Some Thoughts on the Latest Man-Caused Disaster Attempt
We will probably double down on the stupidity, as indicated above. We won’t trust passengers to defend themselves and their airplane, but we will continue with failed gun/knife/bomb-control policies. We will continue to be politically correct and refuse to profile properly. The Israelis, who understand this problem better than anyone, will continue to laugh and/or cry, as we continue to look for weapons, while they continue to look for, and find, terrorists. And little old ladies and babies will continue to be wanded.
3. If the goal is to blow up, as opposed to hijack, an airplane, the weak link remains checked luggage. When will we figure out that the best approach to this is to separate luggage from passengers on different flights? It would be more inconvenient (requiring advance planning and pickup, a la Fed Ex) and probably more costly, but I’d feel a lot more secure knowing that all of that luggage was now a) an unattractive target, because there’s not much terror in blowing up an airplane full of luggage (except for the crew who knew the job was dangerous when they took it) and b) not sharing an airplane with me.
4. This is the most depressing thought. It’s a hell of a lot easier to blow something up than to build it, because it’s always been and always will be easier to increase than to decrease entropy. There are an infinite number of ways to arrange matter in ways that are worthless, and many fewer to do so to create value. So statistically, without active effort, there will be more crud than cream. As long as there are people who revel in destruction, it is going to be impossible to prevent them from doing so. We can at best minimize it, and we are in a vicious technological arms race in which the offense in that regard will probably always be ahead of the defense. The only thing that has kept terrorists from killing many more of us is their rank incompetence, as exemplified by Richard Reid. We have been fortunate in our enemies so far, but as technology continues to advance, even people with sub-room-temperature IQs may get the capacity to do real damage.
We are not at war with bombs of any particular design, or guns, or rusty knives for the hacking off of heads, or even “terror” itself. We are at war with a totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion. Its adherents want to subjugate all who are not of them to their will, or kill them. That is, us. And as long as that belief system has many millions of adherents (and it does), even if only a small percentage of them have sufficient competence to kill the millions that they hope to in order to achieve their goals, they will, as technology continues to advance, succeed.
The world does not fear Nazis today, not because we destroyed their weapons, but because we broke the back of their belief system. And this new totalitarian enemy is much more dangerous, because it doesn’t just worship power. It revels in death and destruction, even its own. We are at war with jihad, and that war will not end until radical Islam has no more adherents. How to achieve that end is unknown, but few of the possibilities seem very palatable.
5. This all has a feeling of deja vu to it. We are going to spend the next days and weeks discussing all the things that we discussed eight years ago. The same stupid arguments will be made that are refuted by politically incorrect reality, but at the end, airline travel will be even more onerous, fewer will choose to fly for short trips, the airlines will take it in the shorts again (and probably need another bailout), and the incompetents at the TSA will be rewarded. We will be less free and, in that hoary old phrase, the terrorists will have won, without blowing up a single plane.
I hope that at least this time that TSA will provide us with statues of Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while we stand in line, so we when we take off our shoes and belts we can, as James Lileks has colorfully suggested, “hit them in the yarbles” with them. Perhaps it will help us vent our rage and reduce the chances that we will instead turn it on the hapless actors in the ongoing security theater.
How wonderful it is to be angry. Certainly everyone is to blame for everything but good ol me, Rand Simberg. If there have been a total of three terrorist attacks on airliners in eight years that’s the FAULT of Homeland Security, not because they are doing their job. Its not like there was a huge terrorist attack before the Homeland Security in which thousands lost their lives while the commander in chief was asleep at the wheel, or that he opposed the agency until it was a fait acompli.
Thank you for putting in such sharp focus the essence of teabagging. Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity. Just old angry bitter people shaking their fists at whatever gets into their field of vision.
The Director of DHS, that affirmative action, brain dead clown Janet Nepolitano–has appeared on several major news shows today to reassure us all and to say, over and over again, that “the system worked!” explaining that, after the attack, the DHS and other relevant agencies shared information, papers were prepared and sent, briefings were held, and flight security precautions were heightened.
That is “the system worked” if by that you mean; that someone who had been on the terrorism watch list for a few years, and was, further, ratted out to the U.S. Embassy in London, by his own worried father—no less—six months ago—was, yet, able to get/keep his U.S. passport, able to buy a plane ticket to the U.S., passed airport security and, yet, was able to smuggle aboard the aircraft the high explosive components of a PETN bomb that–had it detonated properly–was capable of causing the plane to crash, killing all 300 passengers and crew, and that, except for a faulty detonator and a brave and quick thinking Dutch passenger who tackled him, the Muslim terrorist would have possibly/likely succeeded.
Oh, yeah, our “system worked all right!”
It seems that recent Democratic administrations have no real hesitations about and are much more adept at killing our own citizens–the men, women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge come to mind–and much more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and all the solicitude, understanding and benefits of our Constitution to Muslim terrorists–like Major Hasan–who kill or are trying to kill us, than is good for us, unless, of course, we are bent on suicide.
Ms. Nepolitano needs to be removed immediately and replaced with someone who has a brain in their head, is not blinded by PC, and has some actual experience and talent in this critical area, someone who has some credibility, and is not another Perez Hilton appointment.
You are “jumping to” a lot of “conclusions”,
but we shouldn’t behave “stupidly” as “the Police”
and we should instead speak another time from Cairo to the muslim world
that therefore will love us
and since, as Michael Moore says, “there is no terrorist threat”
we will be able to concentrate on the real threat represented by
pro-lifers, gun-owners, Bible studying fanatics.
And let’s not forget to give to this confused young engineer a fair trial.
Maybe on a plane.
PS How am I going ? How is my re-education proceeding ?
Do I get permission to go home and see my family ?
BREAKING NEWS
this is not a joke like my last post, it’s real
from FOXNEWS:
Police Arrest ‘Disruptive’ Passenger Aboard Plane at Detroit Airport
Sunday, December 27, 2009
* Print
* ShareThis
Police have arrested a Nigerian man who reportedly became verbally disruptive and barricaded himself in the bathroom of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Sunday.
Several police vehicles and a police command unit have surrounded a plane at Detroit’s Metro Airport, after the pilot of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight requested emergency help.
Two sources tell Fox News that the suspect boarded a plan in Lagos with no baggage, and said the FBI has already sent an email alert to other federal agencies notifying them of the incident.
The source said the man taken into custody at the Detroit airport was a Nigerian man in his 30s. Federal officials know who the suspect is, but won’t provide any more details. He allegedly barricaded himself in the plane’s bathroom for an hour.
Her’s a simple-minded question.
If they use dogs to sniff for explosive in luggage, why could they not have dogs sniff passengers as they board the plane? It would seem a lot easier to detect chemicals up a pant leg than imbedded inside a sturdy suitcase.
“When someone from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab is lighting his pants in the window seat, it’s pretty hard to be politically correct and avoid reality.”
President Obama tries his best to avoid reality daily. Won’t change a thing from the Obama Administration until his fantasy world, ObamaLand comes crshing down around him with his false porcelain public facade.
But according to the news he was just sick. Is all. Nothing to see here.
Just because he hails from Nigeria and has a muslim name means nothing, right, Alice?
i know it’s not a joke – this nigerian miscreant barricaded himself in bathroom for an hour- i actually feel like my head will explode from this asshat administration. from now on, if you see something, do something.
Good article. One wonders what it will really take for people in this country to wake-up. Knowing who your real enemies are is rule #1 for survival. But the tinker toys on the Left are so focused on their social justice utopia, they can’t/won’t see anything else.
And Ms Nolin, your remarks addressed to the author were rude and crude but that seems to be what you folks do best.
Alice, may neither you or anyone that you love ever have to deal with the consequences of sitting in the proverbial seat 19B should a detonating device actually work as intended.
It is apologists such as you that endanger all of us in our collective refusal to see the enemy for who he is and deal with it honestly and courageously.
Just be thankful that the Homeland Security Commisar Napolitano is on the case every day; so far no pro life Christians or ex military have tried to take over an airplane. She sure has her eyes on all those evil Christians and Republicans who we know cause all the violence and evil in the neo Americanized society.
It’s more important to spare people’s lives rather than spare people’s feelings.
We have the Keystone Cops running the PC show though…
GOOD GRAVY!
#5 Stuart Wilson
If they use dogs to sniff for explosive in luggage, why could they not have dogs sniff passengers as they board the plane?
Don’t you know that the Muslim religion considers dogs to be “unclean?” Muslims would be insulted by such a procedure. We have to be sensitive to other cultures. If it means a bunch of people die that’s just the price we have to pay for progressive style virtue. And so long as people who believe in such crap don’t have to pay the price for such asinine beliefs the insanity shall continue.
Terrorist attacks.
Massacre of dissidents in Iran.
Silence from the Communist in Chief.
ALOHA !!!
Janet Napolitano’s statements this morning is just a clue hos clueless the Obama Administration is with terrorism; the terrorist would have been successful blowing up the plane had the charge gone off properly. It did not & the people on the plane overwhelmed him. It was luck no one died! Napolitano needs to be fired ASAP. She is incompetence incarnate.
I suspect that Christians or ex military are receiving special scrutiny by TSA today. Of course if you say your name is Mohammad the TSA agent will stain his neck looking the other way to find additional suspects to investigate.
The system is working! Yeah, the government will save us.
Can’t wait for my National Health Care to start….
Alice, I bet there’s a job for you in TSA. You’re just the kind of head-in-the-sand girl they need.
TSA-Thousands Standing Around
I guess it’s going to take several airliners full of passengers crashing into cities to cure these people of their political myopia.
Okay, here’s the deal. Every passenger on an airliner should have an electric stun-gun at their disposal.
(It could be incorporated into the seat-back in front of you, like the late “GTE Airfone” which EVERYBODY ignored).
That way, if some scamp misbehaved, we could have hours of fun serially zapping him or her until they put their mind right…and lost all bladder and bowel control. Make the varmint nice and docile for law enforcement when they come to collect him.
And…having the lead flight attendant armed with a mohaska might not be such a bad idea, either.
When are we going to figure out it is “THE moslims STUPID”? If they were not allowed on planes none of this would happen.
Suggest the obscure scatological comments of heterophobic people like Alice, be rewritten by changing one word from teabagging to fisting- because of people like her and Anderson Cooper, I now know what that nasty word means too. For some reason, she is jealous of the people that invented everything in only 500 years and freed the slaves while the rest of the world failed because all they invented over tens of thousands of years was stone buildings and slavery. She would be dead from disease, or child birth and have no teeth if not for the people she despises.
Her line reads: “Thank you for putting in such sharp focus the essence of teabagging. Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity. Just old angry bitter people shaking their fists at whatever gets into their field of vision.”
Change it to: “Thank you for putting in such sharp focus the essence of fisting. Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity. Just old angry bitter people shaking their fists at whatever gets into their field of vision.”
If only these financially poor, under privileged and uneducated muslems were just allowed freedom from the oppression of American whites….. Oh, he was university educated? From an affluent family? Much like many other international muslem terrorists?
Profiling is not a bad thing.
1. Sherab Zangpo #4, note that the Nigerian guy felt free to act up right after a major terrorist incident. The real problem is that our tort bar and multicultural mafia ensure that he was right. As soon as his identity is revealed, will he be offered “help” to determine whether his rights were violated?
2. It’s a hell of a lot easier to blow something up than to build it, because it’s always been and always will be easier to increase than to decrease entropy.
Not that we’re anywhere as good at building as we were in the past. The momentum of advancing technology disguises our growing, self-imposed ineffectualness.
Perhaps there’s method in Islamist madness: if civilization is made to collapse, the Islamic world might recover faster than Western weak horses.
3. This all has a feeling of deja vu to it. We are going to spend the next days and weeks discussing all the things that we discussed eight years ago. The same stupid arguments will be made that are refuted by politically incorrect reality…
Yes, this provides another pretext to reduce our liberties and raise our taxes. Nothing material will change unless a major government official is hit or we have civilian casualties 10 to 100 times 9/11′s.
