My first response to this article was a quote from P.T. Barnum:
"There's a sucker born every minute!"
Rather ironically, he never actually said that. Make you kind of a sucker for believing that he did. (No insult intended - I thought he had too, until I learned otherwise)
Other famous "never said it"s: Kirk: "Beam me up scotty" Holmes: "Elementary, my dear Watson" Bogart: "Play it again, Sam"
We now return you to your irregularly programmed schedule
Cynical side of me sees attempt to drum up more sales.
Realistic side... sees attempt to drum up more sales.
That's because you're outside of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field(tm). If you were inside it (where you're *SUPPOSED* to be) you would in fact see this for what it really is - a selfless attempt by Apple to bring about world peace.
Come. Join is. Everything is happy here. And made of white plastic - which is a bonus.
--The one who asks questions or the one who makes ridiculing jokes?
I'd say the one who responded to a barbaric terrorist attack with lunatic conspiracy theories is the unthinking one.
Personally, I'd say that it seems extremely unlikely that 9/11 was some kind of false flag operation, and it would take a large amount of damn solid evidence and plenty of applied critical thinking to convince me otherwise... However, the parent has a point - jumping to conclusions helps nobody.. from what I see, nobody has even asked the parent for his/her evidence for this claim. Everyone's merely assuming that there is none. Parent - what evidence DO you have, just out of interest?
The main problem with approaching something like this is making sure your evidence is high quality, and that you're interpreting it correctly. It's VERY common for things to be misread.. for example, some people take the manner in which the towers collapsed on 9/11 to be evidence that explosives were used in the buildings, but in fact their collapse was entirely consistent with what would be expected in that situation. Likewise, the thing about JFK's head jerking the "wrong way" proving the bullet came from somewhere else - in fact, as unintuitive as it seems, his head moved exactly the RIGHT way. Penn & Teller demonstrate this wonderfully in one of the episodes of their "Bullshit" show. Or to give yet another example, some people think that the fact no stars show up in photos from the moon landing means they are faked.
Even so though, be careful what you just dismiss out of hand. Saying "Pffth! That's impossible! It could never have happened! I don't even need proof, because I know it for sure" is just as bad as saying "Pffth! Terrorists! yeah, that's what they WANT you to think. It was actually the gubmint and the illuminati and the aliens! I don't even need proof, because I know it for sure!"
I'm not sure really what the point of this little rant is now. Just pretend I wrote something really inspiring and meaningful on how everyone should learn and apply the art of critical thinking to their lives as much as possible.
This is no time to be making fun of religion. This is about innocent people getting killed by terrorists.
Actually, it's a particularly appropriate time to be pouring scorn on religion, given that it's a major driving force behind all this terrorism business.. Fundamentalist religion - both Islamic and Christian - has a lot to answer for.
Scenario 1) Someone steals a record from a record store. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Scenario 2) Someone downloads a new record, instead of buying it. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Call it whatever the hell you want, the result is the same. Not everyone is as honorable as those who go out and buy records they downloaded and liked.
Scenario 3) Someone buys the CD second hand at a record shop/car boot sale/yard sale. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Scenario 4) Someone buys the CD from a highstreet record store. Artist is a small-to-medium name on a big label. Result: Artist gets a very small slice which, statistically speaking, they will probably end up paying back to the record company anyway. Record company gets a nice large slice.
Scenario 5) Someone downloads all the artist's songs from P2P networks, but also goes to see them play live at various gigs, and buys merchandise direct from them/their website. Result: Artist gets a pretty damn good cut of the profits.
Re:"Plan 9 From Outer Space" is on archive.org!
on
Attack of the $1 DVDs
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· Score: 1
It's also a goldmine for any MST3K fans, as many of the movies that have had the MST treatment are avaliable for download there (in their original form, that is, not MST3K episodes)
You can download a lot of these movies from archive.org's moving images library (too lazy to link. Hint: it's at atchive.org). They have a ton of public domain movies, from full length feature films to short educational movies and all kinds of interesting stuff in between
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for the link in your sig. Great video.. I haven't seen someone squirm like that since Uri Gellar was caught out on the Tonight Show.
