While Super Tuesday's Funtime Miracle Terror Alert was handled by New York's tabloid papers with typical aplomb – The New York Post's headline read, simply, "EVERYBODY DUCK!!!" while The Daily News took the high road with "TERROR IN THE BIG APPLE: STATUE OF LIBERTY INVOLUNTARILY LIBERATES OWN BOWELS" – only The New York Times bothered to dedicate even a column's width of attention to the fact that the reports behind the latest Special Ops-on-the-subway-armed-to-the-teeth were based on chatter that was THREE TO FOUR years old. In the area of geopolitics, a tremendous amount can change in that time. I mean, weren't we still fighting the Japanese in Vietnam four years ago? And didn't Afghanistan have paved roads and hospitals four years ago?

I'm not one to laugh in the face of potential terror – I drop to the floor, belly-down, when I'm asked and I try not to write the word "BOMB" when I'm on a cross-continental flight, even if it's a clue in my beloved TV Guide crossword puzzle. ("An incendiary device, or HOMEBOYS IN OUTER SPACE:") However, isn't mounting massive city-wide police action because of relatively ancient intelligence reports about as accurate as basing Homeland Security policy on the prophecies of Nostradamus? But the government can't make that kind of announcement, can they? Because citizens of the United States might be less willing to cooperate if Tom Ridge was quoted at a press conference, stating:

We have reason to believe key locations within the United States are being targeted for terrorist attacks. We've intercepted reports detailing the "coming of a brown-hooded serpentine destroyer, walking upright across the scorched land" who will "summon a fiery apocalypse upon a city of glass." The attacks will be severe, promising "mountains of smoldering ash stretching to the heavens and blackening the sky," as well as a "great lake of blood which, upon touching the parched lips of man, will boil forth furiously against the tongue and drive man stumbling back into the caves with a blinding madness." It is advised that residents of New York City, including the boroughs of Queens, the Bronx, and ancient Macedonia, remain in their dwellings until this serpentine destroyer is sussed out. We believe the attacks might have been masterminded by Al-Qaeda, possibly operating with the cooperation of the prince of the Mongols. However, there have been contrary reports linking this attack to a man named "Hister." We are currently investigating Hister's ties to Iraq and North Korea.

AND THAT'S THE TERROR ALERT BIT! Thank God that's over with.