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You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction
BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."
I know exactly what you mean! Think about what we do here day in and day out. We talk about the incremental release of software as if it's the most important thing in the world.
/., mailing lists, Usenet, etc.
We endlessly follow every possible civil liberties encroachment though
I read Slashdot compulsively. I also read Slate, Salon, and the NYT daily. Have I really learned anything important, or am I just wasting time? I tend to think more towards the later.
This is a timely topic in wake of the recent tragic events. I have been refreshing CNN and MSNBC's website obsessively searching for the latest (often wrongly reported) news.
OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.
Frankly, I feel the exact opposite. Although I want to know the latest as to what is happening in the rescue efforts and investigation, it seems to me that much of the news is simply the same facts being repeated. Particularly with the addition of one, or even two, news tickers, I am getting too much of the same news over and over again, at least on the major networks. It seems that Fox Cable News, CNN, and (C|MS)NBC break up the hard facts enough with experts to pique my interest.
- Someday the voices will stop, and I'll be able to rest...Someday -
Somebody please post more links to stories about news addiction!
Oh, I keep hitting websites every half-hour or hour, looking for more news; but I stopped watching the TV quite a while ago. It was getting too repetitive and depressing, and detailing positions I'd already got from the web. It's a terrible, thrilling event that has happened, but I'm already burnt out, at least TV-wise.
Kill Your Television...
You make the call!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I was glued to the TV/computer the first day, and most of the second day too. I realized something the second day, however. Everything I was hearing was speculation. I figure that if I wait a week to really dig into the articles, things will be more coherent and more of the facts will be layed out for me. Once a real breakthrough is made, I'm sure people will be buzzing about it. I havn't stopped watching the news completely, but I'll save the rest of my attention span for something other than pictures of people jumping off of buildings.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
But seriously the graphic images of the attack that are being shown repeatedly can have a deep psychological effect on the ppl. watching it again and again (u can't help but watch!) can make a deep impression on your psyche and can even lead to extreme emotions and even depression.
The only solution is to talk about it ! even if no one knows the answers .. just talking about the problem can be of great help.
A comment i just sent to Rob Malda (after a short bit of praise for him and his team):
- Please consider making a "permanent" story -- or call it a forum. When i
want to post something about the tragedy, i'm forced to choose between three
options, none of which is great: I can submit a story, and odds are great
that you will have to reject it. I can post a comment to an old story, where
it will likely be missed since the story is off the front page and will
certainly be missed when the next update is posted. Or, i can wait for the
next update and hope i hit it early.
If you had one huge permanent story instead of lots of smaller ones, people
would sort by "Newest First" to get news, which is what they should do
instead of just waiting for the next story to be posted. It lets new +1 and
+2 comments have a chance regardless of how early they're posted.
Also, raising the maximum comment rating above 5, if technically feasable,
would really help in these stories, where dozens and dozens of comments are
rated at 5...
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I find that news addiction happens to me around large events;
The the space shuttle Challenger accident
The Oklahoma city bombing
The death of princess Diana
The impeachment of Bill Clinton
And now the WTC destruction. This easily tops them all. It has truly been a mindwarping experience of how so much destruction has been brought about by so few. The news addiction happens because we want every shred of a detail so we can put the story together and understand what happenned. The story is large and in the front of our minds. Knowing the horrific beginning we want to rush and know the ending of the what, where, when and how.
It's curious - do we live in an era that such large spectacles can be counted on happening every few years??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The most powerful and moving coverage of Jeremy Glick's story, from Dateline NBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/629077.asp
Please read. Please mod up so people will see.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The method of my madness.
1. goto drudgereport.com scan for new news
2. goto cnn.com, then msbnc.com for new news
3. goto Slashdot.org and shacknews.com for new news
4. Get frustrated that there is no new news and turn on the (freakin) tv.
5. Sit in front of the tube, clicker in hand looking for the news I want.
6. Get annoyed that I'm not hearing about shit blowing up in the middle east.
7. goto 1.
yes, i'm going nuts.
-Jon
this is my sig.
The piece is suggestive of something: instead of proudly being an American by being fully aware of all that is taking place, proudly be an American by doing something to help instead of sitting around watching TV.
Thank God: It's 3:15 am and every channel i get is replaying the Cathedral ceremony in full, which i've already seen. So i can sleep.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Since when is the intersection between piss poor journalism and bad taste in television an addiction?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I have CNN on the TV, WNBC on streaming video, and a Realplayer feed of the NYPD scanner off of www.penguinradio.com going as I type this. Plus I already called all my old Marine buddies who are still active duty to see if they know something I don't. I don't think it is addiction as much as a feeling of wanting to help but can't. Now I am just waiting for the phone call to put the uniform back on, then I will feel like I am doing something.
One more thing, all you who went to give blood for this tragedy please remember to give again in 4 months, the need for blood is a 365 day of the year thing, And I take pride in telling my co-workers and friends I can't go with them to give blood because I gave a week before the attack.
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
Folks, this war is going to take a long time. This isn't gonna be over in days or weeks or months, and the resolution is not gonna be on tomorrow's news. Once we find out who these people are and who their superiors are and how everything works (CNN reports that one of the guys we picked up in St. Louis tonight on a train is telling the FBI a lot about that shit), we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either. The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with. (Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.) Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though. I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan (and I firmly believe we will.)
Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off. This isn't grade schoool and everything has a price in the real world. Freedom from the creeping tyranny of terrorism, though -- teaching those people that this is NOT the way to make friends and influence people -- requires some struggle and loss.
I am confident that, in the end, the good will far outweigh the bad in this thing. But it's going to take time.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
No religion with any significant number of followers advocates this sort of violence. Hatred is responsible for these crimes, and all who hide their behind any mantle of religion are traitors to the very religion they pretend to support. They are either liars or frauds.
No true Christian could ever possibly bomb a hospital. No true Muslim could ever possibly commit a terrorist act. Anyone who would do such a thing is a murderer, not a Muslim or Christian. The two concepts are not mutually compatible.
In order to end the senseless killing, we as a society need to do two things: Stop teaching hate, and effectively deal with mental illness. No other remedy will succeed. Well, maybe one other. We can always exterminate ourselves.
I've turned off my television and stopped visiting CNN.com and all the rest of the mainstream media outlets. I'm becoming extremely disturbed by the direction which they've been heading since rougly 20 minutes after the second plane hit, and (as I recall) even before the first WTC tower fell.
The talk is of reprisal, and how the United States is going to respond to the attacks. Granted, nothing can justify what has happened, and there is no rationalization for what was done. However, could we perhaps get a bit wider perspective or perhaps even some critical thought/discussion regarding what has happened from CNN?
Today there was a poll on CNN.com that makes my point perfectly: "If Afghanistan refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S. bomb Kabul?" 79% of respondents said yes, we should bomb Kabul.
Hello, my fellow citizens! The people of Afghanistan are currently living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban, having just come out of a long and very punishing war with the former Soviet Union. Not only has all the major infrastructure *already* been bombed, but the people are suffering tremendously as it currently stands.
Even more to the point, what could "we" possibly gain by bombing Kabul, which is a CITY full of CIVILIANS, after all? Does it make any difference whether it's a cruise missle or jetliner causing the explosion? Do you think the Taliban government, the only ones with access to food and equipment, will still be in Kabul when the bombs start to drop? Hardly--they'll be off in the hills with bin Laden, and the only people left to suffer the brunt of such an assault would be the civilian population.
The point I'm trying to make is that the mainstream media is so caught up in the idea that we could bomb Afghanistan that they've forgotten whether or not we should. After all, the only real way that we'll get bin Laden (or whomever is responsible for these crimes) out is by _going_in_after_them_. That will cost American and NATO lives. And, it can be aruged that it runs the high risk of polarizing other Muslim nations against what they could only perceive as an invasion by the West.
And if you've actually read anything about what bin Laden is trying to accomplish with his terrorist agenda, it's EXACTLY that--a world war between Islam and the West. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear bombs at their disposal.
Where is there any discussion of these facts in the mainstream media? That is what I truly fear, more than anything else. The manufacturing of our consent to what amounts to acts of genocide against civilian populations--and that ultimately leads to only greater and greater violence.
Try: http://www.zmag.org
As though KNOWING more will somehow help.
It does for me. I feel insecure in events like these as long as I don't know everything. After absorbing as much news as possible, it settles in and I accept it. THEN I feel better.
Call me a news junkie, but that's the way it works for me.
-Martin
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
Of course, religion doesn't kill people. People kill people -- religion can just sometimes serve as a suitable excuse. Nationalism works pretty interchangibly well for this, as do items like feelings of racial superiority, etc.
We could go into all of this now, and I could explain why your "insights" are sadly shallow, but I suspect you're just trolling. Shame on you for doing so on the backs of 5000 innocent people.
However, on the off chance that your viewpoint actually is that shallow, may I suggest some basic reading: "The Battle for God" by Karen Armstrong. It's an excellent primer on the role of religion and root causes of fundementalism.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
"Addiction" is a good term for some people. I may be one. Daily, I have a raft of web sites I have to read. Gotta keep up on the things I am interested in. If I don't get to, I get cranky. And that was way before the latest events. With a big story in the news, a story I care about anyway, I go on news binges like the article talked about.
The net has been a blessing and a curse for me. There are a million things I am interested in, with more coming up all the time. And now there is this wealth of info at my fingertips... It is often very hard to stop studying up my newest obsession and GET SOME DAMN WORK DONE.
Sounds like it could be an addiction to me, but i don't know the proper psychological criteria for the term.
I shouldn't respond to such a cowardly attack... but anyway.
A: I'm only about 50% sure that killing/scaring/generally pissing more people off is the best action. I logically see this as an un-fightable war much like the war on drugs instantiated by the Reagan administration.
But to explain my comment, as an American I very much want to see retaliation, it's illogical irrational and emotional but it's (more then anything) what I want to see.
B: to echo millions; I before Tuesday I was not a patriotic person, I was cynical and felt no connection to the rest of the county. Now I am ready to fight, with a gun for America.
-Jon
this is my sig.
Or lack thereof, rather. Everyone knows television is super addictive, its just that the relentless advertising finally takes its toll on our brain and we are forced to turn it off. Think about it, when was the last time you've seen four straight days without an ad in sight?
It's probably NEVER happened before and this is what's causing the widespread television addiction. Full length interviews, they don't force the callers off the line because they have to "take a short break". Im dead serious about this folks.
This whole incident has started to cement something for me (hang with me, I'm working this out as I go):
News is not knowledge. News is a thin layer that rests atop the mountain of our experience and knowledge.
This is why some people can't understand why we didn't just shoot down the second WTC plane while it's pretty obvious to me. This is why people blame religion or, conversely, discount completely the role of religion in this sort of event.
People who are news addicted tend to know what happened but lack a very basic understanding of why. I have seen a lot of these people lately, and I've experienced a lot of frustration trying to point out seemingly obvious mistakes in their logic.
Maybe, then, we need news reporting closer to that of the BBC or newspapers, where at least some depth is included (of course, at the cost of speed). Maybe we just need a better educational system -- hell, I took college-level philosophy classes without reading a page of Locke or Descartes, psych with no Freud of Jung, history without Gibbon.
Maybe I'm ranting -- it's late and I'm tired.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.
we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.
The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.
I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.
Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.
Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.
Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.
Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan
I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.
I'm doing it too. Its 4 in the morning, and what the heck am I doing up? I'm reloading CNN, reloading slashdot, reading more comments, reading foreign papers, watching TV in the background, I have NPR on the radio.
I keep expecting to find something new, and every now ad then am rewarded. A new insight, a new discussion, a new way to start a ground war, a new way to keep the peace.
What started it all was when it was happening. Just when you thought you new, another thing happened. A plane hit the tower. When you absorbed that, another plane hit the other tower. When you absorbed that, a plane hit the pentagon. When you absorbed that, F-16s were rushing off to intercept ANOTHER plane heading towards DC. It just kept coming, every 15 minutes there was something new, something big. Another plane crash, another plane missing, the president is in florida -- no, he's in Louisiana, wait he's at the bunker.
Always something new, then we heard about the phone calls, the personal stories. i imagine the people on that last flight making the decision to fight back. I keep waiting for another piece of news -- it was too painful to realize I had missed something if I went to the bathroom that morning. If you stopped listening for a minute, you'd tune in again to hear that another plane was down.
Now I keep expecting to hear about an attack somewhere, like the gulf war, started at night where our superior technology gives us sight while the others are blind.
I don't want to wake up and know that I missed the first 6 hours of what happens next.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I was about 4 blocks away when the World Trade Center collapsed. I saw people falling from the (North or South, can't remember) building, and saw it collapse. The day started out as any normal school day. It ended with my entire school being evacuated to use as a hospital. I have only been able to watch about 5 minutes of the news a day since it happened. I think I am still in shock, and can't stand to see what is going on. It makes me feel so insignificant and fragile to be reminded of the tragedy. I dread the days when Ill be able to return to school and will have to face the new reality every time I look out the window or go to or from school.
I guess this is me still in shock and denial
Sorry if this is offtopic or whatever
I still don't know what I'm doing since I saw this
Going by the fact that Bush has ordered flags to be flown at half-mast until the 21st, I suspect the first attacks will start early on the 21st. What could be better than the day America stops officially mourning than to start dealing some major damage to the instigator(s) of the terrorists attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon!
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Glad to hear I'm not the only one glued to the news lately. I can't stay away from the TV. I just keep watching and waiting for the next development, no matter how minor it may be, that brings us closer to justice or resolve in any way. Since I am 2000 miles away from my family, following this situation closely makes it easier to cope.
