Re: Phil Z getting through customs

At 11:21 AM 1/15/96 -0800, Simon Spero wrote:

>When I was a student and had long hair, I used to always get questioned
>when going throught customs. After graduating, and having normal length
>hair, I had a lot less trouble.

This seems odd.  Logically (okay, I know logic doesn't work with the 
government) any smuggler is going to try to be as innocuous as possible.  
He's cut his hair, and shave, and probably wear a tie, etc.  Which means the 
government should pay more attention to....

Oh, never mind!


>The strictest customs I've been through is at Lod (Tel Aviv); there the 
>assumption is that everybody is going to try and bring in at least 
>some sort of radio/fax machine to avoid the high taxes, so they check all 
>baggage. They do have the best security team in general though, so it 
>balances out.

Some comedian 15 years or so ago (David Brenner, maybe?) had a joke which  went 
something like this:

"The odds of there being a bomb on a commercial airliner is one in a 
million.  The odds of there being TWO bombs on a commercial airliner are one 
in a _million_million_.  Therefore, if you are taking an airplane flight and 
want to feel REALLY safe....Take a bomb!"

On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 11:21 AM 1/15/96 -0800, Simon Spero wrote:
> 
> >When I was a student and had long hair, I used to always get questioned
> >when going throught customs. After graduating, and having normal length
> >hair, I had a lot less trouble.
> 
> This seems odd.  Logically (okay, I know logic doesn't work with the 
> government) any smuggler is going to try to be as innocuous as possible.  
> He's cut his hair, and shave, and probably wear a tie, etc.  Which means the 
> government should pay more attention to....

"Logically" works for "criminals" too.  A drug dealer of any significance 
should never talk about business on the phone.  Yet there are countless 
consensually monitored or tapped conversations in which someone says "we 
really shouldn't talk over the phone, but the shipment will be in Tuesday 
at 3:00.  Have the $$$ ready."

EBD