We are Absurd

Apparently, the PTB have been negotiating with an imposter they thought was a high-ranking official of the Taliban. It's pretty bad when you don't even know who the top leaders of your enemy are.

The United States government has no idea how to fight the war in Afghanistan. They have no idea how to stop people from blowing up or hijacking aircraft. They have no idea how to defend our borders against invasion or even how to define an invasion.

Or else they are doing a very good job of pretending that they don't.

In either case, we as a nation have become absurd. We deserve the ridicule of the rest of the world.
Update: I don't know whether these kinds of actions are the spasms of a pre-rigor corpse or a sign of fitful life:

Several members of Congress — including Reps. John Mica, R-Fla., and Rep. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., who are set to assume leadership of aviation issues in Congress next year when Republicans take control — have demanded that the TSA restrict the use of the thorough pat-downs. Last week, state lawmakers in New Jersey announced a resolution calling the machines' scans a violation of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, and members of New York's City Council said they would introduce legislation to ban use of the machines in the city.

Update 11/24/2010: I agree with rienzi's comment at voxday:

We're told that this Al-Queda organization has an organized structure, plenty of funds, and thousands of jihadis who just can't wait to be martyrs. Yet, in more than nine years, they have supposedly been able to pull off only a handful of bombings.

If they really are such a threat, how come stuff isn't being blown up on almost a weekly basis? Either they're the most passive, lazy, incompetent terrorist organization that ever existed, or they've been so thoroughly infiltrated that they can't pull off the smallest job without having most of the world's security sevices know about it in advance, in which case they are no threat whatsoever.

Also puzzling, it that they never follow up on success, and seem obsessed with airplanes. Blow up subway stations and buses full of Brits. A big success, but never tried again. The country is full of soft targets that ought to be tempting as hell to any self-respecting terrorist: football stadiums, shopping malls, schools, government offices, and yet in more than nine years they haven't pulled off one successful major attack. Two guys in a van, with one rifle, freaked out the entire DC metro area, and yet, a supposedly large and well-funded terrorist organization can't do the same thing?

With every passing day, the idea that there really is no such thing as an "Al-Queda" organization out to get get us, and that its mostly just false flag/black ops with a few independent loose cannons thrown in seems to be less tin-foil hat, and more realistic.

Totalitarian Sexual Assault

Scanning
Unless every single access point to the airways scans every single person who enters every single airport, no amount of body scanning will prevent terrorism. The X-ray scanners do a good job of revealing concealed firearms (in addition to dehumanizing and desensitizing people and giving the pervs of Totalitarian Sexual Assault a thrill), but not every airport has them. Once you pass security at one small airport, you have access to "secure" areas at every airport without having to pass through security again. In fact, at many airports you don't have to pass security at all. One person outside security could give a weapon to another person inside security by dropping it off a balcony or sliding it under a rope.

Explosives
Even if it were possible (AND IT'S NOT!) to build a scanner or train a person to detect every possible combination of substances that could be made to explode, there are ways to hide things from chemical or visual snooping. If someone is intent on dying, what in the world would deter him from swallowing as much explosive material as his stomach could handle? Why stop at swallowing? There's no reason explosives couldn't be surgically implanted. The three ounce rule is as stupid and pointless as the rest, invented by bureaucrats and implemented by mentally retarded thugs. If five or six ounces of some unknown (and unknowable) liquid is explosive, then a couple of terrorists could each carry three ounces and combine it later. Twenty people could board flights from twenty different cities having connecting flights in Chicago or Denver and combine the contents of all their shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and water bottles (that's 12 oz per person) to make 240 oz or just under 2 gallons. Whatever liquid explosive this rule is supposed to guard against, I'll bet that's enough to do the job.

Hand weapons
Every object can be made a weapon. Every object. Have you ever broken a CD or DVD? Ceramic mug? A ball-point pen? Banning fingernail clippers from airplanes is moronic. If you want to threaten somebody, there are so many better choices that aren't banned at all.

Totalitarian Sexual Assault
These are all policies invented by manipulative, power-grabbing bureaucrats to placate the simple-minded and acclimate the cattle to being herded. All in the name of security.

Security from what? Sexual molestation? Oh, right! From terrorists. Because everyone knows terrorists would never dream of targeting a large crowd of people all standing closely packed together in an airport lobby. At the risk of alienating a reader or two... How stupid do you have to be to believe that any of this has anything to do with security!?

"Mr. Eloi, please step out of line so Mr. Morlock can feel you up...er...I mean pat you down."

"Well, if it makes us all safer..."