Whatever. I want to hear about MSNBCAOLTimeWarnerDisney's merger. Why is Drudge distracting us with this stuff?

(Anonymous, since this might turn out not to be funny.)

You can always count on Smilin' Matt Drudge not to cause panic.

Call me evil, but if something like this happens, what better place than the land of Kerry/Kennedy.

Hmmm...here's something on Buck Fush.com: "Don't call in a dirty-bomb threat to the FBI in Boston the day before the inauguration! That would pull investigative resources away from the inauguration, and we don't want that, do we?"

Okay, it doesn't really say that.

Julie, I'm not into lectures, but that wasn't even remotely funny. At least I hope you were kidding.

Dirty bomb in Boston? I guess Kerry isn't going to concede after all.

I think its about a new season of Boston Public.

My family's in Boston. That sucks.

I'm in Boston, this is for sure, not at all funny.

I hate the fact that today I was arguing with a no nothing hateful liberal about war issues and out of nowhere she writes "Do you know how many people are going to die from global warming"??!!!!!

Ugh. Where is Lex Luthor?... he needs to put a leash on Bizarro.

From someone sitting in Boston right now, I don't see how you can fucking joke about this. And your (I'm just kidding) doesn't cut it.

I thought Steinbrenner was too quiet this fall.
THANK YOU GEORGE!

Where's that goddamn terrorist flash icon thingy...Sobek - I gotta get on that...

the lone source is a mexican smuggler? you dont get more reliable than that. 500 pesos says it turns out to be Lucy Ramirez. or Mario Lopez...i never trusted that guy

Looks (to me) like drudge caused a DDOS on the boston herald. I haven't been able to get through for 20 minutes +

I have to agree with Son of Nixon (and I'm not even sitting in Boston right now).

What's next? 9-11 jokes?

I don't want to go overboard with this, but it is completely fucking inappropriate to making stupid fucking jokes about this type of thing.

Let's hope its a false alarm.

TF6S:

And I hope you were kidding in your implication that, one, I have the power to cause an incident like this to happen in the first place, and, two, that I have the power to determine where it would occur.

Assuming I do have the magical power to determine where it will happen, then, one, I want it to happen where I don't live. I don't live in Boston. And, two, better for it to occur in a city where the politicos have done so much to hinder fighting the people who would do this.

But in deference to fat kids family (sorry fat kid), how about if I use the magic powers you attribute to me, in that if an incident like this is going to happen, then I rather have it happen in Cape Cod?

how about you use your magic powers to shut up and quite while your ahead?

just kidding-i hate boston

me too

From the posted link:

The official stressed the tip is one of many from around the country that routinely are forwarded to local task forces for further investigation. No credible, specific terror threat has been identified in connection with the tip about suspects possibly entering the country from Mexico.

This threat seems highly exagerrated.

Julie,

I live in San Francisco. Why don't you pray for the next attack to land in my backyard then? Since we're all, you know, hindering the fighting (I think my website would belie that notion).

You're using Michael Moore's logic, who hopes that the next attack happens in a red state.

>>better for it to occur in a city where the politicos have done so much to hinder fighting the people who would do this.

This is some kind of fucked up Oklahoma City Bomber logic here.

But in deference to fat kids family (sorry fat kid), how about if I use the magic powers you attribute to me, in that if an incident like this is going to happen, then I rather have it happen in Cape Cod?

I appreciate your deference for my family, however your justification of whatever it was you previously said...fell flat. Leave it alone, and let's all hope this is bullshit - and we can just chalk it up to Drudge making us all look like maniacs.

If this thing is the real deal, I suspect that it has been caught in time. The terrorists main defense is not knowing they are there. If the authorities are tearing the place apart the terrorists are half-dead already.

press con. coming up soon

When's the inauguration again? They say in that article the bomb might be going north from NYC to boston - what if it takes a southerly turn and goes about the same distance. WTF. This could make for some seriously messed up ish.

God. I need a beer.

Do you suppose at the press conference they're going to stress how there's no cause for alarm, that steps are being taken, and that people should be cautious and alert but not panicked?

