I see a market opportunity here: selling face-whiteners outside airports.

the paper lists other instances

But it misses the case of the Spanish Law Professor.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

otherwise we're in for a long dark couple of years.

You're optimistic today.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

"Unfortunately, as in any public gathering, there may be occasions when a conflict arises between people or when one individual's actions bother another... As our crew members may not always be witness to the inappropriate acts of a particular passenger, there may be a limit to what our crews can do to improve behaviour that is perceived as a nuisance."

Would that mean that the next time I hear a guy singing along with his iPod, I can bean him with my laptop?
Seriously, even if the Americans see some sense and elect a sensible slate of candidates, this kind of behavior will continue for a while. The average Joe and Jane, both in America and to a lesser extent in Britain, have their adrenaline up and will continue to suspect people who are not of their particular tribe.

Something like that happened once to me - in June 2001, so before 9/11, but it was on a flight to Cairo, so already a sensitive destination.

A passenger was seen as running in the aisles while shouting incoherently. One steward later told me that the guy had already run out of the plane, then back in, and was shouting vaguely threatening or worried stuff all along.

All passengers were asked out of the plane, and made to go through the security check again (the X-Ray machines + individual patting). Then we all boarded the plane again, were taken to an isolated area of thr airport; all luggage was taken out, and we were all asked out with all out stuff to identify our luggage while they checked the plane inside with dogs and who knows what else.

It was done in good order and calm (and I think the Roissy airport security forces used the case as a full scale exercise, as a lot of personnel was brought in)

Nothing was found, and we took off 4 or 5 hours later than expected, without the guy.

But that was really bizarre and worrying stuff (and pretty much everybody saw the guy running agitated and shouting).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

It probably won't go that far, unless the economy tanks badly

Yes. Well.

I've kinda decided I'm just not gonna bother flying for a while. And certainly I ain't going to the US till they come to their senses. Thing is; I think a lot of people are quietly coming to the same conclusion.

It ain't worth queueing for 3 hours to take a two hour flight. So all of these airlines that are currently complicit in this nonsense will see their passenger numbers fall. That will be okay for the US airlines cos they're all Chapter 11 anyway, but in europe the bottom will fall out of the airline market.

Could the disproportionate response to terrorism actually be good for global warming ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

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The misassumption most of us make, I believe, is to think that we can turn back the clock to the America we knew in the 90s if we just defeat Bush, and that the balance will then swing and things will return to "normal".

I no longer believe such a scenario is likely.

In fact, I don't think that the ultimate resolution of the "American Crisis" will be either nice or peaceful, and I think it'll happen a lot quicker than most of us think.

(Coincidentally I wrote a diary on Kos on this very topic yesterday.)

When Pinochet took over, the whole democratic system crumbled overnight. One doesn't forget things like that. When force is used, too many people have too much to lose to resist. You flee in exile or you turn a blind eye and hope you aren't next.

The right already think we're scum who should be rounded up and carted away; give them the boots to arrest, say, 500 liberals / enemies of the state, Kos, Gilliard, Molly Ivins, Billmon, Chomsky, etc., and I say that will be the end of the opposition.

The major questions of the day are:

1. Will the Right relinquish power voluntarily? Obviously, they'll use every by hook or by crook trickery before resorting to force, but there comes a point when they'll be faced with a choice: leave in disgrace & face possible criminal charges, or stay in power by fiat. Which do you think they'll pick?

2. Will the Military help the Right stay in power? Especially if the alternative is presented to them as a weakened country and/or treason? If they do, it's outright fascism; if they don't and rebel, it's a civil war.

Anything else is trivial, really. Those are the alternatives we face, I fear.

Arguably, we're transitioning from America 4.0 into America 5.0.

I see only one solution, make the burqa a Western fashion for both men and women. This way we'll all be unrecognizable.

Though actually there is a second solution, more obtuse: create an "afraid of looking arabic / being too tanned / having a too-long beard class" on airlines. No no, this won't amount to putting people in camps. It'll create a seperation between the maniacs and the rest. It's silly, of course, but I wonder how many maniacs would understand why it's silly if it were done.

My impulse is to say that if you don't want to fly with someone because you think they "look Arab" or whatever, get off the plane. Don't end up with them being arrested or removed when they've done nothing wrong except look different.

oh yeah, and if you're male don't kiss your boyfriend while in the air...

basically airplanes and airports have become tyranny zones, where the fear of TSA and being bumped off a flight or having it delayed makes everyone submit meekly to the bullying of petty functionaries.  so the petty functionaries are having a field day, like teacher's pet made hall monitor for the week.

