bmagnus

Leavin’ On a Jet Plane

The pilot program of a Trusted Traveller System has now been announced. Some 5000-10000 frequent fliers will have the opportunity to participate in a program the TSA’s spokesman admits offers “limited features and limited benefits.” Make no mistake: this is not a get out of the security line free card. From the article:

Registered travelers will have to pass through the same basic security as all other travelers, and like everyone else, will be encouraged to remove their shoes and their outer garments, said Yolanda Clark, a spokeswoman for the agency.

But Ms. Clark said those approved for the program would not face the more careful inspection known as secondary screening unless they set off an alarm as they passed through the metal detectors. Under the current system, some passengers are chosen for secondary screening at random and some because they meet a set of criteria that are secret but are believed to include factors like paying cash for a ticket or booking travel at the last minute, or flying one way.

So, these people will voluntarily give personal information to the TSA, and still have to stand in the security line in socks. Such a deal. I can certainly think of better ways to spend $5 Million of taxpayer dollars.

For that matter, how do we get the idea that cash purchases, one way tickets, or traveling on short notice makes one a potential terrorist? Doesn’t knowing that these things might be suspicious mean that a halfway intelligent terrorist might avoid them? I seem to recall that Mohammed Atta and his collaborators bought round trip tickets with a credit card in advance, and there is some evidence to suggest they made test runs — making them regular if not frequent fliers. I can think of lots of legitimate reasons someone might pay cash for a ticket, or fly one-way, or fly on short notice. Family or business emergencies happen. People without credit sometimes need to fly. College students might only need to fly to campus in fall, or home from campus in summer.

At the other end of the flying public spectrum, we have the Do Not Fly list. A judge has ordered the Government to reconsider what information to release about how that list was compiled. From the article:

Government lawyers refused to turn over much of the material sought by the A.C.L.U. because they said it involved sensitive security information or other material exempted from public disclosure.

But Judge Breyer said the withheld material included “innocuous information” about aviation protocols, publicly available information from newspapers and the names of senior transportation officials.

This is an important case. The TSA Do Not Fly list is effectively a black box; nobody knows how a person gets on the list; nobody knows how to get someone off the list; there is evidence that some people are on the list for politically motivated reasons. This is not as simple as “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t worry about it.” And remember, the courts aren’t even close to ruling on the matter. This is just ruling about what information must be released under the Freedom Of Information Act.

Somewhere in the middle we have a judge who has ruled that a “Privacy Policy” is not a “Contract.” In short, he said that if you don’t read it and you don’t sign it, you can’t act surprised when it changes, or doesn’t say what you thought it did, or it gets superseded by something else. In this case, it was a Government request for information. We are not talking about saying data is private and then selling it to telemarketers. More commentary than you want to shake a stick at here.

This brings me to my last point. The suit claims the release of information — at the Government’s request — violates the “Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Minnesota’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.” It seems to me that the War On Terror has consistently ignored the Rule Of Law when the Law is inconvenient. For example, the memos asserting that we can use torture in Iraq as long as it’s really necessary because there’s a War on. To heck with international law, and treaties, and the Geneva Convention. Never mind what might happen to American Prisoners Of War in the future.

The United States also intends to ignore international law at the end of the month, when we hand “Sovereignty” over to the interim Government of Iraq. The International Committee of the Red Cross insists we must release or charge all prisoners before then. The last paragraph of that link specifically says “The US has made clear it will continue to detain some Iraqis after the transfer of sovereignty as part of its security operations.” Saddam might be a special case. After all, people will notice if he isn’t handed over.

I am deeply worried about the philosophy of “The Law doesn’t apply because we are at War.”

Here is a very interesting article about Anti-Terror Cyber-Vigilantes. They are “Unencumbered by bureaucracy or by laws requiring warrants or prohibiting entrapment….” That’s right, “bureaucracy” like the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. An expert points out “But remember, you are still being a spy, and that carries risks. People might try to kill you. You might violate the law. You might screw things up.” Yeah yeah. It’s all for the greater good, right?