God, I love terror alert pc's.

Prolly - what else would they say?

no i expect the mayor to come out with shit stained pants and crying like a bitch....

it says the citys emergency management officials headed for a bunker as soon as the news broke

Well, why even have the conference, then?

Fat kid:

I have no magic powers, get it? Nothing I do, say, or pray for will have any affect on anyone. And I am not ashamed to say if something I have no power over happens to two people I feel have contributed to this, good. So, forgive me for not feeling sorry for Kennedy/Kerry. Or, don't. Instead of being superstitous and relying on my faux magical powers, why don't you have some potassium iodide on hand instead.

>> Prolly - what else would they say?

"Its the end of the world!, We're all gonna die!"

Julie,

I'm sure you were engaging in what you thought was a bit of harmless gallows humor, but joking about people dying is sort of what the other guys do.

Until we hear the all clear, I think we should be a little serious about this.

to pass the word that this is "speculation" - as the articles state.

"Nothing to see here, carry on people, no-thing to see here."

They say they don't give much credit to the story b/c the guy who leaked the info from Mexico (immigrant smuggler) refused to meet with the feds.

Seriously. That's their justification.

>> Prolly - what else would they say?

"Its the end of the world!, We're all gonna die!... Oops wrong press conference, that one was global warming."

Julie - time to shut your mouth and take your lumps.

Swallow hard and just do it, OK?

Thanks.

i think that we can all agree that Julie is pure unadulterated evil

^Mm-hm.

Umm, Julie....

I stayed out of this thread until now. But a dirty bomb, or any other terrorist act, isn't going to hit Kerry and Kennedy exclusively. It's gonna hit families like Fat Kid's. It's gonna affect Son of Nixon. It's going to harm real people (Americans each and every one) who are nameless, faceless and blameless.

If you want to hurt Kerry and Kennedy, do so within the bounds of civil measures. Work against them. Vote against them. Donate to rival campaigns. Don't callously write off the potential death of your countrymen.

Unless, of course, you want to be thought as an idiot.

FatKid:

They get tips like this all the time. They may only be giving this more weight because of the inaugural. There are serious limitations on the effectiveness of a dirty bomb. Most cities have detectors all over the place and did so before 9/11. Take it for what it is - the ususal chatter.

I'm sure you were engaging in what you thought was a bit of harmless gallows humor, but joking about people dying is sort of what the other guys do.

No, celebrating over people dying is what the other guys do. Big difference.

We're all a little nervous. She's trying to lighten the mood. Let's be careful out there.

Amen, fat kid.

I just calmed a friend from New Jersey whose kids are up here in Boston. She had heard that something had already happened. Oh, by the way, she wasn't laughing about any of this.

To the jerkoffs that are trying to getting a rise out of the rest of us by typing nonsense here --- just go away. You're not funny and you don't deserve any more attention.

people dying is so funny! its like slapstick! one minute theyre alive and then-BOOM-dead!! hillarious...

Let's be a little calmer. A joke was made in bad taste, I think something of an apology was offered.

It's a real threat and we should be serious about it, but as the last post shows, it does seem to stink of bullshit.

Let's hope it's all a false alarm.

Aah. *Nuance* Now I get it.

I guess I just mis-read this quote:

Call me evil, but if something like this happens, what better place than the land of Kerry/Kennedy.

How stupid and callous of me.

/Fat Kid is now leaving to go call his family.

i still love you julie

now leaving to call fatkids family

I demand Julie be censored immediately for the common good. Obviously she cannot be allowed to speak any further, lest she offend someone.

Seriously, I wonder how many of these 'events' never get noticed, because nobody leaks^H^H^H^H^Hinforms the press before substantiation/the ability to DO something besides run around looking panicked?

[And yes, I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same way if it were announced--with similiar lack of corroboration--that a 'suspect' container might have snuck into the port down in Puget Sound. In fact, I'd probably make some equally-offensive joke like "Good, that'll clean up the King County Elections office"]

The I-wish-I-were-joking-department: How long before posts on Indymedia start claiming this is a blatant attempt to intimidate all who oppose the Bushitler War Machine?

