StarDate ... Do all planets orbit the Sun in the same direction?

CNN.com - Anti-terrorism proposals worry civil libertarians... Advocacy groups, legal experts and some members of Congress are voicing strong concerns that a proposal to expand law enforcement powers in order to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on civil liberties enjoyed by all Americans.

Guardian: Attackers did not know they were to die... FBI investigators have officially concluded that 11 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft on 11 September did not know they were on a suicide mission

Peggy Noonan: ... It is not only that God is back, but that men are back. A certain style of manliness is once again being honored and celebrated in our country since Sept. 11. You might say it suddenly emerged from the rubble of the past quarter century, and emerged when a certain kind of man came forth to get our great country out of the fix it was in.

Anthrax

Educate yourself about anthrax... Tim Paustian has a FAQ on anthrax. He's a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin.

FACT:

1. Anthrax is not contagious. The only way to get the disease is to be exposed to spores of the microbe.

2. Not much will kill these spores. Microwaving, baking, and disinfectant have no effect. If you burn your mail, that will work, but then you can't read that letter from Aunt Marge.

3. Getting spores in an envelope is not a real threat. Anthrax spores need to be dispersed in the air with very advanced equipment to become the dangerous form, pulmonary anthrax, that is lethal. Since whoever is doing this is mailing the stuff, it's obvious we are dealing with amateurs who really don't understand what they are doing. In that you can take some comfort. If you do recieve a suspicious package report it to your local authorities and consult your physician. However, it will be very unlikely that you will recieve one of these letters. Think about how many pieces of mail go out and how many people there are. Your chances are very low.

4. Cutaneous antrax only occurs when the spores encounter broken skin creating an easily recognized boil. Even then the illness is rarely fatal.

5. Anthrax is easily treated with antibiotics if it is caught early enough. The only time I would be worried about this is if everyone around you is coming down with the flu at the same time. Believe me the government will be all over something like that and has a stock pile of antibiotics for such an occasion.

6. You should not try to get vaccinated nor buy antibiotics just in case. First, your chances of contracting the disease are less than getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery, so you would be wasting your money. Second, you are depleting the stores of antibiotics that are available to treat people who may end up having the illness. Finally, the antibiotics will go bad over time and not be effective anyway. No responsible physician should be filling prescriptions to people who have not been exposed to anthrax, just in case. If you find a doctor willing to do this, can you trust them? What's to say that they are not just selling you sugar pills or something worse?

7. The disease is caused by a bacterium not a virus as reported by some news agencies. (By the way some journalists are woefully ignorant of medicine and microbiology - be careful what you believe.)

The new evil... September 11 showed us all that we are living in a world which has given unrivalled power to individuals who have no appreciation of the value of human life. History has known empires of evil. However,they all rose and fell without endangering the very existence and the continued development of life-desiring humanity. There was a certain logic to the relations between the empires of evil and life-seeking humanity that ultimately brought about the eradication of the empires. Whereas, what we are now facing, is the ability and readiness of individual persons to produce spectacular killing on a mass scale.

Make A Shorter Link... This web site provides a simple service - when you find a page on the web whose address is too long to paste into an email or other document, you can use their free service to generate a shorter, simpler address.

Safe and Free: Safe and Free in Times of Crisis "This bill has simply missed the mark of maximizing security and, at the same time, minimizing any adverse effects on America's freedoms," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office. "Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent."

SmoothWall GPL... "SmoothWall is a secure operating system that converts a redundant PC / workstation / fileserver / rackmount device into a firewall and VPN gateway, but goes way beyond that remit. First launched in July of 2000 and based on ideas and concepts that took in the best philosophies behind the installation and procurement of hardware security devices, we decided to really come up with a way for everyone from your IT director/SysAdmin down to the home user to have the same level of security regardless of budget. SmoothWall GPL is free, free as in libre. It is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence which means that yes we also give you our source. SmoothWall is webmanaged so no keyboard, monitor, or mouse on the device is needed. It supports Internal ISDN, all popular NICS, all popular connection types (Modem / ISDN / Cable / ADSL / USB ADSL / Ethernet) and also features a fully logging firewall, DHCP server, IPSEC VPN capabilities and much, much more." Found at lockergnome.

