Did Chicago lose the chance to host the 2016 Olympics because of airport security issues?
Among the toughest questions posed to the Chicago bid team this week in Copenhagen was one that raised the issue of what kind of welcome foreigners would get from airport officials when they arrived in this country to attend the Games. Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, in the question-and-answer session following Chicago’s official presentation, pointed out that entering the United States can be “a rather harrowing experience.”
[…]
“It’s clear the United States still has a lot of work to do to restore its place as a premier travel destination,” Roger Dow, U.S. Travel’s president, said in the statement released today. […] International travel to the U.S. declined by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The pedro and Alphie show never ceases to troll.
Suggestion, why don’t you trolls try thinking with your brains for awhile.
Warning – this is the kind of child that results from butt sex.
#3 Fusion
That’s because they’re fundamentalists. The TSA has a problem, it must be Obama. Cats mating with dogs, it must be Obama.
Anyway, back on topic. Traveling into the US is not a bucket of yucks, especially if you’ve travelled to a country the TSA and US Immigration at any time in the past that they consider undesirable. That includes most of Africa, half of South America, and huge swaths of Asia. I work in a company of travelers, and everyone keeps thinking “it can’t get any worse”, and somehow it does.
The thing we’ve seen in the last couple of years is the increase in hostility towards Americans returning. We’ve seen the usual idiotic problems with say Italians who have dark skin so they must be Muslim terrorists bullshit. Now, we see Americans getting grilled for 2-3 hours because they visited Indonesia or Turkey.
#3, Fusion,
LOL, how true.
#4, Alfred’s mom,
Please practice safe sex next time the Seventh Fleet is in town. Remember, if you like ’em, spit. If you love ’em, then you can swallow. Just keep those panties on.
#7, ‘dro,
Now tell me, how did what I wrote insults, bemoans or otherwise tarnishes your god Obama’s persona? ‘Cause you had to think that in order to moo the way you just did.
No one said you did, well at least in this post. Go read #3 again. See where I alluded to Obama or even his administration.
This is what I mean by your trolling. You and Alphie are plants, designed to drive up hits. Posting under pseudonyms when we really know who you are.
The IOC knew that if it chose Chicago, it would get good tables in the best Italian restaurants….but in Rio they would get the very best tranny callgirls and the most perfectly plasticized real girls.
Chicago never had a chance.
Yes, Bush did it. Senator Roland Burris (the guy who was given Obama’s seat) said so.
We’ll have to go back and check the stats but I think in years past when the value of the dollar has been weak, tourism INTO the USA would go up?
So to me the important of this “sports” item is ” “International travel to the U.S. declined by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.” /// So–declining economy, cheaper exchange rates, no highly advertised serial killers targeting tourist, and tourism goes DOWN? Maybe it is just our border guards but certainly our own self imposed idiocy can’t be helping. I wish the Olympics would give express reasons why/how they chose. It would give another objective measuring standard for the USA to rant about how we are world leaders WHILE being rejected by everyone else.
#1–Pedro==I thought that was funny and thoughtful at the same time. Shows how hard a country or a person has to work once they gain a reputation.
@20: “Maybe it is just our border guards” – Unfortunately discussion above departed heavily from this main point of the article. But, if anyone have been traveling a lot abroad lately (and I unfortunately did), the point would be obviously false. Every single country has very similar Tub Stacking Agency. Some, like French, with their heads even further up dark places. On every single flight they placed me under insane steps. Worst one? I almost missed my flight, detained about 45 minutes at Paris CDG Tub Staking Agency counter because they couldn’t decide if 35mm film I was carrying (for fun I still shoot completely mechanical cameras with old fashioned film) is allowed on board… ):(
#21–Alfie==why do you hate America? Half Black American got you down? Keep walking lock step with your sould brother Ahmadinejad.
Sad you supported Obama until he went off the rails with announcing we would not torture suspects anymore. I assume you thought he was perfect until he did that.
#22–dusanmal==You Lie!!!! Film Cameras? What—have you got a freezer in your garage filled with KodaChrome? I haven’t traveled overseas in a while but for years the USA was the only place in the world that required film to go thru the xray machines with a 30% chance of damage. Every where else allowed a physical inspection of the film bad. Thankfully, the morons would allow your stored film to be within a lead lined bag. That always amused me, but I kept my mouth shut.
