So the FBI has issued us all a nice warning telling us be on the alert for possible terrorist attacks somewhere within the U.S. or abroad sometime this week, although they're not sure what kind of attack it will be -- basically not answering any of the who/what/why/when/how questions. But they said the tip-off information has been deemed credible, so we all need to start running around like chickens sans heads now. And if that weren't enough, we have a winner for the "Well, duh!" award for this week: in response to questions about whether Osama Bin Laden's organization will attempt other attacks against America, our Not-So-Fearless Leader in the White House said, "We believe the country must stay on alert, that our enemies still hate us." Really, George? I thought we kissed and made up after we dropped all those foodpacks on them.

Is it just me, or would we all be better off just not getting that warning from the FBI? All that's going to do is make a lot of people paranoid and run around screaming again about how the sky is falling. To prove just how out of touch our government is, our beloved Dictator-in-Training Richard Ashcroft "said that while the information was not specific, the FBI was issuing the alert to the American people because 'they can make good judgments and can understand this kind of information,'" according to Reuters.

Dick... can I call you Dick? Dick... haven't you been reading the newspapers? Haven't you seen all the articles about people stockpiling food and water and survival materials in order to flee to the hills at the first sign of trouble? Haven't you read all the stories about the morons out there who've been mailing in their old bowling shoes and moldy carrots to the state HazMat offices for anthrax testing? Didn't you see my nice little entry last week about how a donut and its white powder singlehandedly shut down part of Grand Central Terminal? Around 90% of Americans are going to hear that alert as if it were processed through a "Peanuts" cartoon strip: "blah blah blah blah possible terrorist attack this week blah blah blah be on alert for anything suspicious blah blah blah..."

The line that Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black is true, despite the fact that the movie can't be taken seriously: "A person is smart. People are dumb." Hysteria is more infectious than anthrax, and the worst thing you people can do right now is get us all riled up about possible terrorist attacks in which we have no clue when or where they're going to happen. People are going to start calling up their police departments at 2AM because they hear their neighbors yelling in some foreign language in the apartment next door, when it's just the TV set because some guy was testing out his new DVD player and surround-sound system with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And telling us to look for anything out of the ordinary... well, that's just way too general. I saw someone walking down Commonwealth Avenue this evening with blue spiked hair, more chains wrapped around him than an abandoned mine entrance, piercings in places I didn't even know you could pierce and he was wearing a t-shirt for the rock group Mission of Burma, which I haven't heard mentioned in years. Is that out of the ordinary enough for you? And as far as detaining people because they might be threats... well, Dick, I've got two X-Acto knives in my apartment, a few rather large kitchen knives and I've got pictures saved on my computer of the New York skyline. You going to arrest me like you arrested that couple who happened to have boxcutters in their car from when they moved last week and postcards from New York that they picked up during their trip north to drop off the wife at her duty station since she's in the Army? So what if her husband's from Yemen and he's got an Arabic name that she took when they got married? That doesn't give you the right to throw him in prison and force his wife to accept a discharge from the Army. That's definitely not the reaction of a government based on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."

All I can say at this point is -- hell of an example our government is setting.