It’s a problem, Tranquilis… how do you keep the public alert without making them panicked, and without becoming the boy who cried wolf? I guess that’s why those stories about the attack on the Sears tower being thwarted were going around - to show the vigilance is paying off, and that there is really a risk of more attacks.
What makes it a dog-n-pony show is:
- We’ve already heard this. This is nothing new, and doesn’t call for a full-fledged press conference to rehash the status quo.
- This press conference was heavily advertised, (at least around here).
- Despite much hype, breaking into programming for “breaking news”, and so-on, we were told aboslutely nothing we’d not already been told.
That’s what makes it a dog-n-pony show.
If I were him and assuming he/they have access to far simpler biological options, I’d be tempted to change tack around about now. I might keep up with the Anthrax a while longer (keep the city folk on their toes) but I’d also give the country folk something as well.
I hope to God I’m way off the mark but Foot/Hoof and Mouth is very, very simple to introduce, very contagious, very expensive to rid yourself of, hugely disruptive and spreads like wildfire. Pretty ideal.
And, although there are some reasonably good ideas, we’re still not sure how it came to be in the UK.
Hope I’m very wrong.
All I know is that today they are performing searches of trucked containers leaving Oakland, one of California’s largest shipping ports.
Something tells me they’re not looking for a fertilizer bomb. That said, about the only thing that would need a container to fit into and be of major concern would be a nuclear device.
You gotta know how much that made my fucking day. Each minute I am losing more and more of whatever little sympathy I’ve ever had for the Afghan people. If my ass gets nuked, I hope we glass over Afghanistan until its glow can be seen from the Goddamned fucking moon!
Zenster said
Quick, back on your Meds. :eek:
Oh, god, not Zenster again…
The sky is falling, maybe
Like what seems to be a fair number of people, I’m starting to question just how helpful things like the Attorney General’s news conference/announcement of this evening are. I am starting to get the idea that the Administration is teetering on the edge of panic or is becoming so frustrated with the whole thing that it is on the verge of doing something along the lines of declaring a state of siege (that old Latin American favorite when the Government doesn’t know what else to do).
It is just futile to tell the country one day that the government is proceeding with a carefully thought out plan and that the people should all go out and buy durable goods, and the next day go screaming into the streets that some unknown but terrible thing is maybe about to happen. This sort of thing is just the sort of stuff that causes otherwise reasonable people to decide that the durable good they ought to by is the biggest damn gun they can find.
If we are dealing with a lose of nerve by the Attorney General, someone needs to take him to a dark, quiet room and put cold cloths on his poor fevered forehead. If, on the other hand, there is some credible information, we need to be told what to do about it. Periodically declaring that the sky is about to fall, maybe, is just not going to cut it.
E72521:
There’s zero fucking reason to think Gore or Clinton could be handling this fucked-up fucking situation any better than Bush is. And I voted for both of them.
John Ashcroft:
Enough with the God-damned “There’s a terrorist attack imminent! But we can’t tell you where or what kind or exactly when, because of course we don’t know.” Fuck this. How much more heightened can our state of alertness be??? Shall I lock myself in my house with a gas mask, a big bottle of Cipro, an assault rifle, and a case of cheap booze?
I guess all those Y2K twits are probably starting to feel smug again. “We have a ten year’s supply of bottled water and MRE’s!”
Zenster:
Osama bin Laden is not a fucking Afghan. He’s a fucking Arab. None of his top lieutenants in al-Qaeda are Afghans. None of the terrorists on September 11 were Afghans. They’re all fucking Arabs. Should we nuke Egypt? Should we nuke Yemen and the UAE? Why not turn Saudi Arabia into a “glass sheet”? Get a fucking grip, will you.
Jesus H. Christ I feel cranky this evening.
There are plenty of things they could have been searching for Zenster - drugs or guns spring to mind. Believe it or not, a lot of bad things have happened in this world since September 11 and the vast majority of them haven’t been connected with ObL, let alone with the Afghani people as a whole. There are plenty of nations on this Earth where people live daily with the fear of terrorist attacks of one kind of another, while coping with displacement, extreme poverty, and extremes of climate - and they do so without any real option to change their government’s policies short of armed rebellion. We in the West aren’t living with the kind of fear and suspicion which we’ve had to confront since September 11 - we want it to all be fixed and go away by lunchtime next Tuesday.
