It's been a bad week for 500g ink cartridges

It's been a disappointing week for many an over-500g ink cartridge, what with cancelled holidays, no doubt well-earned, or even cancelled emigrations, no doubt much planned-for, to be accepted manfully. Of course, those ink-cartridge bombs were scary. But there's something a bit pathetic about each new convulsion in the flight security-scare business, because it is always so literal. Knife hold-ups? All pointy objects are weapons. Shoe bombs? No footwear can be presumed innocent. Liquid bombs? All mascara is suspect. The real enemy is quite obviously people and things. Can't we just let empty, auto-piloted planes criss-cross the planet indefinitely, until their horrid emissions have destroyed all the people and things, for good?