Way to go

There was a big accident on I-95 yesterday south of Baltimore, involving a tanker falling from a ramp onto the Interstate and melting everything and everyone nearby.

No big deal; you live in a big city, you have to expect a mammoth road-melting accident once every decade or so. But here's the part that I hate:

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said there were no indications that the crash was an act of terrorism, a possibility many in the area feared when they heard the explosion and saw the tall cloud of smoke climbing from the fire.

People, I'm just going to go ahead and say what nobody else will: the terrorists won.

OK? Happy, 9/11 hijackers? It's almost two and a half years later, and you've got us fearing the worst every time something bad happens. Hats off to you. Mission accomplished. You've given us the Patriot Act and double-secret arrests; we fought all these wars throughout our history to protect our freedom, and now we're our own worst oppressors. You gave us the asinine "terror color scale", which I predict will never fall below yellow in its lifetime, and the unnecessary full-scale invasion of a similarly brown-skinned country. You wanted a jihad and you got it!

And we're so skittish that we cower in fear every time some bad accident happens. We're not a brave country any more; we're a bunch of Chicken Littles, running around with our heads cut off.

So way to go!

Anyway, I've got to return these books to the library before Ashcroft gets suspicious, so see ya...