From my new column on VDARE.com:
I've come up with a couple of new air security policy recommendations in the later part of the article.
Read the whole thing there and comment upon it below.
We have it on the authority of John Brennan, Obama Administration counterterrorism advisor appearing on the Fox TV network today, that there was “no smoking gun” that should have alerted US intelligence agencies to the attempted Christmas Day suicide attack.
So that’s OK, then!
I mean, who could have guessed?
Who could have imagined that somebody named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would try to blow up a plane headed to Detroit on Christmas Day?
And how could we expect airline security to notice Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was smuggling a bomb onto the plane when there were all those grandmothers and little children to search?
Who could possibly have known?
I mean, besides his dad, the chairman of the board of one of Nigeria’s biggest banks, who told the U.S. embassy in Lagos on November 19 to watch out for his Muslim radical son.
I’m not sure I want to know how the Underwear Bomber’s father made his fortune in Nigeria. But, clearly, he’s the kind of man who should be taken seriously when warning about his own son’s extremism.
Two days after terrorism attempt, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano told ABC News, the “system has worked really very, very smoothly".
Two points stand out:
- More than eight years after 9/11, we still don’t have an effective computer system for tracking potential terrorists trying to board airplanes.
(Recall how President Obama has been boasting for a year about how his administration is going to cut medical spending by spearheading a computer system to track all your health information. What’s your over-under date on when that gets finished? I’ve got dibs on 2033.)
- It’s increasingly obvious that neither Bush nor Obama has wanted an effective airport security system.
Effective security would impose a “disparate impact” on guys with names like “Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab” (or, for that matter, “Barack Hussein Obama”). Both Presidents actively worked against profiling and disparate impact. Why? Because noticing patterns is just plain wrong.
Stupidity is our strength!
Since September 11, 2001, whenever somebody with a name like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab commits terrorism, I’ve been writing virtually the same article about the American ruling class’s pathological prejudice against profiling.
How big a calamity is it going to take to make them wake up, stop randomly dissipating prevention efforts, and instead focus on those most likely to commit terrorism?
For example, look at this typically hysterical reaction to retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney’s recent advocacy of profiling: Former Lt. General "Goes There": Calls for all Muslim men between 18-28 to be strip searched, by Joseph Marhee, Examiner, January 3, 2010. (“McInerney is deliberately using inflammatory and incendiary proclamations to incite hostilities. It is simply unacceptable and irresponsible for someone of his public profile to advocate such blatantly unconstitutional and socially dangerous rhetoric into the mainstream.” Yawn).
In contrast, naïve Nigerians have tended to assume that of course their countryman’s shame will bring more suspicion and searches down upon themselves. Thus Nigerian vice president Goodluck Jonathan lamented: "A Nigerian has created an additional problem for us by wanting to blow up an aircraft … That means that those Nigerians who travel out of this country will be subjected to unnecessary harassments and searches."
How unworldly the vice president of Nigeria is! Goodluck Jonathan simply isn't aware that in 21st century America, it’s considered shameful to notice such patterns. Learning from the past is simply inappropriate.
I've come up with a couple of new air security policy recommendations in the later part of the article.
Read the whole thing there and comment upon it below.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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56 comments:
Back in the 80s, the citizens of Colombia got serious about trying to control the drug-traffic in and from their country when they got dead tired of being singled out for "special treatment" by immigrations and customs agents in the USA each and every time they traveled here.
If having a Nigerian passport means that you have to allow hours of extra time for changing planes, etc., the Nigerian upper classes may decide to crack down on their resident terrorists.
The average Nigerian or Colombian rarely, if ever, makes an international flight. But for the rich and powerful, with children at foreign schools, and holidays and shopping trips all over the world being treated differently WILL have an impact.
How big a calamity is it going to take to make them wake up, stop randomly dissipating prevention efforts, and instead focus on those most likely to commit terrorism?
Well, to put terrorism in perspective, where does "death by terrorism" rank on the list? Maybe it's better for them to just make a bunch of noise and hire a bunch of bureaucrats (their fortes) than do anything concrete.
How many of the big decision-makers fly commercial?
