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5 Most Likely Next Terrorist Attacks

With the release of yet another report stating that the United States will be on the receiving end of yet another terror threat, it’s sometimes amazing that one can get any sleep instead of hiding under the bed and stocking up on food.

Of course the US isn’t the only target. Pretty much anybody with a grudge against another Country is seeing terrorism as a viable alternative to protests, demonstrations, or political action. Visitors to Thailand are being warned of possible attacks. Canadian pipelines are under threats of attack from Eco-Terrorists. Even Ethiopia of all places is a possible target.

It’s also clear that going after the Terrorist’s funding just isn’t working. It’s also equally clear that for whatever reason Pakistan is both physically and politically a safe harbor for terrorist of all shapes and sizes. This is despite repeated attempts by many to get the terrorist rooted out no matter where they are.

1.) New York City Subway Threats

The most immediate threat is against the New York City Subway system. Nothing is substantiated, (at least publicly) nor should there be until actual arrests are made. But if you’re a New Yorker, expect heightened security, long lines, and lots of cops and extra security. In my opinion this is probably the biggest and most immediate threat. Previous operations had already been planned but were not carried out because something bigger was planned. Terrorist feel that New York is good target because they’ve already done it a couple of times, and can keep on circumventing American Security measures to follow through with their plans.

2.) Docks and Ports

While not a glamours target, a few well placed bombs in a Port or several could cause huge problems for the United States (and even possibly the rest of the world.) The financial impact alone could be devastating especially as one of our major ports is shut down. On the same token I feel that this is also one of the less likely targets, although the immediate impact and widely ranging affects of shutting down such a port could easily entice a potential attack.

3.) Schools

One of the scariest potential targets for everyone. A suburban school, most likely protected by a couple of unarmed guards makes a good target. Blue prints and surveillance information has already been found on captured laptops in Iraq. Reports that Al-Qaeda is recruiting children themselves to pull of these attacks abound. As protective as people get of children, an attack directly on them would be a huge downturn in moral to a huge portion of the US. On the other hand it would also harm a lot of the terrorists own efforts as their supporters speak out against such an act.

4.) Bioterrorism on water supplies

Fairly low on the terrorism scale, but not unfathomable, is the possibility of attacks on fresh water supplies around the United States. Such attacks would most likely be biologically oriented instead of physical. Virus of various sorts, bird flu, germs, or poison, could all potentially be dumped into the water supply to make the drinkers sick. Luckily such a method would have a huge failure rate as water supplies tend to go through a treatment plant before the public gets it.

5.) Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls are pretty far down the list of potential targets. The only thing that would happen is some people dead, a few stores closed, news reports for a couple of days and everything would be back to normal. This would be a quick and easy target for a lone suicide bomber though. Add in the number of malls (seven within 20 miles of my area alone,) in the United States and there is a better then even chance of an attack.

Other Possibilities: Water Sewage Treatment Plants, Ferries, and of course hotels.

Unluckily the threat of Terrorism is something everyone in the world has to live with for now. Just keep in mind that if we better the United States, and we better the world in general, the potential for attacks will decrease in the future.


US Automakers don’t quite get it

Even now I’m still up in the air about our $700 Billion Dollar bailout. It seems that Financial companies are simply sitting on the money or using it to buy out their smaller in trouble competitors. The money isn’t doing what it was supposed to do. That alone pisses me off.

But no, there is talk of giving out even MORE money. Lets just go ahead and throw the good after the bad, right?

While we’re at it, we need to spend some of that money on the Auto Industry. Doing so though is such a mixed bag. The results of such a bailout are incredibly far reaching, enough that only one of the companies going out of business would severaly hurt unemployment rates. Add in the fact that if the economy wasn’t already in such trouble, talk of a bailout for the Auto Industry wouldn’t even be on the table.

