Feds Should Flunk out of Education | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

Feds Should Flunk out of Education | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary: "On a per-pupil basis, the Digest reports an inflation-adjusted rise from $435 in 1970 to $1,015 in 2006"

"The problem is that politicians say lots of things, and, unlike when you pay more for a car to get better safety or mileage, when politicians spend money it's often not to get better education. No, it's to curry favor with teacher unions, administrator associations or other special interests whose members get paid with increased federal funding and will raise hell for politicians who don't push it. So spending goes up, up, up, but achievement stays down, down, down."

TSA Searches, Bomb Risk Near Zero | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary

TSA Searches, Bomb Risk Near Zero | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In 99 million domestic flights over the past decade, transporting seven billion U.S. travelers, there have been zero bombs snuck on to planes and detonated. (The one failed attempt came from overseas.) Common sense calls that a risk that's near zero."

"Air travel will never be 100 percent safe. But it would take a lot of successful attacks to make it more dangerous, for example, than driving."

On Air Security, We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary

On Air Security, We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For | David Rittgers | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Passengers have been holding their own as a check on terrorists quite admirably ever since the traveling public learned that the rules of the hijacking game had changed.

The passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 immediately took action on Sept. 11, 2001, storming the cockpit and stopping another terrorist attack at the cost of their own lives. Three months later, two flight attendants and a defensive line of international travelers sacked would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid before he could score.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was right when she said that 'the system worked' after a Dutch filmmaker tackled the would-be Christmas Day 2009 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The system did work, if you count the passengers as part of 'the system.'"