Small Bits: Teen Drinking, TSA Databasing, hope, and trust.
This New York Times story discusses the “need” to submit high school students to Breathalyzer tests to ensure they’re not drinking. It’s a good thing we have all those mandatory ID checks. It seems they’re highly effective at stopping teen drinking, so there’s no need for such tests.
The TSA is maintaining a secret database of flyers who have brought items that were declared prohibited at the airport, with no rights of access or correction to the database. This is likely in violation of the Privacy Act, and no one will be fired for it.
I wonder if Betsylew Miale-Gix, the Boomerang champion who had the rules changed on her, is in the database. Or perhaps WWII Marine Corps flying ace and General Joe Foss, who was stopped for carrying his Congressional Medal of Honor? Or perhaps T. E. Taylor, who complains of rule changes?
Salon’s quote of the day [link to http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/02/23/gator/index.html no longer works] is Departing Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage:
“I’m disappointed that Iraq hasn’t turned out better. And that we weren’t able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process… The biggest regret is that we didn’t stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.”
So do I, Richard, but I wasn’t allowed to set policy.
Lastly, a great story about believing what you read [link to http://bash.org/?468497 no longer works]. (Thanks, Ursa!)
Okay Class, Please Pass Around the Breath Analyzer
Now that Emergent Chaos has hit every angle of the ChoicePoint story, he is back to posting on a variety of interesting topics. He points to an article in the NY Times about schools giving students breath analyzer tests. I’m…