A Little Bit, But Not Much

Sorry for the lack of more lengthy posts this week. It's been kind of busy around here. That doesn't mean that it's going to be any different today. I'm just apologizing.

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They're Not "More" Mad

Oh, look! It's my favorite ridiculous statement that comes out after the U.S. has killed a high profile terrorist-y type of guy. This time, it comes on the heels of the killing of a one Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American born Islamic extremist who found himself getting droned to death the other day. (I'll say one thing about President Barry: He is a President who is fond of the drone. He uses those things all the time and for everything. And I don't have a problem with it, I'm just sayin'. He's really drone-y.) See, according to CNN, "U.S. officials are warning the killing of American-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the face of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, could spark retaliatory attacks". I see. Also according to the statement, this guy's death "...could provide motivation for homeland attacks" by "homegrown violent extremists," the type the two men allegedly tried to recruit or inspire."



I don't know that it would only take the death of this particular weird beard to "provide motivation" for attacks on the United States (aka, the aforementioned homeland). I mean, isn't their hatred of the US and our Western culture in general the basis for their attacks in the first place? Can we really do anything else to piss them off even more? I find it hard to believe that's possible. They're willing to take us out over absolutely nothing. I'd be surprised if they feel that they need more reasons to hate us and want to kill us. ("He's dead? They killed him? Well, I might have been on the fence before, but this changes everything! Quick! Get on Craigslist and find me a car to blow up in a densely populated area of a city.") I'm just not seeing it.



I'm not quite sure why they issue these types of warnings. Didn't we get something similar to this when we shot bin Laden in the eye and then dumped him off of a ship in the middle of the ocean so that he could go and live in a pineapple under the sea? Didn't we hear something to the effect of there may be retaliatory attacks for that as well? Yeah, so let me get this straight. NOW we should be worried that we've ANGERED these nutjobs and NOW they're going to try to kill us? Aren't they already trying to kill us? Are they really any more angry because we took out one of their Islamic extremist poster children? I can't imagine that they are. They don't seem to really need much of a reason to want to and/or try to kill innocent people. Their own hate and anger seem to fuel that fire all on its own.

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I Understand

I'm certainly not saying that people should WANT to kill us. I'm merely saying that I think I understand. It's like what Chris Rock says about OJ Simpson. "So you gotta think about OJ's situation: $25,000 a month, another man drivin' his car, f***in' his wife, in a house he's still payin' a mortgage on. Now, I'm not sayin' he should have killed her...but I understand." So, when I hear the evil doers rant about how much they hate the United States, how we are the infidels, how they want to kill Americans....and then see websites like the one called Who is Osama?...I understand.
Basically, it's a Tumblr site with screen caps of tweets that folks have twat after our troops shot Osama bin Laden in the eyes and sent him to live in a pineapple under the sea. (Credit to Jon Stewart for the basis of that joke.) And the number of people who had NO CLUE as to who this a-hole was simply amazed me. And since my Photoshopp-y computer is still out of commission, I'll just copy and paste some text to give you a small sample of what kind of pinheads are out there. (Don't freak out about the lack of capitalization or punctuation. That's how these twits communicate. We are so doomed.) Try not to be afraid. Just build that wall around your house higher and higher.

"who is osama bin laden that everyone seems to be going on about?!" That one actually got a reply. Unfortunately, it was: "was just about to tweet exactly the same question! i have no idea. :L x" I don't know what that emoticon is. I don't want to know. Please don't tell me.

"Im being really stupid here, who is Osama Bin Laden? Should i know who he is?" That was also responded to. Someone replied: "i dont hAve a clue!:Lxx" I don't know why only the A is capitalized. I don't want to know. Please don't tell me.

"Wait who is osama bin laden again? I thought he got hung like 4 years ago? Considering i do geography i should reeeally know this kinda thing". Yes. Considering you "do geography" you really should know this kinda thing.

See what I mean? I'm not saying I agree with the terrorists, but sometimes, just sometimes, I understand.

