Janet Napolitano would have more entertainment value if she was not in such an important position.

What depresses me the most about all this is that I don't think it's possible to keep the terrorists off the planes. Whatever defensive measures we come up with, no matter how much inconvenience passengers have to endure, no matter how comprehensive and responsive our databases and communications systems are, the bad guys will still get through. We're trying to meet the terrorists as they come to us, and I don't think that will ever work in the long run.

The example that comes to mind is one we read about in Air Force training long ago: During the fighting in North Africa in 1942-43, the Allies tried to keep an "aerial umbrella" of fighter planes in the air all the time to stop any approaching German planes. The planes got through anyway. It was only after the Allies started aggressively seeking out and destroying the Luftwaffe that the Allied ground troops enjoyed any kind of security from German air attacks.

How does that translate into a workable strategy today? We're hunting some of the terrorists down now, but how well it's working and how much more of it we should be doing or even could do, I couldn't begin to say.

Let's be quite clear, shall we? If the passengers on an airline are forced to take a hand, the system didn't work.

Pathetic.

Simple solution:

Bring back Rumsfeld, but tell him no sharia, no way.

AND NO NATION BUILDING

Can't go there, with the Islam thingee, you see.

With you on the NO NATION BUILDING. Also, I think it's probably not possible to keep terrorists off the planes. And certainly not without killing the American airline industry.

I am reading a good book right now called "Life Without Lawyers" by Phillip K. Howard. It discusses how legal threats and rules to prevent lawsuits have changed how our society approaches issues. Instead of fixing problems, we have become defensive in our problem solving by trying to avoid lawsuits. That results in the very actions by TSA pointed out by Amy above. The rules are not in place to make "us" safer. They are in place to remove individual responsibility and accountability from TSA screeners. There are more rules followed by TSA screeners to avoid being sued than to detect possible terrorism. The problem is not that we do not know how to prevent but that we lack the will to do so in fear of being sued for violating individual rights.

I suspect that fear of being sued also might be a contributing factor as to why so many people tend do nothing when they "see rude people".

So then what's the alternative? How the hell are we suuposed to protect ourselves when the "system" obviously doesn't work? The only thing that makes sense to me is to make it a law that every citizen on every flight must be armed. That way, no one would try anything stupid because he'd have a boatload of guns in his face. We can't expect terrorists to think the same way we do, so we've got to compromise ourselves and think like they do? Which means everyone is suspect until proven otherwise. Which is a sucky way to have to live. Although I remember reading somewhere that "an armed society is a civilized society". Dunno who wrote that but maybe they weren't too far off the mark.

>>Janet Napolitano would have more entertainment value if she was not in such an important position.

I don't know anything about her - except for seeing the same CNN interview Amy mentions.

I thought she did an absolutely horrendous job.

So you remember that "All in the Family" episode too, huh?

I somehow think that was one of the episodes where the audience was laughing at Archie, not with him. With good reason.

Also, given how everyone is more or less alert these days on flights, I also doubt that even terrorist teams of four or five with knives would necessarily be able to kill the pilots before the passengers jumped on them - with no need for weapons of their own. Even someone trained in martial arts isn't likely to be able to fight off five or six people. As a well-known writer pointed out, too, had Ralph Nader succeeded in his efforts in the 1990s to make the airlines install cockpit doors that were more secure, chances are 9/11 wouldn't have happened. (OK, so I don't know if ALL the doors on 9/11 were actually forced open without a key, leaving aside what the various movies about that day imply.)

Napolitano was given her SHS position because she'd endorsed BO as governor of Arizona. Prior to that her claim to fame had been that she was one of Anita Hill's attorneys, which is what lead to her political career. She has no background in intelligence, security, or even administering a large bureaucracy.

This is the woman who thought that the 9/11 conspirators had entered the country through Canada - something she'd claimed several months into her tenure.

IOW "the system" relies not on keeping terrorists or bomb materials OFF the planes, but on the terrorists being unable to detonate their bombs.

Great system.

She's also the woman who thinks the gravest threat to the country is from right-wing former servicemen. She's also the woman who calls terrorist attacks "man-caused disasters".

