Jedi Mind Trick hat

[unixronin]

So I don't think I previously got around to mentioning that when I flew out to CA from NC, I wore my Jedi Mind Trick hat.  It's a NAS Alameda ball cap with scrambled eggs on the brim, which was given to me as a souvenir when I attended the base closing ceremonies in, uh, 1997 I think.  Flying wearing that cap turns out to be interesting.

[walks up to security checkpoint]

[screener's eyes go to cap]

And at this point, you can almost hear the Jedi Mind Trick at work:

---

-- You don't need to screen me. --

-- I can board my flight. --

-- Move along. --

I don't need to screen you.

You can go ahead and board, sir.

Move along.

---

Comments

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Hah.

Meanwhile, they scan grandma, and dig for dope in Barlow's baggage. Blech. TSA is annoying and stupid.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Not too surprising, considering that most of their screeners are basically minimum-wage drones with little training. (And, it seems, little screening for larcenous tendencies... one of every four currently certified FFDO's sidearms has "been mislaid" on its way through TSA.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

WHAT!? Stealing in plain sight??? Give me linkage, please, kind sir... and pass the ammo. It's time t'go HUNT.

As far as the hat... just don't say anything about the noocleear wessels. *EG*

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Uh, I seem to recall posting at length on the problems with the FFDO program some time ago. Unfortunately, I cannot at present find the post.
The Smithsonian Air & Space article I cited heavily from mentioned among other things that at the time it was written, only about a thousand pilots had actually been certified by the TSA's FFDO program (many of the best-qualified having been failed without explanation), and that of those thousand pilots, approximately 300 sidearms (which the pilots are not permitted to wear onto the aircraft themselves) never made it through TSA screening onto the plane and are presumed to have been stolen, in their distinctive mandated-by-the-TSA carry cases, by TSA personnel.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

It certainly works well combined with your limp (heck, the cane is a nice touch, too) and you age. Add in the hat and most likely the phrase 'disabled vet' leaps to mind.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that likelihood had occurred to me ...

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Until he opens his mouth, at which point they know he's not even a Yank... :)

Just as they mistake my balding, bearded mug and bad teeth for a Hezbollah terrorist almost every time... until I open my mouth and this hillbilly accent comes meandering out...

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

A Vet blew up the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

An excellent point. The underlying reality is that the TSA is little more than an illusion of security, and that when weaknesses in the system are exposed, the reaction is to ignore the problem and attack the messenger for daring to reveal that the system is flawed.