The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster†that tries to reassure the public. Enlarge This Image Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Michael Hicks, 8, a Cub Scout in Clifton, N.J., has the same name as a suspicious person. Readers' Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (555) » Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy. Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list. “Meet Mikey Hicks,†said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.†Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the list,†she recalled. The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried. After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year’s vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home. “Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,†Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.†It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government’s “no-fly†list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger “selectee†list, which sets off a high level of security screening. At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the Bahamas trip.) Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the airlines. A spokesman for the T.S.A., James Fotenos, said that as a rule, “there are no children on the no-fly or selectee lists,†but would not comment on Mikey’s situation specifically. For every person on the lists, hundreds of others may get caught up simply because they share the same name; a quick scan through a national phone directory unearthed 1,600 Michael Hickses. Over the past three years, 81,793 frustrated travelers have formally asked that they be struck from the watch list through the Department of Homeland Security; more than 25,000 of their cases are still pending. Others have taken more drastic measures. Mario Labbé, a frequent-flying Canadian record-company executive, started having problems at airports shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, with lengthy delays at checkpoints and mysterious questions about Japan. By 2005, he stopped flying to the United States from Canada, instead meeting American clients in France. Then a forced rerouting to Miami in 2008 led to six hours of questions. “What’s the name of your mother? Your father? When were you last in Japan?†Mr. Labbé recalled being asked. “Always the same questions in different order. And sometimes, it’s quite aggressive, not funny at all.†Fed up, in the summer of 2008, he changed his name to François Mario Labbé. The problem vanished. Several Web sites, including the T.S.A.’s own blog, are rife with tales of misidentification and strategies for solving them. Some travelers purposely misspell their own names when buying tickets, apparently enough to fool the system. Even the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy once found himself on a list. “We can’t just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it security,†said Representative William J. Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat. “If we can’t get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list becomes suspect.†Mr. Fotenos, the T.S.A. spokesman, promised improvements in a few months, as the agency’s Secure Flight Program takes full effect. Under the new system, airlines will collect every passenger’s birth date and gender, along with their names. The T.S.A. will cross-check all that with the watch lists. Previously, the airlines cross-checked the lists themselves, using only the names. Certainly, Mikey’s date of birth, less than a month before 9/11, should prevent him from being mistaken as a terrorist. A third grader at a parochial school in Clifton, N.J., Mikey recites the drill like the world-weary traveler he is. Leave early for the airport, always with his passport. Try to get a boarding pass at the counter. This will send up a flag. The ticket agent, peering down at tiny bespectacled Mikey, will apologize or roll her eyes, and call for a supervisor. The supervisor, after a phone call — or, more likely, a series of phone calls — will ultimately finagle him onto the plane. But the Hickses are typically the last to select seats and the last to board, which means they sometimes can’t sit together. Mrs. Hicks, a photojournalist who herself got Secret Service clearance to travel aboard Air Force II with then-Vice President Al Gore, anticipated additional chaos following the attempted underwear bombing. Before leaving for the Bahamas on Jan. 2, she reached out to Congressman Pascrell’s office, which then enlisted a T.S.A. agent to meet the family at the airport. Even this did not prevent Mikey from an extra pat-down. On the way home last Friday, Mikey’s boarding pass showed four giant red S’s at the airport in Nassau. “Oh, random screening,†Mrs. Hicks said. Mikey asked his mother not to worry and said he would use his tae kwon do — he has a junior black belt — if needed. Mrs. Hicks said she wanted to take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the rules. Mikey, who would rather talk about BMX bikes and his athletic trophies than airport security, remains perplexed about the “list†and the hurdles he must clear. “Why do they think a kid is a terrorist?†Mikey asked his mother at one point during the interview. Mrs. Hicks said the family was amused by the mistake at first. But that amusement quickly turned to annoyance and anger. It should not take seven years to correct the problem, Mrs. Hicks said. She applied for redress in December when she first heard about the Department of Homeland Security’s program. “I understand the need for security,†she added. “But this is ridiculous. It’s quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane.†-headdesk- If crap like this continues, I'm moving to Canada and staying there. How in the hell can they think a TWO YEAR OLD would be a terrorist? Like "Mikey Hicks" would be an unique name. They had nothing else on this guy? Like, hmm.. AGE?
It's been bugging me how Luxord looks so much like Ansem. Could it be that Luxord's "somebody" had a family connection to Ansem? Or is this a coincidence?
Like Cinderella or Snow White?
Sora: Jon Heder Kairi: Mr. T Riku: Samuel Jackson Roxas: Stephen Colbert Namine: Miley Cyrus Donald: Kenan Tompson Goofy: Kel Mitchell Malefeicent: Sarah Palin of course this is true
..ended up on Destiny Islands? Or is that still a mystery for the most part?
So, in the flashbacks, Kairi and Sora are seen drawing each other on the cave wall. Kairi's drawing of Sora shows him in a normal way, but Sora's of Kairi shows her looking injured and messy. Is just the way him and Riku saw her when she washed ashore, or did he hate her at the time?
So, if he's Xehanort's nobody, why is his name an anagram of "Ansem" with an X? I'm confused.
Like in CoM, are there save files for each character? Considering how the PSP inevitably has more power and memory than the GBA, you'd expect 2 or so save files for each of them.
