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As Canada's very own no-fly list goes into effect, I'm glad my name isn't Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad. For that matter, I'm also glad my name isn't Patrick Martin. That's my boss's name. Even before this latest list, he sometimes got hauled aside and had to prove his innocence. That's because there is, or was, another suspicious character named Patrick Martin. There also are, or were, suspicious Kennedys, Thompsons and Williamses.

The American no-fly list has 44,000 names on it, many of them common Anglo-Saxon ones. It includes everyone who was ever connected to the IRA and a lot of people who are dead. But it does not include the would-be terrorists who were rounded up in Britain last August, even though they'd been under surveillance for a year. That's because putting their names on the list could have tipped off the wrong people.

Thankfully, our made-in-Canada no-fly list will be much, much better than the American one, the authorities say. For example, many of the names on it will come from the RCMP, which, as we know, is among the most reliable and best-run security forces in the world. If you're on the list by mistake, you can even appeal to something called the Office of Reconsideration (although not in time to make your flight).

No doubt, our no-fly list will deter terrorists as effectively as our long-gun registry deters criminals. It will work especially well in intercepting terrorists who forgot to acquire fake IDs and are travelling under their own names, just as the long-gun registry has helped catch thousands of criminals who shoot other people with their own legally registered firearms.

Human-rights types are warning that the no-fly list will inevitably lead to racial profiling, the end of civil liberties and innocent people being deported to Gitmo. Maybe so. But, frankly, I doubt the flying public gives two beans about civil liberties. What really matters is the added hassle and humiliation of getting from A to B. Every time you think it can't get any worse, it does. By the way, are you flying with your 12-year-old? Too bad. She, too, will soon need official government ID.

Going through airport security today is like going to the theatre of the absurd. None of it makes sense, but everyone takes it seriously. Every passenger who takes off his shoes can thank Richard Reid, the bumbling shoe bomber who was thwarted in 2001. The ritual discarding of the water bottle is a tribute to the plotters from last summer who, you may recall, never got near an airport.

To them, we also owe the confiscation of our toothpaste. I know I shouldn't put the Colgate in the carry-on, but I never learn. So now, before I board, I have to buy more toothpaste and more water, to say nothing of my lunch, because they don't have food on airplanes any more. No wonder I'm so cranky.

As far as I know, there are no Margaret Wentes on the no-fly list. But my metal hips mean that I'm always pulled aside for the full pat-down. What happens when every aging boomer has a beeping artificial part is a question without an answer.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when they implant an ID chip and just scan us, so I don't have to dig around for my passport 15 different times. It seems to work for cats.

Sometimes I ask my sister, who's in the airport-security business, if all of these precautions make us safer now. She always laughs and tells me how easy it is to get access to a plane. Drug smugglers have no problem; they just hire airport workers who handle cargo.

But the nature of bureaucracy is to be literal and dumb. It can't imagine an event that's never happened. All it can do is make us take off our shoes and stand in yet another line. I often wonder whether flying is worth the hassle. Maybe I should start saving the environment, and just stay home.

mwente@globeandmail.com