What do either of those cases have to do with the shoe carnival, Ronnie?

The record clearly indicates that the threat to aviation from shoes is so miniscule as to be effectively nonexistent. I note that you are refusing to answer two simple questions that demonstrate this fact, so I will repeat them and await your response to them:

Do you deny that no planes were brought down in the US by shoe bombs before the shoe carnival was made mandatory in August 2006?

Do you deny that no planes are being brought down in other countries that don't have a shoe carnival?

Ron, do you know how to read?

Bojinka was liquid TNT stabilized with cotton ball-like materials. It became a solid explosive at that point.

TSA's policy in place, which has it in a contact lens solution bottle, would have passed it thru. X-rays wouldn't have detected it, neither would the shoe carnival.

Only thing that would have detected it is the ETP and puffers.

And I really don't see what Reid has to do with the point at hand when we're talking about liquid explosives. You also talked about one nut case wasn't successful and the all out assault on shoes. Yet you ignore Pan Am 103, which used a cargo bomb, and TSA has done very little to counteract that claim.

I ask you again, what was so special about Richard Reid, who was unsuccessful, vs. a cargo bomb on Pan Am 103 that WAS successful? The fact that it happened in the cabin where pax can see vs. under the belly where pax wouldn't? Kinda shows that TSA focuses more on show than security.

If TSA really believed in their "zero risk" (someone might try to light their shoes again, got to prevent it) philosophy, then in November 2001 at their creation they would have issued memo #1: "Unscreened cargo is the biggest security threat to aviation safety. Effective immediately, NO unscreened cargo will fly. Period. We will not allow another Pan Am 103."

Of course, that would have stopped air cargo for a few years, wrecked the world economy, and bankrupted the airlines which really depend on cargo income, but so what, got to keep pax safe at all costs, right TSA?

So here we are eight years later, how many millions of tons of unscreened cargo have flown (without a single plane going boom)? And the target date for 100% cargo screening is STILL a year away, August 2010 I believe. Another year and millions of pounds of unscreened cargo still to fly 1 foot under the pax's feet, yet the pax endure an ID Carnival, a Shoe Carnival, a War on Little Tiny Pointy Things, a Shoes In/Out of Bins Barking Carnival, a 3-1-1 I think you mean 3.4-1-1 War on Water, Toothpaste, and Yogurt, and now a War on Powder--12 oz. and up, plus the evolving Propaganda War by Blogdad Bob over at PV.

Security Theater, Ron. I think you're mainly upset because some of us out here in the real world have noticed what a joke TSA's philosophy is. The secret is out, except to you True Believers who have drunk mightily from the Kool-Aid vat. Hint: It is hard to keep Security Theater a secret when you perform the play at 450 airports every day before an audience of two million people.

Great thought. Imagine if 2 easily obtainable liquids really were easily combined to make a powerful explosive. The improved utility for road construction, mining, depth charge fishing, gopher removal, etc. would be tremendous.
Binary liquid explosives seem to be more and more like the cold fusion hype of the TSA era.
And, as always, even, if this binary liquid pipe dream were feasible, determining explosive potential (that would be rate of exothermic energy release, Ron) by a simple inspection for physical properties, would seem a fool's errand, and I know just the people for it.


Maybe they're planning on using gloves, or chocolate bars, or roach motels. Imagine; all your futile angst about the unlikely to repeat specific details of a previous threat achieving nothing, but huge amounts of wasted energy and lost motion.
Care to explain what TSA was up to between its formation and August 2006 if this tremendous threat was so apparent after Dec., 2001?

The fact that shoes are screened so closely here makes it next to impossible to use them on US flights. With the increased awareness it makes it less likely even at airports that don't use the same screening we do. That does not mean that there is no threat from it, seriously it takes 15 minutes to make a shoe bomb, it takes about 30 mins to make a pair of shoe bombs. You do not know what anyone is thinking unless they tell you (and even then it is a crap shoot), so to say that no one is trying to harm aviation by using shoe bombs is like rolling dice. This does not mean that I think there are legions of loonies with a pair sitting in the closet waiting for the day they cna use them, it simply means that this is a tool in the terror loony toolbox, and one that is fairly simple to use in the right circumstances.

And again, West, this is TSA Kool Aid.

TSA admitted in the LA Times as late as 2006 that there hadn't even been a single attempt at a shoe bomb since Reid. And that's before TSA instituted the mandatory shoe carnival. All we have now was Kippie saying shoe bombs were a continued threat because he said they were. No evidence to point that there actually WAS/IS a continued threat.

What was it about the institution of the water carnival that suddenly raised shoes to a threat that there had to be a mandatory shoe carnival? Prior to that, I could take a secondary, have my shoes swabbed and been on my way.

