Artful Dodger: This is my favorite Republican tactic. If you repeat something enough it makes it true!

How about the likes of Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski?

And these guys: http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2010/05/19/white-domestic-terrorists-slip-off-medias-radar/

Artful Dodger:

> All, I repeat "ALL", terrorist attacks in America have been committed by Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 40.

Except for that Mexican guy with the dirty bombs. I think he is called Jose Padilla, aka Abdullah al Muhajir.

Oh, and the English Jamaican shoe bomber. Richard Reid, aka Abdul Rahim.

There are a few others here and there!

Artful Dodger:

> "Cut this PC nonsense and go after the bad guys. PROFILE!"

I think the biggest problem with profiling is not so much making assertions about somebody based on external appearances, but rather what the "profile" says about an individual and how that information is used.

According to the profile, I am a Hispanic male with tattoos on his forearms. That means there is a big likelyhood that I am a member of gang and possibly involved in drug trafficking and other illegal activities. That profile has cost me dearly every time I travel. It goes without fail that at every airport I get stopped and get my luggage searched. I get questioned and harrassed. The funny thing is, I am more like a "white middle class" man. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I have never committed a crime. The hardest drug I ever took was Tylenol with codeine, and that was because of an elbow operation. I am not some homie from the hood, but a university educated chemist. The profile fails in this case. I found it insulting and deameaning.

The other day I was in a mall. I saw these two young African girls. They were wearing hijabs (head dress). By their features I could tell that they were possibly Moslems from Somalia. What were they? Terrorists? Oppressed Moslem women? Generally xenophobic Moslems? Not at all. I figured out what they were about when their conversation focused on how one of their friends got into trouble for being "too horny". It is likely they would not have that conversation at home in front of their parents, but it made me question my views based on a profile based on looks.

Sometimes profiling works. Most of the time it fails. It is the simple truth. I see a white guy, about 200 lbs overweight. What is he? A MacDonalds addict? A Walmart customer? Some redneck? No, he is diabetic, having a difficult time regulating his blood sugar and thyroid function. He is a teacher in a school, a father and a good man. Throwing a profile at him is insulting, just because of the way he looks.

Profiling and and his ugly cousin stereotyping go too closely together. Sometimes people go too far in the name of political correctness, but I would rather have that than ignore potential stereotyping and racism.

Übergeek 바둑이: thats kinda hard to explain to the victims of 9/11,imo.
its a shame that good people have to be treated like criminals.

Artful Dodger:

Until recently I had considered taking my son to Disneyland in the USA. I figured that it would have been a great family trip for all of us to go there and give my son a trip he could treasure once he grew up.

However, considering the current stance that the USA has taken with regards to travellers and visitors, I felt that the USA has become the least inviting country to visit.

Why would I want to subject my family to either x-ray machines that see through our clothes, or some goddamn paranoid xenophobic customs agent copping a cheap feel in the name of national security.

As I see it, even the North Koreans don't do that. Americans have no conception of how this is viewed around the world. Every day the USA is drifting more and more towards paranoid xenophobia. Americans can tell themselves that it is being done for "national security", but in reality it is all about control. The USA even wants personal information from people who travel through its air space, even though they will never even land in the USA. It is all a big brother scenario.

We used to travel through the USA in our way to Latin America. Then we decided that taking Mexicana and travelling to Mexico was better than subjecting ourselves to the hassle of going through the USA, even though travelling through Mexico is more expensive.

I am Canadian, a citizen of one of the countries that is the most friendly towards the USA. I can only imagine how less friendly countries see all this. All I can say is that the USA lost my tourist dollars, but then, I doubt anybody in the USA cares about that.

Anybody want to guess how many terrorist HAVE EVER been caught by the TSA due to pat downs
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thats right ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artful Dodger: the horror stories of airport embarrassments are terrible.

My daughter has lost all her hair due to something I can't even pronounce let alone remember thename of. She wears a wig. When she was leaving here after a holiday with me the fact that she wore a wig showed up in the xrays she was given....she was pulled back and questioned...she was then told to remove her wig so they could see if she had nothing or something to hide...she asked to be taken to a separate room so she wouldnt be embarrassed in front of 100's of people...they refused and she had to remove it. I wasn't impressed and queried the actions of staff to be told she could have been a terrorist. I might add she is a tiny wee thing (4ft 10in) and weighs 37kilos.(about 80 odd lbs)...she is smaller than a lot of young kids :(....we just had to wear it I'm afraid

Don't you 2 even start the personal stuff, or you will both be banned. ONLY warning. And there is also no need to debate this post here on this board. Thank you.

.. you now have to reply.. is this some unwritten commandment?

to the person who sent me via PM this post......DONT....I have people on hide because I dont want to see what useless information they are about to impart.....but having said that I now have to reply

***I dont think (re the A380) that Rolls Royce use cheap labour****....nothing was said about RollsRoyce using cheap labour...in fact nothing was said about Rolls Royce.