Now this IS newsworthy! No, no, not that stuff about brains != computers. I'm talking about the fact that a Roland P blog story made got posted, without the main link in the summary pointing to his blog.
Catholics see the body and bread as a physical vessel of the spiritual body and blood of Jesus Christ. After all, before it's blessed, it's just bread, and after it's digested, it's goes down the toilet. It simply doesn't matter much what it's made of physically, in the same way it doesn't matter at all what people are made of physically... we all turn back to dust in the end.
You're missing a very important part of the process. According to Catholic belief the wafer is not simply a piece of bread that is eaten and digested like any other wafer. It is subject to a miracle - in the very literal sense.
Catholics believe in the miracle of transubstantiation. This states that at the moment of consumption the communion wafer literally, physically changes and becomes the flesh of Christ. It's important to understand that this is not simply seen as a symbolic or metaphorical thing, but that according to Catholic dogma it actually physically happens.
If transubstantiation did take place then it wouldn't matter in the least what the wafer was made from - it could be made from arsenic and cyanide, and if the miracle of transubstantiation is correct, the person eating it would suffer no ill effects whatsoever, because those substances would not enter their body.
Therefore, if the catholic church is so confident that this miracle takes place - and it is, after all, a fundamental part of their beliefs - then why do they bother getting gluten free wafers for people who can't consume gluten?
For what it is worth, Catholics believe that the priest turns the sacramental host and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ during mass. which is not too far removed from your example.
Yep. And yet, bizarrely, many of them now offer gluten free communion wafers for people with food allergies. Why? After all, you're not eating the wafer - you're eating the body of Jesus, so it doesn't matter what the wafer is made of. Or could it be that maybe they secretly know it's all a pile of steaming shite?
Well, I really shouldn't feed the trolls - or the idiots. But here goes anyway
This just proves that we were justified for attacking Iraq; after all, President Bush made it clear that you're either with us or with the terrorists. Saddam made his loyalties known, and he paid the price. Then again-in a liberal's mindset-if Michael Moore disagrees with it, it must be a lie.
Ah yes. And if Bush says it it must be true. FWIW, I think Michael Moore is a twat with very little of any worth to say - and anything that he does say is so wrapped up in hype and drama that it's lost anyway.
You appear to be alluding to the fact that Saddam Hussein had some kind of alleigance or connection with Al Queda when you say he "made his loyalties known". If you are in possession of such information I suggest you deliver it to George Bush or Tony Blair immediately, because they really should be informed of things like that.
It must be so easy to live in a world where everything is black or white. You're either a good god-fearing middle class freedom-fries eating white American Christian, or you're one of them there Islamic commie terr'ist mutants - oh, I'm sorry.. I believe the correct technical term is "towel-headed nutjobs"
I'd love to see you spout this bull to a company of Marines or airborne soldiers. Funny you should say that, because I have. Unlike, I suspect, you, I actually know somebody who served in Iraq, having spent six months there with the Scottish Black Watch regiment last year. His views on the matter are considerably more extreme than mine, and he's rather bitter about having risked his life and seen friends killed and injured for what he terms "a completely bullshit war". But then, he's probably an Islamic double agent or something.
Whoops.. quick amendment to the above. I quoted parent with:
people died [in the Indian Ccean tsunami] but it was ENTIRELY unavoidable.
My intention was to put into context what I was referring to, but I've just realised it makes the parent come across as sounding rather more flippant than in the original context. That line should instead read:
"[the Indian Ocean tsunami] was ENTIRELY unavoidable"
Now if only Slashdot had an "edit post" button. Oh well.
