RCMP officers stationed at the airport can fairly be said to be participating in "airport security"...
Which would be a great argument if you could show that they were stationed at the airport. As far as I can tell, the RCMP does not have personnel attached to YVR.
Sure, that. Oh, and they killed the guy, who had the temerity to become upset at being detained and held in a strange land by a bunch of folks who couldn't be bothered to find a translator to even begin to communicate with him.
Well, ignoring the fact that airport personnel DID make use of a translator service on multiple occasions to communicate with the guy... and ignoring the fact that smashing shit and threatening people is a bit of an over-reaction to a 6 hour delay in the processing of paperwork... there's still the fact that his death was accidental, and the direct result of his own actions. I don't give a damn what country you're from or what language you speak, when 4 guys in uniform yell something at you, there's only one correct course of action for you to take. And no "pick up a stapler and threaten them with it while yelling like a lunatic" is not the right answer.
Would I have done the same thing in their shoes? I'd have tried my best not to. But do I hold them responsible for his death? Not even close. I can criticize certain aspects of their actions, but there's no way I can say that they were "wrong". They attempted to carry out their duties by responding to a situation which he had created, and they didn't violate any laws or procedures while doing so. Unless new evidence comes to light, I'd say it's case closed.
Your silliness aside, we do sacrifice thousands of lives every year for many reasons, some of which are the inconvenience required to save them. Is that stupid? Not necessarily. A world of vastly reduced risk would also have vastly reduced rewards and individual freedoms. And that assumes we know the right thing to do (or not do) to eliminate everything that could kill you or me or anyone else.
That's just argumentum ad absurdum. Of course we'll never eliminate every potential risk. Even if we could, I doubt that the resulting world would be one I'd want to live in. In many cases I would argue that we need to be willing to accept more risk - such as, for instance, the NASA space-exploration program - as long as we take all practical measures to manage and minimize the risks which we can control.
On the other hand, look at the response immediately following the 9/11 attacks. I didn't hear very many voices saying "oh well, shit happens, now let me board my flight to Hawaii". People were outraged that the government of the last remaining superpower had lapsed into such complacency that a couple dozen fanatics armed with knives were able to cause billions of dollars in damage and kill thousands of innocent people. The citizens wanted better security, and the government responded. It's easy for you to sit back now and bitch about the hassles of air-travel, but what happens if tomorrow your family boards an airplane, and end up as bone chips embedded in the streets of an American city? I somehow doubt your response would be "well, at least they didn't have to remove their shoes before boarding".
Don't get me wrong - I'm all about the concept increasing individual liberty and reducing the power of the state. I'm also a realist, though, and I have some measure of empathy. While I might be willing to accept some increased danger for myself, I cannot make that choice for others. I certainly will not demand that others accept my choice just so I can avoid a bit of inconvenience.
It is completely appropriate to discuss these trade-offs, despite your objections, excellency
I was objecting to his tone and his attitude, not the discussion. When some holier-than-thou twit decides that he's too important to be hassled by the efforts of people who are trying to protect their own lives and the lives of others, I'd say he deserves to be slapped down off of his high-horse.
You're right - our decisions are based on trade-offs. Every year tens of thousands of people die around the world because they were unwilling to sacrifice the convenience of not wearing a seat-belt for the safety of a higher probability of surviving a collision. I have no problem with that. If you want to make dumb decisions that endanger only you, feel free. When you're talking about other peoples lives, though... it's a whole different ballgame.
It's not just about getting oil for ourselves, its being able to control it for everyone else. It's also about using up someone else's oil before taking desperation measures for our own.
Ah, yes, invading other nations "to take their oil" isn't a "desperation measure", but investing in domestic industry is. What world are you living in?
I think the expectation was that everyone was surprised about the apparent "ease" of Afghanistan, and assumed that it would translate to Iraq
Nobody with any understanding of the situation was at all surprised about the ease with which the US took Afghanistan. We were a bit surprised by how quickly Iraq folded, though, and were quite surprised that they didn't use any gas or chemical warfare.
