This test only has one question but it's a very important one. By giving an honest answer you will discover where you stand morally. The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which you will have to make a decision. Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous.
You are in Florida. Miami, to be exact. There is chaos all around you caused by a hurricane with severe flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions. You are a photojournalist working for a major newspaper. You're caught in the middle of this great disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless. You're trying to make a career out of shooting photos. There are houses and people swirling around you. Some are even disappearing under the water. Nature is showing all of its destructive fury. You see a man in the water. He is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken away with the debris. You move closer ; the man looks familiar. Suddenly you realize who it is; it's George W. Bush!
At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him under, forever. You begin considering all your options. You can save him, or you can take the most dramatic photos of your life. You can save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, documenting the death of one of the world's most powerful men.
Here's the question and please give an honest answer:
Would you select color film or would you rather go with the classic simplicity of black and white?
Dear Doctor, thank you for making me laugh 
about his long-time opponent, William Gladstone:
"If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity."
that this is the only question which would occur to most journalists today.
-- Modified on 5/5/2005 8:12:39 PM
CBS News reports that the American and Italian investigators looking into the death of Italian commando Nicola Calipari and wounding of hostage/journalist Giuliana Sgrena have evidence that Sgrena lied about the incident from the beginning. Sgrena has long insisted that the Italian driver slowed down to under 30 MPH before approaching the checkpoint, whereupon American soldiers opened fire without warning. However, CBS now claims that data from military satellites clearly showed the car traveling towards the checkpoint at over 60 MPH without slowing down at all, triggering the defensive response from the American soldiers:
A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire.
The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour.
Giuliana Sgrena has said the car was traveling at a normal speed of about 30 miles an hour when the soldiers opened fired, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who had just secured her release from a month's captivity.
US soldiers said at the time of the March 4 incident that the car approached at a high rate of speed and that they fired only after it failed to respond to hand signals, flashing bright lights and warning shots. ...
CBS, citing Pentagon officials, said the satellite recording enabled investigators to reconstruct the event without having to rely on the eyewitness accounts.
It said the soldiers manning the checkpoint first spotted the Italian car when it was 137 yards (meters) away. By the time they opened fire and brought the car to a halt, it was 46 yards (meters) away. CBS said that happened in less than three seconds, which meant the car had to be going over 60 miles an hour.
The Italian position, therefore, has changed. Now instead of arguing that the Americans wanted to kill Sgrena for some kind of secrecy -- but then inexplicably allowed her to get medical attention once wounded -- they now claim that the checkpoint wasn't marked well enough for their driver to identify it. Going 60 MPH on a darkened road that had been widely identified as a terrorist trap, towards the airport that the Italians knew to be highly defended by American soldiers, apparently fits within Italian security parameters.
Sgrena lied, and the driver and Calipari should have known better than to try to speed their way into a fortified airport access. With the attacks on American soldiers taking place by terrorists with vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, military personnel with any experience and competence should understand the foolishness of approaching any checkpoint at a mile a minute, and should damned well be looking out for any security barriers, especially on a highway that contentious. The Italians only make themselves look foolish by continuing to highlight this as an issue.
I got a neighbor swears by Rush Limurger and Sean Hamhead. Thinks George Bush is the greatest thing since the wonderbra.
And HE laughed when I told him the joke.
Lighten up you morons, before you drag the rest of us down with your heavy duty bullshit. Jeeeez, what a fucking buzzkill.
Forcing me to pull out the really potent stuff now. I wanted to save it for Memorial Day. But NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOO!
You got to go and get all righteous and uptight on me.
P'TUI! (the sound of the tip of a fine Cuban hand rolled Caramello being bitten off and expectorated... I bet you wanna tke my cigars away from me too, eh Buzzkill?)
Monkey Assassin found your post very funny. The response was to nosense's post about the idiot Italian bitch. (learn to follow threads!, it's easy)
Monkey Assassin is no Conservatwit. He believes that if Liberidiots want to get ass-f'cked by a provider with a strap-on while smokin' a fine Cuban they should have every right to.
Now, you take a shot, go smoke some good sticky-bud, then call a provider with a big, knobbed strap-on and lighten up!
If you need some good sticky-bud, let Monkey Assassin know. Can't help you with the strap-on, though.
-- Modified on 5/6/2005 9:24:37 PM
Now about that sticky bud, I'm down with gettin killer primal with the killer primate! Meet me in Vegas, I'll bring the brew and provide the providers, you bring the papers and the primo!
Then we'll take a ride in the Great Red Shark down Paradise Road for a turn at the Wynn and spend the rest of the night teachin Sin City what its REALLY all about.
Or we can just sit around and get stoned with ZZ Top.
Bring many cases of Dos Equis Special Lager & fiesty red-headed women. Monkey Assassin will bring the red-haired sticky bud, some Zappa CD's & lots of bail money.
Don't tell Monkey Assassin's wife.
I'll bring 15 sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, various uppers, downers, screamers, and laughers, a case of Chivas, a case of Tequila (1800, ok?), a mini-barrel of Dos Equis on tap for my monkeybro, and of course, a pint bottle of ether. For, as we all know, there is nothing more irresponsible than a man (or a monkey) in the depths of an ether binge. Oh yeah, and a couple of my favorite Vixens.
You better have Freak Out in your collection though... Suzy Creamcheese popped my cherry!
Speed & uppers & downers & tequila (Monkey Assassin has spilled more tequila than most mortals have drank) all make Monkey Assassin CRAZY. And, Monkey Assissin has "special skills" taught to him by the Gov'ment.
Not a good combination
-- Modified on 5/12/2005 7:14:01 PM
Thanks for the 'official' US government/Pentagon perspective on the Sgrena incident.
However, it's been a long time since I accepted US government pronouncements about Iraq uncritically - at least since Colin Powell's presentation about all those Weapons of Mass Destruction sites. Those sites are the ones that went missing-in-action, once we actually invaded.
Below is a URL from a Christian Science Monitor piece, which presents both the US and Italian perspectives. Looks to me as though it's way too early to decide who's lying and who's telling the truth.
It's worthwhile remembering that the US adventure in Iraq is very unpopular, both worldwide and now here in the U.S. The Italians are one of the few remaining members of the 'Coalition of the Willing' who actually have troops in Iraq. Unless, George W. wants his effort in Iraq to become a 'Coalition of One', maybe we shouldn't be bitch slapping the last of our erstwhile allies. This is especially true, given Blair's weakened condition and the likelihood of the last British troops being withdrawn before too long.
Still monkey-whatever-you are: these evacuations by our allies, coupled with failures in recent monthly recuitment drives (in the Army, Reserves, National Guard, etc.), provide you with a unique opportunity. If you are younger than 39, the door is open for you to sign up for an all expense-paid trip to serve your country in Iraq.
Keep us posted. I remember the "official US Governemnt" reports on Pat Tillman.
It's either have one and laugh, or lack one and cry, at the various rantings of the far Left appearing here.
Even as a photojournalist, you gotta have a camcorder in a situation like this, so the footage can be rolled continuously on all the TV news outlets for the next few days. The Pulitzer Prize winning photo shot can be dramatically made later from the footage onto a memory stick.
The answer is color.