" 1. We know from basic physics that Power = Work / Time.
2. We also know that Knowledge = Power.
3. And we know that Time = Money.
4. Substituting, we get Knowledge = Work / Money.
5. Therefore as Money goes to infinity, Knowledge goes to zero!
QED"
To which an (Engineer- obviously) friend of mine, the Kong of the Great Monkey Cause, replies...
If: Knowledge = Work / Money (1)
Then: Work = Knowledge * Money (2)
Money = Work / Knowledge (3)
3 is obviously false: increased knowledge increases rather than decreases the amount of money produced by a given amount of work; therefore, I propose the following hypothesis:
If: Money = Work * Knowledge (4)
Then: Knowledge = Money / Work (5)
Work = Money / Knowledge (6)
5 indicates that working harder will reduce the amount of knowledge attainable with a give amount of money. Those of us who survived University can attest to the fact this contradicts reality; therefore, I
propose the following hypothesis:
If: Knowledge = Money * Work (7)
Then: Money = Knowledge / Work (8)
Work = Knowledge / Money (9)
8 suggests work decreases the amount of money generated with a given amount of knowledge. This is true if all work is assumed to be non-productive; however, it is false is all work is assumed to be productive.
Therefore, I must conclude that all three hypothesis (1, 4, 7) fail to withstand logical scrutiny. The analysis of 8 suggests the problem lies in over simplification:
Productive work (p-work) is countered by wasted effort (w-effort) Money invested (money-i) is countered by money wasted (money-w) Knowledge can be true (know-t) or false (know-f). I propose the following hypothesis:
From this I can conclude that I have far too much free time today, as this entire futile exercise to generate know-f is w-effort.
At least I've not heard the "Well, actually" that is the dreaded catchphrase of the Space Monkey of the Great Monkey Cause, who is, of course, another engineer.
" I can't tell you how many people I've met who've tried to use the fact that the U.N. voted on something as proof that the U.N. is right. College kids will shriek the word as if it drips with self-evident authority: "It voted against the United States!" "Don't you understand? It voted!"
Well, voting, in and of itself, has as much to do with democracy as disrobing has to do with sex. Both are often necessary, neither are ever sufficient.
I always think of "the Commission" when I want to illustrate this point. That's what the Mafia called its confabs of the major mob families. Think of that scene in The Godfather where DonCorleone arranges for the return of Michael from Sicily (and subsequently realizes that all along it was Barzini, not that pimp Barzini, who outfoxed Santino). The Commission was democratic. It took votes on where and when to install drug dealers, bribe judges, and exterminate cops. Now, just because it took a vote, does that make its decisions any more noble or just? Well, the U.N. is a forum for tyrants and dictators who check the returns on their Swiss bank accounts — and not the needs or voices of their own people — for guidance on how to vote. The fact that Robert Mugabe, Bashar Assad, Kim Jong-Il, Hassan al-Bashir, Fidel Castro, et al., condemn the United States from time to time is a badge of honor. And the fact that we, and other decent peoples, feel the need to curry their favor and approval is a badge of shame.
Oh, sure, there are plenty of decent nations in the U.N., but that doesn't change the fact that decisions are made in a political environment where good guys must compromise with bad guys. If the Commission had had a few honorary slots for some policemen and priests, would that make its votes that much more honorable? When the Commission votes 10 to 2 in favor of selling heroin to Girl Scouts, should the cop and the priest feel bad? "Darn, lost another vote!" Should they try to, in the words of U.N. fetishists, "effect change from within the system" by seeking "constructive compromise with those whom they have sincere differences"? Or, should they say, "I'll be damned if I'm going to deal with, be lectured to, or be shaken down by a bunch of gangsters and tyrants, just because the New York Times says I should." "
Right. So poverty and wealth discrepancies are the source of terrorism? Okay, so let's imagine a world where suddenly these discrepancies are suddenly rectified. -How exactly would that satisfy the terrorists' goal of a worldwide Islamic theocracy?
