London explosions

possibly a little insensitive to say this right now, but twice as many people are killed on Britains roads every week. why is there no international condemnation of cars drivers? why is Henry Bin Ford not villified?

i think it's a point to remember when we hear the commentators talking about muslims and terrorists in the same sentence.

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i eat paint

I don't really get your comparison fishy. Car drivers (at least the
OVERWHELMING majority of them) don't mean to cause accidents or kill
people. Terrorists who plant bombs on trains and buses clearly do. I
totally agree that the condemnation of muslims by many people due to
association with terrorism is horrible and wrong, but the first paragraph just doesn't mean anything to me.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

the comparison is that inoccent people die.

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i eat paint

Nah Fishy, you've missed Reno's point. One is an accident, one is purposeful. The terrorists aren't sitting there going "oh dear! I didn't mean to plant the bomb to kill people!"

I think your comparison only works for the crazy people who do road rage killings...

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Myrk- said:
Nah Fishy, you've missed Reno's point. One is an accident, one is purposeful.

myrk, believe it or not, i actually knew that one is accidental and one is on purpose when i made my point about Henry Ford, so let me put it this way. what death would you pick for one of your nearest and dearest. death by suicide bomber or death by roadkill?

personally, i'd go for the suicide bomber.

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i eat paint

Ok, it was just a very strange comparison which obviously had a meaning that maybe wasn't conveyed aswell as it could have been (both Reno and I misunderstood it, I think).

Your point is more a question of pride and revenge I think.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

the original point was that 'rag heads', as someone so eloquently put it, shouldn't all be labled as al qaida activists. at least no more than henry ford should be blamed for causing every car crash ever.

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i eat paint

satchmo said:
I think world peace is impossible, as long as we have religion.

Wiser words are rarely spoken.

ReNo said:
Enough of the "rag heads" s**t - no need for any of that Myrk.

I concur.. Shame on you Myrk. :/

mazemaster said:
The hoover dam is f**king STRONG. I doubt a plane could take it out.

If I had the notion and nothing else to lose, I could do it.. I was an Engineer in the Army long enough to know where and how.. The dam would be standing but structurally unsound when I was through. It would all depend on how big the plane was, and its cargo.. IE, properly prepared cargo.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

We just need someone like John Lennon back. What a great
guy. Right now, he'd be kicking Geldof's ass at running a Live 8
show type thing, while stopping terrorism, while stopping global
warming, while beating the s**t outa Bush.

And more...

EDIT: Oh yeah, first thing though, he'd come to his senses and place a mob hit on Yoko Ono.

Orpheus said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting satchmo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

I think world peace is impossible, as long as we have religion.

Wiser words are rarely spoken. </div></div>

just goes to show that even the oldest of cliches can be utter bollocks. or do people really think that hatred needs religion before it can operate?

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i eat paint

fishy said:
or do people really think that hatred needs religion before it can operate?

Prolly not, but some of the most hostile people I know are either deeply religious, or claim to be so.

I do however know some people who are antagonistic without religion in their lives and some who are religious and have no evil bones in them at all.
On the whole however, I honestly truly believe that religion as a concept does not create evil actions, its the doubtful among them that does.

---

The best things in life, aren't things.

just goes to show that even the oldest of cliches can be
utter bollocks. or do people really think that hatred needs religion
before it can operate?

No, it doesn't. But most religions give people a framework for hatred,
and that framework gives the hatred structure and direction. Of course,
one can't really blame the religion itself. It is always
misinterpretations of the tenets of a religion that cause these issues.
That and the vested interests of a few people who are willing to steer
that hatred.

It's an easy solution to get rid of religion itself, in theory at
least. But convincing lots of people that they should give up the basic
ideals they believe in is a whole lot easier said than done.

</obvious>

Talk about a dog chasing its own tail.. Religion may or may not cause hatred but I think of the two.. "World peace" and "removing religion"... that achieving world peace would be easier to obtain.

Thats a new twist on the immovable object striking the unstoppable force. :eek:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The real shame is this attack stole media attention which would have been focused on the G8 at Gleneagles.

The only G8 progress i heard about before the bombings consumed TV was this little jem...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050706/323/fmsqj.html

hoover dam Vs. Cargo Plane..?

