That’s the take away here, IMHO:
A passenger was subdued by a federal air marshal during an incident aboard an airliner flying from Washington to Denver on Wednesday night, sources told NBC News.
The FBI was investigating whether the man, a Qatari diplomat, attempted to ignite something aboard the plane.
It’s worth nothing that there were no attacks made by Qatari diplomats on American soil on Bush’s watch.
BDeevDad
Hopefully, he was just smoking.
burnspbesq
Qatari bombs in the air over Denver
Yo te quiero, oh my corazon
freelancer (itouch)
If he was joking, he is the dumbest man alive.
JGabriel
Somehow, I think this will not go over well with the Qatari government – meaning I suspect this guy will be in big trouble at home. We’ve had pretty good relations with Qatar, if I remember correctly, and they can’t be eager to endanger that.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Qatar will be making anything more than pro forma objections, if any, regarding immunity.
Of course, it may be to our advantage to let the Qatari handle the situation… if a bomb is involved – though I suppose that’s a non-starter politically.
.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: I’m flying in on a DC-10 tonight.
Joseph Nobles
Reads like dude was smoking in bathroom and then cracked a badly timed joke when confronted about it.
gbear
@freelancer (itouch):
He may be dumb, but apparently he has full diplomatic immunity. Hardy har har.
MattR
Did not realize we had a new thread to discuss this. Just posted on the previous one:
JGabriel
@Joseph Nobles:
That seems a lot more likely than a Qatari diplomat becoming an Islamic terrorist.
.
MattR
@Joseph Nobles: Sounds like he made the kind of joke that most of us would like to, but know we can’t without ending up in jail. Either he didn’t realize that (doubtful) or didn’t care/think it applied to him due to his diplomatic immunity (much more likely)
Dave C
“Diplomatic Immunity!”. . .”has just been revoked.”
Somebody had to.
Martian Buddy
I know what that means: Diane West is currently sitting in a self-made puddle and feverishly scribbling down another call to expel all Muslims from the country.
Cris
Another comment thread where the spam filter is going to catch five copies of the same YouTube link.
BDeevDad
@MattR: Just replied no smoking on airplanes.
Anyways, I wonder, if this was just a case of smoking in the bathroom, if the anti-hate crime folks say this is an example where for a non-diplomat, our laws work or if they’ll come out with harsher penalties and break our treaties while we’re at it.
ts
This story was broken by Brian Ross. Know what that means? It will completely fall apart by midnight.
He is the world’s worst reporter.
Cris
And no joking on airplanes.
BDeevDad
BREAKING: IN-PLANE FOOTAGE OF THE QATAR DIPLOMAT ATTEMPTING TO TERRORIZE AMERICA
MattR
@Cris: And definitely no joking about smoking.
Cris
And no midnight toking.
MikeJ
@BDeevDad: Kal Penn leaves the White House and all of a sudden they start promoting his new movie.
MattR
But can we still have mile high poking?
gbear
Maybe the TSA will set up a system to allow passengers to vote one person off the plane. No minimum age.
demimondian
@burnspbesq: FTW. I think that Superintendent Agent DougJ should use this as a post title.
Mike Kay
MSNBC now reports false alarm.
ps Well, Dr. Koop did say cigarettes are killers
Brian J
The man in question was from Qatar, so that means we should nuke…Paraguay?
MattR
via Jon Stewart, “Lesbian Bondage Fiasco” needs to be converted to a tagline in some way and added to the rotation.
Mike Kay
Okay.
Here’s the new footage of bathroom struggle. Looks like he had pepper spray.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g6-puLVf_Y&feature=related
Omnes Omnibus
@Cris:
The helicopters won’t be laughing.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
This shit wouldn’t be happening if Obama had manned up and tortured that Nigerian. The big sissy.
Calouste
@gbear:
Diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean they can’t declare him persona non grata and put his ass on the next plane back to Qatar. I somehow doubt that the Qatari government is going to make a big fuss about it.
MattR
If this started with a flight attendant smelling smoke, does this mean all the talk about smoke detectors in the lavaratories is bullshit?
