Craig Cheslog

Behind on my reading, I only now saw this outstanding post by Bruce Schneier about what should be done to improve airport security. His plan:

This would be my real answer: "Establish accountability and transparency for airport screening." And if I had another sentence: "Airports are one of the places where Americans, and visitors to America, are most likely to interact with a law enforcement officer - and yet no one knows what rights travelers have or how to exercise those rights."

Schneier wants transparency about the no-fly and watch lists. He argues that there should be clear and explicit rules about what passengers can expect from TSA at checkpoints. He calls for "airport security [to] be solely about terrorism, and not a general-purpose security checkpoint to catch everyone from pot smokers to deadbeat dads."

That's an outstanding plan. Sadly, it is hard to imagine much of it being implemented.

I really hope I'm wrong about the pun in the title. Calculated Risk looks at the report and updates some scary looking charts.

As someone who cannot handle the sky glider at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (much to my children's mocking merriment), obviously there is absolutely no way I'd consider doing this:

Visitors to the Sears Tower's new glass balconies all seem to agree: The first step is the hardest.

The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. Their transparent walls, floor and ceiling leave visitors with the impression they're floating over the city.

There's also no way I could watch people do it. I could not even finish the accompanying slideshow that featured kids enjoying the view.

(Hat tip: Chris at Americablog)

The California Budget Project's Jean Ross identifies a major reason for our ongoing budget crises: California's insane two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget.

But there's a fourth culprit at work right now in California, one we can do something about: the state's two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget and tax increases. Without the two-thirds vote requirement, it's likely that California's policymakers would have been able to come to an agreement that could have averted the issuing of IOUs.

Indeed.

Talk about your unexpected headlines: as I was starting my almost-daily regimen of surfing the English newspaper web sites for Premier League news, I was initially quite taken back when I saw that Manchester United was on the verge of signing troubled/cursed/erstwhile Newcastle United striker Michael Owen on a free transfer.

What?

Then, after a quick chant of "Every Single One Of Us Loves Alex Ferguson mp3 here," I gave this one some more thought: and the more I liked the idea.

The risk appears to be low, as reports are this is an incentive-laden deal. The Red Devils get a player who is not yet 30, has something (a lot of something) to prove (including, perhaps, a last chance to get back on the England World Cup team), and is reunited with Wayne Rooney.

No, it is not what I was expecting to see after the Reds collected Real Madrid's £80 million. But the crazy spending binge being led by Real Madrid has changed what is possible in this transfer window.

I know many fellow Manchester United supporters will not agree: but in my view this is a risk worth taking, assuming he passes the "stringent physical" required before signing. He'll know this is his last shot to regain his reputation.

It may not work, but all of the elements are in place to make success possible. Now we'll see if this is but a mere transfer rumor or something more substantial.

You may think it's primarily about solving a deficit. Sure, that's a factor. But with our state's insane two-thirds vote requirement, it often isn't the primary issue in play. MediaNews Sacramento reporter Steve Harmon explains the ambitions of the Republican legislative leaders:

Even as state officials are preparing today to issue IOUs to state vendors and certain taxpayers, Hollingsworth and Blakeslee -- and their caucuses -- are demanding reforms that would undercut labor gains, shrink the social safety net and relax regulations on business. The two leaders said they see the crisis as a chance to instill more discipline on the state's appetite for spending -- and to lift the Republican philosophy of a small-government, entrepreneurial-based economy.

Yes, no need to win those pesky things called "elections" to lift your philosophy. With a base that includes just a little more than one-third of the legislature's members, they get to impose their Norquistian drown-the-rest-of-government-in-the-bathtub philosophy on the state.

The anti-democratic two-thirds vote requirement is at the heart of California's dysfunction. Until democracy is returned to our budget process, the state will continue to falter.

After reading Governor Schwarzenegger's snarky tweets about the state budget crisis last night, I was hoping to see him tweet about the kind of victory cigar he used to celebrate his take-it-or-leave-it result: one that ensure IOUs would be issued on his watch as our state's leader.

Tough talk and snarky tweets do not equal leadership.

John Hodgman brings the funny. And, perhaps, another look at why some people are frustrated with a president who does not appear to govern as liberal as his rhetoric appears.

Over at Altercation, Charles Pierce makes note of Tom Daschle's statement that tort reform must be a part of any reform plan:

Just shut up, please. For my own edification, is there any provision of the 2008 Republican platform that Tom Daschle thinks should be left out of the Democratic health-reform package, now rapidly morphing into the Preservation Of The Greedy Insurance Bastards Act of 2009? School vouchers? Missile defense?

Alas, that is all-too-good of a question.

CaliforniaCityNews.org has a post about an over-the-top hiring requirement in Bozeman:

If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page.

As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said.

I really could understand if the requirement was to disclose all of your social networking sites so they could be reviewed, but demanding your usernames and passwords? That simply goes too far.

Update: My friend KL Tweets: The best response on Fark to that story: tell 'em it violates the Terms Of Service for the websites and you obey rules

Now that the Republican National Committee has decided to police presidential vacations, I wonder if they would like to make a statement about whether President Bush should have stayed on vacation after his August 6, 2001, intelligence briefing?

The California Progress Report reprints the letter State Controller John Chiang wrote to the governor and legislative leaders on Friday to explain the state's impending cash flow crisis -- and why he needs corrective action taken by June 15.

Our latest projections show that beginning on July 29, California will not have the cash needed to meet all of its payment obligations. On that date, the State will be in the red by $317.1 million; two days later, on July 31, our cash deficit increases to a negative $1.02 billion.

As the attached chart demonstrates, the State's cash problems will only grow in severity in the subsequent months without Legislative action. The State will reach its lowest cash balance in April 2010, when we will fall short of meeting our payment obligations by nearly $22 billion.

And California's radical conservatives get closer to the date for which they have long dreamed: when they can follow Grover Norquist's dictate and drown the rest of California's safety net in a bathtub.

Via KQED Radio John Myers' Twitter feed, I learn that the San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross report sources are telling them Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will not run for governor in 2010. If true, that would leave Attorney General Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as the top two candidates remaining.

Losing two major candidates in this race (as Lt. Governor John Garamendi has decided to seek the 10th Congressional District office in an expected special election) does not make things better. Given how important it is for a Democrat to win this seat in 2010, I'd rather have more top people testing each other to strengthen the eventual primary winner for what will be a tough general election fight.

The Republican National Committee scrapes the bottom of the barrel in attacking President Obama for having a date night in New York City. As the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen writes:

First, the Obamas didn't take the usual Air Force One jet. It's a short flight, and the First Couple took a smaller plane (technically, any plane the president is on automatically becomes Air Force One, but the point is, the Obamas didn't take the Air Force One).

Second, by the RNC's reasoning, the Obamas would never be able to enjoy a nice evening out, since there's always something going on in the world. ("The president went to his daughter's soccer game in the midst of two wars? Outrageous!")

And third, isn't this whining unusually small-minded, even by RNC standards? The President took the First Lady on a date to NYC. They didn't even spend the night in the city. Is everything grounds for petty, partisan sniping?

Yes. When that's all you have left in the toolbag. Yes, it is.

Republicans against date nights. I look forward to seeing how that works out for them.

Reporting from China, James Fallows notes from his experience that only a small minority of Chinese residents know enough about what happened 20 years ago at Tiananmen Square to give June 4 any real significance.