Renters Need Not Apply

I grew up in apartments. This has almost certainly colored my view of housing in general. By way of contrast, I have found myself explaining apartment life to schoolkids who were reading Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. The kids were all house-dwellers who had no frame of reference for living in an apartment, let alone living in a big apartment building with an elevator in a crowded urban area like Manhattan.

I first became aware of a psychological condition I call “house fever” when I was about 10. This condition is characterized by an intense desire to own a house regardless of whether market conditions or personal finances make it a good idea to purchase one. Sufferers will offer all kinds of reasons for their obsession, including “it’a a place of my own,” “I can have a dog,” “the kids need a yard” (this one struck me as very silly, as the apartment complex had a big playground and a big pool and lots of other kids to play with; why on earth would I want a little yard?), “nobody can tell me what to do with it,” “it’s a great investment,” “it’s a big tax break” (if it’s such a great investment why do you need the big tax break?), and so on.

I was in my late teens when I discovered that there are some things biased against apartment dwellers. This went over and above the disdain some house-dwellers had for “apartment people.” For example, the city ran a recycling program, but only for households who were served by the residential garbage service. A more egregious example was shot down in Dallas almost 2 decades ago: a proposal was made that in order to get tax revenues from those who worked in the city and lived in the suburbs (never mind the sales tax such people paid on their lunch), they could have a city income tax, with an exemption for anybody who could prove they paid municipal property tax. Now think about that. Junior has to pay income taxes on his job at McDonalds because the house is in Dad’s name? Or worse yet, a man in Chicago owns an apartment property in Dallas; for tax purposes, he lives in Dallas and the people who actually live on property don’t!

I was in my late 20s when I realized that over the course of a 30 year mortgage, Joe and Jane Average pay double the list price of the house when interest rates are much over 5.5%. If you have a copy of Excel, you can use their templates to prove it to yourself.

I was in my 30s when I found out that the Small Business Adminstration is nothing more than a facilitator of second mortgages. Renters need not apply. Contrary to popular belief, this is even true for women and minority businesspeople. Although it is well documented that there are differences in home ownership among various groups, I will leave to the reader’s imagination what that does to business ownership.

As a result I was not surprised to read that as much as 40% of the funds designated to help Manhattan small busineses recover from 9/11 went to large corporations. Actual “small” businesses often don’t have the assets to secure a loan, outside the family home. And as Judy Blume accidentally pointed out, many Manhattanites live in apartments.

Nor was I particularly surprised to read that “Renewal Money for New Orleans Bypasses Renters.” In New Orleans, however, the problem is worse. Much rental property was damaged and most rehab funds are going to homeowners in a town where about half the population rented their housing. As a result, rents have skyrocketed, pricing out a large percentage of the former population — if you may recall 28% of New Orleans population was living below the poverty line. This page contains statistics both on poverty and home ownership in New Orleans and Louisiana in general. And “State officials acknowledged that renters were not their first priority.” Well I don’t know where they think janitors, fry-cooks, mailroom clerks, jazz musicians, and the rest of the 53% of the population of New Orleans who are not homeowners are going to live.

In closing, it turns out that cheap illegal labor does not keep prices low, low, low, so we won’t have a huge wave of inflation if we make employers follow the law; Fox intends to capitalize on the Christian community by making a dozen cheap religious films a year based on best-selling Christian novels (they will probably be collosal money-makers but What Would Jesus Think?); the Washington Post reports “Some Officials Say Voting Law Changes And New Technology Will Cause Trouble” and that’s before finding out that you can open a Diebold voting machine with a hotel’s mini-bar key; and finally why go overseas to find terrorists when we can create own very own home-grown terrorists in American prisons.

I was a Shorties Werewolf

Trivia: Did you know that ground was broken for the Pentagon on September 11, 1941? Or that you are more likely to die of the flu than of a terrorist attack?

What is more disrespectful, turning the American flag into a floor mat, or stepping on it?

Good news for those of you traveling by air to and in England: starting next week security rules will be relaxed:

Larger bags will be allowed along with some liquids – such as toiletries, including toothpaste.These items may have to be placed in plastic bags so they can be easily examined at security.

