Well this is awfully comforting. NBC recently did a little investigative journalism and found out that American airline screenings to not detect explosives. The test went through 21 different airports to see if homemade bomb materials could make it onto the plane. Apparently they could, and could do it pretty easily. In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials. Isn't that fantastic? In all these years since 9/11, that's the progress we've made. Namely: none at all. We've moved ahead almost five years and we haven't even managed to protect the country from the one thing that would seem almost mandatory. Now, according to the Transportation Security Administration, "detecting explosive materials and IEDs at the checkpoint is TSA's top priority." There are two obvious ways of looking at that response, given the current situation. Either they're completely full of shit, or that may be the most frightening statement about the aviation business I've ever heard. 21 for 21 you can get homemade explosives onto a plane and that's the TOP priority. Hate to see what's considered unimportant. It's times like these that I absolutely do not understand how anyone can claim that the Bush Administration is even remotely good with national security. Our country gets hit by three hijacked airplanes and you can still get explosives onto airplanes? That's simply absurd. It reminds me of a few months ago when the 9/11 commission said we still weren't prepared for an attack. "A lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress." And now we have solid proof of it. Well done, Bush Clan. $247 billion spent on the Iraq War, thousands upon thousands of NSA wiretaps without court orders, and five years of invoking 9/11 in order to rally support and you haven't even gotten our airlines free of explosives, which shouldn't even require a 9/11 to get done. Tags: nbc, terrorism, 9/11, security, travel, bush, airlines