CEO of the Manufacturer of Naked Scanner Machines Went to India with Obama

EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that Deepak Chopra, Chairman and CEO of OSI Systems (The parent  company of Rapiscan, the makers of the new controversial "naked' scanning machines that the TSA is installing throughout the country's airports), was chosen to accompany President Obama to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting.

(Note: Deepak Chopra, who is CEO of OSI, is not the same Deepak Chopra that is the mind-body healing guru.)

What Scientists Really Think About the New TSA Naked Scanning Machines

Scientists with the University of California at San Francisco were so worried that they wrote a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April, 2010 raising "a number of red flags" on the scanners' safety.

The "red flags" raised by these scientists are absolutely shocking and clearly expose the propaganda being put out by the TSA that these machines are safe.

Below is that letter.
 
 

Economist: TSA Screenings will Kill Americans on Highways

The TSA's new perverted pat-downs and cancer-causing body scans are likely to result in more deaths on the highways says Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University.

“Driving is much more dangerous than flying, as you are far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident mile-for-mile than you are in an airplane,” Horwitz told The Hill . Thus, as more and more people chose to avoid the unpleasant options set up by the TSA, they will tend to drive more, which will result in more deaths.

Dear Airline, I'm Leaving You

by Megan McArdle

But don't feel too bad. It's not you, it's me. Or rather, it's the TSA.

I'm not going to lie. It's come between us. If I have to let someone else see me naked in order to be with you--well, I'm just not that kinky. And deep down, I don't think you are either. I think it's the TSA making you act like this. Frankly, you haven't been the same since you started running around together.

But I can't put all the blame on them. I think you went along because you thought I had to have you--that I couldn't live without you. That no matter what you did, I'd stay. And it's true, you had a pretty strong hold on me. Took away the food, and I still loved you--who wanted to eat a terrible, fattening meal anyway? Narrowed the distance between the seats, and still I stayed, using my airline miles to upgrade to first class. Charge me for baggage? I'm an economics writer--I love unbundled products. So I can see where you got the idea that I'd stick by you no matter what.

But the kinky stuff is just a bridge too far. I'm not saying I'll never see you again: we can still meet up for a drink, or even a quick weekend trip to California. But our days as a regular item are through....

It wouldn't be fair to just drop out of sight and not return your calls without letting you know why I was leaving. As it happens, I'm a frequent flier on American, and a pretty reliable customer of Delta and United. Or rather I was. Because like I said, I'm leaving you.

In fact, I've already left. My cousin's wedding in Buffalo in October? Drove eight hours each way. Going to visit Dad in Boston over Christmas? We're taking a slow train from DC rather than subject ourselves to the increasing indignity of flying. If it's under 500 miles, I'll do anything rather than hop on a plane. And if it's over 500 miles, it had better be way over . . . or I'd better be carrying a cooler with a still-beating heart in it.

Read the rest here.

Tyler Cowen Recommends Working Backwards

Angus, at Kids Prefer Cheese, contacted Tyler Cowen about his peculiarly aggressive pro-Naked Scanner position. In a blog post titled, Is Tyler Cowen an Exhibitionist?, he reports what Tyler said to him when he contacted Tyler for further explanation:

 In my view in the long run better scans mean fewer pat-downs!

I would encourage people to start by calculating the "p" that, twenty years from now, the major airlines get nationalized. Work backwards from there and compute the liberty-maximizing policy.

This goes directly to the point I made in an earlier post:

What Cowen doesn't get is that the real objection to the TSA is that it is a government body interfering between two parties entering into a contract, the passenger and the airline.


Many economists really need to get a better grasp of the importance of private transactions as a key to freedom, rather than simply starting at the point where government intervention is a given. Do they not comprehend that there are non-coercive market solutions to these problems? Rather than becoming propaganda agents for the government, they should really start taking a deeper look about freedom solutions.

 
Further, I'm thinking that 20 years down the road, Tyler would be pro airline nationalization, this way:
 

In my view in the long run, nationalization under a strong airline czar means less government intervention!

