What Can I Do to Make Your Flight More Uncomfortable?

Ann Coulter's damnramblings are indented. My comments aren't.

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

What's the proper word for irrational hatred of a religion? The equivalent of racism?
We could dispense with airport security; nobody who's not a Muslim has EVER done anything bad on an airplane, I'm certain of it. Wouldn't it make more sense to re-structure airport security into something that shows some signs of being effective?

Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah" -- coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died.

Quite coincidentally--since thousands of Muslims say their evening prayers every evening without blowing anything up.

Witnesses also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight ritual the imams didn't perform was the signing of last wills and testaments.

As if half of the people in this country HAVEN'T been talking about Saddam Hussein? He's been all over the news again since the trial passed judgement. And in case Ms. Coulter hasn't noticed, a very large section of the population regularly denounces the president, the government, and the war in Iraq. Also--interesting sidenote: I know several people who DO file wills before travelling, I've even been the witness signature for a few--not because they were planning to go out in a blaze of glory, but just in case the boat sank or the engine fell off the plane.

After boarding, the imams did not sit together and some asked for seat belt extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked baggage.

Also they were Muslims.

Every airline I've ridden on assigns seating--you don't get to pick who you sit with unless you bought the tickets together. So how is this the imam's doing?
What does she think they're going to do with seatbelt extensions? turn them into a giant sling shot to fling bodies at the cockpit door? A little paranoia is a healthy thing, but that's just crazy.
Most likely they had one way tickets because they were on their way home from a convention. OOOH! scary. I'm more confused by the three who had round trip tickets, myself.
As for the baggage thing--so fucking what? It's a pain to get baggage checked, and the majority of times I've flown, I didn't check any. And I have yet to hijack a single plane.

The idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony? The next thing you know, New York City cab drivers will be threatening to bathe.

How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony? we can't--which is why there's no reasoning with Ann Coulter.

Come to think of it, the whole affair may have been a madcap advertising scheme cooked up by US Airways.

It worked with me. US Airways is my official airline now. Northwest, which eventually flew the Allah-spouting Muslims to their destinations, is off my list. You want to really hurt a U.S. air carrier's business? Have Muslims announce that it's their favorite airline.

Hmm. I think I shall have to start referring to people as "God-spouting" now. Doesn't that just make you want to sing the Little Teapot song? Remind me when I'm feeling creative to re-write that song in honor of AC.

The clerics had been attending an imam conference in Minneapolis (imam conference slogan: "What Happens in Minneapolis -- Actually, Nothing Happened in Minneapolis"). But instead of investigating the conference, the government is now investigating my favorite airline.

OH! there's the childish insult I've been waiting for! She's slow in this rant--usually she's dropped to 3rd grade taunts by the second paragraph.
But what I think she's saying here is that the governement should be sending people to investigate religious conferences. We have to play fair here, this is Land of the Free and all... so lets get right on that; start a department to do nothing but investigate all the religious conferences in the country.

What threat could Muslims flying from Minnesota to Arizona be?

Three of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 received their flight training in Arizona. Long before the attacks, an FBI agent in Phoenix found it curious that so many Arabs were enrolled in flight school. But the FBI rebuffed his request for an investigation on the grounds that his suspicions were based on the same invidious racial profiling that has brought US Airways under investigation and into my good graces.

Hmm. So... 16 of them DIDN'T go to Arizona. yup. definitely Arizona's a suspicious destination. On a sort of related note: there was a distinct statisical anomaly in my graduating class--a much higher than could be expected number of Mormons from Idaho. By AC's logic, I guess that means that Mormons are going to start bombing vetschools soons.

Lynne Stewart's client, the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is serving life in prison in a maximum security lock-up in Minnesota. One of the six imams removed from the US Airways plane was blind, so Lynne Stewart was the one missing clue that would have sent all the passengers screaming from the plane.

Actually, I think the thing keeping people from running screaming from the plane is called "sanity".

Wholly apart from the issue of terrorism, don't we have a seller's market for new immigrants? How does a blind Muslim get to the top of the visa list? Is there a shortage of blind, fanatical clerics in this country that I haven't noticed? Couldn't we get some Burmese with leprosy instead? A 4-year-old could do a better job choosing visa applicants than the U.S. Department of Immigration.

How does someone make themselves so completely blind to rationality as AC has? Does she really think there are no US born Muslims?

One of the stunt-imams in US Airways' advertising scheme, Omar Shahin, complained about being removed from the plane, saying: "Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

Yes, especially when there was a whole conference of them! Six out of 150 is called "poor law enforcement." How did the other 144 "scholars" get off so easy?

I'll second the "poor law enforcement" but in exactly the opposite direction of AC's intent--since when did discussing politics and praying become cause for arrest? Guess there could be advantages to it though; AC herself ought to land in a cell soon. Maybe she can share one with Mr. Phelps.

Shahin's own "scholarship" consisted of continuing to deny Muslims were behind 9/11 nearly two months after the attacks. On Nov. 4, 2001, the Arizona Republic cited Shahin's "skepticism that Muslims or bin Laden carried out attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Shahin complained that the government was "focusing on the Arabs, the Muslims. And all the evidence shows that the Muslims are not involved in this terrorist act."

She's got nothing more recent than 5 years ago? Well hello; how many things that "all the evidence" pointed towards at that time have since been proved false? Lets start with the list of things Mr. President Bush was spouting, shall we?

In case your memory of that time is hazy, within three days of the attack, the Justice Department had released the names of all 19 hijackers -- names like Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi and Ahmed Alnami. The government had excluded all but 19 passengers as possible hijackers based on extensive interviews with friends and family of nearly every passenger on all four flights. Some of the hijackers' seat numbers had been called in by flight attendants on the planes.

Newsflash for Ms. Coulter: Arab does not equal Muslim. US does not equal Christian. Asian does not equal Buddhist. And if I recall, the Muslim churches by and large stood out to denounce the actions of the hijackers.

By early October, bin Laden had produced a videotape claiming credit for the attacks. And by Nov. 4, 2001, the New York Times had run well over 100 articles on the connections between bin Laden and the hijackers -- even more detailed and sinister than the Times' flowcharts on neoconservatives!

Also, if I remember correctly, al Qaeda had taken out full-page ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter thanking their agents for the attacks.

Oh, crap! an advertisement definitely prooves everything. I'm sorry I doubted!
Back to the generalizations: most Muslims don't support al Qaeda, so once again, I'm doubting that the imams in question consider the hijackers or any other follower of bin Laden to be members of their church.

But now, on the eve of the busiest travel day in America, these "scholars" have ginned up America's PC victim machinery to intimidate airlines and passengers from noticing six imams chanting "Allah" before boarding a commercial jet.

Yeah, because why should they notice that? Any more than I should call the cops everytime the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my door?
If I lived closer to an airport, I'd be very tempted to try and organize a group of people from as many different religions as I could find to sit in the terminal and pray aloud. See how many of us got arrested for daring to wish good blessings and safe travel on everybody there over thanksgiving.
And honestly--if the fuss and mess after 9/11 didn't put all the airlines out of business, I seriously doubt that there will be enough "intimadated airlines and passengers" to make a detectable dent in the typical holiday traffic this year.

On that note--I'm off to my folks' for dinner. Hope you all have a great day!