Monday, Dec. 29, 2003.<\/b>Not content to just advise that plastic sheeting and duct tape are effective deterrents against sophisticated biological weapons of mass destruction, the federal government warned that people with almanacs could be international terrorists.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press confirmed the FBI’s Christmas Eve bulletin to 18,000 police departments. Cops are to watch for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated suspiciously.<\/p>\n
“The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, ‘the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities.’ But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior — such as apparent surveillance — a person with an almanac ‘may point to possible terrorist planning,'” the AP reported.<\/p>\n
“The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.”<\/p>\n
The AP quote executives from the World Almanac and Old Farmers Almanac as saying they publish nothing that isn’t readily available on the Internet and their books don’t have schematics, diagrams or similar detailed drawings.<\/p>\n
Just last week I bought a 2004 World Almanac at Wal-Mart. The store had two brands; I picked the one with more explosive facts, specifically tables giving postage stamp rates and forms of address. The only subversive activity I’ll confess to is intent to deduct the purchase as a free-lance writing expense. I buy one annually, because every so often thumbing through it generates column ideas, to say nothing of finding some facts in it quicker than a fast Internet connection.<\/p>\n
This is the first time an almanac has given me fodder unopened. It is my USA PATRIOT Act duty to plead guilty to using an almanac to do my part to subvert unconstitutional laws, like the USA PATRIOT Act. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock Monday, Dec. 29, 2003.Not content to just advise that plastic sheeting and duct tape are effective deterrents against sophisticated biological weapons of mass destruction, the federal government warned that people with almanacs could be international terrorists. The Associated Press confirmed the FBI’s Christmas Eve bulletin to 18,000 police departments. Cops […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2003\/12\/tin-cans\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":0},"title":"Tin cans","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003. Note to self: Tie string to cordless phone and other end to phone's base unit. Won't get misplaced that way. Note to self: Would wire work better? Note to self: How about speaker wire, and twisting around connection points? Maybe Radio\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2657,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/02\/stances-with-wolves\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":1},"title":"Stances with Wolves","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is my president\u2019s column for the February 2011 edition of the monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Columnists get labeled as opinionated. This was brought home again after the Tucson shooting. Americans saw on the air and online -- come on, paper? -- as many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2003\/12\/fixing-a-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":2},"title":"Fixing a hole","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 15, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock Monday, December 15, 2003. The Army's capture of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ultimately is bad politically for King George II. Better explain why. Yes, it looks good: George W. Bush was right. Saddam went down like a coward not a martyr. The post-war skirmishes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2003\/12\/blair-flare-fair\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":3},"title":"Blair flare fair","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 22, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock Monday, Dec. 22, 2003. Let's look at plagiarism, one of journalism's big topics in 2003, culminating in the revelations around Jayson Blair. Plain definition is that plagiarism is thievery, the taking of others' words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs -- the ideas of others -- as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/06\/211\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":4},"title":"Coursing into Boston","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"BOSTON -- My first longhand note this morning: Just because I'm an early riser doesn't mean I'm a morning person.\" Getting into downtown Boston and only five minutes late for my 2 p.m. meeting of the columnists board was not quite as hard as we were warned by several sources\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Boston Blotter"","block_context":{"text":"Boston Blotter","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/boston-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/02\/a-21st-century-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":5},"title":"A 21st-century blog","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This should start things off. Brick began in December 2003, part of","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}