Terrorism in 'Murica (aka The Homeland)

The BBC was reporting that the route maps will only be off for the last hour. Seems completely retarded regardless. They're not detailed enough if you're aiming for a specific small conurbation, and any idiot can figure out when they've crossed from Canadian to U.S. airspace.

wow at El Al security.

Does the precise location of the plane you're trying to destroy matter that much?

presumably it has greater political impact if it happens in the U.S.

when youre flying into new york you can look out the window and see new york

yeah (re El Al); I have friends who would gladly pay for that kind of security---you'd think a market as lucrative as the airline market would support such a business.

how much is the typical price premium for El Al? double? extra 25%

imo the market for luxury airline security isnt that great - its already the safest thing in the world

joe will you come out to EWR on new year's day and do yoga with me y/n?

that sounds really lovely but im up in vermont for the next few months

btw factoid: i have never set foot in the newark airport

ladies and gentlemen we may or may not be approaching anything. we cannot confirm if we are beginning our descent. our suggestion that you return your seats to their upright position should not be taken as a sign of anything. maybe we just think you need to sit up a little straighter. we should have you on the ground ... eventually. our flight crew will be bringing around blindfolds, which we suggest you don for your safety and ours.

xp, nm. i only have 4 hours and i will probably be getting a little tased for most of that time.

lol

also, they are apparently leaving the cabin lights on for the duration.

Oh I cannot fucking WAIT for this. Cheers Al-Qaeda dudes.

was gonna say if u were trying to explode a plane over a particular city just buy ticket to that city then wait till the plane started getting pretty close to the ground then id blow it up - no maps or watches necessary

I'm not sure about how much of a premium El Al flights cost; I just priced a Paris-Tel Aviv flight for next month to check, and it was cheaper on El Al than on Air France.

If they do turn the maps off, I still don't think that'll stop the terrorists

what they should do is make everyone surrender their bombs before boarding - the rest of it would be unnecessary

http://i49.tinypic.com/fkv62t.jpg

'the pope'

he did this

tackling lady is hero

curses foiled again

http://todustyoushallreturn.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/benedict-with-cross1.jpg

airlines should be required to employ a harrison ford lookalike on every flight; should be enough to intimidate any potential terrorists

it should be so easy to code an airplane that instead of crashing just sheds its wings and tail and deploys a giant parachute from its roof - wd only take airplane admin ten minutes

last time we flew transatlantic, we were sitting with small children next to us and a nun behind us, I seriously thought we were in some cliched disaster movie.

small children next to you transatlantic sounds like disaster enough to me tbh

last time i was on a transatlantic, i was in the throes of getting a serious sinus infection, sitting next to a 65-year-old Polish woman who drank about nine beers during the course of the flight.

i will be seriously disappointed if the maps w/the lil traveling airplane get turned off

co-sign, that's the best part. I am bringing my own map & a little Monopoly airplane from now on

The map restriction truly means the terrorists have won.

But really, do these security types have any fucking idea what they are doing? Is this some kind of political ploy - like do something, anything to appear proactive?

don't come running to me when your guitar-case gets 'defused' xpost

apparently some nigerian guy went to the bathroom for an hour on another amsterdam -> detroit flight

unclear whether or not hes a terrorist but it was enough to declare an emergency

in fairness to that guy though some of those inflight meals are pretty tough

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/us/politics/w28talk.html?_r=1&hp

rep peter king r ny getting all hot n bothered

“The fact is the system did not work, and we have to find a bipartisan way to fix it,” Mr. King said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If that had been successful, the plane would have come down and we would have had a Christmas Day massacre with almost 300 people murdered.”
*drools*

well we could cancel christmas from now on.

maybe peter king should just be on all the planes

talk about monday morning quaterbacking...

lol http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html

We have a one in 83 chance of dying in a traffic accident.

is that over a lifetime?

One of the columns in a security system trade mag I read last year best described this as 'security theater'

Would-be bomber was an engineering student, that explains all...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227127.200-can-university-subjects-reveal-terrorists-in-the-making.html?full=true

yes, over a lifetime

number of deaths per year in U.S. divided by population divided by average lifetime.

^xpost

can understand how the illogic of injustice and the mechanical solution of terror could particularly offend and appeal to engineering mind - jus fixin stuff

http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf

Abstract.

We find that graduates from subjects such as science, engineering,
and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements in the
Muslim world, though not among the extremist Islamic groups which have
emerged in Western countries more recently. We also find that engineers alone
are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent groups in both
realms. This is all the more puzzling for engineers are virtually absent from
left-wing violent extremists and only present rather than over-represented
among right-wing extremists. We consider four hypotheses that could explain
this pattern. Is the engineers’ prominence among violent Islamists an accident
of history amplified through network links, or do their technical skills make
them attractive recruits? Do engineers have a ‘mindset’ that makes them a
particularly good match for Islamism, or is their vigorous radicalization
explained by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries? We
argue that the interaction between the last two causes is the most plausible
explanation of our findings, casting a new light on the sources of Islamic
extremism and grounding macro theories of radicalization in a micro-level
perspective.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/27/gilded-life-of-plane-bomber

tbf i imagine they're checking for weapons?

P sure that's a direct transcript.

They're checking for embedded cellphones.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fj1HFuaZrD0/ThJdI2QpQPI/AAAAAAAACgQ/esATtrnuZeo/s1600/PDVD_108.BMP

Maybe, given their constraints, they are implementing thus far extra-legal tickle torture tactics to get him to talk. They are going to get some stubbly SWAT dude to blow raspberries on his tummy until he spills the beans.

Disturbing new details in alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer

New filings claim there was a Plan B the militiamen had drawn up, that involved a takeover of the Michigan capitol building by 200 combatants who would stage a week-long series of televised executions of public officials.

There was also a Plan C -- burning down the state house, leaving no survivors.

"economic anxiety"

Look, an armed coup is totally a reasonable response to not being able to get a haircut.

give me wings, or give me death

Look, an armed coup is totally a reasonable response to not being able to get a haircut.

Also gotta love that their backup plans were just as outlandish. Plan D was to hijack the Space Shuttle and pilot it into the Mackinac Bridge.

iirc that was actually Plan E, Plan D was to poison this year's crop of Traverse City cherries and hand deliver them to everyone at the statehouse.