Random Thoughts From The Road
I'm on the road with my daughter during spring break visiting colleges she might attend in the fall of '12. We're having a good time together, despite the non-spring weather we're encountering (nothing makes a college campus seem more dreary than the wind whipping...
Bad Rules, Badly Applied
Richard Dawkins on the stupidity of airport security screening, and the implacability of authorities who hew to the rulebook...I'm writing this on a plane, having just passed through Security at Heathrow airport. An obviously nice young mother was distraught because...
Bomb Detector Scam Update
Thirteen months ago, I brought you my interview with James Randi about a military fraud that was costing human lives. It had to do with bogus bomb-detecting equipment sold to security forces in Iraq, to the tune of $85 million despite the fact that the devices were...
They Die
Garry Trudeau was giving a speech recently to promote the 40th-anniversary compilation of "Doonesbury" strips, and told a story about the difficulties his syndicator had in the early days getting some newspapers to carry the comic. It seemed that the older generation...
Wacky Airport Security
If you've flown anywhere in the last few years, you've seen the signs at the checkpoints that warn you against making jokes about security. Apparently, those rules don't apply if you're a TSA officer, in which case you can "prank" passengers by pretending to find a...
Freedom Flyer
I've been going through security screening right here in this line for five years and never blown up an airplane, broken any laws, made any threats, or had a government agent call my boss in Houston. And you guys have never tried to touch me or see me naked that whole...
Negotiating With The Taliban
Three months ago, I had an extended conversation with correspondent Jere Van Dyk, who has done extensive reporting in Afghanistan over the last two decades and was held prisoner by the Taliban for 45 days, which he lived to write about it in "Captive." Today, on the...
Permanent War
Andrew Bacevich, a retired US Army Colonel whose son also served and died in Iraq, knows a lot about US military policy -- and thinks it's time for a change. He joined me on KTRS/St. Louis to talk about his book, "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."...