IRC has proven to be a fairly good source for news coverage the past few days. Volunteers on the #wtc-confirmed and #worldtradecenter channels on irc.openprojects.net have been watching various news channels and sites, posting the latest news regarding Tuesday's attacks and the aftermath.
There's even an article on LinuxWorld.com about these channels.
I'm one of the volunteers in that channel. News has been fairly slow lately, but we do welcome people to sit in and listen or participate.
I'm feeling really uncomfortable with the lack of logic in valuing the lives of people, who happen by chance to have been born in the U.S., so much more highly than people who were born elsewhere.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and friends.
The average killing by the U.S. government in the last 30 years has been about 100,000 people per year.
The recent terrorism is, like all violence, reprehensible. I grieve for my country, and I grieve for the people lost. However, if 5,000 people have been killed in New York and Washington D.C., that is only 5% of the U.S. government's yearly average.
I grieve for those killed by the U.S. government, also.
The Bush Administration was requesting $343.2 billion for the Defense Department in Fiscal Year 2002. Now the budget will be much more.
Would it be too much to ask to spend 1% of that amount on an initiative to try to discover how the U.S. could live in the world without killing? I've tried to pull together some ideas about relating to other people in a non-violent but powerful way in an article called, "What should be the response to violence?"
This Slashdot story begins: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help."
Perhaps if this person had been aware of what his government was doing, he would have lost much more sleep. Knowing more will help.
Bush's education improvements were
Jennings is really good at talking live; Rather struggles but is interesting nonetheless; Brokaw is slightly better than Dan but knows when to quit. Dan will just keep talking until somebody pushes him out of the chair; you've got to admire his tenacity.
Maybe since the events were so hard to believe and grasp, I had to keep watching for it to even seem real.
Maybe you should have used the time you wasted with watching the same stuff over and over again, hearing the same emotional hypocrisy bullshit again and again, for READING UP on the last 50 years. Might help you understand where all this hate is coming from
News Addiction != Knowledge Addiction
Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off. This isn't grade schoool and everything has a price in the real world. Freedom from the creeping tyranny of terrorism, though -- teaching those people that this is NOT the way to make friends and influence people -- requires some struggle and loss.
The problem is that every side in the middle east; us, the Palestinians, the Taliban, the Israelis, ALL of them-- are convinced that if they just hit the other side hard enough they'll fold. It just keeps the violence going, though. Look at Israel. They retaliate, their enemies retaliate, they retaliate back, it keeps going. The only way I think we can get some measure of security is to
a) hit bin Laden and his organizations, and similiar groups, because they fund and train these terrorist networks. With them out of the picture the will to terrorism may still be there, but actually carrying it out will be harder.
b) actually engage the Arab world in something other than warfare. As long as Afghanistan is in a state of near anarchy, and the threat of perpetual starvation hangs over it, terrorist groups are going to have a ready pool of applicants. If you want to overthrow the Taliban, fine. But don't leave another void so another Taliban will come to power. Build up infrastructure, create some sort of economy. Hell, turn over governance of the region to Pakistan if you can't think of anything else, with promises of financial support if they'll prevent terrorist groups from reforming. Don't think bombs will dissuade anything; these people have been living in a state of anarchy for 150 years, nothing we can do to them will be anything new.
While I agree with you to some degree, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.
I'm in Europe, physically far away from NYC, but there are signs of it everywhere: people handing out leaflets declaring candlelight vigils, literally thousands of people outside cathedrals standing together in respectful silence, non-Americans singing The Star Spangled Banner, flowers and flags piled high at embassies and monuments, and words of condolences to our brothers and sisters when we hear their accents during our daily travels.
We, on this side of the pond, are standing in solidarity with the United States of America, sharing every moment of grief, pain, and hope through the wonders of the Information Age. It's truly an unprecedented event.
Peace be with you.
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This nation was founded as a Christian nation on Biblical principles.
Yeah RIGHT. Try the State/Church Quiz, might clear up a thing or two.
I spend my time in front of a computer most of every day (work @ work and then work @ home). Many of those days I think it might be wonderful to be a "jungle-dwelling, bamboo-eating half-monkey"...
Here are a few things to think about when you watch the T-R-A-S-H that is television news:
Peter Jenning's network had to pay Richard Jule millions of dollars for their irresponsible reporting of the 92 Olympics. Remember him?
After the Oklahoma bombing, tv news focused on Middle-Eastern terrorists. Later it was found that Timothy McVeigh was the real culprit.
To me, TV news is there to keep its audience and make money via ads. To make you loyal they must make you happy. So they are often saying and reporting things in such a way as to mislead the American people into believing what the viewers want to believe in, NOT what reality truly might be.
But, they can't lie. So that's why they always use crafty and clever language, such as "alleged" or "might". After using words like to to qualify what they're about to say, they then spend the next hour on these "alleged" theories, until your mind reaches satisfactory orgasm.
eTrade SUCKS
Actually, the subject's kind of a lie, but it's also kind of true. I was just talking about this very issue with my friend earlier, who's been getting very depressed about news addiction. We both live in New York City.
I've made sure that each day I go out into the city, talking with people, learning their stories, taking pictures.
Then I put them up.
<p class="Katzian">
What prevents the downward spiral of information-void-despair is becoming a white hole, sending out information as well. What we nerds/information Morlocks are good at is processing information--if all we're doing is storing, compiling it, it'll drive us crazy. It's crucial to find a way to create something with that knowledge.
</p>
What I've been doing with a bunch of other people is to build an open, free site in memoriam of the event and the victims--ostensibly as part of Wikipedia. That way the emphasis is on super-efficient information delivery, and it works just great as a balance on the news gathering addiction.
Of course, I'm currently having the apposite problem of overcreation, having spent the last 10 hours straight on it, but I'll deal. I'm making sure to get together with my friends, away from computers and hopefully televisions.
Speaking of which, radios seem to be the equivalent of the nicotine patch. They give me the info-dosage I need without trapping and obsessing me; a soothing buffer of bits instead of a mesmerizing stream.
So if you want help yourself, and you want to help--because telling the stories of the victims, or creating a definitive repository of knowledge, is so very helpful to everyone else--go to wikipedia and flood their servers with all the knowledge and analysis you've gleaned. Or figure out how to take over the information already used to make an even better site.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my fix from just this one site, so I won't have to ever be searching.
--
Make mine methylphenidate.
You have to agree that if everyone was an atheist, there wouldn't be any "religious" war.
If there were no cops, there would be no cop-killers.
Well, what did it for me is the press rolling out everyone who's suffering, and exploiting it for ratings. Husbands who've lost wives, mom's who've lost children. Certainly we have compassion for these people, but to spend a half hour filming their unthinkable grief ... the only thing worse is watching it. It's exploitation of the worst kind.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
The longer that these news outlets contrinue to push this 24/7 news schedule, the longer it will take the rest of the american (and other countries as well) people to return to a sense of normalicy, which is what we ought to be striving for to show the terrorists that this attack did little to stiffle the American spirit. Sure, I'd expect to have soem expanded news coverage as events break, but we should be watching regular programming at this point. Particularly this weekend, as families have a chance for family time, it's important that the networks offer fare that the entire family can enjoy as opposed to more news coverage.
