The Glade 4.0

As there is no thread for it just yet. Late December a Nigerian man on several watch lists, who's own father reported him (actually his father is a higher up in the Nigerian banks, which makes me laugh) to security managed to get on a plane bound for the US, and light an explosive device strapped to him. Thankfully it failed to go off properly and the passengers swarmed him, but it revealed a huge number of security flaws. Part of me is growing very very concerned for DHS. I guess they are too busy looking into violent tea baggers then foreign Jihadists.

Oh for the Liberal speak impaired, when it says Terrorism, consult your dictionary as "Man made disaster:.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/25/att ... more-52234

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicol ... ml?showall

Now here we have Napolitano saying the system worked, until this morning when suddenly... it did not

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12 ... ect-plane/

And apparently this terrorist was affluent, and well educated, becoming radicalized in College.

Oh well I hope they waterboard him for every piece of information they can, as he already confessed, then strap him down, needle in the arm and make him a chemical martyr.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

And they increase restrictions to beyond the inane (hands on knees, nothing on lap, no movement an hour before landing) again and expect this it make us safe this time. It won't.

Privatize the airline security and let them screen based on risk.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Yeah, the no movement is going to work soooo well. And little kids with nothing to do for an hour. Oh, yes, flying will SUCK.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

"Privatizing" airport security means it stops existing. It exists mostly because the majority of people who rarely fly use their votes to insist it be instituted. This is so they can feel safe on their two flights a year while other people (the frequent fliers) pay for it.

The people who give airlines the majority of their business, namely business travelers, pretty much uniformly despise airport security so if you left it up to supply and demand it wouldn't exist.

Not true Xeq. Airlines lose all sorts of customers (and other assorted expenses) when an airliner and passangers are harmed. Now if it was a strict democracy based on passengers, you might be right but it isn't.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Sure, until more attacks start to occur. People despise it right now because they don't think anything is really all that likely to happen.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You could probably kill more people by setting off your suitcase full of explosives in the airport security line at some airports than you would by blowing up the actual airplane.

DE - statistically no attacks are likely to happen to any given person flying.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Chatting with a TSA screener acquaintance at a Boxing Day party was interesting. They have 3 locations they can't pat down (police have to do that), they are under orders not to overly antagonize the passengers, etc.

And lube is a medical product, so it isn't limited to 3 oz in the zip lock bag. ;-P

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Right now, yes. You cannot extend that to say that if there were no security that woukld remain the same.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

How exactly do you arrive at this conclusion? You're just going on your eyeballing of how many people you think are in the line, how many you think might be on some imaginary plane in your head, and some vague idea of how explosives work.

Maybe, maybe not depending on the exact conditions of each case, but the fact is that if you set off a bomb (that actually explodes, not like the idiot in this case) there is a chance that the plane will crash as well, killing most, or more likely, all of the people on board which could be a few hundred. In the airport, the explosive has to do all that work directly, and that may or may not be realistic depending on the nature of the bomb and the circumstances of the detonation.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes yes, nothing could possibly go wrong if we just privatize airport security. I mean, private security is so much more reliable, right, because of the profit motive...

/gag

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Just don't fly anymore. Just stay where you are. For FREEDOM!

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A bomb that you intend to set off in the airport security line is far more likely to actually explode. You have to do barely anything to conceal it, you can pack a few hundred pounds of explosives into one of those large suitcases with wheels since you're not actually intending to pass through any scrutiny. Since there's no concealment or assembly of the bomb required while you're there it's much easier to make sure it will work.

Sometimes airport security in busy airports (Atlanta, Chicago) get backed up so there are hundreds of people waiting in line, and in a pretty small area. I mean a regular grenade with less than 200 grams of plastic explosive is supposedly fatal within 5 meters, what do you think 100 kilograms is going to do?

So far the bomb vests haven't been deployed here. The masterminds want big targets. They want to sneak past security and bag themselves a plane.

The thing is you don't have to kill all that many people DE, maiming and scarring for life is also pretty effective. The effort is to make people afraid to do the things they like to do.

Go out with a bomb vest at lunchtime in any big city, you might get as many people as you would in a plane, maybe. You will cause more terror because people don't have to fly. They have to eat.

Take out a rail station at rush hour. Then when everyone is driving to work afraid to take the train, drive a big rig over the top of the rush hour traffic.

