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Further Updates On Terrorist Attack
Contradicting earlier reports, reader Adam Brookman writes: "I can guarantee that no car bomb went off in front of the State Dept. in DC. My father is part of the critical personel at State dept. When I read that I called him. He said he heard the same thing and he also heard that the building was hit by a plane, but neither were true."
Worth reading is this analysis of the motives and some possible suspects in today's violence, at Jane's International Security News. They've picked three plausible attackers. Motive aside, Jack Bryar has a convincing take on who is really most hurt by the attacks today.
babyruth writes: "amazon.com has a Red Cross Relief fund set up on their homepage, where you can contribute online. Only several hundred have contributed so far, let the power of /. help!" Iridium provides a link straight to the donations page, noting that "All standard fees are waived -- all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross." Of course, the Red Cross is -still- in desperate need of blood. If you can donate, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find the donation center nearest to you.
iggyflashbulb writes: "CNN reports some oddball group not associated with bin Laden is attacking Kabul at night. Are they taking advantage of the NY situation or did they create it?"
An anonymous reader writes: "Following the sad (and outrageous) mess of these terrorist attacks, results are already starting to impact the country. When a RSM failed on one of our 5500 Ciscos, we recieved the following notice
'Due to a national emergency completion of your case, delivery of your parts or engineer will be delayed until further notice. Several areas of the country have restricted transportation and currently no air traffic is available. Cisco will notify you as soon a we are able to dispatch your order.'
There doesn't seem to any information on Cisco's site."
CERT is in action as well: SilentTone writes: "Ween Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University was evacuated today so the the Computer Emergency Response Team could go into action."
Many readers have been assembling mirrors for the overloaded news sites of the world. Jon Anhold writes: "I've compiled more photos and what not, mirrored many of the sites around to help the load. They're available here: http://ziggy.dreamland.net/wtc/"
Owen Bossola writes: "This is a simple webpage I put up with shots I took all day of the World Trade Center. I go to school across the river at Stevens Institute of Technology and I watched the whole thing from campus. It is absolutely nuts, I'm looking out my window and for the first time, downtown NYC is dark, and there aren't two large buildings gleaming back at me."
rhyder writes: "I was last in the World Trade Center and the attached World Financial Center on Saturday evening. Many people I know work in those buildings, even more live and work in the shadow of those 2 towers.
From the Port Authority of NY and NJ:
- The Port Authority
- Trade Center Concourse Level Map
- Trade Center Plaza Level Map
- Trade Center Complex Overview
- Area Map showing southern tip of Manhattan and the Trade Center location."
Anyone else able to confirm this rumor?
Jon Bishop asks: "Why Today? Why did this attack happen on September 11, 2001. Here is a guess. I played with the date commonly used for programming. YYYYMMDD returns 20010911. 911...in 2001. Is this play on numbers intentional or coincidence?" It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.
Carl Merritt writes: "Since many sites seem to be creaking under the load today I've dumped every relevant picture and video I can find onto my server, please feel free to suck up some of my unused bandwidth with downloads or links: http://www.binaryvista.com/WTC/ I'll probably leave it up for a couple weeks, or until CNN asks me to remove their pictures ;-)."
An Anonymous Coward writes "I just want to remind everyone that there is still active air cover over at least Chicago. A tanker is orbiting O'Hare and at least what appear to be two F-15s are making the rounds. If you would like more information including frequencies I suggest subscribing to the CARMA mailing list at QTH.net for up to date monitoring information."
Disheartening news from Egypt: soulflakes points to this story of some Egyptians celebrating the attacks today. Here's a BBC piece which indicates the feeling is shared in some other African countries. This doesn't mean that all or most people in any country feel the same way.
yoda389 writes: "I'm getting reports from friends that gas prices are jumping to as much as $5.00 a gallon. There are huge lines at all gas stations here in my hometown someplace in Wisconsin." And ikohl1 writes: "A friend just informed me of how gas prices were raised to $3.50 in a town near where i live. I didn't believe him at first but I found this article on Yahoo."
Gas prices may fluctuate in the short term, but in the long haul, effects on exports of goods physical and abstract may be affected just as drastically: elliotj writes: "MSNBC has a Steven Levy opinion piece on the possible implications of today's attack on America and governmental policy on encryption export restrictions. Personally, I think we need to determine exactly what happened before blaming physical or electronic security measures for a role in the tragedy. I heard the planes were hi-jacked with knives ... that doesn't sound very high-tech or a sign of significant security failings to me. It is the act itself that is so shocking and sickening."
