Episode 21 – Planes, Trains & Automobiles

(Thanksgiving Show)

Click here to listen to Episode 21

This was a very special episode, since we had Cat-with-a-C Givens co-host with me. Joe was on assignment in Plano, Texas. Since Cat was at the station anyway, she agreed to hop in the microphone and help me out. Here’s an excerpt from this episode of  “KatsSoup”:

The Weekly Rant
From cracked.com

The Dumbest Things Ever Done by Airport Security
If there’s one holiday ritual we all know and hate, it’s that yearly trip to the airport, where the friendly security man awaits with his X-ray machine, his metal detector and possibly a well-lubed rubber glove.

While none of us want to spend the holidays involved in a terrorist incident (unless you’re living in the Die Hard universe), you have to admit that sometimes security gets a little out of hand. And then there are horror stories like..

All Men Named David Nelson are Terrorists
Just Another Day In Line:   You probably know that all airline passenger lists are compared against a no-fly list, which the TSA didn’t even want to admit existed at one time. The problem is that, as it turns out, sometimes more than one person in the world shares the same name.

Uh-Oh:  So, you can imagine the chaos that erupted when a “David Nelson” somehow wound up on the list. That name isn’t exactly as distinctive as, say, Flavor Flav, so the result was many, many David Nelsons getting pulled out of line every single time they flew (including one David Nelson who got called out by security four times on one trip).

It doesn’t help that the process to get your name removed from the watch list takes at least a month and a half, and the ACLU had to sue to even get that. In a nice touch of irony, one of the lawyers who was working for the ACLU was named…David Nelson.

To Make Things Worse…    An easier way to get off the no-fly list is to just change your name, as one Canadian man did. Yes, the entire no-fly list is founded on the idea that terrorists are stupid enough to fly using their own name.  Now, of course the whole “block every flyer with the same name” thing doesn’t apply to the obvious cases. Like they’re not pulling little David Nelson babies out of the line or anything, right? …   Right?

Uh-Oh:  Yep, TSA employees pulled Matthew Gardner out of the line because somebody with that name showed up on a federal Most Wanted list.

Matthew is five. Agents searched the belongings of both Matthew and his mom. When the mother went to comfort the upset child, she was told to back away. Because, you know, it totally says right here on the screen he like shot six dudes at a bank in Reno.  But, hey, we’ve heard of little kid suicide bombers before, right? It could happen. And really, can you ever be too careful?

There were 3 more stories in this segment. You’ll just have to listen to the .mp3 link above if you’re curious.