Terrorist Tipoffs and an Evolutionary Arms Race

Josh Marshall at TPM wonders something which I wonder too.  Namely, when we identify things as tipoffs, as suspicious circumstances warranting more investigation, what stops the terrorist organizations from adapting?  For example, John Doe is committed to blowing up an airliner.  So he boards an airliner paying cash for a one-way ticket with no luggage and using a false name.  All sorts of sirens should be going off, right?  But assuming some resources, what's to stop him, knowing what we consider as red flags, from using a credit card, his correct name, and a full set of luggage on a round trip ticket?

And Ann Althouse points to the Newark incident:

"The fact that these two individuals kissed and walked hand-in-hand does not and should not wash away suspicion. If it did, terrorists would know how to stage a security breach. Have male and female confederates. The woman passes through security and then lets in the man, who has whatever weapons/bombs on him that may be desired. The two act like lovers, and the TSA workers sit back and think ain't love grand. A few hours later, hundreds of human beings are blown to pieces."

 Biologists point to arms races in evolution where prey and predators, the eaten and the eater evolve defenses and counters. Maybe that's what we have here.  We come up with a profile of the likely terrorist, the terrorist organization figures out what it is (not a hard job) and how to counter the profile (carry luggage, travel with a female companion, whatever).  A successful attack, or at least one close to success, tells us we need to change the profile and the process continues.

The Problem With Statistics--Crime Waves and Falls [Revised]

Mathew Blake at Understanding Government links to a Wall Street Journal piece on the fall of crime rates. The piece quotes some experts who say that the graying of the boomer generation is partly responsible, since people over 50 are unlikely to commit violent crime (as opposed to financial crimes, perhaps?) and that age group  is the most rapidly growing.  Mathew has some doubts, but I have a different question. Suppose we went back to the high crime days of the 70's and 80's and normalized the statistics for the age distribution--what would the statistics look like?  I'm sure it would reduce the amplitude of the the peaks, but by how much?  And if public discussion and the media had used those statitstics rather than the gross figures they did use, would California today be spending more on public schools and less on criminal schools (i.e., prisons). That's a factoid which caught my attention today--Schwartzenegger wants to decrease the money spent on prisons because they do spend more on prisons than schools.

[Revision: thinking more about this issue, it strikes me the statistical adjustment would need to be tricky, not just for the number of young in the population, but probably also for the percentage of young.  Seems to me the boomers in the 70's gained confidence from being such a large generation, while those of us in the "silent" generation realized we were outnumbered. I suspect everyone has experienced the intimidation factor of a group of young, rowdy males on a public street where there's only a handful of adults around.  Conversely, a large crowd of middle-aged and old people can establish a standard of behavior that cows a handful of teens/twenties.  So the question would be, in this hypothesis, how often each scenario occurred. ]

Chris Clayton on Actively Engaged

Chris Clayton summarizes the debate on the FSA final rule on "actively engaged". Unfortunately he's a victim of the stupid GPO system, which doesn't give you a permanent URL for the document, so his link doesn't work.  And, it turns out, regulations.gov is no help, because, as of 4:30 pm, it hadn't been updated with today's issue of the Federal Register.

Fortunately, the expert bureaucrats at FSA have already updated their website with the link to the regs.
Way to go, JK and JB.

Best Sentence of Jan 7

" Coordination is the impulse of bureaucrats" from Chris Blattman's Blog on Development, a post about Clinton's speech on development.  (I'd also recommend the post on the other Clinton's Foreign Policy interview. Say what you will, the guy can be impressive.)

Another Party Heard from on Iraq

I recommend Thomas Ricks blog, The Best Defense.  He used to be the WPost defense correspondent and seems to have good sources in the military, particularly from lower levels than you see in the mainstream media.  My recommendation is odd, because I've always boasted of being a natural-born civilian, something reaffirmed by my involuntary service in LBJ's Army. 

That is preamble 1.  Preamble 2 is the observation I put up a short post recognizing no combat fatalities in Iraq in December and giving GWBush credit. 

But, as Mao supposedly said about the French Revolution, it's too early to tell about the overall policy.  Ricks has a post passing on a prediction by someone that Iraq will disappear in the next 5 years, which almost sounds like the policy our current Vice President was pushing back in 2007.  We will see, or maybe our descendants will see.

He's Back

The bogeyman to scare all industrial farmers, Michael Pollan, has another book out: "Food Rules."  The one-star review at Amazon says it disappoints, in that it's a boiled down version of "In Defense of Food". There are 5 star reviews.  And it costs $5.50

Whoopsie--Was FSA One of the Agencies Which Goofed?

Here's an example of a bureaucratic screwup, along with a somewhat exaggerated story. In sum, a 1996 law required executive branch agencies to send their final rules to Congress, but many appear to have failed to do so. (The law gave Congress the right to disapprove the final rules after being notified of them.)

In theory, the rule isn't effective until sent to Congress.  And, the answer to the question in my title is "yes", both CCC/FSA and NRCS failed to send several of their final rules over, one of which is a payment limitation rule and one an EQIP rule. (See page 20  of the CRS report.) It strikes me as a Mickey Mouse rule, as we used to say in the old days.  If an agency does something which is controversial and could be disapproved by Congress, the thing will have a life of its own.  If it's not that important, then it's bureaucratic routine.  It's not important in itself; Congress is able to read the Federal Register, after all so the appropriate staffers know when the final rule goes out.

Restored Service, Back to Blogging

Verizon has restored our service, so I'll resume blogging just as soon as I catch up with my online reading.

Props to W

Via Starbucks WiFi (my Verizon repair order is still waiting to be assigned to a technician--somehow I had thought all utilities worked day and night to restore service, so even at my late age there's opportunity to learn the reality of the world), I'm obligated to start the new year by acknowledging no combat deaths in Iraq in December.  I could add caveats, but I won't. GW wasn't always wrong in everything.

Verizon Problem

Due to problems in Verizon land line service, my blogging will be interrupted.