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Attacks On US Continued Reports
I'm still having problems getting news from most normal sites, and we are just barely holding up.
Both world trade towers have collapsed after hijaacked planes crashed into them. New Yorkers are asked to give blood. Pentagon has collapsed after similiar crash. A pilot of another hijaacked plane crashed in a PA field rather then hitting another target in Pitt (unconfirmed). Military is at the highest alert. US Embassy in Oslo evacuated, all israeli embassies evacuated. 2 Flights to LAX lost radio contact. 3 other planes down. London evacuating. Camp David crash is false. Bin Laden threatened about 2 months ago. Many many many dead. Many other cities evacuating and shutting down.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/worldtrade.crash/ index.html [cnn.com]
Here it is from CNN, only a synopsis right now.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Terrorists struck the United States Tuesday morning in harrowing, widespread attacks that included at least three commercial jet crashes into significant buildings.
In the first attack, a plane smashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan shortly before 9 a.m., followed by another plane into the second tower about 20 minutes later. Both towers later collapsed. Sources told CNN that one of the planes was an American Airlines Boeing 767 that had been hijacked after take-off from Boston.
About an hour later, a plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, part of which later collapsed.
Sources say a second plane was heading toward the Pentagon; F-16 jets were in the air monitoring it.
The Pentagon, the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department, the Capitol, the CIA and all other government buildings in Washington evacuated.
In the first ever national ground stop of aircraft, all flights nationwide have been stopped at their departure airports.
All international flights were diverted to Canada.
Israel has evacuated all its missions around the world.
President Bush cancelled an appearance in Florida to return to Washington, calling the crashes "apparent terrorist attacks" and "a national tragedy."
In Chicago, the Sears Tower was evacuated; United Nations in New York evacuated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was evacuated.
The New York Port Authority said it had closed all bridges and tunnels into the city.
New York's Bellevue Hospital was designated command central for handling the catastrophe. Several hospitals have already reported receiving victims with burns and head injuries.
Large plane crashed 80 miles south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but it was unknown if this crash was connected to terrorist attacks.
U.S. stock markets were closed after the New York attacks.
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Oh bother.
We (members of the german army) have been put on alert, people are being revoked from holiday, all system/material checked, no talk policy.
+++ath0
Here is what is on their webpage:
AMERICAN CONFIRMS TWO AIRCRAFT LOST
FORT WORTH, Texas ? American Airlines confirmed today that it lost two aircraft in tragic incidents this morning. American said the flights were Flight 11, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles with 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots; and Flight 77, a Boeing 757 operating from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles with 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots.
Because of the heightened security due to the nature of today?s events, American said it is working closely with U.S. government authorities and will not release more information at this time.
The government has shut down the entire air traffic system in the United States. American, TWA and American Eagle will not operate.
"We are horrified by these tragic events," said Donald J. Carty, chairman and CEO of American Airlines. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all involved."
Media calls should be directed to the FBI. Customers who wish to receive information about relatives should call American?s response number at 1-800-245-0999.
Updated information about this morning's incident in New York will be available here as soon as it is verified. Check back frequently and refresh your browser often to make sure you have the most current information.
Granted exploding planes aren't exactly the best transport system for biological agents, but with the number of people compressed into relatively small places, a good number of which will soon be travelling back to their home areas soon...
The possibilty of secondary attacks to that end are just frightening as hell.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
about the ability of our internet infrastructure to handle the demand in cases of crisis?
Amazing magic tricks
We are turning our business into an emergency blood donation center for the red cross. I ask that anyone who has a business that has a large amount of free space to donate it as an emergency center for the ARC to setup at.
If you cannot do that please just go and donate blood. It is desperately needed for the hundreds if not thousands injured today.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Hospitals are reportedly desperate for blood donations. If in the affected states please consider donating if it is practical where you are.
Just a correction, 50.000 to 60.000 at the late WTC are worst-case casualties, not fatalities. No one knows, of course, how many have been killed, certainly many thousands, but most news sources say no more than 5.000 are dead and no more than 25.000 wounded. These numbers are sure to increase; may God, Allahw akg all the rest help us all.
Hmmm... Think about the racial paranoia that is going to stem from this tragic event.
People, unfortunately, look for excuses to target any group, and blame their woes on them. Whether they be economic (as is typical), or, in this case, terrorist. The Jewish people have long been scapegoats for Europe's woes. Even recently, with the Pauline Hanson issue, here in au, in years past, where migrants were blamed for the countries environmental and economic problems.
Now. A group has already been selected, pretty much by default and with no actual basis in fact (yet). People of Middle Eastern background.
Unfortunately, there will be ramifications.
- - -
giftedu
He got out. Maybe many other have. there are almost 40-500 thousand people in those buildings.
If you are in NYC, get off the phone lines NOW, and give blood.
Peace, or Not?
Maybe the next time, people will question, "are having our rights trampled on really giving us security?"
Fight Spammers!
