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More On Tragedy
ELBnet writes It would be a godsend if the various survivor registries would pool their data, or if someone sets up a google-like search engine to reach all of them at once - and that is a great idea. I set up the search engine at WWW.ELBnet.com/wtc but need URLs to populate it. Please e-mail me any suggested URLS and I'll add them.
Also please don't /. the site... let the people who need it get to it. Spread the word."
Radio Free Wazee writes "Radio Free Wazee has suspended its normal programming in order to provide a relay for National Public Radio. Most of the sites are slammed -- we've got room for about 320 listeners. You'll need an MP3 player (WinAMP, etc.) -- the stream is at http://live.str3am.com:2310/listen.pls Our web site is http://www.ideashot.com/wazee.org Howard @ radio free waee"
GatorMan writes "The Red Cross and Amazon.com have setup a donations page for disaster relief to aide in the recovery of our people. I've seen it jump $100,000 in an hour (thanks to my $10 I'm sure) with over 25,000 donations so far, very promising. No where else on Earth could you find support like this."
winksmith writes "as many of us look on the recent crashes in horror, we will also be pushed towards more tech solutions to some of the scenarios witnessed. i believe experts agree that the buildings may have stood up to forces of the crash had it not been for the very hot fuel burning w/i the building. the building themselves were designed to take aircraft impacts (albeit circa 1960 aircraft). this disaster may spark re-interest in fuel additives for jet fuel that would immediately put out fires upon impact.
the faa and nasa ran some very extensive tests including the purposeful crashing of a large boeing jet (B720) in december of 1984. the tests were not encouraging. details are available. figure 1-1 shows the jet crashing.
no one can second guess what would have happened, but perhaps continued research into this area might have played a role in saving a few more lives. and still may in the future."
Wiggins writes ""The Internet Fraud Complaint Center recently received several complaints that someone is using the letters, "FBI" or "fbi.gov" in an e-mail address in order to make it seem that the message is coming from an FBI employee. In several cases, the message said, "Your application is approved. Please fill out this form to confirm your identity" and solicited the person's name, address, credit card number and expiration date." More on the http://www.ifccfbi.gov/. I am sure /. users know better, but the general populace doesn't (always)."
Today, having calmed down a little, I have been thinking about feasible ways to prevent such acts of terrorism.
Simple. Here are just a few ways:
1) Take actions to prevent the conditions that breed terrorism and show the people of the world that we pay more than lip service to the idea of 'defending liberty'.
2) Reign in corporate greed and globalization. As long as our bottom line takes precendence over human rights, we will be a target of (quite justifiable) rage and (condemnable) violence.
Not only did the terrorists bombing piss us off really bad (a it should), so we're already more than likely to go bomb anything remotely related to the terrorists (well, ur state was adjacent to theirs, but now we also got NATO wanting to get into the action. So barring UN intervention of some kind (I doubt it, although I don't know if we'd listen to them anyway), we're going to find a terrorist to blame and bomb the hell out of him and all his associates.
Yeah, we may not find the real terrorist, but we'll make sure we can find someone else to blame. The government has that legitimacy thing and competence thing to maintain.
What, the government would never do that? Hey, maybe they're all honest johns in D.C., but if anyone has ever read Fahrenheit 451, you know that the public doesn't want the government to catch THE terrorist, they want them to catch someone that the government say is the terrorist.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Nuke the Middle East? Which part? The Kurds? The Iraqis? The Egyptians?
It is not understandable to "Nuke the Middle East".
It might help to try not being a racist, and maybe looking elsewhere for your news than CNN and FOX news.
Maybe you should have spent your time thinking of ways to provide sustainable peace throughout the world. The United States drops bombs on Iraq everyday, where are you to protest this action?
I think it was probably when they bombed an abortion clinic. It's too bad that Christians are suppose to love their enemies and not kill others, then maybe this practice would align with their actions.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
and let me guess... Microsoft can write the program for such a project.
Now I really feel safe in the air...
Amazon and PayPal both are collecting the money in a fund that will be sent to the Red Cross. This will also generate quite a tax break for both of them when they do submit their collections. If our country goes to war our government will need a return of funds, not two parties dodging out on taxes, the donator for their contribution, and -insert corp taking collection here-...
