Black Helicopters over your city?

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

Earlier this week, I was getting ready to cook dinner in my Portland, Oregon home when I heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. Usually, it means nothing: news copters heading out to a traffic jam, or a Lifeflight copter returning from rural eastern Oregon to the hospital across the river.

This copter got increasingly louder, shaking my window frames, so I dashed outside to get a closer look.

The fucker was close enough that I could see masked, black-uniformed dudes hanging out of the open sides, WITH WEAPONS. What's more, the helicopter was completely black--no markings of any kind. It was hovering over a nearby major artery, and it couldn't have been more than 300-400 feet off the ground.

I raced back inside to my computer, though I didn't know what I hoped (or dared not hope) to find: war? terror attack? Martial fucking Law?

The next day, the story broke that Army and Navy personnel were conducting urban warfare training, and that while permission had been given months ago, they had decided to issue a media alert only 20 minutes before the exercise began. I later learned that more than one copter had been flying through downtown Portland, BETWEEN skyscrapers. The local paper's article even contained one account from a woman who was at eye-level with the pilot from her 12th-floor room, and she said the copter was so close she could see the pilot's teeth.

George Bush Sr. once called this town "Little Beirut" due in part to the vehement protests that greeted a visit from his presidency. Tinfoil hat rakishly tilted on my noggin, I started to wonder why Portland of all places would be the training ground for these guys, especially since the closest major military bases are two or three major cities away. Were they sending their copter crews out to familiarize themselves with flying in this city in particular (Urban Pacification Training)? Did they do the same thing in other cities? Yes, it sounds pretty paranoid, but this was a massive display of arms which was seriously intimidating.

Please chime in if you have experienced anything similar where you live.

[FreakinDJ]

1. Preparing for Marshal Law

[gateley]

5. Why do you think they're anticipating it'll come to that? nt

[FreakinDJ]

13. And if Obama is assassinated just days prior to the election

What are you going to do…

They have already built the internment camps

They already have provisions written into the Patriot Act

You don’t think some of the Far Right Christian Fundies are just “Born Again KKK”

[ullad]

57. My five cents

I believe that is why Hillary was not so ready to concede. She was waiting for something to happen to Obama. But I could be wrong.

[bertman]

22. Not to be a nit-picker, but I believe it's "martial" law.

And you are 100% correct. That is precisely what they are doing.

I would hope this "exercise" would encourage ALL of the residents of Portland to take up hunting in a big way. Go out and buy rifles and shotguns and lots of ammunition. And, of course, as all good
Americans must do, LEARN TO SHOOT ACCURATELY.

P.S. It's also good to get a hunting license so you can feed your family and friends.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[reggie the dog]

53. get within a football field of me and a rifle

and you can have problems, well half a football field anyway.

[eshfemme]

76. This fear is possibly what made me take on a moderate position in terms of gun rights.

I'm still against assault weapons like AK-47s (no matter how you fucking parse it, you don't use a fucking AK when you go hunting) and handgun control (as that really does add to urban crime) but I'm for allowing rifles and shotguns. Plus, shotguns are supposed to be the best for defending from home invasions.

[benEzra]

77. "Assault weapon" is Brady-speak for the most popular *civilian* rifles in the USA.

I'm still against assault weapons like AK-47s (no matter how you fucking parse it, you don't use a fucking AK when you go hunting) and handgun control (as that really does add to urban crime) but I'm for allowing rifles and shotguns. Plus, shotguns are supposed to be the best for defending from home invasions.

"Assault weapon" is Brady-speak for the most popular *civilian* rifles in the USA, e.g. small- and intermediate-caliber, non-automatic carbines with modern styling. More of us own "assault weapons" than hunt, and around three times as many of us own handguns as hunt.

Military AK-47's are already restricted to police/military only in this country, without special Federal authorization (BATFE Form 4), under the Title 2/Class III provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934. Whenever someone talks about banning "assault weapons," they are talking about banning the most popular non-automatic civilian rifles in the nation (AR-15's, SKS's, civilian AK lookalikes, etc.), NOT military AK-47's, which are already banned.

Sorry to belabor the point, but that misconception has already cost us so many elections since '94 that it needs to be addressed before it costs us any more. The gun issue isn't about hunting; it's about handguns and modern-looking rifles, primarily.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

[gateley]

2. They were MASKED?

I don't see why any of the "good guys" should have to be masked, do you?

