Category: Thoughts

False security is worse than no security at all.

Stop Screening

The data are in:

Security screeners at two of the nation’s busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

I’m not really thrilled that this info is going public, but I suspect would-be terrorists already know this. The bottom line–we are spending millions of dollars worth of travel time and TSA employee time for nothing. It’s a sham. Instead of having incredibly expensive machines to x-ray our luggage and incredibly expensive people standing around and pawing my underwear and incredibly expensive lost time from waiting in line and instead of losing all the foregone benefits from travel that doesn’t take place because the TSA has made it so unpleasant, let’s just say a magic spell or put on a lucky shirt when we travel. True, it won’t really make us safer, but NEITHER DOES THE CURRENT SYSTEM.

But there is a bright spot, sort of:

San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows.

So they’re roughly three times more conscientious about their job than the government employees, confirming the virtues of privatization, yes. But 20%? For me, even that “low” number makes the costs unlikely to exceed the benefits.

reportonbusiness.com: Canada’s trade winds shift to EU
I’ll just take on the first two sentences of this article, because to do a full fisking would take more time than I have this morning.

For Canadian exporters, the European Union’s red hot economic growth is making up handsomely for the laggard U.S. economy.

The EU’s growth has spiked up and ours has leveled, it is true; but the comparative projections for the next quarter are 2.6 (from the article) and 2.2, respectively…hardly the difference implied by “red-hot” and “laggard”.

Canada’s reliance on trade with the United States has ebbed to its lowest point in a decade.

In terms of percentage of total Canadian trade, yes. In terms of Current Dollars (both C$ and US$), it is near or at record levels, and still growing. Canada’s Ministry of Trade has an excellent website that lets people access all manner of trade data. It generated the following graphs:

Public Sc Mrkti Tdst Tdo Tmp Grp 3735 8911

Public Sc Mrkti Tdst Tdo Tmp Grp 3735 8909

Here are the comparable results for the EU, in both $C and $US:

Public Sc Mrkti Tdst Tdo Tmp Grp 3735 8912

Public Sc Mrkti Tdst Tdo Tmp Grp 3735 8910

While the growth looks much more dramatic, look at the scales on the left. Quite different, yes? Here are all four plotted on the same graph, with the y-axis starting at 0:

Picture 3-1

Slightly different story, n’est-ce pas?

Camellia Grill blossoms again | Dallas Morning News

David and I ate here for the first time when Joe Millet took the BCP Debate Team there in 1982 or ’83. He told us about how they’d go there in college (Mr. Millett graduated summa from Tulane) and dare each other to eat the Cannibal Salad (containing steak tartare), so, naturally, David had to do it. Some of the best burgers I’ve had.

Then there was the year before, when Mr. Hawkins took us to New Orleans for a tournament, and Phil LeMasters got us all to do the Whip It dance on Bourbon Street. Later that year, he awarded me the Phil the Baptist Award, but I forget for what.

Five years later, He, Mr. Rollins, and myself shared an apartment, where Phil would make bran muffins.

I have no idea how this post turned this weird.