One wonders then how it is they were able to deal with crime before the advent of technology.
For instance, at the rate we're going, I fully expect to see laws against two people conversing face-to-face and in private in my lifetime. It seems to me that every argument for intrusive wiretapping technologies applies equally well to a conversation held on, say, a beach somewhere.
By the way, I hate to say it, but your faith in law enforcement following the rules here, e.g., disconnecting after realizing the call isn't germane to their investigation, is positively retro. A day doesn't pass that doesn't seen yet another law enforcement officer exposed as being corrupt.
heh, it's funny how we always hear about the greatest biomass per acre per 90-120 day period being from hemp from the people who'd like to roll a J while they're powering the turbines.
It would say something that the only people who can see the wisdom of this are those rolling J's, but of course, that isn't the case.
In any event, why would you want to use a inferior plant for energy production? To spite pot smokers? You would screw over the next generation just to satisfy your irrational hatred?
The people who are driving POS 15-year-old cars will have to stop, if not now, then when we finally run out of oil. Ideally we would take that tax money and use it to provide adequate public transportation.
The bottom line is that they're going to have to stop sometime, so it might as well be now, while benefits can be gained, rather than later.
I call myself a libertarian, and am in favor of abolishingn income taxes amongst many others, but this is an example of where taxes can do good. We need a way of matching today's demand to tomorrow's supply, and there just doesn't appear to be any other alternative.
Instead of being insulting why not propose an alternative? Why not try to think about somebody other than yourself. Like maybe the generation that is to come.
You accuse me of favoring a big government solution, I cite an example of how getting government out of our lives will bring results, and you call it silly?
So I guess if it were your decision you'd leave in place the ban on hemp. Great. Just don't go parading around as some kind of small government advocate because we'll all know you're full of shit.
It's hard to think of a big idea that wasn't seen as silly... before it was made into reality that is....it's only because environmentalists have urged them to.
LOL! Now who's being silly!?! Big oil was the culprit that put the screws to nuclear, not the environmentalists. Oh sure, your TV tells you it was the environmentalists, but think about who really holds the power between the two of them.
And BTW, you should really educate yourself about hemp before saying silly things about it, like these other plants being only slightly less awesome than hemp. It isn't just that the plant produces so much more per acre, it's that it can be grown on so many more acres. There isn't really even a contest here.
Well, it's really sad that we have people dissing the potential of hemp without giving any thought to the fact that the only reason we don't have a working prototype of a power station run on hemp IS BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL!
It's too bad they didn't think to criminalize oil when it was first discovered. Think of all the grief we might have been spared.
(and yes, people *do* get high off of petroleum... kids in very poor neighborhoods will sniff gasoline for the buzzzzzz...)
A proposal to implement a planned economy directed by government.
Well, that's not what I'm arguing for.
I do however like the idea of taxing it (it's one of the few kinds of taxes that make sense to me.) Tax it through the roof, and tell people that next year, the taxes will be even higher.
That's the way to encourage conservation and the creation of alternative energy sources. Make it clear that oil's days are numbered.
Actually the costs of "preventing global warming" is many, many, many..... orders of magnitude greater than the "hundreds of billions of dollars" you are talking about.
Really? I wasn't aware that conservation cost that much. I thought it would actually save us money, as much as hundreds of billions of dollars, over time.
Actually, it's government tyranny that's standing in the way of alternative energy research. A great example is hemp, which produces more usable cellulose than any plant out there, yet if I were to grow the stuff in quantities sufficient to experiment in producing power with it, the government can sentence me to death.
Don't mistake concern and the quest for change with calls for greater government oversight.
We shouldn't be polluting. We shouldn't be clearcutting rain forests. But we shouldn't be panicking.
I think you'd find that if we weren't polluting and clearcutting rain forests, there wouldn't be this much controversy, let alone panic.
