help me
By quiet 28 Sep 2001
Take a look at this weeks Onion. It’s a full spread on the attack. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be angry. What do you think?
These are the voyages..
By trevor 26 Sep 2001
They went and boldly made another Star Trek series, staring Scott Bakula. We’re not up to 1071 posts on the THRAXIL, but that’s partly my fault. If any of you are not watching the pilot right now, know that you’re missing it. If you’re a nerd, hang your head in shame – I know I am. A friend had a good idea of making a drinking game to go with the pilot. A Quantum Leap reference in particular would require a substantial amount of drinking.
out
By anders pearson 21 Sep 2001
my friend cj, who drives a zamboni for a living, just bought a new mustang. we’re driving it from virginia to maine tonight. i’ll be in maine for the next week. probably without any net access to speak of.
honesty
By jp 21 Sep 2001
I thought honesty and pure, unfiltered, raw emotional discourse and uncensored opinion was something that our mogul-based push media enterprise had completely wiped out in the interest of spoon-feeding us controlled content punctuated by our loving sponsor.
<p>Jon Stewart proved me wrong last night. </p>
<p>I was on my way out of <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~npd1">Niles’</a> house, when I caught the beginning of the daily show, and stuck around to catch a few seconds of it. it was nothing short of incredible. he ditched his script, and recalled to his audience other times of great national loss and crisis, citing <span class="caps">MLK</span>’s assasination when he was in 5th grade, war news in his later years and whatnot. but the man wasn’t on a soapbox, he was pulling his soul out, word by word. he was crying. the man who usually is all shits and giggles was crying, and being completely and totally honest. </p>
<p>his message was that a “with us or against us” war such as the one proposed by Dubyah last night isn’t so much the answer. but that was almost besides the point. in an age where people paid to deliver us the truth always give us an almost robotic account of the days happenings, and no matter how obvious it is people never say what’s really going on (like those poor “analysts” who have to try and make Bush sound smart after every appearance, when they know full well he’s an idiot), this was the first and <i>only</i> time I can recall when a journalist, or at least a media figure has ever dropped his script and given me raw emotion, uncensored reaction, and the simple human perspective on a tragic happening, rather than an overanalyzed version that makes it completely statistical and dehumanizes it completely. </p>
<p>it may or may not be on comedycentral’s site later. I’ll post it if it is.</p> Happy Birthday
By jere 20 Sep 2001
…Tad
wow
By jere 18 Sep 2001
I was talking with a colleague today and mentioning how curious I found it that no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks of 9-11. This person made several comments which have sent me seriously thinking. Granted I am probably the #1 most naive and gullible person on earth, so you all will probably get the implications faster than I…
anomalies: flight manuals in <strong>Arabic</strong>??!! Flight manuals are not printed in Arabic; moreover— flight manuals left conspicuously on display after the passengers in the car make an issue of getting noticed?; a Muslim, about to embark upon a suicide mission as part of a holy war, spending his last night on earth in a <strong>bar</strong> with lots of exposed female flesh (and then giving out broad, dark hints?)? (Those are the most glaring at the moment; probably others of you can think of more.)
<p>In the law game, one asks, cui bono? Who profits? So, who profits, my friends, from setting the military might of an outraged United States against Arabs? (And why is Sharon of Israel so adamant that Palestine never be included in any coalition that might be mounted against —- whom?) I can think of a few candidates; but one stands out rather sickeningly… devious, diabolical and the sort of stuff that Robert Ludlum capitalized on..</p>
<p>However, as the song says, Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you…</p> normalize
By anders pearson 17 Sep 2001
i find myself wanting to copy and paste phone numbers into the url field of my web browser.
sorrow.
By anders pearson 16 Sep 2001
my god, i actually find myself agreeing with the pope.
Pope John Paul II has offered prayers to America and urged those affected by the terrorist attacks to show restraint and commit themselves to peace.
