That was the old fine!

The obese ladies and gentlemen of the Transportation Security Administration have created a new American folk hero in John Tyner. Rather like President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, who'd like to fire the American electorate for not appreciating them sufficiently, the TSA is really upset with the "traveling public" and its reaction to full body scanners and the deliberately intimate pat-down given to those who opt out of it. To make their point, they have opened an investigation into Mr. Tyner and threatened him with an $11,000 fine.

It seems that Mr. Tyner warned an agent, "Touch my junk and I'll have you arrested," when the TSA began to explore his "crotchal area," as one agent felicitously called it. He was forcibly ejected from the airport, with a warning that he could be fined $10,000 for lèse majesté. Though the Federal Reserve Board assures us that the consumer price index these days is flat, the TSA evidently hasn't gotten the word: $10,000, explained a representative, was the old fine for injuring the pride of its employees; Mr. Tyner may now have to come up with eleven big ones.

A conservative famously is a liberal who's been mugged. Just so, a libertarian is a conservative who's been groped by TSA. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford