But, how will the terrorists choose what to attack?

This piece in Tuesday’s NY Times is a killer. It seems the US government’s anti-terror database, called the National Asset Database, a list of potential targets of terrorist strikes in the US, is fundamentally flawed. So flawed, in fact, that it lists, among many, many other targets “Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.””

How great is that. Better not go to that beach at the end of the street…

It's kind of like so much else in the US, you get so much choice you become paralysed with indecision and end up with either nothing or everything. Maybe that's the strategy. Give the terrorists an overwhelming amount of choice and hope they choose nothing rather than everything.

It turns out “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.”

I love that. Indiana has to be one of the least interesting places in the world and it kills me that some database somewhere has the US government worried that fundamentalist jihadis are just lining up to blow up places like “Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Mall at Sears,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” “Anti-Cruelty Society” and “Bean Fest.”

The Homeland Security Department’s press secretary, Jarrod Agen, was adamant that the list is still useful and that “We don’t find it embarrassing.” But some lower level officials beg to differ, saying that the inventory “was of low quality and that they had little faith in it.”

Tell me about it:

New York, for example, lists only 2 percent of the nation’s banking and finance sector assets, which ranks it between North Dakota and Missouri. Washington State lists nearly twice as many national monuments and icons as the District of Columbia.

Montana, one of the least populous states in the nation, turned up with far more assets than big-population states including Massachusetts, North Carolina and New Jersey. The inspector general questions whether many of the sites listed in whole categories — like the 1,305 casinos, 163 water parks, 159 cruise ships, 244 jails, 3,773 malls, 718 mortuaries and 571 nursing homes — should even be included in the tally.

The final say in the article goes to Brian Lehman, the owner of Amish Country Popcorn, which is listed on the database as a potential target.

“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?”

Pure gold.