You know, what really perturbs me is that now we're hearing that all the oil is going to be running out soon. If this is the case, then doesn't it make sense to aggressively pursue alternative forms of energy, and do so now? Global warming isn't the only issue here.
I feel the same way about the trees. Do we stop clear-cutting before we run out of tree, or after? You would think that people would see the wisdom of stopping sooner rather than later, but that doesn't seem to play out as policy.
What amazes me is that as a nation we can spend what will sure to be hundreds of billions of dollars to invade a nation with the flimsy pretext that they're a threat to the world--which turns out to have been a lie by the way--but yet when a much more tangible threat appears on the horizon we hear all these voices demanding absolute proof.
Which as you suggest, isn't possible.
If we're going to run out of oil anyways, and if the combustion engine is such a threat to our environment, then why wait? Why not deal with it now?
I think it's more likely that you simply can't read.
The warming *is* planet wide, it simply isn't uniform, and extreme swings towards warmer temperatures are parried by commensurate swings towards colder temperatures. But overall, the temperatures creep upward.
So if I'm understanding the gibbon right, we shouldn't do anything about global warming because there's a chance it might not be caused by man. We should watch our cities be submerged and species by the thousands go extinct rather than lift a finger to stop it.
WHen the New York Times famously said "Blame global warming for the blizzard" (notwithstanding the huge number of major weather events throughtout human history) it has to make you wonder.
The New York Times says a lot of stupid things and engages in a lot of deception but in this case they're quite right I think.
You're making the mistake of thinking that global warming must mean that temperatures everywhere must necessarily increase. But that isn't necessarily the case. When temperatures rise, the equilibrium the planet previously experienced is disturbed, periods of hotter temperatures are compensated for by periods of colder temperatures, but what is important is that, overall, temperatures are on the rise.
Perhaps the best evidence we've seen today, evidence that even a layperson should be able to understand, is when we watch Antartica give up huge chunks of the ice shelf that have taken millenia to form, and for which there can only be one reasonable explanation: the planet is getting warmer. And the consequences are dire.
Even the merest possibility of such a future should cause us to worry. Shouldn't it?
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
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I see. The majority of scientists who've spent their lives looking into the problem of addiction are wrong, and you--who observed someone you think was a junkie who you think might've been addictied to heroin--are right.
Well, I guess there's no point in my further conversing with you.:)
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
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The only way to make this remotely true it to assume you mean 'ensured [that women...]'.
Um, if they are equal, then why do we have to bend over backwards to ensure they are equal? What you're saying makes no sense.
Well, they're wrong. I mean, when they say something that contradictory to observed fact... This may be anecdotal...
Yeah, it's anecdotal only, and it flies in the face of what everyone in the field says. You're wasting my time....but I've never seen severe detox reactions from people quitting smoking.
I have. In myself. It is extremely severe. Incapacitated for days, couldn't do anything but lay in bed in a fetal position in agony.
I've seen the one heroin reaction described above...
No, you didn't. You don't know what the individual's preexisting condition was, and you don't know what other drugs he may have been taking. He may have thought he was using heroin but actually given something else. You don't know.
Morphine can be a fatal reaction...
In withdrawal? Wrong. You might be thinking of alcohol though, which together with some (legal) barbituates can kill during withdrawal, but not opiates....and it's supposedly always very painful.
Not always, indeed, not usually even....but how many people's families are going to hold an intervention, or kidnap them to detox, if they start smoking again?
If cigarettes were illegal? If when caught smoking you were sent to prison for some number of years? What you are observing/comparing here is the legal fallout of drug use. Were drugs legal, the situation would be very different.
How many times do you go to the bar and have everyone around you shooting up?
Because it's a felony to be caught doing this, so people tend not to do this in public.
Smoking is still socially acceptable, especially in lower-income settings.
Because it's legal.
Nobody ever lost their kids or job because they smoke.
Because it's legal.
Are you implying that they set up the WTC incident, or that they simply had advance knowledge of some terrorist attack?
