Five Before Chaos

Now, I know that the current right-wingnut meme-dú-jour is that Obama has “downplayed terrorism”. Let’s be clear here. When the wingers say that, what they really mean is “Obama has not used every waking minute of his life trying to scare the hell out of us and politicize terror”. Now, mind you, I’m in no way letting him off the hook for continuing the wars or certain Bush-era policies, but there’s no denying he’s at least trying to approach this like an adult when dealing with the public.

But as to “downplaying terrorism”, one also needs to consider something… how slim the chances really are of a terrorist attack. Nate Silver:

Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner than landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas…

Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Now, as Nate closes, “these are just the numbers”. Unfortunately, we have huge swaths of the American populace who are hard of thinking and view numbers and statistics as something elitist, so the pants-shitting paradigm will continue. I seem to remember a lot more terrorist attacks when I was a little kid (“Take me to Cuba!”) but I don’t seem to remember our country acting like a bunch of pants-pissers back then.

Josh Marshall brings up an interesting point in regards to those s0o-called “backscanner” body scanners that are becoming more prevalent:

We’re willing to ethnically profile, do all sorts extra-judicial surveillance, maintain massive databases of hundreds of thousands of people who have some vague relationship to extremism, torture captives, condemn people to hours unable to go the bathroom on planes, even launch various foreign military adventures, but when it comes to submitting to a quick scan that might show a vague outline of boobs or penises (almost certainly no more than is exposed in most bathing suits), that’s a bridge too far…Everyone seems to agree. It just tells me that at some level we’re not really serious about this.

I’m not sure how I feel about the scanners. I’m not that concerned if some complete stranger sees a vague outline of my wang for a few seconds, hell, it could make a good conversation starter – I’m much more concerned about having to wait an extra 20 minutes to get on my flight because my name occasionally comes up on some list, or more importantly, the constant warmongering and stupid behavior on the part of our government and our citizens. Life was so much easier when we just had to deal with some idiot with a gun yelling “Take me to Cuba!”

Like many of you, I’ve been less than thrilled with Obama, especially recently, in particular, his reluctance or outright refusal to fight for anything. That said, I have always liked the fact that he’s a smart guy (no, not just because he can speak in multisyllabic sentences, unlike the last guy).

And so, after that Christmas Day foiled terrorist attempt, as expected, the browntrouser brigade is out in full force, selling fear! fear! fear!, with Darth Cheney recently opening up the Gates of Hell to come out and say the usual warmongering, lie-inflicted bullshit.

Now although, more often than not, even though he doesn’t do the things that need to be done, Obama does at least, on occasion say things that need to be said. So naturally, I was pleased with his statement today in response to Cheney’s latest bout of verbal diarrhea:

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President…

The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.

Only way it could’ve been better was if he threw in a “And let me remind you that the worst attack on American soil occurred on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney’s administration.” Because Republicans, in all their little-dicked tough talk, need to be reminded of that on a regular basis. And, mind you, I’m not defending any of this war nonsense, moreso making a point of the ridiculous expectation of cowboy/Rambo talk that the wingers have.

I knew the wingers would be pouncing on the fact that Obama didn’t fly back from his vacation right away, and issue some macho-ass statement about kicking ass and maybe bombing Yemen, as though the terrorists would quake and shake and change course due to a sternly worded press conference. But they’re not working with too much brain matter to begin with, so it’s why they feel that way.

They’re all still on that perpetual pants-poop since 9-11, and all they’ve got left is to tap into those who are also still diaper-dumping (see also, “teabaggers”). Problem is, I don’t think there’s as many of ‘em as there used to be.

President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.

… most certainly stands for Pantspoopers. It’s so freakin’ hilarious and pathetic, how the Party Of Macho has their collective panties in a wad about the radical notion of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed standing trial in New York.. you know, the place where the actual crimes of 9-11 took place. What a concept! Oh, the faux outrage (which is really about the fact that they’d love to keep the Gitmo Torture Mill open for business)”:

“The Obama administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people,” Boehner said in a news release.

Ooh! Scary! This Republicdouche is a bit more honest at least… it’s about the torture:

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said trying the alleged terrorists in New York could afford them constitutional rights which would prevent the use of information obtained through enhanced interrogation.

So, in the Party of Tough Guys, apparently they somehow think the Sheikh is gonna go all ConAir/Castor Poe and escape? As if this guy isn’t going to have a mini Alcatraz wherever he goes? WhinyAssTittyBabies, I tells ya. All of ‘em. Even Tough Guy “I can break 2×4’s with my neck” Democratic Senator Jim Webb:

“They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons,” Webb said in a news release.

Well, considering they committed a crime in our country, that don’t pass the smell test, Senator.

Did I ever mention we’re a stupid, stupid country? Some people who shit their pants on 9-11 still haven’t stopped shitting. See a doctor, already.

Andrew Cohen has a coherent piece cutting through a lot of the bullshit, here.

PZ at Pharyngula is reporting that the FBI has some rather nefarious plans to weed out potential terrorists at the upcoming Republican National Beer Hall Putsch Convention in St. Louis St. Paul. It starts at the vegan potlucks:

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant–someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

I lived in the vegetarian wilderness for 8 long years… the closest I came to any kind of terror was the feeling I wanted to run screaming from a restaurant as I salivated over the guy’s bacon at the table next to me as I ate some lame-ass tempeh strips.

On another note… remember back before 9-11 when the DoJ couldn’t be bothered with worrying about terrorism because they were more concerned with prostitution and bong salesmen. With the amount of family values politicians patronizing gay prostitutes at the convention, they could have a massive sweep and round up a lot of people. But that would put a huge chunk of the GOP hacks in jail, so we won’t see that happen.

Brattlerouser at GMD has the scoop on H.R. 1955: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. Yeah, I know, it sounds scary. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun:

(The bill) tramples constitutional rights by creating a commission with sweeping investigative power and a mandate to propose laws prohibiting whatever the commission labels “homegrown terrorism.”

The proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission – little Joe McCarthys – who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism.

Ms. Harman’s proposal includes an absurd attack on the Internet, criticizing it for providing Americans with “access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda,” and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnamed “Center of Excellence,” which would function after the commission is disbanded in 18 months, gives the semblance of intellectual research to what is otherwise the suppression of dissent.

While its purpose is to prevent terrorism, the bill doesn’t criminalize any specific conduct or contain penalties. But the commission’s findings will be cited by those who see a terrorist under every bed and who will demand enactment of criminal penalties that further restrict free speech and other civil liberties. Action contrary to the commission’s findings will be interpreted as a sign of treason at worst or a lack of patriotism at the least.

While Ms. Harman denies that her proposal creates “thought police,” it defines “homegrown terrorism” as “planned” or “threatened” use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of “political or social objectives.” That means that no force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it.

F-ing great. Anyways, to add insult to injury, Congressman Peter Welch voted for this bill. Go here to give him some grief. When the hell someone’s finally going to get up the nerve to mount a primary challenge, well, it seems like that time is drawing near, don’t you?

It remains to be seen how this will fare in the Senate and how Leahy and Sanders will vote. As soon as I get more info on the Senate bill, I’ll let you know.