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"From 1969 to 2009, the average number of fatalities per terrorist attack against a nation other than the United States yielded 1.74 fatalities. (See Chart 2.) When the data are limited to incidents against the United States, the average terrorist attack yielded 2.01 fatalities per incident. These fatalities represent all individuals killed, not only Americans. Without 9/11, the average falls to 0.97 fatalities per attack." [citation: i know these guys are assholes, but they do process some meaningful statistics]

The problem is: How many incidents per year? The same page has a chart, the highest number of incidents in a year is 150. So we're talking about 301 people. But what is hard to get it: How many of these are military targets? I don't even consider terrorism possible against military: The very definition of terrorism, as far as i am concerned, is that you are killing innocents. Military are not innocents. They have opted to be put in harm's way. They also are not related to the original conversation here on slashdot about being fearful to go outside because Boston police might mistakenly shoot you.

Hard to say how many of these are military -- perhaps Rand has a Crystal Reports plugin somewhere where we can analyze the data further?

But wait! Further down the page, they talk about homegrown terrorism. The maximum per year was 2001 with 33 attacks. For 2007-2009 there were 3. On a bad year: 911, thousands of deaths. During some years, like 2007? Zero.

Please tell me I don't have to demonstrate that police have killed more than zero person in a year. :) 2007 is an easy win, if i were to cherry-pick.

" Since 1970, more than half of all international terrorist acts targeting the United States occurred in either Latin America and the Caribbean (36 percent) or Europe (23 percent). (See Chart 6.) The Middle East and Persian Gulf account for 20 percent. "

^You have to throw those out for the Boston comparison too.

Hopefully you do realize the police kill 150-400 unarmed people every year. Shootings are always found justified, because all that is needed to justify it is "I felt scared". Scared people with guns are something to be scared of. And there's a lot more of them than terrorists.

Indeed, here is where the sentiment originated:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-makes-people-stupid.html

If you want to prove me wrong, you'll have to tell me why the National Security Council numbers are flawed. I am open to such a notion, but as you made me do your homework, you'd have to do mine this time ;)

The [dropped nuclear] bombs are why Japan surrendered. It's pretty damn clear. Would Japan have lost without the bombs? yes, but it would have cost millions of lives.

You've merely repeated the propagandized supposition put forth by Truman and US middle-school textbooks. Those claims aren't "clear;" they're very highly suspect. If you decide to investigate and understand the circumstances leading to Japan's surrender, you will find a substantial body of evidence and insights that call your claims into serious question.

Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: [Opposition: [Militarily unnecessary]]

The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan (It Was Not to End the War or Save Lives)

The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan’s Decision to Surrender?

Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States [s01e03]; [x264 SD torrent] [x264 720p torrent]
 

I have seen some interesting polls that show clearly, the street level people in OWS and The Tea Party both agreed on a number of issues that totally fly in the face of the media portrayal of either. The sad part is, while each side hates the way they are portrayed in the media and feels it unfair....each seems to buy the portrayal of the other as complete astroturf and ignorance....division is well achieved.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/a-majority-of-americans-including-both-ows-and-the-tea-party-agree-on-the-most-important-issues-we-just-dont-realize-it.html

In fact, its the majority of people agree on these issues. OWS and The Tea Party are manifestations of the same outrage, just from different groups, and with different groups of spinsters trying to profit from them.

If it makes them better bankers, then more power to them.

The problem with this statement is the core meaning of "better".

Better corporate-whore megacorp fat-cat greedy bastards or better-for-society in a "we can all make buckets of money and be happy if we play nicely" kind of way?

Not that I think companies should not make a profit.
Not that I think companies should not make LOTS of profit.

But when banks are crying about their massive costs one week (to justify fee increases) and then announcing RECORD PROFITS (in a never ending succession of record profit years) there's got to be something COMPLETELY WRONG.

When financial institutions can screw up SO BADLY that literally billions of dollars are needed to bail them out yet other industries or businesses just go bankrupt when they make bad decisions, there has to be something COMPLETELY WRONG.

