The pro-west anti-Iran, somewhat pro-Israel, somewhat pro-human rights Mubarak was ousted by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the exact opposite. Iran is making a play for the whole Near East.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
In Memoriam
Today is Memorial Day (30 May, ALWAYS 30 May, even if Congress decided to change it in 1968 to give jerks a three day weekend), originally known as Decoration Day. It was originally a day to remember those who had died in the Civil War. Now it seems to exist merely as an excuse for jerks to throw three day parties in which they consume vast quantities of alcohol and listen to loud music. I have nothing against alcohol or music, but ask yourselves, "why can I drink and party? Why am I free to do jackass things on this day off from work?"
My valued couple of readers (The Urban Mystic actually gets about 60 readers a day, 40 of whom come for the ponies), if you have spent any time at all here you know my fascination with the history of warfare and the military. I study war not because I love it, for only a madman could love war, but because it is my firm belief that if we all study war we can better be prepared for when war does come, and be better able to avoid war in the first palce. A sailor practies swimming not because he looks forward to his ship sinking but because he wants to be prepared should the terrible ordeal ever arise. I am the same.
Today I cannot say I spent much time reflecting on the sacrifices of those fellow Americans who gave the last full measure of freedom to secure my own, amidst all the inevitable distractions of moden life, but reflect I have. Our rights and our freedoms are given to us by God, and it is the patriots who take a stand to defend them. Men seek always to take that freedom from us. They always have, throughout all of time and space. Nothing will change that, not for a long time, if ever.
From an Integral perspective we can see why: everyone starts at ground zero. Everyone is born with basic survival instincts and must grow through the stages, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, etc. Growth usually stops at the society's center of gravity. A band of Bushmen may be at stage two, a street gang at stage three, a modern western nation like Australia at stage five, and a European socialist nation like Sweden at stage six. Groups like al-Qaeda or the Nazis are at stage three. While there are people at these different stages there will be conflicts between competing world views. Red always seeks to dominate, amber (blue) always seeks to stop red, and orange always seeks to use blue to stop red for its own benefit. This is just how things are.
Another possible interpretation, from the transpersonalists like Stan Groff, is to point to the personality of the trickster. The trickster aspect of reality is that which creates conflict in the world. The trickster creates novelty in Spirit, and novelty is percieved as conflict, even though in ultimate reality it is really done as an act of love. Conflict brings us a reason to be compassionate at times and in ways that we normally would not.
Those who took up arms and made sacrifices are the reason I can sit here and write about ponies and transpersonal psychology. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Freedom is bought and paid for in blood. Nothing I can do can ever repay those who made that sacrifice, but because of their kindness and generosity I never will have to, for their sacrifice is an act of compassion, given free of charge. Sometimes amber simply must confront red, even if the results are never pretty.
I don't think it is a mistake that the only people who recieved a grave memorial in Sparta were men who died in combat and women who died in childbirth, as they are the only among us who have made the ultimate sacrifice. For as many negative aspects of Spartan society may have existed, this aspect of memorialising fallen heroes deserves to be emulated and preserved. Let us never forget the sacrifice of patriots.
While you and I sit at home, isolated from the world outside, and while you celebrate with cocktails and La Cucaracha, take at least a moment to reflect on why you are free to act like a jackass. It is because someone picked up arms and went to fight evil that you are free to act as you do. Patriots are our treasure, treat them as such. Remember them even if it is for one minute, on this one day, once a year. Heroes are a thankless bunch. Take time to appreciate them, if only to the minimum degree.
From the bottom of my heart, to all those who serve, I extend my utmost thanks. My thanks is not much, but it is all I have to give, and I give it in vast quantities. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Enoch Strife
Writing for The Urban Mystic
30 May 2011
5:40 PM
My valued couple of readers (The Urban Mystic actually gets about 60 readers a day, 40 of whom come for the ponies), if you have spent any time at all here you know my fascination with the history of warfare and the military. I study war not because I love it, for only a madman could love war, but because it is my firm belief that if we all study war we can better be prepared for when war does come, and be better able to avoid war in the first palce. A sailor practies swimming not because he looks forward to his ship sinking but because he wants to be prepared should the terrible ordeal ever arise. I am the same.
Today I cannot say I spent much time reflecting on the sacrifices of those fellow Americans who gave the last full measure of freedom to secure my own, amidst all the inevitable distractions of moden life, but reflect I have. Our rights and our freedoms are given to us by God, and it is the patriots who take a stand to defend them. Men seek always to take that freedom from us. They always have, throughout all of time and space. Nothing will change that, not for a long time, if ever.
From an Integral perspective we can see why: everyone starts at ground zero. Everyone is born with basic survival instincts and must grow through the stages, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, etc. Growth usually stops at the society's center of gravity. A band of Bushmen may be at stage two, a street gang at stage three, a modern western nation like Australia at stage five, and a European socialist nation like Sweden at stage six. Groups like al-Qaeda or the Nazis are at stage three. While there are people at these different stages there will be conflicts between competing world views. Red always seeks to dominate, amber (blue) always seeks to stop red, and orange always seeks to use blue to stop red for its own benefit. This is just how things are.
Another possible interpretation, from the transpersonalists like Stan Groff, is to point to the personality of the trickster. The trickster aspect of reality is that which creates conflict in the world. The trickster creates novelty in Spirit, and novelty is percieved as conflict, even though in ultimate reality it is really done as an act of love. Conflict brings us a reason to be compassionate at times and in ways that we normally would not.
Those who took up arms and made sacrifices are the reason I can sit here and write about ponies and transpersonal psychology. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Freedom is bought and paid for in blood. Nothing I can do can ever repay those who made that sacrifice, but because of their kindness and generosity I never will have to, for their sacrifice is an act of compassion, given free of charge. Sometimes amber simply must confront red, even if the results are never pretty.
I don't think it is a mistake that the only people who recieved a grave memorial in Sparta were men who died in combat and women who died in childbirth, as they are the only among us who have made the ultimate sacrifice. For as many negative aspects of Spartan society may have existed, this aspect of memorialising fallen heroes deserves to be emulated and preserved. Let us never forget the sacrifice of patriots.
While you and I sit at home, isolated from the world outside, and while you celebrate with cocktails and La Cucaracha, take at least a moment to reflect on why you are free to act like a jackass. It is because someone picked up arms and went to fight evil that you are free to act as you do. Patriots are our treasure, treat them as such. Remember them even if it is for one minute, on this one day, once a year. Heroes are a thankless bunch. Take time to appreciate them, if only to the minimum degree.
From the bottom of my heart, to all those who serve, I extend my utmost thanks. My thanks is not much, but it is all I have to give, and I give it in vast quantities. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Enoch Strife
Writing for The Urban Mystic
30 May 2011
5:40 PM
Friday, May 27, 2011
Equestria Girls Extended Version
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Madhyamika: A Very Brief Introduction
This is from a rather rare and lengthy book (all of one used copy is available on Amazon for $49), An Introduction to Indian Philosophy (Eighth Edition), by Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta (University of Calcutta, 1984). It's one and a half pages out of 428, or three tenths of a percent of the total text, from a book that is such an obscure intellectual curiosity, and this is for educational purposes, so I'm calling this fair use. I tried to fix the typographical errors wherever possible. Pages 146-7:
The positive side of the Madhyamika doctrine; there is reality behind phenomena: it is unconditional and free from change.
The conditionality of things which makes their own nature (svabhava) unascertainable, either as real or unreal, etc., may be regarded as a kind of relativity. Every character of a thing is conditioned by something else and therefore its existence is relative to that condition. Sunya-vada can therefore also be interpreted as a theory of relativity which declares that no thing, no phenomenon experienced, has a fixed, absolute, independent character of its own (svabhava) and, therefore, no description of any phenomenon can be said to be unconditionally true.
To this philosophy of phenomena (or things as the appear to us), the Madhyamikas add a philosophy of noumenon (or reality in itself). Buddha's teachings regarding dependent origination, impermanence, etc., apply, they hold, only to the phenomenal world, to things commonly observed by us in ordinary experience. But when nirvana is attained and the conditions of sense-experience and the appearance of phenomena are controlled, what would be the nature of the resultant experience? To this we cannot apply the conditional characters true of phenomena. The Madhyamikas, therefore, hold that there is a transcendental reality (noumenon) behind the phenomenal one and it is free from change, conditionality and all other phenomenal characters. As Nagarjuna says: "There are two truths, on which Buddha's teaching of Dharma depends, one is empirical (sath-brti-satya) and meant for the ordinary people, another is the transcendental or the absolutely true one (paramartha-satya). Those who do not know the distinction between these two kinds of truths, cannot understand the profound mystery of Buddha's teachings."*
The truth of the order is only a stepping-stone to the attainment of the higher. The nature of nirvana-experience which takes one beyond ordinary experience cannot be described, it can only be suggested negatively with the help of words which describe our common experience. Nagarjuna, therefore, describes nirvana with a series of negatives, thus: "That which is not known (ordinarily), not acquired anew, not destroyed, not eternal, not suppressed, not generated is called nirvana."** As with nirvana so also with the Tathagata or one who has realized nirvana. His nature also cannot be described. That is why, when Buddha was asked what becomes of the Tathagata after nirvana is attained, he declined to discuss the question.
In the same light the silence of Buddha regarding all metaphysical questions about non-empirical things can be interpreted to mean that he believed in a transcendental experience and reality, the truths about which cannot be described in terms of common experience. Buddha's frequent statements that he had realized some profound truth which reasoning cannot grasp, can be cited also to support this Madhyamika contention about the transcendental.***
It may be noted there that in its conception of twofold truth, its denial of the phenomenal world, its negative descriptions of the transcendental, and its conception of nirvana as the attainment of unity with the transcendental self, the Madhyamika approaches very close to Advaita Vedanta as taught in some Upanisads and elaborated later by Gaudapada and Sankaracarya.
* Madhyamika-sastra, chapter 24, karikas 8-9.
** ibid. Chap. 25, karika 3.
*** Vide Prof. Radhakrishnan's article, "The teachings of Buddha by speech and silence," Hibberi Journal, April 1934 for a fuller discussion.
The positive side of the Madhyamika doctrine; there is reality behind phenomena: it is unconditional and free from change.
The conditionality of things which makes their own nature (svabhava) unascertainable, either as real or unreal, etc., may be regarded as a kind of relativity. Every character of a thing is conditioned by something else and therefore its existence is relative to that condition. Sunya-vada can therefore also be interpreted as a theory of relativity which declares that no thing, no phenomenon experienced, has a fixed, absolute, independent character of its own (svabhava) and, therefore, no description of any phenomenon can be said to be unconditionally true.
To this philosophy of phenomena (or things as the appear to us), the Madhyamikas add a philosophy of noumenon (or reality in itself). Buddha's teachings regarding dependent origination, impermanence, etc., apply, they hold, only to the phenomenal world, to things commonly observed by us in ordinary experience. But when nirvana is attained and the conditions of sense-experience and the appearance of phenomena are controlled, what would be the nature of the resultant experience? To this we cannot apply the conditional characters true of phenomena. The Madhyamikas, therefore, hold that there is a transcendental reality (noumenon) behind the phenomenal one and it is free from change, conditionality and all other phenomenal characters. As Nagarjuna says: "There are two truths, on which Buddha's teaching of Dharma depends, one is empirical (sath-brti-satya) and meant for the ordinary people, another is the transcendental or the absolutely true one (paramartha-satya). Those who do not know the distinction between these two kinds of truths, cannot understand the profound mystery of Buddha's teachings."*
The truth of the order is only a stepping-stone to the attainment of the higher. The nature of nirvana-experience which takes one beyond ordinary experience cannot be described, it can only be suggested negatively with the help of words which describe our common experience. Nagarjuna, therefore, describes nirvana with a series of negatives, thus: "That which is not known (ordinarily), not acquired anew, not destroyed, not eternal, not suppressed, not generated is called nirvana."** As with nirvana so also with the Tathagata or one who has realized nirvana. His nature also cannot be described. That is why, when Buddha was asked what becomes of the Tathagata after nirvana is attained, he declined to discuss the question.
In the same light the silence of Buddha regarding all metaphysical questions about non-empirical things can be interpreted to mean that he believed in a transcendental experience and reality, the truths about which cannot be described in terms of common experience. Buddha's frequent statements that he had realized some profound truth which reasoning cannot grasp, can be cited also to support this Madhyamika contention about the transcendental.***
It may be noted there that in its conception of twofold truth, its denial of the phenomenal world, its negative descriptions of the transcendental, and its conception of nirvana as the attainment of unity with the transcendental self, the Madhyamika approaches very close to Advaita Vedanta as taught in some Upanisads and elaborated later by Gaudapada and Sankaracarya.
