Brussel’s conclusions sprouted mainly from his observation that F.P. must be a “narcissistic paranoiac,” deduced from the man’s manner of communication….

As always, incredible writing.

It’s also that I had never heard of the Mad Bomber prior to your article, and I am 64. I lived through some of his history.

Thanks for education!

With the heightened state of emotions with DPRK since this article was written 11 years ago, would be better to send in a covert team to scuttle the ship where she lays tied up as a tourist attraction. Frankly, I’m amazed that wasn’t done years ago! You might not even need a team. You would think after all these years, one smart bomb could target the PUEBLO precisely without even mussing the bollards she’s tied to and promptly send her to the bottom of the harbor! That should freak out the locals for awhile. What are they going to say? You sank our tourist attraction that we stole from you!

Because thick black acrid smoke was funnelling up the stairwells, anyone who entered and let the door close behind them were absolutely screwed. I took a peek into this very stairwell and was shocked to find out 25 years later these doors still lock from the inside; to this day, once you venture into the stairwell, you are trapped and must descend to the bottom. I propped the door open and took a little tour and discovered the only way out is at the very bottom where there is one emergency exit with one of those big red paddles you must push that activates an alarm. This is so stupid on a thousand levels. There are occasions where people have family or friends on adjacent floors and might just want to skip the elevator and walk up a flight. Perhaps someone might want to walk off that evening’s buffet slop and walk up 10 flights.

I mean, the elevators gave you free reign of the building, so it’s not like they’re worried about guests accessing other floors they “don’t belong on”, so what could be the official reason? How on earth are locked stairwell doors a safety measure and why do you suppose they insist on keeping it that way when those locks are the very thing that ended up killing people? If the official answer is “we don’t want smoke from the stairwells to fill the hallways” then they are basically saying “if you’re already in the stairwell and it’s full of smoke, too bad, no air for you, sucka!”

(PS: The stairwells at the residential tower unfortunately named “The Torch” in Dubai which caught fire recently have some sort of feature that somehow makes them fire and smoke-proof — so the technology apparently exists. Bally’s of all places could take notice of this..)