SNL Skit on TSA Enhanced Security Procedures
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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17 Comments:
Hi Mark!
The TSA Program to Examine Random Voyagers (PERV) has attracted some rather unsavory characters to their ranks....SHOCKING details at:
http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/03/faa-tiger-will-work-airport-security_19.html
Peace! :-)
We don't need no stinkin regualtions !!!
*************
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hedge-probe-20101123,0,5980893.story
Reporting from New York and Los Angeles — An unfolding federal probe of alleged insider trading on Wall Street is escalating, sending a wave of anxiety over the investment industry.
FBI agents searched the offices of three hedge fund operators Monday, two of which were started by former executives of SAC Capital Advisors, one of the most profitable and secretive hedge fund managers in the country
The Japanese have better Airport Screenings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV9iHl2TgOc
my submission for "markets in everything"
http://quitstaringnow.com/
Why have airport screenings become a right-wing fetish-cause celebre?
We lose $3 trillion in Iraqistan, and what you care about is a image screening that results in less radiation to you than eating a banana?
The Sarah Palinization of the right-wing continues.....where are the Bill Buckleys, the Everett Dirksens, the Eisenhowers?
"We lose $3 trillion in Iraqistan, and what you care about is a image screening that results in less radiation to you than eating a banana?"...
We'll have to waste trillions of extorted tax dollars in order to bail out the stupid people of California, people who think bananas are more radioactive than backscatter radiation...
New TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) Slogans
Juandos-
Some days you bottom even yourself---do you have a banana stuffed in a southerly export hole?
1. See today's LA Times, on scanners. The potassium in a single banana will expose you to more radiation than an airport body scan.
2. California, in fact has subsidized the nation, especially rural-red states, for generations. We send about $50 billion a year in federal taxes to DC more than we get back.
A state like KY (as in Kentucky, though you might justifiably think of KY jelly) gets back about $1.50 for every $1 they send to DC. Or about $4,000 in federal lard per resident.
That's the state repped by Senators (R) Mitch McConnell and Ryan Paul!!! The great conservatives!!!!
Oh sure, those guys are going to balance the budget.
benji-
i can't speak for the guys obsessed with the scanners as i agree with you that they are not in any way a health risk. all they do is make the lines longer as they are much slower than the metal detectors.
but the pat downs are ridiculous.
i watched my 70 year old mother get one of these because of her ankle replacement. it's ludicrously invasive and is being used at all airports, not just the ones with scanners.
i think the real question is does any of this actually make us any safer?
there are some pretty strong arguments for no, particularly given that potential terrorists will just adapt and there are dozens of other ways to blow up a plane.
many planes carry us mail that is barely screened at all.
these scanners are like putting a toll booth on one lane of a 3 lane road.
i have real doubts that they actually accomplish much in the long run.
we are just building the maginot line to defend against the last war.
oh, and juandos, if you think you get too much radiation from a backscatter system, then i would recommend that you not fly at all.
the radiation from a backscatter is equivalent to just a few minutes of the actual flight once you reach cruising altitude.
Radiation safety authorities including the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, The Health Physics Society and the American College of Radiology, have stated that there is no specific evidence that full-body scans are unsafe.[34] The Secure 1000 Backscatter X-ray scanner was developed in 1992 by Dr. Steve Smith.[3] The scanner has been studied extensively for almost 20 years by the leading independent radiation safety authorities in the United States.[34][35] Experimental and epidemiological data do not support the proposition, however, that there is a threshold dose of radiation below which there is no increased risk of cancer.[36]
The UK Health Protection Agency has completed an analysis of the X-ray dose from Backscatter scanners and has written that the dose is extremely low and "about the same as people receive from background radiation in an hour".[37]
The Health Physics Society (HPS) reports that a person undergoing a backscatter scan receives approximately 0.05 μSv (or 0.005 mrems) of radiation; American Science and Engineering Inc. reports 0.09 μSv (0.009 mrems). For the personnel X-ray scanners investigated, the obtained dose values are in the range from 0.07 to .6 μSv. [38]
At the high altitudes typical of commercial flights, naturally occurring cosmic radiation is considerably higher than at ground level. The radiation dose for a six hour flight is approximately 20 μSv in comparison. According to US regulatory agencies, "1 mrem per year is a negligible dose of radiation, and 25 mrem per year from a single source is the upper limit of safe radiation exposure".[11]
benny the clueless says: "See today's LA Times, on scanners"...