Steve, Bush is long gone. Republicans like McCain, or Lindsey Grahamnesty, don't like profiling because "respectable" opinion in the NYT does not like it. They are part of the SWPL establishment. Indeed, the genius of Christian Lander was recognizing how establishment the "anti-Establishment" SWPL really are.
Profiling is a dagger in the heart of Multiculturalism, Diversity, and PC. If we can prevent attacks (and we clearly, can) by profiling, then we can draw conclusions that threaten directly the underpinning of PC dogma: that all people are the same and want the same things, save for "evil White racists."
You fail to mention that Janet Napolitano had a report early in March that fingered returning US military, "White Supremacists," anti-Abortion, anti-government folks, and the "Tea Party" movement as the most like terrorists. Or how she removed the word "terrorism" for "man-caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations."
Moreover, the Saudis briefed Obama, his counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, Napolitano, and others personally on the use of Underwear and bombs concealed in the anus out of Yemen in the attempt to kill Saudi Prince Naweel (their Interior Minister). A prospective defector from AQ out of Yemen concealed explosives in his underwear and anus, and detonated prematurely on his way to meet with Naweel and give him info. [The same MO used to kill most of the senior people running anti-Taliban/AQ operations in Afghanistan.]
Moreover, the Yemenis also contacted the Obama Admin about a Nigerian planning to take down a plane.
Clearly Obama refused to act on info he had. Either he wanted the attack to succeed (so he could rule by decree, suspending elections he expected to lose) or he valued PC-Diversity-Multiculturalism dogma more, or was lazy and stupid, or some combination of these.
But clearly, profiling is a direct and dangerous threat to PC dogma, it forms the thin wedge that leads to abolition of Affirmative Action, preferential treatment for non-Whites, and the whole SWPL hereditary advantage that uses non-Whites as blocking pieces to prevent lower class Whites from advancing.
This is why Obama has voted present on this issue. Why abusive measures against passengers and full-body scans (sure to be on the internet for attractive women or those with icky medical conditions) are a done deal. With Muslims exempt (can you imagine Muslim reaction to strangers seeing their wives and daughters naked) of course.
Offend live Muslims? We don't even have the stomach to offend dead ones, and deter terrorism by burying all Muslim terrorists in pigskin.
For example, look at this typically hysterical reaction to retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney’s recent advocacy of profiling: Former Lt. General "Goes There": Calls for all Muslim men between 18-28 to be strip searched, by Joseph Marhee, Examiner, January 3, 2010. (“McInerney is deliberately using inflammatory and incendiary proclamations to incite hostilities. It is simply unacceptable and irresponsible for someone of his public profile to advocate such blatantly unconstitutional and socially dangerous rhetoric into the mainstream.” Yawn).
Sorry, Steve, I agree with the hysterical liberal here.
How unworldly the vice president of Nigeria is! Goodluck Jonathan simply isn't aware that in 21st century America, it’s considered shameful to notice such patterns. Learning from the past is simply inappropriate.
Science is all about learning from the past. Hell, civilization is all about learning from the past, at least until the founders of the Religion of Diversity came along. In case no one has noticed, civilization is not a revealed truth. It was learned only after thousands of years of trial and error.
Trial and error is gone and therefore progress with it.
How big a calamity is it going to take to make them wake up, stop randomly dissipating prevention efforts, and instead focus on those most likely to commit terrorism?
Obviously something more than the deaths of 3,000 people. Perhaps something an order of magnitude higher.
More importantly, it isn't about how long it will take to wake "them" up. after 9/11 our politicians, the media, and other assorted leftists engaged in a diversion. They never once mentioned the possibility of reining in immigration, specifically Muslim immigration, in order to keep the peace. Neverending war and an accompanying neverending police state were presented to us as the only viable choices.
Since 9/11 the TSA has spent over $40 billion on airport security. This is in addition to the $500 billion+ spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Question: have Muslims, even in the entire history of this country, contributed nearly that much to the federal government in tax revenues, over and above what they get back in services?
Recall how President Obama has been boasting for a year about how his administration is going to cut medical spending by spearheading a computer system to track all your health information. What’s your over-under date on when that gets finished? I’ve got dibs on 2033.
