Frog Eating
[Originally Written March 14, 2002]
Frog eating: Spencer an economist and George an accounting professor were at a conference at Kiawa Island. They were old frat brothers and decided to go for a walk early in the morning after a wild night of discussing arbitrage. As they walked along the plank trail through the swamp, Spencer spied a tree frog, just for the hell of it decided to offer his old friend $50,000 dollars to eat the frog.
George thought about it, he was still feeling giddy after too many mimosas the night before. He had eaten goldfish back in college. He had seen a guy on TV eat worse. He scooped up the frog and swallowed it whole.
After a short time George began to feel sick. He spied another frog and decided it was pay back time. He offered Spencer $50,000 to eat the frog.
Spencer not to be out done by his friend scooped up the frog and swallowed it whole.
When they returned to the resort, Spencer, the economist said, "George, old boy, do you realize that it is not yet 8 a.m. and we have engaged in a $100,000 of economic activity?"
George, the more practical accountant said, "Yea, Spence, I also know we both ate a frog and our financial situations have not changed."
Frog eating is a term for engaging in economic activity that may move money around but does not provide any benefit - may even be counter productive.
After 911, the administration never really focused on the specific task of preventing the plane from being taken over and flown into a target. They modified this mission - at incredible expense - to include preventing the bringing down of a single plane with an explosive charge carried on board.
For a couple of years after 911, air freight on passenger flights was not checked and neither was much of the checked baggage. No planes were brought down.
Using the same mechanism that parachutists use to automatically open their chutes in an emergency, any second year engineering student could have designed bomb to bring down any single plane. (Osama himself studied engineering ) Such a mechanism would not even get a passing grade on a class project.
They could ship some phony laptops from Denver to LAX filled with explosives with a pressure sensing detonator. As it descended for landing, the plane would explode. There would be no loss of life for the terrorist.
Easy, simple and effective but it was never done.
So, we spend this incredible amount of money protecting planes from being blown up by suicide passengers when the cargo bay was wide open destruction. This makes no sense.
It makes less sense when you realize that there are hundreds of thousands of unprotected targets elsewhere that. Any engineer knows a hundred ways using everyday equipment and materials to cause catastrophic damage at a mall or a school. In other words, "Why should we spend hundreds of billions protecting 300 passenger airplanes when our 3,000 passenger schools are wide open?"
If the mission was to protect the plane from being flown into a building, there were only two things that we needed to do as a nation to avoid another 911:
1-At the time of the hijacking, the policy was for the pilot to turn over the plane to the hijackers. The thinking here was that they could then send in hostage negotiators when the plan landed and nobody would get hurt. They needed to change this policy to "You never give up control to the hijackers. You, your crew and any Americans on the flight will resist to your last dying breath." This new policy was put in place on flight 193 by American Citizen Todd Beamer, members of the crew and other passengers without any direction from Washington or anywhere else. Post 911 the passengers choice is: "do we take our chances charging terrorist punk with the box cutters or fly into a building to die in a blazing crash along with thousands of others. Hmm. Terrorist punk is going down.
2- They could have made the pilot's cabin secure with some plexiglass and rebar. Should the punks try to breech the door, there are things the pilots could do given a few seconds: depressurize, dump fuel, call for a fighter escort or go into acrobatic mode. What pilot hasn't dreamed of doing wing overs, barrel rolls, and a hammerhead stall with an inverted spin recovery in a 757. What fun for the passengers, seated with thier seat belts and oxygen mask on, watching gasping terrorist flying around the cabin.
These were all that were needed but there is a third that should have been put in place by now. Military jets have the ability to land without the pilot. It is all done by the auto pilot. Suppose when terrorist stormed the cockpit, the pilots were able to press button, dissabling the manual cockpit controls of the aircraft, turning over the landing of the aircraft to the auto pilot. The terrorist would have two choices: they could land and be arrested or try to find away to crash the plane.
That's it. Thats all they had to do. The rest of the stuff is pure frog eating. No! Worse than frog eating! It is economic activity that humiliates, delays and degrades passengers. Mothers with babies have had to drink from bottles of their own breast milk. Medal of honor winners have been asked to surrender their medals because they have two inch rifle dangling from the ribbon. Women have had to allow TSA employees to fondle their breasts searching for that explosive filled bra. TSA employees have stolen a kings ransom in ipods, cameras, jewelry and other items while their accomplices have been patting down and x-raying the shoes of unsuspecting victims.
Of course all this is economic activity. It increases the "gross" national product. "Wow GNP was up 2.2% in the third quarter THANKS to large increases in the security sector." Thanks but no THANKS.