How much longer do you plan to shoot film?
I don’t like the Olympics to be in America, and I also don’t like the IOC throwing Chicago out on the first ballot after the President went there. This is a direct contradiction that I can’t resolve. However, if it was because of the TSA, that settles things. At least now the TSA has accomplished a good deed.
Syed Shahid Ali put himself on the no-fly list!
#3 – Mr. Fusion – The pedro and Alphie show never ceases to troll.
LMAO
The President shows up in a surprise visit to the IOC conference, with an entourage of diplomats, advisers, protocol staff, armed secret service security guards, tactical response team, ten bullet proof cars and backup armored vehicles, Airforce One and airborne fighter escorts. And the IOC then immediately decided, Rio.
Hasn’t the Whitehouse heard of GoToMeeting?
#27: I finally figured it out. They suffer from a severe case of ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome).
#31. How could I have forgotten Oprah.
Actually here in europe they made a big deal of the death of Derrion Albert. Kids beating a 16 year old to death in the streets of Chicago, a shocking image to say the least. I’d say that was the moment Chicago lost.
Chicago lost when an IOC committee tried to get somewhere in Chicago in under an hour. The CTA, a real crapshoot. The expressways, HAH. The TriState Tollway, they ran out of money halfway to O’Hare.
The mere thought of all that Olympic traffic competing with steel-haulers, the container haulers, the UPS and FedEX and YRC doubles, the dump trucks, garbage trucks, and RVs makes me cringe. Add in all the Ohio and Michigan plates heading to Wisconsin and all the Minnesota and Wisconsin plates heading to points east. And I ignore all the local Illinois and Indiana residents driving around everyday of the week at all hours.
Seriously, I’ve driven thru and around every major city in the lower 48 as well as Toronto and Montreal. The only two I despise are NYC and Chicago. New York because of the awful condition of the roads and Chicago for the traffic and the idiots who drive there. I’d rather do two weeks in LA at rush hour than two days in Chicago.
It gets worse, thanks to private industry and the US government who doesn’t care.
Now visitors to the US are being scammed by a fake immigration agency that is bribing overseas travel agents. An Aussie friend of mine was suckered into this until she complained to me and I told her it was a scam.
This site charges $100+ for filling out the electronic immigration landing cards that are free. Yet to the uninformed, it looks and feels like an official US government site.
Visitors are told they must file out a ESTA before flying to the US, which is true. However, the real site is here. But travel agents are sending customers to the fake one, and getting a nice kick back.
The traveler thinks the US government is screwing them even more and hate us even more. And the US does NOTHING about this, letting these scamsters operate this thing.
Pathetic. Any other country would refuse to accept applications submitted from this “private company”.
So what is it with Oprah? Has she been appointed to some special czar position or does the cabinet now include a Secretary of Inane Chat Shows? I get it that she is the US’s Goodwill Ambassador to Martha’s Vineyard but how does she get to go to Denmark on the public dime? When all is said and done, will anyone report on the millions of dollars this hopeless junket cost Americans? Can we send the bill to Chicago?
Finally the TSA gets publicly bitten back by it’s own idiocy, maybe now the government will force them to start using their brains a bit more instead letting them call everyone a terrorist… nah, who are we kidding.
Doodie: Howdy. The TSA has some pretty lame rules and regs. But the biggest losers are the brain dead high school drop outs who are the front line and who actually come into contact with travellers. The worst is the asshole at the security check-through screaming at people to take their shoes off and remove their laptops. As long as these morons with badges are allowed to represent our government and, thusly, you and me, foreign travelers will continue to lose respect for America. I travel extensively and have run into some strange security but never anything as fascist, intrusive and unpleasant as my own country.
#2 So comrade Alfredi, did you buy your tickets to Rio ahead of time? Nice patriotism there.
Are you now going to demonstrate how much you love america by going to afghanistan and kill some G.I.’s?
I wonder how the 2014 Olympics in Russia will treat visitors.
The IOC was probably getting payback because both Obama and Clinton insisted on boycotting the Beijing Olympics.
They didn’t come to Chicago because it is the most mobbed up city in America.