I'm implying nothing. I simply pointed out that there is evidence implicating Israel in 9/11. The reason for pointing this out is that it has escaped the attention of the media/gov't. For what it's worth, even if they do turn out to have been complicit I don't see that they could have pulled it off alone.... I don't believe Mossad has the ability to order NORAD to stand down (as appears to have happened that day.)
The fact remains however that there is more evidence implicating Israel in 9/11 than there is Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
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The "women are equal" is taken by intelligent people to mean "women deserve an equal chance".
Intelligent people have long realized that women have always had as equal a chance as is possible.
As for the drugs, I think you overstate the adictiveness of tobacco... Heroin, from everything I've seen, is much harder to quit.
(btw, anecdotal evidence regarding drug use is notoriously unreliable. Different people have different reactions. Many people can use heroin one day and walk away the next, while some people can't get off of caffeine no matter what. The plight of heroin addict you witnessed could easily have little to do with his use; the behavior you witnessed could be the manifestation of some previously existing mental condition, or, he could have actually had ants on his head (he was likely homeless, forced to sleep in the streets, where thar be ants!:)))
As for the Israeli conspiracy, I've seen how secrets leak.
And I've seen how they remain plugged up. TWA 800 is an excellent example. All kinds of evidence disputing and even outright disproving the official explanation has emerged and the media/government hasn't paid any attention whatsoever.
Besides, a lot of New York Jews died (presumably with many family connections to Israel) and anyone warning Israelis would have wanted to warn these people...
May not have been possible, as the chances are great the Israelis would have been working from passport lists or the like (if the theory is true.)
And, to finish on a conspiritorial note, anyone who masterminded the deaths of thousands (up to 10k, had the buildings collapsed sooner) would likely be willing to sacrifice some of their countrymen in order to have increased justification.
Well, that hasn't happened in any of the precedents for this sort of attack (the Lavon affair, U.S.S. Liberty) but the point is taken. Again, I am not stating categorically that the Israelis did it. I'm merely stating that there is evidence implicating Israel, that, though while not conclusive, is certainly more considerable than any amassed against Afghanistan or Iraq.
And that is all.
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
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Maybe you see them as substantive, and I don't. I try to point out irrelevant comments as I see them, but given the volume of text involved and the amount of time I have, this is the best I can do at the moment.
OK, the points I felt you didn't address before have been addressed (in part) in your last reply. I am specifically interested in how you think the media works (and besides I'm pressed for time myself:). For instance, your comment...
Your argument wasn't that reporters can't be intimidated - it was that given thousands of reporters, you can intimidate all of them.
OK. So if this is true, then explain to me why nobody in the mainstream media reported on the Senate hearings where the NTSB investigators accused FBI agents of felony conduct. Or why no one in the media touched the Executive Order signed by Bill Clinton. These were both relevant and important stories that needed to be covered, and they got no play whatsoever, at least not in the mainstream media.
Your argument wasn't that reporters can't be intimidated - it was that given thousands of reporters, you can intimidate all of them.
Well, it sure seems to me that all of these reporters were intimidated this time around. Or don't you think the two events mentioned above warrant coverage?
The short version is that the navy screwed up, and killed a bunch of people, and people can fit this kind of scenario in their moral framework, and keep quiet about it, because it was a tragic accident, and not a deliberate, murderous act.
Aren't you admitting here then that somebody can control the coverage, even if it means keeping all these reporters quiet? It seems to me you can't have it both ways... either the capability exists, or it doesn't.
This doesn't apply for 9/11, because what you're describing is the government trying to cover up an attempt by a foreign nation to use the US as a proxy in a war that the US has no reason to fight. This is high treason, and the kind of stuff that makes people unwilling to talk.
You meant to say "unwilling to stay quiet", didn't you? I mean otherwise, there's no difference with the media keeping quiet about TWA 800 (or am I missing something?)
