I received this in an email:

NEW YORK--A public-school teacher was arrested today at John F.
Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while
in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule,
and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said
he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.
He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with
carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzalez said. "They desire solutions
by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of
absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer
to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a
common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every
country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3
sides to every triangle.' "

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had
wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have
given us more fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters
they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the
president

EDIT: Can a mod fix my typo in the Topic title please?

saddens me that this is found funny, oh well.

As much as I dont like Bush..I have trouble believing he is that stupid..

He isn't stupid. Everybody associates south with stupid, or southern accent with stupid. You don't have to be good with words to be smart. I just found the clever word play funny. Is kind of sad though that they downplay the terror threat.

I take that back, if I was learning Algebra this joke would be funny. I'm just too old for it

I wouldn't call it hilarious (Because it isn't, not because "OMG YOUR MAKING FUN OF TERORRISM U R A BAD MAN STOP"). But I personally think that the "terror threat" has been hugely overblown by governments and the media (How many people died last year to terrorist bombings? How many died to car crashes? How many died to cancer? How many died in Iraq and Afghanistan? The entire thing is blown parsecs out of proportion) and anything that 'downplays' it is good as far as I'm concerned.

Terrorism is not about body counts and dead people.

thankfully you aren't living with attacks potentially happening every day or every couple of days.

No, terrorism is about making people scared . And it's working like a charm. When you look at the body count, though, you realize that if you're scared of terrorism, you should be scared shitless of going out of the house for any reason, to do anything.

If somebody dies in a car accident, it maybe shuts down the freeway for 20 minutes.

If there is a terrorist attack, it will shut down the freeway for hours and probabbly affect driving conditons for longer than that.


But when you are in a country that has terrorist attacks on a almost daily basis, it doesn't work that way. And it doesn't scare people like that either. Its affects are much more subtle than that.

People dying on freeways happen on a daily basis, in several places, causing hundreds or thousands of cumulative downtime in highways across any given country. Terrorist attacks to freeways happen... actually, I can't think of one.

Same goes for crash landing in airports (In fact, airplanes are an amazingly safe means of transportation - and you're still more likely to die in an accident than a terrorist attack in one.)

Again, the odds of death are not whats scary or important about terrorist attacks.

Just to illustrate the point. If a 90 year old man died in a terrorist attack, he would probably get more press than than 30 year old who died. Atleast in the Israel media such people have.



I wonder about that. What percentage of cars kill people from mechanical accidents instead of two cars coliding?

If people drove 300 feet away from any other car, they would probabbly be more safe than flying. (I think planes have to keep 300 feet away from eachother, probably more)

I don't see how any of that relates to my point. What's scary about a 90-year-old guy getting more media than a 30-year-old?

I can only respond second hand from what I have heard from people who live with Terrorism, but from what I am told, with terrorism, you have to make a more concsious effort to trust the people who you use to trust instictually. The issue is not, how are you going to die, but how are you going to live. You have to put up a lot of effort to live life "normally" although accidents happen on the road all the time, you don't have to look out for that guy who is purposefully trying to get into as many accidents as possible. Because that guy you can prevent, and you have control over. You don't have control over the accidents, and is easy to live with that. But the sniper on the side of the road shooting random drivers, that you can control if you plan enough and are cuatious enough.

When a 90 year old dies you think "what a terrible way to have your life ended, how are we going to burry him?" and "That old man, so innocent, what can he do to them?"

Daganev, you have consistently shown your inability for coherent discourse again. Congratulations.

*peer*

What is not coherent about that?

the fact that its more than one idea? Just pretend 3 people wrote it.

Ok, let me try this again...

But I personally think that the "terror threat" has been hugely overblown by governments and the media

Ok, thats an odd thought, but sure, whats your evidence for that?

(How many people died last year to terrorist bombings?

Oh, he thinks Terrorism is only important because of how many people die or not. If 4 million people died, he would think that its not blown out of propotion.. I get it now...

How many died to car crashes? How many died to cancer? How many died in Iraq and Afghanistan? The entire thing is blown parsecs out of proportion) and anything that 'downplays' it is good as far as I'm concerned.


My responce is :
"Terrorism is not about body counts and dead people.

thankfully you aren't living with attacks potentially happening every day or every couple of days."



Make sense now?

So... if damage to infrastructure and people isn't what terrorism is about, what is there to fear about terrorism? What's the point of being afraid? What's the point of not making fun of it? Of course it's overblown. People worry about it much more than they should. People react to it in ways that are utterly irrational; instead of looking at how much danger it actually poses, they become disproportionately afraid of it. My point is, there's no real point in being afraid of it and letting that kind of fear take over people's lives.

Argument 1: Because we know what happens when Terrorism is not taken seriously. We know how the day to day attacks disrupt not only the economy but the very fabric of trust which is required to live in society and stay sane.

Argument 2: Another issue, is the issue of control. Terrorism is given as much attention as communism was, or the Mob was given in the 20s. Organized attempts at subverting the government is looked upon more strongly than "random acts" which happen, but are not a threat to the society.

Argument 3: More people die each day to heart failure than to murder, but the government and media spend more time on murder trials than they do on nurses who give out heart medication.


Argument 4: Also, if you add infrastructure to the list, I am not so sure you can find more disruptive things thatn Terrorism or war. More attention was given in Los Angeles when a car accident knocked out the powerline to the air traffic control, than to the Egyptian man in the LAX airport who shot up a bunch of El-Al passangers. I.e, here Terrorism was less important than car accident. Probabbly because the man used a gun, and not explosives.

Why is it every thread remotely connected to terrorism breaks out into a debate?

All the math puns cracked me up though.

Argument 1: Because we know what happens when Terrorism is not taken seriously.

Please point me to this, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

We know how the day to day attacks disrupt not only the economy but the very fabric of trust which is required to live in society and stay sane.

The fabric of trust is also destroyed when people illegally tap phone lines in pursuit of said terrorism.
Terrorism has not destroyed my trust in my family, my friends, or my peers at school. My trust is far more endangered by the events of Hurricane Katrina and computer viruses than it is by terrorism.

Argument 2: Another issue, is the issue of control. Terrorism is given as much attention as communism was, or the Mob was given in the 20s. Organized attempts at subverting the government is looked upon more strongly than "random acts" which happen, but are not a threat to the society.

There are not any terrorist groups out there that are 'organized attempts at subverting the government'. The Democratic and Republican parties - heck, even the Green Party - fall more into that category then al-Qaeda.

Argument 3: More people die each day to heart failure than to murder, but the government and media spend more time on murder trials than they do on nurses who give out heart medication.

That's not a good thing, necessarily, so I'm going to disregard that argument as further illustrating Verithrax's points.

Argument 4: Also, if you add infrastructure to the list, I am not so sure you can find more disruptive things thatn Terrorism or war.

Yes, I can. Hurricanes, tornados, floods, poor construction, and corrupt inspectors top the list. Besides, we're not talking about open war, we're talking about terrorism.

More attention was given in Los Angeles when a car accident knocked out the powerline to the air traffic control, than to the Egyptian man in the LAX airport who shot up a bunch of El-Al passangers. I.e, here Terrorism was less important than car accident. Probabbly because the man used a gun, and not explosives.

Again...you're just proving Verithrax's points for him. Why bring up examples that disprove your points?

EDIT: Formatting