* Madhyamika-sastra, chapter 24, karikas 8-9.
** ibid. Chap. 25, karika 3.
*** Vide Prof. Radhakrishnan's article, "The teachings of Buddha by speech and silence," Hibberi Journal, April 1934 for a fuller discussion.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
President Obama to Israel: "Fuck You!"
President Obama just said Israel must return to the pre-1967 borders. These borders are both indefensible and give the Syrians (Palasyrians) territory that was never theirs to begin with (see the British mandate). In plain English President Obama just said to Israel "fuck you."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Messenger: By Far The Worst "Sequel" to Lost Horizon I Have Ever Read
This book is so bad I must bring it to your attention, valued couple of readers. The book is Messenger by Frank DeMarco.
The first problem is that the story is told in the first person. This can work, and a lot of old writers knew how to weave complex and intelligent narritives in first person that let the reader in on an experience not otherwise possible. Today, however, about 99% of amateurish writers do this, I guess, because they think it's expected or that it looks cool or whatever. Messenger is not among that 1% that does first person right.
In this book a US pilot named George Chiari crashes his U-2 spy plane on a mission from Pakistan to China in November 1962, one month after the Chinese invasion of India, when the United States was still good friends with Pakistan (the invasion prompted an about-face in foreign policy). George's plane crashes somewhere in the mountains after his engine flames out and he denies for maybe 20 whole minutes that he can't restart it (the U-2 is shaped like a glider, so it descends slowly from 70,000 feet). Surviving relatively unharmed he runs from his plane before it explodes. It doesn't. When he decides to go back to salvage stuff from the wreck he's met by *click* hello (in movies nobody ever has their gun cocked, even when they are in hostile territory or being persued by someone, because the sound of a gun cocking is really cool and must be saved for the moment you put it up to someone's head). He turns to see a man with an antique rifle. He hears another click and turns to see he's surrounded. They tie him up and lead him to a misty valley. They climb down the valley, back up the other side, and to a bunch of old buildings that have grown together over time as the inhabitants didn't want to be caught outside when going from one to the other. It's not revealed until later that the floor of the valley is TWO WHOLE MILES down, and it's nearly impossible for him to climb down safely when he tries to escape later, yet he can do it with his hands tied no problem. He climbed nearly 11,000 feet with his hands tied after surviving a plane crash with a gun to his back all in a single afternoon! Climbing 11,000 foot Mt. Etna is a nine hour climb, and it's not four miles up on the Tibetan plateau, and the climbers aren't tied up either.
When we get there everything has been retconned!
*The fabulous buildings of Hilton's novel are now old shacks (the piano is still there, though).
*The man who recounts the story of Lost Horizon, Rutherford, was really named Kallen.
*Henry Barnard really is Henry Barnard and the name Chalmers Bryant was made up in Lost Horizon.
*The plane wasn't refueled. The Maharaja had equipped it with extra fuel tanks because he didn't like to stop unless he had to.
*The valley itself doesn't save anyone from aging, it's a drug that magically only works inside the valley (because everything's better with drugs).
Excuse yourself there, but I don't want to know what really happened, or what's believable, I want Lost Horizon!
Nothing happens for pretty much 97 pages. We find that ALL the people from the first book and indeed everyone in Shangri-La are assholes. They capture George AT GUNPOINT, take him to their monestary, show him EVERYTHING and then say "now we can't let you leave or the Chicoms will know we're here." Why the fuck did you bring him there in the first place, just to make him prisoner for the next two centuries when he most likely would have died of exposure in a few days? In my expert opinion (I'm no expert but I happen to think my opinion is expert) living as a captive for two centuries while everyone you care about thinks you're dead, grows old, and dies up to four or five generations, is far far worse than actually dying in the mountains after two days of struggle, but that's just me. George want's to see his family again. He wants to go home to his fiancee before she inevitably marries that jerk from school who will get her as a rebound when she's depressed. Tough shit. The Shangri-La mafia kidnaped him and now he's stuck there. This. Does. Not. Make. Sense.
When he finally does get around to escaping, on page 99, I had to skip ahead. I had to find out if he made it so as to put the assholes in their place. Nope. They keep him there for 17 years. Then another pilot crashes there who is working for the Chicoms and the folks at Shangri-La say "oh shit, we need to get the US to save us from the Chicoms so we can keep our asshole village safe!" They're all too old and would die if they left, so they have to send George out. He has to make it back to the US and write a book about his experience, telling the world about the existence of Shangri-La so it can be protected from Chicoms AS IF THE WHOLE REASON FOR KEEPING HIM THERE THE PREVIOUS 200 PAGES DIDN'T HAPPEN! "Sorry we wasted your life, but we have to go back on our raison d'être just because we can't fight the Chicoms on our own." Well damn, if that's not a kick in the teeth I don't know what is! Boo hoo. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it. If you ask me there is nothing worth saving in Shangri-La. In Lost Horizon Shangri-La was a time capsule for preserving civilization from a future world destruction. In Messenger Shangri-La is like a cocoon from the movie Cocoon where old folks get young again, only instead the old folks are assholes and they need to stay in their valley to smoke cigars and eat tsampa and thumb their noses at the world.
If I were George and my escape plans failed and I was kidnaped by assholes, I would burn the whole monestary and the valley to the ground. We all die together or you let me go. These are not noble people whose way of life should be preserved. These are monsters who should be vanquished.
When he does leave he has Stockholm Syndrome. He doesn't care about his fiancee or what happened to her. He doesn't care about his brother and sister, or his parents (who he says are probably dead). Nope. He pines to return to Shangri-La! He loves his captors because in those 200 pages I skipped there was something about a drunken monkey (like Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, who died laughing watching his donkey get drunk, I guess Frank DeMarco added this WHOLE CHAPTER for laughs or something) and some new age fluff about coincidences like in the Celestine Prophecy (which has piss poor writing and nothing follows logically since it's about impossible coincidences, all by the author's admission because he didn't want to write a believable novel but wanted a venue to rant about his beliefs).
And that's the book. It sucks. It sucks worse than the other "sequel."