Robin/Moe/BerthaM,
Those are not reassuring snippets about Napolitano- given her position. As a leftie, I'll admit I'll be very worried if she continues in her job because she's failed, even by the most basic demands of giving this breach even a halfway credible PR spin.

(But to be honest, when I watched that interview - one of my first thoughts was "she's like the Dems' Sarah Palin...").

Seems she's had a change of heart.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_airliner_attack

The system did work. No little old ladies got on the plane with explosives or weapons.

Solutions:
1. Get over this P.C. crap and double screen all Muslim men between the ages of 15 and 50, and
2. Use El Al ( Israeli ) Airlines screening procedures. No Israeli airline has been hijacked or destroyed in over 30 years.

Seems she's had a change of heart.

Not exactly. Her words were "taken out of context," she says. That's what she meant the whole time, see?

"The only thing that makes sense to me is to make it a law that every citizen on every flight must be armed."

Heh.

My Mom with a gun. Yeah. *There's* something you want to see, Real Soon Now.

Steve "You'll put your eye out!" Daniels

Has the Teleprompter In Chief made a statement yet?

It occurs to me that all his advisers knew, when they informed him 3 hours after the incident, was that the bomb on Flight 253 had failed to detonate, the jihadi had been subdued by passengers & crew, & that the plane had landed safely. What they had absolutely no way of knowing was whether, like 9/11, the PantyBomber was part of a coordinated attack, and if there were others like him on planes over New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, or Los Angeles, and if their panty bombs had been wired more carefully. Obama seemed oblivious to the implications of this as he carried on golfing in Hawaii. This was 3 days ago, and so far all that's been forthcoming is the announcement of some pointless new security charades & a performance by Nappy that would have embarrassed the Iraqi Information Minister. Well, OK, at the last minute, an admission that The System might need a bit more work.

Kishke...my sarcastic tone does not translate well on the internet...hehe. I thought it was funny what her context actually was... "she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened."

Sara, I didn't even get that far in the article! Soon as I saw the words "taken out of context" I quit in disgust. Thanks.

"With you on the NO NATION BUILDING. Also, I think it's probably not possible to keep terrorists off the planes. And certainly not without killing the American airline industry."

My point exactly, Amy,

Bush, for all his shortcomings (religion of peace my ass), at least realized we are at war.

We need to alert the public to some truths:

Islam is trying, one more time (see crusades), to take over the world.

Islam is at war with peaceful cvilization.

Islam will wage this war on many fronts:

terrorism,

media (love those online bomb-making tutorials, and recruiting web sites).

colonizing vice assimilating (populating like mosquitos, as Steyn puts it).

... and pretty much anything they say over at Jihadwatch ...

Islam will wage this war until the whole world is drinking the sharia cool aid.

Somebody needs to ask Generalismo Obamba this question:

If the Ft. Hood psychiatrist is correctly being tried by military tribunal, why on earth are the 911 assholes getting an "OJ" style trial in New York? ... this is going to backfire BIG TIME, by the way, for our idealogue president hell bent on embarrassing Bush, the CIA, etc.)

... and one more question for Barry Hussein:

"What the hell are you doing closing Gitmo, and bringing these darlings onto the U.S. mainland?"

Sheesh. The pantybomber tries to take down one plane, and all America loses it bowels.
Repeat after me: Terrorists are not that much of a threat--the media hypes it up.
40,000 Americans die every year in car crashes. 12,000 die every year in plain-vanilla gunshots.
3,000 Americans died on 2001, the best year terrorists ever had.
You want be be frightened? Drunk drivers should make you scared. Your spouse and the household gun should scare you.
A few punk terrorists? What should scare you is the amount of money you are spending for this hyped-up "threat."
And it should scare you that you cannot go to the bathroom on airplane anymore.

Mr BS,

You can't be that stupid, can you?

Are you one of those "man-caused disaster" weenies?

Mr. BS - if it were you or your family on that plane you wouldn't be making light of it. Asshole.

Ken, Mr. BS is a weenie of the highest order. Just ignore him.

(Watch, he'll thank me for dubbing him a weenie of "highest" order, as if it's some kind of honor or other.)