PLEASE Please please try to avoid getting hysterical about this. I'm finding message boards filled with frothing hatred, wanting bloody revenge against entire countries.
Don't escalate this into war. There are no winners if it goes to war. We'll all just end up discovering that the terrosits do nukes. Some major American city will be vapourized in re-retaliation.
And get in touch with your State and Federal representatives. Protest any movement toward restricting your personal freedoms -- because they are going to lock you down. Protest any over-aggression -- because you will pay when the terrorists re-retaliate.
Time is NOT of the essence! Insist that things move carefully and cautiously. The world is in a delicate situation for the next few months. Treat it like a fragile, crystal bowl... and don't drop it.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I can see where the towers of the trade center used to be from my bedroom on 14th St. I saw just after the second plane hit and just after the 1st tower fell. I watched the 2nd tower fall. One of my friends is still missing. I'm trying to keep myself busy. You can see pictures on my site.
I'd estimate the death toll at betwen 20 and 50 thousand here. I believe approximately 40 thousand people work in the entire world trade complex and the attacks seem to be timed for just when everyone got work. I used to work in Tower 2, 15th Floor.
I'll try and get a webcam up, too.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
State police have asked folks to limit phone usage in the state of Maryland. Please limit your useage, and tune into local TV stations (2, 11, 13) for more information.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Biological and chemical terrorism is something which is a bit of a boogey-man. We will probably never see a devestating attack using these means because they are simply too costly. However, the threat of a threat could be effective (in other words a claim is more important than the reality).
Now, there are a few things that have occurred to me about these events:
1: The planes must have been flown by the terrorists into the buildings. I have a hard time believing that a pilot of an airliner would be at the helm and be a part of such an attack.
2: This is an attack which would have been very difficult for a small organization to pull off. A large support organization would have been necessary for the necessary piloting expertise and intellegence work. Although this could have been state-sponsored, there is no reason at this time to think that it was.
3: One cannot adequately protect against suicide terrorists. There are too many otherwise inocuous items which can be, under the right circumstances, lethal weapons. The only defense against suicide terrorists is attack the morale of their organizations.
The reason why I suspect that this attack originated in the Middle East is that they are the only region of the world which a) has suffered enough at the hands of Europe and America to create that sort of response and b) has the resources at their disposal for such an attack. (Yes, I have studied my Middle East history, and a should point out that Britain was probably more a part of the problem than the US, but the US has been the present main player in the region).
IMO, we will eventually have to adopt a different policy toward the OPEC nations which aims to foster their economic independence (and live with the higher oil prices) or come to terms with the fact that low oil prices will be bought with human lives. Terrorism is expensive both in lives of supporters and in material resources, and this attack indicates that we as a country (America) have not adequately targeted the morale and/or finances of the terrorist organizations.
Don't get me wrong. I think that terrorism should be fully prosecuted etc. and I think that people who use innocent victims as weapons against a larger enemy deserve no respect, I think that, for the sake of security, we need to create a comprehensive plan which aims not only at attacking the actual terrorists, but also reducing the support they have from economically powerful people by responding to some of the root economical realities which have fostered terrorism in many areas of the world (but especially the Middle East).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This is a terrorist attack.
Its main purpose was to strike fear into the hearts of Americans, and to cause our economy to collapse. If everyone is afraid, then the economy WILL collapse.
The emergency workers are busy. The military is obviously busy. Go to work and conduct your business as well as possible. Unless you are working in one of the obviously dangerous areas.
They only beat us if we let our fear win.
I'm not a soldier. I'm not a fireman or paramedic. I'm not a police man. But I'm going to work today, and I'm testing software, and I'm making sure that my little cog in the big machine keeps turning.
Now, we're going to see what kind of a leader dubbya is. I have very grave doubts about his ability to deal with this situation rationally - think martial law - think more raids in Iraq - think more raids in Afghanistan. Think Arab Americans being rounded up (I'm sorry, but you know this will happen). There isn't much we can do about those things other than keep a cool head, and do your job as best as you can.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
High-rise buildings are built to control the spread of fires for long enough to allow people to evacuate safely. There is no capability, however, for fighting a truly large fire on a high floor. In modern steel-frame buildings -- and I don't know if the WTC was built recently enough for this to apply -- the steel is coated with a fireproofing material, and the combination of the fireproofing and the sprinkler system is supposed to provide structural integrity for a period of three to five hours. That's supposed to be long enough to evacuate the building safely. After that even the fireproofing is insufficient to keep the steel from heating to a point where it effectively begins to melt, deforming to a point where the building can no longer hold up under its own weight.
In this case, we weren't even looking at a normal fire. The incident began with a massive, high-speed, intentional impact that sheared off multiple beams, exacerbated by a large explosion from fuel aboard the plane. The initial damage was severe. Furthermore, my brother speculates that the impact likely severed the water pipes that reach the upper floors, leaving water gushing from a single point or a relatively small number of points and rendering the sprinklers largely useless.