Friday, May 13, 2011
100 Things I Learned From My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
(In no particular order)
1. Friendship is magic
2. Brushing apples isn't nearly as fun as brushing ponies
3. Rainbow Dash is living the dream
4. Ponies are sexually dimorphic: females have round faces and males have square faces
5. REAL men wear gowns (from a prostate commercial of all places!)
6. *twitch-a-twitch --> something BAD happens
7. You WILL love Fluttershy or you will regret it
8. Dragon eggs can't hatch without unicorn magic
9. What's with the tin can?
10. Stick a cupcake in your eye
11. Doughnuts are the equivalent of alcohol (at least for dragons)
12. Pegasi have cute little chicken wings
13. Celestia's hair blows about even in the absence of wind
14. Rarity doesn't know she's naked
15. Forest animals can't clean their own homes in spring, ponies have to do it for them
16. Bears like to go to the beach but no one can agree on what they do when they get there
17. Pinkie Pie is the only one in her family without drab colours
18. Doctors in Equestria do hip replacements
19. Hitler didn't like ponies
20. The population of Equestria is vegetarian, so the population of wild animals is kept in control through some other means
21. Ponies celebrate several as yet unidentified winter holidays
22. I watch it for the plot!
23. Celestia toys come in pink and sometimes blue but never white for some reason
24. You shouldn't hit books, you should read them
25. Gilda has to watch you like a hawk because she can't watch you like a griffon
26. Cheerilee was in fewer episodes than a lot of characters yet she still got her own toy at McDonalds
27. Believe it or not, Fluttershy was quite shy as a child
28. Rocks can't just be found in the ground like on Earth, they have to be farmed
29. Pinkie Pie never did get her sasparilla
30. Applejack has an accent even though she lives within walking distance of everyone else
31. Applejack loses her accent when she sings
32. Boots are worn on all four feet but slippers are only worn on the front two
33. Pinkie Pie barely teeters on the edge of sanity
34. Applejack is a terrible liar (Pinkie Pie can tell when she's lying but not anyone else)
35. Rainbow Dash can clear the skies over Ponyville in ten seconds flat and is the only known pony to create a sonic rainboom but she still can't escape Pinkie Pie
36. A single bathtub can contain all the water in Ponyville for seven hours without anyone finding out where the water has gone
37. Pinkie Pie's hair changes depending on her mood
38. Grown men and little girls have more in common than is socially acceptable to admit
39. If there was a contest for the best singer in Equestria Twilight Sparkle would win hands down
40. Whoever played the guitar for the Cutie Mark Crusaders should go pro
41. Pinkie Pie is not affected by gravity or distance
42. Scootaloo is the cutest
43. The groundskeeper at the Grand Galloping Gala doesn't have a cutie mark despite being very old. He must not have any special talent
44. Celestia and Luna DIDN'T lez out to create Twilight Sparkle after all
45. The Grand Galloping Gala blows and Celestia knew it yet she still invited Twilight Sparkle, her loyal student, to crush her dreams and call it a lesson
46. Celestia created a glaringly sub-optimal world where the inhabitants must literally change the seasons, possibly because she enjoys watching ponies toil miserably and attack each other every time the seasons have to be changed (at least until Twilight came along and took control of the situation)
47. Equestria has seasons and bird migration, so we can assume it has distinct hemispheres
48. Ponyville is in the northern hemisphere as birds migrate south for the winter
49. Seasons in Equestria happen in reverse of seasons on Earth
50.
51. Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever!
52. Gold is used for money but jewels are eaten by dragons
53. The "Cupcakes" fanfic isn't nearly as gross or horrible as people make it out to be, although the author was trying way to hard to make it out to be, and the story doesn't make sense in light of Pinkie Pie's admission that all ponies are vegetarian.
54. Gummy has no teeth, and since alligators regrow lost teeth that means Gummy is either a mutant or Pinkie Pie is constantly pulling out all his teeth
55. FOREVER!!!!!
56. Cows are intelligent creatures that are none-the-less exploited for their milk
57. Rarity's fashion logo is actually pretty creepy
58. Fluttershy is a year older than Pinkie Pie
59. Fluttershy is off limits to pranks
60. And then I said "Oatmeal? Are you crazy?"
61. Though Fluttershy's stare can put even horrible monsters in their place the animals at the Grand Galloping Gala still run away from her
62. Either Granny Pie taught Pinkie to laugh at scary things after the sonic rainboom incident or she's very different from other members of her family
63. Canterlot has a back entrance (the front is a sheer cliff)
64. Prince Blueblood is said to be Princess Celestia's nephew, so he is either Princess Luna's son or Celestia has other siblings that were never introduced
65. If he is Luna's son that means he's over 1000 years old or was born sometime while she was trapped inside the moon and he was let out for some reason, and that ponies can have children of different species, somehow
66. Neither Celestia or Luna aged at all in the past 1000 years, yet Luna is noticably younger, meaning she must be younger by several tens of thousands or even millions of years
67. Assuming Celestia and Luna created Equestria together (since they "created harmony" together with their sun and moon raising), Celestia had to wait a long time before doing anything (according to # 66)
68. Since both sisters are different ages they couldn't have existed forever, so something or somepony must have brought them into existence
69. Celestia needs the Elements of Harmony to defeat her sister, so even though she's older she's the weaker of the two
70. It needs to be about 20% cooler
71. Twilight Sparkle never gets a turn
72. Pillow fights are fun!
73. FOREVER!!!!!
74. Spike is right handed
75. Pony language is written and read left to right and includes such symbols (letters?) as a horseshoe, star, unicorn head, clockwise spiral, and lightning bolt
76. Ponyville uses both the imperial and metric systems
77. Twilight Sparkle's balloon in the opening song appears nowhere else
78. All the ponies in this town are crazy!
79. Short tails are in this season
80. It was under "E"
81. Newborn dragons suck their tails even though the sucking reflex is a mammalian trait
82. Hot sauce bottles are poorly labeled
83. Many of the tools in Equestria are clearly designed for use by humanoid hands despite none of the inhabitants possessing such features
84. The Ponyville library, where Twilight Sparkle lives, surprisingly has few books yet all the furnishings one would find in a home; also, no one is ever seen going there to use the library as a library, only to visit Twilight
85. Pony names often match their personality/talent/cutie mark, meaning ponies are either named presciently or naming a pony has a deterministic effect on their future development (this brings up interesting consequences with such ponies as Granny Smith, who would be called "granny" even as a little filly!)
