NYT: U.S. Terror Targets: Petting Zoo and Flea Market?

[Pirate Smile]

WASHINGTON, July 11 — It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”

But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the official federal antiterrorism database.

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, said the inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

The database is used by the Homeland Security Department to help divide the hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grant each year, including the program announced in May that cut money to New York City and Washington by 40 percent while significantly increasing spending for cities including Louisville, Ky., and Omaha.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/washington/12assets.html?hp&ex=1152676800&en=6b0502da91a3d945&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[grytpype]

1. Un. Believable.

Un be f*cking lievable.

Just when you think you've heard it all.

[saigon68]

14. Its the Dubuque, Iowa --- Lion's Club Annual Bean Feed

It is rumored to be the next Terrorist Target

three men are coming to eat beans and then

Two drop their pants and one produces a cigarette lighter,

[Julius Civitatus]

18. Our country is being governed by CIRCUS CLOWNS

It's difficult to understand these people.

:banghead:

[saigon68]

26. Circus clowns have a greater understanding of how humor works

Compared to the Bush War Criminal Gang

[Rainscents]

2. LOL

:wtf: what will they come up next? Target the nursery? Are they running out of ideas?

[CoffeeCat]

3. Maybe they released this to scare us!

Now EVERYONE will be terrified! Not just those in NYCity or Los Angeles--but
even those in towns with a population of 10!

No one is safe! No where is safe! You think you're secure at the flea market...THINK AGAIN!
You think terrorists aren't interested in the Sears Optical Department in Davenport, Iowa---or
the petting zoo in Walla Walla, Washington? THINK AGAIN PEOPLE!

Be afraid...be very afraid...and then look to the neocons to keep you safe! :)

[uppityperson]

4. Damn those terrorist fleas! War against the fleas!

flea markets and petting zoos have to have fleas, right?
"In addition to the petting zoo, in Woodville, Ala., and the Mule Day Parade in Columbia, Tenn., the auditors questioned many entries, including “Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Mall at Sears,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” “Anti-Cruelty Society” and “Bean Fest.”"

[chookie]

5. Are they torturing more seriously insane people?

This stuff is even wackier than the stuff the mentally ill Zubaydah's made up to stop his tormentors from torturing him. (Remember all the breathless terrier warnings in the summer of 2002 -- threats against the Statue of Liberty, divers loading explosives on the Brooklyn Bridge? They made such headlines with this stuff, and none of it was meaningful -- all was the ravings of a tortured mentally ill man) .

Y'all also remember the panic about kids, moms, and shopping malls? Hysteria over that. Remember the exploding teddy bears? Day after day on tv?

Let's see -- the Bush adminstration missed the, IMHO, pretty obvious warnings by competent intelligence authorities that Al Qaeda was on the verge of carrying out a major mission in the US using airplanes as WMD -- but they take stuff like exploding teddy bears seriously? And you know why -- because that's the best they can do. Politicize intelligence gathering and FBI investigations -- and this is the meaningless horse hockey you get. Shumer is right: “This report is the smoking gun that thoroughly indicts the system.”

[wellst0nev0ter]

6. Ah Well, The DHS Has Already Served Its Purposes

to be used as a partisan ugly stick to defeat Democrats during the 2002 elections (cf. Max Cleland).

[kestrel91316]

7. I always suspected those dastardly Amish were going to poison us

all with their popcorn some day.

Next thing you know, they'll be shipping all of THEM off to Gitmo. They dress as funny as them AY-RABS.

:sarcasm:

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Damn, I thought the Quakers

were the bad guys?

Who's next, the Menonites?

[kestrel91316]

24. Of course. It's those evil peace churches, see........

buncha commie pinkos.

[Pirate Smile]

8. kick

[onehandle]

9. Attention Americans. Stay in fear at the following locations:

Places of Work.
Places of Play.
Places of Rest.
Places of Worship.

The only place you are truly safe is at the polls while voting Republican, electronically.
If you press a Democratic candidate, we cannot guarantee your safety.

The machines know all.

The owls are not what they seem.

[Solly Mack]

11. Exactly where is the money going?

Who is getting these "anti-terrorism grants"?

Entire State? City within state? Organizations/Programs within city/state? Profit? Non-profit? Individual?

Have the accounting books of the DHS been audited lately??

Just seems to me that if I owed some favors and I was in the position to funnel "grant" money through a federal program, well....


Fear is used as a form of control and distraction...if you're busy looking for mushroom clouds, you're likely to think the hand in your pocket is for comfort.

[slackmaster]

13. DHS is spending most of its money preparing for a flu pandemic

A senior official, in charge of procurement for a large region in the Western USA, told me terrorist attacks are "barely on the radar screen" for the department.

Follow the links at http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=34&content=4919

[pcboss49]

12. UGH!!

Is it me or do others think that Indiana may be number 1 due to the fact that its Governor is none other than Mitch Daniels, who was the shrub's former budget director? Maybe also due to the fact that Indiana has voted red every year going all the way back to voting Nixon over JFK. Just random thoughts traveling through the vaccuum of my head....

[Jokerman]

16. Nail on the head. (with one small correction)

Bush's Bitch Mitch cooking the numbers was my first thought as well.

BTW - LBJ won Indiana's electoral votes in 1964.

[Roland99]

20. Eli Lilly just outside of Indy. They got a nice rider on the Patriot Act..

gave them immunity over a vaccine that apparently was causing autism.

[yurbud]

15. al Qaeda may be putting Ben Gay in jock straps and bras at dept. stores...

[corporatemedia]

17. Just before that "beach at the end of the street" is ....

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

[saigon68]

19. kick

[yurbud]

21. I already thought those were dangerous. If you touch anything at a flea

market, you cut your life short by five years.

[IndianaGreen]

22. Indiana has more terror targets than New York and New Jersey combined!

I didn't realize how critical our corn fields were to the national security, considering that neither the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building are regarded as terror targets by Homeland Security.

Now, we do have terror targets in my adopted state, such as the nerve gas we have in storage, but we have nowhere near the 800 some terror targets that appeared on the list.

[wellst0nev0ter]

23. Boot

:kick:

[Nailzberg]

25. This is story is kinda unfair.

The crazy appropriations of funding was not entirely based on the National Asset Database (NAD). The IG's office was concerned about the local reporting of assets from the beginning of this program. The report cited in this article was meant to evaluate whether or not this program of municipalities and state reporting their assets was viable from the beginning. The fact that the IG's office issued this report shows that they are testing and correcting the errors of the program from the get-go.

The DHS is a screwed up department, it's got a lot of bugs, but it is a start-up department. Given some time and a more supportive administration (Dem or Repub), I think it'll do more good than bad. The IG's office has been on the ball as far as fixing the kinks. That the IG was monitoring this from the beginning gives me a little faith that DHS get their shit in order.