Defining Moment

When I was in school, way back in the Reagan Administration, we were taught that a Conservative was somebody who thought things were just fine as they were (or, as they used to be in the “good old days”) and that a Liberal was someone who thought there were things that could change for the better. That being the case, I would like to know where this idea of “Liberals Hate America” comes from.

Liberals do not hate America, but they think there are things that can be better. Liberals know that such issues as drug abuse, poverty, and homelessness cannot be fixed with platitudes and blaming the victim. They don’t think most people “were asking for it” when they became an addict, or a crime victim, or mentally ill, or a teenage single mother.

Liberals know that good jobs are important for everyone. They also know that a “good job” includes making enough money to live on, being as safe as possible at work, and certain expected benefits — including insurance and retirement assistance. Liberals believe that two people who do the same job — and do it just as well — should be paid the same. It shouldn’t matter what race, sex, nationality, or religion either of them is.

Liberals also understand that as important as continuing economic prosperity is, we only have one environment. We cannot live without it, and therefore we must be good stewards of it. They do not believe that the vast majority of industries will consistently do what is right for the good of the environment or for the good of mankind without rules that make them.

Liberals do not hate the Government, but they do not blindly follow the President just because he’s the President. They’re not into the whole “my country right or wrong” thing, but rather “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Liberals agree that Terrorism Is Bad. But they are not entirely sure how checking for home buyers’ names on lists of terrorists or pawing through commuter’s briefcases or absurd prosecutions help prevent terrorism. You might as well claim that terrorists were scared away by John Ashcroft’s uplifting song of praise, “Let the Eagles Soar.”

Which brings me to one final point. Liberals are not all a bunch of anti-Christian hedonists. They recognize that the same First Amendment that gives Christians of all sects the right to practice their religion more or less as they please — as long as they do not infringe on anybody else’s rights — is the same First Amendment that protects the rights of Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and Sufis, and Zoroastrians, and yes, Wiccans. If you don’t like it, join the separatists. But don’t come crying to me if religious rule under Christians is almost as brutal as Muslim Sharia law.

Just maybe Liberals aren’t as evil as some people would have you believe.

I hear there are jobs as scientists….

Before I get started, here’s a couple of items as follow-up from last week. First, we have some scientists who found that consuming lots of sugar makes you want more food. And here we have some other scientists who almost started to laugh when they heard details of how Jose Padilla allegedly wanted to make his “dirty bomb.”

Meanwhile, back at the Federal Reserve….

Alan Greenspan has once more telegraphed his intention to begin raising interest rates. The only thing missing is a big sign with flashing lights. This colossal turn signal theoretically prevents the financial markets from panicking. Make no mistake, the rate hike is necessary: not only can we realistically stay at four decade lows for a limited period of time, but there is definite evidence that inflation is with us once more. Of course that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the abnormally low exchange rate and the price of oil, but the FOMC can’t do much about those; their mandate says they should control inflation, and the tool for that job is interest rates.

Not everybody agrees, however, that there even is inflation. Or that raising interest rates would fix it without negative impact to other areas of the economy. After all, raising interest rates will mean it is harder to pay off debts. This is true of everything from your credit card and adjustable rate mortgage (call your mortgage company and lock in that rate now!) up to and including the National Debt.

As if that weren’t problematic enough, we are told by pundits that raising interest rates might cause fewer jobs to be created, and you don’t want that, do you? This arguement loses some steam when the government’s own figures show almost a million jobs created in the last 3 months, and 9 straight months of job growth. Of course there is some question about the accuracy of those numbers, and the impact of those jobs (some of them are not what you would call a “career”).

Math time! Something between 1.9 million and 3.4 million jobs were lost in the Bush Administration. In the interest of fairness, let’s do a simple average and call it 2.65 million. Here are the jobs “created” by month: May, 248,000; April, 288,000; March, 337,000; February, 21,000; January, 97,000; December, 8000; November, 43,000; October, 126,000; September, 57,000. That adds up to 1,225,000 new jobs in the last 9 months (by the way, according to these figures, only 873,000 jobs were added in the last 3 months, far less than a million. Maybe the nice people at the P-I were adding to the beginning of the year, which gets you 991,000). That still leaves 1,425,000 people who had full time jobs at the beginning of the Bush Administration that do not have them now.

