Was it just me? Was I the only one who noticed a tiny announcement in February that Airport Scanners were coming to Australia, the land where terrorists haven’t landed (yet), and … wait for it… there would be no (NO!) — opt — out– clause. Did I hear that correctly?
And the crowd roared (about the cricket), nobody said a word about the scanners, and the ten libertarians left who can bear to watch the ABC were too busy trying to save the nation from nastier threats. Australia is getting millimeter wave scanners at International Airports, and if you don’t want to be scanned, you need to leave the country… by boat. (Either that or swim with the crocs across the Timor Sea.)
Metal objects show up on a white body, but not on a black background. Image: Daily Mail and Herald Sun.
With no opt out clause, what happens when the first person facing deportation refuses to be scanned? Well that’s all right then, we’ll just book them on a cruise to Kandahar? Civil Liberties Australia was one of the few to speak up. Maybe those scanners are safe? Maybe? But at least one man with a pacemaker says Australia is off his holiday list now. Can someone find the peer reviewed research showing there are no long term effects on the unborn?
There’s also the catch that if any terrorist has a computer with an internet connection, they probably know how to get guns past the scanners.
Then a nice man named Tony wrote to me asking if I liked his graphic (below), and I did. Do admire the powerful communication tool here (it’s worth a look). The only thing it lacked was to tell us non-US folk that the TSA stood for the Transportation Security Administration.
Once upon a time it took months to get to Australia, the ships had no GPS, sometimes not even an engine, and the in-non-flight food gave you scurvy. People died, no one had travel insurance, and before WWII even a blister could kill you.
Brace yourself, how things have changed. Travel in the satellite era is so dangerous now, it takes 62,000 employees to make it safe (just in the USA). Of those, nearly 4,000 are based in the Washington DC headquarters of the TSA. The average salary of those desk-based public servants in the regulating class is … $104,000. That’s average?
Here in Australia our airport scanning scheme is supposed to cost $28 million.
To be fair, the TSA do run an impressive blog pointing out that last week they stopped someone taking a 40mm high explosive grenade in a carry on bag, plus 2000 ecstasy tablets, a razor, a saw-blade and a garrote, and 16 loaded guns, plus knives and batons. (From personal experience I can tell you the Australian airport checks have stopped me threatening anyone with 3 pairs of nail scissors, 5 nail files, and a very deadly 80-year-old crochet hook.)
The bottom line:
I don’t like the sound of sitting in a flying box with so many weapons, oh no (wow, some people take that stuff in their hand-luggage?), but then, if it costs $6 million to find each gun, and most of them don’t belong to terrorists, it’s time to talk value-for-money. Should we reduce hospital waiting times, or spend money, and make travel slower, in order to reduce, but not eradicate, all the weapons on a plane?
I’d rather sit in a fully armed flight, than in one where there is just one gun…
(Do click to see this pictorial graphic – no – no nudes.)
Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com
The whole security-scanning thing is a fraud. Follow the money back to who profits from the sale of the puffing machines and the scanners. The name “Chertoff” pops up. Umm, who’s he again? Google it. Here’s a hint.
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Was Chertoff the bloke who wrote the Patriot Act limiting American rights and freedoms?
Here’s another conspiracy theory –
The “Unpatriotic” Patriot Act I understand was presented to Congress on September 19th – only 8 days after the 9/11 attacks!. An Act of that magnitude takes months to research, write and prepare – not 8 days! It had to be written in advance and “in anticipation” of the WTC attacks.
Michael Chertoff was assistant Attorney General and head of the US Justice Department’s criminal division. He was later appointed Director of Homeland Security
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That explains an incident from a passenger prior to getting scanned!
“Who made these scanners?”
Security said “CHERTOFF”
And the guy did!
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When I went through screening (in the USA), they detected the Chapstick lip balm in my pocket, so I got a pat down. I wanted a cigarette afterwards, but you can’t smoke at the airport anymore. But I am glad I made the passengers on my flight safe from the perils of Chapstick.
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Google Ben Gurion International Airport, it’s one of the safest airports in the world and it does not have these useless scanners. The Israelis use trained security people very effectively. No body-scanners are used.
From the Wiki: “Airport security guards operate both in uniform and undercover to maintain a high level of vigilance and detect any possible threats. The airport has been the target of several terrorist attacks, but no attempt to hijack a plane departing from Ben Gurion airport has succeeded.”
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The Israelis have a system for identifying terrorists, but as Shlomo Dror, an Israeli air-security expert, has said: “The United States does not have a security system; it has a system for bothering people.”
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The whole body scanner thing is designed to give people a false sense of security when they fly. There was (and still is) a section of the US population who would not fly if they “thought it was unsafe” – like they don’t just fall out of the sky occasionally.
I once knew a guy, by the name of Fred Dorey who was an expert in aviation security and flight terrorism (he has since passed away). In his job, he travelled hundreds of thousands of miles by air, and always carried a weapon capable of killing somebody from 50 metres away. The one he carried was not loaded (and in fact would not fire) so of itself was not dangerous. Part of his job, you see, was to test airport security on behalf of the local Government or airport authorities.
This weapon was an automatic pistol, of Soviet manufacture, made out of a plastic resin that would last long enough to fire the contents of the magazine (about 12 rounds).
It went through the vast majority of airports around the world and never got detected, even in those with x-ray technology.
The ammunition was easily concealed about a person’s body, or spread throughout a bag, and was to small to be detected in the definition of the scanner screens.
If a terrorist really wants to hijack a plane, and knows the right people, in the right circumstances, they can get a weapon easily enough, for a price.
It is all feel-good fodder for the masses.
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O/T (kind of),
Heres yet another diatribe demanding one world governmet replete with some fascist climate stormtroopers to mitgate the mmgw fallacy:
U.N.Scientific american entry
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/03/17/effective-world-government-will-still-be-needed-to-stave-off-climate-catastrophe/
Of course the comments Re replete with the normal chicken little arguments, the fukshima brigade is out in force (no suprises there).
Apparently we need a 1984 style never ending sense of crisis with some authoritarian technocrat overlords as punishment for them not being able to make a solid argument.
I still don’t see why hydro is pitched by these guys – it’s all@ways about the nukes…. I wonder why that is so?
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/accept-airport-scan-or-drive/story-fn32891l-1226262838340
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http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/30411393/detail.html
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Off topic a little, but something needs to be said…..
An ode to Speedy….
Brian: (Wading through the floodwaters) G`day Tim, Tim Flannery isn`t it?
John: (Busy stacking sandbags) Sorry, who is that?
Brian: G`day Tim, its Mark Latham, with Sky News!
John: Bugger off Snark, I`m kinda busy!
Brian: Never one to dodge a bullet Tim, do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?
John: (Shrugging shoulders and dropping the sandbag) I suppose! It`s not the Bolt Report, so, Ok!
Brian: (Beauty! Got Him!) Err..Tim, have you seen the Bloggies lately?
John: Bloggies! What is a bloggie? I`ve never predicted that? But, If I did, it was taken out of context!
Brian: No, no, no, no.. the Bloggies! It’s an internet thing, you know? The internet?
John: Ahhhh sorry Snark, you are entering confidential territory there?
Brian: It is quite revealing you know? The Internet thing!
John: It is a Goddamn disgrace, we gotta get that shut down!
Brian: Lets change the subject, Tim. have you heard of Speedy?
John: Who?
Brian: Speedy.
John: Who?
Brian: Speedy.
John: No. Who is he? Another Bloggie?
Brian: Sort of! He takes the piss out of you on the internet and is one of the many varied reasons that Jo Novas Website got a Bloggie?
John: Is he funny?
Brian: (Rolling on the floor laughing his f@#$n head off)) Bloody Oath, he`s a legend!
John: (Shrugging shoulders and looking somewhat resigned to defeat) I knew I should have made that other prediction!
Brian: What other prediction?
John: The one that goes ` The rain will fall and fill up our dams, without De-sal Plants!!`
Brian: What the hell are you talking about?
John: (Picking up a sandbag) Reality!