"In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb" , "The third big war will begin when the big city is burning"
- Nostradamus 1654
City of God = NYC
Two Brothers = WTC
Fortress = Pentagon
Great Leader = G.Bush
Big City = NYC
(thanks to Reality to point this out to me)
If God gave us curiosity
Doesn't Microsoft and software development and /. seem so insignificant when something like this happens? I think, gee I really don't care about Microsoft. They are far less evil than people like this.
I am pretty much numb. I cant cheer people up, even myself when usually I am the one that makes everyone smile. I am just to stunned. This is such a huge wake up call to the world.
I bet the doomsday clock gets adjusted over this. World tensions are going up.
I wish we had cold-war level intelligence still. Jimmy Carter REALLY fucked us over by gutting our intelligence agencies. I blame this on Jimmy Carter for removing our intelligence abilities.
Yes we can have cold war level intelligence without removing our freedoms, YES it needs to happen. I don't think any of us will ever forget this. We probably all know someone affected by this. I hope you are all okay and can wake up tommorow and enjoy your day as if it is your last. I am not so upset by the loss of life, we lose thousands of people to murder every day. I am upset about the symbolism here and the threats to remove our freedom, that is the truly scary thing.
Clinton administration were pushovers.
Jeremy
The following is from an email I once received. I think it is appropriate to post it at this time.
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television Commentator.
What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 5 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering America.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japan technology, and you get radios. You talk about German technology, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technology, and you find men on the moon--not once, but several times--and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America! Wear it proudly!!
This is one of the best editorials that I have ever read regarding the United States. It is nice that one man realizes it. I only wish that the rest of the world would realize it. We are always blamed for everything, and never even get a thank you for the things we do.
I would hope that each of you would send this to as many people as you can and emphasize that they should send it to as many of their friends until this letter is sent to every person on the web. I am just a single American that has read this, I SURE HOPE THAT A LOT MORE READ IT SOON.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- This morning, on the September 12th, just when the dust had settled in the downtown of Manhattan, a helicopter launched from a helipad near the apparently collapsed World Trade Center.
Moments later, the helicopter circled the missing towers three times counterclockwise, and *POOF* a huge smoke cloud appeared, covering the entire downtown area.
As the smoke faded, the two World Trace Center buildings emerged from the midst of the cloud, just as they were two days ago!
People couldn't believe their eyes. The multitude of TV helicopters patrolling the area immediately pointed their cameras at the strange helicopter.
On the landing rack of the helicopter, there was posing, in a tailcoat, who else but David Copperfield!
The city of New York sighed and applauded, and applauded, and applauded. Everyone rejoiced. The world had been saved.
Then, David Copperfield bowed for the ninth time, waved his wand, and *POOF* the helicopter disappeared in a huge explosion and a smoke cloud.
hmmm, an anonymous coward who calls for genocide. Maybe we could fly a jetliner into a building highly populated with civillian "sand-niggers". I bet you would think that was a grand idea, wouldn't you? We could make it a holy war against islam. Christ, I'm sick you people.
Some people think that there was something about the german people that allowed them to be nazis. An opposing view: I see nazis everyday. They just don't have a hitler. Maybe assholes like you should just kill yourselves and leave us civilized, peace loving people alone.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
The attack on the USA just goes to show that inequalities caused by
... Not to mention some
the US government breed violence. It is unreasonable to treat large
numbers of people unfairly and expect them just to lie down and take
it. Eventually they will reach a point where their lives are worth
little and they have no prospects. Then they will become violent.
This is not the first time either. Anyone remember the LA riots or
the attack on the USS Cole? I could go on.
The US has a long history of inequality. At home, hospitals and
schools are more and more for the rich and we can just build fences to
keep the poor in their ghettos right? Pay more for the rent-a-cop
sitting at the border between the nice plush suburbs and the rest of
the world. But no f**king way the rich will pay more taxes so the poor
don't want to steal all their stuff!
And then of course, there is the USA on the international stage. You
can't go round bombing countries everywhere and not make emenies. It
only takes a few of them to hijack planes and
of them smuggling suitcase nukes into the USA. Also, the
unquestioning support of Israel despite the atrocities (on both sides)
will only lead to religious fanatics as enemies.
So what does the US do now? Nuke them till they glow?
In the short term, yes, I'm all for the elimination of terrorists.
But in the long term it's time that the people of the USA to realise
that inequality must be reduced. Spend less on defence and more on
health, education and welfare. Choose a sane international policy,
stop acting like an international bully.
Stand up and be counted. Vote. Above all, don't elect another total
moron like George W. Bush.
DROS - Open-Source Robot Software
This is a troll and definately flame-bait.
Yes, an aggressive response to the events of yesterday may take a toll on innocent lives.
So what? Show the world that you do not fuck with the US!!!
Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Theodore Roosevelt
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.