So apparently the TSA has gone totally nuts after the christmas bomb incident.

One of the voices of reason is Nate Silver. Nate calculated the (astronomically low) odds of being on one of those flights affected by those 3 attempted terrorist acts over the past 8 years. Do note the word “attempted.” There has not be a single successful one since 2001. So over 8 years, 0 people died. Each year, approximately 45000 Americans die from lack of health insurance. Let me make that bold: Approximately 45000 Americans die from lack of health insurance. Hmm, that’s not enough, let’s make that red and bold and larger: Approximately 45000 Americans die from lack of health insurance.

That’s better. Now notice the difference. Even if we include 2001 in our statistics (and we can include all of recorded terrorism history in the US if we want to), that’s still less than one tenth of the deaths in 10 years (or a hundered years) by terrorism, than in one year by health insurance.

Now for the crosswalks. When my wife interviewed at one company in San Diego, she asked why there wasn’t a crosswalk across the busy street that was between the two buildings the company was renting. Apparently the city refused to put in a crosswalk if there wasn’t a deadly accident on the street.

And now thanks to someone who didn’t manage to blow up his crotch (or actually that’s the only thing he managed to blow up). We won’t be able to use blankets for the last hour of the flight? They will frisk babies (and take their blankets?). They are endangering the health of millions of passengers to protect us from 0 deaths in the past 8 years. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the lack of blankets would have prevented a single terrorism attempt in the entire history of terrorism. I think that’s bordering on criminal on the part of TSA.

But let’s reiterate the main numbers: 45,000 each year die from lack of health insurance, in the past 8 years, nobody died from airplane terror.