Tent city?

I wonder if they will use Homestead Air Force Base in Miami to temporarily house Haitian earthquake victims? It was done after Hurricane Andrew. A little bird whispered that in my ear. We shall see.

Chatter

Lot's of nervous chatter in the last few days from unnamed government sources about new threats of a terrorist attack. This from the NYT:

“They continue to plot, and one of their major goals is to hit the United States,” one official said, adding that he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record. “Everyone understands that, and we have fresh, credible evidence of it.”
The official indicated that the government had obtained the intelligence in the last few days.
“Our concern about AQAP has intensified,” said a second intelligence official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, referring to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. “The threat from Al Qaeda did not end on Dec. 25.”

The Associated Press is reporting its own sourcesas saying that security is increasing on all flights into the U.S. because of an al-Qaida threat from Yemen.
This in addition to what one of my own Homeland Security sources told me Monday, that 25 similar plots like the Christmas Day incident were already planned and ready to be executed on airlines by AQAP.

How many?

New reports this morning that more air marshals will be assigned to overseas flights.
According to the BBC, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the U.S. is"taking an additional set of aviation security precautions to protect the American people."

"Some of these measures include enhanced random screening, additional federal air marshals on certain routes and adding individuals of concern to our terrorist watch list system," she said."

The Associated Press just sort of threw these numbers out there:

The administration has already added hundreds of air marshals to the existing force of more than 4,000. Napolitano said the air marshals would be assigned to flights on certain routes. There were no air marshals on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas or on the same flight the following day.

Really? A force of 4,000? That seems misleading...

It's a culteral thingy

Nigeria says it will soon deploy its own air marshals on flights to the U.S. as a security measure after the Christmas day attack by its citizen, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab.
Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority Director Harold Demuren said the decision demonstrates Nigeria’s commitment to aviation security, but also noted they are displeased that the U.S. wants more thorough screening for all passengers originating from Nigeria.

“We are very dissatisfied about this and we have made it very clear. We hope that this will be revisited very quickly,” Demuren said.
“We have had 100 percent examination at our airports, we are introducing three-D full-body scanners, we are doing second screening of all hand luggage, we have met all ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) security directives,” he said.
He said the request to put air marshals on U.S.-bound flights came from the Obama administration and Nigeria consented.
Demuren said Nigeria will ask the United States to help train air marshals.

But this article from the Daily Caller sheds some light on what it's actually like to fly in and out of Yemen. If all the passengers have daggers, will two guns toted by air marshals make a difference in security?

The airline permitted daggers but no firearms, and the scanning equipment was non-existent, so airport personnel patted everyone down but let everyone keep their big daggers. Of course, no one was going to be able to use a dagger to hijack a plane filled with 30 other men who also have daggers, so in a sense the system worked.

Ice, ice baby

All that stuff floating in the bay, upon closer inspection, turns out to be ice.
I'm just saying.
But it's a beautiful day outside the bunker, with temperatures screeching out of the 30s and into the 40s, I think I'll go outside. And take a closer inspection of that ice.

Stay tuned ...

I"m not missing in action, I'm just
1. Basking in the glory of my book that hit stories Tuesday: "Buried Alive" by Roy Hallums with Audrey Hudson. Roy, who is a retired Naval commander, was working as a contractor in Iraq when he was kidnapped and held hostage for nearly a year before he was rescued by Special Forces. Buy it now, you'll thank me later.
2. Working on an exclusive story/blog on the Federal Air Marshal Service.
3. Working on the resume and applying for jobs. I'm unemployed people! While I enjoy working for free here, a girl's gotta make a living.

Must read

The Daily Caller is a new Internet publication by Tucker Carlson that debuted this week and is making waves in DC becoming a fast must read.
This interview by Jason Mojica is a real eye-opener:

Dubbed the “hate-mail cleric” by British tabloids, Anjem Choudary is London’s headline-grabbing Islamist who wants to see the United Kingdom under Shariah law and the queen under a burqa.