Kicking to see if others have seen something similar in their cities, and to keep you company! :pals:

[parabellumklr]

11. Its called

train like you fight. If you fight with a mask then you train with a mask.

[gateley]

20. Again, why should the "good guys" have to be masked in our own

cities and towns?

[hack89]

21. Because they were pretending that they were in a foreign city

train as you fight.

[FreakinDJ]

25. From a Veteran that trained with Special Forces

I NEVER SAW NOT 1 FUCKING MASK

[hack89]

26. From another vet that trained with Special Forces

I have.

What's your point - that the masks are a tip off that the New World Order with their Black Helicopters have finally showed their faces? In broad daylight? With a press alert? Got it :eyes:

[FreakinDJ]

30. Gas mask / Camo paint - yes in 72 - 75

Even spent a short time working right next to CAMP's helicopter base in Mendocino Co. watching all the Rambo-wanna bes flying out in Huey's with M-16s in their lap. Even they didn't want to be bothered and over heated wearing mask

I'm thinking Black Water

[hack89]

32. Despite the fact that the 160th SOAR have been conducting urban training for years?

this is not new - it is not even new since Bush took office.

Different war, different tactics, different equipment.

[FreakinDJ]

33. Sure in Kentuky and Georgia where they are stationed

but were talking Portland Or.

[hack89]

36. The 160th has a detachment in Fort Lewis WA

collocated with the 1st Special Forces Group and a Ranger battalion.

The Regiment consists of three battalions. The 1st and 2nd Battalions are located at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, while the 3rd Battalion is located at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia. Additionally, Company F and Company G are located at Fort Lewis, Washington.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/160soar.htm

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

38. Between there and Portland

Seattle (N. of Ft. Lewis), Tacoma, Olympia, Vancouver (WA). Why put on so many miles? Conceivably, part of the training: long nap-of-the-earth flights before arriving at an insertion point. They had to come from somewhere.

The masks they were wearing were like neckwarmers pulled up over their noses.

[parabellumklr]

42. If you're talkin'

the 70's, Hueys, and M-16s then you are talking ANCIENT HISTORY. lol. You should really try to update yourself.

[FreakinDJ]

44. At least I can talk from My Own Experience

Not from TV or video game charactures

[lynnertic]

67. Welcome to DU! Now don't be a snot.

That last snipe wasn't necessary, we're supposed to be on the same side here.

[greguganus]

79. Groovy! n/t

[reggie the dog]

54. ha ha ha

CAMP, that really cut down on cannabis consumption....

[lynnertic]

66. Blackwater helicopters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/20/AR2007102001325_pf.html
This article says that Blackwater's helicopter fleet in Iraq numbered 24 in Oct 07.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/26/our_mercenaries_in_iraq_blackwater_inc
Some of them are gunships.

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2007/09/for-the-soldier.html
Their choppers are painted black w/ white stripe.

[gateley]

29. Gotcha. Thanks.

I understood the train as you fight approach, but I was only thinking US cities. :tinfoilhat:

[FreakinDJ]

31. I agree with you

[parabellumklr]

43. It isn't a matter of location.

Its a matter of doing it the same way every time. You train like you fight so that when the time comes to fight you don't forget those silly little details, like putting your helmet on or wearing your vest. If the mask is SOP then they wear the mask, not optional.

[lynnertic]

68. so that they can escape accountability?

[willing dwarf]

35. Black helicopter today by prison

I live in a rural area near a major prison that serves the Philadelphia prison system. This morning there was a similar black helicopter that flew very low over head. I was working outside, and the noise was so loud I did a strange thing, I shook my fist at it.

I figured it was related to the prison that it was there, but it didn't occur to me that there was a training of some sort going on.

My work in the inner city gives me plenty of chances to see that the injustice system of this country is set up to protect the property of those who have from the clutches of those who have not, so none of this is a surprise -- though it does force us all to consider where we stand in relation to the question of the poor and dispossessed, and who we serve, what we protect and why.

My allegiance is to my family and my community. My country sometimes feels so lost. Makes me feel so sad.

[treading_water]

3. K & R because this really freaked me out

and I'm wondering the same thing.

[lligrd]

4. We've Had Them Here Since The War Started

Live pretty close to an airforce base. They annoy the heck out of me.