Yet, is the US ready to spend yet more money for companies that have been failing for years? They concentrated on big trucks and SUVs, with little to no talk of electric vehicles or other high mileage autos. In the meantime cars are literally piling up at ports because no one is buying new vehicles.

So right now we are being strong armed one way or the other. Either we need to start buying big cars again, or pay the Big Three Automakers money… JUST to stay in business. There aren’t even talks of paying them money to help change their Core Business, or even invest in new Research and Development.

These low gas prices will go back up eventually, and I’m willing to bet sooner then we all think. The prices may stimulate the economy a bit, but I really do believe that the average Middle Class American has seen the light, and is going to start buying small, compact, efficient cars. Which the Big Three do not like making due to their lower profits.


Net Neutrality may finally be put to rest!

Finally, finally, finally! Net Neutrality has been a huge topic in the last couple of years. The big companies want to either CHARGE websites who’s visitors use their bandwidth, or slow down those users connections. This flies in the face of 30+ years of practice, and could severely hurt the Internet in the United States.

Add in the fact that the big companies are willing to make peerings agreements (for a sizable chunk of change of course,) with particular websites, this could cause huge issues with little things like freedom of choice. Imagine wanting to go to Google to do a search, but because of how you are connected to the Internet, AT&T decides to either slow down your connection or redirect it to Yahoo. Or you want to go to Amazon.com to buy some books, and are redirected to a small book store in the middle of nowhere that has no selection.

Or how about trying to raid and getting lagged out?

But the news is that Obama has appointed Kevin Werbach to the position of FCC Chairman. Among Kevin’s qualifications for this position is the fact that he plays World of Warcraft. He has some other qualifications too such being the assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton University.

To me this is marks a huge step backwards for Big Business and possibly brings the U.S. Laws back into a place where they actually protect American citizens.


Alternative Energy

It seems the more we dig into energy concerns the worse things look all around. Peak Oil is looming more and more upon us, despite evidence to the contrary at the gas pump.

As any high school student should know, energy can not be created out of nothing. So we are stuck with converting existing energy sources into more useable materials. Which in turn takes still more energy. Until Perpetual Motion becomes a reality that is.

Oil
Oil has been known to man for thousands of years. But it was not until the invention of the automobile that it became widely used as an energy source. Before that it was used primarily as medicine and in some places as both a heating oil and a light source. It has even been reported as being used in the construction of the walls of Babylon.

Now days Oil is found in just about every product. If it has plastic of any type there is oil. In fact just about any manufactured good has Oil or an Oil byproduct as an ingredient. The bad news is that with Peak Oil, Oil Extraction is becoming much more expensive. Couple this with the Environmental costs of doing so and it starts to look extremely unattractive.

Coal
Coal has been in heavy use as an energy source for hundreds of years. It’s arguable that the Industrial Revolution and many of the items we take for granted these days would not have happened without the use of coal. It was heavily used in industry for steam engines (and trains,) and many houses burned coal instead of wood.

Coal has fallen out of favor due to it’s pollution aspect, and the fact that Oil was cheaper to produce. New methods of extraction, new methods of cleaning the loose hydrocarbons, and new methods of sequestering carbon have all helped increase it’s useful lifespan. But it’s peak is coming soon too.

Nuclear
Of all the energy sources used, Nuclear remains the most controversial of all. One side touts the efficiency of Nuclear Power. The other side gets upset about the radioactive waste.

The other option is Breeder Reactors. But then the terrorists would have access to weapon grade nuclear materials.

Wind
In my opinion wind power is actually one of the more promising technologies. It’s fairly cheap compared to other methods. Besides the manufacture of the turbine itself there is little to no carbon emissions. But people do not like the ugliness of the turbines, nor the shadows and noise they cause. Add in the increase infrastructure needed, the fact that a good size wind mill farm needs to be several hundred units, due to the fact that they need wind they can only be placed in certain locations, and the fact that wind power is not steady, then they do not look quite as appealing.

