Fox: Commercial Pilots 'attacked' with laser

Fox News | Greta Van Susteren

[ableChair]

Greta Van Susteren reported that a Delta pilot enroute to Salt Lake City was lazed in the cockpit this last Wednesday. Only country I know that has that hardware (for lazing bomber pilots) was the Soviet Union. Pilot reportedly required medical treatment and this was not a minor injury (weak laser) wound. More will come out to tomorrow as this story hits the print press.

[ableChair]

The post you referred to was after the initial post to me from Selene. Look at Selene's first post to me. Even when discussing THIS issue you're trying to distort the truth.

"but judging by your profile page..."

Ummm, there's nothing on my profile page.

Again, I think someone got their ego hurt and their trying to distort the truth here.

[ableChair]

Admittedly, when debating lasers it's not as important, but when debating ideas winning is absolutely essential. These threads are read by the public and don't kid yourself that we're not at war. Winning in that context certainly does matter.

[ableChair]

That is an outright lie

Ohhh, really? Then what is this?

"Blah blah blah. You have no idea what you are talking about."

An even better question is why have other posters searching for past posts chosen to ignore this one? If you can't take it don't dish it out. Notice the tone of my posts AFTER that one. Even now you're trying to distort the truth. You were proven to be wrong in the debate, which I can see someone denying. But now you're denying who started the bar-room tone and who should be admonished.

[ableChair]

...seriously mentally ill

The tone continues...but never do YOU get admonished. Curious. In the spirit of a pleasant tone, I won't say what this reveals but let the reader decide.

[ableChair]

I think this whole affair demonstrates why we will always have a hard time converting libs to our side. Politics tends to reflect personality and one of the uglier sides of the conservative personality is a tendency to dish out all kinds of arrogant, rude and outright mean comments then think you've done nothing wrong and not be able to deal with the response. Pick a fight and then when the 'victim' stands up to you call the police. Typical, unfortunately, but something I've noticed very often with conservative personalities. Thank God that for whatever reason I didn't pick up that trait and I'm still conservative.

[ableChair]

...last raving nutter who mailed him.

The implication being clear... and

ableChair, I would love to hook you up with someone else to chat with, but I'm afraid there is nobody of your caliber on FreeRepublic.

More of that lovely tone. But you are never admonished. And remember, read the policy page. There is no strict ban on foul language. One poster in a previous thread replied to me with all sorts of profanity. He was 'reported' to the moderator. Nothing was done. A request was made to the moderator as to what is acceptable on FR. No reply. What does that tell me? It tells me the parameters of debate on FR. If you can't take it don't dish it out.

You will be happy to know that I will no longer post on FR because of a minority of individuals who can't take what they dish out and a posting policy that is schizophrenic.

[ableChair]

Saving the best for last

I suggest you do some serious soul searching as you are likely inflicting great suffering on anyone with the misfortune to involve themselves in your personal life.

Rich.

[Dan Evans]

Admittedly, when debating lasers it's not as important, but when debating ideas winning is absolutely essential. These threads are read by the public and don't kid yourself that we're not at war. Winning in that context certainly does matter.

What does it mean to say you've "won" an argument? It sure doesn't mean that you've arrived at the truth. But arriving at the truth is the most important thing. And keeping the discussion unemotional is conducive to a productive argument.

At least as important is your own credibility. If you are seen as disingenuous, supporting arguments that you don't truly believe in simply to feed your own ego, then your credibility vanishes and then later you will not be believed by good people even when you are right.

Bill Clinton lost credibility when he was caught as a liar. His supporters claimed it didn't matter because he only lied about sex. In truth, he lied to the person most important to him, his wife. The correct assumption is that if he would cheat on the person most important to him, then he would also cheat on his country. And it turned our he did.

Regarding lasers, the discussion is important to the pilot who may find himself weighing the relative merit of expensive protective gear. If what Blackdog says about pilot visibility is true, the threat isn't nearly as bad as it seems. And in any case, countermeasures can be easily devised.

