etc...

BESIDES, IT'S HARD TO GET TO

With the advice that President Bush has been receiving from people in government around the world about what to do vis-à-vis terrorism is the following from the mayor of a certain town in Mexico: Don't bomb Apatzingan. His Honor, whom we'll call José, wrote in a letter to Bush, "I swear ... Apatzingan never had any active or moral role" in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and shouldn't be a target for US retaliation. Aides advised José that the country in question is Afghanistan, but his plea was already in the mail by then.

WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU LATER

Question: What do Britney Spears, actress Pamela Anderson, the Backstreet Boys, and sex have in common? Answer: All were knocked out of the top 10 among Internet lookup categories in the days following the terrorist attacks by - right - Osama bin Laden and the American flag. And that's according to the search engines themselves. In the case of sex, this was a first in the history of the Web.

Americans would sacrifice some freedoms for safety

In the wake of Sept. 11's terrorist attacks, 80 percent of Americans say they'd give up some personal liberties to improve national security, an informal poll of Web users by the Reader's Digest and Yahoo! found. The survey gauges users' attitudes on how tighter US security measures could affect their lives. But while large percentages of respondents said they'd make sacrifices, most stopped short of backing such measures as personal searches at restaurants or stores and the presence of heavily armed security in public places. Among the findings of the Sept. 15-16 survey:

It's acceptable to videotape faces at public events 78%

Airlines should inspect passports on all domestic flights 75%

Intelligence agencies should be able to use wiretaps 70%

I'd object to searches of bags at stores or restaurants 79%

I'd object to police with automatic weapons patrolling public places 51%

- PR Newswire