This one’s for you, Dan Gardner

Nate Silver makes the point, better than I’ve seen it made elsewhere, that I’ll be making as often as I can, whenever asked, about the current orgy of airport security over-reaction now sweeping Western airports, governments and newscasts: flying is massively safer than it ever was. Incremental millions poured into making airports even more annoying won’t save a life (as Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, they’ll probably kill people by diverting them to less-safe highway travel.)

One can dream of politicians who’d make this point instead of pandering to cheap fear. One shouldn’t get one’s hopes up.