French Ineptitude Spreads to Canada

I’ve started yelling, and the way I feel right now I just might not stop yelling until New Years, if ever. Somebody help me please.

I was searching the Web this morning, looking into “airport (in)security” and I found this Reuters article about the Canadians “misplacing” nearly one thousand airport security screener uniforms and badges in the first nine months of 2004.

“Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre ordered a probe by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and will receive a report on Monday. Lapierre said Jacques Duchesneau, president of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, will make public the results of the investigation.”

They say that like the US, Canada has invested billions of dollars upgrading their airport security since 9/11. I’d say that, based on this revelation, they need to spend a few billion more. Then there is little closing item:

“Some of the lost items were discovered on eBay, an online auction site.”

So let me get this straight in my mind. An aspiring terrorist can now go to E-Bay and buy a Canadian TSA uniform, a badge, and next week possibly some good vintage French plastic explosives?

I think that my head is going to explode…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

"Pardonnez-Moi," Have You Seen My Explosives?

We've got some good news, and some bad news from France this morning.

Bad news: The Scottsman reports that as of 6:00 AM the C4 explosives are still missing.

Good news: The French Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, told the Gendarmes (doesn’t Gendarmes mean “Keystone Cops” in French?) to cease and desist with the free plastics explosives give-away program.

"The procedures that were used on Friday night will no longer be allowed," said Pierre Bouquin, a spokesman for the Gendarmes, who conducted the training. "We’re going to stop practising this on the bags of travellers," he said.

What I want to know is why that loudmouth socialist French President Jacques Chirac wasn’t the one doing the explaining. He certainly doesn’t mind opening his smug yap when he wants to publically criticize the US and our leaders. But nooooo, instead he puts his boy Raffarin out to do his apologizing…figures.

I'm still waiting for Tom Ridge or John Ashcroft to get off their overpaid bureaucratic butts and light a fire under the French transportation officials. Am I the only one that feels this way? Saying "oops," "sorry bout that old chap," or being embarrassed isn't a solution, it a reaction.

We should demand a solution people!

Par Le Vous Frances?

Par le vous Frances? Well, if you can, would someone please send the French people a message for me? Please tell them that their police force working at Charles de Gaulle airport are making the entire population of France look fairly damn stupid to the rest of the civilized world.

”Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police said Saturday. Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90 flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes upon arrival in Los Angeles and New York.”

Can you believe this? The French airport police last Friday planted several ounces of plastic explosive in an unsuspecting passenger’s bag as an exercise to test the abilities of their bomb sniffing dog(s.)

The dogs caught the bag, but then the French version of the Keystone Cops let the bag get away from them.

Then they let the bag get put in the hold of an airliner.

Then they let the airliner leave Paris.

Then they reported that as of Saturday night, the explosives were still missing.

"Indeed, it's possible that someone will have a surprise when he opens his bag," they say.

I'd say that "a surprise” is a bit of an international grade understatement.

Ok, I have a few questions for the French law enforcement “professionals,” as well as a serious recommendation as to what the US authority’s response should be as a result of this situation.

First question… WHAT THE &%#@*% WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Next, why did you have to put the stuff in some civilian's bag in the first place? Why couldn’t you just put together your own “loaded” bag and add it to the luggage mix in the airport operations? Then, once you realized the bag was loose, why didn’t you stop everything at de Gaulle and find it. And finally, why did you let it fly?

“ "These dogs must be trained in the most realistic situation possible ... to be the most effective," (Police spokesman Pierre) Bouquin said.”

Sorry Pierre, but if you did feel it was necessary to put the C4 in some unsuspecting passenger’s bag, why didn’t you idiots at least write down the person’s name and travel destination?

We here in the United States close down entire airport terminals and cease all landings and takeoffs for hours at a time if someone so much as burps and it smells funny. Yet, you French Fools put plastic explosive on one of 90 airplanes and then let it leave to some unknown destination—potentially beyond your own borders?