86. It wasn't nearly that cold at the top of the mountain after all
87. Equestria is sometimes a country
88. The Apple family either has a high percentage of twins or someone got lazy when drawing the crowd scene (the blue ponies with the yellow manes are triplets, two are wearing the same green scarf, and at least two other ponies have the exact same cutie mark!)
89. The Great and Powerful Trixie is a tragic pony who is homeless and had to live in a cart that she had to drag around herself, which is now destroyed, and even though she was just hiding behind a jerkass facade because she's sad and alone no one in Ponyville cut her any slack, except Twilight Sparkle, when she did nothing worse than Rainbow Dash (who has her friends to reign her in, Trixie has no one), and certainly nowhere near as bad as Gilda, yet Gilda got a Pinkie Pie party whereas Trixie only got derision and the obsequious fawning of mindless sycophants who got her into serious trouble through no fault of her own
90. Haters gonna hate
91. Pinkie Pie eats like a black hole
92. Princess Celestia may have created Equestria, but she doesn't know what parasprites are
93. The introduction of horses was actually the single greatest benefit to the lives of the Plains Indians
94. Fluttershy is literally afraid of her own shadow
95. Good Lord, Fluttershy repeats
96. If Rainbow Dash were a human she would be willing to do some freaky things
97. Pinkie Pie sometimes doesn't understand what she is doing or why she is doing it
98. It's a bad idea to encourage Sweetie Belle to sing, especially at bed time
99. Whatever you do, DO NOT FEED THE PARASPRITES!
100. Since there is no official Trixie figure I will have to carve, sand, paint, and sand again Twilight Sparkle to look like Trixie
Pinkie Pie inspired the most things on this list, 19, and Twilight Sparkle inspired the second most, 12.
Google/Blogger/whoever huffed and puffed and made this post disappear so I have to put it up again.
1. Friendship is magic
2. Brushing apples isn't nearly as fun as brushing ponies
3. Rainbow Dash is living the dream
4. Ponies are sexually dimorphic: females have round faces and males have square faces
5. REAL men wear gowns (from a prostate commercial of all places!)
6. *twitch-a-twitch --> something BAD happens
7. You WILL love Fluttershy or you will regret it
8. Dragon eggs can't hatch without unicorn magic
9. What's with the tin can?
10. Stick a cupcake in your eye
11. Doughnuts are the equivalent of alcohol (at least for dragons)
12. Pegasi have cute little chicken wings
13. Celestia's hair blows about even in the absence of wind
14. Rarity doesn't know she's naked
15. Forest animals can't clean their own homes in spring, ponies have to do it for them
16. Bears like to go to the beach but no one can agree on what they do when they get there
17. Pinkie Pie is the only one in her family without drab colours
18. Doctors in Equestria do hip replacements
19. Hitler didn't like ponies
20. The population of Equestria is vegetarian, so the population of wild animals is kept in control through some other means
21. Ponies celebrate several as yet unidentified winter holidays
22. I watch it for the plot!
23. Celestia toys come in pink and sometimes blue but never white for some reason
24. You shouldn't hit books, you should read them
25. Gilda has to watch you like a hawk because she can't watch you like a griffon
26. Cheerilee was in fewer episodes than a lot of characters yet she still got her own toy at McDonalds
27. Believe it or not, Fluttershy was quite shy as a child
28. Rocks can't just be found in the ground like on Earth, they have to be farmed
29. Pinkie Pie never did get her sasparilla
30. Applejack has an accent even though she lives within walking distance of everyone else
31. Applejack loses her accent when she sings
32. Boots are worn on all four feet but slippers are only worn on the front two
33. Pinkie Pie barely teeters on the edge of sanity
34. Applejack is a terrible liar (Pinkie Pie can tell when she's lying but not anyone else)
35. Rainbow Dash can clear the skies over Ponyville in ten seconds flat and is the only known pony to create a sonic rainboom but she still can't escape Pinkie Pie
36. A single bathtub can contain all the water in Ponyville for seven hours without anyone finding out where the water has gone
37. Pinkie Pie's hair changes depending on her mood
38. Grown men and little girls have more in common than is socially acceptable to admit
39. If there was a contest for the best singer in Equestria Twilight Sparkle would win hands down
40. Whoever played the guitar for the Cutie Mark Crusaders should go pro
41. Pinkie Pie is not affected by gravity or distance
42. Scootaloo is the cutest
43. The groundskeeper at the Grand Galloping Gala doesn't have a cutie mark despite being very old. He must not have any special talent
44. Celestia and Luna DIDN'T lez out to create Twilight Sparkle after all
45. The Grand Galloping Gala blows and Celestia knew it yet she still invited Twilight Sparkle, her loyal student, to crush her dreams and call it a lesson
46. Celestia created a glaringly sub-optimal world where the inhabitants must literally change the seasons, possibly because she enjoys watching ponies toil miserably and attack each other every time the seasons have to be changed (at least until Twilight came along and took control of the situation)
47. Equestria has seasons and bird migration, so we can assume it has distinct hemispheres
48. Ponyville is in the northern hemisphere as birds migrate south for the winter
49. Seasons in Equestria happen in reverse of seasons on Earth
50.
51. Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever!
52. Gold is used for money but jewels are eaten by dragons
53. The "Cupcakes" fanfic isn't nearly as gross or horrible as people make it out to be, although the author was trying way to hard to make it out to be, and the story doesn't make sense in light of Pinkie Pie's admission that all ponies are vegetarian.
54. Gummy has no teeth, and since alligators regrow lost teeth that means Gummy is either a mutant or Pinkie Pie is constantly pulling out all his teeth
55. FOREVER!!!!!
56. Cows are intelligent creatures that are none-the-less exploited for their milk
57. Rarity's fashion logo is actually pretty creepy
58. Fluttershy is a year older than Pinkie Pie
59. Fluttershy is off limits to pranks
60. And then I said "Oatmeal? Are you crazy?"
61. Though Fluttershy's stare can put even horrible monsters in their place the animals at the Grand Galloping Gala still run away from her
62. Either Granny Pie taught Pinkie to laugh at scary things after the sonic rainboom incident or she's very different from other members of her family
63. Canterlot has a back entrance (the front is a sheer cliff)
64. Prince Blueblood is said to be Princess Celestia's nephew, so he is either Princess Luna's son or Celestia has other siblings that were never introduced
65. If he is Luna's son that means he's over 1000 years old or was born sometime while she was trapped inside the moon and he was let out for some reason, and that ponies can have children of different species, somehow
66. Neither Celestia or Luna aged at all in the past 1000 years, yet Luna is noticably younger, meaning she must be younger by several tens of thousands or even millions of years
67. Assuming Celestia and Luna created Equestria together (since they "created harmony" together with their sun and moon raising), Celestia had to wait a long time before doing anything (according to # 66)
68. Since both sisters are different ages they couldn't have existed forever, so something or somepony must have brought them into existence
