Silflay Hraka

Ok, I just don’t get it. Today, the “Homeland Security Advisory System” was turned up a notch to orange because of

possible attacks on American facilities in southeast Asia or possible suicide attacks on U.S. interests by individuals in the Middle East.

Last time I looked, American facilities in southeast Asia and U.S. interests in the Middle East didn’t have diddly-shit to do with the Homeland. Yes I realize that technically American embassies are American territory, but they’re not exactly the Homeland, now are they? To most Americans, the Homeland is the 50 states, plus or minus D.C. and Puerto Rico depending on how they feel that day. Johnnie has a more inclusive view of America, though

Likely targets included symbols of American power like corporate interests in the energy and transport sectors

“Corporate interests in the energy and transport sectors” are targeted! Boo frigging hoo. Corporate interests in the energy and transport sectors are where the damn terrorists get their money, it’s just filtered through the Saudis first. But that’s a rant for another time. After all, “Corporate interests abroad” probably keep a couple of Americans on staff, and they don’t deserve to get killed anymore that a housewife in Dubuque would. Even so, ratcheting up the Homeland threat level because some Islamikaze is threatening to bomb a Nike factory in Indonesia is…..just plain stupid.

No one even hints that there has been a credible threat to the actual homeland. So why kick the color up? If embassies and military bases abroad are basing their security practices on Ashcroft’s Rainbow of Danger, then we might as well write those places off as losses that haven’t happened yet. The average Joe is going to think that there is a threat to the internal US when he hears about this, because after all, it’s the “Homeland Security Advisory System”, not the “Security Advisory System for Americans Abroad”

So one, maybe Ashcroft knocked it up based on a threat abroad, because he figured it would give him some face time on tonight’s evening news. If so, his ass needs to be impeached. He’s jerking Americans around, causing unnecessary fear, and exploiting the War on Terrorism for domestic political gain. Or two, there really is an internal threat, and Johnnie boy wants to get that across without mentioning the specifics of the threat, either to avoid causing panic or because he thinks we can catch the bad buys before they act, and mentioning the specifics might scare them off, which means he’s either underestimating us or overestimating the abilities of the Justice Department to deal with the bad guys. In all likelihood, it’s both. And if Americans die because of Ashcroft’s miscalculations, I don’t want his ass impeached, I want his ass imprisoned.

I don’t think it’s either of the above, though. I don’t think Johnnie has any evidence whatsoever that there is a heightened threat, certainly none that he didn’t have last week, or last month. I think he’s scared of the anniversary, and playing a game of preemptive CYA, so if there is an attack tomorrow, he can appear on national television and woefully talk about how close they were to catching these guys, and how if we would just quit worrying about silly little things like civil liberties, secret trials and indefinite incarcerations, than he could get back to the task at hand, accumulating power, er, fighting the terrorists. Speaking of “accumulating power”, why isn’t the White House homeland security adviser announcing the color change? Is Tom Ridge anything more than a complete figurehead? I’ll bet you if something does happen, his is the head that falls, and Ashcroft will continue skipping down the merry road to Hell.

Next step, penetrate the market.

Starting testing…
Stage one testing complete.
Stage two testing complete.

Testing complete for http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com. Result:
Reported as accessible in China

a href=”http://fragments.blogon.com/fragments/”>Fred First has moved into his new site but discovered an etymology problem, one that his entymology cannot help him with.

When we would leave home back when the kids were small, upon returning, we would say “home again, home again, frigitty frog”. We still say this, and the kids have their own kids. And I have no idea where this silly tradition came from. A nursery rhyme of favorite book, perhaps? If anyone recognizes this silly phrase, I stand to be enlightened. Meanwhile, friggity frog. I am home again, but to my new home here at blogon.com.

Fred, you got any Cockney Victorians in your family tree?

“Home again, Home again, frigitty frog” is obviously a corruption of the old nursery rhyme, To Market, To Market;

To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Pig
Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

What’s interesting, at least to me, ok, probably only to me, is how it moved from “Jiggity Jig” to “Frigitty Frog”. My theory is that the rules of cockney rhyming slang would suffice for the change to the initial “Fr”, especially if applied by a child or someone not totally familiar with all the rules. Of course, this would leave one with a naughty word, one similar to the one that magically appears if you sing “Yankee Doodle” and sing each word with an initial “F”

Fankee Foodle fent fo fown…
Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay. Now we have a dirty word that someone’s mother recognized, and changed to “frog” so as not to disrupt the equines, which gives us the resultant “home again, home again, frigitty frog.” Think of it as a game of Broken Telephone played over generations.

