Tag: holiday season

A Little Subway Terrorist Chear for the Holidays

subwayblogger4 Comments

Here’s  disturbing blurb from the AP I came across today:

Federal authorities are warning law enforcement personnel of a possible terror plot against the New York City subway system during the holiday season.

An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says the FBI has received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system.

Anti-terror agencies say they have no specific details to confirm the plot has moved “beyond aspirational planning,” but are issuing the alert out of concern that an attack could come during the holiday season,” warns the memo, which is dated Tuesday.

While federal agencies often issue all sorts of advisory warnings, the language of this one is particularly forceful.

Goooood times.  So in addition to battling the tourists on 5th Avenue, and trying not to kill yourself inside Toys R Us, you now have to work about getting blown up on the subway.

I have to say, I did not notice any additional security in the subway system today.

Would now be a good time for the terrorists to attack?  Probably.  The subway will be at it’s peak volume all December long.

Then there’s the Presidential transition.  Bush already has one foot out the door.  He’s in no position to be able to make long term decisions appropriately because he won’t have to deal with the consequences.  All he will have to do is make it through the following couple weeks and then it’s Obama’s problem to deal with.  It’s probably the time that the country will be weakest.

Ho ho ho.

Lots of Foreign Tourists this Morning

subwayblogger7 Comments

Did you see a higher than average amount of foreign tourists on your train this morning?  I sure did.

There was a large group of what sounded like Swedish tourists on one side of me.  Then on the other end were a bunch of Germans.  There’s definitely no mistaking the German language.

I wonder if this is just a taste of what’s to come this holiday season.

I’m all for the foreign tourists (as long as they keep walking on the sidewalk).  Bring us your Euros!

When I noticed that the market opened -300 points this morning, I almost spit my coffee on my computer screen.  Way to go bailout.

The European economy is starting to feel the pain of our problem as well.  So it makes me wonder if we will see even more tourism than we did last year.  With our economy in the crapper, travel should be pretty cheap, right?

Domestic travel is certainly going to be down.  People from around the US are definitely not going to fly to New York for a trip, and spend $500 a night on hotel rooms.  So those rates will probably drop and get scooped up by international travelers.  

And the stores are going to start the holiday insanity sales even earlier this year.  So they’ll be here in droves to buy all our Levi Jeans and Reebok sneakers.

Of course, Europeans are fans of mass transit, so they tend to take advantage of the subway.  Combine that with more and more Americans leaving their cars at home in favor of mass transit, and we’ve got crowding.  It’s going to be “interesting” to see if the system can handle the load.