Biofuels
Biofuels, especially biodiesel have been around for just over 100 years. The ideal of using plant matter as a fuel is strongly attractive at first glance. After all, we have millions of tons of plant matter around that is “wasted” every year.

The downside is that the same vegetable matter that makes good fuel, is mostly for human consumption. Not only is it strongly suspected to have caused record food prices, and quite possibly takes more energy to produce then it gives. On the other hand it’s a good way to get rid of extra biomass.

Solar
In the long run I believe solar is going to be the technology we need to rely on the most. It relies on energy from the sun (which has roughly Four Billion years to go,) solar panels are becoming more efficient and cheaper by the day, and once the initial costs are paid for, it’s effectively “free” energy.

The only real downside is that it’s possible that too many solar panels might actually act to cool the Earth as all that extra energy is collected. This could be offset by orbital solar panels that beam power to Earth based stations. Which in turn would be a huge investment in technology, money and time.

There are several other alternative energy sources such as hydrogen and tidal power. Many of them still have a long ways to go from a technology stand point before they’re viable alternatives for mass consumption. Until that happens it’s really best to reduce electricity consumption all around. And wait for the politicians to sort it out.


Democrats doing something… right?

From Yahoo News today: (Copied in whole to preserve when Yahoo archives change, no copyright infringement intended.)

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last week told the White House to preserve all records produced by the Bush administration and expressed “particular concerns” whether Vice President Dick Cheney’s office will comply with the law.

“We believe it is vital the presidential and vice presidential documents belonging to the American people be preserved, including those related to key national security dePatrick Leahy of Vermont, Sen. John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. They asked Fielding to detail steps being taken to preserve White House documents and hand them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The senators asked whether the White House believes that any notes, document and records created in the White House by the president, vice president and their staffs may be destroyed without first consulting with the archivist of the United States, and if so which ones. It also asks whether Fielding has investigated a Washington Post report that some presidential orders are kept off White House records in a safe in office of the vice president’s lawyer.

“We have particular concerns … regarding documents in the possession of the Office of the Vice President,” the letter said. Citing ongoing litigation over the preservation of Cheney’s records, the senators wrote: “the declarations filed in that case by the Office of the Vice President raise serious concerns about its interpretations of the (Presidential Records Act).”

The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires all presidential and vice presidential records to be transferred to the Archives immediately upon the end of the president’s last term of office and gives the archivist responsibility to preserve and control access to presidential records. The law ended the tradition of private ownership of presidential papers, opening White House records to the public and historians.

In 2003, Cheney began asserting that the vice president’s office is not an entity within the executive branch.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto in an e-mail called the leak of the letter “a partisan attack by Senate Democrats.”

“We do not need to be reminded about the Presidential Records Act by Chairman Leahy,” he wrote.
A Senate official with knowledge of the letter said there is no indication the White House is destroying documents.

Cheney’s office is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington which is trying to ensure that no presidential records are destroyed or handled in a way that makes them unavailable to the public.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said Cheney’s position on the status of the vice president’s office raises questions whether his records will be preserved in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

In a deposition taken by CREW Monday, an Archives staff member who works on presidential materials said some of the vice president’s records generated in his capacity as the president of the Senate may be exempt from the law if they are “purely political or partisan.”
Records of Cheney’s dealings with the Republican National Committee would not require preservation under the act, Nancy Kegan Smith, the archives official, said during the deposition. Smith also said NARA has not made a final decision on the status of Cheney’s records produced when he acts as president of the Senate.

Clare O’Donnell, Cheney’s deputy chief of staff, was being deposed by CREW for the lawsuit Thursday.
The Bush White House has been most secretive in years, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

“The rate of classification activity hit a record high in the Bush administration. More information was classified more quickly than ever before. But what’s worse is that secrecy authority was used to conceal controversial policies involving domestic surveillance, prisoner detention and interrogation,” Aftergood said.

Human rights and civil liberties advocates are clamoring for more openness in the Obama administration.