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FEMA Sorry for Faking News Briefing
theodp writes "The Federal Emergency Management Agency's No. 2 official apologized Friday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters. All the while, real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions. In the briefing, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., FEMA's deputy administrator, called on questioners who did not disclose that they were FEMA employees, and gave replies emphasizing that his agency's response to this week's California wildfires was far better than its response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005."
How is the Five Year Plan going? Good, I bet.
Sorry... sorry... WTF!!!!
Sorry isn't gonna cut it... try mass resignations!
A government organization went on national TV and intentionally tried to fool millions of Americans into believing a lie so that they didn't look bad.
Oh wait... never mind... I forgot, this is the USA. And we are talking about the government after all. The idiot who thought this up should run for President!
Flying Spaghetti Monster I cant wait until our government acts with our best interests in mind... hell I'd be happy to see it happen just once before I die.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
When considered with the ever increasing powers granted to FEMA this should be enough for many people to speak out. Instead most will flip the channel and it will be business as usual.
http://thisnovember5th.com/
In what world did FEMA think that the truth would not be almost instantly exposed? Who are they employing in the PR dept.? The Three Stooges?
"....his agency's response to this week's California wildfires was far better than its response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005." Wow. The gold standard, to which all emergency responses should be judged has finally been exceeded.
FEMA: Making our president look good in comparison since 2000.
FEMA: Where bad decision make someones life better.. we hope.
FEMA: If you can't take the heat fake the press.
FEMA: When drinking becomes a profession.
FEMA: You still get more upside out of us then your executive branch.
FEMA: When disasters strikes.. ohh god your fucked.
FEMA: for great justice.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
First of all... your the director of external affairs... Yep you should have stopped it... SO WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU.
Second, your working very hard to establish credibility and integrity... by trying to trick us into thinking your credible and trustworthy... that's exactly what you DON'T do to establish credibility and integrity.
Finally... I would say that doing exactly the wrong thing hasn't undermine your credibility and integrity, you didn't have any to begin with... this simply ensures that you never will until the current >20% has been eliminated, everyone in that conference resigns, and your agency actually handles a disaster like it knows what it is doing.
It is kind of ironic that FEMA, the agency that is supposed to clean up disasters, actually turns every disaster it is involved in into a bigger disaster through it's absolute incompetence and piss poor public image.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
The Three Stooges are way smarter than these guys.
:-)
The Three Stooges were firemen, and in the army, and plumbers, football players...
My mom says I'm cool.
I would HOPE you could manage to improve your response in an area that still has power, water, sewage and transportation. I live in San Diego, I know people that have had their homes lost, but to compare this with Katrina and give themselves a pat on the back is absurd: the vast majority of the city and infrastructure of this county were completely unaffected. There were outages and near failures, but you didn't have to go far to get back to power, water, sewage and transportation. Heck, if you got tired of the evacuation site at Qualcom? The airport and cruse ship terminals were still open, just take a trip, or just hop on the trolley and go downtown for a nice dinner out. These fires have certainly devastated a lot of people's homes, I have a good freind that has nothing left but his car and a USB flash drive, but this hasn't been the sort of region wide crippling of the storm and floods of Katrina.
When are they going to apologize for faking disaster relief?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The difference being that California wildfires happen every year, almost like clockwork. The hurricane that devistated New Orleans and the coastal regions of Mississippi, while perhaps inevitable, had not occured until that point.
In essence, FEMA is not there to simply help out with expected situations, though that may be part of it. No matter the nobility or necessity, however, it is there, primarily, for unexpected emergencies, and it is simply not doing that job at the moment. Consider the juxtaposition between the rich socialites who have lived in the wildfire-prone region of California for so many years, and the disgustingly poor, predominately black population of New Orleans, who have lived there because their parents lived there, and because they cannot afford to move or live anywhere else. It all boils down to wealth disparity, and who benefits from it. I would encourage everyone to consider that.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Insert self-referential sig here.
Just asking.
This is a tech site you know, not Zonk's personal playground.
See, this is why, faults and all, the USA is loved around the world. It's like watching your goofy cousin make a fool of himself at the wedding reception.
Well
Fake but TRUE... thats what liberals tell us is OK... hmmm....
In Capitalist west FEMA has fake news for you.
In Soviet Russia FEMA PR manual rushed to you.
How was Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University Harvey E. Johnson Jr?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
First off, I think this less of an "I'm sorry" situation, but rather "I'm sorry I got caught".
But regardless of whether they are truly sorry for this fiasco, they STILL don't get the problem. It's not that they staged a news conference, it's why they staged the conference that is the issue. They don't care about "emergency management", they only care about *public relations*. And while they claim that things are so much better than Katrina, this mock press conference only proves that nothing has changed.
On the positive side, Kanye West might be heartened to learn that it isn't just black people -- George Bush doesn't care about *anybody*.
Troll? I thought they were pretty funny. Ignore them if you must but troll? Some mod has something stuck up their butt methinks.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The parent made exactly the points I was to make. I'll add that the FEMA leadership lost what ever points they earned for not screwing the pooch this time around due to their complete lack of transparency. It's been bad enough with the unattributed propaganda videos the Administration has passed around to the media over the last six years, but faking a news conference for a heavily covered story? Gee-zus. They'd have looked more honest hiring Kevin Nealon.
Luke, help me take this mask off
The scientist goes on to describe FEMA's "broad, sweeping power."
Anyway on topic
Whoever thought up the idea for this and whoever allowed it to happen should be hit with a large wet trout until they are so afraid of fish that they can no longer bear the sight of water because it might just might contain fish. I just hope the White House doesn't decide this is a good example to follow. If so I am going to go find an island somewhere and start living there because I am not afraid of fish and I am afraid having an elected government without anyway for us the people who elect to be able to know what those we elected are actually doing.
He's got a point people...
...because I was there reporting (IAAJ).