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A Dead Terrorist Meets Photoshop

Ah, Photoshop. Is there nothing you can't do? With your abilities and the creative wit and talent of the Internets, it really adds an extra element after the assassination of the most hunted man in the world. Let's review.

I'm sure that a bunch of lefties think that this picture is just great and that it's a smack in W's face. Me, I'm just glad that ol' Weird Beard is dead. I don't care who did it. But that doesn't mean that I don't find the image below a bit amusing. Because I do. A bit.

The question now is whether or not people will continue to mix up their names?

You knew that there'd be something referencing that buffoon, Donald Trump. Could he look like any more of a jackass at this point? (Only if he continues to press stupid, stupid issues about Obama's qualifications. Or just open his mouth to speak in general.)

What I didn't expect was a Michael Scott reference.

And you know that this is going to be remembered in North Korea just a little bit differently than in the rest of the world.

And even though every news anchor was thinking the thought below, some of them still couldn't get it right.

And while this started out about Photoshopped images, I must sadly mention a couple of fairly amusing but NON-Photoshopped instances that occurred on Sunday. Whoever was responsible for changing the headlines at Fox News should be fired. Who the hell is Usama Bin Landen and what in the hell is 'Confrims'?

And after someone is done firing that idiot, can they fire the announcer below who reported: "President Obama speaking from the East Room of the White House, telling the nation and the world President Obama is in fact dead." Seriously? I'm pretty sure in fact that President Barry is NOT dead. I can understand the Obama/Osama slip up. But the words "President Obama" sounds absolutely nothing like "Osama Bin Laden". Not even close. How do you make that mistake?

And with so much excitement this past weekend, I shall remember all of it with a single image.

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All Of The Japanese Did Not Attack Pearl Harbor

It's hard for me to know where to go with this one. Some things just speak for themselves. I have just spent a fair amount of time transcribing it, so I'm a bit worn out by it all and I'm not sure how much I have in me to discuss this. But I will give you this to chew on: It would appear that Whoopi Goldberg is so worried about being politically correct that all common sense that she might have had (and I stress the word "might" as I'm not so sure that she's ever played with a full deck) has gone right out the ol' proverbial window. In a nutshell (and this is all pretty darned nutty), in this exchange with Bill O'Reilly (video below) she admits she doesn't know what a madrassa is. But wait! There's more! She asserted that is wasn't the Japanese who attacked America at Pearl Harbor AND claims that Muslims that are in America are being more persecuted than Jews. Do you need any more? Good Lord. Seriously? The video is below. Do with it what you will. The transcription is below the video. I just can't take any more of these Whoopi Goldberg-esque morons. I can't.

BILL O'REILLY: Do you believe in the world, we have a Muslim problem?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: No.

O'REILLY: OK.

GOLDBERG: I think we have a terrorist problem.

O'REILLY: OK. So, you don't believe we have a Muslim problem. Would you agree with me that if all the good Muslims, and I think they overwhelm the bad Muslims, OK? Would cooperate with the West, with the United States and NATO and other countries, that we wouldn't have a terrorist problem? For example, if Pakistan would cooperate with the United States, we wouldn't have the Taliban problem in Afghanistan. We would defeat them.

GOLDBERG: That would all be great if that's how it worked.

O'REILLY: But that's how it works.

GOLDBERG: But it isn't how it works, because, if you recall -- think of it this way, that crazy gentleman, I take that back because that's rude -- the gentleman that said he was going to burn the Koran, that got played all around the world.

O'REILLY: You mean the nut down in Florida?

GOLDBERG: I'm not going to say that.

O'REILLY: OK, I will. But that, you're diverting the attention.

GOLDBERG: No, no, I'm not. Listen to my point.

O'REILLY: All right. Go ahead.

GOLDBERG: So, all the people who are watching around the world saying, boy, America feels like that, so Americans....

O'REILLY: See, but I disagree. I don't think Muslims think that everybody is like that crazy guy. I don't believe that. But let's get back to Pakistan. Pakistan, if they would help us...

