breaking news

flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL351

flight diverted because suspisious item , breaking news on CNN

Looks like they are on the ground in Dallas- no mention that I can find on the Web news sites- lets hope there is no reason to.

it was on CNN a few ago, i think they said it was a backpack that didnt belong to noone on the flight. so they diverted it to dallas to check it out. i think they just takin precautions cuz what day it is.

Reuters has posted This Story.

Edit to switch link after discovering the Atlanta Journal requires a subscription when not linking via google.news.

They found and removed the backpack before departure. They diverted because of a BlackBerry device!

“After the flight was in the air, an unclaimed Blackberry was found on the aircraft. The aircraft is secure, but the flight was diverted out an abundance of caution,” she said in Washington.

Clark said that before the plane took off, an unclaimed backpack was found on board and it was removed.

Wow this is really new stuff. It gets old.

gotta worry about those unclaimed blackberrys and start diverting flights now/

geesh, its as bad as doing extra screeening on 75yr olds in a wheel chair. No wonder we’ve pissed away a trillion dollars in 5 years on one meaningless war and a bunch of security designed to make you ‘feel’ better about being safe.

The way I KNOW I’m safe from hijacking and loss of my personal rights is in my own airplane . . .

While I agree that we have become more paranoid about things that “aren’t normal” since '01, I’d rather they err on the side of caution, even with the minor inconveniences that come with it. Had any one of these diverted a/c over the last month gone down because suspicions were ignored, there’d be hell to pay in lives lost, national morale, and airline $$, and that’s BEFORE the inevitable lawsuits come about. Until technology and plain old will power catch up with the ambitions of the bad guys, the air travel industry will be in this “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” situation. I’ll take “damned-if-you-do.”

Take your pick. Fight them over there, or bring it over here.

Yes, indeed.

not the forum for it but I’m all for kicking the butts of the terrorists into next century - my comment was about the botched nature of the entire fiasco at this point. For 1/2 a trillion we could have a kick ass military with modern weapons instead of pounding it away into the sands of a country that could care less about what we are trying to do.

We need to profile terrorists - Israel has had no airlines attacks since Black September in 1971. Whatever they are doing works - and they actually fly into and out of that very dangerous part of the world.

Cough, Cough. False dichotomy

[quote=“erisajd”]

We need to profile terrorists - Israel has had no airlines attacks since Black September in 1971.

This is true, but a little more difficult in this “melting pot” in which we live. Plus, find a Democrat who’d let you do it, and I’ll give you

a $trillion$. :wink:[/quote]

Any ideas?? I know you’re the resident liberal here (I’m not picking, I think you stated such once), so what should we do? :unamused:

FUN FACTS TO CHEW ON…

1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by
Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

During the 1980’s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombe d the first time by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers.Thousands of people were killed by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
Muslim male extremist s mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

2004 - Spain Railway bombings were done by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

2005 London Railway bombings were done by:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

2006 plot to blowup airliners leaving London for US destinations. Who has been implicated:
Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Nope, I really don’t see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you?

So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches 80 year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents of the President’s security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winning and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim males between the ages 17 and 40 alone because profiling is discriminatory and not nice. BULL$#!+!!!

Just want to make sure that folks don’t think that Pik has stooped to hyperbole!

snopes.com/military/medal.htm

1962 John Kennedy was shot and killed by a non-muslim (though the shooter was male) who had recenty visited the Soviet Union. Note we did not subsequently invade China.

1995 The Oklahoma Federal Building was destroyed by a non-muslim (though again male - perhaps there is a pattern there) who referenced Star Wars in his justification for the act. Note we did not detain either George Lucas or James Earl Jones (though they both my be on a no fly list by now)…

My point:

The list of terrorist acts is long, sorted, and never justifiable, be it “Islamic Fascisim” or the IRA, or the Gotti family firebombing a restaurateur who was late in protection payment. I believe (I won’t bother to link the reference here) that you solve the root of the problem by:

  1. Investigating, catching, and vigoursly prosecuting those actually involved in the commission of the act (My support for the original invasion of Afganistan remains- I am pissed as hell that the resourses were pulled away before the job was finished).

  2. Identifying and correcting actual injustices that exist that allow twisted minds like OBL exploit people and ideas to his ends. Instead we have leveld a country not directly (or even indireclly involved) in the attacks, and have so throughly bungled the job that what good (Saddam was evil, I grant that) was done in toppling Iraq is negated by the fact that it now IS a terror hot spot.


Stopping here because
1 I need to work
2. This thread has been streched so far, afraid somebody is going to get hurt when it snaps.

Screw it…just turn the Middle East into a big sheet of glass. That’ll solve it…

DISCLAIMER IT’S A JOKE!

Sometimes jokes are “funny” because of the truths they hold. :confused:

jreeves: Your ideas are wonderful in thought, but they’re pretty generalized and simplistic. I don’t want to turn this into a political thing any more than it already is, but the world just doesn’t work quite so black-and-white (I really wish it did sometimes). Identifying the problem/enemy: Done. Eliminating enemy: Very tricky. I agree that we should have finished what we started in Afghanistan before worrying about Iraq, but I really don’t know if we would have OBL in custody or killed by now even if all 130,000 troops were there. There are evildoers at every level over there, and that’s how he stays invisible. It’s much more complicated than just scouring the ground for him.
As far as identifying the injustices that “caused” this behavior, it sounds like the “we shouldn’t support Israel” argument that permeates through every now and then. The truth is that other Arab countries despise the Palestinians; they just use their cause as propoganda fodder disguised as a “grave injustice” to the entire Arab world. Tell me how the Saudi oil tycoon is suffering from Israeli occupation, and I’ll show you a load of BS. It’s not about sympathy for fellow Muslims; if it were, Iraq wouldn’t be the hellhole that it is today. It’s all propoganda, because “they” know that media PR is the only area in which they can win in a sympathetic underdog-favoring world that wants to live like us, but hates everything we do.
I appreciate your views. I just wish it were really that easy.

I see pika’s list of 16 terrorist acts by Muslims to your 2 acts by white Americans.

THe point of the matter is that we NEED profiling in order to increase security. If it offends someone then tough titties. I don’t care. If it was reversed - 2 Muslim acts to 16 white dudes - I’d put up with profiling.