From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri 15 Nov 2002 - 20:47:10 GMT
Al Quaeda means "the list." If you could send me a copy of the list, I'd be
glad to look at it. But I get the impression that the people on it don't
want their names published -- and for good reason. They're trying to hide
who they are and what they intend to do. If I happen to run into any of
them, I'll make polite inquiries about their motives.
We had some here in San Diego just before 9/11, but they didn't seem eager
to talk to anyone even then. Their only conversations of record took place
at the local Mosque and at the small airport where they were taking flying
lessons. Even then, they didn't tell anyone why they were learning what
they were learning.
Cheers,
Grant
>
>Quoting just a few short words from Grant Callaghan,
>(and not the ones he'd probably expect):
>
> > ... I don't think they have any specific goal ...
>
> > ... the people I'm talking about are the Al Quaeda
> > and their associates.
>
>Thanks for the clarification, Grant, but could we perhaps
>be more specific? Does anyone have a list of these
>people? Other than their notorious leader, who else
>is there? What are their national origins, genealogies,
>and so on? How much education do they have,
>and what kind?
>
> > I can't believe that they think bombing a disco [in]
> > Bali is going to drive America out of Saudi Arabia ...
>
>Oh, for democracy, and the secret ballot! I wish we
>could question these people by such means, and find
>out what they really think, as individuals. We are all
>too familiar with films of Stalinist public unanimity,
>but what do these people actually think, I wonder.
>Are they all religious fanatics, or mindless patriots?
>
>How many of these individuals have actually been to
>the US, and if so, did they hate it as much when
>they were there? Nationalistic prejudice against the
>US is not uncommon -- it thrives in Northern Alberta,
>for example, probably the most American of Canadian
>provinces, and parts of Toronto. But inhabitants
>of those areas are frequent visitors to the warmer
>cities of Florida and California, and secretly love it
>there.
>
>Though I have spent almost all of my life thousands
>of miles to the west, I have spent quite a bit of time
>in Washington DC, and a nice satellite photograph of
>it hangs on my wall to remind me of those days. The
>people I met there were nice ordinary human beings,
>and I hope none of the friends who signed the margins
>of that picture as a parting gift to me lives too close
>to any of the more obvious targets visible there.
>
>Note to terrorists: please show the kind of restraint
>that the US Secretary of War had (in the days when
>that country needed such a post), and spare the Mall,
>as he did Kyoto. Almost every building on it is part
>of the Smithsonian Institution, which (among other things)
>houses many Mesopotamian artifacts of great
>importance to YOUR culture -- which is the same as
>ours, of course.
>
>Note to American decision makers: if you must
>antagonise a large percentage of the world's population,
>please move the contents of the Smithsonian
>and the Library of Congress to a safe underground
>location -- the site you have chosen for disposal of
>nuclear waste is the only one that I deem safe enough.
>(Kindly remove any nuclear waste first). I will remain
>completely unmoved by protestations that your
>country is entirely in the right, (so to speak). Being in
>a marked crosswalk with the lights in your favour may
>make ensure your innocence, but will not make you
>any less dead if neither you nor the driver of the car
>that hits you bothers to look around before making your
>move.
>
> dpw http://www.SocialTechnology.Org/dpwilson.html
>
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri 15 Nov 2002 - 20:50:23 GMT