Sweetie is doing some training today and tomorrow. Several of the trainees are from Canada; here's what one of them said at dinner tonight.

Ryan was at the airport in Toronto, either last Wednesday or Thursday, Sweetie couldn't remember. He was having his shoes shined when he herad a ruckus in the direction of the metal detectors. It seems two flight attendants, male and female, were trying to walk around the metal detectors and the security people were telling them they had to go through. The flight attendants decided to leave, just as police rushed in. There was a bit of a fight, with the flight attendants trying to crawl away, even when there were several cops on top of them.

Ryan later learned that the attendants were going to Chicago and had a number of flight attendant uniforms in their luggage as well as fake IDs. They were actually put in custody and then flown to Chicago for the US authorities to take over. Arabic documents were sewn into their clothes. Ryan read about the incident later in the Toronto paper. I vaguely remember reading something about suspects being detained in Chicago but don't recall the details.

What this tells us is that even eight or nine days after the attacks, something else was being planned. If the terrorists had decided to abort their mission then they wouldn't have been carrying the fake or stolen uniforms and IDs; they would have done a Condit into a dumpster.

I asked Sweetie, why on earth would they try that--they must have known security would be tight. His only idea is that they were just blind in certain areas of culture, like maybe in their culture security information is either not shared between countries or doesn't get there nearly as fast.

In any event, to think they're still trying to get through so long after the event is pretty damn scary. When Bush and Co. tell us various other attempts are being made, they are NOT trying to keep up the alertness--it's true!

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2001

Answers

Damn...they just don't give up.

I think everyone who flies should carry a nice, hard-backed book with them onto the plane. They make excellent projectiles.

That reminds me...a while back (Christmas?), a friend of my in New Zealand sent me a bookmark/letter opener. It's very pretty, very thin, surprisingly strong, VERY sharp, and made of wood. She jokingly commented that it would make a good weapon.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001

Thanks for telling us that! It does show, without a question, how much we are still in danger of other attacks!

The things our goverment did before Y2K, to get ready for any problems, keeps coming back to me. One of them was the seals exercise on the coast and beaches of California. I remember they even had it in the local papers there about inviting some locals to come and join them in the exercise, as players...such as reporters and such. I think part of the reason was to take some of the edge off of the seriousness of it, from the town folk....it's not every day such a large exercise happens in plane site. The government must of thought there was a risk to that area.

So, once again...we are talking about the danger to our nuclear plants, dams, computers, etc., etc., this time... coming from a known group who has already done harm to our people and country.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001

I just saw another post above about Y2K and now, I am going to copy and add my post to it. Please go to that post to comment on what I and the others say in regard to that. It's getting harder to keep track of where and when people reply to post, for me at least. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001