My money is on the Dam..... when u planning this orph?

religion is something that helps support great hate and great peace.

as for a dam, it is a delicate balance of forces. It uses the
huge energy of the water to keep it together. Its like an arch,
you can pound on the top all day and never break it, but if you put a
crack in one leg physics will take it down in no time.

No doubt many of you have heard of this by now.

Fortunately, no casualty this time. Nevertheless, it's still a terrible thing.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Yeah, sounds like scare tactics to me, supposedly the guys were wearing
backpacks with 'bombs' in. When they went off, the bag popped open and
filled the place with smoke. Maybe the guys who were doing it just
couldn't be arsed to kill themselves so they thought they'd scare
everyone instead.

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www.senshiserve.tk

I heard one of the guys holding the bombs got injured when the bomb exploded... serves him right, the n00b.

---

"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

i saw footage of a man being arrested at gun point on the news i guess there taking no chances.

---

Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

Ok Religions rarely create hate for religious reasons. The Crusades were about access to trade routes more than any sort of religious vandettas.

Wars are 99% of the time acts of government. Should we dismantle public institutions?

Saying religion is the cause of violence and hatred is like sudgesting free thought is the source of violence. Hitler was able to start a world war based off of his own pursuasive ideology and charismatic character. Japan slaughtered millions of chinese without a hint of religious animosity. More people have died in the name of Capitalism than any one religious group has managed to accomplish in a thousand years. The American Civil War started over business legislation. But then what is the alternative to Government? Iraq would be a good example of how well an even slightly Anarchistic society functions.

So looks like all we have left is to just kill off the people. Ok... people dead... but now carnivores are the second largest source of death on this planet. Ok so we kill the carnivores. Whoops now the gazelles are over feeding and eating themselves to extinction. Ok let's take them out too. Whoops now the ecosystem is completely shot, mass extinction. We're down to a couple of plants and a handful of microorganisms. Then our sun dies and it was all moot. Problem solved no more dieing. So the solution to death is.... to kill everything. :wink:

What happened in London was sad but not really anything to be noted. About 400 people die every year in london from car fatalities. Recently a study showed that more people die from air pollution than traffic fatalities in London. So tack on another 400.

The next day in Iraq 150 people were killed in terrorist attacks, barely made the news.

Genocide is still happening in Sudan.

Everyday 6,000 children die from water born illness, much of which could be prevented with relatively small investment.

36 people died this year from terrorism in London. Sorry but that just doesn't make the list of "s**t I should be concerned with. I'm not saying it should be ignored, but sadly the world is a numbers game, put the money where the most lives can benefit.

I think londoners are making less of a deal of this than most Americans. Personally I'm more concerned with things that might kill me... such as rhinoceroses. Damn terrorist rhinoceroses, hating my freedom.

Thats true, but religion is used in many cases to promote and sustain hate.

Think about it, these were English citizens, they did this becuase they
followed an idea. Not becuase some on told them to do it.

That is what is scary.

With religion, there is no real figure head that can be removed to make
the hate and ideas to die. As long as people are drawn into the
web there will always be people to follow those ideals.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting satchmo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Fortunately, no casualty this time. Nevertheless, it's still a terrible thing.</DIV></DIV>

In a way it is terrible, but since no-one got (seriously) hurt and there were loads of eyewitnesses, this is a good thing- they'll be able to track these guys down (I hope they're constantly s**tting themselves until that day) and hopefully learn something about the network trying to organise these bombings (if it is the same people, or just copycats who rushed it and failed).

Although, I wonder which paper will be the first to shriek for a reintroduction of hanging. My money's on the Sun, followed by the Daily Mail... And to be honest, like the insurgents in Iraq these people are probably just "Muslim" through race, rather than religion, since you cannot justify blowing yourself up to kill civilians and potentially harming other Muslims in the process, although it's different when it comes to enemy soldiers :/

DrGlass said:
Think about it, these were English citizens, they did this becuase they followed an idea. Not becuase some on told them to do it.

I somehow doubt they just woke up one day read their Qu'ran and said. You know I should go blow up people. More likely an influencial human being 'inspired' them to do this. These people aren't crazies, they aren't uneducated, they usually come from well respected backgrounds with good families. They're murdering because of an idea, not "Let's make people hurt". With the exception of psychopaths, who take pleasure in pain and hurt, people tend to avoid killing one another. They're murderers but they're not psychopaths.

