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More WTC News
Current WTC happenings: The FBI is searching ISPs with FISA warrants. Architects and civil engineers are starting to speculate on why the towers collapsed. Pictures: NASA, a powerful photoessay, newspaper headlines. Current investigation news: LA Times, NY Times, CNN. They're finally starting to mention casualty figures. Finally, bjb writes: "It isn't the hollywood blockbuster of a story, but I'm a daily reader of Slashdot, and I was on the 38th floor of the WTC 1 building when the first plane hit. Oh, and I was reading Slashdot at the time. You can read about my experience here. It was originally an email that I sent out to friends and family, but I was asked by NPR's Talk of the Nation to make it a web page."
Apparently ISP's are allowing the installation of Carnivore. They say it's only for a few days, but we'll see how long that claim holds up...
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
The /. group is a collection of varied skills and talents. One would think that with the resources and capabilities we all have access to, what kind of information can we contribute. Sure privacy and security issues are important, but if I had the ability to retrieve any info to help, I would.
Just a thought---
I am me...I think
http://www.spaceimaging.com/newsroom/attack_galler y.htm
And I'll post it again:
"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
The most important responsibility of government is to protect the lives,
liberty, and property of its citizens. Our government has failed in this
regard.
We have failed by appeasing Islamic fanatics for 50 years, beginning
with the acceptance of the expropriation of oil wells which were made possible
by American science, technology, and engineering. We have continued this
appeasement by responding to previous acts of terror with "surgical strikes"
and "diplomatic pressure". We have acted as an "honest broker" between a
mostly-free and democratic nation - Israel - and the blood-thirsty thugs who
seek its destruction.
If there were any honor in their hearts, those that perpetrated this
appeasement would resign their offices and issue formal apologies to the
loved ones of the victims of this latest attack.
What America must do now, simply, is to stop the appeasement. We must not be
distracted by efforts to make it "more difficult" for terrorists to accomplish
their objectives. Human intelligence, improved airport security, and strategic
defence should all be pursued in time, when the current emergency is over.
In 1944, would there have been any point in making it "more difficult" for Hitler
to invade Britain?
What we must do now is to destroy the leaders of the organizations which seek to
destroy us, and to render incapicitated the governmental and military
institutions of the states which bring them aid and comfort. We can begin with
Afghanistan, then proceed with Iran, Sudan, and Yemen, assuming those regimes are
not toppled by their own people when they witness the destruction we inflict upon
the Taliban. Iraq, Syria, and Libya would be next.
Innocent civilians will be killed in this effort, as will American
servicemen. That is the nature of war. But, we did not start this war. We
just let it go on too long.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
It's been two days, and I'm still numb. I don't even have witty comments anymore - there's nothing that can be said that hasn't already been said, except that now is not the time to start WWIII and I'm hightailing it to the woods. See you all through my Grandchildren in 2146.
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
we feel with you.
There is another good article on the collapse at NewScientist.com
I was very much impressed with the way the buildings withstood that kind of impact long enough for some people to escape. The loss of life if they had gone immediately, or had toppled sideways just doesn't bear thinking about.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
They are in need of computers, supplies and human techs. If you can please help. Some of us can't donate blood. But we can donate our extra computers and supplies.
r y/ 0,23008,3347294,00.html
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/showtell/sto
---
eeww, I'll have a crab juice.
Structural steel starts to melt at 800 degrees
F. Fires from jet fuel raise temperatures to
around 1500 degrees F. It was in the Sept. 12
issue of The Wall Street Journal now currently
available without registration or subscription
at:
The Wall Street Journal
I've posted a centralized information site. PLEASE DO NOT SLASHDOT THIS SITE! Pass along the web address to people who need it. PLEASE don't just browse around the site. I'm not sure if the site could handle a slashdot-size load. Again... PLEASE visit the site sparingly. The site is www.worldtradeaftermath.com. Please pass the address on to those who need it. Thank you.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
techtv is reporting that the Red Cross needs tech donations
Original posts here and here
if you read brian's story, you'll see that he mentions that the 'emergency staircase' was only two persons wide. it took him (a reasonably fit man, i'll assume) 20 minutes to descend from the 38th floor, and this was by leaving IMMEDIATELY after the crash. this was also mostly before smoke, water, and darkness took over the staircases (according to other accounts).
-sam
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
That commentary was written some 25+ years ago (and it's writer died over 15 years ago). That said, there are some good points.
From one of those links:
A lot like a big earthquake, for those of us who have experienced one. Terrorifing <sp?>...
This commentary is nearly 30 years old and is not addressed to our current situation.
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
They were designed to survive a "once in a century storm", something like Hurricane Andrew. They naturally sway several feet in strong winds.
h tml
Buildings are simply not constructed to survive being slammed into by a 400,000 pound jet going 300+ miles per hour. Especially ones that are 20+ years old.
Jet specs are at: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767-300/product.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Apparently, for the vast majority of buildings in the USA, an impact by an aircraft, similar to what happened, would take them down almost instantly. The construction of these buildings saved lives.
There are many articles in New Scientist Magazine on many related subjects to this event, including one that discusses the buildings in some detail.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Last night on the news I heard the estimate of up to 20,000 dead in this attack. People were comparing this to the attack on Pearl Harbor, with a mere fraction of that many dead. People, if this count turns out to be accurate, this isn't anything like Pearl Harbor, except metaphorically, it is on line with the ENTIRE Vietnam War. The number of projected causualties is on par with the total number of US causualties throughout that conflict 30+ years ago.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
This was written by Gordon Sinclair in 1973 at the end of the Vietnam Conflict.
You can read about it at this site, including the aftereffects of what it meant to his career - both good and bad. There's also a RealAudio copy of the recording he did of this, which is backed up by 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
i know of a request by the government for the hacker community to relinquish any information it has. should we, err, the hacker community do anything activly against Bin Laden?
-teknopurge
http://techienews.utropicmedia.com help us beta!!
Website Hosting
As everyone knows by know, Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter occupied roughly 10% of the WTC, with some 3500 employees. There's a good article on Yahoo this morning about their offsite back strategy, and how it enabled them to start working again almost immediately.
The Post has extensive coverage of the Pentagon operations.
Best Slashdot Co
Okay, I know it's terrible, but when I first read this story I thought that the web hosting credit - for Bombora Trading - was supposed to be some kind of bad joke. Like, "Hey, was that a bomb, or a trade center?" Ugh.
It's funny how one's sense of humor desperately tries to reassert itself after something like this.
It's old, has some good points, but the characterization of Technological Prowess as some moral virtue is ridiculous.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Where is the map detailing which buildings have fallen, which are damaged/unstable, which are cordoned off, and basic information about each? And to a lesser extent where is the map showing street closings, pedestrian access, mta access, civilian auto access? Not one agency has provided such maps. If anyone can point me to a map with Hagstrom or better details it would be appreciated. AA
Are you planning to sight-see and get in the way?
Really, what concievable need would you have for a map of the area right now, considering it's still full of damaged buldings and rescue workers?
That's nice, but since you didn't cite any sources, I'm taking this with a grain of salt.
Ask why they stood! The fact that any building was capable of taking a direct impact from a jetliner with a full load of fuel and then stand for over an hour (and allow lots of people to get out) is remarkable! We need to make sure we keep building them like that.
Trying to build skyscrapers aircraft-proof isn't feasible, I don't think. But building them capable of resisting that kind of trauma for at least a little while is.
CNN and other news sites report that the FBI searched the Florida house belonging to two brothers believed to have played a part in the events of 9/11/01. A search on Google for one of the brothers - Ameer Bukhari - shows that he died exactly one year before on 9/11/00 in a plane crash.
I posted that info to various places, and in the time its taken me to type this far into my message, CNN has changed their story - now saying that FBI believe that one of the brother may have died before Tuesday.
Either Carnivore is good, or the new media have just learned about Google.
First, what did the flight control know? It seems very strange that the only information we have from the hijacked planes came from the passangers' cellphones. Didn't the pilots have a permanent radio connection to the flight control? I thought that in cases like these they are supposed to inform flight control as a first thing. And if they did, how come that the first confirmation that the planes were hijacked came hours later? If the police new in time, they could have started evacuation immediately and saved many lives.
Second, I notice a strange discrepancy between the courses of action advocated on Slashdot and other "grassroots" forums and what I hear on TV. I'm not talking about "nuke them" folks. I'm talking about calls for the internationalization of the efforts. Creating the grand anti-terrorism coalitions. Multilateralism. That stupid chapter 5 invocation. I mean, this course of action is the ONLY one advocated by every single politician I've seen on TV, and it doesn't seem so obviously superior to the one mostly advocated on Slashdot: Punish the responsible (and some innocent too) and then DISENGAGE from the trouble areas, especially the Middle East, that's how I would spell it.
Any answers? I'd really like to know.
This is only partly correct. Most of the Middle Eastern oil wells were actually initially exploited by the British, which is also evident from the fact that most of the area was either British protectorate or heavily influenced by the British.
The problem is that it has not and never been proved that they are actually guilty of this.
If you want to save the principles of Western civilization, how about adhering to them in the first place? Like, not bombing someone out of existence because he said he didn't like you and someone else killed a couple of thousand people in your country?
With reactions like this, you can bet that:
BTW As far as Syria is concerned, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has recently offered support to the US in combatting international terrorism. Now what, nuke 'em?
The problem is that America doesn't know what to do now. Throwing bombs around is probably not the best thing to do just because nobody can think of an alternative.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
Right, he survives a plane smashing into his building, he witnesses people falling 80+ stories to their deaths, walks across Manhattan in the midst of utter chaos, and YOU expect him to have perfect grammar.
http://www.rotten.com/news/articles/coup-cover-300 .jpg
This is not a joke. It appeared in the current issue of Wired magazine, which was on newsstands before this all happened. I guess it's just one of those odd coincidences.
dinner: it's what's for beer
The planes hit on the 60th and 90th floors. I'm not a building engineer, but we can all safely say its a GOOD thing they didnt hit on the 30th to 45th floor. Not only many more would've been trapped, but the buildings would've likely collapsed almost immediately, and would've collapsed horizontally, not vertically.
Next big target? Boston. Give this until the Big Dig continues. Some of these tunnels run under MAJOR sections of the city and LARGE bodies of water. God forbid a few people simultaneously detonate truck bombs in those tunnels.
-----
is to once again terrorize our own citizens. from anti-communist witch-hunts to asian-american ww2 camps to the generally accepted anti-Arab anti-Islamic trends of America for more than a decade, we still have a lot to learn, it seems.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
I think I can make a good guess about why they collapsed....
...the airplanes hitting them?
Got Rhinos?
The more I think about this, the more I think the WTC/Pentagon disaster is an early warning just like Pearl Harbor. Americans in both the 1930s and the 1990s were effectively isolationist. Last night I saw a survivor interview that the guy ended with the statement, almost in tears, "Why can't you keep your stupid wars over there?" These events show that the war was NEVER just "over there". But if it's going to be fought with American casualties, then by God I want it fought in some desert in the middle of nowhere instead of downtown Manhattan. We have conquered dozens of nations, installed rational govenments and come home against far more organized opponents than this. We can do it again, and should. Islamic fundamentalism is just as dangerous to the world as National Socialism (Nazi) ever was. FORGET THE MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD - WE HAVE GOT TO STOP THESE GUYS COLD ***NOW*** BEFORE THEY GET NUKES. If we don't, then in ten or twenty years instaed of four jetliners it's going to be FOUR CRATERS where San Francisco, Boston, Miami and Chicago used to be, delivered by boats smuggling plutonium instead of cocaine. Yes, I know we don't have a target today and we must not go off half cocked. But when we get a target, a plan and resources ready, we must GO!
chmod a+x /bin/laden
dinner: it's what's for beer
[i]Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever god may be
for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried out aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloodied, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the Shade.
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
"Invictus" ("Unconquerable") [/i]
by William Ernest Henley
I have waited a few days before posting anything anywhere about the tragedy that happened. To all the victims and their families, their friends, their colleagues - I send my sincerest and deepest condolences.
There is nothing more that I can add to express any more sorrow than has already been said countless times, far more eloquently than I can muster.
However, I will say this - no amount of anger or wrath or racial hatred is going to prevent this from happening again. No amount of killing or bloodshed or violence is going to stop more destruction. You do not fight fire with fire... you fight fire with water. This is a time for cool heads to prevail, not for fiery blood.
I am not advocating peace - action *must* be taken - and rest assured that Australia, along with the rest of the free world, will stand united alongside America to hunt down and bring these evil bastards to justice. I would even pull the trigger myself, if I could.
However, I will *not* pull the trigger on the innocent people who happen to have the same skin colour as the perceived perpertrators.
I will *not* forget that it is racial intolerance that has caused these problems in the first place.
I will *not* explode my wrath on those whom I want to be guilty, but save it for those who ARE guilty.
I will *not* forget the lessons of the past, and therefore be condemned to repeat them.
America has produced some of the greatest leaders the world has known - and one of the greatest, Martin Luther King summed up the lesson perfectly - "I have a dream... a dream that my four children will live in a world where they are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"
The American or Australian or British or European citizen, who happens to be of middle eastern descent, is *not* your enemy. The muslim colleague that you worked with, and joked with last week is *not* your enemy. The children who attend the local islamic school in your community is *not* your enemy.
Your enemy are those who have perpetrated this foul and vicious crime, those who aid those perpetrators, and those who advocate violence and the destruction of innocents.
You did not destroy or bomb Timothy McVeigh's neighbours, and friends, or city for the terrible crime he committed. Likewise, do not villify those who happen to be muslim. Those who are guilty *must* be punished to the fullest extent, those who are innocent should not suffer - otherwise, we are just performing the same low acts that have made us suffer today.
The world became a much uglier, colder, darker, and horrible place this week, and my grief knows no bounds for what has happened.
We can either make it uglier, colder, darker and horrible, or we can do what we can as individuals, as groups, as nations, and as a world, to try and make things better.
What decision will you make?
Thank you for listening to my rant, and god bless.
I have been reading Slashdot for over two years now, posting rarely, never feeling the need to post logged in, I only created this account a month ago to test the user features. But now I want to ad my thoughts to the records of Slashdot about this horrible tragedy.
I already posted the first part of this as an AC, but it went unnoticed amongst the hundreds of posts:
The thoughts of fear over the prospect that this disaster will be used to justify turning the United States of America into a police state like no other in history with subsequent effects on the rest of the world, the inability to understand the loss of life even though I've never stood foot on American soil, and worry about future developments have all crossed my mind as I spent over three hours reading incredible posts on Slashdot. But... one harrowing image came to my mind that I haven't seen mentioned yet...
Imagine what was going through the the minds of the terrorists piloting the second plane to the World Trade Center.
They would have seen that the first plane had hit. They would have known that they were going to hit. They would have realized that their mission would be a complete success.
I fear what will happen if the American public finds out from a recovered cockpit voice recorder that the last joyous words spoken by the madmen were "Allahu akbar"...
On an equally gruesome note, I wonder why people who work in these super-high buildings dont't equip themselves with... parachutes! I mean, if I were to spent a good portion of my life at an altitude where fire ladders do no good, I'd get a base-jumping-compliant parachute just to give me a sense of security and a remote chance of escape in a situation where fire has cut of the only way out.
If there is one good thing that comes out of this tragedy, it is the fact that now terrorists have removed ultra-cheap, mega-effective, readily available flying bombs from their arsenal - airport security will be tightened and cockpits sealed.
Originally I thought that it will take years for America to recover from this horror, but the truth is that total recovery may never happen.
My heart is lifted by the care and the concern shown by the /. community. But as we are nerds in seek of news, I would like to see us come up with some possible solutions. Here's mine:
... it has my face on it ... my baggage tags, again, with my face on it.
... and with checks against known terrorist lists (only) ... may be enough to stop a wide-scale terrorist attack like the one we saw.
Back in 1995, I was the lead programmer for INSPass, the INS Passenger Accelerated Service System. Essentially, an individual trades the convenience of getting through customs for giving up their hand geometry on a card that is verified at a kiosk.
Now I read that there are going to be long lines at the airport. A wonderful place for a repeat of the terrorist disasters in Rome and Athens back in the mid-80's. And when it gets really, really busy, an excellent place for a bad guy to get waived through the lined on a frustrating day or by an airline employee who doesn't know what a fake driver's license looks like.
What I would like to see is some sort of voluntary program, offered by either the FAA or the airlines themselves where smart cards are issued. On them, is my face. On the chip, my fingerprint and othe biographic information. I sign up some other time than a day I'm travelling. I agree to have my information checked against known terrorists lists (only)
When I go the airport, I go to a kiosk where I hold the card up to my face to an attendant, who watches me I insert the card and verify my fingerprint, when I'm issued a ticket
No, this is not foolproof. And some will still want to go through the old-fashioned line. And that's fine. But if enough people paticipate, it will take the work load off of those having to do identification the old fashioned way
I hate giving up personal freedoms. But here is one case I'm willing to make an exception.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
I found this story pretty moving. A gossip columnist comments on how meaningless all the stuff she's built her career on is in the grand scheme of things. Talks about the future of celebrity and entertainment.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The more I think about this, the more I think the WTC/Pentagon disaster is an early warning just like Pearl Harbor. Americans in both the 1930s and the 1990s were effectively isolationist. Last night I saw a survivor interview that the guy ended with the statement, almost in tears, "Why can't you keep your stupid wars over there?" These events show that the war was NEVER just "over there". But if it's going to be fought with American casualties, then by God I want it fought in some desert in the middle of nowhere instead of downtown Manhattan. We have conquered dozens of nations, installed rational govenments and come home against far more organized opponents than this. We can do it again, and should. Islamic fundamentalism is just as dangerous to the world as National Socialism (Nazi) ever was. FORGET THE MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD - WE HAVE GOT TO STOP THESE GUYS COLD ***NOW*** BEFORE THEY GET NUKES. If we don't, then in ten or twenty years instaed of four jetliners it's going to be FOUR CRATERS where San Francisco, Boston, Miami and Chicago used to be, delivered by boats smuggling plutonium instead of cocaine. Yes, I know we don't have a target today and we must not go off half cocked. But when we get a target, a plan and resources ready, we must GO!
In the Coral Springs raid, something might have been found indicating possible terrorist activity in Broward county. Note that Miami-Dade and Broward were both put on alert before the rest of the state. Also, Broward's alert level has been raised to Level Three, while Miami-Dade remains on Level Two.
We shall see what comes of this raid.
I hope this picture aids in the capture of elimination of Osama Bin Laden
bin Laden and supporters
photosMy Photostream
My boyfriend is a professional structural engineer who has done a lot of work on major LA buildings. He's currently attending Berkeley for a masters in Structural Engineering and, in chatting with his professors, came to this (paraphrased):
1) Yes, the buildings did withstand the impact of the airplanes. They didn't fall immediately, did they?
2) Buildings are built to a certain fire code, in that the building won't completely catch on fire and collapse for a certain length of time (usu 1hr?). The escape routes are located generally in the four corners. Since the plane took out one of them, this means that the required escape time is now 2+ hours.
3) Jet fuel burns with a much higher temperature than normal fuel.
4) Steel expands and crystalizes under extreme heat. Since the plane(s) hit at a "centre"-ish spot, the steel tried to expand up and down, but since the steel in the "up" and "down" weren't hot and wouldn't move, the steel in the "centre" buckled.
5) Since jetfuel burns hotter, step 4 happened faster and also reduced the "buckle" time by a certain amount - when used along with the increased escape time required, means that considerably fewer people would be able to escape.
6) Since the steel buckled, the upper floors now come crashing down on to the floor immediately below. Being as that floor is not suited to hold X number of upper floors MOVING rapidly at it, it collapsed and repeat until bottom.
Therefore, it was the fire that made the buildings collapse, not the impact of the planes.
-mrsmalkav
The way I read the story of UAL Flight 93, passengers were about to regain control of the plane, and the last terrorist nosedived into a hill. A few people with small knives can't expect to control a planeload of passengers, if the passengers don't think cooperation will lead to survival.
Using this as an excuse to install carnivore. How do the ISPs know its gonna be easy to have the boxes removed later? The FBI could just keep saying "no, we need more time." Carnivore didn't help prevent this. Any communications will 99.99% definitely be encrypted.
Also, doesn't anyone think its strange that the FBI happened to find the rental car with Manuals, Notes, Videos, Names and a Koran (spelling) on the back seat? Why would someone take the risk of this behind to be discovered in time to stop the hi-jacking? if they spent so long training why would they need to bring a flight manual? for last minute cramming? and why would they bring a video tape? did they have a player? As for the Koran, wouldn't they bring that with them on the plane? This all looks extremely dodgy. Anyone planning something on this scale wouldn't be so sloppy and unprofessional.
You lot will never get proper revenge for this because the hi-jackers are already dead. They were prepared to kill themselves for the cause and their plan has worked. If Bin Laden and/or the Taliban are responsible, then they will kill themselves (and probably take others with them) before being caught.
Theres nothing you can do to stop this happening again.
- If you ban all hand-luggauge on planes, they'll hide it up their asses (ROFL south park.. LOL:).
- If you ban asses, they'll use their bare hands to break peoples necks.
- If you separate the pilots cabins, they'll train for years as pilots real, join the airline and strike when the time comes (like EgyptAir).
- You can step up security at your airports to stop bombs in the luggage, but they'll put bombs on the plane at their own airports.
- You can't circle your cities with fighters for ever, and you can't expect people to live with having SAMs aimed at them whenever they fly, just waiting to fire if the plane goes of course.
They can sent bomb filled 747's as normal passenger planes and you won't know until its too late.
This _will_ happen again. Maybe next tuesday at 9 (10 central) Only on Fox.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The anger I feel has turned cold. I want to find whoever did this, if it's bin Laden or whoever, and I want to find his friends and family and I want to bomb them. Not necessarily to death, just bomb the lower part of a building they are in so that flames start, and can't be quenched and the building slowly collapses. Then don't let anyone know if there are any survivors so that he can sit back and ask, 'Did my little girl make it out? Did my wife make it?'. I want him to feel that pain, that confusion, that dawning horror that maybe he lost something precious, and he'll never get it back. And then, slowly, over the course of many many days bring him tantalizing news, 'Oh... maybe one of them made it out... Maybe'.
Every time I hear a story of someone who was working on the 100th floor, who is missing, who may be in a hospital, may not, I feel this incredible sadness followed by cold rage. How dare they?!? How dare they do this?!? I want to give blood, I want to go to New York and help with the cleanup and rebuilding. I want to fly out to Afghanistan and find the ones who did this and make them suffer the same things I see on the television time and time again, 'Have you seen my son? My wife? My brother?'.
But I can't do that, and it wouldn't be fair to those friends and relatives. To do that would be to commit an act of terrorism, and that I would never want to do. That would make me the same as that cowardly shit hiding behind suicide bombers and suicide pilots.
I'm waiting to give blood because the bloodbanks are full. I will do it next week because blood is always a valuable commodity. I can't go out to New York because I have friends and family and a house and a job here. The act of terror was meant to disrupt the jobs and lives of Americans, and the fact that I'm here at work today means they failed.
Or are we just going to target the Arab
terrorist organizations?
Last night I saw a survivor interview that the guy ended with the statement, almost in tears, "Why can't you keep your stupid wars over there?" These events show that the war was NEVER just "over there". But if it's going to be fought with American casualties, then by God I want it fought in some desert in the middle of nowhere instead of downtown Manhattan. We have conquered dozens of nations, installed rational govenments and come home against far more organized opponents than this. We can do it again, and should. Islamic fundamentalism is just as dangerous to the world as National Socialism (Nazi) ever was. FORGET THE MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD - WE HAVE GOT TO STOP THESE GUYS COLD ***NOW*** BEFORE THEY GET NUKES. If we don't, then in ten or twenty years instaed of four jetliners it's going to be FOUR CRATERS where San Francisco, Boston, Miami and Chicago used to be, delivered by boats smuggling plutonium instead of cocaine. Yes, I know we don't have a target today and we must not go off half cocked. But when we get a target, a plan and resources ready, we must GO!
Contents © 2001 Brian J. Bernstein. Not to be used without written permission from the author.
Is this something that really warrants a copyright? I mean really... don't thousands of people have this same story? "Um, I was up in the building. I was *insert action* at the time. I heard explosions. I ran down the stairs. There was lots of debris. There was smoke. I looked up and saw a bunch of people jumping out of the building to their deaths. I went home. I saw *insert acquantaince name* and hugged them. The End."
The guy probably is getting ready to ink his book deal or something. At least that's how its written. I felt like I was reading something out of the game 'Max Payne' or something... with all of those over-descriptive and flamboyant sentences.
Oh yeah... btw...
This post is Copyright 2001, by me. Don't re-use it without express written express from me.
Make check payable to blah blah blah...
For those of you that are getting the nostradamus quotes in your email, point them here. Yep, its a fake.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
USA Today has this interesting explanation of why/how the towers fell.
I just wanna say that when i got to the page it was on hit 902.
I reloaded and it was up at 40000.
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
Yes, the US has a long history of lynching people. But I don't think you can judge a country from its not-so-recent history. Here is an example:
I've gathered from your webpage that you are Finnish. Finland, if I remember correctly, was allied with Nazi Germany, so was in fact using violence as an *offensive* (not defensive) approach to forward their political views. I assume that Finland's history of Nazi sympathy is not indicative of its current politcal environment, as is the case for the American history of lynchings.
You may find out that the American instinct to stomp out violent individuals with (unfortunately) more violence has in fact worked, and it has worked to the extent of giving most of Europe liberation about 56 years ago. People who are calling Americans "violent" or "barbaric" might want to consider, not superficially, but rather deeply, over the next few weeks, how America has affected their lives, and what the world could be like if America had never been. I may be an ignorant patriot, and I'm sure people will quickly tell me so, but I think most countries have benefitted from American influence. I'm sure as hell Finland has.
I do appreciate your sentiments, however, on another note, I would rather that you had not used the same poem that Timothy McVeigh did on his way out...
Has it striked anyone else that we build are buildings so that when something like this happens, people are unable to get of the building quickly or even be rescued? Instead, people jumped out of the windows to their death rather than be burned. The people at the top of the towers had no chance to get out of there in time. Even those that were on the floor beneath where the planes hit, barely made it out before the towers collapsed. It scares me that the Mayor and others are already saying that they will rebuild the towers.
Our building practices have to be changed so that they are safe when tragedy hits.
blah blah blah....
:The authorities had almost one hour to
:react between the first and the last crash,
:and did not scramble at least one jet
:to just "follow" the hijacked planes,
:as occurs in other countries.
While I tend to agree with you in most points, the transponders where turned off on the planes. This makes tracking them with accuracy by FAA system virtually impossible. They also managed to subdue the crew before they could key a hijack through their communications systems.
But you are correct in many other ways the system was lax, but I dont think that this was done as a way to start a war.
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
There's more
And from yesterday, we have the NYC monument story:
NYC To Terrorists: "Is That All Ya Got?"
An architect on CNN suggested that the towers survived the impacts almost intact, and that the fires inside resulted in the steel necessary to hold up a concrete structure of that size melted.
Without reinforcement, what you have is 110 stories of compacted gravel and cement dust. The architect was saying that he was amazed and impressed the structures survived as long as they did.
Let us assume that he is correct in his assessment. This could spell the end of the use of reinforced concrete as the sole supporting component. Not just because of the risk of any future tragedies of this kind, but because of more "mundane" risks. The architect was quoted as saying that an LA hotel fire, some years back, nearly caused catastrophic failure of the strucure, for the same reason.
In short, as I see it, architectures have got to look for an interlocking structure that can survive not only the external environment, but any internal environment. If a hotel can turn to dust, any time someone sets their frying-pan on fire, we have a major problem.
Concrete is popular, because it's cheap, fast to put up, and easy to mould to any shape. Accepting that that is going to be the primary material for some time, that leaves only one option. There's got to be a skeletal structure that the steel can be hooked onto, which can survive "extreme" conditions.
The idea here is that if any given segment fails, it cannot cause a catastrophic failure throughout the structure. It's limited. Compartmentalized. Even if the entire structure does eventually disintegrate, it would be slowed. You wouldn't go from 110 to 3 in 10 seconds or less. Sure, you're still going to have casualties. There is only one way to avoid that, and it's WAY too expensive to imagine anyone contemplating it. However, even if you could only slow the collapse down to one floor a minute, you could get one hell of a lot more people out.
Ok, ok, the most expensive solution possible - build your concrete structure as a mould, not as the structure you're going to use. Pour in molton rock, slowly, and let it cool. The ideal here would be to have the entire building as one giant geode. One huge crystal, forming in the hollow.
Crystalline structures are remarkably resiliant against any impact, other than along crystal lines. Because rock melts at very high temperatures, you can probably find something that simply wouldn't melt, even in the conditions we all saw on TV on tuesday.
One single, solid entity. No joins or connections to break, no weak-points to fail. THAT is the only type of structure that could survive such a devastating attack. But, like I said, nobody is going to build it. The sheer expense, difficulty and danger of manipulating that kind of volume of viscous, molten rock, ensuring that no air bubbles remained, cooling it slowly enough to solidify correctly - it's not beyond humanity, technically, but it's WAY beyond anything that humanity would ever wish to achieve.
What will happen is, should the towers ever be rebuilt, they'll be slightly strengthened, probably better disability access will exist, but the structure will fundamentally be the same. Why? Because, when you balance the cost against the risks, that is the only cost-effective structure at that kind of height, that you can build. Nothing else meets ALL requirements, even if other solutions would be superior in one or two of them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There is an interesting Ny Times article which describes a reporter's interviews with Afghanistan People.
[A] 25-year-old constable sat on the floor beneath a single dangling light bulb. His name was Muhammad Anwar. He had heard something about the attack in America but he had no idea how many were killed or what cities were involved. Indeed, it seemed unlikely that he had ever heard of New York.
"Attacks like these are not a good thing because Muslims live all over the world and Muslims may have been killed," Mr. Anwar said hesitantly. By his reckoning, Americans were enemies of Afghanistan, as were Jews and Christians. He thought about this a bit more and retracted it partially. "There must have been all kinds of people in the building, not just bad Jews but good Jews, not just bad Christians but good ones." He remembered something he had learned in his madrassa, or religious school. "It is un-Islamic to kill innocent people," he said.
Gordon Sinclair died in 1984. Those comments you attached were spoken in 1973, in comment on Vietnam.
u ni que/am_text.html for the full text and story.
It has been altered as well.
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/ccf/news/
The irony of posting the poem that Timothy McVeigh quoted before his execution is not lost on me. I'll say it again: I'm just glad he's not alive to see these events.
Much effort seems focussed on judging the United States historically... various actions are cited as evidence of the justness of either side. Our (I am of US) record is mixed, and in many cases shamefull, but one important point should be noted:
In the years following 1945 the US, with sole posession of the atomic bomb, had the power to exert its will with relative impunity and exercised historically unprecedented restraint (at least it seems so to me). Is the rest of the world trying to make us regret this voluntary abdication of power? Would others have exercised such restraint? Which ones would have?
This point seems obvious, so my post is probably redundant, but I have not yet seen it.
Now that planes have been used themselves as weapons, and the passengers with them, I doubt there will be a high-jacking where they're aren't people like Glick and Barret, who are among the few passangers who apparently made sure that flight 93 crashed in PA woods, and not a national landmark.
The sentiment has been repeated over and over these past two days: "If I fall, the guy behind me will get him."
I hope that if such a day ever comes for me, I can get over my imminent death fast enough to do some good.
