Gubmint Tests Passport RFID...

[Tyler Durden]

Whaddya know. Thompson said something that didn't make me want to beat him 
to death...

>I have a different threat model.  I suggest that incompetence is _often_
>deliberate and, at least to those who orchestrate such things, is designed
>to leave or provide cracks in arbitrary systesm that will be expoited.
>This may be defensible in cases where someone wants to encourage child
>molesters to expose their operations to sophisticated intelligence and
>surveillance activities, but is harder to defend when such policies affect
>the integrity of the money supply, or the transportation infrastructure,
>or ....

I've reached more or less the same conclusion. Or at least, incompetence may 
not be deliberate per se, but the byproduct of a system that needs to appear 
to care but is otherwise silently incented not to. Checking bags in the NYC 
transit system is the ultimate example of this: Completely, absolutely 
pointless in the face of a determined foe. (Meanwhile, of course, there's 
all sorts of state shennanegins that are possible through such an 
arrangement.)

The obvious question is how much 9/11/01 is an example of this. For me, the 
conspiracy theories just don't quite add up (close though) but a moderately 
sharpened Occam's razor leads one to believe that some 'deliberate' holes 
were left open, which bin Laden, et al exploited. (I actually still believe 
that Bush didn't expect that level of damage, however.)

As for the integrity of the money supply, I must succumb to temptation and 
question whether the Stalinst model of a demand economy (servicing an 
endless war on terror) hasn't been looked at by folks such as Wolfowitz, 
Cheney and so on.

-TD