What do jihadists want? What everyone wants, what everyone is willing to die for, they want a Eutopia. Problem is they think a Eutopia (No crime, immorality, or pain) can only be attained on this earth through stringent rules, imposed social order. What does wester culture offer? We put mostly naked women on magazine covers, We turn a "blind eye" to all manner of self deprication. To a muslim eye, we are sin, we are unjust, we are might I say.... evil? But Aren't we? We definetely aren't a Eutopia.

Every rational human being has the same goal... a better world. We all: Democrats, Republicans, atheists, Christians, Muslims, Americans and Chinese are striving to make the world better. The problem is when our methodology conflicts. Western Culture: Personal Freedom (but to what extent?) Theocracy: Stringent moral guidelines (but how lenient?) Capitalism: Survival of the fittest. Communism: Equality regardless of quality. Capitalism, and Communism are mostly mutually exclusive, Conflict arises.

Conflict isn't over "my god's name is Bob yours is Jim prepare to die". There is no conflict in that situation. There is a conflict over. "My beliefs say that a bikini leads me to impure relationships, you're blatantly trying to destroy my way of life, I must defend it." Fanaticism is when the result justifies the means. Fanticism knows know religion, ideology or philosophy, all it knows, is that "I am right, and I know this for a fact."

Wester Culture has succeeded for a large part when we are willing to allow damage to our society, because we allow open dialogue about problems. Only when we close our minds does our ideology break down. But that's just a world view that the western mind has developed, is it absolutely true? At what point do we have to say "no, that is absolutely wrong." We do say this, we decide suicide bombings are absolutely wrong, they threaten our way of life, and so we exact "justice". "Well they hit us first." Just be aware, every suicide bomber, is murdering for the exact same reason we drop a bomb: To protect our way of life. Almost every great war is a mutual act of self defense. Someone is going to die at the end of this one. Either western relativism in it's socioeconomic form, or radical Conservative structure and absolutes. Which one is right? At this point it doesn't matter, the fight will come to an end with a victor.

Don't call them psychopaths, don't call them crazies, they know what they're doing, and they're doing it not for a Religion, God or Country. They're doing for the Future. They're fighting for Heaven. To quote Morpheus "Isn't that worth fighting for, isn't that worth dieing for."

We are all Combatants, I believe Bush and Osama are right, each of our lives fight for a world view, and a culture which inherently disrupts and threatens the opposing world view.

When the terrorists are all dead, or when "Freedom" has been squashed, there'll just be another batch of death, another round of war, over the same conflicts, the same reasons, in a different place and a different time. 50 odd Londoners died early, another 50 will step up into their place on both sides soon enough. And so the world goes round.....

im.thatoneguy said:
Just be aware, every suicide bomber, is murdering for the exact same reason we drop a bomb: To protect our way of life.

I don't think that's true. What "way of life" are they defending?? What message do they wanna send?? Besides, these people were terrorizing their own people decades ago: they were threatening the muslim intellectuals and assassinating innocent peasants in Morocco ,Egypt, etc... So they're not speaking in anyone's name but their own, that's for sure. Now they're spreading their poison all over the world.
I think this Qaeda is a little bit like the bad guys in the last Batman: people who just wanna erase the "city of sinners". I don't see how we can defend these people. They need to be stopped at any cost.

the answer to all problems would be just to accept each others way of life. if what im.thatoneguy says is true, that we are all trying to protect our own way of life, then would it not be sensible to just accept how each other live? those few islamic and other fundamentalists have blantantly stated in many ways 'we hate the west'. if they accepted our way of life and went about their own they would have no reason to cause death and destruction. the same goes for us west countries as well. though i dont think that the war on iraq was a protection of our way of life. sure it helped out the people in iraq, and that is still debateable, but there was no real danger to our way of life. this time i believe it was an act to get ahead. but i fully support that. we need to do what we need to do to get ahead in life. it is the basic instinct, survival and prospering. what better way then making ones country rich by invading another and taking its oil? fundamentalists are just the same. they have a set of beliefs that say: these people are infidels we cannot achieve paradise unless we get rid of them. there it is. paradise for death of others or hell for peace. they are just trying to get ahead like the rest of us. its a protection of a way of life that will succeed them to eternal happiness. but if they learned an ideology that accepted each other but still got them ahead then we would all be happy. they should just be content that they are going to heaven and were going straight to hell without eradicating innocent people.

