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This is beyond utterly ridiculous. To think these people died from some kind of archaic religious pilgrimage-ritual. Events like this give religion a bad name.

Someone should extend this and simplify by making another [edit] ritual performed at the earliest part of the pilgrimage. That would give more people the chance to lauch some rocks at some mythical columns. + That's not the problem, it's the overcrowding (soccer games, rock concerts, etc).

How utterly foolish we humans can be in the face of obediance to unseen or imagined powers! Craziness has no solution. How can we ever hope to reconcile beliefs when they are so extreme? [rock/paper/scissors/world domination] Good thing the Saudis Oil-Kings are on our side!
At Least 345 People Die in Hajj Stampede

The hajj is a complex balance of safety with Islam's requirements that every able-bodied Muslim should perform the pilgrimage at least once. Saudi Arabia sets a quota of participants, allowing every nation to send 1,000 pilgrims for every 1 million in population.

The three-day stoning ritual in particular is a nightmarish problem in crowd dynamics.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims must move up the ramps onto the platform, maneuver from pillar to pillar and hit each with seven stones, then exit.

Many of the pilgrims are in a rush because of the time constraints on the ritual and their anxiety about past stampedes.

Traditionally, stoning was carried out from midday to sunset.

Shiite Muslim clerics have issued edicts allowing pilgrims to do the stoning in the morning, and some Sunni clerics have followed suit in an attempt to space out the crowds. But some clerics following Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam urge the faithful to stick to the midday start.

Ok...thanks for the feedback. I toned it down and I think it says what I mean without so much hostility ;-}.

I want to be a stone vendor at this pilgrimage.
Preferably somewhere near the front.
3 bucks a stone or 72 virgins, whatever fair market value is these days.

shut your mouth you infidel fools! you will all perish in hell along with your white devil savior.

now hear this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4604088.stm

theres no place to hide from the fallout. your end is near.

i love the photo in that article. that's really what it looks like, eh? just a barrel and a bunch of guys tryin' to keep the germs away. i just figured this whole big deal of breaking the seal would look so much more high-tech, or involved, in some way shape or form, i guess... i dunno, it just looks like something i'd see on the onion.

Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdel Aziz told reporters the kingdom had "spared no effort" to avoid such disasters but, he added, "it cannot stop what God has preordained. It is impossible."

fuckin saudis make a shitload of money from this every year, and this guy says its the hand of god that caused this. what an ass. sometimes the blind ignorance of religion, particularly fundamentalist islam really pisses me off.

...piss me off, too, but what do you know? I see in all countries (even our own) that religious types often use "selective memory" to justify the heinous acts of Man as being ordained from the hand of God. Like W's hotline where he asks for advice (instead of listening to his own father). How much does that kind of cell technology cost? Imagine that...I'm going to phone God now. I wonder what he'll tell *me* to do? Stone some pillars or trample people trying? Not like we don't do the same with jets and stones that use laser-targetting. Interesting parallel going on here, but crowds of that magnitude suck no matter what. Just stay home! [You know, why do they stone the pillars if they are already made of stone? Isn't that redundant? I'm also thinking if three million people all descended on a Slip concert there'd be some people squashed too (especially in the front row). Now I just compared a Slip show with Mecca. I'm wrong like that. ;-} ]

-Phrazz

I find it somewhat insulting, rather naive and extermely ignorant to criticize someone else's religion, regardless of what that religion is. I find it even more offensive (and more ignorant)(and exceedingly arrogant) to suppose that a person can know what motivates any other person, much less the thousands who make a pilgrimage to Mina each year. I'm sure this incident has left a lot of people with a lot of sadness (can you imagine your brother or sister or child dying by being trampled while making this journey, one that every member of your family and every member of every family every member of your family knows or has ever known, has made, for as long as anyone can remember), and I think it's in bad taste to come in here and crack jokes about it. I'm probably a little oversensitive since they're Muslims and since Islam has gotten a bad rap ever since Iraqis decided that an armed occupation didn't gibe with their plans for the place they were born and raised and worked in and started families and businesses and built homes in (what do you think happened to everyone's IRAs when Dubya came to town?). oh, wait, my bad. We started hating Muslims before that. But really, is it funny that these people died? Or is it funny that you know next to nothing about a religion followed by roughly 20% of the world's people?