Nothing is more dangerous than someone who thinks they have nothing to lose.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I have long been a critic of Bush's national missile defense, and I imagine that this attack will only speed it's deployment. I fear that the US goverenment doesn't realize that this isn't 1980.
NO ONE wants to sign up to be attacked by the US military! Very few people in the world have the ability to launch a missile at us without us knowing immediately where it came from (submarine platforms). The threats to our safety aren't from missiles.
The crossbow changed warfare, guerillia action changed warfare, submarines changed warfare, etc, etc. Wars of the future will not be fought with missiles...at least not against an overwhelming force like the US military.
I hope Bush gets a clue before wasting billions of dollars on the fullfillment of Regan's 1980 dream. We are in a different world now.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Hi there. I'm sure many peple won't read this because it was posted so late in this discussion, but I thought you might like a quick word from some of the ER's I've been in today down here. (Columbia, NYU, and Vincent's). Tragically, everyone is really just standing around waiting for live people to come in, and there seems to be a general lack of this. Every now and then a fire fighter comes in, but is generally stable at this stage - likely incidental damage.
Yesterday, one of the firemen was brought in - in his mid fourties, I would suppose. He had a brother and 3 sons who were all firefighters; one of the latter was not accounted for all day yesterday. He himself had gotten caught in the first collapse, had gotten out and went in the second building and was then caught in that collapse and received some blows of debris into his back, for which he was being treated. It's that kind of bravery from the very salt of the earth which makes me so proud to be an American. God bless to all. K
You cannot use diplomacy or negotiation with the forces allied against us because they have never used or responded to these mechanisms before. These forces understand what they implement - targetted destruction.
Its amazing how insipid most of the postings have been, but in the long run we are simply going to have to relearn that our safety and way of life is paid for and protected by blood, although there is probably no hope for the incessant mental masturbators posting their anthems of weakness on /.
Ok, you write perfect grammar while your hands are shaking. I get enough kudos from people who are thankful that I wrote something so soon after the event.. it wasn't easy.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Not wanting to seem a conspiracy theory loony, there are a lot of other facts that also doesnt seem to sum up right:
I can be really wrong, but it seems that there is more to this than it mets the eye.
There are several stories around about the terrorist attacks, what the net has to do with the trail for clues, and what we're looking at in the future. To start, news.com has a story about searches conducted at ISP's. Earthlink was reportedly served with an FISA warrant, which an Earthlink representative called "equivalent to a wiretap." The only people allowed to request an FISA warrant are the directors of the CIA and FBI, and the secretaries of state and defense. All but one of the 7,539 FISA warrant applications since 1978 have been approved. According to the ACLU, not one instance can be found where the target of a FISA warrant was allowed to review the initial warrant application, as it is granted by a secret panel of seven federal judges. Msnbc has more information about the FBI and its searches, with AOL, Yahoo, and Earthlink confirming that they've been cooperating, and Microsoft only saying they "regularly work with law enforcement." Wired has more detail about "a major network service provider" saying that the FBI showed up on Tuesday "with a couple of Carnivores, requesting permission to place them in our core, along with offers to actually pay for circuits and costs." The most troubling quote, from the same anonymous source, is "I know that they are getting a lot of 'OKs' because they made it a point to mention that they would only be covering our core for a few days, while their 'main boxes were being set up at the Tier 1 carriers' -- scary." An anonymous engineer at Hotmail indicated they "are cooperating with their expedited requests for information about a few specific accounts." Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made a commentary (RealAudio only) on last night's Marketplace on NPR about terrorism and the future of privacy. He closes with a few chilling sentences. "To gain back more of our security, we will give up more of our privacy. We'll do it gladly, if that's the price we have to pay to counter terror. The willing loss of our privacy is likely to be one of the major consequences of the horror that occured September 11th, 2001."
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Notice how the towers fell straight down, instead of toppling over and taking out nearby buildings.
My girlfriend is a civil engineering student, and they discussed the attacks in her Structural Engineering class yesterday. Apparently, the guys who designed the towers should be very proud. In a worst-case scenario, fires would (as they did) cause the steel structures to melt. The towers were designed so that, in that worst-case scenario, they would implode straight down instead of falling over.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
If you have not yet donated blood, money, or service to the National Disaster Relief Fund, please consider doing so. I realize that request is obvious and redundant, but bear with me.
I can honestly say that the WTC, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania disasters have had a stronger effect on me than I would have ever imagined. I've been somewhat wigged out for the past two days, functioning on auto-pilot in order to get along with the business of life while I deal with feelings of horror, sadness, rage, and worst of all, helplessness.
Horror subsides - the media onslaught will always lead to de-sensitization. The images and video remain horrific, but somehow become lest horrifying through continued exposure. (I hope that makes sense...)
Sadness persists. It should. You should never be able to look back on September 11th and not feel sadness.
Helplessness is altogether different - it won't subside on its own. It requires action, and gone unchecked, can amplify every other negative emotion. This is why I finally got off my ass and donated last night. I realized that it's pointless to feel helpless, because it's so easy to help.
Give blood. If, like me, you can't give blood, give money. It's needed. If you don't have any money, go volunteer at your local blood center. If nothing else, pack an ice chest full of bottled water and hand it out to people waiting in line to donate blood! Do something. On September 11, 2002, when I ask you "What did you do to help one year ago?", I hope you have an answer that you're comfortable with.
So I've conquered helplessness. Horror will take care of itself. I welcome sadness as a sign of my own humanity.
That leaves only sweet, sweet rage.
The links are slashdotted, but I'll nonetheless offer what I saw on the Tokyo news regarding the type of collapse that occurred.
The buildings were built in the form of a large tube around the elevators and other shafts.
This structure should have been much more than adequate, given that the main considerations for support did not include supporting the weight of an intrusive jumbo jet.
For height, a building is somewhat built in a manner similar to a soda straw or a stalk of wheat.
In comparison, the tall buildings in Tokyo use a structure that is designed to withstand much more lateral stress in consideration of the daily earthquakes we get here, which is also much more forgiving of added weight. (It is, of course impossible to build a building as tall as the WTC this way.)
Remember that not only did the towers had to sustain the impact and then the iron-melting heat of the explosion, but also the added weight of the aircraft. The expert on TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) put the weight of the planes (I think I got it right,) at 4000 tons. (Personally, I have no idea of the weight of a jumbo jet.)
He called this type of collapse a 'Pancake Collapse' and demonstrated it using a styrofoam and balsa model.
I was impressed, since I, like many people I suppose, was surprised at the precision of the collapse. Next time you see the video of the collapse of tower one, watch the antenna mast. It barely wavers from perpendicular as it descends.
What an absolutely horrific way to learn a bit more about physics and architecture.
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Maybe today my sign-off poem ("they were all good people") will make more sense. I've been sending you only very short poems, but today it's something a bit longer (about a page), a poem written at least 20 years ago that seemed to come back to life today:
Making The World Safe For
Yankee, you say, thinking
you understand me, thinking
the 24-point-headline ideas
by which WE fail to understand YOU
will suffice for understanding US.
We are your problem as you are ours;
Let us understand one another.
It won't be easy. While your children starve,
Most of us are trying to loose weight.
We speak from a different part
of the palate, look with a different
openness -- some say veiledness; we have
an innocence -- or is it barbaric daze;
idealism -- some say bullying self-righteousness;
squeamishness about death and torture
if we have to see it...
I am a fat, squeamish Yankee, taught
to understand you by your T-shirt-like labels:
"Kill Me", "Pity Me", "Exploit Me", "Bribe Me",
"Enjoy Me", "Fear Me". I AM not,
CANnot be the thing you think you see,
for I am what you are: the understanding,
not what is misunderstood, which is
where I am absent from myself, and so
become what is easiest to be,
because it fits the headline script:
The Fat Greedy Satan whose crime is
to have failed to make everyone like me;
whose crime is to have dreamed well,
but not well enough; to have created a game
so good, it became the only game in town,
but not good enough to let everyone play;
so now the new game is: Destroy my game.
If all can't have it, let no one have it.
Understand us: We do not need your help
to destroy America. We need your help
to create it. It has not yet been.
Understand us, for we do not. You,
who hate us or condescend to us or toady to us,
you trap us in your sticky visions,
which, hardening, preserve us, your nightmare,
like flies in amber. We cannot be that.
Please understand us. We don't want to destroy you.
But how else can we free ourselves
from your vision?
Dean Blehert
dean@blehert.com
poems and paintings at
www.blehert.com
"It's even sadder than you think:
They were ALL good people."
and as a final note:
Yes, of course -- you can post or forward any poem I send you. Just leave my name with it and, preferably, email and/or url. But at least the name.
Dean
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
IMPORTANT. PLEASE HELP!
Hi. I am concerned about someone who might've been travelling an American airplanes that day. Where can I find the list of people who were on those 4 planes??? Please help.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Here is a report on Bin Laden being under arrest.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable
editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television
commentator. What follows is the full text of his broadcast.
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most
generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of
the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and
forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying
even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who
propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the
streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in
to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes.
Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into
discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about
the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the
erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other
country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the
Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why
do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the
moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk
about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.
You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not
once, but several times - and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store
window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued
and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are
breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home
to spend here. When the railways of France,* Germany and India were breaking
down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the
Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned
them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other
people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to
the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during
the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired
of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with
their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at
the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is
not one of those."
Their systems may be up - but what about the people to use them?
That is bullshit. We have been the targets of terrorism many times before, but never have 1000's of people died. Not only have 1000's of us died, but they tried to cripple our economy and military.
There is a slight difference between hijacking a plane, and hijacking 5 or so planes, and ramming them into mult-billion dollar complexes, while killing thousands.
Had this even been much smaller, it would not have been such a big deal.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
I can only get to one of the two sites describing why the towers collapsed. It didn't offer the same reasons that the BBC's web site has been carrying for a couple of days: they claim that the temperatures exceeded 800 degrees of Celsius of melted the steel cores. Hindsight always clearer, but they also ask: why weren't the resucuers pulled out after a certain length of time, especially after the first tower collapsed?
Interestingly, only one of the two towers was insured as collapse of them both was unconceivable.
One has to wonder about that.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I swear, if I ever work in a tall building like the towers I am going to learn to base jump. I'm going to keep a parachute under my desk in the event this (or even just a bad fire) ever happens to me.
America: The Good Neighbor
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record.
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the Earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas DC-10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on Earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon-not once, but several times-and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of those."
"God Bless AMERICA...."
Arkham One wrote: I wonder why people who work in these super-high buildings dont't equip themselves with... parachutes!
Damn. I thought my parachute clause in my employment contract was going to accomidate
this eventuality.
On a more serious note, if you don't also have a gun, your parachute won't be very useful to you... unless you are damn quick.
Living in NYC, working in Manhattan and living through whats happened recently, just what the hell do you expect?
I would be much more surprised if they didn't deploy Carnivore.
I will also be surprised if the boxes don't go away when they are done.
Right now I think we should save our criticism for when and IF they don't take the boxes away afterward.
For now I'm going to write your article up as merely "Misguided" instead of a Troll.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
If they KNEW they were dead anyway- why in the hell were they complacent, like cattle off to the slaughter? I'd never willingly sit by, hoping to live a little longer, knowing that by doing so, I'm helping kill thousands.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I've been seeing video of how people missing loved ones are just covering available surfaces near the disaster area with photos of of the missing persons and contact information and wondered, has anyone whipped up a quick and dirty, web-accessible database that could store such information as a photo or two, description, names, and contact info?
Frankly, I'm astonished that I haven't heard of anyone at least working on something like this yet, because if I had the skills to do it, I would. A few computers and scanners operated by volunteers to get photos and other data online might help in the identification effort. This is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, surely we can do better for these poor, desperate people who are taping sheets of paper to news vans, and this would be a perfect way for the geek community to pitch in, IMHO.
~Philly
http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/dis play.php3?article_id=6946
If they're in control in such a manner that the passengers couldn't gain control, which is more important- the passengers in that plane or the thousands that might get killed if they crash into some place with lots of people.
He'd shoot the plane down and own up to it. Nobody would hold him accountable for it.
By the way, that cockpit door's not that stout- 3-5 strong people could rush the thing and batter it down easily.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In the English language edition of Ha'Aretz today there is a short piece from an engineer who talks about the contruction of Israeli tall buildings. Basically concrete is more fire resistant and cheaper than steel. The downside is that it takes twice as long to build compared to steel.
Also as anyone who has ever been to the top of the WTC towers knows - the towers would sway up to a foot in high winds, twisting actually. I'm dubious one could make a concrete structure that could sway w/o breaking. The other problem with very tall buildings which WTC attempted to solve is the problem of elevators. Queueing theory and engineers at Otis Elevator will tell that buildings that tall get consumed by elevator shafts which makes the building a financial mistake. WTC had an open floor design with each floor of nearly an acre of unobstructed space ~200x200 feet. That is why the buildings were held up by their outside walls and why there were express elevators and elevators that started at high floors.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.
Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
I have been saying now for years that nuclear proliferation and Islamic fundamentalism were the two biggest threats to the Western powers. I still believe this.
Ultimately the Western powers will simply have to concede that they cannot coexist with the Islamic fundamentalist states. I suspect that in the next few years this will flare into a larger conflict with very high casualties, and it is probably the beginning of the end of entrenched Islamic fundamentalist governments, whose citizens for better or for worse are going to bear the brunt of any military response.
Interesting reading:
- Terror in the Mind of God: the Global Rise of Religious Violence
- Political Islam
Meanwhile, in Australia they are already stoning school buses with Islamic kids on them... (I have a rant about this on my home page.)Danny
[I have written 600 book reviews]
I have written over 900 book reviews
Total Collected: $2,295,636.01
# of Payments: 70065
I think that is truly amazing and by the time you go there it will be even more. I donated my $100, did you? Even 10 dollars could help buy all these guys a cup of coffee, what's a couple bucks compared to the cause.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
As I was thinking about recent events, another historic event crossed my mind, which you can read about here or here.
If you don't want to read Old Testament passages I linked above, here's the story:
King Hezekiah was sick, and when the king of Babylon received the news he sent envoys bearing gifts. Hezekiah then showed those visitors everything in the kingdom-- treasures, palaces, lands, defense stores. Nothing was kept hidden. Isaiah had divine knowledge of the ambassadors' visit, and came to question the king about it. Hezekiah admitted showing the Babylonians everything in the kingnom, and Isaiah pronounced sentence: the destruction of Hezekiah's kingdom, and the enslavement of his own descendants. Hezekiah's reply? "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my lifetime."
What's the relevance? We've had eight years of weak foriegn policy, and at least two years of "legacy building" by national leaders more interested in their own skin than the good of the country. Like Hezekiah, they are willing to sell the whole nation down the river for a few more days of their own personal good luck. Just as in the days of Isaiah, the chickens do come home to roost.
They have rounds that, while risky, are intended for use within the situation of being in flight at altitude. Also considering at that point if the sky marshals are overpowered, you're back to the situation on tuesday- they're going to be armed for bear and use it at the drop of a hat.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
For 30 years ago, it's not ridiculous. It also serves as a statment proclaming his admiration for our bravery and audacity.
"You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again." Compared to radios and automobiles, that's a powerful image of a country which dared and won.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
Won't you be suprised when you meet your maker, and it turns out that not only does God hate terrorists for killing in his name, but he also hates racial biggots who advocate the killing of innocents simply because of where they happen to live?
mean to add to the media saturation but here is a link to some hi-res photos of the downtown area. Looks like some sort of bizarre sci fi movie.
http://www.recovery.sungard.com/index.cfm - busines continuance, recovery and mobile information systems units.
http://www.sungard.com for more info as well.
There is no Palestine. That's why the Palestinians are so mad. They believe that God gave Jerusalem to Ishmael, not Isaac.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I don't see this anywhere! Why is no one looking into the images of the webcams ON the WTC buildings?? It seems that there would be a record that might be useful, and if a group of techies might be able to find it, it would be /.'ers. I have looked around and I see at least 3 cameras that might have been active during the event. Also there are other cameras around NYC that might prove usefull in resolving future unknow issues. I have not found any cached images, but I'm not exactly sure where to look. At least 2 of the cameras have webpages that still function, showing offsite hosting.
Check it out.
They'll smuggle the parts in one by one into the country. Then they'll assemble a Thin-man type bomb in the city that they intend nuking and do the deed. There's likely going to be NO missles to defend against.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I didn't write this, I was sent it in an email, I don't know the original author. I am a muslim and I live in the US. I was born and raised in Canada with Indian background. I feel I need to help clear up what is true and what is not true with regards to Islam. Islam is a religion and a person practicing Islam is a muslim. There are five basics pillars of islam that any muslim should follow. All the guidance of what muslims should do is in the holy book called the Qu'ran or "Koran". Unfortunately, it seems that Bin Laden and others have taken religion as a vehicle to project their political hatred and motives. What he is doing, has nothing to do with Islam at all. Islam teaches people to be loving, peace giving, god fearing people. It teaches us to live with diversity, other religions, and humility. All the things that bin laden has said in the interviews and has done in the past are not words from the qu'ran but his words. And unfortunately the media and lack of real knowledge has blurred what is true and what is not. The statement by binladen that non-muslims cannot live in a muslim country is false - 100% false. India was ruled by muslims for 900 years, christians, muslims and hindus lived happily together. Same in palestine, before the partition, arab jews and arab muslims lived together for hundreds of years in peace. The main reasons for hatred and fighting the past 50 years was due more to political landscape than religion. Unfortunately, religion is a powerful tool that gets people motivated and people in power have used it as the lauch pad for fighting. Another item that binladen keeps talking about is Jihad or holy war. There is discussion of Jihad in the Qu'ran and when and why it is appropriate. It is never an offensive tactic. Jihad is only permitted when a muslim is being opppressed to practice their religion. Only real examples where Jihad may have been appropriate in recent years would be the Bosnian war where Bosnian muslims were being executed strictly based on their religion. But by no means, can a muslim country attack another country (muslim or not) as an act of Jihad. That is incorrect. the basics of islam are similar to christianity. Believe in one god. In arabic the word god is Allah. The god is the same between all three religions. jews, muslims and christians pray to the same god. That is very important to understand. But a true muslim is humble, not greedy, not arrogant and never shows jealousy. Tolerance, helping neighbours of any race, creed, or religion is the first thing. One of the five pillars of islam is to give to the poor. It's required, not a choice. As any religion or race, there are a small group of radicals that take any religion and bend it for their convenience. This seems to be the case with bin laden, saddam hussein, and others who have killed humans for their gain. None of these people will go to heaven as they believe they will. Jihad is not valid here nor does is it say to kill innocent children, parents, and siblings. Jihad only allows fighting among soliders, not civilians. Unfortunately these people are misled and doing very evil things that they will be punished for it. I'll stop rambling here..I hope this helps you guys get a better understand of what is going on. Just remember, Arab is a race..there are Arab Christians, Arab Jews and Arab muslims. At the moment radical arab muslims are causing trouble and doing things that are absolutely not tolerated in Islam at all. I hope these groups are stopped and removed. I was in NYC yesterday and I was there when it happened. I saw the second plane slam into the WTC 2. It was an experience I wish I had not witnessed. But we need to grow strong and not stereotype. best regards, a muslim in america.
Aparently CBS aired the Nostradamus pseudo-quote this morning... They should've checked here first...
morbid, but interesting. If I could mod, you'd get points
Your very own, politically incorrect but ever-so-satisfying, urinal screen, ready to be printed, trimmed, and distributed:
n _U rine.JPG
:-)
http://www.oddworldz.com/toad/Graphics/Osama_bi
No, I didn't invent this concept. It was done (and far better) back in 1970 or so, by some unsung hero (we suspect in one of the PSYOP battalions at Fort Bragg NC). The image on THAT urinal screen, of course, was our beloved Hanoi Jane
Damn you Timothy McVeigh for tainting a perfectly good poem!! :(((
:(
I apologise for my ignorance as an Australian around the sensitivity of the poem to the people of America.
I would remove it out of respect, but I do not know how to
Here's some more Bin Laden ass kicking...
http://www.nullityvoid.com/
"installed rational govenments"
This I think is the crux of of the matter. You haven't (and I am not being anti-American in this, Britain has made many of the same mistakes).
You gave support to Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war when your client government in the shape of the Shah was ousted.
You supported the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan (including Bin Laden, who allegedly was funded by the CIA) when it looked as though they could be a thorn in the side of the Soviet Union.
You can hardly expect the people of Chile to believe you installed rational governments when they had to put up with Pinochet for so many years.
Yes, this was an appalling crime, done by some appalling people. Some understanding of the history of the population from where the criminals came from might prevent such a crime happening again.
Amazon.com has an online donations page set up so you can give up to $100 from the comfort of your desk (using the patented one-click method if you like). Unlike the Red Cross site, which is severely overloaded, Amazon's page is quite quick. Donations through Amazon alone are already at nearly $2.4 million, and you can refresh the page to watch them climb.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Why is it even now people think we can live with them? If they left us alone we would leave them alone. Its not their faith that is the problem it's the culture of hate and their belief that they are right and every one else is wrong. How can anybody support a society that treats their women the way the Middle Eastern country's do. They are a culture of fanatics just like the Japan of world war two. I am not talking about killing them all I'm talking about forcing them to live with others in PEACE. Japan in WWII was convinced that they were a divine race and everyone else was wrong. It took the blood of many people from many countries to force them to live with us in peace and they do to this day. So should we nuke them? I would say no but we should force them in to unconditional surrender and put a stable democratic government with freedom for all religions in place. We should never tolerate or appease a people that have no respect for others. The taliban and other Islamic cults are butchers that mutilated women professionals such as doctors and schoolteachers. But they hide behind their religion. It is not the Muslim religion that is at fault it is the culture of fear that they have created. Don't let them use their religion to justify their actions.
Fuck you. You should be thanking god you didn't lose any friends or family. And if you did and think that prattling about privacy issues is more important, fuck you again.
I don't think there is any requirement to speculate on why the buildings collapsed. To assume that we have ever built any thing to withstand the impact of a 767 airliner at 400mph+, an explosion of 6000 gallons of jet fuel and a resulting blaze that would be burning at 1500 degrees F. Is stupid and foolish. We don't build anything to that spec. Once the steel and concrete cracked, stressed and melted under those conditions, the weight above would have come down. Once that chain reaction starts - NOTHING will stop it. We were lucky they stood up for the better part of an hour.
The1Genius - Littera Scripta Manet
- 100 Britons
- 78 Australians
- 100 Japanese
- 27 South Koreans
- 100 - 150 Mexicans
- 6 Irish
Those are the numbers given by CNN, but there have just got to be more from other nations. No Saudis, Isrealis, Chinese, or Indians are mentioned in the article, but it would seem likely that there were plenty of people around from those nations.Miko O'Sullivan
I haven't seen or heard anything from Bill Clinton since the attack. That's unusual and his office IS in NYC. Hmmmm....
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
The times of London is reporting that the Taleban have put Osama bin Laden under house arrest in Afghanistan. Of course its still too early to conclude who is responsible, but its encouraging to hear of possible cooperation. If no one will harbor the fiends responsible for this, it may be possible to bring them to justice without loss of other innocent lives.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
The most _anti_-prophetic thing I have seen was the WSJ front page sub headline in column 1 that day:
"D.C. will not burn"
I guess the powers that be aren't as much in charge as they would like us to think they are...
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
i dont think that word means what the insurers think it means.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as InfoWorld reports, Western intelligence services knew for months that exactly this sort of attack by hijacked airplanes against highly symbolic targets was planned. Why was airport security not tightened? Why were there no fighters at hair-trigger readiness to be scrambled? As a patriot, I have to hope that the FAZ report is disinformation. But I also recall the claim by some historians that our intelligence services at the time knew Pearl Harbor was coming, and allowed it to get us into the war.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Sinclair Editorial
From that page: "On June 5 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair decided he'd had enough of the stream of criticism and negative press recently directed at the United States of America by foreign journalists (primarily over America's long military involvement in Vietnam, which had ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier). When he arrived at radio station CFRB in Toronto that morning, he spent twenty minutes dashing off a two-page editorial defending the USA against its carping critics which he then delivered in a defiant, indignant tone during his "Let's Be Personal" spot at 11:45 AM that day."
Helevius
well, for years I've debated owning a firearm (rifle, not a handgun).
my friend is triming his collection, and has a rugar camp carbine (9mm) for sale.
now throw in my personal nervousness over the WTC, plus (perhaps future) tighter gun control.
So, well, I'll probably pick it up this weekend and store it in my attic...
Again, I know it's stupid....
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
The planes did not destroy the columns, heat did. If we fill the columns of the replacement building with water and circulated it, you could cool critical areas until the fire could be extinguished. those of you who have built peltiers should be familiar with this concept. what do you think?
...life
Though the crosshairs might suggest a rocket launcher or artilery.
You're using her as bait, Master!
OK, maybe not the most beautiful solution inasmuch as you'll be hitting everyone on the plane, but I'd rather be nauseated and in pain for 10 minutes than dead.
It shouldn't be impossible to retrofit sonic weapons inside of the plane, insulating the pilot's cockpit. We've developed a whole bunch of non-lethal weaponry, so why don't we start to intelligently apply it rather than beefing up futile methods?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The towers were not designed to be *completely* evacuated in any situation. In case of fire, the plan was to only evacuate the fire floor, the floor above it, and three floors below.
Infrastructure for a timely evacuation of 20-30 thousand people would look a *lot* different than a staircase two persons wide.
Marko Karppinen
Last night I saw something I was hoping not to see on the news -- acts of violence against Arabic/Islamic-Americans. I would hope that no one from this forum would be so narrow minded, but please people, lets not forget what happened after Columbine. I live in Colorado and know what it's like to have a community's anger directed in my direction in the aftermath of a tragedy (I was openly harassed on the streets for several weeks afterwards), and I can only imagine that it will be much worse for those in the Arabic communities of the US, as Columbine doesn't even compare to this tragedy. Please remember - it's the terrorists who were involved that are to blame, not every Arabic person out there.
But it wasn't inconceivable. Some idiot tried to crash a light plane into the White House a few years ago. Tom Clancy and others have created fictional accounts of these kinds of attacks in books and movies. We already knew that here in the real world there are people willing to coldly and calmly die to do these kinds of things.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
they are worried about licensing right now? I can just see Billy boy wanderin' down with the feds and arresting the Red Cross for not licensing Microsoft products, *PAH*. He should get on the horn and "donate" some copies to them -- that would be the LAST thing id worry about right now.
________________________________________________
whe i was reading the personal accoutn story at http://www.tribrothers.com/brian/wtc.html and i noticed the hit-counter at the bottom of the page it was at 47063, and i reloaded - it jumped to 52365. this was in the 5 min it took me to read it.....
'neat'
-shpoffo
It takes time to scramble fighters -- not a very long time, but maybe 15-20 minutes. And was anyone certain this was a terrorist attack until the second plane hit?
One rented car found with manuals in arab about "How to pilot a commercial plane"? How convenient...
Unless you have some actual evidence that that was staged, I would call that a clue.
Bin Laden was until some years financed and trained by the CIA
Well, yes, the US financed and trained a lot of Afghan rebels during the Russian invasion. Are we now supposed to believe that the CIA staged the Russian invasion as a pretext for training Bin Laden?
What's the point in making a terrorist strike without any kind of claim [of responsibility]?
There's been no public claim of responsibility because it would guarantee retaliation. The public denials of responsibility give countries hostile to the US an opening to denounce the US for whatever retailiation it might undertake.
The hallmark of conspiracy paranoia is that the easily answered question (why didn't fighters scramble?) is turned into something mysterious with an inflection of the voice, and the completely self-evident (did the hijackers rent the car?) is turned into evidence that sinister forces are constructing a facade. There will be enough genuine questions for us to think about in the weeks and months to come without expending mental energy on fantasy.
I assume that most firms just leased slots at some "disaster hotel" This work fine on paper, but what happens when everyone tries to access their slot? Have you checked on your disaster? Is simeone there? Most of these plans assume a threat on the level of a small fire in the computer room, not a large percentage of an industries data centers crushed.
When the companies that worked in the WTC buy thousands of new computers, will they have to pay once again for the OS which was destroyed?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
There needs to be some emergency provision for this.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I have set this up as a central information site. Please share the address with others. But, please do not browse it unless you need to. I don't want the server to get overloaded. Also, if anyone finds any emergency or volunteer contacts (or the like) online that aren't on the site, please let me know.
worldtradeaftermath.com
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
You might want to check your facts first. There were almost 60,000 killed in Vitenam and 153,000 casualties. We're all saddened by the events but please don't add to the misinformation.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I'm a Canadian, but I've been as shaken up by all this as if I were American. The horror of what happened is independent of nation -- everybody (or almost everybody) on the entire planet was hurt by this. I can't imagine what the people in New York and Washington are going through, but I know it's a horrifying thing without anything resembling rational explantion.
Here in Edmonton, all flags are flying at half mast -- not just on government buildings, but anybody who has a flag is doing the same. In the Provincial Legislature Building, there are books that people are signing to express their condolences to America and tell you that you're not alone. A moment of silence has been recommended for 10am today.
Similar things are happening around the world.
And it matters. I was talking to an Arizonan friend of mine last night. We got to talking about all the ways the world is reaching out, about how people are trying to express their shock and horror and outrage all over the world, and she cried. She told me to tell everyone I could that it matters -- the books are not being signed in vain, the half-mast flags are being seen, the sympathy is felt.
It's as important as donating to the Red Cross.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
I am afraid its too late for that. A country (unknown for sure, but we are pretty positive who) harboured the suspect in question for 20+ years. They had ample time to hand over this person for past terrorist acts he commited. This attack was a act of war, a serious blow to our way of life. If the US does not act accordingly, the world will lose all faith in us, and america will seem like a pushover, ripe for every attack any terrorist can imagine. It is now time for action, those terrorists did not care about the innocent people they killed, and the people of those countries harbouring them for so long may have been able to prevent this had given over the terrorist long ago. The people made the choice not to oppose the existing government which is the main culprit for harbouring terrorists. It is time for action, a show of force to say we will not take this anymore. I may not agree with the idiots (US politicians in general), but I love this country, even though I was born in another to American parents. In my present state of mind I would have bombed every single country that was involved with terrorism in the past, and only left a smoking crater where a country once used to be. Thank god I do not thave that power.
Jason
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Religious fanatics are religious fanatics. If you look hard enough for a justification for your irrational hatred, you'll be able to find it in thousand year old books or hundred year old "visionaries" (*cough* Nostradomous *cough*).
Some blow up abortion clinics (is that turning the other cheek?), have little Inquisitions, some declare war on faraway countries, some blow up buildings.
It's really pathetic that the invention of religion has led to more deaths than any weapon of mass destruction we've ever created, isn't it? I'd say it's time to outlaw religion and save some lives, but the cynic in me wants to remind me that small-minded people will invariably find another way to rationalize killing people that have never harmed them.
So it goes.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The depressing thing is that much US foreign policy seems almost as ignorant.
Danny
[I have written 600 book reviews]
I have written over 900 book reviews
Has anyone read Harry Browne's article?
It's here:http://www.antiwar.com/orig/browne2.html
His homepage is here:http://www.harrybrowne.org
It will take you less that 2 minutes to read.
I also favor the middle-finger design with the addition of a SAM battery on the roof.
You're using her as bait, Master!
I would like to see Israeli levels of pre-flight security, and the total elimination of carry-on baggage that is non-essential (medicine, an asthma inhaler, etc.). There is simply no need at all for each passenger to be allowed to bring on two pieces of mid-size luggage. Not only does it represent a security threat, it makes getting on and off planes a complete hassle. One of the reasons air travel has become so painful is the ridiculous amount of luggage people are trying to cram in to their overhead bins.
