July 16, 2004 by s.z.

Pretty Tame Family Circus Today's Cartoon  (See it here): Today's cartoon is set on what looks like a Star Trek set.  Our characters, Mommy and Jeffy, are walking on chartreuse indoor-outdoor carpet with fake flowers glued to it; there is a painted backdrop of trees and bushes behind them.  Mommy, dressed in a tank top and skimpy shorts, is apparently using her tricorder to search for life forms.  Jeffy is being eaten by the grass (while we can see Mommy's shoes, the green stuff comes up to Jeffy's knees), but he doesn't seem concerned about it.  He is more bothered about the flowers.  He says to Mommy,"These wild flowers look pretty tame to me." Analysis: You remember the "Star Trek" episode about the beautiful planet with the flowers, don't you?  It's the one where the flowers would release spores that made people content, happy, and horny; Spock breathed some of them, and had a blissful love affair with Jill Ireland.  But since the only people in this cartoon are Mommy and Jeffy, and I don't like where reenacting that ep would take us, I think we need to find another explanation . . . So, "These wild flowers look pretty tame to me."  As they should, because they're plastic.  Jeffy is beginning to notice that everything around him is unreal.  Soon he will realize that he is just a character in a never-ending heartwarming comic strip -- kind of like that Pirandello play.  He will try to escape his fate by killing the author: Jeff Keane, who is the grown-up, real-life Jeffy.  Then it will be like that "Twilight Zone" episode where the guy discovered that his whole life was a fake, and that he was just a robot who was given the memories of his creator.  I don't remember it ending happily. Prediction: The Sci-Fi channel will be bought by Brent Bozell's "Media Research Council" and turned into the WBC (the Wholesome Banality Channel).  Its programming will include such shows as "Davey and Goliath and Super George Bush," "No Boobs, Please -- We're Moral," and the "Family Circus Hour of Heartwarming Pointlessness, Starring Jeffy"  Watch for it in 2007. Thankfully, Pete has an alternate explanation: Is it just me or is Mommy/S.Z. looking especially hot in tomorrow's cartoon? Analysis: Mommy/S.Z. takes little Turkee for a walk in nature. Notice how Turkee's head is about twice as large as it should be for the lumpy little body? Keane just wants to make sure we know who he's talking about here. As is customary, Turkee represents the power-hungry Bushman. He is contentedly remarking that even our National Parks have been tamed. Mommy/S.Z. tries to photograph what remains before little Turkee manages to "tame" it with strip malls, oil wells, and munitions plants. Prediction: If the Boy Emperor manages to be elected President, our nation will become one giant coast-to-coast Walmart Supercenter. Please send little Turkee back to his room where he belongs so some of the rest of us can enjoy Mommy, er, nature for a change! Pete M.   Now, let's hear your take on this one. 8:07:30 AM

More Canadian Treachery From Bill O'Reilly's latest column: A recent poll taken in Canada says that 40% of Canadian teenagers believe the United States is an "evil" country. Among French-Canadian teens, the number rises to 64%. This, of course, is hard to believe, and must be laid right on the doorstep of the often viciously anti-American Canadian press as well as irresponsible educators supposedly teaching Canadian kids about the world. Or, we can lay it to blame where it belongs: on vicious French-Canadians mocking our imminent doom while hiding out in Germany.  Or, to be fairer, we should lay most of it on this guy.  (If Fox News was available in Canada, I'd blame at least 10% of that anti-American sentiment on Bill, of course.  Exposure to him makes me hate all humanity, and I'm pretty easy going; I can only imagine how highstrung French-Canadians teens might react to him.) Update:  Stan has alerted us to the fact that Al-Jazeera has received CRTC approval to begin broadcasting in Canada.  Fox News, of course, is still not allowed.  Like Stan said, O'Reilly might well explode when he hears this.  (So you can thank Qatari TV for at least one thing.) 7:06:08 AM

Terror in the Skies!!! The War-blogger clique is in a tizzy about a Women's Wallstreet.com article called Terror in the Skies, Again?  No, it's not a story about somebody remaking Airplane!, it's about how a woman and her husband were terrorized on a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles by a group of Middle Eastern men who went to the bathroom a lot.  Fraught glances are also exchanged, and somebody carries a McDonald's sack on board.  It's pretty intense stuff. This  first-hand account of skyborne terror is by Annie Jacobsen, whom the editors describe in the intro as "one of our writers."  Per the photo that accompanies the one WWSJ story that carries her byline, Annie is an attractive 20-something blonde -- I can't find a bio for her anywhere. Here's part of what Lileks had to say about her piece: Good Lord. Do not read this if you’re flying any time soon.  ... I tell you, something like this happens on a big scale – lots of planes dropping out of the sky, half the country is going to ask for detention camps. All because we didn't dare delay or inconvenience self-professed bands of Syrian "musicians" because it might suggest we were (gasp) dispositionally suspicious of a dozen Syrians clutching violin cases. Is profiling a good idea? Read the piece, put yourself on that plane before you answer the question.  