'Mommy Liberty' Packs a Gun 17-year old high school student Eliza Gauger's drawing of Mommy Liberty spread across the Internet in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the U.S.

HTML Goodies - Joe Burns, Ph.D.... And remember: When you make your way down here to New Orleans, maybe you'll find it interesting, as I did, that instead of catsup being on the restaurant table, it's hot pepper sauce. I like it, but those who grew up here just put it on everything. The hotter the better. What makes a pepper "hot" is the amount of capsaicin it contains. In 1912, a fellow named Wilber Scoville devised a scale that ranked peppers in terms of hotness. The scale was measured in Scoville units for obvious reasons.

A pepper is sweet if it ranks between 0 and 100 Scovilles. A Jalapeno has between 2500 and 5000 Scovilles. The hottest pepper is the Habanero, which ranks over 100,000 Scovilles. Some have gone as high as 350,000 Scovilles.

Ouch.

Bin Laden's Felt-Skinned Henchman? - FOXNews.com... Do the global terror links reach even as far as Sesame Street? Is Bert the Muppet a henchman of terrorist mastermind Usama bin Laden? The answer is clearly no, but puzzled newspaper readers are still wondering how the Sesame Street icon ended up in a news service photograph of a pro-bin Laden protest in Bangladesh. The pictures clearly showed demonstrators holding up a large poster in which bin Laden and Bert are standing next to each other.

DeskFlag from Tiger Technologies... DeskFlag places an animated United States flag on your screen. The flag waves in the lower-right corner as you use your computer.

DeskFlag was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and is dedicated to the memory of the victims. We hope that in some small way, using this program helps people demonstrate their condemnation of this senseless act.

DeskFlag should work with any Windows computer running Windows 95 or later.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Doomsday fears of terror cyber-attacks... Computer experts have painted a chilling picture of the potential threat from a combined terror and cyber-attack on the United States. They told Congress that terrorists could target computer networks critical to power supplies, telecommunications and financial systems and wreak havoc on the country. Fears of a cyber-assault on the US have been heightened following the 11 September attacks.

Software sought to expose terrorist cells (10/09/2001)... In a move that has some privacy rights advocates concerned, the Pentagon is hoping to track down terrorists with the help of a growing battery of computer software developed to combat consumer and business fraud.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is trying to design its own version of the software to uncover terrorist cells that are posing as legitimate groups and lying about such things as past employment, education and business affiliations.

On losing FREEDOM and LIBERTY... Must we give up the freedom and liberty we have as U.S. citizens in order to fight terrorism? Must we become a police state? Some of our lawmakers and of course the law enforcers think so. But recall Benjamin Franklin's sage words: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Franklin's admonition is just as true now as it was when he helped found our country and create our Consitution. It's not just foreign terrorists that are a threat to the the U.S. and the freedom and liberty it represents for the common man.

Convert-me.Com: Interactive measurements calculator... Here you will find interactive calculators for many measurement systems both commonly used like metric and U.S. Avoirdupois and quite exotic like Ancient Greek and Roman.

Brain Fingerprinting... an improbable story about a revolutionary new technology called Brain Fingerprinting that has caught the interest of both the CIA and the FBI. It is the creation of Dr. Larry Farwell, a scientist from Iowa, who says that by analyzing the brain waves of a criminal suspect, he can tell whether or not that individual has committed a crime. Dr. Farwell believes Brain Fingerprinting could one day be as effective as DNA in helping police investigate crimes, and in helping free those who have been wrongly convicted.

Why Liberty Suffers in Wartime... Anyone worried about the fate of civil liberties during the U.S. government's growing war on terrorism might want to consider this Latin maxim: Inter arma silent leges. It means, "In time of war the laws are silent," and it encapsulates the supremacy of security over liberty that typically accompanies national emergencies...

Hit the buildings, Missed America . . . .

Posted By: Charles Brennan, Windrose 18, So. Florida

Date: 9/11/2001 9:07p.m.

An open letter to a terrorist:

Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America.

Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!)

Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel my pain." This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don't have to see your point. But you're free to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you're free to say one. Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you. We don't agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride.

We're a collection of guys that don't agree, called States. We united our individual states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when it's your country. If you're free enough.

Yeah, we're fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs most of the time. That's an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It's unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans, they tend to fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the first bully on our shores, just the most recent.

