Observations from the Airport

I'm sitting outside of the Starbucks at McCarran's Terminal D, grooving on the airport Wi-Fi, with time to kill waiting for my flight to Portland.  And when I have time to kill, invariably I start to think about things that I don't normally have time to consider.

• 3 ounces of liquid or gel is apparently OK, but 4 ounces is potentially dangerous.  Hey, did any of the brainiacs at TSA ever consider that if everybody brings 3 ounces on board, there's about 300+ total ounces of liquid or gel on the plane?  That's, like, almost 100 times the "dangerous" level!  Airport "security" is such crap.

• However, with the added delays in travel, people actually do have to get to the airport earlier -- but when those delays aren't as bad as they could be, there's a whole lot of people with time to kill (and no liquids from outside the terminal) so Starbucks is cleaning up right now.  Ditto the Chilis Too, Wolfgang Puck Express, and every other terminal vendor for that matter.  The security charade sure is good for business.

• Friday mornings are busy here at McCarran, but the crowds aren't actually that bad.  As airports go, they do a decent job of moving people through in a reasonably efficient manner.

• Starbucks makes a fine, if somewhat crumble-y (and hence inconvenient to eat) blueberry muffin.

• Laptop keyboards and blueberry muffins are NOT friends.

• Las Vegas is about the best city in the country for meeting (or at least seeing) people from all over the country/world.  And the airport, naturally, is the best place in the city for this.  The sheer variety of folks who pass through this town is staggering.

• There are a lot of hot women in the world, based on my unscientific survey of the transients here at McCarran.

• There are a lot more not-at-all-hot women in the world, based on the same survey.

• Alaska Airlines really oughtta have a traveler's boardroom (or whatever they call it) in Las Vegas, like they do in Portland and Seattle.  They do a fair business here, I imagine it would be worthwhile for them.  It'd certainly be a good thing for me.

• Is it illegal to put small children in a pet carrier for travel?  'Cause I think that'd be a hell of an idea.  I mean, parents already put their kids on a leash, this seems like the natural extension.  Give 'em a tranq before the flight, too, to calm them down.  Who's with me?

• OK, blueberry muffins are REALLY not friendly to laptops.

• There are a ton of hand-stenciled "Ron Paul in 2008" signs around town.  He seems to have a genuine grass-roots following.  On a very superficial level, he has some attractive messages.  But holy cow, when you really listen to what the guy is saying, he's a wacko extreme libertarian.  Sure he's speaking out about Iraq, and the military-industrial complex in general.  OK, that's fine.  But he's a complete isolationist, abolish-the-IRS, kill-Social-Security type ideologue.  I don't trust his judgment.  And I'm afraid that he'll be a spoiler for the Republicans if he goes rogue and runs as a right-wing independent.  Hey, there are worse things imaginable than having a 2nd President Clinton, but if that happens we're gonna need a Republican congress.  And that doesn't look too likely in any event, hence we're going to be much better off with a Republican president and a Democratic congress.  Divided government is good government (or at least, relatively inert government, which is usually close enough).

• Maybe it's time for a potty break before I have to board the plane.

Comments

[FZappa]

"But he's a complete isolationist, abolish-the-IRS, kill-Social-Security type ideologue."

David,

The best term to describe Ron Paul's foreign policy is not "isolationist" but rather "military non-interventionist."

Paul believes strongly in free trade with other nations, diplomacy, travel, cultural exchange, etc. He doesn't believe in spreading American values through force of arms.

This is the foreign policy George Bush ran on in 2000 (no nation-building, a humble foreign policy).

Yes, he wants to get rid of the IRS. We don't need an income tax -- only about 35% of the revenue the Treasury takes in comes from the income tax, so to get rid of the IRS completely we'd only need to reduce our federal budget from current levels (~$3 trillion for 2007) to 2001 levels (~$2 trillion). Does anyone honestly think we can't at least go back to 2001 levels of federal spending? Of course we can.

As for killing Social Security: it's dying whether we like it or not. There is simply no way a 25-year-old putting money into SS now will ever see benefits, the tens of trillions of dollars required simply don't exist.

Paul's point is that we need to ackowledge the reality of that. His solution? No one who has been promised benefits will be denied them. Repeat: no one promised benefits will be denied them. But younger workers will be allowed to opt out of the system and provide for their own retirement. This is the only sound policy, since SS is insolvent and will only grow more so in the future. It's a failed system and we need to phase it out while not abandoning any commitments made to those who have become dependent on it.

I think if you'll look more into Ron Paul's positions you'll find that he's not "whacko," his ideas only seem strange to people at first because they're not used to hearing them. But once you scratch the surface, you might discover why people are putting all those hand-stenciled Ron Paul signs around town.

More here:

www.RonPaulLibrary.com

Signed, FZappa

PS--I was in McCarran on Monday. Lost a grand in blackjack in 4 days, but hey.

[mw]

"Divided government is good government (or at least, relatively inert government, which is usually close enough)."

Agreed. As they say, great minds think alike.

Note to FZappa - If you want to win over four days, you'll need the odds in your favor, which means you've got to keep a count. Try the Revere plus/minus strategy.