When the political class really wants to get something done, they can do it. IRS computers seem to work just fine.
Hmm...well, perhaps this administration is a bit more pragmatic than you give it credit for:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/03/world/international-uk-security-airline-usa.html?_r=3&ref=global-home
Obviously it's not everything that you were asking for in that column, but it's better than nothing.
According to Wikipedia (the entry is well footnoted), Mutallab pere spent several years as a government minister before going (back?) into the banking industry. His bio begins when he is 36. So, a guy designs banking regulations leaves office to take advantage of his insider knowledge? Sounds a bit like the Nigerian Robert Rubin.
He is said to have a palatial estate in Abuja, as well as another home with its own silver-domed mosque. He has 2 wives and 16 children. If he's able to afford a $4 million London apartment for just one of his 16 children, his wealth must be stratospheric - especially for an African.
However Mutallab feels about his son, it's possible his entreaties to the CIA may have been as much about protecting his own fortune (and access to the UK/USA) as about stopping a terrorist.
Having dealt with a good number of Nigerians as a government employee, I was surprised by the identity of this person. Nigerians have made their mark in the areas of ID theft, credit card fraud, e-mail scams, welfare fraud, counterfeit brand name goods traffic, various scams, and, of course, good old fashioned drug smuggling. Most of it seems to be geared toward the accumulation of worldly goods, all the while thumbing their nose at the host population of the USA. But going on a one way mission? It just seems so out of character for them. Well, maybe they're diversifying.
remember that secretary of transportation norman mineta, a total moron, was the person most directly responsible for rejecting any kind of profiling.
secretary of homeland insecurity, janet napolitano, is another total moron. but she's worse than norman mineta, because it's completely inappropriate for her to hold the office that she does. as governor of arizona, she fought against her own state police force to keep them from enforcing the law on illegal aliens.
some of these people, they are literally enemies of the united states as it exists today. it is not an exaggeration to say that they actually do want to radically change america. they want the mainstream, middle class white american to shut up, go away, get lost, get fcked.
Michael Moore Owes White Men an Apology for Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
How many of the big decision-makers fly commercial?
That sort of gets to the heart of it, doesn't it? But wasn't one fairly high-ranking government official (or ex-government official) killed on one of the 9-11 flights? Ted something?
it's worth noting that the failed terrorist attempts so far involved two black perpetrators, Umar Farouk and Richard Colvin Reid ("the shoe bomber").
could this be due to lower IQ?
Remember Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security's first "intelligence assessment" issued to law enforcement last year said some military veterans could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or commit lone acts of violence and that right-wing extremism was defined as "hate-motivated groups and movements, such as hatred of certain religions, racial or ethnic groups."? "It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
%: Sounds like they believe anyone who questions border security, late trimester abortions**, or any 85-year old former KKK members (watch out Senator Byrd) are "on the list" at airports for strip-searches to me.
**As Steve noted in his Vdare column, a pregnant woman in the first trimester might reconsider flying if she (and her baby) are going to be beholden to X-rays before getting on the plane. Lets say we make some sort of exception for pregnant women citing health concerns for "fetuses" (we can't say babies guys, c'mon, these are democrats). Muslim-terrorists have been known to cheefully use women carrying explosives in Israel on their stomachs hiding behind a faux-pregnancy ruse to get through security. Can we have sniffing dogs specifically search -them-, or is that a violation of their "expectations of privacy"?
"Two days after terrorism attempt, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano told ABC News, the “system has worked really very, very smoothly"."
% I can't help it. What if that Danish guy didn't decide to go all Bruce Willis for us and foil the attack when he noticed something fishy about the Nigerian-Muslim-nutjob-fiddling underneath his blanket trying to do "something". What if that Danish tourist's spidey senses didn't go off? The plane would have blown up. Are Danish tourists part of our "homeland security SYSTEM" that "worked fine?"
