This is only a drill...

"In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he had happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep the people frightened.'" - 1984

I've already posted about this story on the RI discussion board, but given the recently heightened shrillness in the pro-Bush media regarding the inevitability and even the imminence of an "American Hiroshima" - "the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border" - and word of nuclear terrorism simulations this summer (and we should all know by now what often accompanies "simulations"), I thought I'd post it here as well, in hope that some readers may bring light to the heat of reports of unusual activity at a long-abandoned military base in Texas.

This was posted a couple of hours ago on Democratic Underground, where it's been met by the usual hoots of derision:

I've been in touch with a truck driver friend. He told me he dropped his regular trailer at the company's terminal in CA, and bobtailed to a huge abandoned military base in Texas. He was given a non-descript white trailer.

There are now 300 trucks from his company, as well as hundreds from others. They're locked in on the grounds, and more trucks are arriving all the time. He's been sitting since early Saturday. They've been told they aren't allowed out of their trucks for more than twenty minutes, and there is a gubmint "roach coach" that comes by at mealtimes.

He said last night, a bunch of buses came in to take the drivers to a truckstop two hours away, where they all got free showers. He has no idea what they'll be hauling, or how long he'll be sitting there.

Any ideas?

The original poster later added these details:

He's been calling me by cell phone. The base is long ago abandoned. The truckstop two hours away is near Weatherford (just outside Ft.Worth).

When he called the other night the drivers were surmising that they were preparing just in case the hurricane hit Texas. I told him there was no way they would be going to those lengths before a hurricane. Anyway, it didn't happen, and the operation continues. Oh yeah...he said he's being paid $200 per day to sit there.

On the RI board, "Connut" has posted that for the past several days 30 or so Red Cross Disaster Relief trucks have been sitting in an Austin hotel parking lot. (Austin, of course, is far north of where Hurricane Emily recently hit.)

A strange, unconfirmed story, but these are strange and largely unconfirmed times, and the list of reasons why pyromaniacs in high places may desire to set inextinguishable fires only lengthens. It could be a hoax, it could be disinformation, it could be nothing; sometimes the dots we mean to connect are just spots before our eyes. But sometimes not. And so I'm throwing it out here to see if it rings a bell for anyone, before all our bells get rung again.