Patterico's Pontifications

8/8/2007

Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey

Filed under: Air Security,General,Humor — Patterico @ 6:12 am



Via Malkin comes this tale of a man monkeying around with our airport security system:

CBS 2 HD has learned a monkey was apparently sneaked into the United States with a passenger from Peru and let loose during a Spirit Airlines flight that landed at LaGuardia Airport Tuesday afternoon.

Officials say the monkey, a pygmy marmoset, apparently belonged to a male passenger from Lima, Peru. He bought the animal off the streets in Lima.

The man then smuggled the animal, which measures only about a foot tall, through security in Peru onto a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He then got past security again when he took a connecting flight from there to New York City, and he even kept the monkey out in the open mid-flight.

Passengers of that flight say they noticed a small monkey clinging to the man’s ponytail during the flight and reported it to authorities.

Goofy as it sounds, there apparently is some health threat:

Now there are two major concerns as a result: how the man got the monkey past security, and any diseases that could be passed on from the marmoset to humans.

“We don’t know if it’s harboring any bacteria or diseases, so the CDC is rightly concerned,” an Animal Control official told CBS 2 HD.

Not to mention the very real possibility of rampant poo-flinging, which is never too pleasant.

TSA officials shrugged their shoulders:

Transportation Security Administration officials say the animal is so small it could have easily passed through security without detection, but they are investigating.

Then they returned their attention to seizing half-filled bottles of moisturizing liquid.

Yes, I can see it’s less then three ounces. You have to go by what it says on the bottle, ma’am. Federal regulations. Yes, sir, the monkey’s fine.

P.S. From the Unexamined Assumptions File: is a barrel of monkeys really fun?

34 Responses to “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey”

  1. It obviously wasn’t an explosive monkey. Those crack TSA employees can discern these things.

    Wingnut (b0effc)

  2. Apart from making great fodder for humorous quips, pet primates are “no laughing matter”. Some primates do carry things that can not only make humans ill, but are often fatal, such as some herpes viruses. There are good reasons for some aspects of federal bureacracy, such as quarantine of animal species coming into our country.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  3. If the monkey had been made of cheese, they would have spotted it immedeately.

    Scott Jacobs (90eabe)

  4. Um, another question came to mind. Do regulations say whether monkeys are to go through the monitor like people do, or are they supposed to go on the belt through the xray machine, and if through the xray machine…

    Patterico, perhaps another competition is called for.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  5. MD in Philly, at least they don’t have shoes to take off.

    Robin Roberts (6c18fd)

  6. …the animal is so small it could have easily passed through security without detection…

    This monkey is bigger than a box cutter, tear gas spray can, hand grenade, etc. etc.

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  7. But we must remember, unlike a box cutter or hand grenade, the monkey had the advantage of knowing how to play “hide-n-seek”.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  8. Alphie, your brother is coming home!

    daleyrocks (906622)

  9. It was peruvian customs which let a tiny monkey thru so why don’t you cut TSA slack this time.

    madmatt (75517f)

  10. Yes, he originally got past Peruvian customs, but:

    He then got past security again when he took a connecting flight from there to New York City, and he even kept the monkey out in the open mid-flight.

    Goofy as it sounds, there apparently is some health threat:

    “We don’t know if it’s harboring any bacteria or diseases, so the CDC is rightly concerned,” an Animal Control official told CBS 2 HD.

    I’m not sure if that means it wasn’t picked up in NYC either. It should have been kept and held for quarantine.

    No abuse of any individual intended, but as I’ve said before, Congress probably argued more over whether the TSA should be unionized or not than about attention to detail of how the job was to be done.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  11. Patterico, nice to see you’re a fan of the White Album.

    Hoping that your next post re firearms (or the unconstitutional control of same) is titled Happiness is a Warm Gun. 🙂

    qdpsteve (cd214a)

  12. There you guys go again, profiling; the monkey deserves due process.

    ras (adf382)

  13. MONKEY-ISTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    JD (06a9d8)

  14. Simiaphobia

    Scott Jacobs (90eabe)

  15. On a more positive note, at least this man and his little minkey weren’t attacked suddenly by a martial arts master.

    No, Kato, not here!

    ras (adf382)

  16. Look, I’m the first one to acknowledge that Michelle Malkin is a revolting specimen, and a grunting half-human savage whose very existence is a rebuke to the existence of a merciful God, but nonetheless, identifying her as a foot-tall, turd-throwing Peruvian monkey could easily be misinterpreted as going just a bit too far.

    legaleagle (637aba)

  17. hahaha wow you’re witty…

    douche

    Scott Jacobs (90eabe)

  18. wasn’t it a pygmy marmoset that somebody brought on the set of johnny carson once, and it climbed up on johnny and relieved itself? monkeys are nasty things, you don’t want one as a pet.

    assistant devil's advocate (f793de)

  19. Not to mention the very real possibility of rampant poo-flinging, which is never too pleasant.

    Good point. Just ask Congress.