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Jo,
Australia has been off our holiday destination list for years, and it has nothing to with invasive scanners. Beautiful country, run by nannies and morons. Change your government, repeal the nanny state, and we’ll come back. I promise. Till then, we’re going to avoid totalitarianism…
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Jay, I’ve got to sympathise. We here in sunny Perth labour under the weight of a huge totalitarian burden. Life has truly ceased to be worth living. We only carry on out of a sense of duty. Oh the pain…
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Jb,
I have to draw the line here and call you on your crap.
Here we have a person from another land making comment about the state of this country and you reply with sarcasm, this of course is not news to most as we all know you are full of shit so i will offer an apology to Jay for your typically rude and obnixious behaviour.
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An idiot from another country is still an idiot.
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And a charisma bypass in WA is still a charisma bypass.
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And a troll is still a troll….
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John, you do know that you aren’t being forced to carry on .
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Ha ha. Let me guess, John: You work for government right? Best pals with Nicola Roxon?
Look, there is something terribly wrong with all of the western democracies — not just Oz, but the UK, and America, pretty much all of Europe. We are losing our freedoms, one by one, to a climate of unnecessary fear, and we are losing our hard-earned money to insane tax policies — for the benefit of whom, exactly?
I don’t mind that you think I’m an idiot. Think what you like. It doesn’t change the fact that Australia’s government is destroying your beautiful country. I don’t know, maybe it works for you.
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Jay
You’ll be back sooner than you think. There is a massive swing away from the Left predicted today with betting agencies odds on a complete wipeout of a blighted state government. The treasurer is out to 6.00 at Centrebet with Labor’s chances of winning out to 21.0 You can watch the demolition derby here here in 11 hours from now. Gillard and her Leftist cronies in Canberra can be assured the same hatred of Labor will see her off in 2013.
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Yeah. 🙂 Looks like Labor got their asses handed to them something fierce. Bring on 2013! And then, if all goes well and the new gov’t repeals some/most of/all of the stupidity, it’ll be holiday time in Oz.
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Gday Jo, I can empathize with you. After my Mum’s 90th birthday, she distributed some of her keepsakes amongst her family. Going through Brisbane (domestic) airport we lost part of what must have been a wedding gift- a beautiful gold plated cheese knife and a fork, in the original box. No redress. Made some officer’s day.
Ken
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Ken, I’m sorry to hear about your loss. Would make anyone sad.
Somehow I’ve never given in to bureaucrats on the things that matter. I have retreated and posted objects before boarding, used lockers, and you know, there are plenty of nooks to hide something small at an airport. Once I slipped something into a crack in the pavement, and when I returned it was still there. It’s become a game. The harmless sport of avoiding the airport bin.
I sure hope they donate their catch to some one who needs it…
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This brings up a question for me.
The stuff that gets confiscated here. Is it held so you can reclaim it a later date, or just disappear into someone’s take home bag?
Like this family heirloom that quite obviously has no real value as a weapon, being a gift in a box, obviously a keepsake.
Do you get it back?
Tony.
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The thing the federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese is keeping quiet is that a) it will slow down security queues; b) it will likely lead to an increase in security charges, which will be paid for by the travelling public in additional (hidden) charges, which already amount to $2-$10 per head (depending on the greed of the airport: Darwin, for example, charges $9.87 per departing passenger plus $3.37 per international passenger for liquids, aerosols and gels screening). Then stand by for the stories about how the scanners don’t actually work because of software problems that were detected during unsuccessful trials last year in Europe. There has been no cost-benefit analysis, just the repetition of the speed camera argument: trust us, it will make the skies safer.
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Just issue tasers and automatics to everyone who doesn’t already have one then video every flight and broadcast it live!!!
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I agree with Stephen Brown that Ben Gurion International Airport is the safest airport in the world. I have passed it a dozen times over 40 years. It has none of these scanners. The Israelis use well trained and intelligent security personnel not drones. When there was less traffic they would interview each traveler personally
There are agents in uniform and undercover keeping an eye on all activity and intentions. The airport been targeted frequently but all attacks have failed.
These machines are an intrusive waste of space and a civil liberty infringement. They are used because the people planning our security are of low intelligence and employ similarly gifted people to run the work on the ground.
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Ah yes but EL AL are the only company that use planes fitted with chaff and flares, in other words the airport might be safe but getting there is not :-))))))))))
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People prone to freaking-out over stupid stuff would get the vapors if they were told how many guns were perfectly legally carried on board as checked luggage in many many airplanes. There are shooting competitions everywhere in the USA and it is perfectly legal to have guns in checked luggage.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that TSA “found 16 loaded guns” in the course of business. Stupid that someone would forget to unload guns but it happens even amongst law enforcement “experts” and in fact I’d wager that many of these 16 loaded guns were in the possession of law enforcement persons or those permitted to carry those weapons by law.
Remember guns don’t kill. Loaded guns don’t kill either. Putting loaded guns in checked luggage would be stupid but not very dangerous. Loaded guns carried by law enforcement persons or those legally permitted to carry, are as safe as at any other time when they aren’t flying.
If I imagine what it was like in the last minutes of flight on board those airliners on 911, I’d rather be sitting with 100 armed and sane passengers than 2 terrorists.
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Checked luggage is not in the cabin, so it really isn’t a problem, is it?
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It is if it contains an altitude operated detonator connected to a couple of Kilo’s of Semtex.
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That depends. What if one of the sane passengers was Dick Cheney?
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He only shoots lawyers. It’s a feature not a bug.
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I had to think about this awhile……
First answer: I should think it would be fine unless someone aboard the plane released a quail.
Second answer: I’d want to sit next to him.
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So would I!
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That’s a trick question. If Dick Cheney is on the plane then he is one of the terrorists.
Because you thought Cheney is sane, that means you aren’t one of the 100 sane passengers, so you must be the other terrorist! Suddenly presidents everywhere duck behind their lectern to avoid an embarrassing impact with a pair of… “jandals”, signed by Russell Crowe, and covered in tomato sauce, and beached as!
Wait… did I just fall for that old “with us or against us” routine? dammit.
How about this… I will accept the 0.0000117% risk of dying on the flight if I can avoid the 100% risk of bodily invasion in the departures screening area.
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Well done Andrew.
I have always observed that the chances of being on the same flight as a terrorist, is about to ten million to one.
The chances of their being two terrorists, who don’t know each other, on the same flight, is therefore astronomical.
So when I fly, I always carry the means to kill somebody, if I so choose. That makes me “the terrorist”, and keeps the rest of the passengers safe.
It is one of the little things I do as a public service.
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An Aussie engineering colleague of mine who was ‘killing time’ at an airport bar in USA once told the same joke, Rereke.
The barman must have missed the humour and called ‘someone’, as it wasn’t long before the joker was bracketted by two burly types who dragged him off for very thorough “inspection” & questioning.
As he tells the story, he was held until flight time, escorted to his flight by said burly types and introduced to the marshall on that flight, who was instructed, “If he so much as twitches a finger, shoot him.”
This guy does have a sense of humour, but he wasn’t laughing as he retold this adventure.
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The message from airport security is quite clear: put your sense-of-humour in your checked-in luggage!
“Did you pack your sense of humour yourself, sir?”
“Yes”, I say solemnly.
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Knowing that planes sometimes fall out of the sky when those in them are not politically correct,if one of the passengers was Clive Palmer would you still feel safe?
http://barnabyisright.com/2012/03/20/what-your-tv-will-leave-out-of-the-clive-palmer-cia-sound-bites/
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In this country the right to own and carry guns is guaranteed by the constitution. There are over 64,000,000 legal gun owners and today none of them will shoot anyone.
They have guns for a variety of reasons, including the simple desire to be able to defend their homes against intruders, something all too common in this day of collapsing moral standards. Some are competition shooters like my niece, her husband and father. Some are hunters. And some are my neighbors.
I fear none of them. What I fear is the criminal who will still have a gun even though they’re outlawed and completely unavailable by legitimate means. Those I fear.
Am I right that guns are completely outlawed in Australia? In any case, my argument is a very simple one. The outcome of a home invasion against an armed and capable resident is utterly different from the outcome of the same thing against an unarmed resident. And your assailant doesn’t even need a gun to kill you if you don’t take him out first.
