Some good news...

It looks like the 160 miserable souls who have just spent 8 days cooped up in an aircraft in Afghanistan will finally be released by their captors.

I don't want to make light of their ordeal (which must have been horrendous), but it seems that many people here have got the y2k thing so out of proportion that _anything_ that happens at the moment is y2k related.

Storms in Europe - y2k

I lost my phone for 5 days - y2k (actually it was seawater destroying an exchange)

Yeltsin resigns - y2k (maybe his brain isn't y2k compliant)

So... do you think the terrorists are releasing the hostages because their demands have been met, or are they only doing this because they are scared that the aircraft will spontaneously combust at midnight?

Happy New Year folks

-- Matthew (mdpope@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

Matthew: I was SO GLAD to hear that the hostages were let go. I don't know the reason but I'm sure glad they are outta there!! Happy New Year.

-- Diane (DDEsq2002@juno.com), December 31, 1999.

Yeltsin resigned because they finally made him a deal that he couldn't refuse. Wonder how compliant his 'winter dascha' happens to be. Hot and cold running guards, I bet.

Thank goodness the hostages are free. I can't imagine being cooped up with 150 other humans in a tin can for this length of time. Whether I liked them or not!!

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), December 31, 1999.

Thank God. Any one of us could have been in the same situation. In a world immune to pain and disaster from the constant barrage of it pouring out of the news...one can't help but wonder "if it were me, would anybody (outside friends and family) really care"? It's important to care about "the other people" in this world. In Germany, during WWII, it seemed like no one cared and look what happened.

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), December 31, 1999.