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May 2010

04 2nd ed 

 
Headlines this Issue

<> 1948 cartoon on capitalism
<> Orwellian Big Brother Tax Collection Commercial Airs in Pennsylvania
<> The Left Has Lost Their Mind Over Guns
<> Iran wants US nukes dismantled
<> Bloomberg Smears Anti-Obamacare Activists As Terrorists
<> Global Warming Freeze?
<> Where Are All the Terrorist Attacks?
 
 

1948 cartoon on capitalism

 
[..] contributing correspondent - Hammer

1948 cartoon - a lesson for now more than ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY&feature=player_embedded


 

Orwellian Big Brother Tax Collection Commercial Airs in Pennsylvania

http://www.infowars.com/orwellian-big-brother-tax-collection-commercial-airs-in-pennsylvania/

Keith Farrell - Infowars.com
 
We’re not living in an Orwellian Police state; it’s all just a conspiracy theory. However, that’s not what Pennsylvania’s government is telling their citizens. In what can only be described as a mafia-style intimidation tactic, the Pennsylvanian government is telling citizens there that they “know who you are”. The video shows a satellite image zooming in on and individual’s home while a computerized voice informs him that they know who he is and that he owes $4,212 in back taxes. The voice then proceeds to tell him that they can make it easy for him if he pays quickly. The ad then closes with a threatening message: “FIND US BEFORE WE FIND YOU”.

What is more disturbing than the ad itself is that governments are now finding it suitable to announce to us that we are living in an Orwellian police state and that we are all being monitored. “Pay up, or we will find you. We know where you live. We are watching you.” This commercial is a chilling confirmation that we are living in an Orwellian nightmare.


 

The Left Has Lost Their Mind Over Guns

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2263-The-Left-Has-Lost-Their-Mind-Over-Guns.html
 

Given that it's a rather slow news day with the Euro slowly slipping into the abyss as the ECB will now accept used dog food as collateral, I find time to take on Nancy Dewolf Smith who opined in the WSJ this last Friday:
Like a fly on a birthday cake, the subject of open carry—legally wearing a gun in public—keeps landing in the news and nobody can swat it down. Those who would like to be rid of it range from some of the most ardent gun-controllers to some of the fiercest believers in the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Many of the latter live in the 43 states where it already is legal to openly wear a handgun (although rules vary about whether it can be loaded, etc.). That the majority of people who could walk around outfitted for the OK Corral choose not to do so ought to be a hint that the minority who are most eager to force open carry on the rest of us might belong in a special category of bozos.
The "most ardent" supporters of the 2nd Amendment are in support of getting rid of open carry?  Says who Nancy - and if so, why is it legal in 43 states in one form or another?
Consider the case of James Goldberg, who walked up to the counter of a Glastonbury, Conn. Chili's restaurant in 2007 costumed in camouflage and wearing a pistol. Police were called and Mr. Goldberg was arrested, only to be cleared after it was determined that since he had a permit for the weapon he was not breaking a law.
Yes, let's consider Mr. Goldberg.  He broke no law and thus was falsely arrested.  In a nation of laws one would call the imprisonment of a person without valid cause kidnapping, no matter how brief said imprisonment might be, and the so-called "law enforcement officers" would be facing a sentence of 20-to-life, not to mention being permanently ineligible to own firearms.  This, of course, would make them ineligible to be a police officer.
That is, to question Mr. Goldberg as to the lawful nature of his exercise of a 2nd Amendment right seems perfectly appropriate. But arresting him without probable cause to believe he had committed a criminal offense is legally equivalent to kidnapping.
Nancy seems to have no problem with this, so long as the person doing the kidnapping is a peace officer.
I disagree.
Equally unimpressive were the armed types who gathered in a Virginia Park this month to demonstrate support for open carry and their opposition to government in general and the Obama administration in particular. Like the characters who now make a practice of wearing handguns into Starbucks and other places of business, such demonstrators may yet turn out to be a godsend for the antigun crowd.
Really?
I wrote on this protest, incidentally, having spoken by email with one of the organizers.   There was nothing "anti-Obama" about its intent.
Said demonstration was simply a proper and lawful exercise of Constitutional Rights.
Nancy would seem to be acquainted with the general principle of these rights, given that she has the right to spout off absolute nonsense about firearms in general and the lawful keeping and bearing of them in particular.