It’s not politically correct to have a gun and hasn’t been for a long time. So the success stories don’t get published. But they’re out there nevertheless. And the failures are legion because too few are armed and practiced with their means of defense.
I’ll catch it for this I expect.
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Roy you may indeed catch it, but will your assailants have any real ammunition? 😀
When I was much younger and slightly left of centre and therefore much softer in the head than I am today, I actually thought strict gun control was a good idea. I have some hazy memories of reading about the rate of gun murders in the USA, and theorising that people were less likely to kill each other if killing was not as easy as pointing a gun. I didn’t buy the argument that if people really wanted to kill someone then they would just find another way. I still don’t, because the ease matters. But that was years ago. Today my opinion is almost the opposite, but I don’t see any need in Australia for the average person to own a gun as it is quite a safe place. I just don’t have any principled objection to them getting one if they have no obvious priors and get the proper training. The majority of people still think you’re a nutter if you own a gun. It has a kind of anti-proliferation logic to it.
You always had to pass a police check and get a licence to own a gun in Australia. But ownership of semi-auto rifles and shotguns was less regulated up until 1996. That was the year of… Port Arthur. An event which arrived right on schedule, oddly enough. It was through reading Carl Wernerhoff’s investigation of the event about ten years later that I experienced a dawning horror of realisation about what had most likely happened that week in 1996. If any aussies reading this don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up. His book draft is out there for free. Poor old Martin; if only he’d had a jury trial.
So it was around about then that I realised that public gun ownership must be a pretty good thing if the powers that be don’t want us to have it. In the USA you still have your “four boxes of liberty” but here we now have only three. Of course your rifle won’t do diddly against a BFV, M1A1, or an AH64. Just as in the USA, our only hope is that if things get really bad then soldiers will disobey their orders. It’s funny that in both the land of “the 2nd Ammendment” and also in a land comprehensively disarmed, the health of the individual still ultimately rests on government goons with guns doing right by the majority.
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Andrew,
You’re quite right about the ultimate threat. There’s always a measure greater than your counter measure. So in the end you do depend, for instance, on your government not sending troops after you. However, as I remember, the final collapse of the Soviet Union happened because the army, en masse, refused to fire on their own people. After that the government’s empty hand was exposed and they were powerless to stop the unraveling of the Soviet Empire.
I’ve been told by one poster here that crime is increasing in Australia. I don’t wish that on anyone. I hope no one ever needs the defense a gun would have provided. I mean that sincerely. It’s not a poke in the eye of anyone.
PS: You need a background check to buy a gun here too. But that’s a double edged sword that cuts both ways. It can help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. But it also lets the government know exactly where they all are if they want to confiscate them (one of the possibilities here in the future).
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Quite a safe place?
There are more things that will kill you in Australia, per square kilometer, than anywhere else in the world. From snakes, to spiders, to bogans in 4-wheel drives with tractor tires.
You guys don’t know what safe is.
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Yeah. We eat danger for breakfast. 😀
I wish. Life might actually be exciting if that were true. Except for the drop-bears. Tourists that don’t get warned about the drop-bears sometimes get unlucky. 😉
Admittedly I miscommunicated in making that statement broader in interpretation than was intended. Crime in which guns make a difference was the kind of danger I had in mind. If you can hit a redback spider or western taipan from even 2 metres away with a hand gun then… you’ll do quite well when the zombies invade.
Speaking of zombies… I now have to go and vote for one in the Qld election.
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That was only true for handguns, Andrew.
Longarms were almost totally unregulated (in NSW at least) until the Greiner government (1988-1995). He stabbed gun owners in the back by introducing a licence (but not firearms registration) after the Unsworth Labor government was flogged in the country electorates when Unsworth threatened even worse restrictions.
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Not outlawed, but to own a gun, pistol or rifle, you need to apply for a licence, have a character check by te police. There are restrictions on the type of weapons you can then own. I believe pistols are restricted to members of gun clubs that participate in competition shooting.
All guns need to be stored in a gun safe, seperate from the ammunition, police can have the right to carry out inspections at any time, they will usually request a time that is suitable before making an inspection to inspect your storage safe, licences need to be renewed on a regular basis.
Not true Mark, think John Howard and Port Arthur.
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With respect, I think you’ve misinterpreted, Bob.
Prior to Greiner’s laws re longarms in NSW you just walked into a gunshop and bought one. After these laws you needed a Shooter’s Licence. Then came Port Arthur and full registration of ALL firearms.
However, handguns have always required registration in all states.
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My bad if I misread your post Mark, sorry.
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Prior to Greiner’s laws re longarms in NSW you just walked into a gunshop and bought one.
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It is said that the Gun Laws were written before the Port Arthur massacre.
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Here we go again.
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I can only laugh.
I, along with many others, have been warning people of the coming police state, telling them that whats happening in America is coming to Australia.
Always, Im met with the usual responses:
“Conspiracy theorist”
“Will never happen here”
“Only in America”
And here we are.
To quote Alex Jones. . . “The police state isnt coming, its here.
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Former Liberal Minister Amanda Vanstone raised the ire of many people in 2005 when she drew attention to airline security anomalies in commenting on the ridiculous policy of plastic knives and forks for in-flight meals. She correctly observed that a pointed HB pencil in the eye or an attack with a broken wineglass could be just as deadly.
There was an excellent supportive article by an airline security consultant reported in the SMH a fortnight later which is well worth a read for anyone on this thread.
“Airplane security and metal knives”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/soapbox/airplane-security-and-metal-knives/2005/11/30/1133026503111.html
My pet hate is that because I have bilateral full knee replacements I’m required to take my shoes off to put through the baggage scanner at all airports when many other travellers don’t have to. Why? Are people with metal knees more likely to be shoe bombers? No one has ever been able to answer!
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We are all terrurust now
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116336/Goose-bumps-yawning-Homeland-Security-lists-potential-signs-spotting-terrorist.html?ITO=1490
Oh and dont think it will begin and end in airports
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/nation/la-na-terror-checkpoints-20111220
So for those of you that think exposing yourself to ionising radiation is a good thing your in luck
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Every time you fly, Crakar, you expose yourself to ionising radiation, and its not in the scanners.
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Is that right John, please explain how everytime i fly i expose myself to high levels of ionising radiation, levels high enough to cause mutations in the cells of my body (ie cause cancer).
Also please explain how walking through an x-ray machine is not exposing myself to ionised radiation?
Oh how silly of me i an talking to the village idiot (every village needs one) and we all know the village idiot has no need to explain.
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crakar,
John won’t tell you, because he can’t – he is a liberal arts major at heart – he can’t help it.
The dose of radiation you get from an airport scanner is roughly 1 uSv (one microSievert)
The dose you would get flying from New York to Los Angeles, say, would be around 40 uSv
The scanner is more intensive, but used for a much shorter time, and total radiation absorption is dependent on time.
The EPA limit for an individual is 1mSv (1000 uSv) per year, and the EPA are not known for its lack of caution.
By the way, if you are really worried about this, you should avoid eating bananas. Each banana will give you a dose of 0.1 uSV – eating ten bananas a day equals one scan.
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there is a block here in Adelaide that eats them by the crate full i wonder if he knows this?
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there is a bloke here in Adelaide that eats them by the crate full i wonder if he knows this?
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Rereke can you put Radiation in perspective , I mean in how close to the radiation does the amount of radiation effect anyone.
IE: Paul Eddington and the shoe Xray machine.
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mobilly1
That is a difficult question that I am not really qualified to answer. It depends on a lot of different factors, like the persons age, where they live, etc.
The Sievert (Sv) is a measure of ionising radiation, absorbed from various sources. One Sievert will make you sick, if absorbed all at once, and may kill you if your immune system has been affected by other factors. But one Sievert over time will have little or no impact on the body, since the body repairs itself.
Practically all radiation is measured in microSieverts (uSv) or millionths of a Sievert. A dental x-ray will give you 5 uSv. But since you and I (unless you are a dental technician) don’t play with x-rays all day, the impacts are highly minimal. A shoe x-ray may only give you 1 uSv.