DrGlass said:
Think
about it, these were English citizens, they did this becuase they
followed an idea. Not becuase some on told them to do it.

I somehow doubt they just woke up one day read their Qu'ran and said. You know I should go blow up people.

I'm saying that there doesn't seem to be a true leader, sure some
one may have funded them or led them to belive what they belive, but
there is no group of men planning each of these attacks. It is a
group of people who live by a twisted view of a religion.

What do jihadists want?

Just on a side note, a Jihad isn't a holy war against 'sinners' its
a personal struggle under Islam. For instance, my jihad may be to
quit smokeing, while some one else's Jihad may be to bring about a
better world through sensless murder.

Capitalism: Survival of the fittest. Communism: Equality
regardless of quality. Capitalism, and Communism are mostly mutually
exclusive, Conflict arises.

Yet America, for years, told us they wanted to defeat communism
through democrocy. Even still we talk about the democrocy in the
middle east, yet what we really want is a free market over there that
will buy our Nike socks.

Conflict isn't over "my god's name is Bob yours is Jim
prepare to die". There is no conflict in that situation. There is a
conflict over. "My beliefs say that a bikini leads me to impure
relationships, you're blatantly trying to destroy my way of life, I
must defend it." Fanaticism is when the result justifies the means.
Fanticism knows know religion, ideology or philosophy, all it knows, is
that "I am right, and I know this for a fact."

But religion is used very offten to support how right that person
is. Joe Blow can think he is right, but he isn't going to blow up
a building becuase of it. Then you take the same person who finds
a group or an idea (kinda like religion is a group that centers around
a base idea) and this group supports him and tells him, you are
right! Now show everyone you are right.

I think that religion is the only thing strong enough to do this to
people. Like I said before the Nazi's died with Hitler (for the
most part) but when it comes to religion, it is almost always about
something bigger than man kind, something that lives forever.

When the terrorists are all dead, or when "Freedom" has been
squashed, there'll just be another batch of death, another round of
war, over the same conflicts, the same reasons, in a different place
and a different time.

very true.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I just would like to further clarify a few things. I am sudgesting that the reason that terrorists carry out these attacks is out of a percieved self threat.

We can barely understand just how much our culture has changed theirs. It's not a matter of just closing your eyes and letting "American be america" America inevitably infects everyone around them. America is "Cool". Essentially the wester way of life is invading every single TV connected nation in the world, it was inevitable, but dont' believe for a second, that people are just going to sit by and watch everything they came to know and trust be upset and disorganized by some unstoppable, undetectable social infection.

People aren't blowing up buildings simply because of a dispute about which God is better. Capitalism or Islam. They're blowing up buildings because we're destroying their way of life... I'm not going to make a morality call on whether the dismantling of a centuries old society is positive or negative, but it is happening. If the american social structure became outclassed by a new progressive philosphy that tended to have more sucess and said new hypothetical super culture began to radically change America... A good number of NRA card toting Americans would be infiltrating the alien culture in an attempt to fight back, to defend the sunday BBQ.

I think batman had a great line about the concept of what you're saying about religion. You can kill a man, but you can't stop an ideology. It's true, you can't kill an idea nearly as easily as one persuasive man, but just listen to AM Talk Radio to hear very pursuasive radical viewports every morning. There isn't one centre to a well established ideology, the only reason the Nazi Regime fell with hitler is because he only had time to pursuade one generation, if the regime had lasted another 40 years, the P2P ideology would have been unstoppable. Call it a religion, I just call it an idea. Religions just being one small subset of the ideas that start conflict.

I think that is something people fail to relize, the NRA type people
who say they would fight the terrorist are in the same mind set as the
terrorist they want to fight

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting DrGlass</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I think that is something people fail to relize, the NRA type people who say they would fight the terrorist are in the same mind set as the terrorist they want to fight</DIV></DIV>That's cool. So we have a terrorist military? Oh, wait, that would imply some kind of moral equation of people who take pains to kill only armed enemies to people who intentionally kill innocents.

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[Im_invisible] "I would suck a man off, but only for sustenance."

