May 17, 2004

• 23) The videotape was quite blurred. Yup. Conspir-I-C.
• The only real question for me is why not much blood. The heart pumps blood thru the major arteries at quite a level of pressure. Blood can gout over 3 feet from a freshly severed neck. The head holds around a pint & a half of blood. There's virtually no blood pissing out of the poor victim, which indicates his heart had stopped beating before the beheading: he was already dead. This doesn't indicate any conspiracy, merely that the vile killers were too dainty to chop him up while he was alive. I'm an audio engineer, and to me the screams sound dubbed, too. Apart from that /shrug and please don't make me watch it again.
• It's bad enough that you people felt the need to watch this snuff video. Do you have to critique it, too?
• You know, a friend of mine watched this thing, and said he'd give anything to unwatch it.
• Why would it be immune to critique?
• hey, nostril, for an audio engineer you sure know a lot about gushing head blood! what a renaissance man you are!
• Well, I am a Professional Blood Gush Expert
• not a critique as such, just the usual "that was weird - why is/did/not" etc. Ya want weird? Here's werid. WTF? And over here, of course, you got your loose ends and standard denials. I'm interested in the audio part Nostril but I'm not watchin' it so I'll just have to see what everyone else says.
• oops forgot the blues clues.
• Tinfoil hats for everyone!
• Suggest you look around on Ogrish for that Chechnya video of a Russian solder getting beheaded with a knife (probably on that Ogrish site). The video is much clearer, and THAT I wish I hadn't seen. The point is there was little blood, which makes me think the Berg video is real. Based on what I've seen with jujitsu pressure techniques I think once you cut the jugular, consciousness is lost immediately; the Russian video supports that idea and I really hope that is what happened to Berg. And I recommend remedial videography training for the Iraqi terrorists -- my 4 mo. old son could take better footage.
• Fake/Not fake - doesnt matter - they found the body chucked off an overpass didnt they? I assume it had no head, else the American Counter-Propaganda machine (for surely thats what it would be at that point) would have found some way to parade it onscreen... I can't bring myself to watch it, gives me a physical reaction just thinkin about it. But the weirdest thing is that, without pointing out the obvious, it wasn't the most painful, slow or unavoidable of deaths, but because it was a) intentional, b) close range and c) on video, it churns all our stomachs. I mean, given the choice, starve to death over many months or have some psycho chop yer noggin off in 10 seconds - which would you go for? I think I'd go for the quick way out (not sure of course, cant really put myself in that position) And how many people starve to death each year? (hint: 1,500 per hour and thats just the children...) Either way, its a very screwed up thing to do to another human being.
• I guess the question arise in the direction of *who* really are the ones that killed him, not so much as if it's real, which it seems. Of course, as some have pointed, the strange editing, seemingly to soften it (?!) is weird. The oddness is the fact that they can't decide if he was or not under army detention; who was he working for/with; the convenient timing of the video's broadcast, and where the video was first posted. All of this doesn't change the fact that's a human life that's being wasted before our eyes. And what outrages me on top of that, is the visceral response it causes, and those who will take advantage of that reaction.
• I'm absolutely fucked if I'll be watching this. No thankee.
• Don't be such fucking hypocrites. You watch worse every single day. I find it funny that those who don't wish to sully their poor little eyes with this will happily spend money on fake snuff - ie Matrix and every other major movie. There's nothing in this video that is visually shocking compared to a horror movie - other than the *idea* that it is a real human being - this concept alone should shock you about the war, the conduct of the coalition troops, and of every major crime in our world and yet you happily separate yourself from it. Huh. Some humanitarians you are. I watched it because I am not afraid to face the truth - or whatever - and look it in the eye. And I am not afraid to question.
• I haven't downloaded and watched it because I don't want to. I don't watch death, destruction, desecration films because I don't want to. If that makes me a fucking hypocrite, so be it. There's plenty I find interesting in the world without catering to any morbid fascinations that might inhabit my soul. YMMV.
• morbid fascinations that might inhabit my soul when did we start talking about sex?
• I fucked a hypocrite once. She was totally faking.
• There's a fundamental difference between watching, say, The Matrix and this video (which I, too, have avoided watching), and that is that in movies the "dead" people get up and walk away when shooting ends. This guy won't be doing that. Anyone who can distinguish fiction and reality is going to react very differently when watching this particular movie.
• Nostrildamus: All of us (fucking hypocrites included) have "faced the truth". A man died. That's the truth. And we all question it. The fact that you felt a need to watch it doesn't make you braver, or stronger, or superior in any way.
• What about watching those "stoopidest people" shows that have those police chases with the chasee smacking his motorbike into a bus at 80mph? Or how about watching Dale Earnhardt hit the wall? It is fascinating, even if it is morbid.
• fucking hypocrite This is why Asperger's people sometimes have to leave the room.
• Moore interviewed Berg for Fareinheit 9/11. Thanks to homonculus for the linkage. Ya gotta admit. That's pretty !@#%& weird.
• what pete_best just said. but i'd also like to bitch about salon's "ultramercial" -- whatever the fuck that is.
• Berg's dad denounces handover. "This transfer of power is nothing more than another nut and shell game of the Bush and Blair coalition" There are lots of protesters . . is this a story? It just adds to the wierdness. How "random" is the victim?