CRIME U.S. "GROSSLY UNPREPARED" FOR UNLIKELY THREATS

From: Alan (alan@private)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 16:53:19 PDT

  • Next message: Alan: "CRIME Security Training Won't Take Effect Until Microsoft Restarts"

    http://www.satirewire.com/news/0111/threats.shtml
    
    U.S. "GROSSLY UNPREPARED" FOR UNLIKELY THREATS
    No Plans in Place to Deal with Drying Up of Oceans, Giant Moon Explosion,
    Or Potential for Everyone to Be Pecked to Death Like in "The Birds"
    
    Washington, D.C. (SatireWire.com) -- In a haunting Senate hearing today on 
    risk assessment and emergency readiness, officials from dozens of government 
    agencies conceded the United States is "grossly unprepared" to deal with 
    thousands of highly unlikely threats, including falling chunks of the Moon 
    should it explode into pieces, or the simultaneous spontaneous combustion of 
    every person east of the Mississippi.
    
    Or anything to do with vampires or poisonous housecats.
    Barba Boxer
    
       Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., listens as N.O.A.A. officials say they are 
    ill-prepared to deal with a sudden total loss of oxygen in the atmosphere
    
    As senators listened aghast, officials from the Centers for Disease Control, 
    FBI, FDA, NASA, and National Endowment for the Arts confessed that despite 
    the safeguards implemented since September, the country remains at 
    implausible risk.
    
    "I can tell you that today, right now, if Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo 
    develops the ability to shatter the eardrums of American textile workers with 
    a mere thought, we're going to be in trouble," testified CIA Director George 
    Tenet.
    
    CDC Director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan was equally disheartening in his analysis.
    
    "If some undetectable disease is introduced that spreads so quickly and is so 
    deadly that anyone within a 10,000-mile radius dies before they're even 
    exposed, we have not dedicated adequate resources to handle that effectively 
    at this time, no," Koplan said.
    
    Asked what diseases might fit this category, Koplan shifted uncomfortably as 
    he acknowledged the CDC did not know of any, nor had it directed drug 
    companies to prepare a vaccine to combat them. That response infuriated and 
    terrified Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
    
    "What do you mean you 'don't know of any'?" asked Roberts. "The entire nation, 
    and perhaps the entire world, could be killed by this virus and you've never 
    even heard of it? I won't even bother asking what you're doing about killer 
    bees."
    
    While some senators and agency directors focused on external threats -- under 
    withering cross examination, Mary Ryan, assistant secretary of state for 
    consular affairs, confessed that Canada could attack at any time. -- many 
    wondered if internal dangers were being adequately addressed.
    
    Occupational Safety and Health Administration administrator John Henshaw, for 
    instance, was noticeably cowed after Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott turned his 
    attentions on office supplies.
    
    "Mr. Henshaw, like million of Americans, I want to believe my country can 
    protect me, but also, like millions of Americans, I have a stapler that I use 
    to fasten important papers," said Lott, holding up a Swingline #545 desktop 
    model. "What if this stapler suddenly turns on me, decides to attack me, 
    inflicting hundreds of puncture wounds on my person like this (clack) 
    aaaargghh!! (clack) arrrgghh!! (clack) eowarrrgghh!! so that I bleed to 
    death?"
    
    After a long silence, Henshaw, refusing to make eye contact with Lott, offered 
    no reply.
    Cochran
    
       Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., gets a giggle out of watching colleague Trent 
    Lott staple himself.
    
    "Well, God help us," intoned Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who then ordered the 
    Senate's sergeant-at-arms to remove all staplers from the Capitol building 
    and congressional offices.
    
    Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, however, urged senators to stop the 
    hearings, explaining that airing such dangers publicly could expose 
    weaknesses that America's enemies would exploit. Biden, however, said the 
    American people deserved to know what their government was doing to safeguard 
    them, and asked Ridge if his team had considered the possibility that a rogue 
    nation might create a Category 5 hurricane the size of Asia that would have 
    the ability to suck up the entire U.S. wheat harvest.
    
    "Boy, I don't think so," Ridge replied as several senators ran screaming from 
    the building as a precaution. "Also, I haven't given much thought to the 
    potential for an army of lethally radioactive wallabies that could crawl into 
    all our beds at night, pretending to be pillows."
    
    Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, meanwhile, testified that 
    HHS was ill-prepared to respond if every American, from infant to the 
    elderly, suddenly began smoking cigarettes and continued to do so, non-stop, 
    24 hours a day. However, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., had Thompson's testimony 
    stricken from the record, arguing that it described a "goal," not a threat.
    
    Copyright © 1999-2002, SatireWire. 
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun May 26 2002 - 11:40:18 PDT