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We've gotten this warning that says we should watch out for Al Qaeda meanies getting their hands on fuel trucks, which could be used as terror weapons.

As for the efficacy of fuel trucks as terror weapons, lemme tell ya, they would work unbelievably great. Fire departments everywhere know about fuel truck fires called bleves... which is an acronym for a boiling liquid explosive velocity fire... and describes a fuel truck fire in which one tank spills and burns, boiling the gasoline or fuel in the second tank and causing a massive and highly destructive explosion.

Now... does that mean that members of Al Qaeda may steal fuel trucks, crash them into something and start a bleve incident that would kill many people in a huge explosion?

That's the information we're getting from Al Qaeda detainees at Gitmo. Is any of it true? Who knows?

Was the Scuba alert true? Maybe. Nothing has happened yet, but it might.

Was the bank scare true? Maybe, but nothing happened.

Is this Fourth of July scare stuff true? We'll see.

So should the authorities be giving us these alerts, or are they just making life unnecessarily miserable?

As informed citizens, we should realize that these alerts are not weather reports. It's not like we have satellites that can detect terrorist storms on the horizon. We're getting this information from people who hate us, and people who may lie.

At the same time, we shouldn't complain about alerts that turn out to be non-events. Knowing this stuff is better than not knowing. A warning might help someone somewhere spot something that may help thwart another terrorist attack.

Listen to the warnings, stay calm and — as my dad used to say — keep your eyes peeled.

That's My Word.

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