GOLDBERG: No, no. Bill, Bill.

O'REILLY: ...we could win that.

GOLDBERG: Bill, do you think that the people in Pakistan, the people who live in Pakistan, the poor people, the people who don't have any say, you think they don't want help to help the West?

O'REILLY: A lot of them don't. The madrassa -- do you know what a madrassa is?

GOLDBERG: No, I don't. (I have to say, I'm surprised that she admitted that.)

O'REILLY: OK. Madrassa is a school that teaches Islamic jihad and there are madrassas all over the Muslim world. They teach 4 and 5-year-old kids to hate people.

GOLDBERG: Bill, that may be true...

O'REILLY: It is true.

GOLDBERG: It may be true. I can't prove it. You've clearly been... (But you COULD prove it if you were interested in learning about something that you know nothing about. But since you're clearly not interested in the truth, let's just continue as if you have something meaningful to say.)

O'REILLY: I can.

GOLDBERG: You've clearly been to them and I will take your word for it. But that does not change the fact that when you paint all Muslims with one brush, it's bad.

O'REILLY: I'm not painting all Muslims with one brush.

GOLDBERG: But when you say Muslims killed us, when you don't specify. It's like saying whenever I see black men coming down the street, I'm scared. That's the same...

O'REILLY: Do you have a problem in history when you were taught about World War II that Japanese attacked us? Do you have a problem with that?

GOLDBERG: I have a problem with that.

O'REILLY: Do you?

GOLDBERG: Yes.

O'REILLY: But they attacked us?

GOLDBERG: The Japanese...

O'REILLY: Attacked us.

GOLDBERG: ...army attacked us. (THAT is her quibble with the statement that the United States was attacked by the Japanese?! That because ALL of the Japanese folks who lived in Japan weren't in the planes that day, that somehow changes the fact that it was the Japanese that attacked us?! Is she on glue?!)

O'REILLY: The air force did.

GOLDBERG: Sorry, the air force did. You understand my point? (If your point is that you are completely idiotic in the nits that you want to pick, then yes. We've come to an agreement.)

O'REILLY: No, I don't, because I think you are cutting the hair so thin. We have a Muslim problem in the world in the sense that 90 percent of the terrorism....

GOLDBERG: Bill, we're going to disagree.

O'REILLY: Comes from that area.

GOLDBERG: You know what? What do you mean 90 percent of the terrorists...

O'REILLY: Yes?

GOLDBERG: ...are from everywhere. They are white.

O'REILLY: No, predominantly they are Muslims.

GOLDBERG: Right now. (Yes, right now! What in the hell else would he be referring to? Wait. Don't answer that. What in the hell are you referring to? For cryin' out loud...)

O'REILLY: Right. That's what we are talking about.

GOLDBERG: Right now, everybody can say the Muslims are the terrorists. Two years ago, it was the white people that were the terrorists.

O'REILLY: What white people?

GOLDBERG: Oh, wasn't it white people that blew up Oklahoma City? (Does she know that Muslim isn't a race? It's not like you can be black or white or Asian or Muslim. Does she get that? I'm getting the sense that she does not.)

O'REILLY: Yes, two of them. Two of them.

(I have to interject. The Oklahoma City bombing was not TWO years ago. And that was DIFFERENT. If you don't understand the difference between the Oklahoma City bombing and terrorism by Muslim extremists, then I can't help you. I doubt that anyone can.)

GOLDBERG: What about all the folks...

O'REILLY: It's like saying crime is white is black.

GOLDBERG: Bill, we disagree. (It's not just Bill that disagrees with you, you nut job.)

O'REILLY: All right. We disagree.

GOLDBERG: We disagree on this.

O'REILLY: But I just want to be clear.

GOLDBERG: And it's OK.

O'REILLY: We have to have these discussions.

GOLDBERG: We must have these discussions. (And if we must have these discussions, it would really help if you don't storm off the set of your show when one of these discussions is being had. That's the only way that they're going to get had. Then again, I'm not so sure if this particular discussion is necessary. I'm finding it rather frustrating.)