And even that might be nothing more than a pretext to drastically reduce our liberties and drastically raise our taxes.
Alice, Dubya’s opposition to the Homeland Security Administration –and more specifically the Transportation Security Agency, justifiably aka “The Stupid Agency” was based on the Dem’s insistence that all jobs in TSA should be unionized.
Having seen the Air Traffic Controllers union almost paralyze air travel in the US just 20 years before hand by a threatened strike, Dubya wasn’t going down that road again. As usual, the Congressional Dems were more interested in supporting their union friends than in providing for national security. Nothing much has changed since then. Obama will take care of Andy Stern and the SEIU–the USA, not so much.
This anger will subside as it always does. We will continue to pass by the wheelchair-bound nun getting extra scrutiny and think nothing of it. Political correctness has invaded our system and there is no antidote short of revolt. There, I’ve probably put myself on a watch list. Fortunately, it appears no one looks at them.
Here is the real point. As always the government closes the barn door after the horse is out and the terrorists just move on to the next idea while TSA carefully screens for too much liquid in your cough syrup. What has been missed is that they are now making passengers stay in their seats. This was stopped because somebody got out of their seats as was the case with the shoe bomber and flight 93. The passengers on the other flights stayed in their seats. What goverment never ever takes into account is that the only people who pay attention to their silly rules are the ones that are not a problem. Like the “gun-free” zone at Virginia Tech!
19. Fantom: ‘When are we going to figure out it is “THE moslims STUPID”? If they were not allowed on planes none of this would happen.’
Yep, hate speech sure is “too loosely defined” to be detected by PJM’s crack moderators.
Now, don’t be so hard on Alice. I’m sure she is an expert on the essence of teabagging.
As 99 percent of acts of terrorism are committed by muslims it is essential and urgently necessary to have all non-muslims undergo increased security procedures and intensified surveillance. DHS.
We are at war with a totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion.
Do you mean Democrats and Obama or the Islamists?
“”And the response of the TSA?
To further punish the passengers, of course. I see that now no one will be allowed to leave their seats one hour prior to landing or have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows.”"
How does this acomplish anything other than inconvenience passengers?
The terrorists can just do their business an hour and a half prior to landing.
Alice!
Thank you for your comment. Whenever I despair that the human race does not deserve the future we are carving out for it, I look for a comment like yours and my soul is restored.
You do realize, I’m sure, that when we have finally managed to destroy western civilization through political correctness and useful idiocy (hi, Alice)the splodey-dopes will turn on each other until the last two men on Earth, a shiite and a wahhabi (or other combination), strangle each other to death a la Babylon 5.
The sad thing is that, when that happens, it might be (though, thankfully, not probably) the end of “intelligent” life in the in the universe. The Koran might be predicting rather than admonishing in the passage, “He who kills a man kills all humanity.”
If there’s anybody who’s “angry and bitter” is the Alice Nolin’s of the world, with their unthinking use of the teabagger slur (assuming of course she actually has enough knowledge to know what it means), and their idiot beliefs that only Republicans are asleep at the wheel.
And like so many of her ilk, what with their limited mental capacity, they fail to realize that these terrorist attacks, infrequent though they may be, have the potential to be extremely economically destructive.
Of course, Alice Nolin and her ilk pooh-pooh all this emphasis on the terrorist acts, because they are infrequent and seem — emphasis on seem — to be one-off. But Alice Nolin and her ilk misunderstand the potential of these crazed fundamentalist facists who would, in a minute, detonate a WMD, right in the middle of Alice’s living room, should they have the chance.
It also occurs that I would pay extra to fly an airline that used seats covered in pigskin…and advertised the fact.
Just sayin’…
Security is such a joke. Several years ago my in-laws had visited from out of town. When they were returning home I escorted them up to the security screening at our small airport and an officer told them to remove their shoes. My elderly in-laws began obeying. They were in their late 70′s at the time, my father-n-law has Parkisons and they’re standing there attempting to remove their shoes while standing. I was so infuriated I charged up and demanded a chair so they could at least sit down. A guard pointed at a chair directing me to go fetch it and bring it over which I did. Jerks. Profiling old people, it ought to be a crime.
Why is the media not asking Ms. Napolitano about the relationship between the recent posting of TSA passenger screening manual and these recent breaches? That breach disclosed security procedures.
You’ll remember Ms. Napolitano stated the security manual was an older version and the disclosure was done by third-party contractors. Now that’s leadership we can depend upon…can’t we?
Grow up Alice. Millions of Americans joined Tea Parties to protest a government which isn’t capable of anything successful. And that applies to Republicans as well as Democrats. How dare you. I AM angry at the lost generations ahead of us due to a government out of control and which will not even listen to dissent. How dare you question dissent. I am angry and if you don’t like it, too bad. And I haven’t had “a life of disappointments and mediocrity”. How dare you tell me all about my life. You don’t have a freaking clue about my life you useless waste of sperm.
21. Phranc: Profiling is not a bad thing.
Bite your tongue, and turn yourself in to
the PC Police.
Profiling is the _only_ thing that works;
Under the current rules, some Loony will
get lucky, and we will lose another plane,
or skyscraper.
Janet is liar liar pants on fire like the terrorist
I am not normally a blame-Bush person, but he got us going down this path by approving his SecTrans policy of policing what gets on airplanes vs who gets on airplanes. I am for a project that creates a OK-to-fly list, instead of a do not fly list.
Alice, may neither you or anyone that you love ever have to deal with the consequences of sitting in the proverbial seat 19B should a detonating device actually work as intended.
How are you so sure I haven’t? Hiding behind the suffering of others only delegitimates your position. Learn how to make your points using your critical faculties. Bullsh^% is Bullsh^%.
One of the fine examples of idiocy in all this has been the Administration referring to this as a ‘attempted’ terrorist attack.
Apparently it now doesn’t count as an attack unless it succeeds.
Isn’t it wonderful?
Alice, Dubya’s opposition to the Homeland Security Administration –and more specifically the Transportation Security Agency, justifiably aka “The Stupid Agency” was based on the Dem’s insistence that all jobs in TSA should be unionized.
Hilarious. Its a good thing that the they didn’t have union workers, lol.
“When will we figure out that the best approach to this is to separate luggage from passengers on different flights?”
In addition to sending one’s luggage ahead, and using as little luggage as possible is, whenever possible, one can purchase clothing and toiletries and the like at one’s destination.
Better still is to take George Harrisons’s advice, Without going out of your door, you can know all things on earth; without looking out of your window, you could know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, the less one knows.”
Looks like Al Qaeda’s gotten a Christmas present of a bunch of dumbass young muslim male Nigerians from Santa and they want to go play with ‘em now.
What can we do? Luggage segregation? How about Muslim only flights or just plain, all Muslims shall walk from now on? Sorry about that but if you don’t like it, it’s going to up to you to weed out the crazies from your midst. Until then, get good shoes. These additional security measures are asinine.
Clearly the response of the U.S. government to this crisis must include a special airline for the exclusive use of government employees in the interest of keeping them safe. Kind of like the way they get to keep their special health insurance and retirement systems instead of the Obamacare and Social Security we have had imposed on us private workers.
Not to mention permanent job security no matter how badly they do their jobs.
Alice,
“Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity. Just old angry bitter people shaking their fists at whatever gets into their field of vision.”
Actually, we “teabaggers” (as you so delicately categorize us) are waiting for this current administration to do something right. Barry and Co. are basically batting zero in getting anything right. Of course, since you live in your lefty bubble, you probably haven’t noticed. Maybe once unemployment goes past 12% you will come up for air.
Wake up you ignorant political correctness wimps,you’re killing us. If you are afraid to fight,shut up and let those that will do their job.
The AP report that is being regurgitated across the lame-stream media, Yahoo link included, is mostly a crock.
So far, the only firsthand reports are indicating that the in-flight restrictions are limited to international flights inbound to the U.S., not domestic flights, and appear to be merely an extension of the existing restriction on fiddling with electronic gear and other crap in the last 15-20 minutes of a flight.
The changes that apply to domestic (and international) flights are related to additional screening, primarily at the security checkpoints, but in some cases, a secondary screening at the boarding gate, similar to what was done in the months immediately following 9/11.
It’s not bad enough that the pc crowd and the anti-war left have kept us from sending all radical muslims to collect their virgins, on top of that we have to deal with lamestreamers like the AP misreporting their poorly researched stories.
Alice, try pulling your head out of your @$$. Amazing crack-pots like you have no concept of accountability. When you declared you won you did so arrogantly forgetting that you also are now accountable. Everything you and the idiots you voted for has been to avoid being accountable for anything. Funny how idiots like you forced your stupid social experiments and political correctness on me and when it never works you are the first person to point the finger at anyone who opposed you. When you have the spine to take accountability for your actions then feel free to say whatever you want. Until that time know your role and shut your mouth.
Dear Santa,
Next year I would like a country for Christmas. I would like to name it the United Socialist States of America. All the people who care so much could live there and help those less fortunate than themselves. What a wonderful country that would be! They could live in peace, and with everyone being a master of International diplomacy, no one would ever be mad at them again. They could have 90% tax rates and trade carbon credits to prevent global warming. Those of us that don’t share these marvelous and generous values could stay in the USA, prosper, and live as normal people, never again having to listen to, or pay for, the insanity of the caring people. Please, Santa! I promise to eat all my vegetables if you would only grant my my one true present!
Your friend,
Babsy
Sorry, just can’t resist this. I’ve never seen
pants with a window seat!
just a small quibble. Ruby Ridge happened under George the First. Admittedly, not a conservative, but definitely not a Dem
Here’s more news from this fast breaking story!
THE NW BOMBER’S THEOLOGICAL DILEMMA: BEANS WENT TO PARADISE, FRANK TO HELL
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/the-nw-bombers-theological-dilemma-beans-went-to-paradise-frank-to-hell/
The Federal government has all the wherewithalls to deal with this and will not, cowards that all of the fools who work there are.
Uh, Alice, TSA security screeners are union members.
“26. Zeke:’
Talk about “hate speech”. You sound like Robert C. Byrd defending the kkk.
Face it Big Boy, it is not “hate speech” to call the enemy what he is. Whether it be kkk, nazi’s or islam/moslim.
So,if only he had prayed loudly in the boarding area before getting on the plane, asked for a longer seat belt and then repeatedly changed seats once inside the aircraft, he could claim his civil rights were violated and now be waving a pile of greenbacks for the cameras and buying drinks for his attorneys.
Dang…all he got was a scorched hiney. Still, might be good for a few bucks from the airline, and charges can still be filed against the nasty bigots who jumped him.
Napolitano had no choice but to claim the system worked.
Antivirus programs have a lot in common with “the system.” They aren’t able to detect new exploits. They can only deal with “signatures” i.e. exploits that have already happened. The TSA has the same problem.
At best an anti-virus program can ban file types (e.g. EXE’s) but this is so intrusive as to make computing useless. Similarly the TSA could cavity search humans and make them fly naked but doing this would defeat the purpose.
Meanwhile.
Any intelligent person who doesn’t mind dying can take down an airliner. If PETN detectors get better then an enterprising and clever individual will figure out how to short out and explode a laptop battery in a strategic location using nonstandard battery chemicals that still function as a battery. And so on.
Exploits like this cannot be detected BEFORE they happen.
And regarding what many of you deem as PC, the mile high view is that there isn’t a great deal of difference between christians and muslims in that both religions are anti-technology. Muslims are claimed by christians to want to live in the 14th century. Ironically these same christians are also protesting modern technology: modern abortion is a side-effect of the ability — the technology — to do so safely e.g. RU-486; intelligent design is a deliberate 14th century era attempt to insert god into otherwise scientific endeavour no different than the concept of “monk-physician.” And so on. The difference at this time is that christians aren’t motivated enough to blow up planes, but certainly the same anti-science, anti-progress, anti-technology underpinnings are in place. Those of you who think that the west doesn’t or won’t do what muslims do have much to learn from studying the crusades.
