Further erosion of freedom in the name of "security"

A few years ago I flew a small airplane into Avey airport in Washington state, which has the interesting property of straddling the US-Canadian border. I flew in from the south, landing to the north, and thus crossed the border halfway through my landing roll. There is a street adjacent to the airfield, with a border station on it. I taxied back to the midpoint of the runway where there is an area to park, shut down the airplane and climbed out. A border patrol agent was crossing the street from the crossing, so I waved him down and asked him what formalities were needed.

Border Patrol Agent: Did you fly from the US?
Me: Yes
BPA: Are you landing anywhere outside of the US?
Me: Other than rolling down the runway, no.
BPA: When you take off, are you going back to the US?
Me: Yes
BPA: Then I can't even talk to you. [I presume he meant in an official capacity, rather than on a personal level]

And off I went. What a great experience, and it reminded me of one of the great freedoms we enjoy in the United States: the right to be left alone. Absent a warrant or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, the government cannot stop you, question you, ask for papers, or otherwise make you justify anything you are doing. It's something we largely take for granted. In many other countries, one must endure random roadblocks, identity paper checks, and other arbitrary intrusions at the whim of the government, but not here.

Then this morning I saw a story in the newspaper about checks that the border patrol is now conducting spot checks on ferries in the San Juan Islands. The San Juans are up near the Canadian border, and conduct international runs from Canada to the US, so on those runs it is entirely appropriate for the border patrol to do more or less whatever border enforcement it deems necessary.

But what is insidious about the new spot checks is that they are being conducted on routes which are entirely domestic - in other words, where there is no border being crossed and where the Border Patrol has no jurisdiction. The CBP even acknowledges as much: they acknowledge that they cannot do anything when a person refuses to answer their questions, but I suppose that enough people are either not aware of their rights or too timid to stand up to people in uniform, and as a result the net effect is that they get cooperation. Nevertheless, these people are detained for a period of time, and license plate numbers are run, which amounts in my opinion to illegal domestic surveillance and illegal detention.

This is, of course, being done in the name of "national security" and "anti-terrorism." Ahh, the evils that can be justified by those words. We should never let our fears lead us into abdicating our rights, for if we do then we have proven that we don't deserve those rights. It is a slippery slope.

Adding insult to injury, this program is leading not to the arrest of terrorists, which would at least mitigate (although not excuse!) this encroachment on our freedom, but rather to the arrest of illegal aliens. I have no problem with arresting illegal aliens, they are breaking the law and do not deserve sanctuary for having done so. But to trample our civil rights in the name of security as a ruse for over aggressive enforcement of immigration rules should shock every American.

Cuba

While I have no love for the Cuban regime, I have also long thought that the US policy towards the island has been, well, stupid. It was an absolutely reasonable strategy to try after the revolution, and perhaps for another 10 years, but after 20, 30, 40 years, it should have been clear that it simply wasn't working. It seems to me that we've dogmatically held on to our policy of isolating Cuba not because it achieves our objectives (it hasn't met any that I can tell), but because it gives the illusion of doing something useful. In other words, I think it's more about satisfying Miami voters and feeling good about not supporting the regime than it is about actually making life better for the Cuban people.

But an interesting thing is happening in Cuba right now: the government is opening up a bit, removing many of the arbitrary and cruel restrictions it has kept on its people with regard to consumer electronics.

So now that ordinary Cubans who happen to have enough money to buy a DVD player (which, I suppose, includes no "ordinary" Cubans), all is well with Cuba, right? Well, no, of course not, not even close. Cuba is still ruled by an oppressive abusive dictatorship, and there is still no political freedom and the economy is still a disaster.

But the opening up on consumer electronics - however minor - is highly significant for two reasons. The first reason is that I have never seen a government open up just a little; small freedoms inevitably are followed by bigger freedoms - trickles become floods. Two examples I offer here are China and East Germany.

The second reason I think it is significant is that after 50 years of an ineffectual policy towards Cuba, the ball is suddenly in our court - there is suddenly a change on the island. It's not due to our policies, but it's a change nevertheless. How will our policy towards Cuba change in response? Will it change, to encourage further liberalization? Or will we continue to cling to the blind dogmatic policies of the past?

Paper or Plastic?

Seattle is proposing the first-in-the-nation attack on bags at grocery stores: a $0.20 fee for using paper OR plastic rather than bringing your own bag to the store.

