Leshuo, or is it Santa,

I want a guitar, a Maserati, a new life, a fling with a young sexy dame from the 50s or 60s, and the secret of life.

If you don’t have any of these items, please post what you have.  Every time I click on one of these links, something bad happens:  the connector to my printer file gets burned out or my email address book gets robbed.  In the latter case my friends kept asking me if I am selling elephant tusks. 

I have to tell them, No.

Just say what you are selling. Show your goods.

Who knows, if the price is right, some people can’t resist a bargain.

You and Dick Cheney and Meg Whitman.  You could call it something like the Bay Window. 

Ya never know.  You schmuck.

If this is a “A Childish Tantrum Over TSA Rules”  are Ruth Marcus, Nina Totenberg of NPR and Erin McKean of the Boston Sunday Globe, teacher’s pets in the fashion of “I’m gonna tell on you.”

Look at those fat asses and tell me if they ever had to fight for anything in their lives.  Darling Nina’s father just turnedd 100 years old and he was a cellist at the Boston Conservatory. 

It’s tough life, I know.  All those strings.

Isn’t threat of/and sexual contact and assault one of the psychological techniques used by interrogators at Guantanamo? Violation of space and person. Either get zapped or roughed up and intentionally humiliated. Besides, it’s your duty. Don’t you love America? If you aren’t guilty then it shouldn’t matter.

      Chertoff is another of the floating front men that Corporate thugs use as a mouthpiece. He is a for sale example of the revolving door politics that allows the Washington corruption now destroying America. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM should be our first priority. It’s just Chertoffs turn at the cash register for services rendered. Problem is, its our cash and future he’s stealing. And cash is the bottom line for looters.

      This article did what it was intended to do. It was Obama spin and red meat insult to human logic, dignity and reason. And, it got the response it was meant to receive. It was Classic Orwellian: “How many fingers am I holding up?”

      Do you feel more POWER or less having gone through this exercise in futility? So far, Obama has betrayed us. R.Marcus is just a smokescreen. Gee. It looks like a Black man can be just as corrupt and destructive as a White one. Meanwhile, we’re all twisting in emotional space howling at the moon.

Postscript:  When and if anything ever comes to the question of “conflict of interest”, forget it, because there can be no such thing anymore as conflict of interest. The interest of everybody in government and business is now in making money so, no conflict.

Addition to my previous post on the significance of TSA scrutinizing as a jobs engine:  (from Counterpunch today) 
  “One of the primary advocates for the use of body scanners or the more politically correct ‘advanced imaging technology’ (AIT), is former DHS head Michael Chertoff. Secretary Chertoff’s advocacy of body scanners dates back to at least 2005. After leaving DHS, Chertoff founded the Chertoff Group, a consultancy firm whose corporate logo is an iron spiked closing portcullis.(2)

  “The Chertoff Group represents the primary manufacturer of body scanners, Rapiscan, which is set to make billions of dollars off the sale and maintenance of the body scanners. In the days after the attempted underwear bombing, Chertoff made the rounds on the cable news talk shows where he stressed the necessity of deploying body scanners. Of course Chertoff failed to disclose the fact that his company represented Rapiscan. Chertoff is not alone in having conflicting interests: a competing manufacturer of body scan systems, American Science and Technology, has retained the services of two former TSA administrators who are now acting as lobbyists.”(etc. etc.Paul Craig Roberts on “Gestapo Empire”)

Wise up, folks… it wasn’t 19 hijackers with box-
cutters on passenger planes. 

Look for the plans at the US Pentagon and from VP
Cheney’s offices, and that’s where you will find the
axis of motive, means, and opportunity, and nowhere
else.

All the “live feeds” that day were nothing of the
sort.  They were Pentagon feeds (check it out for
yourself)*.

We need to understand 9/11 for what it was to really
get a grasp on the methods of our surveillance Police
State.  The hated open society must be destroyed.  We
must be reduced to abjection so that profits remain
robust.

*There is one. perhaps 2 exceptions that I know of. 
A local NY Channel 4 chopper, and a hand-held shot of
the explosion (both before the pentagon got ahold of
it and put the matte “plane” in).  Youtube link below
contains both:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6xgnifpNvc

Watch carefully starting at 5:08

War is good for business.  Invest your children.

Gerard - your comments are quite naive.