Musical instruments will also be allowed on board again, after professional musicians complained the measures were hindering them.

This move did not come soon enough for J.K. Rowling.

Congress is very very busy. Much too busy to do anything like lobbying reform. Find out where your Congresscritters stand before voting in November, mmkay? At least they are finally working on a bill that addresses port security. They’re only 4 and a half years late on that. Oh, and a 700 mile long fence along the Mexican border, thus insuring that at least illegal immigrants from Mexico will be physically fit. Never mind Canada. Never mind the economic forces in Mexico that make it seem like a good idea to come to the United States illegally. Certainly never mind the employers willing to exploit these illegal workers. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Two items on education and stupidity, one of them news (“Study: H.S. dropouts face steeper costs”) and one of them opinion (“Are You Too Stupid to Enjoy the Economy?”), but both worth reading.

For your amusement, a couple of cartoons: thing one and thing two.

Apparently, writing in the Americas began 3000 years ago.

Whatever else may be going on in Iraq, “Iraqis feel weight of high prices, few jobs”. A choice quote:

“Economic development and the establishment of social order and public services … are the conditions which must be set that will result in the support of the local people, and ultimately cause the defeat of this terrorist-backed insurgency,” Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer said earlier this week.

We are talking about unemployment rates of 30-60%, CPI increase of 70%, prices of some essential items tripling since 2003, and average monthly wages of $200. It was not specified whether “average” wages were mean or median, nor whether the “average” included the unemployed. Either way, I think most of us would have a hard time getting by in such circumstances.

On the use of torture, we have The Myth of the Ticking Time Bomb.

I don’t know how many studies we need to say this, but once again it is official: the polar ice caps are shrinking, the oceans are getting warmer, and “greenhouse gases” have something to do with it. At least Honda is working on a car that works on pure ethanol, and a better way to make that ethanol.

Finally, Rest in Peace, Ann Richards. I am proud to say I voted for her. Twice.

Four Days

All times approximate, Pacific Time Zone

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
5:50 AM

The alarm clock said 6 AM as it went off, but even half asleep she knew it was really ten minutes earlier. She rolled over, slapped the OFF button, and grabbed the TV remote. The TV — still tuned to CNBC from yesterday morning — turned on, and she saw a skyscraper on fire.

That looks like New York City, she thought, but if it were, there would be two of those towers instead of just one.

The phone rang. It was her husband. He was out of town on business. He said “I hoped I could reach you before you turned on the television.” She was still a little sleepy, trying to figure out what he was saying, and make sense of what Mark Haynes was saying on CNBC at the same time.

“What our people on the scene do not realize,” Mr. Haynes said evenly, “Is that the South Tower has collapsed.”

She came to understand what had happened: that several madmen had flown fuel-laden planes into the buildings; that another plane had hit the Pentagon; that a fourth plane was missing and presumed hijacked. The footage was live, and so she saw a person jump from the remaining tower. With a sinking feeling in her guts, she thought Well, I suppose if you know you are going to die anyway…. Within a half hour, the other tower fell.

Data was coming fast and furious. The markets would be closed until further notice. Air traffic closed until further notice. Lists of companies — including many brokerage houses, the IMF, and the World Bank — that had offices in the towers. Phone numbers for employees and families to call for information. Data about the square footage and height of the now demolished towers. Hastily prepared maps of Lower Manhattan with the towers and other landmarks labeled. Estimated 80,000-90,000 people visit the towers for business or tourism daily — needless to say the worst case had to be assumed until proven otherwise.

7:45 AM

After she had showered and gotten dressed, it was time to wake her son and take him to preschool. She had decided he didn’t need to know a lot of details about what had happened. She also hoped air traffic would be back to normal by the time his Dad was supposed to come home. Pretending nothing was wrong, she packed his snack and helped him pick out clothes. She had already scribbled a note for his teacher, reading “He does not know. I trust you will do what is best for the kids.”