Every reporter there had the "required" credentials and these were checked at the door. When I heard about this story I was writing one of my own, and
I no sooner decided to write a piece about how totally fake this story is. It will be publishing tomorrow, and I do expect all here to check it out.
Hey, lets stage a minor disaster that we can handle and are prepared for so we can look like heroes fixing it.
God spoke to me.
The military offered helicopters for dropping water on the fires, but they weren't allowed to because California State Department of Forestry rules required that a CDF fire spotter ride in each aircraft. Not only did it take more than 24 hours to get the fire spotters to the choppers, but there weren't enough spotters to man all the available aircraft.
Some official allowed an exception to the rule to allow just one spotter for each squadron of three, but by the time this was all sorted out, the high winds proved to be too dangerous, and so the aircraft were grounded.
Had they been able to take off when first called upon, the winds wouldn't have been so severe and they might have been able to contain the fire.
What's worse is that the military has several C-130 transport planes on call for dropping very large amounts of water from the air. I saw one of these at the Big Bear Lake fire in 1985, and it was a truly awesome sight to behold.
However, it was determined that their tanks were unsafe, so several years ago they were taken out of service until a new tank could be designed. The first try at a new tank didn't fit in the planes - yes, you read that right - so they went back to the drawing board.
It's been four years since then and they still don't have a new tank design.
Let me find you a link.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Someone needs to tag this 'wagthedog'.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Bending the laws on torture Bending the laws on surveillance No-bid contracts Lying about weapons of mass destruction Humiliating yourself in Irak Bullying you allies over Irak Kidnapping foreign citizens Extraordinary rendition Guantanamo America, how we have loved you, and how you have fallen
Slashdot: news from nerds.
...Pravda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda#The_Soviet_period would have been proud of something like this.
I agree. It got my mod. It almost got an interesting actually. The collection of bromides by itself points out the long running record of the department's blunders.
You do realize that giving it your mod and then posting in the comments deletes your mod point.
God spoke to me.
You think this isn't standard in an administration which lied to start an illegal war and bullied its allies about it?
Slashdot: news from nerds.
is traveling abroad, and I told her that FEMA had staged a press conference, with all the gory details, over a Skype chat. She thought I was joking... but it didn't take as much to convince her as I thought it would, and that... that is what happens when cynicism=real life. What. The. Fuck.
She's in Shanghai right now giving company training, getting disrespect from her students because she's 5'4", blond, and female (most of all); and there's nothing she can do about it because the double standard nowadays is that we as Americans MUST respect everyone else's culture but they are allowed to do fuck all to us in their homeland and in ours and we must respect that lest they perceive insult... When our own government makes a mockery of itself in full view of it's constituents then how are we any different from any hard-line, third-world, dictator state?
Wow that went south in a hurry. Sorry for that. Fema sucks.
There is simply too much glass..
looks to me like the last time this happened (with the fake VNRs) the GAO put every agency on notice that faking a news report and not disclosing it was blantantly illegal
here's the relevant letter from the GAO: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20050222093810-51492.pdf
any FEMA administrator that knew that fake reporters were asking the questions needs to immediately resign or be indicted if they try to avoid responsibility for this propaganda
No, for the foreseeable future these lard suckers will continue to do what they are told and our politicians will continue to be a bunch of corrupt and hypocritical bastards whose only goal is to grab all the money they can for themselves. I'm hoping to be comfortably dead by the time this state of affairs changes, since it will probably end in a global environmental disaster, riots after all the oil runs out or economic collapse along the lines of what happened with Russia in the 90's.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
for the same reasons we shouldn't criticize Bill OReilly. (here me out) They faked a news briefing and (most likely) though they could get away with it. Obviously, this means they're dumb as shit. Really. There's no other way to look at it. The people in charge obviously should not be the people in charge. But can we really grill someone for lacking intelligence? Who here doesn't have relatives with similar attributes? You can't blame someone for being dumb. (including Bill OReilly)
What we need to focus on is who puts these people in charge. (or gives them TV shows) The people who (or the mechanisms that) make these decisions are at fault. If they are humans (and don't also suffer from the same defects), their motives need to be seriously questioned, for they have caused (and have the potential to cause) much human suffering.
No I didn't. I think this is the second time I've ever opened up the mod page. Dude deserved some support though.
How about this right? Don't you think the FEMA tactics are "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"?
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
What do you get when you mix politics, copious amounts of public money, and stifling bureaucracy? Incompetence on a grand scale, of course! The only people who can succeed in government agencies are spineless people pleasing buck-passers who avoid making decisions at all costs and are quick to shift the blame whenever they do get into trouble.
Probably the only reason they staged this briefing was so whoever was running it wouldn't have to worry about saying something wrong and making an ass of himself/getting fired. Maybe the real problem is that we, the american public, are so intolerant of even the most basic, insignificant mistakes, that the only people who even get to public office are the ones who don't make decisions, never speak frankly and honestly, and are generally inhuman.
government in disaster relief.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul275.html
It's kinda sad, but unless your next government truly cleans up, you need a revolution, I'm scared and sad to say that less won't do.
I can tell you why that will not happen in two words:
"Baaaaaa......baaaaaaa......"
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
--My moment of epiphany was when I saw a documentary interest piece which covered a Japanese punk rock convention. Some convention organizer had painted a white line on the ground, and there was this long row of about two hundred guys and girls all dressed up in fab punk-gear with spikes and pink mohawks and such, all of them standing shoulder to shoulder with their toes neatly and orderly at the line --all of them fiercely bobbing their heads to The Clash or whoever.
It made my heart break so see such deeply programmed respect for the invisible whip of social control. People are heavily, heavily programmed over here as well, but the level of emotional repression and fear of authority is nowhere nearly as nuts.
-FL
The Bush government is stocked with cronies from one end to the other. Incompetence in management positions across the board is valued highly because it helps prove that government is not the answer. Except in foreign affairs, where the military is always the answer.
So, I guess this means that FEMA's lesson from Katrina was that they needed better press coverage?
