hmmm

[zefrank]

washingtonpost.com

The GOP Home Shopping Network

By Al Kamen
February 21, 2003
That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland
Security official -- which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy
the product -- has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy. But
maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half -- 46 percent to be
precise -- of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a
company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be
Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other
GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle?
Would that be more than $100,000? His son, John Kahl, who became CEO
after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last
week that "we're seeing a doubling
and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and
around the coasts and borders." The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation,
which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, Kahl
said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001. And
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge keeps pushing the product.

"You may want to have a safe shelter for four or six hours," he told
PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, "until . . . the chemical plume moves
on." So "you may need that duct tape."

Even if you don't want to suffocate in a shelter, there are myriad uses
for the sticky stuff. The March Consumer Reports on Health newsletter
hails a new study "indicating that simply covering warts with duct tape
. . . works significantly better than the common chemical freezing
therapy. "It's worth trying," the newsletter says. Clearly not useless.
And crazy? Like a fox. Wonder who manufactures all that plastic
sheeting.