Slashdot Mirror

9/11 deaths: 2,819

US soldier deaths (Afghanistan): 901 (total, fourth table)
US soldier deaths (Iraq): 2,823 (total, first table)
Iraqi Security Forces deaths: 15,249 (total, third table)
Iraqi civilian deaths: ~48,000
Afghan civilian deaths: 3,485

And this is just plain scary.
Do the math.

That may be true, I don't know. But it's not really relevant except to say that Americans would probably give more to foreign aid if that were true and they knew.

Second,VAST MAJORITY of charitable giving in US if for US citizens. 9/11 funds and Katrina funds raised billions... all for us.

I don't know about "vast majority". From what I can find approximately 1.4 billion was donated to 9/11 charities and $3.1 billion to Katrina/Rita charities.

In contrast $1.78 billion (more in raw dollars than anyone else) was donated to tsunami relief, which is more than 9/11. Those stingy Americans gave more to foreigners on the other side of the globe than to the victims of what was a defining event in history. Americans also gave $78 million to Pakistani earthquake victims, which is a significant amount of money for a relatively quiet news item. What may be becoming obvious is that Americans give when they know there's a specific need. That's the main reason for what imbalance there is. Lack of awareness, not desire.

Even if Americans DID give the "vast majority" of charity domestically that makes them less generous how? Individuals giving money with no benefit to themselves to those who need is it charitable giving no matter if the needy person is in the inner city or a Mexican barrio.

And must of the percentage includes giving to the local church, which as you probably know, in US comprise a significant majority of charitable giving

What's wrong with that? Those donations are used to run shelters and soup kitchens. That's not charitable?

Democrats will be democrats, and they tend to be their own worst enemy...

Unless, of course, the Democrats, being Democrats, somehow fuck it up.

Ah, plasmacutter. How eager I am to read your babblings again...

Many more people are killed every year in the US in fatal car crashes due to simple speeding than are killed by terrorism.. on the order of 10 times more.. 50 times more if you leave outliers like 9/11 out of the computations.

Maybe we should start shipping speeders of to gitmo?

Because car accidents are the equivalent of planned mass murder. Clearly, they're comparable and we should only focus on the ends rather than the means in all situations.

I can just see this now... calling up a 911 operator to report a murder only to have the police tell the caller, "sorry, roughly twice as many people die in car accidents (according to CDC statistics), who cares about a murder? We obviously need to put more effort into traffic enforcement. Just bury your dead and get over it, OK?"

Of course, this also puts aside the slight problem of distribution. According to the NHTSA (don't worry - they're not run by the wealthy elite, just the poor, downtrodden ranks of middle America, so you can trust them) 37,862 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2001, which would cause an average distribution of 103 a day. A 30x spike on one day is certainly notable, and in addition to the deaths of almost 3,000 people, the attacks caused (according to these statistics) $105 billion dollars of economic damage in one month to New York City alone, in addition to billions of dollars in insurance, clean up, and other costs.

Oh, but it's all ok. Because accidents are equivalent to planned murder for ideological reasons. No need to get too concerned about them.

Really, plasmacutter. Are you just this stupid? This argument is so tired, so ridiculous, and so idiotic it's simply beyond words. That said, it's precisely what I expect from you.

Good to know I've got a slashdot stalker, though! I was kind of getting bored without one. Keep 'em coming - I've got pink eye and I'm in a self-imposed quarantine. I need some good comedy to keep my spirits up. I

How about this.

Things have changed.

Well, for what its worth, the NY magazine in its Urban Etiquette Handbook considers it ethical to use an unprotected WiFi.

From the article:

Is it okay to use wireless if your neighbors don't password-protect it?
Yes--free wireless is a karmic gift bestowed by the rental gods to make up for all the times you've experienced your neighbors' sexual encounters, arguments, and guitar practice in startling sonic clarity, gotten roaches because you live in the same building as a restaurant, and sampled the tapestry of malodorousness that is the ethnic-food/cigarette-smoke/pet-by-product-scented apartment hallway. Your only obligation as a wireless sharer is to avoid massive bandwidth-hogging downloads.

