I also like how 9/11 is always referred to as a 'tragedy' in an attempt to make it analogous to an earthquake or hurricane, instead of as the atrocity it actually was.

What can the average person do when faced with such headlines as:

Government workers in oil industry sex and drug scandal: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1043918820080911 (no actual break in link)

PS. Does it bother any body else that the Dow Jones value is near the value it was on Jan. 1, 2000 (11,497.10)?? What happened during those almost 9 years?? Where did all that money go?

Read an article in yesterday's local paper quoting an al Quaeda leader in Afghanistan saying they are hunting Canadian soldiers right now because they know we're going to election. It was buried on page 8. What? Are we afraid someone might realize we're talking about more than a few stupid, fantatically-religious goat herders? Maybe they are organized and know exactly how to exploit our bleeding hearts to get their way. I will never, EVER forget this day.

Indeed Mad. Sadly many believe things always go up ignoring that sometimes they go down. This is especially true when the growth is based on a credit and then real estate bubble. After awhile the music stops and someone is left holding the bag. The ponzi scheme is over as there are no suckers left to keep it afloat.

While terrorism is a major issue, its not the only one. Then again, I think anyone who votes solely on the economy and believe Mr. HopeChange will fix things is foolish.

Where's LYT? He and I should have an argument today about whether OBL is still alive. Then we'll have an argument about whether it matters. It'll be an annual thing on the anniversary...

But for the record, could it matter any less whether the Bearded Goofball still breathes? This is a fight against hillbillies that's going to be going on for a few generations. Only in the early weeks did it seem likely that Osama was going to work as a media-savvy figurehead to the world's disenfranchised. For the better part of decade, certainly the greater period of his global fame, he's been the world's most reclusive person... Makes Garbo, Salinger and Pynchon seem like chatterboxes.

If Bin Laden were really the leader of a bold new movement in modern life, we'd have heard rumors about him. Somehow. Somewhere. ("My cousin's roommate saw him in a disco in Paris last month!" That kind of thing.) How long has it been since you've read a transcripts of one of his precious announcements? Besides, everybody does a podcast nowadays....

Wanna know something else we never hear about that's pretty fuckin' strange? Air marshals. We were told after the attacks that every puddle-jump flight from Pierre to Wichita was going to have a federal agent onboard, but we just wouldn't recognize them....

But since then, we've heard nothing. We haven't heard about their budget. We haven't heard about them stopping any mischief in the air. We haven't even heard any stories about them fucking things up, like having too much to drink before a flight, or carrying on an illicit affair in a destination city. I'm starting to wonder if they were ever there at all.

INSUFFICIENTLY-LOCATED PERSONALITIES FROM THIS DECADE:

1. Osama Bin Laden
2. The Anthrax Guy
3. Undercover Air Marshals

[PS/OT for Eric: This made me think of you. Being pro-choice is one thing, but let's not treat it like a harvest]

Crd, the Anthrax Guy is dead:

Author: PETER URBAN
Date: August 7, 2008
Publication: Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
Article ID: 10133695

WASHINGTON - District Court Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted the FBI warrants Thursday to search two library computers that suspected anthrax killer Bruce Ivins used days before he committed suicide. FBI Special Agent Marlo Arredondo sought search warrants for the computers saying he believes they may reveal documentary evidence that Ivins planned to kill witnesses that linked him to the 2001 anthrax murders.

There's more but the archive wouldn't let me get it without registering. o_O

Mad: I was happily lucky to have read the original in 1999 in Forbes or Fortune. I have the original somewhere around here.. Check this out from 1999:

http://www.ibmemployee.com/PDFs/WarrenBuffettStockMarket.pdf

Underfunded pensions, which have been built on an implied 9% annual gain in value (much like the belief home prices will always continue to rise) is going to be a major problem whose masts are just now appearing on the horizon.

Crid: I don't see what point you are making. My only point regarding abortion is that the government should have no say in this most personal of liberties, to the point that we are at today. If they do want an absolute say in it, then they (we) should take equal responsibility in the raising of the child, which noone including myself wants to see happen.

Amy: If I can get Zen on you, the economy is like your body. It needs to be cared for and nourished. Fighting terrorism is our goal, which will be more difficult in a weakend state. Continued government borrowing is the cancer.

damn- gotta go.

"The ponzi scheme is over as there are no suckers left to keep it afloat."

I feel more and more like a sucker every minute.

Flynne, the thing about that story is that it's about the third swing the FBI has taken at the piñata. In the first few days there were a lot of co-workers and associates who came out and said "I'm surprised! He seemed like a nice guy. Kind of a loner... Pretty much kept to himself, never caused a peep o' trouble..." The same things you hear for the first two news cycles after anyone goes postal, right? But associates kept on saying that for another week or two, and I'm just not convinced the FBI got the right guy. If there were a smoking gun or a steaming test tube apparatus or something, we'd know what it was called, and someone would name a dance after it.

> government should have no
> say in this most personal of
> liberties, to the point that we
> are at today

Well, the point we're at today is that this "liberty" of yours is so fragile and delicate that we can't have an election, or elevate a federal judge, without sounding churchbells and dog whistles to remind everyone about the monstrous threats that live in the hearts of our next-door-neighbors.

