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plaasjaapie
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 9166
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 Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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The rules that you have in place now will prevent plane bombings by all but the most determined. What you have to do is decide how many planes that you are willing to lose to bombs per year and predicate your safety procedures on that target.
You could increase security by requiring passengers to strip to the skin and put on airline supplied clothing and put ALL their personal belongings in aluminized mylar bags that would be stored in the hold for the duration of the flight. THEN body scan the passengers to see if they have anything on their persons.
Mind, that wouldn't stop a situation like the terrorists used to kill a Saudi prince a few weeks back. In that case the terrorist had explosives (PETN, iirc) in his rectum. I'm not sure how they were detonated.
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Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
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Diethylzink
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 1056
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, California
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| Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| As a purely practical matter, avoid using explosives right next to your private parts. Don't disappoint 72 virgins in the hereafter. |
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CharlesWT
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1741
Location: Plano, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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plaasjaapie
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 9166
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| Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Diethylzink wrote: | | As a purely practical matter, avoid using explosives right next to your private parts. Don't disappoint 72 virgins in the hereafter. |
I'm sure the mullahs will promise such martyrs new wedding tackle suitable to handle all 72 virgins at once.
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Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
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Larry_Home
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 7315
Location: Harrisburg, PA USA
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| Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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Personally, I think Forrest's formulation is absolutely correct:
| plaasjaapie wrote: | | What you have to do is decide how many planes that you are willing to lose to bombs per year and predicate your safety procedures on that target. |
But our society has become virtually unable to address such an issue.
Environmentalists and the FDA, for example, embrace the "precautionary principle," which requires that you prove a policy or substance to be totally safe in all circumstances before it can be used. Since there are no such policies or substances, this becomes a self-defeating principle (it is why we have no new nuclear power plants) ... yet they insist on pursuing it. (Some argue they persist because they know it is impossible, the goal being to eliminate modern technology.)
Similarly, secruity requires some level of the "invasion of privacy" of which Academie speaks. As Forrest points out in the rest of his post, the level of security is going to be directly related to the level of privacy invaded.
The issue of airline security is a magnificent test of clashing values and policies, when you look at it. Do we yield a level of personal "rights" of privacy in return for a level of collective security? Undoubtedly we will all be safer on airplanes if TSA agents adopt a policy of ruthlessly scrutinizing Muslim travelers, but isn't that racism and Islamophobia? Do we bring international travel to a grinding halt by pursuing the precautionary principle in travel, or accept a certain level of risk in return for the ability to travel safely most of the time?
These kinds of issues are things our society has defaulted on for decades now, persuaded are so many that limitless safety and total personal privacy can be assured by a plethora of absolute "rights."
Maybe this situation will help bring things back to reality, as represented by Forrest's correct appraisal of the tradeoffs we have to think about.
It's heartening that Europeans seem to have rejected the TSA's ludicrous and panicky rules changes.
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra) |
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Larry_Home
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 7315
Location: Harrisburg, PA USA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 2:26 am Post subject: |
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Larry_Home
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 7315
Location: Harrisburg, PA USA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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Obama forced to retreat on the KSM trial. The explanation of policy by Holder is beyond belief:
| Quote: | Administration officials acknowledge that Holder and Obama advisers were unable to build political support for the trial. And Holder, in an interview Thursday, left open the possibility that Mohammed's trial could be switched to a military commission, although he said that is not his personal and legal preference.
"At the end of the day, wherever this case is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it's done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules," Holder said. "If we do that, I'm not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding." |
This is a stark and public and undeniable admission that the entire policy of the administration is theatre, not substance. He doesn't care what is done or where or by whom, as long as "the world sees" it correctly.
It would make Dr. Goebbels proud.
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra) |
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plaasjaapie
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 9166
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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So the slimy bastard has been forced to back off. Good.
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Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
— Sir John Harrington |
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academie
Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 3946
Location: Right behind you. Don't look.
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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"unable to build political support for the trial."
Thus confirming to the rest of the world that our trials are political. (Or, at least, that's how this administration wants them to be.)
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"You know who else is on vacation, president Barack Obama. Since he's been in office, this is his sixth vacation. Yep.... he'll have plenty of time for vacation when his one term is up." -- David Letterman (?!) |
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