Hawaii's Big Skeer

Saturday morning last , or at least 28 minutes of it, must have been a real 'doozie' for those Hawaiians, and tourists,  who weren't sleeping through it.  Some lummox at Civil Defense HQ  accidentally toggled the switch  that posts the alert for incoming rocket strikes - assuming there are a variety of such alerts.  All of a sudden individual cell phones received the 'automated message'. If you were messaging the family, back on the mainland, over a vacation breakfast, they had a few minutes to wish you hadn't done that Hawaiian get-away.  TV programs were interrupted with a red 'warning bar' scrolling across the screen indicating ICBM, imminent and take cover - a British premier league soccer game - was one I noticed. The warnings triggered 'somebodies' else to toggle local air raid sirens (which had, we are told, recently been part of the high-intensity 'training' going on - the NORK's threat to civilization, eh?). So a cacophony of sound (I was going to say not heard since the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, but they've 'upgraded' the sound to a sort of eerie, alien 'warbling' - that none save a sound engineer, or Darby O'Gill,   has ever heard) added to the already heightened tensions.  Road traffic took a turn for the worse as people pulled-off to the side as instructed, and abandoned their cars, while others bolted for home or the office. One fellow even tossed his toddler into a storm drain for protection.

It only took Civil Defence 28 minutes - in consultation with every other attack detection and warning agency on 'erth', the four branches of the armed forces in the Pacific, National Security HQ and, no doubt, the White House - to determine that one, there was no incoming attack and two, someone had blundered. I guess the notion of just turning things off isn't in the 'play book'.

Which all leads one to believe that the CD warning system might be tied into something automatic with the 'manual override' that caused the problem. And that 'the human element' doesn't have immediate access to real-time awareness of an actual threat situation.  Next time a faulty chip or sensor could trigger a warning and nobody might 'know' for more than an hour - although  real incoming missiles from eastern Asia would have a flight time of between 13 and 20 minutes - so the loud 'bangs' interspersed with the alien noises and the pandemonium might 'prove' something. A blinding white flash or two, would shut everything to fuck up.

The White House took until later on Saturday to comment.  Thank goodness the President might have been 'occupied' - taking a Trump dump,  or entertaining some overpaid, over-injected "golf  tournament diversion" and didn't make one of those crucial  '2 pm decisions'.  I'm pretty sure somebody important was asking if the Norks, or the Chinese or the Russians,  might not have 'stealth ICBMs? And shouldn't we let off a few just to be careful?   I visualize Pence and the Prosyliterians poring over 'the Big Board' down in the war bunker.

There's possibly a book, or two, in this one.

The Trump dump emoji

                    Mia Khalifa - last weeks 'meme' for Islamic 'wummin' and golf diverter

What ever happened away from the news is starting to take on the aspects of human nature at its best and worst.  Honeymooning couples celebrated their last few minutes together with a glass of wine and render expressions of eternal love. Others used the opportunity to do some crime. One fellow stiffed his young child into a manhole to help him, or her,  survive. Others made tearful calls home , bidding farewell - courtesy of our interconnected whirled.  I'm pretty sure more than a couple hit their knees to 'get right' with 'God'  or simply bent over, quietly,  to kiss their ass good-bye.


 To-day it's looking like the 'book' would be a revised CD manual, for the only thing America sees going wrong is that this was 'only' a false alarm. the notion of it actually being a real alarm is discounted as - well - not very 'American',  or not very 'well-prepared to survive'.   After some clear-eyed thinking, 'upping the CD 'game' is being touted as the panacea.

Atomic war is still very much 'on the table'.