If you can’t stop explosives from being loaded on an airplane when you KNOW that it is in the airport, how can we expect you to prevent Abdul or Mubarik, one of your lovely, peaceful, indigenous Muslim residents from boarding an airplane with hidden, unknown explosives?

The lame excuse for letting the bag fly is that there was no detonator included in the planted package. Well, suppose some real dangerous person finds the C4 and manages to make or buy a detonator for future use. I, personally, appreciate receiving frequent flyer miles and other perks from airlines, but handing out do-it-yourself bomb kits at the airport doesn’t do much to enhance my feeling of security.

This is a serious problem, folks. The traveling American public, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Homeland Security Administration should demand an immediate audit of the entire French Security operation and if we are not satisfied with the results, we should ban all flights originating in France until remedial measures are taken.

The French are going to aid and abet the death of us all before long if we insist on keeping up the politically correct illusion of their being our friends and ally.

Baah Humbug...


UPDATE: Sunday Afternoon 12/05/04

I just got back in from Christmas Tree shopping and the first thing I did was jump on the internet to see where this story was going.

First,the bad news: As of 4:30 PM EST this afternoon the explosive material is still missing.

Now the good news: It seems that the French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has instructed the Gendarmes (that's French for "Keystone Cops") to stop using live explosives placed in innocent citizens' baggage to conduct training exercises.

I have a suggestion...In the future, why don't they run Jacques Chirac through the airport with a load of C4 shoved up into his personal nether regions and let the dogs practice sniffing him out.

I'd call that killing two birds with one stone... so to speak...

Weird (Rocket) Science

Just when I though, egotistically, that I had seen everything, now I’m pretty sure that I have. A news article I read tonight states the following:

Government researchers have found elevated levels of toxic rocket fuel in milk bought at Virginia stores, according to FDA records released this week.

As a contentious US citizen and consumer of milk, the first thing I want to know is, what made the “government researchers” start looking for “rocket fuel” in cow’s milk--as if cow belches and their posterior gaseous emissions weren’t already enough of a published threat to the environment in the first place? You know what I mean? At first I thought that this Hampton Roads, Virginia news story was a parody, but apparently it is not.

Really, can you just see it?

A bunch of highly educated nerds sitting around the conference table at the FDA on Monday morning, each armed with pocket protectors, glasses taped together with scotch tape, financed by a chunk of government cash, and the boss says: “Hey Virgil, take a half million bucks and go out and look for rocket fuel residue coming out of cows utters.” Is this type of exercise even legal for a grown man to do in most states unless a female registered nurse or some other authority personally witnesses the inspection process?

After making light of this story, I have to come back to one of my re-occuring themes—this story is totally useless, unmitigated crappola, delivered under the guise of being NEWS. Here is where the guilty news organizations give themselves away as wasting our time and where the FDA is exposed as wasting our tax dollars

“The results noted perchlorate in virtually all the lettuce and milk. In high doses, perchlorate affects thyroid function. Researchers tested three samples of Virginia milk and noted perchlorate levels near or exceeding seven parts-per-billion. While there is no nationally-mandated limits, Massachusetts caps concentration at one part-per-billion; California, six.”

Here are the facts on this issue. First of all, even the EPA admits that perchlorate is a naturally occurring chemical. This means that its presence in meat or milk or lettuce is not necessarily NASA’s fault. The FDA Website also mentions that there are other sources of perchlorate besides rocket fuel, including Mother Nature. Further, perchlorate is not automatically called rocket fuel, this is just more media hype. Like I just said--it occurs naturaly in nature.

Back in the 1980’s I did several projects for Morton Thiokol, now called ATK Thiokol. You might not know of Morton Thiokol, but they are a sister company of the Morton company that makes the salt commonly found on your dinner table. There is no coincidence that they both had the same name. They both make products containing salt—just different kinds of salt.

