Fake Disaster Goes Off Without A Hitch

The fake disaster last night was smooth sailing for everyone involved, especially since it was fake there weren’t any dead people. The disaster was actually a terrorist attack, where there were bombings at 30th Street Station and the Art Museum.

A pretend car bomb went off that left almost 100 volunteers wounded or dead on the street in front of the museum. The street was strewn with arms and legs of manikins to add a touch of realism, along with the moans of the seemingly injured.

Did they have recorded moans? How does one volunteer for “injured in terrorist attack” acting? At least we do know we’re safe the next time al-Qaeda attacks 30th Street Station and the Art Museum.

Simulated Mayhem Tests Area Responders [NBC 10]
Yesterday: Let’s Get Pumped For Fake Disaster 2K7!

Local Blogger On National Television

Not sure how I missed this last week, but apparently Philadelphia’s own Will Bunch was on Keith Olbermann last week talking about how the government is doing all they can to scare the shit out of us. Congrats, Will!

Bunch was on to talk about the terrorist dry run cheese scare from last week; as you may remember, a bunch of bricks of cheese were found at airports across the country. Supposedly, this meant Osama bin Laden himself was headed this way to kill a few more thousand people. Well, apparently all of it was untrue, none of the cheese found was linked to terror attacks, blah blah blah. Bunch wrote about how a CNN anchor actually said “Just kidding” on a Saturday newscast. Also, apparently an old woman who had some leaky ice bags or cheese or something was asked: “Do you know Osama bin Laden?”

Anyway, that’s the background, here’s the clip.

You might say Will has a voice for print. I try to avoid television appearances — it’s been ridiculously easy, nobody has tried to get me on TV — since (1) I stutter and (2) nobody could understand my mumbling Philadelphia accent anyway.

Keith Olbermann Updates The Nexus Of Terror And Politics - Creating Terror Scares [Crooks & Liars]
Told ya so, Part 1: CNN says “just kidding” after terror scare [Attytood]

Idiot Terrorist On Trial, This One From Yahoo!

Hey, remember Osama bin Laden? You know, tall guy, attacked the World Trade Center, we were supposed to have captured him? Yeah, well, we didn’t catch him still, but we did catch this idiot from Wilkes-Barre who’s currently on trial.

Writing on the Osama Bin Laden Crew Yahoo message board, Reynolds - who was living in Thailand at the time - said: “America has overstepped its bounds in Iraq. . . . There is a plan if you only truly seek to commit to it. . . . Let’s talk.” He later wrote, “It would be a pity to lose this idea.” Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus displayed this and other e-mails on courtroom computer screens.

Ahh, yes, the OBL Crew guy. Once again, all the terrorists we catch are idiots who ask for their al-Qaeda boots and uniforms or attempt to attack the most unguarded of all sites, an army base. Anyway, we’re going to lock this guy up for like 800 years and we will be safe from Yahoo! messageboards and their terrorist cells.

Web sleuth testifies in terror trial in Scranton [Inquirer]

Rick Santorum Would Very Much Like It If You Blew Up And Couldn’t Vote Democrat

Rick Santorum apparently has some sort of info that we don’t, as he said yesterday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show that there’s going to be a terrorist attack before the elections so people will vote Republican. How a terrorist attack during a Republican presidential administration would make people vote Republican is beyond me, but Ol’ Ricky says the attack is totally going to keep the Republicans in power.

“Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view.”

Whee! I can’t wait for the Guiliani/Romney ticket, with Rick Santorum as Secretary of State, ruling over America with their eight Guantanamo Bays and daily terror attacks and our 51st state of Mesoafghaniranistan.

More staged terrorism planned to prevent Ron Paul from winning [Some Ron Paul Blog]
Rick Santorum Will Personally Terrorize America [Wonkette]

Heroic Circuit City Clerk Revealed

The identity of the heroic New Jersey Circuit City employee smart enough to hand over a jihad practice tape to the opposing team, i.e. the police, has finally been revealed! Brian Morganstern appeared on CNN’s American Morning today and told all about his decision.

The two men who brought him the tape to transfer to DVD in late January 2006 seemed like ordinary customers, and he did not know if he should breach their privacy. He wasn’t even paying full attention to the video until he saw things that were troubling.

“It was more of a moral dilemma at that point,” Morganstern said on an interview Tuesday on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Do you mean to tell me that big box store employees actually care about their customers’ privacy? Please. If it was a bunch of people practicing for a porn shoot that tape would have been copied in five seconds.

Anyway, the dude doesn’t feel like a hero, choosing to label soldiers and cops as “real heroes.” He’s got his media savvy! Of course, now that he’s identified, it’s only a short matter of time before Michael Smerconish invites him on the radio so he can talk about how great profiling is.

Store Clerk Discusses Foiling Fort Dix Terror Plot [AP/CBS 3]

Mt. Laurel Video Store Clerk Did Not Appreciate Ruse

As you may have heard yesterday — and as apparently people flocked to this very blog to see — the feds busted up a terrorist plot to attack Fort Dix and other locations.

The plot was uncovered by by a particularly sharp video store clerk, who pretty much gave all video store clerks a good name with his heroic smart deed.

The Daily News reports in one of the paper’s five reporters-on-one story specials:

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said at a news conference yesterday at the federal court in Camden that it was an “unsung hero,” a clerk in a Mount Laurel, N.J., store, who probably spared the country the horror of another terror attack.

The clerk was so disturbed by a video that the store was being asked to transfer to a DVD that he or she notified the police.