Anyway, besides Jeff Gannon, we've seen this before. Here's another case:
March 29, 2005
Despite a rising chorus of condemnation from journalists and media critics, the George W. Bush administration shows no signs of abandoning its distribution of taxpayer-funded "news" to U.S. newspapers, radio and television stations.
Free press advocates are up in arms about what they say is the covert dissemination of propaganda by government agencies.
In one case, the administration -- seeking to build support among black families for its education reform plans -- paid a prominent African American pundit, Armstrong Williams, 240,000 dollars to promote the "No Child Left Behind" law on his nationally syndicated television show and through his newspaper column, and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
Two other nationally known journalists, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus, have also admitted accepting thousands of dollars to endorse government programs.
Since 2001, the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service has fielded 40 reporters, producers and public affairs specialists to create "good military news" to be beamed to home audiences via local news stations. The service's "good news" segments have reportedly reached 41 million Americans via local newscasts -- in most cases, without the station acknowledging their source.
More than 20 different federal agencies used taxpayer funds to produce television news segments promoting Bush administration policies. These "video news releases," or VNRs, were broadcast on hundreds of local news programs. without disclosing their source....
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0329-12.htm
It wasn't that FEMA lied, or FEMA screwed up (or that there are several dozen Presidential Executive Orders in place allowing them to supersede the Constitution, hijack transportation, communications, food and fuel supplies accross the whole country, including private and commercial farm land, etc (thanks to Komrade Klinton's handiwork)). All it takes is a "real big disaster". And given how inept "ordinary Americans" are at just about every damn thing that is involved in surviving a catastrophe (or just plain every day life) I am surprised it hasn't happened yet.
No, sireee, you had to get pissed because they got busted lying. This was an attempt to see how hijacking the press would work, is my guess. I don't recall if "commandeering" the press is yet among the executive orders, but the rest is in place.
Somehow, "I told you so" just does not seem to tell it.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Were they ever reporters? (I do know they were Arabic-type people once. Malice in the Palace?)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
That's it. They'll put up with enormous shit otherwise. So if you keep up the flow of cheeseburgers and TV, the dictators will rule forever. --Or until such a time as the rest of the world decides to invade or the whole system is so totally sucked dry that it collapses with a dry wheeze like Russia did at the end of the cold war. Yep, it's a grim situation. But it gets worse. . .
I'm not convinced that this is all about just simple control. Has anybody noticed there seem to be a lot more rocks falling out of the sky recently? I sure have. There's bigger stuff at stake here. All those miles of barbed wire enclosures don't get built for nothing. The next ten months are going to be interesting, to say the least. I hope for one of two things; that people wake the hell up and throw Bush and Cheney and crew in prison forever and reinstate a real government, or that we have a really, really good TV season in 2008 and that McDonnald's has a two for one special, because it's not just FEMA, --this Blackwater thing operating on American soil is totally freaky.
Excellent Youtube video [youtube.com] dealing with this stuff. . .
-FL
You've got to be kidding on this... wow.
Insert Sig Here
They should just have had a second fake news briefing - in which they stated that the first one didn't happen!
FRA: STFU GTFO
The cyclonic motion of hurricanes was discovered in that place, and the settlement there was wiped out three times in five years by hurricanes.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
From the end of the TFA:
O. M. G.
About 72 hours apparently. Oh well, looks like they learned SOMETHING from Katrina. Not necessarily what one would have hoped they would learn ... but something.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Don't forget what FEMA was called by a member (can't remember which) in hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Hurricane Katrina: "Failed Every Major Assignment."
Ah, the joys of watching C-SPAN in the middle of the night...
The mega-bank engineered self-bailout of their failed SIV gambles matters. The debate over fire code revisions in southern california matters. The upcoming elections in Kenya matter. The 17th China Party Congress matters. All this matters a lot, to everyone who reads this, whether they realize it or not.
But none of that means it belongs on slashdot.
"stuff that matters" doesn't mean "whatever zonk wants to post today".
And it doesn't mean that we get another ill-informed politico-hype site like
There are other, much, much better sources for this sort of material. All we get here is poorly understood issues presented in some sort of breathless grandstanding manner. It's old, it's on 50 other sites, and it's boring.
They're only "sorry" they got caught.
I'm surprised, really. Our media is so thoroughly ineffective, I can't imagine they can do much better by putting in phony journalists. How much friendlier can you get than Fox News?
You are welcome on my lawn.
...the course to a totalitarian dictatorship/oligarchy, that is. Control the media... eventually, just make it up... it's happened many times before. Even if it's done in an ridiculous manner, the fact that there are people in charge of FEMA who think it's OK should set alarm bells ringing.
Goofy cousin with ICBMs, indeed. Not just goofy, but aggressive, arrogant and loud-mouthed as well.
Fortunately, your fascism will be a capitalist one, so it's OK!
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
The country with the largest nuclear arsenal on a planet needs a revolution. That's thinking it through.
Do you really think that a government will nuke it's own people? For that to happen, we'd have to have some pretty big weapons -think: similar to what the government has. And, the people make the country. With no (or very little) people, this country would be in ruins.
Find out whose fucking retarded idea this was and fire their ass. Then find all the people who went along with this plan and fire their asses as well.
When our country is dealing with a emergency, the last thing we need is people making themselves busy faking news. What these baffoons should have been doing is their job... i.e. cooridinating a cohesive response to the fire situation in California.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Fucking stop posting until you understand the fucking difference between "your" and "you're", and "its" and "it's". Also... fuck your overuse of ellipsis. This isn't some fucking manga. How about instead of pounding your fucking keyboard.... you try a fucking comma or hyphen instead.
GO BACK TO FUCKING DIGG
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261&q=ENDGAME-+ALEX+JONES&total=287&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=9
No revolution in sight...and don't expect one.