That is until the people in your town replace your current city commissioners with people more sympathetic to getting a Wal*mart. [...] All it takes is a handful of noisy people to organize a "t'row da rich guys out" campaign.

well, he may be liberal on some fronts like gun control and science. but bloomberg is very much about control and telling people what's good for them. from banning smoking indoors to this cell phone ban in schools. he's the decider. that's the hallmark of a good republican. he knows what's best for you and will bully his way. here's a pretty funny take: http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/intelligencer/170 76/index.html

I'm getting that this about "liveness" and personal expression.

The "liveness" space, where we use our broadband connectivity to join together in real time to socialize around some kind of event, is so wide open and undefined right now.

Video conferencing and online games are just a tiny taste of the possible. It will be really cool to see what pops up to fill this space, and I just hope that us grups get to play too.

Umm, there are some craters in NYC and PA and a lot of relatives of dead people that differ with you on your opinion of "nebulous". One of them is a firefighter cousin of mine.

While 9/11 was certainly tragic, you and the rest of the populous need a little perspective:

Number of people killed in 9/11: 2,819

Number of people killed by heart attacks (2002): 696,947
Number of people killed by malignant neoplasms (cancer?) (2002): 557,271
Number of people killed by cerebrovascular disease (stroke) (2002): 162,672

I apologize for not finding 2001 figures, but there you have it. 9/11 was tragic, but by no means a large or even relatively significant cause of death in this country. There are bigger fish to fry if we're hell-bent on "protecting" citizens.

There's no hard evidence to suggest that we're going to be attacked anytime in the near future, either, and all indications were that some tweaking to the existing 2001 system could have and would have prevented 9/11.

Do we tweak things slightly as indicated? Of course not. We listen to stories about ghosts and goblins who will attack us if we don't spy on our neighbors, submit to invasive searches every time we fly, allow the government to sidestep warrants and due process, and a whole host of other normally heinous things that seem reasonable if it will keep us safe.

While we should certainly shore up holes in the system, begging our benevolent rulers to take away our freedoms to protect us from the boogeyman only leads to the same kind of oppressive government we like to brag about toppling and replacing with democracies in other countries.

SOMOZA SLAIN BY BAZOOKA
(News, 1980)

HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR
(New York Post, 1982)

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
(Senate fails to convict Clinton; News, 1999)

COPS MAKE BUTT-ER KNIFE CON SPREAD 'EM
(Post, natch)

There are a total of 2,819 US civilian fatalities as a result of the September 11th attacks. There were more than 50,000 Kurds killed by chemical agents and this is but one single instance of the price of Saddam's tyrannical rule. As of today there are a total of 2,222 US military fatalities in Iraq since the war began. You may now decide by the numbers. The rest of my article...

Or the more simple explanation is that most societies depend on a nearby water wource and are thus built dangerously close to water. Take modern day examples such as New Orleans or the Netherlands. New York even lost a resort island called in 1893. Archeologists are finding scores of sunken cities from different time periods all over the world.

If you are looking for a biblical link you can find the flooding of the black sea. The black sea flooded around 5500BC. This would have flooded the area Noah lived. However, it would have been a couple thousand years before Noah. The date however, does coincide with the Sumarian Epic of Gilgamesh. Many historians believe that Noah's story is actually basded on Gilgamesh. This would not be surprising considering that religions tend to "inherit" items from other religions. Examples, such as Angels that are similar to Roman gods and Greek christian church's which were once used as Greek pagan churhces before the rise of christianity.

I remember back in 2003 when I believe it was Isabel hit, my family in the DC metro got hit harder than I did in North Carolina due to the flooding. And New York gets hit every once in a while as well. No, they are not hit as often as areas in the southeast, but they are vulnerable.

