New Passport rules

[Shack]

I dunno; the weather does always look pleasent up there whenever I watch the news. It miraculous how the weather (being reported) seems to majically stop right at the border!! Gee! How DO you guys DO it!

Go Red Wings!

Speaking of that - I guess people are gonna need passports who troll the Great Lakes. Crossing at Winsdor, the Sault, and Thunder Bay.

Pretty wild. How else are old people gonna get all those meds?

[hellosailor]

Dave, it was that infamous anti-Crown insurgent "Ben The Franklin" who said something along the lines of "A man who would give up a little liberty for his security will soon have none of either."

Which is why I think the TSA screeners would be more useful if they were just sent hiking in the back hills of Pakistan, with a picture of Osama and a military cell phone in hand.

People forget--the only two reasons the 9/11 hijackings happened in the US:
1- was because Osama *knew* that only the US had shut down its sky marshal program. In the 80's, the US airline industry lobbied Congress and said "It costs too much" and Congress obliged. But air marshals in "primitive" countries on "inferior" carriers stopped three hijackings earlier in 2001.

2- was because only the US carriers had a policy of opening the cockpit. In the rest of the world, the cockpit was kept closed regardless of the threat, the aircraft to be landed ASAP without surrendering the cockpit.

Funny how the media ignored those issues.

[ebs001]

Shack, the big heat hasn't occurred yet. You'll have to speak to Al Gore to find out an exact time.
Speaking of reasonably priced meds, I saw on the news that Homeland Security is no longer going to confiscate senior's drugs when they cross back into the US. ....but they will need a passport
Go, Sens, Go

[hellosailor]

Rick, if it wasn't for global warming, the geological record shows that the "normal and usual" condition on Planet Earth right now would be just about smack in the middle of another Ice Age. Not a little one, but a full blown one.

So...while we're trying to clean up our act and prevent the seaboards from being swamped, we'd better make Real Damn Sure we don't *totally* reverse whsat we've done. The "normal and usual" condition right now, would be much worse for us than the one we've wound up in.

'Course that would solve the recent plummet in Florida real estate prices.

[Shack]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

People forget--the only two reasons the 9/11 hijackings happened in the US: . . .

Only two reasons!! Oh well I guess that simplifies it for the simple minded. The fact that these guys were allowed to come into the country after being identified is not a big deal. The gutting of our foreign intelligence program under the auspices of "cleaning up the personalities" must be inconsequential. ("we don't need to work with shaddy people - we'll just use satellites.") The fact that UBL declared war on the US . . . blew up the USS Cole . . . blew up African Embassies . . . and that he was minimized as a threat until after 9/11 . . . NONE of that played any part either.

BTW-
The GLOBAL WARMING and CANADIAN DRUG thing were just jokes . . .
But I'll buy drugs from a Sens fan any day. and beer . . . I'll buy Canadian beer, too. . . . and mucklucks, I need some of those for the big climate change. oooH! and I need a good book on how to par'lez vous . . .

[hellosailor]

Shack, I stand by "only two reasons". Two immediate reasons, without which *those* attacks could not and would not have taken place. Yes, there would still be folks trying to attack us in other ways. But the immediate reason for these two attacks, was that "we" left the barn doors so wide open, that someone literally could drive a jumbo jet through them.

When you know there are people trying to kill you, and you enable them that way, you've got to take part of the blame for their success. Congress cleverly skirted their portion of the blame by passing the bail-out bill to ensure the two airlines wouldn't ever have to appear in court--and raise the issue that Congress had shut down the sky marshal program. In response to their lobbying.

Larger issues? Sure. Older issues? Sure. But who enabled them that time? "We" did. Until and unless we accept the responsibility for our money-grubbing stupidity in those actions, the same thing is going to happen again and again. What did Walter Kelly say? "I have met the enemy and he is us."

If we're not willing to PAY, with our attention and money, for basic security raher than feel-good dog-and-pony shows, we're going to get hit again, and again, and again. And yes, that will be our own fault. You go play in traffic, you can't blame the traffic for running you down.

We're just damned lucky that Al-Q were bumbling fools, who didn't know how to really conduct an attack. The damage could have been ten times worse, a hundred times worse. Could still be, next time around--because we're still playing dog and pony show.

[Rickm505]

Come on guys, keep up with current events. The report the government issued on the collapse of the World Trade Center in September '05 has been called 'rubbish' by the heads of civil engineering departments of Cal Tech, MIT, Unive. of Ill. and just about any other expert that evaluated the report. These are the same guys who trained the guys who actually wrote the report, not nutcases. . Seems these buildings were blown up, not burnt up.

Why we were led to believe otherwise is a Mystery to me, but if you guys are going to discuss it, get it right.

Rick in Florida

[Nicco61]

Seems these buildings were blown up, not burnt up.

You GOTTA be kidding me!

[Rickm505]

I'm serious, and so are they. Seems they were questioning the authors of the report collectively for months trying to resolve the descrepencies, and finally gave up and went public.

[Nicco61]

Does Spike Lee sit on the heads of those engineering departments? Because he seems to think the levies (sp) in New Orleans were blown up!