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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
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.
seriously? just because it wasn't successful by your standards you are ruling out Al-Qaeda? they are not perfect. they fail just like everyone else. they do however learn very fast from their mistakes and try again. there is no reason to believe this wasn't them just because it wasn't successful in bringing down the plane. it was successful in showing them how to get certain components onboard. it was successful in showing how to assemble them onboard. it was successful in showing how we react to their new plan. i'm sure it was successful in accomplishing any number of their objectives. sometimes they just send people out to test reactions and responses to attempted attacks. not all actions are full on real attacks, sometimes they are just testing our lines.
i'm not saying that is was for sure Al-Qaeda, but i'm not stupid enough to rule them out just because it didn't fit my idea of what a successful Al-Qaeda attack should be. they only have to be successful in bringing down the plane once, we have to be successful in stopping them every time.
what has me is how this guy was allowed to land ALIVE. i for one will not take prisoners when somebody trys to blow me up in the sky.
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
Al Qaeda is not, as I understand it, a real entity. There's no board of directors, no "Department of Bringing Down Aeroplanes", no CTO. No organizational structure whatsoever. The term itself is supposed to have originated at the CIA.
The way to look at it instead is a term analogous to "Silicon Valley". The is a common thread ("A united Arab superstate/Making money through the advancement of computer technology"), there are the sources of funds (Osama Bin Laden/numerous Venture Capitalists), and then there are the numerous operations themselves. For every 9/11, there's a hundred shoe bombers. For every Apple Computer, there's a hundred Pets.coms.
Pants On Fire Guy was an idiot who wanted to bring down a plane in the cause of striking at the infidels and thus helping bring about an Arab Superstate. That's all the label means. That's all PoFG meant by invoking it. PoFG is no more an employee of Al Qaeda than Greg McLemore (who?) was an employee of Silicon Valley.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
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.
Philippine Airlines Flight 434 - one passenger killed and hole in the aircraft fuselage by just such a bomb.
Not a binary explosive mixed in flight.
It was a bunch of cotton balls soaked with nitroglycerin - you know that explosive that you just look at it funny and it blows up.
In fact, it is so delicate that the apartment they were using to build the bombs in DID blow up, whcih is how they caught the guys.
So, if the TSA wants to ban all damp cotton balls they might have some justification. But, if they treated them the same way they do liquids today, they'd make you throw them into that huge trash can at the head of the line and there would be a good chance that the nitroglycerin would go BOOOOM when the bad guy did so, killing or maiming most people in the near vicinity.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.