Tuesday, January 09, 2007

A Running Around Screaming Day

I have posted on threat levels before, but my thoughts on the matter have now been refined in the light of the news that MI5 is to offer a service - Threat Level Only - whereby we shall be emailed every time the threat level changes. Texts may also be sent. A premium version of this service - What's New - will provide updates of MI5 news. You can register for these services at spook central, though not quite yet as far as I can make out. I intend to register as soon as I can for I know exactly how to use this information. At the current level - 'severe' - I shall run around screaming. At the highest level - 'critical' - I shall put a brown paper bag over my head and dive under a table. At the lowest - 'low' - I shall just gnaw my fingernails. Of course, the reality is that these alerts are of no use whatsoever to you and me. They are simply a way of ensuring we don't forget there's a war on. Fair enough, I suppose, but I'd feel a lot safer if MI5 didn't feel obliged to go in for such gimmicks, if they didn't have a web site and if they didn't officially exist. I know they've got some dud information on me - I once failed to get security clearance from them - but, somehow, I still trust them to do the right thing without having to keep telling me about it.

15 comments:

  1. Notification via e-mail or text message? That's rather 2006, isn't it? Where are the sound-and-video alerts to changing threat levels?
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    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  2. I think you should be a little more cynical, Bryan. The point isn't that there is a war on. The point is that you don't forget that there is a war on. Or perhaps that you don't forget to think that there is a war on.

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  3. I agree, Peter, it's all so last week. I would prefer clothing with these new plastic chips so hat one's shirt changed colour at different threat levels. And, Andrew, I try to be cynical but reality keeps moving on and turning me into the most naive idealist.

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  4. On a related theme, did everyone note the reports of a mysterious odour that spread across Manhattan yesterday, apparently without any serious gas leak to explain its source?(news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6241927.stm).

    This is interesting, because people on both sides of the Atlantic would like to have reliable models of how a chemical/biological/radiological agent would spread if released into an urban area. It's relatively easy to design an atmospheric dispersion model which, given specified meteorological conditions, predicts the spread of the agent across an open area. It's very difficult, however, to model the dispersion of the agent across an urban area, particularly one with very tall buildings. Ideally, you'd want to test your model by releasing a harmless, but pungent gas into the actual urban environment, and study how far it disperses, and how quickly, by noting the areas from which emergency calls are made, and the times at which those calls are made.

    Even if this incident was accidental, it should still provide plenty of very useful data for the mathematical modellers to build into their computer simulations.

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  5. I know where you're coming from, Bryan. I sometimes find it hard to keep this grin off my face. I try wearing black, not shaving or brushing my teeth, but I just can't help it. I'm gonna have to give Eastenders a look and see if that engenders a cool, murderous state of modern dislocation. Though I'm not really aware of the modern zeitgeist- it seems to change so fast these days. Is angst in or out this year?

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  6. It's not just gases that can drift across an open area.

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  7. Andrew, angst has never gone out of fashion - it's a perrenial favourite. The Irish in particular are more angst-ridden today than ever before. Wouldn't you say?

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  8. The Ministry of Funny Warnings

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  9. The minister for Public woe and Death needs to keep us whipped up. The sad thing is there will be an attack; mainly as a s result of insane foreing policy decisions.

    Then they can say, I told you so.

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  10. You're right, Shifty. The poor Irish are so confused by the modern world and its shiny gadgets that the deep thinking ones started having fascinating conversations about what it is to be Irish a few years back. I'm not quite sure what conclusions they've come to though. Perhaps it's got something to do with Bono.

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  11. I noticed that report, Gordon. Here are the concluding and most relevant lines from the story I read:

    The bottom line?

    "We don't know what it is," Strucken said.


    Come to think of it, those two lines by themselves make a good story.
    ========================

    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  12. I think it is time we worried less about our national identities and more about becoming good Europeans. The nation state has had its day. Nationalism breeds insularity, intolerance and strife. Europe needs you! No, the planet needs you! We need to become better earthlings!

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  13. Yes, Shifty. But what is it to be Irish?

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  14. Oh, I don't know Andrew. A shared sense of history? Shared norms and values? Catholic guilt (although not in my case)? The inexplicable propensity to forgive those in power for the most horrendous dishonesty and downirght criminal behaviour (although not in my case)? Bad dress sense (not in my case)? Drunkeness (well...)? The short answer is that I don't know what it means to be Irish. Being Irish is not that important to me, quite frankly.

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  15. Nor me either, Shifty. I think it might begin to interest Bryan though, seeing as it seems the Micks are starting to take over his blog.

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