Warning, Warning! You're in DANGER!
 

The Security Flavor for today is ORANGE.

Planes might be used as weapons.
People might die in terrorist attacks.
Your own family could be in the crosshairs.
The United States itself is in imminent danger!


...but, please, don't cancel your travel plans and enjoy your holidays!


Why in the hell do they even bother with this? What good does this do other than make people edgy and paranoid?

Wolf! Wolf!

Re: Warning, Warning! You're in DANGER!
 

Nothing, except make those of us who are edgy and paranoid anyway feel better about ourselves.

My pager went off at around 1400 hrs (EST, in case you needed to know) with a text message from PEMA indicating that the threat level had been raised.

I did what I always do. I checked to see that my sidearm was loaded ... not much else one can do under the circumstances. You all have plenty of duct tape and bottle water already don't you? If not, it makes a fine xmas gift ... It wasn't until several hours later that I heard the dire warnings on the radio.

Friend of mine did have some prophetic dreams regarding a WMD (dirty bomb, if you're curious) attack on a city in the mountains ... I'm mentioning it here just in case she was really tuned in, so that I have something to point ot skeptics about ... see, see ... I'm not backpedalling and making something up. It was in actual electronic print on 12/22/03 ...

We had a "words that make us uncomfortable" thread a little while ago. I'd like to add Homeland to my list.

Edgy and paranoid people might not be worried by the Pentagon starting it's own "news" network.

Bah. If there is a dirty bomb attack, Philadelphia is a much more plausible target.

(There's water nearby, for the bomb-on-a-tramp-steamer theorists. Big city == higher body count. Nearby nuclear plant. Lots of historical sites rich with symbolic value. For the high-octane "stage an event to rev up America for war" conspiracy theorists, it's even more attractive; removing Philly would tilt Pennsylvania's electoral votes rightward, and who wouldn't want to go after Them Dirty Terrorists Who Melted The Liberty Bell?") ;)

Of course, since I live twenty miles from Philly, none of the above is particularly _comforting_ to think about...

When you consider that it's halfway between NYC and DC with none of the heavy security of those towns, yet it's the "birthplace of the nation", and they would attack where security is light,...

...if Philly was hit we'd all say we "obviously should have seen it coming."

Hey, being the Voice of Doom about these things isn't easy. If you're wrong, people think you're a loony; if you're right, you glow in the dark.

As for the practical effects of the Orange alert, I bow to Red Dwarf:

Rimmer: I'm upgrading this from a Blue Alert to a Red Alert.
Kryten: Are you sure, sir?
Rimmer: Yes, I'm sure. Now do it!
Kryten: But sir... this does mean that I'll have to change the bulb.

Philadelphia already looks like a dirty bomb hit it...

Oh! That's not what you meant...

I'm kinda glad I'm not around the corner from the Liberty Bell anymore...now I just use the busiest commuter rail station in the area...

AGGAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH
orange? shit!
noooooooooo!

Yes, orange alert. The big white bubble thing is going to be chasing you again.

funny factoid - we had to do mark 1 training (Atropine and Pralidoxime autoinjector kits for nerve gas) and I forget the exact statistic, but we were told that in Desert Storm there were 0 reported cases of nerve gas poisoning and something like 900 reported cases of atropine overdose. Keep up the healthy paranoia everyone!

Make sure you tape up that safe room real good! At least "duck and cover" in the 50s made you feel more secure and you didn't have the option of suffocating to death.

I'll be honest in my opinion over these terror alerts and suggested precautions -- I think they're bullshit. The only decent thing they've advocated so far is the three days of water and food that everyone should have. (Or, at least, I say this because I live on the coast.) Be vigilant? Please -- the only thing the average citizen is going to be able to point out is that they saw an Arab on the way to work who might have been giving people the evil eye as he was waiting for the light to change.

The biggest terrorist threats that ever affected this country were ones we probably never knew about. When NEST had to scan the Superdome before the superbowl, the public was not notified of Charles Bishop's (kid who crashed the plane into the Nation's Bank building in Tampa) suicide note and the threat it contained. Telling the public that something might happen, that there is a non-specific threat, or that you might want to be a little more cautious driving over bridges for the next week is just silly. It doesn't do any good.

http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/...jokes/8321.gif



Bob :D

I have two theories on the Orange level

1) It's an attempt to soften up Americans by getting them used to unreasonable search and seizure and any other sorts of restrictions they will use the Orange level to justify

2) It's Al Queda having a hell of a time using known-insecure communications paths to "plan" events which ain't going to happen, precisely in order to get the US all jumpy around the holidays. I mean, why bother doing all that terrorism stuff when by talking about it you can send the infidel into a frenzy.

Paranoia aside 2 is much more likely than 1.

if I were a terrorist, I would wait for a nice green day to fuck shit up.

You know that REALLY pisses me off...

The fact that the "red" level is <BLINKING>. WTF?! Is this some sort of banner ad in the style of WINNNER!!!

Ugh so retarded....I'll go check out how badly my EQ char is stripped then submerge into my fantasy world for the next 2 years..

I'm going to stick with my Sycamore Alert System.