Considering the fact that the average person also gets around 10 uSv per day, for every day of their lives, from background radiation (caused by the sun) sort of puts it into perspective.
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The radiation at 35,000feet is different to the radiation emanating from an airport scanner according to those with a heart monitor.
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And almost every time you post you expose yourself……..
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“How did you know that?”, John asked, as he fastened his trousers …
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So basically, I was right.
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This will soon be a non problem as most of us will be to poor to fly.
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if Israelis are so good at detecting terrorists, how come not only the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, but also the alleged Toulouse killer, Merah, both got into Israel?
22 March: Haaretz, Israel: Report: Suspect in French Jewish school shooting visited Israel
According to a report published in Le Monde on Thursday, Merah was not a member of any well-known Islamic terrorist organization, but did undergo a process of radicalization. Merah also reportedly had entry stamps to Israel and other countries in the region in his passport.
Merah was also added to a “no fly” list maintained by U.S. authorities some time ago, two American officials told Reuters…
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-suspect-in-french-jewish-school-shooting-visited-israel-1.420249
22 March: Beaver County Times: French standoff ends with suspect shot in the head
A U.S. counterterrorism official says Merah was on the list of known or suspected terrorists who are prohibited from flying to the U.S. The counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, says Merah had been on the no-fly list since 2010…
http://www.timesonline.com/news/world/europe/jihadist-group-claims-tie-to-french-killings/article_bf02e85f-a92f-570e-86e1-5e20394f52b8.html
22 March: Reuters: French shooting suspect not jailed in Afghanistan
French school shooting suspect Mohamed Merah was not jailed in Afghanistan in 2007, his lawyer and an Afghan provincial official said on Wednesday…
Merah’s lawyer in France, Christian Etelin, said his client was in prison in France from December 2007 until September 2009, serving a sentence for robbery with violence, and therefore could not have been in Afghanistan at the time…
In Pakistan, an intelligence official who declined to be identified said
Merah had never been arrested there. “We have no information about him,” the
Pakistani official said.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/france-shootings-kandahar-idINDEE82L02O20120322
the Underwear Bomber saga and witnesses – lawyer Kurt Haskell & wife, Lori – is another fascinating story:
8 March: Daily Telegram, Michigan: Newport lawyer will run in 7th District
Haskell was on Northwest Flight 253 when it was attacked by the so-called “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutal- lab, on Christmas Day 2009 as it approached Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Haskell has gained some attention with his claim that the bombing was set up by the U.S. government with an intentionally defective bomb…
Haskell appears in multiple videotaped interviews, accessible on the Internet, for the radio program InfoWars telling his story about Flight 253. In those interviews, Haskell says that at the airport in Amsterdam, he witnessed a man with Abdulmutallab tell an attendant Abdulmutallab did not have a passport, but helped Abdulmutallab be allowed to get on the plane…
Haskell also says that a second man was handcuffed and led away at Metro Airport after the bombing attempt. Some other witnesses also said another man was put in handcuffs while passengers waited to be interviewed, according to news reports…
http://www.lenconnect.com/news/x1957360904/Newport-lawyer-will-run-in-7th-District?zc_p=1
from the Hakell’s website:
22 Feb: Kurt Haskell’s victim impact statement (given at the trial of the Underwear Bomber)
(excerpts)For one month the government refused to admit the existence of the man in the tan suit before changing course and admitting his existence in an ABC News article on January 22, 2010. That was the last time the government talked about this man. The video that would prove the truth of my account has never been released. I continue to be emotional upset that the video has not been released. The Dutch police, meanwhile, in this article (show article), also confirmed that Umar did not show his passport in Amsterdam which also meant that he didn’t go through security as both are in the same line in Amsterdam…
I became further saddened from this case, when Patrick Kennedy of the State Department during Congressional hearings, admitted that Umar was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch Umar’s accomplices. I was once again shocked and saddened when Michael Leiter of the National Counter terrorism Center admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government…
When Umar (the Underwear Bomber) listed me as his only witness, I was happy to testify, not on his behalf, but on behalf of the truth. I never expected to testify, as my eyewitness account would have been too damaging to the myth that the government and media are putting forward. A mere 5 days after I was announced as a witness, there was an inexplicable guilty plea which exasperated me as I no longer would be testifying…
http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/victim-impact-statement.html
now doesn’t that make u feel better about the scanners?
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Pat
I’ve no problem with the scanners or extra security at airports. Too bad the Left don’t have the guts to ramp up security on the Gold Coast where villains rule. The Herald Sun/Daily Mail “revelations”don’t stand up. Simply scan people front and side.
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Why do they get let in by Israel? Easy — because they’re recruited by western intelligence agencies to conduct the kinds of terrorist events that lead to the justification of measures like these scanners. As well as surveillance and more control over the general population. These terrorists are therefore Israel-approved, trained and funded.
So no, false-flag terrorism doesn’t make me feel better about the scanners. Israel’s airport security and intelligence is not as weak as you portray.
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O/T but hot off the presses. Won’t sit well with Bob Brown’s pathetic call for QLD coalmine owners to be pursued for costs relating to last year’s floods he alleges they caused!
“Mar 22, 2012
Good news for corporations and our future energy costs – Mississippi Court Ends Global-Warming Suit A federal judge in Mississippi has ended a long-running suit that attempted to hold a selection of U.S. utilities and coal and oil companies responsible for flooding damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.
U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., in a decision released yesterday, dismissed Comer vs. Murphy Oil with prejudice, meaning it can’t be refiled or reconstituted. The decision should serve to preclude, other similar lawsuits accusing companies of emitting global-warming gases that cause damaging weather patterns.”
http://www.icecap.us/
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So, somebody needs to start making the Aussie equivalent of “4th Amendment Underwear”.
I suggest something like “Bugger off, Pervert!”
Might make a nice cottage industry.
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I was thinking along similar line…but full body aluminium foil long johns to really annoy the microwave scanner guy. Have to make it cheap enough so you can replace the ones destroyed during subsequent strip searches.
Everyone wears something like this and the whole thing would collapse in about a week through complete inertia.
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I think a foil Budgie in the right place would be more fun……
(see: “budgie smuggler”)
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foolishly turned on ABC Brisbane Rod Quinn program in the early hours this morning, only to get endless CAGW rubbish with a James West of Climate Desk in NYC:
From Climate Desk site: James West is Climate Desk’s editor and producer…. After completing a masters in journalism at New York University in 2007, James returned to his native Down Under where he worked as the executive producer of the national affairs program Hack at the ABC. He has produced a variety of Australian television and radio programs, including the debate show Insight on SBS TV. He now lives on New York’s Lower East Side. Oh: Twitter Addict. Follow him. He wants more followers.
About Climate Desk
Q: What is the Climate Desk?
A: The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. The partners are The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, The Guardian, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS’s public-affairs show Need To Know.
Q: Why collaborate on a project about the climate?
A: Because even though it’s a fascinating and important story, it hasn’t been told very well.
Q: Why not?
A: There are four main reasons: 1) Climate change is slow-moving, vast, and overwhelming for news organizations to grapple with. 2) What coverage there is tends to be fractured and compartmentalized—science, technology, politics, and business aspects are covered by different teams, or “desks” of reporters, despite the intrinsic connections. 3) Coverage is too often fixated on imperiled wildlife, political gamesmanship, or the “debate” over the existence of climate change, all at the expense of advancing the bigger story—how we’re going to address, mitigate, or adapt to it. 4) Cuts to news organizations are making matters worse…
Q: So what’s the advantage to collaborating?
A: For one thing, more hands on deck and more outlets mean we can do more coverage, bringing our various strengths and audiences to bear. For another, given the transformation of the media business, collaboration seems to be part of the future of journalism. We want to test out a new kind of distributed journalism—bringing together a group of reporting shops to brainstorm, assign, and share coverage. Already, this process has enriched our own understanding of the issue, and that can only be a benefit to our readers.
Q: Why these partners?
