Hypothesis Three it is

Like I said, Hypothesis Three:

There's nothing the TSA can really do, but idiots demand they do something and the only something that passengers can observe is how much they're being inconvenienced?

Reports Scott Beaulier today:

I travel a lot, and that's been true since well before 09/11. In that time, I've never seen or experienced anything close to the invasion Anemone and I experienced trying to get home yesterday at Heathrow and then again in Atlanta. 3.5 hours of additional screening were added onto our trip (i.e., normal harassment would have got us out of Heathrow two hours sooner and through Atlanta 1.5 hours sooner).

Far more disgusting than the TSA invasion and complete waste of time was the nonsense we heard from people around us all afternoon, such as, "Well, whatever it takes to keep anything bad from happening," and "It's really not that big a deal." Best of all, at the end of our trip, people in front of us were eager to jump into the "whole body imaging technology" machine when we arrived in Atlanta!

Who would have thought kissing your civil liberties good-bye could be so much fun, would be something people would literally run for, and would occur for many without even a momentary pause to consider the inconvenience and immorality of it all???

Ira turns two in February; his sister is on the way end-April. Fortunately, security lines basically don't exist in New Zealand and Australia, unless you're flying to the US. The biggest hassle is that customs in Melbourne always pulls me up for secondary inspection and interrogation, but that only adds 20 minutes. Unfortunately, Sue wants to go back Stateside for a visit sometime this year. I'm dreading having Ira in one of those lines. Absolutely dreading. It will be awful. If Ira were older, it could be an object lesson in the merits of voters and government. But there won't even be that upside.