Steve "You'll put your eye out!" Daniels

Got my Red Ryder BB gun right here. Yep, Ol' Blue an' me, we're watchin' out for Black Bart! o.O

"(Watch, he'll thank me for dubbing him a weenie of "highest" order, as if it's some kind of honor or other.)"

Then he will change his moniker to incorporate weenie.

Flynne,

Thanks for the advice, but over at Jihadwatch, nobody ignores nuthin'.

You have no idea how many Jihadist trolls post from right here in the good old USA.

Actually, I can't tell the difference between Democrat weasels, 911 conspiracy moonbats, and sons/daughters of asshole parents ... pant pant ... I can't type this much ...

So I just pull out the old internet shotgun, close my eyes, and "Dirty Harry" them ... :)

Mr. BS is either a douchebag or a marginal thinker.

Sure, "only" 3,000 people died on 9/11. Even without any emotional reaction or changes to behavior/law there was enormous collateral damage.

Several billion (trillion?) dollars worth of real estate gone; loss of businesses, information, personnel (as assets, not persons); disruptions to the stock market, etc.

Add in the "is this it or are there more hits coming" factor, and the financial damage alone trumps anything we see in a DECADE, never mind a year.

So while society wouldn't notice an extra 3,000 dead a year very much, we could not absorb the financial hit of a 9/11 every year for a decade.

Of course, marginal thinkers don't get that far before telling people to "get over it".

So I just pull out the old internet shotgun, close my eyes, and "Dirty Harry" them ... :)

Yep, Ken, I'm right there with ya...

"I don't think it's possible to keep the terrorists off the planes"

Of course it's not - only the stupid ones get caught. Fortunately, you generally have to be stupid to want to blow yourself up for 72 virgins.

Of course, TSA has taken this opportunity to create a whole raft of new inconveniences for the flying public. As Amy points out, none of these would have stopped the panty-bomber, and certainly none of them will stop the next attempt.

TSA remains a joke - and the costs it imposes on all of us remain one of the terrorists' biggest victories.

They say Americans cannot fathom statistics, and when read the Bill of Rights they assume it is a Communist Manifesto. They also believe fairymeisters created Man.

I see that is true. Americans simply cannot accurately assess risk.

Okay, don't go pottie on an airplane without adult supervision, and spend trillions to fight a few punk kids with lighter fluid in their panties. Get hysterical!!

See you at the Weenie Bar after work. Or your day in the Romper Room.

I nominate Mr-pick-your-body-hole-name-o-the-day to be in the next group of people killed by terrorists, since he finds it no big deal.

BTW, so far, modern-day jihadist bombers have not converted a single Western government to Islam.

On the other hand, President Bush invaded Iraq, took down a very secular tin-pot dictator, and installed an Islamic state governed by Sharia law.
Bush created an Islamic state, not a secular state in which people can chose their religion.

Bush 1, Jihadists, 0--whoops, that makes it looks like they are on different teams. Not sure about that.

Iraq's current strongman, Mailiki, often does huggyface photo-opps with Iran's I'mADinnerJacket leader.

I bet that feels good to our soldiers in Iraq. When they see those huggy-face photos of Maliki and the Iranians. How nice.

Or Bush doing the huggyface photo-op with Saudi leaders, who finance an international chain of extremist Islamic schools.

How would you like to have a son in the military and see Bush hugging Mr. Raghead from Riyadh? Who just gave a few mil to "schools" across Asia?

But hey! Get scared about Nigerian pantybombers!!

You guys need to put your thinking caps on. Do the math--what is the real threat? It ain't the pantybombers.

@King Rectum: "Okay, don't go pottie on an airplane without adult supervision, and spend trillions to fight a few punk kids with lighter fluid in their panties. Get hysterical!!"

I believe the underlying theme of most of the comments here was that going pottie with adult supervision and spending trillions to fight a few punk kids with lighter fluid in their panties, along with whatever else the enlightened geniuses at TSA have devised were most likely ineffective strategies for fighting terror. So it's not clear what your point is.

