No, those were Soviet spycraft and secret U.S. spycraft. Do you think it's a coincidence that the vast majority of these "sightings" happened at the height of the Cold War near U.S. military bases? The military wasn't covering up little green men, they were covering up their spy gear.
Extra security screening is "injustice"? Are you fucking retarded? Yeah, this isn't the first step towards shipping them off to concentration camps, asshole. It's a few minutes of extra hassle at the airport. I'm pretty sure that's not going to have anyone singing "We Shall Overcome" in front of an airport, or inspire Steven Spielberg to make a movie about the plight of the slightly annoyed airplane passenger. It's just a little common sense applied to a screening system that has become ridiculous.
First of all, let's be honest, radical Islam is more than "an extremely few of them." In Egypt (always a fairly moderate country, by middle eastern standards) they did a poll in the wake of the recent uprising and found that 62% of the country favors establishing Sharia law as the legal system of Egypt. Does that mean all of that 62% are looking to be terrorists? No. But it does give you a pretty good idea of just how mainstream some pretty radically intolerant Muslims really are. We're not talking a tiny little minority here.
And secondly, I'm not proposing that non-Muslims NOT be screened. Just because I'm a white non-Muslim doesn't mean I'll get a free pass to just blaze on through the line with no screening. I'm just proposing *extra* scrutiny for those who more closely fit the profile instead of extra scrutiny for every random Joe (including babies) who stumbles through the line. That's how they do it in Israel, and it seems to work pretty well for them (and their airlines are WAY more targeted than ours).
Oh yes, the old "Well, you do it too!" argument--as if that makes it okay to walk into a mall and blow up a bunch of kids, or means that I should give a terrorist a "Well, we do bad things too" hall-pass. Frankly, when I get on a plane, I don't give a rat's ass what the Iraqis and Afghans think of the U.S. All I care about is making it to my destination without having some Koran-thumping nutball blow a hole in my jet fuselage because he thinks he'll finally get laid in heaven.
It's not the job of the TSA to ponder on the philosophical issues of whether the U.S. was justified to invade Iraq or Afghanistan. It's their job to keep bombs and hijackers off our planes.
You do know they the suicide bomber are an incredibly tiny percentage of Islam practitioners, right?
Yeah, no shit. I also know that people wanting to blow up my airplane are an incredibly tiny percentage of the population too, but we still screen for them. I'm just proposing that we screen smarter. And I'm not talking about disenfranchising anyone. It's not like we're going to tell all Muslims that they can't fly, or throw them in jail, or take away their right to vote. We're talking a little extra security screening because they more closely fit the modern terrorist profile--that's it. We're not going to send them to separate schools and make them drink from separate water fountains.
The biggest threat is the religious nutball who thinks god wants him to kill as many unbelievers as possible. Now, if this were the middle ages, I would say the Catholic crusaders best fit that profile. But today? There is little doubt where most of the modern "I must kill masses of heathens for god!!" religious zealots come from. And it ain't out of some bible camp or kibbutz.
Yes, there is always the possibility that they could get some white Christian guys in there to beat the system. But I imagine that it will be a HELLUVA lot harder for them to recruit those guys than it is to recruit radical Muslims. Not many Christians I know are willing to kill (and certainly not commit suicide) for the glory of Allah and Islam.
Now you're just spouting some tired old "Well, you support evil dictators too!" shit, because you know damn well what religion the suicide bombers who are going to walk into some police station, or mall, or marketplace tomorrow (and the next day, and the day after that) and blow themselves up after screaming "Allah Akbar!!" will belong to. And it damn sure isn't Buddhism.
No, my profile wouldn't have caught Tim McVeigh. But it might have caught the 9-11 hijackers; the shoe bomber; the diaper bomber; the Ft. Hood shooter; the Madrid, Bali, and London bombers, the Mumbai terrorists, and the thousands of other Muslim terrorists around the world who've lately decided that god has a hard-on for dumbasses who walk into crowded places and blow themselves up.
Tim McVeigh was one attack, involving only two terrorists, that killed 168 people. Muslim terrorists have killed TENS OF THOUSANDS of people over the last 20 years, with attacks that happen on a DAILY BASIS (there was one this morning that killed 80 Pakistanis, and the day isn't even over yet).
Okay since we're talking specifically about U.S. airline screening here, can you give me a list (assuming you can fit it all in one post) of all the non-Muslims who have attempted to blow up or hijack U.S. airplanes in the last 10-15 years? Since most terrorists aren't Muslim, and I can name at least 25 Muslims off the top of my head who have either succeeded or tried to do this--then your list must be huge. Aside from a few unruly passengers pissed about their seating arrangements and some mental patients who tried to open the emergency door, I can't think of even one non-Muslim that caused so much as a *disturbance* on a U.S. plane in that time period. But I'm sure your list will prove me wrong.