Now pardon me while I offer a quick prayer that I'm right about the non-event.

senator philabuster:

I don't want to hurt anyone. The terrorists do. Try directing your anger at them and not me. And if people do get hurt, I feel justified having some of my anger directed towards K/K. Now, I'll shut up and you can all bash me to your hearts content because that will sure stop any act of terrorism.

fat kid:

Boston is not going to get "irradiated for hundreds of years ." People have exagerrated the threat of dirty bombs. Now I'll shut up.

If the beatdown of Julie does not cease immediately, I will proceed to ceremoniously teabag each and every person on this site.

Boston dirty-bomb style.

you wanna know something? I dont feel sorry for the people of New York. Thats right. After all the billions of dollars the victims got from people like me and from the government they still protested the republican convention. they still voted for John kerry. they still look down on the rest of the country. Did the Oklahoma city victims get the same kind of treatment? did they get one penny from the government? Hell, some people refused to take the governments money because they wanted to sue the airlines! If NY was hit again i wouldnt care.
what do you think of that?

As a New Yorker born and bred, I think you're first up for a tea-bagging.

earl grey allah-hot

Julie,

The only point is this. When we decide that it's ok to start joking about terrorist attacks, and who they might affect, we undermine some important things, such as unity of purpose or, to an extent, the importance of our fellow countrymen.

Suppose on 9/10 I had read that there was a "threat" that law enforcement was taking seriously that some airplanes might be flown into buildings in DC and New York.

I could come on here and make a joke to the effect "thank goodness they are thinking of hitting DC..maybe they'll take some libs with them."

Then on 9/11 the planes really hit. In making the joke not only would I have shown a disregard for all the innocent passengers/crew on the planes, for all the people on the ground and in the buildings, for all the families left behind, but I would have made a mental leap.

The leap? That it's OK to joke about "some people dying" to terrorists acts as long as it's not "our people dying" to terrorists acts.

It's a bit like Ace's "tribalism" post. It's a verbal way of declaring your allegiance to your tribe. And we don't need divisions in what I believe is a Civilizational War.

Look at the reaction your joke (and I accept it as an attempt at gallows humor) prompted. I think there is a lesson there. Maybe I'm wrong.

Guess what Julie, I want the last word.

Word.

;)

I'm only easing up b/c allah said so *rolls eyes*

oh yeah, PBUH.

P.S. My family's fine.

Cool, Fat Kid.

Now get back to your blog and post more Maui pictures! Especially if they contain more photos of the cute blonde chick that shows up in one of them. ;)

Wow. I'd like to see some of this moral outrage next time Cedarford posts one of his tin foil hat theories about Jews controlling...well, everything. And if you don't leave Julie alone now, I've got Allah's back (I'll be the one with the cream and sugar) :)

Hey Allah,

I didn't see the comment at ASV yesterday that called your sexuality into question (I did like your response, tho), but is offering teabaggins to everone showing a bit of teh ghey?

Julie,

I once made a rather embarrassing (non-humorous) flip remark on an LGF thread after a suicide bombing. I realized how misplaced it was, apologized, and allowed people to call me out. Eventually I started flinging shit back a little, but just because some fuckers couldn't take an "I'm sorry."

Maybe next time, offer your "I'm sorry" with a bit less assholery. It's not cool to fuck with friends (as we all are here) in their time of emotional stress. Then, you'll find quite a few defenders (me for instance).

FWIW

BrewFan,

guess you didn't see my flamewar with cf after the iraq mass graves of children thread.

it's easier to just "scroll down" than deal with that fucktard's raving idiocy.

Yep, and (strangely enough) I threw a gratuitous insult at Cedarford the other day in a thread in which Julie and I were on the same side. :)

Cedarford: One troll to unite them all....

Hobgoblin,

Everyone knows Allah isn't gay...he just has a thing for camels.

Muhammad? Now THERE'S a flamer.

Cedarford's comments are worth reading, though I admit I mentally exchange the words "Jews" and "Zionists" with "ninjas" when I do so.

