Hey, if we're all gonna die anyway, might as well have some fun doing it!

Make your predictions of how it will be the next time we take it up the ass from Bin. Let's see if we can outsmart him and predict what his next move will be...

What area?

Method?

How many corpses?

Economic impact?

Any other thoughts?

-- (end@days.party), October 12, 2001

Answers

Los Angeles

Suitcase nuke

1 to 3 million

Major depression for a few years

No new movies for a while

-- (say goodbye @ to. hollywood), October 12, 2001.

What's that black bar?

Is that your prediction?

Not a very good one, you lose!

-- (try@again.tomorrow), October 12, 2001.

Nuclear reactor, probably in the Northeast

They will invade and take over one of the SAM sites, then shoot the missiles at the reactor.

Probably over 5 million

Depression, of course

-- (maybe@this.one), October 12, 2001.

What area? Oprah, Chicago

Method? Too many cheeseburgers cause her to miss broadcast.

Corpses? No corpses, but thanks for asking.

Economic Impact? HUGE! Less people purchase books from her bookclub, thus causing jobs layoffs from publishing to logging. Lack of tree- cutting causes more oxygen to appear in the U.S., thus making Americans somewhat reasonable again. Fewer people watch Jonathan Edwards "Crossing Over" and decide not to call 1-800-CLEO for tarot card readings. Abdominizer sales fall, as do prices for commercials on such inane shows as "Friends" and "Dharma and Greg". Feeling the pinch, CBS' Survivor moves Series 4 from Afghanistan to Helena, Montana, touting the "angry fish that sometimes just won't bite" and "inattentive waitresses" as uncertain danger. Ratings continually drop, as do commercial prices, until we are watching "F Troop" and just hoping for the next "Burma Shave" billboard.

Blowjobs, however, will become more popular, as they require less effort and money than conventional sex, which is close behind.

I need to go to bed. Someone else please add to this. Or not.

-- CJS (lasaporito@aol.com), October 12, 2001.

1/3 of of population gone soon...

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), October 12, 2001.

Al,

Isn't there something about the ground shaking and the sky getting dark for 2 or 3 days?

-- (sounds@like.nukes), October 12, 2001.

Giant flaming ball of white hot gas to appear on the eastern horizon just 6 hours from now !!!

-- Debbie (dbspence@pobox.com), October 12, 2001.

Within the next 48 hours, earthquake faults around the globe will be nuked. The resulting tremors will affect most nations. The nuking of the New Madrid in the US will take out Oprah, who is on her way to visit troubled teens in KY.

-- (mrtimeh@scome.foryou), October 12, 2001.

Colonel Mustard, in the living room, with the knife

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), October 12, 2001.

This is not a prediction, but a warning that some of you might have seen. I can't cut and paste so I will type most of it in full. "My friend was dating a guy from Afghanistan up until a month ago. She had a date with him around 9/6 and was stood up. She was understandably upset and went to his home to find it completely emptied. On 9/10, she received a letter from her boyfriend explainig that he wished he could tell her why he had left and that he was sorry, but it had to be like that. The part worth mentioning is that he BEGGED her not to get on any commercial airlines on 9/11 and to not go to any malls on Halloween. As soon as everything happened on the 11th, she called the FBI and has since turned over the letter." "This came from a phone conversation with my long time friend last night. I may be wrong, and I hope I am. However, with on of his warnings being correct and devastating, I'm not willing to take the chance on the second and wanted to make sure that people I cared about had the same information that I did." Laura Katsis Implementation Specialist 714/921-5424

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), October 12, 2001.

You talk about fun on the farm.

-- HoHo (Cleanup@here.xxx), October 12, 2001.

As long as we a playing why not try:

-- Cleanup (Cleanup@here.xxx), October 12, 2001.

The black text on a black bg couldn't be seen. The black text on a white bg was boring. This is purple text on a lime bg.

Yep, having fun down on the farm.

-- Cleanup (Cleanup@here.xxx), October 12, 2001.

Hey Boz, this is another internet hoax and the woman who wrote this email is in deep shit right now. Today’s paper had an article about her and the California company she works for will most likely fire her.

-- Fact (finders@inc.com), October 12, 2001.

Fact, thanks for setting that straight. I just got that email last nite so I guess it's still in circulation around the globe.

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), October 12, 2001.

What area?

Let's hope nowhere.

Method?

Let's hope nohow.

How many corpses?

Let's hope no one.

Economic impact?

Let's hope none.

Any other thoughts?

No.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), October 12, 2001.

I dunno. Kind of hard to top both of the WTC.

-- (@ .), October 12, 2001.

"Kind of hard to top both of the WTC."

Nah, you ain't seen nothin yet.

Wait until they detonate a nuke in the LA basin, it will trigger the biggest earthquake in recorded history and all them buildings will come down. Heck, a whole chunk of So Cal could go under the ocean!