69. Celestia needs the Elements of Harmony to defeat her sister, so even though she's older she's the weaker of the two
70. It needs to be about 20% cooler
71. Twilight Sparkle never gets a turn
72. Pillow fights are fun!
73. FOREVER!!!!!
74. Spike is right handed
75. Pony language is written and read left to right and includes such symbols (letters?) as a horseshoe, star, unicorn head, clockwise spiral, and lightning bolt
76. Ponyville uses both the imperial and metric systems
77. Twilight Sparkle's balloon in the opening song appears nowhere else
78. All the ponies in this town are crazy!
79. Short tails are in this season
80. It was under "E"
81. Newborn dragons suck their tails even though the sucking reflex is a mammalian trait
82. Hot sauce bottles are poorly labeled
83. Many of the tools in Equestria are clearly designed for use by humanoid hands despite none of the inhabitants possessing such features
84. The Ponyville library, where Twilight Sparkle lives, surprisingly has few books yet all the furnishings one would find in a home; also, no one is ever seen going there to use the library as a library, only to visit Twilight
85. Pony names often match their personality/talent/cutie mark, meaning ponies are either named presciently or naming a pony has a deterministic effect on their future development (this brings up interesting consequences with such ponies as Granny Smith, who would be called "granny" even as a little filly!)
86. It wasn't nearly that cold at the top of the mountain after all
87. Equestria is sometimes a country
88. The Apple family either has a high percentage of twins or someone got lazy when drawing the crowd scene (the blue ponies with the yellow manes are triplets, two are wearing the same green scarf, and at least two other ponies have the exact same cutie mark!)
89. The Great and Powerful Trixie is a tragic pony who is homeless and had to live in a cart that she had to drag around herself, which is now destroyed, and even though she was just hiding behind a jerkass facade because she's sad and alone no one in Ponyville cut her any slack, except Twilight Sparkle, when she did nothing worse than Rainbow Dash (who has her friends to reign her in, Trixie has no one), and certainly nowhere near as bad as Gilda, yet Gilda got a Pinkie Pie party whereas Trixie only got derision and the obsequious fawning of mindless sycophants who got her into serious trouble through no fault of her own
90. Haters gonna hate
91. Pinkie Pie eats like a black hole
92. Princess Celestia may have created Equestria, but she doesn't know what parasprites are
93. The introduction of horses was actually the single greatest benefit to the lives of the Plains Indians
94. Fluttershy is literally afraid of her own shadow
95. Good Lord, Fluttershy repeats
96. If Rainbow Dash were a human she would be willing to do some freaky things
97. Pinkie Pie sometimes doesn't understand what she is doing or why she is doing it
98. It's a bad idea to encourage Sweetie Belle to sing, especially at bed time
99. Whatever you do, DO NOT FEED THE PARASPRITES!
100. Since there is no official Trixie figure I will have to carve, sand, paint, and sand again Twilight Sparkle to look like Trixie
Pinkie Pie inspired the most things on this list, 19, and Twilight Sparkle inspired the second most, 12.
Google/Blogger/whoever huffed and puffed and made this post disappear so I have to put it up again.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Single Biggest Load of Crock Ever
I turned on the radio yesterday at 4 AM and found Coast to Coast, a program that I occasionally listen to. Sometimes they have on some really good guests with really solid evidence backing up their claims. They also spend most of the first hour dealing with news and analysis that the mainstream media doesn't want you to hear, allowing one to get multiple perspectives on stories instead of the homogenised fluff you get almost everywhere else (sometimes it's scary how all the news programs use the exact same words in their stories. The first and only time I ever heard the word "optics" used in the manner it was on the news was when the President and his wife did something outrageously asinine that pissed off a lot of people. EVERYONE in the news said "they need to fix the 'optics' of the situation, because the American people are too stupid to know what's good for them." I still don't know what "optics" means, but I guess it's similar to lies. Usually when I talk about it I say "cock-dicks" because these news people wetting themselves to President Zero* is just too rediculous.).
Sometimes Coast to Coast has the most unbelievable guests dug up from the bowels of wherever unbelievable people come from (Malibu). These include "Major" Ed Dames, whose apocalyptic solar flair dubbed the "Killshot®," was supposed to wipe out the earth every time he's come on for the last twenty years. He also promised original host Art Bell a quantity of gold he was supposed to find using his mind powers for twenty years too. Neither the gold or the Killshot® has materialised yet. There's also Alex Jones (enough said, though his Endgame film was pretty damn scary), and Brian Greene, whose "string theory" isn't a theory and isn't even wrong, because it makes no predictions and cannot be tested in any way, yet it doesn't stop him from turning every program he's on into a debunking exercise.
Yesterday they had "Dr." Judy Wood, who must have got her degree by mugging an actual doctor. She is by a wide margin the worst of them all. She is a 9/11 truther who stretches even the credulity of that moniker. Claiming the government used dumptrucks full of thermite to cut the steel support beams that was shipped in with no one in the buildings noticing it is one thing, but Wood's science fantasy is so outrageous and so treasonous that I had to watch two hours of anti-9/11 truth videos on the internet afterward to keep myself from losing my mind. It didn't completely work, because here I am writing about her today. If Wood's story is correct then EVERYTHING we know about physical sciences is COMPLETELY wrong. Continue reading if you dare.
Judy Wood is a member of a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and as such, is the only person in the group with any experience in engineering and thus the only person in the group to actually have any authority to make claims about the destruction of the buildings on 9/11. The theory she and others in the group espouse is so horribly rediculous that other founding members left the group to found Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice to promote their controled demolition theory. Founder James Fetzer is now a pariah in the 9/11 truth movement. Just like with CSICOP and Greenpeace, when founding members quit it's a good sign the group has failed in its original mission (one of the CSICOP founders left after he found a stash of documents they were hiding that demonstrated astrology is real, a Greenpeace founder left when he noticed the group was focused on eliminating capitalism and not helping the environment).
