h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Make that banks, not bands. Bands march to a different tune

Ahmed, weren't the innocent men only named because the terrorists had stolen their identity? The police had followed the trail from an abandoned rental car to a house rented in the men's names, wasn't it?

Earthman are you saying the mighty FBI stuffed things up? Again.

My girlfriend spoke to her relatives in Pakistan, and they reported that people there were happy about the attacks on America. I, trying to understand how people can be happy when thousands have died, asked her why. Her response:
"They're ignorant."
She said they feel that the US is doing the same thing every day to their Muslim brothers and sisters. It has been made clear, and many people in this thread have testified to the effect, that the attacks were not about religion, that true Muslims don't condone killing. However, it seems this feeling of brotherhood felt particularly strongly among Islamics does have something to do with it. Afganistan has said, in anticipation of retaliatory action, "an attack against bin Laden is an attack against all Muslims." This seems to be a common sentiment, hurt one of us and you hurt all of us, that leads only to escalating violence.

Earthman, am Son of the Soil! I agree with you. But it seems that the "great FBI" (thats Loonytunes speaking) went with the biased assumption that if you had an Arab sounding name and were on those planes, you were a hijacker. Am as black as they come and am sure if I was on any of those planes (thank God I wasnt) my wife would be answering questions from some Norwegian Politi!
And why, pray me, were those identities released by "sources" before investigations were complete? Even images Earthman? Imagine if the poor fellow had met with a crankpot (there are too many out there now) in the streets?
There is a deliberate effort to paint all Arabs (read muslims) as culpable here. Something that if kept up, will redefine a lot of things in the world. WTC will look like a movie if we keep up these passions. And oh pray to God, why did the Americans have to elect Bush at a time like this? Looks like a triple tragedy to me: A "President"; an attack (boy it was massive); and bad attitude!

Er... no, they went in with the biased idea that if the hijackers rental car was hired in your name and you had a pilot's certificate, then someone going by that name was the hijacker, since they didn't seem to be too bothered about hiding their tracks. They found out the NAMES they had given out were wrong. The photos they have given out were of the hijackers.

There is no deliberate effort to paint muslims as culpable by any government that I've seen. They've said that an Islamic fundamentalist group was behind it, but that appears to have been mostly because that's who did it.

I actually do worry about the reporting at the moment. There have been so many releases and details leaked out early that have been wrong or misleading [Like the photo, or the claims the other day that they had found 5 fire fighters and they only found 2]. No news is better than wrong news.

Also, some disreputable people may use this effective news jamm to cover there most questionable acts. I wouldn't be surprised if things came to light later.

What I think we have to watch for is lazy conclusions, and scapegoating be they by FBI or the news.

Researcher PSG

Mr boyfriend, your GF is simplifying those feelings too much and in the process clouding the matter further. "Ignorance" rarely results in an opinion. Usually it does absolutely nothing, that is ignorance.

I think most of the feelings of "brotherhood" (very general to include both genders here) stem from the history of assault that mostly the Arab muslims and to some extent Asian ones have had to undergo in recent history. Indeed I can trace it all to the conflict in Palestine and to some extent Lebanon. Thats where it started. It has spread due to some mischevious deviants like Saddam who will scream "Allahuakbar" without knowing what it means. In any case, most of the so-called Muslim states practice zero Islam in their rule anyway. Saudi Arabia to Sudan, Mali to Malaysia.
To understand their "support", one needs to understand Islam. Its not a religion Sir, but a total way of life. Its the perfect socialist system where one is for all and all is for one. But this only works when the LEADERSHIP is in accordance with Islam. Where you find shadowy figures filling their agendas on the table of religion, well, the picture becomes muckier. When you throw in an aggressive, arrogant and obviously ignorant (that word again) leadership that the US has, well the mucky picture is completely covered with sh**, deep dark sh**!
So we are not seeing the picture and so we act on our animal instincts. And the human beings instincts are irrational, not like the other animals whose instincts are guided by need and not revenge.
In any case, some people just want to be on the side of the underdog all the time.
So Mr BF, look at ireland and u may start to understand why seemingly "normal" individuals would hold positions that just dont make sense. Why? "Thats the way its always been around here"

"...lazy conclusions..." I like that! LOL!
But the trouble is the population is swallowing this hook, line and sloppy reporting! Then they start harrassing innocent (who is guilty anyway?) Muslims all over the US!
Somebody pinch me! I wish I was dreaming coz this thing is going to turn so ugly......... where is Natrodemus!

Apparently some Canadian has spammed the internet will a well-put-together hoax prediction attributed to Nostradamus. I'm amazed it hasn't been broadcast as fact by CNN and other brain-dead American broadcast media

LOL! LOONY for President (of the US of course!) And have u seen the "images" of the devil from the smoke? You know its tragedy time and the Americans cant help but put a major show of it too!

LOL! LOONY for President (of the US of course!) And have u seen the "images" of the devil from the smoke? You know its tragedy time and the Americans cant help but put a major show of it too! And that is a tragedy on its own

A word of warning to young male Americans. The following is not real...

Nostradamus' prediction on WW3:

"In the year of the new century and nine months, From the sky will come a great King of Terror... The sky will burn at forty-five degrees. Fire approaches the great new city..." "In the city of york there will be a great collapse, 2 twin brothers torn apart by chaos while the fortress falls the great leader will succumb third big war will begin when the big city is burning" - NOSTRADAMUS - currently living in Canada

He said this will be bigger than the previous two. 2001 is the first year of the new century and this is the 9th month. New York is located at the 41st degree Latitude

Please Note: Most of this post is sarcasm (as is clearly noted by the faux HTML tags) and showing how very annoyed I am of extremists who claim that they accurately represent God's will and whatever religion they claim they belong to.


Yes, I am particularly amused and enraged by Falwell's stupid take on it that it's all the fault of homosexuals. Now, since people like him seem unable to:

A. Not understand when political posturing is a DAMN bad idea
B. Not understand that guilt by association doesn't work

My logical extension using Falwell's reasoning is that it is actually all the UK's fault because they gave us the Teletubbies and one of them is gay. So, by now using guilt by association, whoever did this is not guilty of these attacks, because they were doing God's work, which is to get rid of homosexuality in America, which was caused by the Teletubbies, which is a British show. So we must go attack the UK for causing this.

I hate people like this. They (extreme Christians) are just as bad as anyone who claims that their extreme views is correct Islam, or Judism (is there such a thing as an extremist Jew?), or any religion where the majority of followers are relatively moderate and willing to live and let live. We can hope the terrorists and people like Falwell and Robertson have a fun time in eternal hell together.

Oh, and for you guys that might have missed it--I know I meant to put this in the last post and forget--Falwell a year or two ago said that one of the Teletubbies was gay, I think it was the purple one. Well this of course created lots of laughs at his stupidity and just helped to reconfirm my already low opinion of him. I am using Falwell's idea that the Teletubbies are gay to further ridicule him by combining this with his latest, not even amusing, but incredibly insensitive and really, REALLY stupid remarks.

February, 1996

The Israeli government has determined that the most dangerous threat to their country comes form right-wing extremist Jews, especially those from the United States. Previously it had been thought that Arab terrorists, Islamic fundamentalists, the PLO and the U.S. State Department represented the greatest danger.

So are right-wing Jews synomyous with Zionists?

Really, I don't pay all that much attention at the middle east. And the charges of Zionism last week were refering to something that happened before I was born, so I really have no idea what Zionism is.

Why is the Nostradamus prediction getting shoved aside as fact? I saw the origonal conversation titled "nostradamus" got removed....

Asterion, Zionism is an international movement. Originally it stood for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel