http://tinyurl.com/es43n

Or stick with the Rolex.

Best,

--- Les Bell

[http://www.lesbell.com.au]

One would think this is a genuine April's fool joke. I wonder if America completely went insane (though "terrorism" is ever so often used to push repressive laws here in Germany as well...).

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I wonder if America completely went insane

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Many of us that live here in the US wonder the same thing. The politicians now seem to be able to do anything they want, and if asked to justify it, all they have to say is "don't you want us to defend you from terrorists?"

No Mr. Boehm, we haven't gone completely insane. What we have done is go after the organizations that facilitated the attack on 9/11. These people were not detained simply because they wear a Casio watch. Most were captured in batle in Afghanistan. They were fighting on the side of the Taliban and Al Queda, the people who gave us the attack on 9/11, and are also the people who insist that women wear the burka (spelling?), and also don't believe that women should be educated.

This forum is not the place for political disucssions, discussions about global terrorism, of other such weighty issues. It is for the discussion about HP calculators. However, your comment has made me outraged, and I have to respond. I have driven past the hole in the ground in Manhattan wherer the twin towers once stood. I also happened to see the twin towers in the distance the first time the Islamic terrorists tried to destroy them. I remember seeing the pictures of people jumping out of the twin towers, choosing to die by falling to the ground rather than be burned to death in a jet fuel fire. Have you ever seen these pictures? Have you ever seen the pictures of the people desperatley clinging to the outside of the building? I have, they are still vivid in my mind. We also know that these people are constantly plotting to attack us again, and to cause the maximum number of civilian casualties. Sadly, sooner or later they will probably have another successful attack against us, what will you say then? I'm sure the intended target will be something like a sports stadium, hospital, school, or something similar.

No Mr. Boehm, we are not the insane ones. The ones who are insane are the terrorists. Read the article again. You will see that these people are not detained merely because the happen to have a Casio watch. The ownership of a Casio watch is not the sole piece of evidence, but is stated as being "among" the evidence. The article also goes on to detail instances where these watches have been used as timers in terrorist bombs.

This is the last I will say on this matter to you. I have no desire to engage in a flame war, or to debate this matter with you; this forum is not the place to engage in those activities. You touched on a very sensitive subject. I hope that in the future you will restrict your comments to HP calculators, and not to criticizing my country.

Mr. Young is right; there is no need for foreigners to criticize the US. There are plenty of US citizens, myself included, that are outraged at the ridiculous things the US is doing that are claimed to support the undeclared "war on terror", but are in fact destroying whatever goodwill the US once had with the other nations of the world.

Regardless of the fact that those people were not detained specifically because they happened to be wearing cheap Casio watches, it is still incredibly stupid that the posession of such a watch is considered evidence. That would never fly in the criminal justice system, and it is pure insanity that the rules of criminal justice are not applied to the detainees.

If they had analyzed the watches, AND determined that they had somehow been modified for use as part of a weapon, that would be a reasonable thing to consider evidence. But the mere posession of an unmodified watch is not evidence of terrorist intent any more than my own posession of a boltcutter is evidence that I steal bicycles.

Claiming that the detainees do not have rights under the Geneva Convention does not benefit ANYONE. Torturing detainees does not benefit ANYONE. If we want to fight terrorism, we should do it within the established legal framework; there is no evidence that extra-legal means are actually making us safer, and in fact they may be making us less safe.

I didn't start this thread as a political statement, but I'll also not remain silent when other US citizens who apparently have bought the adminstration's bullshit try to defend it.

Following Mr. Young's lead, I will not post any further on this topic in this forum; anyone who wishes to discuss it with me is free to do so via email.

Eric Smith

IRA & others have used commonly-available West Bend countdown timers for years for bombmaking.

I will add that if I were an investigator/mil int type and saw Abu Akbar wearing a Casio watch I wouldn't think much of it, esp if worn/scratched/dirty band. Now, if Akbar had a box of 5 in his luggage, then I'd think quite a bit differently.

Actually, plastic Casio watch wearers should be arrested simply for poor taste :)

Bill Wiese

San Jose, CA USA

re: "Actually, plastic Casio watch wearers should be arrested simply for poor taste :)"

Well, they may not look so cool, but they have some attributes of HP calculators: (reasonably) well designed, functional, reliable, inexpensive (OK, I threw that one in), batteries last a long time, ...

I have many, and they last virtually forever (unless you break off the little tabs that hold the watch band). Some of mine are more than 15 years old. I don't know of any other $15 watches you can SCUBA dive to 120 feet with.

Also, perhaps like HP calculators, they don't know when to quit "improving" the product. The newer ones have overly fancy displays and look quite garish compared to the classics.

Dave Shaffer stated,

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I have many, and they last virtually forever (unless you break off the little tabs that hold the watch band). Some of mine are more than 15 years old. I don't know of any other $15 watches you can SCUBA dive to 120 feet with.

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Some of you might wonder why Dave capitalized "SCUBA". After all, "scuba diving" is in our vernacular.

Dave wasn't shouting; it is an acronym meaning "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", if I remember correctly from fourth grade, when the gear was shown and demonstrated to us.

And now you know...

-- KS