Besides telling blatant lies on the radio such as Larry Silverstein saying "pull it" meaning destroy WTC 7 instead of pull the firefighters out, even though third generation demolitions experts say again and again that "pull it" is not a demolition term, and saying the official story makes no sense when it is the first time ever in history the US government's story makes absolute perfect sense, and claiming to care only about "physical evidence, not theories," Wood concocted the mother of all fairy stories to explain 9/11, and neither the host George Noory or a single caller called her out. Here's the story in a nutshell:
The government used Star Wars masers fired from the moon to destroy the towers. The masers (microwave lasers) resonated at such a frequency that pools of metal remained molten for months at the site afterward, and it resonated with the worker's steel-toed boots, melting them but leaving there feet unharmed. The frequency was such that only three buildings were damaged with surrounding structures left completely untouched (actually, several buildings on the site and surrounding area were damaged). A cop car was hit by the maser and the front half melted completely leaving the other half untouched, something fire cannot do, only special frequency maser weapons (actually, as one expert explains the front half burning: "There's grease, oil and gasoline, and once the fire gets going, rubber hoses and tires. If the fire gets to the gas tank, the tank will go. If it doesn't, it won't. But engine fires are pretty common in cars and they don't always involve the gas tank." Also, the burned cars that were blocks away from the towers were not burned in situ, they were burned near the towers and removed to other locations once their use as evidence in the investigation was over. That's why there are parking lots filled with burned cars surrounded by untouched structures, and why the cars are often cut open or have holes from where tools were used to examine and tow them and remove any trapped passengers.).
When you heat water it explodes violently in a steam explosion, and since there was no steam explosion planes or bombs couldn't have destroyed the buildings. (I have nowhere else to put this, but here's a PDF of an investigation that demonstrated that, far from fire not being able to melt steel, 22 multi-story buildings have fully or partially collapsed from 1970 to 2002 as a result of fire, 7 were concrete, 6 were steel, 5 were masonry, 2 were wood and 2 were of unknown construction.)
When the Keebler Elves drill a hole in the top of a tree to make their home it doesn't take the whole tree down (even though the Keebler Elves are fictional characters in a cartoon world designed to sell cookies, which, by the way, I used to inhale the buttery tasting multi-coloured chocolate chip cookies as a child, and they live in the base of a tree, not the top. Anyone who has ever bought a bag of Keebler cookies can see the logo focuses on the base of the tree, not the top. Every commercial shows the elves home in the base of the tree), so a plane hitting the top of a building can't knock it down. When you fill a pot with water and put it on a wire rack over a fire the rack doesn't explode, it melts slowly then gives way so the fire is not on the bare base of the pot (I thought water reacts violently to heat? Why are you heating it? And why are you using a rack made of some metal that melts below 100°? What is it made of, caesium?).
"Planes cannot turn buildings into powder in midair and leave no remains." The buildings didn't collapse because no debis was found (and carted away in truck loads for weeks afterward). The buildings exploded into coarse dust that fell to the ground where it spontaneously disintegrated into fine dust that was blown back up into the air. The dust was "smaller than DNA" so "nothing could stop it" and it got through breathing masks and killed people (if it's so small why didn't it just diffuse through peoples' skin directly into their blood?). The buildings didn't fall down, they fell up like a tree (even though trees grow up, they don't fall up). The frequency of the maser was such that it disintegrated steel and concrete yet left paper completely unharmed.
That's basically it. If I'm leaving anything out it was far too stupid to remember. I must say, this fairy story is maybe the single most offensive thing anyone could say to the victims of 9/11. This goes above and beyond the crap the normal truthers are pushing, by a lot.
Here is a ten minute video about Wood and other truthers:
*Long time readers know that I come up with joke names for the presidents. Clinton is Billy Boy, Bush 2 is Capital Bush, and Obama is Zero. Bush 1 is the Devil.
Sometimes Coast to Coast has the most unbelievable guests dug up from the bowels of wherever unbelievable people come from (Malibu). These include "Major" Ed Dames, whose apocalyptic solar flair dubbed the "Killshot®," was supposed to wipe out the earth every time he's come on for the last twenty years. He also promised original host Art Bell a quantity of gold he was supposed to find using his mind powers for twenty years too. Neither the gold or the Killshot® has materialised yet. There's also Alex Jones (enough said, though his Endgame film was pretty damn scary), and Brian Greene, whose "string theory" isn't a theory and isn't even wrong, because it makes no predictions and cannot be tested in any way, yet it doesn't stop him from turning every program he's on into a debunking exercise.
Yesterday they had "Dr." Judy Wood, who must have got her degree by mugging an actual doctor. She is by a wide margin the worst of them all. She is a 9/11 truther who stretches even the credulity of that moniker. Claiming the government used dumptrucks full of thermite to cut the steel support beams that was shipped in with no one in the buildings noticing it is one thing, but Wood's science fantasy is so outrageous and so treasonous that I had to watch two hours of anti-9/11 truth videos on the internet afterward to keep myself from losing my mind. It didn't completely work, because here I am writing about her today. If Wood's story is correct then EVERYTHING we know about physical sciences is COMPLETELY wrong. Continue reading if you dare.
Judy Wood is a member of a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and as such, is the only person in the group with any experience in engineering and thus the only person in the group to actually have any authority to make claims about the destruction of the buildings on 9/11. The theory she and others in the group espouse is so horribly rediculous that other founding members left the group to found Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice to promote their controled demolition theory. Founder James Fetzer is now a pariah in the 9/11 truth movement. Just like with CSICOP and Greenpeace, when founding members quit it's a good sign the group has failed in its original mission (one of the CSICOP founders left after he found a stash of documents they were hiding that demonstrated astrology is real, a Greenpeace founder left when he noticed the group was focused on eliminating capitalism and not helping the environment).