Let me preface my comment by saying I haven't read the article (because I'm in a place that does not allow me access). But a lot of people are mentioning the Oscars as if they're some sort of award that isn't affected by marketing and what have you. Truth be known, it's actually quite the opposite. The winners of each year's Oscars are very much advertising influenced. Advertising of nominated movies is increased around Oscar time so the voters' choice of winners can be influenced. Here is a link to an article that talks about the Oscar campaigns for two of the more popular movies of recent times, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan. The story shows some of the lengths studios will go to in order to have an Oscar winner. It's rather ridiculous to think that in this day and age, anything in the public eye isn't influenced by advertising and marketing.

Now for something completely different:

I'm a big music hound. I love music. I love "good" music. I love music that gives is innovative and inventive sonically and in their meaning. Now, I'm 24, by no means am I "all grown up." But even at my relatively young age, I've had my musical taste and attitudes have changed numerous times. Individuals' opinions and likes/dislikes evolve and morph over time along with their maturity. I would argue that TRL and Top 40 music relates more to a certain level of maturity in our society. Personally, more than anything else, this level of maturity seems to be one of confused-adolescence, with lots of strutting for dominance and muddy emotions. But, could ONLY teens push a song into the Top40? I don't think so. I think it will take listeners of all ages to push a song to such a high level of popularity. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, maybe it's easier not to get emotionally involved in the art and quickly process the aural lard that is given to us by 50 cent, Hoobastank, Creed, Nickelback. However, I'm not saying that this type of emotionally-vacant music is bad. Hell I often listen to Freezepop which is great music but requires much less from my mind than say Led Zeppelin. I just think Top 40 is less emotionally involving music and while appealing on some level, like a Big Mac, it isn't something that you can sustain yourself with for very long.

Now just for reference:
Some Music I like:
Juno Reactor
Hero Soundtrack
The Corrs
Coldplay
Outkast

Nah, see what happened was in the 60's, record companies paid cash directly to DJs, under the table, to play songs. "i'll give you $100 if you play $song".

You're missing a few points. First, the original payola was in the 50s, not the 60s. In the original payola scandal, the DJs were implicated for accepting bribes of cash, drugs, hookers, etc directly in return for airplay.

That scandal took down some crooks, but it also took down some good DJs. And it gave a lot more of the decision-making power to the stations and program directors and took it away from the DJs, in order to avoid further scandal.

But since there's a lot more songs than time to play them, the labels needed a new way to make sure that their new 'hit' single got played.

To accomplish this, the majors came up with the independent promotion system -- meaning that a label would contract an independent promoter to get the song on the air. If anything unseemly happened, it was a matter strictly between the promoter and the radio station, not the record label. This allowed the labels to 'outsource' the corruption and at least pretend to be clean.

By the late 70s/early 80s, independent promotion had become institutionalized (and centralized) to the point that paying an independent promoter might not get your song on the air, but not paying would ensure the song stayed off the air, no matter how big the song. IIRC, Pink Floyd was a guinea pig for this -- at a time when The Wall was one of the top selling albums, "Another Brick in the Wall" was one of the top selling singles and the band was promoting a concert tour, they didn't get any radio play in LA. Their label hadn't paid for independent promotion in the LA market.

As the independent promotion system was institutionalized, there were a number of dodgy mafia-connected people getting involved in the RIAA side as well. Tommy Mottola, for example, the former US boss of Sony Music, started as an independent promoter in the 70s, and Frank DiLeo (who played this guy in Goodfellas) was Michael Jackson's manager in the 80s, and was tight with 'our friends in New York and Chicago'.

What bothers the record labels is not that there's corruption or that they have to pay for spins, it's that they have no control over what they're buying -- the label owes whatever the promoter says it owes, and there's no resonable correlation between the number and quality (ie 8.15 am is a better time than 10:00 pm) of spins and the payment rate. If it was up to labels, I imagine they'd rather just buy the time outright.

Forget the fact that all this is illegal, but when Clear Channel bailed out on independent promoters it took away the only leverage the promoters had. With the Justice Department now getting involved and Congressional hearings likely at some point, our RIAA friends will line up and take their wrist-slapping and be glad to be rid of independent promotion.

