Terry Kevin spotted it first — the blimp we’ve been waiting for. (He took pictures.)
It seems that the army has decided to lease a blimp and float it over DC for surveillance tests. So what we now have here in DC is a lot of very visible security operations — massive road closures, fences, blockades, and now a blimp — but very little effective security operations.
I don’t know what this blimp will be able to do if another plane comes in low and targets a building. I can’t imagine that the surveillance from a blimp could actually watch all the buildings in DC, and they certainly can’t see what’s happening inside them or down in the subway. They can’t even see what’s happening inside the millions and millions of cars on the roads around here.
But I suppose that some ignorant people — Bush voters, probably — will think that they are much safer with a big envelope of helium floating around up there.