<Post the US Tennis Open, many Australians were in town "doing the sights".

About 75 are reported missing. About 10 are declared dead, since they were on the passenger lists for the doomed flights.

Allmost every nation in the world will similarly have directly lost a citizen, or suffered a loss of a relative or friend.
Right now. we cannot count the dead and may probably never do so. It may be that the disaster site becomes a quarry to extract rubble from for decades (I calculated 100,000 truckloads of debris)

Even when this ends, some people will still be missing.

There may be a few opportunists who take the John Stonehouse (British MP) approach to personal issues under cover of this disaster, but the vast, indeed overwhelming, majority are innocent, normal, ordinary people whose luck ran out that day.

What hurts me most, yet also strengthens me most, is that all these families and nations will find it a long, trying time till they retrieve their loved ones, but when they do they will lay them to rest and return to the fight against insanity and bigotry, whether religous or secular.



Time for an Eleventh Commandment?
Thou Shalt Not Shelter Terrorists?





The above was Nick’s, now on page 2.

Very well put, however, about that quarry...

I don’t know if any have been thinking along these lines yet, but I have -- actually since Tuesday night. Rebuilding the Twins. The surface of Lower Manhattan is actually very near to bedrock, so it can be done. We have the technical know-how to do so, and we have the ability to make it taller and stronger. The question is: will we? With the same backing Apollo had in the 60s, I say yes. I think we should, and I think we should as soon as possible. Someone took them down, openly declaring to the world that we weren’t allowed to have them any more.

I say to hell with what they want us to have and to not have. I say we should build another, larger set -- maybe with 4 towers. I also say this new structure should be given a golden plaque in remembrance to those who lost -- whatever was lost, be a life, a limb, a friend, a relative, a dream, a hope, a feeling of success...

And in the foundation of this monument, I say we bury the responsible party -- preferably alive and screaming, but there’s some silly convention or other that makes this wrong.

Dan