Janet Napolitano is a typical member of the entitled elite. She was born in 1957 (Boomer) in New York City, the daughter of Jane Marie (née Winer) and Leonard Michael Napolitano, who was the Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. It must be nice to have little advantages in life like having a dad who is dean of a medical school. Should people like this -really- be given scholarships they shouldn't need? (Janet won a Truman scholarship, perhaps we should have given that to an underpriveldged young muslim minority child), Janet was one of Anita Hill's lawyers during the Clarence Thomas confirmation fiasco, and was one of Bill Clinton's famous cadre of lefty U.S. Attorney appointments (remember when Clinton immediately fired all those U.S. Attorney's when he became president so he could sic his left-wing-attack-dog appointees on conservatives).
Napolitano is also a cancer survivor (masectomy), so she should be particularily sensistive to the concerns of people being over "X-rayed" and the attendant malignancy concerns there (Business travelers sometimes have to fly several times a month, imagine how many X-rays in a career).
I think Steve's idea of using trained sniffing dogs is a wonderful idea, but I imagine left-wingers will note that the dog's "disproportinately" sniff young middle eastern men or whatnot and need sensitivity training-LOL.
I can't help it volume two:
Its too bad we have the uber-competent Eric Holder as our Attorney General, just think we could have had another Janet Reno-esque-lawgiver like Janet Napolitano as our highest law officer in the land, who would then be nominated by a future Democratic president (Jennifer Granholm maybe) to replace the woman's seat on the Supreme Court (when Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires) with this obvious legal genius, who no doubt thinks the precept of a "living document" constitution is serving us "just fine".
%-I wish Steve had a "thumbs up" feature on his blog, so readers could click it when they come across articles he's written that they particularily agree with-but really can't think of anything to comment on that could add to it (because its so complete). Running through that piece, I literally -felt- my head nodding up-and-down thinking aloud in my thoughts, "yep", "yup", "yessir", "Sailer-right-yet-again", over and over.
"If we start concentrating our efforts on people named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, then Al-Qaeda will obviously just go out and recruit as suicide bombers 86-year-old Medal of Honor winners. It’s simple logic!"
These know-nothings try to sound sophisticated by pointing to changes in costs, benefits, incentives, etc. -- economics tells us it wouldn't work!
But there's an equally simple and basic idea in economics that tells us it would work -- namely that the supply of people who will prepare for and carry out blowing themselves up on a plane is perfectly inelastic. And these suppliers have predictable traits.
Even if the supply were fairly elastic, would the current crop of suicidal terrorists actually trust 90 year-old Japanese women to let them in? Third World people need a brain transplant just to trust someone farther removed than their first cousins.
In reality, the 90 year-old Japanese lady would probably be killed on the spot by the terrorists for being suspected as a spy.
You're wrong, Steve. It won't be 2033-it will be 2038. And then it'll fail because the company doing the work hired people who managed to not take a problem people have known about for decades into account.
An0nym0u5
I know the iSteve blog generally doesn't indulge in conspiracy theorizing and usually looks for the no-nonsense/scientific/common sense angle for everything, but I think that it's very possible that this was a false flag operation. It's likely that "Umar" is a Mi6 asset.
The best safety measure would be to turn airport security over to the airlines. They would have two incentives they would balance: 1. Keeping their airplanes and passengers safe. 2. Maximizing the number of passengers.
Before 9/11, airport security was run mainly by private firms hired by the airports. After 9/11, Bush, being a socialist, socialized security in the TSA bureaucracy. Not surprisingly, it's another incompetent government agency.
Give security to the airlines, and they will do what they need to, perhaps including Steve's suggestions.
(Bush's only "successful" business was the Texas Rangers, where he helped them get taxpayer subsidies for their stadium. He always was a socialist, big government functionary. Even his tax cuts in 2011 turn into the Bush tax increases.)
Republicans won’t do it because Bush is a Republican. And Democrats wouldn’t do it because their brains would implode if they ever stopped to notice how much Bush shared their values.
-Absolute Gold.
Joseph Marhee: McInerney is deliberately using inflammatory and incendiary proclamations to incite hostilities. It is simply unacceptable and irresponsible for someone of his public profile to advocate such blatantly unconstitutional and socially dangerous rhetoric into the mainstream.
From what I can tell by googling, "Marhee" doesn't appear to be a very common name, but at Beth Ahm Israel, of Hollywood, Florida, I am seeing a donation to the Rabbi's Discretionary Fund, in memory of Isaac David Mizrahi, by a Frieda Marhee.