A: The group developed organically, but we also started with a constellation that didn’t contain head-to-head competitors.
Q: So how will this collaboration manifest itself?
***A: We’re dedicated to experimenting with different forms of storytelling…
Q: Where do you get your money?
A: So far, our principal funding has come from two foundations: the Surdna Foundation and the Park Foundation, both of which have a long history of funding journalism on energy and environmental policy…
Q: How is the project administered?
A: Editorially, it’s run by a group of journalists from the partner organizations. Fiscally, it is hosted by the Foundation for National Progress, Mother Jones’ nonprofit parent. If we attain escape velocity, the Climate Desk could become its own 501(c)3 organization…
http://climatedesk.org/about-climate-desk/
***check out Goldenberg/Michael Mann and the rest of the front-page “stories”:
http://climatedesk.org/
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So, my friends in the land down under are going to have to put up with with body scanning, eh?
I feel for you. A few years ago we had a drought and they raised the cost of water. They asked everybody to conserve.
We the people did.
So, they raised the water rates because they could not sell enough water!
Trust me, when “the war on terrorism” ends, body scanning will almost certainly not. In fact, they will not only justify its existence but expand its use.
The price of freedom is not only eternal vigilance. It must be augmented by a determined electorate willing to unseat the politicians who betray them.
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Eddy,
We just did in Queensland.
Of the 89 seats in our State Parliament, the previous Labour government will now only have 6 or 7 seats.
The LNP have won about 75 seats. Greatest landslide (avalanche? massacre?) in Ausytralian history.
Look out Julia! We know what you promised before the last election! We know what you did after it.
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The biggest inconvenience is having to fluff up before I walk through!
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Completely off topic but I hope the Queensland voters give all the politicians a good and very decisive message tommorow for the benefit of all Aussies ( I hope I have the date right !!)
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.
Oh yes.
We’re gonna throw out a whole bunch of stupid, incompetent, lazy, lying, cheating, self-serving b*st*rds, and replace them with a completely different bunch of stupid, incompetent, lazy, lying cheating, self-serving b*st*rds.
That’ll teach ’em.
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It can be effective to leave them in place and offer bribes for their efforts on your behalf. Unfortunately there are side effects and you may not be the highest briber.
I’d say it is always better to change politicians as you would diapers. “often and for the same reason”
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Somebody on Zerohedge this morning said “if you replace the word politician with criminal it will all make more sense to you.”
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Any Queenslander who hasn’t voted yet… it’s not too late so here’s my suggestion!
I thought Family First were just a bunch of Christian nutters, but upon closer inspection the majority of their policies seem to make so much sense to me. As one example: http://www.qld-familyfirst.org.au/climate-change/
Some of the social policies they’ve made a big deal about are regressive IMHO, but they are on issues far less important than the policies they have which do make sense. In my personal opinion, a vote for FF today is more than simply a protest vote, it’s voting for a defined set of values.
Of course if their stated policies don’t appeal, feel free to shop around. (While you still can.)
Whether they either can or will actually manifest any of these policies in reforms is something I’m as cynical about as with any other party, but I guess one has to at least ask to have any hope of receiving.
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.
What I want to know is what nefarious act can a single person with two disposable lighters perpetrate?
I’m a smoker and always used to have a spare lighter in my carry-on bag. Then around 2006 they changed the rules and you were only allowed one lighter – the other one got confiscated. I’ve always wondered about this.
Thumper and I have flown a fair bit together, and she’s a smoker too. We sit together as most married couples do. If I were to ask her for her lighter mid-flight would this constitute an offence? And if she gave it to me would that be construed as a terrorist act?
Not to mention the fact that I’ve been through airport security and had my spare lighter confiscated, only to find there is a bar or newsagent within the secure waiting area only too happy to sell me a box of lighters.
Does anybody have any ideas?
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Memoryvault,
I fear that by you disclosing this that some bunch of zombie beaurocrats will now be assembled in order to analyze this scenario to death as well as why the previous bunch of braindead zombies failed to consider this scenario and theywill cnclude that:
A) It was all Tony Abbotts fault
B) Due to a very expensive study, that C02 is also to blame
C) C02 was funded by big ciggarette lighters
D) Big ciggarette lighters were funded bybig oil
And that they can’t prove any ofthisconspiracy but had better ban lighters on planes entirely just in case and they should raise tobacco taxes to pay for their exhorbitant chargeout rates for conducting this enquiry.
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Another view of the change from democracy to totalarianism is described in an article by Doug Casey: http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/ascendence-sociopaths-us-governance?ppref=CRX420ED0312B This article discusses the base cause, and warrants careful thought.
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They might charge her with material support for terrorism 😛
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This is a topic that has been woefully underreported in the Oz media. But this is hardly surprising when the media prefers to concentrate on celebrity football-playing gay-married asylum-seeking supermodels who like to cook. Important issues are just not that important after all.
A look at the Dept of Infrastructure’s site here shows their fairly lame press releases, privacy impact assessment, and Liberty Australia’s scathing response as a matter of public record.
The government partly credits the introduction of these scanners to the infamous underwear bomber. But if eyewitness Kurt Haskell is to be believed, this event was a hoax to justify the further spread of police state tactics, including more body scanners in more places. Haskell tried to provide evidence at the underwear bomber’s trial but was actively ignored.
So it seems our government is spending lots money ($28 million at last estimate) based on a big lie. Wouldn’t be the first time I suppose…
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I noticed it. Yet another example of the pathetic way Australia follows America, not only in its crazy foreign policies, but also in the paranoia about terrorism.
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Yep, Australia insists on installing immature technology that proven to cause excessive delays and to have an unacceptable rate of false alarms in full-scale trials in Germany.
As I remember the Perth Airport International terminal from 2011, there wouldn’t be enough space to fit enough scanners to board aircraft at peak times; with the minimum of 20 seconds for the full-body scan.
Do the arithmetic: Maximum of 3/minute/scanner. 180/hour/scanner. If there are no false alarms and process delays. At peak times, there are 4 wide-body jets scheduled to depart within 2 hours. An estimated 1200 passengers and crew. If the scanners are not to impair the rate at which passengers can pass through the checks, then a minimum of 5 scanners will have to be installed, providing for 900 passengers per hour; because most passengers check in less than 2 hours before departure and spend a fair bit of time at the terminal saying their goodbyes. Space must be provided for perhaps 7 scanners simply to cope with inefficiencies of getting the largely untrained passengers (who may not understand English) to adopt the correct stance and to hold still for 20 seconds, resisting e.g. the urge to praise the government’s wisdom.
So that’s a lot of new terminal space as well as extra staff to be provided. Consider that Perth’s is not a large airport.
Also, I don’t see how it’s going to work for everybody, if everybody includes those who cannot walk or stand, or those aged/unfit who cannot raise their arms and hold them steady as required by the scanners to be deployed in Australia.
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The one thing that always fascinates me is this fixation with “the terrorists are going to blow up a plane” bullshit……..think about it, if they make it hard to blow up a plane then you would just blow up the airport the end result would be the same ie many people dead and all the planes are grounded. Obviously the terrorists are too stupid for this thinking well that or the terrorists dont exist take your pick.
This is simply another layer of control, another excuse to tell you what to do, another excuse to reinforce the fact that you are just a mindless worker and a slave to debt, get used to it or do something about it. What us do something? Yeah right we will sit here as a nation and bend and take it like we always do. Now they say if you dont take the ionised cancer causing radiation like a man you can walk so remember you are only truly free when you have the right to say NO.
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As Ever, South Park offers the perfect commentary on this issue:
See “Reverse Cowgirl” Season 16 Episode 1.
Short summary:
After Clyde repeatedly leaves the toilet seat up (despite his mothers heavy handed discipline) Betsy Donavan gets stuck ass first in the family toilet and is killed by a suction pressure that rips her insides out.
As a result the TSA (Toilet Safety Authority) mandatorily installs seat belts on all toilets, install security cameras in peoples household toilets and even inspects people’s assholes before they poop etc etc. Cartman describes toilet time as the “last bastion of American freedom” and decries the TSA’s actions.
