"Speaks strange language? Check. Ethnic-style dress? Check. Very suspicious".

April 23, 2005 10:36 AM

Terrorists from Antarctica. Two Seaworld penguins flying out of San Diego airport are sent walking through the metal detector. Better safe than sorry. via BoingBoing, via Schneier
posted by matteo (43 comments total)

It isn't like the darn things can be trusted, you know.
posted by HuronBob at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2005

Oh my god, everything is retarded.
posted by borkingchikapa at 10:46 AM on April 23, 2005

The future (nsfw) of air travel.
posted by Mr_Zero at 10:50 AM on April 23, 2005

I suspect a publicity stunt. This says penguins are transported in cases in the cargo hold like dogs and cats.
posted by gubo at 10:52 AM on April 23, 2005

Was it the flight to Gotham City? I don't think I could have gotten past security with a giant candy-striped rocket strapped to my back either.
posted by Stan Chin at 10:53 AM on April 23, 2005

Cute!

I was certain HuronBob's link was going to be about homopengs and I applaud him for not posting the MetaStatus Quo.

P.S. "Anheuser Bush"? So. True.
posted by Joybooth at 10:56 AM on April 23, 2005

I, for one, welcome our new penguin...aw forget it.
posted by Staggering Jack at 10:59 AM on April 23, 2005

The future (nsfw) of air travel.

Well, it does make it easier to tell the "first class" passengers from the "coach" passengers, if you catch my drift.
posted by clevershark at 11:07 AM on April 23, 2005

It isn't like the darn things can be trusted, you know.

No, I can't say they can.
posted by bigtimes at 11:17 AM on April 23, 2005

I'd be mighty tempted to make 'em walk through purely for entertainment's sake. Oh yes, definitely.
posted by scheptech at 11:31 AM on April 23, 2005

gubo: "I suspect a publicity stunt."

Seconded. This was funny. Done for entertainment's sake, nothing more.
posted by koeselitz at 11:37 AM on April 23, 2005

Just to be pedantic.... the screening actually happened at Denver airport.
posted by adamvasco at 11:43 AM on April 23, 2005

It had to be a publicity stunt. There was a TV camera there from the local news. Airports are not very keen on TV cameras hanging out at the security checkpoint.
posted by MrZero at 11:45 AM on April 23, 2005

I suspect they just had to run the carrier through an x-ray machine.
posted by Captaintripps at 11:46 AM on April 23, 2005

I third the PR stunt thing. Channel 7 doesn't have an actual story, just pictures with funny captions. They sure are cute though.

Now, would you really want a penguin in the regular passenger cabin of a plane, though? What if they crap or piss on something/someone? Or attack somebody, as has apparently happened to Torvalds.

Of course, it's funner to think the screener assumed they were robot penguins, powered by Russian-hacker modified Linux (of course), with laser beams for eyes. So he wanted to x-ray them. Little did he know they were made entirely of composites ...
posted by teece at 11:52 AM on April 23, 2005

Airports are not very keen on TV cameras hanging out at the security checkpoint.

Indeed, using a camera in the screening area is something you can be arrested for, unless of course it's a meaningless publicity stunt pre-arranged with the airport authorities...
posted by clevershark at 11:57 AM on April 23, 2005

I totally want penguins on my next flight.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:08 PM on April 23, 2005

Cute. Thanks, matteo.
posted by jenleigh at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2005

I honked.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:32 PM on April 23, 2005

*frisks BlackLeotardFront*
posted by matteo at 12:33 PM on April 23, 2005

I was certain HuronBob's link was going to be about homopengs and I applaud him for not posting the MetaStatus Quo.

Google: Your search - homopengs - did not match any documents.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:36 PM on April 23, 2005

Did the PR fail? THe brewery is Annhueser BUSCH, not Bush.
posted by Cranberry at 12:38 PM on April 23, 2005

"OK people, I'm going through the metal detector. Are you happy now?"

I think that little Mr. Grumpykins needs to be detained indefinitely without the ability to contact a lawyer.
posted by thanatogenous at 12:39 PM on April 23, 2005

The brewery is Annhueser BUSCH, not Bush.