I would encourage people to start by calculating the "p" that, twenty years from now, some megalomaniac from a corporatist billionaire family gains power in the country. Work backwards from there and compute the liberty-maximizing policy.

Then again, he may not argue this way.

Tyler Cowen: The Groping is Worse on a Cruise Ship

Cowen thumbs:

TSA critics should compare the status quo to the rights (or lack thereof) you have on private cruise ships.

Although, I suspect this cruise ship comparison is a huge stretch, let's give Cowen the point. What Cowen should then consider and understand is that the key to his comment about ships is the word "private". Each cruise ship can set its own security measures. It's not about abstract "rights". It's about markets setting the level of security between consenting parties to a transaction.

TSA groping checks are imposed on all passengers regardless of what individual airlines would employ as checks. It appears that at least Southwest considers the current groping way out of line.

What Cowen doesn't get is that the real objection to the TSA is that it is a government body interfering between two parties entering into a contract, the passenger and the airline.

Many economists really need to get a better grasp of the importance of private transactions as a key to freedom, rather than simply starting at the point where government intervention is a given. Do they not comprehend that there are non-coercive market solutions to these problems? Rather than becoming propaganda agents for the government, they should really start taking a deeper look about freedom solutions.

A Kochanack Loves the TSA Groping

Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at the Koch-controlled George Mason University and also the Director of the Koch-controlled Mercatus Center, is all in favor of the TSA options of cancer-causing naked body scans or groping sessions.

He writes (and I really tried hard to get the sense he was joking, but he's not)

Personally, I'm happy to put up with the practices if it means less congestion in the airport security line.

What could really be behind this love fest with government groping? The easy answer is that he is really into this.

But more than likely he is simply making a move to become a bigger Kochanack. You see Geithner has been dissing him and  keeps on inviting him to the Treasury as a blogger, he most assuredly would love to be invited with the real schemers, government apologist economists.

Fly Southwest Airlines

If you need to fly, fly Southwest Airlines, when you can. They have always been passenger friendly and you have to love a Southwest exec who actually understands molestation when he sees it.

WSJ reports (My emphasis):

The fear is that Thanksgiving travelers—many of them students, families and older people who fly once or twice a year—will be unfamiliar with TSA procedures and slow to get through checkpoints. Full-body scanners require removal of wallets, belts, jewelry and everything inside pockets.

"With people getting partially molested at checkpoints, all that is going to be a real shock for them," said Greg Wells, senior vice president of operations at Southwest Airlines. "TSA will create an issue for us. It's going to slow things down."

Southwest will have employees with walkie-talkies at checkpoints to hold airplane departures if passengers are stuck in long lines.

Wells is the only official in the airline industry that, to my knowledge, has publicly acknowledged what the TSA is really up to: molestation.

Confused NYC Police

Instead of arresting real gropers...

NYC police , wearing bullet proof vests, swooped in on chess players:

NyPo explains:

A squad of cops in bulletproof vests swooped into an upper Manhattan park and charged seven men with the "crime" of playing chess in an area off-limits to adults unaccompanied by kids -- even though no youngsters were there.

"Is chess really something that should be considered a threat to the neighborhood?" Inwood resident and mom Joanne Johnson wrote Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly after the raid.

"This incident is an embarrassment to the officers from the 34th Precinct who felt that it was necessary to use their badge and authority to issue such a random summons."

The knights in Kevlar armor gave all seven suspects desk-appearance tickets.

The chess tables where they were ticketed for "failure to comply with signs" are in a fenced-in area where posted notices read: "Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of 12."

Police said the rule protects kids from pedophiles or others who might want to harm them.

A police source added, "It’s the broken windows theory . . . small things can turn into bigger things. Some citizens may see it as police harassment, but God forbid something happens to a child, people would be complaining, Why didn’t the police enforce these rules? That’s what they would be griping about."

Yacahuda "Y.A." Harrison, 49, one of those chess aficionados, said he saw those signs months ago and "asked the [Parks] ranger if we had permission to be there."

"The ranger said, 'Oh no, that's fine, that's only written for pedophiles.' "

Since then, he said, parents have welcomed him and the other players -- and even had their kids take chess lessons from them.

