The Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf Syndrome

The kind of sad thing about this week's terror plot is that we've reached a point where Our Leaders have approximately zero credibility. They have been wrong in every way, on every level, so dishonest that it's hard to believe anything that comes from them.

But when Josh says this:

But when the Brits completely shut down their major international airport (though now the shutdown seems to be easing) I'm quite ready to believe they found something very real.

I think he's dead wrong.

I think Tony Blair has learned from W how to preserve power: fear.

And it need not be based on anything.

I admit I haven't been following this week's terror plot too closely because of the stench of BS I'm picking up from it -- seems like the Miami 7 on steroids but still not a plan likely to achieve much success. The "best" one could say is that Cheney's 1% rule justifies it.

But still.

It just strikes me as a terrific way for Blair and "New" Labor to preserve power: reliance on the fear platform. They're taking the "strong on security" issue from the conservatives. They've co-opted the conservatives, it seems, on both the free market illusion of wealth growth and security. Very slick but does nothing for the populace, as it were. The only winners is the party. And of course, Our Leaders are only too happy to go along....

And at what great expense....

But query this: How likely was the arrested's plan to come to fruition? Enough to justify the additional airport security? Maybe putting a couple of airlines out of business? Enough to make flying even less attractive?

Yet more reason for being highly skeptical

BoingBoing has these two items (with live links):

If the liquid could be explosive, why are you dumping it in a crowd?

xopl asks a fair question:

So CNN is reporting: "Because the plot involved taking liquid explosives aboard planes in carry-ons, passengers at all U.S. and British airports, and those boarding U.S.-bound flights at other international airports, are banned from taking any liquids onto planes."

And then they have the photo of the TSA guy dumping a tub of confiscated possibly explosive liquids into a garbage can in a crowd of people.

Figure that shit out for me.

Gabe says

And check out this article from Asheville, NC. "Maya Leoni, who is held by Angela Perez, cries as her mother, A.J. Leoni, pours the last of her drink into the receptacle while in line for the security checkpoint at the Asheville Regional Airport."

POUR IT INTO A RECEPTACLE? Don't you think that some of these potentially explosive liquids might be more dangerous when, I don't know, mixed in a big vat in the middle of an airport?

Christ, why don't they just have people put their liquids into a big bonfire?

And here yet another BoingBoing item that really sets off the claxons -- of patent BS:

Report: jetliner bombing plot, iPod trigger for gel in Gatorade
CNN: "Terrorists planned to use MP3 players and energy drinks to blow up as many as 10 jetliners bound for the United States, authorities said Thursday. A senior congressional source said it's believed the plotters planned to mix a 'British version of Gatorade' with a gel-like substance to make an explosive that they would possibly trigger with an MP3 player or cell phone."

Is this what Al-Qaida's finest were planning?? If so, Our Leaders' contempt for stupid us (well, their supporters, actually, and those who would buy such crap, not us!) is effing mind-blowing.

And pathetic and tragic.

UPDATE: Another vote for me, someone else who's a little skeptical.

And the reason why dumping all the confiscated liquids really is stupid.

UPDATE 2: More reasons to be skeptical:

This.

And this:

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

And vice versa: Nothing like fear for helping win the proto-fascists victory at the polls.

And, yet again, Our Leaders are such constant liars. Why believe anything they tell us except for what may be obviously true?

Here's a piece inferring that invasion of Iraq doesn't stop terrorism, old fashioned covert ops, more particularly fraternizing with the enemy, as it were, does -- and did in London.

And yet another piece adding to the stink that Big Media may have been lapping up pi... Well, that the situation wasn't quite what Our Leaders told us; the UK24 is pretty much the Brits' Miami 7. Except thanks to Our Leaders' deliberate spreading of hysteria, we all know how to make explosives out of stuff in our homes.

And here's an editorial stating what one would think is the obvious: Our Leaders' policy has not (provably) made us safer nor, for that matter, is the world safer thanks to the Rove/Cheney/Bush administration.

What a fabulous meme or tagline for the Dems in 06: "Are you and the world safer under Republican leadership?" (The lack of balls to use it is a whole 'nother issue.)

And let's take a humor break:



And there's this danger too.

And here's more info on the alleged bomb -- more what and how.

And a nice overview of how much safer we are with the wingnuts in charge of security.