[Parallax]

Precisely. Civilization is the real target. They want to play warlord.

We should not surrender on this point. Even if we must take a few risks in the process.

They also want to be martyrs. I'm all for helping them, if we can bring that about in sufficient numbers. 20 or 30 thousand at a time would be good.

[Ratmagiclady]

They also want to be martyrs. I'm all for helping them, if we can bring that about in sufficient numbers. 20 or 30 thousand at a time would be good.

That's the *recruiting tool* people use to get people pissed off enough to piss you off enough for *you* to forsake civilization so that there will be more chaos and their would-be-leaders can play *warlord.*

That's why *they* want to escalate: to turn *crime* into 'holy war' so that people on both sides will want 'holy warlords.'

Terrorism accomplishes no military objectives to speak of. It's meant to make you react in *fear* and become the 'enemy' someone else finds it convenient to call you.

That's why it's called 'picking a fight.'

Get you thinking too much about the 'fight' to contemplate what's up with the 'picking.'

[reeftool]

The most important aspect of the new security measures is the illusion it creates that our elected officials and the bureaucrats they hire are actually "doing something". They will probably succeed in catching a few more drug smugglers and senior citizens who buy cheap prescriptions out of the country and the machines will be labeled a great success. Whether or not it will stop a determined terrorist remains to be seen.

[Ratmagiclady]

Politicizing this and getting *cynical* sure won't help with what everyone's panicking over. I was watching ABC the other night and you'd think 9/11 happened again, only this time it was no time to 'stand by the President' over it... the conservatives they had on just kept saying 'Threat, threat threat,' and the anchors kept saying how many people 'nearly' died....

If people want to react like that, they don't *actually* have to kill everyone to have the desired effects. A screwup will apparently do.

I mean, let's face it, as suicide martyrdoms go, if we can imagine the mentality, that was a total balls-up. In the halls of glorious martyrs, what's he gonna say? "Well, I torched my underwear and the contents thereof, real bad on the way to Detroit?" Play this right, and it'll dissuade a lot of people all full of glorious visions of paradise, I should think. Like I said, there's big vanity there. They may not be afraid to die... Afraid to live out sixty more years with extra-crispy man-parts being called 'The Underoos Bomber?' ....Very likely.

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Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 01-04-2010 at 10:53 AM.

[Parallax]

..................... They may not be afraid to die... Afraid to live out sixty more years with extra-crispy man-parts being called 'The Underoos Bomber?' ....Very likely.

That was the point of my post above regarding risk versus benefit. They aren't afraid to die, but everybody is afraid of something. If we can make it clear to once and future terrorists that their worst fears will be realized, we might make a dent in the problem.

[Rupert]

I hear they are much adverse to being wrapped in bacon.......seems it keeps them out of heavean, and disgusts those waiting virgins. I'm all for it. We could start with the Detroit guys crispy parts, making sure they never make it into heaven for "Toys for Waiting Virgins".
Regards!

[Ratmagiclady]

I hear they are much adverse to being wrapped in bacon.......seems it keeps them out of heavean, and disgusts those waiting virgins. I'm all for it. We could start with the Detroit guys crispy parts, making sure they never make it into heaven for "Toys for Waiting Virgins".
Regards!

I'm really just glad I don't see the world the same way as you guys do.

Pettiness, degradation, escalation, and getting all Abu Ghraib with cured pork products and other tabooes is no way to defend enlightened civilization!

Contempt and in some cases, mockery for such things, not treating everything as an excuse to descend to the same level. There's a difference.

[Lowell Goudge]

...Apparently they have a way to make these scanners display in a way that protects people's modesty, anyway.

but in doing so, they offer places to hide the same explosives and offensive materials the scanners are specifically designed to detect.

At the end of the day, and I believe someone even admitted to it on CNN a few nights ago, there is no way we can ever be 100% safe. Especially if it is done by only passive monitoring means as people enter the secure area.

[Ratmagiclady]

but in doing so, they offer places to hide the same explosives and offensive materials the scanners are specifically designed to detect.

Here, I admittedly just didn't see the whole report: all I heard was assurances a certain scanner would detect while I saw in the video enough of an example of the output to figure on it being a *software solution* as regards how much of one's body the operator sees, as opposed to any dumbing-down of the detector's sensitivities.

Seemed doable to me, anyway.