And yet another sign that terrorism has won a bit is the fact that several movies, TV shows, and video games are being pulled for the time being or revamped in the short term to accommodate the loss. In some cases, such as Anrold's new movie or FOX's "24" or the video game Majesty, this makes sense; events are too close to reality that pulling them for the short term just makes sense. I also being not holding the bulk of sports events this weekend is also a reasonable step (both emotionally and technically; how do you get all those people from one side of the country to other with air travel only just starting to get back to normal?) But then you also have cases where, for example, a new Tim Allen comedy in NYC is pulled since it simply involves the WTC, a new Jackie Chan movie being pulled and revamped completely despite the amount of footage already shot since Chan's character in it was a window washer for the WTC, C&C Red Alert 2 being pulled since it shows NYC on fire on the cover of the box, Microsoft immediately altering the next version of it's Flight Sim to remove the WTC from the NYC area (and in the UK, the flight sim being removed from shelves as it was claimed that the terrorists could have learned to fly from that), and numerous other examples which are more knee-jerk than thought out. Again, each of these knee-jerk actions are wins for terrorism, because that's the type of lifestyle that we've come to enjoy and expect, and now, at best for the short term, that's gone.
Yes, at least according to the President, we're in a National Emergancy, so I expect some parts of our lives to be distrupted. But it is much more important to show that the American resolve and spirit cannot be broken as easily as it was, and thus, we must strive to get back to normalacy in our lives, and unfortunately, the constant barrage of news is not helping.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
People do understand that fact on some level; learning about something does give them information to act upon.
Here is some information which has not been reported in the general news: guess who the commander-in-chief of the Afghan military is.
I'll type the article in in part since it is on an extremely slow server even without the slashdot effect.
"MOSCOW, Aug 30 (UPI) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the appointment of Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, the official RIA Novosti news agency reported."
I am not setting this up as a link because for some reason the Slashdot editor (in Netscape) insists on putting a space in the number 216037, and I can't get the link to work. If you wish to see the original - copy and paste the address into your browser and delete the space.
http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=216 03 7
Several comments:
As someone who believes it to be every person's (age 18+) responsibility as a participant in a democratic government to keep up with the events surrounding the country and its government, I have been addicted to the news - really information in general - since I was about sixteen.
:)
Maybe that's the advantage of being a computer nerd... The information is easier to get to, making it easier to become addicted... Er, maybe that's not an advantage.
Although US foreign policy has certainly played a key role is being targetted by terror groups, consider two things:
1) Unless we are at active warfare with the state of Isreal, there will be right-wing Islamic groups ready to die to kill us.
2) We are currently being targetted by the most extensive terrorist campaign against our country in history because of arguably one of our most positive foreign policy action in the Middle East in the recent past. Because the United States-led coalition kept the citizens of two strongly Islamic countries from slaughter by a military dictatorship that has practiced religious persecution and execution of Islamic minorities, a citizen of one of the protected countries is using the fortune that we saved to kill our people.
I defy you to apply logic to any of it.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
People can *know* that they are doing the right thing even while doing things like raping or killing; their proof is in their heart.
Could it be possile that the military doesn't pick it's targets baed on CNN polls?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-09 -14
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off.
People who want to understand how terrorists could target civilians need read no further than this comment and similar ones on slashdot.
If the profile of the WTC terrorists could be based on the people who make these sort of comments here, it would a person of above average intelligence, technically inclined, a bit of an idealist, hardworking, thoughtful and disciplined.
Also, the person will have no direct experience of the evil he seeks to avenge.
This New York Times story is headlined: A Terrorist Profile Emerges That Confounds the Experts.
That profile is: They were adults with education and skill, not hopeless young zealots. At least one left behind a wife and young children. They mingled in secular society, even drinking forbidden alcohol, hardly typical of Islamic militants.
And this story, also from the New York Times, is headlined: An Unobtrusive Man's Odyssey: Polite Student to Suicide Hijacker.
The story described suspected terrorist Mohammed Atta as: He was diligent. He was polite. He had, until quite recently, a taste for black jeans and a liking for a hangout here called Sharky's Billiard Bar, which calls itself "The Bar With Mega-Possibilities." But Mohammed Atta, 33, was not what he long appeared to his teachers at the Technical University...: an unobtrusive man leading an unobtrusive life.
How close are these descriptions to everyone you know? If you want to understand these monsters we have only to look into our own hearts.
This slashdot post says: Folks, this war is going to take a long time. This isn't gonna be over in days or weeks or months, and the resolution is not gonna be on tomorrow's news. He is speaking for the terrorists as well as America.
I must admit I still scratch my head Vietnam a little, but even in Vietnam their own government killed more of their citizens then we did trying to stop them. Same for Cambodia. Also in either instance, not stopping a government from wholesale killing and oppressing its own people isn't my definition of peaceful. And not trying to stop them is showing weakness. Showing weakness only encourages them to continue. Study history. Tyrants are never appeased by weakness and
sympathy. Power corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely..
The US as you well know is a very insular country. By and large the only examples of the US en masse interfering with foreign affairs are cases where either national security was at risk, reciprocal security agreements were enforced or the US was attacked. And this third reason ensures the swiftest action.
Like any good propagandist, you skew statistics to try and prove your view. The critical FACT you seem to omit if that even more would have died had the US not stepped in to stop the slaughter. WW2, Kuwait, Bosnia, Panama, Cambodia, Haiti, etc. You need to take off your Rose Colored Glasses.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
A Terrorist Profile Emerges That Confounds the Experts.
Myself -US Navy Reserve, Prior Active Duty
My Wife -US Navy Reserve, Prior Active Duty
My Cousin -US Marines, Active and working adjacent to the Pentagon.
All Awaiting Orders.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
countries either harbor and condone terrorists, or they don't - they expel them, or better, arrest and extradite or imprison them (as in... forever). This was likely the point made clear to Pakistan in the last few days - all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.
Saudi Arabia is going to have to rethink it's internal denial. Egypt is going to need to temper it's internal repression of fundamentalist idiots and move toward better intelligence gathering and sharing with the West. Even Israel will need to do a better job of discriminating between its local political opponents and the dangerous terrorists with over-reaching international agendas. I wish them all wisdom and good fortune, as they will need both.
The Taliban has seemingly made their choice. With Omar's mealy-mouthed sidewinding and impotent defiance of human rights for innocent civilians either inside or outside their borders, they've as much as sealed their fate to burn in the fires of implacable war and then burn again in the eternal fires of Hell for their complicity with such inhuman evil. No Paradise awaits those dupes of a twisted Islamic vision, just everlasting anguish of damnation.
