TSA, airport security, etc.

I fully acknowledge that it is highly unlikely anyone will ever read this, but nonetheless, I felt the need to get it down on paper. I haven't read anyone that shares my viewpoint yet, but I'm sure they exist and I just haven't seen it.

There has been significant uproar around the new TSA backscatter scanning devices/groping. I'm pretty sure I went through one earlier this year on a trip to LGA-NYC, but I was caught so off-guard I just went through. I don't think it was even explained to me what was going on. Ultimately, I'm all for security, but I feel the TSA hasn't done anything to benefit security. They've just made the lives of normal people much worse (when traveling).

I remember I used to be able to get to the airport 30-45 mins early and have no problem catching a flight. I believe now the recommended wait time is two hours? What a waste. Surely there are people opting to drive rather than fly because of all the controversy and extra time needed, which hurts the bottom line of the already crippled airlines.

So here is my proposed solution:

• Go back to the basics. AT MOST we need a metal detector and a carry-on x-ray
• Eliminate "random" selection for groping
• Leave your nasty shoes on
• Bring a gallon of water (or any other liquid you so desire - even toiletries?! gasp)
• Fully secure cabins for pilots - pretty sure this is already done (maybe some knockout gas they can deploy...? That's a bit extreme, I agree)
• Angry passengers that will no longer stand for a hijacking (already have that)

But what about bombs? What about them? Can a bomber blow up a building w/ a van full of explosives (OKC, WTC)? Could they blow up a subway? A bus? An interstate train? A major bridge? Sure they could.

But what about 9/11? I'm fairly confident this won't happen again. Not confident it won't be attempted, but confident it won't be successful. I'm pretty sure any decent sized plane full of passengers is going to go absolutely nuts if someone tries anything. They may know they will die, but they will not take more than necessary with them.

I'd go so far as to say that you could get away with NO security in airports and be just fine. People always want what they can't have (even terrorists). I can take a bomb on a plane?! Well that's not fun anymore, now I don't want to do it. I mean ultimately, WHAT EXACTLY are we being protected from with all the security? I can still go to any regional airport and get on a charter plane, or take flying lessons, with absolutely no security screening before I get in the plane. Clearly 9/11 demonstrated the power of what could happen, but as I stated above, I don't see that happening again. So who cares if Joe Blow has a 9mm in his pocket on a 737? What if Joe Blow on the train, or in the cubicle next to you has one? Do we want security EVERYWHERE just so that we are "safe"?

The "reactive" nature of the TSA is plainly not working and just downright frustrating. I hope somebody sees the light soon.

DataNerd meet Frugal

We have been a PNC (formerly National City) customer for the last five years or so. We were signed up for their Points program (visaextras) from the time it was announced I believe. Recently we noticed we have been expiring points, so I hopped on the site to see what kind of cheap freeness we could get for our imaginary currency.

I was surprised there actually are some things of value, however you seem to need a unnatural amount of points to get the really cool stuff. I started wondering if they had an internal "point = $x" equation to figure out how to price stuff. So, I wasted a couple hours to find out.

It took some manual scraping, but I eventually got a nice, albiet small, sample of items to analyze.

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One thing you'll notice right away, is that it's clearly not even accross the board. However, what jumps out at me is that, for the most part, they seem to have a static value of 1 point = $0.0025. It's not exact, but on a majority of the gift cards, this is what it came to.

The high dollar gift cards seem to have a significantly higher value, up to $0.003 on the $500 Talbots card. So of the items I compared, that is by far your best "bang for your point."

*Also of note, all prices are lowest available price available via internet order for physical items. On Gift Cards it is the actual value of the card.