The week began with the notice that you could no longer travel with toner cartridges for laser printers or copiers. Nor could you carry ink cartridges for your inkjet printer. There is an old adage in military history that every general prepares to fight the next war using the same techniques that won the last war. Since historically this strategy rarely works, it has become the standard operating procedure for the TSA. Evidently, just because terrorists tried this once, TSA believes they will, unless toner cartridges are banned, try this same method endlessly. I’m puzzled: isn’t this what you want the enemy to do? Keep using methods you have already learned how to thwart? Is it really in our best interest to force them to try something new?
TSA, here’s a small suggestion: Next time you find a terrorist smuggling a bomb onto a plane, however he is attempting to accomplish the task, keep the new technique secret. Maybe the terrorists will be foolish enough to keep trying the same method. An obvious problem with this suggestion is that I’m not sure the TSA is actually catching anyone. The toner cartridge bomb was discovered in Europe, as were most of the recent attempted bombings we read about.
“Not to worry,” says Janet Napolitano, the director of Homeland Security, “The searches are completely non-sexual and performed by members of the same sex.” (Completely ignoring the fact that I have heard, rarely, of sex between members of the same sex.) If the searches are truly non-sexual, what does it matter who performs them? Couldn’t we just go back to the good old days when bomb sniffing dogs shoved their noses into our crotch?
Because we had one moron wearing a pair of exploding underwear, TSA spent billions implementing a new form of full body scanner that is both invasive and embarrassing, slows travel down to a crawl, and not effective against the kind of explosive used by the underwear bomber. This new form of security has done billions of dollars damage to the economy, making that pair of underwear perhaps the most effective bomb that never exploded in history. It Al Qaeda really wants to completely stop air travel, they should let us catch the next terrorist with a tampon bomb. I cannot imagine what form of security TSA would begin using.
Anyone who feels comforted by our airport security measures is too stupid to be allowed to travel alone. I will willing to bet my next paycheck (truthfully not that much, I work for the State of New Mexico) that I could sneak a longhorn steer onto a plane as long as the horns weren’t too wide for the jetway and I had pruchased tickets for two seats.
Could it be possible that the TSA is actually working for the terrorists as a clandestine recruiting organization? By the time I can actually board an airplane, I have to admit that I am a lot angrier at Homeland Security than Al Qaeda. I’m a little hesitant to admit it, but on my last trip, I spent most of the flight happily imagining throwing one particularly rude flight attendant out of a cabin door. I may be turning into a fanatical terrorist; I already have a beard and live in a desert.
I think it is about time to dispose of the TSA. Shut them down, close the shop and send the employees back to the vocational school for retreading tires from which they came. There are 67,000 screeners currently working for TSA, earning from $28,000 to $38,000 a year. That works out to about two and a quarter billion dollars a year. For that much money, we could probably pay Al Qaeda not to bomb us. With that much wealth, before long, they would be too busy buying flat screen televisions to bother us.
To be completely honest, I’m not completely sure if those numbers are correct, since I got them off the Homeland Security website. In all fairness, I should point out that the same site claims that almost 5% of the screeners have been with Homeland Security for over 20 years. The Department of Homeland Security was created October 2001.
There is quite a lot of information on the website: for example, did you know that you cannot travel with a snow globe, even if you pack it inside a checked bag? You can carry a book of paper matches, but not a single wooden match. Gel shoe inserts are forbidden, but you can carry a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.
Have you ever heard the old joke about the ninety year old nun who was not allowed on a plane because she was carrying knitting needles? Seems airport security was afraid she might knit an Afghan.
Well, the story isn’t true. You can carry knitting needles onto a plane. But the regulations specifically ban hockey sticks, more than one musical instrument, and cattle prods.
Maybe I couldn’t get that steer onto a plane.
Do you just have these random thoughts or do you contamplaint these for awhile.lol. It is interesting about the TSA. Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteMelissa
TSA=Yet another product of Mark Bauerlein's "Dumbest Generation"
ReplyDeleteOddly enough they do not censor sharks with laser beams attached to their noses, nor Austin Powers videos which one can freely sent to Facinated countries like Pakistan who are curious to know how "real" american people behave... I'm afraid the media has created a wrong impression of the United States from movies such as Titanic in which facinated indian men watch, curious to see what "white women Really look and act like..."
ReplyDeleteAmusingly, These views of the "homeland" are pretty "free and open" it gives an odd insight into the hypocricy of certain leaders when they are happy to watch violent movies such as the Fast and the Furious, or Iron man, but treat other, more peaceful nations as being "violent". They potray women in bad lights through indecent advertizeing but then scorn women who cover themselves modestly. Perhaps women in other lands want "security" too, from the bestial american football players.
I recently flew to Europe had had to shout down the flight attendants to keep my french horn with me... They considered it a security threat. When they lost all my luggage and left it for three months in the rain at the London airport, and returned it, dripping and moldy. I really wondered what their security was worth, and mostly thanked the powers at be, that I had not let them put their hands on my other possessions.
ReplyDeleteDosvedania