#42332
09/20/2001 1:06 PM
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Continued from I&A thread: http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=40101Here are the last few postings: Bobyoungbalt (old hand) Wed Sep 19 22:53:25 2001 Overlarge thread This is a great thread but unmanageably large. Would one of you old masters do what it takes to break it up? --------------------------------------------------- Capital Kiwi (veteran) Thu Sep 20 00:48:56 2001 Re: People for the American Way Froggie, I meant that the "left-wing" political party - theoretically the Democrats - would be regarded, in its entirety, as ultra-conservative in Zild. - Ratty.* *Froggie of Toad Hall? Doesn't really sound right, does it? --------------------------------------------------- Jmh (veteran) Thu Sep 20 05:15:32 2001 Re: Tea time Ted For your crime of punning, telling of shaggy dog tales and humour of dubious origins I hereby fine you, one cup of tea (hot, no iced stuff), to be brewed by you and presented by you to me in fine bone china the next time I set am within a fifty mile radius of you on US soil. --------------------------------------------------- Jmh (veteran) Thu Sep 20 05:18:21 2001 Re: Overlarge thread >Would one of you old masters do what it takes to break it up? Ahem, I was wondering if anyone had any views on the phrase "begs the question"? See you in Q&A. --------------------------------------------------- Rodward (addict) Thu Sep 20 06:08:33 2001 Re: Security II auto-pilot controlled landings ... I believe this is practicable now, just not deemed advisable for the public's feeling of security many landings are on auto-pilot as I understand it, they just don't talk about it much. Certainly the old Trident airplanes (circa 20 years ago?) were the only ones able to land in fog at London, precisely because it was automatic. There is a story that the program had to be changed because it landed too flat, pefectly safe but the customers felt safer with the nose high. From google - I just had to check my memory: first fully automated commercial landing was made by a BEA Trident 1 in May 1967 --------------------------------------------------- Faldage (Pooh-Bah) Thu Sep 20 08:33:51 2001 Re: to the right of Ghengiz Khan! And just how far right *was Ghengiz Khan? As far as I know he could have been the front man for an anarcho-syndicalist collective. ---------------------------------------------------------
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#42333
09/20/2001 1:32 PM
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In background conversations with reporters, White House officials have begun talking about the unspoken deal with Pakistan: a relatively swift lifting of economic sanctions and a resumption of the country's desperately needed loans from the International Monetary Fund. They made no mention of the fact that Pakistan continues to develop nuclear weapons — which prompted the sanctions — or that it has never satisfied the economic reform demands of the I.M.F.http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/international/20CAPI.html?todaysheadlinesThis is the side of realpolitik that completely sickens me; it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that the downstream effects of this brave new coalition will inevitably include destabilisation of Pakistan’s own social melting pot together with the proliferation of nuclear risks in the most unstable region of the whole world.
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#42334
09/20/2001 2:34 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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<political instability in Pakistan
Mav,
Any word on the Indian response?
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#42335
09/20/2001 2:47 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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All the banner waiving going on at work as well as elsewhere, I taped a small photo clipped from the newspaper of a turbaned Sikh holding a sign bearing a likeness of the flag and the motto, "stars and stripes forever."
The photo was removed by management. My co-workers explain that any picture of an arab could be upsetting to people. And that they might (or did) think it was Bin Laden. As a matter of office policy, it is because discussions of religion and politics are discouraged. Of course, the picture is more political than the flags taped up everywhere only insofar as it represents the inclussion of a group now subjected to prejudice as patriotic citizens. I feel the same impulse to leave today that I did last Thurdsay during the wave of bomb threats. I feel unsafe in proximity to this attitude. What approach does one take to discuss these matters without entering into conflict? Or should we just pay lip service to the demise of bigotry and jump at every opportunity to call it justified and embrace it. We *call 'justice!' but what we call *for is bigotry and hate. The best place to hide something is in plain sight. One might wish the obvious would hide itself that people might see it.
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#42336
09/20/2001 3:49 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Thank you inselpeter for your continued vigilance.
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#42337
09/20/2001 5:07 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Thank you inselpeter for your continued vigilance.Second. Love you, Sweetie.
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#42338
09/20/2001 9:58 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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This is the side of realpolitik that completely sickens me; it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that the downstream effects of this brave new coalition will inevitably include destabilisation of Pakistan’s own social melting pot together with the proliferation of nuclear risks in the most unstable region of the whole world.
Mav, Pakistan is a military dictatorship and really always has been. No one rules without the approval of the military, and I don't think they've ever had an election in the country which was regarded by third-party observers as fair. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Pretty hard to destabilise that kind of situation, and it plays into America's hands because, really, they only need the leadership's approval to do whatever they want.
