Warning, the terrorists could be using information!

http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/29alm.html

Christ Almighty…

have we come to this point?

Warning! Terrorists are using Almanacs to plan attacks.

I guess we have to be suspicious if you are associated with the following

The Internet
Rand McNally
Books in general
Learning
The Weather Channel

Hell… let’s burn all this stuff so terrorists won’t use it!

And let’s get rid of OnStar since terrorists could use it to get directions!

it’s a good thing these fucking warnings don’t cost much to distribute because this is just fucking absurd.

(note: while it is possible terrorists atre using information, is this not some sort of bizarre fear-mongering?)

just wait until they bring down restrictions on the internet and e-mail.

To stop terrorists… of course. :rolleyes:

Ugh

Well, the librarians are already in a stir because now they can demand that libraries turn over lists of who checked out what books, just in case someone’s reading list seems a bit suspicious.

Why not people with laptops, though? Seems to me that someone with a laptop and wireless internet would be way more dangerous than someone with an almanac…

I was just visiting the Pit to start a thread on this very thing.

If you know things, the terrorists have already won.

Next: FBI monitoring of Pub Quiz. “Some smarty smart smart might be helping the terrorists! Good citizens don’t want to know the largest city in South Dakota!”

Sweet mother of fuck…

I’d be scared, if the idiots who came out with this were ‘protecting’ the area I lived in

FIGHTING IGNORANCE SINCE 1973
(IT’S TAKING LONGER THAN WE THOUGHT)

Is the Wisden’s Almanac included in this crackdown?!? I’m amazed the FBI have heard of cricket…even though it’s played in Pakistan…

Fuck, everyday life becomes a bit more onionish.

I think y’all are missing something key here. From the article

The FBI knows that books may be perfectly innocent. So there is no need to be suspicious of people who know things. Instead we should watch the people who know things and look at things.

So if you want to stay right with the FBI, don’t look at things.

hmm, how do I watch for people who know things and look at things without myself looking at things? This Homeland Security stuff is hard.

all they’re saying is, if a cop pulls over someone suspicious and notices an almanac with US icons circled in red and a jug of napalm in the trunk, put 2 and 2 together.

Of course, it’s more clever to make fun of the people whose job it is to be on the lookout for terrorist. I guess it would take us losing a few more skyscrapers for the smartasses around here to stop mocking our attempts to defend ourselves.

Or not.

Be on alert for dogs with shifty eyes. You know they’re dangerous if they have shifty eyes.

I can see it now:

New FBI advisory is to be on the lookout for single males asking for directions at gas stations. Please report all such instances to TIPS; such activity is simply too un-American to be overlooked. Exemptions if a female is in the car and the male looks defeated as he performs the unmanly task of admitting that he is lost.

Did the universe just disappear and get replaced with something even more bizarre and inexplicable, again?

Great. Now I’ve got to get an updated Gui… erm, I mean… …I need a bigger towel. Yeah.

Or worse…THE STRAIGHT DOPE BOOKS!!!

EEEEKKK!!!

Wow, I feel a lot better. I have a jug of napalm in my trunk, but at least I don’t own an almanac.

Well, this is all very well and good, but the liberal media has once again bent over backwards to help Saddam Hussein and his al-Qaeda cronies. See, now that they’ve published this article, the terrorists know not to carry almanacs around with them! Looking for people with almanacs is going to be a waste of time, because now an almanac is the last thing a terrorist is going to be seen with in public. No, the trick now is to keep an eye on anyone you see in public who doesn’t have an almanac! They’re the REAL danger!

Thank god I decided against the almanac and bought a bird book instead.

If I lived in the States, I’d find nebulous notions of “terrorism” far less annoying than worrying if some overauthorized subway cop is going to have me “detained” all morning should I decide to take both my pocketknife and my GPS to work at the same time.
Anyways, who cares if raw onions cure insomnia anyhow?

Check. the “onions” are on their way to “South Dakota.”

Oh, come on, people! It’s a hoax! A put-on! No one, but no one, is stupid enough to go on public record as suggesting an almanac as a source of info for terrorists!

And certainly not the FBI! They set the gold standard amongst the nations for canny, hi-tech crime busting. You’ve seen the documentaries, surely? All these guys in lab coats, carrying clip boards, beakers full of boiling stuff over those…Bjornson burners? And those rooms full of computers that were the most advanced on earth not more than twenty years ago!

Why, that one traitor guy, he had to cunningly conceal his activities behind a front of buying spiffy sports cars for cash and blowing money on strippers!

No way such a band of crisply intelligent professionals say anything so stupid! Our FBI protects us from terror in the same way a ceramic lawn troll protects our homes from wooly mammoth stampedes, which is to say, flawlessly, and without exception!

The other possibility is that its all a plot by a cynical cabal of Perfidious Liars[sup]TM[/sup] to undermine our faith in Our Leaders and to cruelly subvert the morale of Our Heroic Troops! But they have overplayed thier hand, this time!

'Cause nobody, but nobody, is stupid enough to buy this crock of shit! Almanacs!. Boy, those guys must really think we’re dum.

I am shocked, shocked and appalled. I’m hurling my 1992 International Herald Tribune almanac (that I got free with a subscription) into the fireplace right now, and I don’t want to hear any more of this sarcasm directed towards the unsung heroes who are working diligently to combat the pernicious threat of almanac-wielding terrorists that has put such a crimp into the after-Christmas sales.

And I call upon everyone to do their bit as well. Think you can’t make a difference? Yesterday, I had to make a drive from D.C. to Philly on I-95. I noticed that every ten miles the overhead signs that usually report traffic conditions read: “REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY. CALL 1-800-(whateveritis)-TIPS.” Well, I wasn’t sure what constituted suspicious activity, so I reported everybody. And just to make sure, I took pictures of many of them. Especially a northbound Camry with the back seat, from floor to ceiling, completely filled with plastic clothes hangers. Something just had to be wrong there.

But you know what? Nobody seems to care. I’ve seen nothing in the news about thousands of drivers in Eastern Maryland being questioned about their activities. Moreover, I would have thought that the sight of some bearded maniac veering all over the interstate whilst taking pictures of other drivers would have looked suspicious to someone, but to the best of my knowledge, no one has reported ME.