Duct tape and plastic sheeting.

They're effectively putting a squelch on the economy, scaring people into staying home (although it could promote shopping on line!) My favorite DVD brick-and-mortar store just closed their location, depriving me of the enjoyment of browsing through all sorts of hard-to-find DVD's in person. If the increase in sales of duct tape and plastic sheeting, bottled water and the rest isn't going to put the economy back on its feet. They might as well tell you not to drive because that's dangerous.

Apologies if anyone has already offered this and I missed it, but can you or anyone offer any evidence that "they" (I assume you mean the Homeland Security Dept or the administration) have "effectively {put} a squelch on the economy, scaring people into staying home"?

Or are you just stating your personal opinion?

It most certainly hasn't scared me. In fact I flew my entire family across country right after 9/11, and twice again since. There are a couple places that I go that bother me a bit since. Both are small, crowded markets that are frequented by a very multi-ethnic crowd, but primarily european. But what can you do?

Is this why the airlines are doing so well?

Of course, the drop in retail sales at brick-and-mortar stores and the rise of online sales is due to other factors besides staying home merely for the threat of terrorism. It hasn't deterred me from going out to restaurants or to shop but I only made one example -- there have been noticably less people at the restaurants I frequent and at the brick-and-mortar stores. The restaurant owners I know aren't absolutely sure why their business is down. Nobody can do more than suggest or opine. Retail sales can't afford another hit -- their cost of operating these stores is bound to people going out to shop or eat. Of course, the snowstorms in the Northeast aren't helping! The proof of the pudding may be right near my home -- the Buena Park mall is under reconstruction with an added Wal Mart and Kohls, justing adding two new restaurants, a Chili's and one that I'm not sure of yet. This expansion is this demographic may be significant and could be a good example of where the economy is headed.

Obviously, Ridge and his advisors (the President, maybe?) believed their message was easily misinterpreted or they wouldn't have bother to attempt to qualify it.

Aren't terrorists responsible for the threat of terrorism?

Of course, but overblowing the danger whether inadvertantly or on purpose is counter productive. We're told to go about our business and enjoyment without worrying -- there are other things we do that are more dangerous and other dangers that could befall us by providence. Then we are given Orange alerts that are becoming tantamount to the boy who cried wolf. If anyone is unable to figure this out, my condolences. There's a bird in Australia who many are prone to emulate.

Terror warnings
could backfire,
say experts
in mental health


WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 ; Buy duct tape and seal off a panic room. But don;t panic. Stockpile food and water. But just as a precaution. Be on the lookout for suspicious people. But don;t assume all Muslims are terrorists. Frequent but vague warnings of new terror attacks are making already anxious Americans even more nervous and psychologists say the government;s mixed messages have begun to take their toll on the nations psyche


This from FDR's first inaugural address,
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Mr Bush please note.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/875295.asp?0cv=HB10

But, how else are we going to divert attention from peace rallys, the ecomony tanking, double digit increases in health care costs and insurance costs, the looming prospects of inflation, high unemployment (especially in middle class jobs), the rich getting richer, etc?

LW - The government told people to be on their guard. Liberals complained that wasn't specific enough. The government gave them a color-coded chart to attempt to indicate the threat level based on available intelligence. Liberals complained the government hadn't told anyone what to do based on those levels. The government released some simple recommendations. The liberals complained that they didn't like the recommendations.

I'm unsure what the government should do next in this regard, but I am confident that whatever they choose to do will elicit another round of complaints from liberals.

au - With all due respect to mental health experts, people should be more nervous when presented with a heightened level of threat. Anxiety is only a problem when it is not appropriate to circumstances.

tres, you know as well as I do that it isn't just liberals who are complaining about the duct tape rhetoric. The simple recommendations were perceived as talking down to anyone with a rational sense of the situtation. You've spelled it out and they have failed to turn anxiety into anticipation, two entirely different things -- one is a lack of reason and another is rational thinking. I'm surmissing the Prozac prescriptions have more than doubled.

Is there anyone in this discussion who considers himself (or herself) a conservative and is "complaining about the duct tape rhetoric"?

I consider myself a moderate. The truth is, duct tape and plastic sheeting are the standard recommended materials for "shelter in place" warnings, for people who live downwind from refineries and such.

Of course, there woud be no time to actually deploy them in a hurry, you need ample warning, which isn't likely in the event of a terrorist attack. Besides, what do you do when your air supply runs out? A misplaced, misguided comment IMO.

For any robotic conservatives or liberals on these threads who just follow the party line straight down the line, my condolences for their not being able to think for themselves. Swallowing everything your party leaders are dictating is an unfortunate habit of too many Americans. It manifests itself by going on the defensive without the ability to admit when the party's administration has taken a questionable route or just plain stumbled over and fell in a ditch. Better go back into Amercian history and really study how uncompromising partisan blind faith have often resulted in a lot of drastic repairs. There's too much "less raise the flag and see if it waves" Madison Avenue mentality in our government.

Tres




And being more or less worried accomplishes what?

Well, being more nervous (which is what we were discussing, not more worried) can heighten our awareness of our surroundings, raise our heart rate and reaction time, and do a number of other things physiologically speaking that can be advantageous in a crisis situation.

"Fight or Flight"

Now, I realize that this effect may be counterproductive if no crisis materializes, but that's a very different thing than arguing that it is of no value. Should the worst happen, those who are on the lookout for it, may fare better than those who are not.

Tres
Nervous, worried whatever. I did not realize you were an expert
in the area of mental health. How foolish of me> I should have known.

What in the world is the difference between being nervous and being worried? Playing with semantics again, I see, tres. Being more cognizant would be a better criteria. The efforts by the administration and local politicians has not really instructed nor directed people to be more cognizant. As a matter of fact, that is in the realm of expertise of mental health experts, not politicians. They most certainly do no want anyone to be cognizant because they would become more aware of the dismal failures they perpretrate on the public on a daily basis.

tres is on hiatus from his position as Tony Soprano's psychiatrist. Nice drag, tres.

Here's a chilling article about what might be expected from a bio-terror attack in SoCal--

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/14/features-ciotti.php

Quite probably, we won't know what's going on until we're in the midst of it, rendering duct tape and plastic sheeting useful only as shrouds for the corpses.