The bad guys know who the FAM is if you guys don't stop discussing it. How does everyone know that the bad guys know already? You guys are giving them (bad guys) more credit that they deserve.

Nobody even knows if there are any "bad guys" traveling through the airports and boarding US airliners.
None have yet to be caught even though hundreds of millions of "good guys" have been screened in the futile search...:(.

The humorist Ogden Nash wrote:

"I met a man upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
Gee, I wish he'd go away."

I suspect that the contemporary insanity in the name of security will yet be looked back upon with the same wise hindsight and ridicule with which we regard the fallout shelters of the 60s, children cowering under their desks in the 50s and air raid drill blackouts in North America in the first half of the 40s.

All that effort, all that money, all that worry, all that waste - all just to keep the sheep feeling secure. BAAAAAAAAH.

Listen to Osama!
 

Osama bin Laden himself said in his most recent taped message that al Qaeda had spent only $500,000 to stage the 9/11/01 attacks, while the U.S. has spent $500 billion so far defending against future attacks. He implied that this spending would destroy our economy -- and he may very well be right. Remember that President Reagan (for whom I worked!) defeated the Soviet Union essentially by outspending them and causing their economy to collapse. Some say that the Soviet Union would have collapsed anyway, but that's not my point here. Our anti-terrorist obsession is killing us, not the terrorists!

When we, our children and our grandchildren are all buried under Federal debt so crushing that it seems infinite, maybe we'll come to our senses -- but by then it will be too late, of course.

Bruce

Don't forget that in addition to the crushing debt, the US is also busy sending once-cherished freedoms up in flames. What exactly is the government protecting its citizens from?

Reminds me of Jonestown in Guyana. Everybody had to die so that they couldn't be corrupted. In this case, everybody has to lose their freedom so that they can't be victims of terrorism (or "terror," as our politicians say these days). And at the same time, these same politicians claim that the terrorists hate us for our freedom. I have asked many times right here on FlyerTalk why the terrorists don't then hate the Swedes, who are clearly quite free in any sense of the word? Interestingly, Osama asks the same question in his latest tape! I was flattered!!! Maybe he's reading FlyerTalk, too!

Bruce

Or maybe you're Osama? ;) Maybe that's why they make you take your shoes off at the airport... TSA may be smarter than we give them credit for.

Hmmmmm . . . No.

One thing I've learned during my 7 decades in this plane of reality (or in this vale of illusion) - when someone, or an organization, does something feckless and stupid, it's almost always the case that the person or persons are feckless and stupid.

A smart TSA would do smart things; they do stupid things. Therefore . . . like the Bible says, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

And please, no obvious plays on that word. Be clever or be silent.

I'll be silent....D'oh! :eek:

Bruce