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You’re More Likely to Be Killed By Brain-Eating Parasites, Texting While Driving, Toddlers, Lightning, Falling Out of Bed ...

George Washington's picture




 

The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011.* That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war.

In contrast, the American agency which tracks health-related issues – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control – rounds up the most prevalent causes of death in the United States:

Comparing the CDC numbers to terrorism deaths means:

– You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

 

– You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

(Keep in mind when reading this entire piece that we are consistently and substantially understating the risk of other causes of death as compared to terrorism, because we are comparing deaths from various causes within the United States against deaths from terrorism worldwide.)

Wikipedia notes that obesity is a a contributing factor in 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year. That makes obesity 5,882 to times 23,528 more likely to kill you than a terrorist.

The annual number of deaths in the U.S. due to avoidable medical errors is as high as 100,000. Indeed, one of the world’s leading medical journals – Lancet – reported in 2011:

A November, 2010, document from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that, when in hospital, one in seven beneficiaries of Medicare (the government-sponsored health-care programme for those aged 65 years and older) have complications from medical errors, which contribute to about 180 000 deaths of patients per year.

That’s just Medicare beneficiaries, not the entire American public. Scientific American noted in 2009:

Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation.

And a new study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety says the numbers may be up to 440,000 each year.

But let’s use the lower – 100,000 – figure. That still means that you are 5,882 times more likely to die from medical error than terrorism.

The CDC says that some 80,000 deaths each year are attributable to excessive alcohol use. So you’re 4,706 times more likely to drink yourself to death than die from terrorism.

Wikipedia notes that there were 32,367 automobile accidents in 2011, which means that you are 1,904 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack. As CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria wrote last year:

“Since 9/11, foreign-inspired terrorism has claimed about two dozen lives in the United States. (Meanwhile, more than 100,000 have been killed in gun homicides and more than 400,000 in motor-vehicle accidents.) “

President Obama agreed.

According to a 2011 CDC report, poisoning from prescription drugs is even more likely to kill you than a car crash. Indeed, the CDC stated in 2011 that – in the majority of states – your prescription meds are more likely to kill you than any other source of injury. So your meds are thousands of times more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda.

The financial crisis has also caused quite a few early deaths.  The Guardian reported in 2008:

High-income countries such as the UK and US could see a 6.4% surge in deaths from heart disease, while low-income countries could experience a 26% rise in mortality rates.

Since there were 596,339 deaths from heart disease in the U.S. in 2011 (see CDC table above), that means that there are approximately 38, 165 additional deaths a year from the financial crisis … and Americans are 2,245 times more likely to die from a financial crisis that a terrorist attack. 

Financial crises cause deaths in other ways, as well.  For example, the poverty rate has skyrocketed in the U.S. since the 2008 crash. For example, the poverty rate in 2010 was the highest in 17 years, and more Americans numerically were in poverty as of 2011 than for more than 50 years. Poverty causes increased deaths from hunger, inability to pay for heat and shelter, and other causes. (And – as mentioned below – suicides have skyrocketed recently; many connect the increase in suicides to the downturn in the economy.)

The number of deaths by suicide has also surpassed car crashes. Around 35,000 Americans kill themselves each year (and more American soldiers die by suicide than combat; the number of veterans committing suicide is astronomical and under-reported). So you’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist.

The CDC notes that there were 7,638 deaths from HIV and 45 from syphilis, so you’re 452 times more likely to die from risky sexual behavior than terrorism.  (That doesn’t include death by autoerotic asphyxiation … discussed below.)

The National Safety Council reports that more than 6,000 Americans die a year from falls … most of them involve people falling off their roof or ladder trying to clean their gutters, put up Christmas lights and the like. That means that you’re 353 times more likely to fall to your death doing something idiotic than die in a terrorist attack.

The same number – 6,000 – die annually from texting while driving.  So you’re 353 times more likely to meet your maker while lol’ing than by terrorism.

The agency in charge of workplace safety – the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration – reports that 4,609 workers were killed on the job in 2011 within the U.S. homeland. In other words, you are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than terrorism.