And no, not all christians are prone to this; but then again not all muslims desire to bring down aircraft, either. So in that sense the TSA etc profiling may seem improper AT PRESENT but that could change quickly.
That said, for the present situation… if it were up to me I’d simply forbid muslims on US flag airlines, and forbid airliners entering US airspace with muslims aboard unless ALL passengers and crew were muslims. Oh, and even 3 yards of deviation of the flight plan? We have a lot of F-16′s.
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Let me sum up. Christian kooks are no different than the muslims they hate. Both groups are Abrahamic based with a lot in common. Both groups desire to exert their will and see technology as an enemy, especially technology controlled by the other side, or worse, by atheists. Both groups see themselves as chosen by their god. The primary difference AT THIS TIME is merely the degree of radicalisation.
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Janet Napolitano is jumping around clapping her hands like a circus monkey telling us all how well “the system” worked in this case. She is mad as a hatter. At Disneyland riding the cups and saucers. Loonier than Pelosi. Some jihadist freak roaming the planet with explosives in the crack of his ass and he just passes every check point and sashays into the USA. When is the world going to wake up . These peace loving muslims are never going to board planes with flowers for the Americans no matter how nice Obama is to them. Search ALL of them and let the dogs sniff them while we are at it. I think the Nigerian must be one of Obama’s relatives. Liberals are running around worrying about how the right is overreacting again. In no place but the idiot liberal mind, is some jihad sicko lighting himself on fire on an airpalne no big deal. Leave it to the right wing wackos to overreact . Good Lord where is Dick Cheney in our hour of need
What happens when someone plants a bomb in a book? No more reading on planes? What about bombs in pants? We gonna fly without pants? How far will we take this reactionary method?
Pantsless……hmmmm….
Karl K., and others: The “Alice Nolans” of the contemporary world are exactly, precisely, to a T the problem with our world.
They are the cause of minimum 90% of the difficulties in the world at present. Without there support, there simply is no even Islamist problem to speak of, let alone all the other violence and abuse foisted on good people by the PCism of witches like her.
The sooner we take care of all things Alice, the better.
But this is like taking care of all things demonic. It’s been a problem since Eden.
59. G.L. Alston:
Well , that was pretty weak. It is worth noting that Jesus healed the ear of the man taking him to his doom, while admonishing Peter for his actions. Then we have muhamed. Murderer, assassin, thief and committer of genocide.
Nice call there Alston.
It would seem that atheist/humanist have more in common with moslims. Neither group has any moral values retraining them from blowing up their fellow man. Unlike those who try to pattern their life upon that of Jesus.
Epic fail Alston… epic fail.
G.L. Alston is the funniest liberal poster ever. He just reduced all the scientific progress of the last 500 years to abortion. Isn’t he the expected result of American public education?
57. Fantom: ’26. Zeke: Face it Big Boy, it is not “hate speech” to call the enemy what he is. Whether it be kkk, nazi’s or islam/moslim.’
And now, boys and girls, can you spot poor Fanny’s spelling and grammatical errors? No matter; his words are still stupid no matter how they’re written.
Alice Nolin at # 1:
“Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity…”
Now that’s a text book example of projection if I ever saw one. You could make a psychiatrist rich…
Technology is not the enemy; wickedness is. Technology is neither good nor evil; people are. Never delude yourself into thinking technology is somehow inherently a good thing; technology is a force multiplier, and what matters is how you use it. The same technology that is used to save lives can also be used to kill people.
No bathroom, no books, no blankets?? I’ve been flying less anyway, but if TSA implements these idiotic policies, I will stop flying altogether.
Let me check my PC meter. OK, checked.
It is to bad the moon god worshiping terrorist was not torn to bits by the passengers.
Is the Mosque he got his arse in the air five times a day at still standing? Is the Imam/s getting water bordered?
Why not? We are at war. Set an example.
1. Stay on a peacetime footing everywhere except in the actual warzone, 2. Without a draft, no one will complain. War, what war?
I just landed from Jacksonville and I sat in an exit row. The guy who sat next to me was fidgety the entire flight. I took a nap. The reality is, I can be shanked in the line at Starbucks, but I don’t worry about it. Furthermore, I’m glad no one wants to wand everyone who gets in line behind me when I enter Starbucks. Why? It clearly isn’t worth the cost of protecting me at Starbucks. Planes fly, terrorists attack, people die sometimes. We can go to body cavity searches for everyone upon entering any building, but at the end of the day, that’s how they win. Osama won because we allowed Bush to spend trillions, which ushered in Obama to spend trillions, and we are going to lose 20 years before we realize that this distraction bankrupted our country. Call me whatever you like, but losing 3,000 lives wasn’t worth bankrupting our entire nation (keeping in mind we have lost WELL more than 3,000 lives trying to fight what happened).
We continue to spend all of our time on social issues while our house burns. Not at all endorsing Obama-care, but we are going to go broke in the next 50 years. It’s pretty clear. It’s time for the fiscal conservatives to learn from the last few years (and the next few). It’s wonderful to talk about morals and social issues, but once the country goes under financially (think the USSR) morals go out the window. It’s ‘Katrina’ living for 30 years and counting. Based on what our politicians are doing (all politicians), buy guns, store food and beans, and hope you can live it out.
Jack
Here’s how TSA works:
1. Shoe Bomber…now we have to take off our shoes at security screening
2. The Muslim baby formula/water bottle/toiletry bombers: now our baby bottles, juice boxes, bottled water are all confiscated at security, and we have to carry 5 oz or less of mouthwash in a little baggie.
3. The crotch bomber: extra patdowns at screening, no pillows and blankets for anyone in the last hour of flight.
Since we want to feel good about not profiling the murderous muslim terrorscum, we make sure to subject granny and boy scouts to extra screening.
Wait till a Muslim tries to bring down a plane with explosives hidden in his rectum, TSA will be sure to give granny and your toddler full body cavity searches, as long as they are white Christians, who cares, but Allah forbid you should give extra scrutiny to that nervous MUslim man with a one-way ticket shouting allahu akbar, you might hurt his feelings. Remember kids, his feelings are more important than your lives or the deaths of 300 airline passengers, and you might find yourself sued to bankruptcy by CAIR and the ACLU!
This was an anomaly. Everyone knows it’s really the tea-party folks, not Muslims, that scare the Democrats in charge of our country…
Inside the so-called Obama administration, and their answers:
1. Islamic Terrorism, and War on Terrorism: We don´t use these offensive words.
2. Al-Qaida declared war against US in ´98: Really???, When???
3. 9/11/01: America´s own fault!!!
4. “Never Forget Ft. Hood Texas 11/5/09!”: Never happened!!!
5. The Situation Room: What is that???
6. National Security, and US Armed Forces: ???
Impeach Mr. Obama
PS: Freedomphobes states, “At Least Five Muslim Terrorist Attacks On U.S. Soil In the 9 Months Since Obama Bowed To The Saudi King,” at http://obama-freedomphobe.blogspot.com.
Is the Imam/s getting water bordered?
Water bordered? Don’t you even know how to spell your favorite words you idiot? Mochalite. Has it ever occured to you that the fact that the only weapon terrorists have managed to smuggle on planes in the last eight years has failed in both instances? Isn’t that actually a testament to the benefits of these annoying safety policies? Oh please, save me my government, but don’t make me actually change anything in my own life.
Now that’s a text book example of projection if I ever saw one. You could make a psychiatrist rich…
Pretty lame comeback; it doesn’t even make any sense. If its textbook, then it would hardly make a psychiatrist rich. In any case, if its projection, then she sure pegged you people right along the way, anyway. You’re just an angry mob, spoiled by oily legislators out to win your vote. Just pointing you somewhere you can scream at. Bunch of silly fools. Government is run in spite of your efforts to make sure that it goes in a thousand useless directions at once.
Wouldn’t it be nice to believe that we “broke the back of the Nazi belief system”. Seems like quite a live parrot in the blog threads these days of even the NY Times and the Washington Post, not to mention the Grauniad.
It wasn’t dead, it was just sleeping.
Might this be an indicator of emerging sanity?
Janet Napolitano, the US homeland security secretary, will arrive on Saturday evening for a visit, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Napolitano will meet with officials from the Public Security Ministry and visit elite Israel Police units.
To request their advice and assistance regarding airport security?
Although I wouldn’t bet on it, I can hope.
When someone from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is lighting his pants in the window seat, it’s pretty hard to not start humming Nigeria’s #1 holiday song of 2009: “Chet’s Nuts Roasting On An Airliner”.
“But since they already had measures in place, and something happened anyway, they have to do something new to keep the curtains open in the theater. What next?”
Oh, heavens.
- During boarding, give everyone a shot of something to knock them out.
- Strip them naked, X-Ray and cavity search them.
- Carry them onboard on stretchers.
- Carry them back off when they arrive.
- Wake them up, hand them their clothes, and thank them for flying Tranked-Up Airways.
Napolitano had no choice but to claim the system worked.
Antivirus programs have a lot in common with “the system.” They aren’t able to detect new exploits. They can only deal with “signatures” i.e. exploits that have already happened. The TSA has the same problem.
At best an anti-virus program can ban file types (e.g. EXE’s) but this is so intrusive as to make computing useless. Similarly the TSA could cavity search humans and make them fly naked but doing this would defeat the purpose.
Meanwhile.
Any intelligent person who doesn’t mind dying can take down an airliner. If PETN detectors get better then an enterprising and clever individual will figure out how to short out and explode a laptop battery in a strategic location using nonstandard battery chemicals that still function as a battery. And so on.
Exploits like this cannot be detected BEFORE they happen.
And regarding what many of you deem as PC, the mile high view is that there isn’t a great deal of difference between christians and muslims in that both religions are anti-technology. Muslims are claimed by christians to want to live in the 14th century. Ironically these same christians are also protesting modern technology: modern abortion is a side-effect of the ability — the technology — to do so safely e.g. RU-486; intelligent design is a deliberate 14th century era attempt to insert god into otherwise scientific endeavour no different than the concept of “monk-physician.” And so on. The difference at this time is that christians aren’t motivated enough to blow up planes, but certainly the same anti-science, anti-progress, anti-technology underpinnings are in place. Those of you who think that the west doesn’t or won’t do what muslims do have much to learn from studying the crusades.
And no, not all christians are prone to this; but then again not all muslims desire to bring down aircraft, either. So in that sense the TSA etc profiling may seem improper AT PRESENT but that could change quickly.
That said, for the present situation… if it were up to me I’d simply forbid muslims on US flag airlines, and forbid airliners entering US airspace with muslims aboard unless ALL passengers and crew were muslims. Oh, and even 3 yards of deviation of the flight plan? We have a lot of F-16’s.
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Let me sum up. Christian kooks are no different than the muslims they hate. Both groups are Abrahamic based with a lot in common. Both groups desire to exert their will and see technology as an enemy, especially technology controlled by the other side, or worse, by atheists. Both groups see themselves as chosen by their god. [b]The primary difference AT THIS TIME is merely the degree of radicalisation.[/b]
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Clearly, the http://www.democraticunderground.com=www.stormfront.com, amirite? That was where you were going with this, amirite?
“Alice, may neither you or anyone that you love ever have to deal with the consequences of sitting in the proverbial seat 19B should a detonating device actually work as intended.
How are you so sure I haven’t? Hiding behind the suffering of others only delegitimates your position. Learn how to make your points using your critical faculties. Bullsh^% is Bullsh^%”
Alice, Alice. If you HAD, you wouldn’t be posting now.
Napolitano had no choice but to claim the system worked.
Antivirus programs have a lot in common with “the system.” They aren’t able to detect new exploits. They can only deal with “signatures” i.e. exploits that have already happened. The TSA has the same problem.