Oh, and yes, I think our Prime Minister is an ass. I've taken the epithet of "vile canadian" (As per Hawkgirl) more than once in jest, but Chretien's sentiments, never mind when they were expressed were truly vile. Personally, I apologize to the people of the US.
Another thing- a few years ago a mental patient broke into the PM's official residence of 24 Sussex drive. (Wonderful security we have here.) Chretien made a point of later telling the story of how he and his wife had barricaded the door and he'd piced up a heavy inuit statue to use as a weapon. Funny how he understands the concept of being attacked when it's himself on the line. I don't recall hearing him talk about how his position of influence, wealth and power had motivated the burglar to commit his crime.
Maybe I just wasn't watching the news that particular day.
In crime, the blame does not lie with the victim. "Root causes" is quite frankly bullshit. I find it amazing that the people who have always fought for the rights of a raped woman not to be blamed for what happened to her are the first ones who talk about "root causes" of the attack on the US.
Emphasis added on the points I think particularly important.
"The greatest change has come among the American people themselves. Americans are the first people in history to believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind, but this reassuring conviction was effectively shattered, for this generation at least, on September 11. Americans now believe, with Machiavelli, that there are many people who are more inclined to do evil than to do good, and the only way to deal with them is to dominate them. They hope and believe that Saddam will not be the last terrorist tyrant to fall at their hands."
[....]
"Americans are not fond of realpolitik; they are a people of crusades and spasms. They almost never fight limited wars for limited objectives (most Americans now believe the 1991 Gulf war was excessively limited); as Ronald Reagan said, the country is too great to have small ambitions. Few have noticed that President Bush has in fact outlined a war of vast dimensions. Lurking behind the awkward phrase "regime change" is a vision of a war to destroy the Middle Eastern tyrannies and replace them with freer societies, as was done in Japan and Germany after the Second World War.
Early on after the September 11 attack, it was widely said that America would have to fight a new kind of war, conducted in large part in the shadows, with covert instruments and secret warriors. In the event, it turns out to be a very traditional sort of war, because they have found that the common denominator of their enemies is tyranny.
The states that undergird the terror network are Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. They do not share ethnicity (Iranians are not Arabs) or even religious conviction (both Saddam and the Assad family in Syria came to power as secular socialists), but they are all petty tyrants. And the most lethal weapon against them is the people they oppress.
The Iranians demonstrate almost ceaselessly against the mullahcracy in Teheran; in recent days, there has been street fighting in Isfahan, political demonstrations in Teheran, and the petroleum pipeline has been shut down in Tabriz. Student leaders have called for a nationwide demonstration today, a clear sign of the Iranian people's desire for freedom.
The Iraqis were willing to risk everything in the final weeks of the Gulf war, and the unreliability of Saddam's armies is well known. If Iranians and Iraqis are freed, the Syrian dictatorship cannot possibly survive, and the Saudi royal family would have to choose between shutting down its worldwide network of radical Wahhabi mosques or facing the same destiny as the others.
A war on such a scale has hardly been mentioned by commentators and politicians, yet it is implicit in everything President Bush has said and done. He has directed the creation of an Iraqi goverment-in-exile that is committed to democracy, and he has promised the Iranian people that America will support them in their desire for freedom. He has recognised that democracy is essential for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and that requirement surely extends throughout the entire region."
Couple points of my own to add. First, this isn't a "new" war as we've been told. War in the shadows is a old as war itself. Spying is the second oldest profession for good reason. Every war has its massed movements of troops and armour, the gathering of intelligence and the countering of spies and saboteurs.
Second, the author is right. In the end this is a war against tyranny. North Korea was included in the "Axius of Evil" for very good reason, as one of the most longstanding oppressive regimes on earth. The North Koreas deserve to be free every bit as much as the Iranians and the Iraqis.