HILARIOUS!
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Cause of some concern to parents, teachers, and teenage students of girls schools about to embark on international performing arts type tours from Oz to the USofA, I would think.
… and I am thinking that because my soon-to-be-missus is one of a number of teachers set to nanny a bus load or two of young female students on a two week performing arts related excursion of a certain couple of major USofA cities (which obviously means visits to those major airports).
Hmmm, I guess I better remind her to NOT carry her usual lip-balm on her fit and attractive person either (and similarly warn her similarly fit girls) lest they all become targets for the TSA (Transportation Sexual Assault) “pat-down” (which includes gloved hand being placed between underwear and skin) as opposed to merely being “virtually” stripped to the skin and filmed by scanners and perved upon (and apparently illegally distributed on occasion) by scanner operators.
Sometimes I wonder if we are being trained to become more easily handled / compliant sheep to the slaughter …
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I saw this comment, and thought immediately of the video I link to.
It’s from Monty Python, and it’s hard to believe this is 40 years old.
Even though originally screened as satire, just how close are we to this?
The Architect Sketch
Tony
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URL is busted, Tony
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Thanks Rereke,
that brings up an oddity for me, that’s happened a couple of times, here, and at other sites as well.
The url opens up for me, as it has at other places, but others cannot link in.
Here’s the actual link, but I’d also like some other feedback from others, if you can or cannot open the original link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2PyeXRwhCE
Tony.
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No prob for me, on 2 occasions.
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URL OK for me too Tony. Who knows what the “sustainable population” people have in store for us. They’re certainly doing a job on the impoverished people of the third world by trying to deny them access to cheap fossil fuel energy.
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It still doesn’t work for me, even when I go directly to youtube and enter the rest of the URL by hand. It must be a proxy server thing. Perhaps one of the mice died?
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Works OK for me.
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Bernd Felsche @ 31 mention of delays reminded me of a check two years ago. I’d been through the scanner, put on my shoes after they’d verified I wasn’t an articial knee shoe bomb terrorist and realised I hadn’t picked up my carry-on bag. There was apparently a problem and the security lass made me unpack it, check, repack it and put it through the scanner again. I’d asked to see the screen but wasn’t allowed to and when it went through there was still a problem, so we went through the whole unpack, search, repack, rescan again. Still a problem! We’d attracted a couple more security guards by this time! I suggested after the third unpack and check that we put the carry-bag through empty and let me see the screen as whatever it was must have somehow got into the lining and I might be able to identify what it was.
Sure enough there it was. A little 6cm narrow object I immediately identified as a Trim Trio I usually carry on my keyring but thought I’d lost years before. It consists of a little folding 4cm knife, a 4cm folding nail file and a combined 4cm folding screwdriver/bottle opener which I’d found invaluable and always have a spare or two although I’d hate to have to depend on them either for a hi-jack or in defence of one! Mystery solved, Trim Trio confiscated, slightly red faces all round. Of such minor things are irritating delays and waste of time and manpower made at times.
Terrorists and bureaucrats have a lot to answer for!
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Just a heads up. . .
We know the body scanners are coming and there will be no option to opt out. . . for now.
The security additional security is coming. They have only just started advertising for PSA Officer recruits (yes, PSA in Australia. Not TSA).
Once they are trained we will have the option to have our genitals groped. Its part of the next roll out phase.
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slight correction there warcroft…..you won’t have the option, your gentials will be groped regardless. BTDT and unfortunately bracing myself to have it done again soon (travelling from Houston back to Perth end of May).
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US Senate C’tee on Environment & Public Works: Obama in Oklahoma: Rhetoric vs. Reality
LISTEN: Inhofe: President Obama taking credit for pipeline won’t fly in Oklahoma
The 2% Talking Point
President Obama wishes that America only had 2% of the world’s oil reserves so that he can force us into his policies of energy austerity. But he is wrong: according to a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, America possesses the largest combined oil, natural gas, and coal resources on Earth – more than Saudi Arabia, China, and Canada combined. In other words, we can drill our way to lower gas prices. That’s because America has much more than just “proven” oil reserves. The only way to calculate “proven” reserves is to drill. But President Obama and his allies have done everything they can to stop drilling, including putting 83 percent of America’s federal lands off limits. Of course, this is no surprise: as the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger said, “The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our nation’s energy needs by finding more fossil fuels.” If the first report isn’t enough, another CRS report has revealed that in 1973, the world’s proven reserves were around 600 billion barrels of oil, but by 2008 they increased to over 1.2 trillion during times of greater production and demand – so the numbers only continue to grow.
– Oil – America, the world’s third-largest oil producer, is endowed with 161.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years.
– Natural Gas – America’s future supply of natural gas is 2,047 trillion cubic feet (TCF). At today’s rate of use, this is enough natural gas to meet American demand for 90 years.
– Coal – The report also shows that America is number one in coal resources, accounting for more than 27% of the world’s coal.
Taxing Oil and Gas
It would be a bold move for President Obama to repeat his intention to tax oil and gas in Oklahoma. But whether he says it or not, President Obama remains determined to put a price on carbon, and this proposed tax is very much a part of that plan. The President’s budget proposal for this year amounts to a $38.6 billion tax increase on oil and gas companies; it will hit hard in Oklahoma, where 70,000 people are employed in oil and gas development and those jobs contribute $26 billion a year to the state’s economy. Of course, oil and gas companies don’t receive checks, grants, or direct payments from the federal Treasury, as companies like Solyndra did. This is simply an effort to make the development of oil and gas more expensive – and will only have the effect of increasing prices at the pump as companies will pass these extra expenses on to American consumers. It will also result in less domestic oil production, putting our energy security even more at risk.
Rhetoric vs. Reality
The reelection rhetoric we will hear from President Obama as he stands in an oilfield in Oklahoma tomorrow is designed to put a positive spin on the failed energy policies he has no intention of giving up on. The truth is that he is doing everything he can to stop oil, gas and coal development, and if he is successful, the reality will hit hard.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=377408f3-802a-23ad-4d6c-821a1eebb732
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Jo, if these are millimeter wave / Terahertz range scanners, and not X-ray-scanners, they are save. As far as I know, they only receive the waves emitted by human bodies. We all glow in that frequency range.
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Its not just a issue about the machines safety. Its about our freedoms, the personal invasions, the cost. . .
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I go through body scanners regularly through one of Moscow’s airports (I don’t complain…)
but you still have to empty your pockets and take off your shoes, watch, belt, jacket and coat. So what’s the point in the scanner?
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Slip Slop Slap might slip the system up a bit.
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What is happening to Australia?
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
The risk of getting run over by a bus is greater than the risk of a terrorist threat on an aircraft. Yet despite this, we must still be scanned… tested for explosives… even our innocent eye drops are a threat.
For God sake … why are people so paranoid today?
9/11 … Osama Bin Laden … they’re both history. The Navy Seals cut off the head of Al Qaeda. It’s now time to stop all this terrorist nonsense.
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You have a greater chance of dying from bee stings than you do from a terrorist attack.
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It takes a lot of development time(money) to bring scanner software to market, the same is true for most security systems.
How much of this is driven by company lobbyists(kind phrase) just finding a way to cream money out of govt?
If you want examples of creating a scare to make money; ozone hole, try y2k, AGW (ocean acidification next).
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Well before 2001 at Dulles, I’m sure they tried to steal my sister’s jewelery.
There were ~6 security lanes with the old magnetic detectors and X-ray belts. We went through the one on the far left, call it lane #1, and I went first with no problem. After I went through, my sister removed two gold bracelets and her watch putting them in a plastic container then putting that on the belt with her carry-on.
Then she went through but it beeped so they sent her back. Her stuff had already gone through the X-ray machine while I stood on the other side watching what they were doing with her.
Then when she made it through, (I can’t recall whether it was a false positive or she had something else?), she picked up her carry-on and exclaimed to the X-ray guy – “WHERE IS MY JEWELERY?” then turned to me asking if I had collected it.
