Wednesday, February 03, 2010

TSA Passenger Profiling...Right or Wrong?

A Multiple-Choice Test...


As I've said about ten million dozens and dozens of times here before on this blog, I've about had it up to here (pointing to the very top of my ever greying, ever balding head) with the BS associated with everything from our inability to "profile" when checking the intentions and possessions of potential airline passengers to the Government allowing the wholesale issuing of "student visas" and "work permits" to people from places like China and Lebanon and Syria under preposterous, unbelievable circumstances.

Most of this ingrained mental characteristic is simply based on my innate common sense, although the sniveling booger eating patchouli stinking tree hugging government subsidized liberals progressives in the crowd will be inclined to just stand up and point their fingers at me and scream "racist" and "bigot" and "closed minded" and you name all of the other possible labels in my direction.

I have to admit that part of this blithering here this morning is based on my own personal experiences over the past ten years of flying.

You can call me self-important or self-absorbed I guess, but still...

I don't really know why, but thinking back I'm pretty sure that EVERY SINGLE TIME I've gotten on a Commercial Jet since about the year 2000 I've been subjected to "enhanced screening," generally along with another half dozen dumpy white middle aged people (mostly men carrying laptop computers.)

While Pat passes effortlessly through baggage check and security in her stocking feet, I'm diverted the minute I enter the door to the Airport Terminal into the "special line" where the people with blue or green rubber gloves pass my checked baggage through Geiger Counters and MRI's and Cat Scans and God knows what other forms of "screening."

Half the time when I open my "checked" luggage at the Hotel I find a little tag or greeting card informing me why my formerly neatly folded socks and underwear have been scrambled into a knot...the reason being that after I left my belongings in the care of the GOVERNMENT the bag was opened and "inspected" by one of the aforementioned lovely glove wearing TSA employees.

Meanwhile me and my carry on bag and computer are diverted sideways through those little velvet covered ropes on posts like they have at the bank to a separate Plexiglas enclosed area, what I call a "holding tank," to wait another five or ten additional minutes for some gloved rocket scientist TSA employee to wave me over to a table where they go through my possessions and rub their hands all over me and wand me with a hand held metal detector.

Since I see them go through my stuff I don't even get the tag or the "inspected by" greeting card.

Maybe next time I travel I should insist that I'm not leaving the "screening area" until they tie one of those little tags onto my toe or other designated "appendage."

....zip

..."Thank you Miss."



OK, while I've delivered most of the above ranting and raving in a tongue and cheek manner because I have no control of the process, I also represent that every bit of it is true, including that they "enhance" my screening every time I fly, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one out there who has had similar experiences at least a few times.

And more importantly, what I'm trying to say here AGAIN is that "security screening" in it's present form makes no sense and no difference in your actual level of security while in the air on an airplane (or anywhere else for that matter.)

Most people just shrug their shoulders at the process but truth is that in their ignorance they FEEL BETTER and the government knows that.

When...not IF...the next major successful terrorist event happens here in the US, I promise you that all your government is going to do is further stick their head in the sand (or up the first available body orifice.)

And then the Community Organizer President and his talking head sock puppet Rob Gibbs will be on TV almost 24/7...

and after offering a big old sloppy Presidential "Whoopsy Daisy" they'll simply go back to assuring everyone hiding in their linen closets and under their desks that the Authorities have everything under control and that they're looking at new "enhanced measures" while at the same time saying...

"GOLLY GEE...DON'T BLAME US...LOOK AT ALL THE STUFF WE'VE ALREADY BEEN DOING..."


(pause...sigh...taking a big breath here boss...)

See Folks, my problem with all of this high cost bureaucratic insanity is that while the expenses have been going through the ceiling for "Homeland Security," they're spending 99.3141597% (statistic per the Rogers' In-Congressional Budget Office, or RICBO for short) of the money looking in the wrong direction, at the wrong time, and at the WRONG PEOPLE.

I say that it's pretty easy to know where to look and who to inspect, and bringing this rambling dialogue back to my original point made in this Blog posting title, having come this far with me I ask that you spend another couple of minutes here this morning and take the following little multiple-choice test, designed explicitly to determine your ability to vote for the people who make "Homeland Security" policy, and if you're unemployed, possibly your suitability to get a job working with the TSA if you want to.


Ready?


Here we go...


1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:

a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40


2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by :

a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d . Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

a. John Dillinger
b. Michael Jackson
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:

a. The Smurfs
b. Davey Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens , and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:

a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Lockerby, Scotland:

a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:

a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:

a. Mr. Rogers (the guy with the TV show...not me)
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:

a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


12. Since 2002 the United States has fought a war in Iraq against:

a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:

a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabit, and the Dancing Bear
c. Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggert, and Jim and Tammy Baker
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


14. On November 5, 2009 in a building at Ft. Hood, Texas 13 people were murdered and another 30 were injured in a premeditated attack by:

a. Lady Gaga
b. A young family of five including an infant and two Toddlers
c. Jeff Foxworthy
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


15. On Christmas day, 2009, an attempt was made to blow up an Airliner in route from Europe to the United States, thereby killing 288 passengers by:

a. Shrek
b. A Blogger named Virgil
c. Don Knotts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


If I wanted to sit here and rack my brain and Google the subject I could easily get another 15 questions, but I think that you get my point this morning.

So will somebody tell me WHY we're sitting around doing things the way we're doing things?

I'm waiting ...

(Que the sounds of crickets chirping...)

BTW, if you scored less than 15 out of 15, and I find out, I'm coming to your house and mowing the word "Dangerous Moron" in your grass with my Weed Eater.

Don't make me come over there...


(Thanks to Rodger over at Curmudgeonly and Skeptical and his Cuzzin Ricky for the idea and link)


MORE...at 6:00 AM...

Answers to the Questions for those to old or young to remember...

1. Sirhan_Sirhan

2. Black_September, a group with ties to Yasser_Arafat and the PLO.
(extra credit given to re-read the story here on wikipedia: Munich_Olympics_Massacre

3. I think everybody remembers this story, but I'm rapidly approaching being older than dirt (it happened THIRTY ONE YEARS AGO while World UN and Dictator Whore and Appeasers President Jumma "Smile When You Say That" Carter was busy playing the Banjo or something in the White House. Go here on Wiki for the answer... Iran_Hostage_Crisis.

4. You're on your own on this one, but I know it happened and am too lazy to spend time Googleing because my point is made elsewhere.

5. Islamic_Jihad

6. Palestine Liberation Front

7. Lebanese Shia Terrorists

8. Lybian moron Abdelbaset_Ali_Mohmed_Al_Megrahi

9. Khaled_Shaikh_Mohammed...I leave it up to you to guess where he went to church, but here's a clue...HE WASN'T A BAPTIST...

10.Egyptian Islamist Jihad

11. If you don't know this I'm coming over to your front yard...see earlier threat...

12. If you don't know this you fail and I'm too impatient to tell you right now.

13. al Quaeda

14. A domestically raised Dumbass Islamist Jihadist...if you don't know this your fail...

15. Some little Dumbass from Africa...if you don't know this you fail...


How'd you do?

Doesn't matter really I guess...

Now go get something productive done while I get back to re-building valves...

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