The CDC notes that 3,177 people died of “nutritional deficiencies” in 2011, which means you are 187 times more likely to starve to death in American than be killed by terrorism.

Approximately 1,000 Americans die each year from autoerotic asphyxiation.  So you’re 59 times more likely to kill yourself doing weird, kinky things than at the hands of a terrorist.

Some 450 Americans die each year when they fall out of bed, 26 times more than are killed by terrorists.

Scientific American notes:

You might have toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the microscopic parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which the CDC estimates has infected about 22.5 percent of Americans older than 12 years old

Toxoplasmosis is a brain-parasite. The CDC reports that more than 375 Americans die annually due to toxoplasmosis. In addition, 3 Americans died in 2011 after being exposed to a brain-eating amoeba. So you’re about 22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist.

There were at least 155 Americans killed by police officers in the United States in 2011. That means that you were more than 9 times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than by a terrorist.

Around 34 Americans a year are killed by dog bites … around twice as many as by terrorists.

The 2011 Report on Terrorism from the National Counter Terrorism Center notes that Americans are just as likely to be “crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year” as they are to be killed by terrorists.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show that Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism. And see this.

The Jewish Daily Forward noted in May that – even including the people killed in the Boston bombing – you are more likely to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist. And see these statistics from CNN.

Reason notes:

[The risk of being killed by terrorism] compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

 

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has just published, Background Report: 9/11, Ten Years Later [PDF]. The report notes, excluding the 9/11 atrocities, that fewer than 500 people died in the U.S. from terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2010.

Scientific American reported in 2011:

John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, and Mark Stewart, a civil engineer and authority on risk assessment at University of Newcastle in Australia … contended, “a great deal of money appears to have been misspent and would have been far more productive—saved far more lives—if it had been expended in other ways.”

chart comparing annual fatality risksMueller and Stewart noted that, in general, government regulators around the world view fatality risks—say, from nuclear power, industrial toxins or commercial aviation—above one person per million per year as “acceptable.” Between 1970 and 2007 Mueller and Stewart asserted in a separate paper published last year in Foreign Affairs that a total of 3,292 Americans (not counting those in war zones) were killed by terrorists resulting in an annual risk of one in 3.5 million. Americans were more likely to die in an accident involving a bathtub (one in 950,000), a home appliance (one in 1.5 million), a deer (one in two million) or on a commercial airliner (one in 2.9 million).

 

The global mortality rate of death by terrorism is even lower. Worldwide, terrorism killed 13,971 people between 1975 and 2003, an annual rate of one in 12.5 million. Since 9/11 acts of terrorism carried out by Muslim militants outside of war zones have killed about 300 people per year worldwide. This tally includes attacks not only by al Qaeda but also by “imitators, enthusiasts, look-alikes and wannabes,” according to Mueller and Stewart.

 

Defenders of U.S. counterterrorism efforts might argue that they have kept casualties low by thwarting attacks. But investigations by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies suggest that 9/11 may have been an outlier—an aberration—rather than a harbinger of future attacks. Muslim terrorists are for the most part “short on know-how, prone to make mistakes, poor at planning” and small in number, Mueller and Stewart stated. Although still potentially dangerous, terrorists hardly represent an “existential” threat on a par with those posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

 

In fact, Mueller and Stewart suggested in Homeland Security Affairs, U.S. counterterrorism procedures may indirectly imperil more lives than they preserve: “Increased delays and added costs at U.S. airports due to new security procedures provide incentive for many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination rather than flying, and, since driving is far riskier than air travel, the extra automobile traffic generated has been estimated to result in 500 or more extra road fatalities per year.”