By the way, Islam is a religion much like Christianity, Judaism, and others: it counsels peace and goodwill. Only hotheaded fanatics pervert it to their paranoiac schemes toward power. Unfortunately, there are more Islamic hotheads with dreams of Paradise than can be allowed to live in this world.
Pakistan was likely presented with "an offer it couldn't refuse" and chose, however reluctantly, to stand with the forces of justice. They will close their border with Afghanistan, cut off its fuel supplies, provide bases for a multinational force to remove the Taliban and terrorists, and allow multinational military overflights during this war. Pakistan's choices were exactly two: either you are with us, or you're against us. I'm sure it was just this... clear.
And there will be a war over this. No one kills 5,000 innocent civilians without being hunted to the very ends of the earth and brought to a very stern account. Osama Bin Ladin (I spit on your very name and wish you an excruciating death worse than a shit-eating pig's, you mutant whelp of diseased fornicating dogs), say your prayers - you'll be meeting Allah sooner rather than later, and I think you'll be dismayed with His plans for your eternity.
turn off the tube and call the red cross.
get back to reality and DO SOMETHING.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with. (Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.)
Well, this certainly doesn't seem well thought-out. Three points:
1. Iraq is not a fundamentalist regime.
2. America *did* attempt to deal with it, by sending some sixty thousand air strikes against civilian targets.
3. The attacks on New York and Washington were a direct result of the way America "dealt" with Iraq's "regime"; not only Bin Laden, but millions of arabs, felt that Americans had imposed imperialism, responded disproportionately to a regional struggle, and despoiled the holy land.
Iraq invaded a country that it felt it may have some historical claim to. America disagreed, and so they bombed thousands of civilian buildings, slaughtered tens of thousands, crippled Iraq's economy, and made sure they stayed as weak as possible. What we saw on Tuesday was not an invasion; it was perceived as retribution for what the muslims perceived as American war crimes. Now, Americans are up in arms about seeking retribution for what they perceive as Muslim terrorism.
When will someone finally decide to turn the other cheek? Will the two ideologies take sides "retaliating" against one another until there's no one left to retaliate?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Anytime I want to. Really. Ooh! The Oracle's posted a new digest!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Our local news here is an ... interesting ... market, to say the least. Folks gape in disbelief when I say the local stations were 24/7 live for 5 or 6 days after the bombing here. It got to the point where they were just doing a call in show on live TV. My wife (a mental health worker) worked some support lines and the number one thing she told people was "turn the TV OFF!"
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Oh, and I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the Skipper and both the Howells passed away a few years ago, and both Ginger and Mary Ann will always think of you like a brother. Sorry.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
First, think about how long you mind being "behind the news". If you're ok with learning about things up to a week late (which is plenty for most people not directly affected by an event), subscribe to a reliable newsmagazine (I happen to like Newsweek) and read only that. And rely on your friends and neighbors to tell you of anything else that's important going on. This way you'll avoid worrying about a lot of rumors or temporary issues that really don't merit your attention. If you need to be a bit more up-to-date, pick a daily paper, or a daily time to read a news web site, watch TV or listen to the radio, and stick to it.
Hardly anybody needs to be constantly updated on the news more often than that. Sure there are times when it's nice to track an event as it happens. We were all listening to radios or watching TV Tuesday morning. But beyond the first few hours, unless you're directly involved somehow, break it off and go back to your normal news habits. You'll find yourself a lot better off.
Energy: time to change the picture.
What did you do after the Oklahoma bombing?
We went and found the guy that did it and put him to death.
Go to Oklahoma and start killing this guys family and frinds, and the guy who rented him the truck, and the guy who sold him the fertilizer?
If his friends and family started shooting at the police officers when they went to arrest him then they probably would have been shot back at, and tried as accessories to the crime.
The evidence that we have is pointing to Bin Ladden and his group. The Taliban are making it clear that they are willing to go to war to protect Bin Ladden. I personally think that the U.S. should give the Taliban 48-72 hours to produce Bin Ladden for extradition. If they refuse then we make it clear that we will go in and retrieve him. This puts the fate of the Taliban/Afghanistan in their own hands.
I know exactly what you mean.
When I saw the first news I headed over to all the news sites that I could find (I found out shortly after the first crash) and I was engrossed. My first reaction was one of "woah!" and I just wanted to follow everything that was happening, almost on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. Figuring that a building could not possibly stand up after being hit by a plane, I headed over to here (love that site) to find out everything that I could about how those buildings were built. I was glued to the screen for a good 2 hours, until a thought stuck me. I was looking at one of the images, and said "man, that looks so fake" and caught myself thinking (one of those 1/2 second back-of-your-mind thoughts) "they should have done a better job on the CG of that one"...
BAM!
Then it hit me. Almost all of the images looked like something out of a movie. I had been so desensitized that, upon seeing these images, my mind just assumed that they were fake. It did not want to accept the idea that they were real, so it was neat to want to see all about it that I could find.
Man was I disgusted with myself when I figured that one out.
Flame me down if you want, but I know that I wasn't the only one who thought that way. Once it sunk in that this was real, and those falling bodies out of the windows were real people, and after the first tower collapsed knowing that for the same reason the second one would collapse, and looking at it and knowing that there wasn't shit that I could do, and knowing that the people outside and the firefighters knew the same thing, man. That was a shock. I tried to donate but the stupid amazon form wouldn't accept my postal code, so I went and gave blood instead. I was half of the mind to go down there to see if there was anything that I could do to help (I was about a 5 hour drive away, I'm 1.5hr from the US border in Toronto) but when the borders were closed, and I came to my senses, I realized how entirely useless I was.
I just hope that some good does come out of this. I stopped watching the news after about 4 hours because I was disgusted at the media trying to grandstand with every little bit of information that they had, and watching the rumours go from the first emergance, and hearing them spread from newsteam to newsteam like a bad game of broken telephone, I knew that I had to stop.
Ack. May the passing of the deceased pave the way for a new era of peace and harmony amongst all beings on the earth. I would hate to know that all of this happened and the result was nothing more than a little revenge. Lets hope that this anti-terrorism coilition will stand tall over time and help to eliminate this uglyness.
If God gave us curiosity
With all due respect, and I do respect your regard for life, you are naive.
We are at the crossroads of a great opportunity. The opportunity to end terrorism as we know it. People think that we can't win, but we can.
The roots of terrorism are in the countries that support and harbor terrorism. If the terrorists have no bases, then we have solved 90% of the problem. Can we get every suicide bomber? Probably not, but we can certainly eliminate a lot of what's there now.
Think of the opportunity! Almost every country in the world is standing with us, saying "enough is enough". How many times in history can you say that? Yes, some innocent civilians are going to pay the price, but the price is imposed by their own government, not by ours. Innocent Germans paid the price of being ruled by Hitler, but Hitler had to be stopped. It is exactly the same situation today.
