archy

Blow up the poor
Finally, some real leadership and creative thinking on the problem of homelessness and poverty.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport planned to give 11 boxes of surrendered items to the city's human services department, which will give the unopened bottles of shampoo, toothpaste and other items to homeless shelters, airport spokeswoman Lexie Van Haren said.

Let's see if we can follow this through. We take these bottles away from people boarding planes because they might contain bomb ingredients. Then we feel bad about throwing away perfectly good products, so we donate them to the poor. We know it's safe enough for the poor to use because it's in unopened bottles. We think the products are too dangerous to allow on planes because terrorists can always fix it so that the bottles look unopened. We cannot accept the risk of letting these potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on a plane, but it is an acceptable risk to let the homeless pour these potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on their heads.

Is the conclusion that we can draw from this: a) our leaders harbor murderous intentions toward the poor; b) our leaders care more about appearing wasteful than they do about helping the poor; c) our leaders are completely clueless about the implications of their actions; or d) our leaders' commitment to transportation security is completely bogus. Choose as many as you think apply.

To be fair, this is only one city. Other regions have other approaches.

In Pennsylvania, state officials were considering pulling some discarded items for a state program that resells on eBay any items of value relinquished at airport security checkpoints, said Edward Myslewicz, spokesman for the General Services Department.

That's right, you can pay for the privilege of pouring potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on your head. The horses might be gone, but we can sleep soundly knowing that since then the Department of Homeland Security has firmly nailed that gate shut.

The concept for this post was shamelessly stolen from John at AmericaBlog.