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February 02, 2007

Bureaucratic security (Or: Yup, the terrorists have won.)

Let's see. Terrorism is a tactic used to fight an overwhelmingly superior military force by terrifying the population. So, if you were a terrorist, how would you react to news that a great American city responded to electronic signs depicting a cartoon character by calling in its security forces, guns drawn, and shutting down the city? Do you think Al Qaeda uses the acronym "ROTFLMAO"?

This is what it means to be prepared? No, this is what it means to be stupid...specifically, the stupidity that's an emergent property of bureaucracy.

If on Wednesday we saw how agencies terrified of being caught with their pants down respond, even though it means they end up pantsing themselves, on Thursday, we saw how an alert American citizenry responds to the sight of our security infrastructure running around in its knickers:

Mooninite: Never forget

ROTFLMAO.

(I don't know who first came up with that graphic, but: Thank you!] [Tags: mooninite terrorism security institutionalized_stupidity rotflmao media]

Posted by D. Weinberger at February 2, 2007 08:42 AM


Comments

If this had been in Gotham City it would be a simple case of mistaking The Joker for Osama.

Posted by: Claus | February 2, 2007 10:21 AM


ebay aqua teen boston t-shirts
http://cgi.ebay.com/Aqua-Teen-Boston-1-31-07-Never-Forget-Shirt-Size-Small_W0QQitemZ270085694279QQihZ017QQcategoryZ15687QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Posted by: steve garfield | February 2, 2007 11:12 AM


The image was from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunarbull/376236399/in/photostream/

I originally saw it on the makezine blog rss.

Posted by: Kevin Osborn | February 2, 2007 11:07 PM


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