How do you know that the scanners or any of their parts are assembled/manufactured in the U.S. and not ‘offshored’?
______________________________________________________

I just returned from an X-ray.

Interesting discussion. The technicians to a person would refuse the scanning due to the nature of the techniques(ANY of them) that are implemented in the U.S. Their research indicates that there is more potential for harm than CT scans or xrays.

In addition to a private room, they also would demand that the ‘gropers’ wash their hands and don a certifiably clean set of gloves before they would allow any ‘pat down’.  Seems like the Powers That Be forgot about how most infections/diseases are passed - by contact.

These concerns are from professionals - not whiners or apologists.

Isn’t this largely a problem of being scared of our own shadows?  Run your mental scanner over our military impact around the world, particularly now in Iraq and Afghaistan.  And tomorrow who knows where?  Count U.S. “terrorist” acts killing and maiming thousands of people just as innocent as the people riding American Airlines or United.
  Think about it:  This scanner/feeler business provides jobs for how many people who otherwise would be out of work and disgruntled?  And the jobs it takes to manufacture all the equipment—how many is that?  And the corporate profits? And the office and communication jobs behnd the scenes throughout the entire “surveillance” system?  How many more? The whole thing would fall apart if we weren’t scared all the time. Then what would all these people do without jobs?  Further increase the length of already-too-long unemployment lines? 
  Think about it:  It’s a job-machine that helps keep everybody scared so the wars can proceed abroad and the military/industrial complex can hold us all in thrall for as long as it takes to ... what?  Who knows what the end-game is, but it doesn’t look good for the human race right now.
  Besides, I thought X-ray was not good for human cells.  Oh, well. Who cares?  More business for the health insurance/pharmaceutical business.  As everybody knows, business is good for business even if it kills human beings by the tens of thousands.
  It’s your life! Talk it over with friends. Help each other. Take care of each other. Make a difference.

Ruth,

Childish tantrums, you say.

These are the people you represent. 

I am on Medicare and I have been deluged with Insurance company sales documentata on how each one could provide Part D for about $300 to $400 a month.  My Social Security is about $1500 a month.

My sister-in-law had to change her ‘formulary’ recently because it didn’t cover a pill that was what the ‘Good Doctor’  prescribed.

She went to her pharmacist and he said these other pills were contraindicating, whatever the hell that means. 

He told her that all she needed was’Claritin.’  Over the counter.

In my case, Tufts, United Health and BC/BS keep sending me glossy brochures on their Part D plans. 

I don’t take pills stronger that child dose aspirin.

So what do they do when I fail to respond with a check and a ‘Thank you, Sir?

They run and tell Sister Superior, or the Principal, or whoever is in charge and they tell them that I haven’t signed up for Part D. 

As a result, I got a message from the company where ‘mi esposa’s travails’ warning me to ‘keep this letter on file.’  They might come after me.

Ruth, what the fuck are you talking about?  Gather yourself.  Take a one X-ray scan a week, please.  Then, sign up for coverage by a Cancer Treatment Center, but don’t give us this shit.  That your business.

I asked my dentist why he left the room whenever he gave me an X-ray?  He told me that X-rays are cumulative and detimental to ones health. 

What don’t you unnerstan’ about that?

——————————————————————

If it comes to scan or pat down, I am going to take the pat down from now on.  You can ask the angry airline patrons, “Will they pay for my Cancer Treatment bills?”  If, Not, then on with the human-to-human contact that we all crave.

Gimme a fuckin’ break.

—————————————————————————
In response to Gulam on another thread, at some point a lot of people my age will come to the realization, “What’s difference—Death or life in abject, rub-your-nose-in-it poverty after having risen to the Middle class?”

That’s the unknown, I think.

I am not talking about 100% of us.  I am talking about some fraction thereof.  Like everything else.

here’s some nooz:

A guy in Lynnfield, a wealthy suburb of Boston, just killed his wife and hisownelf because he did not like the name of the expectant baby.

Now, there’s a cause to die for.  Sorta like chocolate (to die for), only in this topic, we’re talking about real people.

PS I hope Ruth never appears on PBS again.  She’s just too little to take.

Forgive me, but I feel compelled to reprint my comment from Eugene Robinsons’s post the other day:

Recently, I took my 86-year-old mother home on a relatively short flight from Oakland to Seattle. She is a tiny woman, frail and virtually blind. The TSA folk were, as usual overly zealous in making sure “the theater” was open for business and as I looked-on in disgust and anger (as did quite a number of other’s) they “did their thing.” They even searched the Airport wheelchair. Several folks commented (perhaps a little too loudly for their own good) at how ridiculous this exercise was for an old woman.

