Thousands Feared Threatened

$200 million. $200,000,000 needed just to provide for NY security while we run through the mock trial of Kahlid Mohammed. This will be farcical because our government could never acquit him if the jury acquits him. What is the point of a trial if the outcome is determined? If the outcome isn't what we expect? Doesn't the presumption of innocence presume that prosecutorial failure, a hung jury or accquital is an option? By undermining that presumption, this is wholly laughable, particularly when this "Demonstration of American Fairness" is the rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

Two hundred million more blown on the War On Terror. Two hundred million more to lawyers to prosecute Mohammed. A half a billion dollars. Only in my America.

I find it humorous, really, to learn today of fighter jets scrambled to divert a Hawai'i bound plane to Portland due to an unruly passenger. Humorous, indeed, to learn of the thousands of inconvenienced airline passengers at Newark due to an exuberant New Yorker, perhaps just some guy eagerly awaiting his mistress to return home from holiday. Six hours of crackdowns, security sweeps, hostile sterilizations, and threat neutralisations ensued...Thousands Feared Theatened. I find it humorous, hilarious really, that we are going to spend $734,566,200 to throw technology like full body scanners at terror prevention while a guard with a triple digit salary allows some guy to go in through the out door.

Tell me that the most desirable job in the world would be to sit at a podium at the Sacramento airport making sure people only walk out along a twenty three foot wide corridor. What prevents these people from going home and putting a bullet in their head after their shift? It has got to be among the most dulling, mindless, rote jobs on the planet. I'd bet days, perhaps weeks go by before they get any action: perhaps a woman who forgot her Boysenberry on the plane trying to get back in, or a disoriented old man.

This is where I see airline travel going:

Get in, sit down, and don't wiggle while the body holding apparatus locks down over you for the duration of your flight. Come on -- won't you feel safer? Of course you would! Terrorists won't have a fucking chance!

The inclusion of technology is designed, in my opinion, to remove as much of the human element out of terrorist screenings -- through bomb sniffing machines, explosive trace detectors, full body scanners, X-rays, gamma rays, computed tomography scans, radio waves, what have you. Just like the smart electric grid or intelligent highways -- both of which are "smart" precisely because they expressly remove human decision making. That said, why not just use a phalanx of turnstiles in series and eliminate the human factor at airport exits?



I'll say, to watch some overweight American wrestle their way through one of these with ninety pounds of baggage would be priceless.