U.S. Measures May Incite Domestic Terror: “These new measures may be necessary components to protect the United States from further attacks by foreign terrorists. But they will also likely fuel the fears and anger of domestic groups such as the Michigan Militia or the North American Volunteer Militia. In time, as the U.S. security apparatus looks for threats coming from outside the country, the United States may again face attacks from within.” StratFor

Rumors of War: “A collection of links to pages discussing the various rumors to come out of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States of America.” It brands claims as true, false, undetermined or indeterminate. Urban Legends reference pages

I’ll give you the punchline: email circulating telling you you’ll find something sinister if you enter the supposed name of one of the hijacked flights, “Q33NY”, in the Microsoft font Wing Ding, especially at a large size. What you’ll find is an airliner, “twin towers”, a skull’n’crossbones, and Star of David. There’s also been about a decade’s worth of concern about “NYC” in Wing Ding, which gives you the skull’n’bones, the Star of David, and a thumbs-up. Microsoft has felt compelled to issue denials that it had embedded hidden anti-Semitic messages in its fonts.

Zeldman:

Saturday, or was it Sunday, the TV networks began running commercials again. Carrot Top shilling a 1-800 number while cracking panty jokes in a laundromat. Babes With Guns, a very special season premiere.

We are blessed with a rich culture, woven from thousands of years of European, African, and Asian art, philosophy, and political thinking. But you wouldn?t know it to look at the junk we put on TV and export to the world.

Suddenly pop culture looks like excrement smeared by a mental patient.

Of course it always did. But suddenly the shallowness feels shameful. Am I the only one who feels this way? What dream have we been living in?

Somehow in my pursuit of happiness I failed to notice that children were dying in Iraq.

Somehow when car bombs exploded in London, or gunfire ripped the West Bank, I felt a moment of sorrow and disbelief, then went about my business ? never realizing that love was my business, the world was my business.

We use love to sell mouthwash.

The thing is, I am under a cloud ? literally. A cloud of pulverized metal, asbestos, and human beings blankets my city.

I find it hard to work, hard to think. Like my mother when she began to come down with Alzheimer?s, I find myself at a loss for names, a loss for dates, a loss for titles of books I?ve read.

I say, “that guy, that actor, who married that woman, actress, who was in Batman” when I mean Alec Baldwin.

I say “that fucker” when I mean bin Laden.

That one doesn?t bother me.

The thing is, like everyone, I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The thing is, I feel helpless as an embryo.[via wood s lot]

More on the bravery of the Flight 93 passengers, after analysis of the cockpit voice recorder.

And, folded into the same article, speculation that the assassination of the Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massoud by suicide bombers may have been the work of Al Qu’ida, and timed to throw the opposition into chaos to coincide with the American attacks. Recall, further, the reports of explosions in Kabul on the night of the 11th, about which I’ve seen no further followup after it became clear that the U.S. had not started a bombardment. But, with reports that Massoud had died that day (inaccurate; he lingered for several more days before succombing), I thought that anti-Taliban forces might be retaliating in Kabul. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Thinkers Face the Limits of a Just War: ‘Few moral philosophers except committed pacifists dispute that the United

States has just cause to use force in this case. But many emphatically reject

the use of the word “war” in anything but a metaphorical sense, noting

that in this case the enemy is not a state against which hostilities can be

formally declared and from which surrender can be sought.’

The moral philosophers are not the only philosophers grappling with the implications of the attacks and our response. Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True

Believers:

The destruction of the World Trade Center

and the attack on the Pentagon may have

similar effects, challenging the intellectual

and ethical perspectives of two sets of

ideas: postmodernism (affectionately

known as pomo) and postcolonialism

(which might be called poco). These ideas,

which have affected political debate and

university scholarship, are now being

subject to a shock that may lead in two

directions: on one hand to a more intense commitment, and on the other

— I hope — to a more intense rejection.

New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

For Bush, a Mission and a Defining Moment: ‘ “This,” he told them, “is the purpose of this administration.” …One of the president’s close acquaintances outside the White House said Mr. Bush clearly feels he has encountered his reason for being, a conviction informed and shaped by the president’s own strain of Christianity.

“I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do,” the acquaintance said. “It offers him enormous clarity.” ‘ [While I’m all for people finding themselves, how will the Islamic world (or for that matter our allies) face a war shaped by Christian zealotry?]

‘…Although the current moratorium on presidential criticism in the nation’s capital prohibits most on-the-record carping, there is off-the-record concern, expressed not only by Democrats but also by some Republicans.

They fear that there is something headlong and immature in some of Mr. Bush’s exhortations over the last few days. They wonder if he is making promises he cannot keep and threats he cannot back up.

They note it is impossible to know how ? and how much ? Mr. Bush has really changed, because efforts by the White House to control what gets said about him, and who says it, have been unusually aggressive.

Most of the people in a position to talk knowledgeably about Mr. Bush’s emotions are not talking at all. Those who do talk have often sought the administration’s permission, and they reel off the same adjectives, like focused and resolute, that White House spokesmen do.

Moreover, there are indications that Mr. Bush’s nonchalant, jocular demeanor remains the same. In public, his off-the-cuff language still veers toward the colloquial. In private, say several Republicans close to the administration, he still slaps backs and uses baseball terminology, at one point promising that the terrorists were not “going to steal home on me.” ‘ New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Sweeps Find Box-Cutters On Two More Airliners: “Federal investigators found box-cutter knives on at least two airplanes during sweeps conducted in the aftermath of the deadly Sept. 11 hijackings, including two stuffed into seat cushions on a flight out of Boston and one found in a trash bin of an Atlanta jetliner headed for Brussels…”

And:

Rumors of New Attacks Leave Cities on Edge — “In Atlanta, Richmond and now Boston, vague, unsubstantiated threats received since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack have presented authorities with the difficult task of sorting through raw intelligence and alerting authorities without panicking a jittery public. In each case, there have been warnings of possible violence followed quickly by retractions.”Washington Post

‘The harm done to innocents’ — “Most Americans who have lived or traveled in the Arab world can relate similar experiences: Arabs are entirely capable of differentiating between a people and the actions of its government, or the values of a people and the political agenda of a narrow minority of them. What confuses, and, yes, angers them is that we do not seem to return the favor.” Boston Globe

Bin Laden didn’t do it, says an Egyptian security analyst. American conclusions are based on inaccuracies in understanding of Islamic fundamentalism and of bin Laden himself. Al Ahram (Cairo)