In the first few decades of the last century, labor unions were founded and became dominant in the US; by 1950 more than half of American workers were union, and, having won, the leaders turned to the next social problem, equal rights. Beginning in the mid-fifties, the same personalities, by and large, and methods were used to bring about legal racial equality, culminating in the Civil Rights and Voting Acts of 1964. In that year, the focus turned from unions and racial equality to (VietNam) war resistance.
Although both the Union and the Civil Rights movements survived many, many casualties in their struggle, they persisted until the goal was reached. Not so the the war resisters: the National Guard shootings of demonstrators at Kent State University, Ohio, stopped the "Peace" movement in its tracks.
Had the union or civil rights movements been abandoned because two people were killed in the resulting violence, nothing would have been accomplished.
Now, of course, no outrage is enough even to get our (US) citizens up in arms (pun intended).
The framers of our Constitution understood it was simply an *experiment* and once the government learned to game the people (as FEMA has apologized for) the people would replace it, having learned from the current experiment what pitfalls to avoid next time.
T. Jefferson reckoned the consititution ought to be replace every thirty years or so. We're WAAAYY overdue.
Liberty is fed with the blood of tyrants.
This isn't the first time FEMA has done this sort of thing. The more I've researched this agency, from it's creation through all of it's efforts, it's resources, it's inclusion in executive orders and laws which affect the very core of our ideals and constitutional republic, it's subterfuge and misconduct, it's public face as portrayed in the media vs the reality of it's mandate, and how very little the general public knows about that mandate - the more I find to be concerned about.
While researching FEMA initially I was looking to disprove disturbing things I had heard and read; it was not a case where I went looking to substantiate fears, if anything I went into the research with a "FEMA are the good guys" bias, but what I found was far worse than I imagined it could be, and I am genuinely concerned for the security of my country.
I have posted before about FEMA and the executive orders which created and empower it. Rather than repeat any of that, I would urge anyone reading this to look into FEMA and it's mandate and actions on their own. Google it, especially the executive orders and the current anti-terror laws which have removed a lot of your rights.
"If and when martial law comes to America at large, it will be under the auspices of the shadowy Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA"), a massive, secretive agency operated from a huge, fortified bunker in Virginia, and established by unconstitutional means to carry out an unconstitutional and indeed anti-constitutional program."
- excerpt from RICO complaint pending against Bush II admin (I am not claiming that the RICO case is with or without merit, only that the particular statement quoted is accurate in my opinion).
I should have stopped it," said John "Pat" Philbin, FEMA's director of external affairs. "I hope readers understand we're working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it."
sounds like they aren't working too hard on it! but, there is always hope....
FEMA is very likely sorry that they were caught. The question of whether they're sorry they did it in the first place is still up for debate. Available evidence points to "not a fucking chance."
in which FEMA employees posed as reporters
Maybe one of these days FEMA employees could start impersonating first responders.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's just the Barbarians in charge (the so called CEO leadership style as influenced by Enron) - the rule of law hasn't entirely vanished and will return after a few technical difficulties.
Just like it did at Enron?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
T. Jefferson reckoned the consititution ought to be replace every thirty years or so. We're WAAAYY overdue.
People always raise that point on these kinds of discussions here, and I always wonder if the advocates of that position understand what they're advocating. We don't live in Jefferson's decentralized world; any sort of armed revolution, successful or unsuccessful, against the government would be incredibly disruptive, would result in a lot of lost lives, would open us up to serious military threats from abroad, and would tank the economy for several years.
OJ Simpson is sorry for killing his wife.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I am not advocating an armed revolution. I *am* advocating passive demonstrations against these abhorrent policies, typified by FEMA's sham news conference.
My Kent State example was not that demonstrators should have shot back at Guardsmen, but that the "Peace Movement" had neither the courage nor even the integrity to continue regardless of personal danger -- courage that the union movement and civil rights movement found. Those movemenets did not take arms against the government, they persisted until the government's cupidity was profoundly unmasked, and the voters changed the government's policies.
I am the last to advocate war. I am a Viet Nam vet. I have seen war. You will not like it.
But no empire lasts forever; it looks like the US Empire is falling faster than any before it. Look to the history of Great Britain after World War Two for a clue as to what will happen to the US -- that is, IF we find an undiscovered stash of oil on the order of the one in the North Sea that has been keeping GB monetarily afloat for decades.
But that's another story.
Hint: it might be a crime for a US citizen to advocate taking up arms against his government. It might be called treason.
(with your Komrade Klinton remark) that you voted for Bush. (Like it or not, if this had happened on Clinton's watch, it would've hit the fan)
I don't know. Efficiency. Seemed like a model for cutting out the middle man and streamlining the government/corporate fascistocracy. Probably their big mistake was actually notifying the media so when they arrived the story wasn't reporters throwing softballs at FEMA, the story was how the news conference went on without their reporters. And it's a concept that would certainly be a win for the media bottom line. They could fire all their reporters and broadcast government and corporate media clips all the time instead of just some of the time.
So a win for government and a win for business. You don't hate America and hate capitalism, do you Citizen?
they aren't immune until after they are all pardoned.
That said, the hauge is still likely the best place to handle this.
Please write in and call your Senators and Congressional representatives and express your feelings. An apology isn't enough here - this isn't an "oops we're sorry" kind of thing.
I'm a 2000 man.
The idea behind dismantling the government is that the current government became useless for the people of the country and now stands on the way of any progress at all. I support this idea in principle, of-course implementation is not very clear. Formerly all revolutions ended up creating even worse situation than that prior to them. So how do you dismantle the government?
Another issue is this, what principles would you build the new system upon? I'd think most people would agree that the federals should be given much less power than they have now and that the local governing system should be the most important system. The local system should be responsible for its own infrastructure, but how do you decide what is 'local' in the first place?
Of-course a more fun idea than others is to have a shoot out and divide everything from scratch. On the other hand this will not go well with property owners. Well then, maybe the most important local government should start from everyone's own place of residence. Wouldn't that be fun? If everyone lived by their own laws in their own house and those laws would trump any externally imposed laws. The problem is that there is no way to stop one household from cooperating with other households. Once two households cooperate, they are more powerful than any one single household. That's the problem with people - they like to cooperate while they really should be trying to survive on their own. How do we turn off the cooperation gene once again?