Third, up until the twentieth century, tyranny has been the "natural" form of government for mankind. We have reached a point in history where this is no longer necessary to tolerate. The west no longer has to tolerate the company of dictators and tyrants as a "balance" to other, more viscious regimes. The time has come to rid the world of one- ruler kleptocratic and despotic states.
"Why do you repeat, time after time, that we are terrorized? We are not. As a people we grieve our dead; we wish life for ourselves and our loved ones, but we are not "terrorized". Is it perhaps your own coping mechanism, your own cowardice?
Why do you repeat, time after time, that we feel vulnerable? We have always known that. Have you already forgotten all but the youngest adults among us grew up knowing holocaust was 15 minutes away, every minute, every day, every year of our lives? Is it perhaps a realization that you too could die that makes you cry out your cowardice in our name?
Why do you repeat, time after time, that we have lost our innocence? We have long known and lived with the nightmare that some day an American city would see a mushroom cloud in its' center. However terrible and unexpected the events we have survived, they are as nothing to what we understand we will have to survive and overcome in the future. Is it perhaps your own ignorance or failure to believe the reality of those risks that make you appear as cowards in our eyes?
Why do you repeat, time after time, that we are uncertain about our future? We are not. We will overcome any attack, no matter how deadly, and we will have the resolve to punish those responsible, to hunt them down to the ends of the Earth and kill or imprison them, even if they are crippled old men by the time we find them. Is it your own short attention span that leaves you incapable of understanding that others might take on a task of decades? Is it another sign of your lack of moral fiber and perserverence?"
There's more. I have to say though- this expresses my sentiments about the media coverage exactly.
I do remember what it was like, growing up with the threat of nuclear war in the background. It was omnipresent, but you didn't obsess on it every day. You lived with it. You knew what was possible but people didn't live in gibbering fear of it. I can't say that I ever felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders when Communism fell. (Actually, I did, but it was more that I wouldn't have to worry about communism anymore, not so much the bomb.)
The threat of terrorism isn't quite the same. Nuclear war was a potentially instant armageddon that would commence once either side made a decisive move on the other. As a result, it was a standoff fought by proxies with the full weight of either side never being bought to bear.
The war on terrorism is different. The West is not constrained by the treat of mutually assured destruction. The west can go after the terrorists whenever, wherever they are found. In a fight, the terrorists will lose. The only way terrorists can win is when they exploit out own weaknesses against us and surprise us. catch us in our complacency. I don't think that the lack of terrorist success in the last year is any coincidence- vigilance and pursuing them have to a great extent protected us from them.
Terrorism is not a phenomenon that the world has to tolerate and live with. Destroying it utterly is a choice we do have available to us in this age. If we wish to live in safety and to see the world advance into a better age, it is necessary that we not tolerate it and hunt the terrorists down and eliminate them.
Here in Canada? Nothing. People are aware of the anniversary- but are going about business as usual. At 8:46am, people around me were talking about sports, checking out the internet- just another morning on CNBC.
This is Canada- revealing herself in all of her apathy and selfishness.
The scenes of September 11, 2001, brought our values to the surface - values that for too long had been buried too deep to find expression, values shared with the grieving New Yorkers. But soon, other values were exposed as well, in scenes that we observed with incredulity.
Scenes such as "peace protesters" abusing servicemen for defending their country - the country that paid the protesters unemployment benefits - against dictators who would herd them off the streets and into their armies.
Scenes such as privileged students denouncing the United States for defending a way of life that funded their universities and protected their freedoms from regimes that prescribe dress and behaviour according to the dictates of the Koran.
Scenes such as Green politicians piously demanding that we sacrifice our industries, jobs and living standards to protect endangered species of rodents and lichens, while denouncing the US for going to war to protect its endangered citizens.
Scenes such as media icons using their freedom of the press to malign a mourning US for its alleged aggression against terrorist-sponsoring countries.