QANTAS (note the spelling) gets the majority of maintenance done OFF-SHORE using CHEAP labour...ie people who work for peanuts therefore dont give a damn if the repairs are done correctly or not.
OFF-SHORE means - not on australian shores.

Artful Dodger: Only because production of ozone depleting substances were banned.... At least they were in Europe.

Do your bloggers read at all??

rod03801: It's about safety and the prevention of deaths of American citizens as well as those of other countries affected by the emergence of the latest in terrorist groups of the 20th-21st century. Drugs (illegal legals or the illegal kind) kill.... As both Terrorists and drugs kill, I would have thought both would have been on the top two possible activities via plane been targeted.

It's called killing two birds with one stone.

The rules seem to be that if chosen to be scanned (as being trialled now), only if you decline will a body search be initiated.. yet at the moment with a body search being the only option without the scanners... the scanners is a better quicker option.

(V): This isn't about "drug mules". This is about terrorists. Frankly, I'm even MORE against my child being poked and prodded to stop the influx of drugs. They did not increase this because of drugs.

Artful Dodger: But what of the drug mules that would be caught in the process? Or has that problem in the USA that kills many many people each year now been sorted? No colour there to profile!!

rod03801: I think most terrorists (under a Muslim banner or otherwise) know that security is high. Metal detectors, sniffer dogs, x ray scanners that can pick up what is in the luggage in many ways.... chemical detectors... Which are already in place. The problems that Have been going on with planes being hijacked over the last 5 decades, drugs smuggling and other illegal activities... make the ability to smuggle anything very hard.

Maybe we shouldn't have trained the ex favourite anti USSR freedom fighters so well and we wouldn't be in this pickle. Rambo (Rambo 3) fought side by side with them.

Artful Dodger: This should be an interesting week, with Thanksgiving traveling.

Artful Dodger: Other side of the coin, I suppose : What if they KNOW we won't check such people thoroughly and they find a way to use that to their advantage?

Artful Dodger: That is silly. I am responsible for myself at home.
When it comes to planting bombs then it is the airport,s responsibility to make it as safe as possible for the thousands that travel.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame the body scanners on Obama. These machines were invented and being talked about back when no one outside of Illinois knew who he was. This is all 9/11 fear-fueled, and this fear has been been driven by the Republican party for years. ("You're either for us or you're against us.") People are complaining now who thought the invasion of privacy from the Patriot Act was okay. Every liberal friend I have who I've heard talk about the scanners is against them.

What's sad about these scans is that they just give us an illusion of security. I heard a TSA agent on the radio, who said that it would be very easy for a terrorist to get ahold of an airport employee badge and get to go through a much slacker security line. They know what's being done in the name of security, and can work around it.

I was chosen for a body scan when I flew in June. I emptied my pockets before I went through, but had forgotten I had a tiny memory card from a camera in the bottom of my pocket. I was pulled aside and asked what was in my pocket, pulled it out and showed the agent, and then was rubbed (not patted) down. This was done in the open as other passengers were standing there. That was the biggest issue I had with it - that they did this in front of any random person standing there. It was definitely very creepy, and this all is part of the reason I decided I'm going to drive instead of fly this Thanksgiving. Sadly, I think their airlines will suffer over this. I think one thing that needs to be done to make us more secure is improve the metal detectors. My stepmom has two metal hips, and half the time she flies the machine doesn't detect them.

Bernice: Yes.. I researched under the words "worlds safest airline".. and up on fatalities Quantas came up as the lowest on record... just 7 dating back to the 1950's.

I didn't look up on "blame the foreigners" .. I don't think (re the A380) Rolls Royce use cheap labour.

Artful Dodger: ROFL @ the fig leaf and clasped hands.....

Im going to do what AD has done....*click* (and what Vikings and others have advised)

(V): you didn't do your research properly is all....you used the words fatality and teething...not I......the lack of good australian maintenance people instead of cheap O/seas labour is the problem.....do your research......AGAIN

Artful Dodger: That's "Their shirts are brown".. and so do alot of your police officers!! It's a readily recognised colour shirt used in law enforcement.

Artful Dodger: "In criminal law and tort law, the threat or use of force on another that causes that person to have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact."

.... So would alot of arrests by police officers and preventions by body guards.

Bernice: You haven't read my post properly once again.....

"............Fatality wise....."

ie deaths not malfunctions or teething problems.

at the moment I wouldnt fly qantas for all the tea in china (there is no T in china) and in the past have always flown qantas both at home and abroad, and im not on my own saying this

(V): they were not teething problems, you are talking the A380....what about the 3-4 747's that had to have a turn-around because of engine problems in the ensuing days (different engines/different planes)....it is maintenance problems as all the work is done off-shore. You haven"t done your research correctly/properly once again.

Bernice: .. Fatality wise it is the safest airline. The recent problems were teething problems with the engine... a relatively new one.

(V): Quantas? well....Qantas has had so many problems that I don't think it holds that record any longer, or doesn't deserve to.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Artful Dodger: But it's your security services not a stranger. The comparison you've used is completely meaningless.

Vikings: That was for freight via cargo not passengers.

As for the safest airline... Quantas?

