How safe do you feel?

It's been more than eight years now since the Al Qaeda attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and in that time how much has our security against future attacks improved? As the events of Christmas Day, when a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links almost blew up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet as it was about to land in Detroit, not much.

Frankly, I am appalled at how little progress has been made. All we've done is convince ordinary law-abiding Americans that it's too much hassle to fly these days, especially of they want to take enough toiletries and cosmetics to last them more than two or three days. I agree with columnist Maureen Dowd who asked recently:

"If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?"

As for me, I don't feel that safe at all, and I won't feel much better until Congress overcomes Republican opposition and implements full-body imaging as a screening tool at airports.