You see, table salt is sodium chloride, a compound containing sodium and chlorine (NaCL). That’s one Sodium atom attached to one chlorine atom. The vilified “perchlorate” is actually potassium perchlorate. That’s two chlorines attached to one potassium atom. So what is the difference to me and you?

Both compounds are mined out of the ground and refined for their end use. Sodium Chloride is refined for human consumption. Potassium Perchlorate is refined to make solid rocket motors that blast satellites and the space shuttle into orbit. The ingestion of both substances interferes with the thyroid function. Ever hear of Iodized Salt? We have to add Iodine to normal table salt to keep it from screwing with our thyroid gland and causing everyone to be running around with a giant goiter growing on their neck.

Any more questions?

OK…End of discussion…

Wanted--One Big Damn Muffler

I’ve been ranting about this topic for years, and today I heard the Godfather—Rush Limbaugh—mention it on his radio show using the same basic argument. I said to myself—self, you were right all along, and now Rush is stealing your thunder.

What Rush was talking about today was this Associated Press story about Mt. St. Helens being the largest polluter in the state of Washington. I’ve been saying for fifteen years that it’s not people that are the major polluters of the earth’s atmosphere, it’s the earth itself--and I aught to know a little about pollution (besides the words coming out of my mouth.)

You see--I spent over twenty years in the air pollution control business. First as a staff engineer, then as the owner of a company that built industrial smokestacks. I’ve seen the business from the inside out and looked at the government regulation and legislation on an up close and personal basis.

News flash—Most, if not all of the air pollution provisions enacted in the past ten years are mostly a bunch of well-intended crappola. The Kyoto treaty—absolute, total, complete, scientific mumbo jumbo—designed to allow the Chinese and the rest of the third world to dump everything they want to into the environment while at the same time attempting to cripple our economy with a bunch of “curtailment measures” designed based on voodoo science at best. Bill Clinton wouldn’t sign it, and George Bush shouldn’t either.

Most news stories on pollution generally have two things in common. They all are introduced by some sort of scary headline predicting the end of the world, as we know it. The stories are then backed up by either a bunch of generalizations and opinions offered by the author or they are filled with mind numbing, out of context facts and figures that cause the average reader’s eyes to cross. The final result is usually doom and gloom, backed up by a liberal portion of blame placed squarely on the shoulders of capitalism and the American way.

Here is my take on air pollution. Yes, we do need to prevent the wholesale dumping of heavy metals like mercury into the atmosphere. Yes, we can limit what other man-made compounds we allow to escape from the industry we require to support our lifestyles. No, we don’t need to excessively freak out over carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide--the hated “green house gasses.” No, we don’t need to allow the rest of the developing world to place unfair and unnecessary restraints on our economy by limiting our industry and energy production efforts.

I was trying to learn how to fly an airplane in 1991 when the monster volcano in the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo, decided to destroy about half of the south Pacific. Can you say ten feet of ash and mudslides? During that summer, three out of four times, I would schedule a flying lesson at Cobb County’s McCullum Airfield, drive to the airport at the appointed time, only to have the flying lesson cancelled because we could not see Kennesaw Mountain (which was only two miles away) because of the yellow/brownish haze that covered the mid-latitudes of the entire earth for months during the eruptions. What a complete and total “un-natural” natural disaster, and it's not like we can pass a law or sign a treaty to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Anyone got a big damn Muffler?? Sooooooo, back to today.

Here is my bottom line on this issue:

We have come a long way from the 1940’s and 1950’s with factories belching soot and smoke everywhere and owners turning their back while PCB’s and Dioxin were dumped in the creeks in their back yards. We still have a long way to go. BUT…

Just remember, just when we think that we can sit back all smug and happy with our efforts, Mother Nature comes along and Farts or Belches a big old cloud of sulfur and methane (or shakes the hell out of Japan and California) and we all realize that all of our self edifying efforts are for naught.