Or are both of those really sad?


oh, and FWIW, Saudi Arabia isn't the only place people get crushed by crowds:
http://www.crowddynamics.com/Disasters/ ... mpedes.htm

Hey Ethan,

I was insulting religious fundamentalism. I think you're reading a lot into this if you feel "insulted". I am morally outraged that people trample others to death to try get closer to God (in any religion). That is a powerful fact and my humor is satire to expose what I see as tremendous heresy. This tragedy is not lessened by my opinion, and rubbing salt in the wound is not the issue here. The issue is people died for a very stupid reason. Although I respect people's right to religion, I do not respect their right to kill each other because of a religious viewpoint (behavior or activity in this case).

We can talk about personal arrogance by example, but I think the Saudi government is being arrogant here. I know what motivates people (especially with regards to religious fundamentalism). Religion itself is not bad, it's the use of religion to subvert the rights of the individual (look at all the heinous acts committed in the name of religion, the Inquisition to modern day warfare, religious stampedes...these are just wrong and we have a right to speak out against it (I speak out against Catholicism but rarely against the Buddhists, I wonder why?).

I find any religion that replaces human rights with an arbitrary form of social rules to be reprehensible. The taking of human life in any "pilgrimage" whether at Mecca or a Who Concert is downright disgusting!

If my brother were killed in such a horrible way, however, I'd be even more enraged and satirical. I would also take action. I am surprised the Saudi government just sweeps this under the rug. That is much more disgusting and insulting and arrogant than our verbal assaults.

I'm not pissed at the ones who died, I'm pissed at the ones who stepped on them. I've been stepped on, too (but lived to talk about it). I can think those who died probably want to say "hey, please don't step on your brothers and sisters, no need to squash while throwing rocks". I understand the symbolic value, but I just don't see how that justifies the actions that lead to disaster. We forget that Religions are like hats at times...everyone can't be right and everyone can't be wrong. It's somewhere in-between.

It is not when we laugh when times are easy, it's how we deal with tragedy when times are tough. I consider this a very serious matter and you're confusing satire with light-heartedness. My heart is very heavy and I'm sad, too, but I don't express myself in the way others may want me to.

Satire: 1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn

What is a "human vice"? What is "Folly"? What is "scorn"? Maybe it's felt that satire stems from arrogance...whereas I would argue that satire stems from indignation. Being angry is not the same as being arrogant (always right) or ignorant (miseducated, unaware, etc).

-Phrazz

P.S.: My IRA also got slammed when W helped wreck our economy and he's also destroying the third world and that pisses me off just as much as you. Tax breaks for the richest 5% is not my idea of economic reform, nor is outsourcing to other countries and insourcing from those who will work for less than minimum wages.

P.P.S.: What makes you an expert in the Muslim religion?

phrazz, i dont think ethan was directing what he said to you, but i guess we'll have to wait and see his response.

i took a minute and responded to ethan directly, and to others who think i was being judgemental, ignorant, or arrogant towards islam or other religions, well i was. ive seen the blindness caused by religion and the havoc it causes first hand, and i cant stand for, and i will voice my opinion whenver i can about it. hopefully some of us can get together one day and talk openely about it. i personally dont think a board is the right place for it.

now, can we talk about religious fanatical states with nuclear weapons?

now, can we talk about religious fanatical states with nuclear weapons?


Better yet, Chirac threatens to use nuclear weapons in response to a state sponsored terrorist attack. Do you think there is anyone in the world who took him seriously?

I heard Canada is thinking about using nukes on Amsterdam because their weed is so much better than beasters

AcRj wrote:Better yet, Chirac threatens to use nuclear weapons in response to a state sponsored terrorist attack. Do you think there is anyone in the world who took him seriously?

im sure there were certain people who took him very seriously. just like when he sponsers terrorist attacks. covert operations fall into that categroy too.

im most worried about people that denounce genocides. these same people now want nuclear power. the problem is what side does russian and china sit on?

bastards! all of em.

headnugg wrote:I heard Canada is thinking about using nukes on Amsterdam because their weed is so much better than beasters

we've been warning those motherfuckers for years. now they're about to find out.

