On Christmas day, a man tried to explode the plane he was on using a bomb in his underwear. His actions were thwarted by a bomb that didn't work properly and other passengers, but perhaps predictably (and disappointingly if you think like me) the TSA dumped a whole pile of arbitrary new flight dos and don'ts on the heads of travelers at this, the peak travel season. These rules included, among other things, a restriction on passenger movement during the last hour of travel over American airspace. For the last hour of travel, passengers are not permitted to use blankets, pillows, laptops, the in-flight televisions, or move about the cabin at all. The only thing passengers are permitted to do for the last hour of travel, it seems, is to sit perfectly upright in their seats with their hands on the arm rests.

I am not afraid of terrorists when I fly. Not even a little bit. Partly because the chances