mark castillo
Handwritten Letter Instructed Hijackers
Authorities released a letter found in the luggage of one of the suspected hijackers in the World Trade Center attack. The letter — rife with Islamic extremists' hatred of America and glorifying martyrdom — gave religious and practical instructions for the attack.
Does Osama Have a Nuclear Bomb?
About the only thing that's certain is that if al Qaeda and bin Laden have the materials, making a nuclear weapon may not be that difficult.
A report by Carey Sublette, distributed by the Federation of American Scientists, recalls a 1960s experiment conducted by the U.S. government. In it, three newly graduated physics students were asked to develop a nuclear weapon using only publicly available information.
The result: "They did develop a viable design after expending only three man-years of effort over two and a half calendar years. In the years since, much more information has entered the public domain so that the level of effort required has obviously dropped further."
Day Care Quality May Predict Later Academic Skill
The investigators found that children who were enrolled in higher quality day care centers, as determined by an assessment of the center's classroom practices--including activities, materials and supervision--had better language, math and attention skills, as well as better cognitive skills, through the second grade. Cognitive skills include verbal intelligence and creativity.
Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell: 'We Expected Eternal Paradise For This,' Say Suicide Bombers
"I was promised I would spend eternity in Paradise, being fed honeyed cakes by 67 virgins in a tree-lined garden, if only I would fly the airplane into one of the Twin Towers," said Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11, between attempts to vomit up the wasps, hornets, and live coals infesting his stomach. "But instead, I am fed the boiling feces of traitors by malicious, laughing Ifrit. Is this to be my reward for destroying the enemies of my faith?"
Yahoo! News - Reuters Photo
Military special forces have fought across the globe from the jungles of Vietnam to the Iraqi desert, earning a reputation for their courage, fighting skills and self-reliance. With their blackened faces, secretive missions and high-tech weaponry, the mystique around them has fascinated movie-goers, armchair warriors and military buffs.
Slashdot | Morals and Layoffs The new corporate work ethic is change -- measured, defined and executed by corporate hierarchies. Do they owe anything to the people they dump?
ESPN.com: GEN - Jordan's comeback motivation: Because he can
Jordan is coming back for no better reason than the fact that he can. Oh, the money is nice and all that, and Lord knows the ego stroke of holding an entire league's marketing in your hand can intoxicate. But mostly, this is about the million-pound elephant grazing where he likes, because he can. This is the ultimate father saying, "Because I said so." Now that's clout.
Victims' Benefit Day at the Movies
Loews Cineplex Entertainment is participating in the industry-wide "Victims' Benefit Day at the Movies" being sponsored by the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) in order to aid in the relief efforts of last week's tragic events.On Tuesday, September 25, 2001, 100% of ticket and concession sales at all 165 Loews Cineplex theatres throughout the U.S. will be donated to the two NATO-designated relief funds, American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and the September 11th Fund of the United Way.
Probe Aims for Comet's Core
One hundred and thirty-seven million miles from Earth, NASA's revolutionary probe, Deep Space 1, is hurtling towards its almost-certain doom. Launched in 1998 to test a series of technologies straight out of Star Trek -- including an ion propulsion engine and self-directed guidance system -- Deep Space 1 will attempt one last science-fictionesque feat at 3:30 p.m. PDT Saturday: piercing a comet's gaseous outer layer to examine its nucleus. It would be only the second time that a comet's core has been observed: The European Space Agency's look at Halley's comet was the first. And with debris from Comet Borrelly likely to smash into Deep Space 1 at 36,900 miles per hour, it's doubtful the probe will survive the encounter intact.
Media Fundamentalism
Late Saturday night, CNN carried a report from Pakistan, which was being dragooned into helping the United States hunt down the terrorists. A snippet of footage showed a band of students in the streets of Islamabad raising a banner written in English for international cameras. “America,” it read, “think why you are hated the world over.” This sign could have been a direct riposte to how millions of Americans are reacting to the murderous assaults. On radio and TV, everyone from nurses to pro athletes keep saying they are trying to “understand” what happened on September 11. And the refrain is nearly always the same. How could they do this to innocent people? Why do they hate us so much? One simple answer is this. They hate us because we don’t even know why they hate us.