Is it just that Ventus fused with Sora? If so, why did he choose Sora?
In the scene in the intro where Ven is running from a bunch of light, you see a bunch of images on the walls, the only one I could tell who it was was Stitch, and people have reported seeing Woody from Toy Story there, which could have meant there was supposed to be a TS world initially, or it foreshadows one of the new worlds in the next game (Which, I gotta admit, would be pretty awesome if done properly.) Can anyone else see who's there?
Looks kind of Comic Sans MS-ish.. What is it called?
In the 1950's, for whatever reason, "In God We Trust" was added to the currency of the United States. Why? We aren't a Christian country. We're a melting pot of various races, cultures, and religions. In a sense, it's discriminatory. If it needs to be kept for some reason, add "In Buddha we trust" and whatnot too. And yes, that would make it cluttered. So we go to the other solution, changing it back to the way it was. I've begun just crossing it off entirely. It's just become offensive, like to say "If you aren't a Christian, you're un-American." which is ironic considering the fact that the USA is all about freedom and christianity isn't There is no reason whatsoever to keep it on there, and I highly doubt it would be very expensive to do so. In fact, it could save a small amount of money. This needs to be acted upon as soon as possible. I believe this is the back of a dollar bill from around the 40's: What's wrong with that? It has nothing to do with religion, nobody's going to be offended by it. But no. We just had to remove that L and make it into religious stuff. It just makes no sense whatsoever to keep it on there. Same goes for the pledge. And that was altered in the 50's as well. It used to just be "..one nation, Indivisible...", but like currency, it was altered, adding "under god" inbetween "one nation" and "indivisible". Seriously, why?
"A Nigerian who may have links to al-Qaeda, while on a flight from Nigeria to Detroit (which had a stopover in the Netherlands), attempted to detonate a chemical explosive device. It failed, although it did catch his groin on fire. Passengers said that it sounded like a firecracker. A passenger tackled the terrorist and suffered burns. Other than the terrorist and said tackler, there were no injuries. The perpetrator, one Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, has been taken into custody. " ..... Not only did his attack fail, but he caught his balls on fire. Not to mention the location. Come on, Detroit? What was he trying to accomplish?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crispin_freeman_fansite/message/10792 Maybe there'll be a PoTC world again?
358/2 Days is up for multiple awards in the 09 Nintendo Power Awards: -Overall Game of the Year -DS Game of the Year -Best DS Graphics -Best Sound/Voice Acting -Best Adventure Game -Best New Character (Xion) -Best Story/Writing Vote here: http://www.nintendopower.com/npawards
http://img190.imageshack.us/i/jpstewartconfirm.jpg/ Credit to Ryusuke at Toonzone for this.
I recall hearing before 100 Acre Wood was confirmed that there would be 2 more worlds to be revealed, but I am unsure if this is accurate. Do we know how many more worlds we should expect? I'm theorizing we'll get Agrabah and Halloween Town back again.
This is presuming it's on earth, assuming that the Disney worlds are actual worlds themselves, and not apart of the same plant (Sora and Riku shooting from the sky in KH2 would strengthen this) I'm guessing somewhere off the coast of Asia, or maybe around the Caribbean.
Your views? I say they just need to leave. They should not have the right to stay if they're not here legally, that applies to any race and any country. All these protests they do are ridiculous, what makes them think they should be able to get away with something illegal? For one thing, a good majority of them are very rude and disrespectful, and absorb themselves in only their culture, and can a lot of the time be racist themselves against any white person. Even non-racist ones. They're a significant reason behind this nonsense of Billingual packaging, and "Press 1 for English, 2 para espanol". It should not be happening. Just because hundreds of years ago, certain areas of the USA were Mexico, doesn't mean you get to stay. Unless you were born here or are legally here, leave. What annoys me even more is them singing the praises of Mexico, acting like it's better than America. If you think that so much, go back. If Mexico is too dangerous for you or whatever, alright, learn English and legally get into America and show some respect and dignity. Or, just move to Spain. I want people to be able to live in America, but illegal immigrants should leave now. You'll notice in areas near Mexico how a good majority of crimes will be committed by people with last names like "Ramirez" or "Sanchez". Most likely illegal immigrants. It's posing a danger to many areas. Obama needs to get on the immigration issue, and order all illegal immigrants (from anywhere) back to their own countries, and if they would like to come back, they need to pay a fee and become a legal citizen. English classes should also be complimentary, that would also help fix this issue. I'm not discriminatory or racist at all - I find it disappointing that so many hispanics aren't showing self-respect or respect for others. I thankfully do know hispanics who do have those traits, and they're great people. I wish more of them could be like that, then they could find themselves with less racism against them. Coming to a country and speaking a foreign language to citizens is disrespectful and rude. If I were to go to, say, Germany, I'd put in a good effort to learn a good amount of German. If I were to go to Japan, I'd put in effort to learn Japanese. To be respectful. No, English is not the official language of America - But it is the national language, and the vast majority of states hold it as their official language. To sum it up, people who are in the country illegally need to be forced to leave, only able to come back after paying a fine and becoming a legal citizen. And watch, I'll end up with tons of negative rep from people who didn't pay attention all the way.
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