Of course, it could just be that Fred’s hard of hearing, so he made up a Mondegreen. There’s no post in that explanation, though.

America?s Sandbox

Is America still the fighters for freedom that we have been, or are we quickly becoming the bully of the sandbox, willing to steal other countries? lunch money simply because we can? Fighting against terrorism is a worthy cause, and our attack of the Taliban appears to warranted based on the tragedy of last September, but where should America draw the line?

Our president appears to be consumed, no, obsessed with attacking Iraq, and is determined to win support for such an attack no matter the time or resources involved. I agree that Saddam Hussein is trouble, capable of using weapons of mass destruction on American soil, but so are a lot of other people. My question is where will we stop?

We have attacked the Taliban and caused a regime change in Afghanistan and have Iraq in our sights. Then will we attack Lebanon, Cuba, Iran and Saudi Arabia? We have an incredible amount of military power, but arrogance has caused the fall of other nations in history and could do the same for our own precious country. I do not have a problem with fighting evil, but we should have just cause to enter into war. Our troops are in Afghanistan because of an attack on our people and our way of life. But the terrorists drew first blood. If we begin entering other countries and making regime changes because the leaders of those countries MIGHT do something drastic, are we any better than those countries we want to annihilate? As Americans we hold ourselves above all other nations, assuming that our way of life is best and that others should follow us in all that we do. The president’s attempt at gaining support for an evergrowing war is evidence that our arrogance may be bigger than our appeal to other nations. While I too love this country, I understand that other people adhere to different beliefs from those that I hold dear.

Save your nasty comments about how unpatriotic or un-American I am, because if that is your belief you are missing my point. Sure, I wish the twin towers were still standing and that so many children would still have their parents alive, but that cannot be changed now. America is threatening to destroy other countries under the umbrella of ?democracy and freedom? and I question the validity of this. America is strong and can blow any country away with our military strength, but if we go into a broader war we may find ourselves fighting alone against a worthy foe, an alliance of Arab nations.

Perhaps my opinion will change if I learn of specific threats from Iraq in the coming weeks and months, but so far the president has not made a strong enough case for the invasion of Iraq. Until he does America is walking a fine line between the roles of being a protector and being a bully.

America?s Sandbox

Is America still the fighters for freedom that we have been, or are we quickly becoming the bully of the sandbox, willing to steal other countries? lunch money simply because we can? Fighting against terrorism is a worthy cause, and our attack of the Taliban appears to warranted based on the tragedy of last September, but where should America draw the line?

Our president appears to be consumed, no, obsessed with attacking Iraq, and is determined to win support for such an attack no matter the time or resources involved. I agree that Saddam Hussein is trouble, capable of using weapons of mass destruction on American soil, but so are a lot of other people. My question is where will we stop?

We have attacked the Taliban and caused a regime change in Afghanistan and have Iraq in our sights. Then will we attack Lebanon, Cuba, Iran and Saudi Arabia? We have an incredible amount of military power, but arrogance has caused the fall of other nations in history and could do the same for our own precious country. I do not have a problem with fighting evil, but we should have just cause to enter into war. Our troops are in Afghanistan because of an attack on our people and our way of life. But the terrorists drew first blood. If we begin entering other countries and making regime changes because the leaders of those countries MIGHT do something drastic, are we any better than those countries we want to annihilate? As Americans we hold ourselves above all other nations, assuming that our way of life is best and that others should follow us in all that we do. The president’s attempt at gaining support for an evergrowing war is evidence that our arrogance may be bigger than our appeal to other nations. While I too love this country, I understand that other people adhere to different beliefs from those that I hold dear.

Save your nasty comments about how unpatriotic or un-American I am, because if that is your belief you are missing my point. Sure, I wish the twin towers were still standing and that so many children would still have their parents alive, but that cannot be changed now. America is threatening to destroy other countries under the umbrella of ?democracy and freedom? and I question the validity of this. America is strong and can blow any country away with our military strength, but if we go into a broader war we may find ourselves fighting alone against a worthy foe, an alliance of Arab nations.

Perhaps my opinion will change if I learn of specific threats from Iraq in the coming weeks and months, but so far the president has not made a strong enough case for the invasion of Iraq. Until he does America is walking a fine line between the roles of being a protector and being a bully.