 

The funds that the U.S. spends on counterterrorism should perhaps be diverted to other more significant perils, such as industrial accidents (one in 53,000), violent crime (one in 22,000), automobile accidents (one in 8,000) and cancer (one in 540). “Overall,” Mueller and Stewart wrote, “vastly more lives could have been saved if counterterrorism funds had instead been spent on combating hazards that present unacceptable risks.” In an e-mail to me, Mueller elaborated:

 

“The key question, never asked of course, is what would the likelihood be if the added security measures had not been put in place? And, if the chances without the security measures might have been, say, one in 2.5 million per year, were the trillions of dollars in investment (including overseas policing which may have played a major role) worth that gain in security—to move from being unbelievably safe to being unbelievably unbelievably safe? Given that al Qaeda and al Qaeda types have managed to kill some 200 to 400 people throughout the entire world each year outside of war zones since 9/11—including in areas that are far less secure than the U.S.—there is no reason to anticipate that the measures have deterred, foiled or protected against massive casualties in the United States. If the domestic (we leave out overseas) enhanced security measures put into place after 9/11 have saved 100 lives per year in the United States, they would have done so at a cost of $1 billion per saved life. That same money, if invested in a measure that saves lives at a cost of $1 million each—like passive restraints for buses and trucks—would have saved 1,000 times more lives.”

 

Mueller and Stewart’s analysis is conservative, because it excludes the most lethal and expensive U.S. responses to 9/11. Al Qaeda’s attacks also provoked the U.S. into invading and occupying two countries, at an estimated cost of several trillion dollars. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in the deaths of more than 6,000 Americans so far—more than twice as many as were killed on September 11, 2001—as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans.

 

***

 

In 2007 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that people are more likely to be killed by lightning than terrorism. “You can’t sit there and worry about everything,” Bloomberg exclaimed. “Get a life.”

Indeed, the Senior Research Scientist for the Space Science Institute (Alan W. Harris) estimates that the odds of being killed by a terrorist attack is about the same as being hit by an asteroid (and see this).

Terrorism pushes our emotional buttons. And politicians and the media tend to blow the risk of terrorism out of proportion. But as the figures above show, terrorism is a very unlikely cause of death.

Indeed, our spending on anti-terrorism measures is way out of whack … especially because most of the money has been wasted. And see this article, and this 3-minute video by professor Mueller:

 

Indeed, mission creep in the name of countering terrorism actually makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

And corrupt government policy is arguably more dangerous than terrorism.

* Note: The most recent official report – published in 2012 – shows that even fewer Americans were killed by terrorists than in the previous year.

 

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Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:30 | 5001026 chunga
chunga's picture

not sure i could do that again...once is enough for me

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:38 | 5001082 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Living in the lightning capitol of the world, I've had my share of close calls, when you can hear it "ripping through the air" with a simultaneous boom, you know you're close. 

I never understood why people jump when they hear thunder, its too late by then ;-)

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 19:33 | 5001382 chunga
chunga's picture

I got nailed not far too from you nmewn. Pretty sure I told the whole story on one of GW's articles a couple years ago and have a bad habit of cluttering his articles so I stop now.

No rain, no thunder, no nothing...next thing I'm in the hospital. My crew told me what happened cuz I did not know. Some of them went deaf/shock. I saw some shit yer not supposed to see. Folded me right over for a few years so it's best to seek shelter lol!

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 06:33 | 5002660 messymerry
messymerry's picture

I was on the throne one day in an inteior bathroom (no windows) and suddenly a giant bang and blinding flash of light.  Scared the shit out of me...

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:58 | 5000415 goneYonder
goneYonder's picture

"War is a racket. It always has been." - Gen. Smedley Butler

 

The key here that one might overlook is the 'always'. 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 20:23 | 5000411 kurt
kurt's picture

Wrong wrong wrong!

Terror causes the internal humours to fall into a deleterious state wherein the heated regions upset the fundement giving rise to vapours that are inimical to the respiratory rhythms. It's these rising heated outgassings that give rise to principals and baser matters which then do battle with the more virtuous ethers.

By applying Homeland Security Leeches to the corpus in key integumentary regions, and lancing the tax veins to bleed hot blood into consultancies, preferably off shore, various confabs wherein speakers excite each other's humours who, in turn, unlease these heated elements into the "television" for increasing or decreasing tension levels.

It is by this method we can reduce heart attacks, accidents, cancer et. al. which are directly CAUSED by terror and terror byproducts and terroristic ethers.

Beware the Terroristic Aethers!!!!

