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.]

Mayor Street Upset By Hypothetical Philly Disaster, Still Ambivalent About Current Philadelphia Disaster

If you’re wondering what has John Street’s ire these days, it’s not the city’s murder rate, or the lack of snow removal last storm, his brother Milton or even the terrible play of the Flyers and 76ers.

No, he’s upset about a new book that hypothesizes about a terrorist attack in Philadelphia. That’s not the whole point of Stephen Flynn’s The Edge of Disaster — which “offers a chilling Philadelphia scenario in which terrorists target the Sunoco refinery, causing toxic fumes to drift over Citizens Bank Park packed with Phillies fans” — but it’s gotten Street up in arms nonetheless:

“They ought to be qualified in a way so that they’re not calculated or likely to create any kind of panic in Philadelphia, New York or any other cities.”

With any luck, this will happen during a Phillies-Mets game, taking out a bunch of North Jersey residents in the process. Hey, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

New Terrorist Book Upsets Mayor Street [KYW 1060]

‘Action News’: Supporting The Terrorists Since 2006

The image at right is currently on the front page of 6 ABC’s website. Yes, what a fun game! Boy, what are the area’s three most likely places to get blown up? (I also like how it specifies “the area.” Yes, none of the targets are likely to be in Philly, that’s for sure. Then again, Hitler did plan to attack Andalusia, so who knows.)

But you’re probably wondering what the city’s — sorry, area’s — top three targets are. That’s easy: The Rocky Statue, Geno’s — see, he’s for a wall on the border! — and Franklin Mills.

Tell Action News What You Think [6 ABC]
April 4: Hitler Planned Attack On Bucks County

In Case Of Terror, Move To Pa.

If you’re wondering what Wall Street would do if, say, Wall Street were demolished with a terrorist attack or a License to Kim Jong Il Brand Nuke™, well, Ed Rendell wondered that, too. And Ed Rendell and others decided to do something about it, namely make the answer to that riddle, “They go to Pennsylvania!”

Yes, Fast Eddie himself has pledged $30 million for Wall Street West. And “more than 20″ Wall Street firms will check out the area tomorrow — after being transported, via helicopter, to the Poconos (neat!). And the first project is set to break ground in Monroe County in June.

And why are the financial firms so eager to build backup replicas in, say, Carbon County, seemingly even more eager than our government is to protect us from non-hilarious “terrorists”? Well, important things are at stake!

“We can’t control the disaster, but we sure as hell can control the recovery,” [a developer] said. “We’re talking about the preservation of Mom and Dad’s 401(k) plan and Johnny’s college fund.”

Indeed. Heroes, all of you.

Pa. Wants to Become ‘Wall Street West’ [AP/6 ABC]

OMG WTF OBL

Yesterday, a grand jury charged a Wilkes-Barre man with offering to help al-Qaeda to blow up oil piplines, refineries and the stadium of the Phillies former AAA affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. (He’s really angry about the decision the Phils made to drop the club.)

Michael Reynolds, 48, did not have any bombs, biological weapons or al-Qaeda uniforms, but he did post to a Yahoo! messageboard titled OBLcrew.

Of course, after posting on the board asking for someone to help him follow through with his plot, he was contacted by an al-Qaeda operative. The operative was — surprise! — a municipal judge who was attempting to find terrorists online.

Basically, our government has done a bang-up job capturing a man who thought al-Qaeda hung out in Yahoo! chat rooms. But, hey, at least he had some sort of a plan for terrorism, unlike those dudes in Miami.

I’m sure that once we convict the notorious cell leader Michael Reynolds of OBLcrew, the rest of the cells will fall like dominos.

Wilkes-Barre man indicted in terror plot [Inquirer]
OBLCrew [Yahoo! Groups]

Finally, A Job For Our Nation’s Federal Breast Inspectors

I give up. The terrorists have won.