You have conveniently forgotten the 1993 World Trade Center attack, I was actually referring to a large scale attack such as 9/11, but didn't spell that out, so fair enough, I'll give you that. It still gives you a total of around 3000 people dead from Islamic terrorist activities on US soil. That is, of course, 3000 too many, and of course steps should be taken to prevent it happening again. But it is simply not the case that events like this are happening on a regular basis. People are occasionally mauled by tigers - yes, even in the US, probably in zoos - but that doesn't mean we all need to carry around tiger repelling spray all the time. Nor, to take the other extreme, does that mean we should dive into a tiger's den. A bit of common sense is all it takes. I'm all for common sense, and by all means, make air travel more secure. But that's not what we've seen since 9/11. What we've seen is much posturing, flag waving, jingoistic nonsense like "freedom fries", people having their car keys and other harmless items taken off them when boarding planes, people being detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay. The latest thing is yet another attempt to make burning the American flag a crime. If that should pass, we will now have officially reached the point where the image of the flag is more important than the freedom it embodies (the freedom, for example, to dissent by burning it)
Let me get this straight, you are equating road traffic deaths to those killed, sorry, murdered by terrorists flying planes into buildings and the ground? Your values are so unbelievably out of whack that you may just be beyond help. Traffic deaths are tragic and I understand that they cause a lot of pain for the families of their victims but just because there are more that makes them more tragic? Sheesh.
My values are such that I find them exactly AS tragic in terms of loss. Are you saying that to you, the lives of people murdered by terrorists are more important, and more of a loss than those who die in accidents? Perhaps they're somewhat less dead? Or maybe you'd like to tell their familes that they don't matter as much. To me, all lives are of equal value. Every life lost is a tragic and unbearable loss. And to put it very bluntly, yes. To me, the loss of 40,000 lives IS worse than the loss of 3000 lives. Exactly 13.333 times worse.
It is, of course, a terrible and tragic thing whenever one person is driven to kill another, and I am firmly of the belief that in an ideal world that would never occur. However, I don't see that there is a case to be made that a person's death is more tragic for having been the result of terrorist action than natural disaster or road accident.
people died [in the Indian Ccean tsunami] but it was ENTIRELY unavoidable. That's easy enough. "Oh well. Couldn't have been helped. Never mind." I can't help but wonder if you'd dismiss it so easily if it had occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone of the Pacific Northwest, thereby affecting the USA instead? Regardless, a huge number of those deaths were preventable. With a small investment in communication, seismology equipment, and education, a very significant number of those people would still be alive today. The only major difference, apart from an order of magnitude in loss of life, is that 9/11 was an act of deliberate murder carried out by one set of people against another. It is also worth noting that, whatever your personal view of the event, the people who carried it out believed that they were doing something good and just. (just for the record, btw, I find it neither good nor just, but evil and disgusting.)
As for my choice of words that it 9/11 no big deal in the overall scale of things, I chose those words deliberately. Yes, it is a terribly crude thing to say, and I am fully aware of that. As I said earlier every single life lost is a tragedy, but 3000 deaths are just a tiny drop in the ocean of annual lives lost. Even if you only count delib
OK, tell that to the families of more than 3000 people who died on 9/11. People need to be more alert, it is not paranoia to be worried about the international terrorist threat and I think people who aren't worried about it are pretty naive.
I wonder, perchance, if you've considered why it's commonly referred to as "9/11" or "September the eleventh two thousand and one"?
It's because that's when it happened. The only time it has ever happened. Yes, it was a tragedy, and a crime against humanity, and a spectacular and shocking event. but in the overall scale of things.. well.. it was no big deal, quite frankly.
In the last 5 years - actually, in the whole of history - just over 3000 people have been killed by Al Qaeda militants on the US mainland, all on 9/11 in a single coordinated attack. It hasn't happened since, and despite plenty of fear mongering, there hasn't been any credible evidence to suggest that it could either.
In the year 2001 ALONE there were 42,443 deaths on the US mainland due to road traffic accidents. Similar figures have occurred every year since, bringing a rough total of 210,000 deaths. I'm guessing, given your propensity to worry about terrorist attack that you'd never do something so insanely reckless and suicidal as to drive a vehicle?
Of course, even US road deaths pale in comparison to the 250,000-and-still-rising deathtoll which resulted from the boxing day tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
And let's not forget the 972 US citizens who have been killed on US soil by.... the US Government, since 1976. Sure, they might be criminals (At least, you'd better hope they are!) but who says some of the people in the Twin Towers weren't?