[hack89]

6. Happens pretty frequently

been going on for years.

[jaksavage]

7. They flew around Salem too.

At night!

[quiet.american]

8. Absolutely! Yes, it's happening in NY, too.

My mom mentioned that over the past two weeks, she's seen "military-type" helicopters lined up just over the East River here early in the morning, and, like you, was trying to figure out what's going on.

[Cleita]

9. I get black helicopters all the time.

But I believe it's because I live near an AFB to the south and an Army camp to the north.

[parabellumklr]

10. I have little black birdies fly over every day.

Of course I live about 4 miles off of the end of the runway at Ft Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group, and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regmt.

What you see there is called TRAINING. The way our forces keep on the cutting edge is training, training, and more training. The people you see in those "little birds" are among the finest and best trained in the world.

[dkofos]

14. With black masks??

[hack89]

45. Have you every considered that it is cold when you are hanging out of a helo

perhaps it was nothing more than them protecting their faces from the elements. They could have been in the air for a long time.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

15. Of that I have no doubt

And I want them to continue to be the best trained fighting force. But massive exercises such as this one, directly overhead a major population center, with no advance warning? I'm sorry, but they meant to intimidate.

[oldskool]

12. It's called globalization

NWO same thing. Know your candidates. Wake up America before
it is to late.

[Mme. Defarge]

16. What day was this?

I live in Portland (Beaumont/Alameda) and wasn't aware of it. I DO remember seeing black helicopters swoop over the city when Bush Sr. was in town (early 90's, I think), and it was chilling then. While I try not to dwell on my fears, they are always close to the surface. So, my reaction (second hand) mirrors yours. I have always worried that Portland could be a target of some serious intimidation or worse by the thugs in power.

Is this an actual photo of what you described? Did you take it? Thanks for the post.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

39. Pic source

is the Oregonian's web presence, OregonLive.com :

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/hear_the_buzz_its_defense_trai.html

I was so freaked out I didn't even think of grabbing a camera.

[nilram]

17. k&r. Funny it should start happening during an election season.-nt

[Metta]

18. I've seen them flying over Johnstown, PA minus visible weapons.

John Murtha's district.

[Patiod]

19. I looked out my office window one day last year

and there was a black helicoptor flying by labeled "POLICE". Not Philadelphia Police Dept or FBI or PA State Police. And someone was hanging out the door, with a machine-gun looking thing. Very creepy.

Looking out the window, we saw a bunch of them, circling the new skyscraper near the Amtrak station. Finally, my boss called the all-news radio station. A few minutes later, the station announced that they had received a lot of calls from listeners, and that a movie was being filmed. Which explained the generic "police" label, I guess.

Recently, we had a huge inferno with displaced 400 people from a huge apartment complex. All day and through the next, we were subject to flyovers from the TV stations.

I kept telling my SO I was flashing back to 'Nam.
He just rolled his eyes: "you were 12 when that war ended"

[greguganus]

80. Flashbacks at 12. lol. n/t

[bertman]

23. It has not happened where I live yet. But in eastern North Carolina there have been several joint

exercises with Army or Marines in conjunction with local law enforcement. There have been videos posted of these exercises but I can't reference the sites right now.

Apparently they are practicing sealing off residential neighborhoods and small communities. Some of the residents have been pretty unhappy about this but it hasn't made the local or national news, that I'm aware of.

You have to remember that eastern North Carolina is the home of Fort Bragg (Army), Pope Air Force Base, Camp LeJeune (Marines), Seymour-Johnson AFB, Cherry Point Marine Air Base AND NOW BlackWater in Moyock.

We Tarheels are very patriotic and supportive of our military folks so we would probably be the last in the country to complain about training of any kind, no matter how scary and fascistic it might be.

[hack89]

27. Here is an article from 1999

it has been a regular occurrence in US cities for a long time.

http://www.brianwilson.net/pages/deadlyforce.html

Whether they should or not is a different matter.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. Years ago, I heard a call-in show in which a woman in rural Oregon

said that black helicopters had been buzzing her property and stampeding her animals, so she opened up the phone book and called every federal agency she could find to tell them to lay off. When she got to the Drug Enforcement Agency, someone there admitted that they had been sending helicopters to her area to hunt for hidden marijuana patches. She told them if they wanted to look for marijuana on her property, they could damn well get a search warrant and come in on land, and that she now knew whom to sue if any of her animals were injured.

