So what would nine Muslim women buying lots of milk have to do with terrorists releasing something harmful into pools of milk at a dairy plant? If these Muslim women knew of an attack ahead of time (stockpiling, as the original poster thought several times, like "us" before the hurricane), then wouldn't they buying gallons of gallons of something that was, y'know, untainted?
You made a claim that you read on some major news outlets only a day or so ago that there would be possible attacks on US dairy plants by terrorists, and suggested these Arab-looking women were trying to stock up milk to prepare for such attacks because they also read the same news. Then you said you don't remember where you read it, and not willing to waste your time to prove that you were not making it up? Back it up. Your credibility is on the line.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/milk.html "Got Toxic Milk?" Reconsidered On May 30, the New York Times published a guest editorial that described a potential attack on the nation's milk supply by a terrorist armed with a gallon jug containing a few grams of botulinum toxin. That prognostication and warning, written by Stanford University professor Lawrence M. Wein, was dire. The toll of poisoned was estimated in the hundreds of thousands. For it to be plausible, one has to accept several assumptions. The first of these is that terrorists can easily brew the amount of toxin cited. But can they? Lawrence M. Wein's initial claim concerning terrorist knowledge on production of botulinum toxin was an alarming one. He wrote that all that was necessary would be for a single terrorist to have the jihadi manual called "Preparation of Botulism Toxin," secured from the Internet. We have a copy of the 28-page jihadi manual. It is an oft-stated canard that terrorists, or a single one, can simply download their capabilities for mass death from the world wide web. The assistance that the manual is alleged to confer is greatly exaggerated. While its text certainly appears technical to laymen, its compiler does not explain, except in the most general terms, how to obtain a toxic strain of Clostridium botulinum in the first place. Any strain of the bacterium which produces botulinum toxin won't do, an aspect even noted in the manual. Many strains of Clostridium botulinum in nature produce very little or no toxin. Finding the right one in nature out of literally 600 or 700 strains can take a long time. For example, the task took the pre-1969 US offensive BW program many man-years of work by highly trained and competent professionals. Wein also posited that botulinum toxin could be bought from an overseas black-market lab. In the real world no "black market" botulinum toxin producer is known to exist. No real world "terrorist" group - excluding the perpetrator of the US Amerithrax events - has been recognized as having the professional capacity in personnel or equipment to even follow the instructions that the manual does contain. Following the manual's directions requires sophisticated equipment, special reagents, and substantial experience. These do not exist in "jihadi" camps. In addition, the jihadi manual does not describe processes or professional art that would enable one terrorist to produce gram quantities of botulinum toxin. Possession of a patched-together electronic manual on botulinum toxin production does not magically make for a shortcut around the experience, education and labor involved in gaining hands-on expertise in the most lethal applications of microbiology. The portrayal of such alleged terrorist documents as true and accurate indications of what terrorists can achieve in this area is not the best assessment. In the larger work from which Dr. Wein drew his guest editorial, he recognizes that three basic assumptions that lie at the heart of his calculations are open to great uncertainty, as much as three orders of magnitude or more for each of the three. The first is the presumed production capability of the terrorist, only discussed in part above. The second is the degree of lethality of the material presumably produced. The third is the degree of inactivation of the toxin during pasteurization of milk. One of the two main recommendations offered by Dr. Wein was that milk producers should seek to increase the degree of toxin destruction during pasteurization. The US government and the International Dairy Foods Association have in fact collaborated over the past few years in practical discussions of this problem. An internal document indicates that about 12 months ago, processors of fluid milk quietly raised their pasteurization times and temperature, a step which would significantly reduce by several orders of magnitude the survival of any botulinum toxin that had been added to milk. Dr. Wein's suggestion has by and large already been implemented. Thinking about the unthinkable has become a way of life in the war on terror. But too often, in our opinion, have the debates on securing the country against the threat of bioterrorism degenerated into worst case scenarios which assume an easy and accomplished technical capability for mass killing already or soon to be in the hands of terrorists. Our assessment is that the possible variability in the three key assumptions means that, taken together, they could result in a difference of nine orders of magnitude from the numbers presented by Dr. Wein, that is produce a result only one-billionth as much. There is therefore an extraordinary degree of uncertainty associated with Dr. Wein's estimates. The analysis of real and practical intelligence reveals a vastly different, more complicated, and much less frightening picture. --Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Scholar, Center for International and Security Studies, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. --George Smith, Senior Fellow, Globalsecurity.org, Alexandria, VA
So, you were thinking specifically of this lovely article, about a May 30th NY Times Op-Ed, while you were at CVS?
Would it have pissed you off if on the morning of Sept 11, 2001 someone would have reported some suspicious looking middle eastern men getting onto some airplanes?
Nope, I was thinking of Ramadan. In my original post, I even mentioned the women in the store were "polite", so I had not animosity against them. And another thing, what does the date of the article have to do with anything? It was only a few months ago. Is it not relevant anymore?
I have no reason to make it up, since my goal in life is far from defending reggietodd or any other random internet poster. Was merely offering an explanation as to what he may or may not have been thinking based on something that I read recently. My credibility is fine, as I am sure many other posters will vouch for that. Sorry if its not in your eyes. PS "credibility on the line" ...does bigtexx/traderjorge know you are stealing his lines?
Sadly, they weren't suspicious. They were six middle-eastern men getting on to an airplane two at a time, staggered among 70-80 people on the flight. In one of their carry-on bags, one of them was carrying two boxcutters not unlike the ones I have in a drawer a foot away from me. They were also wearing clothes that pretty much looked like the ones I was wearing on September 10th. What a horrible, horrible correlation. Just a downright infuriating thing to post. Disgusting. Real solid sense of perspective there, buddy. I couldn't find anything on any major sites, codell. Defend reggie all you want, but this kid never saw any articles along those lines. He saw a group of people buying a whole lot of a certain product, and based around their skin color and attire, wondered aloud (both in the store and later in the day, when he felt compelled enough to write a post about it on a website) if they were IN ON A TERRORIST ATTACK. And when someone of the same skin color expresses outrage at the ignorance and lack of perspective behind the guy's post, you call them "a jerk." Sometimes it's a real treat, guys. Later.
LOL, that's what i was thinking. come on codell, fess up, you know you made that story up. you've just been waiting for the possibility of a CVS thread like this to throw it in there, you sly fox.
Well, if it wasn't on a major site, then it must not have been written right? (pretty sure though it was CNN, FOX, or MSNBC (since that, and chron.com is where I do most of my news reading), but it most certainly could have been a much lesser known news site) I never said he did see that article. I said that I saw that article and thought that if he did see the same article that it might explain his questions in his opening post.
Look, i'm tired of people giving the original poster a hard time over what he said. If arabs or arab type ethnicities are stereotyped as terrorists, maybe it's because our nation is at war with arab terrorists. If my ethnic group had recently killed several thousand innocent people in several cowardly sneak attacks, I think I could understand if terrorism is the first thing people thought of when they saw me. Screw all you liberal PC bleeding hearts.
I have no problem at all with you defending reggietodd using whatever reason you could come with. However, I do have a problem with you saying that you read a news article of nontrivial nature on US mainstream media only a couple of days ago but are now unable/unwilling to back it up with a credible link. Sorry if you just want to have some fun and feel I am too hard on you, but you could have easily stopped the "skirmish" earlier by not being coy yourself. I was dead serious.
