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Monday, November 12, 2001
Keep your eye on the blog 
World Wide Dan
| | Here, freedom of the press belongs to those with a Web server. |
Running off at the tube
| | Working and watching and listening and blogging... all at once. |
| | It's clear one of the engines fell off. On all the networks we see WABC-TV footage of the thing, lying on in front of the two garage doors of a Texaco station. ("Hey boys, come out here and look at this one...") |
| | On NPR an aviation and aerospace engineer from St. Louis University just explained that the Airbus 300 has crashed 8 times. Four were caused by terrorism. Two were pilot error. I forget the other two. He said, basically, that engines just don't fall off, even when catastrophic failure occurs, which is very, very rare. |
| | On CNN an aviation expert just speculated about the hole in the side of the engine. JFK has a problem with birds, the anchor says. Could a gull or a pelican have been responsible? The expert gives a highly qualified "maybe." |
| | On ABC a reporter just went on about how it's unlikely to have been a terrorist act because the plane was so thoroughly secured first. All bags were matched to passengers. The plane was highly inspected, yada yada. |
| | All the speculation is about stuff internal to the plane, the airport, to aviation, to our experience with terrorists. |
| | All the news agents are telling the same story: "There is no reason to believe terrorism was involved." |
| | No reason? When we've got 5000 dead in a pile of rubble in Manhattan? When the government has been putting the country on a war footing and issuing terrorist warnings every few days? |
| | Terrorists don't do what we expect. Not if they're any good at it. |
| | Nobody is talking about anything external to the airplane. Why not? Two reasons: 1) we don't want to scare people; and 2) it hasn't happened yet, so it "doesn't fit the profile." |
| | But our experience with terrorism over the last two months hasn't had anything happening inside the profile. The bad guys got away with their hijackings on 9-11 precisely because they didn't fit the profile. They depend on the profile to maintain our attention while they go about their evil business elsewhere. |
| | Like somewhere under the plane along the flight path. |
| | If you're sitting in a swamp on Rockaway Bay behind a duck blind or in a cabin cruiser wth a Stinger shoulder-held anti-aircraft missle launcher, an Airbus is a mighty big duck. You don't even have to aim very well. Your Stinger is a heat-seeking missle. It goes for an engine. |
| | Why a Stinger? Well, says here we taught our former Afghan friends how to use them: |
| | The US-made Stinger is a man-portable infrared guided shoulder-launched Surface-To-Air Missile (SAM). It proved to be highly effective in the hands of Afghan Mujahedeen guerrillas during their insurgency against the Soviet intervention. Its maximum effective range is approximately 5,500 metres. Its maximum effective altitude is approximately 5250metres. It has been used to target high-speed jets, helicopters and commercial airliners. |
| | They're not very big, and probably not hard to smuggle, especially under pre-9-11 security conditions. How hard would it be to set one up somewhere between JFK and Rockaway? (Thanks for that link, Chuck.) Probably a lot easier than it was to hijack four airplanes on the same day. |
| | Now, is it irresponsible to point out this possibility? Maybe. But our president wants us to be careful. To think. |
| | Because blogs aren't just news "services." They're a way we can think out loud. |
| | And I've got a plane to catch this afternoon. |
| | And some people I love have one to catch tomorrow. Out of JFK. |
| | [Later... I'm not following the news, but I've got emails coming in telling me there's increasing evidence (e.g. sightings by other pilots) that seem to point to some kind of engine catastrophe during take-off. I'd definitely prefer that to any terrorist scenario. But I still can't help wondering.] |
O shit
| | A plane just crashed in New York. I can't bring up any of the sites... CNN... NYTimes... Here's MSNBC, saying it's a "Boeing Airbus." Boy. |
| | Okay, here's the Times. Aw jeeez... |
Blogalalia
| | The Cluetrain list, which seemed dead a couple months ago, has been reanimated by talk about blogs, including business models for their enabling software. |
| | Which brings to mind the Freedom of The Press. Today we look back on the First Amendment and project a model of The Press that was built in the Industrial Age. Yet "The Press" in 1790 was more like blogs are today. |
| | Gotta think some more about that when I have time. |
Movements
| | Today is a travel day. So is tomorrow. Deadlines go bump in the night. |
| | Also big birthdays today and tomorrow. You know who you are. Meanwhile, here's Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology horoscope for you Scorpios: |
| | If I myself had the means to reward brilliant virtuosity, you would be my top choice. Why? Because of your determination to keep digging and digging, through the layers of superficial desires we've all been programmed with, until you get to the bottom of your irreducible primal yearnings. In recognition of your ongoing work, which is now entering a new phase, please accept this metaphorical prize: an image of a giant heart beating at the center of the Earth. |
| | Seems appropriate, somehow. |
| | Since we're in a celestial frame, I want to encourage everybody to get ready for what may be the biggest meteor shower we'll ever see (at least until the next cratermaker comes along, which I hope none of us get to see). There's a nice piece about it over on Kuro5hin. |
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