At best an anti-virus program can ban file types (e.g. EXE’s) but this is so intrusive as to make computing useless. Similarly the TSA could cavity search humans and make them fly naked but doing this would defeat the purpose.
Meanwhile.
Any intelligent person who doesn’t mind dying can take down an airliner. If PETN detectors get better then an enterprising and clever individual will figure out how to short out and explode a laptop battery in a strategic location using nonstandard battery chemicals that still function as a battery. And so on.
Exploits like this cannot be detected BEFORE they happen.
And regarding what many of you deem as PC, the mile high view is that there isn’t a great deal of difference between christians and muslims in that both religions are anti-technology. Muslims are claimed by christians to want to live in the 14th century. Ironically these same christians are also protesting modern technology: modern abortion is a side-effect of the ability — the technology — to do so safely e.g. RU-486; intelligent design is a deliberate 14th century era attempt to insert god into otherwise scientific endeavour no different than the concept of “monk-physician.” And so on. The difference at this time is that christians aren’t motivated enough to blow up planes, but certainly the same anti-science, anti-progress, anti-technology underpinnings are in place. Those of you who think that the west doesn’t or won’t do what muslims do have much to learn from studying the crusades.
And no, not all christians are prone to this; but then again not all muslims desire to bring down aircraft, either. So in that sense the TSA etc profiling may seem improper AT PRESENT but that could change quickly.
That said, for the present situation… if it were up to me I’d simply forbid muslims on US flag airlines, and forbid airliners entering US airspace with muslims aboard unless ALL passengers and crew were muslims. Oh, and even 3 yards of deviation of the flight plan? We have a lot of F-16’s.
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Let me sum up. Christian kooks are no different than the muslims they hate. Both groups are Abrahamic based with a lot in common. Both groups desire to exert their will and see technology as an enemy, especially technology controlled by the other side, or worse, by atheists. Both groups see themselves as chosen by their god. [b]The primary difference AT THIS TIME is merely the degree of radicalisation.[/b]
Of course then again I’m not the least bit PC.
Clearly, the http://www.democraticunderground.com=www.stormfront.com, amirite? That was where you were going with this, amirite?
1.
“The Israelis, who understand this problem better than anyone, will continue to laugh and/or cry”
This Israeli would just roll his eyes and shake his head at the further idiocies which will now be visited on passengers. Unfortunately, I’ll also be subject to them, which means I’ll need to either learn advanced relaxation techniques or equip myself with blood-pressure pills.
2.
Current policies are taking ever more rights/privileges away from passengers and becoming ever more invasive. And as was predicted, it isn’t working. So we either (i) go to the logical conclusion of all passengers going through an MRI, being sedated and traveling naked (Is that truly more far-fetched than some of what we’ve already submitted to?), or (ii) reverse course and adopt a policy such as proposed by bilgeman (comment 18), arming all passengers with stun guns.
3.
Alice, Rand’s article contains several analyses, conclusions, and proposals. Your comments do not address any of them, nor do you submit any of your own. Your comment basically consists of “Shut up!”, which while rude, is certainly within your rights; but you’re not exactly contributing much to civilized discourse.
Alston, I could more than quibble with some of your points. What we agree on is that it is (remotely) possible for us to once again witness Christianity Rampant. This is precisely why I want this struggle against the Jihadists (whatever nomenclature one wishes to adopt) to be successfully decided as quickly as possible. Because if the Jihadists continue attacking us, and especially if our “elites” are seen as not prosecuting the struggle with sufficient determination, there might well be a frightening backlash, possibly including a radical Christian resurgence. And in that case, if we find ourselves in a situation of Crusaders vs Jihadists, God help us all (and I mean it literally).
(As an aside, note the circumstances in which the Crusades arose.)
Nothing more perfectly illustrates the infinite stupidity of the Obama Administration as Napolitano’s public utterance that ‘the system worked’. If that inanity is not consideried sui generis sufficient cause for her instant firing, we are, indeed, lost. Only a convinced terminal twit could possibly interpret the failed attack as an indication ofa ‘homeland security’ success.
Alston, to expand on your antivirus comment:
A signature-based antivirus has obvious flaws. One of them is zero-day exploits (an as-of-yet unknown attack, such as we just witnessed), and another is that if we have few resources, large signature files, and very many programs, the running cost can be prohibitive. Or to put it in our terms, given the inherent limits of TSA resources, the number of threats we have to defend against, and the amount of air traffic, it is not possible to achieve something remotely approaching perfect security without severely impacting air travel.
The TSA solution is to randomly choose programs to scan.
The Israeli solution is to apply a cheap heuristic-based antivirus scan to all passengers (or run an HIPS, for you geeks out there).
It seems obvious to me which solution is superior. Maybe that’s why I (and engineers in general) didn’t get a job in this Administration. [Note: in this respect, the previous Administration hardly impressed either]
ALICE N
You seem to be fixated upon scrotal issues. What’s the deal, girl?
To compare Islam and Christianity, just turn on the news this morning. I didn’t see any reports of Christians murdering Christians, but I did see a few bombs set off by the religion of peace on fellow religion of peace followers.
Islam is not an Abraham linked religion. You can write that lie if you wish. All one has to do is read about the life of Mohammed, and read the archeology reports on allah the moon god. One of many false gods at the Kabba during Mohammed’s life time, and before.
Abraham did not build the Kabba. He was never in the area. Just another lie told within Islam.
ROPMA!
I LOVE this idea. The woman and her screaming brat in front of me is gonna get some amperage!!!
Ahhh, the sure sign of a ‘crat who has stepped on their reproductive organ:
http://www.freep.com/article/20091228/NEWS07/91228003/1318/Napolitano-says-airline-security-system-failed
The moronic imbecile with ridiculous hair, Janet Napolitano is NOW claiming that “the system failed”….NOT that “the system worked”.
Y’see, it’s all of us that are the slobbering half-wits…not her.
Her remarks were “taken out of context”.
Insh’Allah, this igno-arrogant b*tch is unemployed and on the street corner by Friday at the latest.
The takeaway lesson in all this is that middle-aged women named “Janet” just shouldn’t have any kind of jobs in law enforcement or security.
Bob: assume that I buy TSA anti-virus software for my computer, approved by Obama, CAIR and the ACLU. It has the added PC benefit of not profiling viruses. There is a known Trojan Horse type virus (lets call it MT911)that results in catastrophic hard drive failure and deletion of all your files. However, some of these MT911 viruses are completely harmless. When you start up your computer, the TSA software downloads the latest assessment of viral threats, but then randomly scans a variety of executable programs such as Quicken.exe, taskmon.exe, ie.exe and excel.exe. The MT911 virus is not scanned.
Would this be an accurate description of TSA as an antivirus?
Nicely written, Rand. A pleasure to see someone in print who isn’t a “liberal arts” or “fine arts” zombie, but can actually use language, logic and common sense.
#17 Gordo:
Alas I believe you are wrong. You said “I guess it’s going to take several airliners full of passengers crashing into cities to cure these people of their political myopia.”
We already had that happen and people like Alice still don’t get it.
It’s the blame America first crowd and they will never ever see terrorism as anything but something America deserves.
Alice Nolin:
I was being facetious. Actually I do not want the government to save me. I am quite capable of doing that myself. Or maybe dieing. Granted the government can do a number of things because of its nature but the list is limited.
In previous life I made a rather handsome living writing specifications for the government. The purpose of the specifications was to make sure that various things were done in a correct and proper way. What the government failed to recognize is that sooner or later someone has to think about what he is doing By its very nature the government cannot think and fails to recognize it, at least on the level that matters.
Of course my life has changed. The change is due to a large extent by Muslim terrorists and those who encourage them. I have to deal with it.
If I had been sitting anywhere near Mr. Abdulmutallab he would not today be selecting a lawyer.
Rand,
Firing incompetents like Napolitano for being incompotent at their job is a bad precident that might give the publc the wrong idea about Democrats in 2010 and Obama in 2012.
Secretary Napolitano is going to resign for “to spend more time with her family.”
BTW, Dallas talk radio is already joking about the airlines selling Depends adult diapers at boarding gates as another income stream to go with security charges for screening baggage.
I want to see how the airlines and TSA deal with type I diabetics and 2-3 year olds that want to keep their blankie/wooby during the last hour of the flight.
IMO, the TSA is doing it’s best to destroy any confidence the American public has in the Federal government in a crisis, and the Obama Administration seems to be even more clueless about the implications for them than the previous Bush Administration.
Maybe some of you should Google “Christian Phalangist” or “Christian Serbs” to get an idea of how awful devout Christians can get if they think they can get away with it. Actually, judging from the many of the right wing comments here and elsewhere, there are way too many people who would just as soon treat *all* Muslims as both potential terrorists and 2nd class citizens, and automatically ban them from flying as well as make it legally OK for anyone to discriminate against them, from hiring them, letting them into your store, or even picking them up in your cab or bus. That’s more than a little bit retarded.
Just our little misguided adventure in Iraq by itself killed far more Muslim civilians than the total number of Christians killed by Muslims over the past 100 years. There is this bizarre mindset that goes something like “If it doesn’t happen here, it doesn’t count.”
Criminals adapt to improvements in crime prevention, and this applies to would be terrorists. There is some logic to treat things like this recent incident as a viral act that the “antiviral security system” need to be updated for, but imposing yet more intrusive airport security is a duct tape solution at best. There needs to be a serious review of what we’re getting for our security efforts with the present level of threats, and then see how that applies to trends in threats.
A while back the Religion of Peace was derailing Indian trains. Those horrible infidel Hindus put lard on the tracks and the heroes of jihad lost their courage or went apostate or something. Let’s make flying the friendly skies of the USA non Kosher to the Religion of Peace. If you love Mohammed and hate sniffer dogs you can take the bus. We could do a PR blitz explaining that only no account, low grade jihadis attack buses and it won’t get your name on the Martyr Hall of Fame board. If that fails and an airliner blows up over Chicago we can always try something with proven success, like the Israeli security screening system.
Kudos to Alice ,she is one of the few Democrats that can read and write, she must be a college educated liberal . I am an older person and I get extra attention evry time I fly,occasionaly I have been behind people that are obviously Muslim and they go right thru while I get the extra attention. I guess I just look like a terrorist . Long live the teabasggers .
Just our little misguided adventure in Iraq by itself killed far more Muslim civilians than the total number of Christians killed by Muslims over the past 100 years.
If the attempt here is to keep some kind of score, this is kind of a…let’s see, what’s the word…? Oh, yeah…stupid way to do it.
How many Muslims have Muslims killed over the past hundred years? If they haven’t killed more Christians, it’s been mostly for lack of opportunity, due to previous predations in the areas they control.
Islam is not an Abraham linked religion. You can write that lie if you wish. All one has to do is read about the life of Mohammed, and read the archeology reports on allah the moon god. One of many false gods at the Kabba during Mohammed’s life time, and before.
You seem out to prove how little you know about Christianity. Do you really think the concept of savior is a Christian based one? Have you heard of Gilgamesh? If any religion is a construct with very little fundamental truth, its Christianity. Not that it matters; its completely asinine to argue that the origins of Islam have anything to do with Islam today. It would be difficult for anyone with a functioning cortex–even if they agreed with you on other issues–to not find you to be an embarrassing clown.
1. Alice Nolin.
Pee Wee moho – Anon – Shawn Ondeen Whatever, when you did get back from Wannabe Jihad school? Maybe you could start your pants on fire too as an illustration of what you’ve learned.
“Thank you for putting in such sharp focus the essence of teabagging. Just waiting for someone to screw up something so that you can spew all of the angry crap accumulated in a life of disappointments and mediocrity.”
A terrorist attack, and just like lemmings doing their thing, the Pee Wee moho – Anon – Shawn Ondeen Whatever’s Alice Nolin Twilight Zone Dummy appears. The Modern Liberal cesspool once again is issuing forth an oozing resentful Caltiki who wishes nothing but to be as cool as a 9/11 hijacker. Notice the use of “teabagger”, as if it has some mystical power to send the Wannabe Jihadist’s one friend, a funhouse mirror, into Modern Liberal LOLs of joy.
