America ia gearing up. I still find people who are happily uninformed or apathetic about what is going on. Perhaps they feel that Sept. 11 was an anomaly and couldn't happen again. Perhaps these issues are too upsetting to contemplate. Whatever the reason, rest assured that there are good men and women working day and night to try to stop the next al-Qaeda attack:

WASHINGTON - Disaster teams are ready to respond to any terrorist strike by al-Qaeda, and special equipment is monitoring the air for biological agents in 30 cities, the Bush administration said yesterday.

Four days after the nation raised its terror alert to orange, or high, "credible reporting suggests al-Qaeda continues to desire to attack American interests," said Brian Roehrkasse of the Homeland Security Department. "People have their antennas up," he said.

President Bush spent Christmas at Camp David, Md., where he received updates from senior advisers and military aides, White House spokesman Jim Morrell said.

The raised threat level triggered activation of the disaster teams, composed of government experts from different agencies.

The DHS is a new and growing department. They definitely have there share of "this is how we've always done it" types who are living in a Sept 10 world. That world is gone and not all of us know it.