But wait! There’s more! Economists believe we need to add 150,000 to 200,000 jobs to the economy each month just to keep up with people entering the labor force. That means we needed at least 1,350,000-1,800,000 jobs in the last 9 months — and we fell short. Over the 40 months (so far) of the Bush Administration we needed 6-8 million jobs added; instead we have a net loss of 1.5 million jobs. It is ironic that attempts to make the figures seem as if the job market is finally recovering are giving Greenspan exactly the cover he needs to raise interest rates.

The job market stinks, plain and simple. Nevertheless, inflation is here, and therefore interest rates are going up. At least there was somebody who knew how to deal with similar problems. Right?

Told Ya So.

Back around the beginning of the year, I told you that if you wanted to lose weight, you were going to have to cut refined sugar out of your diet. And I mean all of it: sugar, sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup; all of it. In fact, I think you should think twice about products with “alcohol sugars” like malitol and sorbitol in them. Such products are added to certain low-carb foods to make them appear lower in carbohydrates than they really are. Frankly, if a product needs alcohol sugars, it is probably something with more calories than a person trying to lose weight should be eating. I realize this point of view is mildly controversial and strictly my personal opinion.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that a third of the American diet is junk food, the vast majority of it sugary stuff. As much as 7.1% of the calories was soda alone — by extension these people could reduce caloric intake by 7% just by switching to diet soda, or better yet water. A researcher was quoted as saying “It’s no wonder there’s an obesity epidemic in this country.”

Meanwhile, a school principal in Georgia was so inspired by her own experience cutting sweets out of her diet — not a low-carb diet, merely cutting out sweets — that she made her campus sugar free. She made Coke put only Dasani water in the vending machines. She reworked the school lunch menus. She made the bus drivers keep the kids from eating sugary snacks on the way to and from school. She invited the skeptical parents to nutrition seminars.

A year later she found out that not only had many students lost weight, but there were almost a third fewer visits to the school nurse, substantially fewer disciplinary problems, and higher test scores. She accidentally found a cheap way to improver her school. Of course I bet there’s a positive impact on the community as a whole, too. Here’s another school trying to go junk food free.

The bottom line is that cutting sugar works, and it has unexpected benefits.

Why it wouldn’t work

I know a thing or two about apartments.

You can’t just walk into the office of a big apartment building, say “I’ll take 2 please. I’m not in a hurry, the weekend will do.”

Apparently, nobody in the Justice Department has rented an apartment since that room over Mrs. MacPherson’s garage in college. They would like you to believe that Jose Padilla and some unnamed colleague (who is still on the loose so Look Out!) planned to rent multiple apartments in multiple high-rise apartment buildings with natural gas fittings. They furthermore planned to seal all the vents — perhaps where Tom Ridge got his plastic sheeting and duct tape idea — open the gas and set timers to blow the place up. Oh yeah, and maybe work radiation into the blast somehow. Although it is possible to blow up an apartment with natural gas, it doesn’t work like in the movies. Padilla having lived in the Chicago area, he probably remembers a few years back when some poor soul blew up several apartments and a member of management staff who had gone to check on him in a suicide attempt. Sorry, no luck finding a link to that, folks.

Remember, we are talking about big apartment complexes. This is not a duplex, or a quad that the owner lives in one unit, but a multi-million dollar piece of real estate. Let us begin with the basic premise that the people who own such apartment buildings want to make money. Radical thinking, I know. So how do they make money? The two major ways an apartment building owner makes rent are as follows: collect enough rent money each month to cover and exceed the expenses; or sell the place at a profit. Both of these plans are predicated on the idea that the property remains in good condition.

Sticklers for detail will point out that you can also make money through vending deals, tax breaks, kickbacks, and insurance settlements. All but the last item still assume the property is rentable or salable at the end of the day. And maybe you’d better ask Larry Silverman about collecting insurance settlements. It’s a really tough way to make money. It’s much easier to just rent the property for more than it costs to run it.

