Posted on 04/17/2006 8:22:06 AM PDT by stm
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday strongly condemned an attack in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian homicide bomber who killed himself and seven other people and wounded dozens more.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Way to go out on a limb.
Yeah and? What's your point? Share your wisdom and plan of action with us all! (Let me guess, does it involve a mushroom cloud?)
If not a mushroom cloud, parhaps about 20 or so Tomahawks with proximity fuses.
Great plan! Perhaps save it for when our country is actually attacked.
I sure as hell wish Fox would stop using the ridiculous term "homicide bombing." If "suicide bombing" isn't descriptive enough, why not "jihad bombing?"
This is why Israel has to erect walls. The Islamo-Nazi death cult of Hamas has endorsed this homicidal bombing in Tel Aviv. All aid to the P.A. should be cut off...if these sick monsters endorse killing innocents let them be cut off and wither away....let the monkey man Ahmednijihad of Iran support his murderous vermin PA comrades.
I find it much more accurate than "suicide bombing."
How about just letting Israel know one simple statement.
You do what you feel you must do, and we will not say a word about it.
I can't argue with that statement. And President Bush and his administration have time and again publicly supported Israel's right to defend herself.
Well, you're wrong. It's insufficiently descriptive. Anybody who kills another using an explosive commits a homicide bombing. "Suicide bombing" describes a subclass of homicide bombings, in which the bomber deliberately kills himself as part of his plan. Fox's insistence on this silly term led to absurdities like last weekend where the network reported that Iran had trained a cadre of 40,000 "homicide bombers" to attack American interests in the event of military action against them.
I've long held that the honesty and suitability of a term can be judged by imagining how accurately somebody who had never heard it before would guess its meaning on hearing it for the first time. "Affirmative action" fails the test. So does "welfare". "Pro-choice" and "pro-life" both. And so does "homicide bomber." Fox doesn't (and would't) describe people like Timothy McVeigh and Theodore Kaczynski as "homicide bombers", but somebody who had never heard the term before would never guess it.
Homicide implies taking someone else's life. Which is what this is all about. I could argue the evil vermin that indiscrminately slaughter innocents aren't worth enough to count as suicides.
I'm not wrong.
Yes, which is what a suicide bomber does... among other things.
If it implied more, then we would not require terms like "murder-suicide."
Which is why we don't say "a Palestinian committed suicide in front of a Tel Aviv restaurant today," we say "a Palestinian committed a suicide bombing in front of a Tel Aviv restaurant today." The latter term has a well-understood meaning.
Homicide implies taking someone else's life. Which is what this is all about.
It is, once again, insufficiently descriptive. Why include the word "bombing"? Why not just say "a Palestinian killed a bunch of people?" In fact, why include "killed"? Why not just say "there was a Palestinian in Tel Aviv today?" Because none of these terms is descriptive enough. They're all factually accurate, just as it's accurate to say that a Palestinian committed homicide today. But they're too vague. Saying that there was a "homicide bombing" doesn't convey enough information... after all, a Palestinian who leaves a bomb in a restaurant and detonates it remotely also commits homicide. Describing the act of a "suicide bombing" gives more information about the Palestinian's method. And not describing a Palestinian who leaves a bomb in a restaurant and detonates it remotely as a "homicide bomber" but reserving the term solely for those who commit suicide bombings is disengenuous.
I could argue the evil vermin that indiscrminately slaughter innocents aren't worth enough to count as suicides.
Oh, please. So how would you describe it if a Palestinian terrorist, captured before he could carry out his plot, hangs himself in his prison cell?
They're evil vermin, all right. But when they kill themselves they objectively commit suicide. Describing them as sub-human is fine, but it's loaded with opinion and has no place in a news story. It smacks of propaganda.
I'm repulsed by the rampant liberal bias in the media, but when Fox pulls a stunt like this they give ammunition to those who would claim that they themselves are biased in the other direction.
"Way to go out on a limb."
Pretty bad pun. Limb? Ouch!!! ;)
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