What happened to the terror alerts?

[tristano's ghost]

This is a question I was asking late last spring, when they seemed to have noticeably diminished. Josh Marshall raises it again:

Every so often a reader writes in and asks this question. And it's a pretty good one. So here goes: When was the last time there was a major terror alert? They were something like a regular occurence for the eighteen months or so before the 2004 election. And through 2004 the administration pushed the line that al Qaida was aiming to disrupt the elections themselves. But as near I can tell there hasn't been a single one since election day.

Through 2004, of course, critics of the administration routinely questioned whether the frequency and timing of the various terror alerts were not all or in part for political effect.

How do we explain what appears to be a night and day difference between the year prior to November 2004 and the year since in terms of terror alerts and scares?

-- Josh Marshall

[patricia]

It seemed to me, at the time and now that the Terror Alerts were part of the four year long campaign for re-election of the party that was presenting itself as a paternal figure, protecting you from evil-doers, more than a legitimate weapon against a growing threat.
Once the Republicans were safely, by a hair, back in office, there was not as much need to scare the bejesus out of the electorate.
AND IT WORKED.

[Monte Smith]

The last national orange level was over the holidays 2003-04. So if it was a grand scheme by elected politicians, they let it go during the major election year of 2004.

There have been two city- and site-specific alerts since 2003, one for financial institutions in NYC, NJ, and DC in 2004; and one for mass transit systems after the London bombings.

[Scott Dolan]

What about the terror alert in NYC a few months back? Oh, that must have been for Bloombergs re-election. How silly of me.

Originally Posted by particia

It seemed to me, at the time and now that the Terror Alerts were part of the four year long campaign for re-election of the party that was presenting itself as a paternal figure, protecting you from evil-doers, more than a legitimate weapon against a growing threat.
Once the Republicans were safely, by a hair, back in office, there was not as much need to scare the bejesus out of the electorate.
AND IT WORKED.

I don't know if it worked on Republican voters, but it sure worked its magic on you.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

What about the terror alert in NYC a few months back? Oh, that must have been for Bloombergs re-election. How silly of me.







I don't know if it worked on Republican voters, but it sure worked its magic on you.

right back at you. I'm afraid of nothing.

[Scott Dolan]

So you were just advancing the myth for the benefit of others?

[Gentle Giant]

There's been no need of terror alerts because by torturing suspects and spying on our own citizens, the Bush Administration has gotten all the information they need to keep us safe and warm.

[walto]

Me, I keep wondering what happened to the search for the anthrax mailers. I remember Bush absolutely guaranteeing their apprehension and conviction. And didn't the investigators actually determine which particular mailbox In New Jerseya couple of the white powder envelopes came from? Man, Holmes, Poirot, Maigret, all those mystery solving wizards, would have nabbed these culprits years ago, wouldn't they? I mean, without DNA or computers, or caller ID, or any of that stuff. Meanwhile the crack US team, even with the help of all those local and state police forces, turned up....nothing.

Definitely time to bring in Scotland Yard, no?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Walto

Me, I keep wondering what happened to the search for the anthrax mailers. I remember Bush absolutely guaranteeing their apprehension and conviction. And didn't the investigators actually determine which particular mailbox In New Jersey

Uh-oh. Is (Ollie) present and accounted for?!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

So you were just advancing the myth for the benefit of others?

I wasn't aware that I was "advancing the myth", but rather I was musing that it seemed less urgent to scare the hell out of people, after the Election.
Are you afraid of faceless, nameless, evil-doers more now?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by patricia

...I was musing that it seemed less urgent to scare the hell out of people, after the Election.

Or, indeed, during.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by patricia

I wasn't aware that I was "advancing the myth", but rather I was musing that it seemed less urgent to scare the hell out of people, after the Election.
Are you afraid of faceless, nameless, evil-doers more now?

I wasn't afraid of them before, nor am I now.

Also, see Monte's post above.

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by walto

Me, I keep wondering what happened to the search for the anthrax mailers. I remember Bush absolutely guaranteeing their apprehension and conviction. And didn't the investigators actually determine which particular mailbox In New Jerseya couple of the white powder envelopes came from? Man, Holmes, Poirot, Maigret, all those mystery solving wizards, would have nabbed these culprits years ago, wouldn't they? I mean, without DNA or computers, or caller ID, or any of that stuff. Meanwhile the crack US team, even with the help of all those local and state police forces, turned up....nothing.

Definitely time to bring in Scotland Yard, no?

The trail has gone cold. The government named Steven Hatfill, a virologist as a "person of interest," but never charged him with a crime. He has initiated libel suits against the government and against journalists who named him. He's probably innocent, which means that the perp probably got away with murder.