And was anyone certain this was a terrorist attack until the second plane hit?
Well, as far as im concerned, i did suspected of a terrorist attack when the first plane crashed.. Where talking about a plane crashing into an huge building with a trajectory that seemed to predictable..
I would call that [the car with the manuals] a clue.
A too easy clue for me.. someone who does prepare this kind of attacks and leaving behind such an clue.. well, it seems too perfect
Are we now supposed to believe that the CIA staged the Russian
Of course not.. on the other hand, why should we believe that he isnt still working for his former bosses?
claim of responsibility because it would guarantee retaliation
So whats the point in making the attack? To prove that the US was vulnerable? Heck, there was at least a book talking about the huge vulnerabilities in the american airports
The hallmark of conspiracy paranoia is that the easily answered question
Well, looking at the fact that this is indeed very handy for some agencies, and that there is a recorded history of almoust all inteligence agencies being involved in conspiracies, its indeed easy to be a bit paranoid.
Now, im not saying that this is indeed a conspiracy, but there are too many doubts unanswered, and too many fingers pointing easily to the usual suspects..
Unfortunately, just about every plane taking off or landing at Washington's Reagan National Airport goes over the Pentagon. There wasn't enough time between them realizing they weren't trying to land and the plane crashing to do much of anything about it.
From the Guardian: Anti-Islamic sentiment has turned to violence in pockets across the world following Tuesday's terrorist attacks, despite the fact that no group has claimed responsibility or been officially blamed. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at an Arab-American community centre in Chicago, a firebomb was hurled at a mosque in Montreal, and in Australia, aggressors threw stones and bottles at a busload of Muslim schoolchildren. In New York, a 75-year-old drunken man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in a shopping mall parking lot. He then followed her into a shop and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country". In Illinois 300 protesters, some waving American flags, tried to march on a mosque in this south-west Chicago suburb last night. Three demonstrators were arrested as police worked to keep the crowds away from the Muslim place of worship. "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have," said 19-year-old Colin Zaremba, who marched with the group. Tamara Alfson, an American working at the Kuwait embassy in Washington, spent yesterday counselling frightened Kuwaiti students attending schools across the United States. "Some of them have already been harassed," she said. In a show of patriotism, 45 people from Tampa, Florida's Islamic community yesterday registered to donate blood and 30 members of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Florida signed up. Abu Nahidian, director of the Manassas mosque in Virginia, said his congregation has been the target of insults and hate messages left on the office answering machine. "We have some recordings in our tapes that say, 'We hate you so-and-so Muslims and we hope you die'," he said. Several other incidents were reported in Canada, where five school children with Arabic-sounding names were assaulted in Oakville, Ontario. In Australia, the school bus attack took place in Brisbane. In Sydney, a Lebanese church was daubed with swastikas and an attempt was made to burn it down. Queensland state's Islamic council chairman, Sultan Deen, said public outrage over the attacks had also led to abusive phone calls to mosques. "It is very disturbing. They are saying things like: 'You will be held responsible' and 'We'll get you,'" Mr Deen said. An Islamic group in Singapore today urged people not to lay blame too quickly for the terrorist attacks. "The process of scapegoating started immediately after the crashes," the Muslim community organisation Fateha said in a statement. "We note, with terrible unease, the way Arabs and Muslims are treated in America, before any real evidence has been established on the perpetrators of this horrendous crime," the statement said.
1. Maybe they didn't know it was intending to crash...just fly over. Also, is it wise to hit a plane witha missle when its currently over a heavily populated area? I think the wreckage of a plane exploding midair over residental areas would be alot more damage then letting it crash into the pentagon.
2. The terrorist supposedly told the passengers they also had a bomb. It seems that for the 3 planes that hit the passengers probably didn't know they were going on a crash course, and were told they would not be harmed. Given that they were probably hoping for the best. Supposedly the 4th plane crashed in PA b/c the passengers DID find out they would be screwed either way.
At what point, do we have to say - enough is enough ?
The majority of people in this world are average citizens. They will live out their lives not specifically enhancing society, nor harming it.
There are also many brilliant, selfless individuals - those who took us the the moon, built such architectural marvels as the World Trade Center towers, and died trying to save those trapped inside.
Unfortunately, we also have to deal with the others - terrorists, corrupt leaders. These people will never contribute to the growth of the planet. They are interested only in their fanatical hatred. A message needs to be sent that we've tolerated this for decaded, and we've had enough. If that means turning Afghanistan into a parking lot, then maybe that's what we have to do.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
Apparently many people disagree with you.
Note : I don't know the author of this.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why
don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German
technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the
New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans
in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America!
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
Just a heads up to all who remember this movie, starring Peter Gallagher. Shows the FBI chasing the WTC bombers, and alot from the bombers side. It gave me chills when I saw it, and I'm setting TiVo to record this tomorrow - the listing came from a link off of the IMDb:
Path to Paradise(1997)
THMAX 09:40AM-11:15AM Friday Sep 14
To those who are willing to be 'inconvenienced' at the aiport in order to be safe... No amount of inconveniencing will give you the safety you crave.
Repeat after me...
No amount of 'inconveniencing' will give me the safety I crave.
Repeat it over and over as a mantra until you achieve enlightenment.
I could learn martial arts well, with a bunch of buddy's, get onto the plane, kill a few people with some well placed jabs, and take control. Would you be willing to be manacled to prevent this? You can make knives quickly out of many things. Take a stiff plastic or metal box for example. Are you going to make people strip before they get on the plane? I'm sure someone more imaginative than I can come up with scenarios in which even being stripped and manacled would not be enough.
There is no security in the direction you wish to go. As Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would trade liberty for security will get and deserve neither.".
The only way to prevent these attacks is to decrease the motivation to perform them. This is done by being a nice country, and by being implacably and harshly punitive in our response to such attacks.
I will be traveling by air soon, and I intend to make up some leaflets to distribute at the airport about this. It's either that, or get upset at being patted down and create a scene. I think the leaflet approach to venting my frustrations is much more constructive.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
There was no doubt in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no one would save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill you are always subject to those who can, and nothing no one will ever save you.
The USA must be seen to move against this attack, or the world's terrorists will realise that attacks of the nature are a viable strategy. As with Ender and Bonzo Madrid, the US must hit back with such force that every other terrorist in future dares not consider attacks of this nature. Ender destroyed Bonzo, and thus no-one at Battle School ever touched him again.
I really don't like what I'm suggesting, but I fear it may be the only reaction that terrorists understand.
AFAIK the current five pillars of Islam (Faith, Prayer, Zakat, Fasting and Pilgramage) were originally six - the sixth being war. Depends upon how moderate a person you ask. The real nutters think that this is cool - in fact dying in battle, you go to heaven and get something like 70 virgins to have your way with (doesn't say whether they swallow).
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
Firstly I would like to say that what has happened is unbelieveably terrible, and my heart really goes out to all those people that have been affected by this terrible terrorist act.
What saddens me is the response of many Americans, including some on Slashdot. The people who did this thing are crazy, insane, evil people, I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind about that. However, declaring all out war on another country - a war in which many innocent lives will be lost - is not an action to be taken lightly.
Americans don't have direct experience of war in their own country, or until now, the devastating effects of terrorism. I remember watching the Gulf war on CNN, and myself and the people with me being absolutely shocked by the commentators making comments about how beautiful the falling missiles were. Many of those missiles were falling on innocent people, and many families will have been destroyed by those missiles, just as many families lives will have been destroyed by the events of the last few days. I am not saying that the Gulf war was wrong, just that a war like that is really just as sad as what's happened with the WTC, when many lives are lost because of a few evil, crazy men (Saddam and his cronies).
And it has always amazed me that one of the principal sources of funding for the IRA terrorist organisation has been New York. If there is one good thing to come from this, I hope it is that funding for the IRA from NY will now stop, now that New Yorkers have direct experience of the evils of terrorism.
My plea to Americans is, stop viewing your interventions into the rest of the world like a Holywood movie, with Americans as the goodies and the foreigners as the baddies. Innocent people, good people, families and children are destoryed by war and terrorist acts. So please don't let your reaction to this be "let's nuke Afganistan". It pains me to say it, but if that's your attitude, you're not much more civilized than a crazy, evil terrorist.
Islamic fundamentalism is just as dangerous to the world as National Socialism (Nazi) ever was.
Be careful -- there may be truth in what you say, but it can be misinterpreted.
This is a good place to point out that Islamic leaders around the world have condemned the attack as inhuman and un-islamic. American Islamic leaders in particular have directed their followers to donate blood, money, to volunteer in the emergency response and to assist law enforcement in any way they can. It is also very likely that some of the victims of this crime were muslims themselves.
The US press has not picked up on this yet, but the foreign press (e.g. The London times) is starting to to report the beginning of a wave of hate crimes in America against Muslims. I even heard one congressinal pinhead libelling Islam as a totalitarian ideology masquerading as a religion. These developments are disgraceful and unworthy.
The real division is not between religions, but between people who believe there can be civilized coexistence between people who have different viewpoints, and those who believe that one side can only enjoy freedom at the expense of the other. Osama bin Laden is one of the latter, and he deivides into two camps: the Christian/Jewish side and the Muslim side. People spreading religious or ethnic hatred are, in effect agreeing with him and doing his work; their personal feelings towards him are simply petty tribalism.
Make no mistake: America was targeted because we are a free, open and pluralistic society where muslims can coexist peacefully with christians, jews and even atheists. This marks us out for special hatred,and with good reason: our success and preeminence in the world shows that all ideologies of intolerance preaching freedom for one viewpoint through the oppression of others are lies.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The Nazis were the product of the sustained policies of the victors in WWI. Chamberlain appeased them precisely out of guilt at what he saw as overly harsh policies. The current attack - according to a great many experts who aren't part of the current administration - was Bin Laden acting as a front for Iraq. Iraq is mad at us because of our sustained policies. We needed to destroy and rebuld Germany. We need to do the same for Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly Pakistan. 'Christian' guilt is as dysfunctional as fundie Mohammedism. And it must be remembered that Mohammed was primarily a political actor, building an empire in which his personal cult was no different in kind from Hitler's or Mao's, and no less muderous. That it survived as a 'religion' is no reason to accord that 'religion' special respect.
Who are we to doubt the mullah's really hear from their Allah? If there are Gods, there are other Gods besides Allah, and Allah is not the same God as the God of the Christians and Jews. Either that, or Mohammed was not His Prophet. Religion is often politics under other cover. We must be as ruthless at exposing false and evil religions as we are at exposing false and evil political ideologies. We must also field armies to destroy both, without mercy, when they've taken the Hitlerian turn.
This is not to say there aren't, for instance, Sufi variants on Muslim belief that have transfigured the leaden political evils of Mohammed into true spiritual gold. We should no more oppose such people than we do the current German population. In fact, those who can be accepted as brothers by the fundie fanatics owe it to the world to infiltrate their cells and help us destroy them. They also owe it to the world to help root out the evil political agenda at the heart of Mohammedan 'religion' that will continue to call 'martyrs' to 'jihad' until it is fully discredited among all peoples.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
No, genius. The impact didn't collapse the buildings. The towers stood for the better part of an hour before collapsing. The collapse was caused by the ignited jet fuel (which burns at about 1500 F) melting the steel support core.
If I were that guy I'd be shitting my pants. What a fukken idiot. It's one thing to post that nonsense before you know what's going to happen, but he deserves what he gets for coming back afterwards and posting that "DEATH TO AMERICA" shit. And if he actually did have anything to do with it...
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
No. Be nice if they did. They have terrific underground chamberage that can withstand a nearby nuclear blast.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Life Insurance
The usual porn stuff
Stock tips (here's a tip, fsckwit, the markets are still closed)
Lose weight
Travel opportunities (gee, what timing!)
and Prayers
Even the relentless pursuit of money and corruption continues. The prayer spam I found, unusual, to say the least. Surprisingly, no 'bomb the taliban' or 'kill bin laden' spam, which I fully expected.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
you we prefer to be "living" safely in a musty 6x6 cell than fighting/dying for freedom or a better opportunity?
that all "usefull tools for terrorists" are fair game as freedoms to be abridged? just wait until thinking becomes a "usefull tools for terrorists".
if you want to live in a totalitarian/police/religious state, please go elsewhere.
I, for one, think enough is enough. If these tanks were filled with foam, there is a good chance the momentum of the things would have carried the fuel tanks out the other side of the building and the buildings would not have fallen. They fell because of fire; and fuel cells greatly minimize fire.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Yahoo Australia
This is an update to one they appearantly ran earlier, so they presumably had time to do some checking. Do't know if they actually did any.
You're both right...
/usr/terrorists/osama
/usr/terrorists/osama
$ chmod a+x
That makes him executable.
$ rm -f
That removes him permanently, with force.
You have to make him executable before you kill him...
I heard some news about new security measures that will place armed federal agents on airplanes. However, I'm thinking to myself that this could make passengers a little uneasy.
So I was wondering, why aren't airline pilots armed? If the airlines could train the pilots to carry firearms, and use them, it could save a lot of lives in the future during incidents similar to Tuesday.
Also, the pilots should have "shoot first ask questions later" rights while they are on duty. I really think this could be helpful...injure a few to save the lives of hundreds. That's an instant no-brainer.
I can still see a lot of security implications here, but it is at least a start.
As yet I haven't heard anyone suggest the obvious in terms of preventing this type of disaster on commercial aircraft... put a steel door between the pilots and the passengers. In the event of a hijacking, pilots NEVER open the door. period.
Yes this means that the pilots may have to bring bag lunches and pee in cups, but it's a hell of a lot less expensive that hiring armed 'air-marshalls' to sit on every plane (when they are not needed the huge majority of the time).
The bottom line is that time has come to stop thinking of airtravel safety exclusively in terms of passenger/pilot safety and start thinking of it in terms of the safety of people in tall buildings. A plane is a very large guided missile full of jet-fuel, equivalent in explosive power to a block-buster bomb (as another slashdotter noted). Best make it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone but the pilots to have access to the cockpit.
my deepest sympathies to everyone affected
by this terrible tragedy.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
It's a coincidence - the two are unrelated;
It's a relative - Middle Eastern names can sometimes be confusingly similar to outsiders;
It's two different guys, but the second one grabbed the passport/ID of the dead first guy for reasons of his own....
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
As this was a suicide mission it didn't really matter what they left behind!!
Only the people in the planes went into a suicide mission... and i dont believe that they pulled this alone
A common type is lead powder/granules compressed into a bullet shape. WHen it hits a hard object, they generally dont penetrate, soft object get the full force and can be quite leathal as i understand. Were commonly used in old carnival games with shooting at wood sucks, wouldnt penetrate, wouldnt ricochet, and the powder wwas easily gatherd up and used again.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I'm sure I'm making something out of nothing here, but has anyone noticed that the flight numbers, when added together give you the numbers 11, 12, 13, 14? It's probably nothing, but it seems ironic considering the attack happened on the 11th.
11 = 11
93 = 12
175 = 13
77 = 14
Keep Austin Weird!
Well, you've made *HIS* point very eloquently there I'm afraid...
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Maybe if they could give us the coordinates we would be able to thank them. Otherwise this is a shallow gesture and only proves that Afghanistan is in "Cover Your Ass" mode and trying to avoid being the target of some serious bombage.
Hammer of Truth
"This is the crux of a very difficult debate. Which should the government focus on: Protecting us, or protecting our civil liberties? In cases like this, there's not really a way to do both. "
Be actually vigilant. It seems really silly that there isn't some kind of way to determine say if a plane is hijacked. I imagine this: have a deadman's switch of sorts that needs a personal key/access code tied to various vital functions of the pilot like blood pressure/eeg reedings and a voice access code. If the pilot gets bumped off then no go. Or if the physical code is stolen it's a no go.
As far as catching people I believe there are certain risks. Personally I see unfortunate parallels between actions of Adolf Hitler with his reasoning of using emergency actions and what could happen if they actually did half the stuff the radicals are calling for.
"'ve been stunned by the number of people bitching about how the US is going to become a police state, how their liberties have been taken away because they can't carry Smith & Wesson onto the plane, etc. "
My personal opinion guns don't really matter if the government wants to do you in. It's just a matter of unmbers. You could have an ak-47 and it still wouldn't do you any good if they want you dead.
"It's a difficult balance, and some people will always be upset at where the scales fall. For now, let's just accept what protection our government is trying to give us, and complain about it later after we've eliminated whatever threat has caused this"
My personal big beef is that people claim that this "is our Pearl Harbor" and "an act of War" unfortunately I don't buy that. Essentially what you are dealing with is a non-state sponsored activity done buy a group of essentially religious fanatics. That is hardly a good thing.
What I fear is that some people are going to convince the president that we should just invade and raze any county's populace who dosn't toe the line. I also believe that any serious attack on people carrying on activities which most of their religion consider sarcred will descend the country into millions of tit for tat squabbles. Quite frankly these guys could have really done something a great deal worse.
For example the conspiracy theorist's favorites like anthrax being spewed out of a truck at rush hour in times square. Or the ever popular nuke in a briefcase senario.
I guarantee that is what would happen within at least 5 years of any serious nonthoughtful unilateral action against a blanket group. This has to be a precision strike against one man or a handful of men. Preferably in some sort of trial where he at least has an attempt at justice. I believe that there would be overwhelming evidence to convict Bin Ladin quite handily.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
But when we get a target, a plan and resources ready, we must GO!
Views like this scare me. NATO can drop every bomb it has on which ever target is eventually chosen: it will do noting except make things worse. Too many innocent people are dead already. These guys hijacked planes with knives, anyone with determination could have done it. Fighting terrorism with conventional weapons does not work. Look at Israel, despite overwhelming military superiority, they cannot stop attacks. The only way to stop terrorism is to heighten security and remove their support. The way to remove their support is to settle the legitimate grievances that societies that may be tempted to harbour terrorists have. This is not easy, dropping bombs is. However, every bomb dropped will strengthen the terrorist's resolve, push moderates to extremism, and make extremists mad-dogs.
The BBC has a good piece on why the buildings collasped, turns out they did well holding up as long as they did- the piece also implies most more modern skyscrapers would do worse... the article
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Obviously you haven't watched enough movies, or you would realize firing guns in airplanes at high altitudes never ends well. :-)
Cabins are pressurized.
-Paul
"I'm nobody suspicious... That makes me sound even more suspicious, doesn't it?" - Spike (Cowboy Bebop)
I've been wondering: isn't it possible to build some kind of spiraling slide thing downwards (just like you have on the children's playground, what are they called?), or some system with small railcars spiraling down? When you're on the 100th floor of a building, you have a lot of gravity energy to spare. Can't that be used to get down quickly?
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
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When this happened, I had a lot of thoughts going through my head... but found it difficult to clearly say what I felt...
So I will leave that to someone esle (who is much more qualified to do so):
>Subject: It Doesn't Have to Be Like This
>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:14:00 -0400
Death, Downtown
Dear friends,
I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM American Airlines flight from LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in L.A. with an incredible range of emotions over what has happened on the island where I work and live in New York City.
My wife and I spent the first hours of the day -- after being awakened by phone calls from our parents at 6:40am PT -- trying to contact our daughter at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who works near the World Trade Center.
I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked up, the first tower imploded, and the person answering the phone screamed and ran out, leaving me no clue as to whether or not she or JoAnn would live.
It was a sick, horrible, frightening day.
On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the middle of a terrorist incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30 people dead, both there and at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning of passengers in each city was timed to occur at the same moment.)
I do not feel like discussing that event tonight because it still brings up too much despair and confusion as to how and why I got to live... a fluke, a mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am still here, there but for the grace of...
Safe. Secure. I'm an American, living in America. I like my illusions. I walk through a metal detector, I put my carry-ons through an x-ray machine, and I know all will be well.
Here's a short list of my experiences lately with airport security:
* At the Newark Airport, the plane is late at boarding everyone. The counter can't find my seat. So I am told to just "go ahead and get on" -- without a ticket!
* At Detroit Metro Airport, I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him "It's just a sandwich." He believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone through neither security device.
* At LaGuardia in New York, I check a piece of luggage, but decide to catch a later plane. The first plane leaves without me, but with my bag -- no one knowing what is in it.
* Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the commuter plane. By the time I have come down its stairs, the bus that takes the passengers to the terminal has left -- without me. I am alone on the tarmac, free to wander wherever I want. So I do. Eventually, I flag down a pick-up truck and an airplane mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the way to the terminal.
* I have brought knives, razors; and once, my traveling companion brought a hammer and chisel. No one stopped us. Of course,
I have gotten away with all of this because the airlines consider my safety SO important, they pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is what my life is worth -- less than the cost of an oil change.
Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay.
That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps -- and he was eligible!
Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is. So spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the FAA is taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned about one thing -- the bottom line and the profit margin.
Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security on the same morning at 3 different airports and pull off this heinous act? My only response is -- that's all?
Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the "terrorist threat" and today's scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn't add up.
Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path?
Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today?
Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't know. What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden!
Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!
Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us.
We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing.
We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!
We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.
We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause.
Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the federal government.
From the first minutes of today's events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that?
Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It's much easier to get us to hate when the object of our hatred doesn't look like us.
Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the military; one Senator on CNN even said he didn't want to hear any more talk about more money for education or health care -- we should have only one priority: our self-defense.
Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes?
In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all.
The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of "God Bless America." They're not a bad group of singers!
Yes, God, please do bless us.
Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!
Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity...
Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.
It doesn't have to be like this...
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
At 11:58 a most wonderful commentary I heared on NPR. It ended something like this... "we call them cowards, thugs ... but this required calculation, determination, hatred ... it is clear that our enemy knew us well ... we must now ask, do we know our enemy?"
The original target was actually the white house, they were picked up on radar, and air control ordered them to change paths, they then did a 270 degree turn and dropped below radar before hitting the pentagon
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
It's a difficult balance, and some people will always be upset at where the scales fall. For now, let's just accept what protection our government is trying to give us, and complain about it later after we've eliminated whatever threat has caused this
The threat of terrorism can never be eliminated, so you just made Carnivore permanent.
If they at least made the store of my email accessible, I wouldn't have to keep a backup on my own disk...
I don't understand why anyone would trust the FBI. That agency has a stunning history of abusing it's powers, making J Edgar Hoover the most powerful man in US history. I guess most Americans are simply unaware of that history.
The Red Cross is looking for Citrix engineers and Microsoft pros as well as a large list of equipment and connectivity for its field workers and Emergency Operations Centres in New York.
To see if you can help, please click here!
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
The governments of Iran, Sudna, Yemen and Iraq have been, and will continue to be deeply ionvolved in the support of Islamic terrorism. This is well known and well documented.
What if, Osama bin Laden is truly the mastermind of recent terrorist events, and ruling Taliban officials in Afghanistan were aware of his activities, and communicated some of this knowledge of Pakistan, the Taliban's only true supporter of of any real consequence.
We would then have a nascent nuclear capable state in league with terrorists.
Would it then be time to take away their toys?
Letter To Iran
The politicians are very rational, if you understand their goals. People on /. are generally thinking along the lines of either:
what can we do to genuinely fix the situation ?
or:
what can we do to make ourselves feel better ?(revenge, nukes, blabla)
The politicians (who drive media discourse) are naturally thinking along the lines of:
how can we make the most of the situation ?
The answer to this is to use it to increase American corporate/military dominance of the world. The politicians are just doing their jobs, ie, they're doing what they're paid for, and most of their pay comes from corporate interests.
So, there are several ways to exploit the situation:
1. Increase corporate welfare, ie payment from taxpayers to corporations (also known as defense spending, and foreign aid). It's irrelevent that the missile defense shield will do nothing to protect Americans and will escalate the arms race - that's not the point. In fact, it's great if India, Pakistan, China and Russia respond by increasing their defense spending because (a) we can sell them weapons and (b) it justifies further increases in American defense spending.
2. Clamp down on civil liberties (corporations are not well served by a free and connected society so, you need to stamp out encryption, anonymous speech, decrease the basic ability for people to talk to each other, unionise, complain about GA crops, demand health care, or any other nonsense)
3. Strengthen America's position as "leader of the free world", or to put it another way, tighten one's grip on foreign countries. Any country with an unpleasant tendancy to not bow down to US interests, is told to show subservience or face punitive military action. It's a good time to demand subservience because there will be far less domestic opposition to bombing the hell out of them should anyone disagree.
4. Silence your detractors. Anybody who disagrees with you at a time like this is obviously "unAmerican" "unpatriotic" and "bowing down to terrorism".
The only bad thing is that people might wonder why this happened, you mustn't let people think about that in a meaningful way.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I believe that water cooling could have prevented the steel core from overheating. Keep this in mind when designing new skyscrapers.
Anyone else heard about this? A blurb on CNN Radio said something about a bill being proposed to give the president the power to target foreign leaders for assassination.
If it hadn't been a CNN source I think I would've laughed at the possibility.
Damn but I wish I'd caught the name of the person sponsoring the bill...
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
I'll probably get flamed, but anyway my perception on this whole issue is that it simply NEEDS to be solved.
This isn't Vietnam as some people are concerned or try and make it appear as. We aren't fighting to help another country; we are fighting to put an end to violence and attacks against the United States as well as the MANY Democratic nations now in fear of terrorism. Our boys won't be helping another country fight its own wars. We will be united with other democratic nations eradication terrorism and terroristic countries.
People say the US supported Bin for his wars against Russia and therefore it is double standard for us to do anything against him, it isn't as if Bin laden hasn't done this against his own countries as well. Through the PBS.org website you can see a great interview with people familiar with Bin Laden who give his intriguing history of why nobody wants this man alive or in there country. Friends and foes never remain the same forever and just life friends and foes, politics and nations change.
Terrorism is a war. We are not going to "terrorize" Afghanistan, Syria or any Islamic/middle eastern country by making people fear for there life, we are going to send troops, jets, and yes BOMBS against the militants who use very very very cowardly acts as there way of fighting wars. Suicide is very cowardly, if you don't have the guts to face your enemies face to face and fight for what you believe is true then you are cowardly. These people who invoke terror and fear through suicidal bombings are cowards and at they same time they are militant people who need to be treated as a military and responded to accordinly.
It won't make us any better to make ends meat and try and justify our means to the militant anti American/anti democratic Islam nations to make everything better; they won't change their minds for generations to come. It will take fighting, it will take reform, and it will take power to get rid of terrorists and terroristic nations. Islam isn't politics it's religion. Western politics, beliefs and religion doesn't necesarily interfere with Islamic beliefs as a hole, but to people like Bin Laden and his followers, it is a holy war and thus the US needs to react to this WAR THREAT and either give in or DESTROY IT. Again, I know lots of Islamic people, I have worked with many; As a religion they don't hate Americans and infact they respect humans and life. It is just the belief of these militant groups that have anti American and western beliefs. So don't go knocking your islamic/middle eastern neighbors just because they're religion. They aren't the ones fighting the war against us.
We aren't going to aim for innocent people; we aren't going to aim to ruin governments WHO DON'T HARBOR OR SUPPORT TERRORISTS. We aren't enslaving people or fighting for religious beliefs, we are fighting for our freedoms and democracy. As long as we live in fear of terror and terrorism we will never truly have our freedoms and democracy.
War is what these militants want, war is what they will get. Had Bin Laden wanted political or religious means to end this fighting he could have worked that out. He *MUST* be eradicated EVEN IF IT WASN'T HE WHO DID THIS. There is no lesser of the evils when it comes to terrorist. They SHOULD ALL BE DESTROYED no matter what at what cost, since cost isn't an issue when regarded against our freedoms and humanity as a whole. The US will not justify its means based on religion and beliefs as these terrorists do against us. The US will justify it's war against terrorists and terrorism to protect our country and democracy across the world.
No man should live in fear for his beliefs, and no man should instill fear in others for his beliefs.
With the news that there were about 4 to 6 planes that disaperead, i think that this was more than evidence that something strange was happening
(and there were at least one Palestinian claim, anyway.)
That claim was allready proved to be false. Besides the israeli secret services said that "no way. this guys dont have the resources for that).
Anyway, what is the point in making a terrorist attack withouth claiming it?
What is your point? [Air Force One being a target]
Well, if they were trying to pull a stunt like that they would need at least:
Anyway, this whoever was responsible for this, this was a tragedy. The loss of human life, specially inocent civilians, is always a tragedy and monstruous. But, unfortunatly it seems that there are some losses that seem more tragic for the media than others
Coordinates wouldn't do us any good at this point. We have no way to at Afghanistan yet. None of the countries that border on Afghanistan are our allies, and I doubt any of them yet have given us permission for plane or missile fly-overs. If we get enough evidence and unite the world behind us, then we'll be able to strike if necessary. We're not ready for that yet. Revenge is a dish best served cold and all that.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
"make no mistake.." am I the only one thats noticing EVERYONE is using this phase after the president's speech tuesday?? I've heard it over and over on the news (and no, its not people quoting the pres, they use it in thier own flavor" , and now in this article about drilling they use it.....sheesh.
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
God didn't gave that shit to no one. Why can't they just fucking live there together like human beings. Oh yeah, they're brainwashed by their psychopathic leaders.
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
Hey, don't overlook the fact that some Atheists may have been killed in this as well. Read the following and consider this: If religion was not a factor, would we be in this mess?
"Attacks like these are not a good thing because Muslims live all over the world and Muslims may have been killed," Mr. Anwar said hesitantly. By his reckoning, Americans were enemies of Afghanistan, as were Jews and Christians. He thought about this a bit more and retracted it partially. "There must have been all kinds of people in the building, not just bad Jews but good Jews, not just bad Christians but good ones." He remembered something he had learned in his madrassa, or religious school. "It is un-Islamic to kill innocent people," he said.
Learn a little history please, christianity has certainly been spread at the barrel of a gun.
Wake up and smell the coffee, there is no God. The sooner we stop believing in magical fairy people the sooner we can start living in peace.
It really doesn't change anything if some country has given a haven for suspected or believed to be terrorist, that doesn't give any right to hurt the civilians of that country and that is what happens if US launches fighters. That is as bad as terrorist attacks. Send groundtroops to fight soldiers or send some CIA BlackOps snipers to remove those dictators. Don't hurt innocent people!
- Raynet --> .
Look at NYC now. It was much worse the day of the bombing. It was not some natural formation around all cities, it was a massive cloud of smoke.
A survivor from Tower 2 reported that on about the 40th floor, the building jumped about two feet, knocking many people out of their shoes, when the second plane struck.
Education is the silver bullet.
The steel did not melt. The fireproofing was weakened. At higher temperatures steel is also less rigid, so it gives way under high stress (like supporting a building).
Most engineers and architects look at the WTC design as being brilliant.
Here is a convincing article as to how the US involvement in WWI ultimately helped to lay the foundation for the current political climate we find ourselves in.
The basic premise is, had not the US intervened in Europe, the Germans would not have been so thoroughly punished setting the stage for a Hitler. No Holocaust. No 'moral-imperative' for the world to support the formation of the state of Israel. No current US support of Israel.. well read it for yourself. Something to think about. endersdad
Im sure that somewhere, in the dark recesses of a government vault, there is a secret plan that outlines staging a terrorist attack on a US landmark, so federal officials can install the carnivore system unilaterally on American ISPs without complaint from the technologically knowlegeable.
Slightly OT for this thread, but I was thinking of this last night - there must have been thousands of cell phones in the WTC. Some of them might still be attached to people who might be alive, and they might be sending a signal.
