Smallville’s opening tonight reminded me

Smallville‘s opening tonight reminded me all too much of Sept. 11: fire from the sky and people running from huge clouds of dust and debris. I’m not suggesting they should have changed it; we’re tougher than that. Just another eerie moment.

Vox pop on pox: Check out NJ.com’s terror forum to see what the people are saying.

– Canada passes stronger antiterrorism laws than we probably would.

– Did we lose the war already? Was there an invasion? MSNBC in Arabic.

– Nice Flash map of Afghanistan on Washington Post (click on War Zone Explorer):pick a region and add in roads, missiles, etc.

– NY Times gives the feds a deserved lashing for their handling of the anthrax attack. I repeat: The FBI is messing up and Rudy should take over.

– A story of Taliban defections from one teahouse in Afghanistan.

– You are not allowed to laugh: “Suspicious substance was a loved one’s ashes.” [Via Drudge]

– New word (to me) from the Middle East Times: “Islamophobic.”

– Also new (to me) from the National Post: “Asymmetrical war — the act of fighting with lesser weapons, like the other guy’s jets and infected soil.

– New word from Drudge: “Anthraxophobia.”

– Gives one a moment’s pause: Germany’s Der Spiegel does a Flash graphic counting how many foreigners are where there.

– Getaloada the latest pronouncements from Iran and note the item yesterday (below) on the clash of civilizations as you read it: ” ‘The civilization whose standard bearer is the United States today, is presenting a warmonger facade coupled with injustice, arrogance, and irrational behavior, and that is the lasting impression that the mankind will have of the real identity of that civilization, which is, despite their claim, an incompetent image,’ said Ayatollah Khamenei. He said that the mankind has still not forgotten the memory of the time when the Islamic civilization conquered Iran and Rome (a few decades after the advent of Islam), concluding that due to the humane and just approach of the conqueror Muslims at the time, many Iranians and Romans converted to Islam, and that is the best guarantee for the lasting life of this civilization.”