Chad S
@BDeevDad: Apparently thats what happened, and then he made a crack about lighting his shoes on fire. Dumbfuck.
Mike Kay
@MattR:
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, lesbian bondage….
Martian Buddy
Ugly-ass baby conspiracy theory born:
It should be fun seeing how the noise machine finally decides to spin this one.
Ken
Did Bush even allow Qatari diplomats on American soil?
Brian J
@Cris:
On a completely unrelated note, I was once told that I wasn’t allowed to laugh by someone who worked for the office of the photographer who was taking our yearbook pictures in high school. I despised these people in every which way, and not only because they took awful pictures. They argued with me about smiling with my teeth for my senior portrait. I actually refused to let my mom buy any pictures from them.
I really, really hope that place goes out of business. Yes, I know that’s awful, but those people suck.
MattR
@Chad S:
Someone, I think MSNBC, is now reporting that he may have said he put his cigarette out on his shoe.
ts
Like Robert De Niro in Midnight Run, I beat the deadline! Betting against Brian Ross is a sure thing.
New Yorker
I guess this dude never saw “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay”.
Cris
@ts: Nice call!
Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt
It looks like the guy is about to get another plane ride very soon. The kind where you get ordered home by the Foreign Ministry or PNG’d by the US State Department.
El Cid
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show points out that Domino’s Pizza has been more contrite than the Catholic Church, and that was just about their shitty pizza.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Dave C: Who do you think will be the first to ask ‘Where’s Danny Glover when you need him?’
demimondian
I’m seeing a movie about this: _Sheiks on a plane_.
demimondian
@Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt: Yeah, I’m smelling burnt diplomatic creds, for sure. I believe the part about smoking in the lavatory — but, hey, dude? That’s like a federal crime, too. Fire inside a plane? Bad. News.
Cris
So is disabling the smoke detector. For some reason, the fact that the flight attendants explicitly mention this in the pre-flight safety shpiel cracks me up.
JGabriel
@demimondian: I’ve always wanted to see Sheiks the Clown.
.
Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt
@demimondian: We used to smoke on planes all the time. Hell, they used to have little ashtrays in the arm rests in the back section of the plane, the smoking section. The no smoking in lavatories thing was at the same time as the no smoking on board thing because it’s an enclosed space where nobody can see you light up. That’s why there’s a smoke detector in there and why there’s a fine for tampering with it.
Smoking on Domestic flights shorter than three hours went first, followed by all domestic flights a couple of years later. It was between 1993 and 1996 that international flights that terminated in the US went smoke free. I smoked on the plane taking me to Germany, but couldn’t smoke on the flight coming home.
kdaug
@Ken:
I thought he kissed them and held hands while prancing through the gardens.
Think we actually have pictures on that one.
MattR
@JGabriel:
It is the Citizen Kane of diplomat clown movies.
Cris
I have one of those ashtrays. I snagged it from an international flight in 1989. It’s kind of a little souvenir of a bygone era.
kdaug
@kdaug:
Ah, sorry, I got my Saudi/Kuwaiti/Qatari oil sheiks confused.
Bad me.
hamletta
If he thought diplomatic immunity could get him out of this, he’s probably not an actual diplomat, but the douchebag son of a diplo.
Growing up near DC, we had explicit instructions in driver’s ed to avoid cars with diplomatic plates. Privileged asshole children of diplos are notorious for reckless driving and causing wrecks they can just walk away from.
Susan Kitchens
@JGabriel:
He’s Imam! Get him!
mclaren
Why doesn’t someone point out the obvious? Nuclear weapons have only one use in today’s world: they serve as magnets for terrorists.
Let’s get rid of ’em everywhere, worldwide. The damn things are useless.
Bobby Thomson
Very accurate and I assume intentional typo.
Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt
@mclaren:
My Father in Law, who spent 27 years on nuclear ballistic missile submarines in the Navy says the same thing. He thinks nukes are dumbest damned idea mankind has ever had.
Little Dreamer
@El Cid:
Funny that you should compare Dominos Pizza to the Catholic Church. Haha!