That's all irrelevant, though. By the time of the Iraq invasion, the US had already been involved in the Afghanistan effort for almost 2 years. Therefore the people planning the invasion - even if they were completely incompetent - would have had to know that their military commitment to Iraq would be 2 years at a minimum. Given the projected figures for Afghanistan at that point, they would more likely have been planning for a 6+ year effort, although they would have underestimated the force levels required. Therefore it would still have been MUCH cheaper to invest in domestic industry, instead of going overseas to steal other peoples resources. Your argument makes absolutely no sense.
If you think that first world nations fight wars over resources, then you really don't understand globalization. We fight over ideology, we fight to project power, and we fight to maintain our dominance and increase our security. If we want resources, we fucking buy them because it's a hell of a lot cheaper. Of course, some countries that we're interested in will also happen to have natural resources. In such cases it makes sense to try and secure some of those for our own use. However, that doesn't mean that the natural resources were the reason for the invasion - they may simply turn out to be a fringe benefit.
I say "may be" because, if you look at the Oil deals that Iraq has been making, you'll notice that the US is getting the short end of the stick.
That was the RCMP, not airport personnel, so their conduct has nothing to do with the bit you were responding to. The airport personnel involved in the incident WERE calm and collected, and mostly worked to try and calm down the crazy bastard before the RCMP arrived.
As for the conduct of the officers, they were also mostly calm and collected. The only thing they really did wrong was lie about the incident.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that your cheetos-encrusted beard, grateful dead t-shirt, and "FUCK YOU" hat might have had something to do with the way they treated you. I've noticed that most of the people who complain about being mistreated at the airport are either individuals who have no idea how to look and act in public, or people who have an attitude problem.
There are, of course, exceptions... but judging by your comment, I doubt that you're one of them. Despite what you admit to believing, security personnel are more than intelligent enough to pick up on the sneering disgust which you feel towards them.
Basically it's none of their freakin business where I decide to travel to if I'm not stopping in their country.
It is if you're flying over their airspace. Can you imagine the Russians trying to make that argument during the Cold War?
"Oh those 300 bear bombers and 1,000 Migs heading for your border? Don't worry about it. We're not landing in your country, so their destination is none of your business."
I'm sure that would have gone over REAL well.
As for your paranoia... you can still go to Cuba, if you want, without going through the US. Take a boat. Fly around. It'll cost more, but it's worth it in order to stop the CIA from implanting microchips in your brain during the screening process.
But please, let me get a flight my country to another country and back without having to take off my shoes and belt, step through a perv machine, give up all my data to third party TSAs, and sit for an hour without a book, drink, mp3 player, laptop or the right to take a piss, just because you think you're so important that I might just hijack the plane, fly it across the Atlantic and crash it into your local Wal-mart.
I'm sorry, Your Highness - if we had been informed of your arrival, we wouldn't have DREAMED of inconveniencing you just for the sake of saving a few thousand lives. You should really consider wearing your Tiara, next time, so that our screening lackeys can more easily recognize you in a crowd.
Complaining about israel is the middle east equivalent of westerners complaining taxes are too high, every now and then someone comes along and makes some token changes to policy to win political support, but basically everyone knows the game and is not out to rock the boat too much. Admittedly there is a real danger than you'll get some idiot in charge who actually believes all of the rhetoric, but that is not presently the case with Iran.
I'm sure that you find your personal psychic insights to be quite persuasive, but the rest of us require a little something called "evidence". In the absence of evidence, I'm going to take Ahmadenijad at his word when he says that he wants to annihilate Israel. You'd have to be an idiot not to, and the Israelis would have to be completely fucking suicidal not to.
As a side note, western complaints about taxes generally don't take the form of funding terrorist organizations, or threatening genocide.