Regarding the real threat, again, I didn't see anyone here identify airborne terrorists as the core problem. Your last post implies that the real threat lies in Saudi Arabia, and again, I doubt anybody here will disagree strongly (well, we've seen a couple from time to time, but by and large, no). As to what exactly to do about it, that's where we might have an interesting discussion.

No More RPM Daddy:
To the extent there is a threat to American liberty and prosperity, perhaps it lies in the Saudi throne. It is a weak threat, and one easily solved by energy independence.
As to threats to my physical well-being, drunk drivers and loonies with guns are a much, much larger threat than terrorists, by a factor of several hundred or several thousand to one. (BTW I support 2nd Amendment, just calling it like it is).
But the media are obsessing about the pantybomber and some other punk terrorists. And we are spending money all out of proportion to this miniscule threat.
Even if Mr. Pantybomber succeeded, about the same number of Americans would have died that same day in gunshots and car accidents. And the next day. And the next day etc.
Like I say, Americans cannot assess risk. The terrorist threat is being hyped, and so you get hysterical. I heard Richard Holbrooke say we are in Afghanistan to foil terrorists who could threaten America. Oh, jeez.
Can we make our streets safe first?

On the other hand, President Bush invaded Iraq, took down a very secular tin-pot dictator, and installed an Islamic state governed by Sharia law.

Iraq is not governed by Sharia law.

Nor is it any longer governed by a psychotic and his even more psychotic sons...folks who liked to feed people into industrial shredders, gas dissidents with chemical weapons, or have the soccer team executed for losing a match.

Very secular? Saddam? Oh, that's right. I forgot that there were so many Christians, atheists, and Buddhists living publicly and peacefully in Saddam's Iraq.

Very secular? Saddam is the one who added Q'uranic phrases to the Iraqi flag.

Saddam was only mostly secular and was a publicly devout Muslim when it suited him to be.

The new government of Iraq is one-person one-vote. Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and Shia Muslims all have the right to participate in the government. That's something they didn't have under that tin pot secular dictator you so like to lionize.

And, since starting a truly secular state in the current Middle East is impossible, the current Iraq is probably as good a start as could be made.

It is true that Iraq is currently beset by governmental corruption and political infighting. These will most likely be ongoing issues for Iraq for a few years. But, if the recent oil rights auction is any indication, the country is starting to get its act together. And substantial deposits of natural gas recently found in the Sunni region should ensure they get a seat at the table. In the long run, whether Iraq develops into a truly free state or degenerates into chaos will be up to the Iraqis, but at least now they've been given the chance to decide that on their own.

momof4,

Please read "America Alone" by Mark Steyn.

Then see if you want to re-phrase some of that gibberish you just posted.

:)

Ken

PS to BS:

You are an idiot.

Rumsfeld allowed the Iraquis to implement sharia law, why ... I will never know.

Conan and others in Amy Alkon land:

You have an interesting way of debate: "Iraq is not governed by Sharia law."

Okay.

This is the easy way to win debates. First invective, then expletive, then just alter reality through declaration.

Right. Iraq is fine. Sharia law, schmaria law. $1 trillion that victory cost us? Fine and dandy.

Now, let's toss around some cuss-words, so the high-school toughs in the 7-11 parking lot know we are hep cats.

momof4,

I apologize.

Very difficult to see who is saying what on this site.

Let me re-phrase:

Everybody,

Please read "America Alone" by Mark Steyn.

Then see if you want to re-phrase some of that gibberish that BS just posted.

:)

Ken

PS to BS:

You are an still an idiot.

Rumsfeld allowed the Iraquis to implement sharia law, why ... I will never know.

You have an interesting way of debate: "Iraq is not governed by Sharia law."

It's as least as interesting as your way, "yes it is."

Sharia law is an extremist reading of ancient tribal law mingled with the various utterances of Mohammed and his immediate successors ("the rightly guided caliphs").

Sharia includes the full covering (head to toe) of women (not to mention their complete subservience), stoning or death for various offenses, including drinking alcohol, adultery, and apostasy (btw, extermist Sunni consider Shi'ites aspostates).

Iraq does not sentence Shi'ites to death for apostasy. In most of Iraq, women are able to go about without the full body covering found in actual Sharia countries. Women are able to hold jobs, drive cars, go to school, vote, and even run for office. That doesn't exactly sound like a country in the grips of Sharia.

