It appears that your government is about to institute the same "Look! We're doing something!" terror alert system that we over here have been blessed with for almost five years now.
Having reaped the benefits of this system myself for lo these many years, and in the grand tradition of anglo-american friendship, I'd like to offer y'all some pointers on its interpretation:
1) You will spend 99.9% of your time at "Alert Level: Bert". What this means is that the government doesn't know what the hell is going on, everything seems to be business as usual, but they don't want you to forget that Achmed Amatol and Seamus O'Semtex are still running around loose someplace.
2) You will occasionally see "Alert Level: Ernie". This means that the federales have captured someone with a swarthy complexion who babbled vague and heavily-accented threats about blowing up the infidels. You should go to the store and buy duct tape.
3) You will never see "Alert Level: Cookie Monster", because if they set the alert level at that, and then someone ran over Mrs. Smith's toy poodle and claimed they did it because Allah told them to, the howls for sacking the government would be audible in Kuala Lumpur.
Enjoy it, and remember: It may not be any damned good for protecting against terrorists, but it makes for good punchline material.
"I'm going to raise the alert system from Blackwatch Plaid to the cover of Rush's seminal album, Moving Pictures. Hah hah! Semen!"
ReplyDelete-- Phil, "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law"
This reminds me of my favorite scene from the britcom "Red Dwarf."
ReplyDeleteRimmer(barney fife type): We're switching to Red Alert!
Kryten (deadpan android) Are you sure, sir? That WILL mean changing the bulb!
Hey, it's better than the French system... which I guess has once again been upgraded to collaborate (upgraded from surrender, which was upgraded from hide... run ...)
ReplyDeleteYea, we scoff, but if the shit went down tomorrow and they didn't try to have some lame assed warning suystem, people would accuse them of not doing enough to protect the paople. So they do something useless and expencive that probably won't do any good because we're all to tired of it to pay attention. Cover yer ass with the taxpayers money, again.
ReplyDeleteI've been on Alert Level Grumpy for almost five years.
ReplyDeleteNobody wants to see me go to Alert Level Miffed. They wouldn't like me at Alert Level Miffed.