But like so many on the left, Nancy only believes in Constitutional Rights when she is the one exercising them.  When someone else whom she disagrees with wants to exercise them, that very same Constitution and those very same words on the page suddenly disappear and the paper upon which they were written is to be used in the commode.

Speaking of serious shooters, I don't know a soul among gun owners who is itching to prance around showing everybody what is in their holster. Most of the time, citizens who carry weapons in public places are doing it for protection, and that means concealment. They don't want their handgun easily grabbed by some idiot in a checkout line, and they don't want a potential aggressor to know what they have on them or where it is. If flashing an armory were anything but a stunt, our air marshals would be strapped like Pancho Villa.
Really Nancy?
Have you seen a cop walking around your leftie havens in NYC lately?
Was his or her firearm concealed, or was it carried openly?
Let me guess - their openly-carried firearm is neither a stunt or intended to intimidate, but rather is intended only for lawful use.

Hmmmm.... why do I smell a double-standard here?

Let me make a few things clear to you and ask a question or two besides Nancy, since you seem to have a problem with reality - and The Constitution:

    One does not ask permission to exercise a right, nor does one need to buy a license to do so.  Would you accept a full background investigation, fingerprinting, and payment of a license fee before you can publish anything in The Press - or merely speak where anyone other than you can hear your words?  Why not Nancy?  You seem to think that standard is just fine when it comes to the keeping and most particularly the bearing of arms!  Yet both rights are numbers 1 and 2 in the Bill of Rights.
     Have you ever been to a range?  I ask in all sobriety, because I have never seen any place in society where people are nicer - that is, more polite.  Of course at a gun range everyone is armed, since the entire point of being there is to practice and maintain one's skill in the use of firearms.  There are many who have said "an armed society is a polite society" and one need only step foot on a gun range for a few minutes to notice the marked difference in attitudes compared to, for instance, your local grocery store.
     Firearms are not scary.  They are tools and have both lawful and unlawful uses.  Likewise the 5-gallon can of gasoline in your garage can be used lawfully to mow your lawn, and unlawfully to light your neighbor's house on fire.  Yet I do not need a license to purchase 5 gallons of gasoline to go in that can - I only need the $15 or so necessary to pay for my purchase.  The keeping and bearing of gasoline is not a Constitutional Right.  The keeping and bearing of firearms is.
     The police cannot be everywhere, and in the 2, 3, 5 or 20 minutes it takes for a police officer to arrive should you be assaulted your assailant can easily rape, rob or murder you - or all three, for that matter.  A firearm is, as Samuel Colt said, the "great equalizer."  In an unarmed assault a 220lb 6'2 man is going to do whatever he wants to a 90lb 4'10 woman.  A pistol makes the woman the precise equal of that man in terms of her ability to defend against that assault.  Seeing as you're a woman I would expect you would be very interested in yourself (and your daughter(s), if you have any) being able to defend against that possible assault, should the need arise.
     Guns don't work the way you see them on the Idiot Box (that's "TV" for the lefties.)  Specifically, when one is shot they do not go flying backward through plate-glass windows and firearms do not fire bullets that have homing devices causing them to automatically strike and kill any human within 300'.  In fact an awfully large percentage of the time goons who are unskilled at arms (the majority of goons never go to the range, being criminals and all) miss with every shot they fire.  A prime example can be seen in a Youtube video in a Toledo Bar where a couple of goons emptied their weapons and yet shot nobody.  You would think from the (intentionally) inaccurate view put forward in the media that everyone in that bar would be dead.  You'd be wrong.
     Openly-carried firearms convey a high degree of deterrence against crime that anyone in the vicinity might otherwise think about committing. How many times does a mugger, purse snatcher, or rapist commit an offense within eyesight of a police offer with a publicly-displayed firearm on his hip?  Essentially never!  Have you ever wondered why?
It would be nice if there were no firearms in the hands of criminals.  If that was the case then nobody would need to carry a weapon in public, and the "bearing" of arms could be relegated to the first purpose that The Founders envisioned for the 2nd Amendment - a day that all sane Americans, myself included, pray nightly never comes. What day is that, Nancy and other lefties might ask?  The day a latter-day Hitler decides to try to gas all the lefties might fit into the criteria of founder's intent, as one of the more-obvious examples (Yes, Nancy, some Americans, myself included, would attempt to prevent even you from suffering such a fate if it became necessary, God forbid.)