When you have multiple jumbo jets flying into skyscrapers, that is a pretty clear indication that terrorism is out of control, and worst, they have accumulated too much power and organization.
I hope that we have the guts to see this through. I can't stress this enough: We have the opportunity to end terrorism as we know it. How many more jumbo jets have to fly into skyscrapers before people realize that sometimes war is the only answer to solve this problem?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Guess the source of the following quote. Who talked about the U.S. being "the greatest threat to the peace of the world"?
Yes, Osama bin Laden said something like this. However, he is not the source. U.S. senator from Oregon Wayne Morse said this in 1964. He was arguing against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Why does a Saudi Arabian like bin Laden care about the activities of the U.S.? In interviews, he has said that he is against the U.S. support for what he considers to be a corrupt Saudi Arabian government. I certainly would be unlikely to give credibility to anything bin Laden said. However, Saudi Arabian friends have privately made similar criticisms. That's what made me take notice.
Mostly, however, I have little independent knowledge of news events. Like everyone, I depend on news sources. I thought that the September 13, 2001 PBS TV show about these issues was interesting. Here is a quote from a transcript of the show "Hunting bin Laden":
"NARRATOR: Muslim fundamentalists say that America's alliance with King Fahd is akin to America's disastrous alliance with the Shah of Iran. When King Fahd, like the Shah, is forced from power, they say, Americans will be on the wrong side of history."
and here's another quote:
"NARRATOR: Already, critics of the Saudi government point out the king has managed to turn the world's largest oil producer into a debtor nation."
People like bin Laden say that the U.S. government is supporting a corrupt dictatorship. Is there a lie in this? The U.S. government is supporting an anti-democratic government. The terrorists say this is the reason they feel motivated to terrorism.
My own opinion is that I think the initiators of violence are crazy, mentally decentered. However, if Americans support U.S. independence from England in 1776, they might also be sympathetic to other people's desire to have representational government.
Please consider what the narrator of the PBS show said again: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil-producing nation, with only 14,000,000 inhabitants, actually owes money.
I have absolutely zero sympathy for terrorist violence. However, the situation is so black and white that it is difficult not to think that there is some truth in the terrorist's complaints.
In 1967 I was hitch-hiking on Ta Khli Air Base in Thailand. A U.S. pilot who was flying daily bombing missions to Hanoi gave me a ride. He told me he thought the bombing of Hanoi was pointless. He said that Hanoi was almost always covered with fog, and that he could not see what he was bombing. So, don't feel that you are having a radical viewpoint if you oppose U.S. military or political involvement. Plenty of others have come before you. In a democracy, it is the citizens' responsibility to think independently and make their views known.
Bush's education improvements were
That no preident in over 100 years has been foolish enough to micromanage the military. Congress's only influence is over military budgets and oversight.
What happens is the President and the Congress define broad goals and the military leadership decides the strategy and tactics to reach those goals. There will be briefings to the President about what they will do to achieve the goal, but in general the military is the experienced govermnent party entrusted to doing the best thing.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
But when you get to 50 ... aahhhh ... it's all over and you can sleep peacefully for the first time in days.
If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
With all due respect, that's what they said about Iraq, too. "Hundreds of thousands of battle-hardened warriors willing to die for their country". Didn't turn out that way, did it?
Now, I understand there are differences here, but let's not assume every country is a Vietnam backed by a cold-war soviet union.
If we started carpet bombing like in Iraq, it is very likely we would see the same kind of retreat and surrender. Even "experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors" can only take so much fear and sleep deprivation without any sort of military support.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Skyshadow's implication here is spot-on. Fundamentalism in any form is dangerous... the arrogance that comes from believing that your way of life is so much superior than mine that it gives you the right to impose it on me often turns deadly. I don't suggest for a moment that we should launch a pre-emptive strike on those two gentlemen's persons.... but bombing the bejeezus out of their credibility is something every sane American should do every chance they get.
Let'em talk... but make sure they're the poster children for the Fool of the Month Club.
Best Thread Ever is posted at Ars Technica.
For those of you wishing some sense of closure, perhaps the Ars Technica thread will assist. It contains dozens upon dozens of photographs of people around the world memorializing the tragedy.
It is touching. And in between the pictures, the words of support and gratefulness will move you.
If there is a single positive outcome to this terrible event, it is that over a billion people have realized the important truth: we are all one people, united in humanity because we are all human.
Together, we could create a utopia. Divided, we create terror, pain, and tragedy.
Let our next thoughts, next decisions, next actions lead us toward a better world.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
And hitler was a frustrated artist. So whats your point?
Yes, this is how their thinking led them to do what they did. Again, what's your point? We understand why they did what they did -- they hated us enough to die to hurt us. Well, guess what we now hate them enough to die to hurt them. You're right, its not very complex. thats how this happens.
And if we decide to pelt them with flower petals instead of bullets? Will they decide then that we're really swell people after all?
No, the choice is clear now -- we kill them or let them kill us. There is not a middle ground. They're not going to stop now that they know they can successfully attack us. There are a hundred groups planning attacks on US citizens after a success like this.
After the first person ran the mile in under 3 minutes, a dozen people did it within a year. Once they knew it could be done it was easy to reach the goal. They know they can attack us on US soil. How many more will die in attacks before its acceptable for us to say, "shit, we'd better hit back"?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Well, it's not that easy. If I wouldn't violate copyrights, I would lead you to the German article of the magazine "Der Spiegel", which describes the life of Mohammed Atta, who lived in Germany for a long time as a very peaceful and charming student, promoting even harmony and co-existence among different religions among the student community at the Technical University in Hamburg-Harburg.
I have lived over twenty years in the U.S. and Hamburg is my hometown. I asked all of my nieces and nephews, if they believed they could have recognized that this friendly person could have been engaged in some meticulous preparation work to participate in the WTC attack. If Mohammed Atta would have been a student here in the U.S., it would have been exactly the American Muslim you would want to protect from retaliatory reactions of Americans, who are not capable to resolve their emotions.
It would be easy, if we just could through some magic device see into the soul of a terrorist. Unfortunately we can't. They hide very well behind a split personality, IMHO.
How do you sincerely think the law enforcement agencies could probably recognize a potential terrorist among the American Muslims or for that matter any other group of people (including their own American terrorists) in this country or overseas any more easily than everybody else ?
Of course I would always urge anyone to not live out their anger against people, who have not engaged in any hostile activities against them.
One aspect of your comments I'd take issue with. Based on the little I've read on the subject, it does not appear to me that Saudi Arabia is in debt due to stupid or corrupt moves by King Fahd. It's mostly due to the fact that Saudi Arabia created huge entitlement programs for its citizens due to its oil wealth, and since then the birthrate and population have exploded (of course), and thus Saudi Arabia can no longer adequately pay for them with current oil revenues.
