[digital drifter]

Craig Murray has a different take on the whole thing.  If true, read it and weep.

http://www.craigmurr...k_terror_p.html

[malkers]

Thanks for that DD.

It seems our own John DID[i] have a truly valid point after all folks!

We are all just fed bullshit that they expect us to eat, shame for all the companies that lost millions and probably totalling over billions of pounds from this scare!

[dani]

that's exactly why I'm always saying that I'm more scared from powerhungry governments than from terror attacks

[Judi]

Thanks DD - if I weren't too busy gnashing my teeth I would, indeed, be weeping.    If it's true, it's a nasty situation.

[digital drifter]

Here's the thing.

From readings on the Internet(might not be true :-) ) , I understand there are online marketplaces where you can place bets on outcomes (political, economic, natural events). Large sums of money are supposedly placed.

Now, before you commit me to the loon house.....

Are there events whic can be staged AND profited from?

Are there events which have started and can be nudged in a particular direction? (say disclosure of oil pipeline shutdown) AND still be profited upon?

In the most simplest case, political outcomes( huh?),  say B. Liar wants to continue being PM of cuckoo land.

Fear is the easiest to parley as it jump starts our primitive reflexes.

The problem with these marketplaces is the vested interest in the outcomes and the unintended fallouts.  Case in point, the cheap airlines; they get hit harder. in their OWN interest, they'll press the security officials to ease up; which hey presto! has already happened with the regulations.

Then as now, Follow the money, the bouncing ball.

Quote

Senior sources in the Israel Defense Forces General Staff and field officers who took part in the war in Lebanon said on Tuesday that Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who went to his bank branch and sold an NIS 120,000 investment portfolio only three hours after two soldiers were abducted by Hezbollah on the northern border,

http://www.haaretz.c...ges/750789.html

War had NOT been declared, yet.

In another post sometime, when I'm in a darker mood, I'll post why there is a need for graft/corruption and a blackmarket in every country and society.

[cyberhippie]

What I can't understand in all this, is that these guys are willing to lay down their life to take out a plane and all passengers!!

So why the need to take the risk of carrying your "liquid bomb" or indeed any other bomb in your hand luggage, simply check your bomb in, take your seat, so as not to alarm the authorities, and wait for/detonate the explosion!!

Great to see so many cynical minds here on TIT, I always thought it was just me   

[dzibead]

digital drifter, on Aug 15 2006, 10:04 AM, said:

Here's the thing.

From readings on the Internet(might not be true :-) ) , I understand there are online marketplaces where you can place bets on outcomes (political, economic, natural events). Large sums of money are supposedly placed.

Definitely true.  There have long been futures markets where people bet on the outcome of political and economic events.  Even the Pentagon had a futures market on terrorism till such a hue and cry was raised they abandoned it.  Check out these links:

http://www.nytimes.c...artner=USERLAND

http://hanson.gmu.ed...s2/RMM-4-04.htm

http://hanson.gmu.ed...TCS-5-14-04.htm


As for staging things?  "Wagging the dog", as they say?  I'm not a particularly radical person, but I wouldn't put ANYTHING past the Bush Administration and those in cahoots with them.  (Yeah, Tony, I'm lookin' at YOU!)  [go to www.youtube.com and search for "Bush Blair love"  - Mercurie already posted this in the Joke thread and it IS absolutely hilarious, but ... gulp ...]   Dubya flat out STOLE the last two elections and lied through his teeth to the whole world in order to start a war in which thousands and thousands have already died - a war that increasingly looks to me like a protracted "terrorist attack" by the West.   So, CH, you think you're a little cynical?  I think maybe you're just realistic.  So far, fear is the Bush machine's only hope of maintaining their grip on power, so they will do what they need to to to "stir the pot."

[digital drifter]

Well, that didn't take long


RyanAir a leading European discount airline, has threatened to sue the British government if it doesn't ease off on its security measures.

    Michael O'Leary, the outspoken chief executive of Ryanair, described the new restrictions as "farcical Keystone Cops security measures that don't add anything except to block up airports", as he issued the ultimatum.

    Mr O'Leary ridiculed the notion of searching five- or six-year-old children and elderly people in wheelchairs going to Spain. Such scenes, he said, would have "terrorists laughing in the caves of Afghanistan".

http://www.guardian....1853247,00.html

[dzibead]

Hey!  I know the guy who wrote that article about Ryanair!  He's a close friend of one of my best friends!  Small world.

[jyotirmoy]

Flew from Bangalore to Delhi last night. Cool scene at Bangalore airport. Yes only one piece of cabin baggage sans liquids, gels etc. that's all. If you carry prescribed medicines have the prescription with you. Good luck.

[digital drifter]

prophetic!

http://www.startribu...ory/629345.html

Quote

19 airport workers and TSA agents who were fighting the War on Moisture were hospitalized today after the hell-brew of confiscated liquids they had been mixing began to offgas something toxic -- likely a by-product of mace or pepper-spray.

from boingboing

[digital drifter]

final word

Quote

“In retrospect,’’ said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”

http://www.nytimes.c...agewanted=print

[iwanttogoback]

ahh dd,

always the final word huh? great article. thanks for the link.

am I the only one who is starting to regard the regular terror alerts that go nowhere (thankfully of course) as being somewhat like the boy who cried wolf?

[Snowcrab]

When I was boarding a domestic Canadian flight last week, I had to check my one bag because it had toothpaste in it. Too late I realized the simple thing to have done would have been to ask the airport for one of those gigantic plastic bags they let you have to put over your back pack, and just put one that one tube of toothpaste in that for the baggage handlers to keep track of. It would be fun to see how fifty of those looked on the carousal.

It's all so annoying, you just have to look what hasn't been making it into the news lately because of all this airport hysteria stuff. Like the Supreme Court declaring Bush's unwarrented wiretaps illegal.

I'm just praying that by December sanity will have prevailed and I won't have to trust my laptop to the tender mercies of baggage handlers.

link: http://www.commondre...s06/0818-29.htm

[dzibead]

Snowcrab, on Aug 30 2006, 06:53 PM, said:

Too late I realized the simple thing to have done would have been to ask the airport for one of those gigantic plastic bags they let you have to put over your back pack, and just put one that one tube of toothpaste in that for the baggage handlers to keep track of. It would be fun to see how fifty of those looked on the carousal.