"I thought y'all were trained in this stuff"

My watch battery gave out this morning at 7:20. It's Monday.

Yesterday afternoon the husband and I just sucked it up and purchased a new mattress set for our king size bed. Yeah, good times. I have to say though I slept really good last night. It was delivered about 2 hours after said purchasing experience so I can't complain. Plus they hauled off the old set so it's all good.

In the Sunday paper was an article by Harvey Rice of the Houston Chronicle concerning a recent incident at Hobby Airport. As a little background, Hobby Airport is a small, regional style airport here in Houston. It is not Bush Intercontinental Airport. Hobby Airport is the "home" airport for Southwest Airlines, though. Delta and others also fly into it. Anyway, last week there seems to have been an incident of screening by TSA and the Houston Police. The report says a man with a middle eastern name and a Delta ticket to Atlanta was asked by screeners if he had a laptop computer in his baggage. He shook his head but the X-ray machine operator detected a laptop. His baggage was searched. This search produced a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a Quran. The screener examined the man's shoes and the "entire soles of both shoes were gutted out." No explosive material was detected.

So, a police officer was called over to the screening area and he questioned the man, examined his id, shoes and the clock. THEN HE WAS CLEARED FOR TRAVEL. The TSA agent didn't agree with the officer's conclusion. The officer said, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff." The report says the TSA screener notified Delta, talked again with the officer and was told by the officer that he was unable to check the passenger's criminal background because of computer problems, according to the article.

The FBI was asked to investigate the incident by upper levels of the TSA and TSA issued a statement saying its screeners "acted in accordance with their training and protocols." The FBI characterizes it as an "non-event". Back at Houston Police, the officer involved has been transferred to a desk job. According to the Houston Police Officers Union attorney, the officer doesn't understand why he was transferred "when it seems clear from the onset of the investigation that he didn't have probable cause to detain anybody and that his actions were consistent with the law and HPD policy." NO PROBABLE CAUSE? What would it take to have probable cause is my question.

Or is it just another pre-9/11 case of let's not offend anyone? Either this passenger was a complete idiot or else he was testing the screening capabilities at Hobby Airport. Houston has a very large Muslim population. Houston is always on the list of targeted cities for terrorism.

But, hey, I wouldn't want to offend anyone.