BETTER AIR SECURITY IN MOGADISHU? “A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The Somali man — whose name has not yet been released — was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off.”

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: How’s that 9/11 Commission reorganization working? “Does this sound like a streamlined organization, with reduced tensions and better cooperation, ready to defend America? Or does it sound like a dysfunctional mess, more concerned with turf wars than the war on terror? Perhaps the remarkable thing is how effective they have managed to be despite the mess Congress made of the intelligence community four years ago.”

AZIZ POONAWALLA: Mousavi is not Husain; Ahmadinejad is not Yazid.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Napolitano In Context. “That’s like saying you shouldn’t be worried about terrorism at all, because even if you were flying on 9/11, the likelihood of you being on one of the actual flights that were hijacked is very low.”

Meanwhile, in the comments, people are noticing that Hillary is getting a pass for the State Department’s visa issuance.

CHANGE: Oil Rises Over $79 a Barrel.

ROBERT POOLE: Are We Going To Get Serious About Aviation Security? Not yet, as far as I can tell.

Related: An interview with Bruce Schneier.

IN INTELLIGENCE, AS WITH EVERYTHING ELSE, bigger government is worse government. The post-9/11 bureaucratic consolidation didn’t help things, but made them worse. All I can say is, I told you so.

TYLER COWEN: Why hasn’t the Fed been targeting two or three percent inflation? “I also regard this as a somewhat gruesome hypothesis. It means that ‘Main Street’ is paying for ‘Wall Street’ (forgive me the use of those awful terms) in at least two ways: high unemployment and inability to earn much on one’s savings.”

IOWAHAWK HAS A SPECIAL GUEST COLUMN ON the problem with holiday jihad travel. “Time was, a suicide mission to explode an international jumbo jet was an event full of glamor and excitement; but now it seems to be a endless series of delays, hassles, pushy jerks and third-degree testicular chemical burns. And don’t even get me started on the crappy airline food.”

Plus this:

So she looks at her computer screen and says, “um, I’m afraid there’s a problem, this passenger’s name is on a watch list.” Oh, great. Looks like my dad is playing Mr. Buzzkill again, just because I took that semester off from Oxford to go backpacking in Yemen. So I showed her my official State Department visa.

So I’m like, “honey, do I look like I’m a US military veteran?”

“No.”

“Do I look like I’m some sort of right wing anti-tax teabagger?”

“No.”

“Do I look like anybody else on the DHS terrorism danger list?”

“No, but…”

“Then I suggest that unless you want a nasty anti-discrimination lawsuit on your hands, you’d best give me an aisle seat. With extended legroom.”

Read the whole thing.

EUGENE VOLOKH: $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Students for “Acting White”.

GREG MANKIW ON INFLATION: The Monetary Base is exploding. So what?

UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails:

The monetary high command is in full butt-covering mode now. There are so many ill-defined moving parts in their policy kit that both history and forecasts can be drafted to ensure their retrospective accuracy. Mankiw, by all accounts a decent bloke, labors under the Harvard brand, which has come to mean “From those wonderful folks who gave you Larry Summers…”

Ouch.

YALE WIMPS OUT AGAIN: A T-shirt calling Harvard men “sissies” proves too offensive for students and administrators.

ED MORRISSEY: Where is the national GOP in the Massachusetts special election?

Being disintermediated via the Internet, by all appearances . . . .

DAN MITCHELL: The Real Healthcare “Chart of the Day.”

WHO OWNS the National Counterterrorism Center?

GORDON CROVITZ: Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.

MAX BAUCUS: I was totally sober. If I were trying to convince people of my sobriety, I probably wouldn’t invoke my 30-year friendship with Ted Kennedy as part of my argument . . . .

Plus, a defense of sorts: “After a month filled with stories about this tool giving his girlfriend pay raises and trying to have her named a U.S. Attorney, getting liquored up on the floor would be the least of his sins.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Rethinking Travel to Academic Conferences (Again). “Regular readers know that I keep threatening to quit traveling by airplanes to anything except for funerals of immediate family members. But if the new rules are as idiotic as they sound at first blush, I may finally carry through with that threat.”

JACOB SULLUM: Obama’s Medical Marijuana Muddle.

A BUNCH OF new releases on Blu-Ray.

FIRST MAX BAUCUS, now this. The smearers will stop at nothing!

REASON TV: Worst Decade Ever.

TAKE TWO: Obama admits ‘systemic failure’ on handling advance Nigerian terrorist info.

UPDATE: Related: Suddenly, Obama’s not so fluent any more.

Not enough sleep?

TONY WOODLIEF: An undying faith in the classroom. “Monsters are monsters, it seems, for want of enough lectures.” (Via Brutally Honest).

Seems like another example of Christopher Hitchens’ point about ignoring the guilty while visiting collective punishment on the innocent.

BLOWING UP A TV: But what’s that “Do not attempt to do anything like this on your own” business?

ISLATE, ITABLET, ISLAB, WHATEVER: Bites From The Apple: A Roundup of News from The Apple Empire.