They got into her car, and she made sure he was safely strapped in before starting the engine. She pounced on the radio’s OFF button as she realized her regular station was going to be talking about what had happened in New York, and probably nothing else.

Then she drove. The only sounds were the car engine, and her son singing the same four notes over and over again. They formed an odd little minimalist composition, repeating endlessly for most of the ride.

8:50 AM

They arrived at school. Before she could offer the note, the teacher asked simply “Does he know?”

She replied “No.” They both nodded.

The teacher, with effort, put on her happy preschool teacher smile and turned back towards the class. The mother went back to her car.

Alone, she turned on the radio. She changed the channel three or four times, before coming to the conclusion that everyone was talking about the same thing. The same meager set of facts she had learned a couple hours earlier was being repeated, some details superceded by more accurate ones. Now they thought only 40,000 or 50,000 people might be dead. Rescuers were searching for survivors. Interviews with people who had been fortunate enough to be late for work on that particular morning. Locally, there was talk about the air traffic situation, and the fact that the ferries would be running, but no vehicles would be allowed. Well that’s sure going to mess up traffic.

She tried to leave the school parking lot. Traffic was awful; she couldn’t make a left turn. Finally she gave up and turned right. I am going to the beach, she promised herself. As she drove the mile and a half to the beach, she passed multiple churches. One of them was even the denomination she belonged to. She half-thought about going inside, but then changed her mind. God isn’t in there. He’s out here.

She arrived at the rocky beach. It was cold, windy, and she could see the huge ferry coming in, loaded with people but no cars. She could hear the radio of the car parked next to her, continuing to stream the same facts and theories. She crossed the railroad tracks to a little coffee shop. As one barrista made her a cappucino, the manager was talkig on the phone to a second barrista who wasn’t sure she would be able to come in to work because she didn’t know if the ferries would be running. The woman helpfully relayed what she had heard on the radio. The manager thanked her, and the barrista handed her the drink.

She has no idea how much time she spent standing on the rocky beach, sipping a cappucino, staring out across the water and at the mountains beyond. The same four notes her son sang rang in her head.

Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Various Times

As she looked back upon this week, she always felt that Mark Haynes and Alina Cho deserved some kind of award for their coverage of 9/11. Maria Bartiromo was starting not to look quite so shaken. Bob Pisani was starting to look quite frazzled; clearly he was not sleeping, and frankly she couldn’t blame him. She was shaken herself, and she hadn’t been in New York City.

As a mere viewer, she knew they had all lost people they knew, people they had interviewed, people who had been regular guests. She began to wonder about friends and business associates in New York City. Are they alright? It would be weeks before she knew: One friend had watched the towers drop from his office; Another had been in Building 7.

More details became available. Akamai had lost their CTO in one of the planes. Other companies were disclosing lost high-level personel. Some companies, like Cantor-Fitzgerald, had lost over half their staff. The New York Stock Exchange is talking about hoping to be able to open for normal business next week. Miraculous rescues were still happening. Details about what the President and Vice-President had done the day before were now becoming widely known. Now they thought probably only 5,000-10,000 people were dead.

Still, those same four notes rang in her head like an endless tape loop.

CNBC’s David Faber apologized for the fact that they are a business news network, and that in addition to the terrible events that happened yesterday, they will be reporting important business, national, and international news as it happens. Various guests talk about what will happen next week when the markets reopen. Sell airlines, because air travel is changing forever! Sell aviation manufacturers! There will almost certainly be a recession so sell everything! No, buy defense contractors!

Sometime amidst this, she thinks with alarming clarity Well, no matter what else happens, people will need to get from place to place, and American Airlines and United Airlines both have planes to replace. And no matter what gets built at “Ground Zero,” it will need air conditioners and elevators. Buy United Technologies when they open.

At some point she went outside. The eerie quiet of the skies was broken by a fighter jet from a nearby military base.

Thursday, September 13, 2001
Various Times

As she was out and about, she noticed American flags everywhere. It was like the Fourth of July on steroids! She was even noticing people who had painted their old beater cars red, white, and blue. She couldn’t help but wonder if those people were going to be quite so proud of those paint jobs 6 months from now.

