I'm so so cynical... but Bush makes a major speech on "War on Terror" (Should be War on Terra), and then there is this in the news (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/nyc-subthreat,0,4471701.story?coll=orl-home-headlines).

must have the cheerleading since his popularity is dropping " Terra, Terra, Terra "

last poll in NYC Bush had approval of 29%

last poll in NYC Bush had approval of 29%

Well he is out of office next term one way or another. We just have to hope he lies about something that makes congress made enough to give him the boot earlier.

notice how CNN now saying Terrorist Plot has IRaq link... once again trying to make people think of NYC and Sept 11th as being the reason for Iraq War..

they are being painfully transparent

Every time we jump through our collective butt because we are afraid, the terrorists win.

I wonder if it has occured to anyone that many of these "threats" might be issued just to get us to jump around and spend money. After all, that is all that is needed. No actual explosion need be necessary.

So obviously we should wait until something explodes and kills people before we act on it.

Sounds good. Oh wait, we did that already.

Every time we jump through our collective butt because we are afraid, the terrorists win.

I wonder if it has occured to anyone that many of these "threats" might be issued just to get us to jump around and spend money. After all, that is all that is needed. No actual explosion need be necessary./shrug
The terrorists have won. These types of stories are proliferating in the media, Bush is using terrorism as an excuse to work the presidency into an autonomous force... The thing about terrorism is that it's a cheap way to fight. Whether you are crying wolf or not, you are taken seriously and more and more money is thrown at the problem.

We have a choice. We either accept that life can be dangerous at times OR we ask for more tax hikes so Daddy Government can say they're gonna protect us. And what a racket the government has! We can't even sue them if they fail to protect us (which they really can't)! Maybe... if we're gonna be giving away our personal freedoms at every turn... we should just hire a private firm to "protect" us all or just start teaching the Middle Eastern religions in schools now.

Isn't that what I said in shorter form?

Oh hush! I'm working off a few cups of coffee! :p

I wonder if it has occured to anyone that many of these "threats" might be issued just to get us to jump around and spend money. After all, that is all that is needed. No actual explosion need be necessary.

That was a well used tactic by ETA and the IRA. I don't think Al Qaeda work that way though.

The security services do have to react to every piece of intelligence. They can't take risks. On the other hand there have been enough alerts at politically opportune times to raise suspicions about how responses are handled. All you can do is trust the government is using the intelligence correctly, which is a problem in itself.

I wonder if it has occured to anyone that many of these "threats" might be issued just to get us to jump around and spend money.
It's the oldest sales trick in the book. If you make people insecure about something then their fear/uncertainty/doubt will lower their resistance to buying the solution you happen to be selling. The same technique that's used to sell things like cosmetics has been (and is being) used to sell wars, tax hikes, spectacularly stupid laws, etc...

Isn't that what I said in shorter form?

Ha! I can say it even more succicinctly (even though I can't spell it):

The g'mint sucks ass.

It's the oldest sales trick in the book. If you make people insecure about something then their fear/uncertainty/doubt will lower their resistance to buying the solution you happen to be selling. The same technique that's used to sell things like cosmetics has been (and is being) used to sell wars, tax hikes, spectacularly stupid laws, etc...

People have been selling wars, taxes, and stupid laws long before cosmetics were ever sold.

People have been selling wars, taxes, and stupid laws long before cosmetics were ever sold.
Of course, I simply chose cosmetics as an example.

We have a choice. We either accept that life can be dangerous at times OR we ask for more tax hikes so Daddy Government can say they're gonna protect us. And what a racket the government has! We can't even sue them if they fail to protect us (which they really can't)! Maybe... if we're gonna be giving away our personal freedoms at every turn... we should just hire a private firm to "protect" us all or just start teaching the Middle Eastern religions in schools now.

Hey now...only one religion in the Middle East is exporting their religion via armed assault and terror.

It is now being reported that the credible threat was a hoax perpetrated by the informant. :p

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/11/nyc.scare/index.html

But it was a credible hoax...

Whats funny is.. now that whole terror alert was a simple hoax... funny Bush's poll numbers didnt budge. He's goin down

It helps to read the entire article before replying:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/11/nyc.scare/index.html

The person who decided on going public with the information was the Mayor of New York, Bloomberg, not President Bush. Not only was it Bloomberg's call, it was still probably the right call given the circumstances. Random bag searches have been going on since July 22nd on trains and subways in and out of NYC, there's nothing wrong with beefing up the number of police riding on subway cars and city buses.

If the Bush administration had responded to the evidence they were given about Al Quaida in the same way that Bloomberg responded to this evidence, it is possible that 9/11 would never have happened.

If I was the mayor of New York, and there was a source saying something like that might happen, I don't care how non-credible the source was, I'd still rather play it safe than have several thousand deaths on my conscience.