Radioactive Communist Zombies

Electronic Devices on Airplanes Not Dangerous

If you haven't flown lately (dang, I haven't for almost a year!) you may not be aware that you have to turn off all your electronic devices until the plane has reached an altitude of 10,000 feet, then you may turn them on except cell phones (unless they are in airplane mode) or anything that sends/receives a signal (except WiFi if the plane is so equipped).  Confused yet?

Now it looks as if that policy is rather . . . dumb (for lack of a better word).  Why?  According to Nick Bolton writing in the "Bits" blog at the New Yuck Times:

The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor.

It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns.

So it might be better just to leave the devices on.

As Bolton points out, if just 1% of folks forget or can't be bothered to turn off their devices, that's about 2 people in a 737 and more on a bigger plane.  Yet there is not one recorded incidence of a plane crashing due to an on-board electronic device. What's more:

Michael Altschul, senior vice president and legal counsel for CTIA, the wireless industry association, said a study that it conducted more than a decade ago found no interference from mobile devices.

“The fact is, the radio frequencies that are assigned for aviation use are separate from commercial use,” Mr. Altschul said. “Plus, the wiring and instruments for aircraft are shielded to protect them from interference from commercial wireless devices.”

I frankly think the whole scam is to get you to pay attention to the safety briefing.

But with government over-caution, don't expect this rule to change soon if at all.  Maybe as electronics become more ubiquitous, the FAA will have to bend to reality.  But don't count on it.

Almost as Bad as Flying Coach

On the "ewwww" scale this is right up there.  Apparently there are species of snails that migrate by being eaten by birds and then pooped out later in a different location.  According to the BBC:

Researchers found that 15% of the snails eaten survived digestion and were found alive in the birds' droppings.

This evidence suggests that bird predation could be a key factor in how snail populations spread.

Scientists think this explains why snail populations show wide interbreeding despite long distances needed to travel.  Previous theories were that cyclones blew the snails around.  But flying in the gut of a bird also seems to be a method snails move around.

At least they don't have to deal with the TSA.

The TSA Pokey Pokey

Fun with the TSA:

Out of the Car, Long Hair (and The Plane, Too)

(Hat Tip: Planet Gore)

I've long maintained that green meanies (my term for enviro-wackos) are more interested in controlling you than saving the planet.  And one thing they hate with a deep purple (or green) passion is your car.  Why?  Because your car gives you freedom and mobility and choices.  And they hate that.

Now, the EU is acting on that passionate animosity for your freedom by proposing to simply ban cars.  And short-haul airplane flights.  After all, the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels don't have to worry about silly things like what the people want.  The UK Telegraph's Bruno Waterfield tells the sad tale:

Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of "zero" for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities.

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.

"That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

Also, they want to make short-haul airplane trips very expensive:

The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.

All this by 2050.

Notice that "real action to change behaviour."  That is their ultimate goal, to remake you into New Environmental Man.  They hate you and they hate your car (unless it's a Prius, then they merely despise it).

This is supposed to cut CO₂ emissions (which I've yet to figure out the urgency of that).  But really it's to cut your freedom as much as possible.  And what happens in the EU doesn't stay in the EU.  First it'll infect California, then make its way to Washington State and finally to Washington D.C.  So expect cars bans to become common in the U.S. within your or your kids' lifetimes.

Expect Flying to Get More Miserable as TSA Unionizes

Aviation experts like Michael Boyd describes the TSA as a "60,000 member DMV from Hell."  Well, hell is about to get worse.

The TSA is unionizing this week.  As Kimberly Strassel writes in today's Wall Street Journal (sub possibly required), this will create the typical ossified union structure that is anathema to good security and decent customer service:

This [unionization] will stymie or delay the TSA's ability to quickly move workers to heightened security risks, to institute new procedures, or to keep terrorists guessing.

But it is, as Ms. Strassel writes, the purpose of public-sector unions to cause problems:

Here's the fundamental problem with public-employee unions: They exist to compete with, and undermine, public priorities. The priority of Wisconsin citizens is a state that can provide basic services, encourage private-sector jobs, and pay its bills. Wisconsin public-employee unions, by contrast, were formed to, and exist to, erect a system that showers members with plump pay and benefits, crowding out state services and private jobs.

The TSA crowd out private jobs?  Yes!  There is a program called the security Partnership Program that allows airports to opt-out of using the TSA and use private screeners.  But (Hat Tip: Instapundit) as The Washington Times reported Wednesday, the TSA is "cooking the books" to prevent more airports from using this option (links original):

The Transportation Security Administration “cooked the books” to understate the costs of using federal workers rather than private contractors to screen airport passengers, a key TSA critic in Congress charged Wednesday.

Federal auditors found the agency erred in its cost comparisons, and a skeptical lawmaker said TSA did so to stop the use of private contractors to do screening — an option Congress wrote into the 2001 law that created the agency.

Why is all this happening?  According to Strassel, it's a kickback to the union bosses who helped get Obama elected.  Adding 60,000 union members to kick in dues to help elect more Democrats is probably part of the plan, too.  But even if you're a knee-jerk pro union Democrat, you should be against this plan.  As Ms. Strassel reports:

This is how you end up with the Customs and Border Protection Agency, whose union is allowed to collectively bargain personnel issues. In recent years, the agency has spent months negotiating with its union over how and whether it can discipline employees who fall asleep on the job, and over how much training it can give officers who fail a firearm test.

