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Man Tries To Use Explosive Device On US Flight
reporter writes with news that a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to set off a small explosive device — possibly a firecracker — on a Delta Airbus 330 airliner bound for Detroit yesterday. "There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat." The man has claimed links to al-Qaeda, though the investigation hasn't confirmed that yet. (They're not taking anything for granted given that his pants were literally on fire.)
It most likely gets to that point too - everyone will just sit naked and doing nothing for the whole flight. If your eyes move, you will be shot.
However, those rules actually are real, they were sent to airlines this morning. They are also requiring double security checks at airports - one when you go to terminal area, and one at the port. Again, shouldn't you get caught in the first check?
It did not sound like a firecracker in the latest reports I have been hearing on the radio. Latest: it was a powder, plus a liquid from a syringe. My blogger buddy remembered something I forgot, there is a way to ignite thermite with a liquid (potassium permanganate and glycerol? sorry for forgetting), but no idea what this was yet.
Home of The Suki Series
These guys are not stupid, if they wanted to do it they would succeed. I suspect that the bloke is a lone nutter who wanted to draw attention to himself or had some grudge or something. He may even have sympathised with al-Qaeda - but that does not make it an al-Qaeda plot.
However the result of this is that the various security agencies around the world will use this as as excuse to increase the boarding checks resulting in more pain to us and their continued employment.
What better way to weed out possible terrorist than strip searching everyone who does not prominently display a $0.10 pewter cross.
BRILLIANT!
I don't suppose you actually work for the TSA? Sounds like you were born for that career.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I found this for Canada, it seems to have the same rules stated too.
But you mention a good point: the suspect was apprehended with the help of a passenger. How about instead of wasting billions of dollars on ridiculous security measures, we pay passengers to take martial arts lessons?
Or, instead of banning weapons, what about mandating that everyone flying MUST carry a knife with them?
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
It most likely gets to that point too - everyone will just sit naked and doing nothing for the whole flight. If your eyes move, you will be shot.
Well, this doesn't seem that extreme to me, given the lengths to which airlines are prepared to stretch to make the passengers' flight as unpleasant as possible. Airlines are bitterly complaining that they aren't getting enough passengers on seats, while failing to recognise that their policy of mistreating said passengers is largely responsible.
Well, I have news for those airlines: I have alternatives. I no longer care to embark on long-haul flights unless they are absolutely unavoidable, so I won't do it. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. If the airlines have to go broke before they realise their customers are deliberately staying away, then that's just too bad.
It'll be interesting to compare Obama's response to the fear-fear-fear responses from the Bush Administration.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Of course there are ways to beat the security system. The instant case proves it.
US Airline security is a joke. A sick and twisted joke designed by the Bushies to keep US citizens afraid as they go about their travels.
The Israelis installed a bulkhead between the flight deck and the passenger compartment - surprise, there have been no successful hijackings since Entebbe. That's 30 years of proven technology.
As for passengers and baggage - well, the current boarding procedure needs a massive update.
Once the aircraft are secure, however, what's to keep the "terrorists" from attacking the aircraft on approach or takeoff? The USA allows pretty free trade in .50 Cal. Sniper Rifles and the .338 is damn near as effective.
Or, thanks to Rep. Charlie Wilson, perhaps some of those tens of thousands of Stinger missiles will come back home from Afghanistan?
I think that business relations are flying away from US as well. I work in the R&D dept. of a large european company, and since when security rules for entering US have been tightened, I started preferring non-US based contractors and universities as business partners (most of them are now in Canada and EU): I found that I could get the same services offered by US-based companies, but without the inconvenients dictated by TSA rules. Before 9/11 I used to come to US at least 3-4 times a year for business, now I come only once a year, unless I cannot delegate the travel to somebody else. What surprised me was to find that several colleagues of mine acted the same like myself. I suppose that further enforcing rules for entering US (like for example withdrawing the visa waiver program for EU countries) will make us prefer doing business with Russia rather than with US.
If the question you're trying to answer is "can religious terrorism get so bad the state collapses ?" the answer would be yes, including lots of historical precedent for it.
And for more bad news : the only thing that has every stopped it is repression. Not repression of the criminals only, that has never fixed terrorism. Even outlawing the religion/ideology behind the attacks has worked only a few times, and not all that well. At best that tactic provided a temporary solution. The only solution that has ever managed to stop these attacks for, say, hundred years is the total repression of every ideology except a single state-endorsed one. We're not even talking a specific religion, but a specific subsect of a specific religion.
Unfortunately, reports of the intolerance of the middle ages are grossly overblown. In fact, all religions were "declared equal" many times. In Spain, Italy, Venice, Greece, ... even outside the west, India did it, multiple times, China did it many times. A "certain religion" moved in as a result of that, followed by a terror campaign. That either resulted in total annihilation of the "infidels" (e.g. Carthage, all the south meditteranean former city states (a LOT of them), Babylon, Persia, ... , most of the Christian kingdoms of Africa except Ethiopia) or a counterreaction of various denominations or religions (e.g. reconquista, the many Italian "reconquistas", Greece, but also non-Christian regions like just about all of Northern India and many southasian Buddhist regions).