Realizing that I had little time to get it back if it had been stolen by anyone in the vicinity I LOUDLY exclaimed, so EVERYONE in the whole area heard me loud and clear – “WHO STOLE MY SISTER’S JEWELERY?”.
A couple guards came to me and told me not to be so loud and I replied LOUDLY TO THEM so everyone could hear: “MY SISTER’S JEWELRY WAS ON THAT BELT AND NOW IT’S GONE – WHO TOOK IT?”
Now it was a scene. Passengers coming through the screening lanes stopped and were all looking at me and two guards with me. Out of the corner of my eye I see another guard coming from the OTHER SIDE of area toward my sister with a plastic tray saying that “no one had claimed this so we had it ‘secured’ for you. It had her stuff, she took it and off we went to the gate.
Obviously this was a per-arranged plan by one or more guards to steal stuff. In a matter of less than 30 seconds her jewelery went from lane #1 over to a side area next to lane #6 while she was being detained for the magnetic beep!
I’m convinced that if I had not made a scene – they would have just kept shrugging their shoulders at lane #1 and she would have never seen her bracelets and watch again.
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There is a lot of cases of the TSA stealing peoples belongings.
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If the traveling public just knew how much power they really have…
If no one flew for just one week this crap would cave in like a house of cards. Of course, if you were to orchestrate such a protest you’d no doubt be guilty of some heinous conspiracy against the guardians of your safety.
I just refuse to fly anymore. It’s not much of a protest but I don’t suffer the damned full body scanners. And at my age I’ve already spent far too many hours cooped up with no leg room rubbing elbows with whoever’s next to me because the seats are too narrow. I don’t miss it a bit.
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It’s all about aclimating us to the police state. Remember when Barry O’Farrel first became premier of NSW? His first order of business was to have twenty odd plastic badge wearing goons stand at the turnstiles of Wynard Station staring down the commuters. No ticket checking, no surveillance, nothing. Just jackboots in costumes wrapped in weapon belts to hold their walkie talkies. For weeks I gave thoes f%#*ers an earful, “Police state! Get a real job. You can’t intimidate anyone wearing those pajamas, etc.”
I got alot of looks from fellow commuters but no-one seemed to mind me disturbing the peace, on their behalf. I’ve done alot of martial arts so, no steroid abusing moron intimidates me. 😉
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Come off it Jo. What you really need is a bit of iridology or colonic irrigation to see the sense in the emotion of it all.
Actually Mossad have the guys and gals that can spot a villain a mile way without all the intrusion and technological gadgetry.
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Whilst that is a great article and her exploits are worth reading, it would also be relevant to remind the usual crowd here that the Australian Skeptic Society got a new president recently who is completely sold on CAGW, bought it hook, line, and sinker.
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The scanners don’t pick up sharpened toothbrushes or sharpened credit cards, but you must dispose of your nail clippers. 2 part plumbers putty gets through and with the aid of a folded piece of paper can be made into a very effective knife in 15 minutes. The security system is just one more little hurdle that the extremists have to overcome. I guess if enough hurdles are placed in the road, the extremists figure it’s probably less of a hassle to arm themselves with a machine gun and drive a motorbike.
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No self-respecting terrorist is ever going to try and take any form of weapon or explosive through the passenger route. A good terrorist will not operate alone, he/she will have a well-concealed logistics back-up team. A member or two of that team will have worked on the air-side of the airport for a year or more before the attack is made. How many of the air-side employees are scanned every single day?
A gun or package of explosive material is taken air-side, not in one go, in the smallest possible pieces, and reassembled or re-constituted on the air-side. The attacker goes into one of the many shops on the air-side, purchases an innocuous looking article and the weaponry or explosive material is now going to get on the plane without any problem.
An aircraft cleaner has an even easier route to getting such items onto a plane. How many times is the waste bin in the toilets searched before take-off?
All this rubbish about scanners and body searches is a an exercise in complete futility.
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bishop hill was interviewed some time ago for ABC’s Counterpoint, so i’m wondering if it will be included in monday 26 march program:
ABC Counterpoint: Coming Up
Monday 26 March 2012
The Murray Mouth Controversy
Last week on ABC TV’s Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes criticized journalists and radio hosts who publicised a new report on the Murray mouth without describing the affiliations of it’s author and publisher. The author was Dr Jennifer Marohasy and the organisation was The Australian Environment Foundation. Both could be described as conservative in context of the currant Australian debate on the environment. Dr Marohasy has been a spokesperson for a wealthy irrigator, and the AEF has received money from companies such as Murray Irrigation. Holmes thought if readers and listeners knew these things, it might change the way they thought about the report’s contents.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/
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Most of your last 4 posts can be explained in terms of the Ruling Classes wanting to keep the serfs in their place (as determined by the Ruling Class).
If the plebs continue to travel by air despite the CO2 scare, then make it so unpleasant that they don’t. Naturally these restrictions aren’t meant to apply those ABOVE. It would be interesting if some one asked if politicians and senior public servants would also be subject to the same rule.
The debasement of money attempts to turn back the clock to when serfs couldn’t move around or disobey their masters. See http://www.martindurkin.com/ for interesting bit of history.
In the meantime the pages and flunkies are set to disparaging and insulting anyone showing independence of thought.
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In Russia they have “Internal” passports. Russian citizens just can’t go anywhere in Russia. They need to get the “passport” endorsed.
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23 March: Steve Creedy: Labor told it’s time to take on Europe’s emissions trading scheme
“Despite the chorus of countries saying no to Europe’s ETS charges and threatening a WTO challenge, there has not been so much as a yelp from Julia Gillard or Anthony Albanese.
“It’s been all silent on the EU front as far as Labor is concerned.”…
“Where is the Gillard government in defending the interests of Australian airlines and passengers?” Mr Truss and Mr Hunt said. “With the rest of the world up in arms, surely our government should be in step with international efforts to safeguard the global competitiveness of our airlines.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Albanese, the Transport Minister, rejected the opposition claims.
“Australia has always held the position that we should work co-operatively through the International Civil Aviation Organisation towards a market-based mechanism and we continue to hold that position,” the spokeswoman said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/labor-told-its-time-to-take-on-europes-emissions-trading-scheme/story-e6frg95x-1226307521027
can anyone find a single MSM article with Albanese or Labor saying anything about the unilateral carbon dioxide emissions tax, cos i can’t?
however, albanese did defend the cost of the carbon dioxide tax to regional airlines, but this only appeared in the following, as far i can tell:
19 March: Austn Aviation: Albanese defends govt on regional aviation
Albanese said the cost to airlines from the carbon tax could be passed along to passengers through modest surcharges and would remain a tiny portion of airlines’ operating expenses…
http://australianaviation.com.au/2012/03/albanese-defends-govt-on-regional-aviation/
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Security theatre and make work schemes for otherwise unproductive civil servants.
Some airports with direct flights to Oz are not laid out in order to implement security protocols Australia presumably demand. I.e. requirement to perform security check prior to entry to closed off pre-departure lounge doesn’t work for terminal layouts that are ‘open plan’ without such zones. So what they do every flight is cordon off an area with temporary rope barriers, have local airport staff carefully inspect carry on manually, including turning on and off electronic devices presumably to make sure they are not shells containing contraband and have staff stationed along the rope barriers to (half heartedly) make sure nobody and nothing passes across the ropes; all overseen by multiple Australian officials per boarding. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so pointless, expensive and inconvenient. No other destination I’ve noticed does this, only Oz.
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Bolt has this article posted now..read it all. what can the public do to stop this dangerous nonsense?
24 March: Australian: Ean Higgins: Fighting on the beaches as council orders retreat from climate change ‘threat’
LIKE many working couples, Anne and Russell Secombe decided to find a place by the sea where they would eventually retire to live out the rest of their lives pursuing simple pleasures.
In the 1970s, the couple, now in their 80s, found it, a modest single-level brick house at 23 Illaroo Rd, Lake Cathie, a town on the NSW mid-north coast.
It’s simple bliss: Anne, a retired clerk, spends time keeping up her neat garden; Russell, a retired mechanic, angles on the beach for blackfish, flathead and bream. But yesterday the Secombes’ sense of hard-earned stability collapsed when they discovered they could be among the first victims in Australia to be dispossessed of their home. Not because of any existing environmental threat, but because the local council believes climate change could pose one by the end of the century.
