Brave America, Chicken America. So cowering behind plastic sheeting in a midwestern suburb is a virtue, eh? Let me know when one of your red states builds anything a self-respecting terrorist would want to take out. (Note: the giant ball of twine doesn't count.)

Right as usual Mitch. The chattering classes will scoff at attempts to teach preparedness in schools (watch for Duck & Cover references), but they are fine scaring the heck out of 1st graders by doing "Lock Down" drills to quickly get to a safe room should someone enter the school with a gun. (Probably because guns = BAD, while terrorist attacks = inevitable/our fault anyway/preventable through capitulation.)
Schools should only be used to discuss issues of national importance?? They had a cop at my daughter's school talking about Halloween safety and my daughter came home in a panic because said cop told her that her princess dress was 2" too long and she might trip.
They are already discussing safety, and with regard to some very scary situations. Failure to add an age-appropriate discussion on disaster preparedness is willfully irresponsible.

Ah, yes, the New Yorker, laughing at adversity (even as every facet of his life is made possible only by the most massive human-support infrastructure ever built, without which the whole area would revert to the huge malarial swamp it once was).

Angry Clown - do do realize you've precisely reinforced Mitch's point, don't you?

So far all the casualties in the War on Terror are in D.C. and New York, where people do their jobs while taking reasonable precautions. (Batteries, flashlights, radio? Check. Out of town contact for when cell phones don't work? Check. Plenty of food, water and beer? Check. Evacuation plan... You get the idea.)

Of course it would help if a little more Homeland Security funding went to the places that have actually experienced crashing planes, anthrax attacks, bombs and the like, rather than to install face-recognition in the Olsens' General Store, but that's a quibble.

I'm simply mocking the delusions of Chicken Littles in suburbs in the middle of the country who think that plastic and duct tape will protect them from being gassed by terrorists. Even if terrorists had the capability to do so. Or cared to attack some relative backwater if they did.

Angry Clown -- is it ignorance or bias that underlies your assumption that Mitch lives in a suburb?

I was not directing my angry clown comments at Mitch, whom I hold in the highest personal esteem. I mock only those whose foot fits the shoe.

Clown,
Bravo! A perfect demonstration of the condescending, What's The Matter With Kansas attitude that's been such a big winner for the left!
Population of red-voting exurban areas = growing like mad.
Population of blue-voting urban area = same or shrinking.
Keep up the mockery of people who want to take simple precautions to protect their family (while their sons and daughters fight to keep you safe) and I'm sure you'll maintain your firm grip on American power.
Another point: Hurricane preparedness of residents in red voting areas was a heckuva lot better than hurricane preparedness in blue voting areas. Now red state voters and tax payers are footing the bill.
By the way:
Biggest ball of string = Kansas (in what seems like a fun community building activity)
Biggest ball of string made by one crackpot = Minnesota, bluest of blue states
Red states have no monopoly on twine-based hijinks.

Clown,

Mitch's post is mostly about disaster preparedness, not just in cases of terrorist attacks. Your attack is a non sequitor.

By all means, prepare for the tornadoes, hail storms and locust attacks that a just and vengeful God visits on your part of the country! Just don't think that duct tape and plastic sheeting will spare your miserable lives!!!

"By all means, prepare for the tornadoes, hail storms and locust attacks that a just and vengeful God visits on your part of the country! Just don't think that duct tape and plastic sheeting will spare your miserable lives!!!"

Well, it might keep the rain out, when the roof's blown off. And it might, just might, keep someone from dying in some sort of gas attack. Not likely, I'll admit, but it's better than sitting in front of a broken window while the poison clouds roll towards your house.

But thanks for the condescending, elitist attitude. That really helps promote your position.

Assembled commenters,

Allow me to introduce Angryclown, an old friend of mine who is thrice damned; a lawyer, a member of the mainstream media, and a New York liberal (where "Liberal" = "thinks Mao Zedong was a neocon"). He's also, near as I can tell, an example of the type of New Yorker that even New Yorkers like to throw trash at; a non-native who's adopted "New Yorkism" with the kind of zeal that makes all the best suicide bombers and Scientologists.

He also likes to yank the chains of everyone west of the Hudson with his Mencken-like japes at everyone in the US who:
a) has a concept of "grass"
b) gets to and from work through the open air
c) never has to pick cockroaches out of their bologna paella while pleading vainly for the six union plumbers working on their drippy faucet to quit urinating behind the fridge.

As much as Angryclown (whose true identity I will not reveal, because I'm sure Liberal Central Control would take umbrage at a true believer spending time here) and I disagree, I hereby state that I hope that when some TRULY major catastrophe hits NYC, and the whole city is cut off from food, water, sanitation and other government services for a New-Orleans-y amount of time, that he and his family are among the five million who survive by eating the 15 million others.

Don't say I never did anything for you, AC.

