Catching Up With The TSA

Here's the quickie King James Version summary of why I've not posted these past couple of weeks:

And lo, the God Of Petty Annoyances DID make his face to shine upon the Feral Genius as she DID maketh arrangements to emigrate FROM New England TO Dixie BECAUSE her partner's job demandeth thus; and the God Of Petty Annoyances DID rain his blessings down upon the Feral Genius (who knoweth NOT what she did to get him so pissed off, but figureth it's probably because the GOPA works for the TSA). For the GOPA is her shepherd, and she shall not want for high blood pressure because the shepherd hungers for mutton. 

And the Feral Genius' car DID get towed after the HOA-hole in charge of her rental DID neglect to issue her a parking pass IN a timely manner; and the ants DID invade repeatedly the Feral Genius' home until she DID spendeth a small fortune on insecticide; and the air conditioning unit DID clog its condensation pipes and DID send forth upon the floor a flood of Noahic proportions; and the derecho storm that slammed the DC region DID slam the Feral Genius as well; and a zombie spammer DID hijack the Feral Genius' Hotmail account and DID send forth a flood of spammy emails to her friends and business contacts; and she immediately DID change her password and the problem DID immediately stop and then Microsoft DID notice the problem four days later and thus DID render the account inactive, and the Feral Genius DID with much scatological profanity cry out "Thanks for the speedy and efficient and incredibly useful response time, jackholes" as she DID endeavor to render the account active again, and this DID happen on the same day her car DID fail the state-transfer safety inspection and the resulting car repair DID cost her over eight hundred bucks.

And I DID give you guys the super-condensed version here; there's still sundry unexpected paperwork issues I must resolve, but hope to do so by the end of the week.

Luckily, things calmed down enough that I finally had time to go online today, not for work-related issues, but simply to read the news. And I DID then remember why I was already in a bad mood before the God Of Petty Annoyances chose to single me out for attention: anyone can have a string of bad luck as I've experienced these past few weeks but, despite my tongue-in-cheek references to the God Of Petty Annoyances, I know it's all merely a statistical anomaly, not the result of a consciously malevolent force.

But I can't say that about any of the TSA outrages I caught up on this afternoon: TSA is  malevolence personified. It takes a purely bullying spirit to sneer "fucking deafie" at a man after you confiscate his candy and eat it in front of him, as TSAgents did to a deaf man in Louisville. A combination of malevolence, perversion and outright stupidity thinks security demands that women wearing skirts lift them high enough to expose their underwear, as demanded of a flier in Philadelphia. 

TSA agents now wander randomly through airports demanding to do random searches of food and drinks that passengers buy after passing through TSA checkpoints into the "secure" portions of airports; TSA's sociopathic spokesman "Blogger Bob" naturally defended this by saying ... well, nothing, really:

As far as the testing of liquids at the gate, this is just one of the many options we have to choose from when deciding what additional tactics to use each day. We started using test strips back in the summer of 2007 and continue to do so. The test involves a test strip and a dropper containing a nontoxic solution. In case you're wondering, our officers don't place the test strips in your beverages/liquids. They simply have the passenger remove the cap/lid and they hold the strip over the opening of the container. Procedures call for moving the test strip to the side and applying the solution from the dropper to test the strip. If the test results are positive TSA will conduct additional testing to make a final assessment.

In a nutshell, liquid screening at gates is random and it isn't happening at every airport every day. So other than possibly taking a few moments of your time before boarding your flight, it's business as usual.

Yes, it is "business as usual" for the TSA, in the sense of being capricious, unconstitutional and worthless. if TSA actually believes the airport McDonald's is selling explosive sodas, it would test the soda machine in the McDonald's rather than individual random soda-drinkers. 

I remind you here of something I said about the TSA in September 2006, years before they claimed the right to molest people en masse: "These stupid rules aren’t meant to make us safer, but only train us in habits of evermore mindless obedience."