And before you claim "we COULD NOT AFFORD to let them suffer the consequences", Iceland told their banks to go get stuffed when they asked for a government bailout and as a direct result are happily enjoying economic growth.

Bank collapse is not a bad thing. Honestly they should have let the banks collapse here in the USA.

Yeah, it went pretty well for Iceland.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/top-economists-iceland-did-it-right-everyone-else-is-doing-it-wrong.html

People just don't seem to get that when you see a sharp horse trader who is the richest man in town, you know he's going to screw you in any business dealings you have with him because that's how he got to be the richest man in town. So, when he tells you "I refuse to do business with you", the correct response is "Thank you".

I am surprised that isn't gamed on regular basis - shaking up the stock market with minimal investment

It's called High Frequency Trading (HFT) and it constitutes over 70% of all trading.

Our share based, public limited company investment system has been taken over by numerologists armed with high speed internet connections and blade servers.

By extension, our entire model of corporate governance, founded on the principals of directors accountable to shareholders, has now completely broken down.

Yes, I assume they are clueless.

Yeah, right. Stanford researchers who have collected a good amount of data are clueless. The fact that their findings adjusted up the previous consensus on people damaged is somewhere around zero. Now, you can of course rely on junk science like this mentioned here since you clearly are one of those people who will not believe the data if the data goes against your beliefs.

The derivatives market is $1200 trillion dollars or..

1.2 quadrillion seconds: 38,026 Millenia

BTW Google says 1 trillion seconds is 316.888 Centuries

In the legal interpretations of the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights:

``...the right to anonymous political free speech has been addressed by the Supreme Court. Most notably in the cases of Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995).''[1]

William

1 - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/homeland-security-shreds-constitutional-right-to-anonymous-political-speech-not-to-protect-our-security-but-to-monitor-dissent.html

Japanese are printing Yen like crazy, it should be much stronger than it is today and prices in Japan must be much lower than they are today and there should be restructuring.

Looking at relative values between currencies ALL of which are being debased is useless.

Here is an example of their printing plan: 4 year printing plan that started in 2001

Here is part of their plan description from 2010

Here is the result of the third time BoJ 'eased' in August 2011

Here is some more in October 2011

2012, April, the headline is: "BoJ will print as much as it takes."

May, 2012

They are constantly running 'Quantitative Easing' programs, you can even refer to wiki - fourth paragraph in that chapter.

Here is one link.

lol, ok, lets set up this huge system of spying to fight the terrorists... ...and lets say there aren't many terrorist out there so there's not much to do with the system... ...what does any self serving bureaucracy do?..

Labels things that were not considered terrorism as terrorism. Use encryption? Terrorist!, Don't pay your child support? Terrorist!. Visit a protest? Terrorist! Child porn is Terrorism! Drug users are Terrorists! The list never ends.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/02/ter%C2%B7ror%C2%B7ist-noun-anyone-who-disagrees-with-the-government-2.html

That is why the language has to be very specific. The language should identify exactly what terrorism is or isn't and what this surveillance can be used for. Otherwise I'm not going to support it. This trend of greatly trying to expand police powers and using extremely vague language in bills like "illegal activities" and "crime" is horrible for communities as anyone can be a criminal but most people aren't ever a terrorist.

lol, ok, lets set up this huge system of spying to fight the terrorists... ...and lets say there aren't many terrorist out there so there's not much to do with the system... ...what does any self serving bureaucracy do?..

Labels things that were not considered terrorism as terrorism. Use encryption? Terrorist!, Don't pay your child support? Terrorist!. Visit a protest? Terrorist! Child porn is Terrorism! Drug users are Terrorists! The list never ends.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/02/ter%C2%B7ror%C2%B7ist-noun-anyone-who-disagrees-with-the-government-2.html

Fox News reports is reporting that although Tepco can't see the fuel because of steam in the containment area, and although they can't find the current water level, the internal temperature of 112F qualifies as proof that the "cold shutdown" has been successful.

