It's on Saint-Laurent street. I'll take the subway, in the center car, and watch out for suspicious packages and airborne spray releases...

Frankie

Taking into account the short span of the complacent human memory, I think a reminder every five years is doing an injustice - it isn't frequent enough.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

That's funny. Wasn't much for ambiance, but was worth the trip. What I genuinely call a "mom & pop hole in the wall".

Last time in Montreal was educational to say the least. Forgot my winter boots. Getting off the plane in January I expected cold, was 40 deg F. I thought, "no big deal". Next morning leaving Lowe's Vogue to go buy boots it 4 deg. F and there was a 40 MPH wind. I thought I would be a frozen texan before I got to the underground shops. The "Roots" store got all of my $CAN. for hats and scarves in a blink of an eye. My wife laughed at my hat until she stepped outside, then she stole it off my head.

Good luck...

Just posted about this in the long term section....

Seems to me that the terrorists achieved what they wanted in Mumbai with a couple of guns, grenades and training. They'd probably get the same result running multiple simple attacks, or something like what happened on 9/11/01 rather as they would with WMDs.

Still, it may happen of course, but I would think smaller attacks and preparing for them first and foremost would be the best course of action for the average person.

That's just my opinion. I could always be wrong.

I'd guess that the idea would be that a fairly successful attack with a radiological, biological or chemical weapons would have have a disproportionally large psychological impact compared to a conventional attack with guns and explosives causing an equal number of deaths. The object of terrorism is to cause terror; inflicting casualties is merely a convenient means to that end.

A successful bio attack would cause a paradigm shift. Imagine TSA having to search every boarding passenger for possible biological devices.

Jeff

If I was an Islamic terrorist I'm not sure I would be seeking to use biological or nuclear weapons. A thumbnail consideration of the majority Muslim nations brings to my attention that all I can think of have high numbers of people concentrated in congested cities with large numbers housed in slums with poor sanitation and few medical resources.

Combine that with the religious demands of the Haj, the journey to Mecca at least once in a life, where Muslims from around the world travel from and then return to their communities and you have a formula for the very communities they ostensibly fight for to be the hardest hit by any contagious biological weapon.

On the nuclear side I would point out that the Muslim holy cites, Mecca, Medina and others, aren't exactly hidden. I don't advocate any such counter attacks and I don't know how the Uma, the Muslim people, would feel about it but I doubt facing in the direction of a smoking radioactive pit and praying would be as attractive as the situation they enjoy now. The unleashing of a deadly contagion that wiped out large numbers of their own population wouldn't make them popular either.

I don't know how terrorists think but IMO they aren't stupid, unaware or unable to think through such things. They may lust to bringing down the western world but not if the destruction primarily lands on their own people.

On the off chance they don't find the above logic convincing I would try to avoid probable targets and large concentrations of people. A goodly supply of appropriate masks, gloves and disinfectants wouldn't hurt either.

"...smaller attacks..."

Possibly a lot of them, all over the country, at approx. the same time...

The human condition is to try to overcome trauma. How affected today are most people by what happened on 9/11?

Smaller attacks, on a consistent basis, would cause more psycological damage over a prolonged period of time. I'm no psychologist though, it's merely speculation on my part and I could be wrong.

As mentioned by someone before, speaking in terms of proportional responses, the more damage you do the more damage you can expect to be done to you. Maybe that's what terrorists want, I don't know.