Assuming that is what you meant to say, I can appreciate that there is a difference between 9/11 and TWA 800, but what troubles me is this: why did the reporters stay quiet about the two stories I highlighted involving TWA 800? If it is as you say, that they saw it was a screwup by the Navy, then it is a conspiracy amongst all these reporters to cover it up, yes? Or, if it is as a result of instructions from up high, then it is a demonstration that "the powers that be" in the media can coerce, intimidate or command without fear of being revealed those who work under them, isn't that right? Surely you don't mean to suggest that these events escaped all these people's notice.
Moreover, I'm not so sure TWA 800 and 9/11 are as different as you say they are. One theory I've heard is that the reason they had to keep TWA 800 quiet was because the accident involved a test of a missile banned by international treaty. If this is the case, then the media are complicit in a criminal conspiracy, yes? National security really isn't at issue with something like this given a) we're talking about a tactical system and b) we are otherwise armed to the teeth. And even if that isn't the case, tt should've been brought out into the light if only so that steps could be taken to prevent a future occurance. One such step might be to not play with missiles in the world's busiest air space. A positive outcome could have been had by this incident, and we are denied it because of all the secrecy.
So, anyways, I'm pressed for time... can't respond to everything you brought up, but I will point out that the link you gave disputing the stories in the Washington Post and Haaretz is to a post in a newsgroup! Didn't you earlier chastise me for basing my opinions on the above two papers? Or am I thinking about someone else (quite a few people have ridiculed me for using these as sources.)
Maybe I can get to your logic demonstration tomorrow.
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One wonders then how it is they were able to deal with crime before the advent of technology.
For instance, at the rate we're going, I fully expect to see laws against two people conversing face-to-face and in private in my lifetime. It seems to me that every argument for intrusive wiretapping technologies applies equally well to a conversation held on, say, a beach somewhere.
By the way, I hate to say it, but your faith in law enforcement following the rules here, e.g., disconnecting after realizing the call isn't germane to their investigation, is positively retro. A day doesn't pass that doesn't seen yet another law enforcement officer exposed as being corrupt.
Power corrupts you know.
Dammit, I know... steganography.
I always make that mistake.
(or, it was a cleverly encoded message.)
So then we use stenography to make the encrypted/random data appear to be human-readable.
Nautlius is VoIP that uses Blowfish as the cipher.
Here's the home page. Get the software here. It hasn't been updated in awhile, but maybe now there's more of an incentive to do so.
heh, it's funny how we always hear about the greatest biomass per acre per 90-120 day period being from hemp from the people who'd like to roll a J while they're powering the turbines.
It would say something that the only people who can see the wisdom of this are those rolling J's, but of course, that isn't the case.
In any event, why would you want to use a inferior plant for energy production? To spite pot smokers? You would screw over the next generation just to satisfy your irrational hatred?
The people who are driving POS 15-year-old cars will have to stop, if not now, then when we finally run out of oil. Ideally we would take that tax money and use it to provide adequate public transportation.
The bottom line is that they're going to have to stop sometime, so it might as well be now, while benefits can be gained, rather than later.
I call myself a libertarian, and am in favor of abolishingn income taxes amongst many others, but this is an example of where taxes can do good. We need a way of matching today's demand to tomorrow's supply, and there just doesn't appear to be any other alternative.
Instead of being insulting why not propose an alternative? Why not try to think about somebody other than yourself. Like maybe the generation that is to come.
You accuse me of favoring a big government solution, I cite an example of how getting government out of our lives will bring results, and you call it silly?
...it's only because environmentalists have urged them to.
So I guess if it were your decision you'd leave in place the ban on hemp. Great. Just don't go parading around as some kind of small government advocate because we'll all know you're full of shit.
It's hard to think of a big idea that wasn't seen as silly... before it was made into reality that is.
LOL! Now who's being silly!?! Big oil was the culprit that put the screws to nuclear, not the environmentalists. Oh sure, your TV tells you it was the environmentalists, but think about who really holds the power between the two of them.
