Colrom

Even more interesting to me is when the "myth" is not a "what" but a "how". Take the case where we are told that most folks don't think killing a bank teller and robbing the bank is worth it but many think that cheating on their income tax is worth it. Poll results show this clearly. We have begun to establish not a what - but a how - how we are to evaluate the goodness of an action - by whether it is "worth it". In the earlier example I suggested that how we evaluate the contamination of water is by looking at it. So now I can offer you crystal clear water and blue colored water and you will be likely to judge the crystal clear water as uncontaminated. After all, no one has suggested otherwise up till just this moment. But now your suspicions are aroused. You may wonder whether the water has been altered so that it is clear but perhaps contaminated with something non the less. Yes. It is contaminated with tasty flavoring. Clears is definitely a good tasting experience. But steer away from blue - and red. Heh. Anyway this is why I try to avoid watching corrupt TV programming like FOX News or some reality shows. Also tend to I notice when advertisers have their subjects steal something from someone else - or ridicule someone else - or make someone else literally disappear Coke has a series of ads doing this now. For example - guy at work looks through the refrigerator, and finds a case of Diet Coke marked with a sticky note "Marie". The song playing is "Oh Marie"! He is torn, but he steals one anyway and the song changes to use his name Sammy instead. The theme of the Coke series is "yours" which appears at the end in the lower right corner of the screen. Amost all involve theft of somebody elses coke. To my mind this fits with Cokes moral bankruptcy very well. They have been working on a campaign to dupe consumers into accepting their previous 2 liter pricing on a new bottle which is 1.5 liters which they position at the same place on the shelves as they used to position the 2 liter bottles. The 2 liter bottles are moved to another somewhat less convenient location and the price is way up there. The "ring around the collar" Wisk detergent ads made annoying people literally disappear. That was clever. I'm babbling. It's a great topic but huge! Corrupt programming contaminates your thinking and maybe your morality.

I thought everyone knew that the assertion is more memorable than the evaluation. Suppose someone suggests that Mark has Arabic connections. Perhaps this isn't true, but now the idea is out there. We can't delete the idea. We can only deny it. Perhaps if we make the denial more interesting than the original idea we may be able to complicate the claim, but we will never be able to eliminate it. Suppose we identify the source of the false claim and make a deal about him? That might help. Fred is a lying scum who slanders people. And then we add some nice stuff about Mark. Mark is a great guy who has only Western friends. Maybe that's the best. One drop of ink in glass of clear water and the water colored. Add a drop of red ink and the water is colored differently. Removing the color is much more difficult.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Hospitals are a potential target but do have full time security as well. What I was talking about, though, was the failure of the government to spend money increasing the capacity of the hospitals to treat victims of terrorist attacks at other places. As it stands now our hospitals and medical staff are a serious bottleneck in our emergency response capability. They are not even equipped to handle a modestly serious flu outbreak let alone a major man made health crisis. As well, the hospitals in each region pretty much must deal with their own problems except for a few cases. Fixing this requires spending money on something other than guns and bullets - to provide excess medical capacity for the kind of surge in patients that a serious terrorist attack or natural disaster would produce. I guess I believe that we should apply our personal assessment capabilities regarding others capabilities and intentions to our own politicians and officials and draw the appropriate conclusions. In that activity following the money is a useful thing to do. We don't have a just-in-time optimized-for-normal-demand military. We should treat our hospitals and other similar facilities more like we do our military. (We should treat our Army better too - our Navy and Air Force seem to have plenty of excess capability.) No money for excess capacity at hospitals means no intentions to provide for treatment for large numbers of people. But money is spent for war and to get votes. That must be what is really important. Of course there are other areas as well where security or capability is lax for want of money spent.

Some of their actions which have never been publicly released have caused considerable damage to innocent people which has also not been publicly released. There are about thirty seven zillion possible things to worry about - like ferrys. But there are certain focuses of prevention and preparedness - like hospitals. When they are more serious about the value of people's lives rather than the value of their vote they will spend more money upgrading capabilities atthose focuses. Till then, I think their success is more evidence that folks are mostly good rather than evidence that preparedness is well handled.