Buildings do survive aircraft impacts, incidentally: A plane flew into the Empire State Building in the Sixties, I think, and obviously it's still standing. Anyway, I don't think it's fair to characterize this as a fire causing a building collapse -- it's more like a very large bomb.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I've been getting emails from a friend at Globix, the giant internet exchange in southern Manhattan. Here is the latest news:
Globix is located on Centre Street south of Canal Street. Businesses south of Canal have been asked to evacuate. The dust from the WTC collapse has forced buildings to shut down their air conditioning. Only a few large computer operations can operate without normal air conditioning, but major exchanges, like the AT&T telephone building and Globix, have backup cooling systems that should hopefully operate in these conditions.
Globix engineers are taking care of major service problems and trying to prevent potential major problems so they can leave as soon as possible.
Globix is hooked into the 3 largest backbones that pass through the region, and at least one must still be operating. Email messages originating from Globix are making their way out, but messages sent to Globix are not coming in.
A telephone call to (212-334-xxxx) from NJ (856-672-xxxx) got through, but no calls to the 718 area code are working. I just received a call from a 212 phone as well.
My friend at Globix was walking to a class at Sun Microsystems at the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. His view of the collision was obscured, and he was not injured. He commented:
> I ran down to the woolworth building and stood
> looking in shock at the North tower, the smoke
> billowing out of it and the thousands of papers
> fluttering down against the blue sky. Suddenly
> I saw something hurtling down the side of the
> building. It was a man, limbs, tie and suitcoat
> flailing. several more followed. I turned and
> slowly walked back towars the sunny, newly
> renovated park in front of city hall.
>
> I heard the second explosion hit, and people
> began screaming and running past me.
>
> As I sit here at my comfortable nest of a
> workspace, my skin crawls, and I feel sick to
> my stomach. I have read about events this bad
> or worse a hundred times in the novels my
> father derisively terms storybooks, but the
> reality is completely incomparable. Perhaps he
> had a point.
>
Another friend of mine was in the 70th floor of the second building to get hit, and he made it out alive. I don't yet have the details on that.
Transportation update (from a Brooklyn friend):
Subway lines are running off and on, and bridges and tunnels are closed to cars. The W line was still bringing people into Manhattan at 9:30, but that has ceased. The N/R is now running above 14th Street. Pedestrian traffic is allowed on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. People in suits have been streaming over these bridges into Brooklyn all morning.
Historical Note:
Today, September 11, is the 28th anniversary of the CIA-led coup that overthrew the democratically elected government headed by Allende in Chile. Why is this relevant? I feel an immense amount of anger towards the people who caused this, and I think the people who caused this are the murderers sitting in Washington D.C. who direct U.S. foreign policy. They recklessly inspire anti-U.S. sentiment in every other country in this world. We ruthlessly bombed civilian targets in Yugoslavia (including water purification sites); we starve the children of Iraq; we blockade Cuba for no good reason; we topple democratically elected socialist governments in order to install pro-U.S. dictatorships. My anger does not direct itself solely towards the government officials who have perpetrated these crimes. I am furious at the millions of Americans who voted for George W. Bush. They are responsible for putting into power a person who is walking all over international agreements about global warming and arms control. And anybody who sits by and pays taxes and watches our imperialistic military and State Department do its dirty work has to take some responsibility for these murders. WAKE UP AMERICA: THIS IS YOUR FAULT. No missile defense shield will protect us from the hate that is justifiably spawned worldwide by our pro-corporate foreign policy.
Experience of an anarchist:
When the mail carrier knocked on my door this morning, I was worried that I was about to be taken in by the FBI. If you know what I've been through, you would not think this was a paranoid reaction. There will be a witchhunt following these events, and the U.S. government will probably use it as an excuse to harass activists. Right now the joint anti-terrorism task forces around the country spend most of their money tracking and harassing the anti-corporate activists who have been targeting world financial summits. A good chunk is also spent on the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, neither of which actually have any members; they are just slogans that autonomous cells apply to their acts of vandalism. Today's events show yet again that money spent on national security does not in fact serve national security, but rather serves the insidious ends of the people controlling this country. Expect there to be calls for more money to fund politically motivated witchhunts against the Left. Expect calls for outlawing consumer use of encryption.
Finally:
Eben Moglen, Columbia University Law Professor and general counsel of the FSF once said about the inevitable rise of encrypted communications:
I don't doubt that there will be downsides. You should accept the truth that harms will be caused, as harms are caused by free speech all the time. But don't let yourself be panicked about this. The world of the twenty-first century will be more free, and will continue to be, as the spooks often say, "a tough neighborhood." Indeed, some bombs will go off; there will be, in Stewart Baker's signature phrase, "some mangled, burnt bodies." You will notice that there are already. But fewer of them will be in Iraqi prisons; none of them will ever again be in a gulag or Lager maintained by a KGB or SS state with a tap on every telephone. And of that you should be very proud, because it is we who will have made it possible.