That (not-so-fresh) orangey smell

You thought it was over, didn’t you?

With Operation Liberty Shield, the Office of Homeland Security has raised the terror threat level to orange again. Because . . . you know . . . since we’re about to take out Saddam Hussein, as President Bush said Monday, “Al Qaeda may be in the last stages of planning for large-scale attacks.”

You probably shouldn’t think about the connection too closely.

No doubt the Homeland Security Office is still trying to play down the bad press from its last orange alert – enstated for nearly a month because of a captured Al Qaeda member who had claimed that a major city was about to be hit by a “dirty bomb.” It turned out to be a lie, but that sudden revelation didn’t cause the Homeland Security Office to drop the alert level back to normal.

So, what’s the deal with the fluctuating alert system colors? Dave McIntyre, deputy director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, was quoted in The Dallas Morning News as saying, “We’d never know where they are going to attack, but what we could do is change our patterns enough to make their efforts uncertain.”

You probably shouldn’t think about that quote too closely, either.

So the war’s about to start, and the terror alert system is flashing colors in such random succession that it’s giving the United States a collective acid trip – complete with authentic feelings of paranoia.

But surprisingly enough, some states aren’t tightening their security as quickly as the Homeland Security Office dictates they ought to. According to The New York Times, some states have yet to activate the National Guard. Indiana cites budget constraints, saying, “Absent a threat, we have to make real decisions on what we can do with National Guard and state police overtime.” Other states are citing similar budget concerns.

One government official was quoted as saying that they were worried about potential terror attacks, but added, “More likely than not, they would launch these attacks abroad against U.S. interests rather than in this country, because it would be easier to pull off.”

Could it be that some of us have already grown tired of dealing with this unreliable alert system? Come on, guys. I mean, this isn’t a drill. It’s for real this time . . . Um, guys? Aren’t you going to play along?

But, lest we grow complacent in this time of unrest, I thought it would be a good idea to relist some of the precautionary measures the Home Security Office has advised that we take while still in high alert:

* For God’s sake, stop laughing and just buy some duct tape! You’re going to need it to seal off all of the doors in your house in case of chemical attack. And, if not that, you might want some to stick over your ears when Bush does his televised address this afternoon.

* Keep that gas tank half full. It’s not just so that you can make a quick getaway in the case of attack. It’s so that you can show your support, in your own way, of your country invading another to get some more of that beautiful, beautiful petrol. The oil must flow . . .

* Electricity may be turned off, so just to be safe you may want to buy your own portable “nuke-you-lurr” reactor. (Or oil-based generator.)

* Get a portable radio, so that even if you’re under a terrorist attack, you won’t have to miss a second of Lee Greenwood’s “Proud To Be An American” being played for the five billionth time.

* Above all, crawl under the plastic sheets and keep being paranoid. And maybe it will all go away . . .