No, not here . . . I’m talking about Metafilter.
Metafilter’s a community weblog, where members post comments on various topics, including obscure news items. Occasionally, a Metafilter entry will catch my interest and I’ll blog about it here. Like this one, which I saw this morning:
NewsFilter: UFO (missle) exhaust seen by pilot Have the aliens landed, and are shooting at planes with unidentified flying objects? Or is it the ‘terrorists’?
Don’t worry citizens: FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines.
During the 1980s, we supported the Afghanistani mujahedin in their fight against Soviet occupation by giving them Stinger surface-to-air missiles, which they used with great effect against USSR fighter-bombers, transports, and helicopters. Ever since, we’ve been trying to round up the missiles that were never used, and there’s a very real threat that some Stingers – along with black market surface-to-air missiles from other countries – are falling into the hands of terrorists, who will certainly find airliners a tempting target. Is it a real threat? Yes, and one that scares the bejeezus out of airline and government executives.
So when an American Airlines pilot reports a contrail whizzing by his cockpit shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles International, he’s talking about an unidentified surface-to-air missile, not a UFO, and no matter how badly the FBI screwed up prior to 9/11, or how useless and politicized the Department of Homeland Security has turned out to be, I would certainly hope both agencies are investigating the pilot’s report, and I suspect the “FBI agents believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket” nonsense they’re putting out is meant to soothe the public and cover over the seriousness of this incident.
But back to Metafilter . . . I was irritated by the snide tone of the entry and even more irritated by the comments, all of which focused on the word “UFO,” offering various smart-ass cracks about space aliens. Neither the original poster nor any of the commenters seemed to be aware of the actual threat of terrorist surface-to-air missile attacks against airliners in the USA.
You know, I almost understand why the people who could have done something to prevent it blew off pre-9/11 intel about Al Qaeda terrorists enrolling in flight training schools in the USA. Had some bozo stopped me on the street on September 10, 2001, and told me what was going to happen the very next morning, I would have blown him off too (even though we had learned, way back in 1995, that Al Qaeda was planning just such an attack) – it would have been too outrageous to believe. So it is with surface-to-air missile attacks against American airliners – too outrageous to believe. Until it happens.
So anyway (remember, this entry is about Metafilter), I wanted to leave a comment. Turns out you can’t comment unless you’re a Metafilter member. So I tried to set up a member account. Turns out you have to pay $5.00 to be a member. Pay? What is this “pay” you speak of? When did they start this shit?
All of which is to explain why I no longer patronize Metafilter.
Yeah. That’ll teach the bastards!