New York Police Follow-up on Dirty Bomb Alert

Captain Quarters reports on the City of New York's precautions following a threat to explode a dirty bomb in the vicinity of 34th Street in Manhattan yesterday evening. The area in question is the location of Macy's Department Store, the Empire State Building and and Madison Square Garden. One Jerusalem says that several bridges and tunnels are being scrutinized after information was picked up from an Israeli site that monitors jihadist sites that someone will try and bring a bomb into Mid-Town Manhattan.

The Fox News 5 posts a notice from the NYPD here about the threat and adds that that threat is "unverified".

The Debka File which monitors events in the middle east picked up an increase in electronic chatter on August 8th. The threat warned of attacks by terrorists driving trucks containing radioactive bombs into New York, Los Angeles and Miami. The Debka file carries the story here. The message exchanges took place over al Qaeda's internal Internet sites after a long silence on these subjects notes the article.

This threat comes on the heals of two odious articles recently published on the East Coast. Friday Stu Bykofsky writing in the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that to save America we need another 9/11. The writer outlines how the nation is divided in its support for the Bush Administration's policies in prosecuting the war on terror and states that the event that would unite us together again would be another 9/11 attack. I'm sorry Stu but to quote your article today "What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?"

What America needs today Stu is revival and reconciliation squared. Revival and reconciliation with God and revival and reconciliation with each other other as fellow Americans. The nation does not need another destructive event to restore our "singular purpose to prevail" in this war against terrorism.

Not to be outdone from the Big Apple comes Steven Levitt to pose the question "If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?" Writing in Wednesday's debut of his "Freakonomics" blog cradled within the pages of (where else?) The New York Times Mr. Levitt brain-storms about different ways to stike the most terror in the hearts of the hapless Gotham citizenry as though he were participating in a focus group for a new video game. I suppose First Prize for the best entry is a one year subscription to The New York Times, Second Prize is a two year subscription. Freakonomics indeed Mr. Levitt.

The nation is not in need of another catastrophic event visiting death and destruction upon us as Mr. Bykofsky proscribes neither is it in need of the sophomoric academic postulates posed by Mr. Levitt as to whether the war on terror constitutes an actual threat to our existence and serves instead as an amusing little parlor game.

The threat is real enough.