1) Ounce of prevention, etc... 2) The US government can't publicly accuse people on mere suspicion. (maybe they can, but it's immensely poor taste) These people either a) are suspected of plotting such attacks or b) suspected to hold information about such potential attacks. Which translates directly into what is being said. Several innocent people are dead because of actions taken based on "an ounce of prevention" license. Others have had their careers or personal lives damaged. The FBI have effectively accused the people in the picture by posting their picture and providing a generalized accusation. But considering the recent record of civil rights abuse by the FBI and other government organs they should provide something more concrete. Comments about actions or even a name would be nice. Unfortunately the FBI and Homeland Security have a very bad record of accuracy with such generalized suspicians. Some officials seek publicity and favor by affecting a pose of savvy vigilence through repeated accusations - politics. They benefit even if the accusations are false. I will say this, Taks; considering your field of study it is good for your career to take the attitude you project! -Not Taks Yikes! Taks is quite smart and so are you and your names are vaguely similar. Sorry.

1) Ounce of prevention, etc... 2) The US government can't publicly accuse people on mere suspicion. (maybe they can, but it's immensely poor taste) These people either a) are suspected of plotting such attacks or b) suspected to hold information about such potential attacks. Which translates directly into what is being said. Several innocent people are dead because of actions taken based on "an ounce of prevention" license. Others have had their careers or personal lives damaged. The FBI have effectively accused the people in the picture by posting their picture and providing a generalized accusation. But considering the recent record of civil rights abuse by the FBI and other government organs they should provide something more concrete. Comments about actions or even a name would be nice. Unfortunately the FBI and Homeland Security have a very bad record of accuracy with such generalized suspicians. Some officials seek publicity and favor by affecting a pose of savvy vigilence through repeated accusations - politics. They benefit even if the accusations are false. I will say this, Taks; considering your field of study it is good for your career to take the attitude you project!

For Sand - Black holes are no bigger than their effective radius. Light and other stuff can safely pass by or orbit around. So there would be signals from stuff going by or from behind it. I'm kinda reassured. Things have condensed. If statistical variations apply it makes sense that some places should be void. Sp this is further evidence of expected statistical variation and that statistical thermodynamics is still a viable model.

I am concerned about the FBI failure to identify and capture the anthrax attackers. Maybe the FBI should work at catching criminals/terrorists who have actually committed crimes before going fishing for those they imagine might be thinking about committing crimes. They really should say something about why they are concerned about those two people in particular.

Wonderful. "I hate snakes."

Wonderful!

I think the media serves the public to the extent that it provides to the public a great deal of useful information about events and and products and services. The media serves more powerful interests to the extent that it screens and frames the news primarilly according to their preferences. To the extent that powerful people share interests with the public this is good for the public. To the extent that powerful people have interests that exploit or harm the public this is bad for the public. This is not going to change. But there hope for the victory of truth over spin because the media is actively engaged in making itself an entertainment center and obsoleting itself as a news source. Billions of independent news sources are taking their place. Some are concerned about this and are desperate to maintain control (of the news and the message). That may be difficult.

Was he describing propaganda techniques or executing them? It didn't ring true to me.

I think we agree on the essential points. I do think there are cases where killing is the least immoral option. Police and soldiers face those situations alot. Unfortunately for those involved, experience is probably helpful in accurately judging those situations. But even with experience they often don't do a great job. Too bad.

Most people believe that they are thinking clearly. But are they? Suppose the man who shoots another man to prevent him from viciously murdering and raping another is actually misperceiving what is happening or what is likely to happen. Suppose the shooter's judgement is faulty? Is that OK?

Yes. Some killers are not as smart and clear thinking as other killers.

Quite right.

They are certainly not equivalent - but they are both cruel murders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is, after all, "just" a father on his way back from war practice. I don't know what reasoning these killers might have but I know their reasons will make sense to them but likely not to me. The one who kills the general might imagine that he is cutting off the head of a hostle snake. The other who kills the civilian mother might imagine that he is weakening the support provided by the feet of a huge hostle giant. In both cases the killers minimize the positive value of the regular life of their target and focus on other "values". In the case of suicide attacks the killer even minimizes the value of their own life. Sometimes people kill only themselves - like the monks who burned themselves in protest during the Vietnam war. Crazy.

Why are the aliens and their technologies always so very very quiet? It's uncanny.

