Lets see - American airport security not a laughingstock - you cant be serious. The new and improved, more highly trained, diligent etc. security personnel cannot find a knife or other blade 60% to 70% of the time and miss guns 30% of the time and you do not call that a laughingstock? I travel frequently in the US on business and I can say from experience that if they spent more time looking for weapons and less time searching 90 year old wheel chair bound women and 4-7 year old children maybe they would be more successful. I have been subjected to repeated additional security screenings which I can only guess are a result of the nature of my travels, last minute arrangements, sometimes on one-way tickets - I tend to be singled out 90% of the time I fly including connecting flights. Is this effective security - searching me and my belongings after I have already spent an hour or more on a commercial airliner? Much of what they do is pure and simple window dressing for the benefit of the uninformed and the politicians who can point to "enhanced security" and prooudly claim that they are doing something to protect Americans. Scrounging around through pax luggage for tweezers and cuticle scissors is not going to stop terrorists when people can walk or run through a security checkpoint unopposed get out of sight and then require a terminal evacuation! We are paying the security types to do something, the least they can do is stop unauthorized intrusions into the secure areas.