In urban Oregon, I did see Darth Vader troops come out to "pacify" crowds at anti-war protests.

[conspirator]

34. That's not the ALIEN ACTIVITY kind of helicopter

These are:



and, the scariest thing: they're totally silent

[Starry Messenger]

41. um, what?

What is an alien activity helicopter?

MPK

[undergroundpanther]

50. Ummm MPK

Looks like that poster is so scared of looking like a paranoid to others, So belittling you for bringing up black helicopters will let him think he is saner than thou. It's all neurotic bullshit about being normal enough....
It's a stupid projection.Don't censor your thoughts over the hung up neurotic normals.
Just think of this song next time some ass tries to tell you what to think...


Are you Normal Enough by snog

Normal people suffocate you
till the last breath
They clutter footpaths
clutter highways with their living death
Are you normal enough?

Normal people stare at you
wherever you may go
Normal people dispise difference
to the normal people show
Are you normal enough?

Normal people stay inside
stay in the normal zone
You shed a tear at the zoo
yet you chew on flesh and bone
Are you normal enough
To take the shit that they dish out?
Are you normal enough
To breath it in, breath it out?

Proud to be a consumer
proud to be a drone
Proud to believe "sixty minutes"
from the safety of your home
Proud to swallow every lie
proud to give a cheer
As you witness another murder
of the enemy of the year
Are you normal enough
To be just the same?
Are you normal enough
To be in the normal game?

[Starry Messenger]

70. Were you replying to me or to conspirator?

n/t

MPK

[conspirator]

62. It's the kind of helicopter seen around UFO landing and cattle mutilation sites

Those are usually Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk models, sometimes chinooks also pursue UFOs

There are good threads about the subject here:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/tags/helicopter.html

[reggie the dog]

55. I was out planting cannabis a year and a half ago

here in France and damn if it I never heard the motor of the chopper until I heard a faint swoosh of the blades. I covered my face looked up and damned if the cops weren't but a hundred feet directly over me. I ran to the trees my bike was hidden under, put my emergency change of cloting on, tucked the long hair under my had, and came out of the bramble half a mile away. I rode like hell then and made it back to town. A week later I went back and picked up my clothes from under the bushes. The bastards must have landed because all six of the foot tall plants I planted were gone. At least I got out ok. I think my instinct to cover my face and look between my fingers as well as the bike and other clothes hidden under the trees saved my ass. Gurellia grower till the end folks.

[rufus dog]

37. I had some last week by my house in Orange County, CA

Very strange.

[reggie the dog]

56. DEA???????

[DailyGrind51]

40. Soon they'll be OUR helicopters!

"'As a slew of U.S. Airforce jets flew overhead (Ron)Silver says he was outraged at such militarism and said so to his fellow Dems,who he thought were in favor of butter but not guns. A Clinton administration official tried to calm him by saying: "Don't worry, they're OUR jets now.'"

[undergroundpanther]

51. Can I use one?

I'd love to just once be the one to enforce Coultergiests ,limpballs, woof blitzed,and Pukannons traffic speed by aircraft..hehehe..
:evilgrin:

Panther picks up the mic,*cough* sir/Ma'am, you are going 2mph over the speed limit!!Pull over immediately !! Oh shit butterfingers..
:nuke:
Bwahahahahaaaaaa!!

[DailyGrind51]

63. I turned on WCPT this morning and heard neo-con Jake Hartford, immediately thinking the same thing!

My letters to General Manager Harvey Wells don't seem to be effective?:grr: :nuke:

[cobalt1999]

46. No, but I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic

Maybe if I was, I'd believe in secret government "black helicopters"

[undergroundpanther]

49. Sometimes they really are out to get you.

Sometimes not.
Depends on how much you know.
And depends if people are too scared of being called a paranoid schizophrenic to discuss things like this.As long as you are scared of the labels "paranoid" and "conspiracy theorists" you will never be able to talk about these issues like an adult, or see what is right in front of your face with those idealogical and dare I say it"paranoid of being seen as a paranoid by people" blinders on.
Sometimes it's GOOD to question authority.

[cobalt1999]

64. But most of the time it is paranoia.

No real paranoid or conspiracy theorist believes their thinking has gotten a little wacko. That's the difficulty of dealing with nuts.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

71. The joke goes

"I know you're all saying "he's paranoid" behind my back!