But we don't live in such a world.  Specifically, we live in a world where history has shown over more than twenty years of ever-tighter gun laws in certain jurisdictions, including Chicago, NY City and Washington DC, that the bad guys don't give a damn about the law.  After all, that's what criminals do - they ignore the law.  They thus will procure firearms through whatever means they find necessary, including by importing them across a southern border those very same lefties refuse to secure and make damn sure remains closed!

It is my considered opinion that everyone should be able to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights without interference, licensure or prior restraint.  That is, if I wish to carry a pistol for lawful self-defensive purposes in public there should be no restraint on my doing so.  I should neither have to declare to the government that I intend to do so, or that I am doing so, as that redefines said right as a privilege, and our Constitution says this is not a privilege - it is a Constitutional Right.

I fully support and believe in laws such as Florida's 10/20/Life, as they bear on conduct.  That is, if you use a firearm in the commission of a crime, you get 10 years.  Discharge one, 20 years.  Shoot someone, 25 to life.  No ifs, ands or buts, and you serve every single day of that sentence, as you should.

Now cut the crap and for those law-abiding citizens who wish to carry firearms, either concealed or in the open, leave them alone.  Laws requiring one to register with the government to singly and peaceably exercise a constitutionally-protected right are in and of themselves unconstitutional.

If and when someone commits a criminal offense with a firearm, lock 'em up immediately and for a long enough period of time that they won't be doing that again.

But until an offense is committed, let those who are not as physically able lawfully defend themselves against the predators that, to a large degree, lefty liberal policies have both created in the first place and provided the means to acquire their own weapons, which they then use to commit violent felonies upon the public at large!
 
In the left's utopia nobody should have a reason to own firearms because there would be no bad guys who have and use them against the law-abiding citizens of the world.  In their fantasy-laced minds Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot and dozens of other dictators and criminal thugs did not wind up in positions of political power where they murdered their (first rendered defenseless through disarmament) citizens.  These visions of utopia make for great children's stories and hopes for the future, but they do not reflect the reality of our world and never have - not now and not ever through human history, and as such one must be careful to accept the prescriptions of people who have for decades put forward their beliefs and expectations that have been proved to be akin to drug-induced illusions.

This much I'm sure of - should Nancy be beset upon by a rapist or mugger in an alley one fine spring evening, she won't be refusing the help of an armed passerby who can stop the rape or beating that she is about to suffer.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure Nancy would not object to a little First Amendment exercise outside her home in the form of a sign posted by her neighbors similar to this.
 

Iran wants US nukes dismantled

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=125314&sectionid=351020104
 

 

At the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the 
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad said the US threat of using nuclear weapons 
against Iran is unacceptable.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States should dismantle its nuclear bases around the world as a step to create a nuke-free world.

"Nuclear weapons stationed in military bases in the US and those in its allied countries such as Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands must be dismantled," President Ahmadinejad said in an address before the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.

"Those who used nuclear weapons for the first time in history are the most detested and disgraceful people in the world," he said, adding that nuclear arms are "the most disgusting and shameful kind of weapons in the world."

The United Sates, despite being a signatory to the NPT, is the "main suspect" responsible for the stockpiling, spread and the threatening of other nations with nuclear weapons, the Iranian president said.

Ahmadinejad noted that "possessing nuclear weapons is nothing to be proud of," while criticizing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for adopting a double standard toward nuclear-armed countries and those seeking nuclear energy.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the review conference, held every five years to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, at the UN headquarters.

Ahmadinejad, who is the only head of state attending the summit, said world powers should set a deadline to create a nuke-free world, calling on the UN to rebrand the NPT as the "Disarmament NPT."

The Iranian president, who described as "hazardous" the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons by world powers, criticized the United Nations for its inability to establish sustainable security for the world against nuclear weapons.