Not that I enjoy taking Israel's side on that point; I am very tired of hearing Israel claiming the position of underdog while being the most zealous in pursuing aggressive action against its neighbours.
I hear ya, man. Just like in this video. It's obvious that the Israeli Karate-dude is the aggressor. After all, he's the only one who threw a punch, he's the one who won the fight, and he never even got hurt in the process! Clearly he's way more aggressive, and should have been locked up.
I'm trying to not be offensive but your viewpoint has left me incredulous! How do you say the things you do, which are in direct contradiction to well known and cited information, WITHOUT CITATION and then get modded to +5 insightful?
Because on slashdot, anything critical of Israel automatically gets modded up. It doesn't matter if it's sourced, or if it's accurate, or even if it's internally consistent. As long as you complain about Israel, you're guaranteed mod points.
Ah, yes, the old "war for oil" idiocy again. Only in the mind of a blithering moron would it make more sense to spend trillions invading a foreign nation instead of investing a few billion in the development of domestic oil-sand and oil-shale extraction techniques.
As for the bit about "plenty of other people... confirming what the department expected".... if you replace the word "plenty" with "a few" you'd be much closer to the truth. As you correctly point out, eventually the truth will be discovered (although it tends to take a much, much shorter amount of time than what you suggested). Scientists who intentionally fake data tend to be relegated to janitorial duties once their deception is discovered. So while there may be some short-term incentive to fake data, and while some scientists may be unethical enough to consider doing it, it rarely happens.
Of course, that number could probably be even further reduced if there wasn't a tendency in the scientific community to throw out negative results. That's one area that definitely needs improvement.
Any encryption scheme is crackable when you've got unlimited access to the machine code that actually does the encryption and decryption. Then it simply becomes an exercise in reverse engineering. That means you can decrypt the messages sent in both directions, but not necessarily spoof messages sent by the master since they may be using a trap-door function.
Very true. That's why all DRM methods are useless in the long run - they'll be broken eventually. The difference is that when you release a new encryption method for digital media, there will be tens of thousands of people working on figuring out the problem. Whereas when you create a botnet, there may be a few hundred people working on figuring it out, IF you're a big enough problem.
I'll admit that, while I was under the legal age for prosecution, I created a very simple botnet. At one point I had about 3,000 individual computers under my control. I stopped doing that about a decade ago, yet, even today, when I run those old binaries through a virus scanner, none of them are detected. If you keep your endeavors small enough, chances are nobody will ever bother with them. If you create 50 different variants which all communicate on the same network, there's no reason why you couldn't create a much larger network which nobody really pays any attention to. However, the key point here is that even the very large botnets rarely have much in the way of resources directed towards countering them. The average person is going to be much more interested in cracking the newest DRM encryption than in defeating the newest worm or trojan. So yeah, your P2P botnet may eventually be cracked, regardless of how well you encrypt the binaries and the communications channels. However, you'll probably get at least a few years of use out of a well designed network before that happens, and you'll be able to rebuild it in a matter of months. In the end, as long as the people fighting this kind of stuff are reactive rather than proactive, they're fighting a losing battle.
I never really got into the competition between the different trades... until one winter some smug Armoured bastard drove by in -20 weather, with half his body out the hatch, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and pouring a cup of steaming hot coffee into the snow. I tell ya, it's a good thing we didn't have live rounds that day....
Yeah, I could try being civil. And you could try not implying that people are sheep who are "too terrified to leave the house". Now, granted, you may not have realized that your comment was offensive since, these days, it seems to be trendy to classify entire populations as stupid, weak, and/or terrified. I'm surprised that you haven't yet noticed a link between you making such comments, and others treating you like a steaming turd.
You're right, though, being uncivil doesn't help the discussion, even when it is justifiable. So I apologize, and respectfully ask that you more carefully consider how you phrase your criticisms in the future. Thanks.
