[tomkat]

A Roman Response

...and sowed the fields of Carthage with salt so nothing would ever grow there again.

[christine]

good mornin'. i haven't had time to catch up on the thread yet. i can't see a damn thing because i had to take a tylenol p.m. to sleep and i'm still drugged. has anything new happened? are the airports still closed all over the country?

[acnielsen guy]

I have a premonition that the aftermath of this affair is going to worse for the American people than for any grief the government will visit upon the perpetrators.

In this jingoistic mood the government must be watched closely as they curtail the liberties of the people in the name of fighting terrorism. When the government starts fighting something, we lose. Unfortunately, it is not until we have gone too far down the path do we realize how much; and by that time a constituency has be built to preserve and defend to the death the new status quo.

Look at everything they have been fighting and look were it has ended. Fighting something and winning does not seem follow, as it should, we seem to fight to lose. The only victors are the thousands of new government employees, several libraries of oppressive regulation and the Constitution in tatters.

Am I being too pessimistic?