February 3, 2002

12:30 PM

Damn.DRUDGE REPORTS: WSJ BODY FOUND DEAD IN PAKISTAN
posted by MidasMulligan (67 comments total)

Similar report on MSNBC now.
posted by treywhit at 12:37 PM on February 3, 2002

More significantly, Drudge is linking to ABC News saying that. Damn.
posted by pmurray63 at 12:37 PM on February 3, 2002

MSNBC says it is *not* Pearl
posted by maudlin at 12:41 PM on February 3, 2002

The MSNBC Link is now replaced with filler content (EG: xxxx). So I assume it was false, or at least I hope so.
posted by madmanz123 at 12:44 PM on February 3, 2002

The ABCNews link goes dead though. And MSN now has a story about hopes that he's alive.
posted by SpecialK at 12:45 PM on February 3, 2002

Jeez -- if I wanted irresponsible rumor-mongering, I'd just read Drudge. ABCNews has since pulled the story. It's been discredited. Big surprise. Network news is shit.
posted by donkeyschlong at 12:52 PM on February 3, 2002

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/pakistan020203_2_ pearl.html

Possible Email Hoax.
posted by nonharmful at 1:03 PM on February 3, 2002

I sure hope it isn't him. My uncle and aunt have not been able to sleep for weeks. They were close to him. My mom came in and it was on the news and she flipped. Hopefully it is alright for him, not taking anythng away from the guy who was found.
posted by adampsyche at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2002

The Beeb is reporting the body found is not Pearl's.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:14 PM on February 3, 2002

Drudge is now linking to a Reuter's story saying it's not Pearl.
posted by treywhit at 1:16 PM on February 3, 2002

Yeh, drudge now say's its not him.

Not that it's wonderfull that someone else is dead...
posted by delmoi at 1:24 PM on February 3, 2002

" ... Jeez -- if I wanted irresponsible rumor-mongering, I'd just read Drudge..."

Ordinarily I wouldn't post a Drudge link. Saw the story itself on Fox, and Drudge was the only online source that was mentioning it at the time.

"...I sure hope it isn't him. My uncle and aunt have not been able to sleep for weeks. They were close to him. My mom came in and it was on the news and she flipped..."

Geez adampsyche, I feel bad for them. I know some people at the WSJ too - this thing is hitting people pretty hard.
posted by MidasMulligan at 1:25 PM on February 3, 2002

and Drudge was the only online source that was mentioning it at the time.

usually a red flare right there. :)
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:41 PM on February 3, 2002

and Drudge was the only online source that was mentioning it at the time.

usually a red flare right there. :)
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:41 PM on February 3, 2002

damn!
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:42 PM on February 3, 2002

From the Reuters story:

"'We have shown this body to Pearl's colleagues and they have confirmed that this is not Daniel,' Tariq Jamil, Karachi police chief, told Reuters."

Which only begs the question: How many dumped bodies that bare more than a passing resemblance to a western reporter are found on roadsides outside Karachi daily?

posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:57 PM on February 3, 2002

can somebody find matt and change the front page post then?
posted by bunnyfire at 2:01 PM on February 3, 2002

Matt's busy making pancakes for his Super Bowl party.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:07 PM on February 3, 2002

i will be forever perplexed why people still read drudge. miss cleo gets it right more than he does.
posted by tsarfan at 2:14 PM on February 3, 2002

Body found in Karachi not missing US journalist: reports WASHINGTON, Feb 03: A body found dumped on a roadside in Karachi originally thought to be that of missing US journalist Daniel Pearl was that of some other person, US media reported today, quoting police. Police originally said Pearl's body was found in Karachi. The dead man had been shot through the mouth, according to reports. Tariq Jamil, Karachi police chief, told Reuters "we have shown this body to Pearl's colleagues and they have confirmed that this is not Daniel." (Reuters) (Updated @ 02:30 PST, Monday)

From Dawn
posted by Niahmas at 2:15 PM on February 3, 2002

Which only begs the question: How many dumped bodies that bare more than a passing resemblance to a western reporter are found on roadsides outside Karachi daily?

Yes, this is slightly bizarre. If it isn't Damiel, who the devil is it?
posted by MidasMulligan at 2:15 PM on February 3, 2002

BTW ... Many and profuse apologies to everyone - I jumped the gun with this FPP. I fear this situation has hit pretty close to home for several reasons, and I've probably been following it too closely for my own good.
posted by MidasMulligan at 2:19 PM on February 3, 2002

It's Adam Clymer. Bush called in some favors. :)
posted by ClydeCrashcup at 2:19 PM on February 3, 2002

apologies

Posts in good faith need no apology. Your "damn" was a double post, though. ;)

(I was pretty upset when I saw the headlines, too (and less polite in my choice of words). I'm still upset, now that they've been changed, but a little hopeful again.)
posted by mattpfeff at 2:33 PM on February 3, 2002

for the record, there are lots of people from central asia and pakistan who look "white," so it could be anyone.
posted by donkeyschlong at 2:57 PM on February 3, 2002

i hope they find his body soon. the wsj is the enemy of all working class american citizens
posted by cryofan at 3:00 PM on February 3, 2002

"the wsj is the enemy of all working class american citizens"

Yeah, any paper without a comics section has to be Communist.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:10 PM on February 3, 2002

cryofan, the moment they do, I hope someone slips his widow your address....

oops -did I say that?
posted by bunnyfire at 3:15 PM on February 3, 2002

" ... i hope they find his body soon. the wsj is the enemy of all working class american citizens ..."