I'm normally quite a skeptic of government trying to mandate well-intentioned outcomes, and question whether government (rather than the market) should be the arbiter of the best way to determine things like this. But I also believe that sometimes it is only the government can make a negative externality explicit, and I think that this sort of policy is the right way to achieve it. The fee is optional (you don't have to pay it if you just bring your own bag), and they're providing bags for the poor to avoid the unintended consequence of taxing the people who can least afford it.

Governments should not mandate free-choice behavior like this. But setting up incentives that make doing the "right" thing a natural choice? Bring it on!

Why $100+/Barrel Oil is Good

A lot of people are complaining about the high price of oil lately. Frankly, I don't have a ton of sympathy. Oil has been quite cheap - artificially so, in my opinion - for a long time; for once it feels like it is finally priced at something that captures it's true cost. It shouldn't surprise anybody that oil is expensive. After all, it is a finite resource in a world of increasing demand and all the "easy" sources have been drained so each incremental barrel is more difficult to find and extract. I can't say whether or not $102 (today's closing price) per barrel is the "right" price (although markets tend to be pretty good at finding the"right" price), but it's probably in the right ballpark and I don't see it going down anytime soon.

Our entire economy is dependent on oil, so how can expensive oil possibly be a good thing? As a country, we've been moaning for a long time about our "addiction to foreign oil" and talking about things like "energy independence." And usually when politicians say it, they are frustrated about their inability to do anything about it. Well, of course they're frustrated: economies respond to market forces, not government dictates. We haven't weaned ourself from foreign oil because it's been so cheap compared to other energy sources. The only way a government can alter our course is to alter that dynamic, typically through things like tax policy, which is often quite dangerous to political careers (even if it is the right thing to do). And besides, no rational government wants to harm it's domestic industries by raising its costs above that of its rivals.

But the great thing about $100 oil is that it is a market-imposed price, and it affects all players equally. This results in two very good things. First, America gets more efficient with its energy use. This is why energy per dollar of GDP has dropped rather dramatically in the late 70's/80's. (This obviously has benefits for greenhouse gas emissions as well). The second good thing is that it makes alternative sources of energy far more economically viable. Entrepreneurs are naturally reluctant to enter a market that is artificially sustained by government policies, since such policies are subject to change on short notice. But a market that is defined more organically - as the current one is - and which is not poised to change (as a finite resource with increasing demand, it is hard to see oil prices dropping dramatically for any sustained period of time) will attract entrepreneurs and innovators who see a more sustainable positive environment.

In other words, $100 oil could be the best thing that ever happened to our dependence on foreign oil: it could be the very thing that helps us to kick the habit.

Another great post about the death of the traditional music biz.

Jeff Price mirrors other blogs in writing about how the old model for the music business is dead. It's too bad that the major labels haven't figured this out yet.

Predictably Irrational

On a friend's recommendation, I just read Predictably Irrational. I know that this is intended to be a political blog and this is not a political book, but I think it's still a fascinating exploration into why we do things that we do - especially since so much of what we humans do is fundamentally not rational.

It's a quick read, I highly recommend it.

Tibet, China, and the Olympics

The Chinese government isn't entirely bad. After all, over the past two decades they've orchestrated what is perhaps the greatest economic rise in history, lifting more people out of poverty more quickly than ever before. And it has certainly opened up quite a bit over this period as well. Both of these trends should be applauded and supported.

But unfortunately, not only do the ends not justify the means, but I believe that the overall tally of evils that the Chinese government commits greatly outweighs the benefits it provides. The environment in China is toxic. The government is corrupt, authoritarian, abusive of the peoples' basic freedoms, utterly indifferent to the evils of other countries when it suits their needs (more on this below), and it behaves like an immature paranoid petulant child on the world stage whenever there is any issue that affects its pride.

The upcoming Beijing Olympics I think epitomize this latter point. The Chinese government has made the Olympics a centerpiece of national pride more than any other host nation that I can recall. Good for them, and I actually wish them well for a great event.

But it is in this context that I watch what has been going on in Tibet. I think the government has exposed its Achilles heel. It is determined to show a new, open face to the world for the Olympics. And it is determined to orchestrate the Olympics to go flawlessly - and without a whiff of anything embarrassing.

