OK, so the post you responded to ended in a cheap, ignorant shot. So what do you do? End in a cheap, ignorant shot at Ayn Rand. Hypocrite.

That's because Drudge does not link to some guy running a web server on vintage Timex Sinclair and such.

The charts ARE a backup system. Navigation these days is done using the Flight Management System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_management_system

The aircraft already has the critical information needed in it's Flight Management System ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_management_system ) which includes position locating systems (through GPS and/or radio triangulation) and a database of airports, runways, radio frequencies, waypoints, and much other information. As long as the FMS works, the charts are simply backup.

Most pilots will take a look at the approach plates in the charts, just because they are so nicely done and are more visually understandable, but they are not really necessary any more.

No kidding. These threads are just one post after another of people pulling stuff out of their ass that they have a hunch is correct, and stating it as fact.

Place has gone downhill in a big way.

How DID they get people to be janitors in Star Trek?

> Until around 1980, nobody, not even the most conservative judge, believed that the Second Amendment was meant to be an individual right.

Likewise, until about then, nobody, not even the most liberal judge, believed the Second Amendment applied only to militias.

Totally unrelated (I think). But I'm too lazy to do another JE, and am not sure it even warrents a JE.

I'm reading Politico.com on another tab just a moment ago, and there is a banner ad for a surface to air missile. "SEEKS AND FINDS BEFORE THE ENEMY KNOWS HES FOUND.... THIS IS HOW. JAGM... JOINT AIR TO GROUND MISSILE.... LOCKHEED MARTIN"

It's hard not to be pessimistic and/or cynical about things when you see them advertising missiles as if they were hamburgers.

... and say what I think about 9/11.

I don't believe the US Gumbent "planned" 9/11. Or used mind control. Or blew up the towers.

Based on my reading of teh evidence, my guess is that the US "Powers That Be" knew the bad guys were planning something. And let them go ahead.

They did a cost/benefits analysis. The cost: a couple thousand lives and some real estate. The benefits: greatly enhanced governmental powers for years to come, carte blanche to go into other countries and wage war, and a greatly enhanced security/military budget.

They may have figured a couple thousand lives spent then, would save orders of magnitudes of lives later. Maybe even prevent the bad guys from going atomic. The cash and power rolling in afterwards was just gravy.

And then "they" encouraged all kinds of idiotic conspiracy theories surrounding the event, to help drown out the the very real and criminal "failures" in American security.

~~~

SOMEONE (or some group) was Machiavellian enough to kill (or let be killed) thousands of people. Nothing new there... what's a couple thousand, compared to the millions who died in other historic events because of power grabs? Heck, about 10,000 people die each day in the USA (albeit not from murder, but still...)

One of the first things an investigator does, when trying to solve a crime, is consider who benefited most from the crime. I'll leave who benefited most from 9/11 as an exercise for the reader.