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:03 | 5000409 SameAsItEverWas
SameAsItEverWas's picture

It shouldn't take an expert panel of risk analysts, psychologists, "counter-terrorism" experts, etc. to do a fancy cost-benefit analysis and conclude that all this spending on "security" could make sense only to a schizophrenic with delusional paranoia. 

Or maybe the question is: Security for whom?

You've all heard the old epistemological riddle of whether it's possible by query to determine if someone is either a consistent truth-teller or consistent liar.

Well folks, we're living in a society which is in the grips of a huge mass psychosis and there are very few here who are not swept up by the madness.  If everyone you know and all your friends, neighbors, and almost all your acquaintances are are psychotic, it's extraordinarily difficult for anyone to overcome all that peer pressure and see that they're surrounded by psychotics, and of course the few truly sane individuals are regarded as crazy by the psychotic herd. 

It's too bad there's not a living soul who carries on the work of Harry Elmer Barnes in explaining all the hows, whys, and wheretofores of this craziness where a good 90% of the U.S. population have been turned into utter imbeciles easily tricked into believing the Muslim-bogeyman nonsense such as the 9/11 conspiracy supposedly being solved by 5 PM ET that day during GWB's working hours so it could be on the nightly news and we had all those poor stupid college-age souls in the National Guard going off to die for no reason in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They should have read Hunter S. Thompson writing for ESPN http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1250751 or watched Corbett Report  http://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/ the next day.  And what the hell happened to Stephen Colbert?

Did Thompson kill himself because he refused to be a part of the madness or was he murdered http://www.thompsonmurder.com/ ?

"WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE ???"  H.R. Clinton

 --------------------------

I've been listening all day over and over to Bob Dylan's 3-CD "Bootleg Series" and it strikes me that here we are in a society so repressive that there are absolutely no contemporary protest songs and with nary a satirist willing to call a spade.  Maybe Thompson decided that if he could not speak the truth he'd rather be dead than try to convince an entire country of what Barnes call the "Hundred Percenters" as guided 100% by Americanism that they're all crazy nationalist murderers, at least complicit in silence.

Are there any "comics" brave enough to expose the lies and stupidity?  I can't find them.

There are no social critics or even historians willing to tell the truth about the "regime change" that occurred after 9/11, so of course NOBODY would dare mention that "anti-terrorism laws" were being enacted the year prior, at least in the U.K., with a college student now spending 6 months in jail for refusing to hand over his passwords when His Majesty's Ministry of Love provides the judge with an affadavit that they need his passwords for reasons of "national security" which is now an unrebuttable presumption everywhere in the world, but why the hell did the British enact this law in 2000 http://extratorrent.cc/article/3798/british+hacker+jailed+for+6+months.html unless the whole thing was planned?  And of course the thousand-page-plus U.S. "Patriot Act" I was "off-the-shelf" software.  And that Christopher Wilson was not a "hacker" unless any "noncomformist" who protects their computer files with strong passwords and doesn't hand them over on government request is a hacker these days.

We have no true history of contemporary times written by academics using rigorous historiography and (per Barnes) considering the associated psychological and sociological factors, because all the history professior truth-tellers have been driven off the college campuses, tenure rules be damned, and Truth is no longer something spoken in "polite company."

During the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s plenty of people went to jail rather than rat out their friends.  And there were plenty of famous writers and (at least West Side) New York high society who went out to see Lenny Bruce do his schtick.  Maybe Pete Seeger was kind of lame but my father an engineer working for a defense contractor wore out his Alan Sherman records and there were a few others he played whose names now escape me because their names are never mentioned.

Art is supposed to be fully covered by 1st Amendment, so why are there no musicians or comedians willing to tell truth?  Are they being intimidated into silence by the murder of their (suicided) peers?  That seems the most plausible and simple explanation per Occam's Razor.  Please help me out here.  There has to be someone!

WTF!