Pakistan also has a fair number of Islamic fundamentalists, but I believe the military reckons it can contain them. I don't know how many people know it, but most of the Afghani Taleban ruling group were educated, if that's what you can call it, in Pakistan. Jerry Falwell probably was too, come to think of it.
I have a number of Pakistani friends who I'm worrying about right now.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42339
09/21/2001 10:53 AM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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the downstream effects of this brave new coalition will inevitably include destabilisation of Pakistan ... together with the proliferation of nuclear risks
Pakistan is a military dictatorship and really always has been. Pretty hard to destabilise ... it plays into America's hands because, really, they only need the leadership's approval to do whatever they want.
gentlemen, if I were to discuss this I'd be opining on something for which I'm unqualified. I simply don't have the expertise to purport to speak with such authority.
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#42340
09/21/2001 12:01 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
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Well, CK, some people agree with my concern. ’Pakistan's role is a delicate matter. Too large an American presence could encourage protests and possibly destabilize the country, a frightening development for Washington given the wellspring of anti- American sentiment among Pakistani citizens and that nation's nuclear weapons ability….’http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/international/21MILI.html?todaysheadlinesFrom another excellent report from Pakistan comes this general view of attitudes to the USA: ‘…the hostility spans the classes. A banker said to me: "The attack on New York was repaying America in the same coin."
He thinks the Americans are astonishingly and dangerously solipsistic -apparently unable to comprehend grief unless it is their own. ‘http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/from_our_own_correspondent/newsid_1554000/1554940.stmI, too, worry about friends in Pakistan, and India.
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#42341
09/21/2001 1:28 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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<solipsistic
well said
**
from a US cousin by way of my Asian cousin:
Friends, I would like to take this occasion to share with you e-mail correspondence from my friend Ambassador Asher Naim of Israel.
Here is what he wrote:
Dear XXX,
Last week I received Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes article from The Wall Street Journal of May 31. I sent it to some friends including a dear Philippine friend Ambassador Ramon Pedrosa who in turn sent me this very interesting information from the Philippines on project Bojinca, and I wish to call your attention to it just in case it is not known to you.
Shanah Tova,
Asher Naim
From: Rafael M. Garcia III
Subject: Project Bojinka
To my Classmates:
Sometime in January 1995, when Philippine Police authorities captured Ramsey Youssef in Manila, I was asked, because of my affiliation with the NBI, to help
decode and decipher the hard drives of the computers found in Youssef's possession. This is where we found most of the evidence of the projects that were being funded by Osama Bin Laden in the Philippines.
The first plan was to assassinate Pope John Paul II who was then scheduled to visit the Philippines. The second was Project Bojinka, which called for the hijacking of US bound commercial airliners from the Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Honking and Singapore and then crash them into key structures in the United States. The World Trade Center, the White House, the Pentagon, the Transamerica Tower, and the Sears Tower were among prominent structures that had been identified in the plans that we had decoded.
A dry-run was even conducted on a Tokyo bound Philippine Airlines flight, which fortunately was aborted by our security personnel.
It was also from these computers that we found the plans for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993. This evidence was eventually used to convict Ramsey Youssef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan for the WTC bombing.
Obviously, the original Project Bojinka was modified to give it more significant impact on the USA. By hijacking planes that originated from within the United States instead of Asia, they made sure that AMERICANS would be killed in the hijacking instead of Asians, which obviously would elicit a stronger reaction from the Americans. And transcontinental flights (East Coast to West Coast) would have more fuel for most of the targets which were on the East Coast. Abdul Hakim Murad admitted that they had been taking flying lessons in the Philippines for Project Bojinka. Obviously, after they were caught and convicted, a new set of terrorists were trained in the United States (Venice, Florida) for the modified Bojinka.
The Philippines has been having a lot of problems lately because Osama Bin Laden has been funding the activities of the Abu Sayyaf through his brother-in-law, Khalifa Janjalani. The success of these recent terrorist acts in the United States will embolden Commander Robot and Commander Sabaya, both of the Abu Sayyaf, to wreak more havoc in our part of the world.
What is strange is that the United States agencies that took possession of the evidence that we gathered, obviously, did not take Project Bojinka seriously. I
would have thought that intelligence operatives would have analyzed all the evidence and worked out various scenarios that could have included the modified Bojinka plan. If they had done so, the US would have been prepared for this attack.
Let us thank God that many of our friends were spared from the horrors of the other day.
I have been stuck in Minneapolis for the last two days after attending the reunion of the East Coast Eagles in Washington, DC. I am irritated that I am unable to travel but I am gratified that I am still alive enough to be irritated!
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#42342
09/21/2001 5:27 PM
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that is absolutely stunning, IP. It confirms the views of a senior CIA operative (quoted the other day on the BBC) that in effect the CIA - in contrast to what their current leaders say - would not recognise a bin Liner conspirator if he came up and bit them on the ass. Meanwhile more about the turmoil growing in Pakistan: Four people have died and several others have been injured in the Pakistani city of Karachi as pro-Taleban protests there turned violent.