Therein, I believe, lies the dilemma for the Chinese government, which I believe activists for the myriad causes that have complaints about the Chinese government would be wise to exploit. If they protest in any sort of visible way, China must either respond or not. If it responds with openness (as it has promised), then it "suffers" the embarrassment of the world seeing the protest. (Of course, any legitimate government should have no fear of visible dissent, but this is one reason why I believe that the government behaves like an immature child.) And if it responds with a clampdown - as it has done in Tibet over the past few weeks - it reveals its true colors as a brutal regime whose claim to legitimacy is so tenuous that it cannot suffer dissent. Either case would be a PR nightmare for the government, and thus a win for the activists. All they need to do is lie low and avoid being rounded up until the event.

One more thing about why I think the Chinese government needs to "grow up." The Chinese government demands to be treated with the respect on the world stage that is given to other major powers and is exceptionally thin skinned when it feels that respect is not forthcoming. But among other things, maturity means understanding that respect is something that must be earned. For example, China has had ample opportunity with North Korea and Sudan to demonstrate that it is worthy of great-nation status, and has all but abrogated any responsibility - despite it's unique position to do so - to help to reduce the unmitigated evil that these two countries inflict upon their populations; quite the contrary, it has been the primary support propping them up. In another example, China tries to have it both ways on the environment: demanding to be treated as a developing nation with regard to carbon emissions, even after surpassing the US. Mark Twain once said "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." The same is true for respect. I cannot respect a government that fails to earn that respect.

I've been to China. It is a wonderful country, it has tremendous potential to be a true leader on the world stage. And the government does deserve a lot of credit for the progress the country has made. But it is not enough - more change is needed if it is to truly become the great nation it aspires to be. The Chinese government has made the Olympics a defining moment for the country. I wonder if it will be all for show, or if it will truly become a defining moment.

Fee for your thought?

I've got fees on my mind lately. The news that United Airlines is going to start charging $50 to check two bags certainly struck me as indicative of the whole problem.

It's really this: calling something a "fee" is only legitimate in two circumstances. The first is when it is passing through a charge from a 3rd party. The Sept. 11 security fees on airline tickets, or the service charge to buy a ticket from Expedia or Travelocity would fall in this category. The second is when the fee is charged for a discrete or incremental (and presumably optional) service. Examples here include a corkage fee for bringing your own bottle of wine to a restaurant, or a surcharge for 2nd-day delivery of a package.

Sadly, though, we're seeing a proliferation of all sorts of "fees" that meet neither of these criteria and which are, in my opinion, downright fraudulent and deceptive.

My favorite example of abusive "fees" charged to customers is the "fuel surcharge" that we're seeing applied not only to airline tickets, but also to many other everyday services. Don't get me wrong - with the high cost of fuel, businesses that are fuel dependent need to recover their costs, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with raising prices to do so. But companies are simply t insulting their customers by pretending that this is some "fee". It isn't - it's simply raising prices, but it's fraudulent because it let's the company pretend that they're not actually raising prices (after all, the advertised airfare is unchanged) when, of course, they are. Fuel is critical to the act of flying an airplane. It isn't as though passengers can opt out of using the fuel to get to their destination. The fuel for a flight is part and parcel of the cost of operating the flight. When you are spending $500 on an airline ticket, $200 (or probably more) is going to fuel costs anyhow; what is it about the $20 covered by the "fuel surcharge" that makes it different? Why not simply call this a $300 fare with a $200 fuel surcharge? Calling out a fuel surcharge is like buying bread with a separate "wheat surcharge." If it's an integral part of the cost of the product or service, then there is no excuse for arbitrarily excluding parts of that cost because they make the resulting price inconveniently high. It is an act of deception.

My other favorite example in this vein is the increasing number of hotels that tack on exorbitant "resort fees" for each night of a stay. I would have no problem with this if the fee were tied to usage of "resort facilities" (however defined), but I have yet to see a hotel that actually let you opt out of services as a way to bypass the fee. Wheat in bread.

Which brings me back to the United Airlines baggage policy. As a customer, I'm not wild about the policy, but I can see why they do it, and at least it's honest: you don't have to pay the fee if you don't use the incremental service to which it's tied. Interestingly, United justified the fee by saying that all passengers pay for baggage service in their ticket prices today, but only one in four passengers check two bags, so now they can pay for the incremental cost. This justification would work if they were actually going to call out baggage services as a discrete fee, separate from ticket prices altogether, but they aren't actually doing that.