America?s Sandbox

Is America still the fighters for freedom that we have been, or are we quickly becoming the bully of the sandbox, willing to steal other countries? lunch money simply because we can? Fighting against terrorism is a worthy cause, and our attack of the Taliban appears to warranted based on the tragedy of last September, but where should America draw the line?

Our president appears to be consumed, no, obsessed with attacking Iraq, and is determined to win support for such an attack no matter the time or resources involved. I agree that Saddam Hussein is trouble, capable of using weapons of mass destruction on American soil, but so are a lot of other people. My question is where will we stop?

We have attacked the Taliban and caused a regime change in Afghanistan and have Iraq in our sights. Then will we attack Lebanon, Cuba, Iran and Saudi Arabia? We have an incredible amount of military power, but arrogance has caused the fall of other nations in history and could do the same for our own precious country. I do not have a problem with fighting evil, but we should have just cause to enter into war. Our troops are in Afghanistan because of an attack on our people and our way of life. But the terrorists drew first blood. If we begin entering other countries and making regime changes because the leaders of those countries MIGHT do something drastic, are we any better than those countries we want to annihilate? As Americans we hold ourselves above all other nations, assuming that our way of life is best and that others should follow us in all that we do. The president’s attempt at gaining support for an evergrowing war is evidence that our arrogance may be bigger than our appeal to other nations. While I too love this country, I understand that other people adhere to different beliefs from those that I hold dear.

Save your nasty comments about how unpatriotic or un-American I am, because if that is your belief you are missing my point. Sure, I wish the twin towers were still standing and that so many children would still have their parents alive, but that cannot be changed now. America is threatening to destroy other countries under the umbrella of ?democracy and freedom? and I question the validity of this. America is strong and can blow any country away with our military strength, but if we go into a broader war we may find ourselves fighting alone against a worthy foe, an alliance of Arab nations.

Perhaps my opinion will change if I learn of specific threats from Iraq in the coming weeks and months, but so far the president has not made a strong enough case for the invasion of Iraq. Until he does America is walking a fine line between the roles of being a protector and being a bully.

America?s Sandbox

Is America still the fighters for freedom that we have been, or are we quickly becoming the bully of the sandbox, willing to steal other countries? lunch money simply because we can? Fighting against terrorism is a worthy cause, and our attack of the Taliban appears to warranted based on the tragedy of last September, but where should America draw the line?

Our president appears to be consumed, no, obsessed with attacking Iraq, and is determined to win support for such an attack no matter the time or resources involved. I agree that Saddam Hussein is trouble, capable of using weapons of mass destruction on American soil, but so are a lot of other people. My question is where will we stop?

We have attacked the Taliban and caused a regime change in Afghanistan and have Iraq in our sights. Then will we attack Lebanon, Cuba, Iran and Saudi Arabia? We have an incredible amount of military power, but arrogance has caused the fall of other nations in history and could do the same for our own precious country. I do not have a problem with fighting evil, but we should have just cause to enter into war. Our troops are in Afghanistan because of an attack on our people and our way of life. But the terrorists drew first blood. If we begin entering other countries and making regime changes because the leaders of those countries MIGHT do something drastic, are we any better than those countries we want to annihilate? As Americans we hold ourselves above all other nations, assuming that our way of life is best and that others should follow us in all that we do. The president’s attempt at gaining support for an evergrowing war is evidence that our arrogance may be bigger than our appeal to other nations. While I too love this country, I understand that other people adhere to different beliefs from those that I hold dear.

Save your nasty comments about how unpatriotic or un-American I am, because if that is your belief you are missing my point. Sure, I wish the twin towers were still standing and that so many children would still have their parents alive, but that cannot be changed now. America is threatening to destroy other countries under the umbrella of ?democracy and freedom? and I question the validity of this. America is strong and can blow any country away with our military strength, but if we go into a broader war we may find ourselves fighting alone against a worthy foe, an alliance of Arab nations.

Perhaps my opinion will change if I learn of specific threats from Iraq in the coming weeks and months, but so far the president has not made a strong enough case for the invasion of Iraq. Until he does America is walking a fine line between the roles of being a protector and being a bully.

