Grant's Eye on the World
Tighter airport security targets toys; By David Paulsen; Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers; Aug 14, 2002I can understand that some toys can be considered to be dangerous or resemble a dangerous weapon. We have such a toy here.
There are few who would seriously suspect 9-year-old Ryan Scott of Plover is a terrorist or worry that he might hijack an airplane, certainly not with a 4-inch G.I. Joe rifle or the other tiny toy pistols he packed in his carry-on.(GASP) The kid's gotta gun! The kid's gotta gun!
Yet earlier this month, security screeners at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, sticking to the letter of the law, confiscated the boy's toys as federally prohibited items. Ryan's mother, Amy Scott, said when she and her fiancé questioned the measure, she was searched, even though she only intended to walk her two children to the gate. The screeners threatened to destroy the toys.(Sigh) Plastic GI Joe parts. Next they will target Barbie if she wears spiked heels.
. . . "But what can you do with a 2-inch, rubber, bendable G.I. Joe toy?" On Monday, she learned from an airport official that the toys were being held for her at the airport. Still, the incident raises questions about when common sense should prevail over strict interpretations of security restrictions put in place after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.Whatever you do, don't apply commonsense. Doesn't work with the liberal mind, OR government employees.
A spokesman for TSA said that although he was unaware of the specific incident, "it may be that we had an overzealous screener that wanted to follow the letter of the rule."What do you mean, overzealous? There's a story of a 3rd grader who was suspended from school for 2 weeks for drawing a picture of a gun and saying bang bang. Ahhh, better include teachers where commonsense won't work.
Flying While Arab; abcnews.com; Aug 14, 2002; by Leela JancintoDon't you just like the title of the article? What do you think this is about? I said in a previous commentary that I go into abc once a year or so. I broke that promise and went in again and look what I come up with.
The first sign of trouble came at the San Francisco International Airport on the morning of Oct. 23, when Arshad Chowdhury was returning to school in Pittsburgh from a trip to the West Coast.Poor guy has a 6 hour flight to look forward to.
The 26-year-old business administration student at Carnegie Mellon University was waiting to catch Northwest Airlines Flight 342 to Pittsburgh when an announcement summoned him to the airline desk.Well things could be worse, he could be headed to Boston (cringe, liberalville).
At first Chowdhury, a U.S. citizen who was born in America after his parents migrated from Bangladesh, did not imagine there could be possibly be any problem.I really have a hard time understanding the liberal who wrote this. What possible tip-off was there that this guy was a U.S. citizen? What is the tip-off here that this guy is German? French? Arab? Or anything? I really have no idea how at this point how anyone could know anything about this man other than his name and his seat number and his destination, yet we are supposed to feel shock and horror that the guy is a U.S. citizen.
Chowdhury suspected there must have been a mix up with the ticket. But an airline official informed him that he could not board the plane because his name had a "phonetic similarity" to one on a government watch-list. "I didn't know what he meant," recalls the MBA student whose last name is a common South Asian surname. "But I was very cooperative, since obviously there was a mistake."Now we've been given the reason why he was singled out, a possible match to a name on an alert list. Here again, are we supposed to know he was an MBA student? Are MBA students exempt from terrorism? For that matter, what difference is it if the guy was a mortician with the same name instead of a student? The liberal mind, a marvel unto itself.
In November, when he was flying home to Connecticut for Thanksgiving, he was summoned again. Apparently Northwest Airlines had put a "block" on his name, a revelation that sent shivers down his spine. "How would you feel if your name was on a terrorist watch-list?" he asks. "I don't know how far the information spread. It might have prevented me from renting a car ... or heaven forbid if there was another terrorist attack while I was on the list."There is no evidence that NWA blocked his name. Hey, an alert name is circulated to all airlines, but the conjecture here is that he now is now a marked man.
Although the block has since been rectified, Chowdhury is one of five claims made in lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union accusing four airlines of unfairly kicking Middle-Eastern looking men off their flights.Who else would be involved but the pinkos at the ACLU. I mean it is a know fact that radical Islamics terrorized New York and are committed to destroying America and Israel. But this shouldn't draw any attention at any airports, naa, why should it? Think the name Adolph Hetler would raise an eyebrow at an El Al flight to Israel? Naaa, mistaken identity. "Mr. Hetler, would you get rid of the swastika on your jacket and the black arm band, please. You're making a few of the passengers nervous. Oh, ok, sorry, you have the right to free speech."
Enemy Combatants - Is It Right to Deny Legal Privileges, Even For U.S. Citizens?; abcnews.com; by John Donvon; Aug 17, 2002This story is as stupid as the first one. Let's take a look at it.
U.S. military officials say the "Cajun Taliban," locked in the brig at the Norfolk Naval Station, was captured in Afghanistan and admitted going there to help the Taliban.See anything strange there? I don't. A guy was in Afghanistan taking up arms and is at war against America and Americans.
Therefore, the Pentagon designated him an "enemy combatant" - which the government claims allows it to hold Louisiana-born Yasser Hamdi indefinitely without access to a lawyer.Don't you just love these liberals. He's a captured prisoner of war fighting against America in Afghanistan. Just why would he be allowed a lawyer? Think an American mercenary fighter captured taking up arms against China in Tibet would be given a room at the Shanghai Hilton?
"It's unprecedented, in our experience," says Stephen Saltzburg of George Washington University, who is on a team of lawyers that has studied the issue for the American Bar Association. "One of the fundamental assumptions that Americans have operated on is that people will not be detained without having some access to courts."Let's see here, the guy was captured in Afghanistan, fighting for the Taleban and the ABA questions whether he has citizenship rights? Man ought to be tried for treason and executed. Who's that Eye? The Cajun-taleban? No, Salzburg from George Washington U. He's just as guilty.
Hollywood couple oppose Bush war on Iraq; Ananova; Aug 17, 2002A difference of opinion in Butte, Montana is just as appropriate as this Hollywood couple.
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon have voiced their opposition to US plans for a war on Iraq.You remember her don't you? I mean she was the do-gooder in 'Dead Man Walking' where she trumpeted her opposition to capital punishment.
Sarandon said that she didn't think a military expansion of violence was the solution. She said: "First you have to ask the right questions and we haven't formed the right questions on what's going on in the world right now.Brilliant, just brilliant. We haven't asked the right questions. What question should we be asking? Questions like - shall we wait for the maniacal Saddam Hussein to blow up Israel with a nuke? Shall we wait for this idiot to start another bubonic plague in California (let me think on that one)?
The actress said one of the positive results of the September 11 attacks was that it gave America something in common with other countries who have fallen prey to terrorism.Shall we listen to the brilliance of this lady now. Hang on here, these are some of those questions and comments we should be asking and thinking about.
"Afterwards, I said to my kids: 'We've joined the rest of the world now'," she said.I sort of wonder where we were the last 225 years. Maybe that's a question we should ask.
"You're so lucky in Ireland, England and Spain. Everyone there already knows what it's like to have inexplicable terrorist violence."What luck! We now know what it's like to have a bunch of people blown apart. Maybe we ought to ask if American blood is the same color or can people live after they've lost their head in an explosion.
The couple's play, The Guys, has been playing to packed audiences at the city's Sheraton Grand Hotel.Hey, I've got one of those 'right' questions. Who in their right mind would pay good money to see these liberal idiots in a play anyway? Now that one deserves an answer.