Ok, so given that people will cooperate and form alliances and thus will create the job of a politician, who will become more powerful and will always have more voice than a non-politician, how do we ensure that the politicians don't create the same problem that is observed at this time right now?
How about a meta-democratic system, requiring the voters to display good understanding of the issues they are supposedely voting on and displaying good logical sense and understanding the difference between a faith based and a scientific process of dealing with the world? So these people become an elite really, but anyone can then enter this elite by becoming more informed.
Of-course some masses that are not and are incapable of becoming the elite, will stop trusting this elite, but then who cares about those people right? But the truth is that those people also should be able to make decisions in their own lives, no matter how uninformed and mentally incapable they are.
Maybe different states should have different voting processes, while limiting the feds from real power over the states. Some states should only allow the abovementioned elite to vote, some states should allow everyone to vote, some states should not allow voting at all, etc.
Then, every 3 years or so, the states should get together and look at the results of this experiment and adjust it accordingly to the results.
So this is it, the system should constantly change and adopt, we should only create laws and systems to direct these changes onto the path of progress, efficiency, happiness and such. Maybe it is something like the original intent, but better, because the political systems in each state would have a choice rather than be dictated to the same political system.
You can't handle the truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The government has managed the news for quite some time, in all manner of creative ways. FEMA simply got caught. Don't think for a moment that this is the first time something like this has been done either by FEMA or by the government in general. They have long been of the mind that the citizens (and the fourth estate, and the constitution) are an inconvenience, rather than supervisory bodies and limits they are responsible to.
Just spend a little time with Google looking for managed news, faked news, and government.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Philbin's last scheduled day at FEMA was Thursday. He has been named as the new head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."
Does any one else find this disturbing? According to Laurence J. Peter, this boob's ascension should have terminated already. Yet he seems destined for higher levels of incompetence. Stay tuned.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Where were the iron bars then?
You get the government you deserve. Karl Rove was just taking notes on what Clinton got away with, and putting it into practice.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Excuse me, there is NO other reason that this agency is pulling crap in all fronts and frauding people. ALL directors, responsibles, important bureaucrats are appointed by bush's office and other republicans, and they are responsible only to the bush's office. The fault lies therein.
Read radical news here
Nixon escaped prison time with his watergate.
reagan and the co-conspirators on Iran-Contra (as well as October surprise) were pardoned by Poppa Bush.
Clinton lied, was impeached but not thrown out of office.
And W. has been involved in so many illegal actions.
And what actions have the dems have taken against W? NADA. Zero. Zip, Zilch.
I am guessing that HRC or Obama will do NOTHING as well (one of these 2 will be president). Truly sad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Such a blatant (and incompetent) attempt at deception of the US populace by a senior official in our government should be regarded as treason.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
As an American, I am outraged by this news. I have sent a letter to my representative recommending a course of action. Anyone wishing to use this as a template for their own letters, by all means, please copy it. If you need to find out who your Congressman/woman is, use this site. http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Dear Representative,
It has recently come to my attention that FEMA has directly deceived the American public with a false news conference designed solely to "make themselves look better." They have acknowledged this and in light of being caught have chosen to simply say sorry. This is not enough. Their organization, as a government body, has a duty to uphold the truth and not deceive its citizens. An apology is not sufficient recourse for this action. Those directly responsible for this inexcusable action and those responsible for letting this happen need to be removed from their posts because they are no longer fit to serve the good of the American people.
Please do all you can to make my voice, and the voice of all other Americans that desire a government free of corruption and misdirection, heard and acted upon.
Respectfully,
We need to start taking action, we need to start making mountains of molehills. This is OUR country. We can't let it slip away any more.
PS. Not posted anonymously, because I'm not afraid to be an American.
"Don't feel bad for me child; I'm the monster that hides under your bed."
Paul would get rid of FEMA as its clearly a bureaucratic crap shoot of inefficiency. He would also get rid of homeland security, department of education, downsize the CIA etc... California's economy is among the biggest in the world. They can fend for themselves. They shouldn't have to wait for lumbering dumbasses from FEMA to get things straightened away. States should have a lot more power and responsibility for these kinds of things.
While you may not agree with all of Paul's ideas, his economic and foreign policy are second to none out of any candidate in both parties.
And stop calling Paul supporters spammers. There is a reason they are so enthusiastic.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
old FEMA: You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie! new FEMA: We're doing a heck of a job, aren't we?
Liberty is fed with the blood of tyrants.
and patriots.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
There are a lot of users on this site that are convinced the big evil government is out to get them, the evil Bush and Cheney are turning the country into a dictatorship, etc. but this illustrates exactly how silly that notion really is. This is similarly good evidence against the Roswell UFO, the Kennedy assassination conspiracy, and the 9/11 inside job lunacy, among other things.
The bureaucrats who really run Washington DC year after year, whether Republicans or Democrats are in the White House are a fairly stupid, clumbsy, inept and out-of-touch bunch; These are the sort who think this stupid idea would actually work and make sense. Not only were they completely unable to pull-off this phony news conference, but they also were unable to hide how phoney it was and now cannot manage the resulting bad publicity. If they cannot cover-up even something stupid like this, they are hardly up to the level of a James Bond super-villain. They're all idiots.
FEMA & DHS should be disbanded along with 90% of the rest of the federal government. Not because they are evil and about to squish us all, but because they are lazy, overpaid, and completely incompetent. People who actually WANT the federal government to do much more than the Constitution says it should do ought to look at the track record and re-consider. Yes, Chertoff is a loser who was appointed by Bush, just as Burger was a loser who was appointed by Clinton... There are plenty of professional government appointees in both parties who just go from administration to administration running things when their party is in power and being lawyers/lobbyists when their party is out of power. These people are not really capable of actually running a big evil conspiracy; they lack the skill set. If you are ever in a natural disaster you should count on yourself and your community before you ever dream of depending on the clowns from the federal government. Look at the difference between Katrina and these wildfires; The PEOPLE responded differently and got different results, but the DC crowd were just consistently stupid as expected.
how easy it is to get people to accept something is OK, just by acting like it is OK.