Although it's almost 15 years old, the book Hit Men is a great look at how the music business got to be the reeking cesspit it is. I only hope that when there are hearings, the record companies get reamed as hard as the mafia middlemen for setting up the system in the first place.

Makes me wonder how much they paid the Attorney General to keep the fine that low.

Unfortunately, he's also a pompous jerk who expects the rest of the world to bow down before him. He decided to go after a large insurance brokerage because he didn't like their General Counsel's attitude. I know several thousand people who won't be voting for him for Governor.

Isn't calling her a reporter a bit generous? :)

It's obvious that the election was corrupt... that's just the facts -- whom it was corrupt for, probably a little bit of both but I guess the Democrats were just more cunning... Whatever.

I'm in full agreeance with you regarding her wide spreading legislation. She just passed a $0.09/gallon gas tax (as well as other controversial budget changes) to help pay for mostly Seattle-area construction projects. I'm closely involved with many non-Seattle area folks, and that's just not fair to do to them. Why not cancel the idiotic monorail tax and defer that money into construction projects? Why not increase the Seattle area sales tax a half a percent? Why is the rest of Washington being forced to pay for Seattle area projects?

Then I think about the fact that the Seattle area has the highest concentration of Democrats, as the governer race rested on what happened in King County. I think it's doubly insulting to see a governor that wasn't clearly elected, win by a county that benefits the most from her placement, favor that county.

It's strikingly similar lazy susan deal from the .com era.

Don't even get me started on the bio-diesel subsidization for Washington farmers to grow Soy (which is best grown in the mid-west).

Remember the Pseudo Network? http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/interne t/1703/index.html (actually it's still there) The founder boasted that he would bury conventional networks shortly just as soon as broadband kicked in (this was 5 years ago). The content was reasonably off kilter, (I loved MANX) but it all crashed with the rest of the dotcoms. While I think a PSPcasting scheme might work, I'm still not seeing the killer app here.

I'd say this is a far better example of good design being put to use for the good of society:

A School of Visual Arts Grad Remakes the Pill Bottle

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437 /index.html

"The Porn Myth
In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites--it turns them off the real thing."

Actually.. New York City is considering seceding from New York State

As noted byt the Accordian Guy, There are similar tricks with liquor. In the Ian Flemming novels, such as Moonraker James Bond had the habit of shaking pepper into his vodka shots. He'd picked it up from the Russians, who did it as a matter of safety rather than taste; the pepper dragged fusel oils left over from their crude distilling process down to the bottom of the glass.

For wine, apparently just decanting the whole bottle into another container improves the taste.

# of Americans killed on 9/11: 2,819

# of Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq: ~10k

Maybe these numbers are wrong, if so perhaps someone can find a better reference.

In other words, I'd like to see Bush's publicists rescue him from the whole 'killing tens of thousands of civilians to gain control of Iraq for dubious reasons' debacle.

I have spent the time to follow a lot of his stories to excruciating details, and I have yet to find one that didn't pan out.

Do you remember the "Kerry affair" story that Drudge pounded for days, until finally the "woman involved" said it was ridiculous and pointed out that there was no substance to the story at all? Eventually Drudge apologized.

He posts uttery false crap all the time, but because he's not a "real journalist" nobody is supposed to mind.

It's true, it is tough to afford a 2 Bedroom in SoHo if you only make $312,000 a year.

I'm sorry if you don't feel that the rest of America feels your pain.

I fail to see the disconnect that you apparently see between [power and control] and porn. As I see it the two are inextricably linked.
Think about bukkake and anal sex.
[disclaimer: the following is about heterosexual pornography from a male perspective. While almost undoubtedly slanted, it's all I've got to go on.* Ostensibly, the principle is generalizable.]
Most anti-porn advocates would argue that the precise problem with porn is that it is about power and control over women.
Their argument is that the objectification of women refuses to deal with them as they really are and merely deals with women as objects for the gratification of men. In my experience, this is the case. Apparently, I am not the only one.