Froze your brain a bit prematurely cryofan?
posted by MidasMulligan at 3:17 PM on February 3, 2002

Yeah, when I think of the enemy of the working class, I immediately think, "Foreign correspondent mainly covering non-business issues in an impartial manner."
posted by raysmj at 3:21 PM on February 3, 2002

troll.
posted by adampsyche at 3:57 PM on February 3, 2002

troll== outspoken with an unpopular opinion
posted by cryofan at 5:24 PM on February 3, 2002

Unpopular opinion shit, you're pissing on a man's grave before he's even dead. Charming.
posted by darukaru at 5:41 PM on February 3, 2002

Don't even try to justify wishing for a man's death because you don't like the company he works for. That man happens to be very close to a few members of my family, who have had a very tough time with this incident. They are close to his wife, who is expecting their first child, and to the rest of his family, having gone to his wedding. I guess another kid being born without a father is good for humanity? Agreeing or disagreeing with the WSJ is one thing, but wishing for the death of this man is undefendable trolling.

I don't even have to defend what a nice guy he is, or why wishing for his death is wrong. If you can't see that, you are either a troll or a stupid fuck not worth the time anyway.
posted by adampsyche at 6:19 PM on February 3, 2002

The WSJ has been leading the way to globalization and mass immigration and the theft of the rights and sovreignity of the American citizenry. and they. and all the politicians in cahoots with them and their uppercrust collaborators should be face criminal prosecution for their crimes. If one of the minions of globalization should meet a bad end in Pakistan....all I can say is....Gee, what a shame.
posted by cryofan at 6:38 PM on February 3, 2002

cryofan has posted no links 4 comments to MetaFilter

Wow troll - respect!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:49 PM on February 3, 2002

The WSJ has been leading the way to globalization and mass immigration and the theft of the rights and sovreignity of the American citizenry.

Perhaps they stole your ability to spell as well.

If one of the minions of globalization should meet a bad end in Pakistan....all I can say is....Gee, what a shame.

I know of exactly one person who was completely guilt-free of globalization: Ted Kaczynski. And if a person who claims to have humanity's interests at heart spouts ridiculous machiavelian trolls, gee what a shame. To be so partisan that you wish death for another person...gee, what a shame. To think that I am making another response to a troll...gee, what a shame. That this is your fourth comment (and fourth troll) during your membership at MeFi...gee, what a shame.
posted by adampsyche at 6:49 PM on February 3, 2002

" ... and they. and all the politicians in cahoots with them and their uppercrust collaborators should be face criminal prosecution for their crimes..."

Ha ha ha cryofan! Too bad for you! We own the court system! We'll never be prosecuted for our evil!

(And by the way, we know where you live).
posted by MidasMulligan at 7:10 PM on February 3, 2002

Uppercrust collaborators? Whatever gave you the idea that reporters are uppercrust? The Wall Street Journal staff is unionized, just so's you'll know. Newspaper Guild. The staff won a special notice from the guild in 2000 for an expose of corporate plans for pension funds that would have hurt older workers. Y'know, working people.

(It's especially ironic, by the way, that the roughest coverage of the CIA post Sept. 11 - in a mainstream publication, that is - came from the WSJ.)
posted by raysmj at 7:48 PM on February 3, 2002

"Wow troll - respect!" social regeneration
posted by clavdivs at 8:00 PM on February 3, 2002

You guys are not really anywhere near the truth (as I see it) on this whole area/

Your idea of how I view this subject. This has nothing to do with freemasons or the CIA. You are just regurgitating popular culture cliches.

That's really all almost anyone can do.

Try thinking for yourself for once....

Pearl was just doing his job, huh? What does that justify?