[Gary Sisco]

Any honest cop will tell you most busts are a result of luck or utter stupidity on the part of the criminal (like the classic nonworking turn signal getting one pulled over) or both.

But there aren't that many honest cops (or words like testilying or "drop guns" wouldn't have been necessary to invent).

[Gary Sisco]

Or maybe some beancounter at the GAO finally did the math to answer my longstanding question: How many millions of other people's dollars did they waste inventing their idiot color code?

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Or maybe some beancounter at the GAO finally did the math to answer my longstanding question: How many millions of other people's dollars did they waste inventing their idiot color code?

Gary, once they get past six zeros, regular people don't think of it as real money any more. It's just numbers. Today's deficit of hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars doesn't seem to be resonating at all. [A billion has nine zeros in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.]
I'm curious. Besides taking all those months, and all those millions of dollars, to develop a bar system, that already existed, what else was the Department of Homeland Security doing, under Tom Ridge?
The reason I ask is that I wonder what, for all these years, the various security departments in the country were doing to protect the nation's security?
It seems to me that consolidating all of them, if that's what happened, did more harm than good when Katrina hit.
What systems are now in place, which apparently weren't, should a state-sponsered, much larger attack than 9/11, or an in-country attack happen?

[Gary Sisco]

The worst fears are confirmed by Homeland Moronity's years-now refusal to make an accounting of the many billions of dollars it's spent to Congress -- which this year idiotically punished HM by zero lining the money that was slated (and decades overdue) for new Coast Guard cutters.

I mean, you wouldn't want to fund things that actually do have to do with the security of the US itself. What would be the point of that?

[Gary Sisco]

Pat -- I don't agree with you about "regular people" and what they can imagine. I don't even agree with the concept of "regular people" or "ordinary people" or any of the like.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Pat -- I don't agree with you about "regular people" and what they can imagine. I don't even agree with the concept of "regular people" or "ordinary people" or any of the like.

OK, perhaps amend that to read "the average person", which I guess is just as meaningless.
What I meant was that if you ask a person at random how much money a billion dollars is, they would widen their eyes and say, "a lot". And, if you asked them how much actual money several hundred billion dollars is, their eyes would glaze over and they would have no idea. They also seem unconcerned that these hundreds of billions of dollars were worked for, not by government officials but by them, the tax payers. They don't seem to understand that governments are sterile organizations, producing no revenue, except by taxing the citizenry.

[Gary Sisco]

They're not unconcerned where I live.

And in any case, there's no one in all of the government any smarter or more imaginative than in the population they're drawn from. They have power that the rest don't have, but nothing else in the way of extraordinariness, clearly.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

They're not unconcerned where I live.

And in any case, there's no one in all of the government any smarter or more imaginative than in the population they're drawn from. They have power that the rest don't have, but nothing else in the way of extraordinariness, clearly.

No argument from me on that score.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Or maybe some beancounter at the GAO finally did the math to answer my longstanding question: How many millions of other people's dollars did they waste inventing their idiot color code?

They didn't invent it. The producers of Star Trek used the same color code beginning forty years ago. And I'm not even sure that it originated with Star Trek. Which is why I don't like these people who blubber, "What's it supposed to mean? Who can figure it out?? It's all so complicated--red, yellow, orange!" What, is your phaser set on jackass? In the event of an actual emergency, do what the captain says. And if you're wearing a red shirt, you die.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by particia

They don't seem to understand that governments are sterile organizations, producing no revenue, except by taxing the citizenry.

And let's not forget printing new money.

Seignorage is a bitch, and the U.S. Treasury has already estimated a savings in the $6 billion range from the new "collectable" quarters they've pressed. And that figure will continue to rise long after the last group of them has hit the market(in '08, IIRC).

[Monte Smith]

Congress passed a bill to coin new dollars, you know. Four new coins a year, each one faced with a president going in chronological order. Not even skipping the boring ones, I don't think. I don't know how this plays into your new paranoia about seignorage (don't get over-caffeinated in your econ. classes, Scott), but the US can use some dollar coins. Vending machines are getting good at accepting bills, but they never refuse a coin. They coulda just kept coining the recent Sacagaweas, of course.

[Scott Dolan]

Not paranoid at all.

I think it's great!

It's like buying money from the Treasury. What a novel idea.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Congress passed a bill to coin new dollars, you know. Four new coins a year, each one faced with a president going in chronological order. Not even skipping the boring ones, I don't think. I don't know how this plays into your new paranoia about seignorage (don't get over-caffeinated in your econ. classes, Scott), but the US can use some dollar coins. Vending machines are getting good at accepting bills, but they never refuse a coin. They coulda just kept coining the recent Sacagaweas, of course.

