Monday, April 18, 2011

Opposition to TSA

Among my friends, family and acquaintances, my disdain and contempt for TSA is well known. An Agency formed in the aftermath of September 11th, they are without question, the biggest laughing stock within the Federal Government. Fifty thousand feckless, mephitic and picayune bullies whose most often repeated phrase, before they became unionized with collective bargaining rights was "You want fries with that?" Now they are nothing more than plaintive, lugubrious, paratrophic vulgarians abusing and lording over fellow Americans, the little power they have.

TSA within its parent organization, DHS; provides nothing more than superfluous window dressing, incredibly laughable bad security theater, and a specious legal venue for the continued erosion of American civil liberties; all the while under the guise of keeping the American flying public "safe." When one reads about a 6 year old child or an elderly American in a wheel chair being given full body pat downs, something is terribly amiss. That something is TSA.

Now, in opposition to all of the above, state legislators in Alaska, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington have banded together to form the "United States for Travel Freedom" caucus in response to the ongoing and ever growing continued threat to civil liberties being abused by the TSA. It is my hope that the Commonwealth of Virginia and many more states and their lawmakers become part of this effort.

Don't think that TSA is abusing your civil rights? Think again. Simply vocalizing your disagreement with security procedures is enough to bring the wrath of TSA down upon you. That First Amendment, Freedom of Speech thing is such an inconvenience. So it appears is the Fourth Amendment, Unreasonable search and seizures as it applies to TSA's full body scanners.

Rep John Mica, the man from whose loins TSA sprang from, now refers to TSA as the "Little Bastard Child I Created."

In an example of TSA being out of control and believing they are above accountability, the head of the administration, John Pistole, blew off a House Transportation Committee hearing, saying "The Transportation Committee does not have oversight over the agency under the House's own rules." While that may be true, thumbing your nose at the Chairman of any Congressional committee just because you don't fall under their purview is audacious and ballsy!

Sadly, the majority of Americans simply sit back and allow their rights to be trampled on. They blindly accept their government knows what's best and believe in their heart of hearts they're being protected. We call them sheeples.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Smoke Free Campus


Over the last four weeks, I've had the unfortunate opportunity to spend copious amounts of time at our local health establishment, Mary Washington Hospital/Medicorp. The organization touts the entire medical campus as "Smoke Free." Peppered throughout the grounds are a plethora of signs that clearly state "No smoking, violators will be subject to fines or prosecuted under VA law...blah blah blah."

Yet everywhere I look, there are both employees and visitors smoking up a storm, tossing butts into either readily available receptacles or more often, just on the ground.

While visiting Florida this past week, my wandering travels took me past Tampa General Hospital. They too tout themselves as a "smoke free medical campus." Someone should have told that too the 350lb female patient, adorned in a hospital gown and id bracelets who was sitting outside, up against the fence, wheezing like a freight train all the while inhaling her cancer stick. My medical tax dollars hard at work.

So where is the enforcement? I noted not a single instance in which either establishments hospital security or staff pointed out the signs or said anything to any of these pathetic tar and nicotine sucking twits.

Nary a word. It's clear that MWH and TGH's no smoking policies are nothing more than paper drills. With zero active enforcement, is it any wonder why it's ignored and smoking flaunted? Why bother to post signs? I expect it's so they can claim some type of high moral ground; beat their chests and proclaim they are working for the health of their communities in some way, shape or form.

They certainly aren't preventing smoking, helping the communities they serve or preventing the subsequent littering that accompanies it.