…but I don’t believe this threat to the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge is legit. Lady Liberty is a great symbol, but bringing her down wouldn’t kill very many Americans — the statue itself isn’t open to tourists these days, and a lot of the tourists on Liberty Island are probably foreigners. And, in case we all forgot, Al Qaeda likes to do more than destroy American symbols — it also likes to kill lots of Americans.

The Brooklyn Bridge is somewhat more plausible, especially if the attack were planned for rush hour… but here’s another theory. Maybe the Al Qaeda detainees who planted this piece of “intelligence” are deliberately trying to distract New York authorities so they won’t be paying attention to the apartment buildings stuffed with bombs, the ship heading into the harbor with nukes, the guy on the subway with smallpox, or whatever. Call me crazy, but I think it’s a diversionary tactic. That doesn’t particularly reassure me, but that’s what I think.

Apparently the prime targets are the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, according to MSNBC.com. But the warning “is based on nonspecific, undated and unverified information,” and “federal officials cautioned they placed little stock” in the threat. Sounds like CNN’s breaking-news alert was a little alarmist.

An ABC News exclusive: Leaders of terror groups, including al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, recently met in Lebanon and may be plotting attacks on Americans, intelligence officials say.

But here’s some good news: Coconuts are deadlier than sharks.

In the last three days, we’ve had government officials telling us that terrorists will inevitably attack again soon, that they will inevitably use West Bank-style suicide bombs, and that they will inevitably use weapons of mass destruction… and that we can’t really do anything about it. It will just happen.

Of course, this is all true… I could have told you that. But what happened to all the false bravado about rooting out terror, defeating terrorists, winning the war on terrorism, defending the homeland, etc.? Did the entire Bush Administration drink a truth serum or something? And if so, why? I sort of liked the phony reassurances!

Citing an “abundance of caution,” FBI alerts NYC authorities to be ready for possible terror attacks against landmarks, sources tell CNN.

Let’s see… what the best way to ostracize an elementary-schoolgirl and scar her for life? Well, how about this: Kick her out of school because her mother is a stripper, then let her back in for the last three weeks of the year so she can face the ridicule of her peers. Yeah, that should work pretty well.

I have no problem with Christians, per se. Technically, I am one. But there are a whole lot of Christians, and Christian institutions in particular, in this country and this world, that desperately need to get a clue.

I had dinner at an Indian restaurant today. It was yummy. In a related story, India and Pakistan are going to blow each other up.

In similarly cheerful news, suicide bombers will eventually attack the U.S., Al Qaeda terrorists are hoping to blow up a bunch of apartment buildings, and some Palestinians were planning to destroy Israel’s tallest buildings, but were foiled. Hey, at least they were foiled, right? Yeah, but remember what happened the last time terrorists tried and failed to bring down a couple of big buildings? Yeah. These f**kers are persistent.

Alas, we live in a depressing world. But here’s something to be happy about: hurricane season is almost underway! Okay, maybe you don’t find that uplifting, but for a weather fanatic like me, it means that six months of Weather Channel-watching excitement are right around the corner. And best of all, this year’s list of hurricane names includes Bertha! I’ve been hit by two consecutive Berthas, in 1990 (while vacationing on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island) and in 1996 (at home in Connecticut). They recycle the names every six years, you see. So that means it’s time for another Bertha!

Anyway, it should be fun. Let’s just hope nobody gets hurt. I like big, beautiful hurricanes that stay out to sea!!! The season begins June 1. :)

I just found two more giant piles of newspapers that I have yet to sort through. I didn’t notice them before. Oh well… at least I’m making progress. :)

In a truly remarkable accomplishment, I have managed to reduce virtually my entire stockpile of saved newspapers from the 1990s and the year 2000 (not including the 2000 election) to just three boxes, as seen below.

The cell phone and stuffed manatee are shown for size comparison. I was going to include just the manatee (whose name is Hugh Manatee), but then I realized y’all wouldn’t know how big he is, either, so I threw in the cell phone for good measure.

Anyway, the bottom box contains only sports stories, the middle one deals exclusively with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and resulting impeachment, and the top box contains papers sorted into a variety of categories:

The New York Daily News, usually the more liberal of New York’s two daily tabloids, gleefully reported yesterday on the controversy ignited by its archrival, the usually Bush-friendly New York Post, whose front page on Thursday stated that “BUSH KNEW” about the Sept. 11 attacks (or, at least, that he knew enough to stop them).

Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary, was none too pleased with the Post’s phraseology, especially after Sen. Hillary Clinton (herself usually a prime target for Post criticism) quoted the Post on the Senate floor! According to the Daily News, Fleischer said Clinton “immediately went to the floor of the Senate and, I’m sorry to say, that she followed that headline and divided,” rather than uniting, the nation.

Post editor in chief Col Allan “did not return a phone call from the Daily News yesterday,” the Daily News reported Saturday. Now THERE’S a real shocker.

…but I must have missed it. Why was Mulder seeing ghosts again? Why could Scully see Cigarette Smoking Man, but not the other dead people? And why didn’t the psychic kid just tell each of the judges what they had for lunch earlier that day? Wouldn’t that have settled the whole thing in about 45 minutes?

Oh, and most importantly, after the cameras stopped rolling in that motel room, did Mulder get laid, arrested, or both? (Or both at the same time? Kinky.)

Anyway, if anyone can explain the X-Files finale to me in 500 words or less, feel free to e-mail me with the truth. Otherwise, I’ll happily stick to my knowledge of obscure Tolkien trivia. Did you know the Balrogs were originally servants of Melkor, a.k.a. Morgoth, in his First Age fortress Utumno, a.k.a. Udun? (Hence Gandalf’s “flame of Udun” speech.)

Meanwhile, in the dramatic Survivor finale… does anyone really care about Survivor anymore? Didn’t think so. But I’m watching CBS right now, and it sorta looks like Rosie O’Donnell won. Not sure about that, though.

According to my web counter, someone found my site on Google after searching for the following phrase, in its entirety: “they follow in the path of fascism, nazism, and totalitarianism. and they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.”

That line happens to be possibly the most eloquent line ever uttered by President Bush, and my favorite part of his September 20, 2001 address to Congress. It can be both viewed and heard on the speeches and articles page of my September 11 memorial site, which is why this particular web visitor was able to find my website by searching for it.

Other recent Google searches that have allowed people to find my website: “picture of two girls waving goodbye to each other” (who searches for that?), “what dose a trojan look like” (an apparent typo), “pictures of drunk college girls on spring break” (I don’t think I have any of those on my website, but perhaps I should get some), “red army choir mp3” (I get that search a lot), “college drag dress pictures,” “fun with mud masks photos,” and “subway tuna fish sandwich.” Go figure.

…and the news is good. I got 3 A’s and 2 A-’s, for my second consecutive 3.86 semester. (Actually, it’s 3.86666666667, which distinctly rounds up to 3.87. Yet USC says it’s 3.86. Why the heck do they always round down? Bastards, I tell you…) That puts me easily on the Dean’s List (which has a 3.5 minimum), and makes me generally quite happy.

It’s a HUGE improvement over the beginning of my college career, when I slacked off in quite a few classes, turned in several key papers late, and emerged from my first two years at USC with an overall GPA of 3.281 and a journalism GPA of 3.14… way too low. Now, those numbers have improved to 3.496 overall (which I will take the luxury of rounding up to 3.5, thus allowing me to assert that my college career as a whole thus far qualifies for the Dean’s List) and 3.609 in journalism.

The huge improvements — 0.215 better overall, and a whopping 0.469 better in journalism — are due more to my pathetic performance in a few classes freshman and sophomore years than to any great leap of wisdom this year. But still, I’m obviously very happy and proud that I’ve been able to pull those numbers up. And it further suggests to me that maybe I am graduate/law school material, after all. When are those LSAT dates again?

Sorry, I don’t mean to brag. I was just… well… okay, I guess I did mean to brag. But why the hell not? This is my website! :)

In other news, my parents’ 25th anniversary is May 28, and they’re having a big party to celebrate it on May 31. Should be fun. More details on that as it approaches.

The Star Wars movie was awesome… and I’m not even a Star Wars person! The light-saber battle scene between Yoda and Christopher Lee’s character, Count Duku (or as I like to call him, Darth Saruman), had the audience going wild! Gotta love Yoda.

At theater for midnight showing of Star Wars.