They are the first death after days of protests against the Pakistan Government's decision to back the United States in its campaign against Afghanistan…/…
A former Pakistani intelligence chief, Hameed Gul, warned that any US attack on Afghanistan would destabilise the entire region….http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1555000/1555688.stm
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#42343
09/21/2001 5:46 PM
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Posts: 4,757
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There was a very thoughtful post in Anu's mailing today - I wrote to its writer asking permission to re-post it here and she replied thusly:
"Certainly. I wish I could say more, but I am suffering from a head injury just now, and each letter is very hard. I grieve at the innocent who will suffer or die. I believe that every person of good will must take a stand against violence, else it will continue indefintely."
This is what Jacqueline had overcome her personal problems to share:
From: Jacqueline Kiffe Subject: a murder here of an Indian national
With all my degrees in mathematics and the sciences, the vast majority of my classmates were of foreign origin. Indeed, if not for them, many classes could not have been offered. The Indians I knew were not violent people any more than Hindu is a violent religion. Anger will come later, but I cried when I read of the murder of an innocent Indian in a nearby city. This is not emotionalism; I grew up in a terrible, violent home, and sometimes the only thing that kept me on track was the understanding that if I became like those evil people, that they would have won, finally and completely. If we allow ourselves either to take out our feelings of rage and helplessness on people on our soil who look foreign (and may very well be American-born) or even to just stand by idly while others do so, we are no better than the terrorists or those who harbor them. They will have won the war and not just the battle.
None of this is meant to diminish the horror of what happened Tuesday, but the worst possible scenario is for us to become the terrorists on our on soil, or to harbor them or condone them by our refusal to take a stand, just because they look like "us" and the victims do not. If people come here for safety or freedom, it behooves us to welcome them and not to contribute to the river of innocent blood, else we become what we hate.
Hear, hear. I am reminded of an ancient Chinese proverb that suggests 'If you seek vengeance, prepare two graves.'
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#42344
09/21/2001 9:58 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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During the US presidential primaries around a year ago, I heard a low-profile canditate on air. He was a physicist and part of his platform was against the development of the missile shield which, he argued, was technically unfeasible (unfortunately, I didh't get his name). The interviewer asked him how he proposed to defend the homeland, he answered 'by means of a foriegn policy that didn't cause so many people to hate us.' Perhaps we should consider this in tandem with our considering allowing security concerns leading us to suspend or curtail the Bill of Rights, as well.
***
Question: how useful is the word "innocent" and to what purpose? My own feeling is that its use this week is essentially bellicose and unhelpful.
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#42345
09/21/2001 10:00 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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During the US presidential primaries around a year ago, I heard a low-profile canditate on air. He was a physicist and part of his platform was against the development of the missile shield which, he argued, was technically unfeasible (unfortunately, I didh't get his name). The interviewer asked him how he proposed to defend the homeland, he answered 'by means of a foriegn policy that didn't cause so many people to hate us.' Perhaps we should consider this in tandem with our considering allowing security concerns leading us to suspend or curtail the Bill of Rights, as well.
***
Question: how useful is the word "innocent" and to what purpose? My own feeling is that its use this week has essentially been bellicose and unhelpful--and otherwise meaningless (unless conjoined with "children").
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#42346
09/21/2001 11:15 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
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I heard a low-profile canditate on air.John Hagelin - Natural Law Party http://www.hagelin.org
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#42347
09/22/2001 1:13 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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IP: What level of confidence do you have in the statement alleged to have come from Rafael M. Garcia III? I googled bojinka and found the following link to a commercial site (they sell subsctriptions). I'm not certain of the political leanings of this organization, but the article on the left side of this page is almost word for word with what you posted, without any reference to Garcia or to Ramon Pedrosa, at least in the part I could see. Garcia by the way comes up negative on a google at least in this context. I forgot to do Pedrosa but I intend to go back and do that. Is it at all possible that we have seen the creation of another Internet hoax or urban legend? The other site I looked at that referred to Oplan Bojinka was a website in the Philippines that probably has some axes to grind. TEd http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/Added a few minutes later: I googled Pedrosa and found that name listed as the ambassador from Malta to the Philippines. Not certain what if anything that means, but my skepticism is almost boundless on this one. Edited yet again: Further searches showed that up until September 11, the only Bojinka hits referred to a plan to blow up 11 jet liners enroute to the US from Asian rim countries. None of the sites made reference to plans to fly the planes into buildings. These sites I looked at were predominantly mainstream news reporters such as CNN.
TEd
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#42348
09/22/2001 2:15 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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TdE,
<<level of confidence...
I do not have absolute confidence in the authenticity of this posting. I had meant to suggest that--probably by showing that it came to me somewhat indirectly.