And you think trading on the President's name is a coincidence...
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:02 PM on April 23, 2005

publicity. move along.
posted by Satapher at 1:19 PM on April 23, 2005

Did the PR fail? THe brewery is Annhueser BUSCH, not Bush.

the only proper retort to this is: Need some penguin?
posted by Busithoth at 1:26 PM on April 23, 2005

this has to be made up ... penguins can't fly
posted by pyramid termite at 1:49 PM on April 23, 2005

pyramid termite wins.
posted by Tuwa at 2:09 PM on April 23, 2005

I'd pay extra for penguins on my flight.
posted by Space Kitty at 2:13 PM on April 23, 2005

I'd pay extra for penguins on my flight.

They'd probably just taste like chicken with an anchovy on top.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:57 PM on April 23, 2005

Were the penguins allowed to keep their jumpers on?
posted by scody at 3:13 PM on April 23, 2005

Where they given a cavity search or where they found during a cavity search?
posted by johnj at 5:24 PM on April 23, 2005

The funny part isn't that it was publicity stunt.

The funny part is that we all had to double-check to see if it was a publicity stunt.

Because things have become so ridiculously bizarre since 9/11, you can't just immediately dismiss this a joke.

And it's not just the Transportation Security Administration: so much of what goes on under the Bush Administration -- from the suppression of honest science to private bills to keep a dead woman on life support, from Senators explaining away violence against judges to the absurd contention that a guy who used his daddy's influence to sit out the Vietnam War in Alabama is more patriotic than a man who earned three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, when the Christian Right calls investigation of anti-Semitism at a Federal military academy "a witch hunt ... to root out Christian beliefs" -- it all reads like a particularly heavy-handed, humorless, poorly written attempt at parody by a third-rate author of the paranoid Lefty variety. Except that it's all true.

How the hell did we let the country get to the point where real headlines are indistinguishable from overwrought parody?

And how the hell do we get back to normalcy?
posted by orthogonality at 6:16 PM on April 23, 2005

Well...that was fun for a while.
posted by horsewithnoname at 6:52 PM on April 23, 2005

Oh, for shame ROU_Xenophobe.
Tsk, tsk.
posted by Space Kitty at 7:51 PM on April 23, 2005

From the same cartoon:

Pen-goo-ins is practickally chickens.

Now can someone help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:26 PM on April 23, 2005

Next time I fly I'm going to take along a full-sized metal detector! Hah, just imagine the implications of having to pass my metal detector through their metal detector! The Global War-on-Some-Terror will certainly tremble!
posted by archae at 8:38 PM on April 23, 2005

And how the hell do we get back to normalcy?

As long as we have the internet, it'll never happen.
posted by Witty at 1:15 AM on April 24, 2005

Well, Ortho...that's the nice thing about normal...it always is.
posted by HuronBob at 4:40 AM on April 24, 2005

orthogonality: "The funny part isn't that it was publicity stunt.

The funny part is that we all had to double-check to see if it was a publicity stunt.

Because things have become so ridiculously bizarre since 9/11, you can't just immediately dismiss this a joke."

In an alternate universe somewhere, Al Gore won in 2000, and Paris Paramus is making all the same posts you're making here.
posted by koeselitz at 8:00 AM on April 24, 2005

You know what... this is a cute publicity stunt... but I have a hard time being disturbed by "Haha, this is so ridiculous, x is being searched for bombs!" because honestly, if airport security listened to that, it would automatically become incredibly simple to bring a bomb on an airplane. Like, "It's totally outrageous to search 80-year-olds" and someone will find a way to get 80-year-olds to bring bombs on planes for them, or "There's no way they should search children!" or "This should never be done to a pregnant woman!" same thing.
posted by dagnyscott at 10:31 AM on April 24, 2005

just imagine the implications of having to pass my metal detector through their metal detector!

It would be like crossing the streams, I'd imagine.
posted by pmurray63 at 1:43 PM on April 24, 2005

The funny part is that we all had to double-check to see if it was a publicity stunt.

Because things have become so ridiculously bizarre since 9/11, you can't just immediately dismiss this a joke.

Thanks Ortho, I agree
posted by joedharma at 12:29 AM on April 25, 2005