Equivalent of 13 white people killed in Egypt.

[Pæs]

http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/equivalent-of-13-white-people-killed-in-egypt/

A government crackdown on protestors in Egypt has resulted in the death of 278 Egyptians overnight, a number that One News reports is roughly the equivalent of 13 white people in western media terms.

The Egyptian military has cracked down on what it claims have been violent, unruly protests by supporters of ousted President Mohammad Morsi, but those crackdowns were fiercely resisted and have resulted in mass casualties.

New Zealanders and other western nationalities were shocked to learn that approximately 13 white men and/or women had died as a result of the military action.

"Thirteen is a lot of white people to die," said Greymouth resident Samuel Cooper. "We lost 29 at Pike River, and the Queensland floods I remember killed 38. So while not quite so big as all that, they're probably still feeling it, I imagine."

TVNZ Head of News John Gillespie said it was important for western media outlets to convert foreign death tolls into numbers that better reflect their significance to those receiving the news, and to help ascertain how much priority to give stories on an evening bulletin.

"Generally speaking, in terms of news value, the death of 21 brown or foreign people is equivalent to the death of one white male or half a white woman," said Gillespie. "Obviously that's just a general guideline; the calculus can get quite complicated sometimes. For example, in New Zealand, the death of a Maori individual is nearly a one to one conversion, whereas, in Australia, you're looking at about 30 aborigines for one top notch bloke."

Gillespie said that when several white people die, particularly in an unusual circumstance such as the Boston Marathon Bombing, it was important that any news item about it go at the top of the bulletin.

"But when 20 to 30 die in a car bomb in Iraq, that's really only about one white person, so you could run that at 6:20 or 6:25pm."

He noted that this also made it acceptable to ask challenging questions or write satirical articles on the subject, something that would not be acceptable had the casualties been white or from New Zealand.

Gillespie said it was important not to offend white people because they have access to Facebook.

"People in Syria largely don't," he added.

He wanted people to understand it wasn't that the lives of brown people were worth less, but just that viewers "don't care as much," which he said was "only natural" because "whatever."

Gillespie said that events that happen less frequently are "more significant" and require "more urgent action."

"If something happens every day, such as the death of thousands of African children in poverty, there's really no need to do anything about it," he said. "But if something happens once every ten years, it's important that governments act swiftly and without legal boundary to ensure whatever it was never happens again.

"Our job is to hold them to account on that."

Today's death toll may be revised upwards to 14 after it was learned that an actual white person was killed during the violence.

[Freeky]

[Aucoq]

 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OH WOW

Facebooking this shit now.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I think there needs to be a laughing facepalm emote.

[Junkenstein]

That site has some gold:
http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/opinion-im-rather-more-concerned-about-spying-actually/

Look, I understand where the Prime Minister's coming from on this one.

This quota thing? Quite a big deal when you think about it, really. Has your eye ever been caught by a delicious treat? Something you really love, like a dark chocolate Tim Tam? And have you ever gone to eat that treat, only to discover that all it contains is a rusty hook, one that will drag you headfirst into a hostile environment where you can't breathe and everyone's trying to beat you with shoes?

If you've ever been on camp with an all-boys school, you probably have.

But I haven't, and I don't want to.

So you'd think that I, as a snapper, would be pretty invested in Nathan Guy's plan to slightly reduce the statistical chance of that happening to me or yet another one of my countless out-of-wedlock children.

But I'm rather more concerned about spying, actually.

Don't ask me why. It doesn't really make any sense. Theoretically, I should be far more worried about the possibility of my imminent demise at the hands of men out in a boat together trying to escape their wives because they're secretly attracted to their best mate Pete.

But something about this spying business just bugs me. I hate the idea that one day, someone could be tapping away at their keyboard, innocently chatting to a 13-year-old girl they met on the internet, and then suddenly get arrested because the Government found out they told her how to make a bomb.

It hasn't happened yet, but it could. I should know; I'm New Zealand's number one game fish.

Now, I know what John Key's going to say when he reads this. He's going to say "But he's not a real New Zealander. He's just a fish. How did he learn to write?" The arrogance.

But it raises a question, doesn't it? Who is a New Zealander? Are fish New Zealanders? If not all fish, what about native fish? Are pets New Zealanders? Is Kim Dotcom a New Zealander? Or does "New Zealander" just encompass all non-animal sentient life that isn't in prison or mentally retarded?

And what do New Zealanders think? Do they really think that murdering me for my flesh is more important than the potential for the Government to spy on their everyday interactions with one another? Or are they actually more concerned about their privacy than John makes out?

Or, alternatively, could it be that "New Zealander" is a wholly amorphous term that actually refers to a diverse collective of people, some of whom are concerned about privacy, others of whom are concerned about their Maybelline? Could it be that "New Zealanders" is a term continuously and cynically misappropriated by both sides of any given debate to artificially narrow all perspectives into a simple yes-or-no proposition, whereafter the simplified majority will subsume the simplified minority, thereby earning the right to be referred to as "everyone"?

I don't know. What do I know? I'm just New Zealand's number one game fish.

Glug glug glug. Splish. Splash. Snap.

[McGrupp]

 

Horribly horribly true.

[Cain]

Revised estimates show upwards of the equivalent of thirty white people may have been killed, thus marking what happened in Egypt as a "tragedy".  It would be considered politicide, only, you know, non-white people are barbaric and kill people for strange and ineffable reasons.  It's probably tribal.  Tragically tribal.

[Suu]

WHAT THE FUCKING WHAT

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I reposted that article on my wall and someone felt the need to inform me that it was satire. I'm like, REALLY? NO WAI! 

[Suu]

I reposted that article on my wall and someone felt the need to inform me that it was satire. I'm like, REALLY? NO WAI! 

Because we can't have a sense of humor about news.