1 Wonder how long it will take them to admit its Islamic terrorism? For the moment they seem to be in denial about it.

2 Our current governments (both state and federal) are not exactly mired in the PC swamp when it comes to such things.  I suspect that they're playing it very low-key because it's a hostage situation rather than an outright attack.

Normally I am in the city on a Monday (I mostly work from home), but this week I was asked to switch days.  Not that I was likely to be buying chocolate over in Martin Place when I work at Darling Harbour, but still...

No more news here since the second group of hostages escaped, still hoping for the best.

3 Also, it's not clear why this happened where it did.  On the one hand, it's directly opposite the Sydney offices and news studio of Channel 7 (one of our big three commercial TV networks), so it could have been deliberate.  On the other hand, it's only about a block away from our state parliament building and various consulates, so it's possible that the guy got spooked and switched targets at the last moment.

4 The gunman has now been publicly identified and it's starting to look like something other than a typical terrorist act, and more a one-man trainwreck.

5

We've had one-man-spontaneous-jihad attacks too.

Looks like it's over now, but "fog of war" will continue for several hours before we find out exactly how it ended. One story was that after the second escape he started shooting hostages, and that caused the police to move in.

But it's just a rumor.

6 Latest word is three dead, including the perp.

7 Yeah.