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New
Terror Attack Warning in the U.S.
John
Ashcroft has announced it, a terrorist threat warning, again,
but my question is ... what the heck use is it in making a general
warning to the American public when the government says they
have information regarding a terrorist attack but they have
no clue where / how it's going to occur -and- America has already
been "on guard" ever since the 9-11-01 attack on the
U.S.?
Makes
no sense to me. It's like announcing "we have determined
that you're likely to die some day and there's nothing we or
you can do about it other than try to live as long as possible,
you know, just like you were doing before we made this announcement".
Hello?
We
all know we're likely to die some day (not too fond of that,
am I, not the knowing part, just the actual event part) and
we all are well aware terrorists might strike any second, but
what the heck good does it do to state something that offers
no prevention / nothing of substance / no actions to be taken
other than "be afraid, be very afraid" ... ?
To
Ashcroft and the American government, a word of advice - speak
up when you have
something of substance to offer, and stop issuing "warnings"
that are worthless as it appears that you're just doing it to
say "we told you so" *after* an event occurs that
the government is powerless (or insert other critical comments
here) to stop or pre-
vent or provide any valuable information whatsoever so that
Americans can protect themselves from an attack.
Sheesh.
Frustrated
am I that our government is acting like "the sky is falling
but we don't know where / when / or what to do about it"
when they issue warnings and follow them with "we are clueless
about what the exact nature of the threat is - we just know
there's reason to fear that 'something' is coming and we're
all-but helpless to prevent it and, furthermore ...
We're
guarding the information we have, you know, to protect valuable
intelligence sources, so just go about your daily lives as if
we had said nothing and, by the way, act as if your very lives
are at risk every second of every day" ...
What
good is it to make a public televised announcement of warning
of "something" to the American public?
If
they have reason to fear that someone with a nuke is going to
blow up a city, why hold a news conference and announce that
there is reason to fear "something"?
Seems
to me, issuing warnings to appropriate authorities to take specific
actions to prevent said act would be the extent of the reasonable
actions to take ... now, if they had reason to believe a suitcase
bomber was going to blow up target X, the only reasonable action
would
be to evacuate the target X area and do everything humanly possible
to prevent said terrorist act.
I
guess what I'm saying is, it's provocative to say "the
sky is falling" when there is absolutely no action folks
can take to avoid or minimize risk, no action, that is, other
than what we're already doing (being on alert, watching for
questionable activity, paying attention to risk in the mail,
etc.)..
If police / FBI / military can take actions, inform them.
If
people are powerless to do anything whatsoever other than what
we've been doing ever since 9-11-01, don't invoke fear with
no recourse possible / no information about the threat / no
actions requested of citizenry.
Seems
the old phrase "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself"
is being turned on its head as John Ashcroft ineptly offers
(paraphrase) "be afraid, be very afraid, as there's nothing
you can do about information we care not to get into details
on that a terrorist event of
some unspecified kind is likely to occur in the U.S. in the
next week" ...
Source:
Excerpt
from an article detailing the terrorist threat announcement:
-
- - being excerpts - - -
United
States Attorney General John Ashcroft says there could be more
terrorist attacks on the US, or American interests abroad, over
the next week.
Law
enforcement agencies are on the "highest alert", said
Mr Ashcroft, after the FBI said it had "specific and credible"
information.
Mr
Ashcroft said there were no details on terror targets. ...
-
- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
Tiny
Engines
Excerpt
from article describing a tiny engine that may operate along
the lines of a gas powered vehicle - simply refill the battery
and you're good to go ...
-
- - begin excerpts - - -
Portable
electronics are only as good as their batteries and, let's face
it, batteries aren't very good.
Especially
when compared with, say, gasoline, which packs 100 times a battery's
energy into an equivalent space.
That's
why a large group of mechanical engineers (centered at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, but with participants at other universities
and companies) are hard at work in an effort to replace batteries
with a tiny engine that runs on fuel.
Imagine
a battery-free life!
When
the fuel runs out in your laptop, you just fill 'er up and go.
Experimental
Turbine only 4mm across.
The
engine -- about the size of a dime and slightly thicker -- starts
with a combustion chamber that ignites hydrogen and shoots hot
gas past a spinning turbine.
Its
tiny components (bearings, chambers, and turbine) are etched
with great precision onto silicon wafers in the same manner
that computer components are imprinted onto integrated circuits.
...
The scientists' goal is to create an engine that will operate
at 10 percent efficiency -- that is, 10 times better than batteries
operate.
...
a complete system, with all components in place and working,
will be assembled in the next couple of years, but commercial
models aren't likely until at least the end of the decade.
