All stories about "Security"

There was an issue with supermodel Naomi Campbell's luggage on a British Airways flight. Of course, you can imagine how this story ends. It involves witnesses reporting that Naomi was taken off the plane in cuffs being "aggressive and abusive to staff." A Scotland Yard spokesperson would only say that "a 37-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer." That's right, folks. Naomi Campbell is 37. That means she is a MILF and we are all much older and closer to death than we ever realized. [Independent]

  Comments

Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen caused a security scare in Kansas by "dancing in the lobby of Wichita Airport" wearing a skimpy flight attendant outfit. The British funnyman was filming scene for his upcoming movie which stars his character Bruno, a flaming Austrian fashionista. In the scene Cohen dances with a well-muscled man in hot pants. The hot gay comedy action that freaked out airport security was caught on camera by a bystander who apparently thought they were seeing a real "filming at airport by German crew." The video is after the jump.

[via]

  Comments

So JetBlue has announced they'll start charging extra for four more inches of legroom -- $10 to $20 more (depending on length of flight) for rows 2-5 and exit rows 10-11. But why stop there? "Even More Legroom" is nice, but now that airlines are breaking free of their decades-long insistence on fascist conformity, I suggest an entire suite of value-addeds to help defray spiraling costs. If I can choose from an a la carte menu of extra services and bennies to customize my flight experience, I'll be a much happier though poorer consumer. For example!

  Comments

The TSA's Blogger Bob "came into work one day, browsed the blogosphere and read about the Macbook Air having problems at a checkpoint," so he decided to investigate further. The TSA acquired one of the laptops and x-rayed it. They won't release the x-ray as it's considered "sensitive information." Essentially, the inner workings of the Macbook Air look entirely different from any other laptop since it's uses "a solid state drive instead of a traditional hard drive." [via]

  Comments

Two Italian oldsters were stopped by airport police in Munich holding a suitcase stuffed with an eleven year-old dead body. The women carrying the corpse, who are both in their sixties, were en route from Sao Paolo to Naples. One of the old ladies said the body belonged to her brother who'd always wanted to be buried in Italy. After x-rays spotted the skeleton in their luggage, the women produced a death certificate and according to inspectors: "As they were not violating any German laws they were allowed to continue their journey."

  Comments

The story surrounding yesterday's bombing at the Army recruiting center in Times Square is getting more and more interesting. A hooded bicyclist was filmed riding away from the scene of the mini-explosion. Investigators think they may have found the bicycle in a nearby Dumpster and are working to retrace the bomber's steps using surveillance camera footage. Authorities are also looking into the possibility that the relatively wimpy terrorist attack may be linked to letters that were sent to several lawmakers on Capitol Hill. They contained a photo of a man standing in front of the Midtown recruiting center accompanied by the message "Happy New Year, We Did It." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there's probably a connection there. Cops are also checking out similarities between the bombing and explosions at two foreign consulates last year, and an incident at the Canadian border involving "anarchist types" who had a backpack filled with photos of New York landmarks. [MSNBC]

  Comments

Southwest Airlines is making headlines yet again for having police escort two college-aged female passengers off of a flight that landed in LA and banning them from the airline forever (which includes canceling their return ticket to Tampa). While Nisreen Swedberg and Sarah Williams say they did anything inappropriate -- they claim the "older" flight attendants were jealous of their youth and "decent looking" appearance -- it seems it was their fondness for verbal profanity that got the girls blackballed. [via]

  Comments

An explosion at LAX has caused quite a bit of scare, but not in the way you'd expect. This video of a laptop overheating and exploding was supposedly captured on a camera phone, as were the freaked-out screams and chortling of confused bystanders. (Turns out it's an old but recently discovered clip.) The situation was kept relatively in hand, with an airport official authoritatively ordering curious travelers to "stay away from the computer." A blurry figure soon comes to the rescue with a fire extinguisher, but the impressive fireball or two would have been most inconvenient onboard a flight. [via]

  Comments

Move over Godzilla, the real threat to Tokyo these days involves crazy people in animal costumes. This video shows two people in a papier mache zebra outfit attacking zookeepers and visitors at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo. Luckily, this disturbing scene isn't evidence of a real-life kaiju invasion or another case of a zoo animal killing spree-- it's all part of safety procedures. Each year, the Tokyo zoo staff conducts these drills with a different simulated species in order to prepare for beast-related emergencies. It's hard to imagine that shooting a fake horsey with a cap gun would help anyone deal with a major crisis like a rampaging wildcat, but what the hell do I know? These people are zoo professionals. They are like the Delta Force of poo-raking and animal husbandry.