And BTW, you should really educate yourself about hemp before saying silly things about it, like these other plants being only slightly less awesome than hemp. It isn't just that the plant produces so much more per acre, it's that it can be grown on so many more acres. There isn't really even a contest here.
BTW, no, you don't get fantastic yields from pine. Per acre, per year, hemp just blows pine out of the water. It's not even close.
Well, it's really sad that we have people dissing the potential of hemp without giving any thought to the fact that the only reason we don't have a working prototype of a power station run on hemp IS BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL!
It's too bad they didn't think to criminalize oil when it was first discovered. Think of all the grief we might have been spared.
(and yes, people *do* get high off of petroleum... kids in very poor neighborhoods will sniff gasoline for the buzzzzzz...)
A proposal to implement a planned economy directed by government.
Well, that's not what I'm arguing for.
I do however like the idea of taxing it (it's one of the few kinds of taxes that make sense to me.) Tax it through the roof, and tell people that next year, the taxes will be even higher.
That's the way to encourage conservation and the creation of alternative energy sources. Make it clear that oil's days are numbered.
Not according to these guys.
You do understand why it was done that way, don't you?
Think of the emission of greenhouse gases as a sort of license to develop your economy.
Would it be fair then to allow only the west this opportunity?
We're the cause of most of the pollution. Of course we should be the ones to be made to cut back the most.
Cause that's where Saddam hid his WMD's, silly.
Actually the costs of "preventing global warming" is many, many, many..... orders of magnitude greater than the "hundreds of billions of dollars" you are talking about.
Really? I wasn't aware that conservation cost that much. I thought it would actually save us money, as much as hundreds of billions of dollars, over time.
Actually, it's government tyranny that's standing in the way of alternative energy research. A great example is hemp, which produces more usable cellulose than any plant out there, yet if I were to grow the stuff in quantities sufficient to experiment in producing power with it, the government can sentence me to death.
Don't mistake concern and the quest for change with calls for greater government oversight.
We shouldn't be polluting. We shouldn't be clearcutting rain forests. But we shouldn't be panicking.
I think you'd find that if we weren't polluting and clearcutting rain forests, there wouldn't be this much controversy, let alone panic.
You know, what really perturbs me is that now we're hearing that all the oil is going to be running out soon. If this is the case, then doesn't it make sense to aggressively pursue alternative forms of energy, and do so now? Global warming isn't the only issue here.
I feel the same way about the trees. Do we stop clear-cutting before we run out of tree, or after? You would think that people would see the wisdom of stopping sooner rather than later, but that doesn't seem to play out as policy.
What amazes me is that as a nation we can spend what will sure to be hundreds of billions of dollars to invade a nation with the flimsy pretext that they're a threat to the world--which turns out to have been a lie by the way--but yet when a much more tangible threat appears on the horizon we hear all these voices demanding absolute proof.
Which as you suggest, isn't possible.
If we're going to run out of oil anyways, and if the combustion engine is such a threat to our environment, then why wait? Why not deal with it now?
I think it's more likely that you simply can't read.
The warming *is* planet wide, it simply isn't uniform, and extreme swings towards warmer temperatures are parried by commensurate swings towards colder temperatures. But overall, the temperatures creep upward.
Maybe if I drew you a picture...
Who told you that? The same scientists who are telling us that we're heating up the planet?
So if I'm understanding the gibbon right, we shouldn't do anything about global warming because there's a chance it might not be caused by man. We should watch our cities be submerged and species by the thousands go extinct rather than lift a finger to stop it.
Thankfully, most people don't see it that way.
You're making the mistake of thinking that global warming must mean that temperatures everywhere must necessarily increase. But that isn't necessarily the case. When temperatures rise, the equilibrium the planet previously experienced is disturbed, periods of hotter temperatures are compensated for by periods of colder temperatures, but what is important is that, overall, temperatures are on the rise.