    Tom (9f2a33)

  20. legaleagle – A female minority that is conservative. Why, she is an apostate. She must ne damned to hell for all eternity. Civility and tolerance are thrown out the door once someone becomes conservative.

    JD (388d32)

  21. Can you imagine the over wrought outrage, outrage I tell you!, if a conservative called a minority female a grunting half-human savage?

    JD (388d32)

  22. JD: I agree. I’ll bet I dislike Michelle Malkin even more than legaleagle does, but I still know racist overtones when I see them. There’s no need to resort to rhetoric of that sort.

    Tom (fb501b)

  23. Tom – There are not enough people like you on the Left.

    JD (388d32)

  24. There are others like Tom on the left?

    Well, I suppose for what it’s worth, Colmes is civil enough. He’s wrong usually, but he’s at least civil.

    Scott Jacobs (90eabe)

  25. Scott – The bar was set pretty low. Usually the Left defends these types of slurs against Malkin.

    JD (388d32)

  26. This monkey is bigger than a box cutter, tear gas spray can, hand grenade, etc. etc.

    Really?

    This is a pygmy marmoset. They are normally about 5-6 inches long, excluding the tail. They normally weigh 3-5 ounces.

    Terry (2e345a)

  27. For some reason the link didn’t show. I’ll try again:

    Pygmy Marmoset

    Terry (2e345a)

  28. JD, Scott Jacobs, there are plenty of people like me on the left. There also plenty of apologists for racist/sexist/intolerant behavior on the left–but only when directed towards conservative foes, of course.

    HOWEVER: it’s not like you have to search hard to find similar behavior from folks on the right. People on this site clamored to defend the guy who is being charged with a hate crime for stealing a Koran and dumping it in the toilet in order to piss off some Muslims with whom he had a beef. Supposedly at issue for the apologists is whether or not that should be considered a “hate crime,” but I think there’s actually some disguised bias against Muslims in play here–if the roles were reversed, how many here would raise their voices to defend the Muslim fundamentalist getting charged with a “hate crime” for burning a stolen Bible for the purpose of offending Christians? People might not philosophically agree with that, but they wouldn’t be posting their outrage about it on a right-leaning blog, I’d wager.

    I think that people in general tend to hold their political enemies to unnecessarily tough standards while simultaneously cutting their own heroes undeserved slack. This seems to be more universal than merely being a liberal or conservative, and honest people will usually admit this. I know I’m often guilty of being much more forgiving of liberal lapses than conservative calamities–but then, there’s a certain amount of pleasure that comes from being a staunch ideologue, now isn’t there? =)

    Anyway, back to the original point, we should all be willing to universally decry instances of discrimination based on race, gender, class, sexual preference/identity, etc., in favor of treating people according to the merits of their character. We all would SAY we already do this, but imagine if people one day actually took enough responsibility to make that a reality?

    [/soapbox]

    Tom (385ec8)

  29. Tom – For the most part, I agree with you.

    I was one of those that was astonished about the shitting on a Koran incident, and my outrage had little to do with with whether or not it was a Muslim, Hindu, or Baptist. I have a fundamental problem with hate crimes, and this particular incident was even worse, as it was a thought crime.

    JD (b830c0)

  30. I heard about the monkey smuggling incident, but someone also tried to smuggle a pygmy marmoset? Gosh a gol… Wait a minute. You folks trying to tell me this perspicacious crowd doesn’t know the difference between a marmoset and a monkey? Oh pshaw. like I’m going to believe that. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me that Bush is right about evolution, but wrong about Iraq.

    Alan Kellogg (5cc985)

  31. If I eat an apple, have I not eaten a fruit?

    If you want to claim a marmoset is not a monkey, links are better proof than what you just gave us.

    Patterico (2a65a5)

  32. People are arguing about the monkey?

    *sigh*

    EricPWJohnson (92aae0)

  33. Back on the serious side, a friend who knows more than I on this topic reassures me that though a marmoset, or monkey of any type, from S. America can carry TB and salmonella and a few other semi-nasty things, the really bad stuff like Herpes B and hemorrhagic fever viruses (read “Outbreak”) come from central Africa.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  34. I wish someone would pet my monkey!

    RGALLIN (c38ee2)


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