Bad News Bears
Oct. 14th, 2003 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistA story "broke" in Washington Post today indexing Teddy Bears and pillows as future tools of terrorism. Now, I am the first one to agree that Teddy Bears can be evil (not mine, I have two, but commemorative Teddy Bears are creepy as fuck, and so are the Teddy Bears dressed in bomber jackets and pilot goggles that Bank One is giving away as part of their promotion around the corner from my department). But this story is worth a second look for several reasons, and not just because it sounds like the kind of story that would be debunked by snopes.com, which lost its cred anyway after getting it really really wrong about secret Saudi flights out of the country immediately after 9/11:
1) The story did not actually "break" in The Post--it broke in El Mundo, as the article itself points out (although that information is contained at the end of the story, and statistics show that people are less likely to read on with every successive paragraph). More interestingly, before the story was obtained (leaked to?) The Post, "Homeland Security officials told recipients that the document should not be shared with the media or public." Which means that it's either a leak, or a scare tactic presented as a leak.
2)Nitrocellulose, a.k.a. "guncotton" is the new Anthrax. The articles say that Al-Qaeda is "trying to create" a "substance called" nitrocellulose. This language makes it sound like some sort of Holy Grail-ish substance, a little cousin of the big bad WMDs. In fact, nitrocellulose is a substance that's used in high school chemistry classes so I can't imagine that it would be that hard to access it or assemble it. As the article mentions, the possible impact of guncotton is determined by its packaging at the time of detonation. Well, here's a thought. As long as tweezers are not allowed on board of planes, why not ban lighters and matches from the cabins? All US airlines are nonsmoking anyway, and if they are afraid of pissing off the Tobacco Industry that lobbied for lighters and matches to be permitted on board of airplanes, just collect them at the gate and return them upon landing. Tag them, or something. The point is, the threat isn't some new chemical substance the recipe for which Al-Qaeda got from the devil by promising the Dark Prince blood of innocent Christian babies. The point is, the government is a) unwilling to execute the most practical solution on account of potential wrath from the Tobacco Industry b) generally seems to not actually give a fuck about air travel safety considering that refused to put minimum-wage security screeners on federal payroll, and laid off tens of thousands of airport security workers to boot, and either c1) actually did not want some credible information about this as a potential threat leaked, because their failure to take countermeasures would look retarded, and thus when it was leaked, The Post had to do some sort of compromise for the info and package guncotton as the new Anthrax or c2) "leaked" the story on purpose as part of the deployment-of-fear strategy lifted from Hollywood, Stephen King, Bride of Chuckie and everything else that cultivates and gains from the national phobia of "evil dolls." In either case both c1 and c2 point to d) which is a new Code Orange looming on the horizon, with an accompanying front-page photo image that involves a crying little girl, a Teddy Bear, or, if they feel the need for a Code Red, then a "pillow" with blood and brains all over it. Guess who will eat up brains for breakfast and be shocked and whisper in hush-hush tones about "that nitrocellulose"? That's right, the American Public.
So something is brewing, just in time for Christmas. There is another possibility, d) which is that this is part of the government's plan to scare the public away from flying over the holidays, which would be detrimental for airlines that, as an industry, are already in financial trouble. Why would the government want to do that? Normally I would not think of this, but after the recent Jet Blue/CAPPS II fiasco, methinks that it would be highly advantageous for the government to get airlines into a position where they have to bargain for federal aid; obviously "volunteering" to help the office of the Homeland Security to further test and implement their color-coded CAPPS--Computer Assisted Passenger Presecreening System which consolidates two earlier systems, The "no-fly list," identifying individuals suspected of terror links or barred "for other reasons", and CAPPS I, which checks a range of data about the trip and compares the passenger's name against a federal "watch list" of terrorist suspects. (sidebar: what is it with this administration and color-coding?) by turning over private records of customers supposedly protected by non-disclosure clauses is what would be "requested" in return. Especially for those consumers who will now boycott Jet Blue. Cuz that's, like, unpatriotic.
1) The story did not actually "break" in The Post--it broke in El Mundo, as the article itself points out (although that information is contained at the end of the story, and statistics show that people are less likely to read on with every successive paragraph). More interestingly, before the story was obtained (leaked to?) The Post, "Homeland Security officials told recipients that the document should not be shared with the media or public." Which means that it's either a leak, or a scare tactic presented as a leak.
2)Nitrocellulose, a.k.a. "guncotton" is the new Anthrax. The articles say that Al-Qaeda is "trying to create" a "substance called" nitrocellulose. This language makes it sound like some sort of Holy Grail-ish substance, a little cousin of the big bad WMDs. In fact, nitrocellulose is a substance that's used in high school chemistry classes so I can't imagine that it would be that hard to access it or assemble it. As the article mentions, the possible impact of guncotton is determined by its packaging at the time of detonation. Well, here's a thought. As long as tweezers are not allowed on board of planes, why not ban lighters and matches from the cabins? All US airlines are nonsmoking anyway, and if they are afraid of pissing off the Tobacco Industry that lobbied for lighters and matches to be permitted on board of airplanes, just collect them at the gate and return them upon landing. Tag them, or something. The point is, the threat isn't some new chemical substance the recipe for which Al-Qaeda got from the devil by promising the Dark Prince blood of innocent Christian babies. The point is, the government is a) unwilling to execute the most practical solution on account of potential wrath from the Tobacco Industry b) generally seems to not actually give a fuck about air travel safety considering that refused to put minimum-wage security screeners on federal payroll, and laid off tens of thousands of airport security workers to boot, and either c1) actually did not want some credible information about this as a potential threat leaked, because their failure to take countermeasures would look retarded, and thus when it was leaked, The Post had to do some sort of compromise for the info and package guncotton as the new Anthrax or c2) "leaked" the story on purpose as part of the deployment-of-fear strategy lifted from Hollywood, Stephen King, Bride of Chuckie and everything else that cultivates and gains from the national phobia of "evil dolls." In either case both c1 and c2 point to d) which is a new Code Orange looming on the horizon, with an accompanying front-page photo image that involves a crying little girl, a Teddy Bear, or, if they feel the need for a Code Red, then a "pillow" with blood and brains all over it. Guess who will eat up brains for breakfast and be shocked and whisper in hush-hush tones about "that nitrocellulose"? That's right, the American Public.
So something is brewing, just in time for Christmas. There is another possibility, d) which is that this is part of the government's plan to scare the public away from flying over the holidays, which would be detrimental for airlines that, as an industry, are already in financial trouble. Why would the government want to do that? Normally I would not think of this, but after the recent Jet Blue/CAPPS II fiasco, methinks that it would be highly advantageous for the government to get airlines into a position where they have to bargain for federal aid; obviously "volunteering" to help the office of the Homeland Security to further test and implement their color-coded CAPPS--Computer Assisted Passenger Presecreening System which consolidates two earlier systems, The "no-fly list," identifying individuals suspected of terror links or barred "for other reasons", and CAPPS I, which checks a range of data about the trip and compares the passenger's name against a federal "watch list" of terrorist suspects. (sidebar: what is it with this administration and color-coding?) by turning over private records of customers supposedly protected by non-disclosure clauses is what would be "requested" in return. Especially for those consumers who will now boycott Jet Blue. Cuz that's, like, unpatriotic.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-15 07:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-15 09:51 am (UTC)ZP's Tweezers
Date: 2003-10-16 09:07 am (UTC)For "other reasons" includes calling the woman at the counter an idiot and saying in a pissed-off tone of voice, "30 minutes means 30 minutes, not 32, so please let me on the fucking plane, already." That got me "targeted" all the way through.