Frog eating: Spencer an economist and George an accounting professor were at a conference at Kiawa Island. They were old frat brothers and decided to go for a walk early in the morning after a wild night of discussing arbitrage. As they walked along the plank trail through the swamp, Spencer spied a tree frog, just for the hell of it decided to offer his old friend $50,000 dollars to eat the frog.
George thought about it, he was still feeling giddy after too many mimosas the night before. He had eaten goldfish back in college. He had seen a guy on TV eat worse. He scooped up the frog and swallowed it whole.
After a short time George began to feel sick. He spied another frog and decided it was pay back time. He offered Spencer $50,000 to eat the frog.
Spencer not to be out done by his friend scooped up the frog and swallowed it whole.
When they returned to the resort, Spencer, the economist said, "George, old boy, do you realize that it is not yet 8 a.m. and we have engaged in a $100,000 of economic activity?"
George, the more practical accountant said, "Yea, Spence, I also know we both ate a frog and our financial situations have not changed."
Frog eating is a term for engaging in economic activity that may move money around but does not provide any benefit - may even be counter productive.
After 911, the administration never really focused on the specific task of preventing the plane from being taken over and flown into a target. They modified this mission - at incredible expense - to include preventing the bringing down of a single plane with an explosive charge carried on board.
For a couple of years after 911, air freight on passenger flights was not checked and neither was much of the checked baggage. No planes were brought down.
Using the same mechanism that parachutists use to automatically open their chutes in an emergency, any second year engineering student could have designed bomb to bring down any single plane. (Osama himself studied engineering ) Such a mechanism would not even get a passing grade on a class project.
They could ship some phony laptops from Denver to LAX filled with explosives with a pressure sensing detonator. As it descended for landing, the plane would explode. There would be no loss of life for the terrorist.
Easy, simple and effective but it was never done.
So, we spend this incredible amount of money protecting planes from being blown up by suicide passengers when the cargo bay was wide open destruction. This makes no sense.
It makes less sense when you realize that there are hundreds of thousands of unprotected targets elsewhere that. Any engineer knows a hundred ways using everyday equipment and materials to cause catastrophic damage at a mall or a school. In other words, "Why should we spend hundreds of billions protecting 300 passenger airplanes when our 3,000 passenger schools are wide open?"
If the mission was to protect the plane from being flown into a building, there were only two things that we needed to do as a nation to avoid another 911:
1-At the time of the hijacking, the policy was for the pilot to turn over the plane to the hijackers. The thinking here was that they could then send in hostage negotiators when the plan landed and nobody would get hurt. They needed to change this policy to "You never give up control to the hijackers. You, your crew and any Americans on the flight will resist to your last dying breath." This new policy was put in place on flight 193 by American Citizen Todd Beamer, members of the crew and other passengers without any direction from Washington or anywhere else. Post 911 the passengers choice is: "do we take our chances charging terrorist punk with the box cutters or fly into a building to die in a blazing crash along with thousands of others. Hmm. Terrorist punk is going down.
2- They could have made the pilot's cabin secure with some plexiglass and rebar. Should the punks try to breech the door, there are things the pilots could do given a few seconds: depressurize, dump fuel, call for a fighter escort or go into acrobatic mode. What pilot hasn't dreamed of doing wing overs, barrel rolls, and a hammerhead stall with an inverted spin recovery in a 757. What fun for the passengers, seated with thier seat belts and oxygen mask on, watching gasping terrorist flying around the cabin.
These were all that were needed but there is a third that should have been put in place by now. Military jets have the ability to land without the pilot. It is all done by the auto pilot. Suppose when terrorist stormed the cockpit, the pilots were able to press button, dissabling the manual cockpit controls of the aircraft, turning over the landing of the aircraft to the auto pilot. The terrorist would have two choices: they could land and be arrested or try to find away to crash the plane.
That's it. Thats all they had to do. The rest of the stuff is pure frog eating. No! Worse than frog eating! It is economic activity that humiliates, delays and degrades passengers. Mothers with babies have had to drink from bottles of their own breast milk. Medal of honor winners have been asked to surrender their medals because they have two inch rifle dangling from the ribbon. Women have had to allow TSA employees to fondle their breasts searching for that explosive filled bra. TSA employees have stolen a kings ransom in ipods, cameras, jewelry and other items while their accomplices have been patting down and x-raying the shoes of unsuspecting victims.
Of course all this is economic activity. It increases the "gross" national product. "Wow GNP was up 2.2% in the third quarter THANKS to large increases in the security sector." Thanks but no THANKS.
posted by OneAmericanCitizen | 2:24 PM
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