TinFoil Hat Time?
My first diary, so feel free to comment if I don't get the protocol right..
I found this entry on Raw Story this morning, and then suddenly it just disappeared, so I went dumpster diving in my Browser Cache and found the link: (this was good at 10:00 am MST)
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/today_in_dc_com.html
To Summarize, this link talks about clandestine ops in DC, including possibilities of crowd control specialists, only days in advance of the Sept 24 Anti-Iraq/Anti-War rally. This is different than the DC cops getting reinforcements.
more below, also about FEMA's little-known history
I can't find the link just now, but only recently I came across a story about using extremely high intensity and high frequency focussed sound generators to control crowds from a distance - essentially driving people in a crowd nuts from pain and disorientation in a (hopefully) non-lethal way. If I recally, it could be targeted closely, to perhaps just a small group of people in a large crowd -
With my tinfoil hat on (and as a pilot of many years) I've also been suspicious about the Wellstone and Carnahan light plane crashes: It's well known that CIA et al have very sophisticated ECM (electronic countermeasures) equipment -
So what I'm suggesting is that, in spite of Rita on Saturday, we want to listen very closely to what happens in DC, especially since there will be pro-war counter-protesters. If there are disturbances, or the anti-war crowd acts peculiarly but pro war does not, if there are inexplicable events that don't get much press ... we already know how events like the Repub convention in NY and the protests in Seattle were stage-managed.
I hope I'm wrong, but as a physicist I can easily envision how to build a transsonic "shotgun" for targeting individuals and incapacating them, and it would look lots better on the news than mace, dogs and clubs. We don't need another Kent State on either side, but when (and If) my government is putting armed military in the streets to supress dissent, I worry.
On a related topic, FEMA has been in the news a lot and most of us think FEMA is just about hurricaines and earthquakes. Not true by a long shot. Ever wonder where those "undisclosed locations" were that Cheney went to, and who ran them? This link below seems shrill and ominous, but read it if you want to know what FEMA is really chartered to do...
http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/FEMA.html