-- (San Bernadino @ new. beachfront propert), October 12, 2001.

Nothing.

Hopefull guess maybe but I think these guys have mostly shot their wad. I'd almost worry more about any fruitcake with a federal beef that sees a headline getting opportunity.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), October 13, 2001.

The WTC was intended to get our attention. They'll go back to the tried and true use of explosives for their next big splash (the Golden Gate Bridge or the Mall of America are probably juicy targets for them) while they continue to spook us and yank our chains with random anthrax mailings. They're in this for the long haul and won't want to reveal any more of their most devious plans until we're worn down a little more.

-- Just (A@Guess.com), October 13, 2001.

They might wait until we get comfortable again, which won't take long, and then catch us off guard. I predict another major hit within 2 months, possibly more killed than the WTC.

-- (something@big.coming), October 13, 2001.

I thought this sort of interesting. My astrological forecast:

28 November 2001 until 23 January 2002:

This influence signifies a period of change and even upheaval in your life. But the changes will probably originate, not within your personal sphere, but in larger pressures from society as a whole. Under this influence many individuals feel that little happens in their personal lives but that the changes in the world around them are phenomenal.

The major challenge you will have to face during this period is learning to adapt to changes in the world around you. Rigidity will only make the situation worse, because it is unlikely that you can successfully resist the pressures for change. In fact, in certain circumstances, you yourself may become an agent for change. If you feel that circumstances have limited you severely, you will probably be attracted to persons and movements that set themselves up as agents of a new order. This may be on a grand political and social scale, or it may be on the much smaller scale of an individual who comes into your life and shows you how to change. Actually, this can be quite a liberating influence, because you are inclined to look toward the future for your strength rather than to the past, so you will probably be able to flow with the changes.

A second warning is that this influence is fanatical in nature and not heedful of human feelings and emotions. Do not lose track of feelings in making or experiencing sweeping changes. And because this influence speaks in large social terms, do not lose track of the quality of individuals now. Larger social forces may be behind everything you do or that happens to you, but ultimately those forces are composed of individuals whom you have to deal with as such, not as representatives of some abstraction

-- (things that@make ya. go hmmm), October 13, 2001.

snipped from a fresh reuters story:

In a statement broadcast on Qatar's al-Jazeera television, Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Bu Ghaith also told U.S. and British ''infidels'' to leave the Gulf, or else ``fire will flare underneath their feet.''

In Washington, a White House spokeswoman said the Bush administration dismissed the threats as ``propaganda.'' Earlier, Bush said in a radio address that the U.S. government was taking ``strong precautions'' to protect Americans at home and abroad from more terror attacks.

Bu Ghaith's comments were the second set of warnings al Qaeda made to the United States in the past week.

``We tell (President George) Bush and others in the U.S. administration that the storms will not stop, particularly the storm of hijacked planes, until the strikes against Afghanistan end and until Palestinian land is liberated,'' Bu Ghaith said.

Bin Laden has tried to use the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and U.N. sanctions on Iraq to rally Muslim support for his anti-Western campaign.

``We also advise Americans and Britons, especially Muslims, children and all those who oppose U.S. policy, not to ride planes or live in high buildings,'' he said.

-- (think@they're. bluffing?), October 13, 2001.

I'm going to go against conventional wisdom here and say that we've seen about all the heavy casualties we're going to see for the time being. I do not believe that these dangerous yo-yos have effective weapons of mass destruction, because if they did, they'd have used them already. IMO, if they had a nuke, they'd have set it off first and wouldn't have bothered with hijacking planes.

I don't think they're going to try planes again any time soon, either. As soon as the people on UAL 93 realized what the score was, they nailed those boxcutting bastards. And every "incident" on domestic flights lately has resulted in a pretty severe beat-down at the hands of passengers.

If these guys had nerve agents, they'd be using them. If they had serious bioweapons, they'd be using them. If they had radiological weapons (which scatter radioactive material as opposed to using it for fission or fusion reactions), they'd have used them. And if they had nukes, we'd have felt it already. These nutballs are working with limited resources and limited equipment. I don't mean to take anything away from what they've done, because what they did was large and awful. But their aim is to scare, not necessarily to kill. And I think they've put a scare in all of us, at least initially. Now we're pissed, I think.

One of my favorite authors is H. P. Lovecraft, an American horror author who was published sporadically in the 20s and 30s, before he died of cancer in 1937. His writing is someething of an acquired taste, but it has always seemed to me that his writing gives you just enough information to make you scare the bejeebers out of *yourself.* Lovecraft, to me, seemed to know that you can scare YOURSELF better than someone else can scare you. Who else knows the secret fears that well up in you when you hear a THUMP in your house late at night? Who else knows what goes through your mind when the power goes out during a storm? Lovecraft knew it, and I think that Islama bin Deadmeat and his unwashed cronies know it, too. They don't necessarily want to kill us all because they know they couldn't do it. They know how tough they are. They know how well armed we are. They know how we rise up together when we're threatened, and they don't want to fight us head on.