The negativity is so much a part of the Joy of Nolin that the Wannabe Jihadist concludes with a wish that other’s may see the advantage of negativity and be dragged down into it’s Modern Liberal cesspool.
“Just old angry bitter people shaking their fists at whatever gets into their field of vision.”
Isn’t that being ageist too? Why not throw in a “toothless hillbilly?
Moho will suffice. Is the thought that all this makeup and dress wearing might get you a gig in Mr. President’s world? Or if the pamphlet “Onan the Wannabe Jihadist” goes Hollywood that there would be a chance that Cesspool Life would become popular, at least with Modern Liberals?
Van Jones still thinks highly of you. The muggers are working for Homeland Security. Remember, your brand of “Courage and Intelligence” will allow you to catch your pants on fire.
Happy New Year! Whatever.
#87 Bob
A/V, TSA, hueristics, these are all reactive by definition. Napolitano is wrong to claim the system worked in this case, although reactive measures that have stopped previous attempts were obviously successful. The question is whether a proactive solution is possible given that increasing reactive ‘security’ via underwear checks seems self-defeating. As another poster noted, we have to have our shoes checked after the shoe bomber incident, we have to restrict liquid after another incident, and so on. The TSA certainly needs to come up with a new paradigm in that the next suicide bomber may simply swallow or cavity hide hypergolic compounds; the next obvious TSA reactive step in that sequence is to… what, perform cavity searches and barium swallows?
Certainly this can’t be allowed to continue.
#97 BC — …there are way too many people who would just as soon treat *all* Muslims as both potential terrorists and 2nd class citizens [snip]
Correct, but given that currently muslim extremists are the sole threat to airline safety, perhaps the prudent thing to do is focus on the threat and not perform insulting, time-wasting Kabuki Theatre on WWII vets. Since TSA is purely reactive as Bob and I have discussed, it’s time we embrace this property for what it is. That means muslims will have to undergo special “treatment” whilst nordic grandmothers are allowed to roam freely. And when it’s apparent that nordic grandmothers are an ongoing problem, the reactive focus will need to change.
You do understand the concept of reactive vs proactive, right?
“Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.”
It is very difficult to express one’s contempt for the profound stupidity of Janet Napolitano and the Obama adminstration without some kind of %#^&*I*@ profanity.
The system worked? Does that gasbag think that passengers are part of the “system”?
Or were the explosives supposed to get onto the plane???
#97 BC — …there are way too many people who would just as soon treat *all* Muslims as both potential terrorists and 2nd class citizens
And what of it? The truth is that all Muslims are potential terrorists. Acting as if it were so would have prevented this episode.
It’s time to get over it.
Alice,
Is is your overbearing hate that impedes your higher-thinking abilities or your obviously impaired higher-reasoning functions that causes you to be such a hater?
Reasonable people want to know.
Mike Pucket:
Is is your overbearing hate that impedes your higher-thinking abilities or your obviously impaired higher-reasoning functions that causes you to be such a hater?
Perhaps it “is is”, lol. Self Pwnage media, the gift that keeps on giving.
#107: Alice, your behavior is the reason conservatives know liberals to be idiots. I sure am hoping Santa will give you your own country to eff up so you will leave mine alone.
Bob #87 –
Seems a 67 year American carried explosives on a plane and got away with it. Perhaps muslims aren’t the sole threat after all.
http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/laguardia.airplane.explosive.2.1393663.html
Clearly the TSA reactive measures didn’t catch this. Would the vaunted hueristics have caught it? Perhaps. Bear in mind that the Israeli problem isn’t the same as ours. For one thing we have about 300 million living here. Wider variety.
Alice #75 — Has it ever occured to you that the fact that the only weapon terrorists have managed to smuggle on planes in the last eight years has failed in both instances?
A sign of luck, not policy. We have no idea how many times things were successfully smuggled. The NWA flight landed solely because the guy was too stupid or unlucky to get the material to explode, not because any sort of reactive policy worked. As Bob and I have been discussing, there IS NO POLICY that prevents zero day exploits. You’re just as dim as the rightwingers you despise.
Colonoscopy! Now!
@109. G.L. Alston: – … there IS NO POLICY that prevents zero day exploits.
Not true.
Virus/anti-virus silliness is a false analogy. Irony alert: “I predict it will happen,” said Mica, R-Fla. “The chances of someone bringing an explosive on an aircraft by walking through a metal detector or in hand-carried luggage are very real.”
“Is it your overbearing hate that impedes your higher-thinking abilities or your obviously impaired higher-reasoning functions that causes you to be such a hater?”
First Alice, you spelled Mike Puckett’s name wrong while admonishing him about his spelling.
That makes you a Hypocrite.
Second, you didn’t even attempt to give him an honest answer. The rest of us are waiting.
“When someone from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab is lighting his pants in the window seat, it’s pretty hard to be politically correct and avoid reality.”
or…when someone from Chicago via Hawaii/Kenya/Indonesia named Barack Hussein Obama is destroying the American economy from the Oval office, its pretty hard to be politically correct and avoid reality.
Oh, Alice, you actually destroy your own premise – if the long lines at the security checkpoints, the ridiculous 3oz. clear bottle rule, sit in your seat the last hour, take your stinky shoes off, get wanded and probed randomly is our strategy to prevent what turns out to be three cases of failed bombings on our airlines, methinks we have a wee little problem of over-allocation of resources, wouldn’t you agree? This is surely anathema to your utopian fantasy-reality, but I suggest scrutinizing those who appear to be not-from-around-these-here-parts. Of course, that does mean your Dear Leader does fit the profile and should undergo a full cavity search upon boarding AF1, but HE IS all about fairness, eh?
“…the best approach to this is to separate luggage from passengers on different flights?…”
Great, so they can lose even more luggage? “I’m sorry ma’am, we put your bags on the luggage plane to Rome. But we’ll put it on another luggage plane to London tomorrow.” Meanwhile my carry-on wont be big enough to hold my electronics AND a change of clothes.
I read that Napolitano is going to Israel to see how they do it. But she wont take any of their suggestions because 1) it’s not politically correct and 2) she would have to train professionals to do the job, and no one is going to allocate enough money for that. Israel only has a handful of airports, and how many does the US have? And then what about all the airports abroad? *sigh* wont happen.
Oh, Alice, you actually destroy your own premise – if the long lines at the security checkpoints, the ridiculous 3oz. clear bottle rule, sit in your seat the last hour, take your stinky shoes off, get wanded and probed randomly is our strategy to prevent what turns out to be three cases of failed bombings on our airlines, methinks we have a wee little problem of over-allocation of resources, wouldn’t you agree?
No I wouldn’t. You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. This is a level of logic my seven year old would look forward to facing off in a checkers game.
Great, so they can lose even more luggage? “I’m sorry ma’am, we put your bags on the luggage plane to Rome. But we’ll put it on another luggage plane to London tomorrow.” Meanwhile my carry-on wont be big enough to hold my electronics AND a change of clothes.
Fedex does a pretty good job with this. Set up the same model. Just don’t decide to fly at the last minute with significant luggage.
Well, at least when your child is a teenager, the two of you should be able to relate very well.
With you being trapped in your extended intellectual and emotional adolescence, you will prove more of a sibling than a parent.
Until then Alice, you would be well-advised to listen to the adults in this thread(I.E. everyone who is not Alice Nolin) instead of entrenching this image of yourself possessing the emotional and intellectual development of a 12 year old narcissistic emo-princess.
To Rand Simberg: You know me from way back in the Usenet days — do I *ever* say anything stupid? It is keeping score, I admit, but this current “My religion is much more peaceful and less bloody than yours” attitude is not only really stupid, but not entirely accurate, is it?
staz (#90): “I LOVE this idea [stun-guns on flights]. The woman and her screaming brat in front of me is gonna get some amperage!!!”
If you mean this humourously, you have my sympathies. If you mean this as a serious objection to the stun-gun idea, you have my pity. If people mis-use a stun-gun in such a way, they will simply be arrested, prosecuted, and jailed, as in any other physical assault.
Trainwreck (#92): “Would this be an accurate description of TSA as an antivirus?”
Given the imperfectness of analogies, close enough.
BC (#97):
We fully agree regarding airport security. What I’m asking you to keep in mind is that while we can debate the wisdom of the Iraq campaign, if we don’t take the fight to the Jihadists, it seems inevitable that there will be a strong (and deplorable) anti-Muslim backlash.
Alston (#103): Short of barring all Muslims from flying, I’d quibble that all TSA airport policies (including profiling) are reactive. I am arguing that while necessary, (i) it needs to be smarter, not bigger (look up HIPS) (ii) we must be aware it will not prevent all problems.
Alston (#109): “Seems a 67 year American carried explosives on a plane and got away with it. Perhaps muslims aren’t the sole threat after all.”
Given the name of this “American,” it is clear we are now facing a new and dangerous Muslim-Quebec axis! [Note: that was intended as humour. After all, some of my best friends are Quebecois, may the Lord have pity on their souls.]
goy (#111): “‘there IS NO POLICY that prevents zero day exploits.’ Not true. Virus/anti-virus silliness is a false analogy.”
How so? As Alston and I have said, an anti-virus can eliminate all threats (in its category), but at a prohibitive cost, which defeats its very purpose. Just how does the analogy not hold up?
Yehudit (#114), Alston (#109): You are certainly right that the Israeli method is not a panacea and wouldn’t be easy to implement.
Gee BC, you claim to know Rand from Usenet days yet you aren’t even aware of the fact Rand isn’t a Christian!
Mike:
A sign of luck, not policy. We have no idea how many times things were successfully smuggled. The NWA flight landed solely because the guy was too stupid or unlucky to get the material to explode, not because any sort of reactive policy worked. As Bob and I have been discussing, there IS NO POLICY that prevents zero day exploits. You’re just as dim as the rightwingers you despise.
It seems more likely that the method has very little chance for success in the context of the airliner. In both instances, the would be bomber was unable to achieve an explosive effect, though they had sufficient time to do so. They were “caught” only after their act had failed. One way success is measured in any prohibitory system is if you have managed to make crossing the line so prohibitive that such attempts are rare and unlikely to succeed. No one can guarantee 100% safety, unfortunately for the panty-staining cowards of PJM.
Try to wrap your wet noodles around this: If the TSA and Homeland Security are ineffective [and yes, they've always been ineffective, I've posted the evidence here], then the only logical response to the reality of how few bombing attempts there are is that there are few terrorists. If this isn’t true, then the few attacks show that the agenices are effective. Try as you might, you can’t turn this into a foot stomping excuse to say Barack Hussein Obama, you little idiots.
Mike Pucket:
Until then Alice, you would be well-advised to listen to the adults in this thread(I.E. everyone who is not Alice Nolin)
Thanks for that, really made me laugh. One of your adult peers:
110. uncledip:
Colonoscopy! Now!
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/some-thoughts-on-the-latest-man-caused-disaster-attempt/#comment-110
@119. Bob: – Just how does the analogy not hold up?
Couldn’t / refused to / didn’t know how to follow the link? Sorry, can’t help you then.
Alice #121 — One way success is measured in any prohibitory system is if you have managed to make crossing the line so prohibitive that such attempts are rare and unlikely to succeed.
You’ve failed to grasp the point. The TSA by definition can only slow down that which has already been clearly identified to the degree that an otherwise unemployable imbecile (no others work for TSA) can be relied upon to do so.
A zero day exploit is something new, and they can’t deal with “new” because they are not geared to. At best they can stop a repeat of the shoe bomber, etc. And no this isn’t an indictment of TSA but rather an observation of objective. Try to keep up.
Bob #119 — I am arguing that while necessary, (i) it needs to be smarter, not bigger (look up HIPS) (ii) we must be aware it will not prevent all problems.