And here's Hugh Hewitt: If this account is true, the plane should have been obliged to land upon the first indication of concern among the flight attendants and passengers.  Calling the Homeland Security Department:  Is this a true account, and if so, are you happy with the actions of the pilot/marshalls etc?     So, just what happened on this fateful flight?  Well, here's one particularly dramatic moment from Annie's account: As I stood up and turned around, I glanced in his direction and we made eye contact.  I threw out my friendliest remember-me-we-had-a-nice-exchange-just-a-short-time-ago smile. The man did not  smile back. His face did not move. In fact, the cold, defiant look he gave me sent shivers down my spine.  Yup.  A Middle Eastern man glared at her.  The horror! But wait, there's more!  Annie's husband tells the flight attendant about all the suspicious activity (the Arabs getting out of their seats and going to the restroom), and she says that the whole flight crew was concerned about it, and they had been passing notes to each other (it apparently being one of those flights with no talking allowed).  "She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men."  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  And she confided all this to Annie's husband because he seemed so trustworthy and non-Arabic. Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could be in trouble for giving out that information. Yes.  Yes, she could.  I believe she could be fired for her lack of discretion.   And during a situation in which the flight attendants are so worried about keeping things quiet that they are passing notes between themselves, she tells the passengers that there are flight marshals "sitting all around."  Maybe Annie's husband is just the kind of guy that people feel compelled to confide in, but this scenario seems awfully bizarre to me. But back to the terror: After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified. You know, fear of alarming the passengers is one reason why you'd think a flight crew would keep these kinds of things to themselves, but not on this flight!  On this flight, the stewardess comes back and asks Annie's husband "to write a description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done."  Um, okay -- I can see where flight attendents would need passengers to make written descriptions of possible terrorists during flights.  Okay, I can't.  This seems REALLy bizarre. Anyway, the plane lands safely, the men are debriefed, and it seems that all of the terror was for naught.  End of story.  But no!  For when Annie got home, she did some research (apparently a Google search), and found a Feb. 2004 Observer story which claimed that Islamic militants had been practicing assembling bombs from carried on components, and that the Transportation Security Administration had issued a warning about the new threat. Here's a link to the story: And here are a couple of points which Annie doesn't include in her report: Though some investigators fear they may be the victim of deliberate 'disinformation', officials say that they cannot risk ignoring the warnings. Analysts say that although the threat of a 'spectacular' attack on the West still exists, most strikes by Islamic militants will be on soft targets in areas where security is lax. Annie continues: So here's my question: Since the FBI issued a warning to the airline industry to be wary of groups of five men on a plane who might be trying to build bombs in the bathroom, shouldn't a group of  14 Middle Eastern men be screened before boarding a flight?  Apparently not. Due to our rules against discrimination, it can't be done. During the 9/11 hearings last April, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman stated that ...it was the policy (before 9/11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory.  So even if Northwest Airlines searched two of the men on board my Northwest flight, they couldn't search the other 12 because they would have already filled a government-imposed quota.   Okay, I'm not one to nit-pick a great terrifying story (okay, I am), but Lehhman didn't state is was the policy to avoid putting more than two Arab males in secondary questioning, he asked Condi Rice if she was aware that it was policy to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning at one time.  Not only is this different from what Annie noted, it's also a question, not a statement.  This is like when Perry Mason asks, "What would you say if I told you that a witness saw you sneak away from the Senate hearing and shoot your lover?"  