Extra screening isn't being "found guilty." It's a security precaution. Hell, even I've been patted down before. I'm saying that smart screening is a lot more effective than random screening. Just because our politically-correct sensibilities are offended by the idea of singling out people by race or religion doesn't mean we should act like a bunch of blinded jackasses when it comes to potential terrorists. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Al Quaida doesn't have a lot of Christians, Jews, and Buddhists in their ranks.
No, genius. Most Muslims are not terrorists. But most terrorists *are* Muslim. Given those two facts, if you're trying to catch a terrorist, who do you look for? Do you just randomly flail around pretending there is equally as much chance that the Greek Orthodox priest standing in line is a terrorist as the Saudi Muslim standing beside him?
You think that patting down a random person who doesn't even come close to fitting the profile of a modern terrorists, while completely ignoring the guy behind her who does is a smart way to approach screening, do you? Because us morons think that taking a more focused approach might be in order. Profiling works to catch serial killers, so why not use it to screen for terrorists too?
Have you seen a lot of white Christian suicide bombers and terrorists lately? Because aside from Tim McVeigh and a few nutbags bombing abortion clinics, I haven't seen many of them in the last 20 years. Even the IRA put its C-4 away a long time ago.
Methinks the fact that pretty much every suicide bomber and terrorist these days is a Muslim *might* just suggest a pattern. But then, granted, I'm no Batman-level detective or anything.
The cost of the PS3 and its games are right on par with the cost of a Xbox and its games. I maybe could accept this lame argument if PS3 games cost an extra $20 or something, but they don't. Sony is eating the cost of PSN in an attempt to better compete with the much Xbox Live (which is a much more stable, consistent service with a significant headstart over PSN--but which charges $5 a month). The only thing "subsidizing" PSN is Sony. And this security breach seems to indicate that they were trying to do it on the cheap.
A Muslim with an obvious middle eastern accent was waved on through because the random checks didn't single him out and because it would be politically incorrect to flag Muslims for extra screening.
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It wasn't the size of a football field. It was the size of a small car. It was just a lot closer than you realized.
That's on a Wednesday. I have to work. Could they wait until after 5?
No, those were Soviet spycraft and secret U.S. spycraft. Do you think it's a coincidence that the vast majority of these "sightings" happened at the height of the Cold War near U.S. military bases? The military wasn't covering up little green men, they were covering up their spy gear.
Duh, you just use the time of day and year when the last local redneck was anally-probed. Do they have to spell it out for you?
All all three Muslim.
Extra security screening is "injustice"? Are you fucking retarded? Yeah, this isn't the first step towards shipping them off to concentration camps, asshole. It's a few minutes of extra hassle at the airport. I'm pretty sure that's not going to have anyone singing "We Shall Overcome" in front of an airport, or inspire Steven Spielberg to make a movie about the plight of the slightly annoyed airplane passenger. It's just a little common sense applied to a screening system that has become ridiculous.
First of all, let's be honest, radical Islam is more than "an extremely few of them." In Egypt (always a fairly moderate country, by middle eastern standards) they did a poll in the wake of the recent uprising and found that 62% of the country favors establishing Sharia law as the legal system of Egypt. Does that mean all of that 62% are looking to be terrorists? No. But it does give you a pretty good idea of just how mainstream some pretty radically intolerant Muslims really are. We're not talking a tiny little minority here.
And secondly, I'm not proposing that non-Muslims NOT be screened. Just because I'm a white non-Muslim doesn't mean I'll get a free pass to just blaze on through the line with no screening. I'm just proposing *extra* scrutiny for those who more closely fit the profile instead of extra scrutiny for every random Joe (including babies) who stumbles through the line. That's how they do it in Israel, and it seems to work pretty well for them (and their airlines are WAY more targeted than ours).
Oh yes, the old "Well, you do it too!" argument--as if that makes it okay to walk into a mall and blow up a bunch of kids, or means that I should give a terrorist a "Well, we do bad things too" hall-pass. Frankly, when I get on a plane, I don't give a rat's ass what the Iraqis and Afghans think of the U.S. All I care about is making it to my destination without having some Koran-thumping nutball blow a hole in my jet fuselage because he thinks he'll finally get laid in heaven.
It's not the job of the TSA to ponder on the philosophical issues of whether the U.S. was justified to invade Iraq or Afghanistan. It's their job to keep bombs and hijackers off our planes.
You do know they the suicide bomber are an incredibly tiny percentage of Islam practitioners, right?
