Ever wonder about that handsome man-from-Glad Roger Sterling-type seated next to you on the connecting flight to Texas through Miami, flying in from Saudi Arabia? Ever consider that our patented American flying-while-Muslim racial profiling protocol might overlook a white guy like him, even though he could post a real danger? Well, worry no more. The system works!

If he is a convicted plague-smuggler, carrying a “suspicious canister,” our hardworking TSA will not let him enter the country without additional screening.

Really.

Now we know why Miami’s airport evacuated last night: Something suspicious was found in the suitcase of a man previously jailed for smuggling the plague. Meet Dr. Thomas Butler, a white guy from Texas who works in Saudi Arabia.

Smuggling plague, you ask? Is it really possible for someone to try to smuggle plague? Why, yes! And he can be convicted if tricked by our government when they want to close a case, apparently:

What can he say to people who are hearing this story and wondering how 30 vials of a deadly pathogen can be missing? How could this have happened?

“Destruction of bacteria is a routine procedure in laboratories. And for one set of vials to be mixed up and placed inadvertently into the sterilizer is something that might happen,” says Butler. “It could be carelessness. It could be hurried activity at the end of a day.”

However, Butler said the FBI had come to the conclusion that he had accidentally destroyed the plague bacteria: “I didn’t quickly accept it as the right explanation, but I did because I trusted the FBI agents.”

The idea of carelessness or hurried activity at the end of the work day — when we’re talking about 30 vials of missing bubonic plague — makes me want to keep an eye on the guy, even after he’s served out his sentence of, what? Two years?

After his conviction, Butler lost his job and decamped to Saudi Arabia’s Alfaisal University. So it’s no surprise that his bags get pretty thorough searches at the airport these days.

Butler, who is still in Miami, is “cooperative,” according to investigators, although they have not announced whether they currently believe him to be on the side of good or evil.

Also on the TSA watch list these days? Evil scientists smuggling frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.