11 Predictions for 2011

1. Global warming will continue unabated. Temperatures will fall with the snow further confirming the post-science conclusions at East Anglia. In a bonus prediction, a historiometerologist will receive a Nobel for his theory that Lucy's tribe created the last Ice Age by over-cultivation of soybeans.



2. Money will be plentiful for everyone in the next twelve months (especially if you work for a government agency or the SEIU). That will prove beneficial since it will provide excellent paper logs to help offset the increasing global warming and you won't be able to buy anything with it anyway.



3. The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank secedes. The President of the KC Fed issues the following statement: Banksterism is one thing, but this Bernake guy is nucking futs!"



4. The Alaska senatorial race is finally settled and it turns out Sen. Murkowski can field dress game also. (We shouldn't be surprized, really, she's been skinning taxpayers for years.)



5. Fears of rampant and discriminatory government censorship of the web are allayed when the FCC announces that PBS.com1, PBS.com2, and PBS.com3 will all have optional backgrounds.



6. Three IRS Revenue Agents accidentally put a lien on every bank account in the US. The IRS Commisioner apologizes and requests extra employees because there are "going to be a lot more audits this year."



7. President Obama signs Executive Order instituting Don't Ask, Don't Tell for Christians in the military.



8. Monsanto issues press release noting that all your corn are us.



9. On a flight from Tunisia to NYC a 23 year-old male passenger attempts to ignite a hair bomb secreted in his scalp. TSA announces that henceforth all passengers must be bald and will be subject to intense phrenological examinations.



10. In the first of many municipal collapses, the East St. Louis Public Employees and their pension funds foreclose on the town. The Local President notes that under their management all citizens will be equal, but some will be more equal than others. In a related matter, Illinois will accept only union ID as proof for voting.

11. 2011 will be a year of hope and change, promises of improvement, and bold predictions of success - and yet, the Royals will still suck.

TSA

Lots of uproar over the pat-downs and nude screenings at the airports.

There is also a curious juxtaposition of the dems and republicans, with the dems crying out for protecting the "police" and the republicans worrying about "unconstitutional searches". In reality, there is nothing mysterious in the positions taken - merely a case of each side acting politically with the democrats backing their president and the republicans staking out the ground of the opposition. Principles are not at issue, only power and popularity.

Frankly, the entire argument is ridiculous.

There are no constitutional issues in play. The Constitution protects contracts. Buying a ticket to fly is entering into a contract for services. The searches and scans are part of the contract...you agreed to them when you paid the price for a ticket. If you don't want to deal with the security, don't fly! You would do the same for any other product you thought was substandard, wouldn't you? If you find the security process offensive, subscribe to alternate means. If the ailines revenue declines enough, they will get the changes made post-haste.

Are these procedures intentional?

Of course they are.

I am not going to dump on the TSA workers as I have seen some do. Most of them are just like any other blue-collar worker in our neighborhood. There are a few cretins, twisted freaks and ulterior motivations, but most are people trying to pay their bills and get home on time.

Inherent in the character of the TSA work-force resides the problem as well.

The agents are not well-trained, experienced security and protection experts. It also appears that Homeland Security has no interest in providing them the training and skills to make them experts. So what the government lacks in quality, it makes up in quantity and brute force.

Tens of thousands of untrained, unskilled people will not make a quality security force.

What it will make, however, is a fertile field for groupthink (a new thin blue line).

Are the TSA agents unionized? If not, bet they soon will be...and what do we know know about government employee unions?

The only way to kill the monster is to stop feeding it.