Over-zealous mourners backtrack

It's hard to know how to react when something on the scale of the recent attacks occurs, however in attempting to do something tangible to express their concern, some people got carried away.

The CEO of one company sent out a company-wide email an hour after the attack which said: "We would like to also say on record that if any country is found responsible for these attacks, we call for that country's complete destruction and annihilation". A little over the top? Well, he seems to think so now. A second email has been sent out which says:

"In my last e-mail I was angry. Now I am angry and saddened. My thoughts were emotional, not political or commercial. I will stand by my conviction that those responsible should not walk with us on this planet. I will though take back the word 'annihilate', this was anger speaking from someone that has now cried for the victims of this attack.

"This may surprise some people ... I am only human. Just as President Bush almost cried on CNN today, that does not make him less of a President. I as a CEO have the right to be angry, and to vent my emotion. This does not make me any less of a CEO or human. It makes me more of one."

Whether you agree with this summary is up to you.

Equally, as we predicted, Gartner's extraordinarily generous but flawed idea of opening its entire research database for free has been quickly put an end to too. The data contain within was worth a fair penny but the company soon recognised that people were abusing the offer and downloading huge chunks - no doubt with the aim of selling it at a far more reasonable price in the next few weeks.

It was a lovely gesture, but we did warn you.

While we're here, newsgroup witterings about the WTC being built to withstand a 747 crashing into it are not as far out as we first thought. They were built to withstand an impact by the biggest plane of the time - the 707 - because they were so tall.

As we all know now, the buildings withstood the impact well but it was the heat produced from fuel in the planes burning that caused the buildings to collapse.

As for the Nostradamus quotes, the third was definitely fake, we don't know about the other two. The mass email with the false quote didn't help matters by stating that Nostra said it in 1654, when in fact he died in 1566. ®

Related Story

US disaster causes some to slip a gear