Pointless speculation

Ok, so the alert level's at orange. Everyone got the heebies? Anyone? How about a dose of conspiracy theory? Well ok then. It's a slow day here anyway. Here are a smattering of random thoughts on the scare of the week:

• BuzzFlash has this lovely headline: "We Repeat: Is The "Heightened Security Alert" Timed So as to Provide an Excuse for What is Apparently a Dismal Retail Shopping Season? Bush Says Go About Your Business, But be Scared. We Thought They Had Moved Onto Other Distractions from the Truth." What I'm hearing isn't that the shopping season is so much "dismal" as simply performing at the lower end of expectations. Still, I suppose anything's possible.
• Along similar lines, I heard on the radio this morning that the raised alert level hasn't had much impact on planned holiday travel. My thought was this-- of course it hasn't had an impact on holiday travel-- who wants to suck up the cost of a plane ticket this close to Christmas? For most folks it's too late to change plans. So here's the conspiracy part-- apparently the level of "chatter" intelligence folks are hearing is at near fever pitch. If this is so, why didn't they raise the alert level earlier? Maybe they didn't want to adversely affect the travel industry, so deliberately waited until late in the season.

I'm sure there are more/better theories out there, but I don't feel like searching for them.

Posted by Jason at December 23, 2003 10:34 AM