She still made sure the radio was off when her son was in the car. There was still too much talk about what had happened than she really wanted to expose a preschooler to. She was also very very cautious about turning on the TV at all. Luckily, she was already in the habit of taping Sesame Street for later viewing.

The four notes were not in her head anymore — at least not constantly — but she still couldn’t go an hour without wondering why Tuesday had happened.

Friday, September 14, 2001
9:15 AM

The moment her son was safely in school, she went back to her car and turned on the local NPR affiliate. They were supposed to run the memorial service live from Washington Cathedral. Billy Graham was supposed to give the sermon, and she desperately hoped he had something truly inspired to say.

“…And now they are passing the offering plate…” the announcer said.

Stunned, she stared at the radio for a moment before turning it off and driving away.

Green Traffic

So maybe gas prices are down a little bit — and my inner cynic supposes they will remain so until at least November 7 — but they are still higher than they were 2 years ago.

Meanwhile, traffic congestion has become a serious problem in pretty much every major metropolitan area, and it’s only getting worse. Now, nobody likes being stuck in traffic. Really. But there are reasons not to like it beyond the simple waste of time: it’s stressful; it’s a waste of gas; it pollutes the environment for no good reason; it is a drain on productivity, particularly for workers whose jobs involve driving; it can give a city a bad reputation; it might even cause heart attacks. If you want to know more about the problem, you can start with these studies.

One ongoing argument in this arena is whether we should solve this problem with more roads, or with public transportation that gets people off the roads in the first place. Rarely does anybody talk about doing the best we can with the traffic situation we have.

The Washington Department of Transportation, however, is in the middle of a project that will make traffic run more smoothly whether you drive a H2, a Prius, or ride the bus, and they are doing it without a single construction zone! For some years, Washington commuters have been able to select routes based on traffic conditions before ever getting into a car. Now the WDOT is smoothing traffic by precision monitoring and adjustment of traffic lights. It requires no action on the part of motorists, other than to obey traffic laws.

It’s one of those “why don’t they do this everywhere” kind of ideas.

In closing: yet more follow up on McGavick, who it seems has a lot worse than an old DUI to worry about; new story on old news, David Cope was writing computer music well over a decade ago, but Wired just noticed; sharp drop in terror prosecutions “because of weak evidence and other legal problems”; “For young people, U.S. wages trail costs” but tell them something they didn’t know; cutting edge study suggests that fat toddlers become fat teenagers; reality, working, and lactation; and finally, Welcome to the World, Little Prince.

The Kids Are (not) Alright

Today I present two wildly divergent things from two vastly different regions of the world.

First, American higher education.

Years ago, I had an argument with my father. I had graduated high school and had been admitted to the University of North Texas. We were standing in the kitchen and it went something like this:

The school says I am required to live on campus until I have completed 30 credit hours.

But for what room and board cost, I could buy you a decent car and put gas in it and you could still live here.

But they say I have to live in the dorm.

But the dorm costs $X and that’s more than a Hyundai costs.

But they won’t let me enroll without living in the dorm.

You get the idea. I have no idea how long this went back and forth. The short version is I didn’t go to UNT. Even though I could have afforded tuition, I couldn’t afford tuition and room and board.* I went to another local school, which I could only afford due to some grants and a merit based scholarship. It was the sort of school that considers things beyond an SAT score.

College expenses have gone up since then. Tuition isn’t the only culprit, as the average college student spends $900 per year on textbooks. And Pell Grants have gone down. And there have been many changes to the student loan system since then, none of them particularly good for students. And changes in the bankruptcy code makes matters worse for those who got buried under student loans, following the Pied Piper who sang “education is the key to good paying jobs.” Oh, and that was before the FBI started poking through student financial aid records looking for terrorists.

And as if that isn’t bad enough, many American teens have unrealistic life goals. Sorry, Harvard only has so many slots, and American Idol only has one winner per season. And thankfully, the job of being Paris Hilton has been filled by Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, getting to college can be the least of kids’ concerns.

