Disaster Teams Ready to Respond to Terrorist Strike

By Larry Margasak Associated Press Writer
Published: Dec 25, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) - Disaster teams are ready to respond to any strike by the al-Qaida terrorist network and special equipment is monitoring the air for biological agents in some 30 cities, the Bush administration said Thursday.

<snip>

"People have their antennas up," he (spokesman for DHS)said.

more...

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAWKMLANOD.html


I couldn't resist the antenna line....

Yesterday, it was "U.S. Braces For Terrorist Attack." Today it's this!?

Talk about spreading fear and panic! I didn't think I could be any angrier than I was yesterday, but this absolutely takes the freakin' case.

George W. Bush, international terrorist. Get this psycopath behind bars, now.

my unprofessional take

-Provide expert advice and support to the on-scene commander if there's a threat, or an incident involving weapons of mass destruction.

Mutual assistance agreements among local emergency responders and National Guard

-Respond to any release of radiation with advice and air monitoring equipment.

any locality with a nuclear power plant has this equipment and DHS dollars have been garnered to "upgrade"

-Provide medical personnel to assist state and local medical authorities.

this is the CDC's primary function, has been for years

and some is just plain duh:

The agency previously modified air pollution monitoring equipment in 30 cities to pick up any biological agents and provide test results in 12-to-24 hours.....

Lots of tax dollars have been thrown to the Dept of Homeland
(in)Security...somebody had to do something I guess, but AP's carry of the lackey bucket is extraordinary.

a year ago at this time...why now? I say beware NEXT week when everyone is in a more celebratory state of mind and may tend to let down a little!

This is a concerted effort to scare the hell out of everybody, ruin the holidays, and cow the populace in preparation for the elections. It scares the old folks and the credulous, and some Dem better step up and start saying this.

That's exactly what this is, and the AP (not to mention CNN et al.) are buying into it lock, stock, and barrel.

And I'm damn tired of it. My bosses see this crap on the wire and go into their own high holy panic -- and insist that I put it all into the paper so that everyone else can be as scared as they are.

It's days like these that I really regret ever making the switch to journalism -- because I'm feeling extremely powerless to derail the oncoming train.

Yesterday my hubby and I were discusing this and why I, not a member of the NSA or the CIA was able to figure out that Hussein had NO WMDs, but Congress was not

He pointed out that they were probably were given a very scary and parnaoia causing presentation.

For the press, you have them concentrated and when these things come down the wire, the level of paranoia (and in the case of the press sorry,) maybe some wishful thinking due to the if it bleeds it leads mentality... they go into a panic, others go into a panic and they have not figured this out.. most of us, OUTSIDE the paranoia echo chambers, are pretty much immune to it by now.

It is a phenomena known as the boy that cried wolf... and it is psycological in nature

Now Ridge and Co, are foisting psy ops on us, but they are not seeing how innefective they are now, becuase where they live the echo chamber is telling them... IT IS WORKING.

hard not to laugh

(and yes Mad Cow is a serious issue, for what it will do to the economy)

We are here at home, hunkered down in our fighting hole, waiting for the sadamn trained Mad Cows from France to drop by parachute. MOO!

The second take on this

Don't fly
Don't eat the meat
Spend till you drop, preferably on credit
And yes have a merry christmans

Brought to you by the Add Council.

You may have enjoyed how we were laughing this up yesterday... and yes I did the reasonable thing and did a med line search on mad cow to see what the medical literature has on it... and with the very primary evidence from the Lancet, we switched to organic milk and no cow for my table

But overall you are correct, this is yet another attempt to scare us... and you know it is starting to wear thin in its efect when one of our local connies asked whether bush was lying to him AGAIN... mind you he believed all Bush said at one point.

Now reminds me a tad about what the brits did during the blitz to harden the population... here is the difference, there were raids every night... so the threat was real.. now we have reached the point where they have screamed wolf way too many times.

What about cable subscribers or satellite dish users?

We have no antennas to put up.

That really pisses me off!

:silly:

This articles says they aren't naming the 30 cities, but I wondered if we should speculate?

DC
NYC
Los Angeles
San Fran
Atlanta
Chicago

And just go down the list for major ports, or major financial centers.

oh and if there is a major petrochemical plant near by that also works, or nuclear plant.

Free clue in the piece, teams are equiped uith the crap to deal with it, really.

Does not take a genious to see they are trying hard to scare most of us, those coincidentally is where most of the population is located as well.

30?!?! what are supposed to do or feel about 30 unnamed cities?
i'm not going to feel safe until someone competent is finally in charge.

put this in perspective

What is the chance of you getting killed in the US this year?

Exactly ZERO

Last Year? ZERO

2001? Pretty close to Zero, your chances of getting BSE were a tad higher actually

2000 ZERO

1997, pretty much zero

On and this has NOTHING to do with Bush and his policies to be honest...

Them are the numbers.

So enjoy life, and for god sakes don't let them scare yuo, whether though the use of the national mood ring or their incompetence.

By the way the French have said that the threat there was minimal best case.