Cassius said:
That's cool. So we have a terrorist military? Oh, wait, that would imply some kind of moral equation of people who take pains to kill only armed enemies to people who intentionally kill innocents.

which raises the question of police officers in london shooting and killing a man that was believed to be a suicide bomber. rather than attempting to arrest the man, which would have given him time to detonate his device, he was shot several times without warning, killing him almost instantly. now the police have said that the man they shot was innocent, but even so, they would continue to shoot people dead without warning if they looked like suicide bombers.

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i eat paint

It gets better here was a quote I read in the news today from I believe the mayor of livingston:

"?The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public,? he said. ?This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility.?

So not only are terrorists killing people directly, they're also (indirectly responsible) for us killing people as well. So we shoot him and it's their fault. I'm sorry but while the shooting may very well may have been a responsible action on the part of the police, let's not blaim terrorists for our actions at least.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it. Given that he came out of a house under surveillance because there were possible links with the (failed?) terror attacks, and then for some reason ran onto the tube despite being told to stop by the police, I'm not surprised to hear he was shot, and am glad that the police are doing their job properly. Pretty stupid thing for him to do, don't you think? Maybe 5 shots into him sounds excessive, but what do I know, I'm not a Policeman.

i agree with lep he was told to stop and didnt. of course to police are going to shoot him eight times. i think that police should be given more rights in britain. if that had happened in america to police would have been praised. those armed cops in london did what they felt at the time they had to do to protect the public. i respect them for the job they do.

I agree, but it may not have been as simple as:

"ay there ol' chap, please stop in the name of the law"

"bugger! I'm from Brazil... AHAHAHAHHAHA"

"I do say, he ran away!"

bang

Who knows, the cops could have just yelled STOP and that guy though trouble was afoot so he ran.

Blair put it well though, 'If they hadn't shot him and he blew up a
bomb, then you would be attacking the police for not shooting him'

I am observing an arguement... but I don't see anybody disagreeing...

Leperous said:
and then for some reason ran onto the tube despite being told to stop by the police, I'm not surprised to hear he was shot, and am glad that the police are doing their job properly. Pretty stupid thing for him to do, don't you think?

people run away from the police each and every day, but i've never heard that proper police procedure was to shoot them in the head seven times.

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i eat paint

ran onto the tube

I think this is the key point. He wasn't just running down the street,
he ran into the tube, which is where most of the bombings have occurred.

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Not every person that runs from the police is suspected of carrying a bomb strapped to his body. If he had been
a suicide bomber then the policemen involved would have received
gallantry medals for protecting the public at great personal risk, as
it is they will be slagged off for being trigger-happy maniacs. What a
shame.

Agent Smith said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>ran onto the tube

I think this is the key point. He wasn't just running down the street, he ran into the tube, which is where most of the bombings have occurred.
</div></div>

think of every movie you've ever seen with a chase, and tell me if any of them involved running past a tube/subway/metro entrance, instead of into it.

anyway, i've got no problem with state sanctioned killings, as long as the right people catch the bullets. the intellegence has to be right, and on this occasion it was as accurate as the the intellegence that sent us into iraq, which sucks, and someone needs to be held accountable for it.

i don't think there's any suggestion of 'trigger happy maniacs', because the guys that pull the triggers can only act on what they've been told.

---

i eat paint

I haven't heard much of this story, but didn't the police yell at him
to stop yet he didn't? I know he was Brazilian but even a man who
doesn't speak english can figure out what HALT or STOP mean. If this is
the case then the police did a good thing by taking-out a potential
threat, even if it turned-out he was just a foolish tourist. Running away from the police is, after all, a tad suspicious.

The reason the guy is that he thought there was a bomber near him and
the police where trying to protect him, but he new the metro-police
cant shoot to save the world so he ran onto the tube where he new he
would be safe from the random shots of the police, what he dident count
on was being shot, so stood where he was, thinking the police were
fleeing from the fight so he just acted natural which is when they held
him down and shot him, 8 times.

What i want to know is why 8 times, surley he'd be dead from the first two?

I'm pretty sure it was actually just 5, and I don't think conserving
ammo was top of their concerns anyway :smile: Other than that, I have
absolutely no idea what you were trying to say in that post :biggrin: Take
your time when you are posting - use grammar and sentences, and people
will understand you better.

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