Now that you've predicted it, we can rest assured that it won't happen. No major hurricane disasters, no tsumanis. You have done the world and the country a great service.

1) Its Iberia Air (or Airlines), not Iberian Air (or Airlines).

2) The man did not threaten to blow up the plane. A hysterical passenger misintreperted the words "were going up" to mean that he was going to blow up the plane. (I wonder, did the man look Middle Eastern? A likely possibility on a Spanish plane headed to Spain--I don't think I need to explain why.)

Huh?

My son tried this on Sunday (a sort of Superbowl pregame extravaganza I guess) and it worked pretty well. By the way, the voice on the soundtrack is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The song is called Monkey Developers.

Lyrics are posted here:

http://www.digitaldroo.com/monkeydevelopers.html

And the original music video is here:

http://www.flamingmailbox.com/maccomedy/movies/balmer.html

Related audio and video can be found here:

http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/mirrors.html

For background on the meaning of all this, consult the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_monkey

I am a research professor at an institute on the coast a couple of miles south of the border. I have lived and worked in the area for the last past 12 years. I drive along the border through Smugglers Gulch several time each week.

The fact is illegal border crossing in the coastal zone is almost non-existant. Crossers are blocked by very large houses lined up along the border in the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood. Immediately beyond those houses are very steep and trecherous hills which are almost completely impassable. Smugglers gulch itself forms a natrual choke-point between those hills, and another group of dangerous hills to the east. Anyone who tries to cross here not only faces the border patrol, but the swamps to the north, which during the rainy months are even more dangerous.

Before 1996-97 crowds of people would gather at the border every day. It was a major traffic hazard; there was even a makeshift store selling food and drinks to the crossers. Now the area is almost completely deserted.

The coastal zone barriers are just another wasteful government boondoggle--a policy driven not by practicality or necessity, but by paranoia. Duncan Hunter can claim that he brought jobs for his constituents and placate their irrational fears about terrorists crossing the border. The real danger is not terrorists crossing the border, but terrorists attacking the border. I wonder if these crooked politicians are doing anything about that?