"The day we got picked up, there were no kids" in the playground, he said. "They treated us like drug dealers. All we were doing was playing chess." ...

Another man ticketed that day, Inwood resident and artist Junior "Chiqui" Mendoza, 46, said that the police "should have given us a warning, and not a ticket."

Margaret Blachly, a teacher who took her students to the park yesterday, said, "There are often a lot of rules in this park that get broken, and no summonses are issued.

"If the tables are there to play chess, that's what they should be allowed to do."


(TSAphotoViaDrudge)

FOX Clueless on Liberty

I don't watch FOX news very often, so I generally am not up on what those characters are doing.

Last night, in the restaurant I was eating at, FOX was on in the background. I was simply shocked to find how clueless the entire crew was about liberty.

There was heavy coverage of the TSA. Ann Coulter was on the O'Reilly Factor and was against TSA naked body scanners and the pervert pat downs, but, get this, called for "Israeli style profiling"  with heavy duty background checks of passengers. O'Reilly himself didn't seem to have a strong opinion.

Next up was Sean Hannity, who was even more aggressive about calling for "Israeli style profiling".

These guys really, really don't have a clue. The debate shouldn't be about what style Big Government intrusion should take place in our lives. It should be out getting government the hell out of our lives.

As Ron Paul and Forbes magazine put it:

The solution to the need for security at US airports is not a government bureaucracy. The solution is to allow the private sector, preferably the airlines themselves, to provide for the security of their property. As a recent article in Forbes magazine eloquently stated, “The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility.”

That Coulter, O'Reilly and Hannity don't have knee-jerk reactions thinking about solutions that the private sector can provide shows you how far these people are from being true advocates of liberty. They are really as stuck in the fog as are the San Francisco city board members who recently attempted to ban Happy Meals (The Mayor vetoed the totalitarian move).

These characters are not about less totalitarian government. They just want to be in charge of designing the chains.

HR 6416, the American Traveler Dignity Act

Introduced before the United States House of Representatives by Congressman Ron Paul.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce legislation to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation’s airports. We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled. We do not know the potentially harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the new millimeter wave machines.

In one recent well-publicized case, a TSA official is recorded during an attempted body search saying, “By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.” I strongly disagree and am sure I am not alone in believing that we Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel. As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable. This TSA version of our rights looks more like the “rights” granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens — right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms.


The incident of the so-called “underwear bomber” last Christmas is given as justification for the billions of dollars the federal government is spending on the new full-body imaging machines, but a Government Accountability Office study earlier this year concluded that had these scanners been in use they may not have detected the explosive material that was allegedly brought onto the airplane. Additionally, there have been recent press reports calling into question the accuracy and adequacy of these potentially dangerous machines.
My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any US law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Imagine if the political elites in our country were forced to endure the same conditions at the airport as business travelers, families, senior citizens, and the rest of us. Perhaps this problem could be quickly resolved if every cabinet secretary, every member of Congress, and every department head in the Obama administration were forced to submit to the same degrading screening process as the people who pay their salaries.

I warned at the time of the creation of the TSA that an unaccountable government entity in control of airport security would provide neither security nor defend our basic freedom to travel. Yet the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats then in Congress willingly voted to create another unaccountable, bullying agency– in a simple-minded and unprincipled attempt to appease public passion in the wake of 9-11. Sadly, as we see with the steady TSA encroachment on our freedom and dignity, my fears in 2001 were justified.

The solution to the need for security at US airports is not a government bureaucracy. The solution is to allow the private sector, preferably the airlines themselves, to provide for the security of their property. As a recent article in Forbes magazine eloquently stated, “The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility.” In the meantime, I hope we can pass this legislation and protect Americans from harm and humiliation when they choose to travel.

FYI: Rapiscan's Next Trade Show Appearance

Rapiscan Systems, the manufacturer of the naked body radiation machines that the TSA is installing, is scheduled to be in Washington D.C. on December 6 and 7 to demonstrate their machines at the AAAE Aviation Security Summit, which is being held at the OmniShoreham Hotel.

