Taliesn, i'm curious about your choice of vocabulary. If it was an act of war, is it reasonable to say that those people in the towers were "murdered"? Would you say the civilian populations of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Hamburg were "murdered"? And if it was an act of war, those people incarcerated in Cuba should have been accorded full POW status from the outset.

In case there is any doubt, I believe the WTC people were indeed murdered. My problem is with calling it a war. I just can't see why people have a hang-up about seeing the outrage as a criminal act, albeit on a larger scale than we have previously seen.

I like Larry's idea about commemorating the firefighters. And I'd say the mayor deserves whatever recognition he may have got. His policies were never my cup of tea, but from the various programmes I've been watching, there's no doubt that he showed exceptional strength of character on the day.