“And in our extended forecast, we have partly anthrax from now through Friday, and then intermittent radioactivity over the weekend, with measurable ricin on the horizon for next week…”
This is depressing on so many levels.
What is their definition of a WMD? (Does anthrax count?)
Why 10 years? Is there a precise time limit on terrorism?
And finally, the use of 70%:
‘Fred, how many WMD’s are there in the World?’
‘Gee, Bob, I dunno. Let’s say lots.’
‘Is that more than many?’
‘Sure. At least I think so.’
‘OK, now what’s the chance someone will let one off.’
‘You’re in a strange mood, Bob. I guess it’s probably not fairly likely.’
‘How about in the next decade?’
‘Decade?’
‘That’s 10 years, dummy! Didn’t you study Greek?’
‘What’s that got to do with the price of beans?’
‘Shut up a minute - I’ve got to multiply lots by probably not fairly likely over the next 10 years. Err … 2+9; times 5, carry one and allow for inflation … that’s 59.423.’
‘Nobody likes a smartass - make it a round number!’
‘OK … err … 70%!’
‘Now that’s accurate. Put it on the news.’
Isn’t that: "Don’t worry, daredevil. We’ll repel them with our beaver army and our flannel-clad squadrons of hockey-stick wielding, beer-swilling Mounties, eh? "
There’s nothing worse than a missing stereotype from you igloo-dwellers.
(I used to live in Minnesota [motto: “We’re not quite Canada, yet”] , met people who actually believed it was glacial there all year round.)
Re: the OP. I agree with glee , on general principles that “glee is good” if nothing else. To give a specific number for the chance of a single event that hasn’t happened before and isn’t particularly well defined is almost as rediculous as reporting that number as though it meant something.
You sure that wasn’t a Jon Stewart interview?
What the current term for this type of scare journalism? I’m sick of it. People make stuff up with a tiny germ of truth in it, and call it a news story. No, it’s not; it’s fiction. There’s a chance we could all die tomorrow from a rogue meteor smashing into us, but there’s no point in reporting it as news, is there?
And your forecast for today is partly cloudy, level orange, with an 80% chance of showers and a 70% chance of WMDs.
It’s been done before, I know. But this is what I expected when I saw the Thread Title
Og, it’s depressing crap coming from the “experts”, but oh, man, I’ve had a good laugh from this thread!
An existential threat?
So, media saturation of the War on Terror and WMD will make us all become vocally alienated and question reality itself?
Yeah, I can buy that.
This terror alert has been brought to you by Prozac: Making bad things less irritating.™
That means there is a 30% chance of dying by the usual cancer, stroke or heart attack.
This means I can finally take up smoking! Woooooooo!
On the plus side, we may see Godzilla in person, so we go that going for us.
Godzilla isn’t a Marylander. Peraps you are thinking ofOr the EEEVILL snakehead fish by way of China (a fish so EEEVILL that it can effin’ crawl from one lake to another).
A better link about the snakehead, which was originally found in Crofton, so I guess it’s not much of a WMD threat, either.
If David Byrne is prognosticating, I’ll eat my hat. Or, my oversized jacket. Whichever.
They showed footage of dangerous chemicals (a drum of red-orange powder that they stirred for the camera), and had an ‘expert’ talking about ‘dirty bombs’.
I found it to be a ‘useless story’, like saying ‘Los Angeles is expected to have a devestating earthquake that will virtually destroy the area sometime in the next 10,000 years.’ They stated the obvious.
I get a little fed up with scare stories on local news. Several years ago a local station in L.A. (KNBC, IIRC) ran a story about the ‘dangers’ of sun tea. Apparently, there are bacteria that may live on tea leaves that might be dangerous, because the water is not boiled (which would kill the bacteria). After spending three minutes (or five minutes, or whatever it was) telling people that they could be in danger from drinking this most-popular beverage, they concluded by saying (paraphrasing) ‘There are no reports of anyone actually getting sick from drinking sun tea; but better safe than sorry.’ :rolleyes:
I am not an expert, but I’ll make some predictions.
[ul][li]There will be more (conventional) terror attacks in Israel within the next twelve months[/li][li]There will be terror attacks in Europe within the next five years[/li][li]A large portion of an Atlantic island will slide into the ocean, creating a super-tsunami that will destroy the east coast of North America within the next 100,000 years[/li][li]A large portion of Hawaii will slide into the ocean creating a tsunami that will devestate the west coast of North America within the next 100,000 years[/li][*]Local news will broadcast meaningless stories within the next six months to scare viewers into watching their shows[/ul]
Well, let’s see. If we multiply 10 years times 365.25 days we get 3652.5 days in the next 10 years that a WMD could strike. Then let’s divide that 70% risk over each of those days, and we get about .0002% chance that the WMD will strike somewhere in the world on any given day. Then, let’s just say there are about 40 countries big enough to be a target, or piss someone else off enough to be a target, and we have about .000005% of the country I am in getting smoked today. And since my own personal country is probably pissing off people at about 5 times the rate of other countries, I’ll give us about a .000025% chance of eating it today. And that’s rounding up. I’m not too worried.
KIRO huh, typical Seattle forecast. Report a percentage high enough to give the appearance that they’re qualified to calculate such a number, but with a high enough chance of failure that no one can justifiably tell them they are complete idiots.
I’ve been in far too many 70% sunny days that have turned into torrential rains, and 70% “News Alert Wind Storm 2003!” that never rustled a single leaf for me to ever trust a prediction from the Seattle media.
“Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
We blended in with the crowd.
We got computers, we’re tapping phone lines,
I know that that ain’t allowed.
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
Or in a suit and a tie…” [“Life During Wartime”]
"And when they split those atoms
It’s hotter than the sun.
Blood is a special substance…
So wake up… young lovers.
The whole thing is over…" [“Swamp”]
Would you like something to drink with that oversized jacket?