No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole world and we used 'em both.

Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project. Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a fissioning chain reaction that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a War to win. Does that tell you something about American Resolve?

So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we're probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they're safe. Just like the Barbary Pirates did, IIRC. Better start sleeping with one eye open. There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it.

The Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much freedom there was. First thing they did when they hit our shores, was run out and buy guns. The ones that didn't end up dead, ended up in prisons. It was a big PITA then (especially in south Florida), but you're only the newest PITA, not the first.

You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it. Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.

Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time. Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming.

Charles Brennan

Note: Abreviations used by Charles

** IIRC - If I Recall Correctly

** PITA - Pain In The Ass

Proof has just come to light that George W. is a Linux user: He just issued the following command: chmod a+x /bin/laden If you are not a propeller-head & you don't understand this, see the note below.*

Translation: "grant all users permission to execute /bin/laden" Old style Unix version would be "chmod 111 /bin/laden" Interestingly the inverse would be "chmod 666 /bin/laden" which would prevent the execution.

The Web of Terror... John C. Dvorak -- The world will not forget the events of September 11th, and the World Wide Web-stocked as it is with many sites run by people who long ago declared a Jihad (holy war) against the United States-complicates the problem. Most of these sites, including one site hosted by NBCi via its free homepage service, offer graphic images such as the New York skyline in flames. The site on NBCi remained open until recently. Until they recently disappeared, Jihadroad.com and jihadpath.com mirrored it. If you got on the Web within a day of the attacks, it was easy to find numerous sites advocating a Jihad against America for various reasons. The American flag was always on fire at these sites.

Patrick Henry... "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Somebody forgot to tell Congress - we haven't even found --much less buried-- all of the bodies from the WTC and Pentagon attacks, and yet Congress is talking about I.D. cards as a way to keep track of foreigners...Doesn't that make you feel ever so much safer?

Somebody thinks so... House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt acknowledged that Americans, in the past, rejected ideas such as a national identification card as a possible infringement on civil liberties. But he indicated that last week’s terror attacks had changed the nature of the debate. Congress, he said, would need to quickly debate measures such as a national ID card.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Doctors claim world first in telesurgery... Doctors in the United States removed a gall bladder from a patient in eastern France by remotely operating a surgical robot arm. The procedure could make it possible for a surgeon to perform an operation on a patient anywhere in the world.

Reflections on a Mote of Dust... Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

Make bin Laden look over his shoulder... Dave Winer: "Heard on NPR yesterday, an account of how bin Laden's organization was infiltrated by an Egyptian secret service agent and prevented the destruction of the Holland Tunnel in NY a few years ago. One thing that came out in the report was this agent's motivation -- money. We paid him $1 million to work for us. The individuals in the terrorist organizations like money. So instead of spending $40 billion to do the linear thing, going to war, why not have a fund for terrorists who turn against their leaders? We have lots of cash. It's a good tool to return the terror. Spread this meme. Make bin Laden look over his shoulder. Make him wonder about everyone around him. $40 billion could go a long way. Isn't that an interesting idea? $1 million can buy lots of Nikes and Big Macs."

I think this sounds better than another Viet Nam where we start trying to bomb some third world victims even further toward the stone age and place our military in a situation they probably (based on historical experience) can't win. Bin Laden doesn't appear to be afraid of us. But what about his own ruthless and unscrupulus kind? RETURN THE TERROR.

A conversation with the most dangerous man in the world. ... This is an article on Osama bin Laden that was published in the February 1999 issue of Esquire. It has not been updated. They've posted it simply because it contains some unique background information on the lead suspect in the attack on America.

Radio Stations Of The Clear Channel Network Asked ToPull Some Songs... First Falwell and Robertson say the tragedy is God's wrath because because gays, abortionists and virtually anyone else they don't agree with is allowed to coexist. And now this: Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and Neil Diamond's "America" deemed Inappropriate?

"...These include "Ticket to Ride" by the Beatles, "On Broadway" by the Drifters and "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John. Even odder, some songs on the list are patriotic, like Neil Diamond's "America." Others speak of universal optimism, like Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," and others are emotional but hopeful songs that could help people grieve, like "Imagine" by John Lennon, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel, "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens and "A World Without Love" by Peter and Gordon.,,"