Captain Jack Aubrey: Obviously something more than the deaths of 3,000 people. Perhaps something an order of magnitude higher.
Now in fairness to the Tel Aviv Scots-Irish, that's EXACTLY the point that they would make.
PS: If you think that something an order of magnitude higher will awaken the Blue Staters from their slumber, then you misunderestimate the depths of their nihilism.
I heard he came from a prosperous family, but I didn't know his family was THAT prosperous.
He's like the Muslim version of Bill Ayers, as Ayers dad was chairman of Chicago's giant electric company.
Can Mr. Umar write?
Totally willing to profile, but the essay begs the question - how many millions have the profile and have flown with no problems? You seem to be on thin ice here in a way, but right in a way as well - there is clearly no reason to search my Irish American mother in law. How about positive profiling? Would that make some Americans more American than others? What is wrong with that?
For once, this is a matter of not just American political correctness. The shared international data systems used to screen airline passengers must conform with EU standards too, and the EU has rules against storing any information which may tend to identify someone’s religion, even what kind of special meals they order for their flights.
The EU says it is sensitive to this dimension partly because of a series or unfortunate events in Europe in the early 1940s. Someone needs to remind the EU that the Nazis did not frisk Jews as they boarded Lufthansa planes. The Nazis did something else.
An excellent piece.
I like the dog idea. Why not just have a few roam planes during the flight? Don't like dogs? have dog-free flights available. Let travelers choose. I'm thinking doggie flights could even charge a premium.
"How big a calamity is it going to take to make them wake up, stop randomly dissipating prevention efforts, and instead focus on those most likely to commit terrorism?"
The answer is there is NO calmity big enough-not even a dirty nuclear bomb, that will awaken them. The New York-Hollywood elite are ALREADY awake!
See, they think-like Israel-that they can easily handle the muslims when they are ready. It is US they see as the problem. It is US they need to marginalize, thin out, nueter and remove from any power and influence.
THAT is why Bush was such a complete disaster-he did nothing to stop THAT aspect of the destruction of America-even though the knew it goes on.
While I agree with most of what you say, I read on another board that the type of explosive used doesn't work well at high altitudes. That's part of the reason for the ban on getting up for the last hour, if I understand correctly. Just thought I would pass this on.
In Russia, they use the Sulimov breed of dogs
These dogs are a hybrid of African Jackals and domestic dogs and have much superior smell
These dogs are let loose in airports and they wander around until they smell an explosive
An added bonus, devout jihadi muslims dont like being smelled by dogs
Even muslim women have been suicide bombers
Ultimately flights to muslim countries must be drastically reduced and all muslims subject to body cavity searches
why are we still letting in record numbers of muslims.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but i can't imagine our elite are THIS stupid. it has to be intentional. perhaps they are so arrogant they think they can cleanse these muslims in the 'acid bath' of secularlism as someone at takimag put it.
Captain Jack Aubrey nailed it. Any Western country has the ministerial infrastructure to get the job done ASAP, if they want to. All this crap about full body scanners and their inability to deal with immigration, terrorism and out-of-control diversity is just pretension to quieten down the rubes. The plot being followed on higher levels must carry an inordinate amount of coercion with it for the generally clueless elites to remain so shoulder-locked.
Hurrah for profiling. We should profile Muslim men for terrorism, young black males for street crime, Hispanics for illegal immigration, and guys with names like Schwarz and Cohen for financial crimes.
Besides, affirmative action is a form of profiling. It targets whites--and even Hindus and other Asians--for special negative attention.
Part of the problem is that TSA employees are often incapable of distinguishing between an American governor and a foreign Muslim. They really aren't the best and the brightest and thus we really DON'T want them thinking fpr themselves. As one of the more vocally Jewish istevers it probably won't surprise anyone that I've flown to Israel a number of times. There were dozens of Muslims on each of those flights of course but afdter the first couple of flights I stopped being terribly concerned about it because the security people seemed to be pretty smart folk. While there were random searches done throughout the demographics of course (despite being dressed as obviously Jewish I had my bags searched once as well) their primary concern seemed to be people whom they thought were more likely to be a problem such as multi-layared Arab women without children in tow (if you've seen the type you understand why) and single swarthy men travelling alone. I got the impression that the people doing the security were in no way automatons following any sort of protocols (aside for asking everyone some standard questions while reading your body language) but were concerned with security threats and trusted to know what those were. I'm also fairly certain that most of them were in units in the army where they were specifically trained to be able to notice potential threats.
