Feh, I say, Feh

A tornado appears to have zipped through the Hawthorne area... after five years I can still recognize Skyline drive and Saw Mill Road in the various TV reports. Being from Illinois, I'm a bit surprised at peoples' reactions to seeing a tornado. In Illinois, you hear there's a tornado and you head to the basement, wherever you are. Apparently in Hawthorne you walk outside and watch the storm come through. Sounds like either the Applebee's or the diner opposite the SMP exit may be damaged.

Via Metafilter we learn that the Department of Homeland Security ranks Indiana as being more vulnerable to terrorism than New York or the Washington DC area: Come One, Come All, Join the Terror Target List: The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

One business owner who learned from a reporter that a company named Amish Country Popcorn was on the list was at first puzzled. The businessman, Brian Lehman, said he owned the only operation in the country with that name.

“I am out in the middle of nowhere,” said Mr. Lehman, whose business in Berne, Ind., has five employees and grows and distributes popcorn. “We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here. No one would care.”

But on second thought, he came up with an explanation: “Maybe because popcorn explodes?”

Heading to dinner at Sakagura. Hopefully the food is more fresh than the website (never put dates on pages if you're not going to keep it up to date).