On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 11:55:02 -0500, Brice Yokem <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I do not suggest anything.
>
>------------------
>
>Then Michael, I am bewildered you would post this article.  You are a
>vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, a vocal opponent of 'W'.  Yet here
>you put up an article which says there was no evidence the weapons were
>destroyed or shipped out or dismantled.
>

Brice,

now I know. He shot them into Orbit with that rocket you mentioned before.
Maybe its on Mars?
Or
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001830940_mckay07.html
Looking for WMDs in all the wrong places

By Floyd J. McKay

Reading accounts of the FBI's concerns that terrorists might be using
almanacs to plan their nasty deeds, I was reminded of my closest brush with
a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), this past summer.

Fortunately, another sharp-witted agency of the federal government was
protecting me, and I escaped without a scratch.

Vacationing on the lovely island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides of
Scotland, we paid a ritual visit to one of the island's seven distilleries
(yes, Islay is the home of the famed Islay single malt).

The Bruichladdich (pronounced Brook-laddie) distillery reopened in 2001
after a closure of seven years, and began cranking out fine single malt
once again, on Victorian-era machinery. No computers at Bruichladdich! It's
a fine, smooth product, less peaty than some of the Islay malts.

As part of its marketing program, to assure customers that the whiskey
really is distilled in the old way, Bruichladdich did borrow modern
technology to the extent of installing Web cameras at several key locations
around the distillery. They were working when we visited the distillery in
August, and they appear to be working as I write.

But at some point in September, one of the cameras went down, unnoticed by
the lads at Bruichladdich. A call alerting them came from, of all places,
the Pentagon (only the United States has a Pentagon). One of your Web
cameras is down, was the helpful e-mail from one Ursula, who, upon
questioning, identified herself as a monitor (the Scots prefer the
term "spy") with something called the U. S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency
(USDTRA in Pentagon-speak).

Ursula, or one of her colleagues, had happened upon the Bruichladdich Web
site as they perused the Internet in their never-ending quest to protect
America and avoid terminal boredom. They locked in on those old oak vats,
and discovered that — Wow, with just a "tweak" (Ursula's word) — those vats
could be churning out WMDs.

All of this was revealed on the little island just as — coincidentally — a
NATO fleet was conducting exercises off the coast and some small ships
actually came into Loch Indaal, where the Bruichladdich distillery is
located. Gossip and paranoia ran rampant, causing a fair number of the
Ileach to resort to a wee dram.

Instead of admitting that they looked silly and joking about it, the USDTRA
spokesperson insisted that the monitoring was deadly serious. Leaving the
joking, of course, to the Scots and English, who relish a chance to poke
some fun at us.

Brian Viner, a columnist with London's Independent, surmised that some
nasty terrorist working in a basement to create a WMD could, instead, come
up with a delightful single-malt whiskey. Just a tweak would do it,
apparently.

Comes now the FBI with its warning to police to look out for folks carrying
almanacs, for they might be used to plan an attack.

Indeed, almanacs are versatile. They can be used to settle bets, prop up
the corner of a bed, or convert miles into kilometers. Benjamin Franklin,
who made a small fortune from almanacs, used his to help stir the seeds of
rebellion. An almanac stood beside the Bible as the basic reading of early
Americans, and farmers' almanacs are among the nation's most venerable
publications.

But, perhaps it is just a tweak away from aiding in the production of WMDs;
the USDTRA hasn't been heard from on this score. But how about road maps
and atlases? And, of course, the Internet, where you can punch in a
location and in seconds get a detailed map on how to reach it in the
shortest time ... and often much, much more.

When all of this blew up on Islay, some of the more cynical among the
Ileach surmised that it was all part of a marketing scheme by the clever
James McEwan, a legendary whiskey man who is now running Bruichladdich. And
one can as easily surmise that the FBI bulletin has behind it the
publishers of various almanacs, who stand to gain publicity they would
otherwise be forced to purchase.

Meanwhile, at Bruichladdich, the lads are toasting their wonderful free
advertising and wondering if they should boost their production of only
16,000 cases a year (small stuff by whiskey standards).

"What's the expression?" muses Mark Reynier, Bruichladdich's managing
director. "Only in America!"

Somewhere in the production room of almanac.com, they are cranking up an
extra print run. Only in America.

Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor at Western Washington University

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