Don't be too excited and joyful about the proposed dollar coin, Monte. We have a dollar coin AND a two dollar coin. There are no dollar or two dollar bills. What happens is that the coins that replaced them are now change rather than serious money.
The lowest denomination of bill is now five dollars.
The coins accumulate in your pockets and in women's purses, but don't get spent as regularly, because they are considered change. Of course the dollars are used in vending machines now, mostly because a candy bar costs a dollar or even two dollars, instead of less than a dollar. And the coins are heavy, in large numbers.
And, kids who used to accept a dollar, now want five dollars, since they too think of even two dollar coins as chump change.
The only good thing is that coins are more durable than bills are.
But, there has been talk here about a five dollar coin. Back to the Middle Ages.

[Monte Smith]

patricia, a Canadian dollar would be change even if they made them out of huge rocks with holes in 'em.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

patricia, a Canadian dollar would be change even if they made them out of huge rocks with holes in 'em.

Amusing. The exchange rate today is ELEVEN CENTS. So get your nose out of the air.
Last I heard, gold is movin' sky-high, not the American dollar, on the world currency market.

[Brian Olewnick]

Scientists recruit wasps for war on terrorBy Mimi Hall, USA TODAY


Scientists at a Georgia laboratory have developed what could be a low-tech, low-cost weapon in the war on terrorism: trained wasps.
Glen Rains uses the 'Wasp Hound' to monitor the behavior of wasps trained to detect a particular scent or volatile compound. By Brad Haire, University of Georgia via AFP The tiny, non-stinging wasps can check for hidden explosives at airports and monitor for toxins in subway tunnels.

"You can rear them by the thousands, and you can train them within a matter of minutes," says Joe Lewis, a U.S. Agriculture Department entomologist. "This is just the very tip of the iceberg of a very new resource."

Lewis and others at the University of Georgia-Tifton Campus developed a handheld "Wasp Hound" to contain the wasps while they sniff out chemicals and other substances.

Lewis and his partner, University of Georgia biological engineer Glen Rains, say their device is ready for pilot tests and could be available for commercial use in five to 10 years.

Rains says the wasps could one day be used instead of dogs to check for explosives in cargo containers coming in to the nation's seaports, in vehicles crossing at border checkpoints, at airports and anywhere else where security should be tight.

"It's real easy to learn how to work with them," he says about the wasps. "You could show somebody what to do in 30 to 40 minutes. And they're very specific in what they learn."

This new method comes as the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on high-tech equipment and training since 9/11 to secure the nation from another terrorist attack.

Bomb-sniffing dogs cost thousands of dollars and take months to train. High-tech equipment can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit and often has spotty performance.

"We don't have portable, flexible systems," Lewis says.

AP The Microplitis croceipes wasp, which scientists say can be trained to detect bombs, illegal drugs, diseases and food toxins. Scientists started working with the species, a type of parasitic wasp called Microplitis croceipes, decades ago — long before the terrorist attacks in 2001.

In the 1990s, the Defense Department paid for part of that work to find out whether wasps could be used for a variety of defense purposes, including sniffing out land mines. They couldn't do that well because the areas they would have to check are too vast.

The scientists — funded by the Agriculture Department and the University of Georgia — have looked at other uses for the wasps.

Rains says the wasps can be trained to detect fungal diseases on crops while the damage is still below ground and can't be seen.

This method would help farmers avoid having to spread toxic fungicide over an entire crop after the disease spreads. Rains says farmers would save money, and consumers and the environment would benefit as well.

The wasps may also be trained for medical uses, including detecting cancer or ulcers by smelling someone's breath.

They probably can be trained like dogs to find bodies buried in rubble, Rains says.

Given the strong government effort since 9/11 to focus on the nation's security, the scientists see a vast market for the wasps to detect explosives.

The wasps are trained with sugar water by using the classical conditioning techniques made famous by Pavlov's dogs. Rains says the wasps are sensitive to a host of chemical odors, including 2,4-DNT, a volatile compound used in dynamite.

To do their work, five wasps — each a half-inch long — are placed in a plastic cylinder that is 15 inches tall. This "Wasp Hound," which costs roughly $100 per unit, has a vent in one end and a camera that connects to a laptop computer.

When the wasps pick up an odor they've been trained to detect they gather by the vent — a response that can be measured by the computer or actually seen by observers.

Lewis says the wasps, when exposed to some chemicals, "can detect as low as four parts per billion, which is an incredibly small amount."

He says the "ability to capture nature and its marvels is ... revolutionary."

Rains says, "The sensitivity of animals (and insects) to chemicals in general is probably beyond what we can comprehend. We don't really know what the limits are."

[scrotum boy]

Over Christmas Dinner I told my wife's evil twin Diller that the nuggie patrol was still on orange alert.