First invective, then expletive....

Give it a rest. If you name yourself after your own anus and compare anyone who disagrees with you to Terry Schiavo, you lose the right to say you're on the side of civilized debate.

That's Terri (not Terry) Schiavo, who will serve as Sarah Palin's running mate in 2012!

PS The Iraqi Constitution is shot through wth Sharia law, and explicitly recognizes Sharia law. Christians and Jews have been run out of the country. Women are covering up much more. The outlook for women is decidedly darker now than under Saddam. Sheesh, Iraq used to graduate female doctors. No more.

Of course, I guess if you compare the treatment of women in Iraq to Bush-pal Saudi Arabia, then maybe Iraq looks fine. Should women have the right to vote or drive cars?

Can you imagine a US President doing kissy-face with a government that outlawed Asians from voting or driving cars?

Schneier also said on his blog today that "security succeeded." I respectfully posted my disagreement. A curious position for someone with his opinions on security theatre.

Of course, Schneier has a soft spot for those on the left. (full disclosure: For the most part, I respect Bruce, and he even autographed some of his books for me, so I do not mean that as a Bruce-bash by any means.)

@Trust: "Schneier also said on his blog today that "security succeeded.""
______

Errr, he said it on the 26th. I read it today. My apologies.

Mr BS in the Sky: Your spouse and the household gun should scare you.

You're right. Just the other day, I heard about where some guy's handgun tried to sneak up on his wife to shoot her, and she beat the poor thing to death with a frying pan. Scary!

OK, people,

I see I have to shake up the 8 ball, and make some predictions:

At some point in time Sarah Palin wins a wet t-shirt contest AND wet-dream contest simultaneously.

Pawlenty picks Sarah as his running mate:

Sarah says, "... LOUD SIGH ..., OK, but this rogue thingee was really making me BIG $$"

Pawlenty cracks up, and says, "Great!"

The mid preidential term elections have already re-acquired Republican majorities in both Houses ... (yeay Newt! for that keen idea, list promises, and keep them! ...)

Pawlenty/Palin defeats Biden/Frank

Frank files in MA Supreme Court that election results have resulted in a prima facie homophobic result.

MA Supreme Court concurs ...

See "CHAD votes in FL" for the ending guessers.

:)

I'm pretty sure that BS is just a software program that scrapes Huffington and a few other lefty sites for snippets from their comment sections and then posts them here in random order. If it ever encounters the Chuck Pelto Chuckles Bot they'll trap each other in an endless loop of inanity.

BS,

HAL called and said you have to join the union.

:)

Ken

The system "worked" for the new world order dictatorship crowd.

Doesn't anyone here, other than me, smell a setup?

Re the comment about searching all Muslim men - I would add all Muslim men and women (and yes, anybody who even looks like they could be). Those spook outfits they force the women to wear (oh yes, sorry, I forgot it's their CHOICE to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome) could hide just about anything - and I wouldn't put any age restriction on it, since they are just as likely to hide things on their children.

Alison D,

Correct.

One thing those outfits won't hide, in fact, actually promotes:

BO

So searchers, right of the bat, are tempted to pat down with only one hand, while holding their noses with the other.

:)

My solution? ban all Muslims immigrants from entering the U.S. on any airline. Ban all moslems (everyone with an Arab surname) from flying until further notice. Include ethnic profiling in airports to prevent any Muslims from flying. F-political correctness. What will these bans do?

First, it will keep the number of potential terrorists from coming into our country.

Second, it will keep those most likely to kill westerners off of our planes and it will piss off moderate moslems...why would I want to piss off moderate moslems? Maybe they will start to actually think and do something about these radical minded buddies. If children misbehave in a class room setting, the entire class gets punished, this is the same thing. Certain moslems want to blow up planes...then no moslems fly until further notice. Will it keep all moslems off our planes? no, but it would dramatically reduce the chance of another terrorist getting access to planes.

I can hear it now...thats not fair! Thats discrimination! blah blah blah!... Well, not all Germans were Nazis either, but we still treated them all as the enemy. This is a war, and until we start thinking about this Moslems issue that way, we will continue to have this kind of nonsense.

