Yah .. I guess what I got from the article is that it could have been much worse. I understand the significance of attacking the WTC, however prevention ( well in this case luck ) of loss of life seems to be more important.
--- punk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, David Schupner wrote: > > > It appears that the numbers of people affected by > this > > tradegy were quite small. > > > > wow. that's quite the, uh, exercise in creative > thinking, there. aside > from the fact that it has been reported that the > hijackers researched and > probably even flew on the routes they later > commandeered - specifically to > find flights that weren't loaded with people to > prevent what in fact seems > to have happened on the flight that went down in > pennsylvania anyway, and > that probably would have been avoided if they'd > taken everyone's cell > phones away - the whole "usage" of math is pretty > breathtaking, especially > the "90% is an A" thing. That bit should win some > kind of award. > > they flew into those targets because of the > symbolism, the dramatic effect > of destroying two landmarks that are synonymous > worldwide with "the > american way of life", with our military might and > our economic might. if > they had just wanted to maximize the body counts > they could have waited > until later in the day and flown those jets into > almost any sporting arena > in the country and killed thousands and thousands > more people, maybe > increasing the deaths by an order of magnitude. any > basketball arena holds > around 20000 people all right on top of each other; > football/baseball > stadia hold 30000 to 50000 or so, all tightly packed > in, all a big glowing > beacon that you can't miss. if they'd waited until > that evening and flown > a plane into the bowl of shea stadium during the > mets game, the stampede > of those not immediately killed trying to flee might > have killed more > people than the wtc collapse. especially in shea > stadium, which is sort of > famous (or infamous) for the amount of noise from > low flying jets taking > off and landing at the local airports. no one would > have even noticed that > one jet was too low until it had taken out half the > stadium; two jets > would likely have killed tens of thousands of > people. of course, i think > it was easier to fly into the wtc (which didn't > really involve a forced > crash landing) than to divebomb the pentagon, but > still. > > it could have been much, much worse. the fact that > it wasn't doesn't seem > to be because of any particular "incompetence" > involved in pulling off an > obviously fairly sophisticated and well planned > attack. > > and hey, guess what? 6000 or so dead people means > something like, oh, say > 60000 or so? immediate relatives and friends *very* > directly "affected" by > this attack, not even counting coworkers and the > like. > > math is hard. > > -_== > > There are a lot of things you can eat that aren't > food. > ===== __________________________________________________________________ David [EMAIL PROTECTED](510)487-9489 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