O'REILLY: Right. But I just want to be clear and I'll give you the last word on this and then we'll get to your book. (Ohhhhh. She has a book. No wonder she appeared on his show. Gotcha.)

GOLDBERG: OK.

O'REILLY: I believe there is a Muslim problem in the world. (I really wish that he would specify "radical Muslim" or "Muslim extremist". That's the only part of his argument that I have a problem with. Don't get me wrong. I can't stand Bill O'Reilly most of the time. But I haven't found much to quibble with, other than this, during this exchange.)

GOLDBERG: OK.

O'REILLY: And that's what I was trying to get across to you guys on "The View."

GOLDBERG: Right.

O'REILLY: That 70 percent of Americans believe the way I do. They thought it was inappropriate to make a Muslim community center that close to Ground Zero. That was my point.

GOLDBERG: I understood your point. What did I not understand and I will just reiterate it again because...

O'REILLY: I just left out the word terrorist.

GOLDBERG: Yes. Because in this day and age when kids are getting their butts kicked because they are Muslim, OK?

O'REILLY: Not so much.

GOLDBERG: Bill, are you kidding me?

O'REILLY: New study today, Jews in America are far more likely to be persecuted than Muslims, just came out today.

GOLDBERG: You know what? I'm sure that someone believes that, but I believe that in neighborhoods where they don't want Muslims, they beat up kids. (That's exactly the problem. You can give someone like Whoopi some sort of data to back up your point and they just choose to ignore it because it doesn't fit their self-defined narrative that they're so freaking proud of. Thank God she's just a talk show participant. If she had much more influence, I'd be more concerned.)

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Worst. Terrorist. Ever.

Let me tell you, it is only through a little bit of luck and a whole lot of incompetence that an awful lot of innocent people were not blown into bits by the "car bomb" left in Times Square. And while the bad news is that this poorly thought through plan got a lot farther than I would have preferred, the good news is that if this guy really was trained in bomb making in Pakistan and/or has ties to the Taliban and that particular "car bomb" was the best he could do then we don't have a whole lot to worry about in that aspect. Other aspects are rather troubling, but the actual constructing of an actual bomb that could do actual damage is a lot less worrisome to me at the moment.

Meet Faisal Shahzad. He is now going to be known far and wide and until the end of time as the "Times Square Bomber". Never mind that he didn't ever blow anything up. Never mind that his "bomb" had about zero chance of actually working. He's the Times Square Bomber. It's just like the Christmas Day Bomber. That guy gets that name, but all he did was light his grundle on fire and singe his panties a bit. No bombing. No bomber. But that's his name. Same with Richard Reid, the infamous Shoe Bomber. He has bombs in his shoes, that part is accurate. But he didn't bomb anything. No bomb went off. If I mail a letter, am I considered a postal carrier? I don't think I am. I've never felt like I was. Even if I was mailing something and I was wearing one of those safari hard hats at the time, I still knew I was just the mailer.

This guy is like the worst terrorist ever. Thanks to the folks over there at The Telegraph for providing us with this beautiful diagram of how this moron constructed his "car bomb". Why I can't find a lovely diagram like this in a US publication is beyond me. Oh, wait. That's right. The media sucks. I forgot. Behold! The "car bomb".

Oh, what the hell is that? You know what that is? That's a Nissan Pathfinder filled with a bunch of stuff, that's what we've got here. Let's go through the incompetence a piece at a time, shall we? First of all, he has these two alarm clocks for some reason. They don't appear to have much to do with the contraption as a whole, as there needed to be a fuse ignited first (which Shahzad did before he got out of the vehicle and left). Here is one of those clocks:

Where did he get that? Did he get a discount on it at an 80s store or something? It strikes me as an odd choice for some reason. It sure as hell doesn't look reliable. Then again, from what I can tell, it didn't really play a part in the "bomb" at all, so I guess who cares what it looks like? I wonder what he had to say about that? "What's the clock for?" "What is the clock for? Have you never seen Batman? All of the bombs always have a clock!"

