Posted on 01/05/2009 4:12:38 PM PST by RaceBannon
UPDATED - ALERT - Frightening Text Messages Being Forwarded Around NY Jews January 2, 2009 3:00PM EST: [UPDATE BELOW] With the situation in Gaza deteriorating by the day, and anti-semitism rampant around the world, thousands of NY Jews were frightened upon receiving the following text message which has been going around on Friday afternoon:
A Jewish woman gave a tip to a Muslim taxi driver and out of appreciation he warned her not to go to Manhattan next week Wednesday.
YWN has reached out to high-ranking members of the NYPD, and have stated that although they received the same text message, there are no credible threats to be concerned about - and dont even know where this text message originated from.
The only message that they do have for the public is the same message that they have been saying since 9/11. That message is always be aware of your surroundings, be vigilant, and if you see anything suspicious contact the police department immediately to report what you have seen.
UPDATE 3:50PM EST: YWN has just spoken with NYS Assemblyman Dov Hikind who tells us that he has received various reports regarding this threat and has personally contacted the FBI who is currently investigating them.
He thanked YWN for our alert to calm the public, and echoed the call for calm and vigilance at anytime and any location. If you see something, say something, Hikind said.
The FBI and the NYPD take these types of threats very seriously, and investigate them thoroughly to ensure the safety of the public.
May Hashem protect us from no harm - no matter where in the world we are located.
IMPORTANT NOTE: YWN offers three different options (all free, of course) for keeping in touch with the news as it happens. Should you wish to receive breaking updates via SMS text message (in the USA), or two different email alert options, please click HERE to sign up - and join the already tens of thousands of subscribers.
(Yehuda Drudgestein - YWN)
Aashura, marks the martyrdom of Imam Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in the year 680 A.D
I came to this thread late, read through the entire thing, and was waiting for someone to make that point. The other thing I have to say is that al Qaeda would be very very unwise to strike while Bush is still in office when they have a former madrassa attendee coming into office in only 15 days. If cabbies are actually going around saying such things, then it reminds me of the 5 flying imams, just another way for the muzzies to have a good laugh about the stupid infidels.
An Al Queda operations team memeber is not going to take a job as a cabby and then warn Jewish riders who tip well to stay away from NYC after a certain date.....
They fund their operatives and keep them close for control and operational security reasons.
Sorry, none of this stuff scares me.
No one can be sure when or if - but it’s important for the information to be out. You put it out there. Thanks for doing that...
All these taxi drivers are reading the exact same script. Maybe it’s a taxi driver’s terror: tell every passenger this, and stand back and laugh?
Dahham said police seized documents showing that the group planned to launch terrorist attacks in and around Karbala during Ashura. Karbala is home to the golden-domed mosques of Imam Hussein and his half-brother Imam Abbas, sons of the founding saint of the Shiite faith.
"The group has admitted during an investigation that they intended to carry out terrorist acts during Muharram days and particularly on the 10th of Muharram on Ashura," Dahham told The Associated Press. "They planned to carry out their acts against visitors in Karbala."
maybe
I hope so
Someone also mentioned the Ashura and their attitude towards infidels
they MIGHT be planning to actually flagellate themselves into a bloody mess in America like they do overseas, and then intend to act like they normally do overseas
expecting us to freak out
As a Christian I and my .357 would stand between any Jewish person and any Nazi types who threaten them. The day seems to be coming when men with balls and women with guts are going to have to stand up and be counted.
It is amazing how many interesting conversations I have had with Muslim cab drivers, in cities all over the country. The most shocking one was with a very kind and nice guy in Chicago in 2006, with whom I felt so comfortable that I even shared with him that I was Jewish. At the end, he was going out of his way with my bags, and expressing gratitude, and still talking politics on the sidewalk with me.
But during our long ride to the airport, we talked about 9/11. I very casually asked him about his mosque, and if any people there followed or revered Osama bin Laden. His response was a bit offhand - “Well, yes, sure, but I have nothing to do with those people, I think they are stupid, they keep to themselves...” I switched the subject but got quite a chill up my bones.
There are many mosques all over this country, filled with nice people like this man, who think NOTHING of some fringe terror elements in their midst.
Soooooo, any word from your fruit vendor?
I am going to see if I can obtain independent verification via my own NYC channels. They are well-placed and if there is something going on they may well know. If they do, that may assist with lending credence to what you’ve heard.
Naturally, I shall keep the nature of my enquiry general, and preserve confidences.
I shall report back if I suddenly become any the wiser. Stand by...
> You have a feel for safe but odd water
(Big Grin!!) Yeah, I was a Boy Scout once, and then later in life I trained people in Crisis Management / Civil Defense / Emergency Management, where we discussed emergency water sources. That was a great job!
> so here’s my question... What about swimming pool water? I put chemicals in the pool weekly - chlorine, acid, blue stuff etc. The water sparkles - but in an emergency, what would it take to make it drinkable?
