December 13, 1999 was a day curiously placed half in the past and half in what would become the future. The news of the day (via the CBS World News Roundup Late Edition) covered the somewhat ill-timed release of the contents of tapes of the Columbine High School Massacre gunmen by Time Magazine; a painful event from the previous April, dragged back into the spotlight just in time for the holidays. On the other side of the coin, there was news of a foiled plot by a group of unnamed Terrorists headed and funded by "eccentric billionaire" Osama bin Laden to reek mayhem on New Years eve. Twelve members of the group were arrested and great care was taken not to reveal the name of the country the terrorists came from. Justin Volpe, guilty of torture in the Abner Louima case was sentenced to 30 years in prison and Joseph Heller, the man who gave the world the phrase Catch-22 from his novel of the same name had died.

Interesting day on the whole. If we knew then what we know now . . . . .