Terror rant

The day's news left me more pissed off than scared.

1. Shrub says we're safer now than before 9/11. I call bullshit. We're more fucked with and fucked now than we were before 9/11, but I don't think we're any safer.
2. Bueller? .... Bueller? .... Bin Laden? .... Bin Laden? Oh, yeah, I remember Osama. Tall guy. Rides a mule. Family outcast. The Shrub should be impeached for his wrong-headed invasion of Iraq after our quickie "victory" in Afghanistan. First order of business should have been putting all our efforts into hunting the bastard down and killing him. Instead, billions of dollars, thousands of lives wasted while we officiate a Civil War in Iraq. Sure, we got Saddam. But how is That Trial That Will Never End going?
3. Love the frenzy of the networks. CNN filled up two hours with Anderson Cooper reporting on a story that deserved maybe 30 minutes. The plot was foiled, nothing us really happened. The rest was all BS. There was even a story about who would give the order to shoot down planes over the U.S. HELLO. Stronger cockpit doors and screening procedures and air marshals pretty much eliminate the chances of turning airliners into weapons. The foiled plot involved blowing up planes over the Atlantic.
4. Al Queda is one for three. 10 years ago, similar liquid explosives plot to bring down passenger plans from Asia to West Coast foiled. Now, the recent plot. 9/11 is AQ's biggest success and that should have been stopped if our intelligence agencies had played nice.
5. The latest threat will make traveling even more glamorous and fun. Here's what I say: Station armed guards in front of metal detectors. Let the grandmas, families with kids and businessmen with laptops go through normal screening. If you look like a terrorist, the guy with the M-16 directs you to the line where you have to wait, you can't carry anything on and you get patted down. Racial profiling? Yep. But sorry, all us white folks didn't start the fire. If you think you look like a terrorist, then you can get your ass to the airport at 4 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight.

G'night.

 

You'll never get unequal screening as the ACLU will go apeshit.
Oh, by the way, I wonder how much of NSA-type wiretapping over there helped solve this case?

 

Then let the ACLU fucks fly for a living and find out how ridiculous all the airport screening is. We're closing the barn door after the horses have left and the barn has burnt down.

 

Since this all happened in Britain, the NSA can wiretap their little hearts out.

 

Don't think for a second the airlines won't soon quietly pressure the gov't with threats of "this will put us into Capter 11".

 

That was my point, everyone over here was so hand-wringy about it.
Maybe it worked?

 

I'd like to add this to the terror rant -- how can oil prices go down three days after a company says it has to halt production and then all this terror stuff happens?? Am I missing something??

 

Oil prices dropped because the terror threat is expected to lower the demand for jet fuel.

 

Man, if the NSA had anything to do with this, Bush would've been out trumpeting how great a job they did under his watch and how they fed key intel to the Brits.

 

Doubt it...now of all times they need to keep the upper hand and not reveal too much about how this was all stopped.

 

I wonder how PO'ed the NY Times editors are that they didn't get this story out in time to keep the terrorists from getting arrested. I bet someone loses his/her job.

 

I'll guess we'll hear that by the middle of next week.