BS: Job Creation in America

Subject: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 20 May 04 - 01:16 AM

We just returned from a trip which involved going through major U.S. airports eight times. In the process, we encountered dozens of TIA security guards.

Part of the trip entailed a week in Washington, DC where we visited several museums of the Smithsonian, the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Holocaust Museum, the National Archives and several of the monuments. Here we encountered dozens more security guards including The Capitol Police, the DC Police and several contractor security companies. There were even security people just standing at strategic places along the street. We were X-rayed, magnetometered and searched more than a dozen times and showed our driver's licenses at least two dozen times.

It occurs to us that, in the past three and one half years, Osama Bin Laden has created more jobs in the U.S. than George W. Bush has!

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 May 04 - 01:54 AM

It's all part of making us feel safe. Not.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 04 - 02:07 AM

Gee guys, I was just there myself, also visiting the Smithsonian, and also feeling like a wet cat after all those damn security routines and the lousy service and cramped conditions on modern flights. Awful stuff. And I don't feel safe, just vaguely paranoid and irritated as hell. But at least Tom Ridge has stepped n as the American employer of last resort...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 20 May 04 - 07:55 AM

I will tell my people to go easier on you Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 May 04 - 08:38 AM

I didn't mind the checks before 9-11, but I do now. It's official paranoia, and the folks in DC haven't yet grasped what the traveling public has: you can't control forces outside the aircraft, you can't control a bomb inside the aircraft, but you CAN control your fellow passengers because it's better to be hurt than dead.

Witness what happened to the "shoe bomber." Or several drunks/disruptives on flights since the Pentagon and the WTC were attacked -- passengers assisted the crew in restraining the culprits.

In this case, I think the terrorists have won.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 04 - 11:07 AM

Bev and Jerry; Ebbie; Rapaire - if what you all say is true - get makin' them buttons

"Osama bin Laden for President"

According to Bev and Jerry, he has at least created jobs in the US - John Kerry's only talkin' about it.

Rapaire:
- If you didn't mind the checks before, why should you mind them now.

- If it's official paranoia now, it must have been official paranoia then.

Of course if they just dispensed with it all and something did happen. You could all clamour for a Senate Inquiry and complain about the fact that nothing was done.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 21 May 04 - 12:21 AM

Guest:

The point is that Osama created lots of jobs in the U.S. Kerry's only talking about it, that's true. But you forgot the part about Bush destroying millions of jobs while talking about creating them at every opportunity. Check out this site and scroll down to the part about "wishful thinking on jobs".

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 21 May 04 - 09:11 AM

I am confused by your posts.    Do you want to eliminate security checks on airlines?    Do you want less checks (like we had before 9/11) or more checks?

Before 9/11, my guess is that no one would have put up with the extra security on airplaines. Shouldn't we have learned something after 9/11.    I don't like the extra security at sports arenas, shopping malls, convention centers, and even my local flea market.   But I understand why they have to do it.

My guess is that the people who complain the most about the extra security would be the first ones to criticize Bush if there was another plane hijacking and say that he didn't do enough to improve security.

BTW- 850,000 new jobs created this year through April.   I hope this trend continues.   Do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 04 - 09:26 AM

If thats the case Mcdonalds must have opened a lot of new restaurants, you want fries with that?

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 04 - 10:35 AM

Larry K --

My point is simple: prior to the attacks of September 11, you didn't have to remove your shoes, your bags weren't wiped down (and golf clubs didn't trigger alarms because of the fertilizer used on the fairways), and there were REASONABLE precautions taken. Since then there has been a great shift in the attitude of the traveling public, one that is (I think) healthy: they will not be cowed by a thug with a weapon.

They realize that there are risks, and not only are they willing to take those risks, they are willing to reduce or eliminate those they can have some control over.

This is something that all of the air marshals, all of the current security measures, could never achieve.

I do not object at all to REASONABLE precautions. I do not want a .357 in the cabin with me unless it's in the holster of a police officer. (I don't mind if it's locked, unloaded, in the checked baggage.) I do object -- strongly! -- to waiting in line for half and hour at Seatac because there weren't enough security personnel on duty. (And don't tell me that TSA can't control staffing; I modify it all the time to meet demand and they certainly have -- or should have -- access to the numbers of people flying at any particular time of the day.) I object to the announced plans of the Bush administration to cut back the number of Air Marshals just before raising the "alert level," since it seems to show that they want it both ways.

I've flown through Heathrow, Gatwick, CDG, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin and Shannon -- Shannon since the events of September 11, the others during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. I felt safe. Under the current situation in the US, I feel oppressed by the official paranoia.

The examples, the teachers, were in place in European airports for years. The measures were as effective as such measures can be. Yet the US didn't learn from them.

No, I would not yell if such attacks as those of 2001 were repeated since I don't think that they will be. The purposes of those attacks were achieved, and while I expect further terrorist attacks I think that they'll be by other means. Terrorists, stupid though they are, won't repeat their methods because we are now awake to those that were used and not only officaldom, but the traveling public, won't permit such tactics. Future attacks will be by completely different means, and no, I won't even mention those I can think of.

Drop back to the pre-September 2001 security procedures at airports.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 04 - 01:57 PM

Hear! Hear!

The current modality is enough to make the average traveler feel like an abused beef cattle or a lamb in Spring going through the chutes. Maaa-aa. You place yourself firmly in the hands of people who have NO interest in your wellbeing and in fact might have some disitinct interest in finding you guilty of terrorism regardless of facts or process. And might have the power to do so, which is really scary.

