It is nice to see that simply being a Slashdot nerd doesn't disqualify you from understanding nothing about the rest of the world except for the sure and certain knowledge that whatever "authority figures" say HAS to be completely inverted.
If "they" say terrorists exist then the world must instead be filled entirely by altruistic pixies who would certianly never wish harm on anyone anywhere. Tales of war are either exaggerated or fabricated outright unless of course they concern the U.S. military comitting some atrocity. Then these tales must be intsantly accepted without a hint of question.
When a story about a tiny portable nuclear reactor (I have my doubts about the veracity of such a thing) appears and someone rightly questions how such a device could be weaponized they are denounced as a stooge of the Vast Right wing conspiracy.
Don't they know that Bush is the only terrorist to have ever exited? There is no Al Qaeda and there never was! Who gives a fuk about 9/11 anyway! Who are these people who you say would actually try and hurt someone? Only Americans here in the savage U.S. would be so degenerate. The rest of the world is surely far more civil than us!
To Slashdot's credit they did a good job with responding commentary but oddly it is the lunatic's comments that got modded all the way up while the sane responses didn't. Poor moderating from the community.
Some choice moron tidbits:
This one is so choice that I simply had to include the whole delusional diatribe.
By one drDugan (who has a looong history of lunacy)
"I call "Fear mongering crap."
It is exactly this attitude that has Americans cowering in their homes while their country is being raped from inside.
Why exactly should "we" hope that these are not mainstream? Becuase "we" fear that there are all those "evil" people out there (somehwere?) to get us and try and kill us? That attitude is fabricated crap, generated from the kind of attitude present in text like this. What exactly do you mean by "high level mischief"? Please explain. Are YOU implying some specific person would/will take out the radioactive material and use it to harm people? That's a catchy implication, but not real. Who? Show me all these boogymen. Show me there are hoardes of people out there sharpening their knives to destroy civilized society. It's a bullshit lie. To me, flippant fear mongering like that is most of the problem here, not some boogyman called from thin air to support the fear-based attitude you're spreading."
Just... wow. Has this chump ever been to a non-first world nation? Ever?
From the same chump:
"9/11 was a big deal, mostly becuase it was blown way way out of proportion. It was like 20 people. Hardly a hoarde. Hardly even a blip in the mortality of the US. It was the media and opportunistic politicians that made 9/11."
"Al Qaeda? Show me Al Qaeda."
I am not sure which Slashdot folks were modding this idiot's comments up to 5 but it makes Slashdot look bad. Fortunately some of them display sanity after a bit:
The far saner PaintyThePirate
"The notion of having a completely unmanned reactor seems like a recipe for disaster though. The Toshiba plan of keeping a few people nearby to ensure security and to monitor the supposedly fail safe systems seems safer."
Yikes. I am used to seeing stuff like that lauded or modded up with Karma ratings on the DU fever swamps or the Daily Kos or even Ron Paul sites. Slashdot is usually a lot better about pushing the loons down below the karma threshold.
