Slate continues its reasoned look at the current state of airport security, this time in a piece penned by Christopher Hitchens. The pullquote that sets the tone of the piece:
The time elapsed between Sept. 11, 2001, and today's
writing (1,364 days) is only slightly less than the time between Pearl
Harbor and the unconditional surrender of Japan (1,365 days). And
airport security is still a silly farce that subjects the law-abiding
to collective punishment while presenting almost no deterrent to a
determined suicide-killer.
Shannon and I have been traveling a lot (wedding planning,
birthdays, etc.), and waiting to get through security at the Philly
airport about a month ago, I surmised that it's only a matter of time
before we're all standing in long lines leading to the metal detectors,
stripped down to our underwear, shuffling along and hoping that we
don't get selected for random colonoscopy. At least we'll all have a
little more motivation to stay in shape… [Q Daily News]