Amazon.com Inc's list of its best-selling books in the past 24 hours looks like a cross-section of its customers' psyches: the predictions of Nostradamus, photographs of Manhattan skyscrapers and studies of terrorism.
Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies by John Hogue, published in paperback in 1999, topped the list, perhaps because customers wanted to see how closely the 16th-century French astrologer foretold Tuesday's destruction by terrorists of the World Trade Center's twin towers. In all, four Nostradamus books, two on the World Trade Center and one about terrorism dominated the No. 1 online bookseller's top 10 list.
Second on the list was Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center (1999) by Angus Kress Gillespie, with a cover photo of the now-gone buildings.
Simon Reeve's The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism (1999), an account of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and subsequent attacks by a Bin Laden-funded terrorist, held the No. 3 slot.
Books detailing the prophecies of Nostradamus may have become more popular through the day as many Americans opened their computer in-boxes to find an e-mail purporting to quote the astrologer as saying the collapse of ``twin brothers torn apart by chaos'' would spark World War III.
The e-mail is a hoax, according to experts. "The second quatrain is entirely made-up, and the first quatrain is composed of lines taken from two completely different prophecies of Nostradamus linked together for effect," said snopes.com, a Web site devoted to countering Internet scams and hoaxes.
Americans hungry for more information related to Tuesday's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington jammed the Internet with requests in the past few days. On Yahoo Inc's Web site, the top searches were for World Trade Center, Pentagon, Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan and Nostradamus.
DEFENSE: The first set of three NASAMS that were previously purchased is expected to be delivered by the end of this year and deployed near the capital, sources said Taiwan plans to procure 28 more sets of M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as nine additional sets of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), military sources said yesterday. Taiwan had previously purchased 29 HIMARS launchers from the US and received the first 11 last year. Once the planned purchases are completed and delivered, Taiwan would have 57 sets of HIMARS. The army has also increased the number of MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) purchased from 64 to 84, the sources added. Each HIMARS launch pod can carry six Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, capable of
Tropical Storm Podul strengthened into a typhoon at 8pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with a sea warning to be issued late last night or early this morning. As of 8pm, the typhoon was 1,020km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west at 23kph. The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA said. Based on the tropical storm’s trajectory, a land warning could be issued any time from midday today, it added. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said Podul is a fast-moving storm that is forecast to bring its heaviest rainfall and strongest
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