[reggie the dog]

58. Talk to cannabis farmers in

Hawaii, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, or California. I have experience with outdoor growers in Kentucky and Tennessee and they have told me about black helicopters flying around looking for weed patches since at least the early 90s.

[cobalt1999]

65. Cannabis farmers who also are a little paranoid.

Who would have thought that?

[reggie the dog]

83. not paranoid

just observant. I have a friend who uprooted Maui Wowwie as a memeber of the Marine Corps during the late 90's. They used helicopters to go to the fields. Perhaps they used unmarked helicopters because of that whole idea that troops should not be used in the USA during peace time....

[reggie the dog]

59. Just because your parinoid

don't mean their not after you...

[warren pease]

75. Neither am I, but I got a little damn sick of watching & listening to these gung ho assholes...

... cruising by my house, which is about 20 minutes south of Portland. During June and July, at least two of these noisy pieces of shit would show up almost daily and run what from the ground looked like search grids. They've since disappeared except for maybe one flight a week or so. They seem to be done with whatever they were doing.

The questions then become, what exactly are they done with? Why did they run this exercise in the first place? What consequences will the peasants suffer?

If treated as isolated events, these urban warrior demos are just weird anomalies of no significance that happen at random intervals in BushWorld(tm). Without context, they're of no real concern.

Pretending that events are random acts with no history or future has been a big help in mass media's decades-old American dumbfication project.

When they're told by some blow-dried idiot news reader on CNN that there's no pattern to anything, no such thing as a series of related events, that history is irrelevant and the future is completely unpredictable -- people gradually learn to ignore anything more complicated than the weekly d-list celebrity fuck up or the latest report of a mutant amphibian eating a cocker spaniel on a crowded Florida beach.

So you don't believe in a secret government that likes to show its power by using unmarked helicopters with armed thugs hanging out the sides.

Even so, we have a huge body of evidence to consult, most of which tells us that Cheney's been running a shadow government the entire time the coup has been occupying the executive branch. And probably long before that, given his history of turning up in the kinds of jobs that fit secretive psychopaths perfectly.

When clearly and honestly confronting the nature of the Bush criminal enterprise, I fail to see how anyone could expect anything but the worst from these totalitarian scumbags. I think it's impossible for a rational, un-propagandized, awake person to look at the past 7.75 years without a sense of impending doom at these swine's next assault on "the homeland."

It's not as if they're hiding anything. These are blatant, in-your-face exercises designed to instill the proper levels of fear and obedience in the general population. From what I see and hear, it's working pretty well.


wp

[TankLV]

47. The tourist companies have all kinds of colors here, black, white, green...

don't remember what color the news copters are here in Vegas, either...

Haven't really looked - until one of them crashes...

[undergroundpanther]

48. those fuckers fly over my house at least once a week

sometimes so low I think if I tossed it hard enough I could ding the rotor with a rock. I hate it when they shine the damn searchlights in my bedroom window.They are quiet so I just get a blast of light. I live kinda near aberdeen proving ground like 15 mins or less away .I hear shelling, at aberdeen once in a while(WTF)!! and of course the fuckers are out there hovering.

One night I woke up from the noise at 3am, I dunno if they were black or not but they had six helicopters out in a formation just hovering over an empty field for an hour I could see them from my back porch.Nobody dropped out of the helicopters.WTF were they doing wasting fuel??!!

One day after xmas when my mom was going to move out, my neighbor 3 houses down from mine got disappeared. They had a full on military assault on the family. Asshole fbi in my front yard blocking my driveway said the guy was suicidal.I know that is horse shit.
I don't trust the military at all.I think they are mostly thugs who are living in Stanley Milgram's electric shock land and the Stanford prison experiment 24-7. I''l never trust them,as long as they follow the shock doctrine and will protect rich pigs' property over people's lives. Last time I looked I could not see my house on google maps close up because APG has censored part of the area in my county.

[reggie the dog]

52. They are lucky

no one shot at them. No markings, weapons etc. Hell one american with a stone in their hand can take down a chopper....

