Friday, October 7, 2005

Prestigious, non-accredited terror alerts

This is such a monumental load of crap. Mayor Bloomberg's been getting some bad publicity over the past week. He refused to take part in a mayoral debate at the Apollo Theater, which is usually considered the heart of Harlem and black culture in NYC. So on the afternoon of the debate, he needed to flip the headlines. And voila, TERROR ALERT. All of a sudden, a "credible, unverified threat" against the subway system materialized just in time for the evening news cycle.

A brief history of crap like this. In 1983, 241 Marines were blown up in Lebanon. Two days later, Reagan invaded Grenada to change the topic. In 1998, Clinton attacked Iraq on the eve of the impeachment vote. In 2004, Tom Ridge announced that they were raising the threat level to orange (where it had already been) because of a three year old story about people casing NY-area landmarks. Right as John Kerry was getting his nomination. What do all these stories have in common? Hmmmm. HMMMMM.

Well, add yet another chapter to this - a phony terror alert designed to draw attention away from another story that could be damaging to an incumbent. Oh, there's an imminent threat all right - it took place at the Apollo Theater last night.

And talking about a "credible, nonverified threat" is the same thing as selling your "prestigious, non-accredited" university. Sure, it sounds like you're getting Yale. But you end up with Matchbook Institute of Technology. Go M.I.T.!!

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