Pancakes, Sausage and Eggs

I just can't help letting go of what I think is the most costly and less than satisfactory means of attempting to make the friendly skies safer. 


It is only a matter of time before some malevolent individual learns a way to defy the full body image scanner.  Well, it's recently been discovered that there's a way to deceive the images of the TSA's scanner by using an item that will conceal any number of  weapons or other contraband.  With this added cover, the viewing agent sees only someone who could stand to lose a few pounds.


Curious to know what that concealing device is?  Pancakes. That's right, you heard me. 
They are PETN pancakes.  Pentaerythritol tetranitrate.  A powerfully high explosive molded and shaped like a pancake and when applied to the skin, it can conceal any number of things from box cutters to wires.
To refresh, this is the same substance used by the Shoe Bomber, the Christmas day bomb plot and most recently, the cargo plane bomb plot that used toner cartridges.


It is very clear that while the "pancake" can conceal many items, it should be easily discovered by the standard physical pat down performed by the agents themselves.  However, the agents appear more concerned about those 3.5 fl oz bottles than they are about handguns slipping through the screening process.  The ABC Evening News recently reported that many agents are "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to the discovery of a .40 caliber handgun.  Certainly not a small handgun, by any means.  Repeated tests have shown that they are failing miserably and receive little more than verbal or written reprimands when it comes to serious infractions in their job performance.
The human element is not infallible.  Worse yet, the multi million dollar high tech machinery has now been proven useless for certain explosives. 


This scanner defying pancake mixture is a serious problem to our already ineffectual airline security protocols.


But as always, our own comedy channel hero has devised a plan to use a pancake mixture that would envy the suits at IHOP.  
Just follow the quote...


"From now on, we can use strategically placed pancakes to cover our sausage and eggs."
-- Stephen Colbert--