He stressed that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation have not materialized, saying that the US should be blamed for the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

World powers, he said, should live up to their obligations under the NPT.

Ahmadinejad also provided a comprehensive resolution to strengthen the non-proliferation treaty:

- Nuclear disarmament should be put at the core of the NPT mandate through "transparent binding and effective mechanisms."

- The establishment of an independent, international group to fully materialize Article 6 of the NPT; including planning and supervising nuclear disarmament and preventing proliferation.

"All these nuclear weapons should be eliminated within a timetable set by this group."

- The introduction of legally binding, comprehensive security guarantees, without discrimination or preconditions until the achievement of full nuclear disarmament by nuclear-armed states.

- The immediate termination of all types of research, development or improvement of nuclear weapons and their related facilities.

- The adoption of a legally binding instrument on the full prohibition of production, stockpiling and improvement proliferation, maintaining and use of nuclear weapons.

- The suspension of membership in the IAEA board of governors for states that use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

"The presence of such members has allowed the agency to deviate from conducting its authorized missions."

- The secession of all kinds of nuclear cooperation with non-signatories of the NPT and the adoption of effective punitive measures against all those states which continue to cooperate with such non-member states.

- Considering any threat to use nuclear weapons or any attack on peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international law.

- Immediate and unconditional implementation of the resolution adopted by the 1995 Review Conference on the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

- Collective effort to reform the structure of the (UN) Security Council as its current structure mainly serves the interests of nuclear weapons states.


 
Bloomberg Smears Anti-Obamacare Activists As Terrorists

http://www.infowars.com/bloomberg-smears-anti-obamacare-activists-as-terrorists/

Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
 
Despite the arrest of a Pakistani-American who authorities have been trailing for two days as the prime suspect behind the botched Times Square car bombing, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wasted little time in smearing anti-Obamacare activists as terrorists during an appearance on CBS News last night, implying that the attack was the work of a Tea Party activist.

“If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something, it could be anything,” Bloomberg told Katie Couric.

Without knowing the full explanation behind the motivations of the man arrested in connection with the bombing, it seems unlikely to us that a man of Pakistani origin named Faisal Shahzad would have much to do with conservatives or Tea Party activists, which makes Bloomberg’s smear all the more insidious.

Authorities had been tracking Shahzad as the prime suspect for two days before his arrest at JFK Airport, after they discovered it was he who bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder from a Connecticut man about three weeks ago.

Bloomberg had to be aware of the fact that the prime suspect was a Pakistani and not a stereotypical white American anti-Obamacare activist, so why even invoke health care as a potential motivating factor behind the botched attack?

As Kurt Nimmo reported yesterday, before the identity of the culprit behind the bombing had even been hinted at, so-called “progressive” blogs and statist news websites staunchly pushed the explanation that the attack was planned by Tea Party conservatives and opponents of big government.

“It may be that the Pakistan-based Taliban, the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has quietly established a Connecticut franchise while we weren’t looking,” wrote The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss. “That’s possible. But it seems far more likely to me that the perpetrator of the bungled Times Square bomb plot was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right. Which actually exists in Connecticut, where, it seems, the car’s license plates were stolen.”

The white guy caught in a video and suspected of placing the “bomb” with its toy clock “looks like your typical Tea Party radical,” wrote Gather.

“General consensus is that the perpetrator was a white 40 year old male Christian card carrying member of the Tea Party crowd,” declared The Political Jungle blog.
 
Corporate media outlets incessantly hyped video footage of a white man in his 40’s removing his shirt near the scene of the incident, presumably to play up the contrived smear that Tea Party activists and conservatives are violent domestic terrorists. Now we learn investigators have “backed off” this lead to focus solely on a Pakistani connection. Expect the idiots who smeared peaceful Americans as terrorists on a whim to also back off quietly with their tails between their legs as their drivel is debunked by the fact the prime suspect likely has nothing to do with the Tea Parties.