So, keeping in mind that because the management wants to keep the property in good condition, and because a number of the management staff of such a property may well be paid at least in part with a rental unit, they want to do a good job of screening possible residents. They don’t want drug dealers as neighbors, let alone terrorists.

So, if you were to go look for an apartment at a reputable complex, you should expect to show your driver’s license, have it copied, answer a lot of questions about where you live now and where you lived before, answer some questions about your job (including your salary — they want to make sure you can afford rent and food), and sign an application which allows the apartment management to verify your application. As part of that process, they will run a credit check. They will call your current landlord, specifically asking if you have given proper notice that you are moving, and they will call your previous landlord. They will call your office and talk to the HR manager. They will probably even do a criminal background check.

In short, I am willing to believe Padilla and his unnamed coconspirator could have rented units in one large apartment complex. I am not willing to believe they could repeat the process in other complexes without somebody saying “How strange! This guy was just approved for an apartment across town last week!”

This is to say nothing of the merits or lack thereof of the case against Mr. Padilla. The most telling part of this is in the transcript of the Justice Department Press Conference (see CNN link above): the first question is as follows:

QUESTION: Why don’t you bring criminal charges against him now?

COMEY: Well, what we’re going to do is use all legal tools available to protect the American people from Jose Padilla. I’m not ruling out that criminal charges might not be an option some day. We, obviously, can’t use any of the statements he’s made in military custody, which will make that option challenging.

Why aren’t there criminal charges? Why weren’t there criminal charges 2 years ago, when the man was arrested? They admit that they have trampled this man’s rights under the Constitution. I’m terribly sorry, but “He’s a really bad man, trust us” doesn’t make this okay. At the time, they said Brandon Mayfield was a really bad man, trust us, too. The only thing that will prove Mr. Padilla’s “bad man” status is a clean, open trial, where all the evidence is clearly and convincingly laid out and cross-examined.

Sure, maybe he is a bad man. Prove it in court. Good luck finding an unbiased jury.

Marie Antoinette? Meet Alfonso Jackson

Everyone knows the somewhat embellished story of Marie Antoinette proposing that if the peasants had no bread and were therefore starving, then “Let them eat cake!” This level of being out of touch with everyday people and their needs did not die with the French monarchy.

This week the Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, MA reports that Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alfonso Jackson told a congressional committee he doesn’t talk about housing the poor because “being poor is a state of mind, not a condition.” The irony of such a comment is the fact that HUD’s mission specifically includes that they will “increase access to affordable housing.”

Lest you think this is made up, here are comments by one of the Congressional Representatives that was present. Nor are such comments out of character for Mr. Jackson. If you’d like to know more about Mr. Jackson, try the official HUD biography, but don’t look too hard for the part about growing up and overcoming poverty.

It seems obvious that Mr. Jackson meant to invoke the famous saying “Broke is a state of wallet; poor is a state of mind,” and it’s inevitable baggage that being “broke” can be fixed with good old fashioned work. Under this logic, if you are continually broke, it is your own darn fault. No bread? Let them eat cake. No jobs? Let them start their own businesses. Nowhere to live? Let them… uh, well, apply for a grant to build low income housing? The Berkshire Eagle put it best: “as a personal philosophy, it’s admirable. But as public policy, it stinks.”

They go on to point out that “This newspaper has observed before that liberal government doesn’t give away tax money for love of poor people, but out of the enlightened view that a modicum of economic justice is an insurance policy against social unrest.” Housing is not the only area where this expectation that the poor — I mean the “broke” — should pull themselves up by the bootstraps. The number of people whose healthcare plan is “hoping we don’t get sick” has grown to 43 million. Next time you are in a crowd of people, think about the fact that one in 6 does not have health insurance.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe that health insurance drives up the cost of healthcare. But, we live in a country where health insurance is just short of a prerequisite for getting care outside community clinic or emergency room. It should be patently obvious that working and paying the bills and not coming out “broke” on a regular basis is predicated on a certain level of health. Most jobs are almost impossible to do from a hospital bed. And since ignoring little health problems until they become big health problems is a way of life for way too many people in this country, health insurance will remain a need rather than a luxury for the foreseeable future. Oh, and before you start on how you aren’t one of those people, let me point out that some of those people are sick with communicable diseases. Have a nice day.