And if you lookup the tactics used ... guess what they will remind you off ? It's not that Romans were afraid of sabotage, or even mass-poisonings, they weren't. But the Romans (by then they were not "legally" Roman anymore, but that certainly was their culture) were essentially constructive people, their actions were mean to develop and build, even when poisoning their enemies. The "other side" simply destroyed and totally overwhelmed not just the enemy, but all natural resources too. They went for the extreme short term exploitation of everything, often resulting in their own annihilation (just read the letters sent between the king of Acre and the caliph of Cairo. He was warned that if he won a military campaign against their 90% food source they would starve to death. He said he knew this. He attacked, "won", and 30 million of his people starved to death).
There is no good response to terrorism. There's only a number of solutions ranging from total disaster to utter catastrophies. Right now terror is slowly growing, according to most sources. Right now, a tactic of militarily attacking the ideology responsible for it stands a chance. That window of opportunity will not last, and once it closes, we only get to choose between the catastrophies.
And frankly, if evolution is correct, only effective physical barriers are known to cause races to be created. If they disappear, if we "live together", it's not just that all cultures will disappear. All differences in skin color will disappear. All difference in hair color will disappear. Research has found that unless barriers around Africa are re-erected like before the 20th century, the black skin color will be gone before 2400. Despite once having 22% black people (down to less than 17%), the US will return to being a 100% white nation in less than 200 years, more due to intermarrying than due to any other effect (and despite blacks having more children). This is a process that follows a power law, by the way. Despite that it will take 200 years for black skin color to totally vanish, their numbers will shrink to the point of not being visible in the street at most a few decades. "Mixed" skin color will last longer, but will diminish to the point of a rarity before the end of the century.
The same goes for ideology. So really, what's the point of asking all this misery in ?
He was shot by a civilian *police officer*.
One of the things I rather miss in the UK is the whole train travel experience. Here's how it works:
1. The US.
Now, the Chinese experience sounds better. But here's what I had to do on British Rail. Now, British Rail was an awful, nationalized, mess full of everything bad you associate with nationalized industries. It had been ripped apart in the 1960s by the road lobby, and from then until privatization was heavily underfunded and everything was constantly under the threat of closure or reduction. So, this is Crap by the standards it could have been. Also, this was during a time when Britain was suffering real terrorism from people who couldn't be screened out via passport checks.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If 9/11 changed the rules as you say, then why have there been several successful (read: control of the plane was taken) hijackings since then?
People like to say the rules have changed, but the fact that successful hijackings have occurred since then demonstrates that is just plain wrong.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Sorry. I should be more clear here. I'm not trying to be anti-military, but at the same tome: no, the military is not a productive part of society. They produce nothing of everyday value, or pretty close to it. Rather, it's a protective part of society. This is important too, but at the end of the day the whole reason for the Army/Navy/whatever is to keep whatever I'm doing (and my neighbors and their neighbors) intact. If all the "bad guys" in the world turned good in a torrent of peace and flowers and sunshine and unicorns heralding the dawn of a new era free from conflict forever, we'd be better off without any troops whatsoever. In the interim, it's good to have them around, but every resource that we devote to the military is diverted from productive activity, and the things people really value in their everyday lives: manufacturing, programming, literature, textiles, art, car-washing, gardening, home improvement, gym memberships, football, education, books on tape, whatever.
Moreover, I'm much better at programming than soldiering. My time really is better spent outside the army. It's the basic principle of "specialization" which Adam Smith expounded upon in Wealth of Nations tens of decades ago. Sure, some people can benefit from their career in the military life, plenty. Some people can appreciate the military culture. I'm not among them. I would find it oppressive, grating, and obnoxious, and probably feel trapped. I've got an ingrained anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide, which I prefer to avoid activating.
Finally, if everyone spends some of the formative years of their lives in a very rigid, structured organization like the military, we as a society would trend towards an organizational monoculture in the rest of our business world which would hamper our ability to innovate and create more-efficient business processes, just because everyone has been inculcated the same way.
Now, my family has plenty of military tradition. I can appreciate the military. My great-grandfather was a hero in the Polish-Bolshevik war. (He got a snazzy estate on the border, and he and his family were set for life, until the Soviets rolled in and shipped everyone off to Siberia). My grandfather on the other side of the family trained to operate a Davy Crockett missile (you know, the "atomic hand grenade"). And now my little brother is thinking of going into the Army. Voluntarily. He'd have a blast, I'm sure. He'd like it. He's a lot better suited for it than I am. The nation will be adequately protected without the government telling me exactly what I'm going to do with 4-6 years of my life.
And you know, in times of great need, like the big world wars, when we have a draft, sometimes that little infringement is a price that people have to pay, and it's worth it. But now? For the sake of airline security to possibly theoretically maybe help thwart a terrorist attack like the one that was just the other day thwarted without that sort of help? Not worth it. Call me again when there's a real threat to America. Thanks.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I think you do not realize how much inovation comes from the military.
Hell, the internet started off as a military project. Our highways did as well.
Tor came from the NAVY if I recall correctly.