Foggy and still this early Tuesday on California’s north coast, but if our weather trend continues, sunshine and clear skies will be on tap for later today.

Air wise, northern California is currently under a smoke-hazard advisory due to a couple of forest fires in the region — 5 thousand acres are burning  in the Klamath National Forest area, which started last Wednesday and is about 4 percent contained (officials say it has human origins); while closer to home,  2.500 acres are under threat near the tiny mountain town of Butler Flat.

On the coast with sea breezes, though, we’ve been clear of the smoke.

(Illustration found here).

Beyond fires burning brush, smoke might be blowing up the collective ass of everyone with this ‘new’ terror threat based on Internet chatter, and the hauling-out of the WTC — Saxby Chambliss of Georgia piped up with a scary, scare: Chambliss told NBC’s Meet the Press that the intelligence was “very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”
And even as a US drone strike supposedly killed a car-load of supposedly al-Qaida terrorists, the threat continues on and 0n and on…

This entire reaction is line-for-line some of the same clamorous bullshit spewed by George Jr. and the Dick using the infamous color-coded threat levels a few years ago. And what’s the deal this time? Maybe coming on the heels of a backlash on the NSA horror — the best way to cut the mustard off the table is to flash a terror threat.
Bullshit or real:

For puzzled Americans who’ve been told that al-Qaida is on the decline, the latest warnings raise questions about how successful America’s war on terror has been and whether the terror group has been able to reorganize and reconstitute itself since bin Laden’s death in May 2011.

And that ridiculous color-coded crap came to an end in April 2011 when DHS decided it was stupid and set in place the National Terror Advisory System, which is crap too.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi nailed  the whole bullshit:

“Each and every time the threat level was raised, very rarely did the public know the reason, how to proceed, or for how long to be on alert. … I have raised concerns for years about the effectiveness of the system and have cited the need for improvements and transparency.
“Many in Congress felt the system was being used as a political scare tactic — raising and lowering the threat levels when it best suited the Bush Administration.”

In the current era, can anyone really believe the Obama administration?
Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post reacts:

It’s hard to argue with prudent caution.
At the same time, though, it’s hard to understand just how worried we should be.
Osama bin Laden lies in a watery grave.
His organization, once based in Afghanistan, is decimated.
Regularly we hear news of someone described as an al-Qaeda lieutenant being blasted to his reward by a drone-fired missile.
There is a disconnect between these successes and the need to close so many U.S. facilities — while issuing a general warning to travelers — in fear of another attack.
The truth is that U.S. foreign policy helped to create the decentralized al-Qaeda, a branch of which is believed to be trying to launch some kind of strike.

And a view on the process:

Counterterrorism analysts said Monday that the U.S. government’s global response to a threat emanating from Yemen, home to al Qaida’s most active affiliate, was at odds with how dismissive President Barack Obama was in a speech in May, when he said that “not every collection of thugs that labels themselves as al Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.”
…
“The actions the administration is taking now are deeply inconsistent with the portrait of al Qaida strength the administration has been painting,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.
U.S. officials have been secretive about what precise information led to the worldwide travel advisory and embassy closings, but a Yemeni official told McClatchy on Sunday that authorities had intercepted “clear orders” from al Qaida leader Ayman Zawahiri to Nasir al Wuhayshi, the head of the affiliate in Yemen, to carry out an attack.

Scare tactics, however, do work.