Scenes such as multiculturalists damning Israel, the one tiny island of democracy in the Middle East, for defending itself against a hostile ocean of one-culture, one-religion, one-party states that have vowed to engulf and destroy it.
Scenes such as women's liberationists sliding from the denunciation of sexist language and Pap smears, to the denunciation of the US, blaming it for all the civilian deaths from Manhattan to Baghdad, while remaining mute about the brutal subjugation of women in Islamic states.
Why didn't the peace protesters hurl their abuse at the terrorist murderers and their sympathisers? Why didn't the students condemn the dictators? Why didn't the environmentalists urge the swift elimination of the killers?
Why didn't the media icons expose the dark-age evil of the theocracies? Why didn't the multiculturalists demand support for the only multicultural democracy in the region? Why didn't the women's libbers raise a cry for the liberation of their sisters living in the Taliban's hell?
Did these people ever value peace, justice, tolerance, truth, rights and love for their fellow person? Or, like the terrorists, were they motivated by malignant antipathy to America and its traditional values of life, liberty, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness on Earth?
Suman Palit lays out the case that the world should have left the US to slumber- and that the American giant awoken will remake the world it its own interest, not the image that the rest of the world imagined it could make the US serve.
So you want us engaged, eh..?:
The world could use a little post 9/11 retrospective itself... as it seemingly alternates between admiration and indignation over Americana. 9/11 was a good thing, some argue, America is now so much more engaged with the world, they say. Americans are picking up the Koran, they are learning foreign languages.. soon America will respect the Shariah, the neo-socialism of the EU, or the grand culture of
victimhood. Now you fat Americans will understand how we feel, and you will become more like us, yes, yes..? No, maybe, please..??
I have a news flash for you. You really, really do not want the worlds only hyperpower engaging itself across the world in the fashion it already has in Afghanistan. The only thing keeping Pax Americana from your doorstep, the only thing standing between the US 7th fleet and your flea-infested beachheads is a
disinterested, self-centered, semi-isolationist American public. If you know what's good for you, you will let us get back to our malls, hot dogs, beer bellies, baseball games and pop idols. If you know what's good for you, you will tiptoe away from our borders, and let us grunt into our malt liquors while we watch late night tv.
But, you didn't. You couldn't leave well enough alone. You woke up a self-engrossed, bemused and generally harmless giant, thinking you could scream and yell loud enough, and that would be enough to control us, and use our economic and military might for your political ends. You have forced Americans to look at the outside world with renewed interest, thinking that we would then look at ourselves the way you do. But as the days go by, the tinny shrilling of your smugness, your lack of moral clarity, your purposeless blame-America game has forced us to acknowledge what we secretly believed all along but were too polite to admit - the rest of the world is comprised of wussies, bullies, or both. You have inadvertantly given Americans a taste of power, and have allowed into the equation the possibility that they might actually like it. The very availability of this power is an incitement to abuse, and Americans are no different than the rest of the world in this respect. All you have done is convinced a reluctant American public that it must now impose it's will even where it may not be needed, or wanted.
Well, now that you have gone and done it, you might as well sit back and enjoy the show. It's going to be Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and then perhaps Europe all over again. Pax Americana is coming, there is probably very little you can do to influence the course of events, and when you rue the day you will have only yourselves to blame for it.
This was always the danger in the world condemming the US as being the worst nation in the world, and imperialist, a warmonger, a dictator- that the US would realize that it would be dammed for its existence one way or another. Might as well take the benefits if all of the corresponding consequences have already come calling.
Personally, bring it on. I look forward to the Pax Americana. I look forward to countries like Syria which massacre towns of 20,000 people (Hama, early 80s) getting their governments ripped out by the roots and democracies installed. This could be the end of the age of dictators, if only the US rises to the challenge.
Ah, I can already hear the theme song. I love the little details that the author puts in, like the clock in the background and their son being named Stalin.
Okay- it's not always funny, but I'll be willing to put the strip up against Ted Rall anyday.