<p>after this week, the only thing i’m left feeling is deep sorrow. i’m sad that so many innocent people were killed in the attacks. i am even more deeply saddened by what i’ve seen of this country’s reaction. </p>
<p>this tragedy has triggered a nationalistic bloodlust that makes me want to go crawl under a rock until the world smartens up. the opinions of <a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ucac/20010912/cm/this_is_war_1.html">bigoted raving lunatics</a> unfortunately seems to be shared by the <a href="http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010913/us/attacks_congress_14.html">current leadership</a> of our country, <a href="http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010912/us/attacks_editorial_rdp_5.html">the media</a>, and a surprisingly large percentage of the population.</p>
<p>i don’t understand how anyone could even briefly consider (let alone how it has become the publicly acceptable belief) that the murdering of many innocent people is an appropriate response to <em>anything</em>.</p>
<p>lately i’ve been having flashbacks to may of 1999 when tuck and i were in china and <span class="caps">NATO</span> bombed the chinese embassy in belgrade. the nationalistic frenzy that the chinese media whipped the people into involved numerous attacks on american citizens (just as we’re seeing here now with hate crimes against middle eastern and muslim people) and a public cry for retaliation and war. americans love to consider themselves more free and free thinking than the chinese who live under a government which doesn’t even pretend to be democratic. i think a re-evaluation may be in order.</p>
<p>as Joe <a href="http://goatee.net/2001/09#_11tu">says on goatee.net</a>: “The desperation of these actions speak of fear and impotency. And I hope America doesn’t respond in kind.”</p>
<p>and don’t even get me started on <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28620-2001Sep14.html">Falwell</a>.</p> stats
By anders pearson 14 Sep 2001
lani mentioned something interesting to me on the phone the other night. she said that her mother had learned during her airline training about terrorism that terrorists tended to (consciously or unconsciously) go after airlines whose names included the name of the country they were targeting. eg, American Airlines or United would be more likely targets than Delta or Northwestern. this makes a certain kind of sense. however, i haven’t been able to find any comprehensive statistics about terrorist attacks as broken down by airline online to verify it for myself.
<p>so far, i’ve only found this <a href="http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/1999index.html">1999 report on global terrorism</a> and this <a href="http://www.pyramid.ch/airsafety_fatalairl.htm">collection of statistics on air safety</a> which breaks things down per airline but includes accidental crashes with bombings and doesn’t include hijackings.</p>
<p>if anyone knows where i can find some good data, i would appreciate a link.</p> terrorists
By anders pearson 11 Sep 2001
well, now the US has to directly face a problem that the rest of the world has had to deal with for a while: how do you protect your people from unknown attackers?
<p>dealing with another government who is openly threatening you is one thing; you know where they live. they know that you can take the fight back to them and kill their people too. it keeps them from doing anything <em>too</em> stupid. </p>
<p>but what the fuck are you supposed to do when things just start blowing up and there’s no one to blame? or when those who are responsible are a tiny extremist group who don’t really have anything to lose. no country to bomb. if you do bomb someone in retaliation, you’ll just make more people angry and increase the likelihood of more terrorist attacks.</p>
<p>well, the obvious strategy is to just keep it from happening in the first place. so how do you do that? apparently a multi-billion dollar global intelligence network can’t predict or prevent even the largest operations, so that strategy is out. increase airport security? stop people from bringing their swiss army knives on the plane? lock up anyone who might possibly harbor ill will towards your country? enter into a total police state? </p>
<p>i’m not too excited at the idea of living in a police state. i don’t think even that would work. the whole point of terrorism is that it strikes where you’re weakest. if airport security were stronger, they’d have found a different way to cause the same amount of damage. you will always have a weakness. i don’t think there’s any way around that.</p>
<p>i’m seriously asking now. what do you do to protect the innocent people in the world from being blown to bits because of something their leaders did or just because someone with a chemical imbalance happened to have a few bags of fertilizer out back?</p>