(annoyed grunt)
posted by saurabh in Galloping idiocy, Terror |Following a post on Sepia Mutiny about those six imams who got kicked off a U.S. Airways flight, I did some reading around. The subject was briefly covered in a few shoddy press releases, skimpy on the details, and then wildly overblown for a few weeks by right-wing blogs. So far I have learned:
- The imams were doing a “security test” to look for weak points in the airline’s protocol.
- Some of them requested seat-belt extensions, which “research” by Greg Lang has revealed is “one heck of a weapon”.*
- They seated themselves according to the layout favored by the 9/11 hijackers.
- They deliberately orchestrated this stunt in order to make money/raise a kerfuffle/make it easier for future terrorists to overwhelm our security.
Amy Goodman seems to be the only person who got the imams’ story, which, not surprisingly, is completely innocuous.
A while ago I read a really nice Fake Moon Landing web-site, which simultaneously argued from two different (absurd) positions - the moon landing was fake, done in a studio, etc., but at the same time the astronauts were clearly being dogged by aliens. Similar site here. This sort of having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too is infuriating, to say the least. Kind of makes you jealous of Superman, who at least gets to tangle with a smart opponent.
* This really deserves no comment, but let me just point out that, given the incredible range of dangerous items one can take onto an airplane, including a near-limitless number of potential edged weapons, a seat belt extender is perhaps the stupidest fucking choice you could make.
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