For Those About to Fly

Charles Mann tests the TSA's security theater and concludes that "To walk through an airport with Bruce Schneier ["one of America’s top security experts"] is to see how much change a trillion dollars can wreak. So much inconvenience for so little benefit at such a staggering cost."

Schneier's money quote: “The only useful airport security measures since 9/11, were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching”—ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them —“and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”

James Fallows has more. Much more.

Opting Out of Air Travel

TNC, with his usual eloquence, explains one of the reasons why he's choosing not to fly these days:

Finally there is the fact that, as much as possible, I should avoid supporting airline travel in its current American iteration. As I said before I don't do this expecting any kind of policy change--but The God of Policy is not omnipotent. I expect an end to that sick feeling I get whenever I see passengers arbitrarily herded into full-body scans, or stranded on runways for hours, or yanked from their seats and stripped searched. There is still value in looking oneself in the mirror--whatever one might hope to see. Thoughtful resistance, in and of itself, is valuable.

That's so well put I would only add to it the monetary factor: air travel is certainly not as inexpensive or convenient as it used to be. Given these facts, who can fault anyone for choosing to drive, take the train, or forgo the trip altogether?

Not Looking Forward To It

I'm traveling through Logan for Thanksgiving, and i'm not looking forward to my first grope.
Bonus fun (but overlong) video explaining the absurdity of this security theater here.

Alternatives to AAA

Like many, many americans, I joined the Automobile Association of America (AAA) for one main reason: protection against the fact that if my car broke down somewhere, I could easily and cheaply get my car towed and fixed. Pretty simple, right? Well, like many things that seemed simple in my youth, the truth is more complicated then that.

It turns out that a good chunk of AAA's time and money goes towards lobbying the US Congress for more roads, and policies that promote more pollution and sprawl. This was detailed pretty extensively in a Harpers article published in May 2002. (As an aside, Harper's may be the best magazine in America. Seriously.) As a firm believer in "Think Global, Act Local" this fact upset me, but for the longest time I didn't believe I had an alternative. After all, towing your car can be very expensive!

Recently, though, I heard of the Better World Club, which is basically AAA but without the short-sighted policies. In fact, their website states that they "...act as an advocate on behalf of the consumer and demonstrate our social and environmental commitment by donating an amount equal to 1% of our annual revenues toward environmental clean-up and advocacy and by providing unique, eco-friendly travel alternatives." They offer roadside assistance, towing, hotel and car rental discounts, travel information, etc. And they even offer memberships that cover your bike!

In short, I signed right up. One immediate benefit is that they waved my activation fee because I drive a hybrid car (Civic). It's pretty sweet knowing that my money won't go towards things that I don't believe in, and i'm looking forward to seeing what the Better World Club service is like. Believe me, if there's any issues with it, i'll let you know all about it right here.

Subway Maps

I've seen this a few times, and it's pretty neat: maps of train lines around major cities, drawn to scale. Most of them look like evil spider webs.

Trains!

Super cool simulation of the Philadelphia train system.