The Associated Press summarizes it nicely: “The good news is that child labor in Asia is decreasing. The bad news? It’s not declining fast enough.” And solving the problem is not as simple as “just say no to products built with child labor,” because “a crucial problem was that there were too many people who, despite wanting their children in school, either could not afford fees or related costs like transportation and uniforms or would find it hard to get by without the extra income.” In other words, putting kids out of factories merely moves them into worse occupations.

As bad as this sounds, it gets worse! About 1,200,000 children are trafficked each year. These kids are sold, kidnapped, or just plain tricked. Some get involved in illegal adoptions, some become slave laborers, some become part of crime or begging rings, some become prostitutes. It is a huge problem.

I stumbled across some figures on this yesterday and was horrified. In some areas of the world, a child’s chance of being trafficked by age 16 can be as high as 30-40%. That in turn led me to RiverKids. They are trying to prevent trafficking on a small scale by making sure the kids they sponsor stay in school, have the resources to continue their education, and have safe places to go after school. If you like what you see, check out their financial statements (posted regularly) and click the “make a donation” button.

In closing, we are getting fatter; the good news is household income is (slightly) up, but that’s only because “more family members were taking jobs to make ends meet, and some people made more money from investments and other sources beyond wages”; once again Japan has learned to take the best from the West; the DNC says The Bush Administration Has Made America Less Safe (how dare guys like Limbaugh say the Democratic Party wants America to loose the War on Terror!); and two items from the Christian Science Monitor, “Legal landmines emerge in ‘dirty bomber’ case; The Jose Padilla trial is a test: Can US avoid legal tangles of its ‘war on terror’ tactics?” and “Opposite ends of the labor market face opposite problems: Rising efficiency and technology are adding work for highly paid professionals while taking it away from low-skill employees”.

* My problem was hardly a new one. And I can see why colleges might want to make sure their (theoretically) youngest students are semi-supervised in a dorm environment. But there should be an automatic exemption for students who are either a) over 21, b) married, c) formerly married, d) have kids, e) have served in the military, or f) can prove they will be living with a close blood relative in the same or adjacent county. There’s nothing more pitiful than a college freshman living in the dorms with his wife and kids.

Shorties’ Advocate

Follow up on last post.

Two items on Plan B: one from Time Magazine and a frankly more important one from Molly Saves the Day.

Cheneyfilter: Mr. Cheney dazzles us with logic that would have earned him a D- in high school geometry. He also completely reframes reality to suit his rhetorical whim. In other Cheney news, we bring you See Dick Run (the country) and — only tangentially about Cheney himself — Cheney Can’t Scare Me Anymore. One thing that struck me as interesting about this editorial is that the author thought this was so important, he wrote and submitted this despite being on sabbatical.

“OK, OK, we’ll give them a trial. But we won’t show the accused all the evidence.” No! Really! Never mind that pesky Constitution thingy: “Despite assuring Congress that career military lawyers are helping design new trials for accused terrorists, the Bush administration has limited their input on their key request, that any tribunals must give detainees the right to see the evidence against them, officials said.” Somehow or another, this country managed to get through the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the War on Drugs, to say nothing of Prohibition without such measures. The government didn’t need secret evidence against Al Capone.

Insane rules on asylum.

They’ve run afoul of the Patriot Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005, which further tightened asylum laws.

The Karen are not alone. Many people trying to escape Cuba, Liberia, Colombia and other troubled countries are classified as having provided “material support” to terrorists. In reality, many were forced to aid violent soldiers who passed through their villages.

Women in Liberia who were raped by soldiers have been told that they offered aid to rebel groups, experts say. Cubans who resisted Fidel Castro’s communist regime have been denied entry here because of supposed affiliation with clandestine terrorist groups.

Many Karen refugees, who make up the largest group affected by the legislation, may have aided the Karen National Liberation Army, a militia that fights the country’s military junta.