Experts: Milk supply vulnerable to terrorists [Inquirer]

Conservative Pollsters: Pennsylvanians Favor Casey & Rendell (And Are Terrified Of Bush and, Uh, Terror)

A release came over from Strategic Vision, an Atlanta-based PR firm, touring their three-day poll of 1200 likely voters in Pennsylvania. The CEO of Strategic Vision is David E. Johnson, who touts himself on his website as a “Republican conservative” — uhh, and he has a “Re-Elect Bush/Cheney” banner on his woefully outdated website — which means it’s a pretty safe bet that Strategic Vision’s polls lean slightly to the right. (Especially since all the Johnson quotes in the press release are pro-Republican.)

The new Pennsylvania polls don’t really tell us anything all that new: Casey is 10 points ahead (50-40) and Rendell 13 points ahead (59-36). That puts Santorum much closer — but it’s still a comfortable lead — but, considering the source, yadda yadda yadda. You get how these things work.

But, since it’s a de facto Republican polling agency, you would think they’d be able to do a little better for their guy than a 26 percent approval rating. (Last month, a Quinnipac University poll put Bush at 34 percent approval rating.) This is, probably, lower than the percentage of Phillies fans who thought the team handled the Brett situation well. And 70 percent of Pennsylvanians polled expect a terrorist attack by the end of the year.

To summarize: A polling group whose CEO is a big Republican backer released a poll where, in Pennsylvania, Casey and Rendell are way ahead, President Bush only has a 26 percent approval rating and 70 percent expect a terrorist attack in the United States between now and the end of the year.

Well. With those last two results, I think we’ll be seeing an exodus to Vanatu any day now.

Pennsylvania Poll - July [Strategic Vision]
Press Release Regarding Poll [.pdf download]
Putting a Number on Happiness [WSJ]

Fly The Not-So-Friendly Skies

Yesterday, someone called in a bomb threat to a plane departing from the airport. After getting the call at 9:30 a.m., airport security found nothing suspicious on the plane, which was headed for the Virgin Islands. The flight ended up departing about three hours late.

Although the threat was called in from an airport courtesy phone, they can’t find out who made the call. Here’s why:

While there are surveillance cameras in the area surrounding the phone, sources said they were not monitored or recording at the time so there is no description of the suspect available.

It’s good to know our crack airport security team has really gotten everything in order since 9/11.

Caller Sought In Airport Bomb Threat [AP/CBS 3 via Phillybits]

Leftovers: The, Hey, It’s Friday Edition

• Ahh! World Cup Quarterfinals Round of 16! No U.S., but still lots of fun. [Yahoo!]

• The new Philadelphia marketing slogan is “Forever Independent.” They want it to be the Intel logo of Philly. Can we get one of those catchy jingles, too? [Metro]

• Rick Mariano could get 10 years in prison when he’s sentenced in early July. Better make friends with Corey Kemp now. [Daily News]

• You know what? We’re with Bunch on this one. We’ll probably obsess over it a bit less, though. Maybe. [Attytood]

In The Event Of Emergency, Please Go Nuts

Most Philadelphians laugh at the thought of being an attacked by terrorists here in our city. I mean, what terrorist in their right mind would actually attack a city of such middling influence as this one? And terrorists like the still at-large Osama seem to be concerned with attacking places that hurt the United States financially, not symbolic things like Philly has.

Still, we are a major American city, and terrorists are clearly stupid — and, remember, Oklahoma City was attacked once — so who knows what could happen. Having a little protection would be nice.

Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security has just cut funding for the five county metropolitan Philadelphia area — down $3 million to $19.5 mil — while the state of Pennsylvania went from $82 million last year to $49 million this year.

A cover story in Metro (not online) quotes a Street spokesman saying that several ongoing programs, including “mass care sheltering” — providing, uh, shelter and care for a large number of people in the event of a catastrophe. The state hasn’t decided how it’s going to divide up the money yet, and Chaka Fattah says we should get more funding.

It could, though, be worse. New York City is going to get $83 million less than last year.