Can they get equipment to locate cell phones, and thereby locate bodies or (hopefully) survivors in the wreckage?
Here's an interesting repercussion I never thought of. I was in the coffee shop this morning, and there were two Ku Klux Klan guys at the next table talking about how the membership was through the roof, and that they couldn't keep up.
I almost cried.
In 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 100 thousand people of Japanese ancestry (most were American citizens) were forcibly removed from their homes on the west coast to concentrations camps located in desolate locations. Such was the hysteria and fear at that time. This was the worst abuse of our Constitution in the history of the USA.
Robert Wilson (Nobel prize winner and 1st Director of Fermilab/FNAL) was asked at a congressional hearing whether the acelerator had any value in terms of national security. Wilson replied "...It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending."
America's strength and determination is considerable. We will defend this country. However, we must make sure that it is a country worth defending.
At this Danish site you can light a candle for the victims.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Uh.. just because you disagree with him doesn't mean he should be modded down.
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
Personally, i want to thank everyone donating to the redcross at amazon.com and everyone helping in anyway possible they can.
Not only will the red cross be there to support the families and people in NYC, it will be there through any distastor small or large.
One of these days i may need the support of red cross, or any one of us for that matter. Thanks for making your contribution.
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.paypal.com
I post this realizing that it may be lost in a sea of posts. I post it more out of the hope for some sort of closure than anything else. I apologize for some of the randomness that may follow.
My PATH train arrived in the trade center from NJ at approximately the same time that the first plane struck Tower 1 (the North Tower). We exited the train as normal and as we rode the escalators/walked the stairs from the track level to the next, the clanging of fire alarms could now be heard in what I knew were the parking garages of the B1/B2 level. There was a smell of smoke beginning to become apparent. As we rode the escalators to the next level (known as the concourse) we could hear people yelling and I thought it was strange that there were so few people around. Usually, I think of this time as a complex dance of people trying to get from point A to B.
I didn't exactly follow the crowd of people that they were shuffling out the side of building 5 (on the same side of building 1 where the first plane had made initial entry). Instead I looped around to my regular exit that would be on the east side of building 5 (near the Borders book store). The World Trade Towers have been a target for some time. Several times I have inconvenienced by false bomb threats. This simply seemed like another false alarm. The Port Authority employees that I saw had a look of urgency in their eyes. I went up another set of escalators and I was queued up behind about four or five people waiting to go through the revolving doors when I saw the first of the debris on the ground outside the doors. A terrible feeling was beginning in my gut.
I went outside throught the doors and as I did debris was still falling around me. A female police office was yelling to run from across the street and I jogged across, still unaware of the urgency of the situation. When I crossed the street, I turned for the first time and saw the extent of the damage. People was crying and several were stunned, speechless. I was among them. I saw paper flowing from the building along with the smoke and flames. I realized these were people's offices and not generator or utility rooms. My heart sank. My stomach knotted. I called my father.
My father just retired from the PA. He narrowly missed being blown up in the first attack in 93 on the building. His office was on the B2 level at the time. He was down the hall from the people that were killed. I told him to turn on the television. Immediately, he tried to assess where the damage was and how he could be of assistance. My father had turned down a job with Cantor Fitz that would have put him right above that first inferno. I stood staring at the building for a few minutes until I just had to leave. It was not my place to be there. Emergency crews were arriving and I was in the way. I disconnected from my father and started to walk down Fulton St. when I heard the second plane hit. It is a sound I will not forget, a sound I hear in my sleep. The ground shook, buildings rattled and several people ran screaming.
Later, I was in an office at work and happened to be looking out the window when they bowed inwards several inches. People on the street began running and within a minute, you could not see more than a few inches outside. Building 2 had collapsed.
I have had an overwhelming sense of sadness for the past few days, an MSNBC article describes it as a symptom of PTSD. I feel sad and lucky at the same time. I don't know. The man who assumed my father's position when he retired is lost in the rubble. He exited the building and then as part of his responsibility, led a group of firemen back into the building at their request. A colleague of his was on top of building 5, resetting the radios and was the last to hear from him. Shortly afterwards, 2 collapsed and then 1.
As lucky as I was, I know serveral were not. Please pray for those that are lost.
What happens when you find out god doesn't exist?
Lowmag.net
A second debris site, 6 to 8 miles from the original crash site of the Somerset county plane has been found. This does not jive with what we know now.
The thinking now is that an A) explosive device went off on the plane or B) we shot it down. Dont be so horrified by this second possibility. Its better than it crashing into another populated building. Read the article. Its amazing.
I don't see how that's morbid at all. If they'd toppled over sideways it'd have been just as bad for the people inside, but much worse for the people who'd gotten out and happened to be on the wrong side of the towers. Not to mention the structural damage to adjacent buildings, which the engineers might have been more concerned about (assuming, perhaps, that people would be well evacuated by the time the collapse happened).
Thinking again, I do see how discussing this in such detail could be construed as morbid. But this is a real issue for future engineering, and it's been made very important by the recent tragedy.
It's obvious that the engineers were extremely meticulous with the physical properties of the building as a whole, but perhaps more lives could have been saved if they had devoted more space to emergency exits?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
This is a touchy topic, so stop reading here if speculation about the legal implications will bother you.
Time and again, I hear politicians from the mayor of NY to congress to the president refering to this as an act of war (see the president's most recent remarks).
There's a problem with this. If this was an act of war, it cannot, by definition be a federal crime, no?
What's more, if this was an act of war, anyone we "capture" is a prisoner of war, and we must obey the terms of the Geneva Convention and other international treaties. They will have to be re-patriated after the conflict, or brought before an international court for war crimes, NOT tried for federal crimes in the U.S.
Now, I can see the attack on the WTC being called out as a war crime, but if we treat this as an act of war, the Pentagon was a valid military target, and the attack on that building was legal (the point could even be made that Bin Laden had made it quite clear that he had declared war on the U.S. before the attack, unlike the Japanese who had tried but failed to do so before Pearl Harbor). The use of a commercial airline to do it is obviously not acceptable, but I'm not sure how much weight that will carry in a war crimes tribunal.
What I'm trying to say is that we've painted ourselves a very restrictive map here. There's no such thing as "murder" in the criminal sense in an act of war. There's only international treaty on the rules of war.
Now, I'm not a lawyer (I hate the acronym), and I could be wildly off-base here, but is this just short-sightedness or have we decided that the support that we get from the international community as a result of an act of war outweighs our desire to bring these criminals (soldiers?) to trial? Or, are we just planning to ignore international law, and bring anyone we capture to trial anyway?
I will have to report to the airport very early then.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I was wrong. Sorry, I spend more time at Janes than I do Yahoo Finance. However...
m
Looking at Unocal's website will turn up
"Unocal reiterates position on withdrawal from trans-Afghanistan pipeline project 2/16/99 "
http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/99news/021699.htm
"Unocal statement on withdrawal from the proposed Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline project 12/10/98"
http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/centgas.ht
It's a vaporware of a pipeline...and it's not that prime of a location
This is strange!
A church actually supporting an attack?
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
Although it would appear that they are now in line for some serious bombage. If they didn't have Bin Laden, they might have an excuse for not putting him in our hands. Now that they say they've got him, they can't avoid responsibility if he isn't delivered to justice.
People were complacent - because they knew billions was being spent on Carnivore & Echelon for just this sort of problem.
Terrorists know they are being looked for by Carnivore and will get around it by other measures.
When not planning face to face - they would use personal couriers.
Perhaps give mobile for single message when required - just using message - go with plan a / b or abort.
I have always said - terrorism is just the excuse they use, the US to raise funds for Carnivore - the UK to justify R.I.P. bill - to spy on the people.
Government want a surveillance society.
The simple solution to trademark and domain name problem is hidden by authorities - WIPO.org.uk
In most modern buildings they're obscured, hidden, or just plain locked. Granted the chance of a fire or other catastrophe is small, but nicely done stairs lend an air of authority and status. Think about the Lincoln Memorial. Status is what the WTC towers were about and possibly why they were targets.
On the other hand if people had usable staircases in their buildings, the health clubs would lose all the yuppies that pay x USD / month to play on a stair climber.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
CNN has been known on many occasions to get the news wrong, or fabricate stories (Wolf Blitzer).
However, this time, they are reporting the truth. www.haaretzdaily.com , one of Israel's better independent newspapers also reported this story, and took photos on site, from the past few days, not 1991.
The story at Indymedia was posted by a Brazilian. I think I'll trust sources in Israel instead of someone in South America, Thank You very much.
Perhaps I'm overly naive, but I've worked for Uncle Sam, and I still have sufficient trust in my government that this will not trample my rights.
First off, there are checks and balances. No one part of the government can do this without another part agreeing. And the two parts are *not* answerable to each other - they are independent.
Secondly, this seems to be a logical, technical expansion of the concept that the government can wiretap personal calls *with a warrant*. Also, traffic that is international is no longer treated the same way - the CIA has full access to it. Your rights do not extend to international communications (well, not as strongly). Try telling the Coast Guard that your boat is "out of their jurisdiction" at 2.1 or 199 miles offshore and you'll see what I mean. (not exact analogy, but you get the idea - perhaps better is telling that nice border guard that he needs a warrant to look in your car trunk. good luck.)
I don't think I am giving up any privacy with this. That said, I agree that we must guard against the government doing things that will change our privacy. Some Republicans are saying that we need to trade rights and freedoms for safety. That is bunk, and I'm all with you in fighting those efforts. I just disagree that Carnivore, if used properly, is taking away my rights or privacy. Your sentiment is right on, though.
Ken *hoping I'm not overly optimistic* Curtis
CNN is reporting that the networks are going to change their schedules to remove any programming that may upset people.
If the cable channels follow suit, this may well be the first time ever that Skinemax doesn't air something in the interest of good taste.
~Philly
Microsoft have donated $10 Million dollars to the red cross. Here's the article
A bit of clarification about these images. They are not RADAR and they are not just scanned photographs. The Ikonos (Greek for "image") satellite can be thought of as having two really advanced digital cameras onboard. One sensor has a resolution of one meter and takes panchromatic (black and white) images over the interval 0.45-0.90 um. This encompasses the blue, green, red, and near infra-red portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The second sensor has a resolution of four meters and takes multispectral images in four bands (sensitivity ranges) as follows:
0.45-0.52 um (blue)
0.52-0.60 um (green)
0.63-0.69 um (red)
0.76-0.90 um (near-IR)
Of the Ikonos images that you see on Space Imaging's site (and mirrored here http://www.ceo.ncsu.edu/attack ), the first two and the last two result from a fusion of the panchromatic and multispectral images (using bands 1, 2, and 3) to create a one meter resolution natural color composite image. The third image is a one meter panchromatic scene.
BTW, the stuff that looks like smoke in the black and white "pre" image is clouds. Remember, these images were taken from space, and so can be obscured by atmospheric phenomenae.
Hope that helps.
"I'm not, like, that smart. I, like, forget stuff all the time." -- Paris Hilton
Found some informative links and info on icivilengineer.com:
.
A great diagram and layman's explanation of the collapses from BBC [bbc.co.uk]
A more technical explanation from Engineering News-Record.[enr.com]
Finally, some background construction info and original trauma tolerances (WTC 1 and 2 were supposed to withstand the impact of a 707, but not the jet-fuel fire, evidently.)This info comes from the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations via icivilengineer.com. [icivilengineer.com]
The consensus seems to be that the buildings were exceptionally well designed and could not have been expected to stand longer than they did. So that's it - good engineering saves lives.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
For example, it was the CIA that trained Osama Bin Laden in terrorist techniques in order to fight the then current Bad Guys(tm) - the USSR. The Soviet's were occupying Afghanistan, and the US found a nice wealthy Saudi to train, who in turn used his wealth to recruit and train his followers. They then "liberated" Afghanistan from Soviet occupation - which is why the Taliban allowed him refuge when he allegedly bombed US embassies. He was a US tool to fight Communism. When the Soviets pulled out, he was a hero. Then, like all the others the US created (in Panama, Columbia, Iraq, etc) he turned on the US when it was over and found himself in a position of power and respect (in the Islamic community at least).
The very first thing the government should do - without using any inflamatory language - shut down the CIA's training programs for foreign military leaders/organizations. Stop the training of terroristic techniques to South Americans as part of the "War on Drugs" - we're only creating more and more future Bad Guys!
I AM, therefore I THINK!
Idiots.
Liberty in your lifetime
A terrific book that talks about the collision of the B-29 against the Empire State Building is Mario Salvadoris "Why Buildings Fall Down", it's a terrific book.
Chris DiBona
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Youre right. As far as i know only the media reported that
I seriously doubt your assertions that the fuel tanks would have gone out the other side of the building if they were filled with foam. That was a very big airplane traveling at high speed into a big immmovable object. If you want to convince me otherwise, build lots of finite element models of the airplane and building, run some tests, and get back to me.
Fuel cells in cars are easy since they are usually a simple geometric shape and are small. The fuel tanks in airplanes are large, integral parts of the structure and not so simple of a shape.
I don't think you can ever build a fuel tank for a n aircraft that will not rupture in a crash if the airplane is still intended to be light enough to fly.
I *am* a mechanical engineer working in the aerospace industry. (Formerly Boeing, now Lockheed Martin)
What happens when you find out god doesn't exist?
Send a mass email simply stating that "I told them so!"
Just kidding...God does exist. The fact that you are reading this is proof enough.
Blarf.
We may or may not be able to stop the federal government from installing Carnivore, but we can make it essentially useless by adding the following to the end of every e-mail we send:
bomb, President, United States, White House, terrorism, terrorist, chemical, biological, weapon, nuke, Allah, Islam, revenge, etc., etc., etc.
Depending on the sophistication of the Carnivore algorithm, it may require a more clever addition that a comma separated list of "trigger words", but you get the point: Overwhelm Carnivore with false alarms, and render it essentially useless.
"I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fucking book." -- Sean in "Good Will Hunting"
That same article says the Aussie Muslims were watching the news about this and cheering. I'm not saying throwing stuff at the buses is all right, but some of these people are fucking sick! There is no country on earth where if this happened I would celebrate. Fuck, if I was living in the US in 1944 and some US bomb accidently hit an enormous German office building and killed 5000 innocent civilians I would not celebrate.
Celebrating the deaths of innocent people is simply despicable. I know that many/most Muslims do not support terrorism, but the ones that do are making the entire group look bad. It is a horrible, horrible message to send to the world.
Although I agree that the US should have gotten into WW2 alot earlier than it did, before Pearl Harbor, the US was doing everything short of sending men to fight to help Britain. Massive amounts of supplies, shipping and other logisitical help. basically, PH was the last event that broke the chain holding the US back.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
From: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/showtell/story/ 0,23008,3347294,00.html
The New York American Red Cross is in dire need of technology equipment and services. The field workers and sites have little, if any, means of communication and the central office is processing way too much on completely paper systems. Your help in acquiring these resources would be greatly appreciated.
If you can help, please contact:
Joe Leo, Assistant Director, Business Applications, IT
American Red Cross in Greater New York
phone: 212.875.2409
email: jleo@arcgny.org
150 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10023
PLEASE NOTE: His email is slammed, so don't resend your messages over and over again.
Following is the list of equipment that the Red Cross needs for its field workers and expanded Emergency Operations Centers. It also needs certified Citrix engineers and Microsoft-certified consultants.
40 IBM computers and laptops (with NICs)
Monitors (with desktops)
Any storage solutions
25 10/100 hubs (8+ Ports)
100 Cat5 cables (All lengths)
50 power strips
Any IBM-compatible memory
Any 3Com wireless NIC cards and LAN products
30 desktop-size UPSs
15 LaserJet printers (HP 1100 or faster) and printer supplies
20 external Zip drives and disks
Any diskettes and R/W CDs
5 external CD burners
5 duplex document scanners
25 extension cords
any colored tie wraps
any Velcro cable wraps
50 Citrix client licenses
12 PCMCIA LAN cards for IBM P20 ThinkPads, preferably 3Com (in addition to those in the new PCs)
50 Microsoft Exchange CALs
35 Microsoft SQL CALs
50 Microsoft Office Professional licenses
15 PC Anywhere licenses
DSL lines
PDAs with wireless capacity and service
Nextel cellphones and service
Thanks in advance for your generous assistance. Any donation will help greatly.
We might have changed our policies in the ways you suggest before this happened. That is no longer even a remote possibility.
Indeed, despite a great deal of pro-israeli press in the United States the Palestinians have (or, after their public displays following these events, most likely had) gained a great deal of sympathy. So much so that our government was moving in the direction of supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel. It is likely those criticism would have grown more harsh, up to and including a shift in our alliance. If such a fundamental policy could change, it is almost certain that other polices could have as well, and probably would have with time. That possibility is, of course, no longer even remotely in existence.
Ditto for just about every other "change" you would like to see. This is war, and contrary to many posts here, we are very, very good at prosecuting wars. "But we can't see the enemy" you say. Ah, but we can see their supporters: those who give them aid, comfort, logistical support, and, ultimately, a place to go back to and mount their next operation. It is a myth that these people can operate without the support of some country which, in turn, can be obliterated using contentional (and some not-so-conventional) technqiues. These countries are now on notice that they are, in our eyes, precisely equal to the terrorist organizations which engaged in these atrocities.
(as an example of what happens to terrorist organizations when they lose a base of operations and the willingness of nations to harbor them consider Carlos the Jackal, who operating with the support and help of the eastern block and even the KGB until the CIA, working with Massad, successfully convinced his supporters he had betrayed them. Ultimately he and his organization lost every safe harbor, every possible retreat. Those who weren't killed now enjoy the hospitality of maximum security prisons and, undoubtably, the dubiouse joys of anal intercours among their fellows).
Just like world wars I and II, and other wars we have fought, the enemy has used guerilla tactics, sabatage, and other asymetrical means of attack in addition to conventional attack. And, just like in those wars, we will decimate the enemy and, most likely, require unconditional surrender before ending hostilities.
There will be no truce, no peace, no change until those who perpetrated and those who supported these acts are either defeated or dead.
You haven't seen America at war. No one has seen America at war since 1945. Police actions and other misguided efforts at gunboat foreign policies aside (and I disagree with most if not all of the American government's past foreign policies as much as you do) were not wars by our definitions at all, media hype and political gloating (on every side) aside.
You are, however, about to see America at war for the first time in 56 years, against an enemy we most certainly will find and will kill. Despite my fiery rhetoric of a couple of days ago (I said then I'd regret spouting off, and of course I do -- one often says things in the heat of rage one doesn't mean, later, in the more rational light of day, and I really do not want to see this go nuclear, though I suspect it very well may before all is said and done) I am not happy about this. It is a tragedy, but it is also a necessity: the time has come to employ the hardest, most difficult, and harshest strategies. It isn't about being nice, or building a better world, or "finding a fair solution," or even about justice. It is about winning, by whatever means required, with whatever strategies necessary.
No one asked for this war, but it is nevertheless here as of two days ago. We will prosecute it without mercy and without restraint, our enemies will be crushed by whatever means necessary, for however long it takes, and we will unequivocably win, by whatever means are required. This includes each and every country giving these vermin aid and comfort and, don't kid yourself, we do have the power and the ability to do this, and we most certainly have the will to do this.
Once we have destroyed the enemy we can talk about your reforms. Until then, I suggest staying out of our way.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That the democratically elected (yes) government of Iran...
Bullshit. Hitler was democratically elected. A democracy without protections of fundamental liberties is just tyrannical mob rule. I would much rather live in Communist Cuba than Democratic Iran.
>God does exist. The fact that you are reading this is proof enough.
Explain why this makes sense.
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
This may likely be a dumb question, but, given the unique elevator configuration used in the WTC towers, could any passenger or freight elevators (or even escalators) still have been physically operational after the attacks? I'm sure they wouldn't be safe, but neither is the alternative. (Especially if you're in a wheelchair and forced to rely on panic-stricken people to carry you down 30 stories.)
Steel (and Iron for that matter) have a number of differenty possible crystal structures, which vary widely in the strentgh, maleability and brittleness. The rusting rate also changes, but that is not interesting in this context, but it is for the design of blades and tooling. The oldest way to change the crystal structure of iron or steel is to heat it up to a certain temperature, then cool it in a controlled way. Fast cooling leads to a hard brittle structure, slower cooling leads to a more malleable structure. Heat the surface and cool it quickly and you've got case-hardened metal in hand. The key thing to remember is (as any blacksmith has experienced at some time or other) iron gets brittle before it gets to the cherry red stage.
I assume that there was both heat-related sag and a brittle region beyond that as you moved farther from the hottest flames. So, it is possible that the metal did, in fact, get brittle and snap in the heat, along with the sagging, leading to a sudden pancake type collapse.
Who would have thought that you needed to plan for hundreds or thousands of gallons of aircraft fuel when sizing fire supression gear in a tower?
As reported in today's WashPost Style Section, The Coup has changed the artwork.
For those really not familiar with US history, during this time period the British army had won just about every major military battle up to this point, General Benedict Arnold had just defected with many soldiers to the British, and most of the rest of his army was just about to leave because their enlistment was just about expired. To be honest, this was a critical period in US history becuase the very existance of the United States of America was truly in jeapordy, and even George Washington was considering to throw in the towel.
The following is in his words:
he only thing that could prevent something like this is sky marshals on EVERY flight in civilian clothes.
There will never be armed air marshals on every flight. We have over 30,000 flights every day (normally) and you would need even more air marshals than that since they would need time off, holiday's vacations etc. - they would all need to go through extensive background checks since an armed air marshal doesn't need to smuggle his weapon on board - he is supposed to have it, and in the end they are just flying around with nothing to do but wait for something that is (still) exceedingly rare. I doubt you could keep very many competant, well trained, reliable (in a security risk way) people in such a glorified night watchman kind of job.
The pilots (two of them) of course are already there doing their job - they are already responsible (to some extent) for security on the flight. They are already known to be generally competant to keep a level head in a crisis. Many if not most are former military and so already have handgun training. those that aren't can always be trained. They already have the appropriate background checks and are not deemed to be a security risk (besides if a pilot turns out to be the bad guy you are already screwed)
The argument that a hijacker now "doesn't need to smuggle a weapon on board since the pilot already has one" is ridiculous. An unarmed man or group taking on two men with handguns are taking a rather huge risk - yes there are scenarios where they might get the weapon and use it against the pilots, but the smart money is on the guy with the gun at the start of the fight.
Besides, the final purpose for having the gun on board, carried by either an air marshal or the pilots, is not to create a fool proof scenario where the good guys are guaranteed to win (though you would of course try to make that as likely as possible) but to deter would be hijackers by making a successful hijacking even more difficult and uncertain.
To be fair to the USA (and I have been harsh on them over the last couple of days) this is simply not true.
Japan did not unconditionally surrender until after the second bomb.
A plutonium bomb was tested a month earlier in New Mexico. Yup, it worked.
Pearl Harbor was just the beginning. Perhaps you forgot the rest of the America / Japan fighting? Three and a half years passed between the two events...
I don't think even Japanese history books are quite that inaccurate.
I believe what you are saying. But it is time for the muslim nations of this world to get serious about stopping Terrorism. I believe that many muslims have denounced the terrorists but are secretly happy about some of the things done in the past that may have helped them politically. It is time for a cleaning. Afghanistan needs to hand Bin Laden over now. Even if he was not involved in this latest incident he has done things in the past that justify them handing him over to the US.
The city is being overrun by a herd of Lucy Liu's.
At the Pentagon, Defense officials said 126 persons are missing. This is far lower than previous estimates. ("The Army is missing 21 military, 47 civilian, and six contractor personnel. Navy officials report they are missing 33 sailors and nine civilians. Other defense agencies reported a total of 10 persons still unaccounted for as well.")
Jesus was a man of peace, and he understood the values of teaching his followers to turn their cheeks when occupied by a superior Roman army. But my friends, IMHO, Jesus is probably not very happy about the utter slaughter of human life that just occured. Turn the other cheek is a compassionate survival tactic to keep Christians from flying off the handle, and that one simple tenet is the one that other religions and people use to expound on the weakness of Christians. It is probably the most misunderstood and abused passage in all of Christian literature. Not surprisingly, "Turn the other cheek MIGHT NOT APPLY IN ALL SITUATIONS, especially when you are dealing with the wholesale slaughter of humanity. It doesn't say when a man cuts off your arm, extend the other one. Or when a man kills you child, hand him all the others. Don't extrapolate the text so much.
There are bullets that can work on airplanes already. They were originally designed for air marshalls, go figure. Right now many, many people use them for protection that live in apartments or condos. It looks like a normal bullet but has a resin filled tip. Inside the resin are BBs, like small shotgun shot. When the bullet hits an object the resin shatters and dissipates the force.
They won't go through the steel of a plane, but will kill you. For someone at home they'll get an intruder but the resin shatters when it hits drywall and greatly reduces the effect.
They come in almost every caliber and work in any gun.
We sure need to fight terrorism, but at what cost?
.. I can't believe NO secret service did notice any of this.
The longer I think about it the more I think it was probably conspiracy
I'm sorry to speak this out, I don't mean to offend anyone and I feel really sorry for this terrible tragedy but I cannot say I support the direction the US Government is walking into.
I do think war will make everything worser, we can't afford to act unthoughtful now. The terrorists (whoever they are) wanted this situation to escalate. If we start a war now, we will possibly fight the wrong people.
I don't think the towers should be rebuilt, but the space should be turned into a park with a nice monument remembering the victims. On the other hand, NY city real estate is so expensive that it is probably isn't economically feasible to keep this space unused.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Ok, this is quite simple. Make airliner cockpits unaccessable from the passenger compartment. Like, you have to get out of the plane, open a different door, and go in there. And make that door unaccessable from the outside. There is then no way people can buy a ticket, beat up the pilot and get a free 737... I don't know if this is in standard slashdot style (this post) but the post is too unruly to figure out anyway...
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
I agree with this 100%. If you want someone to die for you, you cannot pay them money. The only thing you can do is brainwash them with religion.
Faith is another way of saying I believe something with no evidence. That is wrong. Someone can give me a book and say believe everything in this book because it is the word og God. Another person can give me another book and say the same thing. Which book should I believe? It seems most people believe the book that was given to them first from their parents.
The city is being overrun by a herd of Lucy Liu's.
There have apparently been a couple of building evacuations this morning, and there is currently a certain amount of police/fire-dept activity in midtown. I'm going to hope this stuff is nothing more than precaution.
Unfortunately, the WTC-site seems to be a news black hole, even when nothing is actually happening on site. How many people heard that Israel has been running major manuevers in the West Bank? I only caught this at the bottom of the BBCs page. I would like to know what's going on elsewhere, especially if it's in Manhattan.
Keep those donations coming! Very impressive, the donation volume.
sulli
RTFJ.
This may be considered a troll, but I'll ask this anyways...
Let me preface this by saying _I_ have travelled across the US a _number_ of times with laptops, briefcases, etc., so I've experienced enough of this to know of what I suggest.
Someone at work suggested the notion of why not eliminate carry-on luggage altogether? Want to take something with you, check it ALL in. Think about this. We travellers are USED to this CONVENIENCE, but there is NO GOD given RIGHT under the Constitution to have carry on luggage. We've just had this feature available for as long as I can remember, but it's just a convenience. This would solve 90% the "well, someone could fashion a weapon of xyz" arguments.
It would also eliminate all the adult babies whaa whaa whaa crying they can't take their jaccuzzi or whatever on board and then tying everyone else up as they try to cram it in the overhead bins...
Speaking of adult babies, we should be dealing with air rage more harshly than we have been in the past. It's bad enough that airlines try to make things safe for us to fly, then to have someone threaten crew and passengers because the airline crew weren't serving drinks yet. For all those who say air rage is justified becuase of the crappy airline service, guess what? _YOU_ are not the only ones who get stuck on an airplane for 4 hours waiting to take off, plane cancelled, etc. Don't see me spouting off at some airline attendant.
Yes, I've read it and I think it's in poor taste.
Most people always seem to think that about Libretarians. Though I found it even more insulting when i saw a politician from Virginia go on CNN saying he didn't want to hear anymore about education spending or health care spending, that we should make our military the top priority. Now that's repugnent.
And Mr. Browne has made a damn good point, something that you obviously don't want to because it's just the plain-old ugly truth: Our government is partially responsible for this. But of course, our government will never admit that. And that in itself spits on the graves of all the innocnent people who died on tuesday. Our government is guilty of so many crimes, and time and time again the american people have had to suffer for it. And this time we have suffered greatly for it. Yes, we should find the people responsible, but we must hold our own government accountable for its actions as well. Our government has held immunity for its misdeeds for far too long.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Call it my contrarian nature, but amidst all the usual self-centered-libertarian-police-state-paranoia, I feel compelled to point out that loss of privacy is not necessarily loss of liberty. Nowhere is it guaranteed even in the US constitution; never has it been established that privacy actually produces a freer society; and in practice the idea that you can actually have privacy is a total myth. David Brin makes a good case in his for all of this and more in his controversial The Transparent Society (chapter one available here). His core arguement is for complete transparency - that all citizens should be allowed to observe the activities of individuals, government, and business - rather than the alternative of those having the power to do so using surveillance to their private advantage. While you'll almost certainly have objections, it's well worth consideration, and it's always worth it to look at things from an alternative perspective.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Just wait a bit and let us know what it's like to glow in the dark. It's over for you people. The US, Russia, England, Germany, ... are sick of you. You have failed to peacefully exist in the world, now prepare to die.
Well, again we meet speculations, speculations and speculations on why WTC collapsed. Well, a previous /. news had a much better link on the whys of the towers going down the way they did. Apart of technicities and maybes let's put a clear point on this story:
The towers went down because they should have done that.
Yes it is horrible that thousands of lifes died on it. But just imagine what would have happened if the tower's security would me made more on standing up and not on falling down. Note that these two objectives cannot be equally achieved in the same level. If one makes a construction stronghold, then it would risk to see things falling from 400 meters over God knows where. On the contrary, if one would make a structure that easily falls down under the first serious weakness, then forget about strenghts.
The people who built WTC made a marvelous construction and we could see it in the way it went down. And be thankful to them for that. If not, just imagine that tower flying down over people who were hundreds of meters away. Imagine the HUGE fire that could break down in lower Manhattan. Note that, under the circumstances of the tragedy, a larger distribution of fire could easily create what is known to some experts as "fire front".
Fire fronts are things that usually remind tales of nuclear wars. But they are real and they happened. They happened in Roterdam in 1940. They were also the cause of the horrible destruction of Dresden in the end of the war. Fire fronts are fires that come up due to large temperatures and streets creating aerodynamical high-speed air currents. In fact, when the second tower went down I was really afraid that we could have got that thing. However the very local fall managed to cut the chances for fire to create a large surface, the main condition for a fire front.
So instead of blaming constructors and think on securities, shoulds, shouldn'ts, maybes and whatifs, maybe you should stop a little and thank those guys for having made a real secure construction. When they did that, no one could even imagine that hijacked airplanes would stuck fullspeed on the construction... Thank God that even after that the "critical fire plan" worked and we didn't have half Manhattan turned into a oven.
You fucking idiot. Nobody is demanding a police state. Some people have suggested that more sensible checks on people boarding aeroplanes for domestic US flights (like, say, those which are absolutely standard for international flights) might be a good idea, even if they do reduce the profitability of the US airline industry. Perhaps the entirely sensible recommendations of the 1996 Gore report could be looked at again, since the airlines won't be in the mood to stomp all over it this time.