I think terrorists that attack western countries are middle class or well off. I don't think you could say the same of the suicide bombers attacking Israel. No I don't have evidence of that, just anecdotes.
In this paper we offer evidence based on a unique database constructed from reports of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA). The data detail the biographies of Palestinian suicide bombers between the years 2000 and 2005, including detailed information about the targets they attacked, and number of people that they killed and injured. We nd that the suicide bomber’s age and education and the impor- tance of the target are strongly correlated; older and more-educated suicide bombers are assigned to attack more important targets. Older and more-educated suicide bombers kill more people when they attack more important targets. We also nd that more-educated and older Palestinian suicide bombers are less likely to fail or to be caught during their attacks, emphasizing the importance of human capital in the production of killing and terror. .....
Our paper also contributes to the debate on the relation between educa- tion, poverty, and terrorism. While suicide bombers are on average more educated than the general Palestinian population, our estimate of higher education among suicide bombers is lower than the gures reported by Berrebi (2003) and Krueger and Maleckova (2003). Berrebi (2003) nds that 55 percent of the suicide bombers for whom he was able to nd information on education had or were persuing higher education. Berrebi’s gure is more than three times our estimate of 18 percent.7 We suspect that selection bias may drive these differences in the estimates of education among suicide bombers. For example, Berrebi’s (2003, footnote 36) data do not include suicide bombers who were caught or failed in their mission, or suicide bombers that did not succeed in killing others—who tend to be less educated than those who do not fail in their missions.
Slashdot Mirror
Few thousand lives? Who cares?
I do.
RCMP officers stationed at the airport can fairly be said to be participating in "airport security" ...
Which would be a great argument if you could show that they were stationed at the airport. As far as I can tell, the RCMP does not have personnel attached to YVR.
Sure, that. Oh, and they killed the guy, who had the temerity to become upset at being detained and held in a strange land by a bunch of folks who couldn't be bothered to find a translator to even begin to communicate with him.
Well, ignoring the fact that airport personnel DID make use of a translator service on multiple occasions to communicate with the guy ... and ignoring the fact that smashing shit and threatening people is a bit of an over-reaction to a 6 hour delay in the processing of paperwork ... there's still the fact that his death was accidental, and the direct result of his own actions. I don't give a damn what country you're from or what language you speak, when 4 guys in uniform yell something at you, there's only one correct course of action for you to take. And no "pick up a stapler and threaten them with it while yelling like a lunatic" is not the right answer.
Would I have done the same thing in their shoes? I'd have tried my best not to. But do I hold them responsible for his death? Not even close. I can criticize certain aspects of their actions, but there's no way I can say that they were "wrong". They attempted to carry out their duties by responding to a situation which he had created, and they didn't violate any laws or procedures while doing so. Unless new evidence comes to light, I'd say it's case closed.
Your silliness aside, we do sacrifice thousands of lives every year for many reasons, some of which are the inconvenience required to save them. Is that stupid? Not necessarily. A world of vastly reduced risk would also have vastly reduced rewards and individual freedoms. And that assumes we know the right thing to do (or not do) to eliminate everything that could kill you or me or anyone else.
That's just argumentum ad absurdum. Of course we'll never eliminate every potential risk. Even if we could, I doubt that the resulting world would be one I'd want to live in. In many cases I would argue that we need to be willing to accept more risk - such as, for instance, the NASA space-exploration program - as long as we take all practical measures to manage and minimize the risks which we can control.
On the other hand, look at the response immediately following the 9/11 attacks. I didn't hear very many voices saying "oh well, shit happens, now let me board my flight to Hawaii". People were outraged that the government of the last remaining superpower had lapsed into such complacency that a couple dozen fanatics armed with knives were able to cause billions of dollars in damage and kill thousands of innocent people. The citizens wanted better security, and the government responded. It's easy for you to sit back now and bitch about the hassles of air-travel, but what happens if tomorrow your family boards an airplane, and end up as bone chips embedded in the streets of an American city? I somehow doubt your response would be "well, at least they didn't have to remove their shoes before boarding".