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-protest-songs-from-the-1960s.php

Top 10 Protest Songs from the 1960s Posted by on March 11, 2009 in | 22399 Views | 52 Responses

 

People have sung protest songs throughout human history. Wherever people are oppressed or united in a common struggle, someone will voice strong feelings in song. The 1960s came to be known as the decade for protest with the twin causes of the Vietnam War and the lack of civil rights for African Americans. Some of these songs became anthems and still resonate today. They were the inspiration in countless demonstrations and marches. I make no apologies for including three Dylan songs. They were also commercial hits for the artists involved. So, what makes a good protest song? Take a catchy melody, lyrics with a ring of truth, sincerity and passion, and the times will do the rest. It would be wonderful if these songs were no longer needed one day. In the meantime, play on.

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 06:29 | 5002118 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture

American education was targeted by the psychopath elites 100 years ago. Their efforts to degrade education accelerated around 1965. Americans used to be taught critical thinking skills. Not any more. When you dumb people down in such a manner, you produce ignorant people who will never truly be free. They are the easy victims of deception & propaganda.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 21:57 | 5001928 TVP
TVP's picture

" and of course the few truly sane individuals are regarded as crazy by the psychotic herd. "

 

Thank you.

 

That's all

 

Just thanks

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 21:55 | 5001912 chunga
chunga's picture

try this dylan song it's prescient if you ask me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfHLYIms97A

...

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

...

go baby go

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:37 | 5000297 10mm
10mm's picture

I'll drink to that.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:18 | 5000211 TheMadNumismatist
TheMadNumismatist's picture

In the UK, one is 17 times more likely to be murdered by the police than by a terrorist.

The conclusion must therefore must be that the billions spent on the war on terror have been a success, no?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:27 | 5000266 dirtscratcher
dirtscratcher's picture

No, wrong conclusion. Better to get rid of the police. Better yet, hire terrorists as cops. They seem to be less efficient at killing you than the police.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:52 | 5001175 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

Yeah, but in the UK one can sue the police for their misdeeds and actually have a reasonable chance to prevail and collect.

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 03:54 | 5002524 TheMadNumismatist
TheMadNumismatist's picture

The socialist paradise at work, or trickle down socialism at is best :-) Allow scum bags to sue the police for wads of tax payers cash.

It is the same with railways, network rail, the company that was privatized and re-nationalized and controls the tracks, just fined £53 million for "late trains".

So because taxpayers are late, taxpayers need to pay a fine back to taxpayers.

Same with the NHS: Fined for killing taxpayers, so tax payers need to pay.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:59 | 5001220 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Not if you're dead.

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 05:53 | 5002623 tonyw
tonyw's picture

here's what happens with cops:

http://youtu.be/IlY9C6pzxKc

 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 15:45 | 5000039 sharkbait
sharkbait's picture

The chances of a black swan in asteroids, lightning  et al  is essentially zero.  The chance of a black swan in terrorism?  Much greater than zero as we have seen.  There had never been 3000 people killed in one day by terrorist until there were.  (I know, down arrows from all the false flaggers)

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 07:09 | 5002687 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture

@Sharkbait - false reasoning like yours is why people have accepted the end of what America is supposed to be about, & the establishment of a police state in it's place. False reasoning like yours, is why the tactic of false flags is used.

You're not alone in such false thinking. If you actually want to learn why check out "Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You" by Gerd Gigerenzer

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 11:15 | 5003528 sharkbait
sharkbait's picture

False reasoning?  Are you expecting a surge in lighning strikes or meteorite impact related fatalities?  if so, is there an investment play in this you can share with just us?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:00 | 5000141 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

OK then... I'm saying that it was a false flag.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:57 | 5000410 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

its unreal people still believe that shit.  anyone who doesnt believe it simply has a stronger desire NOT to believe than to have an open mind and consider all possibilities and point in the direction where the evidence points.

 

1&2 aside, all you have to do is watch 7 to know if it was pre planned or not.  game, set, match.

 

 

as to whether 7 was 93's destination or not, one can only speculate, but in my view, had 93 struck 7 and then it collapsed, the government's involvement would have been exponentially harder to believe. 

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 18:46 | 5005624 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

Here, let me correct it for you:

All you have to do is watch WTC 7 to know if it was preplanned or not...

