Les Bonnes Choses

So it seems that the family flew into London under the wire in other respects too. Aside from the extensive commentary on the weather, the next biggest story concerned the TSA document leak. Now that "the terrorists" know what to look for, talk is that we can look forward to even longer "security" lines as the TSA redoubles their efforts at preventing terrorism. Irony is, if you consider the end goal of terrorism to be instilling fear in a population, it looks like Homeland Security and the TSA are doing a fine job all on their own. I mean, I sat in at a departmental colloquium not long ago, where the speaker (JPM will have to refresh my memory as to who it was) very convincingly demonstrated that you're not likely to spot a weapon in someone's luggage, even if you're hypervigilant because you've been told that you probably won't be able to find the gun pictured on the display. And anyways, these measures are always reactionary. Someone puts a bomb in their shoes? From now on, you have to take your shoes off at the security check point. Someone brings liquids onboard that could be combined to make a bomb in-flight? From now on, you cannot bring more than 100ml of a non-solid in your carry-on. This is cumulative, folks. Maybe someday someone will have explosive rivets in their jeans, and we'll be boarding the plane thirsty the next week in our socks and boxer-briefs. Smelling an opportunity, the airlines will provide hospital gowns at $10 a pop when we check our luggage for $15 a bag.

And, now that I've gotten myself on the no-fly list, I shall go eat my dinner. Porterhouse steak. Yum!