Yeah, and the firebombing of Dresden. Don't forget that. I'm too hungover to really get to grips with this, but if you really equate organised warfare, however disgusting, with the random _and pointless_ deliberate slaughter of civilians _and not military personnel_ then I suggest you get back to studying. I'm a simple person. I see highly effective murder as morally equivalent to highly ineffective murder. Every premeditated killer who had an option has had a reason and a point - but whatever their reason or point or organization - in the end - they were just a killer. Even inane murders have inane points. There are no murders that were pointless to the murderers. I remember reading a story about a guy who was in jail for murder who described his reason for killing some old man. He said the old man didn't deserve to live because the killer was able to kill him - and so he did. It made sense to the killer. It was enough for him. The reason seems inane to me - but he thought it was a good reason. Since we are (mostly) smarter and less deranged than that nut our reasons for sending out killers are more complex and well thought out - but I'm not sure they are really all that different. So the comparison - especially if people insist on referencing "terror" as a motivation - is quite correct. Maybe even more than correct.

It is scary that someone with enough wealth could have an army of robot soldiers and overlords manufactured and use them take and maintain control. This scenario has been described in several science finction stories. But now the fiction is about to become reality. Yikes. Certainly the technology is coming along nicely. There may be an weakness in this scheme but I don't know what it is. My guess is that the weakness is that when the technology has the judgement to really be effective it will also be smart enough to think for itself in other ways and some ugly supprises may be experienced by all. The first serious try might be done in conjunction with a shock and awe bio attack.

I don't think we are getting very good info on what is actually happening. For example, you will be hard pressed to find news reports of US or UK actions involving the expenditure of ammo and the causing of casualties - although these things are certainly happening. I think we are in a situation where some news is virtually blacked out. I actually wrote a fairly mocking note to one or two news services about whether they had seen any indication that US soldiers actually still knew how to shoot straight. Shortly afterwards at least one report of a firefight was published. Maybe I had something to do with that. Who knows. In any case, I'm sure that we are not being kept aware of what is actually happening. As far as your support for the occupation is concerned I would be interested to know what sort of events would actually cause you to seek an exit from Iraq by US and UK forces. My own view is that since Iraq is not a state of the union and is not adjacent to Kansas or any other state of the union I am happy enough to let the Brits continue their hundred year mission to control events in the Middle East without our help.

The fundamental idiocy of this topic is that issues and religion are completely intertwined.

On the other hand, I would be quite willing to vote for a person claiming to be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddist, or Atheist who seemed to me, based on their actions, to have essentially the same values as Christ promoted. I have no interest in establishing religious hegemony - which is rightly forbidden in the US - so which church they attend is not necessarilly important. Although, if they appear to be subject to influence by lunatics that would be a negative.

Of course it matters. A persons religious beliefs or disbeliefs determine quite a bit of what they will do - especially in difficult circumstances. However, it is often quite difficult to determine what a persons religious beliefs really are. People often enough lie about such things - perhaps even to themselves. Probably the easiest way to judge is to see what they have done in the past. For example, while I will leave it to God to know what George Bush believes and what he thinks he believes, based on his statements and actions I would never consider him to be a follower of Christ's teachings. He seems more like an unwitting deciple of Satan so far as I can tell. I think Chavez had him pegged. So I would never vote for him - not for any position.

You have some good points - but there are complications. For one thing crimes and threats are much more likely to be considered to be "terrorist" if the perpetrator is an arab/muslim. For example, I have seen/heard several well known personalities including a medal of honor winner suggest nuclear attacks on Iran facilities or even turning Iran into glass. I have heard personalities suggest killing arab/muslim leaders in wide variety of ways. Etc. Etc. These are applauded. Comments by arabs/muslims and antiwar folks which are not easily interpreted as violent threats have on many occasion given rise to agressive law enforcements action. Whether the act is judged to be terrorist or supporting of terrorism depends on who is involved. Arabs/muslims are subject to a special interpretation of law - sort of the upside down of priviledge. You could do an experiment on this with you and a muslim/arab friend but I fear that your friend might well wind up in big trouble or even dead. You would probably be OK though - although that would change as soon as they found out you were associated in some way. Probably not a good idea after all. I used to think that the answer to mistaken murders by the police was execution of the policemen involved. Then we all would be sincere when we said "what a terrible tragedy". But my religious beliefs make me reject that option. I am at the moment sick as a dog. Can't do more. Peace.