I sympathize (a very little bit) with those who still believe 9/11 was commited by "19 arabs with box cutters". The implications of a false flag are terrible to contemplate as it goes against everything you believe in. If 9/11 was a false flag, why that implies that maybe Sandy Hook was a false flag too... and maybe the "Syrian gas attack" was ALSO a false flag, and maybe even  MH17

Why going even further, maybe the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag, or even, the Lusitania was allowed to carry armaments, and the Japanese were provoked into attacking Pearl Harbor, which was known in advance!

Maybe, just maybe, John F Kennedy was actually assassinated by the Deep State!

Thats why 9/11 can't be a false flag. That would mean that American democracy is a sham and our leaders are evil and corrupt. That would be unsettling. Therefore, it can't be true...

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:49 | 5001159 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

GW:  "I'm just addressing criminal negligence."

I'll bite; what is your standard of criminal negligence?  The standard is generally considered to be carelessness, inattention, neglect, willful blindness, or in the case of gross negligence what would have been reckless.  

It would seem to me like the mens rea, and therefore the seriousness of the charge, might be just a little more serious than that for negligence.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 19:41 | 5001417 George Washington
George Washington's picture

More or less the following:

Reckless disregard for human life ... not caring if people get killed.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 23:37 | 5002179 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

in most jurisdictions, "recklessness" legally means a "wilfull" or wanton disregard  

you must admit that the immediate roll out of the Patriot Act a thousand page manifesto of human rights reduction, coupled with complete lies on the scale and source of terorism is, in itself, "circumstantial" evidence of motive and foresight   

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 15:40 | 5000018 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

NATO requires these huge budgets for security and the point is to spend as much as they can possibly spend so that budgets never go down and

industry can develope a growth model around it. The Security Establishment operates on a growth model as do corporations. Technology drives their product markets and the propaganda used to justify these expenditures is always upsold so that the contractors can cash in on add ons. Security is likely the best growth industry to be involved in today.

There is never a down side to investment in security as I see investment.

Like housing prices this industry will never go down unless central planners go broke. Central planners are going broke.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 15:38 | 4999997 failure to perform
failure to perform's picture

I for one, would love to see an actual terrorist attack, in which our gov't. didn't fund the terrorist.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:57 | 5001209 logicalman
logicalman's picture

You don't want to be close to one, believe me.

I grew up in UK when the IRA were blowing people up.

They were real good at it.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 17:46 | 5000742 TIMBO Anti-Castro
TIMBO Anti-Castro's picture

We'll put frank drebin on it. 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 15:22 | 4999878 B2u
B2u's picture

I am sitting here eating a bag of cheetos and drinking a 2 liter bottle of Coca-Cola.  So what is the point here?  My pizza will be be delivered shortly.  I love the pizza with gooey cheese in the crust.  

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 17:52 | 5000788 SunRise
SunRise's picture

The point is that  Homeland Security has already placed gooey cheese on their list of know terrorists.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:42 | 5001111 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

Just don't plan on downing those cheetos while soaking in a warm tub.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 14:21 | 4999475 Oracle 911
Oracle 911's picture

War on terror fear mongering and "terrorist" creating at finest.

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 05:50 | 5002615 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Everything I'm about  to say is absolutely true.

I'm a bit obese, I've got heart problems, I have no feeling in my little fingers and half of my ring fingers (hence typos may show up...dispite my drunkeness), I've got border-line high blood pressure with accompanying pills.  I've been hit by lightning three times and personally delivered six babies (I am not a doctor.)

I have scars courtesy of the USMC, Bars, Volunteer Ambulance, and my own ignorant ass that frighten my nieces and nephews.  I'm embarrassed to be shirtless.

But I go shirtless...because I realized I actually don't give a shit about how others view me.  I wallow in my fat fuckin' gut and scars and know that I once peeled a Chevy cab off of myself and a victim using my head, neck and arms in less than  thirty seconds when the deputies reported smelling smoke.