An excellent question without a particularly simple answer beyond “it depends”.
If it is an outdoor pool chances are good that it will contain rain water — not in itself a bad thing. Here in New Zealand plenty of people — some of my neighbors, even — are not on city water and collect instead rain water off their roofs and store it in large tanks. The water settles so that any solids (like bird poop washed off the roof, body fluids from the dead possum rotting in the gutter, &tc) drop to the bottom, and perfectly potable water is then taken off UNTREATED ie no Chlorine or anything.
So the lesson from that is that potable water does not have to be pure or treated in order for it to be safe to drink. All it needs is for the greeblies to be sufficiently dilute for your kidneys and liver to kill them off and clean them out. That is what your kidneys and liver are for.
What you do have to watch out for are faecal coliforms, like e.coli (”faecal” meaning “arising from dung in its various forms”, and “coli” as in “originating in the colon”). E.coli is extremely common and very unpleasant to have: it can kill you stone dead. Also giardia (lots of gas and bad breath) and Legionella and Cryptosporidium (diarrhoea) and a few others. That is what your pool chemicals try to kill off and they generally succeed.
Swimming pool water was never really intended to be drinking water: kids pee in it, for one thing. I tend to think of it as “grey water”, sort of like bath water but with lots of chemicals in it. And, when you think about it, that’s exactly what it is, without the soap.
So, not my first choice of drinking water. But, in an emergency with no other water source, I would not hesitate to drink from a swimming pool.
NOTE: it isn’t always a good idea to boil water to purify it, either. It depends entirely on the nature of the likely contamination. If the contaminant isn’t something that will be killed by boiling — like, say, a poison — boiling water will actually concentrate the contamination and make it worse.
ANOTHER NOTE: Good ol’ chlorine bleach (not the fancy lemon-scented stuff: the scent is poison. Just the regular stuff) is a great way to kill most greeblies in the water. Won’t do anything for water-borne poisons, but for most greeblies it will do an admirable job. Follow the directions on the label.
If "plenty" is less than a gallon and a half, sure. And a toilet tank is not designed to hold potable water -- it could have lead, and will often have rust.
Probably best not use the water in the basin for anything other than handwashing WITH SOAP.
You can re-use "gray water" for washing -- yourself, clothes, etc. In an emergency, being springtime fresh is not a top priority. Then you can dump it back into the toilet tank you've just emptied and get another flush or two.
If you suspect an emergency is in the offing, fill the tub. That's 42 gallons of water, probably not the best available for drinking, but you can also use that for washing and refilling the toilet tank. Think about it -- you'll need to take care of biological necessities long before you run out of clean (or at least "clean enough") clothes.
I have a little water filter I bought for a trip to Thailand. That and my bathtub could keep me going for a week or two if I keep using the toilet, a month if I dig a privy out back. The usual guideline for drinking purposes is one gallon per person per day.
Ten gallons of water -- two standard-size buckets -- is a pretty handy thing to keep on hand. You don't need to expect a major emergency. A 24-hour power outage or a water main break, even if they don't cut off the supply, could easily compromise the safety of tap water.
There is also plenty of fresh water in your hot water heater. Just turn on the drainage fawcett and collect the water into a bucket.
And TURN IT OFF. You don't want your water heater turning into a boiler on you.
And there you've hit on the subtle anti-semitism that helps spread rumors like this. Of course, if a Jew got such a warning, his first thought would be to warn his coreligionists; and of course there would be some means to do so, some contact list we Goyim aren't aware of.
One of the more widespread urban legends after 9/11, particularly virulent in the Muslim world, was that Jews who worked at the World Trade Center were warned to stay away from work on that day. Some versions even had them receiving a call from the Israeli consulate, as if they have a master phone tree they can use to contact every American Jew.
Eight of ten. Change the first line to “You laugh in winter” ... traditional haiku have some sort of seasonal reference.
> If “plenty” is less than a gallon and a half, sure.
In an emergency, a gallon and a half will last a fairly long time. Worst-case scenario for Civil Defense emergencies is benchmarked at three days.
> And a toilet tank is not designed to hold potable water — it could have lead, and will often have rust.
As could your tap water if your pipes are old enough. No, you should not drink water from your toilet reservoir when it isn’t an emergency. Equally, if it is an emergency it is perfectly OK to drink it rather than suffer thirst or dehydration. Any greeblies in it (usually none) probably won’t harm you.
Fortunately there are a very limited number of things that can go wrong that would compromise the water supply. Water flows thanks to gravity, and the entire process end-to-end is remarkably lo-tech. Even if the power is out chances are excellent that the water will continue to flow no worries. Sewerage, too: toilets are one piece of household technology that are unlikely to fail in an emergency.
The fresh water supply is also one of the services what would be exceedingly difficult for terrorists to damage in any meaningful way. Not by contamination, not by disruption.
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