Drop the Scrubs, Bub

Jesse Walker | July 12, 2007

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Garrison Keillor responds to the recent attacks in London:

Doctors have been shown to constitute a security threat, therefore they must not be allowed to drive cars or have backpacks or briefcases, which can conceal bombs. They should carry their possessions in clear plastic bags and they should go barefoot at all times. When it comes to security, there can be no shortcuts, no half-measures.

Perhaps these rules should apply only to medical personnel from the Middle East, or to all swarthy doctors, or those who have fez marks on their foreheads or who set off the fig detector, but that would require a lot of on-site decisions by motor vehicle bureaus and security personnel - a blanket rule is easier to enforce. All docs take walks. After all, the Transportation Security Administration folks at the airport don't let you squeeze out a little Ipana on your finger and prove that it's only toothpaste and not nitroglycerine - there just isn't time for that monkey business.

And so, starting Sept. 1, everybody - no exceptions - in the health services field will be banned from driving anything with an ignition system....Will this new rule apply to emergency medical technicians? Yes. The rescue vehicles they drive contain potentially explosive oxygen tanks, and so each EMT will have a non-EMT handler to keep an eye on him or her and check the gurney for suspicious bulges.

Whole thing here. I enjoyed Ken MacLeod's take too:

The perpetrators of three failed terrorist attacks were not, it now seems, alienated teenagers misled by hook-handed clerics (etc etc) but NHS medical personnel. This is disturbing. It means it's possible to qualify in and to practice medicine with almost no knowledge of physics and chemistry....

As any science undergraduate will tell you, medical students tend to be well-meaning and intelligent, but only slightly better-informed and better-behaved than students of divinity. When it comes to fundamentalism the people you have to keep a watchful eye on are engineers, who are predisposed to fall for design arguments and to follow literal interpretations of The Book.

Comments

|7.12.07 @ 10:09AM|#

Socialized medicine = Terrorist doctors

Suck it, Moore.

VM|7.12.07 @ 10:15AM|#

50 ways to bomb a doctor

Just drop off the scrubs Bub
Back in Afghanistan

Don't need a decoy Roy,
just blow yerself up

So time to be trite, right
Mein Gott that's dynamite

So hide some more C4
And live no more


jeez. already a long day. (between that and the Neil Diamond (right?) line above, this could very well be the fastest day at H&R).

*looks for Smacky's pebble to kick. can't find it. hrumph. (and Stevo's bunk is occupied)

**stomps off

dhex|7.12.07 @ 10:17AM|#

Just snip that fuse, Lou
I need both my knees

|7.12.07 @ 10:24AM|#

I think it is fairly obvious that the ultimate solution is that all healthcare workers should be required to wear transparent vinyl clothing at all times.

Randolph Carter|7.12.07 @ 10:30AM|#

I think there's a night club in my town where they do that

|7.12.07 @ 10:31AM|#

SugarFree,

Think of it, Moore can turn this into a documentary combining Farenheit 9/11 and Sicko!

|7.12.07 @ 10:34AM|#

FingFangFoom,

Uh, no. The only thing keeping at bay the creepiness of my doctor feeling up my scrotum and ordering me to cough, for instance, is the fact that he has clothes on.

|7.12.07 @ 10:35AM|#

crimethink,

Aw, crap.

lunchstealer|7.12.07 @ 10:36AM|#

As any science undergraduate will tell you, medical students tend to be well-meaning and intelligent, but only slightly better-informed and better-behaved than students of divinity.

I'm glad somebody else noticed this. There were exceptions, including one guy who was a young-earth creationist (on purely religious grounds, and he didn't judge the rest of us for going with the science) who was so smart that I would pick him over just about any other doctor I have met. Present company excepted (Frank_A, etc).

This is what happens when you have socialized terrorism, though.

|7.12.07 @ 10:49AM|#

VM - Paul Simon, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"

Nice work!

|7.12.07 @ 10:52AM|#

crimethink,

I was told I had "excellent scrotal structure."

My wife wouldn't let me prove it at my 4th of July BBQ. She's just jealous.

Ellie|7.12.07 @ 11:10AM|#

*bows and scrapes at VM's feet*

VM|7.12.07 @ 11:32AM|#

*Hands Ellie a brand new kitten*

|7.12.07 @ 11:33AM|#

*Grabs and eats kitten*

|7.12.07 @ 11:40AM|#

So, I guess this rules out a place where all the terrorists are above average.

|7.12.07 @ 11:40AM|#

Less competent at bomb making than ALF members? Do we really want to encourage competition amongst the lunatic fringe?

VM|7.12.07 @ 11:42AM|#

*Secretly switches SugarFree's coffee with Folger's Crystals*

|7.12.07 @ 11:46AM|#

dammit

|7.12.07 @ 11:48AM|#

What, I don't get a kitten?

*goes back into the lab to plot revenge*

VM|7.12.07 @ 11:53AM|#

*hands Bronwyn hier*

|7.12.07 @ 11:53AM|#

Wait! What?! Whose scrotal structure do you have to admire to get a tasty kitten?! I didn't follow that!...

|7.12.07 @ 12:02PM|#

Oh no, Rimfax. I just admired VM's lyric-writing ability and provided the name of the songwriter who inspired VM's creativity.

I admire no man's taint but my husband's... and I have to clean and examine my infant son's taint several times a day.

For that, I also deserve a kitten.

Thanks, VM! My head just exploded all over my desk.

VM|7.12.07 @ 12:09PM|#

woo hoo!

hier

|7.12.07 @ 12:16PM|#

Registration Required?! AAAARRRGGGGHH

Keillor went sour on me when Jesse Ventura was elected. I haven't been able to get the bad taste out since. But I'm with him on this one.

engineers, who are predisposed to fall for design arguments and to follow literal interpretations of The Book.

Heh, good one.

|7.12.07 @ 12:31PM|#

AAAAARGH! Yer killin' me with cute!

cue: killing me softly with kittens, killing me softly... with kittens...

|7.12.07 @ 1:03PM|#

Uh, no. The only thing keeping at bay the creepiness of my doctor feeling up my scrotum and ordering me to cough, for instance, is the fact that he has clothes on.


Wait what? The doc is supposed to be wearing clothes when he does that? FUCK!!

|7.12.07 @ 1:17PM|#

Chi-Tom FUCK!!

Exactly!

LarryA|7.12.07 @ 2:32PM|#

When it comes to fundamentalism the people you have to keep a watchful eye on are engineers, who are predisposed to fall for design arguments and to follow literal interpretations of The Book.

They also actually know how to blow things up.

Robert|7.13.07 @ 1:41PM|#

Seriously, though, this whole bit is disturbing because I want to think of medical personnel as liking people to be healthy, not blown up, and just liking people in general.