[greguganus]

81. Yeah I saw Rambo do that. n/t

[susanna]

60. All the time, though I've not noticed masked personnel...let me explain:

Me and DH live on the border of Michigan and Canada, on the Detroit River. We get training/sometimes black "helis" through here in the good weather months like no one's business. They're usually Canadian Coast Guard, and when we hear the ""thwump, thwump, thwump" of the helis over the house, we just kind of let it go - like a tornado siren that goes off monthly, even when there is no inclement weather. We don't really even look to the media to tell us about planned operations, as they rarely bother to warn.

The only time we really hear and recognize them is in the wintertime; when they're out then, usually it's because a boat has encountered trouble or an ice fisherman has been reported missing. Then, it's really, really serious. And we do not like that at all; yet we always notice. And then they're the white/orange Canadian and/or Amercian version of the helis.:-(

on edit: yez, I ken spel.

[Norrin Radd]

61. They always fly them over Lake Union here in Seattle on July 4th.

[SammyWinstonJack]

69. While I haven't seen any, I have heard them. Loud and shaking my windows.

I'm in San Antonio,Texas.

[RB TexLa]

72. Shouldn't this have the scary voice over "The NWO gets you, you go to the open air camp, look at the

turnstiles, you can go in, BUT YOU CAN NEVER COME OUT!"

:rofl:

[dflprincess]

73. Six flew over my apartment building today

(all at once). They were headed in the general direction of the Air Guard base that is near the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. I suppose it might make some sense that we'd be seeing them around here this week.

[Liberal In Texas]

74. I had a look at your picture in photoshop.

It looks like one of the variations of a MD 500 (formerly Hughes). I fiddled with the levels and there is a registration number on it in a similar position to this one:

The numbers aren't very readable but it doesn't look like it starts with an "N" which would be a US civilian number. It looks like it starts with an "8" so probably military. (In this picture, the registration number starts with "G" which designates Great Britain.)

[benEzra]

78. The photo in the OP looks like an MH-6M...

which is a military variant of the civilian helicopter you posted. Note the six-bladed main rotor in the OP photo, which distinguishes the MH-6M from earlier models. The helicopter you posted has a four-bladed main rotor.

Here's a photo of an MH-6/AH-6 variant. It's definitely a military bird.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-6_Little_Bird

The MH-6 Little Bird, and its attack variant, the AH-6, were originally modified OH-6As used for special operations aviation. They have since been developed into single-engine light helicopters with a single five-bladed main rotor, based on the MD 500E. The newest version, the MH-6M, is based on the MD 530F and has a single, six-bladed main rotor and four-bladed tail rotor.

[MinM]

82. Warren Pease had an interesting take about a similar operation in Portland.

Enumerating the reasons why Portland is a prime candidate for 'operations' such as these:

Why Portland?

Well, why not? Somebody's got to be the target. Putting random chance aside, there are several good reasons why Portland was chosen to host this year's main anti-terrorist event. We're told Portland's mayor and Oregon's governor actually requested that Portland be included in the exercises. I'm assuming those requests were made with one arm pinned behind their backs by an ex-pro wrestler turned spook who keeps raising the wrist just a tiny bit more...

So why is Portland on the short list for a simulated nuclear terrorist attack on a major American city that may just "go live?" First, it's reachable by water, which preserves the old "suitcase nuke delivered by boat to a harbor near you" scenario we've all heard for years. Second, it's among the bluest of American coastal cities and, while San Francisco must present a tempting target, it's home to several major banks, insurance companies and other GOP infrastructure favorites. Third, LA and Seattle, a couple more anti-GOP cities with bull's-eyes on their civic centers, are too strategic to what's left of the economy. And fourth, Portland's kind of . . . disposable...

And to top it off, people in Portland don't seem to respond with the appropriate levels of hysteria to things like Islamic radicals, phony wars on terror, color-coded alerts or the predictive rumblings of Chertoff's gut. They're more inclined to be concerned about the US shift from democratic republic to national security state, environmental abuse sanctioned and exacerbated by the Bush administration, the vanishing Constitution, massive corruption and profiteering both within the administration and among their favorite cronies -- and other stuff nobody's supposed to notice.

So, is Portland the scene of the "next 9/11?" This map depicts ground zero, the immediate kill zone, the less lethal surrounding areas and the projected path of the radiation plume. This is from a report called "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City"] authored by a think tank at Harvard called the Belfer Center and released in May of this year. Interestingly, Portland is only identifiable by street names and knowledge of local geography. Two similar blast area maps from the same source are clearly labeled "Washington, D.C."...