Can-you-recognize-a-terrorist.jpg (JPEG Image, 551x700 pixels) Ai Weiwei, Without Fear or Favor. E-PaperTrail. Penn &Teller Burn a Flag in the White House. Al calls the netroots to action on Net Neutrality. Vote on bills in congress | Votetocracy. Lessons in Humanity: Habeas Corpus. What Israel can teach us about security.
While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threats with far less inconvenience. "It is mind boggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He has worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.
"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Ben Gurion is a roadside check. Drug Prohibition. Drug War Facts - Statistics if Drugs Were Legal. We've heard a lot about the terrible death toll Mexico has suffered during the drug war — over 11,000 souls so far. This helps to account for the startling lack of controversy that greeted last week's news that Mexico had suddenly decriminalized drugs — not just marijuana but also cocaine, LSD, and heroin.
In place of the outrage and threats that U.S. officials expressed when Mexico tried to decriminalize in 2006 was a mild statement, from our new drug czar, that we are going to take a "wait and see" approach. Still, we've heard nothing about the American death toll. Isn't that strange? Until now. To repeat, that's 6,487 dead Americans. I'm basing these numbers on an interview with a high-ranking former narcotics officer named Neill Franklin. Franklin's turning point came in October of 2000. That got Franklin thinking. So he started brooding on the drug war's body count. I took his advice. "And now we've got the cartel gangs coming up from Mexico," Franklin reminds me. "Yes. Really? What and Who is Anonymous? And WHAT are we Capable of? Take a fucking LOOK!