On 02 Feb 2010 17:15:04 GMT, the infamous Han
scrawled the following:

Douglas Johnson wrote in
:

We've done that in the schools. I've had a pocket knife in my pants
pocket since I was 10 years old. Home, school, where ever. Now days,
that would get me a 2 week suspension -- for a first offense. Another
case of confusing the tool with the user. -- Doug

I agree. If I put my Swiss army knife of sorts in my backpack, the guy
using the airport type scanner at work will try to get it confiscated. He
knows (or should know) that I have plenty of scalpels and chemicals in my
lab that would be much more harmful than the knife. So I put it in my
pocket and walk thtough the employee magnetometer which is just there for
show. While my wife can use her teeth to start peeling an orange, I need a
knife ...

My 1.3" pocket knife, a mini-Swiss, is illegal on a plane. A sharpened
9" pencil, capable of piercing a person's heart, is legal. A pair of
12" pointed aluminum knitting needles is legal. A credit card can be
passed over a concrete sidewalk for ten seconds and sharpened to an
edge. This is also legal on an airplane, and it could cut a person's
carotid so they bleed out in a matter of seconds.

Ayup, it's appearances (appeasing the public), not sanity, which runs
policies.

--
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire,
you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
-- George Bernard Shaw