Mad as Hell

[senormechanico]

Anyone want to take bets on this thread being shut down before the ones with 1300+ posts on global warming?

This thread has a much closer relation to sailing, but...

[alctel]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Some of your responses make it sound like you think this was a legitimate business selling faulty equipment. I grew up in a newsroom so maybe it's just ingrained in me to read between the lines, but it sounds like some old warehouse was set up in a port area with lots of migrants to take advantage of the situation. The article says, "Officers raided a workshop in the port of Izmir...a major hub for refugees and migrants" and where two young Syrian girls were found working inside. Even if the Turkish translation of "factory" came out as workshop, one would think they would name the business had it been legit. This is bottom feeding off the most disadvantaged. Officials will likely never find the people who really made money off this scheme...

Yeah, it's just a bunch of shitheads in a warehouse somewhere taking advantage of desperate people.

It's like the people who used to watch for shipwrecks and then steal the possessions of the dead and dying off the beach

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Some of your responses make it sound like you think this was a legitimate business selling faulty equipment. I grew up in a newsroom so maybe it's just ingrained in me to read between the lines, but it sounds like some old warehouse was set up in a port area with lots of migrants to take advantage of the situation. The article says, "Officers raided a workshop in the port of Izmir...a major hub for refugees and migrants" and where two young Syrian girls were found working inside. Even if the Turkish translation of "factory" came out as workshop, one would think they would name the business had it been legit. This is bottom feeding off the most disadvantaged. Officials will likely never find the people who really made money off this scheme...

I interpruted the news report the same way. I don't think it was a legitimate business doing the work.

Part of me wants to start collecting all the old life jackets that people have on boats and sending them off to Turkey.

[Rhapsody-NS27]

I'm a bit disappointed someone would consider making life jackets in this way. With the thousands of people who are fleeing from harsh areas, there will be more of these lifejackets laying around. Someone not thinking about it could end up grabbing one for their own use and would equally be at risk of drowning.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will take advantage of the people in this situation. Good job on the police for this discovery. They perhaps saved some lives.

[hellosailor]

The same kind of human traffickers that dump Chinese immigrants in the surf and tell them to swim ashore. Or hold them as slaves until their families pay double ransom. Or coyotes who dump immigrants in the desert, sometimes still locked in box trucks.


If someone really gave a damn, they could start a charitable foundation to GIVE AWAY life jackets, ideally collecting them at the other end and re-using them many times. Or show refugees how easy it is to make one from small plastic bottles and a large garment, or duct tape.


But here we have massive numbers of "aliens" who are not staying home to fight for their country, but abandoning it to take advantage of other peoples and nations. Historically, if the Colonists had done that, King George would still rule America. Peoples have "stayed and fought" in many nations for many centuries, and the EU and other nations are getting a bit fed up and overwhelmed by the mass of "Eh, I'll just go move in with you".


Doesn't make it right or wrong, just incredibly complex and needing more than band-aid solutions.

[Charlie]

HS I like the idea of the water bottle life jacket. If you use the small bottle you would have mutliple flotation chambers. Is it time for a Youtube video? Perhaps.

[Ribbit]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Officials will likely never find the people who really made money off this scheme...

Don't their bathrooms have mirrors then?

My late uncle was a Dr of Tropical Diseases, spent most of his life in places like Africa, and he was quite vehement about one thing never to forget.

Never, EVER give money for foreign aid, for anything. The damage it does, the corruption and violence it creates, outweighs any benefits by a substantial margin.

This is dawning on people in Africa too, with people finally coming out and asking the West to stop interfering, because of the appalling damage we are doing (and apparently, what the Chinese are doing is even worse).

PS. A quick and easy lifejacket is a pair of trousers or a shirt. Just tie knots at the bottom of the legs or sleeves, and throw it over your head. It takes a while for the air to come out of the wet fabric, and to refill, just throw over your head (hold onto the waist of the trousers, etc).

Works a treat and you can rest as and when you need to (used to be an important part of Life Saving exams, along with treading water, etc).

If you have never done it, try it in a swimming pool.

.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Idylles15.5

Oh boy, get ready lol. The Lefty Libs are going to jump all over ya...