For the record, I didn't find Phrazz's or diesel's posts offensive (maybe I should have?) I think it was the line in the original post about 'just put a bullet in your head at the start of your pilgrimage' that pushed me over the edge.

I apologize to you Phrazz, and to you diesel. Your generous responses make it appear that I touched a nerve, and I'm sorry that you felt my anger was intended for you.

For what it's worth, I think I was well within (or at least not far out of) my rights to generalize the way I did about everyone a person knows having made the pilgrimage, and about Iraqis (insurgents) fighting against US forces and the reasons they would fight. I imagine (clever, huh?) that the majority of the so-called 'insurgency' are people defending their homeland. The same thing happens, I think, whenever you have an occupant in a foreign territory. I think it's interesting to note that when the occupants are Nazis, the fighting locals are called 'the resistance' and celebrated as heroes, but when the occupants are Americans, the fighting locals are called insurgents and looked on as a sort of cancer to be removed. (Anyone who wants to make a 'they were trying to take over the world, and we're trying to help Iraq', well we can talk about it, but I think you'll find that Hitler used a lot of the same calls to patriotism, including the 'with us or against us' tactic, that "Bush" uses.) But I digress...

All i was really trying to say is that maybe it seems like a stupid idea to follow some religion, and maybe it seems like a stupid idea to throw stones at stone pillars, and maybe it seems like a stupid idea to get yourself crushed anywhere, but maybe it also seems stupid to live in the city, or to live in a country where your leader can't pronounce nuclear, or to spend your time posting on the web or whatever. But all of those people are really dead.

And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe they went to Heaven, or wherever. Maybe the people who witnessed the deaths will be changed forever. Maybe the people who got trampled and survived will appreciate life that much more. And maybe I know what the hell I'm talking about.


OK, that's enough ranting and wandering. Sorry to piss you off Phrazz. Sorry to shock you diesel. Sorry to hijack anybody's fun. Quit making fun of people, you're pretty fucking funny yourself.


BTW, there's a GD1973-05-26 torrent up at etree right now. It's a classic show, and a tasty recording. I'll probably keep seeding all weekend. And anybody who's got the 1972-08-27, hook it up.. You know that shit's golden.

we live in a precarious position (the whole planet) and it obviously leads to disaster, some disasters are avoidable, some are not. We also may find things offensive and after rereading my original post, it's definitely over the mark. I think I overstated what I was thinking about, but it came out wrong and the point is lost because the message is too strong. I'll rescind that because it doesn't fit in with what I really feel -- obviously I haven't treated things as broadly as I should (in the context that we are definitely overpopulated, and this isn't something that angst alone will fix! seeing all the other world events like this [thanks for the link, Ethan, I finally read all of them. Incredible when taken together like that...the major factor here].

It's nice of you to respond (thoughtfully and heartfully) -- I feel like we're both on the same side with the major issues, and I also feel I overreacted. It is partially because I've seen some pretty terrible tragedies up close, so it tends to make me feel strongly about certain issues I think can be resolved right now (things get in the way, but maybe to slow things down...progress can only come so fast or it's not lasting).

Haha you aren't the first one to compare these two, and you're right on the "money". It's about control and money...the other stuff (lives, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) are optional (or to be parceled out to the lucky few, at other people's cost). Some of the neighborhood power-tripping thugs got caught, and there's a little pendulum swinging (hopefully a major correction, but that will take a major indictment that will stick...one big decision coming soon to a TV theatre near you).

The mess is only going to get worse: it is the nature of chaos. I'm not sure how far it will go, but the situation is grim right now (is probably a lot worse than we can ever guess, this far away). Bullets are definitely not the answer: bread is much cheaper. I like liquid bread, which is beer. I think any free society should realize that beer is a sign the democracy is healthy. Whiskey is a sign people appreciate the aroma of the forest.

Your points are well-taken and very genuine, and I appreciate your friendship. Thank you for putting up with my shenanigans.

-Phrazz