  Comments

Kathy Arena is a California mom who invented a toy luggage x-ray in an effort to provide children with "ample amounts of healthy fun along with education and awareness of the security measures that people face in real life." Arena was inspired to create her "Operation Checkpoint Jr. Security Center" by the security-related trauma incurred during her divorce proceedings. At the courthouse each day, Arena and her children felt "intimidation and confusion" when required "put their possessions through multiple scanners." These harrowing experiences convinced Arena that American families needed a toy that would "lessen some of the fear children often suffer in our security conscience society" and thus, the "Jr. Security Center" was born.

  Comments

It seems an epidemic of airport escalator nightmares has been plaguing kids wearing the obnoxious rubberoid shoes known as Crocs. Two separate incidents involving escalators swallowing the plastic clogs (and nearly taking the tiny feet trapped inside with them!) have transpired at both a Kentucky airport and New York's La Guardia. The mother of one of the victims "is seeking $7 million from Crocs, who still refuses to put a warning label on their product, despite widespread reports of similar accidents." Looks like Mario Batali may have to find another hideous trademark, lest his own mighty hams get mangled. [via]

  Comments

It's easy and fun to drive yourself insane focusing on potential terrorist threats, incurable plagues, and unavoidable apocalyptic scares soon to hit a city near you. And now, thanks to the Global Incident Map, you can wallow in a terrifying abyss of flashing-icon despair. The map offers "a global display of Terrorism and other Suspicious Events," refreshed every 310 seconds. Why 310 seconds? If you need to ask, you're already dead.

  Comments

Police in Baghdad have been ordered to "round up beggars, vagabonds and mentally disabled people from the streets" by The Iraqi Interior Ministry. The Iraqi government is worried that Al Qaeda might employ the homeless and handicapped citizens of Baghdad as suicide bombers. These fears come as a respone to evidence that the two female bombers who attacked pet markets in the city about three weeks ago may have had Down syndrome. [AP]

  Comments

Amtrak is set to announce a series of new security measures today including posting armed guards with bomb sniffing dogs on train platforms and conducting random searches of carry on luggage. The new "mobile security teams" will first appear on Amtrak trains traveling along the Northeast corridor from Washington to Boston before being rolled out on train routes all over the country. According to CNN, Amtrak has made few major security changes since 9/11 despite the high profile terrorist attacks on trains that have occurred on European passenger trains in the past few years. [CNN]

  Comments

In the latest payoff resulting from a wave of bad decisions (first Sarkozy & Bruni, then Naples), Ryanair has been ordered to pay "a blind calypso musician and his band" £4,000 after throwing them off a flight due to suspicions that the Caribbean quintet were terrorists. The members of the London-based Caribbean Steel International Orchestra "were escorted off the plane at gunpoint by Italian police without warning or explanation." [via]

  Comments

Whatever you think of the American presence in Guantanamo Bay, one happy fact remains indisputable: We have livened up the joint with familiar chain eateries and retail establishments. No White Castle though, despite the upcoming Harold & Kumar sequel set there. But assuming you're at liberty to roam the grounds or at least have escaped the first inside perimeter, where might you spend your hard earned cash and/or contraband?

  Comments

Classic case of article not being as amusing as the headline implies, but anyway: "America - more hassle than it's worth?" [Guardian]

  Comments

Fingerprint me? Fingerprint you, motherfingerprinter! Given that the United States requires all foreign visitors to be fingerprinted, it was only a matter of time before other countries followed suit. Japan's already doing it, and now all of Europe may get into the game. The European Commission will make the proposal tomorrow, requiring all foreigners to get printed on entering or leaving member countries. Security and privacy groups are protesting, but that just means they probably have something to hide. [WP]

  Comments

Yesterday, I posted about Park Slopes' Union Hall implementing a "No Strollers" policy. While at first I assumed that such an act of discrimination was in part tongue-in-cheek, reports in the Associated Press today suggest such ageism is in fact as widespread, and, in some cases, cruel and unusual as ever. Meet the "Mosquito" -- a Welsh-made repellent that works much like citronella for children, except in this case it puts out a high-frequency noise that "is audible -- and annoying -- to young ears, but generally not heard by people over 20."

  Comments

The Guardian reports today that the Bush administration is asking the 27 countries in the European Union to implement seven different security changes for transatlantic travel. The amendments include requests for "personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US" and for information on non-traveling family members of those passengers landing in the States. The US Department of Security is also asking for more armed air marshalls and a new permit system that will require Europeans to apply for permission to enter the country prior to booking a flight (approval will take several days). [via]

  Comments