So stop your whining and go out and plant a tree or something…

Rearranging The Furniture On The Deck Of The Titanic

Arrogance and over confidence, basic design flaws and miss-management. All of these were contributing factors in the loss of over 1500 persons on the passenger liner RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912. The owners and the passengers were described as having been lured into a “false sense of security.”

I’m afraid that a large portion of the world’s population is in the very same position when it comes to placing their faith in the United Nations to referee international relations. Whether it’s the failure of the UN Human Rights Commission evidenced by inaction to civil war and genocide in Africa, the unending issuance of non-binding, toothless resolutions to Saddam's Iraq by the corrupt UN Security Council, the inept handling of North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear aspirations by the IAEC, or the unfolding wide-spread corruption of the Oil for Food program in Iraq--all of the evidence points to the UN being a broken organization that at least needs a major dose of fixing. I say it needs replacement in its entirely.

Not to worry however, Masseur Kofi Annan, psychic statesman that he is, has anticipated the problems and is about to propose a solution. The ship is still going down though, the captain is still on board (he won’t leave before 2006 unless forced out) and I’m afraid that his efforts amount to rearranging the furniture on the sinking ship’s deck.

“The United nations unveiled a sweeping proposal to overhaul the organisation, including the Security Council, in what would be the most comprehensive UN reform since its founding in 1945.

After bitter divisions over the war in Iraq, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered a high-level panel last year to come up with the blueprint and help the United Nations adapt to the global realities of the 21st century.

The panel's report released Tuesday proposed more than 100 recommendations, including some -- an expansion of the Security Council and a definition of terrorism -- that have eluded UN diplomats for years.

"What is needed is a comprehensive system of collective security, one that tackles both old and new threats, and addresses the security concerns of all states -- rich and poor, weak and strong," Annan said in his preface to the report.”

Since the United States contributes approximately 22% of the budget of an organization composed of 191 nation/states, I say that it is time for us to put our mouth where our money is and demand our own major changes in the UN operations and membership and the immediate dismissal of Kofi.

The UN is today and always has been an anti-Israel and anti-American organization composed primarily of nations ruled by corrupt despots and dictators. The idiots, OK, OK—diplomats, at the UN have been fighting for over five years and have yet to even come up with a mutualially agreeable definition of what terrorism is. The so-called Human Rights Commission is a laughing stock as long as it includes member nations like Cuba and Syria.

Here are a few more tidbits from the report:

"There is little evident international acceptance of the idea of security being best preserved by a balance of power or by any single -- even benignly motivated -- superpower," the panel said."

By using the word “superpower,” our ears shouldn’t be burning here in the US? And I say that we not give a damn whether there is “international acceptance” of our massively superior military capability—it is what it is.

"The yearning for an international system governed by the rule of law has grown," it said. "No state, no matter how powerful, can by its own efforts alone make itself invulnerable to today's threats."

Gee whiz, the idea of “governing by rule of law” seems a bit familiar. We have a Constitution here in the US that is over 230 years old that is based on that premise. What we are not going to accept is the rule of “international laws” designed by dictators and corrupt socialists to separate our citizens from the protections of our constitution while we at the same time pay a quarter of the costs and provide free real estate in New York City.

"Annan intends to use the report as a basis for widespread reforms he would like to see carried out before his tenure ends in 2006, and he commissioned it while acknowledging that divisions over Iraq had brought the international system to a "fork in the road."”

Forget “fork in the road” Mr. Annon, I say “stick a fork in it, it’s done…”

Update: December 1, 2004

I've done two posts on the UN Oil For Food Scandal, beginning with my November 12th writing "It's My Party And I'll (Lie) If I Want To." I wish I could do more that rant and rave, but I can point out the story to everyone since the mainstream media is doing their best to avoid it.

Here is more information from someone that should know. Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has a great article today in the Wall Street Journal calling for the resignation of Kofi Annon.

A good read...