Just when you thought airport security couldn’t get any more absurd:

Penguins walk through a metal detector. Friggin’ penguins.

A pair of penguins from Sea World in San Antonio were traveling with their handler through the Denver airport. Security personnel made the handler remove the potential Antarctic al-Qaeda operatives from their carrying case and walk them through the metal detectors, holding up the line of human passengers.

A few questions immediately spring to mind:

1. Why wouldn’t you just check the penguins as baggage? It’s not like they’re going to freeze in the cargo hold.
2. What did the TSA geniuses think they were going to do if the penguins set off the alarm? “Sir, could you please remove the tuxedo and waddle through the metal detector again?”
3. Aren’t these birds on the [1] No Fly List?

Meanwhile, your friendly neighborhood TSA troglodytes let Homo sapiens passengers slide through security [2] with guns.

COURREGES ADDS: Matt, I wouldn’t be so trusting with penguins. They could be the minions of a certain Batman villain:

Just sayin’.