Strange Days

Here's a story from Salon that is sure to keep conspiracy theory freaks going for years:

On Sept. 24, 2005, tens of thousands of protesters marched past the White House and flooded the National Mall near 17th Street and Constitution Avenue. They had arrived from all over the country for a day of speeches and concerts to protest the war in Iraq. It may have been the biggest antiwar rally since Vietnam. A light rain fell early in the day and most of the afternoon was cool and overcast.

Unknown to the crowd, biological-weapons sensors, scattered for miles across Washington by the Department of Homeland Security, were quietly doing their work. The machines are designed to detect killer pathogens. Sometime between 10 a.m. on Sept. 24 and 10 a.m. on Sept. 25, six of those machines sucked in trace amounts of deadly bacteria called Francisella tularensis. The government fears it is one of six biological weapons most likely to be used against the United States.

It was an alarming reading. The biological-weapons detection system in Washington had never set off any alarms before. There are more than 150 sensors spread across 30 of the most populated cities in America. But this was the first time that six sensors in any one place had detected a toxin at the same time. The sensors are also located miles from one another, suggesting that the pathogen was airborne and probably not limited to a local environmental source.

There is much debate over whether or not this was a botched terrorist attack or if the bacteria, which can be found naturally in the soil, was kicked up in the air by all the marchers. Another troubling aspect of this story is that it took Homeland Security five days to analyze and test the readings, and then alert state and local public health officials across the country.

So far, there have been no confirmed reports of any marchers becoming ill from exposure to this bacteria, which causes flu-like symptoms and is easily treatable with antibiotics (if properly diagnosed). However, Salon does quote several anti-war marchers who claimed that they experienced flu-like symptoms after the demonstration...

Bizarre coincidence? A Pentagon test on an undesirable segment of the population? A home-grown, right-wing attack on liberals and freaks? I really wanna know.

Also, why hasn't there been more coverage of this story in the press? (I did a Google search and only found a few stories in the Guardian Unlimited, Reuters, and the Bangor Daily News among others.)

Hitting an All Time Low

From Editor and Publisher:

Questions today from longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas caused White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to declare that she opposes the war on terrorism. His response caused one of Thomas's colleagues, Terry Moran, to leap to her defense.

Here is the exchange from the official transcript:

THOMAS What does the President mean by "total victory" -- that we will never leave Iraq until we have "total victory"? What does that mean?

McCLELLAN: Free and democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East, because a free and democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a major blow to the ambitions --

THOMAS If they ask us to leave, then we'll leave?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm trying to respond. A free and democratic Iraq in the heart of the broader Middle East will be a major blow to the ambitions of al Qaeda and their terrorist associates. They want to establish or impose their rule over the broader Middle East -- we saw that in the Zawahiri letter that was released earlier this week by the intelligence community.

THOMAS They also know we invaded Iraq.

McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, the President recognizes that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. And when you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here. September 11th taught us --

THOMAS It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism. The President recognizes this requires a comprehensive strategy, and that this is a broad war, that it is not a law enforcement matter.

Terry.

TERRY MORAN On what basis do you say Helen is opposed to the broader war on terrorism?

McCLELLAN: Well, she certainly expressed her concerns about Afghanistan and Iraq and going into those two countries. I think I can go back and pull up her comments over the course of the past couple of years.

MORAN And speak for her, which is odd.

McCLELLAN: No, I said she may be, because certainly if you look at her comments over the course of the past couple of years, she's expressed her concerns --

THOMAS I'm opposed to preemptive war, unprovoked preemptive war.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- she's expressed her concerns.

Bush is sounding more Hitler-like with his "total victory" language regarding Iraq, and good ol' Scotty boy is ever the bully, attacking Ms. Thomas' patriotism for challenging the bull crap that pours out of the mouths of everyone representing the Bush administration. I'm just happy that more and more Americans are finally realizing what a mess Bush, Inc. has made of our nation...

I Spy for the FBI

I'm not all worked up over the revelation that unnamed persons with ties to Homeland Security warned their friends via e-mail not to ride the NYC subways last week (if I had that info I'd be passing it along to all my friends and relations, too -- to hell with secrecy). And though it's disturbing that they were sent out before Mayor Bloomberg and Ray Kelly were briefed by the Feds, the wheels of bureaucracy at the Federal level can turn slowly, especially when it pertains to rumors of terrorism ("bin Laden determined to strike inside the US" anyone?).

What gets my boxers in a bunch was how "sources" at Homeland Security were publicly dismissing the warnings issued by the NYPD. As I've previously mentioned, the NYPD has its own counter-terrorism intelligence gathering apparatus which, from all that I've read, does a better job at evaluating threats to/protecting NYC that does Homeland Security. The whole thing smacks of inter-agency rivalry on HS's part...the whole stupid turf wars that break out between the Feds and local law enforcement:

A former anti-terrorism official told Newsday: "There is a standing joke that when Friday prayers at the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn ends, the NYPD's informants and the FBI's informants are bumping into each other as they leave."

Goodbye to You

Feds to Louisiana: Drop Dead!