Please I urge people to donate directly to the red cross... Their servers may be getting hit pretty hard and it may take some time... like the lines for dontating blood right now. But give the medicine (money) to the horse that needs it directly.
--------- .sig for great justice...
remove all
Moderating to further my personal world domination agenda... and to get chicks.
What's up with the promotion of audio and video sites?! The phone network is dammaged and jammed so the internet is the only useful means of communication many people have. Let them use it for their mail or personal communications! We should disscourage people from visiting sites that simply package things that can be had by traditional broadcast methods (remember radio and TV?), especially video formats.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Obviously we are going to have to seal off Afghanistan, invade it with ground troops, section it up and dismantle the sections.
The key diplomatic question is what kind of support or opposition we will get from neighboring countries. If none of them are willing to be the base of our invasion, it may be necessary to begin the invasion in another neighboring country. I'd guess that Iran may provide this avenue if we need it.
The big question mark is Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons (but not missles, I'm told). They are one of the few countries that have recognized the Taliban diplomatically. Pakistan will be a critical player in this conflict.
I don't know much about the former soviet republics to the north of Afghanistan. The ones that touch Afg are Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikstan. Here's a ethnic map of Afghanistan. If I recall, the forces that launched the rocket attacks were the "Northern rebels". I think their attack was a PR stunt looking for allies. Maybe we can find allies to the north?
China also touches a very small piece of Afg, but the tip of Afghanistan that touches China is very sparsely populated (I think its basically the Himalayas). We want to keep this as far from China as possible.
Basically there are three possiblities I see: (1) Get Pakistan on board, like we did Saudi Arabia in the Gulf war, (2) Get one or more soviet republics on our side (3) Move east through Iran, with or without them joining the cause.
Strategically, these aren't mutually exclusive, either. Option 3 seems like the most ambitious. If Pakistan will cooperate with (1), then it's probably the simplest. Doing option (3) without Iran could easily lead us into a much larger scale mideast conflict I can't imagine Iraq staying out of a conflict so close to them.
I don't see calling this World War 3. Maybe it's "World War T", though.
They are the one who raise funds for terror overseas and pretend it is "charity."
They are the ones who turn a blind eye to places in their communities which preach hate and instruct people in jihad.
They are complicit.
It's time for Muslims and Arabs in the US to show that they are not guilty of harboring terrorists. The Japanese who were interned by the US during WWII were loyal citizens, wrongfully accused. I don't think the same is true for a significant fraction of the US Muslim and Arab community. They came to this country with the intention of destroying it.
Loyal Muslims and Arabs should be horrified and should be helping to turn in the filth. Otherwise, what are the rest of us to assume?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Hi everyone. As many of you are aware, people in Egypt and other countries celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington. Some of these countries receive billions of dollars in aid from the United States. I believe that people who celebrate the deaths of thousands of people do not deserve to receive any aid from those peoples' country. As a result, I've sent letters to representatives in the government, urging them to stop support to these countries. The money should be used to help the victims and their families, and to rebuild what has been destroyed. I'm including a copy of this letter below, and I invite and urge all of you to mail a copy of it to your representatives, or write your own. Please tell your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors. Let's make this as widespread as possible.
*** Begin letter ***
Dear Senators and Representatives,
People in Egypt and other countries were filmed celebrating the September 11 attacks on America that destroyed thousands of lives.
These countries receive billions of dollars in foreign aid from us--paid for by those whose lives were destroyed or altered forever by the attack. Their celebrating of these horrible acts show total disrespect and disregard for human lives, not to mention a complete lack of appreciation for the support that has continued to benefit them.
I strongly urge you to stop financial aid to these countries.
The money should instead go to victims and their families, not to those who celebrated their untimely deaths. And, of course, the money should be used to rebuild the destroyed properties and pay for the expensive investigations and other actions that must take place.
The hard-earned money of those who died should NOT go to those who celebrated their deaths.
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
[I suggest including your mailing address]
***
The charade that I'm living? What frigging charade? Freedom? Peace? A place to raise my daughter?
...
This so-called Peace and Freedom you cling to takes an *extremely* big machine to maintain.
That paper cup you use for 10 minutes before casting to the winds took a *lot* of industry to find its way into your hands. A *LOT*. The kind of machine that allows that sort of wanton waste, is a very, very inefficient and deadly machine in and of itself.
