Arabic…Cyrillic…all the same at threat level orange
The Statesman is reporting that passengers on a JetBlue flight arriving from Boston were detained at ABIA for questioning today after flight personnel found a “suspicious note” in one of the bathrooms. They thought it might be a note written in Arabic. Turns out it was Cyrillic, as in Russian or Ukranian. I’m no expert, but the two look nothing like each other to me.
Hooray for mass hysteria! I have to fly later this week. I’m *really* looking forward to that ordeal. Check with DHS or TSA before you fly. Currently, no liquids are allowed in carry-ons with a few exceptions such as medicine and breast milk. Flights from Britain are banning laptops and other gadgets. As Cory points out, it won’t be long before they handcuff us nude to our seats and tranquilize us for each flight. Hey, sounds kinda fun!
> …it won’t be long before they handcuff us nude to our seats and tranquilize us for each flight. Hey, sounds kinda fun!
Ha! Good one.
Glad the JetBlue scare was based on something stupid rather than something real. But as a false alarm, I was sorta hoping it was caused by an ill-timed marketing stunt for Snakes on a Plane. Not a good day to find mother-f**king snakes on a mother-f**king plane!!!
Oh, and let me be the first hand-wringing do-gooder to wonder aloud if the nation is really ready for air travel serpentaria as we recover from the shock of August 10th. (you know someone’s going to say it …)
We need to start getting upset anyone speaks English or pulls out a Bible on a plane. After all #2 domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh was a white christian.
Man the whole cyrillic/arabic thing seems to scream out for a “It’s Greek to Me” joke…
Although after thinking about it some more, it could have perhaps been an honest mistake. This page shows what the Russian cursive alphabet looks like:
http://www.educationalfontware.com/RU_style.html
Basically squash it and make the letters run together more and you get an idea of what it looks like when actually written. Of course it’s really only an honest mistake if it was written in cursive.
Only Russian children using printing as opposed to cursive. But Cyrillic cursive looks a heck of a lot more like Latin (ours) cursive than like Arabic script.