In a move that struck incredulity, alarm and fear among locals, Port Macquarie Hastings Council put a study on the council website recommending that council enforce a “planned retreat” for the owners of the 17 houses on Illaroo Road. The area is one of 15 “hot spots” identified by the NSW government as being vulnerable to the effects of sea level rises due to climate change, as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Illaroo Road is about 7m above mean sea level, so there’s no danger of flooding…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/fighting-on-the-beaches-as-council-orders-retreat-from-climate-change-threat/story-e6frg6nf-1226308725029
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24 March: Hobart Mercury, Tasmania Australia: Bob sings up a party
THERE was rapturous applause and a fuzzy green glow at the Hobart Town Hall last night as Australian Greens leader Bob Brown took to the stage and sang for the planet.
Senator Brown’s The Earth Song was like a hymn of praise and hope amid a euphoric celebration of the Tasmanian Greens’ 40th birthday….
The Greens’ hero was met with a standing ovation when he delivered the 2012 Green Oration, which called for a single global and democratic parliament.
“Let us create a global democracy and parliament under the grand idea of one planet, one person, one vote, one value,” he said.
Senator Brown said he would call on the world’s 100 Greens parties to back his “earth parliament” at the third global Greens conference in Senegal next week…
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/03/24/312341_tasmania-news.html
23 March: Business Spectator, Australia: Greens celebrate 40 years of survival
Senator Brown received a standing ovation before delivering the third green oration on the theme of global – and, at times, intergalactic – democracy, addressing the party faithful as “fellow earthians”.
“Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up,” he said. “Most unlikely.
“So why isn’t life out there contacting us?
“Maybe life has often evolved to intelligence on other planets with biospheres and every time that intelligence, when it became able to alter its environment, did so with catastrophic consequences.
“They have come and gone. And now it’s our turn.”
Senator Brown proposed that a global parliament should be formed with the question ‘Will people a hundred years from now thank us?’ inscribed above its door.
He said its goals should be economy, equality, ecology and eternity.
“Let us determine to bring ourselves together, settle our differences, and shape and realise our common dream for this joyride into the future,” he said.
“In that pursuit, let us create a global democracy and parliament under the grand idea of one planet, one person, one vote, one value.”
With 10 Greens sitting in federal parliament, 25 in state parliaments and more than 100 councillors around the country, the party is a far cry from the United Tasmania Group formed on March 23, 1972, after a confrontation with hydro workers.
The Greens received congratulatory messages from colleagues as far away as Mongolia, while Senator Milne announced Australian Nobel Prize-winning physicist Brian Schmidt as next year’s orator.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Greens-celebrate-40-years-of-survival-SNDW5?OpenDocument&src=hp19
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Further to what pat says above,
Where Bob Brown said the following:
Senator Brown has proposed that each Country have one member in a lower house and one member in an upper house.
So, effectively, China with a population of 1.35 Billion people (which is greater than Australia’s by a factor of 61.3) will have the same number of representatives as Australia, or even more ridiculous, China has one member and so does Kiribati, and China’s population is greater than Kiribati by a factor of 13,500.
One planet one person, one vote one value ….. Really.
How anyone can vote for this ‘fundament’ has got me dumbfounded.
Tony.
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22 March: Fox, Phoenix: Climate Fund Seeks UN-Style Diplomatic Immunity
The Green Climate Fund, which is supposed to help mobilize as much as $100 billion a year to lower global greenhouse gases, is seeking a broad blanket of UN-style immunity that would shield its operations from any kind of legal process, including civil and criminal prosecution, in the countries where it operates.
There is just one problem: it is not part of the United Nations…
A 24-nation interim board of trustees for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is slated to hold its first meeting next month in Switzerland to organize the fund’s secretariat and to get it running by November, as well as find a permanent home for the GCF’s operations…
But before it is fully operational, the GCF’s creators — 194 countries that belong to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — want it to be immune from legal challenges and lawsuits, not to mention outside inspections, much like the United Nations itself cannot be affected by decisions rendered by a sovereign nation’s government or judicial system…
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpps/news/climate-fund-seeks-un-style-diplomatic-immunity-dpgonc-km-20120322_18755189
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I think that rather than scan airline passengers for weapons and take all of their sharp objects, what they should do is issue a big knife to everyone in an aisle seat. We would all probably be a lot safer. The only caveat is that if you have a knife, no alcohol.
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Heads up everybody!!
A nasty little (actually not so little plot) called “The Consensus Project” has been uncovered over at John
Crook’sCook’s Septic Science. Seems the idea is to discredit all us “filthy deniers” with a concerted campaign involving all the climastrology cult’s heavyweights – including google.Tom Nelson has the main story:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/from-skeptical-science-interesting.html
Simon at ACM has a piece:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/secret-skeptical-science-forums-posted-online/
The original anonymous tip-off to Tom Nelson is here:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/bill-mcfibben-on-weirdest-weather.html?showComment=1332474068759#c3606534236157289132
The original SkS “secret planning” forum is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3724697/2012-01-19-Introduction%20to%20TCP.html
Follow up here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3724697/2012-01-19-Marketing%20Ideas.html
There’s enough in the “comments” section to go troll hunting for a decade.
Have fun, folks.
And remember – screen-dump, screen-dump, screen-dump.
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John
Crook’sCook’s “required reading list” for those partaking in “The Consensus Project”.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3724697/2012-01-19-Required%20reading.html
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This is a hoot!
“OMG, people are starting to realise that it is all a scam – we have to do something …?”
“I know, lets all get together and organise some spontaneity”.
“Yeah, there is this bloke that I know, who is my sisters’, girlfriends’, brothers’, mate, who has some crowd sourcing software that will probably do the trick …”
They really are amateurs …
And the more they do this sort of stuff, the more obvious it becomes, to people who are real decision makers. “It is quickly becoming obvious that they are past their use-by date – time to move on to other ideas”, they say. And they move their money onto the next opportunity.
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I hoped folks would enjoy it.
After more than a decade of billions of dollars of funding, the combined efforts of Greenpeace, the WWF, 350.org, GetUp and all the other advocacy groups, the undivided attention of the media and the politicians, a couple of Nobel “Peace” prizes, and enough onside celebrities to hold an Academy Award Night, they’re nonetheless reduced to comparing numbers of peer-reviewed papers to make their point.
Sort of a cultist’s version of the “mine’s bigger than yours” taunt.
It’s all rather pathetic.
Dangerous, but pathetic.
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Haha, ah nice.
So their innovative strategy is to warm up a cold argument that got busted here 9 months ago courtesy of Fred Singer.
This SkS hairy three phase strategy is almost “Lather, Rinse, Repeat”.
It’s Cook’s Climate-hair Conditioner Project! (CCCP for short, hehe)
If we fight the type of fight they want to fight then they win. The solution is to ridicule the consensus based rhetoric and bring the focus back to applying the scientific method to the empirical evaluation of the CAGW hypothesis. Since no aspect of the climate has departed from historic natural range, this stops at step one because the Null Hypothesis is still adequate. The implausibility of the GCMs means the Null Hypothesis still shows no so signs becoming inadequate in the near future.
Climate research continues. Warmists go home.
Well we can dream can’t we.
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Just noticed this Freudian slip from Tamino:
“…much of the consensus among climate scientists at the coal face…”
Oh really? Being at the coal face is an important place to be, is it?
Filling the death trains is important is it?
Hahahahaaa…. from the mouths of babes… 😀
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Thought this might fit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
A blast from the past.
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Darnit, wrong thread. 🙁
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Ha ha! So true. Joanne, comedy poster right on TOPIC!
[snipped on request] ED
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Hey wait please remove my link it goes to my home page in facebook.. ahhh
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I’m a Brit – but an American told me that TSA stood for Thousands Standing Around.
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The big J O K E is that there were NO terroists on 9/11 NONE as in ZERO! The only terroists are those patsies LET (escorted) on planes by the FBI or CIA.
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