For example, when the President denied that Rumsfeld was going to go in the last interim election. He claimed, an most people apparently bought, that it would be improper to let this information affect the election, as if the composition of the executive branch was an irrelevant factor in the choice of the legislative branch. By acting as if this ridiculous idea were somehow common sense, they convinced may people that is is common sense.
But there was a much, much bigger implicit claim made in that situation, one that is has been made over and over again, but never explicitly:
It is good to tell routinely tell lies to the American people if in yo opinion they are better off believing those lies.
Leaving aside the paternalism of this idea, I can accept that persons in high office sometimes have to be less than forthright with the people. Sometimes they may need to be misleading. Eisenhower was a master of not answurering questions he felt shouldn't be answered, by giving reporters marvelously quotable digressions.
But to admit an outright lie with, not only a lack of shame, but smug self-righteousness? It raises a question: why should we believe anything they say? Why should we even pay attention?
Politics necessarily has little regard for the truth, but little is worlds different from no regard, or even only token regard. Politics may bend twist the truth. It may outright lie, and be forced to assume ritual sackcloth and ashes. But to lie, then act as if lying were a virtue, that is the act of a ruler, not a democratic leader.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The government used the media to lie to the people through propaganda. And that's no joke....
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You actually have to feel a bit for this administration. I mean really, who are they going to find among their self serving power mongering inner circle with enough empathy to run a deparment like FEMA well. The fundementals are so far out of their base mind set. It must be a really tough situation them.
-rd
What the mean is, sorry because they were caught.
Those idiots! Honestly, FEMA had nothing to worry about on this one, because (and I've been living through these fires 1st-hand) FEMA's response was quite good. Everybody's response: Cal Fire, the state, and the feds all operated together unlike, both Katrina, and the last time we had massive fires down here.
is having a govt agency that spends my hard earned money on folks that live below sea level, in a tornado zone, or an area prone to wildfires. Phuck'em and make them pay for their own shite.
I don't understand why you say the peace movement stopped with the killings at Kent State. I remember outrage, but not stopping. What precisely do you think stopped? What stopped was the Vietnam War.
There is even a peace movement today with a lot of the same people involved that were involved in the 60's.
American citizens should be very angry and vocal about this. This is a brain-washing tactic in its worst sense. There is no way that anyone involved in this should be allowed to continue to work for your government. The entire organization should be completely disbanded. That act is a blatent misuse and abuse of a public forum. Make examples of them. There is no room for such acts in the free world, and this time, apologies do not cut it.
Good luck, yet again, Americans. I feel for you in this time of shitty governance.
Greg
We get blogs of blogs of email transcripts reported as 'news'. We are forced to play journalist on Slashdot FAR TOO OFTEN, and uncover the facts ourselves by finding the source. The 5% or so of readers that do the research are drowned out on the forums by the other 95% who circle jerk and post utter garbage based on the untrue/misleading headlines or summaries.
What's the response we get? Circle jerkers tell us to go find another site.
Fuck them. I want the old Slashdot back. Circle jerkers be damned, go to Fox News, assholes.
Please, do SOMETHING to prevent people who don't read or understand the ACTUAL news from fucking up Slashdot.
Take this Chicago Tribune article for example. Look what's left out of the summary for the 5% to catch. This results in a deluge of posts from tinfoil hat wearing, govt is out to get you, massive corruption, govt is hiding everything in elaborate coverup, fucktards. "We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straight forward and transparent," Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., FEMA's deputy administrator "We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment," Johnson said "It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly
What The Fuck is the point of Slashdot? Give us our damned -5 "Out of Touch with Reality" mod tool, or -5 "Tinfoil Hat" PLEASE. Stop giving mod points to every Joe Schmo Jackass. "The Masses" are not a good benchmark. Weed out the ignorance.
The rest of the world did not get the U.S. government they deserve. You've got an obligation to the countries which have been fucked over by the U.S. to set things right.
According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings Kent State polarized the nation. That doesn't fit my memory. Outside of a nationwide student strike over the Kent State Massacre itself, there were no more mass antiwar demonstrations.
If the antiwar movement wasn't dead by then, it was certainly in its sickbed. The war (including the absurd arguments over the shape of the table the negotiators would sit at) continued for three more years -- until April 30, 1973.
NB: There was a month or so before KS another antiwar demonstration at a school in Mississippi, IIRC, where guardsmen fired at and injured or killed peaceful assemblers, but it did not achieve the notoriety of KS. I would remind readers that the US Government has shown little reluctance to shoot at civilians demanding their "rights" from the WW-One Bonus Army March to the Hooverville campsite on the National Mall, to Kent State.
Hi, I'd like to introduce you to Ecology 101.
As you read in chapter 1, there are different biomes in different areas of the Earth. One that is found in Southern California is the Mediterranian Chapparal. This biome is relatively dry and warm, and is known for incomplete plant cover, thick-leaved plants (schlerophylls), and lots of woody, oily biomass.
Now let's move to chapter 2, where we discuss Disturbance Ecology. The mediterranian chapparal, you see, burns regularly. This returns critical nutrients to the soil and allows many species to reproduce. Without regular disturbances, the chaparral would likely desertify. The fires are probably unavoidable outside of a desert scenario, as the low moisture, moderate soils, and warm temperatures cause combustable biomass.
Let's apply these lessons: if you're going to build a home in a rustic, rural sort of area, where should you not build it? Perhaps an ecosystem known to regularly rely on an event that will destroy your home?