The Day the TSA (Totalitarian Sexual Assault) Team Grabbed Penn Jillette's Crotch

FLASHBACK: PENN JILLETTE CALLS COPS ON GROPING TSA AGENT
11/13/02

Penn Jillette

Last Thursday I was flying to LA on the Midnight flight. I went through security my usual sour stuff. I beeped, of course, and was shuttled to the "toss-em" line. A security guy came over. I assumed the position. I had a button up shirt on that was untucked. He reached around while he was behind me and grabbed around my front pocket. I guess he was going for my flashlight, but the area could have loosely been called "crotch." I said, "You have to ask me before you touch me or it's assault."

He said, "Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want."

I said that wasn't true. I say that I have the option of saying no and not flying. He said, "Are you going to let me search you, or do I just throw you out?"

I said, "Finish up, and then call the police please."

When he was finished with my shoes, he said, "Okay, you can go."

I said, "I'd like to see your supervisor and I'd like LVPD to come here as well. I was assaulted by you."

He said, "You're free to go, there's no problem."

I said, "I have a problem, please send someone over."

They sent a guy over and I said that I'd like to register a complaint. I insisted on his name and badge number. I filled it out with my name. The supervisor, I think trying to intimidate me, asked for my license, and I gave it to him happily as he wrote down information. I kept saying, "Please get the police," and they kept saying, "You're free to go, we don't need the police." I insisted and they got a higher up, female, supervisor. I was polite, cold, and a little funny. "Anyone is welcome to grab my crotch, I don't require dinner and a movie, just ask me. Is that asking too much? You wanna grab my crotch, please ask. Does that seem like a crazy person to you?" I had about 4 of them standing around. Finally Metro PD shows up. It's really interesting. First of all, the cop is a BIG P&T fan and that ain't hurting. Second, I get the vibe that he is WAY sick of these federal leather-sniffers. He has that vibe that real cops have toward renta-cops. This is working WAY to my advantage, so I play it.

The supervisor says to the cop, 'He's free to go. We have no problem, you don't have to be here." Which shows me that the Feds are afraid of local. This is really cool. She says, "We have no trouble and he doesn't want to miss his flight."

I say, "I can take an early morning flight or a private jet. " The cop says, "If I have a citizen who is saying he was assaulted, you can't just send me away."

Read the rest here.

Tawianese Animators on the TSA (Totalitarian Sexual Assault) Experience

(ViaDrudge)

Lionel's Wife Gets the TSA (Totalitarian Sex Assault) Treatment

A Pilot Explains Why TSA Is Nothing More Than an Off-Broadway Show

Bottom Line: While TSA insists on cancer causing radiation or, alternatively, a groin-check, for passengers, there are thousands throughout the country with access to planes who are rarely checked.

Here's pilot Patrick Smith on the absurd TSA:

What makes it ludicrous is that tens of thousands of other airport workers, from baggage loaders and fuelers to cabin cleaners and maintenance personnel, are subject only to occasional random screenings when they come to work. These are individuals with full access to aircraft, inside and out. Some are airline employees, though a high percentage are contract staff belonging to outside companies. The fact that crew members, many of whom are former military flyers, and all of whom endured rigorous background checks prior to being hired, are required to take out their laptops and surrender their hobby knives, while a caterer or cabin cleaner sidesteps the entire process and walks onto a plane unimpeded, nullifies almost everything we’ve been told since September 11th, 2001. If there is a more ringing let-me-get-this-straight scenario anywhere in the realm of airport security, I’d like to hear it.

It's time to abolish this very bizarre Off-Broadway show, known as TSA, and turn airline security over to airlines, who have incentive to prevent terrorist attacks, but have no incentive to run a low grade S and M show with passengers as unwilling participants.

George Carlin on Airport Security

I miss the views of two men during these insane times. Murray Rothbard and George Carlin. One was an economist-historian-social philosopher, the other was a comedian-historian-social philosopher. Both were clear thinkers who understood the world better than almost everyone else. They could deliver original thoughts and ideas on a daily basis. They both understood government insanity marketed as being done for our own good. And, damn, they knew how to expose that insanity.