I actually think that airlines, hotels, and others would be very well served by doing two things: first, break everything out into true a-la-carte pricing. For an airline, this would mean publishing a base fare. Want a better seat? $20 more. Refundable or changeable? $100. Want to check a bag? $25 per bag. Want early boarding? $5. Peanuts and soda? $5. Lobster? $100. Let people create the right options for what they want.

And then create simple packages (discounted, of course, relative to the a-la carte sum total) to provide an incentive for these upgrades. "First class" means you get all of the above options, but anybody who doesn't want all of "first class" could pick and choose what they did want. Maybe there aren't any more first class seats on the airplane, but how hard would it be to load a few more first class meals and extra wine for the folks in coach that are willing to pay for it? This turns a cost-center into a profit center.

Hotels could do the same thing, and for many hotels that have a mix of business customers (who may not make much use of the "resort amenities") and leisure customers that may make sense. But I 'd suggest that hotels would have more luck going entirely in the packaged model: eliminate the damned resort fee and internet access fees and all of that, raise the base room rates by the right amount to cover these costs (and then some), and make it all inclusive, straightforward pricing. Personally, I hate splurging for a hotel that charges $450 a night and find that they want another $16/day for Internet access. As irrational as it sounds, I'd rather spend $500 a night and have it all included, with no nickel and diming. But at least the Internet access is legitimate to break out if the hotel decides to do so - if I don't like the cost, I can choose to forego it (and often do). It's the "resort fee", which I have no way of avoiding, that I find so insulting and disrespectful.

Successful businesses show their customers they care. Hmmm....I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see airlines embracing bogus "fees", should I?

An open letter for the recording industry

A friend of mine pointed me to this blog post, talking about how the music biz has changed and what the industry should do to address it. Very well said, in my opinion.

Bill Gates on Immigration, Education

Yesterday Bill Gates testified to Congress about the need to both improve our nation's math and science education, and to increase the number of workers who can come here on H1-B visas. I wholeheartedly agree with this position. Improving our math and science education is not a particularly controversial point, so I won't belabor it. But I think it is worth reiterating the need to increase the H1-B visa cap.

For a long time, our nation enjoyed a near monopoly on producing qualified engineers and scientists, but this lead is rapidly eroding as other countries (especially China and India) have started producing world-class technically trained people. The laughably small 65,000 cap on the H1-B visas means that the US is effectively cut off from this pool of talent. While this may appear to help US workers compete with foreigners who supposedly are willing to work for lower wages, the actual result is that American companies have to work with the best homegrown talent (often leaving many roles unfilled), as opposed to being able to work with the best talent period. So we end up deliberately weighing our companies down with two handicaps: insufficient staffing, and sub-optimal staffing (sub-optimal not because the American talent isn't good, but rather sub-optimal because the pool of talent is artificially restricted).

This is not to say that we don't have top-notch homegrown talent; we absolutely do. And despite its many documented problems, our educational system does still produce some of the best and brightest. But it doesn't produce nearly enough for what our industry needs. Gates pointed out - quite correctly, IMO - that allowing more H1-B visas would not throw Americans out of work, and would not depress wages. For one thing, even if the cap were doubled, the number of visas would still be far too small to impact the market. And since the tech job market is still seeing labor shortages and wage inflation, increasing supply to meet that demand will help these companies achieve more, which will lead to more growth.

Companies faced with H1-B restrictions do the only logical thing: they outsource. So instead of hiring a talented engineer from, say, India, to work in California at California wages, we are instead paying that engineer Indian wages to work in India, thus helping to build up the competitiveness of the Indian economy and of Indian companies. While I applaud growth of foreign economies and companies (even though they're competitive, it's in our interests for other countries to be prosperous!), it is pretty clear to me that these arbitrary restrictions on the movement of the best labor is a US-taxpayer subsidy for these foreign corporations at the expense of domestic corporations. This hardly seems to be in our best interests to do.

I'll add one more point from a social perspective, since immigration is a hot topic these days. Many of the most active voices favoring greater restrictions on immigration claim that immigrants are a drain on society, live on welfare, increase crime, etc. They're largely talking about poor and illegal immigrants, and these claims may or may not be true, but we should be very clear about the kinds of people that come in on H1-B visas: these are people we WANT in this country. They are highly educated, highly skilled, highly paid workers. They will educate their kids here (producing the next generation of skilled American workers), they pay taxes and in general are a huge net positive to the economy and to society as a whole.