Ruin businesses all over the country by taking out the lunch lines at a few Mickey Ds. Take out a few Starbucks in the rush to work and bang, coffee becomes terror.

I really don't understand why they have these fixations on tall buildings and airplanes. You could do more damage at a concert just before the doors open.

Hopefully no terrorists are reading these words.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Are you some sort of mastermind Mich? I'm alerting the DHS.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Someday I will write the novel DHS will not allow to be published. Send me letters through DHS when I disappear.

By the way, they've been using retarded children for years now. Lie to them, tell them to go to the big man over there and give him a big hug, he'll give you some dates. Wait until he gets to the target and flip the switch or push the button. Another source are the legions of people traumatized by the war, suffering from PTSD. Many of them want to die already. Check out the suicide numbers on American soldiers. Figure the civilians live survive without counselors, without even the crap of care we give our soldiers who have seen and experienced to much to stay sane. Give them a mission and promise them the pie in the sky. Alllah loves you baby, kill for Islam, kill for peace. You'll see your loved ones in paradise, just go drive this truck into the crowd and flip the switch.

P.T. Barnum was right, there's one born every minute.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

There's also the relative difficulty of getting suicide bombers. Even if you can find willing people they have a serious drawback - they can only be used once.



Yes, obviously. This doesn't tell us anything however. Is this to say we should do nothing because no matter what we do they'll succeed anyhow?



It's highly unlikely you would get even close to as many people with a bomb vest, even in a crowded area, as you would by setting off the same explosive on a plane. Yes, people have to eat. However, lunch crowds are standing on the ground moving at 0 mph, not in an aluminum tube travelling at least 100 and possibly much more. Maybe if we're talking about a very small or very lightly loaded plane. Typically, bombs that kill as many people as are found on an airliner are the size of trucks, such as in OK city, and they rely on additional harm caused by the bomb such as collapsing a building on people. That's not nearly as easy to do outside of an airliner because the speed of the airliner is a major destructive force not easily replicated elsewhere. On 9-11, all the people on all 4 airliners were killed with no bombs, but look at the damage cause by each of the 4. Collapse of the WTC buildings killed far more people than the strike on the Pentagon, which in turn caused more than the crash in PA. A suitcase bomb in an airport or a vest in a lunch crowd is unlikely to cause massive structural collapse which would kill far more people than the bomb ever could, even with shrapnel added. Shrapnel strikes one person and stops, and explosive power decreases at a cube function as distance increases. People directly exposed to a suicide vest are very likely to be killed, but having one or two people between you and the blast greatly increases odds of survival.



I think you would find actually trying to cause massive casualties by squashing people with a tractor trailer wildly impractical. I think you're also vastly underestimating how hard it would be to actually take out a rail station, or to get everyone to start driving. I don't think Spain has widely abandoned rail transport after the Madrid railway bombing of 2004, despite killing 191 ( a feat involving 4 actual explosions and a moving train).



I think you're wildly overestimating the effectiveness of terror campaigns in general.



Because they can do a lot more damage with airplanes, and because airplanes are keys to international affairs. It isn't just us they don't like; anything Western or non-muslim is a target. You're vastly overestimating the effectiveness of bombings on crowds of people, as well as terror campaigns. People go on with life. The Blitz on London didn't paralyze England with fear; blowing up 3 or 4 McDonalds or Starbucks will not paralyze this country.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well the administration is under serious fire for this. In a way, I kind of feel bad for them - this occurred a day after thier health care "victory" they were counting on to rebound their numbers.

In order to make a profit, you have to offer a product the customer wants. Funny how that works. Of course, you'd have use believe marginal supply and demand and economies of scale are some sort of voodoo, right?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Looking at Janet Napolitano's response, I remain convinced she has no business being the head of DHS. She is incompetent. But a very good looking man.

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The Dude abides.

You mean when she said "“the system worked”? Or, that “the system worked” but only once he was on the plane? Or, that “the system worked” once he was taken under control by civilian passengers, after he ignited the bomb fixin's he smuggled on board the plane?

There's always press secretary Gibbs' take on it that “in many ways, this system has worked.”

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Apparently the answer to this attack is to Unionize the baggage handlers....that will increase efficiency and security!

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Someone said today that the heads of the groups claiming responsibility for this "attack" (ie training) were both released from Gitmo... any truth to that?

I just heard the same thing, but I have no facts yet.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!