OK, now that I’ve painted a picture for you, let me ask this question:

What would have stopped a terrorist from simply getting in line amongst the hundreds of people waiting for the TSA to shake-down my mom and simply set a device off right there? The loss-of-life and damage would probably be far greater than that of a plane going down. (Also, think of all the Republican “outrage” that someone actually got into the airport with a bomb!!!) 

If it’s so important that we “deter” terrorists from getting on planes, why not have us start the process at the freeway off ramp to the Airport? Just put a big fucking X-ray machine at the exit and scan EVERYTHING. This way we can make sure nothing happens BEFORE everyone must endure the stupidity of the TSA lines. Can’t be TOO careful can we?

Or, why not simply have everyone strip down naked? No carry-ons, no food, no medications, no nothing. After all, we certainly must protect ourselves from the “threat” of terrorism, right?

Also, because we don’t want profiling, why not include a body-cavity search? After all, if everyone has a hand up their ass, then we can claim we’re not a “prejudice” society, right?

I think you all get the point.

What is this article shaped piece of vomit doing on truthdig

This total defense on TruthDig of the TSA process is unusual.  The fact that Russ and the Koch Brothers are pushing the boycott and the publicity is cayse for thought and reexamination.

That said:
If procedures had been followed, the undies bomber would not have been on a plane from Amsterdam. He was walked around security checkpoints by ???.  He had NO passport.  He was on a watch list.

How would the new scanners have prevented this?

1 month prior to the undies attempt - another undies bomber was caught during normal procedures and not allowed to fly.

Why the urgent need to expose millions to needless exposure to potential health risks - especially frequent fliers?

How would the new scanners have prevented any prior attempt to commit terrorism?

My daddy said to follow the money trail - in this case it seems to lead back to Chertoff and corporate america.

There seems to be some sort of battle of hidden agendas being promoted by all sides in this tempest.

I,for one, would like to know the motivation of the pro-screening writers on Truthdig like Ruth and Eugene as well as the reason for pushing overwhelming publicity of attacks on the screening process by Russ & the Koch Bros.

I don’t get it.  It is virtually impossible to get a terrorist weapon on-board a plane in the USA thanks to intrusive though effective security measures.  I would think that a group bent on terrorism would use the extensive security measures to their advantage.  With crowded lines to proceed through security a substantial explosive device contained in a suitcase and detonated when it passes through the X-ray unit would create enough shrapnel to seriously wound or kill scores of people.  It would take only one successful bombing to cause HSD to force their security to the outside of the airport terminals and further delay and inconvenience travelers——which is the actual aim of such tactics.

A tale of two industries.

1) the airline industry needs to create some semblance of security, even if it’s
illusory, to insure steady business.

2) the military industry needs to remind us at all times that there are those who
want to kill us “for our freedom”, in order to justify their outrageous budgets.

Even if flying were completely, categorically, statistically safe from terrorism,
what’s to stop someone from putting a bomb on a city bus, or in a movie
house, or a subway?

Throwing all one’s resources at a symptom of a problem rather than the
problem itself is ignorant, unless the problem is useful to the right people. That
seems to be the case with “terrorism”, especially the “Arab” flavored brand.

All of this plays like a Wagner concert to the ears of Authoritarian fantasists,
who get exactly what they want: a populace catalyzed by fear, and more
efficient means to monitor and control them. If we keep this up, we’ll soon be
living like the Israelis, a life under siege.

But why should you worry? The only thing hidden in your underwear is junk.
Right?

What?  You thought you wouldn’t have to pay a small price for killing all those Muslims?

At last a serene voice off moderation - Ruth kick up your volume - I flew in the 60s and 70s when the “Take me to Havana senior!” vogue was in full bloom - I had no choice - it was my job - I never though that anything they did was excessive or intrusive - in fact I was all in favor or armed Air Marshals on every flight - not a to “hell with the Constitution”, but my right to a safe flight were superior to the rights of a disgruntled Cuban who wanted a free flight home - so kick up your volume Ruth so you can be heard over this childish tantrum.

