ATG: Award Travel Guide

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attemped Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.  The attempt was stopped when passengers and crew put out the device that suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was trying to light-up under a blanket while seated in his seat.

Wall Street Journal and others were also reporting Obama administration’s response to the incident:

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama said the administration is doing everything in its power to keep fliers safe and thwart potential terrorist threats.

“We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the Kaneohe Marine Base, near where he is vacationing in Hawaii.

It’s good to remember that flying is still extraordinarily safe  by any statistic.  Here’s an excellent post by Nate Silver on the odds of airborne terror.

That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

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• Why Was Abdulmutallab Flying? (powerlineblog.com)
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• Meet Jasper Schuringa, Flight 253 Hero (dave-lucas.blogspot.com)