Modern History--15 years ago

[Hobbit]

The year was 1987. What was the headline???

Think about it for a minute, then proceed on.......





How many of you remember this???.......
During the Reagan administration there was a little thing going on know as the Iran-Contra hearings. Recently came across a clip of an old news video showing Lt.Col. Oliver North testifying at the hearings. There was North in front of God and country getting the third degree. We all know it happened, but how many can remember part and parcel of what was said????

Questioning Senator: "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?"

North replied, "Yes, I did, sir."

The senator continued, trying for a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?"

To which North replied, "No, sir."

Senator: "No? And why not?"

North: "Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir."

Senator: "Threatened? By whom?"

North: "By a terrorist, sir."

Senator: "Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?"

North: "His name is Usama bin Laden, sir."


At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it (most people back then probably couldn't). Several people in the audience laughed at his attempt. Then the senator continued..


Senator: "Why are you so afraid of this man?"

North: "Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of."

Senator: "And what do you recommend that we do about him?"

North: "Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."


The senator, of course, disagreed with this approach.
.....End of clip.....


Regardless of your personal political bent........Its sort of chilling, isn't it? Fourteen years prior to the 9/11 disaster, Lt.Col. North was naming today's nemesis.

In case you don't remember.....the questioning senator......Democratic hopeful, Al Gore.

What is amazing about all of this, is that during the intervening 14 years, nothing was done about this threat. All in the name of being politically correct.

[Sponsored Links]

[Cami A]

Ummm....Howard? You might want to check with snopes (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.htm ). :(

[tileguytodd]

I just love it when you take something obscure cami and refute it with something even more obscure.;)
No wonder your the queen of the (is it) Obscurely irrelevent :D

[Cami A]

One of my SIL's sent me that a few months ago...anything she sends me is practically a guaranteed urban legend. ;) I've seen the story pop up on a few other forums, too.

Hmmm...Queen of the Obscurely Irrelevant... I like it. :D:D:D

[bbcamp]

I gotta get my glasses checked. I read "...Obsenely Irrelevant" :D

[Hobbit]

I check everything with Snopes.;)

I'll apologize to everyone now for running this little scam.

I have recently been overrun with e-mail messages here at the College about one thing or another, most of which have been Internet propogated rumors. I saw this one several weeks back and more recently several about Middle Eastern Oil. Every one I've checked has been a rumor--no truth in fact. You would think educated people (college instructors and administration) would know better than to accept this type of thing as true without questioning it. But apparently not.

I was in a committee meeting about e-mail spam on Tuesday (two days ago). The College is aware of spam, of course, but did not believe it was as rampant a problem as I indicated. I offered to post this to a "board" to prove a point about gullibility and naivete. Unfortunately (for me and my argument), I picked the wrong "board" to test my theory.

I've mentioned several times before about my perception of the native intelligence on this forum. I should have known better than to use you for this test!;)

Sorry. I intended no harm, and was going to provide this explanation after a few posts to prove my point. Anyway, like I said, I should have known better.

It won't happen again.



Now. How do I get this committee off my neck?? Boy are they going to have fun with this!:)

:):)

[Cami A]

Busted...:D:D:D

Howard, take a key phrase and plug in into Google, like so, (http://www.google.com/search?q=Well,+sir,+if+it+was+up+to+me,+I+would+recommend+that+an+assassin+team+be+formed+to+elimina te+him+and+his+men+from+the+face+of+the+earth&sourceid=opera&num=25&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) and you'll see plenty of examples of gullible people to hold up for your committee. None of 'em hang out here, though. ;)

[Hobbit]

Yes, I know that they are out there.......(although I didn't know that Google would handle a search string that long).;)

I wasn't really trying to locate individual occurences or numbers of them. I was trying to demonstrate to this group how easy this stuff was to propogate and why (naivete) we are having such a problem with it. It's not lack of knowledge about the subjects involved, its more a willingness to accept information that is delivered by high tech protocol. It's coming to us over our high tech, secure network, therefore.........it has to be true. "Never mind checking; of course its true!";):D

Because of the nature of our business (people), we have to be a little more careful about what we say and do. Right now, we need to work on it!!:)

:):)

[Cami A]

Hmmm...interesting. I have no idea how you're going to stop one being born every minute. ;)



I'd be willing to bet not by committee, though. :D:D:D

[JC]

I was gonna say why was he saying that when Osama was on our side back then..was'nt he?

That snoopes link would w2ork for me for somereason.

[Hobbit]

You are correct about that.:)

I guess we don't really need (or intend) to stop everyone from spamming or "me too, pass it on" stuff. But we (the college) really do need to stop it internally if we can. Probably sixty or seventy percent of the spam we receive is delivered to only one recipient. From there it snowballs internally to the whole college. Education is the key, and our people should know better!;)

As a public serving institution, we need to put our best foot forward. We cannot expect our students to understand and appreciate the necessity for brevity, documentation or citation for research, expectation of privacy, or any of the other "soft" subjects we teach, if we don't practice it ourselves.:)

:):)

[Cami A]

The FORWARD: All option should just be removed from email everywhere...:D:D:D

[Hobbit]

Hallelujah! Pass the plate!:D

:):)

[John Bridge]

You got off light, Howard. :D

[JC]

On the subject of media reports 15 years ago...

http://www.fair.org/extra/0209/iraq-gas.html

Is this a conflict of interest?

http://www.aei.org/scholars/perle.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/perle.html

http://www.hollinger.com/

http://cooperativeresearch.org/organizations/foreignpolicy/defense_policy_board.htm

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaffairs/newsletter/02winter/defense.html

How about this one.

http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/1366/documentid/1705/history/3,648,1366,1705

http://www.jinsa.org/about/agenda/agenda.html





[Edited by JC on 10-27-2002 at 11:09 PM]

[flatfloor]

Just saw this thread. I thought you were going to bring up the stock market crash of '87.