I agree with your sentiment but my conclusion is that we a) abolish TSA, b) put an air marshall on every flight, and c) profile like crazy. I see no clear workable alternative given that TSA is reactionary by definition and we cannot allow Security Theatre to progress to the point of the absurd in devising and imposing increasingly useless rules on the flying public (colonoscopies indeed.) TSA is designed to remind us we are subjects, not free men.
Aice Nolan, who also posts as Moho, with your signature verbosity on the stupidity of others, your unwavering apologetics for Islamic fascism..and your profound ignorance of all religions including Islam and Christianity…your claim that BECAUSE you only know about several failed attempts at [airline] terrorist attacks, THEN this means that the security system is just fine/ or that the threat of terrorism is miniscule …is illogical.
Your data base is weak; you know nothing of the round-ups of jihadists in the UK, USA, Canada,etc, with their plans to commit terrorism. You equally know nothing of individuals prevented from entering the country, from boarding planes. You know nothing of the preachings of jihadism, the exhortations, the radicalization of young Muslims to carry out terrorist acts. Therefore, your claim that essentially terrorism is only an actuality IF an attack is successfully carried out is logically invalid.
You, moho, are, like Obama, ignoring the plans, the gathering of equipment, the recruiting of jihadists, the brainwashing, the radicalization….to carry out those attacks.
What other religion says God died for Man? Only Christianity makes such an audacious claim, while the rest of humanity foolishly mocks and hates it.
goy (#123):
Well my dear gentile, I did follow your link. And if you don’t understand my response, or see how the link actually strengthens my case, I “can’t help you then.”
But whenever you decide to try presenting a case instead of merely sneering, I’ll be happy to address you.
@127. Bob: – …the link actually strengthens my case…
Wrong, spud. The information at the link – now three years old – demonstrates that there IS a policy available that would have decisively prevented this nonsensically labeled “zero-day exploit”. And sneering at such nonsense is completely warranted.
The point you and others miss in your zeal to excuse the TSA, draw silly analogies and/or pretend that few (publicly known) attacks means that there are ‘few’ terrorists, is that everything back to and including 9/11 was preventable if everyone had been doing their job(s). They weren’t.
Unlike a computer virus, which pro-actively exploits how a system works, terrorists exploit the system’s flaws. Those flaws are now magnified by a junior high school administration that willfully chooses to see international terrorist warfare as “a law enforcement problem”, endangering U.S. citizens in the process. That didn’t work for Clinton in ’93 or ’01 and it sure didn’t work for Bush in Iraq in ’03. The enemy has a face and a clear profile. We’d best start using that or prepare to reap the consequences.
Ah… ‘now three years old’ should clearly read ‘now six years old’. Doh.
Oy, goy, you’re not one for reasoned, dispassionate discourse, are you? I grant you that “Bob” is not the rarest of names, but before lumping me in with the rest of the Evil & Misguided, you might want to actually read some of the comments I’ve made on this site.
As to the analogy itself, please approach computer security professionals and inform them of your belief that it is incorrect to say that a virus exploits a system’s flaws.
Regarding your precious link, let me spell it out for you:
The first mention of the antivirus analogy, by Alston, was: “At best an anti-virus program can ban file types (e.g. EXE’s) but this is so intrusive as to make computing useless. Similarly the TSA could cavity search humans and make them fly naked but doing this would defeat the purpose.” What your link mentions is an “X-ray glasses device” that would allow security screeners to have a near-nude image of passengers, and concerns that it would prove unacceptable.
And you think this *refutes* the analogy?!
goy #128 — Unlike a computer virus, which pro-actively exploits how a system works, terrorists exploit the system’s flaws.
Virii etc work by flaw exploitation, and the biggest flaw is often the keyboard chair interface. But concentrating on the virus is pointless anyway.
The analogy was with antivurus software, which is reactive, not proactive. It cannot stop a virus that is new; it can only stop that which it knows of. The TSA does the same thing. The TSA inspects your shoes, reacting to a shoe bombing attempt. They reacted. They didn’t proactively inspect shoes before the event, they reactively did so only after the event became known. The point of the analogy was to show similar operational philosophies and discuss the shared weak points.
Meanwhile the xray glasses device *might* stop a few terrorists with funny knickers but it won’t stop the first one who brings down a plane via blowing himself up by having swallowed or otherwise inserted hypergolic compounds. The logical conclusion is cavity searches for all.
Furthermore it won’t stop terrorists who hide other explosives in cavities that can be removed upon a toilet visit and exploded on a bulkhead. It won’t stop clever laptop battery exploding against bulkhead exploits using nonstandard battery chemicals. It won’t stop clever nanoparticle embedment in socks and coats. Are you going to claim that the TSA is — as of this moment — having you send your socks to an inspection device in anticipation of this potential (and practical) exploit? Of course not. Like A/V software the TSA is purely reactive, and the reason the TSA is pure Security Theatre is that a terrorist exploit only needs to work ONCE.
And more to the point, this is the tip of the iceberg. Any intelligent and motivated human who doesn’t mind dying can figure out how to take down an airliner.
Alston (#131): “Any intelligent and motivated human who doesn’t mind dying can figure out how to take down an airliner.”
Indeed. And to set that pretty little goy-ishe kopf at ease, I shall volunteer to spell out the obvious and say that doesn’t mean we should just shrug our shoulders and give up, but rather that we should use what’s above our shoulders to try and come up with better strategies, instead of engaging in security theatre. (I know, it’s a revolutionary concept.)
HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL
======================
A vital piece of information is missing in the Xmas Day incident.
How did this guy obtain a US VISA IN THE FIRST PLACE to enter the USA?
(I’m amazed no one has even mentioned this on ANY news outlet).
As a foreign national, he would have had to visit a US Consulate “somewhere”, supposedly been vetted by those responsible for issuing entry visas and then denied or been issued such a document.
Cherchez “le Visa” story and you’ll find the trail of incompetence continues to dominate our governments anti-terrorist efforts worldwide.
Typical government knee-jerk reaction. We will all have to pee in our pants within an hour out of the so called “estimated time of arrival” as long as the man caused disaster makers don’t blow us up in mid flight. The inmates truly are running the asylum!
ALICE, you have a seven year old child? I bet that the father was roaring drunk at the time. Don’t get me wrong, Alice, I think that you exhibit sterling intellectual abilities. But you can only get so far reading off of matchbook covers.
So some wise man is comparing nitwit Napolitano’s job to a anti-virus program? If you’re talking about an anti-virus program that, in its very design, willfullly ignores the most dangerous attacks, I guess you’re right.
To Mike Puckett: Our Usenet “discussions” didn’t exactly dwell upon religion back then. I kind of miss Usenet and blame Google for completely screwing it up when they bought Deja News and then had an unending string of tech problems after it became Google Groups. There is way too little diversity on these blog sites in comparison to Usenet, especially when it comes to debates and arguments.
@130. Bob: – … before lumping me in with the rest of the Evil & Misguided, you might want to actually read some of the comments I’ve made on this site.
Right. How many people post as “Bob”?
Anyway, no lumping required – I’m judging based on your acquiescence to this silly antivirus apologism and your rather absurd paranoia regarding a “radical Christian resurgence”, which seems quite comfortable with the addled notion that “Christian kooks are no different than the muslims they hate,” inconvenient facts to the contrary notwithstanding. But either way… back atcha, fella (do be wary of impersonators, though – like Moho, whose lame attempts to mimic me are easily spotted if you know the clue).
- … please approach computer security professionals …
No need. I’ve managed and/or implemented IT security in a number of the positions I’ve held during a career in software engineering that spans 30+ years – including multiple incarnations of home networks that have yet to experience a successful virus attack. Facets of a functional computer system (like buffer overrun, for instance) that are typically exploited by a virus are erroneously viewed by the lay person as a ‘flaw’ simply because they’re unfamiliar with the way a computer functions, i.e., as it’s told to by its operating system.
More important – and the point that nixes this nonsensical analogy – is the fact that computers are not humans. Bureaucracies can certainly encourage humans to behave like computers, but even in such a case, the notion that this can’t be changed is nonsense.
Unlike trained professional humans with imaginations, cognition, training and free will, computers and the vast majority of software programs are unable to learn or to adapt on-the-fly to new information and/or new circumstances. Computer systems follow their operating system programming and architecture blindly, regardless of what a line of code is doing to them. Newer antivirus software attempts to mimic human behavior by employing heuristic and/or other behavioral algorithms, but the fact is that we’re still a long, long way from the “Singularity” in that regard. Windows Vista is a wonderful example of this at the OS level. Vista was a relative failure in part because it tried to employ the computer (i.e., “brain-dead”) equivalent of the Israeli heuristic you mentioned up above, and did it so extremely poorly that the system was made unattractive to the consumer, who has other choices.
- Regarding your precious link, …
Neither of the straw man scenarios you listed here have anything to do with the technology discussed in the article I cited. The point – clear to anyone with an open mind – is that you claimed there is NO POLICY that would prevent the sort of so-called “zero-day” exploit employed by the Christmas terrorist. That claim is handily disproved by reading the article and looking at the pretty pictures. We, uhm, have the technology and, therefore, an available policy. We had it six years ago. And that’s what makes the TSA’s failure (and Napolitano’s idiotic remarks) in this particular case so risible.
Any speculation that a particular policy would prove “unacceptable” is irrelevant, as it doesn’t obviate the policy itself. Had you suggested that people would have to wait in security queues for hours just to take a one-hour flight – back before it was a routine reality – you would have been met with speculation that such a scenario would also be unacceptable.
But that’s not the whole story…
.
@131. G.L. Alston: – The analogy was with antivurus software, which is reactive, not proactive. It cannot stop a virus that is new…
Apparently you’re not familiar with the more recent developments in antivirus software, which detect exploits based on behavior, not signatures and are therefore proactive, not reactive. They don’t perform this function flawlessly yet, but as their behavior gets closer to human cognition, their performance improves. That’s the key to recognizing the silliness in this reactive/antivirus analogy, which could only be dreamt up by someone who is hobbled with paranoid and unsupportable nuttiness like “Christian kooks are no different than the muslims they hate.” Last I checked, the record on who was hijacking planes, blowing up buildings, training terrorist armies and, in particular, most responsible for the murder of (other) muslims, was pretty clear. It’s not “Christian kooks” committing these acts. In that respect, there is indeed an enormous “difference”. There isn’t enough moral equivalence on the planet to assert otherwise.
Here’s the other thing that makes this whole antivirus software shtick nonsense: computer security starts with NOT DOING the sort of things that ultimately allow a virus to attack your system in the first place. In my personal case, that approach has been 100% effective over the course of 30+ years in a world where almost everyone else I know has had to rebuild a system at least once due to a virus attack (feel free to invent a few new straw men here, speculating on what I can and can’t do with the system(s) I run – just remember that it’ll be your speculation, not reality). You unknowingly allude to this notion at the end of your last comment with “…any intelligent and motivated human…”, but you’re “stuck on stupid”, so-to-speak, with this antivirus analogy (and other idiotic notions), and so you miss the point.
Recognizing and eliminating the vectors most likely to introduce a virus into your computer (i.e., those activities that are upstream of the antivirus software functionality) is the best first step needed to keep it secure. Again, Vista attempts to do this, but does so with the ham-handed ‘finesse’ of a mindless IRS bureaucrat, making it unattractive in a market where other choices exist.
In our increasingly precarious world – where many things must work correctly to preclude injury, property damage and/or loss of life during what we have come to view as patently quotidian activities (e.g., air travel, highway driving, crossing a busy intersection, ocean cruises, working in a skyscraper, etc.) – humans interact daily with and through the use of complex technology. That trend will continue. A proactive system of national defense is necessary to prevent terrorist acts of war aimed at the inherent vulnerabilities created by such technological complexity. The Israelis have learned and adapted to this fact through decades of hard experience – experience that America is only just beginning to acquire. Put simply, such a system requires that those responsible for national security view islamist terrorists intent on blowing up planes as enemy combatants rather than mere ‘criminals’.
