You may wonder if there are other examples of static discharge. The answer is yes. Lightning is a form of static discharge. It is much more dramatic than what happens between you and the door knocker, but it is the same principle. You can see how it occurs in the following diagram and animation. You have no doubt seen lightning in a rainstorm. What does lighting have to do with static electricity? As it turns out, everything! During a rainstorm, clouds develop regions of different charges. This happens due to the movement of air molecules, water drops, and ice particles. The negative charges are concentrated at the base of the clouds. The positive charges are concentrated at the top. The negative charges repel electrons on the ground below. The ground then becomes positively charged. Over time the differences increase. Eventually the electrons are discharged. This is what we see as lightning. You can watch an awesome slow-motion lightning strike below.

Question: "How does ground become positively charged?"

Response: "Negative charges at the base of the clouds.repel electrons on the ground below"

A: yes

As noted above, the 9/11 plotters spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack. The available evidence indicates that the 19 operatives were funded by al Qaeda, either through wire transfers or cash provided by KSM, which they carried into the United States or deposited in foreign accounts and accessed from this country. Our investigation has uncovered no credible evidence that any person in the United States gave the hijackers substantial financial assistance. Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government-or foreign government official-supplied any funding. We have found no evidence that the Hamburg cell members (Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, and Binalshibh) received funds from al Qaeda before late 1999. It appears they supported themselves. KSM, Binalshibh, and another plot facilitator, Mustafa al Hawsawi, each received money, in some cases perhaps as much as $10,000, to perform their roles in the plot. After the Hamburg recruits joined the 9/11 conspiracy, al Qaeda began giving them money. Our knowledge of the funding during this period, before the operatives entered the United States, remains murky. According to KSM, the Hamburg cell members each received $5,000 to pay for their return to Germany from Afghanistan after they had been selected to join the plot, and they received additional funds for travel from Germany to the United States. Financial transactions of the plotters are discussed in more detail in chapter 7. Requirements for a Successful Attack As some of the core operatives prepared to leave for the United States, al Qaeda's leaders could have reflected on what they needed to be able to do in order to organize and conduct a complex international terrorist operation to inflict catastrophic harm. We believe such a list of requirements would have included leaders able to evaluate, approve, and supervise the planning and direction of the operation; communications sufficient to enable planning and direction of the operatives and those who would be helping them; a personnel system that could recruit candidates, vet them, indoctrinate them, and give them necessary training; an intelligence effort to gather required information and form assessments of enemy strengths and weaknesses; the ability to move people; and the ability to raise and move the necessary money. The information we have presented about the development of the planes operation shows how, by the spring and summer of 2000, al Qaeda was able to meet these requirements. By late May 2000, two operatives assigned to the planes operation were already in the United States. Three of the four Hamburg cell members would soon arrive.

Question: "What remains murky about the knowledge we knew during this period and how much money did each Hamberg cell member receive?"

Response: "When the operatives entered the United States"

A: no

To say her face fell would do a disservice to Tasha and to literature. (Allow me my self-indulgences as you would those of a dying man -- when I convince my mindsmith to permit the wipe, there will be another Bernardo Flynn, one who knows no more of Tasha Cortez or Vega IV than he reads here.) Her brows drew together, creasing the lovely, caramel-colored skin around her eyes and showing the pattern for an old woman's wrinkles on her forehead. Her lower lip (a trifle too narrow for her face, perhaps her only physical flaw) thrust forward slightly as she started to speak. She caught herself, slid her jaw infinitesimally back into place, and said, "You don't like it?" I laughed. What could I do? I clapped her shoulder to show I was not laughing at her. "Like it? I hate it, despise it, abhor it! It's gaudy, graceless, pretentious -- That house is an affront to taste and intelligence. I should buy it to raze it, but I am not so kind-hearted. I might, however, rent it." I think she only heard the last words of my speech. "You will?" "It amuses me. Show me around, and then I shall decide." "Of course, Senor Flynn." "And stop calling me 'senor'. Not even Los Mundos is so polite. Call me Bernardo."

Question: "What does Bernardo need to do before he can decide whether to rent the house?"

Response: "Talk to his wife"

A:
no