What's important to protect?

So, in our post-9/11 world, what has the Bush Administration declared as things that need protecting? Well, the obvious cities are New York City and Washington DC, right? Nope, they are cutting security grants for those cities by 40%. Apparently, nobody can anticipate terrorists targeting those places. Remember, their spokespeople are the ones that typically yell "are you forgetting what happened on September 11th" when faced with a critical question about things like ignoring the law.

OK, but within NYC, there are clear terrorist targets like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square and the Brooklyn Bridge, so those will be identified by the Department of Homeland Security, right? Nope, not in the Bush plan. None of those made the list of potential terrorist targets. Their reasoning? None of those 4 are national icons or monuments.

So, what kind of stuff is on the list? An insect zoo in Florida, a bourbon festival in Illinois, a kangaroo conservation center in Maryland and a bean fest in Indiana. In fact, Indiana was identified as having more high-value terrorist targets than any other state, 50% more than New York. Info reported by the Department of Homeland Security, and reported on CNN.com. Fortunately, the neocon plan of eliminating the free press has not bee fully implemented, so we can still find out about such things.

What are these people thinking?

And before the neocons start calling for CNN to fall under GOP censorship, 107 other links to the same story are available today at Google News. Here's a few from: Boston, MA Sioux City, IA some dude in Buffalo, NY

(political cartoon credit to Stuart Carlson)