More grist for the mill that echoes Paul Krugman's belief that Bush Inc. are really not going to do anything significant to assist in the reconstruction of the Katrina-battered Gulf states can be found in this depressing op-ed.

I Can't Stand the Rain...

It's pouring here in NYC this morning (and it's been gray and damp for daze now), the kind of rain that soaks a good part of you even if you have an umbrella up and a raincoat on. But weather like this still doesn't keep the sign-ripper-downers from their appointed rounds. As I ran to the corner Starbucks for a giant paper cup of tea, I spotted this bearded old white man tearing down 'Mayor Mike Bloomberg' signs that had been stapled around a lamp pole and stuffing them into a garbage can.

Like most cities, people tape up missing pet signs, ads for room painters or babysitters, things like that (and as we stumble toward November, placards for politicians). Since New York tends to cultivate a fair number of psycho-compulsive people, it's not too hard to spot those permanently upset by unauthorized signage on our streetlamps.

Here's the profile:

- Caucasian

- typically 65 and older

- usually male, but female variants have been spotted

- may be accompanied by small dog or 'granny' cart

- some appear to be people of great means, others appear ragged and semi-destitute

- demeanor: crotchety, testy, oblivious to the outside world

- cannot tolerate any form of paper attached to streetlamps or sign poles and will march block after block in search of these offending articles (and angrily remove the signage and tape when found)

- approach with extreme caution

One could only imagine what would happen if these folks were sent off to a place like San Francisco, where the wooden telephone poles and local traditions support a thriving ecosystem of stapled signage...

Mirror in the Bathroom

It's kind of pathetic, but at least it's something: the U.S. government is sending only 8 military choppers (plus the promise of $50 million in cash that we have to borrow) to help with the relief effort in Pakistan, after the horrific earthquake there killed 20,000+ souls.

Here we are, the sole superpower, yet our volunteer military is stretched to the breaking point by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus we're so deep in the hole paying for them (latest tally= over $350 billion) and the generous tax breaks to the rich and corporate America that we simply can't afford to help out the Pakistanis. God knows, we can't even help our own in Louisiana and Mississippi. (Paul Krugman comments in today's New York Times that he thinks there is no plan or intent by the Bush administration to fund any post-Katrina reconstruction effort in the Gulf states at all!).

Considering how poor our image is in the Arab world, you'd think that the Bushies would pull out all the stops to help out this Muslim country in the midst of this disaster (and keep proping up General Musharraf). But you'd be wrong. They'll probably send Karen Hughes to lecture Pakistani women about how she knows how hard it is to be a working Mom of faith, and that we don't want to kill all of the Muslims in the world, just torture the Muslim men who might or might not be terrorists and keep them in jail indefinitely...

Speaking of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib...seems like there is some common sense lurking on Capitol Hill after all: the Senate attached a ban on the U.S. military's use of torture to a defense spending bill -- and Bush has threatened to veto it (you can't get any more pro-torture than that, Georgie)!

Makes you wonder who Jesus would torture... Does Dubya ever think about that on his bike rides?

Going Underground

God knows I trust NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and his anti-terror squad a thousand times more than some of the oafs at Homeland Security or the CIA (yes, yes, there are many good people at both of those agencies, but not enough of them...and the people at the top are Bush approved, so you know they're more crony than competent), so when they tell us that they have a credible terrorist threat to our beloved subway system (meaning a bomb plot) you know it's real, not Bush yanking our chain.

Time to break out the bike, skateboard, or the trainers, eh?

My wife commented that if a terrorist bombing does take place on the subway system, "Bush's head will explode" from all of the problems that are piling up on his doorstep (Katrina, Iraq, 9/11, Plamegate, Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff, more torture photos to come, gas prices, FEMA, cronies, and on and on)...

Is My Name in There?

The other night, at the end of another day in the salt mines, I was leafing through a fundraising brochure sent by my old (but despised) prep school and decided to look up the class of '85 to see who was sending in checks. There were a whole bunch of what looked like tiny crosses next to about half of the twenty or so classmates listed, and when I scanned down to the bottom of the page, the notation indicated that they were now "deceased!"

So, I freaked out a bit, and then noticed that there were lots of crosses next to kids from the graduating classes around mine. Did they all die on 9/11?!?! (I read throught the "Portraits of Grief" in the Times religiously, and only came across one person that I knew of through my wife...how could I have missed all of these people?) Is there some sort of freaky disease running through this rich, privileged crowd (of which I was never a part)?!

I raced to the computer and started searching through the Times' listing of the 9/11 dead (nothing), then checked their obituaries listings (nothing), then punched various names into Google (nothing). My wife returned from her errand and I relayed my bizarre tale of dozens of former classmates cut down in the prime of their lives. I remember seeing so-and-so in Central Park with his kid, and this guy on Lexington in the 70s...and do you remember meeting this guy in the playground a few years ago?

She takes a closer look at the brochure and tells me that the notation indicates not that they died, but that they have supported the school alumni fund for five years or more...

Oh. Never mind.