I don’t know your family composition Zenster, but I’ve heard enough stories from my grandparents about WWI, from my parents about WWII, from most of my family about the Depression and rationing, from my uncle about his time as a Japanese POW working on the Thai-Burma railway and later in Changi, from one brother who fought in Malaysia during the Korean War and from another who did several tours of Vietnam, to realise that the peace and stability we’ve enjoyed in Western nations over the last 30 or so years has been exceptional.
It’s easy to blame ObL, Al-Quaeda, and the Afghan people for
that container being searched. But containers were quite regularly searched in ports throughout Australia way before September 11 (as I suspect they were in the US), and for reasons totally unrelated to terrorism. Perhaps you’re only noticing this kind of stuff now that your perception of your personal safety and that of your nation has been reshaped.
Crime isn’t taking a holiday just because there’s a war on Zenster- please don’t assume that everything and everything can be related back in some way to September 11, 2001 : operating from such an assumption would be a fairly certain path to madness, and we need you around to help us cook. 
Please Zenster, turn of the TV and the net for a few days - you sound like you’re suffering from an overload of tabloid information. Go cuddle Zen and leave those who are paid to defend your nation to worry about doing their jobs - you’re worrying about it isn’t going to have any impact on how successfully they do that, only on how much you enjoy life right now.
Don’t be silly. We’ve always been at war with Oceania.
I’ll take the cheap booze, thanks.
And what, pray tell, have Afghan civilians done to you? What have the little girls and boys done that is so unbelievably atrocious as to deserve radiation so terrible that they will most certainly die?
You really need to fucking chill. Take a break from whatever’s up your ass and fucking you sideways and just get some sleep and perspective.
And without the Taleban’s cocksucking complicity, life woulda been a whole lot more difficult for that asshole bin Laden. I know al Qaeda consists of Arabs. But I also know that a whole bunch of Afghan men are fighting our troops right now.
For fun, think of where a nuclear retaliation will occur if we do get nuked. I don’t think it will be Saudi fucking Arabia! For fuck’s sake, this is the Goddamned Pit! Let me vent will you?
Reading OP’s like this one and the responses to it give me a pretty good idea of ObL’s likely course of action, at least if I were channeling right now. It’s a royal mindf**k, and you’re all falling for it.
Start by using the technology of the Great Satan, jet airliners, to perpetrate a massive destruction of life/property in a worldwide made-for-television event.
Order all other cells to maintain low profile, realizing that while some, even many will be picked up by the feebies, not all will be.
Practice the ol’ boy-who-cried-wolf strategy to encourage the populace to function under ongoing stress by utilizing the famous chinese firedrill routine. (IOW, make lots of noise, with no further action)
Allow reasonable period of time to go by with no further attacks, let populace relax, and about, say, Christmas, launch phase two. Majority of the country celebrating, shopping malls full, traffic congested, what could be better? What would have a greater impact?
Let’s all be just a bit smarter about this, shall we? Grit our teeth, vow not to be dissuaded from our routines, and to hell with 'em. Don’t give in. Don’t overreact. Listen to the news, and when the AG says an attack may be coming, just be smart about it. This is going to go on and on. For a loooong time. So sit back and take a deep breath.
The last “warning” they issued wasn’t realized, was it? Unless the anthrax mailings was the “attack.”
I agree that these warnings are next to useless. However, as a prudent American I would just make sure I didn’t take this week to visit the Smithsonian or sight-see from the Sears tower.
Personally, my way of coping has been to turn off CNN and CNBC and go on about my business. If some nutcase wants to release anthrax via a crop duster over my head, there’s really not a whole lot I can do about it.
Okay, I know this is not a link, but it is the email I received yesterday. I purposely did not attach the headers and all. I work as a security supervisor for a major utility.
(before I post this, mods, please fix the quote codes on this if I screw them up.)
The answer, of course, is yes.
Just out of curiosity, how does this photo make you feel?
And winter hasn’t even arrived yet… 
Zenster, shut the hell up, would ya? The Afghan people are not our problem. All they want to do is to do what anybody else wants: to raise their kids, work, and live their lives. If you want to point out the wrongs of fundamentalist Islam, I’ll be right there, but to wish death on innocents is evil.
And we’re at war with Eastasia. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia. I love Big Brother.