Slog - Comments on Safe Skies

Comment by him

him — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:04:56 -0800

Enough with your neocon fear-mongering, Dan. I think it's a nice little reminder of the way things used to be, when some little snot-nosed miscreant with a little ingenuity could hopscotch halfway across the country. Although whenever I ran away from home, I only got as far as the entrance of the neighborhood, then turned around and came back home.

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:11:08 -0800

In Gaza nine year old boys would be only too happy to strap on a belt of explosives, cross the border, and detonate themselves in a bus. They've seen the training videos at school and on TV.

This is just more evidence of how brain-dead our security setup is. Airport security as currently constituted is completely worthless for fighting terrorism, and fights only ordinary citizens instead.

Comment by Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:13:32 -0800

Sounds like we need a "war on children." Rebranding time.

Comment by keshmeshi

keshmeshi — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:13:36 -0800

You'd think someone could have been proactive and checked his story by paging his mother.

Comment by Dan Savage

Dan Savage — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:18:41 -0800

I was joshing, him. I don't expect the terrorists to adopt this nine year old's technique. But I'm going to try it the next time I wanna fly somewhere on the cheap.

Comment by Will in Seattle

Will in Seattle — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:38:12 -0800

In Iraq we have small 12 yo boys attacking our troops.

Just sayin.

Comment by catalina vel-duray

catalina vel-duray — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:27:22 -0800

Our airline "security" is an elaborate joke. I flew home at Christmas and since I had a one-way ticket, I had to jump through a bunch of stupid hoops, including surrendering my pocket-sized hand sanitizer goo (I'm not a germ freak anywhere except airports, which are disgusting places) because it wasn't in a fucking ziplock bag.

One would think that, with all the corporate welfare we are producing in the name of "The War on Terror!", the Ziplock people would have figured a way to get the TSA to buy a billion Ziplock bags.

Airports don't screen checked baggage or freight. They don't have anything but minimal perimeter security. They don't screen ground personel, and many airlines are hiring scabs to work ground jobs. Any of those things could easily be used by terrorists. But we have to take off our shoes and surrender our hand goo, in the name of some idea of security.

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:42:33 -0800

Not to mention, Catalina, that if you wanted to detonate a bomb and create the maximum impact, you wouldn't do it in the plane--you'd do it in the crowded hall where all this faux security is taking place. Imagine what the mouth-breathing TSA people would do then; probably start shooting at random.