I, unlike our shitty-assed government, have actually worked to help real people...still do in various activities with Boy Scouts or Salvation Army (no, I'm not a religious whore, I try to help feed and clothe the homeless), my wife and I have done this since we were married in '79.  We personally lent a hand to countless kids in their teens, letting them live with us for months, until they got their shit straight.

Obama's 'assistance and aid' is so repugnant to us that we stopped everything we were doing in 2010.

This year, our attitude changed due to the incessant lies we're all being told, now we're working with our local Salvation Army to relieve the homeless and near-homeless. 

I once raised $5.5 million for the Boy Scouts.  I'm pretty sure I can raise $15k for the Salvation Army Homeless Outreach.

Meanwihile, that fuckin' Prezidont Zero is fund-raising for the next dumb mother fucker in the democrat party.  (I'm Libertarian.)

I'm to the point that I'm thinking of running with one line " I'm an honest asshole  I'm just like you; I detest politics; want nothing to do with those asshole in Wash, DC...All I want to do is make sure that we start reversing some of the laws that have been passed."

I look forward to the day that we get our Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and total nuclear war in DC.  Wipe that shit-stain from our nation and let's set up the minimum necessary government in some inhospitable place like Montana or Idaho.

Fuckin' politics, I was once one of the most patriotic of anyone you met, now I hang my head in front of illegal immigrants (because I know my fuckin' ueeless prezidont invited them in).

 

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 08:09 | 5002802 dontgoforit
dontgoforit's picture

Semper Fi, bro!  I share many of your feelings.  No LH Oswald shit though.  Let's do it the civilized way: vote Tea Party/Libertarian.  And great work with the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts.  Two of the best organizations in the world, IMHO.  I was also hit twice by lightning.  Both times were indirect collateral strikes, but sparked me up nonetheless.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 16:34 | 5000293 Stuck on Zero
Stuck on Zero's picture

The way I look at it our medical system and agrobusiness is terror inflicted upon us by the government.  This thereby puts terrorism in the #1 killer position.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 23:54 | 5002215 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

You forgot the "terrorism" directed at us, the American people, by the gun and badge thugs.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 17:22 | 5000551 Funny Money
Funny Money's picture

How many people were killed by asteroids in 2001?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 17:45 | 5000733 TIMBO Anti-Castro
TIMBO Anti-Castro's picture

Stuck on zero wasn't. 

Uncle fester: i'm looking at you and thinking, que -ball, corner pocket. 

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:11 | 5000930 RevRex
RevRex's picture

So terrorsm is OK!!! I guess that's why so may here hate Jews and are openly siding with HAMAS who started lobbing the rockets in the first place.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:55 | 5001195 logicalman
logicalman's picture

dup

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:54 | 5001193 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Were you born an arsehole, or did you have to take a course?

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 18:41 | 5001103 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

Leading the world in drownings in bathtubs ... WTF? OK, We're number one, We're number one!

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 19:49 | 5001443 mkkby
mkkby's picture

Yep, dying of terrorism is extremely unlikely.  That doesn't stop most of the sheeple from being afraid, because they watch teevee, which constantly exaggerates any possible danger.

Teevee and anti depressants go together, unless you are in the top 1% of IQ points and can laugh at how stupid the lies are.

Thu, 07/24/2014 - 21:45 | 5001882 Manthong
Manthong's picture

Yeah, but what about asteroid strikes, coronal mass ejections, cosmic ray bursts, super-volcanoes, mega earthquakes, killer weed and man-made global warming?

Well ???  

(keep the fear alive)

Fri, 07/25/2014 - 07:42 | 5002747 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture

Many (probably most) people aren't aware of the notion of 'cost versus benefit'. "The risk of an event is greater than zero, so let's do x to prevent it or deal with the consequences.". The problem with that is that there is a cost to doing so. The so called 'war on terror' has cost $ 4 Trillion since 9/11 and cost our freedom. It is used to justify 'laws' which allow spying (and blackmail) on everyone & allows certain people in government to throw you in prison or kill you without a real trial, based only on an accusation. The American people's ignorance has cost them dearly.

Thomas Jefferson warned that a people cannot be ignorant and also free.
Ben Franklin warned against giving up freedom for the illusion of 'security'.

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