[kodaChrome]

What does it mean to say you've "won" an argument? It sure doesn't mean that you've arrived at the truth. But arriving at the truth is the most important thing. And keeping the discussion unemotional is conducive to a productive argument.


dont flame me, this is just my opinion. i seldom post but i read FR a lot. ive gone through the whole thread and i think ableChair was right. mostly. his style leaves a lot to be desired but i think you missed his point with the above quote. what hes saying is that seeking truth may always matter in private discussion but not in public. people use public forums to spread disinformation and were at war. even if your wrong sometimes its necessary to just win otherwise the enemy convinces others to follow. its about persuasion not truth.


regarding the rest of this debate ableChair was correct in stating that another poster changed the tone as he called it. starting off with "blah, blah" is very condescending and that poster should have expected a spirited response.


the bystanders have a valid beef but i think if you see a rumble going on its best not to get into it and take sides if you dont want to get slammed too.


the part about the sunlight was pretty well covered with what i thought was a clear and easily understandable quote. but other posters relintlessly tried to prove a hard copy source wrong. ableChair was making a sutle point about the difference between sunlight that hits the ground directly vs sunlight that gets channeled in the atmosphere. i looked in a cheesy astronomy book i have and it said the same thing. 5 percent hits the ground directly. so 95 percent is blocked somehow. but i think ableChair was wrong about lasers and i dont think the air offers that much resistance to lasers.


finally i read the ego thing differently too. i think ableChair may not be firing all pistons but it was the ones posting against him that were posting replies on ego. i dont know if he did it on purpose but he cleverly ensnared the posters by sounding like he didnt know anything. once they took the bait he slammed them. but then they had to protect their ego because they were tricked. imho.

[Dan Evans]

dont flame me, this is just my opinion. i seldom post but i read FR a lot. ive gone through the whole thread and i think ableChair was right.

You posted a little bit back on 2/07/2002 -- the day you were born. ableChair started a thread and got into a flame war but you came to his defense just as you are doing now. It's almost as if ableChair and kodaChrome were of one mind. You posted about six times and then that was the last we heard from you until now.

and were at war. even if your wrong sometimes its necessary to just win

So how far would you go to win an argument? Would you resort to creating an alternate user identity to support you?

From ableChair's profile page: "I am me and you are you. But I'm not real, just a shadow. Here but gone, never quite reified. Catch me if you can. "

Vanity Post By ableChair

But regarding egos or alter-egos, I don't agree that the people who critisized you, er... I mean ableChair did so to protect their ego. If that were true they would have responded to your... I mean, his insults in kind. They would have flamed him back. But they didn't, they were quite civil. Why would they do that? Why would they take those insults when it would have been so easy to shoot back? Because they wanted to teach him a lesson by example. Instead of flaming him, or calling the moderator, they showed him that it is possible to have a debate without responding with invective.

Well, ableChair said he won't post here anymore but I expect you will. I do hope you've learned something about civility from his bad example

[kodaChrome]

i think your being overly paranoid. yes, ive defended ableChair before and ive read his posts before. ive also made other posts as well. relax.

[MeekOneGOP]

[Happy2BMe]

So what's the consensus - Russians, Islamic terrorists (with Russian equipment), or one of our own military experiments gone awry?

[MeekOneGOP]

[boltCutter]

I too, was on that vanity thread. Does that make me ableChair :-). For the record, I think ableChair was right also. In my op, this is just an ego trip for the folks that were out-maneuvered.

[DB]

ableChair: "Ummm, there's nothing on my profile page."

http://www.freerepublic.com/~ablechair/

"I am me and you are you. But I'm not real, just a shadow. Here but gone, never quite reified. Catch me if you can."

At least until he changes it...

The truth speaks for itself. You sir, are deeply confused.

[DB]

Right about what?

[Boot Hill]

THIS IS A MUST SEE!!!

kodaChrome: (since Feb 7, 2002)   “i think ableChair was right”

boltCutter: (since Feb 7, 2002)   “I think ableChair was right”

Let's see, they both use the same quote, same DOR, same number of characters in screen name, same unusual capitalization structure. ROTFLMAO, that's about as subtle as Dan Rather's forged memos!

Hey, able Chair, I thought you just Opused in #586 and promised you weren't going to post here anymore?

Heck, it's not like anyone can complain that ableChair didn't give everyone fair notice about what he was up to, he even put it on his profile page:   "I'm not real, just a shadow...Catch me if you can"!

--Boot Hill

[Dan Evans]

I too, was on that vanity thread. Does that make me ableChair :-).

Another one! Same "born on" date as kodaChrome. Same user name style.

ableChair
boltCutter
kodaChrome

So there must be at least 11 of you if you created the names in alphabetical order.

And I just went through a few of your posts. You claim to be from Denver and ableChair has a Colorado flag on his profile page.

[DB]

It looks to me like you've caught him.

Personally I think he's violated both the trust and rules of the site and should be booted.