Nation's Capital Paralyzed by Terrorist!

[Theophylact]

Well, not quite. But traffic on Constitution Avenue has been blocked for a day, and several Government offices were closed.

Two questions:

(1) If one guy with a tractor can do this, when the country is at Code Orange, can you imagine what a few determined terrorists could do?

(2) If this guy hadn't been a white tobacco farmer from North Carolina, but a brown-skinned turban-wearing taxi-driver from Detroit, would he be anything but dog meat by now?

Just wondering.

[osprey4]

Another whining tobacco farmer, huh?

[CCiCA]

Are you suggesting that we are a racist nation, with different standards based on color of skin or national origin?

[JacobM5727]

i think he is.. and i would tend to agree for the most part

[MegalosSkylaki]

Things are tense right now.
NYers view themselves as a major target or terrorism.
Nervous about that places they go.

So in this atmosphere, it is not wise for ANY body of ANY color (Arabs are Caucasions) or complexion to pull a stupid stunt.

I really don't think people are looking at any colors--whether the Alert status or that of somebody drawing suspician Big Time as a danger. Light skinned complexions are in fact a minority in NYC as in many big cities.

You need to balance "trigger-happiness" against "trigger-slowness". Both have potential consequences.

If someone gets shot while pulling a scarey stunt, well they should have known that the timing is awful for stuff like that right now.

DOOOOG

[U-96]

CCiCA, I think you just blew my sarcasm gland

[John Prophet]

Well, I didnt want to fill out the survey for the post to be able to see that article but being from southern Va, on the border of NC I will make a comment about the tobacco industry as a whole.

"if you are making a product that kills people, where do you have any room to whine about anything??"

Personally, even though local economies rely on tobacco money, I wish tobacco would be illegal so that my local economy would be forced to find a half respectable way to make a living.

And since I am a born again Christian I can not help but see things through the lens of the Bible and the Holy Spirit so in the larger picture, America itself has many things about it that disallow Gods full blessing to be upon us...I wont bother going into all of them but tobacco is a good example...here is a thing that kills people and causes cancer...which causes us to spend MILLIONSSSSSSSS of dollars in tax money and insurance costs etc.....the tobacco industries have been proven to be liars who cover up research about the harmful effects of tobacco and also proven to WANT and HELP people to become addicted! lol. people come to bible studies that I go to...people who are trying to get their life going in a positive direction...they have quit smoking crack, quit stealing etc..but there they are sucking on a cig...if they took a hatchet and cut off a finger we would put them in a mental hospital, but if they destroy their lungs and cause MUCH WORSE damage than the finger, we let them do it?? How can america have such double standards?? You mean just because a thing has been going on for a long time, that it somehow has respectability????

So my question is "how is tobacco even legal"?


end rant.

One of the local radio stations is called "WBTM" "worlds best (or biggest) tobacco market" lol....and the town I come from is the creator of the modern way of curing tobacco that revolutionized the whole process way back when.....so before you smokers get all mad at me, at least give me credit for having some reason to have an opinion..even though I have never once tried cigarettes...neither have I "tried" castration, suicide, self amputation, setting myself on fire, or jumping from a tall building...for some reason I cant see the need to "try" these things. The word "try" implies that the outcome could be uncertain...but all these things including cigs, have a certain outcome.

JP

Originally posted by U-96
CCiCA, I think you just blew my sarcasm gland

Mine too.

[Epidemic]

Good make another illegal drug that will bankrupt people to acquire. Perhaps we can get cigarettes up to 200 bucks a pack and people can kill you for a carton.


They should have shot him could have opened the road quicker.

[Theophylact]

The Man on the Mall

FIFTY-YEAR-OLD Dwight Ware Watson of Whitakers, N.C., has drawn the Washington region's attention to the strengths and limitations of our emergency preparedness in a way few would have imagined possible. By driving his flag-bedecked tractor into a pond on the National Mall and claiming to possess explosives, Mr. Watson managed to convert downtown Washington into a parking lot, force the closing of government buildings and city streets and create massive traffic tie-ups through at least three rush hour sequences. And federal authorities say they are ready for al Qaeda?

The mission that brought Mr. Watson and more than 100 U.S. Park Police and agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to this point apparently has little to do with the impending war with Iraq, though he said he's against an American invasion. Mr. Watson, variously described as good-hearted and intelligent, believes the U.S. government is being unfair to tobacco farmers, of which he is one. Faced with the prospect of no longer being able to run the tobacco farm his family has owned for generations, Mr. Watson told The Post, he decided over the weekend to give up farming and take a stand against the government for cutting tobacco subsidies. Hence his decision to get his message out by driving into the small pond on the Mall about noon on Monday and to stake out his spot in the water.

The inclination of authorities to be patient with Mr. Watson, making his safety and the public's a top priority, is as it should be. But the marathon standoff highlights what one individual intent on turning the city upside down can achieve with little preparation or outside support. Despite the heightened alert status and the existence of regional and local emergency preparedness plans in place since Sept. 11, 2001, one individual, who may or may not pose a real threat to public safety, has demonstrated that federal and local officials do not have adequate escape plans in place for people who need to leave town. And Mr. Watson pulled off his feat in an open park area as the nation's capital was preparing for a possible war, with security supposedly having been tightened near federal buildings and monuments. Not reassuring.