Never mind though. So long as you can convince yourself that the sky is falling and there are terrorists lurking in every doorway and around every corner, I'm sure things will be just hunky dory. Who needs civil liberties anyways?
responsible journalists do not allow anonymous, unchecked "facts" into their news output
Hahahahahahahahah (pauses for breath) ahahahahahahahaha.
That is the funniest assertion I've heard all day!
Actually, the parent is entirely correct. A *responsible* journalist will not allow unchecked facts into their news output. The problem is that the vast majority of journalists working for major news organisations are not responsible.
To put it another way. As a journalist you can either spend hours dilligently researching, checking facts, chasing up sources, cross examining people... or you can just make shit up. Either pays the same, but the latter is a LOT easier - and has the added bonus effect of usually giving a more dramatic/exciting story.
Yes, lameness filter, I know using so many caps is like yelling. because that's exactly what I intend in this case. Daleks are not noted for their soft-spokenness. This additional free bonus waffle brought to you by the Slashdot Lameness Filter Avoidance Society.
As for drugs I have a simple solution to that problem. Expulsion. I don't see how a university can legitimately claim they have a serious admitance program [e.g. you need the high marks, pass an essay or oral exam, etc, etc, etc] when they let students drink and do drugs all the time.
If kids honestly feared ending their academic careers the serious ones would avoid drugs and the less serious [e.g. bench warmers] would fall out.
Yeah, great. So what about the ones who go to college, do the work, get good results, and enjoy going home at night and relaxing with a joint? They either have to sacrifice something they like (why? it's harming no one) or get booted out of the course. Perhaps they get found out. What happens then? They're kicked out, their academic career is ruined, they probably won't end up getting such a good job, and their life will turn crap. because of drugs? No. because of over zealous reaction to them.
It staggers me that in the US it's seen as normal for a job interview to involve a drugs test. There's so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to begin. First off, so long as you do your job, and don't come into work high, it's none of your employer's damn business what you do when you go home at night. You're far more likely to suffer productivity loss through alcoholism anyways. Also, if you don't allow drug users to have jobs, where are they going to get their money? Let's see.. I've got ready access to drugs, and no income. I know! I'll sell drugs! Yeah, that's really gonna help the problem.
Sure there are plenty of burnt out drug addled nobodies out there who can't hold their lives together for more than 5 minutes. There are also plenty of people like that who've never touched drugs in their lives. And, of course, there are those people who manage success and drug use. I think Carl Sagan is a pretty good example of the latter - he was a regular cannabis smoker.
Arrr! Speak fer ye'self, matey! The lads and I like nothing better than boarding some vessel, making the crew walk the plank, then ripping all their DVDs and uploading them as torrents.
Seriously. Don't do it. I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought a bunch of stuff off this pirate I met in a pub, but I later found out that the parrot was in fact dead, and not just pining for the fjords as he claimed, the eyepatch was for the wrong eye, and the cutlass was made of plastic.
Still, at least I didn't feel quite as ripped off as the time I bought a DVD from this bloke I know - he works in a place called "HMV". Paid £20 for the DVD, I did.. what what do I find when I get home and pop it in my player? I'm forced to sit through a bloody two minute intro lambasting me for my evil criminal pirate ways, and how I, personally, am causing the entire film industry's collective children to die a horrible death from starvation. And it was all encrypted so I couldn't (legally) make a backup of it for my own personal use.
Bloody inferior quality goods. I've learnt my lesson. I'm sticking to Bittorrent in the future.
Or, in other words, "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true..."
Well, no.. but it's the first time average joe has had a means of mass distribution for his opinion. Up until now the only standard has been "I saw it in an advert, so it must be true". At least now the other side of the story can be represented through a mass medium. It may not do anything for the factual accuracy, but at least it's some kind of improvement.
Slashdot Mirror
My first response to this article was a quote from P.T. Barnum:
"There's a sucker born every minute!"