It's stupid. It's hokey. It's embarrassing, and it's warping the body politic. If you want to keep government out of it, then you oughta pass an amendment and be done with it. Paglia:

"[N]ot until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing. Because pro-choice Democrats have been arguing from cold expedience, they have thus far been unable to make an effective ethical case for the right to abortion."

I will not answer dog whistles. I will not answer dog whistles. I just won't do it anymore... and Sarah Palin isn't asking me to!

At this point, I'd be ashamed to vote with people who behave like Charlie Gibson did on TV today.

crid:

I'm a pilot. Until a few years ago I flew for a major airline. (Now I fly for a large cargo airline that I am sure you have heard of.)

I didn't keep count, but as a guess, somewhere between one flight in four and one in three had at least one FAM on board.

On at least that many flights, either one or both of the pilots were FFDM's (Federal Flight Deck Marshals).

Are we getting our money's worth?

I don't know, but it's tough to argue with a record of "0" highjackings since 9/11.

I don't know, but it's tough to argue with a record of "0" highjackings since 9/11.

After 9/11 the probability of a hijacking became as close to zero as it ever will.

The Richard Reid incident was proof of that.

On 9/10, everybody knew that if you cooperated with the hijackers, everyone got off the plane alive. On 9/12, everybody knew that if someone hijacked an airplane, they intended to kill everyone on board.

That difference in viewpoint turned passengers from sheep into sheepdogs.

Now, if some motherfucker jumps up and shouts Allahu Akbar! and heads for the cockpit, his life expectancy is measured in seconds.

> I don't know, but it's tough
> to argue with a record of "0"
> highjackings since 9/11.

Oh, let's give it a try!

First of all, what Brian said.

Secondly, there no doubt are government offices that will claim credit for the rotation of the Earth on its axis; when pressed to describe the cause and effect of their efforts, they'll say something about how difficult it is to interpret the number, but that 'we'd better not chance it!' (This is same argument used by the NSA and CIA, too. It's bullshit logic.)

I think we should chance it: Let's give 'em their pink slips and see what happens. Because the air marshals are undercover, we know that their mere presence on a flight does little to dissuade terror. And we know that if the marshals are involved in an airborne confrontation (or even a boarding gate conflict) all the other passengers will see what happens and tell us about it.

But we've never heard any reports of intervention by an air marshal. Ever. Not so much as a single drunken passenger handcuffed by these guys.

If we are spending money for them, maybe we shouldn't.

crid:

"Are we getting our money's worth?"

That question isn't as easy to answer.

Until 9/11, pilots were trained to acquiesce to hijacker demands in order to protect the passengers' lives.

Unfortunately, it didn't occur to anyone -- and by anyone, I mean that very literally -- that we were in effect putting ourselves in the position of negotiating with terrorists.

That is how the Islamofascist splodeydopes got into the flight decks.

Since 9/11, two things have changed. All aircraft have intrusion resistant flight deck doors, and all pilots are trained to respond to a hijackers in the back by putting the plane down on the nearest hunk of suitable pavement.

No matter how many passengers are getting killed in back.

The US govt's public position is to rely on the random presence of FAMs to complicate splodeydope planning sufficiently to dissuade them entirely. That is because those in charge feel it is preferable to the discomfort it would cause travelers to realize they are on their own for a good half-hour in the event of a hijacking.

It is a tough call. On the one hand, as Snoop-d-D-d noted, it is tough to get better than zero.

On the other, if I was the Head Dude What's In Charge, I would announce the actual position, and make an appeal to American manhood that it is up to them to overpower a hijacking.

In practical fact, I don't think FAMs are necessary.

However, the psychology of the situation -- trapped in a tube six miles in the air -- makes it a lot less clear cut.

Oh, and FWIW, all the FAMs I met gave the impression of total professionalism, while not fitting any preconception of what a FAM should look like.

I won't go into any more details. Suffice to say that potential hijackers will have no idea if there are any on board until their heads decorate the overhead luggage compartments.

That difference in viewpoint turned passengers from sheep into sheepdogs.

No kidding. As Amy has said multiple times, and I agree, the TSA is the Theater of Supposed Air Security.

I was at a conference with a bunch of smart people and we were talking about how we hate flying. We came up with about 5 different ways to make field expedient Napalm, and other weapons, with stuff that would easily make it past the TSA screening. The conversation was 15 minutes long.

But at the same time, I would suggest dismantling the TSA and encourage the flying passengers to fly with every and any non-projectile weapon they can carry. There will never be another hijacking in the old syle.

There ya go, brass knuckles for everyone!

And don't forget to peruse this site, at which you will discover that the number of passenger aircraft downed by small-arms fire to the airframe is zero.

If you want to see a mind-bending example of stupidity, just look at the collection of things now prohibited on planes because they are "threats" - including leaf blowers, hammers and the like - with the TSA sign next to it about how much safer you are. Then slap yourself for not realizing that those things were carried habitually on planes for 50 years without undue fuss.

Revistă de cultură, spiritualitate şi atitudine, care susţine DEMNITATEA de a fi român, în locul RUŞINII de a fi român. Este singura publicaţie în viaţă al cărei editorialist şi redactor şef este MIHAI EMINESCU. Colegiul de redacţie este alcătuit din Carmen Sylva, Caragiale, Pamfil Şeicaru, Nae Ionescu, Nicolae Iorga, Cezar Ivănescu. Naşul literar al CERTITUDINII a fost Dan Puric.