A newspaper columnist or editorial writer publishes their opinion piece and retreats. Ditto for other writers and most broadcast commentators. They put their thoughts and opinions out there for the general public to digest. When the great unwashed figure out that the editorial, column or commentary is intellectually inedible, the author is safely out of reach, insulated from any challenges to the factual or logical base of their stated opinions.
You can send an editor who has written a hideously flawed critique of some conservative cause all the scathing e-mails you want. They don't have to listen or respond. They're up there basking in the congratulatory hugs and kisses of their fellow leftists, while you're down here on solid ground screaming to be heard on a point of logic or fact. You simply aren't worthy of challenging their obviously superior thought processes. They've told you the way things are, and it's simply up to you to accept their wisdom and applaud their insight.
This is why leftist opinion makers generally survive in newspapers, magazines and on network television broadcasts – everywhere but in talk radio.
So, just what is so different about talk radio? Simple. Radio talk-show hosts can't hit and run. They can throw their opinions out there, just like writers and commentators do, but they then have to sit right there and deal with the feedback. There's a blinking row of lights there, and every one of those lights is another caller just waiting to nail the talk-show host to the wall for any factual or logical error.
If you're writing a newspaper editorial, it's easy to play the class-warfare game and say that George W. Bush's tax cut overwhelmingly favors the "wealthiest 1 percent of Americans." You pen the line, and then sit back to gauge the effects of your little class-warfare salvo.
But ... if you're a liberal talk-show host, and you use the same line on the air, your best bet would be to refrain from taking telephone calls the rest of the show. Soon a caller will tell you that it's an "income tax" – not a "wealth tax" – and that the top 1 percent of income earners in any given year may not necessarily be the same folks as America's "wealthiest 1 percent." One of these top 1-percenters may simply be a widow who has sold some of her husband's assets after his death, or you have an elderly couple selling a business prior to retirement. Uh oh – you're starting to look pretty bad here.
Take the next call and you're likely to be asked to explain why it is so unfair for the top 1 percent of income earners to reap the benefits of a tax cut considering the fact that they pay over one-third of the income taxes while earning only 17 percent of the income. No fancy answer for that one? Now, you're starting to look just a bit ridiculous.
The leftist editorial writer doesn't have to deal with those impertinent questions. They can just hit the e-mail delete button. The leftist talk-show host can't avoid those questions. Soon, he either has to change his opinion to correlate with the facts, or face a complete loss of credibility. And guess what? When talk-show hosts have no credibility, they soon have no talk shows.
Bottom line: Liberals don't do well at talk radio because theirs is a political philosophy based on emotion and legalized plunder. Take enough listener phone calls, and your credibility is shot – along with your ratings. Time to go write a column somewhere.
I don't think Charles Johnson is at all racist, or unfair to Muslims. I think a significant portion of his posters are Cro-Magnons, and Charles has failed to exert proper control over his Comments boards to keep them under control. But that just makes him a bad web moderator, not a bad person: his own takes on events continue to show a remarkable mix of fairness and a true passion for justice.
That said, I can't read the Comments on his site anymore. Taken in large amounts, they make you feel dirty inside. And their presence is steadily undermining and ruining the moral clarity of a once-great weblog.
I've been feeling distinctly uncomfortable with a lot of the comments I've seen there as of late as well. Many of the people whose comments I now find offensive started out as perfectly reasonable posters, but over time have gotten more dogmatic and to be frank- racist. If not racist, then intolerably bigoted and prejudiced. How are you supposed to take it when one poster to the blog calls himself "Allah the Dog-faced God"?
Which brings us to today, where I too part ways with the comments section of LGF. The riot at Concordia yesterday has bought out the worst in the LGF boards, or maybe I'm just noticing it more because as a Canadian I'm getting slammed too.
To Begin Sherry posts It must be inbred in them. They're love of rock throwing is becoming a real problem every where! They are such tantrum throwers !!! Have a problem, throw a rock.