Mélusine: Have no answer to this. But if it means I must be search. I dont care. Better safe than sorry.

Mélusine: it might be shocking but in over 70 airports, that is what is going on, and as far as the technical methods, it didn't work 3 weeks ago, it took a tip to stop at least 2 bombs,
just a silly thought, why not emulate the safest airline in the world, and why are they the safest, because they profile, you know they actually concentrate on the people who are trying to do damage

Vikings: What you're saying is rather shocking ! I agree with (V) : I think security people employees aren't child molesters !!!
I think, today, there are enough technical methods to see if a bomb is hidden somewhere, like
this room used in french airports.

Vikings: Are you implying that the security people your government employees are child molesters? ... Or that we don't need security measures thanks to the mess that our world is in due to long term cold war doctrines from both sides.

... N' if it's done correctly (like a doc or nurse would) why would the child cry out unless it's head was filled with nonsense that it was a sexual intrusion.

A body x ray would stop the need for it anyway.. therefore for a child to need searching (if they feel the need to) it'd be the parents of the child making the search necessary if we end up in deeper crap.

so you accept that a 3 year old should have to cry "please make him stop touching me" as she has a stranger groping her crotch.

Vikings: But the likelyhood is that if I board a plane to the USA I'll be scanned just like everyone else boarding a plane does. But having nothing to hide .. who gives a damn... so as to being profiled. Don't mean a thing.

As to finding an American 3 year old example of carrying a bomb... not recorded so far, or not (from missing records) recorded. As to drugs, money, info.. all things that can support terrorism. Can you say no child has ever been used?

(V): Still waiting for an American 3 year old example, you are however making a good case for profiling

Vikings: ... No, just kids can be used to carry little things around like a chip, money, chemicals.. all sorts of things bomb makers and the relevant supporting organisation needs.

btw.. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26176341.htm

btw.. you don't consider drugs a problem?

(V): way to change the subject, they are searching for bombs, not drugs. name one

Vikings: Born? Or that smuggling is not unknown and children have been used as 'mules'??

(V): name the last 3 year old girl in america

rod03801: ..... is all those who are American born and known to blow up things or kill others via guns suddenly stopped?

(V): Overuse of "constitution"? That is disgusting!

Artful Dodger: many, many peoples. Or has the history of the world been rewritten again amongst the over use of 'constitution'.... freedom, and other sound bites of the moment

US health insurers reap record profits in 2009
By Kate Randall
19 February 2010
www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/prof-f19.shtml

The five largest US health insurance companies set new profit records in 2009, while the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression sent millions of Americans onto the unemployment line and into poverty.

The five firms reported $12.2 billion in profits last year, an increase of $4.4 billion, or 56 percent, over 2008. At the same time, 2.7 million Americans who had been enrolled in private health plans the year before lost their coverage....

.....While the insurers raked in massive profits in 2009, four of the five companies insured fewer people through private coverage. At the same time, all but one of the five insurers increased the number of people they covered through public insurance programs, including Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Plans (CHIP), and Medicare. This is part of a long-term plan by insurers to shift responsibility for covering millions of sick, older, or lower-income customers to taxpayer-funded government health programs. These programs have, in turn, been increasingly hiring the big insurers to manage their care.

While their profits have soared, the proportion of dollars earned through premiums that is spent on health care expenses went down at three of the five firms, with ever-larger relative sums being funneled to administrative expenses and CEO and shareholder profits. The medical loss ratio (MLR)—the share of premiums used to pay health care providers—decreased or remained flat at most insurers.

The top five insurers continue, as well, to manipulate their capital resources carefully to benefit their Wall Street investors and corporate executives. The majority of companies report waiting six to eight weeks after receiving claims to pay doctors, hospitals, and patients, utilizing the cash to build up company reserves and boost their balance sheets.....

At Least U.S. Health Care Works For Somebody – Health Insurance Company Profits Soar in Q1 2010.

Don’t talk to the insurance industry about the failures of the U.S. health care system, especially when insurance company profits are soaring in the first quarter of 2010.

WellPoint, the company that drew attention last year by proposing a 39 percent rate hike for some insurance customers in California, showed a first quarter 2010 profit of 51 percent, shattering Wall Street expectations.

Analysts say part of the reason for huge insurance company profits is “conservative” pricing, meaning a refusal to drop premium rates even though insurers have been blasted by the Obama administration for extraordinary rate hikes in times of high profits.

Another contributing factor to insurance company profits this year was a weak flu season last year. WellPoint estimates gaining $35 – $50 million in Q1 profit due to a flu season that failed to live up to the dire warnings of global health authorities.

WellPoint earned $876.8 million in Q1 2010, up from $580.4 million a year ago, while paying 3 percent fewer claims compared to the same period last year.

Analysts say that health insurance company profits would have been larger but for worry about the affect on profits resulting from the passage of the new health care reform bill.

http://internationalliving.com/2010/04/30-insurance-company-profits/

Bernice: I thought by standards set by others anything less than 2 years old was considered brand spanking new!!

My bad...