Okay, grab your saltshakers, but I figured I'd pass along this email I got from a reader today. The way I see it, it couldn't hurt as long as people don't treat it as gospel:

"Hey guys.. You know elif, my friend in CA; she called me last nite to tell me this: She has a friend in at work who had an Arab boyfriend who disappeared right before the 9/11 tragedy. He was nowhere to be found and one day he wrote an email to the girlfriend and said "stay off of the planes on 9/11 and out of the malls on halloween". She did not think much of this until the events occurred, and she immediately notified FBI afterwards. Keep this in mind: The people who want to and really can harm the U.S. are not outside of this country - they are still inside. The terrorists who died on the planes that day are just some of the people involved, and they have been here at least a couple of years. I don't want to start a scary chain email here, but I do believe a "trick or treat" is one of the twisted humor dates to pull this kind of stuff, and I know my friend would not have told me this if it weren't true to her. So please stay away from the malls on halloween, pass this on to the ones you love if your instincts tell you so. Lots of love to you all.

Feray"

I'd take an ounce of prevention any day, especially when there's a run on the pound of cure.

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Update: As everyone and their grandmother has been emailing me, this has been debunked on Snopes. Not to say that you're necessarily safe in a mall on halloween, but that the email in and of itself doesn't constitute a credible threat.

On an interesting side note, SF Gate ran an interesting story a few days ago about how Hollywood screenwriters, including the co-author of Die Hard, are being called upon by the Army to come up with possible threat scenerios.

If all goes according to plan, soon the Army will be prepared for possible asteroid strikes, alien attacks, or reincarnated pharaohs with occult powers.