Editorial Is Stranger Than Truth Is Stranger Than FIction

The current edition of the News Gleaner, Northeast Philly’s broadsheet paper, contains an editorial debating if we’re “safer” now that Dubai World Ports — the company owned by the United Arab Emirates that was going to buy six U.S. ports — will turn over the operations to U.S. companies. (And they’ll probably still have the same staffers, so I still fail to see how this was the biggest issue in the news for a few weeks, but that’s why I’m a blogger and not a CNN anchor/Congressman/&c. Also, CNN would probably make me cut my hair.)

Anyway, the editorial decides we’re not safer now, which I’d probably agree with, but I try not to go around worrying about whether some nutjob is going to set off a bomb on the Broad Street Subway. Anyway, the Gleaner tells us the real danger the U.S. is in:

In Wes Craven’s nifty thriller “Red Eye,” the terrorists fire on a five-star hotel with a short-range ballistic missile mounted on a fishing boat. Craven’s fiction is an all-too-accurate depiction of how vulnerable our waterways are.

Imagine how easy it would be for Al Qaeda to fire a Stinger Missile at the Society Hill Towers from under the Ben Franklin Bridge.

I agree. And those people living on Elm Street could totally be attacked by Freddy Krueger in real life.

Opinions/Sound Off [News Gleaner]
Wes Craven [IMDB]

Secret terrorist trap plan revealed!

I got it. The Bush Administration is just trying to set a giant mousetrap by allowing a United Arab Emirates-controlled company to take over several Eastern U.S. ports.

In Catherine Lucey’s Daily News story today, she talks to all the local pols who are up in arms about the deal, and also mentions the actual port that the UAE company would have a 50 percent stake in:

Here in Philly, the deal gives Dubai Ports World a 50 percent interest in Delaware River Stevedores. [...] DRS leases the Tioga Marine Terminal from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, unloads ships in Camden and Wilmington and provides loading services to the Philadelphia Cruise Ship Terminal.

Shit. The Tioga Marine Terminal? If terrorists ever try to drop in via that port, the natives will tear ‘em to shreds. Rock on, Philly.

Arabs running port? No sale, pols say [DN]
Tioga Marine Terminal [philaport.com]
Yesterday: Any (Arab) port in a storm

You’re doing a great job, Deputy Mayor of Transportationie!

The City Controller’s office released a report recently that assessed the city’s amount of preparedness for a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. The result: The city is perfectly prepared, and won’t have any problems if Osama Bin Laden attacks the city. In fact, John Street himself has figured out a way to turn citizens of Philadelphia into pure energy in the event of an attack. And, if there’s a flood, City Hall can easily convent into a 2,000,000-capacity ark.

Okay, really, the city is not prepared, officially at least. The biggest concern is that the chief evacuation directives are supposed to come from the Deputy Mayor of Transportation, which the city (naturally) hasn’t had since 1999.

Before you say “special election,” think about this: Has anything in this city ever gotten done by the person who’s supposed to do it? Heck, I bet John Street has to mop his own floors. Without the Deputy Mayor of Transportation, there will be no local authorities around to screw things up!

The traffic can just zoom down I-76 and into the safe land of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Nothing to worry about. Phew.

Report: City Emergency Plans Seriously Flawed [CBS 3]

Quickies: Doing the neutron dance

• Oh, yes, SEPTA is jumping on the cute puppy bandwagon by hiring more bomb-sniffing doggies! The transit authority now has 10. And now they also have a neutron bomb… er, scanner. They have a neutron scanner. [Inky]

• In Levittown (of course), a father and 21-year-old son have been arrested for allegedly holding drinking parties. Oh, and the father is alleged to have sexually assaulted some underage girls. Ehhh… [Bucks County Courier Times]

• According to the Northeast Times, the Eddie Polec murder has inspired 911 improvements! Way to get one that one right away, guys. [Northeast Times]

• And at Penn, they have activists. Not rallying against the war, gay marriage, abortion, whatever. They’re rallying against student debt. Keep fighting the good fight, guys. [Daily Pennsylvanian]

If you need me, I’ll be safely at my cube ’til forever

Oh yes, this is why I turned down the job blogging for Baghdad Weekly and took the one at PW instead. Now I remember.

Shrapnel Taken From ABC News Anchor’s Head, Neck [CBS 3]

Quickies: Some non-snow news

Okay, guys. It’s all snow, all the time today, and it is going to be slow, slow, slow today. But there are some non-snow stories:

• Don’t like the deli across the street takin’ away your pizza shop’s business? How about you hire a convicted murderer to burn it down? Yeah! Now that’s a great idea. [Bucks County Courier Times]

• Oh, and if you like your criminals a little more, say, murderous, three former terrorists spoke in the Dirty Jerz yesterday. What? You haven’t gone on speaking tours after you finished your career as a terrorist? [KYW 1060]

• Two were convicted in beating up that kid from Liberia who had the gall to be from Liberia and also possibly snitch on somebody with marijuana. Yo, haven’t you seen those shirts, man? Stop Snitch’n! [CBS 3]

• The Daily News discovers metrosexuality! And people told us the Hipster issue was out-of-date. [Daily News]