The only way to prevent these attacks is to give those who, for one reason or another, rightly or wrongly, think that the USA is the reason why their lives are so bad, an alternative realistic way to interact with the USA. At the moment, that's not possible; the US doesn't compromise on a number of foreign policy measures.
You're fighting a war, it's true. This was an act of war. But it wasn't a declaration of war. The war's being going on for years. It's just that you didn't notice, because this theatre hadn't opened up before.
I will be traveling by air soon, and I intend to make up some leaflets to distribute at the airport about this
Oh right, I get it, you're a nut. You might have put this at the top of your post and saved me the trouble.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I guess bluffing would explain that.
Do you know for a fact that there in fact was NOT really a bomb on board?
A fourth option, which nobody even seems to have considered, would be to raise the wages of the people who screen baggage above those who flip burgers, in the hope of attracting better quality people, and retaining them for longer than a fortnight. But of course, that would not be consistent with "maximum shareholder returns".
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Excuse me anonymous coward, but you are the idiot.
It has been well documented that OSB travels between Pakistan and Afganistan, and therefore both countries are worried that we might attack them. We currently do not have diplomatic relations with Afganistan and therefore have no means of formal communications with them. We do however have diplomatic relations with Pakistan and therefore have been formally communicating with them.
Shocked, but unfortunately not exactly surprised.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I think GWB should chmod a+x /bin/laden.
/bin/laden.)
(for the many non-UNIX-geeks in here: running chmod a+x on a file adds 'execute' permission for 'all users' to the file. So we're giving everyone permission to execute
Taken from CNN:
"Officials in southwestern Pennsylvania said they have identified and cordoned off a second debris site about 2 to 6 miles away from the crash site of United Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane in Tuesday's terror attack. Cell phone calls from passengers aboard the plane indicated the hijackers may have had a bomb and also that they were planning to try to retake the plane from the terrorists."
This brings up the interesting point that any security checks put in place in the US will not be completely effective, because international flights come into the country constantly. What's to stop a terrorist from getting on a plane headed to Washington from a country with lax security regs, taking over the plane as they near the city, and driving it right into the white house?
Differing belief systems are the cause the problems.
One belief system advocates "jihad";
another over defends itself against this, and ends up going to far.
Another attempts to impose morality, so much that the politicians feign belief.
There cannot be one belief system. All those who want one way should be required to learn about all ways. Once you've been educated about all of them, then you can select one.
Mod parent down please.
Well just a curious thing. I and some friends look for several times over the films on the second plane. Besides we crashed several times over WTC. Yes it is a simple flight simulator but it gives some interesting ideas on how things could have happened. And came into some conclusions...
1. The bastard should have had REAL flight hours. Very real flight hours. He managed to level the inertia of the plane and stuck it directly to WTC over a not so clear sight. He should have piloted that or a similar plane for some good time.
2. I wonder if he was not a civil pilot with civil training but a pilot with some warfighting knowledge. It is hard to make that turn he did in the last moment. Besides, it's more propper for a warfighting pilot to do such things rather than a civil pilot having a civil training and accustomed to a civil airliner.
So a warning to you people and specially those used to see blockbusters with russians, arabs, chinese or latins saying AAAAARRGGHHHSSS and UUUURRRRRGGHS. Forget your Van Dams, Schwarzneggers and Stallones. Forget even the stereotypes who are used to about blacks, yellows or not-so-white. This new enemy is much more smart well-prepared and trained to kick our ass than ever before. This new evil is a soldier with an higher education than 90% of us and speaks several languages and pilots airplanes as a professional. This new enemy has a moral that is more deadly than every nuke we can think of.
We can win him only if we are stronger than him.
May be redundant, but this is worth reading. I can only hope I'll have the presence of mind to do this.
sulli
RTFJ.
Once again the terrorists and their allies and supporters fail to understand how badly they have misjudged us. This is not a time for punitive actions, this is not a time for air raids, this is not a time for selective strikes.
This is War. Break out the guns, load the artillery, move the main battle tanks into the cargo holds. Arm the nuclear missiles. Position the chemical weapons.
We are at war, we are determined in this respect. We want no "justifiable" or "reciprocal" reactions - we will unleash a terrible vengeance, a horror that will make all that came before it seem like a dream.
This was the mistake of the Japanese - they thought us weak, unresolved, diffuse, scattered. But we are not those things - and we are very determined that it is now war.
When did it happen? Was it the first plane hitting the first building? Was it the second plane? Was it when the Pentagon was attacked, when they planned for the White House? Was it when the first building collapsed in fire and fury? Was it the second, or the third?
Somewhere betwixt those we, the American people, moved from being a peaceful people concerned about terrorism who would use legal and ordinary means to arrest them, to our current state when we became at war with all those who planned or assisted in this, and all who shelter them or stop us from our frightful vengeance which shall know no limit.
For have no illusions, those in the rest of the world - we are at War. Putin, your offer is accepted, as are all offers of aid and assistance by all nations - but know that we are not going to stop where you would wish us to - for we are at War - and shall not be dissuaded.
Will Affleck-Asch
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
NY Times is reporting that someone buried in the rubble has been using a wireless handheld device to email rescue personelle.
Are there no videos or photos of the Pentagon or Pitts. crashes (the actual crash, not the aftermath). This is hard to believe, surely there are hundereds of turists with cameras around the pentagon area?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
rm -rf /bin/laden
>The bullets mentioned are "Glaser Safety Slugs".
Air marshalls also use Magsafes or other pre-fragmented / frangible bullets.
>Essentially they disintegrate on impact
Sort of. Glasers are small shot (#12) suspended in a teflon base. The teflon base breaks up on impact, distributing the shot over a wider area inside the target mass. The effect of Glasers on tissue is devastating, to say the least.
>given that we used a clip
Nitpick: You used a magazine. MP5's don't use "clips". Revolvers firing rimless cases use "clips". The M1 Garand uses "clips". The boxy thing you put into the bottom (or side, if a Sten) of a submachine gun or semi-automatic pistol is a magazine.
-l
It is true that we should increase domestic security, i.e. security on the airlines. However, I think that this incident could have been prevented if only our government took a more even view in foreign policy. There are hundreds of postings all over the net about retaliation and vengence, however, few postings actually ask why this event actually happened. Of course we can't retroactively change US foreign policy, but I urge that all of us should convince our government to adapt policies that would acheive a balance of domestic as well as foreign peace. Here is a link from the Guardian that gives a different view of the WTC disaster:1 036,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,55
> I'd say it's time to outlaw religion and save
> some lives
Another country/political ideology tried that about eighty years ago; if you haven't heard, it didn't work out.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Ahhh, the irony. Attacking Afghanistan would be a most hypocritical move, and didn't work when Clinton launched 70 cruise missiles into Afghanistan a few years ago.
WASHINGTON POST, May 18, 2001; Page A5
The Bush administration will provide $43 million in additional humanitarian aid to Afghanistan this year in response to a three-year drought that threatens to cause widespread famine, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday.
The assistance, which will increase the annual U.S. aid program in Afghanistan to $124 million, includes 65,000 tons of wheat, $5 million in other food and $10 million for emergency health care, shelter and economic projects to counter severe famine.
State Department officials said the assistance would be provided through the United Nations and private organizations rather than to the country's Taliban government, which does not have diplomatic relations with the United States.
There have been Islamic mosques attacked in the US by vigilantees. Two incidents in my metro area today.
r ie s2/469307_mosque.html
r ie s2/469117_mosque12e.html
http://www.dallasnews.com/attack_on_america/sto
http://www.dallasnews.com/attack_on_america/sto
I promised an Islamic friend at work that if there begin to be efforts to profile Islamic/Arabic members of the population(as there was during WW2 with the Japanese population, and some of them even sent off to camps) that at least myself and my household would vehemntly protest to anyone who would listen and a few who wouldn't.
I fear this is just the beginning.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
I am firmly of the opinion that we will want and need every willing back, every strong hand in friendship, every erg and dyne of support we can get in this conflict.
This is not a conflict that calls for a measured, careful response.
This is a conflict that calls for an overwhelming, careful response, and a continued commitment.
The enemy has billed this as a war of cultural annihilation. Either they remove us, or we will remove them.
They have defined the goals of the conflict. The enemy is just as vulnerable to these objectives as we are. More so, in fact. The enemy builds his force on ignorance, on the Big Lie.
The enemy's greatest fear is that the prosperity of the West will seduce the generation after this one. That the memories of old blood feuds will fade when presented with McDonald's and computers and cheap cell phones. Every call they make to recruit is against the decadence of the West destroying their way of life.
This should be our stated objective. To destroy their way of life. Never forget this; this is their stated objective against us.
After we punish the enemy with bombs, with bullets, we must salt the soil that the twisted tree of intolerance and fanaticism takes root in. We must change the hearts and minds of the young.
We salt them with small computers. With internet access. With a telephone in every village. With juvenile novels and encyclopedias translated into Arabic. With teachers who speak their language, and who teach them to use these tools to answer questions for themselves. Yes, some of those teachers will be killed. They are soldiers in this war as much as anyone who puts on a beret or takes up a gun, and we will make martyrs of them for the world.
No tyrant can long survive with an informed and educated populace.
The organizations they declaim as the mouthpieces of the US shall be USED as the mouthpieces of the west. We tell their children that there is a life beyond substistence farming and blood feuds. We tell their wives and daughters that there is a life where they are valued as individuals and people in their own right, not as mutilated chattel.
We give them the tools of bilateral communication, rather than unilateral indoctrination. We give them the internet. We declare a great work, of making sure that every corner of this globe has access to fast internet access. Not just the US. Not just Europe. The world.
They will see pornography sites. They will also see sites discussing engineering, and simple improvements to agriculture. Some may even see this mailing list. The curiousity of children will be piqued, and their questions answered. With each question asked, and each answer given, we slowly wean them away from the culture of intolerance.
They'll be able to ask questions without censure or censoring, and get answers they might not otherwise have.
I would sooner carpet bomb with Gameboys and Pokemon, and an Arabic translation of Monopoly or Delta V, than FAEs and nuclear explosives. The adults are beyond our reach. The young MUST be reached so that 20 years from now, the thought of piloting a captured airliner into an office building full of innocent bystanders meets with truly universal horror.
I fear, in the haste for vengeance, that the nature of this conflict will be forgotten. Make no bones about it -- this is a culture war. It can only end with a declaration on the order of Cartago Delendo Est.
We cannot win this war with bombs or bullets, although we can accelerate its prosecution by those means. We can only win this war through a generational conflict; we must win the war in the hearts and minds of the children growing up in the Middle East now.
Winning that longer war will be costlier and less immediately gratifying than cluster bombs and Fuel Air Explosives, and "killing the bastards and everyone that helped them.", but it is a war that all of us can participate in.
If you are an author, or someone who creates media, contact your publisher about translating your works into Arabic. Someone in the DoD is in charge of outbound propaganda; we should find who that person is, and give them the munitions to win this war.
Bin-Ladin has declared this a culture war.
Let's show him what a culture war TRULY looks like. Let's send in Shakespeare. And Heinlein. And Harlequin Romances, Pokemon and The Simpsons.
"them with accuracy by FAA system "
...
Don't use FFA then.
Use military. I hope our military does not operate with assumption that all enemy military planes fly around with transponders installed
Iranian democracy is far from perfect, but that's the whole point of those trying to reform it.
Danny
I have written over 900 book reviews
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur...
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
regards,
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
--
i work for a large computer/IT shop and i can get literally all of this and help config it - however i bet there a lot of folks like me in other companies thinking the same thing. is there someone acting as point here? i'd hate for 10 teams of helpful folks to show up and only be in the way. the above message said that guy's email was hammered....
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
Would it make sense to make a standard operating procedure that if a hijacking seems immenent, even highly possible, the crew should dump almost all the fuel... leave just enough for getting the nearest landable airport. This procedure might inhibit the ability of terrorists to obtain flying bombs.
Miko O'Sullivan
More than 1,200 IBM customers were located in the World Trade Center or within a two-block radius.
Hundreds of them have contacted IBM since Tuesday morning. Currently, IBM is managing or has already resolved 20 full-blown emergency situations. IBM is rolling in large servers, thousands of ThinkPads and workstations; IBM is providing thousands of square feet of data center capacity; re-creating data processing environments that were destroyed; and relocating customers' operations to IBM facilities. In addition, IBM employees are helping various disaster relief organizations with IBM products and assistance. Thousands of IBMers are on the case, and the work proceeds around the clock.
> I'd say it's time to outlaw religion and save
> some lives but the cynic in me wants
> to remind me that small-minded people will
> invariably find another way to rationalize
> killing people that have never harmed them.
To put it another way, I've heard it. Religion's just the obvious scapegoat for what can more accurately be attributed to the failings of (human) nature.
I guess it's just a fact of life that violence has gone hand in hand with existence on this planet since organisms evolved beyond single-cell photosynthetic organisms; at least then there was no explicit demonstration of violence as a survival mechanism, although I'm probably wrong about that assumption as well.
So it goes.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Curious and ironic then that you both post as Anonymous Cowards. Why isn't that a freedom you're willing to cede as well?
The worst our founding fathers had to face was death. Just like you. They fought not only for themselves, but for future generations under the tacit belief that future generations would do likewise (otherwise, what's the point of bothering?). You have the distinct advantage that someone else has already paid in advance for you. You enjoy that freedom only because you're a member of the lucky sperm club and happened to be born here (I say "born here" with a fair amount of certainty, because few immigrants take that freedom for granted). You have done nothing to earn it yourself. The best you can hope for is that you or your children will not be called upon to pay for it. The worst you can hope for is that you or them will shrink from the responsibility.
It's also curious that you like to invoke "women and slavery" to denigrate those who gave you the freedom you claim to enjoy. Your words today indicate that you would have done nothing in their time to further the causes of women or slaves - or even the fight for your own freedom. So lucky for you that there are not more like you.
On second thought, it is worth my time: there is value in pointing out poor reasoning whereever it exusts, so be prepared to see your post ripped post to shreds by very simple logical arguments, instead of the drivel you seem to spout so easily...
1st example: you state your opinion that "religion is a method of brainwashing." I think it would be quite a bit more accurate to state that "religion as a whole is believing that there are higher powers than mortal mankind", and that "any given religion is a attempt by people to put rational language to that belief." By the way, the belief in some kind of God seems to be a core part of most people's world view, although not yours. At least in my case, coercion was not been part of the process that led me to be a believer.
You continue: "Yet everyday we pass buildings built by those who are essentially cultists. These buildings a meeting halls for people who believe an internally inconsistent set of beliefs that culminates in an omnipotent being creating the entire universe, for humanity, specifically their fellow believers, who then gets petulent when his tiny creations don't worship in the exact ways specified..." Does it occur to you that people may have an internally and externally consistent beliefs, and that many people (myself included) do not believe God to be petulant in any way shape or form, else that being would not be a God whom we could believe in.
By the way, being in a particular type of building (specifically a church) does not define a person as being a cultist any more than saying that using a computer automagically makes a person a technologist or being in a automobile car automagically makes a person into a race car driver. Since our country has laws based on a the U.S. Constitution, you are free to disbelieve, but I am also free to believe, and practice my beliefs so long as they remain within the constraints of societal law. Most "cults" do not remain within those constraints.
Again, I quote from your post: "A bunch of sick people acting in direct contrast to what a rational view of reality would suggest is NOT something we should sit back and accept as normal." Oops.. You just committed another logical fallacy by excluding the possibility that rational people can also be religious, another logical fallacy, like saying "the sky is blue, my eyes are blue, therefore anyone whose eye's aren't blue can't possibly see the sky..."
It is just as much brainwashing and dishonest indoctrination to to insist that our educational systems teach that atheism is somehow more rational and therefore "good", "right", or "normal" than religious belief, is it not? I think most people who know me would say that I am at least as intelligent and rational as the next person, and I can easily be proven to be a useful member of society, even though I believe in God.
You continue "This indoctrination hurts us all by raising people unable to cope with reality without retreating into their fantasy world. It raises people who act in a manner that is insane when viewed by someone who hasn't been similarly brainwashed." Hmm. I wonder what you would say if you were trapped in the WTC explosions and I was the only person who could help you get down the stairs and told you that it was my "God-given duty to help you get out of the building alive." Would you so glibly accuse me of retreating into fantasy then? True beliefs don't allow a retreat-- they obligate the owner of those beliefs to act.
I guess my point is that people who promote terrorism by mingling religion in with it are sick, not every person who believes in any religion, anywhere.
Contrary to your own beliefs (which are guaranteed to be at least partially false on the basis of logic: you can't disprove the existence of God, can you?), hatred is the enemy of all people, not religion. Seeking to control or make a profit by taking advantage of others is the enemy of all people, and I will readily and sadly acknowledge that many so-called churches and preachers are so corrupted that they fail in their essential mission: teaching people to co-operate peacefully in lifting their fellow man. This one message is the essence and goal of almost every major and minor religious system of thought.
So if you don't mind, I'll try to become a better person based on my beliefs, and work with and teach my family and friends who are like minded to be good people, and you? All I can suggest is that if you want to preach atheism, you at least learn to do a better, more logical job of it.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I understsnd everyone's concern about keeping jets from burning up in the future, but it is simply impossble.
I've seen several news reports and several studies that conclude that there is no way that you can prevent fires in jet crashes. The NTSB and the FAA state that the number one cause of death in a jet crash is fire. They (the feds) have been working on this problem since the inception of the jet plane, and there is only one conclusion to this. "Jet A," which is standard jet fuel, burns very hot for its weight, which allows modern jet travel, but it is effectively like Greek fire. It is almost impossible to put out. There are practically (meaning without making jet travel impossibly expensive, and even that is questionable whether it would be even safe) no ways to prevent fire in a plane crash. Its unfortunately the truth of modern travel.
It was Karl Marx
--
E_NOSIG
To: IBM Colleagues
From: L.V. Gerstner, Jr.
Subject: Update on Tuesday's Events
Dear Colleague:
I want to update you on where we are and what we've done since Tuesday's
tragic events.
First, and most important, we have accounted for all but a handful of our IBM
colleagues who might have been in New York City or Washington, D.C., when
the terrorists struck. Of course, we will not stop until we have accounted for
every one of our people. I know each of us is hoping and praying for a good
outcome.
Sadly, as we have reported on w3, we received confirmation on Wednesday
that one of our colleagues was aboard one of the hijacked airliners. I know
all of us are deeply grieved by this news. In addition, we have been learning
of IBMers whose family members were killed or injured. Moments ago, I
heard from an IBM colleague whose daughter was also on one of the hijacked
planes.
Words fail to convey my sadness when I hear such devastating news, but on
behalf of all IBMers worldwide, I wish to express our condolences to the
family and friends of all those who have lost loved ones.
Let me update you on what we are doing to help customers. You may be
surprised to learn that more than 1,200 IBM customers were located in the
World Trade Center or within a two-block radius. Hundreds of them have
contacted us since Tuesday morning. Currently, we're managing or have
already resolved 20 full-blown emergency situations. We're rolling in large
servers, thousands of ThinkPads and workstations; we're providing thousands
of square feet of data center capacity; re-creating data processing
environments that were destroyed; and relocating customers' operations to
IBM facilities. In addition, we are helping various disaster relief organizations
with IBM products and assistance. Thousands of our colleagues are on the
case, and the work proceeds around the clock.
I continue to receive hundreds of notes from IBMers all over the world. I trust
you understand that I cannot respond to each of them, but I want you to
know that I read every one. I have been deeply moved by the outpouring of
concern and, most of all, your compassionate offers to help in any way
possible.
There are plenty of opportunities for individuals to help. Those of you who
have offered your time and skills may yet be called on, so stand by. Many
have asked if we're going to run blood drives at IBM facilities. We have been
in contact with the Red Cross and have been advised that the best way to
provide blood is to donate it at the local community level. As it happens,
several IBM locations in the U.S. were planning blood drives this week and
next. These will proceed.
A number of relief funds have been established by government and volunteer
agencies, and I know from your notes IBMers will be extraordinarily generous,
as you have been in a number of prior national emergencies. We will provide
on w3 information on ways individuals can contribute.
A special fund, called The September 11th Fund, has been established in New
York City by various organizations, including the United Way. This fund will
deliver financial services and assistance to those who were affected by
Tuesday's catastrophe. IBM has pledged $5 million in cash, technology and
technical assistance to this fund. This is in addition to the uncountable
product and human assistance IBM is providing to other agencies and
organizations to help them manage through the crisis.
As I wrote to you on Tuesday, the most important thing any of us can do is
take care of the job at hand and keep IBM moving forward. I ask you to
remain focused on your customers, your job -- wherever you are in the world
-- and trust that the local teams in New York and Washington, D.C., will
reach out for all the additional assistance they need.
Your concern and self-sacrificing spirit make me so proud of our company and
of each other. Let's stay focused, and stay together.
While I have seen comments relating to issuing pilots sidearms and the use of rubber bullets in aircraft, it seems to me that one solution would be the use of "sticky foam". Sticky foam could immobilize any prospective hijacker. For that matter the area immediately outside the cockpit could be fitted with a spray dispenser that would immobilize anyone and everyone trying to gain entry to the cockpit. It is effective and can be removed using a non toxic solvent! See, "What price Sticky Foam"
As the originally quoted boyfriend in this thread, maybe I can offer some clarification of the comments made regarding my (personal)conclusions about the collapse. The original synopsis was fairly right on.
Regarding what happens to steel under extreme temperature - the previous post regarding crystalization of steel is right on. Steel is a crystaline structure made up mostly of iron molecules (mixed with carbon and some other things to create modern structural steel). Under normal conditions this crystaline structure is fairly densely packed (body-centered cubic for any chemists out there). As steel is heated (above approx. 2000 deg F, but I am not sure about the exact temperature), this crystal structure changes to a "looser" arrangement (face-centered cubic). The net result is that the "strength" of the steel degrades to about half of it's original value. In other words, once the steel crystalizes, its load capacity gets cut in half (approximately).
Regarding the difference between a fire caused by jet fuel and a "normal fire" - Buildings are normally designed to to remain standing during a fire. Or, they are at least designed to remain standing long enough to fully evacuate. Simply stated, take the occupancy of the structure and the rate at which people can exit via emergency routes and you get a time required to empty the building. As a designer, you have to make sure that the building will stay up that long (or longer). The point is that the "design fire" is made up of things that noramlly burn in a building. These are things like paper, drywall, furniture, carpet, etc. They are not things like jet fuel. Jet fuel is composed primarily of hydro-carbons (don't quote me on that one, I'm not a chemist or a fuel expert). The point is that jet fuel burns 2-3 times hotter than one would normally expect a building to burn. The result is that the steel changes phase faster, its strength degrades faster, and the additional forces created by the thermal expansion of the steel columns cause them to experience additional load faster.
Add to this the fact that the fire-resistant coating applied to the steel may have been mechanically damaged (i.e. ripped off) when the impact occured, and the fact that the fire-suppression system in the building was almost certainly damaged at the floors wherethe fire was actualy happening, and you get a building that loses its vertical load carrying capacity a lot faster than anticipated. Add to that the fact that some portion of the vertical load carrying system was already destroyed by having a jet liner crash into it and it's not surprising that the building collapsed prior to full evacuation (at least one of the 4 evacuation stairwells was totally destroyed, and the other 3 may have been on fire or full of smoke slowing evacuation further).
This is a tragedy. The loss of life involved is horrendous. The anger and hate that caused this attack in the first place makes me sick. The anger and hate that I suspect will ensue as a result (leading to more death - sickly illogical) scare me and sadden me. But, if we can momentarily accept that it did happen, and that we must mourn and respond in our own ways, and we can step back to look at how the building actually behaved, it is my initial and personal opinion that the structure behaved very well. It stayed up under the force of the impact of a large passenger jet even after losing some substantial portion of its structural system. It then stayed up for approx. another hour while a fire 2-3 times hotter than would normally be expected in such a building degraded the strength of the remaining structure. All things considered, the building behaved remarkably well!
Please do not interpret this as insensitivity to the terrible loss of life that occured. But, despite the sorrow and rage, consider what would have been required to make a building that would still be standing under those conditions. Can such a building be designed? Yes. Would it be economical to build? No. Would it be a functional to work in? No. Would it serve the purposes required of such a structure? No. And could someone, somewhere still figure out some way to bring it down that the designer had not considered? Yes.
Design and construction of a building like the WTC is an incredible accomplishment. That it performed how it did under that conditions it was subjected to is even more amazing. Much the same response is heard by designers after a major earthquake. Why not build them stronger?! Why did this happen?! Give me any design, and I can give you an event, natural or unatural that will fail that design.
So, where and how does the designer choose that line? Is it acceptable for you to go to work everyday in a 1 story concrete bunker with no windows so that your chances of being killed by a terrorist controlled plane full of jet fuel will be minimized? How would you responded Monday morning if someone had suggested that?
Female Prison Rape in NY
The definition of unnerving? Walking through metal detectors in Logan with enough change that I was jingling and not hearing the detector go off when I walked through it as it does when I try to go into federal buildings around me.
If you're determined and trained, you can kill someone with a pen: puncturing arteries does wonders for one's lifespan. Indeed it's mightier than the sword.
Which is to say that there's a great deal of seemingly innocuous everyday items that can be put to insalubrious use. You can't eradicate risk, you can only minimize damage. It sounds callous, but if the pilots had never left the cockpit when flight attendants were being killed, we'd have murderers on our hands rather than the charred remains of mass murderers buried in a tower of rubble.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
There are photos up at http://webcamnow.com/wtc/ of people trying to get out of the WTC while firemen go in. People lined up in stairwells, the building shaking - very scary stuff.
It must be especially difficult for her parents, with the media attention they hoped would help find her taken away by the suffering of others.
It's sort of a relief not to be hearing about Gary Condit all the time, but this sure ain't the way I'd have chosen to get the focus off of him.
Something that did cross my mind yesterday-the House Intelligence Committee is apparently going to be quite busy, too busy to take time to worry about removing him from that committee, and nobody has the time to talk about calling on him to resign any more. He just may salvage his political career while we're all looking elsewhere. (Unless his political enemies find a way to tie him to Osama Bin Laden)
What would the news media do if they had to report on 2 or 3 big stories at once?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you heat steel to a certain point without specific chemicals, you "burn" the steel, making it effectively useless. This involves very high amounts of carbon entering the steel.
The building was also an effectively great billows. Given altitude and the proximity to the ocean, there is a lot of wind that was going through there, increasing the heat to an enormous degree.
Another thing this high heat caused was the destruction of concrete. When concrete gets very hot the water is evaporated out of it, turning it to dust.
Without the concrete in the area and with the supports already greatly weakened due to heat and high carbon levels, the weight of what was above the area would easily cause the top to come down. We all saw the result of the cascade effect.
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
- Alexandar Woolcot
The CBC also has an
online diary of a muslim family's life during and after 9/11.
<tim><
Female Prison Rape in NY
What a bunch of flamebait! Even on /. where I know that most people aren't terribly religious, how the heck did this get modded up? Did you even read the post about Islam? Islam, Christian's and Jews all teach respect for human life.
So I guess everyone except religious people have freedom to believe whatever they want, or freedom of speech to say whatever they want. But people who are religious, they can't talk about things that could make the world a better place.
You don't have any idea where this world would be without religion. Religious organizations set up medical services, counceling services, all manner of help. The United Way, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army all have religion in them, and countless other organizations that don't get 24/7 media coverage, people who believe in a higher power and believe in helping without a bunch of lime-light and credit.
Brainwashing???? BRAINWASHING??? You say I'm brainwashed because I go to church once a week and pray to a higher power for guidance. You say by teaching my children (I don't have any yet but I will) that these are good things is brainwashing when millions of children acroos America sit and watch a flashing box for eight hours a day???
You don't have to believe in anything. No one is forcing you too. But I for one am quite proud of the fact that I'm weak, that I need help in life, that I have someone to turn to when everyone around me leaves. You don't have to have that but don't dare think that you can take my freedom to do so.... and on that note those terrorists who did this are fanatics who do things in the name of religion. The religion disowns them, they are trying to justify themselves while really serving their own ends, AND trying to regulate how people think or believe won't change this. Bring on the american thought police and you'll invite more terrorism.
I just can't believe this garbage was modded up
The Anti-Blog
IFF (Identify Friend/Foe) works off of transponders also. With the speed that most planes move visual id is almost impossible, and with the scramble to get planes down and such it would be rather easy to lose one in the crowd.
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
Too bad. I have in the past brought a pocketknife on the plane, but I would gladly forget about this if that's what's necessary to prevent the nutcases from bringing them on.
People are required to unload and declare firearms, and then they may send them as checked baggage. Probably no need to declare knives, but sending them through checked baggage seems appropriate.
And I never check bags. (Waste of time at the arrival end.) But in this case such a restriction seems appropriate.
sulli
RTFJ.
:The second plane hitted 18 minutes after the first, and there wasent a fighter plane nowhere in sight.
Even the people in the building didnt know it was a plane till later on. Friends on aircraft carriers have told me that at best a cold place takes about 15-20 mins just to prep for take off.
:One rented car found with manuals in arab about "How to pilot a commercial plane"? How convenient..
Terrorist want their work know as an act of terrorism, many will leave clear marks of ID as a sign of "You do not scare us."
:Bin Laden was until some years financed and trained by the CIA
The US Navy Academy used to have a question on their exam that asked "How would you plan a sneak attack on Pearl Harbour?"
:There is word that one of the targets was Air Force One.. Air Force One? Really? The same that is always escorted by 3 fighter planes?
The timing seems to indicate (at least to me) that it was more like hit the plane on the ground. I dont think anyone is good enough to collide two jumbo jets in the air.
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
The terrorist supposedly told the passengers they also had a bomb. It seems that for the 3 planes that hit the passengers probably didn't know they were going on a crash course, and were told they would not be harmed. Given that they were probably hoping for the best. Supposedly the 4th plane crashed in PA b/c the passengers DID find out they would be screwed either way.
Personally I think the terrorists have shot themselves in the foot, they've made it extremely unhealthy to hijack a plane. Before the 11th the best move when hijacked was to sit tight, most hostages made it out alive. Now? Now we have to assume that they're going to use the plane as a bomb, that by doing nothing we're killing ourselves and thousands of innocents.
If I end up on a hijacked plane I'm not going to sit back and let myself die and kill thousands in the process, before I would have sat back and hoped for the best, because that was the sensible thing to do. Now the sensible thing to do is to fight, kill them before they kill you. Personally, I wouldn't give tuppence for the life of the next guy that tries to hijack a plane.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
It is suprisingly easy to go missing at any time. There is no need to use a big catastrophe to do so. Hell, I could have a real drivers license and passport under a different name within a week if I wanted. You would be surprised how low tech and backwards the public records offices in some rural areas are.
Not to nitpick, but the CIA did NOT fund Bin Laden. They were on the same side during the Afgani struggle against the Soviets, but both the CIA and Bin Laden's organization both insist that the CIA never funded or trained him.
Considering that at that time Bin Laden was a billionaire who was probably worth more money that the entire annual budget of the CIA, I tend to think that they are both right in saying that the CIA never gave him any money. Any amount of money that the CIA could have funneled him would have been pocket change compared to what he was spending out of his own funds. Plus he doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would take a "hand out" from the US gov't.
Very strange. The same issue covering the lord of the rings (Including the book "The Two Towers"!!) has the picture of "The Coup" cover with the two World Trade Towers burning on page 170. (This month's issue with the Tolkein Runes on the cover)
Do you know for a fact that there in fact was NOT really a bomb on board?