"Let me know when one of your red states builds anything a self-respecting terrorist would want to take out."

Note to the agricultural heartland: AngryClown apparently doesn't know where food comes from so, please, stop growing and shipping food to major metropolitan areas to remind him. Then, just watch his "enlightened" NYC society fall into a starving chaos.

*shrug* OK, here I am a liberal with a month's worth of food, gallon containers I can fill with tap water at a moment's notice, easily a six month hedge against unemployment, always carry somewhere between $100 and $200 at any given moment, have no debt whatsoever, yaddi yaddi yadda, so I guess my question is: to stay current with my belief system, who should I give all this to so I can live out your prodigious liberal fantasy? *glances at the current national debt figure* Oh, never mind. Its covered.

We're a soft target. Yeah, plastic sheeting and duct tape would do some good, but in a world where a half dozen biochemists could set up an anthrax production line with a small business association loan and put open bags of the finished product in the back of a pickup truck before driving around the nation's interstate system (If its Tuesday this must be Cleveland) -- I'm sorry, I must end this sentence now.

Well, the plastic sheeting brigade might help, but we are still fubared: We're an open society. I could get more into that, since I believe this is a fight for mindshare as much as it is a military fight but there are powerful forces within our own society which actively hinder that effort. As I said, I could get more into that but its slightly off topic.

Here's my big disaster scenerio question: what happens to the upper midwest if there is a major disruption of natural gas supplies in the middle of winter, major as in something going BOOM, or a major ice storm such as in Quebec not too far back which brings down power lines over a hurricane-sized area when its 10 below?

Forgot to add this.

Prediction: If/When Avian flu hits the U.S., most or all daycare centers across the U.S. will close. It will either be a government mandate to check the spread of flu, or a spontanious action by worried parents and providers.

For discussion: What happens next?

"Mencken-like?" I hope you were being sarcastic. Mencken at least had a way with words.

Bill, only 10 below? Come on, this is Minnesota, at least give us a challenge.

40 below, with an additional wind-chill. . . now we're talking! I may have to dip into my blanket reserve then.

Ryan:

You mean food doesn't come from Katzinger's Deli or the bodega down the street?

Oh lordy, will wonders never cease!

Steve,

as to Angryclown's Menckeninity, I have to refer to privileged information. Bear in mind Mencken was the D.W. Griffith of the Gatsby crowd.

Bill H: Actually, there is material for a couple of really fascinating posts there. Either you go and start a blog, or I'll write those posts in the next couple of days...

Peter: Angryclown assumes everyone west of the Hudson River looks like someone from "Deliverance", yet lives in a tacky Lakeville-style McMansion - at least for purposes of enraging everyone west of the Hudson for comedic effect.

Bill,

Having watched that first hand, the solution to Quebec wasn't too bad. Lots of generators, alternate means of heat (kero, LP, etc). Honestly, given how Quebec is you have to be reasonably well prepared up there and they were. Sure, there was disruption and whatnot, but nothing massive as far as loss of life. Be prepared: generator, redundant heat sources, extra food, ability to relocate, etc and you'll be fine. That said, watch out for the neighbor who can't do that. But then again, all that points to Mitch's point: if preparedness is a state of mind, attitude, and in general a good lifestyle. And it's a shame that it seems that the more urban you are the more you are willing to give up selfreliance.

Memories of idiots from Boston hiking the Appalacian Trail in the White Mountains without appropriate clothing, water, or emergency supplies come flooding back. I can't count the number of times I had to give away water bottles and take folks back to civilization there who were in way over their heads. They simply went out unprepared and trusted that there'd be someone there to make them safe. In one case they were lucky I came by or they'd have spent an August night in subfreezing temperatures in just shorts and a t-shirt.

Here's my big disaster scenerio question: what happens to the upper midwest if there is a major disruption of natural gas supplies in the middle of winter, major as in something going BOOM, or a major ice storm such as in Quebec not too far back which brings down power lines over a hurricane-sized area when its 10 below?
----------------
Oh, I dunno, Bill. Burn wood maybe? Fire up the generators? From here to Canada lives a pretty hearty bunch. We're sometimes disappointed if it only gets to 10 below and there's not at least 4ft of snow. Alot of people are out of work when that happens and then there's nothing to do but get drunk and catch fish. Now, if we start to run out of beer and Windsor, THAT might present a problem, but then we'd just head for Wisconsin or Canada.

Mitch-

Care to elaborate on this one?

"Bear in mind Mencken was the D.W. Griffith of the Gatsby crowd."

I know who Mencken was. I know who Griffith was. And I understand the reference to the "Gatsby crowd." How they are possibly connected escapes me.

Griffith and Mencken = highly respected observers in their fields.

Griffith: known for bigotry toward Blacks.

Mencken: known for bigotry toward anyone who wasn't H.L. Mencken or very nearly like him.

