Posted on 03/29/2002 12:14:12 AM PST by TLBSHOW
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The FBI wants the public to be alert for signs that terrorists may be planning a truck bombing.
While not suggesting any specific threats have been made in the United States, the agency on Thursday published a list of telltale signs that people should watch for.
The FBI posted the warning on its Internet site and e-mailed the message to thousands of companies "in an abundance of caution," FBI spokeswoman Debra Weireman said.
Labeled "for informational purposes only," the warning urged citizens to be alert for the following signs, which it said might indicate plans for detonation of a truck bomb:
--Theft of chemicals or explosives.
--Theft of respirators or chemical-mixing devices.
--Rental of storage space for chemicals.
--Delivery of chemicals to storage spaces.
--Theft of a van or truck capable of carrying more than one ton.
--Chemical fires or toxic odors in apartments, hotel rooms or self-storage units.
--Small explosions in wooded areas, which could be bomb tests.
--Reports of hospital patients suffering losses of fingers or hands.
--Chemical burns or severed hands that remain untreated.
--Surveillance of potential targets.
--Efforts to obtain blueprints of potential targets.
The warning was published on the Web site of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, responsible for protecting the nation's most important computer networks and physical infrastructures, such as power plants or telephone towers.
"There's no indication that something might happen," Weireman said. "We have reached out to the community to be on the lookout."
Why would the FBI think terrorists would use a truck bomb? Hmmmmmmm?
Wolf! Wolf!! Wolf!!!
There's a wolf, I tell you! I'm not sure where it is, but I know it is out there! Hurry! Run! Hide! It could be right behind you! It might be your neighbor: a wolf in sheep's clothing! It might be you! Oh dear! Oh dear!
Wolf!
Tuor
You'd think some people want specifics
Even aside from terrorist attacks, there are any number of things that could happen to you. Our culture seems to hate having to think about death. We keep it as distant from us as possible, if we even think about it at all. This, IMO, is part of what causes such deep trauma when someone a person knows dies.
To me, though, there are things worse, much worse, than death (not that I'm interested in dying). Living in a hopeless world is one of those things; living in an irredeemably evil world is another.
So, my advice is to count your blessings.
Tuor
You don't understand. It is impossible to maintain a high state of readiness for a long period of time. Also, this sort of aimless warnings serves only to make people increasingly *blindly* paranoid. I, at least, don't want to live in a country where my neighbors are constantly spying on each other just *in case* some person *might* be a terrorist...or maybe a pervert...or maybe an atheist...or maybe listens to Rock-n-Roll (aka Devil's music)...or whatever.
It's not really humorous, but I have to either laugh at this or cry at what it is doing to our nation.
Tuor
The US, it seems to me, has lost its Center. Like a drunk, it sways wildly to the Left, then just as wildly to the Right as it makes it erratic course in the world. If we don't get our balance back -- not to mention our common sense -- then eventually I think we'll fall down...to one side or the other, to the far Left (socialism/communism) or the far Right (Fascism).
The Center has not held, but somehow we must get it back.
Tuor
Who writes these things? Tom Ridge?
You were saying...
So, my advice is to count your blessings.
BUMP your post.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second coming! Hardly are those word out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my site: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born ?
William Butler Yeats 1919
Slainte,
CC
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