What Is This, The Wild Fucking West?
Now we're basically deputizing trinket dealers to root out terrorists?

Check out the latest TSA idiocy -- that the TSA has wasted even more taxpayer dollars training vendors at the Super Bowl to spot terror threats. Story from Fox/NYPost:

From parking-lot attendants to hot-dog sellers, the government has put some 8,000 employees and volunteers at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis through their First Observer training program.

Patti Hammerle, an event volunteer who will be signing up people for chances to win free prizes, said, "They told us to look for suspicious people and things that didn't look right. It's been fabulous. Knowing everybody was watching out made me feel safer."

Lorraine Wright, a worker at the NFL Experience venue, said she took the government's anti-terror training online.

"They had us looking for suspicious activity," she said. "You know, people who looked out of place or just wandering around asking a lot of questions."

Like, "Excuse me, do you know the best place to put a fertilizer bomb?"

I spent part of Friday night talking to a friend who's highly trained in behavioral science (as in, he's taught it and worked with a major primatologist as a young man) and who runs a division of a major police force. This guy I'd trust to figure out who's a terrorist.

The 15 or so cops I've had dealings with in my precinct -- many of whom I've encountered due to a neighborhood issue I'm spearheading -- well, we can't even count on them to know the local laws. (And this includes the captain.) Oh, and best of all, the officer who couldn't have found my stolen pink Rambler if it drove up his ass and honked was rewarded with a promotion to sergeant and is sometimes even the Watch Commander (the officer in charge at the precinct).

And...seriously?...seriously?...we're asking the lady selling foam fingers at the big game find al-Zawahiri?

via @mpetrie98