Next on the list is the M88 firecrackers that he purchased and set up at three separate locations in the vehicle. All in all there were 152 of these things. Each one has its own fuse. According to something called Mid Day, a one Bruce Zoldan, who owns the chain of fireworks stores which included the one where Shahzad bought the M88s, in order for the fireworks to go off, each one of them has to have their own fuse individually lit. He said, "The M88 he used wouldn't damage a watermelon." Hmmm. And a Nissan Pathfinder is definitely a lot more sturdy than a watermelon, so there was really not a lot of thought put into this now, was there?

Mr. Zoldan also said that he would have been better off buying his fireworks on the black market. According to him, one M88 "...has an amount of pyrotechnic powder that is less than 1/6 the size of an aspirin." So, he had about 25 aspirins worth of powder? Was he too lazy to go to the black market to get his fireworks? Was he suddenly worried about doing something illegal by purchasing underground fireworks? Considering his goal was supposed to have been to blown people up, I'm finding it hard to believe he would have drawn the line at purchasing illegal fireworks.

Now, as you can see in the above diagram, there were three propane tanks in there as well. Propane is highly flammable. And that's the reason that we keep valves on those propane tanks. Those allow us to regulate the flow of the gas out of the tank. However (and this is important, kids!), in order for the gas to get OUT of the tank, the freaking valve has to be OPEN! That's right. He didn't even open the valves of the tanks! That according to Jonathan Alter over there at Newsweek. Could this guy have been more of a moron?

The answer to that is yes. Please note the type of fertilizer that he used for his "bomb". It is something called urea fertilizer. Over there at the University of Minnesota's website, they have a splendid data sheet on urea fertilizer. (It doesn't explain exactly what "urea" is though. It sounds like a female body part. Female body parts rarely explode, even when you guys are doing it right.) If you look down on the fourth section, it clearly states "Urea usage involves little or no fire or explosion hazard." This stuff wasn't going to explode no matter what. He might just as well have gone out and bought a bunch of bags of horse manure and threw those in there as well. The result would have been the same. No bomb.

And finally, in the last act of incompetence in this scheme that sounds like it was designed by all three Stooges AND Shemp, according to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post, Shahzad "...left his keys in the ignition of an SUV" and his "...landlord....got a call from him that night saying he had lost his apartment key and needed to be let into the building." So he just put the key to the Pathfinder (that he bought specifically for the purpose of constructing this odd, odd paperweight) on his keyring with all of his other keys?! Was it too difficult for him to keep track of a separate loose key? And if it was, shouldn't he have maybe set things up so that he didn't have to return to his home after setting this thing off? Locked himself out of his house. What a maroon.

I'm just so confused by the ineptness of the whole ordeal. And he has allegedly had training in Pakistan? Screw Pakistan next time and spend fifteen minutes on the Internet. Hell, I spent five minutes on the Internet before I learned that urea fertilizer isn't very explode-y. And the amount of non-explode-y fertilizer that he used? That's right. About 250 pounds. Soooo, what? FIVE bags? Um, not to get all nit-picky or anything here, but the bomb that Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City was about 7,000 pounds. What in the world did this dumbass think that 250 pounds was going to do? Was he just not that angry? I don't get it.

The only thing that would makes sense to me and that would adequately explain how someone who "trained in Pakistan" could have committed all of this bungling is very simple: It wasn't Shahzad at all. It was Wile E. Coyote.

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The information about the debacle that took place on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, known by some as the Christmas Crotchfire Incident, keeps trickling out and it keeps getting worse and worse. From what I can tell, and you're not going to like this anymore than I do, your chances of getting blown out of the sky by al-Qaida are about 50-50 if you're coming from one of the "countries of interest".

Listen, I don't have a problem with the system. From what I can tell (and it's not like I have access to all of the classified stuff because if I did, I'd probably hang myself), the system works just fine. It's a matter of finding competent and capable individuals that can work the system so that it does what it's supposed to do.

