I haven't been following the discussion until today, so I hope I'm not rehashing to much.

One thing that worries me is the way politicians are jumping up on band wagons to grab attention for themselves, thus profiting from this tragedy. Mind you I'm all for stomping out terrorism, but I dout that their ravel rousing will accomplish it. Some of the good things I see happening are the forming of alliances, the upsurge in patriotism, the new commitment to stopping terrorist, and willingness to take action. All these things make the USA stronger, and make American politicians look good at home. Some of alienate the rest of the world. This crisis will eventually pass. No doubt we will punish bin ladin, and his supporters. But that won't solve the problem.

In the long term, we will need to find a way to have piece without becoming targets. That will not be a simple as dropping bombs.

On the subject of air line safety, I like the idea of sleep gassing high jackers, but they could have gas masks. Skymarshals can be outnumbered and overpowered, any and all security measures can fail. But if a well rounded security plan is put in place, the chances of this happening again would be greatly reduce. Also the fragmentation bullets design for skymarshal use are not only less likely to damage the aircraft, but they cause terrible injury to the target, which is good, if the it hits a terrorist.

On the subject of music, I recommend that the next time you get to a song circle, sing Stan Rogers' song The Mary Ellen Carter.