Personally, I think we should remove numerical caps on H1-B visas altogether and instead restrict them only to the candidate's meeting a bar of likely economic potential. Let the our companies have access to the best talent in the world, wherever that may come from, and have them bring those people here. We're the United States, why should we be afraid of competition?

I'm ditching iTunes

I've complained here several times in the past about DRM on purchased downloaded music. When Apple release iTunes Plus several months ago, which offered higher-quality recordings of songs and no DRM, I applauded the move and bought a number of songs to show my support. While I'm still happy with iTunes Plus, the selection is too weak, there's no way to specifically browse iTunes Plus songs, and the songs are still in the Apple proprietary AAC format.

Since then, Amazon launched it's MP3 download service, and I have to say I love it. Most songs are $0.89, the rest $0.99 (and albums can bring the per-song cost below that). All songs are MP3, with no DRM, so I don't have to worry about accidentally downloading something that won't play. Amazon automatically inserts the files into my iTunes library, so it seamlessly makes its way onto my iPod. And it is a far better experience to use than iTunes. I find myself buying several songs a week, as I hear them on the radio or remember a song I like - at less than a dollar a track, it's a perfect impulse purchase. And since it doesn't have DRM, I'm not locked in to anybody's proprietary platform - not Apple's, not Microsoft's, not Amazon's. I actually am comfortable that I'll still be able to play these tracks in 20 years.

So I decided to make a clean break. I burned all of my DRM-protected AAC songs to a CD, and then re-ripped them back into my iTunes library as un-protected MP3. (This appears to be kosher to do, since burning to a CD is allowed, and ripping CDs is allowed). I've also converted my iTunes Plus AAC songs to MP3 as well. My entire library is now 100% un-protected MP3. I can listen to songs on my iPod, or any computer in the house, or through my XBox.

I've paid for the songs and don't share them - isn't that precisely what the record companies want their customers to do? So why should I suffer the strait-jacket of DRM? I will never again willingly or knowingly buy a DRM-protected song.

A goofy law

I assume that I'm no different from many people in that I maintain both a savings account and a checking account. Both pay pitiful interest right now, but the savings account is a bit less pitiful than the checking account, so we keep the bulk of our cash in the savings account and transfer money to checking to cover the checks we write. This obviously maximizes what little interest we get.

Last night, I discovered, that my bank had assessed a $10 "excess activity fee" for too many transfers over the past month. Huh? Upon a bit more research, I discovered that the bank is not just trying to hit me with a gotcha fee (although it sure feels like a gotcha because there was no warning when I did the transfers that I might incur this fee) - they're actually required to do this by the government! Yep, it's something called "Regulation D" that requires that they limit the number of electronic transfers I perform each month to 6. In fact, if I ever exceed the monthly limit a 3rd time, they have to close my account! So I now have one strike against me for the "crime" of trying to cover my checks.

The rationale for this actually does make a bit of sense. A bank needs to keep cash on hand to cover checks in a checking account, but they get a break on the reserves required for savings accounts because of these limits. I think the theory is that if the money is not fully accessible to customers, then the bank doesn't need to keep it on hand - i.e., they can lend it out and make money with it. Hence the need to actually draw a formal distinction between checking and savings accounts: it lets the bank more optimally figure out its required reserves, and maximize the amount of money available for lending.

While this may have made sense in the 1930s (when I believe these regulations were adopted), it has become a silly fiction today. There are two huge loopholes here. The first is that the limit only applies to telephone or internet exchanges. If I were to drag myself to an ATM or to a bank office, I can do a thousand transfers a day with no penalty. The second loophole, of course, is that there is no limit on the amount I can transfer at a time, so I can still write checks for a lot more than is in my checking account and do a big transfer to cover them, meaning that the checking account balance is actually a poor proxy for the amount of cash they need to keep in reserve.

It's the first loophole, though, that annoys me. The only difference I can see between an in-person or ATM transfer and an Internet or telephone transfer is convenience, so it seems to me that the regulations have the net effect of simply punishing convenience. What possible reason is there for that?

These regulations should be re-evaluated and reworked to address the risks and issues in the modern world. I'm not proposing looser regulations around monetary reserves, but it isn't the 1930s anymore, and the 1930s style solutions appear to be showing their age.

Parker the chef

Tonight I made a chicken pot pie out of chicken leftovers. Parker asked if he could help and I let him. He put on his apron, I my chef's coat. I did all the chopping of vegetables, but I let him stir them while they sauteed: he pulled up his little step stool to the stove and did a great job stirring, being very careful not to touch the pot. He also helped me roll out the dough for the crust.