My solution? ban all Muslims immigrants from entering the U.S. on any airline. Ban all moslems (everyone with an Arab surname) from flying until further notice. Include ethnic profiling in airports to prevent any Muslims from flying. F-political correctness. What will these bans do?

First, it will keep the number of potential terrorists from coming into our country.

Second, it will keep those most likely to kill westerners off of our planes and it will piss off moderate moslems...why would I want to piss off moderate moslems? Maybe they will start to actually think and do something about these radical minded buddies. If children misbehave in a class room setting, the entire class gets punished, this is the same thing. Certain moslems want to blow up planes...then no moslems fly until further notice. Will it keep all moslems off our planes? no, but it would dramatically reduce the chance of another terrorist getting access to planes.

I can hear it now...thats not fair! Thats discrimination! blah blah blah!... Well, not all Germans were Nazis either, but we still treated them all as the enemy. This is a war, and until we start thinking about this Moslems issue that way, we will continue to have this kind of nonsense.

Mpetriedish:
The frying pan?
You know what is a Peter Pan?
A pan to cook peters in.
You should be afraid of your wife. If you ever get your peter cut off and cooked, it won't be terrorists that did it.

Years back, there was a talk show host in Los Angeles named Peter Beater.

I wonder what happened to him.

Mr. BS shrugs off the 3000 lives lost on 9/11, but fails to realize that the number would have been much greater had the airplanes struck even an hour later, after more people had arrived at work. He also forgets the possibility of Al Qaeda acquiring a dirty bomb or even a real nuke; the death toll then would not be a paltry 3000, but 30,000, or 300,000, or even 3 million.

I tend to agree with him about Bush cozying up to the Saudis, though. We have no business allowing those xenophobic goatherds to dictate so much of our policy simply because they squat upon one of the world's largest, purest petroleum pools.

Robert, I don't know who the hell you are, but after glancing at your link, I greatly admire your taste in aphorisms.

I'm gonna try something dangerous. I'm gonna come to Mr. BS' defense. Or at the very least try to manhandle his statement into something more reasonable.

Like plane crashes and shark attacks, terrorist assaults (at least on American soil) are still blessedly rare. It is that that which makes them news. Compared to the number of planes that land safely and people who swim safely at the beach, they are a vanishingly small number. Every death caused by them is tragic, but one plane crash does not make the next twenty flights any less safe.

In the 24-hour news media life we life, those hours have to be filled. So they'll take any story they have and stretch it to the breaking point. If it's an actual tragedy, they do it even more so. In New York, the Roosevelt Island tram got stuck. That's all, it got stuck; the cable wasn't breaking, there were no high winds, and Spider-Man and the green Goblin were not fighting atop it. I don't even believe they were out over the water yet. Some people were on it, and they were sitting a while. They might have gotten hungry. They certainly had to pee. But every single local TV station kept their cameras trained on it for hours like it was a hostage stand-off at the Victoria's Secret fashion Show. It was front page news the next day. And NOTHING HAPPENED. They sat, and then they got down.

Terrorism is one of those sure-fire attention getters, and the news will play them up when they get them, and will allude to them when they don't. "Could a terror attack on the local mall ruin Christmas? Watch and see!" The following news piece will then say "Yes, it would certainly be a problem, but there's no evidence that such a thing is planned". But it'll keep people nervous, and watching.

So yeah, the news media does blow the terrorist attacks out of proportion, to a degree. And the government and the TSA go with knee-jerk responses that only make them seem foolish. Things like keeping people from going potty on the plane are ridiculous, and even they realized it, quietly softening that stricture almost as soon as they made it.

To a fair degree, it's similar to what Amy often says about pedophiles and/or child snatching - it's not NEARLY as bad a plague as the media makes it out to be, and the level at which people panic about it is exaggerated. The odds of you personally being directly involved in a terror attack are pretty small, especially the farther away you live from a major city. New York City, yes, there's a reasonable chance somethig violent will be tried; Paducah, Kansas, rather less so. There is a reason to be reasonably cautious.