Rather ironically, he never actually said that. Make you kind of a sucker for believing that he did. (No insult intended - I thought he had too, until I learned otherwise)
Other famous "never said it"s:
Kirk: "Beam me up scotty"
Holmes: "Elementary, my dear Watson"
Bogart: "Play it again, Sam"
We now return you to your irregularly programmed schedule
Cynical side of me sees attempt to drum up more sales.
Realistic side... sees attempt to drum up more sales.
That's because you're outside of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field(tm). If you were inside it (where you're *SUPPOSED* to be) you would in fact see this for what it really is - a selfless attempt by Apple to bring about world peace.
Come. Join is. Everything is happy here. And made of white plastic - which is a bonus.
Which one is the unthinking reaction-machine?
--The one who asks questions or the one who makes ridiculing jokes?
I'd say the one who responded to a barbaric terrorist attack with lunatic conspiracy theories is the unthinking one.
Personally, I'd say that it seems extremely unlikely that 9/11 was some kind of false flag operation, and it would take a large amount of damn solid evidence and plenty of applied critical thinking to convince me otherwise...
However, the parent has a point - jumping to conclusions helps nobody.. from what I see, nobody has even asked the parent for his/her evidence for this claim. Everyone's merely assuming that there is none.
Parent - what evidence DO you have, just out of interest?
The main problem with approaching something like this is making sure your evidence is high quality, and that you're interpreting it correctly. It's VERY common for things to be misread.. for example, some people take the manner in which the towers collapsed on 9/11 to be evidence that explosives were used in the buildings, but in fact their collapse was entirely consistent with what would be expected in that situation.
Likewise, the thing about JFK's head jerking the "wrong way" proving the bullet came from somewhere else - in fact, as unintuitive as it seems, his head moved exactly the RIGHT way. Penn & Teller demonstrate this wonderfully in one of the episodes of their "Bullshit" show. Or to give yet another example, some people think that the fact no stars show up in photos from the moon landing means they are faked.
Even so though, be careful what you just dismiss out of hand. Saying "Pffth! That's impossible! It could never have happened! I don't even need proof, because I know it for sure" is just as bad as saying "Pffth! Terrorists! yeah, that's what they WANT you to think. It was actually the gubmint and the illuminati and the aliens! I don't even need proof, because I know it for sure!"
I'm not sure really what the point of this little rant is now. Just pretend I wrote something really inspiring and meaningful on how everyone should learn and apply the art of critical thinking to their lives as much as possible.
This is no time to be making fun of religion. This is about innocent people getting killed by terrorists.
Actually, it's a particularly appropriate time to be pouring scorn on religion, given that it's a major driving force behind all this terrorism business.. Fundamentalist religion - both Islamic and Christian - has a lot to answer for.
Typically, my modpoints expired unused yesterday, but I just wanted to say this is one of the best posts I've seen on Slashdot in quite a while.
Scenario 1) Someone steals a record from a record store. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Scenario 2) Someone downloads a new record, instead of buying it. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Call it whatever the hell you want, the result is the same. Not everyone is as honorable as those who go out and buy records they downloaded and liked.
Scenario 3) Someone buys the CD second hand at a record shop/car boot sale/yard sale. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Scenario 4) Someone buys the CD from a highstreet record store. Artist is a small-to-medium name on a big label. Result: Artist gets a very small slice which, statistically speaking, they will probably end up paying back to the record company anyway. Record company gets a nice large slice.
Scenario 5) Someone downloads all the artist's songs from P2P networks, but also goes to see them play live at various gigs, and buys merchandise direct from them/their website. Result: Artist gets a pretty damn good cut of the profits.
It's also a goldmine for any MST3K fans, as many of the movies that have had the MST treatment are avaliable for download there (in their original form, that is, not MST3K episodes)
Very good.. you.. err.. passed the test. Yeah. That's it. It was a deliberate test..
You can download a lot of these movies from archive.org's moving images library (too lazy to link. Hint: it's at atchive.org). They have a ton of public domain movies, from full length feature films to short educational movies and all kinds of interesting stuff in between
Or you can use www.writetothem.com which will tell you who your MP/MEP/MSPs are and let you email them.
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for the link in your sig. Great video.. I haven't seen someone squirm like that since Uri Gellar was caught out on the Tonight Show.