Don't get me wrong - I'm all about the concept increasing individual liberty and reducing the power of the state. I'm also a realist, though, and I have some measure of empathy. While I might be willing to accept some increased danger for myself, I cannot make that choice for others. I certainly will not demand that others accept my choice just so I can avoid a bit of inconvenience.
It is completely appropriate to discuss these trade-offs, despite your objections, excellency
I was objecting to his tone and his attitude, not the discussion. When some holier-than-thou twit decides that he's too important to be hassled by the efforts of people who are trying to protect their own lives and the lives of others, I'd say he deserves to be slapped down off of his high-horse.
You're right - our decisions are based on trade-offs. Every year tens of thousands of people die around the world because they were unwilling to sacrifice the convenience of not wearing a seat-belt for the safety of a higher probability of surviving a collision. I have no problem with that. If you want to make dumb decisions that endanger only you, feel free. When you're talking about other peoples lives, though ... it's a whole different ballgame.
It's not just about getting oil for ourselves, its being able to control it for everyone else. It's also about using up someone else's oil before taking desperation measures for our own.
Ah, yes, invading other nations "to take their oil" isn't a "desperation measure", but investing in domestic industry is. What world are you living in?
I think the expectation was that everyone was surprised about the apparent "ease" of Afghanistan, and assumed that it would translate to Iraq
Nobody with any understanding of the situation was at all surprised about the ease with which the US took Afghanistan. We were a bit surprised by how quickly Iraq folded, though, and were quite surprised that they didn't use any gas or chemical warfare.
That's all irrelevant, though. By the time of the Iraq invasion, the US had already been involved in the Afghanistan effort for almost 2 years. Therefore the people planning the invasion - even if they were completely incompetent - would have had to know that their military commitment to Iraq would be 2 years at a minimum. Given the projected figures for Afghanistan at that point, they would more likely have been planning for a 6+ year effort, although they would have underestimated the force levels required. Therefore it would still have been MUCH cheaper to invest in domestic industry, instead of going overseas to steal other peoples resources. Your argument makes absolutely no sense.
If you think that first world nations fight wars over resources, then you really don't understand globalization. We fight over ideology, we fight to project power, and we fight to maintain our dominance and increase our security. If we want resources, we fucking buy them because it's a hell of a lot cheaper. Of course, some countries that we're interested in will also happen to have natural resources. In such cases it makes sense to try and secure some of those for our own use. However, that doesn't mean that the natural resources were the reason for the invasion - they may simply turn out to be a fringe benefit.
I say "may be" because, if you look at the Oil deals that Iraq has been making, you'll notice that the US is getting the short end of the stick.
That was the RCMP, not airport personnel, so their conduct has nothing to do with the bit you were responding to. The airport personnel involved in the incident WERE calm and collected, and mostly worked to try and calm down the crazy bastard before the RCMP arrived.
As for the conduct of the officers, they were also mostly calm and collected. The only thing they really did wrong was lie about the incident.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that your cheetos-encrusted beard, grateful dead t-shirt, and "FUCK YOU" hat might have had something to do with the way they treated you. I've noticed that most of the people who complain about being mistreated at the airport are either individuals who have no idea how to look and act in public, or people who have an attitude problem.
There are, of course, exceptions ... but judging by your comment, I doubt that you're one of them. Despite what you admit to believing, security personnel are more than intelligent enough to pick up on the sneering disgust which you feel towards them.
but that was because the baggage conveyors had broken, not because of anything to do with security
That's what They WANT you to think ....
Basically it's none of their freakin business where I decide to travel to if I'm not stopping in their country.
It is if you're flying over their airspace. Can you imagine the Russians trying to make that argument during the Cold War?
