Here’s a few tid­bits to remind every­one what we were all think­ing about on the day before the worst ter­ror­ist attack against the United States.

Michael Jordan’s pend­ing return to pro­fes­sional bas­ket­ball is per­haps the hottest news story in Amer­ica on Sep­tem­ber 10.

XM Radio read­ies 100 chan­nels for debut.

Barry Bonds hits three home­runs, mak­ing it 63 — just seven shy of Mark McGwire.

Michael Jackson’s Fri­day Night per­for­mance at Madi­son Square Gar­den was the buzz.

Israel suf­fers its first sui­cide bomb­ing by an Arab citizen.

Pres­i­dent Bush makes his fourth Florida visit in eight months to dis­cuss literacy.

Iran denies US charges that it is seek­ing to develop a nuclear arse­nal, point­ing out that Iran itself was a vic­tim of weapons of mass destruc­tion dur­ing the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

A con­fer­ence of deputy Cab­i­net sec­re­taries agrees on a three-step strat­egy to force the Tal­iban to deport bin Laden. The plan is expected to take up to three years.

The Con­gres­sional Research Ser­vice releases the report ‘Ter­ror­ism: Near East­ern Groups and State Spon­sors.’  The paper describes al-Qaeda as a “global threat” and rates its ter­ror­ist activ­ity level as ‘Extremely High,’ the high­est of any ter­ror­ist group on the list.

John O’Neill enjoys an evening at Elaine’s Restau­rant in New York City.  For­merly the FBI’s lead­ing coun­tert­er­ror­ism expert, O’Neill was recently forced out by bureau­cratic infight­ing, and began his new job as head of secu­rity for the World Trade Cen­ter on August 23.  At Elaine’s he dis­cusses the pos­si­bil­ity of a ter­ror­ist attack: “We’re due. And we’re due for some­thing big. Some things have hap­pened in Afghanistan (evi­dently refer­ring to the al-Qaeda assas­si­na­tion of Mas­soud the day before).  I don’t like the way things are lin­ing up in Afghanistan… I just — I sense a shift, and I think things are going to hap­pen.” When asked when, he says, “I don’t know, but soon.”  Next morn­ing, O’Neill is in the South Tower when it collapses.

Addi­tional  Source:  http://cnparm.home.texas.net/911/Backg/Backg4b.htm