A very small minority amongst a very small minority of people do as you claim in the first sentence above.

Not necessarily.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all - I just don't think it will happen on board an aircraft in flight where their 'sacrifice' will be anonymous.

When they're ready to do a suicide bombing on US soil, it will be in a place and fashion which will burn the memory and fear into the minds of everyone for a very long time and they will leave no doubt as to what happened and who was responsible.

I am not sure about the rest of you guys but I truly find it hilarious that the united states government can send a man to the moon, built stealth airplanes and manipulate the atom, yet it can't for update airport security with anything besides having passengers take off their shoes and pass thur 10 year old metal detectors and x-rays machines. Its just surprising that the government is willing to spend so much money needlessly on military toys that don't work and aren't needed yet it becomes a penny pincher when it is time to invest in something useful for the population such as airport and homeland security, education, health care and social security. If the goverment stopped bankrolling the defense contractors that produce useless toys such as the missile defense shield (which has never worked properly) or investing a fortune on the Joint Strike Fighter program even before the F-22 went into full service. Why the hell do we need another new fighter that won't be ready for almost a decade when you just spent 18 billion and 20 years in what was suppose to be the most advance fighter jet on earth. The cold war is over and the soviets nor the chinese are developing anything close to the F22. We could have spent all that money in providing proper body armor and vehicules for our soldiers in Irak. But I guess losing a few hundred soldiers because of inadequate body armor and equipment is something congressmen and generals can live as long as defense contractors continue providing huge kick backs and incentives for wasting taxpayers money on worthless toys. SO as long as our government continues thinking this way and politicians continue filling their deep pockets we passengers are going to have to continue taking off our shoes, belts and god knows what other garmet to satisfy the mindless minimun wage, high school drop outs that have become our main line of defense against terrorism in the air!

^ to you for saying it, Boca.

:td::td::td: for TSA forcing this useless, even counterproductive idiocy on us in the holy name of "security". :mad:

We were using explosive-detection portals at the nuke plant I worked at prior to *1998* (before I got there) - and TSA can't put them in airports almost 10 years later?!?

We didn't have to take our shoes off there, either.

It's easy, just ban shoes!!!

When shoes are outlawed, only Outlaws will wear shoes!!!!!!

o<||:{]~~~

Would you care to elaborate? He had enough explosive to cripple the airplane if he had launched his attack from the aft lave. If he used a midships loo and got lucky enough to sever a fuel line, it's good night, good night.

Your habit of offhandedly dismissing other peoples' opinions without elucidating your own is poor rhetorical technique.

There you go again. In fact, it would only take a handful of operatives to shut down the U.S. air transport industry. The economy would be close behind.

It isn't necessary for the shoe examination to reveal explosives. It is only necessary for our enemies to be convinced it might expose them. (Remember the story about the bear and the running shoes?)

I'd pay a million bucks to see him fired in public, Donald style.

Given what he had on person, it was highly unlikely that the plane was going to end up in the ocean as you pretend it would. ;)

I'm not here to educate everyone, that's fact not "poor rhetorical technique" either. ;)

See above comment. ;)

The economy would not be close behind in shutting down. A near-term hit and recessionary impact, likely.

Here we are again ..... back to comic books and fairy-tales. :rolleyes:

There are terrorists who don't mind if they "might" get exposed; some even want nothing more than their half-baked, hare-brained plans being exposed; this includes "plots" that can't accomplish what the comic book and fairy-tale buyers believe and try to get other paranoid and ignorant persons to buy too. It was highly unlikely that plane would have plummeted into the ocean by way of Richard Reid.

These Administration clowns fire incompetent people? Rarely, and if that, then very slowly.

Well, you certainly speak With Great Authority, so you must be Right.

With what was on him, Richard Reid was most likely not capable of making that plane plummet into the ocean (as you would have it) even if he managed to have a working capability (which he didn't) to set off what he had on his person. A Boeing 767 is not some fragile paper plane.

There is a significant enough distance between the lav modules and the hydraulic lines as well as fuel tanks (the 767 has a center mounted fuel tank) that the small amount of explosive in Reid's shoe was almost certainly not enough to cause catastrophic damage.

Pop a hole in the skin and decompress the cabin? Probably. Cause some injuries? Probably. Bring down the aircraft? Highly unlikely.

I'm more worried about overheating AC packs sitting snuggled against the fuel tank than I am a small shoe 'bomb' blowing through the cabin floor, across an open space, through some panels and then puncturing the fuel tank skin.

If a B767 flight deck crew member would like to chime in with a contrary or supporting opinion, I'm all ears.

If President Bush can't shut down our economy, I'm not worried about any other "operatives". My next trip to Europe is going to pump a lot of unnecessary US dollars into their economy. :mad:

Would you care to elaborate. Can you point to an independent and scientific analysis of the possible results had Reid managed to explode his sneaker ?

Not the FBI or DHS propaganda, unrelated videos or staged explosions please.

Sorry. I can't tell where the propaganda line is drawn. How is it that you can?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...29/MN35328.DTL
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/ne...dden-bombs.htm