http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7356922Oh my.
The sparkling husband primitive.
By the way, if anybody by chance reads or hears of a natural gas explosion tonight in or near Baltimore, please give me a holler.
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:00 PM
#05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Original message
When we were in Paris a few years ago, we got caught in a bomb scare at the Eiffel Tower.
The picture below is a few minutes after they reopened it. You can see the armed guys in the center of the picture. There were many more of them at the perimeter. We had been forced into a small pen in a whole line of pens that were set up on the perimeter of the grounds of the park. Lots of armed guys with camos and automatic weapons. Big show of force. There was a one day national strike and someone phoned in a bomb threat.
It was disconcerting, but not particularly frightening. Except I felt like I was taking spy pictures because I didn't want to be seen photographing the scene.
This was in 2004.
after which a photograph of the underside of the Eiffel Tower
Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Wasn't 2004 one of those years of the lousy Bush economy, the worst depression since Attila the Hun invaded Rome, or something?
And the sparkling husband primitive managed to vacation in France?
lisa58 (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
1. I was there in June 2004 and although we did not experience a bomb scare...
....that is exactly what it looked like....armed guards in camo all over the place.
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:14 PM
#05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #1
4. What we saw was a mobile command center (three blue buses with blacked out windows) ......
..... lots of guys in camos and lots of other guys in blue police uniforms (cut like the camos, but solid blue). The pens were made of portable fence units and were already set up. We took it to be a preparation for the strike. But maybe it was normal. Or the new normal.
MadMaddie (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
2. Thanks for sharing Stinky!
You know I know that people are screaming about why and how this terrorist got on the plane. My question is if the explosive is hard to get then they need to start going after the bomb material source....right?
Just heard the Amsterdam officials are going to install body scanners within the next 3 weeks.
hlthe2b (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:13 PM
Response to Original message
3. I've been caught up in bomb scare evacuations at Orly airport in Paris twice--several years ago... Entire airport evacuated and situation dealt with, all within an hour or 90 minutes... Having been returning from the Middle East, I was pulled out for extra questioning, but the questions were focused and professionally addressed. I was not made to feel humiliated or powerless, as has been the case with some TSA. Their screening activities were also understandable and not seemingly "just for show."
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:19 PM
#05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #3
7. We saw armed guys at the airport, too
Indeed, armed guys are a common sight at every European airport I've been in since the mid 80s. And they make themselves obvious. Not obnoxious. Just obvious. Where I was surprized to see them was at the train station in Rotterdam. I flew into Schipol and they were everywhere, including in the (attached to the airport) Schipol train station. I was surprised, however, to see them in Rotterdam, where I was going. I went to Den Haag a few days later and saw them there, too, but that was not a surprise given what's there.
hlthe2b (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #7
11. I know... As a teen I became horribly ill in Germany...and while trying to get home, lay down on a airport couch in Frankfort... I woke up sort of dizzy and unable to do more than just look down at boots and semi-automatic guns going by every few minutes across the concourse... I can't decide if it was the stomach virus or that site that most threw me... And, yes, they are obvious, but not obnoxious.
We have a lot to learn from our European and British coutnerparts.
How'd that thing go, that franksolich used in speech therapy?
Oh yeah.
".....and the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone
every country but this and every century but his own....."
kestrel91316 (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:16 PM
Response to Original message
5. I stood in that exact spot in June 2001. That thing's AWESOME.
The
Die alte Sau, the dysmenopausal Kansas school teacher:
proud2BlibKansan (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:16 PM
#19 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
6. Damn. We had a bomb scare in high school but didn't get to go up the Eiffel Tower afterwards
I'm jealous.
StarfarerBill (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:20 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Yep. We had a bomb scare or two in high school in the early '80s; just getting out of class and hanging around outside was a big treat for us.
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:20 PM
#05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #6
9. That only happens if the scare was during finals.
JuniperLea (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:27 PM
Response to Original message
10. In December of 2001
I traveled from LAX to JFK with a sharp, pointy, metal nail file in my purse. The purse was x-rayed, searched... mind you, this was New York, a scant three months after 9/11... and I traveled back and forth with this crazy thing in my purse and no one said jack. When I got home and unpacked, I freaked... then I got pissed! It should have been confiscated, dammit!
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:35 PM
#05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #10
12. My partner's husband carried a BOX CUTTER on a plane one one of the first days after 9/11 .....
...... that we allowed to fly again. You know. When the lines to get screened were hours long? He had it (basically lost) waaaaaay down the bottom of a pocket in his canvas (Land's End) briefcase. He was traveling from DC to Beaverton, OR.
JuniperLea (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. They made a big deal about an under-wire bra...
Made the woman go in another room and take it off and be re-screened with the metal detectors... maybe they were all looking at her boobs and missed my sharp pointy object that could easily pierce a jugular...
The defrocked warped primitive:
Warpy (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-30-09 01:46 PM
#09 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
14. Bomb threats used to come in to the VA hospital where I worked at least once a week. That meant an extra trip around the floor to make sure there were no bags or packages lying around.
I knew I'd gotten entirely too jaded when I told the last one I hoped he'd put the damn thing around the always broken elevators.