I think the question of WHO is doing security is a more important one than HOW it's done. Of course if the right people WERE dsoing it then disparate impact would start being a problem. At the same time, I'd happilly have every TSA agent diverted off of airline security and into ensuring safe driving on the roads. That move would save about twenty thousand lives a year. Eh, let's not talk crazy. Better to focus on the once-in-a-decade underwear bomber.
mnuez
I wonder... could all of this have been avoided if US didn't get involved in the Gulf War in 1990?
It was American military presence in Saudi Arabia which really got Osama Bin Laden's goat. He never loved the US, but that finally sent him over the top, and he vowed to hurt the US real bad.
There was some evidence that the first Bush administration diplomatically botched the whole thing. It sent mixed signals to Hussein that US would be okay with Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Had US sent a strong unequivocal message of NO, Hussein might not have invaded. Or, if US had accepted the invasion as fait accompli, Hussein might have been satisfied, and neighboring nations--Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia--might have forged closer ties to the US out of fear of Hussein's Iraq-Kuwait. Maybe it was a HUGE mistake to send troops there.
Well, it's all water under the bridge now. And besides, it's AIPAC that decides what we do and don't.
Recall how President Obama has been boasting for a year about how his administration is going to cut medical spending by spearheading a computer system to track all your health information. What’s your over-under date on when that gets finished? I’ve got dibs on 2033.
A federal health administration computer system by 2033 is wildly optimistic. Consider CalWIN and SAWS the computerized welfare in California.
California has 53 counties. Many have very large public welfare programs but in the seventies few were computerized.The federal government mandate that each state have a statewide welfare computer system. When I started working with a group of California counties on this I was told that it couldn't be done - there had been no progress in ten years of effort. When I left ten years later there still was no statewide system. That was 1990. Officially CalWIN was completed in 2004 but to this day it only serves only a little more than a third of all California counties. It may be another decade (or more) yet until California fulfills the SAWS mandate.
In health care information systems also take a long time. Last year I did a data base project at UC San Francisco for one of the surgery departments. I made up a system to track surgery outcomes. This little system was run on a small PC network. The official UC information system was written in COBOL and ran on a mainframe (that means old - at best sixties). Like most such systems it is inadequate for current needs. No one builds such systems today but a combination of inertia, fear, and territoriality keeps them in use.
A national comprehensive health care computer system should take about a century.
The race-replacement of Euro-Americans must continue at the current rapid pace. Nothing must interfere with it. The Dear Leader, President Obama, demands that you tolerate this(your race-prelacement).
Steve
Focus on the core issue of race-replacement.
Congressman Peter King from Seaford LI--now with senatorial ambitions-voted for a race-replacement immigration for almost twenty years...until...two young LI fireman from two families-White ones- that he is very close to.
There can be no doubt that in Peter King's mind, he understands that his enhusiastic voting-18 years-for the race-replacement of Euro-Americans directly led to the death of these two young Euro-American NYC fireman. Of course, he will never admit this in public.
Peter King is now pushing for the racial profiling of muslim-looking men.
Here is the point Steve, while necessary these days,racial profiling is not the fundamental isue. Race-replacement is the fundamental issue. And "conservative" Republican congressmen such as Peter King voted for it. It was done deliberately.
A national origins immigration policy would have prevented the attack in 1993 and in 2001.
The level of insanity within White America-the tolerance of White Southern Grannies being stripped searched at airports..don't want to offend the muslim "Americans "- is hard to comprehend. I can not find the words to describe it.
Do you understand this very wide and very deep insanity within White American? Does anybody?
Steve, do some research on the AlMagrib school system. Bigger question:why is Islam being allowed to expand in a majority Christian nation?
