Well, you have to admit that it is now harder to blow a plane out of the sky than it used to be. I think some level of security is in fact responsible for keeping planes from falling out of the sky. They used to. It's just technically quite challenging now.

Yes, we've all been very lucky that these knuckleheads did things like step in puddles - the TSA did not find them. But the fact is that every TSA regulation was born of some previous security lapse. It used to be that you could simply check a bomb onto a flight that you weren't even going to ride on. They tightened that up, so now you have to find a person willing to "martyr" themselves - which all by itself makes a huge difference. As they make the challenge of blowing up or hijacking an airplane harder and harder, they seriously shrink the pool of people willing and capable of carrying out the act.

This source seems to think differently. In either event, explosives aren't something you really want passengers to have, and multiple passengers could have multiple shoes. Are you seriously suggesting that they not screen shoes now?

Or a FUTBOL stadium.

I still like the Augustinian Just War. If followed correctly by all sides, it leads to no war. Yet it still protects your people if an aggressor should violate a border.

These days, we could do it with armies of random, but GPS limited, drones pre-programed for air, sea, and land self-healing minefields.

Yup, but what is the alternative? I mean, there are alternatives, but each also have disadvantages. What improvement are you proposing?

That's why I don't use penicillin.

So you would be content to have security ignore the shoe bomb possibility? This seems irrational, given that only a bit of luck (he got the fuse wet) thwarted Reid's attack. It is not exactly a stretch to imagine people trying the shoe angle over and over again until it worked.

You laugh, but the shoe bomb could have gone either way. One wonders what might have happened if the guy had lit the thing in a restroom instead of trying to light it in full view of the other passengers. The underwear bomber is a similar fellow. What do you expect the TSA to do in response to these guys? They have to change their methods.

That is exactly my point. Security does not have to be perfect to be valuable.

There are many places where traditional methods of statistical research will fail. This is one of them. Instead we have to learn from our experience. For instance: some incompetent people were recruited to light bombs in their shoes - now shoes go through the x-ray machine. People found a way to mix the explosives behind security - now we can't have substantial amounts of liquids. People hijacked airliners with box cutters - now we have reinforced doors and pocket knife restrictions.

Now I'll concede that it is entirely possible that this latest regulation is based upon some scenario in some bureaucrat's mind. It is also possible that, like the liquids regulation, it is done for a perfectly good reason. Only time will tell.

So many systems on a plane are dependent on electronics... I'm not sure a camera and TV would be the hardest part to make reliable. Worst case you could give them some battery powered goggles or something.

But not non-existent, as history has shown. Take away the security and you don't even need "smart" or "poised". Any doofus who can hold a bag will do. Keep security static and you don't need smart people - just enough attempts from dullards until they chance upon a workaround, the way penicillin eventually adapts to an antibiotic.

I was just stopped because I forgot to take my suntan lotion out of my kid's diaper bag. They offered to let me go back and check it if I wanted. I declined :)

It's not insanity - it's all about reducing risk.

Think in terms of Venn diagrams: start with "people who want to blow up an airplane". Now add "people who can build an airplane-destroying device into an iPhone". Now draw the circle for "people who can make the device still appear to function while also containing the airplane-destroying device". Now add "operatives smart and poised enough to carry out the attack but willing to kill themselves in the process". The intersection keeps getting smaller and smaller.

You don't need to make everything impossible - you just need to make it very unlikely. For reasons that we don't need to agree upon or nail down in this discussion, aircraft are very attractive targets. Successful (and even unsuccessful) attacks are major news events. There is nothing "insane" about recognizing and reacting to this reality.

Nope, I'm as against the Death Penalty as I am against abortion- and war as well- for exactly the same reasoning.