Then there's Lip Silly little paleo-simians, why bring rocks to gunfights?....
And on, including suggestions to blow the protestors apart with a claymore. I find this unacceptable.
This Jew from Montreal is shocked at the blatantly racist remarks spewing forth from most of you. How any of you can criticize others for being ignorant, is the best example of the pot calling the tea-kettle black.
I expect several of you will respond by calling me a left-wing apologist. Don't even go there. I want justice for all those poor souls as much as anyone else, even if it means hunting them down like one would a rabid dog, but I choose not to lower myself to the level of the guilty parties, in the process.
Hate is why terrorism exists, and I see a disturbing amount of hate here.
Phil expresses my own sentiments to the T. (although I disagree on why terrorism exists.)
Now- the responses to Phil.
H-manhey phil pull your head out of your ass. you see a lot of hate here? scroll down a wee bit and take a look at the destruction caused by those with this mind set. understand in 2 days it will be a year from the date of this act of war against our country. know that YOUR pm is doing everything he can to obstruct america's rightous and well founded need to take out these pieces of shit. we are supremely sick of these scumbags screwing up their own countries but we're even more pissed at them for exporting it here and abroad.
in other words piss off
Charming. The Root causes argument, just in the other direction.
Duke writesDude don't get philosophical. Its all Canadians we hate, not just the Bastards that run the country.
Frances: ) if you're not a troll, you need to find yourself a cluestick very quickly, and wack yourself on the side of the head a few times...
You seem to be unable to comprehend pure unadulterated hatred for all things jewish. So you make apologies and claim they are simply 'ignorant'. My 4 year old son is ignorant of many things, these savages are not.
The hatred of the protestors does not excuse hating them in return. It does not excuse racist comments. Sitting around making racist comments on bulletin boards is only ten steps above the junior jihadists at ClearGuidance.
Reading further into the 100+ comments, it's becoming obvious that others feel the same way as Phil and myself. I'm glad. Now we'll have to start the effort to clean things up a bit. Or at the very least let people know when we find what they say objectionable.
This just in: The Alabama federal judge who sentenced a black nonviolent first-time drug offender to three concurrent sentences of life without parole in 1993 just has sentenced a white-lawyer-turned-drug-dealer to four months in a work-release facility.
[...]
According to a story by Mobile Register reporter Joe Danborn, the feds prosecuted Greer for selling cocaine "in quantities ranging from an ounce to several grams." The feds charged Aaron for moving larger quantities of crack, after he dabbled in the drug world by setting up two drug deals between two dealers.
Federal laws are harsher for crack than cocaine. Greer was caught peddling powder cocaine from his office and Mobile bars, while Aaron's charges involved crack. Crack offenders are predominantly black, while cocaine offenders span many racial groups. A dealer who peddles 500 grams of powdered cocaine automatically gets a five-year sentence for a first offense, according to Eric Sterling, who as a congressional aide helped write the 1984 sentencing laws, and in repentance now heads the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. The threshold for crack cocaine is 100 times lower -- it's 5 grams.
Another difference between Aaron and Greer: Greer wore a wire and helped the feds collar two higher-level dealers. Aaron didn't offer up a dealer. His Boston attorney Gregg Shapiro explained that because Aaron was a novice in the dealing world, he had "little or nothing to offer prosecutors."
On Monday, the day when European leaders like France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder parachuted into the summit to blast the lack of American leadership on the environment, the U.S. scored a stunning victory on energy policy--with the help of developing nations. Negotiators agreed to a provision that rejected specific targets for renewables like wind and solar power, avidly sought by Europeans. Instead, poor countries said, in effect, that windmills may be fine for the Danes, but what Africans and Asians need is energy that's cheap and abundant, including coal and oil.
