This morning I took my daughter to SFO for her flight back to the Big Apple.  The sight of that unusually long and slow-moving line to the security checkpoint led me to ponder the question uppermost in the American mind this holiday season, viz, "What we can do to ensure our safety in the air in these days of terror and random crazies?"

Pundits and experts tell us that by the time an aspiring mass murderer has made it to the airport with a reservation and boarding pass, it's almost certainly too late to do anything to prevent him -- did you notice that it's always "him"? -- from acting on his nefarious plan.  The bad guys are always a jump ahead of the minimum-wage (thank you, Senator Jim DeMint) public servants at the screening stations, who at best are prepared for the last attack, never the next one.  So we give up our nose-hair trimmers and shampoo samples, take off our shoes and soon surely our underwear for inspection -- always put on clean underwear, you never know when you might find yourself in an accident or a security checkpoint -- even though we know it's a charade.  If good intelligence and police work haven't stymied the potential terrorist before he arrives at the airport, then it's already too late and we can only trust our fate to a higher power or an alert Dutch tourist.

And now that the requirement for a warrant no longer forces government spooks to focus on targets where there's at least minimal probable cause for investigation, they're too busy just keeping their heads above the avalanche of spam emails, high-school sext messages and thank-you calls to Grandma for the sweater and socks to have time to connect dots like warnings from worried families about their sons' jihadist obsessions and online anti-crusader rants posted by newly recruited CIA assets.

All of this has me worried -- and it should have you worried too -- but driving back from the airport this morning, I was struck by the perfect solution.

You see, I'm of an age where periodic colonoscopies are now recommended, and I had my first one a few years ago.  To prepare me for the procedure, a drug was introduced into my bloodstream which had the effect of putting me into a dreamlike stupor until the nasty bits were over, at which time a counter-drug restored me to my normal semi-alert waking consciousness.  This is a wonderful medical technology, and one which holds the key to a foolproof solution to our air transportation safety problems.  We should simply sedate all air travelers before allowing them to board the plane, and then safely revive them at their destinations.

Not only does this plan obviate the need to worry about the criminal or terrorist intentions of any passenger, but it has other benefits as well.  Travelers will no longer be bothered by loud or misbehaving children of any age, by the drunk businessman in the next seat hitting on them, by the seat in front lowering into their personal space, or by kicks and pokes from the seat behind.  There'll be no need to relieve the boredom of air travel with insipid romantic comedies, and no temptation to throw away the children's college fund on useless gadgets from SkyMall.  Tasteless airline food will be obsolete, and the flight attendants' cart will never again block access to the restroom at a critical moment.

And think of the added efficiency -- comatose passengers could be stacked like cordwood, making it possible to squeeze dozens more passengers on a typical flight without ever compromising the quality of their flight experience.  After all, having a video camera and the medical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife poked up your rectum is at least as uncomfortable as being buckled into an economy class airplane seat, but with the right pharmacology it's as pleasant as that walk on the beach you see in all the prescription drug commercials.

So write your congressional representatives today and tell them to get behind the pharmaceutical solution to transportation safety.  After all, the alternative would be targeted intelligence with diligent analysis of data, a foreign policy that denies propaganda victories to our enemies, and honesty with the American people about the real risks and tradeoffs of living in a connected world.

You don't seriously think any of that's gonna happen, do you?