Ah, but you think to yourself, "we can prevent forest fires! The laws of nature don't apply to man; we can change nature." Unfortunately, you're only half right. We can change nature, but the laws of nature are like the laws of gravity or black body radiation. So, when we prevent small scale fires, we cause a build up of the materials that fuel fires, and we see much larger fires with lower frequency. It happens like goddamn, motherfucking clockwork. It has for millions of years; it's extremely predictable. You can stick in your finger and hold back the second hand for a bit, but it's going to get loose and its going to move really fast when it does (poor analogy, I know).
On the other hand, analysis of sedimentary layers along the Gulf Coast, both on- and off-land, show that large storm events are relatively rare, and haven't occured on a regular basis for more than a hundred thousand years. A mega-storm hitting southern Louisiana and coastal Texas is considered improbable for any year or decade, or at least it was a little while ago. Changing climate conditions (largely observed over the last few years) are changing the odds significantly.
So, to recap, people who built homes and lived in Southern California at any point since the introduction of the Scientific Method should have seen large fire events coming. People who built homes and lived in coastal Louisiana really had no reason to expect a mega-storm in their lifetimes, until about 5 years ago.
Homeworks due Friday, bring your textbooks to discussion, have a nice day.
Such as hiring a man whore to pose as a journalist.The government has managed the news for quite some time, in all manner of creative ways.
You can't take the sky from me...
Sorry isn't gonna cut it... try mass resignations!
A government organization went on national TV and intentionally tried to fool millions of Americans into believing a lie so that they didn't look bad.
Oh wait... never mind... I forgot, this is the USA. Indeed:
Whitman also announced that EPA has been given up to $83 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support EPA's involvement in cleanup activities and ongoing monitoring of environmental conditions in both the New York City and Washington metropolitan areas following last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Whitman said. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink," she added.
That giant cloud of asbestos powder? Harmless. Why do you ask? Move along, citizen.
You can't take the sky from me...
At least with the US it will get better over time. In 10 to 20 years it'll be far better. On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq.
However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.
In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.
The United Nations economic sanctions were imposed in 1990 at the urging of the U.S. .
You can't take the sky from me...
'fuckwad' is one word...
Name one of these 'essential' day to day services, provided at the federal level, that he wishes to completely ban and not merely leave to the states.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
They need to clean house and fire every last person who contributed to this scheme. Write your representitves and demand it.
Oh please. Naomi Wolf didn't cut the video together herself. I know plenty of people all over the political spectrum who make typos, and far worse, so that's an exceptionally lame excuse for not wanting to listen to a lecture. If you don't like the material being discussed, why not just say so rather than find excuses to avoid listening? --Or maybe, (horrors), offer up your own 'reasoned argument' for why you think the material is at fault. --I've written many hundreds of such arguments in my time, so I figured it couldn't hurt to hear it from another person's perspective. --I thought she did a pretty succinct job, although a little more confidence at the end of her speech might have been appropriate.
-FL
2girls1cup is tame compared to how much this and the non-reaction from the media/public disgusts me.
Medical care under Saddam was good enough that Iraq didn't have cholera epidemics. They have them now, thanks to you. Cholera is an unbelievably infectious and deadly disease; there is no telling how many hundreds of thousands of people will die from it. And you are responsible.
Yes, I mean you personally: anybody who starts a war is responsible for all the ensuing blood and disease; this principle was established at the Nuremberg Trials. And because you live in a democracy and therefore have the sovereign power of the vote, you are personally responsible for whatever your country does. You are to blame for all the death, torture, and disease. No excuses.
Let me get this straight:
You think that if enough people ask Bush and Cheney to change their minds, they'll do so out of the goodness of their hearts? And if they don't, we'll have no choice but to ask them politely again?
Yeah, that's a real incentive.
That sounds a lot like (though not directly comparable to) abstaining from voting to promote change in the electoral system: "I'm going to ignore you and let you take more power until you change your ways."
Confrontation is necessary for change.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Since when did the Kent State Massacre put an end to the anti-war movement? That's not how I remember it, and I've never even seen anyone claim this. The movement continued, the war became increasingly unpopular, and the US withdrew.
Incidentally, four students were killed at Kent State, not two: Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Only the first two were participants in the protest; the second two were bystanders.
The fact that there were massive demonstrations in the wake of Kent State puts paid to your theory that the anti-war movement died out because the protesters were frightened by the deaths at Kent State.
Not so. How about the Mayday Protestsof 1971, which put Washington into a virtual state of siege?
And you can also just watch the movie "Wag the dog" :-P
This sig can be distributed under the LGPL license
In Soviet Union, emergency manages you.
In reality, you'd probably end up wishing that what the gov't called it was treason. The trend is clear; a person who is resisting, advocating resistance, or doing anything contrary to the will of the State is a terrorist. Terrorists are not to be considered human, and it's expected that any action that involves the treatment of the terrorist is not only acceptable, but it will not even be questioned.
The first step to oppressing a people is to stop believing that they are human. That's why they're called insurgents, which is defined in Webster's as "a rebel not recognized as a belligerent" (with belligerent meaning "belonging to or recognized
Of course, that's also why the people who live in the USA are 'consumers', not people. I was at a party last night; it was not an extremely large gathering, there was drinking but no noise problems, and there was nothing disruptive about it. 4 police cars pull up, no less than 6 officers get out and talk amongst themselves. 2 of them walk up to the entryway to a patio (clearly belonging to the apartment). I ask what the problem is, and (non-belligerently) tell them that this is private property and that they're not welcome. One of the officers looks at me, and says (direct quote) "What are you going to do about it?" and walks into the patio area and begins questioning and demanding ID from everyone in sight. (Everyone was over 21.) We're losing this battle rapidly, and the trends in other areas work against us.
Freedom was nice while it lasted.
From the article you cite:
I am absolutely blown away by this. The level of stupidity and incompetence necessary to even attempt something so deceptive is...disturbing. Welcome to Bush's world I guess, we should have a national holiday commemorating the death of the United States.