Now this IS newsworthy!
No, no, not that stuff about brains != computers. I'm talking about the fact that a Roland P blog story made got posted, without the main link in the summary pointing to his blog.
Catholics see the body and bread as a physical vessel of the spiritual body and blood of Jesus Christ. After all, before it's blessed, it's just bread, and after it's digested, it's goes down the toilet. It simply doesn't matter much what it's made of physically, in the same way it doesn't matter at all what people are made of physically... we all turn back to dust in the end.
You're missing a very important part of the process. According to Catholic belief the wafer is not simply a piece of bread that is eaten and digested like any other wafer. It is subject to a miracle - in the very literal sense.
Catholics believe in the miracle of transubstantiation. This states that at the moment of consumption the communion wafer literally, physically changes and becomes the flesh of Christ. It's important to understand that this is not simply seen as a symbolic or metaphorical thing, but that according to Catholic dogma it actually physically happens.
If transubstantiation did take place then it wouldn't matter in the least what the wafer was made from - it could be made from arsenic and cyanide, and if the miracle of transubstantiation is correct, the person eating it would suffer no ill effects whatsoever, because those substances would not enter their body.
Therefore, if the catholic church is so confident that this miracle takes place - and it is, after all, a fundamental part of their beliefs - then why do they bother getting gluten free wafers for people who can't consume gluten?
For what it is worth, Catholics believe that the priest turns the sacramental host and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ during mass. which is not too far removed from your example.
Yep.
And yet, bizarrely, many of them now offer gluten free communion wafers for people with food allergies.
Why?
After all, you're not eating the wafer - you're eating the body of Jesus, so it doesn't matter what the wafer is made of.
Or could it be that maybe they secretly know it's all a pile of steaming shite?
Well, I really shouldn't feed the trolls - or the idiots. But here goes anyway
This just proves that we were justified for attacking Iraq; after all, President Bush made it clear that you're either with us or with the terrorists. Saddam made his loyalties known, and he paid the price. Then again-in a liberal's mindset-if Michael Moore disagrees with it, it must be a lie.
Ah yes. And if Bush says it it must be true.
FWIW, I think Michael Moore is a twat with very little of any worth to say - and anything that he does say is so wrapped up in hype and drama that it's lost anyway.
You appear to be alluding to the fact that Saddam Hussein had some kind of alleigance or connection with Al Queda when you say he "made his loyalties known". If you are in possession of such information I suggest you deliver it to George Bush or Tony Blair immediately, because they really should be informed of things like that.
It must be so easy to live in a world where everything is black or white. You're either a good god-fearing middle class freedom-fries eating white American Christian, or you're one of them there Islamic commie terr'ist mutants - oh, I'm sorry.. I believe the correct technical term is "towel-headed nutjobs"
I'd love to see you spout this bull to a company of Marines or airborne soldiers.
Funny you should say that, because I have. Unlike, I suspect, you, I actually know somebody who served in Iraq, having spent six months there with the Scottish Black Watch regiment last year. His views on the matter are considerably more extreme than mine, and he's rather bitter about having risked his life and seen friends killed and injured for what he terms "a completely bullshit war". But then, he's probably an Islamic double agent or something.
Whoops.. quick amendment to the above.
I quoted parent with:
people died [in the Indian Ccean tsunami] but it was ENTIRELY unavoidable.
My intention was to put into context what I was referring to, but I've just realised it makes the parent come across as sounding rather more flippant than in the original context. That line should instead read:
"[the Indian Ocean tsunami] was ENTIRELY unavoidable"
Now if only Slashdot had an "edit post" button. Oh well.
You have conveniently forgotten the 1993 World Trade Center attack,
I was actually referring to a large scale attack such as 9/11, but didn't spell that out, so fair enough, I'll give you that. It still gives you a total of around 3000 people dead from Islamic terrorist activities on US soil.
That is, of course, 3000 too many, and of course steps should be taken to prevent it happening again. But it is simply not the case that events like this are happening on a regular basis.