Why don't we just judge WSJ by their own editorial policy? Here's one for you: " There shall be Open Borders."
Oh, really? Well, that only hurts a few dozen million citizens. American citizens. So, therefore, in my eyes, WSJ condones theft of American citizens rights, and they deserve to go for their crimes.
posted by cryofan at 8:03 PM on February 3, 2002

The paper's reporting has no direct connection to its editorials. Never has.
posted by raysmj at 8:07 PM on February 3, 2002

The WSJ has been leading the way to globalization and mass immigration and the theft of the rights and sovreignity of the American citizenry.

i'm sure the editors of the WSJ would be surprised to learn that they possess the god-like powers of which you speak. i was surprised myself. I was under the distinct impression they were too busy worrying about mundane little details like ad revenue and circulation numbers to plot global destruction, hatch international conspiracies, and systematically rob blue collar Americans of their rights, but thank you for opening my naive little eyes...

in fact, i'm calling my [unionized electrical worker] dad *right now* to warn him to stop reading those nefarious publications before he wakes up one morning to find his rights and sovereignty conspicuously missing....
posted by lizs at 8:10 PM on February 3, 2002

Oh, *aces*. Now it's 'my arguments are too complex for your sheep-like minds to understand'.
posted by darukaru at 8:16 PM on February 3, 2002

This must surely be the worst debut in MetaFilter history, bar none.
posted by rodii at 8:41 PM on February 3, 2002

Baa?

Could someone pass the grain bucket, please?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:23 PM on February 3, 2002

And a "good debut" would consist of just mouthing cookie cutter "opinions," like everyone else...
posted by cryofan at 9:26 PM on February 3, 2002

I think you should have to be an adult to join Metafilter.
posted by jpoulos at 9:44 PM on February 3, 2002

And thus an inauspicious beginning leads to an ignominious end. May we play taps for this thread? Don't bother? Ah, OK, then.

Cryofan, you're an inhuman piece of shit.
posted by dhartung at 10:09 PM on February 3, 2002

Mr. "dick long" seems overly aware of sheep, in my opinion.
posted by dness2 at 10:11 PM on February 3, 2002

He's just behaving baa-dly. There's no need to give him the time of daa-y.
posted by dness2 at 10:12 PM on February 3, 2002

"...And a "good debut" would consist of just mouthing cookie cutter "opinions," like everyone else..."

Well, er, at least intelligent ones. Simply being contrarian doesn't make you right. Or even coherent.

I've only been here a (relatively) short time, and have seen quite a wide range of opinion on a lot of issues. And there have been some fairly vehement arguments and debates. I don't think minds are changed that often, but I do think at least some appreciation of alternative viewpoints does arise now and again, even if those viewpoints don't prove compelling enough to adopt.

On the whole, however, I suspect that virtually no one here would celebrate the death of an innocent man. (And by the way, your allegation that he is guilty simply because he works for the WSJ is childish and absurd - by that same reasoning, you are guilty of anything any of your employers, or indeed any group you belong to ... including your country ... has done - and mind you, it doesn't matter if they have been proven guilty in any objective sense, only that some lunatic has the opinion that they are guilty).

If you want to stand out, yes indeed, advocate finding Daniel dead. You could also stand out by advocating bestiality, the sexual abuse of children, the torture of kittens, or the use of nuclear weaponry against multinationals. And simply because everyone else on MiFi disagrees with you doesn't make them all "sheep" ... it makes them human beings. What the hell you are I don't know ... but don't flatter yourself by thinking you're some dramatic, courageous thinker daring to depart from the norm.

Intellectually drooling on yourself certainly is a departure from the norm, but probably isn't creating the impression in others you've apparently created of yourself in your own mind.
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:31 PM on February 3, 2002

Cryofan, you're an inhuman piece of shit.

Can we add "sick" and "deluded" to that?

I initially started to refute your argument, cryofan, but then I realized that it's futile to explain that there is no evil, monolithic man-behind-the-curtain (be it the WSJ or anything else) to someone that doesn't even understand that rights are *not* distributed in a zero-sum fashion where more rights for immigrants mean fewer rights for you. The fact that you believe Danny Pearl deserves to die because you have a problem with the WSJ's editorial stance blows my mind. Even if you disagree with their opinion, you might wish to remind yourself that in this country we don't kill people for saying what they think, nor do we condone such actions. It's called free speech and believe it or not, it applies to Wall Street Journal editors as well as you.

Noam Chomsky disgusts me, but I don't want the guy dead. I don't even want the guy hurt. If anyone tried to physically harm him because of his [absurd] opinions, I would be livid. Right now, most - if not all - of the people on this thread think you're scum. You will not, however, see anyone wishing your death. People here understand that you have a *right* (a word which you thoroughly abuse) to your [isolationist paranoid] opinion. You will deservedly get a lot of shit for it, but you're not likely to get death threats. I really didn't think I'd be able to *legitimately* use the phrase, "you're no better than the terrorists" after September 11th, but if you feel that employees of the WSJ deserve to die, I shudder to think how you feel about employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, Marsh & McLellan, Morgan, Merrill and the other companies in the WTC with global operations. Did they deserve it as well?
posted by lizs at 11:05 PM on February 3, 2002

Poor old cryofan. His brain's probably in deep freeze. I cannot believe anyone has such a basic misunderstanding of humanity to even think that a journalist dying would attone for the evils of globalisation. I fail to understand that logic. And isn't it just typical and bigoted to take the standpoint that 'x' (WSJ) is evil so anything related to 'x' doesn't deserve to live. Sounds like Bush and OBL, dunnit?. Go figure. Just what we need in the world right now, more hate.
posted by boneybaloney at 12:00 AM on February 4, 2002

Go find matt. Heck, go find a rail, some tar, and a whole tanker car full of feathers. I will dig up the Soggy Bottom Boys for the musical accompaniment......