Here's George Carlin on airport security, when they were only checking our carry on bags. It's hard to imagine how Carlin would put the current TSA madness into perspective, but you know he would.



(ViaNick)

The Day The TSA Wouldn't Let Me Take Airline Silverware Past the Airline Security Gate

By Patrick Smith

I’ve just worked a flight coming from overseas. I’m wearing my full uniform, and have all of my gear with me. The plan is to run upstairs and leave my flight bag in the crew room before catching my commuter flight home. Unfortunately this means having to endure arrival screening, one of airport security’s most irritating protocols. After clearing customs, passengers and crew alike face the x-ray line and metal detector before they’re allowed back into the concourse. (This inconvenient rule is in place because of another inconvenient rule — the one that makes connecting passengers claim and re-check their luggage when arriving from places outside the United States — even though their bags have already been screened at the point of departure. The thinking is that people could unpack this or that dangerous item from a checked suitcase — a four-ounce bottle of shampoo say — then carry it on to the next flight.)

So, together with a throng of exhausted passengers I’m funneled into the grimy, dimly lit checkpoint. I hoist my crew bags onto the x-ray belt, then pass through the metal detector. Once on the other side, I’m waiting for my stuff to reappear when suddenly the belt comes to a stop. “Bag check!” shouts the guard behind the monitor.

The bag she’s talking about turns out to be my roll-aboard. A second guard, a mean-looking woman whose girth is exceeded only by the weight of the chip on her shoulder, comes over and yanks it from the machine.

“Is this yours?” she wants to know.

“Yes, it’s mine.”

“You got a knife in here?”

“A knife?”

“A knife,” she barks. Some silverware?”

Yes I do. I always do. Inside my roll-aboard I carry a spare set of airline-issue cutlery – a spoon, a fork, and a knife. Along with packets of noodles and other small snacks, this is part of my hotel survival kit, useful in the event of short layovers when food isn’t available. Borrowed from my collection of airline silverware (some of us really have such things), it’s the exact cutlery that accompanies your meal on a long-haul flight. The pieces are stainless steel, and about five inches long. The knife has a rounded end and a short row of teeth — I would call them serrations, but that’s too strong a word. For all intents and purposes, it’s a miniature butter knife.

“Yes,” I tell the guard. “There’s a metal knife in there – a butterknife.”

She opens the compartment and takes out a small vinyl case containing the three pieces. After removing the knife, she holds it upward between with two fingers and stares at me coldly. Her pose is like that of an angry schoolteacher about to berate a child for bringing some forbidden object to class.

“You ain’t takin’ this through,” she says. “No knifes. You can’t bring a knife through here.”

It takes a moment for me to realize that she’s serious. “I’m… but…. it’s…”

“Sorry.” She throws it into a bin and starts to walk away.

“Wait a minute,” I say. “That’s airline silverware.”

“Don’t matter what it is. You can’t bring knifes through here.”

“Ma’am, that’s an airline knife. It’s the knife they give you on the plane.”

“No knifes. Have a good afternoon, sir.”

“You can’t be serious,” I say.

With that she grabs the knife out of the bin and walks over to one of her colleagues, seated at the end of the checkpoint in a folding chair. I follow her over.

“This guy wants to bring this through.”

The man in the chair looks up lazily. “Is it serrated?”

She hands it to him. He looks at it quickly, then addresses me.

“No, this is no good. You can’t take this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s serrated.” He is talking about the little row of teeth along the edge. Truth be told, the knife in question, which I’ve had for years, is actually smaller and less sharp than the knives currently handed out by my airline to its first and business class customers. You’d be hard pressed to cut a slice of toast with it.

“Oh come on.”

“What do you call these?” He runs his finger along the miniscule serrations.

“Those… but… they… it…”

“No serrated knives. You can’t take this.”

“But sir, how can it not be allowed when it’s the same knife they give you on the plane!”

“Those are the rules.”

“That’s impossible. Can I please speak to a supervisor?”

“I am the supervisor.”

There are those moments in life when time stands still and the air around you seems to solidify. You stand there in an amber of absurdity, waiting for the crowd to burst out laughing and the “Candid Camera” guy to appear from around the corner.

