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For me, I like to entertain all possibilities and I have a need to know; I am that way about everything. I have an unsatiable curiosity and a mind that will not turn off, especially in matters of politics and religion and now, national security. But things like national security never worry me because it is the knowledge and awareness that I seek that gives me what I crave. I think if I had the knowledge and awareness of GWB, I would sleep like an absolute baby! But none of my family members are like me in this way. They do not care to know about this in any depth. On the other hand, I want to know what may happen before it happens even if it never happens.

Yes!

I'm becoming more and more convinced that we are ALL going to have to "fend for ourselves" IF anything ever happens.

Just had an interesting conversation with my local emergency management department for our county. They are clueless and I got the impression that they have less of a plan to respond to an NBC event than any of us here do (we are FAR more ahead, based on what I talked to with their Director this morning).

Since I live in a house with a "walkout" basement (one whole wall is windows and is at ground level, whereas the other end of the room is typical poured concrete wall underground - our lot "slopes"), I decided "shelter in place" is probably not going to save me if there's a radiological event (like I think there may very well be in 2004). So, I called to ask.."are there any designated locations [schools, hospitals, etc] that are set aside for residents to come to if something like this happens". Her advice (even after I described the window problem) was "stay put. close your windows, etc". Gee..THAT is encouraging - NOT! This lady knew DIDDLY about what radiation can do - how to properly protect yourself, etc.

She also seemed totally unconcerned about anything affecting us here in SE Michigan. Told her about the Washington Post article about NEST guys being here the other day. She didn't even know. All she could come back with was "well, that's Intel, and we deal with preparation" (um..isn't part of being prepared knowing what you are at risk for?). Then she "assured" me that even if anything happened in Detroit, that we wouldn't be affected here 20-30 miles out (um, no..radiation goes further, depending on the size of the device).

Net net, I came away from that conversation with a reinforcement of my initial belief that many of those who are "protecting" us are idiots. Guess it's time to build myself a saferoom with concrete walls and NBC filtering, cuz the government SURE isn't going to be of any help if anything (God forbid) DOES happen.