You can argue that a shoe bomb can be made quickly, or that any loonie can make them. However, as stated earlier, look at the rest of the world. If shoe bombs are such a threat to aviation, why aren't there planes falling out of the sky in nations that don't have the shoe carnival? Clearly, either the rest of the world is just lucky, or shoe bombs AREN'T the threat that TSA makes them out to be.

And I'll ask you the same question I've asked Ron. I've asked TSA many times and no one has ever answered this. Pan Am 103 was a successful terror attack using a bomb placed in the cargo hold. Why does TSA continue to ignore and delay screening of cargo when there's been a successful terror attack and killed people, and could easily still succeed in the future while it spends all this time and money on shoe bombs that one nutjob tried once and failed, and hasn't even been attempted ever since in the rest of the world where shoes AREN'T examined?

I think the answer is clear: TSA focuses on what the public can see, despite the fact that the most danger lies in areas where the public CAN'T. If the public CAN'T see it, then clearly, TSA really isn't all that interested. That's apparent from the lack of security measures on the employee/underbelly side because it's "too hard" or "costs too much." Of course, TSA doesn't seem to care about the expense or resources on the showroom visible side.

And yet, no planes were brought down by shoe bombs when the shoe carnival was not mandatory prior to August 2006.

And no planes are being brought down by shoe bombs in all of the other countries that have no shoe carnival.

These are facts that, I note, you are not even attempting to dispute -- just hoping they'll go away if you refuse to acknowledge them. And they are facts that show that no one is trying to use shoes to harm aviation.

And they are facts that conclusively demonstrate that the risk from shoes is so infinitesimal as to be effectively nonexistent. TSA's shoe screening is a colossal waste of time and effort, it does nothing to make anyone safer from anything, and it is a key reason why America hates TSA.

Interesting opinion. But we all know what they say about opinions.

Shoe bombs are now a known threat. I don’t often hear about threats from “pu36 explosive space modulator’s” either, but once someone tries to use one against an aircraft you can bet we wont allow them, or require that they be tested.

This is scary, Ron, but I agree with you on something. If TSA heard about a threat from "pu36 explosive space modulators," I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that HQ would issue immediate orders to restrict them or test them, without once pausing to find out (a) whether there is even such a thing as a "pu36 explosive space modulator, (b) what it looks like, (c) what it does or (d) whether it's dangerous.

If I threatened to blow up a plane with my hair, would you start shaving passengers?

Great. So we go running around with our hair on fire at every new threat vector that shows up, while the bad guys move on to something else. You do realize that is their intent, don’t you?

SG, I don’t know what to say. I posted some of the specifics on the device, and you completely failed to understand. Here, I’ll try again.

“The "Mark II" "microbombs" had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable nitroglycerin as the explosive. Other ingredients included glycerin, nitrate, sulfuric acid, and minute concentrations of nitrobenzene, silver azide (silver trinitride), and liquid acetone.”

Not a solid dude, but liquid. Putting a liquid into cotton balls does not make that liquid a solid.

Not quite SG. Close, but no cigar. TSA’s policy in place requires testing for any medically necessary liquid in a container greater than 3.4 ounces in size.

Actually, there are several things that could have detected it. Technology is always advancing.

The point was that there is always a “first”. The reason they call it “first” is because there is usually a “second” and a “third”, and so on.

As for the cargo aspect, the bomb on PanAm 103 was not cargo but checked luggage. A Samsonite suitcase to be specific.

Both were lessons learned. After PanAm 103 it was made more difficult to ship luggage without being a passenger. Reid caused shoes to be removed. 9/11 caused (in part) locked doors and no sharp objects of any kind. Lessons learned. Its how we humans learn, by experience. As long as someone pays attention to these lessons action is taken and the human condition is improved. Not something that happens here at FT/TSS very often to be sure, but then again there are always these little backwashes in reality in just about even human endeavor.

Absolutely. And it still makes no difference. One can only guard against things that one knows about, can conceive of, or can postulate. Everything is impossible, at least until someone figures out how to do it. Someone somewhere conceived the “pu36 explosive space modulators” as a possibility, and I feel confident that someone will someday invent them.

Then why were no planes brought down in the US by shoe bombs before the shoe carnival was made mandatory in August 2006?

Why are no planes being brought down in other countries that don't have a shoe carnival?

And why are you incapable of answering these questions? Does the truth scare the great big "security professional," Ronnie?

Wow. Seriously? So we have a boondoggle proposal like LASP that has no grasp on the reality of General Aviation. The bad guys don’t want to crash Cessna Citations into buildings; they just want us to think they do to hobble a major segment of our economy.

There has been a first attempt, but not a second that we know about.

IMHO, because other countries are not the USA.

Incapable? No. “Truth” is subjective, and nothing can be stretched further. Something that many here are quite proficient at.