Aw geez, Dawn. You get to carryon from LAX to London, though?

edit: That came out punny. Not my intent, but either case works!

You get to carryon from LAX to London, though?

Yeah and that's the good thing, on the long part of the flight the kids will have their carry on stuff to keep them busy. We have a 5 hour layover at Heathrow, which we were going to use to pop into London proper and do some sightseeing but now? Not so much. It'll probably take almost all that time to get though customs and security. Oh well, we've been to London a ton of times so we aren't missing any thing. Thankfully the flight from London to Leeds is only about an hour or so.

EtA: Not relishing the thought of getting physically searched at Heathrow... Hands! Hands in new places! (Sara you made me chuckle with punny)

well, if anyone suceeds in traveling today - I'd love to here confirmation that you can bring laptops, cellphones, etc.

FWIW, I got this now, w/r/t the unclear email about laptops, etc.:

I am being informed that the last paragraph of the e-mail below is for flights departing out of the UK

why is there not consistency in policy/interpretation?

What happens is sometimes people get a bit overzealous in enforcing the rules because they don't want to get in trouble for being too lax. Other times what happens is you have some people who interpert the rules more strictly than others. Especially with things that kind of fall in the gray area like lipstick or chapstick.

I want to say that I'm a bit defensive about airports/airlines and their policies and how they are handling things today.

Here there were plenty of people who were woken up at 4:00 am EST and told about the situation and had to come in. People have been coming in on their days off or in the mornings when they just worked the night shift last night. They are tired and not thrilled to be here and there's a stress level, not really because of omigod! what if happens here! but it's a new set of rules to adapt to in a very short amount of time. And deal with passengers who are understandable confused/upset/stressed/unhappy about the new policies.

And sometimes the policy is just jackassed.

Look, I feel for the employees who have to enforce the policies and put up with jackasses who think they are being cute. However, it doesn't detract from my general ire at the stupidity of so many of these policies. Nor at how poorly they are implemented in actual fact.

Aaaaand I'm turning into my father. At least I'm not at muttering about a nation of mindless cowards in the security line as I throw my shoes into the bucket. I'm just mentally quoting Ben Franklin or whoever.

Could be worse. We could have been instructed to duct tape ourselved into our living rooms again.

That's the problem with woolly-brained policies: They're so silly on their face that the poor people who have to enforce them get all the brunt of frustration at the silliness. But there's nobody else to complain to about it!

Because I was soooooo going to hijack a plane with my 0.5" cuticle scissors, you know? There needs to be a policy representative standing around near the security line, just so that he can be ritually shouted at for his department's silliness.

(Possibly you could throw cuticle scissors and shampoo at him! Or would that be assault?)

Unca Sam was a little too eager...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A U.S. Army recruiter who signed up an autistic Portland teenager has been relieved of his recruiting duties and will be reassigned.

Nothing new, there, Cass. Last year, a recruiter in Ohio signed up a kid who had just walked out of a three-week stint in a psychiatric ward here in Ohio. Then he lied to the boy's parents, claiming he'd never spoken to the kid. The parents then called their congressional representative, who knew someone in the DOD. He called the recruiter who finally fessed up. Needless to say, they didn't push the kid to sign up.

This was one of the incidents leading up to a three day moratorium on recruiting last year.

Because I was soooooo going to hijack a plane with my 0.5" cuticle scissors, you know?

Well, *ita* could do it....

Could always go the El Al route:

At least six (formerly two) undercover agents accompany each international El Al flight, sitting amongst passengers whilst holstering firearms. All El Al pilots are former Israeli Air Force fighter pilots, and all El Al flight crew members are trained in hand to hand combat. In fact, most El Al employees have served in the Israeli army (since national service is compulsory in Israel).

El Al security procedures also require that all passengers be interviewed individually prior to boarding, allowing El Al staff to identify possible security threats. All passengers are classified on a basic 3 tier threat scale: Israelis and Jews are usually classified as the lowest threat, Westerners are usually classified as medium level threats, and Arabs (particularly males) are usually classified as high threat. In addition, all luggage must pass through a decompression chamber; this simulates pressures during flight which may be triggers for explosives [1]. El Al is the only airline in the world that passes all luggage through this special chamber.

The El Al fleet is also the only commercial airline fleet in the world to be equipped with anti-missile countermeasures.

As a result of the tight security, only one El Al plane has been successfully hijacked, in 1968 (see below for details).