Yeah, no shit. I also know that people wanting to blow up my airplane are an incredibly tiny percentage of the population too, but we still screen for them. I'm just proposing that we screen smarter. And I'm not talking about disenfranchising anyone. It's not like we're going to tell all Muslims that they can't fly, or throw them in jail, or take away their right to vote. We're talking a little extra security screening because they more closely fit the modern terrorist profile--that's it. We're not going to send them to separate schools and make them drink from separate water fountains.
The biggest threat is the religious nutball who thinks god wants him to kill as many unbelievers as possible. Now, if this were the middle ages, I would say the Catholic crusaders best fit that profile. But today? There is little doubt where most of the modern "I must kill masses of heathens for god!!" religious zealots come from. And it ain't out of some bible camp or kibbutz.
Yes, there is always the possibility that they could get some white Christian guys in there to beat the system. But I imagine that it will be a HELLUVA lot harder for them to recruit those guys than it is to recruit radical Muslims. Not many Christians I know are willing to kill (and certainly not commit suicide) for the glory of Allah and Islam.
Now you're just spouting some tired old "Well, you support evil dictators too!" shit, because you know damn well what religion the suicide bombers who are going to walk into some police station, or mall, or marketplace tomorrow (and the next day, and the day after that) and blow themselves up after screaming "Allah Akbar!!" will belong to. And it damn sure isn't Buddhism.
What's that? Do I hear silence?
Too bad they didn't have some common attribute that might have singled them out for more scrutiny.
No, my profile wouldn't have caught Tim McVeigh. But it might have caught the 9-11 hijackers; the shoe bomber; the diaper bomber; the Ft. Hood shooter; the Madrid, Bali, and London bombers, the Mumbai terrorists, and the thousands of other Muslim terrorists around the world who've lately decided that god has a hard-on for dumbasses who walk into crowded places and blow themselves up.
Tim McVeigh was one attack, involving only two terrorists, that killed 168 people. Muslim terrorists have killed TENS OF THOUSANDS of people over the last 20 years, with attacks that happen on a DAILY BASIS (there was one this morning that killed 80 Pakistanis, and the day isn't even over yet).
Got YOU.
Okay since we're talking specifically about U.S. airline screening here, can you give me a list (assuming you can fit it all in one post) of all the non-Muslims who have attempted to blow up or hijack U.S. airplanes in the last 10-15 years? Since most terrorists aren't Muslim, and I can name at least 25 Muslims off the top of my head who have either succeeded or tried to do this--then your list must be huge. Aside from a few unruly passengers pissed about their seating arrangements and some mental patients who tried to open the emergency door, I can't think of even one non-Muslim that caused so much as a *disturbance* on a U.S. plane in that time period. But I'm sure your list will prove me wrong.
This is some extra security screening, not throwing someone in jail. So you can take your cape off, Captain Equality.
Extra screening isn't being "found guilty." It's a security precaution. Hell, even I've been patted down before. I'm saying that smart screening is a lot more effective than random screening. Just because our politically-correct sensibilities are offended by the idea of singling out people by race or religion doesn't mean we should act like a bunch of blinded jackasses when it comes to potential terrorists. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Al Quaida doesn't have a lot of Christians, Jews, and Buddhists in their ranks.
No, genius. Most Muslims are not terrorists. But most terrorists *are* Muslim. Given those two facts, if you're trying to catch a terrorist, who do you look for? Do you just randomly flail around pretending there is equally as much chance that the Greek Orthodox priest standing in line is a terrorist as the Saudi Muslim standing beside him?
You think that patting down a random person who doesn't even come close to fitting the profile of a modern terrorists, while completely ignoring the guy behind her who does is a smart way to approach screening, do you? Because us morons think that taking a more focused approach might be in order. Profiling works to catch serial killers, so why not use it to screen for terrorists too?
The 9-11 hijackers, the shoe bomber, the diaper bomber, etc. were all innocent when they boarded too.
Have you seen a lot of white Christian suicide bombers and terrorists lately? Because aside from Tim McVeigh and a few nutbags bombing abortion clinics, I haven't seen many of them in the last 20 years. Even the IRA put its C-4 away a long time ago.
Methinks the fact that pretty much every suicide bomber and terrorist these days is a Muslim *might* just suggest a pattern. But then, granted, I'm no Batman-level detective or anything.
The cost of the PS3 and its games are right on par with the cost of a Xbox and its games. I maybe could accept this lame argument if PS3 games cost an extra $20 or something, but they don't. Sony is eating the cost of PSN in an attempt to better compete with the much Xbox Live (which is a much more stable, consistent service with a significant headstart over PSN--but which charges $5 a month). The only thing "subsidizing" PSN is Sony. And this security breach seems to indicate that they were trying to do it on the cheap.
A Muslim with an obvious middle eastern accent was waved on through because the random checks didn't single him out and because it would be politically incorrect to flag Muslims for extra screening.