Here is an update. Two things about this situation strike me as being even more Kafka-esque. First, under Real ID rules, none of these people will be able to get a form of identification that will allow them into any federal building, such as an immigration office or a courthouse. Hopefully you see where that might delay normalizing their status. The other thing that should make your head spin is that while we are turning away people who are the victims of horrible violence in their home countries, who already have family and support organizations here in the United States, who would otherwise live in refugee camps hoping nothing else bad happens, and who most importantly are using legal channels to try and get into the United States, the Senate wants to give just forgive and forget about several million people who came to this country illegally. Not even the Right Wing News thinks that’s a good idea.

Obligatory comments on the anniversary of Katrina: one by a Professor of Political Science who just happens to have family in New Orleans and one more general item about Katrina, Terrorists, and the DHS from Dr. B’s guest blogger, No Nym. Note the links; a good researcher cites sources. Update: just arrived in my email.

A timely item on school lunches and agriculture.

Consumer confidence numbers for the American economy were released today, and they are down. It’s the lowest level since last November, and the biggest drop — what a coincidence — since Katrina hit. Let the argument about what that means begin. While many people are talking about the fact that Americans are worried about the availability of jobs, few are openly talking about the fact that real wages are stagnant. Update: lagging consumer confidence could also have something to do with the fact that poverty remains unchanged (1 out of 8 people and 1 out of 4 black people live in poverty) and the number of people without health insurance rose for the 5th year in a row.

Elsewhere in the wild world of business and economic news: Whispers of Mergers set off Suspicious Trading (who knew??) and United States wants China to have bigger role at the IMF. I am curious about the real reasons why.

And finally, an utterly absurd situation which sums up why average people will either insist upon an overhaul of airplane security rules or stop flying: Airline loses the prosthetic leg of a disabled athlete after making her put it in checked baggage.

Mike

OK, I don’t normally write about local politics. I have readers from all over the world, and I realize that the majority of you don’t particularly care about issues local to my area unless they are particularly interesting for whatever reason. However, this is in regards to a Senate race in a state with almost 6 million residents. I honestly figured I should talk about the housing data that was such bad news yesterday, particularly when correlated to the bad durable goods numbers. Just to give you an idea, Ford is having to give 0% financing to subprime borrowers to move just about everything, including trucks. As icing on the cake, the rental market is heating up in some places.

But no, instead I bring you an overview of the 2006 race for United States Senator in Washington.

Six years ago, Maria Cantwell defeated incumbent Slade Gorton (yes, he’s related to the fish stick people). That means she’s up for re-election. Although the primary is not for another month yet, her presumed opponent is Mike McGavick.

Mr. McGavick’s ads focus on nice, fuzzy, feel-good things like how great it would be if instead of politicians, we were just people working together for the common good. No talk of issues, no stances, nothing. But it turns out he supports Lieberman. And it turns out that when you scratch the surface, he’s just another Republican, with pretty much the same slate of Republican ideas, who falls in line with the President’s ideas. He’s not an outsider, but an old political behind the scenes hack who was Chief of Staff to former Senator Gorton, and then a lobbyist who tried to weaken Superfund rules.

And now he’s trying to get his “youthful” indiscretions out in the open and out of the way. Let’s start with this:

McGavick began his letter on the Web site by asking rhetorically, “What’s wrong with politics today?” Then he excoriated the tenor of his race with incumbent Cantwell, in which he said he is being attacked.

Um, sorry. When someone holds themselves up as a political candidate you can have a friendly chat and a beer with, they have to expect someone will reply “No he’s not! And sorry, what’s that got to do with anything?”

Mr. McGavick went on to confess that he was on marriage #2 (having divorced the mother of his son many years ago), and that he was arrested for drunk driving in 1993 (at the tender youthful age of 35). Oh and yeah he dismissed 450 employees after telling everyone there would be no more layoffs.

The purpose behind these revelations is to minimize their value. Don’t let them get released a week before the elections, for example. But there’s more. Getting this information out there means that he doesn’t have to actually talk about issues for a while. And Mr. McGavick doesn’t want anyone noticing that his stance on the issues is pretty much neo-con.

