The FBI's Newest Tool — Google Images 220
lee317 writes "The FBI recently used a photograph of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares as an example of what Osama Bin Laden might look like today. According to Reuters, Special Agent Jason Pack said a forensic artist had been unable to find suitable features from the FBI's database of photographs and used a picture from the Internet instead. That photo turned out to be one of Llamazares, who apparently looks strikingly similar to what the FBI thinks Bin Laden would look like with a few extra years on him. 'I am stupefied the FBI has used my photo — but it could have been anyone's — to compose a picture of a terrorist. It affects my honor, my own image and also the security of all us,' Llamazares said."
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Corrected for you.
Re:Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
Where it has been tried except in tribal communities and modern days communes?
Surely you weren't tricked by the claims of oligarchies that called themselves communist? (not that it can work on the scale of a country...)
Re:Fashion (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Indeed! But its true - leadership is everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Ben Franklin said any government is fine if it is well administered. He is correct.
All governments fall to despotism eventually as history has shown to be the case; Franklin basically stated this at the end of the constitutional convention.
No, not exact quotes, I can think beyond those; having found them before. If you want it the source quotes go find them like I did (well, I didn't have internet back then...)
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Grandparent is spot on. Americans don't know jack - its like brave new world; we need a term to describe this lack of civic duty.
Gray (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone else noticed the trend for news sites to make their text whiter and whiter, while maintaining a pure white background? I'm not a web designer, but as a user, this is getting really annoying.
Oh, and strangely enough, the title of the article is actually the same exact color as the main text: #666666.
spending money (Score:1, Interesting)
Weird tax laws, weird drug laws, weird terrorist threats...
The bigger the central government the worse it is. The government that governs the least governs the best.
Yeah, in many parts of the world (Score:1, Interesting)
you can call yourself a National-Socialist and then have a discussion about what that means, too. In Germany, where people actually remember very well what this means, the discussion would be with the police.
As a Russian whose family members have been killed and whose country was seriously screwed up by Communists (who were also, of course, Marxists) I wish those societies where grandstanding as a Communist is acceptable would wake up before they get screwed up in their turn.
"hysterical cowards and uneducated drones, (Score:3, Interesting)
ready to plead fealty to whatever entity promises them the most convenience and security"
this is true of every society on this planet, and every society that ever existed, and any society that ever will exist. its the trailing end of the bell curve, what can you do? so you don't have to like the usa, but don't single out the usa for the crimes of humanity itself
i'm an american, and i can have an open rational discussion of the benefits/ failures of communism, socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, marxism, authoritarianism, bring it on
oh, there's one more problem with humanity you should know about, that is not unique to the usa: the kind of person who over-generalizes and prejudicially judges an entire race or country, just because of the sins of a few loud few
you wouldn't perchance know an example of such a person's words, would you? ;-)
Re:Indeed (Score:2, Interesting)
.... and if it hadn't been for communism, these countries would have somehow been bypassed by the 20th century and remained in the same state?
This sort of fallacy is commonly employed by apologists of these murderers. I grew up in Ceausescu's Romania, and from time to time I would hear some old idiot saying "look what the communists built -- now we have paved roads in the village, in 1946 we didn't have them". Well, those roads were built in spite of communism, not because of it. The correct comparison is with an equivalent Belgian village -- before WWII, Romania was much at the same level of development. We would have been like Western Europe if it hadn't been for these criminals.
And that's just speaking about development. A minor footnote might be needed to mention the 20 millions or so of victims of Stalin, the 40 million of victims of Mao, and the 10 million or so in the smaller countries. Nazis got their fair treatment; communists should be treated accordingly, proportional to the number of victims.
Re:Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
The basic idea is that human societies can function in a communal state as long as the size of the community doesn't exceed Dunbar's number [wikipedia.org], which represents the most number of people an individual can really know personally before they start stereotyping.
I've often thought that returning to communities of this size would be beneficial for humanity, except then you lose the intellectual cross-pollination that occurs in large cities when there's a huge number of people together. A simple life, working with the community, but somehow still retaining the good parts that modern technology has brought us (electricity, materials science, medicine, public health, the Internet, etc.). I wonder if it's possible.
Civilization is, in the long term, the reduction of tribalism in favor of egalitarianism. Trying to overcome the instinctive us-versus-them mentality that humans always have, and that is so easily exploited by the powerful.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
That's right kids, he's dead. The US has been fighting a fucking ghost.