Lol

Hobbes

We would byatching if it was another country. Oh well could of been worse, they could of taken him out to a football pitch and shot him.

Community reaction was swift and furious when the newspaper columnists in Texas City, Tex., and Grants Pass, Ore., criticized the president's actions the day of the attacks.

Tom Gutting, the columnist for The Texas City Sun, wrote that the president was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare."

The paper received scores of letters and phone calls. Les Daughtry Jr., the publisher of The Sun, later apologized on the front page saying, the column had made him sick. "The opinion piece which I refer to was not appropriate to publish during this time our country and our leaders find themselves in." Mr. Gutting lost his job...


In Oregon, Dan Guthrie, 61, said that on Monday he was called into the office of Dennis Mack, publisher of The Daily Courier in Grants Pass, and fired for a column criticizing the president, saying he "skedaddled" after the attacks.

Mr. Mack said in a telephone interview of the offending column, "we felt it turned into a personal attack as opposed to expanding the concept of the president being on the front line."

adnans

another funny one from our friends in the americas

Over the past weeks we have become accustomed to the idea that scissors, razors and Samurai swords are not the sort of thing we should put in our hand luggage, but it now seems we should also be examining our literary tastes before flying. This fact became only too apparent to 22-year-old Neil Godfrey as he went to board a flight at Philadelphia International. The unemployed American had thought nothing of his selection of reading matter, a copy of The Nation magazine and the Edward Abbey novel, Hayduke Lives! . Waiting for his flight Godfrey was reading the novel, which is about an environmental terrorist and features a picture of dynamite with a timer on the cover, when a National Guardsman took the book off him and asked why he was reading it. He was surrounded by a dozen police, state troopers and security staff who ummed and aahed over the book.

After some time he was told by police that he would be allowed to fly, only for a United Airlines official to tell him ten minutes later that he would not be permitted to board the plane. She cited the explosives on the cover of his book, the fact that he had bought his ticket on 11 September (albeit just after midnight, eight hours before the attacks) and (incorrectly) that his driving licence had expired. He was given his luggage, escorted from the airport and headed home. Shaken, he called his parents, who he was supposed to be flying out to meet, and explained. His mother called United who said that he was not banned and would be okay to fly later that day.

Godfrey rushed back to the airport, sensibly leaving Hayduke Lives! at home and instead taking Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. On arrival his luggage was searched and the Potter book was pored over by four officials for 20 minutes. He was then taken to an interrogation room, patted down and told he would not be able to fly. After calling his parents again his father called United to be told that Godfrey had made a joke about bombs, a claim he denies and an action he would have been arrested immediately for in the current climate. The Federal Aviation Authority has denied any blacklisting of types of reading material, but reading the Unabomber Manifesto, Arabic flying manuals or even the Koran should probably be avoided for the time being if you want to make it to the air. (Iain Aitch)

Gargoyle

It is getting very ridiculous here I must say. Of course tighten security for the American citzens, but not to the point of being ridiculous.

Its not like we don't know the people who should be getting the most attention: Arab foreign nationals.

Israel probably has the most threatened airline industry in the world, but they have an outstanding security record and they do it without inconveniancing their own citizens too badly. Basically, the way they have such outstanding security is they figure out whether you are an Arab or not. If you are not, you probably won't be inconvenianced too much more than you would on your average airline. If you are an Arab, you'd better be there 4 hours early and be prepared to have all you luggage and person searched and be drilled with tons of questions. Why? Because they know who the threat is, and so do we. We just need to use that information.

If you are an both an Arab and a foreign national, you should be subject to much, much heavier scrutiny than the other passengers. Have good security, yes, but make sure to target that security to the people you know are the threat.

Hobbes

If you are an both an Arab and a foreign national, you should be subject to much, much heavier scrutiny than the other passengers. Have good security, yes, but make sure to target that security to the people you know are the threat.

Total Boll!x.

Ever been racial profiled when getting onto/off a plane? I have in England (where Irish people are considered terrorists).

It's not nice. That's an understatement.

If your going to treat people like criminals don't be surprised if they start hating you.

Either you should put up with what they have to put up with or don't bother at all. You have plenty of home grown US terrorists who aren't of middle eastern descent.

Hobbes

Originally posted by adnans
another funny one from our friends in the americas

Do you have a source for that story? I cannot find any reference to it.

I did find a number of newsgroup postings, which point to another site but that appears to be down? It is also another author, not Iain Aitch.

adnans

i got it from [url=http://www.ammocity.com/ammo/link.php?itemid=2776
]here[/url](i think yo need to subscribe), try this one(print version) without the trimmings.

adnans

Nagilum

Originally posted by Hobbes


Total Boll!x.

Ever been racial profiled when getting onto/off a plane? I have in England (where Irish people are considered terrorists).

It's not nice. That's an understatement.

If your going to treat people like criminals don't be surprised if they start hating you.

Either you should put up with what they have to put up with or don't bother at all. You have plenty of home grown US terrorists who aren't of middle eastern descent.

That's not practical. I don't think he's suggesting profiling Arab Americans, which I would staunchly oppose, only profiling Arab foreigners, which we know are by far the most likely to hijack or bomb a plane. In fact, as far as I know, hijacking or bombing a plane is a terrorism almost entirely exclusive to Islamic terrorists in the last 20 years or so.

It would be pretty foolish not to use what the Israelis have demonstrated to be such an effective security measure.

Hobbes

only profiling Arab foreigners, which we know are by far the most likely to hijack or bomb a plane.

Ooh thank you for letting me see the errors of my ways. Of course every terrorist has a forigen passport and wears a turban and a beard.

They would never think of using a US passport or using the "sleeper" method to infiltrate a country. :rolleyes:

That nonsense aside... been in a US airport recently. Have a look how US citizens of middle eastern decent are being treated.

Maybe we can get all the Non-US citizens of Middle Eastern decent to wear armbands. Will make it easier to find those pesky terrorists.

btw, on www.thesmokinggun.com you can find Bin ladens handbook (translated), you might be surprised to learn that they do actually hide themselves well. The only other conculsion is they didn't and the US police/CIA/FBI are all thick.

Trojan

Originally posted by Hobbes
The only other conculsion is they didn't and the US police/CIA/FBI are all thick.

Maybe that's a little strong, but they certainly made a major fuck-up alright.

And the story of the guy with the dynamite on the front cover? What a lot of bollox... pity he'd probably lose his court case, but he should have a go at suing them... so much for free-speech, you can't even decide what you want to read in that country?! And they have the cheek to give out about the Taliban... if you then extrapolate this to book-burning you're leading down the road to 1984.

Al.