People are occasionally mauled by tigers - yes, even in the US, probably in zoos - but that doesn't mean we all need to carry around tiger repelling spray all the time. Nor, to take the other extreme, does that mean we should dive into a tiger's den. A bit of common sense is all it takes.
I'm all for common sense, and by all means, make air travel more secure. But that's not what we've seen since 9/11. What we've seen is much posturing, flag waving, jingoistic nonsense like "freedom fries", people having their car keys and other harmless items taken off them when boarding planes, people being detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay. The latest thing is yet another attempt to make burning the American flag a crime.
If that should pass, we will now have officially reached the point where the image of the flag is more important than the freedom it embodies (the freedom, for example, to dissent by burning it)
Let me get this straight, you are equating road traffic deaths to those killed, sorry, murdered by terrorists flying planes into buildings and the ground? Your values are so unbelievably out of whack that you may just be beyond help. Traffic deaths are tragic and I understand that they cause a lot of pain for the families of their victims but just because there are more that makes them more tragic? Sheesh.
My values are such that I find them exactly AS tragic in terms of loss. Are you saying that to you, the lives of people murdered by terrorists are more important, and more of a loss than those who die in accidents? Perhaps they're somewhat less dead? Or maybe you'd like to tell their familes that they don't matter as much.
To me, all lives are of equal value. Every life lost is a tragic and unbearable loss.
And to put it very bluntly, yes. To me, the loss of 40,000 lives IS worse than the loss of 3000 lives. Exactly 13.333 times worse.
It is, of course, a terrible and tragic thing whenever one person is driven to kill another, and I am firmly of the belief that in an ideal world that would never occur. However, I don't see that there is a case to be made that a person's death is more tragic for having been the result of terrorist action than natural disaster or road accident.
people died [in the Indian Ccean tsunami] but it was ENTIRELY unavoidable.
That's easy enough. "Oh well. Couldn't have been helped. Never mind."
I can't help but wonder if you'd dismiss it so easily if it had occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone of the Pacific Northwest, thereby affecting the USA instead?
Regardless, a huge number of those deaths were preventable. With a small investment in communication, seismology equipment, and education, a very significant number of those people would still be alive today.
The only major difference, apart from an order of magnitude in loss of life, is that 9/11 was an act of deliberate murder carried out by one set of people against another. It is also worth noting that, whatever your personal view of the event, the people who carried it out believed that they were doing something good and just. (just for the record, btw, I find it neither good nor just, but evil and disgusting.)
As for my choice of words that it 9/11 no big deal in the overall scale of things, I chose those words deliberately. Yes, it is a terribly crude thing to say, and I am fully aware of that. As I said earlier every single life lost is a tragedy, but 3000 deaths are just a tiny drop in the ocean of annual lives lost. Even if you only count delib
OK, tell that to the families of more than 3000 people who died on 9/11. People need to be more alert, it is not paranoia to be worried about the international terrorist threat and I think people who aren't worried about it are pretty naive.
I wonder, perchance, if you've considered why it's commonly referred to as "9/11" or "September the eleventh two thousand and one"?
It's because that's when it happened. The only time it has ever happened.
Yes, it was a tragedy, and a crime against humanity, and a spectacular and shocking event. but in the overall scale of things.. well.. it was no big deal, quite frankly.
In the last 5 years - actually, in the whole of history - just over 3000 people have been killed by Al Qaeda militants on the US mainland, all on 9/11 in a single coordinated attack. It hasn't happened since, and despite plenty of fear mongering, there hasn't been any credible evidence to suggest that it could either.
In the year 2001 ALONE there were 42,443 deaths on the US mainland due to road traffic accidents. Similar figures have occurred every year since, bringing a rough total of 210,000 deaths. I'm guessing, given your propensity to worry about terrorist attack that you'd never do something so insanely reckless and suicidal as to drive a vehicle?
Of course, even US road deaths pale in comparison to the 250,000-and-still-rising deathtoll which resulted from the boxing day tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
And let's not forget the 972 US citizens who have been killed on US soil by.... the US Government, since 1976. Sure, they might be criminals (At least, you'd better hope they are!) but who says some of the people in the Twin Towers weren't?
