He boasted that he had beaten the supposedly impregnable tunnel security "wearing my flip-flops".
And I felt that an injustice was being enacted, that our roles should be reversed: I, the professor with laughably impregnable job security (it's called tenure), ought to be offering money to her, the magnanimous, candy-munching woman who wished to keep an evidently down-at-the-heels man supplied with reading glasses.
This relevance must be demonstrated before elections to the country's labour tribunals on December 11th.But the biggest reason is the threat to the perks that no public-sector worker will easily give up, notably early retirement (at 55 in many cases), virtually impregnable job-security, and generous pensions.
The hook-and-eye relationship of these locks was so tight that the one on the front door had to be pounded in with a hammer; that done, one's sense of security was impregnable, and yet the space between wall and roof left the interior breezy and cool.
This was the second time in a month — after the infinitely more alarming bloodbath at Fort Hood — that a supposedly impregnable bastion of post-9/11 American security was easily breached.
"We will be a real backbone for the security forces and an impregnable fortress for this country," he said.
"However, like any piece of security software, they are not impregnable and are an attractive target for attackers".
No matter how tight the control, how rigid the security, how frequent the inspections or "impregnable" the prison, the man who desires freedom above all other things always does think of something else.
What is so dismal about this situation, quite apart from the naked self-interest that it represents, is that it underlines that while the British public is expected to put up with ever-increasing levels of intrusion by surveillance, in the name of transparency and security, those in power create for themselves an impregnable bunker where honour, accountability and public opinion count for nothing.
And committing the surplus to Social Security, that most untouchable of programs, would be a politically impregnable roadblock to using it for tax cuts.
