[Quikngruvn]

Some points to ponder.

Supposedly someone close to Osama bin Laden told a European (British?) newspaper three weeks ago that bin Laden was going to do something big and bad to the US.

My boss at work has been reading Nostradamus and has concluded that bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, is the third Antichrist (after Napoleon and Hitler).

(There's also a $5 million dollar bounty on his head, but my guess is it will take more than $5 million to catch him.)

Note the weapon of choice in these attacks: American planes to destroy American lives. Kinda like ripping your arm off and beating you to death with it.

Reading on the internet this afternoon, every single nation's government that I saw had responded expressed sorrow, shock, horror, etc. at this act, including Yassar Arafat and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The only responses not condemning the attack were from some militant Muslim sects.

('Course, the cynic in me takes some of those responses with a grain of salt. The Taliban may just be trying to divert attention away from themselves as the next logical target. But the idealist in me, bruised though it is this day, still believes in the basic goodness of humanity.)

And I know that not all Muslims are extremists. But I will never understand what would drive someone to do such an act.

The dead and missing, at Last count:
260 airline passengers and crews
300 NYC firefighters
80 NYC policemen
800 Pentagon employees
and God knows how many in and around the WTC

But, by God, there are people still alive under all that rubble!

What to do with the site now? I had thought of a memorial, a la Oklahoma City. But my wife pointed out that that is prime real estate, and it would be a much bigger 'Screw you' if the WTC were rebuilt.

I apologize for the disjointed stream of conciousness in this post. My mind is still reeling-- at the images of the planes crashing into the WTC (CNN just showed a home video of the FIRST plane crashing), at the idea of a national landmark collapsing in ruins, at the idea of thousands of people dying because of the irrational thought process of a small number of individuals... and at the war that the US has suddenly found itself in. (I say suddenly, but I think we all knew that this day was coming-- just maybe not of such magnitude.) All I can do right now is keep on keeping on. But I have said a prayer for the victims, their families, and the brave men and women who put themselves in harm's way trying to rescue the victims. And I almost never pray, heathen that I am.

Quikngruvn, still in shock