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- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
- Popular
Science [link inactive]
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Protecting
the Nation's Water Supply
Excerpt
from article describing an electronic sniffer and other measures
being taken to safeguard U.S. water supplies ...
-
- - begin excerpts - - -
Long
before the recent terrorist attacks, some researchers began
developing ways to assess and address threats to the U.S.
Water infrastructure.
Electronic
Sniffer placed underground
can detect volatile organic compounds
in water or gas in real time
In
the six weeks that have passed since September 11, Americans
have stopped taking many things for granted. Among other worries,
we no longer assume that our airports are safe from hijackers
or our mail from bioterrorists. Federal agencies are moving
quickly to put new, stricter security measures in place.
But
when it comes to protecting water reservoirs, researchers at
the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory are already
one step ahead. For the past few years they have worked on sophisticated
means to identify vulnerabilities in the nation's water infrastructure,
as well as technologies to detect in real time contamination
of the water supply. ...
-
- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
- Scientific
American [link inactive]
Anthrax
Strain of U.S. Homegrown Origin?
Anthrax
bacterium grown in a lab
Excerpt
from article detailing the likelihood the anthrax being used
in the attacks in the US is a result, one way or another, of
the methods used in the US biological weapon efforts in the
1960s ...
-
- - begin excerpts - - -
As
anthrax continues to turn up in US postal facilities, and postal
workers, evidence is emerging that it is an American product.
Not
only are the bacteria genetically close to the strain the US
used in its own anthrax weapons in the 1960s, but New Scientist
can reveal that the spores also seem to have been prepared according
to the secret US "weaponisation" recipe. This
is troubling, say bioterrorism specialists.
While the terrorists behind the anthrax-laced mail US might
have got hold of the strain of anthrax in several laboratories
around the world, the method the US developed for turning a
wet bacterial culture into a dangerous, dry powder is a closely-guarded
secret. Its
apparent use in the current spate of attacks could mean the
secret is out.
An
alternative is that someone is using anthrax produced by the
old US biological weapons programme that ended in 1969 - in
which case the scope for further attacks could be limited. Experiments
to determine which is true are underway now in the US. ...
-
- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
How
Many U.S. Muslims?
Excerpt
from an article describing doubts regarding the previous widely-reported
figure of 7 million Muslims in the U.S., yielding a strong suspicion
that the figure is a political myth like the "Islam is
a religion of peace" myth, promoted by some Islamic groups,
picked up by the U.S. media at a time when there was widespread
concern over Muslims (and Sikhs) being attacked on the basis
of their religion or turbans / general Muslim-like appearance
...
-
- - begin excerpts - - -
...
The American Religious Identification Survey 2001 carried out
by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York polled
more than 50,000 people and found the total American Muslim
population to be 1.8 million.
Meanwhile,
the University of Chicago's Tom Smith reviewed prior national
surveys and (in a study sponsored by the American Jewish Committee)
found that the best estimate puts the Muslim population in 2000
at 1,886,000. (With a nod toward figures supplied by Islamic
organizations, he allowed that this number could be as high
as 2,814,000 Muslims.)
In
other words, two authoritative studies carried out by scholars
found that American Muslims number under 2 million - less than
a third of the hitherto-consensus number.
To
this, the militant Islamic groups in Washington - widely but
erroneously seen as representative of American Muslims - responded
with predictable hyperbole. The Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) furiously accused Smith's report of working
"to block Muslim political participation."
The
American Muslim Council (AMC) charged Smith with nothing less
than trying to "deny the existence of 4.5 million American
Muslims" and blamed him for "tearing at the very heart
of America."
The
AMC also amusingly claimed that its own estimate of "more
than 7 million" Muslims came from the 2000 Census figures
- erroneously thinking that the Census asks about religion.
Oh,
and that's the same AMC which in 1992 pressured a researcher
named Fareed Nu'man to find 6 million Muslims in the country;
Nu'man later testified that he counted just 3 million and was
fired by the AMC when he refused to inflate his number above
5 million.
Why
does the militant Islamic lobby insist on the 6-7 million figures?
Because a larger number, even if phony, offers it enhanced access
and clout. Convincing the Republican Party that Muslims number
8 million, for example, led to urgent calls from its chairman
for "meeting with [Muslim] leaders," something which
becomes less of a priority when the Muslim population turns
out to be much smaller.
Knowing
the real number of Muslims will, most immediately, likely impede
two militant Islamic efforts now underway: one (pushed by The
Minaret magazine) to get Americans to acknowledge that their
own misdeeds partially caused the atrocities of Sept. 11; and
another (led by CAIR) to halt the U.S. military campaign in
Afghanistan. The longer-range implications will be yet more
significant.
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- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
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