Monday, December 28, 2009

Oh, wait.

Napolitano changed her mind.

Yep. We're in the very best of hands, folks.

Also, tell me again why I have to bear the humiliation of being groped and swabbed every time I fly? Someone please explain it to me because, clearly, I don't understand. Can't they just put me on a terrorist watchlist so that TSA will leave me alone?

18 comments:

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Sounds like you MIGHT be able to fly WITH you CCW piece in your belt if you get on that watchlist.

Alan said...

Groping and humiliation is the point. The public must be trained to know their place.

Farm.Dad said...

I keep suggesting you get and wear a burka on flights. Most likely they will leave you alone then . o

Joanna said...

Hey, they know you might have a gun in there. They're not stupid! They go to the movies!

Meanwhile, a person I may or may not be related to consistenly gets her Swiss Card through security because it's in her wallet, under about $9 in change. If they notice it, she holds the wallet while she helps them look through the rest of the bag. It's funny as hell, but it's not very confidence-inspiring.

Bob said...

Tam's quote of your last sentence sent me over here, Breda; you win the internets today.

perlhaqr said...

Ow, my neck! I have snarklash! Dayum. :)

Anonymous said...

I think your last line there should net a Pulitzer for award-winning snark.

Jim

Wilz said...

Of course you do realize that TSA does not run security at Schiphol right? I don't know who currently runs things but it used to be contracted out to Israeli's long before 9/11. Any TSA involvement would explain this failure.
A Prosthesis's might be an issue but for real fun try Scuba equipment and parachutes.

breda said...

Wilz - carrying scuba equipment is voluntary. I don't really have a choice whether or not to wear my leg, now do I?

Wilz said...

Breda
No offense intended. If your life and livelihood depend on that Scuba gear though, I'm not sure I would agree that carrying it is any more voluntary then leisure travel.
I can empathize with your experience. Due to a number of left over pieces of shrap metal I have had to strip down several times to demonstrate that I can't "place all metal items in the basket".
I am not defending TSA in any way. I have gone through their checkpoints using passports belonging to other team members and with fully loaded mags/speedloaders. I have given up innocuous things like shampoo while carrying much more lethal items through without question.
TSA is an ineffectual response designed to make folks "feel safe" while accomplishing very little in reality except aggravating travelers. That being said, TSA didn't blow this one. The Dutch did.

ASM826 said...

Don’t fly.
Don’t.
If you make an exception due to dire necessity, such as a death in the family, then accept the treatment you will receive. Otherwise, don’t fly.

Airline companies are marginal businesses. Full planes are profitable, planes half full are not.

If we want to change the way we are treated by the airlines and the TSA, the only way to do it is to stop accepting the mistreatment. It is the same thing as a battered woman that does nothing to separate herself from her abuser. People that know her shake their head and wonder why she keeps going back, knowing that more abuse was inevitable.

So here’s the plan. Drive. Don’t travel by plane. Take trips closer to home. Take a cruise. If it’s work related, do it by video conference. If 20 % of the people that will fly in 2010 did not, and let the airlines know the reason for their decision, changes would occur.

But if you pay your money to line up and be mistreated, and you already know it’s going to happen, exactly whose fault is that?

Simon said...

There are of course a number of reasons behind the "security measures" at airports, one is to avoid racial or religious profiling, they know who they need to check, but if they all who fit that profile and not an equal percentage of others they will get a stink from civil rights groups, liberals and certain religious leaders. Another reason is to give the impression of doing something, which is of course more important than actually doing something. The biggest reason i believe is quite a bit more sinister, it is to get people used to, and make paople accept more and more infringement of personal space, personal freedom and personal integrity, in short, make people become more of sheeple and thus easier to control an d command.

James R. Rummel said...

Good post.

Anonymous said...

easy enough to sit back and find something to snip at. But then what do you suggest?
example: The Dutch claim that they wanted to use full body scans but that America said NO WAY.
America we are told never allowed full body scans because special interest groups (dating back to Bush) including airlines and ACLU et al lobbied against it..and lobbeys always win.

I have posted a link that suggests that AlQaeda knows that using full body scans but allowing protective shields for private parts, is a way to get around full body scans...(that is on my site and is probably not to be known).

So: easy to fix. Full body scans. Don't want it, don't use my planes.
You are in a questionable country and want to come to US--we will have our own scans done before you get on a plane coming here--Israel does this and it works.
ps: being snippy is no substitute for facts and suggestions.

breda said...

Listen, FRED...do not presume to come on my blog and scold me for being "snippy."

You don't like it, go read somewhere else.

FarmGirl said...

Fred thinks that because Breda is a woman, he has the right to scold her on her own blog.

Frankly, Fred was far more "snippy" with Breda than she was in her post. Smacks of "Get in the kitchen, wench" to me, which is an attitude that I do not deal well with.

Personally I think that Fred has "little woman" syndrome which is sadly a misnomer. It's generally more correctly "little man" syndrome.

Anonymous said...

I bet those special interest groups date further back than Bush, Fred.

Quit being so snippy.

John B said...

to quote a Rik Mayall movie title...
Drop Dead Fred!

If you ever call Breda snippy again, my only regret will be that I didn't get there in time to see all her female blog friends get all NOW on your ass.

Breda, I'm sorry for my impoliteness. But sometimes it needs to be crude to be effective.