One of the Best Articles on Security Theater I've Seen this Far

Read this essay from a former head of security at Ben Gurion airport:

For a bunch of people in snappy uniforms patting down crotches, the TSA is remarkably unpopular. Nobody likes going through security at the airport, but you probably figured most of it had a point. All those hours spent in line with other shoeless travelers are a necessary precursor to safe flying. It's annoying, but at least it wards off terrorism.

That's all bullsh%$. The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon. What are my qualifications for saying that? My name is Rafi Sela, and I was the head of security for the world's safest airport. Here's what your country does wrong.

He is clear, and concisely explains the systemic problems present in the agency.

This is the money quote:

Of course, after a little while it came out that these scanners were useless. I could strap a bomb capable of taking down a 747 to my body and walk right through a body scanner. Nobody would catch me. I'd rather not explain exactly how, but this German man was able to sneak a fake bomb through the same scanners without being caught. And he did it in Germany, a country where "airport security officer" isn't a synonym for "failed Walmart cashier."

His basic thesis is that the organization is fatally flawed because it is designed to regulate itself.

I Remember Cracked Magazine

And it was a Really lame knock off of Mad magazine.

Well, through some rather odd machinations the magazine morphed into a web site that is really hip and funny.

Case in point, their mash-up of the Atlas Shrugged trailer:

Cracked.com Gets Serious

They just listed the, "The 6 Most Statistically Full of Sh%$ Professions, (%$ mine) and they are:

6. Stock Market Experts
5. Wine Tasters
4. Art Critics
3. Criminal Profilers
2. Weather Forecasters
1. Sportswriting

Note that this is not just a slam at these professions. It is a statistical analysis about how they perform relative to random chance.

Stock market experts underperform the market, wine tasters cannot tell the difference between "Grand Cru" and "vin de table", art critics cannot identify clear forgeries, criminal profilers don't beat control groups, weather forecasters don't beat chance, and sportswriters bat about .476 at predicting games.

Just to let you know what it means when you allow non-peer reviewed professions to declare themselves "experts."

The World of Tomorrow (If The Internet Disappeared Today) | Cracked.com

Cracked, which has somehow changed itself from the rather lame shadow of Mad Magazine it was in my misspent youth, had a PhotoShop contest: The World of Tomorrow (If The Internet Disappeared Today).

The winner is shown.