The Pittsburgh airport wants to become the first since 9/11 to allow people without tickets past security to the gates. That’s awful thoughtful of it, allowing the passengers to have one last farewell. Or is it?

Just as important to the cash-strapped airport, it will allow more shoppers into its Airmall, a sprawling zone of stores and restaurants that has lost business in recent years.
. . .
Pittsburgh has seen a 28% reduction in passengers since 2000. US Airways, which controls about 80% of the airport’s gates, dropped about 100 flights a day there in an attempt to reduce costs. The airline has been struggling financially.

Ahh. Who would have guessed money was involved? Shocking. I suspect there are a number of airport owners which now wish their facilities had been designed differently to facilitate commerce with security.
Airlines and security consultants are against the proposal because they say it will put more stress on security personnel. It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out.

Today is the ninth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. And with it comes a report of a 1995 Secret Service memo referring to security video footage of the bombing:

“Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation 3 minutes and 6 seconds after the suspects exited the truck,” the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents’ activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.
The government has insisted McVeigh drove the truck himself and that it never had any video of the bombing or the scene of the Alfred P. Murrah building in the minutes before the April 19, 1995, explosion.
Several investigators and prosecutors who worked the case told The Associated Press they had never seen video footage like that described in the Secret Service log.
The document, if accurate, is either significant evidence kept secret for nine years or a misconstrued recounting of investigative leads that were often passed by word of mouth during the hectic early days of the case, they said.

It’s hard to believe such explosive evidence could have been kept secret for nine years. Then again it wouldn’t be the first time things have gotten “lost” inside the government.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has conducted another round of safety tests, and if your in a car which gets broadsided by an SUV, things may bot be good for you:

Ten of 13 midsize car models tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group financed by car insurers, received the lowest of four possible ratings, indicating a likelihood of serious or fatal injury. The tests also showed that women were at disproportionate risk in truck-car side-impact collisions.
But the tests also showed that, in some cases, side airbags could make a difference, potentially between life and death. Two cars, the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord, received the highest of four ratings, though only when equipped with optional side airbags that offer head protection. The standard version of both cars received the lowest ratings.

Even if you emerge from an accident unscathed, you may still get a headache once you take your vehicle to the repair shop. An article in The Christian Science Monitor examines the rising costs of vehicle repair:

Costly air bags, expensive electronics, and lightweight body materials are driving up the cost of fixing new cars. Not only do many more parts have to be replaced rather than repaired, but fewer and fewer body shops can afford the special equipment and training required to do the work.”We’re moving closer and closer to the disposable car,” says Dan Bailey, an executive vice president at Carstar, the largest auto-body repair franchise in the United States.
Repairing a new car a decade ago, for example, cost an average of $2,578 per claim, while in 2003, the cost had ballooned to $3,681, a 43 percent increase that has outpaced inflation, says Kim Hazelbaker, senior vice president and head of loss claims analysis with the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) in Arlington, Va.

If that’s not factoring in inflation, then a 43 percent increase (over a decade) isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. Still, there’s really nothing to look forward to in taking a car to the shop.

I didn’t catch the Woodward piece on 60 Minutes last night, but here’s an interesting nugget from the web site:

Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: “As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord’s will. I’m surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness.”
Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, “He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There’s a higher Father that I appeal to.”

That’s a weird statement. Bush says he isn’t justifying the war based on God. Yet he implies that he’s God’s messenger.
I have my doubts that God approves of elective wars, but that may just be me. Putting that aside, isn’t it strange Bush says he didn’t seek any advice from his father? Who as I recall just happened to be president the last time America was involved in a war with Iraq. Bush the elder might have useful experience.
That’s not all:

Beyond not asking his father about going to war, Woodward was startled to learn that the president did not ask key cabinet members either.
“The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation,” says Woodward.
But the president did ask Rice, his national security adviser, and Karen Hughes, his political communications adviser. Woodward says both supported going to war.

So Bush asked his political communications adviser about the propriety of war, but not the secretary of defense or the secretary of state?
That’s a weird decision tree.

Which recent president said the following:

I do not believe, therefore, that the local commanders on the ground, men who have already suffered quite enough, should be punished for not fully comprehending the nature of today’s terrorist threat. If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this Office and with this President. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good.

[Emphasis added.]
Was it:
(A) Ronald Reagan
(B) Bill Clinton
(C) George W. Bush
Answer here.
Quite a contrast with the here and now, isn’t it?