Melodic Alchemy of Trent Reznor
“Everybody in our camp is Mac and that’s it,” stresses Reznor, “We’ve adopted a pretty purist attitude. There have been some software companies who develop PC-only software who’ve approached us —the people who make Acid, Sonic Foundry, for one. “It may be a nice program, but I’m not going to endorse it if it doesn’t run on a Mac, and I told them that,” he adds.
MTV News Online - Nine Inch Nails Performs "The Fragile," Mesmerizes VMA Audience
By the sound of "The Fragile," it seemed that the past few years of boy-bands, rap-metal and countless magazine articles declaring alternative music dead never happened, at least in Reznor's world. And even if the song perplexed some in attendance, the NIN fans in the house and at home were no doubt pleased that Reznor has returned to challenge them.
Report: U.S. Warns of Chance of Attack This Week
Time magazine reported on Saturday that investigators had found a crop-dusting manual during a search for those responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington, triggering concern that crop-dusting planes might be used for chemical or biological assaults. The FBI in Washington said it had not seen the report and had no comment on it.
Slashdot | New Linux PDA Available Jacob writes: "I just ran across an article about a new Linux-based PDA called the Powerplay III Linux PDA. The PDA is manufactured in Taiwan but is being sold by Canadian Linux company, Empower. This PDA is Palm IIIxe compatible (dragonball processor), is shipped with Empower's Linux DA O/S, and get this: its only $89! I'll be getting one..." We mentioned this operating system a few weeks ago. They now have some sort of source download available, which seems like a step in the right direction.
Islam Means Submission To God
Islam means ``submission'' to God, or Allah, and Muslims are those who submit to his will as revealed in the seventh century to the Prophet Muhammad, a merchant from Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia. A dispute over succession after Muhammad's death in A.D. 632 continues to split the Muslim world into Shiites, who make up about 10 percent of Muslims, and majority Sunnis. Shiites believe Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, was Muhammad's rightful heir; Sunnis believe it was Abu Bakr, the prophet's close associate. Most of the Arab world is Sunni, as is Afghanistan (news - web sites), while Iran is mostly Shiite.
Weekend alert as FBI warns of new attack
AMERICA and the West are bracing themselves for another potential “Day of Infamy” this Saturday, when accomplices of the hijackers are suspected of having plotted new outrages. Water, gas and electricity suppliers, bridges, tunnels and underground railways have increased security because of the perceived threat of biological, chemical or physical attacks.
U.S. rejects Afghan negotiation offer
The United States on Wednesday spurned a Taliban offer to meet and discuss the fate of Osama bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind Washington believes was behind last week’s attacks on U.S. cities. The White House took a tough line with Afghanistan’s radical Islamic leadership as it prepared to meet for a second day under an ultimatum to turn over bin Laden or face U.S. military strikes.
The Making of the Tibetan Freedom Concert - Page 2
Adam seems most affected by the strength of the Tibetan spirit. In the face of death, rape, imprisonment and slavery, they've managed to maintain a non-violent struggle. "If you can imagine the stuff that these people have undergone, that your father has been imprisoned and tortured right now, or your mother has been sterilized, or you've been gang-raped, or whatever. If you can imagine the level of torture these people have undergone, and trying to maintain a level of total compassion toward the people that are doing this to them, and not have any anger or hatred toward them, it's pretty hard." In fact, one of the Dalai Lama's teachings to love your enemies; that in fact, we need an enemy to love, to develop awareness of our humanity and compassion.
World War III
The people who planned Tuesday's bombings combined world-class evil with world-class genius to devastating effect. And unless we are ready to put our best minds to work combating them — the World War III Manhattan Project — in an equally daring, unconventional and unremitting fashion, we're in trouble. Because while this may have been the first major battle of World War III, it may be the last one that involves only conventional, non-nuclear weapons.
PTypes - The Rationalist Temperament
Temperament Score - Idealist 11 - Rationalist 12 - Traditionalist 5 - Hedonist 2 - Your temperament type is Rationalist.
