Interesting division of opinion on the boxcutter guy. Is he (A) an

irresponsible trouble-maker with a warped mind, inflicting further damage on

the nation’s nerves (not to mention the airline industry) when we have not

yet recovered from the post-9/11 blues, or (b) a libertarian folk hero,

showing up the ineffectuality of the administration’s

let’s-create-a-new-bureaucracy-staffed-with-bored-dimwits approach to

airline security? Me, I’m with the b’s. I think the guy performed a

valuable public service. In fact, in the spirit of Inspector Clouseau

encouraging his valet to ambush him, by way of keeping him alert, I’d like

to propose a system of federal rewards to be given to anyone successfully

smuggling dangerous objects through airport security. (To avoid nasty

accidents, you would only be eligible for one of the rewards if you declared

your contraband at the departure gate, just before boarding the plane.) It

could be one on a sliding scale: $1,000 for a box cutter, $10,000 for a

shoe bomb, $100,000 for a live hand grenade, $1,000,000 for a nuclear

weapon… That sort of thing.