Hot Air is linking to this in the Headlines section….
‘Naked scanners’: Lobbyists join the war on terror
By: Timothy P. Carney

But this is government we’re talking about. A program or product doesn’t need to be effective, it only needs to have a good lobby. And the naked-scanner lobby is small but well-connected.

What follows is a serious of contracts awarded the day after an attack attempt and various other conspiracy nonsense about Bush.

then…

Even if the Christmas Day bomber had succeeded, the number would be under 3,500.

Those are horrible deaths. But in that same period, more than 150,000 people have been murdered in the United States. We haven’t put the entire U.S. on lockdown — or even murder capitals like Detroit, New Orleans and Baltimore.

While reducing the murder rate to zero is very desirable, we also understand that the costs, in terms of liberty and resources, are too great. But when it comes to air travel, 9/11 seems to have stripped away our ability to put things in perspective.

Politicians feed into that paranoia with their rhetoric. And lobbyists and government contractors feed on the paranoia.

Who is Timothy P. Carney?

Carney attended a course in summer 1999 and has subsequently been a “reporter, Evans/Novak Political Report, editor, Human Events Online, reporter, Human Events, published in Wall Street Journal Europe, National Review Online, Brainwash, Labor Watch, WorldNetDaily, Doublethink, The American Conservative, LewRockwell.com, appeared on ‘Talk Back Live’ (CNN)

I really think we’ve arrived at the Ron Paul/conservative convergence this week.