But a junior high administration blinkered by morally adolescent political correctness and hobbled with the fantasy that it’s dealing with a “law enforcement problem” can’t do anything BUT react. That’s the very nature of law enforcement: by definition, an act isn’t ‘criminal’ until after it’s been committed (or, at a rare minimum, its intent is detected and proven). From a security – and in particular, a national security – standpoint, that approach is not only unacceptable, it’s suicidal (a type of behavior this administration seems to pursue with cheerful abandon). But that’s where we are today.
Like it or not, El Al style profiling, followed by a simple background check on this particular wannabe jihadist would have prevented him from ever boarding his intended target in the first place. We know this based on the information that came out about him immediately after the fact. But the policies driven by this administration’s “law enforcement” mentality are not only reactive in nature, they’re suicidally focused on consciously ignoring the existential threat as well. Such policies are not only ill-equipped to deal with what you label “zero-day” exploits, they’re ill-equipped to proactively deal with any enemy attack. That’s because such policies are based on responding to crime, rather than preventing a terrorist act of war.
Any motivated human who doesn’t mind dying can take down an airliner. Clearly then, the key is in focusing on the enemy with the motivation to do so. This administration simply refuses to do that. Rather – just as it does in every other area of its responsibility and authority – it makes a pretense of success amidst abject failures that are destroying our nation and way of life.
Tangentially, but not off-topic, there’s a grain of sanity in your idea that muslims be barred from travel on US-flagged airlines until the likes of al Qaeda and their murderous ilk have been neutralized. To date, so-called “moderate” muslims have been completely AWOL in Radical Islam’s War Against the Rest of the World®. Some folks claim it’s because they’re observing a religion that is inherently violent, others claim it’s because they fear reprisals and still others simply state that they shouldn’t be held to account in any way for the acts of those who commit violence in the name of their chosen religion. Whatever the reason, if the “law enforcement” approach to dealing with open acts of war leads to successful attacks by islamist terrorists, the American People – and not just the “Christian kooks” – are going to begin taking this problem into their own hands. I fear that, once pushed too far, their response will be a tad more severe than barring muslims from air travel. Successful national security policy has to deal with the human nature we have, not the one we wish we had. This is the fundamental flaw of morally adolescent, leftist ideologies like socialism and its derivatives, which are those at the core of BHO’s socially suicidal administration.
Your data base is weak; you know nothing of the round-ups of jihadists in the UK, USA, Canada,etc, with their plans to commit terrorism. You equally know nothing of individuals prevented from entering the country, from boarding planes. You know nothing of the preachings of jihadism, the exhortations, the radicalization of young Muslims to carry out terrorist acts. Therefore, your claim that essentially terrorism is only an actuality IF an attack is successfully carried out is logically invalid.
Well, you had the chance to show that you know something, but you took a pass. I’m pretty sure I know more about almost anything than you.
#138 goy
You keep missing the point and focus instead on meaningless minutae.
On the Jerry Pournelle site Dr Pournelle asks —
I am told that we have spent $40 billion on improving airport security measures. That doesn’t take any account of the millions of hours of time wasted by air travelers. We’re locking the barn doors within weeks of seeing the horses stolen — and inconveniencing everyone while doing it.
The result will be billions of dollars spent in the hopes that no one else will be able to try this. It won’t work…. What happens when a roll-on explodes on a Friday afternoon in the security line at Washington National? What will we do then, shut down the entire air travel system?
So much for the body scanner! I’ll repeat: all of the systems in place are designed to stop a repeat of that which has happened rather than prevent something which is new. Not all terrorist acts need to actually bring down an aircraft. Bringing down a chunk of airport will have the same effect.
You probably want to listen to Pournelle; I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that he’s a great deal brighter than you are.
The way to make airlines safer is to have BO and his sidekick Janet fly commercial jet tourist class with no guards so they have to buy tickets ahead of time. This would save taxpayers money and give certain people time to plan which plane to take.
Instead they take private airplanes guarded by a taxpayer paid large Praetorian Guard army.
And for Alice and all those interested– the Christian Culture basically invented all the technology we use today in only 500 years and freed the slaves. In a hundred thousand years the rest of the world invented slavery and still keeps it in Africa and Haiti and many other countries. Only the countries that the Christian culture is in control were the slaves freed.
And as for who attacked who first- muslims attacked the United States in 1784 the first year of our Independence. They murdered our sailors, enslaved them, and stole our ships and property. They did this for decades until we sent the Marines to Tripoli and stopped them.
Goy (#138),
You seem to have a reflexive reaction against me based on my not tearing into Alston for his “Christian kooks” statement. Since my time is limited, and this was not the issue under discussion, and other people were addressing the issue, I chose instead to engage with Alston on his more substantive points. Mea culpa. Mea culpa maxima.
[aside]
Regarding my “absurd paranoia” about a radical Christian resurgence (would you prefer I refer to “Christianity Unleashed”?), I think most religions can result in radical movements, regardless of their irrelevant “true nature.” Has “Christendom,” as such, been better behaved than Islam in the (relatively) recent past? Of course. Is it guaranteed to remain so? Of course not.
If you take offense to this, I could just as as well act all offended at you impugning not just Christians but the entire American People (“their response will be a tad more severe…”).
[/aside]
As a result of your classifying me among the bad guys, you then seem to have decided that the antivirus analogy consists of “silly apologism.” Nonsense!
[aside]
My knowledge and experience in the field rivals yours. In our antivirus discussion, you are attacking straw men and engaging in dubious quibbles over an analogy. (“Computers are not humans.” Really?! Are you next going to tell me that electricity is not wet, that atoms are not miniature solar systems, and that space-time is not a rubber sheet? Who knew!?)
[/aside]
If you try to re-read my comments objectively, you’ll find that I am clearly using the analogy to arrive at conclusions nearly identical to yours. But hey, why have rational discussions or build alliances when you can quibble about analogies and engage in flame wars?
@140. G.L. Alston: – You keep missing the point and focus instead on meaningless minutae.
Really? This from a guy who thinks human beings are no different from computer software? Color me unimpressed.
- I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that he’s a great deal brighter than you are.
Based on what? Your cherry-picked quote doesn’t make Pournelle sound all that bright. But as we’ll see, it turns out that your quote is taken completely out-of-context and doesn’t provide Pournelle’s entire thought on this topic. Being somewhat familiar with Pournelle’s writing on the subject of failed federal bureaucracy, I expected as much as soon as I read your comment.
Pournelle’s comments weren’t limited to the snippet you cherry-picked. The simple fact is that NOT responding (at least) to past known attempts – as the content of your cherry-picked comment implies – will guarantee a repeat of same as long as there are jihadis intent on attacking the U.S. That goes without saying and of course Pournelle is not so stupid as you make him out to be. You clearly chose not to cite his quote with a link so that others would miss the rest of his commentary on this topic.
Pournelle goes on in addition to the quote you cherry-picked, to unabashedly support exactly what I wrote up above. He writes:
What we can do is be more discriminating on who gets to fly on US aircraft to US airports, particularly on international flights. Of course that would mean paying more attention to foreign nationals. It would also mean making profiles of potential terrorists, and searching all those that fit the top profile as well as random samples of those fitting smaller probability profiles. We can do risk analysis and cost/benefit models — but only if we allow profiling.
This one was particularly easy to spot given his association with Yemen in general and Yemen extremists in particular. Once again US authorities had enough information; and once again political correctness prevented any action. Unlike the Fort Hood murders, this politically correct failure didn’t cost any lives. Next time we’re unlikely to be so blessed.
Disingenuously leveraging Pournelle’s brain power simply because you lack your own didn’t get you very far, I’m afraid. In fact, you’ve effectively shot yourself in the foot and destroyed your own argument by doing so.
RE #91/ Bilgeman:
[...] middle-aged women named “Janet” just shouldn’t have any kind of jobs in law enforcement or security. [...]
… err, Janet? Janet? errr…
Janet? The current Interpol Secretary General is one Ronald Noble, who as Treasury man reviewed the 1993 “Janet” raid and siege of a Branch Davidian outfit in Waco, Texas…
Not very encouraging, ain’t so?
@142. Bob: – You seem to have a reflexive reaction against me based on my not tearing into Alston for his “Christian kooks” statement.
Not at all. If you read what I wrote on that, I made it pretty clear that I’m concerned your position is curiously compatible with Alston’s insane sentiments. That’s not ‘reflexive’, it’s actually pretty thoughtful. At this stage in history – baseless speculation and red herrings regarding ‘guarantees’ notwithstanding – it is indeed paranoid to assert that a Christian movement is likely to ever go on a Crusades-style, anti-muslim offensive, much less rival Radical Islam’s War Against the Rest of the World® in any substantive manner. It’s simply not in Christianity’s ideological architecture. It never was, but that’s a much wider subject for a completely different venue. Either way, Islam can’t make the same claim.
- As a result of your classifying me among the bad guys, …
No need to feel so attacked. I haven’t ‘classified’ you in any manner. I’ve simply responded to what you’ve written in this particular thread, which doesn’t appear all that well thought-out and doesn’t stand up to rational analysis or critical thought very well.
- … engaging in dubious quibbles over an analogy.
Perhaps you missed it, but my entire reason for entering this particular thread was to call Alston (and anyone who buys into it) on the absurdity of this silly antivirus analogy. It was hardly a ‘quibble’.
- … I am clearly using the analogy to arrive at conclusions nearly identical to yours.
But that’s just it: it’s a false analogy. Expecting brownie points – simply because that false analogy leads you to agree with me in some manner – will only end in disappointment.
Goy (#143):
You quote Pournelle as saying we should avoid being PC and apply more profiling. You state that this is “exactly” your position. Already in his very first comment on this thread, Alston states that this is his position as well. Therefore… you attack Alston? What the heck is your problem?!
Goy (#145):
Ah, so for me to state that it is remotely possible (quote) for us to witness Christianity Resurgent is paranoid. For you to state that a mere few terrorist attacks will lead the American People to go on a rampage is rational analysis. Got it.
Regarding the antivirus analogy: surely the utility of an analogy lies in it enabling us to reach correct insights and conclusions. For example, given the inherent limits of antivirus software, “computer security starts with NOT DOING the sort of things that ultimately allow a virus to attack your system in the first place. … Recognizing and eliminating the vectors most likely to introduce a virus into your computer is the best first step needed to keep it secure.” (You might find these words familiar.) If the electronic–hydraulic analogy allows me to properly understand and reach correct conclusions regarding electricity, it is the height of fatuity for you to stomp your foot and whine that electricity isn’t wet.
By the way, I’m still not sure what the point of the “precious link” regarding Whole Body-Imaging machines was, but before blaming the TSA or the Administration (which deserve a heck of a lot of blame) exclusively, have a look at this bipartisan bill.
(In terms of the analogy, it doesn’t matter how good your security software is if people refuse to use it.)
Alice, Alice, haven’t you been intellectually bitch-slapped enough here? Crawl back into the rabbit hole and return to your wonderland already!
@146. Bob: – … you attack Alston?
Again Bob, since you’re apparently deaf, I’m not “attacking” Alston, despite the fact that s/he felt it was necessary to post the same glurge under three different sock puppet aliases. I’m merely observing that the antivirus analogy is a false and misleading one when it comes to understanding and developing strategies to deal with islamist terrorists in the context of air travel.
If you depend upon an analogy that reduces human beings to mindless automatons, then you have no chance of expecting them to act like intelligent, adaptable human beings who can think on their feet. To wit, before the idiotic tirade confusing Christians with Jews and then claiming that Christians are anti-technology (huh???), Alston falsely supported this nonsensical analogy with the assertion that “Exploits like this cannot be detected BEFORE they happen.” As I’ve already demonstrated, this assertion is false on its face – the technology has existed for years to detect the sort of exploit used by the Christmas terrorist.