Perhaps the best evidence we've seen today, evidence that even a layperson should be able to understand, is when we watch Antartica give up huge chunks of the ice shelf that have taken millenia to form, and for which there can only be one reasonable explanation: the planet is getting warmer. And the consequences are dire.
Even the merest possibility of such a future should cause us to worry. Shouldn't it?
I see. The majority of scientists who've spent their lives looking into the problem of addiction are wrong, and you--who observed someone you think was a junkie who you think might've been addictied to heroin--are right.
:)
Well, I guess there's no point in my further conversing with you.
The only way to make this remotely true it to assume you mean 'ensured [that women...]'.
...but I've never seen severe detox reactions from people quitting smoking.
...and it's supposedly always very painful.
...but how many people's families are going to hold an intervention, or kidnap them to detox, if they start smoking again?
Um, if they are equal, then why do we have to bend over backwards to ensure they are equal? What you're saying makes no sense.
Well, they're wrong. I mean, when they say something that contradictory to observed fact... This may be anecdotal...
Yeah, it's anecdotal only, and it flies in the face of what everyone in the field says. You're wasting my time.
I have. In myself. It is extremely severe. Incapacitated for days, couldn't do anything but lay in bed in a fetal position in agony.
I've seen the one heroin reaction described above...
No, you didn't. You don't know what the individual's preexisting condition was, and you don't know what other drugs he may have been taking. He may have thought he was using heroin but actually given something else. You don't know.
Morphine can be a fatal reaction...
In withdrawal? Wrong. You might be thinking of alcohol though, which together with some (legal) barbituates can kill during withdrawal, but not opiates.
Not always, indeed, not usually even.
If cigarettes were illegal? If when caught smoking you were sent to prison for some number of years? What you are observing/comparing here is the legal fallout of drug use. Were drugs legal, the situation would be very different.
How many times do you go to the bar and have everyone around you shooting up?
Because it's a felony to be caught doing this, so people tend not to do this in public.
Smoking is still socially acceptable, especially in lower-income settings.
Because it's legal.
Nobody ever lost their kids or job because they smoke.
Because it's legal.
Are you implying that they set up the WTC incident, or that they simply had advance knowledge of some terrorist attack?
I'm implying nothing. I simply pointed out that there is evidence implicating Israel in 9/11. The reason for pointing this out is that it has escaped the attention of the media/gov't. For what it's worth, even if they do turn out to have been complicit I don't see that they could have pulled it off alone.... I don't believe Mossad has the ability to order NORAD to stand down (as appears to have happened that day.)
The fact remains however that there is more evidence implicating Israel in 9/11 than there is Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
The "women are equal" is taken by intelligent people to mean "women deserve an equal chance".
:)))
Intelligent people have long realized that women have always had as equal a chance as is possible.
As for the drugs, I think you overstate the adictiveness of tobacco... Heroin, from everything I've seen, is much harder to quit.
And yet the NIDA--the science wing of the drug warrior establishment--says that tobacco is the more addictive drug, at least when measured using dependence as the criteria. And it isn't just NIDA that thinks so.
(btw, anecdotal evidence regarding drug use is notoriously unreliable. Different people have different reactions. Many people can use heroin one day and walk away the next, while some people can't get off of caffeine no matter what. The plight of heroin addict you witnessed could easily have little to do with his use; the behavior you witnessed could be the manifestation of some previously existing mental condition, or, he could have actually had ants on his head (he was likely homeless, forced to sleep in the streets, where thar be ants!
As for the Israeli conspiracy, I've seen how secrets leak.
And I've seen how they remain plugged up. TWA 800 is an excellent example. All kinds of evidence disputing and even outright disproving the official explanation has emerged and the media/government hasn't paid any attention whatsoever.
Besides, a lot of New York Jews died (presumably with many family connections to Israel) and anyone warning Israelis would have wanted to warn these people...