You warned us.

[barnakiel]

It is a political/religious matter. Very sad.

b.

[Clamdigger]

Originally Posted by Idylles15.5

Well maybe they should fight for their own country rather then waiting for our guys to get shot up just for them to still be ungrateful and want to chop our heads off in the end. My German plumber talks to his family back in the Fatherland and they say its a disaster. What a mess. And no I don't want to see little kids drown. Just sayin

I agree with you. the media uses what it chooses to forward it's political agenda ie, children dying when it's politicians who should be.

[Clamdigger]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

The same kind of human traffickers that dump Chinese immigrants in the surf and tell them to swim ashore. Or hold them as slaves until their families pay double ransom. Or coyotes who dump immigrants in the desert, sometimes still locked in box trucks.


If someone really gave a damn, they could start a charitable foundation to GIVE AWAY life jackets, ideally collecting them at the other end and re-using them many times. Or show refugees how easy it is to make one from small plastic bottles and a large garment, or duct tape.


But here we have massive numbers of "aliens" who are not staying home to fight for their country, but abandoning it to take advantage of other peoples and nations. Historically, if the Colonists had done that, King George would still rule America. Peoples have "stayed and fought" in many nations for many centuries, and the EU and other nations are getting a bit fed up and overwhelmed by the mass of "Eh, I'll just go move in with you".


Doesn't make it right or wrong, just incredibly complex and needing more than band-aid solutions.

I agree with your point of view also. I know here in Nj many marinas have places where you can leave lifejackets for 'loan' near the boat ramps. This allows folks going out for the day to make sure there are enough onboard for each person should the boat not have enough. They are returned on the honor system when the boat trailers out.

[Clamdigger]

Originally Posted by Idylles15.5

I'll step away, I lost some compassion because I lost a lot of friends on 9/11 who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, so maybe I'm out of line. I'll shut up sorry

No need to leave the thread. I felt/feel the same way having endured that tragedy from a different perspective. I got PTSD from that day and following week, so I don't care to recall it either.

[Salty Mike]

When/if the truth is ever told the fake life jackets were probably ordered by the oppressors so as to get rid of more of the people that are being oppressed. Plus they made some extra money to further the oppression.

Or possibly they were ordered by the folks on the other side of the water because they can't handle and don't want all the refugees but didn't want say so.

As far as those that chose to flee instead of staying to fight for their land, country, belief, or whatever the fighting is about, they have probably been disarmed by a tyrannical government (that's hitting a little close to home) and had nothing to fight with.That is no excuse to run from your home, people have lived and died while working underground in situations like that for the last several hundred years maybe the world and it's peoples as a whole has become too week now.

[Simonsays]

you can fabulate about defending your home country as much as you want while sitting in Almost Heaven, West-Virginia and while the people in Syria are starving and their towns are beeing bombed in a civil war.
the first responsibility is towards once own family and making sure they are safe and the safest bet down there is getting out of the country yesterday.

[hellosailor]

"Historical" first person accounts of 9/11 are about as accurate and unchanging as Soviet era maps of the USSR.


" bowing to to the jihad or " When I flew commercial air over the smoking hole of the WTC I was surprised, but could understand why there was no usual plastic knife to cut open the bagel in my breakfast bag. But returning home not long after, I was incredulous that the inch long nail clipper I kept in my bag was a dangerous terrorist tool and contraband. And even more surprised that no one told me about that until I had already gotten home again--and it had travelled on the plane, unable to escape the restraints of my bag and wreak havoc on the aircraft, as the government assured me it would.


Really, guys, as soon as we started trading our liberties for a little perceived security (thank you, Benjamin Franklin) we lost the war. We lost it, and we keep digging our own graves deeper. If North Vietnam had been as aggressive as the Jihadis, McDonalds would be serving rice bowls by now.


You stay in your homeland, you keep your principles and way of life, you fight the enemy "domestic or foreign". Or, you leave and don't dare criticize the next place that allows you to sleep in the barn, because you are only there by the "rights of the supplicant" and those aren't guaranteed to anyone these days. Once you've fled "the evil" ? Turn around and fight it, don't expect anyone else to stop it from coming after you.