And in light of the after math, if they just said, "We have a bomb." then they would be telling the truth, tragically enough. This bomb was a guided missile with an FAE payload.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
p.s.
You picked on the wrong country, buddy.
Don't post on slashdot. Get back to work.
If that were the case, the loss of privacy and the loss of the privacy of the gov't would be mutual. This is not the case here.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
As an American, I plan to give blood in aid of the victims in New York. I cried when I saw the two towers collapse yesterday. But I quite simply refuse to become another victim of American bigotry just because I'm half arab, and was raised a muslim. I am NOT going to be part of the crowd that grows fearful of every attendant at 7-Eleven, or every taxi-cab driver in New York or Los Angeles.
Part of the reason that the World Trade Centers were bombed is because Terrorists fail to realize that not everyone in America are soldiers. They feel that the acts of any government justify violence against its citizens.
By having fear and suspicion in anyone who is different, our mentality is no different than that of a terrorist. And if we as a people are violent towards others uninvolved that live in this country, we are no worse than the terrorists themselves.
So please... please realize America not as just one nation, but one nation of separate, different people united. So, as Christians, Jews, Muslims, anyone... pray. For those that do not pray, simply hope. Just keep your hatred saved for the perpitrators, not those who have no choice on their heritage. Or quite simply, don't hate at all...
Okay, I'm done with what I have to say... Feel free to reply to me and flame me to your heart's content.
Mark El-Wakil
seventhcycle@yahoo.com
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,55 1037,00.html
Check out this and this-- it looks like an American Eagle starting salary is $30,000, with a raise of $3-8000 in the second year.
This still means the pilot is making about as much as a NYC bus driver with the same amount of seniority, which does strike me as a bit odd...
I hope this is one of the things that changes for the better after this awful ordeal.
HOWTO get better dates on slashdot
Do you know every person that tried to disprove God and the Bible, ended up proving that that God and the Bibles are perfect?
Now, I challege you to prove that God doesn't exist.
The journey is better then the end.
Acts of war are generally excluded from insurance policies. Read yours, and reflect on the corporate donations to political campaigns ...
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Are you serious? If so please cite examples.
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
maybe i woke up too early ;) but i saw the live footage of when the 1st building collapsed, and i saw detonations going straight down.
This was an implosion! maybe i watch too much tv too ;) but they wont show that footage anymore.
Also, did anyone see the ,so called, wife and mother of the one man who supposedly called .
They were reading scripts! this is a well orchestrated attack alright, by the "almighty" regime!
Hitler wasn't elected. He only got about 25% of the vote in 1932; von Hindenburg was elected with about 38% of the vote. After the election, German companies urged von Hindenburg to take Hitler as a vice chancellor. Hitler refused, and further urging coerced von Hindenburg to offer Hitler a chancellorship. Hitler agreed and a year later von Hindenburg fell ill and died, leaving Hitler as sole Chancellor. He promptly had himself named dictator and the rest followed.
I actually heard a CNN or FOX commentator claim that Bin Laden (Saudi) directs all Palestinian suicide bombers. I have found the quality of the news coverage in this crisis has been in serious decline since the event. If our government (US) and the media don't start using their heads more, we're going to be in for a very dark future. I don't want a war based on Israel's self-defeating model. Although force will be necessary, this is the type of war that will require us to, "think our way out of it," if you'll pardon my use of a Babylon 5 quote. Quite frankly, I don't have enough faith in our government to handle this properly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/international/13 AFGH.html
was particularly brutal I thought. 2 quotes that really stood out for me:
"If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go"
and
"He had not thought much about an American retaliation against Afghanistan. When he did consider it, standing in a ramshackle collection of stalls, he shrugged and said: "Americans are powerful and can do anything they like without us stopping them.""
These aren't a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongering Arabs. They are a bunch of poor downtrodden regular people who are RULED by a totalitarian dictatorship.
These people don't want to go to war with america. (Though many of them remember just exactly who it was that funded the Taliban's original rise to power.)
They don't like the Taliban any more than you or I do. In fact, I don't think it is a stretch to say that the average Afghanistani HATES the Taliban. The problem of course is that if they say it, they'll be shot...
It's time that America stepped up to the plate and took some responsibility for it's actions.
Remove the Taliban from power. Do it swiftly, do it decisively, and do it brutally if that is required. But for god's sake: don't go to war with Afghanistan.
When it's all said and done, America needs to stick around, and REBUILD the damn country. Just like it did with Japan.
If that seems like an overly imperialistic idea, then that's because it is. But it would give the people of Afghanistan 3 fundamental things that they sure as hell don't have now:
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And in light of the after math, if they just said, "We have a bomb." then they would be telling the truth, tragically enough.
Well...its possible they were playing on words. But the bomb threat was to keep the passengers in line i imagine.
I am not going to disagree with you here, but if you are going to use logic for arguments then do it correctly.
When I say the statement p is true, because you cannot disprove p, then I am not proving that p is true, but am proving that I don't know much about logic.
For example, I can easily state that there exists particles in nature that do not interact in any way. Of course it is impossible to disprove this!
I'm sorry for your personal loss in this tragedy, but it is no excuse to propose genocide against an entire people, the vast majority of which are as peace-loving and innocent as we Americans. Your post is rife with inaccurate and ignorant statements, and with despicable and racist inferences.
I hope you can get over your anger and grief, and realize that misdirected violence against innocent people is both evil and useless. It would do a severe dishonor to those who died.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
This popped up on a local radio station's website. Enjoy! :-)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You can't cut me down for failing to logical and then proceed to beat the fallacy horse until it dies.
The least logical thing you said was "you can't disprove the existance of god, can you?"
I don't need to. All I need to do is point to two or more mutually exclusive religions, that alone is proof that one or more are wrong.
Now, as further evidence in this line, I doubt you can state your belief in god as a testable theory, thus there's nothing to disprove.
Further, you can't prove a negative, calls for someone to do this are empty. Instead, you proceed by disproving the positive form. I can't prove there ISN'T a god, because your definition will change to suit the moment. I can attack your proof that the is a god, and in the absence of proof, I think it's fairly obvious which is correct. Either your god, alone of all gods, exists, or we could show that at most one religion could be true, and with the many inconsistencies in them all, it's likely that instead of 99% of them being false, it's more likely that 100% are false.
If you want to see a list of these inconsistencies, go to google and search for "bible inconsistencies" or something similar. There are hundreds of sites which address this.
Having shown strong cause to disbelieve the existance of a god, I think it falls upon you to present a theory for and prove the existance of god. The burden of proof is yours, because you're asking me to accept the existance of something for which there is no direct evidence. (No, the bible doesn't count.)
"coercion was not been part of the process that led me to be a believer."
Not that you see. That's the whole idea with brainwashing. If you start with a child, telling them something, discouraging them from thinking analytically about it, and from questioning it, of course they're going to believe it. Now, if you have been similarly raised, you're going to believe this yourself, so you will likely see it as a loving duty to the child. The fact that you do this kindly doesn't change the fact that it's mental manipulation.
Did you parents raise you in a religious vacumm, to decide upon your 18th birthday, the truth behind god? If so, what proof (tangible) swayed you to make the decision?
"Does it occur to you that people may have an internally and externally consistent beliefs,"
No. I've read enough of the bible to know otherwise, remember, all it takes is one inconsistency to disprove that it was directly passed down as the word of god.
I also know enough religious people to spot inconsistent behaviour, which goes to suggest that this is endemic.
"many people (myself included) do not believe God to be petulant in any way shape or form,"
This would be the same god who commanded people to be stoned, that order babies to be killed, etc? The same one who smote the enemies of the "chosen" for the sole crime of not believing in him? You know, I think your god is throwing a tantrum.
"Since our country has laws based on a the U.S. Constitution,"
I'll mention here that I'm Canadian, just to keep things clear, but I'll accept that comment as you intended it.
"you are free to disbelieve, but I am also free to believe , and practice my beliefs so long as they remain within the constraints of societal law."
And until "recently" US citizens were allowed to own slaves. The mere existance of a law allowing something does not make it a good choice to follow, nor does it say anything about the morality or correctness of that action.
"Most 'cults' do not remain within those constraints."
By your definitions. To me, they seem as arbitrary as my definitions much seem to you.
``A cult is a religion with no political power.'' - Tom Wolfe
"You just committed another logical fallacy by excluding the possibility that rational people can also be religious, another logical fallacy, like saying 'the sky is blue, my eyes are blue, therefore anyone whose eye's aren't blue can't possibly see the sky...'"
Sigh. No, I didn't commit a falacy here.
I attempted to show that belief in religion was directly contrary to observed reality. I then stated that religious people could not be rational.
Being that rational behaviour is defined as that you rationalize, or reason out, belief in something unproven isn't rational. Unless you have proof of god (which I'd love to hear) you can't be rational.
Or, to be precise, you are being irrational in one area, it goes to show that you have a history of irrational behaviour. While in some areas you may act rationally, as a whole, you are not.
"It is just as much brainwashing and dishonest indoctrination to to insist that our educational systems teach that atheism"
Irrelevant. I'm not saying our schools should teach athiesm. If I were to say what our schools should do, it would be that they should NOT teach religion. Simply not indoctrinating children with false teaching will allow them to choose on their own, and I see no reason why they would feel compelled to create a god to believe in. This may be equivalent to teaching them athiesm, but it allows them to reach the conclusions on their own and thus isn't brainwashing.
"I can easily be proven to be a useful member of society, even though I believe in God."
You freely admit you believe in something unprovable like a god, and you want me to believe you're rational and free-thinking? Sorry, I'll go for the person who doesn't believe what a church tells him.
While you may not be detrimental to society, what assurance do I have that your god, which I beleive to be a delusion, won't start telling you to kill... After all, most suicide bombers do so thinking they'll reach spiritual salvation for their acts, and their holy beliefs look much like yours. (Assuming you're christian, but likely true regardless.)
"I wonder what you would say if you were trapped in the WTC explosions and I was the only person who could help you get down the stairs and told you that it was my 'God-given duty to help you get out of the building alive.' Would you so glibly accuse me of retreating into fantasy then?"
No. I'd wait until we were out of the building. But that's irrelevant.
You exist, your actions influence my world, thus I can benefit from taking advantage of certain ones. This doesn't mean that I accept your reasons for performing these actions as valid, merely that I can see what you are doing and act upon it.
"True beliefs don't allow a retreat-- they obligate the owner of those beliefs to act."
That's the problem. If you truly believe your god gave you a mission, you'll do it. That's why religious people are a risk to those around them.
"So if you don't mind, I'll try to become a better person based on my beliefs,"
I don't mind your goals of self-betterment, but I do think your beliefs will get in the way. Until you know YOU, without the brainwashing, you'll never know your true potential.
"All I can suggest is that if you want to preach atheism, you at least learn to do a better, more logical job of it."
I wasn't preaching athiesm. For one, it's not a codified set of beliefs, it's the freedom from a set of religious beliefs.
Second, I didn't try to teach you that your beliefs were wrong (initially, though I did point out flaws this time.) Instead, I simply took it as being self-evident that you were wrong, and spoke to the other non-religious people, saying that being as most of our problem-people are religious, and it is a delusion, we might want to keep a better eye on you, or possibly regulate your brainwashing of future generations.
I'd venture a guess that you really don't understand what a falacy is, that you've simply been told "To counter the argument that X, say Y". You misidentified what I was saying as falacious, because your zeal to disprove my views got in your way. If you wish to continue the debate, please prove the existance of god, in such a manner as to be acceptible to a non-believer. This is the crux of the issue, if you can't prove the basis of your belief, you're not being rational.
No Business As Usual -- The Sufi version of a General Strike
How many times in the past 36 hours have you heard the mantra "business-as-usual" extolled as the way Americans should respond to the events of 9/11? Let us pause, take a breath, and consider the meaning of this phrase, and a possible alternative response.
A tremendous shock to our collective system has occurred. Many of our beloveds, if not killed outright, have been personally affected by great loss. Yet our apparent priority, beyond knowledge of some tally of casualties or on whom to focus our retaliatory fury, is the return to our day-to-day activities - business-as-usual. Indeed, we're told hourly or more that a profound sign of this tragedy's effect is the closure (temporary of course) of various trading institutions. These closures are significant because our business is also our busy-ness. We buy and sell to replace the immediacy of paying attention to the here and now, trading toward some future accumulation of ever-increasing material wealth and away from the gnawing of our soul's need for something else. This activity seemed unstoppable until yesterday morning, when the center of world trade melted before our very eyes, taking innumerable souls from this earthly life.
Some say that to return to business-as-usual immediately, to hold our heads high and strive further is to honor our dead, to reinforce our spirits, to display strength in adversity. Is this actually true? Is it really dishonorable to stop and take stock of our new position in the world? People keep saying, "Nothing will ever be the same." Could it be worthwhile to take a collective break and show respect for both the living and the dead? Why do we rush past the important questions we all need to ask ourselves, both alone and in groups?
We long for a return to business-as-usual, because we don't want to face the overwhelming evidence of our reality. What if it's true that any building could be blown up at any time, that we are not safe, that we inhabit a world full of risks and angry people armed to the teeth? It's true. We've seen it with our own eyes. So, what is important to us now?
Why does the government want us to return to "business as usual"? To show the world that America never stops, that we are big and invincible and ready to take revenge. I don't think we really need to prove that to the world. Many nations have felt the impact of our force, and all others have observed our effect. Perhaps what we need to show the world is our humanity, our ability to rise to the occasion by spending time on our knees. By holding each other tenderly and taking the time to care for something other than our supreme power to dominate.
People in authority doesn't want you to stay home this week or any other because you might realize that what fills the hole in your soul is not another relic of business-as-usual, but the intangible bitter-sweetness of being human in the diverse beauty of life on earth. Several years ago, some wise and wonderful people organized an event called "No Business As Usual." It was to be a day when people stayed home from work and let the country take a break from our usual busy-ness. A day for play, for love, for righteous action. Let's do it again. Stop, in the name of love. Stop and honor every nation's losses to the ravages of terror, war, and exploitation.
If everyone stays home, we can mourn our dead, hug our children, catch up on a little sleep, think about the meaning of life, remember our dreams, and cultivate something precious in our world. We've just joined the majority of the people on this planet who have no illusions of being safe from harm inflicted by others and motivated by incredible passions. We will survive a few days without pay, even if it means getting hungry, or going without some conveniences. Maybe we should ask the world's downtrodden how they cope with these moments, instead of pursuing our knee-jerk fury and our insatiable denial.
If we stop in our tracks, and think, and pray and call forth the deepest compassion in our souls to find understanding, maybe some of us will see new ways of being. What might happen if we all pray for peace? We don't even have to pray to the same gods, or in the same voices, or even call it prayer. What if we ask for resolution, for balance, for love?
Before you dismiss this proposition as a copout, take heed. The first moments of repose and contemplation are hardly going to be easy. Inertia demands that bodies in motion want to stay in motion. If we don't stop to think, we won't have to feel. We might be able to avoid a little longer the true grief of this earth out of balance, skewed by our proud conspicuous consumption and will to power. When we stop doing business-as-usual, we come face to face with whatever is unresolved, so it's easier to just keep moving. If we make the time to do this work of healing, to pay attention, to listen to our inner voices and confront our past and present prejudices, the world will again be different than before.
Are United Sates citizens stalwart enough to carry on, doing business as usual? Undoubtedly.
Are we courageous enough to stop, ask real questions, and face the truth that arises in response ?
Ella Peregrine
My name is Carlos Montoya. You share files of my music. Prepare to die.
NATO has already given us the green light. I really doubt any border countries is going to try and shoot down our planes. Someone is about to feel the wrath of the United States and no one is going to willingly put their country in that spot right now. Even Iraq would be INCREDIBLY stupid to fuck with the US right now; Dubya wouldn't even blink while he issued the order to bomb them back to 1991. My only fear is that Osama bin Laden is going to manage to hide, bunker down and try and ride things out, or seek refuge with Pakistan terrorist cells. An even worse scenario would be for him to run into China and make this a political issue.
Hammer of Truth
"Terror Attacks: New to us, not to Afghans"
by James Ingalls
Like a subliminal "Wanted" poster, TV newscasts flash images of the destroyed Twin Towers, followed at longer intervals by the face of Osama bin Laden. The disclaimer that we still have no idea who is responsible for the brutal attacks in Manhattan, Washington, and Pittsburgh seems weak in comparison with this visual "evidence". Unlikely to be accorded anything approaching due process, the suspect of the decade will probably find his interests under violent attack by the US and NATO within the next few days. It is too much to hope for no civilian casualties, as GW Bush fulfils his promise to "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbored them," implying that the people of Afghanistan will soon be subjected to aerial bombardment. The US will likely "validate...the logic of terrorism" (Human Rights Watch), following the dictum that violence and terror are the proper responses to violence and terror.
Michael Sheehan, the State Department's Counterterrorism Coordinator, has made a big deal about a "geographic shift" in terrorist activity from the Middle East to South Asia. Sheehan attributes the shift to the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s: "This war destroyed the government and civil society of Afghanistan, at the same time bringing arms, fighters from around the world, and narcotics traffickers to the region." Sheehan eliminates any trace of human involvement--"this war" brought arms, fighters, and narco-traffickers to Afghanistan, destroying civil society. What Washington tends to conveniently ignore is that bin Laden and the rest of the extremist terrorists empowered to fight in Afghanistan were taught "the logic of terrorism" by our own Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA assembled a terror network that remains a cause of misery worldwide. CIA Director William Casey called it "the kind of thing we should be doing." According to standard sources, aid to extremist groups in Afghanistan was a response to the Soviet invasion. The truth is that President Carter gave the green light for covert support to the Mujaheddin six months _before_ the December 1979 invasion. In the words of then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, a major architect of Carter's policy, they were "drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap." The US supported seven fundamentalist extremist groups throughout the 1980s and into the early 90s with cash, sophisticated weapons, and training to the tune of $5 billion--according to official figures. The secret Black Budget of the CIA reportedly quadrupled to $36 billion per year when Reagan became president in 1980, and some of this money went to support secret operations in Afghanistan. Some of the earliest training exercises took place inside the US, including rifle shooting at the High Rock gun club in Naugtuck, Connecticut. More technical training took place at the CIA's Camp Peary, nicknamed "The Farm," northeast of Williamsburg, Virginia. Among the topics covered by training sessions were surveillance and countersurveillance, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and paramilitary operations.
Around the same time, a source of private funding was sought for the war. Osama bin Laden, a man with "impeccable Saudi credentials" (his father's construction company had just been awarded a contract to rebuild and restore the holy sites in Mecca and Medina) was given "free rein in Afghanistan" by the CIA. Using his share of his family's business empire, he built training camps and airplane landing strips, and carved underground bunkers in the mountains of Afghanistan, all with Washington's approval. Just across the border, bin Laden's base in Pakistan was the Binoori mosque in Karachi. The prayer leader at this mosque was one Mullah Mohammed Omar, now "supreme leader" of the Taliban.
After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the Mujaheddin groups began turning their US-supplied weapons on each other, and on the civilian population of Afghanistan. In 1990, the CIA began supplying the Mujaheddin directly, rather than using Pakistan's ISI intelligence service as a conduit. According to then chief of ISI's Afghanistan branch, Mohammad Youssaf, the CIA's aim was to "play on differences between the various factions and their commanders," in an effort to "curb the power" of the factions and make way for an unknown "Transition Regime," perhaps the Taliban.
The CIA's propping up of the fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan began to show its consequences during this period. The first victims were the people of Afghanistan. The group getting the most US aid, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, began rocket shelling Kabul. A close friend of bin Laden, Hekmatyar was understood by his benefactors to be "a nut, an extremist, and a very violent man" (US ambassador to Afghanistan Robert Neumann). In the 1970s he gained notoriety for throwing acid on the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. Journalist Michael Griffin writes of Kabul under Hekmatyar's onslaught: "no city since the end of the Second World War - except Sarajevo - had suffered the same ferocity of jugular violence as Kabul from 1992 to 1996. Sarajevo was almost a side-show by comparison and, at least, it wasn't forgotten." From 1990-1994 45,000 civilians were killed, 300,000 had fled to Pakistan, and Kabul was "turned into a rubble resembling Dresden after the fire-bombing." Most Afghans are now without livelihood, reduced to begging from international aid agencies. They currently live under the fascistic Taliban, who keep bin Laden safe.
Terrorists trained and armed by the CIA to fight in Afghanistan have since been implicated in attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, and in US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed hundreds of people. These efforts pale in comparison to the recent destruction in Manhattan, Washington, and Pittsburgh. If proven guilty in fair trial, bin Laden should certainly be held accountable. But the Afghan people, no strangers to the terrorism of bin Laden and his friends, should not be made to pay further for the consequences of our actions. It was our officials who originally unleashed these forces of destruction on Afghanistan. Perhaps the faces of Zbigniew Brzezinski, William Casey, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan should be on the TV screen too, next to Osama bin Laden's and the empty holes in the ground where twin towers stood.
The author is on the Board of Directors of the Afghan Women's Mission, and is a Staff Scientist at the California Institute of Technology.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
All across the states I hear stories of the volunteers, tales of sacrifice and helping others. I have not heard one story of crime, or murder or rape - no story of biggotry, racism or opression in our coutry these last two days. Maybe, we have finally found the resolve to put aside the titles of african-american, italian-american, cuban-american, spanish-american [etc.etc.etc.] and concentrate on the latter part of those hyphonated words .. the fact that we're all Americans.
.. as a country, as a *nation* we were founded on the tradition of bonding together in times of need.
.. until tuesday.
Republican or Democrat doesnt matter anymore.
Bickering about your boss or your coworkers seems rather petty now, Complaining about how [fill in the blank minority/majority group] is abusing the system or opressing you is trite.
Every single one of your neigebors you used to hate, was just as willing to pick up arms on this horrendus tuesday. Every single one of them would have been willing to die for you with the knowledge that you would have been willing to die to protect them and their families. What these Terrorists failed to realize is that as a populace
What is worse, is that America itself forgot this
Let's not forget it again.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
As most military action is TOP SECRET before it actually happens, I doubt we (the US) would even concieve of asking for permission to send a plane into bid laden's house.
We have remote control planes. right?
101010b 2Ah 52o
The after picture on the spapeimaging page appears to be a totally different 'zoom' than the before pic. Even though they both say 1 meter.
What gives?
James
It is quit prudent to take appropriate security measures. Anything less would be foolish. This not to say that we should be full of fear. In fact, quit the opposite, we should be fearless. Terrorists love to see fear, which we should not harbour. SECURITY != FEAR.
As far as the government spying on it's citizens: What does it matter? Any idiot can can read other people's email/irc sessions over the internet. You people act like the internet is some sort of secure medium. Everyone here knows it is not.
A dead terrorist kills no-one. We can not stand idley by while these vermins are in existence.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin in 1759.
Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. - Thomas Jefferson
Cute. Slogans and sayings are nice, but that is all they are. They have good appeal, but they are empty. They contain no truths beyond the fantasy world.
On the other hand, Japan is the only country in the world in which my pocketknife has been taken from me by airport security (this includes substantial Mideast and Europe travel).
You are an idiot. There's nothing more to say than that. Have fun living in a police state, numbnut.
Why don't you go live in a REAL police state for a while. Come back and tell us that we have it so bad.
Giving up freedom to have greater freedom: are you Napolean or Snowball?
I guess you went to work today because you thought giving up a little freedom to feed your family was ok.
As I watched the twin toweres collapse I was reminded of the great line from the brilliant Australian movie entitled "Breaker Moran", set in South Africa during the Boer War.
As Moran sits, tied into a chair facing a British firing squad, he turns to his companion in death beside him and says, "This is what comes of Empire, Billy."
link to clearstation.com
hey....can this be for real? How can we stop this??????????
however, there is a pretty simple - if costly, but do we want to talk about costs here? - solution to the "using planes as bombs" problem:
physically separate the pilot's cabin from the passengers. by that i mean: there is NO door - or anything, really - leading from the passenger cabin to the pilots. separate entrances on the outside of the plane, separate bathrooms, separate lunch boxes.
planes could still be hijacked (by holding passengers hostage) but they could not be used as cruise missiles.
it's a very simple and effective solution. and it doesn't curb any civil liberties. unless you count a visit to the cockpit a civil liberty.
I just heard that they have arrested 4 suspected terrorists at the 3 NYC airports one was dressed as a Delta pilot, another with knives. I think the terrorists have a plan that may NOT be over yet.
I hope the security has been increased enough to stop another atteck like Tuesday's.
Also, the reason they have evacuated the White House is because of these latest arrests.
What makes you think our aid to Egypt benefits ordinary Egyptians?
We give aid to foreign governments that helps those governments stay in power by letting them reward friends and buy tools of repression. This is rarely to the benefit of the average citizen.
I strongly recommend the book The Road To Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity. The fact that we toss around "foreign aid" to every country in that region is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I play Nerd-Folk!
This morning I arrived at work to read an email from our company CEO that one of my co-workers is confirmed dead - he was on UA 93, and quite possibly was involved in the attempt to re-take the aircraft - with 7 others missing in the WTC, including one who was a trained emergency medical technician, who went in with rescue workers after the initial attack.
They were 7 out of 40,000 employees of our company, and though I never knew them, as I sit typing this, 12,000 miles and half a world away, it is all I can do to stop myself from breaking down and crying.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
take action for a reasoned US response. let's not make new enemies by accidentally bombing the wrong people.
0 BB 4gt0BC40QMW0Am
URGENT ACTION
--Call on Mr. Bush to Show Restraint--
We condemn without limit the cowardly terrorist attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives on September 11. No cause, however noble or sustained, can possibly justify such actions.
But what happens now is up to the United States. Already there are demands for war against unnamed enemies, for funding of missile defense systems that do not work and for imposition of strict limits on hard-earned civil liberties. Already we see the unveiling of ugly prejudice against anyone of Arab origin or against followers of Islam.
How Mr. Bush reacts is critical, and the first signs are not encouraging. Click here to take action by calling on Mr. Bush to show restraint in the decisions he makes in the coming weeks.
http://act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/flo?y=eCgb
not a big surprise, but more trains & cars have been added.
sulli
RTFJ.
From The (London) Daily Telegraph (14 Sep 2001):
(Opinion piece by John Keegan)
...
"There are other current movements of which to take note, as yet insubstantial but certain to gather concrete form. One is the retreat of human rights lawyers from the forefront of public life. America in a war mood will have no truck with tender concern for constitutional safeguards of the liberty of its enemies. The other, which ordinary Americans will have to learn to bear, is interference with their liberty of instant electronic access to friends and services.
"The World Trade Centre outrage was co-ordinated on the internet, without question. If Washington is serious in its determination to eliminate terrorism, it will have to forbid internet providers to allow the transmission of encrypted messages - now encoded by public key ciphers that are unbreakable even by the National Security Agency's computers - and close down any provider that refuses to comply.
"Uncompliant providers on foreign territory should expect their buildings to be destroyed by cruise missiles. Once the internet is implicated in the killing of Americans, its high-rolling days may be reckoned to be over."
Its always been preached, and I always believed, that hatred came from ignorance. Cruelty is only possible if you never think of your victims as human beings. From day to day insensitivity, to political propaganda, hatred has depended on ignorance. :( Its only been true of westerners like me who thought these people were too barbaric and ignorant to get under the skin of our society and destroy us.
Or not. The terrorists knew America. They knew procedures and policies for hijackings. They knew how to fly a commercial airliner. They had classmates who are Americans. They would have to have been in the States a reasonable amount of time, and interacted with Americans every day they were there, up until the final moments when they told their helpless cargo to call their loved ones.
They knew us, they knew how we westerners think. They were not ignorant. They knew there were human beings involved. Yet they were capable of this atrocity anyway.
So much for 'tolerance through education'.
So much of what we all believed is wrong.
Evil can't be ended with education. Evil is evil.
-- INTX Grouch. http://www.midnightblue.net
Osama Bin Laden is NOT a billionaire.
Much of his assets were frozen by the Saudis when they disowned him.
He inhereted approximately $250M when his father died. Bin Ladens father was a Saudi construction tycoon who made his money rebuilding in formerly war torn middle east cities.
For some interesting reading you might want to lookup other pieces of Bin Ladens history such as his involvement in the resistance to the USSR occupation of Afghanistan. Also what countries gave support to this resistance. Cross check that list of countries with the list that helped the Iraqi military buildup during the rise of the America hating Iatollah Khomeni in Iran.
This is where I keep my clever quotes "" Yup I only got a pair, so I better not waste em!
I heard there is a $10M bounty out for the arrest of Osama Bin Laden.
Isn't that the same amount of money that was put on Salman Rushdie's head by Khomeni?
This is where I keep my clever quotes "" Yup I only got a pair, so I better not waste em!
The thumbnails are different "zooms". However, if you check out the full resolution images by clicking on the thumbnails you'll see the real detail level of the images.
"I'm not, like, that smart. I, like, forget stuff all the time." -- Paris Hilton
Do you have any idea how insensitive of a thing that is to say right now?
Damnit.
These are (2?) interesting discussions..
Would you people please log in so I can differentiate the comments of AC1 from AC2?
regards,
The point I disagree strongly with is that all Muslims are, by definition, dogmatist zealots. Do you know any Muslims? I do, and they are just as sane, tolerant and rational as any other group of people I know. In my country, we don't discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs; we judge individuals on their actions. I for one am not going to sit by and watch that freedom be eroded by paranoid and reactionary sentiments.
To about half of the respondents to my post: thank you for keeping our conversation civil and intelligent. To the rest: I have nothing to say.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Except that it doesn't work the way you think it does. THose with money and power, can, and do, have the ability to conceal their activities and cover-up any of their wrongdoings. Rich corporations will because to throw thier weight around.
Civil liberties aren't for the rich or the powerful, they're for the poor and innocent. The right to privancy is only important to the "little guy".
Damn, WNight, I wish I'd said that.
"The Internet is made of cats."
I know muslims in the US, and I find it unfortunate that they have chosen to associate themselves with maniacs who are using them as a cover (I feel the same about xtians, too, btw, but they're not the topic here).
It is the existence of supposedly sane, rational muslims that has allowed fanatical, terrorist muslims to infiltrate, based on the idea that they may *not* be insane terrorists, since Muhammed who works down the hall seems like such a nice guy.
I heard recently on PBS that Muslim is the fastest growing religion in the US. I have to wonder why, since the simple fact of a large Mulsim community provides a backdrop that prevents individual muslim terrorists from standing out in a crowd. Obviously, being a Muslim supports the activities of the terrorists even if it is a passive support. I mean, the "sane, rational" muslims can hardly claim not to know that their spiritual bretheren are commit to death, murder, and mayhem on a massive scale, at this point...
"The Internet is made of cats."
i don't see religion as rational... there are ppl who go around saying that they are not part of a religion even though they are (they just don't call it that because it's not "like" other religions). what kind of rationality is there? and as soon as you try to point out something contrary to what someone believes so strongly in they shut off in response and don't even hear your reasoning...
it seems to me that most of the religious ppl i know are very hung up on thinking that every good thing that happens in their lives is directly from god: "god told me to..." and "god said i should try that" and so on and so forth... they can't seem to accept any good idea they've had as coming from themselves... and on the other hand every bad thing comes from the "devil"... why can't ppl just take responsibility for the things they do (good and bad)?
religion did get me through some really tough things in my life, but that wasn't because of anything good or hopeful (though i'm sure i thought it was at the time). i stayed alive because i was too scared to kill myself and go to hell for my trouble. i believe it is brainwashing to teach a child anything you don't have proof for, i would not teach my daughter to believe or not believe in any god/goddess. i hope i only show her what there is in the world and let her come out of it with her own beliefs. what i want to pass on to her are the morals i do believe in like "do unto others as you would have done unto you" and "live and let live" as well as the ability to think clearly about the possibilities in life.
i don't debate your right to believe, i just debate your right to push it on others... even in a well-meaning way... interestingly enough the atheists i know almost all grew up without much religious influence. i am the exception to the rule as i see it and i am still overcoming parts of my upbringing.