May not have been possible, as the chances are great the Israelis would have been working from passport lists or the like (if the theory is true.)
And, to finish on a conspiritorial note, anyone who masterminded the deaths of thousands (up to 10k, had the buildings collapsed sooner) would likely be willing to sacrifice some of their countrymen in order to have increased justification.
Well, that hasn't happened in any of the precedents for this sort of attack (the Lavon affair, U.S.S. Liberty) but the point is taken. Again, I am not stating categorically that the Israelis did it. I'm merely stating that there is evidence implicating Israel, that, though while not conclusive, is certainly more considerable than any amassed against Afghanistan or Iraq.
And that is all.
Maybe you see them as substantive, and I don't. I try to point out irrelevant comments as I see them, but given the volume of text involved and the amount of time I have, this is the best I can do at the moment.
:). For instance, your comment...
OK, the points I felt you didn't address before have been addressed (in part) in your last reply. I am specifically interested in how you think the media works (and besides I'm pressed for time myself
Your argument wasn't that reporters can't be intimidated - it was that given thousands of reporters, you can intimidate all of them.
OK. So if this is true, then explain to me why nobody in the mainstream media reported on the Senate hearings where the NTSB investigators accused FBI agents of felony conduct. Or why no one in the media touched the Executive Order signed by Bill Clinton. These were both relevant and important stories that needed to be covered, and they got no play whatsoever, at least not in the mainstream media.
Your argument wasn't that reporters can't be intimidated - it was that given thousands of reporters, you can intimidate all of them.
Well, it sure seems to me that all of these reporters were intimidated this time around. Or don't you think the two events mentioned above warrant coverage?
The short version is that the navy screwed up, and killed a bunch of people, and people can fit this kind of scenario in their moral framework, and keep quiet about it, because it was a tragic accident, and not a deliberate, murderous act.
Aren't you admitting here then that somebody can control the coverage, even if it means keeping all these reporters quiet? It seems to me you can't have it both ways... either the capability exists, or it doesn't.
This doesn't apply for 9/11, because what you're describing is the government trying to cover up an attempt by a foreign nation to use the US as a proxy in a war that the US has no reason to fight. This is high treason, and the kind of stuff that makes people unwilling to talk.
You meant to say "unwilling to stay quiet", didn't you? I mean otherwise, there's no difference with the media keeping quiet about TWA 800 (or am I missing something?)
Assuming that is what you meant to say, I can appreciate that there is a difference between 9/11 and TWA 800, but what troubles me is this: why did the reporters stay quiet about the two stories I highlighted involving TWA 800? If it is as you say, that they saw it was a screwup by the Navy, then it is a conspiracy amongst all these reporters to cover it up, yes? Or, if it is as a result of instructions from up high, then it is a demonstration that "the powers that be" in the media can coerce, intimidate or command without fear of being revealed those who work under them, isn't that right? Surely you don't mean to suggest that these events escaped all these people's notice.
Moreover, I'm not so sure TWA 800 and 9/11 are as different as you say they are. One theory I've heard is that the reason they had to keep TWA 800 quiet was because the accident involved a test of a missile banned by international treaty. If this is the case, then the media are complicit in a criminal conspiracy, yes? National security really isn't at issue with something like this given a) we're talking about a tactical system and b) we are otherwise armed to the teeth. And even if that isn't the case, tt should've been brought out into the light if only so that steps could be taken to prevent a future occurance. One such step might be to not play with missiles in the world's busiest air space. A positive outcome could have been had by this incident, and we are denied it because of all the secrecy.
So, anyways, I'm pressed for time... can't respond to everything you brought up, but I will point out that the link you gave disputing the stories in the Washington Post and Haaretz is to a post in a newsgroup! Didn't you earlier chastise me for basing my opinions on the above two papers? Or am I thinking about someone else (quite a few people have ridiculed me for using these as sources.)
Maybe I can get to your logic demonstration tomorrow.