There is a Serial Killer on the Loose and he has killed 160 people, he is a Man.
I wish I could tell you more but then I would be profiling.  Under the Civil Rights Act, I could be sued.
Pray for yourself that you do not meet that “Man”.
Government release: November 2010

TSA make sure your search Grand Ma, Children and people with urine and colostomy bags.  Cut them open.
Do not search anyone if they look like a terrorist, you know Muslims and the like. 
In short we know we are a bunch of A**holes but hey we have to get people into the fact that we are going to control everything, mind, body and soul.
We will scare the s*it out of them to give up their perceived rights.  As if they had any to begin with.

TSA: LOL

To me this column is trash because it perpetuates unsupported assumptions - that we are safer because of the advanced imaging technology (AIT), and that the Underwear bomber would have been caught by AIT. In regard to the latter, please see the letter to TSA Administrator Pistole from U.S. Rep. Rush Holt posted on Holt’s website. In it he expresses his concerns about the naked body scanners and references a GAO report on from March of this year (titled “Aviation Security: TSA Is Increasing Procurement and Deployment of the Advanced Imaging Technology, but Challenges to This Effort and Other Areas of Aviation Security Remain”), given as testimony to congress. The key part of the report his letter quotes states that:

“While TSA officials stated that the laboratory and operational testing of the AIT included placing explosive material in different locations on the body, it remains unclear whether the AIT would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used in his attempted attack based on the preliminary TSA information we have received.”

I do have some faith in the GAO because the reports I have read from that office are written with facts to support the ideas within. In this particular case, there is no evidence given that the machines would or would not have detected the explosives in Abdulmutallab shorts. Ruth Marcus has written her commentary as if it is a given the scanners about anythings.

For a REAL analysis of the TSA program, I suggest
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/23-5

I am disappointed in Truthdig, between Eugene and Ruth. Maybe let them stay
here and have Chris Hedges move to CommonDreams.

Ruth Marcus doesn’t get it.
These practices are but the beginning of a fascist State that by looking at her response, the fascists are already winning.

“Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty, nor safety”
                                        Benjamin Franklin

How does one assure chicken-shits?

How does one put spine in a jellyfish?

Schools, bought and paid for by business, produce
meek, obedient workers who don’t think much, to fit
into job slots that don’t require much thought.  Jobs
are not for the workers’ benefit.

We need to stop believing in official nightmares.
They weren’t true when they were made up out of thin
air to scare us, and they aren’t real now. 

There is nothing to be afraid of.

But…

there are people in the halls of power and behind
boardroom doors that seek their own narrow ends. 
They produce these fears in think tanks, spin these
scenarios in White Papers and Findings, and
journalists, schooled to be intellectually lazy, re-
print and maybe they believe (Marcus) and maybe they
don’t, but it doesn’t matter, because the words get
out there and the ads get sold and someone makes
money with war contracts and oil grabs and (almost)
no one is the wiser.

There are no Muslim terrorists.  There are no Islamo-
fascists.  These are the ghost stories to replace the
“nightmare of communism”, (which I personally never
saw as any more wrong than capitalism, and having
some advantages, in fact, and have never found anyone
who could convince me that, as an economic system,
that sharing the wealth was a bad idea.  I could live
simpler and am willing to contribute to the common
good, as most of us are.).

The threats we face are the threats to an open
society.  Those threats are domestic, not foreign. 
We know who they are, but our “reporters” stay mum,
or bring their toes up to the “official line”.

If we cannot be safe on the streets without security
cameras, then we are doing something very wrong,
listening to the wrong (sales)people.

The war on terror is a war on the hated FDR and the
hated Bill of Rights. 

I will say that again:

The war on terror is a war on the hated Bill of
Rights.

Between Ruth Marcus and Joe Conason, whenever I read Truthdig anymore, I wonder if i mistakingly went to Huffpo or Ann Coulter’s website. They are the"liberals” that have given liberalism such a blackeye. They typify that new breed- just be pro-choice, and vocal on meaningless issues like “don’t ask don’ttell” and you’re in that club. Like Bill and Hillary-two of the founding members along with Mayor Bloomberg- you can be the biggest warmongering Korporatists around and you’re still labelled “liberal”. Disgusting.I wonder if Ms.Marcus will consider it still just a minor invasion of privacy being led into the Amerikan prison camps of the future. That is a very slippery slope she and others of her ilk are mindlessly advocating.