That machine steals freedom and peace, and redistributes it elsewhere (to its own people), in order to perpetuate the charade that "modern western America is the place to live".
American corporations, together with its government, have all-too-often raped and pillaged other nations in order to serve the interests of "American People", and it's time that stopped.
You *CAN* live the life you want to live, but you're going to have to be a lot more responsible for the people you've trampled along the way, first.
Take more tangible responsibility for the crimes of your nation. Don't resort to backlash, anger, and more violence.
I don't advocate terrorism as a means of bringing this issue to the limelight, but I do advocate the notion that 'normal Americans' need to have a good, close, honest look at what exactly it is about America that would bring someone to commit this attrocious act.
On the one hand, you can glibly say that it's "evil" that brought those planes and the buildings together in final, firey, destructive passion.
That'd certainly justify any knee-jerk action - everyone knows that anything 'evil' is bad and must be destroyed.
But this sort of response, borne from anger, that most Americans seem to have a passion for right now, is the true evil. Consider the *whole*, not just your own side of it.
You could also take the view that what happened in New York could also have been done out of frustration over what America represents to a goodly portion of the world: an imperialist machine which uses *force* (and the threat of force) as a means to govern in regions where it has no right to meddle at all.
America has *no right* to meddle in the lives of the members of other countries, yet for it's own interests it does - on a daily, calculated, statistically traceable and viewable basis. The utmost arrogance of all, is that of an American citizen, living a cushy life, with *no* tangible concept of just how expensive that life is to other nations
Think about it before you call for more blood, angry American. To not consider this, would be an act of sheer stupidity.
Blood is blood, wherever it came from, and more need not be spilled for the sake of your own stupidity.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life has the Grim Reaper claiming this:
Here in Perth, Western Australia, our annual charity Telethon regularly collects significantly more than is pledged. Western Australia sent firefighters East on ASh Wednesday. Australia sent many firefighters to the USA to help with the last lot of big fires. We even help people like Indonesia, who aren't exactly reknowned for returning the favour.
Yes, America is powerful and often helpful. But the arrogance in assuming that `we are the best in the world at XXX' for practically everything is one of the factors which allows the USA to continue to fiddle with the politics of other countries, and occasionally to inflict damage on them beside which WTC looks like an act of street vandalism. Pull your head in. All of you.
The other risk in being `the best' is that you stop trying to be the best (`I have arrived') and you stop checking that you're doing The Right Thing(tm) (`I can do no wrong').
For the record, Texas fits many times into Western Australia, the shire of Meekatharra is bigger than Texas, and so are several of our cattle stations. America may build big planes like C5A Starlifters, but Australia's Jindalee OTH radar can see them taking off and landing from here and Russia builds bigger helicopters than you. China can see your `stealth' planes OTH as well. For $Oz2M, Australia developed the HoveRoc, a missile which hovers and pretends to be a destroyer, and produced four of them. It was so good from Day One that the USA (in exercises) had to fly over and look to see which was the real destroyer! For $70M, the USA got one prototype tethered rocket to hover. And so on.
The USA is not the biggest, it is not the best, and it is not the most charitable. It is big, it is often good, and it is generous, and it is welcome to take a place among the nations on those terms. Just don't give everyone else this `best in the world' drivel.
PS: Gatorman, it's not you alone, you were just the last straw on this camel's back.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
So how many people probably died during the terroism? A couple thousand, maybe? So what? 6000 die every DAY in this country. And 100,000 humans die every die on this planet.
Yes, this was a Bad Thing, but when it comes right down to it, Bin Laden's WTC& Pentagon shenanigans were nothing but a blip on the daily death-o-meter.
Forget about Bin Laden--he's a smalltimer. Let's go take on the Big Daddy of terrorist, Death himself.
Oh, wait. I forgot. I am dealing with primates, here. Forgive my logic....
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
At the risk of being labeled a racist, it seems to me the US should strictly limit the availability of all high-tech training (including such things as flight instruction, graduate study, and high-tech internships) for all non-US citizens. Why must the US continue to be the training grounds for the world's terrorists? God knows we have problems as it is with our own citizens. Maybe it's time we close our ridiculously porous borders to foreigners who seek to come to the US only to take advantage of our advanced technological facilities and educational opportunities.
Many here have said life as we know it will definitely change in the US. Let that change start by restricting our borders before restricting our freedoms.