FEMA to Test Nationwide Emergency Alert System Today

2:13 EST. No test... or test fail.

This is, admittedly, an extremely large and complex undertaking.

Were you watching tv or listening to radio?

Radio... now 3:45 EST, and have not heard the alert. Did you get it?

Nope. I was listening to radio as well.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. It worked on that station.

Of course, the speach was garbled and competing with the noise part, so if it had been an actual emergency, I would have had no idea what it was, only that something bad was going to happen. With my luck, I'd move to higher ground in preparation for a flood.......................and it would turn out to be a tornado.

This test is being hauled in in 200 FEMA trailers from the coast.

Browney is driving the lead truck and he's lost in the fog, looking for a cataclysmic site.

"... you will then go and look it up on the internet to see what is really happening and where."

(This is not a test. A cyberattack has rendered all internet servers inoperable ....)

"The EAS would allow the president to disseminate information to the public in times of real emergency, which is why the government is so eager to make sure it actually works. All told, it'll last about 30 seconds (sic) ...."

Praise the Lord that they actually decided to try such a thing out BEFORE a true emergency occurred. Best to get the bugs worked-out during a period where the mistakes ("glitches") do not cause even WORSE snowballing events.

At least 1 nationwide radio system (speaking from first-hand experience) suffered numerous of its ("remote") stations being shut-down by this test, requiring re-set and re-start of each of those transmitters to get them back into operation.

Lots more than a mere 30 seconds lost.

Hmmm... will "Big Brother" next insist on having the power to turn your TV and/or radio "On" and/or "Off", and tune it to a select frequency....(?) (ok, which of our esteemed colleagues is already burying that technology 'deep-in-a-chip'...? Better NOT wake me at 3:10am unless my front door's been kicked-in...)

Hmmm... will "Big Brother" next insist on having the power to turn your TV and/or radio "On" and/or "Off", and tune it to a select frequency....(?)

No. Mark my words, it'll be the ability to take over the internet................just in case of an emergency, of course. This is part of what's got me freaked out over the net neutrality issue............................I just don't trust them.

"Yoikes!" [...said while trying to scrape the disbelief from the eye-sockets...] "THAT stuff (cynicism) 'rubs-off-and-grows'...!"

Your comments elsewhere got me searching a bit, and I hit an unanticipated eye-opener.

I recall having heard about (American's) phone calls being 'monitored' / 'logged', for the purpose of identifying persons involved with terrorists ... and I had largely shrugged that off. But, seeing the EXTENT of what's been done is simply staggering.

"...the NSA's (international) call-tracking program (which allows the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant ... a domestic program that began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks) ... has amassed "the largest database ever assembled in the world."

And then, to TOP THAT OFF ... "The National Security Agency (NSA) is developing a tool that George Orwell's Thought Police might have found useful: an artificial intelligence system designed to gain insight into what people are thinking....Known as Aquaint, which stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence"...

... an excerpt says:

"A supersmart search engine, capable of answering complex questions such as "What were the major issues in the last 10 presidential elections?" would be very useful for the public. But that same capability in the hands of an agency like the NSA - absolutely secret, often above the law, resistant to oversight, and with access to petabytes of private information about Americans - could be a privacy and civil liberties nightmare."

Who was it that said: "Be very afraid" ... ?

It's OK - just think pure thoughts (and wear boxing gloves in bed at night) and you'll be fine.

Sorry man!

The same thing has happened to me over the years. And I still don't get myself all worked up over crazy conspiracy theories, like the government being behind 9-11.

The things I try to keep up with, is not cynism, it's reality.

Yes.......................I'm scared. I'm scared I'm going to wake up one day, and everything that resembles freedom will be gone. It's not about whether I'm doing anything wrong or not. I'm not. It's about being herded into a group think mentality, in which only the government can watch over us and take care of us. I have no interest in living in that kind of society. I'd prefer to make my own decisions about everything. If I die doing something stupid..................so be it. I should have known better.