Between Ruth Marcus and Joe Conason, whenever I read Truthdig anymore, I wonder if i mistakingly went to Huffpo or Ann Coulter’s website. They are the"liberals” that have given liberalism such a blackeye. They typify that new breed- just be pro-choice, and vocal on meaningless issues like “don’t ask don’ttell” and you’re in that club. Like Bill and Hillary-two of the founding members along with Mayor Bloomberg- you can be the biggest warmongering Korporatists around and you’re still labelled “liberal”. Disgusting.I wonder if Ms.Marcus will consider it still just a minor invasion of privacy being herded into the Amerikan concentration camps of the future. That is a very slippery slope she and others of her ilk are mindlessly advocating.

oh Ruth honey give it up.  Take that plump middle aged sagging body over to the scanners and then for a very thorough pat down… now no cheating with a special wink at the TSA that shows you are a privileged insider…

Then come back with the airport mall see thru pics and a description of having a TSA hand in your butt crack.  Or hefting a breast to ensure there is nothing UNDER the sag.

Go to wherever Eugene Robinson should be sent.

Sooner.  Not later.

So, progressives would support pulling TSA agents out of airports, comfortable that their choice will lead to the certain deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians by foreign terrorists or domestic Jesus freaks.

And you’ll vote for President Obama then?

Progressives don’t know what they want.

“childish tantrum”...“overblown and immature”...“loudest howls”...

marcus:

That you can not make your argument without insulting those of us concerned with a government agent either taking nude photos of us(you know they can be stored but you lie) or feeling our genitals…

...says much more about you and your government worship than it does those of us concerned with civil liberties that were bought and paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of men and women way way out of your little league of pissants.

And, just like your lock step colleague yesterday you seem to need to be reminded that if this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab

hadn’t been allowed to board an airplane bound for the US without a passport, there would have been no underwear bomber.

You are free to give away every single last one of your rights, marcus, but you are not free to give away mine. And you will not.

I take great pleasure, marcus, in knowing that the rag you write for is probably going to go belly up in the next few years and if you haven’t socked away some rainy day money (easy to do, for Elites like you, isn’t it marcus) you’ll be begging Arianna for the bottom left corner of page 2. And your condescending bullshit will drift off into an even more soundless forest.

Anyone dumb enough to believe these terrorist attacks are from “Arab” or “Muslim” terror cells is an idiot.

These homegrown supermarket terrorist are not the ones performing billion dollar, military style attacks on 9/11 or in London or Madrid…wake up people….these are freaking State sponsored attacks funded and run by the Brits, Americans, and Israelis. 

Read up on how NATO was involved in murdering its own civilian populations in Italy via organizations like GLADIO.  No one remembers the the Gulf of Tonkin farce to let Johnson unleash hell on the Vietnamese?

Yeah right…some old, decrepit Arab guy in a cave (or dead) is giving orders around the world and coordinating all these attacks….WAKE THE FK UP!

Ruth Marcus better not complain when small invasions of privacy such as what she is advocating here, soley for the sake of defending her Dear Leader, leads to harsher police state measures in the future. That may sound funny to some, but similar warnings sounded equally funny to Germans from about 1919-1933.

I’m sorry but the stupid assumption that this screening protects us is really maddening.  As someone pointed out yesterday, all a terrorist needs to do is walk into the screening area with hundreds of people all packed closely together and blow himself up before even reaching the scanners.  The impact is not bringing down the plane but killing lots of innocent people.  The outcome will be exactly the same.  So, what does TSA do in response to that?  Maybe build separate screening facilities outside of the airport and only let one person at a time enter?  The most effective security begins by knowing what the terrorists are doing before they do it.  Once they have implemented their plan, it is far too late.  And we need to consider what started this all ... 19 guys with $2 box cutters took command of 4 airplanes.  Our response to this has been a trillion dollar boondoggle that hasn’t made us any safer but has given the terrorists exactly what they wanted ... 300 million people who are afraid of everything and willing to let our government do whatever it wants in the name of security.  How about the Patriot Act?  Was that good enough?  How about throwing all our personal freedoms in the crapper just to protect us from a terrorist?  When are we going to realize that we need to show some spine and get back to our normal lives.  Terrorism is about spreading terror ... not about killing lots of people.  Under that definition, I would say 9/11 was a roaring success and is still reaping benefits for Ben Laden and our authoritarian government after almost 10 years.  When are we going to say “enough”?