Remember the emergency alert system? When your TV emits an annoying, high-pitched noise, shows you a rainbow-colored bar, and says “this is a test, this is only a test, of the emergency alert system”?

Well, sometimes it’s not just a test:

OH NO! MAN THE BARRICADES!!!

You know where to find us. We’ll be on our rooftops, waiting for CNN helicopter cameras, holding up our makeshift signs.

Earlier: RAIN OF TERROR: DAY THREE

Blogs… blogs… c’mon blogs… damn.

We’re on day 3 of what will presumably be a 40-day rain. Meteorologists are advising District residents to collect gopher wood and gather two employees of each federal department (Steny Hoyer and Roy Blunt are safe for the moment, high atop Meridian Hill).

But hey, the clouds broke for a moment this morning — a little sunshine’s good, right?

“That’s bad actually,” forecaster John Darnley said. “It allows all this residual moisture to be heated up,” speeding it toward another collision with the stationary front. “It’s like blowing on a fire.”

DON’T WORRY, EVERYONE — WE’RE CALLING MICHAEL BROWN AND ANDERSON COOPER.

Commute Improves; Some Roads Still Affected [WP]

• Recent good news, including the killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and the non-indictment of Karl Rove, may lift President Bush’s poll numbers, allowing the White House and the GOP to get off the defensive. [WP; WP]
• Democrats pick Vietnam War veteran and former Reagan Navy Secretary James Webb to run against Sen. George Allen (R-VA). [WP; WP; NYT]
• At the Take Back America conference, liberal activists boo and hiss at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), after she reiterates her opposition to a timetable for Iraq withdrawal. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) denounces the war, to cheers and applause. [WP]
• Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) pleads guilty to driving under the influence of prescription medication, gets a year of probation. [WP; NYT]
• Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), currently under federal investigation, acknowledges numerous mistakes in his financial disclosure forms. [WP; NYT]
• Fraudulent claims for Hurricane Katrina and Rita assistance may total as much as $1.4 billion; FEMA paid for “season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer.” [WP; NYT; USAT]
• Tropical Storm Alberto weakens before making landfall, failing to reach hurricane strength; “a splash in the panhandle.” [WP; NYT; USAT]
• Core consumer prices rose against last month, making another rate hike from the Fed likely. [WSJ]
• Family of Guantanamo prisoner questions whether he committed suicide. [WP]

Two local youths, seen here paralyzed with blind panic at being surrounded by fluffy white snow (The Washington Post)

Yay! Snow Day!

Drunk pages sledding down Capitol Hill! Tour guides throwing snowballs with rocks inside at fat Midwestern children! The Capitol Police shutting down every single government building to investigate 8 inches of mysterious white powder! School’s canceled, we think! Even if it isn’t, don’t go! Gentrifiers cross-country skiing down U Street in thousand-dollar parkas! Whee!

Everyone loves a snow day! Except the Metro section at the Post, naturally, for whom snow is a terrifying glimpse of God’s wrath, or something…

Like a cloak of insanity, the snow dropped.

Falling like one of those quiet obsessions you read about in short stories, setting the scene for heightened senses, muffling normal sounds. Falling like snow on a black-and-white TV. Like madness. Like when one of those Edgar Allan Poe characters falls into a spell so deep he can focus on only one thing, see only one thing, hear only one thing.
[…]
In the thesaurus, snow is listed on the page with the heading “Sniper-Soar.” Under Snow, some of the words listed are refrigerator, drug, poison, words that some people mean when they say snow. Under snowflake is written: softness, powder, white thing. You stop at white thing. It sounds creepy.

Guys. The District got like 8 inches. Chill out. This is like a 1,200-word piece on how thunder is scary.

Threat Level White [WP]