"Oh those 300 bear bombers and 1,000 Migs heading for your border? Don't worry about it. We're not landing in your country, so their destination is none of your business."
I'm sure that would have gone over REAL well.
As for your paranoia ... you can still go to Cuba, if you want, without going through the US. Take a boat. Fly around. It'll cost more, but it's worth it in order to stop the CIA from implanting microchips in your brain during the screening process.
But please, let me get a flight my country to another country and back without having to take off my shoes and belt, step through a perv machine, give up all my data to third party TSAs, and sit for an hour without a book, drink, mp3 player, laptop or the right to take a piss, just because you think you're so important that I might just hijack the plane, fly it across the Atlantic and crash it into your local Wal-mart.
I'm sorry, Your Highness - if we had been informed of your arrival, we wouldn't have DREAMED of inconveniencing you just for the sake of saving a few thousand lives. You should really consider wearing your Tiara, next time, so that our screening lackeys can more easily recognize you in a crowd.
Complaining about israel is the middle east equivalent of westerners complaining taxes are too high, every now and then someone comes along and makes some token changes to policy to win political support, but basically everyone knows the game and is not out to rock the boat too much. Admittedly there is a real danger than you'll get some idiot in charge who actually believes all of the rhetoric, but that is not presently the case with Iran.
I'm sure that you find your personal psychic insights to be quite persuasive, but the rest of us require a little something called "evidence". In the absence of evidence, I'm going to take Ahmadenijad at his word when he says that he wants to annihilate Israel. You'd have to be an idiot not to, and the Israelis would have to be completely fucking suicidal not to.
As a side note, western complaints about taxes generally don't take the form of funding terrorist organizations, or threatening genocide.
Not that I enjoy taking Israel's side on that point; I am very tired of hearing Israel claiming the position of underdog while being the most zealous in pursuing aggressive action against its neighbours.
I hear ya, man. Just like in this video. It's obvious that the Israeli Karate-dude is the aggressor. After all, he's the only one who threw a punch, he's the one who won the fight, and he never even got hurt in the process! Clearly he's way more aggressive, and should have been locked up.
I'm trying to not be offensive but your viewpoint has left me incredulous! How do you say the things you do, which are in direct contradiction to well known and cited information, WITHOUT CITATION and then get modded to +5 insightful?
Because on slashdot, anything critical of Israel automatically gets modded up. It doesn't matter if it's sourced, or if it's accurate, or even if it's internally consistent. As long as you complain about Israel, you're guaranteed mod points.
Ah, yes, the old "war for oil" idiocy again. Only in the mind of a blithering moron would it make more sense to spend trillions invading a foreign nation instead of investing a few billion in the development of domestic oil-sand and oil-shale extraction techniques.
Well done sir, that was the best troll I've ever seen.
Oh, sorry, I must have forgotten that I'm Chinese for a moment.
Me love your post long time!
That's Vietnamese, you racist bastard!
"21st century tendency"? Funny, I didn't know that words like "driveway", "masterpiece", and "pyromaniac" were invented in the 21st century.
They've been around for 70+ years. Killed more people in WW2 and Vietnam than they did in this decade.
She was built like a tractor and had shoulders of a linebacker.
Must have had Russian ancestry. You know what they say about the Russian girls .... strong like truk ... smart like traktor .... sexy like faktory!
Where did he say that he was fired?
Ben Stein? Is that you? :)
As for the bit about "plenty of other people ... confirming what the department expected" .... if you replace the word "plenty" with "a few" you'd be much closer to the truth. As you correctly point out, eventually the truth will be discovered (although it tends to take a much, much shorter amount of time than what you suggested). Scientists who intentionally fake data tend to be relegated to janitorial duties once their deception is discovered. So while there may be some short-term incentive to fake data, and while some scientists may be unethical enough to consider doing it, it rarely happens.
Of course, that number could probably be even further reduced if there wasn't a tendency in the scientific community to throw out negative results. That's one area that definitely needs improvement.