Saudi Arabia then has the choice of cutting benefits, a hard task as US citizens can appreciate, or shipping more oil, which is tricky due to Saudi agreements with OPEC and desire to keep the price of oil from going lower. Basically, the Saudis are going to have to develop some non-oil industry in their country and that's not an easy process.
--LP
And of course he views the mere presence in Saudi Arabia of any of us unclean infidels with the occasional impure thought as the vilest blasphemy (and co-incidentally an aid, because we are there to do business with them, trading our wealth for their petroleum, to the current rulers of Saudi Arabia who he wishes to overthrow).
So between his religious mania and desire for political power, he finds it desireable to get us out of the way and cripple us so badly that we can't interfere with him, and we make a handy point of focus for his irrational rage as well.
Just because he doesn't care about Irag and Saddam doesn't mean he isn't willing to make use of them, though, if he thinks it'll further his aims.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
A long time ago I've seen a thread here about spirituality in the geek community. Further conclusions assume that you believe that there is something else besides the meterial world we live in.
In spiritual world we know that there are immaterial creatures and energies that like us to experience pain, addictions and do what they expect of us. This is how the crowds "work", this is how rumors and bad news are spreading out and making an aggressive mob out of people who don't even know each other.
All the spiritual schools (Tao, Sufism, Kabbalah, Buddhism, and so on) teach you how to unwind the "hooks" these things use to get you, and teach you to be aware of your addictions and how to remove them and be immune to the "social programming".
I know that this way is not for everyone, but many people will find it interesting and useful for wrestling the control of your life from the media and society back into your own hands.
If you speak Russian or know someone who does, you can read this book:
http://www.deir.org/book/Kniga_1/Contents.htm
The methodics there gives you the first step of regaining your conscience and freedom.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Let's look at the last crusade:
"The West must march to the defense of the East. All should go, rich and poor alike. The Franks must stop their internal wars and squabbles. Let them go instead against the infidel and fight a righteous war. God himself would lead them, for they would be doing His work. There will be absolution and remission of sins for all who die in the service of Christ. Here they are poor and miserable sinners; there they will be rich and happy. Let none hesitate; they must march next summer. God wills it!" (Pope Urban II, 27 November 1095)
The First Crusade, in 1096, bogged down in Turkey, and was slaughtered. 20,000 troops went in, 3000 came back.
The Second Crusade, in 1146 (things happened very slowly back then), got as far as Damascus, beseiged the city, was deceived into a bad tactical position, and defeated.
The Third Crusade, in 1187, was another military disaster, resulting in the loss of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.
In 1197, Richard the Lion-Heart and Saladin cut a deal, setting the boundaries between Christianity and Islam about where they were before.
So it took 102 years to settle a completely unnecessary war started purely over a religious issue. And when it was all over, nothing really had changed, except that there was more hatred than before.
Bad decisions in the next few weeks could result in a long period of bloody, indecisive wars.
Knowing more *will* help, insofar as making you more informed then the rest of the spoon-fed populace, and maybe able to enlighten a few other people with your knowledge. But don't watch CNN or any of the mainstream networks that are geared toward angry, emotional soccer moms. This is not yet a time for mourning, it's a time to educate ourselves, make the right decisions, and preserve the stability of our nation.
Research the history of the conflict, get to know all sides of the story, get to know the people we will eventually be fighting. Something as simple as going to the "world trade center attack" category on Yahoo! and surfing around is a good start.
Ponder the incredible ripple effect an attack would have on the rest of the world, and how difficult are the decisions we face. There are a million variables in the diplomatic equation in this crisis -- I hope Joshua is working on the problem full-time.
all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.
My country stayed neutral during the cold war. My country has participated in peace keeping for ages and hosted conferences where nations have brought closer to each other.
I can't find the words to describe how sad and disappointed I am to hear how USA demands my country to give up on our neutrality and choose side. It's absolutely revolting how the strongest country in the world forces countries to look at the world in black or white.
Based on a poll 29% of US citizens do not support bombing. Is USA going to make these people "bear the concequences?" Or is US going to respect their right to free speech and own opinions? If so, why does US prohibit this right from peaceloving countries?
I want to highlight a few things as my post may not be completely clear. I want my country to oppose terrorism and AFAIK it has done it clearly during all it's history.
But I absolutely don't want my country to have to support more violence. That's what I have a big problem with. I think that George W. Bush was very irresponsible for demanding that every country has to support the upcoming bombings or face bombings themselves. That gives no room whatsoever for a peaceloving anti-terrorism country and that is absolutely wrong!
> telnet www.azzam.com 25
Trying 64.33.12.151...
Connected to www.azzam.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 amor.host4u.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.5/8.8.5; Sat, 15 Sep 2001 xx:xx:xx -0500
quit
> whois host4u.net
Registrant:
Host For You (HOST4U-DOM)
4 Trefoil Drive
Trumbull, CT 06611
US
Domain Name: HOST4U.NET
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Networks, FastDns (GD184) reg@FASTDNS.NET
FastDns
3080 Ogden Ave
Lisle, IL 60532
(FAX) 630-357-8545
Billing Contact:
Billing Department (BD4586-ORG) billing@AXXS.NET
FastDNS
4 Trefoil Drive
Trumbull , CT 06611
US
999-999-9999
Fax- 999-999-9999
Record last updated on 29-Mar-2001.
Record expires on 31-Mar-2003.
Record created on 30-Mar-1997.
Database last updated on 15-Sep-2001 06:56:00 EDT.
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we now hate them enough to die to hurt them.
Do we? Let us see if outrage such as yours turns into long lines of young people volunteering to join the armed forces. Let us see if there is clamour for higher taxes to pay for the war. Let us see if the U.S. commits ground troups.
Reports say that Bush is planning on calling up 50,000 reservists. That's not war. War is reinstating the draft. Let's see what people say when they're yanked out of their careers to do pushups and 50 mile hikes with a full pack.
There are a hundred groups planning attacks on US citizens after a success like this.
Evidence for this figure? I've seen nothing published.
After the first person ran the mile in under 3 minutes...
I think you mean 4 minutes here.
Once they knew it could be done it was easy to reach the goal
You think running a mile in 4 minutes is easy? Try running one in 5 minutes sometime.
How many more will die in attacks before its acceptable for us to say, "shit, we'd better hit back"?
Zero people! You hearby have permission to say "we'd better hit back." Actually hitting back, of course, takes a lot more thought and preparation. Hit back if you must but drop the sanctimony. It's going to be a miserable business.
"What complaints? There were no complaints, no demands made, no responsibility taken, even by bin Laden."
There were years of warning about U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Some of these warnings came from bin Laden, who publicly threatened terrorism.
"The USA, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, is a debtor nation to the tune of a few trillion dollars."
The Clinton Administration got the U.S. mostly out of debt. The beginning of the huge debt occurred in the Reagan Administration, and coincided with homeless people becoming much more common in U.S. cities.
