Post by DICTATORSHIP on Jan 25, 2005 14:56:53 GMT 2
DEPT. OF HOMELAND STUPIDITY
With friends like these, who needs terrorists?
I usually ignore any pronouncements emanating from our Department of Homeland Security, in much the same way as I filter out the Kevlar-clad, machine-gun-toting stormtroopers sometimes loitering around various street corners. I thought it was funnier when they had the pimply-faced little farmboys of the National Guard on the streets in their jungle camo. I guess those kids are all in Iraq now, getting their asses kicked by untrained civilians with RPGs.
The DHS bureaucrats did manage to get my attention with one singularly stupid alert last month.
Right about the time those moron teenagers launched a frozen turkey through that poor woman's windshield, DHS announced that those ever-elusive al Qaeda terrorists were going to start pointing laser beams at commercial-aircraft cockpits. According to the lavishly compensated experts of DHS, the object of the exercise would be to blind the pilot and down the plane. Never mind the co-pilot, never mind that you'd have to keep the laser pointed directly into the pilot's eyes for a few seconds, DHS managed to issue this patently absurd comic-book threat with a straight face, and I managed to pay attention.
I paid attention because I knew in my guts that this alert was going to inspire bored, malevolent teenagers all over this country to start aiming laser pointers at planes. Lo and behold, within the last couple of weeks, there have been several incidents involving laser beams striking the cockpits of commercial aircrafts. The beams seem to be emanating from suburban tract developments. Not a lot of al Qaeda out there, but a generous surplus of bored and hostile teenagers imbued with the special form of nihilism that arises when you're young and you come to the realization that you are living in the "no future" that the Sex Pistols were singing about.
But why stop at lasers? Being a New Yorker, I've given a lot of thought to what those dastardly al Qaeda fiends might throw at us next. I'm shocked at the easy availability of box-cutters—or "cockpit keys," as they are known in some circles. Home Depot might as well be selling bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. You'd think some action would be taken to stem the proliferation of these deadly instruments. Maybe the box-cutter lobby is just too powerful.
Flea bombs come to mind, especially here in the city. A flea bomb in a thick crowd could instigate a lot of mayhem. Apples and oranges might seem innocent enough to some minimum-wage security guard, but frozen solid, almost any fruit becomes a lethal weapon, especially when dropped from a great height. Super glue on public toilets, subway seats and escalator railings strikes me as the sort of instrument of havoc toward which these evil blastards might be inclined.
What if al Qaeda operatives, posing as, say, an innocent and hardworking family of new immigrants from El Salvador, made their way to South of the Border, just a short hop down 95 to South Carolina? They could buy enough fireworks to terrorize every subway rider in all five boroughs. Just imagine the effect of a #13 Panzer-class Fledermaus Glitter Rocket roaring up the tunnel into the Columbus Circle station, or a box of M-80s dropped with a lit cigarette into the litter basket outside Blair House on Park Avenue.
Now DHS is warning of bombs planted in aircraft using altimeter-enabled wristwatches as ignition devices. Never mind that these watches have no sort of alarm or alert involving altitude that could be used as a trigger. They seem to have forgotten the 1970s case where a mysterious personage, never apprehended, placed 10 non-explosive model bombs in 10 safe deposit boxes in banks across the country. Those bombs used analog calendar watches as timers. They could be set for up to nine months after placement.
My advice to the Department of Homeland Security is to start thinking outside the box—way outside the box. Every time you issue an alert detailing some novel weaponization of a household object, you are inspiring some very bored teenager or middle-aged loser to hurl the equivalent of a frozen turkey through the windshield of everyday life. And we're the ones who have to live with it.
—Alan Cabal
With friends like these, who needs terrorists?
I usually ignore any pronouncements emanating from our Department of Homeland Security, in much the same way as I filter out the Kevlar-clad, machine-gun-toting stormtroopers sometimes loitering around various street corners. I thought it was funnier when they had the pimply-faced little farmboys of the National Guard on the streets in their jungle camo. I guess those kids are all in Iraq now, getting their asses kicked by untrained civilians with RPGs.
The DHS bureaucrats did manage to get my attention with one singularly stupid alert last month.
Right about the time those moron teenagers launched a frozen turkey through that poor woman's windshield, DHS announced that those ever-elusive al Qaeda terrorists were going to start pointing laser beams at commercial-aircraft cockpits. According to the lavishly compensated experts of DHS, the object of the exercise would be to blind the pilot and down the plane. Never mind the co-pilot, never mind that you'd have to keep the laser pointed directly into the pilot's eyes for a few seconds, DHS managed to issue this patently absurd comic-book threat with a straight face, and I managed to pay attention.
I paid attention because I knew in my guts that this alert was going to inspire bored, malevolent teenagers all over this country to start aiming laser pointers at planes. Lo and behold, within the last couple of weeks, there have been several incidents involving laser beams striking the cockpits of commercial aircrafts. The beams seem to be emanating from suburban tract developments. Not a lot of al Qaeda out there, but a generous surplus of bored and hostile teenagers imbued with the special form of nihilism that arises when you're young and you come to the realization that you are living in the "no future" that the Sex Pistols were singing about.
But why stop at lasers? Being a New Yorker, I've given a lot of thought to what those dastardly al Qaeda fiends might throw at us next. I'm shocked at the easy availability of box-cutters—or "cockpit keys," as they are known in some circles. Home Depot might as well be selling bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. You'd think some action would be taken to stem the proliferation of these deadly instruments. Maybe the box-cutter lobby is just too powerful.
Flea bombs come to mind, especially here in the city. A flea bomb in a thick crowd could instigate a lot of mayhem. Apples and oranges might seem innocent enough to some minimum-wage security guard, but frozen solid, almost any fruit becomes a lethal weapon, especially when dropped from a great height. Super glue on public toilets, subway seats and escalator railings strikes me as the sort of instrument of havoc toward which these evil blastards might be inclined.
What if al Qaeda operatives, posing as, say, an innocent and hardworking family of new immigrants from El Salvador, made their way to South of the Border, just a short hop down 95 to South Carolina? They could buy enough fireworks to terrorize every subway rider in all five boroughs. Just imagine the effect of a #13 Panzer-class Fledermaus Glitter Rocket roaring up the tunnel into the Columbus Circle station, or a box of M-80s dropped with a lit cigarette into the litter basket outside Blair House on Park Avenue.
Now DHS is warning of bombs planted in aircraft using altimeter-enabled wristwatches as ignition devices. Never mind that these watches have no sort of alarm or alert involving altitude that could be used as a trigger. They seem to have forgotten the 1970s case where a mysterious personage, never apprehended, placed 10 non-explosive model bombs in 10 safe deposit boxes in banks across the country. Those bombs used analog calendar watches as timers. They could be set for up to nine months after placement.
My advice to the Department of Homeland Security is to start thinking outside the box—way outside the box. Every time you issue an alert detailing some novel weaponization of a household object, you are inspiring some very bored teenager or middle-aged loser to hurl the equivalent of a frozen turkey through the windshield of everyday life. And we're the ones who have to live with it.
—Alan Cabal