The improbable that was not necessarily improbable in Mumbai

Taj Mahal hotel owner, accodin to CNN.com, had warning about the attacks in Mumbai - and specifically on their hotels.  He has this to offer:

The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.

But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before this week's terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel.

"If I look at what we had ... it could not have stopped what took place," Tata said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that will air Sunday.

He continues:

"It's ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures," Tata said, without elaborating on the warning or when security measures were enacted. "People couldn't park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector."

But apparently, these measures were removed or eased after the week's attacks.  The report also said that it seemed the attackers knew their way around - having gone through the backdoor and had the measures been in place, then these measures would have been, well, not effective.

But I don't buy it.

A friend of mine and his colleagues narrowly escaped this brutal event.  On the morning that we found out about the attacks, my friends were all concerned about him knowing that he's in India and was staying at the Taj.

And this is the explanation that we get from the hotel?  "We had measures in place - we were warned - we faltered - then they acted - too bad".

Is that supposed to mean "we did our part, too bad it didn't work"?  Is that supposed to mean "even if we did our part, it would not have worked anyway"?

He hints about the "woeful infrastructure" of the police and their response.  But wouldn't that have been a given in the first place - wouldn't that have been something that was a consideration when the warning was received and their preparations made?

Black swans, people... Black swans.

But in this case, it is not a ebony-black swan.  There was a warning, for crying out loud.  There was a warning and they were complacent - they lowered their guard down.

"We've been very complacent, because we've really not had this kind of terrorism inflicted upon us," he said.

And the warning was not supposed to be taken seriously?

Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of freedom is vigilance".