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Friday, August 11, 2006
Rich Galen :: Townhall.com Columnist
Big Plots; Little Plots
by Rich Galen
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  • British police and MI-5 "thwarted" [a word which has not been used in conversation for the past 150 years until today] a plot to blow up between six and ten US airliners while they were crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Heathrow to JFK or Dulles or LAX.

  • The Home Secretary held a press conference in London along with the deputy top cop of the London Metropolitan Police.

  • About an hour later, the Secretary of Homeland Security in Washington had one and was joined by the Attorney General and the head of the FBI.

  • Helicopters hovered over the flats where the terrorists had lived, met, plotted and, presumably, been caught.

  • As the morning wore on great (and well deserved) kudos were heaped on the police, intelligence, and security services in the UK, the US and Pakistan for banding together to stop this horrific act.

  • Meanwhile … In Marietta, Ohio another plot was broken up.

  • You know about Marietta, Ohio 45750. It is the place where I went to college; met and married the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices; witnessed the birth of The Lad; and served on the City Council.

  • This, more or less, is what happened, as reported by Brad Bauer in the Marietta Times:

  • Two guys walked into the Radio Shack in Marietta, Ohio and bought a number of pre-paid cell phones - maybe a dozen. The two guys refused to give the Radio Shack salesman their names when they wanted to purchase time on two of the phones, which the Radio Shack salesman thought was strange.

  • So, he called the Sheriff's office and told them about these two guys and the cell phones and the name thing.

  • The Sheriff sent a car out looking for the two guys, found it, and got in behind it.

  • At some point, the two guys with all the phones but no names made a turn without having first put on their turn signal.

  • Whoop! Whoop! Traffic stop.

  • The Sheriff's deputy gets up to the car, sees about a dozen cell phones and what turned out to be $11,000 in cash. And smells Marijuana.

  • Cell Phones. Turn signal violation. Marijuana. Ohhh, kaaaayyy, boys. Why'nt cha just step out of the car, slowly, and let me see your hands.

  • The two guys, it turns out have names which happen to be Osama Sabhi Abulhassan and Ali Houssaiky (no kin to the Houssaiky or Abulhassan families from the neighboring town of Coal Run, Ohio, I'm told.)

  • It comes to pass that they lied to the deputy about what they were doing with all the phones and what with the name thing and the turn signal thing and the Marijuana thing they were arrested on a charge of "obstructing official business."

    Continued...

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    About The Author

    Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. Rich Galen currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

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    (5 comments so Far)
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    Reply # 1
    Date: Aug 14, 2006 - 7:54 PM EST
    Care to respond to this?
    Check out this other source that references your article and points out where you seem to lie:
    http://kabobfest.blogspot.com/2006/08/arabs-guilty-until-proven-innocent_14.html

    Flag as Offensive

    Reply # 2
    Date: Aug 12, 2006 - 2:24 PM EST
    Not to defend the terrorists, but....
    *I* wouldn't give my name to Radio Shack, either. If the *GOVERNMENT* needs to know who I am and where I live, fine -- what I truly resent is all of the commercal advertising merchandizing database building stuff that is being tacked onto "homeland security."

    NO, we are NOT safer because (insert company name) can either sell my identity to whomever they desire or use it to harass me to purchase stuff I don't want to buy. No I am not changing banks, insurance company or brands of beer -- and why should *I* have to pay for an unlisted number and caller ID to boot?

    0h, and I probably am on some watch list for buying multiple TracFones -- since the batteries actually cost $10 MORE than the phones, and since you really want to drain the battery rather than keep recharging it, I swap out batteries the same way that TV crews do with batteries in their cameras.

    The question I have to ask is this: WHY DOESN'T EVERY SOLDIER IN IRAQ HAVE A JAMMER THAT BLOCKS THESE PHONES? They really aren't powerful - the jammers aren't all that expensive, about the price of a M16, and why haven't we put out a RFP (possibly *to* TracFone) to build lots and lots of jammers. If we can waste money in Louisiana like we did, we can afford to jam these signals...
    Flag as Offensive
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