The other point of view at the washington post is that if they can't see the fuel, it has broken completely through the containment system, and "Given that steam forms when water boils this is an indication that the reactor is not in cold shutdown." Also "If the reactors are “cold”, it may be because most of the hot radioactive fuel has leaked out."

The New York Times pointed out last month: A former nuclear engineer with three decades of experience at a major engineering firm who has worked at all three nuclear power complexes operated by Tokyo Electric [said] “If the fuel is still inside the reactor core, that’s one thing” . But if the fuel has been dispersed more widely, then we are far from any stable shutdown.”

See links below. Discuss.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_DEFENSE_BILL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/constitutional-expert-president-obama-says-that-he-can-kill-you-on-his-own-discretion-he-can-jail-you-indefinitely-on-his-own-discretion.html

The moment the aforementioned bill was signed, we lost the few rights we still retained after the "Patriot" act.

So remember:

1) You're a terrorist if and when some unelected bureaucrat like a TSA inspector *suspects* you're a terrorist.

2) As a suspected terrorist, you can be detained indefinitely.

Leaving the country with your cash while you can is starting to look pretty good. If you are stopped, you'd be crazy to not comply with the request, but try not to belong to whatever party isn't in power at the time. At the moment, political affiliation isn't a reason for suspected terrorism, but how long do you think that will last?

Unfortunately, lower species tend to be much more difficult to care for properly. They're quite happy to sit in their own filth until communicable diseases break out. Then we have to use force to go in and clean their cages.

Now, maybe if we split the OWS protesters into even smaller groups ....

What... aren't the fences getting too expensive already? Or is the population in the cages not significant enough (for the OWS to spreads inside them cages)?

(when will the "humans" learn to tackle the causes instead of band-aiding the symptoms? After all, both TP and OWS "lower species" seems to have some common grievances, even if they don't quite agree on the solutions. Based on the visible progress, looks like the "govt humans" care more about chimps)

Goldman Sachs Reveals it Shorted Gulf of Mexico NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - In what is looming as another public relations predicament for Goldman Sachs, the banking giant admitted today that it made "a substantial financial bet against the Gulf of Mexico" one day before the sinking of an oil rig in that body of water. The new revelations came to light after government investigators turned up new emails from Goldman employee Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre in which he bragged to a girlfriend that the firm was taking a "big short" position on the Gulf. "One oil rig goes down and we're going to be rolling in dough," Mr. Tourre wrote in one email. "Suck it, fishies and birdies!" The news about Goldman's bet against the Gulf comes on the heels of embarrassing revelations that the firm had taken a short position on Lindsay Lohan's acting career. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/goldman-sachs-reveals-it_b_558774.html ALSO SEE: Criminal Negligence: Despite Knowing It Had a Damaged Blowout Preventer, BP STILL Cut Corners By Removing the Single Most Important Safety Measure - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/despite-knowing-it-had-damaged-blowout.html AND Prominent Oil Industry Insider: "There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away" - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/prominent-oil-industry-insider-theres.html

Goldman Sachs Reveals it Shorted Gulf of Mexico NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - In what is looming as another public relations predicament for Goldman Sachs, the banking giant admitted today that it made "a substantial financial bet against the Gulf of Mexico" one day before the sinking of an oil rig in that body of water. The new revelations came to light after government investigators turned up new emails from Goldman employee Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre in which he bragged to a girlfriend that the firm was taking a "big short" position on the Gulf. "One oil rig goes down and we're going to be rolling in dough," Mr. Tourre wrote in one email. "Suck it, fishies and birdies!" The news about Goldman's bet against the Gulf comes on the heels of embarrassing revelations that the firm had taken a short position on Lindsay Lohan's acting career. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/goldman-sachs-reveals-it_b_558774.html ALSO SEE: Criminal Negligence: Despite Knowing It Had a Damaged Blowout Preventer, BP STILL Cut Corners By Removing the Single Most Important Safety Measure - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/despite-knowing-it-had-damaged-blowout.html AND Prominent Oil Industry Insider: "There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away" - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/prominent-oil-industry-insider-theres.html

A link found from The Oil Drum: "Top Kill" Has Failed