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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#601

Post by nerfhammer »

mindcrime wrote: post #448
51Cards wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned. That one comment just undermined 100% of any credibility I had placed in the remainder of your comments in this thread.

That one comment just undermined 100% of any credibility I had placed in the remainder of your comments in this thread. I'm sorry you feel that way. We probably have some fundamental differences in our worldviews and fundamental principles. Nonetheless, I respect your opinion, even if it makes me sad.

it seems like "terrorist" just means "bad"

the difference in worldview is whether words should mean things or just be a way to stay excited

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#602

Post by eropple »

jrockway wrote: post #578
jessaustin wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

news.ycombinator.com/leaders may prove enlightening. [EDIT: he really did make this argument, but it seems to have disappeared.] What happened? Did you have a stroke? Are you actually jrockway's brother-in-law, "borrowing" his handle?

I don't understand why everyone is so outraged that I don't think the US is a police state. "Airport security is horrible", so I say to take the train. Have you ever taken the train? The security is not that bad. But instead, I get downvoted to -4 and people accuse me of having a stroke. All I can say is that the hysteria is at an amazingly-high level. I am not sure why I even read TSA-related articles anymore.

In many, many cases, trains are simply infeasible. Family across the country? Budget a week just to get there to visit them, with all that awesome plentiful vacation time American companies are known for? Come on. Modern life makes flying necessary for a ton of people. They have to fly or they don't go. That is de facto control of your travel: risk assault and detention if you're brown. Control of your travel is a major aspect of every modern authoritarian state, and that's why people are alarmed.

I think the reason people are incredulous because your claims are blinkered. You're a sharp dude. I like most of your posts. But you are just not aggressively shortsighted enough to be excusing this with a straight face.

And your argumentum ad leaderboardum sucked transcendentally. You are totally, totally better than that.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#603

Post by gsnedders »

omegant wrote: post #477
rquantz wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds terrible. Police make me very nervous. I avoid them if possible, especially making eye contact. How would I show up in Israel's interview?

It´s just the security girl that checks your ticket before you go with your bags through the bag cleareance (that happens before you check in). If you don´t know what´s happening you don´t notice it. In fact Ben Gurion airport has one of the fastest and least unpleasent security screening I´ve seen, while being at the same time maybe the most secure. Security people is very pleasent, even when they stop you for quest…

The British at what airport? There is no singular organization who carries out the security, and different airports subcontract the work to different companies. In general, my experience in the UK has been comparable to the rest of Europe.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#604

Post by dhimes »

jacquesm wrote: post #244
swombat wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most European airports have had those as long as I can remember (definitely since the mid 90s).

Maybe bomb detectors but the explosive detectors ('puffers') are relatively new as far as I know.

It was a huge political budget fight in the 90s. Clinton/Gore published a white paper detailing the threat of terrorism as the biggest threat to national security. They called for the fancy new detectors and what-not at airports.

The Republicans, who controlled Congress, said that the big threat was from nukes from unfriendly states (later dubbed 'the axis of evil') didn't permit the funding and instead increased 'Star Wars' funding (anti-missile tech).

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#605

Post by PhasmaFelis »

laureny wrote: post #494
angersock wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

> She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. She's right, and like her, I have found it next to impossible to explain this to Americans who think the US is turning into a police state. People making this claim should spend a few hours reading on history and learn about the Gestapo or the Stasi. What's happening in the U…

It seems like I'm saying this a lot lately on HN: Better than the worst is not good enough.

Most especially, better than the fucking Nazis is not good enough.

Tyranny does not happen overnight, and it's helped along by people like you who scoff and say "oh, it's not that bad really" until it's too late. "First they came for the Communists..."

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#606

Post by logn »

Regarding this line: "The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated."

... I think that's adrenaline. Fight or flight instinct. Next time, ask your doctor about beta blockers, or ask your bartender about a double-shot of liquor.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#607

Post by corresation »

piyush_soni wrote: post #583
corresation wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machines are not binary. They trigger specific materials. Some are going to be much more common than others, and like every process where they have false positives they react differently based upon their incidence rate.

Like ... as common as over the counter bedbug spray?

That was conjecture on his part. If permethrin were the cause, it should be very well know as it's a very common insecticide and lice shampoo.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#608

Post by Lifebot »

tomp wrote: post #577

What's happening? Where is the Hacker News I knew? I have up-voted at least 4 grayed-out comments that were opposing the prevalent view (that TSA is pure tyranny, an US government by extension) but nothing our of the ordinary - people contributing their opinion to the conversation. Don't downvote if you disagree!

While I personally don't agree with some of those who were grayed-out, I agree with this sentiment.

Thing is, I sometimes want to know how many people disagree with a comment. I almost wish there were thumbs up/down icons to signify how many people agree with a comment, separate from the downvote/up system that indicates if a comment is off-topic or has no content.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#609

Post by mindslight »

zem wrote: post #522
corresation wrote: post #72

It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed). Everything else (about Ramadan, being Hindi, the color of one's skin, etc) may be nothing more than decorations, and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in…

why do people insist on using the phrase "repeatedly set off the explosive detector"? if there is a substance on his person or bags that made the detector register a false positive, it is naturally going to register that same false positive every time it is run over said substance. the repetition means nothing.

It's an emotional argument to soothe their conscience by asserting that there was a legitimate reason for this to happen.

If you want to see a major part of why the TSA is still molesting, you don't have to go searching for mythical sheeple in far away states - just look at a third of the comments in this thread.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#610

Post by temac »

javajosh wrote: post #219
ck2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were concentration camps.

"Concentration camp" has been used to describe Nazi death camps for a long time, and has come to be more-or-less synonymous. None of the Japanese camps systematically killed people, as far as I know. Manzanar was an atrocity, but it was not in the same league as Dachau. To call them both by same name is misleading. That said, 'internment camp' sounds far too weak. From what I've read, every piece of property they cou…

Concentration camp and extermination camp are widely distinguished. It is fair to call concentration camps "concentration camps."
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