Be very afraid.

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular annual reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Yeah. Terrorists would never think of using the internet.

Although I'm uncertain as to the ultimate utility of knowing all the State Capitals and presidential election results and birth and death dates of many celebrities.

And the weather predictions in the Farmer's Almanac are always wrong anyway.

Curse you, Benjamin Franklin! Why, oh WHY did you invent such a dangerous weapon? Now they'll be interfering with our crop rotation and then it'll be hell trying to figure out what to do with all those peanuts.

I get a little worried when real news articles start looking like ones from The Onion.

"During World War II, the U.S. government banned the Old Farmer's Almanac for several weeks."

But why, you might ask? Maybe it was because it contained instructions on how to hypnotize a chicken.

So, what's the next step? We label Ben as a terrorist?

There go half our historical sites here in Philadelphia...

Technically that whole generation of folks were terrorists... at least as far as Crazy King George was concerned.

Does anyone besides me find it odd that almanacs are now a sign of danger, but a longhaired commoner like myself drew no attention whatsoever for using a GPS both in the airport and on board aircraft recently?

I do that on almost every flight I travel on -- it rocks. When you look out the window, you know what you're looking at and you get to know when the pilot is not telling the entire truth. On my last flight, both directions, the pilot noted that we would be cruising at a "comfortable 30,000 feet" all while I knew we had topped out at an amazing 42,000! (Actually, you could tell almost just by looking at the sky, which had turned an astouding deep blue.) On getting home I looked up the callsign of the aircraft, found out that it is a newer model 737 that has the ability to go that high, and did further reading to find out that plenty of flights are pushed up there due to crowding. Neat.

Another fun thing I keep doing that I always fear will get plenty of attention is to take a radio scanner to the airport -- on picking up people, I don't wait in the terminal staring at a television screen, I go to the top of the short term deck and listen for them to come in then watch them land. Never get a second look from security, either, but plenty of passengers who pass by ask questions which usually end with, "You're allowed to do that?" or "Is that legal?"

Ah, and flights across the Atlantic were not the full reason for the orange alert status.

Where to look up your flight's callsign: Airliners.net

See where your plane has been! Find out weird trivia from those strange people who watch planes all day! Point to a little window in the picture and tell your friends, "I sat right there and got a tiny bag of peanuts and half a can of soda on that exact plane!"