PTypes Temperament Test
Select the words which describe you best. Then click the submit button at the end of the test to find out your temperament type. The test is based on a web page and javascript by Justin Burruss. The test questions have been adapted from many sources. Those marked with an asterisk (*) were adapted from David Keirsey's Portraits of Temperament. Keirsey is the author of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II.
Tech could prevent suicide hijackings
The next time a terrorist aims a jet at building, maybe the plane should say no. From computers that could steer airliners away from skyscrapers to face-recognition devices already used to spot card counters in casinos, technology could provide ways to make the skies safer, but at a cost, experts said.
Amateur Newsies Top the Pros
The aftermath of this week's terrorist attacks clearly show that
amateur journalism can be as good as anything produced by the
professionals. And it's often better.
California Extreme Vintage and Classic Gaming
California Extreme is the "Classic Arcade Games Show". In a nutshell, it's an annual celebration of coin operated pinball machines, video games and other novelties you once found in game arcades. It's two days that celebrate this exceptional entertainment medium, featuring tournaments, speakers, parts vendors, and an opportunity to play games you may have not seen for years. All the games on display are set for free play, so leave your quarters in the ash tray in your car, as you won't need 'em.
Chronology of terror - September 11, 2001
9:06 a.m.: A second plane, apparently a passenger jet, crashes into the second World Trade Center tower and explodes. Both buildings are burning.
8:48 a.m: A large plane, possibly a hijacked airliner, crashes into one of the World Trade Center towers, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it afire.
British Firm Tests World's First Nicotine Vaccine
A British biotechnology company, already developing a vaccine to help addicts kick cocaine, said on Monday it had started clinical trials on the world's first nicotine addiction vaccine.
The product, which is given by injection into the muscle, aims to prevent the addictive cycle of cigarette smoking by stopping nicotine from entering the brain.
British Firm Tests World's First Nicotine Vaccine
A British biotechnology company, already developing a vaccine to help addicts kick cocaine, said on Monday it had started clinical trials on the world's first nicotine addiction vaccine.
The product, which is given by injection into the muscle, aims to prevent the addictive cycle of cigarette smoking by stopping nicotine from entering the brain.
British Firm Tests World's First Nicotine Vaccine
A British biotechnology company, already developing a vaccine to help addicts kick cocaine, said on Monday it had started clinical trials on the world's first nicotine addiction vaccine.
The product, which is given by injection into the muscle, aims to prevent the addictive cycle of cigarette smoking by stopping nicotine from entering the brain.
Personality Test
Click on the shape you find most appealing. Consider both form and color.
Dot-Commers Trade Options for Books
The three were among the thousands of college students who were lured away from their math textbooks and History 101 classes by dot-com start-ups that promised riches and fame. But when Internet Armageddon came and unemployment loomed, they and many of their peers rediscovered the value of an old-fashioned ticket to career success: a bachelor's degree. And back to school they went.
Time for a happier handheld? My first look at Pocket PC 2002
Microsoft today is unveiling a new version of its Pocket PC operating system, previously code-named Merlin and now known simply as Pocket PC 2002. The new OS, which will begin appearing on handheld devices in about a month, represents a significant evolution for Microsoft and a tougher competitive threat, especially in corporate markets, to the Palm OS.
Citibank computer problems widen
Citibank customers are continuing to experience problems accessing their cash and accounts. The bank’s nationwide system of 2,000 automated teller machines are still not functioning properly, and at least some consumers trying to log in to their Citibank Online accounts received the message, “Sorry, we are unable to connect.” The company so far has blamed the ATM problem on high demand for cash during the Labor Day weekend, but has yet to explain the Web site problems.
Internet replacing libraries for homework
Of students aged 12 to 17 years, the Pew study found that 73 percent, or 17 million children, have Internet access. The Pew study surveyed 754 of those students.
MetroActive Features | Santa Rosa Buildering Buildering--a term used to describe the art of urban climbing--usually isn't motivated by publicity stunts or political activism. It's about climbing human-made structures for the fun of it, traversing along a stone wall or using cracks to go up just high enough, turning engineering and architecture into a personal challenge.