I beleieve you are correct. I regret the factual error.
This is true, but the parent poster did not post the entire quote; he missed a very important two words, "...patriots and..."
The quote is actually, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Jefferson knew exactly what it took to overthrow a government, and did not ignore the costs to the rebelling side. People today like to ignore those words when they talk about revolution, because they don't like to think that they will actually have to pay the price themselves, and seem to think they will lose support by mentioning it.
J.
It's kinda funny watching all these armchair Slashdotters arguing for violent overthrow. Most of them probably couldn't turn over their mattress, let alone a government.
Wow, what a bizarre story. Sounds like some White House insider knew him as a gay escort friendly to conservative causes and used him as a plant. This, Senator Craig's bathroom exploits, and other stories are surreal. Is the whole far-right movement based on closet homosexuals?
Everyone that participated should have known that their actions were misleading the public and seriously dangerous to the organization's ability to carry out its mission.
You cannot have a disaster response agency that no one trusts. I just finished my public administration degree, and even though it was from a crappy third tier school I don't think any of my peers would have been stupid enough to do something like that (speaking from a risk perspective).
However, from an ethical/service perspective...i'm afraid that people from all walks of life would be sure to attempt it if they thought the could get away with it. The problem here is that not one of the employees had the leadership and ethical capability to stand up and challenge the plan before it happened--therefore all participants should be fired.
It sure looks that way, doesn't it?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
and private eyes, and school teachers...
They were reporters trying to get the scoop on a wealthy socialite who was getting married. They found out the wedding was a sham cooked up by thieves.
My mom says I'm cool.
Yes guys, don't let your guard down, otherwise we will invade you, and will declare enchiladas the national dish.
You don't want that. Specially if they are *mole* enchiladas....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There where no trigger happy gangs. No matter which way you slice it, there weren't. Actually Iraq was one of the safest places to be (plenty of evidence of that). This is unsurprising, most dictatorships are like that, this is not necessarily a good thing, but what you are implying is factually incorrect.
In Hussein's times maybe people did not have all the services, but at least there was some infrastructures mantained (poorly if you want) by an organized government.
For the thousands unnecessarily dead in Iraq and their families, your wished improvement in 20 years time must be beyond a contemptuous reply (now think about that, you have one or more family members or friends dead, your way of life destroyed, and a supporter of the invaders tells you life will be better in 20 years time. If you think they will greet you and thank you for everything, well, you clearly are living in a parallel universe).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... when you *really* need it?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
. . . and only half of what you see.
This is nothing new in the "News" biz. Remember Bush's phony Iraq videoconference with the troops where the "questions" were rehearsed beforehand?
Lest we think only government officials do this, or only Republicans, remember:
. . . NBC's "expose" of exploding gas tanks on pickup trucks using footage supplied by an advocacy group (funded by trial lawyers, btw) where incendiary devices were used to create explosions on cue?
. . . Dan Rather's phony National Guard memos?
Ask yourself how an author gets interviewed on 60 Minutes. Is it because CBS' parent company also owns the publisher? Why do so many "investigative journalism" pieces about corporate malfeasance get broadcast just before jury selection begins in the civil case? Why do so many trade magazine articles read like press releases (because they are)?
There is no objective standard for what "news" is. It's up to us to pay attention to the source and timing of the information we are being fed, and decide its value.
None of which require overhauling the constitution (save maybe adding term limits to legislators) to stop career politicians.
"Liberty is fed with the blood of tyrants"
AND patriots, to finish the paraphrase of Jefferson. Herein lies the problem today. Despite what a few country music stars and other assorted chicken hawks would lead you to believe there is a bit of a shortage of true patriots these days. We are all still just too comfortable and thus too fearful of losing our soft lives, so far anyway. I do believe there are plenty Americans with the passion and fortitude to evolve into true patriots, if pushed far enough. The question is just how far can these folks be pushed before the break occurs. Anyway as TJ noted form time to time the "tree of liberty must be fed" or it will simply wither and die from neglect.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
No. I only think that you specifically are a fool because:
A. You judge evidence without looking at it first. It is a universally accepted truth that only fools behave in this manner. --You even steadfastly declared that you would NOT look, while struggling to manufacture the thinnest of reasons to justify this behavior. (Heck, if you would look at the last example I posted, you would see that your most current excuse has been addressed and in fact agreed with!)
B. You make endless faulty arguments and when the faults are pointed out, rather than respond to those points you instead merely present brand new faulty arguments which do not take into account the points previously raised. You have not exhibited the capacity to learn from or even recognize your own mistakes.
C. When offered concrete examples and reasoning, you simply ignore them.
D. You are rude and until your most recent posts, largely incoherent, and when it was pointed out that this was damaging to both your arguments and your credibility, you got huffy and accusatory as though I am somehow at fault for not wanting to accept gibberish and insults.
That's four strikes against you. --Whereas all you have offered in return is to continue throwing around broken arguments, to continue calling me names, and now, apparently, to accuse me of elitism because I had the audacity to point out when and how you were not making any sense.
I am clearly wasting my efforts in attempting to answer your questions and accusations; rather than listening and responding to my answers, you hide from them behind flimsy excuses and throw profanity at me.
--Though I am certain you will be able to pretend that you emerged victorious. Self-delusion is wonderfully comforting that way; it is in fact the only choice available to those who refuse to look at evidence and who prefer instead to live exclusively inside the safety and comfort of their own minds. (Armchair logic.) This is ultimately self-destructive, but that's fine by me. Goodbye now.
-FL
>Though I am certain you will be able to pretend that you emerged victorious. Self-delusion is wonderfully comforting that way; it is in fact the only choice available to those who refuse to look at evidence and who prefer instead to live exclusively inside the safety and comfort of their own minds. (Armchair logic.) This is ultimately self-destructive, but that's fine by me. Goodbye now.
*puts on striped shirt*
*reviews thread*
*blows whistle*
You're both Off-topic. You both get fined One Internet.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia