A Small Victory

I keep wondering if or how long it will be before the gunfire, currently pointed skyward, is leveled at the crowd.

These people deserve a country?

Todd had to tear himself away from the TV reluctantly to make it to work on time for the very same reasons...

They fire their guns into the air and the bullets fall to earth like the gentle rain...

Heh.

Yassir and the Self-Exploders, Dead and In Concert!

Turn out to support the "I Destroyed My Country and Robbed Its Starving Children Blind" tour!

Tickets:
Balcony- Your Future
Orchestra- Your Children's Lives
Mosh Pit- Your Internal Organs

opening act: Carter, Chirac and the Traitors of the West Band

no refunds

is anyone else freaked out? Bush re-elected, Arafat dies, offensive in Fallujah, riots in ramallah; there's too much going on. it's like one of those doomsday novels where every chapter starts in a new location with some new plot twist.

Amazing...too band the "band" is dead, eh? Good riddance....

These people are SO ready for self-rule, aren't they.

FOX is reporting that the wife cut a deal for $22 million a year to continue her lifestyle in Paris! No wonder it took the old bastard so long to die, that must have been quite a negotiation!

....what a target-rich environment.

They look like Bosox fans.

I thought the undersized model of Stonehenge was a bit over the top, but oh, how they danced.

I have a good idea... let's give 'em a country!

The funny part was watching the local morning news, where they had "late-breaking footage" from the mob scene in Ramallah, as crowd couldn't decide which way it wanted to take the casket. The "security" forces looked completely helpless to do anything about it.

Then the local news gave way to Good Morning America, where they went to Peter Jennings in Ramallah, who was talking about the crowd "being kept under control--it's chaos, but a respectful, controlled chaos."

I'm thinking, what party is HE watching?

Botox fans? What?

I'm avoiding the coverage. When they tip the casket over and then start eating the survivors, you'll wish you weren't watching either.

Just finished watching the video feed on FoxNews to catch up..

...didn't spot one woman in the seething crowd ... the crowd was shouting "to Jerusalem" (they buy the lie the Arafat was born there rather than Cairo)

Q: Kofi Annan ordered the UN flags lowered to half-mast when this Egyptian terrorist pederast died, did Kofi do the same for Reagan?

Q: Did Suha use Arafat's 'cause of death' as blackmail so she gets a promise of millions of $$ from the PA for life?

I was kinda hoping they'd have one of those "fumble the casket" moments like they did at Khomeini's funeral, which turns the whole thing into a sort of celebratory corpse mutilation....

What is the physics of Arab "celebratory gunfire," exactly, btw? How bad is it when you get hit by a falling bullet from an AK-47 as compared to just getting shot with one? With that crowd, it looked pretty impossible for those bullets to not hit someone....

With all the evil he committed or sanctioned, Arafat was absolutely ALL the Palestinians have ever had.

Everyone else has either exploited their misery for political gain and given nothing back to them, or ground them into the dirt in emnity.

Arafat was it. Now they have nothing.

It is very easy, since Arafat did much evil, to whip yourself up into a frenzy to declare them sub-human and not worth having anything.

But it simply isn't true.

Joe

Did anyone here say the Arab-Pals were "subhuman?"

Hmmm.... interesting

BTW..."Arafat is all they had" ...

yeah, sure.

A bullet falling to the earth from a gun pointed straight up has the same energy it had when it left the muzzle. I certainly wouldn't want to be in that crowd. All this fuss over a man who robbed and starved his people. Amazing. And don't get me started on Sewer Arafat. She should be shot, not living in luxury.

Another interesting perspective: jesushadatatoo.typepad.com

I'm glad to see that some other folks think the Arafat wake has the potential to be as funny as Khomenei's.

> A bullet falling to the earth from a gun pointed straight up has the same energy it had when it left the muzzle.

Only in places with no atmosphere.

The falling bullets are probably tumbling, which slows them even more.

Wellstone

When's the 21-"martyr" salute?

I couldn't help but compare this scene to Reagan's funeral. Quite a contrast.

People get killed or injured by "happy fire" frequently. Those bullets gotta land somewhere, and while taking 130 grains of lead in the head at 1200 FPS might be tecnically better than at 2400fps, it still kills you. This happens more in the Middle East than here, but I seem to recall at least one American ciyt's advisory last New Year's Eve that people should avoid 'celebratory gunfire' as it creates a danger.

And when those bullits come back down and kill a few celebratory folk, how long till they blame it on Isreali snipers?

"With all the evil he committed or sanctioned, Arafat was absolutely ALL the Palestinians have ever had.
Everyone else has either exploited their misery for political gain and given nothing back to them, or ground them into the dirt in emnity."

Joseph, haven't you been paying attention? This is exactly what Arafat did!

I always wondered what happened to that poor shithead who dropped his end of Khomeini's casket?

Well I settled myself in on my couch this morning just like I always do for a good State Funeral. Kleenex-check, Tylenol-check, herbal tea-check.
I have such sweet memories of Reagan and Princess Di. Well, cry me a river.
I came in to work and started to tell my employees about the mob scene at Ramallah and compared it to Princess Di's funeral and almost pee'd on myself.
They looked at me like I am crazy, poor kids. Oh well.

A bullet fired straight up into the air will continue upward until all its kinetic energy is either converted to altitude or burned off as friction. Then, it falls, accelerating to no faster than its terminal velocity, at which point gravity is balanced by air drag.

What that speed is for a little aerodynamic piece of lead, I dunno. I betcha it'd hurt like a mother, though.

DaveP: sounds like that concert's da bomb

I watched it too. Someone want to explain what the hell it was with the prominant Canadian flag there? Is there a lot of Canuks waliking into crowded malls with a bomb vest screaming "God is great, eh?"

According to news reports, 9 people were injured as a result of the gunfire.

On the subject of falling bullets; gravity creates an acceleration of 10 metres/second per second. After 1 second, an object is falling at 10 metres/second, 2 seconds => 20 metres/second, 3 seconds => 30 metres/second. Due to air friction, the maximum velocity is 120 miles/hour. Being hit by a train travelling at 120 miles/hour is usually fatal. Even being hit by a small hammer from behind can do some damage. So being hit by 130 grams of lead at 120 miles/hour is going to do some damage.