Authorities were initially confident that there was no foreign involvement in the bomb plot, but the Pakistani connection now opens a window of opportunity for the Obama administration to not let a good crisis go to waste, as Rahm Emanuel would advise, and use the incident as propaganda for the war on terror and an expansion of predator drone attacks inside Pakistan which have already killed hundreds of innocent civilians each year, with Obama’s intensification of the attacks leading to 90 per cent of all fatalities being innocent men, women and children with no connection to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda whatsoever.

Watch the CBS clip.


[video link on source site and youtube]

 

Global Warming Freeze?

http://www.infowars.com/agenda%c2%a021-alert-global-warming-freeze/

Cassandra Anderson - Infowars.com
 
As the federal “Cap and Trade’ bill falters in”Congress, and resistance to the”EPA’s 18,000“page new regulation document grows, globalists are trying to bring about expanded control, using the discredited excuse of man made global warming, on a State and local level.”"

Californians, finally realizing the magnitude of the cost of a”statewide‘Cap and Trade’“scheme, in addition to a massive increase in government control, lined up to sign a petition to freeze any action on AB 32 (Cap & Trade scheme voted into law in 2006, to be implemented in 2012). Only 435,000 signatures were needed to get the initiative to suspend AB 32 on the ballot in November, but they got over 800,000 signatures. Thanks to ‘Climategate’ and the numerous other UN”science frauds“that have been exposed, people are beginning to understand the overall agenda: Agenda 21 Sustainable Development (which uses environmental issues to depopulate and control the masses).

This matters to everyone across the country because the Agenda 21 battle is from global to local. It will not stop here, but will continue to be pushed in local governments, in the private sector, schools and local UN programs like“ICLEI. ” Mayors are a major target in local governments.” When people become aware of the deceit, it loses its power. Therefore, it is important to understand the game plan behind the Cap & Trade scheme, by looking at the implications of the”AB 32 ‘Scoping Plan’:

The scoping plan uses scare tactics based on false science; for instance, it warns that California will lose 90% of its snowpack in the Sierras by the end of the century, due to man made global warming (pg 9).

AB 32, the Cap & Trade scheme, relies on local governments (“essential partners”), as they have broad influence and the authority to plan, zone, approve, and permit where land is developed. This will impact the following sectors: transportation, housing, industry, forestry, water, agriculture, electricity and natural gas, with rules based on man made global warming lies. One of AB 32’s top priorities is”transportation- with 3 types of regulations: vehicle emissions, carbon content in fuel and, most importantly, reduction in the number of miles that vehicles travel- in other words, collectivists want us out of our cars and walking, biking or using public transport, to increase their control (pg 71).

The AB 32 Scoping Plan further promotes land use planning and infrastructure projects designed to limit travel, otherwise known as”“smart growth”“(pg 71). The scoping plan also includes an environmental rating system for homes and commercial buildings to “encourage” costly retrofits for buildings that do not meet their minimum standards of performance. AB 32 intends to “tap into” local government authority for code compliance (pg 42). Imagine the potential burden for businesses, as California’s industry has already been crushed.

The AB 32 scoping plan also dips its tentacles into water, as it suggests that a “public goods” charge could be collected on water bills, perhaps generating $100 million to $500 million in revenue, ostensibly to fund water improvements. The scoping plan justifies this by proclaiming that there would be the benefit of water supply reliability for customers (pg 66), but at what cost?

In order to accomplish the end goal of this blueprint for control, there are numerous avenues that the collectivists will pursue:

Public- Private“Partnerships (entities that couple with the government for profit)
• Education (Fran Pavley developed a climate change school curriculum for grades K – 12)
• Community and neighborhood public education
• Research will be performed by “unleashing the potential of California’s Universities and Private Sectors”
Finally, the only way to implement this nonsense, is by way of enforcement through the government, so the Air Resources Board (ARB) advocates partnering with local, State and federal agencies to carry out inspections and prosecute violators (pg 109). “To ensure compliance, ARB would administer penalties for entities that hold an insufficient quantity of allowances to cover their emissions or fail to report their greenhouse gas emissions. Missed compliance deadlines would also result in the application of stringent administrative, civil, or criminal penalties.”

Sustainable Development, another name for Agenda 21, is already in your community; awareness and action are needed to remove it.” Remember, the only thing that apathy and action have in common is”you.” Find out more information about Agenda 21 and solutions for it at”www.MorphCity.com.