Regardless of what the rational part of me has decided to do about the Sept. 11 anniversary, my less rational processes have increasingly begun to shriek and gibber in paranoia as the anniversary approaches. We went to the Panthers football game Sunday, and apart from cheering the rat as it ran into the endzone, I was preoccupied with planning what I would do if there was a gas attack. Since our seats appeared to be downwind of every other part of the stadium, most of my planning would have been for naught. There were some minor security measures; the guards weren’t letting in previously opened water bottles, and they were checking bags. What they didn’t check were seat cushions. I was carrying a 2 x 2, 2 inch thick zippered seat cushion, and it was let through without a glance, as were all the other ones I could see. You could pack a lot of Semtex into a seat cushion.

I consoled myself with the notion that only a idiotic terrorist would bother to bomb a Carolina Panthers game. Even if they did, it would be less of a blow to America than the WTC attack. Any attack on any athletic stadium would be, and a stepped down attack doesn’t really fit the Al-Qaeda profile. Al-Qaeda needs to carry out an attack that is as inconceivable to us today as flying a 747 into a skyscraper was last year. To paraphrase Wee Willie Keeler, AL-Qaeda needs to hit us where security ain’t. Yes, an attack on a football stadium would be horrifying, and I’m not saying it won’t happen. But it wouldn’t be unexpected.

Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center because he wanted to not only strike at a symbol of America, he wanted to hit us economically, as well as horrify and enrage us. Not many targets can satisfy those same criteria now, certainly not a football game. Many of the ones that do are much more closely guarded now than they were then. If Al-Qaeda wants to hit us like they did a year ago, to hit us even harder than they did last year, they won’t hit a skyscraper, or bomb a mall. They’ll bomb daycare centers. Multiple ones, across the U.S. at more or less the same time. Perhaps around noon EST, since by that time the West Coast centers would be seeing the last of the morning arrivals.

Al-Qaeda’s objective is to start a massive war between the House of Islam and the United States, and that can only come about if they enrage the American populace to such a degree that we start demanding wholesale destruction of the Middle East. The fact of such simultaneous attacks would be an almost surefire way to enrage us beyond anything we or the world has ever experienced. It could be argued that such attacks are unlikely because they would cost Al-Qaeda potential supporters, but Al-Qaeda isn’t looking for support so much as it is attempting to bring forth Armageddon. And there are always some who will celebrate the death of innocents.

In the Oklahoma City bombing, the nineteen dead children from the Murrah building daycare horrified the nation. One of the first things the media talked about on the morning of last Sept 11 were the kids in the World Trade Center Daycare. Despite the fact that our children are probably less at risk now that they have ever been from the threat of violence, we still obsess over it. 3000 killed is horrible enough. What if all 3000 had been children? All the repercussions from such an attack are, at least for me, completely unimaginable.

What security there is at a daycare is geared towards not letting strangers take kids from there. Getting in is easy, and for a suicidal attacker, once they’re in, everything is a target, and there is no defense save the resistance of the mostly female, mostly young caregivers. As far as planning the attack, one or at most two terrorists is all that is needed per daycare, so it would be easy to attack multiple targets, spread out across a city.

In the past month, Durham, N.C. daycares have had multiple instances where a car was broken into while a parent was dropping off a child. It’s been assumed that it was the work of junkies doing a smash and grab for drug money, but what if it was done to see the police response time? What if it was a dry run?

One repercussion that I can imagine is an economic one. The aftermath of such an attack would be chaos. It’s one thing to decide that if you don’t go to work one Sept 12th then the terrorists have won, but how many people can apply that same logic to their children? How many families will decide that, come hell or high water, one parent stays home with the kids from now on. Bang, there goes the productivity miracle. There goes the one thing that has kept the U.S. economy out of the abyss. Beside it, the impact of the WTC collapse would be negligible. As well, once a daycare center is hit, nowhere is safe, and everything must be guarded. Little League games, libraries, churches, every public gathering place is going to have security, or be deserted. If productivity doesn’t totally collapse after the economy loses a huge chunk of the work force, then the arteriosclerosis of constant security checks will finish the job the workforce losses started.

You can also kiss your civil liberties goodbye.

Such an attack fulfills the same purposes for the terrorists that the attacks a year ago did, and there is literally almost nothing standing in the way of such an attack. What do we do? There are probably more daycare centers in the U.S. than there are cops, so you can’t station one at each center. I can just imagine what the response would be to a suggestion that we arm the workers.

A daycare’s only defense is the fact that there are so many other ones around, so the odds are extremely low that any specific one will be attacked. Rationally, that should be enough for me. But every morning after I drop off my daughter, part of me still gibbers and shrieks.