The joke called TSA

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
nk.net...

wrote in message
...

His point was that if you profiled pilots instead of Arabs, you would
have had a greater proablility of a hit on a 9/11 hijacker.

Would we? What fraction of worldwide terrorism is perpetrated by Arabs
and what fraction is perpetrated by pilots?

You've got the statistics backwards. The probability of a hit on a hijacker
if you profile trait X depends on the fraction of X's that are hijackers,
not the fraction of hijackers that are X's.

And as I mentioned earlier, the fraction of pilots in the US who were among
the 9/11 hijackers is larger than the fraction of Muslims in the US who were
among the 9/11 hijackers. (Both fractions, of course, are miniscule.)

You replied, first, that none of the 9/11 hijackers were pilots. When I
documented the falsehood of that reply, you retorted that none of the
hijackers were 757/767 pilots.

The only apparent reason for you to segue to that non sequitur was to avoid
acknowledging that your first reply (which was at least germane) was
factually mistaken.

--Gary