, wore glasses , and smiled the whole time ....God knows why she knocked on my flip flops . maybe there is a brand of C-4 flippers out there that I don't know about .
My wife was frisked on the flight down . I told them she did look Arab-Italian .. Should have seen the looks I got from that remark .
You DON'T need a sharp object . A few feet of monofilament around the inside brim of a sports hat is enough to cut anybody's throat .( Good idea, Huh??)

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Anyone ever read "Gormenghast"? That's the first thing I thought of when I first heard this story.

[headsonpikes]

"Knuckle-dragging idiots?"

Intrinsic Human Replicas, manufactured on the cheap in Jovian sweatshops.

[Travis McGee]

Mass dementia among a dumbed down population means stormy seas ahead, because such a population will be easy for a govt to manipulate into pogroms, genocide etc.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Also reported here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002360334,00.html/

[jjm2111]

No, what is it? a Novel?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

No, what is it? a Novel?

Yes. It is novel written by Mervyn Peake.
Written in the 1950s, Peake's novel is a labyrinthine plot of hysterical lunatics, arcane rituals and degenerate bloodlines, with so much double-crossing amongst the characters that it puts the average episode of Dallas to shame.
An acclaimed triumph of the written word, "Gormenghast" is splendidly excessive in its description of the filth and squalor in a disintegrating city-state.

This episode at the airport with GI Joe just brought to mind the kind of arcane antics that take place in this book.

When I read this account of the disarming of GI Joe, a picture popped into my head of 3 security personnel all standing around this little rifle, inspecting it with quizical looks and heads bobbing to and fro... all the while afraid to even touch it because it looks so much like a real rifle..."Good heavens! It might go off! What are we to do?"

[Looking4Truth]

What's a soldier without his weapon, I ask you ??

Just ask the NG troops that have to man those checkpoints with no ammo or no clip in their weapons.

[GoldMan]

Where..." I was just following orders"---came from!

That didn't work at Nuremburg.............

[stalin]

It's so dumb It'd be hard to believe it was a true story if I hadn't heard so many even stupider ones.

I don't understand why someone in a position to do somthing about it doesn't finally stop the insanity.

What's in it for Bush ? Why doesn't he say something ?

[jjm2111]

That reminds me of a time when I was traveling about eight years ago. I had a laptop computer. After making me turn it on and such, the I-can't-speak-english-as-I-am-an-immigrant security guard asked me what was in the front pocket of my laptop case. I told him it was a mouse. (The little trackball for the laptop.) He cautiously opened the flap of the pocket, peeked in for less than a second, and then slammed it shut. I really think the guy thought I had a live mouse in the pocket of my laptop case. Also, as I was a merchant seaman at the time, I had a marine sextant. The same guy thought it was a gun. This is what we're dealing with.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

This is what we're dealing with.

As a fun thing to do on your day off...

Going to the airport and watching these buffoons could probably replace going to the courthouse and sitting in the gallery to watch all the miscreants grovel before the judge.

Except you'd probably get yourself detained because they'd think you were "casing the joint".

[jjm2111]

Actually, many of these airport security guards were ex-cons. Ex-cons giving little girls strip searches (actually many of the felons may have been removed by now.)

[Oztrich Boy]

Maybe they need to carry a card explaining it

This is a replica

This is not a replica