Besides telling blatant lies on the radio such as Larry Silverstein saying "pull it" meaning destroy WTC 7 instead of pull the firefighters out, even though third generation demolitions experts say again and again that "pull it" is not a demolition term, and saying the official story makes no sense when it is the first time ever in history the US government's story makes absolute perfect sense, and claiming to care only about "physical evidence, not theories," Wood concocted the mother of all fairy stories to explain 9/11, and neither the host George Noory or a single caller called her out. Here's the story in a nutshell:
The government used Star Wars masers fired from the moon to destroy the towers. The masers (microwave lasers) resonated at such a frequency that pools of metal remained molten for months at the site afterward, and it resonated with the worker's steel-toed boots, melting them but leaving there feet unharmed. The frequency was such that only three buildings were damaged with surrounding structures left completely untouched (actually, several buildings on the site and surrounding area were damaged). A cop car was hit by the maser and the front half melted completely leaving the other half untouched, something fire cannot do, only special frequency maser weapons (actually, as one expert explains the front half burning: "There's grease, oil and gasoline, and once the fire gets going, rubber hoses and tires. If the fire gets to the gas tank, the tank will go. If it doesn't, it won't. But engine fires are pretty common in cars and they don't always involve the gas tank." Also, the burned cars that were blocks away from the towers were not burned in situ, they were burned near the towers and removed to other locations once their use as evidence in the investigation was over. That's why there are parking lots filled with burned cars surrounded by untouched structures, and why the cars are often cut open or have holes from where tools were used to examine and tow them and remove any trapped passengers.).
When you heat water it explodes violently in a steam explosion, and since there was no steam explosion planes or bombs couldn't have destroyed the buildings. (I have nowhere else to put this, but here's a PDF of an investigation that demonstrated that, far from fire not being able to melt steel, 22 multi-story buildings have fully or partially collapsed from 1970 to 2002 as a result of fire, 7 were concrete, 6 were steel, 5 were masonry, 2 were wood and 2 were of unknown construction.)
When the Keebler Elves drill a hole in the top of a tree to make their home it doesn't take the whole tree down (even though the Keebler Elves are fictional characters in a cartoon world designed to sell cookies, which, by the way, I used to inhale the buttery tasting multi-coloured chocolate chip cookies as a child, and they live in the base of a tree, not the top. Anyone who has ever bought a bag of Keebler cookies can see the logo focuses on the base of the tree, not the top. Every commercial shows the elves home in the base of the tree), so a plane hitting the top of a building can't knock it down. When you fill a pot with water and put it on a wire rack over a fire the rack doesn't explode, it melts slowly then gives way so the fire is not on the bare base of the pot (I thought water reacts violently to heat? Why are you heating it? And why are you using a rack made of some metal that melts below 100°? What is it made of, caesium?).
"Planes cannot turn buildings into powder in midair and leave no remains." The buildings didn't collapse because no debis was found (and carted away in truck loads for weeks afterward). The buildings exploded into coarse dust that fell to the ground where it spontaneously disintegrated into fine dust that was blown back up into the air. The dust was "smaller than DNA" so "nothing could stop it" and it got through breathing masks and killed people (if it's so small why didn't it just diffuse through peoples' skin directly into their blood?). The buildings didn't fall down, they fell up like a tree (even though trees grow up, they don't fall up). The frequency of the maser was such that it disintegrated steel and concrete yet left paper completely unharmed.
That's basically it. If I'm leaving anything out it was far too stupid to remember. I must say, this fairy story is maybe the single most offensive thing anyone could say to the victims of 9/11. This goes above and beyond the crap the normal truthers are pushing, by a lot.
Here is a ten minute video about Wood and other truthers:
*Long time readers know that I come up with joke names for the presidents. Clinton is Billy Boy, Bush 2 is Capital Bush, and Obama is Zero. Bush 1 is the Devil.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Osama bin Laden is Dead
10:47 pm EDT, the White House announced Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces. We have his body.
11:35 pm EDT, the President himself came on television with a very short speech that was good. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should have taken an hour to write, and included most of the Pledge of Allegiance at the end, but it was a good speech.
A "special operations team" (no specifics given) operating under the Joint Special Operations Command in concert with the CIA acted on months of intelligence to kill bin Laden in a firefight in a small compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They have his body. DNA tests will be conducted to confirm his identity and a video is almost certainly going to be released to provide proof to the world that bin Laden is in fact dead.
This news comes almost four months before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
No Americans were killed in the actions that ended the life of Osama bin Laden. Five people died in the attack, including bin Laden, one of his thirteen sons, and one of his numerous wives who was used as a human shield at one point. Osama bin Laden was shot above the eye. His body was taken aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) on the Arabian Sea where it was identified, washed, and given a proper Islamic burial at sea, supposedly so his grave doesn't become a martyr's shrine.
The compound bin Laden was living in is said to be eight times larger than any other building in the city of Abbottabad, which the other wiki says has a population of 120,000. It had a three story house with eighteen foot high walls. The property is estimated to be worth $1 million. This is a substantial sized compound in a substantial sized city. How anyone could miss something this obvious for this long is beyond comprehension.
Supposedly "SEAL Team Six" lead the charge in attacking the compound, though this has not been confirmed.
According to WikiLeaks, Al-Qaeda has made a statement that they have a nuclear device hidden in a European city and that they would detonate it if bin Laden was caught or killed. Report of this document started panic in some of a "nuclear hellstorm." There is nothing more to report on this at the time.
This is a breaking story. Updates will come as they are made public.
11:35 pm EDT, the President himself came on television with a very short speech that was good. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should have taken an hour to write, and included most of the Pledge of Allegiance at the end, but it was a good speech.
A "special operations team" (no specifics given) operating under the Joint Special Operations Command in concert with the CIA acted on months of intelligence to kill bin Laden in a firefight in a small compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They have his body. DNA tests will be conducted to confirm his identity and a video is almost certainly going to be released to provide proof to the world that bin Laden is in fact dead.
This news comes almost four months before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
No Americans were killed in the actions that ended the life of Osama bin Laden. Five people died in the attack, including bin Laden, one of his thirteen sons, and one of his numerous wives who was used as a human shield at one point. Osama bin Laden was shot above the eye. His body was taken aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) on the Arabian Sea where it was identified, washed, and given a proper Islamic burial at sea, supposedly so his grave doesn't become a martyr's shrine.
The compound bin Laden was living in is said to be eight times larger than any other building in the city of Abbottabad, which the other wiki says has a population of 120,000. It had a three story house with eighteen foot high walls. The property is estimated to be worth $1 million. This is a substantial sized compound in a substantial sized city. How anyone could miss something this obvious for this long is beyond comprehension.
Supposedly "SEAL Team Six" lead the charge in attacking the compound, though this has not been confirmed.
According to WikiLeaks, Al-Qaeda has made a statement that they have a nuclear device hidden in a European city and that they would detonate it if bin Laden was caught or killed. Report of this document started panic in some of a "nuclear hellstorm." There is nothing more to report on this at the time.
This is a breaking story. Updates will come as they are made public.
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