Personally, I don't share a lot of the nudity tabooes and associated ....cultural fetishism about it, but that doesn't make it any comfier to be potentially-leered at. Frankly, it's *other people's attitudes, even self-righteously-Puritanical ones, that introduce the icky-sketchy factor,* not my body's, anyone else's, or images thereof, themselves.

I actually have a great deal of personal modesty, and consider that a really-important space for me to have boundaries about.

Ironically, the discomfort comes from 'religious' points of view that consider it a piece of cloth that confers human dignity, and that therefore someone's 'entitled' to whatever they 'see.'

Where it all comes from aside, the perceptions exist.

At the end of the day, and I believe someone even admitted to it on CNN a few nights ago, there is no way we can ever be 100% safe. Especially if it is done by only passive monitoring means as people enter the secure area.

No, you can never be 100 percent safe. But people trying to think in 'absolutes' do get pretty indignant about small possibilities.

[Blue]

I guess everyone has forgot about the a$$ bomber back in August. I'm sure even Petey would object to being trained to patrol that!

[Ratmagiclady]

I guess everyone has forgot about the a$$ bomber back in August. I'm sure even Petey would object to being trained to patrol that!

Guess I did.

See? It's working already.

(See, though? Just cause you're inclined to similar vanities, yourselves, doesn't mean that bacon is the answer when calling someone 'ass-bomber' will do.)

[Phil1]

'No, you can never be 100 percent safe. But people trying to think in 'absolutes' do get pretty indignant about small possibilities.' RML

That's the obvious. Reviewing what got by screening in the underwear bomber's case, Obama finally admitted it was a gross breach. It also tells us the the gov't was asleep again at the switch. Reviews I read indicated that it was an absolute miracle that plane did not go down. Learning from the past, that could have been 20 planes on Christmas day. We skated by with two miracles (shoe guy and this one). It won't continue unless the gov't rents a brain. Maybe the Isrealis can show them how it's done.

RML's suggestion of dogs seems like a good one. I havn't seen any on any domestic or Canadian travel I have made in the last three or so years. I know customs uses them for inbound freight.

I don't believe they will do much good with body cavity expolosives. Here is how that works, this is old news by the way:

Al Qaeda develops body cavity explosive device - Video All - Video - 3 News

The narcotics inspectors use x-rays which will spot them. Ultra sound scanners and sniffers won't.

[Ratmagiclady]

'No, you can never be 100 percent safe. But people trying to think in 'absolutes' do get pretty indignant about small possibilities.' RML

That's the obvious. Reviewing what got by screening in the underwear bomber's case, Obama finally admitted it was a gross breach. It also tells us the the gov't was asleep again at the switch. Reviews I read indicated that it was an absolute miracle that plane did not go down. Learning from the past, that could have been 20 planes on Christmas day. We skated by with two miracles (shoe guy and this one). It won't continue unless the gov't rents a brain. Maybe the Isrealis can show them how it's done.

Actually, it wasn't 'miracles,' ... it was the simple fact that constrained desperation moves don't actually tend to work well.

RML's suggestion of dogs seems like a good one. I havn't seen any on any domestic or Canadian travel I have made in the last three or so years. I know customs uses them for inbound freight.

They use em a lot for baggage. All over the place, actually, you just don't see them.

The thing about sniffers (canine, mechanical, or otherwise) is that you don't have to actually smell the *device,* ...you can smell ever having come in contact with the making of them, the packaging of them, the handling of them...

To bypass, or potentially-bypass that, well... Almost impossible to do alone, and that means your would-be solo bombers have serious difficulties. Among others.

Also, by the way, just in case the bad guys have anyone with my kind of brains, ..one of the most important ways to prevent me outsmarting something is to make sure *I do not know about it.*

That means that even if it makes us feel a bit more 'in control' to analyze things to shreds, we kind of need to trust some people about details if we want it to work better. Not easy. But there it is .

Everyone fly's naked, problem solved. There would be health benefits as well, the modest Americans would be forced to lose weight or else they would be too embarrassed to travel.

I'm thinking "disposable seat covers".

[Phil1]

'Also, by the way, just in case the bad guys have anyone with my kind of brains, ..one of the most important ways to prevent me outsmarting something is to make sure *I do not know about it.*'

Exactly. The Isrealis say nothing and do everything right it would seem. If it's not PC to do a strip search on a suspect that doesn't like it, phokem, take the bus instead.

Like I said before and I pray I am very very wrong, we will lose planes the way we go about it. This is a war not dodge ball. Wait, that's an outlawed school yard game now.