Except the supervisor is dead serious.

Realizing that I’m not getting my knife back, I try for the consolation prize, which is getting the man to admit that, if nothing else, the rule makes no sense. “Come on,” I argue. “The purpose of confiscating knives is to keep people from bringing them onto planes, right? But the people planes are legally handed these knives with their meals. Plus, I’m the pilot! How can you… I mean… it’s just… At least admit to me that it’s a dumb rule. ”

“It’s not a dumb rule.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t.”

And so on, until he asks me to leave.

What happened to me was wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to keep them straight. Just for starters, do I really need to point out that an airline pilot at the controls of his plane would hardly need a butter knife is he desired to inflict damage?

Now a liquids story:

One day in 2006 my mother caused a small commotion at a checkpoint at Boston-Logan after screeners discovered a container of homemade tomato sauce in her bag. What with the preponderance of spaghetti grenades and lasagna bombs, we can all be proud of their vigilance; and, as a liquid, tomato sauce is in clear violation of the TSA’s carry-on statutes. But this time there was a wrinkle: the sauce was frozen.

The icy red block had the guards in a scramble. Liquid, solid, gel, what was it? A supervisor was called over to assess things. He spent several moments stroking his chin. Drawing from an exquisite knowledge of refrigeration, he observantly sized things up. “It’s not a liquid right now,” he noted. “But it will be soon.”

“I wonder if this isn’t a test,” murmured another guard.

“Please,” urged my mother. “Please don’t take away my dinner.”

Lo and behold, they did not. Whether out of confusion, sympathy, or embarrassment, she was allowed to pass with her murderous marinara.

This got me thinking. The proper course of action, need it be said, would be for TSA to overhaul its entire approach. For several reasons — not the least of which is the traveling public’s apparent eagerness to be subjugated, harassed, and humiliated — this is not going to happen, but is it too much to ask, in consolation, for the agency to exhibit a little common sense now and then, sanctioning some flexibility in its protocols? If we’re to believe that TSA screeners are highly trained professionals, as the agency maintains, can they not handle the responsibility of making an occasional judgment call, some on-the-spot decision-making?

“Our screeners are allowed to exercise leeway in some cases,” a TSA spokesperson told me. “They have the training, and the obligation, to exercise discretion.” Maybe, but the tomato sauce incident notwithstanding, I’m not seeing much leeway and discretion. I’m seeing blind adherence to nonsensical rules. I’m seeing a draconian obsession with the exactness of container volumes and the dimensions of harmless objects, up to and including whether or not a crewmember’s tiny knife has serrations on its blade, as if they alone could be the difference between unsafe and safe. Enforcement of this kind transcends mere tedium. Not only does it do nothing to improve safety, it is a national embarrassment.

The above appears in a much longer article Terminal Madness. Read the entire article here.

While the TSA Grabs You from the Front, the Fed is Going to Get You from Behind

The municipal bond market remains just a thread away from total free fall.

The price of the iShares S&P National AMT-Free bond fund was trading at $101.28 this afternoon, down 1.6% from Friday and down 3.7% from a week ago.

When things get focused on California, the declines are much more severe.

The Pimco California Municipal Income Fund was trading at $12.04 a share, down 5.6% for the day and down 13.4% from a week ago.

States and municipalities with dubious credit standings are flooding the market with new issues. California, alone, is coming with $14 billion in debt in the next two weeks. Over time, things will only get worse, a non-partisan California audit committee projects that California's deficit over the next year and a half will climb by more than $25 billion.

It is not a stretch to view Ben Bernanke's QE2 as an attempt to head off financial panic at the state, local and federal levels because of the debt problem that could go into panic mode at any time. In other words, Bernanke is choosing inflation to partially bailout the bondholders, while wage earners, pensioners and others on fixed income get totally screwed by the price inflation it will cause.

Bottom line: The TSA is going to grab you from the front and the Fed is going to get you from behind.

Passengers Vote on TSA Groping

Reuters is running a poll to see if people are less likely to travel by plane because of the new Cass Sunstein type "Options": Groping or a dose of radiation.

Vote here.

Checkout the results here.