It turned out delicious.

Primary season

Just a quick rant: why on earth do we need to be doing this so early? We still have 9 months to the general election, heck 6 months before the conventions. Why don't the states all make a deal: Iowa and New Hampshire can keep their "first" status (as illogical as it is to do so, but it seems to give them a sense of purpose that they otherwise lack) but everybody shift their primaries/caucuses to May or June.

A common mistake

There is an initiative that will likely be on the ballot here in Washington State in November to provide "death with dignity" (if you support the measure, "assisted suicide" if you don't) rights to terminally ill patients.

While I personally support the idea that government should not prevent anybody of sound mind from deciding to end their life, my purpose in this post is not to discuss the initiative specifically but rather to observe what I believe is a very common error in how people think about such issues, particularly when one is against a particular practice.

In particular, when dealing with something that we find repugnant, our inclination is to support things that ban it. After all, if it's bad we want people to do less of it, and banning it will reduce that. I think that this is a non-sequitur. We should not confuse the desire for a behavior to diminish with a justification for it being illegal. There may be justification for banning the practice, but it must come from other sources.

I happen to support the right to assisted suicide, so I will pick an example of things that I oppose to illustrate my point. Smoking comes to mind. Ideally, nobody would smoke. But banning smoking is probably the least effective - and most freedom-reducing - mechanism for achieving this result. And frankly, it's not government's business to ban smoking just for being a bad idea. Alas, the legitimate reasons to ban smoking all derive from other principles, such as protecting one person from harming another (hence the bans in public places). But smoking is still legal in private locations - as it should be - because there is no legitimate reason for banning people from making decisions like this when they are not hurting others in the process, even if the decision is demonstrably stupid. (Heck, if "demonstrably stupid decisions" were sufficient to justify a ban, then Britney Spears should be locked up for life).

I do not believe that it is a goal of government to protect us from ourselves.

When checks and balances fail

Here's a disturbing piece highlighted by Slashdot yesterday. Basically says that our intelligence agencies would like the ability and authorization to more or less snoop on anything electronic anytime.

This (fortunately) appears to still be proposal rather than policy, but it's chilling. What I find particularly disturbing about this is the slippery-slope aspect. I am generally not a subscriber to slippery-slope theories (which usually involve conspiracy theories and border on the paranoid - just ask any gun owner about new firearm regulations), but I think there is a systemic reason why slippery-slope applies here.

The problem here is that there is no check on the degree to which the agencies charged with our safety may go, other than their own good judgment and budget. They are tasked with preventing another terrorist attack (among other jobs), and given the choice between doing anything and everything (whether constructive or merely cosmetic), or trying to be "reasonable" and thus failing to cover any potential security hole, they will go for former. After all, if a terrorist attacks and there was something - however minor or obscure - that they didn't do, they will have failed, but if they do more than is necessary or even reasonable and there is no attack, then they are perceived to have done their jobs.

Of course, they humans who are just responding to the incentives that we have placed before them, but the net result is that we are taking away basic freedoms and economic growth in exchange for "security" that is quite often strictly cosmetic. My favorite example here is the billions of dollars we are spending to have people remove their shoes at airports. This may well weed out the amateurs, but it is far too effort on the 99.9% of the people who pose no threat, and as such it is diverting money and attention from less visible but more productive approaches like better intelligence. And traveling to the US has become so inconvenient for foreigners that tourism is down dramatically - so we're hurting our own economy in the pursuit of the illusion of security.

Which brings me to the story mentioned above. I'm all for giving our government more ability to protect us, and I believe that better intelligence is key to that. But I have two conditions on this. First, per my rant above, it must actually be effective, which all too often it is not. But secondly, it must not destroy the very freedom that we strive to protect. As awful as terrorism is, I think it would be far better to have a free, open, and vibrant society that suffers the periodic tragedy of a terrorist attack, than to have a suspicious, burdened, invasive society even if that society did not have to suffer terrorism (though I doubt such a trade off truly exists).

Somehow we treat terrorism as "different" and have a zero-tolerance for it where we have a non-zero tolerance for other evils in our midst. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should tolerate terrorism, or in any way excusing it. But if we reacted to terrorism the way we react to other crimes, we'd have roadblocks and strip searches and x-rays of every car entering Manhattan because - shocking! - there are murders committed there. We don't "tolerate" murder, but we don't let the existence of it drive every aspect of our lives either - we take reasonable precautions and reasonable risks, and do what we can to drive the murder rate as low as we can.

