One thing that DOES surprise me

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

No terrorist attacks!

I was expecting at least *some* crazed fools to strike while the iron was hot.

The only explanation I can come up with is that the FBI and the CIA really *did* do their homework, and managed to find -- and cut off at the head -- those outfits that were planning to bring havoc on the US.

I am *very* relieved...

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 01, 2000

Answers

These guys and gals deserve our highest thanks and appreciation. I made fun of the hype around some of the reporting, but nonetheless I'm certain there were some real threats in there with the hype.

To you folks who stop the bad guys, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping us all safe. What's harder still is that we may never know how much these folks have done for us, that's the nature of the beast.

To save one life is to save the world over. Thanks again.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 01, 2000.


agree, the terrorists were stupider than we thought, the Government smarter than we gave them credit for.

...and Let's here it for all of those programmers out there too! woo, hoo! way to go for round one!! ;)

-- KatInSeattle (YouC@ntSpamMe.com), January 01, 2000.


Another explanation -- it never was going to happen...they were merely establishing some non-y2k scapegoats to blame any y2k problems on.

-- It's (clear@as.mud), January 01, 2000.

Not likely. Last few years terrorists blew up our embassies in Africa, the World Trade Center, and killed 300 of our marines in Beirut. And don't forget the Oklahoma City bombing that killed another 200. Plus a number of Islamic wackos have issued calls for more of the same. Plus they catch a GIA member with a trunk full of explosives.

So looks real to me. Or maybe the evil ATF/FBI/New World Order just made all those attacks up, for their own evil purposes? Yes, that must be it.

-- xat (xat@ibm.com), January 01, 2000.


Lot's of prayer went into the victory also!

-- Moore dinty Moore (dac@ccrtc.com), January 01, 2000.


All those "brown-skinned 'Arab' terrorists" are manufactured clones produced at the joint CIA-Grey Alien Base at Dulce, NM.

-- INever (inevercheckmy@onebox.com), January 01, 2000.

I'm still bothered by the fact that we've had several thefts of explosives......Fresno police bunker, and the theft of dynamite from an Arizona mine....and these stolen explosives are out there somewhere in the hands of someone who is probably up to no good.

-- Linda (lindasue1@earthlink.net), January 01, 2000.

There was a report last night on a Syracuse, NY, television station that a bridge between the US and Canada near Watertown, NY, was closed last night because of a suspicious vehicle. Experts had been called in because of a suspicion of explosives. This was just before midnight. No details were available at the time except that the bridge was closed, and they promised to provide updates as available. Apparently it was nothing, because I heard no further updates and can find nothing in my local (Ithaca) paper or at the Syracuse news web site. Can anyone provide additional details?

-- nance (nancyw@mailcity.com), January 01, 2000.

I don't know about you, but I think ant "terrorist" with a brain, after seeing and hearing all the anticipation surrounding the Rollover, would certainly NOT choose that time to do something.

If you know you are on "camera", do you steal from the store?

I'm glad nothing happened too, but if there are credible terrorist groups, I would think there are a little smarter than that. The element of surprise is their greatest advantage.

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), January 01, 2000.


Ron:

Actually I hadn't thought about that, but now thinking about it wasn't surprising. I think that if there is one thing we all analyzed correctly on this board was that the spin on terrorism was so TPTB could blame terrorism for y2k failures. So we can see now: No failures. No terrorism.

But now that you raise the question about this. Where are those 40,000-200,000 virsuses the FBI had "officially" recorded. I think those will surface monday when the PCs are turned on (if there even are that many viruses out there).

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 01, 2000.



Terrorists look for targets of opportunity and targets that will pay off with the effect they desire. And at the cost they are willing to pay, in accordance with their mission planning.

The heightened alert status was obvious (I saw it first hand). Any bad guy out there looking for an easy target may still be lurking from the sideline and waiting.

I believe the increased level of personnel at expected targets would have certainly thwarted plans of some of these bad guys.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 01, 2000.


I'll tell you what happened to all the terrorists... We brought them back to work NY eve parties in Canada.

-- gary elliott (Gelliott@real.on.ca), January 01, 2000.

Yep... the virii, Where are they? Are they busily sneaking thru the mail servers as I write? Nope. Are they waiting for Monday? Nope. Plenty of mail traffic over the last day. Plenty of people mailing families etc... etc... Those virii, aren't. Which is plenty strange. We should be seeing some. We aren't. Reports indicate discovery of only a few, very few new virii over the last 24 hours. Now if the FBI really did predict many thousands of new virii and got that wrong, well I guess anybody can be wrong once ... or maybe even twice or three times.

We have been lucky so far. Time marches on.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 01, 2000.


Maybe the virii are still waiting for the clocks to roll over from 19100 to 2000 before hatching out.

WW;)

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 01, 2000.


Well I wasn't too suprised that we didn't hear of any overt terrorist attacks. While I think there WILL be notable terrorist activity I'd like to make another point...How do you know?

We Don't.

My biggest fear is biologicals. Lets say, for example, there was a terr in a building 1 mile upwind of Times Square. He sprays 2 kg. of weaponized smallpox out the window. Everyone in Times Square has a great time, rings in the New Year and goes home happy. The incubation period for smallpox is 5 to 14 days; next Wednesday a few folks start feeling body aches and flu-ish symptoms. Thursday a lot more start feeling it and by Saturday most of the attendees at Time Square are feeling ill and pustules start breaking out on their skin. We could have 2 million people walking around spreading this stuff (it is readily spread via aerosol from the small pustules that form in a victims lungs even prior to their feeling any symptoms). In a couple weeks the majority of them could be dead and we could have a raging epidemic on our hands.

I hope and pray nothing like this ever comes down. It's horrifying in a way that Steven King could only dream about. The point though is that we don't know, not yet...and the year is young.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), January 01, 2000.



From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

"Terrorists" may "strike" on Monday.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 02, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