Just got back from the building collapse.

It's between 99th and 100th which makes it two blocks from me which feels so weird. I shopped in that Gristedes plenty before they closed it and started to take it down. There are big orange steam shovels (what ARE those called now that they surely don't use steam?) and pincer things cleaning up the block. There are squashed up shovels INSIDE the site which is sort of a funny picture -- looks like the equipment is trying to rescue its friends.

There is lots of FDNY and NYPD milling about. I didn't see any dogs so I guess they are comfortable that nobody is left under the rubble. There are also vehicles from the Housing, Transit, Construction/Demolition, and Sanitation Departments. (Sanitation is out at the edges, actually -- all these big trucks lined up on the side streets ready to move in and haul crap away). It's all very organized and calm. Oh, there is also the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and half a billion reporters several of whom were interviewing a woman in an orange top (I resisted the urge to jump behind her and wave).

There were also lots of me-like people milling around and staying well out of the way and asking one another if anyone had been hurt. As I was leaving a Coco Helado vendor showed up -- it's been a shock and I'm sure people will benefit from frozen tropical treats.

"An airplane can kill 3,000 people. A bomb on a subway might kill thirty."

People just never, ever learn that fighting the last war is a bad idea, do they? Is it just me, or does all this obsession over airplane security to the exclusion of all else feel like the Maginot Line of anti-terrorist efforts?

This is why spam is profitable:

For all the jokes everyone makes about how lame most spam e-mails are, you would think no one believed that some oddly named company was a good investment or that one's bank account needs a bit of updating with oddles of personal data.

Not according to a survey conducted by secure messaging provider Mirapoint and consulting company Radicati Group. According to the survey of nearly 800 end-users, 11 percent of users have purchased products and services from spam e-mails and nine percent of users have lost money due to an e-mail scam.

Is it just me, or does all this obsession over airplane security to the exclusion of all else feel like the Maginot Line of anti-terrorist efforts?

It's not just you.

I think that if and when there's another airliner hijaking (whatever happened to 'skyjacking'?) there's no way in hell the hijakers are gonna get into the cockpit, even if they start killing people to try to force the pilot and copilot to open up.

Is it just me, or does all this obsession over airplane security to the exclusion of all else feel like the Maginot Line of anti-terrorist efforts?

Totally.

It's an idiotic statement taken just on its merits - leave aside the fact that while a subway bomb may not kill as many people all at once (and Madrid killed far more than 30), it actually has the potential to affect far more people and is much easier to accomplish - but, hello? Aren't two deadly bombings in major cities enough to at least suggest that perhaps - perhaps - our attention might need to be focused elsewhere?

And by elsewhere, I don't mean the rural, 500 miles from any border of anything or target of remotest interest to anyone areas that just got themselves a federal windfall. (On a related note, how weird is it feeling that we've got to at least count on the House to restrain the idiocy of the Senate?)

According to the survey of nearly 800 end-users, 11 percent of users have purchased products and services from spam e-mails and nine percent of users have lost money due to an e-mail scam.

Gee, I wonder what the overlap was.

Is it just me, or does all this obsession over airplane security to the exclusion of all else feel like the Maginot Line of anti-terrorist efforts?

Definitely not just you. I've been expecting someone to blow themselves up in a shopping mall (or several simultaneously) at Xmas time or at a major sporting event (just imagine a suicide bomber throwing themselves in one of the dugouts, and how that affect people) ever since 9/11.

I think that if and when there's another airliner hijaking (whatever happened to 'skyjacking'?) there's no way in hell the hijakers are gonna get into the cockpit, even if they start killing people to try to force the pilot and copilot to open up.

This was one of my first thoughts after I was able to think about anything but the horror of it all. Not going to work again, and it's not even going to require what happened with the PA flight.

I think that if and when there's another airliner hijaking (whatever happened to 'skyjacking'?) there's no way in hell the hijakers are gonna get into the cockpit, even if they start killing people to try to force the pilot and copilot to open up.

Yep. That route is closed. It was closed by the fourth plane that day.

Spend money securing cargo, jeniuses. Leave my nail clippers the fuck alone.

Let's spend some money on R&D on sensors for and evacuation of transit systems. And equipment. And training. And stockpile some anti-toxins, vaccines, and etc. in key locations. And have a network in place to distribute them efficiently. Lets fund these things in a ::gasp:: multi-state fashion! Maybe, and I know this sounds simply ::nutz:: have a national plan for the nation's safety -- instead of handing municipalities in EAST BUMBLEFUCK blank checks.

I don't want big governement, I want THIS government to respond as efficiently as NYC just did (which is appalling since NYC government isn't exacly known for efficiency).

And we can't count on the National Guard to do it, those poor suckers are all in Iraq. We need systematic training, starting with the big cities, for all the law enforcement and rescue workers in the country. Duh.

Definitely not just you. I've been expecting someone to blow themselves up in a shopping mall (or several simultaneously) at Xmas time or at a major sporting event (just imagine a suicide bomber throwing themselves in one of the dugouts, and how that affect people) ever since 9/11.

I've expected that, too, though it does seem Al Qaeda has a bit of a fixation on major cities and transportation networks. I wouldn't count on that lasting, though--someday some terrorist is going to realize that if they really want the population terrified, taking out a Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving is the way to go.

This was one of my first thoughts after I was able to think about anything but the horror of it all. Not going to work again, and it's not even going to require what happened with the PA flight.

I don't think it'd work on a passenger plane, but it might theoretically be possible to infiltrate a cargo plane crew, where there'd be less people to fight off the attackers.

Anyway, since I live in a port city, dirty bomb on a container ship is my personal nightmare scenario.