That's right, we just have to make 3 posts that are absolutely without content on slashdot. Keep going! Two more and you've got it!!!
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Has anyone seen anything anywhere in the news online or otherwise that analyzes the possibility of a chemical or biological agent used in the attack? I was just reading an interview with William Cohen, fmr. Secretary of Defense who said:
g ue/interviews/cohen.html
2 00 1/9/11/205430
"We saw the situation in New York City for example, where the terrorists tried to destroy one of the [World] Trade Towers and they had contemplated setting off cyanide in the process. It failed to ignite and therefore the great catastrophe did not take place."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pla
It would not be unfathomable that the hijackers had some kind of chemical or biological agent on the planes with them, especially if it was part of the plan during the first attack. However, I haven't heard or seen mention of it anywhere, except for this one article, which is from (in my opinion) a horrible news website:
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=
I never saw anyone on NBC or any other network mention anything like this... anyone??
Keep in mind that not every country has democracy, many of these terrorist havens are dictatorships.
- Raynet --> .
The reason behind these terrorist attacks was not simply to strike fear into America, although it has done that very effectively. It was also to PISS OFF AMERICA. Think about it. If you were mad as hell at someone much more powerful (physically & socioeconomically) than you who had made you lose your job or who killed your wife while driving drunk (which are fair analogies for how the US is perceived around the world--fairly or not), how would you deal with that? Would you call that person out of their home for a fair fight? Or would you destroy their car or kill their pets. If you think you'd go with the first option, you would inevitably end up with the humiliation of getting your ass kicked on top of everything (or losing in court to your more wealthy, connected nemesis--which is the legal version of my basic fight analogy). But if you commit the conniving, underhanded vengeance, you would at least have the secret satisfaction that you made that more powerful person as upset & hateful as you. Because if misery loves company, rage absolutely demands company. And if that more powerful person comes after you, then you have a huge head start from planning while they were still complacent. If you can't figure this out, try not to think about it at all for a while.
No matter what I say won't make you into a believer until you take the efforts to prove it your self.
The journey is better then the end.
First off I did not use logic, I used facts. I said "people who tired to disprove p ended up proving p to thier selves."
How am to prove something when you only want to use a limited frame of refence? Ok fine,
Did the world flood? yes
Does the fossle record show not a increasing complex nature, but a fossle that show which animales could run from the water? yes
Did they find a boat in the mountains? yes
Where distroied cites found where the bible said they would be? yes
Did Jesus walk the earth? yes
Does God answer your prays? yes
Does the teaching of the bible provide a profilling life? yes
There is so much more.
Yes, God does exist.
The journey is better then the end.
An amazing number of you miss the point. I have traveled extensively throughout the middle east and asia. I have also lived in the US, and in Europe. I have holidayed in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Bin Laden is a extremist in a religion that like christianity preaches "Love of Fellow man" above any other edict. To generalise from Bin Laden to Islam is the same as generalising from Hitler or the KKK to the average Christian person. It is prejudice and racism.
I believe that Bin Laden's hatred of the US is deep and complex. It is a sentiment shared to a lesser degree by much of the 3rd world and in particular the Middle East.
From what I have seen of the anti-US sentiment it revolves around a feeling that the US has been undertaking a form of cultural and economic imperialism. I don't think that a majority of Americans wish harm to anyone else. I even belive that most decisions the Americans have undertaken have mostly been well intentioned. Even if somtimes mis-guided.
However, if you go to a small village in Pakistan or Vietnam, Bangladesh, or Iran then you will see there is a sense that contact with the west has degraded their societiy's moral fibre. The images shown on MTV in Pakistan sadden many Pakistanis and the government even had it banned. While none I met ever felt that violent action could ever be justified they were saddened to see their society be changed by coke, pepsi and Nike. There was also a strong sense that they were being exploited.
My experience in Iran was of a repressed society that some locals described as being run by "Bad Muslims". The hospitality and kindness shown to me by the ordinary people put any I found elsewhere in the world to shame. People with nothing, would give everything to help a stranger. To many of these people America is seen as morally corrupt.
To many non-Americans there is a view that America applies its set of values and culture on other cultures. These "uncivilised countries" often have a stronger sense of family values, support for your own community, and respect for others than our own culture.
The Point:
1) If America reponds without proof of who did it, then hatred of the US will increase.
2) If the response is seen as revenge, rather than as Justice and Respect for other people, then this will further increase the sense that America is morally corrupt.
3) If the reponse if strong and fair, then America can show the world that it ranks Justice and Freedom for all humanity as high as Justice and Freedom for Americans. By this I mean targeted attacks on the murderers. Collateral damage of 200,000 civilians like in the Gulf War will merely further the image that American's view of Justice is only for Americans.
Justice for any crime can and should include all those who where in anyway involved in planning the crime, and those who harbour the criminals after the fact. Justice does not include punishing others of the same faith, race, or geographical localtion. Very few Muslims and Arabs would view these attacks as anything less than henious. Witness Yassar Arfats response and that of the Pakistani government.
This disaster should be viewed as an attack on civilized humanity by the most evil humans. Not as an attack on America by Arabs or Muslims. Evil like this exist in all countries and cultures, just like civilized, caring people exist everywhere.
I hope that Bush has the sense and skill to do bring these criminals to Justice, not just exact revenge. His father's example of accidentally shooting down an Iranian civilian internal flight, and then refusing to apologise is not good a precedence.
Elivs
elivs@zdnetonebox.com
(stated bias : I'm an aetheist New Zealander)
I am not american. But I would die to maintain those rights. Americans, it seems, would not. You are fat and happy, and prepared to give it all up, one right at a time.
And this was modded up why?
The whole point about FISA warrants is that they are not transparent, that there's no oversight, no accountability, no way to contest or challenge them or even to know why one was issued.
The loss of privacy isn't the main issue, it's the loss of any pretence to having any respect for the individual. It's the view that unelected officials can decide your fate without even the common courtesy of telling you why. It's the precedent that a faceless man in a locked room can decide that are so likely to be guilty that your ability to show otherwise can be suspended.
As an aside, the British government has given itself similar powers, specifically to combat the situation in Northern Irelend. They are used sparingly, the bill has a duration of one year, and Parliament has to keep voting to renew it. The thinking there is that this sort of measure is abhorent, and should be done away with as soon as it is no longer necessary.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's not just a matter of what laws are passed - it's how they are enforced.
Which is exactly what I was saying. The laws themself do nothing. It's enforcement that matters. And I argue that with the current airport security infrastructure, it will be essentially impossible to effectively secure (or enforce these news laws).
It's nothing of the sort.
I still disagree
You can argue that people with pens, martial arts skills, etc. could do the same thing, but how many times have they?
How relevant is this? Prior to Tuesday, you could use this same logic to say that there was no need to protect against people carrying knives onboard, since no one had every used knives to hijack a US flight and crash it into a builiding.
It's important to remember that this was the first really major act of terrorism on US soil. This was the first time a plane was hijacked in the US for the last 10 years or so. This very incident was an exception to the norm. You can't say "ban knives, this will not happen again". That's about as effective as saying "ban terrorism, that way this doesn't happen again". Remember the facts - Bin Laudin openly declared war on the United States ~5 years ago. This is most likely an act of war by a group/country which is openly at war with the US. The big difference - we've never really been attacked in the continental US, and we've never really acknowledged Bin Laudin's declaration of war.
Another important premise to remember is that an intelligent attacker (or a terrorist) will arm themselves to the greatest degree possible, given all appropriate facts. These men came carrying knives, it seems, because they were assured they could sneak them on board, and they were sufficient for their purposes. Previously, most terrorists have used guns. You can assume that increased security controls around firearms have made that method a little more difficult (not impossible, just a higher risk of detection). If you outlaw knives, then someone will attack with a corkscrew, or a pen, or a club, or a stick.
And no matter how many hand combat skills they have, if they can't get into the cockpit, then they won't get control of the flight.
Certainly true. But what you are suggesting here is either a change in airline policy (the pilots need to know not to hand over control of a plane) or a shift in the physical layout of the plane (the inability for the doors to the cabin to be opened in flight, etc). But these issues were not in your first post which I responded to. I feel both are good ideas and will likely be appropriate responses.
I'm not arguing we do ONE thing - many things have to be done. Banning knives is one of them.
I'm just arguing that banning knives is like trying to control guns - someone will always be able to come up with a weapon to do harm. If you want to make real progress, you have to attack the root cause. US foreign policy, our stance on terrorism and terrorist states, etc.
So, you don't like the idea of controlling what people can carry onto flights? You don't think the government should make such rules? Try this argument - those airplanes are private property. Passengers are guests - if the owner of the property wants to ban knives from the airplane, he has every right to, doesn't he?
You must have missed the entire last paragraph of my previous comment, saying "My base argument here is that flying (like driving) is a privledge and not a right." If the airlines (or the FAA, the government regulators) want to ban knives, or pencils, or even conscious passengers, that is their perogitive. My personal beliefs are so far to the right that I border on anarchism (the political philosoply, not the ridiculous "anarchy" movement". But what I was trying to say above is that I think it would be more effective for passengers to carry weapons on an airplane. Exactly the same as I maintain that the NY Subway shooting of a few years ago could have been easily stopped with minimal loss of life if you had one or two people on board carrying concealed weapons.
You can never legislate behavior in criminals. Certain people are going to act in discord with the laws, regardless of the supposed punishment. Most people simply think that they are invincible, that they are too smart, that they will not be caught. The only way IMO to make a real difference is a two-prong paradigm shift: drastically change enforcement (active enforcement, stop fighting the "stupid stuff", increase the effort and thus the chance of being caught, increase the punishment, etc) as well as pro-active prevention (active air marshalls on every flight, sealed cockpits which cannot be opened into the cabin, possibly increasing the ability of the passengers or the flight crew to defend themselves, etc).
My suggestion for appriate military response? Bomb Afganastan, Packastan, and Iraq (and any other known terrorist nations, whether or not they were connected to this specific attack) into dust. Level their government sectors. Accept a certain (high) level of civilian casualties. Make it known world-wide that we will not tolerate any country who wishes to use a terrorist method against the United States. We will pro-actively defend ourselves against those nations who claim to be actively at war with us. At the same time, shift our public policy to be US-centric instead of world-centric. Get out of the middle east, get out of Israel. Let NATO assume the role of world cop, not the US. (We'll still fall in that role through our role in NATO, but we will not be the "bastion of democracy for the world").
That's prong I of my "two-prong paradigm shift" as detailed above. For prong II, just a few suggestions (not an all-inclusive list):
go to at least two well-armed (knives, air tasers, hand tasers, clubs, kevlar armor, etc) air marshalls on every flight
drastically increase security checkpoints and their enforcment. Go to armed officers (police or private) at every gate
increase the skill level (training, higher pay, etc) of the security guards and all airline personell
arm all flight attendents (a hand taser or etc), provide them with basic self-defense training
provide citizens of the US the ability to carry concealed weapons (on the street, not necessarily on planes) given that they can pass stringent testing (including physical, psychological, and weapon/defense aptitude testing). Make the licensing fee several thousand dollars to pay for the testing. Require renewall every calendar year.
possibly provide provide citizens of the US the ability to carry concealed weapons even on planes given an even stricter certification process. Essentially, use the citizens to defend the country, not just the military or the police. This is one of the best ways to avoid becoming a "police state".
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There is no try at jedinite.com
You state "All I need to do is point to two or more mutually exclusive religions, that alone is proof that one or more are wrong." Correct. But it doesn't prove that all are wrong, or which ones are correct, or which parts of which ones are correct or incorrect.
Perhaps you did not notice that I did not and still have not attempted to prove a Biblical or other religious textual foundation in my previous post, or this one either. Nor have I stated or attempted to push my personal beliefs in this being [except to say that I do not believe the creator of this world to be "petulant"] onto anyone else. I never mentioned even what my own religious preference is, although it is obvious that you have assumed me to be a "Bible thumping Christian." So your attacks aren't necessarily even aimed at the right targets.
You state that the least logical thing I said was "you can't disprove the existance of God, can you?" Actually in this case, the philosophical principle known as Occam's Razor favors the believer. For readers not familiar with this term, Occam's Razor states (in direct translation) that "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." The most commonly qutoted version of this is as follows: "The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions to be true is most likely to be correct."
My view (which is held by many scientists, by the way) is that the way this world operates is easier to comprehend as a "design" than as a result of random, chaotic chance. It requires at least 100X more convoluted and unproved assumptions to be true for life to exist here on our planet without a Creator than for one relatively simple assumption to be true: that a comparatively or completely immortal being with perfect scientific knowledge and technology beyond our current comprehension could set about and succeed in designing, implementing, and populating a world capable of supporting and sustaining life.
So on this basis I repeat that my statement of belief is based on a perfectly rational, but not necessarily provable assumption. You state: Further, you can't prove a negative, calls for someone to do this are empty. No? I can easily prove a negative: that at any point over a critical temperature [which varies by substance] water or other fluids cannot exist as a solid or liquid. Similarly, there are hundreds of expirements that prove that without a design, things tend toward chaos, where life appears to be a uniquely compatible, well balanced design. Well, except where us humans seem to be mucking it up.
I can attack your proof that (sic) the(re) is a god, and in the absence of proof, I think it's fairly obvious which is correct. Again, not logically infallible. This "being" you refer to as God can exist whether or not I can personally and individually prove it to your satisfaction. Or not exist, in spite of all my seeming proofs and/or other evidence. My point is that my own logical debating skills are irrelevant.
So let's get to the heart of the matter... your assertion that "Either your god, alone of all gods, exists, or we could show that at most one religion could be true, and with the many inconsistencies in them all, it's likely that instead of 99% of them being false, it's more likely that 100% are false."Actually, the rational choice is that many or all religions may comprehend and be correct in their understanding of a small part of what will ultimately be proven to be true in the "scientific" sense of the word, but that all cannot be completely correct, because the things they teach are incompatible. Most religions [including most of the major Christian movements, btw] I have studied are not even internally compatible in all of their teachings. Oh, and I have read most of the web pages which I have found dealing with "bible" and other religious textual "inconsistencies" etc. Any rational person should.
So what is your "strong cause to disbelieve the existance of a god" -- that man-made religions do not accurately seem to comprehend the nature of such a being? Shallow proof indeed!
This leads to a final point. You challenged my assertion that "coercion was not been part of the process that led me to be a believer", stating that if you start with a child, telling them something, discouraging them from thinking analytically about it, and from questioning it, of course they're going to believe it.True. The problem with your argument in my case is that I came to this place of belief not as a child, nor from how I was raised, but as an adult with many years of my own experiences and literally tens of thousands of pages, if not well in excess of 100,000 to 200,000 pages of study in many diverse areas. So finally you ask, and although I will not provide all the details here, I will answer your question as to "what proof (tangible) swayed you to make the decision?"
Well, what is fact in my world may be unprovable in yours: that I have had numerous events and experiences occur over many years in my life that cannot be explained by any amount of logical reasoning except one: that a higher power than mankind is for some reason is interested in what is happening to us human creatures on an individual basis. Collectively the likelihood of these events being random chance in just my own life are currently probably at something like one in several billion. [In my book, believing the one in several billion to be random chance -- now that would be irrational!!] So based on Occam's Razor, my belief still stands as a rational option.
So you argue and rage against the Christian Bible, or point out that many so called "religious people" do not behave consistently in line with their beliefs. The fact remains that a bibliography of collected writings or observing imperfect people do not prove anything about "God", unless that Being was exactly and only as the incomplete bibliography or imperfect people (myself included) portray or have written about {him/her/them, whatever} in which case your "proofs" would have more validity.
Oh, and my point in mentioning U.S. Constitution isn't that the U.S. is, was, or ever will be perfect. My point is, was, and continues to be that under U.S law, neither you nor I have to be "rehabilitated" from this specific belief or non-belief in the existence of some type of being we would call a "God" in order to be "rational", useful person. Hence my assertion continues to be that insist that our educational systems insistence on teaching a system of thought based on atheism (belief that there is no God) is just as much a method of brainwashing and dishonest indoctrination as you claim religion to be. And that coercion is more definitely involved in that teaching process than what I was raised with.
"Simply not indoctrinating children with false teaching will allow them to choose on their own..." Like I did? I still do not feel "compelled to create a god to believe in."Instead, I find it much, much easier to acknowledge that I am convinced by my own experiences and learning of the existence of the God (or Gods, as the case could ultimately prove out to be (?)) that is/are already there.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
You say it is beyond proof. Therefore we cannot know.
That only leaves you faith (which is itself no indicator of the veracity of the concept of god).
As faith is outside of the scope of verification (the proof you spoke of -- your argument), that only leaves your "feelings" as justification for any statement in relation to a deity. Feelings are *NOT* knowledge (one can have knowledge *about* feelings, but feeling themselves ARE NOT knowledge) and have no meaning outside of your own subjective framework. [In fact feelings are a direct reflection of your internal "world." They speak to how you relate to the world that is outside (ie, not) you. It is knowledge, proof, and logic that give us information about the outside world. (Unless you are willing to argue that we are omniscient, there has to be a framework by which we gather information, which in turn implies that there is a procedure by which to do it, which also means that we are capable of being both right and wrong. Thereby we must be stringent in how we apply the mechanisms of understanding. You cannot escape the role of proof in *any* claim to knowledge.)] You feelings are only relevant to your own framework. And by that token, anyone else can assert feelings just the opposite of whatever your opinions are and they have exactly the same weight. Therefore any assertions about the *content* of faith are meaningless.
religion is not the root of all evil.
Just the opposite is the case. As I mentioned above, all knowledge is predicated upon a precise structure for the accumulation and verification of information. (This is our Aristotlian Excellence as humans, if you will.)
Religion dictates that you abdicate the stance that knowledge must be validated, in favor of the notion that one can have knowledge outside of this framework. (ie, that feelings/faith are just as valid as proof is) In a sense you negate your mind. I would argue that any system that advocates a surrender of your mind is necessarily evil.
Although this concept can be applied is a somewhat benign fashion (as benign as anything can be that preaches the surrender of one's mind), is can also and more commonly can be applied to causes that are, as you put it, "fanatisism and extremism." But this is not the distortion of "the beliefs religion is truly based upon into groteseque caricatures" but rather the logical conclusion of the religious mindset.
it cannot be proven or disproven.
The onus of proof lay upon the shoulders of he who affirms the positive. You are wildly mistaken in your epistemological agnosticism if you think that disproof is the standard by which knowledge is gained. True it is a functional tool in logic, but as I mentioned before, we are not omniscient. Everything we know, we have to go through a process to acquire. All information doesn't start out as probable. Nor does it start out as possible. ALL KNOWLEDGE HAS TO BE PROVEN.
If you assert a positive, you have to be able to validate your assertion. It is not up to everyone to disprove it to attest to its' veracity. (I don't know that I need to point out the logical fallacy here, but this entails the presumption of truth as a given in order to disprove it.) If you make a positive assertion, you have to be able to back it up.
As such it is incorrect to say it cannot be proven or disproven. Rather, it is proper to say "it cannot be proven."
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
Quite right. Therefore, let us look at some of your statements.
"religion as a whole is believing that there are higher powers than mortal mankind"
I think you are forcing your conception of religion onto others' beliefs. There is nothing intrinsic in religion that mandates "higher power" or "immortality." (When you state "mortal mankind" the use of the modifier, instead of just saying mankind, indicates that you think there to be a component of religious belief that speaks to immortality.) I'm sure your belief system includes both of these concepts, but they are not universal.
Instead, I suggest that you look to the epistemological components of religion for a true understanding of what the concept entails. (While there are indeed metaphysical components to religious belief, these are not universal, and I will argue, derivative of epistemological stances.) Religion exists primarily as a stance on knowledge. To be more precise, all religion is centered around the tenant that FAITH (in one manifestation or another) is a viable means of ascertaining knowledge. There is nothing that dictates that one must believe in an afterlife (although most do) or a higher power (though most do) or in immortality (though some do). All of the particular will vary from religion to religion. The unifying aspect is the dependence upon faith as a means to knowledge.
"any given religion is a attempt by people to put rational language to that belief."
Quite to the contrary!!! Aside from certain apologist sects, most of the world's religions oppose rationality to faith. (Or, to put it another way: Faith exists outside of the scope of rationality.) What perhaps you intended to say is that "religion is a attempt by people to rationalize that belief." Of course, some would argue that this is a disservice to religion as it attempts to undermine faith which should sit outside of logic and rational though.
that people may have an internally and externally consistent beliefs
Oh, man... I don't even know where to begin with this one. CodeShark, please don't take the following as a flame (nor any of this post). It is intended in the spirit of continued discussion.
As I mentioned above, the religion is based upon the concept of faith. This sits at direct odds to proof, logic, and rationality, our "tools" for interacting with the "external" world. (if you need discussion of this, either see my post above or respond to this post.) As such, if you make a claim to faith, your internal and external interactions are immediately disjoint. If you accept the notion that there are means by which you can gain knowledge that are outside the scope of rationality, you are creating a schism between the two worlds.
do not believe God to be petulant in any way shape or form, else that being would not be a God whom we could believe in
This is a *most* telling statement. This indicates to me that your "belief" in god is nothing other than caprice. This tells me that you put absolutely no truth in the concept of god outside your own desires.
Let me put this another way: Let us for argument's sake say that there is a god, but it *is* petulant. For argument's sake, let us also say that we can prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt. You say that you cannot believe in a god like this (and you *are* making a statement about belief here). You statement basically boils do to you saying that you want to believe in what you want to believe in and that this belief sits independent of everything other than your desire.
I cannot thank you more for making such a brilliant statement that illustrates to a "T" what the true nature of faith is all about: my feelings; my desires; my whims.
being in a particular type of building does not define a person as being a cultist
No, but abdicating the use of one's mind and one's rationality DOES.
But to look at this statement another way -- It is not random chance that dictates one's presence in a church (or other building). It is a volitional act that belies purpose. We *can* infer that one's presence in a building speaks to one's purpose (and beliefs).
you are free to disbelieve, but I am also free to believe, and practice my beliefs
I absolutely agree
so long as they remain within the constraints of societal law. Most "cults" do not remain within those constraints.
I suggest that you re-examine your definition of cults. Is not a group of people a "society?" What if a bunch of people moved to an (island/other world/Jonestown, Guyana) and set up a social structure where drinking laced Kool-Aid was acceptable? That would be within the "constraints of societal law," yet somehow I think you would still wish to call them a cult.
I suggest that you rethink your definition of cult to something other than a group that behaves in a manner you find unacceptable.
You just committed another logical fallacy by excluding the possibility that rational people can also be religious
Religious people can act in a manner which is rational, but that isn't the same thing as *being* rational. You seem to forget that religion is predicated upon an epistemological tenet that is at direct odds with logic and rationality. No matter how much you try to rationalize your "faith" it can never be rational.
brainwashing and dishonest indoctrination to ... teach that atheism is somehow more rational and therefore "good", "right", or "normal" than religious belief
Your philosophical relativism here is unsettling. But like most Americans these days, you are a theistic agnostic. And I shouldn't be too surprised at this statement in light of the fact that you accept that your belief system is based upon caprice.
But suffice it to say that it is impossible to prove god (if something exists outside of the scope of human understanding (in another realm) then it is OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING), claims to knowledge of god are predicated on an abdication of rational thought, and therefore *are* less rational than the absence of belief in a god. Teaching religion as "right" or "normal" are up to you, but please don't corrupt the concept of rationality to justify your belief system.
told you that it was my "God-given duty to help you get out of the building alive." Would you so glibly accuse me of retreating into fantasy then?
Please do not insult me by trying to reduce what I say to a "glib" remark. I would never assert and adherence to logic and rationality "glibly." To make such a comment, you attempt to marginalize those that do not agree with you.
But, I would thank you for your help in getting me out of the building. I would think you to be deluded in some aspects of your thought. But I would appreciate your effort.
And I would hope that everyone would offer their help, not because it has been dictated from upon high (especially in light of your admission that your belief system is contingent upon your whim, and who knows what that might translate into), but rather I would hope that your offer of assistance comes from your profound respect for humanity and human life. I would hope that you have such high respect for your own life and your compassionate offer comes from that wellspring.
promote terrorism by mingling religion in with it are sick
Uh,... cart before the horse. If the criminals are who we think they are, they were religious first, and use terrorism to express their beliefs, NOT, as you suggest that they are terrorists who use religion to justify their belief. If you think the latter, you have gravely misunderstood the threat these people pose.
least partially false on the basis of logic: you can't disprove the existence of God, can you?
From this statement I will have to infer that you have a rudimentary, if any, understanding of what logic is. The onus of proof lay upon the shoulders of he who affirms the positive. One DOES *NOT* have to disprove god. The positive assertion is that "god exists." This is what *must* be proved. Anyone who claims god exists carries the burden of proof to their claim.
To further clarify, something does not become knowledge until it is proved. All facts start out as un-true (which is *not* to say false -- perhaps it is better to use the Latin negation "a" and say, for this discussion, "a-true.") It is by a specific application of the mental tools of logic that something can be escalated from "a-true" to "possible" to "probable" to "true." (I simplify *greatly* here for the purpose of discussion.)
Any assertion that you make, you *have* to be able to back it or your words have no more meaning than the following: Wkjj sadfdsi sakljs klkjerlk. (ie, they are reduced to nonsense. Although it may sound like you are communicating something, it carries little more meaning than a Parrot that has learned to mimic speech.)
This one message is the essence and goal of almost every major and minor religious system of thought.
I invite you to do an extensive study on the history of religion. While you will find the modern manifestations to fit this bill, this is more of a product of modern (last 700 or so odd years) times than of the religions themselves.
[Oh, and don't for one second argue that religion has a monopoly on helping one's fellow man or morals or any of that nonsense.]
So if you don't mind, I'll try to become a better person based on my beliefs,
I have no problem with that. I think you are misguided, but normally I wouldn't bother to correct you. (I only say something here as you posted to a public forum, obviously interested in a discussion.)
All I can suggest is that...you at least learn to do a better, more logical job of it
Might I suggest that you take your own words to heart?
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
I don't need to. All I need to do is point to two or more mutually exclusive religions, that alone is proof that one or more are wrong.
That cannot be further from the truth. At best you can negate only one of the two positions, which still does not speak to the existance of god.
The proper issue, is that it is not up to you to disprove *anything.* Anyone who makes a positive claim or assertion is the one who shoulders the burden of proof. It is not a valid thought until this burden is met. To accept the fact that you must disprove it, presumes that you first accept it as true. (I understand that you spoke to this issue, but you should just stop at this point -- nothing more needs to be said.)
I can't prove there ISN'T a god, because your definition will change to suit the moment.
This is not why. You cannot prove that there is not a god, because, as you put it, "you can't prove a negative." To say that someone will just change their definition is besides the point, and insulting to the holder of the views. They may very well have a fixed understanding, and it is a disservice to automatically presume otherwise.
it's likely that instead of 99% of them being false, it's more likely that 100% are false
This statement is false. Unless you can show that there is a fundamental unifying tenet that is false, you cannot make this assumption. The probability that any individual statement is false bears no relation on the proability that any other statement is also false. (Unless you can prove and interdependency between them that relates to the veracity in question.)
The real issue is that fundamentally they all share the same logical error, so the probability of any (and all) being wrong is 1.
The burden of proof is yours, because you're asking me to accept the existance of something for which there is no direct evidence.
Yes. But, remove the "for which there is no direct evidence" statement. If there is direct evidence, it does not negate the burden of proof - just simplifies/minimizes it.
all it takes is one inconsistency to disprove that it was directly passed down as the word of god
Once again, I think you have just missed the mark. One inconsistency proves that there are errors. Doesn't speak to god passing it down on high. That would first take proving god, that he can talk to man, that he has, and a whole host of other issues. You get the idea...
I wasn't preaching athiesm. For one, it's not a codified set of beliefs, it's the freedom from a set of religious beliefs.
Reading this, I am ashamed I did not state this in any of my posts above this. WELL SAID!!!
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
You made an assertion. We expect you to back it up. You are the one who has a proof to make. Using Occam's Razor to try to duck your responsibility is philosophically corrupt.
My view (which is held by many scientists, by the way)
FOR SHAME! One would have thought that you would understand that the adherents to a statement have nothing to do with its' veracity. Trying to puff up your position by saying "many smart people agree with me" is a weak thing to do. Since you broach it, I *am* a scientist and I can find many more that *don't* hold your view. That does not change a damn thing. If you believe in what you say you should let your argument stand on its' own ground.
the way this world operates is easier to comprehend as a "design" than as a result of random, chaotic chance
Yes this is absolutely true. Our comprehension is contingent upon being able to project "order" on the world around us. In this sense "order"is a tool of cognition. Like "chance" is. But to project your cognitive tools onto reality is to fundamentally misunderstand epistemology. As a product of this you anthropomorphize the universe (it reflects the order structure that you use for comprehending it, doesn't it? Therefore there must be a consciousness that brought this order to bear?????) and absolutely misunderstand the nature of reality.
Now, there is "order" in the universe (I hesitate to use the word order here as it has been tainted by its use in the above paragraph. Just keep in mind that I am using at least two senses of the word, one of which is derivative of the other (and is fallible). But that is another lengthy discussion.) but it has little to do with cognition other than being the basis for it.
The "order" in the universe has much more to do with the fact that things exist. If something exists, it exists as that which is it. This in turn simultaneously implies that a thing is not that which it is not. In logic we call this the "law of identity."
For a thing to be that which it is, means that it is a summation of all of the characteristics that it is. (A characteristic, by nature, implies a delimiting or differentiating factor, which further delimits all that is not that thing.) Its characteristics include all aspects of a "thing" including its behavior/reaction to other "things." (ie, part of the definition of a "thing" includes its gravity, its electo-chemical reactions, etc.)From this follows that a "thing" has certain reactions in certain situations, and not those reactions in not those situations. This means that a 'thing' will perform in certain ways and not in others.
[I have just given you the key to all knowledge in that one idea. All else follows.]
From this I presume that you can "do the math" and figure that the universe is a *highly* ordered place, because "things" do what is in their nature and not what is not in their nature. (I really shouldn't say "highly ordered" as there is no degree for this kind of order: There is just order. Something could *NOT* act in a manner that was not ordered as that would negate what it was and therefore it wouldn't exist.)
[Let me state CLEARLY here that this "order" I speak of is *NOT* the issue of entropy. When we speak of entropy, we are speaking about a different kind of order (now do you see why I hesitated to use the term). In fact, entropy is one of the many characteristics of a "thing" that form its identity and is a function of the order of the "universe".]
The universe has order, because it exists.
Your retreat into Occam's Razor attempts to side step the issue by claiming that there is order in the universe. But all order is derived from the shear fact of existence.
In fact Occam's razor opens up *way* more questions for you than it answers. You see order, and say that the order must have come from some where. But this begs the question of where did *that* order (god) come from.
[As I will have to presume that you do not know from the context of your previous statements/posts, this is a varriation of St. T.'s prime mover argument. (Infinite regression) Of course his solution was a sloppy one at best, that violates the law of identity, and, as we have seen, all thought is predicated on the law of identity, thereby nullifying his "solution." You don't need something "outside" the universe to explain the universe.]