You know what to do.
posted by bunnyfire at 3:44 AM on February 4, 2002

Huh? What does Matt need to do? cryofan is acting like a douchebag, that's all. Many of us have done that (though perhaps not that many of us have it as the sum total of our MetaFilter participation). The positions articulated above rebut him well enough, I think. We don't need angry mob justice here--if we do that then the trolls have won™.
posted by rodii at 5:38 AM on February 4, 2002

i suppose you are right.....gotta go up on those meds....

seriously, i hope they find that reporter alive and soon. There is no such thing as a corporation, there are only people, and this person has a wife and an unborn baby to get back home to.
posted by bunnyfire at 5:55 AM on February 4, 2002

i'd just like to say that i agree with cryofan
's right to express his opinion. but am a little disappointed that he hasn't seen fit to explain the background of his 'unpopular opinion', although i admit i am probably unable to comprehend it's majesty.
fantastic bit of bigot bouncing from the rest - *wipes tear from eye*, you guys are great.
posted by asok at 7:57 AM on February 4, 2002

At first I thought this thread should be removed. We started out by alarming people reading the front page with an unconfirmed report which turned out to be inaccurate. Then we proceeded to the bitterness you'd expect between the personal friends of a man in danger and someone who argues the man deserves to die.

Since it appears that nobody goes back to read older material on MeFi, I'd like to point something out as gently as possible on this thread, where it won't be noticed.

In all fairness, it must be noted that the WSJ went out and hired supercomputer time to break the encryption on a hard drive they bought in Kabul. That hard drive yielded detailed information being used by the US in its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. (I can't link to the WSJ article describing what was on the hard drive, because I'm not a subscriber.)

The descriptions of journalist Perl suggest that he is probably someone capable of forming personal relationships of trust with local people outside the US, the same way he would inside the US. Taliban or Al Qaida supporters must be pretty upset with what the WSJ did with its information. If Perl went to meet with people on that side of the fence under these circumstances, he was walking into a rather dicey situation.

It isn't easy to keep the lines of communication open during wartime. If we can't create a situation where all sides can speak freely, we'll never negotiate peace. Peace would be a good thing for all sides, no? Could say more, but I'll leave it at that.
posted by sheauga at 8:19 AM on February 4, 2002

i'd just like to say that i agree with cryofan
's right to express his opinion. but am a little disappointed that he hasn't seen fit to explain the background of his 'unpopular opinion', although i admit i am probably unable to comprehend it's majesty.

Patronizing a troll is about as bad as my mistake of feeding into him. Opinions are one thing, flaming hatred is another. Fuck 'em, leave it alone. The world (or MeFi) really shouldn't give a shit what he thinks, and I no longer do.
posted by adampsyche at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2002

anyone else think cryofan is just Nader in disguise?
posted by dogmatic at 8:45 AM on February 4, 2002

I don't have a hard time seeing things cryofan's way.
Look, if you lump people into their jobs, which is what people tend to do at a distance, as the majority of us who don't know Pearl personally are, then you can argue that he is what he represents. If his murder = a blow at a the industry he is a part of, then so be it.

I think the knee-jerk empathy rings a little false sometimes.
posted by dong_resin at 12:27 PM on February 4, 2002

That is so, so cold.
I used to work for waffle house. Does that make me a waffle, for crying out loud?
posted by bunnyfire at 12:42 PM on February 4, 2002

No, you don't work there anymore.
But, if you did, and I felt that the waffle industry was somehow responsible for the terrors of the world, and I felt that so strongly that I needed to make an example out of one of you, then yeah, you're no longer bunnyfire, individual, you've become bunnyfire, waffledrone, first against the griddle when the revolution comes.

Pretty standard human behavior, really.
I'm not saying it's rational, but it is likely, and easy to understand.
posted by dong_resin at 1:45 PM on February 4, 2002

So that reporter should die because some editorial board hack was a butthead? or some such reasoning?

we live in a cold cruel world.
posted by bunnyfire at 2:11 PM on February 4, 2002

Yes we do, but the coffee is good.
posted by dong_resin at 4:16 PM on February 4, 2002

Funny, there were 19 or so terrorists who knew exactly what cryofuck is trying to say.
posted by adampsyche at 5:58 PM on February 4, 2002