I flew to Canada and back last month, very irritably wishing for a decent rail service so I wouldn't have to go through all of this idiocy.  they were not letting bottled water onto the plane even if it was purchased in the concourse post-security...  you could not even buy water in a bottle on the concourse;  no, it had to be decanted into a large paper cup, which of course was plastered with Coca Cola advertising.  but they let me on with a niji waterbrush full of water, which had it been instead, say, dimethyl mercury, would have enabled me to condemn many/most of my fellow passengers (and myself of course) to an unpleasant end.  the laptop passed security w/o even being opened.  no, this week we are all afraid of bottled water and shampoo... somehow the Hollywood physics of the whole 2-part liquid explosive thing made all this even more offensive, i.e. the sheer stupidity.

I was thinking as I put my shoes back on and reassembled my luggage and pocket contents that the experience was strangely similar to being processed into and out of jail:  one's personal effects all confiscated, then (maybe) returned;  partial disrobing;  being processed in a lineup like cattle, feeling rumpled and slightly humiliated, being treated like a n unwanted immigrant or a suspected disease vector.  Ellis Island.  do I feel more like a cow or a prisoner when approaching the gate?  not sure.

a paranoid chunk of my brain says that inconsistent conditioning is more effective at behavioural modification than consistent conditioning.  the very irrationality and looniness of the scare du jour and the designer-coloured alert levels may make the conditioning of air travellers to meek acceptance of arbitrary authority even more efficacious.  a week of peaceful sanity in BC ended with my unwilling return -- interview with a US customs/immi officer who was downright scary:  totally affectless, no human response whatsoever, intrusive questions droned at me from a dead blank visage, like fictional descriptions of the old Soviet border agents... a bored, hostile and paranoid bureaucratic underling who you pray will not decide to enliven his day by picking on you.  a mischievous impulse urged me to refer chidingly to the signboard at his booth which listed "our promises to you", including "we will welcome you to the United States" -- "welcome" was certainly not among the words said to me -- but discretion was the better part of getting on the damn plane and I was just glad to get ny passport back and leave the eerily robotic young man behind.

at the baggage carousel in SFO the voice of the security announcements came over the Tannoy, syrupy and quaalude-calm, telling us to watch our baggage (as it has for 15 years or so) but adding that "the current national security alert level is Orange" ... and I had that sinking feeling of being back in the loonybin.  the whole thing is like a vast intricate game of Simon Says, with (one feels) Kip Hawley rolling on the floor of his private office laughing his ass off as he watches on videotape the suckers lining up, taking their sandals off, draining their soft drinks, hurriedly stashing their lip gloss in the checked baggage.  Simon Says give me your lip gloss.  Simon Says take your jacket off. Simon Says hop on one foot.  Simon Says step out of line...

oh yeah, I forgot, don't make fun of Kip Hawley, either.

agree with the poster upthread, it's a feeling in the air.  the feeling of petty power unleashed, or starting to slip the leash.  of petty sadists and bullies feeling that they have license to abuse -- in mild, irritating, stupid little ways for now, but how much worse it can get we already know.

so far the UK authorities scored the ultimate own goal, when they deprived a pilot of his contact lens solution.  now that's what I call security!

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

I was stopped on the Canadian border last weekend and pulled over for a long interrogation (it's not the first time this has happened, so I'm used to it). But the border guard I had was an absolute loon. First, it was 40 degrees fahrenheit (around midnight) so when he asked me to turn off the car and step out, I nodded my head and did the next most logical thing. I rolled up my window before turning the car off. Rolling up my window infuriated him. He went on a tirade, just blasting me angrily about how rude I was, that my rudeness bordered on insolence. I just looked at him calmly, and then shrugged my shoulders. It went on and on like this for 5 minutes. I'm serious. 5 minutes of top of the lungs yelling. Luckily, I grew up in a household where my father pulled that stuff often, so I'm quite used to it. Unfortunately for the border guard, I think he got hoarse trying to antagonize me, and all the while he waited for an apology which was never forthcoming. He finally gave up, and so he guided me past a family of Seikhs into an interrogation room where a nicer woman border guard pulled up my file, asked me two questions, and sent me on my way.

I've had a much more interesting run-in than this one in the past but that one was probably my fault.