Bush, againFollow

So, it wasn't for oil; it wasn't for terrorists; it wasn't for WMD; and there was no imminent threat.

Why did we invade and occupy Iraq again? Human rights?

Guess I can't finish with this thread, sigh.

Ya see, awhile back I awhile back I got to thinking about something that i think you need to ponder PraetorianX.

I have my beliefs about god, you have yours. While technicly we worship the same god, the god that exists in my mind and your mind are two completely different gods. Heck, the god that exists in the mind of the catholic sitting next to me in church is different than the one that exists in my mind, same with your fellow christian (I'm thinking your Baptist).

Who's to say I'm right and your wrong? Who's to say your right and I'm wrong? And if there's only one true god...you see what I'm getting at? I have very strong beliefs buddy, as do you obviously. But that doesn't mean one of us is right and one of us is wrong. God loves all his children; the Christians, the Catholics, the Muslims, the Jews, the Budhists, the Hindu's, and even the Homosexuals (not a religion, but it still fits)

That is why I personally believe that you need to keep an open mind about these things. And, as a christian, you need to respect the other religions. Especially the religions derived from the same old testement; Judaism, Islam, and all the Christian faiths. All three worship the same god as it were, the methods just differ.

If you literally interpert the bible, it just gets you into trouble. The bible is an excellent guide, especially the teachings of Jesus, on how you should live your life. What I am 100% sure of, is it was NEVER meant to be used to discriminate. Sure, you can interpurt it any way you like, however, it IS open to interpurtation. We've been doing so for about 2000 years.


What I jumped on you for, was saying that you believe every word of the bible. If that is true:

1-Do you believe the earth was created in 7days?

I doubt you believe in evolution, however, my catholic priest told me something interesting. If, in fact, there was a big bang and that's how the universe started...who caused it to happen?

The answer is easy ^^

It is possible to believe in both, despite what your preacher tells you.

Just so we're clear, this means you agree that the White House offically told people to use duct tape and plastic sheeting in case of a biological WMD attack, right? 'Cause you denied that they ever did so, said it was all an invention of the media and then clammed up real quick when I provided links to the White House press release saying to do so.

http://news.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=4&mid=1123481852461616236#1123555395725939179

Yes Joph. And I've already stated that you were correct. The White House did put out a press release here.

It's not like they put out a press release saying "OMG!!! You all have to get duct tape and plastic sheets or you're going to die!!!!". Read the stupid release. It's a copy of a FEMA emergency response document. It's incredibly dry and neutral in tone. Burried about 3/4ths of the way down, after pages of information on various things to do in any of an assortment of emergencies, is the duct tape and plastic sheeting statements.

This was released on Friday, Feb 7th, 2003. It's hardly alarmist in nature, and you'd have to really look hard to find anything unusual on your own.


But of course, we've got our vaunted media to do our thinking for us! USA Today (and several other publications, but they were the worst) basically took this dry fact sheet zeroed in on the duct tape and plastic sheeting and created a panic by exagerating their relevance way out of proportion to the original release.


Do you know of any other single fact in that press release other then that you were advized to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting? Why is that? Can you blame the government because your news source choose to pick out two sentences in a 10,000 word document and report just on that?


This is what I'm talking about Joph. Sure. I was mistaken about the press release. But the point is that you nor I got that information from the press release itself. We got it in an incredibly warped form from various news outlets following "the story". The story was not about the press release or the fema documents. It was about how much fear the media could put into the people by focusing on duct tape and plastic sheeting.


I'm serious here. Read that press release. Now try to tell me with a straight face that the press release itself is fearmongering in anyway. All they did was pull a chapter from a fema document on emergencie preparedness. Where's the hype Joph? And a Friday release? C'mon... You can't really be that naive to think that the press release had *anything* to do with the resulting media frenzy. That was caused by the media itself.


And this again has *nothing* to do with this topic Joph. It's a nice bit of distraction, but in this case, you can't even find a press release, neutral or not as the source of the idea that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. You'd have to really look hard to blame the white house for the duct tape thing if you looked at just the press release they made. I'll grant you that it did exist, and clearly was the kernel of the story, but it by no means caused it. But in the case of 9/11, there isn't *any* source within the government for the idea. It was completely and 100% manufactured by our own media for their own reasons. Holding the government responsible for the wild theories of a free press is ridiculous.

Sigh. You're taking my words far too literally. I was talking about the "fearmongering" aspect of the story. There was no white house press release saying that people should wrap their houses up in plastic and duct tape. That was the exageration from the media. The white house put out a press release that was a chapter lifted from a fema document. Nothing more. No focus on anything in particular. Not a single White House staffer wrote a single word of the release. We were talking about "message" from the White House. Is an excerp from a fema document the same thing? I was thinking in terms of a White House communications office release with some statement made in their own words or something. That's really not the same as a "junk" release on a friday afternoon.

When I wrote that statement I was responding to the assertation that the White House deliberately created a panic in that case. Can you honestly say that *anyone* who read just the press release could have been paniced by it? Would you have even worried about it? No? Then where did the panic come from? Yup. The media coverage of the information.

The point is that the press release is completely irrelevant to the panic. USA Today could just as easily have lifted the information from the fema document itself and created the exact same panic. In fact, at the briefing held the following monday, when the topic of the press release was originally mentioned, most reporters thought of it as "old news" since the data had been available on the internet for months. Apparently, someone higher up then them decided that it was front page material at several papers though... Strange don't you think?


This article does a pretty good job of analyzing what happened and how it happened. Read it. It's interesting just how many falsehoods are tossed around by those blaming the White House for the panic appear (like claiming Tom Ridge pushed the duct tape thing in the first place. He did not write the release, nor was he at the briefing that later talked about it).

You're getting so caught up on tiny irrelevancies here Joph. The point then was the it was the media and not the government that created that panic. The facts bear out that assessment. Unless you disagree with the American Jouralism Review? They likely have a better take on this then you or I, and they seem to be agreeing with me in this case.


Same deal with this new topic. Once again, we have someone blaming the government for an assumption they held that they recieved from the media. And when we assess the facts of that one, we find an even more strong case that it was the media alone that created that false assumption. There is not a single release, statement, or quote from any white house official stating, suggesting, or implying that Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks. Yet, somehow, millions of Americans believed in just such a thing, and millions *still* believe it.

If there is not a single trace of this idea from the government, then where do you think it came from?



You're distracting it because in counter to my statement about Iraq and 9/11, you respond by bringing up another completely unrelated issue. Yes. They are parallel, but even if you could proove that the government did cause the panic with the duct tape, how exactly would that prove anything in this case? So because I was wrong about the presence of press release about the duct tape, I *must* be wrong about this one as well?

That's **** poor logic. If you want to argue this issue, argue this issue. Don't quote a statement I made a month ago and then show that you can debunk an out of context interpretation of that statement. Try debunking what I just posted about.


I'm pretty sure there's a logical fallacy here somewhere Joph. You can't counter this statement by countering another one I made. Counter this one. Sheesh.

So what was the point in posting??

I think it's cute he got himself a cheerleader, though.

RIP English Spelling and Grammar.
August 30th, 2005

bhodi's bi-curious. Maybe you could give that one a stab.

lolbifrons?

umm... have you had a lack of education in life? [/quote]

Oh you are going to be a fun one, I can tell.