Let's start with Michael Leiter and John Brennan. Michael Leiter is the head of the NCTC. (NCTC stands for National Counterterrorism Center. I'm not sure why they threw in the "T" when it's not beginning the word, but I'm guessing that if you're going to be fighting terrorism, you have to have the initial in the acronym.) According to New York Daily News, Leiter was supposed to go on a "...ski vacation right after the Christmas Day bomber nearly blew up an airliner." Well, bummer that some guy with explosives strapped to his scrotum got in the way of that plan, eh? No one likes to change vacation plans, especially for Christmas, right? Well, right, but not so fast.

See, according to John Brennan, who is the top counterterror adviser, "Mike Leiter raised with me that he was in fact scheduled to go on leave to meet his son, and he asked me whether or not he should cancel that trip.And I said, 'Mike, no, you deserve this vacation. You need to be with your son.' " Wait a minute. What now?

The guy who is in charge of the anti-terrorism deal was given the OK to go off and go skiing right after this atrocity started to unfold? Are you kidding me? This is the guy who is leading the group, the NCTC, who are the ones who missed the gazillion clues that this guy was dangerous in the first place. And so since things clearly run so smoothly with him at the helm, there should be no problem in letting him take off for a few days of swooshing down the slopes while the rest of the Obama administration sorts through this mess, right?

Not only should that guy not have gone on his vacation, he shouldn't have asked if he could go. He should have just realized that one of the things about terrorism is that it is rather unpredictable and that your plans, even on Christmas, might get disrupted from time to time by some numbskull who can't set his groin on fire properly in order to take down a commercial jetliner. If this guy isn't going to stick around and deal with stuff when it happens, should he really be in that post? I think not. And the guy who told him he needed to go on vacation? Well, he is clearly incompetent and hasn't the slightest clue as to the meaning of the word "priority". Both of them should have been fired yesterday. At the latest.

Next up on the list of things that make me wonder how we've avoided another terrorist attack for as long as we have is the discovery that the Grundle Bomber was aboard Northwest Flight 253. Back to our friends at the NY Daily News for the information that "Homeland Security officials say they had flagged the suspect in the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt as someone who should go through additional security when he landed in the United States." Wow. Is that level of optimism common through all departments of Homeland Security? I was just wondering because that sentence makes it seem as if they assumed that he would land in the United States and would do so in tact (not in the bazillion little pieces scattered all over Detroit as he was planning).

Apparently, the way the system works is that the "Customs and Border Protection officials screen passengers against terrorist watch lists before international flights leave for the U.S." That seems reasonable. But then they "...check names against a different database while the flight is in the air." Um, wait. What is this second database and why is it different than the first? What good does it do anyone to check that second one when they're in the friggin' air already?! What say you check that first one and you check that second one before anyone gets on the plane? I don't get that at all. And of course "It was during this second check that officials flagged the alleged bomber."

Let's say that this nitwit had gotten away with this and had managed to set his loins aflame. How comforting do you think that would have been to the families of people on that plane to know that the guy was flagged while he was in the air? I'm guessing "not very". Not very comforting at all. That just seems (and I don't use this word very often) incredibly stupid.

And finally, as part of the changes that are going to be made after this incident, the LA Times informs us that "Obama also ordered the State Department to revoke visas when questions arise and to make it more difficult for people showing up in terrorism-related databases to receive visas." Wait, wait, WAIT! What is going on here?! Is everyone stupid?!

Let me get this straight. You're going to start revoking visas when there are questions?! You don't already do that?! Why in the bloody hell not? But before that gets answered, let's move on to the next one. Rather than not handing out visas when there are questions about people that show up, and I quote, "in terrorism-related databases" you're just going to make it "more difficult"? What does that mean? Only ask them the $2000 questions from Jeopardy! or something? These are people that are in, and I quote again in case you missed it the first three times I screeched about it, "terrorism-related databases" and all you're going to do is make it "more difficult". Not impossible; just difficult. I think we've finally come completely off the rails here.

