Bob McCarty Writes

As I read today’s news about the Italian government spending $68 million to buy up to 100,000 wheels of parmesan cheese from the country’s 430 makers of the stuff, the wheels in my mind began turning: Could this cheese bailout be a cleverly-disguised anti-terrorism measure?

Loyal readers of this blog will recall that, on July 25, 2007, I broke news about terrorists using blocks of cheese to simulate explosives while conducting dry runs at the nation’s airports (See Terrorists Recognize ‘Power of Cheese’ for details).

One day later, I revealed that my efforts to investigate the use of cheese by terrorists aboard passenger aircraft had run into a road block — as opposed to a block of cheese — that appeared in the form of a “gag order” being placed on cheese industry officials by the Department of Homeland Security and/or the FBI (See Homeland Security Puts ‘Gag Order’ on Cheese Industry).

On Day Three of my investigation, I reported on the possibility that the FBI had used the American Dairy Association’s “cheese profiler” program as a tool to help identify potential terror suspects.  Mysteriously, the link to that program remains on the ADA web site but fails to load properly.  Hmmm?  (See Mystery Envelops Blogger’s Coverage of Terror ‘Dry Runs’).

Two months into my probe, I learned of the existence of a new cheese-related web site, Cheddarvision.tv, and wondered publicly whether the site was part of an elaborate international counter-terrorism effort.  Not surprisingly, the folks behind the site — Scotland’s Farmhouse Cheesemakers — refused to reply to my e-mail inquiries, and the mystery deepened (See Is ‘Cheddarvision’ Part of Counter-Terrorism Effort?).

Six months later, I was near the point of dropping the investigation when a new angle surfaced:  Incredibly, I learned that no officials from either the ADA or Farmhouse Cheesemakers appeared on the list of exhibitors scheduled to attend the 2008 International Cheese Technology Expo — arguably the premiere cheese industry event of the year — that was set to take place in Madison, Wisc., April 22-24 (See Big Players Suspiciously Absent from Cheese Expo).

Exactly what does this latest shred of cheese-related news (i.e., the “parmesan bailout”) bode for the future?

Developing… Aging…

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UPDATE 12/16/08 –  After inquiring about the status of the “cheese profiler,” I received an e-mail response from an anonymous person at the ADA.  The note read as follows:

The Cheese Profiler is still there.  It can be found within the “For Cheese Lovers” section.  Unfortunately, we’re experiencing  technical difficulties with it right now.  Please check back later.

Likely story.

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