LA Times?!?!
ROFLMAO!
What's next? Tall tales of a factual Dan Rather?
Do some homework first...
Still there's more fairy tales: "California, in fact has subsidized the nation, especially rural-red states, for generations. We send about $50 billion a year in federal taxes to DC more than we get back"...
Geez! No wonder California's broke with people like you for citizens...
Tell it to Pelosi, you and her on the same wavelength...
When I first heard the news about the "underware bomber", I remember joking that we would all now have to have our underware checked before boarding a plane, just as we had to take off our shoes after the "shoe bomber". I guess I shouldn't have been laughing.
"i can't speak for the guys obsessed with the scanners as i agree with you that they are not in any way a health risk. all they do is make the lines longer as they are much slower than the metal detectors."
I agree that concerns over potential radiation risk is likely overblown, and more an issue for airline personnel who could go through scanners every day.
I believe the more important point pilots make in objecting to this invasive search, is that they will soon be in complete control of an aircraft traveling at 500 mph at 30,000 ft. If they intend to cause harm, they are pretty much free to do so, and have no need to sneak anything onto the plane.
Mogan-
Actually, I think terrorism is a miniscule threat, has been hyped for poltical reasons.
Terorism is just a heinous PR stunt, not a threat to our national security.
Moreover, terrorism is little physical threat to us. About 30,000 Americans every year die in auto accidents, and 18,000 in gunshots. That's about 500,000 since 9/11. There have been scattered terrorism attempts in the USA since then--at most, a few thousand would have died.
We are wasting trilliosn of dollars fighting terrorism.
That said, the scanners pose no threat, and yes I think they are annoying, and possibly a waste of time. But mostly, since I fly only three or four times a year, I really just don't care about scanners and pat downs.
Jeez, I get stuck in one-hour commutes three times a week. A few minutes to go through a scanner? This is what to gripe about?
If some guy pats me down at an airport, so effing what. Just let me get on the plane.
"A few minutes to go through a scanner? This is what to gripe about?
If some guy pats me down at an airport, so effing what. Just let me get on the plane."
Benji,
If you feel that terrorism is a miniscule threat to a person's safety, and I agree by the way, then you should wonder what possible benefit there is to spending billions of dollars and causing billions more in lost time screening every passenger using one or both of these intrusive methods, and you should object strongly. You say you are against government waste, and here's a really obvious example.
But, even worse, you have missed the most important point. Both scanning and groping are violations of your constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. No probable cause, no search. Surely you don't believe everyone who wants to get on a plane is a suspect.
I'm familiar with the response that I don't have to fly, and that's true, but if we accept illegal searches at airports, where will it end? Will I be scanned and groped when I visit my local public library? When I go to the park? The grocery store?
The cost is way too high. You shouldn't ask "What's the big deal?", because it IS a big deal.
Apparently some are the product of the modern American education system since the 4th Amendment doesn't show up on their radars or is at best a very weak signal...
Quote from Benjamin: "1. See today's LA Times, on scanners. The potassium in a single banana will expose you to more radiation than an airport body scan"
Well, the journalist propagandists of the state have declared it safe. I'm glad that's settled.
The radiation hazard from the scanners has not been studied, yet these general declarations of safety flow every where from our government protectors.
Remember how the government declared the air around ground zero to be safe? How many of those recovery workers now have chronic respiratory illness? This is just one of many proclamations of our all powerful government that have been shown later to be wrong.
The radiation from these scanners is low energy, and it is almost entirely absorbed by your skin. Medical X-rays have higher energy and pass through your whole body. The effects of medical X-rays are dispersed through the whole volume of the body. There have been no studies on the potential effects of repeated doses of low energy X-rays to the skin over your whole body.
There are numerous examples of very inert substances turning out to be health hazards (e.g., asbestos, silica, PCBs, CFCs). Now we are going to deliberately take a known pathogen (X-rays) and systematically dose large portions of our population without knowing the potential consequences, all for a rather dubious security concern and all because some government bureaucrat has declared if both necessary and safe.
Next we can discuss the human rights and Constitutional implications of this whole issue.
What are the most effective ways to get the TSA to drop their invasive scanning and their abusive groping?
All I can think of is to write my favorite airlines telling them I won't be flying and to plead with my representatives asking them to stop TSA.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks.
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