Word: plot
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...foiled bombing attempt on a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day has raised talk of striking at al-Qaeda in Yemen, where the plot is believed to have originated. Yet the extremists operating from Yemen present the military with precious view good "aim points." In the old days, the enemy had airfields, early-warning radars, ammo depots - even big defense and intelligence headquarters - that could be destroyed from the air. A general could stride manfully out to the Pentagon podium, wave his pointer like a magic wand at a map where little explosion drawings had been inked, and gleefully tally...
...Disney's A Christmas Carol, worthy efforts that, together, took in only about a fifth of the Chipmunks' revenue in the same period. No, somebody - somebody young - must be enjoying this soul-sapping would-be comedy. Maybe I'm missing the wit in the Alvin 2 pileup of purloined plot points, toilet and fart jokes and tired references to old movies. (The "You talkin' to me" bit from Taxi Driver simply must be retired from overuse.) Or maybe kids aren't as cinematically precocious as I thought they were. (See the top 10 movies...
Experts say that more aggressive safety protocols might have uncovered Abdulmutallab's alleged plot before he had the chance to botch it with a bum detonator. Full-body scanners might do the trick, but they have their drawbacks. The ACLU has condemned backscatter X-ray and millimeter-wave-radar scans as the high-tech equivalents of strip searches. Furthermore, "every technology can be defeated one way or the other," says Vahid Motevalli, who studies aviation security at Purdue University...
...military terms, the authorities are always fighting the last war. Ever since Richard Reid tried to ignite his shoes, loaded with the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001, U.S. travelers have had to remove their footwear for scanning before boarding. After a plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic with small amounts of liquid explosives was uncovered in London in 2006, travelers were barred from carrying containers with more than 3.4 oz. (100 ml) of fluid each through security checkpoints...
...course, Abdulmutallab's plot failed not just because of technical difficulties but also because of the bravery of the people he was trying to murder. The one hopeful outcome of the saga is that, thanks to the swift action of passengers on Flight 253, Abdulmutallab was captured alive and is being held at a federal facility southwest of Detroit, where he may well prove to be a source of intelligence. It was an unexpected but valuable gift from those who moved quickly on an otherwise quiet Christmas morning...