And you can bet lines for security will get longer and slower.  TSA agents will take on the helpful attitude of IRS agents auditing you.  And TSA union rules will forbid mandatory over time, so if a shift ends agents can leave work even if there's long lines at security.

This works out great for no one.  Except union bosses and Democrat politicians.

Travels With the New, Improved TSA

Blogging has been light because I've been travelling.  I had to go to Alaska for a family funeral.  Which meant flying which meant dealing with the TSA.  I haven't flown for over 6 months and, of course, had read all about the full-body scanners and the pat-downs.  So I wasn't sure what to expect.

And you know what?  It wasn't bad at all.  Better than usual, in fact.  In Seattle when I got out my baggy of liquids I accidentally put my boarding pass in my suitcase and sent it through the X-ray machine.  But, apparently, you don't need to show them your ticket as you go through the metal detector anymore.  So no problem there.  I stepped through the metal detector, worried that my watch would set it off (I forgot to remove it) but it didn't.  There was a full-body scan box in the area after the metal detector and I asked the TSA agent "Now what?" and he said, "That's it."  No penis measuring, nogroping.  It was easier than usual.  Are they full body scans/pat downs just for randoms?  According to the TSA website "Each passenger" will go through the scanners.

In Anchorage they didn't even have the full body scanners so it was business as usual (except, again, you didn't have to show your ticket as you walked through the metal detector).  I forgot to take out my wallet and remove my watch but again I didn't set anything off.

But one thing that struck me was that every TSA agent seemed to be bending over to be polite, courteous, and friendly.  Perhaps they are trying to over come the bad publicity from the scanners and pat-downs.  Either way, it was more pleasant than previous TSA experiences.

Adam Savage: WTF TSA?

This is all over the internet but I thought I'd share it.  This is how good our airport security is with their new body scanners and "feel 'em up" pat downs (warning, bad language).

 

Don't Touch My Junk

In lieu (I really can't spell that word) of any actual blogging tonight, I'll leave you with this (Hat Tip: Instapundit):

 

Death by Security

There is a current meme out there about the Transportation Security Administration's intrusive security.  You apparently have a choice between being put in a box that takes a nearly naked picture of you or getting a pat-down by a TSA flunky.  See, for example, here.

Of course, the TSA's security measures are designed to be as intrusive as possible.  It is, as some have said, security as theater.  If it looks as if they are trying to detect contraband, fliers will feel safe.  But getting felt up but the TSA unlikely appeals to anyone.

Shortly after 9/11 and the invention of the TSA, I wrote a piece arguing how security can go to far and decrease safety of passengers.  Here's part of it (I have not updated the numbers but I suspect they are still valid):

In 1998 (most recent year I could find complete statistics) there were 463.3 billion air passenger miles flown and one fatality on commercial airlines for a death rate of 0.00022 deaths per 100 million passenger miles.  But airplane crash fatalities tend to vary a lot because, for example, an explosion in the ullage of a center tank of a 747 can kill a lot of people at once (in 1996 there were 380 fatalities).  The average from 1990 through 1998 deaths per 100 million passenger miles was 0.026.   According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the fatality rate per 100 million miles of automobile travel was 1.6 deaths in both 1999 and 2000.  So you're about 615 times more likely to die driving a mile in a car than flying a mile in a commercial airplane.  In 1998 you were almost 7,300 times more likely to die driving a mile than flying a mile.

Or, look at it another way.  The automobile fatality rate translates to one death for about every 62.5 million miles driven by someone somewhere in the US.  So, just 100,000 persons who would normally have flown need to drive 625 miles for there to be one person dead in a traffic accident.  That's about 0.017% of passengers driving rather than flying.  If merely 1% of air passengers are transferred to driving it will result in about 76 deaths on the highways per year.  That’s more people killed in commercial airplanes in seven of the ten years from 1990 to 1999.  That's more people than were killed in five of those years combined.

If we make flying so miserable and uncomfortable and the TSA so intrusive, people will drive and that will kill some of them.

Perhaps it's time to abolish the TSA.  In the name of safety.

One-Way Trip to Mars

A Washington State University scientist is saying humanity should go to Mars . . . and not come back.  The AP reports:

"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor who co-authored an article that seriously proposes what sounds like a preposterous idea.

Saying it would be cheaper and easier to do a one-way trip to Mars, while also colonizing the planet, Schulze-Makuch is serious about the idea:

Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, argue that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth. They believe the one-way trips could start in two decades.

"You would send a little bit older folks, around 60 or something like that," Schulze-Makuch said, bringing to mind the aging heroes who saved the day in the movie "Space Cowboys."

That's because the mission would undoubtedly reduce a person's lifespan, from a lack of medical care and exposure to radiation. Radiation could also damage reproductive organs, so sending people of childbearing age is not a good idea, Schulze-Makuch said.

But, if you're going to colonize a planet, don't you need people who can reproduce?

I'm pretty much for anything that will speed planetary exploration and colonization of space.  But sending oldsters on a one-way trip to Mars seems a bit extreme.

But if I lived in Pullman, I might want a one-way ticket to Mars, too.