Yeah, but what he’s getting at is why was the PSA described in the OP advising people to create a terrorist plan of action with their kids as if that meant anything? It’s rubbish.
Well, I haven’t seen the PSA itself, and no one has linked to it, so I don’t know what it says, exactly. My guess is that it talks about a plan of action in the case of emergency or terrorist attack, because that’s how those things are usually phrased.
Actually, someone did… we just didn’t notice it. I assume this is what the OP was talking about, anyway: http://www.ready.gov/kids/parents/about.html
It certainly makes much more sense couched as a general emergency preparedness program, rather than “terrorism plan of attack” as the OP called it.
Still, it’s hardly groundbreaking stuff- it’s simple parenting. Any parent who doesn’t tell their kids “here are the emergency numbers, and if anything goes wrong, call Grandma” or whatever is negligent.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-11-22-ads-homelandsecurity_x.htm
You can see the videos from that page.
And by the way, Baldwin, fuck you and the horse you rode in on with that snarky comment about “Consider the OP”.
To be fair, Rescorla wasn’t operating in a vacuum when he decided the WTC would be attacked: it already had been attacked, in 1993. Specifically because of the previous terrorist interest in the building, Rescorla was sure it would be targeted again. He wasn’t prescient, he was just paying attention to detail. (Please note I am taking nothing away from the man’s foresight and bravery!)
Apparently, the parallel is: if your children have previously been attacked by al Qaeda, you’re well advised to form an evacuation plan.
French isn’t an ethnicity.
No offense intended; I was just referring to your record of not being overly bright, and not always having a grasp of facts. That’s all.
ETA: Thanks for the link. Would have greatly enhanced your first post.
Per my link, Rescorla had first warned of a potential for attack when he was first hired in 1992. So he was quite a bit prescient there.
Okay. So what do you think I should teach my kids - after all, I used to live just a few miles from the Pentagon, I was working close to it when it was hit, and today my kids are within spitting distance of a major military installation and FBI training center. They will attend college someday - one of the major universities in my state was the scene of a well-publicized shooting that left 32 people dead.
What preparations do you think I should take with my kids?
One of the victims of the shooting at Virginia Tech had been taught by my brother in high school - he only made it out alive because he took off his belt and used it to tourniquet his leg. He was bleeding heavily from an artery - he would have been dead within minutes had he not done this. He learned how as an Eagle Scout.
Seems a good approach, frankly, and applicable in many situations.
I haven’t seen the ads in question - they may be effective or not. But we can say an antismoking ad is ineffective without saying that someone ought to smoke, right? Why is it that this subject has brought out such a tremendous amount of stupidity in this thread?
I should also add - the most terrified I’ve ever been in my life, and that includes being uncomfortably close to the 9/11 attacks, was when the Beltway sniper was killing people pretty close to where I live - and nobody could be sure where he would shoot next. My wife was pregnant with our twins at the time.
It was horrific - I was gassing up our cars late at night and deliberately choosing a station where the pumps were shielded by an embankment.
I’m the goddamn Lone Ranger!
I was going to say the same thing as Sailboat when I first read the account you posted, until I noticed he started making noise about evacuation in 1992.
The DHS is not telling anyone to show their kids how to apply a tourniquet, or evacuate a high-rise office building. I certainly agree that teaching your kids to be prepared for emergencies in general is a good thing, and that would include first aid training. That’s not what this thread is about, though.
My plan is to trip the kids and run, prolly shouldn’t tell them beforehand.
If I were in a nasty mood, I would take offense, but a snarky little asshole like you making jibes at me is not worth wasting time over.
First, you have to teach the little buggers to handle heavy explosives. …
I can’t help but suspect that the bureaucratic drones rejected that more sensible approach because “anti-terrorism” is sexy while reminding people about preparation for generic disasters is embarassing (koffKatrinakoff) to the Powers That Be.
I’ve never understood this 72 Virgins thing. I mean, they aren’t gonna stay that way for long. And then waddya got? Seventy-two nagging wives. And Og knows how many crying babies. This is to die for?
Anyway. I realize some of the critters in the outgoing administration sorely miss the Cold War, but do we really need to revive Duck and Cover? Talk about retro. . . .
Again, for all that it is ridiculed, duck and cover is pretty good advice. It remains the standard shelter-in-place rule for earthquakes and tornadoes, with some modifications. And a second’s thought would show that it has utility against explosive attacks from whatever source.
Let’s remember that a good portion of the fatalities and even more of the injuries in the Oklahoma City bombing were from flying glass. And while that likely couldn’t have been prevented in that case, it could have been different had advance warning of the bomb been obtained.
Just based on the way you phrased it here, I read that as “spread the fear to your children in the hopes that they grow up to be Republicans, because damn it, things aren’t looking good for our political party.”
Talk about bad aim.