So, if/when I ever do start my blog "Another Mad Liberal" (which is currently at the fantasy stage along with "Blog from a Northern Town", my other choice for a name), I'll be able to tell people its because Mitch told me to ;-)

I'm trying to remember the sequence of events. Wasn't it: anthrax-in-the-mail media-hyped scare first, plastic sheeting response second?

I doubt the feds would have recommended plastic sheeting in response to Katrina, to in response to Bill's blizzard scenario.

Sounds as if Bill and Angry Clown are ridiculing a potential response to an anthrax scare as being an inadequate response to a blizzard. Well, Duh! Doesn't mean it wasn't the best option for the moment.

It seems Bill and AC have decided that we're all doomed and nothing can be done about it so there's no sense trying. The technical term for that attitude is defeatist. Not many of us reading this blog share said attitude.

Going out on a limb, I'd bet dollars to donuts that Bill and AC, having exempted themselves from personal responsibility for disaster planning, would be first in line to abuse FEMA for failing to prepare to swiftly pamper them after any disaster.

That aside, the blizzard scenario raises an interesting possibility. If you want to add a terrorist twist, imagine terrorists figure out a way to knock out electricity to St. Paul (or if you must have a worthy target, Chicago or New York City) during a blizzard. If they could take out enough transmission towers or power substations, it may take a week to get power back on and without electricity, thermostats won't work, furnaces won't light, people will freeze.

Sure, I have a generator, but my furnace won't run off it unless I could jimmy rig something for a while. But my neighbor doesn't have a generator. That's okay, she's cute and we can share body heat. But about 10,000 of Mitch's neighbors to the East don't have generators, either, and many of them wouldn't be as desireable as houseguests.

So then what?
.

"Sure, I have a generator, but my furnace won't run off it unless I could jimmy rig something for a while."

Look into a power transfer system that allows you to switch between the mains and the generator. They run around $300 installed (well, maybe not in MN where you have union electricians; you guys might have to double that price). Either that or remember to throw the main and risk reversing through one of your larger breakers. If you don't throw the main breaker you risk zapping one of the line workers trying to restore your power, as happened after Andrew. the PTS is a heck of a lot cleaner than trying to run all those extension cords around the house, but you do have to remember to throw the breakers to keep only those things running you really need running (furnace, pump, etc) unless you have an immense backup generator.

"Sounds as if Bill and Angry Clown are ridiculing a potential response to an anthrax scare as being an inadequate response to a blizzard. Well, Duh! Doesn't mean it wasn't the best option for the moment."

"It seems Bill and AC have decided that we're all doomed and nothing can be done about it so there's no sense trying. The technical term for that attitude is defeatist."

The technical term for your argument is "straw man."

Angry Clown thinks you're right to worry about blizzards out/up there - not to mention extreme existential despair. Not so much the terrorist gas or bioweapons attacks, though, which is what the plastic sheeting and duct tape is supposed to protect you from.

Go rent Red Dawn if you want to fantasize about an unlikely attack scenario. The terrorists aren't coming to St. Paul anymore than the Russians were. They have bigger fish to fry.

Right, you are, Angry Clown.

Because like when terrorists operating in Israel are, to the Knesset don't they directly go? I ask you?

Not like a stupid PIZZERIA they'd bomb, right? Or like some versclitzende KIBBUTZ in the middle of nowhere? Oy. Such morons.

Nathan, please go back and reread what I wrote. I am not your strawman.

Well we wouldn't mind putting burqas on you anyway. Repeat after me, midwesterners: "Would I like cheese with that? NO THANK YOU."

And with that, the angryclown shows the myopia and provinciality that make those from NYC so maligned everywhere else, even in deeply Democratic areas like south Florida. *sigh*

And folks wondered why "snowbird" was not spoken with anything other than derision down in Palm Beach county.

"The terrorists aren't coming to St. Paul anymore than the Russians were."

Thanks, Angry Clown, I appreciate the info. I called my insurance carrier to let them know, and to request that they reinstate my terrorism coverage (my carrier dropped that coverage when my policies renewed after 9/11). But to my surprise, they declined to reinstate it! They said your word wasn't a good enough guarantee for their underwriters.

Luckily, I have a fallback position, and not a straw man, either. Since you're so confident of your facts, I assume you're willing to put your money where your mouth is. I need about $1 million terrorism coverage to cover a few rental properties in St. Paul. Since by your own assertion there is no risk of loss, obviously the premium will be practically nothing. Please let me know where to mail the application.

.

Sure Nathan, I'll insure your little slumlord empire against terrorism. The premium is one case of Brooklyn Lager every month. Send it to Mitch. I'll collect next time I'm in the Twinkies.

Wait a minute, a credit check shows you have a French-sounding last name. I'll have to double the premium since I can't be sure you're a real right-winger. Can't you change it to something more American, like John Birch or Joe McCarthy?

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