The Bush Administration seems to have a very shortsighted view of what this Marie Antoinette philosophy will do — or as Paul Krugman prefers to interpret it, Dooh Nibor economics (reverse Robin Hood). Yes, the nobles were terribly rich and powerful. But in the end, some of them really lost their heads.

Oh, and if you really must eat cake? Alton Brown’s book on baking comes out in September.

Bitter Lemonade

I’d like to tell you about a very unusual company today. Their prospects are looking up. Granted, they had some troubles after 9/11 — they did lose people and facilities — but their finances are in good order. Core management has been reduced by about half since then, and the remaining middle managers have successfully implemented a decentralized management plan, allowing them to quickly move on a regional or local basis without having to get the CEO to sign off on every small detail. They have 18,000 employees and contractors, and recruiting for open positions is going exceptionally well.

Unfortunately, this “company” is Al Qaeda.

Let’s face it, pictures like this are not helping the War on Terror™, and they are not helping America. The idea that the commander who allowed this to occur is shocked, just shocked I tell you that she is being sent elsewhere is, well, just shocking. Alright, I grant you that she should not have found out on the evening news.

But back to the topic of Al Qaeda. We invaded Afghanistan to get them, if you will recall. Then we left the job half finished. Then we got distracted by Iraq, and managed to mess up everything we could think of to mess up in the process. Even our plan for returning Iraqis to self-rule is flawed.

And that brings us to this week’s missive, brought to us jointly from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice: Look Out. Al Qaeda might be planning to attack. They won’t tell us what they plan to do, they won’t tell us where, they won’t tell us when except to say “summer,” but they will at least tell us who might be involved. Maybe they can get these guys to help out. Oh yeah, it’s credible or they wouldn’t bother to mention it. But it isn’t a big enough deal to be worth raising the alert level. If you are skeptical of the whole deal, you aren’t alone.

The War On Terror™ was supposed to make us safer. Instead, it has made the terrorists stronger.

Haitus, the Sequel!

I do not anticipate being able to post again before next week.

Special thanks to Dean Paxton, Jerry Kindall (check out the awesome photos!), Arcanis (whose LiveJournal I will politely not flood with strangers), KWCom (who actually puts me on the same page as InstaPundit!), Elisa Camahort, GroundMeat, LeaderLog, and all the other referrers.

Oh, and if you are really desperate for my so-called wisdom, you might look at this idea, which frankly makes more sense than ever in a world of absurd gas prices.

Son of Webvan

I’ve been quoted before as saying that if there were money to be made delivering groceries, Hooper’s Store would still do it. But, believe it or not there’s a second wave of online grocers. And there is actually a chance they are not all doomed.

From the ashes of the Webvan bankruptcy rises several breeds of internet based food delivery systems. On one hand, you have online divisions of the grocery stores you may already shop at: Albertson’s; Safeway. They have the distinct advantage of not needing big warehouses with lots of employees: regular employees can just take product off the shelves and put it on a truck. Then you have companies like Peapod, who in addition to their own internet grocery business do product distribution for several traditional grocers. Finally, you have the specialists. Companies like FreshDirect appear to be the boutique shopping option for groceries.

So, what do these companies have to do to avoid Webvan’s ignoble fate?

Do it right from day one. Too obvious, huh? If you let the customer’s first experience be a bad one, you can just forget ever serving them again. So find out what the customers are going to want first and determine whether you can — literally — deliver.

