To fly since 9/11 is to be exposed to endless fearmongering. The Terror Attack Level Is Orange! Whatever that means. People-- including the experts-- have a skewed and unreasonable belief that the level of danger is high, really high. Whereas the reality has always been that any one individual is almost 100% safe from terrorists. I'm not suggesting that 3,000 people killed in 9/11 is as trivial matter, but in the time since then, eighty *times* that number have been killed in car crashes, many times that number have been killed by criminals, hell, many times that number have been killed by medical mistakes. The bother of having to take off my shoes at airport security is not worth the effort. People now have an insanely exaggerated sense of the risk to themselves from terroist attack.

I'm not suggesting that there is no need to be alert, but while box cutters (jeesh!) should be forbidden, I think all Americans should be encouraged to take a pocket knife on airplanes. 9/11 cannot happen again-- hell, it couldn't have happened again after the day it took place, all that needed changing was protocol-- and planes can not be brought down by a Leatherman or Victorinox.

The Terrorist Threat Level is not Orange, it is Overblown.

Bravo!

Protecting against the last method of attack is simply a CYA move ... and obviously too late. The threat always comes from some other direction.

President Obama is in the process of shit canning the color code system. <link>

The Republicans are on perpetual Brown Alert.