If the United States breaks up into several raced-based nation states, you can be absolutely certain that the mexican state of California will implement a national origins immigration policy that excludes Europeans and Euro-Americans(in defacto sense Euro-Americans are already being excluded and deported out of the Mexican colonized California).
Given that the bomber was a Nigerian, we may find that the money trail leads back to an American idiot who created a checking account and deposited to it a few hundred bucks in anticipation of receiving $x million USD from the Nigerian Ambassador's office. If you think I'm joking, you're mistaken.
A typically good article, keep up the good work!
One problem with explosive sniffing dogs at airports is that they are really expensive.
Something to keep in mind is that heightened security at airports ALWAYS kills people by raising the price of airfare and encouraging more people to drive between cities, which is more dangerous in term of crashes and also creates more pollution leading to more cancer and lung disease.
The shoe and underpants bombers surely killed people, we just don't know who they are.
Like Osama he came from a gigantic polygamous family, one of 16 kids.
I wonder if he was raised spoiled, but with so many siblings (and perhaps even more on the way) faced the prospect of having to work for a living.
Few things are more depressing than downward social mobility.
It's nice to hear that his father tried to turn him in. This is a very nobal thing to do, the Unabomber's family did this as well.
I have long felt that the entire ritual -- take off your shoes, etc -- is simply a humiliation/power drive where the State exerts its powers over the individual. I think the Founding Fathers are turning in their graves. I fly as seldom as I possibly can the last few years. I don't like to pariticipate in public humiliation rituals.
The big advantage of using biometrics is that it permanently "anchors" a persons identity. Once a finger print is in the data base there is no escaping.
Keeping track of people on the basis of names is problematic if we are tracking someone who originally did not use a roman alphabet to spell their name, there is a mistake, or the person marries or changes their name. With a finger print nothing changes. They could even keep track of Eva Gabor.
My wife is Russian. When she goes back to Russia she has to carry two sets of documents with her. Her Russian documents and American documents. She also carried a copy of our marriage certificate to explain the name change. Very, very cumbersom, for her and both America and Russian customs. With biometrics all of this would be moot. Just check the finger print and get on the plane.
The problem of course, is that many illegal aliens can't get on the plane, which is why we have not gone towards a system of biometrics. I live in the Bay Area. We could have dominated that technology and driven it to the point of where this whole fricken guessing game would be over. As it is, some country like Russia, backward Russia, will have it before we do. So sad.
The system did indeed "work" since the purpose of the system is not to take care of such ho-hum concerns as the physical safety of Americans, but to instead spice up this tired, whitebeard stick-in-the-mud of a country with exciting dashes of diversity. And, right according to plan, we are quickly becoming as vibrant as Lebanon and Pakistan combined.
Years ago I bitterly wrote on a liberal website how we will soon all have to wear government-issued "flight snuggies". These will be skin-tight to assure no dangerous materials or weapons are smuggled onboard, unisex to save on cost (as well as preempt lawsuits by the transgendered), and issued, collected, and then cleaned and reissued by the same efficient, meticulous government employees that brought you such hygenic wonders as the highway rest stop. This will all be done in the name of equality, yet almost immediately after the program is instituted Muslims will complain that the snuggies violate the physical modesty demands of their religion, at which point they will be given the option to ride on all-Muslim chartered flights in their street clothes. And we will be proud of this system which treats all Americans the same, except when it doesn't, and even more proud that this is the sort of thing we take pride in.
That's your best work in while Steve- thanks. Any article that makes you google 2 items ( newfoundland dogs, jonathan goodluck) and comment twice is impressive. Especillay for someone as busy and as important as I am.
Newfies are the best btw- one dog rescued 86 irish sailors in 1806....you know who was on that boat? My great great great grandfather Seamus O'Doyle Dan in DC.
Keep up the good work,
Dan in DC
Ted Olsen's wife Barbara was killed- I don't know about another Ted....good pt though. Dan in DC
On the related topic of Ft. Hood massacre-ist Nadal Hassan and the establishment's refusal to call a spade a spade by resorting to such evil, despicable expedients as, oh, logical induction (on a CNN panel the day of the shootings the talking heads actually entertained the theory that there might be a West Virginia Tech connection) why hasn't the GOP made more political hay out of the matter? For example, why has no one called out Colin Powell for going on the talk circuit last year and lacerating anyone who would question the patriotism of American Muslims (he cited 1 loyal Muslim who had died in the line of duty, but even then there are at least 3 cases of Muslims going rogue). Oh, right, because he's a popular Republican. A big-tent, Obama-voting Republican.
