Different River

”You can never step in the same river twice.” –Heraclitus

I know just a few people in the security industry, but they all seem to agree that the post-9/11/01 airplane rules — e.g., no nail clippers on planes — are more for show than for security. If you think this is altogether too cynical, consider this account of a charted flight bringing Georgia Army National Guard troops to Kuwait (on their way to Iraq):

Speaking to 280 fellow soldiers before they boarded a chartered DC-10 at the start of their marathon flight from Savannah to Kuwait City earlier this week, King was thunderous, blunt and well armed with an M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder.
…
King, who in civilian life is the Doraville police chief, rolled his eyes at the FAA regulation that requires soldiers — all of whom were armed with an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols — to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.

“If you have any of those things,” he said, almost apologetically, “put them in this box now.”

It’s amazing — for some reason the rules about guns didn’t apply to them, but the rules against nail clippers did.

In what world does this make sense?

(Hat tip: Bruce Schneier.)

Long-time Blogger Eugene Volokh, has been awarded the Gary T. Schwartz Chair at the UCLA law school.

Prof. Volokh notes:

Regrettably, it turns out that there’s actually no physical chair involved, though maybe I could just rename my chair the Gary T. Schwartz Chair. Gary was a torts scholar, so perhaps that will decrease my chance of having accidents in the chair — or would it increase the chance?

Somehow this reminds me of the story of President William Howard Taft, who was offer a Chair of Law at Yale upon leaving office. He responded that “sofa of law” would be more in keeping with in proportions. (He weighed over 300 pounds for much of his life.)

He did accept the Chair, however, and was later appointed to the Supreme Court. I hear there is a chair available there as well. Perhaps Professor Volokh would prefer to change his chair for that one?

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)