No Comment Dept.

This, posted 31 January by the London newspaper the Daily Mail, on its Web site dailymail.co.uk:

"TSA (Transportation Security Administration) officials have been blasted for "outrageous'' bungling after it emerged that they found two possible pipe bombs in a passenger's luggage at New York's LaGuardia Airport yesterday - but waited six hours before telling the police.

"The suspicious objects were kept in a public area used by hundreds of passengers and at one point were left casually resting on a radiator.''

A Post-Election Travel Wishlist

Now that the dust is settling, sort of, from the U.S. mid-term elections, could we talk?

We need to talk about what resident Americans and international visitors alike need in ample measure: Transport infrastructure and a travel security system that work. Getting these things from a polity that is so fractured and self-righteously angry will not be easy. But the country that once had the finest travel infrastructure in the world is going to have to retool and rebuild if we want to get ourselves and our products from one place to another safely and in good time.

Politicians of all stripes always say they want to heal not divide and create jobs not destroy them. Transport is a good place to start doing these things. It is not as controversial as hot-button social issues and, as noted, transport upgrades are badly needed.

Yes, it will require raising revenue and spending some of it. But it will also pay for itself, as Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower understood back in the 1950s, when he authorized construction of the interstate highway system and generated thousands of construction jobs and countless more business opportunities for vendors and suppliers.

So, here is a shortlist of badly needed projects:

Highways. Ike's dream network needs to be repaired. After 50-plus years of use in some spots, it is in decidedly bad shape. I have seen much better highways in places as far-flung as Malaysia, South Africa and Spain. A stretch of interstate near my home in California that was supposed to be repaved in 2009 has still not been touched. Rutted, cracked and badly patched, it is in even worse condition now than it was in '09. Nearly everyone in car-crazy America drives on these roads.

Rail. We need improved and expanded passenger railroads, high-speed and otherwise, to take people out of cars, ease congestion in airports and be kinder to the environment. Japan, China, France, Taiwan, Germany and other countries show America it can be done.

Air travel. We need the long-promised next generation of air traffic control at U.S. airports. We are lucky there haven't been more fatal accidents brought on in part by antiquated, radar-based and over-extended systems. We need a GPS-based Next Gen system that will bring the world's largest aviation market into the 21st century.

While we are at it, could we have a sane, balanced air travel security system? I mean, employ the latest in technology - isn't the U.S. supposed to be a leader in tech? - and combine that with rational screening and, yes, a passenger profiling system built with a variety of criteria. Someone in addition to Caucasian grandmothers needs to be pulled over in airport security lines from time to time. Americans have a laudable desire not to scapegoat entire races and religions and envelop all their members in a cloud of suspicion. This is good, but people need to understand that political correctness and bending over backwards so as not to offend must give way to a more common-sense approach. Americans seem horribly afraid to offend people - including people who are trying to kill them.

Given the gridlock in Washington these days, it may be hard to get any part of this list put into play. But we can hope, right?

Two Cheers for Emirates, and U.S. Security

How good is the U.S. no-fly list of terrorist suspects and the airlines charged with helping to implement it? So good the system held up the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy when he was trying to board a flight, but didn't stop the prime suspect in this week's failed Times Square bombing from getting on an Emirates Airline plane at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The good news is the suspect - a U.S. citizen attempting to flee to his native Pakistan by way of Dubai - was pulled off the plane just minutes before it took off from JFK. So, the system worked - kind of - as the Obama administration is trying to convince everyone it did. But, why was the suspected bomber - whose name was placed on a no-fly list hours before he boarded his late-night flight - allowed to pass through security and get on the plane in the first place? U.S. officials say it's because Emirates employees at JFK airport didn't check his name against the updated list.

This episode raises reasonable doubts about how hard Emirates tried to comply with the no-fly list, a deeply flawed but necessary tool to safeguard safety in the skies. Last year, I flew on Emirates - a glitzy, high-profile carrier fueled by petrodollars and backstopped by the government of Dubai - and found it modern and stylish but cold. Cabin crew are, by the airline's own account, a young, attractive, international bunch selected in large part because of the perceived glamour they bring to the flying experience. That's just so perfect for a magazine layout - maybe less so for providing warm customer service or being sensitive to security needs.

According to media accounts, Emirates didn't respond to requests for specific answers to hard questions about the Times Square suspect, but did issue a general statement saying it's always attentive to security and is cooperating fully with investigators. Well, that's fine, but why didn't airline workers at the airport check this special traveler's name against the no-fly list, and why didn't his purchase of a one-way ticket - with cash, no less - raise alarms?

This points to a big flaw in the system, nearly nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States with hijacked jetliners. At present, U.S. authorities depend on airlines to help implement the system on international flights. The U.S. government has not taken over the program, as some have called-for. A federal takeover won't be perfect, either, but it's a thought.

So, two cheers for Washington, and for Emirates. They apprehended a wanted man, but he nearly got away. And in coming close to slipping the dragnet, he exposed a glaring weakness in aviation security in a tense and dangerous time.

Keeping the Nation Safe from Toothpaste

Here is some recommended summer reading, travel division:

Check out the Room for Debate blog on the the New York Times site, www.nytimes.com. An Aug. 1 discussion excerpts a few of some 600 reader suggestions on how to improve domestic U.S. air travel, and it makes for reading that is by turns funny, infuriating, all-too-familar and occasionally thought-provoking.

The posting that resonated the most with me came from a reader who complained about the treatment from Transportation Security Administration airport screeners over toothpaste:

"On a recent flight from Phoenix airport, a security agent confiscated my toothpaste, because it was labeled 4 ounces and the limit was only three. This in spite of the fact that the squeezed-up tube showed that I had obviously already used up more than half of the contents. I realize that we have to take precautions to protect ourselves from the fanatics and nutcases of the world, but surely there is room for a little common sense.''

One would think so, dear reader and fellow-traveler, And yet, there seems to be something about toothpaste that makes American security agents all the more rigid and suspicious at airport screening stations.

Recently, my wife was stopped at San Francisco International Airport by a screener who rifled through her neatly packed carry-on suitcase, declining to say what he was looking for, while taking his sweet time while doing it. Finally, he pulled out an offending item: My wife's toothpaste, a 9-ouncer, which he confiscated. Too big, he said. It ran counter to the 3-ounce-maximum rule for liquids and gels, he said. When my wife pointed out that her toothpaste was a clearly labeled paste, not a gel, he said nothing. There was no relenting on an arbitrary decision and no apology for the wild goose chase and her now-riotously disorganized suitcase.

Look, we all realize that overworked and lightly paid airport screeners have an important job to do. But all too often, they're not doing it. Reporters and undercover Feds routinely sneak forbidden items through porous security in tests, and the frequent lack of courtesy at many U.S. airports offends foreign visitors unnecessarily and rankles Americans, themselves. The Times reader had it right: A little common sense, not to mention civility, would go a long way.

Oh, one more thing in that nytimes.com exchange that's worth noting: It includes a rare defense of (sensitive) profiling at airports:

"Get rid of the silly, non-effective so-called security measures,'' another readers writes. "My 71-year-old mother, with health problems, should not need to remove her shoes and be treated like a 23-year-old man. Exclusionary profiling makes sense at airports.''