LAX shooting

OK, so far as we know, multiple TSA agents were shot at Los Angeles Airport today. The media is already playing up the fact that an "assault rifle" was allegedly used.

That can't be, however, because such weapons are banned in California and gun bans keep criminals from getting guns. Dianne Feinstein keeps telling us this and she's from California.

Also, while I'm no fan at all of TSA goons, shooting them is still technically wrong, so my sympathies to those shot.

Can we just abolish TSA now? It's not like there hasn't been an alternative idea since the 1970's.

Screw TSA

Know what this is?

It's a combination bottle opener and corkscrew.

My saintly mother bought me one of these while she was out west visiting relatives a few months back, intending to give it to me as a small gift. However, when she got to the airport, the officious brownshirts of the TSA (Thieves Standing Around) decided that it was too dangerous for her to have this on the airplane so they took it.

Well when I was up visiting her this past week-end, she gave me another one. But this one made it back here on a different airplane: Mine. It went into my carry-on bag and I carried it right out onto the tarmac and secured it in my own plane.

Know what else got carried onto that tarmac and flown through the once-friendly skies?

A Smith and Wesson Model 19.

A Smith and Wesson Model 642.

A Springfield Armory 1911.

(This one got carried in my hip holster as I flew cross-country and touched down at several GA airports enroute.)

Oh--and this Swedish Mauser. (Thanks, Aaron!)

Oh, and did I mention the horrible, vicious attack Shepherd in the back seat? Truly I was some sort of airborne menace to society, at least if judged by the standards set by the Thumb-Sucking Assmonkeys.

Not surprisingly, no one was injured or even scared during the duration of my flight. Additionally, my aircraft was NOT hijacked by muslim extremists, overweight union agitators or crazed environmentalists, but suffice it to say that had such an attempt been made, it would have been repelled quite easily as ammunition for all of the above was both plentiful and close at hand.

I even had the ability to open a few bottles in celebration of any post-attacker-suppression. But not alcohol, of course. Not until after the aircraft was tied down for the night because alcohol and aircraft don't mix and I'm all about responsiblity.

In other news, at least two Transportation Security Administration officers at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport have been arrested in a police sting operation...

TSA bars stripper surgeon, but ok's terrorist's wife to fly.

What is going in in this country when this woman is not allowed to board aircraft for domestic flights,
but this one is A-OK for international flights?

That's right...in this new system of airline "security", where all are slated to be inconvenienced equally (except for those who appear to be muslims, because that would be profiling), Tammy Banovac, a woman in a wheelchair who gained notoriety for protesting TSA by stripping, has once again been barred from boarding an aircraft for no apparent reason, while another one--Kathie Smith--who is married to a Jihadist, advocates terrorism against the Unites States, and poses for pictures holding guns and surrounded by pictures of other terrorists gets to fly wherever and whenever she wants to.
Tammy made TSA look like idiots last month when she took off all but her bra and panties to protest the way that she'd been groped on a previous screening, so now she's getting jerked around every time she shows up at the airport. But Kathie Smith...well she hasn't challenged TSA so they're apparently willing to overlook a few red flags in the name of diversity:

On her MySpace page, currently available for viewing via Google cache, Smith wrote: “As salamu alaikum akhi.. it is time for Jihad and it is now Fard ayn for ALL Muslims whether their in the United Snakes or else where...Insha'Allah!!!!”

Smith has lauded Awlaki, celebrated the deaths of U.S. soldiers -- who she called “terrorists” -- at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and applauded another user’s posting of a rendering of the two planes hitting the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

And while she has repeatedly called for jihad against the West, Smith told FoxNews.com: “I am exercising my right, as an American citizen to freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bare arms. I have the right in America to say what ever I want. That is what makes America so great, right?”

But a paid government consultant aware of Smith’s movements said there’s concern that Smith could follow the path of Colleen LaRose, a suburban Philadelphian dubbed “Jihad Jane,” who pleaded not guilty in March to conspiracy charges involving a plot to kill a Swedish artist and providing material support to terrorists.

“When her husband released the video earlier this month of the two of them holding weapons and included standard jihad imagery, such as pictures of German jihadists that have left to join terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan or have been arrested for plotting terror attacks, we were concerned that they might be escalating to an attack themselves,” the consultant said.

It's nice to see that TSA has got their priorities straight.

So I ask you: Who would YOU rather sit next to on a long-distance airline flight?

Tammy? Or Kathie?

Unfortunately, you don't get a choice. Since Tammy has dared question TSA's authority, they've ordained that you'll have to share your flight with the jihad-supporting, terrorist-marrying Kathie.

Kathie Smith...has been flying back and forth between the U.S. and Germany as recently as two weeks ago...The FBI also did not respond to an e-mail from FoxNews.com asking why Smith is not on the federal government’s no-fly list.

Good luck with that. I'll just drive.

TSA follies

Traveling down to New Orleans a few weeks ago allowed me to add yet another story to my growing collection of TSA tales of idiotacracy. This latest encounter with the slackers and fools that the Transportation Security Administration still makes me smile and Nicki fume. Remember that these baggage screeners were once condemned by our government as being unfit and unable to secure our airlines when they were working for private companies at minimum wage, so a new bureaucracy was created--TSA--and most of the same slackers and losers were immediately hired by the new agency, paid five times what they'd been making before, and given union representation and civil service protections. So now we have the same poor security, just at a higher price tag.

Anyway, as we were departing Baltimore Washington Airport, Nicki's bag was opened and her container of toothpaste was confiscated, supposedly for her protection and ours, as the TSA goon claimed. As absurd as that was, what was even better was that I, being a special case by virtue of my leg, went through a different screening process with a different screener, and I was allowed to keep my tube of toothpaste, a fact which only added to Nicki's outrage and sense of personal persecution.

Fortunately for her, I was nice and I shared mine with her.

But this lack of a set standard, evenly applied and tempered with common sense, is why many of us still don't believe that we have any sort of credible airline security. Israel has airline security; America has a system that basically just inconveniences and annoys travelers.

A prime example of the foolishness of some of these rubes was the time that I flew out west a few years ago. I was authorized to carry a sidearm on board the aircraft--which I was doing--and the TSA nimrod still insisted on confiscating the small set of scissors in my shaving kit! A brief discussion between me and his supervisor yielded no joy, and I permanently lost the scissors. Not a big deal actually, but what's the rationale there? Did they thing that I was going to give someone a manicure without their consent? I mean, damn--I was carrying a 9mm pistol and two extra magazines on my person, and that was ok, but the tiny scissors in my travel bag was somehow presenting a clear and present danger. My head still hurts when I try to figure that one out.

Every time I have to deal with these clowns, I'm reminded of that priceless scene in the movie "Home Alone 2", where the angry mother asks the hotel concierge (played masterfully by Tim Curry)what kind of idiots they employ there, and Curry responds smugly: "The finest in New York!"

Curry should consider becoming a spokesman for TSA. He's got it down perfectly.