Profiling an individual like Farouk, followed by detainment for a thorough background check would have been equally effective, as Pournelle has observed. So yes, there are ways to prevent this sort of thing. But you’re going to be less successful at it if you staff your front line defenses with “otherwise unemployable imbeciles”, based on a false assumption that only mindless automatons (per the antivirus analogy) can fill such positions. The idea that we simply can’t prevent islamist terrorism is based on the equally false assumption that we somehow don’t know who the islamist terrorists are. This is the illusion under which BHO’s administration is willfully laboring, so as to preserve their multi-culti, PC bona fides.
- … for me to state that it is remotely possible (quote) …
If you’re going to quote yourself, you should learn to do so accurately. There was no “remote” in your earlier admonition. That’s just wishful thinking after the fact. You clearly stated the possibility of “a radical Christian resurgence,” where we would “find ourselves in a situation of Crusaders vs Jihadists”. That’s paranoid nonsense. We’ve already seen what the world’s response to islamist terrorism looks like. It wasn’t mounted by radical Christians, and it didn’t resemble the Crusades in any way other than the fact that it was a military response.
- For you to state that a mere few terrorist attacks will lead the American People to go on a rampage …
When you find the post where I made this assertion, let me know. Again, if you’re going to take the time to quote someone, learn to do it accurately.
- Regarding the antivirus analogy: surely the utility of an analogy lies in it enabling us to reach correct insights and conclusions.
Precisely. And since human beings are not mindless automatons subject to the limitations of computers running antivirus software, the analogy is a false and misleading one, and leads to throwing up hands based on the erroneous notion that “there’s nothing we can do to prevent islamist terrorism because the only thing we have to throw at it are otherwise unemployable imbeciles who can’t be trained to recognize a potential threat”.
As for electricity, feel free to entertain whatever fantasies you like on the topic. I never mentioned it.
Goy (#148):
“As for electricity, feel free to entertain whatever fantasies you like on the topic. I never mentioned it.”
It’s called an analogy
. Just like the electronic–hydraulic analogy does not mean that sticking your finger in an electrical socket will get it wet, so to does the antivirus analogy not imply one believes that people are mindless automatons. The main point of the analogy is that a purely reactive approach, such as that employed by the TSA at airports, is not sufficient to defeat terrorism. Do you deny this?
Me: “for me to state that it is remotely possible (quote) for us to witness Christianity Resurgent”
You: “If you’re going to quote yourself, you should learn to do so accurately. There was no ‘remote’ in your earlier admonition.”
Feel free to read my first comment (#85): “It is (remotely) possible for us to once again witness Christianity Rampant.” Or do the parentheses somehow negate the word “remotely,” as opposed to the word “quote”?
Me: “For you to state that a mere few terrorist attacks will lead the American People to go on a rampage”
You: “When you find the post where I made this assertion, let me know. Again, if you’re going to take the time to quote someone, learn to do it accurately.”
Feel free to read your comment (#138): “If the ‘law enforcement’ approach to dealing with open acts of war leads to successful attacks by islamist terrorists, the American People – and not just the ‘Christian kooks’ – are going to begin taking this problem into their own hands. I fear that, once pushed too far, their response will be a tad more severe than barring muslims from air travel.” By “taking this problem into their own hands” and “a tad more severe” you undoubtedly meant “write a strongly worded letter to their congressman.”
Feel free to apologize.
Nah, who am I kidding. We’re in a difficult struggle against the Jihadists which many of “our side” refuse to take seriously, so the obviously correct (to you) course of action is to try to score points against your allies.
Bob 146 — Therefore… you attack Alston? What the heck is your problem?!
That’s SOP here. Essentially if you note that fundie christian kooks are the equivalent to fundie muslim kooks, any given number of posters here in true pavlovian style go off the rails thinking that this is an attack on their religion, therefore you/I/whomever makes the observation must obviously be a… a) troll b) obamabot c) leftist d) atheist e) all of the above. Any poster identified as a thru d in this place is thus attacked. They are not of the body. The right wing here is a very religious socially conservative version of right wing (and a small minority of actual voters, but they certainly don’t see this.)
Meanwhile.
In the muslim world mullahs wield actual power. In the west the churches have zero power. But when they used to hold power (i.e. in the 1500′s before the wheels fell off) it was a different story: the reformation was bloody. Jeann d’Arc was burned for witchcraft. And so on. (The good old days, to be sure. Sigh.) The mullahs preach their kooky fundie rubbish and kooky fundie rubbish will always resonate with SOME people, no different there than here. That was the point of my earlier comment. Susceptibility to fundie rubbish is a HUMAN problem, not an exclusive feature of muslim belief.
In this case the mullahs have a real fear of losing real power, so when their preaching somehow resonates it’s not surprising to find that a number of people will rise up for jihad. There are always those who find the fundie message compelling. There and here. And the mullahs are really flooring the pedal on this. They NEED this. Iranian youth are wearing blue jeans, drinking coke, and dancing to hip hop. Dictating to them is getting progressively more difficult. The mullahs really NEED separation from western influence. They are highly motivated.
If the US version of fundie kooks were to glom onto the idea that Obama is the antichrist and they MUST ACT NOW one would expect bloodshed and yes, terrorism of sorts. Any number of posters here have bragged about how well armed they are, routinely express hatred of gays and evolutionist teachers and abortion doctors and… and I could go on but you get the point: action is a matter of motivation and radicalisation.
So in making this comparison and/or observation *of course* I will be attacked. You actually expected differently?
Bob #147 — Regarding the antivirus analogy: surely the utility of an analogy lies in it enabling us to reach correct insights and conclusions.
Dunno if you’re an XKCD fan, but this spells out the position in comic form.
http://xkcd.com/651/
The sentient readers here already got it and know that much of the analogy works well enough. There’s only one guy questioning it.
@151. Bob: – It’s called an analogy …
Clearly, both you and Alston feel that all one needs to do is utter what you think is an analogy, and it’s automatically valid. Not the case. And I haven’t asserted anything remotely analogous to the notion that electricity isn’t wet.
Again, the only way the antivirus analogy is applicable is if human beings and the policies they employ are subject to the limitations of – and/or perform their jobs in the same mindless way – as computers. As I’ve already made clear, this line of faux reasoning leads one to believe that the only strategies and tactics available to the TSA and the like in preventing islamist terrorism are reactive in nature, and based solely on past events. That’s simply not the case, a fact which causes the antivirus analogy to break down irretrievably.
Furthermore, the fact is that the reactive policies do work to prevent repeats of past attacks. This is a critical aspect of preventing islamist terrorism. The silly analogy you’ve latched on to implies that it’s the only aspect worth acknowledging. It’s not, and this – perhaps – points to your (and Alston’s) problem: you seem to believe that the policies and technologies that have garnered the most publicity – through The Left Wing Media’s quest for a renewed audience, since that’s the avenue of most folks’ exposure to the issue – are the sum total of the options available. These are the policies intended to prevent a repeat of past terrorist attacks, which would undoubtedly occur if the same doors were left open. These policies are not intended to prevent new modes of attack. I shouldn’t have to note this, but apparently it’s necessary for you. Because you mistake policies intended to prevent repeats of past attacks for ones intended to prevent future – different – attacks, you therefore mistakenly believe that the only options are reactive in nature. This leads you down a dead-end path where the antivirus analogy makes sense to you. That being the case, I suggest you (both) simply get out more.
Available tools for fighting terrorism in the skies go beyond the metal detector and x-ray machine(s), despite the fact that those are critical necessities. The trick is in employing all available tools creatively and intelligently and, most importantly, with an eye toward real security – as in “I’m likely gonna die if I don’t use every means and creative idea at my disposal” type security.
This is something with which our culture is woefully out of practise. We’re used to people generally behaving themselves and simply don’t take real security that seriously, yet. Collectively, we’ve chosen to allow ourselves to be lulled by The Left Wing Media back into a false sense of security, and have almost completely forgotten the lessons of 9/11 – or WTC ’93, or Kobar Towers, or the U.S.S. Cole, or the Highway Sniper, or the Ft. Hood terrorist, or the multiple instances of Sudden Jihad Syndrome, etc., etc. The truth stares us in the face and we choose to look past it for an excuse – like false analogies about antiviruses – to go back to the couch and whine about how little there is we can do about it.
Alston, for instance, seems to think a high school drop-out with no real interest in doing her job is unlikely to catch a would-be terrorist amidst the thousands that pass by her each day… and that this means “game over” because the TSA is incapable of doing its job. This is a kind of false choice, being that people better suited and better trained for the job are undeniably a very viable option. To date, our hapless government simply hasn’t recognized, much less acted in earnest on the necessity of exercising that option. They’re simply too busy spinning inconvenient truths and getting (re-)elected. Willful failure to see that option makes the false antivirus analogy attractive: it’s simplistic – which is why it works well as a comic but serves extremely poorly as conventional wisdom aimed at preserving the national security of a Republic. One way or another we’re going to learn this hard lesson as a society, just as the Israelis have, and we’ll adapt. Or we won’t, and the USA will repeat all the mistakes of the UK and follow it into ignominy. If the US continues to be governed by the likes of the current administration and many of its State governments, I predict the latter. It’s a far more likely outcome than Alston’s hysterical fears involving “Christian kooks”.
- Feel free to read my first comment…
No need. I have this one: “… if the Jihadists continue attacking us, and especially if our “elites” are seen as not prosecuting the struggle with sufficient determination, there might well be a frightening backlash, possibly including a radical Christian resurgence. And in that case, if we find ourselves in a situation of Crusaders vs Jihadists …” Nothing “remotely” qualifying your prediction here, I’m afraid. If you expect people to read this statement as equivalent to your fears regarding “Christianity rampant” (whatever that implies), then you’re going to need to be a little more consistent with your terminology.
- Feel free to read your comment…
No need. I wrote it, and I know what I wrote. I didn’t make myself sound hysterical by writing “a mere few terrorist attacks”, nor did I try to sound overly alarmist by asserting that “the American People [will] go on a rampage”. Perhaps putting words in others’ mouths, so as to misrepresent their intent or tone, or to falsely attack their credibility with straw man mischaracterizations, is valid discourse where you live. If so, I suggest you move. That’s a tiresome lefty tactic.
- … the obviously correct (to you) course of action is to try to score points against your allies.
How silly. And again, I see that you can’t resist the urge to project some irrational motive onto my thought process, simply because I won’t accept a demonstrably false analogy that you cling to, and because I have a problem with people who exhibit irrational, paranoid fantasies about modern-day Christians. I’m not looking for “allies”, Bob. And if I were, I wouldn’t ally myself with someone who exhibits that sort of behavior.
Alice wrote: “its completely asinine to argue that the origins of Islam have anything to do with Islam today”
Quite incorrect. Mohammed was forced, by his own villagers, to leave Mecca. Whereupon he made his way to Medina. While in Median, he promptly severed the heads of 700 Jewish men and took their wives and children as slaves.
So you see, boys and girls, Islam’s origins have EVERYTHING to do with Islam today. It was and is a violent ideology…… ignore it at your own peril.
Goy (#154): “I’m not looking for ‘allies’, Bob.”
Clearly. Glad to know you have your priorities straight.
“There are no atheists in a foxhole, and if there are, I’m leaving.”
Alston,
Given our differences of opinion, and especially my strongly negative assessment to your paragraph on abortion (we’ll save that debate for a relevant thread), I suppose you should send a thank-you card to Goy for his yeoman’s work in casting you as the sympathetic one. (Oh noe! I’ve exposed myself as one of your innumerable sock-puppets!)
As to the XKCD comic, it has absolutely nothing to do with our situation! How can you possibly make the ridiculous assertion that we are stick figures?
Catch you on another thread.
Truly cool post you got here. I’d like to read more about that matter. Thnx for sharing such info.
Agnes WRIGHT