Houston, Again

Another pre-dawn assault on Houston. Outbound trip was uneventful. On leaving Houston the TSA was going through their routine of asking everyone their name. Their FULL name! If you left out your middle name, they asked you what it was. After observing this happen to several of the people in front of me, I stepped smartly up to the podium, handed over my ID and boarding pass and announced my full name. The agent looks up and says, "I haven't asked that yet! How did you know I was going to ask that?!"

"Because you've asked every person in front of me the same question and you ask this question every time I travel though Houston." Duh!

Meanwhile, the TSA "chat down" program being run in Boston is being ridiculed by John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee:

During a recent visit to Logan to observe the pilot, Mica said he watched about a dozen officers quiz passengers in the terminal. "I put my ear up and listened to some idiotic questions," he said of the questions that delved into where travelers were coming from, why they'd been there and where they were going.

"I talked to them about their training, which was minimal," he said of his conversations with security personnel. He went on to say that even though passengers selected for further screening were supposed to go through hi-tech scanners, on the day he visited the machines were out of service because there weren't enough trained personnel to run them.