If It Happened Here (nine: freerepublic.com mentioned in HYPOTHETICAL story about LA Anthrax attack)

L A Weekly (prominenent "alternative" weekly in Los Angeles, CA) ^ | February 21. 2003; Vol. 25; No. 14 | Paul Ciotti

[VOA]

(from poster: "THIS IS JUST A HYPoTHETICAL ARTICLE" warning to readers/posters.
I don't want any lurkers/posters to do a "War of the Worlds" suicide number due to this post.)


(excerpt from Feb. 21, 2003 L A Weekley article about the aftermath of a HYPOTHETICAL
anthrax attack that kills about 38,000 LA residents):

Others focus their emotions on the need to strike back, although it isn't clear
at whom, since the FBI hasn't caught anyone yet.
Even so, they post furious tirades on FreeRepublic.com urging the president to kill all
"ragheads and camel drivers,"
"nuke Mecca" and
turn Baghdad into "a glass parking lot."
Some other, less-well-wrapped citizens methodically go through the Los Angeles
phone directory, calling everyone named Mohammed, telling him to "get your ass
out of the country and that goes for your family too."

(click on source URL to access full story...might disappear in the next couple days)

[VOA]

Just posting a link to a decent article about what might happen if some un-named terrorist
was able to spread two kilograms of weaponized anthrax spores over Los Angeles
by an over-flight with a single-engine Cessna.

It's really a fairly decent article; it give what my inexpert gut instinct
tells me could happen.

I was shocked by two things:
1. that the author thinks that there are at least some people more radical
than us posters/lurkers (the ones who'd actually make verbal threats on the phone)
That is a pretty charitable attitude towards freerepublic.com coming from
a very-left-of-center Los Angeles alternative weekly!
AND
2. to learn form the aticle that the anthrax incident at Smerdlovsk (sp?)
incvolved the release of only ONE GRAM of weaponized anthrax.

Got to admit that after reading the article...I am contemplating getting a bit of
Cipro antibiotic to keep in the fridge...

[VOA]

My apologies in advance if I've pinged anyone bothered by this interruption...

[cake_crumb]

The FBI hasn't caught anyone yet?? On what planet and in which universe does the author live??

[ConservativeLawyer]

Thanks for the ping.

[VOA]

This was a very controversial topic in the past - with one US scientist called Meselson
claiming that is was one gram or less.

Thanks for the info.

Coming from the LA Weekly, I thought the article was at least decent...
and was also a bit suprised that it included a scenario in which only
something like 38,000 people died of anthrax....
I firugred that such a Hypothetical article in a lefty weekly would have predicted
something more sensationally disasterous...e.g., Los Angeles made into one large cemetary.

Got to admit, I did kinda' have to work up sympahty for the high-powered lady agent
who dealt with Weinstein over at Miramas.....
I'd bet $5 that there are plenty of people in LA who'd say that anyone who made
deals with a pig like Weinstein "got what she deserved"!

[VOA]

The FBI hasn't caught anyone yet?? On what planet and in which universe does the author live??

It IS a suprising article in a number of respects...including using
radical white seperatists as the villians in the hypothetical scenario.

For a writer in a liberal rag like the LA Weekley, I was expecting them to at least
say that anti-abortionist/bomber Eric Rudolph must have done this attack!

[VOA]

It IS a suprising article in a number of respects...including using radical white seperatists as the villians in the hypothetical scenario.

Oops...I menant "...NOT using radical white separatists..."

[drjoe]

1.) Sverdlovsk

2.) Matthew Messelson = quintessential left wing dupe. Had contact with him when I was in the Jungle Republic when he came over to 'investigate' the 'evils' of the US chemical warfare program [nonexistent] turning Vietnam into a wasteland.

[leadpenny]

Buried the way the excerpt is, and how FreeRepublic.com just pops into the story, I'd say Paul Ciotti is at least a lurker and maybe even a FReeper.

[duk]

By far the greatest threat would be to the economy. Several years ago I watched a documentary on what a large earthquake in L.A. would entail. The most noteworthy problem mentioned in the article was what the insurance claims would do to the entire U.S. economy.

Think about what Enron did to investors. Imagine what an attack of anthrax on a major city could produce in insurance claims. This hypothetical attack is like a poor mans neutron bomb.

[Paulus Invictus]

I still remember the book "The last Days of the Late Great State of California" a detailed, scary look at a massive earthquake and its consequences. I believe it must be out of print long ago. The book ends with the state sinking into the Pacific, thus ending its leftist leanings in a terminal way.

[duk]

I believe the CA budget will sink the state long before a massive earthquake. I left it in 88 and did not look back! The social/moral degradation asside, it is a beautiful state with tremendous potential.

[JDoutrider]

Re: Got to admit that after reading the article...I am contemplating getting a bit of Cipro antibiotic to keep in the fridge...

Best to keep it at room temperature...it holds up better according to the lit that comes with it...

[WFTR]

The writer of this piece criticizes the attitude that we should deal with the problem by attacking our enemies, but the piece shows the necessity of attacking our enemies. We can't build "walls" high enough to protect us from our enemies in today's technological world. The attempt to protect ourselves by building "walls" will destroy our economy and still won't give us any real safety.

If we want to have security, we have to destroy our enemies. We have to hit them as hard as we can and keep hitting them until they surrender or are completely gone. We must also control immigration and particularly control immigration of people who may be our enemies. The alternative is the type of scenario that we see depicted in this story.

Texas Wasn't Kuwait
Bill

[VOA]

Best to keep it at room temperature...it holds up better according to the lit that comes with it...

Interesting...usually, storage at cooler temps (e.g. 4 deg. C or -20 deg C) is usually
a good way to keep laboratory chemicals intact over time (and -78 deg. C with a blanket
of inert argon gas for really delicate stuff).

It's best to follow manufacturer's instutions.

But my cynical side wonders if this isn't just a "make sure they have to refill"
by the time it hits it's expiration date type of ploy...

[JDoutrider]

Could be! However, it's also true that most meds are perfectly good one year after the expiration date..."most" I emphasize...

[ConservativeLawyer]

I passed the article along to some of my liberal friends who think we are in no danger from weapons of mass distruction.