Emeritus,
I have to give you a hat's off to your posting. Exactly right on. The TSA people and other airport security people on duty are taking away loads of junk from my toiletry bag, just because they have a list of forbidden articles posted in front of them.
In the U.S., the TSA crowd are mostly the same caliber high-school drop out crowd that used to work for the private security agencies just a little while back. Now they have a salary raise and a government pension, yet they have learned nothing in profiling a would-be terrorist.
Still, in the U.S., you keep reading about a number of cases where passengers have brought on board guns, Bowie knifes and corrosive solvents. I remember a posting a few years back out of Canada where a chemical leaked and actually burned a hole in the floor of the aircraft. Just imagine if that canister would have been under pressure.
These alerts and cancellations just show you that airport security at check in is only cosmetic and is only designed to deter the legitimate passenger who forgets to put his nail scissors in the checked baggage. And as for running shoes, my foot. Air Nikes can be transformed into pressure detonators and there is no need for this idiot chap flying from Paris to try to light his fuse with matches.
Then finally, you show up at security and declare that you have a pacemaker. If you're a suicide bomber, you just push the proper rib and you and the whole thing will go off.
All in all, I think your post brought at least some reality to this subject.