They'd rather scare us. Because that's easier to do, and because it doesn't take a lot of effort. It's almost like judo in that they're using a small amount of effort, making us do all the work, and we end up in headless-chicken mode, all running to the pharmacy to stock up on Cipro, and we don't even know if they're responsible for the anthrax cases.

I don't think the big attacks will continue. I think there will be smaller, localized attacks from time to time, and continued isolated attempts at biological or chemical terror. But very few casualties for now.

That's my take on it.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), October 20, 2001.

Hey that astrological forecast was made like 6 months ago! Isn't there anyone else who thinks this kinda weird? Guess not.

-- (im@just.weird), October 20, 2001.

"I don't think the big attacks will continue."

Yes, we are all getting too comfortable already. That's when they will strike again, after we let our guards down.

-- Dubya (don't @ "misunderestimate" the. "emeny"), October 20, 2001.

In no way am I letting my guard down. I fly a great deal for work, and I can assure you that *my* guard's not down.

Provide a private e-mail address, and I might share a funny flight- related story that happened on my flight Friday evening. It wouldn't have been funny if we had beaten the poor guy senseless, but he REALLY should have known better. That's the teaser. :)

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), October 20, 2001.

ADH -- this is probably bad news, but you and I agree on this. :)

This IS a real address:

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), October 20, 2001.

ha ha

-- (h@ ha.ha), October 20, 2001.

ADH - WHAT THE FUCK MAN?

THIS IS AN UNCENSORED FORUM! POST THE FUCKIN SHIT RIGHT HERE MAN! NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU FUCKIN ARE - BESIDES IT IS A TRUE STORY RIGHT? SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH POSTING THE TRUTH?

COME ON BRO, GIVE THAT SHIT UP!

-- SHAFT (BAD MUTHAFUCKA @ SHUT. YO MOUTH), October 21, 2001.

Oh, all right, Shaft.

I was on a flight Friday evening. I'm not going to identify the airline or the flight, but I was going between 500 and 600 miles to return home. I got on in First (I fly a lot, so I get upgraded very frequently), and I was enjoying my non-alcoholic beverage while watching the Coach passengers get on. As you might expect, I pay a lot more attention to the other pax these days.

One rather unconventional-looking young man got on in the middle of the pack. It was a young white fellow with red hair that had been done up into great big white-people dreadlocks, hanging down to his shoulders. He was bearded, mustachioed and bespectacled, dressed in College-Age-Protester Contemporary style, and wearing a hollow-eyed, grinning (drooling?) expression. The kid gave the impression of being a white Rastafarian who had been wholeheartedly enjoying the sacrament of ganja within the last half-hour. I don't partake of such substances, and like Unk, I don't care if others do, but this guy had obviously been overdoing it.

I've seen strange-looking folks on planes before, so I usually don't worry about them, but these are stranger days. The guy's expression must have been pretty noticeable, because after he passed into Coach, another 1C passenger muttered something like "that kid's already cruising at 10,000 feet." Several 1C pax giggled at that; I must admit that I did, too. The kid looked to me like a great candidate for a drug test.

The flight was on a smaller Boeing jet, so the plane was loaded fairly quickly, we took off, and the 1C pax were served their dinners. The curtain between Coach and First was not pulled shut; that's pretty common lately. In my previous experience, it is always closed if the 1C pax are getting a meal and Coach isn't, but it is rarely closed these days.

All was well until about halfway into the flight, when the redheaded rasta came into First in a hurry. He wasn't acting at all like he had been before -- he looked to me like he had a purpose.

"Oh, shit," I thought.

I was about to jump up, spill my dinner tray and open a can of whoop- ass on this kid. A couple of other men in First saw the kid and started to get up, too. But the two First Class flight attendants sized up the situation immediately, got in front of the kid and said "I'm sorry, sir, there's no lavatory in First. All passengers must use the lav in the back of the plane."

We were on an older 737, and most older 737s don't have forward lavs. Some of the newer 737-800s (stretched) do, but not older birds. And FYI, there's nothing special about the lavs in First as opposed to the lavs in Coach. Sometimes some airlines put a floral arrangement in the Business or First lavs on long-haul flights, but not often, as there's not much room in any in-flight lav I've ever used.

But back to our story --

What do you know? The kid stopped, looked around for a moment (I guess he was making sure the FAs weren't messing with his head), then turned around (he was grinning and drooling again) and went back into coach.

We nearly had an inflight beat-down, and all because Randy Rasta's bladder gave the Call of Nature.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), October 21, 2001.