Official Trade Center and Terrorist Attack thread

[Load SM5]

Looks like a Larry Elmore print...pretty cool.

[shartley]

Close....

Thanks guys.

It was actually inspired by a print by Clyde Caldwell. So, Load SM5 you were quite close.

My all time favorite however is Boris. And some of my work has been compared to his stuff, but I am NO Boris. LOL

I am glad you liked it. I should have taken more time on it, but it is not too bad for a quick job. And it is a good diversion from more serious matters.... and awful colorful. :)

[fenris69]

misread something. my bad

[vertices]

In regards to the shartley/peanut discussion I have to disagree with shartley a little bit. You simply can not compare a material object with "information". If I steal an E-mag from AGD I have caused them a profit loss. They can no longer sell it. A kid who absolutely can not afford a $600 software suite and wants to use it for personal use or as a learning tool is not causing a profit loss for that company. He woudn't buy it anyway because he cant afford it. Therefore no potential sale has been lost. He has not taken a material object which the producer can no longer sell.

On the other hand if one is using a piece of software to profit then you absolutely should pay for it. You should also pay for it if you are an able adult. I personally am all for kids getting software any way they can to further their knowledge and skills. One day Peanut might become a graphic artist and then be able to pay for his software. In his current situation he can not and getting it for free might just open some doors for him down the road.

I like the idea of open source much better anyway. Give the programs away for free. Then charge for technical support, manuals, and training.

Im not flaming anyone....just voicing my opinion.

[Arturus]

Originally posted by fenris69
misread something. my bad

If you're referring to me, no problem at all fenris69. You don't even need to apologize for anything, I just wanted to make it clear.

[fenris69]

lol. actually no although im sorry bout that.wanted to post something but it was locked(quite right too) that thread got waaay outta where i wanted it. but you were correct in your figures actually(from what ive heard anyways) i wanted to comment on what was said above by RoadDawg, he's quite right, ive heard far too much garbage about blaming recent immigrants, singling people out etc... in all fairness they would have to be considered but thats a job for federal officials not joe blow. and on software piracy? eh...i pirate. frequentlly, ill give stuff to friends etc... i also purchase software, doesnt matter much to me. if something 5g's then i wont use it. simple. you can get on a soapbox about it, but everyone has done something similar at some point, doesnt have to be software or even remotely related to computers...you get the idea. tis the nature of data, its freeflowing like words on a page.

[shartley]

LOL No offense taken guys. And are you STILL talking about it?

I hope that is the end of that topic. We all know that just HAVING the software matters little in the big picture anyway. Having fancy software does not make you a Graphic Artist any more than owning a sniper rifle makes you a sniper.

Besides, like it really matters what any of us personally think about it anyway, right? Just don't involve ME. I have way too much to lose. LOL :)

[cphilip]

Guys and Gals, since this is now settling in and unstuck I think it's time to move this whole thing over to the Friendly Corner. Truth is it actually belonged there from the get go. But due to the unpresidented nature of the event we, at first, felt it was best to leave it in Main. But now I think it's best we take it on over to Friendly and continue all the discussion there. I am sure there will be plenty more in the days to come.

Keep it up. Keep it clean.

God Bless America...

cphilip

[cmcconkey]

E-Card

Here is a site that is making an electronic card to be sent to the Mayor of Ney York City and the President. There arent many signatures on it right now so lets show that we are proud to be americans and get some signatures on there.

Christopher McConkey

[cmcconkey]

E-Card address...

Duh.. address....

http://www.chattanoogarelief.com/

[Load SM5]

Hey, Chattanooga, my old home town.

My dad (who lives there) sent me this. It's the first time I've seen this and thought it was interesting. Hope it's not a repeat.


Dear Friends,

Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back
to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that
this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing
to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept
collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is
your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing
whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I
thought about these issues especially hard because I am from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've
never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want
to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There
is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for
the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters
punished.

But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not
even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of
ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have
been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a
political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban,
think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when
you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the
concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had
nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of
the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the
Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs
holed-up in their country. I guarantee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and
overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're
starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago,
the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled
orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food.
Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million
men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has
been executing these women for being women and have buried some
of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan
is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been
destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the
Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done.
The Soviets took care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're
already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools
into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure.
Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone
already did all that.

New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would
they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's
Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to
move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They have already, I
hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans,
they don't move too fast. But flying over Kabul and dropping
bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did
this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause
with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been
raping all this time.

So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear
and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there
with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having
the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking
in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are
thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent
people. But it's the belly to die, not kill, that's actually on
the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden.

And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way
through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger
than that. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go
through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of
Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just
stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a
flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants
and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements.
It's all right there. At the moment, of course, "Islam" as such
does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim
countries, but no such political entity as Islam.

Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can
constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really
believes Islam would beat the West. It might seem ridiculous,
but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a
holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing
left to
lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably
wrong about winning, in the end the West would probably
overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war
would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but
ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone
else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and
poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his
cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they
and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my
humble opinion.

Tamim Ansary

[Hasty8]

President addressed the nation and the world tonight...

from the floor of the Senate. ths link will direct you to the text of that speech. I urge all who missed it to read it.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/631906.asp

I see a new day dawning in America. A day where decisions are not made in the parties best interest but in Americas best interest. I see a day where bipartisanism vanishes and the conept of one for all and all for one truly weaves it's way into the American fabric.

President Bush put it on "this" generation to help trult fight terror and I will, in any way I can, aid in that war.

It is one we must all win.

God bless America and god bless the righteous.

[beam]

I remember this. Just wanted to read through it again.

[Jonneh]

OMG THIS IS TERRIBLE

[ShooterJM]

Yeah, it's been a tough day.

My uncle normally flies that cross country route. Same flight actually. The only reason he's still alive is he decide to play hookey and take my cousin's to a ball game. He's had a tough time coping.