Not to mention the thirty-three million pairs of nail scissors and nail files that have been torn from the hands of a beauty-conscious population...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 04 - 03:58 PM

Diligence is an admirable characteristic, especially if it's there to keep my kiester safe, but sometimes I thing they go overboard a bit. Let me pick on one item as an example: nail clippers, which they won't let you take on a plane. What are they afraid of; that you'll hijack the plane by threatening the pilot or crew with a lethal manicure?

I do know how to deliver a portentially lethal wound with a pencil or a pen, which I think they let you keep, but I'm not sure how you can use nail clippers as a weapon.

I haven't been through an airport since I broke my leg in Feb. of 2000, but as a result of that, I have a titanium rod in my left femur held in place by four screws. I would drive them bananas going through the metal detector!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 04 - 06:53 PM

Larry K,

If the next 850,000 jobs created resemble the last 850,000, I'll take a pass. Most are part time jobs being taken by desperate folks trying not to loose everything they have worked hard to have. Throw in the jobs created by Bush's war of choice in Iraq, this ain't progress...

Bottom line, the working class is gettin' a good ol' fashion butt whoppin' by Boss Hog, Junior and hois boys (and girls...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 04 - 10:14 PM

Back when I was unemployed -- about a year ago, in fact -- I was part of a support group for job seekers. 99% were white collar, and about 80% were worried sick about health care for their families (some had working wives with health insurance), keeping their homes, providing for their kids; the same sort of thing blue collar workers worry about. Of the 300+ who were members of the support group, about 65% had been unemployed for a year or more; about 45% no longer had ANY unemployment coming in.

There were people who had literally brokered multi-billion dollar mergers. People who had spent fifteen or twenty years with a company, some who had never held another job since college. People with doctorates, people who spoke several languages fluently. Computer types were very well represented. African-Americans, caucasians, hispanics, every race was represented.

Most defined themselves a Republicans. Most vote. Most felt that they had made a huge mistake in voting for GWB.

No matter how loyal an employee is to a company, there is little loyalty by the company to the employee. As my (currently unemployed) brother once said, "You no longer have a career. You only have a job."

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 04 - 10:27 PM

Welcome to yer next Third World country: the good ol' US of A...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 22 May 04 - 01:22 AM

Don:

It's interesting to note that we have carried nail clippers - the big ones at that - through airport security dozens of times with no problems. We have also carried two huge brass bells in our carry on luggage six times without question until the last time. That time the inspector opened one of our suitcases to examine the bell and the other one of us just said mine's the same and there was no visual examination. But we had to have our shoes X-rayed that time. Go figure.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the procedure and it's different every time even at the same airport. We guess this is a good thing as it keeps you guessing if you're up to no good.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: dianavan
Date: 22 May 04 - 03:35 AM

No rhyme nor reason is right! They took my nail clippers but my bottle of Tequilla got to ride with me in the passenger's cabin. It would be a lot easier to use a broken bottle as a weapon than my measly little scissors.

Its just another sham to make the public think the government is looking after you. It also fuels the fear of the public so that they can continue their senseless war.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 04 - 12:01 PM

Should you wish to do so, the following items are allowed in aircraft cabins and can be turned into weapons. This is a partial list, and I leave it to you to figure out how they could be used.

Pens
Pencils
Belts
Shoe laces
ANYTHING glass -- esp. bottles and compact mirrors
Paper clips
Plastic knife and/or fork and/or spoon
Clothing
Magazines and books
String
Diabetic syringes and glucose test kits
Wrist watch
Cassette tape or CD
Rings
Cell phones
Rubber bands
Asthma inhalers

and of course,

Your body, esp. your hands and feet, but also your head, knees, elbows, and hips.

So, as was stated way back in September, 2001, the best way to insure safety on an aircraft would be to strip the passengers naked and drug them unconscious, fly them that way to their destination, and revive and clothe them there.

Subject: RE: BS: Job Creation in America
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 26 May 04 - 02:26 PM

I guess the issue depends on what you define is "reasonable" for security measures.    It was "unreasonable" to check shoes before Richard Reed- (remember the shoe bomber who tried to blow up an airplane AFTER 9/11)    Clearly, it is not "unreasonable" now to check shoes.    I agree that it is rediculous to check the shoes of my 80 year old dad who it takes 15 minutes to put them back on.   I don't think it would be rediculous to check the shoes of a middle east person who has lived in Sudan and Afganastan.    That would be race profiling- far more effective but not allowed in our current politically correct world.    Of course, if we stopped checking older people, the terrorists would just have older peole serve as "mules" and carry the explosives or weapons on the plane and than give them to the terrorists.

It is important to note that 9/11 was not the first plane explosion.   They practiced this technique in Japan where the explosives worked are miraculously, only one Japan passenger was killed as the pilots were somehow able to land the plane.    We clearly didn't learn anything for Locabee Scotland, or the Japanes plane as we failed to improve our airport security.    As Richard Reed prooved, planes are still a form of terrorism.   The question is how they will try their next attck.   It won't be same.    Reducing the security is a very foolish response.   If you feel safer in other airports it is because America is the prime target.    Terrorists cannot win without defeating the United States.

Bobert:   Now there you go again.   If you are going to criticize Bush for losing 2 million jobs, you have to give him credit for gaining 850,000 jobs (and still counting)   As far as the quality of jobs- the trend has been away from large companies and toward smaller companies and entepreneurialism.    I would take that anytime.   Pleae note that we only count job loss from large companies.   When someone starts their own business, it is still considered a loss of jobs- even if the person is working.   Current employment rate at 5.6%.   I would take that anytime.   (same exact unemployment rate as when Clinton ran for reelection during a "booming" economy"