*"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience."
Thoreau, "Walden"

Anyone can walk around freely and voice opinions in a police state, just as anyone can commit crimes in a law-abiding society. The real question is: what rights can you fall back on when the police take exception to your activities? If the law and the courts can protect you against the police, then you live in a reasonably free society. If not, then you live in a police state, even if it's a comfy, prosperous police state where few people ever find themselves in that position.

You want facts? If the police arrest you without cause, hold you without trial or even charges, deny you access to counsel, conduct secret proceedings, and contradict the courts, then citizens are fundamentally defenseless.

I have traveled in the Middle East, eastern Europe, and Cuba, all of which have a much higher police presence and authority than the U.S., and I traveled freely, spoke freely, and spent freely in all of those places. Of course, I was never arrested, so I never had the opportunity to experience the police state apparatus directly. And so my experience of those countries was universally that they were warm, beautiful places full of nice people. A lot like America.

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/fashion/fashionshows/d esigners/bios/dsquared.htm

Let me contribute some working URLs:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/ features/n_8815/
http://www.securitypipeline.com/policy_privacy/182 01365
http://www.nyls.edu/pages/1363.asp
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=10700824
HTH.

The Clinton presidency has already been shown to be one of the worst in history. He gave us the recession, let al-queda run loose while he played diplomat, and let all the current accounting scandals pass. The White House under Clinton cosigned 19 of 20 loans to Enron totalling over $1 billion and this article shows the lenghts to which Clinton's pals would go to help their business buddies.

The WhiteWater scandals were not baseless, as they resulted in tons of indictments and guilty verdicts. The fact that the Clintons dodged the bullet only shows how adept they were at hiding info. Bill Clinton lied in open court about getting Monica, what makes you think he wouldn't lie to cover up even more serious charges?

I am not sure, but I think he means those politicians who didn't roll over and lick the foot of the poeple who actually did the killing - I see in the first several pages quite a few poeple killed - not by US forces, but by other people trying to kill US forces - and MISSING.

In addition their "upwards of 10,000 people" is actually listed as several hundred LESS than 10,000 people. In the first half of the listing, I counted over 100 people killed by car bombs, in retribution for 'cooperating with the US forces', road side bombs, and ordinance directed at US forces that killed others.

In addition, there are between 5799 and 7274 reported from various hospitals with no way of directly attributing them to the hostilities at all, or if they actually should have been counted might have been double counted - once as a victim of a car bomb, then again as a hospital casualty.

So let me see. Less than 10,000 claimed, possibly as many as 3/4 of those double counted, and a large number of the rest killed by accident by people trying to attack the US forces.

Yes, those politicians have a lot to answer for - especially that Sadam, and Osama.

World Trade Center numbers for comparison:

Total number killed in attacks (official figure as of 9/5/02): 2,819

Bodies found "intact": 289

Body parts found: 19,858

Number of nations whose citizens were killed in attacks: 115

Number of U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom: 22

Story goes something like this ... Katzenberg worked at Disney for ten years, but like many others, didn't get on too well with Michael Eisner, and vice versa. He quit in 1993 to create Dreamworks SKG.

When Shrek was created, Dreamwork's first real feature animation, the character of Farquad (or Fuck-wad) was supposed to be Eisner, and Duloc (Farquad's Castle) is modelled on Disneyworld.

Maybe this has been noticed already...

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/bizfinanc e/columns/bottomline/n_8246/

It's a pretty interesting article about how all the higher-ups get away with Pump-n-Dump stock deals. It all sounds so familiar as I watch what's been happening with SCO. Interestingly enough Mr. Boise's name appears in the article. Maybe that's REALLY why SCO hired him!

It would be kind of nice if the SEC did something about this kind of BS!

Hemingway had rock-star status (and even impersonators). Steinbeck was Springsteen. Salinger was Kurt Cobain. Dorothy Parker was Courtney Love. James Jones was David Crosby. Mailer was Eminem. This is to say -- and I understand how hard this is to appreciate -- that novelists were iconic for much of the first half of the last century. They set the cultural agenda. They made lots of money. They lived large (and self-medicated). They were the generational voice. For a long time, anybody with any creative ambition wanted to write the Great American Novel.