A crazy-person’s look at New York’s big stink
I’m usually the last one to buy into conspiracy theories – from what I’ve seen, most people get dumber, not more clever, the more like-minded-folks they gather around them – but I had a creepy thought this morning…
What if that Big Stink in NYC that was ubiquitous in yesterday’s media was a test-run for a terrorist attack? What if that had been anthrax or ricin mysteriously permeating America’s Premier City instead of whatever benign odor it apparently was? (That’s assuming it was benign – what if it was a slow-acting toxin, designed to kill extra-slowly over time?)
(Admittedly, The Missus and I just finished watching a marathon of the last season of “24” on DVD last night and that almost certainly put me in this frame of mind.) But I stand by my paranoia. Here’s why:
Al Qaeda did a number of test runs on intercontinental flights before 9/11. Right down to the last detail short of commandeering the planes. What if yesterday’s malefic stench in NYC was a similar test run for a delivery vehicle for a more lethal air-borne attack to come?
It would definitely fit al Qaeda’s pattern.
What I can’t figure out is how come no one else has suggested this possibility? Or have they, but they’re all over on Paranoid Nutjob sites that I’ve never heard of?
We live in crazy times, and everyone agrees the question isn’t if there’ll be another big attack, but when. If I lived in a big city, especially New York, I’d be scared shitless right now.
Worse, if Pat Robertson turned out to be right on this one, my mother would never let me hear the end of it.
posted by Fang Bastardson at 6:39 AM
7 Comments:
Perhaps the stink is coming from Pat Robertson.
2:00 PM
Heather's probably right, but you've managed to scare the bejeebus out of me. Apparently I've been watching too much 24 as well.
6:37 AM
I think you have a point. Bloomberg dismissed the smell as not harmful, but it could easily be some kind of chemical warfare thing.
7:05 AM
I have this theory that the farther you are from where something happened the more crazy and bullshit the theories become. That's why people in Pakistan can say that 9/11 was a CIA and/or Zionist plot. I suspect it's also part of why people not on the East Coast think that their petting zoo or drive-in theater or local attraction is a major terrorist target.
So I will simply say this: You should go to Jersey sometime. Take the Lincoln tunnel out of Manhattan, drive along the turnpike past the container ports and chemical plants and all the other industrial wastelands, and you'll suspect that it was more than likely an accident.
(I'm not dissing Jersey. It's superfly.)
All this isn't to say that you're wrong. But you probably are. And your paranoia fuels the culture of fear that lets the Bushies grab us by the short hairs.
Now, about fluoridated water. . . .
7:16 AM
Of course I'm probably wrong. That's why I named the post "A crazy-person’s look at New York’s big stink."
But "24" makes a compelling argument for craziness, as does the current administration...
7:23 AM
Sometimes you never can tell whether people who tell conspiracy theories actually believe them. . . or how crazy people are. Mea culpa magna.
Did I ever tell you my favorite one from when I lived in Wyoming? The anti-gun lobby, the ATF and FBI, and the UN are all working together to get lawful gun owners to register all their weapons. Once the government knows all about them, the ATF/FBI will take them all away so that a shadowy cabal (involving the federal reserve, the trilateral commission, and unknown others) can help the UN install a puppet government in the US. The UN is being secretly trained (think "black helicopters") in the American West by the cabal and soldier of fortune types.
Wyoming is a long way from Washington and New York . . .
8:48 AM
I'll give you that the stink was probably benign; hindsight will demonstrate that fact. However... the powers to be were completely ineffective in identifying or controlling that stink. It was big honking mystery for too long. Which, if it wasn't a terrorist test, means that the terrorists have seen it as weakness.
After the first attack on the world trade center, I knew there would be another, and we know there will be another still. Your scenario is as likely as pre-9/11 imagining a plane flying into a building.
Which makes me kinda happy that I don't live there.
5:53 PM
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