And the murderer (the last person you would have suspected) breaks down and confesses, and later Hamilton Burger chides Perry for keeping witnesses from him, and Perry says, "I said, WHAT IF I told you there was a witness," and they all have a good chuckle. Anyway, while Lehman later said that former airline officials told him that there used to be such a policy, I haven't seen anybody (not even Lehman) state that this is still FAA policy (and I can't find anybody but Lehman who said there ever was such a policy -- not that I'm saying that he's a liar, but there doesn't seem to be anything definitive about this "policy" out there). But back to Annie -- where did her research take her next? I continued my research by reading an article entitled Arab Hijackers Now Eligible For Pre-Boarding from Ann Coulter (www.anncoulter.com). Enough said. Annie now makes it her mission to call up officials and ask about her flight; they are suspiciously ready to answer her questions. I placed a call to the TSA and talked to Joe Dove, a Customer Service Supervisor. I told him how we'd eaten with metal utensils moments in an airport diner before boarding the flight and how no one checked our luggage or the instrument cases being carried by the Middle Eastern men. Because you never know when a terrorist will use a soup spoon to hijack a plane. Dove's response was, Restaurants in secured areas -- that's an ongoing problem. We get that complaint often. TSA gets that complaint all the time and they haven't worked that out with the FAA. They're aware of it. You've got a good question. There may not be a reasonable answer at this time, I'm not going to BS you.  Joe, what Annie wanted to hear is that the TSA is considering initiating a policy mandating that Middle Eastern men using airport restaurants don't get silverware. Through a series of events, The Washington Post heard about my story. I talked briefly about my experience with a representative from the newspaper. [Note: I can't see where they ever found it credible enough to print.]  Within a few hours I received a call from Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM) Head of Public Affairs. Adams told me what he knew:  There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert. Adams said they were scrubbed. None had arrest records (in America, I presume), none showed up on the FBI's no fly list or the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List. The men checked out and they were let go. According to Adams, the 14 men traveled on Northwest Airlines flight #327 using one-way tickets. Two days later they were scheduled to fly back on jetBlue from Long Beach, California to New York -- also using one-way tickets. Maybe it's just me, but I find it rather odd that an official of the Federal Air Marshal Services would release passenger flight and background information to a member of the general public just because she was curious.  I would consider this a serious breach of both security procedures and passenger privacy.  IMHO, Dave Adams should be moved out of FAM Public Affairs -- that is, if Annie's story is true. I asked Adams why, based on the FBI's credible information that terrorists may try to assemble bombs on planes, the air marshals or the flight attendants didn't do anything about the bizarre behavior and frequent trips to the lavatory.  Our FAM agents have to have an event to arrest somebody. Our agents aren't going to deploy until there is an actual event, Adams explained. He said he could not speak for the policies of Northwest Airlines. So the question is... Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?   So, to summarize: a woman and her hubby are scared because they see a group of Arabic men exchanging glances, and making frequent trips to the rest room.  There are air marshals on board.  The plane lands safely.  The men are questioned, everything checks out, and the men are released -- they were merely musicians.  BUT there was a report in the press saying that terrorists can assemble bombs in restrooms during a flight, and NOBODY DID ANYTHING ABOUT KEEPING THOSE ARABS FROM USING THE TOILET!  She talks to federal officials, who tell her confidential stuff about their policies and procedures for handling terrorists, and give her information about the Arabs' upcoming flight plans.  Thus, we should all be really, really scared, and violate the civil liberties of swarthy men, or just go ahead and start the internment camps.  Just in case. P.S.  Here's are the results (to date) of The Women's WallStreet poll: Do you believe the U.S. should use racial profiling to screen airline passengers?    Yes:  84 % No:  9 % I’m undecided:  7 %  PPS:  I see where Redstate says that it Seems Like a Hoax to Him.  (Link via InstaPundit, who included Lilek's remarks AFTER noting that some don't find Annie's story credible.) Update: Thanks to Delgar, we learn that Michelle Malkin says that some of the story is true: Regarding Annie Jacobsen's intriguing article, I just got word from Dave Adams of the Federal Air Marshals Service (FAM). Adams confirmed that he spoke to Annie Jacobsen, was quoted accurately in her story, and confirmed some of the basic facts outlined in her article (there were 14 Syrians on the flight; they were questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department, FBI, FAM, and so on; they were a musical band). Well, personally, I didn't doubt that the men existed, just Annie's slant on it all (and the part about the flight attendent telling Annie and hubby about how freaked the pilots and everybody was, tipping them off about the air marshals, and asking them to prepare a written description of a suspected terrorist and pass it to her later) .  But I am kind of amazed that Dave Adams (if it was the REAL Dave Adams of FAM who spoke to Michelle) told her that he was quoted accurately -- because, like I said before, if he really did give Annie flight information about other passengers, I don't think he belongs in FAM Public Affairs. 6:45:08 AM