You can not escape into Occam's Razor.
belief is based on a perfectly rational, but not necessarily provable assumption
Belief by its nature is NOT rational -- That is, a belief can be rational or non-rational. Perhaps you meant to say "faith" here. But as we have seen, faith is opposed to rationality (I of course mean in an epistemological sense here).
Now, just to clarify a side note or tangent: There is a difference between thinking something as possible, probable, or true. I can think it possible that there are little green men on the moon, but that doesn't make it probable or even true. I only make this clarifiaction becasue people don't bother to differentiate between the different states. People think that because it is *possible* that there is life "out there" that it must be true. That is wrong. I think alot of the same assumptions about religious beliefs do the same thing.
can easily prove a negative: that at any point over a critical temperature [which varies by substance] water or other fluids cannot exist as a solid or liquid.
This just clearly demonstrates that you have no understanding what a positive affirmation is. This is *not* a negative.
things tend toward chaos
Chaos, order (in this context), probability are tools of cognition. Of course if you blur the lines between concepts you can prove anything.
This "being" you refer to as God can exist whether or not I can personally and individually prove it to your satisfaction. Or not exist,
Yes, but until you prove otherwise, it is *NOT* proved that god *does* exist. You then do not turn around and automatically assume that god exits. You don't assume that everythign you can think of is true. You have to prove first to have any validity.
in spite of all my seeming proofs and/or other evidence.
WHERE!?!?!? I only see you ducking the issue over and over again. You are asked to prove your statement. You respond that you don't have to. BULLOCKS!!!! Either offer some proof, or SHUT UP!!!
(uh,... sorry about the shouting, but dammit if you are going to say something, then back it up and stop skirting the issue.)
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
My point is that if the mass of the fuel can be contained, it would have more momentum. As you watched the videos, you saw the jet go in one side of the building, and a spray of burning fuel go out the other. And it went out all over the place. My theory is that fewer chunks of flaming destruction would have been less trouble than wide-sprayed flaming destruction.
True enough, I do not know that this would have been the savior of the building. And I think you are correct about the running the finite element modeling tests. However, I think that fuel cell (foam filled tank) test have already been run by various insurance companies, and the results were that the fire was much less spread / much more contained.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
What happened there, was too sad. Please don't fall in hate. If that happens, the terrosist have won.
Ouch. But thanks. Yeah, I did flub a bit there.
:)
"instead of 99% of them being false, it's more likely that 100% are false"
Right, if they aren't linked, the probability isn't either. Like if you flip 99 heads, the next one is no more likely to be heads, or tails, than the first.
Of course, this assumes an unbiased coin. And I was tying to say that but it didn't come out right. If all religions you have examined are flawed, then it might be worth seeing if they are linked. Such as checking a coin producing 99 heads, before accepting it as a statistical longshot.
"it is a disservice to automatically presume otherwise."
Yes, bad again. I was seeing in Code Shark the echos of everyone similar I'd talked to, and did attribute to him things which may not be accurate.
"But, remove the 'for which there is no direct evidence' statement. If there is direct evidence, it does not negate the burden of proof - just simplifies/minimizes it."
Good point.
"I think you have just missed the mark. One inconsistency proves that there are errors."
Well, I was trying to show that it's easy to prove there's a problem with the statments "God is omnipotent" and "God directed the creation of the bible". But, I realize that only some sects believe the later.
But, if the two statements were linked "God is omnipotent and directed the writing of the bible" would a single error not disprove that?
The root of a lot of my problems with it is that I didn't want to just say "No, YOU prove that he exists", I wanted to explain why it fell upon him to do so. Oh well, lofty intentions...
"Reading this, I am ashamed I did not state this in any of my posts above this. WELL SAID!!!"
Thank you. I'm just annoyed I didn't think of such a concise summary years ago.
I followed with interest your various responses to your "full metal jacket" post elsewhere and thought you might be interested in the quotes below...I really believe we are going to use a nuke before this is all over to show everybody thet they mess with the USA on our own soil at their peril. This comes from today's "talking heads" on TV (from www.drudgereport.com), I've posted it elsewhere if you want to join the discussion again in another thread:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this morning refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in America's coming battle with terrorists.
Appearing on ABC's THIS WEEK, Rumsfeld was asked if a possible tactical nuclear strike would be used.
"Can we rule out the use of nuclear weapons?" questioned ABC's Sam Donaldson.
RUMSFELD: You know, that subject--we have an amazing accomplishment that's been achieved on the part of human beings. We've had this unbelievably powerful weapon, nuclear weapons, since what 55 years now plus, and it's not been fired in anger since 1945. That's an amazing accomplishment. I think it reflects a sensitivity on the part of successive presidents that they ought to find as many other ways to deal with problems as is possible.
DONALDSON: I'll have to think about your answer. I don't think the answer was no.
RUMSFELD: The answer was that that we ought to be very proud of the record of humanity that we have not used those weapons for 55 years. And we have to find as many ways possible to deal with this serious problem of terrorism.
And if, Sam, you think of the loss of human life on Tuesday and then put in your head the reality that a number of countries today have other so-called asymmetrical threat capabilities--ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, cyber warfare--these are the kinds of things that are used in this era the 21st century. And a germ warfare attack anywhere in the world would bring about losses of lives not in the thousands but in the millions.
The best example of this type of thinking was best expressed in the part of a post which stated "Religious people can act in a manner which is rational, but that isn't the same thing as *being* rational. You seem to forget that religion is predicated upon an epistemological tenet that is at direct odds with logic and rationality. No matter how much you try to rationalize your "faith" it can never be rational. Hmmm... [Being sarcastic for the moment] Assuming you are using the definition of "predicated" as equalling 'the basis for') Try this link to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, which states that epistemology is "the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity", circa 1856. So "religion" -- which has existed for thousands of years-- is predicated upon the tenets of a system of thought for a word less than 150 years old....
Look at your statement that "faith can never be rational", yet scientists have "faith" of sorts in claiming that they understand "the truth" until a better theory is proposed which lowers the cognitive dissonance which they feel as they attempt to comprehend and project their understanding on the observed reality around them. By extension then, I could argue that scientists cannot be considered to be rational because what they believe at any given time is a moving target.
However, I make no such argument, because reason and rationality are not diametrically opposed to all beliefs everywhere, but are opposed to things which can be proven to be "not true". For example, it has been substantially proven that most diseases are the result of microbial infections, not "acts of God", therefore it is not reasonable or rational to assume otherwise. Therefore, my reference to "scientists" was not to buck up my argument by saying "other smart people think like I do...", but to point out that even in the scientific community, the jury is still out, because there are leading researchers in nearly all fields of study which dispute the existence of God and other equally qualified, leading researchers in those same fields who find the existence of God to be as equally evidenced by some of the same data. (damn-- wish I was at home with enough spare time to collect all the URLs and book titles which I've read that argue these points better than I do...) So is my pointing out the existence of both viewpoints in fact "shameful" or just honest acknowledgement?
The discussion about the "law of identity" was interesting, because as far as I can tell, nothing in it precludes an object from having certain properties as a result of design. In other words, without arguing for a specific religious viewpoint, I can point out logically that the statements that "all order is derived from the shear(sic) fact of existence" and "The universe has order, because it exists" do not exclude the distinct possibility that some or all of that order in the universe may exist in a somewhat stable manner because that is how it was designed." For example, wouldn't it make more sense in terms of the idea of "natural selection" for the evolutionary ladder to have included more possibilities for cross-species or even "cross sub-species" reproduction? Instead, most crosses up until recently have been genetic dead ends (mules are sterile, etc.). What I am calling the more recent "crosses" are mostly in the realm of bioengineering, in which the mutation was designed by scientists who only succeed after alot of experimentation before which their design(s) did not work. (Round-up Ready soybeans, etc.)
The assumption that I depend on negating the negation --"God exists because I can point out that no-one has proved that he doesn't" to prove that I or other people with religious beliefs are rational is your construction, not mine. Instead, my statement is that in order to be considered fully rational, the non-believer must be able successfully attack every experience of any religious person at any point in history (including my own) with a credible, "more likely to be true explanation" for those experiences than that given by the person relating the experience, because if even one religious experience is left standing with a more credible, rational explanation, then belief cannot be used as a disqualification from a person's inclusion in the group of people purported to be "rational beings".
So...my guess is that the collective objections to my post are that I haven't provided my own personal experiences and logical reasonings based on those experiences so that they can be so attacked. [Is that what y'all are fishing for? Perhaps I should and will, but in another forum, at another time. If so, fix the email address and send me an email address offline, so that when I do you can take your best shots...] In this forum of news about things that matter, hoever, I conclude by stating that I do not push my beliefs on you or anyone else. I merely state that I can hold those beliefs and continue to be as equally rational and reasonable human being as those of you who so loudly trumpet yout own disbelief(s) as evidence of your own perceived superiority.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The point here being that if you make an assertion, you do so on the basis that you A) have a reason for doing so, and B) can validate that reason. Outside of this, any statement you make is nothing other than whim. You do a great disservice to any rational thought by trying to equate the standing of a whim to that of a validated concept. If you make a claim, you should be able to back it up. Merely being able to vocalize a thought does NOT grant it veracity.
[That being said, it is not just statements about religion that bear a responsibility to validate them: *ANYTHING* that comes out of your mouth (that is: anything you assert) carries with it some degree of responsibility for proof. If I say "the cat is on the mat" I carry the responsibility to prove it. This issue just arises here, as religion seems to be the one subject that people universally avoid this responsibility for.]
So "religion" -- which has existed for thousands of years-- is predicated upon the tenets of a system of thought for a word less than 150 years old....
This is the Stupidest thing I have ever heard. Are you trying to tell me that chairs never existed until someone came up with the word "chair"????
I cannot tell why you bothered to quote a dictionary if you aren't going to trouble with understanding the word. The only reason you cite the dictionary is to reference the date of origin for the term. Here is another word: Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Your dictionary gives a date of 1944. From your argument, life existed without DNA until the term was created in 1944.
All I see here is yet another attempt at dodging the issue. If you can not address any of the points, you make a bogus reference to the dictionary to disguise the fact that you have nothing valid to say.
yet scientists have "faith" of sorts in claiming that they understand "the truth"
This is an entire discussion in epistemology which is outside of the scope of this discussion (read: about 800 words I don't feel like typing right now), but this *IS NOT* an example of faith. YOu corrupt the term in order to bolster your position. Scientists have very specific means and procedures by which they validate information and produce statements of probability. They do *NOT* acquire or validate information by faith.
lowers the cognitive dissonance which they feel
You further bolster my position here by making this statement. To you it seems that knowledge has much more to do with subjective states, and seems to derive itself from caprice and feelings. [I invite you to look at one of my previous responses in which you clearly stated that you belief in god was directly related to traits you desired to see in said god. You belief state was a function of your whims being satisfied.] The rational person does not base veracity on feeling.
the jury is still out
The number of adherents to any position do NOT determine the veracity thereof. There is no jury that determines truth. Your argument is that not all (smart) people agree, therefore the truth cannot be determined. That of course, is beside the point. One of the interesting aspects to cognition is that we are capable of being right. But this, in turn, implies that we are capable of being wrong. For any proposition, there will be some people that are right and some that are wrong, and the numbers on either side or the backgrounds of the individuals have nothing to do with which side is which side.
wish I was at home with enough spare time to collect all the URLs and book titles which I've read that argue these points better than I do
Look, if I am carrying on a discussion with you, I don't give a damn what Tom So-and-so said. If I wanted to talk to Tom So-and-so, I would talk to Tom So-and-so. If I am in discussion with you, it is you I am talking with and I would hope that you would have to courage of your convictions and understanding of them to be able to stand behind them. *YOU* are saying things. One would hope that you say them because they reflect some understanding that you have. If you cannot back them up (and have to tell me other people will do it for you) then that tells me that they really aren't your ideas. At best one has learned to parrot someone else's ideas.
So is my pointing out the existence of both viewpoints in fact "shameful" or just honest acknowledgement?
But, it ISN'T "honest acknowledgement." You make it sound like you made a random statement of fact like "It is a sunny day today." Don't try to disguise your actions like this. You specifically mentioned this in the context of your larger argument. It pertained to a point you were making and you attempted to use it to bolster your case. As such, it should be evaluated within that context. It is not the point that there is dissention in the scientific community over the notion of god (something I would agree with you on), but rather that you were using this statement to say something about your argument.
The discussion about the "law of identity" was interesting,
Thank you for saying that. I really would have been interested in a much deeper discussion, that wasn't so overly simplistic, but that would have taken us too far off of the path and, dammit! I *am* lazy and didn't want to type the extra 14 pages I could see myself spouting.
But I felt the vastly simplified discussion was important as it shows that there is order in the universe and the order is a function of existence, and as such needs no further explanation.
nothing in it precludes an object from having certain properties as a result of design
Well, yes there does, but that is another discussion entirely. Let me address your original point (and try to stay some-what on topic) that order belies purpose and therefore Occam's razor tells us there must be a god. If order is derived from the identity and existence, then it needs no other explanation. In fact, to presume that there is a "design" implies purpose (which then presumes that there is that which has purpose: god) which is a whole host of presumptions on top of the original. WHat I was trying to point out to you here is that Occam's razor, which you invoked, works *against* this argument for god as it is the *more* complex explanation with the most assumptions to it.
wouldn't it make more sense in terms of the idea of "natural selection" for the evolutionary ladder to have included more possibilities for cross-species or even "cross sub-species" reproduction?
Okay, this is *way* beside the point, but I don't think so. Keep in mind how specialized each creature is. They each evolved in relation to *specific* set of circumstances. The idea of one set of survival traits working in another creature ignores that creatures specific traits. It is like putting gills on a bear. It just doesn't make evolutionary sense. (However, for some reason, randomly grafting traits from one creature to another *does* seem to make sense in the world of Japanese Anime. Go figure.)
the non-believer must be able successfully attack every experience of any religious person at any point in history (including my own) with a credible, "more likely to be true explanation"
But, can't you see here that you assume the truth of your conclusion first, and tell the world to prove you wrong. That just is not how reason works. If you have a truth value you wish to evaluate, you have to prove that it *IS* true. You can't assume that it is.
And by saying that I (or anyone else) has to travel back through time (metaphorically) and visit every single experience that every single person has had, and prove that it IS NOT a proof of god/religion/whatever is ABSOLUTELY WRONG and ABSURD. You presume your own conclusion in your argument. This is shoddy thinking.
What needs to happen (and I have said this 20 times) is that if you make an assertion, then you are asserting something, you are making a claim to knowledge, you claim to know that something is true and *not* something is *not* true, you are stating that you have specific reasons for why you claim all of this, and therefore you should take responsibility for your statements and back them up with some validation.
disqualification from a person's inclusion in the group of people purported to be "rational beings"
Like I said before, a religious person can act in a manner which is rational, but that isn't the same thing as *being* rational. Let me put it another way. Let's presume that there is a guy named Tom who is a perfectly functional member of society that holds down some job (oh, let us call him a "futures trader" because that involves some degree of complex thinking) and otherwise seems very well adept at everything. However, Tom thinks that little green men on the moon tell him everything and inform all of his decisions. Would you call him rational? All of his actions (like trading at his job) are done in a very rational manner. From the outside, he seems very rational. I get the impression that you (from your statements) would call him rational. This is where I disagree with you. I say that because all of his actions are predicated upon the assumption of the little green men, that, although his actions may seem rational, he isn't.
the collective objections to my post are that I haven't provided my own personal experiences and logical reasonings
Personal experiences, no. Logical reasonings, yes. IF you make an assertion, I want to hear *your* reasons for why you make that claim. After all, when you speak, you are speaking about *your* "reasonings". You are saying that you have a perspective and you *have* reasons for that perspective. You wouldn't have spoken (typed) up if you didn't think you had something to say.
so that they can be so attacked
Attacked?? That is a little strong don't you think? I hope that you never got the impression that this went beyond, oh,... let's say a "boisterous discussion." ;)
I conclude by stating that I do not push my beliefs on you or anyone else
But you do make public statements which carries the implicit understanding that you are opening your beliefs to discussion. Or let me state it another way: I only engage you here because you have indicated your willingness to be engaged. I do so in the spirit of public discourse, and I presume you to do the same.
as evidence of your own perceived superiority
Nice little dig. By which of course you imply that we have ego delusions which drive the content of our arguments and therefore that taints anything which we might say. Rather than address issues, it is always easier to make an ad hominem attack, which the less informed would easily mistake for a valid argument. I had up to this point presumed that, however misinformed you happened to be, that you were interested in engaging in a legitimate discussion. It seems I might have been wrong.
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
Yes, we have been having a somewhat boisterous discussion. By the way, I was being sarcastic when I mentioned the date for the word "epistemology", and pointing out that this idea of atheism is a somewhat recent phenomena. Stupid in a debate perhaps and so acknowledged.
"as evidence of your own perceived superiority" was not meant as a dig. But your whole post is based on the position which you are defending which is that "I am rational because I don't believe a particular thing even if I have no proof of my position other than logic, where you are irrational because you believe in something you haven't proved to me but for which you claim to have similarly well-reasoned logic!" Doesn't this assume a superior/inferior attitude?
Last point: given that most of the scientific arguments which I have heard to say "there is no God" are currently known as "theories" for which there is some but not conclusive evidence (and exclusive-->i.e precluding Deity), and that most of the philosophic discussions that argue the same thing do so by logical exclusions, usually by denying the possibility of that religious experiences can be real without conclusive evidence that they are not.
So try Occam's razor on a few of my personal experiences:
- I have seen
- a typhoon class storm dissipated,
- multiple cancers driven into remission for more than a dozen years until a mother finished raising a specific child (in fulfillment of a religious promise),
- more than once times travelled long distances (10 to +20 miles) by following a specific type of feeling to a previously unknown destination, arriving just in time to offer critical assistance to someone I had never met-- an individual who had been "praying" for assistance,
- detected liars in front of a jury,
- understood the unspoken thoughts of a person who I did not know very well with sufficiently accuracy to give them another option besides suicide, and
- seen healthy, normal infants born when the medical doctors insisted that the only possibility was brain damage
-- all as a result of what I would presume you would call "religious experiences". I've had nearly twenty years to try and figure some of these things out, and still have found no other reasonable and rational explanations for how they could have occurred, other than the simple one: the existence of a being or (for the sake of logical inclusion) beings who fit most people's definition of God....Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I noted that "disclaimer" in the original text, but at the same time you quoted a lengthy passage (longer than any other I have noted you responded to) and then proceed to engage in commentary. I could not "write this off" as a joke as that would be contrary to your manner in responding to these issues. Sarcasm aside, it *was* being used to bolster a position.
that this idea of atheism is a somewhat recent phenomena
But it is not. Our *modern* expression of it is, but atheism itself isn't. Keep in mind the meaning of the word (and it doesn't matter when we applied a token to concept -- the concept is more universal than the token). Look at the root "theism." Properly understood, theism means "having an active belief in a god(s)." That means that anyone that makes claim to knowledge of or belief in a deity of any form is acting in a manner which would be called theism. Now look at the prefix "a" which, as you may or may not understand, represents a negation (not).
From this the understanding, "atheism" indicates one who does *NOT* have an active belief in god. Please be very clear on this: "NOT AN ACTIVE BELIEF." Notice it is not "has disbelief" (which is only a sub-set of the members of the set of (not)theists). This means that not only would the people labeled by the modern/popular use of the term (what you might say about me) are included in it but also is *anyone* who does not profess to a belief.
From this you can see that for as long as there have been those that have believed in god, there has been atheism. (Please note: I said "has been atheism" not "has been people that don't believe in god." The two statements are NOT equal. The second issue is one for historical accuracy.)
In fact, one might be able to argue that atheism has, in fact, existed prior to theism (as it requires no active belief), but I think that to be rather silly as, until there is theism, there is nothing to be (not)theism, so the term is somewhat meaningless.
"I am rational because I don't believe a particular thing
I invite you to reexamine your conception of rationality. One is not rational just because one does or doesn't believe in something -- One is rational because one thinks in a rational manner.
even if I have no proof of my position
Okay, I have said this like 25 times now, but I DO NOT *HAVE* TO HAVE PROOF OF ANYTHING (in this case). This is why I went into some length in discussion of epistemological principles.
We human beings are fallible. WE ARE NOT OMNISCIENT. We don't automatically know things. We have specific manners in which we gain and validate knowledge. There are plenty of ways that aren't valid for gaining knowledge (they either lead directly to falsehood or are indirectly false by producing answers which may appear right, but not for valid reasons (therefore the answer truly isn't correct)).
We DO NOT just automatically presume everything is true until proven otherwise.
I feel I have to repeat the previous statement as this is something that just doesn't seem to be sinking in: We DO NOT just automatically presume everything is true until proven otherwise. If you need me to state it again, just to make it clear, *please* let me know and I will gladly reiterate.
Rather, we have to validate *everything* before we accept it a fact. You say I have no proof of my position (or I don't have a disproof of yours). That is just flat out invalid thinking. I am telling you that everything you claim *has* to be validated in order for you to claim it. (Otherwise you are making empty meaningless statements. They are disguised as if they had meaning and could convey information, but are in fact void of both.)
I put it to you yet again that the onus of proof lay upon the shoulders of he who affirms the positive.
other than logic,
Uh, what kind of alternate universe do you live in inside your head where you have something other than logic to validate rational thought? (HINT: outside of the scope of logic you have no rationality.)
where you are irrational because you believe in something you haven't proved to me but for which you claim to have similarly well-reasoned logic!"
Oh, you can claim that you have "similarly well-resoned logic" all you want -- IT DOEN'T MAKE IT TRUE.
You can claim that you are Napoleon all you want and that isn't true either.
similarly well-reasoned logic????
Where would I have *ever* indicated that? (You are putting words in my mouth to bolster your position.) I have done nothing but demonstrate that A) your arguments have *NO* similarity to mine, B) are not "well-reasoned" and C) are contrary to logic. In fact, if *ANYTHING* I have demonstrated that your arguments are NOT formed by rational, logical thought, and are rather a direct product of your desire to retain them.
You clearly stated previously that your belief state was in direct relation to the occurrence of characteristics you find desirable. (A point that didn't escape my notice that you ducked.) Your beliefs are based upon caprice, and any attempt to clothe them in the trappings of rational thought, does disservice to the entire concept of rationality.
Doesn't this assume a superior/inferior attitude?
No it does not. And to even suggest such indicates a desire to attempt to discredit my position by indicated it is derivative of hubris.
I would suggest that the proper way to evaluate any position is on the merits of the arguments themselves, and not any secondary concerns like the speaker or the intents of said speaker.
I *very* much want to keep this discussion focused on the content of the argument. While I don't mind a little name-calling (in fact, in any spirited discussion, I would expect it in the form of "playful jabs" between advocates, with all advocates understanding it as such), I do not want to allow a discussion to derail (and perhaps degenerate) because of it.
The point being that I have advanced a consistent position, backed up every one of my arguments, and attempted to demonstrate that they derive from a consistent logical framework. I have gone to great lengths to show that the positions I hold, I do not hold lightly. They are not whim. They are not half-thought concepts I just digested as a child without ever bothering to examine and validate them. They are "well-reasoned" and "logical."*
*[Okay, if they *weren't* well-reasoned and logical, they *why* would I hold them? Do you know anyone who says "I believe X to be true, but I know that is false or against everything else I know to be true"? (Outside of religious types, who, for the most part are the one class who gladly accept ideas as true that they know to be against rationality. ie, "God exists outside logic." or in other words (The Bard's) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.") One doesn't hold a position *nor* advance it without believing in it.]
If you think that having the courage of your convictions is somehow equated with a "superior attitude," then so be it, but I would have to think that this represents a misunderstanding on your part.
scientific arguments which I have heard to say "there is no God"
Well, once again, primary issue is to prove that there *IS* a god, not to prove that there *isn't.*
One, can, however, in the light of statements proffered to prove god, demonstrate the errors in said statements. But this is not proving that there is no god, but proving that arguments that say there is a god are flawed. There is a difference. The burden of proof is still on those who affirm the positive.
precluding Deity
This is the same error, over and over again. One doesn't have to disprove god. One has to prove god. You don't presume that what you *want* to be true is true. *YOU PROVE IT.*
usually by denying the possibility of that religious experiences can be real without conclusive evidence that they are not
And again, it is not anyone's responsibility to prove something isn't religious -- It is the responsibility of the person that claims it to be religious to prove that it is.
Oh, and keep in mind that if you attempt to use "religious experiences" as a proof of god, you are not entitled to assume that god exists. That is what is known as circular reasoning.
Goes like this:
      Therefore god must exist.
You just run around in a logical circle unable to prove anything. That will not be allowed.
So try Occam's razor
Before I even look at your list, remember that if you assume the notion that god exists, that opens up a whole holy host (pun intended) of new questions. The idea behind Occam's is to *simplify* the explanation, not create one that begs new questions.
But that being said, I can address each of your points to indicate that one doesn't need to go to more complex explanations. I will try to be brief:
a typhoon class storm dissipated
And typhoon class storms *don't* dissipate on their own? Just because one happens to stop at a time that is fortuitous for you doesn't mean that is *why* it dissipated -- it just means that the two events are temporally related.
You would have a lot of trouble trying to justify that your needs/desires are what caused it to stop.
And you say nothing about all of the typhoons that didn't dissipate.
Look, this falls under synchronicity, which rather than reiterating on each point, let me address at the end of the discussion.
multiple cancers driven into remission for more than a dozen years until a mother finished raising a specific child (in fulfillment of a religious promise)
And there have been plenty of times when cancer didn't go into remission when prayed for. Are you saying that these people were less pious or god loved them less??? That is proof alone that prayer is not the cause.
Let me add to this that I know of *many* cases where a person with a terminal condition (not just cancer) has survived long enough to see something happen. And few of these have been religious promises. Most have come from a profound love that drove a willingness to fight. The human body is an interesting thing, and to say that the mind is divorced from it, is to misunderstand the mind. Studies have indicated that the overall mental wellness of a person can profoundly affect their physical wellbeing. The mother that wants to live long enough to see her child raised (and I will argue that 99.9% of it is from a love of the child -- If my mother was only bound to my raising because it was a religious promise or duty, I would be offended. In fact, I think you insult all of the dying women you speak of by minimizing their love of their children, in order to rationalize your argument. I think you owe them a silent apology.), can under some situations hold an illness at bay.
And another way to look at it is spousal death. It is a well known fact, that once one elder spouse dies, the probability of the other dying within two years shoots through the roof. The explanation is that they surrender the will to live.
But why is it, that if you can attempt to use god to explain someone fighting for life, you don't seem to use god to explain people dying?
arriving just in time to offer critical assistance to someone I had never met
Okay, please provide exact figures for the number of people in danger praying in a 20 mile radius to you that you *DIDN'T* save. That alone should indicate to you that prayer is not causal, but rather incidental, to your actions.
Your behavior is this situation relates to your preconceptions and your predilections. See synchronicity below.
detected liars in front of a jury
How the hell do you get divine intervention out of this??? Seriously, I am confused. Something this simple happens all the time without divine intervention.
It is a well established fact that people express their internal state physically. The manner in which a person carries themselves conveys a *lot* of information about them. Most of us are keyed into this at some level. Although we might not be able to articulate why we come to a conclusion about someone (a lot of our behavior in this regard is not internally examined -- we process information like this on a sub-conscious level) we perform this function thousands of times during the day to one degree or another.
There is nothing magical to this. It is just a vast body of experience with human interaction throughout life that allows us to subconsciously evaluate another's "body language."
You just happen to be adept at reading "liars' signals." (For example, there were studies that were conducted that indicate our eye position belies our internal state. People that lie will subconsciously look in a direction. How difficult is it to see that one can pick up on these cues on some level.)
You cannot explain why you "detect" like this only because you are unfamiliar with the subconscious automated process that you use. (Like walking, which took us a long time to learn, it is something we perform without thinking about it. But just because you are not aware of every impulse to move every muscle, doesn't mean that you don't walk.)
Add to this the notion that people at trial are most likely under more stress than they normally would be and would even exaggerate their behaviors, making them easier to pick up on.
understood the unspoken thoughts of a person who I did not know very well
See the item above about being able to pick up on cues and process them on a subconscious level. You seem to be a fairly sympathetic person. You, from what I can tell, seem to be predisposed to empathy in some form. As such, you are going to be more disposed to pick up on certain cues than the rest of us would be. (And I am sure that the rest of us have things we are more sensitive to that you are -- we each have that which we are good at.)
From what you tell me, I would be surprised if you *weren't* able to pick up info from people in trouble. But there is nothing magical about this either. You are just a good listener and are perceptive in an empathetic manner.
It doesn't matter that you can't articulate the process that you use (as there are thousands of complex behaviors we engage in that we cannot articulate because we haven't bothered to examine them). That doesn't change the fact that you use them.
I ask that in the coming months, when you have an empathetic reaction to people, you stop and ask why you have that feeling. It is tough because we don't bother to think about our reactions ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it"). I (and others I know) have done this, and it is amazing what you discover about yourself. You can learn to watch your reactions and analyse them. It is difficult at first, but after a while, things start to "click." ("Oh, yeah... When I see someone do/say/whatever X then impression Y pops into my head.") You will be amazed at what you learn about yourself, and by making the action conscious you find that you are better able to refine and strengthen it. It seems you have a gift (let's call it a skill) and I would think it your responsibility to strengthen it.
seen healthy, normal infants born when the medical doctors insisted that the only possibility was brain damage
And how many brain damaged babies do you see born when the doctors think them to be normal? Is this a proof of god? I take it you have never see a doctor make a mistake before, therefore god must be the explanation.
I think this a germane place to bring this up, but why is it that religious people only credit the things they *want* to happen to god, and never the bad things. Why is a healthy baby proof of god, but a sick one somehow doesn't pertain? Why is it a typhoon that dissipates an act of god but the one that kills thousands isn't?? Why is it that "god will save those in the WTC crash", but god has nothing to do with the buildings collapsing???
People rationalize things in the name of god. As "god" is very much a subjective construct, people are free (not bound by reality) to randomly apply the concept according to whim. (That is the power of god for people. It is a whim that can be applied on a whim to make people feel better. But wishing doesn't make it so...) People will always use the example of things they want to happen that do as proof of god, when all they are saying is that a whim was made to pass, and they want more to do the same.
That does NOT prove a thing, and, in fact, is just more circular reasoning.
So I said I would mention synchronicity. The notions I put forth here come from a reading of Jung when I was back in high school. It has been that long since I have read Jung, and no longer know how much of the following argument it his, and how much I have mutated over time into my own comprehension. If I have absolutely mutilated his thoughts, I apologize to the man, but thank him for the planted seed that brought forth fruit in my head.
Synchronicity, in my take, is an expression of cognition. Simply put, it is that we are more likely to perceive that which we are predisposed of to perceive. Let me try a simple example:
The same thing can be said of *all* of your perceptions above. You only notice them because you are more inclined to notice them as they fit the framework of your expectations.You want to see things, you *will* see things.
Notice how you never discuss the negatives of any of the above situation. You discard them as non-significant because they don't fit your pre-conceptions. I will tell you right now that there are *many* more mothers that would like to live long enough to raise their children and don't than there are those that fight of an illness. But somehow you ignore all of these as they don't reinforce your preconceptions.
And we are back at the point of circular reasoning. You expect to see things (presume the conclusion of your argument) and for some reason you think yourself surprised when they happen.
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.