And talk about pattern matching. Nadal Malik wasn't just the first Muslim to try and frag his fellow soldiers- he wasn't even the first Hasan!
Michael Moore Owes White Men an Apology for Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
Uh-huhhuhhuh; you said Michael Moore.
Truth is, it was stupid white men like Michael "Moore to love" who created the situation of the apathetic hostage. For years it was liberal wisdom that hostages should act like sheep, and for years they followed it. Funny, as someone has already pointed out, it took a few white guys all of a half hour or so to overcome this programming when they found out the strategy was vulnerable to "stuff the liberals never could have predicted" (because nobody in government ever watched Executive Decision, or ever talked to anyone who did (never mind the degree of separation thing, or word of mouth; I'm trying to create a Bizarro World in which "we never could have predicted" makes a scintilla of sense here, okay?)).
The writing was on the wall a long time ago. The government-media complex fears a thinking, proactive populace far more than it fears terrorists, foreign powers, eco-disaster, and fill-in-the-blank combined.
He's like the Muslim version of Bill Ayers, as Ayers dad was chairman of Chicago's giant electric company.
Have you read about Thomas Ayers and the mailman?
How the hell did the guy find his way onto the boards of Sears, G.D. Searle, Chicago Pacific Corp., Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, General Dynamics Corp. of St. Louis, First National Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Cubs, and the Tribune Co.?
He was a raving, lunatic Stalinist.
There's always room for worse ideas: Commenting on the possible introduction of these airport scanners, the head of the German Green Party demanded an exception for Muslims, because they are too sensitive to be seen kinda naked.
Hey, Komment Kontrol is absolutely on fire today.
Awesome, baby!
There's always room for worse ideas: Commenting on the possible introduction of these airport scanners, the head of the German Green Party demanded an exception for Muslims, because they are too sensitive to be seen kinda naked.
The German Greens are so damned nihilistic I don't understand why they don't all just join hands in one big group hug, sing Kumbaya [or whatever the equivalent is in Germany], breath in the intoxicating fumes of the Zyklon B, and call it quits forever.
As much as it might be desirable to use profiling at airports to stop terrorism, there's a serious problem with this idea.
The problem is that if the powers that be are allowed to stop terrorism using a change in policy at the airport, they'll be far less pressure on them to stop terrorism using a change in policy at the border and in the immigration laws.
The threat of terrorism is one of the most potent arguments in favor of Patriotic Immigration Reform.
Why should we muck that up by doing something that won't help the immigration situation one iota?
No high profile political appointee or bureaucrat was killed on 9/11. The closest to that was Barbara Olson, the wife of Ted Olson, who at the time was George Bush's Solicitor General. Ted Olson is now involved in the lawsuit seeking to overturn California's Proposition 8 in federal court - the result, of course, would be gay marriage, either nationwide or in any state with a runaway judiciary.
The Bush Boys know how to pick 'em, don't they?
Steve said: Before he backs away from the gate, the pilot should walk the length of the aisle. Any shifty-eyed character whom the captain doesn’t like the looks of, off he goes.
(Somewhat similarly, banks have cut down on robberies lately by having employees greet everybody who walks in off the street. Eye contact demoralizes and dissuades bad guys.)
What Israel can teach us about security
At Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, screening is done in 30 minutes. The key? Look passengers in the eye
Sharp-dressed man = Wahhabi? Why not Mossad? "We do this all the time" is pretty slick. The guy was probably some shade of pale, convincing as an evangelical type "helping" po black boys get ahead, snif.
All sides in the Middle East have an interest in influencing American policy, remember that. A pox on the lot of 'em is what I say.
The USDA has a "beagle brigade" that sniffs for illegal food in airport luggage in baggage claim areas so I don't know why dogs can't be used to sniff passengers.
I know a courier who sometimes makes deliveries to the CIA. He says two labs are used to sniff his vehicle.
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