Airport Security Farce Descends into Nightmare Kafkaesque Lunacy

So, just how exactly, oh TSA, does terrifying screaming 3-year-old little girls help security?  Or shall I mention this new and appalling tale from San Diego?  (I have to say, though, that Mr. Tyner's statement absolutely must be the Quote of the Day:  "You touch my junk and I'll have you arrested."  The counter-quote, remarkable for its sheer mind-blowing lunacy, was the TSA response: "By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights." THE HELL HE/YOU/I/ANYBODY DID!)

I'll end, though, with this piquantly accurate zinger from the aforementioned aggrieved Mr. Tyner:

Tyner points out that every terrorist act on an airplane has been halted by passengers. "It's time to stop treating passengers like criminals and start treating them as assets," he said.

Hear, hear.  Remember this that I posted in the aftermath of the Pantybomber incident?  And this. And this satire that seems too close to real now.  I swear, current events have become impossible to satirize.

Geez Louise.  I'll have to fly home for Christmas.  I'm not looking forward to this, and not just because holiday travel is so miserable in itself without the added stupid burdens of the Idiotic TSA Kabuki Theater That Everyone Knows Is Useless and Idiotic.  Ed Morrissey rightly calls it the "everyone must suffer equally" approach.  But the TSA will never have the stones to do what the Israelis do for air safety. 

Meanwhile, I shall raise a glass to this creatively rebellious suggestion by Jeffrey Goldberg, who suggests that all you fair lads of Scottish descent or inclination do something particular to join the National Opt-Out Day air travelers' protests and give the TSA more than they can ... er... handle.  (He has since come up with an even sassier idea. By the way, you may -- as I did -- get a laugh from this other cheeky Goldberg response to airport security lunacy.  Or this.)  And a philosophy professor says something that actually makes sense.


UPDATE:  In the interest of being fair, here is Napolitano's new defense of the TSA.