Considering the various possibilities in the "War on Terrorism"—including projections by the gummint itself. . . .

How well prepared is the country to respond to, say, a genuine nuclear bomb smuggled into one of the numerous American seaport cities in a cargo container? I understand (gummint's own figures) that only about 4% of the hundreds, if not thousands, of cargo containers shipped into the U. S. every day are inspected more thoroughly than a cursory glance at the shipping manifest ("Item 14, Machine Tools; Item 15, More Machine Tools; Item 16, Explosive Nuclear Device; Item 17, Another Crate of Machine Tools. . . .").

I have little faith in Homeland Security and all that to realistically prevent something like that from happening should terrorists acquire the means. And as to the follow-up, especially in the light of the Federal Government's response to the New Orleans situation, should such a terrorist attack occur, I figure that since I live in a major West Coast seaport city with lots of container ships coming in and out, I assume that if I'm far enough away from Ground Zero to escape being vaporized or seriously injured, I should immediatly put on my lead BVDs and expect to rely on my own resources.

Don Firth