flight

Are the terrorists winning? (see Hansen’s comment to my last post)

I flew out to San Jose a couple of weekends ago. To give myself enough time to get through the security checkpoints, I left my apartment three hours before takeoff. I guess I could have spent some of that time working. Since I'm paid hourly, that wasted time actually cost me money, but for those who have real jobs, that wasted time also means lost productivity.

No matter how often I stand in the security line at O’Hare, it never ceases to entertain. Watching a grown man standing amid the chaos of a busy airport in his socks, hurrying to put his belt back on in front of hundreds of people, while other shoeless/belt-less travelers wait to pass through the metal detector behind him is about all it takes to keep me entertained.

As I waited in line, I watched a mother with three small kids approach the metal detector. Her two boys appeared to be twins - five years old at most. The third, a daughter, was young enough to be carried by her mother. As the mother struggled to remove her shoes and hold the baby at the same time, her twins eagerly waited to pass through the metal detector. They were waiting because the security guard in charge of their line was helping the guard in the next line determine what item on the middle-aged barefoot business woman to our left was setting off the metal detector. Unable to resolve the problem, he instructed the other guard to call for help, and returned to our line. When he returned, the twins immediately ran through the metal detector together.

“WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!!” shouted the security guard. He extended his arms out to both sides, grabbed the two boys, and made them walk back to their mother. “One at a time guys, One at a time!”

I’m certainly not about to say anything remotely profound here, but, if the terrorists decide to attack us again THEY’RE NOT GOING TO USE THE EXACT SAME METHOD THEY USED LAST TIME!!!

How much money are we putting into airport security?

Maybe these terrorists are smarter than we give them credit for.

Imagine the opportunity cost of the time spent in airport security lines. Or the cost of all the items that have been confiscated in these lines. Or the cost of my evachute.

How do we decide who wins and loses a war? I was talking to this German guy a few months ago – he was born/raised in Germany but moved to the US for his job. I asked him about World War II. How do the Germans teach it? What happened in WWII? The first thing he said was,

“The Soviets lost over 20 million people in that war!”

He’s right, kills don’t lie.