Whatever
by digby
I know everyone will be shocked to find out that the woman who was detained yesterday for having explosive make-up in her purse wasn’t actually a terrorist and her make-up wasn’t actually explosive:
CEREDO, W. Va. — A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated yesterday after two bottles of liquid found in a woman’s carry-on luggage twice tested positive for explosives residue, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.
Chemical tests later turned up no explosives in the bottles, said Captain Jack Chambers, head of the State Police Special Operations unit. The airport was reopened after nearly 10 hours.
A machine that security checkpoint screeners use to test for explosives registered positive results for two containers, and a canine team also got a positive indication, said TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter.
The TSA screening looks for a range of explosives residue, some of which can be found on common household items, said TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser.
Airport manager Larry Salyers said he was told the woman was a 28-year-old of Pakistani descent who had moved to Huntington, W. Va., from Jackson, Mich. No charges were filed against the woman, who was taken from the airport by federal authorities at 5 p.m., Salyers said.
The woman was very cooperative, officials said.
Does anyone but me find it slightly questionable that two separate tests misread this woman’s make-up as being explosive? I think perhaps someone was intent upon seeing things that weren’t there, don’t you? In the end, this particular incident was not such a big deal. This woman was inconvenienced but they did finally recognize the truth.
But the press made a huge deal out of this all day yesterday, particularly FOX news, performing their designated role in the Bush travelling terrorist salvation show. I wonder, though, if there was even one person in the country who believed for a minute that this was a terrorist plot? I doubt it.
According to the latest Pew Poll, people seem to be “watching” the show now rather than feeling a part of it:
The news that British officials had stopped a terrorist plot to blow up planes flying to the U.S. drew higher public attention than have most other terror-related news stories since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Fully 54% say they followed this news story very closely, compared with 48% who tracked last summer’s London bombings very closely, and 34% who paid close attention to the Madrid rail bombings in 2004.
The extensive public attention did not result in a spike in concern about terrorism, however. In interviews conducted after the story broke (Aug. 10-13), a quarter of respondents said that they were “very worried” that there will soon be another terrorist attack on the United States. By comparison, 17% of respondents interviewed on Aug. 9 before the announcement reported that level of concern.
The GWOT is just another a reality TV show.
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