But with terrorism, it seems there is no rationality about limits on what we will do to drive it to absolute zero, even though I believe (regrettably) that zero is an unattainable goal.

I wonder how long it will be before they decide that in the interest of aviation safety that they ban all people from travelling by air.

Zimbabwe

One of the things I was particularly struck by while traveling in South Africa a few weeks ago was the contrast between it and its neighbor Zimbabwe. OK, I admit that it's hard not to see the contrast. And I admit that observing that Zimbabwe is an unmitigated tragedy (or that it didn't have to be) makes "stating the obvious" a rather startling demonstration of understatement. And I think the blame for all of Zimbabwe's many problems rests squarely upon Mugabe.

It's interesting that even in South Africa people I met shake their heads when speaking of Zimbabwe and Mugabe. I think they see what could have happened in their country. I think that Rhodesia (I'm using that name deliberately) and South Africa represent a rarity in political systems: a controlled experiment. Here were two countries with very similar initial conditions - white rule, strong self-reliant/self-sustaining economies (at least by African standards), and the potential for great wealth. Yet they had dramatically different outcomes for what can only be attributed to political strategies. South Africa sought reconciliation; Zimbabwe, retribution.

I can understand the desire for wealth redistribution, and how that can lead to a desire for land transfer. (I don't believe that forced redistribution is in fact morally justifiable; I am just saying that I can see why people might believe it to be so.) But sadly, people often confuse what is morally justifiable with what actually will achieve the desired ends. In the case of Zimbabwe, while chasing the goal of wealth redistribution (putting aside the fact that it was far more about cronyism than righting past wrongs), they ended up merely performing wealth destruction. Giving a productive farm to people who have no experience farming simply results in an un-productive farm; the moral arguments behind the action simply are not relevant.

If only Mugabe's motives were pure then perhaps he could be forgiven for the tactical missteps, but he has only compounded the tragedy because he has not demonstrated that he has the people's interests at heart.

He is quite simply and evil man, and he has singlehandedly destroyed a jewel of a country.

A quick rant about smokers in cars

Want to lose money quickly? Next time you are driving behind a car with a driver that is smoking, bet your passenger that the ashes from cigarette as it burns, and the resulting butt, will stay in the car. You'll lose every time.

It's still a (mostly) free country (despite the best attempts of the security-obsessed among our "leaders", but that's another rant), so I'm not advocating a ban on smoking while driving or other various stupid activities in which you wish to behave that don't directly impact my safety.

But I would ask my fellow citizens who choose to smoke and drive the following questions:

1. I notice that you inevitably have the window down to let the smoke out, even on rainy or cold days. If you can't stand the smoke in your car, isn't that a clue that you should quit?
2. Why do you think that the world is your ashtray? You have one in your car, why can't you use it?
   
3. You're generally a law-abiding citizen. Why do you think it's OK to toss your butt out the window? At best, it's littering, but it's not unusual for forest fires to start this way either.

No irony here

The EPA denied California's request for a waiver that would allow it (and several other states, including Washington, which follow California's lead) to set its own emissions standards. This despite the EPAs own lawyers advising that if California sued, it would likely win.

President Bush defended the EPA saying that this is a matter of federal jurisdiction, while governors such as Washington's Gregoire (a Democrat) made a state's rights argument in favor of California's waiver application.

So we have a staunchly conservative president asserting federal rights and a bunch of Democratic (and centrist Republican) governors asserting state's rights. Did I miss something or hasn't it always been a conservative hallmark to favor state's rights and a liberal hallmark to favor strong federal power?

TSA: I can't say I'm surprised.

There's a news report out today about a study that says that there is no evidence that the TSA's screening procedures actually provide any additional security. My favorite quote from this is the fact that the TSA defended itself by citing the number of prohibited items that they've confiscated - completely ignoring the question of whether or not prohibiting the item enhances safety.

My biggest complaint with the TSA isn't the annoyance of it all (although I do complain about that.) My biggest complaint is that the illusion of providing security can be more dangerous than no security, and can distract resources from providing actual security, and I think that the airport security process provides nothing more than that illusion of security.

Not surprisingly, the public is not a big fan of the TSA.