The video showed a group of men firing weapons at a firing range in the Poconos and shouting for jihad (holy war) and “Allah Akbar!” — “God is great” in Arabic.

The Mount Laurel police notified the FBI, launching a 16-month investigation that uncovered the murder plot and led to the arrests of the normal-seeming good neighbors.

Gee! That was a little suspicious? Later, the clerk also uncovered another plot when he found a “Vancouver Olympic Bombing preparations” home movie some Quebec independence zealots brought in to have transferred.

‘WE DODGED A BULLET’ [Daily News]

Feds Bust Idiotic Terrorist Plot

As you may have heard already, the FBI arrested six locals last night for allegedly planning an attack on Fort Dix. Hey, at least they weren’t planning on attacking unarmed people!

“If you want to do anything here, there is Fort Dix and I don’t want to exaggerate, and I assure that you can hit an American base very easily,” one of the men told an FBI informant, according to the FBI. “You take a map and draw it and then you calculate that there are areas where there are 100 to 200 invididuals . . .

Ahh, yes, the six terrorists were planning a full-frontal assault on a fort. Forts are known for their ease of access and lack of security, of course, so this plan to attack the army really had a good chance of working.

Four of the alleged Islamic terrorists lived in Cherry Hill, another from Williamstown and one — Serdar Tatar — from Philadelphia. The six wannabe terrorists were going to attack the base due to a recent bad night at Top Dog.

Not that they’d be able to, ah, be able to kill many soldiers with rocket-propelled grenades:

A successful attack on Fort Dix is highly unlikely. Armed soldiers guard every gate, whose approaches have curbs or barriers that force traffic to slowly snake as they get near.

The soldiers perform “a 100 percent identification check” and do random vehicle searches, Nesbit said.

Each gate also has additional security measures that are far from obvious. “We do not publicize this,” she said.

Perhaps these men thought forts were made of Lincoln Logs (which is what Fort Pitt was constructed with).

Murder assault on Fort Dix ‘very easy’ says plotter [Inquirer]

Christians React Angrily To Portrayal As Crusaders

Now that word of the drill to plan for attacks from Fundamentalist Christians who are against the separation of church and state at Burlington Township High School has spread across the Interweb tubes, people are (naturally) up in arms because… I dunno. Because everyone likes to complain in order to feel like they’re victimized, too!

A report in yesterday’s Camden Courier-Post reported David Barton, head of WallBuilders, a Texas-based Christian group said the exercise “would seem to indicate… philosophical bigotry.” And here I just thought it was a really stupid random reasoning for a terror attack drill!

He went on to say: “Out of all the school shootings, there has never been an example of a conservative right-wing group opposed to separation of church and state.” Gee, thanks. Another group — the Idaho Values Alliance — says it’s an example “of the way in which the religious liberty of Christians is under assault.”

Yeah, I know. I mean, every day another building is having a terror drill based on Christian groups attacking the school. I’m up to my neck in Bibles and fake blood!

Terror exercise at Burlco school called offensive [Camden Courier-Post]
Yesterday: New Jersey High School Protected From Imaginary Terror Group

Pete Rose Admits Culpability In 9/11 Attacks

The country was interested in the attorney general firing scandal, as millions — okay, not really — what would happen to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and the cast of jerks who inhabit the White House.

But then — surprise! — we got thrown a curveball from the government. We were told of a shocking confession that I assume will shift the nation’s attention for a few months or something. We were told of the true story of Pete Rose.

The former Phillies player Pete Rose was banned from baseball in 1990 for betting on it. Rose got so angry he came up with a plot to take down the two towers of the World Trade Center.

It took him 11 years, but he finally hatched his large plot on Sept. 11. In addition to that, Rose planned several other attacks, and also admitted to personally beheading former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. He also planned to attack such landmarks as Chicago’s Sears Tower, the Panama Canal, London’s Big Ben and Fenway Park.

He also admitted to the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the 2004 destruction of Veterans Stadium.

Rose admits to betting on Reds ‘every night’ [ESPN.com]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: I beheaded American reporter [CNN.com]
Subpoenas could target White House, Justice officials [CNN.com]

Philadelphia Protected From Ass-Fetish Terrorist

An Iraqi national living in Atlantic City forced a Philadelphia-bound flight to divert to Las Vegas last week after airport security found several items in his ass.

Here’s what he was trying to sneak onto the plane in his ass:

Fadhel Al-Maliki, a 35-year-old Iraqi national living in Atlantic City, N.J., had been flagged by security officials at LAX and was undergoing a secondary “selectee screening” when he set off a metal detector. Al-Maliki, a former security guard, told screeners that he knew what had triggered the alarm and proceeded to remove items from his rectum, including a rock, chewing gum and thin wire filament.

I’m not quite sure what he was going to do with a rock, gum and wire, but perhaps he’s the Iraqi version of MacGuyver. Of course, crack American investigators quickly ruled out any theories that make any sense.

A preliminary investigation appeared to rule out a theory that Al-Maliki may have been looking for weaknesses in security or was rehearsing for a terrorist act, federal and local law enforcement authorities said.

During questioning, Al-Maliki said the objects in his rectum were used to alleviate stress, federal law enforcement sources said.

The rock, authorities said he told them, was from another planet.

I heard this is why we haven’t captured Osama Bin Laden. Every time anybody gets close to him, he puts all his terrorist training tools up his ass and then says they were just there to relieve stress.

Hidden Objects in Passenger’s Body Triggers Bomb Squad Call, Flight Diversion [LA Times/AirportBusiness.com via Johnny Goodtimes]

[Photo via CBC. I'm not quite sure where that airplane is taking off from, either.]