That same article in the times (that I linked to above) also mentions in regard to the CIA that "...the agency gave itself a new 48-hour deadline for disseminating information on suspected extremists." A 48-hour deadline? To spread out the information? How in the hell long could the possibly need? And what, pray tell, what the "deadline" before this new rule? I can go into a Barnes & Noble bookstore and give them my phone number to receive my member discount and they can pull up in their database every damn book that I have bought from them since the beginning of time. Do you know how long it takes them to do that? Once the rhesus monkey working the register can get the phone number entered correctly (usually on the third try), I believe it takes approximately a third of a second for that information to pop up on their screen. That's at freaking Barnes & Noble. They're able to disseminate the information in their database rather rapidly, yet the CIA needs to put themselves on a strict 48-hour deadline when dealing with, not recently purchased reading materials, but terrorists. We are doomed.

I listen to this local, Northern California morning radio talk show called Armstrong and Getty. You'd like 'em. Trust me. (Download their podcast over yonder there at iTunes and check them out. They're hilarious and brilliant.) There's a term that they have coined which is a combination of being screwed and being doomed at the same time. They call it "scroomed". I am here to tell you that if this is how things are working in the intelligence departments and the counterterrorism departments around this country, we are all scroomed. Scroomed and scroomed hard.

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No One Wants To See That

As I'm sure you've probably heard, some jackass following in the footsteps (as the Weird Beard followers do) of other al Qaida losers thought he was trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day as it flew in for landing in Detroit. Now, I've been to Detroit, so I can understand the feeling of wanting to off yourself upon approach, but bringing a plane load of people along with you is really unnecessary. I mean, they might not be thrilled about the idea either, but it's their choice. It's really not up to an inept terrorist to make that decision.

Here's the thing. Despite this guy's complete moronic-ness (made that up), it could have been a total disaster. Planes blowing up are usually nothing short of total disaster. And it's really not clear to me why it didn't work. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he had the bomb woven or strapped or sewn or something into his underwear. Behold!

Wow. I'm a little surprised that he chose the groinal region to conceal an explosive device. After all, men are so touchy/feely about their grundles (there's probably a pun in there somewhere), the thought of any harm coming to it usually causes them to recoil immediately and gasp in horror. But I'm guessing that he chose that region because it would likely go undetected with any sort of normal, non-invasive pat-down that is sometimes administered as an attempt to feign some sort of safety measure for those who are flying. That's probably a given. What isn't really so much a given is whether or not these inadequate measures provide enough security to folks that are traveling by way of the airs that they really feel secure, or if it's the way that I suspect and that it doesn't do much of anything, but when you're the one flying and barely being patted down, you prefer not to think about the fact that it's useless and you could be seated next to a maniac with a bomb strapped to his grundle.

Anyway, the point of this is that even though this guy got on the plane in a different country (Amsterdam, I believe) that is reason for the US to heighten their security measures at airports. Now, I don't have a problem with that. Anything that we can do to help planes and the people on them become less 'splode-y, I'm all for it. And what's not to be for? Flying? Good. Flying safely? Good. Flying without getting blown to smithereens at 20,000 feet? Gooooood!! But have you heard what they're doing?

According to the folks over there at MSNBC.com "All travelers flying into the U.S. from 14 nations considered high risk will be patted down and have carry-on luggage searched under new security procedures starting Monday."

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

I'm sorry...starting when? Monday? Monday. This Monday? Tomorrow, Monday? THAT Monday? Monday? Perhaps the TSA was not aware that this guy tried to blow up this plane on Christmas Day. Um, that was nine days ago. NINE days. And NOW, NINE days later, NOW they've decided that folks from the sand lands (Oh, come on! You know that's what they mean! They're not doing this with the French!) will be searched?! It took them nine days to come to that conclusion?! What's wrong with nine hours? Why did it take so long? Actually, why in the world weren't we already doing this? In case no one has noticed, we're kind of in the middle of a couple of wars with those sorts of countries. The Iraq. The Afghanistan. Both high risk. Both war zones. It would not seem unusual to have had these policies instituted...oh, say...right around...September 12, 2001? What is going on over there at the TSA? Nine days? Seriously?