However, the US cousin is an Israeli with very high-level contacts in the Israeli government.
IP
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#42349
09/22/2001 9:23 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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wow may have been amazingly preceptive when she initiated the long thread being continued here. She stated there, [M]y instinct is to 'follow the money'"The following excerpt is from http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0109220020sep22.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hedpossible manipulations of the options market …Securities regulators throughout the world, and particularly in Chicago, are investigating whether Osama bin Laden or people in his terrorist network played the options markets to make millions of dollars in profits as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks. The key to these windfalls would have been the terrorists' knowledge that the attacks would be taking place
If this conspiracy is proved--and it has not been yet-- …
The securities investigations are focusing on unusually heavy short-selling or trading of put options of stocks of AMR (parent of American Airlines), UAL (parent of United Airlines), Citigroup and others during the days preceding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After the attacks, these stocks nose-dived and those involved in these transactions stood to make huge profits. It may be pure coincidence, unusually lucky betting--or advance knowledge that the attacks would take place.
Though some of the probe revolves around Chicago's exchanges, there is also evidence that similar manipulations took place at exchanges elsewhere in the world.
Maybe the terror profiteers, if they exist, were savvy enough to cover their tracks. But it's also possible they left a paper path right to their door.
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#42350
09/23/2001 12:12 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Of course Ann was right: Following the money is really the only way to track these people down, since it is the most likely to leave a paper and computer-record trail. Of course, these can be fudged, but I do wonder at just how long bin Laden's reach is (if bin Laden is our man).
Mav, it's my belief that the army will control Pakistan no matter what. It always has in the past. Even when it was a so-called democracy under the Bhuttos, the army had the ultimate say on everything. Bhutto Senior was hanged, if I remember correctly, because the army wanted him dead.
But I would guess that the US will use Pakistan no matter what the perceived longer-term effects on that unfortunate country are. They really have very little choice if they want to stage a full-scale or even limited-action invasion of Afghanistan. Well, that's my impression anyway. Why? Because I can't see either Iran or the Russian Republics allowing them to go that way.
Another aside: I was reading in the Sunday Times today that a British mercenary who's been dealing with bin Laden and the Taleban reckons that the US should be able to take Afghanistan over, lock, stock and 10 million army-surplus landmines, in about six weeks. I think I've heard something like that before ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42351
09/23/2001 4:12 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Follow-up on the matter noted in my post yesterday, listed two items above: Today's Tribune has a much more detailed story on the matter. Those who wish to follow this in the future may prefer to check the Chicago Tribune website, whose coverage may be particularly complete simply because the US options-trading industry is centered in Chicago. http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0109230424sep23.story?coll=chi%2Dnewsnationworld%2Dhed
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#42352
09/23/2001 6:41 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Re: Profiteering
Same story here, British Airways' shares had similar fluctuations, There is also a story running (may still prove to be wrong) that a British Airways' plane was meant to be involved but the plan was foiled.
I've thought for some time that we are really dealing with movie "goodies and baddies" here. Everyday it feels more like a plot out of Batman, Superman or James Bond, the bad guys are so calculating and larger than life. I just wish it would end like one of those dreaful school essays some of us wrote finishing ... "and then she woke up and realised that it was all a dream".
I said I'd stop posting on the subject, so PM me if you wish.
Jo
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#42354
09/23/2001 10:16 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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The papers are reporting the same thing here with trading in British Airways shares
Could you check out those reports and let me know whether the concern trading in shares of the stock, or trading in options or futures on shares? The difference could be significant. Thank you.
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#42355
09/25/2001 9:44 AM
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
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addict
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I just received the following email from my sister concerning my niece who is currently on an exchange as a Forest Ranger in USA and has been doing a lot of forest fire-fighting around the states.
<start quote>
Clem has just phoned to say that she and a colleague have been selected to join a volunteer squad of trained firefighters to go to New York to act as a recovery and clearance unit to relieve the NY fire crews. She leaves at dawn tomorrow to drive to Mississippi to meet up with the others and then they set off in a convoy of trucks to drive to New York. She has no idea how long she will be there - she says she is a little nervous about dealing with the particularly ghastly cicumstances in which she will be working but very much wants to do it and is proud to have been chosen. It may even be that they are used for very mundane work away from the central site (I hope so!).
What can one say except what mothers always say, which is 'be careful'? Of course we will be worried about her but I have told her that if she finds it too much to handle there is no shame in walking away. But I'm pretty sure she won't, so I hope she is able to cope with it all in the longer term.
<end quote>
I too hope she can cope both physically (she's only 5'3") and emotionally, but I'm glad someone I know can do something practical and worthwhile.
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#42356
09/25/2001 10:05 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 11,613 |
Rod,
Bless your niece--and her parents. Thanks for posting this.
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