In fact, unlike other huge environmental meetings, Johannesburg became suffused with the theme that wealth makes health--or, more specifically, that it is economic growth that leads to a cleaner, safer environment. In the past, radical greens and their U.N. camp followers had tried to promote a false dichotomy: the concept that nations must strike a balance between economic growth and care for the environment. The term "sustainable development," the focus of the summit, was itself a byproduct of that false choice. But perhaps specifically because the conference was held in Africa, the notion that what developing nations need first is development--and that environmental progress will follow--amazingly caught on.
For example, Claire Short, Britain's development minister, warned environmentalists against "imposing rules that prevent poor countries from development." Otherwise, she said, people in those countries can justifiably say to developed nations, "You got your development, and now you're setting rules that make sure we will never be able to develop."
Going into this summit, radical greens wanted to force poor countries to use more wind and solar power, which are expensive and require large infusions of capital. But in Johannesburg, that approach was rejected in favor of the idea that "energy policies are supportive to developing countries' efforts to eradicate poverty." The conference gave a green light to "efficient, affordable and cost-effective energy technologies, including fossil fuel technologies." In other words, the summit endorsed the use of sources like clean coal. India will get windmills in time, but for now, it needs to get rich as quickly as it can.
You wouldn't have guessed it from the heckling of Colin Powell, but the truth is that the majority of participants here conceded, through their final document, that foolish targets and rules for renewables will only delay economic growth in developing nations and keep their citizens poor. And naturally, people who live in poverty are far more concerned with the day-to-day demands of food, shelter and clothing. Environmental health is a luxury they can afford only after they have achieved these basic needs. Or, as the late Indian leader Indira Ghandi put it, "Poverty is the worst polluter."
The idea is simple, and academic research proves it: Economic progress leads to environmental progress. Once per capita incomes get to about $8,000 a year, nations start aggressively improving their environments. So, with three-quarters of the world still poor, the best way to clean up air and water is to help make them richer. Studies show that the U.S., Europe and Japan have the cleanest environments while nations like Haiti, China and Bangladesh have the dirtiest. Thirteen of the 15 worst-polluted cities in the world are in developing Asia.
The operation took two and a half years to prepare. It was hatched and refined in a building known as the House of al-Gumad in the Afghan city of Kandahar, where Saudi al-Qaida fighters used to meet.
[....]
Last spring the rest of the attack team, mainly Saudis, began training in Afghanistan. "They knew it was a martyr's operation, but they did not know details," explained Mohammed.
Atta and the pilots had started flying lessons in the US the previous year. Communication was by email, with targets given codenames. The Twin Towers were the "faculty of urban planning", the Pentagon was the "faculty of fine arts" and the Capitol was "the law faculty".
The exact date of the attack was given to al-Shaibah, using a numbers riddle, when Atta called him in Hamburg on August 29.
Al-Shaibah himself communicated the date, via messenger, to Osama bin Laden on September 6 after he had fled Hamburg for Pakistan.
B: They detail the planning- which had been going on for a decade.
The first piece of the September 11 plot was put in place in 1992 when the Egyptian Mohammed Atta, who eventually led the attacks, was sent as a sleeper agent to Hamburg, Germany.
C: They originally were contemplating attacks on nuclear power plants instead of buildings.
The idea came several years later from al-Qaida's military committee when it decided to refine a previously aborted plan - to fly airliners into 12 major American buildings - "in order to cause the greatest possible number of deaths and deal a huge blow to America on its own soil", according to Mohammed. "It was decided to abandon nuclear targets for the moment," Mohammed explained."I mean for the moment," he added. (Emphasis added)
In an interview with Al-Jazeera, the new heads of Al-Queda reveal the past- and inadvertently- that Bin Laden is no longer alive.
"Khaled let his tongue run away by referring to Bin Laden in the past tense," wrote Fouda. "Something is not working well in the upper levels of al-Qaida. I used to think there was a 50% chance Bin Laden was alive, now I rather believe he is dead."
You don't use the past tense on someone who is still alive.