In case you're wondering (or preparing for a stint on Jeopardy!) the 14 nations are referred to as being "Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen." The article at MSNBC says that those countries "...are on the list as countries of interest." Countries of interest? What the heck is a country of interest? Is that like how when some guy's wife disappears and it's totally obvious that he did it (a la Scott Peterson) but they just don't have enough to pin it on them just yet so they call them a "person of interest"? Is that what's going on here? Are we so soft that we have to call these God forsaken lands "countries of interest"? Huh. I can't imagine why we're not winning this thing sooner. Way to make the whole country sound like a pussy there, TSA. And if you were still able to count after reading that and realizing that there were only 10, the other four are "Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria" because "...they have long been identified as "state sponsors of terrorism" by the United States.

CUBA?! Cuba. We're calling Cuba a "state sponsor of terrorism" but we're calling freaking Pakistan a "country of interest"? Oh, we are so doomed. (I need more alligators for my moat.) Are they kidding? Well, hopefully they're coming up with something other than just catchy titles for places to keep us safe. Hopefully they've got a little bit more than that. What about screening procedures? Anything new there?

Glad you asked. According to The Washington Post the number of full body imaging machines (think really big X-ray) at airports is increasing. The machines "...scan passengers' bodies and produce X-ray-like images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes." It's been that if the Undiebomber had gone through one that it would have most likely revealed his extra package he had concealed in his package area. And even though it's an X-ray, I don't think that there's a whole lot to worry about as far as feeling like you're going through some sort of virtual strip search. Do you feel violated when you have a regular X-ray or MRI? It's the same thing. And it would make stuff a whole lot safer and easier. Whew! I'm glad that's in the works. What now? People have a problem with this? Oh, good Lord, what's wrong now?

Well, if you're asking a one Kate Hanni, the founder of FlyersRights.org, she'll tell you that "The price of liberty is too high" and that "...the full-body scanners may not catch the criminals and will subject the rest of us to intrusive and virtual strip searches." Oh, for cryin' out loud, what is wrong with you, woman? Does this look too intrusive?! Does it?! Behold!

Of course it doesn't! What about this? Behold!

Oh, look! A gun! And you're telling me that the price of liberty is too high? I'm looking at my chart here (and that gun) and the price of liberty does not seem to be quite as high as the price of life. Life? Extremely valuable on my chart. Liberty? Definitely a close second. The founding fathers even had it in that order. Life, liberty, justice for all. Maybe you've heard of it. Anyway, I have no idea what she's talking about. Do you really care if someone sees an X-ray version of yourself? I can't imagine that you do, but if you do, please tell me why because I don't get it. It's not like you're getting Playboy centerfold images here. Please. And an invasion of privacy? Spare me. Have you flown lately? It's like a leper colony on most planes. Do you think that anyone really wants to invade any of those folks privacy to the point of having to see them sans clothing? I don't think that we do!

Really, I think that the only issue with the full body screening system is what we're going to pay the screeners. Because let's face it, they're going to be looking at some pretty gnarly folks going through those things. They're going to need a higher than average salary and an extra week of vacation time. Their insurance plan is going to have to include excellent vision coverage. (I worry that some might close their eyes so tightly after a few years of having to look at so many people that you really don't want to look at with clothes on, let alone scanned, that they could cause permanent damage to their ocular facilities. They're going to need Botox also. All of that eye closing could really induce facial wrinkles at a much faster than normal rate. Ooh! Hair plugs, too!)

And in the end, what are we really talking about here? Not getting blown up, that is correct. You want me to strip naked and do a cartwheel through that little metal detector gate thing? If that's going to assure me that I'm going to land at my destination in one piece and not being scattered across a tri-state area in bite sized bits, I'm all for it. Hold my shoes and stand back. I never was very good at cartwheels. (Helmets! Those screeners are going to need some helmets as well!)

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