And we're giving them $15 billion dollars why exactly? Heck if we're REALLY serious about subsidizing failure why not bail out Bridgestone Firestone while we're at it?

This is easy enough to fix: let the market handle this. Simply publish the inspection scores of every airline. People will naturally prefer the airline with the highest security score.

Doesn't 'Consumer Reports' do this already? By the way, with no offense to the originator or author, but my answer after seeing the title, led me to day "duh!"

"People will naturally prefer the airline with the highest security score."

I'm all for "helping out the economy" by "getting back to normal", but I refuse to fly.

I'm not up for a ride on a potential Zero.

I guess they could plant a bomb under my '77 Thunderbird, but I'm betting against it.

Per the government, airlines can't advertise their safety records.

I don't want to upset anyone but.....

I went to an aiport to remain unamed at this time yesterday to trade some certificates in for tickets. I had to park in the short term decks. To say security was a joke, is an understatement. The extent of their "upgraded" security was to have a 62 year old beer gutted Barney Fife look in my trunk. I'll bet the bullet was still in his front pocket. No guards at the terminal. No guards at ticketing. And I didn't see any guards at the trams leading to the gates. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to my next trip. Unless the pilots get the guns they want.

"...and I'm sending hubbie to the grocery store to stock up.

Send hubby on the suicide mission.

Nice. (;

Amazing isn't it. I went to the cargo shipping area last week to send a package and I swear I could have EASILY got into the gate were planes were parked. Not a single guard in sight. Not even a local police.

Yep, we are a gettin serious I tell ya.

When I was in the islands, I saw better security in St. Lucia and Antigua than I did here. And the airport in St. Lucia couldn't support anything larger than a 727!

While screening luggage is a good idea, the security mania at the airports has gone far past ridiculous. If we are such cowards that a few thugs with fingernail clippers can herd us like sheep, then we don't deserve to live. If we aren't, then there is no reason to ban fingernail clippers. The attacks of September 11 did not succeed because there were too few guards. The attacks succeeded because we are conditioned to be passive in the face of evil, and we followed our conditioning. When the thugs pointed knives at us, we did what they said and waited for "proper authorities" to handle the situation. In the one case where the passengers finally resisted, they prevented the terrorists from killing more Americans.

The biggest danger is that we convince ourselves that we can solve the problem with more guards at the airports and air marshals in the sky. These thugs are determined to fight a war on American soil, and they will find ways to confront us when "proper authorities" are nowhere to be found. If we are not ready to fight back, they will win. If we allow this security mania at the airports to keep us from taking the attitude that we must be willing to fight, then they will succeed in taking more airplanes.

WFTR
America's War Options.
Bill

And we're giving them $15 billion dollars why exactly? Heck if we're REALLY serious about subsidizing failure why not bail out Bridgestone Firestone while we're at it?

Astute!

And, let's say, the Ayrian Nation, the NAACLP, Mexico, Barbra Streissand, Burma, Robert Downey Junior, Chad, the "'palestine' liberation 'army'" -- and Somalia!

They're all EVERY BIT AS DESERVING as are the companies that comprise the industry [Gore-Rotten-KKli'ton are equally culpable!] most-seriously-responsible for the events of September 11!

Let there be new companies with new names and with Aviators at their helms instead of the close-to-evil, cynical-beancounting bastards who run todays big old and tired airline companies!

Unless we demand that plenty of people in Washington get removed from their jobs because of their massive waste of money and failure to do even a basic job of securing our nation, we are at risk by every kook in the world.

I will not accept any more form letters from my congress men and women. I want things fixed and the rat hole cleaned out.

I put those letters to good use. In what ever space is availble on the form they send, I highlight specific things that I disagree with or want changed. I then write out my thoughts and suggestions. I then stick this into the prepaid envelope they have provided me and send it back to them.

Well and truly said, my friend. I just flew cross country last week, and in my local Fairbanks Alaska airport, every passenger going through security was directed to remove their belts and pass them through the X-ray scanner. After walking through metal detector, without generating any alarms, I was taken aside and scanned with a hand wand, again without alarms; and then was patted down. I was then directed to remove my right shoe, that it could be inspected for an unknown reason.

In Charleston SC, the guards ran our carry on bag through the scanner three times, and then asked to open it up. Seems they saw a pair of tweezers in my wife's make-up bag. Once they had that weapon in hand, two of the guards checked to see if the ends were too sharp and pointed to be carried on the plane. Apparently one could not pass judgement without the others approval. Aftering finding it to be a non-lethal device, they returned it to our bag and suggested that we carry such things in our checked baggage in the future.

NONE of this would be necessary if the 2nd amendment wasn't so tattered and torn by our government. Stay well, stay safe.

I have to make one more flight, and then I hope that I am finished flying until security returns to its intrusive and inconvenient state of September 10 instead of its more inconvenient and more intrusive state of today. What must not return is the attitude that we can be passive in the face of evil. It was a fun experiment for the America-haters and the pacifists, but we must never listen to them again.

WFTR
America's War Options.
Bill