NO security system is 100% proof against attack, especially one that has to take people's personal feelings into account. Trying to ride the line between checking on reasonable threats and risks while not inconveniencing the passengers is a losing game. Plus, as that article Amy linked to recently points out, most of the time the security measures look for things the terrorists have already tried. 9/11 succeeded because it was a plot we had not thought of - up until then hijackers wanted something that could be negotiated for, and the mindset was "keep your heads down and this will be over soon". We were not checking for explosive underwear before today, and since we weren't, that's what this yukkapuck tried. Now that we are, they'll try something else. It's a gamble - how much preparation is reasonable, how much is too much, how much will affect business, etc. The mindset of "You can't be too careful" is largely bunk. The problem is when something fails and someone/thing gets through, the people who thought the methods and procedures were just fine (and maybe even a little excessive) will be there screaming "Why didn't they do more?"

The real "security" (again, from the recent article) is the stuff that people don't see, the intelligence gathering that keeps people from getting as far as the check-in counter. It's that which people need to hear about. I'd like to hear about every terror cell they catch well in advance of their plan coming to fruition on the news. Let people (and the nebulous Them) know that strides are being made. Play up the successes and not just the failures. Make it clear that it would be a fool's play to even try something at all.

And I'm sorry, I still shake my head when I hear people say we just need to look at all Muslims more carefully. Again, the number of Muslims who actually want to kill non-Muslims is miniscule; to treat them all like criminals for the acts of a few is really no less flannelheaded than shaking down every Jew for the bag of Jew Gold they wear around their necks.

the number of Muslims who actually want to kill non-Muslims is miniscule; to treat them all like criminals for the acts of a few is really no less flannelheaded than shaking down every Jew for the bag of Jew Gold they wear around their necks.

A weird - and telling - comparison there. What, Vinnie, you think some Jews do wear bags of "Jew gold" around their necks? And it would be okay to shake them down for it if they did?

"Vinnie, you think some Jews do wear bags of "Jew gold" around their necks? And it would be okay to shake them down for it if they did?"

*sigh* *facepalm*

So you've never seen "South Park" then?

I was (hopefully obviously to everyone else) drawing a comparison from one laughably incorrect sterotype to another. You can't (ok, shouldn't) saddle everone because of the percieved beliefs about their group.

Besides, the amount of shaking down compared to the amount of gold obtained would be a very poor return on investment...

So you've never seen "South Park" then?

No.

In any case, the comparison is ridiculous. There are no Jews with bags of gold on their necks, except in cartoons. There are many Muslim terrorists, even more Muslim terrorist supporters, and even more Muslim terrorist sympathizers. And all of them in the real world, not in cartoons.

"And all of them in the real world, not in cartoons"

Only because if we put them in cartoons, they'd blow us up.

Ha! Good point.

Ah, I see - comments based on hyperbolic reference to Muslim stereotypes = comedy, comments based on hyperbolic reference to Jewish stereotypes = racism.

Got it.

comments based on hyperbolic reference to Muslim stereotypes = comedy

If only it were hyperbolic. Or have you already forgotten the rioting and killing occasioned by the Danish cartoons? I thought you were making clever reference to those real-life events, which is why I laughed. Not so clever, I see now.

One can only try to teach a pig to whistle for so long before it becomes obvious that they won't be the one to finally succeed.

I withdraw from the conversation. Sei gesund.

One can only try to teach a pig to whistle for so long before it becomes obvious that they won't be the one to finally succeed.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'd withdraw too if I were arguing your side.

@ Mr BS/Commentors,

While I may differ from your opinion that 9-11 was less a bug deal then the average "vanilla" deaths that happen daily, allow me to congratulate you for having an opinion, and expressing it. I'm pretty sure your intent was not to make light of the slain, but to defame the Muslim War Machine, which as we all know, thrives on attention.

For BS's commentors: Youre all entitled to your opinions too, but for Allahs sakes, picking this man to pieces for expressing his view, in an online forum, is highschool in the extreme. The sort of tolerance for dissent that our brothers in the East like to practice.

Disagreeing is fine. Disagreeing, and condemning, is a little too Muslim in my view. Tone it down, fellow -Americans-.