Not too worried about dirty bombs. On a scale of lethal threats radical Islamists would like to use, a nuke bomb is 10,000. So too an engineered smallpox like virus or a resperatorily spread lethal bacteria with engineered anti-biotic resistance. Major anthrax spore attack 1,000. Same with airliners. Chem attack 500. Dirty bomb - maybe on the abovementioned scale - a 10.

A 10 with 1/2 the deaths not from the dozen or less the explosion of a bomb would inflict - but from an ignorant, fearful public panic.

The biggest one they can conceivably build is 10,000 curies. Most likely they know lethality doesn't ramp up with curie load + radioistope procurement is difficult, and detection odds go up exponentially with radioactivity load. So the odds are one of a few hundreds or low thousands of curies - and I would think a dirty bomb attack is more probable in another country where radioactive sources aren't as tightly controlled.

BUt if one of 10K was set off in say Boston, your chances of being killed by it - other than by chemical explosives concussion or shrapnel are close to nil. As even a 10K radioisotope (dirty) bomb detonates, it would be disbursed and dose diluted down to where you could stay a whole day immediately outside say a 100-150 foot epicenter and not get a lethal dose. The Bushies have really failed to tell people what to do if one goes off, and failed to consider what cleanup standard will be used to recover.

So, with a tad of Health Physics training from the military:

1. Don't panic. Stay away from the bomb scene, and stay indoors if possible so those radionuclide goobers don't get acquainted with your lungs. Wait and see if the authorities say it is a dirty bomb. Don't think it is one just on rumor.

2. While you are waiting for word, take your shoes off, discard some of your outerwear, wash your face and hands in a bathroom sink if you want. Tell others not to panick but relax and wait for responders...

3. If word does come it was a crapped up bomb, call the fire dept and say you have " X" number of people in building such and such awaiting radiation scans and decontamination. Consider taking important stuff and gathering it together if they come and evacuate - like hard drives, important paperwork - because if the Bush idiots haven't figured out the 7-day decontamination (Civil Defense model) is right they will go with the several month-long alternate decontamination procedure (EPA), that bans people from affected living or working places for a long, long time...

4. Follow instructions up to a point. If some officious 19-year old firefighter tells you are ordered to evacuate, leave your apartment and take nothing, no pets, firmly decline until you have what you need - because they could keep you away for months after that.

5. If you are crapped up and need to be deconned, it just means showers and scans from a same sex responder. Not a big deal.

6. What not to do is panick!! Say you run and avoid getting trampled...then you are not in the 12-hour gridlock on the bridge that may also be targeted by the Religion of Peace...but get off and make it back to the suburbs safe and sound!!! And say you did get crapped up with a moderate amount of CO-60. That means you, your car would be crapped up, your house, your kids, wife...everywhere you go...and if you look at your insurance policy, you have a nuclear exclusion. Meaning you pay for cleaning up the car, the house, other establishments....bad deal.

Spewfan - Ever wonder why you are free to criticize every country but one? Even you own?

No?

Didn't think so.

That is excellent brainwashing!

Yep cedarford....Personally, I always wondered why I couldn't make fun of, or criticise, Iceland without being persecuted.

I mean, come on, Bjork for God's sake?

But every time I criticise the fact they hunt whales in international water, all hell breaks loose.

Me? I blame the Illuminati. That and the "Protocals of the Elders of Reykjavik".

I live in Boston. I don't care if people joke about this sort of thing.

Some people cope that way. Some people see humor in everything (I do). Some people need to relax. There is nothing we can do about this, so why not joke around?

We just have to wait and pray.

Everyone relax. Anyway, I'm glad to know that I'm flying from dirty bomb-ville to the safety of the Inauguration tomorrow. Ha!

Thanks, Jordan, but I wish other people would stop attributing to me motives I do not have and words I did not write. In that I don't give a shit if Kerry or Kennedy die in a terrorist attack, I wasn't joking.

icelanders killed Thor

Cedarford--

One nitpick--radioisotopes aren't as rare as you let on. I think it's quite conceivable that terrorists could assemble a large amount of Cesium and Cobalt from various points around the world--eg Soviet machinery, third world hospitals, etc. It would be much easier than getting the material for a fission bomb.

hey cedarford, is 'crapped up' a medical term? is it like catching the 'funk'? would it be safe for me to go to a jew doctor if i get a case of the 'crap'?