Am I the only one who finds George Carlin's You Are All Diseased set very disturbing to listen to in recent years? His talk on airport security and the economy that he made in 1999 are prophetic and a little creepy.

"And if you didn't take a weapon on board, relax. After you've been flying for about an hour, they're gonna bring you a knife and fork! They actually give you a fucking knife! It's only a table knife, but you could kill a pilot with a table knife. It might take a couple of minutes. Especially if he's hefty. But you could get the job done."

They don't bring you a useful knive and fork any more. But they DO provide (usually) and allow you to bring a very nice improvised edged weapon. Design a plastic holder for it and it's even better, but without that it's still plenty deadly. I refer, of course, to the Coke can.

This is the Permitted and Prohibited Items list from the TSA. Some of those items allowed in carry-on luggage could easily be used as weapons.

Another item not mentioned that could also be easily used as a weapon: the ball point pen.

what about a knife made out of kevlar or lexan or something?
Pencils are also very mean.

Today on the emergency room door:

"Due to the increased orange level, you may be required to produce identification" etc ... this was on the EMS personnel only door mind you.

I just bought a knife made out of "glassfilled polymer" (designed by Blackie Collins, in case anyone was curious). We tested it at work.

Makes it right through the metal detector. Only a physical search would pick it up.

Wed morning traffic stops about 4 miles west of the Tappan Zee Bridge in NY. 45 minutes to go 1 mile then traffic slowly picks up to all of 15 mph. When I finally get to the bridge there's no accident or construction but there's a lot of highway workers climbing into 3 dump trucks, a stakebody truck, a box truck and several pickups. The thing that caught my eye was the trucks and the yellow rainsuits the men were wearing. EVERTHING was brand new. Squeeky clean, brand new. I wonder if they were working for Uncle Tom?

the sycamore alert system..freakin' hilarious!!!

with the constant wave that the "terrorist alert system" or whatever is on, has pretty much made me lethargic to the whole ordeal. i haven't flown on a commercial airline since 9-11 but am going to have to here in about a month or so with my carry on consisting of my flight bag. (headset, maps etc..) i can only imagine the crap i'm going to have to go through. any pilots carry their stuff on board since 9-11?

I flew one-way to St. Louis from Baltimore in April. Fairly smooth process at BWI...got through the checkpoints in about 30 minutes. Only thing that was a pain was that I had to check my bags in at the ticket counter (probably b/c I was flying one-way), but as I was flying out on an early Saturday morning, that only took about 10-15 minutes.

Oh, and the SAS is currently at green. :)

Like the CIA letter opener?

Similar material, probably a bit more durable than the CIA letter opener and the executive ice scraper, but it's a folding knife, which is what I really liked about it.

http://www.lippman-enterprises.com/art/BCollins2.jpg

Be very afraid.

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular annual reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Yeah. Terrorists would never think of using the internet.

Although I'm uncertain as to the ultimate utility of knowing all the State Capitals and presidential election results and birth and death dates of many celebrities.

And the weather predictions in the Farmer's Almanac are always wrong anyway.

Curse you, Benjamin Franklin! Why, oh WHY did you invent such a dangerous weapon? Now they'll be interfering with our crop rotation and then it'll be hell trying to figure out what to do with all those peanuts.

I get a little worried when real news articles start looking like ones from The Onion.

"During World War II, the U.S. government banned the Old Farmer's Almanac for several weeks."

But why, you might ask? Maybe it was because it contained instructions on how to hypnotize a chicken.

So, what's the next step? We label Ben as a terrorist?

There go half our historical sites here in Philadelphia...

Technically that whole generation of folks were terrorists... at least as far as Crazy King George was concerned.

Does anyone besides me find it odd that almanacs are now a sign of danger, but a longhaired commoner like myself drew no attention whatsoever for using a GPS both in the airport and on board aircraft recently?

I do that on almost every flight I travel on -- it rocks. When you look out the window, you know what you're looking at and you get to know when the pilot is not telling the entire truth. On my last flight, both directions, the pilot noted that we would be cruising at a "comfortable 30,000 feet" all while I knew we had topped out at an amazing 42,000! (Actually, you could tell almost just by looking at the sky, which had turned an astouding deep blue.) On getting home I looked up the callsign of the aircraft, found out that it is a newer model 737 that has the ability to go that high, and did further reading to find out that plenty of flights are pushed up there due to crowding. Neat.

Another fun thing I keep doing that I always fear will get plenty of attention is to take a radio scanner to the airport -- on picking up people, I don't wait in the terminal staring at a television screen, I go to the top of the short term deck and listen for them to come in then watch them land. Never get a second look from security, either, but plenty of passengers who pass by ask questions which usually end with, "You're allowed to do that?" or "Is that legal?"

Ah, and flights across the Atlantic were not the full reason for the orange alert status.

Where to look up your flight's callsign: Airliners.net

See where your plane has been! Find out weird trivia from those strange people who watch planes all day! Point to a little window in the picture and tell your friends, "I sat right there and got a tiny bag of peanuts and half a can of soda on that exact plane!"