(UPDATE: I just deleted the raw, barely edited version of this post, which little gremlins decided to put up without my consent. Read this instead:)

USA Today reports that because of the preposterous way homeland security money is distributed, New York and L.A. still don't have enough equipment -- while Zanesville, Ohio, has

a $13,500 thermal imager to help find victims in heavy smoke. An $800 thermal heat gun to test the temperature of gases that might ignite. A $1,250 test kit for deadly nerve agents such as VX and mustard gas. A $1,300 monitor to gauge oxygen and carbon monoxide levels in the air. Four air packs at $3,800 each, with masks and extra bottles. Four chemical suits at $875 apiece. And much more.

... "We were poor as church mice," says Gene Hanning, hazardous materials coordinator for southeastern Ohio's Muskingum County (pop. 85,000), where Zanesville is located. "This has been better than any Christmas."

And how target-rich an environment is Zanesville?

There's no nuclear power plant, no big chemical plants, no major airport — none of what homeland security people call "critical infrastructure." There's a small steel processing plant, a couple of medical centers and a power-supply station in a nearby county. But that's about it.

Zanesville once was known as the "Pottery Capital of the World." Today, its biggest claim to fame is its unusual Y-shaped bridge, with a stoplight in the middle, that spans the Muskingum and Licking rivers....

In the past decade or so, their worst incidents included a farmer pinned in a grain silo, a city worker trapped in a trench and a vacant building that collapsed.

"We don't have any 100-story buildings," Chief Dave Lacy says. "But a four-story building falling on people is going to have the same effect."

Blame the aid formula:

...each state receives 0.75% of the $2 billion pot regardless of population, accounting for nearly 40% of the money. The rest is divided among the states on a per-person basis. Other factors, such as population density, potential targets and threat levels, are not taken into consideration.

Here's the preposterous result:

Because 40% of the money is divided equally among all states, the least populous state, Wyoming, gets the most money per capita: $35.31 per person in 2003. California gets the least: $4.68 per person. New York, the third-largest state, gets $5.05 per person; Ohio gets $5.59 per person.

Some terrorist might go after Wyoming or after Zanesville, Ohio. But even William Bennett would play it safe and bet on New York or L.A.