Never mind though. So long as you can convince yourself that the sky is falling and there are terrorists lurking in every doorway and around every corner, I'm sure things will be just hunky dory. Who needs civil liberties anyways?
responsible journalists do not allow anonymous, unchecked "facts" into their news output
Hahahahahahahahah (pauses for breath) ahahahahahahahaha.
That is the funniest assertion I've heard all day!
Actually, the parent is entirely correct.
A *responsible* journalist will not allow unchecked facts into their news output.
The problem is that the vast majority of journalists working for major news organisations are not responsible.
To put it another way.
As a journalist you can either spend hours dilligently researching, checking facts, chasing up sources, cross examining people... or you can just make shit up.
Either pays the same, but the latter is a LOT easier - and has the added bonus effect of usually giving a more dramatic/exciting story.
Time to introduce a new acronym to the Slashdot crowd. Learn it well, folks, as I shall explain it only this once:
What The Fuck Are You Banging On About?
5. EEEEXXXXTTTTEEERRRMMMMIIIINNNNAAAATTTEEE
Yes, lameness filter, I know using so many caps is like yelling. because that's exactly what I intend in this case. Daleks are not noted for their soft-spokenness.
This additional free bonus waffle brought to you by the Slashdot Lameness Filter Avoidance Society.
As for drugs I have a simple solution to that problem. Expulsion. I don't see how a university can legitimately claim they have a serious admitance program [e.g. you need the high marks, pass an essay or oral exam, etc, etc, etc] when they let students drink and do drugs all the time.
If kids honestly feared ending their academic careers the serious ones would avoid drugs and the less serious [e.g. bench warmers] would fall out.
Yeah, great.
So what about the ones who go to college, do the work, get good results, and enjoy going home at night and relaxing with a joint?
They either have to sacrifice something they like (why? it's harming no one) or get booted out of the course.
Perhaps they get found out. What happens then? They're kicked out, their academic career is ruined, they probably won't end up getting such a good job, and their life will turn crap.
because of drugs? No. because of over zealous reaction to them.
It staggers me that in the US it's seen as normal for a job interview to involve a drugs test. There's so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to begin. First off, so long as you do your job, and don't come into work high, it's none of your employer's damn business what you do when you go home at night. You're far more likely to suffer productivity loss through alcoholism anyways. Also, if you don't allow drug users to have jobs, where are they going to get their money? Let's see.. I've got ready access to drugs, and no income. I know! I'll sell drugs!
Yeah, that's really gonna help the problem.
Sure there are plenty of burnt out drug addled nobodies out there who can't hold their lives together for more than 5 minutes. There are also plenty of people like that who've never touched drugs in their lives. And, of course, there are those people who manage success and drug use. I think Carl Sagan is a pretty good example of the latter - he was a regular cannabis smoker.
Arrr! Speak fer ye'self, matey!
The lads and I like nothing better than boarding some vessel, making the crew walk the plank, then ripping all their DVDs and uploading them as torrents.
Seriously. Don't do it.
I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought a bunch of stuff off this pirate I met in a pub, but I later found out that the parrot was in fact dead, and not just pining for the fjords as he claimed, the eyepatch was for the wrong eye, and the cutlass was made of plastic.
Still, at least I didn't feel quite as ripped off as the time I bought a DVD from this bloke I know - he works in a place called "HMV". Paid £20 for the DVD, I did.. what what do I find when I get home and pop it in my player? I'm forced to sit through a bloody two minute intro lambasting me for my evil criminal pirate ways, and how I, personally, am causing the entire film industry's collective children to die a horrible death from starvation. And it was all encrypted so I couldn't (legally) make a backup of it for my own personal use.
Bloody inferior quality goods. I've learnt my lesson. I'm sticking to Bittorrent in the future.
Or, in other words, "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true..."
Well, no.. but it's the first time average joe has had a means of mass distribution for his opinion.
Up until now the only standard has been "I saw it in an advert, so it must be true". At least now the other side of the story can be represented through a mass medium. It may not do anything for the factual accuracy, but at least it's some kind of improvement.