Life conversion factor Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 07:05 PM PST Topic Politics http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/1/214659/5097 (The above link is a discussion of the U.S. flag being flown at half-mast for a full month for Ronald Wilson Reagan's death, and roughly a week for the tsunami victims) To make this easier to understand for myself and others, I have developed a handy conversion factor for the relative worth of white and brown lives. First, take the distance in miles between the U.S. border and the tragedy in question, in this case approximately 12000, and divide it by 12, the number of Jesus' disciples, to get 1000. You then square this number to get a million and divide the number of actual casualties, which for the recent tsunami is approximately 155000. This gives us .155 months of flag-at-half-staff, or 4.65 days. This conversion factor is measured in the unit "Reagans" and was based on the 30 days given to Ronald Reagan versus the five days given to the tsunami victims. Thus, the amount in Reagans is inversely proportionate to distance from the U.S. border with adjustments made for the colour of the victims i.e. Australians would rate higher than Japanese or Indonesians despite their greater distance from the U.S. border. For 155000 casualties to rate 1 Reagan, or a full month of lowered flags, it would have to occur within 5000 miles of the border and it would also help if the victims were either caucasian or economically useful. Note that ordinary white citizens of the U.S. can and do die daily, often during heroic deeds, but even they do not rate 1/30 of a Reagan because they do not meet the criteria of being Republican AND excessively wealthy. Richard Nixon normally would have been afforded this honour, but he got reduced to .25 Reagans for being a member of a terrorist organisation...extra credit to anyone who knows which organisation. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=746