Friday, April 20, 2007

I generally support the president. Hell, even on his worst day he's better than John Kerry or Al Gore. Kerry is a buddyf*cker and Gore is an idiot.

Having said that, I do recognize that the president has made some errors. He pulled us out of the Clinton-made economic slump and he's been a steadfast leader in the war that radical Islam declared against us, but like all of us, he's made a mistake or two along the way.

His first mistake was establishing the Transportation Security Administration. He did so under heavy pressure from Democrats such as Ted "I killed a girl, but so what, I'm rich" Kennedy and other moral stars in the bunch of criminals we blithely call Congress. The call after 9/11 was "Do something, do something" and typical of Democrats, they demanded a knee jerk "do it now, don't give it any thought, just do it" response. To his discredit, the president bowed to the pressure and created the TSA.

The creation of the TSA has had exactly zero effect. All it did was take thousands of contract workers and make them federal employees. The same guy who screened your luggage yesterday simply showed up today wearing a fancy shirt with "TSA" and a little gold shield embroidered on it. The only thing that is different is that now that he's a federal employee he can be completely unsuited for his job, but he can't be terminated. I went to the class. It takes an 18-month audit trail of infractions, counseling, corrective measures, etc. to terminate a federal employee.

So all the president did was take a group with more than their share of idiots and make those idiots fireproof.

I recently went through security at Orlando airport. The first checkpoint was manned by about six people wearing maroon jackets. They were contractors of some sort. Hadn't gotten to the TSA people yet. Of the half-dozen people in maroon jackets, only one was actually doing anything. The rest of them spoke exclusively Spanish to each other, as did the sole English speaker between passengers. Now, I'm not racist or anything, but I have issues with going through a security checkpoint in the United States in which none of the security people speak English. It was rude, it was "in your face" and my Spanish is rusty enough that they could have been discussing ways to kill the gringos and I'd have missed it. Dammit, if you're going to man security at a US airport, speak English.

As it was, the sole English speaker simply said "ID" (is that all the English she knows?) and literally simply made two strokes with a pen on the boarding pass. I could have done that myself. It was literally the most useless security measure I've ever seen. Just two strokes with a pen. Jab, jab.

So then we passed to the "professionals". The TSA people. Talk about hiring the handicapped. I suspect that I danced on the edge of getting jailed, but my TSA tormentor was too stupid to figure that one out. Bear in mind that I've just passed through a "security" checkpoint of dubious value, manned by people who can't even speak English. Here is my conversation with the TSA idiot:

Moron: Whose carry on is this?
Me: Mine
Moron: Are you sure?
Me: Yes, I'm sure
Moron: Oh, so you use hairspray
(at this point I went from simmer to full boil)
Me: The hairspray is for my daughter who is standing next to me, A$$hole. (Yes, I called him a$$hole)
Moron: You can't take more than three ounces of liquid on an aircraft
Me: What am I going to do, detangle the pilot? (This might have been the point where I really risked getting thrown off the flight, but Mr. TSA wasn't bright enough to pick up on it)
Moron: Well, you can't take more than three ounces
Me: Well, how much is in there, genius?
Moron: I don't know, I can't measure it
Me: Exactly.
Moron: The bottle says 8-ounces
Me: But it's damn near empty
Moron: I have to go with what the bottle says
Me: Fine, A$$hole. Take it

I'd have been fine except that Mr. TSA decided to be a smarta$$ about the hairspray thing. After that, I went incendiary. Fortunately for me, the TSA guy was too stucking fupid to realize I held him in utter contempt and would have ripped his lungs out in a different setting (then again, none of the witnesses spoke English, so just maybe...).

Probably not the smartest move on my part, but then again, I wasn't exactly dealing with the world's smartest person, either.

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