QUOTE : Because what if the three billion dollars were paid? What was to stop them from blowing up the cliff anyway? Or charging another three billion next week? Though it wasn’t announced, the mayor had also decided that, deadline or no deadline, she wasn’t going to give them a single penny of her or the city’s money. Which, again, was exactly right, in my humble opinion. Terrorists needed to be dealt with head-on. Whoever was doing this to us needed to be found and stopped, not negotiated with.