I hope Ms. Cantwell is in a position to say “Yes, he’s right. We need to focus on the issues, not 13 year old DUIs. So here’s where I stand. And according to Mr. McGavick’s website, he stands for this.”

On a related note, Elisa is right on times three. And now for something completely different: Bernanke “Argues for work retraining programs and other ways to ease pain caused by economic shifts; no comments on interest rates or inflation”; a scary statistic; and finally over 1800 pictures of Hello Kitty.

Terraist Roundup!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am dangerously close to declaring that the terrorists have won.

New flight restrictions, updated just this morning, prohibit pretty much anything liquid or gel. Such restrictions promise to be enforced for the forseeable future with only minor tweaks. People are reporting that the TSA is taking away books, asthma inhalers, not letting people with certain kinds of shoe insoles fly, and generally making life difficult. Thankfully the restrictions are not as bad as in London, where electronics are also prohibited. Can you imagine taking a Trans-Atlantic flight with no reading matter and no electronics? For that matter, it makes business travel impossible. There are many people who cannot allow their computers to be checked as baggage. Period.

Nor can you bring a beverage on the plane purchased at the post-security-checkpoint convenience store. This means — to me anyway — that the authorities do not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. I’ll repeat that: authorities to not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. If that area were secure, we could assume everything and everyone in it was secure. What about cleaning supplies, you say? Those should be either in a locked storage area or in the control of the background-checked cleaning crew.

If we must assume that someone behind the security checkpoint could be a Bad Guy capable of getting banned items to other Bad Guys to take on airplanes, we must ask ourselves why these Bad Guys wouldn’t just put a bomb directly on the plane. Follow up: “Several handguns have been stolen from bags checked by police officers, military personnel and others on United Airlines flights departing O’Hare International Airport, sparking concern that the weapons are loose in what is supposed to be a secure part of the airport.”

Even with the increased scrutiny, “suspicious items” are still turning up on airplanes. And the nice folks over at BoingBoing ask whether these security measures apply to high level officials.

For that matter, am I the only person who has noticed that the last time we heard from Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Zawahiri was standing in what looked very much like a standard newscast set? For that matter, if Bin Laden is sending his tapes from a remote cave by yak courier, shouldn’t there be a great deal of reverb on those tapes? Now, since I don’t really want to go out on a limb saying such crazy talk as “those tapes aren’t real, just a government plot to keep you scared,” I am forced to assume that we haven’t really got them on the run as much as we’d like.

Bruce Schneier reminds us that “The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror…. And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized.” That’s hard to do when CNN is running Terror Target Monday. Maybe it will help to put it in cartoon form.

In closing: a second helping of Chertoff. Some Star Trek Motivational Posters! A plan to reduce the costs of drug testing that would warm Dr. Mengele’s heart. Speaking of World War II atrocities, 39% of recently polled Americans think Muslims should have to carry a “special” ID. How about sewing a red crescent to their jackets? Please forgive my bigotry; I hate bigots. And when research keeps saying teens brains aren’t up at 7:30, why do school administrators still insist on having classes then? Are they trying to fail?

Fatty Fatty 2 by 4, Can’t Get Through the Cooler Door

Yes yes, I’ve said it before, but there’s yet another new study — actually a study that looked at 30 studies published over the last 40 years — that supports what I’ve been saying for a long time. Americans drink lots of sugary sodas with no nutritional value, and as a result gain weight. Did you know that an extra can of soda daily can cause you to gain 15 pounds in a year? And that’s a 12 ounce can, not the 20 ounce bottle you’ll find at most convenience stores. Maybe you weren’t aware that on average Americans get 8-9% of their total calories from sugary beverages.

Super-sized cheesy poofs and snacky cakes are part of the American obesity problem, sure. But 8% of your calories coming from sugary drinks could sure explain why your pants are a bit tight.

Oh, the USA Today version of the article includes quotes from two scientists who are paid by such “impartial” groups as the American Beverage Association that amount to “Waah! They didn’t use the two studies that say what we wanted them to say!” Nope, in the Associated Press’s words, they only used “40 years of nutrition studies that met strict standards for relevance and scientific muster.” (Emphasis mine)

Want a healthier diet? Not ready to run out and buy a copy of Diet for a Dead Planet? Start by cutting the soda. Maybe it won’t cause the pounds to melt away, but getting rid of the calories that come from sugary drinks has to be a good start.

