[Goober5000]

Vote for a third-party candidate.  If enough people do that, the two major parties are bound to notice.  Best case scenario, your third-party candidate wins.  If not, the hope is that the third-party candidate will induce enough competition to motivate the major parties to do the things the third-party candidate promises to do.

[Bobboau]

if nothing else, you have gone to the trouble of saying that "I hate both major cadidates but I still care enough in general to go to the trouble of getting up off my ass and voteing"

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Bobboau
if nothing else, you have gone to the trouble of saying that "I hate both major cadidates but I still care enough in general to go to the trouble of getting up off my ass and voteing"

That's pretty much what I've been saying since the start of this thread.

If you don't vote you have no right to complain about how voting doesn't change anything.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by EtherShock
There was a website where you could take a basic geography test. Let me see if I can find it...

Ah, here it is.

You can also skip the intro and get right to the survey.

I got a perfect score. ^_^

18 ou of 20. I can only blame myself for not knowing the population of the U.S, I estimated it to be between 500 and 750 million, to my mistake. The other mistake was also a fault of mine, I got the 'westernmost city' question fooled me, I read 'G' as 'B'. I should have taken this survey after a coffee or some kind of breakfast.

Anyway, I can now see that Mexican and US citizens got the lowest score in general. It is surprising that only 25% Americans knew the answer for the first question.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan


    //I was talking about US terrorists only... check my previous posts dammit!

Only because the rest of the worlds' experience proves your little profiling criteria to be complete bollocks.  So what, there are no black or white Muslims (on the issue of race/religious) in the US who'd be profiled?

Or are you seriously suggesting domestic anti-terrorism should ignore lessons learnt in other western countries facing the same type of threat?

Originally posted by TrashMan


    /// Do I look Like Sherlock Holmes to you? If I had all the answers and knowledge to find terrorists I would be working in the CIA by now.

You're the one assuming profiling would be in some way better; don't you have any factual evidence to support that?

You've suggested targeting a specific ethnic/religious group without any actual inclining of what you'd do with that targeting - put surveillance on every house?  Track credit card receipts ending in 'al-Something'?

Profiling simply puts on the blinkers of intelligence services.

Oh, and behavioural profiling != racial (or otherwise) profiling.  The most obvious thing being that behavioural profiling is performed upon specific targeting individuals (i.e. requires evidence to justify and then perform it - including the basis of the initial profile and the basis for building the suspects profile), whereas racial, religious, etc profiling is generalized and does not require any form of supporting evidence beyond presupposition.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by TopAce


18 ou of 20. I can only blame myself for not knowing the population of the U.S, I estimated it to be between 500 and 750 million, to my mistake. The other mistake was also a fault of mine, I got the 'westernmost city' question fooled me, I read 'G' as 'B'. I should have taken this survey after a coffee or some kind of breakfast.

Anyway, I can now see that Mexican and US citizens got the lowest score in general. It is surprising that only 25% Americans knew the answer for the first question.

<40% British know where the Pacific is!!
I got El Nino wrong tho.
Probably wouldn't have known Argentina if it wasn't for the Falklands.
Seems the Swedes are pretty clued up.

[karajorma]

The way geography and history are taught in the UK I'm not surprised that the Brits know very little about it.

The fact that every single history lesson I ever had managed to make the subject seem boring is a crime. History should always be an interesting subject. It's bacically wars, murders, political backstabbing and every other plot element you could ever want in a movie. How on Earth you make history boring is beyond me.

[mikhael]

I got 19 out of 20. I thought Christians fell behind Buddhists.

[Ace]

Same here.

I'd actually argue that there are probably more Buddhists and the reason the "official number" is less is because the People's Republic of China still doesn't admit to the Han being religious.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by karajorma

You're the one who claimed to have the answer of using religious profiling in the first place. Now you claim ignorance as a defence. If you know nothing about the subject maybe you shouldn't have opened your mouth to tell us we were all wrong in the first place

You want detailed instructions in triplicate?
What? If someone doesn't have all the answers and complete and total knowledge on a subject, he's not allowed to say anything about it. Not even rough ideas?

Well, in that case you should never, EVER open your mouth or touch your keyboard.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan


You want detailed instructions in triplicate?
What? If someone doesn't have all the answers and complete and total knowledge on a subject, he's not allowed to say anything about it. Not even rough ideas?

Well, in that case you should never, EVER open your mouth or touch your keyboard.

If someone isn't able to understand the basics of the issue, then they're not likely to be able to make a valuable contribution, are they?

If you're not able to understand the alternative and basis behind your 'rough idea', why the hell are you arguing so vehemently for it?

[Wild Fragaria]

Originally posted by aldo_14


If someone isn't able to understand the basics of the issue, then they're not likely to be able to make a valuable contribution, are they?

