Lynn Swearingen (c) copyright 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I normally don’t read Time Magazine, but today this blog section caught my eye: Stay Classy, TSA.

When it was my turn, I politely said that I would like to opt out. “Seriously?” the first TSA worker asked me with a raised eyebrow. Yes, seriously.

He directed me through the nearby metal detector (the one that would have been good enough if I’d just chosen another line) and motioned for me to wait for a pat-down agent: “Female opt-out!” A female agent led me to a table where she set my bags and then skeptically asked if I knew what the pat down involved. Yes, indeedy (thanks, Jeff Goldberg!) “Do you want to do this somewhere private?” No, thank you. The agent calmly explained what she was going to do before she performed each part of the procedure, and very briskly but thoroughly went through the pat-down. The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes and was a completely professional experience.

Or it was, until a male TSA agent walked behind us and hollered: “Hey, I thought she was mine! I was gonna do her!”

And that, buddy, is exactly why I’m opting out instead of standing in the see-through picture machine. Thanks for validating my choice.

Soooo glad they were able to Unionize so that upstanding individuals such as mentioned above have the opportunity to be retained :

TSA administrator John Pistole is defending his decision to allow his agency’s employees to vote on limited collective bargaining rights. Pistole told a House Homeland Security subcommittee that granting the right to vote is one way he’s trying to change the work environment for the better. House Republicans called the hearing out of concern that unionization could have an impact on national security. Pistole took a rejected that idea. He said he would fire any workers who strike, slow their work due to disputes or who do anything to adversely affect security.

One wonders if “claiming” captive passengers such as one would choose a lamb for slaughter counts as adverse?

Of course all the sheeple of Amerika know that Legislation automatically conveys Limitations, so those in charge have proposed the following:

Proposed legislation introduced this week in both houses of Congress would criminalize the posting of any airline passenger’s body image on the Internet  as a result of being electronically scanned for weapons at U.S. airport

With the moniker of Security Screening Confidential Data Privacy Act (SSCDPA) the above failed last year and is now a proposed Amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Reauthorization Bill (FAARB). Interesting – maybe this should have fallen under the FUBAR Bill, a much referred to (but never understood) system of many government agencies Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

Our Time Blogger may want to purchase (and therefore stimulate the economy which is doing so incredibly well) a few products for her little lamb from the  “Don’t Touch My Kitty” site. Started by three now probably “flight-blacklisted” ladies from Montana as their personal answer to the whole “Don’t Touch My Junk” movement, they could use the support.

Speaking of TSA Abuses – either they aren’t happening anymore and therefore are not being reported, or Lindsay Lohan recently wore a dress so tight to her recent court hearing thus avoiding the grope factor of passing through the L.A. County Courthouse grab-and-tickle machine that even Egyptian Riots were upstaged for a few hours!

Yeah – that’s a run on folks. Gee – there oughta be a law.