In closing, The BBC confirms that employers don’t want to hire people who can’t use the language properly; Windows users, get that security update ASAP; “Polite Advice for Mainstream Journalists”; Maya’s Granny offers concise wisdom on why Lieberman lost; Seeing the Forest has an interesting view on the draft; and finally American Academy of Pediatrics offers more advice parents can’t follow, “warn[ing] parents against placing children in shopping carts and… advising they look for alternatives.” Alternatives? Like what? Having groceries delivered, or maybe pushing a stroller in addition to a cart? Even coverage of the study says “that child restraints in shopping carts are just part of the solution and that shopping carts need to be redesign to prevent them tipping over and the current safety standard strengthened to prevent such injuries.” Of course they don’t mention paying attention to junior while you shop. These are the same people who recommend that children under the age of two not watch any tv under any circumstances, effectively meaning no tv for the whole family if “the baby” is awake. Too bad if your pre-schooler wants to watch Sesame Street. Too bad if you want to see the news.

Caw, Caw, Bang, Bang, $#!+ I’m Dead

I missed it.

I first discussed workplace violence over two years ago, and in many ways nothing has changed. File under “sad but true.”

The latest incident was probably big news locally when it happened, but you wouldn’t know it now. In fact, I would have overlooked it completely if it hadn’t been for a commentary on it called “Death at the Supermarket.”

Now, I am not ready to blame workplace violence on the Reagan Administration. But I am willing to say that workplace violence is a big problem, and employers need to think very carefully about whether their actions and policies might be incubating a shootout. There are things every company can do to minimize their risks, and as the nice folks at Stratfor point out, physical security is only part of the puzzle.

For starters, and I can’t say this enough, screen applicants! How indepth you need to go entirely depends on your business, but there’s a lot you can learn about somebody just from following up on their resume. Call former employers; most will only verify information you already posess, but if the resume is wrong you will catch it, and you might be lucky enough to find someone who will talk. Call references — yes yes they will say Joe Average is a swell guy, but how they say it might be surprisingly insightful. Speaking of “how they say it,” pay attention to exactly what your applicant says on the phone and at his/her interview. Be careful of filtering with things you want to hear. For pity sake I don’t care how desperately you need warm bodies, if the applicant gives you the creeps, you don’t have to hire. It’s a whole lot better to not hire someone than to fire someone on every conceivable level.

After you hire people, you are responsible for the atmosphere they work in. The Alternet article makes crystal clear that when you tolerate abuse, hazing, and ridicule in your workplace, you are asking for trouble. Oh, and school administrators, are you paying attention? This means you, too. Schools are workplaces too, in their own way. And most of the “workers” have the judgement of children. Boys will be boys? Sure, until the day somebody has had enough.

Being a bad boss can put you and your company at risk. Remember that the next time you interact with employees. We may all laugh at how Lumbergh treats employees, but it’s no laughing matter when real employees light the place on fire.

But even if you are in charge of hiring, even if you are supervisory personnel, you may or may not have any control over corporate culture. What you can do and stay within “the rules” are often limited. Corporate policies that force families apart, and 3-letter types who raise their own pay while asking rank and file to take wage, benefit, and pension cuts don’t make for happy, productive employees.

Just because they aren’t shooting up the place doesn’t mean their attitude isn’t hurting business. Try treating employees like human beings.

In closing, worried about RFID passports?; follow up on the housing market; it must be real nice to get 5 weeks paid vacation, especially when your desk is still covered in unfinished work; judge swings both gavel and cluebat, declaring that a mis-matched name is not reason enough to consider someone a fraudulent voter; what investigators were told and what the tapes show about military response on September 11 are not quite the same; a new false sense of security card, but this one is virtual and (supposedly) just for kids!; and finally “But still Pharoah’s head remained hard.” Amen, brother Toles.