RUMOR-MONGERING: A former student reports that hospitals and other facilities in the DC area were told last night that terror alerts will be moved to Code Red later today in fear of a bio, chem, or radiological attack. Can’t find any confirmation on that, so make of it what you will. There’s certainly plenty of evidence that the authorities are worried about this scenario.

I hope that they’re wrong — or that, if they’re right, they catch ’em before anything happens.

UPDATE: Another reader emails:

I work in a congressional office in Washington, and we have a Secret Service detailee on our staff. I asked him about the plausibility of the Code Red rumor, and it doesn’t seem to hold up. According to our detailee, we would only go to Code Red if officials had specific knowledge of an imminent attack, such as “the bomb is in the trunk and on its way” or “the airplane has been hijacked.” What DC hospitals were probably told is to make certain preparations in case of Code Red, but to say “we’re going to Code Red” in the absence of an emergency doesn’t seem to be how the system works.

Hmm. Well, this makes sense. We’ll see. I suppose another possibility is that we do, in fact, know of an attack plan timed to coincide with the onset of war — and we expect the onset of war very soon. But that’s purest speculation, and should be treated as such.