What is next: Please show up a day in advance, naked?!

This morning I read this article...so wasn't the point of having our shoes scanned to look for explosive devices?! At least every time I have flown since Septebmer 11, that is what I had been told...so what is the point, if this is true?

Now I know that the scanners can detect other things, you know, nail files, tweezers, all those other scary things that could be used as weapons, but really aren't explosives the real issue...? And if we are subject to all of these searches, shouldn't this be an issue that the scanners aren't able to id explosives?

I am that person when traveling that gets pulled to the side, having the pleasure of the extented search, usually in a country where I don't speak the language, and have to resort to a series of hand gestures and facial expressions to get me through security...

It is rare that when traveling I don't get that extra, special search...one time when I was at the Peoria airport in Illinois, they actually emptied and opened my tampons...paying little attention to my pleas that I would need them on the flight! In France I was pulled into a separate room to be searched, the underwire in my bra was suspecious...and here all this time I really thought they were looking for things more sinister than just metal objects that I could weild as a weapon...but no all this time they couldn't see any of that! Seriously how much confidence do you have in the airlines knowing this? I had very little to begin with and even less now...

I don't understand it...well there are a lot of things I don't understand...but I really don't understand how, so they use this ETD thing, um...no, in my experience as the person who needs extra scanning, I have never been wiped with anything to see if my ions are positively charged for explosion! And besides that, why should I be confident that the minimum wage person doing this even cares or understands what they are looking for?! These are people who make less than I do, and we know how bitter I am! What should I feel confident that someone with little more than a high school diploma is equipped to check my ions?

And don't even get me started on all the wonderful things I can no longer fly with...the day they take my chapstick from me is the day I stop flying! ;-)