Either that or they discovered WOW and stopped breeding.
Any encryption scheme is crackable when you've got unlimited access to the machine code that actually does the encryption and decryption. Then it simply becomes an exercise in reverse engineering. That means you can decrypt the messages sent in both directions, but not necessarily spoof messages sent by the master since they may be using a trap-door function.
Very true. That's why all DRM methods are useless in the long run - they'll be broken eventually. The difference is that when you release a new encryption method for digital media, there will be tens of thousands of people working on figuring out the problem. Whereas when you create a botnet, there may be a few hundred people working on figuring it out, IF you're a big enough problem.
I'll admit that, while I was under the legal age for prosecution, I created a very simple botnet. At one point I had about 3,000 individual computers under my control. I stopped doing that about a decade ago, yet, even today, when I run those old binaries through a virus scanner, none of them are detected. If you keep your endeavors small enough, chances are nobody will ever bother with them. If you create 50 different variants which all communicate on the same network, there's no reason why you couldn't create a much larger network which nobody really pays any attention to. However, the key point here is that even the very large botnets rarely have much in the way of resources directed towards countering them. The average person is going to be much more interested in cracking the newest DRM encryption than in defeating the newest worm or trojan. So yeah, your P2P botnet may eventually be cracked, regardless of how well you encrypt the binaries and the communications channels. However, you'll probably get at least a few years of use out of a well designed network before that happens, and you'll be able to rebuild it in a matter of months. In the end, as long as the people fighting this kind of stuff are reactive rather than proactive, they're fighting a losing battle.
Man am I glad to be Armoured.
I never really got into the competition between the different trades ... until one winter some smug Armoured bastard drove by in -20 weather, with half his body out the hatch, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and pouring a cup of steaming hot coffee into the snow. I tell ya, it's a good thing we didn't have live rounds that day ....
Yeah, I could try being civil. And you could try not implying that people are sheep who are "too terrified to leave the house". Now, granted, you may not have realized that your comment was offensive since, these days, it seems to be trendy to classify entire populations as stupid, weak, and/or terrified. I'm surprised that you haven't yet noticed a link between you making such comments, and others treating you like a steaming turd.
You're right, though, being uncivil doesn't help the discussion, even when it is justifiable. So I apologize, and respectfully ask that you more carefully consider how you phrase your criticisms in the future. Thanks.
Yep, I gotta hand it to them, this is the first model I've seen which isn't all thumbs. Looks like we've finally got a grip on this technology!
Some light reading for you:
In this paper we offer evidence based on a unique database constructed from
.....
reports of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA). The data detail the biographies of
Palestinian suicide bombers between the years 2000 and 2005, including detailed
information about the targets they attacked, and number of people that they killed
and injured. We nd that the suicide bomber’s age and education and the impor-
tance of the target are strongly correlated; older and more-educated suicide
bombers are assigned to attack more important targets. Older and more-educated
suicide bombers kill more people when they attack more important targets. We also
nd that more-educated and older Palestinian suicide bombers are less likely to fail
or to be caught during their attacks, emphasizing the importance of human capital
in the production of killing and terror.
Our paper also contributes to the debate on the relation between educa-
tion, poverty, and terrorism. While suicide bombers are on average more
educated than the general Palestinian population, our estimate of higher
education among suicide bombers is lower than the gures reported by Berrebi
(2003) and Krueger and Maleckova (2003). Berrebi (2003) nds that 55 percent
of the suicide bombers for whom he was able to nd information on education
had or were persuing higher education. Berrebi’s gure is more than three
times our estimate of 18 percent.7 We suspect that selection bias may drive these
differences in the estimates of education among suicide bombers. For example,
Berrebi’s (2003, footnote 36) data do not include suicide bombers who were
caught or failed in their mission, or suicide bombers that did not succeed in
killing others—who tend to be less educated than those who do not fail in their
missions.