For the record:

-- I'm glad I stayed out of this thread today because of that whole "work" thing.
-- I recognize the threat here, even if the news reports are sketchy.
-- I would've probably cracked wise at first too-- I use humor as a defense mechanism-- but I wouldn't insist on *repeatedly* joking about it. I work in a building that still bears the scars of a terrorist attack. . . no one need remind me of what's at stake here.

It's one thing to laugh in the face of danger. . . it's another thing to ridicule it.
-- I'm going to shut up now, and hope for the best.

V/R,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Hey amish, do you have a blog?

fraid not

See-Dubya

You are correct that sources are not as tightly controlled in the 3rd World as they are in the USA. But to get that source in, you have to evade rad detectors in the country you stole it in, plus possibly through some intervening countries between you and a shipping port. The shipping port has rad detectors and inspectors. Get through all that, and then you have to evade rad detectors at the port of entry, plus explain any shielding material to cut down on emissions at customs inspection - 5% of stuff coming in is inspected - but we eliminate a lot of security by not focusing on countries deemed to not have any loose rad sources or terrorist activity )(China, Japan, Canada...).

Emphasizing that the detectors are very, very sensitive (gamma scintillation) and no amount of shielding completely cuts out ALL gammas. And we have many automated & strung along highways in selected spots of the country.

Part of this is for nuke bomb detection - a nuke bomb is far more difficult to detect than a 10K curie rad source. Or even a 1 curie rad source if we are talking HEU.

A hard thing to do for something that would likely kill no one outside the terrorists handling it, and civilians killed by the actual explosion. But Bush & Co have really failed to educate the public on WMD threat response - what they should do - and in what sort of cleanup activity they would utilize - wartime civil defense methods that would recover a city in days, or EPA standards that would shut down a good part of a city for 6 months to one year.

Amish -

crapped up refers to contaminated. I suppose you could go to a Jewish doctor if you walked through a dirty bomb cloud, but you would crap up his office, expose him, and your chances of getting sued are higher than if you just let emergency responders attend to you.

You are correct that sources are not as tightly controlled in the 3rd World as they are in the USA. But to get that source in, you have to evade rad detectors in the country you stole it in, plus possibly through some intervening countries between you and a shipping port. The shipping port has rad detectors and inspectors. Get through all that, and then you have to evade rad detectors at the port of entry, plus explain any shielding material to cut down on emissions at customs inspection -

Another way to look at it is like the drug trade. Your argument goes something like, "Other countries have drug-sniffing dogs at airports, so no foreign-produced drugs are in the US". Do you know what those guys do? They drive out to the middle of Lake Michigan from Canada in a speedboat, sink hundreds of lbs of weed with a gps receiver, then leave. That's it.

Now let me go read the rest of your post.

Yeah, we can catch the stuff at the ports, but these Boston guys had an illegal alien smuggler helping them through. For all we know, if they're real, they came in a tunnel under Arizona.

And I've actually canoed from upstate New York into Canada in broad daylight. No rad detectors there.

Fat kid - Nukes are a different thing than drugs or undeclared digital cameras from China being "finessed" through the system by corrupt longshoremen.

And what we are really concerned with is a nuke bomb, something that would incinerate all those longshoreman and their families in a port area - so they are rather serious about playing ball here and abroad....

A dirty bomb is a trivial weapon, as long as the Bushies have some brains for once and educate the public and approve of rapid cleanup measures. A nuclear bomb, or even several set off - on the other hand - is the worst possible thing next to a biological pandemic.

See Dubya - The fact that you can go from Canada to the US without legions of security people being aware you did it is not a big deal considering Canada has rigorous controls on nuclear material and biological stocks. Could Jihadis come in? Of course. They already have. But not with a backpack full of Canadian anthrax spores or purloined Canadian fissile material or a CO-60 source wrapped in 500 lbs of lead.