So apparently, the lesson learned from this last round of terrorist plots is to not let people stand up or use their stuff during the last hour of a flight.

I can see it now.

Fade in, first class cabin of an airplane containing the disaffected and yet highly privileged son of Muslim corporate parents listing over and over in his head the many injustices that he will right by killing people he doesn’t know. Having so enumerated his many reasons, he fails to notice that it’s an hour before landing and he must now stay seated.

Young Terrorist, talking to himself: Well, I WAS going to set off an explosive that I illegally brought on board despite the rules and cause an enormous amount of human suffering, but damn I can’t now because I’m not supposed to get up!!! If only I had set my Bulova alarm so that I could have stood up 62 minutes from the end of the flight, vengeance would have been mine!! Just you wait until next time, infidels! Where’s my headphones so I can watch the last of Friends before I disembark?

In all seriousness, I am assuming that TSA is attempting to keep planes from acting as weapons in US airspace–the last hour on most international flights are spent heading into US cities. I get it. I can understand that, but…this does not negate the enormous gap in security that led us to where a terrorist was on a plane with explosives in his pants. I can’t even bring lip gloss.