Thanks to Michael Shaw of”www.FreedomAdvocates.org.
 
 

Where Are All the Terrorist Attacks?

http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-where-are-all-the-terrorist-attacks/19463843
 

Bruce Schneier

 
(May 4) -- As the details of the Times Square car bomb attempt emerge in the wake of Faisal Shahzad's arrest Monday night, one thing has already been made clear: Terrorism is fairly easy. All you need is a gun or a bomb, and a crowded target. Guns are easy to buy. Bombs are easy to make. Crowded targets -- not only in New York, but all over the country -- are easy to come by. If you're willing to die in the aftermath of your attack, you could launch a pretty effective terrorist attack with a few days of planning, maybe less.

But if it's so easy, why aren't there more terrorist attacks like the failed car bomb in New York's Times Square? Or the terrorist shootings in Mumbai? Or the Moscow subway bombings? After the enormous horror and tragedy of 9/11, why have the past eight years been so safe in the U.S.?

There are actually several answers to this question. One, terrorist attacks are harder to pull off than popular imagination -- and the movies -- lead everyone to believe. Two, there are far fewer terrorists than the political rhetoric of the past eight years leads everyone to believe. And three, random minor terrorist attacks don't serve Islamic terrorists' interests right now.

Hard to Pull Off

Terrorism sounds easy, but the actual attack is the easiest part.

Putting together the people, the plot and the materials is hard. It's hard to sneak terrorists into the U.S. It's hard to grow your own inside the U.S. It's hard to operate; the general population, even the Muslim population, is against you.

Movies and television make terrorist plots look easier than they are. It's hard to hold conspiracies together. It's easy to make a mistake. Even 9/11, which was planned before the climate of fear that event engendered, just barely succeeded. Today, it's much harder to pull something like that off without slipping up and getting arrested.

Few Terrorists

But even more important than the difficulty of executing a terrorist attack, there aren't a lot of terrorists out there.

Al-Qaida isn't a well-organized global organization with movie-plot-villain capabilities; it's a loose collection of people using the same name. Despite the post-9/11 rhetoric, there isn't a terrorist cell in every major city. If you think about the major terrorist plots we've foiled in the U.S. -- the JFK bombers, the Fort Dix plotters -- they were mostly amateur terrorist wannabes with no connection to any sort of al-Qaida central command, and mostly no ability to effectively carry out the attacks they planned.

The successful terrorist attacks -- the Fort Hood shooter, the guy who flew his plane into the Austin IRS office, the anthrax mailer -- were largely nut cases operating alone. Even the unsuccessful shoe bomber, and the equally unsuccessful Christmas Day underwear bomber, had minimal organized help -- and that help originated outside the U.S.

Terrorism doesn't occur without terrorists, and they are far rarer than popular opinion would have it.

Small Attacks Aren't Enough

Lastly, and perhaps most subtly, there's not a lot of value in unspectacular terrorism anymore.

If you think about it, terrorism is essentially a PR stunt. The death of innocents and the destruction of property isn't the goal of terrorism; it's just the tactic used. And acts of terrorism are intended for two audiences: for the victims, who are supposed to be terrorized as a result, and for the allies and potential allies of the terrorists, who are supposed to give them more funding and generally support their efforts.

An act of terrorism that doesn't instill terror in the target population is a failure, even if people die. And an act of terrorism that doesn't impress the terrorists' allies is not very effective, either.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for the terrorists, 9/11 upped the stakes. It's no longer enough to blow up something like the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Terrorists need to blow up airplanes or the Brooklyn Bridge or the Sears Tower or JFK airport -- something big to impress the folks back home. Small no-name targets just don't cut it anymore.

Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That's not the situation here in the U.S.

So, to sum up: If you're just a loner wannabe who wants to go out with a bang, terrorism is easy. You're more likely to get caught if you take a long time to plan or involve a bunch of people, but you might succeed. If you're a representative of al-Qaida trying to make a statement in the U.S., it's much harder. You just don't have the people, and you're probably going to slip up and get caught.

Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." You can read more of his writing at www.schneier.com.
 
 

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