Given my activities yesterday (i.e., going through airport security), I found the latest interview with Bruce Schneier timely and once again correct:
As we came by the checkpoint line, Schneier described one of these aspects: the ease with which people can pass through airport security with fake boarding passes. First, scan an old boarding pass, he said—more loudly than necessary, it seemed to me. Alter it with Photoshop, then print the result with a laser printer. In his hand was an example, complete with the little squiggle the T.S.A. agent had drawn on it to indicate that it had been checked. “Feeling safer?” he asked.
To a large number of security analysts, [the billions we've spent on security theater] makes no sense. The vast cost is not worth the infinitesimal benefit. Not only has the actual threat from terror been exaggerated, they say, but the great bulk of the post-9/11 measures to contain it are little more than what Schneier mocks as “security theater”: actions that accomplish nothing but are designed to make the government look like it is on the job. In fact, the continuing expenditure on security may actually have made the United States less safe.
Yes. We spend money on high-tech, whiz-bang solutions to human-intelligence problems. The attack on 9/11 can't happen again in the U.S., not because of full-body scanners at airports, but because of reinforced cockpit doors and vigilant passengers. Should we let just anyone board a transport airplane without a security check[1]? No, of course not; but we should make the checks effective, rather than flamboyant.
Security, however, tends to ratchet up, because no one wants to be the guy who relaxed security right before an attack. And we know an attack will happen someday; nihilists are not easily dissuaded from their crimes. Still, one can hope.
You'll never guess where I am:
It's not so bad, really. Despite warnings of the busiest travel day of the year at O'Hare, it's quiet and relaxed at the moment. From curb to the other side of security took 14 minutes, which isn't a record for me but obviously didn't bother me either.
After a short flight, I'll have curry at Kennedy's tonight with some classmates, then Christmas with the family.
Remember the three-year-old parking meter privatization that will be former mayor Richard Daley's best-remembered legacy? In another example of how not to negotiate a deal, it turns out the city agreed to pay the parking meter company for lost revenues under what should have been eminently predictable circumstances:
Financial statements for the company show that CPM has billed the city an additional $2,191,326 in “True-up Revenue” through the end of 2010.
Under the contract, the city is given an 8% annual allowance for required meter closures in the Central Business District, and a 4% allowance everywhere else. After the annual allowance is exceeded, any metered space(s) closed for more than six hours in a day or for six total hours over three consecutive days, the city must pay the meter company for the lost revenue from that metered space(s) for that entire day.
In other words, if the metered space is closed for six hours, the city is on the hook for the estimated revenue for the total number of hours the meter is in operation. Most meters are in operation no less than 13 hours a day.
Remember that the city council voted on the 500-page contract only a few hours after receiving a copy. The city leased the meters for $1.16 bn, almost $3 bn less than a conservative cash-flow analysis suggested at the time and $7-8 bn less than high-end estimates.
In Chicago, we joke about how much we tolerate small-scale local corruption. The parking meter lease violated even that standard; the council should abrogate the deal, and investigate why it happened in the first place. Of course, I think we already know the answer to that: some people got really rich off it. And taxpayers in Chicago got screwed.
I'm still banging away at software today—why is this damn socket exception thrown under small loads?—so I only have a minute to post some stuff I found interesting:
- Chicago and the State of Illinois are planning the largest urban park in the world in the mostly-abandoned Lake Calumet and South Works areas of the south side.
- It looks like the far-right has hijacked Hungary's government, in the way that right-wing governments do, which should remind everyone who lives in a democracy how fragile the form of government can be.
- The Atlantic's Ta-Nahesi Coates has one of the best definitions of bigotry I've encountered: "The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged--by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of 'not my fault.' "
- I have tentatively decided that Facebook's Timeline feature is cool, while at the same time recognizing how it once again makes it harder for average users to control the privacy of their data on the site.
More updates as events warrant.
The T-Mobile acquisition is dead, dead, dead:
AT&T is ending its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA, citing fierce government objections.
"From the first day that this deal was announced, we have warned regulators, lawmakers, and consumers of the dangerous consequences of this merger," said Parul P. Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union, according to its website The Consumerist. "Regulators clearly saw through AT&T's claims of better service and saw what we saw - a combined AT&T/T-Mobile would mean higher prices and fewer choices for consumers. It would mean a wireless market dominated by a powerful duopoly with little incentive to compete with other carriers."
In related news, Kim Jong Il is also dead, leading to the joke that god let Havel and Hitchens pick the third. (Hitch would actually be horrified by the suggestion.)
Jon Bon Jovi, however, remains alive.
Swamped with client work, getting ready for Xmas, traveling hither and yon—tomorrow, at least, will be quieter.
In the past day I've seen two movies, both adaptations from really good novels: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Incendiary.
The former, adapted from John le Carré's 1974 novel, brought me right into the Cold War and had me transfixed by Gary Oldman's performance. After next weekend—when I think I'll have a couple of hours of free time—I'm queuing up the 1979 version with Alec Guinness.
The latter, adapted from Chris Cleve's 2005 novel, disappointed me. Except for Michelle Williams' superb acting, it missed the point of Cleve's novel so completely I wonder if director Sharon Maguire read the novel or the Cliff's Notes. Perhaps the novel's dark and disturbed ending didn't test well? It wasn't a happy novel; it wasn't supposed to be. Maguire made an entertaining Bridget Jones' Diary, so why'd she miss so badly here?
I'm juggling a couple of clients today, so I can't write entire entries on any of these:
OK, back to the mines...
Former Chicago mayor Rich Daley got named to Coke's board of directors today. Coca-Cola said:
"Mr. Daley brings significant public policy expertise and experience in creating sustainable growth opportunities for businesses and communities to our Company," said Muhtar Kent, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. "His experience and insights will be invaluable as we continue to work to grow our business and invest in the fabric of the communities we serve."
Daley is also a senior advisor to JPMorgan Chase, where he will chair the new "Global Cities Initiative," a joint project of JPMorgan Chase and the Brookings Institution to help cities identify and leverage their greatest economic development resources. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
I wonder how long this was in the works? And how long has he advised JPMC, the bank that negotiated our catastrophic parking-meter deal?