It’s my nature to talk smack about The People Upstairs, it’s just what I
\ndo. Today the threat level was raised to ORANGE and, as a professional, I
\nhave to say:<\/p>\n
Well done gentlemen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I was flipping
\nchannels when I surfed past Sec. Ridge’s press conference I kept going
\nuntil the banner sunk in – “hightened security alert” or some nonsense. I
\nactually pay attention to these things because it makes a real difference
\nin my work environment (and sometimes my pay cheque). So I flipped back to
\nconfirm that we were in fact going to Code Orange. Yep. So I called work.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nSee, the last time we went to Code Orange we found out from the TV in the
\nbreak room. When I told the Assistant Port Director he looked confused:
\n“we don’t change until I get the fax.” The
\ntime before that<\/a> it was the color-coded Ashcroft on the left of
\nthis<\/i> page that clued us in. I called up the port to ask if they
\nknew, they didn’t but the message was passed along and later verified.<\/p>\n\nThis time it was different. I called the port: “Did you guys know we just
\nwent to Code Orange?” “Yeah, we’ve been at Orange since this morning.”
\nTHAT’s the way it’s supposed to work. Nice to see there’s some improvement
\nin the chain of communication.<\/p>\n\nBy the way, I don’t know why we went to previous alerts but this one’s
\nlegit. They may say “credible but unspecified threats” on TV but the
\nthreats are very specific. One widely reported threat is so specific that
\nwe’ve been wondering for a week whether they’d raise the alert level. It’s
\nso specific they may be able to prevent the attack if it goes forward. Not
\nthat you’ll ever hear about it. <\/p>\nSome people are “saying
\nthings to imply that the information is worthless, is stupid, doesn’t do
\nthem any good or even, in a few cases, implying that it’s just an attempt
\nto frighten us.”<\/i> <\/p><\/blockquote>\nI’m with
\nDean<\/a> on this one: “The government is pretty worried, and they want us
\nto know it.”<\/p>\n\nYeah… this one’s for real.<\/p>\n
\nIf you think I’m going to tell you what I think<\/i> the specific threat
\nis, you’re smoking crack.<\/p>\n\nAtrios points to this as proof that HREF=”http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2003_12_21_atrios_archive.html#107202883138864
\n888”>capturing
\nSaddam hasn’t made us safer<\/a>. Frankly, Iraq was always more of a
\ngeopolitical threat than a domestic threat like, you know, Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n\nThe color codes are for domestic threats. So it’s a little odd for people
\nwho said Saddam didn’t have links to Osama to now be gripping about the
\nCode Orange meaning Hussein’s capture hasn’t made us safer. If you assume
\nthat the threat level has little or nothing to do with Saddam and
\neverything to do with Al Qaeda, you’ll probably be right.<\/p>\n\nIf you’re upset that DHS doesn’t tell you the specifics, get over it.
\nThey’re trying to catch<\/i> the bastards, not warn them they’ve got a
\nleak. If you think it’s all about getting travelers to behave themselves,
\nyou’re right. Stop acting like dorks. Oh: and don’t tell me they’d raise
\nthe alert to Red if they were serious. You don’t
\nwant to see Code Red<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nThis time at least, Ridge and his crew have got things under control.
\nKudos gentlemen.<\/p>\n[NOTE: The above post assumes that the front lines are not subject to
\ninternal disinformation.<\/i>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s my nature to talk smack about The People Upstairs, it’s just what I do. Today the threat level was raised to ORANGE and, as a professional, I have to say: Well done gentlemen. I was flipping channels when I surfed past Sec. Ridge’s press conference I kept going until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-line","tag-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}