If you're not able to understand the alternative and basis behind your 'rough idea', why the hell are you arguing so vehemently for it?

Good point.

[StratComm]

20/20.  Didn't even have to guess.  ROFLMAO at the westernmost city question; I had to double-check that the compass pointing north actually pointed up.  How people can miss some of that stuff is beyond me.

Originally posted by mikhael
I got 19 out of 20. I thought Christians fell behind Buddhists.

Christians outnumber other religions because of the extensive missionary and colonial ties throughout the world.  Christians account for almost all of the Americas, Europe, Russia, as well as making up a sizable percentage of nearly every other country on Earth, so of course they are the biggest.  Roughly 2 billion Christians in the world the last I checked.


And stop this stupid profiling debate.  Kazan is right, using the slightest bit of intelligence (behavorial profiling) trumps both racial and random sampling every time.

[TopAce]

Hey, Wild Fragaria, I have something to say to you:

Welcome to HLP, newcomer. We, the proud and little FreeSpace community, are glad that there are still people interested in this game. If you do not happen to be particularly interested in this game, you should stop reading the text in italic.

It is a general tradition at HLP that we zap the newest member using a weapon like this:

That said we modified the original GTVA beam cannon which is hazardless for friendly fire. The beam we fired at you was successfully absorbed by your Newbie Protection Shield technology(developed in January, 2002). Use the power you absorbed to contribute to the work of the community. To find you way how to assist the HLP people, go to FRED Academy and make a foray.

Enjoy your stay and keep your Newbie Protection System active all the time until you are officially promoted to Senior Member. Avoid asking about FreeSpace 3. Do a search and you will know why.

Thank you for reading all this piece of writing, let me wish you good luck and a happy stay!


Comment on thread:
This is going quite out of control, I think.

[Wild Fragaria]

Thanks for your welcome treat, TopAce.

[TopAce]

It's a tradition. I was the fastest to do this this time..

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
You want detailed instructions in triplicate?
What? If someone doesn't have all the answers and complete and total knowledge on a subject, he's not allowed to say anything about it. Not even rough ideas?

I expect you to have some knowledge of the subject you are pontificating about. You have so far demonstated that you have none.

You're telling us all that religious profiling is the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet you are unable to even tell us the slightest details of what it is.  I don't want detailed instructions. I want a broad idea of what religious profiling is. All you can tell me is that religious profiling is great and is the answer to everything but when someone asks you (repeatedly) what religious profiling is you simply repeat the empty rhetoric about how it's great and how it's what the CIA should do.

I'm asking you to explain in one paragraph what religious profiling is. If you can't do that then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that you don't even know what it is in the slightest. And if you don't know what it is, the question has to be why should I or anyone else pay the slightest bit of attention to your assertions that it's what the intelligence services should do.

Originally posted by TrashMan
Well, in that case you should never, EVER open your mouth or touch your keyboard.

If I know nothing about a subject you can guarantee that I don't say anything or at least state that I know nothing about the subject. But then I'm willing to consider the fact that I might be wrong about something and I'm willing to educate myself about the matter at hand before I talk about it.

I see no point in acting as though I know everything or as if I'm infallible. I'm neither.

[EtherShock]

Originally posted by karajorma
The way geography and history are taught in the UK I'm not surprised that the Brits know very little about it.

The fact that every single history lesson I ever had managed to make the subject seem boring is a crime. History should always be an interesting subject. It's bacically wars, murders, political backstabbing and every other plot element you could ever want in a movie. How on Earth you make history boring is beyond me.

Well there's also development, innovation, etc. It is boring here as well, no surprise. I had two good history teachers all through my education. I threw a geography bee when I was in 8th grade because I thought it would negatively affect me. It was a preliminary in class before the school one. I didn't need to be picked on any more than I already had been. I still remember the question. A lot of people don't care about academic knowledge and that is the problem. Stigmas agains smarts and reactions like mine back then, also are.

Percetanges are percentages though and can be very deceiving. 3,250 people total is not a large sample given the variables. I wonder how the Swedes teach history? I think it's just simply the education system entirely that results in such dismal scores.

[Flipside]

Well, I'm crap at geography, but that's not because of the teaching, it's just because I have no sense of direction whatsoever.

As for history, I agree Kara, History only just started to get interesting in around the third year, when we were learning about Sutton Hoo and the lives of the people who lived there, but simply remembering a string of dates, places and people never really connected me to it, which is a pity, since I find it fascinating now

[Kosh]

Originally posted by TopAce
So, if the survey I once read is true, it means that only 30 percent of U.S citizens knows a very basic, primary school fact.
I don't think that.

We took that sample survery in my AP Econ class. Except for me a couple of other people, everyone else has problems with it. Most people only got about half of the questions right.