Most people in the U.S. have very little understanding of the destructiveness of the U.S. government. For most people in the U.S., the activities of their government are like an adult video game. The don't relate to it any more deeply than that. Most people in the U.S. cannot find on a map the 14 countries the U.S. government bombed in the last 30 years. Most know almost nothing about the cultures of the people who live in those countries.
Bush's education improvements were
It's not "funding" so much as relief, you make it sound like we're actually paying the Taliban's bills.
/ fact/17may01.htm
For the love of God, please get your facts straight ;
Fact Sheet: U.S. Increases Aid to Relieve Afghan Crisis ($43 million to include wheat, food, health care, shelter) http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/sasia/afghan
And BTW, most of the items you listed have been covered greatly on the news, specially the prejudice against Arab Americans. They've been talking about that all day on ABC, CNN, and even MTV.
- sigs are for wimps.
I, too was outraged by the poll
We already bombed Afghanistan! (Under Clinton after the Embasy Bombings. Bombings which should have been a declaration of war already.)Did it help?
CNN has bitterly deserted and distorted the American perspective. CNN assumes all the people who are not currently in the news are helpless, mindless, easily avoidable individuals. We need to fight a war, and their pussy-footing attitude should not be tolerated.
Remember the spy plane coverage on CNN? Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I got the distinct impression that CNN thought it was a terrible thing that the US could be spying on anyone for any purpose. Tom Clancy said there was an anti-spying bias in the medai on CNN, and the "commentator" said "no there isn't". Well, with a bias like THAT, it's not wonder we were taken by surprise. We need good spying to win this kind of a war.
Turn to fox and abc news for real news coverage. And for G-d's sake, learn from history sometime, CNN!
-Ben
Do we? Let us see if outrage such as yours turns into long lines of young people volunteering to join the armed forces. Let us see if there is clamour for higher taxes to pay for the war. Let us see if the U.S. commits ground troups
/., too. The next weeks are definitely going to be interesting (in the chinese curse definition of the word). I really don't doubt that we lack the resolve or manpower to commit to this. The question is more about the target -- what is the goal? That will decide the level of support, not the fear of bloodying ourselves.
Yes, we do. I don't know about you, but on the mailing lists I'm on, the topic is coming up. people asking how tech skills can be used by the military. Asking about joining the reserves.
You've seen it here on
Evidence for this figure? I've seen nothing published.
Common sense? Almost half of all known terrorist groups on Earth are dedicated against the United States. Do you think they just saw the most successful attack ever and said to themselves "gosh, we should never want to do that -- it worked too well!"
Yes, I meant the 4-minute mile of course.
You think running a mile in 4 minutes is easy? Try running one in 5 minutes sometime.
No, it's not easy -- I ran the 1800 meter in high school and am well aware of my own physical limits. But that doesn't change the fact that it makes a HUGE difference in success rate once you know that something is possible. Just knowing it gives you the clarity and confidence to succeed.
Zero people! You hearby have permission to say "we'd better hit back." Actually hitting back, of course, takes a lot more thought and preparation. Hit back if you must but drop the sanctimony. It's going to be a miserable business.
yes it will be. It always has been -- who is saying it will not be? One of the things we know for sure is that this is no gulf war to be won by remote control. Americans are going to die in the next few years, the only question is whether we want them to be soldiers fighting back or civilians sitting in their offices.
There is nothing sanctimonious about saying that we are now targets. We have two choices: fighting or not. Either way, we are being attacked and that is not going to stop.
You cannot negotiate with someone who has no demands save your death. Our very existance is contrary to these people's view of God and a righteous universe. We are Evil incarnate -- they do not want land as Hitler did, there can be no appeasement. They don't want representation in the UN, or a homeland for palestinians. They want us to not exist. When all of it was rhetoric that was fine, but now they are trying to make it reality. I don't personally find that acceptable.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
"No, Clinton brought the budget DEFICITS under control. We've only been turning a surplus for a couple years, not nearly enough time to erase the mountains of debt created over the last thirty years."
Clinton did reduce the debt, but you are right in what you said above.
"What would you propose the US do now, since you are so worldly and informed?"
I don't know how to solve all the problems. But I definitely want the U.S. to look for a better way of relating to the world than killing.
I feel that I have some useful ideas, and I feel that I could lead a useful investigation into finding answers.
Bush's education improvements were
News addiction? What news? There were news when it was happening, but after that most what "news" stations were doing was rerunning the same stuff with microscopic inclusion of new things into the ever-repeating stream, and various propaganda-laced statements that seem to serve one goal -- prepare the population to support revenge on Afghanistan. Stupid face of Osama Bin Laden appeared on the screen first, I think, few moments after the second tower collapsed, and it was difficult to determine, who is running this propaganda machine -- politicians control the media, or media is riling up the politicians, but without any doubt the whole machine now has one goal -- to rile up everyone to want blood.
Personally, not being an American but living in US, I find all this, especially all this flags-waving and government-sanctioned praying, to be disgusting. A lot of lives lost, this should be treated like death of innocent people is treated, but why all that political media circus? Government screwed up enough to expect terrorists to target US, and when it finally happened everyone should wave flags, pray, look at computer-enhanced lists of victims on TV and hear war propaganda? This is how victims should be mourned -- by display of our lack of civilization, amplified through the media machine?
The article itself looks like a "filler", something that is placed in a newspaper when it ran out of things to print, so it includes some pointless "human interest" things that are just someone trying to describe why he is having a headache at this particular moment.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I think I'd tend to agree with the original poster. I might accept a claim that the same people are running the CIA now as 15-20 years ago, but not 30, for reasons that will be clear if you read the following chronicle of the unveiling of CIA misdeeds.
If there's evidence beyond your blanket assertion that "the same people are running the show now as 30 years ago," I'm all ears.
--LP
The U.S. taxpayers stayed the same. What changed was Clinton. Therefore he was responsible.
Bush's education improvements were
Which brings me back to my original point. The terrorists might not be that much different from the average slashdot reader. After they've made their passionate speeches about the unvarnished evil of their opponents and the necessity to kill innocent bystanders, some are willing to die for their beliefs but most are reluctant. The reluctant majority should be amenable to negotiation at some point like the IRA or the PLO. The U.S. objective could be to exterminate the terrorists or it could be to bring them to the negotiating table. Given the experience of other nations, which strategy is more likely to succeed?
I don't disagree -- but no one is negotiating. No one has identified themselves, no one is taking credit and it's hard to have a conversation with only yourself. It seems they're not really looking for anything except what they got -- a lot of death.
If they call tomorrow and ask for a million dollars and a bus ticket to China, I'm all ears...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
This attack has locked us permanently into our current policies. Why? If we changed them now, it is an explicit admission that terrorism works. [...] *That* is a message we *MUST NOT* send no matter what action we take.
So where does that leave the US? Either:
I have to admit I'm glad I'm not the one that has to make that decision...