It always amazes me the level docility & apathy on the faces of most of the humans going through the Disneyland-like lines for airport "security checkpoints." Mindlessly shuffling forward, emptying their pockets, showing their papers, taking off their shoes, and ultimately walking into a radiation box.

I, personally, always "opt out" when I go through that process, and have been flying less and less to simply avoid these Nazi control zones. When I am there, I like to make little comments, just loud enough for the folks in line to hear them, about the TSA's 0% success rate, about the similarities between the "PATRIOT ACT" and the Emergency War Powers Act in (what became) Nazi Germany, etc.

This time through, it was a pretty hilarious experience. I put my gear on the little conveyor belt, sent it through, and sat there waiting for a few minutes for someone to come pat me down. When he finally walked over and asked if I was the "opt out", we went around the machine, and he asked me to point to my gear. Off to our left, another TSA agent was holding up my backpack, asking if it was mine. While the two of us stood by and watched, the agent from the scanner opened my backpack and looked through it, finally pulling out a box of Magic: The Gathering cards, which had apparently set off their alarms. He took a quick look at the box, put it back in, and gave back my pack.

That all seems pretty routine right? Well, the funny part came a little while later, while on the plane, when I went to pull out my headphones, and there in the same pocket (right next to where they had looked) was my old Boy Scout pocket knife. Good thing TSA is there to stop another 9/11, which was supposedly committed with box cutters. (with a blade 1/4 the length of the one I had)