Make lots of information available online. There are lots of people who read labels before they buy things. If you want to make them internet shoppers, you have to get them that label information, whether it’s in the form of a big database or links to manufacturers. Likewise, alert customers to things like label changes and availability of seasonal produce. While you are at it, take a cue from Home Depot’s “don’t forget to buy this for your project” lists. If your system can see that a customer has all but one ingredient for a common recipe, suggest it. Or use an Amazonian model of “people who bought these products also selected these items.”

Advertise, but don’t over-do it. I still have a collection of assorted Webvan magnets. I have no idea how many postcards they sent me that I threw away. By contrast, I occasionally hear an ad for Albertson’s online service, and I see the truck sitting out front. I know they are there if I need them. Really.

Service, service, service. Toilet paper and boxes of cereal are one thing, but most people just aren’t sure they want fruits, vegetables, and meat picked out by a complete stranger. To counteract that, an online grocer must develop an absolutely impeccable reputation for quality and freshness. Oh, and now that it’s picked out, it needs to arrive on time, every time, when I need it. If that means delivery at 7 PM when everybody is home from work, so be it. If that means before 7 AM so things are there by breakfast time, so be it. If your customer had time to go to the grocery store during banker’s hours, they probably would.

Grow conservatively. It’s best to do one region well than 4 regions poorly. Attempted (and failed) hypergrowth is one of the reasons Webvan failed. For that matter, be willing to write off failures as soon as they are obviously failures. Food Lion wasn’t afraid to walk away from its failed stores in Texas.

Be realistic. Not everybody is willing to pay $10 to have groceries delivered. That’s just the way it is.

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

For the benefit of those of you who may indeed be reading this from under a rock, I will point out that the prices of both gasoline and oil are at highs, with more highs coming. I will not be shocked if Trilby Lundberg continues to announce record high gas prices at least once a month until Labor Day. On the West Coast and many other places, you can expect to pay at least $2 per gallon, even at Bad Neighborhood No Name Gas Co. Quickie Mart. Some analysts are predicting a full blown 70s style oil crisis. Any readers from elsewhere in the country who might be able to shed light on whether gas prices are really higher in Red States than Blue States, please feel free to comment.

Some of you are wondering when these kinds of things are going to have an impact on the economy at large. The answer is right about now. The world’s biggest retailer, WalMart, figures the current price of gas costs its customers an addditional $7 per week. This of course means about $45 less they can spend each month on other necessities, let alone desires. This is a big deal to the typical WalMart shopper. This is almost certain to effect all but the highest end retailers.

The fact that almost every product you can have in your home spent part of its supply chain in a truck means that rising gas prices very quickly translate into general inflation. It’s happening now. The Europeans are worried about us. Well, more precisely, they are worried that inflation will effect earnings, and they are worried about the standard prescription for inflation, interest rate hikes. Oh, make no mistake, they know it’s coming. They are concerned about the timing and dosage. After all, the Fed Funds rate has been sitting at 1% for a while. A modest sounding 25 basis point hike (0.25%) would be a rise of 25%! As if that isn’t enough, there is some evidence to suggest that spikes in oil prices come before recessions.

Want to know who else is worried about oil prices? The Airlines. All those planes use a lot of fuel. It should be no surprise that when you can’t control your costs, you can’t predict how much money you will have at the end of the quarter. Frankly, the airlines have enough to worry about. Consumers just don’t like what’s happened to traveling by air. Even the TSA realizes there is a problem.

Alas, it isn’t as simple as just pumping more oil. Here’s Paul Krugman’s take on the situation. In short, however much the Saudis would like to control crude oil prices, they can’t. The oil they are able to bring online in a timely fashion has too much sulphur in it. And OPEC is already pumping over its targets. Bringing new sources online is a long term answer to an emergency problem. In Alaska, they are not counting on these high prices lasting for long. Seriously, new sources of oil can take 5 to 10 years to yield marketable quantities. And that’s assuming there is oil to be found, that permits can be obtained, that the area is accessible, that the oil can be transported away….

Of course there are some winners in this oily mess. The Globe and Mail has a nice well thought out list, but really, the only one you need to know is this: Oil Companies.

Yeah, they are making millions on the additional $7 per week that WalMart estimates each customer is spending at the pump.