Things are getting even more disconcerting...

[link|http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-crop-duster-towboat1023oct23.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines|Here]. The URL will change.

Coast Guard Office Sprayed by Plane

By JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writer

October 23, 2001, 12:20 PM EDT

JACKSON, Miss. -- A tiny Coast Guard post was dusted with white granules sprayed
from a small plane, the second such incident in the state in four days, authorities said.

The latest incident happened Monday afternoon at the Shore Side Detachment office in Natchez.

A Coast Guard member who was standing outside is being given antibiotics as a precaution, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Joan Farris in New Orleans.

"As far as they know it was a small white plane," Farris said Tuesday. "They are not sure if it was a crop duster."

Farris said local, state and federal authorities were notified, and a sample of the granules was taken to a state laboratory for testing.

Crop dusters in the region are fertilizing fields with small white pellets this time of year, State Agricultural Aviation Board member Bern Prewitt said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, authorities were awaiting final test results for a Mississippi River towboat and crew that was sprayed with an unknown substance by a crop duster Friday near Rosedale.

Initial tests for chemical and biological agents were negative, and the 11 crew members and towboat were released from quarantine late Sunday.

[...]

It's hard to imagine that some of this stuff, and maybe the anthrax poisonings, isn't the result of copy-cats and/or domestic fringe groups. But one has to wonder whether these are the actions of more al-Qaeda cells in the US.

Disconcerting times. :-(

Cheers,
Scott.